Beloved,
I was reminded after last Sunday evening’s sermon that not everyone shares my eschatological views. That is easy to forget since they seem so biblically straight-forward to me!
While I wish all would come to espouse the already-not-yet, happy optimism of amillennialism, part of the not yet of my position is that the church is not yet perfected in doctrine and life. So here we are with different convictions surrounding the interpretation of some of the most difficult passages in the Bible.
There is a reason why the Westminster Standards only set forth the basic and broad strokes of biblical eschatology. There is no possible way the over one hundred members of the assembly could have agreed on more than that! The confession is intended to be a unifying document that leaves room for different perspectives on less fundamental truths. Not all doctrinal matters are of “first importance” (1 Cor. 15:3). Here is how Calvin puts it:
“For not all the articles of true doctrine are of the same sort. Some are so necessary to know that they should be certain and unquestioned by all men as the proper principles of religion. Such are: God is one; Christ is God and the Son of God; our salvation rests in God’s mercy; and the like. Among the churches there are other articles of doctrine disputed which still do not break the unity of faith” (Institutes, 4.1.12).
Some matters pertaining to eschatology are of first importance. For example, if you are a full-preterits and deny the second coming of Christ, you are a heretic. But when it comes to the details of His coming and the details of what precedes and follows it, we are talking about secondary matters that ought not to break the unity of faith. I do not love premillennialism or postmillennialism, but I can love and be united in the bonds of peace with a premillennialist or a postmillennialist so long as they love the Lord Jesus in truth. Listen to Spurgeon on the matter:
“Where the Spirit of God is there must be love, and if I have once known and recognized any man to be my brother in Christ Jesus, the love of Christ constraint me no more to think of him as a stranger or foreigner, but a fellow citizen with the saints. Now I hate High Churchism as my soul hates Satan; but I love George Herbert, although George Herbert is a desperately High Churchman. I hate his High Churchism, but I love George Herbet from my very soul, and I have a warm corner in my heart for every man who is like him. Let me find a man who loves my Lord Jesus Christ as George Herbert did and I do not ask myself whether I shall love him or not; there is no room for question, for I cannot help myself; unless I can leave off loving Jesus Christ, I cannot cease loving those who love him….I will defy you, if you have any love to Jesus Christ, to pick or choose among His people” (sermon 668, “Unity in Christ”).
As I’ve reflected on these words this week, it has stirred up within me a strange kind of gratitude for our eschatological squabbles. For it is easy to love those who are just like us. But it is in our disagreements over secondary and tertiary matters that we have a grand opportunity to display the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace!
This doesn’t mean how we understand Matthew 24 or Daniel or Revelation is inconsequential. Ideas have consequences, and wrong expectations regarding the future can have dire consequences. But it does mean that though the differences are significant and worth squabbling over in love, we mustn’t loss the “warm corner in our hearts” for brothers and sisters who hold to divergent millennial positions (or perhaps don’t have a clue what the millennium is in the first place!).
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Nick