What is Preterism?

The word "preterist" comes from the Latin word "praeterire," meaning "to go by."  Preterism is a school of Biblical interpretation that views most or all of the New Testament's prophecies to have been fulfilled.  Full or Consistent Preterism holds that while Christ's Second Coming was future to the time of the writing of the New Testament, his coming is not future to our time.  Thus, Full Preterism is the opposite of Futurism, the widely held view that the Second Coming is a still-to-come event -- one that many Christians over the centuries have believed, to their disappointment, would happen in their lifetime.

1st-Century Fulfillment of the Second Coming Prophecies

Full Preterism, most powerfully articulated by James Stuart Russell in the late 19th century in his masterpiece The Parousia, maintains that Jesus' Second Coming occurred in A.D. 70, when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Romans.  A 1st-century fulfillment of the New Testament's Second Coming prophecies accords with the time limit that Jesus himself placed on when his coming would occur, namely: before his disciples had evangelized all the towns of Israel (Matthew 10:23), before some of them had tasted death (Matthew 16:28), and before his own generation had passed away (Matthew 24:34).  Jesus' apostles understood this time limit and even connected it with the Temple's destruction, as evidenced by their reaction to Jesus' prophecy on the Mount of Olives in AD 30.  After Jesus predicts the Temple's fall, his disciples ask him: "Tell us, when will this [destruction of the Temple] be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?"  (Matthew 24:3; Biblical quotes are from the Revised Standard Version unless otherwise indicated.)

By contrast, Futurism, which "knows" that the Second Coming could not have already occurred, must explain away the imminent nature of these prophecies, which straightforwardly call for a 1st-century fulfillment.  The Apostle Paul makes this expectation clear in telling the Church at Thessalonica that"we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord," shall not precede the risen dead in meeting the Lord "in the air" after his descent from heaven (1st Thessalonians 4:15-17).

Pre-AD 70 Writing of the New Testament

A 1st-century fulfillment of the Second Coming prophecies, as Full Preterism holds, implies that the entire New Testament -- whose books recorded these prophecies -- was completed before Jerusalem's fall.

For the case that the entire New Testament was written before AD 70, see Redating the New Testament, by John A.T. Robinson; first published in 1976 by SCM Press Ltd., reissued in 1993 by Xpress Reprints. Robinson writes: "One of the oddest facts about the New Testament is that what on any showing would appear to be the single most datable and climactic event of the period -- the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, and with it the collapse of institutional Judaism based on the temple -- is never once mentioned as a past fact.  It is, of course, predicted.... But the silence is nevertheless as significant as the silence for Sherlock Holmes of the dog that did not bark." [p. 13]  For evidence of the pre-A.D. 70 writing of the Book of Revelation, see Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating the Book of Revelation, by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.; published in 1989 by the Institute for Christian Economics.  One of the strongest pieces of internal evidence is Revelation 11:1, which indicates that the Temple was still standing when John wrote his prophetic book: "Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told: 'Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there....'"

Nature of the Second Coming

The Full Preterist position also implies that the nature of the Second Coming is different from what is expected by most of today's Church.  More specifically, according to Full Preterism, the Second Coming of A.D. 70 was not a photographable, CNN Breaking News-like event in which Christ visibly appeared in the sky or made an earth-landing descent.

Contrary to popular Futurist imagery, the New Testament does not depict Christ's Second Coming as a full descent to earth. The Apostle Paul writes that "the Lord himself will descend from heaven" (1st Thessalonians 4:16).  But this descent does not continue to earth, as living Christians are "caught up together...in the clouds" with the risen dead "to meet the Lord in the air" (1st Thessalonians 4:17).  (See my discussion of the untenable separation of the "rapture" from the Second Coming, as argued by certain Futurists known as Dispensationalists.)

There is no also indication that Christ's descent from heaven to meet his Church in the air is visible to those on earth.  Several Second Coming passages seem to speak of the event in terms that suggest its visibility to the naked eye, such as Mark 14:62 ("...you [Caiaphas] will see the Son of Man...") and Revelation 1:7  ("Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, every one who pierced him...").  These passages, however, only underscore the 1st-century timing of the Second Coming, as Jesus' own contemporaries -- the high priest Caiaphas and "those who pierced" Christ (Revelation 1:7) in AD 30 -- are to "see" the Son of Man coming on the clouds. This timing would necessarily exclude anyone after the 1st century from being a witness to Christ's coming, which undermines the Futurist insistence on a still-to-come, publicly visible appearance of Christ at his Second Coming.

Moreover, the "seeing" by Caiaphas and "those who pierced" Jesus, especially in the context of the Son of Man coming in judgment on those who unjustly condemned him, is better understood as "discernment" or "understanding" than as witnessing with the naked eye.   All the more so since Caiaphas is told by Jesus in Mark 14:62 that he will see the Son of Man "seated at the right hand of Power," a heavenly position that is hardly within the high priest's literal range of vision.  In fact, the Greek word for "see" in Mark 14:62 and Revelation 1:7

(horao) is used in the sense of discernment in other New Testament passages, such as Matthew 5:8: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God."

So how did Caiaphas and "those who pierced" Christ discern the Son of Man coming on the clouds, if they did not actually see him with their own eyes? They did so by experiencing and witnessing the Romans' destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in A.D. 70, which not only fulfilled Jesus' prophecy of those events on the Mount of Olives 40 years earlier (as recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21), but also vindicated Jesus as Messiah.  It should be kept in mind the figure of the Son of Man coming on the clouds is an allusion to Daniel 7:13-14, which describes the enthronement by God of "one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven"  (New International Version).  Daniel's Son of Man approaches the "Ancient of Days" (God) to receive "authority, glory and sovereign power" so that he might rule over a "kingdom...that will never be destroyed" (NIV).  Thus, Caiaphas and those of 1st-century Israel who rejected Jesus "saw," in the graphic form of the fall of Jerusalem and the Temple, that Jesus had been enthroned over a new kingdom as the heavenly Son of Man he claimed to be.

Regarding Jesus' ascension from the Mount of Olives as evidence for a publicly visible, bodily appearance of Christ at the Second Coming, see my analysis of Acts 1:11 ("...This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come [back] in the same way as you saw him go into heaven").

As for Zechariah's prophecy that on the day of the Lord's coming, "his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives," see my discussion of Zechariah 14:4.  Also, see my analysis of Futurist claims about the Second Coming in the anti-Preterist book The End Times Controversy, edited by Tim LaHaye and Thomas Ice.