By Ricky W. Roldan
This past Sunday our church had communion and the passage for the sermon was Mark 14 and so I couldn’t help but think about the recent controversy going on with Gary DeMar and his crossover into Hyper/Full Preterism. I then started to flip to the other gospels in Matthew and Luke also to Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians. A few key points popped out at me that I thought I would share with you all and to which I believe is another death nail to DeMar’s interpretation and to the eisegesis of his full/hyper preterists allies.
First of all the vital importance of the already not yet distinction in eschatology cannot be overlooked and or ignored. To either not take this distinction seriously or to reject it all together is what brings not only eschatological problems but more importantly it brings theological problems. I bring this up for a very important reason so stay with me.
FP is a result of rejecting this clear biblical distinction. Some of them try to claim that this distinction only applies to the period between Christ first coming and 70AD but this doesn’t work because of several other theological implications but these implications are not the focus of this article but that I will get to at another time. Dispensationalism is also a result of rejecting this distinction but they are not the focus of this blog article either.
The Already
The already not yet view does the most justice of the biblical data regarding the very words of Jesus Christ when he speaks of the kingdom already being present during his ministry and when he speaks of the kingdom still in the distant future. Let’s take a look. I will be using the English Standard Version (ESV).
Matthew 12:28
28 But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
Luke 17:20
20 Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, 21 nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”
Jesus clearly teaches that the Kingdom of God is already a present reality. As a sidenote regarding Luke 17:20 notice what Jesus says here, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed” but yet the FP and to be fair many Partial Preterists claim that the kingdom came in clear observation at the destruction of Jerusalem and all that went with it in 70AD.
The Not Yet
Here is where I want to make my point. Jesus own words on the not yet and still future fulfillment of the Kingdom of God. Notice also the vital importance of “that day” in his statement about the future kingdom. This statement correlates with Jesus other statements about “that day” and our resurrection.
Matthew 26:29
29 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
Mark 14:25
25 Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
Luke 22:16;18
16 For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”
18 For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
1 Corinthians 11:26
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
According to these verses when does the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God come? When Jesus Christ comes to consummate all things and hands over the kingdom to the Father on that last day and resurrects the psychically dead in the final defeat of the last enemy, physical death.
1 Corinthians 15:24-28
24 Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. 28 When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.
John 6:39,40
39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
John 11:24
Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
On this passage I would like to point out that both Gary DeMar and his counterpart Kim Burgess have claimed that the resurrection on the last day is actually when a believer dies and goes to heaven and gets some kind of spiritual body. This passage alone refutes their false presupposition which then becomes a forced interpretation because they have absolutely no passage whatsoever to make such a unbiblical claim.
Notice here that Martha is repeating what Jesus has been teaching about the resurrection on the last day. Jesus here doesn’t correct her and tells her not to worry because he will resurrect at 70AD and get a spiritual new body in heaven when he gets out of Sheol or wherever Gary thinks OT saints are prior. DeMar’s nor Burgess view comports with the clear biblical data and is a forced eisegesis based on their 70ADism. Again notice Lazarus is already physically dead when Martha repeats what Jesus has been teaching about the last day and the physical resurrection which Jesus then goes on to give them a taste of by physically resurrecting Lazarus and then says that he is “the resurrection and the life” and that all who believe in him “though he die, yet shall he live”.
Kim Burgess, who apparently is Gary’s teacher and or his counterpart for the last 40 years and went to seminary together, has asked several people on Gary’s posts on Facebook a very confused and misinformed question regarding physical death. So in an attempt to stump us Burgess has been asking “why is it that genuine Christians whose sins have all been fully atoned for in Christ still die biologically/physically?”. To be quite honest this is a silly question and is based on his own private interpretation and imposed presupposition. Well Jesus here answers this question and corrects that false understanding.
Jesus says “though he die, yet he shall live” but then in the very next verse says “and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die…” It seems to me that Burgess would have us believe that this is a contradiction since Kim’s emphasis is on the part that says “…shall never die”. This of course is not a contradiction. Jesus is clearly teaching here that we do die biologically/physically but that we will be resurrected biologically/physically and so in the ultimate sense we “shall never die”. This is basic Christian doctrine and very easy to understand when the proper hermeneutical rules and distinctions are made.
That was a sidenote as I was typing but let’s carry on.
The judgment on the last day correlates with our resurrection on that last day
John 12:48
The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.
Matthew 11:24
But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.”
Finally, when is that last day?
Matthew 24:36
36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.