Eschatology 4 - Partial Preterism

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You're all receiving a handout, and once you have your handout, please take your Bible and turn to Revelation chapter 1.
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We are continuing our study tonight of eschatology.
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Eschatology, as we know, is the study of last things.
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We have already made a distinction between personal and universal eschatology, that being our own personal last days, our death, versus universal eschatology, which refers to the end of the world.
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We've looked at the resurrection of the body, and in our last lesson, we looked at four perspectives on Revelation and three perspectives on the Millennium.
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The four perspectives on Revelation were Futurism, that basically says Revelation is still yet to be fulfilled in the future, Preterism, which says that the majority of Revelation was fulfilled in the past, Historicism, which says Revelation is not meant to be taken in a time period, but rather is fulfilled over a long period of time throughout history, and Idealism, which essentially says it's not meant to be taken literal in any sense, but rather is to be the figurative understanding of the battle that is always raging between good and evil.
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So those are the four classic approaches to Revelation, and I said out of those, I am inclined toward the position which is normally called Preterism, and so tonight, and probably next week, because I don't think I'm gonna get through all of my notes tonight, I want to make my reasoning known.
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But before I do that, I want to give just a few very quick precursors.
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Number one, I haven't always thought this way.
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When I was in seminary, I was very much a Futurist.
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I remember when I was a youth leader in this church, that would have been 17 years ago, I was youth minister, and I taught a Futurist perspective to the kids.
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At that time, you probably all remember the Left Behind series was very popular, and Dispensational Theory, about the end of days, was very, very popular among Bible students, and it was being taught just about everywhere.
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Left Behind was, it was a huge bestseller, and the Left Behind series is based on the Futurist perspective.
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It's based on everything in, basically everything in Revelation, beginning at chapter four, is still yet to come.
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That is the Futurist perspective.
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Well, in seminary, that is what I was taught, and I was taught in seminary, basically, if you didn't hold that view, you were just wrong.
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There wasn't a whole lot of grace when it came to eschatology.
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You were either a Dispensational, Premillennial, Pre-Tribulational Rapture view, or you were just wrong.
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And so, what I want to share with you for a moment is really how I began to change.
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The first thing that really got my attention was when I began to examine some of the claims of the Futurist perspective in regard to things like the Pre-Tribulation Rapture.
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That was the first domino to fall.
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If you're not familiar with the Pre-Tribulation Rapture, that is the idea that the church will be secretly and invisibly taken out of the world seven years prior to the return of Jesus.
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That's typically known as the Pre-Tribulation Rapture.
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And again, if you read Left Behind, that was the narrative, that people are just going to be standing here one day, and half the people are going to disappear.
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And what was interesting in the Left Behind books is their clothes were left behind.
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So it was, you'd be in a room like this, hopefully we'd all be gone, because hopefully we're all believers in Christ, but you'd be in an airplane, and you'd look next to you, and all the clothes are gone, and you're the only one left, and you just hope to goodness the pilot is still there.
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And so the idea was that it was going to be this secret event that snatched away, and there was books about it, Thief in the Night, and all kinds of stuff, these things that were trying to paint a picture of eschatology.
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And like I said, this for me was the first domino that fell, because as I began to look at the scripture, I began to find that such a view of the return of Christ is not taught in the Bible.
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So even if you do find that you are convinced that I'm wrong about preterism, and you still consider yourself a futurist, a person who believes that revelation is yet to come, I'm fine with that.
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But I will tell you this, I have no reason from a scriptural basis to believe in a pre-tribulation rapture.
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There just is no evidence of it.
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It is based on a string of pearls woven together.
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It is not based on what I would consider to be a legitimate exegesis of the text.
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Now I know there are people who would argue with me on that, but that for me was the first domino.
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So when that domino fell, and I began to realize that the Bible doesn't teach a pre-tribulation rapture, does it really teach that when Jesus returns there's going to be a millennial kingdom? Because at that time, I ceased being a dispensationalist, but I still considered myself a premillennialist, meaning we're still looking forward to a millennial kingdom.
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So I became what was known as, rather than a dispensational premillennialist, I became what's known as a historic premillennialist.
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Because dispensationalism is only about 150 years old.
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But there were premillennialists before dispensationalism.
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So those people are typically called historic premillennialists.
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And I tend to find a great deal of sympathy with that group.
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I see how they get there.
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I can understand how someone would be a historic premillennialist.
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I don't agree, but I can see the roads that would take somebody to that position.
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So if that's where you end up, go with God.
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That's fine.
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But it's not where I'm at.
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So again, just telling my story, as I began to study the millennium and the position of premillennialism, and I hope I haven't left everybody.
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I hope you're all hanging with me, sticking with me on those big words.
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But as I began to study that, I began to find myself more in the camp of the amillennialist, meaning that I would believe that the millennium is not some future thing yet to come, but rather it is something that was established at the first coming of Christ and something that we are in now, that we find ourselves in the millennium rather than looking forward to the millennium.
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Therefore, I would identify myself as an amillennialist.
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So now I'm no longer a dispensationalist, no longer a pre-tribulation rapture proponent, and I'm no longer a premillennialist.
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So I find myself as an amillennialist.
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And now I step back and I say, but what about the seven-year tribulation? Because even in the midst of all of this, the seven-year tribulation still sits as the main sort of thing that we're all looking for.
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And this is how most people ask the question, well, pastor, do you think that we're going to go through the tribulation or not? Because if you're a person who believes in the invisible rapture, then you don't think we're going to go through the tribulation.
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Do you think we're going to be invisibly taken away prior to the tribulation? And so I began to study what Revelation says about that period that we typically call the tribulation.
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And I began to find myself agreeing more with those who would say that the tribulation is actually referring to an event in the past rather than an event in the future.
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And that is where I started to find myself more in line with the preterist perspective.
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And ultimately, this is where I want you to sort of follow me tonight.
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The whole idea of preterism is based on this one simple idea.
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There was an event in history following the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ that had tremendous eschatological significance.
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So looking at a basic timeline, as I often do, we start with the cross.
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Everything prior to the cross would be Old Testament.
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Going forward with the cross, we are now in the New Testament period.
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So this would be somewhere around the year 30.
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And we have centuries after that.
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So we can come here and we can say, okay, beginning here we have about the 100s, and then to the 200s, and then the 300s.
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And we call this the 1st century, the 2nd century, the 3rd century, and it goes on down.
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That's why we are in the 2000s now, but we call it the 21st century, because the way the numbering system goes, if you continue on out, we are now in the 21st century.
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So in the book of Revelation, it was written somewhere in this time frame.
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The book of Revelation is written somewhere in the 1st century.
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But there's an event that happens in the 1st century that has major significance historically.
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Even if you're not a Preterist, you have to agree that there's an event that has major significance historically, and it is the fall of Jerusalem in what year? In 70.
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Now, the year 70 is the year that Jerusalem fell.
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The temple was completely destroyed and has never since been rebuilt.
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That has to have significance historically, and I believe it has significance eschatologically, meaning I believe it has significance regarding the end of something.
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Now, here's the question.
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What is it the end of? Well, it's not the end of the world, because we're still here.
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But I do believe it represented the end of a system, and that system is the system which was established under the Mosaic Covenant, where the priests were exercising the work of offering sacrifices, all of which pointed to one final sacrifice, which was the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
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The sacrifice of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all of the Old Testament sacrifice, going all the way back to Cain and Abel.
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When Abel offered up his sacrifice, that represented Christ.
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You could even go a step further.
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You could say when God slew the animals whereby he made skins for Adam and Eve, that represented Christ.
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And going forward, every time an animal was slain, it represented the coming of Jesus Christ.
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The book of Hebrews tells us this.
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This is not my interpretation or opinion.
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The book of Hebrews tells us that the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin.
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Why can the blood of bulls and goats not take away sin? Because they're not intended to.
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The blood of bulls and goats point to a true, final, perfect sacrifice in the person of Jesus Christ.
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That is the only sacrifice that takes away sin.
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Therefore, when we come to the year 30, that sacrifice is made, and Jesus says from the cross, Tetelestai, it is paid in full, or it is finished.
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Right? Because the sacrifice is made.
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It's done.
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But the people in Israel did not stop making their sacrifices.
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They continued, year by year, to go into the temple and make sacrifices.
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And God allowed that for one generation.
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A generation in Hebrew culture was 40 years.
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Go back to the time.
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How much time was spent in the wilderness? 40 years.
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Why was it 40 years? So as to allow the next generation to grow up and the first generation to die.
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In Hebrew, understanding of time, a generation is 40 years.
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How much time is there between 30 and 70? 40 years.
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God gave one generation before he brought a full and complete cessation, or ceasing, of the Old Testament system of sacrifices.
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And once that cessation was made, it has not been re-established.
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The sacrifice which was made by the priests in the temple is over and has given way to a new and better covenant.
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Therefore, this event, even if I'm wrong about preterism, which I admit is possible, we cannot miss the significance of A.D.
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70.
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If we do, in fact, this is what bothers me when I talk to people, especially futurists and dispensationalists, I'll say, well, what do you think is the significance of A.D.
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70? You know what often I hear? Well, what happened in A.D.
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70? Not from scholars and teachers, but from regular folks.
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I don't know what happened in A.D.
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70.
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I say, well, my response is I believe Revelation happened in A.D.
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70, because I think Revelation is written to the generation who was going to go through that terrible time.
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Because what happened in A.D.
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70 was more than just the destruction of a city.
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It was the wholesale slaughter and absolute destruction.
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It was the slaughter of the Israelite people.
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It was the destruction of Jerusalem.
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I'm going to read some things to you in a moment, but it was absolutely horrific.
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So you go back and read Revelation, and you read some of the judgments that the people received, and then you compare that to what happened in A.D.
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70, and you begin to say, yeah, I can see how this would be pointing to such a day.
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So, with that being said, we got an idea now what I mean, right? You got a picture of it? Okay.
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So with that, I want to give you a little understanding of what happened in A.D.
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70.
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And by the way, the fall of Jerusalem in A.D.
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70 is one of the best-attested historic events of the ancient world.
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It is not something that we can conjecture maybe it didn't happen.
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No, it did happen.
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There are historical records that outline what happened and the events of such.
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And I want to take a moment to overview some of that.
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We know from the Gospels that during the life of Jesus, Jerusalem was under Roman occupation, right? This is pretty well established.
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That Roman occupation began in 63 B.C.
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when the Roman general Pompey captured Jerusalem.
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So 63 years before Christ, or somewhere thereabout, around 63 B.C., Pompey captured Jerusalem, and the Jews despised the Romans for their oppressive taxation and occupation.
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In A.D.
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66, about 33 years after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Jews revolted.
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So it would have been about 100 years from the time of their occupation.
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Okay? This revolt was somewhat successful, and they established a revolutionary government.
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So in response to the establishment of the revolutionary government, the Emperor Nero sent General Vespasian to meet the Jewish forces, and the result was that the majority of the Jewish forces were pushed into Jerusalem, and Vespasian became the emperor in A.D.
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69.
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In April of A.D.
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70, the Roman general Titus, son of Vespasian, besieged Jerusalem, and Josephus, you've heard of him, the Jewish historian? Josephus, a former commander among the Jewish forces, was captured by Rome because of his position, and he attempted to negotiate a settlement, but both sides resisted his work as trying to be a mediator, and as a result, they continued with the siege.
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The Romans encircled the city, cut off its supplies, drove the people within to starvation.
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It was near the time of Passover, and therefore, Jerusalem was filled with visitors, and some even resorted to cannibalism because they had no food, and they were desperate.
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By the month of August, the Romans had breached and broken through the final defenses, and they massacred those inside who remained, and in total, there were over one million dead in Jerusalem.
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They destroyed the temple, which of course, that would be the second temple.
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The first temple was destroyed many centuries before.
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This was Herod's temple.
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This was the temple that Jesus would have, this was actually the one that Jesus prophesied about when he said, this temple will be destroyed.
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Not one stone will be left upon another.
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Remember that? By the way, I think this is a fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy because he says, not one stone is going to be left upon another, and that's what we find out.
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They go in and sack Jerusalem and destroy the temple, exactly as Jesus said would happen.
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Josephus gives an eyewitness account to the destruction of the temple.
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Listen to this.
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This is directly taken from Josephus' words.
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He says this, quote, the rebels shortly after attacked the Romans again, and a clash followed between the guards of the sanctuary and the troops who were putting out the fire inside the inner court.
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The latter routed the Jews and followed in hot pursuit right up to the temple itself.
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Then one of the soldiers, without awaiting any orders and with no dread of so monumentous a deed, but urged on by some supernatural force, snatched a blazing piece of wood and climbing on another soldier's back, hurled the flaming brand through a low golden window that gave access on the north side to the rooms that surrounded the sanctuary.
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As the flames shot up, the Jews let out a shout of dismay that matched the tragedy.
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They flocked to the rescue with no thought of sparing their lives or husbanding their strength for the sacred structure that they had constantly guarded with such devotion was vanishing before their eyes.
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That is Josephus' description of how the temple was burned to the ground.
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And again, that I believe is a fulfillment of the prophecy of Jesus.
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Matthew 24, Jesus left the temple and was going away, and when the disciples came to point out the buildings of the temple, he answered them and said, You see all these, do you not? Truly I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.
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That's Jesus prophesying 40 years before this event.
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Looking at the same structure which would less than a generation later be destroyed.
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That's Matthew 24 verses 1 and 2, and it's quoted the same almost verbatim in Luke 21, 5 and 6.
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This event was so monumental in regard to its significance to the Jewish nation because they were now without their sacred holy place where they worshiped and they made their sacrifices and it would now be impossible for them to make sacrifices because they had no place to do it, and they still don't.
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They still do not offer sacrifices according to their law.
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Modern Jews have circumvented the sacrificial system and replaced it with a system of almsgiving that essentially takes the place of having to make sacrifices.
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Now it's more of an offering but not a sacrifice.
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It would be impossible not to ascribe, as I said, special significance to this event on God's prophetic calendar.
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The question is, how much significance does it deserve? I think a lot, and preterism, as I said, teaches that the fall of Jerusalem in 8070 was the main major transitional moment from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant, of course, second only to the coming of Christ.
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He is the establishment of the New Covenant, but the fall of Jerusalem would have been God closing the door on the Old Covenant.
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It's God's way of discontinuing Old Covenant ceremonies, doing away with shadows and symbols, and giving way to the reality of Christ.
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Therefore, when we see the term last days, particularly in the Old Covenant but even within some New Testament writing, it is not always referring to the last days of the world but rather the last days of the Jewish system.
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I'll give you an example of this.
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Hebrews chapter 8 and verse 13.
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This speaks of the Old Covenant, and it says this.
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In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete, and what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
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What is that saying? The Old Covenant is now no more.
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The Old Covenant has been replaced by the New Covenant.
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When exactly did the Old Covenant end? Well, we can argue it ended with the coming of Christ, but the door was closed finally when Jerusalem fell.
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So, this historic incident becomes the hermeneutical lens by which the book of Revelation is to be examined.
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Now, with that, I want to actually look at Revelation with you for a moment and make an argument from the text.
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If you have your Bibles, we've already asked you to open them to Revelation chapter 1.
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I think that Revelation chapter 1 and Revelation chapter 22 provide a very convincing piece of evidence for the argument that I have just made.
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Read verses 1 to 3 with me.
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The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His servants the things that must soon take place.
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He made it known by sending His angels to His servant John, who bore witness to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.
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Blessed 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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Now, you'll notice I stressed my voice a little bit on two words in that passage, but I hope you were able to hear the inflection because the two words that I think are very significant in the prologue of Revelation is the words soon and the words near.
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So, now comes a very important question, and we're going to deal with this more next week, but the big important question then is when was Revelation written? Because if it is written prior to AD 70, somewhere here, if Revelation is written then, then it would make sense that that which is soon and that which is near would not be referring to something 2,000 years in the future or more, but rather something that this generation, the people who are receiving the letter, the seven churches, this generation is about to witness because the time is near.
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It's not far off.
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And somebody says, oh, well, that's God's language.
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God says a day is as 1,000 years.
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I agree that the Bible does say that, but in regard to this, there is no indication that this language is giving any sense of what we would call an expanded sense of time because this isn't speaking in the sense from God's perspective.
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It's speaking to the audience.
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This is near.
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This is soon.
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And if you'll turn to Revelation 22 with me, you will see that this concept bookends both ends of the book because in Revelation chapter 22, we come to verse 10 and Revelation 22 verse 10, it says, and he said to me, do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book for the time is near.
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So we have in the beginning of the book and at the end of the book, something to the audience to indicate to the audience of the book that there is an expectation that this will come very soon in his book on Revelation.
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Dr.
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Ken Gentry says this.
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He says one of the most serious mistakes an interpreter of Revelation can make is overlooking John's clearly stated temporal expectation.
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John expects this to happen soon.
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This is near.
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So how do we understand the word near and soon? A lot of people, especially dispensationalists, argue that they take Revelation literally.
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In fact, you'll hear dispensationalists say that.
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They'll say the one thing we do is we take this book literally.
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And I lovingly respond by saying not the first three verses because they make near and soon a long time and far away.
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So as literal as they want to claim to be, they're not being literal with the time period.
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So that being said, I would argue that Revelation, if it is written prior to the coming or excuse me, the fall of Jerusalem, that the judgments that it refers to are referring to the judgments that befell Jerusalem at the fall.
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Now, I want to clarify something for my last few minutes, because next week we're going to continue talking about this.
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I hope you don't mind, because I want to next week look at some of the prophecies of Jesus.
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Remember one of the things Jesus said? A lot of people forget this.
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Jesus said this generation will not pass away until these things take place.
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What's the length between Jesus's cross and the 80-70? One generation? It's very interesting if you begin to start looking at the whole.
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But here's the thing.
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I want to be very clear about something.
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I am not saying that everything in Revelation was fulfilled in 80-70, because I do believe there are still things on God's prophetic calendar.
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The most important thing being the return of Jesus Christ.
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There are certain folks who call themselves preterists who I believe are hyper-preterists or maybe the better word would be heretical preterists, because they believe that Jesus has already come back, the resurrection has already taken place.
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I do not believe that.
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I reject that wholeheartedly.
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I believe that is heresy.
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In fact, I'll point you to a reason why I would say it's heresy, because the oldest confessions of Christendom state that the hope of all believers is the return of Christ.
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I'll read the Apostles' Creed.
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This is what it says.
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He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, and from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
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That's the hope of believers.
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Jesus is coming again.
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And the Nicene Creed, written, we know when it was written.
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The Apostles' Creed we don't have an exact date for.
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We believe it was probably in the 2nd century.
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But the Nicene Creed, written in the 4th century, says this.
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He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead.
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His kingdom will never end.
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So that is orthodox Christianity.
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Jesus is coming again.
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And any system which would require us to give that up would be unbiblical and heretical.
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So, when I say I am a preterist, I am what is typically referred to as a partial preterist.
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I believe some of Revelation was fulfilled in AD 70, but that we still have things to look forward to, most specifically the return of Christ.
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And I would also say that I wouldn't deny the fact that there are coming, there is coming a time of tribulation.
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Because if we are amillennial, meaning we are in the millennium, the Bible says at the end of the millennium, Satan is released for a season to make war with the saints.
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And therefore, if we are in the millennium, there still could be a time coming forward where there is going to be a time of tribulation.
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But, does that mean that it is Revelation that is being fulfilled in that? I don't necessarily think so.
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This is why when people ask me, well, what do you think about the Antichrist? I say, well, we will talk about that more in the weeks to come.
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But ultimately, my view on the Antichrist is not that we need to be looking behind every podium and expecting the next great world leader to be the Antichrist.
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Do you know who the Reformers thought the Antichrist was? The Pope.
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In fact, if you read the Confessions, if you read the Confessions of Faith, the Pope, isn't that right, brother? It was the Pope who was the Antichrist.
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He is a good candidate.
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Yeah, I believe, yeah, I believe the possibility is certainly there.
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So, you understand, when I say I believe in Preterism, I am saying I believe that much of what the book of Revelation says, if it was written prior to 70, is pointing to what happened in 70.
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And, like I said, the weeks to come, I will give you a little bit more evidence for that.
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I will give you my evidence for why I believe Revelation.
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I believe all the books of the Bible were written before AD 70.
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You want to know why? Because none of them mention the fall of the temple.
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The biggest historical event outside of the coming of Christ in the first century would have been the fall of the temple, and not one biblical writer mentions it.
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It is a fulfillment of the prophecy of Jesus, and none of them mention it.
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And we have evidence to suggest that all of the books were written prior to the fall of Jerusalem.
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So, we will talk more about that next week.
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Was this helpful? Can I give you a picture? Like I said, I know this is a lot to deal with, and I hope that it is not something that would bring consternation into your soul.
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Hopefully, it will just continue to clarify.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for the opportunity to be with your people tonight.
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I thank you for your word, which is always to be the foundation for what we believe, and what we teach, and what we think.
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And Lord, when it comes to end times, this seems to me, Lord, to be one of the most enigmatic parts of your word, and yet it seems as if it is that way by design.
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Because your word says, no man knows the day or the hour of your return, and that is as it should be.
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And those who try to, those who try to, through some form of math or study, figure out when Jesus is going to return, prove themselves often to be very dangerous men.
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So Lord, may it be that we understand the value of being good students, and the value of understanding not only what we think will happen in the future, but what we know has happened in the past.
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Lord, we thank you for all this, in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen.