Signs of Christ's Return

The Judgment of the Nations--Part 2
by
John MacArthur
All Rights Reserved

(A copy of this message on cassette tape may be obtained by calling 1-800-55-GRACE)
Matthew 25:32    Tape GC 2379

Introduction

Jesus' disciples knew that one day the Messiah would establish a glorious, visible kingdom established on earth--that the world would be the way God wanted it to be. They looked forward to the fulfillment of Malachi 1:11, which says, "From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the nations, and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering; for my name shall be great among the nations, saith the Lord of hosts." Ezekiel also talked about God's future kingdom on earth (Ezek. 40--48). He wrote of the glorious new Temple that would be built, the priests that would give offerings, and the celebrations that would be observed. That Temple will not have the ark of the covenant to represent God's presence, as God Himself will be present in the Temple. The disciples became excited when Jesus taught them about His kingdom and asked, "When shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the age?" (Matt. 24:3). Jesus answered those questions in Matthew 24--25, and in this lesson, we will be studying about the judgment that will take place when Christ returns.

Review

I. THE JUDGE 

II. THE TIME OF JUDGMENT 

III. THE PLACE OF JUDGMENT 

IV. THE SUBJECTS OF JUDGMENT

Lesson

A. What Will Happen to Those on the Earth at Christ's Return?

When Christ returns, there will be people alive on earth. They will be the survivors of the tribulation. Some will be saved and others not. Matthew 25:32 says, "Before him shall be gathered all the nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats." All the people will be separated into one of two categories: the sheep (Christians) or the goats (non-Christians). From there they will go on to their eternal destiny. The sheep will go the heaven, and the goats will go to hell. The category they go into will be determined by their relationship to Christ and nothing else. No distinction will be made between Jew or Gentile.

B. What About Believers Who Aren't on Earth at Christ's Return?

1. Some will be taken up before the tribulation

a) The rapture of the church

Right now we are living in the church age. God is gathering all the people who will be a part of the body of Christ. When the fullness of the church age has come, the church will be taken out of the world (1 Thess. 4:17). If Christ were to call us right now, every believer would be taken up into heaven. And on the way up there, our lowly bodies would be transformed into glorious bodies like that of the Lord Jesus Christ (Phil. 3:21).

b) The renewal of the dead believer

What about Christians who have already died? First Thessalonians 4:16 says, "The dead in Christ shall rise first." When Christ calls us at the rapture, the dead will rise and those of us who are alive will join them. But where do the spirits of dead Christians reside while we await the rapture? When believers die, their spirits go to be with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8). When the rapture occurs, they will receive new, glorified bodies. It won't matter if their old bodies are long gone--God will create their new bodies out of nothing.

When a Christian dies, his spirit goes to heaven and his body stays here on earth. He doesn't need his body because God is a Spirit (John 4:24), and the believer's spirit can communicate with God. When you talk on the phone, your body isn't really involved; it's your spirit that does the communicating. The spirit is your real self, and it simply resides in a physical body. Nevertheless the Lord promises this in 1 Corinthians 15:52: "In the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." The new bodies that rise from the grave will be joined with their spirits at the rapture, and those of us who are alive at the rapture will be changed as we ascend. Our bodies will no longer be debilitated by sin.

The new bodies we have will be fit for both heaven and earth. When Jesus rose from the grave, He ate, walked, and talked with His disciples (e.g., Luke 24:33-43). Later on He ascended into heaven (Acts 1:9) to sit down at the right hand of God's throne (Heb. 10:12). That we will have bodies fit for earth and heaven helps prove that Christ's future kingdom on earth will be literal and visible. Why would God bother restoring the earth in eternity (Rev. 21:1) if He weren't going to give us bodies that could live on it?

Those who became believers before the tribulation--whether dead or alive--will be taken up in the rapture. They will be given glorified bodies, and take part in the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9). It will be a time of receiving rewards (1 Cor. 3:12-15; 2 Tim. 4:8) and enjoying our new, transformed bodies.

2. Some will be taken up during and after the tribulation

a) Those who will be taken up during the tribulation

While the church is in heaven, the world will be going through the tribulation. The Antichrist will be running rampant all over the earth. Demons will be let loose from hell and Satan will be cast down from heaven. Together they will wreak havoc on earth. Because the church is gone from the earth, evil will not be restrained. Sin will be allowed to run its full course during those seven years before God brings judgment. Nevertheless many people will become saved during the tribulation (Rom. 11:26; Rev. 7:9).

b) Those who will be taken up after the tribulation

One question that isn't dealt with in the rapture is, When will the Old Testament saints be resurrected? The bodies of the Old Testament saints are still here on earth, but their spirits are in heaven. I believe Jesus took them to heaven after He died (Eph. 4:8-10). When Christ died, His spirit went to a place of blessedness (cf. Luke 16:22) where all the souls of the Old Testament saints were, and carried them to glory. But the bodies of the Old Testament saints will have to wait until after the tribulation before they are resurrected and glorified. They will be resurrected when the bodies of the tribulation saints are resurrected.

The tribulation is like an addendum to the Old Testament era, because the church age comes to an end once the tribulation begins. In Daniel, the tribulation is the seventieth week in his seventy-week prophecy (9:26-27). The church age is the unforeseen period between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks. The Lord did His work through the nation Israel before the church age, and will do so again after the church age. Thus the bodies of the Old Testament saints will be resurrected at the same time as the bodies of the tribulation saints. So the only people resurrected at the rapture are those who became saved during the church age.

Daniel 12:1-2 confirms that there will be a great resurrection after the tribulation: "At that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince who standeth for the children of thy people [Israel], and there shall be a time of trouble ... and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life."

In our glorified bodies, we--like angels--will be able to go wherever we want to. Our bodies will be fit for both earth and heaven. We will be able to ascend to or descend from the new city of Jerusalem, which will hover above the earth (Rev. 21:2).

C. What About Believers Who Are on Earth at Christ's Return?

Believers who survive the tribulation will be brought into the kingdom in their earthly bodies. There will be no change for them. They are the ones who will bear children in Christ's earthly kingdom (Isa. 11:8; 65:20). And those children will bear the offspring who rebel against Christ at the end of the millennial kingdom (Rev. 20:7-9).

Some people wonder how anyone could possibly rebel against Christ after witnessing His reign and power. But look at the rejection Christ faced the first time He came to earth. That people will still reject Christ even when they see Him rule in perfect wisdom, love, and power illustrates the depravity of unregenerate people.

The millennial kingdom Christ establishes will be indwelt by both glorified and unglorified believers. Those who are glorified will know life in both heaven and earth, and those who remain unglorified will live only on earth. The unglorified believers will still eat meals, plant crops, cook, work, wear glasses, and depend on public services. The glorified and unglorified will mingle together. Christ, after He was glorified, still mingled with His disciples (Luke 24:33-43), and Abraham and Sarah dined angels (Gen. 18:1-10).

Will the one-thousand year reign of Christ be a literal, earthly kingdom? Those who are amillennialists say there won't be an actual, physical kingdom on earth. They believe the Bible's teachings about Christ's future rule refers to a spiritual kingdom in our hearts. Yet the Bible indicates Christ's rule will be a literal one on earth. For example, 1 Corinthians 15 says we will receive glorified bodies at the rapture. What is the sense of God's giving us glorified bodies if there is no physical kingdom on earth? Amillennialists often say belief in a literal, earthly kingdom is recent. However, according to German theologian Erich Sauer in his The Triumph of the Crucified (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953), such belief goes back to the first century. Early writers such as Papias, Justin, Tertullian, and Hippolytus affirmed the church's convictions about a future, earthly kingdom. Sauer says that with the growth of Catholicism, millennialism was pushed aside (p. 144). Revelation 20:4 clearly states believers will reign with Christ for a literal one-thousand year period.

A person who denies that Christ will set up a physical kingdom on earth and reign from Jerusalem must do three things. First he has to say that all God's prophetic promises to the rebellious nation of Israel apply only to the church, defined as a spiritual Israel. That means God's promises that were supposed to be fulfilled in a literal sense will only be fulfilled in a spiritual sense. Second, he must say that the prophecies about the kingdom have already been fulfilled or that they are being fulfilled now. Third, he must spiritualize Old Testament prophecies that relate to an actual place or event. However the Bible says that Christ will come again, just as He came two thousand years ago. Let's look at the evidence for a literal kingdom, much of which comes from Erich Sauer's insights on the issue (pp. 144-153 MOODY: DO WE NEED TO WRITE FOR PERMISSION? POINTS I-V AND THE MATERIAL THEREIN ARE PARAPHRASED FROM SAUER'S WORK).

I. A LITERAL KINGDOM IS THE ONLY ADEQUATE CONFIRMATION OF GOD'S PROMISES

God said He was going to bring a kingdom of peace ruled by the Messiah (Isa. 9:6-7). If He doesn't fulfill that prophesy, then we can question His faithfulness. But Romans 11:29 confirms that we can trust God: "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance." In context that verse is referring to Israel. God's promises to Israel will never change. God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 about blessing Israel as a nation was unconditional. It wasn't dependent on Israel's obedience to God's law (Rom. 4:13-14). God says He will keep that promise for the sake of His truthfulness, and even for Abraham's sake (Gen. 26:24).

God said the promise of a future kingdom is as firm as the mountains (Isa. 54:10), as true as the course of day and night (Jer. 33:20-21, 25-26), and as stable as the laws of the sun, moon, and stars (Jer. 31:35-37). God bound Himself to His promise using different analogies. Jeremiah 31:35-36 specifically says, "Thus saith the Lord, who giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who divideth the sea when its waves roar; the Lord of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever." In Isaiah 66:22 God says, "As the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain." God will not change His promise to Israel. To spiritualize those promises away and say that the church is Israel is to say God is unfaithful.

II. A LITERAL KINGDOM IS CONSISTENT WITH CHRIST'S TEACHING ABOUT THE END TIMES

In Matthew 23:37-39 Jesus says, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them who are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." That indicates there will come a day when Israel receives her Messiah.

Jesus says to His disciples in Matthew 19:28, "Verily I say unto you that ye who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." That is a literal prophecy; Jesus was saying the disciples will rule in His kingdom. So to deny a literal kingdom is to deny what Christ taught about His kingdom. He said that at the culmination of history, Israel would believe in the Messiah (Matt. 23:39). Zechariah said the same thing (Zech. 12:10; 13:1).

III. A LITERAL KINGDOM IS THE ONLY LOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF MESSIANIC PROPHECY

If you don't allow for a literal earthly kingdom, then there's no way to logically interpret Old Testament prophecy. There are over three hundred prophecies about the Messiah in the Old Testament. For example, Micah 5:2 says Christ would be from Bethlehem. Is there a secret spiritual interpretation for that? No; Christ's birth in Bethlehem is an historical reality (Matt. 2:1). Zechariah 9:9 says Christ would enter Jerusalem on a donkey. That really happened; Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the last week of His life on a donkey (Matt. 21:1-9). Zechariah 11:12 says He would be betrayed for thirty pieces of silver. According to Matthew 26:14-16, Judas agreed to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. Psalm 22:16 says Jesus' hands and feet would be pierced on a cross, Psalm 34:20 says His bones would not be broken, and Zechariah 12:10 indicates that His side would be pierced. Isaiah 53:8-9, 12 says He would die for the sins of the world and be buried in a rich man's tomb; Psalm 16:10 says He would rise on the third day. All those things really happened; they cannot be disputed.

If all the prophecies about Christ's first coming were literal, how can we say the prophecies of His second coming won't be literal? How can we say Christ won't really come down to the Mount of Olives and split it to create a valley (Zech. 14:4), and that He won't really rule for a thousand years on earth (Rev. 20:4)? By saying the prophecies of the second coming aren't literal, we come face-to- face with a hard question: What then do they mean? It seems only right to say that the literal fulfillment of past prophecies is a reliable indicator of the pattern for prophecies about the future. The Bible doesn't say anything the church replacing Israel. If God says He will reestablish His people Israel, then He will do it!

IV. A LITERAL KINGDOM IS THE BEST WAY FOR CHRIST TO SHOW HIS KINGSHIP

If the earth is simply destroyed someday and there is no new physical earth (Rev. 21:1), then how will Christ show He is truly the ruler of this world? When will He be able to show what could have been done with creation? It would be hard to imagine sin's dominating the scene until we enter eternity, and not seeing Christ display His control over the universe in a visible, physical way. Christ is the supreme judge, King, and ruler, and to say that His future kingdom is merely spiritual in nature is to deprive Him of the opportunity to renew creation. Romans 8:19-22 says all creation looks forward to the day when it will be delivered from the bondage of corruption and enter into our glorified state.

There will be unbelievers in Christ's future kingdom. At the end of Christ's one-thousand-year earthly reign, the unbelievers will join sides with Satan, who will have just been released, and rebel against Christ's rule (Rev. 20:7-9). How could they rebel unless they could see Christ's rule in a physical sense? And they will see how inept they are at organizing their own world in comparison to how Christ rules. Their defeat will be an eternal testimony to all the beings of heaven and earth that Christ is the supreme King who can bring the diversity of His creation into harmony, even when sin does exist.

V. A LITERAL KINGDOM IS THE ONLY WAY TO BRIDGE HUMAN HISTORY TO ETERNAL GLORY

The Kingdom of Christ on earth is the bridge to eternity. First Corinthians 15:24-25 says, "Then cometh the end, when he [Christ] shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet." At the time of His coming, Christ will put down all human rule and establish His kingdom. At its end He will put down a rebellion (Rev. 20:7-10) and then usher in the eternal state.

Since the time the earth fell under the curse of sin, God has wanted to redeem the earth and have it presented to Him. That's what Christ will do during the millennial kingdom: He will change things through His rule and destroy all His enemies. First Corinthians 15:26 says that death will be the last enemy destroyed. Then verse 28 says, "When all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." During the millennial kingdom the Lord will take back, restore, and regenerate the earth to make it fit to offer to God. That process will begin during the tribulation when Christ is handed the title deed to the earth, and He opens it up seal by seal to purify the earth and bring it under His control (Rev. 5--11). At the end of Christ's one-thousand-year rule, Satan will be let loose a little while to deceive people and attempt a final uprising against the Lord. Christ will then destroy all the ungodly, and offer up the kingdom to God. And in that eternal kingdom, the righteous will "shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (Matt. 13:43).

Focusing on the Facts

1. What Old Testament prophecies did the disciples look forward to the fulfillment of (see p. 1)?

2.What will happen to the people alive on earth when Christ returns (see p. 1)?

3.What will determine whether a person goes to heaven or hell (see p. 1)?

4.What is God doing now during the church age? What does He plan to do at the end of the church age, according to 1 Thessalonians 4:17 (see p. 2)?

5.When the rapture takes place, what will happen to Christians who have already died (1 Thess. 4:16; see p. 2)?

6.What does 2 Corinthians 5:8 say happens when a believer dies? What promise does 1 Corinthians 15:52 make regarding those Christians who have already died (see p. 2)?

7.Who will be taken up into heaven during the tribulation (see p. 3)?

8.If the Old Testament saints aren't resurrected at the rapture, when will they be resurrected? Explain (see pp. 3-4).

9.Believers who are alive on earth at the time of Christ's return will enter the kingdom in their earthly bodies, not in glorified bodies. What evidence in Scripture verifies that (see p. 4)?

10.What illustrations in Scripture show us that glorified and unglorified believers will be able to mingle in Christ's earthly kingdom (see p. 4)?

11.What do amillennialists say about the one-thousand-year reign of Christ (see pp. 4-5)?

12.What three things must a person do who denies that Christ will set up a physical kingdom on earth (see p. 5)?

13.Why is a literal millennial kingdom the only adequate confirmation of God's promises (see p. 5)?

14. How does Christ's teaching about the end times confirm a literal, earthly millennial kingdom (see p. 6)?

15.What are some examples of messianic prophecy regarding Christ's first coming? How were those prophecies fulfilled, and what does that tell us about messianic prophecies regarding the second coming (see pp. 6- 7)?

16.Explain how a literal, earthly one-thousand-year kingdom would function as a bridge from human history to eternal glory (see pp. 7- 8).

Pondering the Principles

1.One of the most beautiful promises Christ made to His followers is in John 14:3. He said He is preparing a place right now for us in heaven. At the rapture, He will call us and take us home to be where He is. Memorize John 14:26, letting it remind you of your importance to Christ and the certainty that you will be with Him personally someday: "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also" (NASB).

2.Reread the section explaining why Christ will rule a literal, visible, millennial kingdom on earth . Using the material in that section, write out a brief reply you might give to an amillennialist should one happen to ask you what you think about Christ's millennial kingdom.

Added to the John MacArthur "Study Guide" Collection by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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