Core ...

[John Beckett]

`

How would you respond to this?? I would like to reply
to the agnostic who posted this to me over at another
Forum I frequent daily. tyvm, Brother! And I will
give you the credit for the answer. I truly respect
you and your knowledge.


Renewed Creation: Preterism and 2 Peter 3 (http://peteatcollege.blogspot.com/2007/10/renewed-creation-preterism-and-2-peter.html)


'Preterism' is the view that many of the prophecies we find in the new testament are about the events of AD70 when God judged faithless, Messiah-crucifying, Roman-colluding, Church-persecuting Judaism, in effect 'divorcing' Old Israel to make ready for marrying New Israel. It therefore reads many of the 'Jesus is coming real soon' texts as being about his coming in judgment in AD70, without denying that he will come again to judge the living and the dead at the close of history.

So, what might a preterist reading of 2 Peter 3 look like?

1. The day of the Lord is the AD70 judgment on Jerusalem (3:10).

It will after all, come on the scoffers of Peter's generation (3:2-7), who're probably identified with the false prophets of chapter 2.

2.The burning of the heavenly bodies/ the destruction of the heavens and earth that now exist (3:7, 10) refers to the judgment fires on Jerusalem.

God often abolishes and re-makes the world/shakes the heavenly bodies and so on. See Haggai 2:6-7 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Haggai%202:6-7;&version=47;) and 20-23 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Haggai%202:20-23;&version=47;), and Isaiah 13 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isa%2013;&version=47;). All these texts clearly refer to the political and covenantal re-alignment of the world. In AD70 the old covenant Jerusalem/temple-centred world was abolished. This is a part of very common bible symbolism in which the heavenly bodies (stars etc.) are used to represent powers and authorities, both on earth and in the heavenly realms.

3. The new creation refers to our post-AD70 world.

Old Israel-centric world gone, Christ and New Israel-centric world begun. We are living in the age of Christ's rule, through his new covenant people, the reign of righteousness which is progressively spreading throughout history as people come to bow the knee to the world's new King.

This seems perhaps the hardest bit to swallow, but, remember

a. The new creation began with Christ's resurrection. (Surely, everyone believes this).

b. The new creation has also begun in Christians who are raised with Christ in some sense now. (Surely everyone believes this).

c. The legal/covenantal precedes the cosmic. i.e. the new heavens and the new earth have legally begun, the big covenantal shift has occured, the world is a new world because it has new government - Christ, and in him, his people. The cosmic effects of this new government won't be physically experienced (i.e. no more crying/pain/death/curse/sinners) until Jesus returns to earth and consummates the new creation. But a consummation is a consummation of something which has already legally been established.

d. So, to speak of the new creation as having already arrived is not intrinsically an over-realised eschatology.

e. And, after all, unless the new creation in some sense is 'here' now in our world which still has sinful people and death, don't we have a massive problem with Isaiah 65 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isa%2065:17-25;&version=47;) which says that it is.

Do I still have questions about such a reading? Yes. Do I think that AD70 looms very large in the New Testament, such that such a reading demands attention and careful thought? Yes. See Galatians 4:24-31 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%204:24-31;&version=31;) and Hebrews 8:13 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews%208:13;&version=31;).

More can be found on preterism here (http://davidpfield.blogspot.com/2007/10/matthew-24-i.html), here (http://davidpfield.blogspot.com/2007/10/matthew-24-ii.html) and here (http://davidpfield.blogspot.com/search?q=preterism).


`

[CoreIssue]

There are a number of ways to go at it. But simple is usually the best start.

1. Reading non-literally means you must give a literal reason for you not taking it literally. Meaning you still have to have a literal foundational proof or your thinking is purely that, your thinking and guessing. No facts or provable anything involved.

To attempt the equate the events described in Revelation to historical events bears no resemblance. 2/3 of the earth's popluation did not die, islands did not disappear into the oceans, mountains did not collapse from earthquakes and so on. It is completely unjustifiable explanation to just write off those prophecies as exagerations.

2. Revelation was written around 96 AD. There are is just too many early documents backing that fact. So, to be prophetic, it cannot be about 70 AD.

3. The words of 2 Peter 3, in the Greek, state the earth and heavens will be reduced to their most basic components. Not that the earth will be purged in God's judgements.

Simple scientific fact is that when molecules come apart massive amounts of energy are released. The scale of that energy, as fire, would be beyond imagination if the all the earth collapsed into its most basic components.

There is absolutely no literal justfication anywhere for those Greek words not meaning a literal destruction of the earth. None.

4. The New Earth has no sun, oceans or mountains. There is no way to make those declarations even begin to fit preterism. They deny it.

Preterism is a baseless theory. Nothing in the Bible justifies or even hints at that being the reality spoken of, literally.

In a study of the Greek and Hebrew usages of Day of the Lord (long posted on CTZ), you see it encompasses the Trib and MK. The events of which are very well illustrated in the OT as concerns Israel, which exists, suffers and turns to God. It states the House of David will be rebuilt, shows the MK Temple in Ezekiel, shows Israel as existing in the future with all nations who attacked Israel having to go their and worship at the Temple.

For Preterism to succeed it must deny much of the OT as being literal and explain it away with PROOF, not theory.

[John Beckett]

`

Thank you sincerely, Core! And God Bless you
for taking the time once again to answer a long
post. Jesus Himself Knows how many people
you are helping along the way.

You are truly a FINE example of a good Disciple
of the Lord.

Yes, you are, Brother. :nod:


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[CoreIssue]

Thanks for the compliment, John. Truly appreciated. :tiphat: