Wilson on Post Mill

Enjoyed listening to the first Doug Wilson session on post-millenialism from the AAPC the other day.

Reluctant to post too much of what he said – better for you to listen to it really.

Before I post anything of his content, I feel I ought to say. Pastor Wilson, before deciding that we Brits can’t pronounce “strawberry” or “controversy”, please: What is “R-millenialism”?

Quote of the day: “I could listen to David Field all day if he was reading out the telephone directory. But on the subjects he was on last night, I could eat it straight out of the can with a spoon”.

Basically: We need to take the texts seriously that speak of God saving the world, loving the world and so on. If we are going to hold to particular atonement, we cannot follow that by saying the elect comprises 17 people. That is not God saving the world. If Jesus came to save the world, he failed unless the result is a saved world. In defence of particular atonement, it is often said you’d rather have a narrow bridge that goes all the way across the chasm, than wide bridge that just goes half way across. But the Bible offers a wide bridge that goes all the way.

The God of the Arminians (by which he means those who don’t subscribe to particular atonement) is loving but not strong. He merely intends to, tries to, does his best to save the world. But he doesn’t actually do anything. The God of the classical calvinist is strong (he wants someone saved, he gets them saved). But stingy – only a few make it. The God of the Bible is strong and loving – he actually saves the world.

Many of the issues we get tied up in knots over would not be issues were it not for the spiritual Murphy’s law we carry around – if anything can go wrong it will. Should we give the sacraments to our children? Should we expect them to grow up to be mature believers with god-loving families of their own? Should we proclaim a confident absolution from the pulpit? If we can only get rid of this pessimistic expectation things will always go wrong…

[One question though: There may be some really good reasons to home school to a certain age. But many people I’ve talked to about it seem to do so out of a fear that our children will be moulded to the world. Why do we expect the world to defeat our children not the other way around? Pessimism probably shouldn’t be the reason to go down that route.]

That’s enough by way of highlights. Now download the MP3 and enjoy it yourself!