Finally, at His coming back Christ will judge the living peoples. This will be the day when God will judge the world through Christ in righteousness (Acts 17:31). This is the day when Christ will judge the living (the peoples living on the earth at His coming back) on the throne of His glory (Matt. 25:31-46). After the Lord defeats Antichrist and his army, many of the Gentiles will still be living on earth. The Lord will gather them before Him for judgment. Matthew 25:31-32 prophesies, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, at that time He will sit on the throne of His glory. And all the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them from one another, just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” After Christ destroys the Gentiles who follow Antichrist at Armageddon (Rev. 16:14, 16; 19:11-15, 19-21), the Gentiles who remain on earth will be “all the nations” and will be judged. Those who are regarded as sheep will be transferred into the millennium to be the people living under the kingly ruling of Christ and the overcoming believers and under the priestly ministry of the saved Jews (2:26-27; 12:5; 20:4-6; Zech. 8:20-23; Isa. 2:2-3). Those regarded as goats will go with their leader, Antichrist, “into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41).
Christ’s coming back will begin from His throne in the heavens before the last three and a half years of the great tribulation, continue with His remaining in the air during the great tribulation, and end with His coming from the air to the earth at the end of the great tribulation. In His coming back Christ will first appear secretly as a thief and as a bright morning star to the overcomers. He will catch up the man-child, the martyred overcoming saints throughout the generations, taking them up to God and to His throne. He will reap the firstfruits, the first-ripe overcoming believers living at that time. He will also take up the other living overcoming believers, keeping them out of the three and a half years of the great tribulation.
Afterward, at the end of the great tribulation, Christ will come secretly from the third heaven to the air to catch up the majority of the saints, set up the judgment seat of Christ in the air, and choose the overcomers to marry them as His bride and constitute them into an army.
Finally, at the end of the great tribulation, Christ’s parousia will be completed in His being manifested openly to the Jews and the Gentiles. He will come on the clouds of heaven, just as the lightning coming forth from the east and shining to the west, so that every eye will see Him. At this time Christ and His overcomers will strike and slay Antichrist, casting him into the lake of fire. Christ will also gather all the tribes of Israel to the Holy Land. Moreover, He will strike the Gentiles, the nations, like a stone, crushing them into pieces, like chaff being carried away by the wind. Afterward, He will become a great mountain—the kingdom of God filling the whole earth. Finally, sitting on the throne of His glory, Christ will judge all the living peoples, the nations on the earth at the time of His coming back. Those regarded as sheep will be transferred into the millennium to be the people and those regarded as goats will go into the eternal fire.