Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry,
and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. John 6:35

What is the Preterist position?

We, at Grace Church, teach that the preterist view of the book of Revelation is the most biblically accurate understanding of that last book of the Bible.

Most people in the church today have never heard of the preterist position regarding the book of Revelation. Actually, that position was the majority position of the church until the mid-nineteenth century. According to the preterist position, Revelation is a letter of comfort written to first century Christians by the Apostle John about 63-64 AD. It is encouraging them that even though they will be persecuted by the Romans and by the unbelieving Jews, God is in charge and He will judge both the Romans and the Jews. The preterist position is that the judgments detailed in Revelation are prophecies of the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. They are not future events (in the sense of being future to our time). The term preterit refers to an action that has occurred in the past. In other words, everything in Revelation except for the very end of chapter 22 has already taken place!

 Like most Christians today, my original position on Revelation was that it was about events that were to occur shortly before the end of time. In 1990, my congregation at Covenant Community Church in Bakersfield, CA challenged me to teach the book of Revelation. In preparation for that class, I read all of the Old Testament references in Revelation. I read the entire context of the references and was astonished to find that the majority of them were speaking of the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD! As I continued to study, I became more convinced that John’s letter was not about still future events, but was about “things which must shortly take place” (Revelation 1:1 and 22:6). It was a letter of comfort to those “who (would read) and hear the words of the prophecy…for the time is near” (Revelation 1:3 and 22:10).

 The preterist position is the only one I have found that has a consistent explanation of the prophecies of Revelation. When we study the book with an Old Testament worship background, the strange symbols begin to make sense. When we recognize that the letter was written with meaning for the first century Christians, everything begins to fall into place.

If you like to study this subject in more, simply follow this and you can read a transcript of my class on Revelation.  

Pastor Dave