My online friend, Shelly, did a video recently about Andrew Torba and the fact that he sounded like a Preterist. I shared the video on Gab and tagged Andrew. My gab didn’t really go anywhere so I forgot about it. (I’ll embed Shelly’s video at the end of this post.)
Yesterday, Andrew followed me and gave my gab a thumbs up.
This was interesting because yesterday he also put up these two tweets relating to eschatology. It would seem he’s at least leaning to a partial-preterist or a full preterist. Andrew is correct that this is important and needs to be discussed. I have a lot more content to share about preterism because it really is mind-blowing how much we are not instructed on in our churches regarding these topics. Here is the text of his tweets. Screenshots follow.
Based simply on the text alone, not appeals to random Church father quotes (they are wrong about many things often and their writings are not inspired) or tradition or “scholars” it’s blatantly obvious that this is true.
If you just go by what’s actually in the text, the New Testament always talks about the Temple like it’s still standing, and Jesus’ prophecy about its destruction is clearly in the future tense for the writers. There’s never any mention of Jerusalem’s actual fall or big events like Paul and Peter’s deaths or Titus taking Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
We severely underestimate how much of a cataclysmic event the destruction of Jerusalem/the temple was, never mind the fact that it fulfilled the prophesy of Christ thus proving He was who He said He was.
That any NT writer, especially John in Revelation—would casually omit bringing up the events of 70 AD is utterly inconceivable on its face.
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If you actually look at the New Testament, you’ll find over 100 statements that make it sound like all of the major prophetic events were supposed to happen really soon. The writers aren’t being vague—they use straight-up urgent language all the time. Jesus says things like, “This generation will not pass away until all these things take place” in Matthew 24:34, and you’ll find the exact same wording in Mark 13:30 and basically the same thing in Luke 21:32.
Then you have “soon” all over Revelation—like in Revelation 1:1 (“what must soon take place”), Revelation 22:6 (“things that must soon take place”), and again and again with lines like, “I am coming soon!” in Revelation 22:7, 12, and 20.
You also get “at hand” or “near.” John the Baptist literally says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” in Matthew 3:2. James 5:8 tells people to stay strong “for the coming of the Lord is near,” and in Romans 13:12, Paul says, “the day is near.” In Matthew 24:33, Jesus goes so far as to say, “when you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door,” and James 5:9 says, “the Judge is standing at the door.”
Then there’s “in a little while,” like in Hebrews 10:37: “In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.”
The NT throws in phrases like, “The end of all things is at hand” (1 Peter 4:7), “it is the last hour” (1 John 2:18), “the Lord is at hand” (Philippians 4:5), and again, “I am coming soon” in Revelation 3:11.
All of this together is way too direct to be talking about events thousands of years in the future. The original readers were straight-up expecting these things to go down in their lifetimes. So were Jesus and the Apostles lying or misleading the early Church with a false hope?
It’s pretty easy to accept that Church fathers or theologians could be wrong on things, because they have been many times. Creeds are not inspired and have been edited many times. But can you accept that all of this imminent language from both Jesus Himself and the Apostles in Scripture was wrong? Seriously think about that for a minute.
This is a real problem for the futurist view (the idea that most or all of these things are still future for us) because, to defend that, they have to invent ways for “generation” to mean something other than the people hearing Jesus, or claim “soon” and “at hand” mean “on God’s time,” not human time.
Those explanations are weak, unfounded, and forced, especially since those imminent terms are used normally everywhere else in the Bible in the same imminent context.
This is actually why critics—like Muslims and atheists—bring up these verses when they argue against Christianity. They’ll ask, If Jesus said this stuff would happen soon, why didn’t it? If it didn’t happen, was Jesus wrong, or are Christians just reading the Bible wrong?
When people press futurists about these verses, the answers are often just an appeal to church tradition, reading in things to the text that aren’t there, or an appeal to the creeds instead of the actual text in context.
This is a huge debate in Christianity and it honestly deserves more attention and honest discussion. Instead, anyone who brings it up is instantly ostracized and blackballed. I saw this first hand which is what led me to look into it further five years ago and I am not alone.
Screenshots
Here is Shelly’s video. BTW… My comments on this video were deleted TWICE by CensorTube. I can see them, but no one else can. That is truly evil. They let you think your comment is there, but they hide it for speaking too many uncomfortable truths. Thankfully I’ve learned and saved copies of my comment.
My comments are after this embedded video.
My censored comment. (And it wasn’t Shelly who deleted it.)
So let’s try this again since it was removed the first time.
When worlds collide. LOL! I’ve been on Gab since January 2021 and pay for a Pro membership so I have more than a passing interest in this.
I just shared your video on Gab and tagged Torba to see if he will respond. I’m short on time, but it’s clear that there has been a coordinated effort to take down Gab by multiple governments (USA, Israel, etc.). DOGE confirmed that re: the USA. Email me and I can give you links if you want. It is truly the only free speech platform out there. Twitter/X is not free speech. Truth Social is not free speech. Gab is truly the last stand in that regard. The group that starts with a z especially want Gab gone.
If Torba is a preterist, it would make sense why he is so forthright in his rejection that certain people are special above all else. He knows the church is what belongs to God and is special. (I’m being careful with the words I use so I don’t get deleted.) I assumed he was a postmillenialist because of the circles he ran in, but haven’t paid close enough attention to see if he might be a partial or full preterist. What you shared makes multiple pieces come together including why certain big name postmillenialists, theonomists, etc. have distanced themselves from him.
I’m convinced that there are MANY closet full preterists in the Reformed world, but they won’t go public for fear of what they will lose. So whoever wrote that Telegram comment was correct IMHO. I don’t think Torba has the influence of someone like Doug Wilson or the others that you mentioned. But if Torba came out as a full preterist, it would definitely spark a massive amount of debate.
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