Stop Calling Postmillennials "Judaizers” - Part 4

Part 4: Pessimistic Amillennials Misunderstand, Misinterpret, and Selectively Read Calvin and the Historic Confessions.

Dr. Clark then cites the Lutherans as his allies by saying, “Were the Reformation-era Protestants pessimistic? In Article XVII of the Augsburg Confession (1530), the Lutherans confessed, “[The Lutherans] condemn also others who are now spreading certain [Jewish] opinions, that before the resurrection of the dead the godly shall take possession of the kingdom of the world, the ungodly being everywhere suppressed.” From the Reformed perspective, citing the Lutherans does very little to further his case for the great commission being the great exception and great secret among the nations. The Calvinistic tradition has a very different view of God’s law (meaning we emphasize third use in ways the Lutherans do not) as well as God’s kingdom. It is not wise to cite Lutherans to those who are Westminster Reformed to make a case for the “Reformed” position. In the WLC Question 54 the Divines say that Christ, “subdues their enemies.” Subduing our enemies means that they decrease while we and our cause increase. WLC Question 191 says, “that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed, the gospel propagated throughout the world, the Jews called, the fullness of the Gentiles brought in, the church furnished with all gospel-officers and ordinances, purged from corruption, countenanced and maintained by the civil magistrate.” The Scottish Reformed position is unequivocally optimistic about the ongoing and increasing success of the gospel in the world (as well as its effects in the civil sphere) and the ongoing incremental dilution of the kingdom of darkness. Notice that Dr. Clark will never quote the Westminster Standards to make a case for why the truly Reformed are the kind of Amillennial that he is. Instead, he quotes Lutherans. The Reformed tradition from Westminster Abbey is not your ally in making a case for Christ being an invisible winner and/or a visible loser and still somehow ruling and reigning in victory. Dr. Clark then quotes the second Helvetic Confession to show that this perspective is not simply valid among Lutherans but also among the Swiss. If you take a close look at church history you will find that the meaning of statements such as these has a very particular purpose. The Reformed wrote these kinds of statements to address the fanatical, heretical Anabaptists who believed that they could either create a Christian utopia in some kind of Christian compound and/or believed that they could create a Christian utopia by plundering a city. Destruction of creation to set up the Kingdom of God was their eschatology; contrary to the chiliasts being targeted by the Swiss, the Westminster Reformed believed that God’s Kingdom renewed creation. The Reformed Postmillennial believes that grace renews creation while the Anabaptist (being addressed by the Swiss) believes that grace destroys creation. The Anabaptist Eschatology was about how a spiritual Kingdom on earth would be established by destroying creation. The Postmillennial Reformed tradition is about as relevant to this (2nd Helvetic) as Antinomianism is to the Calvinistic doctrine of perseverance. Notice the first phrase in Dr. Clark’s quote that says, “We also condemn those who thought that the devil and all the ungodly would at some time be saved, and that there would be an end to punishments. For the Lord has plainly declared.” Did you catch that? Dr. Clark is quoting someone who is rebuking a group of heretics who believe in some kind of universalism. And, intriguingly, he makes a connection between that group and the optimism of the Divines and Post-Mills like myself. Also, notice how the quote from the Second Helvetic Confession says, “We further condemn [Jewish] dreams that there will be a golden age on earth before the Day of Judgment, and that the pious, having subdued all their godless enemies, will possess all the kingdoms of the earth.” The Swiss are addressing people that have a Jewish view of the Kingdom where the pious will subdue their enemies. They are rebuking people that have a Barabbas-like view of the Kingdom where the Jews take up arms to conquer their enemies (quacked Anabaptists). The Swiss are not talking about the Postmillennial view which speaks to how Christ conquers the nations with the gospel ministerially via the New Jerusalem. To compare the Swiss rebuke of the fanatics who seek to revive a Jewish empire by force to the Postmillennial position is dishonest and frankly absurd. Dr. Clark’s usage of this as proof of how the Reformed saw Post-Mills as “earthly” has no relevance to the conversation. Anabaptists' anti-creational Chilianism has nothing to do with the Reformed Post-Mill, pro-creational view of the Kingdom.

But wait, it gets worse. Later Dr. Clark writes, “What the postmillennialists call ‘optimism’ we might better call, in the broad sense, Judaizing. That is the point the Lutherans and the Swiss Reformed (and Calvin and others) were making when they denounced this glory-age thinking. For them, it was the transposition of Jewish expectations into the Christian eschatology.” Here Dr. Clark brings Calvin into his version of Amillennialism and also in his denunciation of Postmillennialism. Let's follow Dr. Clark here. Postmillennials believe that the gospel will be increasingly successful and that the power of new life in the people of God will positively (not perfectly nor in some linear uninterrupted sense) affect society. Dr. Clark believes that this is Judaizing and that Calvin would call us “glory theologians”. Dr. Clark is brilliant but he tends to read himself back into what others write to make a point that they would never make. Let’s read what Calvin has to say on the issue, shall we? Calvin writes that the goal of civil government is, “to cherish and protect the outward worship of God, to defend sound doctrine of piety and the position of the church" (Institutes 4:20-2). He also writes, “Let no man be disturbed that I now commit to civil government the duty of rightly establishing religion.” (Institutes 4.20-3). And lastly, he states, “All I have confessed that no government can be happily established unless piety is the first concern.” (4.20-9). If you think that Calvin is someone who loses his Ecclesiological distinctness and Christological grounding due to these quotes listen to this, “Though godly Kings defend the kingdom of Christ by the sword, still it is done in a different manner from that in which worldly kingdoms are wont to be defended; for the Kingdom of Christ, being spiritual must be founded on the doctrine and power of the Spirit”(Calvin’s Commentary on John). Calvin clearly states that the Kingdom of Christ is spiritual and doctrinal and yet he believes that its power and effects will permeate a society nonetheless. A spiritual Kingdom that is heavenly, eschatological and that is felt in the social sphere, is good old-fashioned Reformed Calvinism, not Judaizing. To emphasize the point further, in writing to the King of France Calvin states, “Our doctrine must stand sublime above all the glory of the world, and invincible by all its power, because it is not ours but that of the living God and His anointed, whom the Father has appointed king that he may rule from sea to sea, and from the rivers even to the ends of the earth; and to smite the whole earth with and its strength of iron and brass, its splendor of gold and silver, with the mere rod of his mouth, and break them in pieces like a potter’s vessel; according to the magnificent predictions of the prophets respecting His kingdom (Dan 2:34; Isaiah 11:4; Ps 2:9)” (Institute of the Christian Religion: Introduction). Dr. Clark’s referencing Calvin to make a case for the success and effects of the gospel in the spheres of life as a biblical expectation to be likened to some Jewish, glory-age is nonsense! Also, notice how Calvin interprets the Prophets and applies them to society in the same way the present Post-Mills do (and in a way that Dr. Clark says is a Judaistic reading of the Bible).

Calvin believed that the spiritual Kingdom of Christ affecting the surrounding societal spheres was not Judaistic but rather Augustinian. It was Augustine, after all, that told the civil magistrate to use their authority to restrain the madness of the Donatists. Calvin believed that the gospel should comprehensively stand head and shoulders above everything, everywhere,and that Christ would progressively crush the opposition of everything, everywhere. Calvin believed that Psalm 2 was not spiritualized in the New Testament to mean anything more than that God would save some marginalized, privatized remnant. This shows that Calvin believed that when the Psalmist said nations and kings it simply meant nations and kings. To Calvin, this was not about earthly glory or Jewish empires but about the glory of God’s eschatological Kingdom glorifying God in all the earth. Furthermore, Calvin wrote his Institutes about the Christian faith to the King of France so that the king in the society, social, and civil sphere would acknowledge Christ as the establisher and ruler over thrones, rulers, and nations. Clearly, Calvin believed that before Christ returned the gospel would advance in such a way that it would affect societies, nations, and kings and not merely some obscure, marginalized, individuals scattered secretly as they await for Christ to return while all society is autonomously governed merely by pagan common sense and an ever-increasing amount of unbelievers. If you believe that, you do not write theology books with revelational truth to civil figures. Instead you just quote Romans 13 (as Dr. Clark does) to the modern-day Postmillennial follower of Calvin and call him a Premillennial chasing an earthly kingdom (and then claim to be representing Calvin). What Calvin was simply doing what Luke did with Acts (written to the most excellent Theophilus). Which was to tell the kings about the Kingdom of God as they kiss the Son soteriologically as well as in their societal domain.