THE PRETERIST FRAMEWORK IN A NUTSHELL
Beginning with Genesis and ending in Revelation, the Preterist framework can be readily seen.
Genesis
In the opening book of the Bible the creator God begins his task of making a heavens and an earth. He sets it in the order he desires and creates it to replenish itself by the power of "him who holds all of creation together" ( Co 1.16,17). The Father, the Logos (Son), and the Spirit are each in mutual cooperation as one God in this creative endeavor. God, on the sixth day, creates man and woman (Adam means "man" and Eve is chavah which means "living" - see 3.20) in His image. God formed the dirt into a statue of sorts and then breathed life into it. The clay became animated as the breath entered, and this spirit became a living person with an earthy body to help him move around in the Garden.
God takes the man on the sixth day, before he had made the woman, and gives him a commandment: "Do not eat of this particular tree. It contains the knowledge of that which is good, and also that which is evil. If you take bite of its fruit, then you will die the very same day you eat of it. As far as all the other trees of this Garden, you may freely eat of them all that you like."
Adam understood the commandment, and began to till the Garden in which God, after he had made him, put him (2.8).
God decided that he would make from Adam's rib a helpmate for the task of cultivating and nurturing the garden. On that very day, the sixth one, God put Adam to sleep and from his rib formed a woman. From one, God had made many, and the two of them would also become one. As God made man from his own breath, so God made woman from the life that was in the man. Adam quickly instructed the intelligent woman about the Garden, and about the forbidden tree.
It was not long, however, that the serpent, a crafty beast that God had made when he made the animals, set about the task of trying to tempt the man and the woman to disobey God's law of the Garden. As long as man kept the law of the Garden, he would be fine, but if he sinned and broke this law, then death would be the penalty. God had told Adam that the day either one of them ate from it they would surely die. The serpent, however, said that the day they ate their eyes would be open to new ideas, giving them knowledge like God had. This alone was tempting enough!
When the woman ate she realized that she did not die. She was still alive! The serpent must have been correct. Adam, who was there witnessing all of this, saw that Eve had not died, and she willingly offered him the fruit, urging him to take a bite as well. When Adam ate the eyes of both of them became opened on that very day, just as the serpent had said. Because they were one flesh, Eve's eyes were not opened until Adam joined her. Then both of them felt something they never felt before: shame. In order to rid their nakedness and shame, they clothed themselves with fig leaves.
God thunders in the Garden with a mighty wind and loud voice, and they heard the sound of God coming closer, so they hid from his, fearing his wrath. God wanted an account from his creatures, so he asked, "Where are you'?" Adam admits to his knowledge of shame and God understands that he had broken the commandment and sinned. The punishment for such a crime was only one thing: death on the day he ate. Before issuing the final verdict, God sentences man to hard labor and the woman to a hard life. But, before he did this, he sentenced the snake and promised his destruction by the hands of a future child from the woman. The serpent's head would one day be crushed (3.15).
God reminds the man that he was made from dust and also that to dust he would return. His life will be full of sorrow all his days. However, before final sentence God kills an animal and covers them over with its flesh. God forbade the man to become "like God" (3.22) by eating of the Tree of Eternal Life. Man was sentenced to be separated from eternal life and from the presence of God he enjoyed in the Garden Sanctuary: he was sentenced to live his days outside the gates of the Garden Sanctuary (3.24), never to return, and never to come to the Tree of Life until the head of the snake was crushed. Man was now cut off from eternal life with God and placed outside the Garden Sanctuary. God kept his word: Man died the very day that he sinned against God.
Paul's letter to the book of Romans, in chapter five. gives us an inspired account of the events of Adam's life. There, Paul wrote that "the Sin" entered the world through Adam, and as a result of Adam's "breaking the command”
(5.14), "the death" came through "the Sin." That is, when ' Adam sinned by breaking the law of the Garden, the ~ "power of the Sin" (I Co 15.56) came into reign, and the ' "power of death" (He 2.14) that came as a result of "the law" being broken, was the wage demanded by "the Sin." The Sin, then, "reigned in the death" that was sentenced by + God to Adam "on the day he sinned/ate".
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Preterists conclude, then, that the "death" Adam suffered was not "physical" death. That is, had Adam never sinned, hypothetically, and had he eaten of the Tree of Life, his spirit, the "person", the "man" Adam, would have been forever with God, but his earthy shell would have eventually expired in a natural manner, without shame, without sorrow, and without fear. It would have been as natural as a leaf falling from a tree in the Garden. the physical body of man is good, so God says. But we are not logically required to maintain that because it is good, and because one needs to take care of it, that that means God must redeem it in order for a man to live forever or in order for a man to be a man. Man is the image of God. The image of God is not in man, he is the image as person. Is God required to raise the flesh of a lion? The Bible does not teach such a thing. Did God say that the animals he made were good? Does a good lion's flesh require God to raise it in order for it to be considered good? Logically, the answer is, no.
For Paul, man died the day he ate because he was placed under the rule of "the sin" and the sin "reigned in the death." Adam was sentenced the day he ate. He physically died 900 years later. If the sentence of God was "in the day you eat" and it was actually carried out
324,000,000 (900 years x 360 days a year) days later than what does that say about the justice of God`? How many days did it take for their eyes to be opened? "In the day you eat, your eyes will be opened." The same phrase is used for "in the day you eat, you will surely die." Surely, no one argues that their eyes were opened 324,000.000 days later.
Man immediately came under the power of the Sin and the rule and reign of the death. This had dire consequences on creation itself, but not so much as has been imagined. Where in the narrative of the curses does God punish the whole universe? Does he mention the Sun'' The stars? Does God punish the animal kingdom, or the fish? Does he punish the clouds or the trees? The only things mentioned is the "ground" Adam walked on, the heat of his labor (because he was now placed in a desert, not in the cool of the Garden which had a "canopy" over it), and thorns and thistles. Nowhere is the entire creation, or "the whole creation" cursed. At least not in the text.
What else is of interest is that man is formed outside the Garden with dust (2.7) and then is "put in the Garden(2.15). Eve is formed from Adam, not dust, and it is to the man that he is told that he would "return to the dust". What is this saying`? Quite clearly, if the man was formed from the dust of the ground and later placed on the ground in the Garden, then when God tells him that he shall return to the dust, he is being told that he is returning to where God made him: outside the Garden. Man was being placed in the Wilderness. That was his death sentence. Seen from this angle, Man's problem is this: how does he get back
"in" to the Garden of God's Presence where Eternal Life can be obtained?
If Adam was placed outside, and it is outside that "all men" are born, then "all men" are born under the curse placed on Adam. They are born in "the sin" of the one man. He was sentenced to roam "outside" in the dust, cut off from eternal life. In this way "the death came to all men" (Ro 5.12). That is, "the death reigned" (5.14) over all men. When seen from this perspective of "inside" and "outside" Paul's statements become visible:
But, not as the offence so also is the free gift; for if by the offence of the one the many did die, much more did the grace of God, and the free gift in grace of the one man Jesus Christ, abound to the many; 16 and not as through one who did sin is the free 'gift, for the judgment indeed is of one to condemnation, but the gift is of many offences to a declaration of ’Righteous' 17 for if by the offence of the one the death did reign through the one, much more those, who the abundance of the grace and of the free gift of' the righteousness are receiving, in life shall reign through the One -- Jesus Christ. 18 So, then, as through one offence to all men it is to condemnation, so also through one declaration of 'Righteous' it is to all men to justification of life,'' for as through the disobedience of the one man, the many were constituted sinners: so also through the obedience of the one, shall the many be constituted righteous (Young's Literal Translation).
It can be seen here that physical death is not at all Paul's focus. Condemnation, judgment, the reign of the death, and the constitution of man in Adam as `sinners' was the result of Adam's disobedience, not physical death. Notice that Jesus is the "one man" through Adam's sin is reversed. If it is reversed, then what Paul is saying is that this is what "the gift of Life" would have given man: he would "reign with God" be declared "righteous" and "justified". This is the basic core of what Preterists mean by resurrection from the dead: it is to be finally declared as reconciled with God and no longer under the power of the Sin and the Death that came through the Law. Since no man in Adam could carry this out, it required another "Adam" (I Co 15.45, 47) which came "from heaven" (15.47) in order to redeem those under the curse of the law. The only Person capable of this was the Son of God who was there at the very beginning of creation itself, and even before all things were made (Co 1.15-20). He took upon himself flesh and human nature. Because he was righteous, he could handle taking on the sins of the world brought about by Adam. The body of his flesh was murdered, and his soul entered the realm of the Death as did Adam, but because of his righteousness, he was able to be raised from that rule, so that all those in him would equally be raised on account of his righteousness through which God can declare those who believe in Jesus as members of his pure and spotless family. This is resurrection. In fact, He is the resurrection (Jhn 11.25).
The Law
Paul gives us in Romans 5 a basic outline from which we frame our understanding of the biblical world. In 5.13,14 he wrote, "for till law sin was in the world: and sin is not reckoned when there is not law; but the death did reign from Adam till Moses, even upon those who did not break a command in the likeness of Adam's transgression, who is a type of him who is about to come." We make an immediate note of the translation "about to come" in viewing that Jesus was "about to come" within Paul's generation. But, that is not my point right now. In these verses, Paul stated that from Adam to Moses, "the Death reigned" over all men. But, in that time, "sin was not charged to anyone's account" because "there was no torah." Torah is the Law of Moses, or the law of God given by revelation. However, Adam's "transgression" was a "breaking of a command" because God had clearly given him "a law" as we have seen. But, from that time, no "law" was given "from the time of Adam till Moses." Why stop at Moses'? Because it was under Moses that the law, the torah, was given to Israel. Where there is law, in other words, sins are reckoned to one's account. They start piling up after awhile. Regardless, the Death reigned and "sin was in the world." That is, sin is still sin even when it is not being reckoned to anyone’s account.
This raises the question, though, "why was the torah added at all, then'? Why didn't God just let things go on and not charge to our account any sins?" Because, "the death reigned" and "the sin reigned in the death" (5.14, 21 ). Man could not ever gain the gift of the Life under such a kingdom (5.17, 18, 21). Since he could never gain that gift that came through Christ, Man would never be reconciled to God in his Presence. He was outside the Garden. The Tree of Life was inside. Paul wrote, "The torah entered into the picture so as to cause the trespass to grow, and where the sin increased, grace increased even more, so that just as the sin reigned in the death (because of Adam), so also the grace might reign through God putting man back to a right standing with him to bring to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (5.20, 21). Notice what God was doing: he was putting Man back into a right relationship with himself, like it was before the transgression of Adam.
This is resurrection of the dead. The law was given so that the transgression could "pile up" to the hilt, to the limit. Sin had gone as far as sin could go until; finally, God had to act. And act He did through Jesus Christ. Jesus' ministry was the "grace much more abounding" to all men. If the torah was not given to Israel, and to Israel their sin was `heaped to the limit' (Ro 2.5; I Th 2.16), then how could God's grace through Christ ever abound? Sins had to be accounted for under the law in order that they increase so that God's grace through Christ could be manifested in the world to once and for all deal with the reign of the Sin. If law was given, and if Israel had brought the Gentiles under the law, holding them also accountable, then God, apart from Christ, would have had to judge the world over and over and over again. It never would have ended. And no one would have ever entered heaven. God was not willing that it should continue in this way, either. But, he had to have first demonstrated the futility of man apart from God. Israel under the law, even with the mighty awesome demonstrations of God's power, could not release man from the rule of the death and the sin. Even if David covenantally was "blameless" according to the torah, as was Paul (Php 3.6), it still could not give him the "life" he needed to enter heaven. Romans 7.9-24 describes this very life. Man was ruled by the sin and the death regardless of the torah he honored with his mind (7.25b). Paul describes this "deliverance" as a deliverance "from the body of the Death" (7.24). Israel was a dead body under the law, and Israel's body needed to be created into a "new man". Israel's "lowly body" needed to be transformed into Christ's "glorious body".
In the world, before Jesus, the death and the sin ruled through the law given to Adam and later given to Moses. Even when there was no law, the death and the sin ruled because of the law given to Adam. It was through that law that the sin and the death came into rule in the heavens and on the earth. The death, the sin, and the law became the unholy trinity of evil.
What is the difference because of Christ? Jesus came an set the world aright again With God. He defeated the sin and the death at the cross, and he defeated the law by fulfilling it, thus ending its "commandments which stood against us" (Co 2.14). Therefore, having placed all these things under his feet, the death, the sin, and the law, he effectively created a new heavens and a new earth. If the law is removed, and "where there is no law no sin is taken into account", then are sins counted against those in Christ? Paul's answer: God was in the world reconciling the world through Christ, "not counting men's transgressions". Only by fulfilling the law, which Jesus said he came to do, can this be accomplished. However, in the world before Christ, when there was between Adam and Moses no sins reckoned to one's account, Death and Sin still ruled. When a person died, they did not enter heaven: "No one has ever seen God, but God the only Son" (John 1.18). Again, "No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven - the Son of Man" (3.13). Where did they go? Where ever it was, Moses, when he died, did not "go into heaven". No one but the Son ever. This is because man did not have eternal life, and therefore could not reign in lit" (Ro 5.17) with God "in the heavenlies". But, in the new heavens and the new earth that God has made by making a new Adam, the last Adam, and by once again saving, "let there be light" (II Co 4.6), and through a "new creation" (II Co 5.18) and "one new man" (Eph 2.1-5"), creating a new "holy temple" (Eph 2.21) which are the people of God, he has destroyed the death and the reign of the sin which prevented entrance into eternal life in the kingdom of his dear son. The death and the sin he put away was the death and the sin that came through the first Adam, which brings us back to our original point: the rule of the death and the sin was because man was separated from God in Adam and blocked off from entrance into eternal life with God, but those powers have been put under the feet of Christ, so that there is no law taking into account our sins, and there is no reign of the death and reign of the sin that prevents us from eternal life. God through Christ has set the world aright again so that all those who bow their knee to God can have access to the Tree of Life in the New Jerusalem of God in his heavenly presence. Paradise is restored, and this time, it's, forever.
Yet, Christianity has taught a great deal of this in spite of the fact that it has also hampered the full meaning of the gospel. Man does not need a new individual physical body in order to be in heaven with God. Heaven has come to earth through Christ's body, and that body is also "the church" (Eph 1.22, 23).
The New Covenant
The final phase of God's redemptive plan, God was under obligation to demonstrate his righteousness by keeping his promises to Israel. He had promised to pour out his Spirit on them, and restore them (Ez 37). He promised to reunite the 12 tribes under one house and one Lord
(Ho 1.10-I1). He had promised to remove their sins in a single day (Zec 3.9). He promised to redeem them and call them sons of God, to build a new temple that would never be overrun, to give them an inheritance that would never fade, to bless them, to restore them, to prosper them and to dwell with them forever. How could any of these promises come to pass under the reign of the Sin and the Death'? Simply, they could not. Then how was God going to answer the impossible`? With man, it is impossible, but with God this is possible. Through Christ, it is finished. The new covenant God would make with the united house of Israel would be the covenant by which God would answer all of these promises. However, what about the Gentiles" Abraham's covenant stated that, "all nations shall be blessed through thy seed" (Gn 12.3). If the new covenant is made only with Israel, then how would those who are not Israel become "fellow heirs"? This indeed was a "mystery" Paul said (Eph 3.6)
The new covenant entailed the torah being written on the heart (Jer 31.33). Yet, in Paul's day, the Gentiles, who by nature did not have the Law of Moses, were now showing that the law was written on their hearts in fulfillment of the new covenant (Ro 2.14). Were they now Jews'? Was God transforming Gentiles into fellow citizens of Israel, thereby transforming Israel itself? According to Paul, this was exactly what was happening (Eph 2.11-19). Did this not require a physical change? Not according to Paul. It required a spiritual change in the spiritual body of, Christ, which was brought about through the death and; resurrection of the one body, Jesus Christ, the temple of ` God.
Isaiah 44.5 prophesied that there will be a day when Gentiles will take the name of Israel. This is affirmed in Ps 87 as well, where Gentiles are explicitly mentioned as being recorded as "born in Zion." But, for Paul. "Jerusalem above is the mother of us all" (Ga 4.26). There are two Jerusalem's in Paul's theology. The one "below" is destined for destruction, but the Jerusalem "above" is the Zion spoken of in Is 54.1-ff (Ga 4.21-31). That Zion is heavenly is also explicitly stated in He 12.22. The spiritual dimension of the gospel, then, has transformed the OT sacrifices, rites, and temple. This allows Paul to understand that one who is born of the Spirit is a true Israelite, and since the Spirit has been poured out on the Gentiles, then the Gentiles are "true Jews are ones that are so inwardly, who are circumcised in the heart by the Spirit, not by the written code" (Ro 2.29). How, then, are Gentiles included into Israel's blessings? By the Spirit.
This naturally raises the question of Israel. The Gentiles were not being saved apart from Israel, but were being saved as a result of God righteously answering his promises made to Israel. The Spirit was poured out "in the last days" (Ac 2.18) upon "men of Israel" (2.22). God was uniting together "in one body" (Eph 2.16) Judah, Israel mid the Gentiles as he promised in Hosea mentioned above. This one body is called the "body of Christ" and it is in this body that the "body of the death" Israel had in Adam was being sown and transformed into the "spiritual body" of Christ, the Last Adam. The Gentiles were also sown in Christ's body through his death and were being made alike in Christ by the Spirit of God, "that same Spirit that raised him from the dead" (Eph 1.20). Through the calling of "all Israel" together in Christ, the house of Judah and the house of Israel, the northern tribes dispersed among the nations by Assyria in the 8`" century B.C., Paul was able to understand that the restoration of Israel's "all things" was coming together in his generation by the Spirit of God. The destruction of ".Jerusalem below" in A.D. 70 marked the completion of Christ's redemptive work, and the completion of the building of God.
From the time of that completion onwards the glorified body of Christ on earth, united with those saints and angels in heaven (He 12.22-ff) of those faithful saints of the OT along with the faithful remnant of those Israelites that received the "deposit of the Spirit, guaranteeing what is to come" (Eph 1.14) are bringing "healing to the nations" (Rev 22.2) to those "on the outside of the city" (22.15).
With this picture in mind, we clearly see that the Tree of Life in the end (Rev 22.2) is again accessible to Adam by entering the gates of the city (21.25). What Adam was denied because of his sin, he is now given freely in Christ. What Adam lost, is now given back in Christ. Wherein Adam was ruled by the Sin and the Death, he is now reigning with Christ, who rules "all things." This was the promise announced to Eve: he shall crush his head. Paul wrote, "The God of peace shall soon crush Satan under your feet" (Ro 16.20). When all that represented separation and the rule of Death and Sin was demolished and gone, that is, when the "administration of the death engraved on stones" (11 Co 3.7) had "vanished" (He 8.13), the "sting of the death" lost its sting and victory was given completely to those firstfruit saints, and to "all generations" (Eph 3.21) that call in His name. God had saved "all Israel" from their sins.
The Preterist message, then, is quite simple: God has created a new heaven and a new earth and a new people of God made up of "whosoever". We are not ruled any longer by the dominion of Death and Sin that kept mankind separated from God in life and in death. We are not serving a God that is boxed in a temple, served by special priests, of which only one can actually enter into an even smaller room once a year to offer bulls and goats. We are not required to cut our flesh in order to say "we are God's people." We no longer are obligated to trace our genealogy to Abraham, but are sons and daughters of Abraham because we have been transformed into sons and daughters through the resurrection power of the Spirit. God is transforming all peoples, all nations, all cultures to reflect his mercy and love and righteousness through Jesus Christ. His son. The Body of Christ, the Church of the Firstborn, should have this vision and this goal and this goal only: healing for the nations. Ethnic boundaries, cultural boundaries, racial boundaries, religious boundaries, theological boundaries, gender boundaries are all "elements of the world" burned up in Christ. There is only one body in Christ, and there is only one city that upon entrance saves. Yes, there are those on the outside of the gates of salvation, but they are the one beckoned to enter the city whose gates "on no day are shut." Our message is simple: All the promises in Christ are "yes" and "amen" right now. There is not one thing that is not fulfilled in Christ and in his people. His people have been trying to say this for 2,000 years, but have been blockaded by errors, which claim that not all the promises are for today, but only some of them. The message that has been trying to get out in the history of the Church, however, is finally bursting forth upon the world scene, and this time, the Roman world and the Jewish world of the first century will not be the only worlds once turned upside down. God is going global. We can see trickles of water breaks on the walls of error all throughout the history of the Church. But the small leaks, noticeable from the early fathers till today, have become holes. The walls are giving; the water of life in the Church is pushing. The water that has already leaked beyond the walls has accomplished amazing results. Imagine if the entire wall comes down!
Its kinds of fish shall be like those of the Great Sea, very numerous (New American Bible)
Ezekiel 47 is perhaps a fitting place to close:
1 Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house; and,
behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house
Eastward: for the forefront of the house stood toward the east, and
the waters came down from under from the right side of the house,
at the south side of the altar.
2 Then brought he me out of the way of the gate northward, and led
me about the way without unto the utter gate by the way that
looked eastward; and, behold, there ran out waters on the right
side.
3 And when the man that had the line in his hand went forth
eastward, he measured a thousand cubits, and he brought me
through the waters; the waters were to the ankles.
4 Again he measured a thousand, and brought me through the
waters; the waters were to the knees. Again he measured a
thousand, and brought me through; the waters were to the loins.
5 Afterward he measured a thousand; and it was a river that I could
not pass over: for the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river
that could not be passed over.
6 And he said unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen this? Then he
brought me, and caused me to return to the brink of the river.
7 Now when I had returned, behold, at the bank of the river were
very many trees on the one side and on the other.
8 Then said he unto me, These waters issue out toward the east
country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea: which
being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed.
9 And it shall come to pass, that every thing that lives, which
moves, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there
shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall
come thither: for they shall be healed; and every thing shall live
whither the river cometh.
10 And it shall come to pass, that the fishers shall stand upon it from
Engedi even unto Eneglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth
nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the
great sea, exceeding many.
This is our vision, Church. Don't let error and lack of vision that come from men with much to lose keep you from it.
Sam Frost http://christcovenantchurch.com/
