QUESTION:

I have to write a paper on the topic, “Preterist VS Futurist View Of Revelation” and I wanted to get your thoughts and opinions.

ANSWER:

The preterists do not believe in a physical return of Jesus, but spiritualize and allegorize many of Jesus’ thoughts about returning, claiming that the destruction of the temple by the Romans in 70 AD was God’s judgment upon Israel and thus Christ’s true “ second coming.”  I believe the preterist position is a lot of nonsense. But more important than the theology, many preterists are now siding with the Palestinians over Israel under the erroneous belief that the only reasons we Christians ever had to take Israel’s side were prophecy related reasons instead of human rights reasons.

Preterists like to look at certain Old Testament passages about God coming in the clouds and show how they were not literally fulfilled, but rather, expressions. For example, in describing the judgment He is allowing to Israel at the hand of another nation, God says through the prophet Isaiah,

“See, the Name of the LORD comes from afar, with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke; his lips are full of wrath, and his tongue is a consuming fire.” (Isaiah 30:27)

Yes, the Bible does use expression and hyperbole but there is also an event in the Bible where God really did lead the Israelites through the wilderness as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Exodus 13:21) and, in the case of Jesus, He was literally picked up into the air (Acts 1),  followed by the appearance of  two angels, who told the disciples that Jesus would return just as He left. Hard to make hyperbole out of that one.

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