The false doctrines of the Preterist and Futurist interpretation

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ewq1938

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I am not fully a Preterist nor am I a Full Preterist hlo

I believe in the bodily resurrection of the saints and that the dead, great and small, will stand before God at the Great White Throne judgment.


You may be Partial Preterist, so most prophecies fulfilled but not all like the events you mentioned.
 

Korben Dallas

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@Hobie (sry still getting the hang of quotes)

With a title like "False doctrines of the Preterist...interpretation", I was thinking to see more about Preterist false doctrine. I am not an apologist for Preterism's origins nor does it seem to be very important who believed what eschatology first, but here are a few thoughts.

1. There are no scriptures or church fathers pointing to the pope as the antichrist so I don't see how your Wikipedia thesis could have been a problem for Catholics until many centuries later.

2. Many preterist concepts begin early in the first century. That is why so many accused the New Testament writers of being mistaken in the expectation of the imminent return of Messiah.

<Hobie> Well, if one looks the prophecies are all history which is my background, and all you have to do is line them up and they fall into place, while futurism and preterism are just ways to distort what is being given and just ideas of men and really total confusion to say the least. <Hobie>

3. Preterist concepts are derived from first principles (scripture) and are deeply rooted in a respect for historical events and historical accounts. Philo, Suetonius, Josephus, DSS, Early Church Fathers...

4. Premillennialism is certainly to be praised for respecting scriptural intricacy and historical events. Approaches like historicism, futurism, and idealism on the other hand seem to be embarrassed by the detail of revelation.

<Hobie> Just look at the kingdoms that formed the nations of Europe and history clearly shows who the ten were <Hobie>

5. Clearly? No. It seems like Premillennialism is re-invented every decade. Honestly, it is such a sprawling, biased, and sparsely supported explanation that there is no wonder Premillennial interpretations are so heavily splintered.

<CTK> Unless you can answer these questions…. God has given us His prophecies in Daniel to read, study and interpret so we can understand His plan of salvation for all mankind. <CTK>

6. Forgive me if I misunderstand what you are saying here. The plan of salvation has been known for 2000 years and is not hard to understand. Nor does a person's salvation depend on their understanding and opinions of histories written sometimes by unbelievers. All histories are suspect for propaganda, ignorance, and simple human error. You guys are taking too much on yourself to be talking about eschatology like this.
 

shepherdsword

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Here is from Wikipedia and it is pretty straightforward:

"One of the most influential aspects of the early Protestant historicist paradigm was the assertion that scriptural identifiers of the Antichrist were matched only by the institution of the Papacy. Particular significance and concern were the Papal claims of authority over the Church through Apostolic Succession, and the State through the Divine Right of Kings. When the Papacy aspires to exercise authority beyond its religious realm into civil affairs, on account of the Papal claim to be the Vicar of Christ, then the institution was fulfilling the more perilous biblical indicators of the Antichrist. Martin Luther wrote this view into the Smalcald Articles of 1537; this view was not novel and had been leveled at various popes throughout the centuries, even by Roman Catholic saints.[2] It was then widely popularized in the 16th century, via sermons, drama, books, and broadside publication.[3] The alternate methods of prophetic interpretation, Futurism and Preterism were derived from Jesuit writings, whose counter-reformation efforts were aimed at opposing this interpretation[4][5][6][7] that the Antichrist was the Papacy or the power of the Roman Catholic Church.[8]"

The Protestant Reformers, including John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, John Calvin,, John Knox, Roger Williams, Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards, and John Wesley etc.., as well as most Protestants believers, felt that the Early Church of Christ and the Apostles, had been led into the Great Apostasy by the Papacy and identified the Pope with the Antichrist. The Centuriators of Magdeburg, a group of Lutheran scholars in Magdeburg headed by Matthias Flacius, wrote the 12-volume Magdeburg Centuries to discredit the Catholic Church and lead other Christians to recognize the Pope as the Antichrist. So, rather than expecting a single Antichrist to rule the earth during a future Tribulation period, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other Protestant Reformers saw the Antichrist as a present feature in the world of their time, fulfilled in the Papacy.

Now in order to counter this view that the papacy was the Antichrist power it the church turned to the Jesuits who were summoned to pus back the reformers' teachings, and here two Jesuit scholars stand out in particular. They are Ribera and Alcasar, and they developed the Futurist and Preterist systems of prophetic interpretation.

Spanish Jesuit Francisco Ribera published a commentary on the book of Revelation which proposed that the bulk of the prophecies would be fulfilled in a brief three-and-one-half-year period at the end of the Christian era. In that short space antichrist (a single individual, according to Ribera) would rebuild the Jerusalem Temple, deny Christ, abolish Christianity, be received by the Jews, pretend to be god, and conquer the world. Thus the Protestant contention that the apocalyptic symbols of antichrist denoted an apostate religious system was countered, and the focus of the prophecies was diverted from the present to the far distant future.

Spanish Jesuit, Luis de Alcazar also published a scholarly work on Revelation, to refute the Protestant Reformation on the Antichrist power. Alcazar's thesis, the opposite of Ribera's, was that all the prophecies of Revelation had been fulfilled in the past, that is, by the fifth and sixth centuries A.D., the early centuries of Christianity. He asserted that this prophetic book simply described a two-fold war by the church-its victory over the Jewish synagogue on the one hand (chaps. 1-11) and Roman paganism on the other (chaps. 12-19). Chapters 21, 22 Alcazar applied to the Roman Catholic Church as the New Jerusalem, glorious and triumphant. His writings were developed into a system of interpretation known as preterism.

Over time these specific systems of counter interpretations of the Antichrist spread and began to penetrate Protestant thought. Preterism was the first; it began to enter Protestantism in the late eighteenth century. Preterist interpretations of the prophecies have today become the standard view of liberal Protestantism.

The ideas of futurism, although refuted at first, eventually spread into Protestantism during the nineteenth century. So the Protestant denominations have picked up these counter reformation views set about to change the views of the papacy as the Antichrist power that was from the Reformers.

The false doctrine of Preterism and Futurism, as you can see, basically are to put aside the Reformers view of the Antichrist which was held by the main body of Protestants. Preterist interpretation puts all prophecy pertaining to the Antichrist into the past so it is long gone, and the Futurist interpretation puts them into the future so the papacy could claim it was not this power. It is a deception which has been picked up and spread through the churches which has become a stumbling block for many people as they are fed its lies by these false doctrines..
The OP ignores Historical Premillennialism. This position of the early church fathers had nothing to to with the Jesuits or RCC. It predates them all

What Is Historical Premillennialism?​


Premillennialism = the belief that Jesus will return before (pre-) the millennium — a 1,000-year reign of Christ on earth mentioned in Revelation 20.


Historical Premillennialism = the earlier, classic version of premillennial belief, held by many of the early Church Fathers, before more modern systems like Dispensational Premillennialism arose in the 19th century.




Core Beliefs​


  1. Christ will physically return to earth before the millennium.
  2. The Church goes through the tribulation (a time of suffering and persecution), rather than being raptured out of it.
  3. Satan is bound, and Christ reigns on earth for 1,000 years — a time of peace, righteousness, and justice.
  4. Believers are resurrected at Christ’s coming and reign with Him.
  5. After the millennium, Satan is released, there's a final rebellion, then the final judgment and the eternal state (new heaven and new earth).

️ Early Church Support​


Many early Church Fathers supported this view, including:


  • Papias
  • Irenaeus
  • Justin Martyr
  • Tertullian

They believed in a literal kingdom of Christ on earth, often centered in Jerusalem.

The Antichrist in Historical Premillennialism​

Who is the Antichrist?​

In Historical Premillennialism, the Antichrist is a real, future human figure — a powerful, charismatic, deceptive leader who rises before the second coming of Christ. He leads a rebellion against God, persecutes the Church, and is ultimately defeated by Jesus at His return.

This figure is often associated with:

  • “Man of lawlessness” – 2 Thessalonians 2:3–10
  • “Beast from the sea” – Revelation 13
  • “Little horn” – Daniel 7
  • “Antichrist” – 1 John 2:18, though John suggests multiple antichrists in a general sense too

Key Features of the Antichrist (in this view)​

  1. He arises during a time of global turmoil or moral collapse.
  2. Persecutes believers during a period of intense tribulation.
  3. Performs signs and wonders to deceive people (2 Thess. 2:9).
  4. Sets himself up as God in the Temple or in some form of blasphemous self-exaltation.
  5. Deceived nations into following him, leading to a global rebellion.
  6. Is ultimately destroyed by Christ at His second coming (2 Thess. 2:8 – “whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth”).