Postmillennialism
(Counterfeit Preterism)
Postmillennialism is a form of futurism that masquerades as preterism. Its adherents believe most of Revelation has been fulfilled. Although this position is an improvement over many teachings placing all of Revelation’s fulfillment in the future, postmillennialism is still futurism. Postmillennialists believe we are living in the period briefly referred to as the “thousand years” (Rev. 20:2-7) and await the return of Christ, Resurrection of the Dead and Judgment. However, their one-thousand-year period has already spanned almost two thousand years. So, the era has been disguised with the less conspicuous, but unbiblical term millennium.
In his book Postmillennialism: An Eschatology of Hope (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1999), Keith A. Mathison of Ligonier Ministries presents his position:
“An essential doctrine of postmillennialism is that prior to the Second Coming, the messianic kingdom will grow until it has filled the whole earth” (p. 191).
Obviously, this position must be called futurist. However, since postmillennialists believe, unlike so many others, that most of Revelation has been fulfilled, they consider this sufficient to refer to themselves as preterists. They often refer to their view as orthodox preterism based on its conformity to uninspired creeds composed hundreds of years after the Bible was written. In Mathison’s multi-authored book When Shall These Things Be? (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2004), Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr. says he is a preterist “in the historic and orthodox sense of the term” (p. 3). But how anyone still waiting for the Second Coming, Resurrection of the Dead and Judgment can think those of his persuasion have exclusive rights to a term which essentially means already past is a mystery to me. So, I reject Gentry’s claim to the term preterist and claim it for those who believe that all Bible prophecy has been fulfilled. On this website, postmillennialists are futurists.
Genuine preterism traces its roots all the way back to biblical times; to the inspired words of Jesus and his “holy apostles” (Eph. 3:5) who, without exception, predicted a first-century Second Coming of Christ. Full-preterism — the belief that all prophecy has been fulfilled — is the only truly orthodox preterism. Anything else is not preterism at all.
Postmillennialism faces a crisis as genuine preterists continue to aggressively expose fatal flaws in the teachings of Mathison, Gentry and other prominent postmillennialists. See The Twilight of Postmillennialism.
Read about The Twilight of Postmillennialism at Amazon.com.
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