Gospel & Eschatology: The Last Enemy

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Gospel & Eschatology: The Last Enemy

February 5, 2023

What will happen at the end? Where are we going as the human race? The bible speaks emphatically on this subject on todays episode. We pray and hope that you are edified and encouraged by the content. Thanks for listening!

Key Texts:

* Psalm 110:1

* 1 Cor. 15:22-26

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Transcript

(music) Don't think I will even ask you to make Jesus Lord of your life. That's the most preposterous thing I could ever tell you to do. Jesus Christ is Lord of your life.

Whether you serve him or not, whether you bless him, curse him, hate him, or love him, he is the Lord of your life because God has given him a name that is above every name so that the name of Jesus Christ every knee shall bow and tongue confess that he is Lord. Some of you will bow out of the grace that has been given to you and others will bow because your kneecaps will be broken by the one who rules the nations with a rod of iron.

(music) And I'll not apologize for this God of the Bible.

(music) Hello, welcome to the For the King podcast. This is your host, Rocky Ramsey, and I am joined with my co-host on these Sunday episodes, my brother Bryce. Thanks, Bryce, for being with me again and want to remind everybody that we are doing this podcast to proclaim the edicts of the king, namely and chiefly, that Yahweh reigns.

So continuing on our gospel and eschatology and dominion theology series on the Sundays here, we're going to be talking about Psalm 110 verse 1. And we're going to couple that and combine that with ideas conveyed in 1 Corinthians 15. We're going to look at verses 24 through 26. So I'm going to read them real quick and then we're going to get into some quick commentary on them and hopefully we pray and hope we'll edify you guys.

So Psalm 110 verse 1 says, "The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool." Okay, so we want to couple that with 1 Corinthians 15, 24 through 26. No, actually, I'm sorry, 22 through 26. Sorry, I wrote it down wrong.

Starting in verse 22, "For as an Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order, Christ the firstfruits afterward, they that are Christ's at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom of God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.

For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." Okay, so these are two very, very, very important passages in Scripture when we think about Christ's kingdom, what's going to happen in the end, what are we looking forward to. So first thing we want to point out here is when we think about Psalm 110 verse 1 specifically, this is the most quoted Old Testament text in the New Testament.

So why is that? Why is it so important? Bryce, any thoughts here? Lead us off. Yeah, I think the reason this is the most important is because the whole centrality of the gospel is resting upon Christ ascending at the right hand of God. So in Hebrews chapter 1 it says, "After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty of Allah." So if there is no ascension, then Christ is not vindicated.

If there is no ascension of Christ, then we are still dead in our sins. So Christ's ascension actually proves his threefold office. It proves that he was the true prophet.

It proves that he is the true high priest who can die and take away the sins of the world. And it also proves that he is a king who is set on high over every single authority and principality and power. Yes.

So it's essential to the concept of Messiah and who Messiah is. Yeah, and I mean, that's what Christ was winning to himself. He was winning to himself a kingdom.

We look at Daniel 7. I mean, that's why the Son of Man came down and then he was lifted up and exalted to the right hand like you're saying. And what's he doing from there? He's wooing and reigning and he's going to make all of his enemies a footstool. So that's what Psalm 10 is clearly portraying.

That's like you're saying, that's what the Messiah is to do. So I agree with you. That's why it's so important.

And it's quoted very often in the New Testament for that exact point, that exact point, talking about the kingdom of Christ. So second point we want to expand on here. This dominion idea that we've been looking at in this series, what's it founded upon? What's the driving force of his dominion, of Christ's dominion? Well, like Bryce said, his vindication by being raised from the dead and then seated at the right hand of the Father.

So the resurrection of Christ is that the wheel that is turning the mechanism by which Christ's dominion is being won. So dominion only comes to the shed blood of Christ, which is why we've called this series the Gospel and Eschatology series. That's the only way dominion will happen is through the proclamation of Christ crucified, the Gospel of Jesus Christ going forth.

You have any thoughts, Bryce, there? Yeah, and this ties in directly to our passage in 1 Corinthians that the beginning, the formal beginning of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection is that he was raised from the dead. That he is now, as it says in 1 Corinthians 15, not just an alive man, but he's a life-giving spirit, as it says. And he brings life to all.

So when it leads to the end here, the last enemy that is being defeated is ultimately death. So the centrality, again, of this Gospel message and this dominion idea of what Christ has come to do is that he does it ultimately through being raised from the dead. Adam only took people down to the dust, down to the grave.

And now Christ lifts them up and he raises them. That's why it says each in their own order, Christ the first troops, and after them, they are Christ's coming. So the resurrection is a key notion of dominion here, that if there's no resurrection, there's no dominion.

Exactly. Yeah, that's huge. I mean, I'm honestly just, I mean, we had already prepared this beforehand, but I mean, it's just nice to talk about.

Like, it's always refreshing to just look at the basics, the fundamentals, the fundamentals of the faith. Christ's resurrection is that hope by which the whole world will be one to himself. I mean, that's just, it's just an amazing story, what God's done in history, and we're very thankful for it as Christians.

So that's awesome. Thanks, Bryce, for that. And yeah, it is kind of humbling to think about Adam.

A mere man only brought death, he didn't bring life, but Christ the God-man, that is where life is found. So that's just a beautiful story. And it's fundamental, all the things we're saying.

I mean, this may seem new to you guys listening, like this is, we're purporting new information, but this is just kind of historic Christianity here. This is really nothing new. So moving on to the third point we wanted to draw out here.

What's the object of his dominion? Who's he having dominion over? We've been harping on this throughout the series. It's all his enemies. That's what both of these texts that we're looking at, but specifically thinking about 1 Corinthians 15, verse 25, he must reign till he has put all his enemies under his foot.

This is a quotation from Psalm 110. Like we're saying, it's quoted, that idea is quoted in the New Testament often, and it's quoted here that he's going to put all his enemies underneath him as he reigns from heaven. So don't misunderstand us.

It's not Christ coming down and ruling from earth. He does rule from heaven, and he rules on earth from heaven. So the last thing in this progression of Christ's triumph over all things on earth and in heaven is death being defeated.

That's the very last thing. So even Satan's not the last enemy to be defeated. Even Hades isn't the last enemy to be defeated.

The last thing to be destroyed will be death. And obviously Hades and Satan himself, they are both two of the foremost thoughts on our head when we think about death and decay and chaos. But death itself, the reason for death, that will be defeated at the last day, Christ's second coming.

So Bryce, you had some good thoughts. Can you kind of kick us off emphasizing the defeat of death being the last thing that happens, and how do we combat both pre-millennialism, amillennialism, but also this kind of full preterism that we've seen kind of come to fruition in the kind of post-milk camp the last century or so? Yeah. Yeah, so the first thing we got to ask is what sort of death is being destroyed here? Is this a spiritual death? Is this a physical death? Well, I think the answer is obviously it's both, in a sense.

So Adam brought nothing but death and decay to man physically, because Adam physically died and was buried, and Christ was physically raised from the dead. That's the whole emphasis of him saying to doubting Thomas, "Put your hands in my side and your fingers through the holes in my hands," and pretty much showing him that he died and was raised physically. And we see in Acts chapter one of the same way in which Christ descended.

He will also be sent. So here, the death that he's destroying is both the spiritual and physical death. It's not just a spiritual death, the domain or the administration of the old covenant as the heretical full preterist or hyper-preterist, which I prefer the hyper-preterist would say, 2 Corinthians 3, that the old covenant is the administration of death.

So therefore, death here is only a covenantal spiritual death. Christ only destroys that, because guess what? He destroys the old covenant. Actually, Paul doesn't mention anything here about the old covenant.

So it's just a very weird, isogetical argument that has no founding in this passage. The death that's being destroyed here is the same death that was destroyed in Christ when he was raised from the dead. So he raises people physically from the grave.

And that's the whole point of 1 Corinthians 15, if you keep reading, is that it's natural bodies that are shown and then are raised spiritual bodies. And that's spiritual in terms of the Holy Spirit, not non-physical. So that dismantles that idea.

And also the pre-millennial notion of Christ coming back. And then there's a thousand year reign of which death is still raining. You have people who are living thousands of years and babies still being born and lying down with lambs and with ox and lions.

But yet death still persists. Well, hold up. This passage says that when Christ comes back, he comes back after the last enemy is defeated, which is death.

- Yeah. - So the millennialism is just, I prefer Calvin says it really well on chapter 3 of the Institutes, that chileism or premillennialism is just a it's just a fanciful doctrine of men that is just too stupid to even consider. - Yeah.

I love that quote by him. - I know. - Pretty hilarious.

But yeah, well, I'm not even gonna go there. But yes, it's a big blunder, both the hyper-fretorist and the pre-mill and the on-mill. I mean, it's a huge blunder to say that Christ will, you know, he's gonna reign until basically the church gets put under everyone else's feet.

You know, this dominion is kind of flipped on its head that instead of, you know, Christ had dominion, it's actually Satan and all of Christ's enemy slowly having more and more dominion. And then when the end comes, when Jesus comes back, you know, then he's gotta actually defeat them all at once in a really quick moment. You know, it happens all at once, you know, in a rush.

But actually, it seems when we're reading 1 Corinthians 15 here with a sober mind, we're actually seeing that he's reigning until he puts all his enemies under his feet and that very last enemy to be defeated is death. So it seems like it's not something that is kind of happens all at once. It seems like it's a progressive thing.

While he's reigning, all of his enemies are slowly being put under his feet. So it seems like the pre-mill and the on-mill kind of flips it on its head where it basically, like I said, Satan, sorry, the church is put under Satan's feet. It's put under everyone else's feet.

That's not at all what the Scriptures teach. Yeah, and that's a great point. And even in connection with this whole thing, we still understand the nature of charity in the Christian church.

Just the doctrine being stupid doesn't necessarily mean that our brothers and sisters who hold this doctrine are ignoramuses or dumb or we should treat them as lesser, obviously. Some of my favorite theologians, John Gill and Charles Spurgeon are both pre-millennial. Yeah, exactly.

And we have a very godly brother at church. He does a lot to disciple me, I know specifically, so who is pre-mill. So, you know, there's really godly men who hold that position.

It just doesn't make any sense with this passage. It just doesn't, yeah. It doesn't, yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, yeah, and Bryce and I both were. I mean, I was a pre-mill at one point and I'll mill at one point.

I mean, I've been everything, so it's not like, oh, we're so much smarter than other people. It's just sometimes God does open people's eyes at different times to different things. So, we just have to bear with one another because not every Christian has everything right all the time.

But so, our main point, I guess, main takeaway is from just looking at these two passages here. Like we've been saying, we looked at Ezekiel, that passage in Ezekiel, I think it was 34 about the water slowly covering the earth. This is a progressive thing and it happens through the proclamation of the gospel, which is the resurrection of Christ, the shed blood of Christ.

That's where dominion is founded upon. And he's putting all of his enemies under his feet, and then the last enemy to be defeated is death. The church will never be under the foot of the serpent.

The serpent's been crushed. How can we be put under the feet of an ineffective foe, right? He can't exercise dominion like Christ can. So, let's not give more powers Satan than what Christ would even, obviously allow him in this time and age of redemptive history.

So, I guess that's our big takeaway from this. Bryce, do you have any final thoughts here and then we'll wrap up? Oh, yeah, I think that's great. Good.

Well, thanks for listening, guys. We hope this was edifying and helpful and encouraging. We love you all that listen and we appreciate everybody that does tune in regularly.

You can check out more than I'm doing at For the King Pod. I'm on gab and Twitter and I have a website for thekingpodcast.com. And if you have any questions or want to interact with the podcast, I'd love to hear from you at forthekingpodcast@gmail.com. Seriously, I would love to have more interactions with the listeners. I want to continue to grow this community and make it a place where we can all grow together and knowing and understanding what God's Word teaches and growing in the knowledge of Christ.

So, thank you so much, guys, for listening to the King of the Ages, a mortal, invisible, the only God, the honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. Solely.

Deo. Glory. Glory.

Glory.