Did they miss it?

[Guest]

2Th 2:3 Let no one in any way deceive you, for {it will not come} unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,

I have heard the full preterist argue that if the Thessalonians were expecting what we (those looking for a future return of Jesus) are, then how could they have missed it.

For me it doesn’t seem that unreasonable. I think the scripture would give some indication that even with understanding the language (which everyone is big on) and living in the fist century there was still some uncertainty as to what was going to take place. Not only do you see it in 2Th. 2:3, but also in 2 Peter 3:16. There could be a couple of more scriptures I’m not thinking about.

2Pe 3:16 as also in all {his} letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as {they do} also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.

My point is… I think it can be argued from the other direction as well.

2Pe 3:3 Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with {their} mocking, following after their own lusts,
2Pe 3:4 and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For {ever} since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation."

It seems to me that believers would have been going around talking about the Lord’s coming and therefore those that were mocking were expecting some big change. “…For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation." (2 Peter 3:4)

(Note: Presupposition or biblical evidence?)

I know I could have put more out there. I’m hoping though you see where I’m coming from. Can someone (Steve) offer input?

Thank you,

Ron

[Guest]

One more thing; I am aware that the destruction of the temple and the events surrounding it were “big.” The text though indicates they (those mocking) were expecting something much bigger.

2Pe 3:4 and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For {ever} since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation

[Guest]

I can't say exactly how the Thessalonians pictured the second coming of Christ, so as to wonder whether it had arrived already or not. They had not been Christians for very long, and may have wondered whether Jesus could have come invisibly (as, for example, Jehovah's Witnesses, and even Seventh-Day Adventists* currently teach).

The problem appears to have been that someone, claiming to speak in the name of the Lord, or some epistle that falsely purported to have come from Paul, was claiming that (in some sense) the coming of the Lord had occurred and the Thessalonians had apparently missed it. Though they may have previously held a more accurate view of the second coming, such alleged "words from the Lord" may well have gotten them thinking that they had been mistaken and that they needed to alter their viewpoint according to these new revelations.

I don't think that the full-preterist idea (that the second coming that they were expecting was simply the destruction of Jerusalem) makes better sense of this passage. The question of whether Jerusalem had or had not yet been destroyed would be a matter easily verified without prophetic words, and without the elaborate answer that Paul gives them. If the Thessalonians were wondering about the destruction of Jerusalem, merely, Paul could have answered by saying, "If someone tells you that Jerusalem has been conquered and the temple has been destroyed, I can tell you, without fear of contradiction, that this has not happened. If it had, we would not need prophetic words to inform us of it, as the reports would surely have reached us through the ordinary means of communication within days of its occurrence."

As for Peter's words, it should be observed that Peter likens the "day of the Lord" to the flood of Noah's time. He says that the antediluvian world was destroyed in that flood, but the world that now exists (ever since the flood) is being reserved for a future day of destruction by fire. The fiery destruction is treated as a world-judgment similar to that of Noah's day. The destruction of Jerusalem was an important event, but not very similar or analogous to the global flood.

Peter indicated that the day of the Lord would come at some time far enough in the future that scoffers could refer to the passing away of "the fathers." A number of the apostles may well have been alive in AD 70 (or up to nearly that time--e.g., John lived beyond that date, and Peter himself was almost certainly writing after Paul's death, which probably took place about 67 AD). If Peter was writing, as seems likely, only a couple of years before AD 70, and was thinking of the events of that date as the "Day of the Lord," then there would not seem to be much time for later scoffers to arise before AD 70, appealing to the death of the apostles and the first generation of Christians as proof of the failure of God to deliver on His promises.

In other words, if Peter was writing as late as 68 or 69 AD, and was referring to AD 70 as the "Day of the Lord" about which scoffers would mock, it seems unlikely (though not impossible) that those scoffers would speak of the death of the early Christians, when some of the apostles themselves were still living.

The above arguments are not conclusive, but they provide my reasons for seeing these passages as predicting a future coming of Christ at the end of the world.


* The Seventh-Day Adventists do not literally teach that Jesus "returned" invisibly. I am here referring to E.G. White's doctrine of the "Investigative Judgment." It grew out of the Millerite prediction that Jesus would literally return in October of 1844. When this did not occur, E.G. White said that the date was not wrong, but the event had been misunderstood. What had happened on that date, she said, was not actually the return of Christ, but that He invisibly moved into the holy of holies in heaven to begin investigative judgment. In other words, in place of the literal second coming on that date, she said that something invisible had happened, though the movement had been expecting the coming of Christ. This is not the same thing as the doctrine of the JWs who believe there was an invisible return of Christ in 1914. What I meant in including Adventists in the above statement is that they had an explanation of an invisible "coming" of Christ into the holy of holies, which is conceivably similar to what the Thessalonians may have been hearing about "the Day of the Lord" coming invisibly.

[Guest]

Hi Steve,

I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

I have polygamist friend that wishes to remain anonymous; he read your response and asked that I would forward his reply.

____________________anonymous response_______________________


Ask him why he assumes the passing of "the fathers" is referencing "the death of the early Christians".

Consider some OT passages.


Deuteronomy 31:16
And the LORD said to Moses: "Behold, you will rest with your fathers...
2 Samuel 7:12
"When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers...
1 Kings 1:21
Otherwise it will happen, when my lord the king rests with his fathers...
1 Kings 2:10
So David rested with his fathers...
1 Kings 11:21
So when Hadad heard in Egypt that David rested with his fathers...
1 Kings 11:43
Then Solomon rested with his fathers...
1 Kings 14:20
The period that Jeroboam reigned was twenty-two years. So he rested with his fathers...
1 Kings 14:31
So Rehoboam rested with his fathers...
1 Kings 15:8
So Abijam rested with his fathers...
1 Kings 15:24
So Asa rested with his fathers...
1 Kings 16:6
So Baasha rested with his fathers...
1 Kings 16:28
So Omri rested with his fathers...
1 Kings 22:40
So Ahab rested with his fathers...
1 Kings 22:50
And Jehoshaphat rested with his fathers...
2 Kings 8:24
So Joram rested with his fathers...
2 Kings 10:35
So Jehu rested with his fathers...
2 Kings 13:9
So Jehoahaz rested with his fathers...
2 Kings 13:13
So Joash rested with his fathers...
2 Kings 14:16
So Jehoash rested with his fathers...
2 Kings 14:22
He built Elath and restored it to Judah, after the king rested with his fathers...
2 Kings 14:29
So Jeroboam rested with his fathers...
2 Kings 15:7
So Azariah rested with his fathers...
2 Kings 15:22
So Menahem rested with his fathers...
2 Kings 15:38
So Jotham rested with his fathers...
2 Kings 16:20
So Ahaz rested with his fathers..
2 Kings 20:21
So Hezekiah rested with his fathers...
2 Kings 21:18
So Manasseh rested with his fathers...
2 Kings 24:6
So Jehoiakim rested with his fathers...
2 Chronicles 9:31
Then Solomon rested with his fathers...
2 Chronicles 12:16
So Rehoboam rested with his fathers...
2 Chronicles 14:1
So Abijah rested with his fathers...
2 Chronicles 16:13
So Asa rested with his fathers...
2 Chronicles 21:1
And Jehoshaphat rested with his fathers ...
2 Chronicles 26:2
He built Elath and restored it to Judah, after the king rested with his fathers...
2 Chronicles 26:23
So Uzziah rested with his fathers...
2 Chronicles 27:9
So Jotham rested with his fathers...
2 Chronicles 28:27
So Ahaz rested with his fathers...
2 Chronicles 32:33
So Hezekiah rested with his fathers...
2 Chronicles 33:20
So Manasseh rested with his fathers...
It seems Steve's "passing of the fathers" point is unconvincing considering that the fathers had began resting over a thousand years before the NT was written. That is, considering the fathers of the OT, the mockers of I Peter can easily say, "For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation" and be speaking of that very moment.

Please post for me Ron.

[Guest]

Hi,
I've been reading posts on this forum for quite some time, but this is actually my first post.

I have heard the full preterist argue that if the Thessalonians were expecting what we (those looking for a future return of Jesus) are, then how could they have missed it.

If with the 'coming' mentioned in 2Th 2:1 Paul had in mind a cataclysmic cosmic event and the 2nd part of verse 2 is translated “as that the day of the Lord has come”, then the occurrence / non-occurrence of the 'coming' really seems something hard to argue about. But some versions (KJV, ASV, for ex.) render the text as “the day of the Lord is at hand”. If this latter translation is correct the event in question wouldn't have had yet occurred and couldn't therefore have been missed. The above full preterist reasoning doesn't necessarily help to determine what 'coming' Paul had in mind in verse 1.

Marco