This quote by Siegle shows the delusions that Preterists continue to face. Making the New Heavens and Earth or Age to Come Temporal. How can something spiritual "a dwelling place for the righteous 2 Pet. 3:13" be a temporal historic period of time where ALL men dwell, as Siegle maintains "began in A.D. 70."? I would agree with Siegle in that the new is in complete fulfillment of the old, but the old is representative of the earthly and fleshly things. So unless, the old completely passes, which includes the old man, the flesh, bondage to sin and death, ect., how can he maintain a complete past fulfillment of things which are spiritual in nature. Last time I checked, there are still people living to the fleshly things in the old man which is represented by the old covenant. The old has always been a visible representation of the flesh, and was not somehow gone after 70ad. It continues to be fulfilled and consummated as people continue to die to the old man. If the type are visible natural things does that mean the antitypes (which Preterist see as the destruction of Jerusalem) are visible natural things which begin and end in history? Impossible. The antitypes must be invisible non-natural things and by no means temporal events.
Eschatology to me is about the nature of ones heart. I do not place any dispensational line in 30 or 70ad which separates the old from the new unlike the Preterist view. I believe the line is only in Christ. In my opinion of the teaching of the gospel, I believe it has to do with a process of moving from darkness to light, from old man to new man, from a covenant of death, to a covenant of life, from earthly to heavenly, from this age to the age to come, from this present heavens and earth to the new heavens and earth, part of a unbelieving generation, or part of the faithful generation, part of the present Jerusalem, or the Jerusalem above. All symbols of your heart and reflective who you are serving and if you are born again.
This is not a Preterist view nor a Futurist view which both take eschatological events and make them temporal (based on historic events), which are all external in nature. As Stevens says are mere "past events" as if eschatology was all about history 101. To me this is no different than seeing the cross as a mere past event. A historical fact which is a very legalistic view of scripture in my opinion. It fails you and me, because, the Cross, is mine and yours to bare just like Jesus bore it. A historical fact has no power within me, unless, I also bare it, and die. It is only through death that all things become new.
To me saying any of the old things passed away in a historical period of time, places ALL including the ungodly in the new thing (fill in the blank) no matter if it is in 30ad or 70ad, the implications are the same. And the truth is unless I have personally taken up my cross, I can not be freed from my sin. So the historical fact, is all well and good, but unless the spiritual truths which it points to manifest within me, the cross is utterly useless. It would seem to me that nature is the essence of eschatology rather than time which has become the focal point among Preterists.
Larry Siegle
Some preterists have taken the view to an extreme insisting that almost everything ended in A.D. 70 without coming to a better understanding of what began in A.D. 70. The “New Heavens and a New Earth” represents the full and complete fulfillment of the “old” and the bringing in of all the good things that God has promised would characterize the “new.”
http://preterist.wordpress.com/2007/11/27/preterist-spirituality-is-preterist-idealism-the-answer/
