1 Corinthians 15:28

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.

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.

Therefore, we shall not be in need: and for this reason, we shall be blessed. For we will be filled, but with our God: and all that we desire here greatly, He Himself will be for us. Here you seek food greatly: God will be your food. Here you seek the embrace of flesh: But for me, it is good to cling to God. Here you seek riches: how will all things be lacking to you, when you have Him who made all things? And to make you secure with the Apostle's words, he said this about that life: That God may be all in all.

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.

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.

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."

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.".

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.

"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.

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 …

And that He Himself is not God over all, and the Father, but His Son, He [shows when He] says, "I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." And again, "When all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall He also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all." Wherefore it is one [Person] who put all things under, and who is all in all, and another [Person] to whom they were subdued, who also Himself, along with all other things, becomes subject [to the former].

"For He hath put all things in subjection under His feet. But when He saith, All things are put in subjection, it is manifest that He is excepted who did subject all things unto Him." "And when all things have been subjected unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subjected unto Him that did subject all things unto Him." And yet before he said not that it was the Father who "put things under Him," but He Himself who "abolishes." For "when He shall have abolished," saith he, "all rule and authority:" and again, "for He must reign until He hath put all His enemies under His feet." How then doth he here say, "the Father?" And not only is there this apparent perplexity, but also that he is afraid with a very unaccountable fear, and uses a correction, saying, "He is excepted, who did subject all things unto Him," as though some would suspect, whether the Father might Himself not be subject unto the Son; than which what can be more irrational? nevertheless, he fears this. How then is it? for in truth there are many questions following one upon another. Well, give me then your earnest attention; since in fact it is necessary for us first to speak of the scope of Paul and his mind, which one may find everywhere shining forth, and then to subjoin our solution: this being itself an ingredient in our solution. What then is Paul's mind, and what is his custom? He speaks in one way when he discourses of the Godhead alone, and in another when he falls into the argument of the economy. Thus having once taken hold of our Lord's Flesh, he freely thereafter uses all the sayings that humiliate Him; without fear as though that were able to bear all such expressions. […]

This unity is now begun on the way, but is consummated in eternal glory, according to what the Lord prays, that they may be one, as we also are one: and I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in …

When these have been possessed, the soul, entering into itself, enters into the supernal Jerusalem, where, considering the orders of Angels, it sees God in them, who, dwelling in them, works all their operations. Whence Bernard says to Eugenius that "God in the Seraphim loves …

Turning back again, let us say: because therefore the most pure and absolute being, which is simply being, is the first and the last, therefore it is the origin and consummating end of all things. Because eternal and most present, therefore it encompasses and enters …

Lest anyone say that although the Father did not subject Himself to the Son, nevertheless nothing prevents the Son from being stronger than Him, he thoroughly demolishes such a supposition and says that the Son too will be subjected to the Father, showing the complete …

950. – Then when he says: When all things are subjected to him, he shows that the end of this resurrection is not in the humanity of Christ, but the rational creature will be further led to contemplating the divinity, and in it is our …

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.

The glorified humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, with all the dignity and power conferred on it, was no more than a glorious creature. This will appear when the kingdom shall be delivered up; and it will appear to the divine glory, that God may be all in all, that the accomplishment of our salvation may appear altogether divine, and God alone may have the honour of it.

And when all things shall be subdued unto him,....

He answers an objection against this truth, and takes occasion thence to show what a vast change will be made in the bodies of believers at the resurrection,

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.

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; God . . . all in all--as Christ is all in all (Col 3:11; compare Zec 14:9).

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

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. 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. […]