Lastly, as God’s Administrator, Christ will judge the dead (20:11-15). Do not think that if you die everything will be all right. You may desire to die, but the Lord wants to make you alive. If you are not willing for Him to enliven you today for salvation, at the end of the old creation He will resurrect you for judgment. At that time, He will not resurrect you in a positive sense but in a negative sense. John 5:28 and 29 say, “An hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs shall hear His voice, and shall come forth...those who have done the evil to the resurrection of judgment.” The unbelieving dead will not remain buried for eternity. They will be resurrected, judged, and then cast into the lake of fire.
At the completion of His judgment of the world, Christ will come back to take full possession of the earth (10:1-7; 18:1). The whole earth will belong to Him; not one part of it will belong to anyone else. Today many nations are fighting to increase their territory, but they are fighting in vain, for whatever they gain will eventually belong to Christ. In His coming back to take possession of the earth, Christ will be like another Angel. A number of times in the book of Revelation the title, “another Angel,” is used with respect to Christ (7:2; 8:3; 10:1; 18:1). This title is used to denote Christ because, as God’s Administrator, He behaves like an angel. In the Old Testament, Christ was called the Angel of the Lord (Gen. 22:11-12; Exo. 3:2-6) who was sent by God to carry out God’s commission. When He comes to take over the earth, He will come as One who has been commissioned by God for this purpose. He will be another Angel with great authority and will come in His glory (18:1). In His coming, Christ will place “His right foot on the sea and the left on the land” (10:2). This indicates that He will tread upon the sea and the land, which means that He will take possession of them (Deut. 11:24; Josh. 1:3). In the Bible, whatever your feet tread upon becomes your possession. Since Christ will tread upon the sea and the land, both the sea and the land will belong to Him. After Christ possesses the earth, He will finish the mystery of God (Rev. 10:7). At that time, the economy of God will be fully manifested. It will no longer be a mystery, but an open secret.
After Christ takes possession of the earth, He will reign over the earth as the King in the kingdom, ruling over the nations with His overcoming believers (20:4, 6; 2:26-27). None of us are happy with the rulers of this earth. As one who has traveled throughout the world and who has come to know the world situation, I realize that as far as ruling is concerned, the entire earth is poor. Where are the proper rulers? We are awaiting the day when Christ will come as the King to reign over the earth. Christ will reign in His kingdom, and we shall be His co-kings.
Ultimately, in the book of Revelation we see Christ in His centrality and universality in eternity. In eternity, Christ will be everything. He will be the centrality and universality in the New Jerusalem (21:9-10, 23) as the tree of life growing in the river of water of life (22:1-2). In Revelation 21:23 we have a clear picture of the centrality and universality of Christ. Here we see that God is the light and that Christ, the Lamb, is the lamp. Light is always contained in a lamp. Thus, the light and the lamp should never be separated; they must remain one. God is the light, Christ is the lamp, and the New Jerusalem is the container of this lamp. God shines in and through Christ, and Christ shines in and through the New Jerusalem. By this we see that Christ will be the centrality and universality of the coming eternity. God in Christ and Christ in the redeemed ones will shine throughout eternity. This will be the scene in eternity when Christ will be the center, the circumference, and everything in the New Jerusalem. This is our Christ.