Since we have cleaned house, so to speak, and since I am completely free from certain quarters of criticism, which is a breath of fresh air, I wanted to write this little blog in what may be one of my last responses of this sort, with this sort.
We have not heard from the opponents concerning Dr. Birks and his justification for his IBD view. Remember, this view is that the body of the believer is in no way “raised from the dead.” The “soul” of the believer is “clothed” with a brand new body from heaven. Birks, recently, justified this view as being orthodox: “my view of the resurrection is within the boundries of reformed opinion because the end result is the same. Whether it’s a body out of the ground or an indivdual body out heaven, the result is that persistency of personality (the saved human spirit) is housed in a Christ like individual body. Being “reformed” does not…does not mean that you must hold to a simple static view of a doctrine. As long as the perameters of the meaning remain the same (in their results) it can be acceptable within reformed constitution” (Preterism Debate site). I showed that this cannot possibly be the case, and cannot possibly be argued from the Westminster Confession.
The Confession was very clear as to the manner of resurrection of the body, and the nature. However, no one, to my knowledge, has come forward to rebut this idea on our opponents side. We have to assume, then, that this truly is no big deal with them.
In the book, House Divided, we showed where several prominent Reformed theologians view the Church as in the “Age to Come”, which completely contradicts the historic confession that we “look forward to the age to come.” I have also noted that the Chalcedonian Creed views the Church as living “in these last days”, written well past A.D. 70. We now have a current view, called Realized Preterism, which posits that the Second Coming in not future, but “already began” in A.D. 70 and stretches throughout Church History, culminating in the bodily, visible return of the Lord. All of these elements are found within our most vocal opponents’ views – and they claim that they are still “orthodox” and in step with “2,000 years of Church History.”
Let’s, then, put this together:
According to them, the “last days” ended in A.D. 70, contradicting, Chalcedon. We are in the Age to Come, contradicting the Nicene Creed. The Second Coming is not wholly future, but “began” in A.D. 70, contradicting every known creed and confession. The resurrection of the dead does not have to imply the resurrection of dead bodies, but only of souls getting new bodies, contradicting every known Creed and Confession. Get all of that?
The major victory is that the “Church History” argument, the “orthodox” argument, and the “nature” of the resurrection argument are all smashed when they attempt to use these slogans against us. Full Preterism has made such a force upon our “orthodox” opponents that they have unwittingly accomodated unorthodox and unhistoric elements into their own “orthodox” (so called) and “historic” (so called) eschatology! They cannot possibly wave the flag of orthodoxy any longer.
This is not meant to imply that the true orthodox view, those in total agreement with the Creeds and Confessions, cannot still raise that flag. But, those more orthodox flag raisers would have to raise it against this group, as well. In short, this argument, as far as I am concerned, has been demolished. The tide has turned. A new day has arisen!
Now, of course, we have a long way to go. Many see the fallacy of appeal to history, and go straight to the real issues in the Bible, namely, the resurrection of the dead. The Church History argument is an easy hurdle for some, but the biblical issue, tied to proper exegesis, is the real deal. The Bible can be made to appear as if it teaches a resurrection of dead bodies. I stress, “can be made to appear”. I don’t believe it does teach this. I don’t think a deeper reading of it teaches this at all, but, in fact, as history DOES demonstrate, and as any academic scholar I have read would readily admit, the idea of dead bodies being reunited with souls runs into numerous problematic issues within OT and NT interpretation. That is, it is an easy subject to read on the surface, as I did growing up, that “obviously” and “clearly” I Corinthians 15 teaches the resurrection of individual, physical bodies that died at sea, in the tomb, or on land. The problem is, when you start reading Schweitzer, Bultmann, Cullman, Dodd, and many, many others, and, when you start learning to translate Greek, reading the technical commentaries, the “details” used to support such an “obvious” doctrine become not-so-clear anymore. There are noted problems with this view when it comes to interpreting the NT text on a deeper level.
But, that’s what we look forward to. For now, I am just basking in the victory. One battle at a time, folks. That’s all this old man can handle.
