Different Bible-believing Christians and church traditions will have different views of how to understand the nature of the millennium, as well as how to interpret prophecy in general and Revelation in particular. Some of these disagreements may touch on essential doctrines. However, we do have to get comfortable with the fact that many of these disagreements are not over essential truths—that is, they are not matters that make or break the Christian worldview and gospel—and so, while we may have settled convictions on these, we ought not make final divisions over them.

The ability to discern essentials from non-essentials is a lost art. Even to speak of it as an “art” is misleading. Because the view that I hold to about the difference between the objective and subjective side of such questions—i.e. the difference between orthodoxy as a system of truth and one’s own saving faith being genuine—is a complex topic, I have written about it elsewhere and would recommend anyone to Parts 1, 2, and 3 of that writing.

When it comes to applying this to the study of last things, R. C. Sproul offers some wise words of balance:

“Whichever eschatological view we hold, we must hold it humbly because we do not know the future. We can all look backward, but we do not know God's agenda for what's to come. We must be humble and acknowledge that our eschatological view might not be accurate. At the same time, much of the doctrinal teaching in the New Testament has to do with future things, so how we understand God's promises about the future has a dramatic impact on our personal confidence and involvement in the mission Christ gave to the church.”1

We ought to remember the words of Jesus to the disciples: “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority” (Acts 1:7). The line between what is essential and what is non-essential here will be very much informed by the line between what can be known and what cannot—what God has seen as profitable for us to know versus our own vain speculations. Prophecy has often been inflated, sensationalized, and commodified.

James Montgomery Boice leveled two criticisms against the teaching on prophecy within Evangelicalism in the twentieth century: 

“First, I believe that in the last generation there has been an overemphasis on prophecy … Prophecy is part of the Bible. It should be studied. Yet sometimes prophecy has been discussed to the exclusion of many other vital and urgent doctrines. That is inexcusable when some still do not know about sin or about Christ’s atonement … [Second] that much teaching on prophecy has been directed toward a wrong level of involvement both for the teacher and for the listener. Many are interested in prophecy solely because of a desire to know something that no one else knows, to have the final word on things to come in the future.”2

That is a crucial balance. Neither Sproul nor Boice were arguing for eschatological agnosticism; but they were cautioning us against eschatological sensationalism and eschatological fanaticism. If your view of last things begins and ends with your own place in it, or if it makes claims that the Bible very clearly restricts from us—i.e. date-setting—then these are good signs that an otherwise important doctrine has become an inflated or isolated doctrine, and consequently a rotten doctrine. 

The end of the twentieth century was not the only time when Christians have reacted against eschatological excess. In introducing the subject of Calvin’s Doctrine of the Last Things, Heinrich Quistorp wrote that, “The reformers were somewhat afraid of the doctrine of the last things because they saw that in the hands of Catholics it was misused in a speculative sense, while in the hands of the fanatics it was misused for apocalyptic purposes.”3 Now that may be a broad generalization, but certainly there is an absence of definitive positions among the early Reformed, such as those eschatological brand names that have seen over the past century and a half.

Answering Five Objections to the Study of Eschatology

Objection 1. Eschatology is speculative—that is, its subject matter can hardly be known.

Reply to Objection 1. Not only can some future things be known, but some future things must be known by God’s people; and all things are known by God Himself. We need to ponder those two last points for a bit. Let us consider the link between divine attributes such as omniscience and omnipotence, and how their directedness into the totality of the future is held out as a defining quality of God being the only true God. One passage will suffice. 

“remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose’” (Isa. 46:9-10; cf. 41:21-24; 48:3).

It turns out that the sovereignty of God is at stake in a coherent and satisfying eschatology. Not an exhaustive eschatology! But a coherent and satisfying eschatology nonetheless.

Objection 2. Eschatology is divisive. Its controversies are insoluble and needlessly separate Christians into warring factions.

Reply to Objection 2. That may be true about secondary issues. However, eschatology involves several essential issues. The timing of the Lord’s return is so “secondary” that we cannot know it; and yet denying the Lord’s return per se is not a secondary mistake. The exact nature of Christ’s kingship over the present is a secondary matter; but replacing Him with earthly despot or Pope is not secondary. What all is involved in the judgment of rewards may be unknown to us—but whether we will in fact all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, from which the wicked will be sent to everlasting judgment: that is as certain as anything. 

As to the secondary elements, it is true that some have been more strident than others. John MacArthur opened off his 2007 Shepherds Conference with the message, “Why Every Self-Respecting Calvinist is Premillennial”; and David Engelsma is typical of the view that the Reformed eschatology is properly “anti-millennial” and “ought to condemn” the Pre or Postmillennial viewpoints as grievous errors.4 To be fair, Turretin, among others, also spoke of the general category of Chiliasm as a significant error.5 Now other errors really ought to bring out a dividing line and a naming of names. For instance, Gary Demar’s recent, more pronounced descent into full preterism is a denial of the end of the gospel hope.

Objection 3. Eschatology is impractical. It either does not or should not effect how we live.

Reply to Objection 3. Now this can be an understandable objection. Adjectives like “optimistic” and “pessimistic” to describe the differences between Postmillennial and Amillennial camps can become tiresome obstacles to asking deeper questions. And yet there is a very real psychological impact.  Dabney seemed to have premillennialism in his own crosshairs, but he said,

“If no visible church, however orthodox, is to be Christ’s instrument for overthrowing Satan’s kingdom here—if Christ is to sweep the best of them away as so much rubbish, along with all the ‘world powers’ at His Advent—if it is our duty to expect and desire this catastrophe daily; who does not see that we shall feel very slight value for ecclesiastical ties and duties?”6

Objection 4. Eschatology is escapism. Each model has its own brand, but all ignore the real world of responsibility or suffering.

Reply to Objection 4. This is very closely associated with the previous objection. Often they come together to mean the same thing. While some want an eschatology to “do something,” others are already persuaded that it never can. N. T. Wright has made this central to his critique of the great mass of modern Western Christendom, as its focus on individual salvation is joined by him at the hip with our own private raptures out of the real world. He should have paid more attention to his elder British statesman in the faith. C. S. Lewis spoke to this in Mere Christianity, where he said,

“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next… It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.”7

The Scriptures are clear enough on this that we need not pit Christian duty against heavenly-mindedness. Several of the passages about the Lord’s sudden return are driven to readiness (as in the Parable of the Ten Virgins), but also to a godly life in general (as in 2 Peter 3:10-11). If anyone’s eschatology breeds sloth, one cannot blame that on an eschatological focus per se. The solution is not to correct wrong eschatology with no eschatology, but with right eschatology.

Objection 5. Eschatology is discrediting. For all those reasons already covered, it is a terrible witness to the world.

Reply to Objection 5. When Christian preachers set rapture dates that come and go, or when Christian alarmists build bunkers (or even just monasteries) where they go, this is not what Christ designed the church to do. We are to be salt and light, not paranoia and indifference.

Of course we are cheating the moment that we cite our Lord’s teaching from Matthew 24:36 to distance ourselves from the Harold Campings and Hal Lindseys; for Jesus said these words amidst an entire discourse on eschatology. And we cannot very well reprove witness-ruining eschatology with what the Bible says, unless we have settled on the claim that the Bible says nothing about it (which is demonstrably false) or else that it communicates truths that all of these excesses have ignored or contradicted. Again, the great need is for a more correct doctrine of last things. And that will take a good study.

Six Positive Reasons to Study Eschatology

This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but I offer these as reasons worth considering.

First, eschatology comprises a large portion of Scripture—all of which is edifying.

The Bible talks about eschatology. If God is good and wise, and if the Scriptures are clear insofar as He wants us to know them, then we cannot dismiss the whole of eschatology as speculative. We must concede that a great deal of it is scriptural. For example, the coming of the Kingdom is eschatology, and Jesus spent much of His teaching on what this Kingdom is like.

Second, eschatology frames the end of the gospel.

How would the gospel be “good news” if that life earned on our behalf by Christ were not an everlasting and ever-increasing joy? A happiness that can be lost is not worthy of the name and would never inspire one’s possession of it. How also could one believe it if all wrongs were not made right, or if all pains were not relieved, or if all enemies to the good were not vanquished?

Third, eschatology subordinates mission and ethics to God’s final act.

Whoever is correct about the expanse of Christ’s kingdom in this age, at the end of the day, proper eschatology that conforms to the Scripture provides a check against any developing idol of temporal glory.

Fourth, eschatology informs apologetics with comparative philosophies of history.

It has been argued that the Bible gave to the world a linear view of history, over the cyclical view of the pagans and the modern secular view that speaks of a progression but with no metaphysical basis. Kenneth Gentry lists seven fundamental presuppositions of the Christian philosophy of history: “God, creation, providence, fall, redemption, revelation, and consummation.”8 This is history that is going somewhere better, but with a basis in larger immutable reality to say so. The relevant physical sciences offer no eschatology but heat death to the cosmos as a whole, and depleting of energy and resources on the earth in the meanwhile. The only consolation is the Atheistic version of Hezekiah who says, “So be it—I’ll be long dead by then!”

Fifth, eschatology is often central or total to false teachings that must be refuted.

I mentioned that some aspects of eschatology really are essential matters. The most obvious of these are three essential truths that one eschatological school actually denies. The Full Preterist (or Hyper-Preterist) view denies (1) the visible-bodily second coming of Christ, (2) the bodily resurrection of the saints, and (3) the final judgment. These are matters of orthodoxy. To deny them is to deny the Christian faith. 

Sixth, eschatology vindicates God’s glory generally, and Christ’s work particularly.

How does eschatology focus on the glory of God vindicated? We need only to ask ourselves what are God’s main subordinate means. That is, what are those ends of God which are chief, second only to His glory and which most powerfully achieve that end of all ends? Let us take Paul’s lead, where he called the cross and empty tomb those things “of first importance” (1 Cor. 15:3). We will mention only the cross, since that would be the most surprising of the two anyway in terms of how it is eschatologically vindicated. There will be a final vindication of Christ’s work on the cross among even His enemies. 1 Corinthians 1:18-30 gives us the substance of the truth so vindicated in it, yet Philippians 2:5-11 gives us more of a description of Christ’s exaltation on the basis of the humiliation of the cross. How can this be if Christ does not return to wrap up history; and how can such be a final victory if He does not conquer His enemies and judge them? These are rhetorical questions to which the orthodox give clear answers.

In each of these ways, we can see that we are not dealing with some set of obscurities that are “essential” because church dogma says so, but the other way around. These are the things that make worldviews and religions what they are. Bavinck contrasted the materialist viewpoint with the religious in this way: 

“All religions … more or less clearly know of a struggle between good and evil; all of them cherish the hope of the victory of the good, in which the virtuous are rewarded and the wicked are punished; and as a rule they consider that future attainable in no other way than by a manifestation of supernatural forces.”9

If a Christian claims hope at all, they have an eschatology, however uninformed and shy about the details. It is the suggestion of theologians who study it that such hope stands to increase with a fuller picture.

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1. R. C. Sproul, Everyone’s a Theologian (Sanford, FL: Reformation Trust, 2014), 314.

2. James Montgomery Boice, The Last and Future World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974), 2.

3. Heinrich Quistorp, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Last Things (Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1955), 11.

4. David Engelsma, The Church’s Hope: The Reformed Doctrine of the End, Volume One: The Millennium (Jenison, MI: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 2021), 86-88.

5. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Volume 3 (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 1997), 574-582

6. R. L. Dabney, Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth), 840.

7. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996),

8. Gentry, He Shall Have Dominion, 16.

9. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Volume Four: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 647.