Date: July 2007 Series: "I Want to be Left Behind" (XXXIII) Title: Extreme Preterism - "Has Jesus Already Returned?" (2)

      (continued)

       (6) If Jesus came with the angels in 70 A.D., is this then the relief from affliction/persecution that was promised with it, were all those who do not know God and do not obey the Gospel destroyed in 70 A.D., and has Jesus now come to be glorified and marveled at amongst His believers? (2Thessalonians 1:6-10).

       (7) John wrote that when Jesus appears, Christians will be like Him and will see Him just as He is, thus we purify ourselves in anticipation (1John 3:2-3).  Did He appear in 70 A.D., so that we are now just like Him, see Him as He really is, and no longer need to purify ourselves in anticipation of His appearance?

       Church = the New Heaven & Earth? - If we take the “present tense” passages and the “new heaven and earth” section (21:1- 22:6) of the Book of Revelation and apply it to the “post-70 AD world, how does it fit?  Does Revelation 21-22 describe the present Church Age?

       (1) Revelation 20:11 says that heaven and earth fled away from the judgment seat (of Christ) and no topos (topographic/geographic location) existed for them.  Did the judgment of Revelation 20:10-15 occur in 70 A.D. and has the first earth passed away (Revelation 21:1)?

       (2) If the New Heaven and Earth came after 70 A.D., then why have all tears, death, mourning, crying, pain not ceased and is God is now dwelling amongst us in a different sense than He did before 70 A.D.? (Revelation 21:3-4)

       (3) Do we still need to “overcome to inherit these things" (in the future) or can we “ease-off” because we already have these things now? (Revelation 21:7)

       (4) Have the sun and moon disappeared because God now directly gives us light since 70 A.D. (Revelation 21:23) and has “night” ceased to exist, so that now we no longer ever need to turn on a light/lamp? (Revelation 22:5)

       (5) If Jesus returned in 70 A.D., then should we not be able to say that there is now no uncleanness, abominations, or lying within the confines of “the Church”? (Revelation 21:27)

       (6) Has the “curse” ceased (Revelation 22:3) and are the problems of the cursed creation now gone (Romans 8:18-25)?

       (7) Have any living preterists actually looked upon Jesus’ face? (Revelation 22:4)

       Did Jesus physically/visibly ascend out of the disciples’ sight, so that they “watched” Him go (Acts 1:9-11) or did they spiritually perceive this and see nothing with their physical eyes?  The angels said He would return in the same way they “saw” Him go.  The book of Revelation says that “every eye will see Him” come in again in the clouds (1:7), but Preterists tell us that Jesus came invisibly (totally and completely) in 70 A.D.  My “baloney detector” is wiggling!

       As for the Preterist belief that all Christians were raptured out of the world in 70 A.D., we have here another alleged “invisible” event.  History records that Jewish Christians heeded Jesus’ warning as the Roman Legions closed on Jerusalem and departed, over the Mt. of Olives and continued Eastward to the town of Pella, where a Christian presence continued for some time.  I know of no evidence suggesting that Christians anywhere else around the Roman Empire disappeared in 70 A.D., or that would have been the end of the Church on earth at that point.  If all Christians disappeared in 70 A.D., then who passed on the faith after 70 A.D.?  And who was it that the Romans were calling “Christians” and persecuting for the next two centuries?  Extreme Preterism is a doctrine foreign to the early Church Fathers - Church leaders around the Mediterranean who wrote histories, Apologies, and commentaries on Scripture (100-500 A.D.).

       Preterists deconstruct Scripture so they can force it into their own mold.  Preterists apply “spiritual appraisal” (Ephesians 1:18) to 1Corinthians 15:26 so that the last enemy to be defeated is “spiritual death” (which Jesus dealt with in His first coming) and, thus, the resurrection of the saints to come at Christ’s coming (1Corinthians 15:23) becomes “coming to spiritual life” through the Gospel.^[1]  However, I would object that arguing for the resurrection of the saints at Christ’s coming as a spiritual/non-physical event (v. 23) also implies that Jesus’ resurrection (mentioned in the same verse) must have been the same kind of event - one of the explanations offered by skeptics’ to avoid the Biblical doctrine that Jesus’ body was physically dead and became alive again was that He was “spiritually” raised.  Jesus was physically dead and later pointedly emphasized that He was physically alive again and was NOT “a spirit” (Luke 24:36-43), thus Paul’s argument in 1Corinthians 15 is for physical resurrection from physical death, first in the case of Jesus and later for the saints.  In the same way, Preterists handle Revelation 21:1 - 22:6 so it is disconnected from future physical reality so that they can explain it as church-age “spiritual” realities.  Why could not the same reasoning be applied to “death” and “beheaded” (in Revelation 12:11; 20:4) so as to dismiss the unpleasant idea of physical martyrdom under Roman persecution (65-313 A.D.)?  How is this approach any different from the reasoning that removes physical “water” from all discussions of baptism in the New Testament, making “baptism” sound like an invisible spiritual event?

       Conclusion - Jerusalem’s fall in 70 A.D. was a major event in Biblical history and Jesus certainly did “come in judgment” upon Judaism - Rome functioned as God’s agent in 70 A.D. (Revelation 11:1-2; 17:16-17).  But I cannot convince myself that 70 A.D. was also the time of the gathering/changing of all Christians for eternity, the judgment of all humanity and separation to eternal fates, the time when “every eye” saw Him come, the point at which marriage and the Lord’s Supper should have ceased, etc.  I believe the reasoning of modern extreme preterists belongs in the same folder as {1} the false rumors that Jesus has already returned unseen (Matthew 24:23-27), {2} the teaching that the resurrection had already happened even before 70 A.D. (2Timothy 2:18), {3} the Corinthian believers who argued that there was no resurrection of the dead (1Corinthians 15:12), {4} the similar doctrine of Charles T. Russell that Jesus came invisibly in 1874 A.D., {5} or the “Unity School of Christianity” doctrine that the 2^nd Coming of Christ is not an event to be anticipated in the future, but “It is happening here and now, through prayer, meditation, study, and application.”^[2]  Ecclesiastes 1:9-11 seems all too appropriate again.