Is partial preterism biblical? What do partial preterists believe?

We have Preterism, which contemplates a fulfilment almost wholly in the past; yet even this has a basis of truth in it, though as a whole it will satisfy no one who has worthy thoughts of inspiration.

The Preterist School of interpretation teaches that the greater part of the prophecies of this book have been fulfilled in the past in the struggles of the past, especially with the struggle of the Church with the Roman Empire, and that the victory of the Church as foretold in the book is accomplished.

Naturally, when we come to the connection of the beast and false prophet in the awful battlefield of the nineteenth chapter, and their being cast alive together into the lake of fire at the appearing of the Lord from heaven, there can be no more even an attempt to show us how this could all be fulfilled in connection with these two emperors of far-back history. It is the private, or isolated, interpretation really of a small part of the prophecy which creates even the possibility of such suggestions as Dr. Farrar has given us. We shall have little or nothing to do with Preterism when we take up the interpretation of the book before us. It is, as a whole, simply a substitution of things which were a partial anticipation of the future for that future itself. Such anticipations we find oftentimes in prophecy, some figure near at hand which becomes a type of what is beyond and greater than itself; as that of Antiochus Epiphanes, for instance, in the Book of Daniel. To make these the whole fulfilment, it is necessary to destroy, as Dr. Farrar clearly aims to do, all faith in any exactness of prophecy whatever. It is for such writers rather a human presage of events sufficiently near for human ken, which, after all, may be largely also a mistake — the substitution of this for divine revelation the human element, so called, in inspiration almost completely banishing the thought of the divine.

Without asking the reader to go at all deeply into the Revelation, it may be useful to explain just so much of its construction as is almost necessary to elucidate the present subject. The strictly prophetic part of the Apocalypse begins with Rev. 6, the first five chapters being introductory. There are two main ways of interpreting the prophecy, each of them true in principle. That is, the prophecy has an inchoate as well as a complete fulfilment, and may be interpreted with reference to either. This is so with other prophecies as well. For example, Peter in Acts 2 applies Joel's prophecy of the outpouring of the Spirit to the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Now Joel's prophecy goes on to events which have not yet happened "wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath," etc. and it will be noticed that Peter does not say that the prophecy was then fulfilled. He says, "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel." It was of the character and nature of that prophecy. An incipient accomplishment, the fulfilment is even yet future. So with the Revelation. The announcement, for example, in Rev. 11:15, that "the kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ," may refer in the first instance to that great event, the public acknowledgment of Christianity under Constantine, and the formal expulsion of idolatry from the imperial nation. But the proper, the full accomplishment, is yet to come, and will not be until Christ reigns over the whole world in the millennium. Thus the Revelation has a legitimate application to past history, while its full accomplishment is yet to be. The former has unfortunately given rise to much speculation, because the allocation of historical events to the prophecies affords scope not only for proper and sober consideration, but also for mere ingenuity and imagination, and it is these latter that have brought a measure of discredit on the study of the book. The past application of the Apocalypse may be, and indeed is, an interesting study, but that which is of living importance to the church today is what lies yet in the future how near a future we do not know.

What then are these events? If "the things which are" only apply to the seven churches in Asia, "the things which must be after these" may begin from any time later than this book; and there is doubtless a certain correspondence between the outlines here given and some great events in subsequent history. But many prophecies have, first a general and partial fulfilment and afterwards a far more exact and complete one; and if "the things which are" be understood in their wider scope, as embracing the whole cycle of Church history, "the things which must be after these" will, of course, begin only when Church history ends.

There may have been in the times of Israel certain manifestations of the governmental dealings of God, important for their faith and subjection to God by the way, which were partial accomplishments of such or such a prophecy. But these, though true, and though research may discover them, are, in a certain sense, comparatively lost now in the sum of the whole scheme of all which closes in Christ. It may be interesting and instructive historically, as regards God's dealings, to observe them in their place, but they become history - important, interesting history - not prophecy, for us.

If it had been drawn from an induction of scripture that prophecy is not mere history anticipated, but admits of a perspective, and that an accomplishment may be true and not complete, that only the manifested kingdom of our Lord in a day yet to come will exhaust it in its opening, its establishment, and its results, no sober Christian could rightly deny this. But the principle is false; for as the rule, prophecy sets forth divine intervention, not in grace, as in the gospel, but in judgement and power, as in the world-kingdom of our Lord and His Christ. There are common grounds of mercy and exceptional hints, which were fulfilled in part, and justify the gospel meanwhile, as the New Testament shows. But prophecy cannot be fulfilled as a whole till Christ be glorified in Israel and their land, the centre of earth's promised blessing, of which it speaks abundantly. Incredulity avails itself, not only of extravagant spiritualizing on the part of erring Christians, but of fulfilment not yet complete, to deny what has been really accomplished. Let us search and see how that part was accomplished, and thus learn what to expect for the future. That there were great moral principles, that there was a manifestation of God's ways and glory, is most true; but these are actual facts before all eyes. All this we shall find in the light of the New Testament; not less, but far more, we may surely expect for the day when every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him, whatever the peace, joy, and blessing, and glory that follow.

The things themselves were soon to come to pass. In fact, the history of the Church, as the opening epistles depict it, could be found imaged, as we see, in the condition of existing assemblies. The seeds of the future already existed, and were silently growing up, even with the growth (externally) of Christianity itself. As to the visions following the epistles also, from the sixth chapter, on, we have acknowledged the partial truth of what is known as the historical fulfillment of these. It is admitted that there has been an anticipative fulfillment in Christian times of that which has definite application to the time of the end, although it is the last only that has been, in general, dwelt upon in these pages.

The things themselves were soon to come to pass. In fact, the history of the Church, as the coming epistles depict it, could be found imaged, as we see, in the condition of existing assemblies. The seeds of the future already existed, and were silently growing up, even with the growth (externally) of Christianity itself. As to the visions following the epistles, from the sixth chapter on, we have acknowledged the partial truth of what is known as the historical fulfilment of these. It is admitted that there has been an anticipative fulfilment in Christian times of that which has definite application to the time of the end, although it is the last only that has been, in general, dwelt upon in these pages.

This, then, in the briefest outline, is the character of the book of Revelation. We find in it the present Church-period, and the future also after the Church is removed to heaven, — when Israel becomes the special object of divine interest, the blessing of the earth being at hand in her blessing. This is not a fulfilment of the prophecies before us, but the fulfilment, while it leaves ample room to allow of anticipative, partial fulfilments also. Nero Cesar himself, and still more the papacy, may have their place in such, and we may gather instruction from all these, but the first necessity is evidently that we should know what that fulfilment is which is alone complete, and which it is evident will test all other applications. They must be in harmony with this, or be set aside.