April 2, 2024 Show “The Partial Preterist Debate” with Jay Rogers (Postmillenial Preterist) vs. Roderick Edwards (Non-Preterist) (Part 1)

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this second day of April, 2024.

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I'm very excited because we have another event that is a rare event on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, but it does happen from time to time, and I actually hope that it begins to happen more frequently.

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We are having another two -day debate on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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This is a debate on the issue of partial preterism, and we have two opponents addressing this issue to defend their respective opinions.

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We have Jay Rogers, who prefers to identify himself as a post -millennial preterist, and he is an author and host of the website forerunner .com.

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And opposing Jay and his post -millennial preterist views of eschatology is

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Roderick Edwards. Roderick Edwards is also an author. He's a former hyper -preterist, or full -preterist, and is the host of rodericke .com.

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And Roderick is spelled with a C -K at the end, rodericke .com.

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And as I said, this is going to be a two -day debate.

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I'm very excited about this, and I want to make it clear to our listeners that neither one of our participants today is a full or hyper -preterist.

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In other words, both of our debaters today believe in a visible, physical return of Christ in our future, and also the bodily resurrection of the dead in our future.

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So, this is not a debate that will be addressing a defendant or representing a defendant of hyper -preterism.

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And we are going to begin the program with 10 -minute opening remarks.

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We will then go to a commercial break. We will return with both of our debaters giving five -minute rebuttals.

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Then, after another commercial break, we will begin our cross -examination sessions, which is my favorite part of the debates.

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I've been orchestrating debates since 1996, and this is definitely my most favorite aspect of the debates.

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There will be two sessions of cross -examinations where both of our debaters will question each other for seven minutes each, and then we will have final remarks by both of our debaters, and hopefully, we will also have time enough left for audience question and answers.

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And if you do have a question for our audience, our email—if you do have a question in our audience,

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I should say, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

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I do not have time to define terms today. These are things that you will have to look up on your own.

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We don't want to take a lot of time away from the actual involvement of our debaters.

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They in their own way, if they so choose, will define terms when they see fit.

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And I am going to start the program with an opening 10 -minute remark from Roderick Edwards.

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And by the way, the theme of this first day of our two -day debate on partial preterism is

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Preterism is New. And if you could begin the debate,

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Roderick Edwards, you have 10 minutes. All right.

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Can you hear me all right? I can hear you perfectly fine. Perfect. Perfect. Okay. First of all,

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I appreciate the effort you put into this and hosting this, and I appreciate everyone that's listening and taking the time to do this today.

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As you said, I am an ex -full preterist. I was so for about 15 years until 2007. I'm a multi -genre author of all kinds of books, four of them on preterism.

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Some people might think this debate on newness is kind of pointless because it's just a word. But it's not just a word.

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It's a concept as well. And as a full preterist, as an ex -full preterist, I'm telling you that this is very important to delineate between partial preterism, full preterism, and why it's dangerous.

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It's not merely the fallacy of the slippery slope or argumentum ad novitum. It's an actual issue because the

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Bible talks profusely about how there's nothing new under the sun and how that we're supposed to stick to the old paths.

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As my time as an actual full preterist in the movement, I know its history, not merely theoretically.

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Many people have become full preterists in that movement because of the arguments of partial preterism, and specifically partial preterists like R .C.

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Sproul Sr. in his book, The Last Days According to Jesus, Gary DeMar's Last Days Madness, David Chilton's Paradise Restored.

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In fact, there is claim, and I believe it's pretty valid, that Chilton became a full preterist there in the end as he was approaching his final days.

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And so many full preterists do cite partial preterists. Now, is that enough to say, hey, let's not mess with partial preterism?

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No, but it's something to at least give pause. Unlike other theological perspectives, such as Calvinism, where we do not delineate between so -called full

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Calvinism. Nobody ever says, hey, I'm a full Calvinist or a partial Calvinist. Even if there are such things, that's not how they normally define themselves.

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They normally say I'm a semi -Pelagian or Amorelian. They never say I'm a partial Calvinist, not typically.

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If there was such a thing as full Calvinism, though, it would be the default position, whereas being told by a partial preterist that full preterism is not the default position.

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Now, we've spoken about preterism, and as you said, we didn't actually give a definition. We neglected it on purpose because I wanted to show the point that some people might find this entire debate futile.

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They might think, who cares what somebody's end times eschatology view is? It's not a salvation issue. But is it?

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Preterism comes from the Latin term preterate, which means in the past, just basically in the past.

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It's not even really a theological term. Preterism advocates that most, if not all, the New Testament prophecy was fulfilled in the past.

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Tonight, we're trying to ascertain if preterism is a new doctrine being brought into Christianity.

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But, and I think you mentioned that my opponent here, Jay, calls himself a post -millennial preterist, not even a partial preterist.

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Why is that? It's interesting. As he and I have discussed it before, many of our eschatological terms, including post -millennialism or pre -millennialism, they are also relatively new.

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Matter of fact, the word pre -millennialism originally was called a

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Achilleist, which comes, I think, from Justin Martyr's writings. He mentions that he might not use the exact word, but there was a word before even pre -millennialism.

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So why are we getting worked up about these words if they're all new? Because I submit part of the problem is how preterism was developed in contrast to other terms.

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Full preterists owned the term long before partial preterists in the 1990s began to use the term.

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Now, if someone calls themselves simply preterist, the first question by anybody should be, what kind of preterist are you?

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Just like if somebody said, hey, I'm gay, but what they really mean is I'm happy. You're not going to find anybody using those terms for themselves because they're already loaded.

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So when somebody says, I'm a preterist, the first question again, what kind of preterist? Now, again,

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I was a full preterist for 15 years. And so this isn't just rudimentary or academic to me.

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I was there in the trenches of this. And so back in the early 1990s, there was a eschatology symposium at Mount Dora, Florida, about 20 miles from where I currently reside.

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And in attendance was R .C. Sproul Sr., Kenneth Gentry, and then a whole bunch of full preterists like Max King and Ed Stevens.

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Well, they came together to see if there could be any kind of reconciliation between the full preterists.

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And at the time, people like R .C. Sproul Sr. and Kenneth Gentry, who I believe at the time were not even calling themselves partial preterists.

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They were calling themselves dominionist and things like that. Obviously Calvinist, which, by the way,

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I am one. So shortly after that meeting, when they realized that there is no reconciliation and that R .C.

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Sproul Sr. and Kenneth Gentry began to understand that these full preterists are dangerous.

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Because full preterists, if you've ever been in a discussion with them, they quote the Bible. They use what we call exegesis, which just means out of the text.

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People think if I say exegesis, that means I'm interpreting the Bible accurately. It doesn't mean you're interpreting the Bible accurately.

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It just means you're getting your concepts out of the Bible. You're interpreting, which most people do.

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There's also the eisegesis, where you're reading it back into. But just by saying I'm exegeting the Bible doesn't mean you're going to be accurate.

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Full preterists are actually fairly good at that. They like to stick with the Bible mainly. And so a lot of novices get hung up when they interact with full preterists.

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So anyhow, after this meeting in Mount Dora, Florida, it seemed like the reformed folks that attended that meeting realized, oh, wait, we have to do something because these full preterists have the high ground.

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They've been at it for a while. Matter of fact, in 1983, I believe it was, Walt Hibbert, I think he was with Baker Books at the time, did a reprint of James Stewart Russell's The Parousia, which was a book written in the late 1890s by James Stewart Russell, as I said, which basically was a full preterist book with a little bit of difference.

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I think he still believed the millennium was the future, but he believed that the rapture already happened. So anyhow, he did this reprint in 1983 and spent 10 or 15 years in Baker Books promoting this book.

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And in that book is laid out basically almost a preterist Bible. R .C.

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Sproul Sr. at the time said, I can never read the New Testament again the same way I read it before reading the

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Parousia. I hope better scholars than I will continue to analyze and evaluate the content of James Stewart Russell's important work.

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Gary DeMar also praised the book. Dr. Kenneth Gentry, he said he didn't agree with the conclusions, but he highly recommended well organized and carefully argued compelling written defense of preterism.

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Again, not delineating whether James Stewart Russell was full or partial, what he was advocating.

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Even Charles Haddon Spurgeon, you know, the famous Baptist Calvinist, when he read it originally, he said, it throws so much light, new light, he says, new light upon obscure portions of scripture and is accompanied with so much critical research and close reasoning that it can be injurious to none and may be profitable to all.

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So again, this is an important point. It seems like right after the Mount Dora meeting that you start coming out with responses to full preterism.

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R .C. Sproul, I think was 1998, released his book first published The Last Days According to Jesus, which, again, a lot of full preterists will say, hey,

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I read that book or I read Gary DeMar's Last Days Madness. And because a lot of those books are 98 percent full preterist with 5 percent holding back become the partials.

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They took the extra step and went on. Now, is that the fault of the authors? Certainly not. But what

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I want to get out here is that we have to enter this carefully. This isn't like a discussion between, hey,

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Calvinism and these terms. This is a this is not just a term. This is an ideology that we have to consider, especially the full preterists themselves telling you why they became full preterists.

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Most of them didn't jump from full preterism or jump right into full preterism. They were led into it by the books they read.

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For example, I became a full preterist after I read, oddly enough, John Owen's The Death of Death and the

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Death of Christ. Why? Because we understand that the last enemy to be defeated is death. Now, erroneously,

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I concluded that, hmm, maybe there's more to it. Maybe it's not what we think it is.

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And again, I didn't have any influence by any full preterist at the time, just John Owen. So I began looking for other people that might believe or might have this realization.

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And then I came across people like Ed Stephens, John Owens and other full preterists. So my point tonight is it's important that this is not just a new term.

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It's a new concept. And the so -called partial preterists are trying to play catch up here.

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They have been trying to play catch up for many, many years. And it's very dangerous to call yourself a preterist.

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I'm actually advocating for another term—we'll get to that later—that replaces that whole thing so we don't even broach that.

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I think my time is about up, and I will leave it there. All righty, and now we have a 10 -minute opening statement from the postmillennial preterist

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J. Rodgers. Okay, not to respond too much to Roderick's opening, but I just wanted to say, first of all, that I became a postmillennialist as a fairly young Christian, and mainly that was in response to what

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Gary DeMar and others call last day's madness. I sat in a prophecy seminar by a dispensationalist, and I had been familiar with the book of Revelation even prior to becoming a

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Christian. And what happened was I became so curious about how dispensationalism seemed to be something

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I would never come up with on my own. If I were to just read the book of Revelation on my own,

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I never would have come up with that doctrine. So I began to look around at different things, and for a while I just became what

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I would call an ad hoc amillennialist. I just thought, you know, the millennium is just here, it's the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God is now, we're in the kingdom of God, it's growing, and the millennium is a type of the kingdom of God in Revelation, or it's a symbol of the kingdom of God.

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And then the hermeneutic I used was mainly like an idealistic one, where I would say that the prophecies of the book of Revelation were relevant in John's day, because I was familiar with the

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Preterist approach, but also they're relevant throughout history. So eventually I came across Ken Gentry, and I actually did some work with them.

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We did a video and later a book, and it was really through Ken Gentry that I began to understand the hermeneutic of Preterism.

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And that's the thing I want to start with, is that Preterism, Roderick mentioned it as a doctrine.

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My first point that I was going to bring out actually was that Preterism is a hermeneutic, but Postmillennialism is a doctrine.

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So first of all, I call myself a Postmillennialist, and I'm a Preterist Postmillennialist because of the way

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I interpret the book of Revelation. Alright, when you look at the

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Millennium, you know, when is Christ going to return? Is it prior to the Millennium or after the

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Millennium? There's really only two choices there, unless you deny a Millennium or you deny the

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Second Coming of Christ. Either he's going to return prior to the Millennium, which is Premillennialism, or after Postmillennialism.

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And like we were saying earlier, these are fairly new terms for a long time.

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Omnillennialism, which is actually a form of Postmillennialism, it just says that the Kingdom is now, Christ is going to return after the

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Millennium period is over. Basically, Christians held that view.

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And then there was a minority view called Millenarianism or Achilliasm. But you basically picked one, you know, what side are you on?

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Either he's going to come prior to the Millennium or after the Millennium. That's the doctrine. But Preterism is a hermeneutic.

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It has to do with how we interpret the book of Revelation. And the definition I would give would be that if you're a

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Preterist, if you understand the book of Revelation chapters 1 through 19 has passed, but still look for a future

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Second Coming of Christ, a general resurrection of the living and the dead, and the final judgment.

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And that's covered in chapters 23 -22. Hyper -Preterists basically just see all of the book of Revelation 1 through 22 as fulfilled.

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And I find that to be an impossible view myself. The Historicist does something similar.

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They say that, similar to Preterism, they say that part of Revelation has been fulfilled, maybe the early chapters.

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And then as we move on to chapters 4 through 19, we see it happening progressively throughout history.

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But then chapters 20 through 22 are in the future, at the end of time. A classic

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Premillennialist will say usually that chapters 1 through 3 were about the first century church, but then chapters 4 through 22 are about the future.

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And then Dispensationalists, like a real dyed -in -the -wool Dispensationalist, like someone that follows the

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Schofield Reference Bible, will say all of the book of Revelation is in the future, even the chapters about the early church, that they symbolize different types of churches, and that we're in the

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Laodicean Age right now. So basically, Hyper -Preterism would be on one end,

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Dispensationalism would be on the other. I don't consider Dispensationalism to be heretical, but I do consider

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Hyper -Preterism to be heretical, basically just because it denies the Second Coming in the future, a bodily resurrection, and a final judgment.

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Although Roderick can probably tell you there's all kinds of different variations on that.

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Throughout history, if you look at the very early church, the first commentaries on Revelation were kind of treated like a grab bag.

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You have, for instance, Victorinus of Pateau, who wrote in the 3rd century. He does have Preterist interpretations of several chapters in Revelation, but also he has

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Futurists and Idealists, and he mixes them up. So did Tychonius of Carthage, who came in the 4th century,

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I believe, and then Beatus, who wrote an Irish commentary in the 8th century. So there's a man named

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Francis Gomerlach, and a while ago, I would say about 2012, he published a paper saying that back in 2003, he wanted to get the commentaries on the

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Book of Revelation from the Middle Ages into print. He said that there were 21 commentaries on Revelation written between the 3rd and the 8th century, and at that time, only three had been translated into English.

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So what he did was he challenged readers and other scholars to do this translation project, and very soon, they got nearly all of them into modern

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English, and they're available online, and for the first time, we can study them.

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And come to find out, many of these commentaries do have some Preterist commentary on Revelation.

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But like I said, it's very rare to find, until modern times, a commentator that sticks with one method, one hermeneutic throughout the

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Book of Revelation. They tend to mix things up, and it wasn't really until the time of the Protestant Reformation that we had what they called the historical grammatical method.

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And the historical grammatical method had some principles to it, which was that scripture interpreted scripture, that you interpret a difficult scripture in light of an easier scripture that says something similar, that you interpret things in context, and you expect the audience and the writer of scripture to understand what they were talking about, that there were no hidden meanings, there were not double meanings.

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So from the time of John Calvin onward, commentators tended to stick with either a historicist model, a

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Preterist model, or a Futurist model. So that's basically what

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I have to say, is that Preterism is not new.

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The term is new, but the Preterist hermeneutic, the

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Preterist method of interpreting scripture, has been with us from the beginning, and for every chapter of Revelation from 1 through 19,

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I can show you a church father that saw it fulfilled either in the first century or in the early centuries prior to their lifetime.

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Well, you still have about three and a half minutes if you'd like to continue. I just would like to reiterate that Preterism isn't new, but Preterism as a hermeneutic, excuse me,

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Hyperpreterism isn't new either. We had in the early centuries a doctrine called

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Hymeneism, and people think that Hymeneism was just mentioned one time in the

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New Testament, where the Apostle Paul speaks about Thylidus and Hymenaeus, and I actually have an article on this

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I did a while ago. There was a man called Epiphanius of Salamis.

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He wrote a book about heresies back in the fourth century, and he deals with Hymeneism, and he calls it a docetic gnostic error, and there's a number of different points that Epiphanius makes against these people.

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He says that Jesus was bodily raised from the dead, although it was a glorified body, he wasn't a ghost or apparition, and likewise, there was a future bodily resurrection of the undeniable according to 1

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Corinthians 15, and he said that Phygelus and Homogenes were two proto -gnostics that lived in the second century.

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They apparently taught that the souls of the departed need to pass through this series of ions, and basically, they had this whole chain of being they worshipped as different types of gods, and they departed from the true gospel.

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Then you also had Hymenaeus and Thylidus. He said that they were part of that proto -gnostic sect.

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They taught endless genealogies according to 1 Timothy 1 .4, and he said that that was that chain of authority, like the lesser gods are ions, and then later, there are other gnostics.

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Like, they said that there was another god who was a father, and then there were many lesser gods.

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So, he basically put the Hymenaeans in that category, and he said that the reason why they didn't want to teach a resurrection of the dead, that the resurrection of the dead was a past event, and that children of parents that were born again, like children of believing parents, received spiritual resurrection, and therefore, there would be no bodily resurrection.

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That's he explained it. And so, that's a heresy that was—it's a very minority view in ancient times.

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I think it's a minority view today, and I also think that, you know, even though preterism is not the dominant eschatology today, there have been many authors and commentators that have given preterist commentaries, especially to Matthew 24, but also to the book of Daniel, the book of Zechariah, and the book of Revelation as well.

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All right. We are going to our first commercial break, and once again, if anybody listening has a question for either or both of our debaters, the question session from the audience will be at the very end of the program.

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But submit your questions now, if you'd like to be included, or as soon as possible, to chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

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c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Give us your first name, at least, city and state and country of residence.

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We'll be right back with our debate right after these messages. Greetings. This is

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But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

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Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.

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In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt

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God's pleasure when he ran. He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God.

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I sensed that same God -given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.

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That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a savior who died for sinners, and that God forgives all who come to him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.

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I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the

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Bronx in New York City. For details on New High Park Baptist Church, visit nhpbc .com.

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That's nhpbc .com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.

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That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's word, and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.

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God bless you. I'm Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven, an

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Orthodox Presbyterian church in Comac, Long Island. I hold the Iron Sharpens Iron radio program hosted by my long -time friend and brother,

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We are now back with our partial preterist debate. This is day number one of a two -day debate.

37:46

This first day, the theme of our debate is, preterism is new, and the second day of our debate, which will be tomorrow,

37:59

Wednesday, April 3rd, the theme of that debate will be all forms of preterism are unbiblical, and Roderick Edwards, the non -preterist in our debate, will take the affirmative on that thesis, and Jay Rogers, our post -millennial preterist, will be opposing that thesis.

38:23

That's tomorrow. But now is the segment in our debate where each of our debaters give five -minute rebuttals, and Roderick Edwards, our non -preterist, will begin with his own five -minute rebuttal.

38:38

All right, clarifying, you can hear me still? Yes, I can. Okay. So, what we're hearing here from Jay, which is fine, is a lot of talk about Revelation.

38:53

But my question, not necessarily to him, just a general rhetorical question, is that do we get our eschatology only from Revelation, or can we get it from Jesus' words?

39:06

For example, a lot of preterists, both full and partial preterists, will cite the Olivet Discourse, which is

39:11

Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, parts of Luke 17, perhaps, as their basis for their preterist understandings.

39:21

And so, when we get to the portion where I'm going to discuss with and ask Jay some questions,

39:26

I will ask him about why he continuously moves towards Revelation.

39:32

Because, for what we understand, a lot of Revelation was always, as he even points out, was interpreted in many different ways by many different people.

39:42

For example, Martin Luther and many of the Reformers wanted to cast it out altogether, or they applied it to the

39:48

Roman Catholic Church, exclusively almost. So, full preterists often point to these things, these variances that even

39:57

Jay points out, as the reason why there needs to finally be, as they say, a conference or a council on eschatology.

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They say it's one thing that has not been resolved, and they call for it all the time. And so,

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I understand, this is, again, why I think that it's very dangerous for people to toy around with partial preterism, not realizing even their own arguments, so far what

40:20

I've heard from Jay, lead us right into full preterism. I would ask, if I was a fairly novice

40:26

Christian, fairly understanding my eschatology, that, well, why wouldn't

40:32

I look at Revelation if it's so convoluted? Why wouldn't I look at other interpretations?

40:38

Why is it supposedly heretical? Because, obviously, many people came to me,

40:43

Martin Luther saying that the Pope is the Antichrist, not just a type of it, but the Antichrist, would make me think, well, maybe

40:50

I need to look into this a little bit more. Maybe it is a new thing, or a new doctrine, or a new understanding, or hermeneutic of Revelation.

40:59

Let's see what time, I didn't put my timer on. Please give me a count here. You have three more minutes.

41:06

Okay, I got plenty of time here. And so, what I'm trying to implore listeners is that your eschatology does not come just from the book of Revelation.

41:16

It comes from Jesus himself. And, again, that's one reason why even

41:22

R .C. Sproul Sr. understood that it was the last days according to Jesus. He didn't quote just Revelation.

41:27

And I'm sure that Jay's not saying we do that either. But there has been a lot of focus already on Revelation. And a lot of people will, a lot of Christians will, immediately go to that book, the most obscure, probably the most obscure book in the

41:40

Bible, and use that as their basis for eschatology. And that's the reason we have all the various eschatologies we have today.

41:48

And it continues to be a thorn in people's sides as to what the proper interpretation is.

41:55

So, for people to call one person heretical over their interpretation of Revelation is kind of laughable at this point.

42:02

And it actually lends to the whole argument of full preterist that we need to address it more.

42:08

There are many full preterists who, as they moved from partial preterism into full preterism, like Walt Hibbert was the guy who republished the

42:18

Paracea in 1983, as I mentioned earlier, he has a biography or autobiography of his life.

42:24

And he talks about all these times that he was excommunicated, removed from his church by his various pastors, who wanted to use councils and creeds to remove him when he wanted to use, as he calls it, exegesis of the scriptures alone to prove his point about why full preterism is valid.

42:43

And so, I submit this debate here between today and tomorrow is not about, as you said, the top of the program is not about defending full preterism.

42:51

I'm not here to do that. What I'm here to say is that partial preterism is also indefensible because it leads directly into it, not just could, maybe it does.

43:02

Like, for instance, some people say, well, Calvinism could lead into hyper -Calvinism. Well, it's really unlikely because the five points tell you it's exactly the opposite of what hyper -Calvinism is.

43:12

It's built in a way that it's really impossible. People do it, I get that, but it's usually over emotional reasons, not over theological, hermeneutical, or even logical reasons why people make that jump.

43:24

However, partial preterism leads right into full preterism if you don't answer the questions. For example, we'll get into this more.

43:30

How much time? We got one more minute, probably? No, you're actually out of time. Okay, well, then we'll end there.

43:37

And Jay Rogers, you now have five minutes for rebuttal. Okay, one of the questions that I wrote down in the first segment as you were talking,

43:48

Roderick, was how is this not a slip or a slope argument? If you say something leads into something, we can have the back and forth later, but if you say that something leads into something else, then basically what you're saying is it's kind of like marijuana as a gateway drug, you know, if you smoke a cigar, you're going to end up smoking 10 packs of cigarettes a day or something like that.

44:14

Preterism and hyper -preterism seem like one is just a more extreme version of the other, but there is actually a pretty big gap between the two.

44:23

I'm going to explain why. And to do that, I want to go back to Epiphanius because Epiphanius was writing during a time when the

44:31

Book of Revelation had not been worked out yet in the fourth century, and there were some

44:36

Preterist interpretations of it, there were some Futurist interpretations of it, and so on.

44:43

But, you know, full Preterists don't like it when we compare them to the

44:49

Hymenaeans. They say that no, that refers only to the resurrection of the dead as passed during the time of Paul's writing, but Epiphanius is very important because it shows that later on, centuries after, that this heresy did refer to the denial of the

45:06

Second Coming in the future. So the Church Fathers were creedally orthodox, they believed that the resurrection was a future event, and that was linked to the

45:16

Second Coming of Christ inextricably. So the Apostles and Nicene creeds both state something similar, he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and this kingdom will have no end.

45:30

So what Epiphanius does in his book on heresiology, when he talks about the Hymenaeans, is he makes this argument.

45:37

He says, number one, Jesus' resurrection from the dead was a bodily resurrection, and so too the resurrection of the saints, the righteous dead, will be in the future a bodily resurrection.

45:50

And then he linked the Hymenaean heresy to Gnosticism because they denied

45:55

Jesus had a physical body and that his resurrection was spiritual only, and so that led into the doctrine that our resurrection would be spiritual only.

46:06

And so we believe with the Nicene Creed that Jesus Christ was the only begotten

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Son of God, he was very God of very God, he was begotten, not made, and so on, one substance with the

46:21

Father. And so since the Gnostics taught a spiritual resurrection of Jesus and a denial of the bodily second coming of Jesus, they in reality believed that the world would continue in a state of death and decay until it was destroyed.

46:35

So that's the difference between orthodox preterism and hyperpreterism.

46:42

So we see ideas have consequences. Modern full preterists or hyperpreterists, they're not

46:48

Hymenaeans per se, but they commit a heresy very similar to that. Like, for instance, we have a doctrine of the new heavens and the new earth.

46:58

Many moderate preterists such as myself agree that the new heavens and the new earth exist now as a spiritual reality, but it will become a physical reality.

47:09

And that's what hyperpreterists deny. They see the world continuing on as it is, but the

47:17

Word of God teaches that death itself, the last enemy of God, will one day be defeated, according to 1 Corinthians 15, 24 -26.

47:26

So what I would say is that preterism is a word that means literally something that has occurred.

47:34

There is the preterite tense, which is when you use has or has or have to describe something.

47:40

Something has happened. And I don't start with the book of Revelation.

47:48

As a matter of fact, I started my study with what Jesus said about Daniel in Matthew 24, and then

47:54

I spent about many years studying the book of Daniel, published a couple of books on Daniel, and I have not really completed my study of Revelation.

48:02

So I'm not a person that goes to the book of Revelation first and then tries to make all the prophecy in the

48:08

Bible fit, you know, to a preterist scheme, but I try to do the opposite. I try to understand the

48:14

Old Testament and the whole Bible, including how Jesus understood the Old Testament, and then apply that to what

48:21

John wrote, because much of what John was doing was alluding to Old Testament prophecy and the fulfillment of it.

48:29

Okay, well, we do have time to start at least one listener question, especially since this listener has a question for both of you.

48:40

We have Clem in George, Iowa, and Clem says, could you capsulize in a brief summary?

48:52

First, will Roderick state what is the most serious danger of being a partial preterist?

49:02

And then, if J. Rogers could provide a summary of what are the greatest dangers of rejecting partial preterism?

49:12

Okay, let's start with you, Roderick, we'll give you 90 seconds. All right, so I think

49:19

I've been saying that, but the most dangerous part of being a partial preterist is not the slippery slope. I know it's hard to distinguish what

49:26

I'm saying here, I'm not saying slippery slope, there's only a potentiality. But if you're consistent with partial preterism's views, and it's hermeneutic in the way it approaches things, you will become a full preterist, it's almost impossible.

49:42

And full preterists are reliant on the fact that you use those same hermeneutics, because they know they can use them against you the moment you do.

49:50

So to me, the danger to being a partial preterist is that you will almost certainly either be inconsistent and will have to cut off your discussions with full preterists, because they'll make you look foolish, they will, when you use the scripture, or you'll become a full preterist, like David Chilton did, like Gary DeMar appears to be coming.

50:10

And J. Rogers, if you could, in 90 seconds, explain what are the most serious dangers of rejecting partial preterism?

50:20

Well, first of all, I would say that if you believe that Jesus is coming back, and you believe in a future bodily resurrection, and you hope for the judgment of the living and the dead as a good thing, something that you look forward to, then there's no danger for your eternal soul.

50:40

You're within the realm of orthodoxy. I would say that preterism helps to make sense out of the post -millennial view, and also there have been many pre -millennialists and non -millennialists who have been preterists as well, although in the book of Revelation, that's the one area where pre -millennialists tend to be more futuristic.

51:01

But I would say that partial preterism helps to understand how the whole

51:07

Bible is a unity. For instance, if you interpret Matthew 24, as I know that Roderick does, as being partially fulfilled, you have to go back to the verses that Daniel wrote, like Jesus quotes in Matthew 24.

51:24

That has to fit together. And then what Daniel wrote has to fit similar passages in Zechariah and similar passages in Revelation.

51:33

I think that partial preterism gives a continuity to the Bible, and there are some verses that are to be interpreted preteristically, and some prophecies are still for the future.

51:48

But there's no danger as far as salvation goes. You don't need to be a partial preterist to go to heaven.

51:56

But I think that it helps to make sense out of the entire Bible as a single unit. I said earlier, the church fathers, many of them tended to treat scripture as a grab bag.

52:08

They interpreted one scripture one way, but then a very similar scripture that seemed to almost match that one in another way.

52:16

And I just think that it helps to bring together the Bible and create a system that's unified.

52:23

Okay, we are going now to our midway break. Please be patient with us, folks. The midway break is always a little longer than the other breaks in the show, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

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Before we return to our debate, and as I announced earlier, this is day number one of a two -day debate on partial preterism.

01:08:16

Today the theme of the debate is preterism is new, and tomorrow the theme will be all forms of preterism are unbiblical.

01:08:29

Affirming both of the theses from today and tomorrow is

01:08:35

Roderick Edwards, who is a former hyper -preterist and is a non -preterist today, and his opponent affirming preterism, defending preterism, partial preterism.

01:08:49

He prefers the title or the identity of a post -millennial preterist. That will be

01:08:55

Jay Rogers. Both men have written on this subject, but before I return to day number one of our debate, we just have some important announcements to make.

01:09:05

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and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in your questions on partial preterism for our debaters today,

01:11:55

Roderick Edwards, who is the non -preterist, and Jay Rogers, who is the post -millennial preterist, and as I said already, this is day number one of our debate on partial preterism, and the theme is preterism is new, and we now are reaching the point where it is my favorite part of the debate, or any debate, actually.

01:12:21

It is the cross examination session, and we will begin with Jay Rogers questioning

01:12:30

Roderick Edwards for seven minutes. Jay Rogers, as we have already repeated a number of times, is the post -millennial preterist in this debate, and he is going to be questioning

01:12:42

Roderick Edwards, the non -preterist, for seven minutes, and if you could begin, Jay Rogers, you now have seven minutes.

01:12:52

And my first question has to do with the preterist, both the preterist, hyper -preterist movement, what we would call preterist or hyper -preterist, which

01:13:01

I believe that you say is something recent, and I tend to agree with that.

01:13:08

Why do you say that preterism is new if there have been interpreters going all the way back to the 2nd century, 3rd century, 2nd century, that looked at passages in Revelation and Daniel and Matthew 24 as being passed relating to AD 70?

01:13:30

Okay, well, first of all, can you hear me all right? Yes. Okay, I do have my headgear on so I don't get beat up too bad, but I say this because, for example,

01:13:40

Google has a way where you can put in a word or words and find out, all the way back to the 1500s, how extensive those words have been used in literature, and the word preterist and preterism is barely used.

01:13:52

And as you mentioned, in your own arguments here is that they often, those same people don't use that word preterist.

01:13:59

They might use some arguments, but not completely. So I'm not saying that, obviously, these people in the past haven't been preteristic, it's possible.

01:14:07

Obviously, preteristic just means you believe some things are fulfilled in the past. But as more of a unified belief, it didn't really come into play until the 1800s, first of all, with the

01:14:20

J. Stuart Russells and the Townies and some other ones, but really more so with the Church of Christ in the 1970s with Max Keene.

01:14:29

Okay, and then my second question is related to that. It's not so much that it's new, but you're saying that you have a book about preterism in which you talk about the different movements and the different people involved in it.

01:14:44

My question is, how many preterists are there? How many hyper -preterists are there? Well, obviously, nobody can know that.

01:14:51

We don't know. But for example, there are not that many, when we're talking about politics, there's probably not that many homosexual people or transsexual people, but they're very vocal, very loud, so they make themselves seem like there's more of them.

01:15:06

And so when you get into actual, some deep theological discussions, there seems to be a lot of full preterist voices out there.

01:15:15

Actually, again, I talk about R .C. Sproul and some of these other ones, even

01:15:21

Kenneth Gentry and Gary DeMar, even though some of these people aren't full preterists, they weren't talking about preterism very much until the 1990s, but now it seems like that's their main topic.

01:15:32

Yeah, so in the book, you mentioned that there was a yearly conference and you said it was the same 50 people, and so that's what makes me ask that question.

01:15:41

Are there any, I know there are some preterist churches headed by preterist pastors, are there any entire denominations that hold to full preterism or hyper -preterism?

01:15:53

Not to my knowledge. Obviously, the Church of Christ experienced this, and they call it the 70

01:15:58

AD doctrine at the time, and they were really, back in the 70s, really rocked the entire denomination.

01:16:05

I think a lot of it happened because of their concept of solo scriptura. Actually, it was one of the faults that allowed it to be attacked first, and then the

01:16:16

Reformed group in the 1990s came out, and they're also now, a lot of them are partial preterists.

01:16:23

But the Church of Christ movement, the Restoration movement that holds up, I know of one of them here in Kissimmee as well, did they ever teach, deny the second coming, and the resurrection of the dead, and that type of thing?

01:16:40

Probably not, I really don't think so. There are, like you said, there are some full preterist churches. There's a

01:16:45

Reformed one, the Bereans, I think they call themselves, who's that by, I can't remember the guy's name suddenly,

01:16:51

I should know it, Dave, David, David, David, somebody else can tell you who his last name is, getting old so I forget.

01:16:57

And then there's a Church of Christ one that used to be in Indianapolis, and you have John Noe, who does a little

01:17:02

Bible study at a coffee shop in Indianapolis. So they do meet, they do organize as a group, often.

01:17:08

There's a lot of those that do a group. They've splintered off since the, I call it the

01:17:13

Universalist days in the 2000s, when preterism, full preterism was being invaded by Universalism, and that really kind of rocked them as well.

01:17:22

So when I say a denomination, I mean more than like two or three churches, I mean, you know, several dozen or hundreds or thousands, that type of thing.

01:17:30

But if there is not, we haven't come to the place yet where full preterism or hyper -preterism has infected the doctrine of an entire denomination, why do you say it's a danger?

01:17:43

Because we're talking about very influential speakers like R .C. Sproul Sr., as he's passed, obviously.

01:17:50

Gary DeMar has the ear of a lot of people, and he's moving with the Kim Burgess into that direction. There was a whole big hubbub about Doug Wilson and some other people that were upset with him because they wanted him to answer some questions to clarify whether he was or wasn't a full preterist, and that went on for a while.

01:18:05

So it's actually insepid in a different way. I mean, it would probably be easier to defend against if it took over a denomination.

01:18:13

We could just dismiss that denomination. But since it's going everywhere on the different denominations, it's harder to track down and harder to defend against.

01:18:21

Yeah, I mean, you know what I'm getting at is that if it hasn't come to the point where there is a large group of churches that has, you know, like the

01:18:30

Aryan Pharisee or something like that, or, you know, what happened during the Reformation, for example, I don't understand why you would say it was a danger if this is not being taught as doctrine in a large number of churches.

01:18:47

Well, it is, but not as a denomination. It's, I mean, like I said, a lot of these churches have now moved from what you call, again, post -millennialism into some kind of preterite interpretation.

01:18:58

So a lot of them have done that, especially in the Reformed. I'm sorry, how many churches?

01:19:07

There's no way of knowing. I mean, we don't know. I mean, I guess that would be a good study is to figure out exactly how many would go back through and talk to each pastor and each congregation and find out what is your eschatological views here on this and this and that.

01:19:20

Sometimes these churches don't even put that on there. Like, for example, a lot of full preterist churches won't tell you what their eschatological belief is on their actual website until you actually talk to the pastor.

01:19:29

Well, we are out of time for this session, and now Roderick Edwards will question or cross -examine

01:19:37

Jay Rogers. Seven minutes. Okay, perfect. Okay, Jay, you call yourself,

01:19:44

I get it, why you call yourself, maybe I get it, why you call yourself a post -millennial preterist. Why don't you just call yourself a partial preterist, which would be a little more explanatory towards most people's understanding.

01:19:54

Why choose to not call yourself partial? I actually call myself a preterist post -millennialist because I was a post -millennialist first.

01:20:03

It took me about one day to become a post -millennialist, and then it took me about 10 years to become a preterist because I really wanted to know what the correct—I understood that you have to pick a side, you know, you have to pick is

01:20:15

Jesus coming back before the millennium or after the millennium, and I read one book that convinced me.

01:20:22

It was by John Jefferson Davis. It's called Christ's Victorious Kingdom, Post -millennialism,

01:20:28

Reconciliation. I read a lot of other books after that, but I could kind of see where he was coming from, and I agreed with it. I don't call myself a partial preterist for the same reason

01:20:36

I don't call myself a partial Calvinist, just like there are hyper -Calvinists.

01:20:43

That's the theological term for an era called hyper -Calvinism, but they're a very, very small group.

01:20:50

There are some out there. There are some naive hyper -Calvinists out there as well, like you were talking about with naive hyper -preterists, but no one has reacted to that by saying, well, we're just Calvinists.

01:21:03

I just usually say I'm a preterist, and when someone asks me, well, are you a partial preterist? I say, well, I'm a preterist post -millennialist, and I let them think about it.

01:21:12

Like, what does that actually mean? And if they want to discuss more, I say preterism is not a doctrine. It's a hermeneutic.

01:21:18

Post -millennialism is the doctrine, so I want to emphasize that. Okay, so have you experienced what I say is that when you call yourself that, do people ever say, well, are you a full preterist?

01:21:27

Do they follow up with that question, or do you not experience that? I get a whole variety. Sometimes. Sometimes I've heard that.

01:21:34

Not always. Right. Now, another question is, because this is an important one to full preterists especially,

01:21:42

Matthew 24 is the verse or the chapter they go to to start off with their whole argument a lot of times.

01:21:48

You get John Preston, who has books and books and books about nothing but Matthew 24. So my question is, where do you split

01:21:55

Matthew 24 as past and future? Obviously, the first couple of verses are talking about the

01:22:01

Herodian temple and its destruction. If they're just looking at it directly and literally and nothing else, no symbolism or anything like that.

01:22:08

However, where do you split it, or do you split it as future and past? What verse and why?

01:22:14

Verse 36. Okay, and why? I have to, I have to, well, give me two seconds here.

01:22:20

I know that we're on a timer here, but the reason why is because of this and that, basically.

01:22:28

The disciples were asking Jesus about, they're asking him a question about, what

01:22:33

I believe they're asking him was, was he going to come and re -establish the kingdom of David in Jerusalem? And Jesus mentions to him, mentions to them that at this time, he's not going to do that.

01:22:46

Right. So he basically says it down at verse 36, um, but about that day or hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven or the son, but only the father.

01:22:58

He just got done telling them that there would be all these signs, you know? So when you see these signs, know that these things are near.

01:23:07

I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until these things don't happen. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

01:23:15

But about that day or hour, I see an actual um, transition there, because now he's saying that no one knows when that day is coming, before he was saying to look for it, so.

01:23:28

I'm sorry, Mike, I just want to make sure I don't run out of time to ask you a follow -up question about that. So you do stop it there, and I get that, but what do you do with verses that come after?

01:23:37

For example, in Matthew 24, 41, when it talks about two women grinding at the mill, one shall be taken, another be left.

01:23:42

Some people think that's rapture, but we'll get into that later, but is that the past or the future?

01:23:49

I think that that's, I think that the kingdom parables are about the growth of the kingdom in history, and that it leads all the way up to through chapter 25, and that the very last parable about the sheep and the goats, finally it says, when the son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, that's the second coming.

01:24:10

He'll sit on his glorious throne, he'll judge the nations. That's the second coming in the appearance of the living and the dead, all the nations, and then the final judgment.

01:24:21

But everything up to there is just kingdom principles about what type of people should we be as we are occupying until he comes.

01:24:29

Okay, I don't want to run out of time, so I want to follow that up. So again, we talked about the Olivet Discourse, Matthew 24,

01:24:35

Mark 13, and Luke 21. In Luke 21, we read about how when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, and flee, and there's these things about one standing there, and we see that in Luke 17 as well.

01:24:48

So why isn't Luke, or actually Matthew 24, 41, talking about the time when the temple in Jerusalem is about to be destroyed?

01:24:55

Why isn't that also the past? Why are you putting that into the future? There's two passages in Luke that have similarities to Matthew 24, and we do not have time to get into all of that, but I would say that there's only a discontinuity on the surface, that sometimes when a preacher preaches, he uses the same illustrations, and that we're talking about different sermons.

01:25:25

Not all of that discourse is given in Matthew and in Luke, but there's some material in Luke that comes prior to that that was another sermon, and the purpose of that sermon was completely different.

01:25:37

It was only about the kingdom, and that sermon, he was not talking about the second coming or about AD 70.

01:25:46

Okay, I'm not being rude when I say this. I'm saying this as somebody who might question a critic. Why do you get to say what is past and future, then, when it seems like those things actually do go together?

01:25:57

Why do you or anybody else get to say, well, no, this is a completely different sermon? I know there's probably some hermeneutical reason why you're saying that.

01:26:04

We only have like 47 seconds. Go ahead. I get to say it because I'm just a plumber with the

01:26:11

Bible. Okay. Thank you very much. I mean, are we not

01:26:16

Protestants? Why do I get to say it? I mean, I understand what you're saying. No one is completely correct about their eschatology.

01:26:24

I think that there's so many differences that if someone came along and said, I know that I'm correct,

01:26:30

I have it all right, and everyone else has at least something wrong, because no two people agree entirely. So, I think the question itself is suspect.

01:26:39

Okay, the next session we have Roderick Edwards starting this time with another seven -minute cross -examination of J.

01:26:48

Rogers. Let me get my seven minutes here so I know that we're going.

01:26:55

Let's start and go. Okay. So, you talk about Epanathus. I'm sorry, Epanathus.

01:27:02

My point is that probably nobody in this audience knows who that is. We know John Calvin and some of the big names, but almost nobody.

01:27:10

So, here's what Full Predators often do. They will cite some obscure theologian that appears to support

01:27:18

Full Predators' views. And even one little verse, and then you read the rest of the context by that same theologian, and you realize that they're not

01:27:26

Full Predators. But you could take that one. And another thing I want to ask about is the fact that you seem to keep implying that the problem with Full Predatorism is it does not see a physical resurrection of Christ.

01:27:38

Some Full Predators, I fully admit, have more of a spiritual version, but there are some Full Predators that do see a physical resurrection of Christ.

01:27:46

Their problem is that they put all that in the past.

01:27:53

So, why couldn't a Full Predator say, look, my only difference with you is that I believe all this physicality you're agreeing with is all in the past.

01:28:02

How are they still heretical? That's my question. I don't understand. I'm not sure

01:28:09

I got the question. Say it one more time. So, Full Predators, there are some Full Predators that believe everything about the physical resurrection of Christ and even the raptures and all these things, but they put it all in the past.

01:28:19

They tie it all to the really 80s, 70s. Then, if that's the only definition of heresy, then how are they heretical if their timing is different, but their object is still the same as yours and ours?

01:28:31

Well, it has to do with the bodily resurrection from the dead. The reason why I mentioned Epiphanius, however you say it, he made the point that Jesus' resurrection from the dead was a bodily resurrection, and so, too, the resurrection of the righteous dead will be a bodily resurrection in the future.

01:28:48

That hasn't happened in the past, and I know there are some really goofy hyper -preterists who say that, but it hasn't.

01:28:57

So, really, what he was dealing with, he was not a preterist, but he was dealing with a heresy that was linked to the denial that Jesus had a physical body.

01:29:07

So, I think that that's important. If we're to be combined with the body in our resurrection, that Jesus has a physical body, then we're resurrected with a physical body to be joined with Christ as the head.

01:29:20

And we're joined with Christ now spiritually, but there will come a day when we are, you know, there is a full bodily resurrection in the saints, and so on.

01:29:30

Okay, so I want to clarify. I want to clarify that, yes, there are some full prayers that do believe in Christ's physical resurrection in the past.

01:29:40

Their problem would be, then, a question for you, is the reason they're heretics is because they don't believe that the

01:29:47

Church or fellow Christians have been resurrected bodily yet. Yeah, I believe in primary patristic orthodoxy, like the points in the

01:29:57

Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed are not negotiable. We believe that Jesus Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead.

01:30:04

His kingdom shall have no end. We believe in the resurrection of the body. And so, that's something that, you know, that's something that we believe as the

01:30:16

Church. We're not bound by creeds with our conscience, we're bound to the

01:30:22

Bible, but those are biblical doctrines. And there have to be some primary biblical doctrines that you must believe, like that there is a

01:30:30

God, that Jesus died on a cross and things like that. And so, I would say that the future hope of a bodily resurrection is one of those points.

01:30:39

And that's something that the Church has agreed on. Pretty much, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, there's no disagreement. Okay, so you seemed to imply earlier, maybe

01:30:48

I'm wrong, clarify, that bull predators or hyper predators are actually in danger of their salvation or their salvific state if they continue to believe and advocate for this belief.

01:31:00

How is that? What specific thing causes that? You know, a double -minded man is unstable in all his ways.

01:31:08

The issue isn't so much even doctrine as it's division. You can be naively wrong about a doctrine and be saved.

01:31:16

Like, if you were to go around and ask the average Christian, explain the Trinity to me, I guarantee you that nine times out of ten, you're going to get a doctrine that's very similar to modalism, because most

01:31:25

Christians don't understand the doctrine of the Trinity. That doesn't mean that they're not saved and going to heaven, it just means they're naive.

01:31:31

However, when they latch on to oneness or Jesus only, or the baptism in the

01:31:37

Jesus name only, and they make it an issue, and they go around causing division, then I would say that person is unstable.

01:31:45

And I can't judge the person's salvation, but I can say that they're not teaching Christian doctrine, and that ought to be avoided.

01:31:51

It should not be tolerated in any church. Okay, so my position has been, and I'll ask you a question here, that the newness of the

01:32:01

Preterist hermeneutic doctrine, however you want to call it, is a type of division that's causing a division and confusion, because to me it's even more convoluted at this point than somebody trying to explain the

01:32:14

Trinity. So how is it that advocating even partial Preterism is not as dangerous as what you're saying about somebody who latches on to doctrines beyond modalism?

01:32:24

How is it not as dangerous? Because partial Preterists affirm the future bodily resurrection of the saints, and we believe that the world's not going to continue on indefinitely until it's destroyed.

01:32:36

We believe that there is a future hope of a perfect world, just like all Christians do. It's not like a, what's the word

01:32:45

I'm looking for, it's not like a continuum. There's a gap, and the gap is at those three doctrines, the bodily second coming of Christ, the bodily resurrection, and the final judgment of both the righteous living and dead, and the unrighteous living and dead.

01:33:03

Those three doctrines are not negotiable, and that would be the dividing point. Eschatology doesn't matter.

01:33:10

I don't care what you think about Matthew 24, but if you deny the second coming of Jesus, that's a problem.

01:33:19

All right, I think that's about it for my time. And now, J. Rogers, it's your time to cross -examine

01:33:27

Roderick Edwards for seven minutes. Having to do with the topic at hand, which is, is

01:33:34

Preterism new? You know that if you go back to the early centuries, there's quite a bit of discussion about the

01:33:43

Feasts of Revelation 13 and 17 either being Nero or being the line of the seven emperors or the ten emperors or something like that.

01:33:53

That's a common doctrine, and you find it in the Church. When you back up very early, there isn't that much to go on.

01:34:03

You have to, I think, come close to the middle of the second century, but very early on, we have this figure whose name is

01:34:12

Josephus, who wrote about Nero, and so a lot of Preterists deal with Nero.

01:34:18

Why do you think that that's a problem? Why do you think it's a problem to cite extra -biblical authors in order to back up fulfillment of prophecy?

01:34:29

Well, I don't think I've ever said that it's a problem, so I'm not certain how that question applies to me. As a matter of fact,

01:34:34

I hope we get into Josephus more as we go along. Okay.

01:34:39

I have them in front of me. I could look it up later, but you have a section in one of your books where you talk about citing extra -biblical references to proof of prophecy, that you start a problem with that.

01:34:52

I guess I'm wrong about that, no? I would have to get a quote because I can't remember those books were written four or five years ago, but obviously there is a problem if we're talking about this supersedes the

01:35:04

Bible itself. Maybe that's what I was trying to imply there. I don't know. Yeah, and I would agree with that, but I would also say that, you know, you have to understand the

01:35:14

Book of Maccabees to understand the fulfillment of parts of Daniel, for instance. You need to understand the historical context.

01:35:20

So, what is wrong with the historical context of AD 70 and biblical prophecy?

01:35:28

What is the main problem with it, in your view? Well, first of all, what you just quoted Maccabees, or mentioned

01:35:34

Maccabees, rather, and Josephus, I would say the average Christian has never even heard of these people. I know that the

01:35:40

King James Bible, back in the early editions of it in 1600 and such, actually contained the including the

01:35:45

Maccabees, and people studied to understand it. A lot of people have no idea on the intertestinal thing. So, it's dangerous because even pastors don't know how to handle it.

01:35:54

So, maybe we need a reformation on how we even approach the Bible before we start talking about these things, before we start talking about partial preterism and how that works out.

01:36:03

That's the danger. So, do you think that Christians need to know history to interpret the

01:36:08

Bible? They need to know history and literature and all kinds of things to understand how the

01:36:14

Bible is saying things. Obviously, as a writer yourself, words mean things to us. We use specific words to convey and to articulate, and a lot of times, if those words and the history surrounding them is not there, then the understanding, for example, obviously, the interpretation or the use of world as opposed to aeon or age, that's a very major translation error.

01:36:36

So, just to get to the point, so you do see some AD 70 references in Matthew 24.

01:36:42

What about the book of Revelation itself? Well, of course, and I think you and I spoke about this before.

01:36:47

I truly believe that you could build the entire Revelation story without even

01:36:52

Revelation. I believe it's all just a rehash of basically all of the discourse in other places in the Bible. So, yes, obviously,

01:36:59

I'm not denying that these things happened in AD 70, and that's what it's speaking of. And I actually even believe that most of the theologians, the good theologians, always spoke about it.

01:37:11

It's nothing new. It's just dispensationalism has been so dominant in America for 200 years, we never realized it.

01:37:17

So, would you agree that you have to understand Daniel to understand similar passages in Zechariah and Matthew 24, and you have to understand those books to understand

01:37:27

Revelation? Do you agree with that? I would say it's helpful. I'm not certain if you need to even need to understand it, because I believe

01:37:33

Jesus does a pretty good job in his eschatology in all of the discourse. He definitely references back to those, but yes.

01:37:41

You said that you believe that Revelation is a rehashing of the monologue, that discourse. And other texts, but yes, the bulk of it.

01:37:49

And other texts, obviously, too. So, what's Revelation about? A lot of the

01:37:56

Revelation is about the coming change of the age of the, you know, my kingdom is going to be spiritual.

01:38:05

My kingdom is here now. My kingdom is within you. The whole message of Jesus' gospel, it wasn't about the physical lineage of the

01:38:13

Jews, and that is about more than that. So, there's a lot of that going on in Jesus' eschatology.

01:38:20

Okay. And so, what about passages relating to the fourth kingdom and Daniel and the similarities between those passages in Daniel 7 and Revelation 17?

01:38:32

Do you see that those have to line up? Well, now we start getting into what I consider kind of vague. People start by the ten toes of the kingdom and this and this and the clay and all that.

01:38:40

To me, that's, I've just never really, even when I was a dispensationalist before, I never got into that, because all that's very vague.

01:38:47

So, I never really got into that on purpose. Right. That's my whole thing, was that if Daniel was talking about four kingdoms and the fourth kingdom is

01:38:55

Rome, then, and Revelation uses very similar language, then that must be

01:39:01

Rome. I mean, would you agree with that, or would you have a problem with that method? I, again,

01:39:06

I'm leery to insert. To me, that's almost an eisegetic way to approach that. Could it be?

01:39:12

Maybe, but it's such a vague book. It's, to hang your hat on that, to hang your eschatology on that, to hang possibly even people's salvation on that, to me, is a dangerous thing.

01:39:20

So, if you were to go to Revelation 17 and I said to you, what's John talking about when he says that there are, you know, there are seven kings and there are ten kings?

01:39:31

Is it impossible to know, or is it, are we able to know? Well, we could possibly find some commentary, some historical references, and maybe make it out, but I think some of this

01:39:42

Revelation is lost to us. So, throughout Revelation, it tells the reader to understand.

01:39:49

Are you saying that God gave us an inspired book that is almost impossible to understand?

01:39:57

Yes, I am saying that. People, oh my gosh, how are you saying that? Because there are many things that are very difficult to understand, and you just, a lot of people think, well, if I just pray to Jesus or the

01:40:07

Holy Spirit, he'll reveal stuff to me. That method doesn't work. That was for apostles only, by the way. We're not just to pray, and all of a sudden, there's a big light comes on.

01:40:15

So, there's more to it. So, yes, I think that parking on that and trying to build doctrines on that is a very dangerous approach, and obviously, we see that.

01:40:25

Is there a theologian that teaches on eschatology that you'd look to or respect?

01:40:33

I do like, I did like R .C. Sproul. Obviously, he's deceased a lot. I do still even like Gary DeMar, although he's moving towards full preterism.

01:40:40

I liked him even when I was a partial and a full preterist. But no, because there's, I mean, if you're just, if you're any kind of theologian teaching just on one aspect, like eschatology, there's a danger.

01:40:52

All right, we're out of time, and we have to go to our final break right now. Don't go away. We'll be right back. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

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Now shipping worldwide. And now we are returning to our debate, and Roderick Edwards, you have three minutes of closing arguments.

01:52:24

All right, thank you. Clarifying as a clock ran out kind of in the last one segment,

01:52:30

I don't want the people to think there's a gotcha moment. When I say that the book of Revelation cannot be understood,

01:52:36

I didn't mean it ever at all. I was thinking more about how when Peter says of Paul's writing, he writes some things that are so difficult, people twist those things to their destruction.

01:52:45

But as J. David pointed out, there's been many identities of who the Antichrist was, whether it's

01:52:52

Nero or Caligula. And to me, that's one of the probably the most, supposedly the one of the easiest way ones to clarify the book of Revelation.

01:52:59

So my point is that book of Revelation, I purposely, just like Luther, kind of stay away from it as the key to my eschatology.

01:53:08

I look more to Jesus's words. Do I ever? Yes, I definitely do look to the book of Revelation. But moving on, on this discussion, partial preterism is detrimental to some person's spiritual development, because it's not merely a cool little add -on.

01:53:25

It actually changes a person's faith. If you hold it consistently, it'll affect more than eschatology.

01:53:30

For example, there are preterists, types of preterists called covenant creationists, like Tim Martin and Jeff Vaughn, who apply preterism to the creation of the flood account.

01:53:38

Or there's preterists like Ward Finley, who went around advocating that there's no one, no more sin, that you can do whatever you want, because judgment's passed, which would be consistent with preterism.

01:53:47

Or there's what's called Israel -only preterism by people like Horry Schultz and a fellow named Rivers of Eden, who believe that it was just about the first century people and the audience relevance that the

01:53:58

Jews are people who were of that lineage, and it has nothing to do with us. And so anything after AD 70 has nothing to do with.

01:54:04

So my point is that partial preterism is dangerous. It needs to be gone into carefully if you go into it at all, especially as we admit here that there's a lot of things, as Jay mentioned, context of the

01:54:15

Maccabees and other historical that a lot of Christians nowadays don't know. Not even some pastors, they studied for 40 years.

01:54:22

I think we had somebody on your thread who said his brother was a pastor for 40 years and had just now began to study a full preterism and getting his own brother into it.

01:54:34

So there's a reason men like David Chilton, who argues more thorough as a theologian than many of us, slipped into full preterism, because the precepts of so -called partial preterism lead right into it.

01:54:46

It's consistent. As a full preterist, Sam Frost recently said, he's an excellent full preterist. He recently said during a podcast that once you have preterized 95 % of your theology, it's easy to take the 5 % remaining and become a full preterist.

01:55:02

Ask Gary DeMar, which is which percentage he disagrees with as a full preterist, because he, as see if you've ever, he's talking to a fellow named

01:55:10

Kim Burgess, who is full preterist through and through. And many of the full preterists see that and they used to say to Gary DeMar, why aren't you a full preterist?

01:55:18

Why don't you go all the way? He would always resist, but now it seems like he's going all the way. Why? What's the difference?

01:55:25

What then shall we call ourselves? What about historical Christians? Not historists, but actual historical

01:55:30

Christians who believe in, it looks like I'm done here, who believe in what Jay referenced, the four or five different things, the resurrection of Jesus, the resurrection of believers, and the judgment and the end of sin.

01:55:43

And now, Jay Rogers, you have seven minutes to conclude day number one of the debate. Just as a little sidebar,

01:55:52

I keep hearing that David Chilton slipped into full preterism, and I wanted to mention two things.

01:55:58

Number one, Andrew Salem actually asked him point blank if he denied the resurrection of the dead, and he said that he didn't.

01:56:06

The other thing I want to mention is, I'm in pretty good contact with his son, Nathan Chilton, and Nathan Chilton is completely unaware of the fact that his father ever renounced the second coming or the bodily resurrection of the believer at the end of time, that type of thing.

01:56:22

So I just thought I would mention that because it's, you know, it gets thrown out there. I happen to disagree that that's certain.

01:56:28

It is confusing to a lot of Christians to look at eschatology, but it's very important to have a common ecclesiology before we can have a common eschatology.

01:56:39

Both should be based in confessional orthodoxy. I think that as far as a common ecclesiology, like a theology of the church, in other words, a theology of the ecclesia, the church, the church is the only institution that Christ gave in order to advance the

01:56:55

Christ kingdom on earth. It's no other institution is given to preach the gospel on the whole earth.

01:57:02

He's also given us all the means to accomplish this work, yet there's the finished work on the cross, there's the word of God, and there's the

01:57:09

Holy Spirit. We also have evidence of the victory of church in history over the

01:57:16

Roman Empire through the great awakenings, the world missions movement, third world awakenings in the global south and Asia as evidence of the victorious church, and it would dishonor

01:57:27

God if we said as a doctrine or as a belief that the church will ultimately fail in accomplishing the great commission.

01:57:37

We also have to understand that the church and the kingdom of God are two different things. The church is an institution, but the kingdom of God permeates all of life.

01:57:45

It stops the spread of idolatry, it's the testimony of Christ's reign over all of life, and there's other means to gather the elect besides the church, but the church is the only institution

01:57:55

God gave. So if your eschatology doesn't include a victorious church, you should change your eschatology because that's very important.

01:58:05

The common eschatology that all Christians believe in or ought to believe in is that one day all nations will be represented in the church, not just certain nations but all nations according to the

01:58:17

Bible. That includes ethnic Jews, it includes Arabs, it includes Chinese, everyone. All anti -Christian powers will one day be destroyed, not just judicially but practically.

01:58:30

Post -millennialists believe that will happen in history, and pre -millennialists believe that will happen during the millennium, in history prior to the millennium, and then pre -millennialists believe that.

01:58:40

And then we all should believe that Christ shall return in person, the judge shall live in the dead, and the saints will inherit the consummated kingdom.

01:58:47

So my encouragement to listeners, if you get confused by all this, the most important thing is to understand we serve a living

01:58:56

God. God is a prophetic God. He speaks to us through His Word, and it is possible to understand the words of Scripture.

01:59:04

And we're out of time. We're out of time, and tomorrow will be day number two of our two -day debate.

01:59:12

The theme specifically will be, All Forms of Preterism are

01:59:18

Unbiblical, where Roderick Edwards, the non -preterist, affirms the thesis, and J.

01:59:25

Rodgers, the post -millennial preterist, opposes the thesis. We don't have time for questions, any more questions from the audience today, but we will try to squeeze more in tomorrow.

01:59:37

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.