The Preterist Blog ~ 100% Hyperpreterist Free|we can haz rezurekshun?

For a while now I have taken note of an admirable admission from David Green as follows:

“Keith Mathison was correct on this point: If futurism is true, then [full] preterism is definitely (not “possibly,” as I said) a damnable doctrine.”

It has been implied that I have misused that quote or misrepresented David Green in my use in some manner. I absolutely have not. The larger context is a discussion/debate between preterist Keith Mathison, and hyperpreterist David Green.

All that my use purports to represent is that David Green conceded that if Keith Mathison was correct in his eschatology, then David Green holds to damnable doctrine.

Read my use. Okay. Now read the original statement. Did I misuse it? Absolutely not. David Green conceded a point that other hyperpreterists avoid like someone giving away a syringeful of malaria. Now I am not the only one to notice this. David Green for some reason thought that sending me this link would somehow show that I misunderstood him. Strange. But much to my interest, I was not the only one who noticed Green’s glaring, and refreshingly honest, admission. This is from the link David sent me:

ANONYMOUS: I want everyone to know that you were forced to concede a MAJOR point to Keith Mathison. In your article Preterism and the Ecumenical Creeds, you originally said:

And guess what? Preterists are at variance with the message that the Church has preached throughout history. And since the historic message that the Church has preached throughout history ABSOLUTELY CANNOT be the damnable doctrine, guess where that irresistibly puts preterism? OUTSIDE the true faith, and in the garbage heap of damnable doctrines! By your own words, preterists are damned. Case closed! Thank you for thoroughly obliterating preterism for us, Dave! With enemies like you, who needs friends! LOL!!!!!

Preach it brother! (if anyone knows who this person was, please send them my way, I would love to speak with them)

David responded with (and I will interject my comments):

MY RESPONSE: Thank you for your thoughts. I’m glad that you’ve gotten so much enjoyment from my exchange with Keith Mathison. With your indulgence, I would like to clarify two points.

I think that you and Keith Mathison and I all agree that according to II Tim. 2:17,18, IF futurism is true and the Resurrection has not yet happened since the time that Paul wrote II Tim. 2:17,18, then preterism is indeed — in the words of II Tim. 2:17,18 — “ungodliness,” “gangrene,” a deviation from the Truth, and a Faith-overthrowing doctrine. If the Resurrection of II Tim. 2:17,18 has still not yet happened, then preterists are certainly heretics.

Thank you David! That is ALL I was saying, and it is accurate to what you said.

I think most or all preterists not only have the “guts” to admit this, but do admit it. This is not a new revelation among preterists.

David, you may hope so, but reality doesn’t bear you out. You and John McPherson are the only two that I have ever had candidly admit this conclusion without a song and a dance.

More importantly though, you have missed or ignored the other half of the argument, which is the key point:

Okay it is here that I think David thinks I have misrepresented him because I did not mention the other half of the argument. First David would be incorrect as my original blog on this back at the old preteristlist did in fact mention the second half of the argument, but he would also be incorrect for the second point is totally irrelevant to the point I was making. Here is a summary of David’s second argument:

If futurism is true [and David would classify that as every other view], then hyperpreterism is indeed a damnable doctrine; however, the converse is not true. If hyperpreterism is true, then futurism is a serious error, but it is not a damnable doctrine.

So what? What does that have to do with my point or even the point of the anononymous correspondent? Nothing.

However, I will say that David is wrong. If hyperpreterism is true, all other views are indeed damnable doctrines. This is one reason why the hyperpreterist camp NEVER wants me to apostasize to their dark side - I would be brutally blunt and honest about all of the ramifications and expose the dishonest facade of the clamouring for acceptance as “just another acceptable eschatological view.” That is not true. David has admitted it. One thing though is shown by David’s concession (besides that David is honest) is that it exposes the rank hypocrisy of those hyperpreterists who claim to follow the Bible alone as their standard for doctrine for criticizing those who believe that the resurrection of 2 Timothy 2:17-18 is NOT past and thus obey the Bible in condemning such a view. And in praising those “futurists” who extend the hand of Christian fellowship to them when in so doing they are disobeying the Apostle Paul.

If preterism is true, then historic, traditional futurism is not a damnable doctrine. If preterism is true, then the historic, futurist Church still preaches the true Gospel. The error of the futurist Church is not that it has rejected the Gospel. Its error is that it has failed to connect all the right Bible verses to the Gospel that she truly, authoritatively and effectively preaches. As a result of its exegetical displacement, the Church has appended an extra-biblical scheme of future events onto her true Gospel-message. This is not a fatal mistake.

David is wrong, and has a myopic understanding of the Gospel. Paul considered one’s view of the resurrection as part and parcel of the Gospel. To deny the alleged full redemption in AD70 is to deny the work of Christ and to deny that he has in fact conquered the last enemy. Eschatology is NOT merely an “end-times” view, it is the story of redemption, and is at its core Christological, which is why a totally Christological Creed, the Athanasian Creed saw fit to make the future bodily resurrection a point of salvational belief. It is a fundamentalist (in the bad sense) mind that cannot see the connection and anachronistically demands that there must be one verse that says exactly that as if the Bible writers were obligated to spoon-feed what should be obvious in the connections that are made.

From the preterist perspective, traditional futurism is a significant error to be sure. It has ultimate implications which, by the grace of God, the Church soundly rejects, but futurism is by no means a damnable error.

Any view that logically leads to damnable error is damnable error. Now people may be inconsistent and not follow the implications but that does not change the nature of the doctrine itself. Paul spoke about how a denial of the resurrection led to a denial of the resurrection of Christ, yet his audience surely affirmed the resurrection of Christ. To no matter, Paul showed them the outcome of their belief. And he would never tolerate that error in the body even if the adherents were ignorant or inconsistent about the outcome.

If futurism is true, then we are two separate houses and two separate faiths — but not because of any theological necessity, but only because of II Tim. 2:17,18 in a vacuum. This is the exegetical weakness of the case of those who anathematize all preterists.

Now David tries to backpedal as he once tried with Mathison. There is no vacuum - there is raw fact, and it is not only 2 Timothy 2:17-18 that is relied upon but also Paul’s condemnation of the denial of the resurrection in 1 Cor 15. Don’t try to foist upon anyone that hyperpreterists do not deny the resurrection unless you are willing to be consistent and state that Mormons do not deny the Trinity.

Thus Keith Mathison’s position:

“I would obviously disagree with Mr. Green’s assertion that the only way the debate will ever be resolved is through Scriptural exegesis and reasoning.”

This is misleading - David himself spoke of an extra-Biblical witness that cannot be comprised:

“The ancient ecumenical creeds have been deemed by all members of the universal Church — western, eastern, even Roman — throughout history as containing the fundimental rudiments of the true Gospel of salvation…. it means that the creedalists are correct when they say that we may not refute the elemental traditions of the Gospel which are contained in the creeds…We are not free to refute or nullify any of the cardinal elements of the Christian faith.”

Keith Mathison noted:

Now the problem is that throughout the remainder of this section, Mr. Green gives the impression that the whole discussion concerns nothing more than obscure eschatological issues - that nothing of an essential nature is at stake. Obviously he has to do this, or else preterism fails the test he himself set forth at the beginning of the article. But, there is an essential element of the Gospel at stake in the discussion - the doctrine of our resurrection. Paul in I Corinthians 15 tells us that the doctrine of the resurrection, Christ’s and ours, is absolutely fundamental to the gospel. Elsewhere Hymenaeus and Philetus are condemned for their errors concerning the doctrine of our resurrection. The resurrection is not a secondary negotiable doctrine. According to the witness of the New Testament, and according to the witness of the Church in the following centuries, the doctrine of our resurrection is a cardinal element of the Gospel. The Church fought with the Gnostic heretics for years, and a central element of their heresy was a denial of a future flesh and bone resurrection of believers.

In summary, my point is this. I would agree with Mr. Green that we cannot reject the teaching of the creeds on issues which are at the heart of the gospel. But the doctrine of our resurrection is a fundamental Gospel teaching. And most importantly for this response, full-preterism demands a denial of the Church’s historic doctrine of our resurrection. If this is the case, then full-preterism fails the test which Mr. Green outlines in the first section of his article.

and

So to use Mr. Green’s own test, either every branch the historic Church has been preaching a false gospel for over 1900 years (since errors regarding our resurrection are not minor errors), or full-preterism is preaching a false gospel. Since I agree with Mr. Green that it is impossible to say the Church has always and everywhere been preaching a false gospel, I am forced to conclude that preterism is preaching a false gospel. The point is that this is not merely a debate over secondary issues regarding the timing of eschatological events. The changes that full-preterists propose to make to the eschatological sections of the creeds have profound effects upon the soteriological parts of the creeds. Their changes drastically alter the doctrine of our resurrection, and the doctrine of our resurrection is a cardinal non-negotiable element of the Gospel.

And here is Mathison’s comment in context:

I would obviously disagree with Mr. Green’s assertion that the only way the debate will ever be resolved is through Scriptural exegesis and reasoning. This would be the case if we shared the same creedal presuppositions, the same framework of orthodoxy. There is a fundamental difference of opinion about what the debate is about. The full-preterists are convinced that the debate is a debate among Christians over important but secondary doctrines. I am convinced that preterism necessarily demands a change in a doctrine which is essential to the Gospel. This means that we “creedalists” view this debate as a debate between Christians and heretics. That is why we have been forced to approach it in the same way the early Christians combated early heresies. The Scriptures simply do not belong to heretics, and any use of the Scriptures by heretics is a misuse of Scripture.

And concludes:

Mr. Green seems closer to understanding the problems involved in the debate than most other full-preterists I have read. I really hope that other full-preterists read this article because if they think through the implications of it, they will realize that they have to make a choice between full-preterism and Christianity.

Amen! Even so come Lord Jesus.

I had been reading an advocacy book for the home-church movement called Ekklesia which I thoroughly enjoyed and have the honour of knowing two of the authors. I was given this blurb which will be included in the next edition:

Though we firmly believe the concept of home-sized fellowships to be in accordance with apostolic tradition regarding church practice, it is important to emphasize that the scriptures also describe a much bigger attitude and congregation: a membership in the church universal. It is unhealthy for believers to exist exclusively in one isolated house church. Each house church, properly speaking, is a part of the much bigger city church in whatever town it is located (the New Testament authors philosophically considered each city to contain but one church). Though they may never all meet together in one place, and though there is to be no outward ecclesiological authority controlling them, all the congregations in a given area constitute the one church of that city. We are to cultivate an attitude of oneness, acceptance, love, concern, and cooperation with all the other believers in our city.

What has all this “big church” talk got to do with preaching and teaching? Simply this: In our Bible teaching and interpretation we must not ignore the rest of the church as a whole. The Bible is our final authority, but it is not our only authority. The Holy Spirit has guided and worked in God’s people for the 2,000 years since Jesus left and long before anyone reading this book was even born. When the church of history has studied a matter and reached consensus on it, that becomes authoritative for us as well. Do we really have the right to dispute the theology of the church of the ages?

Who has the authority to decide upon the correct interpretation of the Bible, a single church (i.e. Rome), the individual believer, or the universal church as a whole? At one extreme, the Roman Catholics will declare that as an individual you are not supposed to interpret your Bible, but rather that you should accept what Rome declares it to mean. At the opposite extreme, though, many Evangelicals have replaced Rome with a new Pope in the form of each individual believer. “Just me and my Bible.” Is this really much different?

Do we believe that the Holy Spirit has guided the elect for the past two millennia? When certain basic doctrines are agreed upon today by Christians from every conceivable background, and also by all those who went before us in the Faith, that should get our attention. That is authoritative. Some of these basics include a belief that the sixty-six books of the Bible do finally and completely comprise God’s written revelation to us, the doctrine of the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the propitiatory nature of Jesus’ work on the cross, justification by grace through faith unto good works, the future bodily return of Jesus, the future tomb-emptying resurrection of the dead, and the future earth-shattering great white throne judgment.

The original doctrine of sola scriptura included the belief that whereas the Bible is our final authority, it is not our only authority. The church as a whole is also an authority (albeit a secondary one). As Paul wrote to Timothy, the church is “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1Ti 3:15). When the entire church arrives at the same conclusions regarding theology, that is authoritative. Teachings contrary to doctrine universally agreed upon by the church at large are not to be entertained.

The church of history has passed on to us various creeds and confessions. The word “creed” is from a Latin root that simply means, “I believe.” Did you know that there is even a post-New Testament, church-made creed printed in your Bible? It is called the “Table of Contents.” The books of the Bible were not finally compiled and settled upon until quite some time after the apostolic era. How can we trust the church of history to give us the right books that are supposed to be in our Bibles and yet not also trust her to give us right theology about what that same Bible teaches? The main people who resist an acceptance of the basic creeds of the church are those who hold to aberrant theology, denying one or more of the essentials listed above.

Throw out the interpretations of the church as a whole, and you are left with individual subjectivism. Keith Mathison, in his book, The Shape of Sola Scriptura, has aptly pointed out that modern American Evangelicalism has redefined sola scriptura in terms of secular Enlightenment rationalism and rugged democratic individualism. This modern reinterpretation grants autonomy to each individual believer’s reason and judgment. The result is the relativism, subjectivism, and theological chaos that we see in modern Evangelicalism today. Mathison points out that each of us comes to the Scripture with different presuppositions, blind spots, ignorance of important facts, and, most importantly, sinfulness. Since we are far from neutral, each of us reads things into Scripture that are really not there and also misses things that are there. Reason and conscience become the final interpreter. The universal and objective truth of Scripture is made virtually of no effect, because instead of the Church proclaiming with one voice what the Bible teaches, every individual interprets Scripture as seems right in his own eyes. The unbelieving world is left hearing a cacophony of conflicting voices rather than the Word of the living God. In the final analysis, each individual is responsible for establishing his own creed.

The church as a whole has clearly spoken concerning the correct interpretation of many foundational doctrines of the Christian faith. To deny these is to deny the teachings of the Bible. Those who do not hold to sound orthodoxy are not to be allowed to teach their false doctrine (1Ti 1:3), and are not to be recognized as apostles, elders, or deacons (1Ti 3:9, Titus 1:9). Our churches are not like little row boats out on Lake Placid. Instead, we will go through storms on the high seas. Challenges will come. Aberrant teaching will wash up on deck. It is not a matter of if, but when. Like the captains war ships, we must cry “Repel all boarders!” in guarding against and repelling heterodoxy theology. By “boarders” I mean the false teaching and not necessarily its proclaimer. Of course, the difference between the two can be a fine line. We are to gently instruct those who oppose, “in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who had taken them captive to do his will” (2Ti 2:25-26).

*****

Amen.

SolA Scripura OR SolO Scriptura? This is the common error of many cults and heretics, a pathetically reductionist view of this doctrine. Here are two very good articles on the subject:

Sola Scriptura Extremis

A Critique of the Evangelical Doctrine of Sola Scriptura

My friend Rusty Entrekin of Things to Come wrote me and several other friends the following comments on the second article (by Mathison which is actually part of his book The Shape of Sola Scriptura)

Amen to Keith Mathison’s article! Here are some additional thoughts regarding this.

Ephesians 4:11 - And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,for the equipping of the saints for the work of 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.

Prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers have been given to us by God to equip us so that we will not be “carried about with every wind of doctrine,” as Ephesians 4:12-14 teaches. Note that all of these offices are mentioned together as a group, and in the plural. It is these all of these men together who equip the church (”the saints”) to discern sound doctrine. It follows that sound doctrine can be more reliably discerned by the collaboration of gifted leaders than by single individuals acting alone. Thus church-wide councils of gifted leaders, such as Nicea, have better discerning ability than local, denominational, or provincial councils.

The canon of the Bible was recognized by the church primarily by the aid of men who occupy the five equipping offices. How did they do this? By discerning, through the aid of the Holy Spirit, which manuscripts contained only sound, error-free doctrine, and which contained errors. If we affirm that these church leaders were gifted by God with the ability to do this, we must also affirm that they had the ability to make statements of sound doctrine, such as the creeds.

If God did not grant to gifted church leaders the ability to correctly interpret scripture, He would not command us to allow ourselves to be persuaded by the sound reasonings of our leaders (Hebrews 13:17).

Related to this, scripture teaches us that there is such a thing as sound doctrine:

2 Ti 4:3 - For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears

Titus 2:1 - But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine

Sound doctrine simply means “correct teaching.” If God holds us accountable to adhere to sound doctrine, this means two things:

1) He often grants to gifted teachers the ability to properly interpret scripture, and

2) He often grants to believers the ability to accurately recognize the truthfulness of teachings.

(Although scripture is infallible and inerrant, as individuals we can be fallible and errant in our interpretations. There are many factors mentioned in scripture that can aid us in discerning correct doctrine.)

If correct teaching exists, then so does correct interpretation. If correct interpretation exists, then the interpretations of men (including the creeds) may accurately represent the truth. When the interpretations of gifted teachers do represent the truth (i.e.., agree with scripture), then they cannot logically be dismissed on the grounds of sola scriptura.

To use Sola Scriptura as justification to discount the relevance of “sound doctrine” is to deny Sola Scriptura of any meaning. If we could not be certain that anything was an accurate interpretation of scripture, then scripture would be of little use to us, because we could never know for sure what it means!

What Sola Scriptura means is that the interpretations of men must always be considered subject to the scrutiny and test of scripture. Sola Scriptura leads us to reject some interpretations, but to affirm others. It therefore has the effect of affirming the importance of statements which pass the test of scripture. The early creeds have always been rightly subject to the test of scripture, and they have stood that test for over one and a half millennia. Thus, the doctrine of sola scriptura leads us to affirm the importance of the early creeds, not to discount their importance.