Inaugurated Eschatology?

I'm still formulating my ideas - still on a journey.

But I guess my current thoughts could lean somewhat towards what I think some might be calling:

"Kingdom Now - Not Yet"; or

"Inaugurated Eschatology" maybe.

But my dad often said, Give a man seven years with his doctrine, and if he still believes it, then...




Since my first years as a Christian, I've always questioned some of FULL-FUTURISM's assumptions.

Eventually my dissatisfaction with full-futurism led to a study of PART-PRETERISM.

I appreciated part-preterism's method of taking note of what a prophecy would have meant to its original audience; and also its method of taking note of any time-indicators within the text of the prophecy itself.

It helped clarify that there must have been a fulfilment of many Bible-Prophecies by AD70.


This helped clear-up some of the ways in which full-futurism may have been going wrong.

But the more I studied part-preterism, the more I began to feel that it had to lead logically to FULL-PRETERISM, if one was to be loyal to part-preterism's own method of dealing with 'time-indicators' within a text.


If 'time indicators' in the text indeed meant AD70 was the "coming of the Lord" ('coming' in the sense of a temporary judgment against Jerusalem) - then by the same token it seemed logical that the second coming must also have happened in AD70, and also that the resurrection must now be past.


(If I'm not mistaken, David Chilton was one popular part-preterist who realised this and who later endorsed full-preterism - and for this he was denounced by his former publisher, Gary North.)


Full-preterism strays too far away from Orthodoxy for my conscience - so I innately began to resist it when I began to feel that slippery slope from part-preterism to full-preterism.

Aside from my Orthodox conscience, full-preterism also has many of its own glaring anomalies - like the resurrection.

If AD70 was the second coming, there also ought to have been a resurrection in AD70 - because Paul said the resurrection shall happen when the Lord comes. Full-preterism has to deal with that.

One way they deal with it is to say the resurrection was already occurring prior to AD70. But why then was Paul still looking forward to the future general resurrection of the dead in Christ at Christ's coming? and why did he denounce the idea of some that the resurrection had already past.

All the various ways in which full-preterists attempt to treat the resurrection seem to produce more questions than they answer.

I couldn't avoid seeing that the New Testament's use of the term "coming of the Lord" had one and the same event in mind - not one event in one section of the New Testament and then a separate event in another section of the New Testament; 

there can only be one last trumpet - not two last trumpets; 

there wasn't to be one 'coming' of the Lord in AD70 - and then another still in the future;  

I saw that this single event - the coming of the Lord - was consistently regarded as a future event; 

and also that this event was to include the resurrection of the dead at the same time - 

and that the resurrection was also consistently regarded as a future event.

So I believe that - the second coming and the resurrection are still a future event.


How to deal with the 'time-indicators' in Bible-Prophecy then? Don't they seem to indicate a first-century coming of the Lord?


My feeling is that while some parts of the prophecypies include time indicators which required a first-century fulfilment for some events' the same prophecies often also included other time-indicating statements which even the preterists tend to overlook. And these ones imply that an unspecified time-span would exist between certain of the prophesied-events.


For example, it's true that the destruction of the Temple was to happen within that "generation" - but then Jesus added, "...but of that day [meaning, the day of His coming] knoweth no man..."


That statement indicates that the time in which that part of the prophecy would be fulfilled would not necessarily be the same time as the rest of the prophecy.


Jesus also told a parable of the Kingdom in which He mentioned a long journey - a long delay.


Daniel was given timeframes for things concerning Israel, but when he asked what would happen after that, he wasn't given any further timeframe - he was told only that there would come a future resurrection and that in the time-span between the two, many would be converted.

Some of the more apocalyptic Bible-Prophecies seem to describe the coming of the Messiah almost as a single event - they wrap His birth, ministry, death, resurrection, the Gospel, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the second coming all in one package almost like it all had to happen at once.


But other passages unwrap the theme into its various individual components.

Some passages unwrap it with less detail than others, because the details might not have mattered to their purpose. In one sense the timespan is not really of the essence. It's not in itself of any covenantal significance.


Other passages unwrap it with as much detail as they can. But even those passages are limited in how they can deal with timespans - since no-one, no angel, not even Jesus, but only the Father knows the timespan.

This could be a reason why different components read like they were meant to happen simultaneously. But if we're willing to accept indicators that they weren't, we'll find that they're there. But no precise length of time can be given.


I've still got some things I have to think about regarding the millennium though.

One thing I am sure of though is this:

Any Bible-Prophecy which mentioned Levitical worship MUST have been fulfilled WHILE the Old Covenant still stood - because God isn't into returning to a shadow.


That simple New Testament truth alone goes a long way towards placing the fulfilment of many Old Testament prophecies. 

It really opens it up!