What is postmillennialism?

Dr. B. concedes somewhat more than the mass of postmillennialists; for he allows that the millennium will be characterized not only by the universal diffusion of revealed truth, by unlimited subjection to Christ, by universal peace, by much spiritual power and glory, by the ascendancy of truth and righteousness in human affairs, by great temporal prosperity, but by the territorial restoration of the natural Israel then converted. So far there is nothing to contest, though there is much to desire, especially as to Christ Himself. The main divergence is the answer to the question how the millennium is to be brought in. The common notion is that it will be by means at present in operation, indefinitely increased, but not, as we believe, by the appearing and personal reign of Christ, judging the quick first, and finally the dead. The difference is immense in itself and in its results. A mistake here, though not fatal to faith in Christ, confuses all truth as to the ways of God, flatters Christendom instead of warning it, and lowers Christ as unduly as it exalts the Church while it is on earth. The moral effects are thus as disastrous for the soul as the error in interpretation darkens the mind to almost every part of the Bible. Nothing more directly tends to put new wine into old skins, to the ruin of both.

The views of prophecy which so widely prevail in the present day confound with each other two periods, as entirely contrasted in their character, as they are distinguished from each other by the fact that one commences after the other has closed. Most Christians suppose that by the preaching of the gospel, and the increased outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Christianity will gradually spread — the nations of the earth be gradually subdued by its influence — till at last all men become Christians; and, that the world having thus become Christians, it will remain so for a great length of time. And this universal prevalence of Christianity which they anticipate is what they understand by the millennium. But not only is this idea not founded on Scripture — not only is it contrary to all the plain Scriptures by which it was proved to you a week ago that there can be no millennium till the return of the Lord Jesus Christ — it is based on a complete misapprehension as to what the character of the present period is, as well as the character of the next, the millennial age. They stand in direct contrast with each other. What is the character of God's present dealings with mankind? Grace, unmingled grace. This is the period of God's long-suffering, the day of salvation. God is not now openly acting as the righteous Governor of the world, distributing good and evil according to the character of men's ways. Every body sees this, and infidels try to prove thereby, either that there is no God, or that he takes no concern in human affairs. Whence all the unrequited treachery and rapine, and oppression and blood, which make the head giddy and the heart sick to contemplate, if God be now rewarding people according to their works? — if, in other words, he be now openly governing the world in righteousness?

This is, in truth, the Great Prophetic Question. All other questions as to prophetic interpretation may be regarded as subordinate to this one. Nearly all serious christian people are agreed in expecting a long period of universal peace and blessedness on earth — a period which, from its being stated in Rev. 20, to be of a thousand years' continuance, has come to be popularly termed the Millennium. All Christians expect, moreover, a second coming of Christ — a real, personal return, as Judge, of that blessed One, whose first coming was not to judge, but to save. But when does this second coming of Christ take place? Does He come to introduce the Millennium? or does the Millennium first take place, and Christ come only at its close? This is the great question to which our attention is now to be directed.

There may be some, however, who read these pages, who are not so blinded by appearances as to suppose that the present lull will continue, who yet have no adequate conception of the nature and extent of the solemn changes which are at hand. You see, dear reader, that no dependence is to be placed on the sort of quiet which at this moment exists. You know well that the atmosphere is never so still as just before the bursting forth of a wild and desolating storm; and seeing, probably in Scripture, that there are great convulsions to take place, ere the world is subdued to the sceptre of Immanuel, you may be looking for these as near at hand. But then your expectations of these convulsions, and of the woes and calamities inseparable from such events, is associated in your mind with the idea that, after all, the world is to be converted, and the Millennium introduced, by agencies and influences of a kind already at work for this end. You see, indeed, that at the slow rate at which Christianity has progressed. even where it has achieved its greatest victories, it can only be after the lapse of almost interminable ages, that it becomes universal among mankind. Its forces seem so feeble and so few, and the opposition they encounter is so formidable, that there appears no prospect of universal triumph within any period that the mind can span. But judgment, you think, is to aid in accelerating the work. And all that you anticipate in the way of judgment is, that national convulsions and political overturnings, accompanied perhaps by providential scourges, such as famine, pestilence, and the like, will open the way for the wider, more rapid, and more effectual spread of the Gospel. The Papacy will, as you suppose, be overthrown; Mahommedanism be deprived of political power; governments, hostile to the spread of truth, give place to others, who will be its nursing fathers: China, Japan, and Tartary, be opened to christian missionaries; while in these and other ways, the God of providence will interpose to accomplish the final, universal triumphs of the Gospel of His grace. Such are the thoughts cherished by numbers of Christians at the present moment.

Many have thought the era of the Gospel to be the final one, and that the millennium will be an outcome of it, brought about by diffusion of truth, and the spiritual subjugation of the whole world to Christ. But Scripture speaks very differently. The millennium will be brought in by desolating judgments, not by Gospel labour; and as for the present period of favour and privilege, instead of ending in universal glory, it will terminate in darkness and apostasy.

A Christian writer of late contends for a figurative sense here only to be given to the coming or presence of our Lord in verse 1, supplemented by verse 8; because, he rightly thinks, the destruction of Antichrist immediately precedes, not the eternal state, but the millennial reign. Hence, as he will not have the reign of our Lord to be personal, he construes His antecedent coming as a figure. Now the decisive answer is, not only that in other New Testament cases (and notably in these epistles, as he himself allows) the presence (παρουσία) of our Lord is invariably personal and in grace, and not merely providential and in judgment, but that His presence is inseparably joined to "our gathering together to Him." Will he venture to say that the translation of the saints to heaven is here ?figurative* and why should both be literal in 1 Thess. 4 where they are also (though in another way) shown to be indissolubly bound as immediate cause and consequence? Such a figurative force given to our Lord's coming is overturned by our gathering together unto Him conjoined to it; as it would also nullify the apostle's appeal (grounded on that blessed hope not yet realised) against the imposture that the day of the Lord was come. The truth is that the postmillennial coming is a myth, not less certainly than the Thessalonian delusion about the day; as is every form of the popular misinterpretation based on the false translation of these verses, especially of ἐνέστηκεν in verse 2. To argue on the π. of the man of sin in verse 9, as if it is assuredly to be impersonal, shows how prejudice can blind a usually vigorous reasoner to build one assumption on another, without one element of solid truth more than in the fabled piling of Ossa on Pelion. The coming of our Lord and our gathering to Him above, which all must have known to be yet future, is the motive to dispel the delusion that His day had arrived; and hence His coming is not identified with His day — the real subject in question (which would be senseless), but contra-distinguished from it. Never can there be an intelligent grasp of the apostle's reasoning, never a comprehensive view of the context, till this distinction is seized, an immense help to the understanding of other scriptures also.

Again, it ought not to be a light thing that the hope of Christ's coming, while owned in word, should become for children of God no more than a dead letter. This it must be where men look and labor avowedly, before Christ can possibly come, for a vainly expected universal diffusion of revealed truth, universal reception of true religion and unlimited subjection to Christ's scepter, universal peace, much spiritual power and glory, inbringing of all Israel, ascendancy of truth and righteousness, and great temporal prosperity over all the earth for a thousand years or more, perhaps much more, as a previously certain and revealed barrier. They may indeed love the Lord's appearing, and long for Him to break the usurper's spell over the world, and establish for rebellion peace, and for wretchedness blessing to God's glory. But it is unreal to profess waiting for One, Who, as you are assured, cannot possibly come yet, nor for a long while, according to this hypothesis. The hope ceases to be a present reality in the soul, as it is supposed to be a mistake of scripture. Watching for Him becomes a poetical idea, an amiable or pious enthusiasm, which, notwithstanding the positive and known hindrances from prophetic light, veers from long to short, and anon from short to long in a seesaw truly marvelous. So apologizes Principal Brown.

Am I denying, then, that there is a day of universal peace and blessedness yet to dawn upon this oppressed and groaning earth? God forbid! There is a millennium yet to come; a period of universal righteousness and joy, brighter than any that man's hopes have pictured — brighter than any that even Christians themselves have anticipated; a period in which men shall, indeed, "beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks;" in which "nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more;" but when "the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together;" when "they shall not hurt nor destroy in all God's holy mountain;" when "the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." But as to the way in which this period is to be ushered in — as to the means by which it is to be introduced, we do affirm — and we hope that in the course of the present inquiry it will be plainly shown to you from the Word of God — that man's fancies and speculations have been preferred to the solemn teachings of this blessed book. It will be shown to you, from the Word of God, I trust, that it is not by the progress of society, or the march of intellect, or the advancement of science; that it is not by the spread of modern opinions, or the rise and growth of liberal institutions; that it is not by the means of schools, and hospitals, and peace societies, and temperance societies; no, nor even by means of Sunday schools, and tract societies, and missions to the heathen, however good in their places these may be (and we have reason to thank God in many respects for them): It is not by these means that Satan's kingdom will be overthrown — that the world will be delivered from his dire oppression, and the universal reign of righteousness and peace be introduced; but by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ from heaven. And this is the one grand event placed before us in the "more sure word of prophecy" — an event which men have contrived, indeed, to put off to an indefinitely distant period, but which in Scripture is ever represented as the one impending event, placed as such before both saints and sinners. It has diverse aspects, I grant you, as to these; to the one light — to the other darkness; to the one joy — to the other sorrow; to the one deliverance, and eternal triumph and blessedness — to the other confusion and everlasting despair. But it is, whether regarded in reference to the one or to the other, the one grand event foretold in the prophetic word; the centre, so to speak, of all God's future dealings with mankind. And it takes place, not, as is commonly supposed, at the end of this period of universal righteousness on the earth, but at its commencement. It precedes that period; it ushers it in; and for anything that any of us can tell to the contrary, it may take place in our own lifetime — within the brief space of our own existence here below.

It is astonishing that Christians can be found to believe that the Millennium is to be brought about by the progress of the gospel, or that the present state of things is in any way characteristic of the Millennium. Satan is not bound, the groan of creation is going on, sickness and death abound on every hand, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, wars and rumours of wars continue, as the Lord predicted they would until the end of this age; but none of these things characterize the Millennium. Satan will then be bound, wars shall cease, universal peace will prevail, the groan of creation will be hushed, and it will be brought into the liberty of the children of God. The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, the nations will come up to Jerusalem to worship the Lord of Hosts, and death will be the exception.

Again, our Lord and His apostles never once speak of a millennial issue of preaching or the like. Where the millennium is spoken of, prophecy invariably declares that divine judgments introduce it. Compare Isa. 1:24-31; Isa. 2; Isa. 4; Isa. 9:4-7; Isa. 11:4-9; Isa. 24-25; Isa. 59:16-21; Isa. 60-66; Jer. 10:7-25; Jer. 23; Jer. 30; Ezek. 20; Ezek. 38; Ezek. 39; Dan. 2; Dan. 7; Dan. 11; Dan. 12; Hosea 2; Hosea 3; Amos 9; Obadiah 15-21; Micah 4; Micah 5; Nahum 1; Hab. 2; Hab. 3; Zeph. 3:8-20; Haggai 2:6-9, 22, 23; Zech. 2:8-13; Zech. 10; Zech. 12; Zech. 14; Mal. 4. The Psalms as well as the Law might be cited; but this will suffice. The gospel was to be preached in the world for a witness unto all the nations; but for this age not a sound of the world being converted or even brought as yet to a universal profession of the Lord's name. This is at best unauthorized enthusiasm, the fruit of unconscious presumption in neglect of scripture, which alone can decide the "how" as well as the "what." That the earth is to be full of the knowledge of Jehovah's glory is certain; that preaching or the church is to effect it is not only without, but against, God's word. It is an honour reserved for Christ in person, Who will execute judgment on His enemies, destroy idolatry, expel Satan, bring Israel and the nations to repentance, bless all creation, and reign in power with His glorified saints till the last foe is annulled, when He will give up the kingdom to Him Who is God and Father, that God may be all in all. The eternal state is not the delegated kingdom, though there will be everlasting glory in the new heavens and new earth.

The gospel mission, as it is of God's grace, could not be other than universal in its scope and call; and the infinite work of Christ's atonement demands nothing less. This for the responsibility of the disciples was to disciple all the nations (Matt. 28), but what a very different thing from the effect in man's hand or from God's counsels! Simeon related (says Acts 15) how first God visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. To this agrees the clear and general testimony of the N. T. It is in vain to oppose vague statements, or fanciful interpretations of "the tree" and "the leaven," as if scripture could contradict itself. Our Lord expressly anticipates some as believing, and some as disbelieving (Mark 16); and such was the fact according to the inspired history (Acts 28). God is not in this age proposing universal blessing under Christ's government in power and glory over the earth; He gathering for heaven saved souls, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, that, when all things are in fact put under Him, they too may be manifested with Him in glory (Col. 3). This will be the millennium. The world-kingdom of our Lord and His Christ will have come (Rev. 11:15).