IV. Church’s Heritage of Fulfilled Prophecy

American premillennialists are by no means all pretribulationists, Futurists, and Dispensationalists, or extreme Literalists, although some writers who attack premillennialism ignore this fact. The Adventist bodies descended from the old Historicism, and many individual expositors of many faiths refuse to allow themselves to be bound by rules of Literalism that would ignore the historical and literary setting of the Bible prophecies, and their figurative and spiritual application, or to deny to the church the heritage of fulfilled prophecy.PFF4 1226.4

The early Christians accepted their status as heirs according to the promises made to the true Israel. And just as they interpreted the Old Testament prophecies (including the book of Daniel) historically, so they expected the fulfillments of the Apocalypse to take place in the unfolding events of history during the new Christian Era, which they recognized as having already begun in their day. The difference between them and the later Historicists was chiefly that they expected the fulfillments to be completed in a much shorter time. They did not, like the modern Futurists, take the prophecies away from the church by leaving a gap from the time of Christ’s first advent until after His second appearing.PFF4 1227.1

A Jewish kingdom on earth was no part of the faith of the early church. Nor are certain developments in modern premillennialism the heir of the Historicist interpretation of the Reformation and post-Reformation. Strange as it may seem, Protestant Futurism is the direct descendant—doubtless unwittingly—of the Jesuit Futurist counterinterpretation, originally introduced to divert the finger of accusation away from the Papacy.PFF4 1227.2

And the extreme Dispensationalism that puts law at variance with grace, rebuilds the wall of separation between Jew and Gentile, divorces the church from the kingdom, divides the covenant of grace, and takes the Lord’s Prayer, the beatitudes, and many other Scriptures away from the church, is not a continuation of the faith of the past. It should be added that this is recorded as a mere matter of historical fact, regardless of agreement or disagreement, and not as an attack on the holders of such doctrines.PFF4 1227.3

And it should be clearly borne in mind that most premillennialists of today are conspicuously believers in the complete inspiration of Scripture, the deity of Christ, His virgin birth, His miracles, His vicarious atoning death, His literal resurrection and ascension, and His glorious second advent, as well as the related fundamentals of the Christian faith.PFF4 1227.4

Most premillennialists cooperate on the basic program for the church at this time, as Hamilton remarks with regard to the premillennialists and amillennialists. ^{22Hamilton, op, cit., pp. 19, 144.} For those of both Futurist and Historicist persuasion agree on the condition of the church and the world, with its wheat and tares continuing together until the advent, as well as on the introduction of the reign of Christ through direct divine intervention, and on the church’s great task of proclaiming the good news of salvation by grace through faith in the all-sufficient atonement of Christ, not a program of politico-social regeneration of the world.PFF4 1227.5