For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven (Matt 22:30).

Church-age believers will be glorified before the Millennium (1 Thess 4:16-17). We will not have any children after this life is over.

The same is true of all the OT believers who have died. They will not have any more children.

The same will be true of believers who die during the Tribulation. They will be resurrected before the Millennium and hence will have no more children.

But we know from many OT texts that children will be born during the Millennium (Isa 65:20-23; Zech 8:5-8; Ezek 47:22). Revelation 20:7-8, dealing with the Millennium, says, “Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea” (emphasis added).

The traditional dispensational answer is that the believers who survive the Tribulation will go into the Millennium in natural bodies and will have children, who in turn will have children, and so on for a thousand years.

Some who believe in the millennial kingdom do not think about the children who survive the Tribulation. There will be untold millions of children who will survive. They too will go into the Millennium in natural bodies, whether they have believed in Christ or not.

But here’s a twist Zane Hodges shared with me that I believe is worthy of careful consideration. He suggested that the only people who will go into the Millennium in natural bodies will be children under the age of accountability who survive the Tribulation. In his view, the age of accountability is twenty. But even if you think that age is twelve or ten, there will still be lots of children under the age of accountability who survive.

Zane’s reasoning was based primarily on two verses:

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption (1 Cor 15:50, emphasis added).

Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…’ (Matt 25:34, emphasis added).

Matthew 25:34 records the words that the Lord Jesus will say to the believing Gentiles who survive the Tribulation. They are the sheep in the Judgment of the Sheep and the Goats.

If people in natural bodies cannot inherit the kingdom of God, then the believing Gentiles who survive the Tribulation cannot go into the kingdom in natural bodies, since they will inherit the kingdom.

Inheriting the kingdom refers to ruling with Christ in the life to come, not merely to getting in (cf. 1 Cor 6:9-11; Gal 5:19-21; Eph 5:5-7).

God has determined that those who will rule over those in natural bodies will be people in glorified bodies.

The Lord Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 19:14). That is normally understood as saying that it takes childlike faith to be born again and be guaranteed access to the kingdom (e.g., Haller, GNTC; R. T. France, Matthew; Leon Morris, Matthew). I agree with that.

However, it is possible that the Lord meant more than that. He might have meant that the millennial kingdom will depend on children. The new Adams and Eves will be all the children who survive the Tribulation. They will become the first parents of the subsequent tens or hundreds of billions to be born during that millennia.

I think Zane Hodges is right. It is children only who will go into the Millennium in natural bodies. I think that is an important distinction because, if true, it says that the Millennium will be a new start. There will not be a single adult in a natural body at the start of that thousand years. All those in natural bodies will be under the age of accountability at the start.

Imagine a time when there will not only be no senior citizens, but there will also be no one in their twenties, thirties, or forties who are in natural bodies. That may be the case on day one of the Millennium. Imagine further that most of those children will not die during the entire thousand years (cf. Isa 65:20). And imagine someone who, after the first eight centuries of the Millennium, is eight hundred years old yet not in a lot of pain, not suffering from dementia, and still energetic and enthusiastic.

I find that exciting. It seems like an important distinction to me. I urge you to pray about it and think about it.

Keep grace in focus––and even more as you see the Day approaching!