Category Archives: Eternity

THE DANGER OF SPIRITUALIZING THE ASCENSION

Ascension, Eternity, hyperpreterism, Resurrection August 18, 2026 Leave a comment

PMW 2026-063 Gerrit Scott Dawson

Gentry note:

The following is excerpted from Dawson’s excellent study: Gerrit Scott Dawson, Jesus Ascended: The Meaning of Christ’s Continuing Incarnation (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R, 2004), pp 146–47. I highly commend this book as a counter to hyper-preterism’s etherealizing Jesus resurrection body as he ascends into heaven. The continuing incarnation of Jesus (rather than a thirty-year incarnation) has also been held by orthodox Christians.

Dawson writes:

The balance required for properly loving the world as part of the mission for Christ without being co-opted by the world in its resistance to God has never been easy to maintain…. [As one example Dawson warns against “withdrawal from the world,” as follows:]

First, the church has always had a tendency to withdraw from this fallen, violent, broken world. Even after the resurrection, Peter and John went back to fishing until Jesus met them on the shore (John 21;3). Perhaps they thought the risen Jesus had simple departed, leaving them on their own. That would have been an ascension without any hope of return. But Jesus corrected their understanding as he gave them the mission of feeding his lambs (John 21:15), being his witnesses to all the earth (Acts 1:8) and making new disciples (Matt 28:18). In these descriptions of Jesus’ giving the disciples a mission to enact in the world, we also hear of promises he left them. The departing Jesus is he who said “I am with you always’ (Matthew 28:20), who assured the disciples that he would come again (John 12;22i–3) and of whom the angels said ‘This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven’ (Acts 1:11). The absence and the presence are always maintained so that the church is sent into the world with hope. Continue reading →

THE EMBODIED PERSON

Eternity, Intermediate Estate, Resurrection November 18, 2025 Leave a comment

PMW 2025-091 by Gregg Allison

Gentry note:
This article is found on the “Christ Over All” website. It is a helpful study of Christian anthropology and the importance of the material body in defining human life and countering the neo-Gnosticism of Hyper-preterism. Allison is professor of Christian theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is secretary of the Evangelical Theological Society.

Gregg Allison article:
The Embodied Person: Why I Am My Body, Not Just My Soul

Theological anthropology focuses on the doctrine of humanity and explores such topics as the nature and origin of human beings and the image of God. Historically, much discussion has been dedicated to the soul, or immaterial aspect of human nature, with little or no attention given to the body, or material aspect.[1] This essay proposes that the proper state of human beings is embodiment and seeks to rectify some of the historical and (even) contemporary oversight of embodiment. It will pursue this thesis—which I will call the “embodied person” view—by some close interaction with a contemporary theologian, Joshua Farris, and his fine work An Introduction to Theological Anthropology.[2] Both of us hold that humans are composed of soul and body but we emphasize different aspects of that dualist human constitution: Farris, the immaterial; I, the material. Continue reading →

STAND FIRM IN THE RESURRECTION HOPE (1)

Eternity, Resurrection April 29, 2025 Comments: 9

PMW 2025-033 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

In 1 Corinthians 15:58, we reach Paul’s argumentative conclusion to 1 Corinthians. This verse closes out the great resurrection chapter upon which Paul exhorts: “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you” (NIV). Standing firm on the resurrection has been the historic commitment of orthodox Christianity for 2000 years. However, recently not only has liberalism undercut the resurrection, but so has the semi-cultic hyper-preterist movement.

Unfortunately, the hyper-preterist movement, as Hal Lindsey may have expressed it (until his recent change of eschatology), is alive and well on Planet Earth. It is actively at work rejecting and/or re-working long-held eschatological doctrines, but not silently and in a corner. Rather they do so activistically publicly promoting their various (growing number of) heresies. This tragedy has arisen due to a very prideful error: the replacing of sola Scriptura (Scripture alone) with solo Scriptura (I alone am the interpreter of Scripture). “I know more than the church of all ages; I do not have to stand on the shoulders of giants.”

Defining hyper-preterism is difficult in some respects. This is because there are several main camps with widely divergent views of crucial defining features. But at the very heart of the matter, hyper-preterists are (in one way or another) rejecting three of the key issues highlighted in biblical eschatology: (1) the future, bodily second coming of Christ, (2) the material, eternal, bodily resurrection of the dead, and (3) the final judgment of all men that ends history. These are the very issues a group of theological friends of Gary DeMar put to him, seeking a simple yes or no answer regarding whether or not he accepted them. He declined to answer with a yes or no.
Continue reading →

MATTHEW 22, MARRIAGE, AND ETERNITY

Age(s) (Two Ages), Eternity, New Creation April 25, 2025 1 Comment

PMW 2025-032 by Michael Allen

Gentry note:

The following discussion is taken from Michael Allen’s contribution to Michael Whittmer, ed., Four Views on Heaven published by Zondervan and available on Amazon. I found this material on pages 124–25 helpful as I am working on my Two Ages book. I will be dealing with Matthew 22 and Jesus’ rebuke of the Sadducees regarding marriage and eternity. You will have to see the book to get the full text and footnotes.

Michael Allen writes:

It has been asked: How will we relate to our spouses and other family members? Will there be marriage, sex, or family units in our final state? Will we remain gendered, and if so, will we wear clothes? It may be helpful to begin reflection elsewhere, to use this question as a teaching moment for a wider principle. Likely no text has so generated eschatological speculation as has Isaiah 60:5, 9 with its reference to the ships of Tarshish bringing treasures into the storehouse of Zion. Many that here is warrant for confidence that the aesthetic or productive triumphs of society will persist into the eschaton. Labor invested in earthly affairs has value not only for today but bright hope for tomorrow too. Continue reading →