Concise refutation of the main arguments of Preterism
Jan 7, 2014 8:59:30 GMT
Post by Colossians on Jan 7, 2014 8:59:30 GMT
This material is for the teaching of the Body of Christ, however the author reserves copyright over it.
Forward
What does Preterism teach?
Preterism teaches that when Christ died on the Cross, this was not enough on its own to abolish the old covenant – that the physical temple in Jerusalem representing the old covenant had to (also) be destroyed.
Preterism also teaches that Christ returned to earth in 70AD (symbolically by way of the destruction of the temple) and took Christians of Jewish extraction to heaven.
Why bother to refute Preterism?
Jesus said of false teachings:
“a little leaven leavens the whole lump”.
Put in plain terms:
“if you give Satan an inch he’ll take a mile”.
The ‘inch’ that Preterism gives Satan, is distraction from the Cross.
For Paul said:
“we preach Christ crucified” 1 Cor 1:23,
not
“we preach Christ and what will happen in 70 AD”.
Accordingly, you will note that the Preterist rarely focuses on Jesus Christ, and when he does mention the Cross, he essentially patronises it: he refers to it as “His (mere) redemptive work”, as distinct from other things which according to the Preterist still had to be done.
In a nutshell, Preterism preaches a Christ who not only fails to exhaust God’s scheme of things, but is not even at the centre of God’s scheme of things.
Preterism is therefore from the spirit of anti-Christ, and that is why it must be refuted.
Below we list the main ideas of Preterism. Each entry contains a synopsis of the Preterist position, and the refutation thereof.
“that in all things He might have the preeminence” Col 1:18.
__________________________________________________________
CONCISE REFUTATION OF THE MAIN ARGUMENTS OF PRETERISM
The (40-year) “biblical generation” idea
Synopsis:
A ‘biblical generation’ lasts for 40 years, as seen in the following 2 verses:
“And the LORD's anger was kindled against Israel, and He made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation, that had done evil in the sight of the LORD, was consumed” Num 13:32.
“Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways” Ps 95:10.
Refutation:
All the above verses do is refer to a particular group of people within the camp of Israel as a "generation”, and state that God was angry with that group for 40 years.
The verses in fact tell us that the group was referred to as a generation for each and every one of the 40 years mentioned. So the definition of a generation with regard to time span is not in focus.
Typology
Synopsis:
The 40 years that Israel spent wandering in the wilderness before entering the promised land, is a type for the 40 years between the Cross and the destruction of the temple in 70AD.
Refutation:
A type is never the same thing at each end: it is first of all a physical thing, and later that which is in hindsight seen to represent a spiritual thing.
A well-known type in the NT is found at Galatians 4: Paul tells us that Sarah’s bondmaid Hagar was a type (“allegory”) for the spiritual disposition of the Jews, who lived by the OT law.
Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness cannot be a type for the 40 years between the Cross and 70AD, for they are both literals.
Matthew 24:34
“Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.”
Synopsis:
This verse means:
“Within this generation all these things will be fulfilled”.
Refutation:
The verse actually means:
“This generation shall be kept going at least until all these things are fulfilled”.
Similarly:
“I am not leaving the house until the mail arrives”
does not mean that the mail will be made to arrive before I leave the house, but that I will have to stick around until Postman Pat pulls up out front on his bicycle with some letters in his hand.1
1 It is indeed hard to believe that such a simple grammatical/logical oversight could form a major part of the platform upon which a world-wide pseudo-Christian cult is based.
___
So the word “generation” cannot be aligned with a 40-year period, for a 40-year period cannot be made to be longer than 40 years.
Neither can it be aligned with a certain group of people: any keeping alive of individuals by God just so that they might see Titus destroy their town, were arbitrary at best, and down-right dismissive of the destiny and intrinsic value of their individual persons, at worst.
The only possible interpretation then for “this generation” is that which provides for the very broad picture which Jesus was describing in His prophecies: “this whole thing which God has generated”.
Accordingly, the Greek word used here is genea, which just as readily refers to an age or epoch as it might a generation of animate beings, and which contrasts with (narrower) gennema which refers only to the latter instance and which the Lord could have used had He wanted in no uncertain terms to relate a human generation.
So Jesus was simply saying:
“The creation shall remain at least until all these things are fulfilled.”
In other words:
“Everything I have said shall eventually come to pass.”
Hebrews 8:13
“In that He saith, A new covenant, He hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.”
Synopsis:
This verse means that although the new covenant was in place at the Cross, the old covenant was not yet gone but was (merely) “ready to vanish away”, and would do so in 70AD when the Jewish temple was destroyed.
Refutation:
Staring us right in the face is the fact that the first covenant was “made ... old”. That is, it is implied here that in order for a covenant to be gone, it didn’t have to be made old and have something else happen to it besides, but simply that it had to be “made ... old”.
And so we are told elsewhere by the same writer (and we underline the most relevant section):
“Then said He, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that He may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” Heb 10:9,10.
So we see that 8:13’s “made ... old” is the equivalent of 10:9’s “tak[en] away”.
Its being “ready to vanish away” is then simply in reference to the fact that there were residual traces of OT thinking and living in the early church.
Concerning thinking, we note the contentions over the law at Acts 15.
Concerning living, some believers of Jewish extraction would have been converted after they had already taken to themselves more than one wife. There was no instruction to the church that such a state should be reversed (that such believers should have divorced all but one of their wives), so it would rather “vanish away” via natural attrition. Thus the writer describes such vanishing away as “decay[ ]”.
The situation was however rather different for bishops, elders, and deacons, who as leaders of the NT church were to represent the fact that Christ only had one Bride: in order to qualify for these positions one had to be the husband of one wife only (1 Ti 3:2, Tit 1:6).
Zechariah the prophet:
"And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it assunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people. And it was broken in that day: and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was the word of the LORD. And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver."
Hebrews 9:8
“The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing”
Synopsis:
The old covenant would not be disannulled (and therefore the way into the holiest of all would not be made manifest) while the temple in Jerusalem was still standing.
Refutation:
1. The verse does not say “would not be made manifest” (which would imply that a condition had to be satisfied in order for the way into the holiest to be made manifest), but simply: “was not made manifest”.
So the verse is simply saying that the standing of the first tabernacle went hand-in-hand with the lack of enlightenment of those who saw merit in that tabernacle.
2. The term “first tabernacle” is not in reference to the entire OT tabernacle anyway, but simply the outer portion of it as distinct from the inner portion of it, which latter is termed “the second tabernacle”.
So the verse necessarily has nothing to do with the claimed destruction of the (necessarily-entire) tabernacle in 70AD: the writer is rather and simply pointing out the spiritual ramifications of the fact that the inner tabernacle was surrounded by an outer tabernacle, and that with regard to the children of Israel at the time.
Hence the very next verse:
“Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience” Heb 9:9.
(See also our more comprehensive work: "Erasing the erroneously-declared 70 AD demarcation line".)
Matthew 16:28
“Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.”
Synopsis:
Certain people listening to Jesus speak were to see Him 'arrive' symbolically by way of the destruction of the temple, in 70AD before they died.
Refutation:
Being born again is a supernatural occurrence, and comes with spiritual ‘sight’ which allows one to ‘see’ the kingdom of God.
Thus Jesus said to Nicodemus:
“Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” John 3:3.
Conversely, Jesus pointed out via Isaiah, and concerning the Jews in general:
“seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive” Mt 13:14.
Therefore He said to the Pharisees at another time:
“The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” Lk 17:20,21.
So the King and His kingdom are not that which will ever be seen physically, but in the Spirit.
And Christ’s final ‘return’ will be of the same modality, only to infinite proportions: the Holy Spirit will finally and without limitation reveal Christ to the universe so that no place will be found for that universe anymore, by reason of the brightness of His coming: the physical realm shall be “dissolved” in a micro-second and the spiritual realm finally ushered in as the eternal realm.
Now Paul says:
“Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing” 2 Ti 4:8
where we note that he does not say “to them that love the fact that He will appear”, but “them who love His (current) appearing”.
That is, they who are Christ’s are they who see Him ‘coming’ in His Kingdom everyday: they see Him intervening in life’s difficulties, they see Him glorified in people who they would never have imagined would come to Christ, they see Him overruling repugnant Government legislation, they see Him providing for them, they see Him ruling the nations with an iron rod, they see Him changing destiny, they see Him progressively answering prayer ...
In short, and unlike the Jews to whom Isaiah referred, they not only see, but perceive.
From a general viewpoint then, Christ was speaking of the born again experience.
However preeminently He was speaking of the coming Baptism in the Holy Spirit, which would bring believers to see visions of the true state of affairs, in the Spirit (see Acts 2:17).
The “abomination of desolation”
“When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand: )” Mt 24:15
Synopsis:
This refers to the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70AD by the armies of Rome.
Refutation:
The Lord never considered bricks and mortar to be a “holy place”. Rather, we are told that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19).
Therefore any destruction of a building would never constitute “abomination” in God’s eyes. Rather, that which God considers an abomination is that which attempts to make desolate the people of God in their walk with Him.
Here is an example from Peter:
“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of” 2 Pe 2:1,2.
And from Paul:
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” 2 Ti 4:3,4.
Ironically then, the fable that is Preterism is itself part of the abomination of desolation.
Amen.
Forward
What does Preterism teach?
Preterism teaches that when Christ died on the Cross, this was not enough on its own to abolish the old covenant – that the physical temple in Jerusalem representing the old covenant had to (also) be destroyed.
Preterism also teaches that Christ returned to earth in 70AD (symbolically by way of the destruction of the temple) and took Christians of Jewish extraction to heaven.
Why bother to refute Preterism?
Jesus said of false teachings:
“a little leaven leavens the whole lump”.
Put in plain terms:
“if you give Satan an inch he’ll take a mile”.
The ‘inch’ that Preterism gives Satan, is distraction from the Cross.
For Paul said:
“we preach Christ crucified” 1 Cor 1:23,
not
“we preach Christ and what will happen in 70 AD”.
Accordingly, you will note that the Preterist rarely focuses on Jesus Christ, and when he does mention the Cross, he essentially patronises it: he refers to it as “His (mere) redemptive work”, as distinct from other things which according to the Preterist still had to be done.
In a nutshell, Preterism preaches a Christ who not only fails to exhaust God’s scheme of things, but is not even at the centre of God’s scheme of things.
Preterism is therefore from the spirit of anti-Christ, and that is why it must be refuted.
Below we list the main ideas of Preterism. Each entry contains a synopsis of the Preterist position, and the refutation thereof.
“that in all things He might have the preeminence” Col 1:18.
__________________________________________________________
CONCISE REFUTATION OF THE MAIN ARGUMENTS OF PRETERISM
The (40-year) “biblical generation” idea
Synopsis:
A ‘biblical generation’ lasts for 40 years, as seen in the following 2 verses:
“And the LORD's anger was kindled against Israel, and He made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation, that had done evil in the sight of the LORD, was consumed” Num 13:32.
“Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways” Ps 95:10.
Refutation:
All the above verses do is refer to a particular group of people within the camp of Israel as a "generation”, and state that God was angry with that group for 40 years.
The verses in fact tell us that the group was referred to as a generation for each and every one of the 40 years mentioned. So the definition of a generation with regard to time span is not in focus.
Typology
Synopsis:
The 40 years that Israel spent wandering in the wilderness before entering the promised land, is a type for the 40 years between the Cross and the destruction of the temple in 70AD.
Refutation:
A type is never the same thing at each end: it is first of all a physical thing, and later that which is in hindsight seen to represent a spiritual thing.
A well-known type in the NT is found at Galatians 4: Paul tells us that Sarah’s bondmaid Hagar was a type (“allegory”) for the spiritual disposition of the Jews, who lived by the OT law.
Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness cannot be a type for the 40 years between the Cross and 70AD, for they are both literals.
Matthew 24:34
“Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.”
Synopsis:
This verse means:
“Within this generation all these things will be fulfilled”.
Refutation:
The verse actually means:
“This generation shall be kept going at least until all these things are fulfilled”.
Similarly:
“I am not leaving the house until the mail arrives”
does not mean that the mail will be made to arrive before I leave the house, but that I will have to stick around until Postman Pat pulls up out front on his bicycle with some letters in his hand.1
1 It is indeed hard to believe that such a simple grammatical/logical oversight could form a major part of the platform upon which a world-wide pseudo-Christian cult is based.
___
So the word “generation” cannot be aligned with a 40-year period, for a 40-year period cannot be made to be longer than 40 years.
Neither can it be aligned with a certain group of people: any keeping alive of individuals by God just so that they might see Titus destroy their town, were arbitrary at best, and down-right dismissive of the destiny and intrinsic value of their individual persons, at worst.
The only possible interpretation then for “this generation” is that which provides for the very broad picture which Jesus was describing in His prophecies: “this whole thing which God has generated”.
Accordingly, the Greek word used here is genea, which just as readily refers to an age or epoch as it might a generation of animate beings, and which contrasts with (narrower) gennema which refers only to the latter instance and which the Lord could have used had He wanted in no uncertain terms to relate a human generation.
So Jesus was simply saying:
“The creation shall remain at least until all these things are fulfilled.”
In other words:
“Everything I have said shall eventually come to pass.”
Hebrews 8:13
“In that He saith, A new covenant, He hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.”
Synopsis:
This verse means that although the new covenant was in place at the Cross, the old covenant was not yet gone but was (merely) “ready to vanish away”, and would do so in 70AD when the Jewish temple was destroyed.
Refutation:
Staring us right in the face is the fact that the first covenant was “made ... old”. That is, it is implied here that in order for a covenant to be gone, it didn’t have to be made old and have something else happen to it besides, but simply that it had to be “made ... old”.
And so we are told elsewhere by the same writer (and we underline the most relevant section):
“Then said He, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that He may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” Heb 10:9,10.
So we see that 8:13’s “made ... old” is the equivalent of 10:9’s “tak[en] away”.
Its being “ready to vanish away” is then simply in reference to the fact that there were residual traces of OT thinking and living in the early church.
Concerning thinking, we note the contentions over the law at Acts 15.
Concerning living, some believers of Jewish extraction would have been converted after they had already taken to themselves more than one wife. There was no instruction to the church that such a state should be reversed (that such believers should have divorced all but one of their wives), so it would rather “vanish away” via natural attrition. Thus the writer describes such vanishing away as “decay[ ]”.
The situation was however rather different for bishops, elders, and deacons, who as leaders of the NT church were to represent the fact that Christ only had one Bride: in order to qualify for these positions one had to be the husband of one wife only (1 Ti 3:2, Tit 1:6).
Zechariah the prophet:
"And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it assunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people. And it was broken in that day: and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was the word of the LORD. And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver."
Hebrews 9:8
“The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing”
Synopsis:
The old covenant would not be disannulled (and therefore the way into the holiest of all would not be made manifest) while the temple in Jerusalem was still standing.
Refutation:
1. The verse does not say “would not be made manifest” (which would imply that a condition had to be satisfied in order for the way into the holiest to be made manifest), but simply: “was not made manifest”.
So the verse is simply saying that the standing of the first tabernacle went hand-in-hand with the lack of enlightenment of those who saw merit in that tabernacle.
2. The term “first tabernacle” is not in reference to the entire OT tabernacle anyway, but simply the outer portion of it as distinct from the inner portion of it, which latter is termed “the second tabernacle”.
So the verse necessarily has nothing to do with the claimed destruction of the (necessarily-entire) tabernacle in 70AD: the writer is rather and simply pointing out the spiritual ramifications of the fact that the inner tabernacle was surrounded by an outer tabernacle, and that with regard to the children of Israel at the time.
Hence the very next verse:
“Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience” Heb 9:9.
(See also our more comprehensive work: "Erasing the erroneously-declared 70 AD demarcation line".)
Matthew 16:28
“Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.”
Synopsis:
Certain people listening to Jesus speak were to see Him 'arrive' symbolically by way of the destruction of the temple, in 70AD before they died.
Refutation:
Being born again is a supernatural occurrence, and comes with spiritual ‘sight’ which allows one to ‘see’ the kingdom of God.
Thus Jesus said to Nicodemus:
“Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” John 3:3.
Conversely, Jesus pointed out via Isaiah, and concerning the Jews in general:
“seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive” Mt 13:14.
Therefore He said to the Pharisees at another time:
“The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” Lk 17:20,21.
So the King and His kingdom are not that which will ever be seen physically, but in the Spirit.
And Christ’s final ‘return’ will be of the same modality, only to infinite proportions: the Holy Spirit will finally and without limitation reveal Christ to the universe so that no place will be found for that universe anymore, by reason of the brightness of His coming: the physical realm shall be “dissolved” in a micro-second and the spiritual realm finally ushered in as the eternal realm.
Now Paul says:
“Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing” 2 Ti 4:8
where we note that he does not say “to them that love the fact that He will appear”, but “them who love His (current) appearing”.
That is, they who are Christ’s are they who see Him ‘coming’ in His Kingdom everyday: they see Him intervening in life’s difficulties, they see Him glorified in people who they would never have imagined would come to Christ, they see Him overruling repugnant Government legislation, they see Him providing for them, they see Him ruling the nations with an iron rod, they see Him changing destiny, they see Him progressively answering prayer ...
In short, and unlike the Jews to whom Isaiah referred, they not only see, but perceive.
From a general viewpoint then, Christ was speaking of the born again experience.
However preeminently He was speaking of the coming Baptism in the Holy Spirit, which would bring believers to see visions of the true state of affairs, in the Spirit (see Acts 2:17).
The “abomination of desolation”
“When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand: )” Mt 24:15
Synopsis:
This refers to the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70AD by the armies of Rome.
Refutation:
The Lord never considered bricks and mortar to be a “holy place”. Rather, we are told that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19).
Therefore any destruction of a building would never constitute “abomination” in God’s eyes. Rather, that which God considers an abomination is that which attempts to make desolate the people of God in their walk with Him.
Here is an example from Peter:
“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of” 2 Pe 2:1,2.
And from Paul:
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” 2 Ti 4:3,4.
Ironically then, the fable that is Preterism is itself part of the abomination of desolation.
Amen.