Part 1
Was 70AD the final coming of Christ?
There is a new branch of Christianity popping up. They deny the physical bodily second coming of Christ, claiming the entire Holy Bible was completed in 70AD. Don’t scoff, be forewarned; it’s gathering a following.
Jesus is coming back. God will not always suffer man to live in sin. He will not forever leave His creation broken. If Christ returns not, and no final judgment is due, this leaves dramatic misunderstandings in Scripture and history that only the imaginations of men can fill.
We found this exposition of Acts 1:9-11 by Keith A. Mathison,
“In recent years a challenge to traditional orthodox eschatology has arisen in the form of a doctrine that may be termed “hyper-preterism.” According to proponents of this doctrine, the Christian church has been mistaken in its expectation of a future Second Advent. According to proponents of this doctrine, all New Testament prophecy was fulfilled in the first century. This means that, according to hyper-preterism, the Second Advent, the general resurrection, and the final judgment, among other things, are past events.”
Being familiar with Acts 1:8 and the following several verses, I read some of that post. It was helpful. If that Scripture section is somewhat obscure to you, perhaps read the entire PDF.
Dr. Gentry wrote elsewhere,
“A serious problem with the hyperpreterist’s theological system of an unending (i.e., un-renewed) world and continuing our current as-is history is that their worldview cannot explain God’s purpose for the world as a whole. Sad. In fact, effectively they do not have a “world” view.”
I have the same problem with the notion that Christ will not return. Gentry has been covering this subject in several posts with explanations from the Holy Bible. His analysis is based on what is expected in the second coming. To understand more, peruse his page for the many recent posts on this topic. I found that quote having almost completed writing the below.
To grasp the depth of the concern, we must understand that, if valid, it would affect our understanding of Scripture starting at the beginning with the creation event. All of history and the Scripture would be called into question.
If there is no yet future complete restoration coming, then Genesis 3 would be allegorical. I’ve thought about this a lot for months, and it brings me to tears. It would mean the world was always broken and dying, and Moses told a fairy tale to explain sin and death. There is some obvious symbolism in Genesis 3, it’s a revelation of God, but the Lord does not set forth the primary thesis of the fall to explain away His inability to speak a perfect creation into existence. If sin, and death thereby, existed from day six and always will with no final restoration but only personal soul reprieve, that would make Genesis 3 a mere allegory. This is what grieves me and brings tears: for what, then, did Christ die? My Saviour did not die for an allegory! He died for my many severe and very destructive sins. When God made me aware of my sin, I knew I needed Christ. He saved me out of this world until the day of complete redemption.
God did not create a cursed world. See Romans 5:12. In the fall with Adam and Eve, they saw they were naked (Genesis 3:7) before a holy and just God. God killed an animal and dressed Adam and Eve in skins. The shedding of blood for the covering of sins was required from that time until Christ, the perfect and final sacrifice, shed perfect, sinless blood to cover us all. But, all the earth is cursed, and the curse remains; complete restoration is pending.
My heavenly Father is not limited in His power of creation or recreation; he is not a man, nor can we personify Him! We love the poetry, songs, parables, and hyperbolic symbolism of judgments. Still, neither is the Holy Bible a series of fanciful tales from the depths of men’s imagination as he struggles to understand his place in the universe. That’s philosophy, not theology!
My Redeemer lives. God did not allow His own Son to be crucified for an allegory while supposing sin always existed and always will; this seems impossible to accept. Sin is real; every believer knows it and feels the weight of the stain, even struggling some after salvation. If Christ returns not and no resurrection with final restoration is coming, then God must have created an imperfect world. “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” – Genesis 1:31. How could God see His creation in Genesis one, call it very good, and rest on the seventh day if it remained unperfected at inception and already full of sin on a course toward eternal death? Is sin “very good” in the sight of the Lord high and holy?
There are fancy words for it that I can’t fully define, but in plain language, if Christ returns not, our complete understanding of the Bible, with its many redemptive instances and interwoven threads from Genesis onward, is called into doubt. Since holy men of God (2 Peter 1:21) first started to pen down the various writings, particularly prophecy, as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, some truths are evident in the text and history; a better estate awaits those that cling to Christ; with Jacob, we say, “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.”
If no return of Christ and complete restoration comes, then thousands of years of unnecessary suffering and death is what God gave us. It would leave God little better than the devil himself, would it not? I often get these questions and concerns from unbelievers; why is there so much evil and suffering, and how could God do this to us? I have no answer for them if Jesus isn’t returning because that means the world was always wicked and always will be. In which case, indeed, the lost man’s question is fair, why would God cause it? The correct answer is (Genesis 3), of course, that we, mankind, beguiled by the devil, Adam and his wife with him, did that. God didn’t create a sinful state; the devil, the woman, and the man broke His creation! It’s cursed (Genesis 3:12-21) under the covenant Adam broke, which only God can lift. If He saved your soul, that curse is lifted for you today, but restoration with no more death, no more tears or sorrow is coming. In the interim, we strive against the evils of this day, often and sometimes entirely consumed in looking for the times of deliverance to be with our God.
We know that the evil man will be judged, and the man with the faith of God will be accepted. That happens, according to Scripture, at Christ’s return. If not, then that judgment was discrete only to Israel in the first century. When I sin, it’s not long until the Lord lets me know what’s acceptable and what’s not, and if I persist, there are consequences. It’s an axiom of Scripture revealed in many verses that sin has effects. Is the evil man never to face God because Christ has already returned and judged? It’s plain throughout Scripture that God not only chastens His sons but also doesn’t allow sin to abound forever among His enemies.
We’ve mentioned it, but now, the most dangerous is the teaching that there will not be a final judgment. And if no determination and last estate are coming, why not live in sin, filling ourselves with the crudest of bodily pleasures as a gnostic would? If the world was without hope from day five, then God created men wicked and not in His image or likeness at all on day 6. But we know better: We are made in God’s image but sinned against His law; Christ died for our sin: the actual corruption of the soul, materially evident (not figurative) in how men toil and the evil that they produce. God is the Creator and Redeemer. The genuine deliverance of the soul into eternal life starts at salvation which is the promise of the final estate. He remakes us in His image again over time, which, like our Master, Jesus Christ, will include death, burial, and resurrection.
We contend in these related posts that we are made in the image and likeness of God so that when we see Christ, we will be like him as we enter into the glory of the Father in eternity. These posts are about the ongoing redemption of man in history and yet future full restoration: Made In the Image and Likeness of God, Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. Also recently written is this call to pious living while we await His soon coming; a personal call to be the Image of Christ to those around us.
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Part 2
These two sections of Scripture are a tremendous encouragement to the believer. 2 Corinthians 5 is clear even to unlearned observations such as this writing. Also, see Ephesians 1:13-14; “13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, 14 Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.”
God is serious about coming back to get us! For example, Earnest Money shows the degree of intent when purchasing a house. Praise Holy Father God, though we have soul salvation now, He has also shown His earnestness in redeeming us into the final inheritance. If you have the earnest of the guarantee (of redemption), being sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, you then have yet to be judged for works after salvation.
Whether we are absent from the Lord or departed from our human body (2 Corinthians 5:8-10), we labor and serve to be accepted by Christ because (2 Corinthians 5:10) we have yet to be judged. If the resurrection already happened, how (why) do we have the Holy Spirit showing that Christ is solemn about coming to bring us into the new creation, fully redeemed with Him? The judgment comes after Christ receives His entire inheritance, by which we mean after the last soul still in the body is saved. The Holy Spirit in the believer is evidence of salvation now and proof of ownership by Christ, including assurity that He will claim, at the last trump, all who are His.
The notions that Christ is not returning – resurrection is not forthcoming, and God will not recreate His designed purpose without sin and death – would call into question the authenticity of the entire Bible. And if the authenticity of the Bible is in question, then what naturally follows is to question the author’s authority! This puts the reliability and even the very existence of God in question. The Authenticity, Integrity, and Authority of God are at stake.
The objection is that the entire Bible has already been fulfilled. Is 2 Peter 3 about 70AD? We doubt that. Our Lord in Matthew 24 lays out many indicators of the coming judgment against first-century Israel and specific warnings to flee Jerusalem and Judea. But 2 Peter 3 speaks of no such signs. Indeed, in this chapter, though God is longsuffering, waiting for your belief by faith and encouraging our holy living until then, suddenly and without warning, the end will come.
We further consider 2 Peter 3. Did the world already burn with fervent heat? What is 2 Peter 3 about? Is it also only an allegory? There is no record or evidence of destruction by fire. A type of final destruction and restoration came in the flood to which Peter refers. If the great fire already happened as an allegory, then the flood Peter references must not have occurred either. Or vis versa, if the deluge isn’t factual, neither is the last day by the fire.
Is the whole Bible a fiction? Is Christ real? Did God walk among men in the flesh, yet sinless? Yea, or nay? Though scientism denies the flood, we know it happened both as evidenced in the world and revealed by His word. Every early race of man has a tail of the flood for a reason. It was a warning of God to all men. But we moderns, in our conceit and pursuit of new knowledge, have forsaken the forewarnings of God. And 2 Peter 3 indicates this indeed would be the case. We believe there will be an end of this world by fire and new creation.
The reuniting of the soul with the body is critical to Christian theology. Christ commended His spirit to the Father (Luke 23:46), as we pray you already have in salvation to be in heaven. And Christ rose from the grave, bodily showing the Christian (each of us a little christ and types of Christ) the hope of the resurrection. “For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.” – Romans 14:9
God breathed life into Adam and made him a living soul. When God saves a soul, the Spirit comes into them restoring their proper condition with God, but not yet fully, but as down payment, as we’ve said. Jesus didn’t simply die and rise; He was revived, the perfect being in bodily existence. His body and spirit were reunited. There’s nothing to misunderstand from Romans 14:9; Jesus was restored (resurrected) to life. Like our King, we will accomplish things before the resurrection, not the least of which is going to heaven to sing glory, glory, glory, hallelujah to our God and unto the Lamb who lives forevermore. He is worthy. Amen.
And if we are types of Christ, we too will be reunited with our bodies to be like Christ, the firstfruits of the resurrection! We’re not claiming to be perfectly sure what that will look like, but we expect it will be physical, bodily, in some manner.
How is Christ the first fruit (1 Corinthians 15:20, 23), but none of His seed leads to the bodily likeness of those chosen by faith at His will? (Gentry covers 1 Corinthians 15 well.) Does Holy God not have the power to remake us in the image of Christ? Will we not see Him as He is and be like Him? (1 John 3:2, 1 Corinthians 15:52) Were the hundreds of thousands of believers both buried and alive in the body in 70AD changed and have left with Christ? Surely somebody would have noticed and reported it!
In the prophecy of Job 19:24-26 he says that in his own flesh, he will see God also stand upon the earth. This seems so significant that we find it hard to fathom being fulfilled with no record. And what of the rest? If the resurrection had already happened, Noah, Able, Ezekiel, Isaiah, David the king, Solomon who was made wise, Rahab the harlot turned bloodline to Christ, Daniel the profit, Abram the father of many nations, and the first-century disciples; if all these were raised, then wouldn’t we know? If the New Testament ends in 70AD, then all the saints of the Old Testament and first century, too many to number, of the well-known and never mentioned in Scripture, were already resurrected; God would have, we have to believe, told us in Scripture. Was there a secret first-century “rapture?” If true, it would mean that believers today have their final state as a spirit before the throne, which, if that were God’s plan, we wouldn’t object, but whole sections of Scripture must be ripped from the pages of canon if we are to believe this.
If Christ has already returned and there will be no judgment, why do we bear the burden of our soul to be like Christ, fearing the day we will be reminded of our failures to serve and mistakes we’ve made bringing in His kingdom? And we grieve in the heart because we continue in sin against our own desires of holy living, knowing we must face a Holy God, the Master of all.
I’ve heard many fanciful tails to explain Scripture, and there is a common theme among them; some are second-class citizens in the Kingdom of God after others more worthy. This I reject, not because I’m worthy too, but because there are none acceptable, no not one, but Christ Jesus stands righteous for all who believe by faith. Salvation is in Christ and nowhere else.
Nobody can, nor does anybody deserve to avoid that great and terrible day. There’s one driving message in all of prophecy: you will see God; therefore, live according to this knowledge; prepare to meet thy God.
Conclusion.
I’ve warned groups when speaking, individuals, and similarly over these pages. The Pharisees were the most knowledgeable people about the Bible ever to live. They were the keepers of the law of God and perhaps the most religious people in all history. Yet, they missed the Messiah partly because He didn’t fit their preconceived notions of what He would be and how He would proceed to fulfill Old Testament prophecies at His coming. So our warning is this to you today, do not expect perfect knowledge of how Christ will proceed at His appearance. His second coming will not go precisely according to the dictates of any one camp among the modern keepers of New Testament prophecy. You can take issue with that statement and pull out your favorite theologian’s commentary but know this: you must belong to Him! Peter, an eyewitness and an apostle of Christ, says of Paul that his writings on the subject are challenging to understand. As when that first raindrop fell from heaven, and God shut the door to the ark, He comes again with fire. As interesting as the topic of prophecy may be, the very practical appeal of the working man, Peter, is to be personally ready for the appearance of our Lord, which is what 2 Peter 3 encourages God’s people to do.
It’s very difficult to miss the truth of His second coming throughout Scripture. He is returning for those that are His; it’s a promise of God. Christ’s coming is not supposed to be disturbing, discouraging, or confusing, “Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” – 1 Thessalonians 4:18. It should be comforting to know God loves us, will judge His enemies who, though we long for their repentance, also have made themselves our enemies, and He will not always leave us in this condition.
