During Christ’s Millennial Kingdom, “the world as we know it with its sin, suffering, death, and the devil will pass away while the paradise of God is restored to this creation and gradually encompasses the globe,” writes seminary professor Michael J. Svigel in The Fathers on the Future. “The world will be transformed and released from its bondage to corruption, not through a natural evolutionary process and not instantly through a divine snap of the finger, but progressively through the co-laboring of humanity—indeed, through the second Adam and the new humanity—as they finally fulfill the imago Dei mission in being fruitful, multiplying, filling the earth, subduing it, and expanding the boundaries of Eden [Gen. 1:28–30].”

Christ’s return marks the end of the Tribulation and the start of the Millennium. This is an earthly utopia with Christ as King. Though some see the thousand years as a symbolic number, it’s mentioned rather often—six times in seven verses!—to be only symbolic. For this period of time, Satan the dragon and “ancient serpent” (v. 2; see also Genesis 3) is bound and imprisoned in the Abyss (vv. 1–3). He will not be allowed to deceive or interfere with this perfect kingdom.

Alongside Christ as King, we as believers will reign with Him (vv. 4–6). Jesus had spoken of this to His disciples (Luke 22:29–30). Our thrones will be “sub-thrones” under His authority. At this point, all dead believers will have been resurrected, including the martyrs of the Tribulation. This is the “first resurrection.” The rest of the dead will not be resurrected until after the Millennium, and these will mostly be unbelievers. The timeless encouragement is that the “second death” (hell) has no power over us as followers of Christ (v. 6)!

Donate to Today in the Word: https://give.todayintheword.org/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.