PART I, ARTICLE IX: AMILLENNIALISM NO LONGER INCONCEIVABLE, SECTION I

 

Like most new Christians do, I read numerous books on the end times immediately after my born again beginning. Because the popular books on eschatology all leaned in one direction, I inclined that way as well. It took many years before I discovered teachers of a different mold from sensationalist sellers of millenarian books. It took a long time before my application of certain interpretive principles led me out from the cave of misunderstanding on this topic. The propositions in this article started to come together as I became comfortably convinced of how one single subject about the end times ought to be interpreted. The article itself is the outcome of an idea that I had for a hilltop meeting on the subject of the millennium. I don’t remember how it did it (for Jonathan Edwards was postmillennial in his belief), but his book called ‘A History of the Work of Redemption’ is what first made me suspect, twenty years ago in 2004, that premillennialism might be indefensible. I never wanted premillennialism to be unfounded. Because of this, I can honestly say that this article contains the fruits of years of independent education and unbiased investigation. These results, moreover, have not been allowed to stand except after frequent periods of meditation. The acquired input, in the exercise of meditation, has been held loosely aloft to sort itself out before settling into certainty. Note that Premillennialism, Chiliasm, and Millenarianism are terms that are used interchangeably in this article.    

Introduction

As is often the case with controversial subjects or subjects that are more on the margins than mainstream, the proper belief concerning the apocalyptic millennium is, I believe, not the popular one. The popular belief about it has been, since at least WWI, dispensational premillennialism. The premillennial teaching has occupied more shelves in the twentieth century, probably, than any other one found in Christian bookstores. And doubtless it has made its authors more money in the last fifty years of that century than any teaching propounded in all of Christendom. This teaching is the belief that the one thousand years that are mentioned in Revelation 20 are literal years and that Jesus Christ will return bodily to set up a kingdom of peace lasting for that exact amount of time and that he will then rule the world for this duration from Jerusalem with a rod of iron. Christians are united in believing that his second advent will be personal, physical, visible, and sudden. But not all of us believe that he is coming back to set up a paradisiacal thousand years of peace before the final judgment takes place. 

After end times enthusiasts have shamed themselves as deeply as their piles of cash are high from selling melodramatic books, the time has come to look at how amillennialism is shamelessly conceivable. If the end times aficionados would have been correct, each one of us Christians would be under his own fig tree right now with pet lions lying down beside oxen carelessly chewing their cud. This would be our situation because that is how literally most premillennial advocates interpret symbolic language; and this would be our situation right now because they (not all of them) have predicted the time of the rapture, and, consequently, the return of Christ and the start of the millennium, albeit cleverly and not in so many words. Each reader who has read books on the end times, if he has read them critically, has noticed that. Now that these predictions have failed, and because some readers remember their being made, a subset of these readers are reduced to believing that no prophecy whatsoever awaits, which position, of course, is heretical, for the actual in-person second coming of Jesus Christ is a capital doctrine of the Christian Faith. Millenarianism, if it is false, can cause frustration in the person who discovers it to be false, resulting in a recoil and unbelief. There are negative consequences to harping on or hyping up a teaching that might happen to be imaginary. There is an alternative to premillennialism that is more sobering than sensational and that, because of this temper, does not lead to a letdown or to unbelief. This alternative may be drawn straight from the chapter that millenarians depend on the most for the kind of millennium that they espouse. 

First, I will present three inducements from Revelation 20 to disbelieve in millenarianism and to believe in amillennianism instead. Then I will present specimens of millenarian incompetence and underhandedness as two further inducements. Each one of the three inducements collapses the idea of a literal millennium of peace on earth; and the specimens of incompetence and underhandedness reinforce the likelihood that millenarianism is a falsehood.

PART I, ARTICLE VIII: THE PERILOUS FOLLY OF FULL PRETERISM, SECTION V

Conclusion         

As mentioned earlier, in order to learn what the big to-do about full preterism was, I watched several videos about it, both for and against; then I watched a few debates on the subject. David Hester calls full preterism a heresy; but he debates Don K. Preston and even treats him as a brother. As I have shown from Scripture, this is wrong. The apostle Paul did not debate heretics in a forum or manner wherein heretics were treated as brothers. David Hester is Education Director and Involvement Minister for the Eastern Meadows Church of Christ in Montgomery, Alabama. Don K. Preston had his hotel room paid for when he came to town to preach heresy in this church. David Hester complains about division in the Church; but then he invites a heretical divider into his church to preach heresy to his people. 

Because I had to learn about a current heresy to be opposed and refuted, I cannot be held guilty for watching debates that I don’t believe should have happened. I will now share the two most important things I learned from that minor mental exertion. I do not know if David Hester is thoroughly orthodox. I don’t know enough about his ministry in order to judge that. But when he speaks traditional orthodoxy against full preterism, I can easily understand him; I have ‘ears to hear’ what he says. Conversely, even when Don K. Preston says ‘catch the power of this!’ I cannot catch that power no matter how hard I try. I can’t follow him down his winding corridors; I can’t see what he sees; I can’t hear what he hears; I can’t catch the power that he has caught. Either he is blind to the Bible, or I am. I can catch the power of what I believe is faithful exposition; but I can’t catch the power of full preterism. This, I believe, is because full preterism is perilously unorthodox. When a Christian cannot catch light from a speaker, the speaker is likely in darkness. If what he says is as nebulous as the un-deciphered Code of Hammurabi, he, not the Christian listening, should be suspected of cloudiness and confusion. This is the most convincing indicator, I think, of full preterism being unorthodox. Because it is both dark and perilous, the sincere Christian will not be able to catch its alleged light and power. I have ears to hear when Michael Brown debates Preston as well. I even have ears to hear when Jason Wallace debates him. Wallace was so over his head in that debate that he was drowned in it; but because his arguments lined up with Scripture, my Christian spirit recognized that he was right. The most airtight argument for the full preterist being wrong, then, is the revelation in 1 Corinthians 2: “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given us of God” (verse 12.) The spirit saved by God through Christ can recognize error because the truth has been revealed to him and resides inside him. He has the mind of Christ (verse 16.) Mr. Wallace played the fool in deciding to debate Mr. Preston. “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty” (1 Corinthians 1.27.) Don Preston, the wise man, was taken in his ‘own craftiness’ (3.19) at least where I was concerned: because I noticed the ‘foolish things of the world’ (1.27) in Mr. Wallace to be the truth. When listening to these two debaters, it was evident that the heretic was whipping the man who leaned orthodox. Still, the Christian is able to judge that the man who lost is the man who was right. The heretic will call this judgment unfair. To the Christian, this doesn’t matter, for he is the spiritual man in the following verse: “But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man” (1 Corinthians 2.15.) The Christian has something akin to a spiritual nerve to distinguish truth from error. Like Spiderman with his spider sense or a woman with her intuition, the Christian’s ‘inner man’ tingles when something’s not right.   

The second most convincing indicator that full preterism is wrong is that it is based on the year A. D. 70. That is its foundation, which foundation is about as stable as the temple was at that time. The full preterist has to wrest the Scriptures in order to make them fit into this ‘time stamp,’ as he calls it. The future of full preterism is like the fate of the temple that was destroyed in A. D. 70. “There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Matthew 24.2.) It is not safe for the soul to be worshipping at the temple of full preterism.         

If full preterism is gaining ground, it may be because multitudes are finally tired of the other extreme: all the hype and false predictions over the last few decades concerning the rapture, the great tribulation, the antichrist, the mark of the beast, the two witnesses, the millennium, and all the other sensational aspects of pre-millennial faith. Tired of all the fanaticism and false predictions, the natural thing is to react all the way to the other extreme where no prophecy whatsoever has to be waited for ever again. But full preterism, because of its denial of fundamental doctrines, is more perilous by far than any brand of pre-millennialism. Full preterists assert that the second coming, the judgment, and the resurrection are all behind us. If their assertion is wrong, they might as well be denying those doctrines and events. I suppose they believe that history on earth will go on indefinitely. This is likely their belief, for full preterism is earthly. “This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish” (James 3.15.)

Is it not true that Christians who end up being babes tossed about by winds of false doctrine for years upon years are fascinated by things less than elementary—much less elementary than the fundamental doctrines of faith, repentance, baptism, laying on of hands, resurrection, and judgment? (Hebrews 6.1-2.) Are so many of these babes not obsessed with things like glossolalia, the location of Noah’s ark, and the nature of pre-diluvium giants? Speak to them on a topic like that, and their eye becomes as focused as the eye of a cat on a nearby bird. Then mention resurrection, and it is not the history or futurity of this that grips them—not the resurrection of Jesus or the general resurrection—but an alleged resurrection by a ‘faith healer.’ These babes are the ones who are most susceptible to believe an idea like ‘the resurrection is past already.’ They are not grounded in basic doctrines; the winds of heresy easily carry them off; and many babes, consequently, are destined to have it discovered at the last day that they were not ‘Fathers in Israel’ like they saw themselves as, and not even ‘newborn babes,’ but deceived unbelievers. Many babes never mature because the fundamentals that lead to childhood are never studied by them, being laid aside for things that titillate more than teach. The first concern of a babe should be to become a child at least. Baby Street, if stayed on, may lead to Heresy Avenue, which in turn opens up to a Broadway leading to Destruction. Warn the stubborn babe of this, and he will be as certain that he is safe as Don K. Preston is of obtaining salvation through his eviscerated system. It is not wrong to seek out mysteries. But there must be order and proportionality to our seeking. A carpenter doesn’t learn to build houses by making hobby horses. A hobby horse Christian is an incorrigible toddler who refuses to be taught. The first principles of religion, what are they? He knows them all. He knows everything about every single one. He must move on to find out how giants were conceived, where the Urim and the Thummim might be discovered, and where the sword of Goliath was last laid down. We don’t need the Urim and the Thummim to divine what happens next. By riding the trails on his hobby horses, without the weight of first principles to keep him grounded, he is blown about, and becomes a full preterist or something just as deadly to his soul. 

One fundamental point gotten wrong has cost many a person so much. A dissertation is lost on account of the wrong button pressed. A rifle fails to fire because the pin was left out. How fundamentally important is the resurrection of the body? Can this teaching be absent from the soul that is saved? An astronomer said that the darkest thing she ever saw was the moon as it covered the sun. The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, if covered by unbelief, will bring about its own eclipse, more dark than any natural one on record, and as stretched out in time as eternity itself. Resurrection, according to my species of synesthesia, is a fiery red word; while unbelief is a black word. This black word is now covering the red one in the lives of many, and it is driven by the impulse of full preterism. We had better die “knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus” (2 Corinthians 4.14.) We had better know this in the reasonable, traditional sense: as Jesus rose from the dead bodily, so will we. Reaching forward into chapter 5, we are reminded of what we all know by observation: that, upon death, a soul becomes absent from its body (5.8.) The prospect, then, is of what must take place thereafter: the rejoining of body and soul. And to what purpose is that? “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” (verse 10.) Full preterism is the belief that all prophecies have been fulfilled. Both heaven and hell are prophesied in the Bible. What can the full preterist believe, then, except that hell and heaven are in the past, and are, therefore, allegorical? And what has the full preterist to say about wrongs one day being righted? If all prophecies are in the past, all murderers and rapists and robbers who have gotten away with their sins and crimes will never be finally judged. If all prophecies are in the past, we are told in vain to ‘give place to wrath’ so that God can do the repaying (Romans 12.19.) If all prophecies are in the past, the Lord will not repay criminals with vengeance after all. Therefore, if the plan of the full preterist is correct, present lawlessness will never give way to justice.              

The story of how Don K. Preston became a full preterist is helpful as a warning. This story he gave in a speech called, Testimony Regarding Full Preterism. Freshly graduated from seminary, Don K. Preston decided, not to teach what the Holy Ghost impressed him with, not even to teach what a new minister ought to be paying attention to, but what the women in his Bible class wanted him to teach. What did he study? What did he teach? He studied and taught Matthew 24 and Revelation. Instead of studying and teaching the fundamentals of the faith, which he ought to have done, he studied and taught the subject of end-time prophecy. Besides the fact of his unbelief, is this not the key to how he was led astray? He began with last things instead of first things; and because he was never grounded in first things, his false interpretation of last things led him into fundamental errors. His problems did not start here though. When he was in seminary, two of his professors admitted that they did not believe what they were about to teach. It is not a surprise, then, that Mr. Preston was cast adrift. Not to say that the ‘Church of Christ’ textbook that his professors were teaching from was thoroughly truthful. The point is that the seminary that he went to did him no good. And then he became a minister who didn’t know what to believe. And from all of this we get a man who ends up preaching full preterism. The man began with last things instead of first things; then he interpreted first things according to his theory of last things; and it is no wonder that a Christian can barely understand a thing that he says. When a man begins with last things before he is grounded in first things, he risks ending mixed up about all things. It is not safe to begin your ministry with difficult eschatological texts that masters in the word of God have been doubtful about the interpretation of and have disagreed with each other on. It is not safe; it is not wise; it is not ministerial. Did he teach something other than eschatology after he graduated? I don’t know; but I doubt it. To teach eschatology as a young minister, without the ballast of historical theology, is impetuous, reckless, and hazardous. It is a sure way to shipwreck your faith and the faith of those who listen to you. How did I write this article? Did I rely on my own skill and understanding? Here is how I did it: I looked closely at each passage that seemed to address the subject in question; I compared those passages with others of similar character; I came up with an outline; I took notes; I looked up some key words; I took more notes; I compared all of this with full preterism; I wrote the article; in my revision of it I made sure that I was convinced; I turned to learned Commentators, and received correction from them in places where they convinced me of error; I opened up a Confession or two, and considered them; and during all of these stages I was meditating and praying intermittently. I did not begin with Commentaries and Confessions. I did the work on my own; then I allowed myself to be edified by the body of Christ (Ephesians 4.12) that these Commentators and Confessors are part of (verse 11.) Before all of this, however—years and years before all of this—I had studied to the point of arriving at a considerable share of certainty regarding a system of theology. This does not mean that my system of theology decided anything; I did not adopt the system before I was persuaded, through much hard labor, of its truth. And this system proves itself right again and again by its reasonable interpretations, especially of passages of Scripture that focus on doctrines and events of the first rank. 

A system that purports to solve problems by a great sweep is attractive to persons who like singularity more than complexity, and relaxation more than labor. Imagine: so many prophecies thought unsolvable, redirected through one easy channel! a system with more unifying force in eschatology than the theories of Einstein in science! Its design is to draw prophecies to itself to receive the simple explanation of the year A. D. 70. But lo! “The Guillotine was not originally designed with any view to what turned out to be its most important characteristic—the great numbers of victims that it could dispose of in a short space of time: it is curious, and ought to be to theorists an instructive lesson, that this bloody implement was at first proposed on a combined principle of justice and mercy” (John Wilson Croker, History of the Guillotine, p. 7.) The cure of beheading became worse than the alleged disease of hanging. Similarly, full preterism is worse than what it claims to be a fix for. It may become a convenient mode, not to solve prophetic puzzles, but to smooth the way toward hell for thousands of inconstant professors. It can roll from place to place like a Guillotine could, only faster. It may roll from city to city and from site to site, drawing souls away from the faith without bother of removing heads. Full preterism is no innocuous belief. Prophecy is not a frivolous matter. The second coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the judgment of the world are doctrines and events that souls must live on, or else die forever without. To knit and gossip around a Guillotine, as certain women did during the Reign of Terror in France, is no way to stop the blade from falling. Full preterists must be warned before they lose their everlasting souls. It may be, since men choose to trifle instead of learn what they should believe, that the Lord is dispatching a Robespierre or two in the midst, to take multitudes down in their folly. Strong delusions are sent by God to deal with persons who amuse themselves with lies when they should receive the truth; and their false believing issues in damnation (2 Thessalonians 2.) This is not unlike a person who wills to believe, against mounting evidence, that there is a plague when there isn’t one, only to be given over by God to further believe that he needs a vaccine, which vaccine ends up killing him. 

In the French Revolution it was shown that a cheek, when slapped, will blush after its head is severed. In like manner, dead bodies will blush with life when the Lord comes back to resurrect. And what comes after but the final judgment? To have died a full preterist will be to have died in faith that is vain instead of saving. There is a resurrection unto damnation; full preterism is a damnable heresy; many bodies, no doubt, will be raised to be damned because of an allegiance to it. 

Professing Christians who are most in danger of falling for the full preterist heresy are persons who have become exhausted by all the false predictions of prophecy pundits and their pulp prophecy books. This includes, especially, professing Christians who hold Pentecostal beliefs. This kind of professing Christian acts like, even if he does not say so, as if the Bible may be, not only contradicted, but superseded by his subjective connection with the Holy Ghost. That his beliefs may contradict the Bible poses no more problem to his mind than the clash between verses in the Koran troubles the Muslim.        

Full preterism is a foolish, perilous heresy. Those who travel down this road risk losing their path toward heaven. There are certain doctrines and events that we, as professing Christians, are obligated to believe. To not believe that the Lord is coming back to resurrect and to judge is to disbelieve some of the most fundamental matters of religion in the Bible. Resurrection is the completion of redemption. It is called ‘the redemption of the body.’ Can a person be saved while disbelieving in redemption? The notion that one can seems blasphemous. “Where is the promise of his coming?” (2 Peter 3.4.) To the full preterist, the promise has been fulfilled, and we didn’t even know it. But the second coming of Jesus Christ is not in the past. It still stretches out in the future because the Lord “is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (verse 9.) This extension of mercy does not exclude the full preterist, as sacrilegious as his heresies are; any full preterist who is among the elect will, in the fullness of his time on earth, repent and receive correction. The longer he puts repentance and learning off, the more he should suspect that it has not been decreed from eternity that he enter the kingdom of God.

PART I, ARTICLE VIII: THE PERILOUS FOLLY OF FULL PRETERISM, SECTION IV

 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.

PART I, ARTICLE VIII: THE PERILOUS FOLLY OF FULL PRETERISM, SECTION III

An Egregious Dissimilarity

Full preterism is eerily similar to the unbelief of Sadducees and the heresy of Hymenaeus and Philetus, the two heretics who maintained that the resurrection was past. Full preterism is therefore egregiously dissimilar from the orthodox view. In Philippians 3.11 the apostle Paul speaks of a resurrection that he hopes to attain unto: “If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.” What kind of resurrection is he speaking of? Is he speaking of regeneration—of hoping to be born again? This would not make sense because he was converted, and therefore regenerated, about thirty years before writing this letter. What resurrection is he looking forward to here except an actual resurrection of his body from the dead? The full preterists assert that every prophecy that was not fulfilled up until A. D. 70 was fulfilled in A. D. 70. It is understandable, then, that they would pick the path of least absurdity by stating that the general resurrection of the dead is not a physical one. What that resurrection is, from their viewpoint, it is hard to tell. William Bell’s ‘hope of righteousness’ does not sound like a resurrection, though that is what he says the resurrection is, or was. If we can make resurrection to mean that, we can make it to mean almost anything. I have read elsewhere that to the full preterist, the resurrection of the dead is the resurrection of a cause. But again, if the word resurrection is that malleable, what else could it mean? Are there any limits to its plasticity? The word ‘resurrection’ in Philippians 3.11 means ‘a rising from death.’ The resurrection of a cause would not be a resurrection; it would be a revolution of sorts, or perhaps a reformation. The interpreting of verse 11 is as easy as it gets; and if it is not easy enough on its own, the context makes it even easier. Paul the apostle wants to be found, in the end, in possession of the righteousness of Christ (verse 9.) This is true. But he wants to be found in possession of this that he may know ‘the power of his resurrection.’ There is a hope of righteousness that he looks to; but the end of this desire is to be fully clothed with it and fully changed by it, in both body and soul. We know this because of verse 21: “Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.” Why speak of a body if what he means is a resurrection that doesn’t involve his body? This ‘body’ is sometimes used as a metaphor to identify the Church body. But usually it means the physical body, as in the ‘body’ of Tabitha, who was raised from the dead. “And turning to the body, said, Tabitha, arise…and he…presented her alive” (Acts 9.40, 41.) This is the kind of body that Paul is talking about in Philippians 3, except that he is hoping for a ‘glorious body’ (verse 21), not one that will be subject to death again, as the body of Tabitha was. It is not impossible to see A. D. 70 in Matthew 24. But he who finds it in Philippians 3 must be looking, not through a glass darkly, but through an A. D. 70 eye-glass. That is what one must do to find a fit for the theory of full preterism; and that is what is being done by an increasing number of misled people. 

Full preterism is A. D. 70-ism. Its mode of interpretation is not unlike what is done by our modern Marxists. Whatever these Marxists look at and whatever they read, they see racism in it. Whatever Bible text the full preterist reads, he sees a time stamp pointing to A. D. 70. If he doesn’t see it, he nevertheless looks for it and hopes to see it. Paul wrote to the Philippians in the early 60s from Rome, about 10 years after that church’s founding and more than two decades after his conversion on the road to Damascus. He no doubt knew about the contents of Matthew 24 by then (the contents of the chapter, not necessarily the book of Matthew.) If he was looking forward to a symbolic resurrection of something other than his body, why did he use plain, rather than apocalyptic, language, to voice his desire? Why lead us to believe that he was looking forward to having his vile body changed if he was really looking forward to an allegorical change that had nothing to do with his body? Resurrection in the mold of A. D. 70-ism is egregiously dissimilar from the kind of resurrection that Paul was hoping for. How say the full preterists, then, that the resurrection is not physical and that it happened in A. D. 70? The apostle Paul looked forward to a physical resurrection that he did not associate with the year A. D. 70 at all. There was no other kind of resurrection for him to look forward to. The resurrection that he hoped for is called ‘the redemption of our body’ (Romans 8.23), not the revolution of a cause that began in A. D. 70.            

The Scriptures, even by nothing less than the preaching of our Lord, teach that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust: “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5.28, 29.) “Marvel not at this.” In other words, take this communication in the plainest sense. Is what he says allegorical somehow, pointing to A. D. 70? How is this passage different from the passage on the vision of the valley of dry bones, in which resurrection is spoken of in a figurative fashion? The difference is that Ezekiel 37 involves a vision. The prophet is ‘carried out in the spirit of the LORD’ to see what must be shown (verse 1.) The interpretation is given in several verses later, of which here is one: “And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel” (verse 22.) So Israel and Judah will be raised from the dead, as it were, joined, and then gathered ‘into their own land’ (verses 17, 21.) Even in this allegorical vision, though, it seems possible that literal resurrections are prophesied, for the passage alludes to a life of immortality: ‘for evermore’ (verse 26.) Conversely, the passage in John by Jesus has nothing in it of allegory. The resurrection spoken of there is wholly literal. Jesus is not having a vision in John 5. Neither is what he says explained as an allegory there. He is preaching a literal resurrection of dead persons from their graves. So the passage in Ezekiel 37, which is chiefly allegorical, may have a literal aspect. And the passage in John 5, which is literal, has no allegorical aspect. There is an egregious dissimilarity between the resurrection of a full preterist, which is allegorical and past; and the resurrection preached by Jesus in John 5, which is literal and futuristic.  

Both the Lord Jesus and Saint Paul taught the physical resurrection of bodies from their graves. This resurrection is what a Christian hopes to attain unto because it is the miracle that makes him able to enter upon his inheritance of all good things and to enjoy uninterrupted contact with God in the fullness of both body and soul. A resurrection must also happen to the unbeliever, for sins done in the body must be punished in the body (2 Corinthians 5.10.)

PART I, ARTICLE VIII: THE PERILOUS FOLLY OF FULL PRETERISM, SECTION II

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.

PART I, ARTICLE VIII: THE PERILOUS FOLLY OF FULL PRETERISM, SECTION I

There may come a time when a Christian has to risk friendship and fellowship because of what the word of God says regarding heresies and heretics. He may have to offend in order to defend God’s word and to make an attempt to set a straying friend straight and to get him back on the narrow path of orthodoxy. The word of God commands Christians to not tolerate heresy; there are no exceptions for friends. This friend of mine has since died, and not before our alienation on account of my challenge to his new beliefs. The omen that I had of his death has been fulfilled. My uncertain hope is that his false beliefs were rooted in his overwhelming fear of aging and death, not in his unbelief; and that his startling decease was nothing more serious than a chastening stroke from God. But can a man end his life as a heretic and be saved at last? Even with mitigating circumstances in his favor? This study resulted from my attempt to understand this friend’s position and to answer his heretical propositions more satisfyingly than I had done orally to his face. It took a couple of visits by this friend before I could even begin to understand what he was espousing. Then, as I necessarily edged closer to applying the command in Galatians 1.8, 9, he quit coming over because of that righteous offense, and our communications ended.  

Introduction

The term ‘preterism’ is not featured in my Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms from 1999. Neither do I see it listed in McClintock and Strong’s exhaustive Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature from the late 1800s. And I have never come across the word in any of the many theological books that I have read from centuries previous to that, even those that deal with Revelation’s last things, like Samuel Hopkins’ Treatise on the Millennium from 1794, for example. Regardless of this absence, the word is commonly used now, in the 21st century. Wherever I look for the meaning of the word, I find that ‘preterism’ comes from ‘praetor,’ a Latin word, which means ‘had.’ Except in one place I find that it comes from the longer Latin word, ‘praeteritus,’ which means ‘past’ or ‘bygone.’ This last opinion more exactly pinpoints the view of the full preterist: that all prophecy is bygone, or fulfilled. I have heard ‘preterism’ referred to as ‘pastism.’ That word-hook is a good way to remember what cryptic ‘preterism’ means. On a website called English Learner, it says that the first use of the word was by a clergyman from the Church of England, George Faber (1773-1854.) What his view on it was, I have not bothered to gather.   

Writing about an odd heresy like full preterism would never have occurred to me if an old friend had not fallen for it and spoken of it to me. Wanting a more thorough answer to this friend than one that I could come up with in the moment and on the spot, I sought out full preterists on videos, watched videos by men who opposed the view, and watched several debates on it. Having done all of that, I still had no satisfying closure. So I thought about what the Scriptures taught in relation to what I had heard. Then an outline began to form, into which I could set down a biblical response. Because coming from myself, the answer gave me some assurance of having dealt with the matter to my satisfaction. “That business does not usually go on well, which you transact with the eyes of other persons” (Livy.)  

Prophecies viewed as pertaining to last things is that part of theology called ‘eschatology.’ These things that have traditionally been taken as events to look forward to are, to full preterists, things that have long ago come to pass. Full preterism—also called ‘consistent preterism,’ ‘radical preterism,’ and ‘hyper preterism’—is a view that is wholly backward-looking where prophecy is concerned. To full preterists, even the second coming of Christ, as well as the general resurrection and the final judgment that are connected with it, is nearly two thousand years gone by. They say that these monumental prophecies were somehow fulfilled in the year A. D. 70. So maybe the best name for this eschatological belief is ‘realized eschatology.’ My name for it is ‘A. D. 70-ism’ because the Siege of Jerusalem in A. D. 70 is what full preterism is based on. Don K. Preston, a full preterist, calls the movement ‘covenant eschatology,’ which dignified name it does not deserve. 

In order to avoid making a slip in this article, observe that for me, the ‘full preterist’ is synonymous with the ‘preterist’; if I use both terms, I will use them interchangeably. As for the ‘partial preterist,’ to me this is the traditional interpreter who does not reckon prophecy to have been entirely fulfilled. I will show, later, that every Christian is at least a ‘partial preterist.’    

Full preterism is not, to my surprise, a view that is as easy to dismiss as the belief in Neanderthals or Piltdown Man. Because some apocalyptic passages can be easily shown as fulfilled, all other apocalyptic passages are susceptible, in the wrong hands, to the same explanation. Moreover, since resurrection is sometimes used in the New Testament in a non-material sense, every reference to resurrection is, to a degree, likewise impressionable. 

I must show what I mean, firstly, about the interpretation of apocalyptic passages; then, secondly, about the interpretation of resurrection. 

Here is an apocalyptic passage that has been fulfilled: “For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine” (Isaiah 13.10.) This, in apocalyptic speech, concerns the judgment that was prophesied against Babylon; this prophecy has been fulfilled by the warring Medes and Persians. The language reminds us of what we read in Matthew 24, which passage appears to be a cosmological description of Christ’s return: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken” (verse 29.) The full preterist argues that this verse, and the passage of which the verse is a part, was fulfilled in the year A. D. 70 when General Titus and his Roman forces overcame to destroy Jerusalem. This was, says the full preterist, when the Son of man came ‘in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory’ (verse 30.) This sense is convincing, given the context in light of history. Great Commentators are divided concerning the passage. John Gill says that it refers to the Siege of Jerusalem in A. D. 70. Matthew Poole says that it refers, rather, to the second coming of Christ, or perhaps to that and the siege. Gill’s view has the similar language of Isaiah concerning Babylon for support; Poole’s view has the similar language of 2 Peter 3.10 for its helper, which text, more particularly than most, seems to point to the second coming of Christ to judge, not Jerusalem merely, but the World. Here is that verse: “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” Both Gill and Poole take this verse from 2 Peter 3 in the futuristic sense, though Gill does not exclude the A. D. 70 holocaust in his interpretation of it. The full preterist, however, excludes what Gill and Poole reckon as constituting the essence of the passage: the actual future judgment of the world by Jesus Christ. Because some apocalyptic passages have been fulfilled, it is possible, on the strength of that, to be inveigled to believe that they all have.  

Concerning the interpretation of resurrection, now; the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is asserted in Scripture as clearly and boldly as anything can possibly be. The apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, declares vain that faith which doesn’t believe it: “And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain” (verse 14.) But there is, too, an immaterial kind of resurrection in Scripture. “If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,” urges the apostle to the Colossians (3.1.) This resurrection, obviously, can only be an immaterial one; otherwise the Colossians could not obey the command until their bodies were physically raised from the dead, and they weren’t even dead yet. The resurrection referred to in this verse is likely a regenerative one; we must at least admit that it has to do with the soul, not the body. Full preterists, though, interpret even the resurrection of bodies in some sense other than material, except, I presume, those bodily resurrections that are recorded in Scripture and that precede the year A. D. 70, like the resurrections of Tabitha and Lazarus. As for the general resurrection of literal bodies from the dead, they don’t believe it; it may be more proper to say, for most of them, I think, that they no longer believe it. “That there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust” (Acts 24.15)—this they disavow; to them this verse does not refer to literal bodies being raised at some future time. It is difficult to find what, to them, the nature of resurrection is in passages that, to the rest of us, speak of the general resurrection. William Bell says that it is a ‘hope of righteousness.’ That is his ‘body of resurrection.’ To him, there will be no literal, physical resurrection of bodies from their graves. Whatever full preterists interpret from the resurrection of the body in verses like Acts 24.15, they do not mean actual bodily resurrection. Resurrection is sometimes spoken of in Scripture in a metaphorical sense. The full preterist is right about that, though he is wrong about this verse.  Because resurrection is sometimes used metaphorically, full preterism, if cunningly wielded, can present a plausible case to uninstructed persons.  

So apocalyptic language does not guarantee that its prophecy awaits fulfillment; and resurrection is not always of the body. These two facts are taken advantage of by preterists who believe or want, for whatever reason, all prophecies to be in the past.                  

If we take the book of Revelation as that which tells us of last things, we all are preterists at least partially. It is foretold, for example, in Revelation 2, that the church in Smyrna will suffer tribulation and that members of this church will have their faith tested ‘unto death.’ The history of this fulfillment is well-known, and has been recorded by such reliable historians as Eusebius and John Foxe. The church of God in Smyrna wrote a letter about how the prophecy about them, in the book of Revelation, was fulfilled in certain members of their church. Foxe, via Eusebius, gives the tenor of this epistle, of which here is a part: “Their patience was so admirable (saith the epistle) that the bystanders were amazed; while they beheld them torn with whips till their veins and arteries appeared, yea and even their bowels and the inward structure of their frame were laid open to view; then, laid on prickly sea-shells, and on little sharp spikes or nails…in short, made to go through every kind of punishment and torture that could be devised; and, lastly, thrown to the wild beasts to be devoured” (John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, Volume I, p. 671.) Partial pastism of eschatology is therefore unavoidable. Furthermore, the ‘last days’ were begun even before the book of Revelation was written. They were in effect when Jesus Christ ministered on earth. The writer to the Hebrews says that God ‘hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son’ (1.2.) Far from these last days being in the past, though, we are still living in them. “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6.54.) This ‘last day’ is at the end of the ‘last days.’ It is the last day of the last days. And this resurrection at the last day is yet future. Here is how we know that. Eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking Jesus’ blood—this speaks of faith which obtains eternal life by believing, which could happen even today. What comes after? “I will raise him up at the last day.” Therefore the resurrection happens after a person believes on Jesus. This resurrection cannot be regenerative because regeneration happens before, or at least when, faith is obtained—when whoso eateth Jesus’ flesh, and drinketh Jesus’ blood. Therefore what kind of resurrection is it? We know that it is a personal one because of the word ‘him’—which refers to any person who consumes, by faith, the life, death, and doctrine of Christ. I have consumed this holy body and blood; but this I did post-A. D. 70. Therefore my resurrection did not happen back then. I know that it didn’t (not even in an allegorical sense) because the text says that it happens after I eat Jesus’ flesh and drink Jesus’ blood. It must be that I am still waiting for it. Suppose that a sinner does not eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus, which he consumes in a mystical sense by believing, until the year 2020, or 1590, or even 75 A. D. By appropriating the body and blood of the Lord, he is the ‘whoso’ in the verse, which ‘whoso’ must yet be raised up; therefore, his resurrection is not past, but to come. Besides, if we (today, not just Christians of the first century) are supposed to ‘eat this bread and drink this cup,’ by which we shew the Lord’s death ‘till he come’ (1 Corinthians 11.26), then it must be that the Lord is coming back, even after A. D. 70 and even after 2020 to raise us up ‘at the last day.’  

Full preterism, therefore, is unorthodox and heretical, denying as it does, a future resurrection for persons who consume the body and blood of the Lord. The following three points will, I believe, distinctly show the unorthodoxy of this movement. In consideration of full preterism under a New Testament light, three blemishes may be observed: an eerie similarity, an egregious dissimilarity, and an eradicated expectancy.