Postmillennial Worldview

PMW 2025-095 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

Hyper-preterists often attempt to reinterpret verses dealing with “the resurrection of the body” (e.g., 1 Cor 15:42). They strive to draw a contrast between “the resurrection of the dead” and “the resurrection of the flesh.” This strained attempt to undermine the historic Christian belief in a physical resurrection is not helpful to their cause. Indeed, such is greatly mistaken.

The New Testament often speaks of actual physical resurrections of deceased people as being a resurrection of “the dead.” It can do so using various expressions for resurrection, while clearly speaking of a dead physical body’s arising to life again in this physical world. Note the following verses that speak of “the dead” without reference to “the flesh.” Yet these verses are clearly speaking of a body’s physical resurrection, which the historic, corporate, public, universal, systematic Christian faith has held for 2000 years to be a firm eschatological truth preparing us for our eternal consummate condition. Tragically the resurrection is being rejected today by hyper-preterism’s neo-Gnostic heresy. [1]

But now let us survey a number of verses affirming resurrection as being a physical resurrection of deceased people arising from the dead. Continue reading →

PMW 2025-092 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

Along with many evangelical Christian leaders, I am deeply concerned with the small, but growing number of people defecting from the orthodox Christian faith by adopting Hyperpreterism. Simultaneously though, I am greatly encouraged by the number of emails and personal contacts I receive from folks who say my writings had helped them escape the addiction of Hyperpreterism.

THE SAD PROBLEM

I often receive worried emails from family members having to endure the Hyperpreterism addiction in a loved one. One recent email lamented their spouse’s attraction to Hyperpreterism. The writer asked how they might best be able to respond to their spouse’s theological error. Continue reading →

PMW 2025-058 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

Introduction
Hyper-preterism in all of its various, warring branches is heretical at its very core. By “hyper-preterism” I am not limiting the concept to what is known as “full preterism” or “consistent preterism.” Such a definition is a common maneuver by hyper-preterists who are not absolutely and fully preterist in every single detail. By doing this, they can claim: “I am not a FULL preterist,” thinking that this declaration allows them to avoid the charge of being “hyper.” They are hoping this will allow them to fly under the radar and not be charged with eroding the foundations of the Christian faith.

Rather, I am more narrowly applying this distinctive term to the core issues that breach orthodoxy, whether each-and-every nuance of some full or consistent preterist is adopted. The label “hyper-preterist,” therefore, applies to any system of preterism that denies three key evangelical (orthodox) doctrines known as “The Three R’s of Eschatology.” Those doctrines that are denied by “hyper-preterists” are:

1. The Return of Christ (at the end of history in bodily, physical form).
2. The Resurrection of the dead (at the end of history in bodily, physical form— despite how “difficult” this might be for God.
3. The Renewal of all creation (after the resurrection as the new creation is established in its final, physical, eternal form).

Continue reading →

PMW 2025-057 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

Introduction
We are currently witnessing the arising of neo-Gnosticism among a small but vocal body of some Bible students who are operating within evangelical Christian circles. This Gnosticism is making its presence felt by the ever evolving and continually splintering hyper-preterist movement. Though ancient Gnosticism was multi-faceted, at its core it elevated the spiritual realm over the physical. For those who are Gnostically-inclined today, salvation ultimately involves escape from the material realm and the physical body, preferring entry into the purely spiritual realm in a new ethereal body, such as proposed long ago by Origen.

The label of “neo-Gnosticism” can easily apply to hyper-preterism. This is (partly) due to its denial of a future, physical, fleshly resurrection of the dead. Some hyper-preterists go so far with this neo-Gnostic preference as to even rework Christology itself. They claim that though Jesus was physically resurrected from the dead, his physical body of flesh and bone dissipated and was replaced by an ethereal body made of spirit. This occurred in conjunction with his ascension. Continue reading →

PMW 2025-056 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr..

In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul carefully and abundantly compiles a list of analogies that are important to understand. These underscore and accentuate the fact that our very mortal bodies in which we now live will be raised to new life and transformed into glory. Thus, he promotes a resurrection that involves continuity and discontinuity: continuity by involving the fleshly body in which we live on earth and discontinuity by enhancing the body’s power. He does so in such a way as to underscore and accentuate the truth that it is the “self-same body” that dies which is raised. And this is despite current-day neo-Gnostics in the hyper-preterist movement [1] who see our buried bodies as eventually being wasted away but that will be replaced with bodies composed of ethereal spirit material. Hopefully this theological fad will soon burn out and those caught up in it will repent and return to historic, orthodox Christianity.

A SUMMARY OF PAUL

In this regard, note the following summary analysis of 1 Cor. 15:36–41:

1. It is the God-designed goal of seeds to develop into plants, just as it is the God-ordained goal of our mortal bodies to be raised to immortal life (vv. 36, 38).
Continue reading →