[Response To Gentry's Analysis of the Full Preterist View...]

[GENTRY] Third, the hyper-preterist system leaves the New Covenant Christian (in our post A.D. 70 era) without a canon. If all prophecy was fulfilled prior to A.D. 70 and if the entire New Testament spoke to issues in the pre-A.D. 70 time frame, we do not have any directly relevant passages for us. The entire New Testament must be transposed before we can use it.

Third. The full preterist view does not render the NT Scriptures irrelevant to Christians after AD 70. Nor do full preterists teach that all prophecy has been totally fulfilled with absolutely no continuing implications, applications and ongoing fulfillments. This is a gross misrepresentation and misunderstanding of the full preterist view. This would indeed be “post-everything-ism” and “hyper-preterism.”

In many of His parables and discourses, Jesus taught what life would be like in the kingdom when it arrived. The church only had the “earnest” and “seal” of their kingdom inheritance during that transitional generation (AD 30-70). If anything, we in the post-70 period have a more relevant and applicable revelation. We are now in the kingdom. The full inheritance is here. All the things Jesus, Paul and the other apostles taught about the kingdom now apply fully to us. Several prophetic passages have ongoing fulfillment in the kingdom (i.e. Ezek. 47:1-12 and Rev. 21:24–22:5).

Gentry is the one who has a problem with kingdom passages being relevant to us today if Matt. 5:17-19 is still in force. That passage implies that the kingdom would not arrive until the present “heaven and earth” passed away. Gentry believes that the “heaven and earth” mentioned in Matt. 5:17ff are still here, so in order to be consistent, he would have to believe that the kingdom (mentioned in that text) has not arrived yet either, and that all the kingdom principles taught by Jesus and others are not yet relevant for us. He must still believe that every jot and tittle of the Law is still binding upon us until “heaven and earth” passes away. The theonomist interpretation of Matt. 5:17-19 is the one which “leaves the New Covenant Christian without” any “directly relevant passages.” They are the ones who relegate full NT relevancy to a still future period and still bind us under the OT sacrificial system. They are taking us in the opposite direction away from full NT relevancy. It is that interpretation which forces us to “transpose the entire NT before we can use it.” Other Reformed theologians who are not theonomists have made that very charge against them. Full preterists are the ones who take Ezek. 47; Rev. 21-22; Jesus’ Kingdom parables and Paul’s Kingdom teaching, and construct a fully relevant NT plan of redemption and eschatology. We are advocating full relevance of NT kingdom principles, while theonomists cannot consistently do so. According to them, we are still saddled with the OT “jots and tittles” until the physical “heaven and earth” pass away. Who is really robbing us of a fully relevant NT canon?