Why I Am Not A Preterist

Sylvan might help

You’re running out of steam. I’ll give you the opportunity to head to the showers with dignity.

Or is there no one else left in the bullpen to avoid a rout?

“Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” (Matt. 16:28)

Still waiting for your plain sense interpretation.

These threads have been very informative. They show not only the lengths to which some people (like this PCA guy and Englesma yesterday) will go to muddy the waters, but just how defensive they can be when it comes to the idea that Jesus Christ just might be in control of the world today and that things just might be happening the way God ordains today and most especially, that the preaching of the Gospel will convert the world into faithful disciples today.

I've learned from these threads that these apparently unnerving prospects have disturbed even those who should know better. Which leads me to conclude that the the Gospel and the transformative nature of God's grace is truly the enemy of Satan who tries (and yet will fail) to prevent every knee from bowing to Jesus Christ.

What greater assistance does Satan need than true and sincere Christians who wrongly say the battle cannot be won on earth and Christ's victory on the cross must be postponed?

Are we not to imbue our politics with our Christianity, xzins, you who speak so eloquently for the unborn's right to life? Is that not a theological position God blesses? Won't the abandonment of abortion bring favor to this entire country by healing women's broken hearts and souls, and giving breath to all God's creation?

I came to the orthodox (partial) preterist, postmillennial position when I realized it was the most vigorous, joyous, positive, uplifting, energizing and Scripturally-sound means of preaching the Gospel of Christ risen to all men everywhere.

From Matchett-Pi's site:

WHAT IS PRETERISM

Dispensationalism and the Eclipse of Christ (An Open Correspondence)
As many of you are no doubt aware, I was raised a Dispensationalist. When I first became convinced that the teachings of Dispensationalism are not supported by an honest assessment of scriptures, I determined to change my thinking on the topic, and so be done with the issue summarily. Such were my intentions, but I found, much to my surprise, that the roots of Dispensationalism are so deep, and they affect so profoundly one's way of thinking about virtually every theological issue, that the task of rejecting one's own Dispensationally-flavored way of viewing the Bible is no simple task. It is a monumental struggle that requires years of deep, intense, Spirit-reliant searching of the scriptures. As I embarked on this long process, I slowly became aware of a vast array of manners in which a thorough grounding in the Dispensational ideal tends to influence one's beliefs and emphases. This in itself was shocking to me; but what came as the severest shock of all was the reflection that virtually every one of these Dispensationally-derived misunderstandings tended in some way towards the eclipse of Christ as the sum and substance of every redemptive promise and reality, the One for whom, to whom, and by whom are all things, the One who sums up all of reality, brings all things under his feet, and is in himself all the fullness of the Godhead. Let me be clear here: I have no doubt that many, if not all Dispensationalists would affirm in theory the Christo-centrism of all reality; nevertheless, the fact remains that in practice they deny the explicit Christ-centeredness of many times, persons, and realities in history - and not just minor, inconsequential persons and things, but those that stand out as epoch-defining and historically-pivotal.

I am indeed grateful for the many resources available today which demonstrate scripturally that Dispensationalism is in error. I think that our current need is not so much to argue that Dispensationalism is wrong - although such efforts will certainly continue to be helpful - as it is to show just how grave and far-reaching the errors really are. In contribution to this latter goal, I have reproduced a portion of an interaction that I had some time ago with one of my Dispensational friends. My hope is that the preceding comments and following correspondence will not be unduly inflammatory or derogatory in nature, but that they will be used by God "for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edification of the body of Christ, until we all attain, in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man…" (Ephesians 4:12-13). We all retain errors of some sort in our striving after the full knowledge of Christ and his great work: God grant that such dialogues between fellow-believers in Christ may be useful in the doctrinal maturation of each one of us!
I will begin with a portion of a letter written by my friend, in which he responds to a comment I had made labeling Dispensationalism as "dangerous"; and then proceed to my response to his letter.
Initial Letter from a Dispensationalist Friend
I understand that you think my teaching is dangerous, but I am at a loss as to what makes it so.

I am Trinitarian according to the 1689 Baptist Confession. I believe in inerrancy as explained by Warfield. I believe in the substitutionary death and physical resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. I believe in the resurrection of all the saints to glory, and in the just, eternal, conscious torment of all the damned. I teach Sola Scriptura, Solus Christus, Sola fide, Sola Gracia, Sola Deo Gloria, total depravity (and inability), unconditional (individual) election, particular redemption (as generally expressed by Grudem), irresistible grace (and the priority of regeneration to conversion), and perseverance of the saints (including the Reformed view of sanctification as presented in 1689 Baptist Confession and Sinclair Ferguson's essay in the five-views book). Though those in the Reformed camp have traditionally disagreed on apologetics (Warfield vs. Kuyper; Clark vs. Van Til; Sproul vs. Bahnsen), I am, as you are, presuppositional in my apologetic, understanding the Christian worldview to provide the only reasonable basis for knowledge, ethics, morality, and brushing one's teeth. I fail to see how a distinction between the eschatological roles of true Israel and the true Church puts any of these doctrines in danger. While other dispensationalists may not be as conservative on these things as I am, they made up a strong contingent of conservative, Bible-believing Christians in America of the twentieth century.

As [ ____ ] said, eschatology is a difficult subject, but it is worth our study. Your change in position implies that you agree with me on both counts. I understand that you passionately believe what you have stated; I too passionately believe what I have stated elsewhere on this forum. That means that we both think the other person is dead wrong. Nonetheless, patience with one another is essential to forwarding the conversation, and, in my view, calling one another "dangerous" should be somewhat further down the road of disagreement.

My Letter in Response
I accept your rebuke all the more seriously, perhaps, by reason of my own experiences in being labeled unorthodox for teaching what I understood then, and still understand, to be derived exclusively from the scriptures. Before I respond specifically to your question as to my labeling of Dispensationalism as "dangerous," let me affirm to you that I am not now, and certainly never intended before now, to call you a heretic, or to say that what you believe, as you have explained yourself, is heresy. I truly and honestly rejoice at your clear and sincere commitment to the great and fundamental doctrines of the faith. I am both encouraged and rebuked by your passionate love for Christ and your diligence in studying carefully the word of our God. But I am not sure (even if I stated it too harshly or was too little specific in what precisely I was warning against) - I am still not sure that I am ready to rescind my assessment of Dispensationalism as "dangerous." Even in using the term, I intend to imply a difference between heresy and the simple schema of Dispensationalism - it is dangerous because it may lead (as I believe) to heresy, or it may assume forms which are heretical. Although those specific forms of Dispensationalism which I would call heretical I have never heard espoused by you or anyone I know from your particular circles, and neither do I expect to. But let me move from these realms of vague generalities, and mention what I perceive to be dangers of the system. All of these "dangers" are either things that I have been clearly and specifically taught as Dispensationalism, or things about which I have been confused - things which largely shaped my thinking - when I was a dispensationalist. I think some of these things you will agree with me are "dangerous" (or downright heretical): but you will not agree that they are necessarily dispensational. I would argue that they are (1) clearly taught by many dispensationalists, or (2) clearly demanded by consistent loyalty to dispensational tenets.
1.) Dispensationalism tends to a Kierkegaardian conception of faith.
I adduce this danger as one having suffered from it personally. I was always taught that, although salvation was always by faith alone, the content of that faith differed in other dispensations (the position which Ryrie clearly espouses). The way this was presented to me (and the way I understood and believed it) was that, essentially, Noah was saved by believing it would rain. And so on. In other words, it was not faith in Christ alone, but faith with respect only to itself that saved a person (and similarly, even today the abstraction "faith" has some mystical eternal life-giving power in itself). Obviously this conception of faith is somewhat Kierkegaardian, but I am convinced that it affects the minds of far more evangelicals than we would like to admit. Faith in itself is nothing, it only turns our eyes to someone who is everything. Dispensationalism taught me that faith was what saved, and not that faith was the means through which Christ saved. Regardless of how else we may differ on Acts 2 interpretations of OT prophecies, I think we would both admit that Peter was quite confident that David had a faith which looked ahead to a resurrected Christ, as did all the OT saints. The genuinely Christocentric nature of faith and salvation from the beginning is obscured (dangerously) by dispensationalism.

2.) Dispensationalism was destructive to my ability to grasp the unity and significance of the biblical story.
For instance, when I was a dispensationalist, the Davidic Covenant was of almost no import whatsoever to me. It revealed God's gracious condescencion to mankind, as did, for instance, his promise to Hezekiah that he would live fifteen more years, and so on. But as far as structuring the biblical story, I saw nothing monumental in it. I thought the bible was structured in "dispensations," and the giving of the covenant did not mark a new administration essentially different from that of "law". When I forsook dispensationalism, I was shocked by how central that covenant was, particularly among the writing prophets, in advancing the eternal kingdom of God. And I was much better equipped to make sense of Acts 2 (again) and Christ's reigning from the throne of David in the New Testament. In brief, the grand, Christ-centered, organically-connected, unified story of redemption and the spread of the kingdom was for me split into several inter-related, but not organically progressing, periods. And in the process the glory of Christ and his grand drama of redemption was dangerously eclipsed. In the exchange, by the way, the stories of the OT became "Aesop's fables," tales that contain a moral for upright living, but have no real connection to me, and no real glorying in Christ alone, and no real awe-struck wondering at how the story of redemption was unfolding until it reached its height of glory in the spiritual realities of the New Testament that were promised and typified and illustrated and yearned for in the Old Testament - much as a mustard tree growing until it is the greatest of all the herbs, and excels in the glory which inhered in its seed from the beginning.

3.) Dispensationalism tainted my mindset with leanings towards Arminianism.
This particularly with regard to the dispensational teaching of the offering of the kingdom. What is more absurd than the idea of a king "offering" to reign? This whole mindset of a God who is "sovereign" by invitation only - who reigns unless he is rejected - strikes me as fundamentally Arminian. Again, I know that you are not in any way Arminian - but I believe that Arminianism is consonant with dispensationalism, and that the largely Arminian worldview of many Christians is reinforced by dispensational teaching. Let me add here, dispensationalism contributed to my blind acceptance of the philosophy of easy-believism. If Christ was only teaching that we must give up everything to follow him into some crassly physical thousand year reign, then eternal salvation (in my mind something wholly distinct) might well have had other demands. Simply faith, which was ultimately Kierkegaardian, and demanded no accepting of Christ as "Lord," became the abstraction by which I assured myself of eternal life, with no regard for the persevering work of Christ continuing in my life.

4. Dispensationalism (as it was taught to me) embraces a horrendously insufficient view of the new covenant in Christ's blood.)
I have had more than one well-respected dispensationalist (in our old circles) try to convince me that the new covenant in Christ's blood has nothing to do with us. Because (forget the four gospel accounts, I Corinthians 11, Hebrews 8, 10, etc.) the new covenant was prophecied for "Israel" which can never be anything other than ethnic Israel (forget also what Paul said about a true Jew being one who is a Jew inwardly). So how does the blood of Christ affect us, the church (as distinct from the rest of the redeemed)? We get, (and I quote) "peripheral benefits" of Christ's blood. I consider this blasphemy, and although I do not believe that you hold to this assessment (on the contrary, your comments have apprised me otherwise), yet I think this position is one that is ultimately demanded by the dispensational way of reading OT prophecies.

5.) Dispensationalism (as it was taught to me) embraces what must be considered a blasphemous idea of a return to a system of priests and sacrifices of bulls and goats.
The author of Hebrews leaves me no doubt that any return to priests other than Christ or any spilling of sacrificial blood now that Christ's has been spilled, can be nothing other than blasphemy. But this is precisely what has been taught to me by many well-respected dispensationalists.

6.) Dispensationalism, in destroying the unity of God's redemptive purpose in the Church, minimizes the singular, all-encompassing headship of Christ.
All of creation and history was devised with the purpose of showcasing the glory and nature of God. This is particularly true with Christ's great work of redemption, the work to facilitate the accomplishment of which all of history was designed. Now, what are some of the things that Christ's great work was intended to reveal about Christ's glorious person? That he occupies the unique and solitary position of the one true bridegroom to the one pure bride (Ephesians 5:23), the one Head to his one Church (Ephesians 1:22-23), the one who, with respect to redemptive history, gathers all things together in himself (Ephesians 1:9-11). If God's redeemed are comprised of different peoples with different destinies, contra Ephesians 2:11-22, then there no longer remains a unique and all-encompassing position of highest glory for Christ to fulfill. He is effectually made one Head to two bodies which are independent of each other; one king to two different countries, each with their own customs and peculiar characteristics; one bridegroom to two brides; the one who gathers all things together in himself, and yet keeps them at distinction within himself, withholding from them the unity that his blood is elsewhere said to accomplish. It is a glorious king who can rule two mutually distinct peoples; it is a far more glorious King who can unite them both into one unique people who forever sing his praise as their one unique King.

7.) Dispensationalism tends toward a real ethnocentrism as regards Israel (which springs from a veiled materialism).
I used to think that America's allying herself with Israel, regardless of the political situation and Israel's justice or injustice at the time, would unconditionally result in blessings from God. This thinking did not come isolated from my dispensationally-flavored world view. Where, exactly, did this whole mode of thinking come from? From embracing old types and shadows to the minimization of the spiritual realities that they were meant to convey. The vast extent of NT teachings on the particular members of the Church loving and caring for each other must be a truer response to the status of "Israel" as God's chosen people than the modern cult of red-heifer hopefuls displaying a racist favoritism toward a particular ethnic group.

8.) In summary, Dispensationalism tends to downplay the Christocentric nature of all reality.
If some of these other things are true - if faith, not the object or "content" of that faith is what is important - and if the physical offspring of Abraham, not those who are in Christ, the true seed of Abraham, are God's chosen people - and if a physical Jewish millennium, not Christ's spiritual reign over the entire earth is the goal of human history, and so on - if all these things are true, then the extent to which all of history and reality can be said to be Christocentric must be dangerously limited. This is my biggest problem with dispensationalism.
I want to reaffirm that I am not accusing you of believing any of these things specifically, or of teaching anything which you suppose may detract from the glory of Christ. But I am observing that these results are very real and very extreme in many dispensationalists I have known (even in myself, when I was a dispensationalist). And I don't think it is because all of those affected misunderstood what dispensationalism really is. I think it's because the very schema of dispensationalism lends itself to these conclusions.
Please don't doubt my sincere love for you in the bonds of our precious Savior, Jesus Christ. If these things I have written are not true, show me (scripturally) how they are not, and I will, to that extent, modify my position.
In Christ,
NP

Concluding Observations
I have come to the conclusion that Dispensationalism is a much more serious threat to a well-informed biblical worldview than I was once inclined to think of it. Dispensationalism is not exclusively (or even predominantly) a complicated eschatological schema that lends itself to bizarre novels. The eschatological phenomena, which are so predominant to many people, have their roots in a soil from which spring ideas and conceptions of all of redemptive history, and which even extend to one's understanding of the position and nature of the Redeemer. Thankfully, many Dispensationalists are affected in their understanding of these weightier issues only to varying degrees, some quite minimal. However, this ameliorating circumstance can only come through allowing inconsistencies with their basic worldview to predominate in certain areas. And as Dispensationalism is allowed to flavor their thinking, to that extent their understanding even of matters of great importance will be dangerously clouded. It is a task of the greatest importance to be diligent in exposing the underlying beliefs of the Dispensational ideal, examining those beliefs in the light of scripture, and informing our brothers and sisters who have, to varying degrees, been affected by this system.

Dispensationalism and the Eclipse of Christ (An Open Correspondence)

I don't get how dispensationalists insist on literal interpretations and then miss one of the biggest ones by allegorizing it. Most "apostles and early Christians" would have been considered orthodox preterists because they witnessed firsthand the fulfillment of Christ's words...

"Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done." -- Mark 13:30

Satan wants Christians frightened and ineffectual, so Satan encourages us to be afraid of all these impending doomsday scenarios which have ALREADY OCCURRED in history and the ONLY "doom" anyone should be concerned with is their final destination -- heaven or hell.

The Olivet Discourse and Prophetic Fulfillment

"...dispensationalism and it's own idea of a Rapture are the new kids on the block; preterism, and the idea that the Olivet Discourse and other passages refer to 70 AD events, has a much longer pedigree. Commentators such as Lightfoot (1859), Newton (1754), and Gill (1809) predated dispensationlism and agreed that 70 AD was in view in these passages. [Dem.LDM, 59] To be sure, some in the early church held a view that what was recounted in places like the Olivet Discourse was a reference to a far-flung future event (though their views didn't match exactly with dispensationlism); but others held views akin to preterism as well, so the preterist view is not a new view, but an older one revived...

Great post. I pray for many to read it and understand.

but what came as the severest shock of all was the reflection that virtually every one of these Dispensationally-derived misunderstandings tended in some way towards the eclipse of Christ as the sum and substance of every redemptive promise and reality, the One for whom, to whom, and by whom are all things, the One who sums up all of reality, brings all things under his feet, and is in himself all the fullness of the Godhead.

Amen.

You’re welcome. :)

That is an excellent site. Thanks Dr. E for the ping.

Did Jesus return in 70AD?

And here I thought he said, “I have yet to meet...”

Some things never change.

One of the most prominent and public members of his own denomination, R.C. Sproul, is very clearly and unabashedly a partial preterist.

So, you can argue all you want about technicalities...like the possibility that the author may not have actually personally met Dr. Sproul...but a comment such as this one by him seems to indicate he is either woefully misinformed or willfully ignorant.

Take your pick, x, but it does little to maintain your credibility when you resort to petty arguments in defense of a spurious statement in a hit piece you posted.

I have nothing personal against the author other than his misunderstanding and mischaracterization of partial preterism.

The reject only the name “full preterist.” They modify the doctrine to be a secret, invisible coming of Christ in 70AD.

You best get your facts straight before you presume to tell me what it is I believe as a partial preterist. Just from appearances, it sure looks to me like your article and arguments have less to do with arguing against partial preterism because you understand it and believe it to be in error and more to do with spiteful reciprocation in the face of an increase lately in the criticism of Dispensationalism. Just from appearances...

So far as the author’s observation about preterists and evangelism, he is clearly referring to their tendency to proclaim “preterism” rather than the gospel.

Perhaps for full preterists, but that cannot be rightly said of partial preterists, unless he thinks the majority of his own denomination spends more time preaching their eschatology than proclaiming the Gospel (which only reinforces the foolishness of his statement since it is far from the truth).

Do you agree that that is what he says....more time seeking converts to preterism?

The proof text of preterism is “this generation shall not pass until all these things be fulfilled.”

In that list of prophecies in Mt 24 is the prophecy of Jesus’ own return. It is among the “ALL of these things.”

That means any variety of preterist MUST believe that Jesus returned in that generation.

Do you?

didn’t your father spend about 6 months sparing with a Preterist on the ol’ Neverending Story?

Specious statements such as, "I have yet to meet a Preterist whose focus is upon church ministry or the spreading of the gospel ..." i

"I have yet to meet a [Calvinist] whose focus is on church ministry or the spreading of the Gospel...."

I've heard that before too. It's bogus argumentation in that context, and it's bogus here.

I have no dog in this fight, being more amillennial than postmillennial. Even so, this article bothers me.

I also remain unimpressed by angelfire.com websites. When I was a high school kid, I had an angelfire.com website. I sure didn't know what I was talking about either.

To the contrary, those with whom I have thus far come into contact seem to have as their primary focus the spread of this particular teaching.

The author's point. He's saying that, in his experience, preterists are busy spreading the points of preterism. I wouldn't argue with him about his experience?

While I do believe many things were fulfilled in 70AD, the Jesus coming in the clouds part I just don’t get. I believe there are things left to happen and that when He does return in the clouds, every eye will see him.

I agree. The bible demands it.

He's saying that, in his experience, preterists are busy spreading the points of preterism. I wouldn't argue with him about his experience?

Experience is a weak argument. Fanatics exist on all sides of an argument. There are Rapture-obsessed Dispensationialists who are so narrowly focused on the Rapture that it colors their every exegesis. (I grew up heavily influenced by such people.)

So, frankly, bollucks to his experience. I have mine too - it doesn't prove diddley-squat.

That was a concluding observation to point out that preterism is not simply a benign doctrinal falsity, that it robs people of the hope of the resurrection.

Whatever the case may be, do you think Jesus returned in 70AD?