7. The Fulfillment of the Great Commission
Preterist Argument. Jesus said the gospel must be preached “in all the world” before the end comes (Matt 24:14). Preterists point to Paul’s words in Colossians 1:5-6 and 1:23, which state the gospel had been preached to “all creation under heaven,” meaning this prerequisite was met before 70 AD.
Answer.
1. Paul Is Using Rhetorical Hyperbole, Not Geographic Precision
When Paul says the gospel “is come unto you, as it is in all the world” (Colossians 1:6) he is making a qualitative point. The same gospel, which is bearing fruit everywhere it goes, has now come to you Colossians as well. He is commending the universality of the gospel’s character and power, not issuing a cartographic report that it reached every tribe and tongue, which is consistent with how ancient writers used universal language. Luke writes in Acts 2:5 that there were dwelling at Jerusalem “Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.” He means representatively from many nations. The same idiom governs Paul’s usage.
2. The Greek Words Differ Significantly Between Matthew and Colossians
In Matthew 24:14, Jesus says the gospel shall be preached “in all the world. The underlying Greek (en holē tē oikoumenē) refers to the inhabited world in a comprehensive sense, which carries political and geographic weight. Luke 2:1 uses the same word, “that all the world should be taxed,” which refers to the Roman Empire specifically but with a sense of totality.
In Colossians 1:6 Paul says the gospel “is come unto you, as it is in all the world” (en panti tō kosmō) and in 1:23, “to every creature which is under heaven” (en pasē ktísei tē hypo ton ouranon). The language of Jesus’s prophecy does not match what Paul used.
3. The Scope of Matthew 24:14 Exceeds Anything Accomplished by 70 AD
“All the world” and “all nations” in Jesus’s statement carry a scope that the first century missionary enterprise, however remarkable, simply did not reach. By 70 AD the gospel had penetrated the Roman Empire and beyond into Parthia and perhaps India via Thomas, but vast populations in sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, the Americas, and northern Europe had received no witness whatsoever. Jesus’ (panta ta ethnē) “all nations” means genuine ethnolinguistic people groups across the entire globe and that standard was not close to met in when Paul wrote Colossians 1.
4. The “End” in Matthew 24:14 Doesn’t Mean What Preterists Say It Means
“The end” in verse 14 refers to the eschatological end of the age, not merely the end of the Jewish commonwealth in 70 AD. It includes the darkening of the sun in verse 29 and nothing like that occurred with the Roman conquest. The prerequisite and its fulfillment operate on the same horizon as the event they introduce, and that horizon is the return of Christ. The entire context of Matthew 24 is moving toward the visible, cosmic, bodily return of Christ described in verses 29-31. The “end” that verse 14 introduces is that event, not a Roman military campaign.
Matthew 24:3 says, “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” Then later in Matthew 24:14, “then shall the end come.” The same “end” introduced in verse 3 naturally remains the subject throughout the discourse. That is a very strong contextual argument that verse 14 should not be isolated from verses 29-31.
5. Romans 10 Suggests the Task Remained Incomplete After Colossians
Paul himself, writing after Colossians in his letter to the Romans (10:14), says:
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
And then in verse 18 he quotes Psalm 19: “their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.” The very structure of Romans 10’s argument, the urgent need for preachers to go, implies that the reaching of all nations is an ongoing imperative, not a completed fact. Furthermore Paul writes in Romans 15:20-24 of his ambition to preach in Spain, because there were still unreached places he felt compelled to go. Paul’s ongoing missionary urgency would contradict Colossians 1:23 if it meant the task was genuinely complete,
8. The Identity of Babylon the Great
Preterist Argument. The “Great Harlot” or “Babylon” in Revelation is first-century apostate Jerusalem, which persecuted the prophets and apostles and was subsequently burned by the Roman beast.
Answer. Babylon is a future, literal global system. In Revelation 17-18, Babylon is the epicenter of a worldwide economic, political, and religious empire. The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD did not cause “the merchants of the earth” to weep over a collapsed global economy, as Revelation describes.
1 Babylon Rules Over Kings
Revelation 17:18 says, “And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.” Jerusalem never ruled the kings of the earth, but Rome did. A future global system could, but first-century Jerusalem did not.
2. Babylon Controls International Commerce
Revelation 18 lists gold, silver, precious stones, spices, ships, cargoes, and merchants. The economic influence extends far beyond Jerusalem’s actual role in the first century. Even allowing symbolism, the scale remains enormous.
3. Babylon Is Distinct From the Beast
Revelation 17:16 says, “And the ten horns. . . . shall hate the whore.” The beast destroys Babylon. If Babylon is Jerusalem, then Jerusalem and the beast become awkwardly intertwined. The relationship becomes impossible to explain consistently.
4. Babylon Sits on Many Waters
Revelation 17:1, says, “the great whore that sitteth upon many waters,” and Revelation 17:15 explains, “The waters which thou sawest. . . . are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. This is global influence. Jerusalem never exercised authority over: peoples, multitudes, nations, tongues.
5. The Global Mourning
Revelation 18 repeatedly describes: the merchants of the earth, the kings of the earth, and the shipmasters mourning Babylon’s destruction. No known historical reaction to Jerusalem’s fall resembles Revelation 18. The scope is much, much larger; yes, a global scale, not like what occurred in 70AD.
9. Israel and the Church (Covenant vs. Dispensational)
Preterist Argument. Preterists hold to a realized covenant eschatology where the true “Israel of God” is the Church. Old Covenant ethnic Israel was permanently divorced and cast off in 70 AD, and all promises are now spiritually fulfilled in Christ.
Answer.
1. Romans 9-11 Is the Definitive Apostolic Treatment and It Runs Directly Against This View
God Hath Not Cast Away His People
Paul devotes three full chapters of his most systematic letter to precisely this question. His answer is the most powerful single refutation of realized covenant eschatology available. He begins Romans 11 (v. 1) with a question that reads as though written to answer the preterist directly: “I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid.”
The Greek behind “God forbid” (mē genoito), the strongest possible negation, Paul used to repudiate a conclusion he regarded as utterly unacceptable. Paul uses it to reject theological conclusions he considers monstrous. The preterist affirmation, that God has cast away his people, Paul treats as something to be repudiated with maximum rhetorical force.
Then in verse 1 Paul establishes the point personally: “For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.” Paul’s own ethnic Israelite identity, maintained after his conversion, he offers as living evidence that God has not cast away his people. Paul does not say “I was an Israelite.” He says “I am an Israelite.” His own physical descent from Abraham retains present significance in his apostolic argument.
The Elijah Narrative Reinforces the Point
Paul then draws on the Elijah narrative (verses 2-5):
God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
The argument from the Elijah narrative is precise: when Israel appeared most thoroughly apostate, God maintained a remnant. This same pattern holds in Paul’s day. The existence of Jewish believers does not mean God has finished with ethnic Israel. It means he is maintaining his covenant faithfulness to them through a remnant, just as he always did. This is not the language of a covenant terminated but of a covenant sustained through a faithful minority.
2. The Olive Tree Metaphor Establishes Ethnic Israel’s Permanent Covenantal Root
The Olive Tree Allegory Paul Uses
Romans 11:16-24 contains Paul’s olive tree allegory, which directly addresses the relationship between Gentile believers and ethnic Israel, and it cuts decisively against the preterist claim that Israel has been permanently replaced (verses 16-18).
For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root beareth thee.
Several things in this passage destroy the preterist reconstruction. First, the broken-off branches are ethnic Israel, broken off for unbelief, which is exactly what the preterist affirms. But Paul’s point is not that they are therefore done, finished, and replaced. His point is that Gentile believers must not boast against them. Why not? Because (verses 19-21):
Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.
The Decisive Statement
The warning cuts both ways. Gentile believers can be broken off for unbelief just as Jewish branches were. The olive tree is not the church as such. It is the covenant purposes of God in redemptive history and both Jewish and Gentile branches relate to it conditionally. Neither has permanent unconditional possession by ethnic identity or ecclesiastical membership. But then comes the decisive statement (Romans 11:23-24):
And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again. For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?
The phrase “their own olive tree” is fatal to the preterist position. Paul does not say the natural branches will be grafted into a tree or into the Gentiles’ tree. He says they will be grafted back into their own olive tree. The covenant root belongs to Israel in a way that retains ongoing significance. Their restoration to it is not the absorption of one ethnicity into another but the re-engrafting of natural branches into their own native stock. This language cannot be made to support the view that ethnic Israel’s covenant identity has been permanently dissolved.
3. The Word “Until” in Romans 11:25 Destroys the Permanence Claim
For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
The preterist reads Israel’s judicial hardening as permanent with the divorce of 70 AD sealing the matter. But Paul calls it a mystery and explicitly temporally limits it with the word “until.” Blindness has happened to Israel until, not because, the fullness of the Gentiles comes in. The hardening is purposive and temporary, serving the ingathering of the Gentiles, after which it will be lifted.
This is not the language of permanent divorce. It is the language of a carefully orchestrated redemptive-historical sequence in which Israel’s hardening serves Gentile salvation, and Gentile salvation in turn provokes Israel to jealousy (verse 11).
I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.
The entire mechanism Paul describes requires a future restoration of ethnic Israel to make sense. If Israel is permanently cast off, there is no one to be provoked to jealousy, no natural branches to be re-grafted, and the word “until” becomes meaningless.
4. Romans 11:26-29 States the Future Restoration Plainly and Grounds It in the Abrahamic Covenant
No Contextual Warrant Whatsoever That Israel Is “Church” Here
And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. (Romans 11:26-27)
With Paul’s “all Israel shall be saved,” a preterist tries to read “Israel” here as the church, using Galatians 6:16. This reading fails on the immediate context. Paul used the relationship between ethnic Israel and Gentile believers throughout chapters 9-11. He spoke of Israel’s stumbling, their breaking off, their future re-grafting, their hardening until a specified time. To suddenly say “all Israel” in verse 26 is the church including Gentiles is to introduce a shift with no contextual warrant whatsoever. The “Israel” in verse 26 is the same “Israel” hardened in verse 25, broken off in verse 17, and stumbled in verse 11 — ethnic Israel.
God’s Guarantee of Israel’s Future Salvation
The guarantee of this future salvation rests not on Israel’s faithfulness but on God’s (verses 28-29):
As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
“Without repentance” (ametamelēta) means irrevocable, not subject to being taken back. The gifts and calling given to the patriarchs were not conditional on Israel’s covenant faithfulness in such a way that their rejection of Messiah could annul them. If Israel’s sin could permanently revoke God’s gifts and calling, this verse means nothing. The preterist must either explain what “without repentance” means in a framework permanently revoking the gifts or acknowledge that Paul’s argument stands.
Paul’s use of the future tense is significant. Romans 11:26 says, “all Israel shall be saved,” not “all Israel was saved” or “all Israel has been saved.” Paul explicitly places the event ahead of him.
5. The Jeremiah 31 New Covenant Promise Is Made to Ethnic Israel and Judah, Not to the Church
Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.
The preterist rightly notes that the New Covenant is now in force through Christ. But they typically pass over the explicit parties named in Jeremiah 31. The new covenant is made with “the house of Israel and the house of Judah,” specific ethnic entities. The church participates in the blessings of this covenant through union with Christ, who is himself the representative Israelite, but this does not mean the named parties to the covenant have been dissolved into the church.
Jeremiah 31 goes further, grounding the permanence of God’s commitment to ethnic Israel in the created order itself (verses 35-36):
Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.
God stakes his covenant faithfulness to ethnic Israel on the continued existence of the sun, moon, and stars. The whole point of Jeremiah 31:35-36 is to establish unconditionality. The sun and stars do not depend on Israel’s obedience. Their continued existence is the guarantee of Israel’s continued national existence before God. I would look for preterists to show the real disappearance of the sun, moon, and stars, because that would happen if God was not keeping His covenant with Israel.
6. Zechariah 12-14 Requires a Future Ethnic Israel in the Land
Quoted in the New Testament
A preterist framework has particular difficulty with Zechariah 12-14, which the New Testament itself quotes in connection with the Second Coming. Zechariah 12:10 reads:
And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son.
The New Testament applies this verse to the return of Christ (Revelation 1:7):
Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.
Serious Timing and Sequence Issues
And again in John 19:37, the piercing at the crucifixion is identified as the fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy, but only partially. The “looking upon” him whom they pierced with mourning and repentance has not yet occurred. Zechariah places this looking and mourning in the context of a final siege of Jerusalem, a supernatural deliverance, and a national turning (Zechariah 13:1):
In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.
This sequence — siege of Jerusalem, divine deliverance, national mourning and conversion, fountain of cleansing — requires an ethnic Jewish population in Jerusalem at the time of its fulfillment. The preterist must either argue this was all fulfilled in 70 AD, which means the Roman siege was God’s deliverance of Israel, an impossible reading, or that it has been spiritualized into church experience, which evacuates the geographical and ethnic specificity that the text insists upon.
Zechariah 14:4 says, “And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives.” When did that happen in 70 AD? It didn’t, because this is future still, yet to be fulfilled — not past.
7. The Galatians 6:16 “Israel of God” Argument Fails Contextually
The Asensive Use of Kai
Preterists use Galatians 6:16 as their proof-text for Church-as-Israel:
And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.
They read this as Paul calling the church the Israel of God. First, the Greek conjunction kai rendered “and” before “upon the Israel of God” can be read as ascensive — “even upon the Israel of God” — in which case Paul is pronouncing blessing on all who walk by the rule of the new creation, identifying that group as the Israel of God, i.e., Jewish believers specifically in the church. This would make the phrase a reference to Jewish converts in the church rather than a wholesale redefinition of Israel as the church.
The Only Use of the term “Israel” In the New Testament
Second, nowhere else in the entire Pauline corpus does Paul use the term “Israel” to refer to Gentile believers or to the Church as such. In every other usage — Romans 9:6,31, 10:19,21, 11:2, Romans 11:7,25,26, 1 Corinthians 10:18, 2 Corinthians 11:22, Ephesians 2:12, Philippians 3:5 — “Israel” refers either to ethnic Israel or to the believing remnant within ethnic Israel. To make Galatians 6:16 the one exception that redefines the entire category requires extraordinary contextual justification that the text does not supply.
If Galatians 6:16 means “the church,” which it doesn’t, it becomes the lone exception in all of its usage through the entire New Testament. The preterist must prove why this one text overturns Paul’s normal usage. This is not a difficult passage, except that preterists and those who conform scripture in this way to their skewed presuppositions. However, having made it a “difficult passage,” men should interpret difficult passages in light of clear passages, not vice versa. In other words, take Galatians 6:16 in conformity to its plain meaning in all the other usages in the New Testament.
8. The Abrahamic Covenant Was Unconditional and Cannot Be Permanently Annulled
The foundational issue underlying all of these arguments is the nature of the Abrahamic covenant. When God made his covenant with Abraham he did something deliberately and explicitly unconditional (Genesis 15:17):
And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.
In the ancient covenant-cutting ceremony, both parties would normally pass between the divided animals, each taking upon themselves the covenant curse if they broke the agreement. But in Genesis 15, Abraham is put into a deep sleep — “a deep sleep fell upon Abram” (15:12) — and God alone, represented by the smoking furnace and burning lamp, passes between the pieces. Abraham does not pass through. God alone takes the oath. This means the Abrahamic covenant is unilaterally guaranteed by God himself, with no condition attached to Abraham’s or Israel’s faithfulness.
For the preterist to argue that ethnic Israel’s rejection of Messiah permanently annulled this covenant, they must argue that Israel’s sin was able to do what the covenant’s structure was designed to prevent — namely, that human unfaithfulness could void a unilaterally divine oath. Paul addresses this directly (Romans 3:3-4):
For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid.
More to Come