Conditionalists: How did you come to your belief?

[Michelle]

I have no dog in this fight, but I think what Michelle was asking, JR, is what does Preterism have to do with any of it? You stated:

My understanding of Preterism is that God fulfills His punishments just as he did in the past, and He will do so again.

To whcih Michelle responded:

how are the punishments for sin specifically tied to the preterist view of prophecy?

I'm not sure if that was answered.

Regards, Brenden.

Hi, TheEditor. I'm sure JR can, and probably will, respond to what you've pointed out here, but in the meantime, perhaps I can fill in some blanks.

Recently, JR cautioned us to consider his whole corpus when deriving meaning from his posts.

Back in December, 2012, he posted this long post in the thread titled "Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children." Here is a snippet with reference to Preterism:

I think interpreting love to mean God 'must' save everyone when God has 'not' put it that way is putting your thinking into His mouth, rather than listening to what has come out of His mouth.
God has told us to believe what He has said, and believe He will bring it to past.
Ever since this Universalist UR discussion came up I feel I wandered into an episode of the Twilight Zone, everything felt right until I came upon this, but now a lot of the other silence makes sense; the Preterist doctrine opens the door for Universalism. The Preterist doctrine allows one to swipe away 'all' the judgments of scripture as if they 'all' already happened, leaving a glorious future for 'all'.
Am I wrong on this? Please tell me I am wrong!

(I did the bolding. All the other emphatic punctuation is from the original.)

I believe jricitelli is responding to his own plea for clarification. Maybe. I could be wrong. I often am.

[steve]

the Preterist doctrine opens the door for Universalism. The Preterist doctrine allows one to swipe away 'all' the judgments of scripture as if they 'all' already happened, leaving a glorious future for 'all'. Am I wrong on this? Please tell me I am wrong!

It seems like it to me. You apparently are addressing full-preterism, though you do not make that distinction clear in this statement. Partial preterism has as much room for future judgment as does any other system, and even full-preterism (as I understand it) allows for post-mortem judgments. I don't see how preterism (of either type) necessarily would lead to universalism.

However, the recognition of historic fulfillments of certain judgment oracles would perhaps reduce the number of passages available to prove conditionalism or traditionalism. That is, you seem to use a lot of verses to prove annihilationism that most Bible scholars (tending to be somewhat more bound by context in their interpretations) would apply to judgments that came upon historic nations. This is not an approach specific to preterists, however, since there are others, besides preterists, who believe that the historical setting of a prophecy is relevant to the recognition of its fulfillment.

[Homer]

Steve,

A snippet of what you wrote:

However, the recognition of historic fulfillments of certain judgment oracles

If a "full-preterist" believes that all prophecy has been fulfilled, and a "partial-preterist" believes that some (most?) prophecy has been fulfilled, how is it determined who is a partial- preterist? Are only New Testament prophecies counted in this determination? For example, I believe Jesus spoke prophetically about the destruction of Jerusalem, 70AD; this seem obvious. So I would suppose this makes me a "partial-preterist", although I do not believe all of the prophecies that some believe are about 70AD are actually about that. It seems to me a great many (non-dispensationalist) Christians believe Jesus prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem, 70AD. Does that one prophecy's fulfillment categorize them as "partial-preterist" or are there other prophecies involved that are not about 70AD (fulfillments and oracles being plural in the snippet)?

[steve]

If you believe any prophecies of the Bible were fulfilled in the past, your are, technically, a "partial" preterist. Thus, the label properly applies to all Christians. If you add the Olivet Discourse to the list of prophecies you see as already fulfilled, you are still a partial preterist—only more so! If you add Revelation to the list of fulfilled prophecies, you are, again, even further along in the definition of a partial preterist. You don't become a "full" preterist until you decide that all prophecies have been fulfilled in the past, and none await future fulfillment.

I am a partial preterist in all the above categories, including virtually all Old Testament prophecies. That most Old Testament prophecies have been fulfilled in the past would be the contention of most Christians—since those prophecies tend to describe the downfall of nations that are long-since extinct (e.g., Assyria, Edom, Moab, Ammon, Philistia, Babylon, Israel (the Northern Kingdom), Second-Temple Judah). In addition, Christians generally recognize several hundred prophecies as having been fulfilled in the first coming of Christ. There are a relative few Old Testament prophecies that a significant number of Christians apply to the end of the world—most (if not all) of these, I believe, were fulfilled in the final downfall of Jerusalem. I am not aware of any amillennial exegete that applies any of the Old Testament prophecies to a post-mortem world, as JR regularly does. Every passage he brings up on this subject can be plainly shown to refer to past, temporal judgments that took place upon ancient nations.

This does not mean that we must opt for universalism. There may be ample support (for all we know) in the New Testament to describe other post-mortem states and judgments. As a partial preterist, I fully recognize a future judgment at the coming of Christ, in which many will be consigned to the lake of fire. The outcomes of that judgment are what is disputed in the hell debate—but not generally between preterists and non-preterists.

[Homer]

Thanks Steve, I am somewhere in the camp. Dispensationalists not so much.

[RickC]

Greetings,

Partial preterism has as much room for future judgment as does any other system, and even full-preterism (as I understand it) allows for post-mortem judgments.

Briefly (and I may start a new, related, thread), yes; every full preterist I've read believes in post-mortem judgment (leaving aside details about what this may include).

I don't consider myself a full-preterist, though I seem to be in agreement with some of their essential interpretations of various key passages. I suppose I may differ in that I don't try to come up with a systematic theological outline (or "grid") that lines up the passages in order to make some kind of "time chart", as it were. This kind of looking-for-fulfillments approach isn't satisfactory to me. (My guess is: it's a layover from when I was a dispensationalist, a habit that's hard to break)!

'Guess I'm off-topic, but thanks!

[Michelle]

‘The wages of sin is death’ this statement doesn’t change meaning just because we are no longer in a body. It doesn’t change just because we are post-mortem. Otherwise the statement would mean ‘the result of death is life’. Wouldn't 'life' go against everything the bible says regarding sin. I do not see any shift in the penalty of sin from Genesis, the Prophets to Revelation. I can’t find my previous posts explaining what I mean in relation to Preterism, but I posted the following somewhere before:

… the reason I gave was that the language does not change much at all between the two Testaments.
I wrote on ‘…The officials of Judah and the officials of Jerusalem, the court officers and the priests and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf— I will give them into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their life. And their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth. (Jer.34:19-20)
Jeremiah continues to speak of Judgment on sinners and Israel and yet this is the same language used in revelations, why is it the same language?

I thought this language was only for the ‘historical event’ of the Babylonian destruction and judgment of Jerusalem, yet it is used again by John to describe a different event, or is it a continuation of judgment for the same offences? Or is it because it is the same God who spoke through John, Ezekiel and Jeremiah etc?
Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds which fly in midheaven, “Come, assemble for the great supper of God, 18 so that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves, and small and great.” (Rev.19:17-18)

Jeremiah repeats this also in chap.19;
‘I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hand of those who seek their life; and I will give over their carcasses as food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth. 8 “I will also make this city a desolation and an object of hissing; everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its disasters. 9“I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life will distress them’ (Jer.19)

This is the same kind of language Ezekiel uses also, although Ezekiel may have heard Jeremiahs preaching he had no problem uttering the same judgments;
“As for you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD, ‘Speak to every kind of bird and to every beast of the field, “Assemble and come, gather from every side to My sacrifice which I am going to sacrifice for you, as a great sacrifice on the mountains of Israel, that you may eat flesh and drink blood. 18 “You will eat the flesh of mighty men and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, as though they were rams, lambs, goats and bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan. 19 “So you will eat fat until you are glutted, and drink blood until you are drunk, from My sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. 20 “You will be glutted at My table with horses and charioteers, with mighty men and all the men of war,” declares the Lord GOD. (Ezekiel 39:17-20)

Ezekiel does a much better job of commentary on the proceeding verses above than I could;
21… and all the nations will see My judgment which I have executed and My hand which I have laid on them. 22 “And the house of Israel will know that I am the LORD their God from that day onward. 23 “The nations will know that the house of Israel went into exile for their iniquity because they acted treacherously against Me, and I hid My face from them; so I gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and all of them fell by the sword (Eze.39:21-24)

jriccitelli, I have a confession to make: When I responded to the post that contains the quoted material above, I only skimmed the part where you quoted yourself, I didn't read it carefully. I came back and read it this morning and it has been on my mind all day. It stuck with me through church, a stop at Target, and relaxing this afternoon. Then I read all four chapters you referenced to get a feel for their context. I'm...well, I'm not sure I catch what you are trying to get across. Below I've made a stab at summarizing your quote:

You had a response to Preterism (and your niggling intuition that it leads to universalism), which you now cannot find, but have found something you posted where you made a point along the same line. Your point is that during your reading of prophecy, you noticed that similar wording occurs in more than one prophet's writing, including Revelation. Your response to Preterists is that even though the fulfillment of prophecy might be in the past, since similar imagery is used multiple times, we can be assured that what has been fulfilled will come to pass yet again.

Did I read it correctly?

[Michelle]

Apologies in advance if bumping threads is considered impolite. I really want to talk with jriccitelli about his post and he's been scarce here lately. I was hoping to avoid having this thread fall off the active topics list.

[Michelle]

jriccitelli, any chance I could ask you some questions about your posts?

[jriccitelli]

I thought that some other avenues, or threads would answer, or follow this same direction. Such as the dual fulfillments of prophecies, etc. I believe I wrote a response once and can't find it on my computer. I sometimes write and don't post till I proofread, then i lose the file Would be happy to write here again.