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SUBJECT: After the Millennium
QUESTION: What will happen after the 1000 year reign of
Christ?
ANSWER:
It is indeed one of the most intriguing questions could ever
ask. The answer is complex, and has many facets.
First this from our Doctrinal Statement on the Kingdom of
God:
All through the thousand-year rule of Christ, God shall
continue to add to the number of those eventually to be in
His kingdom. At the end of the Millennium all who have ever
lived and died without having a full, first chance for
salvation shall be resurrected as physical beings to live in
God's perfect society (Revelation 20:12). Those who qualify
for salvation shall be inducted into God's spiritual Kingdom
while those of this and previous eras who have not followed
God's way shall burn in the lake of fire. Immediately
thereafter, the physical aspect of God's Kingdom on earth
shall disappear and be entirely replaced by the spiritual
Kingdom whose population shall have increased into the
billions by this time. Thus, we find God's Kingdom
expanding in steps and growing dramatically from only two
beings to an innumerable multitude through the process begun
and made possible by and through Jesus Christ and His
resurrection.
Ultimately, following the thousand-year rule of Christ and
the Great White Throne Judgment, God shall replace the old
earth with a "new heaven and new earth" (Revelation 21:1).
This reformation of heaven and earth is part of the
"restitution of all things" spoken of by Peter (Acts 3:21).
The Father shall come to this earth to rule with Christ who
shall then be second in command at His Father's side (1
Corinthians 15:27-28), and God's entire family shall rule
the entire universe. (Christ shall deliver the Kingdom to
His Father, 1 Corinthians15:24.)
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first
heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was
no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming
down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for
her husband; and I heard a loud voice from throne saying,
Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with
them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be
with them; He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,
and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning
nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have
passed away. And He who sat upon the throne said, Behold, I
make all things new. Also He said, Write this, for these
words are trustworthy and true. And He said to me, It is
done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the
end. To the thirsty I will give from the fountain of the
water of life without payment. He who conquers shall have
this heritage, and I will be his God and he shall be my
son" (Revelation 21:1-7).
"And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord
God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of
sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its
light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light shall the
nations walk; and the kings of the earth shall bring their
glory into it, and its gates shall never be shut by day and
there shall be no night there; they shall bring into it the
glory and the honor of the nations" (Revelation 21:22-26).
"Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as
crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb
through the middle of the street of the city; also, on
either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve
kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month; and the
leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
There shall no more be anything accursed, but the throne of
God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall
worship Him; they shall see His face, and His name shall be
on their foreheads. And night shall be no more; they need
no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their
light, and they shall reign for ever and ever" (Revelation
22:1-5).
Revelation 21 and 22 are surely a complex amalgam of literal
description, awesome imagery and representative symbolism.
Yet with all of this, the Bible only gives us a hint of what
God shall do after His plan for mankind has been completed
and He has added so dramatically to expand His family and
Kingdom. But indications are that God shall in one way or
another continue to expand His family forever.
"For to us a child is born, to us a Son is given; and the
government will be upon His shoulder, and His name will be
called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and of
peace there will be no end... " (Isaiah 9:6-7).
The scope of God's family shall literally be "all
things"—that includes the whole universe. "Thou hast put
all things in subjection under His feet. For in that He put
all in subjection under Him, He left nothing that is not put
under Him. But now we see not yet all things put under Him"
(Hebrews 2:8).
The incredible majesty of God's Kingdom—the fact that man is
to become part of God's family and rule the entire
universe—is called a mystery in the New Testament. Jesus
called it the "mysteries of the kingdom of heaven" in
Matthew 13:11, and "the mystery of the kingdom of God in
Mark 4:11. This mystery includes several concepts "which
[have been] kept secret since the world began" (Romans
16:25) and "hidden for ages and generations but now made
manifest to His saints" (Colossians 1:26)—for example, the
opportunity for gentiles to participate in the Kingdom of
God (Romans 11:25) and become fellow heirs of the promise of
Christ (Ephesians 3:6); the uniting of all things in heaven
and earth in Christ according to God's plan and purpose
(Ephesians 1:9); the relationship of Christ and the Church
(Ephesians 5:32). But the most important aspect of the
mystery of the Kingdom of God is the fact that man has
literally become God (1 Corinthians15:51 ff). This mystery,
"which is Christ in you, the hope of glory"
(Colossians1:27), is ordained for "our glorification" (1
Corinthians2:7) and shall be fulfilled at the resurrection
when the seventh trumpet, sounds (Revelation 10:7).
The Bible states that the purpose of human life—the ultimate
goal for all human beings—Is to eventually be born into the
God family, to eventually become equal with the Creator of
the universe. This remarkable fact is surprisingly easy to
prove. There is no difficult exegesis involved. In one
sense, all that is required is a four-step process:
1) The Creator of the Universe is the one who became Jesus
Christ (John 1:3, 10; Colossians 1:16; Ephesians 3:9;
Hebrews 1:2).
2) Jesus Christ is equal with God (John 5:18; Philippians
2:6).
3) We are joint-heirs with Christ, and as a sure result, we
shall all be glorified together with Him (Romans 8:17).
4) Whatever glory God the Father has given Christ—the
position of Creator—Christ shall eventually give to us (John
17:11 and 22). In other words, every converted individual
shall eventually enjoy the same relationship to Christ—God
the Creator—as Christ presently enjoys with God the Father.
In another sense, all that is required is a word-by-word
reading—without interpretation—of Genesis 1:26. Here God
succinctly gives the purpose of human life: Whereas animals
reproduce after the animal kind, man reproduces after the
God kind! Or, more properly phrased, human beings are the
instruments through which God is reproducing Himself.
Human beings shall always retain their individually distinct
minds—they shall become individual personalities in the
Father's God family. Man shall do what God does. Man will
feel, act, enjoy and experience at precisely the same
presently incomprehensible level of awareness at which God
feels, acts, enjoys and experiences. And man shall not lose
his unique awareness and his individual personality. Man
will not be diffused into the cosmic consciousness," man
will not be absorbed by the "infinite intelligence," and man
will not be swallowed up by "universal love."
As a matter of fact, just the opposite is true: The members
of God's family in tomorrow's world shall be more distinct
from one another than members of the human family are
distinct from one another in today’s world. All shall have
their own individually specific memories, abilities,
personality traits, jobs, responsibilities, preferences and
ideas. But there won't be any competition or conflict.
Because the old culprit—self-centered human nature—shall
have long since been eliminated.
When mankind is promised to be made "equal with God," that
of course means that individual human beings shall
eventually become qualitatively equal with God—and obviously
does not mean that individual human beings shall eventually
become quantitatively equal with either God the Father or
Jesus Christ. Being "equal with God" only means that we
shall be in the same God family as the Father and Christ are
in, and has nothing to do with an equality of power,
authority, intelligence, etc., within the family.
In other words, those people who shall be resurrected or
changed "in the twinkling of an eye" (1 Corinthians15:52),
shall share the exact qualities of life which today are only
possessed by God the Father and Jesus Christ.
For example, one of God's qualities is that He has inherent
life—He generates eternal life intrinsically within Himself,
because God is life. "For as the Father hath life in
Himself; so hath He given to the Son to have life in
Himself" (John 5:26). Consequently, since the two original
beings in the God family created all mankind to grow to
become qualitatively like themselves, when individual human
beings are changed into new, individual God-beings, each of
them shall generate eternal life intrinsically within
himself (John 3:16, 36; 4:14; 6:47; 7:38; 10:28; 17:2,
etc.).
Every individual person has been created to grow toward
divine sonship (Romans 8:1-15)—to become a literal son of
God a son who is in every way qualitatively equal to his
Father, yet a son who is always in thankful and gracious
submission to his Creator Father.
But quantitatively, man shall never equal God the Creator,
just as surely as God the Creator (Jesus Christ) shall
Himself never quantitatively equal God the Father (John
14:28).
These two original beings in the God family shall always
remain in overall command. Their absolute authority will
never be questioned—although they will delight in sharing
progressively more of their responsibilities with their
offspring as the God family continues to expand throughout
space and time. ---END---
Note:
From this we can conclude that it is doubtful that we are
going to be busy improving the universe for all eternity.
No need to do this when God is making all things new.
1 Corinthians 2:7-11
7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the
hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto
our glory:
8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they
known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which
God
hath prepared for them that love him.
10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the
Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit
of man which is in him? even so the things of God
knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
1 Corinthians 13:12
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to
face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also
I am known.
Note:
God hath not fully revealed what He has planned for us in
eternity but we can conclude that it must be far more
glorious that anything material. The bond between any two
Spirit beings will be far greater than what is experienced
in the bonding of sex. Sex is, in fact, a physical symbol
of that Spiritual bonding. The reason there is no sex in
the eternal Kingdom of God is because what we will have then
will be greater than what sex gives a physical being.
The reason it is so hard to visualize eternity is because it
is so far beyond what the human mind can perceive.
Following is an excerpt from our Doctrinal statement
concerning the Angelic Realm which gives us some clues to
life in eternity:
It is understandable how some have an extremely simplistic
impression of the angelic/spiritual realm. From the brief
glimpses the Bible gives of God's throne (Revelation 4), one
can get the naive idea that angelic beings bow before God
all the time as though in a beatific trance; repetitively
incanting "holy, holy, holy …" constantly, without ever
stopping or thinking. Likewise, one can easily think that
the entire spiritual realm is very ethereal and rather dull
when compared with the reality and tremendous variety of the
physical realm as we know it.
In point of fact, this must be a total misconception. The
spiritual realm is the true reality while the physical realm
maintains an ethereal existence; the spiritual world is the
true "substance," while the physical world is the "shadow".
We can only begin to comprehend the invisible things. of the
spiritual realm by observing the visible things of the
physical realm (Romans 1:20). Indeed, the incredible
variety
and abundance of the physical universe must be paled into
insignificance by the unimaginable majesty, beauty,
complexity, and diversity of the spiritual universe. The
few hints seen show an abundance of, for lack of a better
term, spiritual "things" (which comprise just a portion of
spiritual reality) that extends incredibly far beyond even
angelic beings. The symbolism of spiritual cities, gates,
rivers, trees, fruits in Revelation 21-22; horses, armies,
and swords in Revelation 19; thrones and wheels in Ezekiel I
and 10; thrones, clothes, crowns, gold, lightnings,
thunders, voices and lamps in Revelation 4, testify to an
existence so incomprehensible that even the profuse
utilization of physical analogies can scarcely do more than
whet our appetite. Going farther, there are spiritual
books, seals, incense, vials, songs, hair, etc., with no
indication of any limit to the scope of spiritual "things."
Indeed, there is every reason to conclude that our present
physical realm is drab, plain, and dull when compared with
the unfathomable variety and ineffable splendor of the
spiritual realm. ---END---
Note:
As this says, the physical things are but a shadow of the
Spiritual things. Once we are Spirit, we will fully know
and understand this. We do see that there are some things
Spiritual that we can understand like clothes and bodies.
And just because we are in Spirit bodies does not preclude
us from experiencing some things we do now like, for
example, drinking wine. Christ said that He would drink
wine after His return to earth:
Matthew 26:29
But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this
fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with
you in my Father's kingdom.
All through the Bible we see angels and Jesus Christ taking
various physical forms and the indication is that as a
Spirit being, we too could do that. The question is, what
could we do or experience in human form that would be as
great as in Spiritual form?
It seems clear that there will much physical for us to enjoy
including a new heavens and new earth and a new Jerusalem.
God, the Father, Himself, will rule the universe (which is
physical) from earth, which is physical. You asked about
another creation cycle; this would seem indicated as God is
called the great Creator. It would be almost impossible to
imagine that God would ever be done creating. Think about
it for a moment; how does one fill up eternity. Man cannot
even begin to imagine what eternity means. Eternity is
without time and man can hardly grasp a concept of not being
bound by time. But, for a moment, think of eternity as
measured in years:
What does a Spirit being do after:
1 million years?
10 million years?
1 billion years?
100 billion years?
1 trillion years?
100 trillion years?
1000 million, billion, trillion years?
1 googol years [1 with a hundred zeros]?
1 googolplex of years [1 with a googol of zeroes]?
Are any of those measures of years enough to visit and enjoy
what is the present universe with its billions, trillions
and even googolplexes of galaxies? Will the joy of it
diminish? I doubt that is possible in the Spirit realm.
The fruits of the Spirit could never diminish(Gal 5:22-23).
Nothing of God could ever diminish save certain physical
elements which God could continue making new just as He does
in Revelation with the new heavens and new earth. Clearly
we would be involved in that process. If 1000 million,
billion, trillion years is but a nanosecond of eternity then
it would seem clear that God has creation as part of the
plan. There are no limits to eternity and no limits to God.
Think to of the God Family fellowship. We are looking at a
God family closer than any family presently on earth. I
will be as close to you as Jesus is to God the Father. Both
of us will be as close to a citizen of China in the Ming
Dynasty as to our own physical brothers or sisters in this
life. Imagine the interactions, the shared experiences and
joint projects that God will, no doubt, have us engaged in.
You asked about for whom all this eternity and creation is
for: For the God Family with its billions of members!! We
will create for ourselves and for each other. The concepts
of loving and giving and sharing will continue. We will
continue to worship and serve Jesus Christ and God, the
Father. We for them and them for us. I doubt we could even
imagine this kind of joy.
This should give you at least some idea of what that time
will be like.
See,
“The Universe – God’s Neighborhood”
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