Posted by
ValiantForTruth on Tuesday, May 27, 2008 7:19:27 PM
Jonathan Edwards in the Reformed tradition was a postmil in his eschatology. For our purpose here postmil means that the kingdom of God will cover the earth and its influence will cause righteousness to reign in the earth as in heaven. This will happen before Christ returns.
From his influence over colonial America after the Great Awakening in the generation of the Revolution we make the general statement that many shared his belief that the Gospel message going forth in power in the New World was evidence of the ‘binding of Satan’ as taught by Christ in Matthew 12 and in His Revelation in chapter 20.
In Revelation 20:3 the extent of this binding is specifically stated, ‘That he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished’.
From this we can discern that the nations were once deceived and will be deceived again, but for a period of time of 1000 years the deception would cease. Note that the object of this deception is the NATIONS.
The references to Satan deceiving individual men as in 1 Peter 5:8 and 2 Tim 2:26 should not be used as proof texts to refute the doctrine that ‘the binding of Satan’ has reference to the Great Commission…go to all NATIONS and make disciples because Christ is ruler over heaven and earth. This is the great change that is the NC. No longer is God limiting the revelation of Himself primarily to the nation of Israel. He is extending dominion over all nations with regard to building His kingdom. This is the teaching of Matthew 12:22-30.
Satan is bound in the sense that he cannot prevent the successful evangelism of the NATIONS. The sovereignty of God gives us confidence that the Gospel message will not return void, but will accomplish that which God has appointed. In the same generation of Edwards the first missionary societies were formed by men of this believe [Re: Andrew Fuller].