There is another saying… “Why do you want to fit in when you were born to stand out” 
After reading through almost all of the Pantelist/FP posting in the Archives of this Forum, I’d like to add a few thoughts to my favorable posting on another thread earlier this week.
The gist of that post was that I was becoming convinced that the Pantelist approach is sound, consistent, logically justifiable and worth studying.
I still think that - though as I said, I’m not ready to go ‘all-in’ - there are many things to consider.
What strikes me today is that the Pantelist hermeneutic is a strict application of the old Miles Coverdale hermeneutic:
“It shall greatly help ye to understand the Scriptures if thou mark not only what is spoken or written,
-but of whom
-and to whom,
-with what words,
-at what time,
-where,
-to what intent,
-with what circumstances,
-considering what goeth before and what followeth after. ”
When I say a ‘strict application’ of these principles, I mean just that. It is obvious as you read through various postings.
I’ve mentioned I thought this method could produce a ‘truncated’ view of Scripture, and I still lean to that opinion. Not that the method produces false results -though no method is infallible - because it actually does shed some very real light on biblical themes that have been greatly overlooked or distorted by the Church, historically. But when it is said:
“Pantelism understands that the Scriptures have their primary focus and fulfillment in that age, the age that wrought the
reconciliation i.e., 2000+ years ago. The world to come subsequent to that age now lives in is the benefits of what Christ
established on behalf of all way back then.” - davo
though I do understand that principle now, much better than I did, I do also perceive continuities in the scripture that seem to me to flow on into the New Age. For instance:
-the Character of God; the character of Christ and of the Holy Spirit - continue to be as they always have been and always will be. Among those ‘character traits’ are an insistence on holy living, on self-denial, wrath toward sinful behavior (I noted once that wrath is the hope of the world - meaning, that if God did not have a settled opinion as to the destructiveness of sin, to the point where it is His aim to eradicate it and set the world to rights, we would have no hope whatsoever.) This is such an integral part of the scriptures that I cannot conceive of God settling for anything less. I am not saying that Preterism discounts that; but I am not yet clear that it doesn’t.
-Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life: fundamental to all Ages.
-The definition of who the sons of God are - to me, applicable to this and all Ages - those who are led by the Spirit of God; who walk in the light; who love the brethren; who love their enemies. Etc.
-The seating of Christ at the Father’s right hand: “far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And God put everything under His feet and made Him head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.…”
-The need for faith -forever - not as a ‘work’ but as a necessity. It is impossible to please Him without it.
There are a number of other considerations that I am working hard to try and resolve. To Davo and Chad and others: I may well be mistaken as to what you think about these things; as I study along I’m sure there will be more clarity. No need to take this as an attack, because it it not meant as such, brothers!
That’s all I have for now. Much appreciation for bringing Pantelism to my attention, and admiration for much of what you have written; as well as some concerns, which are to be expected when looking into something ‘new’.
Thanx Dave.
NOT for a moment Dave does any of what you’ve written have any sniff of that… appreciate your thoughts. I might just add… plenty of prêterists disagree with plenty of the pantelist position SO what I might express in soteriological or eschatological terms I do so as a pantelist NOT a prêterist (though the position is prêteristic — hope that makes sense).
Again to clarify… Pantelism does not deny continuity, it simply asks — HOW does or might certain realities or principles work or look like BEYOND that age and context wherein such things were given/accomplished. Asking and exploring this question might help curtail errant applications of biblical truths, or at least help such not to be so mangled; example… is it necessary for me to prove my faith by handling snakes etc, (slightly ridiculous example but it makes a point).
Okay… this isn’t an attack either, but if this is as good as it gets, please point me to the exit door–and oh God please, may there BE an exit door… I would be happier as an atheist, believing there is nothing at all beyond this “life.” I was kind of counting on God getting rid of (objectively and experientially) all the horrors of a world that actually looks to ME like it’s full and sloshing over the brim with suffering that not only isn’t successfully mitigated by human love, but is very often actively CAUSED by unabated human hatred (not to mention natural disasters, epidemics, famines, etc.).
I honestly don’t want to offend anyone, but if this is all we can hope for, then what exactly is the point of enduring it?
Cindy, I’m not really getting the gist of your apparent exacerbation… to what exactly are you responding? EVERYBODY who has ever lived and died before us have stepped into the continuance of life beyond with God — what am I missing in what you’re saying? BTW, no offence taken.
that if God did not have a settled opinion as to the destructiveness of sin, to the point where it is His aim to eradicate it and set the world to rights, we would have no hope whatsoever.) This is such an integral part of the scriptures that I cannot conceive of God settling for anything less. I am not saying that Preterism discounts that; but I am not yet clear that it doesn’t.
I don’t know the difference between Pantelism and FP but my understanding of FP is that it does have significant differences with traditional Christianity like,
no end to sin and evil on this earth
sin did not come to man from “the fall” of Adam , it was inherent in man from the beginning
no physical resurrection of the dead
no second coming of Christ (happened in 70AD)
Christ’s death and resurrection wasn’t really to save his people from their sins, it was a symbolic act
People are judged at their individual deaths (progressive judgment)
There is no emphasis on the keeping the physical body free from sin as it gets replaced anyway
These are things I’ve heard from FPs including Don Preston as I interacted with them on another forum for a few years. So don’t blame Origen!
I sympathize entirely with Cindy’s thoughts above; in fact it is those same thoughts that have been part of my reluctance to go ‘all-in’ on FP.
I’m very interested in a response from FP’s or Pantelists (you know who you are ) to the above concerns.
I do not want to minimize what God has done through Christ - FP’s are very good at drawing our attention to what those accomplishments are - but it does seem to me that the scriptural pattern of God striving to set the world to rights - and superabundantly at that - is a clear pointer that this is still what He wants. Now, instead of Israel, we have the Head of the New Covenant, and His body, the Church, to carry on the task.
The task has, I think, continuities that continue the ‘arc’ of the story. Certainly ‘works’ - in Paul, that is always a reference to the Torah, as far as I can see - cannot establish righteousness and in fact the Law and the works of the Law magnified the sinfulness of humanity, to make man’s need of God extremely visible. But ‘works’ in the New Covenant are not meant to establish righteousness or ‘earn’ salvation or to ‘add’ to the work of Christ; far from it - we are now to imitate our Father, as beloved children imitate the fathers that love them. That imitation is not easy and in fact, without the Spirit’s advocacy, indwelling and help it is well-nigh impossible. Yes, people can do good things but yes, the 20th century was perhaps the most horrible display of fallen nature in human history. That’s humanities’ history, the greatness and the wretchedness of human persons.
To say that ‘we are all saved’ - when humanity is at its worst, and getting ‘worser’ - seems to be trading on only one use of the word ‘saved’ (and I do understand the insistence on the finished work of Christ); the full meaning of the word must be, to stay within the scriptural story, in my estimation at least, a continuation of God’s insistence on our being convicted of sin, recognizing our need, glorying in what God has done for us freely and out of love, and our complete surrender of our sins and our character to the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctifying us and empowering us to live as God’s kids, and to be salt for the corruption that is still manifestly abundant on our planet.
‘Churchianity’ - a cool term - can be a caricature of the valid reality of Christ’s Body, calling folks to repentance and a new trust, a new love, a new life.
There’s so much more in the concept of ‘continuities’ but I’ve rambled enough for now.
Still learning!
Ok… so forget completely what you think FP says, I want to deal with this wholly and solely from the pantelist perspective. So, what is it exactly I have written that causes such consternation. CLEARLY you guys believe pantelism is saying such as causes you “reluctance” — WHAT is it Dave you think, if you can’t show me where I’ve actually written something awry, that has you in concert with Cindy? (and I not totally sure what Cindy’s concern is based on)
Here’s a few quotes from them re Hyper/Full Preterism, which has - much - in common with Pantelism:
Sin will always exist
in fact sin was the most important problem humanity had faced, problem solved through the sacrifice of Christ and the destruction of the Jewish Temple in A.D. 70.
So is this present world the New Heavens and New Earth spoken of in the book of Revelation?
Answer: Yes, that seems to be the case.
God created evil.
Do you believe that all the graves of saints are already empty?
ANSWER: Yes.
QUESTION 8: Doesn’t Romans eleven teach that Yahweh still has a definite plan for Israel, whom He loves with an irrevocable love?
ANSWER: “All Israel” (Rom. 11:26) was saved in A. D. 70.
QUESTION 21: Is hell, according to the full preterist, a place of only spiritual torment for the non-believer, or is there a physical and bodily torment involved as well?
Luke 16:23 explicitly speaks of a physically dead man “in torments in hell (Hades).” It has been disturbing to see annihilationists brazenly claim that the story takes place in a make-believe setting, that its portrayal of a physically dead man in torments has absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever and that Jesus was actually using pagan mythology as the backdrop for His teaching. The annihilationists annihilate the facts of the story of Lazarus and the rich man in order to justify their denial of the Scriptural teaching that God eternally punishes the unredeemed.
Luke 12:5 likewise teaches that after the death of the unredeemed, God casts them “into Gehenna,” the eternally burning fire of God wrath:
“But I will warn you whom to fear: Fear the One who after He has killed has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him!” (Lk. 12:5)
May we all listen to Jesus in Luke 12:5, and not to the annihilationists’ sugarcoating of God’s Eternal Judgment!
Now, having established that people physically and bodily taste “the judgment of hell (Gehenna / Hades)” on Earth, and having shown that the annihilationists shut their eyes to the “afterlife” reality of hell, here is a direct answer to your question about what preterists believe about the nature of eternal punishment after death:
Since all preterists deny that the Resurrection of the dead (Acts 24:15) was fleshly / biological, all preterists necessarily believe that the eternal punishment of the dead is a spiritual torment.
I noticed in your question that you asked if preterists believe that Hell is “only” spiritual. I gather from that wording that you may think that a “spiritual” torment is by definition less severe than a “physical” torment. If that is what you were suggesting, remember that Satan, who is a spirit, is said to be in the Lake of Fire, being “tormented day and night forever and ever” (Rev. 20:10). We should not suppose that his “spiritual” torment is less severe than any “physical” torment.
QUESTION 81: God tells us in Isa. 65:20 that there will come a time when there will be no more infant deaths, a time when a hundred years old will be considered young. Obviously, Isaiah was talking about a time in our future (the Millennium) when people will have longer life spans than we have now. As a preterist, how do you get around the plain and obvious teaching of Isa. 65:20?
QUESTION 82: When was Matt. 23:39 fulfilled?
ANSWER:
“For I say unto you [Jerusalem, the scribes, the Pharisees], You shall not see Me henceforth, till you shall say, ‘Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord.’” (Matt. 23:39; Lk. 21:35)
QUESTION 86: Assuming that the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats was fulfilled in A.D. 70, my question is how was it fulfilled? Was it fulfilled symbolically on Earth, or was it fulfilled in Heaven?
ANSWER: The prophecy of Matt. 25:31-46 was fulfilled in Heaven. It was a prophecy (not a “parable”) of the Judgment of the dead of Christ’s generation.
Sequence of events:
- First the Coming of the Son of Man in A.D. 70 (Matt. 25:31)
- Then the gathering of the sheep and the goats (Matt. 25:32)
- Then the separation of the sheep and the goats (Matt. 25:32)
- Then the casting out of the wicked into the eternal fire (Matt. 25:41,46)…
The prophecy of the Sheep and the Goats is a reiteration of the prophetic teaching of the parable of the Wedding Banquet. In both passages, the gathering and judgment of the righteous and the wicked (the sheep and the goats) take place after the destruction of Jerusalem. Both passages were fulfilled after God’s eschatological judgment on Earth was finished in A.D. 70, (Lk. 12:59) which means that both passages were fulfilled in Heaven, which means that the post-Parousia Judgment was the Judgment of the dead. As Rev. 11:18 says:
“And the nations were enraged, and Your wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged…’”
QUESTION 95: Jesus said that “not one stone” of Jerusalem or of the temple would be left upon another. (Matt. 24:2; Mk. 13:2; Lk. 19:44; 21:6) But even preterists know that the Wailing Wall still stands in Jerusalem to this very day. So it goes without saying that Matthew 24 was NOT fulfilled in A.D. 70, and that Matthew 24 remains unfulfilled as long as the Wailing Wall stands intact, stones and all. Okay, how are you going to spiritualize this one away?
In short, davo, ‘we are all saved’. That’s the crux - if salvation means a conscious growth in grace, obedient faithfulness or faithful obedience to God, and a striving - not as a ‘work’ - to grow in godliness - then it is blindingly obvious that most of the world is not in fact saved - in the sense I just gave it.
Don’t get me wrong - I’ve voiced my appreciation for your labors and explanations - but does this look like a saved world to you? No amount of theology is as convincing as Isis or Hiroshima, in describing what humanity is like.
We want to think that being ‘saved’ is more than a legal fiat; that there are actual evidences of individual lives being reclaimed from evil and instead pursuing good - and we know people like that - but we’d like to call those ‘saved’ and the rest of the world still in darkness.
Maybe that’s what you’re saying, in a different way? I don’t know.
Ok Dave… so I can say categorically you’ve got me wrong, and that if THAT is your understanding of pantelism then I’ve done a really lousy job at explaining my position as I’m not sure WHERE in all my writings I’ve given that FALSE impression. As a quick rejoinder if you will… see if what I’ve written HERE doesn’t clarify further my position — take particular note of the last paragraph, before the summary, in comparison to your last thoughts above.
Again ok… so in this instance you’re looking at “saved world” purely on rational tangible basis, so fair enough. IF that be the case and like Cindy you’d prefer to simply bail out of the place THEN you REALLY do have a problem BECAUSE both of you expect “the new heaven and earth” to be just that… well if you believe one has to wait till then (whenever that is apparently supposed to be) then why aren’t you guys bailing for Glory already?
So why can’t ‘societal evolution’ be shaped and pushed through the gospel more in that direction… well IF we got our act together and message straight I believe it could and eventually will. The hell-fire message has bastardised the grace of God and the world is poorer for it.
Davo, is it TOO MUCH to ask that you just agree with every single word and thought I utter? Is that so hard?
Okay, I read the article you linked to. Very interesting.
Tell you what I’m a-gonna do: I’m going to study a bit more. I think our little good-natured dust-up here is having a good effect, especially in sharpening the issues in my mind, and unraveling some perceived difficulties.
This is the way I’ve always approached new systems of ideas or philosophies: I put aside most of what I believe, then study the H-E-double hockeysticks out of the subject - say, Descartes or better yet, Hume. Trying to simply understand what he is arguing, and trying to judge if the argument is consistent, has explanatory power, etc - THEN I try to live for a short time as if what he said is true. Drives the wife nuts - good Christian boy for awhile - then studies Hume and ‘tries on’ that philosophy to understand it from the inside. No harm done until I started studying chaos theory Then I try to nail down what difference that philosophy makes, how it differs from God’s revelation, like that - looking for shortcomings in my ‘faith construct’ or for shortcomings in that philosophy. I have to try things on.
So it’s a process, we’ll see where it goes. A long road, sometimes.
Carry on!!
Cheer up, ye saints of God! 
Hmmm, seens you’re right… “chaos theory”
Yeah… I’ve spent a couple hours trying to answer this, Davo. I was reacting to Origen’s post. I hardly ever read any of this that you guys get into talking about and seem to think is so great. I don’t believe it and if I did, I don’t know what I’d do. Suicide wouldn’t be an option because with such a “god,” there could be no escape. It’s a horror to me–not that it keeps me up at night or anything–because I’m in no danger of even believing it enough to let it scare me. If I DID believe it, though, well–I can’t see that being anything but hell. I don’t want to hurt your feelings. I’m just being honest. God is better than that. Infinitely.
Well, Cindy. Perhaps as an alternative to this…The tribulation and Zombie Apocalypse, end-times model I propose…Is NOT sounding so bad, after all? 
Well, Cindy. Perhaps as an alternative to this…The tribulation and Zombie Apocalypse, end-times model I propose…Is NOT sounding so bad, after all?
To late! Didn’t you know? Already happened in 70AD but maybe the Zombies can field a football team and make a run for a Super Bowl win!!
Randy. Actually, that (being temporal) is actually a better alternative since it doesn’t last anything like forever. I’m not fretting, though. I’m on my way to what hubby calls my “artsy fartsy group.” We will paint flowers, mountains, lakes, trees . . . oh, anything but zombies.
Ahh yes, I fully get that now… a myriad of Origen’s pointless paragraphs will do that. 
"A belief by all full Preterists, that all spiritual gifts ceased by 70-AD…
…beyond 70-AD Jesus dwells fully with us, and the purpose and time of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit has been fulfilled and completed…
…Christians beyond this period see God fully, lacking nothing…"
(p.19 of “End Times Prophecy: A Biblical Overview of Preterism, Historicism, and Futurism”, Roy W. Anderberg, 2017)