Who Said That?

Okay, who said that?

"The premillennialist maintains that there will be a lengthy gap in the end-time events into which the millennium will be inserted after Christ’s return; the millennial kingdom will be characterized by the prosperity of a restored Jewish state.  The amillennialist denies any such gap in the end-time events, looking for Christ to return after a basically non-prosperous millennial age.  And the post millennialist is distinguished from the two foregoing positions by holding that there will be no gap in the end-time events; rather, when Christ returns subsequent to the millennial, interadventual, church age. There will have been conspicuous and widespread success for the great commission.  In short, postmillennialism is set apart from the other two schools of thought by its essential optimism for the kingdom in the present age.  This confident attitude in the power of Christ’s kingdom, the power of its gospel, the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit, the power of prayer, and the progress of the great commission, sets postmillennialism apart from the essential pessimism of amillennialism and premillennialism."

The goal is to guess who said this!  So, don't cheat and do a google search.  Leave your answer in the comments section below.

Update on Monday, March 5, 2007 at 02:30PM by Kim Riddlebarger

This quote comes from Greg Bahnsen's very influential essay, The Prima Facie Acceptability of Postmillennialism (found in the Journal of Christian Reconstructionism, Vol. III, 1976-77, pages 66-67). 

Two major problems are found here.  One is Bahnsen's specious argument that amillenniarians are "pessimistic" while postmillennarians are "optimistic."  For one thing, amillennarians are very optimistic about the kingdom of God and the spread of the gospel.  We are pessimistic about the city of man (otherwise known as "Babylon the Great" in the Book of Revelation).  Eschatology must be done by exegesis not by ramming everything into the procrustean bed of cultural "optimism" and transformation (a category, by the way, which may have more to do with the Enlightenment than with the New Testament).

The second problem is Bahnsen's lumping amillennialism in with premillennialism because both are supposedly "pessimistic."  The better contrast is millennarianism in all its forms ("pre and post") with non-millenarianism (which makes amillennialism unique when contrasted with either "pre" or "post" millennialism). 

Comments

["lee n. field"]

Loraine Boettner would be my guess.

[Jim]

Hi I think it would possibly be Ken. Gentry or someone in that group.

[Nick Kennicott]

Interesting quote, filled with post-millennial optimism! My guess is Greg Bahnsen.

[Jeremy]

Keith Mathison?

[BRIAN DAVILLA]

I think it's Bahnsen.

[Rick B.]

I'm gonna go with Jeremy and guess Keith Mathison.

[Mike Lynch]

Sounds like Mathison to me as well

[Lars]

J. Marcellus Kik?

[mholst]

Doug Wilson, Bahnsen, or maybe Warfield.

[Robin]

Bahnsen.

Those devoted to his zeal pounce upon the amill. I think he would have regretted this, imo.

[Gomarus]

Hmmm. Not sure. But I hadn't myself thought of the amill position as "essentially pessimistic."

[walt]

It doesn't read like Bahnsen.

[Craig Phelps]

Was it Keith Mathison?

[Craig Phelps]

One thing that I, as an amil, always wanted to know from postmils was how the complete gathering of all the innumerable mulitiude of the elect to Christ after His ascension and before His return, during which whole nations have turned to God and confessed in true faith from throne and parliament,home and school, church an pulpit "We believe in God the Father almighty...", during which the saints would suffer with Christ that they may undoubtedly be glorified with Him, etc. could ever be considered a pessimistic failure.

[timinator]

Could be Gentry or Boettner or of course Greg Bahnsen as he held the post millennialist view

[pilgrim]

Let me guess--a postmillenialist?

I'll go with Mathison.

[Keith Mathison]

Sorry. Wasn't me. :-)

[Wayne Rohde]

I'm guessing it wasn't Keith Mathison.

Also, I'm thinking a friendly debate between KR and KM would be of great interest to many of us. Maybe even a book, structured something like "Debating Calvinism" by White and Hunt.

[Ivan]

I agree with Wayne on the book idea.
Hey even a dialog on here between the two.
Or how about a WHI program devoted to the two discussing their respective positions?

Thanks for the quotes, Kim!

[Rick B.]

Even though Keith denies it, I still think it was Keith. He may have written it in his sleep.

But is that really Keith Mathison commenting on the Riddleblog?

Keith, tell us something only Keith would know.