Revelation 20:5-6 “But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. (6) Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with Him a thousand years.”
Both the saints and the children of God will receive resurrected bodies at the end of this current dispensation. But it is on this point, that there is another difference between these two classes of God’s creations, for the saints will receive their resurrected bodies, when they return with Christ to reign with Him on the earth for one-thousand years. In the above passage of scripture, this event is called the first resurrection. That same passage speaks of the rest of the dead, not living again until the thousand years are completed. The rest of the dead referred to in this passage, are in fact the children of God that are in heaven today. And so, we see that the children in heaven will only receive their resurrected bodies after the millennial reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, they will still receive their resurrected bodies before God the Father does away with this present earth. For just as the natural bodies of the saints have been sown into the earth as seed for their resurrected bodies (1 Corinthians 15:44), so it is that the bodies of children have also been sown into this present earth, as seed for their resurrected bodies.
Since the time of Adam, it is estimated that no fewer than twenty five billion children have died and gone to heaven. And so, very clearly the population of children in heaven far exceeds the population of the saints in heaven, of which it is estimated that there are between two and three hundred million. Although for the sake of explaining this concept, I have referred to the children of God as being children, most are adults by now, as they would have all matured in heaven at the same pace that they would have, had they lived out their full lives on the earth. Nevertheless, there is a population of twenty five billion children of God currently residing in heaven, which are waiting to receive their resurrected bodies. And it is at the second resurrection, at the end of our Lord’s millennial reign, that they will finally receive their resurrected bodies. And when they do, they will take up residence in the new earth that God our Father will create.
Michael E.B. Maher
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