The following discusses “Preterism.” Preterism is the belief that certain passages in the Bible were predicted and then fulfilled. To some degree, all Christians are preterists. They believe the Messiah predicted in the Old Testament is Jesus Christ of the New Testament. The issue is which biblical prophecies are fulfilled, and which are future. Within a subset of Protestants, a debate is raging over which prophecies of the coming of Jesus are future and which were fulfilled by the events of 70 A.D.—the destruction of the Second Temple and Jerusalem.
Three Questions
In 2023, a letter was sent to Gary DeMar with three questions. The letter demanded that Gary affirm three statements as true. The statements were about biblical doctrines, but no supporting verses were included.
The three questions asked of Gary DeMar in 2023 were:
- Do you believe in a future, bodily glorious return of Christ?
- Do you believe in a future physical, general resurrection of the dead?
- Do you believe history will end with the Final Judgment of all men?
The letter then goes on to state:
To refuse to affirm the future, physical resurrection, the final judgment of the righteous and the unrighteous, and the tactile reality of the eternal state is to refuse to affirm critical elements of the Christian faith. To contradict these doctrines is not merely to contradict a few specific biblical texts, it is to contradict indispensable aspects of the Christian faith and the biblical worldview.
The letter was leaked onto Facebook because DeMar didn’t respond. Public pressure was brought to bear on DeMar, and a website was even set up to solicit signatures of people that affirmed the questions. On the website, the three questions were expanded to seven weirdly worded questions; supporting verses were also added. The weirdly worded questions employed the type of verbal gymnastics that California voters are frequently confronted with where “no” means “yes” and “yes” means “no.”
The letter’s author, and agreeing signatories, were trying to position DeMar as a heretic—in their mind DeMar is a closeted full preterist—while they are Orthodox because they are partial preterists which affirm the Historic Creeds. (More on that shortly.)
Before being aware of the website, Gary DeMar responded by saying, which verses apply to these questions? Tell me that and then I will respond.
Once the verses were attached, DeMar was presented with a target rich environment. The signatories were at odds with each other as to which verses applied to A.D. 70 and which to the final return of Christ at the end of history.
The Historic Creeds
In the circles that DeMar runs in, folks are Presbyterian. They acknowledge the Apostle’s Creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed, the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and Westminster Confession of Faith. The controversy before people contemplating the Three Questions are mostly related to the return of Christ as mentioned in the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds.
“… he ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty; from there he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.” — Apostle’s Creed
“He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.” — Nicene Creed
“… and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” — Nicene Creed
DeMar’s Response
DeMar spent many hours on subsequent podcasts pointing out that the signatories did not agree as to which verses listed as supporting the Three Questions applied to the coming of Christ in judgment in 70 A.D. and which applied to a return of Christ at the end of history. Gary’s response was essentially, what am I affirming if y’all can’t even agree amongst yourselves on the position of Orthodox Christianity.
Some of the signatories have changed their positions over the years, one of which is Kenneth Gentry. Gentry has changed his mind on his interpretation of parts of Matthew 24. His current view seems to be nonsense to me and unsupportable. Either Matthew 24 is past or future, but Gentry has decided without any textual support to split it so one verse is fulfilled and the next verse is future and then the next verse is fulfilled again. I don’t agree with splitting past and future at Matthew 24:35 or thereabouts but at least that way keeps verses one to the split together, so the first half is history and the remainder is future. However, Gentry does not do that either.
Part of the issue is that the Creeds have no biblical citations to show where the various clauses come from.
Here is an example of the problems that this creates.
27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.
Matthew 16:27.
Again, the Apostle’s Creed “he will come to judge the living and the dead”
These sound a lot alike but read the next verse.
28 Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.
Matthew 16:28.
Read verses 27 & 28 together. Jesus said the Son will come with angels and reward (judge) every man and some of his First Century listeners would not die before they see this fulfilled. They would live to see him coming into his Kingdom!
Folks, many texts create similar problems. They were future to the people to whom Jesus spoke but fulfilled before the Creeds were even written. DeMar’s point was that the authors of the Creed ignored the time texts and just assumed it was speaking of a future event. As DeMar often says, “They [authors of the Creeds] didn’t show their homework.”
Per this verse, the judgment of all men is not a future expectation as the Creeds imply because some men were already judged—unless you want to say Jesus was a liar—which no signatories or DeMar would allow as a possibility. I think DeMar’s friend, Kim Burgess, would answer that the judgment of men according to their works (Matthew 16:27) was completed when the Old Testament Saints were released from Sheol and allowed to enter Heaven. This would have been between the Ascension and 70 A.D. Thus, Jesus literally opened the way into Heaven and before that time, nobody went there when they died. On this point, the Westminster Confessions are wrong. Only after this First Century judgment was “absent from the body, present with the Lord” a reality.
The problem that Gentry and others have is that they are wedded to the traditions of the Church. Sola Scriptura is not really a thing for them when considering this topic, they assume the tradition is right and then try to shoehorn everything into it. This is why Gentry changed his position on Matthew.
If you took every verse cited by one or more signatories of the Three Questions as applying to A.D. 70, you would end up with no verses applying to what is traditionally regarded as “The Second Coming”. This is why they regard Full Preterism as heresy. The underlying assumption of the signatories is that something must remain to support the position of the Creeds and the Church. DeMar points out that they have no agreement on the topic, but they assume the truth of the proposition because Church tradition and the Creeds demand it.
Jason Bradfield
Kenneth Gentry has been putting forth Jason Bradfield as his attack dog on Facebook to counter Gary DeMar. I have two issues with this. First Bradfield comes across as holier than thou and smug in his attacks on DeMar and second, Gentry reposts Bradfield in a way that completely blocks comments on any of Bradfield articles. Thus, Bradfield does not have to defend his attacks on DeMar. To me it’s gutless if you are unwilling to defend your position.
The most recent volley between the two was on the topic of Acts 1: 9-11. Posts by both men on this topic went up on the Internet on March 22, 2026.
9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. 10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; 11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
Acts 1:9–11.
First, here is what DeMar posted.
Most futurists use this verse to show that Jesus will return in His physical body because that would be necessary in order to fulfill “just in the same way” He went away. The problem is that this Greek phrase is translated differently in other parts of the NT [New Testament].
The above quote from DeMar is not an exhaustive dissertation but from a teaser for a podcast episode on the passage.
Bradfield states this about DeMar:
Stage three is his only real engagement with the text itself: an argument about Greek phrase hon tropon (”in the same way” or “in like manner”). DeMar notes this phrase appears elsewhere in the New Testament (Matthew 23:37, Acts 7:28 Timothy 3:8) and is translated simply as “as” in those passages, not “in just the same way.” From this, he concludes that the translations of Acts 1:11 are prejudicially rendered, that hon tropon doesn’t actually require a precise correspondence between the ascension and the return, and therefore Acts 1:11 “not the slam dunk” people think it is.
Gary DeMar and Acts 1:11: The Art of Not Dealing With the Text
Based on what I have heard DeMar say on his podcast, Bradfield’s summary, which I quoted above, is correct. Bradfield then accuses DeMar of sleight-of-hand because DeMar does not deal with each Greek word in the passage.
If Acts 1:11 is the very text under dispute, you cannot settle its meaning by appealing to your conclusions about other texts. That is circular reasoning. You must deal with what this text says.
I frankly think this is Bradfield invoking his own sleight-of-hand to counter DeMar. To dismiss out-of-hand the way the Greek word is used anywhere else in Scripture as irrelevant to understanding hon tropon is prejudicial. Bradfield also ignores any passages that are parallel to Act 1:9-11. He deals with this verse in isolation. Whether he is employing the magic prophecy scissors, I will let the read decide.
Bradfield then goes on to dissect several Greek words in the passage. Ironically, he does this by citing other instances where certain Greek words are used—which he just castigated DeMar for doing. He does this by selecting quotes from Keith Mathison.
Mathison is having an imaginary conversation where he is rebuking someone else’s views as wrongly understanding the text.
Bradfield wants his readers to assume that said person getting rebuked by Mathison is Gary DeMar. In My mind this is a strawman argument or a tearing down via proxy. The things being rebuked by Mathison are things DeMar has never said. Bradfield is putting words into DeMar’s mouth via this method of analysis.
DeMar points out in his podcast that Jesus’s coming is described differently in different biblical passages. In some passages, Jesus comes on the clouds. Sometimes with angels. In Revelation he is coming on a white horse—Darrell Mansfield’s favorite description. Elsewhere, Jesus comes with a two-edged sword coming out of his mouth. You get the idea. His coming is a fact, the particulars are more descriptive. Some are more literal than others.
The core of Bradfield’s article is:
DeMar also never addresses the presence of houtōs (“thus,” “in this way”) in this verse. He treats hon tropon in isolation, as though it alone carries the full weight of the comparison. But in Acts 1:11, houtōs and hon tropon work together: “will come thus (houtōs)…in the manner in which (hon tropon) you saw him go.” As Mathison explains, “The construction hon tropon is a compound adverbial phrase corresponding to houtōs. It means ‘in the manner in which’ or ‘just as.’ The use houtōs together with hon tropon serves to emphasize the point that Jesus will come in the same way that he departed.” This houtōs…hon tropon combination creates a double emphasis on correspondence between the manner of departure and the manner of return. This combination does not appear in Matthew 23:37, Acts 7:2 or 2 Timothy 3:8. DeMar’s cross-references, therefore, are not as parallel as he assumes.
Again, DeMar is not a careless thinker. He knows where the exegetical pressure points are. That is precisely what makes the pattern so damning. When he engages Acts 1:11, he isolates hon tropon from its context, ignores the verbs of sight and the spatial language that define the manner of the departure, and imports a conclusion from other passages rather than deriving one from the text at hand.
Essentially, Bradfield is demanding that the passage says that Jesus will physically return to earth in the same way that he left. Taken literally, the return of Jesus will be a local event that almost nobody will see except eleven or twelve folks on an obscure mountain top.
Compare Acts 1:9-11 to Revelation 1:7
Remember that the following verse is about the judgment on Jerusalem, not the end of the world.
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. Even so, Amen.
Revelation 1:7.
So, every eye will see Jesus when he comes in judgment in 70 A.D. (Kenneth Gentry spends over 20 pages of his commentary on Revelation defending this interpretation) but in Acts 1:11, where Jesus is claimed to return physically at the end of the world, it is a private affair because his return is a carbon copy of his departure? Sorry but this makes zero sense. Clearly, Bradfield is trying to shoehorn the Acts passage into the preexisting mold of tradition and the Creeds.
Jason Brasdfield is trying to force at least two things from Acts 1, the when, and the how of Christ’s Return. If during the judgment on Jerusalem, “every eye will see him” then clearly Jesus came, and on the clouds too! The subject of “The Cloud” is important to the Acts passage too but gets zero mention from Bradfield. There is a long history and much biblical imagery attached to “The Cloud.”
The issue of Jesus coming more than once is also on the table but nothing from Bradfield on that either.
Bradfield can employ all the Greek Fire that he can muster but nobody has disputed that Jesus would return after the Ascension, it is the how, when, and how many times that needs to be addressed. DeMar is right. Once the signatories agree then have a chat with him and bring verses not slogans.
Conclusion
Gary DeMar has been singled out for special treatment for reasons that I just don’t understand. Gary doesn’t have to answer the questions. Frankly, his job is easy, pointing out the inconsistencies on the other side. I think Bradfield is tired of DeMar being evasive. I just think DeMar is having fun poking holes in the other side. They attacked him and he is making them pay for their stupidity.
The truth is that these guys agree on 98 percent of their theology. The Bible doesn’t tell us much of anything about what happens after death. When we die then we will be with Christ. Jesus comes multiple times in judgment throughout human history. It’s part of ruling on the Throne now. That is a present reality not a future hope.
Contrary to tradition, there are zero verses that say Jesus will ever set foot on planet earth again. I think he will, but I can’t find it in the Bible. The point of the New Testament is the end of the Old Covenant with its temples, blood sacrifices, and rituals. In the Kingdom age, we have work to do. The issue facing the Church in our age is Christians hiding out in their Churches praying for the Rapture, so they won’t have to transform their culture so it is subject to the Lordship of Christ.
Contrary to Premillennial/Dispensationalism, the focus of the New Testament is the Kingdom of God and his Church conquering the world. The last, last things (end of the world as we know it) are not for us to worry about. The Second Coming—whatever form it will take—will not happen for a very long time so quit worrying about it.
Enough with the circular firing squad, Jesus is knocking on the door of your church, will you let him in?