A wise explanation of the soundness of a renewed (i.e. critical) inquiry into AD70 Dispensationalism is given by Sam Frost - "Since I have left the movement, after being Full Preterist for 19 years, and teaching, lecturing and writing for 9 years, and having received from my peers the title of “leader” among other “leaders” within the movement, I have seen these tendencies from the outside; while inside, I buried my head, or smoothed over the rough patches.  After all, we gotta keep this movement alive at all costs.  To turn back now would damage the credibility of what we have taught and sacrificed for so long.  We would look like fools, wouldn’t we (one Full Preterist has called me this publically since I left).  Rather than admit error, we proceed.  It can’t be wrong!  Such thinking will secure the firm conviction that a movement of this caliber will not survive."

Spotlighting How Many Theologies Currently Self-Labeled "Full Preterism" Really Aren't

This new classification is also holding pen for reconsideration of works previously labeled as "Hyper Preterism".  Includes the works of nominal Full Preterists who have in actuality do not hold to the heretical dispensationalism of the teaching that "ALL Bible prophecy was fulfilled by AD70" -- Most mistakenly self-apply the label "Full Preterists" (Including "Postmillennial Paradise Preterists" such as David Chilton; or, "Immortal Body at Death" Preterists such as Arthur Melanson and Idealist/Eclectic Preterists such as Patrick Stone)

Any theology that goes beyond teaching that "All Bible Prophecy Was Fulfilled by AD70" is not really full preterism.   Sam pointed this out while discussing the theology of David Chilton:

"What (Chilton) understood “full” Preterism to be, and what it is today, are virtually two different things." (Pt. 2)

John L. Bray is another example of a man who, though calling himself a full preterist, teaches theology that in no way qualifies as such.   If the line between Orthodox Preterism and Hyper Preterism wasn't one of heresy, the distinction wouldn't matter so much.

Full Preterism will always mean the limitation of all prophetic events to no later than AD70.. we can thank R.C. Sproul for cementing that definition.  Either Full Preterism must embrace the fulfillment of prophecy post AD70 - which it will never do - or a different classification is in order for those preteristic theologies which do.  that is what this page tries to offer.

Duncan McKenzie, Ph.D.

• The Supernatural Rulers Portrayed in Daniel and Revelation "How could three physical empires who had been destroyed earlier than the fourth then survive past the destruction of the fourth? The answer is, we are not being shown physical empires; we are being shown confederations of spiritual rulers behind physical empires."

• The Covenant Judgments of Revelation  "The new heaven and earth in Revelation (and Isaiah) is not heaven. Notice, it still has unrighteous people in it, those outside the New (covenant) Jerusalem (Rev. 22:14-15). The new heaven and new earth is a symbolic representation of the post AD 70 spiritual order of this planet. The old covenant order (the old heaven and earth) flees and the new covenant order (the new heaven and earth) is established (Rev. 20:11; 21:1-2). One has to constantly remember that the truths of Revelation are communicated by way of symbols (Rev. 1:1). In the new heaven and earth hose who are part of the New Jerusalem bride have access to the tree and water of life (Rev. 22:1-2); those outside of the new covenant city do not. "

• The Antichrist Chronicles: vol. II

• J.S. Russell's Position on the Millennium, the Neglected Third Way of Preterism "The position of James Stuart Russell offers a third option that is different from full preterism and traditional partial preterism. Russell’s position is essentially like the full preterist position (i.e. the one and only Second Coming, the judgment and the resurrection happened at AD 70, the resurrection having an ongoing fulfillment since AD 70. Russell’s position sees us as currently in the new heaven and earth, a symbol of the post AD 70 new covenant order). Where Russell position is different from full preterism is that it does not hold that all Bible prophecy was fulfilled by AD 70. "

• The Serious Error of the Literal Hermeneutic in the Interpretation of the Book of Revelation - "The literalist hermeneutic essentially relies on the criterion of absurdity. If an image is absurd or fantastic it is taken as a symbol, if it is not absurd or fantastic it is taken as a literal physical depiction. This criterion of absurdity of the literalist is overly simplistic, inadequate and just plain wrong."

• Babylon was not First-Century Jerusalem - "Seeing the harlot as the old covenant temple system helps to explain Revelation 18:21 (that says Babylon would not rise again).  The city of Jerusalem has risen again; the old covenant temple system has not risen again (and won’t).  By the way if you look at the merchandise of Babylon (Rev. 18:11-13) it is the items used in the building and offerings of the Temple.  The harlot city is dressed in clothes of the high priest.  Carrington said the following on the merchandise of Babylon “The long list of merchandise in [Rev.] 18:11-13 is surely a catalogue of materials for building the Temple, and stores for maintaining it.”

• Premillennial Preterism - "A Premillennial futurist like Lindsey believes Jesus will return in the future to begin the millennium.A Premillennial preterist like Russell believes that Jesus returned in past (AD 70) and started the millennium at that time."

• REVELATION: Fulfillment of the Covenant Curses of Leviticus and Deuteronomy

• A New Preterist Perspective - Revelation 12 - "This coming of the one who was to pour out judgment on the desolate was accomplished by the general Titus and the Romans in AD 70. According to this interpretation the last half of Daniel’s 70th week (3½) was symbolic of the time between the cross, (around AD 30 when sacrifices were no longer valid) and the end of the Jewish age in AD 70, when the consummation was poured out on the desolate, (i.e. Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Romans)."

• Was All Bible Prophecy Fulfilled in A.D.70? - "My short answer to the question of what Luke 21:22 means is that it is saying all things written about the days of vengeance that would come upon the Jews when they violated the covenant would be fulfilled by AD 70. It is not saying that all prophecy in the Bible would be fulfilled by AD 70."

• A New Preterist Perspective - "Like full Preterist I see the Second Coming of Jesus as happening in AD 70. Unlike full Preterist I see us as currently being in the millennium (the millennial reign of Jesus beginning at His Second Coming in AD 70, Revelation chapters 19 and 20)"

• A Preterist Book on the Antichrist

IdealisticPreterism.jpg by Patrick Stone

GENERAL IDEAS PROGRESSING ESCHATOLOGY...
..PAST THE DEAD-END OF AD70.

Can God's Grand Redemptive Plan Really Be Reduced to the a single generation and a single city?   Would you do that with the Cross of Christ, likewise a historical event in a particular generation and city ? Here are compelling reasons why the simplistic approach to time texts and revelations may be pointing in the wrong direction

• Scott Hahn "I was originally attracted by Max King and J. S. Russell, but subsequently rejected their view that 70 AD exhaustively fulfills NT prophecy. Personally, I have come to conclude that the main error of "hyper-preterism" is based on the common failure to recognize the theological significance of the biblical (and ancient Jewish) view of Israel's temple as a "microcosm" (i.e., the cosmos in miniature), which implies that the cosmos itself was seen as a "macro-temple" (see Ps 104, Job 38).  Accordingly, the divinely decreed destruction of the Jerusalem (microcosmic) temple was itself a typological event, one that foreshadows the future destruction of the cosmos (i.e., as macro-temple). The destruction of the Jerusalem temple is thus a true -- but partial -- fulfillment, which implies a partial non-fulfillment, thus pointing to a still greater fulfillment in the future, when the cosmos undergoes the same divinely decreed destruction as the Jerusalem temple. An integral interpretation of NT prophetic texts is rooted in the scriptural view of creation, set forth in terms of temple typology (see Hebrews 9:1-12). What happens to the temple must eventually happen to the cosmos; the resurrected body of Christ is the New Temple, which will be fully manifested in glory only when the old cosmos undergoes the same transformative judgement of God, thus bringing forth a New Creation -- which the Apocalypse rightly describes as the Divine Temple (Rev. 11:18ff) of the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:22)." (comments, ca-anathema, 2003)

• Jake Magee (2008) "I believe that this value for chronological fidelity is one that should be taken seriously and would do much to dispel much extravagant thinking within eschatology, as well as to enrich our understanding of history. However, I think many who support it have adopted an unfortunate and unnatural prophetic reductionism that makes the prophetic portraits of Scripture feel like wearing one’s high school pants – too tight and too restrictive. I contend that genre of language found in places like the Olivet Discourse and the book of Revelation allows for a more flexible reading of chronological markers (e.g., “this generation” “the time is near”), and in fact requires a qualified exception of the interpretive rule which says that the right interpretation is the one the audience would have understood." (Cautioning Preterism)

• Joseph Wood (1906) "Inspiration is that which is of universal application. If any utterance is only for an age, and local in its interpretation, we do not regard it as inspired. The Psalms, for instance, were mostly suggested by local considerations, the trials, the joys, the experiences of David and others, under peculiar circumstances. But, nevertheless, we feel as we read them that they pass beyond the limits of the local and the individual— they belong to humanity—they are true of human nature and life everywhere. Or take Christ's prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem. It was spoken at Jerusalem about Jerusalem, and in a manner which seemed limited to Jerusalem. But had the prophecy been true only of that city of sorrows, it would never have been regarded as inspired. Whereas Christ's principle was this : that the doom pronounced on Jerusalem was universally applicable, and that it was but a style and specimen of God's judgment everywhere. The judgment comes wherever there is evil grown ripe for judgment, wherever corruption is complete. And the gathering of the Roman eagles to the carcase is but a specimen of the way in which judgment at last overtakes any city, any country, and any man in whom evil has reached the point where there is no possibility of cure. We who have lived through the last fifty years have seen the eagles gathered together in Naples, in America, in France, in Bulgaria. The Lord's judgment on Jerusalem has been fulfilled many times—it was not simply of local but of universal application." (The Bible, what it is and is not [lects.], p. 97)