2024.—The One Hundred Years of Isa. 65:20.
By C. M. S.; A. J. F.
First of all, note the context from verse 13. The time is the time of the judgment when God's servants, hitherto oppressed, shall be oppressed no longer, but those who have oppressed them will themselves suffer. His people shall sing, while the wicked shall weep and wail. To cheer His people, He holds out before them the promise of new heavens and new earth, so glorious and beautiful that all the former things shall not be remembered nor come into mind to weigh upon the heart. The New Jerusalem will be in that new earth, "a rejoicing, and her people a joy;" the voice of weeping will be forever banished. In that blessed land there will not be seen what is in this land, "there will be no more thence an infant of days," neither will old men be seen who have not filled their days. Why?—Because just before God's children enter upon that new heaven and new earth the irrevocable judgment of God will have been visited upon sin. This is more fully described in Revelation 20. "At the end of the thousand years" the city of God descends upon the place described in Zechariah 14. His people descend with that city, the wicked dead are raised, Satan goes out into the four corners of the earth to deceive them, making them believe that the city of God can be taken, that the kingdom which has come to God's children can be made the kingdom of his followers. They prepare for war, and come up over the breadth of the earth and compass the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city. Just how long this period of time is, Revelation does not say, but it seems very reasonable that right here should apply Isa. 65:20. There will be the young and the old who have so transgressed against God that they have shut themselves away from His promised mercy. There will be the old man, and the child who has passed the age of probation and is therefore responsible, and who has chosen sin instead of righteousness. The old man shall live during that hundred years and die, and the responsible child shall live during that same period and shall die; and then, after the purifying fire shall purge the earth of its sin, God's people shall dwell therein forever.