I am astonished sometimes by my doubts. Not the content of my doubts, mind you, but the contradiction or illogic of them. Here’s what I mean:

I believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. To be more theologically precise, I believe in the death, burial, and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. I don’t question this: to me, it is an established fact based on reliable, eye-witness, historical evidence.

I believe that God created the physical realms – what we label the universe and all it contains – from absolutely nothing. He spoke them into existence. It wasn’t magic; it was power. I’m not sure when He did it, but I know that He did it and how He did it. And I also believe that, before He made the visible, physical world, He had already created the unseen, spiritual world.

I believe that Jesus Christ, during His Bible-recorded earthly ministry, changed water to wine, walked on water, healed the blind, and raised people from the dead. He could do any of these things and much more. After all, He created the universe and sustains it: how hard can it be for Him to heal or give life to one of us?

I believe that Jesus Christ’s death on a cross paid the penalty for my sins, and that by faith in Him – a faith that is intellectual, emotional, volitional, and (consequentially) behavioral – I am forgiven, made a child of God, and placed into the Body of Christ. I believe I’m locked in for good: I can’t give back or lose my salvation.

I believe not only that my sins have been removed from my account and charged to His, but that His righteousness has been credited to me. I seem to misplace it from time to time, but He’s got it recorded in the heavenlies.

All this and more I believe without doubting.

But here’s where I get tripped up (it’s embarassing to admit this): I have a hard time imagining Jesus Christ returning with the saints to set up His kingdom on the earth, and picturing Him actually, physically ruling on the planet for 1,000 years, including leap years.

This is not a theological struggle for me: I believe that this is what the Scriptures teach. I have read the reasoning of amillenialists and postmillenialists alike; I have great respect for them and do not doubt or question their sincerity or commitment to Christ in the least. They look at the evidence and come to their conclusions, and I look at the same evidence and come to my premillenial conclusion. So it’s not about doctrine.

I just can’t envision it. I can’t get my mind to go there.

“Well”, you might reply, “you just have a problem with prophecy. You believe what has already happened, but you don’t believe that God can predict and then fulfill what has yet to happen but has already been determined.” No, I don’t think so. I believe Jesus Christ is going to return, that He will raise the dead and transform the living, that He will create a new heaven and a new earth. So it’s not about prophecy in general. And I’m not a believer in so-called “Open Theology,” which is perhaps more accurately called “Indeterminate Theology” or “Open-Ended Theology.”

I just have a hard time envisioning Jesus Christ sitting on a throne ruling over the earth for 1,000 years. What is that going to look like?

But my bigger problem – the “meta” problem – is this: why is this such a problem for me? If I can believe all the other things (and I do), then why not this? And then what concerns me is that I may not be altogether different than those people who were walking around in Judea when He came the first time. I’m looking for something else, or something different, or I can’t believe that it’s going to be what it is, and so I don’t have eyes to see or ears to hear. Psychologically, I cannot assimilate this truth (i.e., put it in pre-existing categories) and don’t seem able to accommodate it, either (create new categories for it).

Is this where faith comes in? Is faith believing in what I can’t believe? Should I cry out to God, as did the father of the demon-possessed boy in Mk 9, “I do believe; help my unbelief”?

I don’t think so – at least, not the first part about believing what I can’t believe. I don’t subscribe to Augustine’s “believe in order that you may understand,” nor even Aquinas’ dictum “understand in order that you may believe.” I think God gives us the ability to believe when we’ve gathered enough information (whether we understand it or not). Once we’ve absorbed a sufficient amount of relevent truth from Scripture and elsewere, He transforms our minds. The Holy Spirit instructs us, enables us to adequately understand, and gives us the settled assurance of things to come. He creates new categories or shows me how it fits in old ones.

When that time comes, I may not have the script all written out in front of me, but I’ll know that I can leave it in God’s hands and allow Him to work out His will in His time and in His way.


2 Cor 1:13