Redeemed Humanity Will Reign

"Don't you know that the saints will judge the world?... Don't you know that we will judge angels?" (1 Corinthians 6:2-3). Paul asks this almost in passing, as something the Corinthians should already know — which means the New Testament assumed, as common teaching, a destiny for redeemed humanity far larger than most people imagine when they picture the age to come.
The theme is not an isolated flourish; it runs the length of the biblical story. Humanity was created to reign from the very beginning — the image of God in Genesis 1:26 and 1:28 was always a royal, vice-regent office, not a private inner quality. That original vocation, lost through rebellion, is not abandoned but recovered and expanded. Jesus' own parable pictures faithful stewardship rewarded with expanding authority: "Well done, you good servant! Because you were found faithful with very little, you shall have authority over ten cities" (Luke 19:17). Revelation promises the one who overcomes a share in Christ's own authority over the nations, and Paul anticipates the nations themselves coming under the reign of the promised heir of David (Romans 15:12). The consistent picture across every one of these texts is not humanity floating passively through eternity, but humanity actively co-ruling a renewed creation under Christ — precisely what the office in the garden was always meant to become.
This is why the risen Christ can make the promise he makes: "He who overcomes, I will give to him to sit down with me on my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father on his throne" (Revelation 3:21). The throne he offers is not a metaphor for comfort. It is the restoration, at last, of the very rule humanity was given in the beginning and never should have lost.