7 Things You Have To Know To Understand End Times Prophecy: Part 4 – The Three Components of Humanity

Hi, this is Jack Kelley. In our ongoing study called The Seven Things You Must Know To Understand End Times Prophecy, we have talked about the first thing which was the Sequence Of Major Events Of The End Times, and in this session we are going to talk about the second thing you must know and that is the Destiny Of The Three Components Of Humanity.  

You know, when God created Adam and Eve, He made them male and female. These were the mother and father of all humans who would come after them. 

And for a long time, everyone was considered part of the human race. There was no distinction, no separation. Sure, there were family ties and family origins, but everyone was considered to be a part of the human race. That was the classification by which man was known: human. And it was that way until Genesis 12:1-3 when the Lord spoke to Abraham saying:

“Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

“I will make you into a great nation,

    and I will bless you;

I will make your name great,

    and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you,

    and whoever curses you I will curse;

and all peoples on earth

    will be blessed through you.”

At this point, God was saying, “I am going to make you, Abraham, and all the ones who come after you, into a great nation.” And beginning at this point—in fact two chapters later in Genesis 14—Abram becomes the first human being to be called by God a Hebrew. And so, now you had a new classification of human (a sub-grouping of the human race, if you will) called the Hebrews, later on to be called the Jews. And so, from that point forward, the human race was divided into two sub-groups: Jew and Gentile. 

And that’s the way it was up until the cross. At the cross, the Lord Jesus made possible the development of a third sub-set, a third component of humanity, which He called the Church.

In Ephesians 2:12-16 Paul said the Church would be formed by taking representatives from both Jews and Gentiles and bringing them into this third group. Speaking to the Gentiles in the city of Ephesus, Paul says this:

Ephesians 2:12-16

remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.

And so, here Paul was saying from among both Jew and Gentile He is going to draw representatives to create a third group of humanity that would be called the Church. Now, each of these three components of humanity—the Jew, the Gentile, and the Church—has a separate destiny. One of the major things you have to know in understanding end times prophecy is, which group is being addressed. And by knowing that, and by knowing the destiny of that group, you can put the prophecy into its proper context.  

And so, from the cross forward then, humanity has been separated into three groups: the Jew, the Gentile (or the Nations, if you will) and the Church. Our job in this session is going to be to figure out what the destinies are of these three groups so that we can see how prophecy deals with each one of them.  

The first group we’ll talk about are the people that we’ll call the redeemed Jews. You know, from Adam forward, the Scriptures tell us that people were required to offer sacrifices for their sins. Now, these sacrifices were not designed to absolve them or free them from their sins, but merely to set their sins aside until the coming Messiah would offer His permanent and acceptable sacrifice which would redeem them once and for all. But throughout the four thousand years from Adam to the cross, you had literally millions of people dying. Many of those died in faith that the Savior would come and redeem them. He hadn’t come yet, and they didn’t live to see Him. They believed He would, and when He did He would redeem them. These people when they died went to a place the Jews called Sheol. In the Greek, it is called Hades, and it was divided into two compartments, if you will.  

You get a clear picture of this in the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in the Gospel According to Luke, where the rich man goes to a place of torment and Lazarus goes to a place of comfort. That place of comfort was called by the Jews Abraham’s Bosom, after Abraham, the father of the faithful; or in some cases, it was called Paradise. This is why when Jesus was dying on the cross, He said to the one next to Him who had recognized Him as the Redeemer and asked Him to remember him when He came into His Kingdom, He said to that man, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise” because that’s where He was going.  

When He went to Paradise, He brought out of the tomb with Him all of the holy ones who had died in faith. You know, He was in the belly of the Earth for three days and three nights and on Resurrection Morning when He came out, He brought out with Him the people who had died in faith from the beginning of mankind.  

And we read in Matthew 27:52:

and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

And so, you have this whole classification of redeemed Jews who went to Heaven with Jesus when He came out of the tomb. These people were not part of the Church; they were people who believed in the coming Messiah, but they weren’t there during the time of the Church age. The Church age, you know, began at Pentecost and continues until the rapture. Even John the Baptist, who is a New Testament figure, is not part of the Church because as Jesus said also in the New Testament, “The Law and the Prophets” (which was the Jewish peoples’ title for what we would call the Old Testament), He said, “The Law and the Prophets were until John.” And from that time forward, there was a new covenant. And so, John was one of the last Old Testament figures. He was the last of the Old Testament prophets. Well from the time of Pentecost until the time of the rapture, then you have the Church. And that’s a whole different classification.

And so, first thing we’re going to deal with here are these redeemed Jews. These are Jews who died in faith before the age of the Church. Now of course it goes without saying that any Jewish person who comes to faith during the Church age is part of the Church. Because, as we read in our last discussion the passage from Ephesians, that God was taking from among both Jew and Gentile one new man that would form this third component of humanity. And so, many people who are members of the Church are from Jewish origin and many others are from Gentile origin, but they are now neither Jew nor Gentile. They are now called the Church.  

Now, after the Church age you have the Great Tribulation in which other people will be redeemed and many of those people will be Jewish people, and they won’t be members of the Church either, because they will have come to faith after the Church. So, we need to talk about this classification we call redeemed Jews, some from before and some from after the Church.  

In Ezekiel 43:4-7, Ezekiel is telling them a vision that takes place outside what is called the Millennial Temple, the temple that has not been built yet that is mentioned in Ezekiel 40-48 and it talks about the Kingdom age and the temple in the Kingdom age. And in Ezekiel 43:4-7 Ezekiel hears the Lord saying these things.  

Verse 4 says:

 The glory of the Lord entered the temple through the gate facing east. Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.

While the man was standing beside me, I heard someone speaking to me from inside the temple. He said: “Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place for the soles of my feet. This is where I will live among the Israelites forever. 

And so, here you have the Holy Spirit of God speaking to Ezekiel saying, “This is the place of my throne, this is the place for the soles of my feet. This is where I will live among the Israelites forever.”

Now, this voice is saying to Ezekiel, “I’m going to fulfill My promise to the nation Israel which has always been that one day I would return and dwell among them forever.” The promise to the Jewish people at the end of the age is that their kingdom would be restored, and the Lord would come, and He would dwell among them forever.  

Listen to Isaiah 2:2-4:

 In the last days

the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established

    as the highest of the mountains;

it will be exalted above the hills,

    and all nations will stream to it.

Many peoples will come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

    to the temple of the God of Jacob.

He will teach us his ways,

    so that we may walk in his paths.”

The law will go out from Zion,

    the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

He will judge between the nations

    and will settle disputes for many peoples.

They will beat their swords into plowshares

    and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation will not take up sword against nation,

    nor will they train for war anymore.

And so, here you have a prophecy of the Kingdom age. And during the Kingdom age you have the law going out from Zion, the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem, judging between nations, settling disputes; this is a picture of the Lord dwelling in Israel with His people, governing the world. This is the great Kingdom age that has been promised to Israel forever.  

In Isaiah 65:17-19 He says:

“See, I will create

    new heavens and a new earth.

The former things will not be remembered,

    nor will they come to mind.

But be glad and rejoice forever

    in what I will create,

for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight

    and its people a joy.

I will rejoice over Jerusalem

    and take delight in my people;

the sound of weeping and of crying

    will be heard in it no more.

Here’s another promise of Israel in the Kingdom age.  

And so, you see, the promise to the Jewish people—what we’ll call the promise of Jewish eschatology or Jewish study of the times of the end—is that one day, God who left would return and He would dwell in His temple again in Israel, in the midst of His people and there He would dwell forever. So, the redeemed Jews from all ages will dwell with God in Israel on planet Earth and He will be there in His temple, in their midst and He will dwell with them forever.  

All right. Now let’s talk about the Church.  

As I’ve said before, the Church was born on Pentecost and ends with the rapture. The Church age therefore has a set beginning and a set ending. What happens to the Church? As we’ve said earlier, the promise of the Jews is that God will one day return to Earth and dwell with them and live among them forever. All through Sunday school as I was growing up what I heard was, if you are a good boy you die and go to Heaven and live with Jesus. And so, the promise to the Church seems to be that we go to Heaven and live with Jesus. And so, let’s take a look to see where the Biblical validation of that view is.  

The place where we’ll look for it first is in John 14:1-3. Jesus, speaking to His disciples on the night before He was arrested, said:

 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 

Now this is such an interesting passage because the Lord is saying to His disciples He is going to go away, and the reason He’s going to go away is to prepare a place for us. And He says, “If I go, I’ll come back and when I come back I’m going to take you to be with Me so that you may be where I am.” So He’s not saying He’s going to come back to Earth to dwell with us; He’s saying He’s coming back to Earth to get us to take us somewhere to dwell with Him. And so, the concept that we got as kids that we still believe in terms of our heritage, our destiny—Christian eschatology we’ll call it, as opposed to the Jewish eschatology we talked about last time—is that when we die we go to Heaven and live with Jesus.

Okay. So, what is that? What does that mean, really? When we go in the rapture or the resurrection, whichever comes first for us, what happens to us?

Well, here I’m going to go to Revelation 21 and I’m going to read verses 2, 16, 22 and 27 for you. This just summarizes the passage. I would encourage you to go and read the entire passage for yourselves. But here we’ll summarize the passage. 

John said:

Revelation 21:2

 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

Revelation 21:16

The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length,

Twelve thousand stadia, by the way, is 1,400 miles.

and as wide and high as it is long.

Revelation 21:22

 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.

Revelation 21:27

Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

And so, this is the description; this tells us what is meant when we say we’ll go to Heaven and live with Jesus. We actually go to live in this place called the New Jerusalem. John sees it coming down out of Heaven, he never sees it actually landing on Earth. He only sees it descending from Heaven. It’s called the New Jerusalem but it’s way different from the current Jerusalem that exists. In the first place, it’s so big it would not fit inside of Israel, let alone fit inside of Jerusalem. It’s 1,400 miles on a side and it is as tall as it is wide and long. So, it’s 1,400 miles tall.

Some see it as a giant cube where it’s 1,400 miles long, 1,400 miles wide, 1,400 miles tall.  Others see it as a giant pyramid which could also be 1,400 miles long and 1,400 miles wide, 1,400 miles tall. It’s not clear what its actual configuration is. We’re only given these dimensions. The 1,400 miles on each side and 1,400 miles high. But, nonetheless, it is a huge structure. And John sees it descending down out of Heaven and he says, “prepared as a bride.”  

Now, some people have confused this and see New Jerusalem as the Bride. Well, that’s not true. The Bride dwells in the New Jerusalem. What is meant by the phrase “prepared as a bride” means that, just as a bride is prepared as beautifully as she possibly can be for her wedding, this city is prepared as beautifully as it possibly can be.

Some have estimated that by estimating the number of believers there will be in the Church when the rapture comes, and looking at the square footage in the New Jerusalem. Dividing the two they come to the conclusion that each of us will have about a ten thousand square foot mansion to dwell in. And you remember in John 14:1-3, “In My Father’s house are many rooms” well what the Lord is talking about is, each of these rooms for us, approximating ten thousand square feet according to this estimate that I read. I don’t know if there is any validity to things like that, I don’t know how they determine some of these numbers but suffice it to say this is a huge structure and there will be plenty of room for everybody.  

In fact, if this structure were to land for instance, in the United States (now, I’m not saying that it’s going to. I’m just using that as an example) if it were to land in the United States it would require all the land from Maine to Florida and from the Atlantic Seaboard to the Mississippi River. So, you can see it’s just a gigantic object. And then it would stick up from the surface of the Earth 1,400 miles. Fourteen hundred miles.

You know, a story in a building is ten feet tall. A hundred story building is a thousand feet tall. A hundred story building is a huge building in our time. And yet that’s only a thousand feet tall. This building is 1,400 miles tall. So, you can get a feel for how big it is.  

Now, also understand, there is no temple in this city. We don’t need a temple in the New Jerusalem because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are our temple. “Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

This makes it clear that only members of the Church dwell in this New Jerusalem. So, where’s it going to be?  

Well, I believe it’s going to be like a low-orbit satellite. I believe it will be in the proximity of Earth.  It will be identified with Earth. But it never will actually touch down anywhere on planet Earth but will be in a low orbit going around planet Earth so that Earth is accessible to us but so that it is separate from Earth so that nothing impure can ever enter it. This is the New Jerusalem spoken of in Revelation 21.

Now, I’d like to compare for just a minute to show you why I don’t believe that this city winds up being in Israel, even though it’s called the New Jerusalem. Because you see in the Book of Ezekiel we read a little bit in our last track about the temple in the Millennium. Now that temple is located in Israel. It’s an actual building, an actual edifice; you can read about it in Ezekiel 40-48. You can read the dimensions of it and the dimensions are given with such clarity and so specifically you could actually build a model of the temple just from reading the Book of Ezekiel. And it is called The Temple in Israel. 

A lot of people confuse the New Jerusalem with the new Holy City in Israel coming at the time of the Millennium and I’d just like to compare these two for you to show you that they can’t be the same.

In Revelation 21 the New Jerusalem is said to have twelve gates named after Israel and twelve foundations named after the apostles; while in the Book of Ezekiel we see there are twelve gates named after Israel in chapter 48:30, but there is no foundation described, no mention of anything for the apostles.  

In the New Jerusalem we see a footprint of 1,400 miles square and then 1,400 miles tall, but in Ezekiel, the city limits are one mile square.  

The New Jerusalem in Revelation 21 is seen coming down from Heaven, but in Ezekiel the Holy City is located in Israel on Earth.  

There’s no temple in the New Jerusalem but there is a temple in the new Holy City in Israel—in fact, there are eight chapters of description of it.

In the New Jerusalem there is no sin. Nothing impure can enter it. But in the Millennial temple in Israel, they will be offering sin offerings every day just like they did in the past.  

In the New Jerusalem, Revelation 21:4 tells us there will be no more death. But in Ezekiel we learn that there is still death and in the passages that I read you last time from Isaiah we learned of death on Earth as natural born people who have not been perfected in the rapture or the resurrection, but go live into the Millennium, have children, those children grow up. People still die during the Millennium on Earth.

In the New Jerusalem there are no natural beings, only the perfected. But, as I’ve said before, in Ezekiel we see that there are still natural beings. The specific reference to that is Ezekiel 46:16.

Perhaps the most telling difference is the fact that in the very last chapter and the last verse in Ezekiel, the new Holy City is not called Jerusalem—it’s called Jehovah Shammah, and that word translates into English as The Lord Is There. Jehovah Shammah, The Lord Is There. 

So, you have Jehovah Shammah on Earth; you have the New Jerusalem, a satellite orbiting the Earth. In the New Jerusalem you have the Church dwelling and in Israel, whose new holy city is called Jehovah Shammah, you have the redeemed Jews.

And so, very different destinies. Very different locations. Very different circumstances. And yet both promises come true, because the Lord dwells in His temple and the Messiah dwells with the redeemed in the New Jerusalem.  

All right. So now it’s time to talk about the third component of humanity called the Gentiles, or the Nations. These are all the people who are not part of the redeemed Jews and who aren’t part of the Church. Now, this group gets split into two sub-components as well. And so, among the Nations, you have the unsaved and the Tribulation Saints. We’ll take the Tribulation Saints first.

The term, Tribulation Saints comes from Revelation 7: 14-17 where we read:

And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore,

“they are before the throne of God

    and serve him day and night in his temple;

and he who sits on the throne

    will shelter them with his presence.

‘Never again will they hunger;

    never again will they thirst.

The sun will not beat down on them,’

    nor any scorching heat.

For the Lamb at the center of the throne

    will be their shepherd;

‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’

    ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’

All right. John is in Heaven during the Book of Revelation, and these groups of people are brought to him and in Revelation 17 he sees a group that he doesn’t recognize. The angel who is with him asks him who he thinks they are, and he says he doesn’t know. And then the angel tells him that “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation;” These are tribulation martyrs. These are people who missed the rapture because they had not come to faith in the Lord Jesus by the time the rapture had arrived, so they were left behind.  

Partly due to all the changes that take place on planet Earth after the rapture—the emergence of evil and the loss of the restraining power of the Holy Spirit on Earth restraining evil from doing its worst—many, many, many people will come to faith. In fact, some speculate that the number of people who come to faith after the rapture will exceed the number of people who went in the rapture as members of the Church.  

But here they do, they arrive in Heaven and you see them arriving periodically throughout the Book of Revelation and the angel says that they’ve come out of the Great Tribulation. They’ve been martyred for their faith and that’s why we call them Tribulation Saints. Now, I want you to notice some people confuse Tribulation Saints with the Church and they think this mention in Revelation 17 refers to the Church. But look at what their destiny is. It says:

Revelation 17:15

Therefore,

“they are before the throne of God

    and serve him day and night in his temple;

Now that’s not the destiny that is prophesied for the Church. The Church is the Bride of Christ who rules and reigns with Him forever. These come before the Throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is great benefit to the destiny of the Tribulation Saints. But it’s not the benefit that is promised to the Church. 

And so, the Tribulation Saint is someone who comes to faith after the age of the Church has ended, after the rapture—and probably martyred for his faith during the Great Tribulation—shows up in Heaven (after his death, of course) and becomes a member of this group called Tribulation Saints.  

Now, the second and final group of the Nations is the unbelievers, and these unbelievers come from all throughout history. We’re going to take the group first that is left at the end of the Great Tribulation. You see, there will be some people, some believers and others non believers who survive the Great Tribulation. About three-quarters of the world’s population will die in one form or fashion. Either from the natural disasters, or from the wars, or from the pestilences, or from the diseases or from the other judgments that come upon the Earth during that period of time. But about one-quarter of the population will survive, and they’ll live through it. And this is the group that the Lord Jesus addresses in Matthew 25: 31-34 and in verse 41 in the passage that we know as the Sheep and Goat Judgment.

Let’s just read this part of it. This is Matthew 25:31-34 and then verse 41:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 

 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 

And so, this Sheep and Goat judgment occurs after the Second Coming and is meant to deal with those people who survived the Great Tribulation. Again, some people make the mistake of seeing the Church in this story, thinking that the Sheep are the faithful and the Goats are the backsliders but, you know, that just can’t be.

In the first place, no matter how you view the disposition of the Church, nobody sees the Church being taken into Heaven after the Second Coming. The latest view by anyone who sees any kind of a gathering of the Church by the Lord sees it happening just before the Second Coming.  

But here we are, after the Second Coming. This is when it is too late for anybody to change their destiny. And this is when the Son of Man has come, and He has set up His throne and He is calling all the Nations together for judgment. And He separates them as a shepherd separates the sheep from goats. Sheep of course, are the believers. They are ushered into the Kingdom. He says, “Come, you who are blessed by My Father. Take your inheritance, a kingdom prepared for you.” The Goats represent the unbelievers, and He says, “Depart from Me you who are accursed in the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” And so, that has to do with the group that survives the Great Tribulation.

Now, how about all the other unsaved, from all over the span of time from Adam forward; what happens to them? Well, we read in Revelation 20:11-15 about a judgment for the unbelievers of all ages.

Let’s read it, beginning in verse 11:

 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done.

And so, this judgment takes place at the end of the Millennium, one thousand years after the Second Coming when all the unsaved are raised from the dead.  

You see, the thing that many people don’t understand about us (about humans) is that we are eternal beings. The part of us that’s us is eternal. Our body dies but we don’t. Everyone who was ever conceived lives forever. The question is not whether you have eternal life. The question is, where are you going to spend eternity? And there are only two places. You can spend eternity in the presence of the Lord, or you can spend eternity banished from the presence of the Lord. Those who are in the presence of the Lord are subject to eternal blessing; those who are banished from the presence of the Lord are subject to eternal punishment. It’s just that simple. There’s no Door Number 3. It’s either saved, or not. In the presence of the Lord; excluded from His presence.  

And so, this judgment in Revelation 20, the so-called Great White Throne Judgement, is designed for those who have declined, who have rejected the pardon that was purchased for them at the cross and have decided to try and make their life on their own, or they’ve rejected the whole idea and say, “No. I’m not going to believe in that. I don’t think it’s true. I don’t want anything to do with it and I just want God to leave me alone.” 

And so, the interesting part about this judgment is that everybody gets what they desire. Those who desire to be with the Lord forever give their lives to Jesus and are promised to be in the presence of the Lord forever. Those who want to be left alone and don’t want God to bother them anymore are promised that they will be banished from the Lord’s presence forever and He’ll never bother them again.  

Then there are many who decide, “Look. I’m going to work my own way into Heaven. I’m going to achieve my own salvation by the things that I do.” And so those people will be brought to life and judged. And you know, I think they’ll be judged according to their own standards and still fail. Because as impossible as it is for us to live up to God’s standards, we don’t even live up to our own. We disappoint ourselves, we break our own rules. We defy our own system of right and wrong. We violate our own principles from time to time—because we’re imperfect beings. And so, even those who decide they want to be judged by their own merits, or on their own merits by their own standards, will find out they come up short.

And so, this judgment is the judgment where each person who has ever lived is given the opportunity to see where he was offered the Kingdom and rejected it. And where he’s made the decision to be excluded and this will be his final judgment. So that’s in Revelation 20:11-15, showing the ultimate disposition of the so-called unsaved.

Now, there’s a thought going around, just to cap this off, what about a second chance? What about a third chance? What about this opportunity to sit down with the Lord and bargain for your salvation?

And for that we go to the one place in the Bible where things like this are mentioned and that’s in Hebrews 9:27 & 28 where the writer says:

Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

And so, the destiny of man is to have one life, and after that, to face judgment.  

The second time you see Jesus, it will either be to be welcomed into His presence forever or excluded from His presence forever. There is no mention anywhere in Scripture of another chance, there’s no mention of any kind of concept that would even loosely be compared to the Eastern concept of reincarnation. That just is not Biblical. Man is destined to live one life. During that life he has one purpose, and that purpose is to decide whether he is going to accept or reject the pardon that was purchased for him at the cross. If he accepts it, upon death he goes straight to be with the Lord and spends eternity with Him, receiving blessing after blessing too numerous to count. If he rejects it then he is sent away, banished, if you will, from the presence of God into a place of eternal judgment.

And so, there you have the destiny of the three components of humanity.

You have redeemed Jews who live in Israel with God.

You have the Church who dwells in the New Jerusalem with Jesus. 

And you have the unsaved who are banished from the presence of God forever.