Introduction
In working through the claims of full preterism, it is important to realize just how many other issues are connected to it. It is not just a matter of chronology or timing, and the connection of this issue to marriage provides us with a good case in point.
One of the things that all full preterists have in common is that they hold that all the prophecies of the New Testament converge on and are fulfilled by the events of 70 A.D. The world as it now is continues on forever, with no final consummation. Death is never defeated down here, and sin is never defeated down here. Everything just continues on . . . and on . . . and then on some more. Kind of like the Flying Dutchman—human history as ghost ship. God is no longer the master story-teller, but is rather an over-sized Russian novelist with an infinite vocabulary who decided to write a story that never, ever resolves. The whole thing reminds me of Macbeth’s idiot, the one full of sound and fury.
From the perspective of a postmillennialist, this is just peak amillennialism—amill theology with the victory of the Second Coming taken away. Orthodox amillennialism may sign history over to the devil, but they at least hold to the final defeat of the evil one when Christ comes again. This is why premills, amills, and postmills can all be said to share an optimistic view of history . . . if we are allowed to include the end of history as part of history. But full preterism is amillennialism with all the cheer and bonhomie taken out.
In the meantime, on the up side, full preterists are known for their commitment to the hard logic of their position. And this is why I think it is necessary to test the hardness of that commitment. Let’s push it a bit, shall we?
The Twentieth of Luke
A severe challenge to their position can be found in Luke 20, and so let us unpack it. I have taken the liberty of highlighting the phrases that really need to be stared at, without blinking, for about fifteen minutes.
“Then some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is a resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, saying: “Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife, and he dies without children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. And the first took a wife, and died without children. And the second took her as wife, and he died childless. Then the third took her, and in like manner the seven also; and they left no children, and died. Last of all the woman died also. Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife does she become? For all seven had her as wife.” Jesus answered and said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.””Luke 20:27–38 (NKJV)
Now the full preterist view basically has a cosmology with a permanent upper story and lower story. When you die, you go up to Heaven. When you die, you get your new body in Heaven. You go there, and you stay there. This upper story is perfect, being Heaven and all, but the lower story remains imperfect, stained by sin and marred by death, from which condition it will never escape.
Now the Sadducees denied that there was a resurrection at the end of history, and the Pharisees affirmed such a resurrection. The question was whether all the ages culminated in the resurrection. The Pharisees said yes and the Sadducees said no. On this point, Jesus was with the Pharisees (Matt. 23:2-3). On this point, the apostle Paul was with the Pharisees (Acts 23:6).
So when the Sadducees came to Jesus, testing Him, this was the point of their challenge. They do not ask who the wife will be married to up in Heaven, but rather who she will be married to in the resurrection, a resurrection that will occur in “that age.”
Jesus teaches this in the language He uses in His reply—He speaks of “this age” (the one they were in) and “that age” (the one that was to be identified with the “resurrection of the dead”). That age and the resurrection of the dead are paired together.
So the question for the full preterists is this one, and it really is an impossible question for them to answer.
What does that age refer to? They need for it to refer to Heaven, because resurrection and that age go together in this passage, and they want our new bodies to be given to us in Heaven. But there is no scriptural warrant anywhere for referring to Heaven as “an age.” All the ages that we know of are down here, running end to end. Ages are a feature of human history, and “that age” represents the end of history as we know it. After that we enter the eternal state, about which we know very little. It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we will become like Him because we will see Him as He is (1 John 3:2).
These two historical ages are linked in this passage in another way, through the use of the word sons. On the one hand, we have sons of this age and on the other we have sons of the resurrection.
But what happens if the full preterists acknowledge that Jesus is referring to an age to come—that is, an historical age, down here? That means that the resurrection is down here, and full preterism is done.
Suppose further that they say something like “the resurrection is a spiritual resurrection, granted to all believers in 70 A.D.” Then the question becomes, “why do we still marry then?” And more to the point, “why do we still die?” The people who are counted worthy of that age neither marry nor are given in marriage. Neither do they die.
Now granted, people don’t die in Heaven, but Heaven cannot be called “that age.” But if “that age” is down here in history, then at some point in history believers have to stop marrying and they have to stop dying.
Ending With Some November Weirdness
This argument is presented as a reductio, but the nature of the full preterist error is such that I wouldn’t be surprised if some are prepared to cling so tenaciously to their error that they would swallow the reductio. “Okay, then, no marriage.”
In fact, with a handful of them, that may have been the point all along. No marriage doesn’t mean no sex, obviously, and there will no doubt be some theological pioneer who is prepared to pursue this train of thought out to the bitter end. If we are really in “that age” now, then we need to be done with marriage, just like we are done with the Lord’s Supper.
But death is a bit harder to walk away from. It has a way of following behind. Death is the gum on our collective shoe.
Don’t Ever Neglect the Giveaways
You have two distinct sources for your giveaways. The first is the special page that Canon has set up to process their giveaway madness, and those titles can be found here. The offers will change week to week throughout the month, but for the Canon titles, they will always be found in the same place. As there is a new post up today (this one), there are new free titles. Move it, move it.
Canon’s free books this go around are: Reformed is Not Enough, For a Glory and a Covering, Mere Fundamentalism, Heaven Misplaced, Papa Don’t Pope, Persuasions, and Joy at the End of the Tether. NB: the picture below has A Primer on Worship instead of Persuasions. Persuasions is actually the free one.
The second place to go would be to my Mablog Shoppe. The list of free titles will grow through the month. The current list of free titles there is as follows:
Concise and to the Point
Virgins and Volcanoes
Blue Sky Vision
The Pink Spiders of Empathy
Letters to a Rootless White Kid
Jokes I Like to Tell
Chestertonian Calvinism
21 Prayers for Pastors
Letters of Marital Counsel
No Artificial Tweetners
N.T. Wright Rides a Pale Horse
There are opportunities here that are not to be missed.
