See the series here
In Salvation, an Internship (Poem), I posit that Christianity is effectively Heaven’s internship for The Lord’s would-be eternal saints. Revelation 3:14-22 give us the clearest evidence of this concept that is also evident across The Bible. While The Lord’s Grace is extended to all who will believe and receive Him as Lord, the persistent storyline, from Genesis-to-Revelation, is that His eternal Grace is only guaranteed to those of us who pass His tests until death in this earthly life. So the ‘touchstone’ notion of Christianity (i.e., confess Christ, get baptized, go to church, get on with life) is a false version of Christianity that satan and his crew would ABSOLUTELY LOVE for more of us to embrace, rather than a ‘good works, performance-based’ version of the Christian life. Apostle Paul iteratively attests we are created in Christ FOR GOOD WORKS that, in various ways, promote His kingdom on this version of Earth. Revelation 19:6-8 give us the clearest explanation of the eternal objective of our good works—to adorn The Lord’s Bride which is apparently NOT the 3rd age church, as most of us have likely been taught. (See: The Bride of Christ (Series))
Two Internships?
The Lord apparently loves progressiveness, possibly in all that He does. Irrespective of the depths of our sinfulness, He is slow to anger, but He gives us more and more Grace...to repent. The fact that The Bible outlines His multi-millennial strategic plan for humanity, evidences His progressiveness to achieve His long-term objectives in incremental steps over extended periods of time.
Isaiah 28:10-13 signal how The Lord applies progressiveness in dealing with humanity. Over several millennia, from Adam-to-Apostle John, He revealed (downloaded) insight to humanity, and shaped them in His Bible to reveal His key precepts for us. Moreover, in Joel 2:28-29, Acts 2:17-18, and Ephesians 2:4-7, He signals His intention to reveal more, unwritten insights to us, first, during the remaining ages on this current Earth, and second, throughout our 7th eternal age.
These insights led me to ponder:
How might His long-term progressive nature
be revealed and applied during the pending Millennial Reign age—
the 5th Biblical age of our history on this current Earth?
That will be when He will return to Earth for the THIRD (not second) time, then as its global King after the apocalypse and Armageddon. The Bible affirms He will return with ALL of His (then) glorified, immortal saints from the first 4 Biblical ages of our history—we who will have passed His salvation internship during the first 4 Biblical ages. We will have unique assignments to facilitate His ‘iron rod’ righteous rule as the global, post-apocalypse population gradually increases to a massive number of exceptionally long-living mortals. 1 Since The Bible only gives us a few hints about that glorious age, we can only ponder plausible answers to the above question. 2 Here's a recent one that came to me to ponder:
Might our performance now, in our ‘good works roles’ in The Lord’s current kingdom on Earth, possibly be His basis for determining our governance roles then—in His Millennial Kingdom? And might our performance in our assigned governance roles then, be His basis for determining our possibly rotating, evolving, governance and service roles …throughout eternity??
The Lord’s love for progressiveness leads me to believe this might be His progressive performance probation plan for us! In Part 2, let’s explore why this might be a plausible possibility.
----------
1 Mortal life spans will be exceptionally long during the Millennial Reign age, when human and animal diets will likely return to their Genesis 1:29-30 diets, there will be no wars, possibly no pestilences, wild beasts attacks, and famines, and no devils on Earth to tempt and deceive humans into sinful activities.
2 See: The Millennial Reign (Series).
