The Age to Come

With the Second Coming of our Lord is linked the Glorification of the Church, the Restoration of the Jew, and the Judgment of the Unbelieving World. These close the present age. Then follows the age to come, or the Millennial Age. Concerning this period, note first, that

It will be earth's Golden Age of a Thousand Years.

It was the boast of one of Rome's greatest emperors that he found Rome of brick and left it of marble. So the Lord says of Jerusalem in the age to come that for brass He will give gold (Isa. 60: 17). And not only for Jerusalem, but for all His earth only the preciousness of gold as contrasted with the cheapness of brass can describe the glorious change that shall come to it from the hand of God in those golden days. Instead of sin righteousness shall fill the earth. Where violence once held sway peace and tranquility shall forever reign; where the moans and sobs of sorrow arose, songs of joy and exultant gladness shall fill the days; where war's awful slaughter ravaged the nations of men, peace and good will to all men shall brood over God's restored creation. Injustice shall yield to righteousness, vio

lence to quietness, hatred and enmity to love and sweet fellowship; and the world shall be at rest under the sway of Him whose dominion shall be from sea to sea and whose reign shall bring peace and gladness to the hearts of the millions who acclaim him King and Lord. It will indeed be earth's golden age of which poets have sung and for which a suffering, sorrowing world has waited through all the passing centuries since its King was crucified and its Lord of glory rejected by His own.

Because the Scriptures represent this age as lasting a thousand years, it is called (from the Latin word "mille" meaning a thousand) the Millennium or the Thousand Years. Some object to taking this as a literal statement of duration of time, because, they say, it is mentioned in but one chapter of the Word of God, the twentieth of Revelation. But in addition to the fact that even a single clear statement of fact by the Scriptures is sufficient for a child of God, note the repetition of this period of time in the selfsame chapter. Satan is bound for the thousand years (v. 2); he is loosed for a little season after the expiration of the thousand years (v. 3); the resurrected martyrs reign with Christ the thorsand years (v. 4); the wicked dead are not raised until the end of the thousand years (v. 5); those in the first resurrection are said to reign with Christ the thousand years (v. 6); and at the end of the thousand years, the final doom of Satan is sealed (vs. 7-10). Here we have

six distinct references to the reign of Christ upon earth as being a period of one thousand years. If we accept the testimony of man that the present gospel age has continued for nearly two thousand years, why should we not receive the testimony of God that the coming millennial age will last for one thousand? "If the witness of man is great, the witness of God is greater."

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It will be an age in which Jesus Christ Reigns as King upon the earth.

"The Lord God shall give unto Him (Jesus) the throne of His father David; and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever" (Lu. 1:32-33).

David's throne was upon earth not in heaven, and the promise here is clear and explicit that Christ shall reign over the Jews in the age to come exactly as His father David had done in ages past.

"In the regeneration ye shall sit upon twelve thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel,"

were Christ's words to the apostles. An equally clear promise this, that they, in the age to come, should share with Him this very rulership over Israel upon earth, which the angel announced to Mary should come to her son. In Rev. II: 32,

the cry from heaven is that,

"The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ."

And in Rev. 5: 10, the cry of those who have been made kings and priests unto God is, "and we shall reign on the earth."

So, too, the kingdom of Christ as seen in Dan. 2:44 is one which succeeds all other earthly kingdoms, and which "fills the whole earth" (v. 35).

The picture in Daniel 7: 14 is a picture of earthly kingdoms and in it "there was given Him (Christ) dominion, and glory, and a Kingdom, that all people, nations and languages should serve Him." These are earthly peoples and nations, as the context clearly shows, and dominion and rulership over them upon earth is given unto the Lord Jesus Christ.

A clear passage, too, upon this truth is Jeremiah 23:5, in which, speaking of the coming Kingship of Christ the Spirit says:

"I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth."

It will be an age in which The Saints Rule With Christ.

Paul assumes this to be a well understood and most practical truth when he warns the Corinthians against going to law one with another. Not only is it unbecoming to them as Christians so to do, but how unfitting and inconsistent is it that men who were some day to rule the world could not settle little matters of this present life