Hi pilgrim,
Well, the covenant relationship that holds the most sway in biblical terms is the Abrahamic covenant. Due to the break in relations because of the fall, I see everything from chapter 12 of genesis to the end describing How God was working to reconcile Himself and his creation. God chose to use a people, Jacob / Israel to accomplish this. Through that seed, was Christ the Messiah. When he came, I see Him as the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, and the promises of the prophets. Through Christ a new covenant was established, God and His creation were reconciled and the great enemy ‘death’ was defeated.
As for our perception of how things ‘are’ verses what we thought they should be in regards to the second coming, wouldn’t you have to admit that much of our belief comes from what others have told us the second coming would/should be like?
I think many humans in general are pessimistic. But I have to say that the world, in my view, is much less ‘evil’, than at any point in the past. Though I would have to say ‘more informed’ and thus the problems of the world are brought to light in a way and speed never thought of or imagined before. Almost every aspect of humanity is growing, learning and advancing.
Do you believe in free will? If so, how do you think Jesus will “destroy evil” in a way that respects free will when he comes? Do you think planet Earth will cease to exist?
Well I believe we are capable of making choices if that’s what you mean by free will. I think Jesus destroys Islamic armies that will jointly attack Israel and Jesus will destroy Satan. Once Satan is destroyed and Jesus is clearly known as the Lord of Lords evil will greatly dissipate itself. Yes I think the earth abides forever.
Out of curiosity, does the NASB mention you can’t quote from their bible version? If you look at the Society for Biblical Literature What is Copyright?, there is a big section on “fair Use” . What do you base your quoted statement on?
I don’t get that. The NASB says: “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” - which is entirely consistent with the idea that this ‘seeing’ was literally and completely fulfilled in the very next chapter with the transfiguration.
I have to ask myself why Preston is so unbalanced in his determination not to see this as a perfectly reasonable POSSIBILITY. All I can deduce is that perhaps preterism will fail if Matt 16:28 can have an alternative interpretation and so he cannot allow himself to even consider that interpretation?
IMHO another plausible explanation is that it refers to Jesus ascension which Daniel 7.13 calls the Son of Man coming into His kingdom.
steve7150 Posts: 403Joined: Sun Dec 29, 2013 6:01 am
It seems to me Pentecost is also a plausible explanation since in Mark 9.1 a parallel verse , it refers to the kingdom of God has come with power and Jesus referenced Pentecost as receiving power from on high.
Verse 38 adequately explains verse 37… which is clearly pre Pentecost. He elsewhere says the Spirit cannot come before he goes.
The NABRE says… “the Son of Man will come” of Mt 16:27 refers to the Parousia… AGREED; but then says… “the Son of Man coming” does NOT refer to the Parousia. Here is the Greek…
Both words are simple derivatives of the ONE and the SAME Gk. word <ἔρχομαι> erchomai = “come”. The ONLY difference being in their respective parsing reflecting the tense/action in which said “come” is understood. So I’ll let the reader decide IF <ἔρχομαι> erchomai of verse 27 DOES = the Parousia, BUT THEN magically somehow <ἔρχομαι> erchomai of verse 28 does NOT = the Parousia.
When you say you “Israel” will be attacked, what do you mean by “Israel”? The state founded in 1948, composed primarily of rabbinic Jews and non-religious people?
Once Satan is destroyed and Jesus is clearly known as the Lord of Lords evil will greatly dissipate itself. Yes I think the earth abides forever.
How do you imagine evil will dissipate? Once Jesus comes, do you think people on Earth will be unable to act unjustly? If so, how?qaz Posts: 118Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2015 10:51 am
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Yes qaz the Israel mostly composed of rabbinic jews and non religious jews and last but not least gays. Did you know Tel Aviv had 180,000 visitors at their gay pride parade last June? Obviously whatever God/Jesus may do will not be because of Israel’s righteousness.
As far as evil dissipating , since Satan will be destroyed then the source of much evil dissipates and likewise the fuel for much evil. When deception is gone and people can see clearly most will make better choices.
I have just examined all the texts (and contexts) containing the word ‘parousia’ in relation to Christ.
My conclusions are as follows:
Whilst it may be possible to interpret some events circa C.E. 70 as fulfillment of some prophecies, it is quite clear that many prophesies concerning the parousia were not fulfilled at that time and have not yet been fulfilled.
The author of 2 Peter (written C.E.68) clearly** looks towards a future parousia** but assures Christians of its certainty by reminding them that he has already SEEN the parousia on the mount of transfiguration:
The author of 1 John, written well after 70C.E. Wrote that the parousia had not yet happened!
Whilst I respect full-preterists as my fellow travellers and brothers/sisters in Christ, it is for those reasons (amongst others) that I cannot accept full preterism as a correct teaching.
I am at a bit of a loss as to the controversy, You quote, "2Pe 1:16-19 When we told you about the power and the return of our Lord Jesus Christ, we were not telling clever stories that someone had made up. But with our own eyes we saw his true greatness. God, our great and wonderful Father, truly honored him by saying, “This is my own dear Son, and I am pleased with him.” We were there with Jesus on the holy mountain and heard this voice speak from heaven.
lets look at the nasb version:
2Pe 1:16 For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.
2Pe 1:17 For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory, “This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased”–
2Pe 1:18 and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.
2Pe 1:19 So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.
Now, those who can read the greek may find something different, but it seems to me that The author is saying that:
A) we did not follow tales
B) we made known to you the power and the coming of Christ
C) We were eyewitnesses to what he did / His glory
D) an utterance came from heaven
E) We heard the voice
F) So now all that the prophets say you will do well to listen to
Respectfully I don’t see where there is “yet some considerable time to go before the parousia”
What Peter had “SEEN” was a “vision” relative to the coming Parousia, NOT the Parousia itself… some were scoffing even doubting IF such as was promised would ever occur. Peter however reassures them that such as was promised was no cunningly devised fable but that which was “at hand”… the very thing he and others had foreseen via vision on the mount (Mt 17:9).
I can understand the futurist rationale saying this BUT in light of Peter’s “They will give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. ” BECAUSE “…the end of all things is at hand…” BECAUSE “…the time has come for THE judgment to begin at the house of God…”. Where are you getting this “yet some considerable time to go before the parousia” from in the text, or elsewhere for that matter?
Given the debate around “dates” this argument is tenuous at best. Scholars in general tend to agree that the Johannine corpus was written/collated in the same timeframe; the argument then is simply WHEN was this? Chad has already mentioned J.A.T. Robinson in ‘Redating the New Testament’ where he makes the case for an earlier or ‘pre-destruction of Jerusalem’ (AD70) date concerning John’s works. This in-kind accords well with an early writing for John’s ‘Revelation’.
Robinson makes this rather astute observation…
Indeed… one would think such a devastating and cataclysmic event (AD70) ESPECIALLY given Jesus’ prophetic predictions as per the ‘mini-apocalypse’ IF (for the apostle John) having occurred ALREADY (which is what ‘late-date’ advocates claim) he would have made mentioned of such… but no! Something doesn’t add up and I doubt it was the apostle’s record. Robinson further states the obvious…
Again writing of the “Johannine literature” Robinson says this…
Inevitably I think it still comes down to the old adage… we will not see what we don’t want to believe. But that’s just my opinion.
I would have liked to have posted all the texts I collated referring to Christ’s parousia but I didn’t want to waste web space on such lengthy quotes. Nevertheless it is a simple matter for anyone to collate these texts for themselves.
My comment that, to my mind, Peter’s writings implies a considerable time passage before the parousia does not come from the brief quote cited for other purposes which is why I used the word ‘also’.
The texts which suggest a considerable passage of time IMO are to be found in 2 Peter Ch. 3.
In that chapter he is writing about societal changes which must occur before the parousia, attitudes and paradigms which were not yet present but were to be in vogue at the time of the parousia. This IMO implies the passage of at least one generation and does not preclude passage of many, many generations.
In addition he certainly expected to be dead before the parousia and even that pushes the idea of ‘a year or two’ to the limits of credulity.
As for Bishop John Robinson’s suggestion that the whole of the NT must have been written before CE70, it is based purely on his consideration that if any of it had been written post70, that writing MUST have referred explicitly to the destruction of Jerusalem, and since he does not find such reference, he concludes a date earlier.
So his argument is from silence! This is the same argument that was resoundingly dismissed by preterists when Paidion pointed out the silence (of a 70CE parousia) from the church fathers.
What weakens Robinson’s entire book and his theory, is that even those Christians who most definitely wrote post CE70 were all (with one POSSIBLE exception) completely silent about the destruction of Jeruselem. Why they were silent is an interesting question but silent they were.
So, with no sound reason for an early date for the Johannine epistles, and with all scholastic work and colleges (bar Robinson ), giving dates well past 70CE, I go with the opinion of those scholars.
Of course, as a ‘non-preterist’ I can be disinterested in the dating of John’s work as my eschatological view is not affected by it, but for preterists, a late date is the death-knell and could never be contemplated.
It would appear the very opposite to actually be true as it seems to be the one thing you cling to believing it protects your “eschatological view”.
THAT isn’t his whole argument… but that such a SIGNIFICANT event, given the importance of it by the prophetic words of Jesus, that such fulfillment is seemingly glossed over (assuming a late date) logically precludes the late date etc. The Temple was even STILL standing in John’s vision… Rev 11:1.
You’ve misunderstood Robinson’s rationale and placed the cart before the horse… “signs of which calamity and of the difference in outlook it engendered are inescapably present in any Jewish or Christian literature that can with any certainty be dated in the period 70-100.” inescapably present IOW… such things thereafter the event were NOT silent!
Preterist: If these texts were written after the destruction of the temple, these texts would mention the temple having already been destroyed
Futurist: If the end time prophesies were fulfilled when the temple was destroyed, members of the post-AD 70 church would have said so
Maybe the destruction of Herod’s temple which was not a God ordained place of worship was not quite the huge event Preterists believe it was. So that would account for the silence in either case because Christians were mostly gone from Jerusalem and their interest was in Jesus and his resurrection and Second Coming and living as followers of Christ.
The God ordained Jewish place of worship was the tabernacle in the wilderness. It seems to me Jesus death on the cross was the crowning event of history not the destruction of Herod’s temple.
As a pantelist I would say BOTH the Cross and Coming of Christ formed bookends to Yahweh’s ONE time all-encompassing REDEMPTIVE EVENT; or more specifically… what was inaugurated in Christ’s Ministry and ratified through Christ’s Cross was consummated at Christ’s Coming of AD70.
Thus the Cross being the DECISIVE event with the Parousia being the CULMINATING event of the inception of God’s “new creation” of reconciled humanity in Christ. The Gospel from that point forward being… “you have been reconciled now come live in the fullness of it!” (2Cor 5:19-20)
Again this is a “pantelist” view most prêterists would not agree with.
But that’s just my opinion.