WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD #4

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD? Part Four From Marvin Pate's book Thy Kingdom Came The Postmillennial View of End -Time Prophecy The parousia of Christ! The second coming of Jesus! The return of the Lord! These are powerful, synonymous labels for end-time prophecy. Or are they? Not so, according to the postmillennial school of interpretation. Rather, the previous terms are symbolic descriptions of the coming of Christ to judge Jerusalem back in AD 70 by the hands of the Romans! How's that for a topsy-turvy reading of biblical prophecy? But there is more. According to many postmillennialists, the kingdom of God appeared with the first coming of Christ, whose death and resurrection signaled the end of the Jewish old covenant. And its replacement was the gospel of Jesus Christ, with a message that transformed the structures of society for righteousness' sake beginning in AD 33. In other words, the church of Christ brought on the millenniumwhich culminated in the coming again of Christ, the triumph of the kingdom of God through the preaching of the gospel in AD 70 to destroy Jerusalem, hence the title-postmillennium: Christ returned "post"-after-the millennium. Obviously this perspective emphasizes the already aspect of the kingdom of God. Postmillennialism is tied into the preterist reading of Revelation. Preterism-Latin for "gone by" or "past" interprets the book of Revelation, not as prophecy about the future end of the world but, rather, as prophecy about the return of Christ to judge Jerusalem, which occurred in AD 70. So the prophecies of Revelation were fulfilled in the first century, in connection with the Roman overthrow of Jerusalem. More on this particular point under Biblical Postmillennialism below. Here we highlight the postmillennial view by way of a chart: Postmillennialism Christ comes after the millennium Church Millennial Kingdom Christ returns - Judgment - Resurrection of believers/unbelievers Heaven Hell Eternal state Here is how one notable postmillennialist unpacks the previous chart: Postmillennialism expects the proclaiming of the Spirit-blessed gospel of Jesus Christ to win the vast majority of human beings to salvation in the present age. Increasing gospel success will gradually produce a time in history prior to Christ's return in which faith, righteousness, peace, and prosperity will prevail in the affairs of people and of nations. After an extensive era of such conditions the Lord will return visibly, bodily, and in great glory, ending history with the general resurrection and the great judgment of all humankind. Actually the postmillennial/preterist view is not unified; there is a liberal postmillennialism and a biblical postmillennialism. I will summarize these two views in the sections that follow. Interestingly enough, both of these viewpoints are based on a political mind-set. The former is championed by Barack Obama while the latter appealed to Ronald Reagan. Liberal Postmillennialism Liberal postmillennialism had its heyday in the nineteenth century in association with the "social gospel," whose mission was the liberation of humanity from societal evil (poverty, racism, disease, war, and injustice). The presupposition of this school of thought was that humanity is basically good and that ultimately society will get better and better, resulting in a golden age on earth. Laudable as this attempt was, however, the social gospel suffered from two flaws: it abandoned the preaching of the gospel, and it naively based its positive view of history on the Darwinian evolutionary process. Time dealt a mortal blow to liberal postmillennialism - the catastrophic events of the twentieth century (two world wars, the Great Depression, the threat of nuclear destruction by the world's superpowers or by terrorists or both) rendered it an untenable position.... Interestingly enough, the twenty-first century has witnessed the revival of such a movement in the message of Barack Obama. In the next section we will focus on the biblical counterpart to liberal postmillennialism. The Social Gospel The social gospel of nineteenth-century America saw two problems with the gospel of Jesus Christ as preached by conservatives at that time: it was not social enough and it was too individualistic. Walter Rauschenbusch (1868-1918) sought to correct these two weaknesses with his message of the social gospel. Rauschenbusch once pastored in New York's notorious Hell's Kitchen. There he witnessed firsthand the poverty, violence, and despair unbridled capitalism could unleash on a people. Not unlike Karl Marx in that regard, Rauschenbusch believed that a capitalist-run government, with its self-interest and myopic agenda, is an obstacle to the progress of a nation rather than a means to its betterment. And as far as Rauschenbusch was concerned, the church of his day had sold its soul to corrupt government. No longer a prophetic voice for God and his people, the church had become the mouthpiece for institutional religion. What was needed was the preaching of the kingdom of God, as Jesus preached it, so said Rauschenbusch. For him, this meant two things, two correctives to the traditional gospel as preached by conservatives. First, the kingdom of God is a goal-oriented concept. It looks forward to the transformation of the whole social order, not backward to the tradition and doctrine or dogma of the church. Thus the kingdom should not be reduced to the church. It is broader and better. So often the church helped to entrench evil institutions rather than reform or even replace them. The social gospel does the latter of these two possibilities: it seeks to reform or replace rather than entrench. Second, "the kingdom is a fellowship of righteousness." Therein lies the heart of the social gospel. It is ethical in nature--feeding the poor, caring for the sick, educating the illiterate, equalizing job opportunities, and so on. So salvation is not from sin, as conservatives preached, but from inequality and injustice. And we experience such salvation by loving our fellow humans as Jesus did. Moreover, the social gospel is corporate in nature it is a "fellowship." Rauschenbusch, by now a professor of church history at Rochester Seminary, had come to believe that the problems of the poor and disadvantaged were not their own doing. That is, the problems were not individual in nature as conservatives had been preaching for years. Rather, the problems of the dispossessed were due to corrupt corporate structures. Thus the institutions themselvescapitalism, for example-had to be changed for the purpose of truly representing the good of the individual, not the reverse. Rauschenbusch put it this way: "The social gospel tries to see the progress of the kingdom of God in the flow of history ... in the clash of economic forces and social classes, in the rise and fall of despotisms and forms of enslavement." Rauschenbusch could put it more bluntly: "The fundamental terms and ideas [associated with salvation as atonement from sin]---'satisfaction,' 'substitution,' 'imputation,' 'merit' - are post-biblical ideas, and are alien from the spirit of the gospel.... The problem of the social gospel is how the divine life of Christ can get control of human society." All of this sounds suspiciously similar to the successful presidential campaign platform of Barack Obama, who was nurtured in the "social gospel" (Obama's own words) message of Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Trinity United Church of Christ in South Chicago. Biblical Postmillennialism Alongside liberal postmillennialism was its evangelical counterpart. Those theologians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries following this approach maintained their commitment to the gospel and to its transforming power. Stanley J. Grenz writes of them: Their outlook differed fundamentally from both secular and liberal Christian utopianism. They were optimistic concerning the future to be sure. But their optimism was born out of a belief in the triumph of the gospel in the world and of the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing in the kingdom, not out of any misconception concerning the innate goodness of humankind or of the ability of the church to convert the world by its own power. Today biblical postmillennialism has rebounded from the catastrophes of history and is currently experiencing a resurgence of influence, especially Christian Reconstructionism. Its conviction is admirable - as the church preaches the gospel and performs its role as the salt of the earth, the kingdom of God will advance until the whole world will one day gladly bow to the authority of Christ. The means for accomplishing this goal will be the law of God, which impacts the church and, in turn, the world. Biblical postmillennialism has its origin in the likes of Daniel Whitby and Jonathan Edwards, as we saw earlier. It also boasts followers in such notable missionaries as William Carey (1761-1834), "Father of Modern Missions"; the old Princetonian theologians Charles Hodge (1797-1878) and B.B.Warfield (1851-1921); and Gresham Machen (1881-1937). But as we also noted earlier, with two world wars, the Great Depression, the Holocaust, and the worldwide nuclear threat, postmillennialism fell into disfavor in the twentieth century. However, during the presidency of Ronald Reagan (1980-88), which brought renewed hope to many Americans, biblical postmillennialism made a comeback in the form of Christian Reconstructionism or theonomic ethics (theonomy, meaning "God's law"). Ken Gentry writes of this: The theonomic postmillennialist sees the gradual return to biblical norms of civil justice as a consequence of widespread gospel success through preaching, evangelism, missions, and Christian education. The judicial-political outlook of Reconstructionism includes the application of those justice-defining directives contained in the Old Testament legislation, when properly interpreted, adapted to new covenant conditions, and relevantly applied. Such an idea reminds one of the Puritans. Indeed, the Puritans are the heroes of Christian Reconstructionism. Thus enamored with the Puritan ethic and committed to the preaching of the traditional gospel, biblical postmillennialists demonstrated a positive view of where things are going prophetically: the world will get better and better because of the triumph of the gospel. In that sense, postmillennialism aligns itself with the role of the Old Testament prophet, whose message proclaimed the intervention of God in history, rather than with the apocalypticist's doom and gloom forecasts of the future. (Actually the Biblical prophets preached both - destruction and restitution, as will clearly be seen when you study all my expounding of the Old Testament prophets on this website - Keith Hunt) Although some biblical postmillennialists believe that the parousia is still in the future, many hold to the preterist view that Christ's parousia already occurred - at the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in AD 70. Therefore this group of interpreters reverses the commonly accepted position on the key passages in the debate - the Olivet Discourse, Revelation 1-19, and especially Revelation 20---by arguing that these passages refer to the past coming of Christ to judge Jerusalem, not some future coming of Christ to establish his kingdom in Jerusalem. We turn now to the preterist's summary of these biblical passages. After that, I will evaluate the biblical postmillennial position. .................... All this theology of the "social gospel" in relations to the coming of Christ and the 1,000 year reign, is upside-down and inside-out. Jesus taught in Matthew 24 that before He came again "evil will abound and the love of many will wax cold" - not that the Christian Gospel would eventually win over the world in some social way and produce a millennium of peace and love, then Jesus would return. The Post-millennium view is not only silly, and stupid, but lacks any real insight into the correct reading and understanding of the Bible, especially the prophetic books of the Bible. Keith Hunt To be continued