We are continuing our series on preterism as taught by R.C. Sproul and are finally getting to that book. Yes that crazy book by crazy John. The grand ole book of Revelation.
Sproul starts out the lessons covering the diversity of opinion on the literary form of the book of Revelation. This might sound overly simple but you're opinion on the literary form will dictate your interpretation of the passage. There is an incredible amount of doctrine on eschatology at stake simply based on how we approach the book of Revelation. Arguments about symbolism have done a great disservice to that approach to the book. I hope that my slow walk through David Chilton's book has brought to life some of the symoblism based upon Old Testament symbols and not just flights of fancy.
But with that small subject aside, I appreciate Sproul's intentional focus on the dating of the book. A serious concerned with that topic will be starting up soon via interaction with more of Don Preston's videos. Any dating of the book after A.D. 70 immediately renders the preterist opinion on Revelation incorrect. Kenneth Gentry in his thesis proved much for an A.D. 67 writing of the book. That thesis became his book Before Jerusalem Fell. Much of what Sproul here teaches comes after heavy study of Gentry's work.
Despite the great work of Gentry and the agreement of Sproul, the real meat of this lesson and the preterist argument is the plethora of time frame references in the book. This is not a conclusive argument but almost all futurists struggle to address these references head on. The references can be the serious make or break point on the whole preterist perspective.