At this time I’m involved in a study showing that Jesus’ return had to have been fulfilled in the first century AD, if we are to believe he will return at all. To claim Jesus will return in our future fulfills nothing. Our day in the twenty-first century has nothing to do with scripture as far as fulfilling prophecy is concerned. The fact is, Peter claimed the prophets spoke of his day (1Peter 1:12), that is of the events pertaining to the first century AD—of Christ crucified, the resurrection, the preaching of the Gospel, the end of the Old Covenant, the establishment of the New Covenant in its place, the resurrection and the judgment. Jesus preached that he would come into his Kingdom before the end of that generation in which he then lived (Matthew 16:27-28). He predicted that he would return in the first century to judge the Jewish nation (Matthew 24:30-34, and the high priest living at that time would live to see it occur (Matthew 26:64).
If Jesus did not return in the first century AD, he will never return, because that would make him a false prophet. According to the Challenge of Christ, Jesus claimed the Father had given him works to do (John 5:36), and he did them in the Father’s name (John 10:25). In fact, he offered a challenge to unbelievers: “Don’t believe me, if I am not doing the works / will of my Father, but if I do the works, believe the works so that in doing so you would come to realize that Father is in me (Jesus) and I (Jesus) in him” (John 10:37-38). In other words, Jesus claimed he would return in the first century AD (Matthew 16:27-28; cp. 23:36; 24:30-34; 26:64). If he did not return as he said, don’t believe a word he says (John 10:37), and by all means, don’t believe anyone who comes preaching in his name, because, if Jesus didn’t return in the first century AD, folks who preach in his name are coming in the name of a false prophet.
Some may say: “Okay, Jesus came in the first century AD to judge Jerusalem and the Temple, but Peter speaks of the end of the space / time continuum. He tells us heaven and earth will burn up (2Peter 3:10, 12),[1] and the example he offers is the Flood of Noah’s day. It was a physical flood that destroyed the world that existed in his day (2Peter 3:5-6). Nevertheless, such an understanding of Peter’s second epistle is wrong and betrays eisegesis as a method of interpreting Scripture rather than exegesis.
Notice what Peter claimed:
“For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished” (2 Peter 3:5-6).
First of all, the Flood didn’t destroy either the heavens or the earth. It destroyed the cosmos / world. The Greek word: kosmos (G2889) concerns the order of things, including government, customs, worldview etc. It has nothing to do with dirt or stars. The elements that would pass away with a great noise and melt with fervent heat are the foundational principles upon which the world was founded. In Noah’s day it was a patriarchal society that had become so violent that every intention or imagination of man was only wickedness (Genesis 6:5). Man had become completely and thoroughly corrupt. The Flood destroyed that society—that world (kosmos; G2889).
Peter used the Food to express how the judgment of God would be upon the Jewish nation. The covenant relationship they had with him would cease. Their nation would never again represent him. He would not ever again address the nations through them. He would make a New Covenant with men and women who believed Christ, whether Jew or gentile, male or female, bond or free. There would be no discrimination as far as who the Lord would covenant with to address the world. They, the believers in Christ, wherever they would be found in the world would be his nation, through whom he would address the world. This would be his Kingdom and his Kingdom would have no end. So, the world that then was in the first century AD (God working through the Old Covenant) perished!
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[1] In a previous study: The Destruction of the Heavens and the Earth, I demonstrated that this was not a literal destruction of the universe and / or the space time continuum. Rather, the term heavens and earth pertained to the covenant relationship between God and man: the Mosaic Covenant v/s the New Covenant. The heavens and earth pertained to the Temple of God: the physical Temple dividing heaven (the Most Holy Place) from the earth, the rest of the Temple. Under the new heaven and new earth, the Lord dwells with man, i.e. there is no veil between heaven (God’s Presence) and earth (man).
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