Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Medieval Alchemy and Israel

One morning in a Phoenix motorcycle shop many years ago, the service manager tried to share his “faith.” Sorting through the work orders for my next job, he began to explain how Jesus Christ had "spiritually" returned in 1914. Paul cautions Thessalonian believers regarding such a spiritualized returned “be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means.” Jehovah’s Witnesses no longer teach a spiritualized return, however, another prevailing wind of doctrine does: Preterism. The root word for Preterism, in the Latinity of the Roman Catholic Church, means past. Preterism, consistent with its 70 AD premise of prophetic fulfillment, teaches that the rapture has taken place, the dead have been raised, the tribulation is over, Christ has returned, Armageddon is history, the Day of the Lord has past, Satan is bound, the Kingdom is here, the Millennium is almost two millennia old, and the church, through some medieval alchemy, has become Israel. Like Covenant Theology, Preterism is muddled in covenant confusion, spiritualizing His return. Like Replacement Theology, Preterism teaches that God keeps all of His promises — except those regarding Jews and their nation. Like Israel’s enemies who desire to drive her into the sea, Preterism desires to drive her from her promises. And like those who desire to destroy her life, Preterism desires to destroy her soul.

The majority of churches in America are essentially preterist in teaching and doctrine, yet the majority of people in those churches have never heard the word Preterism. Those who hold a plenary view of Scripture are generally unaware of preterist animosity. They are unfamiliar with preterist books with titles like Misplaced Hope, End Times Fiction, Last Days Madness, Eschatological Evil, and ‘Left Behind’ Delusion. Preterist internet content, regarding those who affirm the verbal inspiration of Scripture, includes phrases like “dispensational dementia” and “prophetic paranoia.” Those of us who anticipate being caught up together to meet the Lord in the air are increasingly referred to as the rapture cult. The premillennial believer’s “reward,” pictured on one preterist internet site, is an outhouse equipped with a roll of toilet paper blowing in the wind.

The Word of God is being denied and decried today. There are all kinds of gimmicks that people use to water down the truth of the message of the Word of God. We are to keep it … we must believe it, we must obey it. We must be those who are willing to die for it if need be. We preach the Bible. Believe it and obey, not apologize and criticize and explain it away (The Valley Church, emphasis added).17
17The Valley Church, Philadelphia, 4/21/74, (audio tape).

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