“Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. 25For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26The last enemy to be destroyed is death”.
According to Full Preterists is Christ currently ruling his church?
The answer is a simply NO, they believe the end came in 70 AD and the last enemy defeated was death, so Christ delivered all authority back to the father.
If the last enemy is death, and every preterist claims this last enemy to be abolished is spiritual death, not physical, then spiritual death still rules and will not end.
Their contradiction becomes a simple observation.
Spiritual death was defeated on the Cross.
“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”
Romans 5.10
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,” I Peter 3.18
“4But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” Ephesians 2.4
“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,” Colossians 2.13
He did all this in 33 AD, NOT in 70 AD.
so if Spiritual death was defeated on the Cross, the last enemy to be abolished is physical death.
To “abolish” something means that it ends. katargeó: to render inoperative e, abolish Original Word: καταργέω Part of Speech: Verb Transliteration: katargeó Phonetic Spelling: (kat-arg-eh’-o) Short Definition: I bring to naught, sever, abolish
Definition: (a) I make idle (inactive), make of no effect, annul, abolish, bring to naught, (b) I discharge, sever, separate from.
2673 katargéō (from 2596 /katá, “down to a point,” intensifying 691 /argéō, “inactive, idle”) – properly, idledown, rendering something inert (“completelyinoperative”); i.e. being of no effect (totally without force, completely brought down); done away with, cause tocease and therefore abolish; make invalid, abrogate (bring to nought); “to make idle or inactive” (so also in Euripides,Phoen., 753, Abbott-Smith).
[“2673 (katargéō) means ‘to make completely inoperative’ or ‘to put out of use,’ according to TDNT (1.453)” (J. Rodman Williams, Renewal Theology “God, the World & Redemption,” 389).]
“…and death shall be no more,” Rev 21.4
People still die. Death has not been abolished as long as people are being born and are dying.
So to claim the last enemy to be defeated is Spiritual death, becomes the lie, as scriptures tells us we are made Spiritually alive in Christ through His death and resurrection, we are raised in Him and made alive in Christ. To be “saved” means we are “spiritually alive”
If you claim that the last enemy to be abolished is spiritual death, then you are and have not been made alive in Christ and are still lost in your sins. If they (we) were waiting for the second coming to be made spiritually alive would be to contradict Paul in every sense of what he taught, and in essence it is to claim Paul and the others died in their sin as they were not “born again” especially since they did not live to see 70 AD.
May it also be noted people are born spiritually dead and must come to Christ to be forgiven in order to be made “spiritually alive”.
or
You must believe no one is born spiritually dead but ALL are alive as spiritual death has ended in 70 AD.
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