04-25-2008, 11:31 PM
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 | Puritanboard Postgraduate | | Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Wrightwood, CA
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BTW, a friend who shall remain nameless emailed me this: Quote:
If you are wrestling with the issue of hyper-preterism, I understand. A number of years ago I really struggled through the issue. Short of the long, I was reading bad eschatological books, predicting an "imminent return" and then a friend gave me Chilton's "Paradise Restored". I spent the past two years looking at those verses as dealing with the "second coming" and all of a sudden a guy comes along and says, "Nope. They were fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem." Not only was he saying that, but his exegesis seemed more than convincing. Anyway, I remember think, then what's left?
Well, after wrestling with the issue for several years, here is a basic outline of why I cannot buy the issue:
1. Adam/Christ typology - by a man came death, so by a man comes the resurrection of the dead. The effects of the fall, which are physical & not just spiritual will be overturned in Christ.
2. Resurrection - resurrection meant empty tomb. Read Lk. 23.26+ and compare w/ 1 Co. 15.3+. It fits the apostolic formula and note the angels question in Lk 24.5: "Why do you seek the living among the dead?" Where were they looking? Sheol? Old Covenant Israel? Hades? No, they were looking at bodies, so look at 1 Co. 15.12, "Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?" Max King and others try to redefine dead to be "old covenant Israel" and the objectors to be pro-Pauline Gentiles, but, seriously, do you really get that from 1 Co. 15 given the historical context of 'resurrection', 'the dead', & the 'yet, whether it was I or they, so we preached and so you believed'? Max & them make up the history to get their system to fit. On the other hand, Ed Stevens, et. al., seek to be more orthodox and understand this to be an individual resurrection from Hades, but were the Corinthians really believing that there was no resurrection from Hades? Paul's argument doesn't make sense if this is what they believed - "then even those that have fallen asleep in Christ have perished". Also note, sheol/hades or more complex than they make it.
3. The ascensions - Acts 1.8, which is the follow-up to Luke, I believe is the first real teaching on the "second coming" - heaven rec'd him and would until the times of refreshing (Acts 3).
4. Realizing that parousia was not a technical term.
5. The millennium - I take that to be a "time text" as well. Yes, you can shoehorn it into a 40 yr. period, but it doesn't really work, esp. if you follow the chronology of Rev. 19 and 20, the taking of thrones, etc.
6. New Heavens and New Earth - tied into resurrection and the Adam/Christ typology, but, as we sing at Christmas, "far as the curse is found".
7. "Present evil age" - it is still present.
8. More ad hom/subjective - I went to a conference and meeting these people in person gave me the willies. It really was creepy. I think some were influenced by the no longer existing satan. Many of them are just arrogant and they are constantly reinventing the wheel. They are now into "covenantal creation", which suggests Adam wasn't the first man & that Gen. 1-3 isn't about the creation of the world. As you point it, it is bizarro.
In sum, preterists have a point. There are many texts that deal with the destruction of Jerusalem & what many take to be "second coming" texts are pointing to that event, but that doesn't negate properly exegeted Scripture.
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