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The End of All Things: A Defense of the Future

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As this book and its author have been pivotal points in my young Christian life, I must ask the reader's indulgence as I start this review on a personal note. I remember my reaction the first time that I heard of the preterist position of eschatology. It went something like this... "Are you completely nuts! " How could the events described in the Olivet Discourse and most of Revelation have happened in the first century? But then again, I was finding it intellectually difficult to make "soon" and "this generation shall not pass away" stretch out into two thousand years plus. So, as I investigated this idea, I soon encountered the large body of work produced by the hyper-preterists (hereinafter pantelists). They argued that not only was the Great Tribulation completely fulfilled in 70AD, if one were to be CONSISTENT then ALL prophecy was fulfilled in 70AD, including the Final Advent of Christ, the resurrection, and the Final Judgment. As good ole Bugs would say, "That's All Folks!" Well, ideas have consequences, and as I struggled with this idea, I went through the blackest moments in my Christian faith and actual clinical depression. I praise God for the Christian compassion of the author who spent a great deal of time with me on this issue many months before this book came out. Now to the meat of the matter. There are so very few works refuting pantelism (this being the only book-length treatment of the subject that I am aware of), and each that I have seen bases its argumentation heavily on the pantelists' departure from the historic Christian creeds. However, the pantelists play the "Sola Scriptura" card to their favor, and as R.C. Sproul, Jr. so aptly stated in his introduction to this book, when the pantelists are confronted with the creeds, they "just yawn and remind us that we ourselves confess that confessions can err." This book of 208 pages spends the last 10 pages on the creeds and their proper place, devoting the rest to a biblically based argument against pantelism. The author develops an excellent case for the orthodox Christian belief in the future bodily resurrection of all believers and the future bodily resurrection of the damned. He points out multiple Scriptures that cannot be understood in any other light without exegetical (and tortuous contextual) gymnastics. In so doing, he engages many of the arguments of the pantelists. Also specifically addressed are the arguments of pantelists King, Harden, and Noe about the nature of the resurrection body. Of course, intrinsically tied into this issue, would be the Final Judgment. If the pantelist is correct, then Satan and his angels have been completely judged and in the Lake of Fire. If the pantelist is correct, then physical death will always be present, and Christ will not have completely redeemed us and this world from the loss caused by the first Adam. The consequences of this idea do not leave one area of faith unaffected. (For example, if Christ has done all the "coming" that He is ever going to do, then do we still take Communion?) Additionally, it is shown how a particularly thorny issue for the pantelist is the reign of Christ. If Revelation 20 and 1 Corinthians 15 are taken together, the pantelist would appear to have no choice but to reduce Christ's reign to 40 years. Pantelists and orthodox preterists alike point out that God can tell time and "soon means soon." However, the pantelists in a desire to be "consistent" can somehow make 1,000 years into 40. Who is being consistent here? While the number 1,000 may very well be, and most likely is, symbolic; it certainly is not symbolic of a short period of time (despite pantelist assertions). What would be the point? To turn their question back on them... if God had wanted to symbolically indicate a long period of time, how could He have made it any clearer? According to pantelism, God has no problems expressing nearness and short periods of time in no uncertain terms, why the ambiguity here? And if their assertions are correct, we may have cause to worry because God keeps His promises to a thousand generations. If that can be forty, our time may be running out! (Of course, I am somewhat kidding.) The author ironically points out that the pantelists have made the same error as they believe the dispensationalists have, only in reverse. While most of the church today seems to ignore the short term statements in Scripture to save the future, the pantelist sacrifices the future to save the short term statements. Other issues dealt with include the implausibility that the church could be in such grave error for 2,000 years, ( especially if the pantelist is right since the promises in Ephesians 4:11-13 would have fulfilled as well!) and the mixing of short-term and long-term prophecies in the OT. I particularly enjoyed the fact that this book sticks with and deals with the topic at hand without unnecessary digression and elementary discussion. As such, however, it is not a work for persons unfamiliar with the basics of the topic as it does not provide such groundwork, assuming the reader already has familiarity with same. Also, this book is not going to nor does it claim to, answer every argument that is currently put forward by the pantelists; but it lays a great foundation from which to answer those arguments. Now back to a personal note. This journey exploring preterism has been a rocky road for me, and I suspect for many others as well. I really enjoyed how the author pointed out, however, that all Christians are preterists to a point. We all believe that the First Advent has happened! Although, I cannot claim at this point to be a convinced preterist (as in "the Olivet Discourse and most of Revelation is fulfilled" sense of the word), it is nice to know that one does not have to abandon orthodoxy in order to hold to this view. I pray from the depths of my heart that this book will help others from being totally blindsided and almost shipwrecked, as I almost was, by the poisonous heresy of pantelism. Praise God for His mercy towards me.

Seriaiah has performed an important service to the evangelical theological world. He has provided a succinct and insightful introduction and critique of an alarming aberrant theology. He calls it "pantelism" ("all things-ism") whereas others call in "Hyper-Preterism" (see espcially Keith Mathison's equally helpful expose, When Shall These Things Be?").

This book provides a well-reasoned critique of several of the leading errors of this new, innovative movement. The Pantelists believe that ALL of biblical prophecy has been fulfilled. That Jesus's Second Coming occurred in AD 70, and that the Last Day and the resurrection all occurred then. The "last day" is in their view "the last day of Israel."

I highly commend this book as an important tool in witnessing to members of this faulty theological movement. There may not be many Pantelists around, but when just one of them shows up, you will know it! They are determined to debate the topic at the drop of a hat. (In this regard see some of the strange reviews by them of Keith Mathison's "When Shall These Things Be?"

I once was a pantelist (hyper-preterist). I was committed. I was writing a book on the topic. And then. And then I read Mathison's "When Shall These Things Be." I read it to refute it. I still have my half-finished refutation in my computer. I couldn't make it through three chapters of that book. I was convinced. Hyper-preterism is wrong. Flat out wrong. I threw out my book manuscript. Then I got this book, out of interest. It nailed shut the coffin lid. I was done with pantelism. Forever. I compared what Mathison and Seraiah were saying with the hyper-preterist response. The hyper-preterists were stretching, reaching for answers that were not readily forthcoming. They weren't in the same league.

Seraiah's book is a direct theological response to hyper-preterism, and it does its job well. It has helped a number of my friends escape pantelism as well, and so I am personally thankful for its paraousia.

Occasionally I return to those websites that I used to haunt as a hyper-preterist. So far I have not found one response to this book or to Mathison's, that is anywhere near the same league, in terms of theology and scholarship.

It is generally refreshing to read preterist treatments of eschatology, even partial. One normally feels a kinship with those who recognize the imminence of at least some New Testament events. Unfortunately the purpose of this book is not to bind more closely but poison the well.

Seraiah is to commended for maintaining that Revelation 1:7's "every eye will see him" means apostate Israel--"all the tribes of the Land"--as in Jesus' declaration to the Sanhedrin "after this you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming upon the clouds of heaven." Addressed as it was to them, it meant they--indeed all unbelieving Israel--would recognize Christ's ascension to the Father's throne and "mourn because of Him" who had come to judge them and take away the Kingdom. The connection with Matthew 24:30 is undeniable: "At that time the sign of the Son of Man [who is] in heaven will appear and all the tribes of the Land will mourn." Then He would "gather His elect from the four winds"--the great ingathering of Gentiles now that the New Covenant was in full swing. Daniel 7:13-14's vision of a Son of Man taken into God' Presence and all peoples, etc. worshipping was thereby explained and fulfilled.

Matthew 23-25 pretty well determines one's whole framework for "end times." And it is here that PARTIAL preterists (for that is what Seraiah and his colleagues are) are only PARTIALLY right. Seraiah correctly dismisses attempts to translate "genea" as race or make it some other generation--Mt 23:36 squashes that (context, always context). But they err when they try to position a wedge somewhere after the "time text" ("this generation will not pass away until all these things take place"--verse 34), separating Jerusalem's AD 70 Fall from yet future events. The analogy with Noah is typically said to refer to a much later, still future, physical, visible, cosmos-ending Second Coming. It won't do. Luke 17:20-37 has a half dozen of the same events of Matthew 24 but in a different order. The "vultures" passage is before the time text in Mt 24, Noah after. In Luke, Noah is before the vultures. Matthew 24 is obviously one big event occurring at the same time. That said, Matthew 24:36-51 concerns the Fall of Jerusalem, ending in AD 70, and Matthew 25 must, too: 25:1 "At that time," verse 25:14 "For/because," and verse 31 "And."

So AD 70 is also the time of the famous "sheep and goats" judgment. But partial preterist Seraiah postulates it "is evidently not an event that took place in A.D. 70" (p. 45). This is sadly so much like Dispenationalism's first principle of interpretation: if it doesn't look like my idea of what should happen, it hasn't yet. But any attempt to separate 31-46 by thousands of years fails because Mt 16:27-28 is essentially the same subject: "The Son of Man will SOON come in the glory of his Father and with his angels to reward all people for what they have done. I promise you that some of those standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming with his kingdom." The "soon come" translation of "mello" is recognized by Young's Literal, Good News, CEV, Darby, and Modern Literal.

We're also supposed to believe "near" doesn't mean "near" in the Bible. Seraiah quotes Ezekiel 12:23 in a tortured attempt to prove this (pp 100-101) but the reader who actually looks it learns the Lord says "NONE of My words will be DELAYED ANY LONGER." God can tell time after all! (Also, Amos 6:3; 8:2, Hosea 1:4, Isaiah 56:1 & 12, Mt 26:18, 45, John 14:19)

Too many Christians are trying to make two pictures from the one "puzzle" box of eschatology. Seraiah grants a first century resurrection, Coming of Christ, Judgment, etc. but speaks of an additional General Resurrection, Final Judgment, Final Coming, etc. He speaks of the need "to distinguish between a spiritual `coming' (invisible for temporal judgment, as in A.D. 70) and the physical coming." Apparently Paul said, "first ... the natural, and after that the spiritual--and then the natural again!" (1 Cor 15:46). Of course he didn't, but the spiritual isn't good enough anymore. The bewildering sets of two pictures people try to construct from one box should be a signal that something is amiss in the whole approach: there's just one picture, my friends. The best insight into 1 Corinthians 15 is Sam Frost's "Exegetical Essays on The Resurrection of the Dead." The tenses are correct in his work and Paul finally doesn't contradict himself--a must read for those not afraid of the truth.

Partial preterists seem to like partial quotes, such as with early Christian writers. He's eager to emphasize their MATERIAL expectations but keeps readers in the dark about their TIMING. The book that explicitly answers Seraiah here is Sam Frost's "Misplaced Hope" available at this Web site.

In this book Seraiah greatly misrepresents full preterism and he also places the manmade, uninspired creeds almost on par with scripture (pg 193) and because of this he condemns us because we differ from them on the TIMING of the resurrection, judgment, and Second Coming. ." Since when does eschatology affect salvation? Seraiah's trust of the creeds sounds more like the ways of Catholicism with their tradition instead of the Reformers "Sola Scriptura"! The creed writers admitted that the creeds might err. The problem for Seriah is that the partial preterist differs from the creeds more then the full preterist. Partial preterists differ from the creeds in that the creeds only teach of a Second Coming and not a third. The partial preterist believes in a type of coming in 70AD and in a future "Second" Coming and many of the verses they apply to 70AD the creeds apply to a future Second Coming. I agree with Seraiah that since 70AD we live in the age to come (pg 40), which Paul mentions in Eph 1:20,21. The problem for him is that the Nicene Creed revision of 381AD says that "We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come". The writers of this creed believed that the age to come was still future and they also believed that the resurrection would happen immediately preceding the age to come, NOT that it would happen at the end of the age to come as Seraiah believes. Seraiah uses the uninspired early church fathers selectively (chapter 1) to "prove" that the resurrection, judgment, and Second Coming are future. I want to note that none of the church fathers believed in a "type" of coming in 70AD. In 1 Clement 23:4,5 it says "You see that in a little time the fruit of the tree attaineth unto mellowness... the scripture also bearing witness to it, saying He shall come quickly and shall not tarry...". First Clement 28:1 mentions the "judgment about to come" and in 1 Clement 24:1 mentions the "resurrection about to be hereafter". These last 2 verses I mentioned use the same Greek word "mello" (about to) which is used in Revelation 3:10 and many of the church fathers use this imminent language. They clearly didn't believe in a distant future coming of Christ like Seraiah and other postmillennialists do. "Mello" is also used in Acts 24:15 and 2 Tim 4:1 and Young's and Green's Literal translations are 2 of translations that show its use. Acts 24:15 reads "of a resurrection being ABOUT TO be of the dead, both of just and unjust ones" (Green's) and 2 Tim 4:1 reads "...the Lord Jesus Christ, He being ABOUT TO judge the living and dead at His appearance and His kingdom" (Green's). Seraiah and I believe that the destruction of the heavens and earth (see Isaiah 51:15,16) in 2 Peter 3 occurred in 70AD (pg 54). The church fathers believed this was literal and thus a post 70AD but soon event. In 2 Clement 16:3 (120-170AD) it says "But ye know that the day of judgment cometh even now as a burning oven, and the powers of the heavens shall melt, and all the earth as lead melting on the fire, and then shall appear the secret and open works of men." The attack against preterism that no early church writer mentioned the Second Coming as occurring in 70AD is false. Eusebius (260-339AD) in his book Proof of the Gospels (Book 8) says "The Holy Scriptures foretell that there will be unmistakable signs of the Coming of Christ. Now there were among the Hebrews three outstanding offices of dignity, which made the nation famous, firstly the kingship, secondly that of prophet, and lastly the high priesthood. The prophecies said that the abolition and complete destruction of all these three together would be the sign of the presence of the Christ. And that the proofs that the times had come, would lie in the ceasing of the Mosaic worship, the desolation of Jerusalem and its Temple, and the subjection of the whole Jewish race to its enemies. The holy oracles foretold that all these changes, which had not been made in the days of the prophets of old, would take place at the coming of the Christ, which I will presently shew to have been fulfilled as never before in accordance with the predictions."

This book is absolutely necessary, as it is very easy to read a little bit of orthodox preterism and get sucked into hyperpreterism, as can be attested by the 1-star reviews. You do not want to end up a heretic. Unfortunately, Seraiah goes for the exegetical small guns, working over small passages here and there in 1 John and the like. These passages were chosen because they are just totally incomprehensible unless something like the Parousia, the Last Judgment, the Resurrection of the Dead and the New Heavens and New Earth as understood in orthodox Christianity is true. But we wouldn't be in this spot if we hadn't re-read the Olivet Discourse, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 2 Peter and Revelation as being solely and entirely about the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70. We need to go back and establish exegetically from these BIG texts what the Church has always asserted: the Second Coming and Last Judgment are transcendent, supernatural events, either at the end of time or outside time in the eternal realm, not an intermediate judgment in history. There is a problem if you can't get there from the Olivet Discourse, where Jesus says "But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left." This just simply is not about a historical event in the 1st Century.

Mr. Seraiah has done the church a great service by writing this book and demonstrating the blatantly unbiblical nature of hyper-preterism.

I hope his book receives a wide hearing.

Get the book! Although I am a Futurist and believe that the second coming in all it's pre 70 AD fullness is 100 % equally directed to us today (I was a Full - Preterist for five years), I would recommend getting Jonathin Seraiah's book and other Partial - Preterist works such as DR Sproul and Mathison. This will make sense if you read my website (I do not follow the same timeline thinking that is prevalent today in either Preterism or Futurism). Get Jonathin Seraiah's book, read it, read my website, and lets discuss respected Biblical theologians, their books, Orthodoxy, Futurism, and Partial Preterism.

Donald James Perry

Seriah and Mathison are at it again, denying the perspicuity of scripture. In his chapter of "WHEN SHALL THESE THINGS BE" incoherent, hypo-preterist Keith and Chori Jonathin have denied that the biblical time texts mean what they say. Apparently they need to read the Bible 25 For I am the LORD: I will speak, and the word that I shall speak shall come to pass; it shall be no more prolonged: for in your days, O rebellious house, will I say the word, and will perform it, saith the Lord GOD.

In Mr. Mathison's books " Postmillennialism " and " Sola Scriptura ", he shows himself not to be a defender of the gospel as taught in scripture at all, but rather a pseudo-intellectual needing a remedial course in logic. Mr. Mathison and his ilk (Gentry, Sandlin, Crisler, West, North, Sproul Jr., Seriah, and all the other self-appointed defenders of their revisionist view of orthodoxy) are Creedalists pushing their Creedalism- not bible believing Christians contending for the faith that " was once for all " entrusted to the saints- as they want you to believe! In what follows, these claims will be supported.

In appendix three of his book "Postmillennialism" you find "A Brief Critique of Full Preterism" where he accuses preterists of attacking the creeds, not distinguishing between ecumenical creeds and denominational confessions and seriously misunderstanding the Reformation doctrine of sola Scriptura. Mathison claims biblical interpretation "necessarily sinks into the sea of subjectivity" if creedal orthodoxy is not maintained as a boundary. He quotes Mr. Sandlin from his paper Hymenaeus Resurrected, "Sola Scriptura means that the Bible in the context of Christian orthodoxy is the sole, ultimate touchstone for faith and practice." Really? Notice the complete absence of subjectivity and vicious circularity in that quote, all us hypers should become hypo-preterists immediately-DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $200.00!-NOT!! Mr. Mathison and ilk-GET THEE TO A LOGIC CLASS!!!

One should not miss the arrogance in Mathison's reply to a recent preterist post -not that arrogance is completely absent here ("Answer the fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit")- and the ad hominem approach taken by the aforementioned writers. About the forthcoming book Mathison writes, "The project is a critique of hyper-preterism (not preterism)...." as if they are the only ones that correctly use the term. He further states about the author of the article, that he raises, "...some questions that adherents of biblical Christianity cannot answer...." No sir, Mr. Mathison, only adherents of Creedalism cannot answer the questions. Mr. West writes that preterists are full of satanic pride. Gentry says preterists are all unemployed but have internet access (Golly, I wonder how we pay for it, Mr. Gentry?) When informing his "flock" about Walt Hibbert's alledged mis-interpretation of Jesus pronouncement in Luke 21:22 that when Jerusalem was surrounded by armies it was for the fulfillment, "...of all that was written....", Gentry said all does not mean all and, "...when you answer one preterist fly all the other preterist flies come to his funeral." I am sure we can look forward to more of the same in "H" published by P&R Publishing ISBN 0-87552-552-0.

I was a full preterist and this book change my position. It has good arguments and I think you should have this book. That doesn't mean that I think Full Preterism is an heresy...i would never think that and i dont like the way Seraiah talk about the pantelist as an heresy...but the rest of the Book is excelent.