How strange it sounds to us when we hear Paul telling us that Christ has “abolished death” (2 Timothy 1:10)! What? Last time I checked, death was still very much alive (pardon the paradox). Indeed, Paul writes this in his final letter to us all, where he plainly concedes that his time on earth is finished, and he knows full well that he will soon suffer the very evil that he claims has been “abolished.”
The verb katargeō is used 27 times in the New Testament, 25 times by Paul. It’s hard to find just one translation to fit every instance where the verb is used, but “abolish” works for most of them. Many times translations like “make void,” nullify,” “cancel” (as in our “cancel culture”), or “eliminate” work just as well. Let’s take a look at all the places katargeō is used to see what we learn!
Katargeō is used six times by Paul in Romans. In Romans 3:3, Paul asks, Shall the unbelief of some people “nullify/make void” the faithfulness of God? In the last verse of that chapter (3:31), he asks, Do we “nullify/abolish” the Law by his teaching that we are saved by faith alone? (The answer is No.) In the next chapter (4:14), Paul argues that if God saves us by our obedience to the Law, faith is emptied and God’s promise to Abraham is “voided/nullified.” In 6:6, Paul teaches that the old human we once were has been crucified, so that the sinful body might be “abolished.” In 7:2, Paul says that if a woman’s husband dies, the wife is “severed” from the law that binds her to her husband. Paul then applies this principle in 7:6 by arguing that we who trust in Christ are similarly “severed” from the Law, having died to that which held us in bondage because of our inability to obey it.
Paul uses katargeō nine times in 1 Corinthians. In 1:28, he says God uses the basest things in this world, even things that are not, to “nullify” things that are. He then refers in 2:6 to the wisdom of those things that have been “nullified.” In 6:13, Paul declares that God will “abolish” both stomachs and food. Paul goes on in chapter 13 to predict that God will “abolish” tongues and knowledge (verse 8), and will abolish what is partial and not perfect (verse 10), just like he “abolished” childish things when he grew up (verse 11). In 15:24, Paul predicts that Christ will “abolish” every ruler, authority, and power, and then says in 15:26 that the last enemy to be “abolished” is death (which Paul speaks of in 2 Timothy as if it has already happened).
All four times Paul uses katargeō in 2 Corinthians are in chapter 3, which has to do with the glory on Moses’s face that God allows to be “abolished,” i.e. fade away (3:7, 3:13). Paul observes, if what was abolished (the shine on Moses’s face) was glorious, how much more glorious is the glory of God’s new covenant (3:11). Paul then compares the veil that Moses wears to hide the fading glory, to the veil over the mind of an unbeliever that is “abolished” in Christ (3:14).
Similar to what he writes in Romans, in Galatians 3:17, Paul argues that the Law cannot “invalidate” God’s promise to Abraham. He writes in 5:4 that those who try to be put right with God by the Law have been “eliminated” from Christ, that is, their relationship with Christ has been abolished. And Paul points out that if he promoted circumcision as a requirement for men to be saved, the skandalon of the cross would be “abolished” or “eliminated” for him (5:11).
In Ephesians 2:15, Paul preaches that Christ has “abolished” in his flesh the enmity between Jew and non-Jew. In 2 Thessalonians 2:8, Paul predicts that Christ shall “eliminate” the Lawless One when he returns. And in Hebrews 2:14 (probably written by Apollos, a close colleague of Paul’s), we read that through death, Christ’s mission was to “eliminate” the one who has the power of death, the devil, at least, to permanently debilitate him.
The most unusual use of katargeō is the very first place we find it, in Luke 13:7, where the owner of the fruitless fig tree asks in frustration, “Why should it ‘use up’ the soil?” The character in the parable expresses the idea that the tree will render the soil powerless to produce over time, i.e. “invalidate” the soil’s usefulness. We may note that here is the only New Testament passage where katargeō is used that is not about the action of God, or about the logic of rejecting God’s gracious offer of salvation.
We can be thankful for all that God has “abolished.” Death may still be visible all around us, but it has been nullified, cancelled, invalidated, made void, robbed of its power. The day will come when the coming Lawless One will be canceled permanently, along with every other ruler and authority. Our biological needs will be abolished, as our bodies are replaced by bodies that are imperishable, and our partial knowledge of God’s truth will be “abolished” in favor of perfect knowledge. Then we will “put away” the childish toys we thought were so important in this life.
But to inherit all this requires faith, not in ourselves, or faith in our own goodness or obedience, but trust in what Christ has done to put us permanently right with God. Faith in how good I am eliminates what relationship with God we might otherwise have had. Such faith in Christ alone does not invalidate God’s moral Law, it validates the Law. But placing our trust in that Law rather than Christ “invalidates” the faith of anyone who tries to justify themselves by how well they obey that Law. Faith in Christ “eliminates” our bondage to a law that we could never truly obey. What God has abolished is Good News that is truly worth celebrating!
