The millennium will be the last age in God’s old creation. In order to understand this properly, we need to realize that the universe is composed of three periods. The first period was the time before Adam, the pre-Adamic age. No one can tell how long that period of time was. The second period of the universe extends from Genesis 1:2 through the end of the coming millennium. Following this second period, there will be the third period of the universe—the new heaven and the new earth with the New Jerusalem—which will last for eternity.
The second period of the universe is the period of accomplishment, the time during which God accomplishes His eternal purpose. The period of accomplishment began with the creation of man. The second coming of the Lord Jesus will not end this period of accomplishment, because the old heaven and old earth will continue for another thousand years after the Lord’s coming back. Those one thousand years will be a continuation of the period of accomplishment. The Lord’s second coming will be even a further step in the accomplishment of God’s purpose. Therefore, God’s accomplishment of His purpose began with the creation of man and will be completed not at the time of the Lord’s second coming but at the end of the millennium.
The millennium will be the last and most crucial part of the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose. We need to stress this point strongly because throughout the centuries many Christian teachers have held the concept that when the Lord Jesus comes back everything will already be completed. According to this concept, the Lord’s coming back apparently means the end of the old universe and the beginning of the new heaven and the new earth, for a wonderful period of time, the millennium, will begin. But no matter how wonderful the millennium will be, during that time the old heaven and the old earth will remain in existence. At most, the millennium will be a time of restoration. The old heaven and old earth will be restored during the millennium, but they will not yet be changed from the old to the new. The changing of the old heaven and earth into the new heaven and earth will require another thousand years. Hence, the period of time from the creation of Adam until the second coming of Christ will issue in the restoration of the universe, but it will not result in the renewal of the universe. That will require another thousand years. After the last thousand years have passed, the entire universe will be changed from the old to the new. Then there will be the new heaven and the new earth with the New Jerusalem.
We should not hold on to the concept that at the time of Christ’s coming back everything will be all right. Not everything will be all right at that time. Although Satan will be bound, he will not be fully dealt with during the millennium. At the end of the millennium, he will be loosed from his prison, he will deceive the nations, and he will lead them in battle against the Lord (Rev. 20:7-9). At the end of the millennium, Satan will still work against God. Furthermore, the evil in human nature will not be completely dealt with during the millennium. Although all the nations will be subdued, at the end of that time Gog and Magog will rebel once again, proving that the element of rebellion in man will still be present. Third, death, the last enemy (1 Cor. 15:26), will not be cast into the lake of fire at the second coming of Christ but at the end of the millennium (Rev. 20:14). Thus, three evil things—Satan, the rebellious nature of man, and death—will still exist even at the end of the millennium. This indicates that the millennium will be the last age in God’s old creation, a time during which the Lord will work to eliminate these three evil things from God’s eternal universe.
The chart in message two hundred forty includes eternity in the past and eternity in the future. Between the two ends of eternity there are four circles indicating the dispensation before law, the dispensation of law, the dispensation of grace, and the dispensation of the kingdom. All these dispensations, including that of the millennium, belong not to God’s new creation but to His old creation. The old creation is used by God to prepare the three kinds of people He needs: the church overcomers to be the kings in the millennium, the saved Israelites to be the priests in the millennium, and the restored nations to be the people in the millennium. During the dispensation of the millennium, God will continue to perfect the believers who were not willing to cooperate with God’s sufficient grace to be perfected during the church age. Because they have died without being perfected, God will perfect them in the coming age of the millennium, an age that will still be in the old creation.
During the age of the millennium, God will also purify the restored nations. After they have been purified, they will be qualified to become God’s people, but not His sons, in the new earth. Therefore, the millennial age will still be used by God as an age of preparation. During this age He will perfect the saints who have not been perfected during the age of the church so that they may be qualified to enter into the New Jerusalem for God’s eternal kingdom. During the millennium, God will also purify the restored nations to be the people on the new earth.
Luke 19:12 and 15a indicate that the millennial kingdom will be the kingdom received by Christ from God the Father. It comprises the kingdom of Messiah, which is the expectation of many devoted Israelites from the Old Testament to the time when Christ will come back to restore the nation of Israel, and the kingdom of Christ (Eph. 5:5), which is the expectation of the seeking believers in the New Testament age. Hence, it will fulfill the desire of God, of the devoted Israelites, and of the believers in the coming age of one thousand years, which will be the last age of God’s old creation.