Greetings:

If a person holds to Full Preterism and all of the other doctrines of the Reformation, can we consider him/her "Reformed"?

I ask this because a man that I am emailing with insists that he is Reformed even though he holds to hyper-Preterism.

-CH

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As far as i know, the full preterism denies a future bodly resurrection, if that is true, than ofcourse they can not be reformed !

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Robert,

If we define "Reformed" according to the Confessions (3FU, WCF, etc.) then the answer is "no." Each of the Confessions explicitly states that there is a future bodily resurrection. Furthermore, the nature of the resurrection is a central doctrine and not a secondary one (e.g. mode of baptism, length of creation days).

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for a person to be reformed and be a full preterist they have to be disgustingly confused. I can't even fathom how a person could be a Christian and a full preterist must less reformed and a full preterist.

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They are Calvinistic in soteriology by necessity. If you believe that judgment day occurred in 70 AD, then you cannot be Arminian. They are not 'reformed' however because they belive in 'solo' scriptura.

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Could you explain this further? I don't see the connection.

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Can a full preterist be a Christian?

(No)

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Kevin Rogers
Sovereign Community Church, PCA
Moncton NB

Is the absence of Arminianism necessarily Calvinism?

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Brad
Member- Eagle Heights PCA
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Isa 8:20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

The second coming (not in 70 AD) and resurrection of the dead is a fundemental belief of the Christian faith. So no, a full preterist is not a Christian.

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Having rejected the bodily resurrection, they have rejected Biblical salvation - which is damnable heresy.

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Hyper-preterists say that they believe that judgment happened in 70 AD. Q. How could He have judged me 2000 years before I was born? A. His judgment was based on God's election and predestination. Therefore, to be a hyper-preterist you must believe in predestination and election. In their minds, this makes them 'Reformed'.

What about a partial preterist?

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There are many partial-preterists in the reformed world. R.C. Sproul & Ken Gentry come to mind, but there are many, many more.

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Speaking of full prets.... can you guys pray for Jason ?

At a crossroads - Holy Culture Radio Community Forum

Thanks.

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They do not reject a bodily resurrection. They believe in a body that is raised a 'spiritual body'. They hold to a 'spiritual vision' model of the eternal state.

Whether they are Christians or not is an interesting question, but technically they do believe in a resurrection.

(I am not defending what they say they believe, but defending the possibility of their salvation.)

BTW, you are playing right into their hands when you refer to them as 'full' preterists and Gentry et al as 'partial' preterists. (By calling Gentry 'partial' it sounds like you are calling him 'inconsistant') Technically, Gentry is a preterist while they are not even in the conversation.

I'm an orthodox preterist!

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I have prayed for Jason but now must point out the 'woe is me' attitude of the hyper-preterist. They accuse confessional churches of being mean and unsympathetic towards them. They claim that their view is just another millenial formula and should be accepted as equal to pre, post, or amillenialism.

Greetings:

I will pray for Jason.

Rev. Kok asked for a further explanation.

I agree with all of you here that the bodily resurrection is a fundamental aspect of all Christian theology. When I brought this to my friend's attention he said that he believed we all receive a spiritual body after death. Thus, he gets around the idea of a final resurrection day by stating that at death believers are resurrected and broght into heaven..

I mentioned to him that Jesus physically rose from the dead, and he answered that such was before 70 AD.

How to answer such I know not.

Blessings,

-CH

But they reject a physical bodily resurrection, which is the faith of orthodox Christianity; anyone who denies this is outside the bounds of the Christian faith.

Good point; I shall have to give it some thought ; perhaps orthodox preterist is a better term.

A point of clarification. When I say that a full preterist is not a Christian it is based on the fact that the bodily resurrection (and I mean a real human body not a spiritual body) and final judgement have been fundemental to the Christian faith since the beginning. I could not imagine that there would be a Session out there that would not require a member of their church to repent of such a belief as full preterism or face excommunication.

The fact that they believe in "a resurrection" is inconsequential. Arians believe Christ was the Son of God but with a twist; he was a created being not eternal and therefore they are not Christians.

BTW, I'm not coming down on you. I understand that you are not defending their position.

Me too!

Just to clarify, are you saying that anyone who believes in a spiritual resurrection and a spiritual eternal state is still in their sins and headed for eternal damnation?

It would seem to me Ken that Wayne is talking about denying the bodily resurrection, an article of the universal Apostle's Creed.

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John Vandervliet
Ontario, Canada
member of: Canadian Reformed Church
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I have not found any satisfactory answers either. I like to point out that Historical Theology is against them. When they reply that they don't care what man says, only what the Bible says, I respond with, "Which books comprise the Bible?" They like to have their cake and eat it too. They like to reject the Church when it helps their argument and yet they rely on the Church for their Bible.

I know it's not biblical, and I sure don't believe it, but, It seems, that, the BODILY RESURRECTION OF CHRIST, which full Preterists hold to, is the true DAMNABLE heresy if not believed. I've heard many pastors, that seem very solid, explain the ressurection, in terms, that would leave open the fact, that we will not have the same "physical' bodies we have now--our bodies, our persons, yes--but not the same comb your hair, go to the bathroom bodies....It would seem, this may be heretical, to say we don't have full on physical bodies, but, maybe not the damnable kind?

Like I said, I've heard that "spiritual body" doctrine, debunked, it's not confessional, or biblical, and I don't believe it...but....that has seemed to be a point of debate, whereas as Christ's Bodily Resurrection is without debate.

Just some thoughts.....

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Trevor
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The Apostles' Creed stresses both, though. The point is that the resurrection is not only a spiritual resurrection but a bodily resurrection. Inherent in the idea of a spiritual resurrection only is the necessity of soul-sleep until the resurrection, denying the "today" part of Jesus' words on the cross to the thief beside Him.

But haven't there been many Christians for the past 2000 years who have believed that the eternal state will be spiritual? I am not as much an historian so maybe someone can shed some light on this for me.

I shy away from declaring hyper-preterists to be unsaved because of their belief in spiritual eternal state. I do stand in doubt, however, of any man who causes division in the church with their hyper-preterist teachings because Paul says heresy is a work of the flesh in Gal 5. I don't see how you can condemn a man who may not have correct understanding of everything in the Bible yet sits quietly and professes Christ. How many of us fully understand the trinity? Being wrong is one thing, but being wrong and teaching that error in defiance of the church would seem to me to be the damnable heresy.

No I'm not. I'm saying that they are not a Christian. If someone is excommunicated for holding heretical views they are to be treated as an unbeliever, ie; not a Christian, until they repent. excommunication is not a judgment regarding heaven or hell. Just as there is always room for jello there is always room for repentance.

Consider 2 Timothy 1:20 and 2:17 where Pauls talks about Hymenaeus and Philetus.

Mathew Henry notes in Commentary the following regarding 2:16ff:

Hi John, right...thanks...but, I don't see how spiritual resurrection demands soul sleep, I know it's another thread, but, absent from the body, present with the Lord...when we die, we are awake somewhere, not asleep, but just not in our "physical" bodies...we are instantly resurrected in our bodies not of flesh and blood...I think that's what the Hyper Preterists hold to, but, Jesus, a special case, actually has a PHYSCIAL body for eternity.

I hold to the Apostles Creed, but, just as a thought.

I had been in an extended debate with a HP guy (who apparently just wrote a book on the topic, and is teaching at a Calvary Chapel--go figure?), and his position was that Christ does now NOT have a physical body at all. He only ascended in a physical body, but does no longer posses one. As such, how can he been fully God and fully man NOW? He thought that such a formulation is only creedal and not biblical, so it did not concern him.

Furthermore, what about the Lord's Supper? *Some* (read: the more consistent ones) HPers also deny that believers should participate in the Lord's Supper, since Christ came back *finally* in AD70.

There are many other areas that are in disagreement with Orthodox Christianity, and necessarily so, since there is a fundamental, philosophical, and paradigmatic (to use his words) hermeneutic disagreement between the two parties. So the disagreements go far beyond issues of the 'eternal state'. If that is all they disagreed on (what OUR state will be like after death), there would be far more wiggle room, especially since a rising number of Christian philosophers have denied the intermediate state while affirming a bodily resurrection.

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Thanks for the clarification and I agree except for the fact that it is theoretically possible for one to believe in Hyper-preterism and yet keep their mouth shut and would therefore not be excommunicated and therefore still be a Christian.

This is a theoretical argument and I understand that most heretics can't help bu push their doctrine in the church any more than a drunk can help taking that next swig. (Just look at Servetus)

He won't be teaching at Calvary Chpael long.

They get around the Lord's Supper argument by pointing out that Jesus did not say, "Do this in remembrance of Me until I come and then stop."

You are correct that this wouldn't be as much of an issue if it was just an argument over the eternal state. But in order to uphold their system they have to pervert much more of the NT by making all of the Gospel's teaching about hell point to a 'temporal' rather than 'eternal' judgment.

About being around Calvary long or not....error births error...it was a great, verse by verse, bible teaching Calvary Chapel Pastor, where I first heard the "Our eternal bodies might not be physical, maybe spiritual" teaching......when you're making it up as you go, without History and Confessions, who knows where that movement could end up?

Trevor:

I didn't say that affirming the spiritual resurrection demands soul-sleep. I said that denying the resurrection of the body and yet still looking to a resurrection requires some sort of soul-sleep. My emphasis was on denying the bodily resurrection, and on what remains to be resurrected if not the body.

Well, the Pastor knows of his beliefs, so I don't know.

As far as the Lord's Supper is concerned, I don't know if that is even a coherent answer. In other words, 'until' is a temporal term which denotes an end point. So to say, "Do this in remembrance of Me until I come and then stop", is to say: 'Do this in remembrance of Me and then terminate this at my coming (t1) and then stop at t1'--which is redundant.

I agree! If I say to my son, "I am going to the store to buy dinner. I want you to continue working on your homework until I get back." my son is going to assume I mean that when I return he can stop doing his homework.

But one of the distinctives of CC is Dispensationalism. Hyper-preterism is asymetrically opposed to Dispensationalism. Papa Chuck won't put up with it for long.

J. Stuart Russell is known as a "full preterist" and R.C. Sproul and Ken Gentry both endorse his book The Parousia. Although they say they do not endorse "all" of what is in the book there is still a positive endorsement of it. Why is this?

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