Delivering Up of Kingdom and the Subduing of Death at Close of Old Covenant Age

Delivering Up of the Kingdom and the Subduing of Death at Close of Old Covenant Age Below is the 33rd of multiple excerpts from The Parousia, the late 19th-century masterpiece on the Second Coming by James Stuart Russell. [Note: In 1 Corinthians 15:22-28, the Apostle Paul links Christ's Second Coming to the resurrection of the dead and "the end." (This Second Coming or Parousia was prophesied to occur within the lifetime of Jesus' own generation [Matt. 10:23, 16:28, 24:34, 26:64; Mark 9:1, 13:30, 14:62; Luke 9:27, 21:32, 22:69; Rev. 1:7].) Paul also links "the end" to the time when Christ delivers up the kingdom to God the Father and puts down every enemy under his feet, including death. As detailed in the previous Parousia blog post titled "Then Comes the End -- of What?," Russell explained how "the end" or "end of the age" refers not to the end of the world, or the destruction of the material earth, but to the end of the Old Covenant age, which closed with Rome's destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in A.D. 70. In the excerpt below, Russell shows how the delivering up of the kingdom and the subduing of all enemies, including death, are logically and inextricably tied to the close of the Mosaic age.] *** "This view of ‘the end,’ as having reference to the close of the Jewish economy or age, seems to furnish a satisfactory solution of a problem which has greatly perplexed the commentators, viz. [that is] Christ’s delivering up of the kingdom. It is stated twice over by the apostle, as one of the great events attending the Parousia, that the Son, having then put down all rule and all authority and power, ‘shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father’ (vers. 24, 28 [1 Cor. 15:24, 15:28]). What kingdom? No doubt the kingdom which the Christ, the Anointed King, undertook to administer as the representative and vicegerent of His Father: that is to say, the Theocratic kingdom, with the sovereignty of which He was solemnly invested, according to the statement in the second Psalm, ‘Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee’ (Ps. ii. 6, 7 [Psalm 2:6-7]). This Messianic sovereignty, or Theocracy, necessarily came to its termination when the people who were its subjects ceased to be the covenant nation; when the covenant was in fact dissolved, and the whole framework and apparatus of the Theocratic administration were abolished [in A.D. 70]. What more reasonable than that the Son should then ‘deliver up the kingdom,’ the purposes of its institution having been answered, and its limited, local, and national character being superseded by a larger and universal system, the ‘[Greek]: aion ho mellon’ [the age to come, as referenced in Matt. 12:32, Mark 10:30, Luke 18:30, Eph. 1:21, Hebrews 6:5], or new order of a ‘better covenant' [Hebrews 7:22, 8:6, 12:24]. "This surrender of the kingdom to the Father at the Parousia---at the end of the [Old Covenant] age---is represented as consequent on the subjugation of all things to Christ, the Theocratic King. This cannot refer to the gentle and peaceful conquests of the Gospel, the reconciliation of all things to Him: the language implies a violent and victorious conquest affected over hostile powers,---‘He must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet [1 Cor. 15:25].’ Who those enemies are may be inferred from the closing history of the Theocracy [of 1st-century Israel]. Unquestionably the most formidable opposition to the King and the kingdom was found in the heart of the Theocratic nation itself, the chief priests and rulers of the people. The highest authorities and powers of the nation were the bitterest enemies of the Messiah. ...The terrible scenes of the final [Jewish-Roman war of A.D. 66-70], and especially of the siege and capture of Jerusalem, show us what this subjugation of the enemies of Christ implies. ‘But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me’ (Luke xix. 27 [Luke 19:27]) "But what shall we say of the destruction of ‘the last enemy, death?’ Is it not fatal to this interpretation that it requires us to place the abolition of the dominion of death, and the resurrection, in the past, and not the future? Does not this contradict fact and common sense, and consequently expose the fallacy of the whole explanation? Of course, if the language of the apostle can only mean that at the Parousia the dominion of death over all men was everywhere and for ever brought to an end, it follows either that he was in error in making such an assertion, or that the interpretation which makes him say so is an erroneous one. That he [Paul] does affirm that at the Parousia (the time of which is incontrovertibly defined in the New Testament as contemporaneous with the destruction of Jerusalem) death will be destroyed, is what no one can with any fairness deny; but it does not follow that we are to understand that expression in an absolutely unlimited and universal sense. The human race did not cease to exist in its present earthly conditions at the destruction of Jerusalem; the world did not then come to an end; men continued to be born and to die according to the law of nature. What, then, did take place? We are to conceive of that period as the end of an aeon, or age; the close of a great era; the winding up of a dispensation, and the judgment of those who were placed under that dispensation. The whole of the subjects of that dispensation..., both the living and the dead, were, according to the representation of Christ and His apostles, to be convoked before the Theocratic King seated on the throne of His glory. That was the predicted and appointed period of that great judicial transaction set before us in the parabolic description of the sheep and the goats (Matt. xxv. 31 [Matt. 25:31], etc.), the outward and visible signs of which were indelibly stamped on the annals of time by the awful catastrophe [of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in A.D. 70] which effaced Israel from its place among the nations of the earth. True, the spiritual and invisible accompaniments of that judgment are not recorded by the historian, for they were not such as the human senses could apprehend or verify; yet what Christian can hesitate to believe that, contemporaneously with the outward judgment of the seen, there was a corresponding judgment of the unseen? Such, at least, is the inference fairly [i.e., impartially or plainly] deducible from the teachings of the New Testament. That at the great epoch of the Parousia the dead as well as the living---not of the whole human race, but of the subjects of the Theocratic kingdom---were to be assembled before the tribunal of judgment, is distinctly affirmed in the Scriptures; the dead being raised up, and the living undergoing an instantaneous change [1 Thess. 4:15-17]. In this recall of the dead to life---the resuscitation of those who throughout the duration of the Theocratic kingdom had become the victims and captives of death---we conceive the ‘destruction’ of death referred to by St. Paul to consist. Over them death lost his dominion; ‘the spirits in prison’ [1 Pet. 3:19] were released from the custody of their grim tyrant; and they [like Christ in Romans 6:9], being raised from the dead, ‘could not die anymore;’ ‘Death had no more dominion over them.’ That this is in perfect harmony with the teaching of the Scriptures on this mysterious subject, and in fact explains what no other hypothesis can explain, will more fully appear in the sequel [subsequent analysis]. Meantime, it may be observed that such expressions as the ‘destruction’ or ‘abolition’ of death do not always imply the total and final termination of its power. We read that ‘Jesus Christ had [has] abolished death’ (2 Tim. i. 10 [2 Tim. 1:10]). Christ Himself declared, ‘If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death’ (John viii. 51 [John 8:51]); ‘Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die’ (John xi. 26 [John 11:26]). We must interpret Scripture according to the analogy of Scripture. All that we are fairly [i.e., impartially or plainly] warranted in affirming respecting the ‘destruction of death’ in the passage before us [1 Cor. 15:26] is, that it is co-extensive with all those who at the Parousia [which occurred at the end of the Old Covenant age in A.D. 70] were raised from the dead. This seems to be referred to in our Lord’s reply to the Sadducees: ‘They which shall be accounted worthy to attain that period ([Greek: tou aionos ekeinou tuchein, [to obtain that age]) and the resurrection from among the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; for neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels,’ etc. (Luke xx. 35, 36 [Luke 20:35-36]). For them death is destroyed; for them death is swallowed up in victory. So, the apostle’s argument in the 26th, 54th, and following verses [of 1 Corinthians 15] really affirms no more than this,---To those who are raised from the dead there is no more liability to death; their deliverance from his bondage is complete; his sting is taken away; his power is at an end; they can shout, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? [1 Cor. 15:55] Even as ‘Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over him,’ [Romans 6:9] so, at the Parousia, His people were emancipated for ever from the prison-house of the grave: ‘the last enemy, death, to them was destroyed.’ [1 Cor. 15:26] [Russell adds the following in a footnote:]  

"The argument drawn from the practice of baptizing for the dead [1 Cor. 15:29] evidently [i.e., in an evident manner, thus clearly] derives all its force from the belief which it implied in a resurrection of the dead. That such a practice did exist the words themselves prove. That it originated in peculiar [special] and temporary circumstances, its entire absence from ecclesiastical records, and its total disappearance from ecclesiastical usage, render [its temporary nature] all but certain. It is most probable that it [baptism for the dead] was connected with times of persecution, and that it expressed, first, the regret that a Christian should die before the Parousia [the anxiety of the Thessalonians that Paul addresses in 1 Thess. 4:13-18]; and, secondly, the desire to keep a representative of the deceased living upon the earth when the Lord should come. ..."