Christ’s Future Kingdom

Following the establishment in power of the Millennial reign in which Christ is manifestly Lord of all, and in effective control, the promised resurrection of all the dead will be next in order. But not all at once. A partially wrecked world containing several thousand millions of partially or almost wholly wrecked human beings will take a good deal of hard work to get on its feet again, and before there can be talk of adding to earth's millions from the ranks of the dead there is the matter of food and housing, and presumably clothing, to consider. There will therefore be a great setting of people to work, in the restoration of the earth, the reclamation of waste land, the irrigation of deserts, the preparation of homes not only for those then living who need homes but for those who are to come. All this will be an important part of the education that every man must have, but concurrently with this will be his spiritual instruction, his being made aware of the deeper principles that underlie his existence, the purpose for which God created him and the means by which that purpose is to be achieved. It is for the imparting of this instruction that God will have made ready the "Church".

With the ending of the old Age, - this present Age in which we live - the company of Christian disciples which began in the upper room at Pentecost and concluded its earthly career in the troubles that end the Age is gathered as a united company into the spiritual world, made like the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Apostle John said "We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3.2). Being thus raised to participation in that spiritual realm, the powers and attributes appertaining to these are infinitely greater than anything known to man; but what is of first importance in the immediate connection is that these who have thus attained personal association with Christ are to become the servants of mankind for their instruction in the higher things of life. It comes strange at first to think of those of whom John said "They lived and reigned with Christ" (Rev.20.4) and Paul "Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?" (1 Cor.6.2) as being servants to men, but it was Jesus who explained the seeming paradox when He said "Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant" (Matt.20.27). Hence the outcome of a Christian life lived today in patience and integrity, in doing good and speaking the thing that is right, in emulating Jesus in all things, in suffering grief or wrong in consequence of a firm stand for right principles, is the honour of serving mankind in spiritual instruction and turning the hearts of men to Christ that they may at last see the error of their ways and come fully into line with God's purpose.

It will not be an easy task. The mending of men's bodies and the improvement of their outward environment will be child's play compared with that inward regeneration which is necessary if they are to be delivered from death and confirmed in life, reclaimed from Satan and reconciled to God. It will only be because the members of the Church have passed through that same experience themselves in their past lives that they will be able to speak and teach and urge with authority and with conviction. The work of Christ in the hearts of men in the Millennial Age will be effected by these, working on the minds of men, counselling, teaching, urging, converting men to Christ and leading them to reconciliation with God.

There will thus be a two-fold work in progress, the rehabilitation of men's bodies proceeding in step with the renewing of their minds. There is not much doubt that the latter will exercise a powerful effect upon the former; that in proportion as a man seeks intelligently and willingly to come into alignment with righteousness and yield himself more to the service of Christ, his physical organism will progress toward that perfection which empowers him to live everlastingly. The world will therefore already be a much fairer place, and mankind already happier and living measurably at peace, when the general resurrection of the dead commences. "All that are in their graves," said Jesus, "shall hear his voice" (that of Jesus) "and shall come forth" (John 5.28). Some of those dead breathed their last thousands of years ago and not one atom of their earthly bodies survives in its original form; but God who formed the bodies of the first human beings and arranged the processes of Nature to build the bodies of all who have lived since, is able to provide bodies for these resurrected ones, even in a moment of time, if need be. There can be no doubt about this; the dead shall return. " Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust," cries Isaiah the prophet in ecstasy, "for the earth shall cast out the dead." (Isa.26.19).

The usual objection to the literal acceptance of these plain statements of Scripture is that the earth could not support the multitudes of men and women that have lived. It is not generally realised that only in the last few centuries has this planet housed any considerable number of human beings. At the beginning of the twentieth century the population of the globe was only half of what it is now, and a century earlier it was only one quarter. Professor Julian Huxley has estimated that in the days of the Roman Empire, two thousand years ago, there were less than one hundred millions inhabiting the earth. From what is known of the subject it can be confidently stated that even if man has been upon earth for as long as eight or even ten thousand years - which is the longest period allowed by responsible anthropologists aside from the "missing link" enthusiasts, who still talk in terms of millions of years - all the men and women who have ever been born would, if they were raised from the dead at once, find the existing land surface of nearly sixty million square miles afford adequate space for life and sustenance, especially when it is remembered that the earth is to be made far more fruitful and productive than it is at present. It does follow, of course, that the further propagation of the human species will cease: the purpose of God in endowing human beings with procreative powers is revealed in the Book of Genesis to be for the adequate peopling of the earth, and when that object has been achieved it is but reasonable to expect that those powers will atrophy and disappear. The force of God's original declaration "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help (companion) meet (fitting) for him" (Gen.2.18), and his subsequent ordaining of the marriage relation to be the normal condition of perfect, ideal human life is not invalidated by the fact that children will no longer be born. The story of Eden enshrines the principles of Divinely ordained human society, and the ultimate completion of God's purpose will surely witness the ideal companionship instituted in Eden restored in its fullness, not again to be disturbed.

By the time that the earth is ready to receive its dead back to life and to feed and shelter those who have been sleeping in the grave, men in general will have got much more accustomed to the idea. In all probability it will not be necessary to ask, as did the Apostle Paul on a certain historic occasion (Acts 26.8) "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?". There will have been so many signal manifestations of Divine power at work in the world that there will no longer be any denial of the possibility of such things. And without doubt there will be a great many who will have given themselves wholeheartedly over to the furthering of the interests of this new Kingdom upon earth, who will enthusiastically prepare for and receive the newcomers from the grave as they return, furnishing them with food and clothing, explaining to them the meaning of their reawakening, that the long nightmare of sin and death is past and God now calls all men to righteousness and life. Every family, every individual, will have loved ones, relatives and friends, over whose death they have mourned or grieved in the past; it may well be that the resurrection will be in the reverse order to that of death, and that the coming back of individuals will be largely in response to the prayers of those living, so that the newcomers to the "Millennial" earth will find familiar faces to welcome them on their awaking to conscious existence, and well-remembered voices to explain to them the meaning of the new conditions in which they will find themselves. Even this sunlit Age has its shadows. Sin will have been dethroned but not yet overthrown. God will have showered his abundant blessings upon men, removed the immoral systems that have oppressed them for so long, banished the spectre of fear, caused men to dwell in peace and security, taught them to control and utilise the earth so that it brings forth abundance for all, given them intellectual and spiritual instruction so that they can, if they will, make the utmost possible use of the life that is theirs. But with all this they will not necessarily have renounced sin, not necessarily have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, acknowledged that all they have and are is due to him, and become reconciled to God through faith

in him. And none of the blessings they enjoy can continue if they remain thus reconciled; nay, they will not even attain to the fullness of Millennial blessings unless their hearts have been made right with God. The law pronounced so a long time ago, "the wages of sin is death" stands as an immutable principle which can never be abrogated. The very basis upon which God's universe is built demands that righteousness and only righteousness shall endure eternally. That which is evil, sinful, basically opposed to the Divine principles that govern continuing life, must, even although it endure uneasily for a time, eventually pass out of existence. No power in all creation can preserve it. It follows therefore that the man whose heart is sinful, who deliberately sets himself against the forces that are making for righteousness in God's new world, must himself suffer the fate that was expressed by the prophet Ezekiel half a millennium before the Christian era: "the soul that sinneth, it shall die'" (Ezek.18.4).

A little thought will suffice to convince that the man who deliberately refuses to take his place as a citizen of the world, to discharge his due obligations and assume his share of the world's work, fulfilling the Divine injunction to love his neighbour as himself, acknowledging his Creator and God as the One in whom he lives, and moves, and has his being (Acts 17.28) can be a source of happiness neither to himself nor others. Such a man, exercising to the last the inalienable right of free will with which his Maker has endowed him, can resist God to the end, and turn resolutely away from every endeavour God makes for his conversion. We may be quite sure that not one such individual - if such there be - will be left to incur the logical sequel to his elected course until God has, as it were, exhausted every persuasive influence within his power to win the obdurate one from the error of his way. But if God at last turns aside, it can only be because the case is hopeless; He will not coerce the will and condemn the unhappy man to an eternal life from which he cannot escape and the conditions of which he resents and cannot endure. God, who holds in his hand the breath of every living thing (Job 12.10) will - sadly, we may be sure allow sin to bear its final fruitage in that man's life, the exquisite mind and wonderful organism to falter and fail, and the shades of eternal sleep to close round him.

It is hard to think that, with all the incentive to righteousness characteristic of the Millennial Age, there will be many such. Time will prove, but that the Scripture states the principles upon which alone everlasting life may be attained there can be no question, and that eternal death must inevitably be the portion of all who, after full and fair opportunity, refuse to accept the Lord Jesus and conform to the Divine laws, the Scriptures are equally emphatic.

So, with the passing of the last of sinners, there comes the end of sin. Men will have been so fully tested and confirmed in their allegiance to God by their long experience, of sin in the first life and righteousness in the second, that there need be no fear that sin will raise its ugly head again. Satan, the arch-enemy of God and man, will trouble humanity no more. The last book of the Bible, in one of its parabolic utterances, speaks of a final attempt to deceive the nations at the end of the Millennial Age. It is an obscure little passage but it is clear upon one thing; that the sequel to the attempt is the destruction of the last traces of evil in the earth. From that time and forward all things, on earth as in Heaven, are "holy unto the Lord". The prospect before men will be one of progressive and never-ending increase in knowledge and experience and intense joy in the continuance of everyday life under conditions of idyllic happiness.

So will the centuries pass, whilst the earth grows ever fairer and more beautiful and mankind attains to a better and more complete understanding of the message of Jesus Christ and the goodness of God. The days of evil will slip away into the background-never forgotten, an imperishable recollection of the terrible consequences of sin, but no longer having power to hurt and destroy. The song of the angels at Christ's birth - "peace on earth, goodwill among men" - will be realised in fact at last. Human beings will look upon each other, fair of form, virile of body, magnificent examples of the creative power of God. Conscious of the eternity of supremely happy life that is before them, they will rise at every dawn to prosecute with unflurried minds the occupations and pursuits to which they have set themselves. The world's work will continue - men will till the soil and reap the fruits of their labours; they will foregather together for the study and practice of arts and sciences which will always have something new to reveal; they will travel the world and rejoice in the varied glories of Nature and live their lives in absolute peace and harmony with one another and with God.

Is it just wishful thinking? Is all this but a kind of mental sop, a beautiful dream, wherewith to dull the senses to the harsh realities of to-day, a means of refusal to face the grim inevitable destiny against which heart and mind cries out in impotent despair? By no means! These things shall be! God has been silent, screened from the vision and the sense of men, approachable only by those who have sincerely desired to know him and have been prepared to devote their lives to his service and to die for the sake of his ways if need be; but He has nevertheless been working ceaselessly and tirelessly for the ultimate good of all men. The record of his work as well of his plans is to be found in the Bible, but here again, only the sincere and earnest of heart will be able to read its pages aright and understand them. God is calling all such now to-day, to give themselves to him through the channel of faith in, and acceptance of, Jesus Christ our Saviour and Leader, and He will then assign them some position and work in the execution of his fulfilling purpose. It was in the realisation of that call that the Apostle Paul entreated "I beseech you therefore, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice… and be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind". (Rom.12.1‑2.) That is the call still.

The End

AOH