The subtitle of R.C. Sproul’s book The Last Days According to Jesus is When Did Jesus Say He Would Return?. That seems a bit misleading. But first…
I think this is the first Sproul book I’ve read since I was fired from Ligonier in 1998. This is also the first time I’ve read a book in less than 24 hours in quite some time. Some guys (Al Mohler & Gary North) do this regularly. I don’t.
This book is about defending the authority of Jesus (and therefore legitimacy of Christianity) from attacks that Jesus was wrong with regard to the timing of events mentioned in the Olivet Discourse. Sproul was talking about this in his Systematic Theology III class back in the early to mid 90’s.
In this book he lays out the case for partial preterism. What this means is that most/all of the Olivet Discourse was fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Most people probably haven’t heard of this idea unless they inhabit the nerdy world of people like me. But plenty of people use the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24 in particular) to prove Jesus is coming back soon. They fall into the hands of higher criticism and atheists like Bertrand Russell. So, this book is important.
Sproul does what he does well. He explains what James Stuart Russell, Ken Gentry and others have argued, though in considerably fewer pages and in terms the average guy can understand. He ablely does this through the first 3 chapters. His work on the Olivet Discourse is good, as is chapter 5 (What Did John Teach in Revelation?).
Where he lost me, in the sense that I didn’t agree with him, was in applying preterism to Paul’s instruction. Actually, he didn’t seem to argue for it so much as present the arguements of Russell and DeMar. Many of the events Paul talked about don’t seem to have happened yet (hence, partial preterism). It was just a confusing chapter.
Sproul does a good job when it gets to the Resurrection in explaining the differences between full and partial preterists, and the very real problems full preterism has. Yes, there are people like Max King and Edward Stevens who think the whole shebang has been fulfilled. And former classmates of mine like Keith Mathison and Jonathan Chori Seriah have taken them on. Truly, far too many trees have been killed on this topic. I can’t take King & Stevens seriously.
R.C. surveys the topics of the antichrist and the Millennium at the end of the book. These chapters were not incredibly informative, and deviate (I think) from the overall goal of the book.
I do recommend this book if you want to gain a better understanding of the relationship of the Olivet Discourse to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. This is significant for the broader approach to eschatology, and means that most of the guys you see on tv are wrong, wrong, wrong on this one.
Unfortunately, it didn’t help me prepare my sermon on Revelation 12:7-13 like I’d hoped.
Cavman Considers 