One of the joys of speaking loudly around here is that I get to see some fine china broken in real-time. That’s a metaphor for views being shattered and replaced by something else.
What is that thing broken and replaced? The thing broken is a variation of pessimistic eschatology and it is being replaced with some happy postmillennialism. Mind you, I am not so much concerned about the loyalty to the systematic category, but to the heart of the matter.
It pleases me to see folks going through that radical transformation and sending me notes about it. It is an amazing thing to plant seeds for a long time, only to see them bear fruit much later. God seems to work like that on many occasions. I believe we are reaching a stage of massive theological conversions, and I have alluded to some of these factors before, but the postmil conversion is a fruitful blossoming of many seeds planted long ago. I have been harping on the postmil “C” chord for a really long time and I think postmil eschatology is beginning to see a resurgence.
This may be the result of ecclesiastical behaviors these past two years. In fact, I will go so far as to say that the churches who have been pushing against shut-downs and sundry silliness have postmil bones. Now, lots of other non-postmil flocks have come alongside our efforts, or later decided to peek behind the curtain, but the reality is that the majority of pastors I know who decided to fight the tide named one of their kids or their dogs, B.B. Warfield.
The reason this happens is not that dispensationalists are gnostic pirates, but because theology and ideas matter. A theology that urges the Christian population to shut down or cave in cannot be a theology that says “Jesus shall reign where’r the sun doth his successive journeys run!” It simply can’t!
Now, yes, there are peoples of all eschatological stripes who act inconsistently with their theologies and opine like disciples of John Murray, but by and large, attitudes of reconciliation with government officials who were eager to steal your liberty didn’t come from postmil reformers. They came from those who believed and affirmed a spiritualized kingdom only; one that was content with “If the ship is sinking, why polish the brass!”Postmillennial eschatology is a direct sport eschatology. It’s not flag football, it’s the result of a baby created by rugby and Constantinian religion. It’s real. It’s fleshly. It’s in your face. And wherever it goes, it carries three main affirmations:
First, it affirms that the Christian faith is rooted in the proto-evangelium (Gen. 3:15). It believes that the first Gospel preached was a Gospel that de-throned disciples of the Serpent and moved forward on the offense against religious and political tyrants (II Cor. 10:5). The seed of the woman shall crush the head of the serpent in tangible ways, which necessitates the confrontation of institutions and systems that do not harmonize with the kingdom of heaven.
Second, it affirms the centrality of the Cultural and Great Commissions (Gen. 1:26-28; Matt. 28:18-20). Postmil is not an eschatology of guesses, it’s an eschatology of certainty. We don’t walk around wondering whether the kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven, we affirm the kingdom shall come on earth as it is in heaven in history and time. Christ shall return to receive a glorified bride, not a defeated bride. The great feast is a glorious feast of victorious proclamations (Rev. 7:12). What God commands shall be fulfilled, and there are no nuances to that.
Finally, it affirms a bodily sacrificial life before the watching world (Rom. 12:1-2). The certainty of postmil eschatology is not naive about suffering and pain. In fact, it triumphs through our suffering and pain. It sees the sacrifice of the Church as a sacrifice towards something; a symphonic movement reaching its finale. Postmil doesn’t tolerate mandates because it keeps us from forming a Christ-shaped society in our churches and homes and cultures. It moves through sacrificial acts of worship first on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7) and then throughout the rest of time (I Cor. 10:31).
Postmillennialism breaks the fine china of the non-threatening spiritual church and calls her to take up the sword in one hand and the shovel in the other (Neh. 4:18). That means, we will protect our right to worship the Triune God and we will work as unto the Lord, and we will strive with all our hearts to ensure that our children and our children’s children seek the good of the city until that day.