Revelation 21:23-27 “The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. (24) And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour into it. (25) Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). (26) And they shall bring the glory and the honour of the nations into it. (27) But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.”
So, who will inhabit God’s new earth? Most will answer that question by saying that the church will inhabit the new earth, and that would be true. But as we will see in the next section, the church will actually inhabit the new city of Jerusalem, and not the new earth per se. In the above passage of scripture however, the Holy Spirit reveals to us that there will be nations of those who are saved, that will bring their glory and honour into the heavenly city of Jerusalem. In other words, these nations will not be living in the city, but rather they will be living outside of the city walls. So, who are these nations? As we already mentioned in an earlier section, these nations are all the children of God that are currently in heaven. We estimated earlier, that the population of children in heaven today, is between twenty and twenty-five billion people (which is nearly four times the amount of people alive on the earth today). And so, we can clearly see why it is that God will create an earth that is so vast in size, because it will be populated with that number of people right from the outset, and that number will continue to grow as we head into the age to come.
Michael E.B. Maher
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