The Postmillennial Vision

All right, I’m almost through with my anti-dispensationalism kick…after I get a word in for the alternative. Actually, there’s more than one alternative. But the one I feel is most compatible with the plain teaching of Scripture is postmillennialism. John Jefferson Davis, in his book The Victory of Christ’s Kingdom, sums up postmillennialism this way:

1. Through the preaching of the gospel and dramatic outpourings of the Holy Spirit, Christian missions and evangelism will attain remarkable success, and the church will enjoy an unprecedented period of numerical expansion and spiritual vitality.
2. This period of spiritual prosperity, the millennium, understood as a long period of time, is to be characterized by conditions of increasing peace and economic well-being in the world as a result of the growing influence of Christian truth.
3. The millennium will also be characterized by the conversion of large numbers of ethnic Jews to the Christian faith (Rom. 11:25-26).
4. At the end of the millennial period there will be a brief period of apostasy and sharp conflict between Christian and evil forces (Rev. 20:7-10).
5. Finally and simultaneously there will occur the visible return of Christ, the resurrection of the righteous and the wicked, the final judgment, and the revelation of the new heavens and the new earth.

This was the prevailing worldview of Bible-believing Christians for centuries, before the new teaching of dispensationalism came into fashion. Postmillennialism fueled the great revivals and missionary efforts of the 18th and 19th centuries. Prominent postmillennialists (past and present) include: Jonathan Edwards, Matthew Henry, George Whitefield, William Carey, David Livingstone, R. L. Dabney, A. H. Strong, B. B. Warfield, Charles Hodge, B. H. Carroll, R. C. Sproul, R. J. Rushdoony, Doug Wilson, Gary Demar, Hank Hanegraaf, Ken Gentry, and Rick Warren. There are several postmillennial-leaning organizations worth checking out, including Vision Forum, The Chalcedon Foundation, and American Vision. A good cheap introduction to postmillennialism is Davis’s The Victory of Christ’s Kingdom. I’d also recommend these books: The Messiah’s Second Advent, Zion’s Glad Morning, and The Puritan Hope.

Christ said, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” All power. And what’s the very next thing He says? He commissions His followers to take the field: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them…teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” How do we know His gospel will prevail? Because one day “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11: 9). Jesus promised, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me” (John 12: 32).

Many Christians are rightly abandoning the hokey template of dispensationalism. Many are rediscovering postmillennialism. The more they do so, the more potential there is for real (rather than pre-fabricated) revival.