The Second Coming of Christ

[afp1996]

I am ready with my closing statements.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Jason

I do believe the rapture is hinted at in the old testament, such passages as Daniel 12:2, Psalm 50:3-5, the army spoken of in Joel 2, Zechariah 14:5, etc.

Also, I think we have precedent (types) in Enoch and Elijah,both found in the old testament, both were changed from mortal to immortal without experiencing death.

I will grant to you that the language in the New Testament is considerably plainer about the rapture than that of the Old Testament. However, do Full Preterists dismiss the New Testament as equally inspired, authoritive scripture?

To me Scripture is Scripture, and scripture plainly teaches mortals will be changed into immortals WITHOUT experiencing death. It is hard for FP's to kick against the pricks.

Word count 119

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by afp1996

I am ready with my closing statements.

Ok, let's wait for Jason. He may just post it or say he is ready too. Either way I like the idea of both posting concluding remarks without first reading the others and them posting a counter reply.

These should pretty much be prepared statements of your summary arguments and everything you wanted to add or point out or whatever or even replies to the question answers. This is a little different from closing remarks in a court where the last person gets to comment on the previous closing arguments

[afp1996]

Are you ready to post your closing statements Jason?

[Jason B]

I would rather wait a day or two. I do not feel like typing a lengthy post this evening-I have some work to do from home tonight, that I am already dreading getting into. I will try to post closing statement by Friday evening.

[afp1996]

Originally Posted by Jason

I would rather wait a day or two. I do not feel like typing a lengthy post this evening-I have some work to do from home tonight, that I am already dreading getting into. I will try to post closing statement by Friday evening.

Very well Brother. I will post mine closing statements on Friday evening also.

[Jason B]

I would like to thank Bro. AFP1996 for engaging in this debate. Despite disagreements, he has been respectful, and I hope I have been the same.

I would also like to add that in my opinion if the Apostolic Church is ever to come to a more complete and unified stance on eschatology, we must take a closer look at full preterism, partial preterism, and re-evaluate traditional futurist teachings. I do believe there is a measure of truth in all of these posistions.

The error and danger of preterism is not that they believe that Daniels 70 weeks are past, or that Matthew24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 were fulfilled in the first century. Others brothers believe this also, yet still are "looking for the blessed hope and the glorious APPEARING of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ." (Titus 2:13)

Full preterism teaches that Jesus Christ has already come back, and that the event commonly referred to as the rapture or ressurrection is past, which scripture specifically warns against these things.

2 Timothy 2:16-18 "But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. And their word will eat as doth a canker... Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some."

2 Peter 3:3-4 "Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation."

First, in the debate I have affirmed the posistion that Jesus Christ will come back in the future in visible form, to a physical place on this earth. And despite the full preterist claims, I believe I have the witness of scripture on this:
Revelation 1:7
Zechariah 12:10
Zechariah 13:6
Revelation 6:15-17
Revelation 19:19-21
Matthew 24:30
Titus 2:13
Matthew 26:64
Luke 21:27-28
2 Timothy 4:1
Colossians 3:4
Acts 1:9-11
Hebrews 9:28
Zechariah 14:4
Ezekiel 39:11
Zechariah 12:11
Revelation 16:16
Joel 3:14

These scriptures and more speak of Jesus Christ as appearing, being seen, of men's reactions to seeing Him, and a specific geographic location that He will return to.

Second in impotance to this is the fact that at the time of the return of Jesus Christ the rapture (FP's prefer the term ressurrection) is supposed to happen. The Bible very specifically tells us that when this event happens there will be mortals alive on earth, who will be changed from mortal to immortal in a moments time-WITHOUT ever experiencing death. This has never happened in the church age. Therefore there remain a future fulfillment.

1Thessalonians 4:13-18 (v.16-17)
"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."

1Corinthians 15:51-53 "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality."

And thirdly, the Bible teaches us that when Jesus returns, Satan will be bound, He will no longer decieve the nations and there will not be war anymore.

Revelation 20:2-3
"And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

Isaiah 2:4
"And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

Furthermore, the bible speaks of a new earth, in which Jesus is King, and creation is restored, some examples are Isaiah 65 and Revelation 21.

It is so obvious that the world we live in and the reality we know is so completely contradictory to this scripture, that I cannot even understand how any Christian can claim that these are fulfilled prophecies. Again, these scripture lead us to a future fulfillment.

Preterism not only lacks hard evidence that Jesus Christ has returned to this earth (there is none), but fails to explain many prophecies that surround the second coming of Christ.
Some examples are
the mark of the beast (Revelation 13)
the Euphrates river being dried up and an army of Two hundred million soldiers involved in a war (Revelation 9)
a false prophet who brings down fire from heaven in the sight of men (Revelation 13)
two witnesses whose bodies lay dead in the streets of Jerusalem for three days (Revelation 11)
and many more.

Furthermore, full preterisms over emphasis of the Roman army destroying the city of Jerusalem in 70 ad (and equating this historical event to Christ's second coming) causes the full preterist to be on the opposite side of scripture, which plainly declares that Jesus Christ is coming back to fight FOR Israel/Jerusalem NOT AGAINST
them.
Ezekiel 38:18 "And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, that my fury shall come up in my face.

Zechariah 12:9-10 (v.9) "And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem."

also see Zechariah 14:3-4

They also have the absense of a great tribulation for the church in their eschatology. For all of the tribulation came upon the city of Jerusalem, after the Christians had escaped. Yet Jesus taught the church would be persecuted for His name sake, both Daniel 7 and Revelation 6:9-11, 12:11,etc.

Furthermore, they teach that because of what happened to Jerusalem in AD70, that it is the great whore of Revelation 17, which again contradicts scripture, because scripture teaches that when that city is destroyed, it will never be again (Revalation 18:21). Yet Jerusalem is a very influential city in our world today. When God destroyed Sodom and Ghomorrah, they didn't come back, when God destroyed Babylon, it wasn't rebuilt. Yet the preterists teach Jerusalem was destroyed by God, and it recovered?

In moving on, I would remind the reader that several of my points were not answered by my opponent, which I pointed out in post#32 of this thread.

In addition to this, my opponent gave answers that made absolutely NO SENSE, examples are:
When responding to Revelation 20:1-3 and Isisah 2:1-4 AFP1996 wrote:

Originally Posted by afp1996

The cross defeated Satan. He has no dominion over the nations anymore. Demonic dominion must come by individuals. If you understood the story of Namaan and the reason he wanted soil from Israel you would understand a little more what I mean. This passage: Isaiah 2:1-4 can be understood by Bishop James' words here: Acts 15:15-17 as can Micah 2 with Romans 11.

In responding to Acts 1:9-11, which plainly states the apostles watched as Jesus physically ascended, AFP1996 said:

Originally Posted by afp1996

The manner that Jesus left their sight was not in a physical body. The manner which he was taken from their sight was by the Cloud that took him out of their sight.

And in response to a question about the binding of Satan and the new earth, I was given scriptures that have to do with Peter's vision in Acts 10 and "muzzle not the ox".
These scripture have nothing to do with the subject at hand.

When my opponent realized He could not answer the points I made, and the objections I raised, he simply did not, but responded in this manner:

Originally Posted by afp1996

Playtime is over.

In this brief closing statment, I would again remind the reader of the debate, that I do agree that God judged Jerusalem in 70AD, as he had judged both heathen nations, and even His own people in the Old Testament. This judgment was not the second coming of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is coming in judgment of the world, of the ungodly and sinners.

I have not, neither in this debate, nor in this closing statement been able to expose all the errors of preterism, there are too many to remember at one time. I believe that full preterism uses a faulty hermenutic in order to validate their doctrine, evidenced by the refuasal to answer objections, and by linking scriptures that absolutely do not go together (example Isaiah 2:4 with Acts 15:15-17).

I also believe that I have shown that there are very good scriptural reasons to believe and teach that Jesus Christ will one day return to earth.

Full preterism maintains that Jesus Christ has returned to this earth, this puts the burden on proof on them. It is a doctrine which can never be proven, and neccessitates bending the scriptures like a pretzel.

In clsoing, I continue to affirm that the scriptures teach a visible,literal, furute second coming of Jesus Christ. And I continue to deny that the second coming of Jesus Christ happened nearly 2000 years ago in an invisible manner.

This is my first moderated debate, I hope to have been clear and to the point, and ask the reader to forgive my inexperience using this format.

Again, I thank AFP1996 for agreeing to the debate, and seeing it through to completion. and I thank Prax for his time as moderator.

"Even so, come Lord Jesus."

[afp1996]

From the beginning of this debate, I have had the position that the Lord did come back within the time limit he stated he would(1), and can be scripturally authenticated. Jesus declared that he was God in the flesh(2). This declaration would be vindicated by his Coming(3). This Coming we now know as the 70 AD Destruction of Jerusalem(4). His Coming was carried out in the way that God has always carried out his Comings(5).

The problem with people not understanding Apostolic Full Preterism is based on the fact that most do not understand that symbolic language is used throughout the Old and New Testament in relation to scriptures commonly referred to as prophecy. They base the Coming of the Lord on a literal interpretation.

So if Jesus' physical body is not seen by every living individual at the time of his Coming, if the physical sun, moon, and stars do not stop shinning, if there is not a physical person that is possessed by Satan, if there is not a revived Roman Empire and One World Church, if there is not a physical mark of the beast, a failed economy, a physical Jesus on a white horse in a valley outside of Jerusalem with his Saints clad in armor and swords drawn fighting a battle against world powers with tanks, jeeps, machine guns, and bombs, then there is no return of the Lord.

Those things are not proper biblical understanding. They make good Books and fiction stories, but they do not give glory to our God and Savior Jesus Christ. His Coming within the specified time, ie “this generation” validated him as Messiah. To remove this aspect of his message from the context and setting to which Jesus placed them is to remove his validation as our Messiah.

Further, to add extra criteria to the Resurrection than what God has placed, and to validate or invalidate a doctrine by that added criteria is not warranted.

The truth is that AFP validates Jesus as the Christ. The usual claim is that Jesus and his Apostles, and the 1st Century Church did not teach AFP and that futurism is what they taught because futurism uses the same words as did the New Testament, meaning, the Apostles taught a future Coming of the Lord so one must teach a future Coming of the Lord to be correct, is faulty because in doing so you are not teach what is taught but teaching the words and phrases they taught. Paul said it best when he said, “Rom 8:24-25
(24) For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
(25) But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”

Teaching the words they taught is not teaching what they taught. It is claimed that AFP removes the blessed hope, but can we truly be happy by staying in the hope. Paul said that we hope until the manifestation, because when that which we hope for is revealed we do not hope for it, but while we are in the stage of hoping we wait with patience for it. Futurism causes a inability to get past hoping and in fact futurists tend to make it sinful and blasphemous to teach that we have obtained that which is hoped for.

This debate was set up to present two opposing views of Eschatology. It actually presented one view of Eschatology and one view of conjecture. From the beginning of my opponents argument he has created the idea that to validate his view, he needed to discount mine. So rather than show what he did believe he asked questions, seeming to expose my doctrine. I know just as much about what he believes now as I did before we started this debate. That is: not very much at all.

The questions that were asked of him were simple, single focused questions. The questions I received from him were multiple questions rolled into a single verse. The limitations on the posts for questions would not allow the space to expound each aspect of the questions he posed to me. Whether by design or mistake this is the case.

The first question I asked him was “Where is the gap he says is in Matthew 24?” He stated that some of Matthew 24 was fulfilled at the Coming of the Lord in AD 70 and some of it will be fulfilled at some future Coming of the Lord.

If this is his stance then he should be able to show this clearly. However, truthfully he admitted that this could not be done. He stated that he was not 100% sure where this gap is, but that in spite of the fact that he could not tell me where the gap is, that I should....take him at his word that it is there. He even went so far as to tell me that it doesn't matter because Partial Preterism, a teaching he also opposes and states is error, teaches a fulfilled Matthew 24 and yet believes in a future Coming of the Lord. Jason is not solid on his Eschatology and resolved to grasp at straws. He even went so so far as to say that Matthew 24 has to have a gap in it because Daniels 70 Weeks are not yet fulfilled and that there is a gap in the 70 Weeks also. This reference is not only faulty, but is a reference that I brought up to him in our debate. One he stated was off limits in this debate. Now suddenly it becomes proof of a gap in Matthew 24. Not hardly!

The second question that was posed to Jason, was if the Old Testament contained scriptures which taught the rapture or mass removal of the physical bodies of the saints from the earth to heaven. He answered this question with scriptures that teach resurrection not rapture as proof. AFP's believe in the resurrection. Of that we have some issue. He then appealed to hints of a rapture with Enoch and Elijah, however this cannot be used. The two events have almost nothing in common with the information we have available to us in the scripture. Enoch just “was” no more, while Elijah was taken up by a whirlwind and was seen no more by Elisha. These events are not consistent enough to establish a rapture. Then to try and again take the light off of the fact that he could not back up his doctrine with Old Testament scripture as the Apostles and the 1st Century Church would've had to do, he questions whether or not I believe that the New Testament is inspired. So again, to validate his position he must try to invalidate mine.

The fact is that his position is not sound and well thought out. The inconsistent path his doctrine takes one, with improper biblical foundation, should allow anyone to see that this view...this view should be avoided.

The New Testament is the Old Testament Revealed. The Old Testament is the New Testament Concealed. You cannot have one without the other, but you also must base sound doctrine on both.

It is clear that Apostolic Full Preterism is sound, biblical, and is the Eschatology taught by Jesus and his Apostles. It brings validation, security, and hope to his Church that he is forevermore a faithful and true witness.

Thank you Jason.

Thank you Prax.

Thank you reader.

AFP1996

1)Mat 11:16; 12:41-42, 45; 23:36; 24:34; Mark 8:12, 38; 13:30; Luke 11:32, 50-51; 16:8; 17:25; 21:32; Acts 2:40, All of these passages show the usage of the phrase “this generation” always spoke of those living at the same time as himself.
2)Mat 26:63-66
3)Mat 16:27-28
4)Deu 28:49-58; Mat 22:1-14; 23:34-39; 24:28; Luke 21:20-24; Acts 2:19-20
5)Isaiah 13; 32; Eze 34;

[Praxeas]

Debate closed. Please post to me in PM if you have any additional comments or requests, such as another debate with the roles reversed or a debate on something more specific.