Eschatology

Scripture focus

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

Revelation 21:1 KJV

At a glance

Summary of the chapter

Edwards read the Book of Revelation not as a private puzzle for antiquarians but as prophetic history, a map of the very process he traced in A History of the Work of Redemption. From his youth he kept notebooks on the Apocalypse, weighing its imagery against contemporary events, and he generally held that the power of Antichrist, centered in the papacy, was already declining toward a final overthrow.

Edwards was a postmillennialist: he expected Christ's visible return to follow, not precede, a lengthy period in which the gospel would spread to “all nations” and true religion would flourish across the earth. This coming “latter-day glory” would not arrive all at once but through the same rhythm of revival and setback he traced through all of church history, each awakening a step toward the church's eventual, worldwide flourishing.

The revivals of his own day fed this hope. Edwards floated the possibility that the outpourings of the 1740s were a “dawning” of the promised era, and that, remarkably, America might be where it began. He held this expectation with real caution, aware that individual revivals could be mixed and disappointing, but the underlying conviction — that God's redemptive purposes were moving steadily toward consummation — never left him.

Key points

• Edwards treated biblical prophecy, especially Revelation, as a genuine map of unfolding history, and kept private notebooks tracing its images onto world events.
• He held a broadly postmillennial eschatology: Christ's visible return would follow, not precede, an extended era of gospel advance he called the latter-day glory.
• Edwards saw this future glory arriving gradually, through the same pattern of revival and decline that structured all of church history, rather than through one decisive event.
• He cautiously suggested that the revivals of the 1740s might be an early “dawning” of this coming era, and speculated that America could be where it began.
• Edwards's eschatology is inseparable from his doctrine of God's purpose in creation: history moves toward the full display of God's glory and the gathering of all things into Christ.

A line worth remembering

There are many things that make it probable that this work will begin in America.

McClymond & McDermott The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, ch. 35

Related Scripture

• Daniel 2:44
• Revelation 20:6
• Matthew 24:14
• 2 Peter 3:13

For reflection and discussion

1. Edwards expected the gospel's advance to look like a long series of revivals and setbacks rather than one sudden triumph — how does that shape your patience with slow spiritual progress?
2. What are the risks and the benefits of trying, as Edwards did, to read current events as signs of where God's redemptive plan stands?
3. How does believing that history is moving toward a real, promised future change the way you understand today's setbacks or disappointments?