8 Up from his nostrils came a smoke,
and from his mouth there came
Devouring fire, and coals by it
were turnèd into flame.
9 He also bowèd down the heav'ns,
and thence he did descend;
And thickest clouds of darkness did
under his feet attend.

10 And he upon a cherub rode,
and thereon he did fly;
Yea, on the swift wings of the wind
his flight was from on high.
11 He darkness made his secret place:
about him, for his tent,
Dark waters were, and thickest clouds
of th' airy firmament.

12 And at the brightness of that light,
which was before his eye,
His thick clouds passed away, hailstones
and coals of fire did fly.
13 The Lord God also in the heav'ns
did thunder in his ire;
And there the Highest gave his voice,
hailstones and coals of fire.

14 Yea, he his arrows sent abroad,
and them he scatterèd;
His lightnings also he shot out,
and them discomfited.
15 The waters' channels then were seen,
the world's foundations vast
At thy rebuke discovered were,
and at thy nostrils' blast.

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who spake unto the Lord the words of this song in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul: And he said,

1 Thee will I love, O Lord, my strength.
2 My fortress is the Lord,
My rock, and he that doth to me
deliverance afford:
My God, my strength, whom I will trust,
a buckler unto me,
The horn of my salvätion,
and my high tow'r, is he.

3 Upon the Lord, who worthy is
of praises, will I cry;
And then shall I preservèd be
safe from mine enemy.
4 Floods of ill men affrighted me,
death's pangs about me went;
5 Hell's sorrows me environèd;
death's snares did me prevent.

6 In my distress I called on God,
cry to my God did I;
He from his temple heard my voice,
to his ears came my cry.
7 Th' earth, as affrighted, then did shake,
trembling upon it seized:
The hills' foundations movèd were,
because he was displeased.

Gary DeMar’s latest podcast, “Hope and the Glorious Inheritance,” features Kim Burgess in what is billed as the final installment of their series on 1 Corinthians 15. Two moments in this episode deserve a close look. Not because they’re surprising. Because they expose the same fault lines that have marked full preterism since I walked away from it fifteen years ago. I’ll let Gary and Kim speak for themselves, add my thoughts, and let you draw your own conclusions.

Part One: Gary Finally Says What I’ve Been Saying for Fifteen Years

Read this carefully:

Kim: I mean, when you deal with eschatology, you’re really ultimately dealing with everything because it all comes together in that whole eschatological concept. Eschatology is not just the last chapter in the systematic theology. It’s not just the last questions and answers in the catechism. That’s not the way to understand it.

Gary: And I think that’s something a lot of people don’t understand. “OK, now that we’ve looked at everything else, now we’re going to look at eschatology.” And you can’t do that. Eschatology is woven throughout the entire New Testament, and you just can’t pull out individual passages and then combine those individual passages and come up with an eschatological belief system. You have to see everything within the context of which Jesus talked about and what the apostles talked about. And it’s an integrated whole with having to understand the parts at the same time as you’re dealing with the whole.

I agree with every word of that. It is also long past time Gary said it.

I have been making this exact argument since I renounced full preterism around 2010. Eschatology is not a self-contained department you can manage in isolation from the rest of Christian doctrine. It reaches into your doctrine of God, your doctrine of man, your understanding of sin, the nature of salvation, the resurrection, the church, the sacraments, and the eternal state. Get eschatology wrong, on the essentials, and the damage does not stay inside the “last things” chapter. It spreads.

Which is why Gary’s agreement here is so remarkable. And so self-indicting.

He has spent decades doing precisely what he accuses others of doing. His entire system is built on what he calls "time texts," a handful of passages where words like mello ("about to"), "this generation," and similar phrases appear. From those texts he draws the conclusion that everything must be fulfilled. Then, when you ask what that means for everything else, the nature of the resurrection body, the eternal state, the continuing humanity of Christ, the ongoing intercession of the Son, the coherence of the Trinity, Gary goes quiet. He changes the subject. Or, as happened in our exchange over mello, he bows out of the conversation entirely when the exegetical pressure builds.

On mello specifically: Gary has treated this word as a near-universal imminence marker. Wherever it appears, he argues it forces an “about to” meaning that demands first-century fulfillment. The Greek lexical evidence does not support that. BDAG, the standard reference lexicon for New Testament Greek, gives mello a range of meanings that extend well beyond temporal imminence. To flatten every occurrence into “about to happen” is a classic case of what James Barr called the illegitimate totality transfer: reading one contextually specific meaning back into every instance of the word regardless of what the syntax and context actually require. When I pressed that point, the conversation ended. Gary was not willing to follow the evidence where it led.

And then there is the breathtaking scope of what Gary simply ignores. He insists that “it is all fulfilled” but has never seriously worked out what that claim costs every other Christian doctrine. Take one example from 1 Corinthians 15. Paul writes:

When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. (1 Cor. 15:28)

Who is “the Son” in this passage? According to full preterism, Gary included, Christ has divested himself of his human nature. The incarnation, in their view, was a temporary covenantal arrangement suited to the old-covenant-to-new-covenant transition, and it is now behind us. What remains is the divine Son. Not the God-Man.

Now ask the question Gary will not ask. What does it mean for the divine Son to “subject himself” to the Father? What are the Trinitarian implications of that? Does it introduce subordinationism into the eternal relations of the Godhead? Does it redefine the Son’s relation to the Father in ways the Nicene and Chalcedonian Fathers would have flagged as dangerous? Gary has not addressed this. Not once. He has discussed time texts and Matthew 24 for years without ever sitting down to trace what his conclusions require of the doctrine of God.

So yes, Gary. Eschatology does affect everything else. But you are the last person who should be congratulating yourself for noticing it, because you have refused to follow that insight to its necessary conclusions. A fulfilled eschatology that evacuates the resurrection of bodily content, strips Christ of his humanity, and redefines the hope of the saints has consequences running through every article of the faith. Gary deals with none of them.

If anyone has taken a handful of proof texts and built an entire system out of them, it is Gary DeMar. The full preterist hermeneutic has produced an interpretive grid that reduces to something like this: flesh is bad and belongs to the old covenant; Spirit is good and belongs to the new covenant. The warrant for that entire grid? A few time texts. An argument about mello. And Gary’s reading of Matthew 24.

That is exactly the kind of atomistic, proof-text-driven eschatology he is criticizing. He just does not recognize himself in the description.

Part Two: The Word Game They Play With “Hope”

Later in the same episode:

Kim: So we’ll get to the time question at the end, but already we’ve got hints of what to expect.

Gary: Yeah, I think this is important to, that what you’re going, when I’m listening to this, and I’m trying to visualize or conceptualize how the typical Christian would understand all of this, and without the timing element involved, they would see almost all of this as something that is yet to take place definitively, and that they’re—

Kim: Well for them it was yet to take place. The question is, how far in the future is this?

Gary: Right, yeah, but they would see this thing, oh, this is something, we’re in this parenthesis right now. All of this stuff that’s here, we’re in this parenthetical time period, which the realization of all of this, the fulfillment of all this is yet to take place. We have to wait for some end time eschatological event to take place, and then this was all gonna take place when we get, we reign on the earth with Jesus for 1,000 years.

Kim: Yep, well that’s a critical issue. I think the timing issue really comes down. The when question is the most critical question of all. In other words, if you’re talking about already and not yet, we pretty much all agree on it already. Where the confrontation comes in is, well, how do we date the timing of the not yet? And I’m fully on the side of the fact with the preterists that yes, this not yet expectation, at least in objective, covenantal, historical, or even historical sense, was something to expect in their generation. Otherwise these verses make absolutely no sense.

Gary: Yeah, an AV supporter today sent me a email by Tom, about a new commentary on Revelation, by Tom Shriner, I think his name is. In fact, I met him some time ago. He’s a pretty, pretty real solid guy. He’s written this commentary on Revelation, and he gets to the time verses in Revelation chapter one. And it’s typical, he acknowledges, yes, it seems like these things were about to take place. I mean, that’s what those words mean. There are lots of people who claim that John was mistaken, he misinterpreted, and then he tries to get around what those words mean. And this is that phrase that R.C. Sproul used in that book. And he wrote the forward to And It Came to Pass about saving the phenomena. That is, you have a particular prophetic system that you have to maintain, and you will do almost anything to skirt around what seems to be obvious at first reading.

Kim: It’s a futile effort, I think. Exegetically, it’s just it cannot be refuted in terms of what we’re talking about. That is the mean that I’m a hyper-preterist either. The hope still continues for us today. There are people who are still coming to Christ, and a hope of entering into the kingdom of God. But the point is, there’s gotta be a kingdom of God already in place for them to enter into it.

Gary: Right.

Two things.

First: the label game. Kim and Gary are full preterists. The transcript makes that plain. They argue that the “not yet” expectation of the New Testament was fulfilled in the first century. That is the defining claim of full preterism. But in the same breath, Kim insists he is not a “hyper preterist.” What exactly is the distinction?

The two terms are synonyms. "Hyper preterist" was coined by Reformed theologians to describe those who deny the bodily return of Christ, the general resurrection, and the general judgment by placing all of it in the first century. That is exactly what Gary and Kim teach. Full preterists did not like the label, so they manufactured a distinction, reserving "hyper" for an even more radical fringe that denies the ongoing relevance of the Gospel altogether, and positioning themselves as something more moderate by comparison. It was a rhetorical move, not a theological one. Gary has either forgotten this history or is banking on the fact that his audience has. If the entire "not yet" expectation of the apostles was fulfilled in the first century, you are a full preterist. You are a hyper preterist. The label you prefer changes nothing.

Second: what they have done to hope. This is where the real damage surfaces. Kim says “the hope still continues for us today,” but notice what that hope now consists of. He defines it as a hope for people who are still coming to Christ, a hope of entering into the kingdom. Once you are in, apparently, the hope no longer belongs to you.

Take that back to Romans 8 and read it honestly. Paul is not writing to unbelievers hoping to get into the kingdom. He is writing as a regenerate man, an apostle, someone who has already received the firstfruits of the Spirit. What is he hoping for? “We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23). The hope Paul is straining toward is bodily redemption, the resurrection of the dead, something not yet received, not yet realized, but genuinely expected. He is not writing as someone who has not yet entered the kingdom. He has entered. He has the Spirit. He is still waiting for more.

What Gary and Kim have done is move that hope outside of us. They have turned it into an evangelistic entry category, a hope belonging to the not-yet-converted, and stripped it of its eschatological content for those who already believe. That is not the already/not-yet framework orthodox Reformed theology has always confessed. In the classic schema, believers are genuinely already in the kingdom and genuinely still awaiting its consummation, including the resurrection of the body, the renewal of creation, and the final judgment. All of that remains ahead of us.

Gary and Kim agree on the first half. They erased the second.

That is the pattern throughout their work. They borrow the vocabulary, "already/not yet," "hope," "inheritance," "resurrection," "glory," and quietly redefine each term until it carries content the New Testament writers would not recognize. Then they want you to believe the only thing separating them from orthodox Christianity is a disagreement about timing.

It is not a timing disagreement. It is a disagreement about what happened, what remains, and what we are still waiting for. It touches the resurrection. It touches the nature of Christ. It touches the hope of every believer who has ever groaned under the weight of a body still subject to decay. It touches the Trinity.

Yes, Gary. Your eschatology affects everything else. You said so yourself.

Now do the work.

8 As th' apple of the eye me keep;
in thy wings' shade me close
9 From lewd oppressors, compassing
me round, as deadly foes.

10 In their own fat they are enclosed;
their mouth speaks loftily.
11 Our steps they compassed; and to ground
down bowing set their eye.
12 He like unto a lion is
that's greedy of his prey,
Or lion young, which lurking doth
in secret places stay.

13 Arise, and disappoint my foe,
and cast him down, O Lord:
My soul save from the wicked man,
the man which is thy sword.
14 From men, which are thy hand, O Lord,
from worldly men me save,
Which only in this present life
their part and portion have.

Whose belly with thy treasure hid
thou fill'st: they children have
In plenty; of their goods the rest
they to their children leave.
15 But as for me, I thine own face
in righteousness will see;
And with thy likeness, when I wake,
I satisfied shall be.

1 Lord, hear the right, attend my cry,
unto my prayer give heed,
That doth not in hypocrisy
from feignèd lips proceed.
2 And from before thy presence forth
my sentence do thou send:
Towàrd these things that equal are
do thou thine eyes intend.

3 Thou prov'dst mine heart, thou visit'dst me
by night, thou didst me try,
Yet nothing found'st; for that my mouth
shall not sin, purposed I.
4 As for men's works, I, by the word
that from thy lips doth flow,
Did me preserve out of the paths
wherein destroyers go.

5 Hold up my goings, Lord, me guide
in those thy paths divine,
So that my footsteps may not slide
out of those ways of thine.
6 I callèd have on thee, O God,
because thou wilt me hear:
That thou may'st hearken to my speech,
to me incline thine ear.

7 Thy wondrous loving-kindness show,
thou that, by thy right hand,
Sav'st them that trust in thee from those
that up against them stand.

1 Why rage the heathen? and vain things
why do the people mind?
2 Kings of the earth do set themselves,
and princes are combined,
To plot against the Lord, and his
Anointed, saying thus,
3 Let us asunder break their bands,
and cast their cords from us.

4 He that in heaven sits shall laugh;
the Lord shall scorn them all.
5 Then shall he speak to them in wrath,
in rage he vex them shall.
6 Yet, notwithstanding, I have him
to be my King appointed;
And over Zion, my holy hill,
I have him King anointed.

7 The sure decree I will declare;
the Lord hath said to me,
Thou art mine only Son; this day
I have begotten thee.
8 Ask of me, and for heritage
the heathen I'll make thine;
And, for possession, I to thee
will give earth's utmost line.

9 Thou shalt, as with a weighty rod
of iron, break them all;
And, as a potter's sherd, thou shalt
them dash in pieces small.
10 Now therefore, kings, be wise; be taught,
ye judges of the earth:
11 Serve God in fear, and see that ye
join trembling with your mirth.

12 Kiss ye the Son, lest in his ire
ye perish from the way,
If once his wrath begin to burn:
blessed all that on him stay.

That man hath perfect blessedness
who walketh not astray
In counsel of ungodly men,
nor stands in sinners' way,
Nor sitteth in the scorner's chair:
2 But placeth his delight
Upon God's law, and meditates
on his law day and night.

3 He shall be like a tree that grows
near planted by a river,
Which in his season yields his fruit,
and his leaf fadeth never:
And all he doth shall prosper well.
4 The wicked are not so;
But like they are unto the chaff,
which wind drives to and fro.

5 In judgment therefore shall not stand
such as ungodly are;
Nor in th' assembly of the just
shall wicked men appear.
6 For why? the way of godly men
unto the Lord is known:
Whereas the way of wicked men
shall quite be overthrown.

James P. Ware, in his 2025 commentary The Final Triumph of God: Jesus, the Eyewitnesses, and the Resurrection of the Body in 1 Corinthians 15 (Eerdmans), argues that this reading is not only wrong but the exact opposite of Paul’s point. Ware’s treatment of verse 50 in pages 370-383 is one of the most careful and methodologically rigorous pieces of exegesis on this passage available, and it deserves wide attention. What follows is a summary of his argument.

The Problem

Ware opens by naming the problem directly. Scholars have routinely treated 1 Corinthians 15:50 as a “holy grail” proving that Paul denied the resurrection of the flesh. Adela Yarbro Collins writes that the verse implies “the resurrection ‘body’ is not material in the same way that the earthly body is.” Dale Martin asserts that “Paul himself believes that the resurrected body will not be composed of flesh.” Troels Engberg-Pedersen reasons that since flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom, the resurrection body must necessarily be “changed away from” flesh and blood as its substance.

The assumption driving all of these readings is the same: “flesh and blood” in verse 50 refers to the physical, material stuff of the human body, and the deficiency Paul has in view is the body’s coarse, tangible physicality. On this reading, resurrection requires the subtraction of the physical body.

Ware’s response is that this assumption has never been adequately examined, and when it is examined, it collapses under the weight of the actual evidence.

The Solution

Step One: What Did “Flesh and Blood” Mean in Paul’s World?

The decisive move in Ware’s argument is a careful survey of every known use of the Greek phrase σὰρξ καὶ αἷμα (”flesh and blood”) in ancient literature prior to and including the first century.

Sirach 14:18 uses the phrase in the context of human mortality: “Like flourishing foliage on a thick tree, which drops some and puts forth others, so is the generation of flesh and blood; one dies, and another is born.” Here the phrase refers to the whole human person and has human perishability squarely in view.

Sirach 17:30-32 contrasts “flesh and blood,” described as mortal and not immortal, with “the host of the highest heaven,” that is, the angels. The emphasis is again on human mortality and frailty, not on physical substance as such.

1 Enoch 15:4 describes the fallen angels as having “lusted after flesh and blood, who die and perish,” setting mortal human beings in explicit contrast with angels who are “spirits who live eternally.” Flesh and blood = those who die.

Galatians 1:16 (“I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood”) uses the phrase to mean the whole human person. You cannot consult a bodily substance; you consult a person.

Matthew 16:17 (“flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in the heavens”) sets human beings as a whole in contrast with God.

Testament of Abraham 13:7 has Abraham say to an angel: “I am flesh and blood, and for this reason I am not able to bear your glory.” Here the phrase expresses Abraham’s mortal incapacity in the presence of an immortal heavenly being.

Ware draws four conclusions from this survey. First, in every single instance, “flesh and blood” is used negatively to describe some human lack or deficiency. Second, since all of these texts are Jewish, and since in Jewish thought physical embodiment is never viewed negatively, the idea that the deficiency in view is physical embodiment is ruled out from the start. Third, in every case where “flesh and blood” is a grammatical subject, it takes a singular verb and is endowed with personal qualities like thought, consultation, and revelation. It is not a reference to bodily substances; it is a reference to the whole person. Fourth, the deficiency consistently centers on human mortality and frailty in contrast with God and the angels, not on the possession of a physical body.

The conclusion: “flesh and blood” is a Jewish idiom denoting mortal, perishable humanity. The deficiency it expresses is not physical embodiment but bodily mortality.

Step Two: “Flesh and Blood” vs. “Flesh and Bones”

Ware sharpens the point by drawing attention to a contrast that is almost universally overlooked. The Greek literature of Paul’s world contains two distinct phrases: σὰρξ καὶ αἷμα (“flesh and blood”) and σὰρξ καὶ ὀστέα (“flesh and bones”). These are not interchangeable.

“Flesh and bones,” as Ware shows, appears throughout Jewish and Hellenistic literature as a positive, neutral description of physical, bodily humanity. The LXX uses it in Genesis 2:23 (Adam’s recognition of Eve: “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”), in passages affirming kinship and embodied solidarity, and elsewhere. Homer and Aristotle use related expressions to describe the physical constitution of living beings. The idiom is never negative.

The risen Jesus uses precisely this phrase in Luke 24:39: “Touch me and see, because a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” He does not say “flesh and blood.” He says “flesh and bones.” That is the language of physical, bodily reality, stated positively.

Paul, by contrast, chooses “flesh and blood” in 1 Corinthians 15:50, the idiom that in Jewish usage always carries a negative connotation of mortality and perishability. Ware argues this choice is deliberate and theologically loaded. Paul is not saying “a body of flesh cannot enter the kingdom.” He is saying “mortal, perishable humanity cannot enter the kingdom.” The body is not the problem. Mortality is the problem.

Step Three: The Structure of Verses 50-53 Confirms It

Having established the meaning of the phrase from ancient usage, Ware turns to the internal structure of the passage itself. He identifies a concentric chiasm spanning the entire unit of verses 50-53:

Within this larger structure, Ware draws attention to the tighter internal chiasm linking verses 50 and 53 directly:

(50)
A - flesh and blood is not able to inherit the kingdom of God
B - nor does corruption inherit incorruptibility

(53)
B’ - this corruptible body must be clothed with incorruptibility
A’ - and this mortal body be clothed with immortality

In verse 50, “flesh and blood” corresponds to “this mortal body” (τὸ θνητὸν τοῦτο) in verse 53. The plight of verse 50 receives its solution in verse 53, and the solution is not the annihilation of the body. It is that this mortal body, the same body, is clothed with immortality. The demonstrative pronoun “this” in verse 53 is emphatic: not a different body, not a replacement body, but this one, transformed.

Ware states the implication: “In the flow of Paul’s argument in vv. 50-53, ‘flesh and blood’ does not express a plus (physical embodiment) that requires a subtraction (the sloughing off of the body), but a minus (the mortality of embodied humanity) that requires an addition (the divine gift of incorruptibility and immortality).”

The problem is having a mortal body. The solution is giving that body immortality. Resurrection is addition, not subtraction.

Step Four: Verse 50 Must Be Read with Verse 39

Ware makes a further observation that most commentators miss entirely. The word σάρξ (“flesh”) appears in 1 Corinthians 15 in only two places: verse 39 and verse 50. These are the only two occurrences of the flesh-word in the entire chapter, and Ware argues they are mutually interpretive.

In verse 39, Paul writes: “Not all flesh is the same flesh, but there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.” The argument is that the Creator’s power to fashion radically different kinds of flesh for different creatures demonstrates his power to fashion a new, glorified kind of flesh for the resurrection body. Verse 39 is not saying flesh is abolished in the resurrection. It is saying flesh is transformed, just as the Creator gives each creature the flesh appropriate to its mode of existence.

Verse 50, the only other σάρξ reference in the chapter, must be read in this light. When Paul says “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom,” he is picking up the thread of verse 39 and making explicit what was there implied: the present, corruptible flesh is inadequate, and transformation is necessary. Both verses affirm the glorification of the flesh. Verse 39 emphasizes the Creator’s power to accomplish this; verse 50 emphasizes its necessity.

In light of verse 39, Ware concludes, verse 50 “does not express the necessity of the flesh’s destruction but rather the necessity of its transformation to incorruptibility in the resurrection.”

Step Five: “Inheritance” and the Fullness of Adoption

Ware adds one more layer that gives the theology of verse 50 its full depth and it concerns the verb “inherit” (κληρονομέω). In Paul’s usage, inheritance is always tied to adoption as God’s children. The children of God are the heirs of the kingdom (Romans 8:17; Galatians 4:7). And Paul says explicitly in Romans 8:23 that the full adoption includes “the redemption of our body.”

To inherit the kingdom, then, is to receive the fullness of adoption, which includes bodily glorification. The risen body conformed to the image of the Son of God (Romans 8:29; Philippians 3:21) is not a body-free soul but a glorified, immortal, physical body. “Flesh and blood,” with its connotation of mortal humanity in its distance from God, is thus the precise opposite of this full adoption. To say “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom” is to say: mortal, unglorified humanity, as it currently stands, cannot enter the consummated kingdom. Something must happen. That something is bodily resurrection and glorification.

Ware also observes that the “flesh and blood” idiom was regularly used in antiquity to contrast mortal humans with the immortal angels. This connects directly to Jesus’s own teaching about resurrection in Luke 20:34-36, where those who rise “are equal to the angels” and “cannot die any longer.” The resurrection does not make believers less physical. It elevates them, in their bodies, to an angelic mode of immortal existence. This is the transformation Paul announces in verses 51-53.

The Payoff

Ware closes his discussion of verse 50 with a summary that is worth dwelling on at length. The common scholarly misreading of this verse, he argues, turns Paul into a Platonist, someone who views the physical body as an impediment to be discarded. But that is not Paul’s Jewish understanding of the person as a composite of soul and body, and it is not what Paul says.

What Paul actually says is that the impediment to everlasting life is not the body’s physicality but the body’s perishability. The Son of God’s incarnation, death, and resurrection introduced something entirely new: the divine and imperishable life of God available to the physical body itself. The necessity Paul asserts in verse 50 is “the full gift of the Son’s incorruptible divine life, given to the physical body in the resurrection.”

In Ware’s words: “First Corinthians 15:50 is not about the present body’s destruction but instead its transformation, enhancement, and glorification. In the resurrection, the humanity of those united to Christ will be granted to share in the Son of God’s divine nature, not only in the soul but also in the body. It will be the consummation of union with Christ.”

The kingdom is not a kingdom without flesh. It is a kingdom where flesh has been liberated from its bondage to decay and death and brought to share, at last, in the radiant and imperishable life of God himself.

Ware’s argument is a model of what careful exegesis looks like. He does not simply assert a preferred interpretation. He establishes it from the ground up: from the ancient usage of the Greek idiom, from the contrast between “flesh and blood” and “flesh and bones” in Jewish literature, from the internal chiastic structure of the passage, from the mutual relationship between verses 39 and 50, and from the theological logic of inheritance and adoption.

The result is a reading that is both exegetically precise and theologically rich. And it is, not coincidentally, the reading that the Gospel accounts require. When the risen Christ says “a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39), he is not contradicting Paul. The resurrection body is not less physical than the earthly body. It is the same body, transformed: freed from corruption, clothed with immortality, and brought at last into the fullness of life in the presence of God.

That is the hope Paul sets before his readers. That is what 1 Corinthians 15:50 is actually about.

There’s a good possibility you’ll spot me there, often with my wife, Monday through Thursday from about 7:30 to 9:00 p.m., and on Fridays and Saturdays from about 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. If you’re in the central Florida area, stop by and holler.