Content in category Preterism

A Costly Neglect

I realize I’ve said as much many times before, but feel this needs more urgently to be stressed now than ever. By its nature, my calling and part in the Body has exposed me, far more than I could wish, to the inner workings of many strong and compelling lies that powerfully oppose and threaten the church’s readiness to escape the unparalleled deception that Jesus said would both precede and accompany the unequaled tribulation.

Even now, throughout the far greater part of professing Christendom, the tribulation without parallel or equal is believed to be past. The tribulation has come and gone with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. A fast-growing (two related words like this become one hyphenated adjective) community called ‘preterist’ believes that Jesus’ promised return “immediately after the tribulation of those days” has also come and gone, some stoutly affirming that the resurrection is also past. This, since Dan 12:1-2 so unequivocally connects the resurrection to the unequaled tribulation.

A less popular but still thriving view, particularly among Adventist groups, is the so-called ‘historicist’ view of Revelation. This view sees the ‘great tribulation’, not as a brief period of time at the the end, but as stretching out to include either all or most of the inter-advent period. Many historic premillennialists (an accepted prefix – no need for a hyphen) view the half week (the 3 1/2 years of Daniel and Revelation) (delete comma – parentheses function as commas) as beginning with the ascension, basing their view on Rev. 12’s imagery of the catching up of the man-child, followed immediately in vision by the great tribulation.

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The Narrative-Historical Reading of the New Testament

I fear for any view of the faith that is so blind to the place and role of Israel that it cannot see in current trends the inexorable build up to the final world rebellion against the holy covenant. Who will sound the mid-night call? Who will be found giving the master’s household their “meat” in due season? Who will prepare the way of the Lord? That’s the call, or at least a central part of the church’s stewardship for this hour.

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Difficult Millennial Questions

I can’t find a verse in the NT that describes sacrifices during the millennium? Indeed, we look in vain to find millennial sacrifices mentioned in the NT, but it is also not surprising. The NT is not interested to repeat all the great detail that the prophets describe of the […]

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The True Witness

[…] The world needs to see that those who speak the truth are able to dwell with their brethren in unity, because that’s where the Lord commanded the blessing. That’s how Jesus said the world would know, not through theoretical agreement on doctrine. Since God is a God of reality and not of theory, a God of incarnation embodiment, and demonstration, how can this be shown in a practical / real way to an on looking world? “Noah, being warned of things not seen as yet, moved with fear…” The rejected Joseph went ahead of his unbelieving brethren to save life, not only spiritual, but physical. At the conference, I hope to make the case that Jewish spiritual regeneration will depend on their physical survival to the end. Let us not separate what God has joined.

In the case of Noah and Joseph, provision was anticipated and made on the basis of clear prophetic faith. Not bare belief, but obedience to the voice of prophecy is the witness to Jew and gentile alike, whether this pertains to things physical or spiritual, as though there was ever the divide that religion has made. It is not mere beliefs, or an introverted occupation with personal salvation, but obedience that is the witness to this generation and to our families […]

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Dominionism

I do not exaggerate when I say that I’ve never seen the prophetic portions of scripture handled more irresponsibly. This writer distorts and goes beyond the most extreme forms of non-millennial and anti-futurist viewpoints of preterism and / or amillennialism. At least those schools recognize a great tribulation and some form of Antichrist. Even if they interpret this to be Nero, or the 70 A.D. destruction of Jerusalem, still, they understand that any “dominion” that Christ secured at the cross did not mean that the early church would not face a future falling away and Antichrist persecution. Even on amillennial terms, Satan’s “little season” is still future, as this is where many amillennialists locate a future Antichrist, just prior to what they see as a general resurrection, with no millennium to follow.

Even in the view of preterists and amillennialists, the early church is not so completely ‘done with the devil’, as to be exempt from what was certainly to them a future tribulation and Antichrist (2Thes 2:3-4). The “dominion” of the fourth beast was not so completely broken, as to exempt the early church from its expectation of a future tribulation of unequaled severity (Dan 12:1; Mt 24:21; Rev 7:14).

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Why Amillennialism or Why No Millennium?

[…] To be “in Christ” is to be “in Israel”. To belong to Christ is to belong to Israel. To be born into Christ is to be grafted into the Israel of God, the Israel of the new creation. En-grafted gentiles are equal heirs of Israel’s covenants of promise, since the covenants and promises were not made with any other people. The seed of faith, the children of Abraham, the circumcision of the Spirit etc. are one regenerate people of God, whom Paul calls, “the election” (Ro 11:7). This is the “holy nation” to whom Jesus said the kingdom would be given (Mt 21:43; 1Pet 2:9). It is the Israel of the new creation, which must extend to the regeneration of an elect number of the natural branches at the coming day of the Lord in fulfillment of the demands of the covenant (Ro 11:26-27). “The election” must at length include a surviving third of Israel, when the nation will be born in a day (Isa 66:8; Zech 3:9; 13:8-9). […]

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The Order of the Return (Part 1)

that ill-prepares the people of God for what is ahead for both Israel and the church. Preterism puts the tribulation in the past. Amillennialism conceives of a “little season” of Satan’s release at the end of this age, with little specificity, and certainly no definite relationship to Israel. Historicism, with its often failed ‘year day’ theory, spreads the tribulation out over history, with an intensive resurgence at the end, while Pre-tribulationism exempts the church from any presence or role in the tribulation, so that “Jacob’s trouble” is only “Jacob’s problem”, since the church is in heaven at the wedding feast while Israel suffers the Antichrist. Hence, ours is a comparatively rare perspective that sees both Israel and the church together in a literal tribulation of 3 ½ years of unequaled affliction, as the church is engaged in prophetic witness and intercessory travail for the final redemption of the covenant nation, amid a common experience of world wide flight and persecution.

When aware of a future great tribulation, the primary concern has been the purification of the church through persecution. This is true, and we believe the church will be greatly transformed, but the primary purpose of “the tribulation, the great one” is to accomplish the historic fulfillment of what the prophets call, the ‘everlasting covenant’ (Isa 59:21; Jer 32:40; Ro 11:27), which necessarily requires the full coming in of “all Israel”, whom Paul identifies as the “natural branches” of present enmity (Ro 11:21, 24, 28). In conjunction with Christ’s return, the restoration of Israel finishes the mystery of God (Rev 10:7) and begins the millennial reign of Christ. […]

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The Fundamental Error of Amillennialism

[…] How we read Daniel and Revelation is first an issue of whether we can trust what Luther called, the priesthood of every believer, or whether we can only safely follow the tradition of interpretation that has come down to us through many of the churchs theological heroes, such as the famed magisterial Reformers, Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli, and their vast theological progeny, as also the popes and bishops of the church of Rome. For the larger part, all have been Augustinian in their interpretation of the Daniel and the Apocalypse. This is why amillennialism has dominated most of Protestant and nearly all Roman Catholic eschatology. It is well known that St. Augustine of Hippo is the father of the a-millennial interpretation of the thousand years (i.e., that the church is the kingdom of God on earth and the millennium is symbolic of the church age).

Augustinian denial of a future millennium is not the only system of interpretation that denies the literal interpretation of the many prophecies that depict the post-tribulational salvation of a surviving remnant of the Jewish people and the restoration of the nation as a distinctly Jewish nation (Dan 2:44). Simply put, if there is no millennium, there can be no literal fulfillment of the vast amount of prophecy that depicts a glorious future for benighted and beleaguered Israel after the unequaled tribulation at the coming day of the Lord, which the New Testament equates with the time of Christs return […]

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The Tragic Cost of Replacement Theology

[…] Until recently, the church has, for the larger part, retired in defeat from Jewish evangelism. Yet nothing else is more calculated to prepare and deepen the church in its own faith than its encounter with the formidable Jew, the beloved enemy “for your sakes”. The Jew forces the church to do its homework. The challenge of outreach and witness to the Jew is calculated to deepen the church’s appreciation for the mystery of the faith as nothing else. If the church resigns its calling to go to the Jew first, it surrenders a key component in God’s larger strategy in the evangelism of the nations. Hence, the church that is ineffectual towards Israel is ineffectual in a crucial aspect of its mission, which must be accomplished in order for Christ to return.

Israel is God’s self appointed mission impossible. History has an appointment to keep. The glory of God is demonstrated in His ability to finally bring the very same people that He first brought out of Egypt into the Land to stay (see Num 14:11-21; Dan 2:44. Compare the phrase “other people in Lev 20:24, 26 with Dan 2:44). The divine conquest of Jewish unbelief will be the like the parting of the Red Sea. The birthing of Israel ‘in one day’ (Isa 66:8; Zech 3:9) will be a monument to irresistible grace, comparable to Paul’s sovereign divine arrest on the Damascus road (Gal 1:15-16; w/ Ps 102:13; 110:3). Only this will be public in the sight of all nations. Indeed God has bound the destiny of all nations to the fall and rising again of Israel. If the church knew this, as it once did, it could never pray for the kingdom to come on earth without this consciousness. It would see Israel’s salvation as a special object of its corporate travail (in analogy to Paul’s travail for his Galatians; Gal 4:19 w/ Isa 66:8; Rev 12:2). […]

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Reflections on the Mystery of Israel and the Church... by Reggie Kelly

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