Judaizing Eschatology
The Lutheran and Reformed churches pointedly and forcefully rejected the doctrine of a future earthly golden age. The Lutherans denounced the “Jewish dream” of an earthly messianic kingdom. The Swiss Reformed followed suit even more pointedly in the Second Helvetic Confession: “Moreover we condemn the Jewish dreams that before the day of judgment there shall be a golden world in the earth; and that the godly shall possess the kingdoms of the world, their wicked enemies being trodden under foot. For the evangelical truth in Matthew 24 and 25, and Luke 21, and the apostolic doctrine in the second epistle to the Thessalonians 2, and in the second epistle to Timothy 3 and 4, are found to teach far otherwise.”
[…]
What the postmillennialist critics of amillennialism call optimism we might better call, in the broad sense, Judaizing. That is the point the Lutherans and the Swiss Reformed were making when they denounced glory-age thinking. For them such an eschatology required the confusion of Jewish eschatological expectations for a Christian eschatology.
It is not pessimistic to say that there will be no earthly glory age before Christ’s return or an earthly millennial reign after Christ’s return. It is difficult to see how the prerequisite to be optimistic is to affirm some sort of earthly golden age, whether literal (chiliastic/premillennial) or figurative (postmillennial). It is properly optimistic to hold, as the amillennialists do, that the sovereign Lord Jesus is saving every single one for whom he became incarnate, for whom he obeyed, for whom he died, for whom he was raised, and for whom he is interceding now at the right hand of the Father…
…Reformed amillennialism holds that no earthly power can stop the spread, through his divinely ordained means, of the kingdom of God (Matt. 16:18). No civil ruler or cultural power can prevent the sovereign Holy Spirit from working powerfully through the gospel and sacraments, from conforming Christ’s flock to Christ’s image. (pp.873-874)
