The writer of Hebrews exhorted believers to meet with one another “so much the more as you see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25). The day must have been very close if they could see its approach. James warned: “The coming of the Lord draws near”, and “Behold, the judge stands before the door.” (James 5:8, 9) Near enough, then, to knock and to demand entry.
Clearly, the [then] largely Jewish church had a strong sense that the judgement of Jerusalem was hanging over it like a sword. Jesus had wept over its fate. Jesus had said: “There are some who stand here that shall not taste of death until they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” (Matthew 16:28) Jesus warned Caiaphas the high priest: “Hereafter shall you see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” (Matthew 26:64) “Hereafter” means “from now on” – Caiaphas would “see” the coming of Christ. The dying Stephen certainly did! (Acts 7:55, 56)
Right now you are probably thinking: But isn’t this what the Preterists teach? Yes, they do. But they confuse the spiritual appearances of the glorified Christ with his physical Second Coming. Paul wrote to Timothy: “This I say unto you by the word of the Lord [a prophetic expression used often in the Old Testament but only here in the New Testament], that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not precede those who are asleep [in death]. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall ever be with the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17)
This is in perfect accord with what Paul wrote to the church at Corinth: “Behold, I show you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” (1 Corinthians 15:51, 52)
The contrast between the spiritual coming and the physical return to earth of Jesus is obvious. The difficulty comes only when we confuse them. In his parable of the King’s Son (Matthew 22:1-10), Jesus spoke of the king hearing of the killing of his servants and being so angry — “he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city”. The “servants” in the prophetic parable are the Lord’s apostles; the “murderers” are those that martyred them, and the “burned up” city is Jerusalem. “His armies” are the armies of Rome, under the command of Titus, whose soldiers sacked Jerusalem in AD70 and burned down the Temple.
But Christians “are not appointed unto wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians 5:9) Judgement and salvation are incompatible! Those who are Preterists in the full sense are left with nothing post AD70 to look forward to. No literal, physical, Second Coming of Jesus Christ to earth. No resurrection. No millennial reign of Jesus over the whole earth. These to them have all happened. As to how, Preterists are not clear. But for them it all happened when Jesus returned in AD70. It’s a disappointing anti-climax!
Recently, while studying the sending forth by Jesus of the Twelve and then of the Seventy, I gained a clear picture of the difference between what each symbolizes. As you probably know, the seventy nations are listed in Genesis 10. In Genesis 12, God calls Abram out from his country of birth and into the land that his descendants, the twelve tribes of Israel, will one day inherit. The blessing of God on the twelve tribes is to result in the blessing of the seventy nations and their descendants.
Correctly “dividing the word of truth” is not always easy, but more time spent studying it rather than just reading it helps!