Steve at Undeception posted a number of worthy articles last week (that I’m just getting around to fully reading after a week’s “vacation” working on various house projects) related to full preterism and his experience accepting and wrestling with this minority view of eschatology and overall Biblical history:
- Are you getting tired of this yet? — “I realize I’ve been talking a lot of eschatology lately. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m a one-trick pony or that I’m unhealthily devoted to discussion of this particular doctrine. I thought I’d dedicate a post explaining why I’ve been talking about this, and why I am not likely to completely stop posting about eschatology in the future (although I’m sure it will slack off here and there).”
- Common objections to full preterism: below the surface — “When looking at a belief system, you must look for something that is internally consistent. Too often we will reject a belief because of a current mistaken belief in a related field: what I mean is that if you listen to the presentation long enough, you may see that what you think is a truth that contradicts the proposed belief was really another misconception on your part and that the new belief will teach you something.”
- The Jacob to Israel experience — “I certainly didn’t come quietly into full preterism. Since my first encounter with it, I kicked against the goads for about five years before I could no longer say that I struggled against full preterism. This is not to say that I do not still struggle with it. There are some things one cannot understand about a subject without first accepting it on its own terms. I have accepted full preterism fully, and will now continue to wrestle with it for the rest of my days.”
My first exposure to preterism came 4-5 years ago in the midst of a two-year Bible study. My teacher, Trace James, was/is a partial preterist/post-millennialist whose point of emphasis was tracing the arc of grace and redemption through covenantal history. He viewed the events of 70AD as the judgment phase of God’s lawsuit against Israel’s leaders in their failure to keep the terms of the covenant. But he would not go so far as to say that Christ had returned in 70AD or even that we are in the millennium now, inasmuch as his class was about historical context and not future application.
This class coincided with my reading of the Left Behind series, the plot line of which I had initially accepted in ignorance of any other interpretative schema. As my dissatisfaction with the Left Behind writing quality grew, so did my uneasiness with the whole premillennial/rapture argument (especially considering that it was basically “invented” some 200 years ago). Enter preterism and its allure of historical grounding and thematic consistency with the rest of the Bible, something that a futurist view just simply can’t provide without seriously warping the text.
That consistency was impossible for me to ignore and I’ve spent the last few years reading and absorbing a number of arguments across the eschatological landscape to the point now that I consider myself an amillennial partial-preterist (essentially Revelation 1-19 were fulfilled in 70AD, while the millennium of Revelation 20 encompasses the age of the Church and will continue until some point in time according to God’s sovereign will).
Yet this requires making the original text jump and jive to fit around modern history – certainly not appropriate for a full exploration of the historical context of John’s writing. That’s why Steve’s argument has an attraction to me – the scope of Revelation can be fully accounted for within the historical context of the apostolic leadership.
And yet the full weight of preterism also hangs by a few assumptive threads, most significantly an early authorship date of Revelation, e.g. pre 70AD. Late-date preterism certainly exists, but seems thematically inconsistent in swerving away from the context of Temple Judaism in search of fulfillment in the first few centuries of Christianity. That’s also dangerously close to a historicist view…
So where to go now? I have to find a way to balance my desire and thirst to simply learn more with the words of wisdom from my dad that have been my guidepost:
“Live as if you’re in the Kingdom now and it won’t matter how the End comes.”
Ironically, wrestling with full preterism may be an answer to both.
14 Comments
“Live as if you’re in the Kingdom now and it won’t matter how the End comes.”
Those are wise words, ElShaddai. When we keep them in mind, we can live as brothers and sisters in Christ in this world, no matter our own particular eschatological viewpoint. After all, we know who holds the future; we’re in His hands.
Quite so, ElShaddai and Gary. It has been said that “ideas have consequences”, and as far as those consequences go, the ideas of full prets, post-mils, and most partial prets are not in conflict: it is not a stretch that the Kingdom is a current reality, and so we should be more likely to “get along” in the sense of having a common goal to work towards, the “Kingdomization” of our world. But it is Scripturally and logically inconsistent to be a futurist and extol the virtues, goals, and other outworkings of the Kingdom in this life.
As far as the dating of Revelation, I think you’ll notice most modern scholars have been convinced of a pre-AD 70 dating, including those who have the most interest in postulating late dating, namely liberal scholarship (John A. T. Robinson, for instance was utterly convinced of an early date). I recommend, if you haven’t already read it, partial pret Kenneth Gentry’s Before Jerusalem Fell (http://www.entrewave.com/freebooks/docs/2206_47e.htm) and read his arguments for an early date, which are, for my part, conclusive. The original source for the late date tradition, Irenaeus, who most church fathers followed without question, has little to no credibility on these matters: for instance, he claimed the death of Jesus at age 55!
I appreciate hearing your thoughts. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing: we should really be spending the bulk of our time on living out the Kingdom in practice.
ElShaddai,
I too have been reading about preterism, especially partial preterism lately. Right now I’m so new to it that I don’t even qualify to know enough to be dangerous with it!
At any rate, I think (as I usually do) that JP Holding has a good series on partial preterism. I don;t know much about full-preterism, so thanks for pointing out Steve’s posts. I hope to learn a lot.
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/eschatology.html
Dave
I recommend, if you haven’t already read it, partial pret Kenneth Gentry’s Before Jerusalem Fell and read his arguments for an early date, which are, for my part, conclusive.
Yes, I’ll second the recommendation for Gentry’s book – an excellent argument for early date authorship. I haven’t seen anyone claiming to refute it yet and they’d have a difficult task ahead of them if they tried.
Gary wrote:
“When we keep them in mind, we can live as brothers and sisters in Christ in this world, no matter our own particular eschatological viewpoint. After all, we know who holds the future; we’re in His hands.”
Steve wrote:
“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing: we should really be spending the bulk of our time on living out the Kingdom in practice.”
Amen.
Thanks for the link, Dave. The site looks interesting – I’ll be sure to spend some time checking it out. I put some preterist links in the right column of this site a while back – be sure to look at those as well.
now that I consider myself an amillennial partial-preterist (essentially Revelation 1-19 were fulfilled in 70AD, while the millennium of Revelation 20 encompasses the age of the Church and will continue
You’ve come a long way to a different view from before. We all have roads we travel on and discover that our views might not remain the same. That’s totally okay. I’ve been traveling on that road too.
Tektonics has some good stuff here and there, but it is highly influenced by the infamous Dee Dee Warren and is therefore caustically antagonistic of any and every view contradicting their own. They are especially critical of full preterism: they equate full preterism with the Hymenaean heresy (please!). Their arguments are long-winded and ill-natured, treating thoughtful and gracious Christians as Satan’s henchmen for believing in a less-than-physical Resurrection. I think you’ll see that they do not address any of the issues humbly and objectively (i.e., without suspending their own beliefs and addressing full preterism charitably). Look through it if you like, but make sure you follow it up with a healthy dose of thereignofchrist.com or eschatology.org.
Kevin said:
You’ve come a long way to a different view from before.
I can’t say that I formally considered myself to be a premillennialist as I’d really not studied the subject. If anything, out of ignorance, I read Revelation literally and let my imagination create images. If anything, I probably leaned toward a historicist view, finding events in the past 2000 years that “matched” the images in John’s writing.
I’ve been traveling on that road too.
Please feel free to contribute!
Steve wrote:
Tektonics has some good stuff here and there, but it is [...] caustically antagonistic of any and every view contradicting their own. [...] Look through it if you like, but make sure you follow it up with a healthy dose of thereignofchrist.com or eschatology.org.
Thanks for the links – I’ve been to Don Preston’s site before, but the former site is new to me. I’ll check it out!
Just one word of warning from a guy who has been a preteristic Christian for over 15 years & have been heavily involved in the “preterist community” — BEWARE of the LIBERAL PRETERISTS.
My first attraction to the preterist perspective was its tenacious realiance upon Scripture alone to make its argument, but over the last 5 years or so there has been a small but very vocal group that has shifted into socialistic concepts & out right speculation. There are some preterists even trying to say God didn’t actually create the universe but the whole Genesis account is only about God’s covenantal creation of the nation of Israel.
For more on the recent development of preterism, might I suggest this link: http://thekingdomcome.com/a_primer_on_preterism
Just because a person embraces a fulfilled view doesn’t mean they suddenly need to become a raving socialistic innovator.
In Christ alone,
Roderick
I myself have had quite a journey from Dispensationalism to partial-preterism and amillennialism. I third the notion to read Gentry’s “Before Jerusalem Fell.” Though I was partial pret before reading it, it really cemented Rev’s date for me.
Roderick wrote:
There are some preterists even trying to say God didn’t actually create the universe but the whole Genesis account is only about God’s covenantal creation of the nation of Israel.
You know, I think I came across a site like that earlier this week. There was an article on newjerusalemcommunity.net about that view of Genesis… for some reason, they chose to feature my post on their front page and the number of incoming clicks in my site stats led me to investigate further.
I also came across this site: http://www.preteristsite.com/, but haven’t had time to dig into what they’re advocating.
Might I suggest also http://unpreterist.blogspot.com