Anatomy of 100 A.P. (anno perficio) < TheoLogosSite: what Christians must know

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A new society

After Revelation’s unusual apocalyptic events, God will restart society on earth again (Revelation 20).

Most newer believers conflate that society with the domain of what comes after that (Revelation 21-22).
Other times, they imagine His Kingdom is only an “alternate dimension” to our world without any physical presence. This is technically true, but that’s not all of it.

At the Fall (Genesis 3), the entire design of the universe pivoted from “give” to “take”. God originally designed meaning to emerge through giving, but the Fall shifted all of nature to prioritize acquisition over sacrifice.

God’s plan is to bring that back again with an unstoppable trend:

First, He builds each individual into a loving imitation of Himself.
He then places them into a loving spiritual family called the Church.
That family broadens into loving communities.
It finally materializes as an entire society driven by love instead of our present one driven by fear and power.

But, the “first resurrection” clearly involves everything happening here. God started a perfect society in the beginning with two people. He is bringing it back to that point by claiming ownership of it again (Genesis 2). The way people lived throughout the book of Acts demonstrates on a tiny scale how the coming Kingdom will look.

A new normal

These are some details of what will likely happen about 100 years after Jesus returns.

This is after people settle into a routine under a government that provides complete safety and justice.
Some of these details are remarkable in light of our current society and the world we see now.
God wrote them to bless us as readers with it (Revelation 1:3).

Compared to ours, the daily lives of people in the New Kingdom will be very surreal. Most of the human universals will still play out. People will still work, play, eat, make friends, poop, clean things, learn, and build, and will look mostly the same. But, everyone will do it differently, with a different motivation and, therefore, a different “style” than we can presently imagine.

Only the believers martyred by the Antichrist will see the Millennial Kingdom (and run it) (Revelation 20:4-5). The Kingdom established here on earth will likely become the cultural predecessor to the rest of eternity. Today’s believers, therefore, will only missing out on the beginning part.

If you can read this, society is likely tolerant enough that this probably won’t happen in your lifetime. Many people, however, have predicted otherwise.

Anyone reading this is likely unfit to even exist in this Kingdom. If we stay faithful to Jesus, we’ll someday live in a similar society that comes after that.

But, that’s the exterior work. Right now, God is doing a lot of inner work right now on us (Hebrews 12:1-3).

Another covenant

God created a Covenant/Testament with Abraham (Old Testament) and another through Jesus directly (New Testament). It makes sense He’d make a Third Covenant with all humanity. This agreeement will be closer to the symbol of marriage than fealty/submission.

It’s difficult to imagine what would be in that Covenant. However, the clarity and simplicity of His direct rule would probably mean it’d be shorter than the other two. We do have some precedent if we see it as a pattern:

the Old Testament is about 800 pages.
The New Testament is about 400 pages.
The Millennial Covenant may only be 200 pages.

One notable agreement of the covenant will be through a 3-way alliance with Egypt and Syria. Israel’s language will be the lingua franca of 5 of Egypt’s metropolitan areas. Egypt and Syria will have a major highway between them.

This agreement will be a large-scale cease-fire, and will also include a peaceful arrangement for us with animals and plants. The basis will be love for all living things. Angels in some capacity may exist under our judgment as well.

The people present for that Covenant will be at least some of the people who survived the Tribulation. Naturally, it would likely include people who hadn’t received Jesus as their salvation. It may also include the believers who had died previously, but with perfected bodies.

History will have many sins purged that frame our present understanding. People won’t remember almost anyone famous we’ve heard about (e.g., Genghis Khan, Bill Gates).

Law & order

Often, misunderstandings will create conflicts, similar to now. However, people won’t prolong or suppress conflicts, and they won’t devolve into violence. This will be because people would always believe the best of the other person. Everyone would sort out their issues as quickly as possible.

Laws would only enforce common sense and self-respect. People would rarely break those laws intentionally. Thus, the laws would exist as a fail-safe for everything else and their punishment wouldn’t be nearly as severe. The laws would have a natural hierarchy of power leading up to the top, where Jesus would judge. People would be able to directly appeal to God in letters, which He’d promptly respond to.

One notable difference to the laws, though, will be on their severity.

There will be more severe punishments for bearing false witness, intentionally misspeaking or misusing words, and ignoring evil. They may be as punishable as what we interpret as much more serious crimes like physical abuse or rape.
God’s Holy Spirit (who can see our motives) will frequently advise on conflicts. This will mean intent will be much more emphasized than action.

We wouldn’t have constant rebellion brewing in our souls. This will mean law enforcement won’t need near as much power to contain people.

Most (if not all) of the day-to-day laws and their enforcement would come from existing believers from this age. Believers in the Millennial Kingdom will remember this present age, so they’d know the corrupting effects of specific social behaviors.

Topography

God’s light will shine all day, every day. We won’t need to sleep, and there won’t be nighttime. Indoor areas like caves and unlit dwellings will certainly still be dark, but nothing as prevalent as our current state.

Entropy would likely decrease. While physical objects may still decay, their decay rate likely won’t be near what we’re familiar with. Thus, things won’t deteriorate or break down as quickly, meaning we can make more elaborate things that last longer.

Jesus will reign from Mount Zion, which will become the highest mountain around. The center of power would come from Israel, first and foremost, with Jesus being King of Israel.

Our familiar topography (with seven continents and water on 71% of the surface) won’t exist.

Earlier apocalyptic events and God’s direct terraforming will have transformed the world’s entire geographic shape.
God will lift the land of Israel like a mountain compared to all the rest of the region.
This won’t count the further geographical changes from manmade technologies (more on that below).

There’d be far fewer natural disasters.

Any natural disasters of the time won’t cause nearly as much secondary damage. God would use them as quick judgment on rebellious people groups.
With fewer natural disasters, the earth would have less erosion and slower geological cycles than we’re familiar with.
Slower geological shifts would mean structures would stay preserved for longer.

The topographical shift could possibly come from all the natural disasters that had happened previously in Revelation.

Earthquakes can break open reservoirs of water.
Volcanoes affect cloud formation and eventually soil fertility (from ash).
Meteor showers, water turning to blood, and vast piles of corpses will heavily mineralize the soil.

Flora and fauna

God will heal the land to pre-Fall conditions, with minerals put back into the soil. Thus, growing things would be as effortless as planting a seed.

It’s likely we’ll see the same biomes as before (tundra, desert, etc.). However, they won’t be nearly as harsh or unforgiving. We may see the pre-Flood underground reservoirs or water canopy.

People will be able to forage whenever they get hungry. They’ll also be able to rest without needing a robust shelter. This will make traveling extremely safe.

The flora and fauna will revert to their condition before the Fall:

The added soil quality will create healthier fruits and vegetables. This will permit all animals to subsist strictly on fruits and dead plant matter.
The animals’ epigenes (i.e., microevolution) will adapt to becoming herbivorous and docile.
All the animals will be unafraid of humanity.
Parasites will only have a strictly beneficial role, so most viruses will cease to exist. This will eradicate most, if not all, diseases.

Nations

There will still be nations, with God reigning over Israel. Israel will expand to its original size that God promised Abraham.

Israel will still be culturally Jewish, though the animal sacrifices won’t be part of it anymore. It’s possible there may still be the original animal sacrifice rituals without harming animals in the process.

Everyone not obliterated by the end of Revelation 19 will still have their nation (e.g., Egypt, China). Those nations won’t be as independent as we presently see them, though.

The nation’s borders will have altars to God erected. They will serve as a type of “embassy” with God.

To pay tribute, the nations will have to celebrate the Feast of Booths every year. It’s likely everyone will switch from our current calendar to the Hebrew calendar.

The nations will never go to war with each other again. God will prevent it, often with natural disasters that destroy any attempts or the inconvenient death of a power-monger. By this point, all military technologies would serve civilian purposes, if not outright decommissioned.

Around 100 A.P., the next few generations will have already diluted the idea of “nations”. The idea will slowly decay further as people diverge, unite, and specialize their trends and habits.

Motivation

Our current society forms from decisions we make from self-love (economic gain, military strength, ego projects). Thus, capitalism works more than socialism. In Jesus’ society, everyone would do all the claimed actions of socialism, but with the motivational sincerity of capitalism.

In Christ’s Kingdom, the entire culture would encourage and support each person acting in love beyond themselves. Thus, people would make all creations, even plumbing or scientific discoveries, strictly to solve others’ problems.

The Holy Spirit would be moving everywhere to provoke this selflessness and keep society’s fabric intact. He’d fix engineering issues through engineers, give things through drivers, work healing through doctors, and give justice through judges. He’d inspire creativity in everyone for people to expand their identity through making things, in all walks of life.

However, selfishness would still be a choice, and there’d still be people who choose it. They’d be the equivalent of today’s “village idiots”. Many of them would submit themselves to vices, and their lifestyles’ destructive nature would impede their ability to succeed. In fact, while anyone will live indefinitely, they won’t live past 100!

As a working concept, money wouldn’t exist. Since nobody would care to stockpile power, the only “currency” people would honor would be their reputations. Since everyone would understand how artificially inflating their reputation could harm others, nobody would deceive anyone else about their reputation.

Culture

The culture of the Millennial Kingdom will have many presently familiar names conspicuously absent. God would completely wipe the names of anyone who created anything for their glory. People may possibly still remember the methods to making their technologies while forgetting its originator in the previous age.

Groups would converge strictly for clear purposes. As people start specializing, a significant segment of the group may naturally and spontaneously diverge to perform a special task. Thus, no group would ever surpass about 150 people.

Marriage will be an established institution. The generally loving environment across all people groups would invalidate the possibility of divorce.

Every young person would naturally find good matches for marriage, no matter the culture.
Parents would never force their children into a marriage just for power or an exchange.
People would always celebrate children as an inherent blessing.
Infertility would be much less frequent.

Self-interested, destructive group behaviors wouldn’t cause as much damage:

Individuals would generally move faster and accomplish more.
People wouldn’t push or stampede in crowds.
Since nobody would cut others off, traffic jams of any sort would be rare.

Each group will exist with its own distinct variety of cultural elements. There will be a wide variety of customs, rituals, habits, and expected behaviors. However, while our society accepts and often empowers evil, all the various people groups will hate evil.

Cultural dimensions

The cultures of all the people groups in the New Kingdom would be within a specific range:

Conflict Style – Everyone would be have no fear that other people would become offended or distort the truth. This would mean everyone would be graciously confrontational.
Context Level – It would vary broadly by everyone’s preference. However, everyone would patiently lower their context as they saw others not quite understanding the higher context.
Individualism/Collectivism – Everyone would be personally accountable for their decisions, but they’d focus on the best interests of all humanity. While privacy wouldn’t matter much, people would respect it when someone requested it.
Masculinity/Femininity – Everyone would be as results-oriented or harmony-oriented as they wanted. However, everyone would also patiently endure others with different approaches to tasks. Men would be compassionate toward women, women would respect men.
Power Distance – Every single group would have zero power distance. Everyone would respect each other’s unique abilities and strengths. At the same time, nobody would consider someone with less power or authority as “lesser”. However, God will have all vetoing power by comparison.
Time Flexibility – Since the fear of death wouldn’t haunt us, we’d be much more time-flexible than right now. However, there’d be a broad range based on the urgency of the tasks we’re performing.
Time Orientation – Everyone would have the wisdom to look far into the future about their decisions. However, they’d be considerate of others’ short-term pain. Not everyone would be able to imagine large-scale consequences. Everyone, however, would respect and carefully consider the views of the people with the most foresight.
Principles/Applications – We’d see the same range as we see now.
Uncertainty Avoidance – Everyone would trust God significantly more than now, so they’d be very comfortable with uncertainty. However, some people will accept unknown things more than others.

Group dynamics

Cross-culturally, the love of other people (including complete outsiders) will overlook distinctive differences in customs or approach. They’ll trust that outsider, and will treat it strictly as an opportunity to learn. In fact, that person’s unique culture will often form a trend as the group observes the stranger!

People would steadily adopt trends, but never disruptively:

Young people will respect their elders’ superior experience.
Elders will stay open-minded to consider the value in new trends.
Innovators will respect laggards, while people would still respect innovators who didn’t start a trend.

Cross-pollination of cultural values will be frequent. Often, people who travel between groups (e.g., couriers) will spread the culture through informal stories of other cultures and places. Values that created the most loving, harmonious solutions (e.g., askida ekmek, or “paying it forward”) would be trendier.

Language

The language will all be the same, established and built by God to cover the broadest range of ideas. However, He’ll eradicate our usage of various terms for evil things. It’s very likely we’ll also forget the popular culture of our present time along with it.

Each group will go through a metamorphosis of language as specializations and geography require it. But, the cross-pollination will prevent any group across the world from ever entirely splintering from the rest. Literacy will be ubiquitous, but not necessary to find a place in society.

Work

Everyone would work. Not everyone would produce the same, but everyone would gain from the increase. The harder workers would receive more honor, and they would share that extra honor with everyone else.

A person’s work would be dramatically more than what we experience. People would produce without having the tremendous pains we see now. This would apply to every form of work, not merely physical labor.

When people build, they’ll get time to do things right, so the architecture will blend beautifully with the natural scenery. We’d see the wide variety of domiciles we see now, likely wider from all the expanded understanding of each person.

The consequences of work would yield more. We wouldn’t create as much waste from distractions, forgetting, or decay.

Nobody would play power games to gain more work, since their purposes would always be out of love.

People would be more patient in their work, and everyone else patient with them as they worked. People would only move slowly to do a job correctly, not out of laziness. Nobody would rush a job if it was important. Nobody would feel pressure to cut corners or rush deadlines, so safety risks would be rare or nonexistent.

People would receive correction without conceit or laziness. This means they wouldn’t need managers, with the possible exception of massive projects. However, project managers would serve more as record keepers and convenient points of contact with others than taskmasters.

Specializations

We’d see most of the same specializations such as engineering, architecture, and customer service, but with a few notable exceptions:

Money-based services, such as gambling and stock trading, wouldn’t exist.
Healthcare would be a fraction of what it is, mostly focused on recovering from severe accidents.
With everyone’s improved memories, educational services wouldn’t be nearly as necessary, though mass-produced books would still be common.
People would rarely break the law, so law enforcement and lawyers, as well as paramilitary groups, would be rare.
Most people wouldn’t need trust-based services like accountants and security guards because everyone would respect each other’s property. The roles would be rare, if not entirely absent.

Naturally, some people will do a better job than others. Both customers and vendors would love everyone else.

The customer will gently point out precisely how a product is inferior.
The vendor will have the humility to change what they do or how they do it.
Often, the inferior vendor will ask the more skilled vendor for advice, who will gladly and openly give it.

Since everyone would be loving, society wouldn’t face “unemployment” in our conventional concept of it:

Unemployed individuals wouldn’t stay that way for long, since they’d desire to act toward the collective benefit of everyone else.
Others would give to them as needed, meaning they’d never suffer severely from not working.

Everyone would work their job with the understanding it may change someday. They wouldn’t be afraid of losing that role because they’d trust everyone else would take care of their needs. Thus, they’d always be ready to delegate their role or stop it as the situation changed.

Economics

Business exchanges and business in generall would be dramatically different from how we do it. Someone would make something someone else wanted. The receiving person wouldn’t pay for it, but would be grateful, along with everyone else involved. Thus, if a creator ever needed or wanted anything later, they could freely take it. However, the takers would also love people to the point that they wouldn’t hoard it.

Property ownership would still exist, but wouldn’t be as toxic. The purpose of property would be less about power and more about responsibility. For example, someone with a well would be responsible for keeping it cleared. However, since everyone would profit from the cleared well, they’d freely gift the well owner out of gratitude. The concept of “responsibility” would equate with “reward” far more than “blame”. This would also mean nobody would care about intellectual property.

Marketplaces would look dramatically different from what we have now. Instead of screaming for attention or using obstructive advertising, they’d clearly indicate services or heighten the experience for consumers. In the case of similar vendors, passersby would visit the least-visited services to consume.

To advertise work, a person would only need word-of-mouth. Everyone would constantly try to connect people they knew, but wouldn’t try to profit off the exchange.

When a market over-saturated, everyone in a community would work together to resolve the issue. That will often include sending surplus to another group elsewhere or assisting in expanding a specific specialization of a product.

Creativity

Every person would work diligently to create, but toward honor and glory to others and God. The users, not the designers or managers, would dictate the direction that things would advance toward.

We’d make creations individually for people and for God. While we’d scale them for others, we’d never over-build to render that thing stale or unpopular. Very often, creators will hand off trends to someone else who improved an idea. Trend-setters wouldn’t let their ego interfere with the object’s quality or popularity.

In our society, we often must trade elegance for speed: ugly and fast versus good and slow. Since everyone will be more patient out of love, nobody will rush anyone, and it’d all be elegant.

Art

While a creation would have credits, that creator’s personality, power, and influence would never obstruct the creation.

Creators won’t choose to make sensational or shocking stories. Instead they’d focus on love of people, and on inspiring society to goodness. Stories would focus on heroically saving others, living by good values, giving meaning to others, and doing remarkably unpleasant jobs.

Risks would be easier to take as well. Besides the increased clarity of mind from being sin-free, everyone would know they wouldn’t have to absorb their risk alone. The entire community would be behind them, and that person would give credit in turn. The farmer would support the rocket scientist, and the praise would all go back to God.

Recreation

We’d create all sorts of things like what we see today for recreation. However, we’d create strictly for the desire to grow others’ understanding and enrich their lives. Our pastimes would be the ultimate convergence of education and entertainment.

Beyond films and books, we’d design and share electronic games, sophisticated sports, and elaborate toys. As long as a few people had fun competing in something, there’d be competitions and tournaments for whatever anyone wanted.

Without the need to sleep, we’d have much more energy. We’d still rest out of a desire to enjoy what we made, similar to God resting on the seventh day.

Education

There would be no “formal” education, since people would naturally educate others with their lifestyles. Since everyone would have a much better memory, books wouldn’t be as critical. We’d mostly need them to learn, but not to recall.

Children would still need to learn, but they’d do it from a desire and not merely out of compulsion. Children would be safe to play everywhere, including around animals we presently see as dangerous (e.g., scorpions, snakes).

Parents would initially bring their child into their trade. They’d also be open to their children acting on their personality’s natural talents and desires elsewhere. This would often mean sending their adolescents to a different social group entirely.

Educators would be masters of their craft, and the Holy Spirit would show Himself through their work. The community would elevate top educators to the role, not because of a formalized committee. Every master at a craft would fully reproduce their skills in their pupils, who would often out-succeed them.

Technology

People would share information willingly. This would include technological developments, scientific discoveries, and creative tricks.

Nobody would fear losing power or influence from others “stealing” information or intellectual property. The extra trust would make the collective of human understanding develop within weeks instead of years.

People who invent things will quickly give away their developments. This will empower other people to build on that existing development. The consequence of this would mean technology would develop much more quickly than we’re familiar with.

Some technologies, naturally, will go obsolete. This will render peoples’ roles obsolete as well (e.g., automation removes the need for drivers). At that point, several things would happen almost at once:

The creator of the invention would propose alternative roles to assist in the transition.
Out of gratitude for their prior role, the community would assist in finding them another role they’d like.
The person with an obsolete role would happily find something else to do. Since others would be happy to give them a role, they wouldn’t be afraid of automation.

Technological progress

If multiple people were working on the same problem, they’d quickly do one of the following:

Only one of them would keep building, and the others would all their resources and moral support to them.
They’d both combine their efforts as a team, with each one specializing in their natural abilities.

Inventors will also lovingly consider the people who repair things as much as the people who consume them. This will create a few technological design standards we don’t see today:

There will always be easy-to-read diagrams and instructions inside every mass-produced mechanism.
Most fittings (e.g., pipes, wall panels) will be easily attachable and quick-release. This will make replacing parts as challenging as swapping a light bulb.
Interchangeable parts like bolts and latches will fit in many places. This will mean most people with a junk drawer will be able to find what they need.
There’s no planned obsolescence to mandate people to get more of something, so some technologies will stay reliable for decades.

Inventors’ love for others would mean they’d carefully consider the ecological impact of their creations on the environment. While inventions would start with pollution and mess, people would quickly create safer, healthier versions of existing things.

Technological progress

Groups under 150 can accomplish monumental things, even in our fallen world. In the Millennial Kingdom, relatively smaller groups of people will create nuclear power, hydroelectric dams, and skyscrapers.

By 100 A.P., we’d be at about the same technological level as right now, but with everything safer and cleaner. God’s light will be ever-present, and would be a much more reliable source of power than electricity. We would probably engineer computers around pulsed light instead of electrical as well from this development. There’d be use cases for things like gasoline (e.g., mining, deep-sea exploration/excavation), but it wouldn’t be as prevalent.

At around 200 A.P., we’d be doing many of the elements we imagine in science fiction. We likely can’t imagine what 500 years would do within the exponential scope of our ability. We’d likely move up beyond the Kardashev Scale by the end of the Millennium. It could include us creating teleportation or making life itself.

Health

Infant mortality would cease to exist. The general well-being of most people would be much better than even our most developed nations today.

People born in the Kingdom would be the full range of intelligence and personality we see today. But, people will always be born healthy, without any chance of defect. Giving birth would no longer be painful.

God will be far more involved with every injury and medical emergency. His wisdom will dictate how people heal, often administered through medical experts.

If a person’s foolishness caused them an injury, they may suffer a permanent disability. This will be a mark for them, but only to humble them. Anyone who took care of themselves would live indefinitely.

After about 100 years or so, foolish decisions from people who embrace excess and reject God will eventually bring consequences. They hadn’t heeded all the warning signs that came before, and will die by that point from abusing their body .

Healthcare technology won’t be nearly as necessary as our society. We’ll see things like genetic engineering, but God will carefully guide what we can and should do with our bodies.

Looking Forward

It becomes dramatically more difficult to understand this prophesied society the further we go. This is simply because the average adolescent understanding in that time will vastly surpass the average elderly person now. They’d carefully consider the wisdom of centuries-old people who have seen the Lord’s throne room. Thus, we must settle for not knowing much more until Jesus comes back.

For 900 years after this period, we’d continue in that goodness and harmony. At the end, there’ll be an Ultimate Final Battle with the devil and all the people who have followed him. This battle will likely make everything else in Revelation look tame by comparison.

God may have made it 1,000 years because that’s all the time we need to stay here. After a millennium, we’d probably become bored here. We’ll have discovered all the stars, explored all the lifeforms, invented everything our physics can provide. It’d take us millions of years (or more) to do it with our fallen nature, so it’s hard to conceive. We also have trouble imagining life that long without suffering.

From there, our collective society would go further, forever and indefinitely:

We’d discover the living God the way He originally designed us to.
It’s possible all humanity will shed its physical bodies to be like God.
Or, we may simply get new bodies and change them out across millennia.
We know God will establish a remarkable New Jerusalem beyond anything we’ve seen in Revelation 21.
But, beyond that, who knows?