Whose Song is it Anyway?
Postmillenialism is on the Right Album but Wrong Track
What’s the album you could listen to start to finish on repeat?
If I’ve heard George Strait For the Last Time: Live from the Astrodome once I’ve heard it 1,000 times. It’s a personal goal to make sure my children feel this way about Nat King Cole’s “A Christmas Song.”
Isn’t it amazing when the songs begin to fuse together?
One track is ending and your heart can already hear the next song. The album takes on a new life as an entire work than any song could alone.
Singles don’t sing the same on their own. The hits that dominate the radio in isolation as singles take on new quality when they find the right place as song 3.
When your settings are accidentally on shuffle it can be jarring to hear songs out of sequence. After all, it isn’t what the artist intended.
There seems to be a growing momentum of playing Christ’s songs on shuffle. The songs have beauty on their own, but they are missing some of what the Artist intended.
Many Christians are playing the Jubilee track before the Elegy track. Jubilee is a song of celebration while Elegy is a song of lament. When Christ wrote the album he placed the Elegy track before Jubilee. He embraced his Eulogy before His Coronation Hymn.
From prosperity gospel to postmillennialism, America’s theological radio loves victory-now-tunes. In the land of opportunity we want bangers only.
Postmillenialists challenge other Christians about a loser mentality when they expect suffering and marginalization. Christian’s don’t need to expect to lose, they chide. But postmillennialism reshuffles songs on Christ’s album much like the prosperity gospel name it and claim it playlists.
Before Christ was crucified there were many in Israel singing the Psalms who expected a Coronation Hymn as the next track. When the Eulogy of the Christ began to play they tried to press skip. How dare anyone call the Messiah Song a Eulogy!? The Lord replied, “Get behind me, Satan” (cf. Mark 8).
Christ has indeed raised and ascended to heaven! The first notes of the Jubilee can be heard in the hearts of believers, but the song of Elegy is still playing. The music is playing so that Christ is King and “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).
We would be foolish to skip the track– for in Christ the Eulogy was the beginning of Jubilee. We would be foolish to reshuffle the songs–as Christ’s people our Elegy leads to Jubilee! We should not expect to lose, but we should expect to die… and rise!
It is a wonderful gift that the beginnings of the Jubilee song are playing in our hearts by the Spirit. As we hear the song of Christ’s victory, we must be careful not to minimize all the notes He gave us to play now.
The Artist wrote the album this way on purpose!
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.
2 Corinthians 4:7–11