Dr. Gordon Fee on Postmillennialism

[Jared]

I think Dr. Gordon Fee explains Postmillennialism better than anyone else I have heard so far.

[video=youtube;f62FMOmqPTU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f62FMOmqPTU&list=HL1323109446&feature=mh_lolz[/video]

I still disagree with postmillennialism. But, those of you who are postmillennialists, do you think Gordon Fee does a good job of explaining it? This made more sense to me than Douglas Wilson's explanation.

 

[J. Dean]

I admire him. He's a charismatic who speaks out effectively against the fringe elements of penecostalism and charismaticism.

 

[Alan D. Strange]

Jared:

It is not clear to me what you regard as especially postmillennial about Dr. Fee's remarks. His approach has elements, it seems to me, of several approaches (near futurist, some historicist and perhaps preterist aspects, literary, etc.) that add up to a sane and reasonable approach to the book. Some of what he says seems inarguable to me.

What he says, however, I believe would fit many amillennial, postmillennial, or even historic premillennial eschatological schemes. Do you label him as postmillennial because he explicitly rejects dispensationalism? Thanks for any clarity that you might offer to this.

Peace,
Alan

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

I agree with Alan; it’s not evident to me there is anything distinctively postmil about Fee’s remarks in this video clip (I don’t know of his views in this area from elsewhere).

Fee says John didn’t know this would be the last book of the Bible, though he likely knew he was the last apostle alive (as an amil I hold to the late date of Revelation). Fee also says that only chapters 21 & 22 are in the future (in our 21[SUP]st[/SUP] century’s future), and that all else in the book pertained to the fall of the Roman Empire, the martyrdom of the saints, and that the message to the church in those days (only up to “225”) was that God is in control despite the apparent world dominance of Rome, and for the saints to stay faithful and endure.

John’s Revelation did indeed say that to the saints of those times, but it speaks to the people of God up through the years: revealing 1) His sovereignty through judgments (seals, trumpets, bowls), 2) His and the church’s enemies (beast from the sea, false prophet, and Babylon – all tools of Satan) which as the centuries proceed we discern in their various manifestations, and 3) the final cataclysms of the age when God’s enemies become the universal furnace which purifies the gold of all the saints, and 4) the Day of His vengeance for their wickedly doing so. I’ve discussed these things here and elsewhere.

 

[Jared]

Jared:

It is not clear to me what you regard as especially postmillennial about Dr. Fee's remarks. His approach has elements, it seems to me, of several approaches (near futurist, some historicist and perhaps preterist aspects, literary, etc.) that add up to a sane and reasonable approach to the book. Some of what he says seems inarguable to me.

What he says, however, I believe would fit many amillennial, postmillennial, or even historic premillennial eschatological schemes. Do you label him as postmillennial because he explicitly rejects dispensationalism? Thanks for any clarity that you might offer to this.

Peace,
Alan

No, it wasn't his rejection of dispensationalism. It was the main thrust of what he was saying, that Revelation happened 2000 years ago.

 

[PuritanCovenanter]

Romans was not written for us?

 

[Alan D. Strange]

Randy:

I believe Fee said that the Book of Romans was not written to us but that it was written for us. What I understand Fee to be saying there was something with which we would all agree: the Scriptures must always be understood both in terms of the original audience as well as the wider church.

While I am not sure what Fee's eschatological position is precisely, I would think that we would all agree, whether we are preterist, futurist, historicist, etc., that Revelation must not be read in some of the ways of which he spoke, particularly the dispensationalist way.

As brother. Dean indicated, Fee is one of the better exegetes of his camp, the charismatics, and that he is as sound as he is on many points, though we Reformed would differ sharply with him on others, is something to be thankful for.

Jared, if Fee believes that all of the Revelation was fulfilled before the destruction of Jerusalem, or some would say in that time frame(though perhaps ranging later than 70 A.D.) that would make him a preterist but not necessarily a postmillennialist. One could hold that position and be something other than a postmillennialist. I would, in fact, be surprised that Fee, being in the tradition he is, would be a postmillennialist. I could research it but that's just a guess on my part.

Peace,
Alan

 

[Jared]

Randy:

I believe Fee said that the Book of Romans was not written to us but that it was written for us. What I understand Fee to be saying there was something with which we would all agree: the Scriptures must always be understood both in terms of the original audience as well as the wider church.

While I am not sure what Fee's eschatological position is precisely, I would think that we would all agree, whether we are preterist, futurist, historicist, etc., that Revelation must not be read in some of the ways of which he spoke, particularly the dispensationalist way.

As brother. Dean indicated, Fee is one of the better exegetes of his camp, the charismatics, and that he is as sound as he is on many points, though we Reformed would differ sharply with him on others, is something to be thankful for.

Jared, if Fee believes that all of the Revelation was fulfilled before the destruction of Jerusalem, or some would say in that time frame(though perhaps ranging later than 70 A.D.) that would make him a preterist but not necessarily a postmillennialist. One could hold that position and be something other than a postmillennialist. I would, in fact, be surprised that Fee, being in the tradition he is, would be a postmillennialist. I could research it but that's just a guess on my part.

Peace,
Alan

Gordon Fee already diverges from his denomination (the Assemblies of God) on a very important Pentecostal doctrine, the baptism in the Holy Spirit subsequent to conversion with tongues as the initial evidence. He is technically Third Wave, that is he believes that the baptism in the Spirit is received at the time of salvation and the believer is then filled with the Spirit more and more but tongues is not a necessary evidence of those fillings, nor should the term baptism in the Spirit be used for these subsequent fillings.

He already differs with the Assemblies of God on eschatology. I know because I was raised in the Assemblies of God. They are one of the few denominations that has premillennial pretribulational dispensationalism as part of their official statement of faith.

I suppose he could be an Amillennialist. But, I don't think he would be a Classical Premillennialist.

 

[Alan D. Strange]

Jared:

That all sounds right with respect to Fee. I have appreciated his scholarship, though, as I mentioned above, obviously disagreeing with him on a number of points.

His Corinthians commentary, for example, offers helpful insights, coming as it does from an AOG perspective, albeit a milder one, as you note.

Peace,
Alan