Hudsonville
Protestant Reformed Church
5101 Beechtree,
Hudsonville, MI 49426
Pastor:
Rev. Barry Gritters
Phone: (616) 669-5380
Web: www.HudsonvillePRC.org
Vol. 7, No. 25
Contents:
Postmillennialism
A Promise of Salvation
May We Pray
Against Our Enemies?
Homepage on Internet: http://www.prca.org/
Postmillennialism we have already
defined in an earlier issue as the view that “while (the millennium) may have begun
already, its principle fulfillment is still future, and will be seen only when a period of
unprecedented peace, blessing, and prosperity comes for the gospel and the church.” There are, however, different forms of
postmillennialism.
There is, first of all, the older
postmillennialism of many of the puritans and other modern writers, which expects a great
future work of God among the Jews that will
lead to the conversion of many if not the majority of them.
Some, along the same lines, expect a great end-times revival in the church prior to the coming of Christ, when the
gospel will once again bear fruit as it did in the time of the Apostles and at the time of
the great Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.
There is also a more radical
postmillennialism that has arisen in more recent times, that is a part of what is
sometimes referred to as Christian Reconstructionism or “dominion theology.” This more radical postmillennialism expects not
only a glorious future for the church, but that the whole of society and human life shall
someday come under the domination of Christians, and that this “christianized”
society will be the fulfillment of the Scripture promises concerning the kingdom of
Christ.
This more recent form of
postmillennialism expects that the principal realization of the kingdom of Christ will be in this present world, and that it will come about
not only by the preaching of the gospel and the growth of the church, but by Christian
“action” and involvement in the different areas of life. Most who are of this conviction would insist that
it is essential that Christians be involved in and eventually “take over” the
various areas of society and so claim them for Christ and, as they say, “crown Christ
king in every area.”
The majority who holds these views are
also preterites or preterists, who believe that the whole first part of Matthew 24 (vss.
1-35) and most of the book of Revelation are already past
(preterite means “past”), i.e., that they were fulfilled in the destruction of
Jerusalem by the Roman armies in 70 A.D. Most
of them insist that the Biblical prophecies concerning Antichrist and the great
tribulation are already finished – their rosy view of the church and society’s
future precludes any such belief in an end-times tribulation and revelation of Antichrist.
These same people are also almost
always theonomists (“theonomy” means “God’s law”). They believe that the law of God, including the OT civil laws, will be the basis for
this future Christianized society, this kingdom of Christ here on earth. Not the gospel,
but the law will be the main force in this
kingdom, for while all will not be converted, they will all be brought under the law of
God and the “dominion” of the law.
While we do not agree with the older
postmillennialism of the Puritans for reasons we will explain in a subsequent article, we
have far more problems with this modern radical postmillennialism. We consider it to be an error as serious as that
of Dispensationalism. But, this too we will
deal with in the next article.
Rev.
Ronald Hanko
Without any specific question, a reader
asks that I work out two passages from the prophecy of Jeremiah. It is well to quote the two passages first of all.
“Hear the word of the Lord, O ye
nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will
gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock” Jer. 31:10.
“Behold, I will gather them out
of all countries, whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my fury, and in great
wrath; and I will bring them again unto this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely:
and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: and I will give them one heart, and
one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after
them: and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from
them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart
from me. Yea, I will rejoice over them to do
them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my
whole soul. For thus saith the Lord; Like as
I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the
good that I have promised them” Jer. 32:37-42.
I began my comments on this passage in
the last issue. I pointed out that this was
God’s covenantal promise, though it referred specifically to Judah’s return from
captivity. And I also noted that the
outstanding truth in the passage is God’s great faithfulness against the background
of Judah’s wickedness. Now I must make
some more comments.
One may very well ask the question: Why
was it necessary for Judah to go into captivity? One
may answer, of course: Because of Judah’s sins.
But that is not an entirely satisfactory answer because the question remains: If
God is faithful and preserves His covenant in spite of Judah’s sins, why does God
still require that the nation be 70 years in Babylon?
The answer to that question is this:
God saves His people through judgment! This
is the grand theme of the prophecy of Isaiah when Isaiah is speaking of the captivity:
“Zion shall be redeemed through judgment, and her converts with righteousness”
(Is. 1:27).
The captivity was chastisement upon
Judah for all her sins. It was God’s way
of bringing Judah to repentance. It was the
way of the covenant Jehovah, chastising His people that they might be made perfect through
the instruction and correction of God’s hand upon them.
But even that does not answer the
question completely. Isaiah speaks of Judah
being redeemed through judgment. And so it
always is in the church. God’s covenant
is established only with the elect in Jesus Christ. They
are the heirs of the covenant and of the promises. They
are the seed of the woman-- those who belong to Christ.
Chastisement always has as its purpose
the destruction of sin and the purification of the one being chastised. And so it was with Judah. Judgment came on the whole nation. It was God’s fury on the reprobate element. It was, at the same time, chastisement of His
people. And so two things took place through
the chastisement of the captivity.
The first result of this chastisement
was that the elect remnant was delivered from the reprobate element in the nation. When they went to Babylon, they found there a
satisfactory home because they had no love for God’s promises. And so they stayed.
Only a handful, a remnant according to the election of grace, went back. Thus chastisement separated the elect from the
wicked element in the nation.
The second result was that the elect
themselves were humbled and brought to repentance. That
is, the wickedness in themselves was subdued, eradicated, and driven out of them through
the horrors of the captivity. They remembered
the land of promise. They sword: “Let my
right hand forget her skill if I should not remember Zion (Ps. 137). They, with Daniel, prayed three times a day with
their faces towards Jerusalem, in the hope and longing that God would restore them. So chastisement destroyed the wicked in the nation
and destroyed sin in the elect.
And so it is in all creation. The wheat is separated from the straw and chaff
through the “chastisement” of threshing and winnowing. The corn is gathered through the
“judgment” of being stripped of the stalk, the husk, the cob. The wicked are driven away as chaff before the
wind. The righteous, though brought through
judgment, are preserved unto the harvest.
So it is always with the church,
especially in times of reformation. For Zion
is redeemed through judgment. But God
preserves His cause and maintains His covenant. He
saves His chosen ones, though it be, because of their sin, through the chastisement of
judgment.
We shall return to this passage one more time, so please keep this issue in a place where you can easily find it when the next issue comes out. Prof. Herman Hanko
May We Pray Against Our Enemies?
There
is a point here that needs clarification, we believe.
Psalm 69:22-28 is indeed a prayer for the most horrible judgments against certain
persons. There are several things that need
to be noted, however, about this prayer.
Note,
then, that the prayer of Psalm 69 is Christ’s
prayer first of all. That in itself, of
course, is no answer to the question, since it is also our prayer. Proof
that it is ours is found in the fact that Christ prayed it in the first place through David, and that Paul also prays it in Romans 11:9-10. But, it is important to remember Christ here.
Those
who are prayed against in Psalm 69 both by Christ and His people, are those who crucified
Him (and who crucify Him afresh), never repenting of their wickedness, and thus perishing
everlastingly (vs. 28). Against these same
people the Psalmist speaks in Psalm 139:21-22, revealing a holy hatred as the motive for
such prayers.
Nevertheless,
there is a difference in Christ’s praying this prayer and we praying it. Christ must have had specific persons in mind when
He prayed the prayer of Psalm 69:22-28 for their damnation.
He had perfect knowledge of who God’s elect were and who were not God’s
elect. We do not have such knowledge.
Thus,
we can only pray such prayers generally. We cannot pray them against specific persons,
since we do not know whether those persons will in fact be damned eternally. They may well be among those who shall be saved,
and so we dare not and may not pray that they be damned, as Christ prays in Psalm 69.
There
is another aspect of the matter, however. We
must also be careful that we pray against God’s
enemies and not our own when we pray such
prayers. That is not to say, of course, that
the two are not often the same. God’s
enemies reveal their enmity against Him by hating and persecuting His people, and show
that they are God’s enemies by their attitude and actions in relation to us.
Nonetheless,
that it is God’s enemies we pray against (though only generally), is a reminder that
such prayers must not be motivated by personal animosity or hurt, but by the love of God
and His glory. Personal feelings are not a
proper motive for such prayers.
We
must and can and do pray against the wicked, even though it is a general prayer which does
not think of specific persons, not because they are our
enemies – that does not really matter – but because they are God’s enemies.
They hate Him and rebel against Him and trample His glory, which we love under their profane feet. It is our love for Him, not our desire to avenge
ourselves that motivates such prayers.
Insofar
as they are our enemies we must pray for them. When
Scripture speaks of them as our enemies and
tells us to pray for them, it is reminding us that we do not know their eternal state. They may, in fact, manifest themselves as our
enemies as well as God’s, but nevertheless be among those whom God, by election and
by the atoning work of Christ, counts not enemies but friends. And we are to pray that they may, according to
God’s purpose and grace, be brought into the friendship and fellowship of God.
Rev. Ronald Hanko