Book outlines major millennial views

“Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond,” a book in Zondervan’s popular Counterpoints series, provides a useful dialogue on the major millennial positions of Christian eschatology.

Darrell L. Bock of Dallas Theological Seminary edited the decade-old book, which features proponents of postmillennialism, amillennialism and premillennialism (Kenneth L. Gentry, Robert B. Strimple, and Craig A. Blaising, respectively), with each offering an apologetic for their position followed by responses from the remaining two authors.

The reader would do well to keep a Bible handy while reading it. In his preface, Bock writes that eschatology for some means “‘future things’ only, but all of these authors note that we already live in an era of initial fulfillment of promises concerning the Messiah Jesus. We are in a world where eschatology is at work.”

POSTMILLENNIALISM

Gentry begins his case for postmillennialism by admitting that early creedal formulations were minimalist on eschatological questions, with affirmations in the Apostles’ Creed of the second coming, judgment of the “quick and the dead,” bodily resurrection and “life everlasting.” No ancient creed took a millennial position.

Gentry argues that the millennial schemes were gradual developments in the church (though Blaising notes later in the book that Irenaeus and Tertullian were among those in the patristic period who espoused premillennialism).

Beginning with Eusebius and Origen, postmillennialism?the belief that the kingdom of God is slowly blooming, ushering in a golden age of Christian evangelistic success on the present earth as the vast majority of the world is converted and kingdom ideals of the social order are finally realized?became the dominant millennial position up through much of the Reformation.

The theological foundations of postmillennialism, it is argued, begin in Genesis 1 with God’s “purposeful creative power” and his love for the created order, which was “very good” before sin. The postmillennial hope, therefore, is in a restored order within history as we know it and bound to occur in a progressive line beginning with the first redemptive foreshadowing in Genesis.

Also, God’s sovereign power and evangelistic mandate will be realized in time because “[w]e have confidence that the resurrection of Christ is more powerful than the fall of Adam,” Gentry writes.

Just as Adam’s fall is in history, Christ’s ultimate victory will also play out in time and space “because God does not abandon history,” he reasons.

Gentry covers the progression of biblical covenants as supporting the postmillennial position, arguing for a “gradualistic conversion” of the nations rather than a “catastrophic imposition (as in premillennialism) or apocalyptic conclusion (as in amillennialism).”

Psalm 22:27 anticipates a coming evangelistic crescendo, Gentry argues, when “all the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nation will bow down before him.”

To support this position, he also cites passages such as Psalm 2, Isaiah 2:2-4, 1 Corinthians 15:20-28 and Revelation 20 (Gentry argues that Revelation 20 “plays too prominent a role in the eschatological debate, overshadowing much clearer passages…”).

AMILLENNIALISM

Strimple’s treatment of amillennialism argues that Christ is the theme of Old Testament prophecy and that he is the “true Israel of God, the one in whom Israel’s history is recapitulated and God’s purposes for Israel come to fulfillment.”

Thus, by virtue of being in Christ, “we Christians are the Israel of God, Abraham’s seed, and the heirs of the promises?”

Amillennialism, as the name implies, expects no literal 1,000-year reign of Christ, but rather sees the church age?from Christ’s redemptive victory at his first coming until his return?as the symbolic millennium with Christ reigning over his kingdom and the church under his spiritual rule as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.

The second coming, the resurrection of the saved and the lost, and the judgment?all occur in one period.

The land of promise in the Old Testament, Strimple argues, is a typology looking forward to “the whole world, heaven and earth, renewed and restored in righteousness (2 Peter 3:13) as the home of God’s new race of men and women in Christ Jesus, the second Adam.”

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