Preston-Simmons Debate

When was Sin Defeated?  The Cross or A.D. 70?

Simmons’ Third Affirmative

 

This debate has now reached its end.  A lot of ground has been traversed.  We appreciate the reader’s patience. I know I have learned a lot; I trust the reader has too.  We also want to thank Don for his brotherly conduct and vigorous advocacy throughout this discussion.  We hope and trust that truth and understanding have been advanced through this exchange. 

As suggested by the title above, this debate has been about the defeat of sin.  When and how was sin defeated?  When did the saints first stand “soterilogicallly” complete before the throne of God, cleansed and made pure by the blood of Christ? The Cross or AD 70?  I say the Cross.  Don says AD 70.  The difference in our answers reflects the difference between Preterism and Covenant Eschatology.  Preterism itself has nothing to say about redemption; it is not a system of soteriology (study of salvation), but of eschatology (study of last things).  Preterism adopts a “contemporary-historical” analysis of Revelation and other “end time” prophecies, affirming that these were fulfilled in the events that overtook the Roman Empire following the death of Nero, including the AD 70 Destruction of Jerusalem.  Preterism honors the traditional teaching of the church and Bible regarding the time and manner of our salvation from sin, affirming that all was accomplished at the Cross.  This is the view I have been defending in this debate.  Covenant Eschatology, which Don had been defending, is not Preterist per se.  Unlike Preterism, which is merely a school of eschatology, Covenant Eschatology is also a system of soteriology.  Not content to merely explain end-time prophecies from a contemporary-historical perspective, Covenant Eschatology completely re-interprets soteriology, changing everything the church has always taught about when and how man was saved from sin.   

For two thousand years the church has taught that salvation came at the cross and that Christ’s resurrection was the objective evidence that the atonement was complete.  (“And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again” Acts 13: 32, 33.)  Nowhere in the history of Christianity has the least suggestion ever been made that the fall of Jerusalem contributed anything to man’s redemption from sin. Search the volumes of the Ante-Nicene Fathers; pour over the volumes of the Post-Nicene Fathers; traverse the long centuries of the Middle Ages; study the work of the Reformers. You will not find it taught anywhere, at anytime, by any Christian writer that man’s justification was held in abeyance from the cross until AD 70 (or the second coming, if you prefer).  You will not find it taught the saints continued under the debt of sin, or that the Old Testament was “valid, binding, and obligatory” after the cross.  You will not find these things taught by the church fathers because they are not taught by the Bible.  No one even ever heard such claims until Max King, who stripped the cross of its glory, and made AD 70 the focal point of salvation.  Here is the chart we produced in our third negative. Please consider it again now. 

 

Cross

 

Covenant Eschatology

 

 

 

?

 

Atonement  - AD70

?

 

Justification – AD 70

?

 

Reconciliation – AD 70

?

 

Forgiveness of sins – AD 70

?

 

Legal admittance into presence of God with the veil – AD 70

?

 

Time of Reformation – AD 70

?

 

Spirits of just men made perfect – AD 70

?

 

Old Testament fulfilled and legally annulled – AD 70

 

 

 

 

Virtually everything that the Bible teaches about the cross, Covenant Eschatology transfers to AD 70.  Does the Bible teach that atonement was made at the cross?  Don denies it.  Does the Bible teach that reconciliation happened at the cross?  Don denies it.  Does the Bible say we have forgiveness of sins in the cross?  Don denies it.  There is NOTHING in terms of man’s salvation that my brother Don is willing to say arrived at the cross.  According to Don, nothing happened at the cross.  In the church in Ardmore, Oklahoma, where Don used to serve as preacher, there was even a big picture of Titus’ siege of Jerusalem on the wall when you entered the sanctuary.  Where other churches might have the cross, or a scene of Jesus praying in Gethsemane, instead we find the fall of Jerusalem!  What does that tell you about the misplaced emphasis of Covenant Eschatology?  

Covenant Eschatology’s emphasis upon AD 70 is not limited to when justification arrived, but how.  The King/Preston paradigm changes the very manner of our salvation from the addition of grace to the removal of law.  The Bible teaches that men are under condemnation of the law as sinners.  “The law” is not the Old Testament, but the moral law God has enjoined upon mankind as partakers of his image and likeness.  When we violate God’s moral law, we come under condemnation of sin and death.  The moral law and the law of sin and death have always existed and always will.  If the Mosaic law had never been enacted, men would still be in bondage to sin by the law.  What mankind needed to find salvation was the addition of grace by the substitutionary death and atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  Where there is no law, there is no transgression (Rom. 4:15).  Grace acquits where the law condemns. Therefore, grace presupposes the coexistence of law.  Grace triumphs over law.  However, Covenant Eschatology denies that grace triumphs over law.  The King/Preston paradigm has it that the law must first be removed before grace can enter in. It is in essence a system of grace by absence of law. 

Covenant Eschatology spiritualizes the resurrection, equating it with justification from sin.  But inasmuch as the resurrection came at the end of the eschatological period, Covenant Eschatology must postpone justification until the time of the resurrection.  In order to postpone the justification, Don is forced to strip the cross of its power, elevating law over grace.  Grace should have arrived at the cross, but the mysterious “negative power” of Torah prevents it.  It is only by removal of the law in AD 70 that grace and justification finally arrive.  Thus, Covenant Eschatology changes the entire theory and mechanism by which man is saved.  Don is very explicit that “forgiveness of sin did not arrive until AD 70”.  Don is also very explicit that it is only by removal of the law that man is justified: “The destruction of the temple signaled that God’s covenant with Israel was now fulfilled. He had kept his Word and, ‘brought life and immortality to light through the gospel’ (2 Timothy 19f). The ‘law of life in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 8:13), now stood triumphant over the law that was ‘the strength of sin,’ (Romans 7:7f)[1]” (emphasis Don’s). PLEASE NOTE: Don says the law had to be removed before sin was defeated!  What Paul places at the cross, Don moves to AD 70! Here is another quote: “You cannot logically affirm the fulfillment of the resurrection in AD 70... and not affirm the end of whatever law it was that held the condemning power over man.”  Thus, according to Don, we are saved by the removal of law, not the addition of grace. The cross accomplished nothing, for it is not until AD 70 when the law is removed that sin is defeated. 

 

 

King/Preston Soteriology & Eschatology

 

Resurrection = Justification  = Removal of Old Law (AD 70)

 

“death is abolished when the state of sin and the law are abolished”

WHERE IS THE CROSS?

  

 

Thus, Preterism today is divided between two camps: one that views eschatology as having been fulfilled in the first century, but otherwise leaves the historical teaching of the church about the cross intact. The other (Covenant Eschatology) adds to Preterism a completely new system of soteriology, which changes both the time and manner by which mankind was justified.  To help hash out the issues involving these competing systems, the debate has been framed around the question of when salvation from sin arrived, at Christ’s first coming, or at his second?  Let us review the arguments and evidence.

 

The Bible Teaches that the Debt of Sin was Expunged at the Cross 

“And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a  shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it” Col. 2:13-15 

These three verses are dispositive of the whole debate.  The controlling verbs are all in the perfect tense, showing completed action in the past:  Hath quickened; having forgiven; having spoiled. Those verbs that are not perfect tense, are either past tense (“took it out of the way…made a shew of them”) or are the historic present, showing how the perfect work of the cross was accomplished in the past. “He has done this, by doing that.”  (“He has forgiven our sins, by blotting out the evidence of the law’s debt…nailing it to his cross, triumphing over sin and death in it”)  The whole thrust of the passage is to place all redemptive work in the past, at the cross.  Notice the language of Paul:  

In Jewish society, when a man paid his debts, the debt holder nailed the written evidence of the debt to the door post of the debtor’s house, showing he was relieved of its obligation. That is the image Paul evokes here.  More than merely nailing it to the cross, however, Paul says Jesus went so far as to blot out its writing with his very blood! All that was written against us, the law’s recital of our debt to sin, was erased and expunged at the cross.  In light of these verses, there is simply no way to keep the saints under the debt of sin until AD 70…and Don knows it.  In an unguarded moment, Don gave away the debate and admitted that the saints could enter the power of the cross before AD 70.  In his first negative Don said,  

“When a person, through faith, entered into the power of the cross, they died to the Law!”   

To enter the power of the cross is to leave the power of sin under the law.  To be dead to the law is to be acquitted from the guilt of sin; it is to be saved and justified.  But if they were already saved from sin as Don says, then the coming of Christ for salvation was at the cross, not AD 70.  A small sampling of verses of the scores that might be cited, which confirm the saints were already in a present state of grace and justification include (please note the verb tenses): 

Rom. 1:5 – “By whom we have received grace.”

Rom. 3:24 - “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

Rom. 5:1 – “Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Rom. 5:9 – “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.”  

Rom. 5:10 – “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, we shall be saved by his life.”

Rom. 6:14 - “Ye are not under law, but under grace.” 

Rom. 6:18 – “Being then made free from sin.” 

Rom. 8:1 – “There is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.”

Rom.8:2 – “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” 

Heb. 10:14 – “For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.”  

The reader is urged to recall that when Don was pressed to produce even one verse that plainly teaches or states that the saints were under the debt of sin until AD 70 he could not do it.  What does that say about the “scripturalness” of Covenant Eschatology?

 
Don's Box, No. 1

Verses?

EMPTY!		  

Don was unable to produce a single verse that said the saints were under the debt of sin until AD 70. What if we approach the issue from the other direction? What happened when we asked Don to produce a verse that plainly states or teaches justification occurred in AD 70? This is an essential premise of Covenant Eschatology.  Was he able to produce a verse?  NO, not even one!

 
Don's Box, No. 2

Verses?

EMPTY?		  

Thus, Don fails both coming and going to demonstrate the most basic proposition of Covenant Eschatology: the idea that the debt of sin somehow survived the cross and that justification did not arrive until AD 70.   

The Bible Teaches that the Old Testament Terminated at the Cross 

All of Christendom affirms that the Old Testament ended at the cross.  Only among Preterists does the error exist that the Old Law was somehow valid until AD 70.  Preterists fall into this error for several reasons.  First, the disciples’ question to Jesus on the Mount of Olives regarding the end of the “world” may also be translated “age” (Grk. aiwnoj), leading to the assumption is that it is the “Mosaic” age that is referred to.  This is reinforced by the fact that the destruction of Jerusalem is the main focus of the discourse.  However, when we recall Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the great image and four world empires (Dan. 2), we realize that the coming of Christ was in no way limited to Palestine and Jewry, but was a world-wide event that brought an end to the “world” as it has theretofore existed, in place of which grew up the world-monarchy and dominion of Christ.  The visions of Daniel chapter seven are to the same effect, where the Jews and Palestine do not even make an appearance, and the whole vision revolves around the four world empires, particularly Rome and Nero.  In light of these and other passages, the idea that “aiwnoj” in Matt. 24:3 refers to the “Mosaic” age is certainly debatable.  To my view, “world” is the better translation, for it is not merely the Old Testament that was ending, but a old world-order.  Of course, even if the Mosaic age was intended by the disciples, this would not prove that the law was valid until AD 70 in any event.  Slavery legally ended in America with the “Emancipation Proclamation” but the actual institution itself endured until at least the end of the Civil War and the enactment of the Thirteenth Amendment several years thereafter. Thus, even though some outward forms of the Old Testament law and ritual lingered on after the cross, this is not proof they retained any validity with God. 

A second reason Preterists have fallen into the error that the Old Testament was somehow valid until AD 70 stems from apologetic attempts to explain the burning up of the “heavens and earth” prophesied by Peter. Believing that the Matt. 24:3 refers to the Mosaic age, the natural tendency is to try to explain the “heavens and earth” of II Pet. 3:7-13 “covenantally” in reference to Israel and the Old Testament law and ritual.  The mistake is quite natural, given the strong emphasis upon the fall of Jerusalem in Old Testament prophecy and the Olivet Discourse.  However, a more mature reading of the Old Testament brings within our view many passages where the cataclysmic passing of the “elements” and “heavens and earth” have no covenantal aspect at all.  As we begin to bring these passages into the equation, we realize that the symbolism of the “heavens and earth” is always socio-political, never covenantal.  N.T. Wright, a favorite of Don whom he cites in his books, says that the prophets employ imagery of shaking the heavens and earth, not covenantally, but socio-politically and militarily.  “This language denotes socio-political and military catastrophe.”[2]  Don himself says the same thing: “It is emotive language, hyperbolically expressing the catastrophic end to a social order, the end of a kingdom.”[3]  In fact, it is our belief that there is not one single occasion in the whole Bible where the “heavens and earth” refer to the Old or New Testaments – not one.  In any event, the idea that the “heavens and earth” refer to the Old Testament fosters the error that the Covenant was still valid, since it was not until the eschaton that these “passed away.” 

A third reason is the tiny handful of passages where the verb tenses seem to say the law was gradually and progressively being replaced.  Heb. 8:13, for example, says “now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.”  Of course, this in no way implies that the Old Law was still valid or binding, but in our zeal to prove that the second coming referred to first century events, of which the fall of Jerusalem was one of the most significant parts, we tend to make this error. 

These are some of the chief reasons Preterists find themselves wrongly arguing that the law was valid until AD 70.  However, if challenged on the question we quickly find that the notion cannot be defended, and that we are on the short end of the stick every time.  Don’s empty box is a good demonstration of just how totally lacking that proposition is of solid, Biblical evidence.  We asked Don if he could produce even one verse that plainly stated or taught that the first generation saints (Jew or Gentile) were bound and obligated to keep the ceremonial or dietary law, circumcision, laws forbidding association with Gentiles, or any other Mosaic law other than the moral law against idolatry, fornication, blood, etc.    We challenged Don to produce BOOK, CHAPTER, AND VERSE.  He produced none.

 
Don's Box, No. 3

Verses?

EMPTY?		  
 

Don has concocted all sorts of arguments from such varied sources as the Mount of Transfiguration, the Feasts of the Jews, and the Most Holy Place to try to “prove” his case, yet he cannot produce a single verse that actually supports what he is saying.  This perhaps that is to be expected. If you cannot produce verses, what else can you but concoct arguments?  It is kind of like trying to argue that the Constitution authorizes the federal government to nationalize health care.  You can argue all you want, but just try to find it in the Constitution!   

In his last negative, Don brought up Matt. 5:17, alleging that “not one jot or tittle of ‘The Law’ including the ‘ceremonial aspects’ passed until AD 70.”  According to Don, “None of the law would pass, until all of the law was fulfilled.”[4]  Thus according to Don, it is an all-or-nothing proposition: if even one law can be shown to be invalid or non-binding, then all the law was invalid or non-binding.  This is Don’s position and he has argued it a hundred times in debates and in his books.  But here Don testifies against himself, for he is on record saying that key provisions of the law were invalid before AD 70.  Don argues (correctly) that the land covenant was coterminous with circumcision; that when the law of circumcision ceased, the land covenant ceased also.  Don put this argument together to defeat futurists, who claim the land still belongs to Israel, but it works just as well to defeat Covenant Eschatology.  Don says Paul taught “circumcision was invalid” and that he “unequivocally condemned the religious practice of circumcision.”  According to Don, “If God removed circumcision, the sign and seal of the Abrahamic land promise, then the Land Covenant was null and void.”[5] Don says “When Paul wrote...circumcision no longer availed, God had abrogated that mandate.”[6]   

There we have it. By his own admission, circumcision was invalid and “abrogated” and the “land covenant was null and void.” Both of these institutions were integral parts of “Torah;” they are the foundation upon which the whole Mosaic institution rests.  Without circumcision and the land covenant, there is no Old Testament.  Don says “None of the law would pass, until all of the law was fulfilled.”  Since Don says that the land covenant and circumcision were “abrogated” and “null and void” it logically follows that “all of the law was fulfilled.”  Don’s argument against futurists proves the undoing of Covenant Eschatology.  This it is only fitting, since Covenant Eschatology is also a form of futurism when one considers that it attempts to put off until AD 70 (the future) what was so plainly accomplished at the cross (the past).  

But let us not rely upon Don to show the falsity of Covenant Eschatology; let us notice that it was Jesus’ first coming he declared would fulfill the law.  Matt. 5:17 establishes this fact beyond dispute:  

“Think not that I am come to destroy the law and prophets; I am not come to destroy but to fulfill.”   

Notice Jesus’ words: “I AM COME TO FULFILL.”  Thus, the very verse Don uses to show the law was not fulfilled until the second coming, expressly states that it would be fulfilled in Jesus’ first coming!  You would have to be blind to miss it!  “I AM COME TO FULFILL.” First coming!  Jesus, before he died, cried out from the cross “It is finished!” (Jn. 19:30; cf. Matt. 27:50), showing that he had completed the work his Father gave him to do.  Luke even states “And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre” (Acts 13:29).  In Jesus’ resurrection, the promised salvation from sin and death God made in the Garden (Gen. 3:15) was finally fulfilled (still first coming):   

“And we declare unto you glad tiding, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again” (Acts 13:32, 33).  

One jot or one tittle would in now wise pass from the law except it first be fulfilled.  But Luke just said “God hath fulfilled.”  Therefore, Paul says: 

“Let no man therefore just you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.”  Col. 2: 16, 17 

A shadow ends where the body begins.  Since Paul is telling the Colossians that they are free from keeping the law, it is axiomatic that the “body” had already come.  “The body is of Christ” is Paul’s way of saying that the shadow of the law ended with the body of Christ upon the cross.  “This is my body which is broken for you” (I Cor. 11:24). “When he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offerings for sin thou wouldest not, but a body thou has prepared for me…He taketh away the first that he may establish the second” (Heb. 10:5-9)  Notice what the writer of Hebrew says:  

 

This is Christianity 101, folks!  Only where Max King has corrupted the gospel could such basic, foundational doctrine be lost and obscured.   

The Bible Teaches that Spiritual Resurrection Occurs at Conversion 

Covenant Eschatology asserts that the saints were “dead in sin” until AD 70 when they were allegedly “raised” (justified) by removal of the law.  But the Bible teaches that men receive spiritual resurrection when they obey the gospel and are baptized: 

“And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins…Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places n Christ Jesus.”  (Eph. 2:1, 5, 6; cf. Rom. 6:3-6; Col. 2:13). 

The tense in these verses is perfect, showing completed action in the past (hath quickened, hath raised).  Jesus’ resurrection was objective proof that the atonement was complete and the way into the fellowship and presence of God was restored.  In Jesus, the saints entered the very presence of God and were seated together with Christ in heavenly places.  Paul makes the same point in Colossians when he says God “hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Col. 1:13).  Notice again the perfect tense (hath delivered, hath translated).  Out from under the power of sin, into the presence of God within the veil (cf. Heb. 10:19).   Naturally, the writer is speaking figuratively and in contemplation of law, for we are still on earth and not actually personally present in heaven at all.  But in terms of our legal and covenantal standing before the throne, we are admitted into God’s presence by and through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.  Jesus’ presence in heaven is our presence in heaven.  The spiritual resurrection, which Don keeps trying to postpone until AD 70, was already an accomplished fact when Paul wrote.   

We have now examined the main propositions of Covenant Eschatology: 1) the law was valid until AD 70; 2) the saints were under the debt of sin until AD 70; and 3) the saints were loosed from the bondage of sin (justified/”resurrected”) in AD 70.  In each case, Don was unable to produce a single verse in his support. We have seen on the other hand that the traditional teaching of the church is supported by a super-abundance of scripture as we would expect.  Can we take seriously a doctrine which consistently fails to produce verses to support its most basic tenants, while contradicting the most basic teaching of the historical Christian faith?   

Daniel Nine 9 & 12 

Daniel says that the Messiah would “confirm the covenant with many for one week” (the final prophetic week of the Messiah).  He then states that in the midst of that week, Messiah would “cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease.”  The traditional view of this passage has it that the cessation of the sacrifice and oblation refers to the legal termination of the temple ritual, which was rendered null by the sacrifice of Christ. We have cited several prominent commentators to this effect.  By this view, the “covenant” that is being confirmed is the New Testament and God’s promise to bring in redemption by the Messiah.  The first half of the final prophetic week of Messiah is Jesus’ earthly ministry; the latter half of the week is Jewish war with Rome and the destruction of Jerusalem (by my view), though some believe that the final week reaches to the death of Stephen or the beginning of the Gentile mission.  By my view, there is a gap caused by the “cutting off” of Messiah, during which he goes into a “far country to receive a kingdom and return” (Lk. 19:12).  However, the “daily offering” (not “sacrifice and oblation”) in Dan. 12:11-13, refers to the daily sacrifice for Caesar, which the Jews began to refuse in AD 66, and which Josephus says was the real beginning of the war.  Thus, the “sacrifice and oblation” in Dan. 9:27 is not the same as the “daily sacrifice” in Dan. 12:11; different terminology is used and different things are signified.  (Don’s accusation that I have “falsified my position” based upon Don’s asserted identity of these sacrifices, is therefore without merit.)  The “abomination of desolation” that was set up 1290 days later refers to the Titus’ legions assembling at Caesarea in preparation for the war.  The 1330 days (40 day more) is the point where they actually made camp before the walls of Jerusalem on the 14th of Nisan, AD 70.  Such, at least, is our view of the question.  

Don, who wants to keep the law alive until AD 70, says the “covenant” that is being confirmed is the Old Testament; the midst of the week he says occurred in AD 66; its end in AD 70.  (“That final week ended in AD 70. Thus, Torah ended in AD 70!”)  Thus, by Don’s view the week runs from AD 63-70, with the cessation of the sacrifice falling in the midst.  The citation Don provides in proof of his proposition is to Josephus, Wars, 6:2:1.  However, this passage refers to the cessation of the temple sacrifice in AD 70, not AD 66, during the siege of Jerusalem, just months before the city fell.  Thus, Don’s “midst of the week” does not occur in the middle at all!  Not only that, there is no rational basis for making the final week of the Messiah begin in AD 63, for nothing of Messianic proportion or significance occurred at that time. Don is haphazardly throwing arguments together in an attempt to save the sinking ship of Covenant Eschatology. 

Salvation Ready to be Revealed in the Last Time 

Don argues that I Pet. 1:5 refers to salvation from sin. He chided us for saying that this passage describes salvation from the end-time persecution that would be revealed at Christ’s coming.  This is a theme that runs all through end-time prophecy; therefore let’s take a closer look. 

“Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trail of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” I Pet. 1:5-7 

The context here plainly shows that there was a time of persecution coming, which would precede the advent of Christ, but the saints’ perseverance would result in praise and glory at Jesus’ coming. Can there be any doubt that the “salvation” that would be revealed was Jesus destruction of the church’s enemies? This is the very theme of Revelation and numerous related passages.  Jesus’ first coming was to deal with sin; his second coming was to put his enemies beneath his feet.   

 

Hebrews 9:28

 

 

Hebrews 10:12, 13

 

“So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear a second time without sin unto salvation.”

 

 

 

“But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sin for ever, sat down on the right had of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These and many more passages all show that Christ’s second coming was to redeem the church out of the hand of her persecutors, not save her from sin.  Peter thus says, “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened unto you: but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy” (I Pet. 4:12, 13). Christ’s power and divinity would be displayed at his coming by the destruction of his enemies.  The saints would share in that glory and rejoice in his salvation.  “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads: for your redemption draweth nigh” (Lk. 21:28). 

Don’s Argument from “Ishmael”  

Don charges that we “refuse” to answer his argument about Ishmael dwelling in Abraham’s household together with Isaac for a time.  The implication of Don’s argument is that this “proves” the law was valid until AD 70.  However, Don is mistaken and his argument without merit.  Ishmael’s living his Abraham’s household does not prove there were two covenants in force at one time.  The fact that he was not cast out until Isaac was weaned speaks to the fact that there was a grace period for the Jews to obey the gospel of Christ before the nation was destroyed, not that the Old Testament was still in force.  Whatever claim Ishmael had to inherit Abraham’s house, ended the moment Isaac was born, not when Ishmael was cast out. Besides, it is the women (Hagar and Sarah) that represent the covenants in Paul’s allegory (Gal. 4:21-31). Sarah was Abraham’s wife long before Abraham took Hagar who bore Ishmael. Thus, if we were to press the allegory to its limits like Don, the New Testament would be older that the Old Testament, which it wasn’t. So much for trying to prove one thing by analogy to another!  Allegories and analogies can illustrate, never prove.  That is a rule of logic. 

Saints in Hades, etc. 

Don says I contradict myself by saying that the saints on this side of eternity had received the atonement before AD 70, but the saints in Hades did not receive it until AD 70. I never said any such thing.  Even when I shared the mistaken views of Don, I always believe that both living and dead received the atonement simultaneously.  Nowhere at anytime have I said or implied otherwise.  It has been Don’s tactic throughout this debate to attribute statements to me that I have never said. He sets them up as straw-men so he can knock them down, attempting to make me look bad and himself look good.   In his second affirmative alone he did it four times.  In his second negative, he did it at least four times more (and he has done it many times along the way I have simply passed over without mention).  Don claims I said “physical death was the immediate doom of sin.”  But I have never said or implied any such thing.  Don claims I said that the “law of sin and death was nailed to the cross,” but I have never said that either.  He says I admit that Rom. 9:28 refers to the salvation of national Israel. I don’t. I believe it refers to their destruction!  And Don now claims that I say atonement accrued to one group at a time different than another group.  Yet, I have never said any such thing. It is pretty sorry when you have to win a debate based upon what someone else has never said! 

Argument from Hosea 

All of Christendom knows that the general resurrection is from Hades; only among Preterists will you find a spiritualized model that equates resurrection with justification from sin.  Don, needing to find some support for this unprecedented view, looks to Hosea 13:1 “When Ephraim speak trembling he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died.”   Verse 14 goes on to state “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction; repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.” Don puts these two passages together and, Viola! Max King’s spiritulized resurrection!  But there are major problems with Don’s view.  First, Hos. 13:1 is clearly historically specific.  It does not speak to sin in general, from which the prophet is promising a coming day of justification by the gospel.  Rather, the prophet is speaking to the historical situation of the Northern Tribes and their apostasy from God.  “When Ephraim spake trembling he was exalted,” that is, when the Northern Tribes lived in the fear of God they were exalted in Israel and under God’s blessings.  “But when he offended in Baal, he died” speaks to the apostasy of the Northern Tribes, which began with Jeraboam the son of Nebat and his successors. Thus, the passage does not have the general problem of sin in view and therefore is not prophesying a general resurrection by gospel justification.  What the passage is actually teaching is the coming captivity of Israel (its divorce); the nation “dies” when it goes into captivity; all of its political institutions cease to exist.   The resurrection thus speaks, in its first instance, to the political resurrection of the nation when the captivity returns (recall the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37).  Homer Haily, the great Old Testament expositor says: 

“It is a promise of God to the doomed nation that though they go into captivity and there suffer the pangs of travail and sorrow, yet God will redeem them; He will deliver them from their captivity. Their restoration would be as a birth; also it would be as a resurrection from the dead (see Ezek. 37).  The pestilences and destruction of Sheol would be overcome.  Hosea looks not to Christ’s resurrection or to ours, but to the restoration of the people. However, the true significance of death’s destruction and of Sheol’s defeat was not made clear until Christ’s resurrection, and the complete defeat of death will be consummated in our own resurrection from the grave (I Cor. 15:54, 55).”[7] 

Thus, Don’s first problem is that he totally divorces the passage from its historical context, just as he does the Isa. 27 and 59.  His second problem, is that resurrection is not a spiritualized model equated with justification, but an actual resurrection from physical death and Hades (“Sheol,” in Old Testament terminology).  The Corinthians were already “washed, sanctified, and justified” (I Cor. 5:11) but were looking for a further resurrection from physical death and Hades.  Paul thus says “O death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy victory?”  (I Cor. 15:55).  Clearly, I Cor. 15 is about – and ONLY about – the resurrection from physical death and Hades.  The idea of a spiritualized resurrection from the “grave of Judaism” is nowhere in the text.  What would these Greek Christians living on the Corinthian peninsula know or care about a resurrection from Judaism?!  The littlest bit of common sense and critical thinking would go a long way among Preterits, if only we would use it. 

Argument from Zechariah 

Another of Don’s “irrefutable” arguments.  Here Don cites Zech. 1:10, where the prophet speaks in the person of God, saying, he would “break is covenant” with Israel.  Don applies this to AD 70, but the fall of Jerusalem by Titus is nowhere in view.  Where the prophet actually places the end the covenant is the betrayal and murder of the Messiah, or cross:   

“And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people.  And it was broken in that day…And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prized oat of them.  And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord” (Zech. 11:10-13). 

The reader will recognize immediately that this speaks to Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of the Lord and the high priests and elders of the Jews murder of Jesus for blood money (Matt. 27:9, 10).  Therefore, if this passage describes the end of the Old Testament, then that occurred at Calvary in AD 33, not AD 70.  Don could not be more wrong.

Summary & Conclusion 

The traditional teaching of the church has stood the test of millennia.  Tens of thousands of scholars from every nation under the sun have poured over the scriptures, testing the doctrine of the cross.  Each new generation of men has subjected the teaching of the church to the most searching examination.  All stand united in one voice that justification from sin arrived at the cross.  It was not until 1970 that is was ever suggested that atonement and justification were “postponed” until the fall of Jerusalem.  Can it really be imagined that all of Christendom down through the long ages missed something so fundamental?  We are not talking about eschatology, which is clothed in metaphors and symbols and therefore difficult to understand, but soteriology, the doctrine of salvation, communicated in the most open and express terms the apostles knew how so that it would be widely known and understood and so endure from generation to generation.  The idea that it lay hidden until Max King uncovered it in 1970 is shocking to say the least.  What thinking person can believe it?  Our sincerest hope is that Preterists will distance themselves from this atrocious error and return to the fold of the Cross.

 

 


[1] Don K Preston, Like Father, Like Son, On Clouds of Glory (Ardmore OK, 2006), p. 109.

[2] N.T. Wright, Jesus the Victory of God (Minneapolis, Fortress, 1996), p. 361.

[3] Don K Preston, Like Father, Like Son, On Clouds of Glory (Ardmore OK, 2006), p. 33.

[4] Don K. Preston, Like Father, Like, Son, On Clouds of Glory (JaDon Productions, Ardmore, 2006), pp. 190.

[5] Ibid, pp. 134, 135.

[6] Ibid, p. 180.

[7] Homer Haily, Commentary on the Minor Prophets (Religious Supply Co., 1993), p. 181.

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