Special place in hell (for preterists)

[Darfius]

I'm right there with you Sean. As I've seen futurist arguments, I've become more and more convinced I was right to abandon it. And speaking of hostile...the OP wonders why no one actually engages him anymore. If you believe as Darfius does that unless you're a futurist, you're going to hell, then you will also be mostly ignored. The old adage of "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care" is IMO very true. There are preterists answers to a lot of challenges I see posted here, that I find sound and true to God's word, but, if you believe the Blood of Jesus Christ has washed away your sins and you are living for Him in everything you do, does it really matter if when He returns there will be a Tribulation? If there is, and you're truly a believer, that will not change. But if when He returns, that's it, I pity all those who thought they would recognize the times and would repent when actually, there will no longer be time because it's over, who will then be the false witness that gets the blame?

I don't "wonder why people won't engage me". I said it's because I'm right, they're wrong and they wish to admit neither, because they have no love for the truth. And it is impossible to be "living for Him in everything you do" and maintain a belief in lies when the truth is pointed out. You are deluding yourself. And in the time of great delusion, deluding yourself doesn't make your future look too bright. Repent.

The last of what you said was nervous gibberish, but obviously I care about you or I would leave you to die in your sins. What you really mean to say is "Darfius, tickle my ears like the pastor I pay to be my therapist or I am not interested." Which speaks for itself, don't it?

[Darfius]

All you did was show that some areas, generally rural, weren't Hellenized and not demonstrate that "Hellenistic" ≠ "Greek"

Scripture Verse: Acts 9

28 So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. 29 He talked and debated with the Hellenistic Jews, but they tried to kill him.

© Copyright Original Source

[One Bad Pig]

That's what I thought.

And btw, I'll also add, it makes it even more disingenuous to me to assume you believe Matthew's description is not the same event as described in 1 Thess. I mean it's practically the same description, albeit with a little more detail on Paul's part.

You know what happens when people assume, yes?

There are two events described in 1 Thess; the end of chapter 4 is a different literary unit than the beginning of chapter 5, raising a different subject (note that 4:9, 4:13, and 5:1 use identical language in introducing their new subject). The beginning of chapter 5 is describing the same event as the OD, yes. What does that have to do with your ignorance?

[seanD]

Again, you're showing rather more about you than me with this post. There is plenty of symbolism in the Olivet Discourse (it is, after all, referred to as "the little apocalypse", even by non-preterists). That you're too ignorant to see it doesn't mean it's not there. Maybe try fixing your ignorance rather than spouting off willy-nilly?

That's what I thought.

And btw, I'll also add, it makes it even more disingenuous to me to assume you believe Matthew's description is not the same event as described in 1 Thess. I mean it's practically the same description, albeit with a little more detail on Paul's part.

[One Bad Pig]

Assuming I believe you (and that's a real stretch for me to do because it's just totally illogical to believe that about that passage), what makes you think Jesus was using symbolism there? The OD is not at all like Rev, which is arguably rife with at least some metaphor and symbolism. There's no indication anywhere in the entire discourse he was using coded words or symbolism as opposed to telling it straight forward and just how things would happen. Why should I believe he all of a sudden switches to symbolism only at that moment?

Again, you're showing rather more about you than me with this post. There is plenty of symbolism in the Olivet Discourse (it is, after all, referred to as "the little apocalypse", even by non-preterists). That you're too ignorant to see it doesn't mean it's not there. Maybe try fixing your ignorance rather than spouting off willy-nilly?

[seanD]

I actually believe that it represents the AD 70 war, in which Jesus came "on the clouds with power". I am not lying or being the slightest bit disingenuous when I say that; there are quite valid reasons for believing so (Dee Dee laid out the case quite clearly in her commentary). Your post says rather more about you than it does me.

Assuming I believe you (and that's a real stretch for me to do because it's just totally illogical to believe that about that passage), what makes you think Jesus was using symbolism there? The OD is not at all like Rev, which is arguably rife with at least some metaphor and symbolism. There's no indication anywhere in the entire discourse he was using coded words or symbolism as opposed to telling it straight forward and just how things would happen. Why should I believe he all of a sudden switches to symbolism only at that moment?

[One Bad Pig]

If there ever was a case to make that preterists are destined to hell, I think Matthew 24:30-31 would be a pretty strong case, only because I honestly don't believe preterists actually believe that that DOESN'T represent Jesus' return and that it instead represents the 70 AD war. There's just no way I can believe they can make that logical leap and actually truly believe that. In fact, that's the one passage that convinces me beyond doubt preterism is false and its adherents are being totally disingenuous and even bordering on lying.

I actually believe that it represents the AD 70 war, in which Jesus came "on the clouds with power". I am not lying or being the slightest bit disingenuous when I say that; there are quite valid reasons for believing so (Dee Dee laid out the case quite clearly in her commentary). Your post says rather more about you than it does me.

[seanD]

If there ever was a case to make that preterists are destined to hell, I think Matthew 24:30-31 would be a pretty strong case, only because I honestly don't believe preterists actually believe that that DOESN'T represent Jesus' return and that it instead represents the 70 AD war. There's just no way I can believe they can make that logical leap and actually truly believe that. In fact, that's the one passage that convinces me beyond doubt preterism is false and its adherents are being totally disingenuous and even bordering on lying.

[One Bad Pig]

Yes, this response has become popular since I began arguing futurism here with gusto again. "I don't have the ability to defend my arguments, Darfius, but wait(!), I don't even need to because I'm always ready to meet my Maker, whether I believe and act on the truth or not." Fraid not, Piglet.

Scripture Verse: John 4

23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth

© Copyright Original Source

Scripture Verse: Matthew 15

7 You hypocritesworship

© Copyright Original Source

Scripture Verse: Matthew 7

but only the one who does the will of my Father

© Copyright Original Source

I did a Bible search for "signed by the seal of the cross" and came up emptyhanded. Mind citing the chapter and verse for me? Or is that another one of those "holy" phrases that sounds nice but is not the sort of worship the Father seeks because while you honor Him with your lips, your heart is far from Him?



I meant that your preterism is merely a half-hearted belief that is reactionary to "the traditions of your fathers". You did not actually seek out the truth either way but were content with secondhand information. Because you are a decent enough person to wish to identify as Christian, but not good enough to actually be one. You "have a form of godliness, but deny its power."

I'll be interested in discussing things with you when you become more interested in attempting to understand my position (if only to thereby refute it) than you are in being an unmitigated ass. All you're managing to convince me of here is that I want no part in your conception of eternity.

[seanD]

I asked the question because I said:

As he clearly states here:

to which you responded:

I thought it was clear ignoring you would be tied to that belief that preterist were not in the "saved" camp. If that's not what you believe that it's safe to say you will not be ignored (at least by me). But, I'm not keen on the fight anymore. I believe what I believe, based on where I believe God led me...it's going to be hard to dissuade me otherwise and I know you feel the same so...

I was responding to this:

If you believe as Darfius does that unless you're a futurist, you're going to hell, then you will also be mostly ignored.

I'm just some anonymous schmoe on the internet, with no formal education in theology or any of these topics I talk about. Whether someone takes or leaves my arguments is their choice, and it's fine with me.

[rogue06]

Fair or not, my impression of the currently fashionable evangelical scholar, Michael Heiser, is that he does the same thing as Darfius is doing in this thread - correctly sheds light on the background of some of what is referenced in the Bible; in this case, the Greek background of Tartarus, but then uses that to then smuggle in the assumption that the Bible then affirms as true what is said about these other things. The same thing could be said about 1 Enoch; people notice that it is cited in Jude, but then extrapolate from this that everything else said in that book must be true. For starters, no serious scholar that I'm aware of thinks that 1 Enoch was actually written by Enoch, but rather that it was written several millennia after Genesis takes place.

Likewise, on Mars' Hill Paul quotes the Greek poet Aratus' Phaenomena in Acts 17:28, Menander's Thais in I Corinthians 15:33 and, in Titus 1:12, "One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own" (identified as Epimenides by Clement of Alexandria in his Stromata). Further when Paul refers to kicking against the pricks or goads in Acts 26:14 that term comes from Aeschylus' Agamemnon and FWIU, according to Origen, his references to Jannes & Jambres (2 Timothy 3:8) is from an apocryphal book, according to Origen.

Obviously that doesn't mean Christians should therefore consider Phaenomena, Thais, Agamemnon and whichever of Epimenides' works are therefore divinely inspired

[Littlejoe]

Is that what I said in the post you initially responded to?

I asked the question because I said:

If you believe as Darfius does that unless you're a futurist, you're going to hell, then you will also be mostly ignored

As he clearly states here:

Yes, this response has become popular since I began arguing futurism here with gusto again. "I don't have the ability to defend my arguments, Darfius, but wait(!), I don't even need to because I'm always ready to meet my Maker, whether I believe and act on the truth or not." Fraid not, Piglet.

Scripture Verse: John 4

23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth

© Copyright Original Source

Scripture Verse: Matthew 15

7 You hypocritesworship

© Copyright Original Source

Scripture Verse: Matthew 7

but only the one who does the will of my Father

© Copyright Original Source

I did a Bible search for "signed by the seal of the cross" and came up emptyhanded. Mind citing the chapter and verse for me? Or is that another one of those "holy" phrases that sounds nice but is not the sort of worship the Father seeks because while you honor Him with your lips, your heart is far from Him?
I meant that your preterism is merely a half-hearted belief that is reactionary to "the traditions of your fathers". You did not actually seek out the truth either way but were content with secondhand information. Because you are a decent enough person to wish to identify as Christian, but not good enough to actually be one. You "have a form of godliness, but deny its power."

to which you responded:

You can ignore me all you want, bro. No skin off my nose. It's a free country (so far)

I thought it was clear ignoring you would be tied to that belief that preterist were not in the "saved" camp. If that's not what you believe that it's safe to say you will not be ignored (at least by me). But, I'm not keen on the fight anymore. I believe what I believe, based on where I believe God led me...it's going to be hard to dissuade me otherwise and I know you feel the same so...

[seanD]

Fair or not, my impression of the currently fashionable evangelical scholar, Michael Heiser, is that he does the same thing as Darfius is doing in this thread - correctly sheds light on the background of some of what is referenced in the Bible; in this case, the Greek background of Tartarus, but then uses that to then smuggle in the assumption that the Bible then affirms as true what is said about these other things. The same thing could be said about 1 Enoch; people notice that it is cited in Jude, but then extrapolate from this that everything else said in that book must be true. For starters, no serious scholar that I'm aware of thinks that 1 Enoch was actually written by Enoch, but rather that it was written several millennia after Genesis takes place.

I don't think, in fact I know, I've ever heard a Christian using Jude's citation of the BoE and concluding the entire BoE we have now is legit. What they do (and I remember starting a thread about this very subject, maybe in the old forum) is compare certain phrases from both Peter and Jude to phrases in the BoE that are remarkably similar, too similar to be coincidence, and thus conclude that the earliest belief about the "sons of God" in Genesis were in fact angels. Or at least that's what Peter and Jude (inspired writers) believed, contrary to what the skeptics argue about that Genesis incident. If they didn't have a complete BoE manuscript, or even if it was remarkably different than it is now, they were definitely drawing from a common tradition.

[Littlejoe]

Fair or not, my impression of the currently fashionable evangelical scholar, Michael Heiser, is that he does the same thing as Darfius is doing in this thread - correctly sheds light on the background of some of what is referenced in the Bible; in this case, the Greek background of Tartarus, but then uses that to then smuggle in the assumption that the Bible then affirms as true what is said about these other things. The same thing could be said about 1 Enoch; people notice that it is cited in Jude, but then extrapolate from this that everything else said in that book must be true. For starters, no serious scholar that I'm aware of thinks that 1 Enoch was actually written by Enoch, but rather that it was written several millennia after Genesis takes place.

You said that much better than I could have or did.

[KingsGambit]

Fair or not, my impression of the currently fashionable evangelical scholar, Michael Heiser, is that he does the same thing as Darfius is doing in this thread - correctly sheds light on the background of some of what is referenced in the Bible; in this case, the Greek background of Tartarus, but then uses that to then smuggle in the assumption that the Bible then affirms as true what is said about these other things. The same thing could be said about 1 Enoch; people notice that it is cited in Jude, but then extrapolate from this that everything else said in that book must be true. For starters, no serious scholar that I'm aware of thinks that 1 Enoch was actually written by Enoch, but rather that it was written several millennia after Genesis takes place.