I know that I haven't posted in nearly a year, but I was emailed today by someone who asked me why I had not. I actually logged in just to see when I had last posted anything. While searching on the PB I ran across a thread about the lack of postmil baptists. My name was mentioned as an example of a baptist amiller.

So I just felt that I might post this to clear the record about me: I am probably considered more postmil than amil by those who know the difference. Yes, as many of you know, I was trained in Premil theology as a Southern Baptist, but eventually reformed my eschatology. I am still a Southern Baptist but have biblically journeyed far away from premil theology.

Now let me try to be a clear as possible. You know how much I absolutely love discussing theology. Even more so, I love teaching it. Even more so, I love learning theology. I really am blessed to be called by God to devote my life to studying and teaching His Word! And after more than twenty years of ministry I am still being transformed by and reformed to His Truth. I am often humbled as I open the sacred Scriptures and find myself in a fresh season of learning something new about our Lord. And when I get opportunity I try to preach and teach and write from an overflow of joy that has poured into my heart from the Spirit.

I try my best, against the limitations of my humanity and the failings of my own flesh, to effectively communicate that which I have come to understand by the Spirit's power. I long to share what I see in Scripture; and to guide others in exploring God's Word for themselves. Much of the time, I have felt gifted in teaching others. It is definitely a gift and not a skill since the subject matter is spiritual.

Nevertheless, I cannot begin to tell you how often my blog readers ask me, "Okay Jason, what do you believe? Are you Postmillennarian? Are you Amillennarian? Just tell us and be done with it."

Well, the truth is I have found labels to be inadequate. Sure, in the past I have used them to define my theological positions. Labels seem to be a short-hand way of describing one's beliefs. Even more, they seem to be a way of letting people know what you don't believe.

For example, I am baptist. What does that tell you? Well the only thing it really tells you is that I don't baptize infants.

I am also a Calvinist. What does that mean? Am I a five-pointer or not?

So what about my view of eschatology? Everyone who reads my blog knows that I, like most baptist, was trained in various schools of premillennial thought. I studied Dispensationalism and rejected it, yet I was never really taught anything other Premillennial theology.

A time came in my life that, while studying church history, doing a thorough exegesis of John's Gospel, studying the dating of the Book of Revelation (specifically preterism), and studying the history of Calvinism, I discovered Covenant Theology. My life was radically reformed. My theology became consistently biblical and theologically comprehensive: my soteriology became fully comprehensive, my ecclessiology became rooted in the entirety of Scripture rather than just the New Testament, and my Theology Proper, even Trinitarianism, truly took its rightful place of preeminence above all things.

The question still remains: what label best describes my eschatology? I am definitely Covenant and Reformed and Baptist and Calvinist. But am I Amillennarian or Postmillennarian?

Sadly, I find those two labels have been distorted by various factions so much that they each have become inadequate when standing alone. Like trying to define Premillennialism, these two reformed perspectives of eschatology just can't be easily defined anymore because they have been revised and corrected and matured over the years.

I know what I believe the Bible teaches about the end times. And what I believe isn't new, nor does it stand alone apart from these two. In other words, I haven't discovered some new system of end-time theology that no one else has ever understood. Not at all. My eschatology is actually very historical and orthodox. I believe what most orthodox Christians have believe throughout church history.

But here is the problem with labels:
I am postmillennarian when it comes to the nature of the kingdom. But I am amillennarian when it comes to the start of the kingdom and its length. I am postmillennarian when it comes understanding that Jesus will return at the end of the "millennium." But I am amillennarian when it comes to understanding that the "millennium" is not actually a literal thousand years but is the biblical description of the New Covenant ministry of the Church in which we live. I am postmillennarian when it comes to understanding that the Bible is the sole source of human ethics, which is also known as theonomy. But I am amillennarian when it comes to fact that I do not believe that there will be some future "Golden Age" where this cursed world will someday operate according to Biblical law and be filled with a universal development of Biblical theocratic republics where unbelievers will be punished by death. Simply put, in the Covenantal sense I am generally postmillennial, with a historical amillennarian perspective of the starting point, nature and length of the "millennium," and convinced of an early dating of Revelation.

Don't misunderstand me: As you can tell, I know exactly what I believe, and I have based my beliefs on the Bible itself and affirmed them by centuries of theologians smarter than I. I am not confused; it is the labels that are confusing. I am not bouncing back and forth on my view of eschatology based on the latest best-sellers or conference speakers. I am firmly confident in my beliefs, convinced by Scripture and plain reason. But I am frustrated with the inadequacy of labels, for their constantly changing definitions makes it difficult to effectively communicate my convictions. I know that I am not alone in my frustrations! Such is the theological quagmire of our generation.

All in all, I would probably be technically considered a postmillennarian baptist.

I simply take the Bible for what is actually says at face value.
I believe God made promises in the Old Testament and kept them in the New Testament.
I believe Jesus came, died, rose again, and ascended to the throne as God had planned.
I believe that Jesus ministers to this world through is spiritual body the Church, spreading the gospel to all the nations of the earth.
And one day Jesus will return again to judge the living and the dead, and then He will remove the curse of sin from the world, and His redeemed shall inherit it forever in a glorified existence.

So am I just a biblicist? (Ha, I had to throw that in!) Why don't you tell me what label you think I should use? And maybe later I will tell you what I actually call myself...

...that is if "they" (whomever they are) quit messing with the meaning of the labels!

So, till then, preach Jesus!

(By the way, I think such Baptists are on the rise in this generation.)

(Also, I posted this article under "Baptist" but that category may be closed to only baptists. I'm not sure so I reposted my thoughts here.)

__________________
~ Destined to Know Him ~
Jason E. Robertson
a Pastor of Murrieta Valley Church, CA
The FIDE-O Blog

I often find myself facing that same difficulty of labeling my escathology. I have only recently begun considering myself postmil rather than amil, and that is because upon discussion with my pastor I found that I had almost the exact same belief though I labeled myself Amil and he labeled himself Post. only difference is he shies away from the label of theonomy and though the label is often misunderstood I do not.

Ok that said now that youve gotten back to posting here, you need to get back on the Narrow Mind. I loved covenant theology thursdays.

__________________
Bryan Riddle
1689 London Baptist Confession
Bethel Baptist Church Owasso, Oklahoma