Premillennialism
Was The Kingdom Postponed?
It is the teaching of Premillenialists that at Jesus' first coming a literal, earthly kingdom like that of David was to be set up. However, the Jews rejected Jesus and His kingdom. In fact, they killed Him. But since God had promised such a kingdom, and He cannot lie, He postponed the kingdom until the second coming. In the meantime the church or, as it is sometimes called 'the church age', was introduced. This church age was completely unknown by the Old Testament prophets or any other man. What does the scripture say?
As already noted, according to the Bible, the kingdom came during the lifetime of some of the apostles (Mark 9:1). And Paul and others of the first century were in it (Col. 1:12-13).
What about this postponement period? It implies to many people that God has some special work for the Jews who are still His special people. As 0. T. Allis in his classic work Prophesy and the Church on page 78 shows by an appeal to the scriptures, "Jesus declared to the Jews that the kingdom should 'be taken from them' (Matt. xxi.4 if). The children of the kingdom (the natural and lawful heirs) are to be 'cast out' (vii. I if). None of those 'bidden' are to taste the marriage supper (Lk. xiv 24.) The vineyard is to be given to 'other husbandmen'; to 'a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof: men are to come from the 'highways' from 'the east and west, and north and south,' to partake with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob of the marriage supper As he notes, these scriptures "imply clearly that the period of Jewish particularism was ended." Nothing is said or implied about a postponement and a second chance later.
John the Baptist said the same thing. "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand... Think not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." (Matt. 3:9). As Paul says, "For ye are all sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christdid put on Christ. There can be neither Jew nor Greek..." (Gal. 3:27)
This doctrine of postponement has some serious consequences: (1) Did Jesus know that the Jews would reject His offer of the kingdom? If He did, did He tell the truth when He said the kingdom was at hand? (2) If it was a sincere offer, theoretically they could have accepted it. If they had, what would have happened to the cross? One of their writers said, "It can be said at once that His dying was not God's own plan."
As it relates to the theory that the establishment of the church was completely unknown to Old Testament people and it was a mystery until it was revealed, consider the following: On one occasion a leading light among Premillenialists came to the town where I lived. He had a call-in question and answer type radio program. One day the following took place. "Is it your understanding that the coming of the church in the church age was completely unexpected, not foretold in the Old Testament scriptures and was not expected and the kingdom was postponed? How do you know that when Jesus comes again that He will not be rejected and another postponement will occur? After all, that was the stiuation among the first century people; how do you know that it will not happen again?" His response was that we just don't think that will happen. That is an insufficient answer. - Hiram Hutto