Preterism and the Necessity of Honoring the Timing Statements of Christ’s Return

The time statements are important. This is overlooked by many because it does not fit their calendar.

I believe the first 19 chapters of revelation were completed by 70ad.

I do think their is yet chapters 20-22 still to unfold in time.

The coming was in judgement....there remains a return on the last day.

Do you see the passage in 2thess1 as only metaphorical?

Explain your view of this passage as time permits....logos....thanks.

 

So you believe when John wrote revelation in 95 to 98 A.D. he was looking back at what had occured?
You see the churches being no more but a look back at their states at that time.
You believe that Christ had come and destroyed the beast and false prophet and cast them in the lake of fire?
While you believe that at the same time time the unbelievers were slain with the sword as Revelation 19:21 says?
You then hold that there were at the time no unbelievers left and all the people on earth are descendants of those believers? Whether Jew or Gentile so the American Indians would have ben descendants from those believers in 70 A.D. and migrated to the Americas after that time are those your beliefs? Because for Revelation 4 - 19 to have occured in 70 A.D. that is what we would have.

 

What do you base this belief of yours on? Is it a careful study of the Scriptures or a reading of a book by Gary DeMar?

If your placing the importance in time statements is your main consideration what do you do about the literally 100s of other escahtological details that did not happen in the first century? Could you even entertain the possibility, however slight that you are forcing a view, one of several possible views it fit your overall theological stance?

It is true that there have been some dispies who have made some end time statements that have turned out to be false. It would be an error thought to think that dispies are the only ones who do this. In another post the preterists among us were highly amused when another poster made the comment that the kind of thinking that preterists use have given us Jehovahs Witnesses, Mormons, Adventists and Harold Camping. Having spent several years studying the JWs in detail, I can tell you that the closest thing to their end time thinking within evangelical circles is the preterist view. You may not like this but that is the truth. None of these groups are/were dispensational in background, you have to be post mil to even come close to their theology. Mormons and Adventists pre-date Darby, the JWs (C.T.Russell) probably were not aware of of Darby and Camping is a confirmed in the reformed tradition.

So, what careful rendering of the Bible do you rely on to come up with a theology that states Rev ch 1-19 are past history?

 

On edit, should read "may pre-date Darby" and Russell seems to be unaware of Darby, I have never read anything by him (Russell) that indicates that he factored his writings into his theology.

 

Take a look here:
http://www.preteristarchive.com/Books/pdf/1987_chilton_days-of-vengeance.pdf

 

Jesus NEVER said he was coming soon, you cannot show that in scripture, he said he was coming quickly, which means suddenly or abruptly. I don't know what other versions say, but in the KJB Jesus never says he is coming soon.

 

I don't know of any that have been shaken at all. I think most are just ignoring what has been posted. The denial the second coming of Christ, the denial of the physical ascension of Christ, very basic orthodox doctrines of the Christian faith are being attacked under the name of Preterism. Most can see past the "eschatological" name-tag.
God's promises are true. They have not all been fulfilled. But they will in time. To boldly state without a shred of evidence that Christ came back in 70 A.D. is nothing short of delusional. There is not a history book--secular, Catholic, Jewish, Protestant--nothing! Absolutely nothing about Christ returning in 70 A.D. We have over 500 that witnessed his resurrection, a physical resurrection, but not one single individual that witnessed this so-called returned in 70 A.D. So, why assert something that is as good as false. If there is no evidence there is nothing to base the statement as truth. And the promises are still future. Your whole argument falls apart for lack of evidence. It is akin to a myth, a story, something without evidence. In fact all evidence works against it.

 

Yes....I have seen these verses before:thumbs::thumbs:

 

Here are statements easy to understand.

In fact these statements are/were so easy to understand that from the early church fathers (including those whose life span began and ended before and after AD70 to several centuries later) were futurists.

Matthew 24

29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.​

Revelation 1:7 Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.​

Acts 1
8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.
10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.​

1 Thessalonians 4

14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.​

2 Peter 3
7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
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 also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.​

If what you say is so easy to understand why did it take approximately 2000 years for preterism to be discovered?​

Personally brother, I would rather deal with "quickly" and the scriptural answer to what that means than to deal with such a host of problems preterism presents which can only be dealt with by a spiritualization of an abundance of scripture.​

Psalm 90:4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.​

Luke 12:38 And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants.
​

HankD​

 

One of my co-workers asked me to help him replace a headlight bulb in his car. I'm one of those handy do-it-yourselfer types and have replaced bulbs many times in the past. Instead of the bulb twisting into the socket, this car though has a spring clip holding the bulb in place, a set up I have not seen before.

I asked him to double check the car's owners manual for instruction. He did, I followed the step-by-step and in moments the headlight was good as new.

The Bible is our God given owner's manual. If we follow the step by step we will be doing the will of God. His ways will become our ways. And we will know how this age will come to a close because He chose to give us enough information in our owners manual to make this determination. Part of this owners manual was written in koine greek, the language of the common person. It has a common theme, is easy to understand but the owner has to take it out of the glove box and consult it for it to be of any practical use.

There is no possible way that the common man, nice as he is, could ever come to the preterist conclusions regarding the end of this age without consulting opinions outside of the Bible. Dispensationalism takes the owners manual and lays out the case. It puts it into a systematic format. When that format is put together it makes sense, it answers the "why" and the "when" for our times. The novelty of the rapture is in my opinion on a par with the novelty of the flood during Noah's time, the defeat of Pharo by Moses, the resurrection of Christ. If the Bible teaches it, it will happen just exactly as the Bible teaches. If the details of the event are not recorded history, then the only possible conclusion to be drawn is that the events are future.

Preterism takes the covenant position, a position held first by the eastern and roman church which places the Kingdom of Jesus in the here and now. It (preterism) attempts to answer a criticism of the a-mil/post mil postion, that is the fact that the Bible teaches that things will get worse and worse before Jesus returns not better due to the preaching of the gospel or the labors of the church. If Jesus already returned and the judgements of Revelation are past, then the gospel could have dominion over the people of the earth. This is why seemingly rational people take the irrational position that we are now in the promised Davidic Kingdom, it is the desire of man to be right regardless of what Jehovah clearly teaches in His word, the owners manual.

The claim of some in this thread that futurist like myself are in panic mode due to the preterist argument here is absurd to the point of not being worth the effort of responding to. But it points to a flaw in the overriding theology of the preterist thinking that is we, the church are not tasked with building the Kingdom of Christ as the preterist think, no we the church are tasked with telling as many people as we can about the saving power of Jesus and leave the Kingdom building to God.

I don't know about the pretersts in this club we have here but I stake my claim to salvation on a literal reading of Bible verses such as John 3:16. I'm not worried that there is some kind of higher spiritual meaning in those words. I take them at face value. I see no rational reason not to approach the rest of the Bible the same way. If the Bible employes literary devices to make a point I recongnise that. But on those occasions where literary devices are used, I make no excuse to avoid the obvious lesson Jehaovah has for me, literally.

The preterist sees things different though and instead of letting the Bible teach them, opt to consult a guide book(s) that tries to explain the real guide book, the Bible. The result is that they end up spending far too much time getting their headlight to work properly. If anyone outside of the cults (JWs, Mormons, ...) have sucessfully attempted to make the Biblical case that the theocratic Kingdom of Christ is working side by side with the unholy kingdom of man in this age I have not seen it. Why is that? Because my Bible teaches that when Jesus returns to set up His kingdom he will rule with absolute power in accordance with the will of God, there will be no haze or fog or doubts about him the Lord Jesus being in charge.

 

I don't boast in education, and neither will I here. But in science (knowledge gained by observation, then properly classified) there must be an observer, otherwise it is not science. We accept Creationism, for example, because it is in harmony with science not against it. The Bible is not against science, but neither is it a book of science. Again science is knowledge gained by observation. There must be an observer. When considering the origins of the universe (Big Bang for example), there was no observer. That puts it outside the realm of science and into the realm of the metaphysical. It must be accepted solely by faith. We accept Creation by faith but it lines up with scientific fact better than evolution.

Why do I say all this. The gospel is based on fact. There were those who were witness to the birth of Christ. There were those who were witness to the death of Christ. There were those who were witness to the burial of Christ. There were those who were witnesses of the resurrected Christ--over 500 of them. We accept the gospel because there is empirical evidence. We accept the bodily ascension of Christ because of the evidence that was there. They saw Christ ascend into heaven. They observed him go into the clouds. It is empirical evidence. It is written in history.

But that is not true with the Coming of Christ in 70 A.D. There is no evidence that Christ came. There is nothing empirical, nothing scientific, nothing observable to say that he came. We can only treat it as a myth, a story. Where is the evidence that he came? Who saw him? Those are the questions that the Preterist must answer. And until they do their position holds no water.

 

I know of no covenant theologian who supports the Hyper-preterist theory. All the Reformed (covenantal) statements of faith speak of a literal physical return of Christ.

I would also add that Amillennialism does not teach that the world will get better and better until Christ returns. That is Postmil. Amil acknowledges that 'In the last days perilous times will come' (2Tim 3:1. cf. vs 2-4; Matt 24:12 etc.). However nor does it forget that 'This Gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world' and therefore does not discount the possibility of great revivals such as have happened in the past in your country and mine, and are also happening right now in China, Africa and South America. So Amil sees the world getting worse in some ways and better in others. Pretty much what we are seeing today. :thumbs:

Steve

 

Don't really have much time to spend on this, since we're on the road on furlough. However, since this thread starts out with the time statements, I'd like to mention something I've mentioned before that was never answered--ignored even--by the hyper preterists.

My point was (and is) that the preterist has just as big a problem with the time statements as we do who believe in the precious imminent 2nd coming. Think about it. If a Rev. time statement is any length of time at all before the supposed 2nd coming of 70 AD, then the coming was not "soon." If Rev. was written in 69 AD even (unprovable), then the preterists has a problem.

Think of this. If I say, "I'm going back to Japan soon," what would you think? you certainly wouldn't think I plan to go back in another 10 months or more, as is the case. Soon would have to be days, maybe a month at the most. But if John wrote Rev. even a month before the destruction of Jerusalem, what would be the point? There would be no chance for the book to circulate before Christ supposedly came. So the preterists have a big problem with the time statements.

 

Steve,

It was not my intention to place a-mils into the same box as preterists so I hope you are not offended. However, it is impossible to be a preterist without being covenant. Preterist simply take covenant theology to the extreme.

A-mills hold as do the post mills the "already, not yet" theory that believers are in the millinnium now but that all of the functions of that period will come into effect when Jesus returns. A-mills rightfully see that in the church the details of the theocratic kingdom are not all in place. Preterist on the other hand lack any kind of interprative ethic that would give them the disclipline needed to see just how far they have strayed from Biblical truth. I believe that if preterists were not preterists, many of them would be your classic protestant liberals. I would not say that about most A-mills.

Still, a-mills are in error in that the millinnium begins not when the individual places their trust in Jesus but rather when Jesus returns with the believers to set up his kingdom. And according to the Bible, that Kingdom will last for exactly 1000 years. There is simply no other time given in the Bible for the length of the Kingdom except 1000 years.

 

This is correct John. At AD 70, there is a good chance that many of the established churches didn't even have a copy of the completed (less Revelation) New Testament.