Approaching the Parousia
The disappointing partiality of anti-preterist theologians ensures their arguments against Covenant Eschatology are based on little more than logical fallacies, exegetical acrobatics, or emotional appeals to their favoured traditions.
After the End of the End Times
The following brief excerpt is from my recent exegetical study on the Preterist approach to the Parousia.
Matthew 16:27–28
For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.
Matthew 24:33–35
So also, when you see all these things, you know that [the Son of Man]1 is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
Terminology Synthesis
The Greek noun parousia is the general term for the “presence,” “coming,” or “arrival” of a person. In the NT it is only found in Matthew 24, and in some Epistles.2 In the former, it appears once in reference to Jesus’ future coming (Mt 24:3), and three times in reference to the “coming of the Son of Man” (Mt 24:27, 37, 39).3 In the Epistles, Paul uses it generically for “the coming of Stephanus and Fortunatus and Achaicus” (1Co 16:17), and for his own “presence” (2Co 10:10; Pp 2:12). He uses it eschatologically for the coming of various combinations of “our Lord Jesus Christ” (“Christ” 1Co 15:23; “our Lord Jesus” 1Th 2:19; 3:13), as do James, Peter and John (Jm 5:7, 8; 2Pe 1:16; 3:4, 12; 1Jn 2:28).
Through his use of the term parousia, Matthew conflated Jesus’ Olivet Discourse prophecies with his coming as the Son of Man statements. This matched so seamlessly with the eschatological usage of parousia in the Epistles, that the term became synonymous for all the different words and expressions used to refer generally to the post-Ascension return of Christ. In particular, the Parousia refers to the coming of the glorified Christ, as the Son of Man, in the Last Days.
Covenant Eschatology (Preterism)
In searching for a non-preterist description of Preterism for this study, the lack of impartiality among the majority of resources in my Logos library was terribly disappointing. Few of the authors were able to match the succinct objectivity of Wikipedia.
Preterism, a Christian eschatological view, interprets some (partial preterism) or all (full preterism) prophecies of the Bible as events which have already happened. This school of thought interprets the Book of Daniel as referring to events that happened from the 7th century BC until the first century AD, while seeing the prophecies of the Book of Revelation as events that happened in the first century AD. Preterism holds that Ancient Israel finds its continuation or fulfillment in the Christian church at the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. The term preterism comes from the Latin praeter, which is a prefix denoting that something is "past" or "beyond". Adherents of preterism are known as preterists. Preterism teaches that either all (full preterism) or a majority (partial preterism) of the Olivet discourse had come to pass by AD 70.
The disappointing partiality among the majority of authors in my Logos library, with regards to the preterist interpretive approach to biblical prophecy, is indicative of the lack of objectivity among mainline Christian scholars, academics, and theologians generally. For the most anti-preterist theologians it is a serious handicap. It renders them so unforgivably dismissive of even the least controversial of preterist conclusions, that their arguments against the controversial ones are based on little more than logical fallacies, exegetical acrobatics, or emotional appeals to a favourite tradition. And soon enough all of these bad faith arguments are adopted unwittingly by trusting Christians who look to these scholars for sound, even-handed explication of matters pertaining to faith, practice, and doctrine. They are also picked up by less capable anti-preterists seeking conformation of their own sclerotic biases.
Of the anti-preterism scholars whose work I did cite in this study, a particularly disingenuous one stooped so far in his slanted apologia as to use the KJV reading of Matthew 24:3, where tēs sunteleias tou aiōnos (“the completion of the age”4) is infamously mistranslated as “the end of the world,”5 in order to set up a preposterous strawman to which we are to believe most preterists subscribe. None do, of course, because they translate Matthew 24:3 honestly. The theologian used that ancient translation because he believes that “extreme preterism,” as he calls it, takes away from the modern Christian the blessed hope of seeing “the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ” (Ti 2:13). Note that he does not worry about whether that hope might be based on a misreading of Scripture, only that it might be taken away if a reading he disagrees with is accepted.
Regarding their exegetical approach to the Parousia, the choice for serious readers of the New Testament is simple. Given the unavoidable fact of the overwhelming number of imminency statements in the Gospels, in the Epistles, and in the Book of the Revelation, either Jesus, the Apostles, and the NT authors were correct, with regards to the timing of the Day of the Son of Man, or they were mistaken. If they were correct, then the Parousia took place in AD 70. If they were mistaken, then we are forced to believe in a first and second final judgement of Jerusalem, a first and second great tribulation, a first and second surviving of these two tribulations by the disciples, resulting in their standing guiltless before the Son of Man twice, with all these first occurrences taking place in AD 70, and the second ones still waiting to take place, more than 2000 years later.
2. For every NT occurrence, see Study Document “NT Verses with Parousia.”
3. For every NT occurrence, see Study Document “NT Verses with Son of Man.”
4. My translation. Most modern translations, such as the ESV, NIV, and NRSV, have of the age.
5. Let me assure you that not one single serious Christian academic writing in 2016, when this theologian’s book was published, would resort to that venerable, but antiquated, 500-year-old English translation against the modern versions, in order to defend any doctrine, concept, or exegetical conclusion of theirs. The very idea is risible in the extreme – and highly suspect. Such are the depths to which anti-preterists sink in their frantic attempts to discredit those who do nothing more than adhere to the plain meaning of Scripture.
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