By Angus Harley

Preterists, partial-preterists, and others are obsessed with the date AD70. It is no longer a date as such- it is a hermeneutic, an interpretive control. Incessantly we are told that the temple’s destruction was the final end of the Old Covenant. Some then say that the New Covenant, upon the destruction of the temple, formally kicked in.

I have strongly opposed the above reading in a series of articles.[1] I can summarize, for the reader, what I think to be some of the massive problems with the ‘AD70’ craze.

It prioritizes ‘AD70’. The date itself, its number, is repeated over and over and over. Yet, no such date is given in the NT. This may seem like sour grapes to some, but it is, in actual fact, a super-important point. For Jesus has just told us that no one knows when the Son of Man will return, not even the Son of Man himself (Matt.24:36-37). Instead, what Jesus does refer to is events the arise before the Son of Man himself will come. It is an ‘event-based’ narrative Matthew presents, not a date-based one. ‘AD70’- a date- has no value as a concept; what does have value, however, are the events that precede Jesus’ coming, an event such as the destruction of the temple.

Many think that ‘AD70’ is harmless enough, just a date, and nothing more. Then I challenge these readers to read the material out there, and they will see in bold type- so to speak- that the date itself is central and crucial. The preterists cling to that date for dear life! Moreover, there are a gazillion articles on the “significance of 70AD”. To my mind, the date of AD70 is as important to both partial-preterism and preterism as the 1,000 year reign is to Dispensationalists. Times, dates, and periods are super-crucial to these theologies.

It does not occur to the AD70 proponents that Jesus and the NT apostles were more interested in events than dates. Why is it that the book of Revelation does not demarcate dates as such? Why does Matthew 24-25, and similar passages, not present dates? If ‘AD70’ is itself a prophetic date, the final stage of spiritual transition from Old to New, why is the date never presented in the NT? It is because the NT promotes events, not dates. Is the crucifixion of Christ represented by a date? Or Jesus’ resurrection? Certainly, we can readily say that, the date of AD70 is important for us as Christians, for, it is a very helpful date in establishing a kind of timeline of redemptive history. But it is nothing more than this, it has to be said. Wasn’t the OT, the Old Covenant, represented by dates and times? Has it occurred to preterists, et. al., that dates are antithetical to the New Covenant model of salvation that focuses upon the eternal life of the next world and its power over this world? Do you partial-preterists not see the irony here? You advocate the date of AD70 as a time of transition from Old to New Covenant. Is it not more fitting to the context to refer to a transition in terms of events, not a date, since we are moving from days and times and years to a version of salvation that pits one world against another?

What gives partial-preterists the right to conclude that AD70 marks the completion of redemption in Christ? Was the temple’s destruction the ending of the Old Covenant and the introduction to the last stage of the New? Surely the cross was that point, “It is finished”. Read the book of Hebrews: it is dripping with the complete victory of the New Covenant over the Old Covenant. The Gospels relate how Jesus, the head of his New Covenant people, transitions his people from the Old Covenant to the New through faith in him. Similarly, the kingdom is ripped from the Jews and given to others. What did the destruction of the temple represent, then? It represented the judgment of the God of all history, through his Christ, to destroy those who oppose him. The Jews most certainly were not being punished just for Old Covenant violations. One has to turn the Gospels on their head to reach that conclusion. They were rejected for despising the Son. They, too, were meant to transition from Old to New, but they refused the New in the Son, and so they were crushed! The Old that they treasured, which was already spiritually destroyed in the cross, was extirpated at all physical points. It was not merely that the New was dominating the Old, but that they New demanded obedience from those who were of the Old. The New is the ‘boss’ here, the controlling feature behind God’s judgment, not the Old.

The proof of this is that the entire passage of Matthew 24-25 is about the return of Jesus Christ to judge the world as the Son of Man. We are way beyond, therefore, the Jewish, Old Covenant, problem, and are clearly in the territory of the universal Gospel that is rejected, even by Jews!

What gives the AD70 promoters the right to fixate on “Rome”? We are told that it was the Gentiles who entered the temple. This is Rome, it is argued. Historically, this is accurate. By why does Luke refer to the Romans as “Gentiles”? Why not “Romans”, or “Rome”? Why not simply name the kingdom at the core? Why does Revelation not name the kingdoms that oppose God, the Lamb, and his assembly? Why the generic “Jew” and “Gentile”? I would suggest that, as with precise dates such as ‘AD70’, the NT revelation is more interested in the world as opposed to Christ than it is in a named people or kingdom. It is more concerned with the eternal enemy, the “Gentile”, than it is with the specific historical identity of that “Gentile”. Why? Because it is one kingdom- above- verses another kingdom- below.

None of this is to suggest that we deny the history of the OT or NT, or the kingdoms that are mentioned. It is to say that there is a reason why these kingdoms are not named at certain points in the NT, just as there is a reason why dates as such as not set forward. And if the reader is still not too sure of why God might speak in this generic fashion, just take a look at what you see online today, where dates, times, kingdoms, kings, etc., etc., are presented to us in timelines and precursors. Imagine what would have happened if the NT did name names and dates- the Lord help us; we would have theological charts out the wazoo!

Why does the rest of the NT not make AD70 a hermeneutical marker? Acts does not utilize AD70 as a hermeneutical marker, nor Revelation. The cross and the resurrection as historical events are markers. I’m not buying the partial-preterist, or preterist, attempt to make Revelation a book of some form of preterism interpretively ruled by AD70, any more than I will accept the 1,000 year reign as an interpretive key for the NT and OT.

[1] For the series of articles on Matthew 24, go to this link, https://allthingsnewcovenant.com/?s=matthew+24.