*Editor’s Note: Below are questions submitted to Dr. Sam Waldron at an Eschatology Conference. Since these questions and answers could be helpful for a broader audience, we are posting them here as a series. Click the following numbers to read other parts of this series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
How do you avoid an implicit sacred-secular divide in your eschatology?
The simple answer here is that I do not avoid such a divide. Neither do I want to avoid a sacred-secular divide. In this world and in this life, some things are holy and other things are not.
The Lord’s Day is holy in a way that other days are not (Rev. 1:10). It is to be kept holy in a way that the other days do not need to be.
The church is holy in a way that the other institutions of human life are not (1 Tim. 3:14-15). The church and neither the family nor the state is the house of God, the church of the living God, and the pillar and support of the truth.
My eschatology teaches me that in the age to come, the holy, New Jerusalem will fill the whole earth as the temple of God Rev. 21:14ff.), but in this age we must live and apply a sacred-secular divide.
In another couple of questions, my interrogator sheds light on where he is coming from in his question that challenges a secular/sacred divide. He asks: “Is it legalistic for a preacher to give application for what the sabbath should look like in the life of a believer? Isn’t all application of the sabbath a matter of Christian liberty?”
Perhaps I am wrong, but this sounds like hostility to any thought that the sabbath is binding on Christians. I deduce this from the implication of the question that all (and thus any) application is legalistic. How can you have a law that cannot be applied? Of course, such an application can go too far and be too precise, but you cannot have a law of God that cannot be applied. That is preposterous.
Is it coherent to affirm Christ’s present kingship while expecting the world to get progressively worse?
A couple of responses to this question seem important to me.
First, the assumption that I believe the world will get progressively worse is a one-sided and unfair characterization of my eschatology. I believe, as Matthew 13:30 teaches, that both the good seed and the bad seed grow together until harvest. This question dismisses my affirmation of the growth of the good seed.
Second, even if that characterization of my views was true—and it is not, Christ’s present kingship is coherent with the worsening state of the bad seed world because I affirm that Christ as king is building His church in such a way that the gates of hell will not prevent its incursions into the city of destruction and the taking of many captives for His glory (Matt. 16:17-18). See my treatment of this in The Doctrine of Last Things, chapter 23.
How do I reconcile amillennial expectations with verses that speak of the earth being filled with the knowledge of the Lord?
I have touched on this before, but this provides another opportunity to correct the bad assumptions of this question.
I reconcile amillennialism with the “knowledge covering the earth as the waters covering the sea” by my doctrine of the redeemed earth. Cf. Romans 8:18-23 and many other passages. It is their failure to reckon with this doctrine that lies beyond the overconfident putting forward of passages like Isaiah 11:9: “They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD As the waters cover the sea.”
In the new earth, this prediction will have become completely and absolutely true. “They will not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain.” Something that cannot be said of the millennium as taught by either post or premillennialism.
Some Postmillennialists snidely say that these passages must be filled in time and on earth. But the redeemed earth cannot be discounted as something not taking place in time and on earth. It emphatically takes place in time and on earth.
If Amillennialism is correct, how do you interpret major, historical Christian victories like the collapse of Pagan Rome or the abolition of slavery? Were these genuine kingdom advances? Why has the gospel repeatedly transformed civilizations if such transformation is not expected?
I certainly acknowledge that the events mentioned were “Christian victories.” But I also recall that the results of these “victories” were not perfection and flawlessness. Out of the ashes of Rome, Roman Catholicism eventually rose. Now we see a flawed understanding of freedom embodied in the LGBTQ movement, which is so horrendously corrupting our society.
I would rephrase the second question. The present manifestation of the kingdom is found in its spiritual and ecclesiastical manifestation, the church. It is not found in so-called Christian nations that have abolished slavery. Whatever good came of the collapse of pagan Rome and the abolition of slavery, they were not “genuine kingdom advances.” They were the cultural result and the common grace overflow of the gospel of the kingdom and of the preaching of the gospel by the church of Christ.
Does Christ’s authority include civil law in any meaningful sense today?
Colossians 2:10 says: “ … and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority.” This means, of course, that all human authority, including civil authority, owes allegiance to Christ. This means, then, additionally, that the civil laws such states make are under His authority.
But the question really raised by this question is this. Does Christ want the Mosaic civil laws implemented in our nations? The answer to this is no. The Old Testament civil law has been abolished. The logic of the old confessions is undeniable, I think. At chapter 19:4, they say: “To them also he gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any now by virtue of that institution; their general equity only being of moral use.”
Further, supporting this view is the teaching of Hebrews 9:19: “For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people …” In its Old Testament context, this refers specifically to the summary of the civil law given in Exodus 21-23. In the context of Hebrews 9:19, the old or Mosaic covenant is obsolete and passing away. This includes its civil laws.
The old confessions go on to say that “their general equity only (is) of moral use.” Civil laws that embody the principles of God’s moral law have Christ’s authority behind them and supporting them.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
