Gary DeMar’s Hebrews 9:28 Argument Collapses a Second Time

In Once to Die, Then the Spin, I addressed an argument by hyper-preterists Gary DeMar and Kim Burgess claiming that Hebrews 9:27 teaches that the judgment spoken of in the passage occurs at the moment of physical death. I argued that this interpretation fails because it neglects the argument of Hebrews 9:26–28 and the unified witness of Scripture. Hebrews does not locate final judgment at the moment of death. Instead, the text grounds the judgment in the appearing of Christ at His return.

Gary DeMar has now shifted to verse 28 and claims that the phrase “a second time” is a “translation issue.” He writes:

The Greek word “time” is not used. Literally, it’s “out of the second” (ἐκ δευτέρου). If there is a second, there must have been a first. The “first” is found in verse 2: “For a tabernacle was prepared, the first [room] in which [were] both the lampstand and the table, and the bread of the presentation, which is called Holy.” The “first” room or place is the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle (Ex. 25:8-9). “Second” is used again in verse 3, related to the “veil,” and to the “second only” where “the high priest enters once a year with blood” (v. 7). With the redemptive work of Jesus, blood and priests are not needed. The “second” room is now open because “Christ … having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall appear out of the second” room (the Holy of Holies) “for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.”¹

There are several problems here, and they are not minor.

First, there is no translation issue. The expression ἐκ δευτέρου is a fixed Greek idiom meaning “a second time.” The idiom appears repeatedly in the New Testament, and in every instance it denotes a second occurrence in time, not a movement out of a second location. Greek readers understood it the way English speakers understand their own idioms.

Matthew 26:42 - “Again, for the second time (ἐκ δευτέρου), he went away and prayed…” The text speaks of a repeated prayer, not spatial movement.

Mark 14:72 - “And immediately the rooster crowed a second time (ἐκ δευτέρου)…” The idiom clearly marks the second crowing in time.

John 9:24 - “So for the second time (ἐκ δευτέρου) they called the man who had been blind…” The leaders did not summon him from a “second place.” They called him again.

Acts 10:15 - “And the voice came to him again a second time (ἐκ δευτέρου)…” The point is that the message was repeated.

Acts 11:9- “But the voice answered a second time (ἐκ δευτέρου) from heaven…” Again, nothing in the context suggests a shift in location within heaven. The identical message is delivered twice to confirm its meaning.

In all five instances, the idiom functions naturally and exclusively as a marker of temporal repetition. Replacing the idiom with “from the second place” would reduce each verse to nonsense, destroy the narrative coherence, and introduce concepts the contexts cannot sustain. This is why every major translation renders the phrase as “a second time.”

Languages routinely employ idioms whose meaning is understood without the explicit vocabulary one might expect. When an English speaker says, “The ball is in your court,” no one imagines an actual ball or a physical court, and no one complains that the word “responsibility” is missing. The idiom communicates its meaning even without explicit vocabulary. Greek idioms operate the same way. The absence of the word “time” in the idiom ἐκ δευτέρου is no more significant than the absence of “responsibility” in the English expression. The meaning is supplied by usage, not by a wooden accumulation of lexical parts.

This is why virtually every English translation renders ἐκ δευτέρου as “a second time” in Hebrews 9:28. On the BibleHub parallel page for Hebrews 9:28, forty-one of the forty-six translations translate the phrase as “a second time” or “the second time.” The remaining few still convey a temporal meaning through paraphrastic wording such as “when he comes again” or “he will appear again.” Not a single major translation takes it spatially. None render it as “from the second place.” Not one supports Gary DeMar’s claim. The linguistic, idiomatic, and translational consensus is total. To set it aside, one must ignore the idiom everywhere else, override established Greek usage, reject over forty standard translations, and adopt a novel reading required by theological necessity rather than by the text itself.

Second, Gary misidentifies the rooms of the tabernacle. He writes, “The ‘first’ room or place is the Holy of Holies,” but Hebrews says precisely the opposite. Hebrews 9:2 states that the first section is the Holy Place, containing the lampstand and table. Hebrews 9:3 then states that behind the second curtain lay the second section, the Most Holy Place, also called the Holy of Holies. Hebrews defines the terms to prevent confusion. Gary reverses them.

Third, Gary turns to T. Everett Denton, a hyper-preterist commentator virtually unknown outside full-preterist circles. Denton simply amplifies Gary’s errors, attempting to force the literal components of ἐκ δευτέρου into a spatial meaning and then projecting that meaning onto the second room of Hebrews 9. Yet to keep this reading afloat he must appeal to the Jonathan Mitchell New Testament, a fringe translation produced by someone openly sympathetic to full preterism and universalism. That dependence alone should give readers pause. Denton’s argument weakens further when he himself concedes that this spatial construal “doesn’t do any justice to this passage.” He goes on to acknowledge that δεύτερος used with ἐκ is an idiom and that W. E. Vine was correct in taking the phrase to mean “for the second time.” That admission is fatal to Gary’s objection. Once the idiomatic force is granted, the presence or absence of the word “time” in the Greek is irrelevant. Denton admits that the phrase must be translated “a second time” everywhere else. And if it must be translated that way everywhere else, Gary’s complaint evaporates immediately. His entire claim stands or falls on denying the idiom. Denton’s own confession removes the last support from under it.

Yet Denton attempts to salvage the spatial reading by insisting that “either way, the ultimate and resultant meaning is the same.” But the meanings could not be more different. A temporal second appearing is not equivalent to a spatial reemergence from a heavenly room. Hebrews 9:26 identifies the first appearing as Christ’s once for all offering “to put away sin.” Hebrews 9:28 identifies the second appearing as His return “to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” These are not two movements inside a heavenly replica of the tabernacle. They are two redemptive-historical events.

The New Testament consistently describes Christ’s second appearing not as an internal heavenly transition but as a descent from heaven to earth. This pattern is explicit throughout Paul’s writings. Believers “wait for his Son from heaven” (1 Thess. 1:10), not from “the second place.” Our citizenship is in heaven, “and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20). Christ does not shift locations within heaven but comes from heaven toward His people. This same expectation appears in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, where “the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command,” and in 2 Thessalonians 1:7, where Jesus is “revealed from heaven with his mighty angels.” Revelation speaks in identical terms: “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him” (Rev. 1:7). These passages form a unified apostolic expectation: Christ’s second appearing is a visible, public descent from heaven. Hebrews 9:28 fits this pattern perfectly when it says He “will appear a second time.” None of this supports the idea of Christ merely emerging from a heavenly compartment.

When Denton affirms the idiomatic meaning, he surrenders the only ground upon which Gary’s reading could stand. Once the idiom is admitted, the text plainly speaks of Christ appearing again in time.

Finally, Gary asks: “If we translate Hebrews 9:28 as the ‘second time,’ what ‘appearance’ is this? What was the first time?” He then quotes John Owen without permitting Owen to answer. But Owen answers directly. The first appearing is defined in Hebrews 9:26: “He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” That is Christ’s incarnate appearing, His public manifestation in humiliation to bear the sins of many. The second appearing is defined in Hebrews 9:28 as His return “to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” Owen stresses that ὀφθήσεται means “He shall be seen,” the same verb used of Christ’s visible manifestations elsewhere. It refers to His public appearing in glory, not a private encounter at death. Scripture, Owen notes, recognizes only these two personal appearings of Christ in the work of redemption: His first to bear sin and His second to consummate salvation:

Any other personal appearance or coming of Christ the Scripture knows not, and in this place expressly excludes any imagination of it. His first appearance is past; and appear the second time he will not until that judgment comes which follows death, and the salvation of the church shall be completed. Afterward there will be no further appearance of Christ in the discharge of his office; for “God shall be all in all.”²

Owen answers Gary with devastating clarity. The first appearing is Christ’s incarnate offering. The second appearing is His incarnate future return in glory. Hebrews 9:28 speaks of nothing less.

Gary DeMar’s reinterpretation of Hebrews 9:28 rests on a denial of Greek idiom, a reversal of Hebrews’ own definitions, reliance on obscure full-preterist and universalist sources, and a theological system that cannot tolerate a future, visible appearing of Christ. The text, however, is clear. Christ appeared once to deal with sin. He will appear a second time to bring final salvation. Hebrews 9:28 stands as a direct contradiction to hyper-preterist eschatology.

1. Gary DeMar, “Understanding Hebrews 9:28,” The American Vision, November 20, 2025, https://americanvision.org/posts/understanding-hebrews-9-28/

2. John Owen, An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, ed. W. H. Goold, vol. 23 of The Works of John Owen(Edinburgh: Johnstone and Hunter, 1854), 413–14.