Sources: Psalm 2:5-9, Psalm 24, Psalm 89:20-37, Isaiah 11, Isaiah 44:1-5, Isaiah 65:17, Hosea 2:14-23, Joel 2:24-26, Micah 4, Zechariah 2:10-13, Zechariah 14, Revelation 20
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, but without any physical presence (which is true, but that’s not exclusively it).
But, the “first resurrection” clearly involves everything happening here. God had started a perfect society in the beginning, and 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.
At the Fall (Genesis 3), the entire design of the universe pivoted from “give” to “take”. We were originally designed to find meaning in giving, but nature’s entire ecosystem became taking-based at that moment. God’s plan is to bring that back again with an unstoppable trend, starting with building each individual into a loving imitation of Himself, then putting them in a loving spiritual family, which broadens into loving communities, and finally materializes as an entire society driven by love instead of our present one driven by fear and power.
These are some details of what will likely happen about 100 years out from Jesus returning, after people settled into a routine under a government that provided complete safety and justice. It’s not precise, but is as good as it can be in light of our current society.
The New Kingdom will be very surreal compared to our daily lives. 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.
The only Christians of this age who will see the Millennial Kingdom (and run it) will be the believers martyred by the Antichrist. The Kingdom established here on earth will likely become the cultural predecessor to the rest of eternity, so the believers of today are only missing out on that beginning part.
If you can read this, society is likely tolerant enough that this probably won’t happen in your lifetime, though many people have predicted otherwise.
Currently, none of us are fit to even exist in this Kingdom. Someday, if we stay faithful to Jesus, we’ll live in a similar society that comes after that, but is the fruit of a lot of inner work right now (Hebrews 12:1-3).
Another Covenant
In the same way God created a Covenant/Testament with Abraham (Old Testament) and another through Jesus directly (New Testament), He’d make a Third Covenant with all humanity, with the bond being closer to the symbol of marriage than fealty/submission.
It’s difficult to imagine what would be in that Covenant, but the clarity and simplicity of His direct rule would probably mean it’d be shorter than the other two. The OT is about 800 pages, and the NT is about 400, so it may only be 200 pages!
This agreement will include our relationship with animals and plants as well. The basis will be love for all living things. Angels will likely exist under our judgment as well.
The people present for that Covenant will be at least some of the people who survived the Tribulation (likely including people who hadn’t received Jesus as their salvation) and, possibly, the believers who had died previously, but with perfected bodies.
History itself will be purged of the many sins we’ve committed. 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, because everyone will love each other, they’d presume the best of the other person and the conflicts would never be prolonged, suppressed, or devolve into violence. Everyone would sort out their issues as quickly as possible.
Laws would only serve to enforce common sense and self-respect, and would rarely be broken 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. Bearing false witness, intentionally misspeaking or misusing words, and turning a blind eye to evil will be as punishable as much more serious crimes like physical abuse or rape. Since God’s Holy Spirit (who can see our motives) will be frequently involved in conflicts, there’ll be much more emphasis on intent than action.
There’d still be law enforcement, but they wouldn’t need near as much power to contain people, since we won’t have constant rebellion brewing in our souls.
Most (if not all) of the day-to-day laws and their enforcement would come from existing believers from this age. Since believers who have lived will remember this present age, they’d know firsthand how specific social behaviors can corrupt one’s soul and society at large.
Topography
The land of Israel will be lifted like a mountain compared to all the rest of the region. It’s very likely that the entire geographical form we’re familiar with (with the seven continents and 71% of its surface being water) will be gone.
The land would be healed, with minerals put back into the soil to pre-Fall conditions. 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.), but they won’t be nearly as harsh or unforgiving. We may see the pre-Flood underground reservoirs or water canopy.
The topographical shift could possibly come from all the natural disasters that had happened previously in Revelation. Earthquakes, volcanoes, meteor showers, and water turning to blood can mineralize the soil, break open reservoirs of water, and affect cloud formation.
The new biomes will make traveling extremely safe, since people can forage whenever they get hungry and can rest without needing a robust shelter.
There’d be far fewer natural disasters. Any that exist won’t cause nearly as much damage, if any, or would be God’s quick judgment on rebellious people groups. With fewer natural disasters, the earth would have less erosion and geologically cycle a bit slower than we’re used to, meaning structures would stay preserved for longer.
All the animals will be unafraid of humanity, so their epigenes (i.e., microevolution) will adapt to becoming herbivorous and docile, similarly to before the Fall. The added quality of the soil will create healthier fruits and vegetables, which will permit all animals to subsist strictly on fruits and dead plant matter.
Parasites will only be a strictly beneficial coexistence, so most viruses will cease to exist, which will eradicate most if not all diseases.
God’s light will shine all day, every day. We won’t need to sleep, and there won’t be nighttime. Places like caves and indoors will still have darkness, but nothing to the extent of what we’re accustomed to right now.
Entropy would likely decrease. Physical objects may still decay, but it likely won’t be near what we’re accustomed to. Thus, things won’t deteriorate or break down as quickly, meaning we can make more elaborate things that last longer.
Nations
There will still be nations, with God reigning over Israel. Israel will be restored to its original size that God promised Abraham, and Mount Zion will be raised to be the highest mountain around, with Jesus reigning from it. The center of power would come from Israel, first and foremost.
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.
All the remaining people who weren’t obliterated by the end of Revelation 19 will still be part of their nation (e.g., Egypt, China). Those nations will be required to celebrate the Feast of Booths every year, and will all likely switch from the current calendar (Gregorian right now) 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 the military technology will have been repurposed for civilian use.
Around 100 A.P., the next few generations will have already diluted the idea of “nations”, and 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, selflessness is still a choice, so there’d still be selfish people. They’d be the equivalent of today’s “village idiots”. Many of them would submit themselves to vices, and the destructive nature of their lifestyles would impede their ability to succeed. In fact, while anyone can live indefinitely, they won’t live past 100!
The concept of money would be gone. Since nobody would care to stockpile power, the only “currency” people would honor would be their reputations. But, 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 would be wiped of the names of everyone we’ve heard about right now. God would completely wipe the names of anyone who created anything for their glory, even while people may still remember the methods to making their technologies.
Groups would converge strictly for clear purposes. As people started specializing, the lack of power-mongering would mean that a significant segment of the group may break off at any time to perform that divergent task. Thus, no group would ever surpass about 150 people.
The cultures of all the people groups in the New Kingdom would be within a specific range:
- Conflict Style – Everyone would be graciously confrontational, since they’d have no fear that other people would become offended or distort the truth.
- 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 – While everyone would be held personally responsible for their decisions, they’d focus on the best interests of all humanity. Privacy wouldn’t matter much, but would always be respected.
- 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. While everyone would respect each other’s unique abilities and strengths, nobody would be considered “lesser” simply by having less power or authority. 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, but be considerate of others’ short-term pain. While not everyone would be able to imagine large-scale consequences, everyone 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 – Since everyone would have significantly more faith in God, they’d significantly more comfortable with uncertainty than we are today. However, some people will accept unknown things more than others.
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.
Marriage will be an established institution, but without the possibility of divorce. Because of the generally loving environment across all people groups, every young person would naturally find good matches for marriage, no matter the culture, and parents wouldn’t force their children into a marriage just for power or an exchange. Children would always be celebrated and considered a blessing. Infertility would be much less frequent.
People would generally move faster and get more things done, since they wouldn’t have to deal with others pushing in crowds or byproducts of self-interested, destructive behaviors like traffic jams.
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!
The implications of this mean that young people will respect their elders’ superior experience, and elders will consider the value of new trends. Thus, everyone would adopt better trends that added more value (because the young heeded the old), and more quickly (because the old considered the young).
Cross-pollination of cultural values will be frequent. Often, people who travel among groups (such as couriers) will spread the culture through informal stories of other cultures and places. The values that created the most loving, harmonious solutions (e.g., askida ekmek, or “paying it forward”) would invariably win out as the trends propagated.
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.
The results of each person’s work would be dramatically increased from 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.
Exchanges and business would be dramatically different than we’re accustomed to. 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 the creator ever needed or wanted anything later, they could freely take it, but would also love everyone else to the point that they wouldn’t hoard it, so others could have it if they needed it as well.
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 would have a well and be responsible for keeping it cleared, but everyone would profit from the cleared well, and they’d freely gift the well owner out of gratitude, so they’d never feel burdened by their responsibility.
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 there that we see now, likely wider from all the expanded understanding of each person.
The consequences of work would yield more. There wouldn’t be as much waste from arbitrarily getting distracted, forgetting information, or decomposing items.
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.
- Since people would have perfect memories, there’d be nowhere near as severe a need for educational services, though mass-produced books would still be common.
- Since people would rarely break the law, law enforcement and lawyers, as well as paramilitary groups, wouldn’t be nearly as necessary.
- Trust-based services like security guards and cybersecurity wouldn’t be necessary (or at the very least barely existent) because everyone would respect each other’s property.
There’d be no power games to gain more work, since the purpose would be strictly out of love for everyone else.
People would be more patient in their work, and everyone else patient with them as they worked. People would only move slowly to get the job done right, not out of laziness, since they’d understand the importance of their job. There’d be no pressure to cut corners or rush deadlines, so safety risks from those created things would be rare or nonexistent.
To advertise work, a person would only need word-of-mouth. Everyone else, in their love for others, would be constantly trying to connect two people they knew, but wouldn’t try to profit off that exchange.
Marketplaces would look dramatically different from what we have now. Instead of people screaming for attention or obstructing the view with advertising, they’d only clearly indicate their services or heighten the pleasure of the experience for the consumers. In the case of similar vendors, passersby would visit the least-visited services to consume.
Naturally, some people will do a better job than others. Because of love on both the customers’ and vendors’ side, the customer will gently point out precisely how a product is inferior, and 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.
If the market for something ever over-saturates, whatever it is, then everyone in that community will work together to consider how to resolve it. Often, another group elsewhere might be able to use that service, or maybe the vendor could focus on a specific specialization they’d prefer to explore instead.
People wouldn’t be lazy or conceited to receive correcting, so 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.
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 the collective benefit of everyone else through their willingness to perform actions.
- Others would give to them as needed, meaning they’d never suffer severely from not working.
Creativity
Every person would work diligently to create, but those creations would be designed to give honor and glory to others and God. The users, not the designers or managers, would dictate the direction that things would advance toward.
Thus, while a film may have credits with someone’s name, that creator’s personality and the power they’d gain through influence would never get in the way of the creation.
The choice of stories won’t be driven by the sensational or shocking, but instead toward love of improving society through inspiring virtue. Stories of people who heroically save others, live by good values, give meaning to others, and do remarkably unpleasant jobs will receive most of the attention.
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, the creator would hand off the trend to someone else who would put their spin on the idea, without the constraints of ego interfering with the object’s quality.
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.
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. Thus, the rocket scientist would have the support of the farmer, and everyone in the group would receive the praise, which would all go back to God.
Everyone would work their job with the understanding it may change someday. They wouldn’t be afraid of losing that role like our society 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.
Recreation
We’d create all sorts of things like what we see today for recreation. However, those creations would be driven strictly by a 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. There’d be competitions and tournaments for just about anything anyone wanted, as long as there were a few people to have fun competing with.
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. The need for books would be dramatically lower, since a much better memory would mean 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. Parents would bring their child into their trade initially, but would empower their children toward their natural talents and desires based on their personality. This would often mean sending their adolescents to a different social group entirely.
The educators would be masters of their craft, and the Holy Spirit would show Himself through their work, whatever it was. Anyone who educated would do it because they were the best at it, not because of a formalized committee, but from the entire group agreeing that person was the best. 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.
Since nobody would fear losing power or influence from others “stealing” information or intellectual property, the collective of human understanding would develop within weeks instead of years.
Technology would develop much more quickly than we’re accustomed to because people who invent things will quickly give away their developments, empowering other people to build on that existing development.
If multiple people were working on the same problem, they’d quickly do one of the following:
- One of them would cease to build anymore, then gives all their resources to the other with their complete moral support.
- They’d both combine their efforts, 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 inside every mass-produced mechanism.
- Most fittings like pipes and wall panels will be easily attachable and quick-release, meaning changing it will be comparable to how we swap a light bulb.
- Interchangeable parts like bolts and latches will fit in many places, meaning most people with a junk drawer can 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.
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.
- The community of people around that worker, out of gratitude for the importance of their past role, would assist that person to another role they’d like.
- The person with the obsolete role would happily find something else to do, since they’d be satisfied the work was getting done better and faster with automation than they could have ever done by themselves.
Inventors’ love for others would mean they’d carefully consider the ecological impact of their creations on the environment. Thus, while inventions would start with pollution and mess, people would go out of their way to create safer, healthier versions of existing things.
Some people may not believe that groups under 150 can accomplish monumental things, but we can see that small groups accomplish the biggest things even now. Nuclear power, hydroelectric dams, and skyscrapers will be accomplished by relatively small groups of people compared to what we’re accustomed to.
The product of all this is that by 100 A.P., we’d be at about the same technological level as we are right now, but with everything being safer and cleaner. Since God’s light will be ever-present, it’d be a much more reliable source of power than electricity, so we’d see much more solar generators. Computers would probably be engineered 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. It’s difficult to imagine the exponential scope of our ability in another 500 years after that once we’ve moved up the Kardashev Scale. It could include us creating teleportation or making life itself.
Health
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.
While people will still get injured, God will be far more prevalent over the situation. His wisdom will dictate how people heal, often administered through medical experts.
If the person was injured from their foolishness, 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, the foolish decisions of people who embrace excess and reject God will eventually catch up to them. At this point, they’ll die from the abuse of their body because they hadn’t heeded all the warning signs that came before.
Healthcare technology won’t be nearly as necessary as our society. While we’ll see things like genetic engineering, the direction of what we can do to our bodies will be more carefully considered, for everyone involved in the decision.
Looking Forward
It becomes dramatically more difficult to understand this prophesied society the further we go. This comes mostly because the scope of understanding from the average adolescent in that time will vastly surpass the average elderly person now, mostly from the fact they’re carefully considering 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. Any longer and we’ll run out of things to do and get bored. We’ll have discovered all the stars, explored all the lifeforms, invented everything our physics can provide. Our society has a hard time conceiving this because it’d take us millions of years to do the same thing, and with endless suffering that would make it seem meaningless.
From there, it’s time to go further, forever and indefinitely, discovering the living God the way we were designed to. It’s possible all humanity will shed its physical bodies to be like God, or maybe we get new bodies and change them out across millennia. We do know God will establish a remarkable New Jerusalem beyond anything we’ve seen in Revelation 21, but beyond that, who knows?