Why Share Preterism?

by David B. Curtis

Why should we share Preterism? People always ask me, “Why is this important—what does it matter if Christ has returned or not”? My answer is always the same, “Does truth matter”? If it doesn’t, then we don’t need to study the Bible at all. But if truth does matter, then Preterism matters.

For a less simplistic answer, let me give you four reasons why Preterism is important—reasons why your view of eschatology matters.

1. Eschatology is a major theological issue in the Scriptures.

R.C. Sproul says that 2/3 of the New Testament is either directly or indirectly eschatological. Other experts say that 25-30% of the whole Bible is eschatological. If eschatology matters that much to God, shouldn’t it matter to us?

2. Salvation is tied to eschatology.

How much salvation you currently have depends on your eschatological view.  If you were to die right now, where would you go? That depends on your eschatology. No one goes to heaven prior to the Second Coming. Look at what Jesus said:

And no one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven, even the Son of Man. John 3:13 (NASB)

Has this fact changed? If so, when did it change?

Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You shall seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, I now say to you also, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” . . .Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, where are You going?” Jesus answered, “Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you shall follow later.” John 13:33, 36 (NASB)

In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. John 14:2-3 (NASB)

If Jesus has not yet returned to receive His disciples to Himself, then John 3:13 is still in effect. Look also at the following:

For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, and remain until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 (NASB)

If the dead have not yet been resurrected, which happens at the Second Coming, then no one is yet in heaven. But where do most Christians believe that they go at death? Heaven! (Have you ever been to a Christian funeral?)

Heaven was not opened until the Second Coming because salvation was not complete until the return of Christ:

. . . so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him. Hebrews 9:28 (NASB) 

This is the only place in the New Testament where the return of Christ is called a Second Coming. His appearing is said to be “for salvation.” Peter states that their salvation was not yet complete:

. . . who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 1 Peter 1:5 (NKJV)

Salvation was ready to be revealed—when? In the last time, which coincided with the return of Christ. If Christ has not returned, then salvation is incomplete and no one has yet gone to heaven.

3. Israel!

What do you do with the modern day nation of Israel? Is God’s prophetic calendar tied to the modern day nation of Israel?  No! God is finished with the nation of Israel. Let’s look at a parable in Matthew 22: 1-10:

1 And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said: 2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son,3 and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding; and they were not willing to come.”

In this parable the king is God, the son is Christ, and those invited are the nation of Israel. National Israel did not accept the invitation.

 4 “Again, he sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.”’ 5 But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. 6 And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them. 7 But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.”  

What is verse seven speaking of? Very clearly it is a prediction of the AD 70 judgment of Jerusalem, and national Israel.

8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. 9 Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.’ 10 So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests.” (NKJV)

Israel lost its privilege, and all nations were invited to come to the wedding celebration of the Lamb. This destruction of the nation of Israel, because of their rejection of Christ, was prophesied from the beginning of John the Baptist’s ministry.

“. . . and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.  And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” Matthew 3:9-10 (NKJV)

Jesus came in judgment on the nation of Israel in AD 70, ending forever the nation, its physical temple and sacrifices. So, God is through with Israel as a nation. But most Christians think that the Jews are God’s special people and must be protected. A faulty eschatology is affecting our foreign policy. What Christian leaders teach about the Jews and Arabs influences how Christians view the events unfolding in the Middle East. I also believe that there is a direct connection between the church’s view of Israel and terrorism. I say this because I believe that our view of Israel has affected our foreign policy. It is my belief that a wrong view of who Israel is affected all Americans on September 11, 2001. I believe that the attack on the twin towers in New York City and all the lives that were lost that day were a result of a faulty view of Israel.

It seems that Osama Bin Laden agrees with me that our view of Israel is connected to terrorism. Listen to what he said: “Our terrorism is a good accepted terrorism, because it’s against America, it’s for the purpose of defeating oppression so America would stop supporting Israel, who is killing our children.”

So Bin Laden says that terrorism is connected to America’s support of Israel. And I say that America’s support of Israel is tied to a faulty theology. Because of Dispensationalism and Christian Zionism, most American Christians believe that we have a biblical mandate to stand with and protect Israel.  In 1997 the ICEJ gave support to a full-page ad placed in the New York Times entitled “Christians Call for a United Jerusalem” signed by 10 evangelical leaders. Given so much teaching like this, you can understand why so many Christians believe that we are to be supportive of Israel.

However, what we discover when we try to relate the Old Testament nation of Israel to the New Covenant is that the fleshly nation was but a shadow of the heavenly nation of spiritual Israel, which can only be entered into by Spirit, not by the flesh. Therefore, physical Israelites, could, from then on, have no place in the nation of Israel (which is after the Spirit) except on the basis of personal salvation, through their faith in Christ Jesus.

What about all the promises that God made to Israel? The entire Old Testament is simply packed with promises that God made to Israel. Promises of a land, and a temple, and peace and victory. Now, if the nation Israel was to be destroyed, then what happens to all the promises God made to Israel? Has God’s word failed? No! We know that God is faithful, and that He always keeps His word.

In Romans 9 Paul shows his readers, first century Romans, and us today, that Israel’s rejection is not inconsistent with the promises of God. To say that the nation is accursed is not to say that God’s promises have failed:

But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel. Romans 9:6 (NASB)

“For they are not all Israel who are of Israel”—What does that mean? God never promised unconditional covenantal blessings to each offspring of Abraham. God never intended that all of the nation of Israel would be redeemed. Within national Israel is “true Israel,” or “spiritual Israel.” He is telling them not to count on their physical descent. The true Israel is the Israel of faith, not physical birth. The promises God made to Old Testament Israel are fulfilled in the Church of Jesus Christ.

If you by faith belong to Christ, you are Abraham’s seed and an heir according to the promise. It doesn’t matter whose blood you have in your veins, but whose faith you have in your heart. It is covenant, not race, that makes one a child of God.

The promise was always to the spiritual descendants of Abraham, the Church. The Church is not a temporary interruption in God’s prophetic program for Israel as the Dispensationalists teach. The Church is the prophetic fulfillment of that program, because the Church is true Israel. Covenant, not race, has always been the defining mark of the true Israel of God.

4. It affects your world view.

If we are living in the last days—and this world is about to end at any moment—why work for social change? We are not living in the last days!  We live in the kingdom of God, and we are to be affecting the world in which we live by the power of God. The Kingdom of God has no end—it is an eternal kingdom. As a young Christian I never really planned for the future because I believed the Lord would return at any moment, so why bother with the future?

Those are just four reasons why I believe that eschatology matters. And since it matters, we need to be looking for opportunities to share the Preterist view, and we need to have a plan to share it. When I’m around believers of the futuristic persuasion, I like to wear a hat that was given to me by someone in my congregation.  It says, “Preterism . . . it’s about time.” I wear it, hoping they will ask about it and I can share with them what Preterism is.

It’s not the easiest (or smartest) thing to just say to someone, “I believe that Jesus has already returned.” So how do you introduce this subject? How can we introduce Preterism without causing people to tear their clothes and throw dust into the air? I have developed a handout listing a number of “imminency” passages that I use in sharing Preterism. I like to give people the handout with all the Scriptures on it so they can see them for themselves.

As we read the Bible I say to them, “we must keep in mind the hermeneutical principle of audience relevance, which seeks to discover what the original audience understood a passage to mean. The Bible is written for us, but it is not written to us. We must seek to understand what Scripture meant to its original audience—then we can apply it to ourselves. As you read the following scriptures, ask yourself these questions: Who is this written to? When was it written? When did they expect Christ to return?”

In those passages the New Testament believers are very plainly and very clearly told that ALL of the things mentioned would come to pass in THEIR GENERATION. These things include; the gospel being preached in all the world, the abomination of desolation, the great tribulation, and the Second Coming of Christ. This is so clear that it greatly troubles those who hold to a futuristic eschatology. Look at what C.S. Lewis said about Matthew 24:34:

“The apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘This generation shall not pass till all these things be done.’ And he was wrong.  He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else. This is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible.” (Essay The World’s Last Night (1960), found in The Essential C.S. Lewis, p. 385)

Is Lewis right? Was Jesus wrong? I can’t accept that—can you? Fortunately, Christ did keep His promise to come within the first-century generation. Christ’s Second Coming occurred spiritually—the way He intended it—at the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem. This highly verified historical event signified that sin had finally and forever been atoned, and that all Christians, from generation to generation, could live eternally—on earth and in heaven—without separation from God.

Now, I’m sure that you’re thinking, “If the Lord did come back in AD 70, how did we miss it for all these years?” How could he have come back and we not have known it? The problem here is one of preconceived ideas. It is because of the paradigms that we have developed. We think that the Second Coming is an earth-burning, heaven-melting, globe-changing event; so we assume it could not have already happened.

I submit to you that either Scripture is wrong about the time of the Second Coming, and thus not inerrant, or our paradigms are wrong about the nature of the Second Coming. Which one of those are you more comfortable with; an incorrect paradigm, or an uninspired Scripture? I think I can demonstrate that our understanding of the nature of the Second Coming is wrong. Consider the following verse:

Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. 2 Thessalonians 2:1-2 (NKJV)

How is it that the Thessalonians thought that the Second Coming had already happened? If they viewed the nature of these things as literal, how on earth could they have thought that they already happened? If their concept of the Second Coming was an earth-burning, heaven-melting, globe-changing event, how could they have thought it had already happened? If Paul was teaching the Second Coming as an earth-burning, heaven-melting, globe-changing event, all he would have had to say to the Thessalonians was, “Hello, look out your windows, the earth is not on fire, the sky is still blue.” Paul never corrects their idea of the nature of the Second Coming—he simply says it has not happened yet. They must have viewed the nature of the Second Coming differently than we do.

Until January, 1997, I had never heard of the Preterist (meaning past in fulfillment) view of eschatology, so, I obviously could not believe what I didn’t know. When a friend first shared it with me, I thought he was MAD. As I began to study this view, I saw that although it went against what the majority of the Church was teaching, it was what the Bible was teaching. I had to make a choice between tradition and the Scripture—the choice was easy. If this view is new to you, I would ask that you would openly and honestly look at what it is saying. Almost every book in the New Testament talks of a “soon” return of Jesus Christ, and it is very hard to make 2,000 years “soon,” by any hermeneutic. The major issue to me in all of this is the Inspiration of Scripture. Don’t let tradition rob you of the precious truths which our Lord taught. I challenge you to be a Berean and daily search the Scripture to see if these things are so.