A Seven-fold Rejoinder to Jeremy Sexton

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Introduction

In a recent edition of Themelios (48.3), my fellow CREC minister Jeremy Sexton offered his critique of postmillennialism. Now to be blunt . . . he did far more than offer a critique. What he did was to set up a superstore of critiques, with the shelves stocked full in every direction. The problem is that my shopping cart is only yay big, and I only have time and room enough for seven responses to seven particular points.

At the same time, I undertake this rejoinder being mindful of the old joke that the millennium is a thousand years of peace that Christians like to fight about. Nobody wants to squabble and fight about when the kids will have to be told to leave the playground cobras alone. So this rejoinder is offered all in good fun.

But at the same time, as Jeremy reminds us, these eschatological issues are in fact connected to some very practical contemporary issues, which is why he sees postmill thinking contributing to a “this-worldly conception of Christ’s kingdom,” one which creates the theological and spiritual seedbed for “a culture warriorism characterized by carnal warfare and worldly stratagems.” In contrast, I had rather simply proclaim the crown rights of King Jesus, because I see the alternative as drifting into a semi-gnostic dualism where Jesus is the king of Heaven, and where we need to make an uneasy truce with all the spiritual warlords down here, in a sort of lower-story-status-quoism. That would be bad also.

Some of Jeremy’s arguments were formidable, while others strike postmill types as being as tendentious as he thought our arguments were—our “idiosyncratic and often novel arguments.” I believe the reason for that mutual incomprehension can be found in an activity that I have come to call “paradigm bumper cars.” What are our root assumptions, how do we justify those assumptions, and who has the burden of proof when it comes to establishing those assumptions? Whenever assumptions are radically different, the tendency is for our bumper cars to just bounce off each other, and for us to somehow think we are debating.

As I see it, this issue of paradigms is the driver of almost all of the disagreement, and so I am going to start with something Jeremy says right near the end of his article.

Paradigm Bumper Cars

Jeremy identifies two particular texts as “pillars” of the postmill view—texts he takes as seeking to establish the assumption—and he interacts with them extensively.

Now it is quite true that I have written and spoken about these two passages quite a lot, and I probably won’t stop doing it either, but my expectations of a saved world do not rest mainly on those two pillars. If I had to pick a theological category that would be the foundation of everything else, it would be the love of God for the world as expressed in the cross of Christ. In my book Heaven Misplaced, I dedicated an entire chapter to this theme, and yet Jeremy doesn’t mention this at all. But I believe it to be at the root of everything.

God loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son (John 3:16). His Son was not sent into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved (John 3:17). Jesus was sent by His Father as the Savior of the world (1 John 4:14). It might appear simple minded to some, but to my way of thinking the title “Savior of the world” means that the world needs to be saved in actual fact, not just on paper. Jesus did not come to judge the world, but rather to save the world (John 12:47). This was His mission, which He accomplished. He did not come in order to try to save the world. He came to save it, and anything less than a saved world would constitute a failure.

I agree with the evangelical Arminians that the love of God as expressed in the atonement is a love that extends to the whole world (1 John 2:2). I also agree with evangelical Calvinists that the love of God as expressed in the cross of Christ is a love that secures the salvation of the object of that love (John 6:44). Put those two truths together and what you have a is a robust and deep postmillennial foundation. The love of God for this broken world is the bedrock. Everything else follows.

Christ’s Invisoreign

We are instructed by the Lord’s prayer to ask the Father to have the kingdom “come.” We pray for the kingdom to come, not for us to be able to take the kingdom with us when we go.

We believe in the rule and reign of Jesus Christ whether or not we see it with our eyes. Abraham did not see it with his eyes, and yet he did see it (John 8:56). We do not see everything subjected to man in Christ—yet—but we do see Jesus by faith (Heb. 2:9). We can be patient while it all unfolds, but to believe in it while also insisting that it will never unfold is hard for me to swallow. That is trying to believe and not believe at the same time, and my mind cannot bend into that particular shape.

This is correct, but what is peculiar to postmillennialism is the idea that if Jesus is reigning over His enemies here and now, there really ought to be some indication of it.

A real problem is created by affirming that Christ is reigning over His enemies while at the same time affirming that His enemies pretty much have the run of the place down here. If the only place where the reign of Christ is in evidence in within the confines of the church, then that is not Him reigning over His enemies, but rather ruling over His friends. I can believe that God will pull down the mighty from their seats, but I have a hard time believing that He has done so when they are all still up there, looking as sassy as you please.

We do all have to walk by faith, and the postmillennialist knows that the leaven works through the loaf slowly. So we look forward to greater and greater manifestations of Christ’s reign. This is our task, our mission, and so we labor in hope. But it seems really odd to exult in a reign over the Lord’s enemies that His enemies never find out about. So for us, Christ is not just the Lord of the Last Day. He is also the Lord of Nations now, and the Lord of History from start to finish. He is Lord. I have trouble granting Him an invisoreign that is only apparent to people who have read enough Bavinck.

Can Kings Come In Too?

Jeremy engages in some profitable discussion when it comes to how nations come to Christ. Nations come to Christ because individuals do, and these individuals are baptized and congregate in churches to then be discipled. Over time, these churches grow and become more influential within that culture. If all goes well, at some point, the people of that nation come to a Christian consensus. This has happened in the past, and it can certainly happen again. The postmill view is that God has promised us that it will happen again. This is why we labor as we do.

Now, nothing in postmillennialism conflicts with Jeremy’s point about how persons as persons come to Christ.

But can kings “as persons” come as well? When Paul stood before Agrippa, he certainly wanted the king to come (Acts 26:28). Paul rejoiced that the Word had spread throughout Caesar’s household (Phil. 4:22), and he certainly would not have objected if it made its way to Caesar himself. He instructed us to pray for kings and those in authority because God was interested in all kinds of people being converted (1 Tim. 2:2-4), kings included. Kings are people too. Kings can be baptized too. If that were to happen, what would we do then?

The New Jerusalem is the Christian Church. We are the Temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16), and the New Jerusalem is a perfect cube, the shape of the Holy of Holies. The Church is the Bride of Christ (Eph. 5:25), and the angel said “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb” (Rev. 21:9) The Jerusalem above is the mother of us all (Gal. 4:26). When we worship God on the Lord’s Day, we are coming to the heavenly Zion, a mountain that cannot be touched with human hands (Heb. 12:18).

And so what are we told about kings and this New Jerusalem? The ships of Tarshish sail into her harbor (Is. 60:9). Kings will be her nursing fathers, and queens her nursing mothers (Is. 49:23) The king of the earth bring their honor and glory into it (Rev. 21:26).

All of this is to say that if the nations are converted and discipled in just the way that Jeremy described, I have no objection. I believe that is pretty much the way it happened the first time. Sure. Let’s go ahead and do it that way.

Can We Just Sit Tight Then?

I have to admit that I was really surprised by one thing that Jeremy said.

Now in order to have the way clear for the “end to come” the gospel needs to have gone out to all the nations (Matt. 24:14). But if the claim is made that we have fulfilled this sign of the end, then what further need is there for any continued mission work? This argument confounds the end of the Judaic system of worship and the end of the world. Can the Great Commission be fulfilled, and yet somehow still be authoritative and ongoing? And if it is authoritative and ongoing, then why do we think it was fulfilled?

Now I happen to agree that what Christ was talking about in Matt. 24:14 did happen, back in the first century, and so the way was cleared for the end of Jerusalem to come. That chapter is all about the destruction of 70 A.D., and the gospel being declared throughout the entire Roman Empire (oikoumene) was all part of the run-up to that. It was not as though the Mayans had to hear the gospel preached before the days of vengeance could descend upon Judea.

But when Christ gave His Great Commission to the disciples, the Mayans, and the Japanese, and the Eskimos, and the Zulu, and whatever other tribe His missionaries might ever encounter, were very much in view. The Great Commission is not fulfilled until all the nations are baptized and discipled, and they stay baptized and discipled. In the gospel of Mark, we are told to go into all the world, and to preach the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15). If it is moving, preach the gospel.

As far as that is concerned, we are nowhere close to being done with that assigned task.

That Invisoreign Issue Again

There is a real difficulty when it comes to the manifestation of Christ’s authority. For the postmillennialist, the reign of Christ’s iron rod should result in some broken pottery at some point (Ps. 2:9). The amill conception of the reign of Christ over His enemies makes me think He is using some kind of invisible and very spiritual nerf bat.

It also leads to some oddities. Consider this:

If you combine this with the earlier statements that Christ is reigning over His enemies now in the heavenly places, in a spiritual wat, it sounds like an argument that Christ will reign over His enemies until the day when He finally starts to reign over them. Which maketh little sense.

But if you combine this promise with the passages elsewhere that teach us about the gradual expansion of Christ’s kingdom, it makes perfect sense. Christ’s kingdom is established in principle at the Ascension, where He is given universal dominion over all the nations, all the tribes, and all the languages (Dan. 7:13). But the stone that is cut out without hands and strikes Nebuchadnezzar’s statue on the feet is a stone that grows to become a great mountain (Dan. 2:34-35). Living water flows out of Ezekiel’s Temple, and at the beginning it barely makes the threshold damp, but as we get closer to the healing of the nations, the aqualife is so deep a man has to swim to keep going (Eze. 47:5). So the Lord Jesus reigns in this way, gradually, and inexorably. Of the increase of His government there will be no end (Is. 9:7). This continues until all of His enemies—death only excepted—are placed under His feet. And then He comes, and Donne’s jubilant taunt finally comes to pass. “Death, thou shalt die.”

Trashing His Inheritance?

The Second Psalm is a wonderful place to go when studying how the New Testament instructs us in the reading of the Old. And given how meticulous Jeremy was seeking to be in his critique, I was really surprised by his take on this as well.

But it most certainly does. Our redemption is Christ’s inheritance, and this psalm is where Christ is promised His inheritance. We are that inheritance. He purchased His people with His blood, and we obtained justification through His resurrection (Rom. 4:25). Right after His resurrection, He is told to look at all the nations and take them all home if He wants. More about His inheritance in the saints in a moment.

The first two verses of the psalm are a prophecy of the crucifixion, as we are told in Acts 4:25-26. And we are also told in Acts 13:33 that v. 7 of this psalm is a prophesy of the resurrection. God fulfilled His Word by raising up Jesus, as it was predicted in the second psalm—”Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.”

And so, in that psalm, what immediately follows the resurrection of Jesus? An invitation from His Father to simply ask for His inheritance, which would be all the nations of men. All He had to do was ask, and He would be given China and Canada and Thailand and Zambia and Germany and Mexico. The ends of the earth were offered to Him as His possession. This was the Lord’s warrant for His claim in the Great Commission, where He said that all authority in Heaven and on earth had been given to Him.

It is not that there is no iron rod involved. The Lord does have to knock a few heads, and He does warn the kings of the earth about the necessity of kissing the Son. You don’t want to perish in the way, do you? There is disciplinary destruction along the way, but He pruning and tending His inheritance, not pulverizing it. Why on earth would He purchase multitudes from all the nations with His own blood (Rev. 5:9), and then take that inheritance out to the landfill?

Christ has a rich and glorious inheritance in the saints. When did He get this inheritance? He obtained it in the triumph of His resurrection. How extensive was this inheritance? It went out to the ends of the world, far as the curse is found. So far from saying that Psalm 2 “nowhere prophesies redemption,” I would prefer to say that every aspect of our redemption is present there—the crucifixion, the sovereign plan of God, the resurrection, Christ’s inheritance, Christ’s kingdom, and the sobering invitation to all haughty kings. What is not redemptive about it?

Heads and Tails

This last issue is not a huge one, but it is curious enough to say something about. Jeremy in several places made a big deal about the Lord coming in judgment to destroy the bad guys. He makes this point to distinguish it from the postmill expectation that the Lord coming in a redemptive or salvific way.

But this simply misses the logic of the thing. If heads is down, tails is up. If the Lord comes down and smites the wicked, the righteous are thereby delivered. This is why the psalmist so frequently yearns for God to intervene in judgment. Judgment arrives as a terror to one kind of person and a delight to the other kind. The same moment is evaluated differently by different kinds of men.

This is truly good news. Unless, of course, it is bad news.

One Last Comment

I know that this last comment will seem to some like a Jesus juke, but I feel constrained to say it anyhow. I mentioned earlier that this issue is one of conflicting paradigms, and exegesis can often be a way of just digging your own paradigm hole deeper. If you keep that up, a day comes when you simply can’t get out of it.

The thing we have to start with is faith—faith in a loving Father who sent His Son to a desperate world in order to save it. Faith in God’s sovereign goodness. This is what Abraham responded with when God offered him the gospel back in the book of Genesis. Paul tells us that it was in fact the gospel that God presented to Abraham back then (Gal. 3:8). And what was the content of this gospel message? It was that through Abraham all the nations of the earth would be blessed. All of them. That was the gospel word, and if you have faith like Abraham, it still is a gospel word.

We should seek to imitate Abraham in more than just the way he believed. We should also strive to learn how to believe what he believed. And what did he believe? He saw the day of Christ, rejoiced to see it (John 8:56), because he saw in Christ how he, Abraham, would be heir of the entire world.

It is not that exegesis is irrelevant, obviously. I can gather verses like everybody does. Exegesis of this passage would tell us that Abraham is going to inherit the world. All that we believe is to be grounded in the text of Scripture.

But because that is a given, this next point can be readily misunderstood. So please don’t misunderstand it . . . but at the end of the day, if you ask me how I believe all this . . . I just do. Shall not the judge of the whole earth do right?