This prophecy declared by both Isaiah and
Micah poses problems for those who do not apply it to a millennial reign of
Christ. Young, for example, recognized that the biblical portrayal of evil in
the present age rules out any application of these prophecies to some sort of
postmillennial time before the return of Christ. Nevertheless, he summarily
rejected the dispensationalist application of these prophecies to the
millennium. "This ... type of interpretation," he wrote, "does
violence of a serious kind to the general structure of Biblical
eschatology." Acknowledging that his own interpretation “has difficulties,
but it is all that one can do if he would be faithful to the language of the
Bible,” he concluded that this prophecy has begun its fulfilment during this
present age and will reach its final realization at the second coming of
Christ.
A straightforward reading of the prophecies
truly does not expose the “difficulties” in both nonmillennialist and postmillennialist
views. Are the nations at present streaming to the church to learn the ways of
God and walk in his paths? Is Christ really “settling disputes” today for many
peoples with the result that the nations are turning their weapons into
plowshares? It is plain that these questions cannot be answered positively
except by the unnatural bending of the text—a bending that would have been
quite foreign to the original readers. Yet the texts fit well with a millennial
interpretation of the Messiah’s reigning from Jerusalem. We will see that this
interpretation does not in fact contradict the general structure of biblical
eschatology.
We obtain a further picture of millennial
conditions in the prophet’s description of the Messiah’s reign that is given in
Isaiah 11. The prophet speaks of a judgment in relation to the presence of sin:
“He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears
with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he
will give decision for the poor of the earth” (vv. 3-4). This judgment does not
consist of simply a brief final court, but refers to the nature of the Messiah’s
rule. Concern for the poor was consistently part of the role expected from Israel’s
kings (cf. Ps 72:2; Pr 29:14; Isa 1:23) and from kings throughout the Near
East.
Psalm 72 also pictures the Messiah taking up
the cause of the "afflicted" and "oppressed" (cf. vv. 2, 4,
12-14) and judging the "oppressor" (v. 4). Besides helping the
helpless, the messianic King is pictured as bringing blessing to all nations
(v. 17). Again, we have a picture of universal blessing for the nations, but
not yet perfection.
Finally, Zechariah's threat of discipline for
those who do not keep the proper worship of the King clearly depicts a
messianic reign over an imperfect world. Zechariah describes the intervention
of the Lord to defeat the invading nations of the world and rescue his people
and the city of Jerusalem; then he declares, "The LORD will be king over
the whole earth. On that day there will be one LORD, and his name the only
name" (14:9). The reference to the personal presence of the Messiah (his
feet stand on the Mount of Olives, v. 4) and the overwhelming triumph (cf. vv.
12-15) show that this passage relates to the triumphant coming (or in the light
of the New Testament, the second coming) of the Messiah. This ruling over the
nations does not yet signal the eternal perfect state.
Other evidence such as the presence of death
(cf. Isa 65:20) might and (2) a final perfect state. however, for the prophet
goes on to warn the "survivors from all the nations that have attacked
Jerusalem" that if they do not go to Jerusalem to worship the Lord, they
will be punished by drought and plague (vv. 16- 19). be added to indicate an
as-yet-imperfect situation during the time of the Messiah's rule. But these are
sufficient to establish the fact that the Old Testament prophetic picture saw
in the future both (1) a messianic reign in righteousness over a world that
still included sin and needed salvation, and (2) a final perfect state. (Robert L. Saucy, The Case for Progressive
Dispensationalism: The Interface Between Dispensational and Non-Dispensational
Theology [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House Academic and
Professional Books, 1993], 238-40)
The amillennial attempt to allow for a more
literal fulfillment of the earthly material aspects of the Old Testament
kingdom prophecies flounders on this same reasoning, in our opinion. Hoekema
argues that a passage such as Isaiah 2:1-4, which refers to the beating of
swords into plowshares, among other things, has its fulfillment not in a
millennium but on the new earth. This interpretation does not acknowledge that
this clearly places such portraits of peace among nations beyond the pale of
the Messiah's redemptive work and his messianic administration of God's
kingdom. If this is correct, his "messianic reign" is one of present
spiritual redemption climaxing with the destruction of his enemies and their
judgment. His "messianic reign" will never include a reign of
manifest glory in which he takes over the government of the world to rule for
God as his Anointed One in righteousness and peace in fulfillment of the
historical purpose for mankind. Aside from the difficulty of seeing everything
in passages like Isaiah 2:1-4 as present in the new earth (e.g., the nations
coming to learn the ways of God and the necessity of judging between them), in
our opinion, such a view wrongly curtails the manifestation of Christ's
glorious reign to a short period of destruction and judgment. (Robert L. Saucy, The Case for Progressive
Dispensationalism: The Interface Between Dispensational and Non-Dispensational
Theology [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House Academic and
Professional Books, 1993], 284 n. 52)
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