Question from a reader:

After all the things done to the earth during the Tribulation, what is going to be left for Jesus to rule and reign over for 1,000 years? Revelation says a third of the rivers, a third of the oceans, a third of the animals, and a third of the earth itself will be destroyed. Are we going to spend the first 500 years cleaning everything up?

Answer from Randy Alcorn:

Those who are amillennial have the easiest answer to this, since they don’t believe in a literal 1000 year reign, but that it is a reference to the saints currently ruling over the earth from the intermediate Heaven, where they dwell with Christ. They then believe that the return of Christ and His resurrected saints to the charred old earth is immediately followed by the New Heavens and New Earth.

So they avoid that problem, but have problems of their own. I am premillennial and have no problem believing earth’s devastation during the Tribulation is limited enough that either Jesus will immediately restore enough to make it good (as seen in Isaiah 11, 65 and 66), and/or Christ and His people can rule over whatever remains and more gradually restore and improve the rest. But even that will be a temporary rule and foretaste of the New Earth, which will be our eternal dwelling place.

I’m frequently asked my views on the millennium, and share more in this article.