The absurdity and heresy of Preterism

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.

John146

Senior Member
Jan 13, 2016
17,176
3,700
113
The two witnesses are the Old Testament and the New Testament but since the bible DOESN'T DIE, it has to be the word of the Lord in a believer. I think the saints resurrected with Christ fit that bill.
These two, specifically two witnesses prophesied for specifically three and a half years. Did they lie dead in the streets for three and a half days? Did the world rejoice over them?
 

John146

Senior Member
Jan 13, 2016
17,176
3,700
113
The word angel means messenger, they can be angelic realm messenger or human messengers.
Wow! Find that word through the bible and show me where angels equate man. You’re reaching big time to validate your theology.

What is the blessed hope Paul tells the believers to look forward to? The coming of the Lord? What is that? His third coming?
 
Nov 23, 2013
13,684
1,212
113
These two, specifically two witnesses prophesied for specifically three and a half years. Did they lie dead in the streets for three and a half days? Did the world rejoice over them?
The two witnesses are the word of God in people, maybe those people are the resurrected saints or maybe they aren't. But it is interesting that they lay dead in the streets for 3 days.
 
Nov 23, 2013
13,684
1,212
113
Wow! Find that word through the bible and show me where angels equate man. You’re reaching big time to validate your theology.

What is the blessed hope Paul tells the believers to look forward to? The coming of the Lord? What is that? His third coming?
angel (n.)
"one of a class of spiritual beings, attendants and messengers of God," a c. 1300 fusion of Old English engel (with hard -g-) and Old French angele. Both are from Late Latin angelus, from Greek angelos, literally "messenger, envoy, one that announces," in the New Testament "divine messenger," which is possibly related to angaros "mounted courier," both from an unknown Oriental word (Watkins compares Sanskrit ajira- "swift;" Klein suggests Semitic sources). Used in Scriptural translations for Hebrew mal'akh (yehowah) "messenger (of Jehovah)," from base l-'-k "to send." An Old English word for it was aerendgast, literally "errand-spirit."


Are you talking about that blessed hope that hasn't come to the millions of believers over the last 2000 years, the blessed hope that only applies to that very NARROW band of futurist at the end of time. You are only one in a line people throughout history that have thought THEY were that SPECIAL group that would be raptured out of here.

Or are you talking about that blessed hope that when we die, Jesus appears from the heavens to take us in just like he did with Stephen?

Act 7:56 And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
 

Dan_473

Senior Member
Mar 11, 2014
9,054
1,051
113
He gives 2 thoughts and adds nothing more when he mentions Polycarp being given the title of Bishop. And then along with Polycarp, the Apostles. the Church of Ephesus, and specifically about John once again being around when Trajan ruled in 98 AD, he have props to this direction.

But you can see where his real concern was with Marcion and Valentinus who were basically antichrists. Fake preachers pretending to be the real deal. These he specifies are heretics.

If we take what he says in part of John at Ephesus and Polycarp, we can see he agrees to Bishop.

But more than anything, he really wants to warn about false preachers being rewarded by ignorant Church Members.
in this part here:
"2. Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops."
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103303.htm

he talks about a "universally known Church founded and organized at Rome".
do you agree with him there?
is the church organized at Rome?


"the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops."

in your view, does the faith still come down to us through the succession of bishops?
did that process stop at some point?
 
Nov 23, 2013
13,684
1,212
113
I want to point out something about clouds.

Literal clouds, like everything else literal in this world, are only SHADOWS of heavenly things. Literal clouds are water suspended in the air and they are foreshadowing the REAL WATER which is the word of God suspended in THE BELIEVER'S SPIRIT.

Literal clouds, like everything else literal in this world, are only there to help us understand EXACTLY what the spiritual things they foreshadow are.
 

John146

Senior Member
Jan 13, 2016
17,176
3,700
113
angel (n.)
"one of a class of spiritual beings, attendants and messengers of God," a c. 1300 fusion of Old English engel (with hard -g-) and Old French angele. Both are from Late Latin angelus, from Greek angelos, literally "messenger, envoy, one that announces," in the New Testament "divine messenger," which is possibly related to angaros "mounted courier," both from an unknown Oriental word (Watkins compares Sanskrit ajira- "swift;" Klein suggests Semitic sources). Used in Scriptural translations for Hebrew mal'akh (yehowah) "messenger (of Jehovah)," from base l-'-k "to send." An Old English word for it was aerendgast, literally "errand-spirit."


Are you talking about that blessed hope that hasn't come to the millions of believers over the last 2000 years, the blessed hope that only applies to that very NARROW band of futurist at the end of time. You are only one in a line people throughout history that have thought THEY were that SPECIAL group that would be raptured out of here.

Or are you talking about that blessed hope that when we die, Jesus appears from the heavens to take us in just like he did with Stephen?

Act 7:56 And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
Come on KJV 1611...going outside of scripture to define scripture? Not so brother. You know the KJV will define itself.

Also, the Lord was standing at the preaching of Stephen because if that leadership of Israel would have received the truth, the Lord was ready to return and fulfill the rest of prophecy. But instead, they stoned Stephen and the Lord sat back down where He has been ever since.

In the book of James, during the time of Jacob’s trouble, the Lord is standing again ready to come back and judge the nations.

James 5:
8 Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
9 Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.
 
Nov 23, 2013
13,684
1,212
113
Come on KJV 1611...going outside of scripture to define scripture? Not so brother. You know the KJV will define itself.

Also, the Lord was standing at the preaching of Stephen because if that leadership of Israel would have received the truth, the Lord was ready to return and fulfill the rest of prophecy. But instead, they stoned Stephen and the Lord sat back down where He has been ever since.

In the book of James, during the time of Jacob’s trouble, the Lord is standing again ready to come back and judge the nations.

James 5:
8 Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
9 Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.
Man you get more bizarre every day. Are you telling me that Jesus was standing in heaven, wringing his hands hoping and praying that the antichrist Jews that killed him would accept him? Jesus isn't God? He isn't omnipotent?
 

John146

Senior Member
Jan 13, 2016
17,176
3,700
113
Man you get more bizarre every day. Are you telling me that Jesus was standing in heaven, wringing his hands hoping and praying that the antichrist Jews that killed him would accept him? Jesus isn't God? He isn't omnipotent?
And you think every time a believer dies, Jesus stands up to greet them? What an emotional thought but not biblical. I showed you in James when the Lord stands, He is ready to return as judge.

Btw, God’s not willing that any should perish, even those “Antichrist Jews.”
 
Nov 23, 2013
13,684
1,212
113
And you think every time a believer dies, Jesus stands up to greet them? What an emotional thought but not biblical. I showed you in James when the Lord stands, He is ready to return as judge.

Btw, God’s not willing that any should perish, even those “Antichrist Jews.”
Yes I believe he will be the one that takes us to heaven.
 
Nov 23, 2013
13,684
1,212
113
You added to my quote to make it bizarre. When people do this, it makes their point less valid. Just saying brother...
Ok but this is just bizarre - "the Lord was ready to return and fulfill the rest of prophecy. But instead, they stoned Stephen and the Lord sat back down where He has been ever since. "
 

John146

Senior Member
Jan 13, 2016
17,176
3,700
113
Ok but this is just bizarre - "the Lord was ready to return and fulfill the rest of prophecy. But instead, they stoned Stephen and the Lord sat back down where He has been ever since. "
All throughout Paul’s epistles to the body of Christ, Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father. Never once is He said to be standing.
 
Nov 23, 2013
13,684
1,212
113
All throughout Paul’s epistles to the body of Christ, Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father. Never once is He said to be standing.
Do you think Jesus is literally sitting at the right hand of God in a chair?
 

cv5

Well-known member
Nov 20, 2018
23,801
8,619
113
Come on KJV 1611...going outside of scripture to define scripture? Not so brother. You know the KJV will define itself.

Also, the Lord was standing at the preaching of Stephen because if that leadership of Israel would have received the truth, the Lord was ready to return and fulfill the rest of prophecy. But instead, they stoned Stephen and the Lord sat back down where He has been ever since.

In the book of James, during the time of Jacob’s trouble, the Lord is standing again ready to come back and judge the nations.

James 5:
8 Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
9 Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.
An alternative understanding of the Lord being seen to be standing upright in that passage,
is that Christ Jesus is, at that moment, taking on the role of Advocate (lawyer), pleading His Blood as a defense before the Father before receiving the soul of Stephen. The lawyer will always stand before the judge when pleading his case, while the judge remains seated.
 
Nov 23, 2013
13,684
1,212
113
An alternative understanding of the Lord being seen to be standing upright in that passage,
is that Christ Jesus is, at that moment, taking on the role of Advocate (lawyer), pleading His Blood as a defense before the Father before receiving the soul of Stephen. The lawyer will always stand before the judge when pleading his case, while the judge remains seated.
Do you think something done special for Stephen or will it be done for all believers?
 

John146

Senior Member
Jan 13, 2016
17,176
3,700
113
Do you think Jesus is literally sitting at the right hand of God in a chair?
Chair? I don't know. What I do know is what Scripture clearly states.

Colossians 3:1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
 

John146

Senior Member
Jan 13, 2016
17,176
3,700
113
Do you think something done special for Stephen or will it be done for all believers?
Scripture does not state that it was done for Stephen, only that Stephen saw the Lord standing. This is the same usage in James 5 as the Lord is standing before the door of heaven ready to judge.