We are approaching the hour when Satan will be overcome by the saints, will be cast down from the heaven, and all sin will be brought to an end. It may help us to realize that at one time Satan and the other rebellious angels were the friends and companions of Christ. We humans are newcomers on the scene. The fall of the ancient monarchs and the rise of the brothers of Christ to positions of preeminence in the creation is no light matter. Smug, glib behavior on our part is not appropriate.

There were the Father, the Logos, the angels, and a horrible rebellion against the Father.

God then declared His eternal purpose. He would create a new kind of being, permit the new creatures to be infected with the poison of the rebellion, and then make an atonement for them. After this He would fill the new beings with the Logos and, using the Logos as the Cornerstone and the building material, fashion a perfect revelation of Himself.

The new, living Representation and image of the Father would be humbled, taught perfect obedience, compassion, and continual dependence on God, and then clothed with surpassingly glorious bodies. The assemblage of glorified holy ones would then be the new Jerusalem, the city of the living God.

And we know all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be changed into the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. (Romans 8:28-33)

The elect shall be named "the Lord our Righteousness" because they have become the righteousness of the Lord God through Christ.

Forever and ever—throughout the countless ages of eternity—the Person, ways, will, and eternal purpose of God will be clear to all men and all angels as they behold and contemplate the new Jerusalem, the Bride of the Lamb. The holy city is the eternal covenant of God with man.

All rebellion, all sin and sinners, angelic and human, will continue to exist but will be confined in a lake that burns with fire and sulfur unceasingly.

The Kingdom of God is God in Christ in the saints governing the nations of saved peoples of the earth. Woe to the nation that will not come up to Jerusalem to celebrate the tabernacling of God in His elect! Upon that nation shall be no rain, neither spiritual nor physical rain. The people of the disobedient nation will abide in a barren desert with other rebellious spirits and, if they do not repent, their nation finally will be destroyed.

For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted. (Isaiah 60:12)

To be continued.