Postmillennialism
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Eschatology |
Hermeneutics | Historicism |
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Millennial Reign of Christ |
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New Covenant Theology
| Postmillennialism
| Premillennialism | Pre-Tribulational Rapture | Reconstructionism | "Seventy Weeks" |
Theo-Politics |
Parousia
| Universalism
The
Prima Facie Acceptability of Postmillennialism
Greg L. Bahnsen
"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, and
Walvoord says that the position could not resist the trend toward
liberalism. He also accuses it of not seeing the kingdom as consummated by
the Second Advent. William E. Cox claims that postmillennialism is
characterized by a literal interpretation of Revelation 20. Adams
portrays the postmillennialist as unable to conceive of the millennium as
coextensive with the church age or as a present reality, for he (according
to Adams) must see it as exclusively future – a golden age just around the
corner. 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.”
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." (The
Prima Facie Acceptability of Postmillennialism)
Gary DeMar and
Peter Leithart
"Postmillennialism has been taught by Loraine Boettner, Charles Hodge, W. G.
T. Shedd, B. B. Warfield, Marcellus Kik, John Jefferson Davis, Roderick
Campbell, John Murray (in his commentary on Romans, chapter 11) as well as "reconstructionist"
writers such as R. J. Rushdoony, Gary North, Greg Bahnsen, James B. Jordan,
and David Chilton. You can also find strains of postmillennialism in the
writings of the great English Baptist preacher of the 19th century, Charles
Haddon Spurgeon." (The Reduction of Christianity)
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Date: 26 Dec 2009
Time: 20:46:36
Your Comments:
Rev 1:9
9 I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the
kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos,
for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
What is the difference between the kingdom of Christ and the Millenium?
According to this verse John was in the kindgom of Jesus Christ. Was he in
the Millenium kingdom when he wrote it. Or is their no such thing as a
Millenium kingdom? Is it just a word someone created when interpreting Rev
20? Tammy
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