The Implications of Preterism

If This Isn't Heaven, I Don't Know What Is

Biblical Reasons Why We Should
And Practical Suggestions on How We Can
Create Heaven on Earth

Many people have objected to full preterism on the grounds that if it were consistently applied, it would force us to conclude that we are now in heaven.

But this is difficult to accept. "THIS is heaven??" "Where are the streets of gold? Where's my harp?"

It's a persuasive emotional argument.

Partial preterists are willing to say that Matthew 24's falling stars, tribulation, and preaching of the gospel to all nations happened in the events culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

But the Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment have always been seen as the last events of human history. They are seen as the doorway into eternity. If the resurrection and last judgment are also behind us, what separates us from the eternal state, which we have always thought of as "heaven"?

The objection is logical and also emotional. Many partial preterists find it to be an utterly decisive objection against full-preterism:

If this is heaven, then God certainly hasn't kept His part of the bargain. I mean (if I may be blunt) this life sucks, and if this is all we get for our troubles, then we worship the wrong god, right? Heaven is supposed to be perfect. You call this perfect? Weren't we promised immortality, streets of gold, and a life of ease? I get sick every now and then, I've got bills to pay, my daughter's dating a hoodlum, and every night on TV I hear of more Americans getting killed. And this is supposed to be heaven? This is all there is?

Sometimes it's frightening how selfish and lacking in gratitude these arguments can be. I don't like to see people in this state of mind, so I have written a book which tries to engender gratitude for this life and a more Scriptural outlook on "heaven."

It's easier to become a 99% partial preterist than a 100% full preterist. I have been able for some time to admit that there are no verses in Scripture which describe a yet-future Second Coming, yet I still tend to believe it, based more on emotion and upbringing than Scripture.

Some preterists, like Ward Fenley, have taken the bull by the horns and openly advocated the idea that we're now in heaven. But this seems like an abstraction, a theological necessity, a logical extrapolation from a systematic theology, rather than a way of life. In other words, the theory demands it, so let's go ahead and prove it from Scripture.

Many such full-preterists are anti-Theonomic and neo-platonic, and therefore not very persuasive to Reconstructionist partial-preterists. There is more than a little merit to Gary North's criticisms.

This book is in a sense a vigorously Theonomic and Reconstructionist answer to the final objection to full-preterism, viz., that it requires us to conclude that we are now in heaven. I'm not expecting to get many partial-preterists to actually adopt the position that we are now in heaven, but by working systematically toward that conclusion, new insights will abound. One can be a full-preterist in practice even if not one in theory. In fact, I argue that the preterist conclusion that we are now in heaven is the best vehicle for arriving at the Reconstructionist utopia, that of a global theonomic theocracy, or as I call it, "Laissez-Faire Theocracy."

I call this book a series of "spiritual exercises," designed to stretch spiritual muscles that have never been used. "No pain, no gain."

The book begins here, and your comments would be appreciated.