There is a grow­ing move­ment world­wide that teaches that Jesus returned in 70 AD. If you wish to check out their argu­ments, search on Google for “prethe­ism”. They teach that the tribu­la­tion occurred at 70 AD. While they make a num­ber of valid points in inter­pret­ing rel­e­vant bib­li­cal pas­sages, I can­not agree with them that the King­dom has arrived at 70 AD.

They make some of the fol­low­ing claims:

1. The King­dom started with the ascen­sion, and it is spir­i­tual, mean­ing it is in heaven. There will not be an earthly Kingdom.

2. The so-called Great Tribu­la­tion hap­pened in 70 AD.

3. The beast was Rome, and the whole of Rev­e­la­tion refers to 70 AD.

4. The Parou­sia is only sym­bolic, just as the res­ur­rec­tion, etc.

Thus, accord­ing to them the Jews com­pletely missed the train, there will not be an earthly King­dom where the lion lies down with the sheep in the holy land, there will not be uni­ver­sal right­eous­ness, no uni­ver­sal peace.

Let me share a few thoughts con­cern­ing this subject.

There was a strong expec­ta­tion in the first cen­tury that the King­dom would come in the life­time of the disciples.

Con­sider the fol­low­ing verses:

Matt 10:23 When they per­se­cute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel, before the Son of man comes.

Mark 8:38 For who­ever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adul­ter­ous and sin­ful gen­er­a­tion, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Matt 23:33 There­fore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and cru­cify, and some you will scourge in your syn­a­gogues and per­se­cute from town to town, 34 that upon you may come all the right­eous blood shed on earth, from the blood of inno­cent Abel to the blood of Zechari’ah the son of Barachi’ah, whom you mur­dered between the sanc­tu­ary and the altar. 35 Truly, I say to you, all this will come upon this gen­er­a­tion.

Matt 24:34 Truly, I say to you, this gen­er­a­tion will not pass away till all these things take place.

Mark 13:30 Truly, I say to you, this gen­er­a­tion will not pass away before all these things take place.

Luke 11:48 So you are wit­nesses and con­sent to the deeds of your fathers; for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 There­fore also the Wis­dom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apos­tles, some of whom they will kill and per­se­cute,’ 50 that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foun­da­tion of the world, may be required of this gen­er­a­tion, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechari’ah, who per­ished between the altar and the sanc­tu­ary. Yes, I tell you, it shall be required of this gen­er­a­tion.

Also, Peter at Pen­te­cost preaches that the mirac­u­lous man­i­fes­ta­tion of the Spirit was what Joel spoke about:

Acts 2:14 But Peter, stand­ing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. 15 For these men are not drunk, as you sup­pose, since it is only the third hour of the day; 16 but this is what was spo­ken by the prophet Joel: 17 ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daugh­ters shall proph­esy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; 18 yea, and on my menser­vants and my maid­ser­vants in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall proph­esy. 19 And I will show won­ders in the heaven above and signs on the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; 20 the sun shall be turned into dark­ness and the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and man­i­fest day. 21 And it shall be that who­ever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

Paul on the other hand teaches that all the faith­ful will be saved whether Jew or Gentile:

Rom 10:12 For there is no dis­tinc­tion between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and bestows his riches upon all who call upon him. 13 For, “every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”

From the con­text it is clear that “saved” means escap­ing the divine judg­ment that was to come upon the world. It meant phys­i­cal deliv­er­ance, just as it can be seen in Jesus’ example:

Matt 24:37 As were the days of Noah, so will be the com­ing of the son of man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eat­ing and drink­ing, mar­ry­ing and giv­ing in mar­riage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39 and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the com­ing of the son of man.

Noah and his fam­ily were saved (though the term is not used here) while all oth­ers perished.

1Pet 3:20 who for­merly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, dur­ing the build­ing of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight per­sons, were saved through water.

They were phys­i­cally deliv­ered from the wrath of God.

Matt 19:23 And Jesus said to his dis­ci­ples, “Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the king­dom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is eas­ier for a camel to go through the eye of a nee­dle than for a rich man to enter the king­dom of God.” 25 When the dis­ci­ples heard this they were greatly aston­ished, say­ing, “Who then can be saved?”

Matthew most often uses the term “king­dom of heaven” which was a very rev­er­ent way of refer­ring to the king­dom of God, for they sought not to speak the name of God lest they blaspheme.

In escha­tol­ogy the King­dom of God (mes­sianic king­dom) is pre­ceded by the judg­ment of God. Being saved meant escap­ing that judg­ment. Judaism taught that the rich had the bless­ings of God (aren’t Pen­te­costals like that?). This is why the dis­ci­ples are so puz­zled. If those who are blessed by God can­not sur­vive, who can?

Again, Jesus said,

Matt 24:11 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. 12 And because wicked­ness is mul­ti­plied, most men’s love will grow cold. 13 But he who endures to the end will be saved…

Matt 24:22 And if those days had not been short­ened, no human being would be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.

Being saved is again being deliv­ered from the wrath of God that was to come upon the inhab­i­tants of the world. The for­mer pas­sage even hints that one may not endure and fall into the traps of sin. Evi­dently, such per­son will not be saved.

Now let us con­sider Luke:

Luke 1:69 and has raised up a horn of sal­va­tion for us in the house of his ser­vant David, 70 as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, 71 that we should be saved from our ene­mies, and from the hand of all who hate us; 72 to per­form the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remem­ber his holy covenant, 73 the oath which he swore to our father Abraham…

It is clear from the above that the Mes­siah was com­ing to save God’s peo­ple from their ene­mies. Let us keep this pas­sage in mind.

The very same idea is pre­sented by Peter:

Acts 4:5 On the mor­row their rulers and elders and scribes were gath­ered together in Jerusalem, 6 with Annas the high priest and Ca’iaphas and John and Alexan­der, and all who were of the high-priestly fam­ily. 7 And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” 8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the peo­ple and elders, 9 if we are being exam­ined today con­cern­ing a good deed done to a crip­ple, by what means this man has been healed, 10 be it known to you all, and to all the peo­ple of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you cru­ci­fied, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man is stand­ing before you well. 11 This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, but which has become the head of the cor­ner. 12 And there is sal­va­tion in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

Peter is talk­ing to the Jew­ish rulers. He refers to the Jew­ish peo­ple (“we”). The Jews expected a national deliv­erer. Peter says, the deliv­erer is Jesus, don’t look for another, for God will not send another. How often v.12 is taken out of con­text and misinterpreted!

Now back to Luke again.

Luke 8:10 he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the king­dom of God; but for oth­ers they are in para­bles, so that see­ing they may not see, and hear­ing they may not under­stand. 11 Now the para­ble is this: The seed is the word of God. 12 The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, that they may not believe and be saved. 13 And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy; but these have no root, they believe for a while and in time of temp­ta­tion fall away. 14 And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and plea­sures of life, and their fruit does not mature. 15 And as for that in the good soil, they are those who, hear­ing the word, hold it fast in an hon­est and good heart, and bring forth fruit with patience.

The only soil approved by Jesus is the one that pro­duces fruit. The fruit is the right­eous deeds, and the word of God… hmm… we know what that is to the Jews. It is the laws/instructions of God. The “secrets of the king­dom of God” is how one may get into the King­dom, that is, how one may escape the judg­ment of God.

Con­trast this with the story of the wealthy man who approached Jesus:

Mark 10:17 And as he was set­ting out on his jour­ney, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eter­nal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19 You know the com­mand­ments: ‘Do not kill, Do not com­mit adul­tery, Do not steal, Do not bear false wit­ness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” 20 And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth.” 21 And Jesus look­ing upon him loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have trea­sure in heaven; and come, fol­low me.” 22 At that say­ing his coun­te­nance fell, and he went away sor­row­ful; for he had great possessions.

23 And Jesus looked around and said to his dis­ci­ples, “How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the king­dom of God!”

Matthew’s story is par­al­lel to this:

Matt. 19:16 And behold, one came up to him, say­ing, “Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eter­nal life?” 17 And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? One there is who is good. If you would enter life, keep the com­mand­ments.”

The term trans­lated “eter­nal life” in the Greek is “zoe aio­n­ios” (“aion” = eon = age) which lit­er­ally refers to life in the Age to Come (Olam Haba), that is, life in the King­dom of God on earth.

Now let us have a look at Paul’s preach­ing in Athens:

Acts 17:22 So Paul, stand­ing in the mid­dle of the Are-op’agus, said: “Men of Athens, I per­ceive that in every way you are very reli­gious. 23 For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your wor­ship, I found also an altar with this inscrip­tion, ‘To an unknown god.’ What there­fore you wor­ship as unknown, this I pro­claim to you. 24 The God who made the world and every­thing in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed any­thing, since he him­self gives to all men life and breath and every­thing. 26 And he made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, hav­ing deter­mined allot­ted peri­ods and the bound­aries of their habi­ta­tion, 27 that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us, 28 for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

29 Being then God’s off­spring, we ought not to think that the Deity is like gold, or sil­ver, or stone, a rep­re­sen­ta­tion by the art and imag­i­na­tion of man. 30 The times of igno­rance God over­looked, but now he com­mands all men every­where to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in right­eous­ness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assur­ance to all men by rais­ing him from the dead.”

The Greeks wor­shiped idols with­out being aware of their sin. So far God over­looked their sin com­mit­ted in igno­rance. What is Paul’s mes­sage? Is it the usual mes­sage we preach today? Believe in Jesus and you go to heaven? No, he says, God “com­mands all men every­where to repent”! Why? Because the day of judg­ment was fast approach­ing, and God has already appointed a man through whom He would exe­cute that judgment.

What is his mes­sage? Repent and be saved from the wrath of God.

The judg­ment of God indeed came upon the Jews and accord­ing to tra­di­tion believ­ers escaped it as they left Jerusalem before the siege. But where pre-theist go wrong in my eyes is this, that there was no such judg­ment upon Gen­tiles. Thus, in a sense judg­ment came, but not in the full sense.

Both Jesus and the apos­tles taught that judg­ment was to come upon the whole world, there­fore the urgency to take the good news to the Gen­tiles. How­ever, while judg­ment fell upon Israel, the Gen­tile world avoided it ever since. So what happened?

Malachi wrote the following:

Mal. 4:4 “Remem­ber the law of my ser­vant Moses, the statutes and ordi­nances that I com­manded him at Horeb for all Israel. 5 “Behold, I will send you Eli’jah the prophet before the great and ter­ri­ble day of the LORD comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their chil­dren and the hearts of chil­dren to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse.”

Doesn’t he sug­gest that in case the prophet fails in his mis­sion to bring the nation to repen­tance God will strike the land with a curse? Jew­ish rab­bis argue that it is not so, but it appears very much so to me. Oth­er­wise what is the sense of adding “lest I come and smite the land with a curse”?

And the curse for large scale dis­obe­di­ence was exile. My view is that if the Jew­ish nation turned, the “great and ter­ri­ble day of the LORD” would have come upon the whole world.

Since she didn’t, judg­ment befell upon the Jew­ish peo­ple only, and exile followed.

From the pas­sages that dealt with being saved we derived that it meant escap­ing divine (but phys­i­cal) judg­ment. How­ever, that def­i­n­i­tion is not exhaust­ing. I sug­gest that if we study the rest of the pas­sages we find that the broader mean­ing is an entry ticket to the King­dom of God on earth. Thus, the right­eous who die in the mean­time shall also be called saved.

I chal­lenge you to study this area.