Do Preterists Believe In The Rapture?

CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH

In this regular feature Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call.Here is this week’s question:Dear Dave and Tom, I’m starting to get concerned about a drift I see among conservative evangelicals.From time to time I listen to R. C. Sproul and Hank Hannegraf, and read Jay Adams and only recently discovered that they are preterists, that they believe most of the prophecies of the Bible were completed in the first century AD.Two questions:Where does a preterist put the Rapture of the church, and how concerned should I be about the rest of their theology?

Tom:

Dave, Hank, a couple of years ago wrote a book which was really a response to Tim LaHaye’s series on the Rapture, but more and more he’s identifying himself as a preterist, meaning that most of the prophecies of the Bible have already been completed, but he calls himself a partial preterist, and I think R. C. Sproul does the same, partial meaning that they would say that many of the prophecies were completed in 70AD, but there are some, the big three they call them, that would be the Second Coming, the Resurrection and the Judgment that’s yet to come, that would be a partial preterit’s view, although there are many ideas within preterism, partial preterism and so on.

Dave:

Well, Tom, can I go back a little farther than that.R. C. Sproul, D. James Kennedy, these people, and I presume that Hank—sounds to me likehe’s in the same camp now, they believe in Replacement Theology.They believe that the church has replaced Israel, andthey put out a statement a few years ago that all the promises to Israel were fulfilled in the time of Joshua.Now Joshua lived 110 years, these are everlasting promises, this is an everlasting covenant, everlasting possession of this land.And we would only have to go to, I mean, there are hundreds of prophecies promising Israel be restored.Jeremiah 31, beginning at verse 35:You think Israel will cease to exist?If you can pull the sun out of the sky and knock the stars out, then Israel will cease from being a nation.But if you can’t do that Israel will never cease from being a nation.I don’t think these people have been able to do that.But anyway, if we just went to Jeremiah:23:7Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that they shall no more say, The LORD liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;
See All..., for example, we probably quoted this before, but people seem to forget these things.It’s very clear:Thus saith the Lord, the day is coming when they will no longer say, you know, speak as though this is a great event, Blessed be the Lord who brought His people Israel out of the land of Egypt.But they will say, Blessed be the Lord who brought His people back from all the nations whither He had scattered them!Okay.They weren’t even scattered in the days of Joshua.They were not brought back from anything except Egypt.Now you cannot stick that in there and, Tom, I will just be blunt and say, In my opinion, these men are defying God, they are defying what He has said.Why they do that I don’t know, but this is the theology of course, this is Calvinism.

Tom:

Although we have to make a qualification here, and Hank is definitely not a Calvinist.

Dave:

Right, right, yeah, but nevertheless this is where it really comes from.The Presbyterian church has generally believed this is Reformed Theology.And how you could possibly say this when you have these promises over and over and over of the restoration of Israel and then try to make that all apply to the church!The church doesn’t even have a land, we were never cast out of the land, we were never brought back into the land.Tom, I don’t know how they can make this fit.

Tom:

Well, Dave, what about the Rapture of the church?Now, a full preterist doesn’t believe in the Rapture, most of them, some believe that the Rapture took place 70 AD, right around that time.Now, I don’t know where the partial preterists put this, and I don’t even know what the point of it would be under a preterist perspective.

Dave:

Tom, again, you can’t escape the language of the Bible.Jesus, at the Last Supper, John 14, said:I’m going to go away, prepare a place for you, and if I go away I will come again and receiveyou unto myself, that where I am—where’s He going to be?In His Father’shouse—there you may be also.And Paul is explaining this in 1 Thessalonians Chapter 4, when he said:“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air:and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”Sounds to me like that was what Jesus was talking about.You cannot escape it, that His own people, His bride, will be caught up.Furthermore, there is the judgment seat of Christ we have to face, and then there is a wedding in heaven, that’s exciting, a wedding in heaven in Revelation 19, and this is while all of this horrible stuff is going on down here on this earth.Now His bride must have gotten up there somehow.I don’t think she got up there in space ships, or whatever. This is the Rapture again, this is why the Rapture, and His bride returns with Him as part of the armies of heaven to rescue Israel at Armageddon.Tom, but with the preterist it just kind of all winds up and Jesus comes back, the second coming, and now He takes over on this world—

Tom:

Well, that’s for a partial preterist, Dave, but for a full preterist they are saying the Rapture took place around 70 AD.Hey, what happened to John?I guess John must have just finished the Book of Revelation before he was snatched up or something.

Dave:

Well, actually it dates around 96 AD.

Tom:

I know.Dave, here’s a quote from a leading preterist:He says the preterist’s position is a rational and probably explanation of eschatology.First, one keeps from becoming lackadaisical in our evangelism.Check that from somebody who takes a reformed position, and child rearing because it keeps us from anticipating rapture.Dave, I thought that was our blessed hope, I thought it was to purify our lives in expectation of the imminent return of Christ.

Dave:

Tom, let me make it very blunt.They claim that Jesus Christ returned in fulfillment of His promise to come back to take us to heaven, He returned in the person of the Roman armies to destroy Jerusalem and to excommunicate Israel, and Israel is finished.Now if that is not wicked, and if that is not twisting the scriptures I don’t know what is.

Tom:

Well, it’s the antithesis, He comes back to rescue Israel.I mean, you don’t have to be a theologian, a scholar, this is just simple stuff from the Bible.