Christians today take great joy and comfort in declaring the completed work of Christ for salvation. In fact, such blessedness and assurance is naturally assumed and taken for granted. However, a careful examination of the "already/not yet" construct reveals that the proclamation of a completed salvation and redemption for the saints can only be justified from a preteristic perspective.

I recently had a conversation with a man that claimed he had present victory over death even though he wasn't a preterist. He pointed to 2 Cor 5:1-4 and said, "look at the blessings we now have at physical death." When I pointed out to the man that the passage was a resurrection passage he was taken aback. I then affirmed to him that if resurrection was not a present New Covenant reality in some sense, then he cannot yet possess a "house not made with hands eternal in the heavens" (2 Cor 5:1). He cannot be "clothed upon with the house from heaven" (2 Cor 5:2). He shall "be found naked" at death (2 Cor 5:3). And he does not have "mortality swallowed up in life" (2 Cor 5:4). While the dialogue seriously called into question the man's present covenantal benefits, it also illustrated the confusion surrounding the present soteriological state for God's people within the futurist system.

Born Under the Law

Christ and the apostles were all born under the covenantal system of the Mosaic Law (Gal 4:4), a system that the apostle Peter claimed not even the forefathers could bear (Acts 15:10). Due to man's faults, that system was incapable of dispensing any true benefits of a completed salvation and atonement (Heb 9:9-10; 8:8; 10:1-4). During the age of its existence, the Law system functioned as kind of replica model that taught about and pointed to a heavenly system that would someday deliver the full blessedness of Messianic redemption to the Chosen. The hopes of salvation, sonship, heaven, and a great many more blessings were foreshadowed to mankind under that old system, but were never delivered by it. The question for the citizens of the New Testament age, therefore, is as follows: "Did Christ's blood sacrifice at AD30 actually complete the atonement process, delivering a full and complete salvation to the People of God?" The shocking answer is "no."

The "Already/Not Yet" Dilemma

While some aspect of Messianic blessedness was understood as being "already" in the ascension and person of Jesus Christ, the tangible aspects of Messianic blessedness for the rest of the saints were "not yet." That is, all the hopes of salvation, redemption, sonship, and even heaven were mere hopes (and not realities) during the lifetimes of the apostles. Only Jesus himself took actual possession of them. Instead of having the realized blessings themselves, the rest of the saints were given an "earnest" of the inheritance to tide them over until some future time of redemption when the promises would convert to true and present blessings to be experienced by all (Eph 1:14; 4:30). Until then, the saints were living within the status quo of the Old Covenant age but enacting the promises and teachings of the new Lawgiver. The realities of the new system would be delivered to the saints at the return of Christ back out of the Holy of Holies -- that is, once his priestly Day-of-Atonement duties were accomplished for His people (Heb 9:23-28). While the firstfruits saints were anxiously awaiting the completed work of their High Priest in the Holy of Holies, it remained a fact that the following soteriological benefits were yet unfulfilled and undelivered to them:

* Salvation (Romans 13:11, 1 Peter 1:5, Heb 9:28, Heb 10:36-39, Rom. 8:24-25, Rev 12:10, Rom 5:10-11, Acts 15:11, Matt 10:22, 1 Thess 5:8) * Eternal Life (1 Tim 6:19, Titus 1:2, Titus 3:7, Luke 18:30, Jude 1:21, Rom 2:7, 1 John 2:25, Col 3:3-4) * Entrance into the Kingdom (2 Pet 1:11) * Redemption (Luke 21:28, 1 Tim 2:6, Eph 4:30, Titus 2:13-14) * The Ransom ( 1 Tim 2:6) * Righteousness by Faith (Gal 5:5; Gal 2:17) * Grace (1 Pet 1:13) * Becoming Christ's Body and partakers with him (Heb 3:6,14) * The New Covenant Temple of God (Heb 3:6, Eph 2:19-22, 1 Peter 2:5) * The Adoption of the sons of God (Romans 8:23-25, Rom 8:19) * The blotting out of sins (Acts 3:19, Heb 8:13) * The inheritance in Heaven (1 Pet 1:3-4) * The inheritance of the promises of Abraham (Heb 6:11-12, Heb 10:36-39) * The End of the Old Testament Age and Law of Moses (Heb 10:9 taken along with Heb 8:13; 2 Cor 3:6-12; 1 Cor 15:56; Matt 5:17-19) * The Transfer of Shekinah Glory to the Church-Temple (2 Thess 1:10, Col 3:4, Romans 8:16-19, Titus 2:13-14, 1 Pet 5:1, 1 Pet 4:13-14, Romans 5:2, Col 1:27, Matt 13:43, Rev 21:11, Eph 5:27, Col 1:22, 1 Tim 2:6)

The Implications of the "Already/Not Yet"

A futurist system that assigns no redemptive significance to the destruction of the Temple at AD 70 cannot declare a finished work of Christ applicable to the salvation of His saints. The situation could be likened to the recent purchase of a great property upon which a colossal amusement park will be built. The plans have been drawn up, the builders contracted, and the title deed granted. There is only one problem: the park doesn't yet exist and isn't open to the public. There is nothing to experience. No rides to ride. No food to be enjoyed. No people to celebrate with. Rather, there is only the promise of the plan and a title deed. What present benefit does such a park bestow to the public? Nothing, except for hope that it will soon exist.

The Timing of the Grand Opening

For futurists, the grand opening of God's amusement park--wherein the benefits of salvation and inheritance can be enjoyed--has not occurred, nearly twenty full centuries after blueprints were drawn up and promises made. Salvation, redemption, sonship, and heavenly inheritance are all yet unavailable to mankind. The urgent question must be asked: When will Christ return back out of the true Holy of Holies to announce the grand opening of His great amusement park?

The writer of Hebrews believed the grand opening was about to occur in his own day: "For yet a very very little while, He who is coming will come, and will not tarry" (Heb 10:37). The first followers of Christ understood the grand opening was to be very soon, even in their own generation as Jesus taught (Matt 24:34). For sure, the destruction of the earthly Temple in Jerusalem would be the sign to all (Mark 13:1-31). Those jewish saints understood the crucial significance of a standing earthly Temple. As saith the scriptures: "the lesson which the Holy Spirit teaches is this--that the way into the true Holy place is not yet open so long as the outer tent still remains in existence. And this is a figure--for the time now present--answering to which both gifts and sacrifices are offered, unable though they are to give complete freedom from sin to him who ministers" (Heb 9:7-9). So we clearly see that it was the destruction of the earthly Temple that was the signal to all that the way into the true Holy place was available to the saints forevermore. That old system had to be removed so that God could establish the second (Heb 10:9) -- yet the first system had not vanished fully at the time the book of Hebrews was written (Heb 8:13). Was the grand opening of God's heavenly Temple actually proclaimed in scripture? Yes. St. John, heralding of the Revelation of the Son of Man concurrent with the siege of the Temple and Jerusalem (Rev 11:2; 11:8; 11:13), writes:

We give You thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who are and who were, because You have taken Your great power and have begun to reign. And the nations were enraged, and Your wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward Your bond-servants the prophets and the saints and those who fear Your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth. AND THE TEMPLE OF GOD WHICH IS IN HEAVEN WAS OPENED (Rev 11:17-19).

Conclusion

While the futurist system with its "already/not yet" compromise robs the saints of true possession of eternal life and inheritance in the present time, the preteristic system proclaims a completed work of Christ, on time and fully effective in the present New Covenant Kingdom age. The Temple of Heaven was opened at the time that the earthly city and sanctuary were destroyed. God's great amusement park (the Kingdom of Heaven) is now constructed, and all its rides and concessions are open to the public.