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Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the LORD, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.” – Malachi 3:1, “coming of the Lord” references AD30 | The Significance of A.D. 30 “AD30 Preterism” (Eusebius as Champion] Calvary is judgment de jure; AD70 is only judgment de facto (“WPG“) The Baptism in Jordan, The Cross, Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost as Fulfillment of Prophecy The Significance of AD30 | AD70 | AD135 | AD312 | Christian History’s Preterist Assumption FIGHTING FOR SUPREMACY: AD30/33 VS. AD68/70 Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones “Christ is fulfilling the law on the cross, and unless you interpret the cross, and Christ’s death upon it, in strict terms of the fulfilling of the law you have not the scriptural view of the death upon the cross.” (Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, p. 168) John 19:30 – When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: (tetelestai) and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. Rev 16:17 – And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. (ginomai) Rev 21:6 – And he said unto me, It is done. (ginomai) I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Sound doctrine is focused on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Any theology which makes anything but the declaration of the gospel of Jesus Christ the primary focal point misses the mark. Among preterists, AD70 often gets most of the attention for the fulfillment of “all things which are written” ; however, Scripture places much more emphasis on the work of Jesus leading up to the cross, even declaring that at the end of Jesus’ ministry work, “all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled” (John 19:28). Obviously, the redemptive sacrifice was not fulfilled at the destruction of Jerusalem, and the judgment of God on the Jewish nation was not fulfilled at the cross. These two events – separated by 40 years – each have their own immense significance: However, it is vitally important to realize which is of primary significance and which is of secondary significance. Whereas the significance of AD70 has been of primary focus for the fulfillment of “all things” in the past, it is important to put AD70 in its place by seeing the greater significance of “AD30” in relation to the ministry work of Jesus Christ leading up to His sacrificial death on the Cross for the fulfillment of “all things”. So… does AD30 point to AD70, or does AD70 point to AD30? The fall of the “greater temple” (Jesus Matthew 12:6) must always been seen as fulfilling the promises of God, which were then revealed as such by the fall of the “lesser temple” (Herod’s). The “PROOF OF THE GOSPEL” line of argumentation which generally seeks to focus on the consequences of the rejection of the gospel, actually points to the coming of the gospel itself 40 years before! There is a cause and effect relationship between AD30 and AD70. AD70 is simply the effect of the cause, and therefore sits in an inferior position to the cause, which is AD30. Historically, the fall of Jerusalem was seen as the answer to the coming of Christ in the flesh. That is, the AD70 events took a back seat to the significance of the AD30 events. Here is an example from Athanasius: “So the Jews are indulging in fiction, and transferring present time to future. When did prophet and vision cease from Israel? Was it not when Christ came, the Holy One of holies? It is, in fact, a sign and notable proof of the coming of the Word that Jerusalem no longer stands, neither is prophet raised up nor vision revealed among them.” proof of the coming of the Word (Cause) that Jerusalem no longer stands (Effect) The fulfillment of the promises of God through the revelation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ stand pre-eminent. Historically, Christianity has had no problem acknowledging this. Here is another example, this time from Tertullian, where the sign (inferior) of the coming of the Son of man (superior) is the fall of Jerusalem (inferior): “And so the times of the coming Christ, the Leader, must be inquired into, which we shall trace in Daniel; and, after computing them, shall prove Him to be come, even on the ground of the times prescribed, and of competent signs and operations of His. Which matters we prove, again, on the ground of the consequences which were ever announced as to follow His advent; in order that we may believe all to have been as well fulfilled as foreseen.” Most significant of all is how this calculus is derived from the mouth of the Savior Himself: Luke 19:41-44 “And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. (2) For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because (1) thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.” What is Jesus’ focal point in this passage? Is not the coming desolation the afterthought to the rejection of the Gospel? Jesus didn’t weep because Jerusalem was going to be destroyed, but because those in the city had rejected Him and would continue to reject Him past the point of no return! Respecting significance, there are two ways to look at the relationship between AD30 and AD70: 1) AD30 (the fall of the Greater Temple) points to AD70 (the fall of the lesser temple) Historically, it has been the Jewish scribes who have dated the timing of the tearing of the veil from the fall of the temple. Christians, on the other hand, have always dated the fall of the temple from the tearing of the veil (that is, His flesh).. proving the pre-eminence of AD30 over AD70 for significance. Therefore, as with so many things, it is the ministry of Jesus Christ which is the focal point of prophecy. Everything else points to that… including the fall of Jerusalem in AD70. Hebrews 8, 9, and 10 are built upon this reasoning as well.. not looking FORWARD to the fulfillment, but looking BACKWARDS. This backwards looking focal point for fulfillment is being classified as “AD30 Preterism” to distinguish it from the forward looking focal point for fulfillment of “AD70 Preterism”. The issue of this balance and subservient position of AD70 in church history becomes very relevant in the discussion of Hyper Preterism. A fuller examination of the misrepresentation of church history as AD70-centric is given at bottom. Chronological Treatise on Daniel’s Weeks Wherein is evidently shewn the Accomplishment of the Predicted Events, As Especially Of the Cutting Off of the Messiah after the Predicted VII Weeks and LXII Weeks, according to the Express Letter of the Prophecy, and in most exact Agreement with Ptolemy’s Canon ; So Also Of the Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, in the LXXth, or separate One Week, in the Litteral, Obvious, and Primary Sense
2. “Make an end of sins,” 3. “Make reconciliation for iniquity,” 4. “Bring in everlasting righteousness,” 5. “Seal up vision and prophecy,” 6. “Anoint the most holy (or holy place).” Note that all of these point to Calvary for fulfillment… not AD70. Score six for “AD 30 Preterism“, and all within a fully “orthodox theology”! See Also David Chilton, Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hayne, Gregory Sharpe, Herbert Thorndike // Daniel’s Seventy Weeks Study Archive
[Note: I have added (1) for cause, and (2) for effect] “It is, in fact, a sign and notable proof of the coming of the Word that Jerusalem no longer stands” Athanasius (A.D.345) “So the Jews are indulging in fiction, and transferring present time to future. When did prophet and vision cease from Israel? Was it not when Christ came, the Holy One of holies? It is, in fact, a sign and notable proof of the coming of the Word that Jerusalem no longer stands, neither is prophet raised up nor vision revealed among them. And it is natural that it should be so, for when He that was signified had come, what need was there any longer of any to signify Him? And when the Truth had come, what further need was there of the shadow? On His account only they prophesied continually, until such time as Essential Righteousness has come, Who was made the Ransom for the sins of all. For the same reason Jerusalem stood until the same time, in order that there men might premeditate the types before the Truth was known. So, of course, once the Holy One of holies had come, both vision and prophecy were sealed. And the kingdom of Jerusalem ceased at the same time, because kings were to be anointed among them only until the Holy of holies had been anointed. Moses also prophesies that the kingdom of the Jews shall stand until His time, saying, “A ruler shall not fail from Judah nor a prince from his loins, until the things laid up for him shall come and the Expectation of the nations Himself.” And that is why the Savior Himself was always proclaiming “The law and the prophets prophesied until John.” So if there is still king or prophet or vision among the Jews, they do well to deny that Christ is come; but if there is neither king nor vision, and since that time all prophecy has been sealed and city and temple taken, how can they be so irreligious, how can they so flaunt the facts, as to deny Christ Who has brought it all about?.. What more is there for their Expected One to do when he comes? To call the heathen? But they are called already. To put an end to prophet and king and vision? But this too has already happened. To expose the Goddenyingness of idols? It is already exposed and condemned. Or to destroy death? It is already destroyed. What then has not come to pass that the Christ must do? What is there left out or unfulfilled that the Jews should disbelieve so light-heartedly? The plain fact is, as I say, that there is no longer any king or prophet nor Jerusalem nor sacrifice nor vision among them; yet the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of God, and the Gentiles, forsaking atheism, are now taking refuge with the God of Abraham through the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ. (Incarnation, Ch. VI ) Eusebius (A.D.314) “These things took place in this manner in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, in accordance with the prophecies of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who by divine power saw them beforehand as if they were already present, and wept and mourned according to the statement of the holy evangelists, who give the very words which be uttered, when, as if addressing Jerusalem herself, he said: (1) “If thou hadst known, even thou, in this day, the things which belong unto thy peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes. (2) For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a rampart about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee and thy children even with the ground.” (Book III, Ch. VII) Irenaeus (Approx. AD 174) 1. The fruit, therefore, having been sown throughout all the world, she (Jerusalem) was deservedly forsaken, and those things which had formerly brought forth fruit abundantly were taken away; for from these, according to the flesh, were Christ and the apostles enabled to bring forth fruit. But now these are no longer useful for bringing forth fruit. For all things which have a beginning in time must of course have an end in time also. 2. Since, then, the law originated with Moses, it terminated with John as a necessary consequence. Christ had come to fulfil it: wherefore “the law and the prophets were” with them “until John.”(2) And therefore Jerusalem, taking its commencement from David, and fulfilling its own times, must have an end of legislation when the new covenant was revealed.” Lactantius (3rd Century) “Also Zechariah says: “And they shall look on me whom they pierced.” Amos thus speaks of the obscuring of the sun: “In that day, saith the Lord, the sun shall go down at noon, and the clear day shall be dark; and I will turn your feasts into mourning, and your songs into lamentation.” Jeremiah also speaks of the city of Jerusalem, in which He suffered: “Her sun is gone down while it was yet day; she hath been confounded and reviled, and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword.” Nor were these things spoken in vain. For after a short time the Emperor Vespasian subdued the Jews, and laid waste their lands with the sword and fire, besieged and reduced them by famine, overthrew Jerusalem, led the captives in triumph, and prohibited the others who were left from ever returning to their native land. And these things were done by God on account of that crucifixion of Christ, as He before declared this to Solomon in their Scriptures, saying, “And Israel shall be for perdition and a reproach to the people, and this house shall be desolate; and every one that shall pass by shall be astonished, and shall say, Why hath God done these evils to this land, and to this house? And they shall say, Because they forsook the Lord their God, and persecuted their. King, who was dearly beloved by God, and crucified Him with great degradation, therefore hath God brought upon them these evils.” For what would they not deserve who put to death their Lord, who had come for their salvation? (Lactantius: EPITOME OF THE DIVINE INSTITUTES, Ch. 46) Origen (2nd Century) “Therefore, when these times also were completed, and the Jews subdued, there afterwards ceased in that place “libations and sacrifices,” which thenceforward have not been able to be in that place celebrated; for “the unction,” too, was “exterminated” in that place after the passion of Christ. For it had been predicted that the unction should be exterminated in that place; as in the Psalms it is prophesied, “They exterminated my hands and feet.” And the suffering of this “extermination” was perfected within the times of the lxx hebdomads, under Tiberius Caesar, in the consulate of Rubellius Geminus and Fufius Geminus, in the month of March, at the times of the passover, on the eighth day before the calends of April,(8) on the first day of unleavened bread, on which they slew the lamb at even, just as had been enjoined by Moses.(9) Accordingly, all the synagogue of Israel did slay Him, saying to Pilate, when he was desirous to dismiss Him, “His blood be upon us, and upon our children;”(10) and, “If thou dismiss him, thou art not a friend of Caesar;”(11) in order that all things might be fulfilled which had been written of Him.” (An Answer to the Jews 8.) John Calvin S.G.F. Brandon (1951) G.W.H. Lampe (1984) “From the letter to the Galatians Christians had learned that they were children of the Jerusalem which is ‘above’, the community which, because it enjoys the freedom of the Spirit, stands over against its antithesis, the earthly Jerusalem which is in servitude to the Law (Gal. 4:25–6, cp. Phil. 3:20). The foundations, once again, had been laid for the later development of the theme of the ‘heavenly Jerusalem’ in Hebrews (12:22), the ‘new’ or ‘holy’ Jerusalem which, according to the Revelation of John (3:12; 20:9; 21:2), is to descend from heaven and in which the presence of God will not be focused or localised in any temple, and for the reinterpretation by the Fourth Evangelist of the idea of a holy place, established by God for worship, in terms of community which worships in the Spirit and truth (John 4:21–3). Paul had already taught that the holy temple of God, indwelt by the Spirit, is the congregation of Christian people, the temple of the living God in which his presence assures the fulfilment of the covenant promise, ‘I will be their God and they shall be my people’ (I Cor. 3:16–17; 2 Cor. 6:16); and Paul had also shown that in a secondary sense each individual believer is the temple of the indwelling Holy Spirit (I Cor. 6:19). In this ark of Christian theology, too, the foundations of later developments, such as the teaching of Eph. 2:21 and I Pet. 2:5, and, through a combination of the themes of the ‘temple of the Spirit’ and the ‘body of Christ’, of John 2:21, had been firmly laid in the years before the Jewish war.” (“A.D. 70 in Christian Reflection,” Jesus and the Politics of His Day, eds. Ernst Bammel and C. F. D Moule (London: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 156-158.) A. R. Tippit Hyper Preterism Advances AD70 to the Diminishment of AD30 By classifying “full preterism” as “systematic hyper preterism” at PreteristArchive.com, a very specific charge is being leveled that this view takes the evidence of Scripture and history too far beyond what is acceptable. In fact, the AD70 focal point for the removal of separation between man and God is shown to be fundamentally different than the storyline of historical Christianity. Along those lines, this section will demonstrate how AD70 is made too significant by Hyper Preterists, and is used to actually diminish the significance of AD30. 2 Jan 2010 Your Comments: It is good to hear some of you are waking up. He now lives in believers and the Jews continued to attack Him in the new Christians and after 40 years of that God said enough. You have started in the right direction continue on and God will open your eyes to the whole truth of Christ in you the hope of glory. Nice web site with lots of good stuff to read. Date: 09 Aug 2012 Your Comments: I disagree slightly with the AD30 vs AD70 being any different from each other. The beginning of the Kingdom of God when Jesus Christ sat down on the throne of David in heaven predates Pentecost and that was his FIRST PAROUSIA witnessed by those in heaven. The disciples asked Jesus in Matthew 24 what the sign of his COMING would be, not his SECOND COMING. But the thing is they were not expecting Jesus to LEAVE let alone COME BACK. Instead they wanted to know about his BECOMING KING of Kings and Lord of Lords on the Throne. That PAROUSIA was revealed to Stephen, and that PAROUSIA was revealed to the people who rejected him by the destruction of Israel. They would see that Jesus Christ had in fact been elevated to King and that was their proof. There is then a 40 year cross-over period where God in his mercy gives everyone an opportunity to repent before the physical kingdom is done away with. Pentecost was certainly not the second coming. That was the advent of another, the Holy Spirit. AD70 was not the second coming. AD70 was a visible witness that the FIRST PAROUSIA was in fact true. There is a fulfilment for the beginning of the spiritual kingdom (which starts with Christ not apostles) and there is a fulfilment for the ending of the physical kingdom but both are true. My understanding of preterism is that a lot of the prophecies that have been taken to be future are actually fulfilled already. Have I got the wrong definition of preterist? Date: 20 Jun 2013 Your Comments: Ad 30 was the cause of the effects of 70 Ad. See Heb ch 8-10 [especially 8:13,9:9; 10:9] in conjunction with Dan 9:26,27 while observing the hiphil verb tense of ‘cease’ in vs 27. I believe 132-135 Ad was the Gog/Magog war and the secondary ‘latter days’ of the people who again attempted to establish genetic pre-eminence and favor, thus further confirming the favor of those of faith in God/Christ and Life. |