On Facebook, someone asked what people thought of the weakness of the 3 millennial positions. Since the weakness of Premillennialism are well known among Calvinists, I decided to focus on two weaknesses of Amillennialism. I posted the following with slight modification in the Facebook group.
I'm
a former Premillennialist, and now a tentative/provisional Postmillennialist. One of the weakness I see in Amillennialism is that
it doesn't have a time and place for an earthly Age of prosperity of
the Gospel and of human society before the final eschaton as apparently
(rightly or wrongly) predicted in the OT and in Rev. 20.
Another weakness of both Amil and Premil that I see is summed up well in a quote (rightly or wrongly) attributed to Kenneth Gentry:
Another weakness of both Amil and Premil that I see is summed up well in a quote (rightly or wrongly) attributed to Kenneth Gentry:
"Postmillennialists
do not believe in the inherent goodness of man. But NON-Postmillennialists seem to believe in the inherent weakness of the
Gospel." - Ken Gentry
Given
the power of the Gospel, and the Great Commission [not the great
suggestion or great ideal that will definitely not be accomplished] of
Matt. 28:18-20; one would expect Gospel victory, and a "Mission
Accomplished" at the end of history.
F.F.
Bruce wrote in chapter 4 of his classic book, "The New Testament
Documents: Are they Reliable?" regarding the Gospel of Matthew:
QUOTE:
The sayings of Jesus are arranged so as to form five great discourses,
dealing respectively with (a) the law of the kingdom of God (chapters v
to vii), (b) the preaching of the kingdom (x. 5-42), (c) the growth of
the kingdom (xiii. 3-52), (d) the fellowship of the kingdom (chapter
xviii), and (e) the consummation of the kingdom (chapter xxivxxv). The
narrative of the ministry of Jesus is so arranged that each section
leads on naturally to the discourse which follows it. The whole is
prefaced by a prologue describing the nativity of the King (chapters
iii) and concluded by an epilogue relating the passion and triumph of
the King (chapters xxvi-xxviii).
The
fivefold structure of this Gospel is probably modelled on the fivefold
structure of the Old Testament law; it is presented as the Christian
Torah (which means 'direction or 'instruction' rather than 'law' in the
more restricted sense). The Evangelist is also at pains to show how the
story of Jesus represents the fulfilment of the Old Testament
Scriptures, and in places he even implies that the experiences of Jesus
recapitulate the experiences of the people of Israel in Old Testament
times.
END QUOTE
It's
interesting that the last chapter of the last book of the Torah [i.e.
Deuteronomy 34] ends with Moses on mount Nebo surveying the Promised
Land and then dying. With Joshua ready to succeed and conquer the
Promised Land. Matthew ends with Jesus (the anti-type of both Moses the
Lawgiver [cf. the Sermon on the Mount] and Joshua who shares the same
name) who died (like Moses) but rose again standing on a mountain in
Galilee to give His last instructions. On the mountain Jesus, like
Joshua, goes out EXITING to conquer the world via His
church/congregation promising to be with them always in their victories
in discipling the Gentile nations/goyim. Whereas Joshua, on the
mountain, ENTERS Palestine to phyisically kill the goyim who oppose him.
Jesus commissions his spiritual army to exit outward from Jerusalem to
share life to the outside goyim. This seems to fit better with Postmillennialism.
BTW,
while Matt. 28:18-20 are Christ's last instructions in the Gospel of
Matthew, I don't think those were actually the last words of Christ to
His disciples. I think those were the ones recorded in Acts 1 before
Christ ascended from the Mount of Olives (not on a mountain in Galilee).
I've argued for Why I'm Provisionally a Postmillennialist in one of my blogposts here:
https://misclane.blogspot.com/2017/05/why-im-provisionally-postmillennialist.html
I think postmillennialism is the most God honoring position to take on Redemptive History once one is convinced that the Bible is intentionally vague on the millennial position, the time of Christ's return, and the state of the world when he does [cf. Jesus' statement as to whether the Son of Man will find faith on the earth/land when He comes in Luke 18:8]. It's not surprising that a theologian of the glory of God like Jonathan Edwards was, was a postmillennialist [cf. his "A History of the Work of Redemption"].
