What Others Say

Because this is new to many Christians, we will list a few statements from other believers. We will get a bit ahead of our topic with these quotes, which include a few matters that we will discuss further below.

John Owen, in his sermon to the British Parliament (The Advantage of the Kingdom of Christ in the Shaking of the Kingdoms of the World, available at www.ccel.org/ccel/owen) commented on Matt 24:29:

Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened and the moon shall not give her light and the stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of heaven shall be shaken. The Judicial state, in all the height and glory of it, was utterly consumed; so that all flesh, all the Jews, were in danger of utter destruction. (Referring to 70AD).

John Gill, famous Evangelical commentator and mentor of Charles Spurgeon, wrote much on these matters. We have just a line here. On Mark 13:26 Gill noted:

And then shall they see the Son of man, etc. Not in person, but in the power of His wrath and vengeance; of which the Jews then (in 70AD) had a convincing evidence. (Commentary on Mark).

The well known Evangelical commentator Adam Clarke said on Matt 24:30:

Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man. The plain meaning of this is, that the destruction of Jerusalem will be such a remarkable instance of divine vengeance, such a signal manifestation of Christ's power and glory, that all the Jewish tribes shall mourn and many will, in consequence of the manifestation of God, be led to acknowledge Christ and his religion.

By ‘land’, in the text, is evidently meant here, as in several other places, the land of Judea and its tribes, either its then inhabitants, or the Jewish people wherever found. (Commentary on Matthew).

Bishop John Lightfoot (not the liberal Lightfoot, but John of the 17th Century) was a signatory of the Westminster Confession and he held to the same view on Matthew 24. You can find his works easily on the Internet. He wrote much on the topic.

There are many more authors in our current day that could be listed here, including Kenneth Gentry and Gary DeMar. See DeMar’s books End Times Fiction and Last-days Madness. Jay Adams is a respected Christian author today. He has written two books on these issues that are worth reading; Time Is At Hand and Preterism: Orthodox or Unorthodox?

Preterism comes from the Latin root for past. Preterists claim that prophecy has been fulfilled. We hold to partial preterism, meaning some prophecies are fulfilled, but the final prophecies about Christ Second Coming and the resurrection have not yet been fulfilled. We write more on this in our next chapter.

Marcellus Kik, John Lightfoot, Jay Adams, Kenneth Gentry, Andrew Sandlin, C. Jonathin Seraiah, Richard Pratt, David Chilton, Gary North, Rousas Rushdoony, Lorraine Boettner, Adam Clarke all interpret Matt 24:31 as the destruction of Jerusalem, none of whom are full preterists.