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Millennium Superworld — Appendix B: Pre-, Post-, and A- Millennialism
What Say the Scriptures?
Post-Millennialism vs. Scripture
The view of many of the reformers (Calvin, Luther, Malancthon) the Church of England, and the Ausburg Confession are largely postmillennial. Origen, also Eusebius, and Athanasias were also postmillennialists. The Campbellites were postmillennialists, as were Jonathan Edwards, Matthew Henry, A.A. Hodge, B.B. Warfield, and many of the Puritans.
But who can hold to such a belief today? One may say that "The world is growing better and better," but who will believe it in a century that has witnessed the horrors of Nazi Germany; the atrocities of Stalin's Soviet Union; the slaughters' of Mao's China; the killings of Pol Pot's Cambodia; the cruelties that have taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of Africans; acts of lawlessness and terrorism between child and child, or child and parent—not to mention the disintegration of the family and the plmmeting of social standards, our own nation sinmking to the depths of approving homosexuality. Who today can honestly say the world is growing better?
The postmillennialists expect to see fulfilled before Christ returns the same texts which the premillennialists apply to the Millennial reign of Christ. They cite Isaiah 2:2-4 and Micah 4:1-5, and comment: “We are taught that the Church is to be prominent like a house on the top of a mountain, and that its guidance will be sought willingly in all phases of human life. The statement that 'all people will flow unto it' must mean that people all over the world are Christianized. Nations will no longer spend their energies and substance in destructive wars. To sit every man under his own vine and fig tree is a symbol of contented peaceful home life.”
But are men going to learn this on their own? What nation today is laying aside its armaments and pursuing only peaceful living?
Later in Isaiah 2 is a passage which speaks of the land being full of idols which the people cast to the “moles and bats” when the Lord arises “to shake terribly the earth” (Isa. 2:8, 19-21). This does not sound as though the nations of earth will give up their evil practices of their own volition!
The postmillennialists also cite Isaiah 11:1-10 as evidence for their position: “There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:…with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove the equity for the meek of the earth:…the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb: and…they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.&rdquo
Isaiah 2:4 describes a time when men shall“beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks.” If all nations are to do this, when will the tredn begin? Have they not been doing the reverse for all of recorded history? What will cause the change? Are nations currently preparing for peace?
No, the postmillennialists do not have Scripture to support their position. The Bible teaches plainly that nothing less than the judgments of God will compel men to obedience. And even then, many will stubbonly refuse and will have to die in disobedience (see Isa. 26:9-10; Zech. 13:8-9; Mal.3:1-3; 4:1-2). God is not going to wait endlessly, while men blunder in sin and ignorance; He is going to ACT!
A-Millennialism vs. Scripture
The entire book of Revelation is an answer to A-Millennialism. Though the BIble does not provide all the details, it does state definitely that Jesus is coming, and that He will reign with His saints “on the earth” (Rev. 5:9-10) and for a period of one thousand years (Rev. 20).
“But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming” (1 Cor. 15:23).
What basis do the amillennialists have for saying that Christ will not set foot on this earth again, rather we shall all be gathered together with Him in the air and taken to heaven and Christ will turn the Kingdom back to God who gave it?
The prophet Zechariah says that “his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east&rdquo (Zech. 14:1-4). The Mount of Olives east of Jerusalem is a definite location on earth, and the prophet says “his feet shall stand” on that mountain. Either we must accept the testimony of Scripture, or we must reject it.
Where does the Bible say we shall all be gathered together with HIm in the air and taken to heaven? Here is a statement without support. Paul did say that the living believers along with the resurrected will rise to “meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:17). But the passage says nothing about where we will be “with the Lord,” and numerous texts state clearly that Jesus is coming to dwell among men (Rev. 21:3-4); that the saints shall “reign on the earth” (Rev. 5:10) and “under the whole heaven” (Dan. 7:27); “the meek…shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5). Seven times in Psalm 37 the fact is reaffirmed that the righteous shall inherit or dwell on the earth.
What did Paul mean by writing that Christ will deliver up the Kingdom to the Father? The text reads: “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 authority and power.…And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:24, 28).
Paul is describing the time when the earth is a finished project, when all sin and evil is fully subdued, and all is perfect and complete. But Christ will still be reigning. Many passages of Scriptures describe teh Kingdom as eternal, unending, everlasting, without end. The promise made at the time of Jesus' birth was: “of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:33). His kingdom was prophesied to be &lduqo;an everlasting Kingdom” (Dan. 7:27), and an everlasting kingdom does not have an end. Again, the prophet Daniel foretold that “the God of heaven” would set up “a kingdom that shall never pass away…it shall stand forever” (Dan. 2:44).
When Paul says that the Kingdom will be “delivered up” to God the Father, there is no change in the eternal status of the earth, its rulership or its inhabitants. Paul is merely stating in graphical language that Jesus has finished His task, the eternal state has begun, there is no more sin or suffering to subdue, no more strife or contention; now all is perfect peace, perfect love, perfect joy, perfect harmony, perfect delignt, and God is “all in all,” world without end.
Pre-Millennialism vs. Scripture
The premillennialists find ample proof for their position in Scripture. Christ is coming “with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him and his work before him”—before Him, not behind Him, as the postmillennialists teach (Isa. 40:10).
Though not all the premillennialists agree, the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus is coming to initiate the steps that will bring about the Millennium. Far from returning to a world of peace and righteousness, it pictures him breaking into history at a time when the “sea and the waves” are “roaring, men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth” (Luke 21:25-26). His return will precipitate a time of trouble “such as never was since there was a nation” (Dan. 12:1). Isaiah says that “when the enemy shall come in like a flood…the Redeemer shall come to Zion” (Isa. 59:19-20).
Jesus in parable compared Himself to a nobleman who goes into a “far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return” (Luke 19:12). The comparison would be incorrect if Christ came back to a kingdom already set up and an earth already in a perfect state.
Jesus' words in His post-ascension message reveal the same promise: that Christ will return to an unconverted world. “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him,hellip;and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him” (Rev. 1:7). Also His words to His disciples: “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.…Likewase also as it was in the days of Lot;…Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Luke 17:26-30).
History confirms that the early Christians were looking for the visible, bodily return of Jesus to set up His kingdom (Acts 1:10-11), and this teaching prevailed during the early year after the apostles, though it soon encountered opposition. The Alexandrian school, particularly Origen, also oopposed it. One of the first known opponents of Pre-Millennialism was Caius, a Roman presbyter about the year 200. According to one historian, “one great reason for the remarkable change of sentiments [from the expectation of the early return of Jesus to the belief that the Church was the kingdom] is to be found in the altered condition and prosepects of eth Church. Christians at first yearned for the reappearance of the Lord. Moreover, it was impossible for them to raise their faith and hopes so high as to expect the conquest of the Roman Empire by the moral power of the cross, independently of the personal and supernatural interposition of Christ. But as the Gospel made progress, the possibility and probability of a peaceful victory of the Chrsitian cause over all its adversaries, by the might of truth and of the Spirit, gained a lodgment in the convictions of good men” (McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, Vol 6. p.265).
The early church was looking for Jesus to return and bring in the Millennium, and we today, nearly two thousand years nearer, share the same bright expectation.
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