PT031
The Journal of Christian Reconstruction, Vol. III,
No. 2, Winter, 1976-77, Covenant Media Foundation, 800/553-3938
The Prima Facie Acceptability of
Postmillennialism
By Greg L. Bahnsen
In this article
I discuss the recent decline in the espousal of postmillennialism, defend it as
a basic system of theological thought against certain misguided criticisms,
elaborate its key tenet in contrast to amillennialism and premillennialism, and
supply a general defense of its acceptability in the light of the history of
Reformed theology. What shall be
demonstrated is that its recent unpopularity has been unjustified and that the
position must be taken quite seriously by all who adhere to Reformation Christianity.
The years
shortly after the turn of the twentieth century witnessed a general decline in
the published advocacy of postmillennial eschatology. Conspicuous among the influences generating this popular
disenchantment were three factors, best understood in their unrefined and early
stages in the nineteenth century.
First, the 1800’s brought the
entrenchment of rationalistic higher criticism of Scripture, and consequently
skepticism regarding Christian dogma, in the academic centers of theology. Late seventeenth-century thought was
characterized by the Enlightenment’s insistence on the intellectual standard of
autonomous reason (i.e., scholarship uncontrolled by biblical
presuppositions). The effects of this
are evident in early eighteenth-century Deism and critical “lives of Jesus”
(e.g., by Reimarus and Paulus) which aimed to eradiate belief in genuine
miracles or supernatural intervention in the world, and to discredit the
reliability of Scripture as a historical record. Toward the end of the century, Kant taught that a genuinely
transcendent God could have no connection with the phenomenal world of time and
space. He said that the historical
statements of Scripture die with the events themselves; thus, we must go beyond
the text in order to find abiding moral-doctrinal value. Such an outlook opens the door completely to
a naturalistic and critical treatment of the Bible in its historical teachings
(whether past or future). When we come
to the nineteenth century, we find higher criticism fostered by men working
under the general influence of Kant and Hegel.
In the 1830’s Strauss introduced the mythological interpretation of
Scripture. Later Holtzmann set
theological teaching over against
religious experience in the
interpretation of biblical writers.
Wrede took things a step further by maintaining that the scriptural
documents are not reliable historical works but rather theologized reconstructions.
The overall outcome was the discrediting of Scripture’s historical
accuracy and the undermining of the objectivity of its theology. Ernst Troeltsch explained the critical
approach to the Bible, saying that any occurrence must be understood in terms
of its probable, immanent, historical
antecedents; thus is assured the naturalistic autonomy of the historian in
reconstructing the past and interpreting the future. Such an approach challenged confidence in anything Scripture (as
a supernatural, infallible, verbal revelation) had to say, including its
philosophy of history.
Postmillennialism, because of its assumptions of a sovereign God,
resurrected Savior, and powerfully present Spirit, was clearly not congenial
with the assumptions of criticisms.
As a second factor, we should think back upon
the influence of Kant and Hegel mentioned above. In his early book, Idea of
a Universal History, Kant had taught that a “secret plan” inherent in
nature drives man to build a rational, international, civil order. An even bolder metaphysical account of
inevitable progress in the historical process was given in Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History
and throughout his dialectical philosophy.
According to Hegel, the theme of history is the actualization of the
Absolute in time; the self-development of spirit is seen in the successive
types of social organizations and the careers of world-historical peoples. The history of the human race, which follows
its own inherent course of development embodying a rational principle, is
toward greater freedom, the highest form of which could be found in the
Germanic world, romanticism, and maintenance by the state of the orders and
social groups of civilized life.
Naturalistic,
humanistic optimism about historical progress was given its most popular boost,
however, in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution as found in his 1859
bestseller, The Origin of Species.. Reception of this doctrine guaranteed the
initial, uncritical adoption of secular optimism. With theological leaders approving of the interpretation and
evaluation of Scriptures in the light of autonomous research and philosophy, it
was quite natural that evolutionary speculation came to be read into the bible’s
teaching on creation and history. Moreover, with the reduction of religion and
revelation to matters of morality (under the influence of Kant), higher critics
and liberals could deprecate orthodox theology
while still maintaining an understandable interest in the personal ethics and social reform fostered by
Scripture.
These
combined elements in turn produced the secularization
of conservative, supernaturalistic, biblical postmillennialism. The result was evident in the Christian
Socialist movement in England and the social gospel movement in America. Walter Rauschenbusch, for example, in his A Theology for the Social Gospel, spoke
of the “millennium” coming through natural development as an ideal society
expressing the commmunal brotherhood of man.
Shirley Jackson Case’s The
Millennial Hope spoke of the long process of humanity evolving and rising
higher in the scale of civilization and attainment; the world is constantly
growing better, society’s ills are to be remedied by education and legislation,
and the responsibility for bringing in the millennium is man’s own – to be
produced in his own strength. This
modernistic perversion of God’s truth, this antithesis to redemptive revelation
and supernatural salvation, called for strenuous and godly opposition by
orthodox churchmen. However, in their
zeal to stand against the liberal tide, large numbers of Christians threw the
baby out with the bath. In disdain for
the evolutionary social gospel, sincere believers were led to reject Christian
social concern for an exclusively internal or other-worldly religion, and to substitute for the earlier belief in
a progressive triumph of Christ’s kingdom in the world, a new, pessimistic catastrophism with respect
to the course of history.
The church
might have had the doctrinal strength necessary to throw off critical and
modernist incursion, had not a third
factor been subverting its doctrinal and working strength. This third factor in the decline of
postmillennialism was the rise and popularization of dispensational,
pretribulational rapturism. As late as
1813, the English missionary leader, David Bogue, could speak of
premillennialism as an astonishing “aberration” of previous days. However, that strictly minority position had
recently been rekindled by numerous eschatological predictions and alleged
prophetic fulfillments at the time of the French Revolution and the rise of
Napoleon. When Napoleon marched on
Rome, some thought the Man of Sin was about to be deposed. George Faber saw Napoleon himself as “the
king of the North” (from Daniel 11), James Bicheno viewed Louis XIV as the
Beast (of Revelation 13), and Samuel Horsley took Napoleon to be the
Anti-Christ and Voltaire the “mystery of iniquity.” Imaginations flourished.
William Miller predicted that Christ would return in 1843.
In 1825
Edward Irving, one time assistant to Thomas Chalmers in Glasgow, began to
preach that Christ’s premillennial
return was imminent (a doctrine he
learned from the layment, Hatley Frere). When a Roman Catholic priest in south
America, Manuel Lacunza, wrote The Coming
of the Missiah in Glory and Majesty under the pseudonym of an allegedly
converted Jew, Ben Ezra, Irving was attracted to the premillennialism of the
treatise. In 1826 he published an
edition of the English translation with his own lengthy introductory
essay. Irving gained great popularity
and carried his eschatology o Scotland in 1828 and 1829, where evangelical
ministers received his teaching coolly; Chalmers characterized Irving’s
doctrine as woeful, mystical, pernicious, and violently allegorical. At the turn of the decade, Irving was
endorsing the revival of charismatic gifts and subverting the doctrine of
Christ’s sinless nature and the doctrine of imputed righteousness. Being deposed from the Church of Scotland, irving
founded the Catholic Apostolic Church in 1832, dying two years later.
What is
important for our purposes is to see that premillennialism, which was a minor
position in 1813, gained a significant following by the 1830’s. this was fostered by the albury park
prophetic meetings, as well as those at Powerscourt. Henry Drummond opened his home for conferences on prophecy
between 1826 and 1830, where Irving set forth his system of thought. At the Irish estate of Lady Powerscourt,
Irving continued his conferences between 1831 and 1833. J. N. Darby, a man who would emerge as a
leader in this eschatological school of thought, was present at the 1831
Powerscourt meeting. Previously, in
1828, Darby had begun meeting with the Brethren movement, being disaffected
with the established church. In premillennialism
he found the explanation for the church’s defects: namely, decline in
inevitable and judgment for the world is close at hand. The main outline of Darby’s premillennialism
was inherited from Irving’s teaching.
However, Darby went on to embellish it with strict distinctions among
Israel, the church, and the millennial Jews, as well as a dispensational
outlook on history (namely, God has utilized various plans for dealing with
man; when one fails, God introduces a new one). In addition, Darby published the doctrine that the church would
be secretly raptured prior to the Great Tribulation, which would afflict the
world as a precursor to Christ’s return in judgment and the establishment of
the millennium on earth. This novel
teaching was apparently first advanced in the studies made at the Albury
Conferences, perhaps by Irving himself; others claim that it originated in a
tongues utterance by a member of
Irving’s church, and yet others attribute it to prophetic vision
experienced by a Scottish woman, Margaret Macdonald. Whatever the specific source, the relevant point is that the
belief appeared and gained popularity around 1830, being popularized in the
publication of Darby’s dispensational premillennialism.
The effect
of the teachings rising out of these years was a drastic pessimism which
precluded the courage to face liberal defections (indeed, such defections were
expected and inevitable) or to undertaken long-term projects for the
church. For example, F. W. Newton
declared that the imminent return of Christ “totally forbids all working for
earthly objects distant in time.”
Social and political endeavor was no longer seen as legitimate; note,
for example, Zahn’s criticism of Calvin because “he considered it his task to
make the secular authorities submissive to his interpretation of the Divine
commandments.” Missions had to abandon the aim of establishing Christian
institutions and concentrate simply on the conversion of individual souls, as
A. A. Hodge astutely observed of premillennial strategy. The visible church was depreciated, its
pastoral office deemed unnecessary, and its historic doctrine disregarded. In Geneva, 1840, Darby declared that
restoration is impossible in this dispensation, that it is delusive to expect
the earth to be filled with the knowledge of the Lord prior to His advent, and
that we must expect a constant progression of evil.[1] Hope was cut out of the heart of
Christendom. As one might expect, such
pessimistic predictions as to the value and effect of the church on earth
tended to become self-fulfilling prophecies.
Darby’s
dispensational, pre-tribulational rapturism was enhanced in America by his
visit here at the request of D. L. Moody, who later founded a college dedicated
to such thinking. It was also advanced
in the vastly popular Prophecy Conference movement, especially in the first
decade of this century. However,
dispensational premillennialism, with its decided emphasis upon the rapture, a
distinction between Israel and the church (as well as law and grace), and the
inevitably meager results of the church’s preaching of the gospel in the world,
was given its greatest impetus by the publication of the Scofield Reference bible in 1909.
C. I. Scofield had been greatly affected by Darby’s writings, and through
his reference notes the system gained widespread popularity. Events which soon followed in world history
convinced advocates of this theory that Scripture had rightly been interpreted
as teaching advancing lawlessness and the imminent end of the age.
Thus, the
three factors of liberalism, evolutionary
progressivism, and dispensationalism
came to exert simultaneous pressure on Christendom in the early twentieth
century, resulting in the unpopularity of biblical postmillennialism. People were now inclined to distrust
progressive hopes (if they were fundamentalist) or discount biblical
predictions for history (if they were liberals). Furthermore, believers and unbelievers alike had been trained to
interpret the Bible in terms of extrabiblical
considerations (secular scholarship for the modernists, world events for the
dispensationalists). The combined
outcome was a definite skepticism about the church’s progress on earth prior to
the second coming of Christ in glory; the outcome was also a tendency to do
“newspaper exegesis” of the Scriptures.
Given this setting, and the propagation of secularized theology along
with pretribulational pessimism, conservative postmillennialism was bound to
suffer abuse.
It must be
observed that postmillennialism lost favor (and today remains held in disfavor)
with conservative theologians for manifestly unorthodox and insufficient
reasons. Extra-biblical reasoning, as
well as lazy or poor scholarship, has intruded itself into Christian
discussions of eschatology.
Alva J.
McClain says of postmillennialism: “This optimistic theory of human progress
had much of its own way for the half-century ending in World War I of
1914. After that the foundations were
badly shaken; prop after prop went down, until today the whole theory is under
attack from every side. Devout
Postmillennialism has virtually disappeared.”[2] J. Barton Payne’s massive Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy mentions
postmillennialism only once, and that merely in a footnote which
parenthetically declares “two world wars killed this optimism.”[3]
Merrill F. Unger dismisses postmillennialism in short order, declaring: “This
theory, largely disproved by the progress of history, is practically a dead
issue.”[4] John F. Walvoord tells us that “In
eschatology the trend away from postmillennialism became almost a rout with the
advent of World War II” because it forced upon Christians “a realistic
appraisal of the decline of the church in power and influence.”[5] Hence he says that “In the twentieth century
the course of history, progress in Biblical studies, and the changing attitude
of philosophy arrested its progress and brought about its apparent discard by
all schools of theology.
Postmillennialism is not a current issue in millenarianism.”[6]
He accuses it of failing to fit the facts of current history, of being
unrealistic, and of being outmoded and out of step.[7] Jay Adams recognizes postmillennialism as a
“dead issue” with conservative scholars, since it predicts a golden age while
the world awaits momentary destruction; he agrees with the above authors that
the “advent of two World Wars . . . virtually rang the death knell upon
conservative postmillennialism.”[8] Adams apparently offers his own opinion that
Boettner’s long-range postmillennialism “is too difficult to grant when
Christians must face the fact of hydrogen bombs in the hands of depraved
humanity.”[9] Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth captures well the attitude of these
previous writers, stating that “there used to be” a group called
“postmillennialists” who were greatly disheartened by World War I and virtually
wiped out by World War II. Lindsey’s
(poorly researched) conclusion is this: “No self-respecting scholar who looks
at the world conditions and the accelerating decline of Christian influence
today is a ‘postmillennialist.’”[10]
The sad
fact is that our Christian brothers mentioned above should be embarrassed by what
they have written and concluded; the attitude and reasoning they have set forth
is woefully lacking as respectable Christian scholarship. By means of such newspaper exegesis, one
could just as well discount the return of
Christ in glory, saying “where is the promise of his coming?” (cf. II Peter
3:1-4). This reductio ad absurdum must be reckoned with. The fact that an era of gospel prosperity
and world peace has not yet arrived would no more disprove the Bible’s teaching
that such an era shall be realized (in the power of God’s spirit and the
faithfulness of Christ’s church to its great commission) than the fact that
Christ has not yet returned disproves the Bible’s teaching that such an event
shall take place!
The only
question is whether the Bible actually teaches these
things. If it does, then “let God be
true but every man a liar” (Rom. 3:4).
The newspaper has no prerogative to challenge God’s word of truth. Nor do those who read the newspapers. As faithful disciples of Christ, we are to
trust God as the sovereign controller over human history, “who works all things
after the counsel of His own will” (Eph. 1:11), “declaring the end from the
beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall
stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose’” (Isa. 46:10), so that “none can
stay his hand” (Dan. 4:35). With the
Psalmist we should declare, “Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and
on earth” (115:3). If God says
something is to happen, then it shall happen; it is to our discredit if we are
men of little faith with respect to his promises.
Just
imagine the following scenario: devout Simeon is in the temple looking for the
consolation of Israel (cf. Luke 2), when a popular Jewish theologian comes in
and tells him, “Simeon, your hope of a personal Messiah is a dead issue, an
idealistic anachronism. Your
unrealistic theory has been disproved by the course of history and discarded by
all schools; it is out of date, outmoded, and no longer a current issue. No self-respecting scholar who looks at the
world conditions and remembers the four hundred years of silence from God
believes as you do; prop after prop has gone down, and the events that have
come upon our nation have killed the optimism of your theory.” Would any conservative theologian say that
Simeon’s belief had been refuted or incapacitated by such considerations? Would any think him justified in no longer
treating it as a vital position worthy of scriptural consideration? Of course not. Likewise biblical postmillennialism cannot be thus dismissed.
Postmillennialism
has not only been discarded in this century on clearly unorthodox grounds; it
has also been made a straw man so that modern advocates of the other schools of
interpretation can easily knock it down and get on to other interests. The worst possible interpretation is put on
postmillennial tenets, or the eccentric aspect of some postmillennial writer’s
position is set forth as representing the basic school of thought. As instances of these procedures we can note
the following. Hal Lindsey says that
postmillennialists believe in the inherent goodness of man,[11]
and Walvoord says that the position could not resist the trend toward
liberalism.[12] He also accuses it of not seeing the kingdom
as consummated by the Second Advent.[13] William E. Cox claims that postmillennialism
is characterized by a literal interpretation of Revelation 20.[14] Adams portrays the postmillennialist as
unable to conceive of the millennium as coextensive with the church age or as a
present reality,[15] for he
(according to Adams) must see it as exclusively future – a golden age just
around the corner.[16] Finally, it is popularly thought and taught
that postmillennialism maintains that there is an unbroken progression toward
righteousness in history – that the world is perceptibly getting better and
better all the time – until a utopian age is reached. Geerhardus Vos portrays the postmillennialist as looking for
“ideal perfection” when “every individual” will be converted, and some will
become “sinless individuals.”[17]
All of the
above claims are simply inaccurate. The
Calvinist, Loraine Boettner, certainly does not believe in man’s inherent
goodness, and B. B. Warfield can hardly be accused of not resisting liberalism. That a. A. Hodge did not see the second
coming of Christ as the great day of consummation is preposterous. J. Marcellus Kik and many others insisted on
a figurative interpretation of Revelation 20. Certain sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century Dutch theologians, as well as Jonathan Edwards and E. W.
Hengstenberg, were all postmillennialists who saw the millennium as coeval with
the interadventual age (in which there would be progressive growth for the
church in numbers and influence).
Charles Hodge, Snowden, and Boettner were all postmillennialists who
explained that the growth of Christ’s kingdom in the world suffers periodic
crises, and Boetner has especially stressed the fact that it grows by
imperceptible degrees over a long period.
Finally, anyone who thinks of postmillennialism as a utopian position
misunderstands one or the other in their historically essential
principles. Indeed, a chapter in
Boettner’s book, The Millennium, is
entitled, “The Millennium not a Perfect or Sinless State,” contrary to the
misrepresentations of Vos. Nobody has
ever propounded, in the name of evangelical postmillennialism, what Vos claimed
(least of all his Princeton
colleagues or predecessors). Therefore,
the recent opponents of postmillennialism have not been fair to its genuine
distinctives, but rather have misrepresented it as a general category of
interpretation. This surely provides no
firm ground for rejecting the position.
A third
infelicitous way in which postmillennialism has been disposed of is by means of
(allegedly) critical considerations which in fact apply as much to the other
eschatological positions as to postmillennialism. For example, it has been contended that there is incoherence
among various postmillennials rather than a unified theology, and in connection
with this criticism it is observed that postmillennialism is adhered to by
extremely divergent theological schools.[18] However, this is just as true of
amillennialism and premillennialism; numerous details differ among proponents
of these positions (indeed, one is inclined to think that they are more
extensive and significant differences than those among proponents of these
positions (indeed, one is inclined to think that they are more extensive and
significant differences than those among postmillennialists), but this says
nothing about the truth of their central tenets. Then again, postmillennialism is sometimes thought to be
falsified through imputing guilt to it by association, observing that it has
sometimes been held in some form by unitarians and liberals. But “premillennialism” has been advocated by
the apostate Jews and modern cultists, and “amillennialism” is endorsed by
neo-orthodox dialectical theology. The
fact that there are functional similarities between various evangelical and
heretical theologians does not in itself settle the key question of which
position is taught by God’s word; whichever
millennial position is scriptural, it
is nonetheless subject to misuse and inappropriation. Hence the use of one of these positions by an unorthodox writer
does nothing in itself to discredit the position.
A further
criticism which cannot be applied uniquely to postmillennialism is that it
interprets biblical prophecy both figuratively [19]
and literally.[20] The premillennialists see symbolic
interpretation as a failure of nerve, and amillennialists take literal
understanding of prophecy as crude and insensitive. But the fact remains that none of the three schools interprets
biblical prophecy exclusively in either a literal or figurative fashion. (And, by the way, nobody really adheres to
the rule, “Literal where possible,” as is evident from the respective
treatments of the beast of Revelation, which could possibly be a literal monster but obviously is not.) All
three schools end up finding both
kinds of literature in the prophetic passages, and it is dishonest to give an
opposite impression. If anything, the
fact that postmillennialism is seen as too literal by amillennialists and too
figurative by premillennialists perhaps suggests (certainly does not prove)
that it alone has maintained a proper balance.
The upshot is this: the charge of subjective spiritualization or
hyperliteralism against any of the three eschatological positions cannot be
settled in general; rather, the
opponents must get down to hand-to-hand exegetical combat on particular passages and phrases.
]Finally,
in addition to the misguided and failed attempts to dismiss postmillennialism
based on (1) newspaper exegesis, (2) misrepresentation, and (3) the application
of two-edged criticism (which applies to the critic as well as the position
criticized), there are current day charges against the position which are premature or unfounded. To this category belongs the allegation that
postmillennialism is founded on Old Testament passages rather than New
Testament evidence,[21]
that the New Testament knows nothing of the proclamation of a semi-golden age.[22] Such statements do not bear their own weight
in the face of postmillennial appeals to New Testament passages like the
kingdom growth parables of Matthew 13, the apostle John’s teachings about the
overcoming of Satan and the world (e.g., John 12:31-32; 16:33; I John 2:13-14;
3:8; 4:4, 14; 5:4-5), Peter’s Pentecost address (Acts 2:32-36, 41), Paul’s
declaration that all Israel shall be saved (Rom. 11:25-32), his resurrection
victory chapter in I Corinthians 15 (esp. vss. 20-26, 57-58), the statements of
Hebrews 1-2 about the subjection of all enemies to Christ in the post-ascension
era (1:8-9, 13; 2:5-9), and numerous passages from Revelation, notably about
the vastness of the redeemed (7:9_10), the open door for missionary triumph and
the Christian’s reign with Christ over the nations (2:25-27; 3:7-9), the
submission of the kingdoms of this world to the kingdom of Christ (11:15), and
the utter victory of gospel proclamation (19:11-21). Opponents of postmillennialism may wish to dispute its
interpretation of such passages, but it is groundless for them to allege
without qualifications and without detailed interaction with postmillennial
writings that the position is not taken from the New Testament itself.
Further
premature criticisms would include Walvoord’s accusation that postmillennialism
obscures the doctrine of Christ’s second coming by including it in God’s
providential works in history,[23]
and Adams’ charge that it confounds the millennium with the eternal state –
since it takes Old Testament prophecies of kingdom peace and prosperity and
illegitimately applies them to the New Testament mention of the millennium, and
thereby winds up with the dilemma that either there is no need for a new
heavens and earth (to which the Old Testament prophecies really apply) or else
the millennium is frustrated.[24]
Walvoord
has failed to grasp adequately the postmillennialist’s philosophy of history;
it is not the case that the postmillennialist fails to distinguish providence
from consummation, but rather that he
sees providence as well orchestrated to subserve the ultimate ends of
consummation. And in connection with
this understanding, he recognizes that the New Testament speaks of Christ
“coming” in various ways (contrary to
Walvoord’s apparent thought that there is only one single sense in which Christ
“comes,” namely, at his return in glory) – for example, in the first-century
establishment of his kingdom (Matt. 16:28), in the person of the Holy spirit at
Pentecost (John 14:18, 28; cf. vs. 16; Acts 2:33; I Cor 15:45; II Cor. 3:17),
in fellowship with the repentant and obedient believer (Rev. 3:20; John 14;21-23),
in historical judgment upon nations (Matt. 24:29-30, 34; Mark 14:61-62), and
upon churches (Rev. 2:5, 16). Such
“comings” of the Lord are part of God’s providential government of
pre-consummation history and are in
addition to Christ’s visible and glorious coming in final judgment (II
Thess. 1:7-10). The postmillennialist
does not obscure the second coming with providence.
Nor does
he, as Adams said, confound the millennium with the eternal state; the
postmillennialist clearly knows the difference between the two. It is just that he disagrees with Adams that
certain Old Testament prophecies pertain exclusively to the eternal state. Prior
to the amillennialists and postmillennialists engaging in full exegetical debate
over such passages, it would be just as legitimate for the postmillennialist to
accuse Adams of confounding the
eternal state with the millennium. The
postmillennialist has a sound rationale for connecting relevant Old Testament
passages with the New Testament millennium, in that these passages (according
to postmillennialist claims) speak of the pre-consummation
prosperity of Christ’s kingdom, and the millennium is precisely the pre-consummation form of his kingdom. Such Old Testament passages are taken to be
(at least in part) predictions concerning a pre-consummation state of affairs
because they speak of things which are inappropriate to the eternal state
(e.g., opposition to the kingdom, evangelism, kingdom growth, national
interaction, death, etc.). Again, the
opponents of postmillennialism may dispute its interpretation of such passages,
but it is premature to accuse the position of confounding two openly recognized
distinct entities (namely, the millennium and eternity) prior to refuting the
exegetical reasoning of the position. Postmillennialism is not suspect in advance, any more than amillennialism
is.
A further
groundless criticism of postmillennialism as a system is Adams’ claim that it has
even less reason to expect a semi-golden age in history than does the
premillennialist, since there is nothing but sinful, non-glorified humanity to
produce it, and that it has no explanation for the anticipated sudden change of
conditions in the world at the end of history.[25] Such statements are unwarranted, for the
postmillennialist sees the powerful presence of Christ through the Holy spirit
as sufficient reason to expect the release of Satan from the post-resurrection
restraints on his deceiving power over the nations as adequate explanation of
the change of world conditions at the very end of the age (just as Adams
does). Such tenets have been made well
known in postmillennial teaching, and thus Adams’ criticism is an obvious
oversight of what is an important element of the position criticized.
A similar
reply is called for with respect to Walvoord’s criticism that postmillennialism
deprives today’s believer of the hope of Christ’s imminent return.[26] The fact is that postmillennial never
claimed to salvage the doctrine of the any-moment return of Christ; indeed,
distinctive to it is the denial of
the imminent physical return. The New
Testament definitely indicates that the coming of the Lord is a delayed event,
and that the Christian should expect to see precursor signs of its approach.[27] It is not to come upon him as an unexpected
thief (I Thess. 5:4), for he believes the Scriptures that certain things must
first occur (cf. II Thess. 2:1-3, etc.).
Indeed, it was the error of the foolish virgins to expect the imminent
coming of the bridegroom (Matt. 25:1-8).
Hence postmillennialism can hardly be faulted for not preserving a
doctrine which it does not, by the very nature of its position, think should be
preserved (cf. Matt. 25:5, 10).
We must
conclude, then, that current day writers have offered no good prima facie reason for ignoring or
rejecting postmillennialism as an important theological option for biblical
believers. It has been unwarrantedly
dismissed in the past fifty years on the basis of newspaper exegesis,
misrepresentation, two-edged criticisms, and premature or unfounded charges.
Postmillennialism deserves to be taken seriously and considered in the light of
Scripture; quick dismissal or ignoring of it in recent years has no good justification.
In the
preceding section of this discussion there was occasion to note that
postmillennialism had been misrepresented in its basic position. This causes us to ask, just what are the
fundamental differences among premillennialism, amillennialism, and
postmillennialism? That is, what is the
distinctive outlook of each position, its essential and central characteristic?
Here many
people are prone to be misled, becoming entangled in questions which are subsidiary
and indecisive with respect to the basic
dogmatical outlook of a pre-, a-, and postmillennialism. What this means is that they take important exegetical issues pertaining to the
millennial question and attempt to use them to delineate the three fundamental theological
positions; however, these particular exegetical issues are not decisive for the central and general claims of the school
of thought. Perhaps some examples would
be helpful.
When we
come to discuss the distinctive
essentials of premillennialism, amillennialism, and postmillennialism,
there are many interpretative questions pertaining to scriptural teaching about
the millennium which, while very important for the Christian to consider, are
not definitionally crucial at this particular topical point; that is because adherents of different basic schools of thought have agreed on particular answers to these questions. For instance, we can ask about the nature of the “first resurrection”
of Revelation 20:5. Does it refer to a
bodily resurrection, the regeneration of the believer, or his passage at death
to the intermediate state in heaven?
Such a question usually separates premillennialists from the other two
positions, since premillennialism insists on the first option; however, adherents
of both amillennialism and postmillennialism have been known to endorse each of
the last two options. Likewise, the
question of the imminency of Christ’s
return tends to be answered in a cross-categorical manner; some
premillennialists deny it in practice (post-tribulationists), while others
propound it, just as amillennialists are split by those who accept it and those
who reject it. The question does not
serve us well in the particular project of finding the distinctive essentials
of each of the three eschatological schools.
Further subsidiary or theologically indecisive issues would pertain to
such things as whether the Christian martyrs receive a special blessing during
the millennium, whether the millennium pertains to the intermediate state at all
(amillennialists and postmillennialists have agreed in various ways on this
question), whether the church is an expression of Christ’s kingdom (recent
premillennialists have come to grant this point), whether a future period of
unprecedented tribulation with a personal Anti-Christ awaits the world and/or
church (all three positions have espoused, or can accommodate, such an
opinion), whether the “one thousand” of Revelation 20 is symbolic or literal
(again, all three positions have or could answer this both ways). Such questions as these are of momentous
significance for the Christian in his faith and practice, and this writer has
definite convictions on each one of them.
However, these issues and many more like them are not the telling differences among the three theological schools of premillennialism,
amillennialism, and postmillennialism.
In order to
get down to the really basic differences among these three positions as
distinct schools of thought we can begin by outlining their respective central
claims.[28] Premillennialism
holds that (1) Christ will return physically prior to the millennium, and that
(2) the millennium is a period of righteousness, peace and prosperity for
Christ’s kingdom on the earth. There
will be (3) a significant historical delay or gap between the return of Christ at the first resurrection and the judgment of the wicked at the
second resurrection, just prior to the inauguration of the eternal state. (This gap corresponds to the millennial
kingdom of earthly prosperity for God’s chosen people.) Therefore, (4) the millennium is distinct
from the current church age, being a future interim period between Christ’s
return and the final judgment. (5) The
specific nature of the millennial kingdom will be seen in the national prosperity
of the restored Jewish state with Christ ruling bodily from Jerusalem and
militarily subduing the world with the sword.
(However, some premillennialists de-emphasize this Jewish element and
simply stress that the millennium is a preparatory stage for the church; the
Old Testament nation, the New Testament church, the millennium, and the eternal
state are all seen as developing stages in the kingdom.) Thus, (6) the Old Testament prophecies of
prosperity are required to be taken literally as pointing ahead to a Jewish
state separate from the church and necessitating a radical discontinuity
between Israel and the church. Finally,
(7) the church’s preaching of the gospel through the whole earth prior to
Christ’s return will prove to be of no avail culturally; the world will become
a hopeless wreck, increasingly getting worse and worse, climaxing in the
tribulation at the very end of the church age.
By
contrast, amillennialism says that
(1) Christ will return after the millennium.
(2) It maintains that there will be no millennium in the sense of a
semi-golden era of earthly prosperity for the kingdom; instead, the millennium
is restricted to the blessings of the intermediate (heavenly) state (some
restricting its blessing to the martyrs there) and/or the purely inward
spiritual triumphs experienced by the church on earth (i.e., Christ ruling in
the believer’s heart). Basically then, amillennialism denies that there will be
any visible or earthly expression of Christ’s reign over the entire world; as
D. H. Kromminga says, “the millennium is a spiritual or heavenly
millennium.” (Note: the church is a visible form of Christ’s kingdom in the world, according to many
amillennialists; however, the church will not
make all the nations disciples of
Christ and gain a dominant or widespread influence throughout the world, but
will rather remain a remnant of believers representatively spotted across the
globe, which is unable to effect a period of [comparative] justice and
peace.) (3) The return of Christ at the
end of the church age will synchronize with the general resurrection and
general judgment of all men, believer and unbeliever alike. Therefore, (4) the millennium is the present
interadventual age. (5) There will be
no conversion or subduing of the world by Christ during the millennium, but
rather the world will see a more or less parallel development of good and evil,
with evil intensifying toward the end of the church age. Thus (6) the Old Testament prophecies of
prosperity are required to be taken completely figuratively as pointing ahead
to the eternal state or the internal spiritual condition of the church, thus
propounding continuity between Old Testament Israel and the New Testament
church. Finally, (7) the world is moving toward a time of increasing lawlessness,
and the preaching of the gospel throughout the world will not achieve
outstanding and pervasive success in converting sinners (i.e., the overall
discipling of the nations).
Postmillennialism, as the name implies, holds
that (1) Christ will return subsequent to the millennium, which (2) represents
a period which will see growth and maturation of righteousness, peace, and
prosperity for Christ’s kingdom on earth (visibly represented by the church)
through the gradual conversion of the world to the gospel, as well as a period
for the glory and vindication of the saints in heaven. (3) The return of Christ will synchronize
with the general resurrection and general judgment at the end of the church
age. Therefore, (4) the millennium or
kingdom of millennialists have used the eschatological vocabulary in such a way
that the “millennium” represents the latter day, publicly discernible,
prosperity of the interadventual “kingdom.”)
(5) The specific nature of the millennial kingdom on earth will be the
international prosperity of the church (new Israel), its growth (through the
conversion of the world by the sword of the Spirit), and its influence in
society and culture. Thus, (6) the Old
Testament prophecies of prosperity for the kingdom are both figuratively and
literally interpreted according to the demands of context (both local and
wider) as pointing ahead not simply beyond the church age to a restored Jewish
kingdom or the eternal state (thus rendering the visible church on earth
something of a parenthesis for the most part), but to the visible prosperity of
Christ’s established kingdom on earth, climaxing in the consummated glory of
the eternal state; there is continuity between Old Testament Israel and the New
Testament Church (new Israel), which eventually will include the fullness of
converted physical Israel grafted back into the people of God. Finally then, (7) over the long range the world will experience a
period of extraordinary righteousness and prosperity as the church triumphs in
the preaching of the gospel and discipling the nations through the supernatural
agency of the Holy Spirit; however, the release of Satan at the very end of the
age will bring apostasy from these blessed conditions.
Although it
leaves some details and qualifications out, the above description basically
summarizes the distinctive thrust of the various millennial options. We now need to narrow down even further the treatment of each school of thought to
its key distinctives (allowing for differences of interpretation within each
school, as well as cross-category agreement on certain exegetical points).
All three
positions agree that, while there may
be terminological differences (e.g., the application of the words “kingdom,”
“millennium,” “tribulation,” etc.), in practical outworking the church is a
divinely established institution, Christ will return in judgment upon a lawless
or apostate world, and the believer’s ultimate
hope is in the perfectly golden, new heavens and earth which will be established
in the consummated kingdom of the eternal state. Moreover, none of the positions denies that there is or will be a
millennium of some king; none anticipates that it will be a completely perfect age. Further, no one completely identifies the kingdom and millennium as coextensive
with each other, for each agrees that the kingdom as a pre-consummation as well as consummation form or stage – the
millennium being restricted in some fashion to the former category. Thus the key distinctives among pre-, a-,
and postmillennialism can be further specified by the following analysis of the
pre-consummation form of the kingdom.
There are
some who hold that (I) the pre-consummation form of the kingdom prophesied in
the Old Testament is not realized during
the interadventual age at all, but
pertains exclusively to the millennial
age of prosperity that follows the church age and begins with Christ’s return. These are usually dispensational
premillennialists. Then there are those
who hold that (II) the pre-consummation form of the kingdom is realized during the interadventual age; they fall into two
subdivisions. First, we have those who
say (A) that the church age is not inclusive of the millennium but separate from it as a
future age of prosperity after Christ’s return (however, the church and the
millennium both express God’s kingdom).
Here we have advocates of historic premillennialism (or
post-tribulationists). Secondly, we
have those who say (B) that the church
age is inclusive of (or identical with) the millennium, thus having the pre-consummation kingdom extend from
Christ’s first to his second advent.
These proponents in turn fall into two groups: those teaching that (1)
the millennial age on earth is a time
of visible prosperity for the kingdom, or those asserting that (20 only the
eternal state realizes the promise of prosperity for the kingdom. Respectively, these are postmillennialists
and amillennialists.
From this
outline it becomes apparent that there are two
major watersheds in eschatological teaching among evangelical
conservatives. The first has to do with
chronology, the second pertains to
the nature of the millennial
kingdom. The first key question is: Is
the church age inclusive of the millennium?
(Alternatively: Will the end-time events of Christ’s return, the
resurrection, and judgment synchronize with
each other?) Such a question separates
premillennialists (who answer no) from the amillennialists and
postmillennialists (who both answer yes).
The second and subsequent key question is: Will the church age
(identical with or inclusive of the millennial
kingdom) be a time of evident prosperity for the gospel on earth, with the
church achieving worldwide growth and influence such that Christianity becomes
the general principle rather than the exception to the rule (as in previous
times)? This question separates
amillennialists (who answer no) from postmillennialists (who answer yes).
These
questions also reveal the basic agreement
between amillennialism and premillennialism that the great prosperity for
Christ’s kingdom which is promised in Scripture is not to be realized at all prior
to His return in glory, thus
concluding the church age to lack evident
earthly triumph in its calling and endeavors. Robert Strong, in expositing and defending amillennialism,
states: “Amillennialism agrees with premillennialism that the Scriptures do not
promise the conversion of the world through the preaching of the gospel” (The Presbyterian Guardian, January 10,
1942). The amillennialist, William E.
Cox, says further, “Premillenarians believe the world is growing increasingly
worse, and that it will be at its very worst when Jesus returns. Amillenarians agree with the premillenarians
on this point.”[29]
Our
foregoing discussion of the three eschatological schools of thought has
centered around the concept of the kingdom and its various qualifications (time
and pre-consummate nature), thereby revealing that the most fundamental and
telling question in distinguishing the unique mark of each position has to do
with the course of history prior to
Christ’s return (or, the evident prosperity of the great commission). Jay Adams’ concern with the realized or
unrealized nature of the “millennium” is not
the real issue which marks out a central and unique position in eschatology,
for amillennialism is not (contrary
to Adams’ claim) the only position which sees the millennium as established at
Christ’s first advent and coextensive with the present church age. A noted postmillennialist, J. Marcellus Kik,
has said, “The millennium, in other words, is the period of the gospel
dispensation, the Messianic kingdom . . ..
The millennium commenced either with the ascension of Christ or with the
day of Pentecost and will remain until the second coming of Christ.”[30] Many other postmillennialists concur with
Kik here. And even those earlier
postmillennialists who saw the millennium as a later segment of the
interadventual period held that the messianic kingdom had been established
during Christ’s first advent; thus, the “kingdom” was realized, and the
“millennium” represented the coming triumphant (yet imperfect) part of the
kingdom (i.e., church) age. Hence
Adams’ question leads to a terminological,
rather than a substantive, disagreement.
(And note, even some recent premilennialists, e.g., G. E. Ladd, grant
that the kingdom in some sense has been established already.)
What is
really at stake is the question of the future
prospects on earth for the already
established kingdom. Shall it, prior
to Christ’s return, bring all nations under its sway, thereby generating a
period of spiritual blessing, international peace, and visible prosperity? Shall the church, which has been promised
the continual presence of Him who has been given all power in heaven and earth,
be successful in making disciples of all nations as he commanded? On this basic and substantive issue – one
with succeeds in separating out the three millennial schools – it becomes
apparent that the essential distinctive
of postmillennialism is its scripturally derived, sure expectation of gospel
prosperity for the church during the present
age. Premillennialists and
amillennialists agree in rejecting this hope, and then separate from each other in
explaining the (prima facie) scriptural
grounds for that hope. The
premillennialist looks for kingdom prosperity in history, but it has a
distinctively Jewish nature and is separated from the true Israel of God
(Christ’s church). The amillennialist
expects no sure prosperity for the kingdom in history on the earth, reserving
the scriptural teaching of an age of justice and peace exclusively for the
realm beyond history.
In summary,
the premillennialist maintains that there will be a lengthy gap in the end-time
events into which the millennium will be inserted after Christ’s return; the
millennial kingdom will be characterized by the prosperity of a restored Jewish
state. The amillennialist denies any
such gap in the end-time events, looking for Christ to return after a basically
non-prosperous millennial age. And the
post millennialist is distinguished from the two foregoing positions by holding
that there will be no gap in the end-time events; rather, when Christ returns
subsequent to the millennial, interadventual, church age. There will have been
conspicuous and widespread success for the great commission. In
short, postmillennialism is set apart from the other two schools of thought
by its essential optimism for the
kingdom in the present age. This confident attitude in the power of
Christ’s kingdom, the power of its gospel, the powerful presence of the Holy
Spirit, the power of prayer, and the progress of the great commission, sets
postmillennialism apart from the essential pessimism of amillennialism and
premillennialism.
Alva J.
McClain observes the following about amillennialism:
In the
Bible eschatological events are found at the end of but within human history. But
the “eschatology” of Barth is both above and beyond history, having little or
no vital relation to history. Dr.
Berkhof has written a valuable summary and critical evaluation of this new
school of “eschatology.” . . . But what Berkhof fails to see, it seems to me,
is that his own Amillennial school of thought is in some measure “tarred with
the same brush,” at least in its doctrine of the established Kingdom of
God. According to this view, both good
and evil continue in their development side by side through human history. Then will come catastrophe and the crisis of
divine judgment, not for the purpose of setting up a divine kingdom in history, but after the close of history.
Hope lies only in a new world which is beyond history. Thus
history becomes merely the preparatory “vestibule” of eternity; and not a very
rational vestibule at that. It is a narrow
corridor, cramped and dark, a kind of “waiting room,” leading nowhere within the historical process, but only
fit to be abandoned at last for an ideal existence on another plane. Such a view of history seems unduly
pessimistic in the light of Biblical revelation.[31]
Perhaps the
major difficulty with McClain making this statement is that he overlooks that
his own premillennialism is “tarred with the same brush” as that of
amillennialism. Boettner’s statement
about premillennialism is appropriate here:
Premillennialism
or Dispensationalism thus looks upon the preaching of the Gospel as a failure
so far as the conversion of the world is concerned, and sees no hope for the
world during the present dispensation.
It regards the Church as essentially bankrupt and doomed to failure as
each of the five preceding dispensations supposedly have ended in failure, and
asserts that only the Second Coming of Christ can cure the world’s ills . .
.. Another corollary of this belief is
that the benefits of civilization that have been brought about through the
influence of the Church are only illusory, and that all this will be swept away
when Christ comes . . .. This being the
logic of the system, it is not difficult to see why the outlook as regards the
present age should be pessimistic. If
we feel the whole secular order is doomed, and that God has no further interest
in it, why, then of course we shall feel little responsibility for it, and no
doubt feel that the sooner evil reaches its climax the better. To hold that the preaching of the Gospel
under the dispensation of the Holy spirit can never gain more than a very
limited success must inevitably paralyze effort both in the home church and on
the mission field. Such an over-emphasis
on the other-worldliness cannot but mean an under-emphasis and neglect of the
here and now . . .. It would be hard to
imagine a theory more pessimistic, more hopeless in principle or, if
consistently applied, more calculated to bring about the defeat of the Church’s
program than this one.[32]
The thing
that distinguishes the biblical postmillennialist, then, from amillennialism
and premillennialism is his belief that Scripture teaches the success of the great commission in this age of the church. The optimistic confidence that the world
nations will become disciples of Christ, that the church will grow to fill the
earth, and that Christianity will become the dominant principle rather than the
exception to the rule distinguishes postmillennialism from the other
viewpoints. All and only postmillennialists believe this,
and only the refutation of that confidence can undermine this school of
eschatological interpretation. In the
final analysis, what is characteristic of postmillennialism is not a uniform
answer to any one particular exegetical question (e.g., regarding “the man of
sin,” “the first resurrection,” “all Israel shall be saved,” etc.), but rather
a commitment to the gospel as the power of God which, in the agency of the Holy
spirit, shall convert the vast majority of the world to Christ and bring
widespread obedience to His kingdom rule.
This confidence will, from person to person, be biblically supported in
various ways (just as different “Calvinists” can vary from each other in the precise
set of passages to which they appeal for support of God’s discriminating
soteric sovereignty). The
postmillennialist is in this day marked out by his belief that the commission
and resources are with the kingdom of Christ to accomplish the discipling of
the nations to Jesus Christ prior to His second advent; whatever historical
decline is seen in the missionary enterprise of the church and its task of
edifying or sanctifying the nations in the word of truth must be attributed,
not to anything inherent in the present course of human history, but to the
unfaithfulness of the church.
With an
understanding, then, of the distinctive character of postmillennialism, it is
important to go on and see that this position is not eccentric in terms of the
outlook of orthodox theology, nor is it a recent innovation (associated, as
some erroneously say, with the rise of nineteenth-century humanistic
optimism). Rather, the postmillennial hope has been the persistent viewpoint of most
Reformed scholars from the sixteenth century into the early twentieth century. In light of that fact, the position deserves to be examined again
today for its biblical support and not lightly dismissed as somehow an obvious
theological mistake. That is, there is
no prima facie reason to reject
postmillennialism as foreign to the thinking of the most respectable
theological teachers or the unwitting parallel to specific secular
movements. The position has been
endorsed by the most dependable and outstanding theologians and commentators
from the Reformation to the present.
John Calvin
Reformed
theology (as distinguished from evangelical or Lutheran theology) takes as its
father the indisputable theological master of the Protestant Reformation, John
Calvin. The heritage of
postmillennialism in Reformed theology can be traced to the Cavinian corpus of
literature. J. A. De Jong, in his
doctoral dissertation at the Free University of Amsterdam (As the Waters Cover the Sea), asserted that “John Calvin’s commentaries
give some scholars cause for concluding that he anticipated the spread of the
gospel and true religion to the ends of the earth.”[33] J. T. McNeill, the editor of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion for
the Library of Christian Classics, speaks of “Calvin’s conception of the
victory and future universality of Christ’s Kingdom throughout the human race,
a topic frequently introduced in the Commentaries.”[34] In his recent study, The Puritan Hope, Iain H. Murray stated that “Calvin believed that
Christ’s kingdom is already
established, and, unlike Luther, he expected it to have a yet greater triumph
in history prior to the consummation.”[35] The judgment of these men (and those
secondary sources upon which they depend) is certainly well grounded in Calvin’s
writings.
About the
view that Christ would have a literal one-thousand-year reign upon the earth
(namely, premillennialism), Calvin said this “fiction is too childish either to
need or to be worth a refutation.” At
the same time, he indicated his implicit disagreement with the view (fostered
by later amillennilalists) that the millennium pertains to the intermediate
state of the saints (i.e., their disembodied heavenly rest subsequent to
physical death and prior to the general resurrection); according to Calvin, the
“one thousand” of Revelation 20 pertains to “the church while still toiling on
earth.”[36] Nor would Calvin have agreed with the
position that says the millennial triumph of the saints is simply the spiritual
(invisible) victories in the Christian’s heart or the internal blessings
privately experienced by the church (namely, one school of amillennial
interpretation). With particular
application to the kingdom of Christ, he said, “it would not have been enough
for the kingdom to have flourished internally.”[37] Calvin saw the Psalmist as saying that the
prosperity and strength of the King of God’s choosing must be visible and publicly acknowledged;
Christ must be shown victorious over
all His enemies in this world, and
His kingdom must be demonstrated to be immune from the various agitations
currently experienced in the world.[38] In his commentary on II Thessalonians 2:8,
Calvin declared:
Paul,
however, intimates Christ will in the meantime, by the rays which he will emit previously to his advent, put to flight
the darkness in which antichrist will reign, just as the sun, before he is seen
by us, chases away the darkness of the night by the pouring forth of his rays.
This victory of the word, therefore, will show itself in this world . .
.. He also furnished Christ
with these very arms, that he may rout
his enemies. This is a signal
commendation of true and sound doctrine – that it is represented as sufficient
for putting an end to all impiety, and as destined to be invariably victorious, in opposition
to all the machinations of Satan . . .[emphasis added].
For Calvin,
the kingdom of Christ was viewed as established at the first advent and
continuing in force until the second advent.
Durint this interadventual period, the church is destined to experience
widespread success; throughout history it will bring all nations under the
sovereign sway of Christ. To this interadventual period Calvin referred many of
the glorious prophecies about the Messiah’s kingdom found in the Old Testament. “The saints began to reign under heaven when
Christ ushered in his kingdom by the promulgation of his Gospel.”[39] Commenting upon the Isaiah 65:17 prophecy of
God’s creating new heavens and a new earth, Calvin said: “By these metaphors he
promises a remarkable change of affairs; . . . but the greatest of such a
blessing, which was to be manifested at the coming of Christ, could not be
described in any other way. Nor does he
mean only the first coming, but the whole reign, which must be extended as far
as to the last coming . . .. Thus the
world is (so to speak) renewed by Christ . . . and even now we are in the
progress and accomplishment of it . . ..
The Prophet has in his eye the whole reign of Christ, down to its final
close, which is also called ‘the day of renovation and restoration.’ (Acts
iii.21)” “The glory of God shines . . . never more brightly than in the cross,
in which . . . the whole world was renewed and all things restored to order.”[40] About Isaiah 2:2-4, Calvin had the following
to say: “ . . . while the fullness of days began at the coming of Christ, it
flows on in uninterrupted progress until he appears the second time for our
salvation.” During this time “the
church, which had formerly been, as it were, shut up in a corner, would now be
collected from every quarter . . .. The
Prophet here shows that the boundaries of his kingdom will be enlarged that he
may rule over various nations . . ..
Christ is not sent to the Jews only, that he may reign over them, but
that he may hold sway over the whole world.”
The triumphant progress of the church, reigning under Christ, will be
remarkable down through history; the soteric restoration of the world will be
increasingly evident as all nations come under the rule of the Savior. Such was Calvin’s hope, his biblical
philosophy of history.
The scepter
of Christ’s kingdom by which He rules is “his Word alone,” and Satan with his
power fails to the extent that christ’s kingdom is upbuilt through the power of
preaching.[41] Calvin boldly proclaimed that “the labour of
Christ, and of the whole Church, will be glorious, not only before God, but
likewise before men . . .. Hence it
follows, that we ought to have good hopes of success.”[42] “We must not doubt that our Lord will come
at last to break through all the undertakings of men and make a passage for his
word. Let us hope boldly, then, more
than we can understand; he will still surpass our opinion and our hope.”[43]
The
confidence of the Reformer was clearly expressed in his expositions of the
Lord’s Prayer at the second petition (“Thy kingdom come”): “now, because the
word of God is like a royal scepter, we are bidden here to entreat him to bring
all men’s minds and hearts into voluntary obedience to it. . .. Therefore God sets up his Kingdom by
humbling the whole world . . .. We must
daily desire that God gather churches unto himself from all parts of the earth;
that he spread and increase them in number; . . . that he cast down all enemies
of pure teaching and religion; that he scatter their counsels and crush their
efforts. From this it appears that zeal
for daily progress is not enjoined upon us in vain . . .. With ever-increasing splendor, he displays
his light and truth, by which the darkness and falsehoods of Satan’s kingdom
vanish, are extinguished, and pass away . . ..
[God] is said to reign among
men, when they voluntarily devote and submit themselves to be governed by him .
. .. by this prayer we ask, that he may
remove all hindrances, and may bring all men under his dominion . . .. The substance of this prayer is, that God
would enlighten the world by the light of his Word, -- would form the hearts of
men, by the influences of his Spirit, to obey his justice, -- and would restore
to order, by the gracious exercise of his power, all the disorder that exists
in the world . . .. Again, as the kingdom of God is continually growing
and advancing to the end of the world, we must pray every day that it may come: for to whatever extent
iniquity abounds in the world, to such an extent the kingdom of God, which brings along with it perfect
righteousness, is not yet come.”[44] This prayer for the evident success of the
Great commission will not be in vain,
according to Calvin; our hope for
success should be bold, for we must not doubt that christ will accomplish
this purpose in the world. Here we have
the postmillennial vision for preconsummation history.
Calvin’s belief that the nations will be discipled and become obedient to Christ’s word was expressed over and over again in his writings. “Our doctrine must stand sublime above all the glory of the world, invincible by all its power, because it is not ours, but that of the living God and his Anointed, whom the Father has appointed king that he may rule from sea to sea, and from the rivers even to the ends of the earth; and so rule as to smite the whole earth and its strength of iron and brass, its splendor of gold and silver, with the mere rod of his mouth, and break them in pieces like a potter’s vessel; according to the magnificent predictions of the prophets respecting his kingdom (Dan. 2.34; Isa. 11.4; Psa. 2.9).”[45] “God not only protects and defends [the kingdom of Christ], but also extends its boundaries far and wide, and then preserves and carries it forward in uninterrupted progression to eternity . . .. We must not judge of its stability from the present appe