Chapter I
Introduction
This is a book about the Antichrist, the opponent of God/Christ who appears at the last hour right before the Second Coming (1 John 2:18). Because the Bible shows the Antichrist being destroyed at the time of the Second Advent (2 Thess. 2:8; Rev. 19:11-21), I will also address the topic of Jesus’ Second Coming or parousia.1 I will argue that the Second Coming, the defeat of the Antichrist, and the coming of the kingdom of God all occurred in AD 70 (cf. Dan. 7:19-22; Mark 8:38-9:1). On the surface, this seems like an absurd proposition. As strange as it may seem, however, when one allows the time sequences of Scripture to unfold naturally, they point consistently to AD 70 as the time of Jesus’ Second Coming and the full establishment of God’s kingdom. It should be noted that I will use the terms Second Advent and parousia interchangeably to speak of what is commonly referred to as the Second Coming of our Lord.
The theological paradigm from which I will be working is known as preterism. The word preterism is derived from the Latin word praeteritus, which means “gone by” or “past.” It refers to the fact that this approach sees most of Bible prophecy (some would say all) as having been fulfilled in the past. R. C. Sproul gives the following definition of preterism:
Preterism - An eschatological viewpoint that places many or all eschatological events in the past, especially during the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Full preterism assigns all of these events to the first century. Partial preterism assigns many of these events to the first century, but not the second coming, the resurrection, and the final judgment.2
As Dr. Sproul mentions, there are two basic groups of conservative preterists (i.e., preterists who believe in the inerrancy of Scripture). Full preterists see AD 70 as the time of Jesus’ Second Coming and the fulfillment of all biblical prophecy. Partial preterists see AD 70 as a time of Jesus coming in judgment on Israel, with the Second Coming, resurrection, and judgment yet to happen in the future. Thus, whereas partial preterists see AD 70 as the time of “a coming” of Jesus in judgment on Israel (like the Old Testament judgment comings of God in history, cf. Is. 19:1-4), full preterists see AD 70 as the time of Jesus’ actual Second Coming. Sproul writes the following on this:
While partial preterists acknowledge that in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 there was a parousia or coming of Christ, they maintain that it was not the parousia. That is, the coming of Christ in AD 70 was a coming in judgment on the Jewish nation, indicating the end of the Jewish age and the fulfillment of a day of the Lord. Jesus really did come in judgment at this time, fulfilling his prophecy in the Olivet Discourse. But this was not the final or ultimate coming of Christ.3
My approach falls between these two positions. Like full preterists, I see AD 70 as the time of the Second Coming, resurrection, and judgment (with the resurrection and judgment having an ongoing fulfillment since that time). Like partial preterists, I see certain prophetic events that still await fulfillment (e.g., the destruction of Satan at the end of the millennium described in Rev. 20:7-10). While my position is much closer to full preterism, I strongly disagree with its premise that all biblical prophecy was fulfilled by AD 70 (see Appendix A: Why I Disagree with the Full Preterist Paradigm).
My approach is most similar to that of nineteenth-century theologian James Stuart Russell.4 Like full preterists, Russell saw AD 70 as the time of the Second Coming; unlike full preterists, Russell saw the Second Coming as the beginning of the millennium, not its end. I call this position premillennial preterism. It is premillennial in that it holds that Jesus returned right before (pre-) the millennium. Unlike futuristic premillennialism, however, it does not see the millennium as a literal one-thousand-year period. My position is preteristic because it holds that the one and only Second Coming occurred at the AD 70 end of the old covenant age. R. C. Sproul, in his book The Last Days According to Jesus,5 wrote favorably concerning Russell’s position, and his attempt to answer the hard questions related to the New Testament’s teaching of a very soon (first-century) Second Coming. In his foreword to Russell’s classic work The Parousia, Sproul writes:
If Immanuel Kant was “awakened from dogmatic slumber” by the empirical skepticism of Davie Hume, my theological reverie in the arms of Morpheus was rudely stirred by reading The Parousia by J. Stuart Russell. Few books have forced me to rethink ideas or challenged my assumptions as much as this one has . . . I am persuaded that, in the main, Russell is essentially correct. I do not endorse his work entirely because I think he goes too far, as does full preterism . . . But for me one thing is certain: I can never read the New Testament again the same way I read it before reading The Parousia. I hope better scholars than I will continue to analyze and evaluate the content of J. Stuart Russell’s important work.6
Conservative (Bible-believing) preterism is probably the most demanding of all the prophetic approaches. I say this because it is not sufficient for a conservative preterist to merely expound on a given passage; he must also show how it has been fulfilled in history. That is, once he has interpreted a given passage and harmonized it with the rest of Scripture, a conservative preterist must then back up his interpretation with the facts of history. This is not always easy, especially when one is discussing events that take place in the invisible realm of the spirit, as the books of Daniel and Revelation often do (cf. Rev. 12:1-12).
The Second Coming
There is a time element in Scripture that consistently points to the first century as the time of the Second Advent.7 This time element has, for the most part, been minimized or ignored by the conservative Christian community. While Bible-believing Christians have largely ignored this time element, critics of the Bible point to it as proof that the Bible is not the inerrant Word of God. In this book I seek to show that the Bible is consistent and without error in its prediction of a first-century parousia. I will argue that the Second Coming of Jesus was not a physical event to a specific location but was a spiritual event. The spiritual presence of Jesus filled the world at His AD 70 Second Advent just as lightning instantaneously flashes from one end of heaven to the other (Matt. 24:26-27). Preston makes the following observations along these lines:
Remember that in the Old Testament Day of the Lord, Jehovah was revealed. His majesty, power, righteousness, and Name were revealed by His sovereign acts of judgment (Isaiah 26:9f), not by His visible appearance. Jehovah was invisible as far as optical appearance is concerned, yet, He “came down out [of] His place” (Micah 1:3f), against Israel. He rode “on a swift cloud” into Egypt (Isaiah 19:1f). He came with a shout, with the fiery blast, and the trumpet (Isaiah 30:30; 31:4f), against the Assyrians. In these and other epiphanies, the world saw but did not see, God coming. Thus, just as the invisible God manifested Himself in historical acts of judgment against His enemies, and was said to come, on the clouds, with the angels, with a shout, in flaming fire, etc., Jesus said that at His coming He was coming in the glory of the Father [Matt 16:27-28], to be revealed as King of kings and Lord of lords. Jesus was not coming as a man. He was to be revealed as God, as the invisible God . . . The association of the cloud coming of Jesus with the claim to Deity [cf. Matt. 26:63-65] and therefore, authority of judgment, is critical to understanding the nature of the parousia. Just as Jehovah came on the clouds many times, but was never visibly seen, Jesus, the Son of God, would manifest His Deity by coming on the clouds in judgment. This flies in the face of the futurist view about the nature of the Lord’s coming.8 (emphasis in original)
Jesus’ Second Advent would be in the glory of his Father (Matt: 16:27); that is, it would be like the Old Testament comings of God. Often these comings were marked by an invading army executing God’s judgment (Ezek. 32:1-15; cf. Matt. 22:1-10). Notice that the coming of God/Christ is given in the context of the AD 70 destruction of the Jewish nation in Matthew 21:33-45 and Luke 19:11-27. Also notice that what Daniel 7:21-22 shows as the coming of God to defeat the Antichrist (the little horn) is shown in Revelation 19:11-21 as the coming of Jesus, the Word of God (to defeat the beast). This coming, the Second Coming, would be a spiritual event, not a physical event.
Consider the following brief overview of some of the biblical time statements that look for the Second Coming to happen in the first century.
The Old Testament
Looking at the Old Testament (hereafter denoted as OT), what we refer to as the Second Coming is not directly shown; what is shown is the coming of God and the deliverance of his people (Is. 66:12-24; Dan. 7:21-27; Zech. 14; note: Dan. 7:13-14 shows the ascension of Jesus—not his Second Coming). The OT also shows events that the New Testament (hereafter denoted as NT) associates with the Second Advent. Daniel 2 shows the full establishment of God’s kingdom as occurring during the reign of the tenth king of the fourth empire (i.e., the Roman Empire, Dan. 2:20-45; cf. Dan. 7:7; Rev. 11:15-18). Vespasian, the tenth Caesar of Rome, ruled from AD 69-79; that puts the full establishment of the kingdom of God sometime in that ten-year span (cf. Matt. 16:28-29; 2 Tim. 4:1).
Daniel 7 gets more precise about the time of the parousia (prefigured as the coming of God to defeat the little horn and fully establish his kingdom, Dan. 7:21-22; cf. Rev. 19:11-20:4). It says that the coming of God (cf. Matt. 21:33-45) would happen right after an eleventh ruler of Rome had persecuted Daniel’s people for three-and-a-half years (Dan. 7:19-27). In the books of Daniel and Revelation, this time of the great tribulation is designated variously as “a time, times and half a time” (Dan. 7:25; 12:1, 7) and “forty-two months” (Rev. 13:5). This period of persecution would happen at the time the Antichrist was a “little horn” (Dan. 7:7-8). I shall show that this is a reference to Vespasian’s son Titus, the eleventh Caesar of Rome. In AD 70 Titus was only a general—hence the designation as a little horn. Titus was the Antichrist, the prince to come who would destroy Jerusalem and the Temple (Dan. 9:26). It was three-and-a-half years from the arrival of Titus to the Holy Land (c. March/April of AD 67) to his destruction of the Jewish nation (c. August/September of AD 70, cf. Dan. 12:7).
My interpretation of the little horn of Daniel 7 is consistent with the traditional Jewish interpretation. Jewish commentator Hersh Goldwurm (citing Rashi and others) writes the following regarding Daniel 7:7-8 and its eleven rulers:
These ten horns were later (v. 24) identified by the angel as ten kings who would rule Rome before the destruction of the Holy Temple (Rashi) . . . During his father’s reign, Titus, son of Vespasian, destroyed the Holy Temple (Mayenei HaYeshuah 8:5) . . . Another horn, a small one. This refers to Titus (Rashi). [Vespasian’s son and eventual successor was in command of the Roman armies in the Holy Land and was responsible for the destruction of the Temple. He is referred to as another horn, a small one, probably because he was not yet emperor at this time.] . . . And a mouth speaking haughty [lit. big] words. Titus spoke and acted with great arrogance in the inner sanctum of the Holy Temple as recounted in Gittin 56b (Rashi).9 (emphasis and brackets in original)
For anyone familiar with Jewish history, it is hard not to see Titus in the little horn of the fourth beast of Daniel 7; it is even more difficult not to see him in Daniel 9. Daniel 9 says that the seventy weeks of Daniel would be fulfilled (with the resulting establishment of God’s kingdom, Dan. 9:24) when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the people of the prince to come (Dan. 9:26-27). This was fulfilled in AD 70 by Titus and the Roman armies (cf. Matt. 22:1-10). In Daniel 12, Daniel was told that all the events of Daniel 11 and 12 would be fulfilled when the power of Daniel’s people had been “completely shattered” (Dan. 12:7). The events included in Daniel 12 are events associated with the Second Coming (the abomination of desolation, Dan. 12:11, cf. Matt. 24:15; the great tribulation, Dan. 12:1, cf. Matt. 24:21; and the judgment, Dan. 12:2, cf. Matt. 25:31-46). The power of Daniel’s people was completely shattered in AD 70 at the occasion of Titus’ destruction of the Jewish nation.
The New Testament
Looking at the New Testament, Jesus, in circa AD 30, said that the generation listening to him would not pass away before his Second Coming took place (Matt. 24:33-34; Mark 13:29-30; Luke 21:31-32), a biblical generation being approximately forty years (Num. 32:13). Paralleling this, Jesus said that some of his listeners would still be alive to witness his Second Coming:
For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom. Matthew 16:27-28; cf. Rev. 22:10-12
Jesus held out the possibility that John would still be alive when he returned (John 21:18-23). Jesus told his disciples that they would “not have gone through cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes” (Matt. 10:23). He told them that as long as he was in the world he was the light of the world, and that when he was taken out of the world it would be night (John 9:4-5). Alluding to this, Paul, in his letter to the Romans (c. AD 58), declared that “the night is far spent, the day is at hand” (Rom. 13:11-12), meaning that the time of Jesus’ return was drawing near (cf. Rom. 16:20).
Paul told the Corinthians (c. AD 55-56) that the time was short (1 Cor. 7:29), that the end of the ages had come upon them (1 Cor. 10:11). He warned the Philippians (c. AD 58-61) that “the Lord is at hand” (Phil. 4:5). He fully expected that a number of the Thessalonians would remain alive to witness the Second Coming (1 Thess. 4:15). The author of Hebrews (c. AD 67) informed his audience that Jesus would come in “a little while” (Heb. 10:37). He said it was the “last days” (Heb. 1:2) and that the end of the ages had arrived (Heb. 9:26). What had arrived were the last days of the old covenant age.
Moses prophesied that Israel would break the covenant in the “latter days” and “be devoured” (Deut. 31:16-17, 29). Although the cross made the old covenant obsolete (Heb. 8:13), the old covenant would not fully pass away until the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple (cf. Dan. 9:24-27). This was when the kingdom would be taken from God’s unfaithful old covenant people and given to his new covenant people (Matt. 21:33-45; Dan. 7:21-27; cf. Mark 8:38-9:1).
To say, as many futurists do, that the “last days” have been in existence for almost two thousand years makes absolutely no sense. Consistent with the idea that the last days were happening in the first century, Peter (in the early AD 60s) proclaimed that “the end of all things is at hand” (1 Peter 4:7). James, in his epistle (c. AD 48-62), wrote that “the coming of the Lord is at hand . . . Behold the Judge is standing at the door!” (James 5:8-9). Jude told his readers (c. AD 61-62) that they were living in “the last time” (Jude 18). By the time John wrote his epistles (c. AD 60-65),10 it was not merely the last days but rather the last hour. John clearly taught that the Antichrist was about to come: “Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know it is the last hour” (1 John 2:18). John went on to say the spirit of Antichrist was “already in the world” (1 John 4:3). One can either say John was right or he was mistaken; what one cannot say (at least with intellectual credibility) is that he was talking about someone who would come thousands of years in the future.
The Second Coming in Revelation
At the beginning of the book of Revelation (c. AD 65) John told his first-century audience that the time was near for the fulfillment of the prophecies contained in the book. He said that Revelation concerned “things which must shortly take place” and that the time was “near” (Rev. 1:1, 3). Consistent with this emphasis on immediacy, each of the seven churches of Revelation was told that the events associated with the Second Advent would happen to them, for good or ill.
The church at Ephesus was told that if they did not repent, Jesus would come quickly and remove their lampstand (Rev. 2:5). The church at Smyrna was told that it was about to experience tribulation, a reference to the soon-coming great tribulation (Rev. 2:10; cf. 3:10; 7:9-14). The church at Pergamum was told that if they did not repent, Jesus would come quickly and fight against them with the sword of his mouth (Rev. 2:16). This is a reference to the Second Coming, the time when Jesus would come and battle against his enemies (Rev. 19:11-21). The church of Thyatira was told to hold “fast what you have till I come” (Rev. 2:25), another reference to the soon-to-happen parousia.
The church at Sardis was likewise told to hold fast and repent or Jesus would come upon them as a thief (Rev. 3:3), a clear reference to Revelation 16:15, which speaks about the Second Advent: “Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches and keeps his garment, lest he walk naked and they see his shame” (cf. Matt 24:42-44). The church at Philadelphia was told that Jesus was coming “quickly,” and if they remained faithful they would be kept from the hour of trial that was about to come on the world (Rev. 3:10-11), a reference to the great tribulation that would immediately precede the Second Advent (cf. Dan. 7:21-22). The church at Laodicea was told that Jesus was standing “at the door” (Rev. 3:20). This “door” is often interpreted as the door of one’s heart, but it is more likely referring to the door of heaven (Rev. 4:1; cf. James 5:9). God was warning the Laodicean church that the Second Coming was about to occur (cf. Matt 24:33, “When you see all these things, know that it [the Second Coming, v. 30] is near—at the doors!”)
Consistent with the first-century audience of Revelation being told they would be alive when the parousia occurred, they were also told they had the ability to calculate the number of the beast (Rev. 13:18). This is a reference to the soon-coming Antichrist, a first-century figure (cf. 1 John 4:3), not someone who would arrive on the scene thousands of years in the future. That the beast was a contemporary of the recipients of Revelation is another indicator that the Second Coming was about to happen, as the beast is defeated by the Second Advent (Rev. 19:11-21). All that stood between the seven churches to which John was writing and the soon-coming Antichrist was the short reign of one ruler (Rev. 17:10-11). The beast was “about to come up out of the abyss” (Rev. 17:8, NASB)11 when Revelation was written; the time truly was at hand.
At the end of Revelation, John again reminded his audience that the things written in it were to happen shortly (Rev. 22:6-7). It is important to note that this included the prophecies of Revelation, not just the events of the first three chapters: “And he said to me, ‘Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand’” (Rev. 22:10). The prophecies of the end of the old covenant age that were in the distant future when Daniel wrote (cf. Dan. 12:9) were now at hand when John wrote. The Second Coming was so close at the time of the writing of Revelation that there was very little time left for a person to change his or her ways. John’s first-century readers were told: “He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still; he who is righteous, let him be righteous still; he who is holy, let him be holy still. ‘And behold, I am coming quickly and My reward is with Me to give to every one according to his work’” (Rev. 22:11-12). Revelation ends with Jesus saying one more time that he was about to come: “Surely I am coming quickly . . .” (Rev. 22:20).
The New Testament’s expectation of a first-century Second Coming is not just taught by one of its writers. The verses I quoted above are the words of Jesus (as recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke), Peter, Paul, James, John, Jude, and the author of Hebrews. Every writer in the New Testament wrote that Jesus was about to come in their day. As I have said, this time element that speaks of Jesus’ Second Coming as a first-century occurrence is consistently minimized or ignored by conservative Christians. The main reason for this is because it threatens the concept of the inerrancy of Scripture. If the parousia did not happen in the first century (as most Christians assume), then the authors of the NT were wrong for teaching that it was about to happen. To say the biblical authors were wrong in terms of the Second Coming’s timing is to throw the inerrancy of Scripture out the window. One cannot say that the Bible is without error except for its mistaken teaching that the Second Advent was about to happen. If the Bible is wrong on such a key subject, it cannot be trusted on anything else.12
The Erroneous Concept of Imminency
Some have tried to escape the clear teaching of the first-century nearness of the Second Coming by appealing to a non-biblical concept known as “imminency.” This teaching says that the time texts of the New Testament do not teach that Jesus was about to come; rather they teach that he could have come at any time—over the next few thousand years, as it has turned out. Regarding imminence, dispensationalist Wayne Brindle writes:
The term “imminence” (or imminency) as applies to the rapture of the church means that Christ may return at any moment for His church, and no biblically predicted event must necessarily precede it . . . Other events may occur before an imminent event, but nothing else must take place before it occurs. In addition, one cannot know precisely when an imminent event will occur. Thus one should be prepared for it to occur at any moment. Imminent does not mean “soon”; the word soon implies that an event must occur within a short time or within a specified time, which destroys the concept of imminence.13
According to this tortured line of thinking, the time texts really mean that Jesus could come at any moment (over an undetermined length of time), not that he would come soon.14 I do not think many would call an event that, according to futurists, has not yet happened in over nineteen hundred years as being imminent. Even if this could somehow fit the definition of imminency, it is irrelevant. Imminency is not a biblical term or concept; it is a manmade concept fashioned to explain the supposed failure of the NT time texts regarding the Second Coming. Gary DeMar refers quite correctly to the idea of imminence as “theological double talk”:
Dispensationalists reject the literal approach to interpreting the time texts by fabricating a doctrine called imminency or the “any moment rapture of the church.” . . . This is theological double talk. There is nothing in the time texts that would support this confusing definition. Words such as “likely,” “could happen” and “may take place” are nowhere indicated . . . If the biblical authors had wanted to be tentative, vague or ambiguous in the way they described the timing of future events, they would have equivocated by using words expressing probability, similar to the way Paul expresses himself in 1 Corinthians 4:19: “But I will come to you soon [taxu], if the Lord wills . . .” (also see Acts 18:21: “I will return to you again, if God wills.”). If the inspired New Testament writers wanted to tell their first readers that Jesus could come at “any moment,” they would have written “any moment.” They didn’t. They said His coming was “at hand,” that He was coming “quickly,” that the time is “near.”15
The teaching of imminence does not hold up to biblical scrutiny. Consider Revelation 17:8; it says that the beast was about to come when John wrote. Did this mean that the beast could come sometime in the next two millennia? Absolutely not. Look at the text:
The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss and go to destruction . . . Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits, and they are seven kings; five have fallen, one is, the other has not come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while. The beast which was and is not, is himself also an eighth . . . .
Revelation 17:8-11 NASB (underlined emphasis mine)
Notice the specific time limitation here: “one [king] is, the other has not come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while.” There was only the short reign of one king between the current reigning king and the soon-coming beast (who would be an eighth king). This proves that when God told John the beast was about to come, he meant just that. I might add that it makes no sense that John would be warning his first-century audience of a ruler whom they would never see (cf. Rev. 14:9-11). Indeed, John said the first-century hearer with the required knowledge would be able to calculate the number of the name of this ruler (Rev. 13:18; cf. 1 John 4:3). Remember, it was this soon-coming beast that Jesus would defeat at his parousia (Rev. 19:11-21). If the coming of the beast was near, then so was the Second Advent.
The message of Revelation (as with the rest of the NT) is not merely that the time could be at hand; rather it is saying that the time was at hand in the first century (1:1,3; 22:6). To say differently is to twist Scripture. Futurists would have us believe that Revelation is a letter sent to the seven historic churches of Asia (Rev. 1:1-4) that only pertained to them in the introduction of the letter (Rev. 1-3). Most futurists maintain that the body of the letter (Rev. 4-22) had nothing to do with the people to whom it was sent! That makes no sense. Revelation tells us that the time for its prophecies was at hand when it was written (Rev. 22:10), not just the first three chapters. It is a basic tenet of biblical interpretation that one should seek to discover the meaning of a book to its original audience before rushing off to look for futuristic interpretations. This is especially true of the books of the NT (cf. Dan. 12:9 with Rev. 22:10).
The Horns of a Dilemma
The reason most conservative Christians do not like to deal with the Bible’s first-century proclamations of the nearness of Jesus’ Second Advent is because these time statements put them on the horns of a dilemma. Either the biblical writers were correct and the Second Coming was about to happen in the first century or they were mistaken and the inerrancy of Scripture is shown to be false. Most conservative Christians do not like either of these choices and so they either ignore the problem or plead “imminence.” To ignore or minimize the NT’s teaching of a very near Second Coming (the typical conservative solution) is intellectually dishonest. The great Christian thinker C. S. Lewis acknowledged the problem but provided no real answer:
“Say what you like,” we shall be told [by the critics], “the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.’ And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else.”
It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible. Yet how teasing also, that within fourteen words of it should come the statement “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” The one exhibition of error and the one confession of ignorance grow side by side.16
While Lewis did not dodge the question of the NT teaching of a first-century parousia, his answer is less than inspiring. He actually concedes the critics’ point that Jesus was in error (which, if true, would make Jesus a false prophet, cf. Deut. 18:20-22). At least Lewis went on to qualify Jesus’ statement as “apparently mistaken,”17 implicitly leaving open the possibility that our conception of a future Second Coming is wrong, not Jesus.
Jesus saying that he did not know the exact day or hour of his parousia does not contradict the fact that he said it would happen in his hearers’ lifetime (Matt. 16:27-28; 24:29-34; Mark 8:38-9:1). While it would happen within his generation, only the Father knew the exact timing (cf. Rev. 14:14-16). Again, either Jesus and the NT writers were wrong (and the NT is shown to be in error on this key subject) or they were right. I seek to show that the Bible is consistent and without error in pointing to AD 70 as the time of the Second Coming and full establishment of the kingdom of God.
The Symbolic Nature of Apocalyptic
The most likely reason many Christians misunderstand the timing and nature of the Second Coming is because they misunderstand the manner in which the passages of Scripture that deal with it are to be interpreted. Most of these sections, especially in Daniel and Revelation, are apocalyptic in nature and as such use a highly symbolic mode of communication. Most Christians have mistakenly looked for literal manifestations in the physical realm of the events shown in these sections of the Bible. For example, many see the stars falling to the earth in Revelation 6:13 as literal stars (or at least meteorites) falling. This is often seen as a literal description of the “end of the world.” If one looks at how stars are used in the rest of Revelation, however, it is symbolically, not literally. In Revelation 1:20 we are told that the stars in Jesus’ hand symbolize angels. Similarly, Revelation 9:1-2 mentions a falling star; this “star” is referred to as a “he” and is allowed to open the abyss. This passage does not speak of a literal falling star but rather a fallen angel. Even most “literalists” would concede that the third of the stars that the dragon causes to fall to the earth in Revelation 12:4 have nothing to do with literal stars but rather symbolize the fall of Satan and his angels (Rev. 12:9). Jesus is even likened to a star in Revelation 22:16.
To acknowledge that stars are symbolic (usually of spiritual authorities) in most places in Revelation yet maintain that they are literal in Revelation 6:13 is a woefully inconsistent hermeneutic. Added to this, it totally ignores the OT’s symbolic use of stars in similar passages (cf. Dan. 8:8-10). When one understands that stars often represent spiritual authorities in apocalyptic portions of Scripture, suddenly a verse like Matthew 24:29 makes more sense: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” This verse is not talking about literal stars falling any more than Revelation 12:4 speaks of literal stars. It is symbolic language signifying that the spiritual powers in the heavenly realm would be shaken at Jesus’ soon-coming parousia (cf. Matt. 24:29-34).
The apocalyptic sections of Scripture often use symbols to unveil the invisible realm of the spirit. Historically, conservative Christians have been leery of symbolic interpretations of the Bible. While there are good reasons for this (i.e., the fact that some interpreters misapply symbolism in a way that dilutes or diminishes the Bible’s message), I intend to show that the use of symbols is the primary method of communication used in the apocalyptic texts. In the present work, I shall ask the reader to temporarily put aside his preconception of what the Second Coming entails and simply follow the time sequence that the Bible consistently presents for it.
To my conservative brethren, many of whom are inclined to reject my position out of hand, I would say that I am providing answers to those critics who challenge biblical inerrancy. This response comes in an area for which conservatives have provided few, if any, convincing answers. Let me give an example: In 1 John 2:18, John writes, “Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrists have come, by which we know it is the last hour.” Charles Ryrie’s explanation of this verse is almost embarrassing.
In this verse alone John affirms the presence of many antichrists in his own day and anticipates the coming of the Antichrist in a future day . . . The presence of antichrists in the world proves that it is a last hour. Since they were present in John’s day and have been present throughout church history the “last hour” must be the entire period between the first and second advents of Christ.18
According to Ryrie, the “last hour” has lasted almost two thousand years! This is, of course, absurd; but it is about the best explanation conservatives have been able to provide. In AD 30 Peter told his first-century audience they were living in the “last days” (Acts 2:14-40; cf. Heb. 1:2). It is bad enough when futurists say the last days have been in existence for thousands of years, but to say that the last hour has lasted almost two millennia defies credulity. John was not talking about the Antichrist coming in some distant day in the future; he was saying the Antichrist was about to come in his day—the time was at hand (cf. Rev. 1:1-3). One can either acknowledge John was right or say he was wrong, but one should not insult people’s intelligence by saying that John was talking about some distant event that has yet to occur.
The last hour that John said had come on his first-century audience was not the impending “end of the world” but rather the impending end of the old covenant age (cf. 1 Cor. 10:11; Heb. 9:26). God told Moses that in the “latter days” of the old covenant (Deut. 31:29) the children of Israel would “play the harlot with the gods of the foreigners of the land . . . and break My covenant . . . and they shall be devoured” (Deut. 31:16-17; cf. Ezek. 16). This destruction of harlot Israel by the Antichrist (the beast) is shown in Revelation 17-18; it was the end of the Jewish age. This was marked by the destruction of the Jewish nation and the old covenant Temple system by Titus (Dan. 9:24-27; 11:40-12:7). This was the passing away of the old covenant age (cf. Heb. 8:13) and the full establishment of the new covenant age, the full establishment of God’s kingdom at the Second Advent in AD 70 (Dan. 7:21-22; cf. Mark 8:38-9:1).
Let me conclude this section by saying it is my high view of Scripture—my belief that the Bible means what it says and is without error—that leads to my position concerning the timing of the Second Advent and the full establishment of the kingdom of God.
The Antichrist
It is somewhat surprising that a term as well known as Antichrist is found only four times in the entire Bible. These references occur in the books of 1 and 2 John:
Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.
1 John 2:18-22 (underlined emphasis mine)
By this you know the spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.
1 John 4:2-3 (underlined emphasis mine)
For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
2 John 7
William Biederwolf provides an extensive discussion on the word antichrist (Gr. antichristos):
“antichrist”—the word may mean either “against Christ” or “instead of Christ”, i.e., a false Christ. The decision cannot rest on philology alone, but the context shows plainly that John used the word in a sense antagonistic to Christ, and this is now commonly recognized . . . John was acquainted with the Greek for “false Christ’ [Gr. pseudochristos], but he chose not to use it. He used “antichrist”, showing plainly that he meant the idea of enmity to be read in the word. Furthermore, in the Greek Fathers we do not find a trace of the idea of “false Christ” in Antichrist but it is always the thought of antagonism that is emphasized.
These antichrists in John’s time were the heretical teachers who had gone out from the Church, who were clothed with the attributes, had the spirit of and were the forerunners of the coming personal Antichrist. Does John in this verse [1 John 2:18] mean that the Antichrist is already here, i.e., in a collective sense, being in fact the aggregate of these many antichrists? In other words, is the Antichrist collective or is he personal?
1. Since the antichrists are personal so must the Antichrist be.
2. Christ and Antichrist stand over against each other and if one is personal the law of analogy requires that the other should be personal also.
3. Chap. 4:3 does not say that the spirit then prevalent was Antichrist, but it says that it is the spirit of Antichrist, and in this place the article “the” is used before Antichrist.
4. The present of fixed certainly (cometh), as referred to Antichrist [in 1 John 2:18] is set over against “have arisen” and “is”, as referred to the antichrists, showing that there is a distinction between the Antichrist who is to come and many antichrists who have already come.19
John (c. AD 60-65) was telling his first-century readers that the Antichrist was about to appear.20 He makes a distinction between “Antichrist” and “antichrists” (1 John 2:18). John uses the term “antichrists” to describe those who deny that Jesus was the Christ come in the flesh (1 John 4:3). He cites the fact that many antichrists had come as an indication that it was the “last hour” and that the Antichrist was about to come. It should be noted that John is mostly focusing on these “antichrists” in his epistles not the “Antichrist.”
Some would disagree with my position and say there is no such thing as an individual Antichrist, that there are only antichrists.21 Preterists especially have been attracted to this line of thinking because they have failed to produce a unified picture of Antichrist in one historical figure. If one cannot unify the Scriptures related to Antichrist, it is a clever defense to maintain there is no single Antichrist. One cannot be faulted for not coming up with an answer to a problem that does not exist! This sidestepping of the issue does not work, however; the problem does not go away. Whether one calls him “Antichrist” or not, the Bible consistently shows an opponent of God/Christ who is defeated by the coming of God (see below). To say there is no individual Antichrist does not get around this fact.
The Opponent of God/Christ
Looking at Scripture, one does not have to dig too deep to find the opponent of God/Christ who appears at the last hour (of the old covenant age; cf. 1 Cor. 10:11). Looking at Daniel 7, the little eleventh horn makes war against the saints and is defeated by the coming of God:
I was watching; and the same horn was making war against the saints, and prevailing against them, until the Ancient of Days came and a judgment was made in favor of the saints of the Most High, and the time came for the saints to possess the kingdom.
Daniel 7:21-22
Notice that the little eleventh horn has three horns pulled out before it (Dan. 7:8), making him an eighth horn (i.e., ruler), which is exactly what the beast of Revelation is (Rev. 17:11). Just as with the little horn of Daniel 7, the beast of Revelation is defeated by the coming of God. Revelation reveals this as the coming of Jesus, the coming of the Word of God:
Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war . . . He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God . . . Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword . . . And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. Then the beast was captured . . . [and] cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone.
Revelation 19:11, 13, 15, 19-20
Consider some of the connections between the little horn of Daniel 7 and the beast of Revelation:
1. The little horn/beast is an eighth ruler (Dan. 7:8; Rev. 17:11).
2. The little horn/beast speaks great blasphemies against God (Dan. 7:8, 11, 20, 25; Rev. 13:5-6).
3. The little horn/beast wages war against the saints and overcomes them (Dan. 7:21; Rev. 13:7).
4. The little horn/beast has a three-and-a-half-year reign of terror (Dan. 7:25; Rev. 13:5).
5. The little horn/beast is defeated in AD 70 by the coming of God/Christ (Dan. 7:21-22; Rev. 19:11-20).
6. The little horn/beast is thrown into the lake of fire at the time of the Second Coming (Dan. 7:11; Rev. 19:19-21).
7. The kingdom of God is established (what the NT shows as the beginning of the millennium) at the AD 70 defeat of the little horn/beast (Dan. 7:7-11, 21-27; Rev. 19:11-20:4).
There are too many specific correlations between the little horn and the beast for Daniel and Revelation to be talking about different rulers. These links also rule out the proposition that Revelation is retelling a second-century BC (pseudo) prophecy of Antiochus IV. It is the same ruler being shown in Daniel and Revelation, not two different rulers. The little horn/beast is the opponent of God/Christ who overcomes the saints for three-and-a-half years and is defeated at the parousia, ushering in the worldwide establishment of God’s kingdom at AD 70 (cf. Rev. 11). The little horn/beast is the Antichrist.
In Paul’s discussion of the man of lawlessness (the one who captures the Temple and is worshiped there; 2 Thess. 2:1-4), this theme of the opponent of Christ who is defeated by the Second Advent is found again:
For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.
2 Thessalonians 2:8
Note the connection between Revelation 19:15 (“Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword”) and 2 Thessalonians 2:8 (“the Lord will consume [him] with the breath of His mouth”). The Antichrist is defeated at the parousia by the sword/breath that comes out of Jesus’ mouth. These two sections speak of the same event and the same opponent; both speak of the Antichrist and the Second Coming. Note also that Paul draws from Daniel 11:36-12:13 in his discussion of the man of lawlessness. He is thus linking the king of the North with the man of lawlessness. The Antichrist was the opponent of God who would seek to exalt himself above God (cf. 2 Thess. 2:4 with Dan. 11:36-37).
Looking at the king of the North, he is defeated at the end of the old covenant age (Dan. 11:40-45), at the AD 70 destruction of the Jewish nation (Dan. 12:7). While the Second Coming is not shown explicitly in Daniel 12, the events associated with the Second Coming (e.g., the great tribulation, Dan. 12:1, cf. Matt. 24:21; the abomination of desolation, Dan. 12:11, cf. Matt. 24:15; and the resurrection and judgment, Dan. 12:2-3, cf. Matt. 25:31-32) are shown as happening at the defeat of the king of the North at the end of the age.
In the king of the North, we again we have the opponent of God who is defeated at AD 70 after a three-and-a-half-year reign of terror (Dan. 12:7; cf. Dan. 7:25; Rev. 13:5). As I mentioned earlier, Titus’ campaign against Israel took exactly three-and-a-half years, from March/April of AD 67 to August/September of AD 70.22 Whether one wants to use the term Antichrist or not, the Bible clearly shows an opponent of God/Christ who appears at the last hour of the old covenant age and is defeated by the Second Advent. To merely assert that there is no individual Antichrist does not change the facts of Scripture.
The Spirit of Antichrist
In 1 John 4, John discusses the concept that Antichrist is ultimately a spirit and that that spirit was already in the world in the first century:
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.
1 John 4:1-3
The fact that the word “spirit” is italicized here (“this is the spirit of the Antichrist”) means it is supplied by the translators. When one looks at the context, however, it is clear that this is the intended meaning. First John 4:1-3 is comparing the influence of God’s Spirit as opposed to a spirit that is not of God, the latter spirit being that of Antichrist. Regarding this, Ryrie writes, “The AV [King James Version] rightly supplies spirit, though the omission of it in the Greek text indicates a breadth of thought. Such a false prophet is influenced by many forces and spirits, including demonic ones, and all of these reveal the action of antichrist. Superhuman forces are behind these false teachers.”23
Notice that John was saying the Antichrist spirit was already in the world (1 John 4:3); his manifestation (and thus the Second Coming when he would be defeated) was very near. Understanding that the Antichrist was ultimately a spirit is an extremely important point. The problem most commentators have had in identifying the Antichrist is that they have been looking for a human ruler. The fact is the Antichrist was not simply a human ruler but a demonic ruler working through a human ruler. Consider what we are told about the Antichrist in the book of Revelation: “The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss and go to destruction . . .” (Rev. 17:8 NASB; cf. 11:7). That the beast would come out of the abyss shows that he was a demonic ruler not a physical ruler (cf. Luke 8:31; Rev. 9:1-12; 20:1-3). He would work through a certain man, however (cf. Rev. 13:18).
One should also note that John was told the beast was “about to come up out of the abyss” (Rev. 17:8 NASB). The Antichrist was about to come in the first century, not thousands of years later. Those in John’s first century audience with the required knowledge would be able to calculate the number of his name (Rev. 13:18). I shall argue that the Antichrist was the demonic ruler that would come out of the abyss at the end of the old covenant age to work through Titus in his AD 70 destruction of the Jewish nation. It was this demonic ruler, not the man Titus, who would be destroyed in the lake of fire at the time of the parousia (Rev. 19:20; cf. Dan. 7:11).
In talking about the man of lawlessness, the one who would capture the Temple and be defeated by Jesus’ Second Coming (2 Thess. 2:4, 8), Vine notes that the word translated as “destroy” in 2 Thessalonians 2:8 (“and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming”) does not necessarily mean to annihilate but rather to make inactive.
Destroy: katargeō, lit. to reduce to inactivity (kata, down, argos, inactive) . . . In this and similar words not loss of being is implied, but loss of well being . . . [Thus,] the Man of Sin is reduced to inactivity by the manifestation of the Lord’s parousia with His people.24
It was the spirit of Antichrist working through Titus that was defeated and rendered inactive at Jesus’ Second Coming. It was the demonic king from the abyss, not Titus, that was destroyed in the lake of fire at Jesus’ parousia (Rev. 19:11-21).
Understanding that the Antichrist was ultimately a spirit helps to explain the somewhat strange wording in Daniel 9:
And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end shall be with a flood, and till the end of the war desolations are determined.
Daniel 9:26
Why does the text not simply say the prince to come would destroy Jerusalem and the Temple? The reason is because the prince to come, the Antichrist, would be a spiritual prince; it was his people that would destroy Jerusalem. Daniel 12 contains a similar statement of a spiritual ruler and his people. In verse 1 the angel Michael is said to be a prince of the Jewish people:
At that time Michael shall stand up, the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time . . . .
Daniel 12:1
It is the same with the prince to come in Daniel 9:26; he was a demonic prince of the Roman people.25 This was the beast from the abyss, the spirit of Antichrist. Consistent with this consider the angelic/demonic kings and princes spoken of in Daniel 10:
Then he [the glorious Man of Daniel 10:5-6] said to me, “Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been alone there with the kings of Persia.” . . . Then he [the glorious Man] said, “Do you know why I have come to you? And now I must return to fight with the prince of Persia; and when I have gone forth, indeed the prince of Greece will come. But I will tell you what is noted in the Scripture of Truth. (No one upholds me against these, except Michael your prince . . . .)”
Daniel 10:12-13, 20-21 (underlined emphasis mine)
Clearly, these are demonic kings and princes, what the NT refers to as the “spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). It is the same with the beast; he was a demonic king about to come out of the abyss when John wrote Revelation (Rev. 17:8-11 NASB). This was the Antichrist, the demonic ruler who worked through Titus in his AD 70 destruction of Israel.
What About Nero?
Historically, preterists have identified Nero as the beast of Revelation.26 There has been more diversity when it comes to the identity of the man of lawlessness (actually most preterists are uncertain as to his identity). Few credible preterist candidates are offered for the little horn of Daniel 7 or the king of the North of Daniel 11:36-45. Again, preterists have not been able to unify the Scriptures associated with the Antichrist in one person. Nero, the usual preterist candidate for the beast, simply does not fit the descriptions of the little horn of Daniel 7, the king of the North, or the man of sin. Nero was not an eleventh ruler as the little horn is (Dan. 7:7-8, 23-27). Nero was in fact a sixth ruler, the sixth Caesar. He was the one on the throne when Revelation was written (Rev. 17:10-11). Consider the first eleven Caesars:
1. Julius Caesar (49-44 BC)
2. Augustus (31BC - AD 14)
3. Tiberius (AD 14-37)
4. Gaius (Caligula) (AD 37-41)
5. Claudius (AD 41-54)
6. Nero (AD 54-68)
7. Galba (AD 68-69) -------------à
8. Otho (AD 69) --------------à 3 horns pulled out (Dan. 7:8)
9. Vitellius (AD 69) --------------à
10. Vespasian (AD 69-79)
11. Titus in AD 70, the little eleventh horn of Daniel 727
It is impossible to make Nero an eleventh ruler. Notice Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, the three short-lived emperors that Vespasian and Titus were victorious over in their bid to take over the Roman Empire in AD 69. These were the three horns removed before the little eleventh horn (Dan. 7:7-8, 19-22). This made the eleventh horn an eighth ruler, which is how the Antichrist is shown in Revelation 17:8-11.
While the “eleventh ruler” description does not fit Nero, it fits Titus like a glove. In addition to Nero not being an eleventh ruler, he never invaded the Holy Land as the king of the North does (Dan. 11:40-45). The fact is, Nero never set foot in the Holy Land. Moreover, Nero was never worshiped in the Temple, as the man of lawlessness is (2 Thess. 2:4). It was Titus who fulfilled these prophecies in his destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in AD 70. Of course, when examined closely, Nero does not even fit the description of the beast. Revelation 19:19 shows the beast fighting against Jesus at his parousia in AD 70. Nero died in AD 68; by AD 70 he had been dead for more than two years. Furthermore, Revelation 17-19 shows the beast destroying Babylon (Rev. 17:16-17), which most conservative preterists identify as Jerusalem (cf. Rev. 11:8; 17:18).28 It was Titus who destroyed Jerusalem, not Nero.
Finally, the much-touted Nero solution to the riddle of 666 requires the use of a defective spelling of Nero’s name.29 Added to this, the name of Nero was never suggested by ancient commentators in their discussions of the number of the beast. The Nero solution to the 666 riddle does not even appear until the nineteenth century! Regarding the connection between Nero and 666, Kistemaker writes, “When did the writers begin to identify Nero with the number [666] in this particular passage [Rev. 13:18]? There is no reference anywhere in history until the 1830s when four German scholars proposed his name.”30 In contrast to this, the earliest recorded suggestion as to the meaning of 666 (given by Irenaeus in the second century) may contain a reference to Titus.31
The Difficult Task of Producing a Preterist Candidate for Antichrist
Dispensational scholar Randall Price notes correctly that “only the futurist school has been able to develop a self-consistent interpretation of the Antichrist concept from the scriptural witness of the two testaments.”32 This sounds impressive at first, but futurists have a much easier task than preterists do. Because futurists say the Antichrist will come in the future, they do not need to provide any historical fulfillment. All that futurists have to do is provide a reasonable futuristic scenario of Antichrist’s actions and harmonize it with the relevant Scripture passages. Preterists, after harmonizing the Scriptures, have to show how they were fulfilled in history—a much more demanding task.
The present work provides a concept of Antichrist that is both consistent with the Old and New Testaments and is unified in one historical figure (Titus) and one three-and-a-half-year period (AD 67-70), cf. Daniel 7:25; 12:7; Revelation 13:5. This is a next to impossible task unless one is on the exact right track. Consider the difficulties Bible expositor Phillip Mauro has in providing a historical fulfillment related just to Daniel 11:36-45.
Mauro applies the description of the king of the North in Daniel 11:36-39 to Herod the Great (37-4 BC). He immediately runs into problems, however. Because Daniel 11:36 says that the king of the North would prosper until God’s wrath against the Jews was accomplished (i.e., AD 70; cf. Dan. 9:26-27), Mauro has to show that the reign of the king of the North extended up to AD 70. Since Herod the Great died around the time of Jesus’ birth (c. 4 BC), Mauro is forced to say the king of the North does not just refer to Herod but to his dynastic successors as well—Herod Antipas, Herod Agrippa I, and Herod Agrippa II.33 Thus, in his exposition of just one verse, Mauro already needs four rulers to produce a historical fulfillment for the king of the North. Needless to say, he is off to a rocky start!
Mauro continues his exposition in Daniel 11:40-43. Because the actions of the king of the North in these verses do not fit Herod, or even his successors, Mauro insists that Daniel 11:40-43 is speaking about Caesar Augustus and the time of the battle of Actium (31 BC).34 Mauro then insists that the identity of the king of the North in Daniel 11:44-45 returns to Herod the Great and the time of Jesus’ birth (c. 4 BC).35
In a span of just ten verses relating to the king of the North (Dan. 11:36-45), Mauro’s theory requires five rulers and a span of more than one hundred years to show a historical fulfillment! Daniel 11:36-45 represents only a small portion of the Scriptures dealing with Antichrist, and Mauro cannot even come close to applying it to one person or one three-and-a-half-year period.36 I say this not to criticize Phillip Mauro but to show how difficult a preterist exposition of Antichrist truly is. Clever exegesis is not enough. Unless there is an inherent fit between one’s position and Scripture, a preterist unification of all the Scripture verses related to Antichrist is impossible.
Below is Daniel 11:36-45 with a brief summary of my position (for a more complete discussion see chapter 5 of this work).
36. Then the king shall do according to his own will: he shall exalt and magnify himself above every god, shall speak blasphemies against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the wrath has been accomplished; for what has been determined shall be done. 37. He shall regard neither the God of his fathers nor the desire of women, nor regard any god; for he shall exalt himself above them all. 38. But in their place he shall honor a god of fortresses; and a god which his fathers did not know he shall honor with gold and silver, with precious stones and pleasant things. 39. Thus he shall act against the strongest fortresses with a foreign god which he shall acknowledge, and advance its glory; and he shall cause them to rule over many, and divide the land for gain. 40. At the time of the end the king of the South shall attack him; and the king of the North shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter the countries, overwhelm them, and pass through. 41. He shall also enter the Glorious Land, and many countries shall be overthrown; but these shall escape from his hand; Edom, Moab, and the prominent people of Ammon. 42. He shall stretch out his hand against the countries, and the land of Egypt shall not escape. 43. He shall have power over the treasures of gold and silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt; also the Libyans and Ethiopians shall follow at his heels. 44. But news from the east and the north shall trouble him; therefore he shall go out with great fury to destroy and annihilate many. 45. And he shall plant the tents of his palace between the seas and the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and no one will help him.
Daniel 11:36-45 is an intricate prophecy; the ten verses in this section describe a number of very specific events. The following is my proposed fulfillment of this section:
In response to an attack by the Jews on occupying Roman soldiers (vv. 40-41), Nero sent Vespasian and Titus to Judea to subdue the Jewish nation. They led a massive invasion of the Holy Land in AD 67. The campaign was going well until Nero died in mid-AD 68. Nero’s death plunged the Roman Empire into civil war as various factions struggled to determine who would rule in Rome. In AD 69, Vespasian and Titus entered this fray. To finance their takeover of the Empire, they needed the precious things of Egypt (vv. 42-43); they also planned to block Egypt’s grain shipments to starve Rome into submission, if necessary. Thus, the Flavians first secured Egypt in their bid for the Empire and then turned their attention toward Rome (note, the family name of Vespasian and Titus was Flavius).37 At this time (mid AD 69), Titus was granted sole authority over both Judea and Syria, possessing sovereignty over the domain of the king of the North (i.e., Syria).
From Egypt, Titus invaded Judea a second time in the spring of AD 70 (vv. 44-45) while his father waited to sail to Rome. At Passover of AD 70 Titus resumed his attack on Jerusalem; the city and Temple would fall five months later (cf. Dan. 9:26-27). Thus, God allowed Titus to prosper in his destruction of the Jews during the three-and-a-half-year period of March/April of AD 67 to August/September of AD 70, the time until God’s wrath against the Jews was accomplished (Dan. 11:36; Luke 21:20-24). This was the time of the “great tribulation” (Dan. 12:1) which resulted in the shattering of the Jewish nation’s power (Dan. 12:7).
Elevating himself above every god, Titus was worshiped in the Temple shortly before it was destroyed (Dan. 11:36-37; cf. 2 Thess. 2:4). The foreign god that assisted Vespasian and Titus in their victory (v. 39) was the Greco-Egyptian deity Sarapis (see Tacitus, The Histories, 4, 81-82). In response to this, the Flavians advanced Sarapis’ glory as they added him to the pantheon of Roman gods. At the AD 70 destruction of the Jewish nation, the land of Israel was divided up and sold for profit (v. 39; see Josephus, The Jewish War, 7, 6, 6).
The king of the North meets his end at the time of his attack on Jerusalem (v. 45). This does not seem to apply to Titus, as he did not die at AD 70. The ruler who met his end at this time, however, was not the man Titus but the demonic king of the North working through Titus. Just as the kings in Daniel 10:13 and Revelation 17:8-11 ultimately refer to demonic rulers, so the king of the North was demonic. It was the demonic ruler from the abyss (cf. Rev. 11:7) who met his end and was cast into the lake of fire at the parousia in AD 70 (Rev. 19:20; cf. Dan. 7:11, 21-22). Thus, it was the spiritual dominion Titus possessed that came to an end at this time (cf. Dan. 7:23-27; 1 Cor. 2:6).
The Antichrist and the Temple
Looking at the scriptures related to the Antichrist, one finds a common thread: the Antichrist’s attack on the Temple. For example, the little eleventh horn changes the times and law (Dan. 7:25). The setting of the religious calendar as well as legal judgments was the responsibility of the Temple in the first century. The Flavians changed these when they set up the equivalent of a new Sanhedrin at Yavneh in AD 69. The prince to come destroys Jerusalem and the Temple (Dan. 9:26) and makes the Jewish nation desolate (Dan. 9:27). Titus accomplished this in AD 70. The king of the North invades the Holy Land (Dan. 11:41) and attacks God’s holy mountain on which the Temple stood (Dan. 11:45), resulting in the shattering of the Jews’ power (Dan. 12:7). This happened in AD 70 with Titus’ destruction of the Jewish nation. The length of time that Titus spent warring against the Jews was three-and-a-half years (“a time, times and half a time,” or “forty-two months”); this was the span of the Antichrist’s persecution (Dan. 12:1,7; Dan. 7:25; Rev. 13:5).
The man of sin/lawlessness captures the Temple and is worshiped there (2 Thess. 2:3-4; cf. Dan. 11:36-37). Titus was worshiped in the Temple shortly after he captured it in late summer of AD 70. The beast destroys harlot Babylon (Rev. 17:7-18). In my discussion of Revelation 17-18 (in the next volume of this work), I will show how harlot Babylon represents the Temple system of unfaithful Israel (cf. Ezek. 16) that was destroyed by Titus in AD 70. All these things were accomplished by the demonic spirit from the abyss, the spirit of Antichrist that worked through Titus in AD 70. One last point, notice the son motif connecting Jesus and Titus: one, the Son of God; the other, the son of the physical ruler of the world—Christ and Antichrist.
Israel: Then and Now
A basic premise of this book is that God punished the Jewish nation and exiled the Jews into the nations in AD 70 for breaking their covenant with Him. Even most Jews would have to acknowledge this to be true, as Moses prophesied this punishment of Israel “in the latter days” (Deut. 31:29):
And it shall be, that just as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess. Then the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known—wood and stone. And among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place; but there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life. In the morning you shall say, “Oh, that it were evening!” And at evening you shall say, “Oh, that it were morning!” because of the fear which terrifies your heart, and because of the sight which your eyes see. And the Lord will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, “You shall never see it again.” And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.
Deuteronomy 28:63-68 (underlined emphasis mine)
The ultimate fulfillment of the covenant curses happened with the shattering of the Jewish nation and dispersion of the Jews into the nations in AD 70 (Deut. 32:36; cf. Dan. 12:7; Matt. 21:33-45). As Josephus relates, the tallest and most handsome of the survivors of the destruction of Jerusalem were taken to Rome, while the rest were taken to Egypt as slaves:
All those who had taken part in sedition and brigandage (they informed against each other) he [one of Titus’ men] executed. He picked out the tallest and most handsome of the lot and reserved them for the triumph [in Rome]. Of the rest, those who were over seventeen, he put in chains and sent to hard labor in Egypt, while great numbers were presented by Titus to the provinces to perish in the theaters by sword or by wild beasts.38
As prophesied in Deuteronomy 28:68, because of the glut of Jewish prisoners, it was hard to find buyers for them:
Only the citizens [of Jerusalem] were allowed to remain [in the city]; all the rest were sold, along with the women and children for a trifling price per head, as supply was far in excess of demand.39
It is interesting to note that in relating Titus’ capture of the Temple, the writers of the Babylonian Talmud incorporate a reference to the covenant curses on the lips of Titus:
Vespasian sent Titus who said, Where is their God, the rock in whom they trusted? This was the wicked Titus who blasphemed and insulted Heaven. What did he do? He took a harlot by the hand and entered the Holy of Holies and spread out a scroll of the Law and committed a sin on it. He then took a sword and slashed the curtain. Miraculously blood spurted out, and he thought that he had slain [God] himself,40 as it says, Thine adversaries have roared in the midst of thine assembly, they have set up their ensigns for signs.41 (emphasis in original)
The words attributed to Titus here are from Deuteronomy 32: “He will say: ‘Where are their gods, the rock in which they sought refuge?’” (Deut. 32:37). This is part of the Song of Moses, which was to be sung when the children of Israel had broken the covenant as a reminder of why they were suffering the resulting covenant curses:
And the Lord said to Moses: “Behold, you will rest with your fathers; and this people will rise and play the harlot with the gods of the foreigners of the land, where they go to be among them, and they will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them. Then My anger shall be aroused against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured. And many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say in that day, ‘Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?’ And I will surely hide My face in that day because of all the evil which they have done, in that they have turned to other gods. Now therefore, write down this song for yourselves, and teach it to the children of Israel; put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for Me against the children of Israel. When I have brought them to the land flowing with milk and honey, of which I swore to their fathers, and they have eaten and filled themselves and grown fat, then they will turn to other gods and serve them; and they will provoke Me and break My covenant. Then it shall be, when many evils and troubles have come upon them, that this song will testify against them as a witness; for it will not be forgotten in the mouths of their descendants, for I know the inclination of their behavior today, even before I have brought them to the land of which I swore to give them.”
Deuteronomy 31:16-21; cf. Revelation 15:1-4
The question is not really whether the covenant curses came upon the Jews at AD 70. As the writers of the Talmud attest, they clearly did. The real question is why. What did the Jews do in the first century that was so bad God hid his face from them for almost nineteen hundred years? The answer to this is that it is because the Jews rejected their Messiah. Daniel 9:26-27 prophesied that Messiah would be cut off (killed) and then Jerusalem and the Temple would be destroyed as God poured out his wrath on the desolate Jewish nation (cf. Dan. 11:36; 12:7). Additionally, with Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice as the Lamb of God (John 1:29), the need for the sacrificial system of the Temple was eliminated (cf. Is. 52:13-53:12; Matt. 12:6).
The Jews’ ultimate act of covenant-breaking occurred when they rejected the Messiah (cf. Matt. 22:1-10). Jesus was the prophet God said he would raise up; anyone who would not hear him would have to answer to God (Deut. 18:15-19; cf. Acts 3:11-36).42 The position I present in this book, that the scriptures on Antichrist relate to God’s destruction of his unfaithful old covenant people, could be misconstrued as anti-Semitic. It is not; my position simply acknowledges what Jewish Scripture said would happen to Israel. God told Moses the children of Israel would rise up and play the harlot and that they would be devoured (Deut. 31:16-17). This is exactly what NT Scripture shows: the AD 70 destruction of harlot Israel by the Antichrist (Rev. 17-19; cf. Ezek. 16).
God Is Not Finished with Israel
While I acknowledge these scriptures that speak of God’s severe judgments on his old covenant people when they broke the covenant, I want to make clear that this in no way supports or encourages anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is evil, even when it proceeds from the church. My position is that God, in his AD 70 punishment of the Jewish nation, did so via the satanic forces of Antichrist, the beast from the abyss (Rev. 17:7-8). This highlights the evilness of anti-Semitism as well as its demonic origin.
I believe that today God has brought the nation of Israel back to the land and is dealing favorably with the Jews again. This post dispersion regathering was also predicted in the covenant curses:
Now it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God drives you, and you return to the Lord your God and obey His voice, according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul, that the Lord your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you. If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you. Then the Lord your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers.
Deuteronomy 30:1-5
After all the covenant curses came upon the children of Israel and God drove them into the nations (which happened in its fullest in AD 70), God said he would later bring them back to the land. Notice that this prophecy has a post-AD 70 fulfillment (something the full preterist paradigm cannot allow for).43 God said he would bring the children of Israel back to the land for the sake of the fathers (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Lev. 26:38-46) and so that the Jews’ enemies would know it was God, not the enemies, who scattered the Jews into the nations (Deut. 32:26-27; cf. Dan. 12:7 LXX):
Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them: for I am the Lord their God. But for their sake I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the Lord.
Leviticus 26:44-45
Paul makes this point in Romans 11. He writes that the call of God on Israel is irrevocable: “Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable” (Rom. 11:28-29).44 God said he would not forget his old covenant people. While the old covenant was cast away with the AD 70 destruction of the Temple,45 God has not cast away his old covenant people. According to the NT, God’s calling on Israel is irrevocable. This explains why the Jews are back in the land today, something most of my fellow preterists are at a loss to explain.46
I believe we are currently living in the time described in Revelation 20:7-10. This is the short season (Rev. 20:3), at the end of the millennium, when Satan is released to deceive the world and bring about the Gog and Magog invasion on Israel (cf. Ezek. 38-39). One does not have to look too hard to see the spiritual darkness and deception in the world today. It appears that it is after the Gog and Magog invasion of Israel that God fully reveals himself to the Jews again (Ezek. 39:21-29). In volume II (which looks at the Antichrist as revealed in the book of Revelation), I shall argue that the Gog and Magog invasion is made up of a collection of nations (including Russia and Iran) that will invade Israel. In the second volume, I will discuss where we are currently in terms of prophecy.
Endnotes
Chapter I: Introduction
1. Parousia is a Greek word for “coming” or “presence.” It is commonly used to refer to the Second Coming (Matt. 24:3, 27, 37, 39; 1 Cor. 1:7; 1 Thess. 2:19; James 5:8; etc.).
2. R. C. Sproul, The Last Days According to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998), 228.
3. Ibid., 158.
4. James Stuart Russell should not be confused with Charles Taze Russell, who was the founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. J. S. Russell should also not be confused with the skeptic Bertrand Russell. Interestingly enough, one of the main reasons that Bertrand Russell was a skeptic is because of the New Testament’s teaching of a very near (first-century) Second Coming. See R. C. Sproul, The Last Days According to Jesus, 11-14.
5. R. C. Sproul, The Last Days According to Jesus. Much of this book involves Dr. Sproul interacting with Russell’s book, The Parousia. Sproul agrees with much of Russell’s thinking, but expressed reservations about certain aspects of his position (e.g., Russell’s position on the timing of the resurrection).
6. R. C. Sproul’s foreword to J. Stuart Russell, The Parousia, new ed. (Grand Rapids, MI Baker, rep. 1983, 1999 [1887], vii, x.
7. Some have questioned whether the concept of a Second Coming is scriptural (see article by John Noē, “He Never Left,” http://www.prophecyrefi.org/breakthru.htm). While Noē brings up some good points, there is nothing wrong with the concept of the Second Coming (cf. Matt. 24:42-51; Acts 1:9-11; 3:19-21; etc.). Consider the parable of the minas (Luke 19:11-27). In that story a nobleman takes a long journey to receive a kingdom and then returns. When he comes again he sets up his kingdom and destroys those who didn’t want him to rule over them (i.e., the Jews, cf. John 1:11). It is at his second coming that his servants fully share with him in his rule (cf. Matt. 19:28; Rev. 2:25-27; 3:20-21). This equates with the full establishment of the kingdom of God (i.e., the millennium) at Jesus’ Second Coming (cf. 2 Tim. 4:1; Rev. 19:11-20:4).
8. Don Preston, Like Father, Like Son, On the Clouds of Glory: A Study of the Time and Nature of Christ’s Second Coming (Ardmore OK: JaDon Productions, 2006), 80-82.
9. Rabbi Hersh Goldwurm, Daniel: A New Translation with a Commentary Anthologized from Talmudic, Midrashic and Rabbinic Sources, ArtScroll Tanach Series, eds. Rabbis Nosson Scherman, Meir Zlotowitz (New York: Mesorah Publications, 1998), 201-203.
10. I am drawing from John Robinson’s work for the date of 1, 2, and 3 John. See John A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, originally printed by SCM Press, 1976), 352. For an extended discussion see pp. 254-311 of that work. There is also a very helpful online version of this section of Robinson’s book (with comments by a Paul Ingram) at the following web address: http://www.katapi.org.uk/RedatingTheNT/Ch9.htm.
Robinson maintained that the entire NT was written prior to AD 70. His reasoning for this was that if any of the books of the NT were written after the AD 70 destruction of the Temple they would have emphasized its destruction as proof of Jesus’ sacrifice making the old covenant system obsolete. None of the NT books make mention of the destruction of the Temple as a past event. This would certainly not be the case if any of them were written after AD 70. While I do believe that Revelation makes reference to the destruction of the Temple (in its discussion of the destruction of Babylon, Rev. 17-18), consistent with Robinson’s hypothesis, it was not a past event but a very soon-coming event when Revelation was written (Rev. 1:1, 3; 22:6, 10).
11. The fact that there was only the short reign of one ruler between the writing of Revelation and the coming of the beast confirms that the NASB (and NRSV) are correct when they translate the Greek mellei as “about to come” as opposed to the NKJV, which is more ambiguous on the timing by translating mellei as “will come.”
12. Some try to escape the ramifications of saying the NT authors were wrong about the timing of the Second Coming by saying that Jesus told his disciples that it was not given for them to know its timing (Acts 1:6-7). This does not get one out of the bind, however. It would just mean that the NT writers were both wrong and disobedient for teaching on something they were not supposed to teach on. One cannot say the NT is inerrant except for one of its basic teachings (i.e., the timing of the Second Advent). If the NT contains errors about the timing of the Second Coming, then its reliability, and thus the reliability of the Christian faith, becomes open to question.
13. Wayne A. Brindle, “Imminence,” The Popular Encyclopedia of Bible Prophecy, eds. Tim LaHaye and Ed Hindson (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2004), 144.
14. It should also be noted that dispensationalists erroneously split the Second Coming into two comings. First, Jesus comes to take his church out of the world; then he comes with his church to defeat the Antichrist and set up a physical kingdom centered in Jerusalem. The Bible only shows one parousia, however. It happens right after the saints have gone through the tribulation (cf. Dan. 7:21-22).
15. Gary DeMar, Last Days Madness: Obsession of the Modern Church, 4th ed. (Atlanta: American Vision, 1999), 379-381.
16. C. S. Lewis, “The World’s Last Night and Other Essays” in The Essential C. S. Lewis (New York: Touchstone, 1996), 385.
17. op cit.
18. Charles C. Ryrie, “I John,” The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, ed. Everett F. Harrison (Nashville: The Southwestern Co., 1962), 1470.
19. William Biederwolf, The Millennium Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1964), 535. Reprinted from original printing in 1924.
20. I shall discuss the date of John’s epistles as well as the rest of the NT later. My position, similar to that of John A. T. Robinson (Redating the New Testament), is that the entire NT was written before AD 70.
21. Kim Riddlebarger, The Man of Sin: Uncovering the Truth About the Antichrist (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2006), 80-87. Riddlebarger discusses B. B. Warfield and his disagreement with a composite picture of the man of lawlessness and the beast fused into an individual Antichrist. Riddlebarger takes a more moderate view and is thus open to the idea of a single Antichrist. We see Scripture clearly showing an opponent of God/Christ who appears at the last hour and is defeated by the Second Coming. Whether one calls this opponent “the Antichrist” or “the opponent of Christ” is really just a matter of semantics; the concept is the same. Scripture shows a specific individual who opposes God/Christ that is defeated by the Second Coming (Dan. 7:21-22; 2 Thess. 2:8; Rev. 19:11-21).
22. Titus’ campaign against Israel took three-and-a-half years, or forty-two months. It was from around March/April of AD 67 to August/September of AD 70.
23. Charles C. Ryrie, “I John,” The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, 1475.
24. W. E. Vine, An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, with Their Precise Meanings for English Readers (pp. 5-6 under the word “abolish”) in An Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, eds. W. E. Vine, Merrill F. Unger, William White, Jr. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1984).
25. It should be noted that the Hebrew word for “prince” in Daniel 9:26 is nāgîd, while the word for “prince” in Daniel 12:1 is sar. These two words have the same basic range of meaning, however (although nagid can carry a sense of a more exalted position). Both words can be variously translated as “prince,” “ruler,” “commander” or “chief.”
26. See Kenneth Gentry, The Beast of Revelation, revised ed. (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 2002).
27. It should be noted that the twelfth Caesar was Domitian (AD 81-96); he was the son of Vespasian and brother of Titus. Notice that the usual notion that Revelation was written during Domitian’s reign does not come close to aligning with Revelation’s announcement that it was written under the rule of a sixth king (Rev. 17:10).
28. Liberal preterists are more likely to identify Rome as harlot Babylon.
29. Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, rev. ed., The New International Commentary on the New Testament, eds. Ned Stonehouse, F. F. Bruce, and Gordon Fee (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1998), 262.
30. Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of the Book of Revelation, New Testament Commentary, vol. 14 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 394-395.
31. The earliest suggestion we have to the riddle of 666 is given by Irenaeus (toward the end of the second century) in his work Against Heresies (5.30). The suggestions Irenaeus found noteworthy were Euanthas (the meaning of which is lost), Lateinos (i.e., the Roman Empire), and Teitan. Some commentators have suggested that Teitan may contain a reference to Titus. Along these lines, Barclay writes: “Teitan could be made to yield two meanings. First, in Greek mythology the Titans were the great rebels against God. Second, the family name of Vespasian and Titus and Domitian was Titus, and possibly they could be called the Titans.” William Barclay, The Revelation of John, Vol. 2, The Daily Study Bible Series, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), 101.
32. Randall Price, “An Overview of the Antichrist.” World of the Bible Ministries, http://www.worldofthebible.com/Bible%20Studies/antichrist.pdf.
33. Philip Mauro, The Seventy Weeks and the Great Tribulation (Swengel, PA: Reiner Publications, 1975), 140-142.
34. Ibid., 150-157.
35. Ibid., 157-162.
36. Despite the glaring difficulties of Mauro’s position regarding the king of the North of Daniel 11:36-45, James Jordan has adopted it. In his book The Handwriting on the Wall: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 2007), Jordan tries to apply Mauro’s position on the king of the North to the little horn of Daniel 7 (something even Mauro did not attempt). While Jordan is a very intelligent man, I find his commentary on Daniel to be quite esoteric and unconvincing. He sees the first ten horns on Daniel 7’s fourth beast as representing the first ten Caesars, Julius to Vespasian. I agree with him on that. He sees the eleventh little horn of the fourth beast, however, as not being a Roman power but a Jewish power. He says the little horn represents the line of the Herods as well as the Jews who rejected Jesus (p. 387). I find many of Jordan’s interpretations in Daniel to be fanciful; often the scriptural connections he makes are tangential and do not hold up.
For a devastating critique of Mauro’s position, see Thomas A. Howe, Daniel in the Preterist’s Den: A Critical Look at Preterist Interpretations of Daniel (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2008), 537-597. I agree with many of Howe’s criticisms of preterist interpretations of Daniel; I think his futuristic solutions are off-track, however.
37. The family name of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian was Flavius. They are referred to as the Flavian dynasty.
38. Josephus, The Jewish War, 6, 9, 2, trans. Gaalya Cornfeld (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), 444.
39. Josephus, The Jewish War, 6, 8, 2, trans. Gaalya Cornfeld, 441.
40. In the original, it says Titus “thought that he had slain himself” but the translator notes that this is a euphemism by the writers for claiming he had killed God. Apparently, the blasphemy attributed to Titus was so horrendous that the authors of the Talmud believed it too repugnant to repeat directly. Similarly, the sin that Titus committed with the harlot is not named (although it is obvious what it was) because it was too blasphemous. It should be noted that blasphemy against God is a hallmark of the Antichrist (Dan. 7:25; 11:36-37; 2 Thess. 2:4; Rev. 13:5-6).
41. Hebrew-English Edition of the Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 56a, trans. Maurice Simon, ed. I. Epstein (London: Soncio Press, 1963). Some parts of this section are myth. For example, the narrative goes on to say that Titus was killed by a gnat that ate into his brain, which is not how he died. Even though this section of the Talmud contains elements of myth, I believe the part about Titus’ blasphemous attitude against God when he captured the Temple is based on fact. Titus was well known for his arrogance.
42. This was a foreshadowing of Jesus, who was much more than a prophet. While a prophet speaks the word of God, Jesus is the Word of God (John 1:1; cf. Is. 9:6-7).
43. Because I do not hold to the full preterist constraint that all prophecy must be fulfilled by AD 70, this prophecy of God bringing Israel back to the Land does not conflict with my position. A full preterist can not allow for post-AD 70 (new) fulfillment of prophecy. To do so would be to abandon their paradigm. Because of this they have to explain away the fact (or even the possibility) that God said he would bring back the Jews to the Land after he had dispersed them throughout the nations in AD 70.
44. It should be noted that Paul’s reference to the Jews being the enemies of Christians is a reference to the Jews’ persecution of the Christians in the first century. First-century Jews saw Christianity as a heretical cult which they sought to annihilate (cf. Acts 7:51-8:3; 17:1-14).
45. The way to God is no longer through the sacrifices of the old covenant Temple system but through the (once and for all) sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God (Heb. 8:7-13; 10:1-25).
46. Most preterists say the current state of Israel has no prophetic significance; these preterists do not know what to make of the fact that the Jews are back in the Land again.