The Inhabitants of the New Heaven and New Earth

The question concerns the identity of those who inhabit the new heaven and new earth as described near the end of Revelation. The biblical picture points broadly to all the saved of all ages, though distinct groups arrive there by different paths and under different dispensational arrangements.

The Saved of All Dispensations

We may speak of "all the saved" in the sense of all who, in their respective dispensations, come to participate in God's gift of life through the revelation available to them. This would include:

• Pre-law believers such as Adam, Seth, Enoch, and Noah, whose acceptance with God is grounded in the revelation given before the Mosaic covenant.
• Patriarchal believers such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, associated with the dispensation of promise and the Abrahamic covenant.
• Israel under the law, including Moses, David, the prophets, John the Baptist, and faithful Israelites in the gospel accounts and early Acts period, who have righteousness defined in relation to the law and covenant.
• Members of the body of Christ, saved by grace through faith apart from works of the law, according to the gospel revealed to and through Paul.
• Tribulation saints, who heed the specific demands of faithfulness in that period and endure to the end.
• Millennial saints, those born and believing during the thousand-year reign of Christ.

By the time of the new heaven and new earth, death and Hades have been cast into the lake of fire Revelation 20:14. Those written in the book of life have passed through judgment, and the eternal order is in place.

Nations and Kings in the Eternal State

Revelation 21:24--26 sheds light on the presence of nations and rulers:

"And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it."

Here, "the nations of them which are saved" indicates that, in the eternal order, there are still nations, and they are composed of the saved. The "kings of the earth" who bring their glory into the New Jerusalem must likewise be saved kings. There is no hint that any unsaved persons inhabit this realm.

Whether new generations are born after this point is not clearly revealed. Scripture does not provide detailed information on reproduction or family expansion in the eternal state. Claims to certainty on that question go beyond what the text explicitly says.

Conclusion

In sum, the new heaven and new earth are populated by all who are saved in any dispensation, including Israel's faithful, the body of Christ, tribulation and millennial saints, and the redeemed of earlier ages. Revelation 21:24 explicitly speaks of "the nations of them which are saved," indicating that the entire social structure of that world is composed of the redeemed.

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