Questions for Preterists (Non-Debate)

[technomage]

Greetings,

This is a series of questions for the partial Preterists here--I don't intend to engage in debate, I'm just gathering information. I would request that futurists who wish to debate the responses do so in another thread.

In truth, these questions have probably been answered in one of the other "Questins for Preterists" threads, but I'm having real difficulties in sorting answers from debate. So for this thread, while I have several questions (and may ask further questions as clarification), I am not trying to argue a position.

Scriptural citations are encouraged.

1: Do partial Preterists believe in some form of Second Coming?
2: Do partial Preterists believe in some form of "future" Tribulation, or was this completely fulfilled during the sack of Jerusalem?
3: Do partial Preterists believe in some form of "Rapture," or any calling up of living Christians?

Thank you. And I may have more questions later.

Justin

[Xavier]

Scriptural citations are encouraged.

I really wouldn't know what to refer to for these just yet...

1: Do partial Preterists believe in some form of Second Coming?

Yes, Jesus will still return to Earth Bodily and Physically at (or prior to) the General Resurrection.

2: Do partial Preterists believe in some form of "future" Tribulation, or was this completely fulfilled during the sack of Jerusalem?

No, all passages relating to Tribulation have been fulfilled.

3: Do partial Preterists believe in some form of "Rapture," or any calling up of living Christians?

Sure, right there at the General Resurrection of the Believer and the Unbeliever. Only one General Resurrection.

Hope that helps for now... I don't mind explicating a bit on these.

Yours,
Xavier

[Chief of Staff Lizard]

Greetings,

This is a series of questions for the partial Preterists here--I don't intend to engage in debate, I'm just gathering information. I would request that futurists who wish to debate the responses do so in another thread.

In truth, these questions have probably been answered in one of the other "Questins for Preterists" threads, but I'm having real difficulties in sorting answers from debate. So for this thread, while I have several questions (and may ask further questions as clarification), I am not trying to argue a position.

Scriptural citations are encouraged.

1: Do partial Preterists believe in some form of Second Coming?
2: Do partial Preterists believe in some form of "future" Tribulation, or was this completely fulfilled during the sack of Jerusalem?
3: Do partial Preterists believe in some form of "Rapture," or any calling up of living Christians?

Thank you. And I may have more questions later.

Justin
Well Xavier did a good job of answering the basics of your questions, but if you have more specific questions please feel free to ask.
:offtopic:
I just wanted to comment on your avatar. :thumb:

I have (or had, my computer with all my avatars crashed today :bawl:) an avatar of the Bog of Eternal Stench from that movie.

[technomage]

Well Xavier did a good job of answering the basics of your questions, but if you have more specific questions please feel free to ask.
Oh, believe me, I will. :wink:


:offtopic:
I just wanted to comment on your avatar. :thumb:

I have (or had, my computer with all my avatars crashed today :bawl:) an avatar of the Bog of Eternal Stench from that movie.
For the avatar, my hat's off to the Hamster-meister, Ultimate Rodent, and Master of Pixelation. He made them for me.

Justin

[wfaber]

I think it's clear that the Great Tribulation that Jesus spoke of in Matthew 24 was long past. Compare the words of Jesus with the eyewitness account of Flavius Josephus:

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. (Matthew 24:21)

I shall therefore speak my mind here at once briefly: - That neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries, nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, from the beginning of the world. (Josephus, Wars, v.10.5)
Accordingly, the multitude of those that therein perished exceeded all the destructions that either men or God ever brought upon the world. . . . (Josephus, Wars, vi.9.4)

When I first became a Christian several decades ago I belived in a future tribulation and rapture simply because this is what I was taught and I had no prior religious upbringing or religious training. But about a year later somebody in a Sunday School class asked a question which totally changed my understanding of the rapture and future tribulation. He asked what Jesus meant by repeatedly saying "I shall raise him up at the last day." (John 6:39-54) Shortly after that I had totally abandoned everything my church taught about prophecy, except for the clear Bible Teaching that Jesus will someday return to take His believers with him and raise the dead. At the last day.

The fact is, the Bible has a lot to say about tribulation, which we as Christians need to understand and be prepared for:

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. (Acts 14:22)

And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience. . . . (Romans 5:3)

Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. (2 Cor 1:4)
Also 2 Cor. 7:4; 1 Thesalonians 3:4; 2 Thessalonians 1:6; Revelation 1:9, 2:9-10, 7:14)

So if you ask if I believe in a future tribulation: Absolutely, I do, and I also believe in a present tribulation. But none of these will ever compare to the horrors that the Jews had to suffer through in the 3-1/2 years from March, AD 67 to September AD 70. And if I understand the words of Jesus, that includes the horrors they endured under the Nazi death camps. And I don't mean to downplay that in any way whatsoever. But if we had as much newsreel footage and personal testimonies of the Jewish War as we do of World War Two, instead of the personal writings of one lone eyewitness whom modern historians take delight in doubting, I think the Preterist standpoint (no matter how you define the term) would have a lot more support that it does.

As far as believing in a rapture: Yes, I believe in a rapture. But not the kind of rapture that the futurist theologians teach.

I believed that it was a three-day period from Wednesday October 15 to Friday, October 17, AD 66. Up to that point, the leaders of the rebellion had everybody inside Jerusalem held hostage. Anybody trying to escape was suspected of being a Roman sympathizer and was executed. Then Cestius Gallus arrived with the Twelfth Legion and a multitude of mercenaries from client kingdoms, with an army of 30,000 well trained soldiers eager to shed Jewish blood. He was on the verge of defeating the rebellion, and Roman sympathizers actually managed to open the gates to the city to let him and the army in, when for no understandable reason he suddenly retreated. The rebels regained their courage and chased Gallus and the army as far as the city of Antipatris, 30 miles away, killing about 6,000 of his army.

(I'm not making this stuff up. Read Josephus, Wars of the Jews, ii.19.1-9)

During those three days in which the rebels pursued Gallus, nobody was left guarding the city. Multitudes of public officials fled the city like rats abandoning a drowning ship (as Josephus describes it). It was most likely during this time that the Christians also fled the city.

Jesus warned them to be prepared to flee when they saw the city surrounded by armies.

"But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near. Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those who are in the midst of the city must leave, and those who are in the country must not enter the city; because these are days of vengeance, so that all things which are written will be fulfilled. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land and wrath to this people; and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled." (Luke 21:20-24, NASB)
And as Jesus had told them to pray, it was neither in the winter nor on a Sabbath day.

We also have this testimony from the church historian, Eusebius:

Furthermore, the members of the Jerusalem church, by means of an oracle given by revelation to acceptable persons there, were ordered to leave the city before the war began and settle in a town in Peraea called Pella. To Pella those who believed in Christ migrated from Jerusalem; and as if holy men had utterly abandoned the royal metropolis of the Jews and the entire Jewish land, the judgement of God at last overtook them for their abominable crimes against Christ and His apostles, completely blotting out that wicked generation from among men. (Euseb.; Hist. Eccl., 3.5; tr. By G.A. Williamson)

This account is also supported by other Christian writers earlier than Eusebius, such as Epiphanius.

[Chief of Staff Lizard]

Oh, believe me, I will. :wink:


For the avatar, my hat's off to the Hamster-meister, Ultimate Rodent, and Master of Pixelation. He made them for me.

Justin
Where do you think I got mine? :wink:

Hammy is da bomb.

[Piebald]

~Off Topic

[attachment=1]

[Hitch]

I really wouldn't know what to refer to for these just yet...



Yes, Jesus will still return to Earth Bodily and Physically at (or prior to) the General Resurrection.



No, all passages relating to Tribulation have been fulfilled.



Sure, right there at the General Resurrection of the Believer and the Unbeliever. Only one General Resurrection.

Hope that helps for now... I don't mind explicating a bit on these.

Yours,
XavierNailed it X

[technomage]

I've noted where there are three broad eschatological positions: historic, preterist, and futurist. I know many of the ECF were historicists, but is there a good comparison of preterist vs. historicist views?

Justin

[Xavier]

I think that Ted is your best bet for an answer there. He's the local Historicist scholar.
His thread on Matthew 24 might provide some insight as well.