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Theonomic Postmillennialism By Sam Waldron

We began our critique of theonomic post-millennialism last time by looking at the first of three
structures in biblical eschatology that were used as a base to critique it.
And the first of those structures was the two-age structure of redemptive history.
We made two assertions after observing that the abuse of the term age designates the age
to come as a temporal and spatial existence in contrast to Norse use of the phrase in
time on earth as a reference for this age.
We made two statements or two propositions with reference to two-age structure of biblical
history.
The first was that this age and the age to come exhausts all time into the endless time
of eternity.
Second statement was that this age and the age to come are qualitatively different states
of human existence in the history of the world.
This age does not evolve through natural or gradual process in the age to come.
We looked at the classic passage which asserts that, Luke chapter 20, it very clearly asserts
that this age is an age in which marriage, death, natural men, and good and evil mixed
together occur, that the age to come is an age in which there is no marriage, no death,
and you have only sons of God and that and a resurrected condition.
Now there are other passages you might want to just note.
Luke 16, 8, and 11 contrast the riches of this age with life indeed.
And 1 Timothy 6, 17, and 19 also contrast the eternal life with the life of this age.
Well, we come to a third major proposition then.
And it's this.
This age and the age to come are divided by the second coming of Christ, which ends this
age and inaugurates the age to come.
Now, I'm just going to give you a sampling of the massive New Testament evidence for
that assertion.
Luke 20, verse 35 equates, you remember, attaining to that age with attaining to the resurrection
of the dead.
Look back at it.
Verse 35, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age, and then you have this
exegetical remark, and, that is to say, the resurrection from the dead, see how the verse
equates, attaining to that age with attaining to the resurrection from the dead, neither
marry nor are given in marriage.
And so the age to come is equated with the age of the resurrection, is equated with the
resurrection from the dead.
Now, since that's the case, since the resurrection is the door out of this age and into the age
to come, we ask another question, when does the resurrection occur?
Well, according to the pervasive teaching of the New Testament, the consistent teaching
of the New Testament, it occurs at Christ's second coming.
First Corinthians 15, 22, and 23, First Corinthians 15, 50 through 55, perhaps the classic passage
is First Thessalonians 4, 16.
And so if attaining to that age is equivalent to attaining to the resurrection of the dead,
then we argue that the age to come must commence with the second coming of Christ.
And then as well, a second line of thought here is that Matthew 13, 39 through 43, as
we've seen, refers to the same general structure of history and events as that referred to
in Luke chapter 20.
But Matthew chapter 13 contains language which clearly relates the consummation of the age
to the second coming of Christ.
This is the same language that's used in Matthew 28, 20, when Jesus says, Lord, whether you
are late, even unto the consummation of the age.
And the language of verses 39 through 43 is paralleled most closely in the Gospel of Matthew.
In Matthew chapter 24, Matthew 24 verses 30 and 31, having read about the angels gathering
of the wicked and the righteous and separating them in the day of judgment and in the consummation
of the age, we read in Matthew 24 of the event that occasions and initiates those realities.
And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the
earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with
power and great glory, and he will send forth his angels, exactly the event mentioned in
Matthew 13, with a great trumpet, and they will gather together as elect from the four
winds from one end of the sky to the other.
So again, the language of Matthew 24 clearly relates the consummation of the age to the
second coming of Christ.
We also read in Mark 10, 30 that in the age to come, we receive eternal life.
And according to Matthew chapter 25 verses 31 and 46, the event which initiates the consummate
form of eternal life which we receive is the second coming of Christ.
Matthew 25, 31, when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him,
then he will sit on his throne with his glorious throne, etc., etc., etc., and then we read
in verse 45, then he will answer them saying, truly I say to you to the extent that you
did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me, and these will go away into
eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
We receive eternal life in its consummate form in the age to come, but we receive eternal
life at the second coming of Christ, ergo, the age to come commences at the second coming
of Christ.
And then Titus 2, 12 clearly implies the same.
For the grace of God, we read in verse 11, has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,
instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously,
and godly in the present age, in this age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing
of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus.
And though I couldn't assert that the language is explicit here, the clear sense of the passage
is that the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ
Jesus brings to an end this present age in which is necessary to deny ungodliness and
worldly lusts and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly.
So, John 6, 39 says, and this is the will of him who sent me, of all that he has given
me, I lose nothing but raise it up on the last day.
So I assert the last day of this age is the day of Christ's second coming, and it is the
first day of the age to come.
We remind ourselves again, therefore, that there is no period before this age, no period
between this age and the age to come, and no period consequent to the age to come.
Three observations are appropriate before we proceed.
Three remarks about this biblical eschatological scheme.
The first is that of its simplicity, its simplicity.
Many have thought that prophecy eschatology was complicated, but what could be simpler
than this?
Only two ages, not seven, ten, twelve, twenty-one, or more.
See, there couldn't be a simpler eschatology.
The unlearned and fearful may put their fears and assumptions that biblical eschatology
is too complex for them aside.
There are two ages, one temporal and natural, the other eternal and supernatural, separated
by the second coming and the resurrection.
If one knows this, one knows more than most prophetic teachers and prophecy nuts of our
day.
You see, it's men who have made eschatology difficult, not God.
Now, of course, difficulties of detail, exegetical, and doctrinal remain.
One must, however, put off for a while the puzzles and questions regarding the details
and intricacies of prophecy, first things first.
The fact is that the Bible teaches a very clear-cut and humiliatingly simple scheme.
While this scheme is grasped in its breadth, many of the details are automatically clarified
because we do know, at least, what a lot of passages don't teach, even if we're not quite
sure what they do.
So the first word here, by way of observation, is simplicity.
The second word is similarity.
Similarity.
This is the biblical scheme of prophecy.
Now, I ask you, of the two major schemes of biblical prophecy, to which is this similar?
Is it similar to kileasm, or premillennialism, or is it similar to anti-kileasm, or non-premillennialism?
What are the essentials of premillennialism?
Well, at the very least, the essentials of premillennialism is to regard Revelation chapter
20 as an account of events that occur subsequent to the second coming of Christ, events which
involve the rebellion of wicked men in this world coming up against the camp of the saints
and being destroyed by the fire that descends out of heaven.
See, the essentials of premillennialism are a thousand-year reign after the second coming
of Christ before the eternal state, and this is, according to them, the meaning of Revelation
21 through 10, according to premillennialism.
You will note that unresurrected evil men inhabit the millennial period according to
that passage.
Now, is the biblical doctrine of the two ages similar or consistent with this teaching of
premillennialism?
And the simple answer is no, it's not.
The doctrine of the two ages confronts the premillennialist with a dilemma.
Let us suppose we are premillennialist.
Where would we put the millennium in the scheme of Luke chapter 20?
Would we put it in this age or in the age to come?
Why could we not put it in this age?
Because this age is an age which is consummated by Christ's second coming.
But why may we not put it in the age to come?
Because the age to come is an age in which there are only sons of God and that in a resurrected
condition.
No wicked men in an unresurrected condition remain in that age, but they do remain in
the millennium of Revelation 20, and therefore the millennium of Revelation 20 must precede
the second coming of Christ, must be a part of this age, and therefore there can be no
biblical propriety in the understanding of a premillennial return of Christ.
What's the second thing we see?
Similarity not to kileism but to anti-kileism.
The third thing we see is supernaturalism.
Biblical eschatology involves an emphatic supernaturalism.
There is no evolution into the age to come, no naturalistic or materialistic explanation
for the glory that shall be revealed.
Furthermore, there is no spiritual progression that brings in the consummate kingdom of God.
The distinction between these two ages is not such that either evolution or the gospel
itself, by itself, will bring in the age to come.
All right, now with those preliminary practical observations before you, I come to a fourth
major proposition about the two-age structure of redemptive history.
And this fourth major proposition is this.
This age is and always will be an evil age.
Now I trust you see the propriety of this structure for critiquing and post-millennialism.
This age is and always will be an evil age.
I want you to get your Bibles and look at this number of passages with me.
First of all, Luke 16, verse 8, Luke 16 and verse 8.
This age is and always will be an evil age.
Notice the language here of the parable of the unjust steward.
And his master praised the unrighteous steward because he had acted shrewdly, for the sons
of this age, there's the language of the two-age structure, are more shrewd in relation to
their own kind than the sons of light.
Now, how are evil men spoken of in this passage?
The term sons of this age is obviously a reference to evil men.
Men of this age are evil men.
The sons of this age are more shrewd in their own kind than the sons of light.
There's a contrast here between the sons of this age and the sons of light, ergo, the
sons of the age to come.
Well, what's the point?
Jesus uses the language, sons of this age, to refer to evil men, clearly assuming that
evil men are always going to be the characteristic kind of men in this age.
Evil men are called the sons of this age and contrasted with the sons of light.
Mark 10, verse 30, or pardon me, let's go to Luke 18, 30, because that's closer.
Luke 18, 30.
I'm sorry, that passage doesn't contain a key phrase.
Mark 10, 30.
Mark 10, 30.
Jesus said truly, verse 29, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers
or sisters or mother or father or children or farms for my sake and for the gospel's
sake, but that he shall receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses
and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms along with persecutions and in the
age to come, there's the two age structure then, eternal life.
Now, you see here, those who have left all for Christ do receive, and I think the reference
is to in the church, they receive back the physical brothers, houses and sisters and
mothers and children and farms that they lose because of Christ.
They receive them back in terms of spiritual and sometimes physical blessing at the hands
of their fellow believers.
But you see, all of these blessings, whether spiritual or physical, all come with persecutions
in this age, and in the age to come, they receive eternal life.
So the fact is that those who have left all for Christ can always expect persecutions
in this age.
As long as this age lasts, persecution will be the law of the true Christian.
And even though there are many blessings that God brings to his people in this age, physical
and spiritual, those blessings are never unaccompanied by persecution.
Romans 12, 2.
I urge you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and
holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
And do not be conformed to this ion, there's the language of the two ages.
Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may
prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Here, being conformed to this age is the converse, the contrast of proving what the will of God
is, good, acceptable, and perfect.
Because conforming to this age is not good, not acceptable, and not perfect.
So here Paul exhorts Christians not to be conformed to this age.
You see, how could Paul use such language if he did not believe that this age will always
be an evil age?
They might come when it would be right to be conformed to this age if it turned righteous
and was Christianized.
2 Corinthians 4.
7 verse 3, and even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in
whose case the God of, here's the language again, the God of this age has blinded the
minds of the unbelieving that they might not see the light of the gospel, the glory of
Christ, who is the image of God.
See, here Satan is identified as the God of this age, and if Satan is the God of this
age, it is therefore necessarily evil.
And when Satan is dethroned as the God of this age, this age ends.
The age to come is ushered in.
Galatians 1.4.
Here, that from which Christians are to be delivered by the death of Christ is described
in verse 4.
The Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins with this purpose, that he might
not transform this present age, Christianize it, reform it, reconstruct it, but that he
might deliver us out of it, out of this present evil age, according to the will of our God
and Father.
And finally, Ephesians 2.2.
Ephesians 2.2.
Literally, the Greek here is the ion of this cosmos, according to the prince of the power
of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
Here Paul describes the former wicked lives of Ephesian believers as walking according
to the age of this world, assuming, of course, very clearly that this age is an evil age.
It will never become right to conform to the age of this world.
Such passages as these presuppose and assume that this present age is and always will be
evil.
If this were not the case, there might come a day when the persecution of Christians would
cease.
When it would not be wrong to be conformed to this age, when Satan would not be its God,
when Paul's description of it as evil would cease to be true, and when one could walk
according to the age of this world and be righteous, when it was ceased to be true that
all those who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
You see, all of those suppositions defy the plain implications and presuppositions of
these passages.
Now, all of this, of course, has direct application to any form of post-millennialism, but it
also has specific application to theonomic post-millennialism.
When North speaks as follows of the millennial blessings he expects, he defies the plain
sense of the New Testament.
He says the kingdom of God becomes truly worldwide in scope.
This involves the beginning of the restoration of the cursed world.
The curse then will be lifted progressively by God.
The one result is longer lifespans for man.
This is a down payment on the paradise to come after the final judgment.
And we will have an occasion to return to this interesting statement.
It is clear, however, that the New Testament does not entertain any expectation for the
preliminary lifting of the curse during the course of this present evil age, which has
Satan as its God.
Further, it is doubtful whether North may legitimately speak of a yet future, but pre-second
coming, progressive lifting of the curse consistent with his stated position that there's no radical
historical discontinuity, no divine and supernatural intervention in history between the two advents
of Christ.
A lifting of the curse, which has not occurred as yet, but will occur before the second coming
of Christ, is a radical historical discontinuity.
But that brings us to the second fundamental structure of eschatology, which is relevant
for this critique of the anomaly plus millennialism.
Any questions?
See, I'm convinced that we must keep in mind in the two-edged structure of redemptive history
if we're going to have a base to resist the attractive formulations of theonomy and the
extreme formulations of reference to its optimism for this present evil age.
So we come to the second point here, B, post-millennialism and the two-stage coming of the kingdom.
Post-millennialism and the two-stage coming of the kingdom.
Now, properly understood, no more complete or clear teaching on the coming of the kingdom
occurs in the New Testament than that which surrounds the seven parables of the kingdom
found in Matthew chapter 13.
It is peculiarly appropriate that we should examine these parables since Gary North himself
makes them the subject of extended comment and unconditional surrender.
Now please turn to Matthew chapter 13.
Now, in dealing with B here, we're going to make four points.
One, we're going to deal with the common emphasis of these parables, then the specific
emphasis of these parables, then three will be the comprehensive teaching of these parables,
and then fourth will be the present relevance of these parables.
Now, the theme of these parables in Matthew 13 is, as I have said, the coming of the kingdom,
and this theme is pervasively stated in Matthew 13.
Notice verse 11, verse 16, verse 17, 19, 24, 31, 32, 44, 45, and 52.
So a number of times the clear thematic thread of these seven parables is the coming of the kingdom of God.
For instance, verse 11,
To you has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted.
Verse 16 and 17, But blessed are your ears because they see, and your ears because they hear.
For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see and did not see it,
and to hear what you hear and did not hear it.
And what is that, of course, but the coming of the kingdom of God expected in Old Testament prophecy.
Verse 19, The word of the kingdom.
Verse 24, The kingdom of heaven may be compared.
Verse 31, The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.
Verse 32, as well, verse 44, The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field.
Verse 45, The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls.
Verse 52, Every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a head of a household.
Now, the common emphasis of these parables, number one,
because you cannot understand Matthew 13 unless you come at it from the right direction,
the direction that Christ and his disciples were coming at it from.
The common emphasis of these parables flows from the fact that they all address the same problem or question or historical situation.
This question flowed out of the historical situation in which Jesus and his disciples found themselves.
The Jews in general conceived of the coming of the kingdom as a glorious deliverance from all their troubles.
Political and temporal victory would be its results. Compare John 6.15, Acts 5.35-39.
Even those Jews with a more spiritual expectation like that of John the Baptist
viewed its coming as equivalent to the judgment of the wicked with irresistible might.
Compare Matthew 3.2-12, the axe is laid at the foot of the trees, is already laid at the foot of the tree,
every tree does not bear good fruit but it's going to be a healing down, part of John the Baptist's prophetic message.
In such a context, Jesus came preaching the nearness,
Matthew 4.17, repent and believe the gospel for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,
and then the actual coming of the kingdom.
And the classic statement of that is Matthew 12, verses 28 and 29.
But if I cast out demons by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come,
eris tense, upon you.
How can anyone enter the strong man's house and carry out his property unless he first binds the strong man,
and then he will plunder his house?
So in the context of John's prophetic expectations, the Jews' prophetic expectations in general,
Jesus came preaching first the nearness and then the actual presence of the kingdom of God.
A man like John the Baptist gladly embraced Jesus as the one who would usher in the glorious and irresistible coming of the kingdom.
But when Jesus continued to preach and even preached the actual presence of the kingdom
without the onset of the glorious consummation,
John the Baptist with such preconceptions began to have doubts.
Observe Matthew chapter 11, verses 2 through 6.
Now when John in prison, that was the last place he expected me after the coming of the kingdom.
Now when John in prison heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him,
Are you the expected one, or shall we look for someone else?
Jesus answered and said to them, Go and report to John what you see and hear,
the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.
The blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear,
and the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.
And blessed is he, John, who keeps from stumbling over me.
Now the point is this.
Verse 11 refers in Matthew chapter 11 to the mysteries of the kingdom.
Matthew chapter 11, truly I say to you among those born of women,
there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist yet.
He who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
Now what in the world can such a verse mean?
In what sense can we say of some of the baby Christians around us
that they are greater than John the Baptist?
I assert that if you try to apply this to the moral or spiritual or ethical
justification of John the Baptist, you are in big trouble.
I assert that the category in which we must understand Matthew chapter 11
is in that of knowledge of the kingdom in the precise capacity as prophet
with his perhaps most clearly understood knowledge of the kingdom of any of the prophets.
The last and greatest of the Old Testament prophets, John the Baptist,
yet stood on the side of the Old Testament as opposed to the new.
And in the sense of understanding the mysteries of the kingdom,
understanding that the kingdom was going to come not in one stage but in two,
the least in the kingdom is greater than John the Baptist himself.
And that's the point I think that's being made here.
It is precisely in his prophetic capacity that John is least or lesser than the one who is greatest.
It is precisely in his prophetic capacity that he was the greatest among the sons of men,
the last and greatest of the prophets.
But it is in precisely that capacity that he is the least or less the least in the kingdom of heaven
because the least in the kingdom of heaven knows that Jesus is going to come twice,
once then and once again.
That I assert is the sense that we must predicate of Matthew 11.
If a man like John would struggle with the seeming inconsistency of Jesus' preaching of the kingdom
with what the Old Testament itself had led the Jews to expect, Daniel 2.44,
the stone cut out without hands is going to grow and fill the whole earth.
Isn't that what the Old Testament prophesied?
The colored kingdom come is going to sweep away the kingdoms of the Gentiles.
Isn't that what the Old Testament said?
Well then, how in the world can Jesus preach the kingdom has come
and does not immediately lead to the sweeping away of the Gentile kingdoms?
You see, if a man like John would struggle with that,
certainly Jesus' own disciples would not be immune to the same doubts.
Now, may I pause here and say I am not asserting that John the Baptist ever prophesied inaccurately.
All I'm saying is he prophesied with a typical Old Testament perspective,
the flat perspective that did not see the depth of the coming of the kingdom of the prophecies of the New Age.
The question was, you see, how could the all-conquering, glorious, eschatological kingdom of God
be present in the former carpenter turned itinerant preacher and his Galilean followers?
How could that be the all-conquering kingdom of God?
Ritterbos aptly says, and here the two most helpful authors
with reference to the redemptive historical meaning of the parables of the kingdoms
are George Alban Ladd in his New Testament theology
and Herman Ritterbos in his book, The Coming of the Kingdom.
Now, Ritterbos says that the problem addressed is the modality of the coming of the kingdom.
The point is that the common emphasis of these parables is that the kingdom has come and is present,
but that this is inseparably related to its future glorious consummation.
It is present in its initial phase, in other words, in a form mostly unexpected by the Jews.
And that's the common emphasis, I believe, that stands behind each of these parables,
and that's the central mystery of the kingdom, that it comes in two stages.
That's what was hidden from the Jews, because their presupposition was that once the kingdom came,
all their problems were over and the Romans were done for.
And it was that mystery, it was the mystery of finding in Jesus the kingdom of God
that no one believing Jew could understand, in fact, no one believer has ever understood.
Now, secondly, we come to their specific emphasis.
Now we'll look at each of the seven parables briefly.
Each of the parables picks up this common emphasis and elaborates it in its own peculiar fashion.
First of all, you have A, the parable of the four soils.
This parable's emphasis is that the kingdom of heaven is present in the sowing of the word of God.
Lad asserts, the single emphasis is upon the nature of sowing.
Sowing, you see, is the present action of God's kingdom.
Litterbos also elaborates this emphasis.
This emphasis is elaborated in two different directions.
First, you see, the presence of the kingdom is consistent with the rejection of the word
and its consequent fruitlessness in the lives of some will hear it.
If the kingdom is present as sowing, then it is to be expected that some of the seed will be fruitless
and the gospel of the kingdom, the seed of the kingdom, will be rejected by some
because not all seed that's sown is fruitful.
If the kingdom is present as sowing, such fruitlessness is explicable.
Second, the second main point, the presence of the kingdom is yet vindicated
by the amazing fruitfulness of the word in those who receive it.
In those who do receive the kingdom of God, the word of the kingdom,
there is a manifestation of the power of God's word of his kingdom presence
because there you have 30, 60, and 100 fold.
So is the parable of the four soils.
And then secondly, the parable of the tares, perhaps the most crucial
for the redemptive historical perspective of any of the parables.
And this parable elaborates what was implicit in the first one.
The kingdom of God comes in two stages.
It will come as the eschatological harvest one day,
but it must for that very reason come first as seed time.
You see, the point of Jesus is this, if the kingdom is harvest,
if the kingdom is to come as the great harvest at the end of the world,
then it must obviously first come as seed time.
You do not have harvest before you have sowing, and that's the point of Jesus.
Extraordinary as the thought must have seemed to the Jewish mind until that time,
good and evil men will coexist in the world in the time of the kingdom.
Now you see, that's why I assert that this perspective is so critical.
There is absolutely nothing above the trivial in the parable of the tares
unless you understand the redemptive historical situation.
What was a mystery and what was new about the fact that good and evil men
are going to coexist in the world until the consummation of the age?
That's so trivial as to be trite and have no need for anyone to speak it.
And it always had been that way, and so why shouldn't we think that it's always going to be that way
until the consummation of the age?
You see, the parable of the tares is trite.
Now this is the reason why some have found its meaning
in ascribing good and evil mixed together in the church,
because on any other grounds it seemed to them it was trivial.
You see, that was, again, to not only completely misunderstand the redemptive historical situation,
but also to refuse to pay attention to the language of the parable itself
when it says the field is the world, not the church.
The point is this.
It is not surprising that good and evil men coexist in the world,
but it is surprising that good and evil men coexist in the world after the coming of the kingdom.
Now that's surprising.
That would have surprised the Jews.
The Messiah comes first as sower,
and therefore there are weeds among the good seed,
then as harvester.
And you see, here, I think with specific relevance to our present discussion,
the master of the field says, when asked if he wants the tares rooted up,
that it is not his will that the wicked be immediately destroyed.
In that language is the whole heart of the parable,
that it is not God's will, even after the coming of his kingdom,
that the wicked be immediately destroyed.
That awaits the second phase of the coming of the kingdom.
We come to the parable of the dragnet, of course,
which is very similar to the parable of the tares.
And the point of this parable is almost, if not completely, synonymous with that of the tares.
Not only in agriculture, but also in fishing.
Two distinct phases occur.
First there is the gathering, spread out the nets,
then there is the separating.
You drag the net to shore and then you cast away a good fish and a bad fish and keep the good.
You see, and until the time of separation, good and bad fish coexist together in the net.
And that's the point.
Good and bad fish coexist together.
And we come to the parables of the treasure and the pearl.
Two related emphases are present in these twin parables.
First, Jesus intimates that the kingdom is present in a hidden and unexpected form.
Verse 44, the treasure hidden in the field.
Verse 45, finding one pearl.
You see, the kingdom is present, Jesus is saying, but it's present in a form that's hidden.
It's that treasure hidden in the field that's a pearl that you've got to see.
And then second, Jesus declares that in order to possess the kingdom,
there will be the need of total sacrifice to a Jew with ideas of the glorious earthly kingdom.
Possessing the kingdom meant glory, riches, fame, and honor.
Jesus said a flat no to that idea.
Possessing the kingdom would rather mean the total sacrifice of this world's possessions.
It would mean going and selling all that you have in order to possess the treasure and the pearl that you have found.
And then finally, you have the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven.
Now these are perhaps among the most important for our purposes.
And they must not be taken or rusted out of the context that they are placed in in Matthew 13.
The main emphasis of these parables is again that the kingdom comes in two phases.
More especially, Jesus is affirming that the present apparent insignificance,
it's like a little bit of leaven, a little mustard seed,
the present apparent insignificance of he himself and his followers,
Mr. Galilean Carpenter and 12 cohorts,
Jesus is affirming that the present apparent insignificance of he himself and his followers
is no bar to their being the present manifestation of that kingdom which would one day attain supreme dominance.
Jesus' answer is, first the seed, then the tree.
You say, how could that be the kingdom of God?
Well Jesus said, does it seem surprising to you that a mustard seed, the smallest of all the seeds of the field,
could one day be the largest of the garden plants?
Now if that's not surprising to you, why is it surprising to you that I and my followers
could be the present manifestation of the all-conquering kingdom of God?
First the absurdly small bit of leaven in over a bushel of meal and then the whole leaven.
That's the teaching of the parable.
There are two stages in the coming of the kingdom.
The parallel with the parables of the tares and dragnet shows that the ultimate triumph in view,
and this is important, is that of the age to come, the consummate kingdom.
The language of when it is full grown and all leaven is not completely fulfilled until the age to come,
just as the other parables are not completely fulfilled until you have the actual age to come.
The parallel with the parables of the tares and dragnet show that the ultimate triumph in view
is that of the age to come, the consummate kingdom.
It is not the golden age of the post-millennialist.
Now, while rejecting the post-millennial interpretation of these parables,
the question of whether Jesus is here emphasizing the growth of the kingdom must still be answered.
In other words, Jesus' primary stress, especially here in Matthew 13 I'm convinced,
is on the beginning and the end.
But does he also stress the middle period, the growth of the kingdom?
Now, George Eldon Lamb, by the way, rejects the idea.
He says there's no emphasis at all upon the middle period, the growth of the kingdom,
and the parables of the leaven or of the mustard seed.
Well, I argue as follows.
The idea of process or growth, however, demands neither post-millennialism nor evolutionary theory.
There may be progress without post-millennialism.
The framework of seed time and harvest illustrates the idea of a process of maturation.
It is noteworthy, however, that such a process of maturation by itself never brings harvest.
A field may grow forever without evolving into harvest.
There must be the direct intervention of the harvester.
Evolutionary theory is not necessary either.
It is the direct activity of God and his word that brings both growth and harvest.
There is not an imminent evolution but an action of the transcendent God through his word that brings the kingdom,
even in the present age.
And here I want to quote Ritterbosch.
I've been skipping a lot of quotations from Lad and Ritterbosch,
but here I do want to quote him because I think this language is quite important.
What I'm saying is that there's a sense in which there is a commonality between the way the kingdom comes in this age
and the way it comes in the age to come.
And that commonality is that both come by the power of the word of God.
The burning question faced by Jesus,
Yet it is unnatural to have an eye only for the beginning and the end and to eliminate at all costs all that lies in between.
Everything depends, however, upon the idea that is formed of the way in which progress is made from the small beginning to the wonderful end.
For the fact that the final coming of the kingdom is entirely based on God's action
shows that the end is not the completion of an imminent process of development.
And this is also true of the beginning.
The whole of the manifestation of the kingdom is the fruit of divine action.
The seed is the word of God spoken by Christ with authority.
This word of power will one day make all things new.
But between the beginning and the end there's a history.
In this history the word has made progress and has had its effect.
This progress cannot be thought of in the sense of the modern idea of evolution,
but in that of the plan and the work of God.
You see, it's just as much Jesus speaking his word now
as it will be Jesus in that last day that makes all things new by speaking his word of power.
And the gospel is the present manifestation of his word of power.
But, of course, there is a distinction.
Now, I argue that there is the idea of growth here from the following exegetical considerations.
One, the parable of the sower implies the germinal power
and the amazing fruitfulness of the word, Matthew 13.8 and 23.
But you will note that growth and progress there in the parable of the sower
coexist with the reality of fruitlessness.
Second argument for growth is that the parallel occurrence of the parable of the mustard seed Mark 4, 32-32
gives a clear emphasis to the idea of growth because there, in contrast to Matthew 13,
there is the use of three derivative present tenses.
Maybe I should read you that.
In the mark and account of the parable of the mustard seed,
there are three derivative present tenses used to emphasize the idea of present development.
Verse 32,
That's when it is sown. It is growing up and it is becoming larger than all the garden plants and forms
and is forming large branches.
That's an emphasis on the derivative nature of the present tenses there.
So Mark 4, 32 indicates that there's a process of development by the use of those three present tenses.
A third argument for growth in the parables of the mustard seed in 11 is this.
The context of Mark 4, 30-32 points to the idea of growth.
Compare the parable found in verses 26-29.
Well you see there again you have the idea of the ground producing fruit
and the emphasis on the stages of that development seems to be clear in the parable of Mark 4, 26-29.
First the grain, first the head, first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head, and then the consummation.
A fourth argument for the concept of growth in the parable of the mustard seed is found in Luke 13, 18-20.
If you want to turn there you'll see it.
Luke 13, 18-20.
What is the kingdom of God like and to what shall I compare it and then he talks about the mustard seed.
But he does that in the context of verses 10-17.
And verses 10-17 give a marvelous illustration of the present power of the word of God.
The present germinal power of the word of God.
Verse 17, as he said this, all his opponents were being humiliated and the entire multitude was rejoicing over all the glorious things being done by him.
Therefore he was saying, what is the kingdom of God like and to what shall I compare it to is like the mustard seed.
And what says? Because the word of the kingdom has a tremendous present germinal power to grow and to make progress and to work salvation.
That's the point you see.
And so the context of the parable in Luke 13 argues for growth.
And then fifthly, the allusion to these parables, the allusion to such parables as that of the mustard seed in Colossians 1, 6, 10, and 11.
I said there's allusion to the parable of the mustard seed in Colossians 1, 6, 10, and 11 confirms the presence of the growth idea in them.
There Paul speaks of how the kingdom is, how the gospel is making progress and growing in all the world.
And he uses the very word used in the parable of 11, I believe it is.
Oxano, which is used in Matthew 13, 32.
When it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants.
That's the parable of the mustard seed.
The birds of the air come and nest in its branches.
In Colossians 1, Paul uses the term oxano to describe the growth of the gospel.
And he seems to be basing his language on Matthew 13, especially because he uses the word carpophoreto also, which is used in Matthew 13, 23, bearing fruit.
He says the gospel is carpophoretoing and oxanoing in all the world, just as it is among you.
And he seems to be thinking of the language of the parables of Matthew 13.
Alright, so there's the common emphasis, the specific emphasis of each of the parables.
And then we come to the comprehensive teaching.
Comprehensive teaching.
Now, here I'm going to try to draw together some of the major emphasis that we've seen these parables convey very clearly if looked at from the right perspective.
Taken together, these parables understood this way give us a fairly comprehensive view of the kingdom and its coming.
With respect to the prospects of the kingdom during this age, both pessimism and unalloyed optimism must be rejected.
A realistic optimism is, however, warranted by these parables.
Growth and progress will occur, but not such growth or progress as will supersede the problems which confronted the early followers of Jesus and their faith.
For many, the word will continue fruitless.
Good and evil will continue to coexist in the world and in the community created by the kingdom.
In the language of Jesus, they will grow together.
Sacrifice will always be the order of the day for those who would possess the kingdom.
There's always going to be the necessity of selling all that you had to buy the kingdom.
Yet in many, the word will cause extraordinary and fruitful effects and overall growth will continue.
So you see the structure you have here in the coming of the kingdom.
You have the two stages, the first coming of Christ and the second.
See time and harvest.
Suffer and harvester.
You have the continued coexistence of good and evil in the world during the first phase of the kingdom.
Then, and at the same time, you have the coexistence of good and evil, you also have the prospects of the gospel being and the gospel of the kingdom and the kingdom being like a mustard seed and growing.
And then you have the second phase of the kingdom when the good seed is gathered into the barn and the good and evil are separated.
And then you have the consummate kingdom of God where you have only sons of God shining with the glory of the kingdom of their father.
Now this is the overall picture given to us in the parables of the kingdom of the coming of the kingdom.
Now that brings us to the present relevance of all of this and back to where we started.
Now what does all this have to do with the anomaly post-war?
Well, the language of Paul much every way.
Now Gary North, to do justice to him, does emphasize, as I've said, the historical continuity present in these parables.
The idea that between the first coming and second coming you have historical processes uninterrupted by divine intervention.
He does emphasize that. I want to do him justice.
He rejects any premillennial and by implication any post-millennial disruption of the historical continuity which these parables teach will obtain until the absolute confirmation.
He of course also emphasizes the growth of the kingdom, obviously, as is set forth in the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven.
It is however at this point that North's treatment becomes imbalanced.
The fact is that two other ideas are taught very clearly in these parables besides growth of the kingdom.
One is the continuance of evil in the present phase of the kingdom with its concomitant impact on the kingdom of God, i.e. widespread fruitlessness in the preaching of the word and persecution and the necessity of sacrifice in the reception of the word.
And the second idea taught in these parables is the parallel growth of evil during this age.
Let both grow together. This is the special emphasis of the parable of the tares, but is also the implication of several of the other parables.
This growth of evil in this age is also the explicit teaching of other passages in the New Testament, especially 2 Thessalonians 2, 7, and 8.
2 Thessalonians 2, 7, and 8. The mystery of iniquity already works and will work is the implication, I believe, of the passage until it brings forth the man of lawlessness who will be destroyed by the breath of Jesus' parousia.
2 Thessalonians 2, 7, and 8. 2 Timothy 3, 1-13. Evil men will wax worse and worse. All those who will live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted because in the last days, perilous, as the King James Version says, time shall come.
2 Timothy 3, and I want to quote it more exactly for you.
But realize this, that in the last days, the last days of this age, consisting of all those days between the first and second advent of Christ, difficult times will come.
And he describes the kind of men that are going to exist and their terrible wickedness.
And then verses 10 and following, but you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions, and sufferings, such as happen to be at Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra.
What persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord delivered me. And indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
But, evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
Now, I would also add to that Revelation chapter 20, which in spite of the kind of construction which Post-Munelles attempts to put upon it, does assert that in the last day, the nations of the earth, like the sand of the sea, will come up against the camp of the saints.
And when the thousand years are completed, the same will be released from this prison and will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth.
And that doesn't mean the murky backwater someplace. The language is not talking. It's the language of the entire world, every corner of the world.
The four corners of the earth, Dog and Magot, to gather them together for the war. This is the proof of that interpretation being correct.
The number of them is like the sand of the seashore. Is this a converted world?
And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints in the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them.
And then I say, this growth of evil in this age is the explicit teaching of other passages in the New Testament.
You see, it is when North negates these realities by distorting the emphasis on growth in the parables of the kingdom, that he departs from the analogy of scripture.
This distortion and departure becomes evident in a number of passages in his book, Unconditional Surrender. I want to quote a couple of them to you now.
He says, Satan's kingdom is being conquered by the gospel, not by the sheer force of God's angelic host.
The terms of surrender are ethical. The offer of salvation is not being made to Satan's angelic host, but to his earthly troops.
Christians are steadily seeing the defeat of Satan's human forces, for Satan suffers continual defections.
As the power of the gospel increases its zone of sovereign mastery, even more will defect.
He will have only the remnants of an army when the final trumpet sounds. He will be trying to hold the fort in the last outpost, and the gates of hell shall not prevail.
He says, the treaty of peace is extended in his era of millennial blessing, is extended to all areas of those cultures that surrender to God unconditionally.
The whole of society must be put under dominion. Societies can rule under God's sovereign authority, as Israel was called to do, or they can become tributaries to God's conquering kingdom, as the nations far from Israel were expected to do, or else they are to be destroyed.
There is no king's axe, no escape hatch.
Well, I say that, as biblical as the emphasis on growth may be, is when the emphasis on growth is distorted so as to negate the emphasis on the growth of evil that theonomists depart from the analogy of scripture.
Theonomists like North and Rush Cooney refuse to accept the biblical paradox of the parallel growth of good and evil in the present age.
Their dialectic sees only two alternatives, pessimillennialism, as they like to call it, or postmillennialism, optimism or pessimism.
It is because of this artificial dichotomy that Rush Cooney repeatedly lumps amillennialism with the most pessimistic forms of premillennialism.
While it is true that some forms of amillennialism do tend to be quite pessimistic, it is simply false and unfair to dismiss all amillennialism as such.
There is an alternative to the alternating pessimism and optimism of kiliastic expectation. It is the optimistic realism of biblical amillennialism.
Now, one further comment here. I want to say that there is a theological logic behind the parallel growth of good and evil in the present age.
I am afraid that it would be easy just to say that settles it, postmillennialism is wrong, but nonetheless we must face the paradoxical character of our own position and try to understand it.
Do we teach the parallel growth of good and evil? Well, how can you have both things growing at once if good and evil are so antithetical?
There is a paradox in that, and I think the solution to the paradox lies in terms of our understanding of common grace and common curse.
I know I am talking off the top of my head, but this is something that I have been trying to think about.
When the gospel comes into the world, it comes into a world characterized by common grace and common curse.
Now, it does not come into a world that is demonic in the absolute sense of the word. Satan does rule the world, there is a sense in which that is true of course, and he is the prince of the power of the air, but it is also true that Satan's kingdom has not come to its fruition in the world.
And so when the good seed comes into the world, there is a parallel bad seed that is not essentially the same as all the sinfulness of men.
Yes, in the sense that every child of Adam is a son of the devil, but there is still a mystery of iniquity that works, and there is the reality of common grace and common curse which together is strain evil.
Now the point I am making is that the effect of the gospel in the world is going to be to bring men, and this goes back to apologetics, is to bring men to what Van Til calls epistemological self-consciousness.
To make them more and more what they are at base. So the good men become more and more what they are in principle and bad men go from bad to worse.
And while I am sitting here, it is the very presence of the kingdom working in this age that by way of reaction, because of the presence of Satan, produces the growth and maturation of evil.
That is what I am thinking, that is what I am trying to lay out here, albeit I feel like I am groping a little bit.
There is a theological logic behind the parallel growth of good and evil in the present age.
This theological logic, once understood, will tend to remove the appearance of contradiction in the assertion of parallel growth and corroborate it.
Simply stated that theological logic is this, biblically both good and evil are capable of maturation.
Both good and evil are capable of maturation individually, corporately, and historically.
Evil matures as it rejects light and is progressively hardened.
Good matures as it progressively recognizes and rejects evil.
Ergo, therefore, you have the growth of the churches understanding and historical theology.
And at the same time, you have the decline of the cultures of men who have rejected biblical truth and light.
Evil matures as it rejects light and is hardened.
Good matures as it progressively recognizes and rejects explicitly and historically different forms of evil.
You see, it is in the very interaction of light and darkness that this maturing process takes place.
In a certain sense, it is the very growth of good, the more brilliant shining of light which is responsible for driving historical evil to its wicked consummation.
And therefore, I say that there is a deep theological logic in the assertion of parallel growth of good and evil.
Now, for your further reading and interest, this is something that, this is a place where Gary North has broken with Cornelius Van Til.
Gary North is, as I say, common grace eschatology and biblical law, I believe that's the name of it.
It's in the, it's an appendix right now to children's days of vengeance, argued at that point breaks from Van Til's view of common grace.
Van Til's view is what I just told you, that as the light comes into the world, it tends either, it tends to, by this reaction of evil against it, to destroy common grace.
What's happening in the world is that common grace has restrained sin, but only at the cost, in a sense, of making men less epistemologically self-conscious.
But as light comes into the world and men reject it, they become more and more evil.
The common grace that has restrained them is progressively, by the very presence of the light, destroyed, which presses evil to its historical consummation.
Now that's Van Til's perspective. North's perspective is that the light produces more common grace as spin-offs of the gospel in society,
and that eventually historical evil is much restrained by the presence of the increasing common grace of the gospel,
because wicked men want the benefits produced by keeping the law of God, and so they'll conform for a while until there's the final rebellion,
after generations of at least external subservience to the perspective of the law of God's word.
And so he argues that the gospel produces common grace. Van Til argues that, in a sense, the gospel ultimately has the effect in an evil generation,
in people who reject it, of destroying their common grace and bringing them to epistemological self-consciousness and bringing in what Van Til calls the crack of doom.
When a man becomes epistemologically self-conscious, when the humanity rejecting the gospel becomes epistemologically self-conscious, then Van Til says the crack of doom has arrived.
So this thing is related to apologetics and your understanding of a lot of these other issues. Yes, Jim?
When you're talking about the special grace in advance of the kingdom, and when you say that it destroys common grace, you're speaking of certain individuals.
I'm speaking of the individuals who reject it. Who reject it, yeah, because it has an actually enhancing effect on common grace for those who receive it.
Absolutely. Couldn't you just liken this to two opponents fighting? Or maybe there's an oversimplification, but you just think of two people fighting,
and say one guy has the white hat and one guy has the black hat. When the man with the white hat applies more pressure than the man with the black hat, he has to counteract that, and that's what you have going on.
Absolutely. So what you have here, you've got to distinguish if we're correct, and I'm going to invent a little theological terminology, but you've got common grace and common curse occupying the world, for the most part, before the advent of Christ.
But you also have to distinguish common grace and common curse from special grace and special curse, or special evil. I think that probably was predicated in the parable of the terror.
You have evil in the world, you have curse in the world. You have common grace and common curse, but you have good and evil coming into the world in a new form and a new level at the advent of Christ.
You have an evil in the world that has not come to its consummation. You have good in the world that has not come to its consummation.
So I think you have to distinguish not only common grace and common curse, but the entrance of the gospel, and also this mystery of iniquity, however you may want to define it, which is spoken of very clearly in the New Testament.
In doing that, then, you can understand how there can be room for the parallel growth of good and evil.
You see, in one sense, if you say, well, good and evil are going to grow in a parallel way, well, where's the room?
As the good grows, it destroys the evil, or as the evil grows, it destroys the good, but it can't be both ways.
What I'm asserting, and I think the veteran millennials have asserted, is that both are true, and it's in rejecting this biblical paradox that post-millennials get off.
You've got to have room for good and evil to grow together. I'm saying the room is provided by common grace and common curse, which occupy the world at large before the onset of these two principles.
Am I making sense? You see why I have to make that distinction, though. At least I'm theoretically positing it, because you have to have room for the growth of good and evil.
It can't just be evil diminishes at the expense of every growth of good, or good diminishes at the expense of every growth of evil. It has to be both.
Therefore, I'm saying there has to be a context, a world, yes, that lies under the curse, a world, yes, that lies in the hands of the evil one, but not a world that's been brought to its evil consummation by Satan,
and a world that is solvable because of common grace, a world that has not yet come to demonic final judgment, and that provides the context in which both the principle of evil and the principle of good proceed.
I'm trying to just work a little bit with the theological logic that lies beneath this assertion and beneath the language, as I understand it from Matthew 13.
The only alternative to some theological, like what I'm asserting, is either pessimism of whether a premillennial or an unmillennial kind, or the unalloyed optimism of postmillennialism.
You follow me? Well, think about that for a while. There's a lot of food for thought there.
Well, if I kept you, and I think probably though I'm not done, I'm getting close to it though, how about that?
I'll probably be able to finish this in the first hour tomorrow, eight o'clock remember we'll meet, and then maybe we'll get into the anomic ethics for the last two hours.
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