Many contemporary Christians dismiss the very possibility of postmillennialism. And too often because of the newspapers. What they should be doing is reading the Scriptures. God’s word is powerful in controlling the world through his providence. God’s word providentially upholds the Universe through the continued application of its inherent power. The God of Scripture is [...]
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The various divine covenants are “the covenants of the promise” (Eph 2:12). The covenant concept runs throughout Scripture. It frames God’s creational process, structures his dealings with man, and, most importantly for this book’s thesis, insures his divine program’s success in history. This program is not about the defeat of Christ’s redemptive work in history. [...]
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The covenantal foundation of eschatological hope encourages our anticipating God’s historical blessings in time and on earth. The biblical worldview concerns itself with the material world, the here and now. We see Christianity’s interest in the material here and now in God’s creating the earth and man’s body as material entities, and all “very good” [...]
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Due to Scripture’s covenantal emphasis, man’s obligations are not fundamentally individualistic, but rather corporate. As we shall see in later chapters, this fits well with a postmillennial eschatology and its strong view of social responsibility. Here I will briefly outline the case for covenantalism’s societal obligations. God purposefully creates man as an organic, unified race. [...]
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We may trace Scripture’s unity through the unity of the covenants, which set forth the overarching Covenant of Grace. The heart of God’s “covenants of the promise” (diathekon tes epaggelias, Eph 2:12) is: “I will be your God and you will be My people.” This idea occurs many times in Scripture. God establishes his redemptive [...]
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We must even understand the world’s creation in terms of covenant. The creation account portrays a covenantal transaction, even though it does not employ the word “covenant” (berith). I argue this on three important bases. First, the “basic elements of a covenant are imbedded in the Genesis account,” even though the word is lacking. When [...]
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The Bible is very much a covenant document, as even a cursory reading demonstrates. The biblical words for “covenant” appear often in Scripture. The Hebrew berith occurs 285 times in the Old Testament, while the Greek word diatheke appears thirty times in the New Test-ament. Thus, we might well state that “the Biblical category which [...]
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In Scripture the covenant structures God’s relationship with man and exercises a dominant influence on the flow of redemptive history. It is, in fact, “one of the most important motifs in biblical theology.” Indeed, biblical theology shows that “redemption and eschatology are co-eval throughout biblical history.” We see this illustrated, for example, when the Lord [...]
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In a recent series on postmillennialism’s promotion of human culture and art, I noted that Christians may produce images of Jesus (though not for adoration or worship). I argued that such pictures are images of his human nature and form and not images of God himself. One concerned reader, Vaughn Hamilton, has offered a lengthy [...]
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The new creation is an important feature of biblical eschatology. In fact, it is the ultimate goal of history. However, most Christians have a very limited understanding of the new creation and therefore are not able to really appreciate its glory and significance. This lack of understanding is related to the fact that oftentimes non-postmillennial [...]
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KINGDOM LEAVENThe Parable of the Leaven reads: "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid i...
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