The rapture and Armageddon sell books and make for great movies, but preterists say the ‘end of the age’ occurred in A.D. 70

 

Readers of the “Left Behind” series, take note: Some Christians believe the world has already ended and its demise wasn’t anything like that in “Glorious Appearing,” the final installment in the Christian fiction series by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim F. LaHaye.

The dispensational theology of the wildly popular book series will be examined and challenged during the TruthVoice 2004 National Conference in Springfield, Ohio, to be held June 10 and 11. The conference focuses on “preterist” theology, also known as “realized eschatology” and the “A.D. 70” theory.

Preterists believe that the end of the world referred to in Revelation and other Bible texts was actually the end of Biblical Judaism – temple worship, Levitical priesthood, animal sacrifices – not the destruction of the physical world. They date this event to A.D. 70, which is when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, including the temple and all genealogical records of the Jewish people. The end of the world, in their viewpoint, was spiritual, not a literal, physical destruction.

“The Jewish system of worship ended in A.D. 70 with the fall of the temple,” says Terry Hall, a minister with the Miami Valley Church, Beavercreek, Ohio, and a motivational speaker scheduled to speak at the TruthVoice 2004 conference. “Biblical Judaism ceased in A.D. 70. There is a Judaism today, but it’s not Biblical Judaism.”

Hall says that this was the “end of the world,” or “age,” as more modern translations render the Greek word “aion” in Matthew 24:3.

Preterists believe that this end-of-the-age scenario provides the best explanation of passages like Matthew 16:27, 28, in which Jesus Christ stated that some of those hearing his prophecies would not die until they saw him coming into his kingdom. This sense of immediacy was likewise reflected in the epistles. For example, I John 2:18, speaks of it being the “last hour.” Preterists take these time references literally.

“Jesus did what he said and all that stuff happened in that time frame,” Hall says.

That time frame, Hall explains, is A.D. 30 to 70, the period that encompasses the ministry, death, crucifixion, resurrection of Jesus Christ and the wildfire spread of Christianity in the region. He says the Old Testament provided many shadows, or types, of what was to come, and the 40 years Israel spent in the wilderness is a type of this transitional period between the ages. They teach that Jesus returned spiritually at the end of this age.

Therefore preterists do not believe Christians will be physically resurrected at the rapture; rather, they say that the resurrection of the dead and judgment pictured in Revelation occurred in A.D. 70 and applied only to God’s people who had been awaiting Christ’s kingdom in Sheol.

“When God resurrected them out of that place of separation, he gave them spiritual bodies, not literal bodies,” Hall says.

Failed predictions

Hall was a student at Harding University in Arkansas when he was first introduced to the preterist viewpoint through the work of Max King, who set forth preterist views in “The Spirit of Prophecy,” first published in 1971.

“My first thought was ‘This is ridiculous,’” says Hall. “I had assumed that my professors had all the truth and there had to be something wrong with this.”

But Hall says that as he studied and re-read passages like Matthew 24 and Luke 21 without the preconceptions of a rapture and millennial period, he realized “Jesus, was in my mind, clearly linking these events in terms of the end of the Jewish world.”

He also found affirmation of the movement in the writings of Christian authors from the 15th to 19th centuries. They taught that the language regarding the destruction spoken of in the New Testament was not to be taken literally, but had been “borrowed” from Old Testament figurative language.

Hall helped establish the Conneaut Church of Christ in the early 1970s and served as minister of the West Avenue Church of Christ, Ashtabula, for seven years. While he was serving in Ashtabula, many of the members there adopted the preterist view.

Michael Williams is minister of the West Avenue Church of Christ today. He says probably 50 percent of his congregation holds an A.D. 70 view. He says he prefers to focus on the message of preparedness, whether that means the physical return of the Lord or the physical death of the Christian, rather than the mechanics.

“We know we have to be ready every day of lives,” he says. “It’s easier to focus on the things we do know.”

Williams says he has studied preterist theology and has not made up his mind because there are problems on both sides.

“I’m not sure we have all the information we need, therefore I’m troubled by it,” he says. “If God wanted us to know more about it, he would have given us more detail.”

Hall says interest in the preterist viewpoint is growing. Last year’s conference in Springfield drew an attendance of more than 100 people from 25 states. PlanetPreterist.com, gets between 1 and 1.5 million hits a month, says Hall.

Virgil Vaduva, Hall’s son-in-law and founder and president PlanetPreterist.com, says the preterist view addresses a criticism often levied against Christianity.

“Various groups have been saying ‘the end of the world is coming soon’ for a couple hundred years now,” Vaduva states in a news release. “Since it hasn’t happened, some feel the Bible is discredited. The mistake they make is not recognizing that the passages of scripture promising ‘the end is coming soon’ were written 2,000 years ago, not yesterday.”

While end-of-the-world dispensational theology makes for great fiction, Hall points out that popular culture Christian authors have repeatedly failed in their efforts to force the pegs of current world events into the holes of Biblical prophecy, discrediting the faith among unbelievers. For example, in the 1970s, some Christian writers identified the Soviet Union as prophecy’s “King of the North” who would descend upon Israel. Some also predicted that the rapture would occur by 1988, one generation away from the modern establishment of Israel in 1948.

Hall says that popular culture Christian writers have repeatedly missed the mark in their futurism approach to end-times passages, particularly Revelation.

“The popular view of the book of Revelation is negative and defeatist because it basically preaches things will get worse and worse till God gets so angry he blows everything up,” Hall says. “That’s a pretty bleak forecast.”

As a preterist, Hall doesn’t worry about the world becoming increasing evil or God pouring out his wrath. He doesn’t see Christianity as a way to get our ticket punched to heaven or avoid having the thermostat turned up in the next life. Rather, it’s a matter of knowing that he can have the same spiritual relationship with God while he is living on earth that he will have in heaven.

“I begin to realize that I am in paradise,” he says. “If my perception is that I’m living in a rotten world, then I’m living in a rotten world. Your judgment, your evaluation of your situation, becomes the box you must live in. … I’m learning to judge things the way God judges things.”