Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig.

For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonable faith.org.

In our discussion of the doctrine of the last things, we've been looking at the second coming of Christ.

And we began by looking at views that posited multiple

comings of Christ. Last time, we looked at the so-called rapture view and saw its biblical

deficiencies. Today, we want to turn to a second interpretation that also holds to multiple comings of Christ.

This is the so-called preterist view. You may have heard from your English teacher

when she taught you English grammar something about the past preterate tense. The tense of a sentence

communicates that something is past when it's in the preterate tense. And this is what the

preterist thinks with regard to the second coming of Christ. Preterism says that the coming of Christ predicted by Jesus

in the Olivet discourse has already occurred. According to the preterist, the coming of the son of man,

that Jesus predicted in the Olivet discourse has in fact already occurred.

It occurred in AD 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem.

With that event, the Son of Man was enthroned in heaven.

This view was defended by the notable New Testament scholar, G.B. Cared, and also by the late

RT France, a fine New Testament scholar, and most notably perhaps, today by N.T. Wright, a very well-known

and highly respected New Testament scholar. According to this interpretation, the events of the

Olivet discourse that Jesus predicted are not end-time events

at all. Rather, these predictions were fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 by the Roman legions. The descriptions of the great tribulation that Jesus

refers to was in fact the horror of the Roman siege of Jerusalem, which as we know from

descriptions from the Jewish historian Josephus really was

indeed terrifying. It was a horrible siege as people began to cannibalize one another, even

...