He Shall Have Dominion

ism believes that at Christ’s second advent “he will depose the earthly
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rulers and will begin His millennial reign.” In their theological systems
Christ’s kingdom with all of its attendant glory will invade history as a
great catastrophe, being suddenly imposed on a recalcitrant world.
A careful survey of Scripture shows that gradualism is a common
divine modus operandi apparent throughout biblical revelation. Consider
just five samples:
• Creation: Even God’s creating the universe proceeds upon a
gradualistic principle — an accelerated gradualism, to be sure,
but gradualism nonetheless. God creates the world ex nihilo, but
he does not create it as a complete system by one divine fiat —
though he could easily do so. He employs a series of successive
divine fiats that stretch out over a period of six days (Ge 1; Ex
20:11).
• Dominion: Though God places Adam in the Garden of Eden with
a command to cultivate the soil there (Ge 2:15), he expects Adam
to begin working the implications of the Cultural Mandate into
all the world (Ge 1:26–28). Chung notes that “Adam’s rule was
anticipated to be extended to the entire creation beyond the
boundary of the garden of Eden.” 64
• Redemption: God promises redemption just after sin enters into
the human race in Eden (Ge 3:15). Yet its accomplishment follows
thousands of years after Adam (Gal 4:4; Eph 1:10).
• Revelation: Rather than giving his total special revelation all at
once, God gradually unfolds his word to men over a period of
1,500 years (Heb 1:1, 2; 1Pe 1:10–12).
• Sanctification: Even in salvation, justification, which is a once-forall
act (Ro 4:2–3; 5:1), gives rise to sanctification, which comes by
process (Php 2:12–13; 1Pe 2:2).
The Kingdom and Gradualism
Now we must note that God’s redemptive kingdom also develops
gradualistically. It incrementally unfolds through history, progressing
from small, imperceptible beginnings to a glorious, dominant, worldwide
63. Bobby Hayes, “Premillennialism,” DPT, 311
64. Chung in Blomberg and Chung, Historic Premillennialism, 139.