Given the popular eschatology of our day, containing within itself numerous failed prophecies and obvious inconsistencies, the bright and spiritually perceptive theological student is more and more driven to investigate alternative hermeneutical systems. Among these is the increasingly popular teaching known as preterism. This view of eschatology envisions a past fulfillment of all Bible prophecy, both Old and New Testament references, as focusing within the timeframe of the catastrophic events of the Roman army’s devastation of the city of Jerusalem and its Temple around AD 70.

The student of preterist eschatology first comes to recognize the imminency statements of our Lord Jesus Christ and His inspired apostles as unquestionably predicting the Second Coming of Jesus as a first century event. Coupled with the Second Coming, according to the requirements of Scripture, are a series of related events including the Great Tribulation, the Resurrection of the Dead, the Judgment Seat of Christ, the New Heaven and New Earth, and more. But a dilemma often arises at this point in our inquirer’s studies when he stops momentarily and comes up with some very puzzling questions that really trouble him. He sees himself facing a stone wall of unlikely alternatives and virtual impossibilities looming in his charted path. And he is confused! Very confused!

Let’s take a moment to listen to some of the good questions that he is asking. They are reasonable questions to the minds of any honest person, especially when one begins to realize that almost every preterist inquirer comes to the table with a lot of futurist baggage dragging behind him. He reminds us of Christian in Bunyan’s immortal classic, Pilgrim’s Progress, who is overwhelmed with a huge oversize burden that weighs him down, something that he simply can not bear. In Christian’s case it was the burden of sin that enslaved him and threatened to take him to destruction. In the case of our inquiring student it is not sin, but rather a host of conflicting assumptions and logical conclusions arising from his past experience with futurism. Yet this load threatens to bog him down and bring about his collapse into a kind of “eschatological agnosticism” that so many in evangelical and reformed circles have fallen into these days. And it can be unbearable!

Now that we see just how serious these problems can be to the minds and hearts of the inquirer, let’s find out exactly what some of these questions are that trouble him. Our friend is firing these questions at a machine gun speed, but I’ll do my best to jot them down right now. Ok?

1. Since the imminency passages really do teach a first century Second Coming, what kind of a Second Coming are we talking about? Did the rapture of the church take place at that time? And was it a real literal rapture?

2. What about the Final Judgment? Was it just a material judgment against the apostate Jews and their city? Or was it more than that, a judgment that was two-fold, including both negative and positive aspects, depending on whether one was a Christian or a non-believer?

3. Was there a Resurrection of the Dead at that same time? Did decayed bodies really come out of the ground in AD 70? And how do we know?

4. What did Peter mean when he spoke of a New Heaven and New Earth? Doesn’t that mean that God would destroy this old earth and make a new one? But I see only what appears to be the same old one that existed at the time of Jesus in that first century. What goes here?

5. How is life on this earth NOW any different from what it was in Jesus’ day even though you would have me believe that the Great Tribulation, Rapture, Second Coming, Resurrection, Judgment, and New Heaven and Earth have already taken place in AD 70? How can this be?

Great questions! But not so fast! Let’s take them one at a time, ok? I’ll try to be brief since thousands of words could be written in response to all five of these questions. So here goes:

1. Of course a real catching up (rapture) of believers happened at AD 70. The I Thess. 4 passage makes that clear enough. But remember this rapture of living believers didn’t happen in a vacuum. These raptured believers weren’t alone. They were joined by a great host of deceased believers being raised or resurrected out of Hades, and together the Lord took this combined group to Heaven to be with Him forever. Read the first part of John 14 where Jesus tells of His forthcoming Ascension when He would “prepare a place for you” and “will come again to receive you unto Myself.” Don’t let anyone try to tell you that it wasn’t a real rapture. The language is clear in both of these cited passages. A merely positional or covenantal change simply doesn’t meet the requirements of the biblical text. Yes, all believers in AD 70 were caught up from the earth to Heaven to be with Jesus for all eternity!

2. Sure, there was a physical and material judgment of the Old Covenant system relating to the city and temple in Jerusalem, leveling them to the ground. This was the Great Tribulation, the time of Jacob’s trouble. But there was much more than that. The unbelieving Jews, who were in Old Covenant relationship with God, along with the deceased unbelievers raised out of Hades, were cast into the Lake of Fire, along with Satan and his demons, at that same time (Rev. 20). But God’s people were given their rewards at this time also. See Matt. 16:27 & Rev. 22:12.

3. I answered some of your third question in my first answer above. In response to the part of your question concerning dead physical bodies coming up out of the ground, that idea is contradicted by I Cor. 15:35-38 where the Apostle Paul tells us that the body that is raised is NOT the same body that goes into the ground at death, but God gives a body as He pleases. Those first century living Christians had their earthly bodies transformed into glorious incorruptible heavenly bodies, but the Christians who were later saved and died after AD 70, left their physical bodies in the grave and were given glorified spiritual bodies. “Flesh and blood,” Paul said, “cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (I Cor. 15:50)

4. Your question about the New Heaven and Earth is easily answered by first turning to Isa. 51:13-16 where the prophet records God’s establishment of the Old Covenant in the days of Moses as “heavens and earth.” Peter, understanding the symbolic Jewish language of his day, is teaching that the Old Covenant is about to be dissolved and replaced by the fullness of the New Covenant. The Greek word for “elements” is only used in the New Testament in reference to the Old Testament Law of Moses. See Gal. 4:3 & 9, noting the context, which refers to the bondage and beggarly elements of Judaism and the Law. This II Peter 3 passage, which you allude to, provides us with an example of the importance of reading the Bible from the first century perspective rather than trying to superimpose 21st century scientific phenomena over the biblical text. The central theme in Scripture is not physical or material things, but rather God’s covenantal dealings with His people in every age.

5. How is life any different on this earth now compared to how it was in the first century before any of those “end time events” had taken place? Keep in mind that in New Testament days the Christians experienced the fulfillment of the promises that God had given to His saints only in a “firstfruits/deposit” extent. The good things that Abraham looked for in his day, such as “a heavenly country,” were only received by faith as the writer to the Hebrews tells his audience in chapter 11:13-16. In Paul’s day, the Incarnation of Jesus had occurred, the New Covenant Gospel had been proclaimed, yet all of these good things were experienced by Christians in only a “firstfruits/deposit” measure. There was so much MORE in store for them later and THIS was the blessed hope that enabled them to endure the suffering and persecution of that evil day. But when the AD 70 Second Coming arrived and all believers, both deceased and living ones, were caught up to Heaven by Jesus, these saints enjoyed, for the first time ever, entrance into Heaven itself, with the perfect and complete fulfillment promised to the saints of old. Never before had this happened (John 14:1-3). Paul also tells the living Christians in I Cor. 13:9-13 that when “that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.” Nothing on this earth can be described as perfect. Only heaven is perfect! While on this earth “we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part,” Paul says, “but then (when he arrives in Heaven- wh) I shall know just as I also am known.” This kind of experience, even for the most sanctified Christian living on earth, is utterly impossible and Paul knows this. This is why he longs to be with Christ which is far better than anything he could ever experience during his earthly pilgrimage. But what about today, you ask? Well, remember it was only the raptured living saints and those deceased saints resurrected from Hades who were brought into the fullness of the promises in Heaven at AD 70. After the Second Coming and related events, the newly regenerated Christians, born again by the Holy Spirit through God’s Word, experienced much the same “firstfruits/deposit” fulfillment that Paul and other first century Christians enjoyed prior to the AD 70 events, but short of complete fulfillment. We post-parousia Christians living today, therefore, can identify quite readily with the experience of the New Testament writers. There are, however, a few things that differ. For example, today we can be assured that we possess the complete canon of Scripture, which New Testament people may well have had but likely did not know it, since all Scripture was inspired and recorded at least several years or more before the Second Coming and related events. One other difference was that those early saints were looking forward with great anticipation to the “end time events,” such as the Second Coming, whereas we today should be faithfully and eagerly looking forward to the time when God calls each of us Home to be with Him, at the time of our physical death. Then we will be given glorious, immortal, incorruptible, spiritual bodies, just like what Jesus had following His physical and visible resurrection from the dead. These new bodies will have perfect character identify with our fleshly, always imperfect, suited-for-earth bodies that we now have. Heaven will then be ours! We will be with Jesus! The gifts that Paul mentions in I Cor. 13 as ceasing or vanishing away will not be needed in Heaven. Only the “greatest of these … love” will remain for all eternity. What a glorious hope Christians since AD 70, and today, and throughout all future generations, world without end, have! We need to live with that hope in mind, don’t we?

My friend, does this help to give you something to think about? As you read your Bible, especially the New Testament, you will find literally hundreds of verses that confirm the main points that I have touched upon. You see, the correct way to interpret and understand the Bible is to seek to read it from the viewpoint of the first century Jewish people who were familiar with the Old Testament symbolic and metaphorical writings. It is a mistake to attempt to read the Bible as if it were written to us in the 21st century. Promises given to real people living in the first century were fulfilled to those same real people who received the promises, not to nondescript people in a future generation. It is also virtually impossible to gain a true understanding of Bible prophecy if we bind ourselves to a wooden literalism which was unknown to the biblical writers. And by all means, keep in mind that the Bible was NOT written to US, but was written to the audience of THAT day. The Bible is FOR us today and forever and “is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (II Tim. 3:16), but it was never written TO us directly.

Bible prophecy is thought by many people today to be a very difficult subject to understand. May I suggest that the long-taught doctrines of futurism have contributed to this complexity? And may I further suggest that by placing ourselves today in the shoes of the first century Christians, to whom the New Testament was written, it will help immeasurably to gain a more accurate and understandable basis for developing our doctrines on eschatology? And there is a simplicity that is simply beautiful when viewing Bible prophecy from the preterist perspective.

Christian, in Bunyan’s novel, could not achieve deliverance from his burdon of sin until he came to the Cross. We too need to behold Jesus on the Cross dying for His people, and resurrected for our justification, sanctification and glorification. We need the Holy Spirit to enable us to gain a better understanding of His Word and to comfort us in all of our present infirmities and tribulations of this life. “ Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever.”

THE END