Millions of perfect people will live for ever in God's perfect Kingdom

In the course of a period of 1,000 years after the establishing of God’s Kingdom all people who have ever died will be resurrected. Then each resurrected human will be individually judged with regard to the question whether he or she can be admitted into God’s Kingdom or has to be rejected. The mentioned 144,000 lower priests and lower kings will act as judges. Those who are not admitted into God’s Kingdom will be thrown into the lake of fire. Here they will undergo the second death, the definitive death, eternal destruction.

To return one more time to the question how strict the judges will be who, after the establishing of God’s Kingdom, will determine which of the resurrected people can be admitted into this Kingdom and which of them will have to be destroyed for ever: it is remarkable that Jesus once said that the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah and the inhabitants of Tyrus and Sidon will have a bigger chance to be admitted into God’s Kingdom than the people who lived in certain Jewish cities in Jesus’ days and also a bigger chance than the scribes and the Pharisees. People who read this website should realize that thousands of years ago Sodom and Gomorrah had to be completely destroyed by God on account of their godlessness and that Tyrus and Sidon were Canaanite cities which certainly did not excel in obedience to JHWH. All this means that Jesus knew that it was quite possible that a number of these extremely sinful people would eventually be admitted into His Kingdom because once admitted they could possibly repent and be converted.

But as regards the people whom Jesus had visited in their towns and villages during His time on earth, the people to whom He had preached, before whose eyes He had done His great miracles …… and who had rejected Him and everything He was and everything he said: Jesus knew that these people would never repent and would never be converted, not even after being admitted into His Kingdom…… and therefore Jesus also knew that these contemporaries of His would never be admitted, but would have to be destroyed.

And in the eyes of Jesus the same held good for the scribes and the Pharisees: people who had definitively rejected Him and His message and His Father and the holy spirit: these people would never be able to repent and to be converted and therefore they would never be admitted into His Kingdom.

In short: the judging will be mild. In principle every person of good will, will be admitted. Only two categories of people will be rejected and destroyed. The first category is formed by people who have heard the good news about Jesus and about God’s Kingdom, but have definitively decided that they will not have anything to do with it (think of the scribes, the Pharisees, and the Jews of Jesus’ days who rejected Him). To this group belong all people whose way of living has made it certain that they will never subject themselves to the laws and rules which will be in force in God’s Kingdom. The second category of people who will be destroyed will be formed by people who have never heard about JHWH, Jesus and God’s Kingdom, but have sinned in such a horrible way against the laws of their own conscience and the laws of the natural collective conscience of mankind that it is certain that they will never be willing to obey the laws and the rules which will regulate life in God’s Kingdom.

Everybody who has lived in such a way that the judges can count on it that they will react positively to the good news about God’s Kingdom and Jesus’ ransom sacrifice will be admitted. This group includes all those who have lived in such a way that the judges can be sure that they will be prepared to subject themselves to the rules of God’ s Kingdom.

Right after the Fall of Adam and Eve in paradise God spoke to the three sinners Satan, Adam and Eve the crucial sentences: I will put enmity between you (Satan) and the woman and between your seed (offspring) and her seed. He (the seed of the woman) will crush you (Satan) in the head and you will crush him (the seed of the woman) in the heel.

Nowadays we feel sure that these words form a prophecy which foretells us that God will annihilate Satan and with Satan all the damage he has caused for the earth and for mankind, among which also death.

But the Bible passage mentioned must have been rather obscure and rather meaningless for the people who lived during the thousands of years preceding the birth of Christ. How were those people to know the real meaning behind words like: enmity, the woman, the seed, crush in the head, crush in the heel? There is a small number of passages in the Hebrew Scriptures which might possibly be explained as signs that, even preceding the birth of Jesus, there was some awareness among some people of the possibility of a resurrection from the dead and the end of the phenomenon called death. But in general we must assume that all followers of JHWH who lived before the birth of Christ accepted death as something that stood to reason. We must also assume that they viewed death as definitive.

What God really meant with the sentences quoted above (taken from Genesis 3:15) is often called God’s Holy Secret in the Bible: God’s intention to realize His ends with the earth and with man in the course of human history. According to a plan which was kept secret by God for many centuries. And which was only fully explained and made clear during Jesus’ stay on earth.

In the Bible Jesus is the first person who mentions the idea of a Kingdom of God in which people will be completely happy for all eternity. Jesus is also the first person who has offered people (the living and the dead) the possibility of a resurrection from the dead. This is the essence of the good news: a resurrection from the dead followed by immortality on a paradise earth. Jesus also explained to the people what they would have to do to acquire that resurrection and that eternal perfect life.

The essence of Jesus’ teaching is: God has made the earth and man with certain ends in mind. The ultimate end is a paradise-like earth on which perfect people live for ever in perfect happiness. However: this paradise-like earth can only be inhabited by people who have voluntarily and from conviction chosen to assume an attitude of appreciation and respect for everything that God has made for them, including His laws, commandments and prohibitions. These people must acknowledge God as their creator and sovereign and they must accept that as regards knowledge, power and insight they will never achieve the level of God.

Adam and Eve have made an easy, direct realization of God’s intentions for the earth and for mankind impossible.

However: the Bible teaches us that God always achieves His ends: that paradise earth with those perfect people on it, who love and serve their God in a perfect manner and who will live for ever…… that earth is going to be a reality. As a result of the sacrificial offering of God’s Son, the Kingdom of God and the resurrected people who will live in it.

The Bible teaches us that every human being was created by God and that God knows and remembers every detail of the personality, the body and the mind of each individual for ever. This gives us a perfect guarantee that, even thousands of years after they have passed away, God is able to raise people up from the dead with exactly the same characteristic qualities they had during their lifetime.

The vast majority of the thousands of millions of persons who will be resurrected after the establishing of God’s Kingdom will be people who have never heard of God and Jesus during their earthly life. These have never read or heard as little as one single sentence of the Scriptures. After their resurrection these people will receive a perfect education with regard to everything they should know about God and Jesus and God’s intentions for the earth, for mankind and for them. Eventually these people will also be allowed to choose in perfect freedom whether they want to cooperate with their creator and subject themselves to His regulations and commandments or reject their creator and His intentions and rebel. Ultimately God’s Kingdom in its eventual and definitive form will only consist of angels and persons who know how to appreciate this perfect kingdom and have voluntarily and from conviction decided to comply with its rules.