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What are some of the ways you know of Preterists account for the glorious, ear-splitting, earth-shattering, dead-raising return of 1 Thessalonians 4:16 KJV?
Do you believe 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 represents a pre-trib rapture?
Just saying I'm thankful you've been treating me with a measure of respect, in the midst of some difficult differences. That is in stark contrast to some of your Amil friends, who are stone-walling me. Believe me, none of this matters to me, except that I hate to see others get so caught up in their doctrines that they become more interested in cliques than Christ.
We're all truth-seekers, and doctrinally my lot will always be with them. But we can certainly affirm and appreciate those instances where we do agree.
I do believe that most of the Olivet Discourse of Jesus was fulfilled in the 70 AD destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. After all, that is literally was Jesus was talking about.
Nope, it's definitely talking about a post-trib rapture. Preterists claim Jesus came back in the first century, so how do they account for verses 16-17?
I guess it’s because the letter is the first letter to those in thessalonica.
The purpose of prophetic symbolism is to preserve the church from any indictment of insurrectism and swift annihilation all through the ages of declaring what the future holds and warning all to prepare. There's no need to refer to Christ's Second Coming in cryptic language, for the church has already been safely preserved through the first six plagues while the wicked are in total disarray as Christ nears our planet.
I tend to believe biblical prophecies tend to be fulfilled in each of our lifetime's.Thank God for scholars, even secular humanist ones at times, who can be capable again, at times in keeping believing scholars honest. There isn't a sound linguistics scholar out there who will not tell you that context determines meaning. Biblical Hebrew is an extremely pregnant language, far more pregnant than most people realize, and therefore is the most, with Aramaic, ambiguous of the two families of biblical languages.
On the Hebrew word roots themselves, Biblical Hebrew alons is one of the most pregnant languages in existence. this can be demonstrated in the Hebrew Lexicon, in the back of Strong's Exhaustive Concordance. In the Lexicon it is easy to find tons of Hebrew words with 10, 20, 30, ...100, ....150 meanings, etc.., Then the eventual NASB and NIV Exhaustive Concordances which eventually came out, I own them, as well as various Hebrew Lexicons, and word study books, including the two volume TWOT Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, etc..,
Not to mention books on how biblical Hebrew words, that admit, and instruct, how the Hebrew unattached ( meaning not added as a new part of a Hebrew word, for new coining or modifying a word, ) prefixes, which as the simple articles, etc.., we assume them to be, can be thought of as prepositional phrases, etc.., And that a simple Mem for example prefixed to a Hebrew root ( word ) can mean "Towards," or "From," or "As if Towards," or "As if From," etc.., thus demonstrating that not only can Hebrew prefixes can have equal and opposite meanings, but these equal and opposite meanings can even be expressed as entire modifying phrases based on a single letter prefix, and even a simple two single letter prefixes, can express their own modifying phrases themselves. So that a "Waw" and "He" two letter prefix can mean more than just merely "And The," and then, so again, apart from how complicated and pregnant biblical Hebrew - it is always the biblical passage that determines the translation. Was it "away from" in the passage context, or was it "as if away from" ?
And likewise Biblical Greek is also an extremely pregnant language, but no where as pregnant, or nearly as ambiguous as Biblical Hebrew. Because unlike the Hebrew, God chose a language, in the Greek ( Indo European language family ) in which the Biblical Greek, from the Septuagint, and Old Greek counter translations, etc.. would often coin new words, or word usages, unlike the Hebrew, by often combining, or smashing words together, giving you something far more concrete and thus less ambiguous than the Hebrew.
And those behind the NIV, have done some brilliant work over the years, including releasing Interlinear Greek English New Testaments, with the use of the + plus sign, to show where individual Greek letters were inserted in between to two or three Greek words smashed together, coining a new word, to show how the additional letters inserted into the smashings, represent like the hebrew, represent additional word modifyers, of various helper parts of speech.
And it can take decades, if not a hundred years, or so, for Greek Scholars, and Greek Scholar Comities, to decide to change their minds as to what they think the best translation of a Greek word should be. In revelation 22:7 such has occurred, when the consensus had always been the Greek word used should be translated as Quickly, when in more recent years more and more bible translations have changed this opinion and understanding to Soon.
Revelation 22:7 - Jesus is Coming
Behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of prophecy in this book.biblehub.com
So which is it, the older Quickly, or the newer Soon? The newer scholarship sees it a Soon, as in a non immediate time or non immediate temporal context, if you prefer.
The Promise “I Am Coming Soon!”
The promise “coming soon” in Revelation is an imminent event for the end-time churchwww.perspectivedigest.org
What does Revelation 22:7 mean? | BibleRef.com
And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.' - What is the meaning of Revelation 22:7?www.bibleref.com
And so while the debate rages, the truth is like Hebrew Biblical Greek is both pregnant - And it comes down to the expertise of the Greek Biblical Scholars you believe in, only to the extent of the Greek Scholars you believe in, only so far >>>> Because the context of all forms of Preterism are all simply puzzle factory reject nuts in my opinion.
And Biblical prophecy likewise is very complex. It allows God a justifiable deniability, in which God does not have to, and does not reveal the truth to those who believe. But for those who believe, it is clear and obvious that God splits and divides passages, which draws prophecy from said passages. Such as in individual psalms, where David may describe his situation, and things about himself, while God inserts, and or makes thru David, prophecies of the first coming of Christ was given.
And likewise prophecies were likewise given by God, which foretell the first and second coming of Christ as well. And some of those passages may have appeared to be about Israel as well, but the context more carefully shows that Israel my Servant clearly means the Messiah in the context given.
As the Bible was written by many men, over a very long period of time. And when new prophetic insights etc.., were given, they would at times apply the principle of Midrash, where they prophetically were allowed to serve God thru updating the meaning of a passage. In fact the entire Septuagint did that a lot. The Septuagint was merely a Greek translation of the Torah, or the first five books of the law of Moses. And then continuing in time, the rest of the OT was translated into Greek in, and as, individual OT Books / Scrolls. And starting with Origen, and his Hexapla, gathered various versions of the OT scrolls that had been translated into Greek, in parallel columns, to try and resolve discrepancies in Greek OT translated scrolls.
"Reformed Preterist Eschatology" teaches that Matthew 24:29-30 below was a 70AD fulfilled judgement upon Jerusalem and Israel, and that it doesn't represent the future, literal, visible, second coming of Jesus Christ
I've asked them how it is that the most climactic event to have ever occurred on earth - the Second Coming - has gone unnoticed by eyewitnesses, historians, politicians, even the church which is told to "watch and pray" - although the Bible says this event is the greatest, brightest, loudest, most powerful thing that will ever hit the planet.
Preterism in all of it's forms, is Puzzle Factory Rejected Nonsense, pure and simple. It is a most demonic heresy, that makes no sense whatsoever. And has to be categorically declared to be such a demonic heresy, period, end of discussion. And the Lost who hold to Preterism, all need to be prayed for.
Those in Christ do not taste death. They do not die. They change bodies, and enjoy Paradise.
