Part two of seven. Last week I argued that Christ’s authority extends over the nations and not merely over private belief. What a Christian expects of the future, however, largely determines what he thinks is worth building in the present, and so the argument has to pass through eschatology before it can go anywhere else.

I write as a postmillennialist, and I want to say plainly where that puts me and where it does not.

Eschatology Matters: Are We Building, or Are We Waiting to Leave?

One of the speakers made an observation that I found particularly significant: our eschatology shapes how we approach nationalism, government, and the Christian’s responsibility in public life.

I agree. What we believe about the future of Christ’s kingdom inevitably influences what we believe Christians should be doing in the present.

I approach this question as a postmillennialist. I believe Christ reigns now, that the Great Commission will accomplish what He intends it to accomplish, and that the gospel will have a profound and extensive effect on the nations before Christ returns. I do not expect the church’s historical trajectory to be one of inevitable worldwide defeat, with Christian faithfulness consisting primarily of holding on until we are finally removed from the scene.

That conviction fundamentally shapes how I think about Christian engagement with society.

If we believe the gospel will progressively transform peoples and nations, then Christian political and cultural engagement is not an embarrassing distraction from the real work of the church. It is one of the areas in which the consequences of discipleship must be considered. Christians should be thinking about what faithful obedience looks like in government, law, education, family life, economics, and every other sphere of human responsibility.

The Great Commission is not a command to retreat from the world while waiting for an escape. It is a command to make disciples of all nations and teach them to obey Christ. The Lord’s Prayer does not teach us to ask that God’s will be done on earth only until things become sufficiently bad for us to leave. It teaches us to pray for His kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

This is where I find myself sharply at odds with forms of eschatological thinking that encourage Christians to view cultural decline as inevitable, political faithfulness as largely futile, and the rapture as the ultimate solution to the world’s problems.

If we have already decided that the nations must inevitably descend into greater rebellion until Christ removes His people, it becomes difficult to sustain a compelling vision for long-term Christian institution-building. Why invest in the transformation of a society if we fundamentally expect that society to deteriorate beyond recovery? Why labor for the discipling of nations if our practical expectation is that the nations will remain comprehensively hostile to Christ until the very end?

I recognize that not every premillennialist reasons this way. Many work faithfully in their churches, communities, and professions, and many affirm the importance of evangelism, discipleship, and public service. Nor does belief in a future rapture, by itself, establish that someone is indifferent to the present world.

My criticism is directed at the fatalism that can accompany popular rapture-centered eschatology: the expectation that the world must grow progressively worse, that the nations will ultimately remain hostile to Christ, and that the church’s ultimate hope lies in being removed from the world rather than in the gospel’s progressive work of discipling the nations. When that expectation becomes the lens through which Christians interpret history, cultural decline can become something to anticipate rather than resist. Defeat becomes the expected outcome, retreat becomes easier to justify, and long-term investment in Christian institutions can seem almost futile. I believe that outlook deserves a serious theological challenge. If Christ has commissioned us to disciple the nations, we should be very cautious about adopting an eschatology that leads us to expect the enduring failure of that commission at the level of nations and cultures before He returns.

The hope of Christ’s return should produce faithfulness, not passivity. The certainty of final victory should strengthen our labor, not make it seem pointless. And the promise that Christ will consummate His kingdom should encourage us to work in the confidence that our labor in the Lord is not in vain.

Postmillennialism does not promise that every political campaign will succeed, that every generation will be more righteous than the last, or that Christians can usher in the kingdom through political power. It does, however, give us a reason to expect that the gospel can accomplish far more in history than merely preserving a remnant until the end.

I want Christians to think in terms of generations, not simply escape plans. I want us to build institutions, educate our children, disciple our communities, pursue justice, and consider what it would mean for entire societies to order their lives under the lordship of Christ.

We should not be preoccupied with predicting the date of our departure when Christ has given us work to do.

The question is not merely whether we are ready for Christ to return. It is whether we are faithfully carrying out the work He has commanded us to do while we wait.

Next week: what happens when a people substantially shaped by Christian conviction begins to make its laws.

Above All Rule — part 2 of 7:

1. The Authority That Does Not Stop at the Church Door
2. Are We Building, or Are We Waiting to Leave? (you are here)

Later parts in this series have not been published yet. They will appear here as they are released.