The NXR Podcast - September 10, 2022


QUESTIONS - Did Early Church Fathers Reject Postmillennialism？


Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

146.91145

Word count

1,339

Sentence count

95

Harmful content

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Is it true that the Early Church Fathers rejected postmillennialism? Is there any evidence of a post-millennial view in the writings of Irenaeus, Augustine, and Athanasius of Caesarea?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 is it true that the early church fathers rejected post-millennialism the answer is no yes in a sense
00:00:09.780 but ultimately no okay so let me read real quick let me read a couple um a couple excerpts that
00:00:17.000 i have highlighted here okay as far as our preserved writings go i just i did all that
00:00:22.780 because i first wanted you to see you know who cares about the church fathers if we're comparing
00:00:27.680 that to the witness of scripture. First, I wanted you to see that postmillennialism, I believe,
00:00:32.800 is in the Bible. And there are multiple other places we could go. Isaiah chapter 65, 1 Corinthians
00:00:36.860 chapter 15. There are many different other things that we could look at. Revelation chapter 1,
00:00:42.300 and we'll look at that here in a moment. First, I wanted you to see it's biblical. Second, I want
00:00:47.000 you to see that it does bear the witness of church history and the early church fathers as well.
00:00:51.860 Here we go. Some things that I want to highlight. As far as our preserved writings go,
00:00:57.080 premillennialism finds a slightly earlier development than postmillennialism. So anybody
00:01:02.400 who says that premillennialism is the earliest in terms of church history, is the earliest 1.00
00:01:07.760 eschatology, they are correct. That's true. However, dispensational premillennialism is 0.99
00:01:14.000 not the earliest. In fact, dispensational premillennialism is only about 150 years old.
00:01:20.000 No one had even heard of that before Darby and the Schofield Bible and these kinds of things.
00:01:25.140 So when people say premillennialism, you need to specify with them, clarify and say,
00:01:30.000 do you mean a historic premill view?
00:01:34.120 Okay, yeah, there's validity there. 0.63
00:01:37.260 I think it's wrong, but it's well underneath the banner of Christian orthodoxy.
00:01:40.880 We can agree to disagree, and it does have early roots in the witness of church history,
00:01:46.480 a historic premillennialism.
00:01:49.180 Dispensational premillennialism, like money is the root of all kinds of evil.
00:01:53.620 the love of money, I should say, is the root of all kinds of evil. And no, I'm not going to
00:01:58.960 dignify dispensational premillennialism. I'm not. And that is not within church history. That is
00:02:04.000 150. It's a, it's a very novel idea. And I think that it is unhelpful and harmful and most
00:02:11.540 importantly, not rooted in the scripture. So the first eschatology that we see in church history
00:02:18.200 is technically premillennialism, but it is historic premillennialism, not dispensational
00:02:24.080 premillennialism. So premillennialism finds a slightly, and it's not much, but a slightly
00:02:29.200 earlier development than postmillennialism, primarily in the writings of Irenaeus. His
00:02:37.800 lifespan was AD 130 to AD 202. AD 130 to AD 202. Okay, let me skip forward here a little bit.
00:02:46.960 but post-millennialism was already anticipated, you could argue, in the early church father,
00:02:54.080 Eusebius of Caesarea. Okay, let me skip a little further now. Let's see.
00:03:02.780 And then origin is probably the earliest that we find the post-mill eschatology. This would be
00:03:08.620 AD 185 to AD 254. So if we want to just simplify it, historic premillennialism, AD 130 to AD 202,
00:03:18.980 the life of Irenaeus. But then later you have Origen, which would be AD 185. So that's only
00:03:27.020 about 55 years afterwards to AD 254. He expected, and this is a quote from him, expected that
00:03:34.540 Christianity by continual growth would gain the dominion over the world. All right, let's continue 0.95
00:03:40.220 a little bit further. I've got some more notes here. Two other prominent church fathers whose
00:03:44.240 historical confidence appears to express a post-millennial view would be Athanasius and
00:03:49.720 Augustine. Athanasius, still very early on, a giant in terms of church fathers, 8296 to 8372.
00:04:04.540 354 to AD 430. Consider one statement from Athanasius. The gospel's great progress is
00:04:15.580 expected according to Athanasius' view of scripture, Isaiah chapter 11, verse 9,
00:04:21.080 Matthew chapter 28, verse 19, John chapter 6, verse 45. Here's the statement from Athanasius.
00:04:27.300 And then from Dan to Beersheba was the law proclaimed, and in Judea only was God known.
00:04:34.720 But now unto all the earth has gone forth their voice, and all the earth has been filled with
00:04:40.120 the knowledge of God. And the disciples have made disciples of all the nations. And now
00:04:45.840 is fulfilled what is written, they shall all be taught of God. That's from Athanasius,
00:04:50.960 four discourses against the Aryans. That's a post-millennial sentiment. Augustine now,
00:04:58.580 turning to Augustine. Augustine teaches that history, here's a quote, would be marked by
00:05:04.720 the ever-increasing influence of the church and overturning evil in the world before the Lord's
00:05:10.240 return. This would eventually, end of quote, this would eventually issue forth a future rest of the
00:05:17.500 saints on earth. That is a quote from Augustine, Sermon 259.2. Okay. It would eventually, this would
00:05:24.220 eventually, the Great Commission would eventually bring about a future rest of the saints on earth 0.88
00:05:29.580 when, continuing the quote now, when the church will be purged of all the wicked elements now
00:05:34.860 mixed among its members and Christ will rule peacefully in its midst. All right. Again,
00:05:41.100 That is a post-millennial idea, and that comes from Augustine.
00:05:46.360 We may also reference, continuing, Augustine's comments on Psalm chapter 2 that I referenced
00:05:52.100 earlier regarding the Lord laughing and mocking the nations.
00:05:56.620 Augustine writes this, commentating on Psalm chapter 2, verse 4,
00:06:00.120 It is to be understood of that power which he giveth to his saints, that they seen things
00:06:05.820 to come, namely that the name and rule of Christ is to pervade posterity and possess all nations.
00:06:13.080 At verse 7 of Psalm chapter 2, Augustine adds, ask of me may be referred to all this temporal
00:06:20.840 dispensation. That just means time period. Ask of me, the command that ask of me and I will give
00:06:27.900 the nations to you, ask of me may be referred to all this temporal dispensation which has been
00:06:34.300 instituted for mankind, namely, that the nations should be joined to the name of Christ, and so be
00:06:41.320 redeemed from death and possessed by God. I shall give thee the nations for thine inheritance, which
00:06:48.080 so possesses them for their salvation, and to bear unto thee spiritual fruit. That's Augustine
00:06:54.540 in the post-Nicaean fathers. All right, in his writings there. We'll continue here in a moment,
00:07:01.160 But the point is this, Irenaeus being probably the earliest that we see within the witness
00:07:10.180 of church history, very clear, not dispensational, but a classic, a historic pre-mill view.
00:07:17.060 He predates, but only by about 50 years, 80-30 is when he was born, 80-85, 185, so just about
00:07:26.860 55 years later, we have origin. And then what we see there is a post-millennial sentiment. And I've
00:07:34.360 already given you some of the quotes from him. And then about 150 years later, and then 200 years
00:07:39.360 later with Athanasius and Augustine, we definitely see a much clearer post-millennial sentiment.
00:07:45.300 And these are two giants within the church fathers still in early church history. So my point is this,
00:07:50.960 for anybody who says that post-millennialism doesn't have any rooting in the church fathers,
00:07:55.240 that it doesn't have really a strong, clear witness within church history, that it's really
00:08:00.020 just a novel, a novel idea, something that came about recently, that's simply not true. First,
00:08:06.100 and most importantly, it is biblical. Second, it does have the witness of church history. It is not
00:08:11.120 the earliest eschatology to come onto the scene, but the latest eschatology to come on the scene
00:08:16.780 that doesn't have biblical support and doesn't have the witness of church history is not
00:08:21.060 post-millennialism, but dispensational pre-millennialism. Big news, really big news.
00:08:28.700 Our next Right Response Conference is in the works. We've got a number of things already lined up
00:08:34.340 and organized. This is what we've got so far. The whole conference, three days long on post-millennialism
00:08:41.040 and theonomy. And the speakers, Dr. James White, Dr. Joseph Boot, Gary DeMar, and of course yours
00:08:49.440 truly, Pastor Joel Webin. We've got a great lineup. We've got great topics. If you want to
00:08:55.160 find out dates and location and registration and anything else, go and visit our website,
00:09:02.040 rightresponseconference.com, rightresponseconference.com.