WILL CHRIST REIGN IN JERUSALEM FOR 1,000
YEARS?
by Garland M. Robinson
       
There is a great deal said today about a 1,000 year reign of
Christ on earth. However, it is not taught in the Bible. No
scripture can be found that the Lord will ever set foot on this
earth again. His second coming will be in the clouds and those who
are the faithful will meet Him there and will stay there. "For
the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the
voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in
Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall
be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord
in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord"
(1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).
        Nothing can be found saying
the Lord
will establish a political or military kingdom on this earth. In
fact, Jesus said, "...My kingdom is not of this world:
if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight,
that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my
kingdom not from hence" (John 18:36). How much plainer
could it be?
       
There were those in the first century who would have made Him
a king but He refused. "When Jesus therefore perceived that
they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he
departed again into a mountain himself alone" (John 6:15).
        If there is a future kingdom
to be
established in Jerusalem, then Jesus is a liar! In Mark 9:1 Jesus
said, "...Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them
that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have
seen the kingdom of God come with power" (Mark 9:1). Jesus
said some in His audience would see the establishment of the
kingdom and would even be members of it. This is exactly what we
read throughout the remainder of the New Testament. The members of
the church at Colosse were in the kingdom. Upon their conversion to
Christ (Col. 2:12), they had been translated out of the power of
darkness and INTO the kingdom (Colossians 1:13). If the kingdom is
yet to be established in the future, to what were these brethren
added in the first century? The Scripture plainly says they were
added to the kingdom. Revelation 1:9 says the apostle John was in
the kingdom. If the kingdom has not yet been established, how could
he have been in it?
        All faithful Christians,
since the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 to the present, are members of the
Lord's precious kingdom TODAY.
New Bible Question? Click Here.