Does it make any difference whether I am a dispensational premillennialist or an amillennialists or a postmillennialist or a full preterist? What difference does it make when Jesus comes, as long as he comes? When I was a premillennialist, I didn’t think it mattered at all. I knew what I believed, and, if you believed differently, that was okay with me—you were wrong, but I didn’t mind, because I didn’t think eschatology was that important. I don’t mean to imply it wasn’t a lot of fun to study about the end times. It was great fun, but I figured, if God didn’t think it was important enough to reveal the day and the hour, well, how important could it be what I believed, just as long as Jesus did come eventually?
At that time I wasn’t very informed about the other points of view, but I didn’t mind that either. I had a general knowledge of what all the titles meant, except for full preterism. That one was a mystery to me, but I wasn’t very curious about a belief that didn’t look forward to a future coming of Christ. I didn’t know that they believed Jesus came cir. 70 AD, but I’m not certain how much of a difference that would have made 15 to 20 years ago.
I guess, since I’ve come around to believing full preterism is the truth, I have come to believe that eschatology is really important. The reason is not simply that it is correct. Being correct has always been important to me, but the big reason eschatology has come to be so important is this: a big reason why Jews, Moslems and atheists reject the New Testament is that all the writers of the New Testament claimed that Jesus would return in their lifetimes. The Synoptic Gospels have Jesus saying all things would be fulfilled in that first century AD generation that rejected Jesus as Messiah. Therefore, these folks have a good argument against divine inspiration, if Jesus and those who wrote the New Testament were wrong. As little as a year ago I would have tried to argue for a future coming of the Lord, but I know that argument couldn’t have been very convincing to a knowledgeable Jew, Moslem or atheist.
Jesus once told his scoffers (Jews of the first century AD), “If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not” (John 10:37). In other words, Jesus challenged his scoffers and scoffers of all ages (Jews, Moslems, Atheists etc.), saying don’t believe what he says, unless he is able to perform what his Father gave him to do! That’s a powerful all-or-nothing challenge! Jesus simply laid it all on the line at that point. ‘If I can’t do what I say I’ll do, don’t believe me” (my paraphrase of Jesus at John 10:37. Would it be important, then, if Jesus promised to return to that generation of the folks living in the 1st century AD? I have to believe it makes a whole world of difference, given his statement in John 10:37. He told his disciples: “A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father” (John 16:16). In other words Jesus said in a little while he would go to be with the Father, but in a little while he would return. In his own words, if he didn’t return “in a little while” then don’t believe him (John 10:37; 16:16). Did Jesus do what he said he would do? My answer to that question really does determine my colors.
I have to say, that I understand the unbelief of the scoffers (Jews, Moslems and atheists) on this point, because I’ve lived to be 70 years of age and have never heard of even the possibility of Jesus’ Second Coming to be an accomplished event. I understand that the unbelief of Jews, Moslems and atheists is more complicated than whether or not Jesus returned cir. 70 AD, but I also understand it is a ‘big’ point with them. Therefore, as far as I am concerned, my eschatology is extremely important at this point in my life, and, if God grants me the privilege of speaking with anyone who scoffs at Jesus’ promise to return in the 1st century AD, or anyone who mocks the writers of the New Testament who foretold that he would, I’ll set them straight on that point. No one will be able to use ‘failure to perform’ as a legitimate argument against Christianity with me ever again.
Smoodock's Blog 
14 responses to “What Difference Does It Make?”
Eddie, thanks for all the work you’ve put into this website. I’ve had a similar experience attempting to wade through all the defined systems that each claim to fully understand the end times as discovered by “properly dividing the word”. I’ve mainly focused on the whole rapture thing which I’ve never been able to believe, simply because it really isn’t in the bible. I’ve mostly sided with the post-tribulation camp, but only because they’re the ones closest to my long standing belief that there will be a “second” coming, at which time the dead will be resurrected and, with those remaining, will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air where we will be with him forever – in our brand new spiritual bodies – it’s all one event.
In searching around for a better interpretation of scripture I, just recently, stumbled on the idea that the seven year tribulation is also not in the bible. The whole pre, mid, post, pre-wrath, etc., forms of the rapture debates have annoyed me to no end, since they all spin off the seven year tribulation period as gospel and try to fit somewhere into that scheme. Of course, once the prevailing interpretation of Daniel 9 is rejected, all of the rapture theories evaporate.
So, now I still have Preterism, Historicism, Futurism positions to sort through, along with the whole Amillennial, Premillennial, and Postmillennial debates and, of course, all flavored with a bit of Dispensationalism with it’s attempts to separate the history of Israel from that of “the Church”. The main problem is that all of these views, as played out to a complete picture, end up with biblical contradictions, which the opposing camps are all quite willing to point call out.
My current position is that they’re all wrong and no one can really have a complete picture of God’s plan, except for God himself – that is before it all happens. While I can fully agree with points from each camp, all of these views end up at the same place, with contradictions that fuel endless debate. For instance, I can readily agree that Paul revealed a true mystery, that we would not all die. You certainly cannot deduce that from the old testament, or even from the gospels. But, there’s no way that Paul taught a different gospel, for the church than Matthew was teaching to Israel – the final conclusion of the Dispensationalists is clearly false.
And, it’s also a mistake to extrapolate Paul’s mystery into a brand new theology. It’s always been clear to me that in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5 [ chapter breaks are not part of the bible ], Paul describes the second coming of the Messiah. He also adds detail to the resurrection by explaining what happens to those still alive, but he never intended for this be about a new event – it takes so much twisting and cheating to create the rapture concept, I’ve always considered it false teaching – even though I attend a church that teaches the rapture.
I really can thank the Preterist crowd for reminding us all that the interpretation of Danial 9 really has been twisted to make it align with other theories [ this has been my most recent epiphany ], and understanding this does help to invalidate all the rapture ideas. However, I really cannot join in with this whole concept either since clearly there are so many things that have not yet happened. I’m pretty sure the world has not ended yet, there is no new heavens, new earth, or a new Jerusalem. And, if the resurrection has already happened it would be news to everyone. And, of course, I still have this tired old body – just like the rest of us…
Some might try to say that I’ve fallen into the Partial-Preterist crowd, but I’ll also have to reject that label since I have no idea exactly where that leads me. My thinking has been changed with respect to Daniel 9, I no longer believe that an argument can be made for the gap between week 69 and 70 – that this MUST exist to explain the prophecy. It appears to me now that a valid argument can be made that this prophecy has been fulfilled. However, it still looks like the abomination of desolation part may also be repeated in a future event, but without any particular timing being mandated.
And, while I’ve leaned towards a pre-millennial position, I’ve always struggled with the whole Gog/Magog war at the end of it all. It just doesn’t seem plausible that after a 1000 years of Christ’s rule, there could exist an army too large to count, that would still be willing to revolt. Even with Satan’s influence this is just too difficult to comprehend. But to translate this confusion into a belief that Christ has already returned and that we’re currently living in the millennium also doesn’t add up. I have considered that the battle of Gog/Magog and that of Armageddon may be two descriptions of the same event, but that also doesn’t align with the rest of scripture.
I honestly believe that none of these camps have it ALL figured out. That in the end, as more and more history unfolds, with all loyal Christians standing watch, with bits and pieces starting to come together, that God will unfold things in a way that fully satisfies every bible verse, but in a way that no one will accurately guess until it’s over. Thereby fulfilling one of the most common bible prophecies, that the day of our Lord will come like a thief in the night and that no one can know the day or the hour. We are going to see it coming, but will still be surprised when it hits. This is my final conclusion.
Best Regards,
Gary
Greetings Gary, and thanks for your kind words and for reading my studies and for the honesty that comes through in your comment. Lord bless you.
I have been involved in Preterism since the summer of 2017, but haven’t really jumped in all the way until about September. I simply am tired of all the predictions that have failed and proved the futurists wrong. Does Preterism have all the answers, well, I don’t know yet, but I plan to discover the answer by committing myself to the idea — all in until I’m proved wrong.
There is no “end of time” with Preterism. This is based upon the idea that the Kingdom that destroys all other kingdoms will never end (Daniel 2:44). Nowhere does scripture speak of the “end of time” — it just isn’t there. It’s a false doctrine in as much as I can tell. If there were “new heavens and a new earth” after the Genesis Flood (2Peter 3:5-7), I believe “new heavens and a new earth” came out of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Old Covenant Temple in 70 AD. It is just not how the futurists predicted it would be. It is simply a new modus-operandi. As for the resurrection, I can see how that occurred, and when we die, we join the faithful. It is simply something that never ends. I am able to read the scriptures and see these things. If I’ve stumbled and have been deluded, I believe the Lord will bring me around either through my studies or through someone challenging me. I hate to be wrong, so I consider just about everything in an effort to keep proving my stronghold in Christ or let it be chipped away by the real truth.
Anyway that’s my story, Gary. I don’t have everything fitting neatly in order, but I’m having a lot of fun trying to do that. Lord bless you in your studies. Feel free to comment on anything I’ve written.
Eddie
Eddie, it’s interesting that it took me so long to stumble on the Preterist views on Danial 9, the idea that the whole gap theory is likely false. When looking at the Futurist arguments against Preterism, these seemed to work so quickly that I clearly dismissed the whole concept without even looking into the details. It took me quite a long time before I started searching around for “Daniel 70th week gap theory false”, which is what got me onto my current track – and, your site was one of the ones that I found.
So, while I am having a lot of fun as well, trying to piece together the whole puzzle, I am still stuck with a real problem with Full Preterism. While I can agree that there is no “end of time”, the bible clearly teaches that there is a very real end to the first heavens and the first earth. And while 2 Peter 3:5-7 does state that the same waters destroyed the earth in the time of Noah, it does not appear to be equating this with the new heavens and new earth that will be created by the same “Word” from Genesis – AFTER the current heavens and earth are totally destroyed by fire.
A little later, in 2 Peter 11-13, he more fully describes these events that have not yet occurred, even if we can agree that the destruction of the temple in 70 AD truly did satisfy much prophecy. And the bible is covered with many vivid descriptions of The Day of Our Lord, that cannot be considered fulfilled by history as we know it – even allowing that some folks reported a vision of the heavens opening up at the time of the Roman invasion.
I do fear that Preterism may be jumping into the exact camp that Peter cautions us here to avoid, saying “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” I’ll have to stay in the camp(s) that await the second coming of our Lord, with the resurrection of the saints, along with those of us still alive, changing us into our newly perfected bodies. One big glorious event, truly the blessed hope to end all hopes, even if it’s all accompanied by a lot of fire and brimstone and, ultimately, the complete destruction of heaven and earth.
But, it’s really quite difficult for me to nail down much else. For all I know, the Day of the Lord may actually last for a 1000 years, since a day for our Lord is like a 1000 years and 1000 years are like a day. Honestly, Paul inserts that little fact right after explaining why He’s taking so long to come, and right before describing his coming. It sure looks like a hint to me, but can I really build up a whole theory around the idea? Not really, there’s just way too many variables for my little brain to solve. Like I said, the more I study, the more I believe that only God can really understand the whole picture, and even though we have the Holy Spirit to help figure it all out, I haven’t heard anyone with a full description that doesn’t lead to many contradictions…
I am left to wonder how it’s possible for the same Spirit to lead us into so many divergent directions – I’ve listened to so many teachers, much more inspired than myself, insist on ideas that I consider flatly false. We’re all witnessing a complete fragmentation of the church, broken up into countless denominations, using many deep divisions of God’s word to attack one another, even to the level of heresy. We can only conclude that this must be part of God’s plan, perhaps to maintain the mystery of it all.
Nonetheless, it is quite frustrating that the same Holy Words, backed up with the same Holy Spirit, is having such a difficult time generating a unified message within The Church, the very body of Christ. And, eschatology is just one of many areas of sharp disagreement. I guess we can only keep searching for better answers and/or waiting for further revelations…
Have fun,
-Gary
Greetings Gary, one of the scriptures that keeps me digging for truth is: Deuteronomy 29:29 “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” In other words, if it’s in the Bible, I should be able to figure it out with the help of the Lord, and he has promised to help me understand. I swore off the Apocalypse for about 25 to 30 years, because I simply couldn’t figure things out, and I grew tired of all the different ways to understand it, but nothing proved true when it came to understanding when the Lord would return. There have been literally hundreds of predictions of his return since the first century AD and all of them wrong. The futurists view of the Bible is wrong in as much as I am able to tell. Anyone saying otherwise needs to prove his case, because there have been too many falsehoods told that hurt a lot of people.
Another scripture that I like when it comes to studying the word of God is Proverbs 25:2 “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honor of kings is to search out a matter.” The Lord doesn’t brag about the many things he has done for us, and that glorifies him, but the opposite is true for us. It is to our glory to uncover it all and see him as he is, inasmuch as that is possible.
Concerning 2Peter 3 and the “new heavens and the new earth” I have an 18 study series on that, if you haven’t found it already. It’s 2Peter 3, The End of the World? – and I also inserted a video link showing where I derived my studies. Dr. William Bell is a Preterist and I found his series on 2Peter 3 fascinating. So, I took each one with my Bible in hand and made a study series of my own on Peter’s argument. The problem is the futurists have controlled our vocabulary when it comes to reading scripture, especially when defining eschatology. Therein lay a great deal of our problems with prophecy. Because of what I have come to understand since last summer, I have involved myself in a verse-by-verse study of Revelation, and I am thrilled with how it is going. Nevertheless, I become almost depressed as I begin a new chapter, because I’m afraid I won’t be able to understand it, or that it will contradict what I think I’ve discovered in the chapter I’m finishing up. So far, it’s been a thrilling event, despite my feelings of depression from time to time. I’m currently in the tenth chapter, but the studies won’t appear in my blog until near the end of this year.
Concerning Preterism and Peter’s scoffers, the problem with lumping them together is that Peter and the other New Testament writers all expected and wrote of the near coming of the Lord. I am not willing to believe the Apostles were wrong. Many scholars today try to tells us they were wrong, and all of them are futurists. Jesus warned us about clinging to the traditions of men. When we believe men over the word of God, men have power over us, and the word of God loses its power in our lives. My “GOTO” scripture in controversy is John 10:35. Scripture cannot be broken—it cannot be made to contradict itself. How is it possible for the Apostles to be wrong about the near coming of Jesus and this scripture to be valid? If John 10:35 is correct, the futurists argument that the Apostles were wrong is illogical, pure and simple. I may not understand in the way I would like, but one thing is certain: the Apostles were correct.
Concerning all those denominations, I prefer to understand them as ‘tribes’ in the sense of the 12 tribes of Israel. As long as we’re willing to die for the same things, the other things we see differently don’t matter much as far as our unity is concerned. Our differences may matter enough to makes me part of a different tribe than you or someone else, but if we don’t cut off fellowship with one another, we can learn from one another in ways we couldn’t if we all agreed on everything. The differences keep us honest in our truth, because brethren debating with brethren will sharpen one another’s reality like iron sharpens iron. Anyway, that’s how I see it, Gary.
Lord bless you in all that you do for him.
Eddie.
Eddie, all of the bible believing positions rest heavily on John 10:35 – they all churn around their favorite references attempting to discount those of the other camps. And as long as they do this with charity and grace, I have no problem with it. Searching scripture with honesty and an open heart to what the Holy Spirit is trying to say is exactly what the bible teaches.
The problems starts when folks get so locked into a particular position that they lose focus on the totality of God’s word, falling into the trap of leading with a premise and then twisting everything to fit that one belief. The rapture camp is a perfect example of this, where every verse they analyze must be hammered into a proof of the rapture event, they are so over committed to a single theory that it clouds their judgment in all other areas.
However, in my humble opinion, the Preterists are just as guilty, hanging an entire philosophy on the idea that the second coming would occur “in a little while”, that this is what the Apostles believed. The main problem being that they never defined what “a little while” meant to them – they never committed the sin of predicting a specific date, as so many have.
In fact, in 2 Peter 3, we have a specific confession by Paul, that while he still trusts that Jesus will return, in full glory, as predicted, but that “in a little while” could as easily mean thousands of years as a few days. And John 21:22-23, also corrects those attempting to interpret the timeline, basically restating that Jesus will return when the Father tells him to and no one will know that time.
In my thinking, God will never let a prediction be correct, so whenever you hear of someone setting a date, you can almost rest assured that it will not happen then – I’ve never bought into any of these guys that “have it all figured out”. And, by claiming that the second coming of our Lord, and all the promises that go along with it, has already happened in 70AD, Preterism generates way more contradictions then they resolve, same as Futurism, Dispensationalism, Rapturism, and all the rest of the Isms.
I think the Preterist view of Daniel 9 and it’s relation to the destruction of the Temple is a real contribution to understanding. Just by having this as a possible reality puts a real damper on those interpretations that rest completely on the idea that 70th week MUST be a future event. But, when the view is extended to include all other end time prophecy, they fall into the same trap of twisting all scripture to fit their own scheme and declaring that theirs is the only way to rightly divide scripture – just another way of saying I’m right and everyone else is wrong.
I guess my new way of looking at is that everyone is wrong, except God. Of course, the Holy Spirit, and history, will eventually spell it all out, but I have yet to hear any of these schemes explain things in a way that makes total sense. So, still looking forward to our Blessed Hope, but still very confused about many scriptures – maybe not such a bad place to be. My strategy is to avoid locking into a false doctrine, this must be more important even than figuring it all out…
God Bless,
-Gary