Response to Dr. Birks

The Last Enemy “being destroyed”: A Response to Dr. Kelly Birks

This paper will be brief in that I will utilize three standard works on I Co 15.26.  First, a string of translations:

ESV: “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”

MRD: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”

DRA: “And the enemy, death, shall be destroyed last.”

These translations reflect the overall decisions of the VSS (versions).  Note that “to be” is infinitive, and “shall” or “will” is future.  The Greek, however, is “ἔσχατος ἐχθρὸς καταργεῖται ὁ θάνατος.  Here, “last enemy is being destroyed the death” (literally).   The word καταργεῖται (katargeitai) is declined as present, passive, indicative.

We turn first to The Corinthian Correspondence (Ed., R. Bieringer, Leuven University Press, 1996).  There, M.C. De Boer (“Resurrection Tradition in I Cor 15,20-28”) remarks that Paul “modified” Psalm 110 in order “to portray the risen Christ’s session at God’s right hand as a dynamic, apocalyptic process (over against the static, spatial conception of the Corinthians), whereby the inimical principalities and powers are being destroyed (καταργέω), culminating in the destruction of Death, the last enemy” (p. 648).  Further, “As the last enemy, death is being destroyed” (ibid.).  De Boer notes the tension (and controversy) over the fact that Paul used an aorist “he has subjected all things” in verse 27.  This would include Death.  Christ, already having been raised (perfect tense) has Death underneath Him, yet, at the same time, Death is to be destroyed at the parousia or “the end” when the dead are raised.  The resurrection of the dead signifies the ultimate defeat of Death.

De Boer notes Gordon Fee, and to his commentary we come to now (Gordon Fee, TNICNT, The First Epistle to the Corinthians – Eerdmans).  There we find, “The grammar of this sentence is somewhat puzzling….the sentence literally reads, “the last enemy is being destroyed, namely death.”  The difficulty lies with the present tense and the passive voice of the verb….in a sense death, the final enemy to be subdued, is already being destroyed through the resurrection of Christ….” (pp.756-757).  Both De Boer and Fee take “death” here as not only the principality or power, but also the manifestation of its power: physical demise on the individual who is also in Christ.  They picture the ultimate demise of Death with the arrival of the parousia and the complete end of physical death (in fulfillment to Rev 21.3, “There shall be no more the death”).

Fee is to be noted in that he says this is a “puzzling” verse.  Why puzzling?  If the argument were as straightforward as Birks makes it sound, there is no puzzle here at all.  But there is a puzzle.  On one hand, Christ has been risen from the dead, from the realm in which the “power of the death” has dominion over them.  It’s power, therefore, has “already” been broken.  Those in Christ are already “being made alive” as Paul stated elsewhere.  The dominion of Death can be pictured, thus, as “being destroyed.”  For these commentators, they rightly see that Death is not merely physical demise, but also a power.  As Preterists, we drop off the physical demise as part of the power.  We see “the Death and the Hades” on the same horse, the fourth horse of the apocalypse.  Sheol and Death are represented as powers.

Finally, Anthony C. Thiselton has written the TNIGTC, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Eerdmans/Paternoster).  In location, he states, “It is difficult to do justice to the present passive καταργεῖται in translation.  As it stands, the Greek states, The last enemy is being annihilated, (namely) death.  It is arguable that Paul uses the present to denote the process of annihilation already set in motion by Christ’s (past) death and resurrection.  Thus the “stingless” death experienced by Christians already represents a partial annihilation of death in its fullest, most terrifying sense” (p.1234 – italics his).  He, of course, mentions other possible ways to understand the present as a “future” present expressing certainty of an event.  However, he sees at the parousia the overcoming of death in the “fullest sense”.  This full sense is, for him, the annihilation of physical death.  For all three commentators, physical death is the fullest expression of the power of Death.  For all three, Christ’s resurrection has already begun the process of annihilating Death, and, in a sense, for those in Christ as well.  This will culminate at the “end” (end=parousia) when physical death is obliterated.

Birks, on the other hand, wants us to believe that the Greek present here absolutely cannot contain the idea of “process.”  He thinks that the reason it is translated as future in most VSS. is because, not that death is understood as physical demise, but that, “Paul teaches that V.’s 21-23 occur first in the order of events in order for V.’s 24-26 to take place” (preteristdebate.ning.com).

Let’s review this. Vv. 21-23 state, “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. ²² For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. ²³ But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.”  For Birks, this “occurs first” therefore, Death cannot be seen as being in process before the parousia (the word “coming” in Greek is parousia).  Birks, unlike the three commentators above, does not see any defeat or beginning process of Death’s annihilation in the firstfruit resurrection of Christ.  This, for me, is a strike against his view, for there is nothing in the grammatical structure that would make his claim absolute.

Vv. 24-26 read, “Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. ²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”  However, we must note the word “after” in the translation (ESV).  Christ’s reign begins, we believe, at His ascension.  The “must reign” denotes the current reign of Christ in the time of Paul’s writing (present infinitive which emphasizes linear action – see Fee).  Christ’s enemies, therefore, were already placed under His feet and the manifestation of that fact would be displayed at the “end” or “parousia”.  Birks makes the “end” and “parousia” two separate events, one happening after the other, which Fee and Thiselton would argue against.  They see it as two sides to one event: at the parousia, death is defeated, then Christ hands over the kingdom.  We cannot begin to do the necessary exegesis here, in that these are notoriously difficult passages.

It should be noted that, 1. Birks case that the present tense here cannot, absolutely cannot, have any meaning of present action is false.  It is “arguable” that it can have this force.  2.  Birks argued that none of the commentators (that he has read) has in mind physical death as the “fullest” manifestation of Death’s power, but that they are constrained by the context (“this comes after that, therefore, future”).  I have shown this to be false as well.  Every commentary I own on I Co sees Death as the complete annihilation of physical death.  This is what constrains them.  This, in a way, actually refutes Birks in that if the physicality of death is removed from the definition of “the Death”, then nothing in the context restrains us from seeing the present annihilation of death as process.   3.  It appears to me that none of the commentaries I have presented here make a sharp distinction between parousia and “end.”  There is a great issue (and controversy) over the use of the words “then” and “when” in the text.  Premillennialists have used a great deal of ink to show that the parousia occurs, then Christ rules over all things (Millennium), then comes the end.  Gordon Clark, who defended Premillennialism, argued in his commentary on I Co that this cannot be done; that way too much emphasis is given to “then.”  Paul was arguing for two events: Christ’s resurrection (firstfruits), then the harvest (the end, the parousia, the resurrection of the dead).  That scholars have sharply divided over these issues proves to me that such issue is not absolutely concrete as Birks makes it sound.

The fact of the matter is that present tense, even in non-preterist scholars, can be retained and used.  Their only issue with us is the definition of Death.  If physicality is involved in the “fullest” sense of Death’s annihilation, then clearly, the Preterist cause is lost.  If, however, “the Death” is not referring in any way to physical demise, then we have a strong, strong case here for the present annihilation of the Death that was already beginning to take place at the Firstfruit resurrection of Messiah, the application of the outpoured “last days” Spirit who was “making alive” the saints through the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, to the final parousia when the powers of that age were finally defeated by the full entrance of the New Covenant – a heavenly fact demonstrated by the historical sign-destruction of what came to represent the powers that be: Jerusalem.  We can make that case, and we do have the support of the Greek in I Co 15 (though I would not offer this as absolute proof – it certainly makes a strong argument in our favor).

Also posted at www.thereignofchrist.com

Tagged as: 1 Corinthians 15, 70ad, ad70, Death, full preterism, gordon fee, kelly birks, last days, last enemy, messiah, New Covenant, preterism, preterist, Sam Frost