In his book, Revelation: Four Views: A Parallel Commentary, Steve Gregg provides parallel readings from recognised Historicist, Preterist, Futurist and “Spiritual” commentaries for each passage of Revelation. Makes interesting reading.
I noticed that one of the many commentaries Gregg refers to is: The Parousia: A Critical Inquiry into the New Testament Doctrine of our Lord’s Second Coming by James Stewart Russell (published 1887). I found that this book may be downloaded at a Preterist site: http://www.preteristarchive.com/Books/pdf/1878_russell_parousia_1st-ed.pdf
The Preterist site describes the author – no relative of CTR, I assume – and his book. It’s about 19 Meg and although it runs to 575 pages, it’s only necessary to read his Summary and Conclusions, rather than plough through the detail. It’s interesting to look at a book that was written at the same time that Barbour and his compatriots were forming their absolutely different ideas.
As an example from James Stewart Russell’s book, we read in his “Summary and Conclusion”:
Our Lord affirms the same speedy coming of judgment upon the land and people of Israel; and He further connects this judgment with His own coming in glory,—the Parousia. This event stands forth most prominently in the New Testament; to this every eye is directed, to this every inspired messenger points. It is represented as the nucleus and centre of a cluster of great events; the end of the age, or close of the Jewish economy; the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem; the judgment of the guilty nation; the resurrection of the dead; the reward of the faithful; the consummation of the kingdom of God. All these transactions are declared to be coincident with the Parousia. ...
(1) ‘Verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come’ (Matt. 10:23).
(2) ‘Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom’ (Matt. 16:28).
(3) ‘Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled’ (Matt. 24:34).
The plain grammatical meaning of these statements has been fully discussed in these pages. No violence can extort from them any other sense than the obvious and unambiguous one, viz. that our Lord’s second coming would take place within the limits of the existing generation.
A directly relevant reference in Steve Greg’s book is from the Preterist commentary on Revelation 12:7-12, which says in part:
Chilton makes an extensive case for the identification of Michael with Jesus Himself. (James Stewart) Russell also affirms this as a probability. Conflicts with Jehovah’s Witnesses over this identification may incline some to avoid this suggestion. However, Chilton is not implying, as do the Jehovah’s Witnesses, that Jesus is a mere angel or created being. The suggestion is simply that, as Christ has been symbolized previously as a “mighty angel” (cf 10:1), so also here, the symbol of Christ is that of the “archangel” (as Michael is called in Jude 9). Explaining that archangel does not mean “a member of a superior class of angels”, but rather “Chief of the angels,” Chilton suggests that the title is equivalent to “Commander of the Lord’s army” in Joshua 5:13-15. (Gregg, pages 262, 264)
Doug