The Allurement of Hymenaen Preterism:The Rise of “Dispensable Eschatology” by Jim West

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A fellow pastor of a Reformed congregation informs me that a recent visitor to his congregation was encouraged to sign the guest book. When the service was over and the congregation disbanded, he peered at the guest book and noted the signature of the visitor, followed by a most unusual appendage: his name followed by the word “preterist.” The visitor could have saved the minister a lot of time from searching the dictionary for the meaning of the word had he signed his name “Hymenæus” instead of “preterist.”

What is a “preterist?” And who was Hymenæus? The word “preterist” is a grammatical term describing what is “past.” Thus, if our interpretation of the Book of Revelation is that most, if not all, the book is fulfilled, we would be “preterists.” Or, if our interpretation of the first 34 verses of Matthew 24 saw their fulfillment in the A. D. 70 coming of Christ, we would subscribe to the preterist interpretation. However, in recent years a new expression of preterism has emerged that assigns the Second Coming or Parousia of Christ, the general Resurrection, and the Great White Throne Judgment to the past. In other words, there are no future prophetic events. According to this scenario, time will continue on this terrestrial ball forever. Both sin and the earth are everlasting. At death the soul of the believer passes into the presence of God and the soul of the unbeliever (presumably) to judgment–both to be disembodied spirits forever. The advocates of these ideas call themselves “consistent preterists” over against the “inconsistent preterists,” who, it is claimed, fail to face the implications of their position. The so-called “consistent preterist” holds that the Second Coming of Christ occurred in A. D. 70, and that the resurrection occurred when Israel was spiritually quickened. Some “consistent preterists” will even claim to be Calvinistic in their soteriology. Consequently, Christians who truly love the doctrines of grace may be taken unawares. There will be the temptation to treat bygones as bygones, to minimize the colossal differences. This amalgamation-temptation threatens to compromise the historic creeds of the church, especially such vital Christian teachings as the resurrection.

The Centrality of the Resurrection

The cardinal doctrine of the New Testament is the resurrection. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that if Christ be not raised up, our faith is vain, our preaching is vain, and we are of all men most miserable. Paul’s thrust is that a dead Christ cannot save and that the church cannot have communion with a Christ who is still in the throes of death. Christ was raised from the dead in order to justify us ( Rom. 4:25 ). Most significantly, it was by Christ’s resurrection that He “was declared to be the Son of God with power. . .” ( Rom. 1:4 ). The resurrection is not only a blazing advertisement for the verity of Christianity, but the supreme attestation to the Deity of Christ Himself. If there is no resurrection, there is no Christianity. Scripture even teaches that salvation itself is a resurrection ( Jn. 5:24 ). The purpose of Christ’s resurrection was to justify the whole man–body and soul. Even the new birth is actually a metaphor for the resurrection instead of the resurrection a metaphor for the new birth. Our labor is based on the bodily resurrection of Christ too. We are animated to work because of the resurrection ( 1 Cor. 15:58 ). Our work ethic is not only the (proverbial) “Protestant Work Ethic,” but “the Resurrection Work Ethic.” This is why we abound in the work of the Lord. Our very redemption is portrayed as the redemption of our bodies ( Rom. 8:23 ).

What about Hymenæus?

The “consistent preterists” (as they charitably define themselves) deal with the resurrection in a manner that parallels two apostolic personalities. We refer to Hymenæus and Philetus, whom Paul names in 2 Timothy 2:17. These men were apparently church members (they “named the name of Christ”– verse 17. ). They were resurrection preterists and probably preterists in regard to the Second Coming of Christ, too. Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 2:18 about their belief that “the resurrection is already past.” How could they have been afforded some prestige in the church?

For starters, they no doubt arrived at this conclusion sometime after their profession of faith in Christ. Thus, they were members in good standing in the church. In addition, they may have been leaders in the church, perhaps even elders or pastors. What is more, they did affirm and confess the resurrection! The resurrection was an important article of their faith that perhaps they would even have died for. They would confess their whole-hearted agreement with the “Blessed Hope” of the Second Coming and the promise of the resurrection. Upon being questioned about their views, they would argue that their faith is the same faith as the church as a whole, except for their exotic belief that the resurrection is “already past.”

What did they mean when they taught that the “resurrection is already past”? First, their error was not that the resurrection of Christ was “past.” Recognition that the resurrection of Christ was an historical event is not heresy. Had Hymenæus denied the past resurrection of Christ he would have been guilty of an obvious deviation from Biblical truth. One reason is every sermon in the Book of Acts exalts the resurrection of the flesh of Christ. The Apostle Peter provided a homiletic precedent for all future sermons by citing the second Psalm and its teaching about the resurrection of Christ’s “flesh” ( Ac. 2:31 ). So this could not have been his error.

If Hymenæus meant that the bodily resurrection of the believer is “already past,” he would have been speaking nonsense, for he himself would have been bodily resurrected. It is possible that he might have referred to the individuals who were resurrected on the very day that Jesus was crucified ( Mt. 27:51-53: ). However, since 1 Corinthians 15 and other resurrection-Scriptures were written long after that, the probability of this is zero.

The interpretation with the most distinct ring of truth is that he embraced the idea that the Christian’s spiritual resurrection is past or that Israel’s spiritual resurrection is past. Therefore he argued that there was no future, bodily resurrection for believers (or even unbelievers).

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The Allurement of Hymenaen Preterism: The Rise of “Dispensable Eschatology” by Jim West | Reformed Theology and Apologetics

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The interpretation with the most distinct ring of truth is that he embraced the idea that the Christian’s spiritual resurrection is past or that Israel’s spiritual resurrection is past. Therefore he argued that there was no future, bodily resurrection for believers (or even unbelievers).

Reasons for Hymenæn Preterism

Why did Hymenæus and Philetus argue that the resurrection was past? The first reason is that they no doubt had a low view of the body–perhaps thinking of the body as a kind of shell for the more important spirit. This is the old error of Platonism that taught that the “body is the prison of the soul.” If the body is the prison of the soul, that does not forebode good things about the body; neither does it envision any future resurrection of that “prison.” The very word “prison” is inflammatory; couched in modern terms, we could ask why anyone would want to resurrect Alcatraz so that he might once again occupy cellblock 25?! This is how they viewed the body: as cellblock 25. Scripture teaches that it is the grave that is the real prison–not the body. The pathetic Greek view of the body was influenced not only by Gnostic thinking which despised matter as evil, but also by a confounding of the good and the sinister usages of the word “flesh” in the New Testament ( Gal. 5:19; Ac. 2:30-31 ). Its modern equivalent is those who despise the body, such as monastics, or those who mistreat their bodies by the neglect of the right foods or exercise or over-indulgence, such as gluttons and drunkards. An old expression of this contempt for the body is the doctrine that our souls preexisted before our bodies. The idea here is that the body was made only to house the all-important soul. A recent expression of contempt for the body was the thirty-nine self-murderers in Rancho Sante Fe who wanted to be liberated from their bodies to reach the “next level.” They justified the exit of their spirits by demeaning their bodies as mere “containers.”

“Consistency”

The second attraction of Hymenænism is that it is ostensibly consistent (given the erroneous premise that the Second Coming of Christ has already occurred). Scripture does teach that the Second Coming and the resurrection of the body are simultaneous events ( 1 Cor. 15:23 ). In this passage Paul writes, “But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.” If the only coming of Christ is His A.D. 70 spiritual coming, then the resurrection must have occurred then too. Hymenæns are therefore compelled to merge Christ’s Second Coming at the end of human history with his A.D. 70 coming. Virtually all of the “comings” of Christ in the New Testament are seen through Hymenæn glasses.

The new Hymenæn view parallels the Hymenænism of Paul’s day except that we know more about its details. The new Hymenaens do teach the Second Coming of Christ and the general Judgment during the last days. There is the “up-front” declaration that these doctrines are true–but again with the caveat that they are “already past.” Some Hymenæns even assert that all the eschatology of the Bible is fulfilled and “all is perfect” in the New Testament era–a statement that exudes a tinge of Christian Science and naivete.

Overreaction to Dispensationalism

The third attraction of Hymenænism stems from an overreaction to dispensationalism, together with its esoteric charts and graphs, which include one false prediction after another. The church has been listening to the voices of Darby, Scofield, Hal Lindsey, Dave Hunt, Ryrie, Jack Van Impe, and Chafer, etc., for over 150 years. Whereas the hallmark of dispensationalism is elaborate charts and comic-book scenarios of the future, the Hymenaens have no charts at all. For them there is nothing to think about; all prophecy is fulfilled–no charts at all. Life is easy. Eschatology is the easiest of all. They peer into the future and see nothing. They speak of all prophecy as “fulfilled eschatology.” One Hymenæn writer even tells us that the “hope of the resurrection” is an “empty” hope and an empty expectation, and that with regard to the future the Christian turns over the next leaf “and there is nothing.” Amazingly, the followers of Hymenæus have chosen to combat dispensational eschatology with an eschatology that dispenses with eschatology!

One more should do it