Since my last post I've been to yet another Bible study on Revelation, where we are now on chapter 7 and we have finished with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I've also had some time to read it a little more, as well as some online research, and I tried to figure out what a "preterist" is.
The first thing I'm going to note is that the author, the Apostle John, had a circular style of writing. In one of his epistles, I noticed that he came back around to revisit a point, but from a different angle. Some years ago when reading Revelation, I noticed that he did that there too, which meant to me that it isn't a chronological order of what will happen. He comes back around again, and it turns out that our pastor stressed that too. So my observation about that isn't a case of where it's just me.
The second thing is, is that I looked up on Wickedpedia (oops, typo) what a preterist is. I probably can be categorized as one but I didn't agree with the types of preterist that they listed. As stated before, I believe that some of what Revelation has prophesied has already happened, but not all of it. Does that make me the partial preterist that they described?
No, because I believe that some of Revelation happened before Christ appeared to John to give the revelation. I'm talking about the white horse. I believe that Christ was present at the Creation, and the appearing of that horse is representative of that. And that is where I part company with the "partial preterists".
If that article can be relied upon, it says that some partial preterists have tied some of the symbolism to specific events. Some might say that "this" was the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 A.D.. I won't go that far. I don't personally think it's wise to do that or to try to reach those kinds of specific conclusions.
Some of the other online research turned up websites that seemed to suggest that the prophecies of Daniel were about one set of events and those that Christ stated were about events yet to come (which they were) and that those in Revelation are about others. Nope. In my view, Daniel spoke of things which we have yet to see. The prophet Joel touched upon the end. So did Christ and so does Revelation. Am I a partial preterist? Call me that if you want to, but that's not what I call myself. I will tell you that we've already had war, earthquakes and famine, and you'll agree. But we are NOT done with war, NOT done with earthquakes, and NOT done with famine. Those prophecies have been partially fulfilled in my view, but have not been completely fulfilled.
Now let's get to the earthquakes. One of the sites I looked at today said there would be more earthquakes. Are there "more" earthquakes happening now than there were 2000 years ago?
I digress to that controversy called "climate change", the now preferred title of what they used to call "global warming". We've got a lot of scientists out there telling us that the Earth is getting hotter, and that the human race is responsible for that. Some forty years ago there was a new "Ice Age" coming. Regardless, these scientists will insist that this viewpoint is valid. They've done studies and these studies were all "peer reviewed". (Did you know that the decision to launch the space shuttle Challenger in January 1986 was also "peer reviewed"?)
Well are these scientists telling us that earthquakes are happening more often than they used to? Are they? If they are, I haven't been made aware of it. So are earthquakes happening more often than when Christ was here?
What has happened is that we know about more earthquakes happening because our technology at detecting them has improved. The disciples didn't know about earthquakes that were hitting Indonesia or the Cascades or Alaska. We record more earthquakes because we have seismographs and we now know just how big the world is. There aren't any continents waiting to be discovered.
But many of those who insist that there's going to be a rapture are insisting there are more earthquakes. No one, to my knowledge, has made the case that we're having more earthquakes than we used to.
Then there are nations rising against nations, and kingdoms against kingdoms. Yes, that's true. It's happening right now. And it was happening back then. If we have more wars now than we did back then, it's because we have more people.
Christ said one other thing about something that had to happen before the end. The Gospel must be preached to all nations. Has it? We have several shortwave radio stations beaming the Gospel to every corner of the world. Has the Gospel been preached to "all nations"? If you look at it in those terms, you can say yes, right? But does everyone out there have a shortwave receiver? If you look at it that way, you can say no, right? So has the Gospel been "preached" to "all nations"? My own personal viewpoint on this is that it hasn't, that there is someone out there who has to hear it and believe it before the end comes. I can't tell you if that person is alive or has not been born yet. And even if that very last person has been reached, will the end come right after that? How do we know that God won't "grow" that person some before the end comes?
I realize that I have raised a lot more questions that I have answered, and maybe I shouldn't even be claiming that I answered a single one of those questions. The purpose of this post was really to raise them, and to get anyone who cares to read this post some things to think about.
But don't ask me what the answers to my questions are. I don't know any more about the answers than you do.
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