Talkin' Preterism with Sam Frost

Full Preterism and the Claim That All Prophecy Was Fulfilled by AD 70

Welcome back to Your Calvinist Podcast. My name is Keith Foskey, and as always, I'm your Calvinist, and I'm joined today with one of the speakers from the pre-conference here at the Y-Calvinism Conference in Tullahoma.

And the pre-conference wasn't about Calvinism, though. It was about the subject of full preterism. In fact, it was about the dangers of full preterism. And I'm joined by Dr. Sam Frost, and he is a pastor, teacher, prof, I say prof, not prophet, but professor,.

And I'm one of the two witnesses in Revelation 11.

That's funny, that's funny. Well, Dr. Frost, I appreciate you being on the show today, and I just want to ask you a few questions, because when you talk about full preterism, you're talking about people who believe the entire Bible has been fulfilled, as far as prophecy goes.

And I know very few people that are like that, but you said there's an entire subculture of people who are.

I call it a subculture. It sounds larger than it actually is. But, and the internet is its best friend.

Really?

Social media is its best friend. Short of having social media, I don't know how far it would actually spread. But it's alarming enough to where I get enough emails from churches and pastors that know my testimony of leaving in 2011.

And having been in it as one of the top tier teachers with it, with Don Preston, Mike Sullivan, and several others, Dave Curtis, Ed Stephens, Jack Scott, Larry Siegel, Max King, Tim King, I could go down the list of the top guys.

Yeah, when you were teaching the other night, and I do want to recommend to the audience that they, if the recording's made available, definitely listen to that recording.

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

And so, yeah, you were sharing a lot, and you were saying that these guys, you know, you get together and have conferences,.

And all these things. Just like this one, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, but it was to promote the idea of full parenthood.

100 all prophecy is fulfilled by the time of 70 AD.

Including the resurrection.

Everything, the whole idea.

The Full Preterist View of Resurrection, Regeneration, and the Afterlife

So how do they understand what the resurrection is? So for them, it's not a bodily resurrection,.

Would it be?

How do they understand the resurrection?

Spiritual lines, so what we would call regeneration. Prior to Christ, regeneration's not happening. Because of what Christ did, regeneration through the Holy Spirit is now happening. So that's the differences between salvation, or what was going on in the Old Testament days, or what was not going on in the Old Testament days.

And now what's going on in New Testament days, through the resurrection of Jesus, and now we have the spirit and regeneration. And the great benefit is, when we die, we go to heaven. Whereas before, the saints, before Christ, did not have that, they went to a Hadean realm, or a Sheol, or something like that.

So they were separated, even at death, because of sin, they were separated from God, even at death. Christ got rid of all that, and so now we get to go to heaven.

So as a person who held this, I feel like I can ask you questions, okay, what do they believe about this,.

What do they believe about that,.

And get a good answer. So these are legit questions that I've had, and I will submit to you that I do have sympathy for a partial preteristic view, as far as in view of things like the Olivet Discourse, certain things that Jesus said, referring to being within the lifetime of the apostles.

But I certainly hold to a future, I would even say a future Antichrist, future things that are still future. For me, I hold to, like I said, I'm sort of eclectic. There's a term I heard recently was, redemptive historical eclecticism,.

And I kind of liked it.

That's good, actually, that's where most people are at, and certainly most biblical scholars, conservative and liberal, are in and around that, that kind of area. Because I always likened it to an alphabet, and you've got A, G, L, Y, okay, you fill in the, I know A, and I know L, but what goes in, so we don't have it all down.

Yeah, absolutely. And so that eclectic, we're drawing from a lot of sources, and I think that keeps you safe. But when you narrow it down, this view, this view only, you're, I think, cutting yourself short a little bit.

So full preterist does that with a vengeance.

The Millennium, Revelation, and the Dating of the Apocalypse

So within full preterism, in the time we are now in history, what do they look forward to? Do they look forward to human history perpetually going into the future?

For infinity.

For infinity, so there will always be.

This never ends.

Really?

See, I thought I heard you say that, and I wanted to clarify, so is that?

Don Preston's pretty, he's literal on that, because if this is the Christian age that Jesus inaugurated, and it never ends, then you cannot have an end.

Oh, okay.

Because that would be the end of his reign over which age he's ruling over.

Wow, that makes sense.

So there's not even, so if you even said, okay, let's go the empirical route. The sun eventually is going to burn out through entropy and second law of thermodynamics, and it's five billion years from now the sun will.

Yeah.

Nope, that can't happen.

Oh, wow.

So nothing like that at all.

Okay, so good, leads to the next question. What is the millennium in partial preterism, then?

It's the ascension of Christ to 70 AD. It's that generation period.

I heard someone say that, and I said I'd never heard that before, but I'm glad you said that because I was recently interviewed on a podcast. I do, I have this little stick where I talk about being the king of the amillennialists.

I don't know if you've ever seen that.

I've heard that.

It's a joke.

It all started because I was put on a podcast poll about who's your favorite amillennialist. It was Kim Riddlebarger, Sam Storms, and me, and I was like, I shouldn't be on this list. I'm not published.

I haven't, I'm just a internet comedian, right? I'm not, I shouldn't be on this list.

How did I get here?

Yeah, but I won because of the internet, and it's ridiculous, right? And so I wear a crown, and I do this whole joke about being the king of the amillennialists because of that. So that's where the

I've seen that.

Yeah, that's where the joke, yeah. So with that, I have a view of amillennialists.

I appreciate your work, by the way. I've seen this.

I appreciate you and getting to know you. I've really enjoyed that. So the millennium, obviously. I'm an amillennialist, and I don't know where you stand. I was gonna ask you that.

Amillennial.

You're amillennial, okay.

Is there any other?

Well, I mean, certainly within this conference, there would be some disagreements. So from the amillennial perspective, I had never heard someone say that the millennium was only the 40 years between Christ and AD 70, but that's their view.

That's their view.

And you can see where you're constrained because if 70 AD is your end point, then you can't go outside of that end point. So you have to, and 100 prophecy is fulfilled.

And I guess they see the release of Satan as like the Titus and those things going into, wow.

Everything, so allegory becomes your best friend.

Would have to.

Everything's allegorized between whatever Josephus says. So Josephus, so there's 67 books in the Bible.

Oh, because Josephus becomes the 67th, yeah.

The book of Josephus, chapter three. So that, yeah, you read the Bible and Josephus in both hands. And that's, whatever you can allegorize, locusts, whatever you can do in Revelation becomes the Roman onslaught, just all of that.

Revelation, the Late Date, and an Idealist Reading

Well, that leads to another question. And that's the question of your view of Revelation. Do you see Revelation, first of all, where's your dating on Revelation? Because a partial preterist or even a preterist would have to date Revelation prior to 70.

They demand it.

Demand it. And do you have a strong position on that?

As a biblical scholar, I lean towards the late date. I think the better arguments are there. However, it's a legitimate argument for early date. And there certainly is a large group. I wouldn't say the majority, but there's enough.

But my view doesn't depend on the date.

Yeah, just so you know, these microphones are really good at picking up your voice. So even though people are walking in, it's not gonna bother the recording. I didn't want you to think that we had to stop.

No, we don't have to stop. Last year, I was able to get some really good recordings with people talking less than three feet away. So it's all good, it's all good.

So my view doesn't, if your view actually depends on the date, there might be trouble with the way you interpret Revelation. But my view doesn't. I think Revelation is speaking of events and in a mysterious way from Ascension, Revelation 6, to new heavens and new earth.

In between that is you will have tribulations in this world, but take care, I've overcome the world. But the end is not yet. I think that's what John is doing there, through a series of events that's going to take place.

So some would call that idealistic.

I was gonna say, sort of sounds like maybe idealism. I think, isn't it. Beal who has a, I heard you mention him. I think recapitulation is the term some people use.

Okay, all right for that.

Very similar to probably where I would end up.

And if you've got the entire book of Revelation figured out,.

I would love to talk more with you.

Or if you know anyone that does.

I was interviewed the other day and somebody says, who do you think the 144 ,000 is? I was like, I don't know. I got a few ideas, but I can't tell you for sure. And like I said, you're just as likely to be one of the two prophets.

Wouldn't that be cool if you were one of the two?

Yeah, it's you and me, or the two witnesses. This is it, it's on this podcast.

That's the name of your new, you could.

Yeah, yeah, the two witnesses. Me and Dr. Frost are going on the road. Twowitnesses .com.

That's what John was seeing.

Yeah, that's us, that's us.

The Pastoral and Ecclesial Dangers of Full Preterism

Well brother, I have just a ton of questions that come to mind because even more recently with this whole thing that I've been dealing with eschatology matters and different stuff, it's caused me to have to re-examine things.

See, I'm getting more questions than I've ever had. And there was a time when I was a, what some might call a pan-millennialist or an aha-millennialist. It wasn't that I didn't care, but I was focused on the systematic theology that I was teaching and I was focused much more on soteriology and those areas.

And I've been in the same church for 18 years. So I knew I was gonna get around to eventually preaching on eschatology, but I've sort of tried to avoid it because I knew it was

Calvin didn't write a commentary on it. Lutheran avoided it completely.

I made that point exactly. I said, somebody asked, when are you gonna preach Revelation? I said, when I get 60, I think I feel good. I'm 43, so I got 17 more years before I do.

Good advice.

But in your perspective, you said the other night, you think there's a real danger in this. And I want you to speak to, as we draw to a close, like I said, I wanted to make this sort of short, but as we draw to a close, I want you to tell our audience, what is the real danger of a full Preterist view and what can it bring into a church?

And what can it cause? Like I said, you have as much time as you want, but just tell us what it is that we should be on the lookout for and why it's dangerous.

First off, it's a rejection of the community of the saints, past and present. So confessional-wise, it throws all of that off as just merely man-made. Confessions that have moved whole segments of Christian populations are not really that important, if important at all.

And so it really endorses kind of a lone ranger Christianity, of me and God and the Bible, we've got it all figured out and I don't really need you or anyone else to tell me how I'm going to believe.

That is a very popular sentiment right now.

Welcome to America.

Yeah, exactly.

It's that rugged individualism, it's pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, free will, you get into that whole mentality of it. I certainly understand, that's culture.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so it really brings that in, whereas you get into church and communion of the saints and community and the whole corporate body and all of that. So that would lead to a rejection of going to church.

Yeah.

That kind of fellowship no longer becomes really necessary. It's not seen as any vehicle of sanctification. Because you're already sanctified, it's fulfilled.

So there's nothing.

There's no progressive sanctification. You mentioned that the other night, it robs. I loved how you, and again, people should listen to the thing, I don't mean to cut you off, but you said it messes with your Christology, it messes with your doctrine of sanctification, messes with all of these things.

It messes with your doctrine of ecclesiology, the church. I was like, that's so true, everything gets whittled away.

And so of the hundreds that are friends of mine that are still full preterists, some have become atheists. Some very close to me have become atheistic. Most don't go to church at all. And then if you ask them about any ethics or morals, it's just really situational ethics or just consequences.

So don't drink. I don't recommend drinking heavily if it's creating problems. I wouldn't call it a sin. Sin's been done away with. Law's been fulfilled.

See, that's an entirely different idea.

It's creating some problems, you need to deal with that, but you're not condemned or anything. If you're a pastor and you're an alcoholic, you're gonna get excommunicated and dealt with, right? That in their world, that's all pointless.

And even the Lord's table, there's no point in it anymore. Baptism, there's no point in it anymore. Why would you do that? So that's the dangers.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

And it's that it's consistent. If everything is fulfilled, so are we gonna have these things in the new heavens and the new earth, the nominations and arguing about Bible translation?

No.

And because they believe this is that.

It's perfected. So if you just move that over to where we're at now, then why are we arguing about this stuff now? And it doesn't matter what you believe about God. You die, you go to heaven.

Wow.

That kind of stuff.

Wow.

And some are universalists. So that's another broadening or blossoming thing that's happening within the movement.

A universalist, full preterist.

Death has been done away with and swallowed up in victory.

Spiritual death has been removed.

So whether you know it or not, you're going to heaven.

Wow, wow.

Now, not all believe that.

No, I know. But yeah, this is some of the logical implications, right? Well, Dr. Frost, I want to ask you to tell our audience how to get help. If people want to read your books, if people want to see what you've written, how can they get ahold of you and learn more about what you're doing?

So I write on a blog about what I do and then vigil .blog, V-I-G-I-L .blog. And that has all the information.

Vigil .blog.

Yeah, that's pretty much the books and everything else.

Yeah.

And then I've been on Facebook about a year after it started.

Okay.

I'm one of these nerds that follow DOS and floppy disks.

Yeah.

And we went to the little disks.

I used to work for America Online. If you could, yeah.

When America Online, with the disk that came out and you had to dial up and do the whole thing. So this was great.

Yeah.

Oh man, this is everything. So Facebook started and we were on PowTalk before. And I gravitated to Facebook immediately. I thought, oh, ooh, this one here. Because MySpace just was not working.

Yeah, it wasn't the same. It wasn't the same.

And I didn't like it. But Facebook, I like. So I've, and I don't put my personal information or bowel movements and stuff on there either. I keep it very, people put way too much personal stuff. So I've met a lot of scholars.

I've met a lot of people and I use it for that way that it should be used and it's benefited me greatly. So I'm on Facebook.

Well, I've sent you a friend request.

Yeah, I'll do that.

And I spend probably an hour, hour and a half a day on Facebook and I've been doing that for quite some time.

Cool.

I've built an audience up. So you can reach me there.

Yeah.

I'm pretty approachable.

Well, you seem to be and I appreciate it. Well, Dr. Frost, thank you so much for sitting down with me. I appreciate you. I appreciate you. You really educated me a lot this weekend and thank you so much.

This has been a great conference.

Absolutely has, absolutely. God bless you, sir.

Thank you.