Kingdom of God (14) - How Long

How long will the season of the Kingdom last? The Bible does not say. However, since the Times of the Gentiles went on for 2000 years, the Kingdom of God should last at least as long, or much longer. This is God’s best season and there is no suggestion in the scriptures that he will cut it short.
According to Revelation, a huge multitude will be in heaven.

I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language (Rev. 7:9)

John was promised that the number of people who get to heaven will be far more than can be counted. The angels have been counted and their number is huge.

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand (Rev 5:11).

This is a big number, but the number of Christians will eventually be far greater. An immense number of people must eventually come to salvation for this promise to be fullfiled. Abraham was promised the number of stars in the sky (Gen 15:5).

Since the time of Jesus, several billion people have come to faith in Jesus, far short of the multitude that John and Abraham were promised. History will have to go on for much longer for this countless multitude of people to be brought to faith in Jesus.

If the world were to end now, the number of people lost would far exceed those who are saved. This score makes God seem quite mean, as the vast majority of people who have lived on earth will go to eternal destruction. This impression is wrong, because it judges God’s performance on the first half of the game, when half the team is missing and the coach is seriously constrained.

By the time the game is complete, the score will have changed dramatically. During the second half, most of those who live on earth will be saved and only a minority lost. The second half could be five times longer than the first half, so the total saved will be absolutely huge. The fifteen billion people lost during the Times of the Gentiles will seem minute compared to the thousands of billions that will come to Jesus in the future. The final score will be far more respectable, and better reflect God’s character.

Our God is a gracious and generous. He will not be stingy with salvation. He will allow history to go on for long enough to ensure that the number of those saved will far exceed the number who have been lost. To get thousands of billions of people into the kingdom, life on earth will have to go on for a good many more generations.

God promised at least five times that he is faithful to a thousand generation (Deut 7:9, 1 Chron 16:15).

He remembers his covenant forever,
the promise he made,
for a thousand generations (Ps 105:8).

Some numbers in scriptures are figurative, but if any number deserves to be taken literally, surely this is it. For God is to keep this promise covenant, a thousand generations of people would have to live on earth subsequent to his promise.

A new generation is born on earth about every twenty years, so we have had about 500 generations since the time of Abraham. This means that another 500 generations on earth would have to live on earth for this promise to be fulfilled. That will take another 10,000 years, which is just long enough to get the thousands of billions of people that God wants into his kingdom.