I Corinthians 15:12 Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. 14 And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. 15 Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. 16 For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. 17 And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! 18 Then also those who have [c]fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.
20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have [d]fallen asleep. 21 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. 23 But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming.
For years I have on again, off again, conversations with Tony Pomales and Kim Burgess on the subject of full Preterism. Recently, Kim, along with Gary DeMar published a two volume book on full Preterism. I always enjoyed the conversations with Tony and Kim because it was clear that these chap had done their homework and because out of that homework they had presented some really quite fine exegesis. Indeed, because of their work in introducing me to the subject (first Tony 20 years ago or so, then Kim doing a good deal of filling in the gaps) I became a partial Preterist. However, despite their pleadings and frustrations with me, I could never go with them to full Preterism. I remain thankful for all the books they shoveled my way on the subject. I remain thankful that I was delivered from my Amillennial convictions, consistent with their pleadings and consistent with other material I was reading on that subject. I am thankful to God for dropping them into my life.
Yet despite my gratitude (or maybe because of my gratitude) I continue to warn them as I did while in conversation with them that they had left the faith by embracing full Preterism.
Below, I explain how that is so.
The force of Paul’s argument in I Corinthians 15 rests in these two points:
(1) Paul establishes an ironclad logical relationship between the “bodily resurrection of Christ” with the “bodily resurrection” of other dead people (“Christ is the first fruit of those who have fallen asleep.”)
When it comes to the issue of bodily resurrection what ever is predicated about Christ must be predicated also of those who have “fallen asleep in Christ.” In point of fact so tight is the corollary between Christ’s bodily resurrection and the saints future bodily resurrection that Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, insists that if the dead in Christ are not bodily raised then it is the case also that Christ was not bodily raised (vs. 16). Full Preterist can not deny the future bodily resurrection of the Saints without denying the past bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. In point of fact the logic of the Full Preterist position requires that since there is no future bodily resurrection for dead saints they (Preterists) remain in their sin owning a dead futile faith (vs. 16-17).
This is why full Preterism is heresy and a denial of the Christian faith. In order for Christians to be forgiven Christ had to have resurrected AND those united to Christ must bodily resurrect because if those who are united to Christ don’t bodily resurrect that means that Christ did not bodily resurrect. All of that in turn means men are still in their sins and that in turn means that the wrath of God abides on them. So, the denial of the future bodily resurrection of the Saints is a denial of the whole ball of wax.
(2) Whatever is meant by “resurrection” must mean the same thing throughout the argument for the argument to work. And since the self-same, bodily resurrection of Christ is clearly in view, then the self-same, future bodily “resurrection of the dead,” is what is being stipulated as true for the rest of the dead in St. Paul’s argumentation.
That the “resurrection” must mean the same thing throughout the argument is seen by the fact that Christ is referred to as “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” The whole idea of “firstfruits” in the OT economy (which is what Paul is reaching back to for analogy purposes) is that the firstfruits (those parts of the harvest that ripened first) were promissory of the fruits which would ripen and be harvested later. Jesus Christ is the first fruit of the bodily resurrected dead and is promissory of later fruit that would follow of a future ripened fruit of the bodily resurrected dead.
Full Preterism turns the Christian faith into an embrace of the status of “the most pitiable.”
