Homiletic Magazine 1 Corinthians 15:28 And when all things shall be subdued to him, then shall the Son also himself be subject to him that put all things under him… I. CHRIST REIGNING. Our text speaks of the time when ver. 25 shall be accomplished. 1. Christ's kingdom is to exist till all things are subjugated to it. It is set up to bring to obedience those who are rebels to God's government. (1) It virtually began with the first human rebel; when the promise was made that "the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head."(2) After Christ's dearth and resurrection, His kingdom was actually established, and His "ambassadors" have ever since been "beseeching men in Christ's stead to be reconciled to God."(3) Christ's 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 (Philippians 2), 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 Christ's 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.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
    |