Biblical & Theological Issues

(First published Areopagus Journal Vol. 11 No. 2 – Extreme Eschatology)

by Samuel E. Waldron and Steven B. Cowan

What would you say if someone told you that Jesus’ second coming has already occurred?-that it in fact occurred over 2,000 years ago in A.D. 70? What would you say if he told you that Christian believers today have already experienced the resurrection of the dead and are already enjoying the full resurrection life? We expect that most readers would react the same way we would. We would look this person in the eye and ask, “Is this it? Is the life that I’m leading now in this world of sin, suffering, and woe the best that I can hope for in Christ?” And we would all very likely answer these questions ourselves with a resounding “No!”

Believe it or not, however, there is a growing movement within evangelical circles that would say these apparently outrageous things. This movement is called hyper–preterism.¹ Those who hold this view believe that the prophecies and promises of the Bible have all been fulfilled in the context of the first century, and that there is nothing in the prophetic Scriptures of the Old or New Testaments that is still to come. In this article, we will explain the hyper-preterist view and show why they are mistaken.

INTERPRETATIVE APPROACHES TO REVELATION

Throughout church history, there have been several distinct ways of interpreting the Book of Revelation and other eschatological passages of Scripture. For ease of discussion we will focus our remarks on the Book of Revelation.2 First, most Christians today (and perhaps through most of church history) have held to some form of futurism. According to futurists, the prophecies in Revelation (from chapters 4 – 22) mainly concern events that still lie in the future at or around what is called the “end times.” All premillennialists and some amillennialists and postmillennialists have been futurists. For futurists, the seven seals (chaps. 6-7), the seven trumpets (chaps. 8-9), the two witnesses who are Killed and then raised (chap. 11), the coming of the beast and false prophet (chap. 13), the seven bowls of wrath (chap. 16), etc., are events that take place leading up to the second coming of Christ which is described in Revelation 19. Some futurists go on to claim that the millennium described in chapter 20 is also future.

Another approach to Revelation is historicism, the view that the Apocalypse describes the unfolding events of church history, beginning with the early, apostolic church, through the Patristic and Medieval periods, into the Reformation and right up to modern times. Historicists also tend to argue that the seven churches of chapters 2 and 3 represent the state of the church in these various epochs. A variation of this approach is the kingdom-historical view in which the Revelation is seen as cycling over the same inter-adventual kingdom period with a progressively stronger focus on the future.

A third approach to interpreting Revelation is idealism. According to this view, Revelation does not describe any historical events at all whether past, present or future. Instead, the book reveals timeless theological and moral truths concerning the perennial battle between good and evil.

Finally, there is the approach known as preterism. Those who hold this view see the events described in Revelation as having occurred (at least mostly) in the past, specifically in the first century. Believing that the Book of Revelation was written prior to A.O. 70,³ and taking their cue from the Apostle John’s statements that the events he is about to describe “must happen very soon” (1:1), and are “near” (1:3), and that ‘”those who pierced him” will see Christ coming, the preterist believes that all of the things that John prophecies in chapters 4-19 are related in some way to the Jewish war with Rome that culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem in A.O. 70. Accordingly, the preterist holds that a major theme of the book is Christ’s vindication to and judgment on the unbelieving Jews who rejected Christ and persecuted the church. The seven-headed beast is the ancient Roman Empire and the Beast is none other than Emperor Nero (666 = Nero Caesar). Concerning the “1,000 years” of chapter 20, preterists tend to be either amillennialists or postmillennialists.

At this point, however, we must distinguish two varieties of preterism. First, there is what we may call moderate or classical preterism. On this view, the Book of Revelation is understood as described above, but the “coming” of Jesus in chapter 19 is not the second coming of Christ, but a non-literal coming in which God pours out his wrath on the unbelieving Jews-an event that occurred in A.D. 70. But the events of chapters 20- 22 are largely still future. For the moderate preterist, the literal second coming of Jesus is still to come (being prophesied in Rev. 20:7-10; 1 Thes. 4:16-17, etc.), as is the general resurrection and the last judgment. This version of preterism is perfectly orthodox theologically and is not the subject of this article. Its defenders include Ken Gentry, David Chilton, Gary DeMar, and Jay Adams.⁴

A second, and more problematic, brand of preterism is what we have called hyper­ preterism. For the hyper-preterist, Revelation 19 does describe the second coming of Jesus, and that second coming took place in A.D. 70, as did the general resurrection and the last judgment. There are no biblical prophecies left to be fulfilled in our future. Proponents of hyper-preterism include Max King, Ed Stevens, and John Noe.⁵

THE REVISIONARY NATURE OF HYPER-PRETERISM

In order to make sense of  their radical eschatological beliefs, the hyper-preterist has to engage in some significant revision of certain Christian doctrines. For one, since the second coming of Jesus occurred in A.D. 70, the hyper-preterist has to claim that his return was not a visible, bodily return. It was a spiritual or figurative return.⁶

The hyper-preterist also claims that the general resurrection of believers has already occurred. This implies that the believer’s resurrection is a spiritual one. Ed Stevens writes,

Now when we die physically we continue living spiritually in the presence of God(except without our physical bodies). We do not have to go to some waiting place, be resurrected, reunited with our physical bodies, judged and then I changed back into some non-material state in which to spend eternity. When we became Christians we passed out of judgment and death into eternal spiritual life.⁷

Preterist Daniel Harden claims that the idea of resurrection in the New Testament “wasn’t that the physical body is brought back to life, but that the soul proceeds from out of the dead body.”⁸

Of course, this has implications for Jesus’ resurrection body too. Ed Stevens declares I  that believers will be “raised immortal with a spiritual body like Christ’s.“⁹ So, the hyper­preterist insists that Jesus’s resurrection was a spiritual resurrection, not a bodily one.

What’s more, hyper-preterism espouses the view that this world, in its present condition, will never end. “The new heavens and the new earth are already here,” declares Ed Stevens.¹⁰ As a result, John Noe insists, “The world is never, repeat never-ever going to end. We live in a never-ending world.”¹¹

We could go on, but the reader can see that hyper-preterism is a serious departure from what Christians have believed for 2,000 years. There is no space here to give an in-depth, point­ by-point rebuttal of hyper-preterism,¹² but in the remainder of this article, we will show that the Bible clearly tells a different story about the resurrection of believers and the second coming of Christ.

THE RETURN OF CHRIST AS A LITERAL /HISTORICAL/ PHYSICAL EVENT¹³
We have seen that hyper-preterism claims that Christ’s return is not a physical return, but only a spiritual or figurative one. In this regard, hyper-preterism has much in common with the modern, scientific mindset that has a tendency to spiritualize or understand figuratively all things religious and spiritual. It is important to note in such a climate that Christ’s return is clearly not (merely) a spiritual event and certainly not a figurative event. It is a literal, historical, and physical expectation. This affirmation is supported by the following arguments:
► Like His departure, it is bodily (Acts 1:11).
► As His departure means His physical absence from earth, so His return means his physical return (Acts 3:20-21).
► His return is described as including a certain, clear order of events: first-His descent from heaven, second-the resurrection of dead believers, and third-the transformation of living believers (1 Thess.4:14-17).
► Christ’s return is the pivotal event in a series of events that the Bible describes as literal, historical, and physical. It is an event like the physical creation of the world, the worldwide flood, the bodily resurrection of Christ, the bodily resurrection of all the dead, the physical destruction of the world, and the renewal of the physical creation (Gen. 1:1-2:3; 2 Pet. 3:5-7; John 20-21; John 5:28-29; 2 Pet. 3:10-12; Rom. 8:19-23).

For all these reasons we must think of Christ’s return as a literal, historical, and physical event that will take place in the future. When hyper-preterists deny such a second coming, they fly in the face of not only many explicit New Testament texts, but the whole tenor of the Bible.

THE RETURN OF CHRIST AS A PUBLIC/UNIVERSAL/OPEN EVENT

Another major emphasis of the NT is that Christ’s return will not be secret, but universally visible and public. It would be possible in the abstract to think of a physical return that was secret, but the Bible everywhere teaches that the day of Christ’s humiliation is over and the day of His glory has come. Thus, it would be unthinkable for His return to go un-noticed. This general consideration is confirmed by a number of explicit, New Testament passages: Matt. 24:26-31; Luke 17:22-25; 1 Thess. 4:16-17; 2 Thess. 1:5-10; Tit. 2:13.

THE DENIAL OF THIS RETURN OF CHRIST Is A DAMNABLE DOCTRINE

This is no doubt partly why Peter describes those who deny the Second Coming of Christ as mockers (2 Pet. 3:3-4; Jude 18). To describe someone as a mocker is to mark him not merely as one who is not a Christian, but as one who is the worst type of unbeliever. Though the same word is not used, the same concept is present in the Book of Proverbs when it contrasts the naive with the scoffer(Prov. 1:22; 9:7-8; 15:12; 19:25; 21:11; 21:24). Thus, when Peter identifies those who deny the Second Coming as mockers, he makes clear that they have departed from the Christian faith and that the second coming of Christ is a central Christian doctrine.

A similar curse is placed upon those who reject the truth of the Second Coming by John in the book of Revelation. There are, of course, a number of debatable passages in the book of Revelation, but its central message is clear. That is that Jesus is to return in judgment to the world (Rev. 1:7; 21:12; 21:20). This clear and central message of the book of Revelation must certainly be in mind when John pronounces the curse upon those who take away from the message that he had been given by Jesus (Rev. 22:18-19). The fearsome character of this curse makes clear, then, how central to the Christian faith is the return of Christ to this world.

THE CENTRALITY OF THE BODILY RESURRECTION OF BELIEVERS

The Bible teaches that part of the final judgment is that all men will be raised from the dead literally and bodily. The three classic witnesses to it are Daniel 12:2; John 5:28, 29; Acts 24:15. Especially important is the promise of the resurrection of Christ’s people. This promise is closely linked in many places with the bodily return of Christ (1 Cor. 15:23; 1 Thes. 4:13-17; 2 Thes. 2:1). This is a doctrine that, like the return of Christ, is taught literally dozens of time in the Bible.

In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul defends throughout the entire chapter the doctrine of the bodily resurrection of believers. He makes clear that he thinks that the denial of the resurrection of believers is a denial of the gospel of Christ itself (1 Cor. 15:12-19). The gospel of Christ is, however, the very basis of our salvation so that to deny the resurrection is to place ourselves outside the sphere of salvation. It is the gospel by which we must be saved (1 Cor. 15:1-2).

The resurrection is, thus, closely linked to the resurrection of Christ. His resurrection is the model and archetype of our resurrection. Since his resurrection was bodily and left an empty tomb, it is only this sort of resurrection that qualifies as resurrection in the biblical sense of the term. Resurrection in the Bible means an empty tomb (Matt. 27:52; 28:6; John 5:28-29).

Further evidence of the central nature of the doctrine of the resurrection to the Christian faith is found in 2 Timothy 2:16-19:

But avoid worldly and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, men who have gone astray from the truth saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and they upset the faith of some. Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal, “The Lord knows those who are His,” and, “Everyone who names the name of the Lord is to abstain from wickedness.”

In this passage we have mention of a doctrinal error. It is an error concerning the resurrection. The error was the teaching that the resurrection had already taken place. Now we might not think that this was such a serious thing. One might say that those teaching this error are only wrong about the timing of the resurrection, but do not deny its reality. There are, however, a number of things in this passage that indicate that this was a most serious and central doctrinal deviation.

• In verse 16 this error is described as worldly and empty chatter. The words used are literally translated godless and foolish. the use of the same root here translated, godless, in 1 Tim. 1:9; 6:20; Heb. 12:16 where it marks someone as unsaved.
• In verse 16 it is said to lead to Cf. Romans 1:18; Jude 15.

• In verse 17 it is compared to gangrene. (The Greek word is the one from which derive our word, gangrene.) Here is one definition of this word: a disease involving severe inflammation and possibly a cancerous spread of ulcers which eat away the flesh and bones – ‘ulcers, gangrene, cancer. ‘

• In verse 17 Hymenaeus is named as one of the culprits spreading this error. He is probably the same Hymenaeus mentioned in 1 Timothy 1:19-20 who suffered shipwreck of his faith and blasphemed.
• In verse 18 Hymenaeus and Philetus are said to have gone astray from the truth in teaching this error. The Greek word translated have gone astray is used in 1 Timothy 6:21 of those who went astray from the faith into the early heresy of Gnosticism.

• In verse 18 this error is said to have upset the faith of some. The translation of the NASB is inadequate, and the translation of the old KJV is correct. The word means to overthrow. The faith of those who accepted this error was not simply upset. It was overthrown. This is the word used in John 2:15: “And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.”

• In verse 19-finally-this error is contrasted with the firm foundation of God. The contrast implies that this false doctrine was a denial of a central and foundational truth of the Christian faith. Superficially, we may think that teaching that the resurrection has already taken place would be a comparatively minor matter. The fact is that Paul regards it as a departure from a central truth of the Christian faith. The reason is, of course, that to say the resurrection has already taken place forces one to drastically redefine what the resurrection means. It is for this reason that the resurrection is classed as one of the basic or elementary teachings of the Christian faith in Hebrews 6:1. The resurrection of the body is, therefore, a central and foundational doctrine of the Christian faith. So, for these and other reasons, we must reject hyper-preterism as a heretical deviation from the Christian faith.

Samuel E. Waldron (Ph.D.) is Academic Dean and Resident Professor of  Systematic Theology at the Midwest Center for Theological Studies in Owensboro, Kentucky. He is also one of the pastors of Heritage Baptist Church in Owensboro. Portions of this article are taken and adapted from his book, More of the End Times Made Simple (Copyright 2009 Calva1y Press, www.calvaiypress.con0.

Steven B. Cowan (Ph.D.) is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Louisiana College and the editor of Areopagus Journal. He is co-author (with James Spiegel) of The Love of Wisdom: A Christian Introduction to Philosophy (B&H Publishers).

NOTES

1 Other labels that are given to this view include “full preterism,” “radical preterism,” and “transmillennialism.”

2 For a more  detailed  description of these interpretive approaches to Revelation, see Four Views on the Book of Revelation, ed. C. Marvin Pate (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998).

3 For a very strong defense of the early date of Revelation and of preterism in general, see Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating the Book of Revelation (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1996).

4 See Kenneth L.Gentry Jr., Before Jerusalem Fell and chapter one of Four Views on the Book of Revelation; David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance (Ft. Worth: Dominion, 1987); and Jay E. Adams, The Time is at Hand (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1966).

5 See Max R. King, The Cross and the Parousia: The Two Dimensions of One Age-Changing Eschaton (Warren, OH: Parkman Road Church of Christ, 1987); Edward E. Stevens, What Happened in A.0. 70? (Bradford, PA: Kingdom Publications, 1997); John No□, Beyond the End Times: The Rest of...the Greatest Story Ever Told (Bradford, PA: Preterist Resources, 1999).

6 There is actually significant variety among hyper­ preterists over the nature of Jesus’ coming. Some, like Ed Stevens, claim that it was in some sense a bodily return but not a return to earth.

⁷ Edward E. Stevens, “Doctrinal Implications of Preterist Eschatology” (internet article accessed at www.preterist.org/articles/doctrinal_ impIications.asp).

8 Daniel E. Harden, “A Response to Keith Mathison: Audience Relevance!” (internet article accessed at www.preterist.org.

9 Edward E. Stevens, “Response to Gentry’s Analysis of the Full Preterist View” (internet article accessed at www.preterist.org/articles/gentry/ response_i ndex.asp).

10 Edward E. Stevens, “Doctrinal Implications of Preterist Eschatology.”

11 John No□, Beyond the End Times, 45.

12 For a more detailed response to hyper-preterism, see Keith A. Mathison, ed., When Shall These Things Be? A Reformed Response to Hyper-preterism (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2004).

13 This and the remaining sections of this article are adapted from chapter 1 of Samuel E. Waldron, More of the End Times Made Simple (Amityville, NY: Calvary Press, 2009).