Theonomy and Eschatology | Some Reflections On Postmillennialism

Still browsing through the eschatology topics...and read this article...still no definitive position.  A review of the different views and a brief description might be beneficial....will hunt something up.

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THEONOMY AND ESCHATOLOGY | Some Reflections On Postmillennialism

By Richard B. Gaffin, Jr.(1)

Essential to the emergence of theonomy/(Christian) reconstructionism has been a revival of postmillennialism. (2)

Among current postmils, to be sure, there are some who are not reconstructionists, but all reconstructionists—whatever their differences—consider themselves postmils. Or so it would have seemed until just recently with the unanticipated and apparently growing impact of reconstructionist viewpoints in circles whose eschatology is characteristically premil. Still, for reconstructionism’s leading advocates, postmillennialism is plainly integral—whether logically or psychologically—to their position as a whole. Nonreconstructionist postmils would naturally deny any such connection.

This chapter provides some partial, personally-tinged, yet, I hope, not entirely unhelpful reflections on the resurgent postmillennialism of the past 20-25 years. My reservations lie in at least four areas.

DEFINING POSTMILLENNIALISM

A large element of ambiguity cuts across much of today’s postmillennialism. Before trying to specify that ambiguity it will be helpful, historically, to give some attention to the fact that in the past, too, postmillennialism has not been the clearly defined, unambiguous position that some of its contemporary proponents make it out to be.

It is fairly common to point out the inadequacy of our conventional designations pre, post, and a. But, no less commonly, in ensuing discussion that recognition recedes. As a result, efforts, for one, to distinguish between the postmil and amil positions get confused—usually, as it turns out, more than a merely terminological confusion.

Who coined the term amillennial and when did it first begin to be used? Perhaps I’ve missed it somewhere, but the usual sources don’t seem to know or at least don’t say. At any rate, in 1930 Geerhardus Vos, for instance, viewed today as an amil, still seems to distinguish only between a premil and postmil position and to include himself in the latter. (3)

And as late as 1948, a year before his death, again in contrasting the two positions, he distances himself, apparently, not from postmillennialism as such but only from “certain types” of it. (4)

Similarly, in a 1915 article B. B. Warfield, besides characterizing “premillennial” and “postmillennial” as “unfortunate,” “infelicitous” terms, seems to recognize only those two positions. (5)

More representatively, the original (1915) and revised (1929/30) editions of the International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia have no entry for amillennialism, and under “Millennium, post-millennial view” simply refer the reader to Vos’s (decidedly amil) article, “Eschatology of the New Testament.” (6)

To note a couple of other related examples: On the millennium passage (Rev. 20:1-10), Warfield adopts what almost everyone today would consider an amil view. (7)

And the late John Murray, though often claimed (mistakenly, I believe) as a postmil, sets forth, in what in my judgment is the clearest extant statement of his overall eschatological outlook, a position that—if we are to choose one of the standard labels—is best designated amillennial. (8)

Murray’s exegesis of Romans 11 no more makes him a postmil than Warfield’s exegesis of Revelation 20 makes him an amil. (By the way, can anyone who has carefully read Murray’s 1968 address on Matthew 24-25 seriously question its amillennial thrust? (9)

It may be somewhat speculative on my part, but hardly unwarranted, to detect in this address—it does not refer explicitly to the work of others—a refutation of the characteristic postmil treatment of Matthew 24, advanced around that time, for instance, by J. Marcellus Kik, particularly the notion that everything up through verse 35 is fulfilled in the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple. (10)

With typical incisiveness Murray shows that the passage covers history down to its consummation and that the decidedly non-“golden” element of tribulation for the church “is represented as characterizing the interadvental period as a whole,” p. 389.) In the past, then, especially over against premillennialism, “post” appears also to have covered what, in effect, was “a.” The possibility for that sort of usage lay in the obvious (though sometimes overlooked) consideration that the amil view is postmillennial in the sense that for both views Christ will return after the millennium; all amils are postmil.

What prompted invention of the word amillennial? While the precise origins of the term may be uncertain, the reason for its emergence seems plain enough. Eventually those who did not share a “postmil” emphasis on the millennium as purely future felt the need to have a label for their view. “Amillennial” has functioned, at least characteristically, not necessarily to deny that the millennium is on earth (although some “amils” have no doubt taken such a position) but to maintain the identity of the millennium and the interadvental period. The “a” negates in two directions: (1) the millennium is the interadvental period, not an interregnum following it (the premil view), and (2) the millennium is the interadvental period in its entirety, not just an era toward its close (the postmil view).

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