Has Revelation Already Been Fulfilled?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Revelation 20, Revelation 1, 1 Thessalonians 4, Revelation 19, John 14:2-3

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--has-revelation-already-been-fulfilled
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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no prism is not consistent with one is Pentecostal theology so let me explain and by the way there's a little book I wrote a forward to it uh years ago called upholding our future hope it's still available at Pentecostal publishing.com the editor is uh George or Jorge Medina upholding our future hope and so first of all let me just explain prism the full system of prism basically says that all the the passage of scripture that talk about the coming of the Lord refer to the destruction of Jerusalem by Roman armies in ad70 so Jesus coming in the clouds is actually the Roman armies uh trampling the city down the dust of their feet creating clouds and Jesus is symbolically appearing in judgment so we don't look for a future rapture we are actually living in this time past all of the events of Revelation into Revelation 20 what what we would call the millennial Kingdom we are living in God's Kingdom so a a a true predice then would say uh all the events of Acts the gifts of the Spirit speaking tongues all that's gone it's over we're now living in Revelation 20 so no that would not be compatible with Oneness Pentecostalism however there was a movement some years ago of Oneness Pentecostal preachers trying to adopt prism and adapt it and so what it would be called could be called partial prism because they still wanted to have the gifts of the Spirit but they wanted this system of prism and as a practical matter it became very divisive you know we allow lots of Liberty on interpretation of future events such as the timing of the Rapture and so forth um and interpretation of various statements in Revelation we have different opinions and so they took advantage of that the the idea that um you know people could have different views at the end time but they didn't just say we want to have this view they basically said if you don't have this view you need to leave your church and come to our church because your church is in false Doctrine so obviously that became very divisive causing people to leave churches splitting some Churches and so the upci took an official position against all forms of prism so why well first of all the only way to justify prism is by very allegorical interpretation of scripture you can't take scripture very literally or at face value and while we do know that the Book of Revelation for example has a lot of symbolism we do still think it refers to real events so when there's a symbol it's a symbol of something concrete so while when I say a literal interpretation more technically I would say we prefer a grammatical historical interpretation that is interpreted the text according to its grammatical uh construction interpreted according to its historical context and that is described at Great length in my book Understanding God's word how to interpret scripture but in layman's terms we often say a literal or relatively literal interpretation simply meaning take the words at their ordinary average generally understood meaning but I I use the more technical term grammatical historical because we're not denying that there are symbols we're not denying they are figures of speech but we say the context will help you determine when there are symbols and figures of speech and those symbols and figures of speech still relate to an underlying reality that's literal and not spiritualized and and so to be more concrete then the predus would have to interpret scripture very allegorically uh basically say 9 % of the Book of Revelation is already irrelevant to us there's no literal Rapture of the church there's no literal Second Coming there's no literal Millennial Kingdom all that is allegorical and so I I think we reject that form of interpretation because once you go down that road you can water baptism could be optional uh you know just just about anything we think of could be explained away as not real not necessary so that's a big problem um also it means the Book of Revelation is irrelevant for most of the church age uh that basically by ad70 almost all the Book of Revelations already fulfilled and done with um first of all that that also allegorizes so much of Revelation because while the the destruction of Jerusalem was a traumatic event and in some ways may have foreshadowed later events just sitting down reading Revelation all the judgments and all the Terrible Things I don't think there's any way you can say that was all literally fulfilled in ad70 you know yes that conquest of Jerusalem was traumatic for the people but it was not a worldwide tribulation in in the way that we read the book of Revelation so prism would require us to say Revelation is rendered obsolete by ad70 and therefore when God inspired it for 2,000 years it's had had no really no significance no meaning no purpose no value you whereas The Book of Revelation actually says blessed are you if you read this book and there's a historical problem because uh just about every scholar of any Stripe from very conservative to very liberal they're going to put Revelation as one of the latest books probably the end of the first century 80s or even more likely the 90s and so then it would have been written after the destruction of Jerusalem ad70 so it wouldn't have been trying to prepare people for the events of ad70 it was even written then and it would be foolish to try to backd it and try to put its focus on the back when when uh it's focused toward the future and if you if you look at in in Revelation um chapters 2 and three where Jesus appears to John and he gives letters to seven churches that existed he he goes on to say at the end of chapter 1 I'm going to show you the things that are but I'm going to show you the things that will come so the Book of Revelation is related to looking to the Future not to the past so I think it prism fails because it requires an extremely allegorical interpretation of scripture that wipes out the the basics of the New Testament Church uh such as the gifts of the Spirit it uh pretty much makes the Book of Revelation irrelevant uh it require it doesn't take into account that Revelation was written after ad70 um and is future ored rather than past oriented uh it it really removes the literal meanings of the Rapture so we have first Thessalon Thessalonians chapter four where we have a very strong statement of it it doesn't use the English word rapture but that says that the Saints will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and the Latin word for uh Rapture means caught up so so it would deny the literal catching away of the Saints that's clearly taught as a future event in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 it would deny the literal second coming of Jesus Christ to Earth which is described in Revelation 19 it will deny the literal Thousand-Year reign of Jesus Christ on Earth where he where he brings peace and Harmony fulfills God's original plan for Earth which we find in Revelation chap 20 uh it really the promise of Jesus in John 14 where he said I I go to prepare a place for you that where I am there you may be also I'm coming to bring you to that place and so prism really wipes away many important Promises of scripture and once those fall then you really have no foundation for many other things and that that's course a brief introduction now this idea of partial pray trying to weld you know Pentecostal theology with this basically anti- Pentecostal Doctrine um it really doesn't work as I said it's not logical if you're going to accept prism you kind of have to accept the whole system it's hard to pick and choose and and so forth it does so this partial prism does undermine and you'll find in practice churches and Ministers of Embraces have left our movement not only just the organization but but their churches changed they no longer preach the apostolic doctrine of the new birth they no longer preach the apostolic doctrine of Holiness they no longer concerned for ministerial ethics they feel perfectly justified in splitting churches and undermining uh people's connection to their local church and so their fruit demonstrates um that it's not correct now while there can be a sincere honest predice I'm just saying when you try to mix it with Pentecostal Faith this this is the result that we see and so instead we need to firmly believe and preach the catching way of the Saints uh the second coming of Jesus Christ to Earth the millennial Kingdom and a real eternal life uh in heaven with the Lord