Jeff Durbin recently used his podcast platform to criticize John MacArthur’s premillennial eschatology, pitting his own postmillennial view against MacArthur’s and effectively equating MacArthur’s statement that “we lose down here” with a denial or light treatment of the Great Commission. MacArthur’s point was simple and biblical: the church does not progressively take over the world and usher in the kingdom through cultural and political dominance before Christ’s return. He was rejecting an overly optimistic reading that expects everything to get better until the church hands a Christianized world to the returning King. Scripture instead warns that evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse (2 Timothy 3:13), that lawlessness will increase, and that the last days will be difficult times.
That is not a denial of the Great Commission. It is a sober reading of the trajectory of this present age.
What MacArthur Actually Taught
MacArthur never claimed the gospel is powerless or that evangelism is futile. He taught, lived, and modeled the opposite for more than fifty-six years. The Great Commission (Matthew 28:18–20) is a command to make disciples of all the nations—baptizing them and teaching them to observe all that Christ commanded—under the authority of the risen Lord who promises His presence until the end of the age. Its success is measured by the gathering of the elect from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, not by the Christianization of every civil order or the elimination of opposition before Christ returns.
Scripture holds both realities together: the gospel advances, and the world system remains hostile and grows worse. Jesus said the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come (Matthew 24:14). He also said His kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36), that the world will hate His disciples as it hated Him (John 15:18–20), and that believers are sojourners whose citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20; 1 Peter 2:11). Revelation portrays escalating rebellion before the visible return and reign of Christ. The church conquers by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, even unto death—not by seizing the levers of global power in this age.
MacArthur’s “we lose down here” was directed against the idea that the church’s mission includes (or will achieve) cultural conquest as the path to the kingdom. It was never a claim that the Great Commission is a pipe dream.
Fruit Matters
Jesus said you will know them by their fruits. John MacArthur pastored Grace Community Church for over half a century. Through Grace to You, his teaching has reached tens of millions monthly via radio, free sermon downloads numbering in the hundreds of millions, the MacArthur Study Bible (millions of copies), The Master’s Seminary (thousands of graduates serving worldwide), and missions work spanning dozens of countries. That is sustained, multi-generational, global proclamation of the gospel and the whole counsel of God.
Jeff Durbin and Apologia have engaged in real work—street evangelism, pro-life advocacy, cult outreach, and media content. That is not nothing. But the scale, longevity, depth of systematic exposition, pastoral training pipeline, and documented global reach are not comparable. To suggest that the man whose ministry produced this kind of fruit somehow treated the Great Commission lightly is simply not credible. MacArthur’s realism about the world’s trajectory never produced passivity; it produced urgency and decades of faithful labor.
Who, then, has more clearly obeyed the Master in the Great Commission?
An Attack on Character
There are good brothers who hold a postmillennial view. I disagree with it on hermeneutical grounds. Disagreement on the timing and nature of the kingdom is one thing. Publicly framing a brother’s eschatology as practical unbelief in Christ’s final command is another. That is an attack on MacArthur’s character and the integrity of his life’s work.
Scripture requires that honor be given where honor is due (Romans 13:7; 1 Timothy 5:17) and that accusations against an elder be handled carefully (1 Timothy 5:19). MacArthur is now with the Lord. To climb out and level this kind of charge after his death—while having previously acknowledged personal benefit from his ministry—does not reflect the humility or brotherly restraint the New Testament calls for. Jeff Durbin has much to be ashamed of in this attack on MacArthur’s character.
Faithful men can differ on the millennium without impugning one another’s commitment to the Master’s command. When that line is crossed, the one who crosses it bears responsibility before God. The Great Commission still stands: go and make disciples of all the nations. John MacArthur spent a lifetime doing exactly that. That is not light regard for the Commission. It is obedience to it.
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