Preterism's "Mysticalizing" Method of Interpretation

The “mysticalizing”/spiritualizing method of interpretation used in 70ADism (actually, in all anti-dispensational systems, to varying extents) is not to be confounded with the recognition of genuine figures of speech and symbols, as is true of the literal (plain, normal) method of interpretation. 

The mystical method of interpretation entails obliterating the original, primary meaning of a passage (especially as found in the OT prophetic Word) and replacing it with an entirely new, foreign, substitute meaning—a practice which is completely alien to, and without the least sanction of the Scriptures (or the NT in particular). 

Under this mystical approach of Preterism, if any (of the myriad of) blessings and promises to Israel appear clearly unconditional and everlasting in nature, then "Israel" is made to mean the “Church,” and all the blessings and promises are transmuted . . . the details of God's Word mean nothing. If, on the other hand, any blessings to Israel appear conditional and temporal, or if any judgments are predicted for Israel, then "Israel" retains its meaning as "Israel," and normal, plain, literal interpretation may be followed, down to every jot and tittle of God's Word. Anti-dispensationalists use spiritual alchemy toward all Jewish promises of an everlasting, unconditional, sovereign-grace nature—taking them away in one form from earthly Israel, and transferring them in another form to the heavenly Church. Leaving Israel with nothing but curses and judgments; and rendering the Church worldly and earthly-minded. 

The burden of proof is on those who claim that a passage of scripture cannot be interpreted literally, but must be taken mystically. The burden is on them to prove, passage by individual passage, that each is mystical . . . that it can only be and must be interpreted mystically . . . and to prove from other scriptures what that mystical interpretation definitely means in any given passage. Preterists cannot merely point to a couple of NT passages (e.g., Acts 2 and Acts 15), which their fancy imagines are examples of mysticalization, and then run headlong into mysticalizing any and all of God’s prophetic truth that is not to their liking—on the sole authority of their own sovereign and arbitrary whims. (After all, there is no blanket statement in scripture which declares that all . . . that every single OT prophetic passage, e.g., of Israel’s everlasting kingdom blessings, must be mysticalized. In point of fact, there is no such scripture that states any such thing of any OT prophetic passage.) 

"Israel," "Judah," "Zion," etc., are never used in the OT (or in the NT for that matter) to mystically signify that the heavenly Church, rather than earthly Israel, is actually meant. In order for "Israel" to be made to refer to the “Church" in a specific OT passage, one would have to prove that, e.g., "Israel" in a specific OT passage can only be, and must be, interpreted mystically as signifying nothing other than the Church in that specific passage. Passage by individual passage, it must be shown that the unconditional and everlasting kingdom blessings and promises to earthly Israel must refer to the heavenly Church, and that those earthly kingdom blessings and promises must themselves be taken mystically as referring to spiritual or non-earthly things (or whatever). But above and beyond that, one would have to completely ignore and flatly contradict the NT revelation of the Church as being a “mystery,” a secret, kept silent in OT times! Such is the pathetic condition of any theological system built on a mystical method of interpretation. 

"The restoration of Israel is so plainly intimated in the very scriptures which declare their ruin and scattering. . . . His gracious purpose of restoring, in the latter day, Israel for blessing in their land under the Messiah and the new covenant. Taken in their plain and uniform meaning, the prophets are full of that blessed expectation for Israel in divine mercy, but not without hints here and there of grace toward the Gentile, sometimes during their eclipse, as in Isa. 65:1, 2, and Hosea 1:10. Yet these texts afford no pretence for the identification, but the contrary."

"It is only Gentile pride and delusion that Israel are gone for ever to make themselves ‘the Israel of God,’ and abide till time melts into eternity. Not so! Assuredly if the Gentile abide not in God's goodness (and who will dare to affirm this?) he will be cut off, and the Jews will be grafted into their own olive tree. Then the apostle [in Rom. 11] drops argument and figure, declaring in plain terms that a hardening in part (it has never been complete) has befallen Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in; ‘and so all Israel shall be saved,’ according to the prophet (Isa. 59:20). This will be the true restoration of Israel in the day of Jehovah, when the Gentiles meet with condign judgment at His hand. It is only fleshly Israel that can be said to be ‘enemies for your sake as touching the gospel.’ It is only they who are ‘beloved for the fathers' sake, as touching the election.’ What theologians call ‘the spiritual people,’ ‘the Israel of God,’ or believers, cannot answer to this language. It is the same people, enemies as regards the gospel yet beloved as regards election, who shall be saved. For, adds the apostle, the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance — they are subject to no change of mind on His part. God will assuredly restore His people yet."

"These absurdities disappear when we believe the word as the Spirit wrote it; and, while holding fast the hope of Christ for the heavens, we can all the better rejoice in the ancient people blessed under the new covenant in Immanuel's land, and made a blessing to all nations of the earth: the grand, constant, and universal prospect, which is found in all the prophets. The special Christian relationship, our calling, inheritance, and hope, are unfolded only in the New Testament. It is ‘the mystery concerning Christ and concerning the church,’ founded on redemption, and formed by the Spirit sent from heaven to baptise us into the one body of the ascended Head.”—William Kelly 

"Then He said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the [OT] prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?" (Luke 24:25-26) 

"In Rom. 11 the apostle lays down the true and only sound principle: the ultimate blessing of all Israel nationally. It is the more remarkable because in the first half of the Epistle he treats of the gospel which effaces the distinction between Jew and Greek, alike guilty, alike justified by faith in the indiscriminate grace of God. There is no distinction on the one hand, for all sinned and come short of the glory of God; as, on the other there is no distinction between either, for the same Lord of all is rich toward all that call upon Him. The rejection and death of the Messiah left the Jews justly rejected, and gave the occasion for God to proclaim His grace to every creature under heaven, that all who believe in Christ should be saved. When this work of the gospel is done according to God's purpose, He will take up that government of the world of which Israel has the foremost place according to promise and prophecy, but on the ground of sovereign mercy in which He will also bless all the nations, and this by His Son returning in power and glory to reign in Zion, and possess the uttermost parts of the earth — indeed to be the Head of the universe in that day, as the New Testament clearly proves.

"For the apostle in that chapter furnishes the most conclusive evidence that God has not cut off His people, as it might have appeared from the freeness of the gospel. First, there is a remnant of Israel (vv. 1-6) at this present time also, of which the apostle himself was an instance, the remnant according to the election of grace. Of no other people is this true. Its attaching to Jews only is the witness that God has not absolutely cast them off. Next, though the Jews have as a people stumbled at the stumbling-stone of Messiah's humiliation, it is not in order that they might fall, but by their trespass, salvation is to the Gentiles (or nations) to provoke Israel to jealousy, and not therefore to cast them off. Again, the figure of the olive-tree teaches the same lesson. For theirs is that line of promise and testimony; and the Gentile, only a wild olive, was but grafted in, on the breaking off some of the branches; and he is called not to be high-minded but fear, lest, failing to abide in God's goodness, he be also cut off (vv. 7-12). As it is certain that the Gentile has not so abode but dishonoured the grace and truth of God in the gospel, at least as much as the Jew failed in his previous responsibility, the natural branches shall no less certainly be grafted in, when the Gentile is cut off (vv. 13-24). Lastly, direct and absolute proof is adduced from Isa. 59 to expose the fond delusion of conceited philosophy that the Gentiles have a lease of favoured place for ever. For when that complement or fullness of the Gentiles is come in, which God is taking, "All Israel shall be saved; even as it is written, the Deliverer shall come out of Zion; he shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And this is the covenant from me to them when I shall take away their sins" (vv. 26, 27).

"Not a word of this could apply to the so-called spiritual Israel, but only to the ancient people of Jehovah; nor could the language consist with Gentiles either. Taken in their ordinary import of the terms the reasoning is as sound as the meaning is important. For we are thereby taught to read Israel in its literal force throughout the prophets as the apostle did; and so Zion, Jerusalem, Judah, Ephraim, and all other names. Figurative language there is abundantly in both the Old Testament and the New. It is so in every-day life, and yet more on occasions when we are more than ordinarily concerned. But the names designate facts, even the well-known objects as they occur, and are never themselves figures. Symbols also are employed, which differ from figures as being a composite of ideas which the prophet saw and describes for the more graphic delineation of the object. There is no uncertainty in the employment of either symbol or figurative expression, but rather to give objects all the more force. The objects are real, not ideal, in every case. As plain language is constantly intermingled with figures, there need never be any great difficulty. So when symbols are employed, there is often an interpretation added: only we have to bear in mind that divine interpretations may and do frequently give more than the statement under explanation. The Holy Spirit gives all requisite guidance in comparing scripture with scripture; and He is needed for profitable understanding of Genesis and John as truly as He is for using Ezekiel and the Revelation aright.”—William Kelly 

Further, NT authors making a valid application of an OT passage or principle to the Church has nothing in common with what Preterism does in its mysticalizing method of interpretation (which empties the original, primary meaning of the OT prophetic Word and replaces it with a new, foreign, substitute meaning). 

Preterists and other anti-dispensationalists also seem to argue that, as the NT sometimes makes an application to the Church of OT phraseology or language used of Israel (e.g., 1 Pet. 2:9-10), therefore: (1) OT prophecies of Israel’s earthly Kingdom glory must not be taken literally, but should be interpreted mystically; (2) the Church is Israel; and (3) the Church displaces Israel and spiritually fulfills Israel’s OT prophecies of earthly Kingdom glory. 

In this connection, it should be also observed that the NT sometimes makes an application to the Church (or heavenly saints in Christ) of OT prophetic truth concerning Christ Himself (e.g., Rev. 2:26-27; Acts 13:47). By the same Preterist logic, should we conclude, therefore, that: (1) OT prophecies of Christ must not be taken literally, but should be interpreted mystically; (2) the Church is Christ; and (3) the Church displaces Christ and spiritually fulfills His OT prophecies?! 

The OT speaks of Jewish supremacy over Gentiles within the future earthly kingdom; cf. Isa. 2:2-3; 14:2; 45:14; 49:22-23; 54:3; 60:5, 9-10, 12, 14; 61:5; Deut. 7:6; 10:15; 26:19; 28:1, 13. Is this literal or mystical? If mystical, what is its mystical import? What specific scriptures prove precisely its mystical meaning? Or are we cast upon the whims of unmitigated subjectivism? 

OT revelation concerning earthly Jew and Gentile distinctions, with their unequal positions and standings, within the future earthly kingdom cannot be alchemized to refer to heavenly members of the Body and Bride of Christ (the Church) today, who, before God, are positionally neither earthly Jew nor Gentile in terms of distinctions, positions, blessings, but are equal, new creation and heavenly in Christ Jesus. (Cf. 1 Cor. 9:20; 10:32; 12:2, 13; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 5:6; 6:15; Eph. 2:11, 14-16; 4:17; Col. 3:9-11; John 15:19; 17:14; Acts 26:17.)

Outside the intercalary period of the Church, no such unsurpassable, and hitherto unknown, heavenly position, identification, union, oneness in and with the hidden Christ in heavenly glory is ever uttered, with respect to the redeemed earthly Israel and Gentiles as such (who remain forever as Jews and Gentiles), redeemed as subjects for the coming glorious earthly kingdom, under the Messiah-King (with Gentiles, the tail, being willingly and joyously subordinate to Israel, the head).  

"Between the humiliation of the cross and the coming again is the place of the Son known in the Father, as of us in Him and of Him in us. No Old Testament saint knew or could speak thus; nor did an expectation of it ever dawn on a single heart of old. No millennial saint will ever know of such a relationship of Christ or of those then on earth."

"In that day, when Israel is restored, and spiritually as well as literally in their land under Messiah and the new covenant, the nations shall be blessed, and bow before the Son of man."

"She [the Church], in the heavenly places, will reign with Christ over the earth; Israel will be reigned over, but the inner circle on earth, as the Gentiles also more distantly but blessed indeed."—William Kelly 

“He shall be great, and shall be called Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give Him the throne of David His father; and He shall reign over the house of Jacob for the ages, and of his kingdom there shall not be an end.” (Luke 1:32-33) 

Note: Those who say that the truth of Millennial Jews worshipping in the Millennial Temple and offering animal sacrifices is an abomination and a denial of the Cross—these folk seem to harbor a (perhaps, unconscious) notion that OT sacrifices were, in some sense, in themselves, actually efficacious to remove sin.  

The fact of the matter is, the Mosaic sacrifices themselves "perfected" or "purified" no Jew so that they had "no more conscience of sins"—these sacrifices, by their very nature, were incapable of doing anything of the kind; likewise with the Millennial sacrifices. Only the precious blood of the God-Man avails to such an end. The Spirit of God, by Paul, in Heb. 10, is not implying (even indirectly) that perfected and purified earthly saints of the future Millennial Kingdom will not or cannot offer animal sacrifices at that time; but simply that such sacrifices themselves can never perfect or purify anyone, or take away their sins. For if the animal sacrifices themselves had done such, they would not have been offered continuously, but rather, would have ceased being offered upon accomplishing their once-for-all perfection and purification. But, of course, as evidenced by the never-ending repetition of the sacrifices, such was not and could not be their nature, purpose or effect. (The continual offering of sacrifices, both in the OT and under the future earthly Millennial system, point–either prospectively or retrospectively—to the once-for-all Sacrifice of Christ, to the alone-efficacious blood of Christ, which alone can take way sin, perfect those who approach, and purify the believing sinner so that he has no more conscience of sins.) 

God was not and could not be pleased or satisfied with animal sacrifices; they were not what His infinitely holy being required as a result of the infinite outrage of sin against His nature; they could not vindicate, satisfy, glorify His infinitely moral being. Only the precious blood of the incarnate eternal Son, only His infinite sufferings and death on the Cross, could do so, once-for-all. "God's righteousness and love, and majesty and truth, all that He is, were perfectly glorified" through the once-for-all Sacrifice of Christ, in which He bore "that which was most hateful, not only to God, but to Himself the Holy one of God....He gave Himself up for His glory, and so passed under, not merely death, but also divine judgment" against sin.

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