I appreciate your view, whatever it may be. I am not a “full preterist” at this point in time. I presume that you must have some interaction with others in your circle who do hold to the preterist view. At least we can say, that in this particular instance you would be considered to be a “preterist” as you hold that the prophecies in Ezekiel 36 and 37 are already fulfilled. As you know preterism espouses “past fulfillment”. I am on the fence myself, between full preterism and amillennialism. There are some passages, especially in the book of Revelation that I still have a hard time dealing with from the preterist perspective; however, I find that the majority of its understanding of New Testament prophecy solves more problems than it creates unlike the pre-tribulation and dispensationalism that I was brought up on and even taught in my younger years.<\/p>\n\t
Perhaps the problem is too broadly applying a particular philosophy to all prophecies in the Bible. Since Jesus came to fulfill the Old Law (Matthew 5:17-18), I basically see the vast majority of its prophecies being fulfilled with Christ and the establishment of the early Church. After all, Paul stated, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes<\/em>” (Romans 10:4). For a similar reason, I understand that Revelation, for the most part, is discussing things that were to take place shortly after it was written (Revelation 1:1, 3; 22:10). But it would be a mistake to say that everything<\/b> was fulfilled. God never said that. He speaks of promises we have to look forward to (Hebrews 4:1). That is the mistake preterism makes; it arbitrarily assigns all promises to the past regardless of what the context actually states.<\/p>\n There are passages, especially at the end of Revelation, that were given to Christians to inspire hope, to let them know that wondrous things await all true believers after this world ends. The majority of Revelation still involves things in the short term, but there are glimpses of the glory of the future as well. The same is true throughout the Gospel. The focus is on living life righteously now, but glimpses are given of the future so that we might have hope. “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words<\/em>” (II Thessalonians 4:13-18).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: I appreciate your view, whatever it may be. I am not a “full preterist” at this point in time. I presume that you must have some interaction with others in your circle who do hold to the preterist view. At least we can say, that in this particular instance you would be considered to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[1384,744,169],"class_list":["post-7430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-dispensationalism","tag-preterism","tag-prophecy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":14927,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-the-jesuits-develop-preterism-and-futurism\/","url_meta":{"origin":7430,"position":0},"title":"Did the Jesuits develop preterism and futurism?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Is it true that 'preterism' and 'futurism' were Jesuit interpretations of prophecy that were contrived during the counter-reformation? I've read that in a couple of places and wondered what your study has led you to about that. Thank you. Answer: Preterism is the view that the prophecies concerning destruction,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4793,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/ages-to-come\/","url_meta":{"origin":7430,"position":1},"title":"Ages to Come","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 30, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Paul spoke of God showing the exceeding riches of His grace \"in the ages to come\" (Epheisans 2:6-7). Thus, the gospel of God's grace would keep spreading for ages to come. Some erroneously think that Paul wrongly thought that Jesus would come back in his lifetime,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":61898,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-there-be-more-than-one-coming\/","url_meta":{"origin":7430,"position":2},"title":"Can There Be More Than One Coming?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 20, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Text: II Peter 3:1-14 \u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There is a movement that has gotten popular in various churches to state that all references to the Lord\u2019s coming refer to the destruction of Jerusalem. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It is frequently called preterism, the A.D. 70 movement, or realized eschatology \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a01.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cEschatology\u201d means the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":34636,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/when-was-the-church-in-smyrna-established\/","url_meta":{"origin":7430,"position":3},"title":"When was the church in Smyrna established?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 4, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Brother Hamilton, Our local fellowship of congregations has been impacted by the doctrine of Preterism, with a number of problems caused by one individual in particular who has garnered a small but aggressive group of followers holding to Max King's teachings. In an article on your site, \"70 A.D.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":47414,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/preterism-the-eternal-kingdom\/","url_meta":{"origin":7430,"position":4},"title":"Preterism: The Eternal Kingdom","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 15, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Warfel","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26662,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/where-does-the-bible-say-jesus-will-return-a-third-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":7430,"position":5},"title":"Where does the Bible say Jesus will return a third time?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I've been a fan of\u00a0Bible.ca for along time. One question that haunts me is this: With Matthew 24 fulfilled (I do believe this) where does God's word tell us Christ will come a third time? ( 1. birth - 2. A.D. 70 -3. ?) and what about passages like\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}