I sincerely believe that one day, known only to God, Christ will return physically in glory to judge the living and the dead.
This belief is found in my book The Day and the Hour, page 3: “One day Christ will return to sum up all things. The dead will arise, Christ will sit as judge, and every human will be examined and consigned to his or her eternal home either in heaven or in hell.” Page 328: “Five Things Every Christian Should Believe About the End of the World. 1. The Second Coming of Christ. 2. The Judgment. 3. The Eternal Reign of Christ. 4. The Resurrection. 5. The Eternal Hereafter.”
“The Olivet Discourse in Ancient and Medieval Christianity” in The Early Church and the End of the World (p. 111, footnote 13) and New Testament Eschatology (p. 139, footnote 13): “I bring these translations not as an apologist for preterism, but as a historical theologian whose research interests include the history of Christian eschatology… I profess and firmly believe five points of Christian eschatology: the future bodily return of Christ, the last judgment, the eternal reign of Christ, the general bodily resurrection, and the eternal hereafter.”
Each week during the Lord’s Supper, I proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes (1 Cor 11:26).
I also sing along to great hymns like “The Solid Rock,” which reads:
“When He shall come with trumpet sound
Oh, may I then in Him be found;
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.”
And “It is Well” which reads:
“O, Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll.
The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.”
Many of my publications are translations of Latin commentaries on the Book of Revelation from ancient and medieval Christianity. In the process of reading and translating these, I discovered some interpretations and eschatological ideas that are similar to modern partial preterist interpretations of biblical prophecies. I have also found beliefs similar to those who would have the rapture of the saints occurring a significant period of time before the Second Coming. I found these texts enlightening, and I have published them.
While I have friends and relatives who hold to partial preterist readings of the Olivet Discourse and the Book of Revelation and others who hold to a pre-tribulation rapture, I love these friends and relatives, but do not regard myself as an adherent of either of those eschatological persuasions. On the Olivet Discourse, I hold a “near/far” interpretation and believe that the Second Coming, the gathering of the elect by the angels, and the judgment of the nations by Christ is yet future. I see the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Book of Revelation as extending beyond the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. As for the rapture, I believe that the “catching away” of living saints is part of the one general resurrection at the Second Coming of Christ.
On full preterism, which does not hold to a physical return of Christ at the end of the world nor the general bodily resurrection accompanying it, for further inquiry by my readers, I listed in one of my chapters (Early Church and the End of the World, p. 119-120/New Testament Eschatology, p. 147-148) fifteen sources critiquing full preterism from biblical and historical perspectives. These include Kim Riddlebarger’s “Did Christ Come Back in A.D. 70?”, Gary North’s “Full Preterism,” and Keith Mathison’s When Shall These Things Be? A Reformed Response to Hyperpreterism. Kenneth Gentry’s Have We Missed the Second Coming? was published later. On historical similarities between ancient heresies and modern full preterist ideas, I wrote, “…opinions resembling full preterism, such as denial of the bodily resurrection and physical return of Christ, historically existed outside of the bounds of orthodoxy, in gnostic and Manichean sects.” (Early Church and End of the World, p. 105/New Testament Eschatology, p. 131), for which I provided evidence from patristic and medieval texts in a large footnote.
If the Lord grants, I plan to write and publish more on the history of eschatology, including translations of at least two more Revelation commentaries, some early medieval texts on Enoch, Elijah, and the Antichrist, a book on Amillennialism and the Early Church, and another on The Rapture before Darby. Please pray with me that these will come to fruition, that God will be glorified by them, and that His people will be edified by them. Thanks in advance for your prayers.