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Considering postmillenial eschatology

B

Bartato

Seasoned Member
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Lately I've started considering Postmillenial eschatology. I'd never seriously thought about it before.
I thought postmil guys were liberal social gospel types.

I've never had concrete convictions about the end times, having generally leaned historic Premillennial, but thought the pre-trib rapture dispensational guys might be right.

Being Reformed leaning, I know a lot of Reformed guys are Amillennial, but I hadn't given that view much attention either.

Prior to the twentieth century the postmil view seems to have been the most widely held. WW1, WW2, the Holocaust, and Marxism put a bit of a damper on "hopeful eschatology".

For the last century, Dispensational premillennialism has been the most widely held view in the Evangelical world.

Recently I've been listening to podcasts by a bunch of postmill guys and find their arguments to make quite a bit of sense (and I like these guys in general). Some of the teachers I've been listening to include Jeff Durbin, Brian Sauve - The King's Hall, Doug Wilson, James White, Joel Webbon, AD Robles, etc.

Psalm 2 , Psalm 110, Matthew 28:18-20, Isaiah 42, and 1st Corinthians 15:10-28, would seem to support the Postmil view.

Maybe Christ defeats all His enemies by the Holy Spirit working through a gradually triumphing Church (rather than just showing up unexpectedly one day and instantly stomping all His enemies).

Most of the men who built the great cultures of the West seem to have been postmil (the Reformers, the Puritans, Jonathan Edwards, Spurgeon, etc).

Most of the weak Christians who have been largely losing for the last hundred years seem to be Dispensational Premil.

The first group built great institutions and cultures. The later group seems to be largely losing them all, biding their time and either waiting to escape via rapture (pretrib premil) or getting ready to endure the tribulatuon (hiding out in the sticks).

Gross oversimplification, I know

I'm probably annoying everyone. 🤔

I like to consider things, and this is something I'm trying to work through.
 
Bartato said:
Most of the men who built the great cultures of the West seem to have been postmil (the Reformers, the Puritans, Jonathan Edwards, Spurgeon, etc).

Most of the weak Christians who have been largely losing for the last hundred years seem to be Dispensational Premil.

The first group built great institutions and cultures. The later group seems to be largely losing them all, biding their time and either waiting to escape via rapture (pretrib premil) or getting ready to endure the tribulatuon (hiding out in the sticks).
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First group thinks they are winning so they are building in safety. Second group waits sky salvation from problems.
 
Bartato said:
His reign began centuries ago,.and will continue forever. All authority in heaven and on earth now belongs to Him.

"For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet." (1st Cor. 15:25 NKJV)
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1 Corinthians 15:24 KJV
Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. The "millennium" isn't an exact 1000 years it's an undefined period of time like the cattle on a thousand hills isn't exactly 1000 hills. Many new covenant deniers want to deny this reign and make it a future even or a past event but the elect have been given the authority, there has been restraints put on the dragon and he is likely about to be unrestrained for a season.
 
I believe this is a very important issue to consider and get right, particularly at this point in history. I too do not understand this issue well enough, but am looking into it, and find it no coincidence that you would post this at the very time I am feeling led to investigate it also. Will write more when I have clearer thoughts.

But given that everything we are taught in the evangelical churches on this matter flatly contradicts the teachings of all prominent teachers prior to the late 19th century - all the church fathers, all the reformers - there's something fishy going on. And the Scofield bible seems to be at the centre of it all.
 
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David D said:
1 Corinthians 15:24 KJV
Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. The "millennium" isn't an exact 1000 years it's an undefined period of time like the cattle on a thousand hills isn't exactly 1000 hills. Many new covenant deniers want to deny this reign and make it a future even or a past event but the elect have been given the authority, there has been restraints put on the dragon and he is likely about to be unrestrained for a season.
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Knowing that all authority has been given to Christ encourages me to press forward in seeking the rule of Christ over everything. Remember that Psalm 110:2 tells us that Christ rules in the midst, or in the presence of His enemies.

I don't think everything has to keep getting worse and worse. Maybe my tendency to want to run and hide from the Beast system of this world is a mistake. Maybe we are supposed to be chasing it down, and helping smash it. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church.

Satan isn't the ruler anymore. Christ has overcome him. Christ has bound the strong man, and is taking away all his treasures. I'm one of those that Christ has liberated, and now I'm part of His crew, taking/liberating more. Why should I be afraid?

The giant Goliath is dead, and now it is time for us formerly cowering Israelites to chase down and defeat all the rest of the smaller Philistines.
 
Bartato said:
Knowing that all authority has been given to Christ encourages me to press forward in seeking the rule of Christ over everything. Remember that Psalm 110:2 tells us that Christ rules in the midst, or in the presence of His enemies.

I don't think everything has to keep getting worse and worse. Maybe my tendency to want to run and hide from the Beast system of this world is a mistake. Maybe we are supposed to be chasing it down, and helping smash it. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church.

Satan isn't the ruler anymore. Christ has overcome him. Christ has bound the strong man, and is taking away all his treasures. I'm one of those that Christ has liberated, and now I'm part of His crew, taking/liberating more. Why should I be afraid?

The giant Goliath is dead, and now it is time for us formerly cowering Israelites to chase down and defeat all the rest of the smaller Philistines.
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Old slewfoot is nowhere near as toothless as you seem to believe.
 
steve said:
Old slewfoot is nowhere near as toothless as you seem to believe.
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I'm sure I do underestimate the devil. My bigger concern is that I think I underestimate the Lord Jesus Christ and our Father in Heaven infinitely more.

Peter actually walked on water while his eyes were fixed on Christ. When his faith faltered, he sank down. When he cried out to Christ for deliverance, the Lord lifted him up.

There are truly terrifying dark powers at work in this world. In Acts 19, the the sons of Sceva learned not to invoke the name of the Son against the dark powers apart from true faith.

The ten faithless spies accurately saw the strength of the Canaanites, and died in the wilderness. Joshua and Caleb also saw the power of God, and triumphed over the enemy.

Stephen was martyred, and simultaneously overcame.
 
Bartato said:
Satan isn't the ruler anymore. Christ has overcome him. Christ has bound the strong man, and is taking away all his treasures.
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Yet the disciples were martyred, Paul beaten, stoned, and shipwrecked multiple times.
They all overcame in the end, but they sure didn’t live an overcoming lifestyle.
 
@steve, the understanding most of the church has had through history is that we are in a bitter fight against Satan and many will be martyred along the way, but the church will grow and, while sometimes advancing and sometimes suffering setbacks, ultimately bring all the world under the dominion of Christ, at which time He will return as king of the kingdom built by the church.

The modern evangelical understanding is that we will be defeated by Satan and when all hope is lost and the world is dominated by Satan's kingdom, Christ will finally return to fix everything himself.

These are polar opposites. One encourages us to build Christendom, one encourages us to just fight a declining insurgency in Satandom. And it is no coincidence that Christian influence in the world peaked in the early 20th century (I'd say with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire if I were to pick a date), at the close of dominance of the triumphant theological view, and has declined exactly as the second defeatist theological view has become widespread.

But the major question is which is correct.
 
steve said:
Yet the disciples were martyred, Paul beaten, stoned, and shipwrecked multiple times.
They all overcame in the end, but they sure didn’t live an overcoming lifestyle.
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I think that's the definition of the overcoming lifestyle. Paul was beaten, stoned, imprisoned, shipwrecked, and eventually martyred, yet he kept getting back up, and pressing onward, his eyes fixed on the Christ.

Guys like Joel Osteen aren't living the overcoming lifestyle.

"Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live." (John 11:25)

We do not need to fear any created thing, including those that may well kill the body. "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matthew 10:28)

In Christ, even the greatest threat is removed. "And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins,..." (1st John 2:2). For the one with true faith in Christ, God the fearsome Judge has become our all powerful and altogether loving Father in Heaven.
 
FollowingHim said:
@steve, the understanding most of the church has had through history is that we are in a bitter fight against Satan and many will be martyred along the way, but the church will grow and, while sometimes advancing and sometimes suffering setbacks, ultimately bring all the world under the dominion of Christ, at which time He will return as king of the kingdom built by the church.

The modern evangelical understanding is that we will be defeated by Satan and when all hope is lost and the world is dominated by Satan's kingdom, Christ will finally return to fix everything himself.

These are polar opposites. One encourages us to build Christendom, one encourages us to just fight a declining insurgency in Satandom. And it is no coincidence that Christian influence in the world peaked in the early 20th century (I'd say with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire if I were to pick a date), at the close of dominance of the triumphant theological view, and has declined exactly as the second defeatist theological view has become widespread.

But the major question is which is correct.
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One reminds me of Theoden after listening to Wormtongue and the other Theoden after listening to Gandalf.

Theoden died on the field of Pelennor, but unlike Denethor, he died in great honor.

I know I shouldn't compare the Dispensational view to Wormtongue and Denethor. Many faithful Christian men have held that view with integrity of heart.

I'm saying that one view inspires courage, while the other tends towards discouragement. The world has desperate of courageous Christian men.
 
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IF the dispensational view is incorrect, one then has to question whether it is Satan's doing to sabotage and defeat the church. And if so, the primary vehicle for that sabotage would have to be the Scofield bible.

I'm trying to look for a list of the primary theological viewpoints that were promoted in that bible, so I can join the dots. All I can find are people going through the notes line by line and showing how individual points are heretical. I know it introduced the gap theory, being the first major heresy you confront right at the start, and that it substantially altered the church's views on the end times and Israel. I have not yet found a single overview list of the set of novel theological views it promoted. It would take some research into both the bible itself and the dominant views prior to its publication to produce this list, I'm hoping someone has done it already. If someone can find that I'd appreciate it.
 
Most eschatology is wrong because it refuses to consider the couple hundred prophecies about the restoration and reunification of the whole house of Israel. The prophecies specifically detail the house of Israel's dispersion and forgetting who they are while the house of Judah has a different trajectory.

Trying to sort out pre-mid-post and the promises of the millennial reign are impossible with only half of the puzzle pieces on the table and some of those upsidedown.

I love y'all.. not trying to start something, just pleading for you to back up and reread Scripture through a different lens. Your paradigm completely ignores the wife that is still in the house, even if she's not entirely obedient, nor is she welcoming of the bride outside the house who the Messiah is drawing.

😊
 
FollowingHim said:
@steve, the understanding most of the church has had through history is that we are in a bitter fight against Satan and many will be martyred along the way, but the church will grow and, while sometimes advancing and sometimes suffering setbacks, ultimately bring all the world under the dominion of Christ, at which time He will return as king of the kingdom built by the church.

The modern evangelical understanding is that we will be defeated by Satan and when all hope is lost and the world is dominated by Satan's kingdom, Christ will finally return to fix everything himself.

These are polar opposites. One encourages us to build Christendom, one encourages us to just fight a declining insurgency in Satandom. And it is no coincidence that Christian influence in the world peaked in the early 20th century (I'd say with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire if I were to pick a date), at the close of dominance of the triumphant theological view, and has declined exactly as the second defeatist theological view has become widespread.

But the major question is which is correct.
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I don’t have it all sorted out, but I’m more of the early view.
What I was reacting was to @Bartato , but I see that he has further defined his pov and denounced the Olsteenean mindset, which I was opposing.
 
PeteR said:
Most eschatology is wrong because it refuses to consider the couple hundred prophecies about the restoration and reunification of the whole house of Israel. The prophecies specifically detail the house of Israel's dispersion and forgetting who they are while the house of Judah has a different trajectory.

Trying to sort out pre-mid-post and the promises of the millennial reign are impossible with only half of the puzzle pieces on the table and some of those upsidedown.

I love y'all.. not trying to start something, just pleading for you to back up and reread Scripture through a different lens. Your paradigm completely ignores the wife that is still in the house, even if she's not entirely obedient, nor is she welcoming of the bride outside the house who the Messiah is drawing.

😊
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Completely understand your concerns @PeteR. We certainly do need to take into account the specific prophecies regarding Israel and Judah.

But to do that we need to know who those people are today. How do we identify them? Most critically, who is the house of Judah - how do you know if you are in it or not?
 
I realise that could come across as a controversial question given that there is a stereotype about why people would ask that question, so I should clarify. My point is that when we look at prophecies about the people of Judah, we need to consider whether they were fulfilled historically (ie good prophecies pointing towards the end of the Babylonian exile, and bad ones towards the destruction of the temple in 70AD), or whether they have a current/future fulfilment. This is an absolutely crucial eschatological issue, it really has to be considered before you can go anywhere.

In order for them to have present/future fulfilment, there needs to be an identifiable people of Judah today. The problem is that at the time of the exile, rabbinic Judaism introduced matrilineality and rejected patrilineality, which is completely backwards to scripture and entirely messes up their genealogical records. As we know for certain from scripture that patrilineal descent is valid (as that is all we see in scripture), that leaves two options for how Jewish identity actually works: patrilineal descent only, or both patrilineal and matrilineal.

If only patrilineal descent is valid, then the only people we know today are true Jews are the Karaites, the only sect that has recorded their descent patrilineally - a tiny handful of people. Obviously there will actually be millions of true descendents of Judah, but the vast majority of them are unknown, and will be scattered through the whole world. In other words, they're now almost as unidentifiable as the other lost tribes.

While if both patrilineal and matrilineal descent are valid, then all those who call themselves Jews today are true Jews - but so is the majority of the rest of the world. When you do the maths on this, you quickly find that it is almost impossible NOT to be a Jew! To put it simply, if a generation is 25 years, there have been 78 generations since the dispersion. Given you had two parents (2 to the power of 1), four grandparents (2 to the power of 2) etc, the number of ancestors your family tree would show 78 generations ago is 2 to the power of 78 - 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Obviously there weren't even that number of people in the world that long ago, most of them are double-ups due to unknown inbreeding, but each does represent a distinct slot in your family tree. And if only one of that insanely enormous number of slots just happens to be filled by a Jew, you're a Jew. The unusual situation would be NOT being a Jew.

So either the Jews are unknown today, or they are essentially everyone. I don't know which is valid, but I know that both options play complete havoc with any interpretation of prophecy that requires a present or future fulfilment of prophecies that relate specifically to Judah. This is therefore an important consideration when interpreting prophecy, which feeds directly back into our interpretation of prophecies relating to the nature and timing of the millennial Kingdom, directly informing the core question here of pre- vs post-millennialism. And that is the extent of my interest in it.

As a side note though, both above options completely discredit the traditional Christian antisemitic position of blaming the modern Jews for killing Jesus, because although they may have said "his blood be on us and upon our children", if their children are you and I also then we are all guilty for his death - which is theologically accurate, given that he died for our sins. This is interesting to ponder also, but my interest here is correctly identifying the timing of Christ's return and the millennial kingdom.

If I'm missing something there @PeteR I'd appreciate you pointing it out.
 
I happened to feel a need to log in today after a very lengthy time off the platform and this thread caught my eye. I think you all may be helped in your research by checking out this message series (linked below) by Clyde Pilkington on the "pre-millennial" kingdom and why we often think we are talking about the same thing on these subjects but are not. A main point he makes is that there is a lot of unfulfilled prophecy that doesn't fit into either category of the millennium or the new heavens and new earth by very nature of what's described in the prophecies.
Take for example Malichi 4:5-6:
"I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”

But it does naturaly fit into a period of time before the millennium, a "pre-millennial" kingdom where Christ continues to rule from heaven, David is raised and sits on his own throne on earth, and Elijah is raised to set the geneology of Israel in order and identify the members of the tribes (the allotment of their land hinges on tribe). This all happens after the close of the current secret administration (I.e. Eph., Col.) of grace and is effected by a pouring out of God's spirit.

Links to Clyde's talk. These can be found on his Biblical Resources youtube channel:
https://youtu.be/vp4TyDDydK0?feature=shared

He also has a great book put together on the topic; a compilation of multiple authors who have written on this theme:

Rightly Dividing Israel’s Prophetic Kingdom – With Special Emphasis on The Overlooked Pre-Millennial “Kingdom of the Heavens”
 
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