mmbattlestar said in post 1:
What will we be doing after the rapture in Heaven?
Do you mean that the rapture will take believers into the 3rd heaven (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:2b)? If so, note that no scripture requires that believers will be raptured any higher than the clouds of the sky (the 1st heaven) to hold a meeting in the air with Jesus at his 2nd coming (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17). After that meeting, in which the church will be judged by Jesus (Psalms 50:3-5, cf. Mark 13:27), and the obedient part of the church will be married to Jesus (Revelation 19:7, Matthew 25:1-13), the obedient part of the church will come back down from the sky (the 1st heaven) with Jesus (Revelation 19:15-21) to reign on the earth with him for 1,000 years (Revelation 20:4-6, Revelation 5:10, Revelation 2:26-29). After the 1,000 years and subsequent events (Revelation 20:7-15, Ezekiel chapters 38-39), the obedient part of the church will live on the new earth with God the Father and Jesus in the literal city of New Jerusalem (Revelation chapters 21-22).
mmbattlestar said in post 1:
At one point, I had the belief that we all become Angels and that like the Angels now, we would be helping people on earth find God. But, after the rapture there would be no need for Angels to do this. The world will be cleansed, there will be no more hell to save humanity from, and everyone will follow God and God's original intentions for humanity would be realized.
Regarding "there will be no more hell", note that nothing in the Bible says that.
For there are 2 literal hells, one temporary and one eternal. The temporary hell, called Hades in Greek (Luke 16:23) and Sheol in Hebrew (Psalms 86:13), is where the souls of unsaved people go when they die, and where they are tormented by flame (Luke 16:23-24). Before Jesus' 1st coming, Hades was also where the souls of saved people went when they died, but the part of Hades for the saved was a place of comfort (Luke 16:25).
After Jesus fulfilled the gospel by dying for our sins on the Cross and rising physically from the dead on the 3rd day (1 Corinthians 15:1-4), he went down into Hades and preached the fulfillment of the gospel to the souls there (1 Peter 3:19; 1 Peter 4:6), and then drew the souls of obedient believers there up with him when he ascended into heaven (Ephesians 4:8-9, Hebrews 12:22-24). Since then, the souls of obedient believers go directly into heaven to be with Jesus when they die (Philippians 1:21,23; 2 Corinthians 5:8, Revelation 6:9-11).
At Jesus' 2nd coming, he will bring with him from heaven the souls of all obedient believers who have ever died (1 Thessalonians 4:14), and their bodies will be physically resurrected into immortality at that time (1 Thessalonians 4:16; 1 Corinthians 15:21-23,52-53). They will then reign on the earth with Jesus for 1,000 years (Revelation 20:4-6, Revelation 5:10, Revelation 2:26-29). After the 1,000 years and subsequent events (Revelation 20:7-10), all unsaved people of all times will be physically resurrected out of Hades and judged (Revelation 20:12-13), and then cast into the eternal hell, called the lake of fire (Revelation 20:15, Revelation 21:8), where they will be tormented along with Satan and his fallen angels in fire and brimstone forever (Matthew 25:41,46, Revelation 20:10,15, Revelation 14:10-11). This eternal hell is also called Gehenna in Greek (Luke 12:5, Mark 9:45-46) and Tophet in Hebrew (Isaiah 30:33).
Tophet was also the name of a place in ancient times called the valley of Hinnom (2 Kings 23:10), just outside the southern wall of Jerusalem (Joshua 15:8). "Gehenna" literally means "the valley (ge) of Hinnom". Just as the ancient Tophet/Gehenna was outside the wall of ancient Jerusalem, so the eternal Gehenna, the lake of fire, will be just outside one wall of New Jerusalem (Revelation 22:15, Revelation 21:8) on the new earth (Revelation 21:1-8). Saved people will go forth from New Jerusalem to witness the eternal torment of the unsaved in the lake of fire (Isaiah 66:24, Mark 9:46, Matthew 25:41,46, Revelation 20:10,15, Revelation 14:10-11).
mmbattlestar said in post 1:
We are going to be doing God's bidding for eternity but, what could that possibly consist of?
One thing for sure is that there won't be any boredom in eternity for obedient believers (Psalms 16:11), in such a vast universe as ours, with some 100 billion galaxies, each containing some 100 billion stars. There could be a trillion already-inhabited planets out there which obedient believers could travel to and live on during eternity, interacting with a practically-infinite variety of life-forms, tasks, information, and recreation. And who is to say our universe has to be the only one? God could have created an infinite number of universes. So even after obedient believers have experienced all the variety of this vast universe (and helped to even increase its variety by terraforming for God now-desolate planets and moons in our and other star-systems and populating them with brand new species of plants and animals never seen before, which obedient believers could design from their own, God-inspired creativity), obedient believers will then have all the rest of eternity to experience and increase the variety of all the rest of the universes, always in the bliss of the presence of God (Psalms 16:11), who is spiritually everywhere at all times (Psalms 139:7-10).
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mmbattlestar said in post 5:
It clearly says that the world would be cleansed of evil and there will be a 1 thousand year Sabbath and basically, that my old beliefs wouldn't match up.
Note that the Bible doesn't say that the world will be cleansed of evil at the rapture.
For example, Luke 17:27,29 and Matthew 24:39 don't mean that all unsaved people will be killed at Jesus' 2nd coming. For Luke 17:34-36 and Matthew 24:40-41 go on to show that some unsaved people will be left alive at that time (Zechariah 14:16-19). So in Luke 17:26-30 and Matthew 24:37-39, the point of the comparison isn't that all unsaved people will be killed at the 2nd coming, but that none of them will be expecting to be killed, but will be eating and drinking without worry right up to the day of the 2nd coming.
Those "left" where they are at the 2nd coming (Luke 17:34-36, Matthew 24:40-41) will include unsaved people who will be forced to come up annually to worship the returned Jesus in Jerusalem during the millennium (Zechariah 14:16-19). These unsaved people will have to be ruled with a rod of iron by Jesus and the physically resurrected church during the millennium (Revelation 2:26-29, Revelation 5:10, Revelation 20:4-6, Psalms 2, Psalms 66:3, Psalms 72:8-11). And their descendants will be deceived by Satan after the millennium into committing the Gog/Magog rebellion (Revelation 20:7-10, Ezekiel chapters 38-39).
The 2nd coming will be like "the days of Noah" (Matthew 24:37) and "the days of Lot" (Luke 17:28,30) in that just as Noah went into the ark before the temporal (i.e. not the eternal) judgment of the Flood, and Lot went out from Sodom before its temporal (not its eternal) judgment (cf. Ezekiel 16:53-56), so the church will be raptured into the sky at the 2nd coming (Matthew 24:30-31; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-8; 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17, Revelation 19:7) before Jesus begins the 2nd-coming, temporal (not the eternal) judgment of the unsaved world alive at that time (Revelation 19:11 to 20:3, Luke 17:26-30, Matthew 24:37-39).
Regarding the
final judgment of the unsaved: When Jesus returns, only the church will be physically resurrected and finally-judged (1 Corinthians 15:21-23, Revelation 20:5; Psalms 50:3-5, cf. Mark 13:27; Matthew 25:19-30; 2 Corinthians 5:10, Luke 12:45-48). The obedient part of the physically resurrected church, including those in the church who had been beheaded by the Antichrist, will then reign on the earth with the returned Jesus for 1,000 years (Revelation 20:4-6, Revelation 5:10, Revelation 2:26-29, Psalms 66:3-4, Psalms 72:8-11, Zechariah 14:3-21). Only sometime after the 1,000 years and the subsequent Gog/Magog rebellion (Revelation 20:7-10, Ezekiel chapters 38-39) will the rest of the dead (of all times) be physically resurrected (Revelation 20:5) and finally-judged at the great white throne judgment (Revelation 20:11-15).
mmbattlestar said in post 5:
If people even continue to be born on the new earth?
Isaiah 65:20 could refer to a new race of humans who will be created along with the new earth (Isaiah 65:17), but who will fall into sin and mortality like Adam and Eve did. But even as mortals, they could live for about 900 years, like Adam and generations after him lived that long (Genesis 5:5-27), so that if one of them dies at 100, it will be like he died in his youth (Isaiah 65:20b).
If Isaiah 65:20 does refer to the new earth, then it can't refer to any humans born on our present earth. For by the time that the new earth is created (Revelation 21:1), all humans born on our present earth who got saved and remained obedient will have been resurrected (if dead) or changed (if alive) into immortal physical bodies (Revelation 21:4; 1 Corinthians 15:21-23,51-53, Romans 8:23-25). And all who didn't get saved or who remained disobedient will have been cast into the lake of fire and brimstone (Revelation 21:8, Revelation 20:10,15, Revelation 14:10-11, Isaiah 66:22,24, Matthew 25:41,46, Mark 9:45-46).
The physically resurrected, immortal humans could minister to the new race of fallen, mortal humans (of Isaiah 65:20) in the same way that angels now minister to us (Hebrews 1:14). For resurrected, immortal humans will be equal to the angels (Luke 20:36).
mmbattlestar said in post 5:
I find it confusing, we are just like the Angels yet, not Angels?
That's right.
For example, Matthew 22:30 can mean that resurrected humans won't marry, like angels don't marry. It doesn't contradict that the church will be resurrected (if dead) or changed (if alive) into immortal flesh bodies at Jesus' 2nd coming, just as he was resurrected into an immortal flesh body on the 3rd day after his death (Luke 24:39,46; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4,21-23,51-53, Philippians 3:21, Romans 8:23-25).
