Will Everyone In the Millennium Be Born Again?

Will everyone in the millennium be born again and have glorified bodies? And if so, how can children be born? When Jesus returns to earth at the end of the tribulation period, there will be both believers and unbelievers still living on earth in their physical bodies. Matthew 25 describes what will happen next. “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (vv. 31–32). Jesus will separate those who are believers from those who are unbelievers. He will say to the believers, “Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (v. 34). Jesus then says to the unbelievers, “Depart from Me, you accursed people, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels” (v. 41).

The specific people in focus in these verses are Gentiles. God will be able to determine their spiritual condition based on how they treated the Jewish people during the tribulation. Only true believers will be willing to risk their lives to help the Jews being persecuted. Jesus makes a clear distinction between these two groups, and only those who are saved will be allowed to enter the kingdom.

A similar time of judgment will occur for Jews at the end of the tribulation period. Ezekiel pictures it as a time when all Jews will be gathered and required to pass under the rod of the Great Shepherd. “I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out; and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face. . . . I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant; and I will purge from you the rebels and those who revolt against Me; I will bring them out of the land where they reside, but they will not enter the land of Israel. So you will know that I am the Lord” (Ezek. 20:34–35, 37–38). Only those Jews who have submitted to the Lord in faith will be allowed to enter the kingdom. This matches Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in John 3:3. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

When the kingdom begins, all born-again believers who survived the tribulation will be in their natural bodies. However, all Old Testament saints, church-age believers, and those who were martyred during the tribulation will be in the millennial kingdom in resurrected, glorified bodies. Daniel 12:2 and Revelation 20:4 describe the resurrection of the Old Testament and tribulation saints. The resurrection of the church-age saints is pictured in 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18. During the millennium, those in natural bodies will be able to marry and have children, while those in resurrected bodies will not. “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Matt. 22:30).

Once the millennial kingdom begins, children will be born to those who entered the kingdom in natural bodies. This means those children will need to come to faith. Sadly, many will refuse to put their trust in Jesus. That’s why, in Revelation 20:7–9, there will be a host of people at the end of the thousand-year period who will join in a final rebellion against Christ. These will be people born during the kingdom age but who refused to trust Jesus.