Failing at the Broad Strokes

As a consistent method of interpreting the prophetic scriptures, amillennialism fails at the most basic levels.

That’s not a new thought. I first expressed it back in 2019 when reviewing Kim Riddlebarger’s 2013 update of A Case for Amillennialism: Understanding the End Times. I wrote, “The devil may be in the details, but far-reaching doctrinal errors are all in the broad strokes and almost never in the minutia. I’m becoming convinced of it.”

I’m even more convinced of it after reading Matt Waymeyer’s response to Riddlebarger, 2016’s Amillennialism and the Age to Come: A Premillennial Critique of the Two-Age Model.

The Primary Argument for the Amillennial View

I didn’t realize when reviewing Riddlebarger that his book had become the definitive defense of the modern amillennial position, or that it merited anything other than the quick and easy dismissal I had given it, writing it off at the level of the “broad strokes”. That’s why Riddlebarger updated it, and that’s why Matt Waymeyer has gone to great lengths to refute it.

Waymeyer explains his reasoning:

“This model [the two-age model] was not fully developed as a key argument in the millennial debate until the 2003 publication of A Case for Amillennialism by Kim Riddlebarger. In this landmark work … Riddlebarger argued that the two-age model ‘enables us to make sense of the eschatological language in the New Testament, specifically as it relates to the future and the millennial age.’ Riddlebarger popularized this model as a polemic against premillennialism and placed it at the center of the case for amillennialism. Since then, the two-age model has become the primary argument for the amillennial view.”

Waymeyer’s refutation is over 300 pages in length, much of it footnotes, which take up approximately the bottom third of nearly every page. I find heavy footnoting painful, because my obsessiveness obliges me to read them all, and doing so often distracts me from the thought flow of the writer’s main arguments. Nevertheless, the extensive notes are an indication of how seriously and respectfully Waymeyer has treated Riddlebarger’s work, not to mention the commentary and positions of other amillennialist writers, and how thoroughly and effectively he demolishes their views. He leaves no stone unturned and no argument intact.

The Two-Age Model Under Scrutiny

Riddlebarger’s main contribution to the amillennial position was to assert that the words “this age” and “the age to come”, or terms like them used by the Lord and the apostle Paul, constitute an “interpretive grid” and an “overall framework” for the New Testament. Riddlebarger argues these expressions are “the hermeneutical lens through which the rest of Scripture, including Revelation 20, should be viewed”. (That’s Waymeyer’s description, by the way, not Riddlebarger’s, but it has the virtue of being brief and accurate.) By dividing the period from the death of the Lord Jesus through to the new heavens and new earth into two — and only two — distinguishable eras separated by the second coming of Christ, Riddlebarger effectively eliminates the possibility of a literal future millennial reign. His “interpretive grid” excludes it.

Waymeyer undertakes the task of proving him wrong. He does so by demonstrating that not only does Riddlebarger’s two-age model turn Revelation 20 into gibberish, it also dispenses with swaths of Old Testament prophecy that clearly speak of the millennial reign, including the Psalms and Prophets, most compellingly Isaiah and Zechariah. The two-age argument also comes into conflict with many New Testament scriptures, which Waymeyer examines in Part 2 of his argument. The final section of Waymeyer’s critique deals with the amillennial view of Revelation 20. A more thorough, painstaking and ruthlessly fair dissection of Riddlebarger’s popular error could hardly be imagined. Waymeyer is respectful, polite, cautious and humble, and he leaves a pile of steaming rubble in his wake.

Fools and Folly

I haven’t the patience to ever be Matt Waymeyer, but I love what he’s done here. The Christian faith needs people with the perception to see the need for such a book, and the diligence to sit down and actually research and write it. It takes a special personality type to get down to the granular level of many of the amillennial arguments made by Riddlebarger. Many of us would consider it a waste of valuable time, but there are Christians out there (almost exclusively certain recognizable types of men) who operate most happily at this level of detail. These overly-pedantic-but-nonetheless-fellow believers are best served by answers in their own “language”, and Waymeyer provides that.

We are cautioned in Proverbs not to answer a fool according to his folly lest we be like him, but in the very next verse we are encouraged to answer a fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own eyes. I’m not sure exactly how to reconcile the apparent contradiction implicit there, but what does seem clear about that Solomonic paradox is that there are times when, for the sake of argument, we have to temporarily accept a nonsensical frame of reference in order to show it for the nonsense it is, or concede a transparently goofy assertion in order to demonstrate that it fails even by its own tortured interior logic. My father used to play devil’s advocate with a view to teaching his children to think critically. Waymeyer gives Riddlebarger’s two-age model all the rope it needs to hang itself.

Illustrations and What They Illustrate

For me, and for many others, amillennialism will always fail at the level of the broad strokes. I remember my early twenties arguments with my amillennial cousin over prophecy. They taught me something valuable about literal and figurative interpretation. When my cousin would insist that some scripture was not to be interpreted literally, I would ask him to interpret it for me figuratively, or, as he was fond of saying, “spiritually”. Invariably, he could come up with no interpretation at all. Spiritualizing certain passages had the effect of simply making them go away.

Any legitimate spiritualization of a passage stays consonant with the imagery used to point toward spiritual truth. A correct spiritual interpretation leaves the illustration intact rather than inverting its meaning or making it disappear. There are no exceptions to this principle.

For example, a good Christian marriage provides an effective illustration of Christ and his church in that both wives and the church submit to their respective heads, and both husbands and the Lord Jesus love their partners sacrificially. The earthly reality points to the greater heavenly reality, and the illustration and the truth it illustrates harmonize. They do not clash.

Again, when Matthew writes that Joseph taking his family to Egypt fulfills the OT prophecy that “out of Egypt I called my son”, we know that in Hosea’s original prophecy the “son” in question was Israel, not Christ. Nevertheless, the picture (Israel) and the reality (Christ) harmonize. Both came out of Egypt; in fact, both came literally out of Egypt and walked home through the wilderness.

One more: Haggai uses the illustration of contact with a dead body rendering food ceremonially unclean, unfit to be eaten or offered to God. The spiritual reality to which the illustration points is that sin defiles the sinner and makes him unfit for service. The image is once again consonant with the reality to which it points.

You can see this over and over again wherever the imagery of scripture is interpreted in context or by later scripture. Never will you find an image clashing with the truth it is alleged to illustrate. If cognitive dissonance does occur, you are probably misinterpreting the image.

Amillennialism’s Illustration Problem

Riddlebarger’s two-age amillennial model fails in that it doesn’t just make inconvenient literal interpretations go away, it actually makes many passages say the precise opposite of what they purport to say when interpreted literally. In the two-age model, Satan’s “binding” leaves him free to run about like a roaring lion doing whatever he pleases in the present era. The souls who come to life and reign with Christ make no decisions and control precisely nothing when we transport their “reign” to the present era instead of leaving it in the future where it belongs. On what basis do we therefore call it a “reign”? 144,000 Israelites from specific tribes become the entire community of the redeemed in the present era, leaving the tribal aspect of the “illustration” essentially meaningless. The only thing the amillennial interpreter is sure about is that these people who purport to be Israel are not actually Israel. In the amillennial view, the birds of the air and the leaven in the parables of Matthew 13 suddenly come to prefigure the exact opposite of what they signify everywhere else in scripture. No Jew would ever have made such associations.

This is what I mean by failing at the broad strokes. To me, attempts to wrestle scripture into saying the opposite of what it plainly says are simply illogical and incoherent. I have trouble giving them the time of day. I recognize, however, that most of those who have grown up in the amillennial system, or those have been introduced to it as a complete package in the absence of any other options, have never had their basic assumptions and interpretations patiently and respectfully challenged by solid biblical scholarship; scholarship that works its way through the scriptures from beginning to end, and that handles every curveball the most popular and respected amillennial interpreters can throw at it.

Matt Waymeyer has done that, and kudos to him for doing so.