The end of the Millennial age will be marked by a final rebellion of the Flesh against the ways of the Spirit:
“And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them” (Rev 20:7-9).
So, after 1,000 years of restraint, the bonds of Divine Rule (Ps 2:3) shall be relaxed, and “satan”, the diabolos, or “sin in the flesh”, will be permitted to assert itself once more, in rebellion against the imposed dominion of Christ.
There are those who question how it could be, that after 1,000 years of experiencing the blessings of the Millennial age, that mortals would want to rebel – but such do not take into account the perversity of the human condition. There is, as part of man’s physical make up, a law of his being, styled apostolically, “sin in the flesh”, or “sin that dwelleth in me” (Rom 7:17), which when unrestrained, leads all it’s possessors into transgression. And as this principle, or “law”, resident in human flesh (Rom 8:3) can only be removed with a transformation to Immortality (Phil 3:21, 1Jno 3:2) it will remain within the mortal populace, albeit under the suppression of Divine Law, and it’s rigorous enforcement. But once the pressure is released, at the termination of the 1,000 year period of restraint, it will be permitted to exert itself once more, leading it’s possessors into rebellion against the immortal rulers.
As Bro Thomas wrote:
“If the apostle felt the workings of “the law of sin” within him, though obedient to “the law of the spirit of life”; need we wonder that the same “law of nature” should gather force in the hearts of nations subdued by fire and sword to the sovereignty of Israel’s King? Man, unrenewed man is essentially ungrateful and rebellious. The whole history of his race attests it. A thousand years of peace and blessedness will fail to bind him, by the bonds of love and a willing fealty, to the glorious and benevolent, yet just and powerful emancipator and enlightener of the world” (Elpis Israel, p 455).
So it will be, that the King will permit the Adversary (the diabolos, or Sin) to muster an army, and march them against “the camp of the saints, and the beloved city” of Jerusalem.
“But fallacious will be the hopes of the rebel multitude, and dreadful the vengeance to burst upon them. The trembling earth and the blackening heavens warn them of a coming tempest. The dark vapours and thick clouds of the sky, curling in dense and lowering masses, suddenly hiss forth the forked lightening, and the heaven is rent by the deafening roar of the voice of God. Hail, and fire mingle with hail, pour down upon them, and they are destroyed from the face of the land. Thus God will deliver his King; for “fire shall come down from God out of heaven, and shall devour them” (Elpis Israel, p456).
After the final insurrection of Sin’s Flesh against the Spirit, the Spirit shall prevail, and the final enemy, even death itself shall be ultimately destroyed. The mortals who lived during the Age of Righteousness, whose names are found written in the book of life (Rev 20:12-15), shall be rewarded with glory and immortality. And “then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death … then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all” (1Cor 15:24-26,28).
This will be the climax of 7,000 years of human history; the ultimate purpose of it all, that: “God may be all in all”. But by “the end”, we are not to suppose that the Kingdom itself will end, for the Angel testified of the Lord; “he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:33). Rather, the Millennial period will end, and the form of that Kingdom shall change. There shall be no more mortal populace, as death itself shall finally be extirpated from the earth, all the remaining inhabitants comprising a single immortal family.
All nations shall be made a full end of, save one – Israel: “I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee: but I will not make a full end of thee …” (Jer 46:28). This remaining nation, Bro Roberts describes as: “the nation of Israel with Jesus at its head – a nation purified by a process of spiritual selection and having absorbed in itself the acceptable elements of all other nations by the same process” (The Visible Hand of God, p 59).
Having embraced the Jewish national Hope, these comprise the “Israel of God” (Gal 6:16), and shall populate the earth, for the duration of the Kingdom – “without end”: –
“Israel shall be saved in Yahweh with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end. For thus saith Yahweh that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am Yahweh, and there is none else” (Is 45:17-18).
The earth itself then, was formed in order “to be inhabited” by this Israelitish nation, having received “an everlasting salvation”, through the blood of the sacrificial Lamb as the national sin-offering. It will be a “world without end”, an eternal “olahm” beyond the Millennium.
The Kingdom Age is to be essentially an intermediary period. It is the age standing between two epochs, one whereby man is permitted to rule himself by his own dictates, and one whereby all the earth is filled with an immortal family who have submitted themselves to the will of their Father. The Kingdom Age stands between the two as a transitional period between flesh and Spirit. It is an Age when the dominion of the flesh is taken away, and when all flesh shall be taught the ways of God, to submit to Him, and worship Him in spirit and in Truth. But the outworking of events to their final culmination beyond the millennium is to be a process of two stages. Firstly, as we have seen, all nations shall be taught a knowledge of God’s Glory: “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Yahweh, as the waters cover the sea” (Hab 2:14, Is 11:9). But after “the end”, the earth shall be “filled”, with that glory itself. In that day, the Father shall be manifested as the “all in all” (1Cor 15:28), for “all” of his Glorious Attributes shall be found “in all” of man.
Paul prayed concerning the Ephesian ecclesia “that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length and height; and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:17-19). But how much more will this be the case, when all the earth shall be filled solely with the constituent parts of Christ’s Body, a united family: “that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us” (Jno 17:21). The Father, His Son, and His Brethren shall be bound up together, “one in” each other, as a conglomerate entity of Immortal Beings, in whom the fullness of the Father resides. As John bare witness of this post-millennial unending age, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the former heaven and the former earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed way. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful” (Rev 21:1-5).
Christopher Maddocks
