Millennial Muddle

Just finished preaching a series on eschatology which is available online via our website or for purchase via email info_at_trinitycda.org. I wanted to put up a number of quotations from David Chilton's Days of Vengeance which I found particularly helpful in the course of study.

"With the rise of divergent eschatologies over the last two centuries, the traditional evangelical optimism of the Churchwas tagged with teh term 'postmillennialism,' whether the so-called 'postmillennialists' liked it or not. This has had positive and negative results. On the plus side, it is (as we have seen) a technically accurate description of orthodoxy; and it carries the connotation of optimism. On the minus side, it can too often be confused with heretical millenarianism. And, while 'amillennialism' rightly expresses the orthodox abhorrence of apocalyptic revolution, it carries (both by name and by historic association) a strong connotation of defeatism. The present writer therefore calls himself a 'postmillennialist,' but also seeks to be sensitive to the inadequacies of current theological terminology.

"This 'generic' postmillennialism holds that Jesus Christ established His mediatorial Kingdom by His death, resurrection, and ascension to the heavenly Throne, and as the Second Adam rules over all creation until the end of the world, when He shall come again to judge the living and the dead; that He is conquering all nations by the Gospel, extending the fruits of His victory throughout the world, thereby fulfilling the dominion mandate originally given by God to Adam; that eventually, through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, 'the earth will be ful of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea' (Isa. 11:9); and that the Biblical promises of abundant blessing, in every area of life, will be poured out by God upon the whole world, in covenantal response to the faithfulness of His people." Chilton, pp. 497-498