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This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Jeff Banks, Andy Griess and Bruce Peterson.
Jeff Banks
It's good to be back together, guys. Over the last several weeks, we've been in the area of what theologians would call Eschatology, right, and talking about future things. And so Bruce is gonna give us a little bit of a recap of where we've been, and then we'll try to continue and maybe hopefully wrap up our discussion on this.
Bruce Peterson
Yeah, so eschatology is the things of the end, right? How the world's gonna wrap up in this, God's program. We're not in any eternal kind of never ending show. This is gonna wrap up and Jesus is going to reign and be King. And there's much debate over how it's gonna wrap up right? We all want to claim infinite knowledge and perfect knowledge, I think that's probably a stretch. I personally think that God is shifting, I'm broadly speaking a dispensationalist. So I think you have the Jewish nation, then the church, and then we're gonna go back to the Jewish nation. I think Jesus will be the king. We talked about the millennium, that's when Jesus, if you're a dispensationalist, you're gonna think that Jesus is gonna reign physically in Jerusalem, right? On some kind of a throne even right? And He's going to rule the world with an iron scepter. We're eventually gonna get back to the rapture. That's really what this whole thing started with, is the rapture. And so as we've been talking, it turns out Andy is shifting. And so Andy's gonna give us a perspective today called:
Andy Griess
Postmillennial view of the millennium and the kingdom of God, I guess.
Bruce Peterson
Yeah, so that's the same subject and well, I would like to say right front, that I have the absolute deepest respect for Andy and his biblical study and knowledge. And as he was answering questions, even during our discussions of the weeks ahead, I'm like, "Hmm, I never thought about it that way. Oh yeah, I could see how you could take it that way." And so I would like to make a couple points, first off that Andy is not spiritualizing the text in a negative sense. He's addressing the text theologically and this is a huge, very, very important thing to do, is to look at all the texts through the Bible. All the stories of the Old Testament have a theological point, they don't just have a physical point. You know, David didn't just kill Goliath. There's something very theological going on there in that story, and we are supposed to learn something about God. And we're supposed to understand how, theologically God is saying to the Israelites, "I'm gonna deliver you." And this is more than just a battle scene, right? It's just more than that. Oftentimes people read the text in end times stuff and we read it just like it's a story. So we go to a text and this is gonna happen, this is gonna happen, and this is gonna happen. And we're addressing things too. Literally like, prophecy is always mysterious, it just always is. There's a layer that, if you just take it very concretely, you're gonna miss some wonderful stuff. And so Andy's answers have been really challenging to me and looking at the text, so I really appreciate it. And I really would recommend considering deeply the perspective.
Andy Griess
And I'll say this about where I'm at. This is new to me in the last couple of years and I feel like I'm moving into a post millennial view. I'm not sure if I'm there yet, but it's very intriguing to me. So I'm just gonna try to lay out the view as best as I understand in it. And I, by no means am an expert on it.
Bruce Peterson
And this is a broad overview? It's a 10 minute overview of a 20 week study right?
Andy Griess
Right. Yeah, and so I just wanna try to make it make sense to people who are listening, so they could just consider the broad idea of it. I will say though, as we've been talking, I thought I was more on the fence. And then when we talked, I feel like I'm more solid on it. And then this Sunday at AWANA, one of the kids asked me a question and I threw out an answer without even thinking. I was like, "Whoa, that was extremely postcolonial, I didn't have any reservation about that," so maybe I'm less on the fence than I thought. But I didn't know where to start, it's so different from where I grew up. And this picture of the future, the whole book of Revelation being all future post-millennial, it's gonna be a lot different than that. But let me start with, going back to the Old Testament Daniel 2, one of the foundational promises about the Messiah. God gives King Nebuchadnezzar this dream and it freaks him out. He wants somebody to interpret the dream, and Daniel is given that interpretation by God. And he tells him, "You had a dream about a statue. The statue had four parts that represent four kingdoms." The Jews were currently being ruled over by the Babylonian kingdom, and Daniel said, "That first kingdom represents you, Nebuchadnezzar, you are the head of gold." And then the second kingdom that was gonna come, then there's a third kingdom and a fourth kingdom. And when you trace it, it's very clear that the Babylon kingdom ruled over Israel, then the Persians ruled over Israel. Then the Greeks ruled over Israel, and then the Roman empire ruled over Israel. And at the end of that dream Daniel said to him, that in the days of that fourth king, that's when the Messiah is gonna come. So it gives the people of Israel, a very clear timeline of when Messiah's kingdom was coming. And this is why when Jesus was born, the Roman empire had just taken over the Greeks and now everybody in Israel is on edge. They're waiting for a Messiah, cause he could be in any day because of that prophecy from Daniel. And specifically at the end of that prophesy in Daniel 2:44 he says, "In the days of those Kings," that Kings of the fourth kingdom, "the God of heaven will set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed. And the kingdom shall not be left to other people. It shall break in pieces and consume all these other kingdoms and it shall stand forever. This kingdom is pictured as a stone that's been cut out of a mountain. It crashes into the statue, obliterates the statue and it starts out as a stone and it grows to be the size of a mountain. And then it grows to fill the whole earth." And I think maybe that's the best picture that I can give you for what the post millennial view is. That when Jesus came in the first century, He came to establish a kingdom and He did establish that kingdom. And that kingdom is in the process of filling the whole earth. And so that's the picture in a nutshell.
Bruce Peterson
There's 2 billion people right now who have called Jesus, God, right? That's a lot.
Andy Griess
Yeah, if you see in the book of Acts, what they started with and what it's become over 2000 years, that there are, I was thinking about today, our nation. We have people worried about losing our Christian heritage and I'm thinking, the original disciples of Jesus, if they knew that there were nations decrying that they're losing their Christian heritage. They probably wouldn't even have known that America, this place even existed on the Earth. And these people are now thinking, "Oh we're losing our grip on our Christian heritage." There's other nations right now that are building their own Christian heritage that would've been wild to them, and they would've said, "Yeah, I guess this is gonna fill the whole earth." So I think that's the picture.
Bruce Peterson
I would agree with all that.
Andy Griess
Yeah and then in Matthew 12, there's a place where Matthew quotes from Isaiah 42 and says, "Behold, my servant who I have chosen. My beloved in whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my spirit upon him. He will declare justice to the nations. You will not quarrel or cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed, he will not break, smoking flax he will not quench. Until he stands forth justice to victory, and in his name again, the nations will trust." Right after Matthew quotes that, Jesus heals this man who is demon possessed, blind and mute. And this is where the Pharisees say, "Your power to do these miracles does not come from God, it comes from Satan." And Jesus' comment then included; He says, "If I'm casting out demons by the spirit of God, you can be sure that the kingdom of God has come upon you." And then He talks about, "How can anyone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first finds the strong man." And so He's saying, if these miracles didn't come from Satan, if they really did come from the holy spirit, you better believe the kingdom is here. And then He talks about the binding of Satan. I think that parallels pretty nicely with Revelation 20, this picture of Satan being in the abyss for a thousand years, so that specifically, he will not be able to deceive the nations any longer. So now Satan has been bound and the gospel is gonna go forth. You know, Jesus and His great commission. That I think is the distinctive of where, even if I don't end up believing post millennialism is a hundred percent true, I wish that it was. Because it's the one view that treats the great commission as if Jesus intended the church to be successful at it. If He says, "All authority in heaven and on earth belongs to me. Therefore, because all authority belongs to me go preach the gospel, make disciples of the nations." The Old Testament is just filled with these pictures of the New. The Messiah's kingdom being, not just for the Jews only, that it's too small of a thing. I think of Isaiah 49, "It's too small of a thing for my servant to just benefit the Jews. He's gonna be a light to the Gentiles and he's gonna bring salvation to the ends of the earth." It's just all over there in the Old Testament. This is for everybody, this kingdom is for everybody. So Jesus says "The kingdom's here, go get 'em." And that's the Postmillennial view, is that we are part of Jesus' growing kingdom. You know, you talked about it being like a mustard seed that's gonna grow to be the largest tree there is. It's like a little bit of yeast that you hardly can tell it's there.
Bruce Peterson
How does it end? How does the time just run out?
Andy Griess
No, no, no. That's first Corinthians 15 talking about how, just as death came into the world through one man, so the resurrection is gonna come through Jesus. And so Jesus has come, his resurrection guarantees There will be a resurrection for all of us. And then what does he say? 1 Corinthians 15:24, he's gonna end up quoting from Psalm 1:10, which is like the most often quoted Psalm verse in the whole Bible. It's about Jesus sitting at God's right hand until He makes His enemies His foot stool. 1 Corinthians 15 He says, "Then comes the end when He will deliver the kingdom of God to the father, when He puts an end to all rule and authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all of His enemies under His feet. Then the last enemy that will be destroyed is death, for He has put all things under His feet." So the picture is, the kingdom of God is going to continue its work of reaching the nation's, bringing the nation's into the kingdom. I believe that the church very well could be in its infancy. We could just be still in the process of figuring this out, it could go for a long time.
Bruce Peterson
That was so hard for me, but yeah, I get it.
Andy Griess
And eventually the world will see, eventually the Jews are going to see how much God has blessed all of these other nations. The Jewish nation will look on the one whom they pierced and they're gonna come to him---
Bruce Peterson
Through his bride.
Andy Griess
Through the church. And they're gonna join the kingdom the same way we joined the kingdom. It's that picture from Romans that we were grafted in as Gentiles and just like they were taken out, they can still be grafted in. Then that picture is going to happen, that's the picture. And when that does, then there's a picture in Revelation 20 about Satan being released for a time to deceive the nation. So once again, it's not gonna be every single person on earth that's gonna be part of this.
Bruce Peterson
That's gonna be my next question. Like you still end up with a bunch of unbelievers, so does the gospel just have to get to the nations? Does each nation have to get dominantly Christian? What does success look like?
Andy Griess
I think success looks like, the kingdom of God becomes so much a part of this world and blesses enough of this world that finally, the Jewish nation realizes, "We can't miss out on that." And so until they turn, then at some point after that, that's presumably when Satan will be released to do his thing and there will be a final---
Bruce Peterson
Because then that would represent the fullness of Gentiles, which would've brought the Jews back in. So now you have the sons of Joseph with the other natural tribes of Israel, kind of coming back together and at any time after that, it could end with, "Okay and we accomplish---
Andy Griess
Then Jesus returns. When all of His enemies have been sufficiently put under His feet, where He rules the nation and He's accomplished what He's meant to accomplish through the church. And the great commission has been successful and victorious, then Jesus will return. And the eternal state we'll be in at that point.
Bruce Peterson
It would be His kingdom, it would just be the eternal perfected kingdom. Cause even dispensationalists have that millennial kingdom just rolling right into the eternal one.