GW said:
NIKOLAI:
I don't see where Hebrews speaks of merely the destruction of the Law. It appears the author is speaking of a shaking that will shake all things - irrespective.
GW:
Go back and start at Heb 12:18, and you will see that the contrast is being made between the Old and New Covenant ages. The author states that God "shook the earth" to establish the Mosaic age, but now in their time he was "shaking once more," ...
...and note what He says in comparing the shakings:
"Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying,
Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven."
Hebrews 12:26
While the shaking is DEFINITELY spiritual, it is twofold in its time - physical as well as spiritual. And what remains will be entirely of the Lord. No one who looks at the world today can say that we have the remains of what was shaken (but withstood the shaking). There is much evil, and in fact the heart of man is growing colder on the whole. The shaking is yet to come in fulness. It has happened in times past, but the final shaking - the last great sifting will be greater than all previous. This ONCE MORE shaking must be to the end of the subduing of all that is not under Christ's authority. This has not happened.
And again...we still have death, sorrow, tears, pain, curse, the sea...
...for they were receiving the New Covenant kingdom Jesus gave them (Matt 21:43/Heb 12:28/Mark 1:14-15). The Old Covenant age was at that moment (i.e., AD 64-66) waxing old and was "about to vanish away" (Heb 8:13). It did vanish away just about five years later at AD 70, for "in a very, very short while, He who was coming came and did not delay" (Heb 10:37).
Again, I reference 2 Peter 3 where men count slackness different from God. And the assertion that the apostles knew when Christ would return is ludicrous because even Jesus Himself didn't know that. It is not for us to know the times or the seasons that the Father has placed in His own hands.
Nothing has been violated in scripture - and Christ must yet return.
According to the writer of Hebrews, God was removing the first covenant age so as to establish the second:
But the issue is not the removal merely of a covenant, but the manifestation of the Kingdom in fullness. That is what Christ returns for. To visit punishment on those who will not obey Him and to put down all authority that is not yet under Him. This He will do.
Death...sorrow...tears...pain...the curse...the sea...
--COMPARE THIS--
Hebrews 12:27
And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace...
AMEN! And it is continually expanding in influence and His government is expanding to the uttermost. But we see Jesus...and all power and authority is put under Him PROPHETICALLY. It has been accomplished (It IS finished) but it has not been outworked yet:
" Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him.
But now we see not yet all things put under him."
Hebrews 2:8
Including sorrow, tears, pain, the curse...death...which is the LAST enemy to be destroyed. It has been subdued but is not yet destroyed. And what does He do at His return? He destroys HIS ENEMIES with the brightness of His coming. And He has not yet come, for death still has sway.
--TO THIS--
Hebrews 10:9
Then said I: Behold, I come to do thy will, O God: he taketh away the first [covenant], that he may establish the second.
--AND TO THIS--
Hebrews 8:13
When He said, "A new covenant," He has made the first [covenant] obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is about to disappear.
--AND TO THIS--
2 Corinthians 3:6-8, 11
[God] made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory? ... For if that which is fading away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory.
Simply put, the Old Covenant world was being removed, and the New Covenant World was being erected in its place. All that took place in the last days period of the Old Coveanant age.
Yes, it was. And the old HAS passed away. The new has replaced it. But only those things that are in the heart and are to be told to the world. The harvest has not yet come. The chaff has not yet been burnt up. We await His coming.
NIKOLAI:
And the elements are going to pass away with the heavens and the earth. It's not JUST the elements of the law that pass away, but the heavens and the earth.
GW:
The "elements" (stoicheon) are the entire Mosaic economy (as in NT usage). Those "elements" cannot pass away in the future--they passed away at AD70.
NIKOLAI:
As Jesus said - His words will never pass away, but heaven and earth will.
GW:
Correct. The Mosaic economy/covenant (the blood sacrificial Temple religion) was to pass (Matt 24:1-3), and only the Christic economy/covenant based on Christ's law and teachings was to remain.
NIKOLAI:
I could accept that this means simply the passing away of all the ungodly. However, the destruction of the earth by fire seems to me to imply something different. Yet, even if that is so, it lines right up with what Paul says to the Thessalonians:
" Seeing [it is] a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,
In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; " 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9
GW:
Read that 2 Thess passage very closely. The first-century Thessalonians were being persecuted (read Acts 17:5-9), and their relief from that persecution was to come via the Parousia of Christ (2 Thess 1:6-9). That places the event in their lifetimes, which is when they were expecting it (2 Thess 2:2). Paul taught his flock of some Parousia in their lifetimes that was to end their persecution, and he could not have erred. For also in the first letter to them, Paul says to them "we that are alive and remain unto the Parousia of the Lord..." (1 Thess 4:15), teaching them of a first-century expectation.
NIKOLAI:
But full preterism, as far as I can see, scoffs at scripture - specifically the return of Christ.
GW:
Just the opposite is true. Full preterism teaches the Parousia that the apostles taught -- the one that was near, soon, and at hand in the first century, and that would transpire before their generation was passed (Matt 24:34/Mt 23:36). That is the only Parousia of Christ they knew of, and it was for their generation.