Historical Awareness

This is a chapter from my book, Not One Stone. Available on Amazon.

Apart from the witness of history, we have no way of confirming whether any particular prophecy has been fulfilled. History and Prophecy work hand in hand as witnesses to God’s Word being accomplished.

Apart from the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the giving of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, the most important event to occur in the First Century AD, by New Testament standards, is the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in AD 70.

However, your average Christian is likely unaware of this fact. It is one of the best kept secrets in modern Christian doctrine. This is truly an amazing thing when you consider that it is spoken of from the time of John the Baptist, to the close of the Apostolic period.

John the Baptist spoke of the judgment coming on Jerusalem and its leaders. It is spoken of by Jesus in much of His teaching and parables. It is directly prophesied in His Olivet Discourse. The Apostles of Christ wrote of it in their letters to the Churches scattered throughout the Roman Empire. The topic concludes with John’s letter to the seven churches of Asia in the book of Revelation.

A comment by Lawyer and Bible Scholar, Philip Mauro, is helpful at this point.

“It is greatly to be regretted that those who, in our day, give themselves to the study and exposition of prophecy, seem not to be aware of the immense significance of the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, which was accompanied by the extinction of Jewish national existence, and the dispersion of the Jewish people among all the nations. The failure to recognize the significance of that event, and the vast amount of prophecy which it fulfilled, has been the cause of great confusion, for the necessary consequence of missing the past fulfillment of predicted events is to leave on our hands a mass of prophecies for which we must needs contrive fulfillment in the future. The harmful results are twofold; for first, we are thus deprived of the evidential value, and the support to the faith, of those remarkable fulfillment of prophecy which are so clearly presented to us in authentic contemporary histories; and second, our vision of things to come is greatly obscured and confused by the transference to the future of predicted events which, in fact, have already happened, and whereof complete records have been preserved for our information.”
(Mauro, Philip. The Seventy Weeks and the Great Tribulation. 1923. p.96.)

The reason many have not been taught the significance of this event, is due to the influence of the Judaic-centric, futurist ideology known as, Pre-millennial Dispensationalism (PD). Because of the prevalence of PD, many don’t realize that there is a more viable understanding. They have been kept in the dark. Part of this darkness is that they are never told about “the vast amount of prophecy,” which Jerusalem’s destruction fulfills.

If by chance some have heard of it, they have been warned against such a position by calling it heretical, antichrist or Antisemetic teaching. There is a position, called Full Preterism, which is the polar opposite of PD. I am not a Full Preterist, and agree that it is antithetical to true, Biblical teaching.

There are two Preterist camps, Full and Partial (Preter is latin which means, past. A preterist is one who holds things in the past.). The Full Preterist believes all prophecy concerning the end times, including the Second Coming, the Final Judgment and the Resurrection, have already happened. All these were accomplished within the AD 70 event.

Partial Preterists hold that much of the prophecies which the Futurists believe are still to come, such as the prophecies contained in Jesus’ Olivet Discourse, were indeed fulfilled with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. I am definitely not a Full Preterist and do not claim to be Partial either. I refuse to be pigeoned-holed into anyone else’s definition.

However, in truth, every Christian is preterist to a degree. If you are a Christian, you no longer look for a virgin to conceive and bear a son, as prophesied in Isaiah 7:14. You know that it has already happened. If you are a Christian, you no longer look for the Messiah to be born in Bethlehem, as prophesied in Micah 5:2. You know that it has already happened. There are many other prophecies that most Christians would agree have been fulfilled. So every true Christian is a preterist, it is just a matter of degree and perception.

Jesus was also a preterist. You may find this hard to believe, but allow me to give you the proof. It is a commonly accepted idea that the Jews expected Elijah to appear before the coming of the Messiah, based upon Malachi 4:5-6 (cf/w. Mt. 17:10). The followers of Scofield also expect Elijah to appear before the Second Coming of Christ, based upon the same prophecy. However, Jesus made it clear that Elijah had already come, fulfilling Malachi’s prophecy. Where did He say such a thing?

Matt. 11:13 For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John,
14. and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.
15. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

He made it clearer later on, when His disciples asked about this very topic,

Matt. 17:10 And the disciples asked him, “Then why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?”
11. He answered, “Elijah does come, and he will restore all things.
12. But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man will certainly suffer at their hands.”

Jesus stated as clearly as possible, “Elias (Elijah) is already come, and they knew him not.” So don’t look for the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy concerning the coming of Elijah, before that great and dreadful day of the LORD. He has already come. This tells us several things.

• 1). The coming of Elijah was fulfilled in John the Baptist. This is the interpretation of Jesus Himself. This meant that the Messiah had come also.
• 2). The great and dreadful Day of the Lord was about to happen, because Elijah had already come.
• 3). Peter announced on the day of Pentecost that Joel’s prophecy of the Day of the Lord was beginning to be fulfilled [Acts. 2:16-21; Joel 2:28-32). This Day of the Lord was fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple.

So we should not be looking for Elijah in the future? No, for that has already happened. This was the position of Jesus, and is the preterist position.

I do hold to some of the positions held by Partial Preterists. This includes the idea that the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21) deals specifically with the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, and the end of the Mosaic/Levitical Age. Many Partial Preterists also hold that the Coming of the Son of man is related specifically to this AD 70 event. This is a view that I also adhere to. I will show herein, that the Coming of the Son of man and the Second Coming are not the same event. I also have a somewhat different perspective on what the term Parousia entails. Many have taken the use of the term, Parousia in the NT, to point specifically to the Second Coming. However, I believe it can be shown from the testimony of the Apostles, that this word points more specifically to the Messianic reign of Christ. The Second Coming would be included in this, as well as many other events that have yet to take place, i.e., the Final Judgment and Resurrection. But to restrict Parousia to mean only the Second Coming, is to miss out on much of its true depths.

We should now get down to it. We will now look at the Judean history of the First Century AD, of which many have not been fully informed.