If it’s just a debate about whether Revelation was written pre-70 or in 95, I don’t see the point. I read Revelation not as a future prophecy, but as what the stated purpose of the work is: “The revelation of Jesus Christ”.
As far as temples go, Revelation 21 says that when New Jerusalem came down, no temple could be found in it because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
Go back to Galatians 4 and see how Paul contrasts the “present Jerusalem” with the “Jerusalem that is above”. Doesn’t the Jerusalem-that-is-above correspond to Christ, the Israel of God and His Body, the Church?
In Colossians 3, doesn’t Paul tell us that we are dead and that our lives are — present tense, right now — hid with Christ in God?
Wouldn’t the New Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven correspond to Christ coming with and to His people? That is, to an unveiling or apocalypse of Christ with all of us in Him?
I am quite familiar with the Bible. I am considerably less familiar with Scofield’s notes and Finis Dake’s notes and the various sensationalist dispensationalist claims which would seem to have very little to do with fulfilling the Great Commission or living lives of holiness and righteousness individually.
“By their fruits shall ye know them”
All the “fruit” that comes from the dispensational pre-trib rapture tree are books and seminars about the latest signs. People get hyped up and “live holy” for a week or two — holy in negative sense of: “we don’t smoke and we don’t chew”. No one is transformed by this or any other eschatological view. Maybe I’m cynical, but that’s the way it looks to me. Perhaps we would be wise to be more concerned with teleology and less hung up on eschatology.
You are correct, you don't see the point.
A few cnp's from an article, let me know if you are interesting I can post a link.
"Preterists teach that the Book of Revelation is primarily a prophecy about the Roman war against the Jews in Israel that began in a.d. 67 and ended with the destruction of the Temple in a.d. 70. In order for Revelation to be a prediction of the future (Rev. 1:1, 3, 11, 19; 22:6-10, 16, 18-20) and if it was fulfilled by August a.d. 70, then it had to have been written by a.d. 65 or 66 for the preterist interpretation to even be a possibility."
"The futurists interpretation is not dependant upon the date of Revelation since it does not matter when these events take place since they are still future to our own time. However, the date of Revelation is essential to the preterist position and explains why they are so focused upon defending an early date."