Partial Preterisim in Revelation through the Amillennial view Part 1

[Marty]

Partial Preterisim in Revelation through the Amillennial view.

This is my edited version of an article I read. I wrote this for clarity because truth matters, and for Christians to see another view of Revelation and to take away fear of the future.

The best way to understand Revelation is by asking what did it mean to the people that it was written too during the times that they were living in?


Chapter 1: Jesus appears to John, to give a message to seven churches of what must soon take place because the time was near. Revelation is the revelation of Jesus Christ as in who Jesus is and what He did. Jesus is God and He ushered in the New Covenant.

The “coming of the Son of Man” is not referring to the Second Coming, but to the “judgment coming” of 70 AD, which John says was targeted against “the tribes of the Land” (the tribes of Israel). In the bible, the phrase “coming in the clouds” is an apocalyptic symbol for coming in judgement.


Chapter 2-3: Jesus has John write seven letters to seven literal churches in Asia (near the island of Patmos where John was). The theme of each letter also alludes to a section of the Revelation itself. Although the message was directly to seven literal churches that were in the world when John penned Revelation, they were also instructions and warning to the church throughout history. These letters are vital to keep a church healthy.


Chapter 4: John is taken to heaven. He sees the throne of God, the 4 “living creatures” and the 24 elders (who symbolically represent the whole Church). Some believe that this is symbolic of the rapture but the text states that only John is taken up to heaven for the purpose of receiving and conveying a message for the church.


Chapter 5: John sees God the Father holding the scroll of the New Covenant. It is sealed with seven seals, which was recognized in first-century Judea as being the “will” of a deceased person. This scroll of the New Covenant is the will of Jesus Christ himself, who ascends to heaven and takes the scroll to open it because only Jesus is worthy.


Chapter 6: John sees the first six seals of the scroll broken open. A scroll broken open was right before the events in the scroll were to take place. Daniel was told to seal up his scroll because it was for the time of the end (Daniel 12:4) John was told not to seal up the words of his scroll because the time was near (Revelation 22:10).

Each seal draws a parallel to the prophecies of Christ in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24-25, Luke 21 & Mark 13), and to the Covenant curses of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. These seals were the series of events that take place in the first-century, culminating in the war of Rome upon Judea. (30-70 AD)


Chapter 7: John sees the whole Church (the great multitude), symbolically represented as a group of 144,000. The twelve tribes of Israel are named, but rearranged for symbolic purposes. Judah is placed at the first of the list, because Jesus is the “Lion of Judah”. Dan is removed from the list because Genesis 49 calls him a “serpent”, who is the enemy of the Church in the Revelation. Dan is replaced by Manasseh, similar to how Judas was replaced by Matthias. They are sealed with the seal of God, to show that they are protected from the wrath of Gods destruction of Jerusalem during the Jewish-Roman War. (67-70 AD)

Just as John hears of the Lion of the tribe of Judah he then turns and sees the Lamb that was slain, John hears of the 144,000 and then turns and sees the great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language. The great multitude are the martyred saints that came out of the great tribulation which is different from the wrath of God from which the saints are protected. The great tribulation started the day Stephen was martyred and is still happing today.

 

[Josheb]

If I may....

1) Yep. 100% correct. However, verse 2:19 informs the soon/quickly/near/at hand because it states some of what John is shown in his vision has already happened, some of it was currently occurring, and only a portion of the vision was about future events. Since the vision itself does not always state what was past, present, and in the original audiences' immediate future, the best means of attaining that understanding is other scripture.

2-3) The letters to the seven churches were written to address the circumstances the Christians in those congregations were facing at the time John had the vision. Those seven letters all have one core theme: overcoming. Each of those churches were facing circumstances they were to overcome, and overcome so as to receive a Godly reward.

4-6) The op's comments are interpretive, and speculatively interpretive. The basic partial-preterist view is that what John saw was a future set of events. This is understood because the first verse of the chapter explicitly states, "....I will show you what must take place after these things." Rev. 1:19 states the vision includes some things that would come after what John had already witnessed and the things that already were and what would come after those things. What John first sees is the already established setting, and we know the throne scene has already occurred because of the many epistolary statements reporting Jesus' already-established rule or reign. Once the setting is established the scrolls are opened in the following chapters. I think it also worth noting the important point is not Rome, but judgment. Rome's and its mercenary armies were simply one of the means of God's judgment. It's often not obvious to preterists (partial or full) but the rebellion of the Zealots was also a means of judgment - both reason for and means of judgment. Those guys literally destroyed the temple..... spiritually. the minute the first human sacrifices took place in the temple it was destroyed; it was destroyed with profaneness, desolation, abomination. The bricks still stood, but the temple was nothing but an empty shell of man-made disobedience.

7) I will suggest this is a partial recapitulation of what had already been described in previous chapters. For example, according to 2 Cor. 1:22 and Eph. 1:13 and 4:30, the bondservants of Christ have already been sealed. Those verses tell us the sealing has already happened so the harm to the earth and sea reported in 7:3 can begin at the time John heard God command the four angles not to harm the earth and sea. Whether literal of figurative, the 144k is a fixed number so it does NOT indicate infinity or some open-ended, not-yet-determined number of bondservants. We want to avoid the error of "onlyism" (inserting the word "only" into scripture where scripture never includes that word), and we want to avoid that error just as much as we want to avoid interpreting any large number as symbolic of infinity or some open-ended, undefined number. The same holds true for the "tribes." Because there were many Gentile proselytes into Judaism over the centuries (and many, many, many more added in Christ during the first century) we KNOW they were not members of any tribe as far as bloodline goes. The mention of the tribes, therefore, should not be read to exclude converts from the goy (Gentiles). Lastly (for now), the chapter seven description of the tribulation CANNOT be read as a pre-trib rapture passage because verse 14 explicitly states those people went through the tribulation! That verse, therefore, serves as both an audience identifier and a temporal marker. This chapter segues into the rest of the recapitulation or introduces the recapitulation that begins in chapter 8.

And remember: Rev. 1:19 tells us that much of what followed in the subsequent chapters, "the things which [John had] seen, and the things which are [at the time of the vision]." Only "the things which shall be hereafter," are future to the time of John's vision. That's how any Christian practicing a grammatical-historical hermeneutic correctly must read the text. That is how any Christian practicing the first rule of exegesis must read the text: Read the verse exactly as written with the normal meaning of the words in ordinary usage unless there is something in the immediately surrounding text giving warrant to do otherwise.





The partial-preterist reads the temporal markers literally. That's what makes the preterist, preterist. We do NOT read time into the text. When the text of Revelation says something already happened (past-tense), we accept and trust that event happened exactly as stated in scripture. When Revelation states something was happening when the revelation was revealed that is also what we accept, trust, and believe. Any prospective so called "interpretation" is subordinate to what is stated. Whatever they event was, it happened already. We do not go looking for an early event to justify the preterist (literal reading of temporal markers) reading. We take what scripture explicitly stated and then examine history accordingly, not the other way around. We do not subjugate scripture to history; we subjugate history to scripture. Whatever the first two parts of Rev. 2:19 were, they have already happened, and we know that because that is exactly what Revelation 1:19 states. We, likewise, know that what came afterwards came after the things that are and were, not after two millennia passed, and we know those events of the things that come afterward were going to come quickly (I prefer "quickly" over "soon") because the time was near to the revealing of the revelation of Revelation.

Well done, @Marty

 

[CrowCross]

Partial Preterisim in Revelation through the Amillennial view.

This is my edited version of an article I read. I wrote this for clarity because truth matters, and for Christians to see another view of Revelation and to take away fear of the future.

The best way to understand Revelation is by asking what did it mean to the people that it was written too during the times that they were living in?


Chapter 1: Jesus appears to John, to give a message to seven churches of what must soon take place because the time was near. Revelation is the revelation of Jesus Christ as in who Jesus is and what He did. Jesus is God and He ushered in the New Covenant.

The “coming of the Son of Man” is not referring to the Second Coming, but to the “judgment coming” of 70 AD, which John says was targeted against “the tribes of the Land” (the tribes of Israel). In the bible, the phrase “coming in the clouds” is an apocalyptic symbol for coming in judgement.


Chapter 2-3: Jesus has John write seven letters to seven literal churches in Asia (near the island of Patmos where John was). The theme of each letter also alludes to a section of the Revelation itself. Although the message was directly to seven literal churches that were in the world when John penned Revelation, they were also instructions and warning to the church throughout history. These letters are vital to keep a church healthy.


Chapter 4: John is taken to heaven. He sees the throne of God, the 4 “living creatures” and the 24 elders (who symbolically represent the whole Church). Some believe that this is symbolic of the rapture but the text states that only John is taken up to heaven for the purpose of receiving and conveying a message for the church.


Chapter 5: John sees God the Father holding the scroll of the New Covenant. It is sealed with seven seals, which was recognized in first-century Judea as being the “will” of a deceased person. This scroll of the New Covenant is the will of Jesus Christ himself, who ascends to heaven and takes the scroll to open it because only Jesus is worthy.


Chapter 6: John sees the first six seals of the scroll broken open. A scroll broken open was right before the events in the scroll were to take place. Daniel was told to seal up his scroll because it was for the time of the end (Daniel 12:4) John was told not to seal up the words of his scroll because the time was near (Revelation 22:10).

Each seal draws a parallel to the prophecies of Christ in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24-25, Luke 21 & Mark 13), and to the Covenant curses of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. These seals were the series of events that take place in the first-century, culminating in the war of Rome upon Judea. (30-70 AD)


Chapter 7: John sees the whole Church (the great multitude), symbolically represented as a group of 144,000. The twelve tribes of Israel are named, but rearranged for symbolic purposes. Judah is placed at the first of the list, because Jesus is the “Lion of Judah”. Dan is removed from the list because Genesis 49 calls him a “serpent”, who is the enemy of the Church in the Revelation. Dan is replaced by Manasseh, similar to how Judas was replaced by Matthias. They are sealed with the seal of God, to show that they are protected from the wrath of Gods destruction of Jerusalem during the Jewish-Roman War. (67-70 AD)

Just as John hears of the Lion of the tribe of Judah he then turns and sees the Lamb that was slain, John hears of the 144,000 and then turns and sees the great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language. The great multitude are the martyred saints that came out of the great tribulation which is different from the wrath of God from which the saints are protected. The great tribulation started the day Stephen was martyred and is still happing today.

This may all sound good...but when did Rev 8 and 9 happen?

My answer is, it didn't happen yet. For obvious reasons that become self evident when one reads those chapters.

 

[Marty]

If I may....

1) Yep. 100% correct. However, verse 2:19 informs the soon/quickly/near/at hand because it states some of what John is shown in his vision has already happened, some of it was currently occurring, and only a portion of the vision was about future events. Since the vision itself does not always state what was past, present, and in the original audiences' immediate future, the best means of attaining that understanding is other scripture.

2-3) The letters to the seven churches were written to address the circumstances the Christians in those congregations were facing at the time John had the vision. Those seven letters all have one core theme: overcoming. Each of those churches were facing circumstances they were to overcome, and overcome so as to receive a Godly reward.

4-6) The op's comments are interpretive, and speculatively interpretive. The basic partial-preterist view is that what John saw was a future set of events. This is understood because the first verse of the chapter explicitly states, "....I will show you what must take place after these things." Rev. 1:19 states the vision includes some things that would come after what John had already witnessed and the things that already were and what would come after those things. What John first sees is the already established setting, and we know the throne scene has already occurred because of the many epistolary statements reporting Jesus' already-established rule or reign. Once the setting is established the scrolls are opened in the following chapters. I think it also worth noting the important point is not Rome, but judgment. Rome's and its mercenary armies were simply one of the means of God's judgment. It's often not obvious to preterists (partial or full) but the rebellion of the Zealots was also a means of judgment - both reason for and means of judgment. Those guys literally destroyed the temple..... spiritually. the minute the first human sacrifices took place in the temple it was destroyed; it was destroyed with profaneness, desolation, abomination. The bricks still stood, but the temple was nothing but an empty shell of man-made disobedience.

7) I will suggest this is a partial recapitulation of what had already been described in previous chapters. For example, according to 2 Cor. 1:22 and Eph. 1:13 and 4:30, the bondservants of Christ have already been sealed. Those verses tell us the sealing has already happened so the harm to the earth and sea reported in 7:3 can begin at the time John heard God command the four angles not to harm the earth and sea. Whether literal of figurative, the 144k is a fixed number so it does NOT indicate infinity or some open-ended, not-yet-determined number of bondservants. We want to avoid the error of "onlyism" (inserting the word "only" into scripture where scripture never includes that word), and we want to avoid that error just as much as we want to avoid interpreting any large number as symbolic of infinity or some open-ended, undefined number. The same holds true for the "tribes." Because there were many Gentile proselytes into Judaism over the centuries (and many, many, many more added in Christ during the first century) we KNOW they were not members of any tribe as far as bloodline goes. The mention of the tribes, therefore, should not be read to exclude converts from the goy (Gentiles). Lastly (for now), the chapter seven description of the tribulation CANNOT be read as a pre-trib rapture passage because verse 14 explicitly states those people went through the tribulation! That verse, therefore, serves as both an audience identifier and a temporal marker. This chapter segues into the rest of the recapitulation or introduces the recapitulation that begins in chapter 8.

And remember: Rev. 1:19 tells us that much of what followed in the subsequent chapters, "the things which [John had] seen, and the things which are [at the time of the vision]." Only "the things which shall be hereafter," are future to the time of John's vision. That's how any Christian practicing a grammatical-historical hermeneutic correctly must read the text. That is how any Christian practicing the first rule of exegesis must read the text: Read the verse exactly as written with the normal meaning of the words in ordinary usage unless there is something in the immediately surrounding text giving warrant to do otherwise.





The partial-preterist reads the temporal markers literally. That's what makes the preterist, preterist. We do NOT read time into the text. When the text of Revelation says something already happened (past-tense), we accept and trust that event happened exactly as stated in scripture. When Revelation states something was happening when the revelation was revealed that is also what we accept, trust, and believe. Any prospective so called "interpretation" is subordinate to what is stated. Whatever they event was, it happened already. We do not go looking for an early event to justify the preterist (literal reading of temporal markers) reading. We take what scripture explicitly stated and then examine history accordingly, not the other way around. We do not subjugate scripture to history; we subjugate history to scripture. Whatever the first two parts of Rev. 2:19 were, they have already happened, and we know that because that is exactly what Revelation 1:19 states. We, likewise, know that what came afterwards came after the things that are and were, not after two millennia passed, and we know those events of the things that come afterward were going to come quickly (I prefer "quickly" over "soon") because the time was near to the revealing of the revelation of Revelation.

Well done, @Marty

thanks for the input there are two other parts with the rest of the chapters

 

[Marty]

This may all sound good...but when did Rev 8 and 9 happen?

My answer is, it didn't happen yet. For obvious reasons that become self evident when one reads those chapters.

Check out part 2 & part 3

 

[CrowCross]

Check out part 2 & part 3

What is their main points?

 

[Marty]

What is their main points?

They go over the rest of the chapters