Article by Jason L Bradfield – source here – https://www.reformation.blog/p/we-who-are-alive-is-not-a-time-text?

Among hyper-preterists, one of the more popular arguments for a first-century fulfillment of the resurrection is that Paul’s language in 1 Thessalonians 4:15 functions as a “time text.” The claim runs like this: when Paul wrote, “we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord,” he was asserting that he personally expected to be among the living when Christ returned. Since Paul was alive in the mid-first century, the parousia must have been a mid-first-century event. Hyper-preterists Gary DeMar and Kim Burgess, among others, have pressed this reading.

At this point in time, Paul still fully expected to be alive in his earthly body at the parousia of Christ as based on the direct warrant of Christ Himself in texts like Matthew 10:23, 16:27-28, and 24:34. This is precisely why Paul deliberately used “we” language in both 1 Thessalonians 4 and 1 Corinthians 15.1

The argument sounds intuitive on the surface. But it collapses under the weight of Greek grammar, Paul’s own broader testimony, and, most critically, what Paul says in the very next verse. What we are dealing with in 1 Thessalonians 4:15 is not a prophetic time indicator at all. It is a category identification, and the difference matters enormously.

The key phrase in Greek is hemeis hoi zontes hoi perileipomenoi (ἡμεῖς οἱ ζῶντες οἱ περιλειπόμενοι). The pronoun hemeis (”we”) is followed by two articular present participles: hoi zontes (”the ones living”) and hoi perileipomenoi (”the ones remaining”). The participles function substantivally, which means they describe a class of people defined by their condition at the time of the event, not at the time of writing. Paul is saying, in effect, “those among us believers who are in the state of being alive and remaining when the Lord comes.” The present tense of the participles is relative to the main action of the sentence (the coming of the Lord), not to the moment Paul picked up his pen. This is a standard use of the articular participle in Koine Greek and there is nothing in the grammar that restricts the referent to Paul and his immediate contemporaries.

To appreciate why this matters, consider the broader context of the passage. Paul is writing to a grieving church. Believers in Thessalonica had died, and the remaining congregation was distraught, apparently worried that their departed brothers and sisters would miss out on the parousia. Paul’s entire argument is pastoral comfort:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 ESV)

The structure of Paul’s argument is to divide all believers into two groups: the dead in Christ and the living who remain. He uses “we” because he and his readers are currently alive and naturally fall, as things presently stand, into the latter group. But the whole point of the passage is that the timing is open-ended enough for some believers to have already died. If Paul “knew” the parousia would occur within his lifetime, the Thessalonians’ grief over a few recently deceased believers would be a remarkably trivial crisis to warrant apostolic correspondence. The passage only makes full pastoral sense if the timing genuinely remains unresolved.

But here is where the “time text” reading suffers its most decisive blow, and it comes from Paul himself in the very next breath. Without skipping a beat, Paul transitions into chapter 5:

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. (1 Thessalonians 5:1-2 ESV)

The thief metaphor is entirely about unpredictability. A thief does not send you a letter telling you when he is coming. The whole point of the image is that the timing is unknown and unknowable. Jesus used the same metaphor in Matthew 24:43 for exactly that reason, and Peter picks it up in 2 Peter 3:10 the same way. If Paul had just planted a time text in 4:15 telling the Thessalonians that the parousia would occur within their lifetime, why would he immediately pivot to telling them the timing is as unpredictable as a break-in? You cannot have it both ways. You cannot say “I’ve just told you it will happen while we’re alive” and then say “but you have no need for me to write about the timing because it comes when no one expects it.” Those two claims work against each other if the first one is really a time indicator. But on the categorical reading, the sequence is perfectly coherent: Paul is saying that whenever this happens, the dead will not miss out, and whoever among us is alive at the time will be caught up with them. As for when that will be, you already know the answer: you don’t know, and you can’t know.

What makes this connection even more devastating to the hyper-preterist “time text” claim is the phrase Paul uses. “The times and the seasons” in 1 Thessalonians 5:1 is τῶν χρόνων καὶ τῶν καιρῶν (ton chronon kai ton kairon). This is the same word pair that Jesus himself used in Acts 1:7 when the disciples asked him about the timing of the restoration: “He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons (χρόνους ἢ καιρούς) that the Father has fixed by his own authority’” (Acts 1:7 ESV). The only differences are the grammatical case (accusative in Acts, genitive in 1 Thessalonians, because of their different syntactic positions) and the conjunction (”or” in Acts, “and” in 1 Thessalonians). But it is unmistakably the same phrase.

Paul is not just making a general point about unpredictability. He is echoing the Lord’s own words. And he is doing it immediately after the passage that hyper-preterists want to turn into a chronological marker. Jesus told the disciples that the timing of these events is not for them to know. Paul then tells the Thessalonians, using the same phrase, that they have no need for him to write about the times and seasons, because they already know the answer: it comes like a thief. They know this because Jesus already told them so. That is not what you write ten seconds after dropping a time text. That is what you write after deliberately not giving one.

The parallel passage in 1 Corinthians 15 reinforces all of this. There Paul writes: “Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52 ESV). The hyper-preterist wants to read “we shall not all sleep” as a chronological prediction: “not all of us in this generation will die before Jesus returns.” But that is not what Paul is saying. He is not making a statement about the timing of anyone’s death relative to the parousia. He is making a statement about the mechanics of the resurrection event itself. “We shall not all sleep” means that not every believer will go through death, because whoever happens to be alive when Christ returns will bypass death entirely and be transformed on the spot. “But we shall all be changed” means that whether you are dead or alive at that moment, every believer receives a transformed, resurrected body. The dead get raised. The living get changed. Nobody is left out.

This is the exact same argument Paul made to the Thessalonians, just from a different angle for a different pastoral situation. In Thessalonica, the concern was that the dead would miss out or be at a disadvantage. Paul’s answer: no, the dead in Christ rise first, and then whoever is alive gets caught up with them. In Corinth, the topic is the nature of the resurrection body, so Paul approaches it differently, but the underlying logic is identical. There are two categories of believers at the time of Christ’s return: those who have died and need to be raised, and those who are still alive and need to be changed without dying. Both groups are fully accounted for. The “mystery” Paul is revealing is not when this will happen but how it will happen, specifically that the living will not need to die first but will be instantaneously transformed. The “we” in both passages functions identically: it places Paul and his readers among the living for the sake of illustration, without foreclosing the possibility that they might die before the event occurs.

Notice too the qualifier in 1 Corinthians 15:51: “not all.” If “we” is a time text asserting that Paul expected the parousia during his generation, then “we shall not all sleep” concedes that some in his generation would die before it happened. That already weakens the “time text” claim considerably, since it admits the “we” is flexible enough to include people who will die. But more than that, it confirms that the “we” is a category that encompasses believers across an indefinite period, some of whom will die and some of whom will be alive when the event occurs. The qualifier only makes sense on the categorical reading.

What makes the “time text” reading truly untenable beyond the immediate context is that Paul himself undermines it in his later writings. If “we who are alive” is a firm prophetic assertion that Paul would be personally alive at the parousia, then Paul is a failed or confused prophet, because he clearly contemplated and eventually expected his own death prior to Christ’s return.

In Philippians, written from prison, Paul is genuinely torn: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain…I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (Philippians 1:21-23 ESV). No one who has received a prophetic guarantee of survival until the parousia speaks like this. Paul treats death as a real and even attractive possibility, not as something foreclosed by divine promise.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul speaks of the prospect of being “away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8 ESV), openly contemplating the intermediate state between death and resurrection. And in 2 Timothy, written near the end of his life, Paul knows exactly what is coming: “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day” (2 Timothy 4:6-8 ESV). Paul expects to die, and he still looks forward to “that day” when the Lord will award his crown. He does not panic over the fact that he will not be among “the living who remain.” He simply shifts, quite naturally, from one side of his own earlier category to the other, because the categories were never about him personally.

It is also worth noting what genuine time texts in the New Testament actually look like. When Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” (Matthew 16:28 ESV), or “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place” (Matthew 24:34 ESV), these are explicit temporal statements with definite subjects, definite verbs, and definite time horizons. Paul’s articular participial clause in 1 Thessalonians 4:15 is grammatically nothing like these. It describes a class of people defined by a condition (”being alive and remaining”), not a temporal prediction (”this will happen before you die”). Calling it a “time text” is a category error.

Every generation of Christians that reads 1 Thessalonians 4 is invited to place itself among the “we who are alive, who are left.” That is the whole force of the pastoral comfort Paul offers: whether you are alive or dead when Christ returns, you will be with the Lord. The passage is designed to work across centuries precisely because the “we” is not anchored to a single generation. To treat it as a time text is to flatten a beautifully open-ended pastoral assurance into a failed prediction, and to do so against the grammar, against Paul’s own usage of the identical phrase elsewhere, against his broader testimony in his later letters, against the immediate context of 1 Thessalonians 5, against the words of Jesus himself in Acts 1:7, and against the very mechanics of the resurrection event as Paul describes them in 1 Corinthians 15.

1

Kim Burgess and Gary DeMar, The Hope of Israel and the Nations: New Testament Eschatology Accomplished and Applied, vol. 2 (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 2024), 129.

Jason L. Bradfield writes (on facebook):

Gary DeMar and Kim Burgess dropped the first of their podcasts on 1 Corinthians 15 today. If either of them turned this in at Whitefield Theological Seminary, it’d get an F. It’s that bad. I immediately got to typing and here is my quick reaction:

– The Same Old Word-Game on Mellō

Gary (and Kim) is still stuck insisting that mellō always means “about to,” even though he’s never proven it and has flat-out ignored my challenge to him on Acts 26:22.

They do the same thing with the word parousia. Now, a person may agree that every use of parousia refers to the same event, but it’s one thing to demonstrate that exegetically, and quite another to assume it because you’ve bought into this strange notion that words in Scripture can only ever mean one thing.

That’s not scholarship; that’s laziness.

– Twisting the Creeds: The False Claim About the Nicene “Correction”

It gets worse. They actually claim that the Nicene Creed corrected the Apostles’ Creed by changing “resurrection of the body” to the supposedly more “biblical” phrase, “resurrection of the dead.” As if the body isn’t even in view in 1 Corinthians 15! From verse 35 through verse 44, Paul uses the Greek word sōma (“body”) ten times. Yet Kim goes so far as to say that “resurrection of the flesh” is a “contradiction in terms.”

How? Of course, Kim never explains how. The only way he could possibly arrive at that conclusion is if he treats flesh (sarx) the same way they treat mellō; as if it only has one meaning everywhere it appears. But “flesh” in Scripture clearly has a range of meanings.

– Christ’s Resurrection Was of the Flesh

And what then are we to do with Christ’s resurrection, which these men claim to affirm? Christ’s resurrection was bodily. It was of the flesh. His fleshly body died and rose again.

“As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, ‘Peace to you!’ But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.'” (Luke 24:36–39)

“For a spirit (pneuma) does not have flesh (sarx) and bones (osteon) as you see I have.”

Obviously, then, “resurrection of the flesh” is not a “contradiction in terms.”

– The Historical Record: No Evidence of a Bodiless Creed

There’s absolutely no evidence that the Nicene Creed was “correcting” the Apostles’ Creed to avoid the idea of flesh being involved in the resurrection. And if that were their intent, it would actually be a denial of the Apostles’ Creed itself; a point that completely flies over DeMar’s head. You can’t redefine a doctrine and then claim to affirm it.

The hyper-preterist claim that the 381 Creed was a “corrective” to deny bodily resurrection has no support in the sources whatsoever.

On every front—creed manuscripts, council records, and patristic theology—the early Church consistently taught that bodies will rise again. The phrase “resurrection of the dead” in the Nicene Creed was always understood in full continuity with “resurrection of the body” or “resurrection of the flesh,” not as a covert denial of a physical resurrection.

The Fathers used dead and body/flesh interchangeably in reference to the same hope. The idea that Nicaea (or Constantinople) quietly erased bodily resurrection is historical revisionism of the worst kind.

– The “Burros of Berea” Problem

And all of this follows a rather dishonest admission from Gary at the start of the episode. He claims he was dragged into this controversy because of comments he made years ago on the Burros of Berea podcast.

According to him, he was merely describing that some people believe you receive your resurrection body at death, and he supposedly just said he “had no problem” with that view. He insists he wasn’t rejecting the traditional view; just acknowledging another perspective.

But the dishonesty lies in the fact that Gary was specifically asked what he personally believes:

“When your body takes its last breath, what is your belief?”

He answered, and I quote:

“I believe that when you die, you go to be with the Lord, and you get a new body at that time.”

Here’s the recording: https://www.reformation.blog/…/gary-demar-denies-the…

So no, Gary wasn’t simply pointing out what others believe. He explicitly said that he believes that very thing. He denied the resurrection of the body in that podcast—plain and simple—and now he’s trying to rewrite history as if he didn’t.

– “It Doesn’t Affect Worldview”? Think Again

What makes this even more absurd is his claim in this latest episode that he didn’t have a problem with that belief because, in his words,

“…to me, it’s not a factor in terms of worldview thinking. What happens when we die doesn’t come into play in terms of how we’re living out the Christian faith in the world in which we live today.”

Oh, really? Ever read 1 and 2 Peter, Gary? Or Romans 8? Or Philippians 3?

I would argue, and have argued in our sermon series, that the hope of bodily resurrection is precisely the foundation for how we live as Christians in the world today. It’s not some detached doctrinal curiosity; it’s the heartbeat of Christian ethics and endurance.

Peter grounds the entire moral and pastoral force of his letters in the certainty of the coming judgment and the future resurrection. The call to holiness, perseverance, and hope flows directly out of that eschatological reality.

“He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:3–5)

In 1 Peter 1:13-16, the imperative “set your hope fully” is explicitly future-oriented. Holiness in the present is the ethical outworking of fixing one’s hope on the eschatological revelation of Christ. Peter’s “therefore” shows that eschatology drives ethics.

“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

In 1 Peter 1:17-21, Peter ties obedience in this life to the coming judgment. The believer’s conduct is shaped by the knowledge that the Father will judge impartially; a future eschatological reckoning.

“If you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile…”

In 1 Peter 2:11-12, the “day of visitation” is a future day of divine judgment or vindication. Present moral purity and good works serve evangelistic and eschatological purposes.

“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.”

In 1 Peter 4:7-10, Peter explicitly links ethical behavior—sobriety, prayer, and love—to eschatological imminence. The nearness of “the end” demands alert, holy living. And no, we’re not ignoring the so-called “time texts,” such as verse 7. Kim and Gary keep slanderously accusing us of that, but it’s simply false.

“The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace:”

In 1 Peter 4:12-13, present suffering is interpreted through the lens of future glory. The eschatological revelation of Christ’s glory gives meaning and endurance to persecution.

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”

In 1 Peter 5:1-4, pastoral faithfulness and humility are sustained by the expectation of Christ’s future appearing and reward. Again, eschatology shapes vocation and character.

“When the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.”

In 2 Peter 1:10-11, ethical diligence leads to eschatological assurance. Present godliness confirms the believer’s readiness for entry into Christ’s eternal kingdom.

“Be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Furthermore, Peter makes it unmistakably clear that false doctrine and moral corruption go hand in hand. The heretics he describes in 2 Peter 2–3 are not merely confused interpreters; they are willful deceivers whose denial of the Lord’s return is directly linked to their immoral lifestyle.

In 2 Peter 2, their character and conduct are on full display: they are “bold and willful” (2:10), “slaves of corruption” (2:19), and “blots and blemishes” (2:13). Their theology accommodates their lusts. They deny “the Master who bought them” (2:1) and twist the promise of His coming into an excuse for sin. Their doctrinal deviation is moral at its root. They scoff at judgment because they love their own depravity.

Peter ties the progression together in 2 Peter 3:3–4:

“Scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.””

They dismiss the Second Coming because it threatens their autonomy. The denial of eschatological judgment becomes the license for unrestrained living.

Peter answers their cynicism by reminding believers of two things: the certainty of divine judgment (3:7) and the patience of God in salvation (3:9). The same God who once judged the world by water will again judge by fire. Far from being delayed, the Lord’s timing is merciful, giving room for repentance before the final reckoning.

In other words, to scoff at the Second Coming is to scoff at holiness itself. When false teachers erase the future return of Christ, they remove the moral horizon that keeps the church sober, humble, and watchful.

And Peter could not be any clearer than 2 Peter 3:10-14:

“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.”

Having exposed the false teachers’ denial of judgment, Peter brings his letter to a climactic close by grounding true Christian living in the certainty of that judgment and the promise of renewal. The destruction of the old and the creation of the new are not speculative curiosities — they are moral imperatives.

Eschatology is not an appendix to doctrine; it is the heartbeat of Christian ethics. The same certainty that “all these things will be dissolved” also guarantees that there will be “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” Those twin truths — dissolution and renewal — demand lives marked by holiness, godliness, diligence, and peace.

Future righteousness defines present conduct. The believer’s anticipation of the coming age shapes his moral integrity in this one. We live as citizens of the world to come, waiting for what God has promised, and our purity now is the visible evidence that our hope is genuine.

That is why Peter closes his letter with this sober exhortation:

“You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:17–18)

Sound doctrine and sound living rise and fall together. A distorted eschatology always leads to ethical collapse, just as we see today among those who, like Gary and Kim, scoff at the promise of Christ’s appearing while claiming to defend biblical consistency.

To argue, as Gary does, that the resurrection and the new heavens and new earth have no bearing on our present lives is not merely misguided, it is spiritually disastrous. Peter would have called such reasoning blindness. The entire moral framework of Christian faithfulness rests on the certainty of future resurrection and renewal.

“If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.” (1 Corinthians 15:32-34)

The apostles never treat the promise of the new creation as a minor point for debate. For them, it is the engine that drives Christian perseverance and purpose. The coming reality of resurrection gives meaning to obedience, courage to suffering, and direction to hope. Because this world will be dissolved and remade, believers live now as heirs of that world, walking in holiness and hope.

To detach Christian ethics from eschatology is to strip Christianity of its horizon. Without the expectation of bodily resurrection, holiness becomes optional, suffering loses its context, and hope collapses into sentimentality.

Peter’s eschatology does not pull believers away from faithful living; it propels them into it. It sanctifies our present engagement in the world by fixing our eyes on the one to come. The creation itself will be freed from corruption; righteousness will dwell upon a renewed earth; and our resurrected bodies will share in that glory. The future is not irrelevant to the present. It defines it.

To deny that connection, as Gary does, is to preach a Christianity without resurrection power and a faith without forward motion.

And this is precisely what Peter warns against. The false teachers of his day scoffed at the coming judgment and therefore abandoned holiness. Their denial of Christ’s return was not an innocent exegetical error; it was a moral rebellion disguised as theology. Once the expectation of resurrection and renewal is stripped away, the call to righteousness loses its urgency, and corruption rushes in to fill the vacuum.

That same pattern repeats itself today. Those who mock the future hope of Christ’s appearing — while boasting of their “consistency” — reveal that their theology serves their desires, not the text. And Peter would have recognized them instantly.