To those living around Jerusalem, including the Jewish Christians (who according to Eusebius and others, escaped the disaster by fleeing to Pella), it would have been a cataclysmic event.. To the Gentile Christians living some hundreds of miles away, and never having been anywhere near the place, I'm not so certain. They would have been much more concerned about the civil wars and the 'Year of the Four Emperors' that took place in 68 and 69.
The Christians in Jerusalem and elsewhere were raptured. This includes the Christians who had escaped to Pella in 62-64.
To the Christians throughout the empire the fall of Jerusalem still had great significance because it gave them relief from their persecutors, the Jews. No longer enjoying the protection of Rome throughout the Empire, the Jews in the various countries and client-states suddenly found themselves on the defensive. Wherever we find Christians throughout the Empire there had also been Jews, often with well-established synagogues. We have testimony in Acts, Romans, Thessalonians, etc. of the animosity and violence the Jews had toward the Christians.
But, ultimately, the relief for the Christians, just as Paul promised the Thessalonians, was their being raptured away. And later, when Christians again began populating the land, the relief was that their main persecutors, the Jews, were no longer in a position to harm them.
Most of the commentators that I have read place Revelation in the reign of the Emperor Domitian, as he appears to have been the first one who banished, rather than killed, Christians - hence John is banished to Patmos.
Most of the commentators of the last two centuries do place it, incorrectly, in the reign of Domitian. But they get their information from only one ancient source, Irenaeas. He was the one who made the "stupid" mistake of not knowing that "Domitianus" was also the name of Nero. (The "stupid" came from Robert Young of Concordance fame.)
Amillennialism gives eschatology an abiding relevance for all Christians at all times. A Futurism that pushes almost all the events into the future would have been no help to the struggling Christians in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries. A Preterism that places the culmination of history in AD 70 has precious little to say to anyone after that date. Hyper-preterism, that denies a future return of Christ is simply outside Christian orthodoxy, and is instantly refuted by Acts 1:11.
The supposed refutation in
Acts 1:11 is only to those readers who confuse an
adverbial phrase with
adjectival. See the archives for
that discussion.
Preterism has precious little to say to you because you do not look at it objectively. Preterism has precious much to say to Christians today. It gives emphasis on a reigning King now. It also honors Christ by taking Him at His word when He said He would return in the very generation of those to whom He was speaking.
Amillennialism, along with many other isms, has to tweak and stretch countless passages so that they can hold onto their fantastical fictions. It has to maintain with a straight face that "the last hour" is now lasting nigh onto 2000 years, centuries longer than the whole Jewish economy.
Denying a future return of Christ is no more a heresy than, say, denying a future Virgin who will conceive, Isa. 7:14. Both
that prophecy and the return of Christ passages are spoken of as future
from the time written. They are not
eternally future.
Preterism only
seems heretical because most Christians are "
carefully taught" by creeds and traditions that, in many cases, "
make the Word of God of no effect".
