The new Jerusalem is in Heaven at the present time. It consists of the true saints, all of whom have been born from above. At the beginning of the thousand-year Kingdom Age (Millennium) the Lord Jesus and His saints will descend from Heaven and enter the Jerusalem on earth, making it the governing city of the world.

At the end of the thousand-year Kingdom Age the new Jerusalem in Heaven will descend to the new earth and govern the nations of saved peoples of the earth forever. This is what the Scriptures teach. Thus it is not possible for there to be two different kingdoms of God made up of two different sets of people.

The new (and eternal) Jerusalem does not consist of Jews after the flesh. The new Jerusalem is the Wife of the Lamb, the Christian Church, the Kingdom of God. It is destined to govern the creation of God. The new Jerusalem eternally will be thoroughly Divine and thoroughly human.

Flesh and blood cannot enter the Kingdom of God. But humanness, an essential, eternal part of the Kingdom of God, is a quality distinct from the flesh and blood characteristics of the physical body. Dogs and horses are flesh and blood but they do not possess the quality of humanness.

Human beings are part spirit. Humans never can come into lasting joy and peace until their spiritual life has been renewed in Christ. But angels, who also are spirit, never can enter union with one another or with God. God never will dwell in an angel because God dwells only in Christ, and through Christ in man. Humanness is a quality unique to Christ and to all the other sons of God.

To enter the Kingdom of God we must be born twice: once of a human being and also of God. This is true of Jesus and of all other members of the Kingdom of God. (We recognize that the Lord Jesus is the eternal Logos of God and is different from us in this respect.)

Now that Christ has come, God will recognize no earthly kingdom, such as physical Israel, that is human but not born of the Spirit of God. The Scriptures do teach, however, that as soon as the full number of Gentiles has been grafted onto the good olive tree, God in Christ will turn once again to the people and land of Israel. The physical Jews then will be born again and will enter the Kingdom of God.

All the beauty and joy of Heaven is included in the Kingdom of God, and all that is found worthy in the earth will be made new and included in the Kingdom of God.

As far as we know, when a saint dies, he or she passes into Paradise, into the beautiful and wonderful light-filled domain of the spirit realm that we term Heaven. Paradise is the present location of God and Christ, of the tree of life, and of the spiritual Jerusalem and Mount Zion.

The spirit paradise is an environment created by the Soul of God working through the Holy Spirit through Christ. When we lose our flesh and go to Paradise we enter a place of love, beauty, peace, joy, and other extraordinary surroundings and things that are not of our making.

To be continued.