Isaiah 11:6-9 “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. (7) The cow and the bear shall graze; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. (8) The nursing child shall play by the cobra's hole, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper's den. (9) They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord As the waters cover the sea.”
The final passage of scripture which we will discuss is the one quoted above. In this passage God speaks about little children, nursing children and weaned children in a future age. The question is which age is God referring to? The answer is clearly the age of God’s new heaven and earth. We know that, because God again mentions; during that time the wolf will dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together and the cow and the bear shall graze; their young ones shall lie down together and the lion shall eat straw like the ox and “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain.” We have already seen from the previous passage that none of that will take place during our Lord’s millennial reign. Again we can clearly see that the children mentioned in this passage will not be present in our Lord’s millennial kingdom. And so we have examined the four main passages of scripture where God refers to children in the future and we have seen that none of them refer to children during the period of our Lord’s millennial reign. Someone said, but just because God doesn’t mention them, it doesn’t mean that children will not be present during that time. And so in response to that comment, let’s examine the prospect of children being present during the Lord’s millennial reign. Firstly we will examine population densities. If we examine the simple maths of children born into the earth during the millennium, a problem is very quickly highlighted. As we have already mentioned, if we were to assume that the Lord Jesus will return by the year 2100 AD, the earth’s population will be approximately 5.4 billion people. The earth’s current population growth rate is 0.85%[1]. And so starting with a base population of 5.4 billion people at the start of the millennium, with a 0.85% annual population growth; the total population will reach approximately 1 trillion after 600 hundred years. That equates to a population density of approximately 9,000 people per square kilometre, i.e. similar to Singapore currently, which has the third highest population density in the world[2]. That means that everyone will have to live in high rise buildings which will take up nearly every part of the total land mass available, which means that there will be almost no land available for agriculture and no land available for any other species (fauna and flora) to coexist on the planet. Currently Singapore can only produce roughly 10% of their food requirements[3]. So where will the earth get the other 90% of their food requirements. At the end of the Lord’s millennial reign, i.e. after 1000 years at 0.85% population growth, there will be 25 trillion people on the earth, with a population density of approximately 240,000 people per square kilometre. The earth’s highest population density currently, is Macau (China) at 21,000 people per square kilometre. And so a population density of more than ten times that amount is unimaginable. Another point that we need to also bear in mind is that this model accounts for not only billions of people being born into the earth, but also billions of people dying as well; we have already mentioned that salvation is no longer possible after the rapture of the church, which means that all who die during that period would be unjustly condemned to hell. Clearly this is not God’s plan for the Lord’s millennial reign. However, as we will see in this series, God’s plan for the Lord’s millennial reign is one of a self sustaining agricultural society. So how will God accomplish that? The total land mass available on the earth is approximately 149,000,000 square kilometres, of which 71% i.e. 106,000,000 square kilometres is habitable, and of that number, 46% i.e. 49,000,000 square kilometres can be used for agriculture, while the balance (40,000,000 square kilometres) is forestry area allocated to the earth’s fauna and flora[4]. During the first century the average family size was approximately 11 people[5], and the average farm size was 25 acres[6]. During our Lord’s millennial reign, extended families will be required to live together once again, resulting in approximately 11 people living on farms which will be 25 acres on average. And so based on those numbers, a population of 5.4 billion people would need approximately 49,000,000 square kilometres of agricultural land in order for that population to be self sustaining. As we have already seen, 49,000,000 square kilometres is the amount of agricultural land that is available, which leaves the remaining 40,000,000 square kilometres available for the earth’s fauna and flora in which to continue to thrive. As an aside, those numbers equate to a population density of approximately 112 people per square kilometre. Clearly this is God’s plan for the Lord’s millennial reign, i.e. the earth’s population will remain static for the entire time. In other words there will be no births or deaths during the Lord’s millennial reign.
Revelation 20:4-6 “And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. (5) 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.”
We have seen thus far that all children will die when the church is removed from the earth, i.e. when the rapture takes place. Someone will say, but why would God be so cruel as to kill all children on the earth at that time? The answer to that question is that it is not the cruelty of God that will kill all children, but rather His mercy. God did exactly the same thing when He judged the earth with the flood during the days of Noah, and when He judged the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah; on both occasions the children were killed along with their parents. The difference being however, that the parents went to hell but the children went to heaven. The reason that the children went to heaven is because all children under the age of thirteen are still spiritually alive to God, i.e. they are God’s children. And so when they die they go straight to be with the Lord in heaven. Some have thought that all children will receive their resurrected bodies at the same time that the church receives theirs. But that is not the case, for the above quoted passage of scripture teaches us that when the church receives their resurrected bodies, that the rest of the dead will not live again until the thousand years are finished. The rest of the dead in this passage is referring to all children, for they are the only ones that will still need to live again. Therefore, all children will receive their resurrected bodies only after our Lord’s millennial reign has ended. And so we see that from the time of the rapture until God the Father creates the new heavens and the new earth, there will be no more children born into the earth. We know that the saints will no longer have children, for our Lord taught us that they neither marry nor are given in marriage (Luke 20:35). Unbelievers living on the earth during our Lord’s millennial reign will also not have children anymore, because if they did then God would be unjust, because all children born during that time would be condemned to the second death. The reason for that is because they would be born into bodies that are still contaminated with the sin virus inherited from Adam (Romans 7:23). And so because sin will still be present in the earth during the millennium period, at the age of thirteen their spirits would die when they committed sin and they would thus be separated from God (Romans 7:9). In order for one to be born-again one must be baptized into Christ, thus becoming a part of the bride of Christ. Because the bride of Christ would already be complete by that time, no more can be baptized into Christ, and so there would be no way for them to be born-again, and so just like their unbelieving parents, they would be condemned to the second death. Nevertheless God is not unjust, and so He will not allow any more children to be born until He creates the new heavens and the new earth in which only righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13). And so we see that when God’s wrath is poured out on the earth prior to the Lord’s millennial reign, that neither the church nor the children will be present. When our Lord Jesus returns to the earth after God’s wrath has been completed, He will return with His saints only i.e. the church. All children that have died from the time of Adam until the rapture will remain in heaven and will not return to the earth for the period of the Lord’s millennial reign. It is conservatively estimated that there are approximately twenty billion children in heaven today that have gone there since the time of Adam. Obviously most are not children anymore, as they have grown and matured just as they would have had they remained on the earth for their full number of days. But even though most are adults in heaven today, they are still not part of the bride of Christ, and as such, will remain in heaven waiting for the new earth that our Heavenly Father will create at the end of the current age. It is at that time that they will live again by receiving their resurrected bodies, and it is at that time that they will leave heaven to take up residence on God’s new earth.
Michael E.B. Maher
[3] https://www.sfa.gov.sg/food-for-thought/article/detail/levelling-up-singapore-s-food-supply-resilience
[5] https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/39328/how-many-children-were-there-in-each-israelite-family-at-the-time-of-the-numbers
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