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Dear
Dispensationalist Friend...
My Testimony of How I Got Here From There
By Todd D. Dennis
Proverbs 13:12
"Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but when the
desire cometh, it is a tree of life."
Dear (Dispensationalist Friend),
Thank you for sending me materials
regarding the refutation of the Preterist view. I always love to be
given the opportunity to answer charges against this theology, as the
arguments are, almost without exception, easily answered. Oftentimes,
they are even shown to be based upon misrepresentations of the view.
Such is the case with the majority of the materials you sent.
I have confronted one of the authors
personally (during our e-mail debate in ’96) for his pattern of
selecting little-used and/or centuries-old views to misrepresent
Preterist theology today. One example of this is his statement that
we believe fulfillment of New Testament prophecies is to be found in
the Maccabean period, which pre-dated the birth of Christ. There is
still a small section of Preteristic thought which believes such, but
they do not speak for the rest. Usually, though, they are partial
Preterists, not Preterists.
It is easy to misrepresent (or
convolute) the views of Preterists, due to the fact that there are
many differing viewpoints within the general spectrum of such
thought. This is true, of course, of every doctrinal perspective.
What is interesting to me is that
every denomination has some form of Preterism as a
part of their beliefs, so far as I have seen. Partial Preterism
(which differs from Preterism in that it accepts varying portions of
eschatological fulfillment) incorporates a wide spectrum of theology,
stretching from partial Preteristic Catholicism to Baptist theology
that includes a healthy dash of the partial Preterist view. All
Preteristic believers ("Partial" and "Full" Preterists) generally
agree that the Roman-Jewish war of 66-73 was the stage for the
fulfillment of Daniel's prophecies and sections (at least) of the
Olivet Discourse.
Misrepresentation, such as that
mentioned above, is why I have an entire section of The Preterist
Archive (Critical
Article Archive) devoted to these and other articles critical
of the view. I have also included responses to the charges leveled.
The idea is to allow airing of all sides of the discussion, without
the usual one-sided religious rhetoric. Sincere students benefit from
not having to rely solely on the words of an opponent who
inaccurately speaks for their opposition (this is the tactic
of building 'straw men' to knock down). I have had many people say
that the debates in the
Critical Article Archive were very helpful in their studies,
and even the source of the doctrinal conversion of some. Even more
often, though, have been the testimonies of people (like me) who came
to the position independent of any other writings, including those of
Preterists or Josephus, save the Word of God.
If you don’t mind, I would like to
use my personal testimony of the last six years to present the scope
of Preterist theology, and answer the few charges leveled in the
received materials that weren't predicated upon positions we don't
hold.
----
I arrived at T. Baptist College ready to fully embrace the
Dispensational Premillennial view. What happened, though, was that the
teachers taught me out of that position. Though they
were the best and sincerest of people (and wonderful teachers), the
more they taught, the less Biblical and common sense it made to me.
I had no idea what was true, but I was beginning to
see that I needed to find out if there were any Biblical
alternatives to the Dispensational view.
By the time I left school, I was the friendly nemesis of some, because
I asked too many difficult questions. The College Administrator came
to my defense, though, and encouraged me to continue being tenacious
in my studies (of which I jokingly reminded him when we engaged in an
e-mail discussion on the Preterist view in 1997).
Then came the pastorate in the state
of North Dakota. In the beginning of my Master's degree studies, in
1994, the pastor of what became my sending church personally asked me
to take over a Dispensational Premillennial church there. I was
overjoyed to finally, after 10 years as an active Christian (and four
years of Christian leadership), to have the time and freedom to see
God explain all of my unanswered questions... particularly those the
teachers at college had not been able to answer. It was then that I
covenanted with God (perhaps foolishly, not conceiving
where I would be taken) to not read any books except the Bible, until
He grounded me upon some particular view. I would only read an
author (secular history included) if God placed it across my path in a
way that was relevant to the lessons He was giving.
I spent the next two years
intensively studying nothing but the Word of God, day and night.
During that time, I was being changed from within
like never before in my life. God had (I supposed at the time)
honored my prayers, as well as my hunger and thirst for Truth. It
occurred to me that He was leading me by bringing me closer to Himself
first, predicating all other doctrinal understanding on our personal
relationship. It was then that He revealed to me that He was
my personal Tutor, answering whatever questions put before
Him when I asked, sought, and knocked. This blessing, alone, made the
doctrinal journey worth all of the time and effort.
The following is a condensed version
of the doctrinal studies through which He put me during the first two
years of study. It wasn't until after that period that I learned the
generally accepted name for the doctrine I was then embracing. I
didn't even know if there was anyone else who believed the same way as
I did. After creating The Doctrinal Depot in '95, I was told (by
Gil Gaudraeu) that one who believes as such is called a Preterist.
Later, I found that my unfamiliarity with this doctrine was due to my
lack of knowledge regarding
church history, as the early to middle aged "Church" was unanimous
in acceptance of the Preterist view of the Olivet Discourse.
Initially, my questions naturally
revolved around the nation of Israel. In one way or another, Israel
seemed to be involved with everything in the Bible. Having had, in
school, particular difficulties seeing the Dispensational
difference between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven,
this is where my studies began.
When it became clear that the
Kingdoms were identical (it is the same "heavenly kingdom" of God -
the confusion is because it is called the Kingdom of
heaven solely in Matthew), I was shown that there
were great errors with the Dispensational view, in regards to Israel
and this kingdom, so that is where I went next.
THE NATION OF ISRAEL
Establishing the singularity of the
kingdoms of God and heaven led to questions about the fate of the
physical nation of Israel. I wanted to determine the nature of the
kingdom of heaven, as opposed to that of Israel. Where they both to
exist at the same time, as taught by Dispensationalism? I didn't
know. As I studied Israel, the main themes that stuck out were those
regarding the utter destruction of the physical nation, and then the
seeming re-establishment thereof.
WHO ISRAEL ISN'T
It was then that God brought across
my path a theological position I had never heard before -
Christian Identity. This was before it had taken off in the
States, particularly among the Patriot Movement.
Christian Identity (CI) taught that the "true Israel" of God
are the Anglo-Saxon peoples. Their doctrine teaches that the nation
of Israel in Palestine today is made up of people from Eastern Asia,
which have no connection to Israel or Abraham, except
through religion.
CI did a great job in dismantling
the idea that modern-day Israel was the chosen people of God, using
the numerous New Testament passages about the destruction of Israel
and the gathering of the elect (which would later come in handy).
Then they backed up their claims with statements directly from the
numerous academic sources (including Israeli press), which acknowledge
that there is no such thing as a Jewish race, but that it is only a
religion or nationality of choice.
Encyclopedia Judaica Jerusalem
(1971)
"It is a common assumption, and one that sometimes seems
ineradicable even in the face of evidence to the contrary, that the
Jews of today constitute a race, a homogeneous entity easily
recognizable. From the preceding discussion of the origin and early
history of the Jews, it should be clear that in the course of their
formation as a people and a nation they had already assimilated a
variety of racial strains from people moving into the general area
they occupied. This had taken place by interbreeding and then by
conversion to Judaism of a considerable number of communities. . . .
"Thus, the
diversity of the racial and genetic attributes of various Jewish
colonies of today renders any unified racial classification of them
a contradiction in terms. Despite this, many people readily accept
the notion that they are a distinct race. This is probably
reinforced by the fact that some Jews are recognizably different in
appearance from the surrounding population. That many cannot be
easily identified is overlooked and the stereotype for some is
extended to all - a not uncommon phenomenon" (Encyclopedia Judaica
Jerusalem, 1971, vol. 3, p. 50).
The
Encyclopedia Britannica (1973)
'The Jews As A Race: The findings of physical anthropology show
that, contrary to the popular view, there is no Jewish race." (vol.
12, page 1054)
At any rate, I took this nugget of
thought to the Bible, and it became clear that the
Israel in the Middle East are not the Israel of the Bible.
Christian Identity did a good job of showing who wasn't Israel.
The more I studied CI, though, the more it became clear that their
further conclusions were 'dead' wrong. In calling the Anglo-Saxons
and Germanic peoples Israel, they were placing restrictions upon the
inclusivity of Christ's redemption that are not to be found in the
Bible. Galatians 3, alone, shows that there is no temporal measure,
as all the promises were to Christ (v.16). The more familiar I
became with it, the plainer it was that
there are major problems with Christian Identity doctrine.
Interestingly enough, most of the errors are shared with
Dispensationalism, in regards to temporalizing eternal things, turning
glory into shame.
Not having embraced CI was fine by
me, for a few reasons: First, I was raised with the ethic that God is
not the respecter of persons - black, white, male, female, Jew, Greek,
etc.. (this is one of the early questions raised in Indianapolis -
how a temporal race could comprise "God's chosen people," when
Christians of all races are God's chosen people.) Secondly, many of
the people invovled with Christian Identity were rude, prideful, and
arrogant. This, in my opinion, betrayed their lack of Biblical
understanding. The biggest joy in moving beyond CI, though, was that
God had made it abundantly clear that there was a great deal of
further understanding to be given... if I didn't turn back from the
plow.
WHO ISRAEL IS
As a result of determining
who wasn't Israel, I focused all my attentions on who
was Israel. I became convinced (along with the majority of
Protestant Denominations, I later found) that the Bible taught that
the true identity of Israel was the Church (Gal 6:16; see
The Church is Israel Now). Better put, Israel is the body of
Christ - the bride. Romans 9:6-9 states it most succinctly, declaring
that "they which are the children of the flesh are not the children of
God, but the children of promise are counted for the seed."
To this, the majority of early Christian writers
agree. Dallas Seminary dispensationalist Alan Patrick Boyd stated the
following:
"The majority of the
writers/writings in this period [A.D. 70-165] completely identify
Israel with the Church." (Boyd, "Dispensational Premillennial
Analysis," p. 47.)
Boyd specifically cites Papias, 1
Clement, 2 Clement, Barnabas, Hermas, and the Didache, though a case
could be made that no other early Christian was as emphatic on this
point as Justin Martyr. His second century work, A Dialogue with
Trypho, A Jew must be the finest treatment ever given this
subject, all things considered. For more information on this topic,
please refer to
excerpts from the writings of Justin Martyr- On the Identification of
Israel (A.D.150).
The short, superficial reason why
today's temporal Israel are not the people of God is that they had,
long ago, been destroyed for their transgression of the Old Covenant,
and were removed off the land, and their Amos 3:2 relationship, in
accordance with the terms of the contract at Sinai:
Ex. 19:5,6 "Now
therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant,
then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; for
all the earth is mine. And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests,
and an holy nation".
This was said to Israel at Sinai.
Of course, they promptly and continually broke it. They failed to
live up to the terms of their end of the contract. God kept His end,
though, and destroyed them off the earth for their rebellion, as He
said He would (and as the numerous prophets confirmed to their
faces).
Deut. 6:14,15 "Ye
shall not go after other gods of the people which are round about
you... lest the anger of the Lord be kindled against thee, and
destroy thee from off the face of the earth" (land).
Duet. 8:1-18
"Otherwise it shall be, if thou do at all forget the Lord thy
God, and walk after other gods and serve them, I testify against you
this day that ye shall surely perish. As the nations which
the Lord destroyed before your face, so shall ye perish,
because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the Lord you
God."
Deut. 28:47,48
"Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness and
with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore
shalt thou serve thine enemies which the Lord shall send against
thee;... and He shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck
until He have destroyed thee."
This was fulfilled in the Roman
annihilation of Israel, iron being the symbol of the Roman empire
(Dan. 2:40; 7:7). Following that (vv. 50-67) is an exact and vividly
descriptive prophecy (given through Moses), of the final siege and
destruction of Jerusalem. The horrors of which were to be unsurpassed
in all history; which prophecy ends with this prediction (vv. 63-67):
"And it shall come to pass that,
as the Lord rejoiced over you to do good, and to multiply you; so
the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you
to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land
whither thou goest to possess it. And the Lord shall scatter thee
among all people, from the one end of the earth unto the other...
And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the
sole of thy foot have rest," etc.
In this same chapter Moses says
concerning "all these curses" that "they shall be upon thee, for a
sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed forever" (v. 46). -
More information on this subject is listed below
We find out in the New Testament
(Romans 9 and others), that Israel's rebellion was preordained
to show how the law was only the schoolmaster to show the
need for, and the perfection of, Christ. In other words, it was
always God's plan to destroy the temporal nation.
This is not the Dispensational view, though. There is the argument
that goes like this:
"When Jesus Christ came to earth
two thousand years ago He presented to both the Jews and Gentiles a
genuine, bona fide offer of the Kingdom of heaven on earth if they
would accept Him as their Messiah-King." - Apocalypse,
Grant Jeffrey, p. 33-34.
We know that this assertion is
false, because in the book of John, they tried to make Him a king, and
He withdrew. On top of this, Christ declared that His kingdom is not
of this world (John 18:36), to which Paul heartily agrees in I Cor.
15:50 and II Tim. 4:18.
The scariest part about Jeffrey's
statement above, and the fatal flaw of the Dispensational position, is
the argumentation that follows. Being stuck in a rut of logic that
will not allow him to escape the absurdity of his argument, Jeffrey is
driven to the statement below, which picks up directly after the above
quote:
"If they (the Jews) had chosen to
accept Jesus and crown Him as their Messiah on Palm Sunday, A.D. 32,
He would have entered the Eastern Gate and announce the restitution
of all things, the cancellation of all debts and the proclamation of
liberty to the captives. It was a genuine possibility that Israel
could have accepted Him as Messiah and He would have ushered in the
millennial Kingdom. Somehow, Jesus would have been crucified
at some later point to fulfill the prophecy and provide
salvation of all those who repent of their sins." - Apocalypse,
Grant Jeffrey, p. 33-34.
Christ having to be crucified after
His glorious reign is not a Biblical doctrine, needless to say. Yet
Grant Jeffrey is the second-highest grossing Christian author (so I
hear), behind Hal Lindsey. That makes me question the doctrinal
savvy of contemporary Dispensationalism.
So... Israel was destroyed as a nation because of their inability to
abide by the terms of the Siniatic Covenant. What is a wonderful show
of the mercy of the New Covenant (which requires no national
allegiance), is that anyone could enter into
this other contract with God - and this time, all the terms
and penalties were placed upon Christ. Christ, and He alone, was
counted worthy of keeping the contract (Gen. 3:16), but it wasn't the
old contract, it was the new contract - which was signed in His
blood. This general call to re-enter the promised land is to what
Moses referred when addressing Israel, which land could only be
entered through The Door, Jesus Christ:
"If from thence thou shalt
seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find Him, if thou seek Him with
all thy heart and with all thy soul. When thou art in tribulation
and all these things are come upon thee, if thou turn to the Lord
thy God and shalt be obedient unto His voice."
That is why Peter, when speaking to
the church in I Peter 2:9, declares that the Christians were the
inheritors of the following promises, which were never given to the
temporal nation due to their disobedience.
"Now therefore, if ye will obey
my voice indeed and keep my covenant" - (which Christ did) -
"then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all
people; for all the earth is mine. And ye shall be unto me a
kingdom of priests, and an holy nation" (Ex. 19:5,6).
One great purpose of this temporal
destruction is revealed to be a temporal metaphor of the refining fire
for the pure (elect remnant) of Israel, who, under the New Covenant,
joined the body of Christ just like all other believers. So God is
truly not a respecter of persons, but Christ is the judge. You have
to go through Christ, as the promises were not made to all of Israel,
but to the heir, Who is Christ (Matthew 21:38; Gal. 3:16, etc.). To
this the Old Testament amply agrees (Hosea 11:1 fulfilled in Matthew
2:18, showing that Israel is Christ), as well as the abundant writings
of Christianity's first great (post-apostolic) debater, Justin
Martyr.
Dispensational great Charles Ryrie,
in the magazine Dispensationalism Today, declared that "If
Dispensationalism has all the answers, then it is the most helpful
tool in Biblical interpretation. If not, it ought to be discarded as
worthless" (1965,21). In the case of the identification of Israel, it
is my opinion that Dispensationalism is clearly and patently false.
If that is a correct assessment, this recent system is shown to be
foundationally false, due to the fundamental importance of the
identification of Israel in the Dispensational model.
For a book which clearly lays out
the case for the nature of Israel, please read
The Hope
of Israel, by Philip Mauro.
I was clearly no longer a Dispensationalist, though I had no idea what
I was, or where I would land... so I kept studying.
That Israel "after the flesh" (I Cor.
10:18) was not the true Israel of God, and the body of Christ was,
gave me great leads to pursue. Theologically, it led me straight to
the significance of the cross. I needed to figure out, more
specifically, the significance of the passing from the Old Covenant to
the New, and what other impact this had. My first question, though,
was when this transfer took place from the temporal
to the spiritual nation.
USING WHY TO FIND OUT WHEN
Israel made a covenant they couldn't
keep, and then were utterly destroyed at the appointed time (the "Day
of the Lord" - I Thess 5:2). There was a greater purpose behind all
of this, and that is the redemption promised in Gen. 3:15. Hebrews
3,4, and Galatians 3 (among other passages), teach that the law was
defunct, and could save nobody. From here, we are in mutual
agreement about the need for Christ, and the purpose of Christ, and
the redeeming qualities and nature of Christ. The unique
substitutionary sacrifice is the cornerstone of my doctrine, as it is
with yours... so our issues are not about the nature
of redemption. What is different, though, is the Preterist
timing of redemption.
Though Dispensationalists believe
that redemption was given at the resurrection (or Pentecost), most
Preterists believe that redemption was not given until the return of
Christ. This is substantiated in numerous verses, including the
following:
I Cor. 15:23 "For
as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits;
afterward they that are Christ's at His coming."
Acts 3:19 "That
your sins may be blotted out, when the times of
refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;
and he shall send Jesus Christ.. whom the heaven must receive
until the times of restitution of all things (cf. Luke
21:22,32), which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy
prophets since the world began (cf. Rev. 10:7)."
Hebrews 8:1; 9:24,28
"For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with
hands, which are the figures of the true;
but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.
So as Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many; and unto
them that look for him shall he appear the
second time without sin unto salvation."
The Olivet Discourse places this
giving of redemption (therefore the second coming of Christ) as being
at the same time as the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans:
Luke 21:21 "And
when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that
the desolation in nigh. 22 For these be the days of vengeance, that
all things which are written may be fulfilled.
28 But when these things begin to come to
pass, look up, and lift up your heads; because your
redemption draweth nigh. 32 Verily I say unto you,
This generation shall not pass till all be fulfilled."
What ties this into the matters at
hand is that nearly every passage in the Old Testament which speaks of
the reestablishment of Israel, does so in the context of salvation or
redemption. Isaiah 35, for instance, which says "the desert shall
rejoice, and blossom as the rose," declares that this same desert
shall "rejoice with joy and singing" as "they.. see the glory of the
Lord, and the excellency of our God" (v.2). Verse three then
correlates this to the New Testament, as it says "Strengthen ye the
weak hands and confirm the feeble knees." Hebrews 12:12 quotes this
verse in fulfillment regarding our relationship with God through
Christ! Jeremiah 6:21-25 takes this verse and shows the other side,
which is the desolation that was coming upon the nation of Israel at
the hands of the Roman army, using the same language as the Olivet
Discourse.
Isaiah 35 then continues by
describing the beauties of salvation in Christ (paraphrased), "The
blind shall see, the deaf shall hear, the lame shall walk" which is,
of course, Christ's phrase to describe, to the disciples of John, His
Messianic role (Matt. 11:5). Preterism glorifies Christ in all of
these OT word pictures, seeing them for the metaphors of His nature
that they are. Others may wish to limit the meaning of these passages
through a "literal" hermeneutic, but I think that the entire history
of Christian interpretation would show the error therein.
The passing from the Old Covenant to
the New underscores the significance of the transference of Israel
from the temporal to the spiritual realms. The reason these two are
correlated is that, according to Hebrews 9:8,9, the temporal holy of
holies had to be destroyed first, so that the fulfilment (spiritual
temple- the church) would supersede the shadow (temporal).
Hebrews 8:1; 9:24,28
"For Christ is not entered into the
holy places made with hands, which are the figures
of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the
presence of God for us. So as Christ was offered once to bear the
sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he
appear the second time without sin unto
salvation."
----
A fascinating, possible fulfillment of this, is the account of
various historians regarding the signs and wonders surrounding the
days of the Roman-Jewish war. There was, actually, the appearing of
angels in the skies above all of Palestine. Eusebius, quoting the
Latin Josephus text, stated that these angels appeared as armies in
conflict, encircling every city in the nation. The following is
taken from another historian, Tacitus:
And at the feast which is called
Pentecost, when the priests entered the temple at night, as was
their custom, to perform the services, they said that at first they
perceived a movement and a noise, and afterward a voice as of a
great multitude, saying, 'Let us go hence.' (Tacitus, Histories,
v. 13 )
----
Paul, in Galatians 4:20-31, states
this, explaining that the Old Covenant was to become subservient to
the New Covenant. Paul even refers this passing as being from the
temporal Jerusalem to the "Jerusalem which is above." Presumably,
this is the same city in Hebrews 11 whose "builder and maker is God,"
(v. 10), which was "an heavenly... city" (v. 16). It is also that
"heavenly Jerusalem" and Zion of Hebrews 12:22. The transfer of the
capital to the spiritual realm substantiates the passing of the
elements of the Old Covenant (including the nation, temple, people,
sacrifices, etc.) from the flesh to the spirit, through Christ.
Transference from Old
Covenant to New
Seeing a theme of transference
develop, this is where I headed next. It was with an examination of
the Old Testament shadows and types that I began to receive hot leads
into the timing of this fulfillment. Knowing that God ordained Old
Testamentary events to shadow coming New Testament realities (Gal.
4:24; II Cor. 4:18; I Cor. 15:43), I began looking more intensely into
the Old Testament, which I still knew only slightly better than I had
before my studies began. While looking for all the shadows and types
that fit into the theme of transference, I found that there are a
number of famous instances of transference in the Old Testament. Two
of the most important are when Israel went from Egypt to Palestine
(the exodus), and when the kingdom was transferred from Saul to
David.
It was with the latter of the two
that my first breakthrough came, so far as the timing of the
transference from the Old to the New (in covenant, nation, people,
typology, etc.). In I Sam 15, Samuel tells Saul that because of
his rebellion, the Lord has rejected him as a King. Verse 28 reads,
"The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee
this day, and hath given it to a neighbor of thine,
that is better than thou." So there were the two part - the
taking and the giving.
God, through Samuel, was referring,
of course, to David as being "better." Knowing that David represents
Christ and the New Covenant (which is "better," according to Hebrews),
I knew right where to look – at the words of Christ. It just so
happens that Christ says the very same words as Samuel did, but Christ
was saying them to the nation of Israel. Matthew 21 holds the parable
of the householder. In it, the husbandmen, out of desire for the
inheritance (that belonged to the Son), kill the master’s servants,
including the Son Himself. Verse 43 reads, "Therefore say I unto
you, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and
given to a nation bringing forth the fruits
thereof." So, the transference theme clearly includes the nation of
Israel in the New Testament. The significance of this is the
greatest transference theme - the passing from the Old Covenant to the
New, which is otherwise called the passing from the old, to the new
heavens and earth (Rev. 21 - the Old Covenant had passed away - II
Peter 3).
The question remains as to how the
kingdom was to be transferred. We are told, in Matthew 23, that the
physical nation is going to be destroyed to fulfill this prophecy. In
fact, the Lord condemns NT Israel as harshly as is possible,
emphasizing that the "axe is laid to the root of the trees" (Matt.
3:7-10).
What was more exciting, though, was
the fact that Christ specifies the timing of this
transference in verse 36, "Verily I say unto you, All these things
shall come upon this generation." Upon seeing this,
I immediately went to the other passages which spoke of a time-frame
of fulfillment, and found that they all spoke of the judgment coming
"soon."
In confirmation that the word
"generation" was in reference to the time-frame of fulfillment we have
two points. First, there is the testimony of the 4th
Century Christian scholar,
Chrysostom, who stated the unanimous interpretation of all
Christians on this point:
"Was their house left desolate?
Did all the vengeance come upon that generation? It is quite plain
that it was so, and no man gainsays it." (Chrysostom,
A.D. 347 -Homilies).
History confirms that, in fact, the
entire nation and city and sanctuary were destroyed within a
generation of these words having been spoken. So there it
was. The transference from the Old to the New (nation, covenant,
etc.) was to be in the first century.
The confidence that the Olivet
Discourse was fulfilled in the first century was all but unanimous in
the first half of church history. In fact, I have yet to find ONE
Christian in the first millennium of Christianity that taught
otherwise! Origen states the following:
"I challenge anyone to prove my
statement untrue if I say that the entire Jewish nation was
destroyed less than one whole generation later on account of these
sufferings which they inflicted on Jesus. For it was, I believe,
forty-two years from the time when they crucified Jesus to the
destruction of Jerusalem." (Origen, Contra Celsum, 198-199)
-----
NOTE:
People like to misrepresent
Preterism by saying that it is not a historical doctrinal position.
This is clearly not the case. ALL of Christianity was Preterist,
before the destruction of Jerusalem as well as
afterward (at the war’s approach, the apostle James was martyred
for not recanting his position that Jesus Christ was about
to come to destroy the nation of Israel - quoted below).
It is not the Preterism of today, though, for a number of reasons.
One is that early Christians would mix and match doctrines together,
with no concern for their consistency with Scripture. For instance,
they would mix Preterism with their Premillennialism and their
Postmillennialism, etc. There is little denying, though, that the
Preterist view of the Olivet Discourse is the oldest eschatological
doctrine of the church.
What happened? Well, eventually,
the natural pendulum of doctrinal understanding took Christianity in
and out of Catholicism, then in and out of Postmillennialism, then
in to Premillennialism. It is my opinion that God has raised
Preterism as the instrument for the next pendulum swing. It has to
happen sooner or later, as people will only wait so long for the
Second Coming of Christ before they abandon it. Imagine how upset
people will be when the latest round of return dates are passed.
Only now is
eschatology being given a thorough look by Christianity. Eschatology
has never been the focus until now, and there has never been a
council on the subject of eschatology in the history of the
Christian church. The hysteria around the turn of the millennium
makes today the perfect day for God to reveal otherwise,
re-exposing a unanimously held, then partially forsaken,
historical doctrine.
Besides, many of the people who
lay the charge of novelty against Preterism believe in systems that
cannot be traced back any farther than the 19th Century. So,
historically speaking, Preteristic doctrine is superior.
------
Matthew 23:38 continues this
prophecy of impending doom for Israel by Christ declaring, "Behold,
your house is left to you desolate." This ties Christ's New Testament
prophecies to those of the Old, as this makes a direct allusion to
Daniel 9, where the chief end of that prophecy was that "the people of
the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the
sanctuary" (v.26). This was shown at the close of the Daniel
prophecy, which reads, "and he shall cause the sacrifice and
oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations
he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that
determined shall be poured upon the desolate" (v. 27).
Matthew 23:38 also makes the
connection to Deuteronomy 28-29, where God tells Israel that they will
be rejected due to their rebellion (just as Saul was). In fact, the
specifics of Deut. 28 are astounding when compared to a history of the
Roman-Jewish war, as it predicted all of the things that did
happen. That is like people today looking in the newspaper
to see the fulfillment of prophecy. I think they have the right
idea, I would just ask them to look first within the time
frame that Christ gave, to see if these things did happen
(which, of course, they did - at least temporally). If done, one can
see that the first (and only) time it happened all together was during
the seven year Roman-Jewish War.
The "city and the sanctuary" were
destroyed at the 3-½ year milepost (which is stunning, as 3-½ years is
mentioned in Daniel and Revelation as being the time of the
desolation). The interpreter of the Josephus text, Sir William
Whiston, wrote (in 1737) regarding this amazing occurrence as such,
"This is a very remarkable day
indeed, the seventeenth of Panemus, [Tammuz,] A.D. 70, when,
according to Daniel's prediction, 606 years before, the Romans "In
half a week caused the sacrifice and oblation to cease," Dan. ix.
27; for from the month of February, A.D. 66, about which time
Vespasian entered on this war, to this very time, was just three
years and a half."
Another amazing fact revealed in
Josephus is that the city was taken specifically on September 8, in
the second year of the reign of Vespasian, or the year of Christ 70
(Ant. b. vi. c. 10). The temple was burnt August 10, A. D. 70,
which was, interestingly enough, the exact same day and month
on which it had been burnt by the king of Babylon (Josephus, Ant. b.
xx. c. 11. s. 8). Josephus was thoroughly satisfied that the
destruction of Jerusalem was the judgment of God:
"had the Romans made any longer
delay in coming against these villains, the city would either have
been swallowed up by the ground opening upon them, or been
overflowed by water, or else been destroyed by such thunder as the
country of Sodom perished by, for it had brought forth a
generation of men much more atheistical than were those
that suffered such punishments; for by their madness
it was that all the people came to be destroyed" (VI,V,6).
All told, there are few
pre-Dispensational theologians who disputed the connection between the
judgment of God and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in
A.D.70. Take, for example, this quote from one of today's leading
American authorities on the writings of Josephus:
"It has been a standard feature of
Christian preaching through the ages that the Roman
destruction of Jerusalem in 70 was really God's decisive punishment
of the Jewish people for their rejection of Jesus, who died around
the year 30." (Steve Mason, Josephus and the New Testament)
----
Regarding Josephus quickly... I mildly resent the charge by
Futurists that Preterists have any type of reliance upon the works
of Josephus. I have read it once, and consider it a great
substantiation of the words of Christ - but beyond that, it has no
more authority than the other extra-biblical writings of that era.
I have not even looked at the text
since the first months of my study (aside from material like the
above). Nearly 100% of my study time is in the Bible exclusively,
so Bob Ross’ charge that Preterists rely on Josephus is absurd. We
just happen to be the only ones promoting this work, which has been
called (by non-Preterists) the most important historical document of
Christianity (as he also provides the earliest historical
substantiation of the life of Christ!).
Only because most teachers and
pastors hide it (for obvious reasons), have most Christians never
heard of Josephus' impressive works. In A.D. 325, Eusebius
Pamphilius, Christianity's first great historian, wrote the
following:
"If any one compares the words
of our Saviour with the other accounts of the historian (Josephus)
concerning the whole war, how can one fail to wonder, and to admit
that the foreknowledge and the prophecy of our Saviour were truly
divine and marvelously strange." - Book III, Chapter VII.
George Holford wrote a book on
this premise, in his
Destruction of Jerusalem (1805)
----
Which brings us to Matthew 24. In
it, Christ confirms to the nation, in continuation of the theme of
Malachi, that it will soon be utterly destroyed. In fact, Christ
tells them that all of the curses laid out in Deut. 28 are going to
come to pass, practically listing them one by one. He places the
same time-stamp on this part of the prophecy as He had in Matthew
23:36. Matthew 24:34 reads, "Verily I say unto you, all these things
shall come upon this generation." Again, not only did
the Christians of the day take Christ for His Word, but the early
church believed this as referring to the destruction of Jerusalem.
Possibly the most convincing proof, though, is that it all
actually happened within the space of 40 years.
So... Israel is destroyed, as Christ
said they would be in Matthew 22:6-8: "the remnant took his
servants.., and slew them. But when the king heard thereof, he was
wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers,
and burned up their city." It was then that the wedding feast
of the lamb was ready, and the New Covenant inaugurated, as the end of
the book of Revelation reveals (within the time frame of "quickly" and
"shortly" and "about to come to pass" and "at hand").
After the total destruction, not one
person lived in Jerusalem, which was laid in heaps. Not one stone of
the temple laid upon another (because the Romans were trying to find
the gold templeware that had flown through the stone floor cracks,
having been melted in the fire). The next question was – was temporal
Israel going to be physically re-established as a nation?
"The Children of the flesh are not the children of God" - Rom. 9:6-9
To this question I had a great deal
of information to consider. Having been convinced that the
Dispensational Israel model is untenable, I had no difficulty in
answering this question. The reason for this is that the majority of
contemporary Christian denominations believe that New Covenant Israel
is a spiritual nation, with no physical boundaries. Nearly all
Reformed Denominations (Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, Wesleyan,
Reconstructionist, Reformed Church USA, etc., etc.,) are either
actively or foundationally partial Preterist in this regard. So are
the Churches of Christ…, some of which are fully Preterist.
The Dispensational model of a
permanently distinct physical nation is recent, to say the least, and
unique. It was only last century that this position was
popularized. Many say it came from the ecstatic vision of a young
woman, but that is beside the point. Either the Bible teaches it, or
It doesn't.
As a result of these studies, it
became clear that the only way to create a future for Israel is to
temporalize (others might say "literalize") the passages which speak
of the heavenly Jerusalem and Zion, etc. Seeing that the faulty
"literal method" is the only way to do this, it was easy to see the
realm of the true Jerusalem. If one is not presupposing a future
physical Israel, they will have a hard time studying into that
position.
Knowing that the "Israel of God’
(Gal. 6:16) is not a temporal people in a temporal kingdom (John
18:36; I Cor. 15:50, "Kingdom of Heaven", II Tim.
4:18), there was only a matter of looking elsewhere to find Israel -
the spiritually eternal realm. Again, on this point the
majority of Christian denominations agree - There is
no temporal Israel, and never will be again. No surprise,
though, as God goes from good to better or best, not from good to
better to good again.
To put it in more theological terms,
God was finally able to take the kingdom from the temporal, giving it
to the spiritual - from the Old Covenant to the New. Now the laws of
God are written on our hearts instead of tables of stone, etc. All
of the elements of the Old Covenant were melted with fire, including
everything temporal/physical. There is not one temporal element to
Christian obedience and worship.. It is all in spirit and truth (John
4:24).
As for confirming again the timing
of this transference from the Old Covenant, I needed to get more
specific than Christ's "this generation" had been." Was it at the
cross, as many believe? Was it at Pentecost? Or was it after? Heb.
8:13 shows that after the cross and Pentecost the Old Covenant was
only "ready to vanish away." The II Peter 3:10-13 text explains the
timing of this as being that of the destruction of the physical
elements of the Old Covenant (Heb. 9:8,9 confirms this). correlating
the passing of the Covenants as being the passing of the heavens and
earth. The dozens of other texts that make it clear that there was a
correlation of these prophecies with the destruction of Jerusalem
confirm the words of Christ, and of the NT writers who littered their
letters with words such as "shortly," "soon," "about to," including
Revelation 1:1’s "things which must shortly come to pass."
On the correlation of Israel's
Covenant penalty with the destruction of Jerusalem, all Preterists
throughout history have agreed. This century, though, has brought
further criticism and development of Preteristic theology, which
still has never been systematized. We are, just now, in the
process of doing this. There has never been the focus or need until
now. On details of Preterism, there is always much study and
discussion to be done, but I think that giving a quick Biblical
synopsis and the historical case for the great credibility of the view
is all that is needed. On the grounds of the unanimous historical
acceptance alone, the view is made worthy of further study.
(FULL) PRETERISM
My personal study to get to this
point had led me through Premillennial Dispensationalism, Christian
Identity, Amillennialism, and then Post-Millennial partial Preterism.
It was there that I remained for the next year. The reason for this is
that I was somewhat afraid of where I would go next. If I thought
that anything else was fulfilled in the Roman-Jewish War, I would be
giving up very important future events to the past. What about the
Second Coming of Christ, etc.?
The reason I was a scared partial
Preterist, is that Matthew 24:34 says "all these things" were to be
fulfilled. That includes vv. 29-31, where the Second Coming of
Christ is mentioned. Luke’s parallel verse says, "This generation
shall not pass, till ALL be fulfilled." Confirming that all means ALL,
v. 22 states (regarding the Roman-Jewish war, according to all the
early Christians) "For these be the days of vengeance, that all things
which are written may be fulfilled." (cf. Isaiah 34:1-8).
Luke 21:22 was, for me, a most
amazing statement with which I struggled for months. Trying to take
the passage step by step, contemplating all that it included. This was
before I understood the significance of the timing
and nature of the New Covenant's establishment. Well,
as I began to study this all things, I was led to the
book of Acts, were Peter says the following,
Acts 3:19 "Repent
ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out
when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence (parousia
– coming) of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before
was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times
of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the
mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began."
Revelation 10:7 makes virtually the
same point, declaring that all things which had been
spoken were to be fulfilled during the sounding of the "last
trump" (al a I Cor. 15:52)!
The Acts text cited above is
important for two reasons: First, it teaches that redemption had not
yet been given, and wouldn’t be until the return of Christ (I Cor.
15:21-23). To this, dozens of NT passages agree (See them in
New Testament Realized Eschatology). Second, it teaches that
when Christ did come, He would bring the fulfillment of all things
(Acts 3:19; I Peter 1:3-13), just as Luke 21:22 said regarding the
Olivet Discourse which, again, every early Christian (according to
Chrysostom and
Origen) stated as being the Roman-Jewish war.
That all things of the Old Covenant
would be annihilated, and the things of the New Covenant would be
inaugurated is worthy of the many dramatic NT expressions, such as the
following:
I Cor. 7:31 "the
fashion of this world passeth away."
1 Cor. 10:11 "Now
all these things happened unto them for ensamples, and they are
written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world
are come." [to whom the ends of the ages have arrived].
Heb 9:26 "For then must he
often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but
now once in the end of the world hath he
appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself."
This dramatism is especially
understandable, considering that the Greek words for world here are
aion, which simply means an age. This subject of
the "end
of the world" is treated more below.
So, clearly, Christ teaches in Luke
21:22,32 that all prophecy would be fulfilled within
the space of that generation. I quickly found that there is
not one NT text that places the reach of prophecy beyond
that generation. It is the Futurist presupposition of what
"shortly," "soon," and "about to" mean that allows one to read 2000
years into certain texts. Even still, there is not one NT text that
states a large time frame clearly. There is not one.
ATTEMPTED REFUTATIONS
But, I was still unconvinced. Not
wanting to let go of a future second coming of Christ (primarily), I
examined every plausible refutation of this one pivotal point. During
the period of these studies, I answered questions about the timing of
the Second Coming of Christ like this: "Matthew 24:29-31 places it
within the time frame of that generation, but I can't see how yet.
When I can, I will let you know."
Most critical arguments I found were
liberal, such as the position that Christ was not God,
or that the Scriptures are uninspired, or that
the Apostles were wrong. These arguments come from
Christians and non-Christians alike, specifically due to his comments
about the second coming (parousia, pronounced "pair-oh-see'-a"):
H.J.
Schoeps
"It is undeniable that
Paul, with the whole of primitive
Christianity, erred about the imminently expected
parousia." (H.J. Schoeps, The Theology of the Apostle in the
Light of Jewish Religious History, p. 46)
Albert Schweitzer (1961)
"The whole history of
'Christianity' down to the present day, that is to say, the real
inner history of it, is based upon the delay of the Parousia, the
non-occurrence of the Parousia, the abandonment of eschatology, the
process and completion of the 'de-eschatologising' of religion which
has been connected therewith. It should be noted that the
non-fulfillment of Matt. 10:23 is the first postponement of the
Parousia." (The Quest of the Historical Jesus, p. 360)
Bertrand Russell (1927)
"I am concerned with Christ as He appears in the
Gospels, taking the gospel narrative as it stands, and there one
does find some things that do not seem to be very wise. For one
thing, He certainly thought that His second coming would occur in
clouds of glory before the death of all the people who were living
at that time. There are a great many texts that prove that. He says,
for instance, "Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel,
till the Son of Man be come." Then He says, "There are some standing
here which shall not taste death till the Son of Man comes into His
kingdom"; and there are a lot of places where it is quite
clear that He believed that His second coming would happen during
the lifetime of many then living. That was the belief of
His earlier followers, and it was the basis of a good deal of His
moral teaching.. In that respect, clearly He was not so wise as some
other people have been, and He was certainly not superlatively
wise." (Bertrand Russell, Why I am not a Christian, 1927,
p.3)
Ultimately, Christianity's Futurism
is responsible for allowing this argumentation to go unanswered.
Perhaps, if Preterism becomes popular, we can be given a new audience
with the agnostics.
Other arguments revolved around the
inspiration and authority of the creeds. This was of
little consequence, though, as the Bible either teaches it or refutes
it – I didn’t need secondary sources like creeds or Josephus, etc.
There are hundreds of creeds in greater Christendom, nearly all of
which are unique. Where they confirm the Bible, they are great, but
they have little authority of their own (aside from a look at the
doctrine of the period or the people).
The best critical arguments I was
able to find came from how anti-Preterists have discounted the
position. The two arguments worthy of examination were the
"Transition Text Theory" of Matthew 24, and the "Dual-Fulfillment
Theory" of Matthew 24 (which was Spurgeon's position).
TRANSITION TEXT THEORY
This argument is primarily used by
the partial Preterist. The argument against the fulfillment of all
things is the claim that Matthew 24 contains both prophecies of the
Roman-Jewish War and the end of the world at the Second Coming of
Christ. Using Matthew 24:36 as a transition verse, ("But of that
day…") they stated that everything before v. 34 ("this generation
shall not pass") was AD70, and everything after is the end of the
world. This position holds no water, though, as Luke 17’s version of
the same text mixes those verses before and after their supposed
transition. Consider the following chart, and the testimonies from two
all-time Preteristic greats:
Thomas Newton (1754)
"It is to me a wonder how any man can refer part of the foregoing
discourse to the destruction of Jerusalem, and part to the end of the
world, or any other distant event, when it is said so positively here
in the conclusion, "All these things shall be fulfilled in this
generation." It seemeth as if our Saviour had been aware of some such
misapplication of his words, by adding yet greater force and emphasis
to his affirmation, v 35 - "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my
words shall not pass away'" (Newton,
p. 426)
Milton Terry (1898)
"When, however, the one school of interpreters attempt to point out
the dividing line, there are as many differences of opinion as there
are interpreters. In Matt. 24 and 25, for example, the transition from
the one subject to the other is placed by
Bengel and others at 24:29; by E.J. Meyer at verse 35; by
Doddridge at verse 36; by Kuinoel at verse 33; by Eichorn
at 25:14, and by Wetstein at 25:31." (Biblical Apocalyptics,
p. 217)
SECONDARY ESCHATOLOGY (DOUBLE FULFILLMENT THEORY)
The second best critical argument
was based on the premise that the Olivet Discourse is intended to be
interpreted as having a double fulfillment. It is taught by many
(including Spurgeon) that the passage is primarily
about the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D.70, but has a
secondary fulfillment at the end of the world. This position
would state that Nero was a 'type' of the coming Antichrist, etc.
The problem with this persuasion was
that those who held it could never provide one shred of evidence,
Biblical or otherwise, to defend the hermeneutic. On top of this,
they needed to provide texts which taught an eschatology for the
universe (Cosmological Eschatology). All that can be found focus on
the passing of the Old Covenant, and the establishment of the New
Covenant (Covenantal Eschatology). Partial Preterists say there are
verses which teach cosmological eschatology, Preterists say there
aren’t... but that all New Testament eschatology is Covenantal in
nature.
According to Hebrews 8:13, they were
in the "last days" of the Old Covenant, which was then (A.D.60s)
"ready to vanish away." We know that the Old Covenant did not pass
away until after the book of Hebrews was written (8:13), so the New
Testament's "last days" are not those of the New Covenant (Max King
asks that if the Old Covenant hadn't ceased yet ceased at the time of
Heb 8:13, then is it possible that the New Covenant, which was
supposedly inaugurated at the Resurrection, could have ceased before
the Old?), nor are they the last days of the physical universe, which
literalist method of interpretation many held.
At any rate, there is no Biblical or
hermeneutical justification for the arbitrary "Double Fulfillment
Theory." So agrees Anglican Archbishop
F.W. Farrar, who is considered, by many, to be one of
Christianity's most brilliant theologians and
historians.
F.W. Farrar (1886)
"It was to this event, the most awful in history
- 'one of the most awful eras in God's economy of grace, and the
most awful revolution in all God's religious dispensations' - that
we must apply those prophecies of Christ's coming in which every one
of the Apostles and Evangelists fixed these three most definite
limitations - the one, that before that generation passed away all
these things would be fulfilled; another, that some standing there
should not taste death till they saw the Son of Man coming in His
kingdom; and third, that the Apostles should not have gone over the
cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come. It is strange that
these distinct limitations should not be regarded as a decisive
proof that the Fall of Jerusalem was, in the fullest sense,
the Second Advent of the Son of Man which was primarily contemplated
by the earliest voices of prophecy" (Vol. 2, p. 489)
Some passages which confuse people
into thinking that the Bible speaks of the end of the universe are
those which use the Greek word
aion. Confer with Matthew 13 and the parable of the wheat and
tares. "The harvest is the
end of the world" often confuses people (often Post-Millennialists)
into believing that this is a passage of cosmological significance.
The fact of the matter is that the harvest was simply (if such can be
said of it) the end of the Old Covenant age (By the
way, while in Matthew 13, notice v. 30 - Who is gathered first? "the
tares" not the wheat! So long, secret rapture of the
saints...). In short, the Bible speaks of the "time of the end," and
not "the end of time."
II Peter 3 is another chapter erroneously used to teach
the end of the universe. The problem is that the pivotal word,
elements, has no relation to the "periodic table
of elements," or such. These are the rudiments of the Old
Covenant. They are the stoicheia of the Old Covenant,
revealed in the following passages:
Galatians 4:3
"Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the
elements of the world"
Colossians 2:20
"Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of
the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye
subject to ordinances, after the commandments and doctrines of men?
Galatians 4:9
"But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God,
how turn ye again to the weak and beggardly elements,
whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?"
The key to understanding II Peter 3
came when I was shown that the establishment of the new covenant was
the passing to the new heavens and earth. Compare the following
passages, keeping the passing of the covenants and the kingdoms in
mind:
II Peter 3:10 "But the day of the Lord will come as a
thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away
with a great noise, and the elements shall melt
with fervent heat, the earth (land) also and the works that are
therein shall be burned up."
Hebrews 12:26-29
"Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying,
Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but
also heaven. And this word, Yet once more,
signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken,
as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken
may remain. Wherefore, we receiving a kingdom which cannot be
moved.."
The passing of the heavens and earth
is a long-used Biblical metaphor for a change of covenants. The very
framework of man's relationship with God changed when Christ shed His
blood - likewise, it changed for Old Covenant Israel "after the flesh"
when their nation was overrun by Roman armies and zealots within the
walls of the city.
One side of the coin is that the
kingdom was taken away from the unjust stewards - the temple, God's
very representation of heaven on earth was taken away. The glory
within that temple left prior to its abominating desolation. On the
other hand, to those chosen (or who are moved to choose) was given
eternal life, entrance into the holy of holies, standing with God. It
is not, in my opinion, a stretch to interpret the cataclysmic temporal
and spiritual events as such.
The key is to test Scripture with
Scripture. The great reformer
John Owen, as well as many other theologians, did just
that. Looking at how the change of a heaven and earth after the
flood (II Peter 3:5) didn’t require the destruction of the planet,
they seized upon how they were metaphors for the New Covenant -
opposed to the temporal heaven and earth, which were the realm of the
Old Covenant.
John Lightfoot (1859) concludes:
"With the same reference it is, that the times and state of things
immediately following the destruction of Jerusalem are called 'a new
creation,' new heavens,' and 'a new earth.' When should that be?
Read the whole chapter; and you will find the Jews rejected and cut
off; and from that time is that new creation of the evangelical
world among the Gentiles.
Compare 2 Cor. 5:17 and Rev.
21:1,2; where, the old Jerusalem being cut off and destroyed, a new
one succeeds; and new heavens and a new earth are created.
"If any man be in Christ, he is a
new creature."
2 Peter 3:13: 'We, according to
his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth.' The heaven and
the earth of the Jewish church and commonwealth must be all on fire,
and the Mosaic elements burnt up; but we, according to the promise
made to us by Isaiah the prophet, when all these are consumed, look
for the new creation of the evangelical state" (vol. 3, p.453)
"That the destruction of Jerusalem
and the whole Jewish state is described as if the whole frame of the
world were to be dissolved. Nor is it strange, when God destroyed
his habitation and city, places once so dear to him, with so direful
and sad an overthrow; his own people, whom he accounted of as much
or more than the whole world beside, by so dreadful and amazing
plagues. Matt. 24:29,30, 'The sun shall be darkened &c. Then shall
appear the 'sign of the Son of man,' &c; which yet are said to fall
out within that generation, ver. 34. 2 Pet. 3:10, 'The
heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall
melt with fervent heat,' &c. Compare with this Deut. 32:22,
Heb. 12:26: and observe that by elements are understood the
Mosaic elements, Gal 4:9, Coloss. 2:20: and you will not
doubt that St. Peter speaks only of the conflagration of Jerusalem,
the destruction of the nation, and the abolishing the dispensation
of Moses" (vol. 3, p. 452).
Even
Spurgeon acknowledged that the New Covenant was a new heavens
and earth:
"Did you ever regret the absence
of the burnt-offering, or the red heifer, of any one of the
sacrifices and rites of the Jews? No, because, though these were
like the old heavens and earth to the Jewish believers, they have
passed away, and we now live under a new heavens and a new
earth, so far as the dispensation of divine teaching is
concerned. The substance is come, and the shadow has gone: and we do
not remember it." (C.H.
Spurgeon, MP vol. 38, p. 354).
For more information on this point,
please read
Dr. John Owen on the New Heavens and Earth.
All prophecy was fulfilled in the
first century, because there is nothing left in the Bible that isn't
tied directly to then! All Bible prophecy used to teach future
prophecy regarded the passing from the Old Covenant to the New
Covenant that took place in the 1st Century. That redemption should be
so significant should be no surprise, for this new covenant is the
very reason Christ humbled himself, took the form of man, and offered
His blood upon the cross for Israel (Heb 8:8-12; cf. Jer.31:31-34 -
a promise to Israel given to the Church).
Everything intended in Genesis 3:15
was accomplished in the first century - begun with the cross,
completed with the coming of Christ and the attendant desolation of
Israel. Again, the temple needed to be destroyed (Heb. 9:8-10),
bringing in the redemption promised since that time. Paul even stated
that the work on the cross didn't accomplish Gen. 3:15, as the
judgment upon the serpent was coming "shortly" (Rom. 16:20). This was
written mere months before the commencement of the war.
This is like the presidential
elections, where one is elected in November, but takes office in
January. The interim period is the transitional period. That is
precisely what the "last days" were... transition "before that great
and notable day of the Lord come" (Acts 2:20) For more verses which
show the scope of the "last days" of the Old Covenant, please read my
(enclosed) article on
New Testament Realized Eschatology.
OTHER REASONS FOR REJECTING THE
DOUBLE FULFILLMENT THEORY
There are other arguments against
the various double-fulfillment theories. For instance, Christ states
in emphatic terms that all things spoken by the
prophets would find their fulfillment in those days of vengeance (Luke
21:22,32).
Luke 21:22 For these be the days
of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. 32
Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all
be fulfilled.
This is corroborated by the
testimony of other writers, such as Peter (Acts 3:21) and John (Rev.
10:7).
Also, the pattern of revelation is
from the temporal to the spiritual (I Cor. 15:46; II Cor. 4:18), not
the temporal, the temporal, and then the spiritual, as
double-fulfillment teaches. Or, as is the case with the
Dispensational model in the millennial reign ceremonials, the
temporal to the spiritual to the temporal again.
Also, Christ was to be the fullness
of all shadows (Col. 2:17), and not another shadow of coming things.
Again, as
Spurgeon wrote, "Did you ever regret the absence of the
burnt-offering, or the red heifer, of any one of the sacrifices and
rites of the Jews? No, because, though these were like the old heavens
and earth to the Jewish believers, they have passed away, and
we now live under a new heavens and a new earth, so far as
the dispensation of divine teaching is concerned. The
substance is come, and the shadow has gone: and we do not
remember it." (C.H.
Spurgeon, MP vol. 38, p. 354).
Also, there is only one
coming of Christ with power and great glory (Matt. 24:29-31;
16:27,28). "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and
unto them that look for him shall he appear the
second time without sin unto salvation (Heb. 9:28)." This is like
Christ’s statement, "When these things begin to come to pass, lift up
your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh" (Luke 21:28). There is
only a second coming, not a third – which is what some partial
Preterists teach...
Based upon all of the above
reasons, as well as a host of other indicators (not the least of which
was release from the false expectation of a coming Armageddon, not to
mention release from the idea that the Devil could do anything to me),
I finally had no reason to believe in a future return of Christ.
I had seen that the Second Coming had already happened, and
finally saw that there is no scripturally-based reason to expect it to
happen again! Since that time, God has blessed me with
great understanding as to more of the 'whys,' 'whens,' and 'hows' of
the whole matter. I had finally studied myself into an understanding
of the fulfillment of prophecy by not trying to create the end of the
world out of texts that regarded the end of the age.
My studies, since that time, have
consisted of testing hypotheses against the various presuppositions of
Preterism and vice versa. An example is testing what effect the past
Second Coming of Christ has on every other area of theology, etc.
This is significant, as the NT word for "coming" implies much more
than just a direction. The word
Parousia literally means 'presence.' In fact, the word
is still used in Greece today. According to John Bray, one can
find it on electrical switch-boxes,
Parousia representing the English word "on" - the
'presence' of electricity. There is an ocean of study in
determining the practical nature of the eternal presence of Christ,
and the nature of the inheritances given (I Peter 1:3-14).
God has continued showing other
deeper substantiation of the Preteristic view, such as the intricacies
of Christ’s role as High Priest, and the timing and nature of the 40
years of wilderness wandering. The latter was an impressive study to
me, as it showed the "last days" of the Old Covenant quite clearly
through the Exodus events - God using the temporal to bespeak the
spiritual reality that goes otherwise unseen.
PRACTICAL APPLICATION - PRETERISM'S STRENGTH
It is my opinion that God has
finally ordained a period for eschatological revival in Christianity.
Revival is an especially good word, considering the early Christian
Preteristic consensus. Whether or not we live to see a reformation the
scope and size of that of the 16th Century remains to be
seen (that task will necessarily be left to the first generation of
children raised in a non-Dispensationalist Christian word).
Preterism's focus on the glory of Christ as He was revealed in
that day is worthy and capable of
bringing about a worldwide reformation.
The positive side of the view's
revolutionary aspects is that is creates a powerful doctrinal position
which demands personal sacrifice. Besides the depth of
understanding it gives one regarding the whole Bible (with an equal if
not special interest in the Old Testament) and the history of Israel,
it provides many other benefits to the believer, such as
being anathematized by other Christians.
An important part of sizing up any
doctrinal position is following it to its conclusions. A look at the
conclusions of
Dispensationalism reveals the general Laodicean mentality of
those who must see the world around them deteriorating, in order to
'prove' their position to themselves. The applicable quote is the
infamous utterance by J. Vernon McGee, "why polish the brass on a
sinking ship?" A closer look at the conclusions of Preterism,
however, reveals a beautiful and spiritual temple built upon the
cornerstone of Jesus Christ, advancing the gospel's influence through
the power and glory of the eternal kingdom.
First and last, we have the
unwavering support given from the Bible. Preterism owns all of the
emphatic declarations about the time-frame of fulfillment. We have
incredibly clear passages regarding the nearness of fulfillment, such
as the following:
Matthew 3:7-10 "The wrath (mello
- about) to come. Axe is laid to the root…Whose fan is in
his hand."
Matthew 10:23 "Ye shall not have gone through the
cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come."
Matthew 16:27,28 "For the Son of man shall come in the glory
of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man
according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some
standing here, which shall not taste of
death, till they see the Son of man
coming in his kingdom."
Matthew 24:30,34 "they (the tribes of the land) shall see the
Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great
glory. Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass,
till all these things be fulfilled."
Luke 21:32 "This generation shall not pass,
till all be fulfilled."
Acts 2:16,17 "But this is that which was spoken by the
prophet Joel; And it shall come to pass in the last days"
Romans 13:11,12 "And that, knowing the time... The
night is far spent, the day is at hand"
Romans 16:20 "And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under
your feet shortly."
I Cor. 15:51 "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all
be changed, In a moment... at the last trump"
Phil. 4:5 "The Lord is at hand."
I Thess. 4:16,17 "For the Lord himself shall descend.. with
the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God.. Then we
which are alive and remain shall be caught up together
with them in the clouds."
I Thess. 5:23 "And I pray the very God of peace.. your whole
spirit and soul and body be preserved
blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
I Tim 6:14 "That thou keep this commandment.. until
the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ"
Heb 9:26 "For then must he often have suffered since the
foundation of the world: but now once in
the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by
the sacrifice of himself."
Heb. 10:37 "For yet a little while, and he that shall
come will come, and will not tarry."
James 5:8 "Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the
coming of the Lord draweth nigh."
James 5:9 "Behold, the judge standeth before the door."
I Peter 4:7 "But the end of all things is at hand: be ye
therefore sober, and watch.."
I John 2:18 "Little children, it is the last time:..
whereby we know that it is the last time."
Revelation 1:1 "The Revelation.. to shew unto his servants
things which must shortly come to pass."
Revelation 1:3 "The time is at hand."
Revelation 1:7 "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye
shall see him, and they also which pierced him."
Revelation 3:11 "Behold, I come quickly.."
Revelation 22:6 "These sayings are faithful and true:..
things which must shortly be done."
Revelation 22:10 "Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of
this book: for the time is at hand."
Revelation 22:12 "Behold, I come quickly..."
Revelation 22:20 "He which testifieth these things saith,
Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus."
The superior Preterist defense for
the inspiration of the Scriptures is a nice gift returned to the Word
of God for the clarity afforded. As stated above, only Preterism can
effectively answer the following liberal charge:
"It is
undeniable that Paul, with the whole
of primitive Christianity, erred
about the imminently expected parousia." (H.J. Schoeps, The Theology
of the Apostle in the Light of Jewish Religious History, p.
46).
Looking from the "orthodox" Futurist
perspective, Christ failed to emerge when He said He would: before
some standing there died (Matt. 16:27,28) and before that generation
passed away (Matt. 24:29-34). This is the very argument many liberals
use to deny the inspiration of the Scriptures, the authority of the
Apostles, and even the Deity of Christ. Only through the Preterist
perspective can their objections be satisfactorily answered.
Liberals attack the Bible on the
ground of fulfillment, Futurists obscure the Bible (by reading
multiple fulfillments into it, etc.) on the ground of fulfillment -
The fact still remains that the Holy Spirit places the fulfillment of
all prophecies within the space of 40 years of Christ's ministry.
Another reason Preterism passes the
test is that both sacred and secular history substantiate the claims
about Christ’s intent in the Olivet Discourse. Men have, throughout
the Christian centuries, written about how the Roman-Jewish war proved
the veracity of Christ’s words, and the fearful nature of God's bad
side (See
Holford's Destruction of Jerusalem).
Though the Bible is all the
authority we need, the following tidbit is a sample of what secular
history has to say about the coming of Christ. The Roman Historian
Tacitus wrote the following, regarding the signs surrounding the
destruction of Jerusalem:
"In the sky appeared a vision of
armies in conflict, of glittering armour. A sudden lightening flash
from the clouds lit up the Temple. The doors of the holy place
abruptly opened, a superhuman voice was heard to declare that the
gods were leaving it, and in the same instant came the rushing
tumult of their departure" (Tacitus, Histories, v. 13 - First
Century Roman Historian).
Eusebius, the church historian, wrote the following in the
4th Century, regarding the events of the desolation:
"Thus were the miserable people
won over at this time by the impostors and false prophets; but they
did not heed nor give credit to the visions and signs that foretold
the approaching desolation. On the contrary, as if struck by
lightning, and as if possessing neither eyes nor understanding, they
slighted the proclamations of God. At one time a star, in form like
a sword, stood over the city, and a comet, which lasted for a whole
year; and again before the revolt and before the disturbances that
led to the war, when the people were gathered for the feast of
unleavened bread, on the eighth of the month Xanthicus, at the ninth
hour of the night, so great a light shone about the altar and the
temple that it seemed to be bright day; and this continued for half
an hour. This seemed to the unskillful a good sign, but was
interpreted by the sacred scribes as portending those events which
very soon took place. And at the same feast a cow, led by the high
priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the
temple. And the eastern gate of the inner temple, which was of
bronze and very massive, and which at evening was closed with
difficulty by twenty men, and rested upon iron-bound beams, and had
bars sunk deep in the ground, was seen at the sixth hour of the
night to open of itself. And not many days after the feast, on the
twenty-first of the month Artemisium, a certain marvelous vision was
seen which passes belief. The prodigy might seem fabulous were it
not related by those who saw it, and were not the calamities which
followed deserving of such signs. For before the setting of the sun
chariots and armed troops were seen throughout the whole region in
mid-air, wheeling through the clouds and encircling the cities. And
at the feast which is called Pentecost, when the priests entered the
temple at night, as was their custom, to perform the services, they
said that at first they perceived a movement and a noise, and
afterward a voice as of a great multitude, saying, 'Let us go
hence.'
But what follows is still more
terrible; for a certain Jesus, the son of Ananias, a common
countryman, four years before the war, when the city was
particularly prosperous and peaceful, came to the feast, at which it
was customary for all to make tents at the temple to the honor of
God, and suddenly began to cry out: 'A voice from the east, a voice
from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against
Jerusalem and the temple, a voice against bridegrooms and brides, a
voice against all the people.' Day and night he went through all the
alleys crying thus. But certain of the more distinguished citizens,
vexed at the ominous cry, seized the man and beat him with many
stripes. But without uttering a word in his own behalf, or saying
anything in particular to those that were present, he continued to
cry out in the same words as before. And the rulers, thinking, as
was true, that the man was moved by a higher power, brought him
before the Roman governor. And then, though he was scourged to the
bone, he neither made supplication nor shed tears, but, changing his
voice to the most lamentable tone possible, he answered each stroke
with the words, 'Woe, woe unto Jerusalem.'" The same historian
records another fact still more wonderful than this. He says that a
certain oracle was found in their sacred writings which declared
that at that time a certain person should go forth from their
country to rule the world. He himself understood that this was
fulfilled in Vespasian. But Vespasian did not rule the whole world,
but only that part of it which was subject to the Romans. With
better right could it be applied to Christ; to whom it was said by
the Father, "Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine
inheritance, and the ends of the earth for thy possession." At that
very time, indeed, the voice of his holy apostles "went throughout
all the earth, and their words to the end of the world."
The Preterist Archive's
Church History page displays numerous early historical and
Christian writings, which substantiate the legitimacy of the Preterist
view. Included are those of
Tertullian (II Cent.) ;
Justin Martyr (II Cent.) ;
Melito, Bp. of Sardis (II Cent.) ;
Cyprian (III Cent.) ;
Chrysostom (IV Cent.) ;
Eusebius (325) ;
Athanasius (IV Cent.), and many, many more. Perhaps the
finest example is the First
Epistle of Clement.
APPLICATIONS AND THOUGHTS
Another strength of the Preterist
view is its jealous protection of God's glory. We know that ours is a
jealous God. If fulfillment is past, and Christ fulfilled His Word
entirely, then a large majority of Christians are waiting to glorify a
glorified Christ. This would be horribly tragic and disrespectful.
That fear alone justifies further study of the Preterist view.
Of the question of disrespect,
consider the role of the high priest and how that was fulfilled in
Christ. In the Old Covenant period, the high priest went into the
Holy of Holies once a year, to present the blood sacrifices for the
sins of the people. If the blood was acceptable, then the sins of the
people were covered. If the blood were not acceptable, then the high
priest would die on the spot. He would never return unto the people
waiting outside. In fact, so many priests were dying that it became
the practice to tie a rope around their legs before they entered, that
upon their death the people could pull them out.
Christ is said to have already
entered into the holiest of all, to present His blood sacrifice to God
(Heb. 9:24) Clearly, Christ's blood was found acceptable to God. The
question remains, however, "when did He emerge?" If Christ has not yet
emerged, then not only is redemption not yet given, but God has not
found His blood acceptable. In short, the terms of fulfillment were
not met (Heb. 9:18-22), and the New Covenant is null and void - now.
The Futurist non-fulfillment model
is especially grieving in light of the fact that the New Testament
writers repeatedly declared that Christ was about to return to make
his power known among the people then living. They
were simply repeating the Words of Christ. Many Dispensationalists
argue that Christ was telling them a half-truth about the imminency of
His return, so that they would stay sober and vigilant. Teaching that
Christ misled them, knowing that it would be thousands of years,
imputes a gross sin upon our Saviour. Consider how America viewed
Bill Clinton's attempts to influence public opinion by misleading his
closest aides, knowing that they would repeat his lies.
The New Testament is filled with
ample testimony that Christ was going to judge Israel quite soon. All
the following passages are out of the Weymouth NT for emphasis on the
Greek word
Mello (3195), which means "about to" or "before long" :
Acts 23:3 "Before
long," exclaimed Paul, "God will strike you, you
white-washed wall! Are you sitting there to judge me in accordance
with the Law, and do you yourself actually break the Law by ordering
me to be struck?"
Acts 24:15
and having a hope directed towards God, which my accusers themselves
also entertain, that before long there will be a
resurrection both of the righteous and the unrighteous.
II Tim. 4:1
I solemnly implore you, in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus
who is about to judge the living and the dead, and
by His Appearing and His Kingship:
Hebrews 10:27
There remains nothing but a certain awful expectation of judgement,
and the fury of a fire which before long will
devour the enemies of the truth.
1 Peter 5:1
So I exhort the Elders among you--I who am their fellow Elder and
have been an eye-witness of the sufferings of the Christ, and am
also a sharer in the glory which is soon to be
revealed.
In addition to these (and numerous
other) Biblical texts, we also have the dying testimony of James the
Just. He was taken to the top of the temple to publicly recant his
position that Christ was about to return. After he spoke these words,
he was martyred, being cast down to his death from the top of the
Temple:
"Why do ye ask me concerning
Jesus, the Son of Man ? He himself sitteth in heaven at the right
hand of the great Power, and is about to come upon the
clouds of heaven." (Eusebius'
Ecclesiastical History - Chapter XXIII)
At some point, Christians must
decide to either start pulling on the rope, or to look to the past for
His declaration of the freedom from sin (Revelation 14:13-16; cf. I
Thess. 4:16,17) and entrance into the kingdom (Matthew 25:21-34; cf.
16:27-28).
WHAT ABOUT TODAY?
There is often confusion regarding how the
Preterist Christian views their place in the world today. The short
answer is that we are all individually called to some unique aspect of
the kingdom work here on earth.
"...then face to face"
My favorite strength of this view,
though, is that it changes lives. It reveals that we now see God
face to face (I Cor. 13:12). It reveals "that which is perfect" (I
Cor. 13:10) to have come. The parousia (presence) of Christ is an
intimate relationship between He and His bride. The eternal presence
of Christ is "within" us, and that we walk in the presence of Christ
at all times - composing as we do the collective body and temple of
Christ. It seems that the knowledge of the perfect being here now
inspires many to look inward, addressing spiritual shortcomings anew.
One shocking but solidifying change that is brought
into the parousia-conscious Christian is the realization that they
do, indeed, see God face to face. This can be extremely jarring,
but we must remember that in His presence is fullness and joy. The
first comment made by the angel of the Lord to the people in His
presence was usually something like "fear not."
Recognize, instead instead of turning back, that
you have been called to a life akin to that of the Crusaders of long
ago - except that our battles are those against spiritual wickedness.
We are involved in the total domination of the earth by the zeal of
our King -- there is a lot for you to do! And all you have to do to
find your role is to petition the Commander in chief -- He'll have you
in the battlefield soon enough (allow months and years for spiritual
training - like that of Saul/Paul), so be careful for what you ask!
Many testify of a closer relationship with God. One of the
most common testimonies is that love for the Bible and the Lord is
kindled like never before. Another common testimony is that through
the Preterist viewpoint, one can begin to understand books like
Hebrews, Numbers, Deuteronomy, etc. (In fact, most Christians have
never read the whole Bible, limiting their ability to understand the
Bible, as the NT is believed to be the explanation of the OT), let
alone Revelation.
We are able to communicate with God
as freely now as Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden. We have
full fellowship with God, so that we can do as the Israelites could
not - call him Abba, Father. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they
see God.
CONCLUSION
So… here I am. After four years of
study, and three years of managing the website, I am convinced that
Christians are making a big mistake by not being Bereans with respect
to the Preterist issues. I am seeing quite a few who are, though.
People and churches come to the same conclusions and convert in bold
moves. The growth of Preteristic doctrine was displayed at the 1999
Ligonier Eschatology Conference, when Republican House Manager Charles
Canaday addressed the crowd of 4000, winning three standing ovations.
Pastors from nearly every
denomination (including Dispensationalism, myself included) have
studied into, and accepted, Preterism. We also mustn't forget the
already existing 1000s of partial Preterist churches. Major
theologians are writing seriously about the view, and some are
accepting it, including best-selling author
R.C. Sproul (at least, we are now allowed into the realm of
study – that is the whole battle, as the Bible teaches itself).
If Preterism has not completely
taken the world by storm in the next few years, I will be
surprised. According to the latest Dispensational interpretation of
Matt. 24:34, the year 2007 is the end of the "generation" of people
who saw the formation of Israel in Palestine in 1967. Perhaps the
view will be given opportunity to be heard when that date comes and
goes with nothing to show for it except a higher tide in the waters
issuing from
Ezekiel's Temple.
Thank you, again, for sending the
critical materials. I am afraid that they were probably little
help in helping you get a handle on the view, as Bob Ross always lives
up to his reputation as a misrepresenter of others’ positions. That
opinion crosses many denominational lines. I am a particular target of
his, as he mentions my web site as "The ‘Rosetta Stone’ of Preterism"
in his articles (I take that as a compliment). Few contemporary
Preterists believe what he says they do, including that the Maccabees
or Antioch Epiphanes had anything to do with the abomination of
desolation, etc.
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