Nathan Jones.
What are God’s reasons for telling us why He will replace human government with Christ’s Millennial Kingdom?
God’s reasons involve both ultimate and immediate purposes. First, let’s look at the ultimate purpose. God provided special revelation through the prophets and Jesus Christ—the source of all prophetic revelation (Revelation 19:10). Our Lord used words, visions, dreams, miracles, and theophanies so that He could, as theologian Lit-Sen Chang stated, “reveal His divinity to His creation, display His many excellencies, and declare His glory, especially in His work of redemption.”
As we witness how God’s plan for the ages unfolds, we’re meant to be astounded more and more by our wonderful Creator, Redeemer, and King.
And second, the immediate purpose is achieved when God displays His awe-inspiring majesty. Doing so causes sinners to fall on their faces in repentance, become regenerate, and live on to fulfill their ultimate purpose of loving God and each other for all eternity. When the fallen become saved, their miraculous recreation and restoration into a right relationship with the heavenly Father reflects His glorious excellencies, which go on to lead even more of the lost to salvation.
Big Picture Purposes
Did you know that a whopping 31 percent of the Bible is prophetic? God truly wants us to know the future! Knowing God’s prophetic Word, therefore, becomes extremely vital to our lives.
How God reveals Himself and His will through the unfolding of biblical prophecies acts as an evangelistic beacon calling sinners to salvation and into a right relationship with the everlasting Father. And, for those who are already saved, Bible prophecy can also be wielded as a powerful apologetic, which, as Jude defined, allows Christians to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).
By the power of the Holy Spirit and through the study of God’s Word, Christians can use prophecy as a spiritual weapon to expose the erroneous teachings and heresies that oppose the worship of the one true God and lead mankind astray. As Chang so eloquently described this epic battle for the truth, “It is theology at war!”
God’s revelation of Himself and His will through fulfilled Bible prophecy brings Him praise and glory, leads the lost to salvation, and provides an unassailable defense of the Christian faith. Those are the big-picture purposes.
Little Picture Purposes
God’s little-picture purpose for revealing His future victories is directed at two different people groups. The first consisted of the prophets’ immediate audience—the Israelites. After 70 years of exile to a pagan, foreign nation, the Jews in Daniel’s time held very little hope of ever returning to their homeland. God’s prophetic messages to Israel—both then and now—were meant to reassure the Jewish people that their time of exile from their homeland and His presence would indeed come to an end. Because God remains ever-faithful to His covenants, He then must restore His people—not only to Jerusalem but also into His everlasting kingdom. Prophecy provided the ancient Israelites with hope, and as you see, is meant to give modern-day Israel great hope as well.
There’s a second group that will benefit from this little-picture purpose for why God has promised a divine, everlasting kingdom. Biblical scholar Sidney Greidanus explained that God wanted to provide much-needed hope to His other chosen people—the Church. Ever since the Church was founded at Pentecost and up to that wondrous day when Christ will call all His faithful up to heaven in the rapture—this era called the Church age—Christians have suffered and will continue to suffer mightily under the oppression of failed human governments. Why, a staggering 45 million Christians were martyred in the twentieth century alone!
As we, the Church, wait for Jesus to usher in His perfect kingdom, we groan unceasingly under the pains of persecution. We’re oftentimes left dismayed that there appears to be no end in sight to our sufferings. The longer this promised kingdom is delayed, the easier it becomes for Christians to lose hope, and so risk losing faith in Jesus and His stated promise to return.
To counter this malaise, God has revealed hope-filled prophecies about Christ’s kingdom that are meant to confirm His faithfulness as a covenant-keeper who always keeps His promises. With that revelation, we Christians can take heart, shore up our faith, and persevere in our hope that infinitely better days lie ahead.
