One of the reasons why people reject Postmillennialism is that its ideas don’t allow Christians to truly expect the return of Christ within their own lifetime. O T Allis writes:
If, according to Postmillenialist or Whitbyan view, the millennium is wholly future and is to precede the advent, it is absurd, they [Premillennialists] tell us, to speak of expecting or watching for the coming of the Lord. This argument is not without weight. Amillennialists feel this objection to the Postmillennial view quite as strongly as do Premillenialists. … Belief in a still future spiritual millennium does undoubtedly tend to weaken the Christians’ expectancy of the coming, by referring to a remote future” (Prophecy and the Church, 167).
What most folk don’t realize is that this argument from imminency not only works against Postmillennialism but it also gives problems for Premillennialists. For the New Testament tells us that we shouldn’t only be looking for the coming of the Lord, but we should also be “looking for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13). Christians are told to be “looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning and the elements will melt with intense heat” (2 Peter 3:12).
Now, the New Heavens and New Earth mentioned in these verses cannot be a reference to the Pre-Millennium. This is because this New Creation is said to occur after “the earth and its works will be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10). No Premillennialist believes that a brand new Earth is put in place when the Millennium begins. Instead, this happens after the Millennium is over.
Another imminency argument comes from Acts 24:15. There the Apostle Paul tells us that he “looks for … a resurrection of both the just and the unjust.” Again, neither Postmillennialism nor Premillennialism lets us “look for” a resurrection of BOTH saved and unsaved, as if it were a possible event within our lifetimes. Only Amillennialism permits this.
Therefore, we are told by an Apostle to “look for” the eternal state as though we can expect it as an event within our lifetime. The only eschatology that allows Christians to do so is Amillennialism. My friend, whatever your prophetic system, are you obeying the words of the Apostle? Can you honestly and sincerely say that you are looking for and earnestly desiring the New Heavens and New Earth? If not, then perhaps one of the reasons for this is that your system won’t let you. If this be the case, then let’s change the system in order that we may be more biblical.