This is not a post merely about certain matters concerning eschatology in the church, but that eschatology really, really matters. What has brought this front and center in my mind and sat me down at a keyboard is this: raging in the Christian world as I write is the topic of “Christian Nationalism” and from what I’ve seen it is first and foremost a matter of one’s eschatology. The good, reasonable, charitable debates I’ve seen on the matter have arrived at this conclusion. Your eschatology isn’t some ‘on the side’ option, it drives your worldview as a believer and how you respond. It definitely matters, and matters greatly. Here in the USA as our Christian culture is being torn down, it’s really bringing our eschatology to the forefront.
First a brief and massively simplified explanation of the main eschatological positions the way I understand them that I’ll abbreviate as premil, postmil, and amil. The ‘mil’ in these terms is for “millenial” and refers to the 1,000 year period (millenium) of the reign of Christ mentioned 6 times in the first 7 verses of Rev 20:1-7. “Premil” means we are not yet in that time; there is a future literal 1,000 year reign of Christ on the earth, preceded by a time of great tribulation, where he reigns physically on the throne of David in Jerusalem that begins at his second advent – upon his return. That is when every literal promise in the OT of the ‘kingdom of God’ made to the Jews will find literal fulfillment (wolf lays down with the lamb, children can play in the adder’s nest as he changes the very nature of nature for his reign, ALL the nations recognize his reign from Jerusalem, etc. as in Isaiah 11:6-10).
Amil and Postmil believe we are ‘post’ the start of that reign now. Amillennialists (the preceding ‘A’ being a negation) believe the entire concept is spiritualized and there is no literal 1,000 year kingdom. The 1,000 years refers to the time between Christ’s two advents, however long it is. These positions believe Christ is reigning now from heaven with all authority (and I agree) and therefore we are already in and building the kingdom by preaching the gospel. Postmil adds that there is a millenium and it is where the church accomplishes a “golden age” of a Christianized world based on a fulfillment of the Great Commission, that may or may not be a literal 1,000 years in length, delivered to Christ at the time of his physical return at the end of this golden age.
So here at the start we can also see that this article could be titled “Hermeneutics Matter” because your hermeneutic (your principles of interpretation) drives your eschatology. When Rev 20:4,6 both speak of risen saints that “reign with Christ for a thousand years”, does that mean what it clearly says as to the duration or is this a verse where the duration should be understood symbolically? Is the portion of the verses concerning the saints rising and reigning literal and only the thousand year timeframe symbolic? The preceding verses of Rev 20:2-3 state that during that thousand years Satan is bound (shut and sealed in a pit) so that he cannot deceive the nations during that time. So if you’re amil and we’re in this period now, you must decide how you are going to interpret those verses. How do you decide when to switch hermeneutics not only between but within single verses? Your answer helps drive your post-, pre-, or a-mil eschatology.
Now, to the topic at hand of eschatology and the “Christian Nationalism” debate. I’ve seen some public church leaders I respect as I’ve followed their writing, speaking, and posting for a long period of time and have seen their devotion to Sola Scriptura – and they’ve suddenly switched eschatological sides primarily moving from premil to postmil and that concerns me. It is a bit jarring when you see people whom you respect BECAUSE of their unashamed and public love for God and His Word ‘switch sides’. To be forthright, I’m talking people like Dr. James White who is an expert in the field of textual criticism, upholding the veracity of our Bibles from original manuscripts, and have spent their lives upholding Jesus Christ as Lord. Another example that comes to mind is Jared Longshore, formerly of Founders Ministries, of whom I’ve listened to many an hour of “The Sword and The Trowel” podcast as he and Tom Ascol strongly upheld Christian truth and the gospel together. He as well suddenly switched. It begs the question what texts are they are looking at and are they changing their hermeneutics on them and how.
So this is a look at eschatology – defined as the study of the eschaton – the ‘last things’, the future climax of history. Of course ‘last things’ are by definition ‘future things’; they haven’t happened yet and that means ALL of us could be wrong because as mere creatures we are not the Creator who is ordaining all things past, present, and future to come to pass for His glory. We are talking about the Son of God’s second advent, and we must remember that God’s people who had God’s written word didn’t exactly get his first advent right either, though he did exactly what he said he would. When Jesus read what we know as Isaiah 61:1-2 from the scroll in the synagogue, two advents and the entire church age was tucked away inside a comma in vs 2. Thus we should approach absolute surety concerning the conditions and timing around, but not the fact of his second advent with a dose of humility. The canon is now complete, but we aren’t infallible. We’ve come up generally with pre-, post-, and a-mil possibilities, and we should all be “fully convinced in our own mind” as to our position from Scripture, but the reality is God may prove us all wrong, for his own glory. What he does will line up perfectly with His word, but may be something none of us hit the exact bullseye on.
So I was curious to see why Dr. James White changed his position; the person I know from a several years of listening that he loves the text of Scripture, one who has defended and done vast amounts for the kingdom, more than I could even dream of, and of whom I’m absolutely sure is not taking changes in their position lightly. Do NOT take this as some layman dad “taking him on” over Scripture. I would never. This is simply me thinking through and explaining why, though I’ve sought to understand the amil/postmil position of these public church leaders I respect, I remain premil.
I’ve listened to him explain how he switched to postmil from studying Psalm 2, Psalm 110 (the most quoted OT verses in the NT), Isaiah 42, and 1 Corinthians 15 – all verses about the reign of Jesus as King – and arrived at a postmil position. I would expect no less than a thoroughly Scriptural reason from him.
The punch line of this blog article is I agree with everything he and others I respect on the postmil side say as far as the results of the kingdom, I just add to it other Scriptures that resolve remaining questions for me and that lead me to a different conclusion. I don’t differ on the ultimate what, I differ on the how.
Psalm 2 is one I’ve come to love more and more and is about the reign of the Lord’s anointed one. It is a comforting Psalm to saints in this day and age as the world goes nuts in open rebellion as this Psalm speaks of the Lord sitting on his throne … laughing at our rebellion and raging against him. He is so not threatened by all the kings of nations of the earth. What I find there is a solemn WARNING and command to the kings of the earth to ‘kiss the Son’ lest they face his wrath. What I don’t find is a promise that the church through preaching the gospel will usher us into a golden age of Christianity and have these kings kissing the Son in this age. It does contain a promise from the Father to the Son that he will make the nations his heritage and the ends of the earth his possession.
7 I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.
Psalm 2:7-8 ESV
8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.
But to me the question is not whether, but how and at what time – and neither is answered, but the next verse gives me a hint:
9 You shall break them with a rod of iron
Psalm 2:9 ESV
and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
I find that rather important – it is not that WE the church do this through wildly successful evangelism and deliver an already Christianized kingdom to Christ at his return; I think this literally means HE returns and HE does this breaking of the nations with the rod of iron and then they bow the knee. It continues in Psalm 2:10-12 with a very solemn warning to the kings of the nations – bow now or you will perish in his wrath. I don’t find it stating they will bow in this age before the King’s return, it begins with them raging against him and ends with a “you’d better bow now before He does return!”.
Much emphasis is placed on Psalm 110 in the NT, but I find it much the same as Psalm 2. It begins:
1 The LORD says to my Lord:
Psalm 110:1 ESV
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”
It then goes on in vs 2 to state “The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies.” I think that says this is after he returns and is on a literal throne in literal Jerusalem. Psalm 110:5-7 speaks of the “The Lord is at your right hand, he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment…he will shatter chiefs…”
Is there any indication at all in these Psalms that the way all the enemies are made his footstool is through the church’s evangelistic efforts? That he’s doing all this shattering through the church? I’d have to bring that concept to this text. As for the timing aspects, I don’t see where it says the enemies will be made his footstool and afterwards he can stand from his seat at the right hand and then go to Zion and rule the kingdom. I read it, without any mental gymnastics, as at the appointed time when the Father tells the Son to return and conquer and sit on the earthly throne and rule physically here, the Triune God will at that time make all enemies the footstool of Christ the King – until that time sit at my right hand. That lines right up with Psalm 2 that when he returns as King – HE does the breaking of the nation’s rebellion with his rod of iron. HE makes every knee bow and every tongue confess. For His glory.
As I go to Isaiah 42 and in particular vs 3-4 it speaks of the Lord’s Servant bringing justice to the nations, but again it is HE that is bringing forth that justice. I see nothing here that tells me the church’s efforts bring forth a Christian kingdom for its King. I can read all of this right in line with the Psalms 2 and 110 and Revelation 20 as to what Jesus himself begins and accomplishes at the time of his return as physical, visible King of kings for a literal 1,000 years.
Now to the 1 Corinthians 15 passage. The relevant verses are:
24 Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. 28 When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.
1 Cor 15:24-28 ESV
However, that cements me in premil thought even more. He (Christ) does the only “kingdom delivering” of a conquered and God-honoring kingdom AFTER destroying every rule, authority, and power. The church does not do that. Then, to be even more clear, the Apostle Paul says he must rule (and I believe he means literally on the earth) UNTIL he has all these enemies under his feet – his footstool. He has come, he has conquered, every knee bows, every tongue confesses, all nations are under his rule as he fulfills every OT promise of the kingdom – and THEN there is a delivering of a kingdom to the Father by the Son. Where is the delivering of a majority Christian kingdom to the Son by his bride? I can’t get there from these texts. its a concept I’d have to bring to them from my assumptions of wild success of the Great Commission, which I’ll address in a bit.
As I’ve listened to the debates, this is not about the ultimate results. I find myself in full agreement with all the same kingdom results the post-mils speak of. This is about the timing and who actually directly accomplishes those results: either the church now at some point in this age, or Jesus at his return. I find nothing that hints to me that any of this conquering is through the church’s evangelistic efforts. What I do find Jesus directly saying is the purpose and goal of the church’s evangelistic efforts is this – to find and feed his lost sheep (John 10:16-17, John 21:17) in this age of the Gentiles.
I’ve gone through the main Scriptures that greatly respected men of God have studied and found postmillennialism there, but I read them and do not; I see premillennialism in the same sentences. Now I’ll turn to those other Scriptures that I stated earlier answer the additional questions I have and keep me premil.
First, I’m quite uncomfortable with spiritualizing or saying the 1,000 years in Revelation 20 doesn’t mean that. I have no reason to switch hermeneutic here. Every prophecy of Christ’s first advent was literal, not symbolic, so why would I expect his 2nd to be different? If we’re in the Millennial reign now, building this kingdom, then it’s been over twice the length God stated and we’re nowhere close to done. Therefore, God could not have literally meant what he said. It’s like the six day creation debate. The creator, the author of time itself, who has filled his Word with accurate, literal prophetic time references regarding His Son’s advents – but for this important one regarding His Son’s reign we can’t trust what it says as a literal time reference? It has the same feel as reading in Gen 1:8 “And there was evening and there was morning, the second day” and then we today argue over whether when God says 6 days did he mean 6 days or 6 billion years? He bases his very “God-ness” on his accurate prophecies and His ability to bring it to pass right there in the same Isaiah passage (Isaiah 42:9)! So, I can’t get comfortable with a 2000+ year “millennium” where we’re not even close to finishing this golden age of Christianity kingdom yet, in fact all the “Christian nations” we had are throwing their Christian culture away as fast as they can.
Which leads to a part of the debate about postmil being “winner theology” and premil being “loser theology”. I’ve heard Jeff Durbin and others on this argument; that Jesus has told us we win and he has not given us the Great Commission to go and make disciples of all the nations, but BTW you’re going to lose. I disagree and I think we have to define what we mean by winning and losing. We win at the moment God declares us not guilty. We win at the moment of our justification, we win at the moment he imputes that perfect righteousness of Christ to our account. We win when he grafts us into His family as His child. We win because we inherit all the promises of God at that moment. We win because glorification WILL happen for us. We win because we are eternally secure. We win because there is therefore now NO condemnation for us. We win because now NOTHING can separate us from the love of Christ!
But do we win the kings and nations of the world in this life before he returns? Where does he promise that to the church? First, and this gets to the idea of the “wild success” of the Great Commission in this age, I find the same Jesus that gave us the Great Commission also gave us this sober statement:
13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
Matt 7:13-14 ESV
That has shaken me up for years. Where is this golden age of the majority of the world and its nations being converted to Christianity? He who tells us to go and make disciples of all ethnicities, tells us they will be “few”. Hard verses, but this plainly says if it’s many or most, well … that’s the broad road to destruction. There is no “except the two roads will swap toward the end and in a future golden age the broad road will lead to life!”
Secondly, Matthew chapters 10 and 11, John 15:20, Hebrews 12:3 and others promise us this – the church will be hated for being exposing light in a darkness that is loved. Doesn’t sound like we win the majority of the world. Finally, there are these very sobering verses in Rev 13 speaking of the antichrist at the end of this age:
7 Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation, 8 and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.
Rev 13:7-8 ESV
That does not sound like we’ve been successful and are in a golden age of Christianity at the end, delivering Christianized nations of the world over to the King at His return. It is the exact opposite – the currently reigning, “all authority in heaven and earth” Jesus is giving authority to this beast over every tribe and people and language and nation with the exception of individuals named in His book. Where’s the “winner theology?” The triumph of Christian societies? Did we win it just in time for Jesus to turn it right back over to the devil in the end?
Now in the meantime, might there be some nations with a majority Judeo-Christian ethic like the USA had? Might there be another Great Awakening? Might God move in a mighty way and bring revival to a people? Yes, and pray that it be so, but that is not what is promised.
Finally, I think postmil in particular necessarily involves an overly inflated view of the current church age and our role. That’s an inflammatory statement so let me be quick to explain what I mean – and I mean what the Apostle Paul means in Romans 11. As stated earlier in this article, when Jesus read the scroll in the synagogue, he stopped mid-sentence and said “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:17-21). The entire church age began with his first advent and is contained in that mid-sentence comma – and when it’s over, he returns again in his second advent and finishes that sentence as it was originally stated in Isaiah 61:2. Bringing all his enemies in his day of vengeance under his authority on his throne there in Jerusalem and ruling with the rod of iron for a thousand years. He, not the church. We return and reign with him; we don’t usher it in before he returns.
The church’s role now is in evangelism to find the lost sheep in this age through the preaching of the gospel. But I want to take it further, as Paul does in Romans 11. In that chapter he gives us the big, huge, sweeping panorama of God’s plan for history, and he tells us Gentiles of the church age some very sobering things. Look at his summation of our role in Romans 11:11:
So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous.
Romans 11:11 ESV
Pretty humbling, eh? Salvation has come to us – to make Israel jealous. That and the rest of this chapter puts us in our place all under the “Lest you be wise in your own sight” category (Rom 11:25). Mercy has come to us UNTIL the fullness of the Gentiles come in (all those lost individual sheep (not nations) we’ve been talking about). Then we’re taken out by the Rapture and King Jesus picks back up to fulfill every last single iota of literal promise he made to Israel. Every last jot and tittle. He is faithful, he does what he says, as he said it.
Why does he do it this way? Why is this the big overarching storyline of history or working through the Jews, then the Gentiles for an age to make the Jews jealous, then back to the Jews? He tells us in vs 32:
For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.
Romans 11:32 ESV
There’s an entire article/sermon/lesson in that one small sentence but my translation is this – SO THAT NO FLESH, JEW OR GENTILE, CAN BOAST. It is all of mercy and he designed history so that all are under disobedience, so that the glory of his mercy and grace bursts forth. Underneath all my issues with postmil eschatology is this – God does not share his glory and throughout the Scriptures he makes it abundantly clear that He does what He does so that no flesh can boast. But if my theology is through our efforts down here in the Great Commission the church is wildly successful, and Jesus returns to accept an already Christianized society – we have reason to boast. And that can’t be. But if the world is a wreck through sin, and King Jesus returns and He establishes the kingdom, he brings the nations to himself, he begins making all things new and literally fulfills every jot and tittle of the OT promises concerning that kingdom in the process, He personally issues in the golden age of a Christian millenium – who gets every iota of glory?
So the bottom line reason I’m premil and not postmil?
Soli Deo Gloria
The only thing I “deliver” to Jesus is my sin. For those of us concerned with the solas of the Reformation, we need to continue reforming. Let’s more fully bring Soli Deo Gloria to our eschatology. The hero of the book is not the church of redeemed sinners as it conquers the world for Christ, it is King Jesus.