Abolish

Abolish - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

ABOL'ISH, v.t. [L. abolco; from ab and oleo, olesco, to grow.]

1. To make void; to annul; to abrogate; applied chiefly and appropriately to established laws, contracts, rites, customs and institutions - as to abolish laws by a repeal, actual or virtual.

2. To destroy, or put an end to; as to abolish idols. Isa 2. To abolish death 2 Tim 1. This sense is not common. To abolish posterity, in the translation of Pausanias, Lib. 3. Song 6, is hardly allowable.

a-bol'-ish (chathath, "to be broken down," "made void," "My righteousness shall not be abolished" (Isa 51:6), i.e. as shown in God's faithfulness to His promises; machah, "to erase," "blot out," "that your works may be abolished" (Eze 6:6) katargeo, "to render inoperative," "bring to nought," "make of no effect," "when he shall have abolished all rule" (1Co 15:24), every power opposed to God's kingdom; "having abolished in his flesh the enmity" (Eph 2:15)): By His death, Christ did away with the race separation due to historic ordinances and ceremonial laws (as of circumcision and uncircumcision); through the cross He wrought the reconciliation, and secured that common access to the Father by which the union is maintained.

"Our Saviour Christ Jesus .... abolished death" (2Ti 1:10). Men still die, "it is appointed unto men" (Heb 9:27), but the fear of death as having power to terminate or affect our personal existence and our union with God, as a dreadful stepping out into the unknown and unknowable (into Sheol of the impenetrable gloom), and as introducing us to a final and irreversible judgment, has been removed. Christ has taken out of it its sting (1Co 15:55 f) and all its hurtful power (Heb 2:14); has shown it to be under His control (Re 1:18), brought to light the incorruptible life beyond, and declared the ultimate destruction of death (1Co 15:26; compare Re 20:14). The Greek (katargeitai) indicates that the process of destruction was then going on.

M. O. Evans