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2. OBJECTIONS TO POSTMILLENNIALISM.
There are some very serious objections to the
Postmillennial theory.
a. The fundamental idea of the doctrine, that the whole world will gradually be won for Christ,
that the life of all nations will in course of time be transformed by the gospel, that
righteousness and peace will reign supreme, and that the blessings of the Spirit will be poured
out in richer abundance than before, so that the Church will experience a season of
unexampled prosperity just before the coming of the Lord, — is not in harmony with the picture
of the end of the ages found in Scripture. The Bible teaches indeed that the gospel will spread
throughout the world and will exercise a beneficent influence, but does not lead us to expect
the conversion of the world, either in this or in a coming age. It stresses the fact that the time
immediately preceding the end will be a time of great apostasy, of tribulation and persecution,
a time when the faith of many will wax cold, and when they who are loyal to Christ will be
subjected to bitter sufferings, and will in some cases even seal their confession with their blood,
Matt. 24:6-14,21,22; Luke 18:8; 21:25-28; II Thess. 2:3-12; II Tim. 3:1-6; Rev. 13.
Postmillennialists, of course, cannot very well ignore entirely what is said about the apostasy
and the tribulation that will mark the end of history, but they minimize it and represent it as
predicting an apostasy and a tribulation on a small scale, which will not affect the main course
of the religious life. Their expectation of a glorious condition of the Church in the end, is based
on passages which contain a figurative description, either of the gospel dispensation as a
whole, or of the perfect bliss of the external Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
b. The related idea, that the present age will not end in a great cataclysmic change, but will pass
almost imperceptibly into the coming age, is equally un-Scriptural. The Bible teaches us very
explicitly that a catastrophe, a special intervention of God, will bring the rule of Satan on earth
to an end, and will usher in the Kingdom that cannot be shaken, Matt. 24:29-31, 35-44; Heb.
12:26, 27; II Pet. 3:10-13. There will be a crisis, a change so great that it can be called “the
regeneration,” Matt. 19:28. No more than believers are progressively sanctified in this life until
they are practically ready to pass, without much more change, into heaven, will the world
gradually be purified and thus made ready to enter upon the next stage. Just as believers must
still undergo a great change at death, so must the world suffer a tremendous change when the
end comes. There will be a new heaven and a new earth. Rev. 21:1.
c. The modern idea that natural evolution and the efforts of man in the field of education, of
social reform, and of legislation, will gradually bring in the perfect reign of the Christian spirit,
conflicts with everything that the Word of God teaches on this point. It is not the work of man,
but the work of God to bring in the glorious Kingdom of God. This Kingdom cannot be
established by natural but only by supernatural means. It is the reign of God, established and