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CONTINUITY AND CIVILIZATION Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn (Matt. 13:24-30).
The theocentric focus here is God's final judgment. In this passage, Jesus says that there will be no great discontinuous event that will precede this final judgment. The wheat and the tares will grow together in the same field until the reapers come to cut down the tares and destroy them.
Rival Kingdoms The disciples were not sure what this parable meant. Jesus told them in private. "Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear" (Matt. 13:36-43).
First, this parable is about history and its consummation. The Son of man sows the wheat: Jesus Christ. The field is the world. This is the arena of history. So, the parable concerns the development of history. This development is a contest between two kingdoms. The children of God constitute one kingdom; the children of Satan constitute the other.
Second, the two kingdoms develop in the field without any discontinuous event. The reapers do not enter the field until the wheat and the tares have fully developed. Each kingdom has extended its principles into the world. Each has sought to fill the field.
Third, the contest between the two kingdoms culminates in the final judgment: "The harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world." The great discontinuity is the final judgment. In it, the tares are removed from history; the wheat remains.
Fourth, neither kingdom establishes itself monopolistically in history. The tares remain; so does the wheat. History is the working out of the two kingdoms.
Eschatology and Development The wheat and the tares develop over time. Neither can legitimately expect complete victory over the other. The contest will go on until the end of time. Each side strives to fill the field. Development is a feature of both sides.
As each side develops, it reduces the influence of the other. This parable does not indicate which side becomes dominant in history. It does indicate that there is no discontinuous event that will intervene to stop the development of either side. Neither side is cut off in the midst of time. Neither side sees its efforts completely reversed. Wheat and tares can hope for the future. The tares have no legitimate eternal hope, but they have legitimate earthly hope. They will never see their influence wholly suppressed in history.
Premillennialism
The premillennialist avoids dealing with this passage whenever possible. The premillennial interpretation of history rests on a view of the future that will contain a great discontinuity a thousand years prior to the final judgment. Historic premillennialists say that there will be a great tribulation period ahead for the church. After this period of persecution, Jesus will return bodily to set up His kingdom on earth. These expositors are post-tribulationists. There are very few historic premillennialists still writing. Pretribulation dispensational premillennialists say that Jesus will remove his church from history for seven years, or possibly three and a half years, during which the great tribulation will come on national Israel. Then Jesus, His church, the resurrected dead, and angels will return to set up a millennial kingdom.(1)
In both interpretations, the prior work of the kingdom is cut off in history, either by the Great Tribulation or the church's Rapture, which precedes the tribulation of national Israel. That is, whatever success the church has achieved culturally will be reversed. The world will become dominated by covenant-breakers. They will overcome the kingdom of God. It will take a cosmic discontinuity -- the bodily return of Jesus -- to overcome this great reversal.
This means that the investment, sacrifice, and commitment of Christians throughout history will not culminate in cultural dominance. Their efforts will be reversed in a great discontinuity: the Great Tribulation. Rather than compound growth's leading to cultural dominance, we are assured that virtually all of the church's work in history will come to ruin. Without the direct intervention of Jesus and His angels, the work of the church cannot produce cultural victory. There will be little or no trace of Christian institutions after the Great Tribulation. Covenant-breakers will make a clean sweep of history. Only Christ's overcoming of the process of history will restore Christian civilization. This implication is so horribly pessimistic that premillennialists rarely put it into print, but it is an inescapable conclusion of their system of interpretation.(2)
Amillennialism
In contrast to the premillennialist, the amillennialist affirms continuity. He also affirms the progressive defeat of the church and Christian civilization (if any). Evil remains dominant in history. Some amillennialists place the Great Tribulation ahead of us. Premillennialism's pessimism regarding the pre-Second Coming church is also characteristic of the amillennial system of interpretation. What will save the church and Christians is the cosmic discontinuity of final judgment. Amillennialism teaches either a continuity of stalemate or a continuity of surrender as the last day approaches.
Any suggestion that Christians should expect to see their efforts produce a transformed society is rejected by amillennialists as either naive or actually heretical. There supposedly can be no Christian civilization in history, and all attempts to build one is a manifestation of "triumphalism" or worse, "Constantinianism." Christian civilization is dismissed as a chimera and a false ideal that will always produce tyranny in the name of Christ. Amillennialists defend the idea of a religiously neutral civilization or even a covenant-breaking civilization as a preferred alternative to Constantinianism. Better to have tyranny in man's name than tyranny in God's name, they say. Their view of history predicts the universal rule of one or another form of tyranny. The preaching of the gospel can at best ameliorate this tyranny by creating pockets of righteousness: Christian ghettos. Yet even this will lost during the Great Tribulation.(3)
Postmillennialism
The postmillennialist argues that there will be a time of kingdom success and blessings prior to the final judgment. The kingdom of God will extend its influence across the earth. Rival kingdoms will be in minority opposition to the dominant culture, which will be Christian.
This means that Christians' efforts today to extend God's kingdom will produce permanent fruit in history. The eschatological continuity of history is a continuity of victory for God through His people. The dominion covenant will be progressively fulfilled in history. So will the Great Commission.(4)
The compounding process operates to the advantage of Christianity. Compound growth over time means that righteousness increases its dominance in history. Low rates of growth produce very large results if they are not interrupted or reversed. This means that a small investment today that compounds at a low rate will produce huge returns in the distant future. The inheritance of the righteous will grow. "For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth" (Ps. 37:9). "But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace" (Ps. 37:11).
Continuity and Risk This promise of historic continuity lowers the risk of present investments for the person who looks beyond his own death. His heirs will reap the fruit of today's investment in the kingdom of God. By lowering the risk of a great reversal, Jesus' promise of continuity raises the reward to those who are future-oriented, i.e., those who have the kingdom of God as their goal rather than their own wealth.
The covenant-keeper who looks into the future and sees success for the kingdom of God rejoices. He defines himself by Christ's name. He claims the future victory of Christ's kingdom as his own. By identifying himself with the kingdom, he appropriates for himself its success or failure in history. The pessimillennialist announces the kingdom's cultural failure apart from an eschatological discontinuity. But if only a discontinuity can bring cultural victory to Christ's kingdom, then the return on any present investment in the kingdom will be culturally negative in the final analysis. The final victory of Christ's kingdom will have nothing to do with any investment made today. The risk of negative returns on today's cultural investments is total.
This pessimillennial assessment of risk redirects Christian investment into narrowly defined activities, such as personal evangelism, church building projects, and defensive efforts to preserve a minimal degree of freedom from State interference. Because all efforts more comprehensive that these are said to be eschatologically doomed to failure, it is seen as a waste of scarce resources to attempt anything else. "You don't polish brass on a sinking ship," announced dispensational preacher J. Vernon McGee in the 1950's. Peter Lalonde, McGee's spiritual heir, says of the theonomic postmillennialist: "It's a question, `Do you polish brass on a sinking ship?' And if they're working on setting up new institutions, instead of going out and winning the lost for Christ, then they're wasting the most valuable time on the planet earth right now, and that is the serious problem in his thinking."(5) His is the theology of the rescue mission, not Christian civilization.(6)
The eschatological continuity described in Matthew 13:24-30 is in stark opposition to all forms of premillennialism. The pessimism of amillennialism is consistent with the parable of the wheat and tares, as is the optimism of postmillennialism. The parable does not say which seed will dominate the field. The pessimism of premillennialism is not consistent with the parable, for it affirms a discontinuity that the parable denies.
The kingdom parable of the mustard seed (v. 31) is consistent only with postmillennialism.(7) The mustard seeds starts small and expands. Thus, Matthew 13 rejects premillennialism and promotes postmillennialism. When believed, postmillennialism promotes investments in culture-wide Christian projects. This outlook promotes future-orientation. It also declares that the return on today's investment in Christendom will produce a positive return. Future-orientation -- the willingness to accept a low interest rate -- when coupled with the promise of compound growth produces the investments that produce the capital that gets compounded.
Continuity and Success We are told to pray as a widow who bangs on the door of an unjust judge, until she receives judgment (Luke 18:2-6). That is to say, do not stop. Keep at it. Overcome resistance by persistence. The same strategy applies to our callings. "No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62). We do not plow for the sake of plowing. We plow for the sake of harvesting and consuming or selling the harvest.
It is the steady worker who stays resolutely at his task who wins. The story of the tortoise and the hare are part of Western man's worldview. Making it big on little deals is the correct procedure. "But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken" (Isa. 28:13). "And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land" (Ex. 23:28-30).
Inheritance extends across generations. So does God's covenant. So do His commandments. "Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations; And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face. Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day, to do them" (Deut. 7:9-11). The kingdom of God extends through history. Its persistence is its greatest strength. It does not go away.
Success parallels the kingdom in history. In fact, success is defined correctly only in terms of the kingdom of God. It is not my autonomous success that defines my success; rather, it is the part I play in the kingdom of God. Success is therefore based on continuity. It is also based on expansion. It is not that the kingdom holds its own; it spreads, as leaven spreads. The kingdom of God is not a holding action. It is a program of conquest.
Amillennial Pessimism and Paralysis
The amillennialist looks at the kingdom and sees, at best, a holding action. Usually, he sees cultural surrender. He sees the church as a tiny band of stalwarts, surrounded by an ever-increasing enemy. Even those amillennialists who, like Van Til, rejected pietism, have created bleak expectations that paralyze long-term projects and commitments. Van Til warned against the temptation succumbed to by the premillennial fundamentalism of his day to "spend a great deal of their time in passive waiting instead of in active service. Another danger that lurks at a time of apostasy is that the few faithful ones give up the comprehensive ideal of the kingdom and limit themselves to the saving of individual souls."(8) He warned against ethical individualism. He understood that such individualism is a denial of covenant theology.
He believed with all his heart that evil triumphs visibly in history, and righteousness loses the culture war. He taught throughout his career that the principles of evil produce visible power and victory, whereas the principles of righteous living under God produce historical defeat. Thus, Van Til's unique lapse into the myth of neutrality -- his doctrine of ethical unevenness in history -- proved to be as much a myth as ever. History is not neutral; one side or the other wins; one ethical system or the other produces victory; and Van Til sided with those who proclaim that Satan's system works (wins) in history. He made this plain: "But when all the reprobate are epistemologically self-conscious, the crack of doom has come. The fully self-conscious reprobate will do all he can in every dimension to destroy the people of God. So while we seek with all our power to hasten the process of differentiation in every dimension we are yet thankful, on the other hand, for 'the day of grace,' the day of undeveloped differentiation. Such tolerance as we receive on the part of the world is due to this fact that we live in the earlier, rather than in the later, stage of history. And such influence on the public situation as we can effect, whether in society or in state, presupposes this undifferentiated stage of development."(9)
Notice especially his words, "we are yet thankful, on the other hand, for `the day of grace,' the day of undeveloped differentiation." This is nothing short of a ghastly reworking of the idea of God's grace. He knew it, too, which is why he puts the words the day of grace in quotation marks. He knew that it is the opposite of grace that Christians are not fully self-conscious epistemologically, and more to the point, ethically. But his amillennialism had a stranglehold on his theory of ethics. He viewed today's earlier so-called "day of grace" as a day in which covenant-breakers are also not fully self-conscious, and this, in the amillennialist's universe of progressive Church impotence and progressive humanist power, is a good thing for covenant-keepers in an external, cultural sense. In short, as time goes on, covenant-breakers retain control -- Satan's doctrine of "squatter's rights"(10) -- and steadily consolidate their hold over world civilization as they become more consistent with their religion, while covenant-keepers fail to gain or lose control over civilization because they become more consistent with their religion. This is the ethical outlook of both premillennialism and amillennialism. Ethics is tied to eschatology. If your eschatology is incorrect, your ethics will be incorrect if your worldview is internally consistent. To teach that the progress of the gospel in history is not progressive, i.e., that the gospel does not lead to worldwide dominion by covenant-keepers, is to teach that ethical cause and effect in history is perverse, testifying not to a God who keeps His promises in history but rather to a god who breaks them.
Lost-Cause Evangelism
Those in the amillennial and premillennial camps who are upset that we theonomic postmillennialists dismiss their eschatological views as if they were not worth considering have failed to recognize that our uncompromising hostility to rival eschatological views is based on our commitment to biblical ethics. Our eschatology is deeply influenced by our view of biblical law and its effects in history. It is not this or that rival interpretation of this or that prophetic Bible passage that is the primary focus of our concern. It is rather the overall view held by our eschatological opponents that affirms the culture-losing effects of biblical law in history which draws our fire. Their view of history is not neutral; it is not random; and it surely is not "even." It is perverse: a belief that God will not bless covenant-keeping in history, and will not curse covenant-breaking.
Most people will not sacrifice for a guaranteed lost cause. They will be interested mainly in escaping the worst things that a life of assured defeat has to offer. It is naive to expect men to commit everything they own to a campaign which God has announced in advance that His people must lose. Only a handful of suicidal fanatics will do this, and the church is not built by such people.
For those Christians who believe that God has abandoned history to the devil, mysticism is one way out. The Eastern church has adopted weekly mysticism through intensive liturgy as its way to cope with an oppressive history. The Western church has sometimes had mystical movements, but on the whole, Western Christianity is too judicial for mysticism to gain a foothold. Protestant amillennialists have adopted the fortress mentality: the church as a defensive institution. They call people into the fortress. They call people out of cultural confrontation and into the cloister. The churches hesitate to conquer occupied ground for they teach that such ground will eventually be reconquered by the enemy. To spend time, money, and emotional commitment to conquer territory that will have to be surrendered later is no general's idea of a successful strategy. A good general does not call on all of his men to die for a lost cause.
What the Bible teaches is cultural victory through generational inheritance.(11) It teaches that God's people can and will extend His kingdom into every nook and cranny of existence. Wherever sin holds territory, there must the conflict take place. The two kingdoms issue comprehensive claims. They have comprehensive programs and strategies. Christianity conquers slowly, but it conquers comprehensively. Whenever it surrenders territory, it must mark that lost ground for a future conflict. This is not done today because Christians have denied the biblical covenant model. They have substituted an Arminian view of God for Augustine's, Luther's(12) and Calvin's predestinating God. They have substituted a doctrine of polytheistic civil government for Trinitarian theocracy. They have substituted natural law for biblical law. They have denied that God brings corporate sanctions in history in terms of biblical law. They have substituted eschatologies of guaranteed cultural defeat for the church in place of postmillennialism. They have redefined the kingdom of God to apply only to souls, families, and churches. Then they have called men to extend this truncated kingdom by means of gospel tracts, rescue missions, and toe-tapping music with lyrics only marginally more challenging than children's songs.
Having set their sights low, Christians have achieved even less.
Conclusion Eschatology is important for culture. Rival views of the future produce different plans and different results. This passage teaches that there will be no discontinuous reversal in history for covenant-keepers. The great discontinuity comes only at the end of time: final judgment. This means that Bible passages that are invoked to defend a future secret Rapture in the midst of history are being misused. They apply only to the events immediately preceding the final judgment.
The top priority derived from this passage is the building of confidence in the kingdom's cultural future. There will be no great eschatological reversal in the midst of history. Covenant-breaking society will not overturn the kingdom work of covenant-keepers. An investment made today in the building of any aspect of the kingdom of God has the potential for compounding over time. This lowers the risk of making such investments. Such investments are not doomed eschatologically. When believed, this eschatological outlook will increase the number of such investments for two reasons: increased future-orientation and reduced risk of failure.
Footnotes:
1. The possibility of mixing resurrected saints and fallen humanity during the coming millennium has not been taken seriously by professionally trained dispensational theologians (e.g., John Walvoord, J. Dwight Pentecost), but popularizers of the dispensational position (e.g., Dave Hunt) have asserted that this will take place. See John Walvoord, The Rapture Question (rev. ed.; Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1979), p. 86; J. Dwight Pentecost, "The Relation between Living and Resurrected Saints in The Millennium," Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. 117 (Oct. 1960), pp. 337, 341. Hunt offers his contrary opinion: "After the Antichrist's kingdom has ended in doom, Jesus will reign over this earth at last. Which of these kingdoms we will be in depends upon the choice we make now for God's truth or for the Lie." Dave Hunt, Peace Prosperity and the Coming Holocaust (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House, 1983), p. 263.
2. Gary North, Millennialism and Social Theory (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990), pp. 74-76.
3. Ibid., pp. 76-92. Cf. Gary North, Sanctions and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Numbers (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1997), pp. 22-36; Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., He Shall Have Dominion: A Postmillennial Eschatology (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1992), Appendix A.
4. Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., The Greatness of the Great Commission: The Christian Enterprise in a Fallen World (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990).
5. "Dominion: A Dangerous New Theology," Tape 1 of Dominion: The Word and New World Order.
6. North, Millennialism and Social Theory, pp. 199-203.
7. See Chapter 30, below.
8. Cornelius Van Til, Christian Theistic Ethics, vol. 3 of In Defense of Biblical Christianity (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian & Reformed, [1958] 1980), p. 122.
9. Van Til, Common Grace (1947), in Common Grace and the Gospel (Nutley, New Jersey: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1972), p. 85.
10. Gary North, Inherit the Earth: Biblical Blueprints for Economics (Ft. Worth, Texas: Dominion Press, 1987), p. 61.
11. Gary North, Inheritance and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Deuteronomy (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1999).
12. Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will (1525).
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