Preterism is something that I personally had not heard of until about 5 years ago. It has become more popular in recent years and many reputable people hold to a partial or full preterist view. Some are Hank Hanegraaf, Gary Demar, and many others.
Preterism is a variant of Christian eschatology which holds that some or all of the biblical prophecies concerning the Last Days or End Times refer to events which actually happened in the first century after Christ’s birth. The term preterism comes from the Latin praeter, meaning “past”. Adherents of Preterism are known as Preterists. The two principal schools of Preterist thought are commonly called Partial Preterism and Full Preterism.
In the Word of God something we that would somewhat seem relevant to this teaching is when Hymenaeus is mentioned by name twice in Scripture (1 Timothy 1:20; 2 Timothy 2:17) — named in connection with Alexander (the coppersmith) and also Philetus. The apostle Paul denounced him as a blasphemer. Scripture does not fully describe his heresy, but apparently Hymenaeus denied the future physical resurrection of the born again (2 Timothy 2:17-18), as taught by Jesus Christ (John 5:25-29) and Paul (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). He claimed, instead, that the believer’s “resurrection” only happens in a spiritual sense, occurring at the moment one is born again. This heresy was apparently taught by the Nicolaitanes.
So this is my question-If we meet a Christian today that believes the essentials of the Faith- (the authority of Scripture, the existence of a triune God, Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit - Christ/Who is fully God and fully man - was sent to save the elect from our bondage of sin, and other things that can be affirmed by the Word of God.) but hold to a different eschatalogical position, can we say they are not saved? Now some as mentioned above are partial meaning they believe some of the events have already taken place and others say they believe Christ has already done all that is said would be done throughout the book of Revelation.
I personally think that if you are a Full Preterist that you have some serious explaining to do but I have not spent a whole lot of time studying this topic. Lionel and I are currently going through the presuppositions of Covenant Theology and Dispensationlism. At this time I do not believe in the “Rapture” and have recently decided to study this more in depth. So this may change-so don’t hold me to a position yet.
I would love to hear some insight on this topic from a Biblical perspective on what many of you think.
Here is the question again-Is Preterism Heresy?
Some information obtained from www.wikipedia.com
