Promised Land, Promised Earth: The New Earth Vs. The Millennium

Promised Land, Promised Earth: The New Earth vs. The Millennium

Evildoers shall be cut off; but those who wait on the LORD, they shall inherit the earth. . . . The meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

— Psalm 37:9-11, NKJV

Why do we not know the country whose citizens we are? Because we have wandered so far away that we have forgotten it. But the Lord Christ, the king of the land, came down to us, and drove forgetfulness from our hearts. God took to Himself our flesh so that He might be our way back.

— AUGUSTINE

If you were to describe a kingdom, what elements would you include? A king, certainly, and subjects to be ruled. Anything else?

To be rightly described as a kingdom, wouldn’t it also have to include territory? government? culture?

Why is it, then, that when we think of God’s Kingdom, we often think only of the King and his subjects? Perhaps we assume that the only leader will be the King—but have you ever heard of such a thing? Don’t kings always delegate their rule to subordinate leaders who serve under them? We might suppose that the sovereign God would be an exception to this and that he would rule his Kingdom all by himself, delegating nothing. But this supposition is wrong. Scripture repeatedly shows God to be a delegator, the original delegator. He explicitly and repeatedly declares his design that his people will rule the earth under him.

What about culture? Can you conceive of a kingdom that involves people in relation to their king and to one another but does not involve the social, relational, creative, and interactive context we know as culture?

Strangest of all, we often think of God’s Kingdom without envisioning a territory. We tend to spiritualize God’s Kingdom, perceiving it as otherworldly, intangible, and invisible. But Scripture tells us otherwise.

Revelation 5:1-10 depicts a powerful scene in the present Heaven. God the Father, the ruler of Heaven, sits on the throne with a sealed scroll in his right hand. What’s sealed—with seven seals, to avoid any possibility that the document has been tampered with—is the Father’s will, his plan for the distribution and management of his estate. In this case, the entitlement of the estate is the earth, which includes its inhabitants. God had intended for the world to be ruled by humans. But who will come forward to open the document and receive the inheritance? Jesus, the Messiah, the God-man, who will take the earth and rule it as his inheritance.

This future King was slain that he might purchase “men for God”—and not just a small representation of fallen humanity, but “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9).

The passage culminates with a statement about Christ’s followers: “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:10).

An essential component of any kingdom is land. The earth is the land we will rule, righteously exercising dominion over it as God first commanded Adam and Eve to do.

We are pilgrims on this earth, which is passing away, but eventually we’ll be pioneers and settlers on the New Earth. The earth is our proper dwelling place: “For the upright will live in the land, and the blameless will remain in it; but the wicked will be cut off from the land” (Proverbs 2:21-22). “The righteous will never be uprooted, but the wicked will not remain in the land” (Proverbs 10:30).

Isaiah and the prophets make clear the destiny of God’s people. They will live in righteousness and peace and prosperity, as free people in the land that God promised them.

But what about all the recipients of these promises who have died—including people who lived in times of enslavement and captivity, war, poverty, and sickness? For many of them, life was short, hard, and cruel. Did these poor people ever live to see peace and prosperity, a reign of righteousness, or the end of wickedness?

No.

Have any of their descendants lived to see such a place?

No.

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. . . . They were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. . . . [God] has prepared a city for them (Hebrews 11:13-14, 16).

The “country of their own” spoken of in Hebrews 11 is a real country, with a real capital city, the New Jerusalem. It is an actual place where these “aliens and strangers on earth” will ultimately live in actual bodies. If the promises that God made to them were promises on Earth and regarding Earth (and certainly they were), then the heavenly “country of their own” must ultimately include Earth. The fulfillment of these prophecies requires exactly what Scripture elsewhere promises—a resurrection of God’s people and God’s Earth.

What thrilled these expectant believers was not that God would rule in Heaven—he already did. What fueled their hope in the hardest of times was that one day God would rule on Earth; that he would forever remove sin, death, suffering, poverty, and heartache. They believed the Messiah would come to Earth, and in doing so bring Heaven to Earth. The Messiah would make God’s will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.

Some believers have come to imagine that these promises are limited to what is called the millennial kingdom. But though those promises may sometimes speak of the Millennium, in fact they speak of much more: the New Earth.

Revelation 20 refers six times to the Millennium, describing it like this:

• The devil is bound for a thousand years (v. 2);
• For a thousand years, the nations are no longer deceived (v. 3);
• The martyrs come to life and reign with Christ for a thousand years (v. 4);
• The rest of the dead don’t come to life until after the thousand years are ended (v. 5);
• The saints will be priests and kings for a thousand years (v. 6);
• Satan will be loosed at the end of the thousand years, and he will prompt a final human rebellion against God (vv. 7-8).

Theologians differ over whether the Millennium should be understood as a literal thousand-year reign, and when it will occur in relation to the second coming of Christ.

Some believe the Millennium is occurring now as Christ’s people reign with him in the present Heaven. Others believe the Millennium will be a literal kingdom on the present Earth, a final era of peace and prosperity under Christ’s rule. They believe there will still be some death and sin, though much less, and that there will be a final human rebellion against Christ. Then, after the final judgment is complete, God will at last renew the heavens and the earth, after which there will be no sin or suffering or death.

I attended schools that teach a literal Millennium, and I tend to embrace that viewpoint, though I have studied and understand the merits of other perspectives. But Christians can disagree about the Millennium while fully agreeing about the New Earth. The Millennium question relates to whether the old Earth will end soon after the return of Christ, or a thousand years later after the end of the Millennium. But regardless of when the old Earth ends, the central fact is this: the New Earth will begin, and it will last forever. The Bible is emphatic that God’s ultimate kingdom and our final home will not be on the old Earth but on the New Earth, where at last God’s original design will be fulfilled and enjoyed forever —not just for a thousand years.

Christ says that he will write his own name on those who overcome, as well as “the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God” (Revelation 3:12). Both God (the person) and the New Jerusalem, the city of God (the place), are spoken of as the primary ways of identifying (naming) the followers of Jesus. Our very identity is wrapped up in the place of our destiny: the New Jerusalem, on the New Earth.

After saying that mankind would rise from the dust of the earth (Daniel 12:2-3), God promises Daniel, “You will rise to receive your allotted inheritance” (Daniel 12:13). Inheritance involves land, a place lived on and managed by human beings. The New Earth is the ultimate Promised Land. It will be the eternal Holy Land in which all God’s people will dwell.

Are you looking forward to an imperishable inheritance on the New Earth?

Lord, you are our greatest inheritance, but we thank you, too, for our coming inheritance of actual land, a vast estate called the New Earth. Thank you that we will forever enjoy it, one another, and you. Thank you that we will fulfill your desire by ruling over that great land. Help us to live today as your humble servants . . . as the meek who will one day inherit the earth.