One of the questions that came up several times in yesterday’s Christian Essentials class was… How do Postmillennialists understand the great tribulation (Rev 3:10, Matt. 24:15–21 and elsewhere)? I didn’t have a ready answer at the time. After doing a little research, I’m not sure I have any better answer. It seems that in a postmillennial system, there is either no great tribulation or some will allow for a tribulation and rebellion at the end of the millennium prior to Christ’s return.
Anyone out there who knows their postmillennial eschatology, please help us out with some more details.
Some Postmillennial viewpoints see the ‘Great Tribulation’ as a past event that happened in the first century encompasing the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 as well as the perseuctions under Nero. This viewpoint would interpret the Matthew 24 reference specifically as referring to the destruction of Jerusalem.
Thanks, Larry. I had guessed that would be a possibility for them (like the amil. folks), but couldn’t find anything to substantiate it.
Eric, Gary DeMar takes this view and I would definately describe him as postmillennial rather than Amil. How common that view is across the postmillennial ‘world’ though, I’m not sure.
The driving principle of the postmillennial view as articulated by most
pre-20th C adherents is the growing righteousness on the earth brought
about by the spread of the gospel and a rapid increase in conversions
worldwide through a “latter rain” movement of the Holy Spirit. Their view
embraces a long period of time or millennium (not necessarily a literal 1,000
years) where the Kingdom of God is evident on earth through the dominion
of the Church in the power of the Spirit.
Thus, the Great Tribulation (in the sense articulated by premillennial
thinkers) as being a lead-up to the millennium simply cannot occur in the postmillennial
mind. A preterist approach is usually followed by postmillennialists regarding
the ” Great Tribulation.” Most of them probably would refer to the Great Tribulation
as the time concurrent with the Roman sack of Jerusalem in 70 AD under Titus. There are
some postmillennialists who believe that there could be a great tribulation at the time Satan is released after the “1,000 years” — but of course, not before it.