More on the Preterist View of Revelation

A careful reader pointed out that the preterist view is not "one size fits all." There are "full" preterists and "partial" preterists. The latter are more common. The website http://www.therefinersfire.org/preterism.htm has a couple of helpful paragraphs on this.

So, in the previous entry on this topic, I started from the end of Revelation and began to work backward. We definitively showed that chapters 21 and 22 are yet future. This makes the full preterist view completely untenable. I had also continued working back to chapter 20 and showed that the imprisonment of Satan has not yet occurred. This alone would seem to negate the partial preterist view, if it takes Rev. 20 as already fulfilled or at least being fulfilled in the church age. But furthermore, the kingdom, of whatever length you take it to be, has not happened either. One might argue that Christ is reigning in his kingdom now, but it is hard to find resurrected saints reigning with Him anywhere. Finally, the Great White Throne judgment has not yet occurred.

We briefly stated last time also that Revelation 19 refers to the second coming of Jesus Christ. It is manifestly Him who alone can be called "Faithful," "True," and "The Word of God." Orthodox believers confess that a fundamental of the Christian faith is the second coming of Christ. Normal interpretation of the words of this passage show it refers to the second coming. It can be correlated with Matthew 24:29-31. It seems so obvious as to not need stating that Christ has not yet returned. I can only conclude that Rev. 19 refers to events yet future.

The preterist interpreter may quibble with some of these points, or may bring up others such as the marriage supper or other events that he thinks happened already. But so far, all the major events point to future fulfillment. It is safe to conclude that God is painting a picture through John of what He has decreed for the end of times.