While the Old Testament speaks at great length about the coming Millennial kingdom of Christ, and there are some references to it in the New Testament, very little is said in the New Testament about the eternal state—the new heavens and new earth—and it is not mentioned in the Old Testament. Some verses from the Old Testament are quoted in the New, and there they are applied to the eternal state, but the Old Testament does not go beyond the Millennium.
The Millennium will be a glorious time for the present earth, and it will last for one thousand years; yet it will finally come to its close. We have before noticed that at its close, the heart of man at enmity toward God will again be demonstrated even after such abundant goodness. The fire from God out of heaven will consume the rebels.
The devil who again deceives men after his short liberation from confinement in the bottomless pit, or abyss, will then be cast into the "lake of fire and brimstone." This is his final disposition. When he is cast into that awful place, it is said that the beast (that head of a revived Roman Empire) and the false prophet (the antichrist) are still there. They had been cast in there one thousand years before, at the coming of Christ to reign. Although they are in the lake of fire for one thousand years, they are not annihilated. There they and the devil together are to remain, and to be tormented day and night forever and ever" (Rev. 20:10). Man's wish is parent to his thought of annihilation, but it is foreign to the Word of God.
There is an eternity of punishment for the beast, false prophet, and the devil (and for all who die in their sins), according to the word of Him who "cannot lie."
Some have thought and written that the devil is a king in hell, but the Scripture depicts him as being tormented there day and night. May we have God's thought and not man's.
The wicked dead who had not been raised when the Lord gave the shout that called the bodies of those saints who have died in Christ, from their graves over one thousand years before, will then be raised. Man may speak of one general resurrection at the last day, but they do not get it from the Word of God. Many scriptures teach that there are two resurrections—one to life and the other to judgment. Soon the Lord shall give that quickening shout, and the bodies of those who died in faith shall be raised, but the unbelievers of all ages shall remain in their graves until the time we are writing of—after the Millennium and at the beginning of the eternal. state.
The dead, great and small, are to stand before God at the Great White Throne to be judged. They are to be judged "according to their works" out of the books. Man hopes that God will forget his wicked deeds, but they are all recorded, and the evidence will be produced in that day. The "book of life" will also be there to prove that their names were never written in it. The evidence will be conclusive and their doom eternal.
"And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." Rev. 20:11-15. Yes, the eternal state of the lost is to be in the "lake of fire." It is described variously as: eternal fire (Jude 7); everlasting punishment
(Matt. 25:46); the worm that never dies (Mark 9:44); everlasting destruction (2 Thess. 1:9); blackness of darkness forever (Jude 13); and many other such expressions. Why should men try hard to prove that his existence is not eternal when God says it is? He will either spend eternity with God in bliss, or be tormented with the devil and his angels.
0, the madness and folly of man who will not accept the truth, and take God's salvation which assures him of an eternity of happiness in the presence of God! May the reader make sure that he is one of the redeemed who shall enjoy eternal life in the presence of God. There is no salvation apart from the acceptance of the work of Christ on the cross. One must know the Lord Jesus as his personal substitute before a holy God.
Immediately after describing the final judgment of the unsaved and their consignment to the lake of fire, the Word of God goes on to the eternal state of bliss.
"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea." Rev. 21:1.
In 2 Peter 3 we read that we "look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." Previously it said that the present earth and surrounding heavens are to be dissolved and melt with fervent heat.
How or where God will sustain the earthly saints at the close of the Millennium when the present earth is dissolved, He has not told us. Let it suffice us to know that He can and will. He will then make the earth over—entirely new. From the statement that there will then be "no more sea," it would appear that many changes will take place. Most of the earth's surface is now covered with water, and that is necessary to life as it is at present, but then all will be new. Life will be suited to the new condition, whatever it may be.
We are told that righteousness will dwell in that eternal state where sin can never come. At present, righteousness is only preached or offered—we may suffer for righteousness now. In the Millennium, righteousness will reign, and put down wickedness; but in God's new heaven and new earth it will dwell. That will be the stable and permanent condition. No breath of sin will ever defile that new scene. Then will be seen the complete fulfillment of John 1:29.
"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."
At present we who believe know our sins put away. In the Millennium there will be a further demonstration of the value of the work of the Lamb of God, but in that eternal bliss we shall see sin completely put away from God's creation.
"O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!"
Rev. 21:1-8 gives us the most complete description of the eternal state. The Apostle Paul only approaches it in 1 Cor. 15:24-28, where he speaks of Christ bringing all into subjection and then delivering up the kingdom which He ruled as man. Then God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—shall be all in all. This coincides with Rev. 21:3; the tabernacle of God will be with men. There will be no more nations or divided languages, and God Himself shall be with redeemed men in that eternal state.
When Adam was in innocence in the garden of Eden, God visited him, but He did not dwell with man in that state. With redeemed men in the eternal state He will dwell.
In that eternal day "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." 0 the glory of that fixed state of bliss! It is truly worthy of God.
And what of the Church, the bride of Christ, in that eternal blessedness? In the preview of the eternal state she is seen as the "holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." She still has her beauty as in the day of her espousal. She is still seen as "a bride." How soon a bride today loses her bridal beauty; but 0 fellow believer, we shall never lose it as the bride of Christ. After one thousand years the Church will still have the same bridal beauty in heaven. If we but laid hold of these things a little more in our hearts, we would see very little beauty in all here below. May the thoughts of Christ and His coming glory, and ours with Him, so lift our poor hearts above this weary world that we shall live in the atmosphere of heaven.