The Synoptic Gospels and a Postmillennial view of the future
Present-day evangelical theology often treats good works as consequences of salvation rather than as integral to it, a distinction that can weaken Christianity’s response to material suffering. By comparing premillennial and postmillennial expectations, Dorothy Day’s social ethics, and key passages in the Synoptic Gospels, this paper argues that Jesus’ teachings give works of mercy a more central role in salvation and Christian hope than much contemporary evangelical theology acknowledges.
Eschatology: Pre- vs. Postmillennialism
This theological tension becomes clearer when viewed through two contrasting expectations for the future: premillennialism, which anticipates Christ’s return before the millennium, and postmillennialism, which expects the gospel’s influence to produce an extended period of righteousness and peace before Christ’s return. These positions can encourage different attitudes toward cultural engagement.
Within premillennialism, Christians remain separate from secular culture and wait for Christ’s return. It is highly skeptical that any real change can happen in a fallen, sinful world. Catholic authors Andrew Latham and Chris Werbos claim that 20th-century Marxist thought drastically changed the “tradition of Catholic thought” (Latham and Werbos). Personal sin did not cause war; structural sin emerged through societal institutions and cultural norms. These institutions may be political, economic, or social, but they all oppress the poor. Violence occurs when those seeking to perpetuate unjust institutions clash with those who seek to overturn them (Latham and Werbos). Latham and Werbos argue that this shift moves blame from individual sin to institutions or cultural practices, and that it is patently unbiblical. “Ending all violence and injustice in this life is impossible. Sin and suffering are part of a sinful world and will exist until Christ’s return. If the Church continues to promote peace based on the utopian belief that we can overcome this fundamental reality, it will achieve nothing.”
In contrast, postmillennialism expects the kingdom of God to advance within history through the spread of the gospel and the growing influence of Christian discipleship. This expectation can sustain engagement with political, economic, and social institutions because cultural improvement is understood as a sign of God’s redemptive work rather than a substitute for Christ’s final victory. Catholic social teaching is not postmillennial, but its account of human work as an activity that transforms the world offers a useful point of comparison. The Compendium describes work as a human activity that can and must develop the world’s latent possibilities (262), calling believers to make visible what creation should become.
Connecting eschatology and salvation requires an additional step. A hopeful account of history does not, by itself, establish that works contribute to salvation, and a pessimistic account does not, by itself, establish salvation by faith alone. The following discussion therefore shifts from expectations about history to the ethical practices those expectations can encourage, then examines the Synoptic texts that bear directly on eternal life and judgment.
Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement, illustrates an activist Christian hope that resembles the social implications of postmillennialism, even though her thought should not be reduced to that eschatological system. In the 1930s, the Catholic Worker combined service to the poor, Scripture study, and antiwar activism. Day defended the early church’s pacifism even during the Second World War, declaring herself “unalterably opposed to war as a means of saving civilization or democracy” (DDLW 360). For Day, the Sermon on the Mount was not an unattainable ideal but “our Christian manifesto” (DDLW 360). The same love of neighbor informed the movement’s nonviolent resistance to poverty, homelessness, hunger, and prejudice (DDLW 728).
This thinking is reflected in Marvin L. Krier Mich’s idea that “redemption of the human race includes liberation from every oppressive situation” (4). According to Day, “complete disarmament of governments is not a wild, utopian dream. (DDLW 728). As the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church states, we are “called to be the visible sign” of something that “should be” (26), and Day attempts to bring that idea into reality. Note her synthesis of pacifism and social justice: “All the attacks against the poor are Pearl Harbor incidents! Are the oppressed supposed to turn to arms in the class conflict to defend their lives and their families?” (DDLW 868). Consider the hypocrisy of Americans who denounce military pacifism but “are pacifists themselves when it comes to the class war.” (DDLW 390).
The apparent reversals of Christian teaching—the first becoming last and the humble being exalted—raise a philosophical question: does the cross represent moral weakness, or a truth that exceeds ordinary calculations of power? Nietzsche interprets Christian self-denial negatively as slave morality, whereas Søren Kierkegaard interprets faith positively as a paradox that cannot be reduced to conventional reason. This contrast clarifies what is at stake in Day’s “folly of the Cross”: Christian nonviolence may appear irrational from the standpoint of worldly power while remaining coherent within a theology of radical discipleship.
Nietzsche believes in the morality of the noble person, grounded in virtues like courage, discipline, and intelligence. Christian, or “slave morality,” as he calls it, hinders noble or master morality. Slave morality is the invention of Christian leadership envious of the rich and powerful. Christianity wants us to remain meek and nonviolent. However, once we reject God’s existence, we can replace slave morality with master morality (Beyond Good and Evil 641 to 642).
Kierkegaard sees it differently. Filling our lives only with self-affirmation leaves us empty. Yes, faith is ridiculous, but it is precisely through the practice of the absurd that our faith finds meaning (Fear and Trembling 90). Abraham’s act of attempting to sacrifice his son is beyond reason. Logic tells us, “He should be taken to court and tried for attempted murder” (Fear and Trembling 94). In his willingness to kill his son, “Abraham acts by virtue of the absurd” (Fear and Trembling 95). This kind of faith is a “paradox that cannot be mediated; it is and remains for all eternity impervious to thought” (Fear and Trembling 95).
Scripture comparisons
The Synoptics
Several passages in the Synoptic Gospels connect eternal life, salvation, or final judgment with concrete acts of obedience and mercy. The rich young ruler, the lawyer who prompts the parable of the Good Samaritan, Zacchaeus, and the judgment of the sheep and the goats all place moral action near the center of the narrative. These passages do not, by themselves, settle the relationship among grace, faith, and works, but they pose a substantial challenge for readings that treat works as merely incidental to salvation.
The Rich Young Ruler Matthew 19:16-21
A man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” Jesus replied, Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself.” All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?” Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
The Good Samaritan Luke 10:25-37
On one occasion, an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” He answered: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this, and you will live.”
Zacchaeus Luke 19: 1-10
Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now, I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
Jesus said to him, “Today, salvation has come to this house.”
The Sheep and the Goats Matthew25: 31-46
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ “He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Taken together, these passages use different narrative forms but share a common emphasis. The rich young ruler is directed from keeping the commandments to costly dispossession; the lawyer is told to enact love of neighbor; Zacchaeus’s restitution accompanies Jesus’ declaration of salvation; and the sheep and goats are judged by how they treat vulnerable people. The texts therefore make embodied mercy indispensable to discipleship. The remaining interpretive question is whether these works are conditions of salvation, evidence of transformed faith, or inseparable expressions of grace—a question the paper must address rather than assume.
Contrast the Synoptics with the Gospel of John, Acts, and Paul’s letters:
John 5: 24 “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
John 6:24 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
John11: 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.
14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Other verses: John 3:16; 3:18, 6:29; 6:35, 6:40; 6:47; 17:3
Acts 16:30-31 He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved–you and your household.”
Romans 1:16-17 I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.
Romans 10:9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Ephesians 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– 9not by works, so that no one can boast.
The Synoptic Gospels repeatedly connect eternal life with obedience, mercy, repentance, and discipleship, whereas the passages cited from John, Acts, Romans, and Ephesians explicitly emphasize belief, faith, and grace. This difference in emphasis should not be reduced too quickly to a contradiction: the Synoptics also speak positively about faith, and the wider New Testament often joins faith to transformed conduct. Nevertheless, the comparison shows that any adequate theology of salvation must account for the Synoptic insistence that the treatment of one’s neighbor bears directly on judgment and life.
Conclusion
The evidence considered here suggests that the New Testament contains distinct but potentially complementary emphases: Paul and John articulate salvation through faith and grace, while the Synoptic Gospels repeatedly portray obedience, mercy, and restitution as matters of eternal consequence. Disagreements among early Christian leaders show that the church debated the demands of the gospel, though those disagreements do not, by themselves, prove incompatible doctrines of salvation. A responsible interpretation must therefore examine each text on its own terms while asking how faith, grace, and works belong together.
Evangelicals can situate their theology in a broader historical context by examining traditions that give works a more explicit role in the Christian life and salvation. Such comparison need not dismiss evangelical convictions; it can reveal where inherited formulations illuminate Scripture and where they may prevent readers from hearing the full force of Jesus’ commands.
Rigid inerrancy can hinder interpretation when readers start with a settled theological system and force apparently divergent passages into it before considering each author’s distinctive emphasis. Inspiration need not erase the diversity of biblical voices. The interpretive task is to take that diversity seriously while still asking whether the texts bear witness to shared theological truths.
Eschatological expectations can shape Christian political and cultural engagement because beliefs about history affect what kinds of change believers consider possible. Evangelicals who emphasize the persistence of sin may nevertheless participate vigorously in politics and social reform, creating a tension between theological pessimism and practical activism. A more hopeful account of God’s work in history could make that activism more coherent, provided it remains grounded in the Synoptic demands of mercy, justice, and love of neighbor.
Faith alone is one influential account of salvation within the Christian tradition, but the Synoptic Gospels resist any account that makes mercy, restitution, and sacrificial love optional. The challenge is not to replace faith with works as a competing mechanism of salvation, but to recover a vision in which trust in Christ becomes visible in costly love of neighbor. Such a theology speaks to suffering because it joins proclamation to concrete acts of justice and compassion.
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