He Abolished Death
The future resurrection of believers is not a major subject in Paul’s “pastoral” letters, but he does raise the subject when dealing with the problem of false teachers in Ephesus. As he stated to Timothy, “God did not give us a spirit of fear but of a sound mind.” The theme of “sound teaching” is prominent in the three pastoral letters, and the future resurrection is a classic example of the original apostolic teachings.
 |
| [Photo by Damian Markutt on Unsplash] |
The Gospel proclaimed by Paul and his coworkers is “sound” teaching and represents the “power of God who saved and called us…according to His own purpose and grace given to us in Christ Jesus before the times of the ages.” However, this salvation has only been manifested in recent times:
- “God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to the peculiar purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages but has now been manifested through the appearance of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has abolished death and thrown light upon life and incorruptibility, through means of the gospel.” - (2 Timothy 1:9-10).
By the phrase, “abolish death,” Paul does not mean that
death no longer occurs in this life. The cessation of death will not happen until
the “arrival” or Parousia of Jesus at the end of the age. As the author
of Hebrews wrote, through his death, Jesus “destroyed him that had
the dominion of death, that is, the Devil, and he delivered those who through the
fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”
Death still occurs to all men, including believers, but it is incapable
of holding the faithful disciple at the end of the age when its sentence will be
reversed by the bodily resurrection - (1
Corinthians 15:24-28, Hebrews 2:14-18).
Jesus brought life and “immortality” to light (aphtharsia). The Greek noun rendered “immortality” does not mean “eternal.” It does NOT denote any sense of timelessness or of being without beginning or end. Immortality is the opposite of death, it is deathlessness.
This is not a state that human souls possess by nature; rather, it
is the new condition that Jesus inaugurated for his followers. It is certainly
not applicable to all human beings.
In the following chapter, Paul exhorts Timothy to “remember
that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my
gospel.” Paul suffered persecution on account of that same Gospel. Central to
it was the proclamation that God raised His son from the dead - (2 Timothy 2:8-18).
Paul suffered for preaching this message, but
he did so that the “elect may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ
Jesus with everlasting glory… If we be dead with him, we shall also live with
him… If we suffer, we shall also reign with him.”
RESURRECTION
Again, death still occurs but it does not
have the final word. “Salvation” and “everlasting glory” will be the result
of the resurrection from the dead when Jesus returns - (“we will also live
with him”).
Paul reminds Timothy of Christ’s resurrection
on which the future resurrection of the believer is based. Certain false
teachers were denying the bodily resurrection of the saints, or possibly they claimed
it was already in the past and not applicable to the Church. He labels such
denials “profane and vain babblings.” Timothy is exhorted to avoid them -
(1 Corinthians 15:10-20).
It is not clear what, precisely, these men were
teaching. More accurately, the clause reads, “Declaring that the resurrection
already came to pass.” This suggests they claimed that the resurrection occurred
already in the past.
In any case, to deny the bodily resurrection,
whether of Christ’s own resurrection or of the future one promised to
believers, is to abandon one of the fundamentals of the Gospel preached by
Jesus and his Apostles.
Based on beliefs common in Greco-Roman
society, most likely, the false teachers in Ephesus rejected the idea of bodily
resurrection in favor of one version or another of the belief in escape from
the physical creation to a disembodied state - (Acts 17:32, 1 Corinthians
15:12).
That Paul brings up the resurrection so
easily when it is tangential to his larger argument shows how foundational this
hope was to the apostolic tradition.
