Thus far, we have seen that in the millennium the overcoming Christians are the kings, the saved Israelites are the priests, and the nations are the people who obeyed the eternal gospel during the great tribulation. The overcoming Christians in the millennium are saved, regenerated, and fully transformed. They are the kings as well as the priests. They are the kingly priests, the royal priesthood, according to the order of Melchizedek (1 Pet. 2:9; Heb. 7:1-2). The saved and regenerated Jews, who are the priests to the nations, are not fully transformed yet. They are still in the old creation. They live on the earth to be the priests to teach the nations how to know and how to serve God. Later on, these Jews will be fully transformed and changed in body when the New Jerusalem is ushered in. Again, the New Jerusalem is a composition of all the saved, regenerated, redeemed, and transformed people. The nations in the millennial kingdom are not regenerated, as shown by the parable of the net in Matthew 13:47-50. The net in this parable gathers all the nations from the sea, which signifies the Gentile world.
At the end of the thousand years of the millennium all the overcoming saints will be translated into the New Jerusalem. All the saints who were not ripened in the church age and yet became ripened during the millennium will be translated into the New Jerusalem also. The saved Israelites of the millennium and the redeemed Israelites of the Old Testament will also be changed and translated into the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem will be a composition of all God’s redeemed from eternity to eternity. At the end of the millennium some of the nations will rebel against God again. This is referred to in Revelation 20:8-10. Satan will induce the nations to rebel against the Lord, and all these rebellious ones will be destroyed. The rest of the nations will be translated into the new heaven and the new earth to be the peoples on the new earth.
Revelation 21:24 says that the nations will walk in the light of the New Jerusalem. All the saints in the New Jerusalem will enjoy the fruit of the tree of life as their food, and the leaves of this tree will be for the healing of the nations so that they can exist (22:2). The saints, who are the components of the New Jerusalem, will also be the kings and the priests (vv. 3-5). They will live by the fruit of the tree of life, while the nations will exist by the leaves of the tree of life.
In conclusion, we must remember the crucial point concerning the kingdom. The kingdom is the requirement of the gospel, and this requirement can be met only by the life of Christ within us. After we have been regenerated, we must grow, mature in life, run the race, and pay the price to attain the goal of the uttermost enjoyment of Christ in the millennial kingdom as a reward to the overcomers.
When we as Christians are truly under the rule, the exercise, of the reality of the kingdom, we will be a group of people who will hasten the coming of the Lord (2 Pet. 3:12). This means that our living will hasten the coming of the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens. The Lord taught the disciples to pray for the coming of the kingdom (Matt. 6:10). We must pray for the kingdom to come and must live in the reality of the kingdom until the earth is fully recovered for God’s will in the coming kingdom age.