29 Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David,
***that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. ***
30 Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;
31 He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.
32 This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.
33 Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.
34 For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand,
35 Until I make thy foes thy footstool.
36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.
I’m arriving late to this party, so can someone tell me in a sentence or two what DeMar DOES believe the Christian future looks like: Christ doesn’t return in glory to establish His Kingdom?
The physical flesh is the kernel, the spirit is the seed inside. When a person “dies” the kernel strips away and decays as the spirit ascends and produces glorified flesh. That flesh is of the same essence as your spirit and previous flesh, but is a transformed and perfected state.
The husk of old flesh (like cut hair and toe nail clippings) is not resurrected, but the soul takes on a physical body thus “resurrecting” a person’s being to a previous state that is more glorified than before.
This isnt Gnostic, but a synthesis of your two positions. When I pitched this to Gary a few years ago, unfortunately he didnt respond enough to know if he agreed with this.
That’s not Paul’s teaching. In 1 Cor 15 he’s crystal clear: what is sown is what is raised. The seed doesn’t discard its kernel like hair or toenails—it’s transformed into the plant. To say the flesh is just a husk the spirit sheds is closer to Platonism than Scripture. Our hope isn’t that the soul makes a new body at death, but that the same body God created and Christ redeemed is raised in glory at His return (WCF 32.2).
Does not Paul also call our body a perishable “tent”?
Also what of those born without limbs or organs? Those do not get “resurrected”, but must be made out of the perfected pattern God assigned for each person out of new and glorified cells.
The husk or fruit holding the seed does get cast off, but I agree the seed (which i would parallel with the soul) is what grows into a seed bearing plant (a glorified corporeal body with an incorporeal soul).
I do not understand the metaphysical process of resurrection other than Paul’s analogy of seeds and tents, but our flesh and bones do disintegrate overtime (some completely scattered and obliterated due to bombs, cremations, and the elements).
Before we were formed though, God knew us, so there something about our being that supersedes physical form.
Im not talking prexistence like in Mormonism where we were hanging out in some prelapsarian world, but there is some mystery to our being having existed before our physical form (we grow into the pattern/blueprint uniquely assigned to us).
All that said, i do not see the problem here. We both believe a new body of corporeal and incorporeal parts will be “resurrected” from parts of a dead being (from their soul and or any decomposing materials that have not fully disintegrated).
1. When Paul calls the body a “tent” (2 Cor 5:1–4), he is not saying the body is a disposable husk. The tent image communicates temporariness and frailty, not non-essentiality. In fact, Paul longs not to be “unclothed” (soul without body) but “clothed upon” with immortality. The hope is not to shed the tent forever, but to have it transformed into a permanent, glorious dwelling. So the metaphor strengthens the case that our very bodies (frail as they are) are destined for resurrection, not abandonment.
2. Again, the problem with your use of the seed analogy is that you divide it into “soul” and “body”—the kernel being flesh that gets discarded, and the inner seed being the soul that produces the glorified body. But Paul never makes that distinction. In 1 Corinthians 15 the whole seed is what is sown, and the whole seed is what is raised. The point is transformation, not separation. If you split the seed like that, you’ve actually imported a Platonic idea—that the real person is the soul and the body is just a husk to be shed. Paul teaches the opposite: the very body that is sown in weakness is the one raised in glory. That’s why the Westminster Confession insists the “selfsame bodies, and none other” are raised. The continuity of our identity is in God raising the body He created, not in the soul fabricating a new one.
I appreciate the follow up thoughts. I still see something getting “discarded” in either case: the previous state of being (old self and corruptibility) replaced with a new one (glorified and incorruptible body).
The tent argument can go either way: the tattered fabric (corruptible flesh) replaced with solid bricks (incorruptible flesh) still keeping the same form and unique code engraved into the materials to give them distinctness connected to the individual.
The WCF, although our go to confession to catechizing, assumes too much in some places, like calling the Pope “the Antichrist.” Overall a good resource, but not infallible.
Tell me, what is the actual concern with having a more “Platonic” flavor of understanding here? Our resurrected bodies will be glorious and imaging what they previously were—still keeping their original essence and are part of a person’s ontological package of being.
Worried of Gnostic tendencies or something? This can be curbed with teaching we ought to honor God with our temples (bodies) and not to be careless or ungrateful for the resources and constitution he gives us as we cultivate the kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.”
Well written. Thank you. Dr. Andrew Sandlin has been sounding the alarm on DeMar as well. I'm praying for the man.
Gary DeMar’s hyper-preterism and bodiless resurrection heresies remind me of the old Stone-Campbell troubler Max King.
Excellent exegetical responses!
29 Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David,
***that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. ***
30 Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;
31 He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.
32 This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.
33 Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.
34 For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand,
35 Until I make thy foes thy footstool.
36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.
I’m arriving late to this party, so can someone tell me in a sentence or two what DeMar DOES believe the Christian future looks like: Christ doesn’t return in glory to establish His Kingdom?
What of this?
The physical flesh is the kernel, the spirit is the seed inside. When a person “dies” the kernel strips away and decays as the spirit ascends and produces glorified flesh. That flesh is of the same essence as your spirit and previous flesh, but is a transformed and perfected state.
The husk of old flesh (like cut hair and toe nail clippings) is not resurrected, but the soul takes on a physical body thus “resurrecting” a person’s being to a previous state that is more glorified than before.
This isnt Gnostic, but a synthesis of your two positions. When I pitched this to Gary a few years ago, unfortunately he didnt respond enough to know if he agreed with this.
That’s not Paul’s teaching. In 1 Cor 15 he’s crystal clear: what is sown is what is raised. The seed doesn’t discard its kernel like hair or toenails—it’s transformed into the plant. To say the flesh is just a husk the spirit sheds is closer to Platonism than Scripture. Our hope isn’t that the soul makes a new body at death, but that the same body God created and Christ redeemed is raised in glory at His return (WCF 32.2).
Does not Paul also call our body a perishable “tent”?
Also what of those born without limbs or organs? Those do not get “resurrected”, but must be made out of the perfected pattern God assigned for each person out of new and glorified cells.
The husk or fruit holding the seed does get cast off, but I agree the seed (which i would parallel with the soul) is what grows into a seed bearing plant (a glorified corporeal body with an incorporeal soul).
I do not understand the metaphysical process of resurrection other than Paul’s analogy of seeds and tents, but our flesh and bones do disintegrate overtime (some completely scattered and obliterated due to bombs, cremations, and the elements).
Before we were formed though, God knew us, so there something about our being that supersedes physical form.
Im not talking prexistence like in Mormonism where we were hanging out in some prelapsarian world, but there is some mystery to our being having existed before our physical form (we grow into the pattern/blueprint uniquely assigned to us).
All that said, i do not see the problem here. We both believe a new body of corporeal and incorporeal parts will be “resurrected” from parts of a dead being (from their soul and or any decomposing materials that have not fully disintegrated).
1. When Paul calls the body a “tent” (2 Cor 5:1–4), he is not saying the body is a disposable husk. The tent image communicates temporariness and frailty, not non-essentiality. In fact, Paul longs not to be “unclothed” (soul without body) but “clothed upon” with immortality. The hope is not to shed the tent forever, but to have it transformed into a permanent, glorious dwelling. So the metaphor strengthens the case that our very bodies (frail as they are) are destined for resurrection, not abandonment.
2. Again, the problem with your use of the seed analogy is that you divide it into “soul” and “body”—the kernel being flesh that gets discarded, and the inner seed being the soul that produces the glorified body. But Paul never makes that distinction. In 1 Corinthians 15 the whole seed is what is sown, and the whole seed is what is raised. The point is transformation, not separation. If you split the seed like that, you’ve actually imported a Platonic idea—that the real person is the soul and the body is just a husk to be shed. Paul teaches the opposite: the very body that is sown in weakness is the one raised in glory. That’s why the Westminster Confession insists the “selfsame bodies, and none other” are raised. The continuity of our identity is in God raising the body He created, not in the soul fabricating a new one.
I appreciate the follow up thoughts. I still see something getting “discarded” in either case: the previous state of being (old self and corruptibility) replaced with a new one (glorified and incorruptible body).
The tent argument can go either way: the tattered fabric (corruptible flesh) replaced with solid bricks (incorruptible flesh) still keeping the same form and unique code engraved into the materials to give them distinctness connected to the individual.
The WCF, although our go to confession to catechizing, assumes too much in some places, like calling the Pope “the Antichrist.” Overall a good resource, but not infallible.
Tell me, what is the actual concern with having a more “Platonic” flavor of understanding here? Our resurrected bodies will be glorious and imaging what they previously were—still keeping their original essence and are part of a person’s ontological package of being.
Worried of Gnostic tendencies or something? This can be curbed with teaching we ought to honor God with our temples (bodies) and not to be careless or ungrateful for the resources and constitution he gives us as we cultivate the kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.”