In my personal Bible study, I recently came across these verses. What are they saying? How do they fit into eschatology? I'm completely clueless.

__________________
Kim G
Non-denom church (holds to the WCF)
Zion Community Church, Greenville, SC

Teach me Your way, O LORD;
I will walk in Your truth;
Unite my heart to fear Your name.
Psalm 86:11

You're in good company!! You might start with using the search function here to look up "preterist".
Best
Tim

__________________
Tim Vaughan, 48 years old, member Redeemer OPC, Santa Maria CA.

I will do that. But I know that not everyone is preterist. So how would non-preterist people look at those verses? I guess I'm just confused because I haven't seen an eschatological position that seems to fit ALL the verses about the end times.

__________________
Kim G
Non-denom church (holds to the WCF)
Zion Community Church, Greenville, SC

Teach me Your way, O LORD;
I will walk in Your truth;
Unite my heart to fear Your name.
Psalm 86:11

Funny thing is, neither do most of us. Even J.I. Packer said that the best theology is a theology with loose ends.

__________________
Dan Pemberton
Vacaville, CA

Member, First Baptist Church San Luis Obispo
Formerly ABUSA (We left, so I guess that makes us American Baptists Unleashed!)

The best eschatological position can only be arrived at by process of elimination - in other words, what are the positions of the eschatology views which cannot possibly be true according to clear passages of Scripture. Once you do this exercise, your only logical choice is postmillenialism , even though postmillenialism has some difficulties (just far fewer than the other positions).

Gary DeMar (American Vision: A Biblical Worldview Ministry) and Kenneth Gentry (Kenneth Gentry - Print, Audio, Video products from the reformed perspective) have written some excellent resources dealing with Matt. 24:34, Matt. 16:28, and other problematic passages. I believe their presentations to be quite convincing. In other words, "this generation" means just what it says - this generation, i.e. the people and generation who Jesus was actually speaking to.

I find Herman Riddebos's "prophetic foreshortening" explanation to be lamentably weak. There are various other theories (primarily dispensational) that do their best to also deny the obvious.

An older work, Patrick Fairbairn's "The Interpretation of Prophecy" is quite good, along with his "The Typology of Scripture." His thesis, which is true, is that one must understand OT signs and symbolism and their meanings in order to properly interpret prophetic pronouncements, such as what we see Jesus giving in Matthew 24 and what we see elsewhere in the NT.

If only everyone did this, eschatology would not be the major battleground that it is.

__________________
Randy Harris
Heritage Church (Independent)
Oklahoma City, OK

Everyone is a preterist on some level. Everytime Jesus uses generation in Matthew it means to those whom he spoke. The really tricky part is whether there is a break in Jesus' Olivet Discourse. It is easier theologically to posit a break, but I haven't been convinced by those explanations.

__________________
J. B. Atken
John Knox PCA
Layman, M.A. student at Louisiana College

I've come to believe those bolded verses simply mean what they say. That generation would see the return of Christ in judgment upon it, and in fact some in the crowd he was talking to would still be alive to see it happen. You have to make it mean something else, as I used to do.

__________________
Adam Leavelle
Westminster OPC
Roaring Spring Pa.

http://www.myspace.com/aleavelle
"Speak wisdom to a fool and he'll think you have no sense at all"

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

I came across this website in my studies and thought I would pass it on. Maybe you can find some help from here: http://www.historicist.com/related_s...24/Matt24.html

It may not be what your looking for though but just wanted to share.

__________________
Tom Mitchell
Opp, AL
Member of First Presbyterian Church PCA Florala, AL

Open profaneness is the broad dirty way which leads to hell
--but trusting in religious duties is a sure way, though a cleaner way to hell. ~ Thomas Brooks
www.myspace.com/tom_mitchell1960
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=607055102

Found this also: http://www.haguegospelchurch.com/media/080120-web.wma

Hope this helps. God bless.

__________________
Tom Mitchell
Opp, AL
Member of First Presbyterian Church PCA Florala, AL

Open profaneness is the broad dirty way which leads to hell
--but trusting in religious duties is a sure way, though a cleaner way to hell. ~ Thomas Brooks
www.myspace.com/tom_mitchell1960
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=607055102

If we're recommending websites-

http://www.preteristsite.com/

__________________
Adam Leavelle
Westminster OPC
Roaring Spring Pa.

http://www.myspace.com/aleavelle
"Speak wisdom to a fool and he'll think you have no sense at all"

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

I think once "the abomination of desolation" is properly understood the whole passage is easily grasped within its covenantal context. "Generation," "pass" "fulfilled," are key words used in the Gospel of Matthew to point to the end of Israel's possession of distinctive national privileges and point to Jesus Christ as the rightful inheritor of Israel's promises. The temple, freedom, peace, prosperity, and ritual purity, are all blessings which flowed to Israel as a result of her covenant relation to God. This discourse is misunderstood when it is made to predict a series of end times events, whether the end times be Israel's or the world's. To any Israelite hearing the words of Jesus the message was plain and simple -- such was the degeneracy of Israel in rejecting her Messiah that she was now rejected by God, and could not look to Him for national protection and provision as if she were peculiarly favoured above other nations of the world. The events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 may provide a providential glimpse into the effects of God forsaking Israel, but it is not the immediate referent in the words of Jesus.

__________________
Yours sincerely,


"Illum oportet crescere me autem minui."

Are you saying that the immediate referent of the entire discourse is not the destruction of Jerusalem and the events of AD70 or just that the immediate referent of "These things" in the phrase, "This generation will not pass away until all these things take place" is not the destruction of Jerusalem?

__________________
Mike Shingler
Pastor: Steep Hollow Baptist Church (SBC)
Bryan, TX

The passage begins with Jewish disciples glorying in an earthly emblem of God's nearness to Israel; the concern of the ensuing discourse is to show that such emblems will soon have no religious significance, contrary to the way the Jewish disciples had been trained to think of them. The immediate referent of the whole discourse is the covenant relation of Israel to God.

__________________
Yours sincerely,


"Illum oportet crescere me autem minui."

I'll have to go back and read the whole discourse, in each of the synoptics, with that perspective in mind. I have always struggled with the meaning of some aspects of this passage. To date, what I have found to be the most helpful treatment was D.A. Carson's commentary on Matthew. However, I'm open to further insights and perspectives.

__________________
Mike Shingler
Pastor: Steep Hollow Baptist Church (SBC)
Bryan, TX

One thing about this passage that has recently struck me is verse 20 and its implications for those who do believe Christ did away with the Sabbath obligation.

__________________
Benjamin P. Glaser
Pittsburgh, PA
Fairmount ARP Church, Sewickley, PA
Student of Theology Pittsburgh Theological Seminary & Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary

“If the Church could be aroused to a deeper sense of the glory that awaits her, she would enter with a warmer spirit into the struggles that are before her.”-- J.H. Thornwell

Chapter 24 of Matthew's Gospel almost certainly begins with our Lord describing the destruction of the nation of Israel in 70 A.D.

"And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.

And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down."

As Jesus was looking down at the Temple in the city of Jerusalem he described "not be left here one stone upon another," which is what happened when the Roman legions attacked Jerusalem under General Titus in 70 A.D.

Josephius, the historian (not a Christian) wrote of the Romans catapulting huge bolders onto the Temple and Jerusalem for days on end which literally seems to describe what Jesus said would happen. Interesting, Josephius thought this was part of God's judgment as he wrote in awe of the destruction of the city and nation he loved.

Josephius was in Jerusalem when the attack occurred and was found at the bottom of a well by Roman soldiers but spared his life because the Roman's respected his tremendous love and bravery in defending the City.

Moving forward into Matthew 24, it becomes less clear. Is Jesus speaking of the end of the Jewish age (Israel being destroyed as a theocracy) or does he jump ahead to the the time right before the second coming?

I find myself less certain about these details as time goes. I can see why the Westminster Confession did not go into great detail about eschatology... and wisely so.

__________________
__________________

Scott
PCA
North Carolina

Soli Deo Gloria

The Greek word translated "generation" here can also mean those descended from a common ancestor and was used in that sense in the language of the day. I think taking it this way makes a great deal of sense. For Jesus has just foretold the destruction of Jerusalem in such terms as to raise the possiblity that it would involve the total destruction of the Jewish people. To forestall this incorrect conclusion, Christ lets his disciples know that this generation i.e. the physical descendants of Abraham would not be wiped out.

Keep in mind that we know that Christ was reigning as early as the time Paul wrote 1 Cor. 15:25 where Christ "must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet." So if Christ was reigning as early as this date he must have begun to reign earlier. Personally I would date his reign from the resurrection since Paul writes in Rom. 1:4 that Christ "...was declared to be the Son of God with power by his resurrection from the dead." If this is correct, then some of those standing there that day saw Christ "coming in his kingdom" in his post-resurrection appearances.

__________________
In Christ's love and service

Mr. Tim Cunningham, Dip. CS (Regent College)
Member, First Baptist Church
Vancouver, BC

------------
"The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar of 1500-year-old, 200 proof grace—a bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the gospel—after all these centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your own bootstraps—suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home-free before they started. Grace was to be drunk neat: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale." – Robert Farrar Capon

except where generation is used in Matthew it means to those whom he spoke.

__________________
J. B. Atken
John Knox PCA
Layman, M.A. student at Louisiana College

I don't know about that...

__________________
Dan Pemberton
Vacaville, CA

Member, First Baptist Church San Luis Obispo
Formerly ABUSA (We left, so I guess that makes us American Baptists Unleashed!)