By Angus Harley

It was said in the last article that the combination of postmil and partial-preterism (referred to as PP) made for a very abrupt reading of Matthew 24; for the text did not support any idea remotely close to the postmil concept of transformation of the world by the Gospel. It was also determined that PP’s hermeneutic was Jewish-centric, tying itself down to the temple and Jerusalem. It had, consequently, turned a text that was not about the ‘when’ of Christ’s return into one that was about ‘when’, rendering AD70 a hermeneutical threshold.[1]

As there is still a lot of layers to peel back theologically, I will continue this quest. Instead of the Jewish-centric reading put forward by PP, the Gospels, including Matthew 24-25, present a Christological Gospel that magnifies a new Messianic community that is built entirely around Jesus Christ and not the Israelites.

PRIORITIZING A CHRISTOLOGICAL-GOSPEL READING

Without a further word, we can anticipate an immediate objection by PP, for it will reply that it does believe in the interpretive principle of Gospel primacy.

Answering an objection

We can confirm that PP does push forward a Gospel reading in interpretation of Matthew 24. Notwithstanding, PP commits the all too familiar academic and theological error of operating with two opposing models, and, it has to be said, the Jewish-centric nature of the other model is the controlling partner. One does not need to look too far within the ‘millennial’ debates to see the same error in Dispensationalism.

This is brought out by four issues: first, the Gospels are ‘Gospel-oriented’, not Old Covenant focused; second, Gentry’s claim that redemption is completed in the destruction of the temple; thirdly, there is only one end, not two phases of one end in Matthew 24; and, lastly, Gentry’s theonomic position.

The Gospels are Gospel-oriented only

Let’s begin with some common agreements.

Agreements

It is indisputable that the Gospels record many instances of Israel’s rebellious past as the reason for their spiritually-barren present at the time of Christ. It is equally clear that the entire NT understands that the true Gospel fulfills the OT order and its promises of redemption in the Christ. We can all agree, too, that the Gospels are transition documents that record that the kingdom is being torn from rebellious, Old Covenant, Israel and given to a new, heavenly, Messianic community founded on a New Covenant.

Hatred of the Gospel and Christ

However, the Gospels’ focus on Jewish disobedience is not centered on them as breakers of the Old Covenant, but on them as haters of the Christ and his Gospel. The Jews’ ancient abuse of the Law and their rejection of God’s Old Covenant are the dramatic backdrop for the coming of Jesus Christ into their midst. The Old Covenant was not ‘doable’ even before Jesus set foot on earth. Before Christ came, Israel was already being punished for its disobedience to that Covenant, for breaking it. What the Gospel did was hold out the New Covenant to Israel and to the nations. It is this New Covenant Gospel with its new law that Israel despised. And so they crucified the new Moses- Jesus Christ. The judgments that will come upon “this generation” after Jesus’ death and resurrection are not just for Israel’s Old Covenant past, therefore, but predominantly and mainly due to their rebellion against a potential New Covenant future.

Redemption completed on the cross

Secondly, there is Gentry’s view of redemption.

PP’s argument

Due to PP’s Jewish-centric model, we are told that by the destruction of the temple, God is ripping the kingdom from the Jews and completing the new-creation, redemptive, era in Christ Jesus. The Jews had violated the Old Covenant over and over, and now the Old Covenant era was ending, and God’s Messianic, redemptive, Jubilee was about to be accomplished,[2] “the final stage of redemption, which is finally secured as the temple vanishes from history.”[3]

Redemption accomplished!

PP’s interpretation forces the text of Matthew 24 to say what it does not remotely refer to: ‘redemption’ was completed when the temple was destroyed. What happened to, “It is finished!” (John 19:30)? Doesn’t Matthew say that the veil of the temple was torn in two at the time of the cross itself (Matt.27:51)? Wasn’t the fate of the temple already sealed long before the tearing down of its walls (John 4:21)? Wasn’t this due to the completed redemptive work of Jesus Christ? The destruction of the temple was not a necessary divine act to usher in redemption’s completion. How could it be?By Jesus’ day, Israel was already experiencing the punishment of God for breaking the Old Covenant, even long before Jesus arrived!

New Covenant sealed by blood

Wasn’t Jesus’ incarnation predicated upon such a lost, Old Covenant, cause that necessitated a New Covenant? The truth is, the destruction of the temple was a judgment act of God that demonstrated that the transition had already been made from Old Covenant to New Covenant in the cross itself, which transition was constantly being preached and dramatized in Jesus’ ministry. In other words, in Matthew 24 Israel is punished for rejecting the hope of the Gospel of a New Covenant in Jesus’ blood. Its Old Covenant violations served as a backdrop depicting how generation after generation of Jews rebelled against the Lord, despising the promise of the Messiah, until in Jesus’ day the cup of judgment had been filled and “this generation” was forced to drink it, both before and after Jesus’ death and resurrection (see ahead).

Let us be pointed. The NT identifies the New Covenant with Jesus’ death and resurrection- the Gospel- not with the destruction of Jerusalem. What happened to the Gospels’ account of the New Covenant in Jesus’ blood (Luke 22:20)? Or to the Pauline testimony (1 Cor.11:25; 2 Cor.3)? Or, that of Hebrews (Heb.8-9; 12:24)? There was nothing more needing to be done to ‘complete’ the New Covenant and its redemptive work, therefore. Why put the focus on the Old Covenant and its ending, rather than on the victory of the New Covenant in Jesus’ death and resurrection?

PP’s response

As before, PPers will retort that they, too, believe that Jesus completed redemption upon the cross. My response to this is that, as before, PP’s system works with two contrasting models, and it is the Jewish one that ends up controlling the overall exegesis. The Jewish model is the hermeneutic, or interpretive control, of PP.

Only one end of the age

The third sub-point concerns the phrase “the end of the age”.

PP’s reading

PP has to take the view of redemption it does because of its calculation of when the “end of the age” is: the Second Coming came spiritually (first phase) in the destruction of Jerusalem; and its physical fulfillment is when Jesus returns in his Second Coming.

Matthean teaching

The phrase “end of the age” is Matthean through and through (Matt.13:39, 40, 49; 24:3; 28:20). In these verses, there is no indication that the Romans are an instrument for a spiritual Second Coming at the end of the age. We have the traditional, familiar concepts of angels being used to separate the godly from the ungodly, and the wicked punished in judgment. The righteous are vindicated. There is no indication that this return is in two phases; quite the opposite, for it is a judgment of finality, a one-and-done deal, based on the in-person and visible return of the Son of Man and his angels to judge all the nations, both elect and non-elect.

John 5:25-29

PP takes us to these verses to support its claim that there are two phases to the end of the age, just as there are two resurrections expressed in one hour that is both now and to come.

Certainly, we can speak about the hour of the Lord’s work of salvation that does have a spiritual, in the present, phase and an end of time one. It does not follow that all of the Lord’s actions in redemption have a similar two-in-one composition. The judgments that come upon the nations and upon Israel preceding his Second Coming are the precursors of his Second Coming and its judgment, as the parables make abundantly clear (see coming article). Moreover, the two resurrections are not two phases of one resurrection. We should not confuse “the hour” with resurrection per se. This is to say that many ‘redemptive’ events, especially in regard to Christ, have a singular, one-and-done, nature. Or, are we to conclude that there was a spiritual phase to his incarnation, and also to his resurrection?

Illogical

How can the phrase “end of the age” properly indicate ‘the end’ when it is not that end? There is only one end of the age in all of the end of the age passages, including Matthew 24. One cannot have “the end of the age” followed by another “end of the age”!

Contra theonomy

The final sub-theme is Gentry’s use of theonomy.

All Gentry does is extend this same interpretive principle to the wider Mosaic Law to create a New Covenant revivification of the Mosaic Law.[4] The Mosaic Law is over as a covenant order. Yet, it is alive in a New Covenant fashion, it is argued. It is not only the Mosaic Law’s moral content that is still alive, it is its civic and judicial commandments, too. They now form the basis for Gentry’s PP-theonomic model to transform the whole of society. Of course, this postmil transformation has as its foundation the spread of the Gospel, for its growth alone gives rise to civic transformation via the revivified Mosaic Law.

No exception!

Any theology is wrong to give a new lease of life to the Old Covenant ethic and its commandments. The Ten Commandments are not still alive- in any form! To be very pointed: the ‘Ten’ are not carried on in the NT; all of the OT becomes, rather, a giant Christological document that is interpreted in the light of Jesus’ redemption alone; what were formerly the Ten are now absorbed into New Covenant revelation. For, Christ is not a version of Moses, nor is there a hybrid of Moses and Christ. There is only Christ, and his revelation stands, which includes the Christological, New Covenant, absorption of the entire OT. Is that not why Jesus, in citing an OT- nay Old Covenant- commandment to love one’s neighbor (Lev.19:18) calls it a “new commandment” (John 13:34)? Why? Because it is New; it is not the Old revivified in a Christological setting!

The Jews and the antichrist emphasis

Instead of allowing the OT to be a control of the NT, the NT controls the OT, interpretively speaking. The NT re-interprets the entire OT in the light of the Christ-event itself. It is the control. And now the entire history of the OT is considered to be a clash, a war, between the followers of the promise of Christ and the innumerable antichrists, of which the Jews are central figures. One age opposes the other, one kingdom the other. In Matthew and the Gospels, the OT’s history is alluded to and cited to depict that Christological, timeless war, but also its final outcome. For, at the end of the day, it was always about the Christ, his Gospel, his kingdom, and his disciples. It was never about Israel, Jerusalem, the Law, and its temple, not even a supposed revivified form of these things.

Conclusion

As long as the Old Covenant order has an ‘as is’ influence today, and mistakenly thought to be revivified via the New Covenant, we will continue to get models of Christianity and its Gospel ethic that try to root them in a this-world manner. This is what Gentry referred to before as a literal reading of the kingdom of God.[5] Let’s remind ourselves of the three levels of this ‘earthly’ model in PP:

Level one: Jewish Old Covenant, this-world, theocratic, theonomic, kingdom.

Level two: postmillennialism’s this-world transformation, which sweeps up the Jews into a future ingathering.

Level three: theonomy’s this-world Law-based transformation that, once again, sweeps up the Jews and focuses on a revivified Mosaic Law.

In the next article, we will see that Jesus’ prophetic and kingdom outlook was not this-world oriented. Quite the opposite!

[1] Angus Harley, “Matthew 24: A Critique of Postmil-Preterism, Part 1,” All Things New Covenant, June 1, 2025, https://allthingsnewcovenant.com/2025/06/01/matthew-24-a-critique-of-postmil-preterism-part-1/.

[2] Kenneth L Gentry, He Shall Have Dominion, 2nd ed., (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1997), 322.

[3] Kenneth L. Gentry, “The Great Tribulation is Past: Exposition,” in The Great Tribulation: Past or Future?, eds. Kenneth L. Gentry, Thomas Ice, (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1999), 61.

[4] The most consistent modern group of all, in regard to carrying forward the Old Covenant Law in a supposedly New Covenant setting, is the Hebrew Roots Movement. It utilizes all of the Mosaic Law as valid within a new, Christological, setting. Of course, the fullest form of Mosaic conformity is to follow the path of the first-century Judaizers, who had duped the Galatians.

[5] Harley, “Critique of Postmil-Preterism, Part 1”.