Biblica, you are right - we derailed your topic. Davy and I allowed a narrower disagreement about “peace” and the Antichrist to consume the thread. I sincerely apologize for my part in that.
In answer to your topic, let me offer my own perspective.
Have you considered that Christ is already seated at the right hand of the throne of God and has already begun His reign over the earth?
That question may place Isaiah’s prophecies into a different order. Perhaps the peace described by Isaiah does not wait for Christ to begin reigning after His return. It may be the historical fruit of the reign He has already received and is presently exercising.
I agree with your central confession: Jesus is the Messiah, and His failure to establish the completed peace described by Isaiah during His earthly ministry does not disprove His messiahship. I wonder, however, whether the timing in your argument is reversed.
You place Isaiah’s promised peace entirely after Christ returns and judges the world. Yet Isaiah appears to describe nations being instructed and transformed within history:
The nations first come to the Lord, learn His ways, and begin walking in His paths. As a consequence, warfare is suppressed and instruments of destruction are redirected toward productive purposes.
That sequence seems difficult to place after the final judgment. Once Christ returns, raises the dead, separates the sheep from the goats, and delivers the consummated kingdom to the Father, there will be no nations remaining to convert, no warfare to suppress, and no weapons requiring conversion into farm implements.
Isaiah 11 makes the same connection. The peace described by the wolf dwelling with the lamb is explained by the words:
The Root of Jesse stands as an ensign, the nations seek Him, the knowledge of God spreads throughout the earth, and peace follows. This looks like the historical fruit of Messiah’s reign as the nations are brought under His teaching.
Daniel also presents Messiah’s kingdom as beginning and growing within history. In Daniel 2, the stone strikes the image during the period of the earthly empires, becomes a mountain, and fills the earth. In Daniel 7, the Son of Man comes
to the Ancient of Days and receives dominion, glory, and a kingdom.
The direction here makes a difference, IMO. The Son approaches the Father in heaven and receives His kingdom. This corresponds naturally to Christ’s resurrection, ascension, and enthronement at the Father’s right hand.
Paul then says that Christ “must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet,” with death identified as the last enemy (1 Corinthians 15:25-26). Christ reigns now, His enemies are progressively subdued, and death is finally destroyed at the resurrection when He returns.
That places Isaiah’s conversion of the nations and suppression of warfare during Christ’s present reign, before His return. The final judgment brings that historical work to its consummation.
I also have difficulty reading Daniel 11 as a simple chronological continuation after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Daniel 10 through 12 introduces another vision that begins again with Persia, proceeds into Greece and the divided Greek kingdom, and then describes Antiochus Epiphanes. The narrative has already returned to events centuries before Christ. A separate argument would therefore be needed to establish that Daniel 11:36 suddenly moves thousands of years forward to a final Antichrist.
The same question arises in Matthew 24. Jesus places “all these things,” including the Great Tribulation, within “this generation” (Matthew 24:34). Luke’s parallel identifies the approaching desolation with Jerusalem being surrounded by armies. That points me toward the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 rather than another attack shortly before the final judgment.
The view I am describing is postmillennialism. Greg Bahnsen presents it far better, and much more warmly, than I can in a forum post. I would sincerely recommend his free three-part audio series,
Why I Am a Postmillennialist?.
The three recordings cover:
- The chronology of history;
- The nature of Christ’s kingdom; and
- Christ’s expectation for His earthly kingdom.
Bahnsen works directly through Isaiah 2 and 11, Daniel 2 and 7, Psalm 72, the Great Commission, and 1 Corinthians 15. His basic point is that the peace promised by Isaiah is the historical result of the nations being converted and taught God’s ways.
So I agree with you that Isaiah promises something much greater than private spiritual peace. My difference concerns when that promise is fulfilled. I believe Christ has already received His kingdom, is presently subduing His enemies through the gospel, and will fulfill these promises in history before He returns to destroy the last enemy and consummate His reign.
Again, I apologize for helping to pull your original topic into the ditch.
In His Grip,
S.J.
