Some of you may never have heard the interpretation I gave on Matthew 24 before. This interpretation which teaches that Matthew 24 is a prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD is known as "Preterism." There are different degrees of Preterism. Some Preterists believe that everything in the Bible has been fulfilled during or before 70 AD. Proponents of that view are typically known as Full Preterists. I would hold to Partial Preterism because I believe that Jesus will still return to judge all mankind on the final day (thus my interpretation of Matthew 25). But Preterism of any sort is a very interesting view point and I strongly encourage you to look into it and become familiar with it. You may not arrive at the same conclusions that I do, but you never know how a different view might challenge you to think about the Scriptures. For example, Preterism believes that (most if not all of) Revelation has been fulfilled during or before 70 AD. Many people have never considered that possibility because they write it off immediately thinking, "There's no way all that stuff has already happened." But if you take the time to listen to what Preterists say about these texts, you might begin to think differently. So here are some places that you can go to learn a little more about Preterism:
www.preteristarchive.com
Read "Postmillennialism" by Keith Mathison (You can borrow the book from me)
Read "The Last Days According to Jesus" by RC Sproul (I have this book too)
For the strong minded and very interested, you can read a slew of books by Kenneth Gentry, Jr. Some of his major works are "He Shall Have Dominion"; "Before Jerusalem Fell"; "The Beast of Revelation" (and I have all of these books too).
Finally, you can talk to me about it anytime you want!
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2 comments:
Alan, I went to some of the sites you mentioned and have a question about RC Sproul's idea on Partial Preterism.
He breaks it out to say that the AD.70 events were "A Coming of Christ, A day of the Lord, A Judgement and the end of jewish age. Still in the future is THE coming of Christ, THE day of the Lord, THE Resurrection of the dead, THE rapture, THE (final) judgement, and the end of history."
So, my question is: if during AD.70 they were not THE events...but just an event could there be other ones coming before the end of history? Or is the bible clear that these events occured during AD.70 but the "main event" is still to come.
I am so confused...hopefully I haven't confused you too!
That's a great question. There are many who would argue that the "impending" (i.e. soon) events prophesied in the Bible will have multiple fulfillments until the Final day. The problem with this is that if the prophecies spoke of impending fulfillment, and those events actually were fulfilled by 70 AD, why would we look for multiple fulfillments?
When Sproul speaks about "A Coming of Christ", etc., he simply means to distinguish between THE second coming of Christ and the THE judgment coming of Christ which fulfilled the prophecies of impending judgment. In other words, he is not saying that the events culminating in 70 AD are "a" fulfillment of the Second Coming, as if there will be multiple fulfillments of the Second Coming before the final one happens. It's the distinction between the prophecies about impending judgment vs. the prophecies about the second coming. He uses "a" coming simply to make it clear that he doesn't mean "the" second coming. So THE events that occurred by 70 AD were THE events that the Bible talked about regarding impending judgment. There is one more event to occur, and that's THE second coming of Christ (along with all that happens with that).
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