Undeception

The Center for the Study of New Testament Manucripts is engaged in a wonderful project. This is an effort to host high resolution scanned images of early biblical manuscripts. Right now, they’re working on the New Testament. They already have Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Washingtonensis, and Alexandrinus (all 5th century and before!), as well as some other, later medieval manuscripts. If you have any money lying around – please contribute to the effort in my stead

One of people’s hang-ups about full preterism is that they feel that the Great White Throne Judgment sounds too momentous to apply to less than the sum total of humanity rather than those who died before AD 70 alone. Has the judgment of the nations occurred yet? Revelation 20 depicts the “General Resurrection” as the time when “the rest of the dead” resurrected at the end of the Millennium would be judged. Enter the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats.

Judgment in the Olivet Discourse

Most of Matthew 24 and 25 are in red (Jesus’ words), with no interruptions after verse 3. In fact, the rest of the passage is a response to verse 3, forming an unsegmented pericope. The disciples look at the beautiful Herodian temple, apparently scoping out what they thought would be their inheritance when Christ took the reins in His Kingdom. Jesus responds by predicting the temple’s destruction, saying, “not a stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” Josephus the Jew describes how this literally took place after the first century siege when the Romans noticed the precious metal between the stones and decided to extract it by pulling them apart.

Now, this is very interesting. On hearing this ominous prophecy, the disciples ask an important question: “…When will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” As I stated above, the following verses until the end of chapter 25 is entirely unbroken narrative. Can there be any doubt that this entire passage is related to the same time of the “end” and the same “coming”? Or did Jesus just decide to change the subject to another “coming” mid-stream to make things interesting?

Watch this: 24:30-31 and 33-34 read, “At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other…Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”

At the end of chapter 25, Jesus launches into the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. Let’s look at it here:

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” Matthew 25:31-34 NIV

Is this the same event? I believe it’s clear that it is. Notice the parallels:

“The Son of Man” comes “with great glory” (24:30), “in his glory” (25:31)Angels accompany Him

The nations are called into account (24:30) and (25:32)

Separation is made between the righteous and unrighteous (24:31, 25:32)

Please tell me you can see that these are the same event! If so, and if the first was to occur before that generation passed away, the second one must have as well. This means that the judgment of the nations is not a future apocalyptic event at some postulated close of human history. Rather this was what happened when the dead were raised, some to a resurrection of life and the others to a resurrection of judgment (John 5:29; cf. Daniel 12:2). This is the judgment of the living and dead that Paul said was “about to” occur in 2 Timothy 4:1.

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Sometimes money makes the world go round — at least a few more revolutions for a few people.

Someone known only as “Anonymous Friend” has given $100 million dollars to the Erie Community Foundation. This organization “is a collection of charitable endowments operating under the administrative umbrella of a single public charity.” The anonymous donor apparently singled out fifty-one nonprofit groups to receive the money in various amounts, based on the donor’s perception of need.

Amazing what good can be done by one person Providentially supplied with money and with the will to give hilariously. I wonder if this donor is a Christian? I wonder if there are Christians with such means willing to give and make such necessary strides toward advancing the interests of the Kingdom.

In his response to Clarence’s good-natured remonstrance that Heaven’s denizens have no need for currency, I think George Bailey was right: “Comes in pretty handy down here, bub!”

God is fully aware of this. God gives to givers for giving. I am not the best steward of the money I do have, but I hope to prove faithful enough to be given more so that I may give more.

Preterists point to a panoply of time statements in Scripture regarding the eschaton. Twenty of the twenty-six books of the NT give such time statements, expectations of an imminent occurrence of eschatological significance: “this generation shall not pass until…”; “about to”; “some standing here will not taste death before…”; “at hand”; “soon”.

Matthew 3:2,7,10,12, 4:17, 10:7,23, 12:32, 16:27,28, 21:40-45, 24:34, 26:64

Mark 1:15, 12:9,12, 13:30

Luke 3:7,9,17, 10:9,11, 20:15-19, 21:22,32, 23:28-30, 24:21

John 14:18,20,22, 21:22

Acts 2:16-17, 4:25, 17:31, 24:15

Romans 4:23-24, 8:13,18, 13:11-12, 16:20

1 Corinthians 7:29,31, 10:11, 15:51-52, 16:22

Ephesians 1:21

Philippians 4:5

Colossians 1:23,46, 2:16-17

1 Thessalonians 4:15,17, 5:23

2 Thessalonians 1:6-7

1 Timothy 4:8, 6:14,19

2 Timothy 3:1-9, 4:1

Hebrews 1:1-2,14, 2:5, 6:5,7-8, 8:13, 9:8-10,11,26, 10:1,25,27,37, 13:14

James 2:12, 5:1,3,7,8

1 Peter 1:6,20, 3:3,5, 4:5,7,17, 5:1

2 Peter 1:19, 2:3, 3:10-12

1 John 2:8,17,18, 4:3

Jude 4,14-15,17-19

Revelation 1:1,3, 2:25, 3:10,11, 12:5, 18:24, 22:6,7,10,12,20

If time statements are at all suggestive, they must always be taken at face value. It is no good to point at the majority of these listed above and proclaim, “The New Testament ubiquitously predicts an imminent, first-century Day of the Lord,” and then deny one or two instances of those time statements. If one or two may be denied as truly imminent, all may be denied. If Jesus’ standing “at the door” (Rev 3:20) or if the axe “already laid at the root of the tree” (Matt 3:10) can be said to admit a multi-millennia interval, then partial preterists cannot claim with a straight face that any of the other time statements demand imminent fulfillment.

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When the Church of Jesus

When the church of Jesus shuts its outer door,
Lest the roar of traffic drown the voice of prayer:
May our prayers, Lord, make us ten times more aware
That the world we banish is our Christian care.

If our hearts are lifted where devotion soars
High above this hungry suff’ring world of ours:
Lest our hymns should drug us to forget its needs,
Forge our Christian worship into Christian deeds.

Lest the gifts we offer, money, talents, time,
Serve to salve our conscience to our secret shame:
Lord, reprove, inspire us by the way you give;
Teach us, dying Savior, how true Christians live.

- F. Pratt Green (#319, Baptist Hymnal)

Many of you will be happy to hear that this post is not about preterism (check the category and tags!). It’s more about the importance of developing the Christian mind. It was, however, my recent discussion of preterism that brought this to my thoughts, so I will use my struggle with full preterism as an example.

I certainly didn’t come quietly into full preterism. Since my first encounter with it, I kicked against the goads for about five years before I could no longer say that I struggled against full preterism.

This is not to say that I do not still struggle with it. There are some things one cannot understand about a subject without first accepting it on its own terms. I have accepted full preterism fully, and will now continue to wrestle with it for the rest of my days. Even before being entirely convinced of preterism, I had to accept it provisionally in order to see more clearly what claims it was making and why. This sort of engagement with things we are at odds with is an important stage and a necessary component of maturing as a Christian. Continue Reading →

(Preterism is the belief that there are no prophecies in Scripture that await a fulfillment in the future. Hereafter I will use the term “futurist” to describe anyone who believes that there is a yet future fulfillment of prophecy, including partial preterists. Similarly, I will use “preterist/preterism” as ellipsis for “full preterist/preterism”.)

Now, I realize that some people aren’t even convinced of partial preterism yet. But to anyone willing to learn and analyze Scripture honestly, it is usually only a matter of time after presenting the preteristic framework that a futurist will become convinced that at least some Scriptures must have been fulfilled in AD 70.

Yet sometimes these hold out hope that only some of them were fulfilled, considering the principle of total fulfillment an overreaction. They want the best of both worlds.

Even after a cogent presentation of the arguments for preterism, objections understandably crop up. These objections come in two flavors: rational and sub-rational. This post will deal only with the latter.

Some objections are unvoiced, and are frequently accompanied by a queasy feeling in the stomach. These objections are usually never identified because they occur beneath the surface. Yet I contend that the sub-rational objection is the single greatest factor in the rejection of preterism. Let me be clear: I do not believe that just because you have not accepted full preterism that it is because of any of the following, since you may be an honest person with rational objections. But I would ask you to seriously ask yourself if any of these sound like you:

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