Having considered my objections to premillennialism and amillennialism, we now turn to the grounds for postmillennialism.

Revelation Twenty

Postmillennialism is the belief that Christ will return after a prolonged era of gospel prosperity, during which Satan will be bound and the gospel will capture not only the hearts of men and women everywhere, but also the ethos and spirit of nations. This period is the thousand years of Revelation 20.

The millennium referred to in Revelation is the first resurrection (Rev.20:4-6). For those who may baulk at the concept of a figurative resurrection, please consider the sinner’s state – “dead in trespasses and in sins” (Eph.2:1). The only miracle that can bring death to life is resurrection. This resurrection of the soul is generally described as regeneration, the infusion of new life into the soul of man – “a new birth” (John 3).

In the sixth verse the first resurrection is defined as destroying the power of the second death. Those who receive new life in Christ are God’s Kings and Priests, who receive the assurance that they will never suffer the second death but will rather receive the resurrection of the body – the second resurrection.

The millennium is the era in which God brings multitudes of souls, nations, and societies under the transforming power of the gospel. This era begins with the binding of Satan. The church and the world will be ushered into a period of widespread gospel renewal. Therefore, I regard postmillennialism as an eschatology of revival – the culmination of all the great revivals of history when, in the words of Isaac Watts:

“Jesus shall reign where'er the sun 
does its successive journeys run, 
his kingdom stretch from shore to shore, 
till moons shall wax and wane no more. 

To him shall endless prayer be made, 
and praises throng to crown his head. 
His name like sweet perfume shall rise 
with every morning sacrifice. 

People and realms of every tongue 
dwell on his love with sweetest song, 
and infant voices shall proclaim 
their early blessings on his name. 

Blessings abound where'er he reigns: 
the prisoners leap to lose their chains, 
the weary find eternal rest, 
and all who suffer want are blest. 

Let every creature rise and bring 
the highest honours to our King, 
angels descend with songs again, 
and earth repeat the loud amen.”

Romans Eleven

Romans eleven is another key chapter in unfolding the mysteries of the golden age. Paul prophetically describes the Jewish people as God’s olive tree. The natural branches were broken off as Israel in unbelief rejected the Messiah. These natural branches were replaced by a wild uncultivated olive tree which was grafted in. The wild olive tree was the Gentile world. This grafting in of the Gentiles brought great blessings to the world through the emergence of the New Testament Church.

Paul poses the question – “Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?” In response to the question he brings up the resurrection concept, which John later returns to in Revelation twenty, as we have observed – “For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?”

Therefore, this millennium of gospel blessing will begin with the conversion of the literal children of Abraham, as the natural branches are grafted in once again to be at one with the wild olive tree in one fruitful organism. This in turn will be the catalyst for the transformation of the nations of the world.

There are not distinct Gentile and Jewish groups within the economy of God. There is one body which encompasses all God’s people throughout every age. The Church currently is dominated by Gentiles because the natural branches are suffering a judicial blindness. God has appointed a time for which Paul calls “the fullness of the Gentiles”. Then “all Israel shall be saved”. While, I don’t believe this means that every Jew is automatically saved, the ingathering is sufficiently large to indicate an enormous number, captured by the word “all”.

Paul therefore exhorts the Christian Gentiles not to boast against the natural branches. We are to seek the conversion of Jews through our prayers and evangelism because God has a very great purpose to fulfil for them. This ties in with Paul’s great mantra that the gospel was for the Jew first and also for the Greek (Romans 1:16). After all, his heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel, his kinsmen according to the flesh, was that they might be saved (Romans 10:1).

The Great Commission

We can instantly see how this feeds into the great commission, which is God’s earthly plan for the Church and the world. Would the apostles and subsequent generations of Christians have been given a command to reach all peoples if there were not an expectation that all nations, including all ethnic and language groups, will be transformed by the converting power of sovereign grace? Surely the great commission is a promise as well as a command. This is the covenant engagement of a loving God who has a big purpose for the Church in the world.

“O what promises are ours, if we had only faith to grasp them! What a promise is in that great commission – Go and do so, and lo I am with you, even to the end of the world…And if any church can realise that faith, to that church will the honour belong of evangelising the nations, and bringing down the mountains.” (Alexander Duff, successor to William Carey in India, in a speech on Foreign Missions in 1854).

When this is coupled with John’s vision of peoples around the throne of God from all kindreds, peoples and tongues, the picture is sharpened still further (Rev.5:9). It is strengthened by the Lord’s promise that the gospel of the kingdom will have reached all nations before the end comes (Matt.24:14) . Is this a mere prophecy that all nations will be reached in the sense of giving opportunity? Are we to restrict Christ’s command in this way? Surely Christ was promising not merely the proclamation of the commission, but its fulfilment — the making of disciples among all nations. Comparing this promise with the parables of the Kingdom one is thrown upon the inescapable conclusion that as the woman’s leaven affected the entire barrel of meal so the gospel will not only be preached to the nations – it will transform the nations (Matt.13).

The Old Testament

The Old Testament Scriptures also confirm such a vision of the days before the coming again of Christ. Abraham’s covenant promise that all peoples will be blessed through the seed of Abraham lays a theological and eschatological basis for Paul’s remarks about the conversion of Israel leading to full gospel blessings for the entire world in Romans eleven (Genesis 12:1-3).

The Psalms are especially relevant. Psalm 100 has long been a Presbyterian favourite. This is not the only Psalm, replete with prophecies that all people will be full of praise to the God of Israel. The following are only examples; space would not permit an exhaustive list of references:

“Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands.” (Psalm 100:1)

“O praise the LORD, all ye nations: praise him, all ye people.” (Psalm 117:1)

The prophets also, prefigure an international day of conversion for the peoples of the world. Isaiah, particularly is relevant but he is by no means the only prophet who writes of the golden age.

“Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein” (Isaiah 42:10)

“That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.” (Isaiah 45:6)

“Thus saith the LORD, The labour of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine: they shall come after thee; in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto thee, they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, Surely God is in thee; and there is none else, there is no God.” (Isaiah 45:14)

“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” (Isaiah 45:22).

The words contained in Isaiah’s and Habakkuk’s prophecies are particularly relevant to the subject matter before us. There is a breadth to these promises that gives us yet real hope for this broken world:

“…for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11:9)

For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.” (Habakkuk 2:14)

Caricatures and Errors

Some caricature this postmillennial expectation by claiming that the world cannot improve as ungodly men will “wax worse and worse”. Yes, I agree that the wicked heart of man never improves but that does not diminish the power of the gospel. In fact, the promises of the gospel for the Church are such that the condition of Christ’s bride must prosper and not decline. Despite the numerous persecutions endured by the Church and the heresies which have torn her asunder at times, the bride of Christ is today more numerous than at any time in history. The burst of missionary progress during the past two hundred years have yielded significant fruit among the nations of Asia and Africa. While the Church has receded in the old Christian nations of Europe this is not the case in some of the most populous countries on earth. And still, there remains much more ground to be possessed. As the Queen of Sheba said of Solomon’s glory – the half hath not been told me.

Throughout history some have sought to hasten this postmillennial vision by political action, sometimes with force of arms or by laws aimed at foisting Christianity upon the people. The followers of Rushdoony’s reconstructionist school of thought, known as Theonomy, have interpreted the Millennium as a return to the old civil laws of Israel and encourage their followers to bring this about by political action. This obscures the fact that Christ rules by His Spirit and His Kingdom is one that holds sway over hearts.1

Maintaining our Biblical Focus

Here, then, is where our prayers and efforts must lie – the preaching of Christ to Jew and Gentile alike as Jesus alone can and will save.

Iain Murray, in his excellent book The Puritan Hope — a work the Lord used to open my eyes to the scope of gospel promise — makes these perceptive remarks in his introduction:

“The wonder of God’s saving works ought therefore to make Christians slow to believe that only doom and catastrophe must await the vast population of this evil earth. If, as men predict, the world population will double in the next thirty years (writing in 1971) why should it not be that God is going to show on a yet greater scale that truth is more powerful than error, grace more powerful than sin, and that those given to Christ are indeed ‘as the sand upon the sea-shore’ for multitude?”

More than fifty years later, with a population exceeding eight billion, the world is being prepared for these showers of blessing. The growth of Christianity in the Korean Peninsula, in the mountains of Nepal, among the Hindus of India, the communists of China, the Shiites of Iran, not to mention the island peoples of the South Pacific – just some examples illustrating that God is building His Church, fulfilling His commitment. We must not be blinkered in our own small corner – the fields are white and ripe for harvest.

The entire current and flow of history demonstrates that when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of God lifts up the standard against him (Isaiah 59:19). Human progress is not dependent upon improvements in science and discovery but upon the gospel. Where would Africa and India be, for example, without the vision of Livingstone and Carey, our greatest pioneering missionaries? Progress is predicated upon the advance of the Church. Therefore we labour and pray in faith, believing that the Word of God shall yet run mightily among the nations. 2, 3

Looking to the Return of Christ

The Church, however, will remain serving in a broken world of sin, even during the golden age. At the close of this period Satan will be released from his bondage and will go forth for a little season to cause havoc and instil rebellion in the world (Revelation 20). Those who remain unconverted, quietly resentful of Christianity’s deep influence upon the world throughout history, will succumb to his seductive deceptions. In one desperate final act the forces of Hell and the world will attempt one more extermination of Christianity, depicted by their surrounding of the Holy City, the camp of the saints. In this moment Christ will appear destroying Satan, antichrist and all rebellion with the brightness of His coming. The new heavens and the new earth will dawn, the resurrection will occur and we shall forever be with the Lord.

Footnotes

1 Rousas John Rushdoony was a twentieth-century American theologian who developed the system commonly known as Christian Reconstructionism. Reconstructionism teaches that nations are morally obligated to apply not only the universal moral law of God, but also many of the Old Testament civil laws originally given to Israel. This position, commonly termed Theonomy, places strong emphasis upon Christian influence in civil government and society. Critics argue that it departs from traditional postmillennialism, which historically viewed the advance of Christ’s kingdom primarily through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, evangelism, and revival rather than political reconstruction.

2 No-one drew the attention of British evangelicals to the plight of Africa more than the Scot, David Livingstone. Postmillennialism saturated the spiritual life of Scottish Presbyterianism, which was Livingstone’s primary influence. While the British Empire viewed him as a famous explorer, he saw himself as a trail blazer making a way for others to follow. He aim in his own words was “to bring unknown nations into the sympathies of the Christian world”.

3 The Postmillennialism which deeply influenced English evangelicalism in the post Puritan era sparked the burst of missionary activity in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Carey’s vision was influenced greatly by Isaiah 54:2-3. He went forth to India lengthening his cords and strengthening his stakes claiming the promise that “Thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles”. He simply said “God’s cause shall triumph”.

Other Articles in the Series

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