Questions about preterism

[Average_Bear]

Hi all,
I'm a little confused about preterism. I read this article - Jesus' Teaching About Hell by Samuel G. Dawson. It very was informative. Later I found out the author is preterist. This may be off topic - if so maybe someone can point me in the right direction instead of starting a long thread which has little to do with UR. Anyway -

How does preterism relate to UR? Do some or many preterists believe in UR? Do some or many universalists believe in preterism?

What's the preterist view on the afterlife? If there is no bodily resurrection, what kind of "body" will the redeemed have?

Where does preterism stand on the issue of "soul sleep"?

Does preterism lead to the temptation of filing the Bible away on the "Jewish History" shelf?

Do preterist believe in any kind of future consumation?

I've always had doubts about crazy rapture theories and premillinialism - and the preterists seem to have more diligently scrutanized the scriptures. Yet I find the view gives believers little to look forward to, either in this life or the next.

Thanks for you help

[laren]

www.pantelism.com is a good place to start.  also forum www.talk-grace.com


I'm a member of talk-grace and I had very similar questions.  there are many topics there re: your questions (by the way they believe in UR too) and they also would love to have u join and post these questions. 

also,

Gary the owner of tenmtaker believes in preterist view, or at least last I knew.



laren

[martincisneros]

How does preterism relate to UR? Do some or many preterists believe in UR? Do some or many universalists believe in preterism?

What's the preterist view on the afterlife? If there is no bodily resurrection, what kind of "body" will the redeemed have?

Where does preterism stand on the issue of "soul sleep"?

Does preterism lead to the temptation of filing the Bible away on the "Jewish History" shelf?

Do preterist believe in any kind of future consumation?

I've always had doubts about crazy rapture theories and premillinialism - and the preterists seem to have more diligently scrutanized the scriptures. Yet I find the view gives believers little to look forward to, either in this life or the next.

There are partial preterists and full preterists.  Partial preterists believe that most of the Apostolic prophecies about an impending end of the world occured by 70AD, while still allowing for Second Coming, and perhaps other future events, like the New Earth.  Full preterists pretty much put every single prophecy into the distant past, from everything that I've been able to see of them, and I'm open to correction on that point.  And again, notice that I'm distinguishing between partial and full preterists.

I'm leaning towards partial preterism slightly from the standpoint of Matthew 24 seeming like it's pretty clear about "this generation" that Jesus was talking to.  I don't have all of the answers on it on a verse by verse exposition or anything like that.  I couldn't give you anything like that at this point because I haven't looked at it closely enough yet.  This is all conclusions on my part "from memory" regarding certain passages of the New Testament.

UR is a separate issue altogether from preterism -- or at least in my view.  Some well known Calvinists, such as Kenneth Gentry and I think that he said that R.C. Sproul had within the last 10 years become a convert, citing one of his books although I don't have the title handy for you or if I'm remembering that right from an article by Gentry that I found at one of the Calvinist websites.  UR is related to the finished work of the Cross and it's impact or it's ultimate impact upon all of mankind.  While on the other hand, preterism is a system of interpretation about areas of Bible prophecy that are non-UR related.  An exception to what I'm saying, I'm thinking is in the category of full preterism where authors like Thomas Whittemore in "Plain Guide to Universalism" would view the Lake of Fire judgment of Revelation 20:14 to have been the burning of Jerusalem in 70AD.  So, when you're dealing with various judgment passages, you can probably find UR interpreters that would dismiss it as being exclusively a first century judgment reference.

My assumption on the soul sleep issue is that that would be an individual preterist issue 'cause as I've said not all preterists are UR, but I would assume that they'd tell you that all of the Gehenna passages that get mistranslated as "Hell" in the KJV related to the judgments that happened in the first century with the destruction of the Temple and the destruction of Judaism as they knew it back then.  Perhaps quite a few preterists would believe in no afterlife punishment if they were Universalists because again, they relegate most of the judgment passages, if not all, to the distant past.

I would have a tendency to think that preterism would make the Bible a piece of whatever, but Kenneth Gentry had a really good answer posted online to the contrary in asserting that what the book of Revelation would teach us from a preterist's perspective is that God still deals with sin as firmly, perhaps harshly, as He did in the Old Testament, and he felt like the book of Revelation was still as useful for teaching general Christian principles as the letter of 1Corinthians mentions a 1st century incestuous situation that has absolutely nothing to do with our day, but that Christians are still given a sense for an appropriate response within the Christian community based upon all of those problems that Corinth had.  We don't live in 1st century Corinth, but there are lessons there that can be adapted to the 21st century Church.  So, he feels the same can be said of the book of Revelation because of the letters to the Churches and the lessons contained in there, and other general principles that can be derived from the judgments and God's attitude about sin -- although we're given a beautiful picture of the Church always ultimately being triumphant no matter what she may face in the world that she lives in.

One thing to look up in your studies of preterism is going to be Postmillenialism, because many preterists believe in Postmillenialism and teach within the context of being Postmillenialists so that you might not find all of their stuff in a strictly preterist search alone either online or at one of the online bookstores.  However, not all Postmillenialists are preterists.  I'm a Postmillenialist and my jury is still out on the whole preterism question.  I'm slowly looking at it as the Holy Spirit leads.

And I couldn't tell you about a future consummation from the perspective of preterists because I don't know enough about partial and full preterists, although if the preterists involved happen to be Postmillenialists, then they'd believe in the return of Christ after the millenial reign of the Church at which point -- according to some -- the White Throne Judgment would take place and according to the Calvinist perspective of Postmillenialism, then that would be completely it for the wicked prior to the new heavens and earth, while from the UR perspective either everybody's saved at that point or the long age or ages begin at that point before the wicked are finally restored through Christ's final triumph in history.  Postmillenialists differ from Premillenialists not only on the timing of the Lord's return (pre or post the millenium), but also on the centrality of Scripture regarding all of the Covenant promises.  Premillenialists believe that Israel is pretty much the center of prophecy while the Postmillenialist would believe that Jesus Christ is the center of all prophecy and that the Church doesn't replace Israel, but the Church is the merging of Jew and Gentile in Jesus Christ.  Postmillenialists don't believe in "replacement theology" as is often the charge (along with the accusations of antisemitism), because in their view Jesus Christ was always the Seed and always the One to Whom all of the promises of destruction and restoration belonged -- so that, if you look into it just a teeny bit, I believe you're likely to agree with me that it's more in harmony with UR than Premillenialism.