Forever?

Rita responded to my post, Those Who Sleep in the Dust Shall Awake. She asked, “How did you come up with the end of the Messianic Age? Don’t ‘world without end’ (Eph 3:21 KJV¹) and ‘I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever’ (2 Sam 7:12–13 KJV) mean the kingdom of God lasts forever?”

Here is my answer to her questions: the Scriptures often use terms like “without end” and “forever” to mean unending but not unchanging. And, when God changes the “forever” object, the Bible can use terms like “the end” to describe the previous mode of existence.

Errors at opposite ends of the prophetic spectrum show the importance of this unending-not-unchanging concept. At one end, premillennial dispensationalism places the fulfillment of most prophecies in our future. This prophetic model rests on a foundational assumption: most of God’s promises belong to Israel after the flesh (1 Cor 10:18)—they are unending and unchanging. This belief explains Charles Ryrie’s statement: “The new covenant of Hebrews 8:7–13 belongs to the Jewish people and not to the Church.”² God would have to redefine “Israel” for the church to take part in the new covenant. Dispensationalists deny the possibility of this redefinition because of their concept of “forever.” 

At the other end of the prophetic continuum, hyper-preterists say God fulfilled all (or almost all) prophecies in AD 70. He established the “everlasting kingdom” (2 Pet 1:11), and it will never end or change. One writer says, “The Kingdom Age … is consummated and fully established forever, never to end, and … Christians everywhere for all time live within the Kingdom … forevermore.”³ This view produces a heretical result: we now live in the eternal state.

Mosaic-age Examples

A recognition that “forever” means unending but not unchanging corrects both mistakes. I will provide three examples that illustrate this meaning.

Circumcision. God said to Abraham, “He who is born in your house … must be circumcised, and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant” (Gen 17:13). God gave circumcision as a “forever” ordinance to identify God’s covenant people—it would never cease. But this did not mean it would never change. And God has changed it!

He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God. (Rom 2:28–29)

Paul identified Christians as “the circumcision” (Phil 3:3), saying, “In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ” (Col 2:11).

Circumcision was unending, not unchanging.

The priesthood. God said to Moses, “You shall gird Aaron and his sons with sashes and bind caps on them. And the priesthood shall be theirs by a statute forever” (Exod 29:9 ESV). But it was only a type—a picture or figure—of the greater priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says God changed the Old Testament’s “forever” priesthood:

If perfection were through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be called according to the order of Aaron? For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a change of the law. (Heb 7:11–12)

The Aaronic priesthood was “forever”—unending but not unchanging. 

The Passover. During the Exodus from Egypt, God instituted the Passover feast. He said to Moses, “This day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance” (Exod 12:14). But the New Testament shows how this “forever” feast has changed. Paul said, 

Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Cor 5:7–8)

The physical elements of the original Passover represented new-covenant realities. Leaven stood for “malice and wickedness,” false doctrine (Matt 16:6, 12), hypocrisy (Luke 12:1), etc. The Passover lamb stood for “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). 

The Passover was a “forever” ordinance, unending but not unchanging. 

God said all these ordinances—circumcision, the priesthood, the Passover, and others—were everlasting; they would last forever. This means they will never end, but their mode of existence has changed.

The transition occurred in Jesus’ generation. At the beginning of that period, “He … offered one sacrifice for sins forever” (Heb 10:12). Before it ended, he returned to destroy the temple (Matt 24:1–3, 34). That temple “was symbolic”—to it pertained “foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation” (Heb 9:9–10). When the temple fell, the (Mosaic) age and its “forever” ordinances ended.

The New Testament often refers to this “end.” The disciples asked about “the end of the age” (Matt 24:3). Jesus answered their questions: “the end is not yet;” “he who endures to the end shall be saved;” “the end will come;” etc. (Matt 24:6, 13, 14). Paul referred to his generation as “the end of the ages” (1 Cor 10:11). He meant the period in which Christ had appeared to put away sin (Heb 9:26).

God established “forever” ordinances in the Mosaic age. These ordinances were unending, but they changed modes of existence: physical circumcision became spiritual circumcision; the earthly high priest gave way to the heavenly High Priest; and the “one sacrifice … for ever” replaced the annual Passover sacrifice. The Scriptures say these changes occurred at “the end” of the (Mosaic) age. The Mosaic-age ordinances ended, but this does not mean they ceased to exist—it means they changed forms or modes of existence.

Messianic-age Applications

Let’s apply this insight to our own (messianic) age. Rita mentioned Paul’s words to the Ephesians: “Unto [God] be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end” (Eph 3:21 KJV). He meant the church’s praise would be unending, not unchanging. Paul expected a time when we will “come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:13). The church will continue to praise God, but in “a nobler, sweeter song.”⁴

Rita also mentioned God’s promise to David’s Son: “I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (2 Sam 7:13). This pledge assures Christ’s kingdom will always endure, but not that its mode of existence will remain unchanged. Paul says Christ will reign in the kingdom of God until “He has put all enemies under His feet” (1 Cor 15:25). At that point, a radical mode-change will occur: Christ will destroy death in the bodily resurrection (1 Cor 15:26). He refers to this change as “the end,” not because the kingdom of God will cease to exist, but because it will change forms. As Paul said, “When all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all” (1 Cor 15:28).

Conclusion

Inmillennialism⁵ posits two significant age changes: (1) from the Mosaic age to the messianic age, and (2) from the messianic age to the eternal state. In one age, God’s “forever” statements mean his promises will not end in the next, but they do not mean the forms (or modes of existence) will remain unchanged.

The Passover was “an everlasting ordinance” before the first age change: unending but subject to change. Before the second change, the church praises God “world without end”—without cessation but not without change. And Christ sits on “the throne of his kingdom forever”—without interruption, but not without a future advance in glory.

1. I added this reference.
2. Charles Caldwell Ryrie, The Basis of the Premillennial Faith (Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Bros., 1953), 122 (emphasis added).
3. Joseph Vincent, The Millennium, Past, Present or Future? A Biblical Defense for the 40 Year Transition Period (Ardmore, OK: JaDon Productions, 2012), 48 (emphasis added).
4. From the hymn There is a Fountain by William Cowper.
5. I document this perspective in Michael A. Rogers, Inmillennialism: Redefining the Last Days (Tullahoma, TN: McGahan Publishing House, 2020). This book is available here in hardcopy and here as a PDF. A free summary PDF document of inmillennialism is here.