Preterism
Caleb’s Notes and Thoughts
Based on my investigations:
- Jan Markell’s “The Error of Preterism” http://therefinersfire.org/preterism.htm best summarizes my thoughts.
- Also Michael A. Fenemore’s article on Preterism – “Were the Apostles False Prophets?” http://www.preterism.info/articles/welcome/welcome.htmhas an excellent commentary on one of the main faults with Preterism
- I personally believe that the Bible should be accepted on what it literally states – not on some twisted theological interpretation.
- This was the issue that Jesus had with the religious establishment of His Time -
Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying:
8 ‘These people draw near to Me withtheir mouth,
And honor Me with their lips,
But their heart is far from Me.
9 And in vain they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
Matthew 15:7-9
- According to Michael Scheifler’s document “The Catholic Origins of Futurism and Preterism” http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/antichrist.htm
With the advent of the printing press in the15th century, and the resulting explosion of Bibles accessible in the common language from Protestant sources, it became readily apparent to those who could now study the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation in particular, that Bible prophecy identified by symbols a persecuting apostate entity generally known as antichrist.
- The Church Rome then came under attack as the Anti-Christ and in self defence the Jesuits came up with alternate interpretations of Preterism and Futurism.
- Michael Scheifler then goes on the give an excellent summary sources of the pretribulation rapture teaching beginning with Margaret McDonald’s visions in the early 1830’s.
So what do I think? Preterism has its roots in the fourth century Constantinian Christanity – the patron of Roman Catholicism. Under Constantine’s patronage and the council of Nicene the following events took palace:
- since the Jews rejected Jesus as there Messiah – God has rejected Israel and the Church is now the “New Israel of God”,
- Pagan Roman holidays were “Christianized” -i.e. Easter, Christmas, Sunday (the sun’s day) as the day of rest and worship,
- Doctrine of the Trinity formalized – all religious authority is now done in the name of the Trinity i.e. Father, Son, Spirit,
- Mary worship – thus continuing the Nimrod’s (Genesis 10:8 ) tradition of a Father God, a Mother God, and a Son God. – (also Diana of Ephesus Acts 19:24)
The prophet Daniel states:
He shall speak pompous words against the Most High,
Shall persecute the saints of the Most High,
And shall intend to change times and law.
Then the saints shall be given into his hand
For a time and times and half a time. Daniel 7:25
The Preterists state the above scripture talks about Constantine’s appointee the Pope doing these deeds. My difficulty is that Jesus states:
“Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand). Matthew 24:15
in referring to Daniel’s vision:
So he shall return and show regard for those who forsake the holy covenant. 31 And forces shall be mustered by him, and they shall defile the sanctuary fortress; then they shall take away the daily sacrifices, and place there the abomination of desolation. Daniel 11:31
At first look this appears to meet the criteria of the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. However, there is a problem all Israel was not in the land - the 10 lost tribes has not yet returned to the land.
According the Holy Scripture these are the facts:
Now the king of Assyria went throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria and besieged it for three years. 6In the ninth year of Hoshea, ( about 722 B.C.) the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah and by the Habor, the River of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. ………………………..
13 Yet the Lord testified against Israel and against Judah, by all of His prophets, every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways, and keep My commandments and My statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by My servants the prophets.” 14 Nevertheless they would not hear, but stiffened their necks, like the necks of their fathers, who did not believe in the Lord their God.
22 For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they did not depart from them, 23 until the Lord removed Israel out of His sight, as He had said by all His servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away from their own land to Assyria, as it is to this day. II Kings 5-23
Yet in 1406 B.C. Moses said to ALL ISRAEL:
25 “When you beget children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, and act corruptly and make a carved image in the form of anything, and do evil in the sight of the Lord your God to provoke Him to anger, 26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess; you will not prolong your days in it, but will be utterly destroyed. 27 And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you. 28 And there you will serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. 29 But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30 When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey His voice 31 (for the Lord your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them. Deuteronomy 4:25-30
A second time Moses states to ALL ISRAEL:
“Now it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God drives you, 2 and you return to the Lord your God and obey His voice, according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul, 3 that the Lord your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you. 4 If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you. 5 Then the Lord your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers. 6 And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. Deuteronomy 30:1-6
In about the year 730 B.C. Hosea the prophet affirms:
The word of the Lordthat came to Hosea the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, andHezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.
The Family of Hosea
2 When the Lord began to speak by Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea:
“Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry
And children of harlotry,
For the land has committed great harlotry
By departing from the Lord.”
3So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. 4 Then the Lord said to him:
“Call his name Jezreel,
For in a little while
I will avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu,
And bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.
5 It shall come to pass in that day
That I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.”
6 And she conceived again and bore a daughter. Then God said to him:
“Call her name Lo-Ruhamah,
For I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel,
But I will utterly take them away.
7 Yet I will have mercy on the house of Judah,
Will save them by the Lord their God,
And will not save them by bow,
Nor by sword or battle,
By horses or horsemen.”
8Now when she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. 9 Then God said:
“Call his name Lo-Ammi,
For you are not My people,
And I will not be your God.
The Restoration of Israel
10 “Yet the number of the children of Israel
Shall be as the sand of the sea,
Which cannot be measured or numbered.
And it shall come to pass
In the place where it was said to them,
‘You are not My people,’
There it shall be said to them,
‘You are sons of the living God.’
11 Then the children of Judah and the children of Israel
Shall be gathered together,
And appoint for themselves one head;
And they shall come up out of the land,
For great will bethe day of Jezreel!
2 Say to your brethren, ‘My people,’ And to your sisters, ‘Mercy is shown.’
God’s Unfaithful People
2 “Bring charges against your mother, bring charges;
For she is not My wife, nor am I her Husband!
Let her put away her harlotries from her sight,
And her adulteries from between her breasts;
3 Lest I strip her naked
And expose her, as in the day she was born,
And make her like a wilderness,
And set her like a dry land,
And slay her with thirst.
4 “I will not have mercy on her children,
For they are the children of harlotry.
5 For their mother has played the harlot;
She who conceived them has behaved shamefully.
For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
Who give me my bread and my water,
My wool and my linen,
My oil and my drink.’
6 “Therefore, behold,
I will hedge up your way with thorns,
And wall her in,
So that she cannot find her paths.
7 She will chase her lovers,
But not overtake them;
Yes, she will seek them, but not find them.
Then she will say,
‘I will go and return to my first husband,
For then it was better for me than now.’
8 For she did not know
That I gave her grain, new wine, and oil,
And multiplied her silver and gold—
Which they prepared for Baal.
9 “Therefore I will return and take away
My grain in its time
And My new wine in its season,
And will take back My wool and My linen,
Given to cover her nakedness.
10 Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers,
And no one shall deliver her from My hand.
11 I will also cause all her mirth to cease,
Her feast days,
Her New Moons,
Her Sabbaths—
All her appointed feasts.
12 “And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees,
Of which she has said,
‘These are my wages that my lovers have given me.’
So I will make them a forest,
And the beasts of the field shall eat them.
13 I will punish her
For the days of the Baals to which she burned incense.
She decked herself with her earrings and jewelry,
And went after her lovers;
But Me she forgot,” says the Lord.
God’s Mercy on His People
14 “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, Will bring her into the wilderness,
And speak comfort to her.
15 I will give her her vineyards from there,
And the Valley of Achor as a door of hope;
She shall sing there,
As in the days of her youth,
As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.
16 “And it shall be, in that day,”
Says the Lord,
“That you will call Me ‘My Husband,’
And no longer call Me ‘My Master,’
17 For I will take from her mouth the names of the Baals,
And they shall be remembered by their name no more.
18 In that day I will make a covenant for them
With the beasts of the field,
With the birds of the air,
And with the creeping things of the ground.
Bow and sword of battle I will shatter from the earth,
To make them lie down safely.
19 “I will betroth you to Me forever;
Yes, I will betroth you to Me
In righteousness and justice,
In lovingkindness and mercy;
20 I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness,
And you shall know the Lord.
21 “It shall come to pass in that day
That I will answer,” says the Lord;
“I will answer the heavens,
And they shall answer the earth.
22 The earth shall answer
With grain,
With new wine,
And with oil;
They shall answer Jezreel.
23 Then I will sow her for Myself in the earth,
And I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy;
Then I will say to those who were not My people,
‘You are My people!’
And they shall say, ‘You are my God!’ ”
Israel Will Return to God
3 Then the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans.”
2 So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley. 3 And I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days; you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man—so, too, will I be toward you.”
4For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim. 5 Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days. Hosea 1:1-3:5
Jesus statement about Israel:
But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matthew 10:6
But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Matthew 16:24
Apostle Paul teaches:
25 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
“The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
27 For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”
28 Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Romans 11:25-28
Where is Israel? They are not to found in the Land of Israel for the last 2700 years! Thus it was not possible for the first century to be the last days. FIRST ISREAL MUST BE IN THE LAND. IT IS YET TO HAPPEN!
One last proof:
“Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.” 4 And I heard the number of those who were sealed. One hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed:
5 of the tribe of Judah twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand were sealed;
6 of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand were sealed;
7 of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand were sealed;
8 of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Benjamin twelve thousand were sealed.
Revelation 7:3-8
Jews according to the Bible are tribes of Judah and Benjamin. The other 10 tribes are yet to return to the land. This must happen before one can logically conclude that were are in the end of days. Also when Israel is in the last an Altar to the God of Isreal must be up and running before the antichrist can shut it down – “Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand). Matthew 24:15Thus proving that replacement theology is incorrect along with its daughter Preterism.
Conrad Perl
cperl@sympatico.ca
prosperousindividual