The Gospel Will Succeed

Some of you may recall me talking not too long ago about the end times.

Or not. I haven’t dedicated much blog space to eschatology, to be honest. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think about it once in a while.

Truth be told, I don’t really know where I stand in terms of millennial position or interpretive philosophy when it comes to the book of Revelation. Most of the people I know personally who have actually told me their views believe in a future seven-year tribulation (with the rapture mixed in there somewhere) and a literal thousand-year kingdom before Jesus restores the world fully. That’s definitely the most popular view out there.

Amongst Reformed Christians, however, you find a whole lot of preterists, amillennialists, and postmillennialists. I’m not entirely sure why this is; probably something to do with covenant theology or something.

I’ve found the postmillennial position to be very interesting. It’s the view that, eventually (it doesn’t have to be right now, contrary to popular belief), the Church will succeed in spreading the Gospel to the point where the world will be, for the most part, Christian. I’m not fully convinced it’s the right view because I haven’t done enough research into it, but I find its language intriguing. They tout their view as the most optimistic view and criticize the other views as saying that they believe the Church and the Gospel will fail until Jesus comes to make it right.

Now, I fully agree that the Gospel will succeed, massively so. However, I take issue at this accusation that any Christian could believe the Church will fail because it’s simply not true. It’s another one of those great misrepresentations of views one doesn’t agree with. No Christian thinks the Gospel will fail. No one can possibly read and believe the Bible and come away thinking that the Gospel or the Church will fail.

What was it that God said about his Word? “My word . . . shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isa. 55:11). God’s Word shall succeed in the thing for which he sent it. Not only that, but Jesus sent out his apostles to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). I don’t know about you, but I hardly think that Jesus would send his Church on a mission that they would surely fail to accomplish.

Paul also demonstrates that the preaching of the Word of God is how people come to faith. “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? . . . So faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:14, 15, 17). So God has told us exactly how to reach people: preach. Preaching is how God sends out his Word, and remember that his Word will not return to him empty.

Jesus also added to the Great Commission, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt 29:20). In other words, God himself is on this mission with us. The Holy Spirit dwells in us to enable us to accomplish the mission. So if anyone ever says the Church will fail in her mission, they must also say that God screwed up somehow, or even failed to equip his Church properly despite the fact that he gave us his fully-sufficient Word (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

I believe all of that. And yet I’m not a postmillennialist.

To this the postmillennialist might argue that I’m refusing to accept the implications of any position that is not postmillennialism. However, I would object that, no matter what view you hold, you must believe that each and every person whom God has elected will be saved, and that is God’s victory.

The problem with the postmillennial criticism of other views, it seems, is that it ultimately comes down to numbers. If more people die than are saved, it’s viewed as a failure. But that’s not true at all. The truth is, if God had decided to destroy all of humanity for his rebellion, it would still be God’s victory. If that were the case, it would mean that all God’s mockers got their comeuppance and justice was done. God wins.

But instead, God chose to save some. But we must remember that Jesus himself said, “For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matt. 7:13, 14)? It seems to me like God doesn’t really care about numbers that much. It seems like, in the end, most people throughout history will have gone down into destruction. That doesn’t mean the Gospel will fail. It means that the people whom God elected to be saved will be saved, and the people who spit in God’s face will be punished. God wins.

Now, I’m not discounting the postmillennial position. Like I said, I haven’t done a whole lot of research into it or amillennialism, and I intend to do so at some point. I just find this criticism to be invalid. It’s a misrepresentation and misunderstanding of other views. That doesn’t mean we must see all views as equally valid; they contradict each other, so only one can be true (or perhaps none of them are true and we’ve all got it wrong). But at least have a proper understanding of the opposing viewpoints before you criticize them. That way you can at least make valid arguments.