1 Corinthians 15:24

1 Corinthians 15:24 . Then — After the resurrection and the general judgment; cometh the end — Of the world, the grand period of all those wonderful scenes that have appeared for so many succeeding generations; when he shall — Publicly and solemnly; have delivered up — Greek, οταν παραδω , when he shall deliver up; the mediatorial kingdom to God, even the Father — By whose commission he had held it, and to whose glory he had always administered it; when he shall have put down — Οταν καταργηση , when he shall have destroyed all adverse rule, authority, and power — That had opposed itself to his government, and shall have triumphed over all the efforts which either men or devils could ever make against his dominion. This mediatorial kingdom which Christ will deliver up, is represented, Matthew 28:18 , to be his possessing all power in heaven and in earth; “that is, power over angels as well as over men. This kingdom our Lord received in the human nature, as the reward of his humiliation, and was solemnly installed in it after his resurrection, when he ascended into heaven, and was invited by God to sit at his right hand till he should make his enemies his footstool.

Further, because it is said, Colossians 1:17 , He is before all things, and by him all things consist; and because we are told, Hebrews 1:3 , that the Son, while he spake the gospel, upheld all things by the word of his power; it is believed, that besides the mediatorial kingdom which the Son administered in the human nature, and which he will deliver up to the Father after the judgment, he possessed the government of the universe from the beginning, in his character as Creator: and that, after the mediatorial kingdom is delivered up, the kingdom which he holds as Creator, will remain with him as from the beginning. So that after the judgment, the righteous shall enter still into the everlasting kingdom of Jesus Christ, as they are represented to do, 2 Peter 1:11 .” — Macknight. Indeed, the divine reign, both of the Father and the Son, is from everlasting to everlasting. And only so far as the Father gave the kingdom to the Son, shall the Son deliver it up to the Father, John 13:3 . Nor does the Father cease to reign when he gives it to the Son, neither the Son when he delivers it to the Father; but the glory which he had before the world began, ( John 17:5 ; Hebrews 1:8 ,) will remain even after that is delivered up. Nor will he cease to be a king even in his human nature, Luke 1:33 . If the citizens of the New Jerusalem shall reign for ever, ( Revelation 22:5 ,) how much more shall he!

{14} Then cometh the {h} end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down {i} all rule and all authority and power. (14) The fourth argument with which also he confirms the other, has a most sure ground, that is, because God must reign. And this is the manner of his reign, that the Father will be shown to be King in his Son who was made man, to whom all things are made subject (the promiser being the only exception) to the end that the Father may afterward triumph in his Son the conqueror. And he makes two parts of this reign and dominion of the Son in which the Father's glory consists: that is first, the overcoming of his enemies, in which some must be deprived of all power, as Satan and all the wicked, be they ever so proud and mighty, and others must be utterly abolished, as death. And second, a plain and full delivery of the godly from all enemies, that by this means God may fully set forth the body of the Church cleaving fast to their head Christ, his kingdom and glory, as a King among his subjects. Moreover he puts the first degree of his kingdom in the resurrection of the Son, who is the head: and the perfection, in the full conjunction of the members with the head, which will be in the latter day. Now all these tend to this purpose, to show that unless the dead do rise again, neither the Father can be King above all, neither Christ the Lord of all.

24 . Then cometh the end ] The end, the completion, that is, of the present order of things, when sin and death cease to be, and ‘the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ,’ Revelation 11:15 . when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father ] The passage suggests to us the idea of a prince, the heir-apparent of the kingdom, going out to war, and bringing the spoils and trophies of his conquest to his father’s feet. Such an idea must have recurred with fresh vividness to the minds of the early Christians a few years afterwards, when they saw Titus bringing the spoils of the holy city of the old covenant, the ‘figure of the true,’ to his father Vespasian, and must have led them to look forward with eager expectation to the time when types and shadows should have their end, and the kingdom be the Lord’s, and He the governor among the people. At the Last Day, Christ as man shall receive the submission of all God’s enemies, and then lay them, all His triumphs, all those whom He has delivered captive from the hand of the enemy, at His Father’s feet. “Not,” says Estius, “that Christ shall cease to reign,” for ‘of His kingdom there shall be no end,’ St Luke 1:33 (cf. Daniel 7:14 ; Hebrews 1:8 ; Hebrews 2:8 ), but that He will, by laying all His conquests at His Father’s feet, proclaim Him as the source of all authority and power.

There were certain heretics, the followers of Marcellus of Ancyra, who taught that Christ’s kingdom should come to an end, holding the error of the Sabellians that Christ was an emanation from the Father, and would be finally reabsorbed into the Father’s personality. It is supposed that the words, “Whose kingdom shall have no end,” were inserted in the Nicene Creed at the Council of Constantinople, a. d. 381, with a view to this error. The words, God, even the Father , are perhaps best translated into English by God the Father . So Tyndale renders. when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power ] Put down , literally, brought to an end . See ch. 1 Corinthians 13:10 . All rule , that is, all exercise of authority save his own; princehead , Wiclif; all authority , that is, the right to exercise dominion; all power ( virtus , Vulg.; vertu , Wiclif, see note on ch. 1 Corinthians 1:18 ), that is, all the inherent faculty of exercising authority. For earthly relations, such as those of father, magistrate, governor, prince, are but partial types and manifestations of the Divine Headship. Even Christ’s Humanity is but the revelation and manifestation of the Being of God. But ‘when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.’ Such human relations shall cease, for they shall be no more needed. Cf. Colossians 2:10 .

(24-28) When he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father .—The Apostle carries on the thought of a triumph which the use of the word “troop” in the previous verse had commenced or suggested. There rises before the prophetic vision of St. Paul the final triumph of Christ over all evil, over all power, and the Son giving up to the Father (not His humanity, which is “for ever and ever”— Luke 1:32-33 ) the kingdom of this world, which in His humanity He conquered for the Father as well as for Himself. He will, the moment He becomes conqueror, sit down with the Father on His throne. Christ laying the spoils of a conquered world at the foot of the throne of the Father, shows, by that supreme act of self-sacrifice, that in His office as Redeemer He came, not to do His own will, but the will of the Father. In this sense the Son Himself, as Redeemer, is “put under Him”—God is all in all. We must clearly remember that the Apostle is here speaking of the Son as Redeemer, and is not penetrating into the deeper mysteries of the relation of the Persons in the Godhead. (See John 17:5 ; Hebrews 1:8 .) (24) All rule and all authority and power.—Not only hostile rule and authority and power, but all intermediate rule of any sort, good and bad. The direct government by God of all creatures is to be at last attained. All the interventions of authority and power which the fall of man rendered necessary will be needless when the complete triumph of Christ comes in.

1 Corinthians 15:24 . Εἶτα , afterwards ) after the resurrection of those who are Christ’s; for He, as King , will consummate the judgment between the resurrection and the end.— τὸ τέλος ) The end , viz., of the whole resurrection. This is the correlative to the first fruits . In this end all orders [referring to “every man in his own order”] will obtain their completion [consummated development]: 1 Peter 4:7 ; Romans 6:22 . This noun contains the force of the verbs, delivered up [ 1 Corinthians 15:24 ] and destroyed [ 1 Corinthians 15:26 ]. See how great mysteries that apostle draws from the prophetic syllables עד and כל , Psalm 110:1 ; Psalm 8:6 . Gr. ἄχρις , until, and πάντα , all things. Therefore even the words of Scripture are inspired by God, θεόπνευστα . For all Scripture words rest upon the same principles as these [The same reasoning is applicable to all Scripture words].— ὅταν — ὅταν ) when:—namely, when. The former is explained by the latter; and the first part of the following verse is to be referred to the former; the second part, to the latter.

So soon as the Son shall have delivered up the kingdom to the Father, the Father will destroy all authority; and the deliverance of the kingdom into His hands takes place, that all authority may be swept away.— παραδῷ τὴν βασιλείαν , shall have delivered up the kingdom) The Father will not then begin to reign without the Son; nor will the Son cease then to reign without the Father; for the divine kingdom both of the Father and of the Son is from eternity and will be to eternity. But the apostle is here speaking of the mediatorial kingdom of the Son, which will be delivered up, and of the immediate [i.e., without mediation] kingdom of the Father, to which then it will give place. In the meantime, the Son manages the affairs, which the Father has put into His hands, for and by His own people, for the elect, by the instrumentality of angels also, and in the presence of the Father and against His enemies, so long as even an effort of these last continues. The Son will deliver up the kingdom to the Father, inasmuch as the Father gave it to the Son, John 13:3 . The Father does not cease to reign, though He has appointed the Son to be king; nor does the Son cease to reign, when He delivers up the kingdom to the Father; and by the very circumstance, that it is said, not that it is to be abolished, but to be delivered up to the Father, it is signified, that it itself also is of infinite majesty.