Advent is the season of the church calendar leading up to Christmas. During this time, we remember when the Son of God became a human man named Jesus, about 2000 years ago, by being born from the virgin Mary, in order to eternally save all those who would put their faith in Him.

Yet advent is also about anticipating Jesus' second coming, and all that will take place then.

It is good to dedicate a certain period of time each year to think about the future and the doctrines of eschatology (last things), which is usually a very neglected topic. This is in contrast to the topic of politics, which it seems is constantly in the news and on many people's minds.

However, I think the themes of advent can give us some much-needed perspective on politics, which can reduce the stress that Christians may feel when we read the news, and give us hope for the future regardless of what happens in politics.

Corruption in Politics

If you follow politics, or even skim the news headlines, you will notice that the topic of corruption in politics appears regularly. Regardless of which party you support, or which country you are in, it is likely that there is someone accusing some politician of being corrupt.

It seems that the longer that people are in government the less they care about doing what is good for the people who elected them. They begin to focus on their own political ambitions or interests, or voting themselves more power or money. Sometimes they even forget about trying to fulfill the promises they made while running for election.

We might think to ourselves "Well, if only my favourite party, or leader, could get into power, then we could fix this!"

But when we think this way, we're forgetting an important theological truth: every system of government is run by humans. And as it stands now, every single human on this planet is sinful. Even Christians still struggle with our sinful inclinations, and can give in to selfishness.

Selfishness has been one definition of sin that Christians have used throughout history. The term incurvatus in se (or "turned in on oneself") has been used by several theologians to explain what sin does to humans. We become self-focused and selfish, caring only about ourselves and not others, or caring about others only insofar as they are useful or beneficial to ourselves, or at worst, even caring about ourselves at the expense of others!

This is certainly the opposite of what Jesus said is the summary of all God's laws:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. (Luke 10:27, repeated elsewhere like Romans 13:9-10)

Because of human selfishness, politicians are easily tempted to do things that benefit themselves instead of their people. We've all heard of politicians who vote themselves raises. Or politicians who take donations from people that they should not, and as a result, become far more wealthy by the time they leave office than when they entered it. Or politicians who give contracts to companies who they or their family are associated with. And on and on. The forms of corruption seem to be endless.

Perhaps some political systems can restrain corruption better than others. Democracy is probably better than monarchy or totalitarianism, because at least in a democracy if there's an especially bad politician the people can vote them out—assuming that the election is fair and has not itself been tainted by corruption, that is.

But even in democracy, the problem is that the voters themselves are selfish! They are often uninformed about politics, foreign affairs, or economics, and don't realize the long-term implications of these issues. When a politician appears who promises to give the people more government handouts, the people enthusiastically vote for it—not realizing that future consequences will likely hurt them and/or hurt their society in the long run.

Even judges who are meant to uphold the law can become corrupt. Corrupt judges will not prosecute politicians accused of various unlawful activities, or will give a light sentence which does nothing to discourage others from doing the same thing.

If society as a whole has strong ethical convictions, perhaps some systems will last longer without being compromised by corruption.

But sooner or later, every system will become fully corrupt, and it will no longer operate in the best interests of the country or people. Decisions will be made that ultimately undermine the stability of the society and will lead to its decline.

And so eventually, every political system will fail. We can see this if we look at history. Monarchies fall to revolutions. Totalitarian leaders are taken out by military coups. Democracies vote in dictators. Empires fall due to invasions or internal decay.

In the past, sometimes groups of people could leave old countries and go establish new countries with new political systems to escape oppression or corruption in their countries of origin. But as we see in the US, even a country built on semi-Christian principles and morality (although not without its own dark periods due to sin) ends up with the sorts of scandals and dishonesty and problems that we see today, which are seemingly bringing it to a point of political and economic crisis.

But we can also guarantee that every political system will fail simply because of the principle of human sinfulness. It is impossible for sinful humans to design a perfect system which can restrain human sin. Even a system of checks and balances assumes that at least one of those checks or balances can correct the others. But if each is infiltrated and corrupted one way or another, then that system will also fail.

Some say the solution is better education, or better parenting, or more ethical or religious instruction. But there is no system or philosophy that can totally eliminate sinfulness in humans. Sinful humans cannot eradicate sin, regardless of what we try. It has been sinful human attempts to impose morality upon people by force which produces the most awful results, whether that morality was Christian or communist.

What then is the solution? Keep reading to the end of the article...

Dispensational Biblical History

I think this fact that sin corrupts all human systems and societies is also proven when we look at the Biblical history of the world.

One way of understanding Biblical history is to divide it into different periods of time called dispensations. In each dispensation, God deals with humanity in a slightly different way. The way to obtaining eternal life is the same in every one (i.e. acceptance of God's grace through faith), but how that faith or obedience to God is to be expressed varies.

In each dispensation there is a recurring pattern. God first inaugurates a new dispensation by giving new instructions to a group of people. But each period ends with human failure due to sin, and God's judgment comes as a result. God then starts over with some faithful people, and a new dispensation begins. (A great book on this topic is Dispensationalism, Revised and Expanded by Charles C. Ryrie).

The number of dispensations and their names may change depending on which author you read.1 I categorize them like this (roughly in line with C.I. Scofield and Issac Watts):

1. Innocence/Garden of Eden

When Adam and Eve were in Eden, God only had one rule for them, which was to not eat fruit from one tree (Genesis 2:16-17). But they sinned, and were kicked out of the garden of Eden as judgment. They now have to work for their food, nature is less hospitable and cooperative, and they will now die, and experience diseases, painful childbirth, and so on (Genesis 3).

2. Conscience

This dispensation is from the time when Adam and Eve left the garden up to the flood in Genesis 9. Here, God lets people follow their own consciences, there are no real instructions or rules made apparent in Scripture for people to follow, although people seem to have had some idea of sacrificing animals to please God (Genesis 4:3-4, 8:20). But eventually the world becomes full of violence (Genesis 6:5-6), so that God sends the flood, starting humanity over with only 8 obedient individuals.

3. Human Government

After the flood, God allows humanity to enforce the death penalty against murderers as an attempt to keep evil in check (Genesis 9:6). But humans band together, speaking one language, and build a tower by which they attempt to either save themselves from another flood, or raise themselves into the heavens to become gods, or perhaps, to worship false gods (opinions vary).

Whatever they were trying to do, God judges humanity by confusing the languages, so that it makes human cooperation much more difficult and slows down the progress of technological innovation (Genesis 11:6), and forces humanity to split up and spread out over the world (Genesis 11:7-9). These people eventually grow into tribes and nations, each ruling themselves and in near-constant churn and conflict with others.

This was the scenario for most of human history:

And he [God] made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. (Acts 17:26-27)

4. Law

But God did not abandon these nations entirely. God chooses Abraham to be the ancestor of a special people through whom God will reveal Himself and His laws to the rest of the world (Genesis 12:1-3). After multiplying Abraham's descendants in Egypt, God brings the Israelites and others who went with them out into the desert (Exodus 12:37-38). There God gives them his Law through Moses, saying they will be a treasured possession and kingdom of priests for God (Exodus 19:5-6).

These divinely-inspired laws should ideally have led to a good society, especially as compared to other nations at the time. The people pledge their faithfulness to God and promise to follow God's laws, but they almost instantly fall into sin. The history of Israel is not any better, and soon they fall into idolatry, child sacrifice, and injustice. Even establishing a king over the people doesn't solve the problem, because the kings too become evil.

God judges the nation repeatedly, sometimes allowing foreign invasions, and sending them off to exile in foreign countries, and bringing back only a remnant of faithful people to start over. The ultimate instance of this was in 70 AD when the Romans invaded and destroyed Jerusalem, leaving the Jews to live in various places since then.

I agree with those who say the reformation of the modern State of Israel is leading up to the final seven years promised to Israel under the dispensation of Law, which will prepare the Jews to accept Jesus as their Messiah at his second coming (e.g. Daniel 9:26-27, Jeremiah 30-31, Ezekiel 38-39, Isaiah 65-66). Once this happens they will no longer be dispersed or conquered.

5. Grace

Once the nation of Israel rejected Jesus as their Messiah and crucified Him, God turned to working in the world primarily through the Church, composed of all Christians everywhere, which continues Christ's mission to the world. Now Christians are not limited to one particular country or race or language, but go spreading God's message and teachings to all countries (Matthew 28:19-20).

Yes, Christians have also sinned and caused their share of problems also through persecuting one another, persecuting non-Christians, and trying to rule the world during the middle ages. (As a side note, this proves that the Church on its own is also not going to be able to reform society or bring in God's kingdom on earth through social justice or charity or activism, no matter how hard we try, because Christians are also still sinful).

Unfortunately, as we seem to see now in Western countries, societies eventually reject Christianity and want to start doing things their own way again. And in many other countries Christians are persecuted for their faith. This is where we're at now.

This current dispensation will end with the future seven-year Tribulation described in the book of Revelation, where the one-world government of the Antichrist will persecute and kill many Christians who convert after the Rapture (Revelation 13:7) or refuse to take his Mark of the Beast.

The Tribulation will end with the second-coming of Christ, who will destroy this one-world government and defeat all His enemies (Revelation 19:11-21), rescuing His faithful remnant of Christians and any Jews who will finally accept Jesus as their Messiah (Zechariah 12:10, 13:8-9, Revelation 1:7).

Jesus's return leads to the establishment of a new dispensation:

6. The Millennial Reign of Jesus

This dispensation will be unlike anything we've seen before.

Jesus will rule the world from Jerusalem, through his incorruptible government composed of resurrected and perfected Christians. His kingdom will last for at least 1000 years. Finally, we will have the perfectly wise, completely good, and non-corruptible leader that will fix the world and solve all its problems.

Some key bible verses that support this future reality of Jesus' Millennial Kingdom are:

• Revelation 20:1-6, which describes the setting up of the Millennial Kingdom and the binding of Satan for 1000 years.
• Revelation 19:15: "From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron.". This theme is also seen in Revelation 12:5 and Psalm 2:9. A similar idea is in Daniel 2:44-45.
• Isaiah 2:2-4, which describes Jerusalem becoming the center of Christ's government for the entire world, leading to worldwide peace.
• Isaiah 11:1-10, which describes Jesus as a ruler who will judge in perfect righteousness and wisdom.
• Jeremiah 23:5-6: "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: 'The Lord is our righteousness.'"
• Daniel 7:13-14: "Behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed."
• Daniel 7:27: "And the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; his kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him."
• 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 says Jesus will destroy every other ruling power, and will reign over everything until his enemies are conquered.
• Jude 1:14-15 refers to a prophecy by Enoch about God coming with his saints to bring justice to a sinful world, similar to Revelation 19:11-16.
• Hebrews 1:8-9: "But of the Son he says, 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions'."
• Jeremiah 30:3, 8-11, and Ezekiel 39:25-29 describe Israel being restored as a nation in peace and security under the rule of Jesus.

Christians who live now who will be resurrected and made immortal at the Rapture (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, 1 Corinthians 15:51-53), and those who die during the Tribulation and are resurrected later (Revelation 20:4-6) will help Jesus rule the world during this time (and probably into eternity as well). we can see evidence for this in all the promises given to Christians about our faithfulness being rewarded with ruling privileges:

• Revelation 20:6: "Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years." (Perhaps echoing Daniel 7:18 and 7:22).
• Revelation 2:26: "The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father."
• Revelation 3:21: "The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne."
• 2 Timothy 2:12: "if we endure, we will also reign with him."
• Luke 19:16-19 shows Jesus rewarding faithful Christians with rule over cities. Matthew 25:21-23 is the parallel, and promises faithful Christians will be "set over much", in terms of responsibility. This echoes Matthew 24:45-47 where the faithful servant is "set over" all the master's possessions.
• 1 Corinthians 6:2-3 says the saints will judge the world, and will even judge angels!
• Luke 22:28-30 shows that the 12 apostles will have a special role ruling over Israel in the Millennium and perhaps eternity.

If you're interested in this topic, a much more detailed book on all this is The Millennial Kingdom by John F. Walvoord (1959).

The Sheep and Goats Judgment

When Jesus returns, He will not only judge the nations, but He will judge all individuals who remain alive after the Tribulation. This is what Matthew 25:31-45 is all about:

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.

So this passage is not about the final judgment, because the Sheep and Goats Judgment is based on works (Matthew 25:34-36), whereas eternal salvation is based only on faith in God/Christ, and so they are different things.

This is clear when we remember that eternal life depends on only faith, as shown in John 6:28-29:

"What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."

Those at the final judgment will have their works judged, but what finally matters for their eternal life is if their name is in the book of Life (Revelation 20:15). But this is different from being allowed into Christ's Millennial Kingdom.

There are different judgments in Scripture, and it's important to distinguish them correctly, or we will get confused and think our eternal salvation depends on works, when it actually depends only on faith in Christ (e.g. John 3:16, Ephesians 2:8).

As a result of the Sheep and Goats Judgment at the end of the Tribulation, anyone who showed mercy to the persecuted Jews and Christians during the Tribulation (i.e. Jesus's 'brothers' in Matthew 25:40), and who did not take the Mark of the Beast (Revelation 13:16-18, 14:9-11) will be allowed to live in the Millennial Kingdom. These people will repopulate the world. Their lives will be much easier due to the removal of the curse of nature which I discussed in my post about climate change and the end times.

But these people who repopulate the world will be regular mortal people, and will still have a sinful human nature. This then explains why Jesus will have to rule with a "rod of iron" as mentioned in several verses listed above, in order to ensure that human sinfulness is kept in check and does not get out of control and ruin things for everyone yet again.

What Life Will Be Like in Jesus' Millennial Kingdom

The Bible gives many hints about what the conditions of the world will be like during this time, including:

• nature will be far more fruitful and productive than it is now (Isaiah 30:23-24, 35:1-2, 35:6-7, Amos 9:13).
• human lifespans will be extended back to what they were before the Flood (Isaiah 65:20, 22).
• disabilities will be healed (Isaiah 35:5-6).
• nature will be re-ordered to remove carnivory and animals will no longer be dangerous (Isaiah 11:6-8, 65:25).
• Satan will be confined and not allowed to tempt people as he does now (Revelation 20:2-3).

So it's going to be much better than our world as it is right now. If you're a Christian, you will get to see all of this.

Unfortunately, I'm convinced that Scripture teaches that things will get worse before they get better, because there is simply no other way to deal with all the details of the book of Revelation in a serious way (that is, without allegorizing them or ignoring them). I've written on the problems of allegorization in my post about biblical inerrancy.

This is why the promise of the pre-Tribulational Rapture is so comforting to Christians today, because we know we are not destined to face God's wrath in the Tribulation (1 Thessalonians 4:18, 5:9, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4).

Pre-millennialism is also the only position which explains why we have verses that describe people having children and growing old in Christ's kingdom, such as Isaiah 11:6 and Isaiah 65:20-22. This shows that Christ's Millennial Kingdom is not identical to the future New Heavens and New Earth (Revelation 21) when everyone will be immortal and there will be no more procreation (as per Matthew 22:30, Mark 12:25).

Details in scripture matter; otherwise God wouldn't have included them. It is not faithful Biblical interpretation to gloss over the details of Scripture. Taking all of scripture seriously, believing it to be fully inspired by the same Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:21) who is God and never lies (Titus 1:2), means we should attempt to harmonize all the prophecies that still remain to be fulfilled.

When we do put all these pieces together in a way that takes the details seriously, we get a picture of the future very much like the one described as a pre-Tribulation Rapture and pre-millennial second coming of Jesus, with a 1000-year Millennial Kingdom.

The Theme of The Millennial Kingdom in Christmas Songs

The Millennial Kingdom is my favourite theme in Christmas carols. We might not realize this if we're so used to singing these songs, but if we examine the lyrics, we can see this theme clearly.

For example, "Joy to the World", is actually about Jesus' second coming and Millennial Kingdom:

Joy to the world! The Lord is come:
let earth receive her King!
Let every heart prepare him room
and heaven and nature sing.

Joy to the earth! the Saviour reigns:
let men their songs employ
while fields and floods rocks hills and plains
repeat the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
nor thorns infest the ground:
he comes to make his blessings flow
far as the curse is found.

He rules the earth with truth and grace,
and makes the nations prove
the glories of his righteousness
and wonders of his love.

There is also the famous "For Unto Us A Child is Born" by Handel, which basically is just Isaiah 9:6:

For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given,
and the government shall be upon His shoulder;
and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor,
the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

Along with Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus," with lines like:

Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth;
and He shall reign forever and ever;
the Kingdom of this world is become the Kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ!

There are a few modern songs also that I really like with this theme.

"He Shall Reign Forevermore" by Chris Tomlin is really good, where the chorus is:

And He shall reign forevermore, forevermore
Unto us a child is born
The King of kings and Lord of lords
And He shall reign forevermore, forevermore

The song "Mary Did You Know?" includes some of these themes, where it says:

The blind will see, the deaf will hear
The dead will live again
The lame will leap, the dumb will speak
The praises of the lamb!
Mary, did you know that your baby boy is lord of all creation?
Mary, did you know that your baby boy would one day rule the nations?

So when you sing these songs, remember you're not singing only about Jesus' first coming. I really look forward to when Jesus will finally come and fix all the mess that the world is in currently.

End of the Millennial Kingdom

Unfortunately, not even Jesus' direct rule over the world for a thousand years will solve the problem of human sinfulness.

At the end of the thousand years, God allows Satan back out for a short time, to incite those who want to rebel against Jesus' rule to get up the courage to openly revolt. They gather into a large army and surround Jerusalem, and God judges them for their rebellion by sending down fire from heaven to destroy them (Revelation 20:7-10).

The theory of dispensationalism shows that by the end of history God will have tested humanity under every possible method of government, and it will be proven to us that there is no perfect system which can solve the problem of sin. For even under a perfect, incorruptible government ruled by Jesus himself with a rod of iron to ensure righteousness and justice is done, people will still rebel against God.

There will be nothing left to blame except humanity's sinful hearts. This will prove that our problem truly is sin—not politics, political systems, political parties, particular leaders, electoral colleges, proportional or first-past-the-post systems, human judges, constitutions, bills of rights, border walls (or lack thereof), or whatever else we might think the problem is now.

Of course, we should do what we can to restrain evil in our societies in various ways. But I'm not optimistic about the results.

My opinion is that this fallen world is like the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. It's sinking, and nothing will stop it. Maybe we could take some measures to slow it down, but its fate is ultimately certain. So let's not waste time playing politics, which is equivalent to arguing over who should be captain of the doomed Titanic, and what the captain should do.

Instead, Christians should focus on getting people into the eternal lifeboat, by preaching that anyone who puts their faith in Jesus as their savior from God's judgment on their sins will have eternal life. Unlike on the Titanic, there is enough room for everyone on this lifeboat.

Conclusion

So I'm sorry to disappoint you if you thought that somehow sinful humans could bring in a utopia upon earth. Scripture seems to clearly say this will never happen.

Instead of putting our hopes and dreams in the hands of corrupt human politicians, let's recognize that what the world needs is Jesus. Let's put our hope not in the next election, but in Jesus' second coming.

In the meantime let's eagerly look forward to his coming (2 Timothy 4:8), while faithfully occupying and engaging in Christ's business until Jesus comes (Luke 19:13).

We need to remember that as Christians our home is not this world. We're in the world, but our citizenship is in heaven, and we're waiting for Jesus to return from there to rescue us (Philippians 3:20-21). Let's not get so wrapped up in worldly politics and concerns that we stress ourselves out about the future. Our eternal future is secure, and it will be wonderful and will infinitely outweigh anything negative we experience now, regardless of how things go in this temporal life.

Jesus is indeed our Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). Let's trust Him as the source of our personal peace this advent season, and into the new year.

Footnotes:

• 1. Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism: Revised and Expanded (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2007), 72-81.