The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed by Brenda Rivera of Orlando, Florida from the tape, GC 1301-O, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 17." A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. ©1978. All Rights Reserved.
Question
In our Bible study we were studying future things and
proceeding the Millennium, will there be mortal believers? Will there be mortal
believers at the end of the Millennium? It doesn’t really say if they’re
translated to Heaven or perhaps would go into a mortal state "peopleling" this
earth and that kind of thing.
Answer
You mean at the end of the Tribulation?
Question (continued)
No, at the end of the Millennium. There will be believers at the end of the Millennium. However at the end of the Millennium heaven and earth flee away and it doesn’t say where the believers of the Millennium will go.
Answer (continued)
You’re assuming that when you enter into the Millennium, you have people living in physical bodies. The believing people, who were not killed by the Antichrist, they enter into the Millennium, Right? Physical bodies, they give birth to children, the earth is filled with people; it has to be filled with people because everybody is going to live to be so very old that if a person dies at 100 they die a baby. Disease is eliminated, food growth--there’s going to be a tremendous reproductive thing. They'll fill the earth with population and by the way, statistics indicate that a 1000 years without disease and without war, that you could populate this earth more than you have now over all the time of man’s history, so it will be a full earth.
I think that there will be many believers and the only thing you can assume, for example, what happens when a believer dies during the Millennium, where’s he going to go? If he goes to Heaven, he’ll be up there by himself. Right? Everyone else will be down here. So the only thing I can assume is that when they die, they’ll just go down and then you’ll wait a second, and they’ll just say “Oh” come right back up again. I mean there has got to be instant translation. So whatever is going to happen in the Millennium. You see you go from the Millennium into the eternal state and I think some of us will be in the Millennial earth in our eternal form, some in the corporal form of the earthly body, but there will be, I believe, either at death or in the phasing into the new heaven and the new earth there will be an instant translation, into that eternal state.
Question (continued)
And that would be for all the believers in the Millennium?
Answer (continued)
Right.
Question (continued)
Isaiah 22:24 says “the nation shall walk by the light of the New Jerusalem and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it.” We’re going to be co-reigning with Christ.
Answer (continued)
Right.
Question (continued)
These are kings identified here.
Answer (continued)
Right.
Question (continued)
Is that us or is that someone else?
Answer (continued)
No, I think that there will still will be nations, I think the millennial earth will still have peoples and nations and rulers and leaders and commerce and activity and all those kinds of things, only in an earth where the curse has been retarded. Satan is bound the demons are bound, Christ rules the rod of iron, doesn’t mean there won’t be evil here, because if there were no evil you wouldn’t need a rod of iron, right? But I believe there will be nations and I believe that Israel will lead the nations in an out of Jerusalem to see the King.
Now let me
go a step further, during the Millennium there will be born people to the saints,
but not all those people are going to be regenerated people, because at the end
of the Millennium Satan is loose for a little while and he gets all these people
from all over the world and he has a rebellion. In fact, some people put the Gog and Magog rebellion at the end of the
Millennial Kingdom so there will be
a bunch of unbelieving people, which does mean there has to be salvation in the
Millennium. So, I did a paper in seminary, for a course in eschatological
problems, problems of the end times, on will there be salvation in the
Millennium? And yes there will be salvation in the Millennium you can see that
in certain portions of scripture when Israel and those who rule with Christ
bring the nations in to meet the King and so forth. So I thing those kings and
those people from around the earth will need to come to know Christ and that
will be the role of Israel finally realized. You see, through all of Israel’s
history, God has been trying to get Israel to be the channel to reach the
nations. And finally in the Kingdom it will happen.
Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and
Answers" by:
Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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