Preterism waiting or not waiting for the third coming

[lea]

Once again, please provide **PROOF** those prophecies were already fulfilled ! And I mean REAL PROOF/EVIDENCE, not the usual pret imagination/guesswork.

"At hand" means near. "Soon" means  very near.   Let's see how you analyze those words first.

[robycop3]

"At hand" means near. "Soon" means  very near.   Let's see how you analyze those words first.

  Evidently, JESUS analyzes them differently from us, as the events haven't yet happened. No further analysis needed.

[lea]

  Evidently, JESUS analyzes them differently from us, as the events haven't yet happened. No further analysis needed.

Evidently?! There's your big problem again, claiming that God cannot tell time and communicate that to us in Scripture!

Analyze this:  Dan. 9:23, 23 As soon as you began to pray, a word went out, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed.

Same word (soon ) in Rev. 1:1, 3:11, 22:7, 22:12, 22:20 and more. Any concordance will show what God meant by soon.

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

"At hand" means near. "Soon" means  very near.   Let's see how you analyze those words first.

You weren't talking to me, but...

"At hand" in your Bible doesn't just mean near... it's means ALREADY HERE.  The Greek word ἤγγικεν is the perfect tense (a completed action) of ἐγγίζω (G1448).  It means "has finished approaching," or "has arrived."

Basically, Jesus and His apostles traveled into towns and told the people "the kingdom of heaven has arrived."  The message wasn't "it's coming soon!"  I mean logically, He was already there, so it makes sense.

Jarrod

[robycop3]

  Bless yer hearts!

   Sportzz fanzz, you may write a 10,000-word treatise explaining "at hand, soon", etc. but it won't change one hard, brutal FACT - THE PROPHESIED ESCHATOLOGICAL EVENTS SIMPLY HAVEN'T YET HAPPENED !

  No amount of words can change that reality.

  Prets are left holding an empty bag. You simply cannot back up your assertions with FACT. You folks don't seemtabee stupid, so how can you go on believing something that's obviously not true ?

  You may search any work of world history you want, but you simply won't find the occurrence of those events in any of them. That's the ace of trumps, the "Rook" card.

[lea]

  Bless yer hearts!

   Sportzz fanzz, you may write a 10,000-word treatise explaining "at hand, soon", etc. but it won't change one hard, brutal FACT - THE PROPHESIED ESCHATOLOGICAL EVENTS SIMPLY HAVEN'T YET HAPPENED !

  No amount of words can change that reality.

  Prets are left holding an empty bag. You simply cannot back up your assertions with FACT. You folks don't seemtabee stupid, so how can you go on believing something that's obviously not true ?

  You may search any work of world history you want, but you simply won't find the occurrence of those events in any of them. That's the ace of trumps, the "Rook" card.

You need to be more FOR something instead of denying Scripture.

Your opinion has become moot here. You lost on this Preterist forum as SOON as you started posting on it!

[robycop3]

You need to be more FOR something instead of denying Scripture.

Your opinion has become moot here. You lost on this Preterist forum as SOON as you started posting on it!

  Wanna shut me up ? Then, please post the **PROOF** I asked for !

[lea]

  Wanna shut me up ? Then, please post the **PROOF** I asked for !

Preterist Forum

Constructive discussion and teaching for those who believe that the prophecies of Revelation have already occurred.

[robycop3]

  OK, if you believe it, please post **PROOF** the events have already occurred !

[lea]

  OK, if you believe it, please post **PROOF** the events have already occurred !

We have "proved" this all along.

You are just too brainwashed to remember.

[robycop3]

We have "proved" this all along.

You are just too brainwashed to remember.

  Nupe!

  All you've proven is that preterism is all incorrect opinion & guesswork.

[lea]

  Nupe!

  All you've proven is that preterism is all incorrect opinion & guesswork.

And you just criticize what you don't know.

[robycop3]

And you just criticize what you don't know.

  But I DO know you cannot prove one pret assertion is true.

  (Quack-QUACK!)

[M Luther]

Surely---here you go---it's only a few posts below:

>>>>Those who call themselves Jews are merely an outgrowth of those apostate, non-covenant "Jews" of Jesus' day--they were and continue to be those who call themselves Jews but are not--they are of the synagogue of Satan (Rev. 1:9; 2:9).  Those Jews of AD 132-135 were just as much frauds as those who claim to be Jews today.<<<<

The nation of Israel is comprised of true Jewish people. They may be in unbelief at the moment, but they are not "frauds".  God promised to restore Israel to their own land---and He has done so.  Preterists do not believe the formation of the nation of Israel means anything----they easily label them "the synagogue of Satan". Because Preterists hold no future blessings for the people of Israel, they can easily spew out hatred against that people.  It truly is the one branch of Christianity that does allow anti-semitism in it's ranks. Call it what you want----but it is anti-semitism cloaked under an eschatalogical flag.

I might add that if the preterist calls Jews of AD132-135 "frauds", then the 6 million who were murdered in the Holocaust were also "frauds".  Satan has always had a supreme hatred for the Jews---He tried to (through the Nazi regime) obliterate them during World War 2.  It's truly a miracle that 3-4 years after 6 million of them were murdered they were able to form their own country.  This was no accident---this was the miraculous work of God.

Your argument that today's rabbinical people who follow the Talmud are legitimate heirs of the promise given to Abraham is based upon demanding that we agree with you or else you'll call us Nazis?  I was kind of hoping that you'd use biblical texts to show us the qualifications for being an heir, along with a demonstration that Israelis meet those qualifications.

[M Luther]

We have "proved" this all along.

You are just too brainwashed to remember.

Is it safe to call out the ban-baiters in this forum?

[robycop3]

  While the Jews have lost their genealogies from before 70 AD, there's no doubt that they are actually Jews, given their history. And the restoration of their nation with Jerusalem as its capital is indeed a significant prophetic event, whether anyone wants to believe it or not.

[lea]

Is it safe to call out the ban-baiters in this forum?

Well, to me I intend to keep Preterism alive on this site.  There are some other sites that are not worth even reading, never mind registering on. That is why very rarely there is a troll on here. They don't want preterism to be read, but the preterist threads stay in the archives longer then their desperate efforts to silence them.

And you are correct about Israel. Rabbinic Judaism was started because the Jews wanted to keep their religion even after God left the building in AD70. That was the end of Biblical Judaism.

Some Christian Zionists are being taken to the cleaners supporting Israel today. They would do alright if they caused the Jew to believe Jesus and become a Messianic Jew- but they are only supporting them in terms of the already past "end times."  God was done with Israel in AD70.

The Lord gave the Hebrews and the land of Israel seventy-sevens (Daniel 9) Only true or "all" Israel was saved. Jew and Gentile in Christ= the true Israel of God.

Today, we don't bother with useless genealogies as Paul writes.  Israel is in the same boat as any heathen people, in need of a Savior!

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

Is it safe to call out the ban-baiters in this forum?

Probably not.  This forum is meant to be a place for respectful discussion, so how you say something is at least as important as what you actually say. Calling people out, as you put it, is unlikely to work out that way.

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

While the Jews have lost their genealogies from before 70 AD, there's no doubt that they are actually Jews, given their history. And the restoration of their nation with Jerusalem as its capital is indeed a significant prophetic event, whether anyone wants to believe it or not.

More unsubstantiated claims?

There's quite a bit of doubt, I think, and it isn't necessarily the recent events that stick out the most.

70 people went to Egypt, and 4 generations later, something like 2 million came out.  That math doesn't work.

Before they even entered Canaan, they had problems with intermarriage with the Moabites and Edomites, that are documented in the Bible.

Once they entered Canaan, they engaged in fertility cults and intermarriage with the Canaanites they were meant to destroy.

Solomon had 1000 women, and the vast majority were foreigners, women he received as part of the terms of alliances he made with foreign cities and kings.  Solomon made close allies of the Canaanites.  Hiram of Tyre was his main ally, and somehow who helped him build not only his palace, but the temple itself (!)  Solomon even had a palace OUTSIDE of Israel - the "house of the forest."

After the kingdom split, Ahab married Jezebel, and made Canaanite religion the state religion in the North.  That religion involved wild promiscuous sex as an act of "worship."  The northern kingdom proceeded to have ZERO righteous kings, and remain in idolatry until the Assyrian army destroyed the country.

In the south, there were a few righteous kings, but a lot more unrighteous ones, and there were high places and Asherah poles everywhere.  Do you know what an Asherah pole is?  Eventually, the Babylonians were sent in judgment, and deported all the nobles to Babylon, where they intermarried.  Meanwhile, the people fled to... Egypt, Moab, Samaria, and intermarried there.

Shall I continue?  We haven't even made it to New Testament times here, and have demonstrated already that the Israelites were, at best, hopelessly mingled with the Canaanites in the land.

Jarrod

[M Luther]

70 people went to Egypt, and 4 generations later, something like 2 million came out.  That math doesn't work.

I think you need to work as a deprogrammer, not as a math teacher, to get through.   

Under harsh conditions, the mortality rate would have been very high, making the math all the more difficult.  Seventy went in, and two million men, not counting women and children came out.   It's unlikely the entire population of Egypt could have been much more than four million.  Common sense dictates that Egypt lost most of its population in the Exodus, including other slaves and most of the working class of native Egyptians (hoping to find a better life).  This mixed multitude (as the Bible describes it) being so large helps explain why the pharaoh was hesitant in letting them go.  He was losing all the country's laborers.

The critics of the Exodus, including most rabbinical Jews, reject the story of the Exodus as real just because of the incredible number of people leaving Egypt.

The Israelites were in Egypt 210 years, by my math.

It's great reading posts by you and the other preterits here.  I much prefer reading what which is written by people familiar with the Bible than with cultists who can only talk about the Bible through a few out-of-context verses.

[robycop3]

  I don't doubt that today's Jews are mixed with many other people, but enough "Judah" is in them that God counts them as Jews. Their history proves that.

  The other Israelis still exist, and are known to GOD. He will reveal their ID to them when the time comes. (Remember, the 144K of revelstion will come from each tribe.)

  Even Jesus had a Canaanite (Rahab) in His earthly ancestry. But no one denies that, as a man, He was a Jew.

  No other people in history has endured the hatred & persecution the Jews did, from 135-136 AD then they were booted out of their land, through the nazi holocaust, and still survived as a distinct people? Do you not see the hand of God there ?  He began to lift their punishment in 1945, & today, little Israel is the "pound-for-pound" military champ of the world, able to defeat much-larger nations such as Egypt in combat. Again, the hand of God is at work.

  And the time is coming when the Jews will see Jesus is indeed Messiah, & they'll mourn their centuries of rejecting Him.

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

I think you need to work as a deprogrammer, not as a math teacher, to get through.

I'm not too shabby at the maths, either.    Population grows exponentially like this...

Population = Initial Population * e ^ (growth rate * time)

So, lets crunch the numbers.  What growth rate is required for 70 people to grow into several million?  If I use the most conservative numbers... giving them 400 years... to grow to just 2 million, then a ~2.5% growth rate (per year) is needed.  Is that reasonable?

Current population growth rates are around 1%.  The highest population growth rate ever recorded is 2.1%, at the height of the "baby boom" in 1968.  A population growth greater than 1% was never recorded before the 1930's, and the average population growth prior to the year 1700 has been estimated at 0.04%, and it decreases the further back in time we look.  Source

Basically, no, 2.5% isn't reasonable.  It's substantially higher than the max value in our data set.  It's impossible that they AVERAGED that rate over the course of centuries.

And that's using the most conservative numbers possible.  If we plug in your 210 years, and require them to grow to 4 million, they would need to more than double that rate.

I much prefer reading what which is written by people familiar with the Bible than with cultists who can only talk about the Bible through a few out-of-context verses.

I can sympathize.  Even most of the "knowledgeable" people can only understand the Bible through the prism of the theology they were taught.  When you take them on thought experiments outside that comfort zone, they tend to freak out.

Jarrod

[M Luther]

I'm not too shabby at the maths, either. 

Let me try out my math skills.  Google tells me that Jacob/Israel was born 1653 BC.  That's 3673 years ago.  Consider, I have two parents, as does everyone else.  I have four grandparents, sixteen great grandparents, and so on.

3600 years and an average generation of 30 means 120 generations.  This means, 2^120, or 1329227995784915872903807060280383754 ancestors in a single generation at the time Jacob lived.  Suppose the world population was a generous 600 million when Jacob was alive.  That means, statistically, Jacob is my ancestor, or your ancestor, 2,215,379,992,974,859,788,173,011,767 times over. 

Let me anticipate Roby's reply, "Evidently, JESUS analyzes math differently from us, as the events haven't yet happened. No further analysis needed."  I.e., he'll ignore the the evidence and counter by begging his eschatology.

[robycop3]

  You're missing the point. God has never said He will completely abandon His peculiar people, the Israelis, forever. While he has severely punished them for their disobedience, He has said He will restore them. The founding of modern Israel is the first step in that restoration.

  I know that, overall, most Jews reject Jesus right now, but the time is coming when He will make it plain to them that He is Messiah & Savior, & that most Jews & other israelis will believe Him.

  This is all in Scripture.

[3 Resurrections]

Robycop3, you are artificially transporting prophecies for Israel's and Judah's revival and restoration (which were predicting the time of the POST-EXILIC RETURN after the Babylonian captivity) into the present New Covenant Age.  Can't be done.  That's kidnapping a prophecy.

Remember the fig tree that Christ cursed?  "Let no man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever", He said.   That fig tree in Mark 11:14 represented ethnic physical Israel, comparable to Hagar and Ishmael the physical seed of Abraham who were both cast out (Galatians 4:24-31).

In context with this cursed fig tree, Christ instructed His disciples to similarly have enough faith so that they could say to "THIS mountain" of Jerusalem - which they were  literally standing on - to be removed and cast into the sea (Mark 11:23).  In AD 70, it was, just as we see the angel casting the great city Babylon (AD 70 Jerusalem) into the sea, to be "found no more at all".

What part of "found no more at all" do you not understand?  That physical city and its ethnic people lost forever any spiritual significance in God's eyes, once its type had been fulfilled.   The true, ultimate symbol that Old Jerusalem and God's relationship with the nation of Israel had ALWAYS pointed forward to was the NEW Jerusalem - the body of Christ composed of the saints, both OT and NT, combined into "One New Man".

God gave the Jews 3-1/2 years after Christ's death for the "lost sheep of the house of Israel" to get on board with the "New Covenant in His blood".  The majority of ethnic Israel (except for their "elect remnant" of Romans 11:7 & 28) continued to vehemently reject the gospel until the end of Daniel's 70th week in AD 37. 

This "fruitless" condition of national Israel is pictured for us in the Luke 13:6-9 parable.  For 3 years, the vineyard's owner (God) came and found no fruit on the barren fig tree (ethnic Israel), and wanted to cut it down.   The "dresser of His vineyard" (Christ) pleaded to leave it for another year while He encouraged fruit production by intense cultivation (either Christ's continued 3-1/2 year earthly ministry among His own national people, or the last 3-1/2 years of the 70th week when the gospel emphasis was concentrated on the "lost sheep" of Israel).  But the "dresser of the vineyard" agreed with the owner that, if it did not bear fruit during that last year, then He would definitely agree to cut it down after that time.  Which He did in AD 70 to physical Jerusalem when He "shattered the power of the holy people" during Jerusalem's "Second death" as a nation.

By your paradigm, robycop3, you are attempting to override the decision of the "owner of the vineyard" and the "dresser of His vineyard" (God and Christ) to CUT DOWN that "fig tree" (ethnic Israel as a formerly-titled "holy people" who had rejected Him). 

[M Luther]

  You're missing the point. God has never said He will completely abandon His peculiar people, the Israelis, forever. While he has severely punished them for their disobedience, He has said He will restore them. The founding of modern Israel is the first step in that restoration.

  I know that, overall, most Jews reject Jesus right now, but the time is coming when He will make it plain to them that He is Messiah & Savior, & that most Jews & other israelis will believe Him.

  This is all in Scripture.

Ignored the evidence CHECK
Counter by begging his eschatology CHECK

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

Let me try out my math skills.  Google tells me that Jacob/Israel was born 1653 BC.    That's 3673 years ago.  Consider, I have two parents, as does everyone else.  I have four grandparents, sixteen great grandparents, and so on.

3600 years and an average generation of 30 means 120 generations.

So far, so good...

This means, 2^120, or 1329227995784915872903807060280383754 ancestors in a single generation at the time Jacob lived.

You've made a logical error, here.  You've counted every ancestor as a unique individual, which is not true.  What I mean is... if you trace back along one line, you will encounter many of the same people you would find tracing back another one. 

Jeff Foxworthy once said, "if your family tree does not fork... you might be a redneck."  But on the scale you're talking about, nobody's tree forks very much.  We're all the product of distant cousins marrying each other.

Jarrod

[M Luther]

You've made a logical error, here.  You've counted every ancestor as a unique individual, which is not true.  What I mean is... if you trace back along one line, you will encounter many of the same people you would find tracing back another one. 

Jeff Foxworthy once said, "if your family tree does not fork... you might be a redneck."  But on the scale you're talking about, nobody's tree forks very much.  We're all the product of distant cousins marrying each other.

Jarrod

I've made no error and you didn't follow my argument.   You're wasting me time.

[robycop3]

Ignored the evidence CHECK
Counter by begging his eschatology CHECK

  Newp ! The Jews' history speax for itself, and God said the famous vision Ezekiel had of the bones applies to THE WHOLE HOUSE OF ISRAEL.  Seems YOU ignored the evidence.

  And my eschatological view is futuristic.

[lea]

  Newp ! The Jews' history speax for itself, and God said the famous vision Ezekiel had of the bones applies to THE WHOLE HOUSE OF ISRAEL.  Seems YOU ignored the evidence.

  And my eschatological view is futuristic.

Your eschatological view lacks understanding of Jesus' spiritual kingdom.

Resurrection in Ezekiel 37:1-14, Can These Bones Live?
October 23rd, 2008 02:34 AM | by William Bell
The resurrection of Israel is vividly portrayed through the
metaphor of dry bones resting in the valley. The question
raised by the prophet in Ezekiel 37:1-14 , is "Can These
Bones Live?

A glimpse of the historical setting for this prophecy is found
in 2 Kings 24-25. Because of the evil of Jerusalem and Judah,
God cast them out of his presence in the 11th year of
King Zedekiah's reign.

The Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzer encamped the city
and built a siege wall around it holding the people hostage in
for almost 2 years.

This created a severe famine leaving the people locked up
in the city without food. In a desperate attempt to escape,
King Zedekiah and his army broke through a wall and fled
through a hole to the plains of Jericho. They were pursued
and overtaken by Nebuchadnezzar's army and scattered.

Nebuchadnezzar killed the sons of King Zedekiah before
his face, then put out his eyes and carried him fettered
to Babylon. In the following month, the temple was
burned and the people were carried into Babylonian
captivity.

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Cast out of God's presence, Jerusalem and Judah were
dead. The plains of Jericho had been the scene where
Zedekiah's army was defeated.

The deportation of the people perhaps caused many of the
bodies to be left in the open valley, exposed to vultures
and the sun where their bones were bleached dry.

God gives the prophet a vision of dry bones lying in the
valley. He asks can these live? Under normal conditions
the answer would be no. However, God requests Ezekiel
to prophesy to the bones. They begin to rattle and come
together with their flesh and skin.

However, there was no life in them. Ezekiel is told to
prophesy again to the wind and upon doing so, the breath
of life enters the lifeless bodies and they live.

The Meaning of the Dry Bones

The dry bones represented the whole house of Israel.
Metaphorically speaking, Israel's bones were dry. Their
hope was lost. They were cut off from God who is the
hope of Israel, (Acts 28:14 ; Col. 1:27.

Israel receives life when they return to God in repentance,
and are reunited in his presence. It is then that he would
open up their graves, and bring them into the land of Israel.

While this prophecy may no doubt have served to give
the captives hope, the scope transcended their physical
captivity and deliverance to something of much weightier
importance.

We commented in other studies on the work and role of
the Holy Spirit and Israel's new birth mentioned in the
last chapter, (36:24-28). This sets the time of the true
fulfillment beyond the ancient history of the nation to
the time of the apostles, (John 3:7 ).

The fulfillment begins with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
on Pentecost in fulfillment of Joel's prophecy, (2:28-30,
Acts 2:16-20).

Speaking of their future restoration to God through Christ,
Isaiah prophesies, "Your dead shall live, together with my
dead body they shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell
in the dust, for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the
earth shall cast out the dead. (Isaiah 26:19)

Like the dew that falls upon the earth, providing moisture
to seeds that sprout and grow, God is the dew of Israel,
causing them to rise from the dust, a figurative term
denoting their unredeemed fallen state.

Daniel says the prophecy of Israel's resurrection takes place
in the time of the end, Daniel 12:1-4 . Compare 12:1 and
Matthew 24:21 . Israel's resurrection follows the great
tribulation spoken of as the time of travail upon a woman,
with child, (Isaiah 26:16-18 [Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)] )

We have shown the land promise being fulfilled metaphorically
in Christ. It does not refer to the geographical Palestine.

Israel's hope for resurrection is carried through the New
Testament, (John 5:28 , 29 ; Acts 24:14 ,15 ; 26:6-8 ;
Romans 13:11 ; 2 Cor. 5:5 .

Israel's graves are opened when God delivers them from
the bondage of sin to which they were held captive through
the law. (Romans 7:4-6 ; 10:1-4 )

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

  Newp ! The Jews' history speax for itself, and God said the famous vision Ezekiel had of the bones applies to THE WHOLE HOUSE OF ISRAEL.  Seems YOU ignored the evidence.

Uh... roby... are you not aware that THE WHOLE HOUSE OF ISRAEL is NOT the Jews?  That title is applied to designate the part of Israel which ISN'T the Jews.  That's a name for the northern kingdom - the 10 tribes that split from Israel after Solomon died.

Jarrod

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

I've made no error and you didn't follow my argument.   You're wasting me time.

I wish I could get an explanation, but he got himself banned for anti-semitic comments, so...

[robycop3]

Uh... roby... are you not aware that THE WHOLE HOUSE OF ISRAEL is NOT the Jews?  That title is applied to designate the part of Israel which ISN'T the Jews.  That's a name for the northern kingdom - the 10 tribes that split from Israel after Solomon died.

Jarrod

  Yes, I'm QUITE aware. The jews consist of the tribes of Judah, benjamin, & Levi. The others are out there somewhere. God will make them aware of their identities when His time comes.

  The process is gradual. There are some 13 million Jews in the world, & less than half live in Israel.

  And no Jews, nor any other Israelis, hold the rest of the Promised Land, which extends from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea.

[lea]

  Yes, I'm QUITE aware. The jews consist of the tribes of Judah, benjamin, & Levi. The others are out there somewhere. God will make them aware of their identities when His time comes.

  The process is gradual. There are some 13 million Jews in the world, & less than half live in Israel.

  And no Jews, nor any other Israelis, hold the rest of the Promised Land, which extends from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea.

The Jews, Israelis, were no longer God's chosen people after AD70. Read Isaiah 65-66.

Understand the difference between God's holy Mount Zion and the natural land of Israel.

Preterism not waiting for a third coming.

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

Yes, I'm QUITE aware. The jews consist of the tribes of Judah, benjamin, & Levi.

Oh, good.  So many Christians don't seem to even realize the split kingdom, and it's confusing to explain. ::sweat::

The others are out there somewhere. God will make them aware of their identities when His time comes.

He already did.  That was the point of Jesus earthly ministry - He traveled through the territories of Israel, and called "the lost sheep of the House of Israel."  The ones that believed were baptized (aka adopted) into the New Israel.  That included some of the Jews, in fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy to re-unite the the two.

Jarrod