Tag: Ed Stevens

INTRODUCTION

Ed Stevens and Tim Martin introduce two opposite interpretive inconsistencies into Full Preterism. Stevens affirms that the resurrection was spiritually fulfilled in AD 70 but insists that living believers were physically removed from the planet in a literal rapture. Martin affirms that the New Heavens and New Earth were spiritually fulfilled in AD 70 but reinterprets the original heavens and earth of Genesis 1:1 as the creation of an Old Covenant world rather than the physical creation. Both positions create unnecessary difficulties for the biblical pattern of physical archetype, covenantal type, and spiritual fulfillment in Christ.

Stevens retains the physical rapture commonly found in futurist interpretations of 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17 while rejecting their physical interpretation of the resurrection. Martin retains a corresponding futurist assumption about Genesis and Revelation: that the original creation and its eschatological fulfillment must possess the same nature. Rather than making the New Creation physical, however, he makes the original creation covenantal. In both cases, an interpretive assumption is allowed to determine the nature of an event before the immediate context and broader testimony of Scripture have been adequately considered.

The problem becomes particularly apparent when Covenant Creation is applied consistently throughout Genesis 1–9. Gee de Leon’s interpretation of the waters and animals as people and nations raises a question Martin and Jeff Vaughn cannot avoid. If these categories represent people and nations in Genesis 1–2, what do they represent in the flood narrative? Conversely, if Genesis 6–9 describes literal waters and animals, what contextual evidence requires the corresponding categories in Genesis 1–2 to be interpreted exclusively as covenantal symbols?

The issue is not whether Scripture contains both physical and spiritual events. It plainly does. Nor is it whether Scripture can employ physical creation symbolically. The prophets repeatedly do so. The issue is whether these interpretations correctly identify the original realities, their subsequent symbolic applications, and the nature of their fulfillment. Stevens literalizes what Jesus describes in terms of spiritual life and the kingdom, while Martin spiritualizes what Moses and Paul identify as the original physical creation.

These are the article’s two principal case studies. I will also address Sam Frost, a former Preterist whose subsequent treatment of prophetic imminence and Christ’s coming illustrates a related concern. Although the three positions differ, my criticism is that each compromises biblical principles that should govern the interpretation of eschatological fulfillment. The question throughout is whether Scripture corrects our systems or our systems continually redefine Scripture.

1. THE FOUNDATIONAL HERMENEUTIC: THE TIME OF FULFILLMENT DICTATES THE NATURE OF FULFILLMENT

A foundational emphasis in my defense of Full Preterism for the last 35 years has been that the time of fulfillment dictates the nature of fulfillment. This principle must be understood carefully. The inspired time statements establish when the promised eschatological events had to occur. Since Scripture places those events within the first century, interpretations requiring a still-future physical consummation must be reconsidered. Their nature, however, must be established through the language, context, and biblical parallels rather than determined by chronology alone.

Jesus declared that all the events of His Olivet Discourse would occur within “this generation” (Matt. 24:34). He promised that some standing before Him would not taste death before seeing the Son of Man coming in His kingdom (Matt. 16:27–28), and Mark records that some would live to see the kingdom having come in power (Mark 9:1). Revelation likewise declares that its events were near and that Christ was coming quickly (Rev. 1:1–3; 22:7, 10, 12, 20). Paul agreed that the appointed time had grown short, the night was far spent, and the day was at hand (Rom. 13:11–12; 1 Cor. 7:29–31; Phil. 4:5).

Jesus also defined the character of His kingdom and the life He gives. His kingdom does not come through ordinary outward observation (Luke 17:20–21), does not derive its authority from this world (John 18:36), and provides a life that physical death cannot destroy (John 5:24; 8:51; 11:25–26). Within Full Preterism, the first-century fulfillment of these promises is therefore understood as the spiritual consummation of redemption, not the destruction of the physical universe or the removal of Christians from the planet.

This does not mean everything associated with AD 70 was nonphysical. Jerusalem and its temple were physically destroyed, and the Roman armies were historical instruments of judgment. That historical judgment manifested Christ’s authority while the kingdom, resurrection, and New Covenant inheritance reached their spiritual consummation. The distinction between a physical judgment and the spiritual redemptive realities manifested through it is essential.

The same principle governs the relationship between Genesis and Revelation. A spiritual New Creation does not require the original creation to have been spiritual. The physical creation can provide the archetype for later covenantal imagery, just as the physical temple, sacrifices, circumcision, and Promised Land provide types that find their greater fulfillment in Christ.

The nature of the fulfillment does not retroactively change the nature of the original reality.

Stevens and Martin compromise this distinction in opposite directions. Stevens imports a physical event into a spiritual redemptive consummation, while Martin reads the spiritual nature of the consummation backward into the original physical creation.

1. ED STEVENS: A SPIRITUAL RESURRECTION BUT A PHYSICAL RAPTURE
2. Paul unites the resurrection and gathering in one consummating event

Stevens affirms a spiritual resurrection in AD 70 but maintains that living believers were physically removed from the earth. Yet Paul connects the resurrection of the dead and the gathering of the living in the same event. In 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17, the dead in Christ rise first, and the living are caught up together with them to meet the Lord. Both groups receive the same promised blessing: “And thus we shall always be with the Lord.” Similarly, 1 Corinthians 15:51–52 joins the resurrection of the dead and transformation of the living at the same last trumpet.

If the resurrection is spiritual, Stevens must establish why the gathering accompanying it requires a fundamentally different, physical nature. Paul presents these events together. Their interpretations should therefore be consistent unless the context supplies a compelling reason to distinguish them. A physical rapture cannot simply be retained from futurism after its physical resurrection has been rejected.

The connections extend beyond Paul’s two resurrection passages. Jesus describes His coming upon the clouds, the sounding of a great trumpet, and the gathering of His elect in Matthew 24:30–31 before declaring that all these things would occur within His contemporary generation (v. 34). Paul connects the coming of Christ with “our gathering together to Him” in 2 Thessalonians 2:1. Matthew 13:39–43 likewise associates the end-of-the-age harvest with judgment and the gathering of the righteous. These passages describe interconnected aspects of the eschatological consummation rather than unrelated events requiring different fulfillments.

The question, therefore, is not merely what “caught up” can mean in isolation. It is whether Paul’s description of the living being gathered to Christ should be separated from the resurrection, trumpet, coming, and gathering that Jesus placed within the first century.

1. The Gospel uses of harpazō establish a spiritual interpretive framework

The Greek verb harpazō, translated “caught up” in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, conveys the idea of seizing, snatching, or taking hold of someone or something. Stevens’ interpretation requires more than this basic meaning. He must establish that the seizure involves the bodily transportation of living Christians into the atmosphere and their disappearance from the earth.

In my published rapture studies in articles and book form, I have emphasized Jesus’ uses of harpazō in Matthew 11:12; 13:19; and John 10:12, 28–29, together with the related plundering language of Matthew 12:29. These passages repeatedly place seizure and rescue language within the conflict over Christ’s kingdom and the salvation of His people.

Matthew 11:12 — The kingdom is taken by force. Jesus declares that from the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and that forceful people take it by force. The expression employs harpazō. Interpreters disagree about whether the forceful people are believers or hostile opponents, and the verse should not be treated as though that dispute were settled. Nevertheless, its subject is the kingdom, not the bodily transportation of people into the atmosphere. Seizure language can plainly operate in a kingdom context.

Matthew 12:29 — Christ plunders Satan’s house. Jesus asks how anyone can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods without first binding the strong man. The context concerns His casting out demons and demonstrating that the kingdom of God had come upon His audience (Matt. 12:22–29). The verb translated “plunder” is diarpazō, a compound related to harpazō. Although it is not the identical verb found in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, the imagery is relevant: Christ binds the strong man and liberates those held under his dominion. The redemptive significance of this victory is spiritual, not a journey into the sky.

Matthew 13:19 — Satan snatches the Word from the heart. Jesus explains that when someone hears the word of the kingdom without understanding it, the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. The verb is harpazō. Satan does not physically remove a seed from the hearer’s chest or transport the hearer elsewhere. The action concerns the Word of the kingdom and its reception in the human heart. This is an explicit example of the verb describing spiritual seizure.

John 10:12 — The wolf snatches and scatters the sheep. Jesus describes a hired servant who abandons the flock when the wolf comes, allowing it to snatch and scatter the sheep. The shepherding imagery concerns the danger threatening Christ’s people. The wolf seeks to seize and scatter, while Christ gathers and preserves. The imagery is applied to the security of His sheep rather than requiring a literal wolf transporting literal sheep.

John 10:28–29 — No one can snatch believers from Christ’s hand. Jesus promises His sheep eternal life and declares that no one can snatch them from His hand or His Father’s hand. Both occurrences employ harpazō. Believers are not physically located inside Christ’s anatomical hand. Jesus describes their security within His saving power. The promise is directly connected to eternal life, which physical death cannot destroy.

The cumulative point is not that the spiritual use of harpazō in one passage automatically determines its meaning in every other passage. Rather, the Gospel evidence prevents Stevens from treating physical transportation as a requirement of the word itself. The relevant redemptive contexts concern the kingdom, the Word, the danger threatening Christ’s sheep, and their preservation in His saving possession. When Paul describes the eschatological gathering of those who belong to Christ, this broader kingdom and salvation framework deserves serious consideration.

The New Century Version’s rendering of 1 Thessalonians 4:17 as “gathered up” also draws attention to the gathering of the elect in Matthew 24:30–31 and the gathering to Christ in 2 Thessalonians 2:1. The central question is whether these interconnected passages require a bodily disappearance or describe the consummation of Christ’s saving presence with His people.

1. Acts 8 and 2 Corinthians 12 do not establish a physical rapture

Acts 8:39 states that the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away and that the Ethiopian eunuch saw him no more. My published interpretation understands the Spirit as directing Philip to depart, after which the eunuch no longer saw him. The narrative subsequently reports Philip’s presence at Azotus (v. 40). An extraordinary physical relocation is also a possible reading, but Luke does not explain the mechanism or describe Philip ascending into the atmosphere. Even if Philip was bodily transported, that would establish what harpazō can describe in that particular narrative, not what it must describe in the eschatological gathering of 1 Thessalonians 4.

Second Corinthians 12:2–4 is especially important because Paul describes a man caught up to the third heaven and paradise but twice states that he does not know whether the experience occurred in the body or apart from the body. His uncertainty demonstrates that even a heavenly catching-up experience cannot be classified as bodily transportation merely from the verb. Additional contextual evidence is necessary.

These passages expose the inadequacy of a lexical argument that moves directly from “caught up” to physical disappearance. Stevens must establish the nature of the gathering from the eschatological context rather than assume it from the verb.

1. The gathering brings believers into Christ’s consummated presence and kingdom

Paul’s climactic statement in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 is not that believers would permanently inhabit the physical atmosphere. It is that they would “always be with the Lord.” The gathering is directed toward Christ, and everlasting communion with Him is its promised result.

The cloud, trumpet, divine voice, and meeting imagery recall the Sinai theophany, where God descended in a cloud and Israel assembled before Him (Ex. 19–20). Hebrews subsequently contrasts that earthly mountain with the heavenly Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and the New Covenant mediated by Christ (Heb. 12:18–24). The writer tells believers that they have come to this heavenly assembly while announcing the approaching shaking and removal of what can be shaken so that the unshakable kingdom may remain (vv. 26–28).

Within this covenantal framework, the gathering of 1 Thessalonians 4 is understood as the consummation of God’s presence with His people, not their physical departure from the world. The trumpet and meeting imagery also connect with the marriage of Christ and His New Covenant bride. Revelation portrays the judgment of the unfaithful city and the consummation of the marriage of the Lamb, followed by the descent of the New Jerusalem as God’s dwelling with His people (Rev. 11:15–18; 19:1–9; 21:1–3).

The direction of Revelation’s imagery is significant. The New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven, and God establishes His dwelling with His people. This accords with Jesus’ promise that He and the Father would come to the believer and make their home with him (John 14:23). The consummated blessing is divine presence and fellowship. The Church does not need to disappear from the planet to receive it.

1. Jesus’ promise that believers will “never die” is spiritual, not biological

Jesus’ teaching in John’s Gospel supplies an especially direct correction to the physical-rapture interpretation. He declares in John 11:25–26 that the believer may die and nevertheless live, while whoever lives and believes in Him will never die. The distinction is built into the statement: a believer may experience physical death without losing the life Christ provides.

In John 6:35, Jesus promises that whoever comes to Him will never hunger and whoever believes in Him will never thirst. He does not mean that Christians will cease needing physical food and water. In John 8:51, He promises that whoever keeps His word will never see death, prompting His opponents to object that Abraham and the prophets had died (vv. 52–53). Their objection illustrates the difficulty of interpreting His promise merely in biological terms. John 5:24 explains that the believer already possesses everlasting life and has passed from death into life.

Stevens’ interpretation creates an unnecessary distinction between believers living in AD 70 and believers afterward. Christians continue to experience biological death without undergoing a physical rapture, yet Jesus’ promise of eternal life remains applicable to them. If “never die” means spiritual life for subsequent generations, what requires physical removal for the first-century generation?

The consistent interpretation is that believers possess eternal life through Christ and that physical death cannot destroy it. A physical rapture is not necessary to fulfill that promise.

1. Christ’s coming as the light of day and the judgment of Jerusalem

Luke 17:20–37 further establishes the character of Christ’s kingdom and the historical judgment accompanying His coming. When asked when the kingdom would come, Jesus declares that it does not come with ordinary outward observation and that the kingdom will be “within” the heart of a person at His coming (vv. 20–24).

A Faithful Version renders Luke 17:24 as follows: “For as the light of day, whose light shines from one end under heaven to the other end under heaven, so also shall the Son of man be in His day.” I understand this imagery, together with the east-to-west description of Matthew 24:27, as the dawning of Christ’s light and the coming of the Sun of Righteousness in judgment and salvation (Mal. 4:1–2; cf. Isa. 45:6; 60:19–20). The Greek word astrapē is ordinarily translated “lightning,” so the solar connection is an interpretation of the imagery rather than a claim that the word must lexically mean sunshine.

Jesus concludes His discourse by declaring that the eagles or vultures will gather wherever the body is (Luke 17:37; Matt. 24:28). Within the Full Preterist interpretation, apostate Jerusalem had become the covenantally dead body awaiting judgment, and the Roman armies would descend upon the city and destroy its temple (Matt. 23:37–38; 24:1–2; Luke 21:20–24). The identification of the birds with Rome is an interpretive conclusion rather than an explicit identification in the saying, but it accords with the surrounding prophecy of Jerusalem’s destruction.

The distinction remains essential: the kingdom reaches its spiritual consummation while Jerusalem’s physical destruction historically manifests Christ’s judgment. The coming of the Son of Man does not require believers to disappear from the planet.

1. Mark 9:1: Surviving disciples would see that the kingdom had come

Mark 9:1 provides a further argument against the necessity of a physical rapture. Rotherham’s Emphasized Bible renders Jesus’ promise as follows: “There, are, certain of those here standing, who shall in nowise taste of death, until they see the kingdom of God, already come in power.”

The Greek perfect participle elēlythuian presents the kingdom in its arrived state. Jesus promises that some of His contemporaries will remain alive to see the kingdom having come in AD 70, not merely to hear that its arrival remains indefinitely future.

The parallels reinforce the point. Jesus connects His coming in glory and judgment with the lifetime of some standing before Him (Matt. 16:27–28), tells His disciples that they will recognize the approaching fulfillment when they see the predicted events occurring (Matt. 24:33–34; Luke 21:31–32), and announces that the high priest will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven (Matt. 26:64; cf. Dan. 7:13–14).

Within the Full Preterist interpretation, surviving disciples could look back upon Jerusalem’s destruction in AD 70 and recognize that Christ had come in power and glory and that His kingdom had reached its consummation “within” them (cf. Lk. 17:20-24). They did not need to disappear physically from the earth to recognize the fulfillment. Jesus’ prayer in John 17:15 is consistent with their continuing presence and mission: He did not pray that the Father would take them out of the world but that He would protect them from the evil one. John 17 is not a direct exposition of the rapture, but it reinforces the distinction between spiritual preservation and physical removal.

The case against a required physical rapture is therefore cumulative. Paul unites the resurrection and gathering in one event; the Gospel uses of harpazō demonstrate that the verb does not demand bodily transportation; Jesus defines eternal life spiritually; and His kingdom promises are placed within the first century. Stevens must supply a contextual reason for adding the physical disappearance of living Christians to that spiritual consummation.

III. TIM MARTIN: SPIRITUALIZING THE ORIGINAL PHYSICAL CREATION

Where Stevens literalizes the gathering of believers, Martin moves in the opposite direction by spiritualizing the original creation. His Covenant Creation interpretation identifies the heavens and earth of Genesis 1:1 with the creation of an Old Covenant world rather than the original physical heavens and earth.

The problem is not recognizing covenantal creation imagery. Scripture plainly employs it. The problem is reading later symbolic applications backward into Genesis 1:1 and allowing them to redefine the original creation.

Genesis 1–2 describes God creating the heavens, earth, seas, vegetation, heavenly bodies, living creatures, and mankind. These physical realities subsequently provide the foundation for biblical symbolism. Joseph’s dream illustrates the distinction: the sun, moon, and eleven stars symbolize his father, mother, and brothers (Gen. 37:9–10). Their symbolic application does not mean that the sun, moon, and stars were originally created as covenantal family members in Genesis 1.

The prophets likewise employ cosmic imagery to describe historical judgments. Isaiah 13:10–13 describes the darkening of heavenly bodies and the shaking of heaven and earth in connection with Babylon’s judgment. Ezekiel 32:7–8 uses similar imagery concerning Egypt, while Isaiah 34:4–5 describes cosmic dissolution in connection with judgment upon the nations. These passages draw upon the original creation as the source of their imagery. They do not establish that Genesis 1:1 originally referred to the creation of a covenantal world.

The physical creation supplies the archetype; later prophetic passages employ its imagery symbolically. Martin reverses that interpretive relationship.

1. Physical types find their spiritual fulfillment in Christ

Biblical typology does not require the original physical realities to have been spiritual. Physical circumcision finds its fulfillment in circumcision of the heart (Gen. 17:10–14; Rom. 2:28–29; Col. 2:11–12). The physical temple finds its fulfillment in Christ and His people (John 2:19–21; Eph. 2:19–22). Physical sacrifices find their fulfillment in Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice (Heb. 9:11–14; 10:1–14), while the promised land points toward the greater inheritance secured in Him (Gen. 12:7; Gal. 3:16, 29; Heb. 11:13–16).

In every case, the physical reality can serve as a type without needing to be redefined as spiritual at its origin.

The same principle applies to Eden. God physically formed Adam from the dust and placed him in a physical garden (Gen. 2:7–15). Adam’s disobedience brought spiritual alienation and death from God and the eventual physical death described by his return to it. He was exiled from God’s presence in the garden and would die outside it (Gen. 3:19, 22–24). Christ overcomes the spiritual death associated with sin and restores access to God’s presence, represented through the New Jerusalem and tree of life in Revelation 21–22.

There is no contradiction in affirming the physical creation of Adam and Eden, the spiritual nature of the death threatened through disobedience, the physical consequence of returning to dust, and the spiritual fulfillment of Eden’s imagery in Revelation. The physical garden can be the archetype of a greater spiritual reality without being redefined as spiritual at its origin.

Martin introduces an unnecessary assumption when he reasons from the spiritual nature of the New Creation to the spiritual nature of the original creation. The physical temple did not have to be spiritual originally for the Church to become God’s spiritual temple. The sacrifices did not have to be spiritual originally for Christ to fulfill them. Likewise, the original heavens and earth do not have to be covenantal for their imagery to describe the New Covenant creation.

1. Martin retains the futurist assumption that Genesis and Revelation must match in nature: The Promised Land and Eden prove otherwise

Futurists (not Full Preterism) frequently argue that Genesis and Revelation must match in nature. Since Genesis 1–2 describes physical creation and a physical paradise, they conclude that Revelation 21–22 must describe a future physical restoration of the planet and Eden. Martin accepts the underlying Futurist assumption but reverses its conclusion: since the New Heavens and New Earth were spiritually fulfilled in AD 70, he reasons that Genesis 1:1 must describe a covenantal creation rather than the original physical heavens and earth.

Both approaches fail to distinguish the original reality from its greater fulfillment. Hebrews repeatedly contrasts earthly copies and shadows with heavenly realities (Heb. 8:1–5; 9:23–24; 10:1). Biblical typology does not require the type and fulfillment to possess the same nature. The physical Promised Land and Garden of Eden provide particularly clear examples.

The Promised Land was physical, but its greater inheritance is in Christ and His kingdom. God promised Abraham an actual land with identifiable boundaries (Gen. 12:7; 15:18–21), and Israel subsequently possessed that land under Joshua (Josh. 21:43–45). Yet Hebrews explains that Abraham looked beyond the earthly territory to the city whose builder is God and that the patriarchs desired a better, heavenly country (Heb. 11:8–16). Paul identifies Christ as Abraham’s promised Seed and believers as heirs of the promise (Gal. 3:16, 26–29), while Hebrews identifies the heavenly Jerusalem and unshakable kingdom as the inheritance into which believers were coming (Heb. 12:22–28).

The spiritual fulfillment does not mean Abraham was never promised physical land. Nor does it require Christians to return to geographical Canaan to receive their inheritance. The physical land was a genuine promise that anticipated something greater in Christ.

Eden follows the same pattern. Genesis describes God physically forming Adam from the dust, planting a garden, and placing him within it (Gen. 2:7–15). Adam’s sin resulted in exile from God’s presence and exclusion from the tree of life (Gen. 3:22–24). The tabernacle and temple subsequently developed Eden’s imagery through cherubim, trees, and guarded access to God’s presence (Ex. 26:31–33; 1 Kings 6:29–35). Hebrews explains that Christ’s sacrifice opened the way into God’s presence, overcoming the restrictions represented by the Old Covenant sanctuary (Heb. 9:6–12; 10:19–22).

Revelation 21–22 brings Eden’s promises to their consummation. God dwells with His people, the tree of life is accessible, the curse is removed, and His servants see His face (Rev. 21:1–3; 22:1–5). The fulfillment answers the theological problem introduced in Genesis 3: alienation from God and exclusion from life. It does not require a future reconstruction of Eden’s physical geography, nor does its spiritual fulfillment establish that the original garden was spiritual.

The same distinction explains why the New Jerusalem needs neither sun nor moon to illuminate it (Rev. 21:23; 22:5). Within the New Covenant interpretation, God and the Lamb provide the light of the consummated kingdom, in contrast to the Old Covenant order whose calendar and sacred observances were regulated by heavenly lights (Gen. 1:14; Lev. 23:1–4; Col. 2:16–17). The city’s perpetually open gates communicate security and access to God’s presence, while the invitation to receive the water of life remains open (Rev. 21:25–27; 22:17). These images describe the blessings of the New Covenant without requiring the physical sun, moon, or original Eden to cease existing or be recreated.

The interpretive pattern is consistent:

Original physical reality	Greater fulfillment in Christ
The Promised Land (Gen. 12:7; 15:18–21)	The heavenly country, New Jerusalem, and unshakable kingdom (Heb. 11:13–16; 12:22–28)
Eden and the tree of life (Gen. 2–3)	Restored access to God, eternal life, and the removal of the curse (Heb. 10:19–22; Rev. 21–22)
The physical heavens and earth (Gen. 1–2)	The spiritual New Heavens and New Earth of the consummated New Covenant (Rev. 21:1–3)

Martin’s reasoning would be analogous to arguing that because the Promised Land finds its fulfillment in Christ, Abraham must never have been promised physical land, or that because Eden finds its fulfillment in the New Jerusalem, the original garden must never have been physical. Neither conclusion follows. The fulfillment establishes the significance of the original reality; it does not erase its original nature.

Martin has not escaped the futurist assumption that Genesis and Revelation must match in nature. He has retained the assumption while reversing its conclusion. The biblical pattern is physical archetype → covenantal type → spiritual fulfillment in Christ.

1. Gee de Leon exposes Covenant Creation’s Genesis 1–9 dilemma

Gee de Leon has introduced a further hermeneutical problem for Covenant Creation by interpreting the waters and animals of Genesis 1–9 consistently as people and nations. His approach raises a question Martin and Vaughn cannot avoid: if the waters and animals in Genesis 1–2 represent people and nations, what do those same waters and animals represent when the narrative reaches the flood in Genesis 6–9?

The Genesis narrative establishes substantial continuity. God creates the waters and living creatures in Genesis 1, brings the animals to Adam in Genesis 2, and later judges the world through the waters of the flood in Genesis 6–9. Noah is commanded to preserve living creatures in the ark, and after the flood God establishes His covenant with Noah, his descendants, and every living creature (Gen. 6:19–20; 8:17; 9:8–10). God also gives mankind the animals for food while distinguishing their blood from human blood (Gen. 9:2–6).

If de Leon’s interpretation is applied consistently, the floodwaters must represent peoples or nations, and the animals entering and leaving the ark must likewise represent people. This creates substantial difficulties. What exactly is the ark preserving? What does it mean for the animals to reproduce according to their kinds? What does God mean when He gives the animals to Noah and his descendants for food? Genesis 9:3–6 expressly distinguishes animals that may be eaten from human beings whose blood must not be shed. An interpretation that turns both categories into people must explain how that distinction survives.

The problem extends to the covenant itself. Genesis 9:9–10 distinguishes Noah and his descendants from the living creatures that came out of the ark, including birds, cattle, and every beast of the earth. If these animals represent people and nations, why does God distinguish them from Noah’s human descendants? Genesis 9:12–17 further identifies the covenant as extending to every living creature and all flesh. The repeated distinctions between mankind and animals are natural within a physical creation and flood account but difficult to sustain if both categories are assigned the same symbolic referent.

Martin and Vaughn face the opposite difficulty if they reject de Leon’s treatment of the flood and acknowledge that Genesis 6–9 describes literal waters and animals. The flood narrative does not introduce an entirely new creation vocabulary disconnected from Genesis 1. It describes judgment upon the world God had created and the preservation of its living creatures. Genesis 7:11 describes the fountains of the great deep bursting forth and the windows of heaven opening, drawing upon the waters and cosmic structure introduced in the creation account.

If the waters and animals are physical in Genesis 6–9, what textual evidence requires those same categories to be exclusively covenantal in Genesis 1–2?

The dilemma can be stated in logical form:

Major premise: The waters and animals are continuous narrative categories throughout Genesis 1–9. De Leon interprets them consistently as people and nations.

Minor premise: Martin and Vaughn understand the waters and animals of Genesis 6–9 as literal waters and animals.

Conclusion: If these continuous categories are interpreted consistently, their acknowledged physical meaning in the flood account provides substantial evidence for their physical meaning in the creation account.

This reasoning does not establish that every occurrence of water or animal imagery throughout Scripture must be literal. Scripture plainly employs both symbolically. The issue is whether Genesis itself supplies sufficient contextual indicators to redefine these categories in its creation account while retaining their physical meaning in the closely connected flood narrative.

Nor does Peter’s vision in Acts 10 resolve the problem. Peter sees animals in a vision, and the vision is interpreted in relation to Gentile inclusion (Acts 10:9–16, 28, 34–35). Its explicitly visionary setting explains why the animals possess symbolic significance. That later symbolism does not establish that Noah’s animals were symbolic or that the animals originally created in Genesis 1 were nations.

The same objection applies to appeals to Isaiah 51 and other covenantal creation passages. Isaiah 51 may establish that creation language can describe God’s covenantal work with Israel. It does not explain why the waters and animals of Genesis 1–2 should be interpreted differently from those of Genesis 6–9. The immediate narrative must be addressed before later symbolic applications are allowed to control its meaning.

There are therefore two alternatives within these competing Covenant Creation interpretations. De Leon preserves a consistent symbolic reading but must explain the floodwaters, ark, animals, reproduction according to kinds, and distinction between animals and mankind in Genesis 9. Martin and Vaughn preserve the ordinary physical meaning of the flood but must explain why the corresponding categories in Genesis 1–2 should be spiritualized.

The coherent alternative is to recognize that Genesis 1–9 describes the physical creation, its living creatures, and the flood judgment, while allowing those original realities to furnish imagery for later covenantal and prophetic symbolism.

1. THE PASSING HEAVENS AND EARTH: PHYSICAL ARCHETYPE AND COVENANTAL APPLICATION

Martin appeals to interpretations connecting the passing heavens and earth of Hebrews 1:10–12; 12:26–28; 2 Peter 3; and Revelation 21:1 directly with Genesis 1:1—this is the compromise of Futurism. The difficulty is that such an approach does not adequately distinguish the original creation from the later covenantal application of creation imagery.

Hebrews 1:10–12 quotes Psalm 102:25–27 concerning the heavens and earth as God’s handiwork. Hebrews 12:26–28 then describes the shaking and removal of things that can be shaken so that the unshakable kingdom may remain. Its immediate context contrasts Mount Sinai and the Old Covenant theophany with Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, and the New Covenant mediated by Christ (Heb. 12:18–24).

The original creation supplies the imagery, but the covenantal context explains its eschatological application. Isaiah 51:15–16 connects the planting of the heavens and laying of the earth’s foundations with God’s declaration to Zion, “You are My people.” The passage employs creation language in connection with Israel’s redemption and covenantal establishment. Deuteronomy 32:6 LXX similarly describes God as Israel’s Father, who created, acquired, made, formed, and established His people. The Song of Moses subsequently describes Israel’s corruption and approaching judgment (Deut. 32:5, 20, 35).

These passages demonstrate that Scripture can employ creation language covenantally without requiring Genesis 1:1 itself to describe the creation of a covenant rather than the physical world. God created the physical heavens and earth, and He subsequently formed Israel as His covenant people. Both statements can be true without being made identical.

Isaiah 65:17–25 and 66:22 provide important prophetic backgrounds for the New Heavens and New Earth of Revelation 21–22. Within the Full Preterist interpretation, the passing of the Old Covenant order and the establishment of the New Covenant creation were fulfilled in AD 70. This does not require the destruction of the physical universe, nor does it require redefining the original physical creation as an Old Covenant cosmos.

Second Peter 3 provides another example of why the original physical creation must be distinguished from its later covenantal application. Peter appeals to the creation of the heavens and earth, the Flood of Noah’s day, and the coming dissolution of the heavens and earth by fire (2 Pet. 3:5–13). The interpretive question is whether all three must possess the same nature. Kenneth Gentry reasons that because Peter begins with the material creation, the heavens and earth destined to pass away must also be the material universe. Tim Martin moves in the opposite direction: because he understands the passing heavens and earth as the Old Covenant order fulfilled in AD 70, he reads the original creation of Genesis 1 as covenantal. Both approaches collapse the distinction between the original reality and its typological fulfillment.

Peter’s argument is more carefully understood by following his contrast between “the world that then existed” and “the heavens and the earth which now exist” (2 Pet. 3:6–7). In verses 5–6, he recalls God’s original creation of the heavens and earth by His word and the subsequent destruction of the ancient world through the waters of the Flood. Genesis 1 describes God ordering the physical creation through the waters, while Genesis 6–9 describes those waters overwhelming the inhabited world in judgment. The world of Noah’s day perished, but the physical fabric of the planet did not cease to exist. Noah and the living creatures emerged from the ark into the continuing creation. Peter’s point is that the scoffers are wrong to assume that everything has continued unchanged since the beginning: God’s word has already brought judgment upon an established world.

Peter then declares that “by the same word” the heavens and earth existing in his day were reserved for fire and the judgment of the ungodly (v. 7). This phrase supplies the unity of his argument. The same sovereign word that created the physical world and judged the ancient world by water would judge the Old Covenant world by fire. Peter does not need to identify the substance of the original creation with the covenantal order approaching destruction. The correspondence is God’s sovereign power to establish an order and bring it under judgment; the escalation is from the historical Flood to the consummating judgment upon the Sinai-created covenant order in AD 70.

The Old Testament had already established this interpretive pattern. Isaiah 51:15–16 describes God planting the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth in connection with His declaration to Zion, “You are My people.” Deuteronomy 32:6 describes God purchasing, making, and establishing Israel, while the remainder of the Song of Moses anticipates the judgment of the corrupt generation at the appointed time (Deut. 32:5, 20, 35). These passages identify Israel as a covenant people whom God formed and whose covenant order could subsequently be judged. They do not require the original physical heavens and earth of Genesis 1 to have been an Old Covenant creation.

Jeremiah 4:23–27 supplies the clearest precedent for Peter’s use of creation imagery. Jeremiah looks upon the earth and sees it “without form, and void,” employing the language of Genesis 1:2. The heavens have no light, the mountains tremble, the birds have fled, and the fruitful land has become a wilderness. Yet the context identifies the judgment as the devastation of Judah and its cities, and God explicitly declares that He will not make a complete end (Jer. 4:27). The prophet describes a real historical judgment through the symbolic reversal of the original creation. The physical creation supplies the archetype for covenantal de-creation; its imagery does not require the original creation to have been symbolic.

Peter follows this same prophetic pattern. He begins with the physical creation and historical Flood, then applies their judgment pattern to the heavens and earth of the Old Covenant order that still stood in his generation. His references to the dissolution of the elements (stoicheia) also fit this covenantal context when read alongside the New Testament’s use of the term for elementary religious principles and regulations (Gal. 4:3, 9; Col. 2:8, 20; cf. Heb. 5:12). The term itself has a range of meanings, so the covenantal interpretation rests upon the wider context and prophetic parallels rather than the assertion that stoicheia can never describe physical elements. In this reading, Peter announces the dissolution of the Old Covenant order and the arrival of the promised New Heavens and New Earth in which righteousness dwells (2 Pet. 3:10–13; Isa. 65:17; 66:22).

The timing reinforces this interpretation. Peter has already declared that the false teachers’ judgment is not idle and their destruction is not asleep (2 Pet. 2:3). His first letter announces that the end of all things is at hand and that the appointed time for judgment has come (1 Pet. 4:7, 17). Second Peter 3:8–9 appeals to Psalm 90 to explain God’s patience, not to cancel the imminence of the promised judgment. The scoffers mistake divine patience for failure; Peter assures his readers that the appointed judgment was near.  That judgment culminated in AD 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple and the passing of the Old Covenant order.

This exposes the opposing errors. Gentry recognizes that Peter invokes the physical creation and Flood but concludes that the coming judgment must therefore involve the future destruction of the material universe. Martin recognizes the covenantal fulfillment in AD 70 but concludes that the original creation must therefore have been covenantal as well. Neither conclusion is necessary. Jeremiah 4 demonstrates that the prophets can apply physical creation imagery to covenantal judgment without changing the nature of Genesis 1, and Peter employs the same typological movement.

The physical creation was real. The Flood was a historical judgment by water. The Sinai-created covenant world was the order approaching dissolution by fire in Peter’s generation. The New Heavens and New Earth are the greater New Covenant reality fulfilled in Christ.

The controlling principle is therefore not that every reference to the heavens and earth must identify the same object or describe the same kind of destruction. It is that Scripture moves from the original physical reality to its covenantal application and ultimately to its greater fulfillment. As I developed in my fuller study of 2 Peter 3, typology requires correspondence and escalation, not identity of substance.

The physical archetype and its covenantal antitype must be distinguished, not collapsed. Martin cannot use the spiritual fulfillment of 2 Peter 3 to redefine Genesis 1 any more than Gentry can use the physical creation of Genesis 1 to require a future destruction of the material universe.

1. PAUL PREACHED PHYSICAL CREATION IN ACTS 4, 14, AND 17

The most significant exegetical difficulty for Covenant Creation is Paul’s proclamation of God as Creator to pagan Gentiles. Paul does not merely assume physical creation. He explicitly preaches it as the foundation for God’s sovereignty, providence, mankind’s common origin, and universal accountability. The argument develops consistently from the Church’s prayer in Acts 4 through Paul’s preaching in Acts 14 and Acts 17, with Romans 1 supplying its theological framework.

1. Acts 4:24: The Creator governs the rulers and nations

The Church addresses God in Acts 4:24 as the Sovereign Lord who made “heaven and earth and the sea, and all that is in them.” The language echoes Exodus 20:11 and Psalm 146:6 and ultimately points back to the creation described in Genesis 1–2.

The Church then appeals to Psalm 2, identifying the opposition of the nations, peoples, kings, and rulers with the actions of Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, and Israel against Jesus (Acts 4:25–28). The argument moves from the greater to the lesser. Because God created heaven, earth, sea, and everything within them, He possesses sovereign authority over the rulers and nations within His creation. Their opposition to Christ cannot overturn His predetermined purpose.

The physical creation is the foundation of the political and redemptive application. The reference to rulers does not redefine the heavens and earth as rulers. Rather, the Creator’s authority over His world establishes His authority over those who govern within it.

1. Acts 14:15–17: The Creator of heaven, earth, sea, and everything within them

At Lystra, the people attempt to offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas. Paul responds by calling them to turn from these useless things to the living God: “Who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them” (Acts 14:15).

The Old Testament background is unmistakable. Genesis 1:1 declares that God created the heavens and the earth, while Exodus 20:11 states that in six days the Lord made the heavens, earth, sea, and everything within them. Psalm 146:6 repeats the comprehensive Creator formula. Exodus grounds the Sabbath commandment in God’s creation of the world, and Paul employs that same formula when confronting pagan idolatry.

Paul then appeals to God’s continuing providential care through rain, fruitful seasons, food, and gladness (Acts 14:16–17). His argument again moves from the greater to the lesser: because God created the world, He sovereignly governs and provides for the nations within it. He does not identify the heavens and earth as an Old Covenant institution or restrict the Creator formula to Israel’s covenantal world. He proclaims the Creator of the world to Gentiles who are attempting to worship His creatures.

The connection with Genesis 1–9 is important. The heavens, earth, seas, and living creatures described in the creation account are the categories carried into the flood narrative. God’s providential care through rain and fruitful seasons also recalls His promise following the flood that seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night would continue (Gen. 8:22).

Paul’s appeal to the Creator and His providence is therefore consistent with the physical creation and flood narrative. Martin must explain why this language should be redefined as the creation of an Old Covenant cosmos when its Old Testament source and Paul’s appeal to rain, seasons, and food establish God’s sovereignty over the physical creation.

1. Acts 17:24–31: One Creator, one world, one mankind, many nations

Paul makes the same argument in Athens. He proclaims the God who made the world and everything in it, who is Lord of heaven and earth, who does not dwell in temples made with hands, and who gives mankind life, breath, and everything. He then declares that God made every nation from one and determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings (Acts 17:24–27).

The argument unfolds coherently. Because God made the world and everything within it, He is Lord of heaven and earth and cannot be confined to man-made temples. Because He gives life and breath, He does not depend upon human beings. Because He made every nation from one, mankind shares a common origin. Because He determines the nations’ times and boundaries, He sovereignly governs human history. Paul concludes that God commands all people everywhere to repent because He has appointed a day of judgment through the risen Christ (Acts 17:30–31).

The Old Testament background includes Genesis 1–2, Genesis 10–11, Deuteronomy 32:8, and Isaiah 42:5. Isaiah identifies God as the Creator who gives breath to mankind, while Genesis 10–11 and Deuteronomy 32:8 describe the distribution and boundaries of the nations. Paul’s declaration that every nation originates “from one” is consistent with the common origin of mankind in Genesis and the subsequent dispersion of the nations.

Jeremiah 27:5 supplies another important parallel. God declares that He made the earth, mankind, and the animals upon it and then announces His sovereign right to give the lands to Nebuchadnezzar. The physical creation establishes the Creator’s authority over political kingdoms. Jeremiah does not redefine the earth, mankind, or animals as kingdoms. Paul follows the same movement from the greater reality of creation to the lesser reality of sovereignty over nations.

Acts 17 also develops the prophetic critique of idolatry found in Isaiah 40–45 and Jeremiah 10. The God who made the world cannot be confined to temples made with hands or adequately represented by gold, silver, and stone. He is the Creator upon whom humanity depends, not a creature dependent upon human service.

The relationship between Acts 14 and Acts 17 is therefore decisive. At Lystra, Paul proclaims the Creator of heaven, earth, sea, and everything within them and points to rain, fruitful seasons, and food. At Athens, he proclaims the Creator of the world and everything within it and points to life, breath, mankind’s common origin, and the distribution of the nations. These are complementary expressions of the same argument.

1. Romans 1:18–25 supplies Paul’s theological framework

Romans 1 explains why Paul begins with creation when confronting pagan idolatry. God’s invisible attributes, eternal power, and divine nature are understood through the things He has made, leaving mankind accountable. The nations exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for images resembling corruptible human beings, birds, animals, and creeping things, and they worshiped the creature rather than the Creator (Rom. 1:18–25).

Acts 14 and Acts 17 apply this argument in Paul’s missionary preaching. The Lystrans attempt to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas, so Paul directs them to the living Creator. The Athenians possess an altar to an unknown god and worship images, so Paul proclaims the Creator who gives them life and commands repentance. In each case, creation establishes the distinction between God and His creatures and supplies the foundation for human accountability.

The connection does not mean that general revelation independently communicates the resurrection of Jesus or the full content of the gospel. Paul explicitly proclaims the risen Christ and the appointed judgment in Acts 17:30–31. Creation establishes the Creator’s identity, sovereignty, and mankind’s accountability; the gospel announces the saving and judicial work of the risen Christ.

One Creator. One world. One mankind. Many nations. All people everywhere commanded to repent.

This is Paul’s progression. His proclamation of physical creation is not a dispensable assumption that can be replaced with Covenant Creation. It is the foundation of his argument against idolatry and for universal accountability.

1. DOUBLING DOWN RATHER THAN ANSWERING BIBLICAL REBUKE

Scripture does not treat correction as a personal attack that must automatically be resisted. Proverbs 12:1 declares that whoever loves instruction loves knowledge, while Proverbs 15:31–32 associates receiving rebuke with wisdom and warns against rejecting correction. Paul commands Timothy to correct and rebuke with patience and teaching (2 Tim. 4:2), and Titus is instructed to correct those who contradict sound doctrine (Titus 1:9, 13). The purpose of biblical correction is not to win a personal contest but to bring our interpretations into submission to Scripture. When an interpretation encounters a serious biblical objection, the appropriate response is to answer that objection from the text rather than continually redefine additional passages to protect the original conclusion.

The compromises examined in this article are not limited to two isolated interpretations. Ed Stevens retains a physical rapture alongside a spiritual resurrection, while Tim Martin retains a spiritual New Creation by redefining the original physical creation. Sam Frost, a former Full Preterist, provides a further example through his subsequent treatment of prophetic imminence and the coming of Christ. Although their positions differ, my criticism is that each compromises biblical principles that should govern the interpretation of eschatological fulfillment.

This is what I mean by doubling down on stupid: not merely defending an interpretation with which others disagree, but multiplying explanations that fail to answer the central biblical objections. The criticism concerns the interpretations and their responses to Scripture, not any presumed knowledge of the interpreters’ motives. The issue is whether their systems are being corrected by the biblical text or whether the biblical text is continually being redefined to preserve their systems.

1. Ed Stevens: Refusing to let Jesus define what it means to “never die”

The biblical correction to Stevens’ physical-rapture interpretation begins with Jesus’ own explanation of eternal life. In John 11:25–26, Jesus declares that the believer may die and nevertheless live, while the one who lives and believes in Him will never die. The distinction between biological death and the life Christ gives is built into the statement itself. Jesus does not promise that believers will escape physical death through bodily removal from the planet. He promises a life that biological death cannot destroy.

As established in Section II, John 6:35 describes believers as never hungering or thirsting, John 8:51 promises that those who keep Christ’s word will never see death, and John 5:24 explains that believers have already passed from death into life. These passages establish the spiritual nature of the promised life. The Gospel uses of harpazō likewise demonstrate that the verb does not require bodily transportation, while Paul unites the resurrection and gathering at the same trumpet in 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17 and 1 Corinthians 15:51–52.

The unresolved question is straightforward: If believers after AD 70 continue to experience biological death without losing eternal life, why did believers living in AD 70 require physical removal to receive that same life? Stevens must establish the distinction from Scripture rather than assume it from a physical interpretation of “caught up.”

Mark 9:1 reinforces the problem. Jesus promised that some standing before Him would survive to see the kingdom having come in power. Within the Full Preterist interpretation, surviving disciples could witness Jerusalem’s destruction and recognize the kingdom’s consummation without disappearing from the planet. The promise required their survival to witness fulfillment, not their bodily removal from the world.

Repeating that harpazō can describe physical transportation does not answer these objections. The question is whether the resurrection, gathering, eternal life, and kingdom contexts require such transportation. Stevens must allow Jesus’ definitions of life and death to govern his interpretation rather than make a physical rapture necessary for promises Jesus describes spiritually.

1. Tim Martin: Redefining nearly everything in Acts 17 to turn Paul’s creation sermon into another Pentecost

The biblical correction to Tim Martin’s Covenant Creation interpretation has already been established in the preceding sections. Acts 4:24 and Acts 14:15 identify God as the Creator of heaven, earth, sea, and everything within them, employing the language of Exodus 20:11 and Psalm 146:6, grounded in Genesis 1–2. Paul then appeals to God’s providential care through rain, fruitful seasons, and food (Acts 14:17). The Creator of the physical world is sovereign over its inhabitants and provides for their needs. This is the established context for Paul’s closely related proclamation in Athens.

What makes Martin’s interpretation of Acts 17 especially problematic is that he does not merely reinterpret one expression. In the interpretation I have challenged, he redefines the world, life and breath, mankind’s common origin, the face of the earth, and the appointed times and boundaries of the nations. Each expression is redirected toward Christ, Pentecost, or the New Covenant. Instead of allowing Paul’s argument to proceed from the physical creation and the historical distribution of mankind to the risen Christ, Martin reads the redemptive conclusion backward into the premises.

Paul’s actual progression is Genesis 1–2 → Genesis 10–11 → Deuteronomy 32:8 → universal repentance and judgment through the risen Christ. Martin replaces that progression with a series of New Covenant definitions that the immediate context does not establish.

1. “God made the world and everything in it” becomes the creation of a covenantal world

Paul begins: “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands” (Acts 17:24).

Paul identifies God as the Creator of the world and everything within it. This statement corresponds to the comprehensive Creator formula he has already proclaimed in Acts 14:15: heaven, earth, sea, and everything within them. Both passages draw upon the physical creation described in Genesis 1–2 and summarized in Exodus 20:11 and Psalm 146:6.

Martin redirects “the world and everything in it” toward a covenantal world of nations. But Paul immediately contrasts the God who made the world with temples made by human hands. His argument is that the Creator cannot be contained within structures constructed by His creatures. The contrast between what God made and what mankind makes is fundamental to the prophetic critique of idolatry in Isaiah 40–45 and Jeremiah 10.

Paul’s argument does not begin with the creation of the Church or an Old Covenant world. It begins with the God who created the world and everything within it. His sovereignty over the nations follows from that greater premise.

Martin takes the political and redemptive implications of God’s sovereignty and uses them to redefine the original creation statement. Paul does the opposite: he begins with creation to establish God’s sovereignty over everything else.

2. “He gives to all life and breath and everything” becomes Pentecost

Paul continues: “Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things” (Acts 17:25).

Martin redirects this language toward the spiritual life and breath associated with Pentecost. Yet Paul’s argument is not that the Athenians have received the Holy Spirit or that he is describing the birth of the New Covenant Church. His argument is that God is entirely independent of human service because humanity depends upon Him for life itself.

The Old Testament background is particularly clear in Isaiah 42:5: “Thus says God the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it, and spirit to those who walk on it.”

Isaiah identifies the Creator of the heavens and earth as the One who gives breath to the people who inhabit that earth. Genesis 2:7 likewise describes God forming man from the dust and breathing into him the breath of life. These passages establish the Creator’s relationship to His creatures, not the inauguration of Pentecost.

The connection with Acts 14:17 is equally important. At Lystra, Paul points to rain, fruitful seasons, food, and gladness. At Athens, he points to life, breath, and everything. Both arguments concern the Creator’s providential care for mankind. The Athenians do not sustain God through their temples and sacrifices; God sustains them.

Pentecost certainly involves the giving of the Holy Spirit. But the presence of breath imagery in redemptive passages does not establish that Paul’s reference to life and breath in Acts 17:25 means Pentecost.

Martin must explain why Isaiah 42:5 and Genesis 2:7 should be displaced by Pentecost when Paul is explicitly discussing the Creator’s independence and mankind’s dependence upon Him.

3. “From one blood” becomes the blood of Jesus rather than mankind’s common origin

Paul next declares that God made every nation of mankind “from one” to dwell upon the earth (Acts 17:26). The Greek expression ex henos means “from one.” Some translations supply “man,” while the textual tradition reflected in the King James Version includes “blood.”

Martin interprets the expression through the blood of Christ, transforming Paul’s statement about the common origin of the nations into a statement about their spiritual creation through redemption.

But consider the immediate sequence. Paul says that God made every nation from one, appointed where they would dwell, and determined their times and boundaries. The subject is the origin and historical distribution of mankind. Christ’s blood has not been introduced, and Paul has not identified the nations as the New Covenant Church.

The natural background is Genesis 1–11. God creates mankind in Genesis 1–2. Following the flood, Genesis 10 traces the descendants of Noah and their development into families, languages, lands, and nations. Genesis 11 describes mankind’s dispersion across the face of the earth. Paul summarizes this common human origin when he declares that God made every nation “from one.”

The spiritual unity of Jews and Gentiles through Christ’s blood is an important New Testament doctrine (Eph. 2:11–22). But its truth elsewhere does not establish that Paul means Christ’s blood in Acts 17:26.

Indeed, Paul’s point would become unnecessarily restricted if “every nation of mankind” referred only to those spiritually created through Christ’s blood. He is addressing pagan Athenians and explaining their relationship to the Creator before calling them to repentance. His argument depends upon their common humanity and dependence upon God, not upon treating them as people who have already received New Covenant redemption.

Paul is explaining where every nation came from. Martin turns that explanation into how believers are redeemed. Those are related theological subjects, but they are not the same statement.

4. “All the face of the earth” becomes the New Covenant temple

Paul declares that God made the nations to dwell “on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26). Martin redirects this expression toward the spiritual world of the New Covenant temple.

Yet this is precisely where the connection with Genesis 10–11 becomes unmistakable. Genesis 10 describes the nations according to their families, languages, lands, and peoples. Genesis 11 describes their dispersion across the face of all the earth. Paul follows that same sequence: mankind has a common origin, and the nations are distributed throughout the earth.

There is no contextual indication that Paul suddenly changes from the historical origin of mankind to the creation of a spiritual temple. Nor does he describe the nations as dwelling within Christ’s body. He describes them as occupying the places God has appointed for them.

New Covenant temple imagery is biblical, but Martin must demonstrate that Paul intends it here. Appealing to passages where the Church is called God’s temple does not explain why “all the face of the earth” should cease to refer to the geographical distribution of the nations in a sentence that also mentions their dwelling places and boundaries.

Genesis 11 explains the nations’ dispersion across the face of the earth. Martin replaces that historical background with New Covenant temple imagery without establishing the change from Paul’s context.

5. The nations’ “appointed times and boundaries” become the Law and Prophets

Paul completes the statement by declaring that God determined the nations’ appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings (Acts 17:26).

Martin redirects these expressions toward covenantal arrangements associated with the Law and Prophets. But Paul’s language closely corresponds to Deuteronomy 32:8: “When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples…”

Although textual traditions differ concerning the final phrase of Deuteronomy 32:8, they preserve the central point that the Most High divided the nations and established their boundaries.

The passage looks back upon the distribution of the nations and places Israel within that larger history. Paul follows the same framework in Acts 17. God created mankind, made the nations from one common origin, distributed them across the earth, and established their historical times and geographical boundaries.

Paul is not denying that God governs covenant history. He is establishing something more comprehensive: the Creator governs the existence and history of all nations, including the pagan Athenians standing before him.

The reference to appointed times also serves Paul’s subsequent argument. God has governed the nations throughout their history, overlooked their former times of ignorance, and now commands all people everywhere to repent because He has appointed a day of judgment through the risen Christ (Acts 17:26–31).

The progression is historical and theological. God’s sovereignty over the nations leads to their universal accountability before Christ.

Martin replaces the historical times and geographical boundaries of Genesis 10–11 and Deuteronomy 32:8 with covenantal categories that do not account for Paul’s continuous discussion of the nations.

6. Martin’s Pentecost interpretation reverses the direction of Paul’s entire argument

The cumulative problem should now be apparent. Martin’s interpretation requires a series of substitutions:

Paul’s language in Acts 17	Martin’s proposed reinterpretation
God made the world and everything in it	Creation of a covenantal world
God gives all mankind life and breath	Pentecost and spiritual life
God made every nation “from one”	Unity through Christ’s blood
Nations dwell on all the face of the earth	The New Covenant temple
God appointed their times and boundaries	Covenant arrangements associated with the Law and Prophets

These are not isolated interpretive disagreements. Together, they transform the subject of Paul’s sermon.

Paul begins with the physical Creator, moves to mankind’s dependence upon Him, establishes the common origin and distribution of the nations, condemns idolatry, and concludes with the universal command to repent because God is the creator, they are His creatures, and He has appointed judgment through the risen Christ.

Martin begins with New Covenant fulfillment and assigns its categories to the creation statements upon which Paul’s argument depends. The conclusion is allowed to redefine the premises.

Appeals to Jeremiah 31:27 or Hosea 2:18–23 do not resolve this problem. Those passages employ agricultural, creation, and covenantal imagery to describe restoration. They demonstrate that physical creation can provide the language for redemptive promises. They do not establish that Paul is describing a Gentile Pentecost when he speaks of the world’s creation, mankind’s breath, the common origin of the nations, their geographical distribution, and their appointed boundaries.

Romans 1:18–25 supplies an important confirmation of Paul’s method. The Creator reveals His power through the things He has made, and mankind is accountable for worshiping created things rather than Him. Acts 14 and Acts 17 apply that Creator-creature distinction directly to pagan audiences. Paul proclaims the Creator before announcing the risen Christ because the Creator’s sovereignty establishes the universal scope of the gospel’s demand for repentance.

The argument can be summarized as follows:

Genesis 1–2: God creates the world and mankind.

Genesis 10–11: Mankind develops into nations and is dispersed across the earth.

Deuteronomy 32:8: God establishes the nations’ boundaries.

Acts 17:24–27: Paul proclaims these truths to the Athenians as the foundation for God’s sovereignty and mankind’s accountability.

Acts 17:30–31: The Creator now commands all people everywhere to repent because He has appointed a day of judgment through the risen Christ.

This progression explains the entire sermon without redefining its principal expressions. Martin’s interpretation, by contrast, requires the reader to move repeatedly away from the immediate context and the natural Old Testament background to import specialized New Covenant meanings.

Paul is not preaching another Pentecost at Athens. He is preaching the Creator of Genesis 1–11, the sovereign distributor of the nations in Deuteronomy 32:8, and the risen Christ before whom all people everywhere must repent.

Martin’s interpretation reverses Paul’s argument by making the redemptive conclusion redefine the physical creation and human history that establish its foundation. He must explain why Paul’s continuous argument from creation to the nations to universal judgment should be replaced by a Pentecost interpretation that requires virtually every major expression in Acts 17:24–27 to mean something other than its apparent meaning in context.

Paul doesn’t assume physical creation—he preached it!

1. Sam Frost: Redefining the appointed time and the coming of Christ

Sam Frost is another sell-out moving away from sound Preterist principles of interpretation and introduces a related hermeneutical problem through his interpretation of prophetic imminence and the coming of Christ in 2 Thessalonians 1. Whereas Stevens adds a physical rapture to the spiritual consummation of AD 70 and Martin reinterprets the original physical creation, Frost’s proposed understanding of prophetic nearness as “always near” must account for a crucial biblical distinction: the Old Testament anticipates a particular appointed time that lies ahead, while the New Testament announces that this same appointed time has drawn near. The question is not whether God’s purposes are always certain, but whether the inspired time statements identify a definite period of fulfillment.

Moses establishes the foundation in Deuteronomy 32. Israel’s latter-days apostasy would culminate in the appointed time of covenantal vengeance and judgment (Deut. 31:29; 32:5, 20, 35 LXX). Daniel develops this expectation through the seventy weeks determined upon his people and holy city (Dan. 9:24–27), followed by the tribulation, resurrection, and shattering of the power of the holy people (Dan. 12:1–7). Daniel is commanded to seal the vision until the time of the end (Dan. 12:4, 9). The appointed-time language associated with these passages in the Greek traditions is significant, although the Old Greek and Theodotion readings must be distinguished when citing particular forms of kairos. The essential chronological point remains: Moses and Daniel anticipate a consummation that has not yet arrived. They do not present it as equally imminent to every intervening generation.

Paul announces that the anticipated time has reached its climactic stage: “knowing the time,” believers must awaken because their salvation is nearer, the night is far spent, and the day is at hand (Rom. 13:11–12). He likewise declares that the appointed time has grown short and that the present form of the world is passing away (1 Cor. 7:29–31). Peter announces that the end of all things is at hand and that “the appointed time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God” (1 Pet. 4:7, 17). John supplies the decisive contrast with Daniel: whereas Daniel was instructed to seal his prophecy, John is explicitly commanded not to seal Revelation because the appointed time, kairos, is near (Rev. 1:3; 22:10). Revelation 10:6–7 further announces that there will be no further delay in the completion of God’s prophetic mystery, while Revelation 11:15–18 connects the consummation with the kingdom, judgment of the dead, and rewarding of the saints.

Moses anticipated the appointed time; Daniel was told to seal the vision until that appointed time; Paul declared that the appointed time had grown short; Peter announced that the appointed time for judgment had come; and John was told not to seal the prophecy because the appointed time was near. These passages establish a progression from future anticipation to imminent fulfillment. The connection rests not merely upon the recurrence of kairos, but upon their shared themes of Israel’s judgment, resurrection, salvation, and the consummation of prophetic promises. Interpreting nearness as “always near” must explain why Daniel’s vision was sealed while John’s was left unsealed. If the appointed time was equally near to both audiences, the contrasting instructions lose their ordinary chronological significance.  In my debate with Frost he literally did not address this argument on kairos!

This same appointed-time framework must govern Frost’s interpretation of 2 Thessalonians 1. Paul addresses believers enduring persecution and promises that God will repay their persecutors with affliction and grant relief to the afflicted when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels (2 Thess. 1:4–10).  Contextually this has nothing to do with the ascension, but Frost has no problem inserting into the text anyway to form his novel interpretation.

Frost must therefore answer two interconnected questions. First, how does an “always near” interpretation preserve the Old Testament’s distinction between an appointed consummation still awaiting fulfillment and the New Testament’s announcement that its time had arrived and was truly imminent? Second, how does an ascension interpretation of 2 Thessalonians 1 account for the judgment and relief promised to Paul’s suffering first-century audience? Within the Full Preterist interpretation, the appointed judgment anticipated by Moses and Daniel and announced as near by the apostles reaches its covenantal consummation in AD 70. The biblical correction is that prophetic nearness must retain its temporal force, and the coming of Christ must be interpreted within the appointed-time framework established by Scripture rather than redefined to preserve a theological system.

1. The common problem: Protecting an interpretation instead of answering the text

These three disagreements are not identical, but they raise a common methodological concern. Stevens must answer Jesus’ spiritual definition of eternal life and the Gospel uses of harpazō. Martin must answer the physical Creator formula and Paul’s coherent argument from Genesis 1–11 and Deuteronomy 32:8 without turning Athens into another Pentecost. Frost must answer the Old Testament’s anticipated appointed time, the New Testament’s announcement of its nearness, and the promised judgment and relief of 2 Thessalonians 1.

A legitimate defense of an interpretation should explain the opposing passages in context, acknowledge evidence that appears to challenge the position, and demonstrate why its reading accounts for the whole. Merely repeating the disputed conclusion, appealing to additional passages without establishing their contextual relevance, or assigning specialized meanings to ordinary expressions does not answer the biblical objection. The interpreter must allow the passages that challenge his position to exercise their full corrective force.

The corrective principle is straightforward: Scripture must correct the system; the system must not continually correct Scripture. If Jesus defines eternal life spiritually, we must not turn it into a promise of biological exemption. If Moses and Paul identify God as Creator of heaven, earth, sea, and everything within them, we must not redefine their language without contextual warrant. If the Old Testament anticipates a particular appointed consummation and the New Testament announces that its time has arrived, we must not dissolve that chronological progression into perpetual nearness.

Biblical rebuke is valuable precisely because it requires us to return to the text. The appropriate response is not to defend a position at any cost but to demonstrate that the interpretation actually follows from Scripture. The issue is not whether Stevens, Martin, or Frost can construct additional explanations to preserve their conclusions. The issue is whether those explanations answer the biblical evidence that challenges them.

VII. CONCLUSION: TWO OPPOSITE ERRORS, ONE HERMENEUTICAL PROBLEM

Stevens and Martin introduce opposite interpretive compromises into Full Preterism. Stevens affirms a spiritual resurrection but insists upon a physical rapture, despite Paul’s presentation of the resurrection and gathering as interconnected events. His interpretation fails to establish from harpazō itself that living believers had to be bodily transported into the atmosphere. The Gospel uses of the verb demonstrate that seizure and preservation language can describe spiritual realities, while Jesus’ promises concerning eternal life establish that believers do not need to escape biological death to receive the life He gives.

Stevens must also explain why Jesus’ promise that believers will “never die” requires physical removal when Jesus consistently describes eternal life as a reality possessed through faith. The disciples were promised that some would live to see the kingdom having already come in power (Mark 9:1). Within the Full Preterist interpretation, surviving disciples could look back upon Jerusalem’s destruction in AD 70 and recognize that Christ had come in power and glory. They did not need to disappear physically from the earth to witness the fulfillment.

Martin affirms the spiritual fulfillment of the New Heavens and New Earth but redefines the original physical creation as an Old Covenant creation. He must explain why Genesis 1:1 should be interpreted covenantally when Exodus 20:11, Psalm 146:6, Acts 14:15, and Acts 17:24–27 identify God as the Creator of the heavens, earth, seas, and everything within them. Later covenantal applications of creation imagery do not redefine the original creation any more than the spiritual fulfillment of circumcision, temple, sacrifice, the Promised Land, or Eden makes those original realities nonphysical.

The Promised Land and Eden expose the weakness of Martin’s assumption that Genesis and Revelation must match in nature. Abraham was promised a physical land, but the greater inheritance is the heavenly country, New Jerusalem, and kingdom in Christ (Gen. 12:7; Heb. 11:13–16; 12:22–28). Adam was placed in a physical garden, but Eden’s greater fulfillment is restored access to God, the tree of life, and the removal of the curse through Christ (Gen. 2–3; Rev. 21–22). The spiritual nature of these fulfillments does not redefine the original land or garden. Neither does the spiritual New Creation require Genesis 1:1 to describe a covenantal rather than physical creation.

Gee de Leon’s attempt to interpret the waters and animals consistently throughout Genesis 1–9 exposes the same problem within Covenant Creation itself. If the waters and animals are people and nations throughout, the flood narrative must be radically reinterpreted, including its ark, living creatures, reproduction, and distinction between animals and mankind. If the waters and animals of Genesis 6–9 are literal, as Martin and Vaughn maintain, Covenant Creation must provide a contextual reason for denying their physical meaning in Genesis 1–2. The immediate narrative favors the continuity of the original physical creation and flood, while later biblical passages can employ those realities symbolically without redefining their origin.

Martin’s treatment of Acts 17 presents an even broader problem. He does not merely redefine “the world.” He redirects Paul’s references to life and breath toward Pentecost, “from one blood” toward Christ’s blood, the face of the earth toward the New Covenant temple, and the nations’ times and boundaries toward the Law and Prophets. These substitutions dismantle Paul’s continuous argument from Genesis 1–11 and Deuteronomy 32:8. Paul begins with the Creator, establishes mankind’s dependence upon Him and common origin, explains the distribution of the nations, and concludes with the universal command to repent before the risen Christ. His redemptive conclusion does not redefine the creation and human history upon which that conclusion rests.

Sam Frost’s treatment of prophetic imminence illustrates a related compromise. The appointed time anticipated by Moses and Daniel is announced as near by Paul, Peter, and John. Daniel’s prophecy was sealed until the time of the end, while Revelation was left unsealed because the appointed time was near (Dan. 12:4, 9; Rev. 22:10). The promise of relief and judgment in 2 Thessalonians 1 must likewise be interpreted in relation to Paul’s suffering first-century audience. Neither perpetual nearness nor an identification of the promised revelation with Christ’s earlier ascension adequately answers these chronological and contextual questions without further explanation.

Neither Stevens’ physical rapture nor Martin’s covenantal reinterpretation of Genesis is required by Full Preterism. Both create unnecessary difficulties by failing to distinguish the physical archetype, its symbolic and typological applications, and its spiritual redemptive fulfillment. The inspired time statements require the first-century consummation, while Jesus’ teaching concerning the kingdom and eternal life establishes the spiritual nature of that consummation. Jerusalem’s physical destruction manifested Christ’s judgment, but the promised resurrection, gathering, kingdom, and New Creation concern the consummation of redemption in Him.

The governing principles remain consistent: the time of fulfillment dictates the nature of fulfillment when interpreted through the relevant biblical contexts; the original physical creation provides the archetype for later covenantal imagery; and the greater spiritual realities are fulfilled in Christ without requiring the original physical realities to be spiritualized or the consummation to be made biological.

Do not literalize what Jesus spiritualizes. Do not spiritualize what Moses and Paul literalize. Do not make the fulfillment redefine the original reality.

One Creator. One world. One mankind. Many nations. One appointed consummation in Christ.

Paul did not merely “assume” physical creation—he explicitly preached it from the inspired Word of God! Paul testified that he taught nothing beyond what Moses and the Prophets said would come to pass (Acts 26:22). When confronting pagan idolatry, he proclaimed the living God who “made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them” (Acts 14:15), drawing upon the Creator formula of Exodus 20:11 and Psalm 146:6, grounded in Genesis 1–2. In Athens, he again declared that God “made the world and everything in it,” gives mankind “life and breath and all things,” and made every nation “from one” (Acts 17:24–26). His argument follows the creation of mankind in Genesis 1–2, the origin and dispersion of the nations in Genesis 10–11, and God’s establishment of their boundaries in Deuteronomy 32:8. Paul then moves from the Creator’s sovereignty over the physical world and all mankind to the universal command to repent and the appointed judgment through the risen Christ (Acts 17:30–31). Physical creation is not an unstated assumption in Paul’s preaching; it is an explicitly proclaimed biblical premise upon which his argument against idolatry and for universal accountability depends. Covenant Creation cannot redefine that premise without dismantling the very argument Paul makes from the Law and the Prophets.