Hyper Preterism is Self Refuting

The interpretation of this passage that I hold is the reformed Presbyterian view. I am fully aware of the Reformed Baptist understanding of this passage but obviously I find their interpretation to be over spiritualized and out of context but this isn’t the topic of this article. I am of the opinion that the Presbyterian exegesis does the most justice of the text and the most powerful against the heresy of Full or Hyper Preterism as we will see.

Jeremiah 31:31-34

The New Covenant
31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

In the consummation of the new covenant there will be true knowledge and there would be no need to teach. There is an already but not yet aspect to this prophecy as most prophecies do. The NC is already a reality for us as the knowledge of God continues to go forth in the world through the preaching of the gospel and discipleship but it is in the consummation of the NC where it can be said that “they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest”. The “all” is the total number of God’s elect and the “all” will know the Lord perfectly.

Now the view of the Full Preterist is that this passage is already and totally fulfilled since for them the end and the consummation was the destruction of Jerusalem which was the end of the old Jewish age or the old covenant age. If that is the case then the Hyper Preterist refutes itself. How? Allow me to explain.

The fact that the Hyper Preterists are still trying to teach us their view of the gospel or their so called consistent or full preterism is self defeating. The mere fact that we are here discussing anything about knowing the Lord and His truths destroy their view of the new covenant. The prophet Jeremiah tells us that in this new heavens and new earth we will have full knowledge of God.

Compare with their exegesis of a parallel passage 1 Corinthians 13:12 which reads:

12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

I don’t fully know much less fully know God and neither do any of you. Now granted this is their interpretation not mine but if they are consistent they must stop teaching and assume we know all things concerning the Lord.

You see brothers and sisters, it is only in the final consummation of the new covenant, the new heavens and the new earth, the return of Christ that the “all” shall know the Lord because the only ones who will be there are His people, the Church. According to the hyprets we should “all” know the Lord in the now. So why don’t we? Why the need to keep teaching and preaching the gospel and doctrines about God? Now of course they will try but they can’t ever answer this in their paradigm. Knowing God fully is still in the future or else we have a clear contradiction on their part. We, the Church, will know God because the “all” or the total number of the elect will be gathered to Him in the consummation of history and the fulfillment of the new covenant. Hyper Preterists wants to have all prophecy in the past and do not take into account the already/not yet tension of eschatology.

Hyper Preterism refutes and defeats itself and slaps it’s own face.