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But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of
my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets:
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The word "heretic" comes from the Greek word for "choose." (Word Study)
Everybody is a "heretic" in someone else's eyes. Joshua said "Choose ye this day whom you will serve." Elijah told the people, "How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him." Elijah was a heretic in the eyes of the prophets of Baal.
The Bible lays on us a moral obligation -- a duty -- to become a "heretic." Either a "heretic" like Paul, Joshua, and Elijah, or the kind of heretic that chooses Baal, the world, or the city of man rather than the City of God.
We must choose between the Word of God and the word of man.
Thesis:Preterism is the result of a standard "grammatico-historical" analysis of the text of Scripture.
Futurism is the result of obedience to Popes and Bishops and the creeds of "the Church."
We must choose between the Word of God and the word of "the Church"
The authors of the Bible intended to communicate the proposition that Jesus was going to return in wrath to judge the generation that witnessed His First Coming and rejected Him as Messiah.
The original readers of the Bible understood the Scriptures to communicate the proposition that Jesus was going to return in wrath to judge the generation that witnessed His First Coming and rejected Him as Messiah.
And in history (AD 70), Jesus returned and destroyed Jerusalem and the Old Testament Temple System.
So if you simply read all the verses pertaining to Christ's coming, you will be a full preterist.
There isn't a single verse in the Bible which was intended to convey the idea that Jesus would return a third time, after judging Jerusalem in AD 70, thousands of years in the future.
No reader of the New Testament in the years before AD 70 understood any verses to be speaking of a coming of Christ thousands of years in the future, rather than a coming against "that generation."
Consider another variety of "partial preterist." This third position still upholds a belief in a yet-future eschatological event, even though this position grants the claim of the "full preterist" that there are no verses of Scripture which teach that yet-future event.
The last time I spoke with David Chilton on the phone was before he became a "Full Preterist." He admitted that there are no verses in the Bible that teach a future (for us) "second coming." But, he said, he nevertheless believed the doctrine of a future second coming because (these are his words) "Holy Mother the Church has taught the doctrine for 2,000 years." At this point, Chilton, who came out of the California "Jesus People" movement, and at one time preached in zorries and a Hawaiian shirt, was wearing a clerical collar. He soon came out as a "full preterist." I don't know how his doctrine of the institutional church changed. He died prematurely, without our having another conversation.
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If you are a "partial preterist," or if you are not a "full preterist," |
Is it God's Truth or merely man's claim that someone who believes all the eschatological verses in the Bible were fulfilled by AD70 is not a genuine believer in Christ?
I've heard that claim.
I've heard it said that if someone embraces "full preterism," that person has "denied the orthodox faith" and is no longer a Christian.
Not a Christian.
Damned to hell for eternity.
Even if that person affirms the deity of Christ and His substitutionary atonement.
He's not a Christian.
Even if he's a six-day creationist and a five-point Calvinist.
Not a true Christian.
Even if that person affirms and defends the first 30 chapters of the Westminster Confession of Faith.
Dammed to hell.
Even if his behavior is characterized by moral purity and the spirit of Christ.
He denies one of the teachings of "the Church," and has therefore denied the "orthodox faith," and is therefore not a genuine believer.
He's not a real Christian because he's a "full preterist."
I'm not making this up.
I strenuously disagree with the claim.
I think the Biblical case for anarcho-preterism is overwhelming.
But despite the overwhelming Biblical support for anarcho-preterism, it is denounced by many as "heresy." Some will say advocates of anarcho-preterism aren't even Christian, because they've denied "the Faith" as expressed in "the ecumenical creeds" (that is, the creeds of the Catholic Church which Protestants agree with, but not the creeds of the Catholic Church which Protestants do not agree with).
Why should anarcho-preterists change their interpretation of the Bible based on "The Church Fathers?"
The phrase "Holy Mother the Church" refers to interpreters of Scripture which I would place at the very bottom of an expanded version of the chart above. This would include the names of Popes and Bishops you've probably never heard of. Many of them were "premillennial," which I would regard as a Jewish heresy. But they are called "the Church Fathers."
The "church fathers" were infected with Jewish premillennialism and Greco-Roman statism. Premillennialists -- and most amillennialists and post-millennialists are infected with the basic error of premillennialism -- deny that building the City of God, the New Jerusalem, is the responsibility of the Body of Christ in this age. It's like premils believe that Christ will hand the fulfillment of the Great Commission to the saints on a silver platter in the future.
(I would also note that many of those who do accept our responsibility to build the City of God in this current age deny that this work of building is accomplished solely by living and preaching the Gospel, not by the sword. To deny the use of the sword is, for them, the heresies of "pacifism" or "anarchism." I have said elsewhere that "anarcho-preterism" is the Gospel. The "good news" is that the entire planet will increasingly "obey the Gospel" and be blessed [(Galatians 3:8].)
Cornelius Van Til dissected "the Church Fathers," and found them deeply compromised philosophically and Biblically. Van Til's festschrift is entitled Jerusalem & Athens. The "Church Fathers" were generally Greeks, from "Athens," not Hebrews from "Jerusalem." This is important. Preterists and Futurists understand Matthew 24 differently based on their familiarity with the symbolic rhetoric of the Hebrew prophets. The "Church Fathers" generally did not think like Hebrews, but like Greeks. This affected their eschatology.
"But didn't some of the earliest church fathers study at the feet of the Apostles?"
Maybe. But at what point in time? And what did they learn from the Apostles? The right stuff, or the wrong stuff? Did the "church fathers" learn from the Apostles as the Apostles spoke outside of Scripture (which, unlike everything else the Apostles said, was "breathed out" by God [2 Timothy 3:16])? Even the Apostles, like Peter, were fallible, and even at times, in grave error. Peter told Jesus that He would not be tortured to death by the Jews and Romans. Peter didn't get it.
But Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”
Matthew 16:23
Yikes! How would you like Jesus Himself to say something like that about you?
Even after Christ's resurrection, the Apostle Paul said of Peter:
11 Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed;
13 And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.
14 they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel
Galatians 2
Wow, that's a heavy charge against "the first Pope." Not an auspicious beginning for "church authority."
Students of the Apostles may have had a less clear understanding of the Christian Worldview than we have today.
Not everything the Apostles wrote and said -- even the things they said to those who became known as "the church fathers" -- became Scripture.
At key points, the "church fathers" were both Jewish and Roman, not Christian. Those who became institutional power-holders in the Catholic Church are not to be trusted above the Scriptures.
The "church fathers" are, at many points, an offense to King Jesus. These men, despite great faith and accomplishments in some areas, should be called "the Church Babies" because they lived in the infancy of Christendom. That's the conclusion of James B. Jordan, who writes:
The true Fathers of the Church are Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Jeremiah, Jesus, Paul, Peter, and John, and the other Fathers in the Bible. These men, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, created the apostolic deposit from which the Church always grows.
The men who came after them, in the first and second and third centuries, are not Church Fathers but Church Babies. This is how we should regard Ignatius, Irenaeus, Basil, the Gregories, and yes, even Augustine. [I]n terms of the corporate biography of the Church, they lived in the infant stage and their great accomplishments were only the beginning of that corporate biography. We appreciate what the Holy Spirit did with them, and the theological accomplishments they made, but to say that they understood everything and laid everything out definitively would be grotesque, ludicrous, and idiotic.
We actually have a better understanding of the Christian faith today than "the Church Fathers" did. Jordan continues:
We may think that because these men lived right after the apostles, they must have known a lot. Remarkably, this is not the case. Anyone who reads the Bible, climaxing in the New Testament, and then turns to the "apostolic fathers" of the second century, is amazed at how little these men seem to have known. The Epistle of Barnabas, for instance, comments on the laws in Leviticus, but completely misinterprets them, following not Paul but the Jewish Letter of Aristeas. It is clear that there is some significant break in continuity between the apostles and these men. What accounts for this? I can only suggest that the harvest of the first-fruit saints in the years before AD 70, which seems to be spoken of in Revelation 14, created this historical discontinuity.
The "church fathers" were infected with Jewish premillennialism and Greco-Roman statism. Premillennialists -- and most amillennialists and post-millennialists are infected with the basic error of premillennialism -- deny that building the City of God, the New Jerusalem, is the responsibility of the Body of Christ in this age -- not something that Christ will hand to the saints on a silver platter in the future. And this work of building is accomplished by living and preaching the Gospel, not by the sword. The "good news" is that the entire planet will increasingly "obey the Gospel" and be blessed (Galatians 3:8).
I've decided to follow Jesus and the Bible rather than popes and bishops 1800 years ago.
Gary North's son-in-law, who headed Gary DeMar's American Vision organization for a time, has repudiated capital punishment for blasphemy and other "first table" violations.
He writes:
Under Justinian’s Code all heretics were to be suppressed, their buildings taken from them, and their books banned, confiscated, and burned. If they met in private houses, their houses would be confiscated and given to the Catholic Church. Teachers of false doctrines were given the death penalty. One important law (as we shall see later) specifically aimed at the enduring Donatists decreed that anyone merely rebaptizing a person (and the one inducing him to do so) would receive the death penalty.
This is evil.
The Donatists were accused of raising -- not lowering -- moral standards. They said that sacraments — performed by clergy who capitulated under the persecution of Diocletian (303-305) and handed over copies of the Bible to be burned — were invalid.
"The holy catholic church" has stood for confiscating property and even the killing of those who wanted to raise the moral standards of the church. That does not sound like an organization I want to follow. How many optimillennialist anarchists did the "holy catholic church" suppress in the earliest years of Christian history? Is the "institutional church" any more friendly to anarcho-capitalism today?
The "church fathers" are, at many points, an offense to King Jesus.
And, of course, Luther pointed out that "Holy Mother the Church" failed in her responsibility to safeguard one of the most precious and important doctrines of the entire Christian faith: Justification. (But we're to rest assured in their earliest conclusions regarding eschatology?)
Opponents of Full Preterism put their loyalty and allegiance to the "church" fathers ahead of the Bible fathers, whose canonical writings were breathed out by God. I would say that condemning a preterist who believes in the deity and substitutionary atonement of Christ, but denies that the New Testament predicts any eschatological events thousands of years in the future, is the height of ecclesiastical authoritarian arrogance.
And it is "authoritarian," because it seeks to subsume the authority of the Scriptures under the authority of "Holy Mother the Church." Such authoritarians likely have created an institution of their own ("the local church") which they seek to buttress. They are saying a person is not a genuine Christian because he puts the Bible ahead of Popes and Bishops and "the local church."
Excommunicating full preterists is the eschatological authoritarianism of the Westboro Baptist Church.
Is it the authoritarianism of your church?
Should we change our understanding of the Bible based on 'The Ecumenical Creeds?"
As I mentioned above, in the last conversation I had with David Chilton on the phone, he said he had concluded (exegetically) that there are no verses in the New Testament which were intended by their author to predict events which were thousands of years in the future of the original audience. In his words, there are no verses which predict a future (for us) Second Coming.
But at that point David Chilton was not a "full preterist." Or at least he was not condemned as a "full preterist." That's because he went on to say that although no verses in the text of the Bible teach the doctrine of a future "Second Coming" [ future for us],
I believe the doctrine anyway because Holy Mother the Church has taught that doctrine for two thousand years.
I remember his words well. "Holy Mother the Church."
The reason people believe in the doctrine of a future second coming is because "Holy Mother the Church" teaches the idea. Not because the Bible does. It ultimately and always boils down to the Bible vs. the Institutional Church.
Futurists believe the Holy Spirit has led the Church to this position.
By "Church" they really mean "clergy."
They point most specifically to the "creeds."
Matthew 24:30 says,
"And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the land lament, and they shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."
A "preterist" interpretation of this verse says it predicts events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.
A "futurist" interpretation says this verse concerns events to take place thousands of years after Matthew recorded these words.
Leading Christian Reconstructionists take a "preterist" interpretation of Matthew 24. In fact, this way of viewing the verse is now considered "Eschatology 101" in Reconstructionist circles. Failure to interpret this verse in a preterist manner is a gateway drug to becoming a dispensational premillennialist.
I exaggerate slightly, but I'm being serious. This verse is a litmus test.
A few Reconstructionists, like Ken Gentry, have said that the second part of Matthew 24 is about a future second coming, but the first part (including verse 30) is talking about the fall of Jerusalem, and hence is to be understood preteristically. Everyone in the Reconstructionist camp agrees that verse 30 is a preterist verse.
But . . .
The Westminster Confession of Faith takes a "futurist" interpretation of this verse.
The creeds are not only against full preterism, they are against partial preterism.
Every partial preterist agrees that Matthew 24:30 was fulfilled in the past (hence "preterist"), but the creeds -- including the Westminster Standards -- rule out this interpretation by saying it speaks of a future (for us) second coming.
This violates Partial Preterism 101. No partial preterist believes that Jesus was speaking about our future in Matthew 24:30. He was speaking about the immediate future of that generation. The Creeds are in error. This is an exegetical error, according to nearly every Christian Reconstructionist.
In fact, all of the credal statements about the "Second Coming" (in our future) are based on this exegetical error.
The formulations of eschatology in the creeds are hermeneutically premillennial.
Premillennialism is a fundamental error.
It is based on statism. defeatism, and escapism.
The premillennial (futurist) hermeneutic is profoundly significant and influential.
It poisons one's entire Biblical Worldview.
Premillennialism is Dangerous
I don't think we've really come to grips with this.
Not only does it discourage dominion and present responsibility by discouraging a future orientation, premillennialism promotes a statist view of life. See: Premillennialism's Faith in A Police State by Gary North.
Premillennialism is the Jewish heresy as far as the Messiah is concerned, and it is the Roman heresy as far as the State is concerned.
No postmillennialist can affirm this. Not in 1649 or in 2019. Christ's coming is AFTER the "millennium" (or "golden age," or whatever you call a time of maximum gospel prosperity). If you think I'm crazy to believe that the prophets would see the supernatural reign of Christ in 2019, why would you think that Christ could come at any moment, without first creating those Messianic conditions across the globe? A dying man can KNOW with absolute Biblical assurance that Christ is not going to come in his lifetime. Nobody has the right to use that verse from Revelation to claim that Christ might return at "any moment," or that it would be good if He would. The Westminster Standards are only apparently or superficially postmillennial, just as they are only apparently Theonomic. The verses cited by the Confession were intended by their first-century authors to be speaking of a first-century event, to be interpreted by their original readers in an imminently futurist manner, and by us in a preteristic manner.As Christ would have us to be certainly persuaded that there shall be a day of judgment, ... to deter all men from sin ... so will He have that day unknown to men, that they may shake off all carnal security, and be always watchful, because they know not at what hour the Lord will come; and may be ever prepared to say, Come Lord Jesus, come quickly, Amen
The Creeds exhibit a premillennial hermeneutic, which partial preterists should oppose.
Nobody in his right mind would say that Gary DeMar or Gary North are not Christians because they take a preterist interpretation of Matthew 24:30, even though they disagree with "the creeds" by doing so.
But there are many futurists who say that "Full Preterists" have denied the Christian faith and are not real Christians.
This is because "the faith" is defined for futurists by ecclesiastical promulgations, and not the Bible alone ("sola Scriptura").
They believe that the Holy Spirit has guided "the institutional church," and even if the Bible doesn't teach a future (for us) Second Coming, "Holy Mother the Church" does.
Let's just say for now there are 13 verses related to "the Second Coming."
"Full Preterists" believe all these prophecies came to pass in the years leading up to AD70 (because the writers of the Bible said they would, not because we have any "secular" evidence from The New Rome Times that confirms the fulfillment of these prophecies).
"Partial Preterists" believe at least one of these 13 verses is referring to an event that is still in our future.
But here's the interesting thing: partial preterists disagree among themselves as to which verse is which: "Is this verse AD70 or yet-future?"
Let's consider a dozen or so great Christian commentators, whom all would regard as genuine Christians.
Let's map out their interpretations of the various passages that are up for grabs in this debate.
| Text #1 | Text #2 | Text #3 | Text #4 | Text #5 | Text #6 | Text #7 | Text #8 | Text #9 | Text #10 | Text #11 | Text #12 | Text #13 | |
| John Calvin | Preterist | Futurist | Both | Pret | Pret | Fut | Both | Pret | Pret | Both | Fut | Pret | Pret |
| Gary DeMar | Pret | Preterist | Both | Fut | Pret | Both | Both | Pret | Both | Both | Pret | Both | Pret |
| R.J. Rushdoony | Fut | Pret | Preterist | Fut | Pret | Both | Both | Pret | Fut | Both | Pret | Both | Both |
| Gary North | both | Both | Fut | Preterist | Pret | Both | Pret | Both | Pret | Both | Both | Pret | Fut |
| David Chilton | Pret | Pret | Both | Pret | Preterist | Pret | Pret | Pret | Both | Pret | Pret | Pret | Pret |
| John Gill | Fut | Both | Both | Pret | Pret | Preterist | Both | Fut | Pret | Both | Pret | Pret | Fut |
| Matthew Henry | Pret | Fut | Both | Both | Fut | Fut | Preterist | Pret | Pret | Both | Fut | Fut | Both |
| Matthew Poole | Fut | Pret | Both | Fut | Both | Fut | Fut | Preterist | Pret | Both | Pret | Pret | Pret |
| Charles Spurgeon | Fut | Pret | Pret | Pret | Pret | Fut | Fut | Pret | Preterist | Fut | Pret | Pret | Pret |
| John Lightfoot | Pret | Both | Both | Fut | Pret | Both | Pret | Fut | Pret | Preterist | Fut | Fut | Pret |
| J.C. Ryle | Fut | Pret | Fut | Pret | Fut | Pret | Fut | Both | Fut | Both | Preterist | Fut | Fut |
| Craig S. Keener | Pret | Fut | Both | Fut | Pret | Fut | Pret | Pret | Both | Both | Fut | Preterist | Both |
| D. A. Carson | Fut | Both | Both | Both | Fut | Both | Pret | Both | Pret | Fut | Both | Pret | Preterist |
Though these commentators may differ (contradict) on their interpretations of the relevant texts, we would still grant that they are "rational," even though contradiction violates the laws of rational thought.
In addition to being "rational," we would agree that they are "faithful." Nobody would say that John Calvin was not a real Christian because he took a "preterist" interpretation of some of those passages. Nobody would say that R.J. Rushdoony was not a Christian because he took a "preterist" interpretation of some of those verses.
(A scholar may take a preterist position on all the verses, but may also take the position that at least one prophecy will have a "double fulfillment." That is, the original author intended to convey an imminent first-century event, but the prophecy will nevertheless have a second fulfillment thousands of years in his future, some time in our future, which the original author may not have even contemplated when he wrote the words to a generation he believed would see the fulfillment of his prophecy. Such a past-and-present interpretation is listed in the chart above as "both." As long as you believe at least one verse teaches a future (for us) second coming, you have the Seal of Approval from the anti-full-preterist crowd, even if you believe that all of the verses were originally preterist [prophesying events in the immediate future {"this generation"}] in the mind of the New Testament author.)
(Ultimately, such a person is relying on church authority rather than being strictly limited to the text, and using standard hermeneutics to interpret the text. If you say that Paul (for example) intended his original audience to interpret his words as referring to an event in their generation, but that his words will have a "double fulfillment" -- even if there is no textual evidence in the Bible itself that Paul intended his original audience to make that inference, and no other Scripture speaks of Paul's words with reference to events thousands of years after Paul wrote his words, you are relying on church authority to impose that meaning on Paul's words.)
But when it comes to exegeting the Bible, if you just happen to agree with Godly Christian scholars on just the right combination of verses (in the chart above, the interpretations indicated by bold brown typeface), there are some who will boldly say that you are not a Christian at all and are going to hell.
If you agree with Calvin's interpretation of verse #1, DeMar on verse #2, Rushdoony on verse #3, etc., you are a "Full Preterist" and you are not a real Christian.
Because you disagree with the teaching of "the church."
I think this is insane.
That's what I've been told. Is "the Christian Faith" determined by the Bible, or by fallible men in the infancy of Christian history?
Here is my credo. I think I'm "orthodox," despite the fact that I disagree with the mainstream on how to interpret verses which I think the original authors intended to point to events in the last days of the Old Covenant.
Yes, I've been told that. I think that's insane. I'm not even a Christian even though I believe everything the Creeds teach about Christ?