I have posted this a Jesus Creed but because it is now several days out of circulation I will repost it here.

“Andrew Sorry for such a long response time, I put it off and then it was the long weekend for the frozen chosen of Canada and I was chipping away at the permafrost in my garden all weekend. I did read the posts at your site last night but I’m not sure how much farther ahead I am as a result.

Please forgive me; I should not have impugned your motives in that I don’t know why you write as you do, but I have to disagree with you about your being clear. Your posts are full of technical language and unhelpful qualifications that leave me with more questions. Frankly they remind me of an insurance policy I once read, which I am sure the team of Lawyers that wrote it was convinced was crystal clear. When I read Joel’s observation on your site that “Perhaps you are simply too intelligent for me and I miss some of your points”. I immediately thought about what Einstein said:”If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”. I think you can and should do better.

That said; Eschatology is a very difficult subject and I think I give a lot of latitude to those who disagree with my position. I am glad you are not a hyper-Preterist because that position is clearly heretical. Identifying false teaching is not crude, it is a responsibility, especially for those charged with the role of shepherd and teacher. Christian theology is not like technology it is not “open source” in that it is not open to whoever wishes to redesign or reconfigure it as it pleases them. I do not interpret the NT by measuring it crudely or otherwise against Hyper-Preterism. In fact I try to measure all things Hyper-Preterism included as faithfully as I can by a sound, historical grammatical hermeneutic.

I really take issue with your use of Daniel’s visions as if they culminated in 70.A.D.. Daniel’s visions take us all the way to the end of God’s dealings with Israel, (cf Rom 11:25-36) to the physical resurrection of the just and the unjust, “Some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” (Dan 12:2) and to the end of the 70 weeks of Dan 9: and after seeing the “‘abomination of desolation’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place” That did not happened with Titus in 70 A.D. nor since, it is future.

The first resurrection for believers is physical not spiritual and is still future. To ascribe the few figurative and secondary uses of “raised” in the NT as if they are primary seems to me to be a serious error.”

Comment by Greg Mc – May 23, 2006 @ 12:03 pm