When all things have been subjected to him, then the Son will also himself be subjected to him who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all.
Parallel Translations
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When all things have been subjected to him, then the Son will also himself be subjected to him who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all.
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When all thinges are subdued vnto him: then shall the sonne also him selfe be subiecte vnto him that put all thinges vnder him that God maye be all in all thinges.
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And when all things shalbe subdued vnto him, then shall the Sonne also himselfe be subiect vnto him, that did subdue all things vnder him, that God may be all in all.
Cross-references (17)
Passages linked to 1 Corinthians 15:28 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Colossians 3:11 where there can’t be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondservant, or free person; but Christ is all, and in all.
- 1 Corinthians 3:23 and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
- Ephesians 1:23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
- Philippians 3:21 who will change the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working by which he is able even to subject all things to himself.
- John 14:28 You heard how I told you, ‘I go away, and I come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I said ‘I am going to my Father;’ for the Father is greater than I.
- 1 Corinthians 11:3 But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
- 1 Corinthians 12:6 There are various kinds of workings, but the same God, who works all things in all.
- Revelation 19:11-21 I saw the heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it is called Faithful and True. In righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has names written and a name written which no one knows but he himself. He is clothed in a garment sprinkled with blood. His name is called “The Word of God.” The armies which are in heaven followed him on white horses, clothed in white, pure, fine linen. Out of his mouth proceeds a sharp, double-edged sword, that with it he should strike the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod. He treads the wine press of the fierceness of the wrath of God, the Almighty. He has on his garment and on his thigh a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.” I saw an angel standing in the sun. He cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the sky, “Come! Be gathered together to the great supper of God, that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, small and great.” I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him who sat on the horse, and against his army. The beast was taken, and with him the false prophet who worked the signs in his sight, with which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. The rest were killed with the sword of him who sat on the horse, the sword which came out of his mouth. All the birds were filled with their flesh.
- Matthew 13:41-43 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather out of his Kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and those who do iniquity, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
- Psalms 2:8-9 Ask of me, and I will give the nations for your inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
- Psalms 18:39 For you have armed me with strength to the battle. You have subdued under me those who rose up against me.
- Psalms 18:47 even the God who executes vengeance for me, and subdues peoples under me.
- Psalms 21:8-9 Your hand will find out all of your enemies. Your right hand will find out those who hate you. You will make them as a fiery furnace in the time of your anger. Yahweh will swallow them up in his wrath. The fire shall devour them.
- Daniel 2:40-45 The fourth kingdom will be strong as iron, because iron breaks in pieces and subdues all things; and as iron that crushes all these, it will break in pieces and crush. Whereas you saw the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but there will be in it of the strength of the iron, because you saw the iron mixed with miry clay. As the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom will be partly strong, and partly broken. Whereas you saw the iron mixed with miry clay, they will mingle themselves with the seed of men; but they won’t cling to one another, even as iron does not mix with clay. “In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, nor will its sovereignty be left to another people; but it will break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it will stand forever. Because you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God has made known to the king what will happen hereafter. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.”
- Daniel 2:34-35 You saw until a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet that were of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were broken in pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors. The wind carried them away, so that no place was found for them. The stone that struck the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
- Revelation 20:2-4 He seized the dragon, the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole inhabited earth, and bound him for a thousand years, and cast him into the abyss, and shut it, and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were finished. After this, he must be freed for a short time. I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and such as didn’t worship the beast nor his image, and didn’t receive the mark on their forehead and on their hand. They lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
- Revelation 20:10-15 The devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet are also. They will be tormented day and night forever and ever. I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. There was found no place for them. I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and they opened books. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works. The sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. They were judged, each one according to his works. Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. If anyone was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (18 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Not because the Son was not subject to his…
Not because the Son was not subject to his Father before, but because his body, that is to say, the Church which is here in distress, and not yet wholly partaker of his glory, is not yet fully perfect, and also because the bodies of the saints which be in the graves shall not be glorified until the resurrection: but Christ as he is God, hath us subject to him as his Father hath, but as he is Priest, he is subject to his father together with us. Augustine, book 1, chap. 8, of the Trinity.
By this high kind of speech, is set forth an incomprehensible glory which floweth from God, and shall fill all of us, as we are joined together with our head, but yet so, that our head shall always reserve his preeminence.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 28 And when all things shall be subdued unto…
28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.
Ver. 28. That God may be all in all] Till sin and death be abolished we have no access to God but by Christ. But after that all enemies be trod under foot, then shall we have an immediate union with God; yet so, as that this shall be the proper and everlasting praise of Christ, as he is the procurer of that union.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain The Son’s subjection to his Father, which is mentioned…
The Son’s subjection to his Father, which is mentioned in this place, doth no where prove his inequality of essence or power with his Father; it only signifieth what was spoken before, that Christ should deliver up his mediatory kingdom to his Father; so manifesting, that whatsoever he had done in the office of Mediator, was done in the name of his Father, and by his power and authority; and that as he was man, he was subject to his Father. Suppose (saith Pareus) a king should have one only son, whom he should take into a partnership with him in his majesty and kingdom; but yet so, that the king should still have the pre-eminence of a father, the son only the dignity of a son in such power and authority: after which this king, having some subjects risen up in rebellion against him, should send his son with armies and his authority against them; he should despatch the work, and at his return yield up his commission to his father, yet still retaining the same nature he had, and authority with which his Father had before clothed him, was a partner in the kingdom and government with him.
That God (saith the apostle) may be all in all; instead of all things which the heart of man can wish; or that God may exercise a full and perfect empire and government over all things; that the incomprehensible glory of God may fill all the elect. But is not God in this world all in all?
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Answer. He is; but he doth not so appear ruling in the midst of his enemies here.
2. The government will be altered; God here is sole King of the world, but he partly ruleth it by Christ, as Mediator, whose mediatory kingdom shall then cease, and nothing shall appear but the essential kingdom of God; the power by which the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (three persons, though but one God) shall govern and rule all things, when all this sublunary world shall cease.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And why stand we in jeopardy every hour? Not…
And why stand we in jeopardy every hour? Not only they that have suffered martyrdom for the faith of Christ, and for this article of it, have acted very injudiciously and indiscreetly; but we, also, who are on the spot, whether ministers or private Christians, must be highly blameworthy, who continually expose ourselves to dangers, and are for Christ's sake killed all the day long, are every moment liable to innumerable injuries, tortures and death; who in his senses would act such a part, if there is no resurrection of the dead? such, as they must be of all men the most miserable, so of all men the most stupid.
And why stand we in jeopardy every hour? Not only they that have suffered martyrdom for the faith of Christ, and for this article of it, have acted very injudiciously and indiscreetly; but we, also, who are on the spot, whether ministers or private Christians, must be highly blameworthy, who continually expose ourselves to dangers, and are for Christ's sake killed all the day long, are every moment liable to innumerable injuries, tortures and death; who in his senses would act such a part, if there is no resurrection of the dead? such, as they must be of all men the most miserable, so of all men the most stupid.
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1 Corinthians 15:31
co1 15:31
co1 15:31
co1 15:31I protest by your rejoicing,.... Some copies read, "our rejoicing"; and so the Ethiopic version, which seems most natural and easy; since it follows,
which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord; who in him could rejoice and glory in afflictions and sufferings, which he endured as a preacher of the Gospel for his sake; and which being certain and evident, and what might be depended upon, he makes a protestation by it, saying,
I die daily; which is to be understood, not in a spiritual sense of dying unto sin; he was dead unto sin, as to its damning power, through the death of Christ, and as to its governing power, through the Spirit and grace of Christ, but still it was living and dwelling in him; but in a corporeal sense: he instances in himself in particular, who was one that was in jeopardy or danger of his life every hour; he always bore in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus, and was continually delivered to death for Jesus' sake; death was always working in him, he expected it every day, and was ready for it; he did not count his life dear unto himself, but was very willing to lay it down for the sake of Christ and his Gospel; which he would never have done, if he had not good reason to believe the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain The Son also shall be subject - Shall deliver…
The Son also shall be subject - Shall deliver up the mediatorial kingdom. That the three-one God may be all in all - All things, (consequently all persons,) without any interruption, without the intervention of any creature, without the opposition of any enemy, shall be subordinate to God. All shall say, "My God, and my all." This is the end. Even an inspired apostle can see nothing beyond this.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 28. The Son also himself be subject] When…
Verse 28. The Son also himself be subject] When the administration of the kingdom of grace is finally closed; when there shall be no longer any state of probation, and consequently no longer need of a distinction between the kingdom of grace and the kingdom of glory; then the Son, as being man and Messiah, shall cease to exercise any distinct dominion and God be all in all: there remaining no longer any distinction in the persons of the glorious Trinity, as acting any distinct or separate parts in either the kingdom of grace, or the kingdom of glory, and so the one infinite essence shall appear undivided and eternal. And yet, as there appears to be a personality essentially in the infinite Godhead, that personality must exist eternally; but how this shall be we can neither tell nor know till that time comes in which we shall SEE HIM AS HE IS. 1Jo 3:2.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain 1Co 15:28. When all things shall be subdued —…
1Co 15:28. When all things shall be subdued — Or, rather, subjected, (as υποταγη properly signifies,) unto him, and there is no longer need of a prophet to teach, nor of a priest to make atonement and intercede, nor of a king to deliver, protect, and govern under God, the Father will resume the government; and then, even the Son himself shall be subjected to him who subjected all things to him, that God — Or the Godhead; may be all in all — May be over all beings, in all places, and the immediate object of their worship and service. Or rather, may be all things in and to his intelligent creatures, saints, and angels, by a full communication of himself to them, and an intimate union with them. “He saith not,” observes Dr. Whitby, “that the Father, mentioned 1Co 15:24, but that God may be all in all; and so he seems to lead us to that interpretation of the Godhead which comprehends Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and then the import of the phrase, that God may be all in all, will be this: That the Godhead may govern all things immediately by himself, without the intervention of a mediator between him and us, to exact our obedience in his name, and convey to us his favours and rewards, we being then to render all our duty immediately to him, and derive all our happiness immediately from him. So that, as now Christ, God-man, is all in all, Col 3:11, because the Father hath put all things into his hands; does all things and governs all things by him; when this economy ceases, the Godhead alone will be all in all, as governing and influencing all things by himself immediately.” “On supposition that this is a proper interpretation of the passage, and that the Son or Word, Joh 1:1, in conjunction with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is to govern, two questions will occur: 1st, How the apostle came to speak of the Son’s subjection to the Father, seeing he is to reign in conjunction with the Father. 2d, How the Son, under the government of the Godhead, can be subject to himself. To remove these difficulties, it is generally said that the Son is to be subject to the Father in his human nature only. In the present state of mankind, it is suitable to the majesty and purity of God, that all his intercourses with them, whether in the way of conferring blessings on them, or of receiving their worship, be carried on by the intervention of a mediator. But after sinners are completely reconciled to God, and made perfect in holiness, and are introduced into heaven, God will bestow his favours on them, and receive their worship, immediately, without the intervention of a mediator. And thus the offices of mediator and king, becoming unnecessary, shall cease. Yet even in this state, the Son in [or in union with] the human nature, though no longer king, [in the sense in which he was king before,] will still retain the glory of having created all things, described Col 1:15; Heb 1:2-3, and the glory of having saved mankind, and of having destroyed the kingdom of Satan, and Satan himself. So that, in respect of personal perfection, and of the veneration due to him for the great things he hath accomplished, he will continue superior to the highest angels, and be acknowledged by them as their superior through all eternity. Now this superiority being considered as a kind of reigning, it is perhaps what the apostle meant when, 2Ti 2:12, he said, If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him. See also Rev 3:21.” — Macknight. So also Doddridge: “The union of the divine and human natures in the person of the great Emmanuel, the incomparable virtues of his character, the glory of his actions, and the relation he bears to his people, with all the texts which assert the perpetuity of his government, prohibit our imagining that he shall ever cease to be illustriously distinguished from all others, whether men or angels, in the heavenly world, through eternal ages.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain And when ... - In this future time, when…
And when ... - In this future time, when this shall be accomplished. This implies that the time has not yet arrived, and that his dominion is now exercised, and that he is carrying forward his plans for the subjugation of all things to God.
Shall be subdued unto him - Shall be brought under subjection. When all his enemies shall be overcome and destroyed; or when the hearts of the redeemed shall be entirely subject to God. When God’s kingdom shall be fully established over the universe. It shall then be seen that he is Lord of all. In the previous verses he had spoken of the promise that all things should be subjected to God; in this, he speaks of its being actually done.
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Then shall the Son also himself be subject ... - It has been proposed to render this, “even then shall the Son,” etc.; implying that he had been all along subject to God; had acted under his authority; and that this subjection would continue even then in a sense similar to that in which it had existed; and that Christ would then continue to exercise a delegated authority over his people and kingdom. See an article “on the duration of Christ’s kingdom,” by Prof. Mills, in Bib. Rep. vol. iii. p. 748ff. But to this interpretation there are objections:
(1) It is not the obvious interpretation.
(2) It does not seem to comport with the design and scope of the passage, which most evidently refers to some change, or rendering back of the authority of the Messiah; or to some resumption of authority by the Divinity, or by God as God, in a different sense from what existed under the Messiah.
(3) Such a statement would be unnecessary and vain. Who could reasonably doubt that the Son would be as much subject to God when all things had been subdued to him as he was before?
(4) It is not necessary to suppose this in order to reconcile the passage with what is said of the perpetuity of Christ’s kingdom and his eternal reign. That he would reign; that his kingdom would be perpetual, and that it would be unending, was indeed clearly predicted; see 2Sa 7:16; Psa 45:6; Isa 9:6-7; Dan 2:44; Dan 7:14; Luk 1:22-23; Heb 1:8. But these predictions may be all accomplished on the supposition that the special mediatorial kingdom of the Messiah shall be given up to God, and that he shall be subject to him. For:
His kingdom will be perpetual, in contradistinction from the kingdoms of this world. They are fluctuating, changing, short in their duration. His shall not cease, and shall continue to the end of time. His kingdom shall be perpetual, because those who are brought under the laws of God by him shall remain subject to those laws forever. The sceptre never shall be broken, and the kingdom shall abide to all eternity. Christ, the Son of God, in his divine nature, as God, shall never cease to reign.
As Mediator, he may resign his commission and his special office, having made an atonement, having recovered his people, having protected and guided them to heaven. Yet as one with the Father; as the “Father of the everlasting age” Isa 9:6, he shall not cease to reign. The functions of a special office may have been discharged, and delegated power laid down, and that which appropriately belongs to him in virtue of his own nature and relations may be resumed and executed forever; and it shall still be true that the reign of the Son of God, in union, or in oneness with the Father, shall continue forever.
(5) The interpretation which affirms that the Son shall then be subject to the Father in the sense of laying down his delegated authority, and ceasing to exercise his mediatorial reign, has been the common interpretation of all times. This remark is of value only, because, in the interpretation of plum words, it is not probable that people of all classes and ranks in different ages would err.
The Son also himself - The term “Son of God” is applied to the Lord Jesus with reference to his human nature, his incarnation by the Holy Spirit, and his resurrection from the dead; see the note on Rom 1:4. (For the evidence of the eternal sonship, see the Supplementary Note on the same passage.) It refers, I apprehend, to that in this place. It does not mean that the second person in the Trinity, as such, should be subject to the first; but it means the Incarnate Son, the Mediator, the man that was born and that was raised from the dead, and to whom this wide dominion had been given, should resign that dominion, and that the government should be re-assumed by the Divinity as God. As man, he shall cease to exercise any distinct dominion. This does not mean, evidently, that the union of the divine and human nature will be dissolved; nor that important purposes may not be answered by that continued union forever; nor that the divine perfections may not shine forth in some glorious way through the man Christ Jesus; but that the purpose of government shall no longer be exercised in that way; the mediatorial kingdom, as such, shall no longer be continued, and power shall be exercised by God as God. The redeemed will still adore their Redeemer as their incarnate God, and dwell upon the remembrance of his work and upon his perfections Rev 1:5-6; Rev 5:12; Rev 11:15; but not as exercising the special power which he now has, and which was needful to effect their redemption.
That God may be all in all - That God may be supreme; that the Divinity, the Godhead, may rule; and that it may be seen that he is the Sovereign over all the universe. By the word “God” (ὁ Θεὸς ho Theos), Whitby and Hammond, I think correctly, understand the Godhead, the Divine Nature, the Divinity, consisting of the three persons, without respect to any special office or kingdom.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain The Son also himself shall be subject to him.…
The Son also himself shall be subject to him. That is, the Son will be subject to the Father, according to his human nature, even after the general resurrection; and also the whole mystical body of Christ will be entirely subject to God, obeying him in every thing. (Challoner)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Son . . . himself . . . subject--not…
Son . . . himself . . . subject--not as the creatures are, but as a Son voluntarily subordinate to, though co-equal with, the Father. In the mediatorial kingdom, the Son had been, in a manner, distinct from the Father. Now, His kingdom shall merge in the Father's, with whom He is one; not that there is thus any derogation from His honor; for the Father Himself wills "that all should honor the Son, as they honor the Father" (Joh 5:22-23; Heb 1:6).
God . . . all in all--as Christ is all in all (Col 3:11; compare Zac 14:9). Then, and not till then, "all things," without the least infringement of the divine prerogative, shall be subject to the Son, and the Son subordinate to the Father, while co-equally sharing His glory. Contrast Psa 10:4; Psa 14:1. Even the saints do not fully realize God as their "all" (Psa 73:25) now, through desiring it; then each shall feel, God is all to me.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 28. God… all in all—The first all of the…
28. God… all in all—The first all of the two here, which God may be, is an all of absolute power, pervading the second all things, immediate and without a mediator. For it is power, kingdom, authority, abolition, and subjection, which are the subject of the whole passage; not one word being spoken of reconciliation, communion, or love. This we think entirely decisive against all theories of Restorationism founded on this passage.
God is finally all things—in supremacy over and in all things. As the light perfectly pervades the perfectly transparent diamond, so that the diamond itself becomes invisible, being visually dissolved in light, so God, the omnipotent all, is omnipresent in all things. From the very nature of things, that omnipresence is perfectly blissful to every conscious nature accordant with it; but perfectly woful to every conscious nature discordant with it, though perfectly subjected by it. And between the idea of this subjection under power, and this discordance of nature, there is no contradiction.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 28. And when all things shall be subdued unto…
28. And when all things shall be subdued unto him] If everything is put under Christ, it is in order that there may be no divided empire. ‘I and my Father are One,’ He said (St Joh_10:30). Cf. St Joh_17:11; Joh_17:22, as well as ch. 1Co_3:23, 1Co_11:3 of this Epistle.
then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him] This passage is one of great difficulty. Athanasius gives two explanations of it; (1) in his treatise De Incarnatione, that Christ is subject to God not in Himself, but in His members; (2) in his first dialogue against the Macedonians (so also Chrysostom), that Christ is subject not by the nature of His Divinity, but by the dispensation of His Humanity. “For this subjection,” he further remarks, “no more involves inferiority of essence, than His subjection (St Luk_2:51) to Joseph and Mary involved inferiority of essence to them.” Hooker remarks (3) of Christ’s mediatorial kingdom on earth, that “the exercise thereof shall cease, there being no longer on earth any militant Church to govern,” and regards the passage as referring to the surrender, on Christ’s part, of that mediatorial kingdom at the end of the world. Cyril of Jerusalem (4) regards the subjection as one of voluntary surrender, as opposed to necessity. But perhaps (5) the true explanation may be suggested by the passage in Philippians 2, as translated by some, ‘He snatched not greedily at His equality with God.’ Though He were God, yet He was always a Son. And the object of His mediatorial work was not, as that of the unregenerate man would have been, to obtain this kingdom for Himself, but for His Father. See St Mat_26:39; St Joh_5:30; Joh_6:38; Joh_7:18; Joh_8:50; Joh_8:54; Eph_1:10. So that the disorder and confusion of the universe shall henceforth cease, and one vast system of order, peace and love shall reign from the Father and source of all things, down to the meanest creature to whom He has given to have eternal life. And this was the object of His Resurrection from the dead. See last note.
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that God may be all in all] The restoration of God’s kingdom over the moral and spiritual part of man was the object of Christ’s Mission on earth, St Mat_3:2; Mat_4:17; Mat_5:3; Mat_5:10; Mat_6:10; Mat_6:33, and ch. 13.; St Joh_3:5; Joh_3:17; Rom_8:2; Rom_8:4. This was to be brought to pass by means of the revelation of the Divine perfections in the Man Christ Jesus, St Joh_1:14; Joh_14:8-10; Col_1:19; Col_2:9. God was thus revealed to us, that we might obtain fellowship with Him. See St Joh_16:23-28; Rom_5:2; Eph_2:18; Eph_3:12; Heb_10:20. “Therefore He is called the door, and the way, because by Him we are brought nigh to God.” Athanasius. And thus in the end each believer will have immediate and individual relations, not only with the Man Christ Jesus, but with the whole of the Blessed Trinity. See note on ch. 1Co_13:12. For all in all see ch. 1Co_12:6. Theodoret remarks that the same expression is used of Christ in Col_3:11. Cf. St Joh_17:22-23; Joh_14:23; Joh_16:7; Joh_16:13-14; 1Jn_2:24; 1Jn_4:13.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (28) That God may be all in all.—In these…
(28) That God may be all in all.—In these words are expressed the complete redemption both of the race and of the individual. It is the great and sublime conclusion to which the moral enthusiasm and the earnest logic of the previous argument has necessarily brought us.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Then shall the Son also himself be subject, etc.…
Then shall the Son also himself be subject, etc. The words can only be taken as they stand. The attempts to explain them have usually been nothing but ingenious methods of explaining them away. Of these the one usually adopted by the Fathers is the limitation of the statement to Christ"s human nature (Joh_5:26, Joh_5:27, Joh_5:30) and mediatorial kingdom, just as we find in 1Co_11:3. The head of Christ is God." We can easily "darken counsel by words without knowledge" in dealing with this subject, and hide an absolute ignorance under a semblance of knowledge; but anything and everything which we can say in "explanation" of this self subjection of the Son to the Father is simply involved in the words which follow. That God may be all in all. "All things in all things" or "all things in all men." The words involve a complete and absolute supremacy. It is quite an easy matter for commentators to say that the scope of the words "must be confined to believers," if they chose to make "all" mean "some." Such methods often lead to an irreligious religionism and a heterodox orthodoxy. The reader will find the same phrase in Col_3:11. I confine myself to the comment of the profound and saintly Bengel: "There is implied something new, but also supreme and eternal. All things, and therefore all men, without any interruption, no created thing claiming a place, no enemy creating opposition, shall be subordinated to the Son, the Son to the Father. All things shall say, "God is all things to me." This is the consummation; this the end and summit. Further than this not even an apostle can go.
The close of the Mediator"s mission.
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This is a passage of almost extreme difficulty, because fitting into a general scheme of the universe which we find it very difficult to understand, and because dealing with a future so transcendent and sublime as to be beyond the grasp of our imagination. Treated theologically, and fitted into any redemptive scheme, as drawn out by human intellect, the passage is a perplexity. Treated meditatively, and for the sake of its spiritual suggestions, we may be guided by the following brief passage from F. W. Robertson, which seems to be a key to unlock the apostle"s high imaginings: mediatorial kingdom of Christ shall be superseded by an immediate one; therefore the present form in which God has revealed himself is only temporary. When the object of the present kingdom of Christ has been attained in the conquest of evil, there will be no longer need of a mediator. Then God wilt be known immediately. We shall know him, when the mediatorial has merged in the immediatorial, in a way more high, more intimate, more sublime, than even through Christ." "There rises before the prophetic vision of St. Paul the final triumph of Christ over all evil, over all power, and the Son giving up to the Father the kingdom of this world, which in his humanity he conquered for the Father as well as for himself. Christ, laying the spoils of a conquered world at the foot of the throne of the Father, shows, by that supreme act of self sacrifice, that in his office as Redeemer he came, not to do his own will, but the will of the Father." In dealing with a passage which seems to concern the sublime and mysterious relations of the Divine Trinity, our spirit cannot be too serious and devout and reverent; yet we may humbly try to understand what God has been pleased so graciously to reveal. Probably the point of the apostle in this passage cannot be apprehended until we can see that the distinctions of the Trinity are, so far as we are concerned, revelational, and made known to us as a part of God"s gracious and redemptive purpose. The apostle does not bring us into the presence of what neither he nor we could mentally grasp, the eternal constitution and distinctions of the Divine nature.
I THE REVELATION OF THE SON IS TEMPORARY. That is, of the Son regarded as the mediatorial and redemptive Agent. There is a doctrine of the eternal Sonship of Christ, but with it this passage does not deal. God may employ on his mission a servant or a Son. In either case the mission is defined in character and limited in time. Whatever Jesus, as the Son of God, came to earth to do, it was a precise mission, having a temporary character. It had two stages.
1. One of earthly manifestation. We know how that was limited to a few years, and at its close he passed, accepted, into heaven.
2. One of spiritual influence. Within that we live, but it is no more abiding than the other, and our text describes its close.
II THE REVELATION OF THE HOLY GHOST IS DEPENDENT ON THAT OF THE SON, AND IS ALSO TEMPORARY, He is the redemptive Agent who follows up and applies the work of Christ; and is only needed while the redemptive work has to be done. Here, again, no reference is intended to the sublime operations of God of a spiritual kind apart from those exerted in the redemption of man.
III THE POINT OF THE PRESENT REVELATION OF GOD TO US IS THE RECOVERY OF MAN"S WILL AND HEART TO GOD. It is a moral purpose that is sought. The recovery first of the man himself, and then of his surroundings. This is fully argued in the passage from which the text is taken, and in Romans 8.
IV WHEN THE REDEMPTIVE DESIGN IS FULLY ACCOMPLISHED, THE MEDIATORIAL OFFICE MAY CEASE, But it only ceases because the end it sought is reached, the mission is fulfilled, and the mediatorial office can be lost in the glory of the relationships into which it will have brought man, and all human relations. "When the last hindrance, the last enemy, is removed, which prevents the entire entrance of God into the soul, we shall see him face to face, know him even as we are known, awake up satisfied in his likeness, and be transformed into pure recipients of the Divine glory. That will be the resurrection. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain And when all things shall be subdued unto Him,…
1Co_15:28
And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son … be subject.
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Christ subjecting Himself
I. Christ reigning. Our text speaks of the time when 1Co_15:25 shall be accomplished.
1. Christs kingdom is to exist till all things are subjugated to it. It is set up to bring to obedience those who are rebels to Gods government.
(1) It virtually began with the first human rebel; when the promise was made that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpents head.
(2) After Christs dearth and resurrection, His kingdom was actually established, and His ambassadors have ever since been beseeching men in Christs stead to be reconciled to God.
(3) Christs kingdom is remedial rather than judicial, and He seeks to rule by constraint rather than restraint.
2. This kingdom will eventually be universal. Here is no uncertainty, no speculation. The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. I have sworn by myself,… that unto Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.
II. Christ subjecting himself.
1. Humanly speaking, Christ subjected Himself to the Father when He assumed our nature, and submitted to the death of the Cross. His present exaltation is the reward of that submission (Php_2:1-30), and consists of a relative dominion which will come to an end when Christ has finished the peculiar work for which it was established.
2. The relative subjection of the incarnation was voluntarily and not derogatory to His Divinity. Christ was God manifested in the flesh.
3. Nor will it be derogatory to Christs Divinity to subject Himself by yielding up the lordship of the mediatorial kingdom. His glory and dominion will be the same, it will merely be a change in the form of administration.
III. God as all in all.
1. This does not mean that God the Son shall be lost in the Father, for Christ is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. This expression is also used of Christ. He is spoken of as the fulness of Him that filleth all things, and as all, and in all. God the Father is not all in all to the exclusion of the Son, but with the Son, and with the Holy Ghost.
2. It is the Triune God that is here spoken of as all in all. The mediatorial kingdom having come to an end, the relative position of Christ being no longer required, there is seen only the Divine absoluteness in the never divided Trinity.
3. The Triune God all in all means that the Divine will be supreme by a universal, voluntary, glad consent. When God is absolutely our all in all we shall have secured the highest happiness we are capable of. (Homiletic Magazine.)
The final submission of the Son to the Father
That from the moment of His final triumph the Son will bow to the Father in a sense in which He does not now, must be expounded in harmony with Luk_1:33. Of His kingdom there will be no end; and with Rev_11:15, The kingdom of the world has become our Lords and His Christs: and He will reign for ever and ever. In this latter passage the united reign of the Father and Son is described by the remarkable words, He will reign. Perhaps the following imperfect human comparison may help to harmonise these apparently contradictory assertions. Conceive a king who never leaves his palace, but commits all public acts of royalty to his son, who performs them in the name, and at the bidding and according to the will, of his father, whose will his son always approves. Such a son we might call a sharer of his fathers throne; and, in another sense, the sole ruler of his fathers realm. Conceive now that a province is in rebellion, and that, to bring it into submission, the king invests his son, for the time of the rebellion, with full royal authority. The son begins in person the war against the rebels; but before its completion he returns to the capital in which his father reigns and directs thence the war until order is completely restored. Even in the presence of his father he exercises the full regal authority given to him for the suppression of the revolt. While the rebellion lasts he seems to be an independent ruler; though really ruling only at the bidding, and to work out the will, and restore the authority of his father. But when order is restored, the son gives back to the father this delegated royalty: and even the apparent independence of the sons rule ceases. Henceforth the father reigns with undisputed sway. The difference between the special authority delegated to the Son for the suppression of the revolt and afterwards laid down and the abiding authority of the Son as the Fathers representative, I cannot define. Probably it is connected with the fact that in consequence of sin the Son did what the Father never did, viz., became man and died. May it not be that in consequence of this He exercises now an authority which is specially His own, and which will continue only for a time? (Prof. Beet.)
Our relations to Christ in the future life
That Christ is to be in some sense eternal, and the eternal joy of all believers, we cannot willingly doubt. What kind of personal relation to Christ we are to hope for and hold, as our authorised and fixed expectations for the future life? Among those who hold the Trinity more lightly, or in a more nearly Sabellian way, as a dramatising of God to serve the occasional uses of redemption, it is common to assume the discontinuance of it, when the uses of redemption no longer require it. But there is a fatal want of depth in this conception. If there was a necessity of the Three to carry on the redemption of the world, as this partly Sabellian view supposes, it was not a necessity of sin, but of mind--finite mind, all finite mind; existing therefore ab aeterno in aeternum. We have now a great first point established, viz., that when the Son is spoken of as finally to be made subject, or so far discontinued as to let God be all in all, it cannot be meant that the Son is to be taken away, or disappear, in any sense that modifies at all the fact of Trinity. If God is to be all in all, it must be as Trinity and not otherwise. How then shall we understand the apostle when he testifies that the Son shall be subject or retired from the view? He is speaking plainly of the Son as incarnate, or externalised in the flesh, visible outwardly in the man-form and known as the Son of Mary. He it is that, after having--as a king outwardly regnant--put all things under His feet, is in turn to become subject also Himself, that God may be all in all, and the machineries hitherto conspicuous be for ever taken back as before the advent. The only objection I perceive to this construction is, that the word Son here appears to be used in connection with the word Father--delivered up the kingdom to God even the Father,--then shall the Son also--as if it were intended to say that the Son as in Trinity is to give place to the Father as in Trinity, and He to be henceforth sole Deity. But there is a two-fold relationship of Father and Son appearing and reappearing constantly; viz., that of the Father to the incarnate Son and that of the Father to the pre-incarnate Son; that which gives Him earthly Fatherhood and that which gives Him celestial, ante-mudane Fatherhood. The apostle was not careful here to put a guard for the saving of the eternal Sonship, because he did not imagine the need of saving that, any more than of saving Deity itself. He was only thinking of the mortal Sonship, and giving us to see the essentially temporal date of its continuance. Trinity then as He conceives will remain, but the mortal Sonship, the man, will disappear and be no more visible. And let us not too hastily recoil from this. It may be that we have been promising ourselves a felicity in the future world, made up almost wholly of the fact that we shall be with Christ in His humanly personal form, and have used this hope to feed our longings, quite apart from all higher relations to His Eternal Sonship. Their word is Jesus, always Jesus, never the Christ; and if they can see Jesus in the world to come, they do not specially look for anything more. Heaven is fully made up, to their low type of expectation, if they can but apprehend the Man and be with Him. Religion reaches after God, and God is Trinity, and all the gospel does, or can do, by the name and human person of Jesus, is to bring us in and up to a God who is eternally above that name. Our relations to Christ, then, in the future life, are to be relations to God in Christ, and never to the Jesus in Christ. There is, I know, a conception of our gospel which has its blessedness in Jesus, because it meets God in Him, and is specially drawn to His humanity, because it even finds the fulness of God bowed low in His person. This so far is genuine gospel. And it would not be strange if a disciple thus wonted in God should imagine that the joy of his faith is conditioned for ever by the human person at whose ministry or from whose love it began. What, then, is the future glory, he will ask, if he does not bring him in, where he can see the very Man of the Cross? And who is this but Him that you seek? Surely He is somehow here, and this is somehow He. You missed Him, perchance, because you were looking too low down, out of the range of Deity, to find Him; whereas now you find Him throned in God, hymned in God, as the everlasting Son of the Father--and yet He is somehow Son of Mary still, even as He is the Lamb that was slain. (H. Bushnell.)
The termination of the mediatorial kingdom
There are two great truths presented by this verse and its context--the one, that Christ is now vested with a kingly authority which He must hereafter resign; the other, that, as a consequence on this resignation, God Himself will become all in all to the universe. We begin by observing the importance of carefully distinguishing between what the Scriptures affirm of the attributes, and what of the offices, of the persons in the Trinity in regard of the attributes, you will find that the employed language marks perfect equality; the Father, Son, and Spirit being alike spoken of as Eternal, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent. But in regard of the offices, there can be no dispute that the language indicates inequality, and that both the Son and Spirit are represented as inferior to the Father. This may readily be accounted for from the nature of the plan of redemption. This plan demanded that the Son should humble Himself, and assume our nature; and that the Spirit should condescend to be sent as a renovating agent; whilst the Father was to remain in the sublimity and happiness of Godhead. And it is only by thus distinguishing between the attributes and the offices that we can satisfactorily explain our text and its context. The apostle expressly declares of Christ, that He is to deliver up His kingdom to the Father, and to become Himself subject to the Father. And the question naturally proposes itself, how are statements such as these to be reconciled with other portions of Scripture, which speak of Christ as an everlasting King, and declare His dominion to be that which shall not be destroyed? There is no difficulty in reconciling these apparently conflicting assertions if we consider Christ as spoken of in the one case as God, in the other as Mediator. And you cannot be acquainted with the scheme of our redemption and not know that the office of the Mediator warrants our supposing a kingdom which will be finally surrendered. The grand design of redemption has all along been the exterminating evil from the universe, and the restoring harmony throughout Gods disorganised empire. He was not indeed fully and visibly invested with the kingly office until after His death and resurrection: for then it was that He declared to His disciples, All power is given unto Me in heaven and earth. Nevertheless the mediatorial kingdom had commenced with the commencement of human guilt and misery. But when, through death, He had destroyed Him that had the power of death, the Mediator became emphatically a King. He ascended up on high, and led captivity captive, in that very nature in which He had borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He sat down at the right hand of God the very person that had been made a curse for us. It is certainly the representation of Scripture, that Christ has been exalted to a throne, in recompense of His humiliation and suffering; and that, seated on this throne, He governs all things in heaven and earth. And we call this throne the mediatorial throne, because it was only as Mediator that Christ could be exalted. The great object for which the kingdom has been erected, is, that He who occupies the throne may subdue those principalities and powers which have set themselves against the government of God. And when this noble result is brought round, and the whole globe mantled with righteousness, there will yet remain much to be done ere the mediatorial work is complete. The throne must set for judgment; the enactments of a retributive economy take effect; the dead be raised, and all men receive the things done in the body. Then will evil be finally expelled form the universe, and God may again look forth on His unlimited empire, and declare it not defiled by a solitary stain. Now it has been our object, up to this point, to prove to you, on scriptural authority, that the Mediator is a King, and that Christ, as God-man, is invested with a dominion not to be confounded with that which belongs to Him as God. You are now therefore prepared for the question, whether Christ has not a kingdom which must be ultimately resigned. We think it evident that, as Mediator, Christ has certain functions to discharge, which, from their very nature, cannot be eternal. When the last of Gods elect family shall have been gathered in, there will be none to need the blood of sprinkling, none to require the intercession of an advocate with the Father. Then shall all that sovereignty which, for magnificent but temporary purposes, has been wielded by and through the humanity of Christ, pass again to the Godhead whence it was derived. Then shall the Creator, acting no longer through the instrumentality of a Mediator, assume visibly, amid the worshippings of the whole intelligent creation, the dominion over His infinite and now purified empire, and administer its every concern without the intervention of one found in fashion as a man. God shall henceforwards be all in all. Now it is upon this latter expression, indicative as it is of what we may call the universal diffusion of Deity, that we design to employ the remainder of our time. We wish to examine into the truths involved in the assertion that God is to be finally all in all. It is an assertion which, the more it is pondered, the more comprehensive will it appear. You may remember that the same expression is used of Christ in the Epistle to the Colossians--Christ is all and in all. There is no disagreement between the assertions. In the Epistle to the Colossians St. Paul speaks of what takes place under the mediatorial kingdom; whereas in that to the Corinthians he describes what will occur when that kingdom shall have terminated. We learn, then, from the expression in question, however unable we may be to explain the amazing transition, that there is to be a removal of the apparatus constructed for allowing us communications with Godhead; and that we shall not need those offices of an Intercessor, without which there could now be no access to our Maker. There is something very grand and animating in this announcement. If we were unfallen creatures, we should need no Mediator. The mediatorial office, independently on which we must have been everlastingly outcasts, is evidence, throughout the whole of its continuance, that the human race does not yet occupy the place whence it fell. But with the termination of this office shall be the admission of man into all the privileges of direct access to his Maker. In ceasing to have a Mediator the last barrier is taken down; and man, who has thrown himself to an unmeasured distance from God, passes into those direct associations with Him that inhabiteth eternity, which can be granted to none but those who never fell, or who, having fallen, have been recovered from every consequence of apostacy. And therefore it is not that we depreciate, or undervalue, the blessedness of that condition in which Christ is all in all to His Church. We cannot compute this blessedness, and we feel that the best praises fall far short of its deserts; and yet we can believe of this blessedness, that it is only preparatory to a richer and a higher. To tell me that I should need a Mediator through eternity, were to tell me that I should be in danger of death, and at a distance from God. There is, however, no reason for supposing that the human race alone will be affected by the resignation of the mediatorial kingdom. We may not believe that it is only over ourselves that Christ Jesus has been invested with sovereignty. It would rather appear, since all power has been given Him in heaven and earth, that the mediatorial kingdom embraces different worlds, and different orders of intelligence; and that the chief affairs of the universe are administered by Christ in His glorified humanity. It is therefore possible that even unto angels the Godhead does not now immediately manifest itself; but that these glorious creatures are governed, like ourselves, through the instrumentality of the Mediator. Hence it will be a great transition to the whole intelligent creation, and not merely to an inconsiderable fraction, when the Son shall give up the kingdom to the Father. It will be the visible enthronement of Deity. The Creator will come forth from His sublime solitude, and assume the sceptre of His boundless empire. And it is not, we think, possible to give a finer description of universal harmony and happiness than is contained in the sentence, God all in all, when supposed to have reference to every rank in creation. Let us consider for a moment what the sentence implies. It implies that there shall be but one mind, and that the Divine mind, throughout the universe. Every creature shall be so actuated by Deity, that the Creator shall have only to will, and the whole mass of intelligent being will be conscious of the same wish, and the same purpose. It is not merely that every creature will be under the government of the Creator, as a subject is under that of his prince. It is more than all this. It is that there shall be such fibres of association between the Creator and the creatures, that every other will shall move simultaneously with the Divine, and the resolve of Deity be instantly felt as one mighty impulse pervading the vast expansion of mind. God all in all--it is that from the highest order to the lowest, archangel, and angel, and man, and principality, and power, there shall be but one desire, one object. This is making God more than the universal Ruler: it is making Him the universal Actuator. But if the expression mark the harmony, it marks also the happiness of eternity. It is undeniable that, even whilst on earth, we find things more beautiful and precious in proportion as we are accustomed to find God in them, to view them as gifts, and to love them for the sake of the giver. It is not the poet, nor the naturalist, who has the richest enjoyment when surveying the landscape, or tracing the manifestations of creative power and contrivance. It is the Christian, who recognises a Fathers hand in the glorious development of mountain and valley, and discovers the loving-kindness of an ever-watchful guardian in each example of the adaptation of the earth to its inhabitants. What will it be when God shall be literally all in all? It were little to tell us, that, admitted into the heavenly Jerusalem, we should worship in a temple magnificent in architecture, and bow down at a shrine whence flashed the effulgence and issued the voice of Jehovah. The mighty and overwhelming thing is that, according to the vision of St. John, there shall be no temple there; but that so actually shall God be all, that Deity itself will be our sanctuary, and our adorations be rendered in the sublime recesses of the Omnipotent Himself. And if we think on future intercourse with beings of our own race, or of loftier ranks, then only are the anticipations rapturous and inspiriting, when Deity seems blended with every association. The child may be again loved and embraced. But the emotions will have none of that selfishness into which the purest and deepest of our feelings may now be too much resolved: it will be God that the child loves in the parent, and it will be God that the parent loves in the child; and the gladness with which the heart of each swells, as they recognise one the other in the celestial city, will be a gladness of which Deity is the spring, a gladness of which Deity is the object. Thus shall it be also in regard of every element which can be supposed to enter into future happiness. It is certain, that, if God be all in all, there will be excited in us no wish which we shall be required to repress, none which shall not be gratified so soon as formed. Having God in ourselves, we shall have capacities of enjoyment immeasurably larger than at present; having God in all around us, we shall find everywhere material of enjoyment commensurate with our amplified powers. Let us put from us confused and indeterminate notions of happiness, and the simple description, that God shall be all in all, sets before us the very perfection of felicity. The only sound definition of happiness is that every faculty has its proper object. And we believe of man, that God endowed him with various capacities, intending to be Himself their supply. Thus, at present, we make little or no approach towards knowing God as He is, because God hath not yet made Himself all in all to His creatures. But let there once come this universal diffusion of Deity, and we may find in God Himself the objects which answer to our matured and spiritualised faculties. We profess not to be competent to the understanding the mysterious change which is thus indicated as passing on the universe. But we can perceive it to be a change which shall be full of glory, full of happiness. Thus we look forward to the termination of the mediatorial kingdom as the event with which stands associated our reaching the summit of our felicity. There is then to be a removal of all that is now intermediate in our communications with Deity, and the substitution of God Himself for the objects which He has now adapted to the giving us delight. God Himself will be an object to our faculties; God Himself will be our happiness. We can only add that it becomes us to examine whether we are now subjects of the mediatorial kingdom, or whether we are of those who will not that Christ should reign over them. If God is hereafter to be all in all, it behoves us to inquire what He is to us now. Can we say with the Psalmist, Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee? How vain must be our hope of entering into heaven if we have no present delight in what are said to be its joys! Again we say, that, if it be heaven towards which we journey, it will be holiness in which we delight: for if we cannot now rejoice in having God for our portion, where is our meetness for a world in which God is to be all in all for ever and for ever? (H. Melvill, B.D.)
That God may be all in all--
God all in all
I. In the shifting scenes of the worlds life. When we look out upon the tangled web of history, the rise and the fall of mighty empires, the changing dynasties, the successive forms of government and social life, the instability of all things, the recurring cycle of events, the growth which ends only in decay, the constant ebb and flow of political life, our heart will sometimes ask, Is there any thread which strings together this chaotic mass, is there any design which is growing towards maturity by these accumulations of the ages? Are we to believe in the worlds progressive life, or are we to resign ourselves to despair, looking out upon the present and the past as an ever-varying kaleidoscope, in which the combinations seem to follow one another at random, and with no fixed law? In the text we read the answer. Beyond and above the busy turmoil of earth, the blessed Trinity lives and loves, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. A Divine purpose runs throughout the ages, and under the ever-changing forms of life, God is fulfilling Himself in many ways.
II. In the destinies of the Church. If at times we feel anxious as we think of her conflicts; if at certain eras Christ seems to sleep within the tempest-tossed barque; if she no longer goes forth as in her early days, in the freshness of her strength and joy, to convert the world to the obedience of the faith, yet we know that she ceases not to be the bride of her unchanging Spouse; the eternal Trinity is in the midst of her, therefore shall she not be removed; God is working where we can see nothing but the perversity and the strivings of man; He is all in all.
III. In our temporal life. Looking at life from one point of view, how baffling, how meaningless does it appear! What mean the complaints which reach us in so many forms, not so much of lifes deep sorrows, as of its inconsistencies and apparent aimlessness, its want of harmony and completeness of any kind? Purposes unfulfilled, aspirations unrealised, emotions wasted, paths which seem to lead nowhither, these lie a heavy weight upon the heart of humanity. Where is to be found the note which shall simplify this complex life of ours? how shall we be enabled to look back upon it with quietness and confidence, and feel that all has been working together for our final perfection and happiness? If we have been in any degree cherishing the spiritual life within us, such a power is to be found in the thought of Him, who has done all things well, who, behind the restless, ceaseless changes of life, has been carrying out His eternal purposes concerning us, has been step by step training our soul for its everlasting home--who out of the unchangeableness of His own eternity has seen the end from the beginning, and been Himself the real but unseen agent in all that has befallen us.
IV. In our spiritual life. This also is full of change and variety; it needs to be reduced to some principle of unity. There is the varied atmosphere of the inner life, times of joy and refreshment, times of fears and misgivings--there is the oft-renewed struggle with some besetting sin, the consciousness of Gods grace working within us to its weakening or overthrow. There is an element of restlessness even in our deepest, truest life. But God is working within us to will and to do of His good pleasure; He is Himself the Way, by which we travel to Himself the end; Himself the Life in whom alone we live; Himself the prize when all our warfare is accomplished. God is our all in all. Conclusion: Thus we find that all centres at last in God; all existence stands at length in relation to Him, who is the Fount of all being. The life of nations as well as that of individuals springs out of the exhaustless depths of His eternal counsels. Life is indeed many-sided and discordant when we look at it out of our own human weakness and imperfection, but as we view it in the light of God we learn to believe that all is well. Apart from Him its greatest achievements appear poor and unsatisfactory: when referred to Him its smallest details are dignified and ennobled. (S. W. Skeffington, M.A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 28. When all things have been subjected. When the…
28. When all things have been subjected. When the world is subdued to Christ. Then shall the son also himself be subjected. Then, as his work is done, he will give up the kingdom to the Father (verse 24). Then Christ will give up the seals of office.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain 28. “But when He may subordinate all things to…
28. “But when He may subordinate all things to Himself, then indeed the Son Himself will be subordinated to Him” (i. e., the Father) “who subordinateth all things to Himself, in order that God may be all things in all.” Thus we see the ultimatum of the grand finale, when the Son shall have “put down all rule, authority and power” (Satanic and human), and have destroyed mortality and death temporal, spiritual and eternal, appertaining to all the willing subjects of His mediatorial grace, wound up the momentous administration of His kingdom with the resurrection of all the dead, good and bad, and the final Judgment, and the eternal ejectment of Satan and all the demons, and the unfortunate people who rejected mediatorial grace, beyond the remotest regions of the inhabitable universe into “outer darkness,” and sanctified the earth and firmament with the fiery baptism, and renovated it into a “new Heaven” (firmament) “and a new earth,” and restored it back to the Celestial Empire, where it belonged before the devil broke it loose; having thus consummated all the work of the mediatorial kingdom, like George Washington at the close of the Revolutionary War, hurried away from the last battle, where he had received the surrendered sword of Lord Cornwallis, to Annapolis, where the Colonial Congress was in session, and there surrendered up his commission, going out of office forever. When I was in Rome I was much interested looking at those grand triumphal arches built two thousand years ago to receive the triumphant proconsul, who, after years of war and battle in subduing a revolted province, returned to Rome to be congratulated with all the immortal honors of the empire, forever laying down his proconsulship at Caesar’s feet. So when the Son of God shall have consummated all the wonderful achievements of the mediatorial kingdom, restoring this world back to the Heavenly empire to be inhabited by glorified saints and angels like other celestial worlds forever, abolishing death and forever banishing sin and Satan from the celestial universe, then He will enter Heaven amid the triumphant shouts of angels, archangels, cherubim, seraphim, and multiplied millions of redeemed spirits and the tall sons of God, representing millions of immortal worlds, when He shall stand before the great white throne of celestial glory and say to His Father: “I have finished the work thou didst give me to do” — sin and death are obliterated from the universe. “
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain And when all things have been subjected unto him,…
And when all things have been subjected unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all . [i. e., that God may have all headship of all creation; complete and absolute supremacy ( Col_3:11 ), so that "all things shall say, 'God is all things to me'" (Bengel). In 1Co_15:23 the apostle, while arguing the reasonableness of the resurrection, is led to mention its relation to the end of the world, but the resurrection presents its reasonableness in another form, being intimately associated with a higher, more transcendent climax than even the termination of this physical universe; for it is an essential preliminary to the culmination of Christ's mediatorial kingdom into the kingdom of the Father. This culmination can not take place until the mediatorial kingdom has attained ripened perfection through the subjugation of all things. But among the enemies to be thus subdued, death stands forth with marked prominence, and the weapon which subdues him is, and can be no other than, the resurrection. Hence the supreme glorification, or, as it were, the crowning of God as all in all, is predicated upon a resurrection as a condition precedent. The chain of Paul's logic is long, but it runs thus: no glorification until the mediatorial kingdom is turned over to God; no turning over of this kingdom until its work is complete; no completion of its work till all its enemies are destroyed; no destruction of all these enemies while death, a chief one, survives; no destruction of death save by the resurrection: therefore no full glorification of God without a resurrection. The logic would hold good for the doctrine of Universalism, were it not that there is a second death which is not looked upon as an enemy to the kingdom of God.]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.