I have expressed over the past few years the view that I was coming to regarding the coming of Christ. (pun intended) That is that the coming of Christ is the reign of Christ bookended by two physical advents. It is both its parts and the whole. This is the most Biblically consistent way I believe of looking at the issue. Now, when I first thought of it, I was wary. I am always wary of theological novelty. I don’t presume to be so clever as to come up with some new theory that others have not. My first encouragement came when I was listening to Greg Bahnsen’s series on Revelation when he quoted Hengenstenberg. I immediately got the book, and I am not exaggerating to say that I got all misty-eyed with joy on how my thoughts were so eloquently put down nearly two centuries ago. Without further ado, here is the Hengstenberg passage that has blessed me so much, and is the key to inoculate oneself against hyperpreterism.
What is interesting is that Hengstenberg is working backwards to the same point I am working forwards to. He is coming at the passage as an orthodox believer in the future final physical return to show that this final return has echoes in the past and is part and parcel of an ongoing event.
I come to the passage as someone who sees clearly the first century application and works forward to show that it must point ultimately to the consummation. To deny either is to rob Christ of the fullness of His reign. Christ is not reigning in hyperpreterist-world as the mediator. He has already given up the Messianic Kingdom to the Father (1 Cor. 15). And to the hyperpreterist who denies an end of history and tries to claim that Christ already resurrected him, how could Christ even do that when there is no end to the number of the elect as there is no end to history. And an actual infinite number is an impossibility. No matter what number you posit, you can always add one more to it. This makes Calvinistic hyperpreterism absurd. It would fit with an open theism version of hyperpreterism, but not a Calvinist one. Calvinism requires a fixed number of elect that can be foreknown. A never-ending history does not and cannot provide that.
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Introduction: This is a book presenting a defense of the traditional view of hell. It also purports to discuss soul sleep and conditional mortality. I already hold the traditional view so it is being read more for general interest and education NOT for debate on annihilationism.
In case some are wondering why I say it is not to open a debate on annihilationism, it is because that would distract from my purpose. I am not extracting from it things that I think are the best arguments against annihilationism. Like most books that I post about on this blog, I glean arguments that can be used in the hyperpreterist debate. I don’t always agree with each point the author makes in the excerpts, but I think there is something valuable there. I have been blessed with a LARGE library, and I hope that some find these little notes helpful in their own work. I don’t want my reading time to only benefit myself if at all possible but to be a help to others.
Now the information below is very apropos to the hyperpreterist debate in that they use the argument of the “eternal mountains” to try to prove that history has no end and there is no consummation. The principles espoused here by Morey I believe are sound in refuting that hyperliteralism. It is ironic that hyperpreterists can be more wooden than the most wild-eyed futurist (no, obviously I am not referring to all futurists, no group, including hyperpreterists, can be pigeon-holed like that)
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Soon after I left the Hyperpreterist Movement in late 2007, many hyperpreterists leaders started saying I had no “exegetical” case for rejecting hyperpreterism. They gave all kinds of wild speculations as to why I left though I told them over & over that my reasons were both exegetical & practical (practical in that hyperpreterism in consistent practice leads to corrupt character because it unhinges a person from the continuity of Christian morality by claiming much of it is “only a 1st-century thing” — see link).
I have purposely been focusing on the aspect that caused me to be a hyperpreterist for 15 years — which is an erroneous understanding of Sola Scriptura (Bible Alone). Many modern Evangelicals think Sola Scriptura means, “just me & my Bible & my own interpretation”. That is NOT what Sola Scriptura means — that concept is actually SOLO Scriptura where the person exchanges the Pope in Rome for the pope in the mirror. They discount 2000 years of UNITED Christian interpretation on the basics & claim they found something “new”. It was this erroneous understanding of Sola Scriptura that allowed me to get suckered into hyperpreterism & kept me in bondage to it for so long. Thanks be to God for all the prayers on my behalf & the work of godly men & women (such as Dee Dee here) that helped free me from that heresy.
But now, I want to enter the next phase of using “what men meant for evil & God meant for good” to help others. As a Reformed/Calvinistic Christian, I believe & practice that all things have a purpose which ultimately glorifies God, so my time among the hyperpreterists has not been a complete waste.
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Filed Under (idiom) by dee dee on 03-03-2008
I just love the Onion:
WASHINGTON—A crippling idiom shortage that has left millions of Americans struggling to express themselves spread like tugboat hens throughout the U.S. mainland Tuesday in an unparalleled lingual crisis that now has the entire country six winks short of an icicle.
Since beginning two weeks ago, the deficit in these vernacular phrases has affected nearly every English speaker on the continent, making it virtually impossible to communicate symbolic ideas through a series of words that do not individually share the same meaning as the group of words as a whole. In what many are calling a cast-iron piano tune unlike any on record, idiomatic expression has been devastated nationwide.
Go read the entire article here.
