Off the Chart: A Thousand Years of Peace, Then to Infinity and Beyond

After the world’s armies are destroyed, an angel binds Satan with chains and throws him into a bottomless pit where he is imprisoned for a thousand years. At that time the people who believed in Jesus and died during the Tribulation period are raised from the dead. With that resurrection all the people from all along the Time Line who believed in God (during the Old Testament time) and Jesus (during the New Testament time) will be alive in their new bodies and will live with God forever.

Jesus arrives in Jerusalem and sets up his throne to rule the whole world from there for the next thousand years – called the Millennium period. He will govern those people who made it through the Tribulation period still alive. Some will be believers, and some will be those who didn’t fight in the battle of Armageddon. He will judge the survivors and send those unbelievers to the lake of fire. At this point there will only be believers left on earth - some still alive in the bodies like we have now, and the remainder in their new eternal bodies. Those believers of the church will be tasked with ruling with Jesus for that thousand year period. We are not told what that would involve, just that they would be ruling and judging.

During the thousand years of peace there will be many people born from the Tribulation survivors. Those later generations will not have lived through those terrible times, only heard of them. Unfortunately, they will still be human beings and descendants of Adam with that disobedient nature and will not be happy under the ruler ship of Jesus on earth. Since God knows the real nature of mankind’s heart, after that thousand years of peace, he allows Satan to be let out of his prison to stir up the people and give them one final choice to follow God and believe him, or choose to turn their backs on him. Those who choose to follow Satan will be destroyed and Satan thrown in the lake of fire for eternity.

At that time God will cause all of his creation to disappear (Revelation 20:11-15). There will be nothingness, except God the Father – the first spirit – sitting on his throne of judgment. This is called the Great White Throne Judgment and it is reserved for all of those who rejected him while they lived on earth. Each individual born on earth will stand before God and be judged. Since they had rejected him while alive, they were sent to their eternal place in the lake of fire – the only place in all of creation where God will be absent. Since they did not want anything to do with God they will be given their consequences of being without him for all eternity.

After the Great White Throne Judgment, God will create a new heaven and a new earth. I’m sure that means a completely new universe, because he also creates a city, called New Jerusalem, which is fifteen hundred miles wide, long and high. Now our current moon is a little over twenty one hundred miles in diameter, so this will be almost 3/4 the size of it. This city-planet-moon will be built of all sorts of precious stones for its foundations and walls*. The streets will be clear, pure gold. It will light the earth because Jesus the second spirit will be living there. This will be the eternal home of all those believers who made up the church. The earth will be inhabited with all the remainder of the believers who lived on the earth throughout the rest of the Time Line. Revelation chapters 21 and 22 give an in-depth description of this.

After this, it’s infinity and beyond forever and ever. We’re not given much information about it – just that it will be no more Curse, that God will wipe away all our tears so that we will have joy and peace forever.

*Note: I had done a study of the foundation stones and their colors. I did an illustration for myself and discovered that there is one BLOOD RED stone towards the center in that stack of foundation layers, that is a continuation of that Scarlet Cord of Christ that we’ve seen all through the timeline of history. Throughout all Eternity Future we will see that Scarlet Cord to remind us of the sacrifice Jesus made so that we can be in His presence forever.

The Great Escape

After the great snatching away of those who gave their lives over to Jesus they will be taken directly to the place where the 3-part God dwells, in Heaven. We get glimpses of it throughout the Bible in both Old and New Testaments. All “raptured” believers will be instantly given new bodies – or resurrected bodies – with the same attributes as Jesus’ new body. Our bodies will be changed to overcome the space-time limitations which now bind us to the Time Line and this earth. The new bodies will live forever and never be subject to the illnesses we face now.

During the last seven years of the current Time Line, during the time of judgment on earth and its people, those believers in Heaven will go through a rewards judgment, a rewards ceremony, and a dinner banquet.

The first event will be the Judgment Seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10). Every believer will stand before the Judgment (Bema in the Greek) Seat where they will give an account of the work they did for God in obedience to him. This is the first order of official business in eternity future for the believer. An example would be that if they believed God told them to do something and they obeyed, they will receive an award. If they disobeyed, or did it to please those around them at the time, or make themselves look better than others, their motives would have been wrong and they won’t receive a reward. Those who hung in there during persecution, those who yearned for Jesus’ return, and those who lead groups of believers will receive rewards to name a few. That is what is meant when Jesus told the people around him to lay up their treasures in Heaven.

The second event will be the giving of awards, or the awards ceremony. There are several crowns given for different types of rewards. These are diadems, or crowns of honor and royalty. 2 Timothy 4:8 speaks of a crown of righteousness, James 1:12 describes a crown of life, 1 Peter 5:4 shows a crown of glory, and Revelation 2:10 describes a crown of life. These are just a few of the rewards written about.  Not much is written about the time called eternity future – just glimpses of how wonderful it will be.

The final event during those 7 years will be the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Jesus is described as the perfect Lamb of God because while he lived here on earth, he lived a perfect life and took the place of the Jewish sacrificed lamb to pay for our disobedience so we wouldn’t have to. Revelation 19:7-9 talks about the event. It will be the final celebration when all believers dine with Jesus and each other in the largest banquet of all time.

Shortly after the Marriage Supper, Jesus returns to earth on a white horse, followed by the armies of Heaven riding white horses. I would like to think those armies were the angels followed by the raptured believers. It doesn’t specify if the believers will be in that campaign. Revelation 19:14 just says “armies.” Jesus and his army will ride down to where the battle of Armageddon will be raging and the armies of earth will immediately turn to fight him. Revelation 19: 19-21 describes how he will take the world leader (the beast) and his false prophet and cast them into the lake of fire alive. He will then destroy the remainder of the armies of the world.

Next post – beyond the Time Line.