Why is the truth of Preterism important?

Preterism is important as an eschatological position because there are references to the events surrounding Christ’s second coming in most, if not all, of the books of the New Testament. These events were part of the Gospel when it was first preached and increasingly became the focus of that message toward the end of the New Testament age. What we include in the Gospel we preach in this modern age, depends in a large part on what we understand was incorporated in the Gospel as it was originally delivered.

Also, it is impossible for a Christian to study the Scriptures without using some kind of filter. We all have preconceived opinions derived from the eschatological position we have been taught. For forty years I would read Matthew chapter 24 and automatically believe that the events therein described and prophesied are still unfulfilled, even though verse 34 clearly states that all of those events would happen within the same generation to whom Christ delivered his sermon on the mount. My futurist filter did not allow me to accept the plain meaning of verse 34. Furthermore, I was not helped in any way by the translators of the New Testament, who repeatedly insist on translating the Greek word aeon as world instead of age. I have come to realize that the translators also used a futurist filter that would not allow them to properly translate this Greek word.

I have come to understand that Preterism and Futurism are as different as daylight and dark. The futurist believes that most of the references to the events surrounding the Second Coming are yet to be fulfilled, and reads his Futurism into every passage of Scripture. His filter will not allow him to comprehend the glorious doctrine of Accomplished Redemption. He cannot accept that the final victory has been won and the Kingdom is fully here. And, as a result, he does not include this reality into the Gospel message. To the contrary, he incorporates the sad concepts of unfulfilled promises into the message he addresses to the world at large. His implication is that God has been slack concerning his promise and what we in fact now have, is not eternal life because death has not been defeated as yet, and the present kingdom is only a weak demo-version of the real thing which is yet to come.

Futurism appeals to the flesh. People love to hear of shocking events that will happen in the future. The love of the flesh gives place to loving the idea of a physical resurrection. Preterism on the other hand puts a break on man’s tendency to love the flesh, and exalts the true resurrection, which is that of the spirit of man. Futurists are lovers of this world while Preterists are lovers of the spiritual New Earth.

Futurism is a judaizing influence for it places the believer in the Old Covenant still, or at best in an insipid adaptation of the New Covenant. For the futurist we are still in the last days of the old age and still waiting for the first days of the new age. Only Preterism makes a clean break with the Old Covenant and Judaism, declaring the Old Covenant as completely passed and the New Covenant as a total reality. Only Preterism is true New Covenant Theology.

J Hendricks