Tim Maas Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

The question seems to be related to the subject of preterism, which (as I understand it) is the belief that the end-times prophecies in the Bible have already been fulfilled in the first century AD.

The preterist position is based on the belief that, because Jesus said in Matthew 24:34 that "this generation will not pass away until all these things [that is, the end-times events of which He was speaking in Matthew 24] take place," the events (including the rapture) of which He was speaking thus occurred in connection with the sacking of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple by the Romans in AD 70 (that is, within the lifetime of those who were hearing His words).

However, the end-times events of which Jesus was speaking also included His return in glory (Matthew 24:30-31), which has obviously not yet occurred, since Jesus said that "all tribes of the earth" would see it. Therefore, the "generation" to which Jesus was referring could not have been the generation living at the time He spoke, but the generation that would be alive at the unspecified future time when the end-times events of which He was speaking in Matthew 24 would begin to occur. The rapture therefore could not have occurred in AD 70.

January 04 2018 • 8 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report