The Thousand-Year Judgment Day

Who are left to be judged after the old earth and the old heaven flee away? Not the anointed remnant of the 144,000, for these have already been judged and sealed. Those still alive on earth after Armageddon must shortly thereafter die and receive their heavenly reward by resurrection. (1 Peter 4:17; Revelation 7:2-4) However, the millions of the great crowd who have now come out of the great tribulation stand conspicuously "before the throne." These have already been counted righteous for survival because of their faith in Jesus' blood, but their judging must continue through the thousand years as Jesus keeps on guiding them to "fountains of waters of life." Then, having been restored to human perfection and thereafter tested, they will be declared righteous in the fullest sense. (Revelation 7:9, 10, 14, 17) Children who survive the great tribulation and any children born to the great crowd during the Millennium will similarly need to be judged during the thousand years. - Compare Genesis 1:28; 9:7; 1 Corinthians 7:14.

John, however, observes a throng far more numerous than the surviving great crowd. It will number into the thousands of millions! " and I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and scrolls were opened." (Revelation 20:12a) "The great and the small" embraces the prominent as well as the less prominent ones of humans that have lived and died on this earth during the past 6,000 years. In the Gospel that the apostle John wrote shortly after the Revelation, Jesus said of the Father: "He has give him [Jesus] authority to do judging, because Son of man he is. Do not marvel at this, because the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out." (John 5:27-29) What a stupendous project - the undoing of the deaths and burials throughout all history! No doubt those countless millions in God's memory will be brought forth gradually so that the great crowd - so few by comparison - will be able to handle the problems that may arise because resurrected ones may tend at first to follow their old life-style, with its fleshly weaknesses and attitudes.

Next time: Who Are Raised And Judged?

Revelation Its Grand Climax At Hand! Watchtower Bible And Tract Society, 1988