Equal and Proper: In What Sense?

In a study of such profound realities, we would be negligent if we did not make some distinctions about terms. In the doctrine of the Trinity, we use words like “ontological” (or immanent) and “economic” to discuss the senses in which we refer to the Triunity or the divine persons.

Of course to make the distinction between the “ontological Trinity” and the “economic Trinity” is not to be speaking of two separate Trinities. On the contrary, it only clarifies whether we are speaking of that eternal and unchanging subsistence in which God is God, and in which the Persons are properly Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and not as they relate to that which is ad extra, that is, in relation to the creature; or, on the other hand, whether we are speaking of the sense in which Scripture reveals actions that the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit tend to perform in a way that is distinct from the other two.

Theologians especially of the Barthian persuasion, or who have tended to shift the entire locus of revelation to the economy of grace, have predominantly used the word “immanent” as a synonym for ontological. Given their dominance in the field, in recent decades, I will hereafter use the words “immanent” and “economic” for that reason. 

We will begin with the immanent Trinity and specifically with the unity of the Godhead. In doing so, we ought to remember how closely associated are the two great mysteries of Trinity and Hypostatic Union. Often a demand to prove one will stare incredulous at our claim that evidence for the other can do “double-duty.” Be that as it may, we maintain that any text asserting the deity of Christ is already sufficient evidence for Trinitarian equality. This is the case because of the strength of Jewish monotheism out of which the Christian faith grows.

And there are several different ways that the New Testament teaches the deity of Christ: 1. divine worship offered to Jesus (Jn. 5:23, 12:41, 20:28, Mat. 28:17, Phi. 2:10-11, Heb. 1:6, Rev. 5:12-13); 2. divine attributes used to describe Jesus (Mat. 11:27, 28:18, Jn. 8:12, 9:5, 11:25, 14:6); 3. divine names given to Jesus (Jn. 1:4, Mat. 28:20, Rev. 1:8, 19:11, 21:6, 22:13); 4. divine actions performed by Jesus (Jn. 1:3, 5:20, 29, Mk. 2:7, 1 Cor. 8:6, Col. 1:16-20, Jude 5); 5. the direct claims of Jesus (Jn. 8:24, 58, 10:30, 14:9); and 6. the direct claims of his apostles (Jn. 1:1-3, 18, Rom. 9:5, Ti. 2:13, Heb. 1:3, Phi. 2:6, Col. 2:9). 

It may be argued that even if we grant texts that show the divinity of the Son and the Spirit, there is still not a clear testimony in the Scriptures of the three necessarily being one. However, the texts that mention the three together satisfy this burden by the mere fact that they are indeed mentioned in the same breath. Again, we must not take lightly the worship dimension of Jewish monotheism. It was not simply a creed but a holy confession, and accordingly error would not simply be heresy but blasphemy as well. With this category in mind, one is prepared to read the overtly Trinitarian texts in a way where the equality of persons is clear, and hints of the economy beginning to surface. 

Take Matthew 28:19 first of all, of which it has been rightly pointed out that the “name” (ὄνομα) is used once and in a distributive manner. Now we can see the importance of the very sensitive Jewish consciousness about the divine name. This is of more than grammatical interest. Would Matthew be so nonchalant about his word choice in a Gospel that virtually all New Testament scholars agree was written to a very Jewish audience with their particular prejudices in mind? 

Each detail of the baptism narrative in Matthew 3:16-17 is deliberate as well. Hyde comments, “It was not the Son who spoke, but the Father; it was not the Father who descended, but the Holy Spirit; it was not the Holy Spirit who arose out of the water, but the Son” [1]. It is altogether forced to keep such care of narrative detail at an arm’s length by suggesting that these are nothing more than modes of one divine Person. In other words, the first thing that strikes us is what we sometimes call the subject-object distinction between the Persons. 

The very difference in order, in the various passages that speak of all three Persons, is, for Torrance, an indication that “already in the apostolic mind there was lodged an implicit belief in the equality of the three divine Persons” [2]. For example, in Acts 2:32-33, 1 Peter 1:2, 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14, all three Persons are mentioned and yet in different orders.

Mastricht takes 2 Corinthians 13:14. for the exegetical opening to his section on the Trinity. “In putting the Son before the Father,” he says, “he is not considering the order of subsisting in the persons as much as the order of the conferring of saving benefits, that is, as far as execution” [3].

So the Scriptures themselves model for us the revelation of the Trinity via the economy, even in succinct statements. In doing so, the unity is implied. 

Before getting into the economic Trinity, however, can we speak of the eternal inter-trinitarian life where there is distinction, yet without there being any implication of ontological inferiority? Certainly we can. Beginning at John 17, Letham notes about Jesus’ words that Gospel, “He reflects on his union and mutual indwelling with the Father (vv. 20ff.). Earlier he defended his equality and identity with the Father  (John 10:30; 14:6-11, 20), and indivisible union, so that his own word would be the criterion the Father uses in the judgment (John 5:22-24; 12:44-50)” [4].

Although in that High Priestly prayer, there is some room for debate about the nature of the glory that Jesus prays for. Clearly there is an “hour of glory” or a “glorification on earth” that refers to the way that the cross would bring the Father glory through the Son. That is also a theme that had already been labored in John’s Gospel: cf. 2:24; 7:30;12:23, 27; 17:1. There is, however, another glory that Jesus was plainly referring to: “Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (17:5), which differs from, “my glory that you have given me” (17:24). Now this is to speak of that intrinsic glory that the eternal Son has as God and that extrinsic glory that this same second Person of the Trinity communicates as the Christ. This will be an important distinction to keep in mind when we come to the exegesis of our 1 Corinthians 15 passage. 

Now in what sense do the divine Persons differ? Are we sure that such differences are eternal? Mastricht places the difference “in their office and economic benefit” [5]. In the generation of the Westminster Confession, Watson uses the word “substances” for the three, “but one essence” [6], as did Hilary of Poitiers in the time of Nicaea, so that substance here means “a mode of subsisting … or personality” [7], as the Greeks used hypostasis in the ancient church.

A bit of review in historical theology may help frame the rest of the difficulty. In the fourth century, Arius of Alexandria began to teach the ontological inferiority of the Son. His famous maxim captures his doctrine: There was when he was not. Passages like Colossians 1:15 became standard “Arian texts,” since there, Paul speaks of Christ as “the firstborn of all creation.”

Arians believed they were safeguarding the unity of the divine essence, as J. N. D. Kelly explains: “Since it is unique, transcendent and indivisible, the being or essence (οὐσία) of the Godhead cannot be shared or communicated … Moreover, if any other being were to participate in the divine nature in any valid sense, there would result a duality of divine beings, whereas the Godhead is by definition unique” [8].

From this they concluded that the Son must have come into existence at some point. All forms of subordinationism, if we can use that term more generally to encompass both Arians and today’s advocates of ESS, would naturally see 1 Corinthians 15:28 as another example of what cannot be true if the Son is ontologically equal to the Father.

We can now switch gears to consider the Trinity in the economy of the works of creation, redemption, and restoration. Paradoxically, our knowledge of the eternal life of the Trinity is “grounded” in the economy of the Trinity’s work, since the Word made flesh precedes the giving of the Spirit by the Father. And it was by that communication of spiritual truths by which we understand (cf. 1 Cor. 2:11-14). Echoing the Barthian emphasis in a more traditionally Reformed mold, Kelly has said, “God’s very being subsists through relations. That is to say, the ontological is understood through the relational” [9].

A dilemma exists here as well that the student needs to push through. The orthodox will speak of the unity of the Trinity in the economy, and the Scriptures make plain that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit tend to act in ways that seem to follow a pattern, not only in redemption, but even to the left in creation, or to the right in restoration. And of course those same theologians are well aware of that [10]. Calvin, for instance, wrote, “to the Father is attributed the beginning of action, the fountain and source of all things; to the Son, wisdom, counsel, and arrangement in action, while the energy and efficacy of action is assigned to the Spirit” [11].

It must be, then, that there is unity and diversity at every point of the economy. As God is one in his inner-Trinitarian life a se, so the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have one will to act toward the objects of creation. Yet there is no contradiction in also holding that the energies of the respective Persons manifest this one economy in diverse ways proper to the three Persons. When the Father elects, the Son redeems, and the Spirit seals, we will note how Ephesians 1 ends each diverse work “to the praise of his glory” or “to the praise of his glorious grace,” such that each diverse saving act reflects the universal of grace. Election, redemption, and regeneration are all gracious. Even what might be considered attributes that “refer” to the creature (God could not be gracious toward himself), these too reflect, ad extra, that which is eternal in God.

Borrowing from Vanhoozer concerning the “others-centeredness” in the eternal triune life in se, and the gospel truth that “God is love” (1 Jn. 4:8, 16), Thompson writes that, “The economic drama (God blessing creatures) thus corresponds to the immanent drama (God’s blessedness in himself)” [12].

Let us set down one concluding principle from what we have seen: What is proper to the Persons embraces what is united to the Son. In other words, wherever the Bible attributes some action or state to the Son at all, we must first remember that it is speaking of the Son, and not necessarily about the Father or the Holy Spirit. It could be in some cases, where a divine attribute in itself is being attributed. Otherwise we have no license to attribute everything to the other Trinitarian Persons what is true of the Son. It begs the question to do so. One more implication follows and takes us right to our thesis. It follows that what is proper to the Son (as to his humanity) is absolutely no inequality in the divine essence of the Son. 

Exegesis: How Then to Understand ‘Subjection’

My thesis was that the subjection to the Father that is proper to Christ—whether in 1 Corinthians 15:20-28 or beyond—refers to his humanity, through the God-glorifying design of his kingdom’s consummation. As a corollary to this, it is proper to say this about the Son within a correct application of the communicatio idiomatum. 

The first thing to notice about the text is its wider context in Chapter 15. Having established his case against those who denied a general resurrection, he moves on to show us what it is for. My outline of verses 20-28 is as follows: (1) The Representation of Christ (vv. 20-23); (2) The Reign of Christ (vv. 24-26); (3) The Reason for Christ (vv. 27-28). Let us take each of these three sections in turn.

The Representation of Christ (vv. 20-23). God placed a whole world inside two men: the old world in Adam and the new world in Christ. This notion of federal representation is at the heart of covenant theology, and nothing that Paul will say in this section will make sense without coming to terms with it. What is included in verses 20 to 23 are two men, two acts, and two worlds. Paul draws a necessary connection, a fittingness of this representation: “for as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead” (v. 21). Adam and Christ were both made the first and representative Man of their race. So Christ is called “the last Adam” (1 Cor. 15:45). In his commentary, Leon Morris seizes upon the repeated “firstfruits” idea in verses 20 and 23 to show the connection between Christ’s resurrection and the guarantee of ours. The firstfruits were brought by the head of the home, thus representing the whole family. So the resurrected Christ is like an offering, going before us, and “In a sense, it consecrated the whole harvest” [13]. With respect to the two acts, our text here mirrors Paul’s larger treatment in Romans 5:12-21.

Compare verse 19 of that chapter with verse 21 here: “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous,” and so here, “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead” (v. 21). So that Question 16 is the Shorter Catechism is solidly rooted in these two texts (Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15) when it makes this claim, that “all mankind, descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him in his first transgression.”

What is represented by Adam and Christ issues forth into two worlds: ““For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (v. 22). Now the redeemed are the restored, and not only new humanity, but a new creation as their stage, as Paul sets forth in Romans 8:20-25.

He says elsewhere, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17). We speak of the “already” and the “not yet” of such things. So it is in Paul’s next words here: “But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ” (v. 23). The new world has already dawned in Christ’s resurrection and, in that same power, the new birth of every Christian (cf. Jn. 5:24-25; Eph. 2:6; Col. 3:1; 1 Pet. 1:3). All of this forms the stage upon which Paul places the throne of Christ at the center. 

The Reign of Christ (vv. 24-26). Here we will see that the reign of Christ is progressive, submissive, and destructive. The reign of Christ is progressive. “Then comes the end … [and then further down] For he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet” (v. 24a, 25). Prior notes how Paul “talks of a time when Christ is reigning, but when he is gradually bringing more and more of his enemies under his control: this most naturally refers to the period between his first coming and his second coming” [14]. The reign of Christ is submissive. Here we have the first statement of Christ handing the kingdom over, Paul says, “when he delivers the kingdom of God to the Father” (v. 24b). The reign of Christ is destructive. That is, it is destructive of all of God’s enemies.

All that is bad is scheduled for final demolition. But here too (just as with our resurrection), each comes in its own order. He presents the perfected kingdom to the Father, “after destroying every rule and every authority and power” (v. 24c).

So putting those two pieces together, Christ’s reign is a progressive destruction. William Ames, put it in this way, “For Christ must always have his Kingdom in the midst of his enemies, until he makes his enemies his footstool” [15]. But the question that naturally meets us is Why?

The Reason for Christ (vv. 27-28). Paul speaks of the inaugurated kingdom of Christ in the past tense here: “For ‘God has put all things in subjection under his feet” (v. 27a). Jesus himself said this, that: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Mat. 28:18), “as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne” (Rev. 3:21); so that Peter’s Pentecost sermon was a coronation sermon in the earthy courts of the heavenly King, “This Jesus God raised up … Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God” (Acts 2:32, 33). 

But in another place that Paul makes this same claim, there is added a greater end even than Christ’s being exalted to the throne: “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phi. 2:9-11). So it is in our Corinthians passage that God the Father takes a priority: “But when it says, ‘all things are put in subjection,’ it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him” (v. 27b). In other words, Paul labors, it does not mean God the Father is put under the subjection of Christ when he puts “all” under the Son. 

That God may be “all in all” is the reason for Christ. To be “all in all” is still to be all that he already is—his glory needing nothing (that is, his intrinsic glory)—and yet to manifest this glory (his extrinsic glory) to the redeemed creation in a way that was not previously communicated to it. So the first “all” is the extrinsic glory of God and the second “all” is the whole of the creation that it fills. The role of Christ is simply to connect those two “alls.” At the center of the new creation is that representative and royal Man, the one Mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5).

So the closing thought by Paul is this: “When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all” (v. 28). Here is the deeper Trinitarian dilemma. This is easier in a passage like 1 Corinthians 11:3, where it says, “the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” If one wants to show that this does not suggest the eternal subordination of the Son, one need only point to Paul’s use of the title “Christ” rather than Son. There it is the human nature in view. That is not so simple in 1 Corinthians 15:28 because here Paul says that “the Son himself will also be subjected under him.” There he says “Christ,” but here he says “Son.”

Note Heidelberg Catechism Question 123. In answering what the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer means, the various dimensions of God’s kingdom coming are unfolded. The very last clause in the answer moves from paraphrase to the exact words of 1 Corinthians 15:28, that “in it you are all in all,” being an address to God the Father. But what is the referent of “it” in the Catechism’s words “in it”? Generally speaking, it is the echatological perfection of Christ’s kingdom, now ready to be presented to the Father. This, I suggest, comes to the same meaning as I have argued of the Apostle Paul’s meaning. 

We can see already that a thorough exegesis of the text goes a long way to answering our whole question. Returning to systematic theological categories, we have two main options when concluding our resolution of this difficulty. The first option is to suggest that the distinction between the Son and the Father in verse 28 pertains to the economic Trinity rather than the immanent Trinity—in other words, that Paul is not speaking about any inferiority of being in the Son, but rather a difference of role and relationship in the ad extra works of the Trinity.

The second option is to employ the logic of the communicatio idiomatum, which refers to the “sharing of properties” between the two natures of the Son (divine and human). Of course there are wrong ways to use this concept, as both Rome and the Lutherans do with the Lord’s bodily nature in the sacrament; but the concept itself is both historical and biblical. It says that whatever is true about either of the natures may be said of the whole Person. Note that we are not suggesting whatever is true about either of the natures may be said of the other Nature. That would be to confuse the two natures. The body of Christ cannot be omnipresent. The impassibility of the eternal Son is not what suffered on the cross. And so on, with many other examples. Girolamo Zanchi spoke of the communicatio idiomatum involving a distinction that “is ‘real’ with respect to the person, though it is ‘verbal’ with respect to the other nature as such” [16]. How does this help us in 1 Corinthians 15:28?

It is because we can say that the human Christ, as King, is submitting even the whole of his reign, to the Father, as the Human Head of the New World, and in union with his divine nature, therefore as the Son.

Really our two options come together as one. The Son of God is having his human nature and its work subjected to the Father ad extra and yet still in union with his eternal Person. But the reason for this is that God’s glory would shine forth to creation in such a way, to humanity at its center, that it could not if there were not a Man, who is the Light of the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:23). Here exegesis helps us not only as fillers to justify preconceived systematic categories, but it also presents a satisfying rationale, where metaphysical and existential questions are answered together. 

Polemics: Three Objections Against this Resolution

It may be that there are other objections to my resolution that I have not considered, but three come to mind: 1. “You cannot apply the communicatio idiomatum without Subordinationism.” 2. “You cannot distinguish between the senses of equality within WSC Q.6.” 3. “In what sense is God now ‘all in all’ if he is already eternal, infinite, and self-sufficient?” Let us take each of these in turn. 

Objection 1. “You cannot apply the communicatio idiomatum without Subordinationism. If what is true about the Son’s human nature is an attribute of the Son, then the Son has an attribute which the Father has not. And if this attribute is precisely to be subject, in whatever sense, then it follows that the eternal Person of the Son is ontologically subject to the Father.”

Reply to Objection 1. This objection fails to take into account the principle within scholastic metaphysics between a real distinction and a logical distinction. In failing to make this distinction, it is also treating “attribute” as something of a “property,” which already assumes composition. Real distinctions are those of—or better yet between—extra-mental realities; while logical distinctions are ways of thinking about extra-mental realities that speak of differing senses and relations about the object [17]. While the mode of subsistence of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit may defy neat application of these categories, the mode of the human Christ’s subordination thus united to the Son need not. 

Objection 2. “You cannot distinguish between the senses of equality within WSC Q.6. It plainly says about the Father and Son that they are, ‘the same in substance, equal in power and glory.’ Yet in this resolution, the power of the Son, not to speak of his glory, is not at all the same as the Father. His power (or authority) is still ascribed, by union, to the Son, and the glory that he prays for in John 17, is at least another additional attribute of which we speak of the Son. Therefore it seems that even if the Son is not eternally subordinate in the sense of ontologically inferior, still ‘power’ and ‘glory’ may not be equally attributed to the Father and the Son.”

Reply to Objection 2. This objection is really making the same category mistakes as the first, the only exception being that it takes “power” and “glory,” as to species of the subjection of Christ, rather than the genus itself. Moreover there is an equivocation concerning “power,” as the power spoken of in the Catechism answer regards the divine attribute of omnipotence rather than, what is in Greek exousia, the concept used synonymously as either authority or power that is more of a rule than an energy of action.

Other classical attributes come to our aid here as well. King borrows from Webster in saying, “As there is no real distinction between the essence and existence (being) in God, so there is no real distinction between the essence of God and the Trinity of persons. For the being and nature of God who enacts his eternal plan is the selfsame Trinity—‘the one who is himself as he executes his own being in his acts as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’” [18].

And far from causing any real problem for the Trinity, the doctrine of divine simplicity reinforces it, as King writes: “The concept of divine simplicity informs us that the divine essence is whatever the three persons are together, whose essential qualities are represented in the Unity-in-Trinity that is God” [19].

Objection 3. “In what sense is God now ‘all in all’ if he is eternal, infinite, and self-sufficient? If God has all glory and power in himself, then how could anything Christ does, by way of this subjection of his reign to the Father, add the slightest amount to the perfections of God?”

Reply to Objection 3. It is not a question of addition to the intrinsic glory of God, but to the extrinsic. God’s intrinsic glory cannot be added to or subtracted from. It is therefore independent of what the creature does. And yet Scripture speaks of things “glorifying” God, or “bringing glory to him,” or else one is commanded to do all “to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). This is best called the “extrinsic glory” of God which is his greatness manifested in creation, or communicated both to and by the rational soul of creatures. 

Moreover, when the Bible speaks of Christ’s “inheriting” a reign, this does not contradict the sense in which he already owns all things as God. The Reformed make a distinction between the (1) essential reign of Christ, by which, as the eternal Son, he is Lord over all things at all times and places; and (2) the mediatorial reign of Christ, by which, as the anointed Messiah, he is Head of the church. These two reigns come together without opposition at the Second Coming and in the eternal state (Phi. 2:10-11, Rev. 21:5-6). The only debate among the Reformed is the sense in which the spiritual reign of Christ has authority over all things in this age (Mat. 28:18). Yet there is no debate among the Reformed that when Christ’s kingdom is consummated at the Second Coming, that the greatest extent of his glory and power will be manifest to all. 

Practical: Experiential Use of this Resolution

Scott Swain gives us the reason why our Trinitarian reflection is so vital to everything else in our life: “The doctrine of the Trinity … is the first and fundamental article of the faith, and the framework within which all other articles receive their meaning and import, because the Triune God is the efficient, restorative, and perfecting principle of all things in nature, grace, and glory. For this reason too the doctrine of the Trinity is the heart of Christian piety and religion” [20].

Three matters bring these aspects of Trinitarian doctrine into the realm of practical theology: 1. The extent to which a new believer should understand how the equality and subjection of the Son go together; 2. The way in which the subjection of Christ’s kingdom answers the present realities of suffering; 3. The way in which the subjection of Christ’s kingdom forms our vision of the eternal state. 

First, from a pastoral perspective, our doctrine of the Trinity needs to keep in mind the new believer. As one considers the doctrine of the Trinity per se and the way in which Barthians have spoken of God’s self-disclosure in the economy, one wonders whether they have not overshot their churchly target. The maxim of Charles Gore, that “the doctrine of the Trinity is not so much heard in Scripture as overheard” [21], is a good enough entry-point for more sophisticated exegesis and may produce many dividends in what kind of texts and concepts add to our doctrinal understanding. Yet whether theologians like it or not, the average Christian wants his proof texts, and though it may be legitimate to explain how the Trinitarian relationships come to us progressively and through actions in which we participate, it would do us well to meet the laity halfway. The dismissal of the propositional is not the answer to serving the church with the treasures of the Trinity. 

All of our resources for reconciling the equality of the Persons in the Godhead and Paul’s idea subjection of the Son to the Father, whether they were historical, confessional, systematic, exegetical, and, yes, even experiential, are a puzzle that could never be put together in anything but a propositional shape.

It may seem a tired analogy for many, but there is something fitting about being brought into communion with God through words in a book, as the Second Person of the Trinity and the One who is Mediator of the covenant of grace is called the Word. We must challenge any anti-theology which severs the natural relationship between the personal and the propositional. And we ought to expect in the whole Christian life what will be true of the new believer in “embryonic form,” namely, that the unfolding of God’s identity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit will deepen communion with God.  

Second, the order of the Trinitarian economy answers the believer’s waiting. The present realities of evil and suffering cause the Christian to long for that which Christ’s kingdom subjected fulfills. Calvin asks the very practical question that naturally emerges in considering the perfection of Christ’s work with all of the pain and toil that remains with us: “‘If Christ’s life,’ some one might say, ‘draws ours along with it, why does not this appear? Instead of this, while Christ has risen from the grave, we lie rotting there.’ Paul’s answer is, that God has appointed another order of things. Let us therefore reckon it enough, that we now have in Christ the firstfruits, and that his coming will be the time of our resurrection. For our life must still be hid with him, because he has not yet appeared (Col. iii. 3, 4.)” [22].

Third, there is a way in which the subjection of Christ’s kingdom forms our vision of the eternal state. In John 17 the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus unpacks the “ascending glories” Christ would have us behold. We are told in John’s Epistle that what will finally change us into his likeness is to see him as he is (1 Jn. 3:2). It is not only Christ’s glory displayed that causes God to be all in all to humanity, but the particular ways that the divine is magnified through humanity. Earlier it was mentioned about the resolution of the Garden of Gethsemane passages by Maximus. Wilken summarizes that, “The human will is not less human but more human because it is in harmony with the divine will” [23].

The perfection of humanity amplifies divinity. After all, one aspect of the image of God in man is will, and Christ’s perfection of will went before ours. Applied to the subjection of the kingdom to the Father in exaltation, this is no less an act of Christ’s will than the submission of his tormented will in the state of his humiliation. 

How specifically does Christ’s reign get us to God being “all in all”? Let us consider the question from the perspective of the Beatific Vision. This refers to that perfected experience, or sight, of God that the saints will have in glory, and the main texts that relate to it are John 17:24, 1 John 3:2, 1 Corinthians 13:12, and Revelation 21:23. Two main unresolved questions for many are the Object and the extent of the saints’ beholding of God. As to the Object, will this be of the Father or of the Son only. If the latter, is this because our sight can only ever be mediated, according to the human nature? Owen argues that it can only be “in the face of Jesus Christ,” from 2 Corinthians 4:6. As to the extent, Turretin acknowledges that there is “debate about whether the blessed will see God’s essence immediately or see some effulgence of God” [24].

Concluding Thoughts

Such things, as King suggests in his thesis, are fitting so as to display the beauty of the Lord in a Trinitarian “theodrama.” Subjection to the Father is not an embarrassing appendage to one of Paul’s rhetorical flourishes. It is the grand finale in that ordained theater of sweeping up our attention into the way things are in God through the way things are written for the historical drama: “the economical activities of the persons in the economies of creation, redemption, and consummation reflect with perfect fittingness the paternity of the Father (the working of all things is from the Father), the filiation of the Son (the working of all things is through the Son), and the spiration of the Holy Spirit (the working of all things is in the Spirit)” [25]. So what is fitting in a world that will glorify God, specifically befits the Persons in a way that is proper to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit respectively.

________________________

1. Hyde, With Heart and Mouth, 119.

2. T. F. Torrance, quoted in Kelly, Systematic Theology, 452.

3. Mastricht, TPT, II:497.

4. Robert Letham, Systematic Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 77.

5. Mastricht, TPT, II:500.

6. Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2008), 109.

7. Turretin, Institutes, I.3.13.4, 5

8. J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003), 227

9. Kelly, Systematic Theology, I:447.

10. Sanders summarizes the views of Leonard Hodgson and Karl Rahner, who took a basically Neo-Orthodox view of the words of Scripture, denying that revelation was immediately propositional, and yet both attempted an otherwise orthodox Trinitarianism. The problem becomes clear, having no revelatory data by which to distinguish the one from the many: “If the external works of the Trinity are undivided, they cannot be the basis of our knowledge of Trinitarian distinctives” - The Triune God, 53.

11. Calvin, Institutes, I.13.18.

12. Thompson, “Revelation, Sola Scriptura, and Regenerate Human Reason,” 241.

13. Leon Morris, The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 213.

14. David Prior, The Message of 1 Corinthians (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 268.

15. William Ames, Marrow, XXXI

16. Zanchi quoted in Steven Duby, God in Himself (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2019), 228.

17. Edward Feser, Scholastic Metaphysics (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Books, 2014), 72-74.

18. Jonathan King, The Beauty of the Lord (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 65.

19. King, The Beauty of the Lord, 68.

20. Swain, “Divine Trinity,” in Allen & Swain, ed. Christian Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), 78.

21. Charles Gore quoted in Sanders, The Triune God, 73.

22. Calvin, Commentaries: Volume XX (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 26.

23. Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought, 131.

24. Duby, God in Himself, 42.

25. King, The Beauty of the Lord, 70.