Preterism Is Dangerous

[Darfius]

I am defining preterism as the eschatalogical (endtime) theory that biblical prophecy saw most or all of its fulfillment in and around 70 AD, namely during the sack of Jerusalem by Rome.

Preterism is heresy. By that I do not mean that it is dangerous to "the church" or to any earthly institution. I mean that it is an impediment to the knowledge of God and his Christ--which alone can save.

Preterism is ignorant, arrogant, insufficient, conceited, unspiritual, worldly, reactionary, conciliatory, inconsistent, having a form of godliness while denying its power, illogical and above all false.

A belief in preterism inevitably leads to excessive allegorizing of the Bible which leads to a laxity in heeding the Bible which leads to a careless Christian walk and witness. It is also a highly cerebral eschatalogical system (as compared to certain Left Behind strains of futurism) which "puffeth up" its adherents. After ignoring much of Romans, some of Thessalonians, half of Daniel and the entire book of Revelation, the preterist is left grossly unprepared spiritually and practically for the battle against enemies who are not "flesh and blood", not watchful for the imminent return of the Master and having only the mangled remains of those parts of Scripture they don't ignore.

Biblical prophecy serves two important functions, among others. It validates the Bible as God's word and it is God's way of "not doing anything without letting His servants know." Preterists would have us believe that for 2,000 years and possibly far more, God has kept and will continue to keep us in the dark, except possibly with the nebulous expectation that one day Christ will return, but probably not until we've lived out a happy 70 or 80 years and done our small part to help make the world the paradise it is destined to become now that Christianity is conquering. They also undermine the persuasiveness of prophecy by undermining its literal fulfillment. Christ "came", but not in the way people normally come to places. But perhaps most grievously, they claim that God's gifts and calls are not irrevocable and that the Jews are not loved on account of the patriarchs. If the Jews could not trust God, then neither can the Gentiles.

I will now take a look at a few "prooftexts" for preterism and see whether it truly does stand on any solid ground.

Let's go straight to the granddaddy of prooftexts:

Matthew 24:34

I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.

Preterists claim that the phrase "this generation" proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the infamous "Day of the Lord" had to occur before the generation of people listening to Jesus had all died. But is that necessarily the case? Let's look at another example and see if it possesses the same meaning preterists claim it must have:

Deuteronomy 32:20

"I will hide my face from them," he said,
"and see what their end will be;
for they are a perverse generation,
children who are unfaithful."

Now obviously God is not talking about any one generation, but rather His people as a whole. The use of the word "perverse" as an adjective is also reminiscent of another usage of "generation" by Christ:

Matthew 17:17

"O unbelieving and perverse generation," Jesus replied, "how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me."

If in the first example "generation" did not mean a single generation, as is obviously the case, why would it when Jesus says the exact same thing, arguably even referencing the phrasing in Deuteronomy?

But about the Day of the Lord. Now of course this requires some major overhauling of the long held Jewish understanding of the "Day of the Lord" at the time of Christ as equivalent to the "last day", which included the undeniably physical resurrection of the dead, the Enochian prophecy of God coming with "thousands of His holy ones to judge the ungodly" and a time when "the lion would lie with the lamb." Preterism instead makes the "day of the Lord" the day that God finally and utterly turns His back on the nation He had called His own, leaving the rest of the world corporately unpunished (we will soon see that 'unpunished' is an important word). But is that compatible with Scripture?

Jeremiah 25:15-38

This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: "Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. When they drink it, they will stagger and go mad because of the sword I will send among them."
So I took the cup from the LORD's hand and made all the nations to whom he sent me drink it: Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, its kings and officials, to make them a ruin and an object of horror and scorn and cursing, as they are today; Pharaoh king of Egypt, his attendants, his officials and all his people, and all the foreign people there; all the kings of Uz; all the kings of the Philistines (those of Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the people left at Ashdod Edom, Moab and Ammon; all the kings of Tyre and Sidon; the kings of the coastlands across the sea; Dedan, Tema, Buz and all who are in distant places; all the kings of Arabia and all the kings of the foreign people who live in the desert; all the kings of Zimri, Elam and Media; and all the kings of the north, near and far, one after the other—all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. And after all of them, the king of Sheshach [Babylon] will drink it too.

"Then tell them, 'This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Drink, get drunk and vomit, and fall to rise no more because of the sword I will send among you.' But if they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink, tell them, 'This is what the LORD Almighty says: You must drink it! See, I am beginning to bring disaster on the city that bears my Name, and will you indeed go unpunished? You will not go unpunished, for I am calling down a sword upon all who live on the earth, declares the LORD Almighty.'

"Now prophesy all these words against them and say to them:
" 'The LORD will roar from on high;
he will thunder from his holy dwelling
and roar mightily against his land.
He will shout like those who tread the grapes,
shout against all who live on the earth.

The tumult will resound to the ends of the earth,
for the LORD will bring charges against the nations;
he will bring judgment on all mankind
and put the wicked to the sword,' "
declares the LORD.

This is what the LORD Almighty says:
"Look! Disaster is spreading
from nation to nation;
a mighty storm is rising
from the ends of the earth."

At that time those slain by the LORD will be everywhere—from one end of the earth to the other. They will not be mourned or gathered up or buried, but will be like refuse lying on the ground.

Weep and wail, you shepherds;
roll in the dust, you leaders of the flock.
For your time to be slaughtered has come;
you will fall and be shattered like fine pottery.

The shepherds will have nowhere to flee,
the leaders of the flock no place to escape.

Hear the cry of the shepherds,
the wailing of the leaders of the flock,
for the LORD is destroying their pasture.

The peaceful meadows will be laid waste
because of the fierce anger of the LORD.

Like a lion he will leave his lair,
and their land will become desolate
because of the sword [e] of the oppressor
and because of the LORD's fierce anger.

Clearly the idea that God would severely punish His own nation of Israel and leave the other nations "unpunished" is biblically absurd. Notice too the phrase "at that time", a phrase consistently referring to the "day of the Lord."

Oddly, preterists "spiritualize" verses like these and then use them as justification for "spiritualizing" later parts of the Bible! The circular reasoning should be apparent.

There are also the favored "time texts" of preterists such as swiftly, quickly, soon and near. "Soon" and "near" can be explained by the fact that "a day for the Lord is like a thousand years and a thousand years as a day." But swiftly and quickly can just as easily refer to the rapidity with which the events will occur once they are initiated and not necessarily to imminent events. For example:

Isaiah 60:22

The least of you will become a thousand,
the smallest a mighty nation.
I am the LORD;
in its time I will do this swiftly."

[Note also the phrase 'in its time', which is very similar to 'at that time', a phrase consistently referring to the end of days.]

Now as is often the case with lies, preterism has a bit of truth to it. The events surrounding 70 AD in some instances partially fulfilled biblical prophecy. But that is misleading. A better way of putting it is that primarily it represented 'a' fulfillment. The attentive student of Scripture should be familiar with many instances where prophecy saw more than one fulfillment (i.e. the birth of Immanuel). Scripture also certainly did indicate a time when Israel would be completely driven out of its land and scattered "to the four corners of the earth." A gross hole in the preterist doctrine, however, is that Scripture just as often saw a glorious restoration of national Israel to the land of its inheritance, this time from the four corners of the earth.

There is much more that can be said against preterism and for the proper understanding of multiple fulfillments of biblical prophecy, but I am pressed for time and I will now end with the admonition that we do away with "doctrines" and "theories" in general and just focus on studying the word of God with all of our heart and seeing what He would have us see, without caring about proper labels, but caring very much for truth and consistency.

God bless.

[seanD]

You're gonna get a lot of flak for this post

If Jesus meant Matthew 24:30-31 would happen in their generation, the only sign that was necessary was the war so that they would know when to flee. Everything else in the entire OD, especially everything after Matthew 24:22, was a redundancy.

And about "this generation," Iver Larsen argues that the word “this” (houtos), which is anaphoric, used with the word “generation” (genea) should instead be translated “that generation” or “this kind of people."

It's a slap in the face to how God kept his promises about the Judah and house of Israel restoration and the miraculous historical events that occurred therein -- "so that they will know I am the Lord." But I think the danger is with those who are unmovable in their convictions about preterism, and will use any rationale no matter how illogical the argument is. This tells me that they'll use a rationale for almost everything that happens.

[MegaHertz]

All the events that had to be completed for the first bruise to be completely were over by the time the present Bible was in print. None of the prophecies associated directly with the 2nd bruise have yet been fulfilled. That is the event Revelation covers mostly, along with that bruise certain changes happen on earth to those that are alive. It is now safe to give them the 2nd birth that makes them equal to angels in that they have an immortal body and they can stand before God and be viewed as being holy.

If that was given anytime before all temptation to sin some could fall into sin after the 2nd birth and that would mean the lake rather than the sins being only in the 1st birth where sins have a set punishment. Those sins are in the past by the start of the new earth where everybody is righteous and immortal and 'life' goes on as it was in the Garden originally.

[One Bad Pig]

C'mon, Darfius, tell us what you really think.

I won't speak for the other preterists here, but I'm prepared for the Lord to come back without warning, and try to live each day as if it might be my last. Sorry to disappoint you.

[Hitch]

Well Darf one of us takes Jesus literally, and its not you .
LOL

A belief in preterism inevitably leads to excessive allegorizing of the Bible which leads to a laxity in heeding the Bible which leads to a careless Christian walk and witness. It is also a highly cerebral eschatalogical system (as compared to certain Left Behind strains [of futurism) which "puffeth up" its adherents. After ignoring much of Romans, some of Thessalonians, half of Daniel and the entire book of Revelation, the preterist is left grossly unprepared spiritually and practically for the battle against enemies who are not "flesh and blood", not watchful for the imminent return of the Master and having only the mangled remains of those parts of Scripture they don't ignore

Yawn no one who follows in any of the modern 'rapture' theories believes in the ' imminent return of the Master ' .

In fact their claims make up a cultic styled lie whevener they use a term like imminent return of the Master when what they are speaking of is an event supposably 3 1/2 -7 years before the return of the Lord.

So this is false on several fronts. An imminent event cannot be preceeded by any 'sign', specially one as world altering as the 'rapture' is supposed to be.

Second the 'bodily return of Christ' is by no means what most futurist expect as the next eschatological event, rendering their claim an out right falsification.

Third, despite Darf's and many other futurits usual shrillness , as you can see from the above it is the preterist who believes in the imminent return of the Master not the futurist.

And since failing to believe in the imminent return of the Master is dangerous.... LOL

Biblical prophecy serves two important functions, among others. It validates the Bible as God's word and it is God's way of "not doing anything without letting His servants know." Preterists would have us believe that for 2,000 years and possibly far more, God has kept and will continue to keep us in the dark, except possibly with the nebulous expectation that one day Christ will return, but probably not until we've lived out a happy 70 or 80 years and done our small part to help make the world the paradise it is destined to become now that Christianity is conquering. They also undermine the persuasiveness of prophecy by undermining its literal fulfillment. Christ "came", but not in the way people normally come to places. But perhaps most grievously, they claim that God's gifts and calls are not irrevocable and that the Jews are not loved on account of the patriarchs. If the Jews could not trust God, then neither can the Gentiles.

They also undermine the persuasiveness of prophecy by undermining its literal fulfillment. Christ "came", but not in the way people normally come to places


Hmmmm Now this comes from a guy who wants to say the imminent return of the Master is really the 'rapture' ?

Certainly an event that fits ", but not in the way people normally come to places in fact most of these myths claim that Christ will not even be seen and never quite touch the earth at this point.

But then it is the preterist who believes in the imminent return of the Master the futurist does not.

Clearly the idea that God would severely punish His own nation of Israel and leave the other nations "unpunished" is biblically absurd. Notice too the phrase "at that time", a phrase consistently referring to the "day of the Lord."

Oddly, preterists "spiritualize" verses like these and then use them as justification for "spiritualizing" later parts of the Bible! The circular reasoning should be apparent.

14For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews:

15Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men:

16Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.

In reality Jesus appeared in the flesh to one generation, and primarily one people. Namely first century Israel. Oddly enough the very people Jesus was speaking to when he said;

31Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.

32Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.

33Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

34Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:

35That [upon you ]may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.


Jesus and Paul agree, Darfius is contrary.

And no , should anyone be thinking this was a set up, its not, Darfius has done his best.

]Now as is often the case with lies, preterism has a bit of truth to it. The events surrounding 70 AD in some instances partially fulfilled biblical prophecy. But that is misleading. A better way of putting it is that primarily it represented 'a' fulfillment. The attentive student of Scripture should be familiar with many instances where prophecy saw more than one fulfillment (i.e. the birth of Immanuel). Scripture also certainly did indicate a time when Israel would be completely driven out of its land and scattered "to the four corners of the earth." A gross hole in the preterist doctrine, however, is that Scripture just as often saw a glorious restoration of national Israel to the land of its inheritance, this time from the four corners of the earth.[/


Please list these promises ,as foiund in scripture, that were written after the return from Babylon.

There is much more that can be said against preterism and for the proper understanding of multiple fulfillments of biblical prophecy, but I am pressed for time and I will now end with the admonition that we do away with "doctrines" and "theories" in general and just focus on studying the word of God with all of our heart and seeing what He would have us see, without caring about proper labels, but caring very much for truth and consistency. LOL The idea expressed here is directly opposite your entiire post, a perfectly conflicted ending to a perfectly conflicted OP.

You mount your soapbox to shout ;

Preterism is ignorant, arrogant, insufficient, conceited, unspiritual, worldly, reactionary, conciliatory, inconsistent, having a form of godliness while denying its power, illogical and above all false.

And then say we should all just get along. Mossrose is stupid enough to buy it.

PERF!

Moderated By: TolkienFan

Hitch, quit posting back-to-back replies to the same post, just keep your response to one post until someone else posts.

***If you wish to take issue with this notice DO NOT do so in this thread.***
Contact the forum moderator or an administrator in Private Message or email instead. If you feel you must publically complain or whine, please take it to the Psychotherapy Room unless told otherwise.

[Chaotic Void]

C'mon, Darfius, tell us what you really think.

I won't speak for the other preterists here, but I'm prepared for the Lord to come back without warning, and try to live each day as if it might be my last. Sorry to disappoint you.

Likewise.

In addition, I'm not averse to a double-fulfillment of what's already happened in Revelation (anything before Chapter 20 has happened. Still awaiting the Second Coming, great apostasy, final judgment, and the New Heavens/New Earth). On top of that, I also believe that the physical descendants of Israel will return to the Lord before he comes back per Romans 11:25-32.

[Hitch]

You're gonna get a lot of flak for this post

If Jesus meant Matthew 24:30-31 would happen in their generation, the only sign that was necessary was the war so that they would know when to flee. Everything else in the entire OD, especially everything after Matthew 24:22, was a redundancy.

And about "this generation," Iver Larsen argues that the word “this” (houtos), which is anaphoric, used with the word “generation” (genea) should instead be translated “that generation” or “this kind of people."

It's a slap in the face to how God kept his promises about the Judah and house of Israel restoration and the miraculous historical events that occurred therein -- "so that they will know I am the Lord." But I think the danger is with those who are unmovable in their convictions about preterism, and will use any rationale no matter how illogical the argument is. This tells me that they'll use a rationale for almost everything that happens.

In Luke 17:24-25, what generation did Christ suffer many things from, and what generation rejected Him? It is clear, He is speaking of His contemporaries. Look at how some of the translations deal with this verse.


New English Bible: "I tell you this: the present generation will live to see it all."


Today's English Version: "Remember this! All these things will happen before the people now living have all died."

Moffatt's Translation: "I tell you truly, the present generation will not pass away, till all this happens."

Weymouth's Translation: "I tell you in solemn truth that the present generation will certainly not pass away until all this has taken place."


These translations make it quite clear. The meaning of the word was that of the "present" generation in the time of Christ; not to a future generation thousands of years away. So in etymology and usage, "generation" means those born at the same time, Contemporaries.


http://ecclesia.org/truth/mat08.html



Hitch, quit posting back-to-back replies to the same post, just keep your response to one post until someone else posts.

No problem ,TF I had forgotten that rule.

[One Bad Pig]

Mossrose is stupid enough to buy it.

Mossy may be old, and wrong about preterism, but she's not stupid.

[Hitch]

Mossy may be old, and wrong about preterism, but she's not stupid.

And not biased either;


I

was responding to Jin-roh. Not you.

And as a leader here, and as a member here, I resent your implication that I am trying to cloud the issue.

I don't like the way you behave, but since you are Deeds friend, I tolerate you. Frankly, if I had my own way, I would put all your threads in the Psyche Ward, because you come across as a hyperactive fanatic with an agenda.

[One Bad Pig]

Maybe you do come across that way sometimes, Hitch. I mean, some of your posts are as colorful as Ty's.

I'm just sayin'.

[Hitch]

Maybe you do come across that way sometimes, Hitch. I mean, some of your posts are as colorful as Ty's.

I'm just sayin'.

Oh Piggy what are you saying????? LOL

[Manwë Súlimo]

Mossrose is stupid enough to buy it.

You dare defame the first member of the Beautyhead, Mosschelle Hawke? Antichrist.

[fm93]

Preterism is heresy. By that I do not mean that it is dangerous to "the church" or to any earthly institution. I mean that it is an impediment to the knowledge of God and his Christ--which alone can save.

It seems to me that all you said in the OP was that a few of the many arguments for preterism aren't conclusive. You didn't engage in any sort of rebuttal against the belief. So...what was the point?

[franktalk]

I think Preterism is dangerous because they will not be looking for certain signs and they think the false Christs have already come. So when they see someone perform miracles are they going to follow that being even if that being makes a statement about being God?

[Manwë Súlimo]

I think Preterism is dangerous because they will not be looking for certain signs and they think the false Christs have already come. So when they see someone perform miracles are they going to follow that being even if that being makes a statement about being God?

Yes, preterists are so retarded that we follow ever whim of heresy we hear. Lol, critical thinking - whuddat?