Christian Reconstruction, ala Joel McDurmon?

[jackson (Jackson Bryant)]

@Joel

There’s no way you can set up a system of government such that it will always be led by faithful Christians.

I think this is an example of how some postmillennials (namely Reconstructionists) deviate from a biblical conception of the doctrine.

The “silver age” of a “Christianized” Earth before the consummation will be brought about by God’s grace manifested through the church’s faithful obedience to the Great Commission, not by the implementation of a given political system or strategy. Reconstructionists tend to focus excessively on the latter and seem blind to the fact that they (often unwittingly) communicate an ideal that is nominal. I see the kings’ repentance and acknowledgment of their ultimate Ruler laid out in the Psalms as teaching how even the mighty will embrace and be subdued under Christ’s dominion, not as an exhortation to focus on a “top-down” strategy (“if you get the state, you’ll get the people”).

That isn’t to say I think debating the “most biblical” form of government is futile. I am Establishmentarian, so I do believe magistrates are obligated to uphold both tables of the Law and that we should call them to do so even now, but my faith isn’t in the system - it’s in the Holy Spirit and in God’s promises. Apart from these two, even the “correct system” is doomed to fail.

I also believe we’re still in the early church, so most of us in this world are living in Babylons rather than Genevas.

[bencarmack]

How is this not a copout or black box thinking?

Yeah things are bad now, but wait 20,000 years and then things will be great! I’ve read Mark Horne say things like this.

No matter how things may be in the present, we can always use a very long time period into the future as an escape hatch. The dream deferred.

The New Testament urges us to live as though Christ could return quickly. For the individual Christian, death is a mini eschaton. Christ is nearer to us each day. Postmils and others can live and preach that reality.

I’m not convinced, based on biblical evidence, that Christ’s return will be preceded by a Golden Age period that will be unmistakable and a kind of heaven on earth, where people will live to 200 and infant mortality will be entirely eradicated. Doug Wilson often uses Isaiah 65 as a proof text for postmil, but I’m unconvinced. That passage is using high symbolic language to describe the New Heavens and New Earth.

The errors of dispensationalists and postmils are somewhat similar in that both tend to read prophecy in a very literal, this worldly sense when prophecy is often symbolic, metaphorical and difficult to interpret with engineering exactness. Timelines weave in and out. Events separated by thousands of years get compressed. The future is described in a dream sequence where you jump from one scene to another.

As such, postmil makes sense as a reaction to dispensational upbringings. I’m all for people dropping dispensationalists, but let’s read the Bible for all its saying to us.

I think we are in an overall upward trajectory as the Gospel goes forth into the world. But Jesus could also return tomorrow. Or he may return after a very long time, during a golden age of Gospel peace. God’s Providence could accomplish either outcome. But I would not say God owes us a Golden Age or that we have irrefutable, take-it-to-the-bank evidence that the Bible promises us that.

I’m also not down on the Puritans for trying to do something in Massachusetts. Better to do a good thing badly than not try at all.

Admit it, if you read the Messianic prophecies of the OT, and then Jesus came along, would you have believed in Him? Was the fulfillment of those prophecies what the experts were predicting? What system did that fall under? Who saw it coming?

[Hobbit (Ross Clark)]

@tbbayly
Sometimes in discussions with theonomists, I think I’m dealing with the theological equivalent of name it and claim it pentecostals

Yes, that is an apt comparison.

Many of you will have heard of Justin Peters, who has done sterling work in refuting WoF Pentecostals and their kin (and please note that there are many Pentecostals who avoid WoF like the proverbial plague). He describes the WoF types as having “an over-realised eschatology”, especially in regard to healing - that is, that what is true at least some of the time (God working in healing, say, in a way which can only be called miraculous), is going to be true all of the time. It seems to me that many theonomists are in the same boat, but in terms of the application of God’s Law to civil society. They think that more is feasible than will ever be feasible, prior to Jesus’ return anyway. And at that point, most bets are off!

[tesseract (Tyler)]

@bencarmack

I’m not convinced, based on biblical evidence, that Christ’s return will be preceded by a Golden Age

Let each be convinced in his own mind, I’m not trying to bind anyone’s conscience on this issue.

As far as long timelines, if you want to call that a copout because the mustard tree grows slowly, I don’t know what to tell you. In the last 2000 years we’ve had times of great sorrow, some decline, and the 20th century was an absolute boom for the kingdom.

@bencarmack

Admit it, if you read the Messianic prophecies of the OT, and then Jesus came along, would you have believed in Him

Like how the magi read the prophecies? The way most amills think — any talk of earthly fulfillment beyond “it will happen someday” is not to be had; and they would have missed the baby in the manger.

[jackson (Jackson Bryant)]

@bencarmack

How is this not a copout or black box thinking?

Yeah things are bad now, but wait 20,000 years and then things will be great! I’ve read Mark Horne say things like this.

No matter how things may be in the present, we can always use a very long time period into the future as an escape hatch. The dream deferred.

It’s not a “copout” because we make eschatological predictions based on the whole of Scripture, not current events or how good or bad things look at present. The latter is a hallmark error of Dispensationalists. If we believe the Bible teaches that the Earth will be “all leavened” before Christ returns through the Gospel’s success in history, we don’t change our position based on the mere fact that it hasn’t happened yet.

@bencarmack

I’m not convinced, based on biblical evidence, that Christ’s return will be preceded by a Golden Age period that will be unmistakable and a kind of heaven on earth, where people will live to 200 and infant mortality will be entirely eradicated. Doug Wilson often uses Isaiah 65 as a proof text for postmil, but I’m unconvinced. That passage is using high symbolic language to describe the New Heavens and New Earth.

There isn’t one “proof-text” for postmil, but the Kingdom parables along with Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2 are the most clear passages indicating an “earthly” Gospel triumph. The prophecies at face value can be interpreted either way (and I think many have a double - penultimate and ultimate - fulfillment), but no postmillennial I know believes “infant mortality will be eradicated.” Worldly suffering such as relational conflict and the reality that Christ has not yet returned to defeat the “last enemy” of death are all still present in the “Silver Age.”

Texts like Isaiah 65 are hyperbolic, but they still refer to earthly realities. The future dominion of Christ through the world’s “Christianization” will serve to point upward toward Christ’s kingship par excellence and forward to the consummation, when Heaven meets Earth in a final sense. Postmils with a low view of Christ’s second return or who spend an inordinate amount of time focused on the church’s need to develop a political strategy rather than on proclaiming the Gospel to every creature are in error.

@bencarmack

I’m all for people dropping dispensationalists, but let’s read the Bible for all its saying to us.

So let’s all become postmillennial. Glad to have you on board.

@bencarmack

Admit it, if you read the Messianic prophecies of the OT, and then Jesus came along, would you have believed in Him? Was the fulfillment of those prophecies what the experts were predicting? What system did that fall under? Who saw it coming?

The Pharisees erred by interpreting the prophecies as a restoration of Israel to its previous glory divorced from any redemption of their own hearts and from their own sins. They didn’t want an inward cleansing, only an outward conquest. Believing Jesus “is reconciling all things to Himself” (Colossians 1:20), which will eventually succeed before He returns to abolish death (1 Corinthians 15:26) does not place one in the same boat as the Pharisees.