Can you expand on this? Or give other reading material?
Sure thing:
Part 1: An Examination of Preterism & Other Things from a Historicist’s perspective - Karl Tester https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYE9SiQc1yA&list=PLMV1A56bZ4_JHkHJD6-hSzdx_BsezpDig&index=1
Protestant Historicism - The Key to Daniel and Revelation - Robert Caringola
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX4UM3wmu9E&list=PLvNU1xaiTlC2JCS0VfI1GGCDNT6Wm2j9E&index=1
The Reformation preachers unanimously identified the papal system as the Antichrist, and the Roman Church as Babylon—causing a mass exodus of believers out of the Catholic institution.
Because Rome realized that the Reformation could jeopardize her position as a religio-political power, she employed five strategies in what became known as the Counter Reformation. One of those strategies was the creation of futurism and preterism, two different interpretations of the prophecies in Daniel and Revelation. These interpretations contradicted the reformers' stance of historicism.
What are Futurism and Preterism? Martin Luther. Source: Wikimedia Commons Martin Luther. Source: Wikimedia Commons...
The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology says that futurism “argues that Revelation looks beyond the first century to the period immediately before the end times. Thus the book was not written for those who received it, but for those living much later. Jesuit scholars after the Reformation refined this approach to prove that current attempts to identify the Pope as the Antichrist could not possibly be true since the Antichrist will not be revealed until far into the future, just before the Parousia (Christ’s Second Coming)."i
The same book explains that preterism sees Revelation only in terms of its immediate historical context: Revelation [is] described [as] the plight of Christians in the late first century, and its apocalyptic symbols pointed directly to [the city of] Rome as the church’s persecutor...Most modern [preterist] interpreters...insist that the book was never intended to predict conditions or events beyond the first century.ii According to futurism, the Antichrist is still to come.
According to preterism, the Antichrist was in the past. However, this is not Biblical, as Jesus spoke in Matthew 24 of the great apostasy taking place in the future. Both of these false systems disagree with the reformers’ belief that the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy is taking place throughout history.
Throughout the Counter Reformation, preterism and futurism diverted attention away from prophecies identifying the Roman Church as Babylon and the papal system as the Antichrist.
Futurism and Preterism
https://amazingdiscoveries.org/RT_encyclopedia_Futurism_Preterism_Catholic
Antichrist In Your Church - iConnectFX™ [11.19] https://iconnectfx.com/view/b8f7b026-0308-ed11-996a-0050568299de/en Many Jesuit Futurist Pastors deny that futurism originated with the Jesuits as part of the Counter Reformation. In this video I prove that futurism did indeed start with the Jesuits, and that same fact is stated by leading dispensationalist futurists like Irving, Darby and Larkin, just to name a few.
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