\ MY EXPERIENCE WITH FUTURIST DEBATE

My Experience With Futurist Debate

MF Blume
July 2004

After seeing how many doctrines our good futurist brethren adhere to, that were never taught explicitly in the bible by anyone, having accepted nuances and novelties never known by the church until 1830 (the biggest example being Dispensationalism), I cannot for the life of me understand how they can dare say anyone's teachings were not taught by the apostles, as they try to purport that preterism was not taught. They fail that test themselves, admittedly. When dispensationalism is admittedly not taught in scripture, but a doctrine developed through the centuries, as other false doctrines, one can never use the argument of what is and what is not taught in scripture by the apostles. They shoot their own feet in doing so.

Standing on scripture alone, I say the apostles did indeed preach preterism. Nothing futurists have said about scripture has proven otherwise. Little wonder futurists stand on the words outside the bible to base their conclusions, such as the writings of Darby and Scofield, since they accept words outside the bible, not akin whatsoever to the bible's explicit teachings, for doctrine. That is the general futurist mentality.

After studying more about how dispensationalism came about, and ever reading futurists' words about how it was formulated through centuries, and yet watching them still cling to dispensationalism after recognizing and admitting that, causes me to stand upon partial preterism -- according to how the Lord showed it to me -- more than ever.

And the greatest flaw I see in their thoughts is "Chiliasm". The belief in a physical 1000 year period in our future in which Jesus will physically rule the earth while on the earth.  I had never realized before how the conflict against proper methodology of interpretation is violated by adhering to Chiliasm. To rightly divide the word implies the thought that certain books offer doctrinal statements while other books only support them. This means not every book is the same when it comes to what we can form doctrines upon.

Revelation is not the book to go to for doctrine. It can only be interpreted by explicit teachings in the prophets, gospels, Acts and epistles. Chiliasm has distorted this entire truth, and caused futurists to force the rest of the bible to fit with Revelation, which is entirely backwards. Revelation is too symbolic and does not tell us what is, and what is not, symbolic, to be used as a foundation alone for determining a doctrine about a 1000 year kingdom of Christ on earth.

Futurists have concocted rules about how to ascertain that which actually violate the first verse in the book. And what people walk away with, after reading the book through their rulings, is fear and concentration upon a mythical "the antichrist", and stress upon everything but a revelation of Jesus Christ.

And they have relegated the worst tribulation to ever hit the earth as a punishment for some crime that will occur in our future, that is worse than the cross. And by very virtue of the fact that the cross is the greatest event to ever occur in earth's history, past or present or future, the other side of the coin is that it was the greatest act of evil in this world deserving of the worst punishment. And the idea of "this generation" who crucified the Lord, being faithful to the context of Matthew 23 through 24, being recipients of the worst punishment ever meted out upon the earth, is fully faithful to this point.

And to actually propose that Matthew 24's reference to the razing of the temple did not occur in 70 AD, since a few foundation stones of the Fort of Antonio still stand, is utterly amazing! Scholars, who know perfectly well what still stands, have attested to the 70 AD fulfillment of those words.

And then there is all these weird "doctrines" of the "exact word" being necessary in a context before one accepts the truth of it in that context, despite synonymous terms found there, is simply grasping for straws to reject preterism.

Then there is the argument that dispensationalism and Chiliasm has stood the test of time, thereby confirming it's alleged veracity, despite the fact that it is not found in explicit teachings of the Bible, simply betrays it's guilt of being false. To determine correctness in a doctrine, by whether or not it's proponents turned grey in the process of standing by it for their mere vapour of time they lived, is erroneous to say the least. But it betrays the same sort of extrabiblical foundation that the entire futurist doctrine is built upon. One does not need explicit biblical teachings to accept a doctrine since and therefore one looks for proofs of one's doctrine in all sorts of extrabiblical foundations such as these.

I am afraid such methodology violates everything that being "Apostolic" is supposed to mean. We disregard many doctrines as false since the apostles did not teach them, and their adherents admit they are not taught in the bible but only developed through centuries after the bible's completion. But dispensationalists believe the very same sort of doctrine in that it is admittedly not taught in scripture anywhere, while other doctrines they reject are much older, although not apostolic. Dispensationalism took 18 centuries to come about!
One brother told me that although a different brand of dispensationalism existed long before J.N. Darby concocted the "brand" to which this brother now adheres, Dispensationalism was still around for centuries.

"Apostolic" means we stand upon the teachings of the apostles. What is apostolic about dispensationalism and chiliasm? Nothing.

And denying that words refer to Jerusalem in Revelation that perfectly reflect Christ's own words spoken to Jerusalem, is the height of self-blinding mannerism. Matt 23:35 interprets Rev 18:24. Luke 23:28-30 interprets the people in Rev 6:15-16. Ezekiel 16 interprets the identity of the whore who has daughters in Rev 17. And Acts 4:26-27 interprets for us the identity of the kings of the earth in Rev 17.

And most of all, the misrepresentation of preterist propositions that are utilized by futurists, at least the ones with whom I have discussed the issue, after repeated corrections to the contrary, disappoints me. And that, with subsequent repeated denials of such misrepresentation. I have been falsely accused of denying all scriptures' inspiration from God. I repeated the truth to the contrary several times, and it has not been acknowledged.

All in all, my experience concerning futurists, with whom I have personally discussed prophecy, has found that they stand upon extrabiblical doctrines as though they were explicit teachings of the apostles, and, for the most part, adhere to their beliefs in fear of disappointing their elders as though they were infallible arbiters of prophetic truth. This was made clear in Bro Chalfant's recent exclamations of amazement at preterist resistance to his beliefs after his grey heard elders have taught them  for decades.
And then of course there is the closed-mindedness I have seen. Not one single brother was willing to give preterism a chance, but instead even going to the extent of buying books, only looked to shoot the doctrine down by finding fault in it. Open-mindedness does not do that.
Open-mindedness gives an alternative doctrine "a chance", by reading the bible with the doctrine's propositions in mind, to see if it does fit or not. Open-mindedness is giving the doctrine the benefit of the doubt when it comes to questions, and seeing if it holds up in the long run, although one might not see how it fits into one or two verses. Open-mindedness is realizing that one might have a paradigm so time-locked into our minds for so long that a certain interpretation of a verse cannot give way to another viable interpretation of the same verse. With such a possibility in mind, although for the present one simply cannot honestly see the present belief as a paradigm, one puts that thought on hold, realizing that perhaps after some more study is made in other areas, the particular verse in question may come to light as truly being supportive of preterism.

And when statements such as "the gospel did not go into all the world by 70 AD" are contradicted by the bible's own terminology to that effect being used to say the gospel DID go into all the world, as Col. 1:5-6 and Romans 10:18 attests, and one STILL uses that same argument, one is simply not wanting to see the truth. This is the same case with the futurist thought that the nations of the earth DID NOT experience wrath in 70 AD, despite the FACT that the greek terms used for NATIONS and EARTH are also faithfully translated as TRIBES and LAND, alluding to Israel alone, and even used for Israel alone in other scriptures unrelated to prophecy. Such facts are swept beneath the futurist's carpet, though, and purposely put out of mind, while the same failed arguments rise again later on.
The denial that Jesus' words about the sun, moon and stars, being figurative of kingdoms falling, as attested to by that very plain use in the Old Testament, is another disappointment.

The greatest, though, is the fact that dispensationalism was not taught before 1830 in the present form that these "apostolics" adhere to. One might as well accept other late doctrines not taught buy the apostles, or Joseph Smith's Mormon claims of spiritual experiences and visions, as to accept dispensationalism. It's not in the Bible!
And to talk about "original preterism" in contrast to our preterism is simply shooting one's own foot as well. Original "dispensationalism" is a far cry from the 1830 version! But comparing words proposed by ourselves with words written outside the bible by other more ancient preterists is no basis for determining truth anyhow.