Definitions for preterists?

[Bill the Cat]

I ran across this on a web site defining preterist ideas from a futurist point of view. Would they be accurate? if not, please explain. Thanks

· The Great Tribulation “took place in the Fall of Israel. It will not be repeated and thus is not a future event."[1]



· The Great Apostasy “happened in the first century. We therefore have no Biblical warrant to expect increasing apostasy as history progresses; instead, we should expect the increasing Christianization of the world.” [2]



· The Last Days “is a Biblical expression for the period between Christ’s Advent and the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70: the “last days” of Israel.” [3]



· The Antichrist “is a term used by John to describe the widespread apostasy of the Christian Church prior to the Fall of Jerusalem. In general, any apostate teacher or system can be called ‘antichrist’; but the word does not refer to some ‘future Fuhrer.’” [4]



· The Rapture is “the ‘catching up’ of the living saints ‘to meet the Lord in the air.’ The Bible does not teach any separation between the Second Coming and the Rapture; they are simply different aspects of the Last Day.” [5]



· The Second Coming “coinciding with the Rapture and the Resurrection, will take place at the end of the Millennium, when history is sealed at the Judgment.” [6]



· The Beast “of Revelation was a symbol of both Nero in particular and the Roman Empire in general.” [7]



· The False Prophet “of Revelation was none other than the leadership of apostate Israel, who rejected Christ and worshiped the Beast.” [8]



· • The Great Harlot of Revelation was “Jerusalem which had always been . . . falling into apostasy and persecuting the prophets . . . which had ceased to be the City of God.” [9]



· • The Millennium “is the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, which He established at His First Advent. . . . the period between the First and Second Advents of Christ; the Millennium is going on now, with Christians reigning as kings on earth.” [10] “Other postmillennialists interpret the millennium as a future stage of history. Though the kingdom is already inaugurated, there will someday be a greater outpouring of the Spirit than the church has yet experienced.” [11]



· The First Resurrection of Revelation 20:5 is a “Spiritual resurrection: our justification and regeneration in Christ.” [12]



· The Thousand Years of Revelation 20:2-7 is a “large, rounded-off number. . . . the number ten contains the idea of a fullness of quantity; in other words, it stands for manyness. A thousand multiplies and intensifies this (10 X 10 X 10), in order to express great vastness. . . . represent a vast, undefined period of time . . . It may require a million years.” [13]



· The New Creation “has already begun: The Bible describes our salvation in Christ, both now and in eternity, as ‘a new heaven and a new earth.’” [14]



· Israel In contrast to the eventual faithfulness and empowerment by the Holy Spirit of the Church, “ethnic Israel was excommunicated for its apostasy and will never again be God’s Kingdom.” [15] Thus, “the Bible does not tell of any future plan for Israel as a special nation.” [16] The Church is now that new nation (Matt. 21:43) which is why Christ destroyed the Jewish state. “In destroying Israel, Christ transferred the blessings of the kingdom from Israel to a new people, the church.” [17]



· The New Jerusalem “the City of God, is the Church, now and forever.” [18]



· The Final Apostasy refers to Satan’s last gasp in history (Rev. 20:7-10). “The Dragon will be released for a short time, to deceive the nations in his last-ditch attempt to overthrow the Kingdom.” [19] This will be “in the far future, at the close of the Messianic age,” [20] shortly before the Second Coming.



· Armageddon “was for St. John a symbol of defeat and desolation, a ‘Waterloo’ signifying the defeat of those who set themselves against God, who obey false prophets instead of the true.” “There never was or will be a literal ‘Battle of Armageddon,’ for there is no such place.” [21]

I apreciate your input.

[jpholding]

Yo Bill,

Much of it seems on line, but some of it is a little vague. 17 I'm not too keen on as worded -- unless they make some allowance at least for Jews to convert, which I'd guess they do. Not sure about 12 and 21 needs more expansion.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Yes those are accurate for a postmillenial preterist. An amill preterist might take some exception to a few. I did not analyze every word, but in general, that sums up pretty well what I believe.

[Faramir]

I agree with JP that overall it is accurate, if a bit vague in some places.

#3 Seems to be an oversimplification. "Last Days" and similar language often does refer to AD 70, but not always. The context of the passage needs to be considered.

[Bill the Cat]

Thank you all for your input. I believe this format makes it much easier to understand than the extensive articles. If you guys want to use the defs, feel free.

[Faramir]

Yesterday @ 10:32 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=76119#post76119)
Bill the Cat:

Thank you all for your input. I believe this format makes it much easier to understand than the extensive articles. If you guys want to use the defs, feel free.

Thanks Bill.

These definition are a good starting point for understanding what a preterist believes. However, it says nothing about why preterist believe what we do.

IMHO the extensive articles are necessary. I know that if these definitions were my sole exposure to preterism, I would still be futurist.

Not that preterism is complicated, quite the oposite. IMHO it is much easier to understand than futurism. But, speaking from my personal experience, the average evangelical Christian is so indoctrinated with furtuist eschatology that something as radically different as preterism will be seen as assinine at first glance. I know that my first reaction to preterism was that it was insane.

It took me a long time for me to even consider the possibility that preterism might be true. Even then, I read futurist refutations of preterism because I did not want to believe that preterism was true. But I finally realized that the scripture says what it says, regardless of what I want it to say, and I very reluctantly accepted preterism.

Of course now I am overjoyed. :yipee: :joy:

I say all that to say this. There is a reason, why preterist have such long articles. We have an uphill battle because we take a position so contrary to the position that has been ingrained in the American Evangelical culture.

Again, thanks for the definitions. They are an excelent starting point, and I will probably use them as such.

[Reasonable]

I have a question for Preterists. It was my understanding that the book of Revelation was written around 95-98. If the prophecies were fulfilled in 70 with the fall of Jerusalem, does this mean Revelation does not have as late a date as I thought it did or is it a history book telling what happened years earlier inspite of what it says at 1:1?

Thanks

[Dee Dee Warren]

There is a great deal of work and dispute on the date of Revelation.. it is FAR from settled. Preterists generally hold to a date in the mid 60sAD, during the reign of Nero who died in 67AD.

[Reasonable]

Thanks Dee Dee. I did not know that. So where can I find a good discussion on the two viewpoints for the date? And is an earlier date only held by Preterists or do non-Preterists also hold to an earlier date? It seems a later date blows the whole Preterist argument (though I admit I am not overly familiar with it) but an earlier date makes it a little more possible.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Both preterists and nonpreterists hold to an early date. For the best work on supporting the early date read Gentry's "Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating the Book of Revelation" and also at www.tektonics.org there is an article on the early date of Revelation. I do not have the link handy.... I will have to get it for you.

[CT292]

Reasonable wrote:


So where can I find a good discussion on the two viewpoints for the date?

In addition to the work mentioned by Dee Dee, which is a published version of Ken Gentry's 1986 doctoral thesis, there is also Gentry's smaller book, The Beast of Revelation. This work is a shorter excerpt of his larger work, BJF and is now in its 2nd revised edition at:

KennethGentry.com (http://kennethgentry.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=KG&Product_Code=BBEA&Category_Code=B).

The first edition of Gentry's Before Jerusalem Fell (http://freebooks.commentary.net/freebooks/docs/2206_47e.htm) and Beast of Revelation (http://freebooks.commentary.net/freebooks/docs/2186_47e.htm) are both free to read online by clicking on the underlined links.

BTW This work revolutionized my thinking on bible prophecy in 1990. Previously, I had been an Historicist and had accepted the traditional late date view of Revelation without question as many other Futurists still do.

Here are some articles dealing with the early date position:

The Dating of the Book of Revelation (http://www.all-of-grace.org/pub/others/revelationdate.html)

The Beast FAQ (http://forerunner.com/beast/beastfaq.html)

The Book of Revelation and Eschatology (http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/pt552.htm).

Quotes on the The Early Date of Revelation (http://www.preteristarchive.bravepages.com/StudyArchive/pc_early-date-revelation.html).

In addition, there is the book, Four Views of the Book of Revelation edited by Marvin Pate that discusses the dating question.

Lastly, not to confuse you further, but not all preterists have held to an early date position. The early date view is not entirely essential to all forms of preterism. Some preterists have held to a late date view of AD 96, and yet had believed that Revelation was prophetically fulfilled in the first few centuries of the Imperial Roman Empire. But this version of preterism is not held today by anyone that I know of.

Colin

[Dee Dee Warren]

Here is the link I promised:

http://www.tektonics.org/eschatology.html

[Bill the Cat]

Dee Dee,

Were you aware that Chilton converted to full preterism a few years before he died?


"Some of you know my sort of gradual movement into full preterist position...I recently ran across a passage in ‘Paradise Restored’, that now I look at and think; that should have pushed me over the cliff, twelve years ago into full preterism! I don’t know why it didn’t! I don’t know what I would have done if somebody had come to me and said, ‘David Chilton, look at what you said!’ What I’m getting at is, here I am as a full preterist..." (David Chilton, Conference on Bible Prophecy, Oklahoma City, 1997)

So he seems to think that full preterism is the natural progression "over the cliff" as it were. Are you headed that way too? Just curious how one partial can come to the conclusion that full is the answer and another says it's heresy.