Early Quotes of Preterist Statements

by Max King

“When, then, we see what was of old foretold for the nations fulfilled in our day, and when the lamentation and wailing that was predicted for the Jews, and the burning of the Temple and its utter desolation, can also be seen even now to have occurred according to the prediction, surely we must also agree that the King who was prophesied, the Christ of God, has come, since the signs of His coming have been shewn in each instance I have treated to have been clearly fulfilled.” Eusebius Demonstratio Evangelica – Book VIII.

What Charles Spurgeon said about the New Heaven and New Earth?

 C.H. Spurgeon (1865)

 “Did you ever regret the absence of the burnt-offering, or the red heifer, of any one of the sacrifices and rites of the Jews? Did you ever pine for the feast of tabernacle, or the dedication? No, because, though these were like the old heavens and earth to the Jewish believers, they have passed away, and we nm of divine teaching is concerned. The substance is come, and the shadow has gone: and we do not remember it.”

(Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. xxxvii, p. 354).

“And we recognize that some of the blessings and curses have come, those written in the Book of Moses; therefore this is the End of Days” Dead Sea Scrolls 4QMMT (4Q397-399).

100: The Odes of Solomon  “Because He is my Sun and His rays have lifted me up and His light hath dispelled all darkness from my face. In Him I HAVE acquired eyes and HAVE SEEN His HOLY DAY:  The way of error I have left, and have walked towards Him and have received salvation from Him, without grudging. I HAVE put on INCORRUPTION through His name: and have put off corruption by His grace. DEATH HAS BEEN DESTROYED before my face: and Sheol bath been abolished by my word”.

150: Melito – Homily of the Pascha “Who will contend against me? Let him stand before me. It is I who delivered the condemned. It is I who gave life to the dead. It is I who RAISED UP THE BURIED. Who will argue with me? It is I, says Christ, who DESTROYED DEATH. It is I who triumphed over the enemy, and having trod down Hades, and bound the Strong Man, and HAVE SNATCHED UP MANKIND TO THE HEIGHTS OF HEAVEN.”

175: Irenaeus – Against Heresies “the temple constructed of stones was indeed then rebuilt (for as yet that law was observed which had been made upon tables of stone), yet no new covenant was given, but they used the Mosaic law until the coming of the Lord; but from the Lord’s advent, the new covenant which brings back peace, and the law which gives life, has gone forth over the whole earth, as the prophets said: “For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem ; and He shall rebuke many people; and they shall break down their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruninghooks, and they shall no longer learn to fight.”

500: Andreas “And I saw, when he had opened the sixth seal, and behold there was a great earthquake, and the sun became as black as sackcloth of hair, and the whole moon became as blood. And the stars from heaven fell upon the earth, as a fig-tree casteth its green figs when it is shaken by the wind.” [Apocalypse 6:12-13] “There are not wanting those who apply this passage to the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.”

Tertullian ~200 AD “The Founder of Western Theology”

CHAP. VIII.– OF JERUSALEM’S DESTRUCTION: “Accordingly the times must be inquired into of the predicted and future nativity of the Christ, and of His passion, and of the extermination of the city of Jerusalem, that is, its devastation. For Daniel says, that “both the Holy City and the Holy Place are exterminated together with the coming Leader, and that the pinnacle is destroyed unto ruin” And so the times of the coming Christ, the Leader,

must be inquired into, which we shall trace in Daniel; and, after computing them, SHALL PROVE HIM TO HAVE COME, even on the ground of the TIMES PRESCRIBED, and of competent signs and operations of His. Which matters we prove, again, on the ground of the consequences which were ever announced as to follow HIS ADVENT; in order that we may BELIEVE ALL TO HAVE BEEN as well FULFILLED AS FORESEEN.

Athanasius 345 AD “It is, in fact, a sign and notable PROOF of the COMING OF THE WORD that Jerusalem no longer stands.”

Chrysostom 380 AD “For I will ask them, Did He send the prophets and wise men? Did they slay them in their synagogue? Was their house left desolate? Did ALL the VENGEANCE COME UPON THAT GENERATION? It is QUITE PLAIN THAT IT WAS SO, and NO MAN NO MAN GAINSAYS IT.”  i

“Do you see that His discourse is addressed to the Jews, and that He is speaking of the ills that should overtake them?…And let not any man suppose this to have been spoken hyperbolically; but let him study the writings of

Josephus, and LEARN THE TRUTH of the sayings.” Commentary on Matthew 24:21

“Remembering this saving commandment and all those things which CAME TO PASS for us: the cross, the grave, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension into heaven, the sitting down at the right hand, THE SECOND AND GLORIOUS COMING AGAIN.” – St Chrysostom’s Divine Liturgy

Attend, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, from thy holy dwelling place and from the glorious throne of thy kingdom, and come to sanctify us, O thou that sits with the Father above, and that are invisibly PRESENT HERE WITH US. – St Chrysostom’s Divine Liturgy

You brought us forth from non-existence into being, and RAISED US UP AGAIN when we had fallen, and left nothing undone until you had brought us to heaven and bestowed upon us your future kingdom.” Prayer

of the Anaphora – Eucharistic Prayer

Eusebius 314 AD “The Father of Church History” “And ALL THIS PROPHECY of what would result from their insolence against the Christ has been CLEARLY PROVED TO HAVE TAKEN PLACE … afterwards from

that day to this that God turned their feasts into mourning, despoiled them of their famous Mother-City, and destroyed the holy Temple therein when Titus and Vespasian were Emperors of Rome, so that they could no longer go up to keep their feasts and sacred meetings… in return for their rejection of the Word of God; since with one voice they refused Him, so He refuses them.” – Demonstratio Evangelica, BOOK X

“When we see WHAT WAS of old FORETOLD for the nations FULFILLED in our own day, and when the lamentation and wailing that was predicted for the Jews, and the burning of the Temple and its utter desolation, can also be seen even now to HAVE OCCURRED ACCORDING TO PREDICTION, surely we must also agree that the King who was prophesied, the Christ of God, HAS COME, since THE SIGNS OF HIS COMING have been shown in each instance I have treated to HAVE BEEN CLEARLY FULFILLED.” Demonstratio Evangelica (Proof of the Gospel); BOOK VIII

“If any one compares the words of our Saviour with the other accounts of the historian (Josephus) concerning the whole war, how can one fail to wonder, and to admit that the foreknowledge and the prophecy of our Saviour were truly divine and marvelously strange.” Book III, Ch. VII

“And the people of the governor that cometh will destroy the city and the holy place.” Meaning that the city and the Holy Place arc not only to be ruined by the leader to come, whom I have identified in my interpretation,

but also by his people. And you would not be far wrong in saying, too, that the Roman general and his army arc meant by the words before us, where I think the camps of the Roman rulers are meant, who governed the nation from that time, and who destroyed the city of Jerusalem itself, and its ancient venerable Temple. For they were cut off by them as by a flood, and were at once involved in destruction until the war was concluded, SO THAT THE

PROPHECY WAS FULFILLED … You will find an accurate account of it in the history of Josephus.” – Demonstratio Evangelica “Proof of the Gospel”, BOOK VIII

Hippolytus of Rome ~200 AD

Come, then, O blessed Isaiah; arise, tell us clearly what did you prophesy with respect to the mighty Babylon? For thou didst speak also of Jerusalem, and YOUR WORD IS ACCOMPLISHED. For you spoke boldly and openly: “Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate as overthrown by many strangers. The daughter ofZion shall be left as a cottage in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.”

What then? HAVE NOT THESE THINGS COME TO PASS? ARE NOT THE THINGS ANNOUNCED BY YOU FULFILLED? Is not their country, Judea, desolate? Is not the holy place burned with fire? Are not

their walls cast down? Are not their cities destroyed? Their land, do not strangers devour it? Do not the Romans rule the country? And …Thou art dead in the world, but YOU LIVE IN CHRIST.” (resurrection!) – Fragments

of Dogmatic and Historical Works

Irenaeus ~174 AD Early Church Father

CHAP. IV.– THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM  WAS PUT IN EXECUTION BY THE MOST WISE COUNSEL OF GOD. 1. Further, also, concerning Jerusalem and the Lord, they venture to assert that, if it had been “the City of the Great King,” it would not have been deserted. This is just as if any one should say, that if straw were a creation of God, it would never part company with the wheat;…so also [was it with] Jerusalem, which had in herself borne the yoke of bondage under which man was reduced, who in former times was not subject to God when death was reigning … 2. Since, then, THE LAW originated with Moses, it TERMINATED WITH JOHN as a necessary consequence. Christ had come to FULFILL it: wherefore “the law and the prophets were” with them “until John. “And therefore Jerusalem, taking its commencement from David, and fulfilling its own times, must have an End of legislation when the New Covenant was revealed.”

Origen ~ 100’s “I challenge anyone to prove my statement untrue if I say that the entire Jewish nation was destroyed less than one whole generation later on account of these sufferings which they inflicted on Jesus. For it was, I believe, forty-two years from the time when they crucified Jesus to the destruction of Jerusalem.” Contra Celsum, 198-199

“Therefore he, also, having separated from her [Old Covenant Israel], married, so to speak, another [New Covenant Israel], having given into the hands of the former the bill of divorcement; wherefore they can no longer do the things enjoined on them by the law, because of the bill of divorcement. And a sign that she has received the bill of divorcement is this, that Jerusalem was destroyed along with what they called the sanctuary of the things in it which were believed to be holy, and with the altar of burnt offerings, and all the worship associated with it…Jerusalem was compassed with armies, and its desolation was near, and their house was taken away from it… And, about the same time, I think, the husband wrote out a bill of divorcement to his former wife, and gave it into her hands, and sent her away from his own house…ORIGEN’S COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW, Book 2., sec. 19.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_King_(theologian)

Here is how Josephus reported it:

Credit to Robert E Cruickshank Jr. for posting this comment that I just copied and pasted here. For those who may not know him by his proper name, you may know him as the “Blue Collar Scholar”!!

Now, all of this isn’t to say that there weren’t visible signs in Heaven, for there most certainly were. He also said that they would “see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory,” and they did. History records it for us. Here is how Josephus reported it:

Not many days after that feast, on the twenty-first day of the month Artemisius, a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared . . . related by those that saw it . . . for, before sunsetting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities [Josephus, Wars 6.296-299 (6.5.3)].

Yeshua told the Sanhedrin that they would see Him “coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mk. 14:62). In Acts 1, He is taken to Heaven in “a cloud” (Acts 1:9), and the disciples are told that He would “come in the same way” they “watched Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). He did. As Gary DeMar says: “The passage says that Jesus will ‘come in just the same way as’ He was seen going into heaven. He went up in a cloud and He would return on a cloud. Jesus did this in His judgment coming against Jerusalem before that generation passed away (Matt. 24:1–34).”

Josephus also speaks of others who were seen in the skies over Jerusalem. There were troops of soldiers, in armed battle array, and chariots in the sky. This comports with Jude, when he cites 1 Enoch, and says: “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousand of His holy ones, to execute judgment on all” (Jude 14-15). Yossippon, who was a much read and was highly respected historical source by the Jews of the Middle Ages, chronicled the history of the Jews from Adam to the time of Titus Josippon – Wikipedia. In recounting the events of Jerusalem’s destruction, he writes:

Now it happened after, that there was seen from above over the Holy of Holies for the whole night the outline of a man’s face the like of whose beauty had never been seen in all the land, and his appearance was quite awesome. Moreover, in those days were seen chariots of fire and horsemen, a great force flying across the sky near to the ground coming against Jerusalem and all the land of Judah, all of them horses of fire and riders of fire. [Sepher Yosippon: A Mediaeval History of Ancient Israel. Translated by Steven B. Bowman; Chap. 87 “Burning of the Temple”].

Like Josephus, Yossippon mentions the chariots and horsemen in sky, but notice this additional detail: they are chariots of fire, horses of fire and riders of fire. Remember, Paul told the Thessalonians that Yeshua would be “revealed from heaven, with His mighty angels, in flaming fire” (2 Thess. 1:7).

And the reference to “the outline of a man’s face” in the night sky,” which was both “beautiful” and “awesome” is chilling when you consider it in light of Revelation 6:16:

Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” [Rev. 6:15-16 ESV].

As Phil Kayser says:

So this non-Christian Jew is describing this appearance of a theophany in the shape of a man of stupendous size in the sky, and having a beauty that was awe-inspiring…. This unbelieving Jew would have no reason to make this kind of stuff up – especially since it could be used by Christians to prove the truth of Christ’s spiritual coming to judge Israel. I think it is an incredibly strong testimony coming from a Jewish historian. BB Research | Cosmic Disturbances (kaysercommentary.com)