A Case for Amillennialism by Kim Riddlebarger

When I was in middle school, I read several of the Left Behind books and simply thought that its interpretation of the end times was the only thing that Christians believed. I didn’t know there was any controversy. I mostly lost interest in eschatology during high school, but the postmillennial pastor of the church I grew up at came to our church when I was 14, and occasionally I would hear something that didn’t sound quite right to my dispensational presuppositions. But it wasn’t until college that I began thinking about the end times again. When I became Reformed, it seemed pretty obvious that dispensationalism was, in many ways, ridiculous. After a little bit of reading, amillennialism made the most sense to me, and I bought A Case for Amillennialism to find out more about it. Four years later and pretty much postmillenial now, I finally finished the book.

As Riddlebarger states in the book, the differences between amillennialism and postmillennialism are much more subtle than their differences with premillennialism. He says the major differences between them deal with the timing of the millennium and the character of the millennium. I would agree with Riddlebarger on the timing of the millennium, and from what I understand from other sources I have read and heard, including Heaven Misplaced, many postmillennialists also agree with Riddlebarger that the millennium began at Christ’s resurrection or ascension when he began ruling the earth at the right hand of God. So really, I only have issues with what he sees as the nature of the millennium.

One big question that I have is regarding what Riddlebarger says about the new heavens and the new earth. In refuting dispensationalists’ claims of the land of Canaan, Riddlebarger argues that Isaiah reinterpreted the promise made to Abraham to include the new heavens and new earth. Amillennialism, he says, understands the promises made to Abraham “in terms of a new creation and the final consummation” (72). Here is what Isaiah had to say about the new heavers and the new earth:

“Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and crying will be heard in it no more. Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth; he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the works of their hands. They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them. Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the Lord. (Isaiah 65:17-25; cf 66:22)

Riddlebarger uses this passage to establish the idea that the promise of land is not fulfilled in an earthly way, but only after Christ’s second coming. There are obvious problems with this, though, that Riddlebarger completely ignores. If you read the passage above carefully, you’ll notice several things that are confusing if the new heavens and new earth are not of this world. There is death, work, and childbearing. How do amillennialists explain that?

Riddlebarger argues that one of the major problems with premillennialism is the presence of death after Christ’s second coming. If the new heavens and the new earth begin after Christ’s second coming, then why does Isaiah still see death as part of that vision? Or does death in this passage mean something else that I’m not getting? If these verses do indicate that the new heavens and new earth come before Christ’s second advent, wouldn’t that in effect make amillennialism very problematic?

One of the problems Riddlebarger sees with postmillennialism is the lack of New Testament evidence looking toward a “Golden Age” but instead toward the final consummation. However, in the same section as the Isaiah passage, Riddlebarger quotes 2 Peter 3:13, “In keeping with [God’s] promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.” Wouldn’t Peter know what Isaiah wrote regarding the new heaven and new earth, and is he not drawing that image for people who were also very familiar with the writings of Isaiah?

I marked other places in my book that I am thinking about writing on, but I may wait to do so when I have more to compare it to after I begin Paradise Restored by David Chilton.