A Critique of Hyper-Preterism
by Vern Crisler

The Eschatological A Priori of the New Testament : A Critique of Hyper-Preterism

This article originally appeared as: Vern Crisler, "The Eschatological A Priori of the New Testament: A Critique of Hyper-Preterism," Journal of Christian Reconstruction 15 (Winter, 1998): 225-56. ~ and has been reprinted here by special permission. No further reprint permission should be assumed by this appearance.

1. Introduction

Many of us were shocked by the death of David Chilton in March 7, 1997 from complications resulting from a heart attack.[1] Yet as troubling as this event was, it was no greater than our distress to learn that Chilton had gone through a "last minute" conversion to the heresy of "full-preterism" the belief that the second coming or parousia of Jesus Christ took place in A. D. 70, concomitant with the destruction of the city of Jerusalem by the Roman general Titus. Our distress was due to the fact that Chilton had formerly declared such a belief heretical: "I have emphasized this point [the final judgment] because it has become popular in some otherwise apparently orthodox circles to adopt a heretical form of 'preterism' that denies any future bodily Resurrection or Judgment, asserting that all these are fulfilled in the Resurrection of Christ, the regeneration of the Church, the coming of the New Covenant, and the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. . . . Whatever else may be said about those who hold such notions, it is clear that they are not in conformity with any recognizable form of orthodox Christianity. The one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church has always and everywhere insisted on the doctrine of the Last Judgment at the end of time. Its inclusion into all the historic definitions of the Faith is a universal testimony to its importance as an article of belief."[2] It may have been that Chilton's conversion away from the orthodox view of the parousia was a "soft" sort of conversion; and that his denial of the futurity of the last judgment still appeared to be a novelty, as though he were unsure of his ground, and needed to respond to his critics with emotional outbursts and anger rather than with the calmness of the convinced heretic.[3]

Most of us realized that Chilton's earlier heart attack on January 4, 1994, and resulting neurological trauma, probably affected his judgment more than he realized. Still, his remaining wisdom allowed him to admit in one email letter: "From now on, anytime I say something that looks weird, ask me if I mean it! Of course, that makes you run the risk of having me blast you back and say: of course, you jackass! But anyway, my aforementioned Brain Injury has resulted in about 30 personality and behavioral differences (that I've counted so far!), and makes me a bit difficult to deal with occasionally. I keep telling [my wife] that since the first one on the list is Short-Term Memory Loss, God won't hold me accountable for my sins if I can't remember them! She doesn't buy it, and doesn't think God will, either!"[4] In another post, he said, "I made a list of about 30 differences between me and the other David Chilton, about half of which are personality changes; the other half are weird other things, like I can see in the dark now, etc. . . . I had what the doctors called the equivalent of a "barn fire" in my brain, and lots of things got completely wiped out! . . . I had about 20 "out-of-body" experiences that I haven't written about at all, but Jay Adams said 'it's OK so did Saint Paul!" I said, "Well, I didn't get quite as far as he did!". . . I've done pretty well: Now off of all prescriptions but aspirin, I got an A for the semester's Logic course I took at the local college, jog 10 miles a day, eat really low-fat . . . am back to speaking and writing (36 lectures in a month in Australia last year), have gone through interesting theological changes, and am working on some new books!"[5]

Little did we know what those "interesting theological changes" were.[6] "Simply put," said Chilton, "I now believe that Christ's Second Coming occurred in A. D. 70."[7] Moreover, "But I am convinced by Scripture that what Christ and the Apostles meant by His Second Coming occurred in A. D. 70."[8] Gary North responded to Chilton's "conversion" in his characteristic way: "As the publisher of Days of Vengeance and Paradise Restored, let me say, without hesitation, that the post-1994 David Chilton is indeed a heretic who has denied the Church's historic creeds and confessions on the question of the Second Coming of Christ and the Final Judgment."[9] He went on to say, "I bought orthodoxy. I will not relinquish it in order to turn it over to a man who has literally lost his mind the mind of Christ." Further, "[Chilton] is crippled now, and I do not think it is fair to beat him up in public. It is also unlikely to change what is left of his mind. . . . He is not the man we used to know, as he has admitted here. That man died in 1994, he says. I agree. So, let us say now, David Chilton, RIP." There were some who counseled restraint and compassion due to Chilton's medical history, but by then it was too late. Chilton was no longer responding to "reconstructionists," either in public or in private. Whether he would have eventually listened to his friends, and those who cared for his soul, is not possible to determine. Whether his faith would have restored his confession as Peter's eventually did is a matter beyond our knowledge, though we certainly believe in a merciful God, and are confident that the Lord will be kind to one of his servants who was afflicted beyond his measure.

Chilton's last minute conversion to heresy will be exploited by the remaining full-preterists, but they will only be exploiting a debilitated man's eccentricities, not his healthy and mature judgments. The heresy of full-preterism poses much danger for those who are trying to find an alternative to premillennial speculation, but who aren't satisfied with any of the current alternatives. It is troubling to watch those who have been faithful all their lives turn to this new gospel, this new "forgetting" of the promise of his coming. As R. J. Rushdoony said long ago: "[H]istory refuses to terminate on man's orders, because it runs on God's time, and not in terms of man's myths. As a result, the final orders which men build have an inevitable habit of decay, and the order which claims to be final ensures its own destruction as the movement of history crushes it underfoot in its unrelenting march to epistemological self-consciousness. Man's 'final' orders come in with pride and go out in shame and destruction, but Jesus Christ 'shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead; Whose kingdom shall have no end.'" [10]

2. 2 Peter 3

Some readers might be surprised that we don't consider 2 Peter 3:1-18 as the New Testament eschatological a priori-that is, the text or doctrine by which all New Testament eschatological interpretations stand or fall. Still, its importance should not be underestimated for a proper understanding of the New Testament's view of the "last things." Therefore, we have given St. Peter's text in full:

Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder),
that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior,
knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts,
and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation."
For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water,
by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water.
But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.
Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,
looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?
Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless;
and account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation--as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you,
as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.
You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked;
but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen. (NKJ)

We must confess our surprise that anyone would have the audacity to interpret Peter's words in an exclusively symbolic or spiritual sense, and restrict this text to the destruction of Jerusalem in A. D. 70. Yet this is precisely what a sect of Bible interpreters-who call themselves full preterists, but whom we call hyper-preterists-attempt to do. These hyper-preterists (hereafter HP's) believe that the second coming or parousia of Jesus was completely fulfilled in God's judgment upon the nation of Israel in the first century. From their perspective, there is no future judgment in the sense of a catastrophic eschaton that breaks into the world in a material, physical, global way. The only "world" that HP's believe was subject to judgment was the socio-political system of first century Judaism, a system that no longer served any purpose in the plan of God. "Peter's world was the world of Judaism!" says Don K. Preston, one of the leaders of this movement.[11] In striking contrast to this de-materialized view of the second coming, Peter's words above speak of the global parousia of Jesus-a noisy, world-historical, ontological, time-smashing destruction of the cosmos. His words cannot be restricted to some sort of local, symbolic, sociological parousia involving God's judgment upon Israel's moral and ethical system.

The restriction of the last judgment to a sociological parousia is contrary to Peter's use of the terms "heaven" and "earth." The context suggests that they refer primarily to the material creation. This does not mean they cannot be used elsewhere in a symbolic sense; e.g., their use in Old Testament prophecy for various micro-eschatons-judgments on local city or nation-states of the ancient world-but whether or not they are interpreted symbolically or literally depends upon the context in which they are used. An unprejudiced reading of Peter in context shows that his prophecy of a "collapsing universe" at the last judgment cannot be taken to refer only to a moral or localized judgment on the nation of Israel. Indeed, Peter's words have a "metaphysical" ring to them, not merely a moralistic ring: "For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men" (emphasis added). Notice the connection Peter makes between the heavens and the earth originally created by God, the heaven-earth complex destroyed by the flood, and the contemporaneous heaven and earth reserved for fire. Since the creation was global (meaning universal), and the deluge was global, it will take a great deal of linguistic legerdemain to localize the final judgment. That this has been attempted by HP's does not render the resulting interpretation any less absurd.[12]

Moreover, the HP localization of the parousia is counter-intuitive in that it does not convincingly answer the skeptics who had (mockingly) asked: "Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation." Not only did these skeptical "demythologizers" deny the Noachian deluge, they also denied the final judgment. If the HP's are right in saying that the final judgment was only a local judgment upon Israel, the skeptics' question makes very little sense. Local judgments on Israel had happened often enough in that nation's checkered history; why should there be any skepticism about another local, moralistic, non-metaphysical judgment on the nation of Israel? Indeed, some of the skeptics might have welcomed such an ethical cleansing of their nation, but a global parousia? From their rationalistic point of view, that would be as absurd as a global flood.

3. The Ascension of Jesus

Another verse that is important for an understanding of the return of Christ is Acts 1:9-11:

Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven."

Attempts by HP's to turn this into a "spiritual" or "symbolic" ascension find no support from the text. The language used here stresses visibility rather than invisibility. Why do HP's find it necessary to speak of a symbolic or "poetic" ascension? The answer is obvious if we pay close attention to the text: "This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven" (emphasis added.) The HP's realize that the angel is saying that the parousia of Jesus will be "in like manner" to his ascension. This "like manner" refers to the previous calendar event of the ascension: "[W]hile they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight." Jesus was visible as he ascended and became invisible the higher up he went (enveloped by a cloud). Following the angel's analogy, Jesus is presently invisible to the world as he sits at the right hand of the Father but at his parousia, he will-in like manner to his ascension become visible to the world once again. This is what the Bible teaches, and it has been the consistent testimony of the Christian church from its beginning. It is saddening that some Bible interpreters would seek to overthrow the orthodox faith, as well as the plain teaching of the Bible regarding Jesus' second coming.[13]

Unfortunately, these HP's have had support from the scholar, Randall Otto, whose book, Coming in the Clouds: An Evangelical Case For the Invisibility of Christ at His Second Coming, argues for a "poetic," non-physical ascension.[14] Otto had to interpret the ascension as "poetic" in order to deny the visibility of the global parousia of Jesus. But his re-interpretation of the ascension has grave consequences for his interpretation of the resurrection of Jesus. The church has always affirmed based on Scriptural testimony that Jesus' resurrection was a visible, tangible, non-ghostly event in calendar history. If Otto finds it necessary to deny this based on his view of the ascension and parousia, then perhaps there is something wrong with his view of the ascension and parousia.

Otto's eschatological a priori is that Christ's parousia was completely fulfilled in A. D. 70. This affects everything he says all the way back to the resurrection, and finally to the incarnation. As you might expect, our argument is that the true eschatological a priori is the real, physical, visible, and permanent incarnation of the Son of God in time and in history as the man, Jesus of Nazareth. If the incarnation was physically real, there is no a priori reason to deny that the resurrection was physically real or that the ascension was physically real or that the parousia will be physically real. It can be seen that Otto's a priori is a rationalistic scheme forced upon Scripture, and he denies the obvious meanings of many New Testament texts in order to support the deductive consequences of his a priori. The correct way to interpret the Bible, however, is by comparing Scripture with Scripture, by letting the texts speak for themselves, not by imposing a pre-conceived framework on the Bible in order to support a pet theory of eschatology.

Hyper-preterism is not a new heresy in the church. In fact, it was one of the first. In 2 Thessalonians 2:2; 3:6-15, St. Paul mentions that the Thessalonians were apparently receiving forged apostolic letters, claiming that the final parousia had already taken place.

Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come.

In another letter, Paul mentions two of these forgers by name Hymenaeus and Philetus who taught that the final resurrection had already occurred (2 Tim. 2:16-18):

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.

HP's often ask how any of the early Christians could have been fooled by these heretics. If the final resurrection was going to be a noisy, visible, global occurrence, how could anyone have been persuaded that it had already taken place? Don K. Preston, for instance, says, "If the day of the Lord is, as you and I have always been taught, a time ending, universe destroying event, how in the world could the Thessalonians ever have been convinced, as they obviously were, that the day of the Lord had already come?"[15] This is an odd question to ask, given that Paul's point is that it is false to believe such a thing, that those who believe it have "strayed concerning the truth." But Preston goes on to draw a conclusion from the Thessalonians' false belief: "The point is, Paul did not challenge the teaching concerning the nature of the day. He only challenged the chronology."[16] Later in his book, Preston argues that the Thessalonians had an old covenant concept of the coming of the Lord, that when the Lord comes, he himself is not visible, but his historical judgments on nations are visible. These historical judgments upon nations are described in the Old Testament using cosmic imagery the destruction of the heavens and of the earth but they are still geographically limited. Hence, the Thessalonians did not have a belief that the parousia would be a visible invasion of Jesus into the terrestrial realm. They had, according to Preston, a correct understanding of its nature a geographically localized and symbolic judgment but not of its time. Preston apparently thinks the Thessalonians were being bothered by a sect of ur-Jehovah's Witnesses, who were saying the parousia had already occurred; so that Paul's primary mission to the Thessalonians was to correct their timing of the parousia, not their view of its nature as an invisible, symbolic judgment on Israel in A. D. 70.[17]

Is this true, however? Was Paul only interested in challenging a false chronology? Or did his challenge to the false chronology rest upon a certain conception of the nature of the parousia? Preston only gives verses 1 & 2 of chapter two of Paul's second letter to the Thessalonians; but what do the very next verses say?

Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.

It is true in these verses that St. Paul is correcting the Thessalonians' chronology, arguing that certain things the great apostasy and the parousia of the Antichrist had to happen before the Lord's parousia. Because these things haven't happened, argues Paul, the parousia of Jesus the final resurrection could not have taken place yet. Nevertheless, Paul does more than give chronological signs of the imminency of the parousia; he also provides a description of the nature of this parousia. Paul does provide chronological cues or signs to show when the parousia is near, but he does not pinpoint the exact day, for the actual day will have no cues or warnings, but will come as a thief in the night. And what will the parousia itself be like? Paul says, "And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming" (emphasis added). Here Paul gives an indication of the nature of the parousia, and Preston is simply wrong to suggest that the apostle's concern was only to limit the Thessalonians' metric freedom. It matters a great deal that the Thessalonians had a truncated conception of the nature of the parousia, for it was the basis of their false chronology. Indeed, everything about these verses indicates that Paul is concerned primarily with correcting such a view of the final resurrection, both in its timing and in its nature.

If, in Paul's mind, the parousia "the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him" (v. 2) had reference only to the destruction of Jerusalem, why didn't Paul simply have the Thessalonians go on a tour of the still standing city of Jerusalem?[18] Of course, it would not have occurred to him, for he did not regard the final parousia as an invisible or symbolic judgment. Notice how he describes the nature of the parousia in the following texts:

[A]nd to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed.[19]

I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom. . . .[20]

These texts can hardly be restricted to the proleptic parousia on Jerusalem in A. D. 70; they must be referred to the final, oblate parousia that ushers in the final form of Jesus' kingdom.

4. Christology & Eschatology

As bad as denying the future judgment might be, denying the incarnation of Jesus is worse, for it is the ultimate heresy. St. John says very clearly that the spirit of the Antichrist is recognized by its denial of the incarnation: "[A]nd every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world."[21] It should be no surprise then that the early church sought to avoid the spirit of this eschatological monster by safeguarding the doctrine of the incarnation against heresies.[22] St. John gives us the basic eschatological a priori of the New Testament:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.[23]

After the controversies surrounding the nature of the Trinity had run their course during the second and third centuries, questions about the nature of Christ's incarnation arose. Theologians influenced by gnosticism and docetism held that Christ was only a man in "appearance" and not in reality. Christ's humanity could not be conceived of in a real, permanent, substantial sense, but only in a fleeting, evanescent, instrumental sense a mere channel for the being of pure Spirit. Against this view, the orthodox position was represented by the Creed of Ignatius, who taught that Jesus was born, suffered, died, and rose again as a man, "truly, and not in appearance."[24]

Nevertheless, some theologians were still embarrassed by the humanity of Christ due to their characteristic Greek denigration of the material world in favor of some variation of Plato's world of pure Ideas. They thus emphasized Christ's divinity to the exclusion of his humanity, for in ancient Greek philosophy humanity is considered to be the realm of evil and change, and God could not be a subject of evil and change. The heretic Marcion, for instance, went so far as to deny the reality of the parousia because he could not allow God to come into contact with the changeableness and materiality of world-history. Brown says, "Marcion did not believe in a real incarnation, and consequently there was no logical place in his system for a real Second Coming."[25] The modern neo-orthodox scholar, Bishop John A. T. Robinson, agrees with Marcion: "[I]t would be an equal misunderstanding to take the picture of the Last Things as historical prediction as it is to view Adam and Eve as personages of whom birth-certificates might theoretically be produced. In neither case is the truth of the myth in any way bound up with the belief that its events did literally take place or will do so. . . . The incidents are not actual occurrences in the past and future, but are representations to interpret present realities in all their primal and eschatological quality."[26]

In the fourth century, two main views of how to interpret the incarnation how the Word "became flesh" are discernible. First, the "Alexandrian" theologians held that the pre-incarnate Word took the place of the human soul or mind and animated the body of Jesus when he was born. This resulted in a view of the incarnation that made Christ only half a man missing the human soul. Reacting to this, the "Antiochene" theologians held that the Word took on a complete humanity. Rather than taking on just the body of a man, the Word took on both the body and soul of a man.[27] This view though an improvement over the other position had a tendency to double the personalities in Christ, giving rise to the danger of two contradictory wills in Christ, and a failure to preserve his unity as a person. Curiously, it also tended to agree with the docetics in viewing Christ's humanity in a purely instrumental sense a temple of the divine Logos. The Antiochenes thus were in danger of placing Jesus on a par with the prophets of the Old Testament, making him only an inspired man, who was merely the instrument of the Logos. The reaction of the Alexandrians to this danger was to fuse Christ's divine and human natures. This led some of them such as Apollinaris to believe that Christ's human nature was a proper object of worship, and that it infused divinity into those who were (sacramental) partakers of his flesh.[28] Thus, in Apollinaris' Christology, the Eucharist became the means for the deification of the human race.[29]

Some might think preoccupation with the person of Christ, and how his divine and human natures are brought together, is a waste of time and departs from the simple gospel found in the Bible, or departs from the "primitive" church's conception of the lowly carpenter. But this is a wrong way of looking at the creedal and theological testimony of the early church. The concern for orthodoxy on the part of creedal theologians was not an attempt to move away from the simple gospel, but an attempt to recover it. The orthodox were not trying to embellish on what the primitive or ancestral church believed; indeed, their creedal formulations represent a successful return to the primitive church, a rescue of the clear light of the gospel from the accretions of heretics. Accordingly, the Council of Chalcedon met in A. D. 451 to recover the simple gospel, to do battle with the spirit of Antichrist, and to repudiate the divinization of humanity.[30] Chalcedon stressed the "completeness" of Christ's divinity and of his humanity. He is recognized in two natures, "without confusion, without change, without division, without separation." The divine nature of Christ was not fused with his human nature, and yet at the same time his human and divine natures found their unity in the one person of Jesus. "[T]he distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ. . . ."[31] Rushdoony strikingly entitles his chapter on the Creed of Chalcedon, "Foundation of Western Liberty." Recognizing the political implications and importance of this aspect of Christian theology, he explains: "The Council of Chalcedon met in 451 to deal with the issue as it came to focus at the critical point, in Christology. If the two natures of Christ were confused, it meant that the door was opened to the divinizing of human nature; man and the state were then potentially divine. If the human nature of Christ were reduced or denied, His role as man's incarnate savior was reduced or denied, and man's savior again became the state. If His humanity and deity were not in true union, the incarnation was then not real, and the distance between God and man remained as great as ever."[32]

Chalcedon affirmed what was inherent in the New Testament, that "there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,"[33] and that this man was also the Word who was with God and who was God. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."[34][34]

5. Randall Otto's Affirmation of Orthodoxy

In his book, Coming in the Clouds, Randall Otto gives us a basic summary of the orthodox position, and appears to accept it: "Although the Son did not give up any of his divine glory or dignity in the incarnation, it is equally necessary to affirm that he became fully human, not a mere phantasm, as was taught by the Docetists (from the Greek dokeo meaning "to seem" or "to have the appearance of"), the precursors to Gnosticism against whom John regularly inveighs in his first epistle. That the Word "became flesh" entails a number of things, as set forth in the year 451 in the classic statement of the incarnation, the Symbol of Chalcedon. . . . Therefore, as the orthodox confessions all teach, the two perfect natures, God and Man, were joined together in the one person of Jesus Christ, never to be divided. From the point of the incarnation, the person of Christ is a perpetual union of the divine and human natures; he "became [aorist tense] flesh."[35] Otto goes so far as to quote Westcott on the meaning of the word, "dwelt" in the phrase, "dwelt among us": "[T]here can be no doubt," [says Westcott], "that it serves to contrast the Incarnation with the earlier 'Christophanies,' which were partial, visionary, evanescent, and at the same time to connect the Personal Presence of the Lord with His earlier Presence in the Tabernacle which foreshadowed it."

6. Incarnation-lite: Randall Otto's Denial of Orthodoxy

Nevertheless, it is possible for a man to give lip-service to the orthodox creeds, then deny them through faithless re-interpretation. We shall see that this is precisely what Otto does, for his eschatological a priori forces him into a docetic understanding of the incarnation that robs Jesus Christ of his essential humanity, reducing him to the status of a merely evanescent, ghostly Christophany.

We are off to a bad start already when Otto says, "Certainly, the main point of contrast between Old Testament theophanies and the incarnation of God in Christ is the permanence of the dwelling of God in the . . . person of Jesus Christ. . . . On the other hand, the chief point of agreement between the Old Testament theophanies and the incarnation of God in Christ is that the Divine Glory of God is necessarily concealed in both instances from the eyes of humanity."[36] In a footnote he agrees with Heinrick Frick who attributed this view to the Reformers: "[P]erceptibility must be renounced, and the glory of Christ conceived as a hidden reality; only thus does this glory transcend the relative sphere and achieve divine majesty."

What can be said about an interpreter of the Bible who boldly denies the plain meaning of the Scriptures? What does John say? "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." There is nothing here of "hiddenness" or imperceptibility. Yet Otto can say, "Thus, when John says, 'we beheld his glory,' what he most assuredly does not mean is that he or anyone else has seen with the physical eye the unveiled glory of God in Jesus Christ."[37] What Otto is arguing then is that it was not really God's glory that John or the disciples beheld, but only a sort of "veiled" glory. Jesus' humanity was basically a veil over God's glory, so that the disciples wouldn't die when they saw it. Christ's humanity is then primarily an instrument for hiding the glory of God "revealing through concealment." That this conception of Christ's humanity is so far removed from John's conception can be seen by merely re-reading the text. John did not say he beheld a veil that was keeping back the glory of God; or that he only saw a part of the glory of God; or a diminished version of it. He says very clearly that he and the other disciples beheld the glory of the Word of God, the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Christ's physical humanity cannot be seen then as a mere instrument of the glory or shekinah of God, but must be seen as the real and permanent incarnation and physical expression of the glory of God. In order to deny this clear teaching of John, Otto resorts to a liberal or neo-orthodox locution, agreeing with W. F. Howard that while certain historical events were seen by the disciples, the primary way they saw Christ's glory was through the "eye of faith"![38]

Otto goes on to say, "The Scriptures provide precious little insight into the manner by which the Word became flesh, for the purpose of his incarnation far outweighs the manner by which it occurred." As if the birth narratives had never been written! Of course, Otto's view is very similar to the neo-orthodox treatment of the book of Genesis, that its historical reality is not the important thing, but rather its meaning. This disjunction of meaning and history, however, finds no support in the Bible.[39]

All throughout his discussion, Otto erroneously sees the incarnation as a means whereby God hides or "veils" his divine glory, whereas, for St. John, the incarnation is the means whereby God unveils his divine glory in the physical person of Jesus Christ the Lord. Jesus is the revelation of the glory of God, not its concealment.

7. Resurrection-lite: Otto's further denial of orthodoxy

Otto's eschatological a priori does not allow him to rest content with depriving Christ's incarnation of its substantial reality; he must go on to deprive Christ's resurrection of its substantial reality. Otto is one of a number of so-called evangelicals who deny that Jesus rose again from the dead in the same physical body which he died with. Otto speaks of a "mysterious alteration of the corporeity and of the appearance of Jesus. . . ."[40] We are suspicious when Otto begins to speak about an "alteration" here; for having experienced his exegesis of other New Testament texts, we wonder if the alteration is really in Jesus or in the plain meaning of Bible. Otto does not disappoint us in our suspicions. He quotes Luke 24:36-37:

Now as they said these things, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, "Peace to you." But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit.

Commenting on this, he says, "Obviously, the risen Jesus had here a very evanescent and vaporous quality which forbade recognition of his face or voice."[41] We do not know where Otto found this confident term "obviously" for nothing at all in the text supports the notion that Jesus had any kind of "evanescent" or "vaporous" quality about his resurrection body. Indeed, he specifically denies having those qualities:

And He said to them, "Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have." When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. But while they still did not believe for joy, and marveled, He said to them, "Have you any food here?" So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb. And He took it and ate in their presence.

It would seem that no text could be plainer than this regarding the permanent physicality of the Lord's resurrection; but Otto casually disregards the plain meaning of the verse, and actually tries to prove his ridiculous thesis: "Jesus commands the disciples to look at (idete, 'behold') his hands and feet, which having now materialized to approximate his pre-resurrection appearance, bore the distinctive marks of his crucifixion."42[] Approximate his pre-resurrection appearance? The text says that the disciples did not believe for joy, but if Otto had been around to guide them, they would have had no trouble at all. It is easy to believe in an "approximate" savior, a savior visible to the eyes of "faith."

There are some idealistically inclined physicists who have developed what is called an Uncertainty Principle. This principle tells us that the less an object or event at the sub-atomic level can be observed or verified, the less real it is. We can also speak of Otto's Uncertainty Principle; it is the inverse of the physicists': the more an object or event can be observed or verified, the more unreal it becomes. Call it the hyper-preterist Copenhagen interpretation the more Jesus is observed by eyewitnesses, and his physical existence verified, the less real he becomes. Otto gives us a fine example of his Uncertainty Principle in his interpretation of "Handle me": "Jesus' subsequent command, 'Handle me,' probably does not indicate, however, that the materialized body of Christ remained substantially the same during his appearance, for the word translated 'handle' is pselaphao, which means 'to feel about for something' or 'to grope after something.'" Otto's translation of the Greek is selective here; the word pselaphao literally means to verify by contact, and only figuratively to search for, to grope after (because one's eyes are dim or blinded). The same Greek word is used in Hebrews 12:18: "For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched [pseelafeésaté] and that burned with fire. . . ." The Israelites did not have to out of respect of their poor eyesight keep from "feeling around" for the mountain of fire; rather, they could touch it if they chose and suffer the consequences (Ex. 19:12-13).

Otto seems to think that Christ took on material form as an accommodation to the weakness of the disciples. Regarding Christ's appearance to Thomas, he says, "Jesus has here once again apparently assumed his pre-resurrection appearance in accommodation to the need of his disciples to know that it is in fact he. . . . As with the prior appearance to these disciples, we may well surmise that a glimpse of the Divine Glory was manifested through the tenuous body of the risen Christ . . . thus evoking the great confession of doubting Thomas."[43] We may well surmise anything we like if we do not wish to listen to the plain teaching of the scriptures. Thomas's doubt was whether the same Jesus who had died had truly risen from the grave. Thomas could entertain the possibility of a ghost dropping in from time to time an evanescent, fleeting appearance that could be there one second and then gone the next. But in order to believe, he wanted to see a real, physically resurrected Jesus. The account is recorded in John 20:26-29:

And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, "Peace to you!" Then He said to Thomas, "Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing." And Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

The confession of Thomas was brought about because he saw Jesus with his own eyes, not because he saw him with the eyes of faith. It was precisely Jesus' humanity that brought about Thomas's great confession, "My Lord and My God!" Far from being a veil for the divine glory, Jesus' humanity expressed it, a fact recognized by doubting Thomas, but not, apparently, by Randall Otto.

Otto's error is in assuming that a physical being cannot appear or disappear at will and retain his essential humanity. Thus Christ's capacity to make himself visible or invisible implies that there could be no sameness of quality between his pre-resurrection and post-resurrection body. Implicit in this view is that the pre-resurrection Christ could not have made himself invisible. Physicality thus negates invisibility, and only a resurrection can add this power. Of course, there is no support in scripture for the notion that the pre-resurrection Christ lacked the power to become invisible. Otto implicitly assumes this, but nowhere argues for it. Indeed, given the power that Christ displayed at his transfiguration, such a limitation seems absurd. Otto says, "In the days following his resurrection, Jesus was normally invisible to men, for his body, having now participated in his glorification, was spiritual and incapable of being seen except by the rest of the spiritual realm. The invisibility of his body also rendered his glory invisible."[44] Further, "Although [Jesus] did manifest himself with varying degrees of substantiality, even eating with his brethren on several occasions (Lk. 24:41-43; Jn. 21:12-13; Ac. 10:41), with [Murray J.] Harris we affirm the basically immaterial and invisible nature of Christ's glorified resurrection body."[45] Having aligned himself with heresy up to this point, we are not surprised to find Otto aligning himself with the heretic, Murray Harris, who has denied that Jesus rose with the same body he died with. Both Otto and Harris have to use the words of Norman Geisler denied the "numerical identity and essential materiality" of the pre- and post-resurrection body of Christ.[46]

Otto is not the only hyper-preterist to adopt a heretical view of Christ's resurrection. Given the exegetical connections between the incarnation and resurrection, the resurrection and ascension, and the ascension and parousia, HP's have little choice but to de-materialize Jesus Christ all down the line. Thus, the denial of a visible parousia is not an innocent thing; not a benign quest to understand New Testament prophecy. It leads inevitably to the denial of the resurrection of Jesus, then further, the reality of his incarnation. Notice how one hyper-preterist, Ed Stevens, affirms the orthodox faith only to deny it with his qualifications (I have emphasized the tell-tale signs of de-materialization): "Jesus is the firstfruit of the resurrection harvest. He was the first one to receive a 'glorified, spiritual, immortal, incorruptible, heavenly' body. It had continuity with His mere fleshly body in the sense of personal identity and the ability to reappear in a tangible visible form for evidential purposes, but as Murray Harris well points out, it was much more than just a mere physical body. . . . But he is the firstfruit of a new kind of resurrection. . . . Paul teaches that the body (the seed) which is planted in the dust of the ground (physical death) is not the body which is to be, but that God will give the seed a new kind of body which arises out of the inside of the seed (not from the outer shell). The outer shell of the seed (the physical part of the body) dies and decays in the ground, while the quickened germ of life within the seed body sprouts into a new kind of body fitted for its heavenly existence."[47]

Of course, Stevens contradicts St. Peter, who quotes the Psalmist, "[H]e, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption."[48] Jesus' flesh his body did not see corruption, did not decay; therefore, there is no need to stretch the metaphor of putting off the "outer shell" into an heretical direction to receive a "new kind of body." Jesus rose with the same body he died with, the same body he was born with, the same body that he will appear with at the parousia, the resurrection, and the final judgment indeed, the same body he will have for eternity. To be sure, his body is more than it was prior to the resurrection, but then again, it is no less than it was prior to the resurrection. The orthodox faith has always affirmed both parts of that sentence, but HP's, in the interests of their eschatological a priori must affirm only the first clause and deny the second. For there is no other way to have an invisible, non-material, non-physical, non-global parousia other than by making Christ less than he was, by robbing him of his essential humanity.

8. The fullness of the Godhead bodily

Colossians 1:15 says, "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation." Hebrews1:3 says, "[W]ho being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. . . ." One might think these verses derail Otto's program of reducing Christ to a mere mental hologram, but no: "Christ is said to be 'the image' of the invisible God. The word 'image,' it should be noted, does not require physical visual representation; it may also have to do with mental representation. . . . [T]he question remains open as to whether this visibility is physical or mental."[49] Mental visibility? Otto gives us paradox where Paul gives us clarity; but Otto anticipates such an objection. He goes on without warrant to refer the above passages to the pre-incarnate Christ. He seems to think that because John 1:1-2 speaks of the pre-incarnate Word taking on flesh, that Paul in the above verses must also be speaking of the pre-incarnate Word. But John clearly says, "In the beginning," whereas Paul's reference is to the current state of affairs. That Paul had no hesitation in regarding the body of Christ as the physical image or representation of the invisible God is clear in Colossians 2:9: "For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. . . ."

But Otto's de-materializing interpretation of these verses, as well as many others, shows a cavalier unconcern for orthodoxy, and for the history of the church's struggle with heretical views of the incarnation. His view is that Jesus was merely an instrument to veil the glory cloud. Compare this, however, with Meredith Kline's orthodox view: "[I]t is from the face of Jesus that the light of the divine Glory now shines, the face which in the transfiguration-parousia shone like the sun. . . . When Christ's parousia is spoken of as a revelation in glory, as it is repeatedly, what is in view is the specific idea that Jesus is the embodiment of the theophanic Glory of God revealed in the Old Testament. . . . [T]he cosmos-shaking voice of the Lord as he speaks from heaven at the eschatological judgment will answer to the terrifying, earth-shaking voice of God in his ancient descent in the theophanic cloud with sound of trumpet and voice of words on Sinai. . . ."[50] Kline was one of the first to draw attention to the relationship between the glory cloud and the incarnation, but he did not see Christ's "embodiment" as a veiling but rather as a manifestation of the divine glory.

St. Peter says, "For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty."[51] Characteristically, Otto says the disciples viewed Christ's majesty, "with the eyes of faith," and that they were in a "dreamy trance," a "sleepy stupor," and heard rather than saw the transfiguration."[52] [W]e may assert that their seeing of the Divine Glory was indeed impossible." Peter apparently had it all wrong; they were not eyewitnesses of his majesty, but only hearers of it, and that only in a dreamy trance or sleepy stupor. Charity forbids our bringing up the matter of just who is in a "sleepy stupor" here; accuracy, however, requires us to say that Otto is wrong and Peter is right. The disciples were eyewitnesses of the divine glory.

Otto cannot even leave poor Lazarus alone, but denies that the dead man was actually dead and therefore actually resurrected. Instead, Otto drags in the colorless term "resuscitation." "While the case of Lazarus entails, strictly speaking, a resuscitation (with physical death and resurrection still to come), as opposed to actual resurrection (with physical death passed and no longer in view), this raising anticipates . . . that which follows upon the coming again [of Christ]."[53] So Lazarus apparently didn't die ("physical death . . . still to come), and wasn't actually resurrected, either. Though Jesus said, "Lazarus is dead," he should have said, strictly speaking, that "Lazarus is hibernating." But what bothers Otto about Lazarus is not so much that Lazarus was dead and then resurrected, but that Jesus said his raising would be a manifestation of divine glory: "Jesus said to [Martha], 'Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?'" To escape the force of this, Otto again has recourse to Barth-speak in order to deny the visibility of God's glory in Jesus Christ: "[J]esus reference to 'seeing' God's glory does not entail a visual manifestation of the naked glory of God . . . Rather, the 'seeing' of God's glory is based on faith and not perspicuous visibility to the common eye. . . ."[54] We once thought Otto was a heretic; now it has slowly crept into our minds though we hesitate to say it that Otto may simply be an idiot.

Is there no truth at all in the notion that the divine glory is veiled by the flesh? that without the barrier of flesh, men would die? that physicality is only an instrument for concealing the divine glory? and that when this glory is once again manifested, physicality must be given up? Isn't this the teaching of Paul when he says, "[T]he blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen."[55] Doesn't this manifestation of unapproachable light require a divestiture of the physical body? Is Otto correct after all when he says that God's glory can only be seen by the eyes of faith, rather than by sight? Doesn't Jesus confirm this view: "And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was." Shouldn't we then agree with Raymond E. Brown, whom Otto cites favorably on this verse: "Does this imply that the glory he had before the incarnation in the flesh will be the same as the glory he had before the incarnation? If so, the 'flesh' of Jesus does not seem to play a profound role in John's view of his exaltation."[56]

It seems to us that there is an obstinacy in such men that bespeaks the implacable hatred of heretics for the truth of our Savior's full humanity. In fact, the truth is that Christ's divestiture of his divine honors and glory was not something he did out of an ontological necessity, as if he had no choice in the matter. Setting aside his glory was not a necessary condition or requirement for the possibility of his incarnation as a physical being. Surely the transfiguration of the pre-resurrection Jesus should have kept Otto from making this deduction. Moreover, there are other incidents in which the incarnate Christ expressed his glory in physical form. For instance, we see it in his first public and visible miracle, turning water to wine "This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him."[57] We also see it when Jesus walks on water: "Then He saw them straining at rowing, for the wind was against them. Now about the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea, and would have passed them by. And when they saw Him walking on the sea, they supposed it was a ghost, and cried out; for they all saw Him and were troubled. But immediately He talked with them and said to them, 'Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.' Then He went up into the boat to them, and the wind ceased. And they were greatly amazed in themselves beyond measure, and marveled."[58] This was the same reaction they had when Jesus appeared to them after his resurrection: "Now as they said these things, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, 'Peace to you.' But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit."[59] Otto says that when the disciples saw Jesus walking by their boat, they saw him as a "misty and numinous form," having "the characteristics of human shape" and also that "[w]hat the disciples actually saw in this miraculous occurrence is thus extremely enigmatic."[60] He further states that what they saw was probably a "brightness amidst the night that was beclouded by mist and fog" (p. 178). Nevertheless, the only one here who is beclouded is Otto. The verse twice mentions that the disciples saw Jesus, not a brightness or a misty fog. Jesus did not actually take on the form of a ghost, either when he walked on the water or when he appeared to the disciples after the resurrection. In fact, he clearly denied he was a ghost in the latter instance, so there is no reason to think he took on the form of a ghost in the earlier instance. Therefore, the expression of the divine glory is in no way limited by physicality or materiality, either before or after the resurrection.

The real reason that Jesus divested his divine honors and glory can be found in Philippians 2:4-11:

Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

It is clear from Paul's words that it was in some sense necessary for the divine glory to be set aside so that Jesus could take on the form of a servant in order that he might die on the cross for our salvation. But this necessity of divine divestiture was not an ontological necessity, but an ethical necessity. Because Otto fails to see this, he reduces the necessity of the kenosis of the Son of God to a static ontological requirement robbing it of its dynamic, voluntary character making it less of an act of obedience and more an act of patronizing condescension. This is hardly the thought that Paul was attempting to convey in this verse.

9. Conclusion

Summing up his book, Otto says, "It is hoped that, as a result of this biblical theological elucidation of the concept of the coming of God in the clouds(s) through the course of redemptive history, Christendom may dispense with its facile literalism regarding the visibility of the glorified Christ. . . ."[61]

Our own hope is that readers will see Otto's facile spiritualism for what it is, a studied attempt to reintroduce gnostic categories into the Christian church's understanding of the humanity of Jesus. This is done in order to satisfy the requirements of Otto's eschatological a priori that the parousia of Jesus has already taken place, and that there is no more promise of his coming again, no more encouragement for us to behave with "holy conduct and godliness," no more "looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat. . . ."[62] For those Christians who think there is something to learn from Otto and the hyper-preterists, we hope they will take St. Paul's counsel seriously, "And from such people turn away!"

9. Addendum

The Spiritual Council of Sacramento Covenant Reformed Church prepared an overture to the Western Classis, asking it to adopt and forward to the Synod of the Reformed Church in the United States, the following:

Whereas,

The Hymenaeans called "hyperpreterists" allege, against the clear teaching of God's Inspired and Infallible Word, that there is no physical Resurrection of the body, and whereas

The Hymenaeans called "hyperpreterists" allege, against the clear teaching of God's Inspired and Infallible Word, that the Second Coming of our Lord is already past, and whereas

The Hymenaeans called "hyperpreterists" allege, against the clear teaching of God's Inspired and Infallible Word, that there is no future Great White Throne Judgment, and

Whereas, these views represent a satanic attack upon the holy catholic faith once delivered unto the saints,

Therefore, in the certain Hope of the Resurrection, the Reformed Church in the United States does hereby find the Hymenaean heresy to be contrary to orthodoxy, and its adherents to be preachers of a false gospel. Let these enemies of Christ and His Kingdom be anathema maranatha.

We further urge the Synod of the Reformed Church in the United States to broadly communicate the action taken this day to those of like precious faith, that the people of God may be warned against this false gospel, and encouraged to pray for the repentance of those lost souls who have been enslaved by it.

ADOPTED BY WESTERN CLASSIS MARCH 13, 1997 AND FORWARDED TO SYNOD.

To this we say, Amen, and Amen!

1. Andrew Sandlin posted the following on Joseph Bell's Ch-Recon E-Mail list Fri., March 7, 1997: "RJR[ushdoony] and I just got word (c. 10:45 p.m. PST, Fri.) from Pastor Jim West that David Chilton died of a massive heart attack this evening. We are deeply saddened by his death, particularly in light of recent developments. . . ."

2. David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation (Ft. Worth, TX: Dominion Press, 1987), 531.

3. Chilton responded to email criticisms of his views by using capitalized letters and needless exclamation marks in his posts. Capitalized letters in an email forum signify either that one is advertising something or that one is shouting. Overuse of exclamations is the hallmark of a) bad writers (which Chilton wasn't) or b) one who cannot restrain his emotions, but must pound the table and declaim every word he utters, regardless of how important they are to his overall argument. We have changed Chilton's capitals to italics for easier reading.

4. Email, Sat., Feb. 15, 1997, Ch-Recon list, owner Joseph Bell.

5. Email, Mon., Feb. 17, 1997, Ch-Recon list..

6. Apparently, Chilton did not intend to reveal his hyper-preterist views so soon. In a personal "snail-mail," he said, "Now since, without my realizing it, that message went out to the group [Ch-Recon list] and not just you, a couple people asked: What theological changes?! So I had to write to Andrew Sandlin about my Preterism, which probably means you'll never see my name in The Chalcedon Report again! But that's OK. . . . Soon, I'll have an article in [Ed Steven's] magazine Kingdom Counsel explaining my 'paradigm shift,' and I'll be out of the closet for everyone to see!" (Letter to V. Crisler, Feb. 28, 1997).

7. Email reply to James Jarrell, Ch-Recon list, March 2, 1997.

8. Email reply to Colin Tayler, Ch-Recon list, March 3, 1997.

9. Email, Ch-Recon list, March 4, 1997.

10. The Foundations of Social Order: Studies in the Creeds and Councils of the Early Church (Fairfax, VA: Thoburn Press, 1978), 177.

11. Cf., II Peter 3: The Late Great Kingdom (Shawnee, OK, Shawnee Printing Co., 1990), 121.

12. Ron McRay says, "When we think of the world, we think of a heaven and earth. In [2 Pet. 3:6] the heaven and earth (world) that then was, was overflowed with water and perished. Obviously, the world, the heaven and earth, was not the physical planet! For it was not destroyed. The world, or this heaven and earth was the people. The people were overflowed with water" (cf., The Last Days? [Bradford, PA: Kingdom Press, 1990], 117). Contrary to McRay, however, Peter does not say that the planet was obliterated; only that it perished. See Morris & Whitcomb's, The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and Its Scientific Implications, for the devastating hydraulic and geological effects of the flood upon the physical earth (and heavens) (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Pub. Co., 1961).

13. For a discussion, see Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., He Shall Have Dominion: A Postmillennial Eschatology (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1992), 275-81.

14. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc., 1994, 254.

15. How is This Possible: A Study of the Coming of the Lord (Shawnee, OK: Shawnee Printing Co., 1991), 1.

16.idem.

17. ibid., 12-13.

18. As Grover Gunn once pointed out in a review of the orthodox preterist, Kenneth Gentry's book, He Shall Have Dominion. Gunn's review can be found in Contra Mundum, No. 9. Fall 1993, and also on the Internet at the web site: http://www.wavefront.com/~Contra_M/cm/reviews/cm09_rev_postmillennialism.html. It must be emphasized that though Gentry might accept some parousia-texts as referring exclusively to Jerusalem, and others as referring to the final judgment, he vigorously disagrees with hyper-preterists regarding the futurity of the final resurrection and global parousia.

19. 2 Thes. 1:7-10; emphasis added.

20. 2 Tim. 4:1; emphasis added.

21. 1 Jn. 4:3.

22. For an overview of the Christological controversies, see Harold Brown, Heresies: The Image of Christ in the Mirror of Heresy and Orthodoxy from the Apostles to the Present (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1984).

23. Jn 1:1-3, 14.

24. One could also point out that the vaguer the humanity of Christ was held to be, the more clearly collective man the state could emerge as the new savior of humanity. (Cf. Rushdoony, Foundations, 11.)

25. Heresies, 65.

26. In the End God (New York, NY: Harper & Row Publishers, 1968), 79. In a footnote, he says, "The New Testament never pictures the Parousia . . . as another incarnation, Jesus coming again within the sequence and boundaries of history as we know it. . . " (78).

27. Cf., J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (San Francisco, CA: Harper &
Row Publishers, rev. ed., 1978), 153-58; 301-09.

28. ibid., 295.

29. For the statist implications of such a view, see Rushdoony, Foundations, 63 ff.

30. For a defense of Chalcedon against the charge of novelty, see Benjamin B. Warfield, The Person and Work of Christ: Christological Studies (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian & Reformed Pub. Co., 1970), 211 ff.

31. Foundations, 66.

32. ibid., 65.

33. 1 Tim. 2:5, emphasis added.

34. Jn. 1:14.

35. Otto, Coming in the Clouds, 137-38.

36. ibid., 139.

37. ibid., 141.

38. ibid., 142.

39. See, Cornelius Van Til, Christianity & Barthianism (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Pub. Co., 1962) for a critique of this notion. Also, for an overview of modern theologians' attempts to remove revelation from the realm of history into the realm of the personal, see Simon Fisher's, Revelatory Positivism? Barth's Earliest Theology and the Marburg School (Oxford University Press, 1988), especially his discussion of Wilhelm Herrmann, 123 ff.

40. Coming in the Clouds, 239.

41. ibid., 242.

42. ibid., 242.

43. ibid., 243

44. ibid., 246.

45. ibid., 248.

46. "The Battle for the Resurrection: An Interview with Dr. Norman Geisler" (Christian Research Journal, June 30, 1994). See also, Geisler's essay, "I Believe . . . in the Resurrection of the Flesh" (Christian Research Journal, Summer 1989), 20. This essay can also be found on the Internet at: http://www.iclnet.org/pub/ resources/text/cri/cri-jrnl/crj0056a.txt.

47. Ch-Recon E-Mail list, Feb. 27, 1997.

48. Ac. 2:31.

49. Coming in the Clouds, 125.

50. Images of the Spirit (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1980), 121-22.

51. 2 Pet 1:16.

52. Coming in the Clouds, 208.

53.ibid., 213.

54. ibid., 212.

55. 1 Tim 6:15-16.

56. Coming in the Clouds, 218; citing Brown's, The Gospel According to John, The Anchor Bible, at 17:5.

57. ibid., 168; emphasis added. Otto says Jesus' miracle of turning water into wine was seen only by the eyes of faith, and that it was a "hidden glory."

58. Mk. 6:48-51.

59. Lk. 24:36-39.

60. Coming in the Clouds, 177.

61. ibid., xiii.

62. 2 Pet. 3:11-12.

A Critique of Hyper-Preterism by Vern Crisler