When God was converting souls as He never did for extent in real quickening power, either before or since, the apostolic preacher told his hearers to repent and be converted, that their sins might be blotted out, so that seasons of refreshing might come from the face of the Lord, and He might send Christ Jesus that was fore-appointed to them, whom heaven must receive till the times of restoring all things, of which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets since time began (Acts 3). This is plain and conclusive.
It is impossible more definitely to connect the sending of Jesus from heaven, not with the destruction, but with the restoration of all things—the subject of the bright visions of the prophets, in contradistinction to the work of the gospel. The ungrieved power of the Spirit was the operating largely and profoundly; but this had for its effect on Peter's mind to urge repentance on Israel, that so might come from Jehovah's face that which really brings about the millennium. There is no thought of a “continued effusion of the Spirit,” still less of a professing world, as the adequate answer. It is that which is elsewhere styled “the regeneration” (Matt. 19), when the Son of man shall sit (not on the Father's throne as now, Rev. 3, but) on the throne of His glory; and His once suffering apostles shall sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve thrones of Israel. If no such state of things consists with this age, or with eternity, when can it be save in the millennium? Manifestly, therefore, that good age which succeeds “the present evil age,” and which precedes eternity when national distinctions shall have forever passed away, supposes the Son of Man to come again and to reign over the world.
Thus the nobleman, according to the parable, will have returned, having received the kingdom; and the kingdom He delivers up to Him who is God and Father at “the end,” not of this age, but of the age to come—i.e., the millennium, when He shall have put down all rule and authority and power; for He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. This is not what occupies Christ now. He is calling out those who were enemies, and gaining them as His friends, yea, His body and bride, to reign with Him when the world-kingdom of the Lord and of His Christ is come (Rev. 11). He is not in this age dealing righteously but in long suffering with His enemies; in that age He shall put them under His feet, not ill title only, but in fact. And when all things shall be subdued unto Him (which will be the work and issue of the millennium, not of this age), then shall the Son also Himself be subject to Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28). This is disclosed in Rev. 21:1-8; not in what goes before or after.
The common post-millennial system of Christendom ignores and opposes all this clear, positive teaching of Scripture, It is in effect a denial of the Bible millennium altogether. Dr. B.'s view, even if true, would make it simply an extension of what is going on now throughout the world. He excludes Christ, he includes Satan, he maintains the mixture of tares with wheat in his scheme. Thus it is not a new age but the last stage of this present evil age, conceived to be an exceptional period which shall surpass in brightness all the world has yet beheld. It is a visionary millennium of man without a shred of divine evidence, nay, in hopeless antagonism to the word of God. The root of it is unbelief as to the central place of Christ in the ways of God, and the substitution for Him of salvation or the saved. Hence, habitually all is viewed from present experience, and tends to magnify man as he is or hopes to be — not the Lord. Instead of calling the Christian to self-judgment, because of our miserable fall from primitive power, purity, and love, this scheme directly fosters the proudest and wholly baseless hope of doing that by the gospel which God receives for Christ sent from heaven in judgment of the world and especially of Christendom. “When Thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.” It is perfectly true that the earth in the millennium is to be the scene of universal blessing; it is utterly false that this is ever once attributed in Scripture to a preached gospel. The delusion would not stand an hour's examination of Scripture, if it did not flatter man to the dishonor of Christ — the common source of all error even among children of God. And what (can the reader believe it?) is the Scripture, the one Scripture adduced to support the scheme? “All power,” &c., Matt. 28:18-20. The late Cardinal Wiseman, like many a Romish controversialist before him, cited the same passage with quite as much reason to support the fabric of Papal infallibility. It need hardly be said that there is not a syllable which supports either the claims of the Pope, invested with all power in heaven and on earth, or the hopes of missionary societies. The Lord pledges His presence with His servants in their making disciples of all the Gentiles; but far from hinting at the conversion of the world in the age to come as the effect of their work, He expressly speaks of being with them all the days until the completion of the age. He himself would come in power and glory for that age, using His angels to clear out of His kingdom all offenses and those that practice lawlessness; and then should the righteous shine in their heavenly sphere, as He had taught them already according to a previous chapter of this gospel, which explicitly shows us the separating judgment that will distinguish the end of this age, and thus prepare the way for the peculiar features of the age to come, that follows before the eternal state.