Otis Q. Sellers on the Premillennial Kingdom

Otis Q. Sellers believed that Christ’s second advent would precede his millennial Parousia (personal presence), but differed with millions of other Christians in this respect: the inauguration of centuries of God’s rule on earth will be premillennial, but future to us.[1]

Contrary to the Social Gospellers (who, in a sense, also believed in a premillennial Kingdom), no human effort at social melioration inaugurates the divine government that is the Kingdom.

No two events differ more than Christ’s future assumption of sovereignty and His future Second Advent. Serenity and light suffuse the one, violence and destruction the other. Expositors virtually always conflate them.

In Matthew 12:9-21 we find Jesus citing Isaiah 42:2-3, “He will not cry . . . nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. He shall bring forth judgement unto truth,” adding “And in His name shall the nations trust.” They’re certainly not trusting in His name today, but they will when God governs them. He doesn’t have to leave his heavenly throne to get that done.

Otis wondered how His bringing forth judgment unto truth, exercising His right to govern, His assumption of sovereignty, could refer to the event prophesied in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, “the Lord will descend with a shout,” or the one in 2 Thessalonians 1:8, “in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Shouting doesn’t harmonize with not being heard. Incinerating nonbelievers today would leave no nations trusting in Him.

God’s pouring out His spirit on all flesh (Joel 2:28) will mark the full-grain-in-the-ear stage of the Kingdom (Mark 4:26-29). On Pentecost, Peter referred to that prophecy, but modified it by divine inspiration: “I will pour out of My spirit” (Acts 2:17-21). That is, a portion of His spirit. The three thousand who heard Peter were baptized (identified with Christ), but they hardly amounted to “all flesh.” When the Lord’s glory will be revealed, all flesh will see it together (Isaiah 40:5). They didn’t see it that day or any day since (yet).

At the end of the divine dispensation of which Acts is the history, God’s Kingdom purposes could have progressed continuously to that full-grain-in-the-ear stage. No condition was or is unfulfilled. But God hit the “pause” button to do another work, one He had kept secret (mysterion): a global dispensation exclusively of grace. When that work has been accomplished—when God has written a complete record of the grace inherent in His character—He will assume sovereignty, resurrect everyone whom He accepts, not only believers in Jesus Christ, but also those who feared Him and worked righteousness.

What God does, He does for His name’s sake, for the glory of His character, not for us. His policy on evildoers today is and will be laissez-faire (“let them pass”) until He terminates the Day of Man and “brings forth judgment unto truth,” that is, implements justice. He’s writing a record of His grace, the counterpart to His justice. Those who live in future dispensations will know that record: we who have experienced that grace in the present dispensation will herald it.

The events of the administration of grace, previously hidden ἀποκεκρυμμένου (apokekrummemou), are secret μυστηρίου (mysteriou, Ephesians 3:9). “Untraceable,” that is, not traceable back to God, is a better translation of ἀνεξιχνίαστον (anexichniaston) in Ephesians 3:8 than is “unsearchable.” Search all you please, but you won’t be able to trace what you find back to God with certainty. That wasn’t true in the Acts period, and it won’t be true in the Kingdom. This is the ground of Sellers’ inference of “silence” occasioned by his reading of Sir Robert Anderson’s The Silence of God in 1927.

The coming of the global government of God is the theme of the Bible. It will be a time of universal health, abundance, universal enlightenment (but not universal salvation). Abundance: no scarcity, therefore no need for money, no buying or selling.[2] Everyone alive at the time of the intervention, the wicked included, will immediately enjoy these benefits, but not everyone will be allowed to continue doing so. Those not alive at that time, but whom God deems Kingdom-worthy, will be resurrected (in their order).

Before the dispensational change announced at Acts 28:28, however, which made the Gospel freely available to the nations, not just Israel, Jesus said he came only for the lost sheep of the House of Israel, and His disciples were commissioned to herald the Kingdom to the Jew first, and also to the Greek (Romans 1:16). He came to fulfill the new covenant with them. (They had broken the old one.) He commissioned men (“apostles”) in accordance with this restriction of audience. Israel will be ingathered from the countries into which He had scattered them. David will rule Israel from his seat of government in Jerusalem. The apostles will, as the Lord promised, be enthroned as tribal governors (Luke 22:28–30).

The Gospel had been at first authorized to Israel exclusively. This commission to Israel was fulfilled. The free authorization of God’s word to all nations, on equal footing (“joint bodies,” σύνσωμα , sussoma, Ephesians 3:6), came later, after Acts 28:28. Israel will be the mediatorial nation under God’s government, but not before.

After centuries of divine government, the Holy Spirit will lift His restraints for seven years to test the Kingdom’s subjects. Battles will be fought, and rumors thereof will swirl. Markets will re-emerge. Jacob’s trouble will be a localized tribulum, a time of testing. It’s a local revolt against God’s rule, foretold in the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus Christ will return not only to inaugurate His millennial Parousia, but also to crush a revolt that will be, not quiet and subtle, but rather noisy and violent. It’s what the book of Revelation (after 1:10) is about.

Otis Q. Sellers (1901-1992) in his office/recording studio, probably 1970s.

Notes

[1] “I began to discover the truth of what I call the pre-advent kingdom . . . divine government on this Earth before the second coming of Jesus Christ. When I became a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, I became what one might call a Scofield dispensationalist. Scofield got it from Darby; we might call it the Darby-Scofield system of prophetic interpretation and I followed it to the very letter. I had everything, I believe, that Dr. Scofield had ever written. I even took the Scofield correspondence course. I took forty other people through. . . the Scofield three-volume correspondence course. And so, I think I’m familiar with the teachings of Dr. C. I. Scofield. And I know somethings that he said in writing, and I tell people about it they call me a liar, until I make them back down. . . . C. I. Scofield followed the Brethren . . . . I was familiar with all of the writings of F. W. Grant. Darby was very hard to read. . . . the beloved C. H. MacIntosh, everything that I think he put into print. F. W. Grant. Newberry. . . I became a personal friend of Harry Ironside, a Plymouth Brethren. This was after he was out of the Brethren movement. . . although we did have some very sharp differences . . . .” Otis Q. Sellers, New York Bible Conference, No. 46, September 30, 1978. Tape recording.

[2] See “Otis Q. Sellers: Prophetic Prayers about God’s Kingdom,” August 13, 2020, https://anthonygflood.com/2020/08/otis-q-sellers-prophetic-prayers-about-gods-kingdom/ ; “Kingdom economics? A speculation,” October 15, 2019, https://anthonygflood.com///2019/10/kingdom-economics-a-speculation/