House Divided Bridging the Gap in Reformed Eschatology A Preterist Response to

When Shall These Things Be?

Chapter Four

The Eschatological Madness of Mathison or How Can These Things Be?

Part 9 – The Imminent Liberation of Creation Romans 8:18-23 

 Michael J. Sullivan

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The Creation Groaning

On pages 196–197, Mathison makes the following argument:

The epistles of the New Testament speak of the restoration of

creation both as something that has already begun and as something

that will be completed only in the future. Paul, for example,

explains that “the form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:31;

cf. 1 John 2:17). Yet, according to Paul, the creation awaits its full

deliverance from the effects of sin. . . (Rom. 8:19–25). The full

restoration of creation is still future (see Heb. 2:8; 2 Pet. 3:7–13).

. . . [R]edemption has to do with more than the spiritual side of

creation. God will fully redeem the physical creation as well.

Response:

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing

of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility,

not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in

hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery

to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains

of childbirth together until now. (Rom. 8:19–22)

John Lightfoot associated the “earnest expectation of the creature”

and the “whole creation groaning” with the mind and heart of man, and

interpreted this passage as having nothing to do with the planet Earth—

not even poetically.

. . . [T]his vanity [or futility] is improperly applied to this vanishing,

changeable, dying state of the [physical] creation. For

vanity, doth not so much denote the vanishing condition of the

outward state, as it doth the inward vanity and emptiness of

the mind. The Romans to whom this apostle writes, knew

well enough how many and how great predictions and promises

it had pleased God to publish by his prophets, concerning

gathering together and adopting sons to himself among the

Gentiles: the manifestation and production of which sons,

the whole Gentile world doth now wait for, as it were, with an

out stretched neck.[1]

And again,

The Gentile world shall in time be delivered from the bondage of

their sinful corruption, that is, the bondage of their lusts and

vile affections, (under which it hath lain for so long a time,) into a

noble liberty, such as the sons of God enjoy. If it be inquired how

the Gentile world groaned and travailed in pain, let them who

expound this of the fabric of the material world tell us how

that groaneth and travaileth. They must needs own it to be a

borrowed and allusive phrase. But in the sense which we have

pitched upon, the very literal construction may be admitted.[2]

Lightfoot is on solid ground here citing 2 Peter 1:4; 2 Corinthians

11:3; and 1 Corinthians 15:33. Not only is there lexical evidence to interpret

“vanity,” “corruption,” and “decay” as ethical and moral putrefaction

in the heart and mind of man, but contextually the passage has

nothing to do with hydrogen or oxygen or squirrels longing for a better

day when they won’t get hit by cars.

“The sufferings of this present time.” As much as I can relate to R.C.

Sproul Jr. losing his hair and gaining some weight around his midsection

(WSTTB, ix), Paul’s mention of the “sufferings” and “the redemption

of the body” have nothing to do with those kinds of issues. The

context of the “groaning” of the first-century Christians can be found in

the previous chapter. The sufferings Paul has in mind here were eschatological

—the birth pains that were to precede Christ’s return in AD 70

(Matt. 24:8; Rom. 8:22). They had to do with the last days persecutions

and with the saints of the universal church groaning under the tyranny

of Sin and Condemnation under the Law.

For Paul, Sin had produced “death,” but not physical death. Contrary

to Mathison’s assertions, “the body,” “death,” and “the flesh” in Romans

5–8 have nothing to do with the idea of men biologically dying as a result

of Adam’s sin. Paul’s concern is with corporate-covenantal Death, as even

some Reformed theologians teach.[3] “Bondage,” according to the immediate

context, had to do with groaning under the condemnation of the

Law (cf. Rom. 7:2, 7, 15).

The “redemption” associated with the coming of the Son of Man in

AD 70 entailed much more than a physical flight to the wilderness of

Pella, as some commentators have proposed. Appealing to the principle

of the analogy of Scripture, John Murray and other Reformed

theologians understand Paul in Romans 8 to be speaking of the same

“redemption” that Jesus discussed in the Olivet Discourse:

Now in Luke 21:28 . . . [t]his word ‘redemption’ (apolutrosin), when

used with reference to the future, has a distinctly eschatological connotation,

the final redemption, the consummation of the redemptive

process (cf. Rom. 8:23; 1 Cor. 1:30; Eph. 1:14; 4:30). Hence anal-

ogy would again point to the eschatological complex of events.[4]

The following chart confirms that the “redemption” of Christ’s disciples

in the first century in Luke 21:28 was the redemption of “the body”

in Romans 8:18–23:

On page 200 of WSTTB, Mathison expresses willingness to concede

that the imminence in Romans 13:11–12 was fulfilled in AD 70. The

passage reads:

. . . it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now

salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is

almost gone, and the day is at hand. . . .

But The Reformation Study Bible, of which Mathison is an editor, harmonizes

Romans 13:11 with Romans 8:23, correctly teaching that “salvation”

in that verse is not merely deliverance from persecution (as Mathison

theorizes in WSTTB): “salvation. Here in the sense of future, final

redemption (8:23).”[5] The connection between these two passages is made

even stronger when we allow the Greek word mello in Romans 8 to be

translated the way it is predominately used in the New Testament:

For I reckon that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy

to be compared with the glory about to be revealed in us. (Rom.

8:18, YLT)

It is more than arbitrary for partial preterists such as Gentry to

honor Young’s literal translation of mello in Revelation 1:19 when debating

Dispensationalists and Amimmennialists, but then not honor it

in Romans 8:18 when debating full preterists. Mello is used in the aorist

infinitive in both verses. Both the imminent glorification of the church,

the coming of the new creation, and the redemption of the body were all

“about to” take place! Gentry writes of mello in Revelation 1:19 (where

it is used in the aorist infinitive):

…this term means “be on the point of, be about to.” …According

to Young’s Literal Translation of the Bible, Revelation 1:19 reads:

“Write the things that thou hast seen, and the things that are, and

the things that are about to come [mello] after these things.”

The leading interlinear versions of the New Testament concur.

This is surely the proper translation of the verse.[6]

…when used with the aorist infinitive — as in Revelation 1:19

— the word’s preponderate usage and preferred meaning is:

“be on the point of, be about to. The same is true when the

word is used with the present infinitive, as in the Rev. 3:10.[7]

Unfortunately, none of the major translators cited above translates

Revelation 1:19 in a literal fashion.[8]

Where is Gentry’s disappointment when it comes to translators not

translating Romans 8:18 by the same grammatical standard?  

Especially since there are two other imminent Greek words

apokaradokia and apekdekomai for “eagerly waiting” within the

immediate context (vss. 19, 23).  At least partial preterist Gary

DeMar has tried to be more honest and consistent with a proper

translation of mello in Romans 8:18 citing Robert Young’s

Literal Translation of the Bible he writes: 

“Whatever the glory is it was “about to be revealed”…”[9]  We

appreciate the honesty on properly translating mello here as “about

to be revealed,” but contextually there is no ambiguity as to what

the imminent manifestation of this “glory” was – the liberation of

creation from its groanings and bondage, the full adoption of the

sons of God, and the “redemption of the body” (vss. 18-23).      

Interestingly enough though, according to Gentry and Mathison one of the things

that was “about to come after” John wrote Revelation 1:19 was the arrival

of the New Jerusalem and New Creation of Revelation 21:1ff.

Mathison and Gentry tell us in their other works that the time texts

in Revelation point to a near fulfillment of the passing of “the first heaven

and earth.” They point out that Revelation 21:1 is referring to the

passing of the old covenant “creation” in AD 70 and is a fulfillment of

Isaiah 65–66. Gentry even says:

The absence of the sea (Rev. 21:1) speaks of harmony and peace

within. In Scripture the sea often symbolizes discord and sin

(13:1–2; cf. Isa. 8:7–8; 23:10; 57:20; Jer. 6:23; 46:7; Ezek. 9:10).

Christianity offers the opposite: peace with God and among

humankind (Luke 2:14; Rom. 5:1; Eph. 2:12–18; Phil. 4:7, 9).

But then Mathison and Gentry assign an “expanded” meaning to 2

Peter 3, which discusses the same promises in Isaiah 65–66. They suggest

that Peter is addressing the geological “elements” of the planet while the

Apostle John, referencing the same Old Testament passage, is not.

This is not only arbitrary, it is amazing. If Gentry and Mathison

can give prophetic New Testament passages “expanded” meanings to fit

their eschatology, then they have surrendered their debate with Dispensationalists,

who constantly employ this strategy to force their eschatology

upon New Testament passages.

In Mathison’s section on the “Restoration of Creation” (195–197),

he appeals to the literal and global beginnings of Genesis 1–3 to point

out that preterists have interpreted “the end” in Romans 8 and in the

rest of the New Testament in an inaccurate way. But Mathison should

be open to considering the interpretations of Genesis 1–3 that are presented

by some within the Reformed tradition and by other futurists.

Combined, authors such as Augustine, Milton Terry, David

Snoke, Meredith Kline, and dispensationalist John Sailhamer teach

the following:

• Man was created a physical dying creature like all the plant

and animal life around him.

• The physics of the creation did not change after Adam sinned.

• Genesis 1–2 uses the Hebrew word eretz, which should be

translated as “land” and not [planet] “earth.”

• God’s emphases in the early chapters of Genesis are not

scientific but theological, emphasizing the origins of sin in the

heart and man’s need for the Seed of the woman to redeem

him from Sin.

As the theological emphasis in Genesis 1–2 is on the local land of

Eden, which is both theologically and geographically tied to Israel’s

Promised Land, so too is the emphasis of the New Testament on a Great

Commission preached to the nations of Israel and to the Roman Empire

with a judgment that would affect the nations of that world.

Both the localized and covenantal judgment in Eden and the one in

AD 70 affected and continue to affect all humankind. The introduction of

spiritual death (condemnation and alienation from God within the heart

and conscience of man through Adam) was overcome by Christ’s death,

resurrection, and indwelling presence in AD 70. All men and nations of

the world are either inside the new Israel and New Jerusalem or outside

her gates —as the gospel continues to bring healing and judgment to the

nations today and forever (cf. Rev. 21–22:17).

When we take a combined look at some of the best theologians

within the Reformed and Evangelical communities, we find a preterist

interpretation of every eschatological de-creation prophecy in the

Bible. Combined, John Owen, John Locke, John Lightfoot, John Brown,

R.C. Sproul, Gary DeMar, Kenneth Gentry, James Jordan, Peter Leithart,

Keith Mathison, Crispin H.T. Fletcher-Louis, Hank Hanegraaff, and N.T.

Wright teach that the passing away of heaven and earth (Matt. 5:17–18;

24:3, 29, 35; 1 Cor. 7:31; II Peter 3; I Jn. 2:17–18; Rev. 21:1) refers to the destruction

of the temple or to the civil and religious worlds of men—either

Jews or Gentiles; and that the rulers of the old covenant system or world,

along with the temple, were the “sun, moon, and stars,” which made up

the “heaven and earth” of the world that perished in AD 70.[10]

These interpretations are, individually considered, “orthodox.” Yet

when preterists consolidate the most defensible elements of Reformed

eschatology, anti-preterists such as the authors of WSTTB unite in opposition

to even some of their own stated views.

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Mike Sullivan