David's Prayer & God's Humorous Deliverance

After David killed Goliath, King Saul loved him, for a great deliverance was won for the nation of Israel that day. But his admiration was short-lived. As soon as the maidens began singing of the victory and attributing to King Saul mere 1000s of dead enemy soldiers while crediting David with 10,000s, Saul became unreasonably jealous. No doubt this was due to his fear of losing his throne, for Yahweh had already rejected him and told him He was choosing someone better than him.

A number of events, in which Saul attempted to murder David himself, or put him in a precarious position such as to cause his death, had happened which, despite Saul's evil plans, ironically exalted David in the eyes of all Israel and Judah, and which stoked the fires of Saul's jealousy even more.

Finally, one night, Saul stationed men outside David's house to murder him in the morning, but Michal, David's wife and Saul's daughter, helped David escape through a window, even though she falsely blamed David to keep herself out of trouble with her dad. 

David fled to the prophet Samuel. Sometime during all this David wrote Psalm 59, for the title of the psalm reads, "For the choir director: A psalm of David, regarding the time Saul sent soldiers to watch David's house in order to kill him. To be sung to the tune 'Do Not Destroy!'"

The first 4 verses match the stated title's context perfectly: 

1 Rescue me from my enemies, O God. Protect me from those who have come to destroy me. 

2 Rescue me from these criminals; save me from these murderers. 

3 They have set an ambush for me. Fierce enemies are out there waiting, Lord, though I have not sinned or offended them. 

4 I have done nothing wrong, yet they prepare to attack me. Wake up! See what is happening and help me!

In that psalm, David prays something very interesting that gets fulfilled in a curiously strange and quite humerous way. He prays against his pursuers, saying in verse 11:

"Don't kill them, for my people soon forget such lessons; stagger them with your power, and bring them to their knees, O Lord our shield."

The answer to this prayer happens while David is with the prophet Samuel. For while he is safely there, Saul finds out and sends soldiers to arrest David but let's see what happens by reading 1Samuel 19:19-24:

19 When the report reached Saul that David was at Naioth in Ramah, 20 he sent troops to capture him. But when they arrived and saw Samuel leading a group of prophets who were prophesying, the Spirit of God came upon Saul’s men, and they also began to prophesy. 21 When Saul heard what had happened, he sent other troops, but they, too, prophesied! The same thing happened a third time. 22 Finally, Saul himself went to Ramah and arrived at the great well in Secu. "Where are Samuel and David?" he demanded. "They are at Naioth in Ramah," someone told him. 23 But on the way to Naioth in Ramah the Spirit of God came even upon Saul, and he, too, began to prophesy all the way to Naioth! 24 He tore off his clothes and lay naked on the ground all day and all night, prophesying in the presence of Samuel.

Thus, quite literally, God protected David from the murderous rage of King Saul by fulfilling David's words: "[not] kill[ing] them... [but by]... stagger[ing] them with [His] power, and bring[ing] them to their knees..."

Even in such life-threatening circumstances, the Lord is not without a sense of humor in His means of faithfully answering and delivering His own. 

Is Christianity Hard or Easy?

Who hasn't read these words from our Savior and not rejoiced especially during stressful times?

"Come here to Me, all who are growing weary to the point of exhaustion, and who have been loaded with burdens and are bending beneath their weight, and I alone will cause you to cease from your labor and take away your burdens and thus refresh you with rest. Take at once My yoke upon you and learn from Me, because I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find cessation from labor and refreshment for your souls, for My yoke is mild and pleasant, and My load is light in weight." (Matthew 11:28-30, WUESTNT)

I love the above expanded translation of the Greek by Kenneth S. Wuest (1893-1961), a Biblical Greek scholar. He really brings out the refreshing points from our Savior here. This passage sounds so pleasant to our ears in times of trouble. I've often turned to it for encouragement as I'm sure you have as well.

So, after reading these gracious words from Jesus' lips, how is it that we then turn around and say that life or Christianity is hard? After all, we also read this from Jesus:

..."If anyone is desiring to come after Me, let him forget self and lose sight of his own interests, and let him pick up his cross and carry it, and let him be taking the same road with Me that I travel, for whoever is desiring to save his soul-life shall ruin it, but whoever will pass a sentence of death upon his soul-life for My sake, shall find it. For what will a man be profited if he gain the whole world but forfeit his soul-life? Or, what shall a man give as an exchange for his soul-life? For the Son of Man is about to be coming in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He shall recompense to each one according to his manner of acting." (Matthew 16:24-27, WUESTNT; see also Mark 8:34-38; Luke 9:23-26)

"Pick up his cross and carry it," and "passing a sentence of death upon his soul-life" sound like contradictions to the previous passage describing Jesus' yoke as, "mild and pleasant... light in weight." In fact, Jesus' cross was too much for Him to bear Himself. He had to have help from a man from Cyrene named Simon (see Matthew 27:32; Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26). Picking up a cross and carrying it doesn't sound mild, pleasant, nor light in weight. How am I to carry this heavy cross on which I was to be crucified, on my own shoulders? How could this cross compare to a yoke of burden spoken of by Jesus that is mild, pleasant, and light? This compelled me to ask the Lord how to handle this seeming contradiction. I basically asked Him, "Is my walk with You supposed to be easy (rest, mild, pleasant, light) or hard (carrying a cross of death)?"

As usual, Jesus often answers a question with a question. It seemed to me He asked in my heart, "Why did I bear My cross?" That was an easy enough question to answer by even the most amateur of Christians, right? We say it all the time. I answered, "Why, You bore the sins of the world, Lord, on Your cross, in Your own body..." I paused, still quite puzzled. But a passage of Scripture quickly came up in my mind, and I found it in my Wuest translation and read it out loud:

"For to this very thing were you called [namely, to patient endurance in the case of unjust punishment], because Christ also suffered on your behalf, leaving behind for you a model to imitate, in order that by close application you might follow in His footprints; who never in a single instance committed a sin, and in whose mouth, after careful scrutiny, there was found not even craftiness; who when His heart was being wounded with an accursed sting, and when He was being made the object of harsh rebuke and biting, never retaliated, and who while suffering never threatened, but rather kept on delivering all into the keeping of the One who judges righteously; who Himself carried upon to the cross our sins in His body and offered Himself there as on an altar, doing this in order that we, having died with respect to our sins, might live with respect to righteousness, by means of whose bleeding stripe you were healed, for you were as sheep that are going astray and are wandering about, but now have been turned back to the Shepherd and [spiritual] Overseer of your souls. (1Peter 2:21-25, WUESTNT)

I hope after reading that your eyes opened to the answer! If not, I'll help you sum it up. Jesus went to the cross for other people's sins. And this is His example for us to follow. Why do I take up the cross of my death? For the same reason as Jesus; for other people's sins. Please don't take that the wrong way! We are not capable of dying in the place of other people's sins to save them like Jesus. That requires sinlessness, which no man or woman has ever had. Only one Man has achieved that, the Man, Jesus Christ. So, what does this mean then? It means that my cross to bear is putting up with other people's sins without offense. This is indeed a very heavy burden! You know this by experience. Most of the time, we put up with our own sins easily enough, justifying our failure or our weakness and depending upon Jesus to understand us when we fail and then depending upon His mercy and grace to put us back in right-standing with Him. But then we will turn around and condemn many other people for their sins, especially if their sin happened to hurt us in some way. Instead of following the road Jesus walked, when our "heart [is] being wounded with an accursed sting," or "when [we are] being made the object of harsh rebuke and biting" we retaliate, or at least threaten to retaliate. And if not that, we gossip to others about how appalling that other person's sins are. We pretend we are shocked that they can call themselves "a Christian" and behave like that! Behind their back we criticize them and make them look bad to other people because of their failure to measure up to our standard.

This is so far from what we are called to! This is indeed hard! Right? Well, hold on. Is it? 

At my workplace, my boss has a saying that he has lived by, and though it has a political overtone, it fits with this situation. He says in not so many words, "The Constitution of the United States does not guarantee freedom from offense. But we can choose to not be offended and then life gets so much easier." Amen. Do you see it now? I'll help you again...

Remember in the Garden of Gethsemane just before Jesus went to the cross? Jesus struggled under the stress of what He was going to do. He even asked God the Father to remove this burden from Him if it were possible. Yet after suffering so hard with this in the garden all night, He arose fully resolved to carry out His ultimate commission; go to the whipping post for our healing, and to the cross for our sins. He knew He was to suffer humiliation and excruciating pain in His physical body, and also the anguish of His soul when the sins of all of humanity were placed on Him on His cross. In other words, He knew He would suffer for other people's sins and it was going to hurt in every way possible. That's hard! But He had resolved to do so anyway. Praise Him!

But get this, dead men don't suffer, do they? Dead men don't get offended either, right? I saw the hard and the easy at the same time!

HARD: The struggle to make that once-and-for-all decision to bear with other people's sins and not be offended, but rather do it freely.

EASY: After that decision is made, it is easy to not take offense. Why? When you are not offended, you circumvent the pain. Instead, you are yoked to Jesus and go about setting the captives free instead of condemning them to hell for what they have done.

So, is Christianity hard or easy? It is hard to make what should be that one-time decision of bearing with other people's sins and offenses. But once you decide to do that, as my boss would say, "life gets so much easier." Indeed! Dead men aren't offended. Those supposed offenses roll off you like water off a duck's back in a rainstorm. You are no longer subject to being manipulated by narcissists or those who would feign emotion in order to control you.

So, stop being offended. Decide once and for all to "forget self and lose sight of [your] own interests." Once that is done (the hard part), then you will find that being yoked to Jesus is, indeed, a "cessation from labor" and "mild and pleasant, ...light in weight" (the easy part). Then in your day-by-day walk with Him, He will "cause you to cease from your labor and take away your burdens and thus refresh you with rest."

Amen!

My Journey In and Out of Darkness

The word “darkness” in the above title is my reference to a form of eschatology called full- or hyper-preterism. This form of eschatology teaches that all Biblical prophecy has been fulfilled in the events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. This includes the entire book of Revelation, the Second Coming of Christ, the Resurrection of the Dead, the Day of Judgement, the Millennium, and even the New Heaven and New Earth. How does one come to believe such a radical idea? I’ll tell you how it happened to me.

The Late Great Planet Earth Delusion

I was raised in a very common American Protestant home. My parents were hard-working and honest. I cannot remember a day in my life that I didn’t know Jesus Christ. I had accepted Him as my Savior at a very young age. I never strayed from belief in Him even as a teenager.

My default form of eschatology (study of the last days) was called premillennial dispensationalism, although I had no idea at the time that was its official name. This is probably the most popular form of eschatology in America. It teaches that we are probably the last generation before Jesus Christ returns to secretly rapture away Christians, and before the rise of the Antichrist, the onset of the 7-year Great Tribulation, the Battle of Armageddon, and the Second Coming, etc.

I particularly became interested in this in high school when I read a book by Hal Lindsey called, The Late Great Planet Earth. The details were further fleshed out by the writings of men such as J.N. Darby, C.I. Scofield, Clarence Larkin, and more Hal Lindsey books. I particularly loved my Scofield Bible with all its footnotes in this regard. But as I grew up, graduated college, got married, started a family, and was working a job, and even led Bible study groups on the subject, I began to become disenchanted with it. There were so many failed predictions made by its proponents. And even though it was (and still is) very popular, its finer points are very complex and difficult to grasp.

Postmillennialism Slide

About this time, I ran into an elderly man at church who happened to no longer believe this way. He called himself a “postmillennial partial preterist.” He believed, unlike me, that Jesus would return after the Millennium (the thousand years of Revelation 20; thus the prefix "post-"). He was a “partial” preterist because he believed Jesus came back in some form in AD 70 to judge Jerusalem but would return in bodily form in the future.

This man introduced me to the “time statements” of Scripture. The “this generation” of Matthew 24:34, the “some of you will not taste death until…” of Matthew 16:27-28, and the “shortly come to pass… the time is at hand” of Revelation 1:1-3 are all startling when you read them together. He pointed out that time statements like these force us to believe that Jesus came back in some form in the first century AD, the time in which the New Testament was being written.

The Internet was just becoming a thing at that time and, being intrigued by this man’s belief, I did some searching and accidentally ran across a full preterist website managed by Edward Stevens. I had no idea he was a "full" preterist but I was interested in buying a book of his called, What Happened in 70 AD? So, I phoned him and ordered the book. I was not ready for his understanding of Luke 21:20-22 which says, “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies… these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.” Stevens emphasized that “all things which are written” meant the entirety of the Bible’s prophecies. I thought he was crazy. How could the Second Coming of Christ, the Resurrection, the Day of Judgment, and the coming of the New Heaven and Earth have already taken place?! Stevens maintained this had all occurred at the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70! I took this to my postmillennial friend at church. He, too, thought Stevens was crazy. But a close friend of mine came to believe Stevens was correct and started arguing Stevens’ points with me.

My first rejection of full preterism was that all my study Bibles showed the book of Revelation to have been written in AD 96, so how could it be a prophecy about the events surrounding AD 70? I even asked Stevens, and he pointed me to a book written by Dr. Kenneth Gentry called, Before Jerusalem Fell. This book argues that Revelation was written before AD 70. At this point, I became seriously intrigued.

Full Preterism Trap

It didn’t take long until every Scripture and every parable Jesus told looked like a reference to AD 70. I joined forums (there was no Facebook at that time) and discovered even more books. Another one that greatly affected me was written in 1878 by James Stuart Russel, called The Parousia. More contemporary authors on this subject were Max King, Don K. Preston, Samuel Frost, Tim King, John Noe, and David Green. I discovered a full-preterist pastor, David Curtis, and was greatly interested in a few active bloggers, Jason Bradfield and Todd Dennis. I even helped Todd Dennis digitize The Parousia for his website (The Preterist Archive). Even books by partial preterists like Gary DeMar helped bolster my newfound belief. I attended a full-preterist conference two years in a row in Sparta, NC, where I met Preston, Frost, DeMar, and Noe.

I, too, like every other full preterist, became enamored with the “time statements.” If you pointed out to me how crazy it was to believe that all Bible prophecy was fulfilled, I would just simply make you read the “time statements.” It is the “time statements” of Scripture that lead every single full preterist into full preterism and it is what keeps them there. I cannot emphasize this enough. I began to interpret (reinterpret) every single doctrine of Christianity through this filter. Every Scripture in the Bible was made to bow its knee to the “time statements.” But eventually, this is what started to bug me because it made me question all the fundamentals. For instance, was I to keep the sacrament of the Lord's Supper? After all, Paul wrote, "for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes" (1Corinthians 11:26). And if Jesus had already come in AD 70, then was there any need to "proclaim the Lord's death" through this sacrament?

I couldn’t find any theologians that were full preterists. I found out that Sam Frost was an up-and-coming theologian who was attempting to systematize full preterism. Being intrigued by this, I bought his book, Misplaced Hope. Frost wrote on page 210, "Modern Christian eschatology is based upon an early church error: assuming the Second Coming was delayed, by misunderstanding its spiritual fulfillment in A.D. 70. We need not remain in this wilderness of misplaced hope. Rather, through sound biblical scholarship, we can recover the transforming hope that the early church embraced. Herein lies our hope for the third Christian millennium." This book bugged me even more. It was arguing how the earliest Christians missed the Second Coming in AD 70 and since it didn't happen, opted to reinterpret the "time statements" to mean imminence for every generation instead of imminence for that first generation of Christians. This forced me to think that in order to maintain my position in full preterism, I was going to have to say all (not some!) the early Christians missed it. I would have to somehow maintain that millions of Christians for 2000 years had all missed Christ’s Second Coming in AD 70 and that the Church for two millennia had “accidentally” propagated a serious lie! Now I was a bit more than just bugged. I was now growing a bit fearful of what I was believing and teaching.

Resurrection Pains

The one thing that kept coming up in my heart was, “How could all Christians have missed the resurrection of the dead until full preterists came along?” This question started my long and very uncomfortable study of resurrection as a full preterist. Most full preterists are too starry-eyed with the “time statements” to even care about the resurrection of the dead. They simply point out that if the “time statements” were true, and they must be, then whatever the resurrection was, it was in the past. Staring me in my full-preterist face were the Apostle Paul’s obvious feelings about getting the timing of the Resurrection wrong. He wrote:

But shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness. And their message will spread like cancer. Hymenaeus and Philetus are of this sort, who have strayed concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is already past; and they overthrow the faith of some. (2Timothy 2:16-18)

This is a sober warning. Full preterists, of course, will answer this passage and say that the Resurrection was future to them when Paul wrote this to Timothy because it was before AD 70. But we live after the Resurrection in AD 70 making this no problem to them. But the point I’m making here is that getting the timing of the Resurrection wrong was a very serious thing in Paul’s mind. This put the fear of God in me. At this point, I stopped teaching full preterism and sought the Lord for the truth and meaning of resurrection.

I began by asking every full preterist I knew exactly what they thought the resurrection was. As it turns out they are wildly divided on the subject. There are two major camps in full preterism. They call themselves CBV or IBV.

Resurrection Divisions In Full Preterism

CBV stands for Collective (or Covenant, or Corporate) Body View. IBV stands for Individual Body View. The originator of CBV is Max King (1930-). It is mainly propagated by Don K. Preston (1949-). The IBV leader seems to be Edward Stevens.

The main difference between CBV and IBV is stated easily enough but the details are complex and vary widely depending on who's interpreting the viewpoint. Both beliefs teach a "resurrection" of sorts occurring in AD 70 when they allege Jesus' Second Coming occurred. CBV teaches a resurrection of a collective kind of body of believers, while IBV teaches that Christians' souls were raised out of Sheol/Hades to put on their new individual spiritual bodies for heaven. In other words, they both redefine resurrection as something different than what happened to Jesus Christ. Studying the data below will help you with the details.

The Resurrected Jesus

I will remind you again that the details of the views of CBV and IBV can vary widely depending on the teacher. But the following data are close. First, lest' look at the various versions of Jesus Himself and what happened to Him compared. The differences from Christianity are highlighted:

• Christianity's Jesus
• Incarnate in a mortal physical body.
• Dies physically on the cross.
• Physically buried in a tomb.
• Physically resurrected into an immortal body.
• Ascends physically to Heaven & is glorified
• Physically descends from Heaven to Earth in the future

• Full Preterism's (CBV) Jesus
• Incarnate in a mortal physical body.
• Dies both spiritually & physically on the cross.
• Physically buried in a tomb. Spiritually descends to Sheol/Hades.
• Physically resurrected into His original mortal body only as a sign.
• Ascends physically to Heaven & is burnt as a whole burn offering on Heaven's altar.
• Spiritually & invisibly comes to destroy Jerusalem in AD 70.

• Full Preterism's (IBV) Jesus
• Incarnate in a mortal physical body.
• Dies physically on the cross.
• Physically buried in a tomb. Spiritually descends to Sheol/Hades.
• Physically resurrected into a spiritual immortal body only as a sign.
• Ascends in His spiritual immortal body to Heaven.
• Spiritually & invisibly comes to destroy Jerusalem in AD 70.

The Resurrection

As it must, full preterism in all its forms redefines resurrection to something other than what the whole world in the first-century AD knew it to be. The definition is not life after death. Rather everyone knew that resurrection was bodily life after a bodily death. It was not ethereal in any way. This is where things get complicated! Observe the complex and bizarre differences between normal definition of the resurrection that has been held by 2000 years of orthodox Christianity, and the redefinition of it offered by full preterism. The differences are so radical it is difficult to highlight them.

• Christian Resurrection
• Before the cross, men were born, lived, & died in physical mortal bodies, & were buried.
• Before the cross, yet after their death, believers' souls "slept" or descended to Sheol.
• Some imagine a "paradise" side of Sheol (see "Abraham's bosom" in Jesus' parable in Luke 16:22).
• Before the cross, yet after their death, unbelievers' souls "slept" or descended to Sheol.
• Some imagine a "torment" side of Sheol (see Jesus' parable in Luke 16:22-24).
• After the cross, men are born, live, and die in physical mortal bodies, and are buried.
• After the cross, and after their death, believers' souls ascend to Christ in Heaven.
• After the cross, and after their death, unbelievers' souls descend to hell.
• When Christ returns in our future, all men (believers & unbelievers) are physically & bodily resurrected & judged.
• The living believers are physically changed to physical immortal bodies
• The dead believers are resurrected into physical immortal bodoes.
• At the judgment, unbelievers are cast into the Lake of Fire in their physical bodies.
• After the judgment, believers live in the New Heavens & New Earth in physical immortal bodies with Christ forever.

• CBV Full Preterism "Resurrection"
Before the cross, men were born, lived, & died in physical mortal bodies, & were buried.
Before the cross, yet after their death, believers' souls descended to Sheol-Paradise (see "Abraham's bosom" in Jesus' parable in Luke 16:22)
Before the cross, yet after their death, unbelievers' souls descended to Sheol-Torment (see Jesus' parable in Luke 16:22-24).
After the cross yet before AD 70, men were born, lived, and died in physical mortal bodies, and were buried.
After the cross yet before AD 70 & after their death, believers' souls still descended to Sheol-Paradise
After the cross yet before AD 70 & after their death, unbelievers' souls still descended to Sheol-Torment
When Christ returned in AD 70, all men's souls (believers & unbelievers) were spiritually removed from Sheol (one of their definitions of "resurrection").
• The status of the living & dead corporate "body" of believers was spiritually changed before God to one that is acceptable by Him (their main definition of "resurrection").
At the judgment in AD 70, unbelievers are said to either have all been saved as well (Universalism), or are lost forever (e.g. annihilated).
After the judgment of AD 70, believers live in the spiritual "New Heavens & New Earth" while in their physical mortal bodies (i.e. we are said to be in Heaven right now).
• At death, believers' souls are taken to Heaven; their mortal physical bodies are buried to rot, never to be resurrected.
• At death, unbelievers' souls are either lost forever or they are also taken to Heaven (Universalism); their mortal physical bodies are buried to rot, never to be resurrected.

• IBV Full Preterism "Resurrection"
• Before the cross, men were born, lived, & died in physical mortal bodies, & were buried.
• Before the cross, yet after their death, believers' souls descended to Sheol-Paradise (see "Abraham's bosom" in Jesus' parable in Luke 16:22).
• Before the cross, yet after their death, unbelievers' souls descended to Sheol-Torment (see Jesus' parable in Luke 16:22-24).
• After the cross yet before AD 70, men were born, lived, and died in physical mortal bodies, and were buried.
• After the cross yet before AD 70 & after their death, believers' souls still descended to Sheol-Paradise.
• After the cross yet before AD 70 & after their death, unbelievers' souls still descend to Sheol-Torment.
• When Christ returned in AD 70, all men's souls (believers & unbelievers) were spiritually removed from Sheol (their definition of "resurrection") & given spiritual bodies & judged.
• The living believers were physically changed to spiritual bodies & taken to Heaven without any extant record, secular or Christian.
• The dead believers were given spiritual bodies & also taken to Heaven without any extant record, secular or Christian.
• At the judgment in AD 70, unbelievers were cast into the Lake of Fire in their spiritual bodies.
• After the judgment in AD 70, believers live in the spiritual "New Heavens & New Earth" while in their physical mortal bodies.
• At death, believers are given spiritual bodies and taken to Heaven; their mortal physical bodies are buried to rot, never to be resurrected.
• At death, unbelievers are thrown into the Lake of Fire; their mortal physical bodies are buried to rot, never to be resurrected.

That's it. Make note that both CBV and IBV teach that your physical body is discarded and is never resurrected like Christ's. Both CBV and IBV have no care for your physical body. It is merely a temporary holding place for your spirit which, they assert, is all that salvation is really about. They also both teach that Christ's physical resurrection was merely a sign for that generation and, otherwise, it has no direct relationship to us today!

Don K. Preston teaches some very bizarre and blasphemous details in his version of CBV. The first weird thing is he teaches Adam was created mortal and that physical death was always part of God's creation, and God never had a plan to deal with that! He also teaches that since salvation is thought to be spiritual-only, then he asserts Adam died spiritually necessitating that Christ die spiritually as well. Most Christians would never say that Jesus died spiritually because it causes a fatal theological problem for the doctrine of the Trinity. To die spiritually, God the Son would have to be separated from God the Father! Preston also teaches that when Jesus was resurrected, He was raised in a mortal body (not an immortal one); the same one He had before the cross! He further maintains that this mortal body ascended to Heaven and was completely incinerated as a whole burnt offering on the altar of the Heavenly Temple and therefore Jesus no longer resides in a physical body, immortal or mortal! This is considered blasphemy of the highest sort in normal Christianity.

Edward Stevens' IBV forces him to teach some very bizarre things as well. By his own admission, because of the "time statements," he must maintain that a rapture of the living Christians occurred in AD 70. That means living Christians were translated bodily without dying leaving no Christians on Earth after AD 70! Of course, there's no historical record, Christian or secular, that tells of any sudden disappearance of thousands if not millions of Christians in AD 70. This further begs the question that if there were no Christians left on Earth after AD 70, how did the gospel get restarted and reach us here 2000 years later?! This view would also have to maintain that Christians who lived through AD 70 (i.e. Clement) missed the rapture or are liars. Did God leave some Christians on Earth after AD 70 so Christianity could get a restart?! Edward Stevens has answered this by saying that God did whatever He wanted to restart Christianity after AD 70, we just don't know.

Needless to say, neither CBV nor IBV give satisfying answers to resurrection. And both add quite a bit of ad hoc and useless speculation as well as denying reality. CBV is blasphemous of Christ's eternal incarnation, and IBV denies actual history for the love of its interpretation of the "time statements"! In other words, true history is sacrificed on the altar of time statements. With no hope of finding any answers from the full preterist camp regarding resurrection, I devoted myself to studying it alone. It was now me and my Bible. This sounds noble. But it is less noble than you might think. I’ll explain in a few minutes.

Resurrection Truth #1 - The Spiritual Body

The first Scripture that made me do a double-take, was one often quoted by full preterists as proof that the resurrection was not supposed to be physical. That passage reads:

So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. (1Corinthians 15:42-44)

That part that reads, "it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body," is used by full preterist to argue, "See? The resurrected body is spiritual, it is not physical." Of course, as anyone can see, there is a problem already with this before we even get to their point. Paul uses "it" as being the thing sown, and the same "it" as being raised. And, of course, this is exactly what happened to Jesus Christ. The tomb was empty. But what about the "spiritual body"? Does this mean spiritual as in ethereal? No, it does not. I didn't know this, but I discovered that Greek scholars know exactly what this means. A great analogy is used by Anglican theologian and Greek scholar, N.T. Wright to describe this meaning:

The first word, 'psychikos,' [he is referring to the word translated "natural"] does not in any case mean anything like 'physical' in our sense. For Greek speakers of Paul's day, the 'psyche,' from which the word derives, means the soul, not the body. But the deeper, underlying point is that adjectives of this type, Greek adjectives ending in '-ikos,' describe not the material out of which things are made but the power or energy that animates them. It is the difference between asking, on the one hand, 'Is this a wooden ship or an iron ship?' (the material from which it is made) and asking, on the other, 'Is this a steamship or a sailing ship?' (the energy that powers it). Paul is talking about the present body, which is animated by the normal human 'psyche' (the life force we all possess here and now, which gets us through the present life but is ultimately powerless against illness, injury, decay, and death), and the future body, which is animated by God's 'pneuma,' God's breath of new life, the energizing power of God's new creation. (Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, pp. 155-156. HarperCollins.)

Thus, Paul is not speaking of the nature of the resurrection body, but of the power that drives the resurrection body. But full preterists are not done distorting the Greek meaning just yet. They will point to this next passage as well:

Now I say this, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. (1Corinthians 15:50)

I believe N.T. Wright explains this well, writing:

This is why, in a further phrase that became controversial as early as the mid-second century, Paul declares that 'flesh and blood cannot inherit God's kingdom.' He doesn't mean that physicality will be abolished. 'Flesh and blood' is a technical term for that which is corruptible, transient, heading for death. The contrast, again, is not between what we call physical and what we call nonphysical but between corruptible physicality, on the one hand, and incorruptible physicality, on the other. (Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, pg. 156. HarperCollins.) 

 And so, after all, this is the contextually correct conclusion because, also in the verses directly following this passage, Paul writes twice that when the resurrection happens, the living saints will be "changed" (1Corinthians 15:51-52). Then further, he writes in Philippians 3:20, that Jesus will "transform the body of our lowly condition into conformity with His glorious body."

So, physicality is not removed by 1Corinthians 15:42-44,50, but even further established by 1Corinthians 15:51-52 and Philippians 3:20, as well as the fact that we know Jesus' tomb was empty!

Resurrection Truth #2 - The Unjust

The second Scriptural passage that dealt a fierce blow to my full preterism is that written by the Apostle John. According to Jesus Himself, the resurrection would include all human beings, righteous and unrighteous, just and unjust. He said, “Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.” (John 5:28-29). The Apostle Paul affirmed as well, saying, “I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust.” (Acts 24:15). Did you notice that in the explanation of what CBVs believe they did not deal with the “resurrection of condemnation” nor the “resurrection of …the unjust”? Also, did you notice that IBVs merely redefine resurrection as simply the removal of souls out of Sheol/Hades? Thus, when unjust souls are removed, they consider this a fulfillment of the "resurrection of the unjust." But this requires that redefinition of the word resurrection. The first-century people, Greeks, Pharisees, Sadducees, unbelievers, and Christians alike, knew what this word meant. The Greek word means "to be made to stand," as in, you are laying prone when you are dead, and you are made to stand back up after you are dead. They all defined the word as a bodily death followed by a bodily life. This is exactly what happened to Jesus Christ. The tomb was empty. That is most important! It is because of this definition that the Greeks and unbelievers scoffed, the Sadducees didn't believe in it, and the Pharisees and the Christians taught it. IBVs redefine it, as they must, to a very Greek gnostic idea of merely "souls out of Sheol/Hades."

When faced with Acts 24:15 above, most full preterists will just change the subject to their beloved “time statements.” They will point out that the Greek word translated, “shall be” in this verse, is the Greek word, μελλειν (mellein) which, they say, means, “about to.” They will then find every occurrence of this Greek word in the New Testament and substitute their limited definition of “about to” in its place. This allows them to produce even more “time statements” in order to emphasize this resurrection, whatever it is, happened in the first century AD. But you can reference any Greek lexicon and see that the Greek scholars say this word actually means, “a certainty of action,” and the context can cause it to be translated as “about to” only because of certainty.

Resurrection Truth #3 - Our Resurrection Is the Same As Christ's

The third Scriptural blow to my full preterism was the way in which the Apostle Paul argued the resurrection in 1Corinthians 15. It was almost the opposite direction of logic than one would think he would make. Instead of saying our resurrection was based on Christ’s resurrection (which theologically, of course, it is!), Paul argued it in the other direction, writing:

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! (1Corinthians 15:13-17)

Notice Paul says if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not resurrected. He does not say that if Christ is not resurrected, there is no resurrection of the dead. In other words, he’s basing Christ’s resurrection on the fact of our resurrection. You might think this is a moot point, but it is not. The reason is that arguing it this way makes certain of the definition of what resurrection means. Both resurrections (ours and Christ’s) must be of the same type. Whatever definition you give the resurrection of the dead, you must also apply to Christ. And if you maintain Christ’s resurrection was a physical transformation of His mortal human body, then our resurrection must also be a transformation of our mortal human body. This is devastating to full preterism. 

This critical and logical link is further corroborated by the fact that Jesus Christ is called “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1Corinthians 15:20,23) and “the firstborn from the dead” (Colossians 1:18). The Firstfruits (Christ’s resurrection) cannot be different from the harvest (our resurrection). The Firstborn from the dead (Jesus) implies a second-born, a third-born, etc., i.e. us! You don’t gather apples as the firstfruits, and then when harvest comes, discover that you are now gathering oranges. So, staring me in the face at this point was the empty tomb; the 2000-year-old orthodox view of the resurrection of the dead. This was the heaviest blow against my full preterism and the next Scriptural consideration would nudge it nearly off the edge of the cliff toward oblivion.

Resurrection Truth #4 - Bodies Are Transformed Not Discarded

In the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he writes:

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. (Philippians 3:20-21)

Notice that Paul says “our lowly body” would be “transformed” to become like “His glorious body.” The believer's body was to be "transformed," not discarded to rot in the grave while the believer is given a different body. This destroys IBV full preterism. This is exactly what happened to Christ’s mortal body. The tomb was empty. His mortal body was not discarded to obtain His immortal spiritual body. His mortal body was transformed. It still had the scars to remind us of His sacrifice.

Not only this, but you must consider also that when Paul wrote this, both of the bodies he spoke of (“our lowly body” and Christ’s “glorious body”) existed simultaneously. What is the significance of this? It destroys CBV full preterism. How? Because they have a single body being transformed into a different single body. But there wasn't just a single body being changed into a future single body like the CBV folks imagine. Instead, there were already two bodies when Paul wrote. There was the (1) "lowly body" of a believer and (2) the "glorious body" of Christ. But at some point in the future, Paul imagines there would still be two bodies, only they would be (1) the "lowly body" that had been "transformed" and (2) the "glorious body" of Christ. 

Resurrection Truth #5 - Jesus Christ Is Still Incarnate

Furthermore, in corroboration that Jesus was still a physical Man after His ascension and will remain so even unto the Day of Judgment, Paul says, “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:30-31). Also, Paul writes, “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” (1Timothy 2:5). Furthermore, Jesus, after His ascension, is referred to be “the image of God” (2Corinthians 4:4) and “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), and also it is said that “in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). Images are visible. God is not visible, but God the Son, Jesus Christ is. How could He not be? Afterall, He is our Mediator between God (invisible) and man (visible). This is what makes Him our faithful High Priest as the writer of Hebrews says: "Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people" (Hebrews 2:17).

The Apostle John couldn't distill it down any clearer with his statement:

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. (1John 4:2-3)

The Greek word translated "has come" is, grammar-wise, a perfect middle participle. The perfect tense indicates an action completed in the past with a continuing result. The Kenneth Wuest Translation captures the deeper meaning of the Greek words and says this:

In this you know experientially the Spirit of God. Every spirit who agrees [to the doctrinal statement] that Jesus Christ has come in the sphere of the flesh [i.e., in incarnation] and still remains incarnate [in human form] is of God; and every spirit who does not confess this aforementioned Jesus [agree to the above teaching concerning Him] is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist which you have heard that it comes, and now is already in the world. (1John 4:2-3; WUEST)

This is very clear and disturbed me greatly as a full preterist. The fallout of Jesus still being a human being is fatal to all forms of full preterism. To deny Jesus Christ is still a human being (albeit, immortal and glorified) is "antichrist"! Think of that! Antichrist?! Those are harsh and sobering words for a full preterist of any kind. I thought, to believe 1John 4:2-3 alone destroys full preterism?

Why? Because the CBV versions of full preterism believe Jesus discarded His human body. And the IBV versions of full preterism, though some of them try to maintain this doctrine of the eternal incarnation of Christ, will say that our bodies, as believers, are indeed discarded when we die. I was of this sort of full preterist. But God had an answer for that too. For Paul writes:

Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. (1Corinthians 6:19-20)

Would God pay such a high price for my body through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ, just to discard it? If you paid the ultimate price for something is that how you treat it? Throw it in the dirt to rot? The Resurrection Truth #4 above shows us that our bodies are not discarded forever to rot into nothingness but that Jesus will "transform" them, just like God did His. The tomb was empty! God did not discard Jesus' mortal body, but transformed it into a glorious immortal but still human body.

Church History and the Leading of the Holy Spirit

The last straw, the one that broke the full preterist camel’s back for me, was that I saw Jason Bradfield and Samuel Frost leave full preterism expressing their own doubts. I pummeled them both with questions, particularly about resurrection. In one of our discussions online, Jason, nearly exasperated with my questions, said, “Brother, learn some church history and read the early church fathers.” I reluctantly took on his suggestion out of pure respect having little hope that it would do anything for me. I was wrong. I was humbled by the writings of the early Christians as well as those of the reformation. I found a deep appreciation for the early Christians' documents such as the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed. And the later writings of the Protestant reformers such as the Belgic Confession of Faith, and the Heidelberg Catechism were particularly interesting to me. These writings from the earlier and then the later Christians are proof that the Church was not being led astray at all, because though there are more than a thousand years between the early creeds and the later confessions and catechisms, the basic expressions of the faith had not changed. Instead, the Lord had made good on His promise to the original apostles of sending His Holy Spirit to lead His children into all the truth despite the imperfection of the Christians themselves.

Yes, there were many opinions and various interpretations about minute details of doctrines, but the foundational doctrines never changed. One of those was the future resurrection of the dead and the bodily Second Coming of Christ. They have been fought for and maintained solidly for 2000 years. It didn’t matter if those people were Roman Catholics, Protestants, Anglicans, or Eastern Orthodox. The “Spirit of Truth” (John 15:26) had been doing His job the whole time in spite of the human vessels being imperfect. The Holy Spirit had been teaching us all things, and bringing to remembrance all things that Jesus had said to the Apostles (see John 14:26). He had been guiding the Church into all the truth (see John 16:13) and had continued to “convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” (John 16:8).

I suddenly realized that it was not a matter of the perfectness and maturity of Christians. Instead, it was a matter of the ability of the Holy Spirit to fulfill Jesus’ promise of leading and guiding the Church through history. Was He a good Teacher or not? Christians are imperfect, but the Holy Spirit is not. I could see that to say that Christians had been deceived from the beginning until full preterists came along some 1700 years later was inconceivable and actually an insult to the Spirit of Grace.

Truth Is Understood Communally

Now I will explain why just you and your Bible, though sounding noble, is not as noble as you might think. You see, God never intended for one man to be able to comprehend Him or determine the Truth. The entire time, God purposed that fellowship with Him and other believers would be the way in which we would be able to comprehend God. Paul tells us that it takes all of us to comprehend God. He writes, “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:17-19). He also wrote, “These things I write to you, though I hope to come to you shortly; but if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1Timothy 3:14-15). He also tells us that God gave gifts to His people, “some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ – from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:11-16).

Thus, all these things God gave us, knowing we were imperfect. Yet His promise is strong to lead us to the truth. It is clear that the Church has not yet reached this full maturity even 2000 years after AD 70. And if we have not yet reached this maturity, then God is not done with us yet and His gifts are still active, and we still need each other to comprehend Him and be kept in the truth. We can't do it on our own as a single individual with a single Bible. This is why just "you and your Bible" is a recipe for disaster. You need the gifts (men) God gave you, dead and alive. Instead of His Spirit-led congregation being the authority (“pillar and ground of the truth”), you, all by yourself, become the sole authority of what constitutes “truth.” In fact, if you study church history you will see that every heretic in history was a man alone with the Scriptures alone. Peter warns of becoming your own authority in interpreting Scripture. He writes, “And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2Peter 1:19-21).

Many full preterists will respond to this with ad hominems, calling you a "creed worshiper," or something similar. They will tell you that you are "in bondage to the traditions of men," or that you "care more about the opinions of men than you do Scripture," etc. But this is hypocrisy at its finest. For they believe that they themselves are the sole owners of truth, just "me and my Bible." Clearly, they are doing the same thing they accuse you of doing. They care more about their opinion of what the Bible says than anybody else's opinion. They will remind you of the Reformers and tell you how they came up with new doctrines and taught Sola Scriptura, which full preterists will teach means, "just the Scriptures." This is due to their ignorance of Church History. The Reformers did not define Sola Scriptura to mean, "just the Scriptures." Instead, they defined it as, "the Scriptures are the highest authority," not the only authority.

Delivered From Darkness

Thus, it was in one day, that all of this finally came to a head in my life. I’ll never forget that day. It was the most humbling experience of my Christian walk. It was like Jesus had said to me, “When you see Me, I will have hair on my knuckles.” I know how silly that sounds but that is what it felt like. He was telling me that He was still a Man in a physical body and that that was very important to understand. I literally fell to my knees in repentance, asking His forgiveness for my stupidity and pride and for leading so many people astray from the Truth. I felt darkness leave my heart and joy and laughter return. I wept and laughed on and off for quite a while. It had been a long journey lasting 17 years of my life but it was finally over.

Some Implications of Full Preterism

Full preterism will darken your walk with Christ because it is leading you down a road to a different Jesus (see 2Corinthians 11:4); one that is no longer incarnate in human flesh. Full preterism denies and redefines the resurrection of Christ by logical necessity because, again, Paul argued it that way. Remember, he wrote, “if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen.” (1Corinthians 15:13). Full preterists reject the history of the church and have to maintain that the Holy Spirit failed at His job of leading Christians into all the truth. 

And if you’ve ever known any full preterists yourself, you will notice that many of them do not enjoy church gatherings. Instead, some even get involved in gross sin. The reasoning of these certain ones are that since sin and death has been dealt with and the law has passed away, and there supposedly is no Day of Judgment in their future, it generates no fear of God or desire for holiness that governs sinful behavior. Many full preterists I know end up alone, just them and their Bible, and not attending any assembly. They start websites and forums, make videos, write books, and teach nothing but full preterism. Many become obsessed with it. It occupies nearly their every thought. They are constantly trying to evangelize Christians into full preterism and usually lose all concern over the lost sinner and have no desire to preach the gospel. Their “gospel” is full preterism. Their field to harvest is not the world of sinners, but other Christians who are not full preterists.

Sincere belief in full preterism cannot help but redefine every single Christian doctrine and even modify Christian history. It must couch all traditional Christianity into the timeframe of AD 30 (the Cross of Christ) to AD 70 (the supposed time of the Second Coming of Christ). It must maintain the entire historical Church for 2000 years has been wrong about all the fundamentals. It must claim to have things that it obviously does not have yet.

I saw quite a few of my friends who happened to leave full preterism end up leaving church altogether and one or two of them even have become agnostics or self-professing atheists. As an example, here is a quote from one of them whom I was having a discussion with. I withhold his name for his own sake. But he wrote to me the following when I asked him if he had left Christ:

You are correct that I have gone the whole route of departing completely from the historic orthodox Christian faith. I no longer attend church and I certainly no longer consider myself a Christian in either the biblical or traditional historic sense. ...this is the logical and consistent implication of the FP [full preterist] hermeneutic. -J.M. (27-May-2012)

By "hermeneutic," he means the science of interpretation. I checked on his status nowadays, and this particular person finally found repentance for the above stance and is now a member of the Greek Orthodox church. But not all of them find their way back to Jesus.

Several of them end up believing in Universalism, which teaches that everyone is saved and going to heaven no matter what. You don’t even need faith in Christ to get to heaven according to them! The father of the CBV view which I mentioned above, Max King, recently has written a book entitled, Irrevocable: Paul's Radical Vision in Romans 9-11, and Why Christianity Can't Handle It. In this book, King presents his interpretation of the Romans 9-11 passage as teaching that the entire human race is saved, Israelite and Gentile, whether they believe in Christ or not.

And think of it, full preterism teaches that physical death will last forever, sin will last forever, evil will exist forever, and that you are currently living in the New Heaven and New Earth, where everything is still rotting. How much more miserable can a doctrine be? In my opinion, it cannot be darker than full preterism. It is the darkest form of eschatology that has ever been invented by man.

A Final Thought & Question

So, I thank God and my Lord Jesus Christ for utilizing men like Jason Bradfield and Sam Frost to bring me out of that dark eschatology. Now when I encounter a full preterist, I have only one question for them:

Is Jesus Christ still a Man?

1John 4:2-3 reveals He still is and that's why their answer to that single question will reveal how far they will go to deny the Truth and orthodox historic Christianity.

A Conversation With An Atheist

Recently, I had a conversation with a self-professing atheist; let's call him, "Tom." As best I could tell from his profile, he is a medical doctor & if not, then at least very knowledgeable about biology, chemistry & anatomy. He joined a Christian forum that I am a member of where we often discuss creation science & how it glorifies God. He started posting & commenting there. He was very mannerly & seemingly kind but the purpose of his posts was to cast doubt on the existence of God, creation science & the veracity of the Bible. Many Christians on the forum were arguing science with him. Of course, this usually goes nowhere because the Christian will appeal to his version of the science & the atheist will appeal to his. The atheist often believes "creation science" is a pseudo-science & not even worth his time investigating.

I am nowhere near as educated as Tom. But the advantage I have (& every Christian has) is that we know God. Tom doesn't. He has denied God & actively suppresses the truth.

I've spent a fair amount of time attempting to witness to atheists & agnostics as well as encouraging my siblings in Christ to do the same. Most Christians are afraid of the Ph.D. atheists that are openly critical of Christianity. They think they are not smart enough to witness to such folks. They usually want to leave that up to other more educated believers. But this is not necessary. If you witness to an atheist the way the Bible instructs you to, it is not difficult & you do not have to be an expert in any field of science. Just a good dose of common sense will do; the common sense God gave you already.

I used to spend my time studying the sciences in order to prepare myself for witnessing to atheists. I would throw scientific pieces of evidence at the atheist (who are most often evolutionists) to show the Bible is accurate. These conversations are usually very long & difficult. They can get extremely technical & I've never had them go anywhere. I usually just got frustrated with having no success & would complain to God about it. I asked Him how this could be done? How can a man as uneducated as me, bear witness of the truth to seemingly very intelligent people who deny the existence of God?

It dawned on me. When we give evidence to someone we are asking them to take the facts & make a judgment call. Who do we give evidence to in a court of law? Answer: the judge. That answer made me take a step back. I was inadvertently putting God on trial (like I didn't believe in Him myself) & handing evidence to the professing unbeliever, making them judge over God! Yikes!

With that in mind read this passage of Scripture:

But God shows His anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. They know the truth about God because He has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see His invisible qualities -- His eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. Yes, the knew God, but they wouldn't worship Him as God or even give Him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools... Romans 1:18-22

 According to this passage, no one needs proof of God's existence. Why? Because "He has made it obvious to them." In fact, it says that God has done such a good job at making it obvious, that "they have no excuse for not knowing God." So if God has already made Himself obvious to them & they have no excuse, then they will be held accountable by God for what He has shown them & what they deny. This also means it is not my job to prove the existence of God, nor prove who He is. Why? Because He's already done that part.

I'd been doing it wrong. So I asked Him how to witness to an atheist. First He pointed out to me that atheists are Biblical fools:

The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none who does good. Psalm 14:1

OK. So how do you witness to a fool? He gave me this:

 Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. Proverbs 26:4-5

I used to think this just showed it was vain to argue with a fool. But instead, God is telling us how to witness to a fool (i.e. an atheist is a type of Biblical fool). God is saying not to start where the fool starts, nor reason as he reasons, lest you become like a fool too. Instead, we should hypothetically use the fool's starting point & reasoning to show how it ends in absurdity. This will expose his foolishness.

Here is the conversation. A few other Christians on the forum participated. One of them posted an article on the amazing complexity of energy in the living cell.

CHRISTIAN#1: I would be interested in Tom's take on this.

ME: Me too. You should do one on the ATP synthase motor itself. It is most certainly a chicken-egg problem as well as irreducibly complex.

TOM: Can't read this right now but I will say that eggs existed for millions of years before chickens did.

CHRISTIAN#1: checkmate. I fold :)

ME: Tom, that is false. God created chickens only thousands of years ago. He was eyewitness. He told us the truth.

TOM: Do we have any reasons for believing that? And, Greg, Nope. :P The two subunits that joined to create ATP synthase were both fully functional on their own beforehand. One was a DNA helicase and the other was a proton-powered motor like those that are part of bacterial flagella.

ME: Tom, yes, I do have reasons. Absolute truth.

TOM: So you have concluded that it is absolutely true that a specific deity specially created a specific subspecies of a specific species of junglefowl AND that this deity told "us" about this. That is fascinating. How did you arrive at such a conclusion?

ME: I said no such thing. God created birds. He created all things. This is something He has also shown you, which you actively suppress.

TOM: You you didn't actually mean that God specially created chickens themselves? Gotcha. I apologize for taking you too literally. I'm still interested to hear how you concluded this god created birds in general, though. You've also just upped the ante by claiming that he showed me this and that I am actively suppressing it (not sure what that means, exactly). Do I have amnesia? When was I shown this?

ME: God said He has made known His existence to every person through the things He created. Not only that, but He has shown you His nature as well. He has done this to such a degree that you will be held accountable for this knowledge. When you decided you didn't want Him in your knowledge then you suppressed this revelation and now you actively campaign against Him to justify your unbelief. Give me one proof that God does not exist and that molecules-to-man evolution has occurred. Just one thing that's not based on made-up stuff.

TOM: This god said and did all that? Where? When? And I never said that your 'no gods' exist, Greg. I don't believe that. I will positively say that "molecules-to-man" evolution indeed has never occurred because that concept doesn't make any sense. Evolution is a function of biodiversity. It only deals with living organisms.

ME: Does God exist?

TOM: Which one? Yahweh? El? I don't believe so. There's no evidence to that effect. Evidence actually indicates the opposite. A vague deistic or theistic concept of a god is of course, not associated with any such evidence. In short, I have no idea whether or not any gods exist. Nobody does. I think it very likely that specific gods do not exist, however (Thoth, Anubis, Hera, Zeus, Yahweh, Ba'al, Mithras, Poseidon, Hades, El, Amun, etc.).

ME: You are being coy. The God of the Bible. This is a Christian forum. The Almighty God. The Creator of all things. The One who has revealed Himself to you. The One who has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ.

TOM: Which god of the Bible? There are more than one. And I'm still waiting to hear when I was supposed to have met had this being revealed to me.

ME: Do you believe in Him?

TOM: Who?

ME: See above.

TOM: Both Yahweh and El are identified in the Bible in different places as the supreme god over other gods. I'm just asking for clarification.

ME: I don't believe you are because it won't change your answer. The Bible reveals one God. Elohim, El-Shaddai, El-Elyon, YHWH, etc. Please stop being coy. Surely you are not on a Christian forum and yet ignorant of Christianity.

TOM: El and Yahweh were considered to be different gods at one point. See Deuteronomy 32:8-9. "When Elyon apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods; Yahweh's own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share." It states plainly that El divided up people into nations according to how many gods there were (we know from other Ancient Near Eastern sources that this refers to his seventy sons). Israel is stated to be the nation that Yahweh was given.

ME: You are incorrect. But that's understandable since you deny God, you will also, therefore, be unable to understand the Bible. But you said you didn't know if any gods exist and that no one does. That's an absolute knowledge claim. How do you know that no one knows if God exists or not?

TOM: What am I incorrect about? You're asking how I know that nobody knows something? Okay, fine. Maybe somebody has some kind of secret knowledge they haven't shared with the rest of us or are simply unable to demonstrate. I amend my statement to "No evidence has ever been presented to the world suggesting anyone knows whether gods exist".

ME: You made another absolute knowledge claim. How do you know no evidence has ever been presented?

TOM: If such evidence had ever been presented to the world then I could Google it in a heartbeat. This is like me asking you to prove that nobody has ever presented evidence for the existence of orcs.

ME: You keep making absolute knowledge claims, Tom, but you have no way of knowing the things you say. How do you get truth without God? BTW, orcs don't exist.

TOM: What does the existence or nonexistence of any god have to do with our ability to understand what is true?

ME: Well you keep making absolute knowledge claims about how no one knows, or no evidence has ever been presented, etc. I just wanted to know how YOU get truth without God. I know how I get truth. I'm asking you how YOU know truth.

TOM: We arrive at what is true through objective observation. We apportion degrees of confidence to truth claims based on the quality of that evidence.

ME: How do you evaluate the observation? Logic? Induction? How can you trust your senses? Are you infallible?

TOM: No, of course, I am not infallible. How can I trust my senses, though? Are you asking how I don't know whether I'm in the Matrix or something like that? I don't. I can only assume that I'm not, but can through independent verification, demonstrate that my senses are reliable within the context of the world I inhabit, even if that world is a computer simulation. I'll ask you the same question. How do you know that your senses are reliable?

ME: So you don't know that you're not in the Matrix?

TOM: No, of course, I can't know that for certain. Neither can you.

ME: There you go again making absolute knowledge claims. I know absolutely that I'm not in the Matrix and I know absolutely that neither are you. But you don't by your own admission. You have given up knowledge. Why would you expect anybody here to ever take you seriously as you cast doubt on our God's existence or that evolution is true or that the Bible says this or that when by your own admission you may be a brain in a vat?

TOM: That's right. Because there is absolutely no way you could know that unless you are truly omniscient. Under every possible circumstance, you would only have your own experiences and could never prove that they weren't part of a simulation. Please explain how you could possibly know that you are not in the Matrix.

ME: I'm not omniscient but God is. God reveals truth. You asked earlier what belief in God has to do with our ability to know what is true. You just answered your own question. Because without God you can't know anything at all. Why? Because you are not omniscient.

TOM: And how do you know that the "truth" revealed to you is not just part of the simulation?

ME: Because God revealed it. The exact same way you know it (but actively suppress it). The all-knowing God is my presupposition. And then I discover that that presupposition works perfectly. Everything else ends in absurdity... Like not being able to know you are not a brain in a vat, for example.

TOM: I'm asking how you know that God revealing something to you is not part of the simulation, Greg. It's like you didn't even read my comment.

ME: I answered you. Are you now telling me that it is absolutely impossible for God to reveal absolute truth?

TOM: No, Greg. I never said anything like that. Nor have you told me how you know that God revealing something to you (through the Bible, an email, a fuzzy feeling, a dream, etc.) is not part of the simulation.

ME: I'll tell you again. In my worldview God reveals truth. That's how you know truth. That's how I know truth. I don't know how God does it. I just know He does. Do you not know what a presupposition is? God reveals Himself to ANYONE that humbles themselves. You can know Him too. And have absolute certainty that you are not a brain in a vat. In fact, He'll reveal to you that you are greatly loved and a creature of incredible value, beauty, and talent. Submit to Him on your knees tonight and you will find a peace that passes understanding like every Christian on this forum has. I've given you a way for you to actually experience HOW I know some things absolutely. You, on the other hand, have given up knowledge completely not even being able to discern whether you are a brain in a vat or not.

TOM: Do you understand the concept of circular reasoning?

ME: Yes. You use it all the time. Do you understand presupposition?

TOM: Yes, obviously. I already told you that I presuppose that I'm not in the Matrix. Just like you do. And just like you, although I presuppose that, I cannot be completely sure of it. That's why it is a presupposition. This is not hard to understand.

ME: I did not say I presupposed I was not a brain in a vat. I said I know absolutely I'm not a brain in a vat. So I beg your pardon, it is not just like you. So I ask you again, how do you get ANY truth without God? You have given up knowledge.

TOM: Holy crap, dude. The same way that you do. We arrive at what is true through objective observation. We apportion degrees of confidence to truth claims based on the quality of that evidence.

ME: Not true. You have not arrived at anything that is true because you aren't omniscient. You only have a degree of certainty. But you can't know how much certainty because, well, you aren't omniscient. You don't know how much you don't know. Is it possible that you could learn one more thing that could overthrow everything you think you know?

TOM: I have to be omniscient to know anything...??? I know with absolute certainty that 2+5=7. Nothing could make me not know that. Do you agree?

ME: I'm using YOUR worldview. You don't know your not a brain in a vat. So how do you know 100% that math works like you think? How do you know you're not crazy? Or mistaken? You don't. Not in your worldview. If you aren't omniscient then you could always learn one more thing. That one more thing could overthrow what you thought you knew. You said yourself, I would have to be omniscient to know I wasn't a brain in a vat. You keep making absolute knowledge claims without any way of knowing anything. Your epistemology is fatally flawed and viciously circular. You have given up knowledge. How did you come to the idea that knowledge is gained through objective observation? Did you objectively observe that object observation was the way to knowledge? Or is that just some arbitrarily chosen neural pathway in your evolved brain that you prefer?

TOM: Are you just messing with me? Math cannot work multiple ways. 2+5=7. Always. Even if the universe did not exist, two plus five would still equal seven. Please tell me you understand this.

ME: BTW, I'm getting sleepy so I'm going to bed. Thanks for the conversation. I hope you got something out of it. If you will humble yourself, God will prove many things to you. God bless you and good night. But... There you go making absolute knowledge claims again when you might be a brain in a vat. LOL... Good night, Tom.

TOM: Why would I not be able to make absolute knowledge claims if I was a brain in a vat? Are you even thinking about any of this or just reading from Sye or Eric's script?

CHRISTIAN#1: Very good, Greg. Tom's worldview can't allow for knowledge, yet he'll rant about his knowledge continually. And... He fails to understand this basic idea of logic.

TOM: Knowledge is a collection of facts one is aware of. I have a lot of knowledge about a lot of things. So what are you talking about? What do I misunderstand about logic?

ME: Yes, CHRISTIAN#1, it is like the atheist that says he has morals. Of course, he has morals. God even says so. But he has no way to justify why he has the ones he has except arbitrariness. By his own worldview, he is just arbitrarily telling us which neural pathways in his supposedly evolved brain he prefers. In the same manner, Tom makes knowledge claims without realizing he has undermined his own basis for any knowledge. He cannot discern, in his own words, any objective reality at all. He may be in a simulation! Totally absurd. But that's all you get when you kick God out of your knowledge. He will oblige you and let you live your absurd life filled with contradictions.

[At this point Tom posts what he thinks will throw doubt on Scripture regarding the scientific classification of insects. Other Christians initiate responses & then Tom & I begin talking again.

CHRISTIAN#1: Are you aware we don't and never have equated "kind" with "family"? We say they get close, but never an actual equivocation. So all you blew up is a strawman.

TOM: I have heard it repeated that "kind" roughly correlates to "family" most of the time. I'm not saying anyone has claimed a firm line in the sand there.

CHRISTIAN#1: Keyword: "ROUGHLY". Keep in mind that the current taxonomy is purely arbitrary. There is no actual scientific test for what should belong in a family or genus or phylum. It's just a grouping of how Carl Linnaeus saw fit to group them. Any other criteria would have been just as valid. The Biblical kind does have a scientific test: can it or is there documentation of them being able to breed together? If so, same kind. If not, they aren't.

TOM: Well, modern phylogenetics no longer uses those terms (family, phylum). Only domain, genus, and species still have any meaning.

CHRISTIAN#1: You are aware that the entire "tree of life" and Evolutionary common ancestry is built upon the previous classification chart right?

CHRISTIAN#2: Could be family. Could be down to the species or genus. Your total lack of understanding of creationism is appalling since you claim to have studied/ believed in it.

ME: Tom could be wrong about all this. He's not sure he's not plugged into the Matrix (his words, not mine).

CHRISTIAN#2: I know. As an atheist, there's no basis for logic and there's no reason to trust that your chemical reactions and neuronal discharges are reliable at all. Anything but the God of the Bible. His/ Her excuses for unbelief are hysterical and easily knocked down. But for someone whose desire is to reject Him, any reason is a good one even if it's stupid.

TOM: And you cannot be sure of that, either, Greg.

CHRISTIAN#2: ^haha. And we're supposed to take him seriously

TOM: Christian#2, how is there no basis for logic? I'm not sure I even follow what you mean by that? And when you talk about chemical actions in the brain are you asking how I know that the reality I perceive is actually real? I can't know that. I have to presuppose it, just like you and everyone else does as well.

ME: Tom says I can't be sure of that. How does he know?

TOM: Please just think about it, Greg. How could any individual in any kind of reality actually know for certain that they are not in a simulation? every single thing they could think of that might indicate their experience is actually real could always just be part of that simulation. You reading the Bible, you getting a warm fuzzy feeling you think is God, you having a dream about God... all of it might just be part of the Matrix. You would have no way of knowing. I understood this basic epistemology years ago when I was a Christian.

ME: Tom, if we give you evidence, how will you evaluate it? With the same sensory input that you admit yourself doesn't help you to know if you're plugged into the Matrix? Can you not see how your own worldview is absurd?

TOM: I can observe evidence in the context of the reality I inhabit, Greg, even if that reality is ultimately a computer simulation. Just like you can. This has nothing to do with my so-called "worldview". It is just the most basic of epistemological axioms. Nobody escapes it.

ME: You have no basis for knowing anything. You are nothing more than electrochemical reactions.

TOM: And neither do you... That doesn't mean we have no basis for knowing anything. We call this non-sequitur, my friend.

ME: Says you who could be a brain in a vat. You make absolute knowledge claims yet admit you have no basis for knowing they're true. Welcome to atheism... absurdity.

TOM: And you could be a brain in a vat as well! You have not given one single explanation for how you know you are not. And I have never said any such thing. I am perfectly capable of making absolute knowledge claims and knowing with 100% certainty that they are true. Here are some basic examples of things I am absolutely certain of: 1. I exist. 2. 1+1=2 3. There is no such thing as a square circle.

ME: Another absolute knowledge claim from someone who has no absolute knowledge of anything.

TOM: I have absolute knowledge of many things, which I have told you something like the twenty times now.

ME: Are you a brain in a vat or not?

TOM: I have no idea. How could I or anyone else possibly know that?

ME: I rest my case.

CHRISTIAN#3: Hi Tom, do you as an atheist believe that when you die you will "experience" "nothingness" or "deadness" if you will?

[At this point Tom posts an animated GIF of a man shrugging his shoulders... for me]

TOM: Christian#3, no, I don't believe that. I don't even know what "nothingness" or "deadness" is even supposed to mean.

CHRISTIAN#3: Tom, what do you believe you will experience at death?

TOM: The same thing I experienced thousands of years before I was born. I won't exist. Therefore it makes no sense to talk about me experiencing anything.

ME: Unless of course, you are wrong about that. Which, by your own admission, could be true. You have no way of knowing.

TOM: Unless I am wrong about what?? The fact that nobody can know whether or not they are not just a brain in a vat? No, I am not wrong about that and it is impossible for me to be wrong about that. For the hundredth time, please stop shamelessly lying about what I am saying.

ME: I'm not lying. I'm using your own words. You said I can't know I'm not a brain in a vat. That's an absolute knowledge claim. How do you know that? Are you omniscient? Infallible? And if you are neither then it is logically impossible for you to know whether I can know if I'm a brain in a vat or not.

TOM: You said, "You said I can't know I'm a brain in a vat. That's an absolute knowledge claim." Correct. You said, "How do you know that?" Because it is logically axiomatic. If you were a brain in a vat experiencing a highly-advanced simulation, you would have no way to tell. That's the whole idea of the hypothetical "brain in a vat" epistemological exercise. You said, "Are you omniscient? Infallible? And if you are neither then it is logically impossible for you to know whether I can know if I'm a brain in a vat or not." What...?! You're saying that if I don't know EVERYTHING then I can't know ANYTHING? Are you even thinking about the things you are saying?

ME: You said, "If you were a brain in a vat, experiencing a highly-advanced simulation, you would have no way to tell." How do you know that? You said, "You're saying that if I don't know EVERYTHING then I can't know ANYTHING?" That's what you indicated to me. Let's say I ask you if 2+2 always equals 5. Let's say, just for the sake of argument you answer, yes. You go through your entire life thinking that. Then suddenly you learn one thing more... you are a brain in a vat and the simulation was purposefully deceiving you the entire time. So because you spent your entire life in a simulation, you had no idea that 2+2 actually equaled 4 all the time. So logically you must be omniscient to know anything absolutely to a 100% accuracy. You would also have to be infallible. So, you don't know you're not a brain in a vat. You have zero basis for knowing ANYTHING. i.e. Your worldview is absurd.

TOM: You said, "You said, 'If you were a brain in a vat, experiencing a highly-advanced simulation, you would have no way to tell.' How do you know that?" Are you serious right now? BECAUSE THAT'S THE WHOLE FREAKING IDEA OF THE MATRIX/BRAIN IN A VAT HYPOTHETICAL. A manufactured reality that the inhabitants have no way of knowing is not actually real. You said, "You said, 'You're saying that if I don't know EVERYTHING then I can't know ANYTHING?' That's what you indicated to me." You are a liar. I never said anything remotely like that. You said, "Let's say I ask you if 2+2 always equals 5. Let's say, just for the sake of argument you answer, yes. You go through your entire life thinking that. Then suddenly you learn one thing more... you are a brain in a vat and the simulation was purposefully deceiving you the entire time. So because you spent your entire life in a simulation, you had no idea that 2+2 actually equaled 4 all the time." Two plus two equaling four has ****NOTHING**** to do with whether anyone is a brain in a vat or not. Even if the universe did not exist, two plus two would still equal four. Therefore it is *****NOT POSSIBLE***** for a simulation to deceive someone into thinking 2+2=5. Greg said, "So logically you must be omniscient to know anything absolutely to a 100% accuracy. You would also have to be infallible." NO. No no no no. Like I just said, 2+2=4. I can know that **FOR CERTAIN** even if I don't know everything. Get that through your skull. Holy crap, man.

ME: Did you not tell me I would have to be omniscient to know if I was a brain in a vat?

TOM: Yes! But I DID NOT SAY that you would have to be omniscient to know anything at all.

ME: But I do know I'm not a brain in a vat.

TOM: How do you know that?

ME: God reveals truth. He is omniscient. He is infallible. He says He created all things. He cannot lie.

TOM: Even if I were to accept that you literally saw God appear in front of you and verbally tell you a bunch of stuff, how would you know that wasn't just part of a simulation you're in?

ME: That's YOUR worldview, dude. I don't live in the absurd worldview you hold to.

TOM: I asked you a question, dude.

ME: I answered.

TOM: Umm.... No, you didn't? I asked specifically how you could know that your experience of having anything revealed by God wasn't part of a simulation.

ME: OK. I'll retype it. God reveals truth. He is omniscient. He is infallible. He says He created all things. He cannot lie. That's how I know.

[At this point Tom posts an animated GIF of the character Squidward (from Sponge Bob Square Pants) removing his brain and throwing it in the trash can]

TOM: IF YOU SAW GOD COME TO YOUR HOUSE AND DO A BUNCH OF MIRACLES RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, HOW WOULD YOU ****KNOW**** THAT IT WASN"T JUST PART OF A SIMULATION?

ME: See above.

TOM: You are the most dishonest person I have ever met on the Internet. And I would have told you that as a Christian as well.

ME: How do you know what honesty is? You could be a brain in a vat.

TOM: How the heck would that affect my ability to know what honesty is????????

CHRISTIAN#2: Atheism is a self-refuting worldview. That's obvious.

ME: Tom, lather, rinse, repeat. Are you actually talking? Am I real? Is that a keyboard you are typing on? By your own admission, you don't know what is objectively real.

TOM: Christian#2, atheism is not a worldview. It is literally nothing more than the non-acceptance of any claims to the existence of gods. Greg, I cannot PROVE that my keyboard is real. Neither can you. That does not mean I cannot know anything, for the billionth time.

CHRISTIAN#2: Tom hates God and wants to spread that around. He's got no actual evidence-based rationale for that (although he'll say he does and give lame, totally explained for hundreds of years nonsensical reasons). He's delusional and can't even see how absurd his own worldview is (because that would require he change it). Tom, not a worldview? You must be joking.

TOM: Christian#2, what is absurd about my so-called "worldview"? Be specific. If I need to correct myself on anything, I want to do that.

CHRISTIAN#2: Right. It's been explained. Perhaps Greg was talking over your head.

ME: Tom says, "Neither can you." That's your world of absurdity, not mine. I know what's objectively real because God reveals truth. I happen to agree with Him. You don't. You'd rather accept the absurdity of possibly being in a simulation than accept the reality He has shown you. You have to suppress the truth in order to maintain your absurdity. That's why I keep pointing it out to you. We are not in the same boat. We don't have common starting points either. You hate God. I don't. You call Him a liar. I refuse to. It is actually very simple.

CHRISTIAN#2: Tom, Greg has taken you to school repeatedly and the funny thing is you have absolutely no idea.

CHRISTIAN#4: None so blind than he that refuses to see. Tom can't even see his own contradiction.

CHRISTIAN#3: Christian#4, yes and there really are no contradictions when one's source of authority/logic is subjectively based as is Tom's. I'll be praying for him

[Tom disappears.]