Or so I was told.
I will admit, this one is a bit of a stretch and may only pertain to my experience. I grew up in a conservative non-denominational Christian church that embraced Dispensationalism. Specifically the idea that Christ wouBut it wasn't at church where I was warned about this popular Christian hymn. It was actually in college.
I went to a small Christian college (and seminary) that similarly held to Dispensationalism. And while there have been many developments in this particular theological system, there were enough "old-school" traditionalists still around in the early 2000's who more than once criticized this song.
The charges against were that Isaac Watts was an a-millenialist, or was it post-millenialist? I honestly don't remember. But you could read the lyrics and discover his erroneous theology in this beloved Christmas hymn. See one strong tenant of Dispensatoinalism is the premillenialism understanding that Christ will reign on earth for (a literal?) 1000 years before God establishes the final new heavens and new earth of Revelation 21-22. And any suggestion that the world would get better and better until Christ returned, or that he's reigning as King now - well that was close to heresy.
You can google those alternative millennial views and the various debates around them. What you will discover is that there are a lot of differing viewpoints each claiming significant biblical evidence for their view. And as a Progressive Dispensationalist, I see those old anti-Joy arguments to be needlessly nitpicky.
I see this song as anticipating Christ's second coming and describing the glory of His Kingdom as the Scripture that inspired it - Psalm 98 - does. The one thing about it is, somehow we've married it to the Christmas season when it is clearly pointing to the end times.
Again, maybe it's just me, but I've come to resolve this manufactured controversy for myself.
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