Debating Eschatology: Part 1
by Gary DeMar
Plain Text/Printer Friendly Version
Jan Markell, who publishes The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest, writes that she has gotten word "that most Christian [publishing] houses were dropping newly-submitted Bible prophecy books with few exceptions."[1] Be she "was also informed that some of the finest seminaries and Bible colleges/Institutes that shall remain unnamed but known for true Dispensational belief are backing down."[2] As a dispensationalist, she is dismayed by the paradigm shift away from dispensationalism, but I welcome it. Markell notes that most dispensational writers have had to resort to self-publishing to get their message out. This levels the playing field someone. No longer do we have to compete with the large publishing houses that have million-dollar advertising budgets to promote their latest prophecy fad book. The fact that Tyndale, the publisher of the capital left Behind series, is publishing a preterist fiction series offers hope that the dispensational monopoly is being broken. There is other good news related to publishing that I cannot divulge at this time.
The Preterist "Invasion"
Randall Price is an archaeologist, author of numerous books on Bible prophecy, and president of World of the Bible Ministries. He writes that "Preterism [3] has invaded the church, bring in confusion and division to many congregations that have historically held to the future return of Jesus Christ."[4] Preterism hasn't "invaded the church." It has a long and respected history. Actually, the church is being reintroduced to the position since a form of that was set forth in the fourth-century work of Christian historian Eusebius (c. 260-341). Actually, it is Price's brand of futurism (dispensationalism) that invaded the church in the early part of the 19th-century and through an interpretive monkey wrench into prophetic thinking that we are suffering with to this day. But that's another story for another time.[5]
Christ tries to argue that preterism has brought "confusion and division" to the church while futurism (dispensationalism) brings clarity and unity. Have you ever seen the dispensational charts of Clarence Larkin (1850-1924)? their only clear if you are wearing dispensational glasses, and even then it takes a lifetime of study to master them, which no one ever does.[6] Preterism can be explained in two minutes with a chart the size of the palm of your hand. "Dispensational truth" is not self-evident from reading the Bible. Preterism is. For example, dispensationalists have to twist and contort the plain meaning of Scripture to explain away prophetic statements related to time that are clear and precise (near, shortly, at hand, quickly, this generation, right at the door, etc..). Preterists take these time indicators at "face value"; dispensationalists do not.
And there's not even unity among futurists. There are five rapture positions (pre-, mid, partial, post, and pre-wrath), for brands of dispensationalism (classic, mid-Acts, Ask 28, and progressive), and at least two forms of premillennialism (classic and dispensational) with variations among them.
Price's claim that only dispensationalists interpret prophecy literally experience. They certainly do not interpret the time texts literally. When asked to find one verse and the New Testament that explicitly supports any of the following necessary dispensational distinctives, they come up short:
- The church will be ruptured prior to a seven-year tribulation.
- The temple will be rebuilt again.
- The land promises made to Israel are yet to be fulfilled.
- The antichrist will make a covenant with the Jews and then break it.
- There's a seven-year tribulation period mentions in Revelation.
- Jesus will reign on the earth for a thousand years.
- Jesus will set on David's throne in Jerusalem during the millennium.
- Another temple will be built during the "thousand years" of Revelation 20.
- Animal sacrifices and circumcision will be reinstituted during the "millennium" of Revelation 20.
I've been waiting years for any dispensationalists the supply just one verse that explicitly teaches any of the above dispensational distinctives. Price writes that "Preterism spiritualizes prophecy to make it fit historical events in the Church Age." In reality, it's the dispensationalists who spiritualize, actually make up, doctrines that are nowhere mentioned in the Bible, as the above list shows.
Answering One of "Preterism's Problems"
Price quotes this question I ask in my book Last Days Madness: "It does the Bible, especially the New Testament, predict that the temple will be rebuilt?"[7] I asked the question, he quoted me asking the question, so why didn't he answer it in his article? He can't because he has admitted elsewhere that "There are no Bible verses that say, 'There is going to be a third temple'."[8]
This brings us to one of the most disputed theological arguments related to the topic of Bible prophecy. Christ's begins his discussion of "Preterism's Problems" with the dating of Revelation. Preterists argue that Revelation was written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D.70 while dispensationalists, and futurist in general, argue that it was written during the reign of Domitian around A.D.95. Price began to study the issue by asking, "if dating the book was so crucial to its interpretation, why did not the apostle John clearly indicate somewhere in its 404 versus the time of its writing?"[9] Early-date advocates use Revelation 11:1-2 as specific revelation (internal) evidence that Revelation was revealed to John and written down in manuscript form prior to the temple's destruction in A.D.70. If we know the temple was destroyed in A.D.70, and it is still standing when John received it the "Revelation of Jesus Christ" (1:1), and it stands to reason that the book was written before the temple was destroyed. Since the temple did not exist during Domitian's reign (A.D.81-96), how could there have been a temple for John to measure? So then, to answer prices question, John did tell us what was reign -- Prior to the destruction of the temple in A.D.70. of course, we could ask a similar question, "Why didn't the apostle John clearly indicate somewhere in its 400 and for verses that the temple was destroyed like he did with Antipas "who was killed among you" (Rev. 2:13)?
Here's how Thomas Ice tries to explain away the clear testimony of Revelation 11:1-2:
[I]t must be remembered that in the Book of Revelation John is receiving a vision about future things. He is transported in some why to that future time in order to view events as they will unfold. The word "saw" is used 49 times in 46 verses in Of revelation because John is witnessing future events through a vision. It does not matter at all whether the Temple is thought to be standing in Jerusalem at the time that John sees the vision since that would not have any bearing upon a vision. John is told by an angel to "measure of the temple" (Rev.11:1). Measure what Temple? He is to measure the Temple and the vision. Even if there were a temple still standing in Jerusalem, John was on the Island of Patmos and would not have been allowed to go and measure that Temple. Is he keel, during a similar vision of a Temple (Ezek.40-43) was told to measure that Temple. When Ezekiel sought and was told to measure a Temple there was not one standing in Jerusalem (Preterists agree). Thus, there is no compulsion whatsoever to conclude that just because a temple is referenced and Revelation 11 that it implies that there had to be a physical Temple standing in Jerusalem at the same time.[10]
Let's deal with the obvious mistake in Ice's analysis. Ezekiel was not told to measure of the temple. Ezekiel saw "a man whose appearance was like the appearance of bronze... who measures the thickness of the wall" (Ezek. 40:3,5). Throughout chapters 40 through 48, Ezekiel sees this man doing the measuring. Ezekiel is a bystander. Being a visionary temple, Ezekiel did not have access to its because it did not exist, and there is no indication that it was ever designed to be built.[11]
Mark Hitchcock makes the same mistake when he writes: "Ezekiel, like John, is told to measure the Temple he sees in his vision. The words 'measure' and 'measured' occur 44 times and Ezekiel 40-48. Ezekiel is measuring a temple that must be future to his day because no temple is standing on earth and Jerusalem for him to measure.[12] Like Ice, he fails to note into is doing the measuring. so then, since John is doing the measuring and Revelation 11, unlike Ezekiel who was with a man who measures the temple "in the visions of God" (Ezek. 40:2) we can only conclude that the temple was still standing in Jerusalem. The temple John is told to measure as a functioning temple with worshipers and an altar (Rev.11:1). The historical circumstances fit a pre-A.D.70 that still would have been described as "the great city" (11:8), the place where "there Lord was crucified" (11:8), and was occupied by a foreign power (Roman) at the time (11:2). Henry Cowles (1803-1881), and his commentary on A revelation, offers the following argument:
[H]ere is one of the landmarks are far prophetic interpretation. We know that the temple, altar and holy city were standing at the time of this vision; we know they were on the very diva of their desolation; we know therefore that this desolation -- so "shortly" after these visions were seen and recorded -- can not possibly be any other than that effected by the Roman armies in A.D.70.[13]
E. Earle Ellis writes that "the present existence of the Jerusalem temple (11:1) and its future desolation (11:2) are fairly strong indicators of a pre-AD70 for Revelation."[14] In order for a post-A.D.70 composition and futurist interpretation of the Revelation to work, a rebuilt temple must be assumed.
If John can be taken to the future to measure a temple and efficient that did not exist, as Ice argues, and he could have been taken to Jerusalem in addition to measure the temple that was still standing. The burden of proof is on Ice, Price, and to Hitchcock to demonstrate from Scripture that the distant future rebuilt temple is in view. As noted above, Ice and Price admit that there is no mention of a rebuilt temple in the NT.
Preterists agree that John "is receiving a vision about future things." The question is, how future? Christ and Ice believe that the events of revelation are in the distant future from the time John received the Revelation. And fact, the events still have not happened and won't happen until after an event called the "pre-tribulational rapture," another dispensational doctrine does not have a single verse to support it. But John tells us that the prophetic events are to happen "shortly... for the time is near" (1:1, 3; 22:10). It's also obvious That Revelation is about current history sense of mentions seven first-century historical churches in Asia Minor (chaps. 2-3 that were under Jesus' scrutiny and possible judgment (2:5, 16; 3:3).
Internal Versus External Evidence
In an attempt to support his claim that revelation was written around A.D.95, Christ's first appeals to external evidence by referring his readers to the "testimony of the most reliable early church fathers," Irenaeus Bishop of Lyons (A.D.120-202), the author of Against Heresies. This "most reliable" church father claimed that Jesus' ministry lasted nearly 20 years, from age 30 until about the age of 50:
For when He came to be baptized, He had not yet completed His 30th year, but was beginning to be about 30 years of age (for thus Luke, who has mentioned His years, has expressed: "Now Jesus was, as it were, beginning to be 30 years old) [Luke 3:20 3], when He came to receive baptism); and, [according to these men,] He preached only one year reckoning from His Baathism. On completing His thirtieth year He suffered, being in fact still a young man, and who had by no means attained to advanced age. Now, that the first stage or girl the life and braces 30 years, and that this expense on more to the fortieth year, every one will admit: but from the fortieth and fiftieth year a man begins to decline towards old age, which which our Lord possessed while He still fulfilled the office of a Teacher, even as the Gospel and all the elders testify; those who were conversant in a show with Jon, the disciple of the Lord, [affirming] that John conveyed to them that information. And he [John] remained among them to the times of Trajan. Some of them, moreover, saw not only John, the other apostles also, and heard the very same account from them, and peer testimony as to the [validity of] the statement. Whom then should we rather believe? Whether such men as these, or Ptolemaeus, who never saw the apostles, and who never even in his dreams attained to the slightest trace of an apostle?[15]
there is no doubt that Irenaeus "was very wrong on this issue."[16] This is not to say that he was wrong on everything, were even wrong on most things, but because his testimony is not inspired and he wrote more than 80 years after the reign of Domitian, we should be careful in attributing too much authority to him.
In addition to questionable historiography the works of Irenaeus "often most uncertain.... After the text has been settled, according to the best judgment which can be formed, the work of translation remains; and that is, in this case, a matter of no small difficulty. Irenaeus, even in the original Greek, is often an obscure writer.... And the Latin version adds to these difficulties are the original, by being itself of the most of barbarous character. In fact, it is often necessary to make a conjectural re-translation of it into Greek, and order to obtain some inkling of what the author wrote."[17]
This brings us to a further statement by Price and his use of Irenaeus to prove that John Rowe Revelation in A.D.95 instead of before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D.70 which Revelation 11:1-two tells us. Christ states that Irenaeus made the "on ambiguous declaration": "For if it were necessary that the name of him [Antichrist] should be distinctly revealed in this present time, it would have been told by him who saw the apocalyptic vision. For it [the Revelation] was seen no long time ago, but almost in our generation, towards the end of Domitian's reign." To describe this statement as "on ambiguous" is curious since it's one of Irenaeus' most debated statements.
Price adds the words "to be Revelation" to the Irenaeus quotation. This is where the ambiguity begins. And Greek, the third person singular can be translated as "tea," "she," or "it's." Was it John who was seen during Domitian's reign, or was it "the Revelation" seen (revealed two John) during Domitian's reign? Scholars have been debating this question for a long time. For example, George Edmundson (1849-1930) writes, "Surely this rendering is wrong. It should be 'for he [St. John the writer] was seen... almost in our generation toward the end of the reign of Domitian.' It is of the Seer and his ability to declare the name of Antichrist that Irenaeus is speaking."[18]
Notes
[1] The few exceptions she names are Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins (Tyndale) as well as Mark Hitchcock (Multnomah). Go Back
[2] Jan Markell "Of the War Against Bible Prophecy," The Omega The letter Intelligence Digest (February 1, 2006): www.omegaletter.com/articles.asp?ArticleID=5841 Go Back
[3] A preterist believes that most (some say all- [A HERETICAL VIEW - DDW]) prophecies in the NT A.D.70. Go Back
[4] Randall Price, "A.D.70: Preterism's Prophetic Dead End," Israel My Glory (January/February 2005), 21. Go Back
[5] Michael J. Vlach, "What is Dispensationalism?": www.theologicalstudies.org/dispen.html. Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispenationalism Go Back
[6] http://members.citynet.net/morton/images/ldispen.gif, http://members.citynet.net/morton/images.lcoming.gif, and http://members.citynet.net/morton/images/lresurrect.gif Go Back
[7] Price, "A.D.70," 26. See Gary DeMar, "What Does he Bible Say About Rebuilding the Temple?" Go Back
[8] Thomas Ice and Randall Price, Ready to Rebuild: The Imminent Plan to Rebuild the Last Days Temple (Eugene, OR: Harvest Huse, 1992), 197-198. Go Back
[9] Price, "A.D.70," 26. Go Back
[10] Thomas Ice, "The Date of the Book of Revelation": www.raptureready.com/featured/Date-BookRevelation.html Go Back
[11] Ezekiel is told that the altar will be rebuilt (Ezek. 43:18). We know that a new temple and altar were built, animals sacrificed, and Levitical priests attended to the priesty duties after the exile (Neh. 11:11). Go Back
[12] Mark Hitchcokc, "The Stake in the Heart - The A.D. 95 Date of Revelation," The End Times Controversy: The Second Coming Under Attack, eds. Tim LaHaye and Thomas Ice (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2003), 140. Go Back
[13] Henry Cowles, The Revelation of John (New YorkK D. Appleton & Co., 1887): http://www.truthinheart.com/EarlyOberlinCD/CD/Cowles/Rev/Rev_XI.html Go Back
[14] E. Earle Ellis, The Making of the New Testament Documents (Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, Inc., 2002), 214 Go Back
[15] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 2, chap. 22,. Go Back
[16] "The Age of Christ and the Reliability of Irenaeus": www.tektonics.org/guest/irey50.html Go Back
[17] Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds. "Introductory Note to Irenaeus Against Heresies," The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1985), 1:311-312. Go Back
[18] George Edmunson, The Church in Rome in the First Century (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1913), 164-165. Emphasis and brackets are supplied by Edmundson. This book is also available online at www.ccel.org/ccel/edmundson/chuirch.htm Go Back