All things in subjection under his feet
May 11, 2008
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. - 1 Corinthians 15.24-26
Christ has been raised from the dead, ascended into heaven, and is now reigning at the right hand of the Father. When he returns, he will hand the kingdom to the Father. But he will only hand the kingdom over after everything has been put in subjection to him, death included. This subjection of all things, the last of which is death is a process that takes place while Christ reigns before he returns and hand the kingdom back to the Father. I take it therefore, in this time after the ascension of Christ, that we can assume that to an increasing extent, Christ’s enemies will be conquered, so that by the time he returns, all his enemies will have been conquered (then the last enemy, death, is destroyed and the kingdom is handed over to the Father).
I warmly recommend Doug Wilson’s sermon on the Ascension, which I think is a great exposition of Philippians 3.20-21. Because of the ascension, earth has a new capital city, heaven. ‘Our citizenship is in heaven’ doesn’t mean that we’re just passing through this world and then we’ll go to heaven for all eternity. It means that the church is a colony of heaven, that is, ruled by heaven and intended to spread the rule and influence of heaven around it (just as Philippi was a Roman colony, and that didn’t mean that everyone would retire from Philippi to Rome). Bishop Tom Wright makes the same point in his in many ways excellent book Surprised by Hope. We do not live in a gnostic two-storey universe in which we’re waiting to be saved from this terrible world to go to heaven where everything will be nice. When we go to heaven, it will be appropriate to ask, “How long before we get to go home?”. When we die, we visit the capital city temporarily, before Christ returns and renews the earth. In the meantime, we look forward to his coming, when all things will be subject to him. We can expect that before his coming, most things (death excepted) will be subject to him. This will be achieved by the preaching of the gospel. The fact that the earth will be transformed rather than thrown away means that our labours in the Lord now are not in vain, even if the labours of the world’s empires are (where is Assyria now? Babylon? The Medes? The Persians?). We should start Christian businesses and schools with the hope that they will pass from one generation to another and still be there in a few hundred years’ time. God behaves inappropriately towards us. He shows us grace and mercy in redeeming us, sending his Son to die for our sins, which we don’t deserve.
May 12, 2008 at 11:18 am
May I suggest that you check out Vos’ article entitled ‘Eschatology of the Psalter’. I think that the most encouraging thing about recent psalm scholarship has been its focus upon the eschatological message.
Robert Cole writes that “Psalms 1 and 2 were not read as two disparate Torah and royal psalms respectively in the final redaction of the Psalter; rather, both depict the ideal Joshua-like warrior and king who through divinely given authority vanquishes his enemies. From this eschatological perspective the Psalter opens and sets the tone for all subsequent psalms.”
What one then sees is that Pss. 93, 95-99 are all YHWH enthronement psalms which refer to Christ’s resurrection and ascension in fulfillment of Ps. 2. The inscription in the Syriac version of Psalm 96 is, “a Psalm of David, a Prophecy of the coming of the Messiah, and of the calling of the Gentiles that believe in him” and the inscription of Psalm 98 is, “a prophecy concerning the coming of Christ, and the calling of the Gentiles unto the faith.”
Hence this bloc then ends with Ps. 100 “All people that on earth do dwell, sing to the LORD with cheerful voice, &c.”
These are great missionary psalms portraying the expanding kingdom of Christ!!
May 15, 2008 at 5:02 pm
This exposition reminds me of Gregory of Nyssa’s view of the apokatastasis. He was the ultimate postmillenialist.
May 15, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Joel
I never knew Gregory of Nyssa was a p’mill. I’d love to know where in his writings p’mill ideas can be found.
May 15, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Thanks, Joel. I’d be keen to find out, too. D.
May 16, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Gregory of Nyssa went further than most postmils would be willing to go. For example, he interpreted the subduing of Christ’s enemies as their eventual conversion, none excepted. I’ve assembled various passages on this from Gregory’s writings that I’d be happy to forward to you, if interested.
May 16, 2008 at 5:45 pm
“Bishop Tom Wright makes the same point in his in many ways excellent book Surprised by Hope.”
Has Wright seduced you already? I thought you were still very much anti-Wright. Welcome to the party, comrade.
And yes, I am only joking. Kinda.
May 17, 2008 at 10:15 am
Well, there are still a few things he teaches I need convincing about, and he can be unkind to conservative evangelicals at times, but his stuff on the resurrection and new creation is simply superb and I want to read more of what he’s written. He’s preaching the University Sermon here in a couple of weeks, to which I’m looking forward.
May 18, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Isn’t Wright essentially a 7th Day Adventist? Not altogether what one wishes in an Anglican bishop.
And he - moronically - supported the abolition of the blasphemy laws, saying that God doesn’t need protecting from us; utterly failing to understand that those laws were written to protect *us* from 1) ourselves, and our propensity to such sin, and 2) the consequent wrath of God.
May 19, 2008 at 11:26 am
This is not related to your post, but just to say, your Sunday reading was the bane of my Monday morning! I had to edit out about 2 minutes of pauses in order to get the recording under 40 minutes. I’ll forgive you on this occasion.
May 19, 2008 at 12:01 pm
I do apologise for not rattling off the reading and for pausing for effect &c. I mean, it’s not as if the public reading of Scripture should be edifying for the congregation… I hope you didn’t mangle it too much.
May 19, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Well it’s uploaded now so you can find out.
May 19, 2008 at 1:50 pm
I would have died if I had read it like that without any pauses.
May 20, 2008 at 11:38 am
‘Gregory of Nyssa went further than most postmils would be willing to go. For example, he interpreted the subduing of Christ’s enemies as their eventual conversion, none excepted.’
Interesting. It makes me wonder if he was perhaps a universalist, rather than a postmill? Empty-hell universalism is very different from reformed universalism (postmillenialism).
I’d love those passages of Gregory emailed to me Joel if you wouldn’t mind? petejackson[AT]students [DOT]oakhill[DOT]ac[DOT]uk
May 25, 2008 at 3:15 am
Pete,
just saw your comment. I’ll be happy to email you those Gregory of Nyssa excerpts.
You’re right about Gregory’s universalism. I find it interesting that the same Biblical texts have inspired both postmillenialism and universalism.