Question: If believers are raptured, they will return to earth during the millennial reign. Yet we know that children will be born and death exists during this period...how do we find agreement between the two?

December 1, 2009

TBC Staff

Question: If believers are raptured, they will return to earth during the millennial reign. Yet we know that children will be born and death exists during this period...how do we find agreement between the two? Wouldn't it be impossible for believers who are transformed to live in a world where death exists-indeed death results from sin unless the notion is that the believers who reign, do so in a different bodily form?

Response: In Revelation:20:6 we read, "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years."

The Scriptures must always have precedence over speculation. In this passage of Scripture we are told very clearly that the resurrected saints will rule and reign with Christ during the thousand years of the millennium. In 1 Corinthians:15:52 we are given further information: "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."

"We shall be changed...." What a blessed promise! You ask whether it would be impossible for believers "who are transformed to live in a world where death exists." No, for "we shall be changed." The transformation we shall undergo will also equip us to reign with Christ for a thousand years. If we know ourselves, we know the necessity of being completely changed in order to be worthy regents with Christ.

Although we are not given the details of our transformation, it must be far beyond our imagination in order to enable us to "bear the image of the heavenly" (1 Cor:15:49). May the Lord encourage us with His faithfulness.

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