[YTM] 41.0 How People Can Be Born During the Millennium Reign

Scripture teaches that children will indeed be born during the Millennium, the 1,000-year reign of Yeshua the Messiah on earth. This is possible because the people who enter the Millennial Kingdom will be a mixed group in terms of their bodies: some will possess resurrected, glorified bodies, and others will remain in natural, mortal bodies. Only the latter group will be capable of bearing children.

Yeshua clearly taught that resurrected people do not marry or reproduce. In Matthew 22:30 He said, “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels.” This means that all believers who receive glorified bodies at the Rapture will no longer be able to participate in marriage or biological reproduction. They will reign with Messiah, but they will not contribute to repopulating the earth.

However, children will still be born during the Millennium, because many people will enter this period in their natural bodies rather than resurrected ones. The population of the earth will have been drastically reduced by the Rapture and the judgments of the Tribulation. Thus, the earth must be repopulated. Yeshua referred to this coming age as “the regeneration” (Matthew 19:28), a term that can be understood as renewal or repopulation.

Prophets described the Millennial world as one filled with children, families, and growth. Isaiah 65:20–23 speaks of infants, long lifespans, and descendants. Zechariah 8:1–5 describes boys and girls playing in the streets of Jerusalem. Ezekiel 47:22 mentions land inheritance “for your children after you.” By the end of the Millennium, Revelation 20:7–9 pictures massive numbers of people on earth, as numerous “as the sand of the sea,” confirming enormous population growth.

These children and grandchildren come from the “families of the earth” (Zechariah 14:16)—a phrase showing that many generations will arise during Messiah’s reign. Some will joyfully worship the King; others may rebel, revealing that not all born during this era will choose faith.

The parents of these Millennial children are those who were not raptured, but who came to faith during the Tribulation and survived until the Next Coming of Messiah. They enter the Millennial Kingdom as redeemed believers, yet still in their natural, human bodies, capable of marriage and childbirth.

This creates an important theological distinction: the Rapture and the Next Coming cannot be the same event. If they occurred simultaneously, all believers would instantly receive glorified bodies, leaving no mortal believers alive to repopulate the earth. But Scripture indicates that a group of faithful, living humans will indeed enter the Millennium and have children. Thus, the Rapture must occur before the Next Coming, leaving behind a population of unsaved people—many of whom will later repent and survive to enter the Kingdom in natural bodies.

God preserves these post-Rapture believers through the Tribulation for a special purpose: to repopulate the earth during the reign of Messiah. Meanwhile, resurrected saints reign with Yeshua, as Revelation 20:4, 6 says, blessed and holy, immune to the second death, and serving as priests and rulers during His thousand-year kingdom.