Stop Calling Postmillennials "Judaizers” - Part 3

Part 3: The Postmillennials Rightly Read and Interpret The Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24:37-39

Later in the same section, Dr. Clark quotes Matthew 24:37-39 and then says, “The postmillennial hermeneutic typically requires us to read the Old Testament either in isolation from the New or in a way that the New Testament writers do not. In either case, it is not a tenable way of reading the Old Testament. Certainly the Old Testament is replete with promises of a future earthly glory. The question is: What did the New Testament do with those promises and how should we understand them now?” Much ink has been given to explain the partial preterist view of Matthew 24. Which suggests that the reference to Noah having first-century meaning has always been a legitimate understanding of the Olivet discourse. That said, I do believe that this has a first-century meaning AND also a last-hour meaning. Furthermore, there is a connection between Noah and the first century as well as the last hour. Dr. Clark loves to throw this verse at the Post-Mill guy; however, there are a few important things to notice here that do not help his exegetical case at all (Dr. Clark is a church historian, not an exegete). This passage says nothing about permanent and regular conditions; it simply speaks to the last hour and partially to the first century. Nothing in Matthew 24 would negate a progressive success of the gospel in the time period when Satan is bound. Nothing in this text demands a perpetual, indefinite, and growing state of apostasy between Christ’s first and second comings. Nothing in this text tells us how many will be saved and how many are lost the moment Christ returns. The final judgment of the unbelieving does not say anything about the impossibility of a mass amount of redeemed saints. Christ does not compare the time of Noah with His return numerically but rather situationally and circumstantially. Notice what Jesus says about the correlation to the days of Noah in Matthew 24:38, “For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” The correlation to Noah is not numerical but rather it’s about an unexpected catastrophe. Jesus did not say that just as there were less than ten people left in Noah’s day there will be less than ten left on the last day; He says the judgment will be catastrophic and sudden and in the midst of life being normal. If you play the numbers game with the Noah reference as the exegetical point you sound ridiculous. The connection to Genesis 6 does not make an exegetical case for why the gospel will not prevail around the globe and gather the nations during the period in which Satan is bound. Dr. Clark reads his pessimism into the text and then demands that we all see something which is not there and then calls us Jewish pre-mills for not seeing what is not there.