The Christian Church, the Wife of the Lamb, the new Jerusalem, will be perfected in righteousness and glorified during the thousand-year period. The thousand-year period is the spiritual fulfillment of the Levitical Day of Atonement.

When the Lord Jesus descends from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, He will bring with Him His conquering saints. These are God's kings, priests, and judges of whom the Hebrew prophets spoke. The remnant on the earth will experience an eternal change in their body and will ascend, as so many Enochs and Elijahs, to join the army of conquerors in the air (I Thessalonians 4:16,17; Revelation 20:4-6).

Then the Lord will attack Antichrist and his forces, destroying him with the fury of His anger. This marks the destruction of sin and sinners out of the earth and the installation by force of the Kingdom of God (II Thessalonians 1:7-10).

All who have called on the name of the Lord in sincerity will be saved in that hour. This is the coming of the army of the Lord (Joel, Chapter Two; Habakkuk, Chapter Three; Matthew 24:30,31; Jude 1:14,15)—the Lord Jesus and His "mighty men of valor."

After the thousand-year Kingdom Age has come to an end, the present universe will pass away with great heat and noise. Then a new sky and a new earth will be brought into existence at the Word of Christ.

Down from the new sky will descend the completed and perfected Church, the Wife of the Lamb. Every member will know God, from the least to the greatest. This is the result of the working of the new covenant.

There is no temple in the new Jerusalem because God and the Lamb are the Temple of it. This means every member without exception of the holy city will have direct access to the glorious Throne of God and of the Lamb.

By this time there has been total reconciliation to the Father and total, complete marriage to the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, between the Lord and His chosen, every wall, such as the wall of a temple, has been removed for eternity. God's saints will appear in His Presence—every one of them!

Today, in Heaven, there is a temple.

In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. (Isaiah 6:1)

When we die and go to Heaven, we still will have to pray to God in His holy Temple, just as we do today on the earth. We are not ready as yet to stand in the full Presence of the unshielded Glory.

But through the body and blood of Christ, and the work of the Holy Spirit, Christ—the eternal dwelling place of God—is being formed within us. Christ Himself is the eternal Temple of God.

As soon as Christ has been brought to full stature within us the wall of partition will be removed and we will behold the Face of the Father—the Almighty God (Ephesians 4:13). We then shall know as we are known. This is a state of being and glory so stupendously greater than anything we can imagine that we can only believe it and then wait for God's Spirit to bring it all to pass.

To be continued.