PMW 2026-011 by J. Macleod

Gentry note:
This is a helpful article about postmillennialism by someone other than me! It is an insightful historical study by J. Macleod. I though that you deserve a break today. (McDonalds used to use this phrase in their advertising jingle when they were a fast-food restaurant. Now their service has slowed so much, I think they should consider this slogan: “Same-day Service!”)

McLeod’s article:

Eschatology is the study of the doctrine of the “last things”. Traditionally, positions have been defined by one’s views on the return of Christ — whether it will be before or after the “millennium”. The “millennium” (literally “a thousand years’) is the name given to a long period of gospel blessing promised in the Word.”Postmillennialism” is the view that the Second Coming (or the Second Advent) of Christ will take place after the millennium. Here the minister of Duthil-Dores Free Church deals with how ideas about this have developed. Next month, the Biblical basis for this point of view will be examined.

During the period extending from the apostolic ages to the Reformation, interest within the church in the subject of unfulfilled prophecy and matters eschatological, was centred on two questions:

1. What was to be the nature of the millennial kingdom that Christ was to set up during the thousand years when — according to Revelation 20:2 — Satan was to be bound?
2. Would the Second Advent of Christ take place before or after the millennial period?

Even in those early days, there were Premillennarian and Postmillennarian answers to these questions!

He Shall Have Dominion
(paperback by Kenneth Gentry)

A classic, thorough explanation and defense of postmillennialism (600+ pages). Complete with several chapters answering specific objections.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

In the Early Church

The initial interpretation of Revelation 20:1-6 led some of the early church fathers — men like Papias, Barnabas and Hermes — to adopt a Premillennarian stance in which they distinguished between a first and a second resurrection. Christ was to come in the first resurrection and establish a millennial Kingdom of peace and righteousness on this earth. Thereafter would come the second resurrection when the judgement of the world would take place.

No trace is found of this viewpoint however in such respected church fathers as, for example, Clement of Rome, Ignatius or Polycarp — men whom that notable historical theologian, William G. T. Shedd, esteemed as of great ecclesiastical weight and authority. Neither is there any evidence of the influence of Premillennial thinking in the so-called Apostles’ Creed of this period. The only qualifications found there are that “Christ shall come from heaven to judge the quick and the dead”, and that there is a “resurrection of the body” and a “life everlasting” (immediately following, is the implication).

Admittedly, the Premillennial viewpoint became more popular during the intense persecution of the church in the latter half of the second century as their distressed condition led many of the people of God to desire and pray for an advent of the Head of the church that would extinguish all its enemies. But the third and fourth centuries witnessed a very decided opposition to Premillennialism and, by the fifth century, we find an opposing Postmillennial viewpoint maturing and crystalising in the writings of Augustine.

Augustine

In his book Prophecy and the Church Dr O.T. Allis gives this accurate outline of Augustine’s eschatology. “Augustine taught that the millennium is to be interpreted spiritually as fulfilled in the Christian church. He held that the binding of Satan took place during the earthly ministry of our Lord (Luke 10:18); that the first resurrection is the new birth of the believer (John 5:25); and that the millennium must correspond therefore to the interadventual period or Church Age” (pp. 3-4). (The “interadventual period” is the period between Jesus’ First Coming and his Second — the period in which we are living.) This involved Augustine interpreting Revelation 20:1-6 as “a recapitulation” of the preceding chapters instead of as describing a new age following chronologically on the events set forth in chapter 19. Living in the first half of the first millennium of the church’s history, Augustine naturally took the thousand years of Revelation 20 literally and he expected the Second Advent to take place at the end of that period. He believed this period might end about 650 A.D. with a great outburst of evil, the revolt of Gog, which would be followed by the coming of Christ in judgement.

Postmillennialism Made Easy (by Ken Gentry)

Basic introduction to postmillennialism. Presents the essence of the postmillennial argument and answers the leading objections. And all in a succinct, introductory fashion.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

In short, Augustine regarded the millennium as a present spiritual reign by Christ in the earth and that the Second Advent of Christ would be at the end of this period, that it would be Postmillennial.

The Reformation

Although the medieval period was, generally speaking, a time of religious stagnation, yet it would also be fair to say that, insofar as attention was given to the doctrine of the last things, this Augustinian view of the millennium remained the dominant one throughout Western Europe up till the Reformation. And even in the period of the Reformation, such early comeback as Premillennialism made was among the more fanatical sects of the Anabaptists and the Fifth Monarchy Men. Their teachings were soundly rejected by the mainstream Protestant churches, as is evidenced by the condemnatory language used of them in the Augsburg Confession, the Second Helvetic Confession and also in the English Confession of Edward IV from which the Thirty Nine Articles of the Church of England were later condensed.

The Reformation however introduced a new impetus into Postmillennial thinking — a new optimistic thrust. Now there came a greater attention to Scripture bearing on the future of the Jews and this matured ultimately into a conviction that the converted Jews would, in God’s hand, be instrumental in bringing about a fuller in-gathering of Gentile nations and therefore a future universal golden age of spiritual prosperity. This introduced a note of optimism into the character and temper of eschatological thinking in the 16th and 17th centuries, especially in Britain. This climate of thought has been aptly described by lain Murray as The Puritan Hope — and indeed this optimistic thrust continued well into the 18th and 19th centuries.

Thine Is the Kingdom
(ed. by Ken Gentry)

Contributors lay the scriptural foundation for a biblically-based, hope-filled postmillennial eschatology, while showing what it means to be postmillennial in the real world.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr, who taught at Cambridge and Oxford respectively in the reign of Edward IV, were among the first to understand the Bible to speak of a future calling of the Jews. In this view they were followed by Theodore Beza, Calvin’s successor at Geneva. As early as 1560, the English and Scots refugee Protestant leaders who produced the Geneva Bible, expressed the same belief in their marginal notes on Romans 11:15 and 26. On the latter verse, they comment, “He showeth that the time shall come that the whole nation of the Jews, though not everyone particularly, shall be joined to the church of Christ”. The first volume in English to expound this conviction at great length was the translation of Peter Martyr’s Commentary on the Romans (1568).

…And After
Yet another stream of thought however can be seen to emerge as early as the 17th century in European and English eschatology. . . .

To continue reading this article go to:
https://www.christianstudylibrary.org/article/postmillennialism-%E2%80%93-its-historical-development