Featured Understanding Preterism

And which one of these words or phrases corresponds to the adverb quickly? Setting aside, for the moment, your misapplication of the verses.

 

All of them. They helpfully explain that the Holy Spirit's use of the adverb 'quickly' does not necessarily correspond to that of humans.

'For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come; it will not tarry' (Hab. 2:3).

So the vision (or revelation) will both tarry and not tarry. It will both 'come quickly' and not 'come quickly.' From the human perspective it may seem to tarry interminably, but from a divine perspective it will come right on time.

 

I agree!

The "tarry" is that waiting for it to happen.

When it does happen, it happens suddenly, quickly.

It took less than a year for Christ to be born in the flesh.
It took less than a year for Jerusalem to be destroyed.
When prophecy is fulfilled, it happens quickly.

However, that time of the giving of the prophecy, until the fulfillment may be centuries.

That in an extended version is the statement of Hab. 2:3

 

I agree my brother, however in this case and IMO it is not metaphorical but relational.

Relatively speaking "quickly" has a different quantitative scope when it relates to eternal God which the scripture itself declares.

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.

2 Peter 3:8 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.

HankD

 

Grasshopper! Thank you. - I did say early church fathers and I should have made it more apparent that I lumped "church historian" writings along with them.

BUT, I'm glad to see you are still active on the BB and glad that our paths crossed again.


HankD

 

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; }a:link { } I had written: And which one of these words or phrases corresponds to the adverb quickly?

If I had written what you wrote – especially the last paragraph – several might have been on me “like white on rice” for not believing God's Word. Do you understand that that type of thinking basically renders God's holy Word meaningless?

I guess I have no basis for even discussing this with you.

 

Additionally I would say that that the "though it tarry" passage is in the Old Testament. The Parousia, as well as the time of Christ's ministry before it, was still centuries away. You have a similar passage in Daniel 12:9:

"He said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end."

Now contrast that with Rev. 22:10:
"And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near."

Do you see the difference? This was spoken just a few years before AD70. The other was centuries before.

It is incorrect to use the tarry passage in Hab. 2:3 to try to excuse the supposed 2000+ years of divine delay.

Also, I have noticed that the "thousand years as one day passage" is hardly ever used in its entirety. Only the part that seems to justify delay is pressed into service. But, to be consistent with that (erroneous) interpretation, one could also say that a very long period could be shortened into a short one. That is - using that same interpretation - I could say that the Millennium may only be just a day long - or twenty years long, etc. After all, that passage allows either for divine delay over something promised "soon" or for divine instant action over something promised to last long.

Of course, in the case of the Millennium, someone might object that Scripture pointedly says "thousand years". To which I would counter that Scripture pointedly says "soon", "very soon", "quickly", "some standing here ... ", etc.

And it promises this more than six times.
And not just in that one book in Scripture that is obviously full of imagery and signs.

 

"Do your best to come to me quickly," - 2 Tim. 4:9

So - in the light of your definition of "quickly" - we can translate Paul's request as "Take your time, tarry for a while. Timothy. But when you decide to come do it quickly."?

To what lengths people will go to hold on to their pet doctrines.

 

You will indeed, won't you?
At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, Timothy was not God.
To God, one day is like a thousand years and vice versa. To Timothy, that was not the case. Read Psalm 90:3-6.

 

You should bear in mind that not everyone on this board is Pre-mil. As far as I'm concerned (to give just one example) the 'four horsemen of the apocalypse' have been riding pretty much ever since the book was written. The prophecy began to be fulfilled almost straight away, but it will not be completely over until the very end.

Your problem is that you are so wedded to your loony system of interpretation, and so desperate to justify it that you ignore the context. 'Knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, saying, "Where is the promise of His coming?......etc."' (1 Peter 3:4ff). The whole context of the passage is scoffers and heretics saying that the Lord wasn't going to return.

 

Actually Martin, Tom doesn't ask this question because he has it settled in his mind that His coming occurred in AD70, so this passage doesn't apply to Tom.

In fact this passage should be applied to those who don't think He ever came in the past and are doubting that He ever will.

HankD

 

Hank,
I do understand that.
My point is that the verses apply to those who think that the time is too long to be true, not those who think the time is too short.

 

OK and I agree that is a usable option in interpreting those verses.
Quick and quickly are relational words - relative to man or God as to the time duration of "quickly".


HankD

 

What was the statement by Paul?
"Do your BEST to come to me quickly."

He didn't state that Timothy had to immediately jump up and come.

Rather, Timothy was told to come, and do his BEST to come quickly.

Or (using a bit of Greek) Timothy was told to make haste or give priority to come sooner (in comparison to later) as the conditions allow.

The use of Timothy doesn't support the thinking of immediate fulfillment or even the immediacy of fulfillments some desire.

"To what lengths people will go to hold on to their pet doctrines."

 

There is a passage of scripture which speaks of a "delay" of His coming...

Again "delay" is also a relational word so He has delayed His coming for a couple of "days".

Luke 12
43 Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.
44 Of a truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he hath.
45 But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken;
46 The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.


HankD

 

A time unconsidered. A time not looked for.

A time regarded as unimportant to the scheme of the servant's agenda.

I am reminded of the song written by Philip Bliss upon hearing a Sunday School lesson given by Major Whittle in which he described the signals given from the Kennesaw Mountain signal point to the star fort at Allatoona Pass.
The assaulting forces were undeterred by the message sent, but the message was certainly beneficial to the defenders.

 

IMO, he's a lot more interesting to read than you. 'Christian Orthodoxy' has totally gommed up this ever so precious holy grail sacred cow visible 'second coming' by ignoring/explaining away crucial timeline passages that the Preterists don't ignore, but address.

28 so Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for him, unto salvation. Heb 9
37 For yet a very little while, He that cometh shall come, and shall not tarry. Heb 10

Yet you 'Orthodox' types insist that this actually means thousands of years and still waiting. Yours is the most egregious error in ignoring/explaining away related passages such as these:

40 When therefore the lord of the vineyard shall come, what will he do unto those husbandmen?
41 They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those miserable men, and will let out the vineyard unto other husbandmen, who shall render him the fruits in their seasons.
45 And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them. Mt 21

23 But when they persecute you in this city, flee into the next: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone through the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come. Mt 10

28 Verily I say unto you, there are some of them that stand here, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. Mt 16

63 But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou art the Christ, the Son of God.
64 Jesus said unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Henceforth ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven. Mt 26
http://www.baptistboard.com/threads/beginning-of-sorrows.98030/#post-2202740

....and there's many, many more.

 

There is a prophecy in Daniel that took about 300 or so years to be fulfilled concerning Alexander the Great and then nearly 100 years for each statement to actually occur.

The immediacy of the preterist position is not a validation but a problem to them, for then it makes the prophecies having to be fulfilled under a system integrating excessive (imo) language devices other than the most literal.

The same occurs with the post and a-mil views.

For example: one may take that passage from Matthew 26 in the above post and (assuming a view) attempt to show that the high priest had to still be living at the time of the fulfillment of all aspects of the pronouncement by Christ. Yet, there are a couple "time line" problems.

First, the date of the destruction of Jerusalem was some 40 years after the cross. It is doubtful the high priest was still the high priest much less alive at that time, for his tomb is known and seen in this day. Rather, he would have been killed along with the rest of those in the slaughter.

Second, there is no "time line" account, rather that statement that "henceforth" meaning that from that point on, the how or what context priest would recognize the Christ. It is that same point made when John records a statement from Zachariah, "They shall look upon him whom they pierced" and stops the quote at that point and does not finish the statement of Zachariah. For only that part was complete.

"I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. "​

As John Gill points out, there was no doubt that the Jews who belonged to Christ mourned and were dismayed about the crucifixion, the story of the two on the road walking and talking give a bit of a glimpse into their heart. But, there is more. What of the pouring out of the Spirit of Grace, did that not come at Pentecost?

I use this Zachariah passage to show that the prophecy is both literal and timely. It is also applicable to the future in which the Jews will look upon him and realize that the sin of unbelief, theirs and that of the world, sins rebuke and demand took place on that cross. That the piercing (as Gill said) as the Jews would expect of one wounded in battle, will cause them to mourn. For all will look, and all will bow. Hence forth the lost will see the Son of Man sitting in power at the right hand of God.

So, the statement by Christ doesn't have to "fit" an immediacy time line that the preterist view holders would demand as proof.