Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

I want to preface this review by saying that I cannot be sure about every eschatology view of David Chilton, such that this review shouldn’t be seen as an endorsement of any specific eschatological camp as much as it is one that appreciates the criticism of a modern Christianity that has fallen into despair about the world around them. As far as steering the Christian mindset back into being one that seeks the Kingdom of God from the current state of despair and heavenly-mindedness, however, I think Paradise Restored is a highly motivating book that is very worthy of being read by any Christian today, if only to grapple with the eschatological problems of Scripture. If Chilton is right and one reads this book and finds these things to be the truth, they are very likely to be motivated to want to build God’s Kingdom and organize their neighbors, rather than just be another bystander in a worldview that sees everything as inevitably going to hell.

Many Christians today are preoccupied with an apocalyptic thinking that dominates their worldview. Millions of them are more or less animated by “end times” themes that point to nothing good about our lives on earth — a losing battle where we would attempt in vain to try and make our society more Godly. These ideas are so pervasive in modern Christianity that it’s hard to find a Christian who doesn’t think this way. Most average Christians you will encounter online or in person are anticipating raptures, impending tribulations, the rise of an Antichrist, and most of all, the imminent Second Coming of Christ. They are calculating the years until some given event, comparing world events to events written by the prophets, or trying to figure out which chapter of Revelation they think they’re living in.

For all of these “end times” nuts who are always convinced they know exactly when the final days will arrive, earth is basically just seen as a curse. Our only real goal is to get off it (hopefully to be rescued in a “rapture” before it all goes down), not to do anything like pray that God’s will be done on earth as in heaven (Matt 6:10). They more or less long for an escape from earth and from all their earthly responsibilities and duties toward their neighbors, like building them up and getting them out of our modern-day Egyptian bondage. This “end times” mindset that animates perhaps a majority of Christians in America has led many believers to abandon any such efforts to improve earthly society according to God’s design — to seek the Kingdom of God, organize our neighbors into congregations of mutual service and love of neighbor, and fulfill the Dominion Mandate. After all, the “end times” is just around the corner! For them, everything just goes to hell while we’re here on earth. There is no use in trying to make anything better. Any attempts to evangelize people, call them out of the kingdoms of this world, begin seeking the government of God together, and transforming our social order away from worldly political systems and towards God’s Kingdom, is futile because such efforts will ultimately fail anyway. Satan wins, we lose.

Consequently, many believers think their sole purpose is to focus exclusively on heavenly matters while completely withdrawing from evangelism and agitation toward a free society. These things aren’t going to happen — we need to be getting ready for the end of the world. For most Christians then, everything is reduced to a single question: “Are you ‘saved’ and ‘going to heaven’ when you die?” The main idea of almost all Christians today is an otherworldly idea of getting to heaven, not seeking to advance the Kingdom of God by preaching the Gospel and helping to bring men out from the jurisdiction of worldly governments and under the jurisdiction of Christ’s Kingdom.

With this depressing view where life on earth becomes progressively worse being so popular today, David Chilton’s (1951-1997) book, Paradise Restored (1985), is a great and refreshing volume to motivate people back into the cause of serving God in the here and now and not giving up on our calling to restore our society from its deviant course, take dominion of the earth, and make our social order Godly. The Christian masses today who assume that not much can be done about our earthly existence except to watch it go to hell and allow the forces of evil to take over (assuming they can even see the evils) would do well to absorb its lessons. Many of them don’t believe there’s anything we could or should be doing to Christianize society, like forming congregations of mutual service to each other that as God’s government, networking these congregations into a global system that makes up the Kingdom of God, and in general trying to turn people away from the ways of the world and toward the ways of the Lord.

There are some problems with the “Reconstructionists” like R.J. Rushdoony, who we might camp Chilton among. They were not anarchists who rejected worldly institutions outright as incompatible with the Kingdom of God that they believed should be sought on the other hand. They believed in human civil government, and their general idea of Christianizing society was not to seek the Kingdom of God outside of these institutions, but to bring human civil government in line with Biblical law. However, their dominion eschatology, where we’re called to act down here below, is still a refreshing take from the almost purely heavenly-mindedness of most Christians today. If not politically, there is a lot to learn, or at least a lot to consider, from the eschatology of those who believe the Bible calls us to take dominion of the earth and not merely sit around and wait for end times events to unfold, which is the very defeatism that brings these hellish conditions upon us in a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy that waits around in anticipation of their arrival.

The hope of God’s Kingdom

The title of Chilton’s book might well have been Christianity Restored, because it would appear that the majority of Christians today are in need of a restoration of an optimistic worldview in light of their depressed view that nothing is going good for us and is in the hands of the enemy rather than God. Chilton’s book, which applies the view that Jesus is presently our King who is ruling at the right hand of the Father to our lives today, should serve to get Christians off the couch and out doing what they need to do to advance the Kingdom of God on earth and today.

Chilton does not share the virtual doom and gloom of those many of Christians today who expect to be fully conquered by the evil forces of the world. So those many men who are looking forward to being saved by the Lord at the last moment, after the world has gone to hell, will probably be offended by the hope of Chilton’s view. They almost want the world to go bad, as that would be proof we’re at the “end times” and will soon be given the Kingdom on a silver-platter without lifting a finger in its cause. 

But some people, wanting to be ‘saved’ out of the environment, have asked “where’s the hope?” in this view that Christ is already ruling at the right hand of the Father? Don’t we need to plan on getting rescued at the last minute as everything falls apart? Isn’t our hope entirely heavenly? Wouldn’t it take away the hope of being rescued into heaven to see a progressive expansion of the Kingdom on earth? At best, their idea of “hope” is an otherworldly, afterlife one in heaven. Because they don’t present a hopeful case for life on earth. It would seem more accurate to ask, where’s the hope in a worldview that preaches that nothing ahead is going to go good for us? It is actually the end-times nut, not the guy who believed that the Lord’s Kingdom is active and expanding today, that is without any hope. The idea that God’s Kingdom can be advanced in the here and now, that Christ has inaugurated a Kingdom that is progressively growing through our evangelism and preaching of the Gospel message of another Kingdom, is all the reason to be hopeful.

Dealing with the charge that “there is no hope” in the view that isn’t waiting on a free ride to heaven—again displaying the utter lack of desire to upkeep any responsibilities and duties to their neighbors—is some of the first things Chilton deals with. There is all the hope in the possibility that we may advance the Kingdom in the here and now. The only reason it is treated as “hopeless” is because the slothful, who have found themselves in bondage for this very reason, see “the hope” as being rescued out of here, such that any view that doesn’t see the “end times” as being right around the corner—both the progressing evils and being snatched up by the Lord—is seen as stripping all hope from the picture. Appropriately, the first chapter of Paradise Restored is titled “Hope” and discusses these problems. 

“This is a book about hope. For too long, Christians have been characterized by despair, defeat, and retreat. For too long, Christians have heeded the false doctrine which teaches that we are doomed to failure, that Christians cannot win — the notion that, until Jesus returns, Christians will steadily lose ground to the enemy. The future of the Church, we were told, is to be a steady slide into apostasy” (p. 3).

This apocalyptic view of the world, where things are progressively leading to failure down below, is not Biblical according to Chilton. Contrary to the pessimistic view that is regularly peddled among Christians and in their churches (where the only hope is for an afterlife salvation in heaven), one of his main theses is that we have every reason to be optimistic about the progress of the Kingdom of God. 

“The Bible teaches us to have hope, not despair; to expect victory and dominion for the gospel, not flight and defeat” (p. 223). 

Our heads in the clouds

This imminent end of the world view is rather pervasive throughout all forms of Christianity. The American dispensationalist “churches” of course have pacified people into sitting around and waiting on the world to end. The Eastern Orthodox are also generally critical of lifting a finger in this world to advance the kingdom. They are too wrapped up in mysticism and rituals to care about actual service to one another. Their idea is also something like “being saved” and getting in the boat of the Lord before everything is destroyed here below. They are more interested in hiding out in monasteries and acting like they’re better than everyone else than they are in building their people up. For all these Christians, our only real purpose down here is thought to be win converts, get them partaking in churchian rituals that are entirely divorced from service to one another, and wait for the day we die or the Lord returns.

Most Christians are just entirely opposed to doing anything to make our society more Godly. Any action to change the world, to live as God commanded and seek righteousness and justice, might be grouped in as the “social gospel” (even though social gospelers, as Chilton points out, were humanistic socialists and not true Christians). The average Christian views our only job down here below as “saving souls” and getting men in the church (their “church being the only “correct” one, of course). They think that Christians are really only supposed to be “heavenly-minded” and focused on “the eternal,” and that to do anything to change earthly society around us would be inherently “worldly.” (Many Christians conflate the “world,” ie., its institutions, with earth itself, such that Jesus saying His Kingdom was not like the worldly Roman systems is taken to mean that it isn’t earthly at all). As Chilton goes on,

“Social action projects were looked on with skepticism: it was often assumed that anyone who actually tried to improve the world must not really believe the Bible, because the Bible taught that such efforts were bound to be futile” (p. 3). 

Chilton objects to this spiritualized view where men are to be focused on “the heavenly” more than “the earthly,” which probably makes up the dominant view of Christians today across denominations or sects. This escapist sentiment of being freed from all earthly obligations is the standard for most Christians, who think there’s little to nothing they can do to improve our society and make it more in keeping with the commandments of the Lord (when indeed the reason we live under man’s laws is this very failure to the keep the basic commandments of the Lord to love our neighbors and not use human civil governments to rob them). For them, the main idea of Christianity is otherworldly things like “being saved” and “going to heaven when we die,” not working on the advancement of Christ’s kingdom here below while He is seated on His heavenly throne above. 

Chilton rebuts this sort of new-agey idea that “spirituality” is about dreaming of heaven and not getting involved in things here below (p. 3). To him, the Bible commands us to obey the word of God and to be led by the Holy Spirit in ways that transform our earth and further the Kingdom of God. 

“God wants us to apply Christian standards everywhere, in every area. Spirituality does not mean retreat and withdrawal from life; it means dominion…In terms of Christian Spirituality, in terms of God’s requirements for Christian action in every area of life, there is no reason for retreat” (p. 4).

His book is largely based around this theme of motivating Christians to get back in the fight, rather than sitting around watching football and hoping they will soon be evacuated from their living rooms into heaven — an idea that he suggests has not always been with the body of Christ (at least not as the majority position it holds today), and only gained in popularity relatively recently in the early part of the nineteenth century in the United States. 

A false gospel?

The problem as we have addressed it so far is worse than just apathy and waiting instead of working and believing in transformation, however. As Chilton attempts to demonstrate, this defeatist thinking that there is no hope for us here below is a false gospel that is not at all what we are promised—the success of the word of God spreading among men—in the scriptures. This pessimistic view runs contrary to such things as the prophesy that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9), to Jesus’s words that if we sought the Kingdom of God then all things would be added unto us (Matt 6:33), or the promise that “labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

This version of “the gospel,” where salvation is nothing more than an afterlife matter in heaven, is not the inherently political message of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God where the Lord’s sheep function as an organized body that provides for each other voluntarily rather than through the force of the State. It becomes a watered-down “Gospel” that is stripped of all meaning and concerning the heavenly things only. It is not the good news that Christ has inaugurated a Kingdom that progressively expands through our spreading of this gospel message that the Kingdom is at hand and that men should repent and come into it, but very much so the bad news that there is nothing good for us ahead. The mainstream expectation of most Christians has been that “we have all looked forward to failure” (p. 4). They look toward the end of the world rather than any victory for us down below. Chilton calls this “an eschatology of defeat” (p. 4). 

This is a common theme among millions of Christians, who turn men toward preparation for the “end times” more than they do toward the advancement of God’s Kingdom — or “the Hope” as Chilton affectionately calls its. He humorously explains this popular eschatological view, which we’ve all heard before: 

“The world is getting worse and worse. Antichrist is coming. The devil is running the world, and getting more and more powerful all the time. Your work for God in this world will have no lasting effect, except to save a few individuals from hell. But you’d better do it quickly, before the Tribulation hits, so that you can escape in time. Ironically, the unintentional message of this gospel is: Antichrist is coming! There is something terribly lopsided about that” (p. 4).

It’s almost like men got into Christianity (or this perverted version where things grow worse and worse) just to lose hope with the life entirely and sink into a depression. It’s almost like they have ignored all the signs of hope in the prophets about the word of God going forth and reaching everyone and the edenification of the whole earth (Micah 4). We have been told to just hunker down as the world grows evermore terrible and intolerable. As Chilton says, “Christians have been taught to expect defeat” (p. 5). 

Christians who hold this defeatist view wouldn’t admit that they are doubting the Gospel. But what they are essentially saying is that the gospel will not succeed — that the message of a new Kingdom that Jesus preached was not actually “at hand” like He said it was (Matt 4:17, 10:17) and will not begin to expand like He said it would through His parables of the the Sower, the Wheat and Tares, the Mustard Seed, and the Leaven. This is all despite the message of a Kingdom “at hand” being Jesus’s inaugural message (Mark 1:15), which we should interpret as being exactly what He meant. (The Greek word for “at hand” is engiken, which suggests a meaning of “has come near” or “is near” or “has drawn close.” It need not mean that it “has fully arrived” or has been fully established. But there is clearly a nearness to it that leaves us unable to think it meant that it is coming in thousands of years from now. It suggested that the Kingdom of God was not just future but was actively breaking onto the scene).

Chilton sums up this typical view that we hear from most Christians: 

“The eschatological issue centers on one fundamental point: Will the gospel succeed in its mission, or not? Regardless of their numerous individual differences, the various defeatist schools of thought are solidly lined up together on one major point: The gospel of Jesus Christ will fail. Christianity will not be successful in its worldwide task. Christ’s Great Commission to disciple the nations will not be carried out. Satan and the forces of Antichrist will prevail in history, overcoming the Church and virtually wiping it out — until Christ returns at the last moment, like the cavalry in B-grade westerns, to rescue the ragged little band of survivors” (p. 10).

Chilton asserts that this is not the true gospel and that we have no reason to despair.

“Instead of a message of defeat, the Bible gives us Hope, both in this world and the next. The Bible gives us an eschatology of dominion, an eschatology of victory. This is not some blind, ‘everything-will-work-out-somehow’ kind of optimism. It is a solid, confident, Bible-based assurance that, before the Second Coming of Christ, the gospel will be victorious throughout the entire world” (p. 5). 

Aren’t there obvious reasons to lack hope, though? If we look at the world around us, isn’t it evident that things aren’t going our way? This is typically how men think when they first hear the optimistic position that the gospel message will succeed. There is a glaring problem here, however. Since when is the world around us our metric for how history will play out? Are we to take our queues from the political circumstances that we live under today? Or is our faith in the word of God? If it is the latter, it should be impossible to think in such a gloomy way. If it is the former, then we may indeed run into a worldview that contradicts the promises of God. It is thus fallacious to use the current circumstances of the world—the prevalence of the demonic kingdoms of men that haven’t yet been beaten back—as the metric for whether or not God’s word was truthful, as the defeatists do when they look out in the world and say, “I just can’t see how things are going to work out for us.” Those who point to the current situation in the world—the State expanding its evils, war abounding everywhere, the elites hitting us with a global scamdemic in 2020, moral degeneracy and cultural decline—are not acting Biblically, but are instead letting world events inform their view of things. As Chilton points out,

“Their attention is focused on world conditions rather than on the authoritative and unchanging promises of God. This fallacy-ridden approach to prophecy has been rightly termed ‘newspaper exegesis’ — studying current events rather than the Bible for clues to the future. The question is not whether current conditions seem favorable for the worldwide triumph of the gospel; the question is only this: What does the Bible say?” (p. 234). 

Those who commonly point to the state of the world as a refutation of the gospel of victory commit a grave theological error of judging God based on the world rather than His word. As Chilton went on, 

“We are not to derive our theology from the newspapers or the evening news. Our faith and hope must be drawn from the unfailing Word of the sovereign God, who brings all things to pass according to His unalterable will” (p. 235).

If men looked to the Bible instead of the latest headlines that have consumed them with their doom and gloom, they wouldn’t have so many reasons to lose hope — they wouldn’t believe in such widely taught doctrines of escapism and defeat, which have successfully pacified them into inaction and even depression. Men have been discouraged from taking dominion through this false gospel that the expansion of God’s kingdom on earth will be defeated, that we’re on the losing side of history so long as we’re down here below. As Chilton says, they were duped by the “false prophets of despair who taught that the Church is doomed to failure, and that it is ‘unspiritual’ for Christians to seek dominion over civilization” (p. 231). This latter charge is something that comes naturally with those who think our only hope is in heaven or the afterlife, rather than here below in a transformation of the earth that we ought to be launching. But it doesn’t even make sense to think that placing one’s hopes outside of this earth on the heavenly things is somehow the “spiritual” view, i.e., that spirituality has nothing to do with working here below in this life. As Chilton says,

“True Spirituality does not mean flight from the world, but rather demands that we conquer the world in the name of our Lord” (p. 233). 

Taking dominion

Those who think it’s futile or utopian to be working to advance God’s kingdom on earth are, in this view, mockers of God’s plan who don’t trust Him. They just want to be “saved” (i.e., taken to heaven) without doing anything about their circumstances, without doing anything to rally their neighbors, form charitable congregations with them that look after their welfare, and take back their society from the hands of the wicked men who have arisen precisely because of our slothfulness to the ways of God’s Kingdom. And Chilton is ready to respond to those who think this view that we’re called to do something about our society and make it better is a lost cause, obscure, held only among a few people, or even unhistorical to the church. If anything, he suggests the heavenly escapism is new.

“The idea of dominion is not new. In fact, until fairly recently, most Christians held an eschatology of dominion. Most Christians throughout the history of the Church regarded the eschatology of defeat as a doctrine of crackpots. The Hope of worldwide conquest for Christianity has been the traditional faith of the Church through the ages. This fact can easily be demonstrated again and again. We can see it in the words of St. Athanasius, the great Church Father of the fourth century whose classic book ‘On the Incarnation of the Word of God’ reveals his strong eschatology of dominion” (p. 5).

Despite its dominance today, Chilton argues that this reign of futuristic thinking today where the “Kingdom Age” (the millennium) comes only after a yet-to-happen Second Coming of Christ is largely new for the body of Christ, not dominion-oriented thinking. As he says, 

“The eschatology of dominion is the historic position of the Church…The expectation of Christ’s dominion over the world through the gospel was just the orthodox Hope — the commonly accepted attitude of Christians. On the other hand, [futurism] was always on the fringes of Christianity until it was revived in the nineteenth century by a number of millennialist sects; it finally achieved widespread publicity after the appearance of the Scofield Bible in 1909” (p. 227). 

End times and the individual

It is not hard to imagine how if one thinks the world is coming to an end, that they are highly unlikely to be motivated to do anything about changing it. This is a common sentiment seen online. “I’m not sure it’s worth it anymore.” Chilton thus points out the effect the eschatology of despair has had on the individual too, which in turn keeps men from seeking to advance God’s Kingdom (though, to be sure, this works both ways, and the despair of an individual may well have led them to buy into an eschatology that fit their depressed outlook of the world). This view of the soon-to-arrive “end times” among the hundreds of thousands of Christians today who tell us what chapter of Revelation they believe we’re in this month and give us some equation for how many days they think we have left down here has not just been a theological position that men adopt while living a normal and productive life alongside it. It has become a part of the people themselves who adopt this eschatology of despair and defeat. It has affected not just their work in ministering the people around them and upholding Christian duties to their neighbors, but has caused them to resign in their personal obligations to themselves, avoiding the very things—forming families, producing food and goods, being productive, expanding our knowledge, gaining skills, learning how to be self-sufficient again, and becoming an all-around man—that fight back the evil in the world and work to replace the kingdoms of this world with the self-governing Kingdom of God, where every man is capable of providing for His own and serving His neighbors freely (p. 6). It is not hard to see how a man with a view that earthly life is coming to an end soon (men have thought this for thousands of years) and “we only lose down here below” is not going to be a dominion-oriented, kingdom-seeking man — which is to say that he is going to be a man that gives way to the evils in the world. As Chilton points out,

“On the basis of the ‘fact’ that Jesus was going to rapture His Church ‘at any moment,’ [one ‘prophecy expert’] actually counseled his young followers not to marry and raise families. After all, there was no time for that sort of thing. The Rapture was coming, so any work for dominion would be useless. (If you were the devil, could you devise a better, more ‘spiritual-sounding’ excuse for Christians to abandon God’s plan for victory?) The ‘Rapture Ethic’ of those years led many to leave school, jobs, families, and responsibility in general” (p. 11). 

Indeed, if you were the devil, what better plan could you come up with than telling everyone that it was hopeless for them to get out there and do something about their lives, families, properties, and communities? That it is hopeless to get out there and preach the word, find the Lord’s sheep, work with your neighbors, build community, produce goods outside the regulated and controlled markets, and form alternative networks of trade, communication, security, education, charity, and mutual aid? That it is hopeless to try and minister your people out of Egypt because the Egyptians always win here below? The idea that earthly life is coming to an end is perfect for keeping people in the bondage of Egypt, as this bondage hasn’t just mysteriously come upon a people who just happen to find themselves living as victims to tyrants, but is precisely the result of their own failure to seek God’s Kingdom as an alternative to the statist systems of the world, thus leaving them under the thumb of Pharaohs and Caesars who have pretended to protect, feed, and care for the people in the absence of God’s kingdom-seekers. The greatest lie that statists could ever spin to Christians would be to tell them to sit around and stand back as society inevitably goes to hell, because there’s nothing they can do about it. That way, the statists—those who seek the dominion over men—can continue their domination of men unchecked by any righteous Christians who are calling the people to repent, come under the Lord’s jurisdiction, and leave the Babylonian systems of the world behind. Instead, they give them a message of “sit around and shut up, it’s all coming to an end soon.”

These doomed ways of thinking among Christians and the lack of doing that comes with it has surely been helped by this expectation of an imminent rapture and the “end times.” It has worked to keep Christians from being active in advancing God’s kingdom, with the Lord and the Gospel on their side, under the belief that there is nothing much at all we can do on this front to change our social order away from a corrupted political one. As Chilton noted, “Twentieth century evangelicalism [has been] backed into a cultural retreat that lasted for decades” (p. 233). 

Blessings and curses

Why should we suggest that those who oppose a theology of dominion might be under a satanic delusion of sorts? Surely, to some degree, the forces of evil are always fighting for their dominion over earth as much as we should be fighting for ours. So the forces of spiritual evil have a lot to gain by getting men to resign and expect nothing but the worst. We read in the books of the prophets a sort of back-and-forth of destruction to the disobedient, the people waking up to the evils and coming back to God, and then slipping back into their sin and idolatry and going back into bondage. Surely, we have a role to play in whether or not God will bless or curse us, contrary to those who suggest that there’s really nothing we can do to influence social change or that our bondage has had nothing to do with our sin or violating of God’s Law. Thus, even the eschatology of dominion—that we will eventually make progress on the Kingdom of God across the earth—does not suggest that there will be no losses or declines or judgments upon us and that everything is sunshine and rainbows from here. In fact, for having turned away from God and toward the false kingdoms of this world, as well as forsook the Dominion Mandate to seek His Kingdom, we are paying the great price of bondage in the present and still face a great day of reckoning for having setting up systems of human government in our that will continue to plunder and destroy. The dominion eschatology does not ignore that a people still reap what they sow. The spiritual battle is always active, and blessings and curses, salvation and judgment, are always ongoing, depending upon our adherence to the calling of God to seek justice and liberty. As Chilton writes, 

“When God’s people disobey and slip back into unbelief, the Church begins losing battles to Satan. Does this suggest that the Hope is mistaken? Not at all; for the Bible teaches that the Spiritual growth of society is no more ‘automatic’ than the Spiritual growth of the individual Christian. ‘This is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith’ (l John 5:4). The Christian does not accept growth as ‘automatic’ in any sphere of life. All growth and development are the sovereign gifts of God’s Spirit. Yet the Christian does not say that he can ‘let go and let God,’ stop eating and exercising, and expect to grow. We do not assume that we can stop trusting God, stop praying and obeying, and still grow in grace” (pp. 11-12).

While God heaps blessings upon the obedient, we do not expect them to keep going should we backslide and start chasing after the false salvation of man’s kingdoms again, as we are doing today. We are not speaking necessarily of an uninterrupted upward march. The idea that the Kingdom of God is progressive and advances over time is not necessarily a contention that it is without setbacks or the possibility that men can abandon it at points. As Chilton says, “The Curse would reappear if the people turned away from God’s law” (p. 40). Many Bible verses attest to God reversing blessings (Lev. 26:22, Num. 21:6, Deut. 28:26; 2 Kings 2:24, 17:25; Ezek. 5:17; 14:15; 32:4; Rev. 6:8). 

Being that we have greatly deviated from the godly path today by trusting in man’s political systems to save us and keep us free, we should expect things to get worse for us in the near term. There is no guarantee that things will stay the way they are, and that men have become comfortable with this and assumed that “America is the best country in the world” makes our situation even worse. As Chilton writes, 

“The Biblical warning is clear: if our nation continues in its apostasy, famine will come, as surely as our rebellious first parents were cast out of Eden. We cannot possess the blessings of the Garden if we live in rebellion against God. The fruitful field will again become a wilderness” (p. 46).

He cites the many places in scripture where God will return the Curse upon people (Deut 28:15-19) and send the land back to being a wilderness (Isa 32:13-15). 

So, we should see that we cannot just sit back and watch as God works His magic on the world; we still have a role of getting right with God if we hope our society to ever change. The idea that God’s kingdom is ultimately headed for victory is not contradicted by short-term setbacks — or rather, the short-term setbacks do not contradict the view that God’s kingdom will eventually prevail in all its glory. We are still capable of doing things that bring judgment upon our societies, as we are surely doing today. But this doesn’t change the overall prospect of Christian hope. Chilton refutes this sort of Progressive Theory of History of an undisturbed, upward march of progress in history.

“We do not believe in some kind of ‘natural’ progress in civilization. Our civilization will rise or fall in terms of God’s blessing; and God’s blessing is His personal and covenantal (not ‘automatic’) response to our covenantal obedience (Deut. 28)” (p. 12). 

The modern Christian response to this would probably be that “this is Old Testament law and, therefore, irrelevant to us today. There’s nothing we can do to make our world better.” But this would only be easy to claim if Chilton didn’t link his views directly to Christ and things like the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5) and the Great Commission (Matt. 28), which he does. Jesus’s call to let our light shine on men (Matthew 5:16), says Chilton, “is nothing less than a mandate for the complete social transformation of the entire world” (p. 12). It isn’t good enough, he says, that we just hope for men to come to Christ and obey His word, so that maybe things can be changed. “The Bible,” writes Chilton, “tells us that these commands are the shape of the future. We must change the world; and what is more, we shall change the world” (p. 12). 

How’s that for hope? We have the promise of God that if we go out and do the things we’re called to do, evangelizing in our communities and bringing those who hear the word into a network of charity and assistance, that He is going to work with us. This is quite different from the pessimism we hear among Christians today. I have personally been told that such Christ-like ambition to advance the Kingdom is akin to the false hope of the Puritans and Anabaptists in Colonial America, who, in this view, were doomed to failure and were also dreamers who in vain sought an earthly paradise. But, Chilton says, at least they had a vision, and he asks, “What will people 300 years from now say of the accomplishments of today’s shallow, retreatist evangelicalism?” (p. 51). Nothing — there is hardly a movement today among average Christians that spiritually motivates them to advance the Kingdom of God. Most people are more content pretending to be more “religious” than one another, instead of focusing on what Jesus called the “weightier matters.” They are taking part in churchian rituals, singalongs, and sophist sermons, rather than seeking the Kingdom of God together and building each other up.

What is the source of this defeatism?

We have already seen that Chilton points to things like the Scofield Reference Bible as one source of these ideas that things a progressively doomed for us down here below. Where else might these dreary ideas come from though? One source Chilton finds for the gospel of defeatism—what else should we call a doctrine that says we’re in the ‘end times’ and have no hope here below?—is simply straying away from Biblical doctrine and towards extra-biblical things like hymns, which may or may not get things right. And while some churches and gatherings—this may be instrumental in correcting the spiritual path from pessimism to optimism—are getting back to singing the Psalms today, he cites this deviation from the Psalms as one potential reason that men have slipped into a childish escapism and away from victory and dominion. As he says,

“It is noteworthy that the Church’s abandonment of dominion eschatology coincided with the Church’s abandonment of the Psalms” (p. 8).

Why?

“[The Psalms] are full of conquest, victory, and the dominion of the saints. They remind us constantly of the warfare between God and Satan, they incessantly call us to do battle against the forces of evil, and they promise us that we shall inherit the earth” (pp. 8-9).

While the Psalms remain a popular book among modern Christians today who have a tendency to write the Old Testament off as irrelevant in the so-called “Church Age,” it seems that many have forgotten to follow the Spirit in these words and have been steered instead by the teachings of men. For who can read the Psalms and think that God is not with us? The Psalms have been treated more so as poetry without much meaning, or even songs of comfort in the personal life of believers. But they have not, as they should, animated the whole spirit of the Christian to a great hope and faith in God to be with us in this life in all our endeavors.

Chilton even suggests it was the work of the devil that men started singing from hymn books and following preachers rather than singing the Psalms and being guided by the Holy Spirit. 

“When the Church sang the Psalms—not just little snatches of them, but comprehensively, through the whole Psalter—she was strong, healthy, aggressive, and could not be stopped. That is why the devil has sought to keep us from singing the Psalms, to rob us of our inheritance. If we are to recapture the eschatology of dominion, we must reform the Church; and a crucial aspect of that reformation should be a return to the singing of Psalms” (p. 9). 

The Psalms, he points out, speak of everyone coming to the Lord (22:27), the evil being cut off and the meek inheriting the earth (37:9-11). God destroying the kingdoms of the world and exalting His people (46:8-10), celebrating the kingship of the Lord (47:1-3), the whole world coming to know the Lord (66:4), all nations coming to know the Lord (72:8-11), even the kings themselves (138:4-5), and God’s people beating back the statists (149:5-9). 

Resigning under the gospel of defeat

If men are convinced that life on planet earth is coming to an end—book titles like Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth have helped this view—and that there is no hope in furthering God’s Kingdom on earth, save a half-hearted effort to “save” a few souls from hell, then they ultimately are not going to be that involved in doing God’s work — which means leaving the social realm further open to the satanic statists. As Chilton writes, 

“The fact is that you will not work for the transformation of society if you don’t believe society can be transformed. You will not try to build a Christian civilization if you do not believe that a Christian civilization is possible” (p. 11).

This is where we are today, where most people don’t even think about the Kingdom of God, much less act with it in mind, even though it made up the whole ministry and gospel of Jesus Christ. And they can’t bring themselves to this optimistic perspective, because they have been led by this eschatology of defeat that has been taught by the false pastors of the so-called “churches” of the world. They think it’s just good enough to sit around and call the failure of everything around them. As Mark Rushdoony said, 

“We need a fundamental change, and a lot of people do not have the theology for such a change. They do not have the big picture of the Kingdom of God, nor the hope of victory of the Kingdom of God that they should be working for. If your only thought is that my job is to wait for Jesus to come back and fix everything miraculously, you’re not doing anything, which makes you an observer. You can then think that you’re being pious by pointing out what’s bad in the world, but our piety should lead us to positive action towards the Kingdom of God, not simply identifying evil” (Chalcedon Podcast, ep. 34). 

Chilton’s work is thus largely a defense of what has been called dominion theology, i.e., the idea that we are to get working on building God’s kingdom. When God gave Adam the Dominion Mandate, He gave it to all men.

Christians then and now

We see just how much this view is pacifying the church today when we look at the optimism of Christians of old, who Chilton shows embarked on these vast, world-shattering paths to change their societies with this Biblical conviction that the Kingdom of Christ will succeed. 

“It was the utter confidence in the victory of the Christian faith that gave courage to the early missionaries, who fearlessly strode into the farthest reaches of pagan Europe as if they were at the head of an army, preaching the gospel, driving out demons, smashing idols, converting whole kingdoms, bringing vast multitudes to their knees at the feet of Christ. They knew they would win. They could give up their lives in the struggle, certain that history was on their side, that Satan’s domains were being shattered daily, his illegitimate hold weakening and slipping with every advance of the Christian forces. They were not in the least bit pessimistic about the power of the gospel. God honored their faith in His promises, and enabled them to lay the groundwork for a Christendom which will someday embrace the entire world” (p. 11).

Compare that to modern, waiting-on-heaven Christians today who are sitting around setting dates for the coming rapture, taking guesses as to who the Antichrist is going to be, expecting the world to get worse until Christ comes and saves them into heaven, and giving up hope for any social transformation down here below, which they mostly regard as utopian or just another failed effort on par with the Anabaptists in Colonial America. 

This pessimistic view common among Christians today was not however the view of earlier Christians. As Chilton later says, defending the scriptural idea that the gospel message will go forth widely to the people of the world (e.g., Isa 11:9),  

“This view of worldwide conversion has been the basic inspiration for missionary activity throughout the history of the Church, particularly since the Protestant Reformation” (p. 200).

Lest someone assume that the view that Christ is King and we are to advance His kingdom is some blind optimism, though, Chilton again shows that there is no clean and clear upward-march of history despite this relatively optimistic view (here below) as compared to the waiting-on-heaven approach of perhaps the majority of Christians today who have a purely otherworldly view of salvation. We are still living in God’s world, under His providential law, and still subject to blessings and curses based on our obedience or rebellion. 

“The eschatology of dominion is not some comfortable doctrine that the world is getting “better and better” in an abstract, automatic sense. Nor is it a doctrine of protection against national judgment and desolation. To the contrary, the eschatology of dominion is a guarantee of judgment. It teaches that world history is judgment, a series of judgments leading up to the Final Judgment. At every moment, God is watching over His world, assessing and evaluating our response to His Word. He shakes the nations back and forth in the sieve of history, sifting out the worthless chaff and blowing it away, until nothing is left but His pure wheat. The choice before any nation is not pluralism. The choice is obedience or destruction” (p. 220).

Do they not trust in Christ?

Christians today, of course, proclaim Jesus to be their “Lord and Savior.” Chilton has pointed out “the basic Christian confession of faith is that Jesus is Lord (Rom 10:9-10)” (p. 4). But, he adds, “Lord of all things, in heaven and on earth” (p. 4). Yet, it seems that people who confess Jesus as Lord do not think He is actively ruling as King; they hold that the world is wholly given over to Satan until some future Return, and that Jesus is to become king only at a later date. They may recognize the early dominion mandate (Gen. 1:26-28), but will say that Adam and Eve lost it through their rebellion in the Garden; Jesus Christ, I guess, has done nothing to restore it. Overall, “Lord and Savior” to them are not political titles and concepts that force them to regard Jesus as their sole and exclusive king now. Many of them drift off into worldly politics under this view, thinking they are not called to work on the advancement of Christ’s Kingdom today, since in their view it is only a future thing that will drop from the sky overnight — and any day now! Others simply don’t believe they need to lift a finger at all under this way of thinking. Jesus is coming soon and bringing a Kingdom with Him that we have no role in furthering.

But if the dominion mandate is not active today and died with the first humans, what do they think then of Jesus Christ on the cross? Was the first advent not an establishment of His kingship and sovereignty? According to Chilton, Christ changed all this and restored the Dominion Mandate, i.e., the call to “conquer” the earth—to homestead property, produce private goods and services, freely trade them, form families, associate with others peacefully, provide for our neighbors, form congregations and networks of assistance for those in need, etc—and make it Godly again. Here we have an example of the abundance of scriptures that Chilton usually cites to support all his comments. 

“The Apostle John tells us that ‘the Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works of the devil’ (1 John 3:8). Christ came as the Second Adam, in order to undo the damage brought through the First Adam (1 Cor. 15:22,45; Rom. 5:15-19). God had breathed into Adam the breath (in Hebrew, the Spirit) of Life, but Adam’s rebellion brought death into the world. In salvation, Christ again breathes into His people the Spirit of Life (John 20:22) — Eternal Life, which sets us free from the Curse of sin and death (Rom. 8:2), and which will ultimately result in the restoration of the entire creation (Rom. 8:19-20). In Christ we really are a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), because we have been recreated in God’s image (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10), and clothed again with the glory of God (Rom. 8:29-30). And, this time, the security of the restored image of God is guaranteed, because our standing is in the Christ who can never fail” (p. 24).

But, some would say, how do you explain the satanic world system that we still live under? Doesn’t this mean Christ didn’t really accomplish anything on the cross? In Chilton’s view, Christ’s first advent by no means implies that there is no more work to be done; it was the inauguration of a Kingdom age under a new King, not the Kingdom given to us full-grown overnight. Satan was definitively, if not ultimately, defeated on the cross. But the Kingdom does not come on a silver-platter in one swoop. It is, as Christ said, like a mustard seed that starts small and grows large over time. Here, Chilton gives his “definitive-progressive-final” view of history (p. 24, 146). 

“Salvation was definitively accomplished in the perfect, finished work of Jesus Christ; it is progressively and increasingly applied during this age, personally and institutionally; and it will be finally achieved, in its highest fulfillment, at the end of history on the Last Day. We have been saved (2 Tim. 1:9), we are being saved now (Phil. 2:12-13), and we will be saved in the future (l Pet. 1:9). To put it another way, we have been remade in God’s image (Eph. 4:24), we are being progressively remade in His image (2 Cor. 3:18), and we look forward to the day when we will be perfectly remade in His image (Phil. 3:20-21). Salvation, therefore, restores man to his original calling and purpose, and guarantees that man’s original mandate—to exercise dominion under God over the whole earth—will be fulfilled.” (pp. 24-25).

Jesus Christ, therefore, set us up for success where we were formerly lost and unredeemed. Christ has made it so that men can once again be under the Lord and His peace, protection, and prosperity. We cannot separate the work of Jesus Christ from the Dominion Mandate. “The restoration of Eden is an essential aspect of the salvation that Christ provides” (p. 25). There is no reason that we should think that the days of dominion, once given to Adam in the garden, have now completely expired for us as we await a rapture to heaven or an otherworldly kingdom. As Chilton argues, “In Christ…man’s dominion has been restored (Ps. 8:5-8, Heb. 2:6-9)” (p. 39). 

Some may argue that if Jesus brought the Kingdom age when He died on the cross, then where is it today? Why do we still have so many devils and man-made kingdoms among us? But we need not think that Christ established a full-grown Kingdom at His first advent to agree that the Kingdom has been set up for success through His death on the cross, resurrection from the grave, and ascension into heaven at the right hand of the Father where He rules over heaven and earth. Again, Chilton distinguishes between a definitive conquering of Satan, where spiritual evil is doomed to failure from the cross forward, to the progressive expansion of Christ’s Kingdom, which requires us to carry out His cause in the earth. He says of the first idea, 

“The definitive conquest of the Dragon took place in the death and resurrection of Christ, when He defeated the powers of darkness, disarmed the demonic forces, cast out the devil, and rendered him powerless (Ps. 110:6; John 12:31-32; Col. 2:15; Heb. 2:14; Rev. 12:5-10; 20:1-3)” (p. 42).

And he says of the progressive expansion, which is what many people don’t believe in who are expecting defeat, 

“Progressively, the implications of Christ’s victory are worked out by His people in time and on earth (John 16:33; 1 John 2:13-14; 4:4; 5:4-5; Rev. 12:11), until the final triumph at the consummation of history, when the Dragon is at last destroyed (Rev. 20:7-10). The special point to be grasped for the present age, however, is that we must expect increasing victories over the Serpent, who has been placed under our feet (Rom. 16:20). As the godly steadily reap the blessings of the restored Eden, Satan’s dominion will shrink and wither away” (p. 42).

Jesus Christ has restored the Dominion Mandate. As it was originally given, Chilton says, 

“In obedient imitation of his Heavenly Father, man was to reshape, understand, interpret, and rule the world for God’s glory — in short, to build the City of God” (p, 60).

This call to take dominion and subdue the whole earth has been restored in Jesus Christ on the cross. 

“The Second Adam’s work is not only restorative (bringing back Eden) but consummative: He brings the world into the New Jerusalem” (p. 61).

Many people today act as if Adam’s rebellion permanently ruined this instruction for us; this was maybe God’s original plan, they might say, but that was an old covenant. Those who write off the call to take dominion as instruction given only to a pre-fallen world, however, apparently do not care what Christ did on the cross. As Chilton says, 

“[Adam’s] incident did not abort God’s plan for dominion through His image. The Second Adam, Jesus Christ, came to accomplish the task which the First Adam had failed to do” (p. 67).

And, 

“Christ, the Second Adam, will perform the task assigned to the First Adam, causing the Holy Mountain to grow and encompass the entire world” (p. 68).

In this Christian view of life around us, where Jesus has restored things, there is every reason for hope rather than despair — and every reason to place our hope in the earthly here and now, as opposed to the heavenly future where some have relegated it. We are not doomed until some future “Second Coming,” but await a this-worldly advancement of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ through the preaching of His word. As Chilton says, 

“We look forward to the turning back of the Curse in every area of life, both in this world and the next, as the gospel flows out to all of the world” (pp. 208-09). 

We are not under a permanent curse, as many have supposed in a nihilistic view that life on earth is cursed and can bring no good. What an amazing view of God’s creation that most people hold: God created men to lose at every turn here below. Jesus Christ has restored and mended the fabric that was torn in Eden and reestablished the Dominion Mandate for men to take dominion over earth and expand the Kingdom of God. The Dominion Mandate is active for us today.

“This is our privilege and heritage now, definitively and progressively, in this age; and it will be ours fully in the age to come. Paradise is being restored” (p. 209).

Christ the King

The problem, it seems, is that while many are willing to profess Christ as their “Lord” and “Savior” (without viewing these as political titles), they are awaiting a Second Coming to consider Christ as the King, whereas the scriptures say He is already seated at the right hand of the Father and that all power has already been given to Him. And even worse, in the common worldly-statist way of thinking among most so-called Christians, they are waiting on a physical throne rather than a rule from Heaven at the right hand of the Father. But as Chilton suggests, Christ already fulfilled this at the first advent. 

“Christ came as the Son of Man, the Second Man (I Cor. 15:47), to accomplish the task assigned to the First Man. He came to be the King” (p. 69).

If we take the modern teachings of men as our guide, who have been sold on the end-times thinking through the church and its preachers, we are to think that we are still awaiting the day when Christ is King. As Chilton explains, “It is commonly assumed today that this text describes the Second Coming, and thus that Christ’s Kingdom (often called the Millennium) begins only after His Return” (pp. 68-69). In this view, “Christ’s Kingdom will begin only when He returns in the Second Coming; then, they say, Jesus Christ will actually take up residence in Jerusalem, where there will be a restored, active Temple, with real sacrifices” (p. 199). 

This is not the view of Chilton and other postmillennialists, who think that Christ became King at the first advent and that it is now on us to advance His kingdom (p. 195). As Chilton argues, “the Millennium is taking place now” (p. 197). 

He cites many reasons for why this is so, pointing out most often the immanent language that drenches the New Testament (Matt 4:17, 4:23, 12:28, 16:28; Mark 1:15; Luke 10:9-11, 17:21). Jesus was preaching a Kingdom that was “at hand,” and telling the people that their generation—the one that was on the earth at that time—wouldn’t pass away until these things had come to pass. Many excuses are often made as to why this wasn’t so. “A thousand years is as a day to God” is one way this imminent language is explained-away, and one way men can say we are still waiting on Jesus-the-King. Chilton thinks this is an excuse that doesn’t take Jesus at His word. “Immediately means immediately” (p. 97). 

The sad thing is that atheists often see the imminent language (the Kingdom being at hand), take it seriously, and yet use it to conclude that Jesus was a liar and thus couldn’t be the Lord, since there is no throne with Him on it today. Bertrand Russell argued this in his essay, “Why I Am Not a Christian.” He takes the imminent language to be genuine, unlike premillennialists, and yet argues (contrary to postmillennialists) that it never happened. They are then able to argue that Jesus was a liar and evidently not the Christ. Since premillennialists have postponed the “Kingdom Age” into the future, rather than arriving with Jesus the first time, they have provided atheists with an argument against the infallibility of the scriptures: Jesus supposedly wasn’t telling the truth when He spoke in imminent language, and thus must not be the Lord or any sort of true prophet, otherwise He wouldn’t have failed in His predictions that things were coming to pass in His time, which most Christians today don’t think as happened.

But Chilton sees through this. We need not conclude that Jesus was mistaken, nor that He hasn’t come to establish a throne. The Kingdom was established in His lifetime. 

“We must believe what Jesus said: within the lifetime of those who were listening to Him, He would come in His Kingdom. And that is exactly what He did, culminating in His ascension to His heavenly throne” (p. 70).

That Christ became King, ruling from heaven, was Peter’s view of the ascension (Acts 2:30-36). Paul also agreed (Eph. 1:20-22, cf. Col 1:13). 

To expect an earthly throne—Jesus physically seated in Israel—shows just how much men are still minded in the kingdoms of men of the world, just as the apostles were in the Bible who wanted to make Jesus an earthly King. Jesus is already on the throne, and “from His throne in heaven, Christ is already ruling the world” (p. 71). How could this view be called hopeless? Christ as the King gives us every reason to rejoice. 

The apathy of futurists

Perhaps the worst part of futurist eschatology, where Jesus is coming back to then act as a King, is the effect that it has had on the people who hold to it. If, as futurists see it, the Kingdom of Christ (the “millennium”) will not come until after some still-future-to-us return, it’s easy to see how this eschatology will affect a man’s current actions and views of the world. This idea that Christ’s kingdom will fall out of the sky one day and be set up over night by Jesus naturally leads men to an apathetic view of this life or at least this age, which they think is soon to pass away and hopeless to try and change. If Jesus is going to establish His kingdom overnight in one fell swoop and without our cooperation (and soon), then there’s really nothing we should be doing down here below or nothing we can do; it’s all entirely in His hands and we are to just sit around and believe it’s coming. Forget the idea that Jesus calls us to repent and seek His Kingdom and evangelize others to join this cause with us. We are, at best, to spend all our time warning everyone to “believe in Jesus” because “we’re in the last days” and “time is running out.”

Under this end times view that is almost crippling to those who hold it, Christians end up being paralyzed to do anything about social order around them. They end up sitting around in circles, stuck on couches, warming pews, setting dates of the Second Coming, pointing out how the world is getting worse and worse, etc., all while they do little to nothing to make our society more Christian. Ironically, their apathy is the very cause of the worsening social conditions that they are pointing out from the sidelines.

For all this date-setting that comes from the end-times hucksters, there’s little to nothing in the scriptures that we could use to figure up the timing of some Second Coming when the world comes to an end, while a great deal is said about what we should be doing in the meantime regardless of these things. And yet, Christians most often place their focus on the former matters. 

“What the Bible does reveal is our responsibility to work for God’s Kingdom, our duty to bring ourselves, our families, and all our spheres of influence under the dominion of Jesus Christ…God has not told us when the Second Coming will occur. But He has told us that there is a lot of work to be done, and He expects us to get to it” (p. 222).

Even if they don’t say it, most Christians necessarily think that Satan is the Almighty one today, that the entire planet—not just the world’s institutions but earth itself—is given over to Satan right now and that there’s nothing we can do to change it. They don’t believe Jesus Christ when He said that all power has been given unto Him in heaven and earth (Matt 28), such that if we did our part down here and organized our people into a Kingdom-network that operates apart from the kingdoms of this world, He would do His part in heaven; they believe that Jesus Christ is still virtually powerless until He brings down some physical reign as King. 

Those who read God’s word and sit around and do nothing, even preaching that we are just waiting on a Second Coming, are frankly losers. The Word of God is a calling for God’s people to get to work. It should move us to nothing less than preaching the active reign of Jesus Christ on the throne and the absolute hope of victory for those who seek His Kingdom, knowing that all other things will be added unto those who do. Those who take dates and such from the prophets, rather than the lessons in blessings and judgments, have not understood who God was calling us to be. As Chilton says, on the last page of his book, 

“The purpose of prophecy is ethical. It is God’s assurance that history is under His control, that He is working out His eternal purposes in every event, and that His original plan for His creation will be fulfilled. He has placed us into the great war for world history, with the absolute guarantee that we will win. Even if He has to make the whole universe stand still for us (Josh. 10:12-13), the day will last long enough for us to achieve victory. Time is on our side. The Kingdom has come, and the world has begun again. Now, get to work” (p. 222).

Giving up and into Satan

It is curious that the idea that Satan is in charge of everything has led tens of millions of Christians to resign. Even if Satan is still the “god of this world,” controlling its institutions, we still have a duty at the same time to cut the weeds, till the Garden, and keep pushing back the evils until our world becomes more and more Christ-like. But, as Chilton points out, this view that Satan is still in control of things—the State, global institutions, corporations, the colleges, the churches—has caused further resignation, making men think there’s nothing we can do about it.  

“A very common evangelical worldview is that ‘the earth is the devil’s, and the fulness thereof’ — that the world belongs to Satan, and that Christians can expect only defeat until the Lord returns. And that is exactly the lie that Satan wants Christians to believe. If God’s people think the devil is winning, it makes his job just that much easier. What would he do if Christians stopped retreating and started advancing against him? James 4:7 tells us what he would do: he would flee from us! So why isn’t the devil fleeing from us in this age? Why are Christians at the mercy of Satan and his servants? Why aren’t Christians conquering kingdoms with the Gospel, as they did in times past? Because Christians are not resisting the devil! Worse yet, they’re being told by their pastors and leaders not to resist, but to retreat instead!” (p. 54). 

To act as if everything is given over to Satan is seemingly, again, to have no faith in Christ and no belief that He began beating back Satan as soon as He appeared on earth. As Chilton says, 

“When Jesus came He immediately began winning victories over Satan and his demonic legions, single-handedly engaging them in combat and effectively banishing them from the land, along with disease and death. An all-out warfare was waged during Christ’s ministry, with Satan continually losing ground and running for cover” (p. 72).

Chilton shows all the places where Jesus already triumphed over the evil (Col. 2:15), that Jesus’s resurrection defeated Satan (Heb. 2:14), that Jesus came precisely to destroy the devil (1 John 3:8), etc. 

Thus, it seems rather odd that so many Christians have resigned in the fight under the assumption that Satan is the god of this world and they really have no power in it. As Chilton says,

“Christ came to bind and disarm Satan, to render him powerless, to destroy his works, and to establish His own rule as universal King, as God had intended from the beginning. According to the Bible, Christ actually fulfilled what He had set out to do; Scripture regards Satan as a defeated enemy, one who must flee when Christians oppose him, one who is unable to resist the victorious onslaught of Christ’s army” (pp. 72-73). 

Our work in fighting Satan

Since there is a gradual advancement of Christ’s kingdom, however, people often object that it couldn’t be the case that we are already in a kingdom age where Jesus is cooperating with us from above to further His kingdom on earth — perhaps Jesus was lying about “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven” (Matt 18:18), just as they think He was when He said “this generation.” Wouldn’t there be no more evil whatsoever if this were true? Why are there still all these political systems out there plundering us? Again, we go back to Chilton’s distinction between the definitive conquering of Satan, where his scheme was definitively thwarted by Jesus already, and the progressive conquering, where it’s on us to continue the battle of driving spiritual evil away. As Chilton says, 

“Although the Kingdom was established definitively in the finished work of Christ, it is established progressively throughout history (until it is established finally on the Last Day). On the one hand, the Bible teaches that Jesus Christ is now ruling the nations with a rod of iron; He is now seated in power above all other rulers in heaven and earth, possessing all authority. On the other hand, the Bible also teaches that the Kingdom develops progressively, growing stronger and more powerful as time goes on” (p. 73).

That Jesus came already and put Satan in his place is what gives us our hope that working to advance the kingdom can be successful.

“The fact that Jesus is now ruling as King of kings is precisely the reason why we can have confidence of victory in our conflict with evil. We can experience progressive triumph now, because Jesus Christ definitively triumphed over Satan in His life, death, resurrection, and ascension” (p. 73). 

The objection that Satan is still evidently the ‘god of this world’ doesn’t prevent this view from being held. There is no contradiction between Satan still clinging onto people and institutions like the State in a last ditch effort to hold onto evil, and an assertion that Jesus is already ruling from a heavenly throne, such that the latter must mean that the former is (yet) completely wiped away. Chilton explains, 

“The Kingdom was established when Christ came. But it has not yet reached its full development. Like [Jesus’s parable of the] mustard tree, it started out small, but will grow to enormous size (just as the stone Daniel saw became a mountain and filled the whole earth). The Kingdom will grow in size, spreading everywhere, until the knowledge of God covers the earth, as the waters cover the sea. The Kingdom’s growth will be extensive” (p. 74).

Evading responsibility 

What it seems like today is men want to avoid all their earthly obligations and duties, even doing so in a self-defeating or contradictory way where they avoid any action because the world has gone wrong, all while the reason the world is corrupted and perverted is because of this very inaction and failure to seek God’s Kingdom. They believe they can just sit around until they are taken up to heaven or handed the Kingdom on a silver-platter. They are “saved,” they say, and await the day when they’re floating around in the clouds, playing harps, and singing hymns with their lost loved ones for the rest of time. They can even do whatever they want, such as rob people as agents of the State (e.g., police), because “we’re saved” and salvation to them is a purely heavenly, otherworldly concept. At any rate, the things we do down here below aren’t really of much concern to them; a simple profession of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord is a sufficient ticket to heaven in the afterlife. Thus, many men have removed their minds from earthly matters and have set their sights on heavenly things, even though, as Chilton points out, “the primary concern of Scripture is the present life” (p. 203). This is more of the escapism that has sent God’s people into retreat mode, considering the world—God’s creation, mind you—to be a lost cause. 

Chilton challenges all this stuff. If we aren’t to really engage with the cause and effect nature of our society, and understand God’s instruction on the paths to peace and prosperity or violence and famine, why were these things even placed in the scriptures? Why did God even tell us that obedience is blessed and disobedience is cursed? Why did God tell us that a society that obeys the Lord will succeed, and ones that disobey the Lord and set up human-kings instead will fail? Was this only applicable to the Old Testament days and somehow not relevant for us anymore? Yet, we were told these things, and they clearly have an importance to us. 

“Biblical law is filled with references to property, law, and economics; and this is why the Reformation laid such stress on this world, as well as the next. Man is not saved by being delivered out of his environment. Salvation does not rescue us from the material world, but from sin, and from the effects of the Curse. The Biblical ideal is for every man to own property — a place where he can have dominion and rule under God” (p. 49). 

If you asked most Christians today what the “Biblical ideal” was, they would say something more like, “To prepare for heaven.” They do not think they have much of an obligation to make our world more kingdom-like. They do not care one bit to break out of Egyptian bondage today and save their neighbors who cannot presently see the way out.

These escapist ideas—the longing to be off of the earth rather than to do something about the bondage to worldly kingdoms—are popular even among Christians who know that the world is evil, but are led to thinking it’s a lost cause. As Chilton says, 

“The modern doctrine of the ‘Rapture’ is too often a doctrine of flight from the world, in which Christians are taught to long for escape from the world and its problems, rather than for what God’s Word promises us: Dominion. How common it is to hear Christians say, when confronted with a problem: ‘I sure hope the Rapture comes soon!’ — rather than: ‘Let’s get to work on the solution right now!’ Even worse is the response that is also too common: ‘Who cares? We don’t have to do anything about it, because the Rapture is coming soon anyway!'” (p. 53).

This just shows how so many Christians don’t want to do what God has told us to do, but want to be rescued from the mess instead. As I heard one man say recently in person, “Things are gonna get bad…but we’ll be out of here by then.” Wouldn’t a true Christian position be something more like, “Things are indeed bad now and we have gone off-course, but we’re going to help lead men to repentance and make sure that we don’t continue down this path of destruction”? Again, this idea that things are hopelessly getting worse is the false gospel that Christianity and the Great Commission will not succeed. Thus, Chilton says, 

“A good deal of modern Rapturism should be recognized for what it really is: a dangerous error that is teaching God’s people to expect defeat instead of victory” (p. 53).

Lessons for libertarians

Secular libertarians are still under many delusions about how to advance the cause of liberty, although, without being fooled by some false pastors, they are at least not quitters who (like many Christians) think we should have nothing to do with this world. (What a confusing God he would be if one goes from being a motivated and activist secular anarchist who sought to change hearts and minds to a pacified and handicapped Christian who thinks it’s all hopeless after reading the Bible! Why would it be that one would become more depressed with the captivity after reading God’s word!? Why would it be that one would go from a winning to a losing attitude?). Since secular libertarian anarchists do not fall back on the word of God and have not all completely slipped into nihilism, many have no choice but to preach the ideas of liberty and hope that men will realize the corruption of the world and come to the ideas of peace and free trade. However, remaining in the secular realm also has its limitations. Namely, libertarians have not yet seen that there will be no liberty without God. While they have a this-worldly focus and don’t know anything else, they have lacked the needed spiritual element to transform society, believing that all we need to do is launch an educational campaign to bring people back to the truths of liberty and logic and reason.

Chilton explains some of these errors. 

“To unbelieving economists, professors, and government officials, it is a mystery why capitalism cannot be exported. Considering the obvious, proven superiority of the free market in raising the standard of living for all classes of people, why don’t pagan nations implement capitalism into their social structures? The reason is this: Freedom cannot be exported to a nation that has no marketplace for the Gospel. The blessings of the Garden cannot be obtained apart from Jesus Christ” (p. 49).

Most secular libertarians are still under the delusion that atheism is compatible with libertarianism, and that religion and statism—thanks largely to all the terrible representatives of Christianity who conflate “God and country” and other lies—go hand-in-hand. Nothing could be further from the truth; God hates statism and punishes those societies that choose it. But most people have failed to see this. They have thought that they could do without God, which most often leads them on a path of making men into their gods. It is not a coincidence that atheists are largely statists, for the State is nothing less than their substitute-god for having abandoned the real God. It is no coincidence that the godless turn toward statism. As Chilton explains, 

“All heathen cultures have been statist and tyrannical, for a people who reject God will surrender themselves and their property to a dictator (1 Sam. 8:7-20)” (p. 50).

We have statism today because men have turned away from God, not because—as the secular libertarian thinks—they just haven’t understood economics enough to avoid socialism, or because they have turned to God. Statism is based in sin, not purely ignorance. Statism and all its evils—taxation, war, conscription, slavery—are the result of abandoning God for false gods (1 Samuel 8). 

Seeing the good

As we have seen, this idea that there is no hope for us down here below leads to further pessimism about everything. These are the same people who talk about how irredeemable men are and how deeply fallen our world is until Christ returns to repair it for us. But this seems like a poor way of looking at what is, in fact, God’s creation. 

Chilton calls for us to look on the bright side, as do the scriptures. 

“We must not look upon the world with eyes that see only the Curse; we must look with the eyes of faith, enlightened by God’s Word to see the world as the arena of His triumph. History does not end with the Wilderness. World history will be, on a massive scale, that of Sodom: first a Garden, lovely and fruitful; then corrupted into a Wilderness of Death through sin; finally, restored by God’s grace to its former Edenic abundance’ (p. 52).

We can show numerous examples again of the prophets showing that the curse of absolute scarcity will end (Isa 35:1), that God will end the shortages, droughts, and hunger that have come upon us as judgment for our sins of trusting in man-gods instead of the Lord (Isa 41:17-20), etc. We should still expect that if we get right with God, He will get right with us; this is not some expired promise of the Old Testament prophets. 

Thy Kingdom come

Since most Christians today don’t see Jesus as having inaugurated the Kingdom in His lifetime, but instead await a Millennium-to-come, they are still expecting the worst today and for the rest of time for life on earth. Many of them, it seems, almost get a kick out of predicting the Antichrist, the date of the rapture, etc; it’s a sort of edgy thing to do to name dates and numbers and make predictions of who, what, why, when, and where we should see such things. But, as Chilton shows, the imminent language in the New Testament makes it clear that Jesus was speaking of these events as arriving soon — and lest anyone say ‘a day is a thousand years’ to God, He made sure the language was clear, e.g., saying they would come before the current generation would pass away (Matthew 24:34). The futurist who reads such things as being future to themselves, rather than in the near-future for the contemporary people of those times, is not reading the scriptures right according to Chilton. As he says, “The events prophesied in Matthew 24 took place within the lifetime of the generation which was then living” (p. 87). The destruction of the temple in Jerusalem on 70 A.D. by the invading Romans was the “Great Tribulation” prophesied by Jesus, Chilton says (p. 88, 93, 97). He disagrees with the premillennialist thinking that the “such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now” (Matt. 24:21) means that it has yet to come; this was a great tribulation. “Jesus was not speaking of something that would happen thousands of years later, to some future temple” (p. 77). 

Hyper-literalism

As for those who counter that, before the millennial kingdom, we should expect to see the sun, moon, or stars fall, and a new heaven and new earth, and who say this (supposedly) hasn’t happened yet, Chilton says they are taking too-literal of an approach to the scriptures here and not seeing the symbolism as is regularly used by the prophets (pp. 98-100). We see many references to the prophets, for instance, of the earth “shaking,” the world darkening, and such things (Joel 2:10, 3:16; Isaiah 13:9-10,13:13, 34:4, Amos 8:9, Ezekiel 32:7-8); to expect a physical shaking or an entirely, physically new earth is to lose touch with the symbolic, literary nature of the scriptures, which is attempting to express in dramatic language the collapse of kingdoms which did happen. As Chilton says, 

“It must be stressed that none of these events literally took place. God did not intend anyone to place a literalist construction on these statements. Poetically, however, all these things did happen: as far as these wicked nations were concerned, ‘the lights went out.’ This is simply figurative language, which would not surprise us at all if we were more familiar with the Bible and appreciative of its literary character” (pp. 99-100).

If anyone today were familiar with this type of language, Chilton says, they wouldn’t make these literalist errors, e.g., ‘It couldn’t have been about that time…there wasn’t a literal new earth, the sun has literally not fallen from the sky yet, etc.’ 

“What Jesus is saying in Matthew 24…is prophetic terminology immediately recognizable by his disciples, is that the light of Israel is going to be extinguished; the covenant nation will cease to exist. When the Tribulation is over, old Israel will be gone” (p. 100).

This isn’t popular at all for the perhaps majority of Christians who have bought into this gospel of defeatism. They almost want there to be bad times ahead, the failing of the gospel of Christ across the world, and an appearance of the Antichrist; this makes them seem prophetic and edgy. But there’s no reason to think there is a “the” (singular) Antichrist who is going to arise at the end of the world (pp. 109-111), or that there is a “the” Tribulation still to come; these are doctrines of men that have come to infect the modern church with defeatist thinking, for the purpose of pacifying men. Why work on the Kingdom if the Antichrist is coming to destroy everything? It makes more sense, in this way of thinking, to sit back, do nothing, and try and guess who it is (X president, Y world leader, Z tech guy). In that way, you’ll get some points among your friends for being the one who guessed it right.

And there is, again, no reason to think that Christ hasn’t already been established as King, ruling over His kingdom, and that “by means of the gospel, His people are extending His rule over the face of the earth, until all nations are discipled and Paradise comes to its most complete earthly fulfillment” (p. 148). That this hasn’t been perfectly fulfilled yet—we’re still dealing with demonic statism in our world—doesn’t change that; it just means there is more work to be done in bringing people to the truth, word, and spirit of the Lord. 

The “end times”

This view that Jesus Christ has already come as King and His kingdom is active, albeit progressively developing overtime, offends the “end times” hucksters who gain their followers by prophesying defeat of the Gospel and destruction by Satan (again, of course, until Christ rescues us last minute and then, with the flip of a switch, establishes His kingdom). In Chilton’s view, it is once again a literal interpretation of “the last days”—meaning the end of the world as we know it rather than the end of an age—that causes this confusion. These “last days” were the end of the Old Covenant, not of the entire physical earth (pp. 115-17). He cites multiple passages showing that the New Testament writers understood “the last days” to be active in their times, not ours — that it was in the near future to them, not the still-future-to-us. 

“Apostolic testimony is unmistakably clear: when Christ came, the ‘last days’ arrived with Him. He came to bring in the new age of the Kingdom of God. The old age was winding down, and would be thoroughly abolished when God destroyed the Temple” (p. 116).

He says of Judgment Day, that while there is still a final day of judgment, this “day of the Lord” has also come many times in history before, such as when all empires had fallen and been conquered (p. 136). It was not just one, single event at the end of history.

“The Biblical prophets saw the Day of the Lord to be fulfilled in all of God’s redemptive judgments in history against disobedient nations: it was the divine ‘day of reckoning’ against Judah, when the wicked would be annihilated and the righteous saved and blessed (Isa. 2-5; Joel 1-3); for Babylon it was the day of destruction, fire, and the collapse of the universe (Isa. 13:6-13); it was also the day when Edom would suffer God’s vengeance in bloody slaughter, in fire and brimstone, and in desolation, while God’s people are safely ‘gathered’ to Him (Isa. 34); the day when God’s great sword would drink its fill of the blood of the Egyptians (Jer. 46); indeed, ‘the Day of the LORD draws near on all the nations'” (Obad. 15)” (p. 137).

Full preterism and partial preterism

Chilton, however, does not adopt the position of “full preterism” in his book that all prophecies have already been fulfilled (p. 138), though he apparently became a “full-preterist” at the end of his life, and presumably would have revised his position that we still await a Second Coming at the end of the world to saying that the Christ’s Second Coming was already fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD (I am not sure). As a “partial preterist” in Paradise Restored, he still upholds a final day of judgment (p. 139). This point of his “partial preterism” is just to show that some of the Biblical prophecies have been fulfilled already, like the inauguration of Christ’s kingdom at the first advent, which Christ said was “at hand” and coming in the current generation. The issue here is whether one thinks that Christ is King already, ruling from His heavenly throne, and working to expand His kingdom until His return (postmillennialism); or if one thinks that Christ will come before any of this is established (premillennialism). Chilton takes the former view, based on the scriptures (e.g., Psalm 110:1) that he will rule until all his enemies have been made a footstool. “Christ has ascended to the throne, and He will not return until the last enemy has been defeated, at the Resurrection on the Last Day” (p. 146). He doesn’t agree with the premillennial position that the Kingdom is established in one fell-swoop, coming after Christ’s return — and also shows the rather statist view associated with this eschatology, “which is to be a literal 1000 years with Christ reigning in Jerusalem as a political, earthly ruler of the nations” (p. 195). 

He argues instead that “postmillennialism—the eschatology of dominion—is the message of the whole Bible” (p. 195). The popular doctrine of premillennialism, that we all know from the churches of our time, is rejected as unbiblical. 

“The doctrine that Christ’s Kingdom will begin only after His Second Coming is utterly contradicted by Holy Scripture. The Bible teaches that the Second Coming of Christ, coinciding with the Rapture and the Resurrection, will take place at the end of the Millennium, when history is sealed at the Judgment. Until then, Christ and His people are marching forth from strength to strength, from victory to victory. We shall overcome” (p. 148).

Rather, he says, the Kingdom (albeit not full-grown) was already inaugurated when Christ first came and is being progressively expanded at this time. He says, 

“We must remember that the Bible speaks of salvation in terms of a definitive-progressive-final pattern…Definitively, all things were placed under Christ’s feet at His ascension to His heavenly throne; in principle, He rules the world now as the Second Adam. Progressively, He is now engaged in conquering the nations by the gospel, extending His rule to the farthest corners of the earth. Finally, the Day will come when Christ’s actual conquest of the world is complete, when all enemies have been abolished” (pp. 146-47). 

Hope for theological progress

Chilton suggests that since people have followed men and their ideas for so long, many man-made doctrines were able to slip into the church and dominate people’s worldviews. But since men are returning to scriptural foundations to their beliefs, he expects that such ideas like the “pretribulation rapture” will eventually die out and men will get back to the idea of taking dominion of earth rather than waiting to be saved at the last minute before things get bad. 

“Recently, as younger generations have begun to recognize the lack of Scriptural foundation for this novel view [of a pre-tribulation rapture], a move toward a more Biblically grounded eschatology has started to take place. The eschatology of dominion, the historic Hope of the Church, is again on the rise. Because of the renewed interest in developing a Biblical worldview and applying Biblical standards to every area of life, dominion eschatology is increasingly being discussed and accepted. And, because it is the truth, its establishment as the dominant eschatology is inevitable” (p. 148).

In particular, Chilton sees theological progress on the eschatological front, which is bound to lead one either into (1) Kingdom-seeking activities (if they agree that Jesus is already king) or (2) hopelessness and despair (if they agree with most mainstream church teaching that our only hope is in the afterlife). He expects the latter view—that the earth here below is a lost cause until some future Second Coming of Christ—will continue to die out. As he saw it, “more and more Christians are becoming convinced of the Biblical basis for an eschatology of dominion all the time” (p. 227). This view, he says, is the one that is in keeping with the historical church. “The eschatology of victory is simply the orthodox Hope of historic Christianity” (p. 231). 

He doesn’t expect the premillennialist view that we await the heavenly things rather than having been given a duty to take godly dominion over earth to survive, since in his view it is neither Biblical nor the dominant view of early Christians. 

“[Premillennialism] is being abandoned by many in favor of the majority position of the orthodox Church throughout the ages: the eschatology of dominion” (p. 227).

If Chilton is right, we should eventually see a generation of builders rather than the usual passive, pessimistic sitting-around that we mostly seen among Christians today (which, ironically, has led to them engaging in the institutions of “the world” rather than working to build the Kingdom of God). We might see a generation of Christians dedicated to advancing the Kingdom of God and believing in its possibility, rather than sell-outs to Egypt who give into the world (it’s a lost cause after all) and forsake their duty to advance Christ’s cause. But we have to put our hope in the true gospel message, that Jesus is the active, reigning king and that we are the “priests” under this rule (Revelation 5:10). For as Chilton says, 

“Our rule is going on now, on this earth (Matt. 19:28; Luke 18:28-30; 22:29-30; Eph. 2:6), and the extent of our rule coincides with the progress of the gospel. As it increases, so does the dominion of Christians. The two go together, as Jesus stated in His Great Commission (Matt. 2:18-20): we are to teach and disciple the nations, and as they are discipled to the commands of God’s Word, the boundaries of the Kingdom will expand. Eventually, through evangelism, the reign of Christians will become so extensive that ‘the earth will be full of the knowledge of God, as the waters cover the sea’ (Isa. 11:9). Edenic blessings will abound across the world as God’s law is increasingly obeyed (Lev. 26:3-13; Deut. 28:1-14). What a tremendous motive for worldwide evangelism!” (pp. 199-200).

There is no reason for Christians for forsake the godly calling to show men the way to God’s kingdom, away from the false kingdoms of the world. “God’s people are a nation of priests, chosen to bring the light of the Gospel into a world darkened by sin and the Curse” (p. 46). 

The Book of Revelation

We have already discussed how these pessimistic views about our future, which deny the success of the gospel, have caused people to forsake working toward the advancement of the Kingdom — the world is ending, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Chilton repeats how these apocalyptic views have led men to think. 

“We cannot even see God acting in history. All we know is that the world is getting worse and worse. The best we can do is hope for the End — soon. But for now, the forces of evil are in control…The practical result was that the apocalyptists rarely concerned themselves with ethical behavior. They weren’t much interested in how to live in the present (and actually taking dominion would be unthinkable); they just wanted to speculate about the coming cataclysms” (p. 154).

We see this today in the endless people who make videos online about how they think the end times are going to play out. They can’t see any hope for our world, so just start thinking how everything is going to fall apart, and praying they will be received into heavenly places soon. But Chilton says, refuting the idea that Revelation is even of the apocalyptic genre whatever, the Book of Revelation, which has given many their gloomy vision of the future, gives us something else. 

“In contrast to the apocalyptists, who had given up on history, John presents history as the scene of redemption: God saves His people in their environment, not out of it; and He saves the environment” (p. 154). 

Chilton notes the difference between the apocalyptic genre and the optimistic outlook of Revelation, which is a book of prophecy and not apocalypse.

“The apocalyptists said, The world is coming to an end: Give up! The Biblical prophets said, The world is coming to a beginning: Get to work!” (p. 155).

He explains, furthermore, how the work of the prophets is to express God’s will and not just (as it has been thought of) to explain the future to people. The prophets show us what God is all about (e.g., God hates statism and thinks its idolatry) so that we may act on this information and change our world in the process. As he explains, once again pointing to the need to act, 

“No Biblical writer ever revealed the future merely for the sake of satisfying curiosity: the goal was always to direct God’s people toward right action in the present. The overwhelming majority of Biblical prophecy had nothing to do with the common misconception of ‘prophecy’ as foretelling the future. The prophets told of the future in order to stimulate godly living. The purpose of prophecy is ethical” (p. 155).

Chilton is not satisfied that men should simply read the scriptures and not feel compelled to act, as most premillennialists, aside from getting men “saved” from hell, have treated their calling.  

“God’s Word demands total transformation of our lives, at every point. If that is not the goal, and result, of our study of Scripture, it will profit us nothing” (p. 156). 

Religion and ethics

Christianity is not supposed to just be a spiritual side-hobby that men infrequently practice on some Sunday mornings (if they ever even go that far). It is not just a “religion” that men are supposed to apply to the “spiritual” parts of their lives, like prayer and one’s profession of faith, while turning to the world for the rest of their understanding of things like economics, ethics, or politics. The scriptures provide men with everything they need to know about how the world works. We are to make “to take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). The Lord is not just one who provides “spiritual” guidance or one’s “religion” and leaves us hanging and looking elsewhere (e.g., to Karl Marx or John Maynard Keynes) for our sociology or economics; He provides the answers to all these problems. The Bible is a political-economics textbook, not just some mythological book about how to be spiritual or something like that. There is no “spiritual realm,” where we relegate God to “religious” things like prayer or worship, and an “everything else” realm where we’re stuck with learning non-religious things from the world. As Chilton says, 

“Every aspect of life throughout the world is to be brought under the lordship of Jesus Christ: families, individuals, business, science, agriculture, the arts, law, education, economics, psychology, philosophy, and every other sphere of human activity. Nothing may be left out” (p. 213).

When men go searching in the world ( i.e., the statist society around them) for an understanding of how things work, rather than looking to the Word of God for their answers, surely God would answer them, “Is not My word like fire?” (Jeremiah 23:29). Those who trust in men, like Marx or Keynes, to help them understand the world believe that God’s word is not like fire — that the words of men are fire. 

Revelation and the “end times”

Most people today view the whole book of Revelation as a yet-to-occur prophecy about our future. They see it as a guide for events that are still to come (i.e., future to us). Chilton, as a preterist, sees the Book of Revelation consisting mostly of events that have already come to pass in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD — an event, which preterists see, as precisely what Christ was prophesying in His time when He spoke of, e.g., the kingdom being taken from apostate Israel (Matt. 21:43). There is no reason to think that Jesus was speaking in parables when he said, e.g., “Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation” (Matthew 23:36), or “Truly I say to you that this generation will not have passed away until all these things shall have taken place” (Matthew 24:34). He meant truly. 

To establish the preterist case for the Book of Revelation being about the destruction of Jerusalem and not some date thousands of years in the future (as people believe today), Chilton makes the case, against those who date it later, for this prophetic book having preceded those events (pp. 159-160). 

This defense of Revelation as being contemporary to the readers of those times makes this book all the more clear (pp. 165-167). It foresaw the coming destruction of Jerusalem prophesied by Jesus Christ, not just something that is still-future to us — or even, as some “end times” folks today believe, imminent for us. It “spoke to the first-century Church about contemporary realities, assuring God’s people of Christ’s universal lordship and encouraging them in the Hope of the gospel’s worldwide triumph” (p. 172). 

Chilton remarks how egotistical it is for people to read Revelation as being in the future (to us still) and think that these times are soon to come upon them, as if God wrote for twenty-first century readers, rather than events that John was describing in the near-future of his day. 

“It is interesting—but not surprising—that those who interpret the book ‘futuristically’ always seem to focus on their own era as the subject of the prophecies. Convinced of their own importance, they are unable to think of themselves as living at any other time than the climax of history” (p. 164).

This is a good characterization of most of the “end times” people of our day who always have some date for us about the Return of Christ. We are supposed to believe that they are so special because they have all the dates and timing of the Return figured out. 

Making sense of Revelation

Many people find the Book of Revelation to be one of the more difficult books of the Bible, and it’s true that it is full of imagery and such that needs to be deciphered. But probably the greatest difficulty for understanding Revelation is that we have all been trained by the modern church to take a futuristic approach to the prophecy, hence why everyone turns to the book to try and understand what they think is about to come upon their society. But if we see this book, as Chilton does, as a prophesy of things that were soon to pass upon Jerusalem (e.g., the Roman destruction of 70 AD), the book becomes much less confusing and more like any other prophecy. As Chilton explains it, 

“The Book of Revelation is not about the Second Coming [at the end of history]. It is about the destruction of Israel and Christ’s victory over Rome. In fact, the word coming as used in the Book of Revelation never refers to the Second Coming. Revelation prophesies the judgment of God on the two ancient enemies of the Church; and while it goes on to describe briefly certain end-time events, that description is merely a ‘wrap-up,’ to show that the ungodly will never prevail against Christ’s Kingdom. But the main focus of Revelation is upon events which were soon to take place” (p. 166).

As Chilton explains, Revelation is not so much about “end times” theorizing as it is a book that shows men the necessity of being in Christ rather than being snared by the beast system of the world. 

“The Book of Revelation is a covenant document. It is a prophecy, like the prophecies of the Old Testament. This means that it is not concerned with making ‘predictions’ of astonishing events as such. As prophecy, its focus is redemptive and ethical. Its concern is with the covenant” (p. 175).

The prophecy, in particular, was the coming judgment upon apostate Israel, who was in bed with the “pagan, antiChristian State [of Rome]” (p. 183). This coming judgment, as preached in this book, is perhaps the primary way in which we are to interpret the Book of Revelation. As Chilton says, 

“We cannot grasp the message of Revelation if we fail to grasp its central character as a covenantal, legal document; like the writings of Amos and other Old Testament prophets, it represents a covenantal lawsuit, charging Jerusalem with breaches of the covenant and declaring her judgment” (pp. 188-89).

Revelation’s purpose as Christian perseverance

After explaining how making Christ your King is an inherently political statement that excludes human kings (pp. 160-63), Chilton explains that perseverance against the evil State is part of the main purpose of this book. 

“This [serving Jesus as your exclusive Lord] is the primary message of the Revelation, and that which the Christians in Asia desperately needed to hear. They lived in the very heart of Satan’s throne, the seat of Emperor-worship; John wrote to remind them of their true King, of their position with Him as kings and priests, and of the necessity to persevere in terms of His sovereign Word…The purpose of the Revelation was to reveal Christ as Lord to a suffering Church. Because they were being persecuted, the early Christians could be tempted to fear that the world was getting out of hand” (p. 163). 

Contrary to those who take the Book of Revelation to be a doom-and-gloom outlook about our future, Chilton frames it as one that is intended to give men strength and hope in the war between good and evil—the progressive advancement of the Kingdom—that was inaugurated by Jesus Christ at His first coming. He says, 

“John’s primary concern in writing the Book of Revelation was just this very thing: to strengthen the Christian community in the faith of Jesus Christ’s Lordship, to make them aware that the persecutions they suffered were integrally involved in the great war of history. The Lord of glory had ascended His throne, and the ungodly rulers were not resisting His authority by persecuting His brethren” (pp. 163-164). 

Revelation was meant to be encouragement and a lesson in keeping the faith for the Christians of the day, who were still caught in between two kingdoms, the Roman enemy and Jesus Christ’s. 

“[Revelation] was written to show those early Christians that Jesus is Lord, ‘ruler over the kings of the earth’ (Rev. 1:5). It shows that Jesus is the key to world history – that nothing can occur apart from His sovereign will, that He will be glorified in all things, and that His enemies will lick the dust. The Christians of that day were tempted to compromise with the statism and false religions of their day, and they needed this message of Christ’s absolute dominion over all, that they might be strengthened in the warfare to which they were called” (p. 167).

And it is for us, too, considering that spiritual evil still has a grip on many aspects of our world, namely the political system. 

“And we need this message also. We too are subjected daily to the threats and seductions of Christ’s enemies. We too are asked-even by fellow Christians-to compromise with modern Beasts and Harlots in order to save ourselves (or our jobs or property or tax exemptions). We too are faced with a choice: surrender to Jesus Christ or surrender to Satan. The Revelation speaks powerfully to the issues we face today, and its message to us is the same as it was to the early Church: that there is not an inch of neutral ground between Christ and Satan, that our Lord demands universal submission to His rule, and that He has predestined His people to victorious conquest and dominion over all things in His Name. There must be no compromise and no quarter given in the great battle of history. We are commanded to win” (p. 167).

Revelation thus shows us that Jesus is still Lord and King and that He is with us and we ought not despair. Against the perhaps mainstream view of Revelation which puts Satan in full-control of everything and leaves us hopeless, Chilton sees it as proof that Satan’s power is waning and going away and that Jesus Christ is ruling (albeit, still working to drive back the evils). 

“The suffering of Christians was not a sign that Jesus had abandoned this world to the devil; rather, it revealed that He was King. If Jesus’ Lordship were historically meaningless, the ungodly would have had no reason whatsoever to trouble the Christians. But instead, they persecuted Jesus’ followers, showing their unwilling recognition of His supremacy over their rule” (p. 164).

Again, Chilton explains things in terms of a progressive victory of Jesus Christ’s Kingdom, such that any semblance of the power of Satan, which may be evident in the States and institutions of our world, is slowly—but surely—being beaten back. 

“Since His resurrection, all of history has been a ‘mopping up’ operation, wherein the implications of His work are gradually being implemented throughout the world. John is realistic: the battles will not be easy, nor will Christians emerge unscathed. It will often be bloody, and much of the blood will be our own. But Jesus is King, Jesus is Lord…The Son of God goes forth to war, conquering and to conquer, until He has put all enemies under His feet” (p. 164).

The continued relevance of Revelation

The most important lesson of the Book of Revelation, according to Chilton, is that it was (primarily) applicable to men living in those times, and not, as many would have it today, a prophecy that is showing them what is to come soon to a country near them. 

“The subject of the Revelation was contemporary; that is, it was written to and for Christians who were living at the time it was first delivered. We are wrong to interpret it futuristically, as if its message were primarily intended for a time 2000 years after John wrote it…For us, the great majority of the Revelation (i.e., everything excluding a few verses which mention the end of the world) is history: it has already happened” (p. 164). 

But this doesn’t mean its message is irrelevant, Chilton replies to anticipated criticisms of this preterist view. 

“It still has relevance for us today as we understand its message and apply its principles to our lives and our culture. Jesus Christ still demands of us what He demanded of the early Church: absolute faithfulness to Him” (p. 165). 

Since enemies of Christ still abound in our world, there is still great relevance to the Book of Revelation. But we shouldn’t avoid seeing that John wrote it for instruction to his contemporary audience to help them endure the coming evils in their time. The images of Revelation, Chilton says, “spoke to the first-century Church about contemporary realities, assuring God’s people of

Christ’s universal lordship and encouraging them in the Hope of the gospel’s worldwide triumph” (p. 172). When they might have been tempted to think the evil earthly empire would win, such writing was meant to remind them otherwise. 

“The purpose of the Revelation was to comfort the Church with the assurance that God was in control, so that even the awesome might of the Dragon and the Beast would not stand before the armies of Jesus Christ…[Nero’s] plans of world dominion will never be fulfilled, and the Church will overcome” (p. 181).

He goes on, 

“John assures the Church that in their terrible and terrifying conflict with the awesome might of imperial Rome, the victory of Christianity is guaranteed” (p. 189). 

We need not worry about the evil men in the world, for God’s plan for victory is to destroy evil and ultimately triumph over it. As Chilton goes on, 

“[Revelation 19] is a symbolic declaration of hope, the assurance that the Word of God will be victorious throughout the world, so that Christ’s rule will be established universally. Christ will be acknowledged everywhere as King of all kings, Lord over all lords. From the beginning of Revelation, Christ’s message to His Church had been a command to overcome, to conquer (Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 26-28; 3:5, 12, 21); [in Revelation], He assures the suffering Church that, regardless of the fierce persecution by Israel and Rome, Christ and His people will be victorious over all enemies. The destiny of the Beast, the False Prophet, and all who oppose Christ’s lordship is death and destruction” (p. 192).

Despite the trials and tribulations that were still soon to come upon these people, Revelation was a message of hope, for them and for us, that evil cannot go on forever and that God’s eventual victory is promised; men need not live in permanent despair as many “end times” folks do today. As Chilton says, 

“The first-century Christians, surrounded by persecution and apostasy, could easily have been tempted to see their generation as the End. The great testimony of Revelation was that these things were not the End, but the Beginning” (p. 192).

There was, furthermore, no need to compromise with the enemy (i.e., abandon Christ and convert to the ways of the Romans) given this message of hope. 

“We must not concede to the enemy even one square inch of ground in heaven or on earth. Christ and His army are riding forth, conquering and to conquer, and we through Him will inherit all things” (p. 192).

More on Revelation

Chilton’s main work on the Book of Revelation is his Days of Vengeance (1987). However, those who are looking to understand this book in greater detail can still gather a lot from Paradise Restored, where he proposes ideas for contentious things like the “first resurrection” (pp. 195-198), the “thousand years” (pp. 199-200), or things like the “new heaven and the new earth” (pp. 203-206). 

Onward with the Kingdom

Chilton turns up the heat toward the end of the book. Pointing out the folly in political change and steering the focus back on the church and it’s actions, namely things like prayer and singing the psalms against our enemies (e.g., the State), he makes comments about how we ought to do spiritual battle against these people. We have a role, as part of Jesus Christ’s church, to call upon men to change — to repent from their participation in the kingdoms of men, i.e., as voters, police officers, tax agents, etc. For instance, Chilton says, 

“Church officers must pronounce sentence against oppressors, and Christians must follow this up by faithful prayers that the oppressors will either repent or be destroyed” (p. 216).

How many are doing this today? All the more likely, men have accepted evil servants of the State (police, judges, etc) into their churches and, far from calling them to repentance, are making vague prayers to the Lord about their own lives rather than social change and conversion of people to the gospel message. 

Chilton demonstrates a great faith in the Lord to work when he calls upon God’s people to make spiritual (not political) moves against the evils in our world. 

“If the Church faithfully calls upon God to judge murderers and persecutors, what will happen? The answer is given in the whole Book of Revelation: God’s angels will cast fire upon the earth, and the wicked will be consumed” (p. 216).

Keeping with his theme of our triumph over evil and against the pessimism of so many premillennialists, Chilton refers to our abilities to drive back the evil forces in our world. 

“There is no reason not to expect victory; if we are faithful to God’s Word, there is every reason to assume that the powers of darkness will be shattered by our advance” (p. 217).

Those who seem to think it’s cute or fun to be a part of some small group of people who can forsee the “end times” while everything else falls apart around us, as most futurists see things, are ultimately immature and not seeing the vision of victory of good, and the defeat of evil, as prophesied in the scriptures. 

“We must stop acting as if we are forever destined to be a subculture. We are destined for dominion; we should straighten up and start acting like it. Our life and worship should reflect our expectation of dominion and our increasing capacity for responsibility. We should not see ourselves as lonely outposts surrounded by an increasingly hostile world; that is to bear false witness against God. The truth is just the opposite of that. It is the devil who is on the run, it is paganism which is doomed to extinction. Christianity is ultimately the dominant culture, predestined to be the final and universal religion. The Church will fill the earth” (p. 218).

Conclusion

There is much more to be said about this book than I have said here. Chilton draws many enlightening connections across scripture that allows us to understand meanings and themes from different books. He makes many good examples of just how much the Old and New Testaments are connected, how much events in the former foreshadowed events in the latter, and just how much all scripture is one big theme that is evidently a whole. He often shows how some event from the New Testament that one might be more familiar with has precedent in the Old, or how Old Testament language and symbolism is carried over into the New. One should certainly read it for themselves.

Surely Chilton has offended many folks over the years who have fought against this work (both the book and what God wants us to be doing) and wanted to keep believing the things they were taught in churches, which we have covered above: that we’re all going to be raptured out of here before it gets bad, that our hope is in heaven, that the world is a lost cause. But lest someone should charge that we are also following after some man to have been inspired by Chilton’s book here, this work is firmly backed by scriptural citations, and Chilton has argued that the rise in this sort of thinking has come about because men have turned to their Bibles rather than the preaching of men for their understanding of the world.

I don’t know if we would want to call this work “scholarly” since it doesn’t exactly pull from many other sources or aim to cite some sort of edifice of theological thought, nor is it some overly complicated work that only an academic could read or write. But his work is laden with scripture and is far from being some generic Barnes & Noble Christian book that barely scratches the surface of our purpose as Christians. Yet it is still written for the layman. There is no sort of egotistical feeling where the book is all about the author or his own life. Everything Chilton says in a genuine investigation to uncover a greater Biblical theme, in order to expand our understanding of the messages in the scriptures — namely, here, his rather extensive defense that we should expect to see success of the gospel message across the world, as well as the concomitant widening of the Kingdom of God, rather than the pessimistic view of so many Christians that there is nothing that awaits us down here below and that all our glory is in heaven only. 

Overall, the book is very easy to read despite consistently sticking to the point, and will provide the reader with many Bible verses to go and follow themselves. Ideally, as Chilton surely hoped, it motivates men into getting off the couch and becoming kingdom-workers who agitate their societies—through preaching the word, leading others to Christ, exposing the idolatry of the world system, networking with neighbors, building an alternative economic system, etc—under the full faith that Jesus is King and that we ought to be working to further the cause of His kingdom.