Weaknesses of amillennialism

[Peairtach]

A thread on the weaknesses of the amillennial position vis-a-vis the postmillennial position.

 

[CharlieJ]

Well, I think this thread has just about covered it all.

 

[Grillsy]

 

[Andres]

the only weakness I can come up with is that amillennialism doesn't sell books and movies nearly as well as pre-trib premillennialism.

 

[tcalbrecht]

Which version? The so-called "optimistic amillennialism" that borrows from postmillennialism, or your garden variety pie-in-the-sky ah-millennialism?

 

[Notthemama1984]

Nor does it have cool charts!

John Hagee could never become an amil.

[video=youtube;L9jvlKxGHrs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9jvlKxGHrs[/video]

 

[Fly Caster]

I've always considered Isaiah 65:19-15 a weakness in the amil position. I've never heard or saw an explanation that I found satisfactory.

 

[PuritanCovenanter]

How do you consider it to be a weakness?

 

[EverReforming]

I've always considered Isaiah 65:19-15 a weakness in the amil position. I've never heard or saw an explanation that I found satisfactory.

You're reading backwards. Which probably makes things more confusing, so that might be part of the problem!

 

[Peairtach]

I listened to a rather hopeless debate on the subject yesterday:

Hoagies and Stogies Audio: Amil vs Postmil | Pastor Robertson .com

One of the main points of the amillennialist was that there are two ages - this age, and the age to come - and that what postmils posit couldn't happen in this age.

What he forgot to say was

(a) That the two ages overlap, and that we are in the "already...............not yet". That the powers of the age to come have already entered this age through Christ's resurrection and His sending of the Holy Spirit.

(b) Many Christians already enjoy the kinds of things - e.g. freedom from Statist persecution - that amillennialists say that they shouldn't enjoy in this millennial age.

Also,

Although we may believe in "realised millennialism" is that incompatible with progress. E.g.

(a) Hasn't progress been made in the number of believers in the world since AD 33?

(b) Hasn't progress been made since the close of the canon - under the illumination of the Holy Spirit - in theology to 1646 and beyond?

The individual believer has "realised salvation" in his individual eschatalogical experience the moment he/she believes. But is that incompatible with progress?

 

[Skyler]

I've always considered Isaiah 65:19-15 a weakness in the amil position. I've never heard or saw an explanation that I found satisfactory.

You're reading backwards. Which probably makes things more confusing, so that might be part of the problem!

Yes. It was written in Hebrew, which was meant to be read from top to bottom, not left to right. Try doing it that way and see if that helps.

 

[torstar]

Nor does it have cool charts!

John Hagee could never become an amil.



And the day had gone so well right up to that point...

That image makes me

 

[Peairtach]

I've always considered Isaiah 65:19-15 a weakness in the amil position. I've never heard or saw an explanation that I found satisfactory.

Well anything with a postmil flavour in the prophets is spiritualised by the amils or put on a rocket and sent to Heaven or the New Heavens and New Earth.

But who can doubt that Christianity - even in its most imperfect forms - has already had cultural and political, etc, influence? Apparently this cannot be the case in a greater and more consistent way in the future according to the amil vision.

 

[PuritanCovenanter]

I've always considered Isaiah 65:19-15 a weakness in the amil position. I've never heard or saw an explanation that I found satisfactory.

You're reading backwards. Which probably makes things more confusing, so that might be part of the problem!

I don't read Hebrew. LOL. Explain how reading backwards would make me incorrect. Also you didn't answer my question.

Here is a great example of what I think you are saying in reading it backwards. Correct me if I am incorrect.

(Gal 3:16) Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.

Now I interpret Genesis 17 in light of this. The New explains the Old. Is that what you mean by my reading it backwards?

 

[MLCOPE2]

Is that what you mean by my reading it backwards?

I think he was referring to the reference being Isaiah 65:19-15

 

[MW]

Which version? The so-called "optimistic amillennialism" that borrows from postmillennialism, or your garden variety pie-in-the-sky ah-millennialism?

Traditional postmillennialists believed the millennium was future but now they mostly read the book of Revelation with the idealist understanding of amillennialism.

 

[MW]

One of the main points of the amillennialist was that there are two ages - this age, and the age to come - and that what postmils posit couldn't happen in this age.

What postmillennialists posit has already happened to varying degrees in this age, e.g., Christendom, Reformation Europe. I suppose many amillennialists are a little blinded by their own situation and cannot see how Christ ruling the nations has already accomplished remarkable things in the past. That is regrettable. Older amillennialists like Geerhardus Vos understood the grand vision of the Christianisation of the nations within the two ages scheme.

(a) That the two ages overlap, and that we are in the "already...............not yet". That the powers of the age to come have already entered this age through Christ's resurrection and His sending of the Holy Spirit.

Well noted!

(b) Many Christians already enjoy the kinds of things - e.g. freedom from Statist persecution - that amillennialists say that they shouldn't enjoy in this millennial age.

I think such freedom is more an ideal of humanist democracy than biblical Christianity. A State which professes Christianity and punishes idolaters will not be perceived as being free from Statist persecution from the perpective of those who are punished.

It is also debatable if this freedom has actually been accomplished. Certainly the lion has been caged, but it is still by nature a lion, and the forces of secularism are doing all they can to release him again.

Although we may believe in "realised millennialism" is that incompatible with progress. E.g.

(a) Hasn't progress been made in the number of believers in the world since AD 33?

(b) Hasn't progress been made since the close of the canon - under the illumination of the Holy Spirit - in theology to 1646 and beyond?

The individual believer has "realised salvation" in his individual eschatalogical experience the moment he/she believes. But is that incompatible with progress?

Good points! But it is also compatible with regress. There is also parallel intensification in amillennialism. Christianise the nations (elect) and the nations (reprobate) secularise Christianity.

 

[jwithnell]

Traditional postmillennialists believed the millennium was future but now they mostly read the book of Revelation with the idealist understanding of amillennialism.

Hence the "Post."

Mostly because of reading Mr. Vos, I have moved from a Post-mil to an A-mil position. Taking an entirely Christocentric view of all history that has come, and all history that will come, moved me from one camp to another. I particularly appreciate his emphasis on the reality of the new age. That all of history pointed to the coming of Christ and that all believers now may be fully focused on the age to come, which has already been accomplished through Christ. (A great comfort when you see the earth split apart and destroy whole towns!)

I was initially taught a form of Post-mil (1980s style) the viewed a thousand years as "a really long time" and almost certainly beginning with Christ, from which point, Christianity would gain a greater and greater hold in the world. Well, not seeing a separate, future millennium had been the A-mil position all along.

I also think that distinctions between the Old Covenant and New Covenant makes a physical dominion by Christ unlikely. Under the Old Covenant, the people were centered in one nation and under one law. Under Christ, the church has no national, hence legal lines. All Christians in all places and ages are bound by the moral law and the "general equity" of the OT judicial law. That is how we are to live our lives and how we are to support various political causes. But our hope is in Christ, not in a government enforcing His law.

While Christianity has made the greatest advances in the world (I don't think any of modern science or technology could have been built on another base) for whatever reason, God has allowed the church to erode behind its advances. Wanna try to find a reformed church in Tarsus? How 'bout Corinth? You see the same thing in Europe and now, sadly, in the Americas. God cares for His people where ever they are, and a following will be found through all ages.

 

[MW]

I also think that distinctions between the Old Covenant and New Covenant makes a physical dominion by Christ unlikely. Under the Old Covenant, the people were centered in one nation and under one law. Under Christ, the church has no national, hence legal lines. All Christians in all places and ages are bound by the moral law and the "general equity" of the OT judicial law. That is how we are to live our lives and how we are to support various political causes. But our hope is in Christ, not in a government enforcing His law.

I find a marked difference between reformed interpreters before and after the world wars. It is clear that modernist ideas of social reconstruction grew out of a belief that the world was progressively getting better in the purpose of God. Prior to the wars the attitude would not have been that the difference between old and new covenant is the lack of "nationality" in the new covenant. Quite the contrary, there was always a strong sense of national identity and patriotism. The belief was that the church is no longer confined to one nation but now pervades all nations. Today, with the disillusionment of nationalism, it seems reformed interpreters understand that "national religion" as such is simply a bad idea. They are afraid to allow religion a national expression lest religion is blasphemed as a result of its connection with the activity of the nation. The imperialism of world government and toleration probably looks more congenial to them. Geerhardus Vos mostly wrote prior to this new mindset and still reflected the belief that the religion of Israel pervades all nations and that imperialism is inherently God-dishonouring.

 

[Fly Caster]

I've always considered Isaiah 65:19-15 a weakness in the amil position. I've never heard or saw an explanation that I found satisfactory.

You're reading backwards. Which probably makes things more confusing, so that might be part of the problem!

Oops! Should be Isaiah 65:19-25.

---------- Post added at 10:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:31 AM ----------

How do you consider it to be a weakness?

I'm a lay-person; hence a consumer, not a producer. In the marketplace of theological ideas, at best I have to evalute the various offerings and decide what to buy.

Verse 20 is especially a hangup for "buying" the amil position. If this passage is not "earthly," how can there be death ( and sinners, and therefore sin), in the eternal state?

I'm always teachable, but I haven't seen an amil explanation that I feel good about buying.

 

[jwithnell]

a strong sense of national identity and patriotism

It seems that Nationalism was a rather late development in European history. And I agree, at least here in the US, there was a much greater sense of patriotism, etc., when I was a child. Now we have the opposite: people wanting to blur all distinctions or race, nation, and religion. The only absolute: you may not state a truth as an absolute, because that is intolerance.

For some reason, Mr. Vos veered into a discussion of Post-Mil in his his work: "The Eschatology o f the Psalter." He states (and given the social-gospel creeping in in his day) and I find interesting:

The modern, humanistic movement prefers to cultivate the secular and earthly in part because it has come to doubt the heavenly and eternal; its zeal for the improvement of the world often springs not from faith, but from skepticism. The Church by compromising and affiliating with this would sing her own death-warrant as a distinct institution. When religion submerges itself to the concerns of time and becomes a mere servant of these, it thereby renders itself subject to the inexorable flux of time.

 

[MW]

a strong sense of national identity and patriotism

It seems that Nationalism was a rather late development in European history.

If by "late" is meant as late as the Reformation, that is true.

For some reason, Mr. Vos veered into a discussion of Post-Mil in his his work: "The Eschatology o f the Psalter." He states (and given the social-gospel creeping in in his day) and I find interesting:

The modern, humanistic movement prefers to cultivate the secular and earthly in part because it has come to doubt the heavenly and eternal; its zeal for the improvement of the world often springs not from faith, but from skepticism. The Church by compromising and affiliating with this would sing her own death-warrant as a distinct institution. When religion submerges itself to the concerns of time and becomes a mere servant of these, it thereby renders itself subject to the inexorable flux of time.

This comes under Vos' last point of application, which is other-worldly-mindedness. In a previous application to "reconstruction" he allows secondary endeavours of the church but issues a warning against losing "a clear consciousness of her own specific calling" (Pauline Eschatology, 358).

 

[Peairtach]

It seems that one of the major concerns of amillennialists is to maintain the truth of Jesus' words for Christian people in this age, which words they believe are incompatible with a belief in postmillennialsim:

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33, ESV)

Yet the ironic thing is that many Christians are already enjoying postmillennial conditions in measure and there is nothing inconsistent between this and being a Christian.

He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. (Isaiahy 2:4, ESV)

E.g. Many Christians have not been directly involved in warfare, or even indirectly, if their nations have not gone to war for decades. Who's to say that Christian just war theory and Christian influence generally has not prevented wars or alleviated suffering in wars?

Yet amils insist that there must always be wars in the world for Christians to have tribulation, and that you couldn't be a proper Christian if Christ brought all wars to an end. Which is ridiculous.

And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.(Rev 13:1)

Through the influence of Christianity and other factors, many Christians have not experienced beastly, paganised and worldly statist persecution. Yet amils insist that it must remain at all times in this world, in order for Christians to have the tribulation they need. Without it there wouldn't otherwise be enough trouble in this life for Christians.

Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. (Rev 13:11)

Antichristian and antichristian (false prophets, false Christs) forces must not be defeated by Christ in history according to amillennialism lest there not be enough trouble in the world for Christians. Yet ironically, many Christians have already been set free from and garrisoned from such forces by sound teaching.

They will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say, "Alas! Alas! You great city, you mighty city, Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come."(Rev 18:10)

Amillennialism denies the end of the apostate Church before the Second Advent, yet many Christians enjoy freedom from this particular tribulation by not being part of apostate denominations or congregations.

There is no doubt that there is as much ebbing as flowing in the historical progress of Christianity.

So many Christians already enjoy the postmillennial lifestyle in measure, and it is our hope and prayer and belief that some day many more will. It's only a silver age rather than a golden age, because there will always be sin, trouble, illness and death until the end of time, even although certain things will be defeated by Christ's glorious progress through His Church, Word, Spirit and Providence.

but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken.(Micah 4:4)

Maybe those of us who enjoy the postmillennial lifestyle in measure, should go out on a sunny Sabbath day and sit under our apple tree (or whatever), with our Bibles and a favourite Reformed tome, and a beer (or something else), and remember this text, and thank God that we can do so without fear of the secret police coming round, and pray that our brothers and sisters in other countries will enjoy the religious freedoms and economic benefits we have.

 

[jwithnell]

Yet the ironic thing is that many Christians are already enjoying postmillennial conditions in measure and there is nothing inconsistent between this and being a Christian.

Kind of depends on your perspective, doesn't it? The Christians being slaughtered by Muslims probably wouldn't agree. Nor those who live their whole lives with no running water and electricity.

 

[Peairtach]

The Christians being slaughtered by Muslims probably wouldn't agree. Nor those who live their whole lives with no running water and electricity.

Well these Christians aren't enjoying postmillennial conditions in measure.

My point is that the amil argument - and the hermeneutical weight that is given to it - that Christians must always suffer tribulation between Christ's first and second advents, therefore there must always be e.g. warfare and persecutory governments in this world - this argument doesn't stand up.

There have been many Christians who never experienced e.g. state persecution or warfare, yet received just as much tribulation as God wanted them to receive.

The things that postmils say will be eliminated or largely eliminated in this age are not necessary for Christians to experience tribulation in this age.

Therefore passages such as the following shouldn't be automatically hyper-spiritualised by amils or sent on a rocket into Heaven or into the post Second Advent New Heavens and New Earth.

The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. (Isaiah 2:1-4)

Postmils aren't positing a perfect world, without sin, sickness, trouble or death, is going to happen before the end of this world.