My Journey In and Out of Darkness

The Late Great Planet Earth Delusion

The word “darkness” in the above title is my reference to a form of eschatology called full- or hyper-preterism. This form of eschatology teaches that all Biblical prophecy has been fulfilled in the events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. This includes the entire book of Revelation, the Second Coming of Christ, the Resurrection of the Dead, the Day of Judgement, the Millennium, and even the New Heaven and New Earth. How does one come to believe such radical nonsense? I’ll tell you how it happened to me.

I was raised in a very common American Protestant home. My parents were hard-working and honest. I cannot remember a day in my life that I didn’t know Jesus Christ. I had accepted Him as my Savior at a very young age. I never strayed from belief in Him even as a teenager.

My default form of eschatology (study of the last days) was called premillennial dispensationalism, although I had no idea at the time that was its official name. This is probably the most popular form of eschatology in America. It teaches that we are probably the last generation before Jesus Christ returns to secretly rapture away Christians, and before the rise of the Antichrist, the onset of the 7-year Great Tribulation, the Battle of Armageddon, and the Second Coming, etc.

I particularly became interested in this in high school when I read a book by Hal Lindsey called, The Late Great Planet Earth. The details were further flushed out by the writings of men such as J.N. Darby, C.I. Scofield, Clarence Larkin, and more Hal Lindsey books. I particularly loved my Scofield Bible with all its footnotes in this regard. But as I grew up, graduated college, got married, started a family, and was working a job, and even led Bible study groups on the subject, I began to become disenchanted with it. There were so many failed predictions made by its proponents. And even though it was (and still is) very popular, its finer points are very complex and difficult to grasp.

Postmillennialism Slide

About this time, I ran into an elderly man at church who happened to no longer believe this way. He called himself a “postmillennial partial preterist.” He believed, unlike me, that Jesus would return after the Millennium (the thousand years of Revelation 20; thus the prefix “post-“). He was a “partial” preterist because he believed Jesus came back in some form in AD 70 to judge Jerusalem but would return in bodily form in the future.

This man introduced me to the “time statements” of Scripture. The “this generation” of Matthew 24:34, the “some of you will not taste death until…” of Matthew 16:27-28, and the “shortly come to pass… the time is at hand” of Revelation 1:1-3 are all startling when you read them together. He pointed out that time statements like these force us to believe that Jesus came back in some form in the first century AD, the time in which the New Testament was being written.

The Internet was just becoming a thing at that time and, being intrigued by this man’s belief, I did some searching and accidentally ran across a full preterist website managed by Edward Stevens. I had no idea he was a “full” preterist but I was interested in buying a book of his called, What Happened in 70 AD? So, I phoned him and ordered the book. I was not ready for his understanding of Luke 21:20-22 which says, “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies… these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.” Stevens emphasized that “all things which are written” meant the entirety of the Bible’s prophecies. I thought he was crazy. How could the Second Coming of Christ, the Resurrection, the Day of Judgment, and the coming of the New Heaven and Earth have already taken place?! Stevens maintained this had all occurred at the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70! I took this to my postmillennial friend at church. He, too, thought Stevens was crazy. But a close friend of mine came to believe Stevens was correct and started arguing Stevens’ points with me.

My first rejection of full preterism was that all my study Bibles showed the book of Revelation to have been written in AD 96, so how could it be a prophecy about the events surrounding AD 70? I even asked Stevens, and he pointed me to a book written by Dr. Kenneth Gentry called, Before Jerusalem Fell. This book argues that Revelation was written before AD 70. At this point, I became seriously intrigued.

Full Preterism Trap

It didn’t take long until every Scripture and every parable Jesus told looked like a reference to AD 70. I joined forums (there was no Facebook at that time) and discovered even more books. Another one that greatly affected me was written in 1878 by James Stuart Russel, called The Parousia. More contemporary authors on this subject were Max King, Don K. Preston, Samuel Frost, Tim King, John Noe, and David Green. I discovered a full-preterist pastor, David Curtis, and was greatly interested in a few active bloggers, Jason Bradfield and Todd Dennis. I even helped Todd Dennis digitize The Parousia for his website (The Preterist Archive). Even books by partial preterists like Gary DeMar helped bolster my newfound belief. I attended a full-preterist conference two years in a row in Sparta, NC, where I met Preston, Frost, DeMar, and Noe.

I, too, like every other full preterist, became enamored with the “time statements.” If you pointed out to me how crazy it was to believe that all Bible prophecy was fulfilled, I would just simply make you read the “time statements.” It is the “time statements” of Scripture that lead every single full preterist into full preterism and it is what keeps them there. I cannot emphasize this enough. I began to interpret (reinterpret) every single doctrine of Christianity through this filter. Every Scripture in the Bible was made to bow its knee to the “time statements.” But eventually, this is what started to bug me because it made me question all the fundamentals. For instance, was I to keep the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper? After all, Paul wrote, “for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). And if Jesus had already come in AD 70, then was there any need to “proclaim the Lord’s death” through this sacrament?

I couldn’t find any theologians that were full preterists. I found out that Sam Frost was an up-and-coming theologian who was attempting to systematize full preterism. Being intrigued by this, I bought his book, Misplaced Hope. Frost wrote on page 210, “Modern Christian eschatology is based upon an early church error: assuming the Second Coming was delayed, by misunderstanding its spiritual fulfillment in A.D. 70. We need not remain in this wilderness of misplaced hope. Rather, through sound biblical scholarship, we can recover the transforming hope that the early church embraced. Herein lies our hope for the third Christian millennium.” This book bugged me even more. It was arguing how the earliest Christians missed the Second Coming in AD 70 and since it didn’t happen, opted to reinterpret the “time statements” to mean imminence for every generation instead of imminence for that first generation of Christians. This forced me to think that in order to maintain my position in full preterism, I was going to have to say all (not some!) the early Christians missed it. I would have to somehow maintain that millions of Christians for 2000 years had all missed Christ’s Second Coming in AD 70 and that the Church for two millennia had “accidentally” propagated a serious lie! Now I was a bit more than just bugged. I was now growing a bit fearful of what I was believing and teaching.

Resurrection Pains

The one thing that kept coming up in my heart was, “How could all Christians have missed the resurrection of the dead until full preterists came along?” This question started my long and very uncomfortable study of resurrection as a full preterist. Most full preterists are too starry-eyed with the “time statements” to even care about the resurrection of the dead. They simply point out that if the “time statements” were true, and they must be, then whatever the resurrection was, it was in the past. Staring me in my full-preterist face were the Apostle Paul’s obvious feelings about getting the timing of the Resurrection wrong. He wrote:

But shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness. And their message will spread like cancer. Hymenaeus and Philetus are of this sort, who have strayed concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is already past; and they overthrow the faith of some.(2Timothy 2:16-18)

This is a sober warning. Full preterists, of course, will answer this passage and say that the Resurrection was future to them when Paul wrote this to Timothy because it was before AD 70. But we live after the Resurrection in AD 70 making this no problem to them. But the point I’m making here is that getting the timing of the Resurrection wrong was a very serious thing in Paul’s mind. This put the fear of God in me. At this point, I stopped teaching full preterism and sought the Lord for the truth and meaning of resurrection.

I began by asking every full preterist I knew exactly what they thought the resurrection was. As it turns out they are wildly divided on the subject. There are two major camps in full preterism. They call themselves CBV or IBV.

Resurrection Divisions In Full Preterism

CBV stands for Collective (or Covenant, or Corporate) Body View. IBV stands for Individual Body View. The originator of CBV is Max King (1930-). It is mainly propagated by Don K. Preston (1949-). The IBV leader seems to be Edward Stevens.

The main difference between CBV and IBV is stated easily enough but the details are complex and vary widely depending on who’s interpreting the viewpoint. Both beliefs teach a “resurrection” of sorts occurring in AD 70 when they allege Jesus’ Second Coming occurred. CBV teaches a resurrection of a collective kind of body of believers, while IBV teaches that Christians were raised out of Sheol/Hades to put on their new individual spiritual bodies. Studying the chart below will help you with the details.

I will remind you that the details of the views of CBV and IBV can vary slightly depending on the teacher. But these are close.

Make note that both CBV and IBV teach that your physical body is discarded and is never resurrected like Christ’s. Both CBV and IBV have no care for your physical body. It is merely a temporary holding place for your spirit which, they assert, is all that salvation is really about. They also both teach that Christ’s physical resurrection was merely a sign for that generation and, otherwise, it has no direct relationship to us today!

Don K. Preston teaches some very bizarre and blasphemous details in his version of CBV. The first weird thing is he teaches Adam was created mortal and that physical death was always part of God’s creation, and God never had a plan to deal with that! He also teaches that since salvation is thought to be spiritual-only, then he asserts Adam died spiritually necessitating that Christ die spiritually as well. Most Christians would never say that Jesus died spiritually because it causes a fatal theological problem for the doctrine of the Trinity. To die spiritually, God the Son would have to be separated from God the Father! Preston also teaches that when Jesus was resurrected, He was raised in a mortal body (not an immortal one); the same one He had before the cross! He further maintains that this mortal body ascended to Heaven and was completely incinerated as a whole burnt offering on the altar of the Heavenly Temple and therefore Jesus no longer resides in a physical body, immortal or mortal! This is considered blasphemy of the highest sort in normal Christianity.

Edward Stevens’ IBV forces him to teach some very bizarre things as well. By his own admission, because of the “time statements,” he must maintain that a rapture of the living Christians occurred in AD 70. That means living Christians were translated bodily without dying leaving no Christians on Earth after AD 70! Of course, there’s no historical record, Christian or secular, that tells of any sudden disappearance of thousands if not millions of Christians in AD 70. This further begs the question that if there were no Christians left on Earth after AD 70, how did the gospel get restarted and reach us here 2000 years later?! This view would also have to maintain that Christians who lived through AD 70 (i.e. Clement) missed the rapture or are liars. Did God leave some Christians on Earth after AD 70 so Christianity could get a restart?!

Needless to say, these are not satisfying answers. CBV is blasphemous of Christ’s eternal incarnation, and IBV denies actual history in favor of “time statements”! With no hope of finding any answers from the full preterist camp, I devoted myself to studying resurrection. It was now me and my Bible. This sounds noble. But it is less noble than you might think. I’ll explain in a few minutes.

Resurrection Truth #1 – The Unjust

The first Scriptural passage that dealt a fierce blow to my full preterism is that written by the Apostle John. According to Jesus Himself, the resurrection would include all human beings, righteous and unrighteous, just and unjust. He said, “Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.” (John 5:28-29). The Apostle Paul affirmed as well, saying, “I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust.” (Acts 24:15). Did you notice that in the explanation of what CBVs and IBVs believe they did not deal with the “resurrection of condemnation” nor the “resurrection of …the unjust”?

When faced with Acts 24:15 above, most full preterists will just change the subject to their beloved “time statements.” They will point out that the Greek word translated, “shall be” in this verse, is the Greek word, μελλειν (mellein) which, they say, means, “about to.” They will then find every occurrence of this Greek word in the New Testament and substitute their limited definition of “about to” in its place. This allows them to produce even more “time statements” in order to emphasize this resurrection, whatever it is, happened in the first century AD. But you can reference any Greek lexicon and see that the Greek scholars say this word actually means, “a certainty of action,” and the context can cause it to be translated as “about to” only because of certainty. 

Resurrection Truth #2 – Our Resurrection Is the Same As Christ’s

The second Scriptural blow to my full preterism was the way in which the Apostle Paul argued the resurrection in 1Corinthians 15. It was almost the opposite direction of logic than one would think he would make. Instead of saying ourresurrection was based on Christ’s resurrection (which theologically, of course, it is!), Paul argued it in the other direction, writing:

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! (1Corinthians 15:13-17)

Notice Paul says if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not resurrected. He does not say that if Christ is not resurrected, there is no resurrection of the dead. In other words, he’s basing Christ’s resurrection on the fact of our resurrection. You might think this is a moot point, but it is not. The reason is that arguing it this way makes certain of the definition of what resurrection means. Both resurrections (ours and Christ’s) must be of the sametype. Whatever definition you give the resurrection of the dead, you must also apply to Christ. And if you maintain Christ’s resurrection was a physical transformation of His mortal human body, then our resurrection must also be a transformation of our mortal human body. This is devastating to full preterism. 

This critical and logical link is further corroborated by the fact that Jesus Christ is called “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1Corinthians 15:20,23) and “the firstborn from the dead” (Colossians 1:18). The Firstfruits (Christ’s resurrection) cannot be different from the harvest (our resurrection). The Firstborn from the dead (Jesus) implies a second-born, a third-born, etc., i.e. us! You don’t gather apples as the firstfruits, and then when harvest comes, discover that you are now gathering oranges. So, staring me in the face at this point was the empty tomb; the 2000-year-old orthodox view of the resurrection of the dead. This was the heaviest blow against my full preterism and the third Scriptural consideration would nudge it nearly off the edge of the cliff toward oblivion. 

Resurrection Truth #3 – Bodies Are Transformed Not Discarded

In the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he writes:

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. (Philippians 3:20-21)

Notice that Paul says “our lowly body” would be “transformed” to become like “His glorious body.” The believer’s body was to be “transformed,” not discarded to rot in the grave while the believer is given a different body. This destroys IBV full preterism. This is exactly what happened to Christ’s mortal body. The tomb was empty. His mortal body was not discarded to obtain His immortal spiritual body. His mortal body was transformed. It still had the scars to remind us of His sacrifice.

Not only this, but you must consider also that when Paul wrote this, both of the bodies he spoke of (“our lowly body” and Christ’s “glorious body”) existed simultaneously. What is the significance of this? It destroys CBV full preterism. There wasn’t just a single body being changed into a future single body like the CBV folks imagine. Instead, there were already two bodies when Paul wrote. There was the (1) “lowly body” of a believer and (2) the “glorious body” of Christ. But at some point in the future, Paul imagines there would still be two bodies, only they would be (1) the “lowly body” that had been “transformed” and (2) the “glorious body” of Christ. 

Jesus Christ Is Still Incarnate

Furthermore, in corroboration that Jesus was still a physical Man after His ascension and will remain so even unto the Day of Judgment, Paul says, “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:30-31). Also, Paul writes, “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” (1Timothy 2:5). Furthermore, Jesus, after His ascension, is referred to be “the image of God” (2Corinthians 4:4) and “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), and also it is said that “in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). Images are visible. God is not visible, but God the Son, Jesus Christ is. How could He not be? Afterall, He is our Mediator between God (invisible) and man (visible). This is what makes Him our faithful High Priest as the writer of Hebrews says: “Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17).

Church History and the Leading of the Holy Spirit

The last straw, the one that broke the full preterist camel’s back for me, was that I saw Jason Bradfield and Samuel Frost leave full preterism expressing their own doubts. I pummeled them both with questions, particularly about resurrection. In one of our discussions online, Jason, nearly exasperated with my questions, said, “Brother, learn some church history and read the early church fathers.” I reluctantly took on his suggestion out of pure respect having little hope that it would do anything for me. I was wrong. I was humbled by the writings of the early Christians. I found a deep appreciation for the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Belgic Confession of Faith, and the Heidelberg Catechism in particular. These early Christians were not being led astray at all. Instead, the Lord had made good on His promise to the original apostles of sending His Holy Spirit to lead His children into the truth. 

Yes, there were many opinions and various interpretations about minute details of doctrines, but some foundational doctrines never changed. One of those was the future resurrection of the dead and the bodily Second Coming of Christ. They were fought for and maintained solidly for 2000 years. It didn’t matter if those people were Roman Catholics, Protestants, or Eastern Orthodox. The “Spirit of Truth” (John 15:26) had been doing His job the whole time in spite of the human vessels being imperfect. The Holy Spirit had been teaching us all things, and bringing to remembrance all things that Jesus had said to the Apostles (see John 14:26). He had been guiding the Church into all the truth (see John 16:13) and had continued to “convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” (John 16:8).

I suddenly realized that it was not a matter of the perfectness and maturity of Christians. Instead, it was a matter of the ability of the Holy Spirit to fulfill Jesus’ promise of leading and guiding the Church through history. Was He a good Teacher or not? Christians are imperfect, but the Holy Spirit is not. I could see that to say that Christians had been deceived from the beginning until full preterists came along some 1700 years later was inconceivable and actually an insult to the Spirit of Grace.

Truth Is Understood Communally

Now I will explain why just you and your Bible, though sounding noble, is not as noble as you might think. You see, God never intended for one man to be able to comprehend Him or determine the Truth. The entire time, God purposed that fellowship with Him and other believers would be the way in which we would be able to comprehend God. Paul tells us that it takes all of us to comprehend God. He writes, “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:17-19). He also wrote, “These things I write to you, though I hope to come to you shortly; but if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1Timothy 3:14-15). He also tells us that God gave gifts to His people, “some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ – from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:11-16).

Thus, all these things God gave us, knowing we were imperfect. Yet His promise is strong to lead us to the truth. It is clear that the Church has not yet reached this full maturity even 2000 years after AD 70. And if we have not yet reached this maturity, then God is not done with us yet and His gifts are still active, and we still need each other to comprehend Him and be kept in the truth. We can’t do it on our own as a single individual with a single Bible. This is why just “you and your Bible” is a recipe for disaster. You need the gifts (men) God gave you, dead and alive. Instead of His Spirit-led congregation being the authority (“pillar and ground of the truth”), you, all by yourself, become the sole authority of what constitutes “truth.” In fact, if you study church history you will see that every heretic in history was a man alone with the Scriptures alone. Peter warns of becoming your own authority in interpreting Scripture. He writes, “And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2Peter 1:19-21).

Many full preterists will respond to this with ad hominems, calling you a “creed worshiper,” or something similar. They will tell you that you are “in bondage to the traditions of men,” or that you “care more about the opinions of men than you do Scripture,” etc. But this is hypocrisy at its finest. For they believe that they themselves are the sole owners of truth, just “me and my Bible.” Clearly, they are doing the same thing they accuse you of doing. They care more about their opinion of what the Bible says than anybody else’s opinion. They will remind you of the Reformers and tell you how they came up with new doctrines and taught Sola Scriptura, which full preterists will teach means, “just the Scriptures.” This is due to their ignorance of Church History. The Reformers did not define Sola Scriptura to mean, “just the Scriptures.” Instead, they defined it as, “the Scriptures are the highest authority,” not the only authority.

Delivered From Darkness

Thus, it was in one day, that all of this finally came to a head in my life. I’ll never forget that day. It was the most humbling experience of my Christian walk. It was like Jesus had said to me, “When you see Me, I will have hair on my knuckles.” I know how silly that sounds but that is what it felt like. He was telling me that He was still a Man in a physical body and that that was very important to understand. I literally fell to my knees in repentance, asking His forgiveness for my stupidity and pride and for leading so many people astray from the Truth. I felt darkness leave my heart and joy and laughter return. I wept and laughed on and off for quite a while. It had been a long journey lasting 17 years of my life but it was finally over.

Full preterism will darken your walk with Christ because it is leading you down a road to a different Jesus (see 2 Corinthians 11:4); one that is no longer incarnate in human flesh. Full preterism denies and redefines the resurrection of Christ by logical necessity because, again, Paul argued it that way. Remember, he wrote, “if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen.”(1Corinthians 15:13). Full preterists reject the history of the church and have to maintain that the Holy Spirit failed at His job of leading Christians into all the truth. 

And if you’ve ever known any full preterists yourself, you will notice that they do not enjoy church gatherings. Many of them will get involved in gross sin. After all, sin has been dealt with, death has been dealt with, and the law has passed away, and they believe there is no Day of Judgment in the future, so it generates no fear of God. They usually end up alone, just them and their Bible, and not attending any assembly. They start websites, and forums, make videos, and teach nothing but full preterism. They become obsessed with it. It occupies nearly their every thought. They are constantly trying to evangelize Christians into full preterism and usually lose all concern over the lost sinner and have no desire to preach the gospel. Their “gospel” is full preterism. Their field to harvest is not the world of sinners, but other Christians who are not full preterists. 

I saw quite a few of my friends who happened to leave full preterism end up leaving church altogether and one or two of them even have become agnostics or self-professing atheists. Several of them end up believing in Universalism, which teaches that everyone is saved and going to heaven no matter what. You don’t even need faith in Christ to get to heaven according to them!

And think of it, full preterism teaches that death will last forever, sin will last forever, evil will exist forever, and that you are currently living in the New Heaven and New Earth, where everything is still rotting. How much more miserable can a doctrine be? I submit that it cannot be darker than full preterism. It is the darkest form of eschatology that has ever been invented by man.

So, I thank God and my Lord Jesus Christ for utilizing men like Jason Bradfield and Sam Frost to bring me out of that dark eschatology. Now when I encounter a full preterist, I have only one question for them: 

>>> Is Jesus Christ still a Man? <<<

Their answer to that question will reveal how far they will go to deny the Truth.