An Eerie Similarity
The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy of certain men “who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some” (2 Timothy 2.18.) When we know that this historical warning is recorded in the Bible, and then someone comes to us preaching the exact same thing, we should be instantly stunned at the similarity, not to mention scared of having our faith overthrown. Because of this historical notice, the burden, obviously, is for the full preterist to prove that the resurrection has come to pass since the time that the apostle Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy. But there is no reason to give the full preterist a hearing. Heretics are not supposed to be given hearings. It says that in this very passage from Paul to Timothy. This idea that the resurrection is past is characterized as ‘profane and vain babbling.’ The command is to shun it. “But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus” (verses 16, 17.) Full preterism is ‘profane’; it is ‘vain babbling.’ It isn’t entitled to a hearing. How does a person shun vain babbling without shunning the vain babbler? It can’t be done. If the vain babbler is in your presence, he will babble. Vain babblers are to be shunned. Their cankerous word must be shunned (verse 17.) This is done by shunning the person uttering the cankerous word. ‘Canker’ means something like ‘ulcer’ or ‘gangrene.’ If we wax colloquial, we may call a canker a cancer. Full preterism is cancerous. The resurrection is not past. Our bodies are not yet redeemed and glorified; this is why we get sick and die.
“But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus” (verses 16, 17.) How does a man like Don K. Preston, who seems to be the chief preterist of his kind, ‘increase unto more ungodliness’? He gets his increase because pastors who are more orthodox than him are not orthodox enough to shun him. Instead of shunning him, they agree to debate him; and, because he knows his heretical system as well as, and in some cases, better than, his opponents know the Bible, he increases his renown, sells more books, and gathers more followers. The first mistake that is made is to receive a heretic as one would a brother; the second is to pay for his hotel room; the third is to provide for him a platform; and the fourth is to try to get the better of him in a debate. The children of Israel tried to take the land of Canaan when they were forbidden to make the attempt; and so they were beaten back (Numbers 14.) Proud pastors, likewise, try to take a heretic on when they are told to shun him; and so instead of beating him, they further his ends. We are foolish to expect victory through disobedience. The children of Israel were smitten on account of their disobedient attempt; members of our churches are overthrown when pastors debate heretics. Heretics may be denounced; and their foul ideas must be preached against; but they may not be debated except by coincidence or accident, especially in our churches in front of vulnerable members. To say that the resurrection is past is to not abide in ‘the doctrine of Christ’ (2 John 9.) If a heretic should not be let in our house (verse 10), how much less in our house of God, and how much less in the pulpit there!
If we are not suspicious of a man who happens to be peddling the very doctrine that Paul calls babbling, we should be suspicious of ourselves. Do we have on the armor of God? A Christian who has put on the armor of God, sketched for us in Ephesians 6, is continually suspicious, and will be especially suspicious of a teacher who says that the resurrection is past. Knowing of the very existence of ‘the wiles of the devil’ (Ephesians 6.11) should make a Christian suspicious of any teaching that goes against, or that does not immediately confirm, a biblical doctrine. What else might help us to judge a teacher, even before we examine his teaching? We have only to look at the titles of Don K. Preston’s books in order to know what mettle he is of. What titles has this man authored? The Existence and Attributes of God? No, not that one. The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended? No, not that one. A Treatise of Afflictions? Not exactly. No, he wrote such books as these: The Last Days Identified, End Times Dilemma, and Elijah has Come. Should we not have become weary by now of seeing titles like these on shelves in Christian bookstores? By such titles, we should suspect Mr. Preston of being a sectarian, a merchandiser, a teacher of novelties, and a teacher of minor things. These idiosyncrasies are those of a vain babbler, are they not?
Firstly, then, the idea that the resurrection is past sounds like sectarianism. Is it not sectarian to refuse to admit the Lord’s doctrine of resurrection? The Lord’s doctrine is that the general resurrection of the dead has not happened. This verse proves it: “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6.54.) People are beginning to eat this flesh and drink this blood today, by faith. After this—‘at the last day’—they will be raised up. Therefore the last day when they will be raised up cannot have been yesterday, much less nearly two thousand years ago in 70 A. D. The sectarian, like the scribes and Pharisees, is opinionated more than enlightened. So there are many doctrines that he will not receive. His opinions, not the doctrines of Christ and Paul, are what he is about. Like the scribes and Pharisees, he compasses land and sea to make one deluded proselyte (Matthew 23.15.) Watching Don K. Preston teach reminds me of that.
Secondly, that the resurrection is past sounds like a lucrative idea to merchandize, especially when professing Christians are as ignorant, gullible, and superstitious as those of our age are. Don K. Preston’s titles appeal to persons like that; and so they watch his videos and buy his books. Might this author not be one of the covetous persons that Peter warns us about in chapter 2, verse 3 of his second letter? “And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.”
Thirdly, the idea that the resurrection is past sounds like a novelty. It was a new, extra-biblical idea in Paul’s day. And, in its developing form today, it is a novel teaching still. It sounds like a vision of someone’s heart rather than something out of our Lord’s mouth. (Jeremiah 23.16.)
Fourthly, the idea that the resurrection is past sounds more like a major thing than a minor thing. Well, it is a major error; but it is a minor thing to teach because it is less than a biblical doctrine. Don K. Preston doesn’t seem to be much about ‘the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith’ (Matthew 23.23.) He seems to be about nothing but the ‘mint and anise and cummin’ of eschatology. I would never call eschatological doctrines herbs, except that they are even less than that to Don K. Preston since he falsely teaches that these doctrines are all in the past instead of in the future. That really is a medley of fine herbs when the second coming, the resurrection, and the judgment are said to be bygone events! From a look at his book titles and the material on his videos, it is clear that this man is a vain, small-thinking babbler. I guess it must be tempting to be about nothing but last things when, to you, every prophecy is in the past—when, to you, every prophecy in the Bible has been fulfilled. In The Last Days Identified, Don K. Preston affirms this: “that God has fulfilled all His prophetic Word.” The full preterist’s doctrine of resurrection is eerily similar to the lie that the apostle confronted: that the resurrection is past. Indeed, it is the same one. The titles of Mr. Preston’s books reveal that he is not about the main and plain things of Scripture: the chief doctrines that a sinner must believe in order to be saved. The titles of this man’s books, all by themselves, not to mention his novel doctrine of resurrection, ought to cause a billow of suspicion to well up inside of us. During my research on the subject of full preterism, I often turned to the video bites that he has put up on his channel in order to explain this or that passage of Scripture. Each time I have watched one of those, it seemed as though I were listening to ‘a foolish man, who fritters away the weight of his subject by fine-spun trifling on words.’ And on the strength of ‘fine-spun trifling,’ what does he do but recommend one of his books? Full preterism is sectarian; it is an opportunity to merchandize by teaching novelties; and, to say the least, it diminishes doctrines that souls depend upon for salvation. When you interpret too much into the year A. D. 70, you have to run all over the Bible to block all the holes through which orthodoxy pours. This is what Don K. Preston and William Bell try to do in their videos. The second coming of Jesus Christ, the general resurrection, and the final judgment cannot be contained behind the porous wall of A. D. 70.
Even before full preterism is proven wrong, its eerie similarity with heresy should make us suspicious. The proof that it is wrong is abundant, and is more easily found in the exposition of truth than in the refutation of heresy. We are not obligated to correct every error that a heretic makes. If we were to try that, there would hardly be an end of it because the heretic makes his theology up as he goes. During a debate with Don K. Preston, David Hester reminded his opponent of his admission that preterism is in the discovery stage. Mr. Preston did not deny that he had said that. If he ever said it, it is an admission that his brand of preterism is not orthodox because that which is orthodox has been established long ago. And even if he never did say it, the truth is that he does, in fact, make his doctrine up as he goes. Straight out of seminary he began to do it. Eschewing Commentators and Commentaries, he went about discovering, for himself, what the meanings of Matthew 24 and Revelation are. He tells us that in his Testimony Regarding Full Preterism. So it would take too much time to correct the point of view of a man who studies as if the Bible was written yesterday and that we’re only starting to figure it out. It is enough to expose heresy by noticing a few cardinal faults; and that is best done by noticing what the truth is. “The Bible has been so often defended, and the defenses are so admirable, that any more outworks would almost seem to be superfluous…There seems to me to have been twice as much done in some ages in defending the Bible as in expounding it, but if the whole of our strength shall henceforth go to the exposition and spreading of it, we may leave it pretty much to defend itself” (C. H. Spurgeon, Speech on ‘the Bible’ in Speeches at Home and Abroad, p. 14.)
The full preterist says that all prophecy is now in the past, and has been in the past since the Siege of Jerusalem in A. D. 70. The scale of the slaughter in that war was large, easily over a million when including noncombatant Jews. And since the date of that significant event is so near to the time that Jesus ministered, it would be no surprise to find that Jesus mentioned it, at least in cryptic form. This Jesus probably did in Matthew 24; for this text contains, it looks like, a blend of prophecy that is both near at hand and a long time hence. But that he spoke of this event in Matthew 23 is even more certain: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold your house is left unto you desolate” (verses 37, 38.) Spurgeon quotes verse 37 in a speech, and remarks about Jesus in the following manner: “He looks down upon the city; he marks the gilded roof of the temple, and the streets, and he weeps. He foresees the total destruction of that city, ‘beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth.’ In vision he marks her streets crimsoned with gore, and her temple already in flames…We believe that Christ knew the destiny of Jerusalem, but he wept over it too” (C. H. Spurgeon, Speech on ‘Earnestness’ in Speeches at Home and Abroad, pp. 35, 36.) It is likely that the Lord alludes to the Siege of Jerusalem in the last third of Luke 17 as well, but not without blending what he says with a prophecy of judgment at the end of the world. C. H. Spurgeon, John Gill, Matthew Poole, and Matthew Henry all observe this blend in the New Testament.
But to the full preterist all prophecy is fulfilled to the full; the full preterist, therefore, maintains that the second coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the last judgment have all occurred. How he can believe in heaven, hell, the Bible, and Jesus after believing all of that I do not know. On some level he must at least suspect that the Lord has not come again; he must suspect that bodies must be raised from the dead; he must suspect that he has not sat beside multitudes before the Lord to receive, either rewards for good works, or stripes for evil deeds and unbelief. Full preterism is the gutting of faith; if the devotee of this belief does not realize that now, he eventually must. The second coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the last judgment are among the chief doctrines and events of the Bible. To be wrong on one of these three is to err in the greatest way that one can. I am focusing on one of these, though it is unavoidable to touch on the other two while I do it.
“Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?” (1 Corinthians 15.12.) There are two resurrections mentioned here: the resurrection of Christ from the dead and resurrection generally. Jesus Christ was raised from the dead bodily. There is no other way that he was raised from the dead except in the bodily sense. For sure, he was never raised in the regenerative sense because he was not a sinner who needed to be saved. Yea, he was raised from the dead for our justification (Romans 4.25); this is the justification of sinners who are themselves regenerated. There is no ground in 1 Corinthians 15.12 to interpret Jesus’ resurrection one way, and the general resurrection in another way. The apostle is speaking there about the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of persons generally. Therefore, the dead will be raised in a physical sense, in addition to the fact that some will have been, before this, raised in the regenerative sense. The full preterist not only interprets resurrection as being in the past; he interprets it as something other than a physical resurrection. Christ was raised physically from the dead; but believers and humanity generally, will not be, says the preterist. Therefore, in his own way, the full preterist maintains what the apostle Paul condemns: the idea that ‘there is no resurrection of the dead.’ Believe like the full preterist on this doctrine—like Don K. Preston or William Bell on this doctrine—and it seems conclusive that your ‘faith is vain; ye are still in your sins’ (verse 17.) Follow the argument made in the following two verses: “For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins” (verse 16, 17.) These two doctrines—the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of persons generally—seem to stand or fall together. We are not permitted to pick one and not the other. “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen” (verse 13.) Again: “For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised” (verse 16.) One cannot get away with saying that Christ was raised but that no one else will be raised in that same way. To say that the resurrection happened in some sense other than physically, in A. D. 70, and that that is the end of it, is to deny the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead. And to deny that is to have vain faith and to be in your sins and on the broad way to destruction. It does not matter what the full preterist says about anything else. It does not matter how convincingly he says it. The resurrection of the dead in the literal sense for humanity generally is all tied up with the historical resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave. If the general resurrection is denied, the one denying it should be marked as a heretic; and the Christian, in order to get on with his life and work, should send him away at once, and not without the curse that he is commissioned to dole out: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1.8.) The exception may be—may be—the unstable Christian who is blown about by every wind of doctrine, and who is, therefore, more confused than deceiving. He needs to be corrected. But if he persists in his error, he too must be let go with a curse. The resurrection of the dead is reckoned an elementary principle in Hebrews (5.12-6.2.) The Christian ought to have that doctrine settled to his mind early on. How long should he be allowed to doubt it or deny it before he is counted a heretic? A person who does not believe the doctrine is a danger to those who do. He should not be permitted fellowship indefinitely. He is, in fact and by definition, a heretic. “A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject” (Titus 3.10.) He must be dealt with, or he may not realize the damnability of his heresy; he must be dealt with, or he may be the agent through whom others are damned. “Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven” (1 Corinthians 5.6, 7.)
Full preterism is eerily similar to the error that Paul warned Timothy to not argue about and to treat as ‘vain babbling’: the foolish notion ‘that the resurrection is past already’ (2 Timothy 2.16-18.) And it is eerily similar to what Paul corrected carnal baby Corinthians on: “how say some of you that there is no resurrection of the dead?” The resurrection of Christ and the general resurrection are inseparably connected. Since Christ was raised physically, everyone else will be too. Belief in the resurrection of Christ from the literal dead seems to stand with, and seems not to stand without, the resurrection of the just and the unjust from the literal dead: “But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen” (1 Corinthians 15.13.) If the resurrection of Christ was literally from the dead, and if the general resurrection were in the past, our souls would be encased, not in mortal bodies, but immortal ones. This goes for believers and unbelievers alike, though in both 2 Timothy and 1 Corinthians 15 the resurrection of the just is the emphasis.
The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead (Acts 23.8.) Full preterists do, except for almost everyone. They probably believe, to name two instances, that both Tabitha and Lazarus were raised. But see how connected the resurrection of Jesus Christ is with the resurrection of all saints: “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Romans 8.11.) Can the resurrection of Christians, literally and physically from the dead, be stated more clearly and conclusively than this? What can ‘quicken your mortal bodies’ mean but resurrection of bodies from the dead? The ‘quick and the dead’ who will be judged at Jesus’ appearing (2 Timothy 4.1) are alive persons and dead persons. This must be the case because ‘quick’ here means ‘to live,’ which is pretty much the opposite of being dead, and which fulfills the contrast that is being attempted in the verse. And ‘quicken’ in Romans 8.11 means ‘to vitalize.’ So what do we have in Romans 8.11 but bodies that are made alive? As Jesus was raised, even so Christians will be raised. In what manner was Jesus raised? He was raised physically from the dead. Therefore Christians will be raised from the dead in the same way. To say that the resurrection is a past event that happened in some allegorical sense in A. D. 70 is to deny some of the plainest words in all of Scripture. It is a denial of the promise of resurrection. It is a denial of one of the most important doctrines and events in the Bible. The matter of the physical resurrection of the dead is so important that it is doubtful that a person is saved who denies it. For this reason the doctrine was put into the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in…the resurrection of the body.” It is a doctrine that is meant to keep wheat separate from chaff—to keep unbelievers from creeping into fellowship. That’s why it’s in there. “And their word will eat as a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus” (2 Timothy 2.17.) These are the two characters who said that the resurrection was past. Whatever it means that ‘their word will eat as a canker,’ it has something to do with their faith being in tatters. Hymenaeus is mentioned in the first letter too, in verse 20 of chapter 1. Over there his faith is likened to a ‘shipwreck.’ And he is ‘delivered unto Satan’ for his blasphemy; that is, he is treated like an excommunicated infidel for his noxious belief. So this falsehood concerning the resurrection is, to the apostle Paul, as unacceptable and reprehensible as the sin of incest, for the incestuous person is treated in the exact same way: delivered unto Satan also (1 Corinthians 5.) The apostle’s second letter to Timothy was written in A. D. 66. Is it possible that Hymenaeus and Philetus missed the time of the resurrection by just a few years? Maybe they were saying that it happened in the past by two millennia, just as heretics are saying today. Regardless, any professing Christian who says that the resurrection is past needs to set his belief alongside that of Hymenaeus and Philetus; having done that, he should notice an eerie similarity. And then he need not wonder how the apostle would handle his case. The reward for blasphemy is excommunication, canker, and shipwreck. That Jesus came in judgment in a representative, symbolic way in A. D. 70 is, in light of Matthew 23 and 24, a permissible belief. And it does not contradict any doctrine to believe that. But the general resurrection did not happen then. And it is a perilous thing to believe that it did. Getting the nature and time of the resurrection wrong is to err, to not know the Scriptures, and to be ignorant of God’s power (Matthew 22.29.) He who gets this wrong is either a babe, not yet born, or a bold blasphemer.
