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A CALL FOR MARTYR-LIKE PERSERVERENCE

 B. E. Kimball

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Edited by

Walt Hibbard of

 THE PRETERIST VIEWPOINT

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Should the so-called Preterist Reformation movement which could be thought of as a continuation of the much older Protestant Reformation of Luther and Calvin’s day where solid biblical doctrines were set forth to refute the heretical Roman Catholic (RC) church dogmas, really be called a Reformation movement?  Should it be thought of in the same light as the original Protestant Reformation?

The earlier Reformation of yesteryear was known as a great revival of Biblical truth where godly men took a stand against the unscriptural doctrines of the RC church and did so to such a degree that they not only suffered loss of power, political positions, high church standing and excommunications and in many cases lost even their very own lives.  They did not give in to these horrific pressures and torments of their day.  No, they stood for the truth that the Lord had given them.  They stood strong in God’s light and often stood alone.  They were will grou0nded in Christ Jesus and what He demanded of hem because of their responsibilities to uphold those God-given truths even to their death.  They didn’t aspire to be martyrs.  They did not want to be slaughtered by the sword but they knew if they recanted God’s truth they would never see heaven!  In that event they would have sold out to the forces of darkness and not persevered in the Faith.

They, the Reformers, were the ones that brought the church out of the Dark Ages.  They were the ones that strongly affirmed that the doctrines of salvation could not have any works added to it, or if works were added to salvation then they would become the works of man and not the free gift of God.  They knew that even the smallest amount of good works added to God’s total, immeasurable grace would make God’s grace none other than the works of man and man alone.

But now we claim that there is a new continuation of the old Reformation and those precious truths.  And we say that we are continuing the work of the Reformation by more perfectly teaching the truth about eschatology namely that all so-called future events in the Bible have already been fulfilled about circa 70 AD.  We Preterist, as we call ourselves, have progressed from the partial preterist position, to the figurative or spiritual view to where we are calling ourselves Literal Preterist.  At least that is where we should be headed and the position we should be teaching.  Yet we recognize that there are many Figurative Preterists today that Ed Stevens calls Inconsistent Preterists.  But surely there are enough Literal Preterist books in print now to explain all of that.  There is no longer any good reason to remain in any of these inconsistent positions.

The point that I am presenting for your consideration is this:  I am deeply concerned that some of the Preterists groups today are actually taking us back into the Dark Ages where man ungodly doctrines are now being warmly received or at least tolerated for the sole purpose of unifying the Preterist movement.  This is, as I’m sure you will realize, the exact opposite of what the old Reformation movement was all about and for which valiant Christians gave their lives.  The first Christians held to God’s truth and were terribly treated as we read in the Holy Scriptures, and the great men of the Reformation did the same.  But the Preterist movement today will apparently do almost anything to avoid a splitting of our ranks.  Under the guise of Preterist unity we are accepting such doctrines as Baptismal Regeneration which is little different from what the RC church claims, that the church sacraments are an intrigal and necessary part of the works added to the salvation process.  We also have among our number, individuals, who teach false doctrines such as Annihilationism (which reminds one in some aspects of the RC doctrine of purgatory), and Universalism (which teaches that all men eventually will be saved!), and Arminianism (which gives man, not God, control over who is to be saved, not unlike what the RC church teaches), Heaven Now (which claims that believers are actually in heaven right now) and Dualism, (which makes that Bible unstable and truns it into a bunch of fables).

And so it goes on and on.  All these, and many more, unbiblical doctrines that Christians have died in past centuries to overcome are being given the okay today by some Preterist groups to advance a feigned Preterist unity!  It is difficult to distinguish the difference between this false unity in Preterist circles and the false unity of the ecumenical movement which includes every hateful bird.  The ecumenical unity movement stands for no doctrine except unity.  They have to jettison all of God’s truth and empty the Bible of all content to maintain this unity and likewise the Preterist movement is reducing many vital truths of the Bible to non-existence for the sake of the unity of Preterism.  No wonder our Preterist movement is driving away all of the big gun Reformed theologians of today, such as R.C. Sproul, Gary DeMar and the alike!  Alas, we are witnessing the potentially-great Preterist movement being identified with a half- dozen or more false doctrinal systems, none of which relate to true biblical, yes, Literal Preterism.

The Preterist movement today is attacking the ancient creeds and confessions that many great Christian men of centuries past have compiled so that the biblical truths can be taught more easily.  No, these creeds are not inspired, and no, they are not the Bible, but they are a tremendous labor of love and discernment for us to partake of so that the great truths of the Scriptures will shine through ever more clearly.  And they also kept the fabric of the Protestant church bodies doctrinally sound and were a great guide and learning tool for maintaining stability in local church governments.

It seems to me that if the Preterist movement is, in fact, the true extension of Protestant Reformation of days-gone-by, we should certainly be holding to the great creeds and confessions except in those special areas of eschatology where Preterist have labored long and hard.  We should stand true to such important and life-giving doctrines as God’s salvation by grace alone and faith in Jesus Christ alone like those great Reformers of past centuries did.

I fear that we, as a new movement in eschatological studies, is losing all credibility and for a multitude of reasons that I have mentioned in the above paragraphs.  But there remains much hope and cause for encouragement.  We must stand like a flint for those good and true, long established doctrines of the Protestant movement and , of course continue our work in the areas of eschatology, without taking the church of God back into the Dark Ages once again.  What would those faithful men of God say to us if they knew that we could not even trust in the Lord enough to take the smallest of stands?

Where do YOU stand on these absolutely essential doctrines of the Christian faith?

B. E. Kimball