End Times Part 3: Post-Millennialism

Post-Millennialism is the view that Jesus will return after the millennial kingdom. It has been called by some "optimistic Amillennialism" because of their similarities. So you can get a better idea about how this view works if you read last weeks post.

How do they see Revelation 20? Much like Amillennialism they consider the "thousand year reign of Christ" described in Revelation as symbolic for a very long period of time when Christ reigns in the hearts of men. The difference between their view and the Amillenial view is that Post-millennial's make a distinction between this time and the church age. Rather than saying that the kingdom began when Christ came or at the beginning of the church age they claim that the kingdom will occur between now and Christ's return when "the progress of the gospel and the growth of the church will gradually increase, so that a larger and larger proportion of the world's population will be Christians" (Wayne Grudem- Systematic Theology, 1110,1111). So if you can imagine in our day a growing majority of people becoming Christians; creating Christian policies in nations and lowering the crime rate you can imagine this view of the millennial kingdom.

Proponants of this view. It can be very difficult to discern whether someone in the past was Post or Amillennial but it seems that two very clear ones were William Carey and Jonathan Edwards, giving some credibility to the view. Today a man of much credibility within this view is Dr. R.C. Sproul.

I will give my opinion a little bit more later but I think what we see here is that I have shown two very similar views that reveal each others' weakness far too well. The credibility of a more literal understanding of Scripture and the kingdom increases in proportion with the confusion within symbolic interpretations.

That's all for now,
Stephen