June 27, 2014
Isaiah 65:20
(All scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.)
In the last blog I presented some ideas concerning who will be inhabiting the Kingdom during the Millennium. King Jesus will rule from David’s throne in Jerusalem – as was prophesied in many passages in both Old and New Testaments. And we – those who are participants in the first resurrection and are endowed with glorified physical bodies perfectly adapted for eternal spiritual living – we “…shall reign with Him a thousand years.” (Revelation 20:6).
But there will be another class of human being living during the Millennium – mortal beings with bodies not glorified and immortal. And how do I know this? Isaiah has several passages that describe conditions during the Millennium. One such is Isaiah 65:18 through 25. Here is verse 20:
No more shall an infant from there live but a few days, nor an old man who
has not fulfilled his days; for the child shall die one hundred years old, but
the sinner being one hundred years old shall be accursed.
Notice two things here:
• There is human death during the Millennium. Yes, there will be extended human life, as it was at the beginning when man was designed to live forever. God had told Adam in Genesis 2:16 and 17,
“Of every tree in the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of knowledge
of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall
surely die.”
Adam did eat, and he did die, but he died spiritually first! He was separated from God! It says in Genesis 3:8, when God came to fellowship with His highest creation, “…Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden.” Mankind has been, as it were, hiding from God ever since!
People will generally do whatever they can to avoid confrontation with the true eternal God! And if this is not rectified this side of life, they will enter eternity forever being cut off from their Creator – which is eternal death in hell! The only solution to this dilemma is by faith accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior – trusting in His blood to wash away your sins! “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12).
But back to Adam – and the early patriarchs in the Bible: It took a long time for disease, sickness and death to catch up with perfectly designed humanity. That’s why it is recorded that “…Adam lived…nine hundred and thirty years; and he died.” (Genesis 5:5). Concerning the longest living man in the Bible, “…all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years; and he died.” (Genesis 5:27). But die they did, just as God had said!
In the Millennium with the curse lifted, man will once again reach great ages in life. But there will be death – among hundred year old children at least, according to the above Isaiah passage! That would have to mean these human beings in the Kingdom are not glorified and immortal!
• In the same Isaiah passage above, it mentions “…the sinner being one hundred years old shall be accursed.” Glorified human beings, according to I John 3:2, “…will be like [Jesus]…for we shall see Him as He is.” This will be at His return in glory when our corruptible bodies shall be raised from the dead and changed to be incorruptible (see I Corinthians 15:51 through 54). Jesus “…committed no sin, nor was guile found in His mouth…” (I Peter 2:22). If we are made like Him, then we will have no sin nature!
So the sin mentioned by Isaiah in the Millennium cannot come from those who are transformed to be like Jesus! It must be from those who are mortal subjects of the Millennial Kingdom!
One more bit of evidence from Revelation 20:7 through 9:
Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his
prison, and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners
of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: whose num-
ber is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth
and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came
down from God out of heaven and devoured them.
This is just after the Millennium. The mortals who have lived in perfect earthly conditions are led into the final battle against God by His arch-enemy, the devil himself. This means they still have something within them – the sin nature – that will respond to Satan’s leading. So they cannot be glorified immortals!