The Resurrection of the Dead - Chris Date vs. Dr. Don Preston

Chris Date vs. Don Preston

Debate Transcript

Topic: The Resurrection of the Dead

Proposition: The individual physical bodies of those who have died in Christ will one day be raised from the dead, and along with the bodies of Saints still living, be made immortal so as to live forever.

Introduction

MODERATOR (DONNIE)

Welcome everybody to Standing for Truth. My name is Donnie and I am your host and moderator for tonight's much-anticipated debate on full preterism. It is a privilege to have two experienced debaters, two true professionals — Chris Date and Don Preston — to engage this very important topic. Specifically, Chris and Don will be debating the resurrection of the dead.

The debate format is as follows: 20-minute opening statements, 10-minute uninterrupted rebuttals, 30 minutes of cross-examination broken into two 15-minute sections, 5-minute closing statements, and approximately 25 minutes of audience questions.

DON PRESTON

It is great to be back. My name is Don Preston. I am the President of Preterist Research Institute of Ardmore, Oklahoma. I have three websites: donkpreston.com, bibleprophecy.com, and eschatology.org. I have authored 35 books and produce YouTube videos three or four days a week. I have been married to my first wife for almost 55 years and we have two fantastic kids. Life is good and ministry is good.

CHRIS DATE

Thanks for hosting this debate, and thank you to my opponent Dr. Preston and to all the audience for tuning in. My name is Chris Date. I started doing public ministry around 2009-2010 with a blog and podcast, and now YouTube videos and conferences. I am most known for my work with a ministry called Rethinking Hell, which promotes a biblical understanding of hell as annihilation and what is known as conditional immortality. But I am passionate about a wide variety of topics, especially what I consider to be the essentials of the Christian faith, which I take to include the resurrection of our physical bodies in the future. It was the doctrine of resurrection as the resurrection of our flesh that first got me into public ministry so many years ago, and so I am really honored to have the opportunity to defend it today.

Opening Statement — Chris Date (Affirmative)

CHRIS DATE

There are three key affirmations contained within the debate resolution. Firstly, that our resurrection is physical and individual. Secondly, that it is in our future. And thirdly, that the bodies of saints will be raised immortal. In defense of these affirmations I offer a fivefold positive case: (1) the church has always affirmed our debate thesis; (2) the Bible says saints united to Christ will be raised like he was; (3) God's good design for human nature is physical embodiment; (4) the cosmos will one day be beautifully restored, purged of all evil; and (5) the case for the affirmative is simpler and less costly than the negative.

First, concerning church history: the resurrection of the flesh has always been central to the Christian faith. The Reformation-era confessions — the Westminster and London Baptist confessions of faith, written in the mid-1600s — say that all the dead will be raised up with the self-same bodies, the very ones in which they died, but transformed. The reformers were not introducing a novelty; they could point to first, second, and third century fathers in support. Irenaeus, around 180 AD, writes in what is sometimes thought to be one of the earliest creeds within Christendom that the church has received this faith in one Christ Jesus and his manifestation to raise up all flesh. Roughly ten years later in the Apostles' Creed, believers affirm belief in the resurrection of the body or flesh. And Tertullian writes in On the Resurrection that nobody will be a Christian who denies this doctrine, which is confessed by Christians. From the beginning, right through the Reformation and into the modern day, the church has always affirmed a future bodily physical resurrection from the dead. By contrast, a belief in a first-century non-physical resurrection was first promoted in the 1800s by James Stewart Russell, and if I am not mistaken, my opponent himself has said it scares him to death when he cannot find even the germ of his view stated by any other writer before him.

Second, christology. Jesus is the first of many to be raised as he was. Paul calls Christ the firstfruits of those who belong to Christ (1 Corinthians 15), the first to rise from the dead (Acts 26), the firstborn from the dead (Colossians 1:18). Paul says in Romans 6 that if we have been united with Christ in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his — one in which, having been raised from the dead, Christ will never die again. In Philippians 3, Paul says we await a savior who will transform this lowly body to be like his glorious body. The Apostle John writes in 1 John 3 that when Christ appears we shall be like him. Now it is important to observe here that my opponent believes Christ gave up this resurrection body — that it was incinerated when he ascended. He writes in his foreword to Alan Bondar's The Journey Between the Veils that it was necessary that Christ lay off the body of flesh to enter into the Most Holy Place. And on Facebook he stated that Christ's physical body was consumed not in his death, but after his resurrection in his ascension. But contrary to this, the Bible describes the resurrection body of Jesus as physical. In Matthew 27, the Jews understood the resurrection Jesus claimed would be the emergence of his formerly dead body from the tomb. In Mark, the son of man must be killed and after three days rise again. In Luke, Jesus says post-resurrection: a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. In Acts 2, Peter says the Christ would not be abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. At the Areopagus in Acts 17, the philosophers mocked Paul precisely because they could not countenance a physical body coming back to life. The language of resurrection in the New Testament simply means a physical body coming back to life. The author of Hebrews in chapter 11 says that women received their dead back by resurrection — referring to passages like 1 Kings 17 in which Elijah brings a child back to life. This is what resurrection is. So the bodies with which we are resurrected must likewise be physical.

Third, anthropology. As a living creature, man is physical, and this is something God called very good. In Genesis 2, God forms a man from dust and breathes into his lifeless body the breath of life — it is at that point, and no earlier, that this man becomes a living creature. Isaiah 57 says God is not going to remain angry forever because if he did, the breath of those he has made would perish. So God loves for his human creatures to be embodied and breathing. The author of Ecclesiastes says that a living dog is better than a dead lion, because the dead know nothing and have no more share in all that is under the sun — exactly what my opponent believes will be the permanent state of dead saints. Paul calls death an enemy in 1 Corinthians 15. Death is not, for human beings, a good thing; it is an enemy to God's intended purpose for humanity. But thankfully this is not the end of the story — the tree of life that would have preserved Adam and Eve alive indefinitely returns in the eschaton in Revelation 22.

Fourth, eschatology. The natural world God created was sinless and peaceful — very good. Because of Adam's sin it was plunged into futility (Romans 8:20). My opponent, however, says that sin, pain, and death will go on forever here on Earth. He writes in his short essay The Redemption of Creation that it is wrong to posit a cosmological transformation to a utopia. Fellow preterist Ken Gentry confirms that hyper-preterists see the world continuing forever with no final removing of sin from the universe. But by contrast, scripture indicates that the saints' future resurrection is linked to a restoration of the natural world. Paul says in Romans 8 that creation was subjected to futility in hope that it would one day be set free when we receive the redemption of our bodies. And Peter says in Acts 3 that Jesus must be received by heaven until the time for restoring all things — that restoration awaits his return.

Fifth and finally, parsimony. This is not only a debate about the nature of resurrection; it is also about timing. Texts about the nature of the resurrection body seem to indicate it will be physical. This must be reconciled with timing texts that seem to indicate these events were soon. My opponent and I take opposite approaches: I read the time texts through the lens of the nature texts because the nature texts are very clear and the time texts are genuinely difficult. He does the reverse. The issue of parsimony can help decide. My case is simple: the church has always affirmed the thesis; saints united to Christ will be raised as he was; God's good design for humans is physical embodiment; the cosmos will be beautifully restored. This case is also economical — it can be affirmed by people of every eschatological and millennial stripe. By contrast, the case for a first-century non-physical resurrection requires tortuous stringing together of dozens of texts. More importantly, the cost to the faith is disastrous: it means spirit-given teachers universally failed to see this view for some 1,800 years; it means Jesus's resurrection body was incinerated; it means physical bodies are superfluous to humanity; and it means evil, pain, grief, and dying are everlasting realities on this Earth. For all these reasons, I urge our audience to answer today's debate thesis in the affirmative.

Opening Statement — Don Preston (Negative)

DON PRESTON

I want to note that when Chris discusses resurrection he admits that Paul cited Isaiah, Hosea, and Daniel chapter 12. However, I believe Chris ignores the actual context, nature, and timing of those resurrection prophecies. He assumes with no exegesis that they spoke of physical resurrection of individuals out of the dirt. My presentation will establish the proper context, framework, and timing of the resurrection as taught by those prophecies.

The first issue is why we must discuss Israel. Resurrection was the hope of Israel — the twelve tribes (Acts 24:14; 26:6; 28:16). The passages Paul cites for the resurrection and salvation of Israel — Isaiah 25:8, Hosea 13:14, Daniel 12, Isaiah 27:9, Isaiah 59 — were all Old Covenant promises made to Old Covenant Israel. Each of those promises was about the restoration of Israel under the Messiah: restoration from exile, sin, death, and alienation from God. They were not about a modern physical restoration of a disobedient Israel, or some imaginary end of time. Noted scholar Brant Pitre writes in Jesus, Tribulation and the End of Exile, commenting on Daniel 12: this prophecy of the resurrection, like all resurrection texts in the Old Testament, is also a prophecy of the restoration of Israel. In other words, all these Old Testament promises of resurrection were not promises of the raising of individual human corpses. Unless Chris can prove that Paul and the New Testament writers were radically redefining the hope of Israel from corporate death to individual bodily resurrection, the foundation of his entire presentation falls to the ground.

Second, Israel and the covenant. Chris posits Israel's salvation — the taking away of her sin (Romans 11:27) — at the resurrection of 1 Corinthians 15. But Daniel 9:24 confines the taking away of Israel's sin to the 70 weeks: seventy weeks are determined upon your people and upon your Holy City to take away sin. In answer to my question, Chris admitted that Daniel's 70 weeks were completed in the first century. That means logically that Israel's salvation — that is, the resurrection of Romans 11 and 1 Corinthians 15 — was fulfilled in the first century. Furthermore, the resurrection of 1 Corinthians 15 would be at the end of the law, which is the strength of sin (1 Corinthians 15:55-56). I asked Chris to define that law, and he said it is the Law of Moses, which ended in AD 70. Therefore the resurrection was in AD 70. Upon this argument alone Chris has surrendered his futurist view.

Third, the Great Tribulation and the resurrection. Chris agrees that Matthew 24:21 — the prediction of the Great Tribulation — was fulfilled in the first century, in the Jewish War, because of verse 34. Brant Pitre writes: according to the Old Testament, the resurrection itself would be preceded by a period of Great Tribulation. According to Daniel 12, which is the most explicit prophecy of resurrection in the Hebrew scriptures, this description of the resurrection is preceded by the Great Tribulation. So: all prophecies of the resurrection are inseparably linked to the Great Tribulation; the Great Tribulation occurred in the first century; Chris Date agrees; therefore the resurrection was to occur in the first century. Unless Chris wants to insert a dispensational gap between the tribulation and the resurrection, this demands a first-century resurrection.

Now let us look at the key passages. Isaiah 25: in verses 1-3 we find the destruction of the city and the temple — tribulation. In verse 6 we have the resurrection banquet; in verse 8 we have the resurrection that found in 1 Corinthians 15; in verse 9 we have the salvation of Israel — In that day it shall be said, This is our God; we have waited for him; he will save us. Chris agrees the tribulation was in the first century. The destruction of the city and temple is tied directly to the Messianic banquet and the resurrection and the salvation of Israel. In Matthew 8:11, Jesus says many shall come from east and west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom, and the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out. Paul in Galatians 4 says Old Covenant Israel was to be cast out for persecuting the New Covenant seed. So the Messianic banquet of Isaiah 25, Isaiah 65, and Matthew 8 would be established when the sons of the kingdom were cast out — in AD 70.

Isaiah 26: in verses 14-18 we find the tribulation described as birth pangs. In verse 19: your dead shall live — your body shall rise. Then in verse 21 we find the avenging of the martyrs at the Day of the Lord. When did Jesus say all the blood of the righteous would be avenged? Matthew 23: all these things shall come upon this generation. Matthew 24:34 — fulfilled in the first century. Every time text Chris accepts when debating dispensationalists, he suddenly treats as difficult when debating a preterist.

Hosea 13: in verses 1-2 we have death — not physical death but covenant death. Ephraim died when he sinned through Baal worship; yet they sinned more and more. Those who are physically dead cannot sin more and more. The death defined in Hosea is covenantal alienation from God, not biological death. Verse 14: I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. The death to be overcome was sin-death, the death of Israel being sent off into captivity. The tribulation in Hosea comes immediately before the resurrection, and the tribulation was in the first century according to Chris; therefore the resurrection was in the first century. And since the death of Hosea 13 is covenantal, not biological, the death that 1 Corinthians 15 promises to overcome is likewise covenantal.

Daniel 12: verse 1 — there shall be a time of trouble such as never was. Jesus cites that verse in Matthew 24, which Chris applies to the first century. Verse 2 — many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake. When? At the appointed time of the end — the ketz, verse 13. Verse 7 tells us when all these things would be fulfilled: at a time, times, and half a time, when the power of the holy people is completely shattered, all these things — not some — shall be fulfilled. Every single Old Testament text Paul draws on for his resurrection ties the Great Tribulation to the resurrection, and it is a resurrection not of individuals but of the nation of Israel.

So the argument is: the resurrection of 1 Corinthians 15 is the resurrection of Isaiah 25, Hosea 13, and Daniel 12. Chris agrees. But the resurrection in each of those texts is at the time of the Great Tribulation. The tribulation occurred in the first century. Therefore the resurrection of 1 Corinthians 15 occurred in the first century — unless Chris is willing to argue it is an entirely different resurrection.

In summary: Chris's doctrine of a future salvation of ethnic Israel demands that Israel remains God's covenant people and the Law of Moses remains valid today — meaning God has two covenants and two covenant peoples. His admission concerning Daniel 9 and the 70 weeks demands that the taking away of Israel's sin at the resurrection was in AD 70. His admission that the law as the strength of sin was the Law of Moses demands the resurrection was in AD 70. His admission that the Great Tribulation was in the first century demands the resurrection was in the first century. Each of these admissions is fatal to his view.

Finally: Chris believes the resurrection involves every human being who has ever died being raised out of the ground. But saints at Thessalonica and Ephesus believed the resurrection had already occurred. Paul never corrected the concept of the nature of the day or the resurrection in those contexts — just the timing. How could anyone ever convince anyone that Chris's concept of resurrection — billions of bodies simultaneously exiting graves — had already happened? The fact that Paul never used this argument to correct Hymenaeus and Philetus is because what they were claiming is exactly what occurred.

Rebuttal — Chris Date

CHRIS DATE

What I said would happen is exactly what happened. What you got as a case for a first-century resurrection was: go look at this text, it uses similar language to this text over here, therefore they must be about the same event, then you bring in this other text, and this other text, and what you get is: it is all 70 AD. Bible scholars who have studied second-temple Jewish texts will tell you unanimously that the language of resurrection — anastasis, anistemi — does refer to a physical body coming back to life. So it is entirely appropriate to call my opponent's view a first-century quote-unquote resurrection.

There are a number of ways to reconcile the timing challenges my opponent offers to what scripture clearly states about the nature of resurrection. There is the well-known reality of dual fulfillments — a more immediate one and a more ultimate one. There is also the possibility that the process of gathering the elect from the four winds began in the first century and continues until the end when God raises the dead. There is also the possibility of simply maintaining futurism and explaining the time texts accordingly. I am not going down this road because piecing together these texts does not warrant setting aside the clear and consistent case for physical bodily resurrection.

My opponent asked how it is possible that Hymenaeus and Philetus believed the resurrection had already happened. There are people today within the church with mistaken understandings of the resurrection. Just because some people who identified with the Christian community believed mistaken things about the resurrection does not mean that reality bears them out. Moreover, where Paul refers to Hymenaeus and Philetus he does not go on to rebut their argument at all — he dismisses them as gangrene. This is one reason I am so passionate about this topic: my opponent's view is putrid; it rots away at people's faith.

In his discussion with the Sadducees, Jesus never says the resurrection implies disembodied existence. He says they will not marry or be given in marriage because they cannot die anymore — they will rise immortal, incapable of dying. And his proof for a future resurrection is this: God is the God of the living, and he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If he is claiming Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were already alive in some invisible spiritual sense at that moment, his argument offers the Sadducees no proof whatsoever of a resurrection — there would be no way for them to verify it. The only way Jesus's argument makes sense is if he is saying that the fact that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob guarantees that they will one day live again physically.

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul makes clear that the body that goes into the ground is the body that comes back up. What is sown is perishable; it is raised imperishable. It goes down in weakness; it comes up in power. That is why Paul says the last Adam became a life-giving spirit — the word spirit also means breath — because Jesus is the one who breathes life back into the dead bodies of believers at the resurrection. This whole passage is about the resurrection of the flesh.

Regarding Daniel: the argument that because Daniel was told to seal up his vision and John was told not to seal his vision, everything in those visions must therefore be fulfilled within 37 years is ludicrous. Imagine if I told you about a prophetic dream in which many things happened and then a thousand years went by and then the dead were raised. If I said I think the beginning of this will happen soon, you would not conclude that by a thousand years I mean 37 years. Throughout scripture a round number like a thousand is always used to refer to at least that many years, if not far more. So if we agree that the destruction of the beast and false prophet happened in the first century, the defeat of Satan and the resurrection of the dead will happen a very long time after that.

Rebuttal — Don Preston

DON PRESTON

Chris says we ought to accept the united testimony of all the Jews — that resurrection means only one thing. But the reality is there was an extremely wide range of differing views among the Jews regarding resurrection. George Nickelsburg says that uniformity in Jewish belief about the resurrection of the dead is simply not borne out by the text. Resurrection of the body is not the standard mainline Jewish formulation. Chris Kavanagh in The Immortality of the Soul identifies five to six competing views: resurrection of just the righteous, resurrection of all Israel, resurrection of all mankind, reconstitution of the human body as in 2 Maccabees, denial of resurrection as in the Sadducees, and immortality of the soul. We cannot speak of the Jewish view of resurrection as if it were singular.

Chris scoffed at my method of comparing scripture with scripture, yet as a Reformed man he would presumably believe in analogia scriptura. I did not merely note similarity of language — I pointed out text after text that tied tribulation with resurrection. What did Chris have to say about any of it? He simply ridiculed it. Ridicule is not refutation; it has no probative value.

Chris suggested dual fulfillment as a possible reconciliation. But I wonder if he would accept dual fulfillment when dispensationalists use it to say there was a tribulation in the first century but we are waiting for the real one. First Corinthians 10:11 says: those things happened to them as types, and they were written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the ages have come. The word ends here is telos — meaning goal. N.T. Wright, Scott McKnight, R.T. France, and others all agree that Paul is saying the goal of all the previous ages had arrived in the first century. Not that it would stretch out 2,000 more years waiting for the real genuine goal.

Regarding Hymenaeus and Philetus: in 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul explicitly corrected the concept of the Day of the Lord — do not let anyone deceive you that the day of the Lord has already come, for that day will not come except the apostasy takes place and the man of sin is revealed. In 2 Timothy 2, the only thing Paul corrected about Hymenaeus was the timing. This confirms my point: the question is valid. How could anyone convince anyone that Chris's version of the resurrection — with every dead body of every human being simultaneously raised — had already happened? Paul never used the nature argument to correct them because the nature was not at issue.

Chris gave an emotional argument about his wife's cancer, the theft from his son's truck. I commiserate deeply — my wife is a two-time cancer survivor. But that is not a biblical argument; it has no probative value. And notably, even in Chris's futurist scheme, Revelation 21-22 depicts sinners outside the city, nations outside the city, people invited in for healing. Chris applies all of that after the end of time, after his resurrection. So even in his own paradigm you have ongoing sin and evangelism in what he calls the new creation.

On the Sadducees: Jesus never said one word about coming out of the dirt. And Chris gave the impression the Sadducees were only denying physical resurrection. That is simply false. Josephus tells us they did not believe in life after death at all. When Jesus said God is the God of the living, not the dead, and invoked the names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he was refuting the Sadducean concept that those patriarchs were simply dead and gone. He was not making an argument about a future physical resurrection out of graves.

On 1 Corinthians 15:44: Paul says it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. Chris agrees that the natural man in 1 Corinthians 2 is not the biological body but the reprobate man. Yet Paul says that natural man is sown and buried. In Chris's paradigm there is no conversion in the grave; those who are dead know nothing. Yet Paul says the natural man is sown and comes out a spiritual body. In Chris's world that cannot be true in any shape or form — and yet he has not addressed it.

Cross-Examination — Round 1 (Chris Date Questions)

CHRIS DATE

Dr. Preston, did I correctly quote your statement from a video in which you said it scares you to death when you cannot find at least the germ of your view stated by some other writer before you, and that not even J. Stuart Russell considered the idea?

DON PRESTON

That is a mischaracterization. The specific point I was developing in that lesson was that the Millennium would be at the destruction of heaven and earth, which is spoken of three times in Revelation. I cannot find that in any of the earlier literature. I absolutely was not saying that I invented the idea of the 40-year millennium.

CHRIS DATE

Fair enough. But can you point me to anybody prior to James Stuart Russell who, within a church context, argued for a first-century non-physical resurrection from the dead?

DON PRESTON

Eusebius hinted at it, suggesting it might be possible to identify the Millennium as the period of the apostolic ministry. And Justin Martyr, even though he himself affirmed physical resurrection, said there were those who were faithful Christians who did not believe in physical resurrection.

CHRIS DATE

Did those faithful Christians Justin mentioned believe the resurrection had already happened, or only that it would be non-physical?

DON PRESTON

Non-physical.

CHRIS DATE

So what we have in terms of historical precedent is a hint from Eusebius and an alleged affirmation from Justin that there were Christians who believed in a future non-physical resurrection. Nobody prior to Russell arguing for a first-century non-physical resurrection.

DON PRESTON

Yes.

CHRIS DATE

Would you agree that in the texts I quoted, when the New Testament talks about Jesus's resurrection it is talking about his physical body coming back to life and emerging from the tomb?

DON PRESTON

That is the primary focus of their references to Christ's past physical resurrection.

CHRIS DATE

So you agree the resurrection of Jesus was the revivification of his physical body?

DON PRESTON

Absolutely.

CHRIS DATE

Then when texts say saints will experience a resurrection like his, are they not referring to the revivification of our physical bodies?

DON PRESTON

Not simply. Christ's physical resurrection was a proof positive of his resurrection out of the death of Adam, which was not physical death. The physical resurrection lies in the background; what Paul is pointing to is the spiritual and covenantal significance.

CHRIS DATE

But you have just agreed that everywhere the New Testament uses the language of resurrection and rising to refer to Christ, it is his physical body coming back to life. So when the exact same language is applied to saints, why does it not even include that? How can we use the word anastasis for Christ and mean physical revivification, then use the same word for saints and mean something entirely different?

DON PRESTON

Context rules. Just as Jesus's death and resurrection is specifically called a sign — and a sign never points to itself but to something greater — so the physical is in the background and the spiritual is in the foreground.

CHRIS DATE

When the author of Hebrews in 11:35 says women received back their dead by anastasis, was that a reference to the revivification of physical life?

DON PRESTON

Yes, it is a reference to physical revivification — though he then points to those who sought something better than physical resurrection.

CHRIS DATE

And when the author of Hebrews uses anastasis in 6:2, speaking of elementary principles including the resurrection of the dead, is he using the word differently there?

DON PRESTON

Hebrews 6 does not give us specific insight into how he is using anastasis in that context. We might conjecture it should match chapter 11, but we do not have enough evidence to say definitively.

CHRIS DATE

So to be clear: every single time in the New Testament that the language of resurrection refers to Christ, it means the revivification of his flesh; the one unambiguous use of anastasis in Hebrews also clearly means physical revivification — and yet when the exact same word is used of saints, it is not even primarily about their physical revivification, let alone actually about that?

DON PRESTON

Context rules in every instance.

CHRIS DATE

Regarding the body of Jesus: did I correctly state that you wrote he was incinerated on the way to heaven?

DON PRESTON

I have made that comment. I have thought about it more since then and I do not know that I would take that position. However, Christ was made a sin offering — 2 Corinthians 5:21 — and the sin offering was burned up entirely.

CHRIS DATE

You no longer hold that view? But you do still believe that the physical body that came out of the tomb was shed or transformed in his ascension — he no longer has a physical resurrection body?

DON PRESTON

I do not deny that Christ has a body in heaven. But I would say it is no longer the flesh-and-bones body.

CHRIS DATE

Final question: do you affirm that sin, pain, disease, and death will go on forever here on Earth?

DON PRESTON

Yes. That is the picture of Revelation 21 and 22. Outside the gates are the nations who still need to come in and find healing. There are sinners outside the city still. Isaiah 65 similarly has death and ongoing life in the new creation.

Cross-Examination — Round 2 (Don Preston Questions)

DON PRESTON

I cited several passages that specifically tied the tribulation with the resurrection. Can you point to one that I used wrongly?

CHRIS DATE

To be honest, I cannot even follow how you used them — that was the point of my Charlie Day illustration. But I will say: I have no problem with the possibility of multiple great tribulations. Just as the maiden who would give birth to a son had a more immediate fulfillment prior to Christ and an ultimate fulfillment in the Virgin birth, there could be a first-century tribulation and a future one accompanying the resurrection. That is just one of many possible ways to reconcile those texts.

DON PRESTON

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:11 that the goal of all the previous ages had arrived in the first century. How would you then make the events of the first century merely typological of a yet future greater tribulation or resurrection?

CHRIS DATE

Because what all those things pointed toward — the goal of them all — was the risen God-man Jesus who died on our behalf and, as firstfruits of the resurrection, guarantees our own future resurrection. The goal arrived in the first century with Christ himself. That does not preclude a future bodily resurrection of his people.

DON PRESTON

In Daniel 12 one angel asked another when all these things — great tribulation, resurrection, end of the age — would be fulfilled. The other angel answered that when the power of the holy people is completely shattered, all these things shall be fulfilled. What is your justification for saying only a foreshadowing of these things happened and we are still waiting for the real fulfillment?

CHRIS DATE

I point to the counterpart in Revelation where John is told not to seal up his vision because the time is near, and yet in that very vision John sees a very long period of time transpire. No one who reads the Bible as it should be read would compress a thousand into 37 years. There is biblical precedent for inflating a round number like a thousand far beyond its face value, but no precedent for collapsing it to a few decades. So the onset of the Millennium — the beginning of that long period — happened in the first century; the end of it, including the resurrection, is still future.

DON PRESTON

Is it true that the judgment of all men occurs at the end of the Millennium?

CHRIS DATE

The final judgment, yes.

DON PRESTON

Jesus said in Revelation 22:12: Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me to give to every man according to his works. Therefore the end of the Millennium for the rewarding of all men was near when Revelation was written. Please show me the fallacy in that argument.

CHRIS DATE

The process of gathering the elect from the four winds is something that began in the first century, culminating in the final judgment. But I also dispute the assumption that any time the New Testament talks about the coming of Jesus it must be one and the same event. I am a preterist precisely because the Old Testament refers to God coming in judgment multiple times. Jesus came in judgment in 70 AD upon apostate Jerusalem; that is a different coming from his bodily return for the resurrection of the dead. The first-century coming was a judgment upon apostate Jerusalem; the resurrection will include judgment upon all mankind.

DON PRESTON

Paul said in Romans 16:20 that the God of Peace shall crush Satan under your feet shortly — and virtually every commentator agrees that refers back to the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15, the ultimate defeat of Satan. Revelation 20 posits the destruction of Satan at the end of the Millennium. How can you say the destruction of Satan was near when Paul wrote Romans if you place the end of the Millennium 2,000 or more years later?

CHRIS DATE

The word Paul uses in Romans 16:20 is syntribesein — crush — which is a different word from what you find in Revelation regarding the final destruction of Satan. I have no problem with the notion that Satan was crushed in one sense in the first century — his ability to prevent the gospel from going to the nations was dramatically curtailed at the destruction of apostate Jerusalem — and then there is a more ultimate destruction that comes at the end of the Millennium. Paul's soon-crushing and the Millennium's final destruction need not be identical events.

DON PRESTON

In Isaiah 27, Israel's sin would be taken away when the fortified city was destroyed, the altar turned to chalkstone, and the people whom the Lord had created would be destroyed. Romans 11 draws directly on that passage. Why is that not AD 70?

CHRIS DATE

I struggle to follow the linkage as you are presenting it. But if Jesus is the embodiment of Israel, and if we Gentile believers have been grafted into Israel by virtue of our union with Christ, then there could be an immediate fulfillment of this language in 70 AD in so far as Jesus — the quintessential Israel — has come back to life, and every individual united to him will do likewise. I do not see a problem with that.

Closing Statements

CHRIS DATE

I think what I predicted happened. I presented a simple and straightforward case that did not require jumping from text to text and text to text. What I showed was: firstly, the church has historically and universally affirmed our debate thesis, and nothing like Dr. Preston's view arises until the mid-1800s. Secondly, I demonstrated that the Bible says saints united to Christ will be raised like he was, and even got Dr. Preston to admit in cross-examination that every time the New Testament uses the language of resurrection to refer to Christ, it is his physical body coming back to life and emerging from the tomb. So somehow, although that language always means physical resurrection when applied to Christ, the resurrection language about believers who are united to Christ and who therefore should get a resurrection like his means something entirely different. Thirdly, the case from anthropology — that embodied physical life is God's good design for human nature — went unrebutted. Fourthly, Dr. Preston admitted that he believes sin, pain, disease, and death will go on forever here on Earth. And fifthly, when it comes to whether you should read the time texts through the lens of the resurrection texts or vice versa, Dr. Preston's case was exactly what I characterized: go here, here, here, here, and then connect this language to that language and conclude it is all 70 AD. If you want to do that, just remember: you will be exchanging the Christian faith for something unrecognizable — one in which Jesus's body ceases to be physical at the ascension, one in which sin and evil and death go on for eternity here on Earth, and one in which the Holy Spirit has utterly failed to guide his people on this fundamental topic for some 1,800 years. I do not think that cost is worth paying.

DON PRESTON

Chris spent his time scoffing at analogia scriptura. In every passage I cited what do we have? We have death, tribulation, resurrection, and emphatic statements of all of it taking place at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. What did Chris do? He hypothesized and said well, one of the possible ways... All he did was hope that something would stick. He did not go to a single text that addressed the nature of the death to be overcome — the covenantal death of Hosea 13. He agreed that the death of 1 Corinthians 15 to be overcome at the resurrection is the same death to be overcome from Hosea, but Hosea's death was not physical death. He never touched that. He tried to say Daniel 12 might point forward to something in the future, but produced no proof. He never addressed 1 Corinthians 10:11 — that the goal of all the previous ages had arrived in the first century. He appeals to 2,000 years of church tradition. But when the tradition rests on neglecting the Old Testament covenantal context of resurrection, all that tradition is building on sand. The question is not what the church fathers said. The question is: what did Isaiah, Hosea, and Daniel say? And what they said ties the resurrection directly to the destruction of Jerusalem. That is where the argument must be engaged.

Audience Q&A Highlights

Q: How does Chris deal with time-sensitive language — soon, near, before some standing here will taste death — when referring to Jesus's coming?

CHRIS DATE

Very easily — this is precisely why I am a preterist of the historic and Orthodox variety, not the hyper variety. I believe Jesus did in fact come in judgment in 70 AD upon apostate Jerusalem — he came before some he was talking to tasted death; he came before that generation passed away. The real question is how one can insist that anytime the New Testament talks about the coming of Jesus it must be a single event. The Old Testament refers to God coming in judgment on multiple occasions. Jesus can come multiple times in judgment — both in the first century and bodily at his return from heaven for the resurrection of the dead.

DON PRESTON

Every single constituent element of the eschatological consummation — the final coming of the Lord, judgment, resurrection — is posited in language of imminence. Hebrews 9: unto those who eagerly look for him he shall appear the second time. Hebrews 10:37: in a very, very little while the one who is coming will come. 1 Peter 4:5: Christ was ready to judge the living and the dead. 1 Peter 4:17: the appointed time — the kairos, using the anaphoric article referring back to verse 5 — for the judgment of the living and the dead had arrived. These are not elastic statements; they are emphatically imminent. Chris places the resurrection 2,000-plus years after these were written.

Q: If full preterism made a film showing what the saints experienced in 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4, what would that film show?

DON PRESTON

One key aspect involves the concept of shame versus honor. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:42-44 says it is sown in dishonor and raised in honor. In the ancient world, any group that left one community to join another — especially a persecuted minority — was the object of shame. When that persecuted group was vindicated, they received honor and glory. This is precisely what Paul describes in 2 Thessalonians 1: the nascent church at Thessalonica was persecuted by the Jewish synagogue, the objects of shame, but Paul promised that at the parousia of Christ they would receive glory and honor. With the destruction of the persecuting power of Judaism in 70 AD, they stood vindicated and identified as sons of God.

Q: Chris — can you provide an example of dual fulfillment in the Bible?

CHRIS DATE

Two examples. First, Isaiah's prophecy that the maiden will give birth to a son — scholars generally agree this had a more immediate referent prior to Christ and then an ultimate fulfillment in the virgin birth. Second, the language used to condemn the king of Tyre in Ezekiel has a primary reference to that king and an ultimate reference to Satan. It is my understanding that dual fulfillment is not controversial at all, except among hyper-preterists.

DON PRESTON

I prefer the terminology of type and antitype rather than dual fulfillment, as do Gary DeMar and Kenneth Gentry. Once you start positing dual fulfillments, what prevents triple or quadruple fulfillments? The type-antitype relationship was already being fulfilled in the first century concerning Old Covenant Israel — not centuries beyond. And Jesus in Luke 21 was emphatic: these be the days of vengeance in which all things written must be fulfilled.

Q: How does full preterism reconcile 1 Corinthians 15:51-54's resurrection language with a spiritual interpretation limited to 70 AD?

DON PRESTON

Paul frames 1 Corinthians 15 using an inclusio: he cites Hosea 6 in verses 1-4 at the opening and closes with Hosea 13:14 at the end. Everything in between is drawn from Hosea. The resurrection of 1 Corinthians 15:51-54 is therefore the resurrection of Hosea 13. The death to be overcome in Hosea was covenantal death — alienation from God — not biological death. If we allow Paul to use Hosea as he says he is, then unless Chris can prove Paul is radically changing the nature of the death and therefore the nature of the resurrection, his doctrine of individual bodily resurrection goes out the window. Furthermore, Paul said I tell you a mystery: we will not all sleep — he was speaking to first-century living human beings saying not all of them would die before the resurrection. That is Matthew 16:27-28: there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the son of man coming in his kingdom.

Q: Philosophical question — every single cell membrane in my body used to be a component of hundreds of other bodies. How can God reconstruct the same physical body?

CHRIS DATE

This same question can be applied to my body now compared to what it was 44 years ago. Virtually every cell has been replaced and yet this is the same body as when I was born. Identity is not about the matter but the form. God, who created matter in the first place, can certainly create brand new matter constructed in the same form as my body — and that will be the same body that went into the ground, just as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15. The church has held this for 2,000 years without difficulty.

DON PRESTON

It is easy to say God can do anything, but God cannot create a round square. If we posit the Lord coming a million years from now, every human being who has died will have decomposed and become part and parcel of every other human being living between now and then. There are only so many atoms in the universe. To suggest God will sort out which atoms belonged to whom becomes mathematically untenable. The stronger point is Paul's language: the natural body is sown and comes out a spiritual body. Chris agrees that natural man in 1 Corinthians 2 is not the biological body but the morally reprobate man. Yet Paul says that natural man is buried and comes out a spiritual body. In Chris's paradigm there is no conversion in the grave — so how does the natural man come out a spiritual body? This is a serious problem Chris did not address.

Q: How does full preterism explain that the saints who experienced restored fellowship failed to prevent the Hellenization of the church fathers after 70 AD?

DON PRESTON

Jesus was emphatic that the love of the majority would grow cold (Matthew 24:12). With the conversion of the Gentiles the early church lost its understanding of Hebraic apocalyptic. Scholars including N.T. Wright, Scott McKnight, and Richard Hays agree that at an extremely early date, as Gentiles became dominant, the church lost its understanding of Jewish apocalyptic. One scholar, Snyder, says that as a direct result of Hellenization there developed a belief in the literalization of apocalyptic, which was never part of hebraic thought. The Hellenization of Judaism itself began well before the church — during the Maccabean period and the time of Alexander the Great.

CHRIS DATE

I actually agree that as Gentiles became dominant in the church, much of how Hebrews understood scripture was neglected. The problem is that Dr. Preston is compressing this so catastrophically that every single Christian writer from the first century to James Stuart Russell gets this wrong. Paul promises in Ephesians 4:11 that God gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints until we all attain to the unity of faith. Dr. Preston's view means the Holy Spirit has been utterly failing in that task for 1,800 years. You may think that is an argument from silence, but it is a deafening silence given Paul's promise.