ACC ~ 1 Corinthians 15 v25 - 28

OVERVIEW:

The demonic powers will be rendered powerless (OECUMENIUS). Christ’s reign will be fulfilled, not ended (THEODORET OF CYR), as he begins eternally to reign in the fullest sense (JEROME). The last enemy, death, will be destroyed (CHRYSOSTOM). The subjection of Christ to the Father means that every creature will learn to be subject to Christ, who in turn is voluntarily subject to the Father (AMBROSIASTER). Just as we subject ourselves to the glory of his reigning body, the Lord subjects himself in the glory of his body to the One who subjects all things to himself (HILARY OF POITIERS). Some deprecate the term subjection in regard to the Son, not understanding that the subjection of Christ to the Father reveals the blessedness of our spiritual maturity (ORIGEN).

When the Scriptures say that the Son is less than the Father, they refer to his assumption of humanity. But when they point out that he is equal, they refer to his deity (AUGUSTINE, GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS). Even our adversities the Lord makes his own, taking upon himself our sufferings (BASIL). The Fathers sought to answer both pagan confusions (OECUMENIUS) and Arian exaggerations about this text (THEODORET OF CYR, MARIUS VICTORINUS). Paul is thinking of the divine dispensation of the incarnation when he says that the Son, who is fully God, has willingly subjected himself to the Father (CHRYSOSTOM, OECUMENIUS). It is necessary for him to make his reign so evident that his enemies will dare not deny that he reigns (AUGUSTINE). Christ does not cease to reign when he has put all his enemies under his feet (GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS, CYRIL OF JERUSALEM).

The resurrected body will no longer need nourishment for life (CYRIL OF JERUSALEM). The alienated will no longer be an enemy (ORIGEN, JEROME). We will be without adversary. The new life which begins now by faith is carried on by hope, but there will come the time when death shall be swallowed up in victory (AUGUSTINE). When we have been rendered capable of receiving God, then God will be to us “all in all” (ORIGEN). God will be the consummation of all our desiring (AUGUSTINE, ORIGEN). This is the maturity toward which we speed (GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS), when the whole number of the saints will be glorified in the whole choir of virtues, and God will be all things to all (JEROME, AUGUSTINE).

15:25 | All His Enemies Under His Feet

HE WILL REIGN. JEROME: Will the Lord rule only until he has put all his enemies under his feet? Will he then stop ruling? Obviously it is only then that he will really begin to rule in the full sense of the word! AGAINST HELVIDIUS 6.

UNTIL WHAT? GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS: “He must reign” till such and such a time … and “be received by heaven until the time of restitution” and have the seat at the right hand until the overthrow of his enemies. But after this? Must he cease to be king or be removed from heaven? Why, who shall make him cease, or for what cause? What a bold and very anarchical interpreter you are, and yet you have heard that of his kingdom there shall be no end. Your mistake arises from not understanding that “until” is not always exclusive of what comes after but asserts up to that time, without denying what comes after it. To take a single instance, how else would you understand “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world”? Does it mean that he will no longer be so afterward? THEOLOGICAL ORATION 30.4.

ALL THE MORE KING AFTER HIS VICTORY. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM: Some say that when his enemies have been put under his feet, he will no longer be king, a bad and stupid thing to say. For if he is king before he has finally defeated his enemies, must he not be all the more king when he has completely mastered them? CATECHETICAL LECTURES 15.29.

THE CONTINUING CONFLICT. AUGUSTINE: He reigns forever. However, in respect to the war waged under him against the devil, this conflict will obviously continue “until he has put all his enemies under his feet.” But afterward there will be no conflict, since we shall enjoy an everlasting peace. QUESTIONS 69.8.

UNTIL HIS ENEMIES CONFESS HIS REIGN. AUGUSTINE: It is necessary for Christ’s kingdom to be manifested to such a degree until all his enemies confess that he does reign. … That is, the apostle says, it is necessary for him to make his reign so clearly evident until his enemies dare not at all deny that Christ reigns. QUESTIONS 69.5.

BEGGARING DESCRIPTION. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM: This body shall be raised but not in its present weakness. It shall be raised the very same body, but by putting aside corruption it shall be transformed, just as iron becomes fire when combined with fire, as the Lord who raises us knows. This body therefore shall rise, but it will not abide in its present condition, but as an eternal body. No longer will it, as now, need nourishment for life nor stairs for its ascent. It will become spiritual, a marvelous thing, beggaring description. CATECHETICAL LECTURES 18.

CHRIST’S REIGN FULFILLED. THEODORET OF CYR: The final victory will be the fulfillment, not the end, of Christ’s reign. COMMENTARY ON THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 270.

RENDERED POWERLESS. OECUMENIUS: The principalities and powers will be abolished and will be left powerless. PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH.

15:26 | The Last Enemy, Death

THE ALIENATED WILL. ORIGEN: For the destruction of the last enemy must be understood in this way: not that its substance which was made by God shall perish, but that the hostile purpose and will which proceeded not from God but from itself will come to an end. It will be destroyed, therefore, not in the sense of ceasing to exist but of being no longer an enemy and no longer death. … We must not think, however, that it will happen all of a sudden, but gradually and by degrees, during the lapse of infinite and immeasurable ages, seeing that the improvement and correction will be realized slowly and separately in each individual person. ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 3.6.5.

“BE EXALTED IN THE BORDERS OF MY ENEMIES.” JEROME: As the psalmist pleads that God be glorified in the borders of his enemies, so do we. When they have ceased to be enemies, then you, O Lord, will be exalted among them. HOMILY 3 ON PSALM 7.

THE LAST ENEMY. CHRYSOSTOM: In the beginning death entered last, after the counsel of the devil and our disobedience. Similarly, death will be the last thing to be destroyed. HOMILIES ON THE EPISTLES OF PAUL TO THE CORINTHIANS 39.6.

WITHOUT ADVERSARY. AUGUSTINE: It is one thing to fight well, which is the case now when the struggle of death is resisted. It is something else not to have an adversary, which will be the case when death “our last enemy” is destroyed. ON CONTINENCE 3.6.

THE MASTERY IN LOVE BY VISION. AUGUSTINE: The new life begins now by faith and is carried on by hope, but then will come the time when death shall be swallowed up in victory, when that “enemy, death, shall be destroyed last,” when we shall be changed and become like the angels. … We have now mastered fear by faith, but then we shall have the mastery in love by vision. LETTER 55, TO JANARIUS.

THEIR PRIZE IN PEACE, THEIR STRENGTH IN BATTLE. AUGUSTINE: In this house God’s people shall everlastingly dwell with their God and in their God, and God with his people and in his people, God filling his people, his people filled with God, so that “God may be all in all”—the very same God being their prize in peace who was their strength in battle. CITY OF GOD 17.12.

15:27 | All Things in Subjection Under Christ

THE READINESS TO RECEIVE GOD. ORIGEN: Christ the Lord himself will instruct those who are able to receive him in his character of wisdom, after their preliminary training in his holy virtues, and will reign with them until such time as he subjects them to the Father who subjected all things to him. When they have been rendered capable of receiving God, then God will be to them “all in all.” ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 3.6.9.

ALL THINGS IN SUBJECTION. ORIGEN: By this fact Christ teaches the rulers the techniques of government. ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 3.5.6.

CHRIST TAKES OUR INFIRMITIES UPON HIMSELF. BASIL: He makes your subjection his own, and because of your struggle against virtue, he calls himself subjected. … He calls himself naked, if any of you are naked. … When one is in prison, he said that he himself was the one imprisoned. For he himself took up our infirmities and bore the burden of our ills. And one of our infirmities is insubordination, and this he also bore. Therefore, even the adversities which happen to us the Lord makes his own, taking upon himself our sufferings because of his fellowship with us. AN APOLOGY TO THE CAESAREANS, LETTER 8.

CONFORMABLE TO HIS BODY. HILARY OF POITIERS: Hence the first step in the mystery is that all things have been made subject to him, and then he himself becomes subject to the One who subjects all things to himself. Just as we subject ourselves to the glory of his reigning body, the Lord himself in the same mystery subjects himself in the glory of his body to the One who subjects all things to himself. We are made subject to the glory of his body in order that we may possess the glory with which he reigns in the body, because we shall be conformable to his body. ON THE TRINITY 11.36.

ANSWERING ARIAN OBJECTIONS. THEODORET OF CYR: The Arians and the Eunomians love to play with this and the next verse, claiming that it proves that Christ is not God. But here they are confusing two different things. The apostle is not speaking about Christ in his divinity but about his humanity, since the whole discussion is about the resurrection of the flesh. It is in his humanity that he will be subject, because all humanity is subject to the divine. COMMENTARY ON THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 271-72.

CONTRAST WITH THE REVOLT OF ZEUS. OECUMENIUS: Paul is writing to converted Greeks, because the Greeks worshiped Zeus, who revolted against his own father in order to seize his kingdom. He was concerned lest they should imagine something similar in the case of Christ and his Father. PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH.

15:28a | All Things Subjected to Him

SUBJECTION TO THE FATHER. ORIGEN: As long as I am not subjected to the Father, neither is he said to be “subjected” to the Father. Not that he himself is in need of subjection before the Father, but for me, in whom he has not yet completed his work, he is said not to be subjected, for “we are the body of Christ and members in part.” HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 7.4.

WHEN ALL THINGS ARE SUBJECTED. AMBROSIASTER: The subjection of Christ to the Father means that every creature will learn that he is subject to Christ, who in turn is subject to the Father, and will thus confess that there is only one God. But Christ’s subjection to the Father is not the same thing as our subjection to the Son, because our subjection is one of dependence and not the union of equals. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

SOURCE OF THE SON’S POWER. OECUMENIUS: The things of the Son belong to God as Father, and everything which the Son can do is attributed to the Father, for he who begot him outside time is the source of the Son’s power. PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH.

15:28b | The Son Subjected to Him

SUBJECTION THE CROWNING GLORY OF THE SON’S WORK. ORIGEN: But the heretics, not understanding (I cannot tell why) the apostle’s meaning contained in these words, deprecate using the term subjection in regard to the Son. … Such men do not understand that the subjection of Christ to the Father reveals the blessedness of our perfection and announces the crowning glory of the work undertaken by him. ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 3.5.7.

SPEAKING ABOUT GOD AS SUBSTANCE. MARIUS VICTORINUS: Therefore God is also Being, both existing and substance, although he is above all that because he is the Father of all. We should not be afraid to use the word substance of God, because when words are lacking to describe the highest realities, it is not inappropriate for us to take terms borrowed from what we do know and understand and use them in this special sense. AGAINST ARIUS 2.2.2.

THE SUBJECTION OF THE FATHER AND THE SON. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS: As the Son subjects all to the Father, so does the Father to the Son, the one by his work, the other by his good pleasure. THEOLOGICAL ORATION 30.5.

THE SON WILLINGLY SUBJECTED TO THE FATHER. CHRYSOSTOM: Why does Paul talk about the subjection of the Son to the Father, when he has just finished speaking about the subjection of everything to Christ? The apostle speaks in one way when he is talking about the Godhead alone and in another way when he is speaking about the divine dispensation. For example, once he has established the context of our Lord’s incarnation, Paul is not afraid to talk about his many humiliations, because these are not inappropriate to the incarnate Christ, even though they obviously cannot apply to God. In the present context, which of these two is he talking about? Given that he has just mentioned Christ’s death and resurrection, neither of which can apply to God, it is clear that he is thinking of the divine dispensation of the incarnation, in which the Son has willingly subjected himself to the Father. But note that he introduces a corrective by saying that the one who put all things under him is himself excepted from the general rule. This is meant to remind us that Christ the Son is also truly God. HOMILIES ON THE EPISTLES OF PAUL TO THE CORINTHIANS 39.7.

WHETHER THE FATHER IS GREATER THAN THE SON. AUGUSTINE: If the Son is equal, how is the Father greater? For the Lord himself says: “because the Father is greater than I.” However, the rule of Catholic faith is this: when the Scriptures say of the Son that he is less than the Father, the Scriptures mean in respect to the assumption of humanity. But when the Scriptures point out that he is equal, they are understood in respect to his deity. QUESTIONS 69.1.

15:28c | God Everything to Every One

GOD WILL BE ALL IN ALL. ORIGEN: God will be all things in each person in such a way that everything which the reasoning mind can feel or understand or think will be all God. When purified from all the dregs of its vices and utterly cleared from every cloud of wickedness, the mind will no longer be conscious of anything besides or other than God. That mind will think of God and see God and hold God. God will be the mode and measure of its every movement. In this way God will be all in all. ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 3.6.3.

FINISHING THE WORK GOD GAVE THE SON. ORIGEN: When “he shall have completed” his “work” and brought his whole creation to the height of perfection, then he is said to be “subjected” in these whom he subjected to the Father. In these “he finished the work that God had given him that God may be all in all.” HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 7.6.

THE MATURITY TOWARD WHICH WE SPEED. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS: “God will be all in all” at the time of restoration—“God,” not “the Father.” The Son will not revert to disappear completely in the Father, like a torch temporarily withdrawn from a great flame and then joined up again with it—Sabellians must not wrest this text. No, God will be “all in all” when we are no longer what we are now, a multiplicity of impulses and emotions, with little or nothing of God in us, but are fully like God, with room for God and God alone. This is the “maturity” toward which we speed. THEOLOGICAL ORATION 30.7.

THE WHOLE CHOIR OF VIRTUES. JEROME: God will be all things in all, so that there will not be only wisdom in Solomon, meekness of soul in David, zeal in Elias and Phineas, faith in Abraham, perfect love in Peter … , zeal of preaching in the chosen vessel [Paul], and two or three virtues each in others. But God will be completely in all. The whole number of the saints will be glorified in the whole choir of virtues, and God will be all things to all. AGAINST THE PELAGIANS 18.

THE VISION OF HIS OWN FORM. AUGUSTINE: The vision itself is face to face, which is promised to the just as their supreme reward. This will come to pass when he shall deliver the kingdom to God the Father. There, he wants it understood, will also be the vision of his own form, when the whole creation, together with that form in which the Son of God has been made the Son of Man, has been made subject to God. According to this form, the Son himself will be made subject to him who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all. ON THE TRINITY 1.12.28.

ALL WILL SHARE. AUGUSTINE: God will be the consummation of all our desiring—the object of our unending vision, of our unlessening love, of our unwearying praise. And in this gift of vision, the response of love, this paean of praise, all alike will share, as all will share in everlasting life. CITY OF GOD 22.30.

ALL THINGS SUBJECTED TO HIM. AUGUSTINE: Even if there is no chance of manumission, slaves are now to make their slavery a kind of freedom by serving with love and loyalty, free from fear and feigning, until injustice becomes a thing of the past and every human sovereignty and power is done away with, so that God may be all in all. CITY OF GOD 6.15.

FROM SHADOWS TO LIGHT. AUGUSTINE: The allusion here is to the transformation of the saints when they pass from the old shadows of time into the new lights of eternity. CITY OF GOD 20.22.

FILLED WITH GOD. AUGUSTINE: In heaven we shall not experience need, and on that account we shall be happy. We shall be filled, but it will be with God. He will be for us all those things which we here look upon as being of great value. EASTER SERMON 255.8.