Posted June 12, 2005

B____ wrote:

Hey Mike,

This is B____. We met at the Nashville conference last year. I was just looking at your website and it seems like you are now a Preterist. I was just wondering when and how you came to become a Preterist.

Hope all is well with you,

B____

Hi B____,

It is good to hear from you.

If you mean that I believe that Christ and His Word have an application which includes the ‘was’ part of…:

Rev 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

… then I suppose you could ‘call’ me a preterist. But since I believe that the emphasis here is on the is, I would have to say that calling me a preterist would be a stretch. Like I said in Nashville, a preterist knows one third of Christ. A dispensationalist also knows one third of Christ. But since “Christ is not divided” neither preterist nor dispensationalist knows the “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending… which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”

I’m trying to understand why you would consider me a preterist. All I can figure is that you confused Gary Amirault’s letter to me as a letter I wrote. I exposed preterism for the one- third truth that it is. But it was a long read, and I can see how that could have happened. Sorry to disappoint you. Check out that entire exchange. I will cut and past the conclusion, which is nothing less than a ‘trumpet sounding’ for both preterists and dispensationalists. Christ is not divided. “The time is at hand” is just as true today as it was in 70 A. D., simply because what is true of Christ is true also of His Words:

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty

Here is Gary’s introduction, followed by my concluding remarks. Let me know if you still think I’m a preterist.

Mike

I was browsing through your site and came across your comment:

The “imminent return of Christ” was inward and before the millennium. The “rod of iron” is the millennium, and it and the resurrection that precedes it are yet future. Preterists just cannot distinguish between things of the spirit and the things of this age.

While Preterism does not solve all problems for me, it DOES solve a lot of time statements which most dispensationalists put to the end of time, or our generation as most think. I’m not quite sure what it is you believe, but tell me, the following verses, do they apply to the generation in which the New Testament was written or do they apply some time in the future or do you have some other kind of scenario?

And after a detailed explanation of the nature of all scripture, here is the ‘trumpet sounding’ against both preterism and dispensationalism of which I spoke. As I said above, Christ Himself emphasizes and puts the ‘is’ first and foremost. The book of Revelation is a book of which we are to”keep the sayings…”

Rev 1:3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

It is neither preterist or dispensationalist.

Yours in Christ,

Mike