Preterism

Preterism reads some or all of the New Testament’s end times prophecies as events already fulfilled in the first century, chiefly Rome’s destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in AD 70 (from the Latin praeter, “past”). Partial preterism, held by a minority of confessionally Reformed interpreters alongside amillennialism or postmillennialism, reads Jesus’ Olivet Discourse language of “this generation” and the “coming of the Son of Man” (Matt. 24; Mark 13; Luke 21) as describing that judgment, while still affirming a future bodily resurrection, final judgment, and physical second coming. Full preterism denies that any of these remain future; see Pantelism.

Confessional Contrast

How far New Testament prophecy concerning “the last days” was fulfilled in the first century is not a question the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession addresses by name. Its chapter “Of the State of Man after Death, and of the Resurrection of the Dead” states that “at the last day… all the dead shall be raised up with the selfsame bodies, and none other; although with different qualities, which shall be united again to their souls forever.”¹ Its following chapter, “Of the Last Judgment,” speaks of a single appointed day on which “all persons that have lived upon the earth shall appear before the tribunal of Christ, to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds.”² Neither chapter mentions Matthew 24, “this generation,” or the destruction of Jerusalem, and the confession does not say how its language of a still-future resurrection and judgment bears on the interpretation of the Olivet Discourse. Partial preterism stays inside that boundary: it reads only certain “signs” as already fulfilled while still affirming the future resurrection and judgment the confession describes. Full preterism denies that any resurrection or judgment remains future at all, a denial the confession’s own language excludes (see Pantelism).

Arguments

Partial preterism’s case rests on separating the three questions the disciples put to Jesus on the Mount of Olives, when the temple would fall, what sign would mark his coming, and when the age would end (Matt. 24:3), and reading his answer to the first question narrowly. Herman Bavinck argues that “this generation will not pass away until all these things take place” (Matt. 24:34) does not place Christ’s own return within his hearers’ lifetime. The Greek words for “this generation” (ἡ γενεα αὑτη) refer to “the generation then living,” Bavinck writes, but “all these things” (παντα ταυτα) “do not include the parousia itself but only refer to the signs that precede and announce it.” On this reading, Jesus says the signs of his coming, most visibly the destruction of Jerusalem, would begin within that generation, not that his own return would occur within it.³

Charles Hodge reaches a similar conclusion by a different route. Surveying three ways interpreters have related the discourse to the disciples’ three questions, he endorses the one that answers each question separately rather than collapsing them into a single event. On this reading, Jesus’ statement that “this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled” (Matt. 24:34) must be restricted to the “all things spoken of,” referring to “the destruction of Jerusalem and the inauguration of the Church as Christ’s kingdom on earth,” while the questions about Christ’s own coming and the end of the world remain unanswered as to timing. Hodge concludes that “there is nothing… in this discourse of Christ’s inconsistent with the common Church doctrine as to the nature and concomitants of his Second Advent.”⁴

Opposing Views

Futurism, including dispensationalism, reads the Olivet Discourse’s tribulation, “abomination of desolation,” and coming of the Son of Man as still entirely future rather than as already fulfilled, even in part, by AD 70. Charles Hodge represents the wider “common Church doctrine” this way: the New Testament’s predictions of Christ’s coming “evidently refer to a single event; to an event in the future, not now in progress; an event which shall attract the attention of all nations, and be attended by the resurrection of the dead, the complete salvation of the righteous, and the condemnation of the wicked.”⁵ On this view, Jesus’ Olivet Discourse answers the disciples’ question about Jerusalem’s fall without thereby settling, or foreshortening, the timing of his own return.

Full preterism goes further than partial preterism, holding that Christ’s second coming, the resurrection of the dead, and the final judgment were all completely fulfilled, spiritually rather than bodily, in AD 70. That position, and the confessional and biblical case against it, is treated in its own article, Pantelism.

Objections and Responses

Doesn’t restricting “this generation… all these things” to AD 70 events require reading every other New Testament reference to Christ’s “coming” the same way, collapsing partial preterism into full preterism? Bavinck and Hodge both draw a firm line between the “signs” that precede and announce Christ’s coming, which they read as already fulfilled in Jerusalem’s fall, and the parousia itself, which both maintain is still future. Hodge finds it “high authority” that “this generation” could instead mean the Jewish people as a race persisting until his predictions are fulfilled, rather than his hearers’ lifetime.⁶ Neither writer treats the distinction between signs and substance as merely a convenient stopping point; both affirm the same still-future, bodily resurrection and judgment the confession itself states.

Doesn’t identifying Christ’s “coming” with a past event fail to reckon with the New Testament’s description of a personal, physical return? Louis Berkhof addresses a view that “place[s] the return of Christ in the past, claiming that the promise of His coming again was realized when He returned in the Holy Spirit,” reading parousia as meaning simply “presence.” Berkhof answers that “this was a spiritual return, while the Bible teaches us to look for a physical and visible return of Christ” (Acts 1:11), one still expected even after Pentecost (1 Cor. 1:7; Phil. 3:20; Titus 2:13).⁷ The same reasoning is what excludes full preterism from confessional orthodoxy: it likewise identifies the promised bodily return with a past event rather than distinguishing the two (see Pantelism).

Related Doctrines

References

The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1677/1689), chap. 31, “Of the State of Man after Death, and of the Resurrection of the Dead,” parr. 2-3. ↩
The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1677/1689), chap. 32, “Of the Last Judgment,” para. 1. ↩
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 24, “The Return of Christ.” ↩
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (New York: Charles Scribner and Company, 1873), 795-797. ↩
Hodge, 794. ↩
Hodge, 796. ↩
Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1969), 338-339. ↩