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Table of Contents
• Saved People Will Live on Earth Forever
• Everlasting Life on Earth is Not a New Doctrine
• God Promised to Give the Land to Abraham “Forever”
• Israelites Will be Regathered to the Land of Israel
• Prophecies Relating to a Future Life on Earth
• Wonderful Promises about the Future Earth
• Jobs that Will Exist on the Future Earth
• Different Names of the Millennial Kingdom
• Conclusion and Further Reference
Jesus made a very plain and simple statement in Matthew 5:5: “The meek will inherit the earth.” Jesus did not invent that statement; he quoted Psalm 37:11. Many of the Jews of Jesus’ time had lost sight of the hope that Israel would be restored on earth, and the situation is the same today. The simple meaning of Matthew 5:5 has been lost due to the traditional teaching that saved people live in heaven forever after they die. Actually, what the Bible teaches is that Jesus Christ will come down from heaven to the earth, fight and win the Battle of Armageddon, and set up his kingdom on earth, which will fill the whole earth (Ps. 2:8; 72:8-11; Dan. 2:35; 7:14; Mic. 5:4; Zech. 9:10; Rev. 2:8; 19:11-21). He will set up his palace in the newly rebuilt Jerusalem, and for 1,000 years reign over all the earth. All the people who have been saved will be there because they will have been raised from the dead. Many scholars refer to this 1,000-year kingdom as the “Millennial Kingdom.” It is the “Kingdom” that Jesus spoke about so often when he taught about “the Kingdom of God.” After the 1,000 years are over there will be a great war (Rev. 20:7-10). Then there will be the second resurrection, and after that the Everlasting City will come down from heaven to earth, and all the saved people of all time will live in it forever (Rev. 21:1-4). Thus, the future reign of Christ on earth is divided into two parts, the Millennial Kingdom, which will last 1,000 years (Rev. 20:1-7), and the Everlasting Kingdom, which will last forever (Rev. 21-22).
Matthew 5:5 speaks of the “meek,” and those are the people who have not been self-willed or selfish, but instead have believed and obeyed God and thus gotten saved. The meek people will “inherit the earth,” meaning they will get to live forever on earth, which makes sense because God’s original plan was that people would live on the earth. God created Adam and Eve, put them on earth in Eden, and told them to multiply. God’s intent was that humankind would fill the earth. The Fall from Eden ruined the earth, but it did not change God’s plan, which will be fulfilled in the future when Jesus comes down from heaven and sets up his kingdom on earth. After Jesus fights the Battle of Armageddon and conquers the earth there will be the Resurrection of the Righteous, when righteous people like Abraham, Moses, David, Miriam, Deborah, and Ruth, will get up from the dead, and they will be a large part of the people who then populate the earth.
When Jesus said, “The meek will inherit the earth,” he was not teaching new doctrine. He was confirming and reestablishing for his day and time the clear teaching of the Old Testament that had been lost—and sadly is still lost today for most Christians. The Old Testament said that God will destroy the wicked, but the righteous will inherit the earth.
These verses are a small sampling from among the many verses in the Bible that indicate the everlasting home of Israel and of all the saved people will be the earth. The Bible expresses in many different ways the fact that the everlasting home of saved people will be on earth. Some verses specifically speak about being on earth, such as Psalm 37:9, 11, 29. Other verses are wishes for the future, such as the psalmist’s cry, “May sinners vanish from the earth and the wicked be no more” (Ps. 104:35). Some verses mention the attributes of the future earth, such as Isaiah 41:18, which speaks of places that are now deserts becoming places with springs and pools of water. Others speak specifically of the Kingdom on earth, such as Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. In the dream, the rock that smashed all the other kingdoms will “fill the whole earth” (Dan. 2:35). Others are prophecies of the future that speak of things such as each person having his own vine and fig tree and of swords being made into plow blades, which are then used to cultivate the earth (Mic. 4:3-4). All these prophecies are visions and prophecies of the earth, not of “heaven.” In contrast to these clear prophecies about a future life on earth, there are no prophecies about life in heaven in the Bible, and the reason for that is simple and profound: we will not spend eternity in heaven, we will be on earth.
God blessed Abraham by promising him that his descendants would get the land forever. In fact, the reason that the land of Israel is commonly called “the promised land” is that God “promised” it to Abraham and his descendants (cp. Gen. 13:15; 15:18; 17:8). God does not lie (Titus 1:2), so one day His promises must be fulfilled. Since Abraham is dead, the only way that God’s promise to him and his descendants can be fulfilled is that God will give the Promised Land to them after they are resurrected, and that is what the Bible says will happen (Ezek. 37:12-14). Similarly, God stated many times that His king, the Messiah, would reign on earth from Jerusalem on Mount Zion (cp. Ps. 2:6-8; 110:1-2; Isa. 2:1-4; 9:6-7; 24:23; 28:16; Jer. 3:17; Mic. 4:1-3; Zech. 8:3), but Jesus never ruled as king in his natural life on earth. Nevertheless, God’s promises will not fail and Christ will come back to earth, conquer it, and reign as king from Jerusalem just as the prophecies say.
There are many verses stating that, in the future, God’s people Israel will be gathered to the land of Israel (cp. Isa. 11:11-12; 27:13; 56:8; 66:20; Jer. 12:15; 15:15-17; 23:3-8; 29:14; 30:3-10; 31:8; 32:37-38, 42-44; 33:10-13; 46:27; Ezek. 11:17; 28:25; 34:11-13; 36:24; 37:21; 39:28; Hos. 1:11; Amos 9:14-15; Mic. 2:12; Zeph. 3:18-20; Zech. 8:7-8; 10:6; John 11:52). Although some of historic Israel had been given to the Jews, not all of it has, and furthermore, the Jews have not yet been gathered back to Israel, although there are now, and have been for some time now, some Jews moving to the land of Israel. That will happen in the future when dead Jews are raised and brought to Israel (Ezek. 37:11-14), and living Jews are brought there also. Also, Gentiles will be resurrected and fill the earth: “Do you not know that the saints [the believers] will [one day] judge and govern the world?” (1 Cor. 6:2, Amplified Bible). So, in the future, resurrected believers will again inhabit the land. At that time, what both the Psalmist and Jesus Christ said will be fulfilled: “The meek will inherit the earth.”
Another reason to believe that everlasting life will be on earth is that all the prophecies relating to the activities of Israel in the future are tied specifically to the earth. These include:
Not only is the earth going to be the home of believers, it is going to be their home forever. Psalm 37:29: “The righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever.” The first 1,000 years of that “forever” will be in the Millennial Kingdom, the rest of it will be spent on earth in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21-22). Since the earth is going to be restored to its Paradise state, and be the home of so many people, it is natural for people to think that eventually the Millennial Kingdom of Christ will, like this earth, degenerate to being a polluted and politically corrupt place with poverty, hunger, and misery. It will not. Jesus will rule the earth with a “rod of iron” to make sure that does not happen (Ps. 2:9; Rev. 2:27; 12:5; 19:15; 20:4, 5 KJV).
The Bible has many wonderful promises about the future life on earth that saved people will enjoy. Many of these are listed below:
Still more evidence that the Kingdom will be on earth is that the jobs that are described in the Kingdom are jobs that we are familiar with on earth. Even as resurrected believers, there will still be work to do on earth. Jesus himself will rule as a king and serve as the High Priest, and everyone else will have jobs to do as well. The Bible specifically mentions many jobs in Christ’s worldwide kingdom, some having more honor, some having less. These include:
The Bible does not name every job in the future kingdom of Christ. Enough are named to show us that the kingdom will be similar in diversity and needs to earthly kingdoms and nations of today.
The Millennial Kingdom is referred to by many different names in Scripture. This is not unusual; many people and places are called by different names. For example, Jerusalem is called “the city of David” (2 Sam. 5:7, 9), “the city of God” (Ps. 46:4), “Salem” (Ps. 76:2), “Zion” (Ps. 76:2), “the Lord our Righteousness” (Jer. 33:16), “Sodom” (Ezek. 16:46), “the city of the great king” (Ps. 48:2; Matt. 5:35), “Ariel” (Isa. 29:1, 2, 7), “the City of Truth” (Zech. 8:3), and more. The different names emphasize different points that God is trying to make about the person or place. The Millennial Kingdom is also called by many names and the most common ones are listed below; a study of the context where they are used shows they all refer to the Millennial Kingdom.
Understanding that “the Kingdom of God” is the kingdom that Christ will establish and rule on earth when he comes and conquers the earth clarifies many scriptures that are otherwise unclear, and thus understanding what the Kingdom of God is will greatly help Christians understand the Bible.
[For more on rewards in the Millennial Kingdom, see commentary on 2 Corinthians 5:10. For more on inheritance in the Kingdom, see commentary on Acts 7:5. For more on the order of events immediately before and after the Millennial Kingdom, see commentary on Matthew 25:32. For more on the three general types of people in the Millennial Kingdom—Christians, resurrected Old Testament believers, and natural humans in their natural bodies—see commentary on Matthew 25:34. For more on how the future will unfold from this present age to the Millennial Kingdom to the Everlasting Kingdom, see commentary on Rev. 21:1. For much more complete information about the Millennial Kingdom of Christ on Earth as well as the Everlasting Kingdom of Revelation 21-22 (which is the City that has streets of gold), see John Schoenheit, The Christian’s Hope: The Anchor of the Soul.]