Dangers of Hyper-Preterism | w/ Dr. Joshua Howard

The Apologetic Dog

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And I want to emphasize this. Remember you brought up earlier, what's so appealing to the full Preterists are the time indicators, right?

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And so I've told people we have to clap back with better time indicators. And so what's going on here is when you look at the world around you and you see pain, you see suffering, you see wars, you see death, that is an indicator that Christ has not come yet at the end to restore all things.

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Welcome back to Eschatology Matters.

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I'm your host, Josh Howard. And today I'm joined for a special topic by a special guest. So I've got

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Jeremiah Nortier. Jeremiah, why don't you pronounce your last name for me? So you said it right.

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Nortier is the French version, but in the South we say Nortier. Okay. Very good.

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Nortier. But most people might know Jeremiah from the Apologetic Dog. He was kind enough to have me on.

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And we had a little chat a couple of weeks back and tonight we were going to be addressing, it's a listener question that came in and it's concerning really two subjects.

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The first is full Preterism or hyper Preterism. And then the second is the use of the word heresy in regard to that topic.

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So when the question came in, I thought it was a good question. It was a timely question. We don't use the word heresy lightly by any stretch.

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And that came up during some of our previous interviews. So I asked Jeremiah to come back on here and join me.

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So Jeremiah, if you could give a brief introduction, if you don't mind, and where people can find you and your ministry online.

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Thank you so much, Josh, for having me on your channel because eschatology does matter. What also matters is apologetics.

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And so people can find me at my YouTube channel, The Apologetic Dog, and you'll find a bearded dog that is a reform beard,

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I remind you. And First Timothy 620 is the verse that I want my ministry to be grounded in because the dog represents a guard dog.

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Paul tells Timothy, Oh, Timothy, guard the gospel deposit that's been entrusted to you. And so as Christians, we're called to guard the gospel of grace.

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And we do that by avoiding irreverent babble, pagan philosophy and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.

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So we stand on the truthfulness of God's word. Where else are we going to stand? Anywhere else would be sinking sand.

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And so we stand on the truth of who God is. And so you can find me at my YouTube channel, The Apologetic Dog.

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I also have, Josh, I also have a website now. So I'm rising up in the online world.

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So you can find me in those things. Please add me on Facebook. I love to help out with any questions.

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And I also have a Facebook group called The Church of Christ Exiles with me and Trey Fisher as moderators.

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We were recently on the Cultish YouTube channel and podcast because one of our strong ministries is evangelizing the church of Christ and helping those that come out of it.

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So that's just a little bit about me, Josh. No, and I appreciate you coming on, Jeremiah. I've appreciated your ministry since you reached out or we reached out or you reached out.

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However, we became acquainted with one another's ministries. I love local church involvement. I love seeing ministries spring out of and stay connected to and tethered to the local church.

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I love seeing ministries that genuinely try to serve the body of Christ, not by being divisive or trying to build platforms, but actually serve the body with good doctrine.

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So for all those regards, I'm appreciative of you. Today, what we're addressing, as I say, is full preterism,

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I think is going to be the term we're going to go with. I'm going to throw out a little definition. And then, Jeremiah, I'm going to ask you to come in because I'm counting you as our subject matter expert as far as this conversation goes.

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And we're going to try to walk through this together. But for a lot of people, I think when they hear full preterism or even preterism in general, typically you have to define these terms.

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I've been reminded recently that even when we mentioned terms like heresy within the church, that a lot of Christians aren't comfortable with that term or maybe don't even know exactly where to put that term within their purview, within their doctrinal categories.

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So I'm going to back up just a little bit and say that there are heresies within doctrinal teaching.

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Not everything that is wrong is a heresy. Praise God, because most of us who have preached from a pulpit have at one time or another realized, oh, man,

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I think I got that one wrong. And we've grown by the sanctification of the spirit and by God guiding us through his word, we've grown in our faith.

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So not everything is a heresy. And we certainly don't want to be cavalier with that word. We don't want to go around on heresy hunts and just decry anyone who disagrees with us as a heretic.

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But there are heresies, which I would just kind of generally term as these are damdible teachings.

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And I say damdible, not in some sort of bombastic sense of the term, but those teachings which will lead someone toward destruction.

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Is there anything you want to kind of fill in with that one, Jeremiah? No, that was great, because it's all how you define your terminology, because on one hand, heresy simply means wrong teaching.

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But you hit at the key part of it, there is damdible heresy, things that you can be wrong and they'll actually lead you away from the faith and you cannot be saved.

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And so that's what we're in this conversation. We're talking about heresy. We're talking about if you hold something near and dear that's a heresy, that's damdible, then you actually cannot be

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Christian. And so kind of a couple of things just to really help our audience understand what heresy is.

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Heresy always begins with a figurehead. This is essentially how Walter Martin and the

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Kingdom of the Cults definitely recommend our viewers to go check out his book. It usually starts with a figurehead, somebody that deviates from orthodoxy.

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And so you don't always have a central figurehead. It's hard to pin down sometimes, but that's usually the case.

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But the big point is to veer away from the right Jesus and how to receive the right

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Jesus on the terms that he prescribes. So this is why the Trinity is so important. Jesus is the second person of the

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Trinity, of the Godhead. And he told us to receive him by faith. And we understand that it's by faith alone, apart from any works.

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And so that's why Galatians 1 comes into the picture. And if you're trying to add anything like the

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Judaizers, where they're trying to add circumcision to the gospel of grace, it nullifies the whole thing. You've severed yourself from Christ and you've fallen from the gospel of grace, essentially.

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And so that's what we're getting at is you can't play games with first -tier gospel issues.

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The good news about the right Jesus and how to receive him on the terms that he prescribed. Yeah, no, that's super helpful.

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And if anybody that's listening to this hasn't read that book, that's one of those foundational books that I think everybody should at least read through once.

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The thing with heresy as well, and false teaching in general, we could say, is that I think oftentimes for the

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Christian, we're cautious with impugning someone's motives or someone's character, right? And I think that that's a good balance.

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That's a good and a healthy impetus that we don't want to unintentionally misrepresent or smear someone's character.

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But I would say with false teaching, generally within scripture, there's a difference between those that teach false doctrine and those who follow false doctrine.

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Typically with those who teach, there is a harsher standard. Typically scripture recommends that we deal with those people far stronger than we would with those who are being led astray by false teaching.

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So that's one division. But I would also say for those who teach it, we can't always decipher what their motives are.

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And I feel like for Christians, that's where we get bogged down a bit. We say, we don't want to call something false. We don't want to call something even necessarily heresy because I don't know where that person's coming from.

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As best as I can tell in scripture, I don't think it's up to us to tell where their heart is when they're teaching false doctrine.

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What we are called to do, though, is to confront false doctrine. And then if they don't repent and they're still claiming the name of Christ, then there's more steps than where we're told even to consider them as worse than an unbeliever.

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There's very stringent instructions to the Christian. But I think for a lot of Christians, it can kind of free us if we pay attention to the doctrine and try to bother ourselves less with deciphering where their heart is and where their motives are coming from, because I'm not so sure that that's beneficial when we're addressing those doctrinal issues.

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Well, I agree 100 percent with everything you said. We've got to have those necessary distinctions about when you do have a cult, you got people in the cult that are followers, right?

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And God bless their soul. We're praying for them that they would come out. And even though there's a lot of sects that are very troubling, they believe wrong gospel, that doesn't mean that everybody in that is necessarily lost.

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And here's the big thing. Doesn't mean that they're going to stay in that position forever.

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Right. And you're alluding to James 3, 1, there is a stricter condemnation for those people that purposely, maliciously mishandled the word of God.

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And you're right. We can't judge the motives. I will say I notice the pattern we see in the gospels.

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Jesus comes at false teachers with full force. And I think that's because wolves kill sheep and then shepherds are called to kill wolves.

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And so we kill wolves in the sense that we attack their doctrine. Because at the end of the day, our battle is not against flesh and blood.

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We love false teachers in the sense that we pray that God would grant them repentance and they would look to Jesus and saving faith.

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And we war for the faith. We contend for the truth of God's word. But I love what you said. It's not up to us to judge their heart motive.

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So it's their doctrine that's satanic. It's their doctrine that ultimately is what leads people astray.

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Right. Yeah, I think I mean, it feels a bit like, you know, kind of laying the qualifiers out. But I think it's I think it's important with a discussion like this as as as people are trying to walk through these issues.

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So let's jump in. If if if anyone has not been over to the apologetic dog, we've talked about this before.

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I know you've talked about this before with other hosts. So you can get a pretty good picture of what preterism is in general.

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But I'll just throw out a brief definition. And again, Jeremiah, help me fill this in as we walk through it. But preterism in general, that word preter coming from the

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Latin word for past. But this is referring to a past fulfillment of things. And typically we're thinking of prophetic fulfillment and specifically with those things in the revelation and other other kind of apocalyptic or eschatological passages in the

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New Testament. So when we're looking at things that have been fulfilled, many would fall into a partial preterist category.

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So many would look at things and I'll throw myself in there. Well, I can throw both of us under the bus on this one,

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Jeremiah. We talked about this on our last video. So both of us would read Matthew, you know, the Olivet Discourse there in Matthew 24 and we would see aspects of it or at least large portions which have been fulfilled.

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They seem to clearly be pointing toward a fulfillment, namely in 70 A .D. with the destruction of the the temple, the leveling of Jerusalem.

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And typically 70 A .D. is what we're talking about, that little, you know, mile marker where these things were fulfilled.

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So we look to some things that were fulfilled there, but not all things. What we're talking about tonight, though, is and we could we could call it full preterism or consistent preterism or hyper preterism is a term that I've seen used.

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But we'll just use full preterism for consistency. But typically I've seen these three things,

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Jeremiah, and help me help me if I'm missing one, that all things that we encounter in Scripture have been fulfilled and specifically in the events surrounding the temple destruction in 70

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A .D. And I keyed in on three specific doctrines. That was the future bodily coming of Christ was accomplished in 70

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A .D. This is full preterism that the bodily resurrection of the dead or however you term that resurrection of the dead occurred in 70

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A .D. and that the end of history and the final judgment essentially occurred in 70 A .D. so that things are continuing now, kind of ad infinitum into the future without without an end inside or anything, anything climactic or culminating that we're looking to.

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Does that about cover it or am I missing anything in that? No, that's really good. That's that's a good entry point because you can kind of springboard in so many things.

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Something that's very unique to full preterism is we're living in the new heavens and the new earth.

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Now, they really will kind of redefine new heavens and new earth to just simply mean regeneration or when you come into spiritual union with Christ by faith.

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But yeah, like you said, there's no culmination of all things. There's not a restoration of all things.

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And then the curse of sin being undone and this world being transformed. That and like the third point you were getting at.

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Yeah. Everything that you see around us, all of the heinous sin that you see is going to always continue as is.

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And the claim to fame with full preterism is that the second coming of Jesus already happened at the destruction of the temple.

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Right. Yeah, which and if somebody has not encountered that, obviously these teachings have been around for a while.

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You and I have talked about how there seems to be maybe an uptick in that. We had we had Joel Webben on for an interview.

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He kind of intimated the same thing that maybe with some of the popular resurgence in post -millennialism, not to hang this on the post -millennial circles, but that with some post -millennial thought, you'll also get a fringe element that also experiences a growth, because I wouldn't say the full preterism is is a predominant view by any by any stretch within post -millennialism.

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But so let's let's walk through a little bit of the details, because one of the things that you brought up in our last in our last conversation was that one of the things that full preterists will appeal to is those timing indicators and those those specific timing factors.

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Could you walk us into that just a little bit, Jeremiah, in case somebody hadn't encountered that? Yeah, it's all those verses that say, you know, the time is near.

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The time is at hand. These things are going to happen soon. The hour is not yet.

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But the idea is that there's something immediate. Right. What full preterism does is say, see, something is really immediate with this generation, the generation of the apostles.

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And the key that turns everything on is the destruction of the temple. And I was listening to Doug Wilson, and I love beautifully how he laid out the problem what's going on with full preterism.

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There seems to be a lot of explanatory power because, yeah, there is something immediate and that would have been a huge deal with Israel and the destruction of the temple.

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And so they have this theological hammer, this novum, and now everything else starts seeming like a nail.

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So with everything else, they just start slamming it with 70 A .D. in mind. And so it undoes

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Christianity in that way. It's something totally brand new. And I mentioned earlier how the apologetic dog, one of my major emphasis in my ministry is evangelizing the

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Church Christ, the Church Christ. They emerged out of the restoration movement not too many years ago, maybe around 200 years ago or so.

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I'm not quite sure on that. But ironically, full preterism emerged out of the

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Church of Christ Campbellite movements. So this is very new on the scene of history.

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And when you're talking about, you know, using the hammer with the nail, I think one of the things that makes it appealing to a lot of to a lot of people that I have read who have been who have been influenced by that teaching is the fact that that 70

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A .D. and the temple destruction and the timing indicators have largely been neglected in a lot of Protestant circles.

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And specifically, I would say within evangelical circles, there's been a large futurist take on most prophetic passages where everything is kind of pushed into the future and there's nothing present.

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So that when you start to point out some of those things like timing indicators, like this generation, like Jesus, Matthew 24, walking along and saying, do you see these stones, you know, pointing at these literal stones?

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So I think that there's there's something there that we can latch on to biblically, textually.

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But then it's how far does that extend? And like you said, with the nail and the hammer, one of the recent conversations that I've been seeing is is specifically with the timing indicators.

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So with with any word used within scripture, whether it's Hebrew or Greek, but specifically,

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I'm going to speak about like Greek terminology. You have you have different categories and Greeks are very structured and organized language.

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And yet there's a semantic range with with any given term, semantic ranges being, you know, that how far that term can stretch, how far it can apply in different terms, have different different stretchiness, we could say lexically.

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But it would be something as simple as encountering, for example, in Revelation 119, when we when we read a timing indicator of these things will happen.

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And for a lot of the there's been some really interesting. The reason I bring up Revelation 119 has been there's been some really interesting back and forth.

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I've seen Ken Gentry, Gary DeMar, they've been discussing this. I've also read some things that Fred Zaspel and Sam Waldron have recently released on this.

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But but the pushback on that word mellow there in the text would say they would say that's a timing indicator, which must mean these things are about to take place, as in they are imminent, whereas the plainest reading of that within a semantic range is just that these things will happen, not necessarily that they have to happen.

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To me, that seemed like like what you're talking about with the with the hammer and the nail analogy.

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It is good and proper for us to recognize timing indicators, especially when they're very clear timing indicators.

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But when we start swinging that at everything that looks like a timing indicator, we start hitting nails that aren't there, I think oftentimes or forcing things into those holes.

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Does that make sense? One hundred percent. I'll tell you another one. You mentioned Revelation real fast. Revelation 1 3 says bless is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it for the time is near.

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Right. And so the idea is the time is near, like it's impending chronologically about to take place. Well, when you look at the semantic domain of near, we understand, well, this also could mean at hand, literally that it's here.

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It's now that hand. So so and here's the biggest problem,

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Josh, is it's a different type of hermeneutic. That's what's going on. So we understand God's word has been unfolding progressively, right, all the way back with Revelation two or from Genesis to Revelation.

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The full preterist has it 100 percent reverse. They have committed to these timing indicators with 70

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AD and they've locked in with that and they've interpreted the rest of scripture in light of that axiom.

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Does that make sense? And so they have an exact you don't start with the end. You let scripture develop in itself and we have the the fulfillment, right?

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The New Testament helps us shed light on the things in the Old Testament and a lot of the it's so it's so interesting when

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I start talking with full preterist, they they have these backward hermeneutics and you can see how there's inconsistencies on the board, but they'll do anything to rescue kind of the 70

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AD paradigm. Right. No, that's that's a good point. It's, you know, Christians frequently bring up, you know, eisegesis versus exegesis, you know, trying to read something into the text.

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And unfortunately, like especially when you look at the language work of the New Testament, I think that it frustrates a lot of us because you want to say this word always means this, right?

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Like so I can I can take, you know, a timing indicator or I can take some sort of chronological indicator and this will always mean the exact same thing.

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And it's difficult because, you know, working through Greek and Hebrew, I can remember being in class and saying, aha, this word means that.

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And the answer is usually it depends. It depends on the context. It depends on how it's used. I mean, an easy example would be take how

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John uses world and just trace that through the gospel of John alone. And you're going to see he uses that world, that word world with a pretty wide semantic range at times.

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So when we look at those timing indicators, similarity is not always sameness is a phrase that I saw somebody use.

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And so it really depends on that context. And what you're talking about then is trying to read from the back, you know, or from the from the end backward and read back into the text.

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And I think you're right that we're supposed to read outward from that. Now, going back a couple of steps, we were talking about the word heresy earlier and why, because some people, a lot of the full predators community, they want to be

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Christian. And so they don't like it when people are coming in and saying, no, what you're actually presenting is not

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Christianity. It's not the historic faith. You're you're outside and we're trying to evangelize you because we think that you're lost.

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And so they want to be Christian. And so a question I've had to me is why are they outside the faith?

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Why can't we just consider them as brothers who are just simply in error on something? Right. And that's a legitimate question.

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And so if you're OK with this, I think there's one classic passage that speaks to why this type of teaching would be damnable heresy.

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OK, so when you go to Second Timothy, chapter two, you had some false teachers in this first century time of hominids and Philetus.

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And it's something because they believed that the resurrection had already happened in their time, to which the full predator says, yeah, well, that's true.

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The the the resurrection hasn't already happened at 70 AD yet. So this is all preceding it. But I'm saying if we pause, listen to what

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Paul says to them, because they got the timing of the resurrection, which would necessarily entail the second the timing of the second coming as well.

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These two men got those timing wrong and they said it already taken place and it's not future.

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And so I wanted to just read this small passage and I want the viewers to hear what

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Paul would say to those that have already said that the resurrection necessarily the second coming is something that already took place in the past.

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If that's OK with you. Oh, for sure. OK, so in Second Timothy, chapter two, starting in verse 16,

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Paul says, but avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness and their talk will spread like gangrene.

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Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened.

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They are upsetting the faith of some. So, number one, he talks about avoiding irreverent babble.

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Right on the apologetic dog is the same phrase used in First Timothy 620. This is pagan philosophy.

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This is worldly ideologies that rival the knowledge of God, which were caused were called to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

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Even those thoughts that rival the Christian worldview. And so this irreverent babble is pagan philosophy and it quickly leads people into ungodliness, into sin, and their talk will spread like gangrene.

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So this type of teaching that Paul is setting up, he says it's cancerous. It's going to kill from within.

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And so he names out false teachers. And, you know, there's a time and place to call out the chief heretic, right, or a group of them and tell the sheep, beware of these poisonous pastures that are going to lead you astray and cause you to be sick and even to die.

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And then he says this strong term in verse 18, those who swerved from the truth.

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That's what we mean by heresy, falling outside of orthodoxy. To swerve from the truth means you're not in the truth.

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You're not in the fold anymore. And so and the whole point and the pushback from the full preterist that I've gotten,

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Josh, is that, well, Paul is not talking to them about the nature of the resurrection.

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I'm sure he agrees about the nature. All he's doing is disagreeing with the timing. And to me, it's a fallacy just to say because he didn't talk about the nature of the resurrection, therefore he agrees with them.

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And what they're getting at is the resurrection and the second coming. These are spiritual truths that already happened in the past.

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Right. And so but here's the big point, that the fact that he's disagreeing with the timing, he's basically calling them anathema.

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They're saying they're swerved from the truth and causing people to follow after them. And so what I've posed to full preterist is if Paul was living today and the parrhesia is still future, how would

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Paul talk to the full preterist today? He would say the same thing that he said to Hymenaeus and Phileas.

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He would say, your teaching is cancerous, you're causing people to swerve and you need to repent.

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Right. And so I've thought about this a lot, too, because earlier you asked, we're talking about heresy.

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Heresy typically damages the person of Christ in some way or how you receive

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Christ, right? Cults do this, right? They're going to they're going to capitulate on on one of those two things.

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Really, what I think when you start making the resurrection into a spiritual

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Gnostic teaching, well, it it ultimately is going to funnel back to who

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Christ is. And if he's not going to judge the world as it is and restore all things, this is ultimately creating a different Jesus.

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That's why I think this is heresy of the highest order, nameable heresy, because it ultimately touches on the person of Christ and it touches our blessed future hope, trusting in Christ to resurrect us, to be with him for all eternity and to restore all things.

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So they take all that away. Yeah, no, that's that's good to point out that it's because we

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I think I think there is the temptation to simplify it down to, well, it's just a matter of timing. And like you pointed out, not only do we have biblical precedence for how

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Paul handled those things, we've talked about before how, you know, Paul was much harsher than most modern evangelicals would prefer him to be.

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But but he's very clear about this. You can't separate the resurrection truth of Christ from the person of Christ to to smear somehow or to get wrong.

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The resurrection is to get Christ wrong himself. I want to walk through a couple of passages because I know

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I know one of the requests that we'd had from a previous video was, can we point out some of the passages? I know we have one that we're going to work our way to, but I'm just going to throw a couple out there and help me along with this,

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Jeremiah. We can't cover everything, obviously. There's a lot here. We're talking about nothing less than prophecy and how it's fulfilled, but we can throw a couple of them out.

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So one of the ones, and I'll start off with the easy one because we've already mentioned Matthew 24. So Matthew 24 is a tough passage, but it's a wonderful passage.

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And to give just kind of a recap of what Jeremiah and I discussed previously, I think the best reading of Matthew 24 is that it is a two pronged question, which is the disciples give to Jesus.

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And Jesus then gives a chapter plus long explanation then of that answer.

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The questions that are posed to Christ are, what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?

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So a two pronged question, when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?

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Excuse me on that one. So it's two different questions. When will these things be? Specifically, Christ is pointing around, he's looking at the temple, he's saying that this will all be destroyed.

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And so they say, when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? Christ then walks through that chapter.

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And as we discussed, I'm not going to be so bold as to say it's just, you know, demonstrably clear where that differentiation is, but I think you could do far worse than to look at verse 36.

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There seems to be a very distinct turning point there in the text where we read these words in Matthew 24, 36.

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He says, but, now he's been speaking about the temple destruction and all of its horror and all of the turmoil that happened in 70

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AD. But then Matthew 24, 36, he says, but concerning that day and hour, as in the day and hour of his coming and the end of the age, that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the son, but the father only.

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And I thought that was a really instructive passage just to start our thinking in this regard, is that when

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Christ spoke of that, number one, he says, no one knows this time. This is not for you to know, nor the son, but the father only, which is a tremendous statement, but also if you back up in that text and you look at verses 23 through 27,

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Christ has just warned them at great length, not to be deceived by false words, by false teachers, by those who are upsetting them with false warnings.

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So I think that the strong message that Christ gives us concerning those things is one of caution and one of trust in God.

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And certainly nothing in Matthew 24 seems to indicate that this is some sort of thing that the church would have missed for 1900 years, certainly not that all of the apostles seem to have missed.

28:48

If there was a spiritual resurrection alone, which qualified to fulfill

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Matthew 24 or Christ's coming and judgment, and that's the entirety of the Olivet discourse, it seems that almost everyone missed it.

29:00

And that's a difficult one to wrap my head around. Your thoughts on that one though? That's good. I just want to encourage the audience.

29:07

You and I talked at some great length on Matthew 24, and I believe that we have it on my channel.

29:14

I'd love for people to go listen to that. And I have a book plug that I'd like for people to consider by Ken Gentry, Have We Missed the

29:22

Second Coming? The way that he treats the Olivet discourse was kind of the first time that I learned that there's this two -pronged approach to the

29:29

Olivet discourse where there's two questions being presented to Jesus, and he gives two answers. So it shouldn't surprise us that maybe one is imminent answer that they should look forward to, and then something is still future.

29:41

And so I love that because you may have to close your ears on this, but I grew up dispensational pre -millennial.

29:47

And so how I read the Olivet discourse is I read it as an all or nothing event.

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Like it's all talking about the same event and its future. And so I want people to know about this.

30:00

The full Preterist does the same move in reverse. They see the entire Olivet discourse talking about the same event, like the dispensationalist, but they just put it in the past.

30:09

And so I want people to be aware of that move. And by God's grace, you can be a pre -millennial dispensational individual and be saved, but because these things are still our future blessed hope to look forward to.

30:21

And you talked about in verse 36, but concerning that day, many scholars pointed out that this is being contrasted potentially with a couple of verses before, truly

30:33

I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things will take place. So this is kind of the transition verse that the first question about the destruction of the temple, perhaps that's what's imminent here, that these people will experience these great tribulations, just to emphasis that it's going to be great persecution, tribulation, that's about to happen.

30:53

Um, in this century, that's going to happen in the span of this 40 year generation, but then that day, um, the concern in the coming of the sunning of the coming of the son of man, no one knows that day, only the father.

31:07

And so another thing I want to point out in my study of all millennialism and post -millennialism is how you understand the end of the age, this age and the age to come, because the move of the post -mill, which is orthodox, typically understands this generation, the end of the age to be the end of the

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Jewish age. Now that is one -to -one the same move of what the full preterist does as well.

31:33

And I loved what Joel said on your podcast the other day is as post -millennialism grows, there's this weird subset, just strand of people that just take what is good and then twist it into something bad.

31:47

Everything is like that, right? Anything good that we have, um, Satan can use it for his, uh, vices, but with an up spike in post -millennialism, they take a few of these principles and you get kind of full preterism.

31:59

Yeah. And, and that's, and I'm glad you brought that up because that, that is one of the reasons why we see this crop up, particularly not, not exclusively, but particularly within post -millennial circles, because you've got that changing of the ages right there at 70

32:11

AD, which like you said, kind of lends itself toward either one of those. Um, I'm, I want to walk through a couple more passages.

32:18

Um, one of the ones we find it in second Peter chapter three, um, second Peter chapter three, um, we read this in verse 13 and there, there's a couple of places in scripture that we're pointing toward this new heavens, new earth.

32:30

And, and obviously Isaiah 65 would be an example in the old Testament. Um, that's been one that we've been working through here in our church lately.

32:37

Um, but there's other places. And then we get to obviously Revelation 21, 22, where we see this kind of, uh, culminating new heavens and new earth.

32:46

Now the, the position of full preterism would be that that is accomplished already.

32:51

Um, what I'm reading here in second, uh, second Peter three, and there's, there's been some who have held this to have already been an already manifestation.

32:59

If I'm not mistaken, don't quote me on this. I think John Owen might've been one, um, that thought this might be referring to something present, but second, second

33:06

Peter three 13. But according to the promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

33:16

Um, walk us into that just a little bit, Jeremiah, how we are to think of that promise of the new heavens, new earth, what, what does scripture primarily pointing us toward with that?

33:24

All right. You may have to contain the apologetic dog because this is a very important passage.

33:30

And you look to the context of kind of, uh, of all of chapter three, because when you go back, it's talking about, um, knowing this, first of all, that there will be scoffers in the last days with scoffing, scoffing, following after their own sinful devices.

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They will say, where's the promise of his heresy is coming forever. Since the father's fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.

33:56

I just want to highlight. You got the mention of the last days, Jesus is coming in the beginning of creation.

34:04

Okay. All important things to talk about. And I have so much respect and love, especially how all male and post -male talk about the last days, the age, uh, this age and the age to come and how they don't quite land in the same place.

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But I can respect the tension that both have for the already and not yet.

34:22

And I'm not going to throw out pre -millennialism. There are brothers, they're Orthodox and they deal with those things in a

34:28

God honoring way as well. Right. But I think what's key to helping us understand at the end of the chapter is when he, when he talks about, um, the, all these things will continue as they were from the beginning of creation.

34:42

So this is a reference back to Genesis and, uh, Peter here goes into saying that these people are so quick to overlook the flood and the effects that happened from that.

34:51

So your, your understanding is Genesis, a historic account of how God created ex nihilo from nothing.

34:58

Right. So I believe this helps us understand what he's getting at when he talks about the new heavens and the new earth, right?

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This is something that's going to happen, not a mere spiritual reality.

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And so this helps us, you know, as we start looking at, um, verse 10, but in that, but in the day of the

35:19

Lord will come like a thief in the night, when the heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved in the earth and the works that are done in it will be exposed since all of these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people are you ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness waiting for and hastening of the coming of, of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn.

35:50

So then it goes into the promise of the new heavens and the new earth. So this is kind of,

35:56

I think what's super clear is this is an undoing and implosion of this, this world.

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God is refining with holy righteous fire to bring about a new restored order.

36:08

Okay. I've had some people say, so this is, this is a different planet. It's like, well, when we lose our physical bodies and we're resurrected, we still retain our identity.

36:17

So we still retain the, this still retains the identity of the earth, right?

36:22

But it's new. It's not cursed by sin anymore. So I think that this is a literal thing that will happen in the future.

36:30

Some post -millennialists though, they will look into this as kind of their same switch from this age and the age to come, that this is the burning up of this

36:40

Jewish age. And I would just say, that's a hard sell for me.

36:46

And not, and I will say this, that not all post -millennialists interpret it that way and pray. And I say, praise

36:51

God. I mean, I guess you can still be orthodox and read this as some kind of spiritual doing away with the

36:58

Jewish age. But the context tells me that, well, he started talking about Genesis, about the earth in which

37:05

God made it in the past, and he's talking about the end, the promise of what's going to happen as all these things take place.

37:13

So what do you think? No, that's good. And I, I'm glad you're tying it to Genesis because, you know,

37:18

I'm thinking toward, you know, our post -millennial and amillennial brothers and sisters.

37:24

And, and you can take this passage with a large degree of the symbolism that scripture allows.

37:31

And what I mean by that is, you know, we're just looking at the passage. It's, you know, verse eight, do not overlook the fact that what the

37:37

Lord one day is, is a thousand years, thousand years, one day. There's clear symbolism in this passage, right? And so we can look to the, especially with the prophets, you can pick out language about the heavens melting as they burn, and you can look for a non -literal burning, and yet it's describing something that is cataclysmic, something that is something that's a massive culmination, not something that would be so restricted as to one event.

38:02

It does not seem. No, I think, I think it's good. And again, the new heavens, new earth is not an easy concept for us to walk through.

38:10

But I thought this was a good one to point out. How about this one? Let's move to second Peter, I mean, excuse me, second

38:16

Thessalonians chapter two, which is again, a very tough chapter. But second

38:23

Thessalonians chapter two, we read this. And again, this is from my understanding, one of the passages that full preterists will say, this is already, well, obviously they'll say this has already been accomplished in 70

38:33

AD. I'm going to read the first two verses. He says, oh, sorry, forgive, forgive the pastor in me.

38:40

Let me, let me set the context just a little bit, right. Cause he's about to jump into the man of lawlessness. So that is, that is second Thessalonians chapter two.

38:46

He's speaking of the man of lawlessness, which obviously that's what makes this chapter very difficult for us to walk through and who is this man and how does he fit in, but he starts it off with verse one, he says now concerning the coming of our

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Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him. And that's a really key little phrase being gathered together to him.

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We ask you brothers not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed either by a spirit or by a spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us to the effect that the day of the

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Lord has come. It seems to be, and that that's, that's the end of verse two. It seems to be a clear warning.

39:21

And again, this is written pre 70 AD and yet the impetus and warning of this passage seems to point to not being easily shaken of the day of the

39:29

Lord coming, unless there was number one, clear signs that accompany it. And number two, that it would be easily recognizable to those who are looking for it.

39:38

Now there's been those, um, and again, don't, don't quote me on this. Um, but I think B .B. Warfield might've been one of those who, who held this as fulfilled in 70

39:45

AD. Um, but what, what are your thoughts on this one, Jeremiah? Well, cause you can hear the full preterist.

39:51

Oh, of course it's not happened in Paul's day because this is written before 70 AD. So don't be deceived.

39:56

Yeah. Cause that's the pushback. When you get into the epistles, when you get into the new Testament, all this is in their mind written before 70

40:04

AD, and there might be some validity to that, but it quickly turns into zero application for us today, if that's true.

40:13

Now you got every strand of full preterists that exist that are in disagreement with each other.

40:19

Now they do unite around that. The second coming already happened. The, the, the resurrection of the dead was spiritual.

40:25

And then kind of everything that you see now, this is the new heavens and new earth. Um, but yeah, um,

40:31

I was going to say it's interesting because, you know, this kind of does tie into the man of lawlessness and the restraining.

40:37

I've got into a lot of conversations where people are like, give us an answer. Tell me definitively what

40:42

Paul's getting here. And I think it's okay to say, Hey, here's some Orthodox answers of what this could have looked like far as if there was something in the first century, or if Paul was talking about something eschatological, context does allow for that because he is talking about the parrhesia, if you're holding to an

41:01

Orthodox faith, um, and he mentions this earlier in first Thessalonians chapter three, if you don't mind,

41:07

I was going to say a lot of this kind of ties together. He says in first Thessalonians chapter three, starting verse 11.

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Now may our God and the father himself and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to you and may the

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Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another for all, as we do for you so that we may establish in your hearts, blameless and holiness before our

41:28

God and father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all the saints, right?

41:35

And so that's an important, that's an important one to tie in. And it's interesting because it says all the saints and hopefully hearing a little bit, um, a stinger passage that I do want to touch on briefly in first Corinthians 15, this is one of the implications.

41:48

I think if full preterism was consistent, they should be universalist because all those within redemptive history, which is past are already saved.

41:58

So we are living in a time post, uh, redemption. So really you have two options, universal damnation or universal salvation.

42:07

And the former isn't attractive to anybody. So when, when full preterists are still trying to evangelize, like share the gospel, it's like, what are you doing?

42:17

All Jesus already came, came back. Like, like what's, what's the deal? Like, why would you feel the need to share something that's already happened?

42:26

Uh, you're living outside the plan of redemption. That's why, and this is a huge caution to, uh, full preterism.

42:33

Most people that embrace it, go down the path of universalism. And I've listened to many, this is anecdotal, a lot of atheist deconstruction stories, how they were first led to full preterism.

42:44

And then eventually led to just leaving the faith altogether. Man, no, that's good to walk through.

42:51

Um, I have, I have one more, you already said first Corinthians 15. So now I'm already itching to get there. And I know you do too.

42:56

Um, I, I, I've long felt first Corinthians 15 was one of the, the pivotal chapters and most neglected chapters when it comes to eschatology, typically people don't think of first Corinthians 15.

43:07

If I was, if you were to ask me for a summation of eschatology, I would probably direct you to that chapter. If I was restricted to one chapter.

43:14

Um, I will say this before, before moving on a really good treatment of, uh, second Thessalonians, uh, and the man of sin or the man of lawlessness, um, was

43:22

Kim riddle Barker's book, um, the man of sin, man, it's not the man of lawlessness. Right.

43:28

It's the man of sin. I believe it's the man of sin. I think it's the, yeah, yeah. Hopefully that's it, but it's Kim riddle Barker's book. Obviously he wrote a defense of all millennialism.

43:35

Um, but that was, that was a really helpful book. And you recently had him on your channel. We did. We did.

43:41

He's a, he, he was very kind. I know he's got a lot going on, but yeah, he joined us over there. And, and, uh, it's always fun to talk to, to Dr.

43:47

Riddle Barker. Um, let me, let me throw this one out because for me, I know first Corinthians 15, we'll get right there.

43:53

Um, but for me, one of the, uh, one of the dangers of, um, of viewing

43:58

Christ's return in 70 AD is the manner of his coming. And I don't,

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I want to direct everybody to first, uh, or excuse me, to acts chapter one, um, acts in chapter one and verses specifically eight through 11.

44:11

And this is, this is the thing. So when we look at redemptive history, um, we see Christ at work. Um, you can see

44:18

Christ at work throughout all of scripture. There's been some fascinating things written on the angel of the Lord in the old Testament and how, um, all of scripture speaks to Christ, John five.

44:26

So we can recognize that Christ is at work, um, in judgment, redemption, um, salvation, wrath, all these things.

44:34

Um, so when we look at 70 AD and we see that Christ is bringing judgment upon the temple, that Christ is, uh, leveling the temple grounds and bringing

44:42

Jerusalem low because of their sin, we can say that that was Christ involved in that activity. But we're talking about something far different than just Christ bringing judgment on Jerusalem.

44:50

We're talking about that entailing his second coming. And that's where, that's where acts one to me is very instructive.

44:57

Um, acts in chapter one, verse eight through 11 says this, um, Christ is speaking to his, his, uh, his disciples.

45:03

He's about to ascend to the father and he says, but you will receive power when the Holy spirit has come upon you.

45:09

And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all of Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. And when he had said these things as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight while they were gazing into heaven, as he went behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?

45:30

This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.

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For me. And, and, and again, this is not just something that, that that's, that's from me alone or anything like that.

45:44

This has been the consistent understanding of the Christian church. If we can say that anything is a consistent understanding, which is always a bit, you know, a bit, a bit bold of a statement, because there's been many different Christians who have had many different thoughts over the, over the years, but this has been a dominant position of the

45:59

Christian church for 2000 years, that the understanding of this passage is that Christ's bodily visible ascension will be mirrored when he bodily visibly, returns to earth to come in judgment of the wicked and vindication of the saints.

46:14

Um, walk us into that one a little bit, Jeremiah. Oh my goodness. So I did have a thought that flew in my mind that I didn't want to forget.

46:21

I meant, I meant to say this earlier, back when we were talking about how we should be evangelizing the full predators, because they're heretics, right?

46:30

They're outside the faith. That's why we want to evangelize them in love, but we're standing firm on truth. But when we press them on consistency, the point is they should be evangelizing us because we differ on the timing of the resurrection and, uh, the coming of Christ.

46:44

So my point there was they aren't trying to evangelize us. They're trying to be buddy, buddy, and be

46:50

Christians with us, right? That we just have mere disagreements in air. It's like, no, it's, it's severe. And so that's something that's really important.

46:58

And I love how you came to Acts chapter one here, because I've went to town with full predators talking about this very thing, because I want to speak to how they view this passages, this passage, and so many things that they have to give up in the process.

47:14

So it's pretty clear, just surface level reading. The apostles are seeing Jesus ascend into heaven and to the right hand of the father on most time.

47:24

Right. And the angels are saying, you know, Hey, he's going to come back the same way that you saw him leave. And so we easily say, okay, body, the ascension body, the return.

47:33

And that's right. And this actually is going to tie into first Corinthians 15 because Jesus, his resurrection was also bodily and it's because he's the

47:42

God man. So he retains his humanity. That's all we can know that the, the immediate audience, the disciples would have understood.

47:51

Okay. Literally bodily how he's ascending. That's how he's going to come back. Well, preterism is a totally different ballgame.

47:57

So the way that they try to abuse this text is to say, okay, if you go back and look at Daniel chapter seven, when you have the son of man going to the ancient of days, it's in the context of authority and power.

48:10

So really all the apostles are saying is Jesus is ascending with authority. And he's just going to return in authority.

48:18

Okay. And we're like, don't you dare do that to this text. That's not what the apostles would have been saying. And this is directly linked to Jesus being our perfect representative, right, being truly

48:28

God, truly man. And this also harkens back to his resurrection. That was also bodily.

48:34

And so, um, my really good friend, Dr. Sam Frost, um, he was one of the leader.

48:41

He was one of the leaders of full preterism for about a decade. And so it was this passage that was one of the things that, that started to crack the armor, if you will, because they have to acknowledge that he, he ascended in power, but bodily.

48:55

And so he did, that means in his second coming back of 70 AD, he had to somehow get rid of his body.

49:03

And so they have some interesting papers calls, where's the body kind of like this, um, this gangster take on, you know, they, they had to hide the body, which

49:12

I thought was kind of funny. Um, but this damages the, the hypostatic union and who Christ is, is our perfect representative as the

49:19

God man, which Paul talks about also in first Timothy chapter two. Um, so yeah, he has to, um, get rid of the body when he returns and he somehow goes back into, um, the, the eternal

49:32

Logos with the Trinity. And so Dr. Frost told me, he's like, Jeremiah, I had to, you have to read all of that into the text that's not there to make it happen.

49:41

And how much are you going to shoehorn into the text before you realize that this isn't even

49:46

Christian anymore? So to me, it's absurd to try to read that his, his ascension and they'll, they'll go to the great commission where Jesus said, all authority, um, has been given to me on heaven and earth.

49:58

So he's just ascending authoritatively empower, and that's how he's going to return. And so Sam told me he was like,

50:04

Jeremiah, that was a huge red flag and quickly, um, you know, pre -millennialist, uh, another absurdity that I want to highlight with full preterism as it kind of relates to, um, the millennial reign.

50:17

Full preterism sees a literal thousand year reign, right. And then kind of the all mill and the post mill says, well, if we look to the old

50:25

Testament to help us define terms, this is symbolic for a long period of time. Let me ask you,

50:30

Josh, how long do you think the full preterist interpret the millennium to be?

50:36

Uh, 30 something years, I believe. 37. And so to me, that is, there's no precedent in scripture for a thousand to really mean something less than a thousand, right?

50:48

Yeah, I want, I want to throw that in the mix because Acts one is a hard sell at large, and I'm saying there's actually a number of those things within full preterism.

50:57

No. Yeah. I'm, I'm glad you brought that up. Cause cause that, that had not occurred to me until I'd been, I was reading someone just the other day and they pointed that out, that the complaint of, of many full preterist writers would be that the, uh, for the thousand years to stretch farther and to be a larger fulfillment, um, is stretching the biblical text, whereas I would point out that there's many times a thousand is stretched, you know, the

51:19

Lord owns the cattle on a thousand Hills. He, but we could say, well, that's just a microcosm. He owns all the

51:25

Hills and all the cattle. Um, but to shrink it then to 37 years, I think you've got a great point there. Um, I don't even know how to introduce us into first Corinthians 15.

51:33

We've got to get there. You want to walk us into this one? Here's how we transition. Jesus ascended bodily, but it's because he's truly the

51:42

God man and he resurrected bodily. And so this ties into many features of our blessed hope, but we've been promised, uh, to be resurrected unto eternal life.

51:54

And so this is, you know, the resurrection chapter in first Corinthians 15, like Christianity, um, hangs or falls on the resurrection of Jesus.

52:04

Right. And so the timing of this was impeccable, Josh, because last night, this, this will be released soon, but, but really the, the, the death of, of hyper -preterism

52:14

I think can be highlighted in many ways in first Corinthians 15, they can't account for this within the context and the flow of Paul's argument on his parrhesia, his second coming, uh, the type of resurrection that we will have in the restoration of all things.

52:30

Do you care if I read first Corinthians 15, 20 through 26, six verses,

52:36

I'd love, I'd love for you to. Okay. So here he says, but in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead.

52:41

The first fruits of those who have fallen asleep for as by a man came death by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead for as an

52:50

Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order, Christ, the first fruits, then at his coming, those who belong to Christ.

53:00

Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God, the father, after destroying every rule and every authority and power for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

53:11

The last enemy to destroy, to be destroyed is death. So there's a lot there.

53:17

And I just want to kind of give it away at the beginning. And then maybe depending on how you want, we can walk through this, but the, the death nail to full preterism is at his coming.

53:27

He's not only going to receive all those who are his, but their resurrection will be like Christ's resurrection.

53:34

So that will be bodily. And so that that's a strike against full preterism because they, they deny that we have any future bodily resurrection.

53:41

And also at his coming will be the end, the end of time where he will defeat the last enemy, physical death.

53:50

And the reason why you got to emphasize physical death here is because that's the context of what Paul has been building his case in full preterism necessarily has to say, oh, that was, that was spiritual death that Jesus conquered.

54:01

Yeah. And so, you know, when, when we're looking back at first Corinthians 15, and I want you to walk us into the death part a little bit more of the

54:08

Adam Christ connection, because Paul's building a couple of themes in this chapter in first Corinthians 15. And I would just encourage our listeners, please read this chapter.

54:15

It's such, it's such meaty, just wonderful theology that Paul by the inspiration of the

54:20

Holy spirit lays out here, but number one, he ties our, he ties our hope in salvation to our resurrection hope for Paul, those two are synonymous the fact that I have confidence in my salvation in Jesus Christ is to, is to say,

54:33

I have confidence. He will raise me from the grave just as he rose from the grave. So to Paul, this is something that's, that, that is a gospel issue.

54:39

If we can use that, that term that has been so abused within evangelical circles, this is certainly a gospel issue by definition, and he's also tying it to Adam, so there's, there's this dual federal headship that Paul is addressing.

54:52

And Paul does this all throughout the book of Romans and in other places, but this is a biblical principle of that. We are all either inheritors of Adam as our progenitor.

54:59

And we could say we have all been an Adam. And yet there are those who are in Christ, the second Adam, the better Adam, the greater

55:06

Adam, if I can use that Hebrew language and in Christ, those curses that were in Adam, and I know you're going to walk us into what those curses look like, but those curses in Adam are undone in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

55:17

But just kind of explain it again. I don't want to lose anybody with this discussion, what the pushback of the preterist or the full preterist is, excuse me, and then why that does not hold specifically in regards to death and Adam and life in Christ.

55:31

And I want to emphasize this. Remember you brought up earlier, what's so appealing to the full preterist are the time indicators, right?

55:39

Right. And so I've told people we have to clap back with better time indicators. And so what's going on here is when you look at the world around you and you see pain, you see suffering, you see wars, you see death, that is an indicator that Christ has not come yet at the end to restore all things.

56:00

I want to highlight that to people. That's the death of full preterism, pun intended.

56:08

So when we're talking about, so like back in verse 21, for as by a man came death, by a man has also come the resurrection of the dead, for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, the full preterist says, wait a second, what kind of death is

56:29

Paul talking about here? Because in Adam all die, Adam did not die physically.

56:35

Jeremiah, Mr. Apologetic dog, he died. He must've died spiritually and that doesn't work.

56:41

And so that's what we do. We go back to, it's like, okay, Mr. Full preterist, let's go back to Genesis chapters one, two, and three.

56:47

And let's really analyze what's going on because here's the point, Josh. Adam should have died physically that day, but he did not because God was merciful.

56:57

And so here's how it is here. I'll just lay it out as plain as I possibly can. When God told

57:02

Adam the day that you needed the knowledge of the tree of good and evil, you will surely die.

57:08

It is a certain thing that you will receive justice, right? There's going to be consequence for your cosmic treason against the eternal creator of all things.

57:17

Now death is going to touch the whole person of Adam. Adam is at least, um, a, a dichotomy of being formed from the dust of the ground, a physical being of existence, right?

57:32

And God also breathed in him the breath of life. He is both physical and spiritual.

57:37

That's all of humanity. So when, when God says you will have consequences, when you sin against me, you will surely die.

57:44

Death is going to touch both features of who he is.

57:49

And so sure, there was a spiritual separation, spiritual death, the moment that he sinned, but that subjected

57:56

Adam to physical death. Okay. And put that on pause for a second, because you're right.

58:02

Christ undoes what Adam did, right? He brings us to spiritual life. And this is the whole argument that Paul is making here in first Corinthians to bring and to guarantee that we will be resurrected with bodies fit for eternity.

58:16

That's the resurrection of the dead. And so Jeremiah, why, why should have Adam died physically?

58:22

Well, for one, that's a part of who he is as a physical spirit being, but as you continue to read in Genesis three 15, you have that proto -evangelium, right?

58:30

Uh, this first gospel proclamation that this coming seed of the woman is going to crush the head of the serpent.

58:36

If you look later in Genesis three, you see another picture of how God is going to save sinners.

58:42

He gets a covering for Adam and Eve. Well, these would have been animal coverings that were their substitute that covered them that physically died.

58:52

And so since Adam is the federal head of creation, I believe also what you see is the creation began to die, right?

59:02

Romans eight really highlights how all of creation then was subjected to futility.

59:07

So everything began to kind of decay as a result from sin. And what we learn is even though God was gracious and merciful with not, um, at having

59:18

Adam to die physically, he began to die and he did die 930 years later. No, that's good.

59:24

And yeah, the, the, the, the argument with the, with the animal skins, I've, I've, I've, I'm familiar with that one.

59:30

Um, I think that's, I think that's a good way of looking at it. Um, I think the way I've always looked at it, well,

59:36

I'll just give you an example. And I think this is why biblical theology can just be so, so clarifying sometimes. Um, cause

59:41

God is so gracious to give us pictures sometimes in scripture. And one of the pictures we get there, um, that is, that is intimately tied with Adam's death,

59:49

Adam and Eve's death. Um, you get the tree of life, right? So, so Genesis one and two, there's the tree of life and it's planted in the garden.

59:56

And it looks like the expectation is that they would eat from this tree and that they would live forever. So when you get into Genesis three and you have the, the whispering of the serpent, you have the sin of humanity and you have the fall from grace and the expulsion from the garden.

01:00:08

And you have this mighty cherubim who is just this fearsome, angelic being, you know, wielding the sword.

01:00:15

And, um, this, this fiery spectacle, the reason for that fiery spectacle and that removal from the garden and the guardian, uh, stationed at its door was so that they would not have access to the tree of life.

01:00:27

And what comes from not eating of the tree of life, death comes and God specifically says there, we're going to remove this tree that he might not eat of it.

01:00:35

Um, and then you go throughout the story of scripture and you see consistently death visiting physical death, visiting every man, spiritual, yes, but also physical, right, inevitably, um, tied to that spiritual death as well.

01:00:46

And then we go all the way through to the end of the story, which, which I would still say this is to come.

01:00:51

This is me disagreeing with the full preterism. And once again, Revelation chapter 22, I'll just read it real quick.

01:00:57

Revelation chapter 22. Um, he says in verse one, he says, then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, brightest crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb through the middle of the street.

01:01:08

Also on either side of the river, the tree of life with his 12 kinds of fruit, um, yielding fruit each month, the leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations, which

01:01:18

I could go on at such length about the beauty of that and it extending to the nations that we've been called to disciple, but you get, it appears to me, not just one tree, but two they're on either sides of the river.

01:01:29

It is not only the blessings of life eternal, but those blessings extended. Um, so for us to, for us to then look at that, that large story, then

01:01:38

I think that walks hand in hand with the thing that Paul is drawing out here in first Corinthians 15, death, both physical and spiritual come through Adam and they are experienced and yet in the new heavens and the new earth, this is the blessing of the tree, um, once again, being brought for humanity.

01:01:52

Yeah. Cause when we go back to first Corinthians 15, it's physical death that that's being emphasized.

01:01:58

So like when we read for bat as by a man came death talking about Adam, he brought physical death into the world by a second man, a better man has come.

01:02:09

Also the resurrection of the dead, Jesus physically died. He physically resurrection and he was the first fruit, meaning that his resurrection was one of a kind, because when you see the other resurrections throughout scripture, there were miracles.

01:02:23

Lazarus died again. Right. Other people that were resurrected, they died again. So when Jesus resurrected, it was for eternal glory.

01:02:31

So when he's the first fruit, that means that there's more to come. And it's interesting because back in verse 20, it says that he's the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep, but Paul's using a euphemism of those that are dead, right?

01:02:43

And we see that earlier and, uh, first Corinthians and throughout other places. And, um, this funny because this is actually comes out in the gospel where, um,

01:02:52

Jesus said that, uh, that Lazarus had fallen asleep and the disciples were a little bit confused and they said, oh, well, he'll get better.

01:02:58

And he's like, no, he'll stink as much for four days because he's actually dead, uh, and the

01:03:03

King James. Uh, so point is, is all throughout first Corinthians 15, physical death, physical death, physical death.

01:03:12

And then the last enemy at his Parisia will be destroyed death. And it's like, guess what death that's talking about physical death.

01:03:19

And I think it's, if we're not careful, we're going to read through the entirety of this chapter by the time we're done, but I've got,

01:03:25

I've got a point of stand. If we just scan down on the chapter, look at verse 50 with me, because, because what Jeremiah is keying in on, and, and this, this is,

01:03:32

I think for both of us, just one of the things that seems so inconsistent, we look at, we look at new life in Christ and we do say we are a new creation in Christ.

01:03:40

Yes. And amen. We are, we are nothing short of a dead man brought to life. Amen. Um, and yet that's not to mix perishable with imperishable.

01:03:48

And that's what we're talking about. That was, that was kind of what I was trying to bring out with that tree of life illustration is that in this physical body, we are perishable.

01:03:55

And that is, that is the course of this world. And yet we are looking for the imperishable. Let me real quickly, it's five verses.

01:04:02

Um, first Corinthians 15, 50 through 55. Paul says this. I tell you this brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable behold.

01:04:13

I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment. And the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed for the perishable body must put on the imperishable.

01:04:27

And this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable and the moral puts on immortality, then she'll come to pass.

01:04:35

The saying that is written death is swallowed up in the victory. Oh, death, where's your victory?

01:04:41

Oh, death, where is your sting? That that's the hope that Paul's keying in on this chapter is alive in Christ.

01:04:48

Yes, but raised to imperishable life. And that is something that, like you said, we can look around not only biblically, but we can also look around in this world and observe the effects of perishable death that are still affecting this world nailed it, man.

01:05:04

It's it's it's we've got to break away from this chapter. There's so, there's so much good food there. And maybe we can revisit this at some point.

01:05:10

Um, any other passages? Cause I do want to walk into just some of the specific issues, um, that arise within a full preterism, but are there any other passages you wanted to bring up before we do that,

01:05:19

Jeremiah? I really think, um, when we start talking about the problems of full preterism, we've already touched on.

01:05:27

They fail historically, right? Because when you look at it, cause we have a, it's a, we have a historic faith.

01:05:33

Jesus said, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. So the church will have the truth, right?

01:05:39

The gospel. And so when we look back into church history, we see all the saints of old, always affirming a future coming of Christ, a future resurrection of the dead, right.

01:05:51

And looking forward to Christ to restore all things. Right. So full preterism fails historically.

01:05:57

Christ even promised the Holy spirit to the disciples that he would guide them into all truth. We're not going to say, well, when we look to church history, the

01:06:03

Holy Holy spirit checked out for 2000 years until they arrived on the scene. Right, right. Well, they fail historically.

01:06:09

And then we, we, we see how full preterism paints an entire worldview with themselves about this physical world goes on into infinity and you have some absurdities.

01:06:21

This will actually erode the necessary attributes of God, like his omniscience. He never knows all who are his, you don't have all in an infinite created world.

01:06:29

Now it's different when we step into eternity, that's a qualitatively different state of affairs.

01:06:34

That's not infinity. It's eternity. Does that make sense? And so, um, uh,

01:06:40

Jesus would even say a house divided against itself cannot stand. So logically full preterism fails.

01:06:46

And I think we looked at one of the best passages here in first Corinthians 15, how full preterism fails exegetically.

01:06:53

And like we mentioned earlier, and I appreciate you bringing, bringing that up, um, because I love the, the apologetics approach.

01:06:59

Um, but when we talk about historically, so, so we as Christians never want to be untethered from the, from the historic faith that we are a part of.

01:07:08

Now, again, we recognize men are fallible. We recognize that the church has rarely agreed on everything.

01:07:14

Um, there's always been dissension and division within the church. Um, not in an unhealthy or sinful way, but you know, there's always been disagreement or doctrine right within the

01:07:21

Christian church. I have, I have a growing distrust of anyone who says every Christian in such and such time believed, you know,

01:07:28

X, because that's typically not, not the truth. However, if I was to look for anything to say that about, it would be the early church unanimously, um, maybe with a few detractors, but none that I've been able to find with any substance, unanimously looked for a physical resurrection of the dead.

01:07:43

Um, this was, this was the hope of the early church as unanimous as we can find of any, any doctrine.

01:07:49

They looked for a physical resurrection when Christ returned in the flesh to resurrect, um, body and soul.

01:07:55

And you also find that reflected in the major creeds and confessions of the Christian church, which again, that means much to the

01:08:01

Christian. Um, creeds and confessions aren't scripture, but they're absolutely confessions of what scripture says that are part of our historic faith.

01:08:08

And so I think that should play into the fact that, um, the vast preponderance of Christianity for 2000 years has been unified on this, on this doctrine.

01:08:17

Um, that, that, that should weigh in quite heavily. Any thoughts on that one? It should weigh in heavily because we have a historic faith and it does go back to what scripture says about how

01:08:26

Jesus said he would not abandon his the church and how he would, he would send the

01:08:31

Holy spirit, the comfort, um, the spirit of truth. And so, yeah, when you look back at church history, we, we understand history is messy.

01:08:39

History is not a hermeneutic and we are sola scriptura. We, we test all these things to the word of God, but it's unthinkable for the church to have gotten the blessed hope wrong.

01:08:50

Right. Right. It's unthinkable. And there's, there, there's, there's several questions and we, we do need to probably, probably wrap it up for this episode, but, but I'm thinking toward all the specific, uh, questions that come from a full preterist approach.

01:09:04

So if, if full preterism were true and all the prophecies had been fulfilled, which as we're trying to establish, that is, um,

01:09:12

I think it's exegetically flawed. I think it's historically flawed. I agree with you that it's logically flawed, but it also raises some really interesting questions.

01:09:19

Like when, um, when Christ promises us that he will never leave us nor forsake us, or he says that he'll be with us to the end of the age,

01:09:25

Matthew 28. Um, is he no longer with us? Um, are, are, are Christians called to evangelize or to make disciples?

01:09:32

Because that, that seems to have been, you know, fulfilled. If, if, if that's true, do we have, do we have the ongoing participation of the body through, um, through the, the, the cup and the bread?

01:09:43

Do we, you know, do we participate in communion, which is looking forward to Christ said, do this in remembrance of me looking forward to a coming return of Christ, um, we could look at things like the law, you know, in Matthew chapter five,

01:09:54

Christ said that there's not going to be a iota, a jot or tittle pass away from the law until it is all accomplished until heaven and earth pass away.

01:10:02

So then is the law still in effect? It, it raises some very substantive questions for what still holds, if anything of the historic faith of Christians, this is where all full predators are just split on all those questions that you brought up, because some will take communion and then other full predators look at them and say, because you quoted that verse for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of Lord until he comes and they're like, he already came and so they're split on that.

01:10:33

And then most of them are universalist. I think when you're pressed to be consistent, um, others are still evangelizing and it's like, why evangelize?

01:10:42

He, he already came and gone. He's not coming back. Right. And so you've touched on all the hard questions that full predators themselves cannot come to an agreement with.

01:10:53

And, um, shout out to Lawson Harlow, a mutual friend that we have. Um, we're, we're getting

01:10:59

Mercy Hill to address full predatorism. Um, and this was one of the things that really burned him and he wouldn't mind me saying this, but they have to deny the

01:11:07

Lord's supper and Lawson loves, you know, all what Christ has managed to observe.

01:11:13

And so that, that really made him start flipping tables. And I was like, brother, I feel you on that. Um, it, it makes me mad because these are precious truths that we hold on to near and dear, and I don't think,

01:11:25

I don't think we're being harsh enough against this heresy, we love the people, but we should be meeting them with full force apologetically.

01:11:33

Um, you know, giving a defense for these things. Um, and they are not brothers. They are not Christians. They are not a part of the faith.

01:11:40

And so we should be evangelizing. Right. No, there's, there's nothing. And, and I hope,

01:11:45

I hope that the tone of, of, of what we're saying is coming through, and I trust it is that, um, that this is out of, this is out of a love and an affection and a care, um, for those who would be perishing through a faulty doctrine, you know, uh, um, there's, there's, there's nothing less loving or less kind or less generous, um, than to ignore a false teaching, which, which is, uh, doing damage to the faith of others.

01:12:08

Um, let's, let's, let's wrap this up. I know people can, uh, access you at the apologetic dog and you're on.

01:12:14

Um, yeah, there you go. You're on YouTube. Um, they can, they can check you out on there. You've mentioned a couple of resources.

01:12:20

Are there any closing? Obviously go read first Corinthians 15 of, of, of other places in scripture, but any, anything you'd point, uh, the listener to as we kind of wrap this one up,

01:12:29

Yeah, like I said, the first Corinthians 15, I think is, uh, I don't think full preterism can argue with the context of what

01:12:38

Paul is saying there. Uh, being familiar with God's word. I think that's going to be obviously key to combating full preterism.

01:12:47

And I want to encourage our audience be plugged into a healthy church, man, that love your soul, that will lead you into the green pastures to the good shepherd

01:12:57

Christ, because in my experience with a lot of these people that find full preterism attractive, they've not been discipled.

01:13:04

They've not been warned of the poisonous pastures and then they find something and they, they discontent, they disconnect themselves from the historic faith.

01:13:13

And so I think what I would encourage people is be, um, be saturated in a healthy church.

01:13:19

And then when you go to the apologetic dog, um, I, I serve as a pastor elder at 12 five church, and we have a teaching series on what the essentials of a healthy church, uh, look like.

01:13:29

So I just, that that's going to go hand in hand, um, with this study. And like I said, there's, there's a number of good resources.

01:13:36

That'd recommend. I loved, uh, Ken Gentry's book. Have we missed the second coming? Um, look up Dr.

01:13:43

Sam Frost. He has a number of books and I have a lot of the links over on my page of how he's written because he, he's come out of this.

01:13:50

And so he has a big heart and loving those people that are in it. And he's the man when it comes to just pointing out all the, the faulty exegetical moves of how they abuse

01:14:00

Isaiah 65 and Daniel 12. Um, Dr. Sam Frost is the man. So he's someone that you might look to having on your channel one day.

01:14:08

I need, I need to do that. We're, uh, we're Facebook friends now. So that's a, that's a big step for an old man like me,

01:14:14

Jeremiah. Um, no. And I, I hope, um, I hope that, uh, that the listeners encouraged, you know, one of the things that always stuck with me, um, was, uh,

01:14:22

J .I. Packer who just recently passed away on the last few years, but was just, um, a monumental theologian.

01:14:28

But one of the most, um, from what I can tell, I've never met J .I. Packer in this life, but, uh, his writing and the testimonies about him was that he was such a kind, warmhearted theologian.

01:14:37

But, um, one of the things that he used to like to say, um, was that he wanted to be remembered as one who pointed to the pastor lands.

01:14:44

And I think that was Paul's heart. I hope that's our heart as Christians is to point to those things of fulfillment that God says he's bringing in Christ.

01:14:50

But Jeremiah, I appreciate you, brother. Thank you so much for coming on. Uh, we need to do it again sometime soon, but thank you so much for walking us through this and everything.