An Eradicated Expectancy
Full preterism is eerily similar to a heresy confronted by the apostle Paul in the early Church. It is egregiously dissimilar from the teaching of this apostle and his Lord. And because of its A. D. 70 hermeneutic, its faith is eradicated of all expectancy. When everything is behind, what is there to look forward to? When troubles weigh us down, how is our spirit lifted up? How does the apostle Paul comfort the Christians in Thessalonica who are in sorrow about their brethren who have died? He tells them about how the Lord will come back ‘and the dead in Christ shall rise first’ (1 Thessalonians 4.16.) In what way will they rise? Their souls are already with the Lord. So it must be their bodies that will rise. Their dead bodies will rise up to the clouds ‘to meet the Lord in the air’ (verse 17.) For sure their bodies will not rise in a regenerative way. That kind of rising is for souls, not bodies. And to be ‘dead in Christ’ is to be regenerate persons already; otherwise they could not be spoken of as being ‘dead’ and ‘in Christ’ at the same time. The elect are chosen in Christ ‘before the foundation of the world’ (Ephesians 1.4.) But the Christians spoken of in this epistle to Thessalonica are ‘dead in Christ.’ A person cannot be ‘dead in Christ’ without being regenerate because regeneration is necessary for entry into his kingdom (John 3.3.) Therefore they will rise in some other way than regenerative. Were they to rise in a figurative way in A. D. 70? How would knowledge of that comfort anyone? How would it comfort someone to know that Jerusalem would be wasted, vast multitudes would be killed there or brought into slavery, and that before this some of these persons would be made so desperate by famine that they would give into the temptation to cannibalize their own babies? Jesus wept over what was shortly to happen to Jerusalem. But in the interest of an A. D. 70 model of interpretation, we are supposed to believe that this very same event was the consolation of Thessalonian Christians! “Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (verse 18.) What a ghastly comfort if the carnage of A. D. 70 is meant! And is there anything at all in 1 Thessalonians 4 to make anyone think of A. D. 70? The resurrection in the phrase, ‘the dead in Christ shall rise first,’ is interpreted for us in verse 14: “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again.” This is the kind of resurrection that is preached for the consolation of those who grieve at the graves of beloved brethren. This resurrection will be as actual and physical as the rising of Jesus from the tomb. Jesus rose from the dead bodily; so will the believing dead. This is the teaching; this is the consolation; this is what they and we are given to look forward to. The full preterist has not this expectancy. By indulging his addiction to A. D. 70, he has eradicated it.
What the apostle Paul ‘cried out in the council’ is what our cry should be to each preterist who comes to us with his heresy: “of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called into question” (Acts 23.6.) Our future resurrection is so mystically bound up with the resurrection of Christ that when ours is called into question, so is his. By his resurrection, Christ has become the firstfruits; and Christians are the fruits that are prophesied to follow. This is the teaching and promise in 1 Corinthians 15.20-23. They ‘shall all be made alive.’ If the preterist calls these last fruits into question, he must, of necessity, question the sufficiency of the power behind the resurrection of Christ that makes possible these last fruits. I know that the preterist has a clever interpretation of this passage. I don’t remember what it is because, even when told to catch the power of it, I couldn’t catch it. I can’t catch the power of heretical interpretation. Maybe I saw the gist for a moment, but not enough to catch it and to hold it. I can catch the power and promise of Scripture though because that sinks into my ears and affects my heart. I can see it; I can catch it; I can hold it; and because it holds me more than I hold it, my heart is made hopeful by it. The hope of a preterist is not worthy to be called hope. Though he uses the word, he has no warrant to do so, not in the eschatological sense at least. “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (verse 19.) The context around this verse should terrify the full preterist. His ‘realized eschatology’ makes him ‘of all men most miserable.’ It excludes him from being blessed, for blessedness is somewhat the opposite of misery. Before the verse and after the verse, the subject of resurrection is preached, connecting the resurrection of Christ from the dead with the same kind of resurrection for the faithful. The professing Christian who does not believe in this communication is ‘of all men most miserable.’ The firstfruits represent the whole of the harvest. It sanctifies the harvest. Jesus has a resurrected body; and on the strength of his rising, he has a sanctified harvest in waiting. “For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one” (Hebrews 2.11.) Jesus was received into heaven by God the Father; so will every grain of wheat. Is the full preterist a grain of wheat? He needs to examine himself about as much as he needs to reexamine, with prayer and without bias, the relevant passages of Scripture. The ‘hope in Christ’ in 1 Corinthians 15.19 involves the resurrected body. From verse 12 to verse 23 this hope is expounded relative to the glorious body that the Christian looks forward to put on. It should not surprise us that since Jesus lives forever in a body, we who are transformed into his image will get our bodies back to live forever just like that. The doctrine of the resurrection of our bodies is so vital to the fullness of what we shall be that the apostle wraps our hope up in that shroud. Christians are like men walking around with this hope of resurrection inside their bodies. This hope will one day spring to newness of life. The Holy Spirit is never far from brooding over our bodies in the expectation of what we will become. “For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 5.4, 5.) A heavenly immortality for saints is assured. “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15.53.) So not only does the soul of a saint rise to heaven to be with God immediately upon death, his corrupting body is held in reserve for a glorious revivification. For this reason the death of a saint is called a sleep: “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept” (verse 20.) Jesus carries this idea so far that one time, concerning a damsel who was obviously dead, he says this: “Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth” (Mark 5.39.) The word ‘sleepeth’ here is a different word than ‘slept’ in 1 Corinthians 15.20. But both words mean ‘sleep,’ though the one in Mark may not be as fluid as the one in 1 Corinthians. So this damsel is dead. This is so certain that they laugh Jesus ‘to scorn’ when he calls her death a sleep; and then, in the teeth of their invective, he raises her from the dead. This example is enough to show how the word ‘sleep’ is sometimes used. 1 Corinthians 15.20: “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.” Follow the logic. Christ is risen from the dead, and we know that this means bodily because he was raised in no other way; he is the firstfruits of them that slept, or were sleeping; they that were sleeping were those that were dead; therefore the harvest must be a rising from the literal dead, just as the firstfruits was, which was a rising from the dead bodily. Does that not make more sense than that this resurrection refers to an allegorical rising that happened somehow in A. D. 70? I think that any believer will be able to catch the power of it. Believe that the resurrection is past (which belief must be against good reason and sound treatment of the Scriptures), and what expectancy do you have? The apostle says that you are too miserable to have one. In 1 Thessalonians 4 the Lord’s chief apostle speaks of Christians believing in the resurrection in distinction from persons ‘which have no hope’ (verses 13, 14.) The person who does not believe that ‘the dead in Christ shall rise’ (verse 16), then, has no hope. The word of God denies hope to persons who disbelieve this doctrine. They might believe that they have hope; they might hope that they have hope; they might even feel that they have hope; but the Bible says that they are hopeless.
The full preterist doctrine is really a nest of false doctrines. It is similar to a prominent New Testament heresy; it is dissimilar to how resurrection is taught in the New Testament; and, being without hope, must lead to unbelief, despair, and even hell. Yes, we had better believe that it must lead even to hell itself when persisted in even if, and especially since, the full preterist has no reason, from the standpoint of his belief, to believe in hell. If the judgment of A. D. 70 is the last judgment, as the preterist believes, he has no basis for believing that there are rewards and punishments to come. But what is judgment for if not for rewarding and punishing? Multitudes in A. D. 70 were massacred; and multitudes managed, not without harm and loss, to escape. It was a kind of judgment. But that was all temporal. And what about the rest of humanity? “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5.10.) The scope seems to be all encompassing here. No justification can be found in the context for assuming that the scope is narrower than the whole of humanity. Has such a judgment happened yet? What about Revelation 20.13? “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.” Even if we were to suppose this to be in the past, the scope seems rather greater than the Siege of Jerusalem in A. D. 70. How can this event be squeezed into the narrow compass of A. D. 70 in Jerusalem? Judgment is for everyone, not just for Jews of a certain generation. “Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead” (Acts 17.31.) The ‘men of Nineveh’ and ‘the queen of the south’ shall ‘rise up in judgment’ to condemn the generation of Jesus’ day for not repenting and for not receiving him as their Messiah (Matthew 12.38-42.) Were the men of Nineveh and the queen of the south present at the Siege of Jerusalem in A. D. 70? Not likely; but they will be at the final judgment that full preterists don’t believe in; and full preterists will be there as well. Full preterism leads to unbelief of one cardinal doctrine after another, and goes on toward hopelessness and hell. The second coming of Jesus Christ is so closely associated with resurrection and judgment (the latter two events being the immediate consequence of the first), that the unbelief of one naturally leads to not believing the other two. In this, at least, the full preterist is a ‘consistent preterist.’ He is consistently unbelieving.
The future resurrection of the dead is entwined with the coming judgment; and both events together form no small measure of a Christian’s hope. “And have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust” (Acts 24.15.) The apostle’s hope toward God is inseparably connected with the facts that God will resurrect and that God will judge. We know that his hope is enlarged by the contemplation of both events here, for he distinguishes between the just and the unjust. Why mention both the just and the unjust, relative to resurrection, unless judgment is in view?
Don K. Preston hates it when Creeds or Confessions are cited in support of what the Scriptures teach. But watch how faithful the Belgic Confession is to those words of Paul recorded in Acts: “…And then all men will personally appear before this great Judge…For all the dead shall be raised out of the earth…and the dead judged according to what they shall have done in this world, whether it be good or evil…And, therefore, the consideration of this judgment is justly terrible and dreadful to the wicked and ungodly, but most desirable and comfortable to the righteous and the elect….” Notice that it says ‘the dead shall be raised’ (the ‘resurrection of the dead’ of Acts 24.15), in order to be ‘judged’ for ‘good or evil’ (because ‘just’ or ‘unjust,’ as in Acts 24.15), and that this is ‘most desirable and comfortable to the righteous and the elect’ (an idea corresponding with the ‘hope toward God’ of Acts 24.15.) What do we have here, in both the Confession and Scripture, but hope toward God in light of resurrection and judgment? And this Confession doesn’t look backward as if all of this is an allegory of an event that happened in A. D. 70. When a Confession is this close to Scripture, while an encroaching belief system that looks like a heresy doesn’t bear scrutiny on the very doctrines that the Confession is tight with Scripture on, the encroaching belief system that looks like a heresy is probably a heresy, and the Confession was probably drawn up to protect us from heresies of its ilk. When you examine what you suspect is a heresy under the light of God’s word, and then you discover that a great Confession confirms both your findings and your suspicion, you become quite certain that you have judged the alleged heresy aright. Full preterism is completely disconnected from the hope that a Christian should have toward God.
This hope, moreover, is not as fully professed by orthodox Christians as it should be. The Christian should be looking forward, not only to the resurrection of the dead, but to the judgment that follows it. That is what, to no little degree, imprecatory passages in the Psalms are about. “Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish the just: for the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins” (Psalm 7.9.) This is part of the Christian’s hope. God will try the hearts and reins to expose what men are made of; wickedness will come to an end; and the just will be established. “And they cried with a loud voice, saying, how long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” (Revelation 6.10.) This is part of a Christian’s hope. “Righteous art thou, O LORD, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?” (Jeremiah 12.1.) We know that the judgments that the prophet speaks of here include retribution for evil deeds, for his complaint is that the wicked prosper and that the treacherous are happy. Furthermore, his request becomes explicit in verse 3: ‘prepare them for the day of slaughter.’ If we should not go this far in our request, yet our desire should be for what God will do; and we know that he will judge. Should we not like to talk with the LORD about his judgments? Whether we like the prospect of doing so or not, we should do it. We should not be ashamed that our hope includes the future judgment of the wicked.
The republication of The Scots Worthies from 1775 is one of the best examples of Christians being ashamed of what they should hope for. The Scots Worthies is a history of preaching, persecution, and perseverance, one mini biography at a time. The author was not ashamed of his hope; but the modern publisher is. The edition of The Scots Worthies that The Banner of Truth Trust chose to reprint is from 1781. John Howie, the author, included, in that edition, an appendix called The JUDGMENT and JUSTICE of GOD EXEMPLIFIED in a Brief Historical Account of the Wicked Lives and Miserable Deaths of some of the most remarkable Apostates and bloody Persecutors in Scotland, from the Reformation till after the Revolution. Collected from Historical Records, Authenticated Writings, &c. &c. The Banner of Truth Trust does not include this appendix in its republication. That is a sad concerning fact, for the Banner is possibly the best current publisher of the best books of days gone by. Notice how John Howie wrote the above title; he used many capital letters and a long line of italics to make his point that he was not ashamed of what he was about to relate. This history of the wicked lives and miserable deaths of persecutors and apostates does not make us hate; it illustrates our hope. We are supposed to look forward to the judgment. Learning about God’s judgments in preliminary form, as they happen on earth, is a consolation that looks to consummation. It is the beginning of God avenging every wrong. The resurrection is to the purpose of living forever, with Christ in bliss, in both body and soul. But the foreground of this eternity is the last judgment. And this event is a holy one that we may see hints of in history—though we must seek out public domain publishers to see those hints because a current publisher like the Banner of Truth won’t give them to us. Thankfully the internet has made access to ancient editions possible. For years I wondered and wanted what it was that this publisher, because of its impudence, thought fit that I should never read. Many times I looked for it; but each time it seemed to have been wiped off the face of the earth. Then, one day, expecting failure once again, I hit on the appendix through Google Books. Then I saw that some editions of Howie’s book included not only one appendix, but eight of them, each one of them more valuable, no doubt, than any book that a Banner Censor would be able to write. Anyway, here is part of what ‘the late Dr. M’Crie’ had to say about the appendix in question, which quotation the Banner solicited to justify the omission of said appendix: “Of course I do not suppose that, in giving a new edition of the ‘Scots Worthies,’ you would think of altering or expunging any part of the volume; for I am a great enemy to garbling the works of deceased authors…I should like that the appendix consisting of an account of the judgments executed on persecutors, were omitted; which, in my opinion, adds neither to the value nor the credibility of the work.” On the one hand, he is an enemy to expunging; on the other hand, he wants to omit. And the gentlemen at the Banner, fearing more than faithful in this instance, acted on the last part of Dr. M’Crie’s contradictory advice. Who has the right to leave out a part of an author’s book that the author felt so strongly about? If a publisher does not find a history wholly acceptable, and cannot, in good conscience, publish it whole, the publisher should leave it entirely alone. That would be far better and safer before the all-seeing God than to ‘garble’ the author’s work by omitting his supplementary material. Why doesn’t the Banner write its own history? It is easier to merchandize a book than to write one; that must be the reason. Has anyone at the Banner even read The Scots Worthies? Has anyone there ever read the execrated appendix? Who are Christian censors but persons who have nominated themselves to dictate what parts of the Bible should be learned and expounded? This accusation is not going too far because by his historical account of wicked lives and miserable deaths, John Howie teaches the Bible. And he is not a lone maverick in this. John Foxe, the historian that Christian historians are indebted to the most and mostly rely on, did the same thing. Here is an instance of that: “Whereupon the said king Sigebert, continuing his cruel conditions, by his subjects conspiring against him was put from his kingly dignity, and brought into such desolation, that, wandering alone in a wood without comfort, he was there slain even by the swineherd of the said earl, whom before he had so wrongfully murdered, as partly above touched; whereby is to be seen the cruel tyranny of princes never to prosper well, without the just revenge both of God and man” (John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, Volume I, p. 1006.) Retribution for evil deeds is a lesson that the Bible often tells us about: through the lives of Haman and Jezebel, and even King David in the Old Testament; and in the New Testament through the lives of King Herod and Judas Iscariot. But post-biblical stories of rewards for evil deeds are not supposed to be told? Who are these Christian censors to decide what we should learn from the Bible through the narration of history? Christian publishers are duty-bound to respect the authors whose works they publish and make money off of; to omit is to disrespect instead. We should leave disrespectful deeds for Popes, Jacobins, Mullahs, and Marxists to perpetrate. If there is an edition of The Scots Worthies, endorsed by John Howie, that does not include the appendix concerning The JUDGMENT and JUSTICE of GOD EXEMPLIFIED, the Banner should have reprinted that one. Reprinting an edition that contains the appendix, without including the appendix, is the slippery slope toward what Dr. M‘Crie called ‘garbling the works of deceased authors.’ It should never have become acceptable to sin against authors just because they are deceased and therefore defenseless.
Why did John Howie write about judgment on earth in the lives of apostates and persecutors? Here is why, in his own words: “And, in fine, if the following hints shall serve for no other purpose, they will stand for an incontestible evidence of the very first principle of religion, that there is a God to reward the righteous and punish the wicked; so that men shall say, Verily, there is a reward for the righteous; verily, there is a God that judgeth in the earth; verily, the retributive justice of God stands out here in colours so vivid as cannot be mistaken.” By ‘the very first principle of religion’ he alludes to Hebrews 6 where judgment is spoken of as a rudimentary principle that no Christian should be doubtful on. No Christian should be so uneducated and unconvinced as to doubt the traditionally received doctrine of judgment. There will be a second coming of the Lord; he will descend bodily from heaven; he will resurrect every single body; the judgment of each person will happen in both body and soul; and in all of this does the Christian hope consist. All of this is holy to the LORD; it should be holy to us; each component of eschatology is to be hoped for. John Howie’s words above are in perfect conformity with the hope articulated in Acts: “And have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust” (Acts 24.15.) His appendix is a historical prelude to the Christian hope that both the just and the unjust will stand before God one day to reap what they have sown. What Christian has the right to omit part of someone else’s book in order to deflect our reading something like that?
We have to love our enemies in practical ways (Proverbs 25.21.) We should strive to love our enemies with compassion and concern for their lost condition. But on some level—on a higher level—our love for the LORD must be like the experience of the Psalmist: “Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?” (Psalm 139.21.) We are to love our enemies; but our regenerate spirit recoils from those who hate the LORD. There are many paradoxes in the word of God; we need to accept them all, including this love-hate relationship with persons who hate our LORD. The judgment of impenitent sinners is part of what a Christian hopes for. Acts 24.15 is the iteration of Psalm 139.21 in different words. Both the apostle Paul and King David hope for judgment, which is another way of saying: they are hoping for the just to be vindicated and the unjust to be sentenced. “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?” (1 Corinthians 6.2.) “Know ye not that we shall judge angels?” (verse 3.) If these prophecies are true, shall we not look forward to their accomplishment? Are these verses too hard to interpret? Why not let Scripture interpret Scripture? “Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him” (Jude 14, 15.) It says that the Lord is coming with his saints in order to execute judgment. Why does it say that the saints are coming with the Lord? It says this because the saints are coming with him to participate in the judgment. And a judge looks forward to sentencing a criminal; he may not admit it, but he sometimes does. Shall the saints not look forward to being the Lord’s helpers at the judgment? Right now we might not like the prospect of such work. But after we are entirely conformed to God’s will, what then? We will look back on our timidity with contempt; we will then be anxious to do everything that has been prophesied we must do. We will be entirely conformed to the letter of what our spirits, if not our tongues, have often uttered. “When the wicked perish, there is shouting” (Proverbs 11.10.) What Christian was not quickened with relief at the deaths of Henry Morgentaler and Jack Kevorkian? There is a difference between a reaction like that and being ‘glad at calamities’ (Proverbs 17.5.) When a wicked murderer dies, that is not a calamity. “Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth” (Proverbs 24.17.) We should not be glad in a mocking, clucking, strutting fashion. But we are nevertheless made happy by his fall. Is that wrong? What did Moses and the Israelites do when the Egyptians were drowned in the sea? “Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the LORD, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea” (Exodus 15.1.) We may be glad in a holy way, then. It is a good thing when wicked persons are removed from the earth. Justified spirits cannot help being thankful for God’s providence in restraining evildoers. In Revelation there is even a command to rejoice over the fall of Babylon: “Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her” (18.20.) We learn from Genesis in the slaying of Abel by Cain that spilled blood cries out to God from the ground for justice. The blood of man craves the righting of wrongs, even to the point of crying out for it, and must be blessed at the LORD’s avenging answer. Yea, even the inanimate earth would rather be pure than polluted with blood. How much more must this craving for justice exist among animate creatures whose regenerate spirits are inclined to the righteous ways of God? “Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you” (2 Thessalonians 1.6.) We should all hope for this—for what the preterist has no faith in.
