Ahhhhhhhh.... well, I'm having a quick cup of coffee before I jump on the ole 9 to 5 treadmill and join the other rats in the race....so.....
About 20 years ago, at a prophecy conference at our Fundamentalist assembly, I spent a week getting filled with all the usual Premillenialist stuff. It intrigued me, and I resolved to delve deeper into the Scriptures to understand better the signs of His coming and its imminence.
However.....when I really began to tear apart Matthew 24, I simply could not make the chronology of events match that which the Premillenialists were proposing. I worked at it and worked at it, and finally came up with an answer...
I had to accept it "by faith" because it was true because this is what the "true teachers of the faith" were teaching.
So I let the problem go and just accepted the rest on face value.
Then, about 10 years ago, I met an interesting fellow by the name of Ed Stevens, who introduced me to a whole 'nother way of looking at this fascinating subject.
WHAT IF....
What if the "end times" being spoken of were not the end times of the whole wide world, but the end of the Old Covenant with the Jewish Nation? What if everything spoken of had to do with the curses promised upon covenant breakers in Deut. 28? What if it was the fulfillment of Matthew 23 and the dire prophecies given against the Jewish nation by their Messias?
What if it had NOTHING to do with us at all?
Now that was an intriguing idea indeed!! And one that set me off on study again. And as I read book after book regarding this idea, certain things came to light:
1. Terrible mistranslations of the scriptures used to promote premillenialism. For instance, the idea that the world we live in will be destroyed, coming from the mistranslation of the word "aion" in Matthew 24: 3. It is not the "end of the world", it is the end of the
age. Aion is NEVER translated "world" it is always "age"!! But apparently, either willingly complicit or downright stupid teachers have decided to ignore this fact and not do their homework. And this is one of many, many such horrible mistranslations. For instance, do you know that there are four different Greek words which the KJV translates to be "world", yet they all have VERY VERY DIFFERENT MEANINGS!!
Tsk tsk tsk. Very sloppy!!
2. Ignoring of the clear promises from Christ Himself of His imminent return. In Matthew 16: 28, Christ makes a promise that must have absolutely just TINGLED in the ears of the apostles who heard Him speak. He promised to return IN THEIR LIFETIME!!! Read it yourself!! It says that not all who are standing there listening to Him would die before He returned in the Father's glory. But promises like these are either ignored or clumsily explained away. Sorry, I can't ignore His promises. He said it....and He therefore DID IT!!! Anything that violates that promise therefore must be looked at again.
3. Horrible misapplication of verses and interpretations completely out of the context of the chapters they are in. For instance, the verses most referred to in order to "prove" the so called "rapture" of the Church in 1 Corin 15 and 2 Thess 4, are verses which are speaking about the RESURRECTION. Read the entire chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians. How anyone can miss that St. Paul's entire discourse is about RESURRECTION is beyond me!!! But suddenly, out of the clear blue, after almost 50 verses of defense of the resurrection, we are supposed to believe that in a completely disjointed manner, he switches to a completely different subject. The context will simply not allow for this. And this is one of many, many interpretive and translational errors of Premillenialism
4. The testimony of the NT writers to their belief in His soon coming, expected in their lifetime. Again, these writings are largely ignored, yet the tense of imminency in the Greek should not be ignored.
5. The wording of the promises in Revelation: "Behold, I come
quickly. Folks, 2,000 years is NOT quickly!! It is, in fact, rather tardy, considering the language and tense of the Greek. No wonder the first century apostles were looking every day for His return. Certainly if you called me up from whereever you live, said you would be in town tommorrow, and then put it this way.
"Please wait at the airport because although the time is a little fuzzy, I am coming QUICKLY and will be there SOON."
I would NOT expect you 2000 years later!!!
6. But of course, what really pulled it altogether, and eventually helped me into the Catholic Church (GASP!!!
) was the fact that if the Church is indeed the kingdom of God on earth as the Early Fathers have written, then for that to be true, the King must be HERE AND AMONG US NOW!! As Scott Hahn said several months ago at his conference which I attended (what a grand fun day that was!!)
"Where ever the kingdom is, the King must be!!"
AMEN!! And our King has returned and is verily present in every Tabernacle in the world and in every Monstrance in the world, present Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, the Whole Christ, ruling as He will in Sovereign glory, present among His people whom He loves.
My study of the dissolution of the Old Covenant and the replacement of the Old Covenant nation by the "new nation" (the Church) (Matthew 21: 33 - 46) brought everything together in a neat package. How could I resist the Church which Christ established to be His New Covenant community, His kingdom on earth? Everything pointed to the replacement of the Old Covenant by the New, and to the changing of the rulership on earth from a localized Jewish theocracy to a world wide Church family consisting of Jew and Gentile, united in one Body in Christ.
There is YARDS AND YARDS more, and it all fits together in a beautiful pattern in which I do not have to torture Scripture to make it fit preconcieved patterns of thought.
You can study the Preterist view online, and I would encourage all who are interested in an objective study to do so. Just type the word Preterist in your search engine and go to the sites.
Cordially in Christ,
Brother Ed
