Loading summary
Transcript76 lines
- [00:00]
Podcast Host
What is the Lord's Supper? Why is it important? Is the Supper merely a symbol? How often are we meant to partake in it? In Take and Recovering the Regular Celebration of the Lord's Supper, Harrison Perkins explains the historic understanding of the Lord's Supper and its importance in Gospel proclamation. This book illustrates the beautiful encounter with Christ that Christians experience at the Supper, emphasizing the importance of reviving weekly communion practice in today's world. This month, when you support with a gift of any amount, we'll send you this book. Get your copy today with the gift of Any amount@solarmedia.org offers
- [00:46]
Bob
to break a new path in the new world that is ours. Long enough we have been skeptics with regard to ourselves and doubted whether indeed the political Messiah had come. But he has come in us if we would but give utterance to his promptings.
- [01:06]
Justin Holcomb
Yeah, this is really interesting because as you're saying, reading those quotes, Mike Cotton Mather and others and their engagement, and they're leaning into this triumphalist idea of what America was. There's another group of people because this is a very perspectival reading of what the Christian faith was doing, because there's a lot of African Americans who are Christians at the time who are really looking into a more already not yet reality, asking God to intervene into the very sort of sufferings that they were going through. And so it's interesting to hear that sort of telling of the theological narrative in contrast with what was going on simultaneously.
- [01:46]
Bob
That's why we get the Battle Hymn of the Republic and Onward Christian Soldiers written during this, this period by the victors. And why we have the Negro Spirituals written by the sufferers,
- [02:19]
Podcast Host
Applying the riches of the Reformation to the modern church. This is White Horse Zinn, a weekly roundtable discussion discussion about theology and culture.
- [02:39]
Bob
Eschatology, or how things turn out in the end, has always been a hot potato topic. But a century ago, arguments over eschatology didn't just fill classroom lectures and YouTube comments, but really shaped the whole culture, the whole American culture. Significantly, how did the mood shift from post millennialism to premillennialism actually shape the mood of our culture, the mood of American society, as the division between liberal and conservative became clearer. Today on the White Horse Inn, we're going to revisit a moment in history when competing visions of the end times carried sweeping cultural consequences. And how those eschatological temperaments shaped the church's engagement with modernity. And why both optimism and pessimism untethered from the Church's Ordinary means of grace can distort our understanding of the kingdom of God. And I'm here with my friends Walter Strickland, Justin Holcomb, Bob Hiller, and I'm Mike Horton. Brothers, first of all, can someone define postmillennialism?
- [03:51]
Walter Strickland
I think the way you want to think of it is this. There's different ways of viewing the end times. I think, broadly speaking, we talk about post millennialism, premillennialism and amillennialism. Post millennialism is this idea that as the Gospel advances throughout the world, as we go forth and make disciples of all nations, the gospel is going to sort of take over the culture and we will develop sort of a golden age on the earth until Christ comes again. It's a very optimistic view of. Of the future, optimistic view of history and the future. Very progressive thinking. Premillennialism says things are going to go from bad to worse, and then Christ will return and he will establish some sort of millennial reign here on the earth. That's a. That's a view that's actually rather common in the early church. Dispensational premillennialism is something that we'll discuss today that is sort of a. A remarkably inventive product of a premillennial view. We can talk about more of that later. And then finally, the amillennial view, which I believe most of us at the table hold to. The amillennial view says this. We operate with what we call the already and the not. Yet. Christ has risen from the dead. He has established his reign. Now all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, he says, but we are not yet fully experiencing that. We already know that he reigns, but we do not yet see it face to face. Think 1 Corinthians 13. So these are the three views that kind of dominate Christian eschatological views. But post millennialism in the era we're talking about right now is really dominant just in terms of this time in American history, this time sort of coming out of the Enlightenment. Everybody has this view that things are going to just keep getting better and better and better, and it feels very positive. And that's happening in the church as well.
- [05:56]
Unknown Female Guest
That's what was so fun about the last episode was hearing the history like the different. Like the different examples throughout, you know, different structures, different authors, different religious leaders. But the big idea that I picked up and learned from from the previous episode was how the earliest early 19th century American Protestantism was deeply optimistic. It wasn't just positive, it was this believing that revivals weren't just saving individuals, but they were signs that God was renewing society. Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of Christians were thinking that they were actually building. They were helping build the kingdom of God on Earth. So science and education reform movements, they weren't threats to faith. They were tools that God was using to move history forward. And he's expanding his kingdom through you, and you're doing it. And so George Marsden, historian, talked about how many post millennialists believed, quote, the defeat of the satanic forces is imminent. Like, that's. That's a great example. Like, when I first read that, I thought, who talks like that now? And some people do, but like that, that captures a really optimistic sensibility. So cultural progress and biblical prophecy seem to be moving in the same direction. And you're in the middle of it right now. Let's keep going. Yeah.
- [07:19]
Bob
I used to think that different eschatological views were influenced by different periods of history. So if, you know, if we were going through, for example, a period of cultural optimism, post millennialism was the most likely eschatology of choice. If we went through two wars to end all wars, and we have a negative view of where history is going, then we are premal. I don't believe that anymore, especially in America. But not only in America. Postmillennialism was. It became hugely successful among all British intellectuals in the late 17th century. Lutheran and Reformed confessions rejected millennialism. But many Lutheran and Reformed theologians in the late 17th century were. Were eating it for lunch and gobbling it down. Johann Alsted, who said, the doctrine of justification is the doctrine of a standing or falling church. Good on so many points. But he converted to post millennialism, and he had a huge impact. He trained so many of the leading figures of what became the Royal Society in England. Here is Cotton Mather. Everybody knows Cotton Mather is the first American evangelical. Here's what he argued. He says, we are living at a time of the general restoration of mankind from the curse of the fall.
- [08:58]
Justin Holcomb
Wow.
- [09:00]
Bob
And the opening of the last stage in that scheme of the divine proceedings, which was to bring a blessing upon all the nations of the earth. And he tried to get Jan Cominius, one of the students of Alsted, to come be the first president at Harvard. But he didn't. The Book of Revelation is unfolding in the current events. That's how people, premillennial and post millennial, read the Book of Revelation. Yale's president Ezra Stiles said, America is God's new Israel, and George Washington is the Joshua Crossing. The Delaware to enter Canaan. So we're seeing this manifest destiny. God gave us this continent as a gift, so forth. This thing is growing. One last one I'll give for right now anyway. Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick, this is in another book, 1850, he says God has given us for a future inheritance the broad domains of the political pagans that shall yet come and lie down under the shade of our ark without bloody hands being lifted. God has predestined Mankind expects great things from our race and great things we feel in our souls. The rest of the nations must soon be in our rear. We are the pioneers of the world, the advance guardians sent through the wilderness of untried things to break a new path in the new world that is ours. Long enough we have been skeptics with regard to ourselves and doubted whether indeed the political Messiah had come. But he has come in us, if we would but give utterance to his promptings.
- [11:01]
Justin Holcomb
Yeah, this is really interesting because as you're saying, reading those quotes, Mike, Cotton Mather and others and their engagement, and they're leaning into this triumphalist idea of what America was. There's another group of people because this is a very perspectival reading of what the Christian faith was doing, because there's a lot of African Americans who are Christians at the time who are really looking into a more already not yet reality, asking God to intervene into the very sort of sufferings that they were going through. And so it's interesting to hear that sort of telling of the theological narrative in contrast with what was going on simultaneously.
- [11:42]
Bob
That's why we get the Battle Hymn of the Republic and Onward Christian Soldiers written during this period by the victors. And why we have the Negro spirituals written by the sufferers. Right. I mean, you've written the definitive book here.
- [12:06]
Justin Holcomb
Yeah, there's a whole different book of hymns. There's a whole different hymnody that is sort of articulating how God is going to engage this experience. And so if you are the victors, it's more conceivable to have a more post millennial, very optimistic view, especially as you mentioned, in light of the Great Awakenings coming out of that, especially that second great awakening in the 1850s going into the early part of the 1900s. You know, there's this very excitable time. But then you have the Great Awakenings for the African American coming out of that, that had this very sort of social, sort of egalitarian reality where everybody was equal before the foot of the cross. But then after the revival was over, the slave master dynamic still took control. So there was that desire for God to sort of come in. But I would say overall, this sort of post millennial excitement about what they were going to do with God's kingdom, going onward, as you were saying, with Onward Christian Soldier was the tenor of the day, especially for popular American Christianity.
- [13:12]
Bob
Yeah. And then America becomes, you know, the nation itself becomes the new Messiah. I mean, they use that language for, for one liberal evangelical, Horace Bushnell, said that America is the manger for the new Christ. This was the star of the east that guided them thither. They came as to the second cradle place of a renovated Messiah ship.
- [13:42]
Walter Strickland
Help me understand something here, guys. So you talk about the spirituals versus the triumphalistic Battle Hymn of the Republic kind of songs. Help me distinguish between hope and optimism. Because one seems maybe this is the distinction I'm making in my head. Hope is looking outside of ourselves to Christ, come and make things right. Optimism is looking to sort of this worldly post millennial present tense, like we're actually doing it ourselves is more man centered. Is that a fair depiction of these things?
- [14:19]
Unknown Female Guest
I think the inevitability is. I love your question because I think optimism is the inevitability that this is going to happen, we're going to succeed. Hope doesn't seem to have that inevitability that goes back to just the we're getting better in every way and every day we're succeeding. We're marching on straight to. It's kind of like it's a done deal. There's a lot of assurance and, and the inevitability of where we're going to end up. I might be wrong. I'd love to hear from the others too, but that's how I was thinking through the same thing.
- [14:49]
Bob
Well, when the social gospelers were writing up their war policies, officially pacifist on paper, but we have to go into the Philippines, we have to go abroad and we, we are like the Messiah. We have to die for these people. We have to. President McKinley, new school president. Well, actually, no. He was a Methodist. Same thing President McKinley said to the newspaper about the Spanish American war in the Philippines. I had to go down on my knees more than one night in a week. I just knew that we had a calling set upon us to lift up these savages and educate them and Christianize them. And by goodness, that's what we're going to do. We're going to just go in there. And Mark Twain said, I find it Difficult to know how people would accept the gospel that they received through bayonet.
- [16:00]
Walter Strickland
Yeah, right.
- [16:04]
Bob
Yeah. It just. It's amazing that the ego that a lot of these people had. And we're talking about the liberal progressives, increasingly fundamentalists. Well, that wasn't a term at this point at the end of the 19th century, but there wasn't a break yet over eschatology. But it would make sense that when the break came between fundamentals and liberals, it would be fundamentalists going in a premillennial, dispensational direction and liberals continuing in their onward Christian soldiers march.
- [16:42]
Unknown Female Guest
And there was a break here too, though. This is where liberalism starts creeping in with naturalism, which I think we need in the story, need to address that as well, because there were some turning points, and this is a turning point that we referred to in the last episode on Origin of Speech. And then after the Civil War, things are changing with higher criticism. Darwin made traditional beliefs harder to defend in educated circles. And so some Christians tried to adapt. And it looks like they kept the optimism, Christians kept the optimism of post millennialism, the idea that society was improving, but dropped the supernatural parts. Is that right?
- [17:27]
Bob
So social Darwinism. Yeah, social Darwinism fit with a naturalized post millennial vision.
- [17:36]
Unknown Female Guest
Yeah. And Marsden says that they retained the formal structure and the essential confidence of the older post millennial view. So the confidence remains, but the theology started thinning out. And that's where Marsden says, under the influence of what he calls the new naturalism, many no longer believed that supernatural powers might, quote, direct, directly intervene at any moment. So again, that's the theology thinning out
- [18:04]
Justin Holcomb
as we had that theology thinning out. And there's this shell of the historic faith in America, but that lost the spirit, the miraculous in it. There's this vacuum that's emerging. And so there's different things that came in to fill that vacuum, I think we could acknowledge. And one of them being the very experientially oriented sort of Pentecostal movement, you know, that that was, you know, as. As we have the historic Christianity sort of fading in its, its historic orthodox conviction. There's this surge of, hey, there is a belief that God can do the miraculous. He's working, again, very pietistically in me, in very demonstrative ways. And so that was a very powerful vacuum filler, if we can say it that way, to this sort of spiritual shell that was, that was that became of American Protestantism.
- [18:57]
Unknown Female Guest
Is that the Azusa Street Revival? Is that, Is that the timing that fall?
- [19:03]
Justin Holcomb
Yeah, so that's 1906.
- [19:05]
Walter Strickland
Yeah.
- [19:05]
Bob
You know.
- [19:06]
Justin Holcomb
Yeah. So that it's that early.
- [19:08]
Bob
Yeah.
- [19:08]
Unknown Female Guest
That's great.
- [19:10]
Bob
I think too, there is a real sense that history is, especially after the First World War, America is stronger than ever and it's not going to stay out of war the next time. And people really have this expectation of progress. Things are moving along. Social Darwinism getting Josiah strong. I can't get him out of my head. President of the Evangelical alliance at the end of the 19th century, he said, in our country, his book, Our country, the Anglo Saxons of America were uniquely suited to take over the world. He says it in just those terms. He was Teddy Roosevelt's advisor. So I mean, this was. And he was a social gospeler, an advocate of the social gospel. So it's striking. And he says, with our vastly superior traits and so forth. So he's talking about Social Darwinism that you could imagine somebody say, hey, hello, Josiah. You're kind of getting close to eugenics here or something. I don't know. But it's really remarkable how much European romanticism of this period is seeping into the intellectual culture.
- [20:50]
Walter Strickland
Can we really quick, let's get some definition of terms. What do we mean when we say social Gospel and Social Darwinism? Just quick definitions.
- [20:59]
Bob
Well, Social Darwinism is that there is an improvement of species. Things are getting better and better, and you apply it to different races, are inferior to other races, and so forth. And then the Social gospel is a movement in the 19th century that emphasized the role of the church and America, which they hardly distinguish from each other. As the vanguard of democratizing and saving the world. And the image here is of Jesus on the cross. Since they didn't believe in Jesus on the cross, literally as vicarious atonement, they made America. And Woodrow Wilson, boy, there are so many of his speeches I've looked through that are just chock full of this stuff. It's interesting. Woodrow Wilson was a family friend of the Machen family. Jay Gresham Machen, the author of Christianity and Liberalism, and Woodrow Wilson lived with the Machen for part of the time Jay Gresham was growing up. And then Machen would have Sunday dinner after church with the Wilsons when he was president. So it's really interesting. Though they were of a very different mind. Woodrow Wilson saying we're for the new Christianity and Jake Greshammachen writing Christianity or Liberalism, they nevertheless came from the same cultural background.
- [22:47]
Walter Strickland
Interesting.
- [22:47]
Bob
And that's why he never really jibed with the label fundamentalist.
- [22:54]
Unknown Female Guest
We also need to figure out how dispensationalism fits into this story because we're talking about the kingdom of God. I mean, we're growing. The optimism is, this is where history's marching. This is what God's doing. You're a part of it. And then with this new naturalism, you have room for people to say, well, God's not really doing that much. It starts waning and it becomes more, as Marsden describes, vague and ethereal. That liberalism, that optimism was there. And then into that steps and Mars entraxas, the dispensational premillennialism because it was explicit and concrete. And so you have this shift from the optimism to pessimism. So let's talk about that, because that's where we need to start talking about the now and not yet and the already not yet and all the questions we have about eschatology.
- [23:46]
Justin Holcomb
And I think that's a great point. This is another one of those interpretive frameworks that filled in the shell of historic Christianity that was left because of, like, naturalism. So if, if we, if we're understanding this, they're like, God wasn't intervening fast enough or. Well, it seemed like he was intervening slowly. I should say that. And then what was happening is that there was a way of interpreting the Bible that came from common sense realism that then said, you know what, the reason why God is not intervening quickly is because we're in a parenthesis. There's. We're in a different dispensation. We're in this church age, and God is going to intervene, but it's going to be a very sort of catastrophic intervention, and it's going to be very divine in nature, this rapture of the church. So this idea of this very poignant sort of intervention of God replaced this idea of gradual progress with the sudden interruption of the second coming. And so that's really. This idea of that parenthesis is the emphasis there that began to describe what was going on with this kingdom business. Because it seemed like we had something going on with the post millennials, you know, from post millennialism. We had the second Great Awakening, but then we had these two world wars. And it seems like, how do we. How do we account for this? Well, that's how the Scofield Bible accounted for it.
- [25:22]
Podcast Host
This is a production of Sola Media. This podcast is made possible by generous listeners like you. If you enjoy the show and want to help us continue this work, consider giving today@solamedia.org donate.
- [25:44]
Walter Strickland
Let me read a quick quote from. From Marsden's book on This, I think this is helpful. Just the contrast between the, the dispensationalism and the liberalism. James H. Brooks and then his protege CI Scofield Schofield study Bible. That is like the dispensational book, I guess you would say the Bible with all the notes there, it opposed. He opposed liberal trends at almost every point. These teachers held that the Bible was absolutely reliable and, and precise in matters of fact, that its meanings were plain, and that whenever possible it should be taken literally. They reached a central conclusion which was equally distant from that of their liberal contemporaries. Christ's kingdom, far from being realized in this age or in the natural development of humanity, lay holy in the future, was totally supernatural in origin and discontinuous with the history of this era. And that was your point, Walter. There's going to be this catastrophic break that's going to come along. This was the point on which the new dispensational premillennialism differed from old forms of premillennialism. For the dispensationalists, the prophecies concerning the kingdom referred wholly to the future, the present era. The church age therefore could not be dignified as a time of the advance of God's kingdom. Yeah, there is no real advance of the kingdom. I mean, it's literally like the liberals say this, then we're going to say the exact opposite. Like we just cannot see anything eye to eye or find anything good in there. So you think there's going to be a progressive kingdom here? No kingdom? Nope. None at all. Like they're breaking at every point.
- [27:15]
Unknown Female Guest
And it gave a clear direction. I mean, that's why Marson's so helpful, because the problem was it was vague and ethereal. The optimism and this desire for the explicit, the concrete and dispensationalism gives a concrete way that the church and Christianity relates to civilization. And it gave ordinary Christians a. A very clear map of where history was headed and what God was doing. And so it's just kind of like that's what Scripture says, that's what's happening. And then you can see all the revelation stuff is happening with these different things. And then there's Gorbachev later on, has the mark of the beast on his head. There's all these different things that are really clear and obvious and it's very concrete.
- [27:55]
Bob
Yeah, literal maps. If everything was vague for the liberals, including the bodily resurrection of Jesus, then everything was equally certain for the fundamentalists. And that's why I grew up in it. And whenever we heard about Presbyterians or Lutherans. It was. Yeah, well, they're liberals. And people who don't believe in dispensational premillennialism are liberals, not just Christians who have a different view. Hold to the view that was held by Christians in all times and places. But did you catch that?
- [28:39]
Walter Strickland
Well done. Subtle.
- [28:41]
Bob
But are not even Christians. They're not born again. And that sense also whenever, possibly read literally, that's still what dispensationalists say today. How about poetry? So you have the whole Psalter. You can't read the Psalms literally when they're using metaphor and poetry. I mean, you can't read a parable literally. You have to read a parable as parable. You have to read apocalyptic is apocalyptic.
- [29:19]
Unknown Female Guest
And that's a weird looking wife of Song of Solomon. Looks like a Frankenstein.
- [29:25]
Bob
Exactly. I mean, this is why you can't. You have to read the Bible according to its natural sense. But nothing is complicated. That's the thing in terms of epistemology for fundamentalism, nothing was complicated. It all was very simple. If you just had the Scofield notes, this is how.
- [29:47]
Unknown Female Guest
I mean, I don't want to go off too much on this, but. But this is how you make heresies. This is the history of heresies was the most heretics were doing a simplistic reading, not simple simplistic reading of Scripture. Arius. Well, I mean, Jesus was born. He had to be really human. There was a time when the Son was not. And so all the heretics actually moved away from a little bit of mystery and a little bit of just complexity. Not everything's equally clear all the time. And it's just always funny to see how when you try to domesticate God and God's Word, you end up in a ditch somewhere.
- [30:25]
Walter Strickland
What's central in the reading of scripture or what's central in all of this? Well, it isn't Christ. Yeah. It's Israel. It's the movement of history. It's. What does the Bible have to say about today? Christ has been removed.
- [30:40]
Bob
33 A.D. yeah, not 33 A.D. but 1948.
- [30:44]
Walter Strickland
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the.
- [30:46]
Unknown Female Guest
And not A.D. 70.
- [30:48]
Walter Strickland
The Olivet discourse is not about. Why would it possibly be about that generation? When Jesus says literally, like this is going to happen before the end of this generation. We now got to redefine generations. So there's a word you can't take literally. Like there's. There's this strange thing that happens that you've. What you've imposed on the text is not Christological. It's not Christ centered anymore. It's.
- [31:10]
Unknown Female Guest
It's.
- [31:10]
Walter Strickland
It's something else. And it's fascinating how it always tends to serve our political ends, but it doesn't necessarily proclaim Christ and him crucified.
- [31:20]
Unknown Female Guest
That march of history is huge. I'm just thinking through that because we talked a lot about Darwin. If you start thinking about Marx and how Marx just knocks over Hagel, you know, where everything's going in the Zeitgeist and we're all progressing, and then Marx just makes a naturalistic view of Hegel, of just this march of history and where we're headed. I think that's a huge insight on this too, because you have Marx and Nietzsche and Freud right after Darwin, early on the 1900s. I mean, that's right here happening at the same time, too. That's in the water of what's influencing all these Christians.
- [31:58]
Justin Holcomb
Yeah, I would say, Bob, to your point about who's in the middle or what's in the middle of this reading, you mentioned it in passing, but I think it's the individual reader, because I think what happens with this sort of common sense reading of the text is that the thing that is not considered is the fact that the reader brings something with them, which, you know, I think Justin said that it furthers your own political end game. Because if you're not allowing the text to come to bear and sharpen you and to put yourself under its authority, because you're not considering yourself, you're going to necessarily stand over it. And that's what this kind of a hermeneutical reality allowed for in a very technical way.
- [32:43]
Bob
Can we just for a minute too. Definitely transpassing beyond my competence. But look at presidential history and eschatology. So you have Woodrow Wilson at the turn of the 20th century, the war to end all wars. What did that mean? That meant World War I. Okay, we'll go to war, but this will be the war that ends all wars. And his secretary of state was William Jennings Bryant, who was the fundamentalist in the Scopes trial, who defended against teaching of evolution in the schools. So he was a fundamentalist, but he had a sculpture made of swords being beaten into plowshares outside of his office. So he was a pacifist to the core. But this would be the war to end all wars. Woodrow Wilson is saying so you still have that post millennial spirit. By the time you get to Harry S. Truman, he's a premillennialist. And for him it's very. And we can be thankful that, you know, he was influential in the creation of the state of Israel, but that for him was a very eschatological thing and it was fulfilling biblical prophecy. You get the same thing right down, because this is what these guys were taught in their churches. Johnson all the way down to Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. And then I think you get a little bit more back to post millennialism with President Obama and now with Donald Trump. Not that he gives a lot of attention to eschatology. A lot of people around him do. They sure do. And it's definitely post millennial. Doug Wilson, Pete Hegseth, and I mean, I could go down the list of the people around him certainly do think that with the Seven Mountains mandate, they're going to take, they're going to Christianize America, they're going to take it back. And this is ironically what right wingers are saying today, when it's what the left wingers were saying in the 19th century.
- [35:22]
Justin Holcomb
That's so ironic, that shift there. And what we're seeing throughout history, there is a swinging back and forth of this pendulum from like one monolinear understanding of history to another. One is this post millennial optimism and the other is this dispensational or premillennial pessimism. And the reality is that as we would read the scripture, we would say that we're not prey to a one way sort of line. There's two things going on because of an already not yet. There's this in breaking of the kingdom that's real, but also we understand that this is the place where the prince and the power of the air is. And so those two things coexist in a way that I think it'd be helpful for us to even articulate a little bit.
- [36:13]
Walter Strickland
Yeah, the breaking in of the kingdom. Now this already not yet. It's not seen, it's trusted. So the kingdom comes through the preaching of the word, through the administration of the sacraments, and the gospel spreads so that it's not, not tied to any sort of Christian nationalism or political, political state or anything like this, because kingdoms come and go, but the word of the Lord endures forever. So the thing that we stand on is a word that is preached, a message that is declared because Christ sits on the throne. But he doesn't tie this to. Again, I'm just repeating myself. But we're not tying it to a political state or party because those things come and go. Those very quickly become idols. And a lot of dangers arise when you start tying those things Too closely together, you sort of just got to trust the preaching of the Word, that that's where the kingdom is found.
- [37:09]
Unknown Female Guest
I think we need to say some things about the Kingdom of God, of just really clear things that we would all say about the Kingdom of God, because that's where this conversation leads us to, is the Kingdom of God and the church and the public square. What's going on with that? What's the role, the church's role. But you said early on, Bob, when we were describing millennial views, the amillennial view. So the big idea is the Kingdom's already inaugurated in the ministry of Jesus, in the Incarnation and ministry of Jesus, the Kingdom is near. He inaugurates the Kingdom. The Kingdom is continuing already. He ascended to the right hand of the Father, to his throne. The Kingdom's now and it will be consummated. So there is a. The Kingdom is now, but it doesn't look like that's why we talk already. Not yet. But can we just say a few things about what we believe about the Kingdom of God? Because I'll get started. It's inaugurated and continuing and will be consummated. God builds and gives the Kingdom as a gift we receive. We don't expand it, we don't build it. Like, I think we need to say some really clear things about kingdom. What is the kingdom of? And what are the verbs? In which direction are things going regarding kingdom?
- [38:25]
Walter Strickland
Jesus teaches us to pray for it, let thy kingdom come, not to establish it on our own hands.
- [38:31]
Bob
And it's the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Here's where an important Reformation distinction comes into play. Two kingdoms. You know, post millennialists really don't distinguish the kingdoms at all. Now they do in terms of they wouldn't have the President of the United States administering communion, but there is such an intersection between that you can't really talk about a clear distinction between the two kingdoms. And here's the thing. It's not surprising that postmillennialists are always pro culture because they think things are getting better and better. Well, how will they get better and better? More education, More art, more spending for social reform and so forth. They're looking to build these institutions of high culture. Now, that was at least in the past. Today's post millennialists are more Manichean than that. But at least in the past, that was premillennialists, because they think everything is getting worse and worse, want to separate from the world. They have a very fearful view of the world and a Very critical view of. Of high culture. The cultural elites is not a favorable term in evangelical circles. And so it's more pop culture. If the liberals lean in more to high culture and want the approval of the Ivy League and npr, the fundamentalists kind of lean into popular culture and want the endorsement of influencers and podcasters. So it really does shape, I think, different views of how we think about. And I would say the amillennial view encourages us to see it again in the light of already not yet. Things aren't as bad as they possibly could be. There's still God's providence and common grace. Things aren't getting better, Things aren't getting worse. They're just kind of going on. It's how Jesus describes the end. Before the end comes, it'll be kind of like it is now. But there is a time coming when Jesus Christ will rend the heavens and he will come down and judge the earth and bring in his everlasting kingdom of righteousness.
- [41:27]
Justin Holcomb
And because of that, Mike, we don't. We don't engage culture to bring the kingdom. We engage the culture because Christ is already king and he's taking his seat. He's taking his seat. And so it's already loving our neighbor. Yeah, yeah. So we're not trying to save the ship from sinking. We're ambassadors of the king in a territory that's already under his jurisdiction but will fully come in the future. And so that's how we express faithfulness to Christ's lordship in a time that's already not yet.
- [41:56]
Bob
It's good.
- [41:57]
Unknown Female Guest
So it sounds like we're not supposed to be giving voter guides from church.
- [42:00]
Bob
Yeah, maybe not.
- [42:02]
Unknown Female Guest
So what does. What's the church's role in this? And I have some ideas, but I want to. I'm thinking listeners are hearing this. Okay, great. History.
- [42:11]
Justin Holcomb
Okay.
- [42:11]
Unknown Female Guest
Theology of the kingdom. I show up at church on Sunday, and what am I in this community? What are we supposed to be doing, doing? And how does that relate to culture?
- [42:23]
Justin Holcomb
Church?
- [42:23]
Unknown Female Guest
Like what. How does church play into any of this?
- [42:25]
Bob
I don't have the authority to say anything to you that I cannot draw either directly or by good and necessary good and necessary consequence from scripture. I can't bind your conscience to that. That means that I have absolutely no authority to tell you for whom you should vote. And if anybody does, you are absolutely free to disobey that minister. You are not bound in any way, shape, or form to anything that is not justified by the word of God, because we have a very limited calling as ministers. Do you love me, Peter? Asked Jesus, yeah, feed my lambs. Do you love me? Yes, feed my sheep, Peter, do you love me? Feed my lambs. That's like, okay, this is your job, Peter. This is the job he's given to all of us. And we speak for Jesus of Nazareth every time we open our mouth to proclaim his word. We better not abuse that.
- [43:39]
Justin Holcomb
And in that, we speak from victory. But there's also suffering that comes along with that. So we're not victorious in a overrealized way. And we also are those who will go through suffering in this world. You will have trials, but I've overcome the world. And so we have to place ourselves appropriately within that reality. In redemptive history, I think we got
- [44:06]
Walter Strickland
to say, for as Christians and you, you have a role in, in both kingdoms, you have a responsibility to the world around you. You have a spronce village, your neighbor in America that does take the form of voting and all that sort of thing. And so you, you follow your conscience. You think what, you vote for who you think is best and who's going to best serve your neighbor. But in the church, we have responsibility to proclaim the forgiveness of sins, to preach Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I'm growing increasingly frustrated with the conversation I hear in the public right now that suggests that pastors are responsible to be preaching about every cultural issue here and there. They need to tell their people how to vote because we need to be dealing with the stuff that matters. We need to be dealing with the stuff that is really important right now. And I cannot fathom how anybody says Jesus Christ is the thing that's not important to talk about right now. I heard one preacher say recently, very influential guy in Southern California say, I hear pastors say that all they do is preach the gospel and they need to repent of that. Give me the Bible verse that tells me I need to repent of preaching the gospel. I just want to see the verse. I'm getting just angry that we've decided that public policy is what's relevant and the gospel is irrelevant. Relevant that the forgiveness of sins and salvation needs to take a back seat to whatever public policy is coming up in the next election. We've forgotten our job. We've forgotten what the Bible, Jesus has given us pretty clear instructions, repentance and the forgiveness of sins. Do we have, like, cultural sins we have to repent of? Of course we do. Should pastors preach about those things? Probably. But if it doesn't get you to Christ, you haven't done your job. If people leave knowing how to vote and they haven't heard Christ, you haven't done your job.
- [46:01]
Bob
Well folks, it's not that it is unimportant how we live our lives today in light of the future that awaits us in glory. It does cast its light from the future into our present. And so understanding the kingdom of God, how it comes, what it is and how it advances is so crucial for our living in that kingdom as well as the kingdoms of the world today. So we hope this has been helpful, giving a little bit of history and a little bit of theology mixed together and we look forward to being with you again next time on White Horse Inn.
- [46:47]
Podcast Host
Thanks for listening to this production of Sola Media. If you enjoyed this episode, would you share it with the someone you think would benefit from it? Your support helps us spread the riches of the Reformation and apply historic Christian theology to every area of life.