Full Preterism vs. Idealism By Nathan DuBois, Nate 4 One Nation Full Preterism vs. Idealism – Part One : Introduction | Part Two – Full Preterism’s Achilles Heel | Part Three – Full Preterism’s “New” Gospel | Full Preterism vs. Idealism: Part Four : Full Preterism’s Single Dimension Focus My Thoughts and Understanding of Preterist Idealism | God, The Judge of the Heart | Why I Needed to Repent: A Letter to a Friend… Among Friends | The Nature of the Christ: The Dilema of Chronology | Scripture Interprets Scripture: Part One – The Covenants, The Jerusalems, The Flesh and The Spirit | Response to “Expectations Demand a Rapture” | Nate4OneNation
Original Location: Full Preterism vs. Idealism, Part III
In doing so, Full Preterism creates a “new condemnation.” Putting the truth of these spiritual facts into time lines produces a logical beginning and end to these facts. In Adam all died, and now that AD 70 has occurred, all men are no longer in Adam. That condemnation has been put away. Now they are just simply outside the Covenant and “naked.” Here is some language used by Michael Bennett, a friend of mine who is a Full Preterist, to describe why men are still condemned even after the condemnation of Adam was put away.
As a friend has put it: “‘I came not to condemn the world’ – and then He signs a bill making a new law of condemnation.'” The language has also been used by calling the law that now condemns men (since the law of Moses has been put away) the “law of Christ.” This assumes Christ came to enact a law not previously enacted before. Full Preterism uses this to describe the commandments which men break today. By this the “new heavens and new earth Death” becomes enacted as well. Here is another Full Preterist explanation of this type of logic to explain the condemnation of today.
Once again, making a difference between Adam’s law and the law of Christ creates a problem. A claim was made that they are seeing the whole story, so their conclusions are valid. However, they are inventing a new story because the old one passed away and became irrelevant. The Full Preterist focus on time line driven theology — and not Christ revealing theology — places dates as to when old sin and new sin started and stopped. Old condemnation and old laws stopped and new condemnation and new laws begin. This is only logical when looking at things strictly chronologically. When looking at things as all pointing to Christ and all being a part of the same story that ends in eternal life for those in Christ, and condemnation for those still in Adam, the focus becomes so much more clear, and the need to create new scenarios by which men are condemned is simply silliness, and maybe worse. So to get to the point of why a “new heavens and new earth death” — or a new reason being outside of the old Adam — is NOT needed for mankind to be condemned, is because nothing that occurred in AD 70 is new at all. This is where we get to the explanation of what Idealism truly is vs. the typical Full Preterist interpretation. This is also where I jumble together my other points of logic that are missing from the Full Preterist reasoning. It is the lack of these understandings that lead the Full Preterist system to invent new doctrines of sin, law, and death in today’s world. 4. God’s attributes come into play for everything. God does not change and His character does not change. Just because God acted in time, those actions did not benefit, make different, cause change to, or halt His ways. He is the same today as He was in Genesis. The law of Moses was a shadow of the true law. It represented the real law which is Christ. The Mosaic law was a revelatory instrument used by God to show mankind His holiness and our unworthiness. It pointed not only to our need for Christ, but was the tool by which mankind saw Christ revealed incarnate, as He fulfilled its external works. The law was made by Christ:
These laws are one and the same. A “shadow” assumes something is casting the shadow. Removing the shadow, or better yet, shedding full light on the thing which casts it, does not change what it truly is, it reveals it. A “copy” assumes there is something to be copied. The thing which is copied is not changed or done away with because the copy of it is removed, it is either hidden away without even a copy to interpret it, or the source is revealed in it’s fullness. In this case the source — which is Christ — is revealed by those who are transformed by the Spirit. Paul speaks of the ministry of the law as a veil, and he gives the one way by which the veil is removed.
Being “in Christ” removes the veil, it removes that which blocks us from seeing the realities that the shadow interpreted. When it is removed by the Spirit we receive freedom. Many people will claim that Full Preterism believes this anyway. As I have shown by the comments posted earlier, this is simply not the case. Full Preterists claim that AD 70, which is when the law of Moses was removed, removed the veil. But the law of Moses is just a temporal shadow. So if the law was a shadow on this earth that represented Gods holiness, and with mans inability to comprehend and live up to God’s holiness, it was a hinderance:
Now again we go back to Romans. Whether before or after AD 70, whether with the physical law of Moses standing on the Mount or without, the Spirit is what frees men to turn to Christ, and remove the veil.
It was THIS VERY SAME LAW that Adam broke in the garden. Even before the law of Moses existed on earth, there was a veil keeping men away from God because mankind (represented through the person Adam) broke the eternal law. Eating the apple was breaking the same eternal law that taking “the name of the Lord your God in vain” does. It is the breaking of this very same eternal law that condemns mankind today. Only in Christ is this condemnation removed. And being in Christ can only be individually experienced. Being in Christ is not a corporate event, it is a personal event. Therefore, if AD 70 represented this change, because it only removed the representative of the true, then the true fulfillment is personally experienced each time someone enters into Christ. This is NOT application. AD 70, the removal of the fake/ copy, did not make true the reality, it only represents it. Reveals it. The same is true for the garden of Eden scenario that was mentioned by Mike. Yes, the garden IS the same as the New Jerusalem in that it was a copy for it. The garden was physical, the physical is not the true. So what did the garden represent? The garden was the shadow, the physical representation of mankind dwelling with God. However, mankind can only dwell with God in Spirit and in truth. It was due to the breaking of the law that Adam was expelled and no longer able to enter. Covenant with God absent from sin. This is the same as the New Jerusalem, only with unveiled eyes we see that the spiritual reality of the New Jerusalem is what Eden was all about in the first place. Eden, Canaan, Old Jerusalem. All pointing to the New Jerusalem. Not different in character, just one a copy of the other. The law of Moses did not have a different character form the law of Christ, it was just a temporal representative, and therefore not sufficient. That is why Paul could call it “holy” and a “curse” at the same time. So the bringing in of the saints into the New Jerusalem is restoration into the true Eden. This is why Full Preterism is a “new gospel.” It dishonors the eternal standing of the law and makes two different laws and two different condemnations. It dishonors the eternal standing of the covenant, failing to see that the one enacted on earth was only a copy of the true one made with Adam. The condemnation that came through Adam came from sin. Sin repelled Adam from the covenant, Christ restores it for each person that enters Him. Sin is the same disease today that it was for Adam, reaping the same condemnation and having the same cure. Time lines do not do the truth of the Gospel justice, and it eliminates the personal aspect of the fullness in Christ. The gospel does just fine with it’s own telling. It does not need me scrubbing through scripture to see what was done away with and what is left so that I can reach conclusions, none of which found in scripture, to explain it. God Bless Here is a link to a study on the eternal aspect of the covenant. What do YOU think ? Submit Your Comments For Posting Here |
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Date: 27 May 2007
Time: 13:08:10
Comments:
Nate, You are my friend, but it is pretty cowardly, IMO, to not take any questions regarding your theology, and all the contradictions that I have pointed out already via personal emails etc., but then take quotes from here or there, from me, and use them in an article.
Nate writes:
The law of Moses was a shadow of the true law. It represented the real law which is Christ. The Mosaic law was a revelatory instrument used by God to show mankind His holiness and our unworthiness. It pointed not only to our need for Christ, but was the tool by which mankind saw Christ revealed incarnate, as He fulfilled its external works.
Nate how is this different than what Sam and I have been saying? What you FAIL to understand is that what was “REVEALED” was the TRUE LAW. Hence the SHADOW is not needed anymore to condemn men. Romans makes it clear that Christ REVEALED both RIGHTEOUSNESS in Him and CONDEMNATION without him. No more SHADOWS needed.
Adam didn’t start in the garden. God PUT him in the garden.
Genesis 2
7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. 8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.
Genesis 3
22 And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
This is enough to condemn any man – it has been REVEALED – man knows good and evil, and starts OUTSIDE THE GARDEN.
Matthew 5
7Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
1 Timothy 1
5The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 15To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.
1 John 3
23And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
Revelation 21
8But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” 25On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. 26The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. 27Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
So how does man get in?
Revelation 22
14″Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. 15Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
There is nothing inconsistent about this. We find the SAME THING / EXACT SAME IMAGERY in the OT where In Isaiah 65/66 Zecharaiah 14, Isaiah 26 etc etc. where John the apostle got his imagery from, are talking about the NH and NE and the NJ.
Isaiah 9
Of the increase of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this.
Date: 26 May 2007
Time: 14:05:40
Comments:
Not all FP are Universalists or Calvinist as you claim. It is like Todd has said that all type are wrong, which includes PI.
Date: 02 Jun 2007
Time: 19:44:53
Comments0:
Over and over again the scripture refers to us not being under one law (the law of Moses) and now being under a new law (the law of grace/Christ). They are two different laws. I don’t know the full preterists you referred are getting their information from. But, in the New Covenant condemnation comes to those who don’t believe. Being in Christ is the result of FAITH in him. No faith in Him = condemnation.
– Titus
> Date: 27 May 2007
> Time: 13:08:10
>
> Comments0:
>
> Nate: You are my friend, but it is pretty cowardly, IMO, to not take any questions regarding your theology, and all the contradictions that I have pointed out already via personal emails etc., but then take quotes from here or there, from me, and use them in an article.
>
> Nate writes:
> The law of Moses was a shadow of the true law. It represented the real law which is Christ. The Mosaic law was a revelatory instrument used by God to show mankind His holiness and our unworthiness. It pointed not only to our need for Christ, but was the tool by which mankind saw Christ revealed incarnate, as He fulfilled its external works.
>
> Nate how is this different than what Sam and I have been saying? What you FAIL to understand is that what was “REVEALED” was the TRUE LAW. Hence the SHADOW is not needed anymore to condemn men. Romans makes it clear that Christ REVEALED both RIGHTEOUSNESS in Him and CONDEMNATION without him. No more SHADOWS needed.
> Adam didn’t start in the garden. God PUT him in the garden.
>
> Genesis 2
> 7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. 8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.
>
> Genesis 3
> 22 And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
> This is enough to condemn any man – it has been REVEALED – man knows good and evil, and starts OUTSIDE THE GARDEN.
>
> Matthew 5
> 7Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
>
> 1 Timothy 1
> 5The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 15To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.
> 1 John 3
> 23And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
>
> Revelation 21
> 8But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” 25On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. 26The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. 27Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
>
> So how does man get in?
>
> Revelation 22
> 14″Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. 15Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
> There is nothing inconsistent about this. We find the SAME THING / EXACT SAME IMAGERY in the OT where In Isaiah 65/66 Zecharaiah 14, Isaiah 26 etc etc. where John the apostle got his imagery from, are talking about the NH and NE and the NJ.
>
> Isaiah 9
> Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.