For he must reign until he put all enemies under his feet.
Paul has just spoken of Christ handing the kingdom back to God the Father. Here he says why the kingdom must first run its course, and that raises two questions: has this reign begun, and how can it end?
The wording here comes from the Psalms. One writer warns us not to mix up the two psalms Paul uses.
We must carefully distinguish the words of the two psalms applied to Him in verses 25 and 27: verse 25 uses Psalm 110, verse 27 uses Psalm 8. In Psalm 8, God subjected all things to the Son of Man, once humbled, now risen. This takes in the whole universe as put under Christ, so completely that God alone is left out. But in Psalm 110, the glorified Messiah sits on the throne on high until Jehovah makes Messiah's enemies His footstool. He is waiting until that moment. Then Jehovah will send out the rod of Messiah's strength from Zion, and He will rule among His enemies.
Does this reign begin at the resurrection, or is it still ahead? One writer answers by asking what Christ is doing right now.
On 1 Cor. 15:25 one need say little; for it is agreed that the verse speaks of Christ reigning. But not a word implies that it "has already begun." The verse does imply that God will have set Christ's enemies as a footstool for His feet to trample down. Is anyone seriously arguing that Christ is subduing His enemies now, as He will when the kingdom comes? As to actually defeating them, He is quiet now. All His activity is grace: converting foes and feeding His friends. This is so because the members of His body, the church, are not yet complete... But the reigning is when the power given to Him is in full and public operation before the universe.
Some read the subduing of enemies as their gradual conversion. One writer says that reading empties the words of meaning.
He reigns, says the apostle — until when? "Until He has put all His enemies under His feet." Is that conversion? If it is, words have no meaning. No; power subjects those whom grace could not subdue.
The word "until" sets a limit. Christ takes the kingdom for one aim, and gives it up when that aim is reached.
The special kingdom put into His hands as Man is to be delivered up. In fact, He takes it only for the purpose of bringing everything into subjection to God. What He taught His disciples to pray — that the Father's kingdom might come — is what He accomplishes in power by taking the kingdom Himself. It is not for eternity, it is not even for a long period of time... The One who takes it is, in it all, the Minister, as He ever was. He takes it, not for His own glory, but for the Father's glory. God must indeed honor the One who has glorified Him, and will put every enemy under His feet. That is right and necessary.
Because this reign closes, some fear the verse lowers Christ. One writer answers that the kingdom He gives up is one He holds as man, and that giving it up changes nothing in who He is.
The man Christ will subject all things and set all in order. Then He will yield up the kingdom to the Father, and God will be all in all. Giving up the kingdom makes no change in His divinity — note this carefully. Up to that time man had held the kingdom according to the counsels of God. This mediatorial kingdom comes to an end. Christ is neither more nor less God. He was God on the earth and in His humiliation. He will be so in the glory of the kingdom which He will hold as man.
Christ Himself is waiting. Believers wait with Him, though not in the same conditions.
Hebrews 10:12-13 also teaches that Christ is seated at the right hand of God, waiting until His enemies are made His footstool. We may well wait if Christ is waiting; but we wait in suffering and conflict. He is waiting to reign. Then He will cause full blessing to flow out for His own, whether in heaven or on earth, and He will banish evil from both.
- Seated — Christ is at God's right hand now, waiting; the reign of this verse has not yet started in public power.
- Sent — When the moment comes, He rises to rule. Power puts down the enemies that grace did not win.
- Scope — The subjection reaches the whole universe. God alone stands outside it.
- Surrendered — He takes the kingdom for the Father's glory, not His own. When all is subject to God, He hands it back.
- Same — Giving up that kingdom alters nothing in Him: He was God in humiliation, God in the kingdom, God for ever.
[The] last enemy [that] is annulled [is] death.
Paul is tracing the order of Christ's reign. In the middle of that list of beaten powers he names one that still stands: death. Calling it "the last enemy" raises two questions. Why is death an enemy at all? And why does God leave it standing until the very end?
Most people treat dying as simply part of life. The verse calls it an enemy. One writer describes it as a fortress no human power has ever taken:
Death is the last great enemy to be destroyed. No one has ever been able to stand against it — not the wisest, not the greatest, not the most powerful of men. No man of science has ever found a cure for it. It stood there from the day Adam fell, like a fortress of the enemy's power that no one could storm. Then the Lord Jesus Christ died. By His death He set free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death.
The word "last" marks a place in a sequence. It does not fix the date of any believer's death. One commentator sets out three separate victories over death:
Death is not the last enemy "to each individual soldier of Christ," for Scripture plainly says, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." But death is the last enemy in the order of God's dealings, which is how the words were meant to be read. There are three stages here. First, the conquest over death at Christ's resurrection, when life and incorruptibility were brought to light through the gospel. Second, the conquest over death at the resurrection of Christ's people at His coming, before the reign. Third, the annihilation of death at the end of that reign, when He shall have put all enemies under His feet.
Later in the same chapter Paul says death is swallowed up in victory. One writer argues that swallowing death up is not the same event as destroying it, and draws a picture:
Picture an enemy who has long had the upper hand. He has laid his cruel grip on the rightful subjects of some great prince. Then the prince's armies swallow him up in victory and set all his captives free. Even so, the prince may spare the tyrant's life. He may leave him alive to serve as jailer to the prince's enemies. That is just how it is here. Death has held the bodies of God's beloved people in his grip. At the coming of the Lord, the Prince of life, death will have to give up every captive... Still, death is not destroyed. For a thousand years longer it is the jailer of those who lived and died in sin.
So when does death itself finally fall? One writer points to the moment when death gives up its dead:
He reigns, says the apostle — until when? "Till He has put all enemies under His feet." Does that mean His enemies are converted? If it does, words have no meaning. No; He is subduing by power those who would not yield to grace. Death is among these enemies, and "death, the last enemy, shall be destroyed." When? When death and hell (hades), having delivered up their dead, shall be cast into the lake of fire.
The destruction of death is still future. But one writer says the believer's account with death is already closed, and that death now works only under God's hand:
No enemy of God escapes destruction, and this general destroyer is destroyed last. For the believer, both death and sin, which causes it, are already at an end... When Jesus Christ rose from the dead, He claimed His victorious title as the Captain of Salvation. By dying once for all to sin, He had abolished death and destroyed the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil! While people are still mortal, this enemy is still in force — but only as an instrument in the hand of the Lord of the living and the dead.
Because the title is already won, the Christian can look at the same enemy and give it a different name:
Death will make a glorious change for a believer. It is only crossing the Dead Sea, and he will be with Christ... Though death is a bitter cup, there is sugar at the bottom. The flesh calls death the last enemy (1 Cor. 15:26), but faith calls it the best friend. It brings a man to Christ, which is far better.
- Enemy — Death is not nature's arrangement. It is a hostile power. It has stood since Adam's fall, a fortress no man has ever taken.
- Last — The word marks a place in a sequence, not a personal timetable. Some believers will never die at all, for not all will sleep.
- Stages — Three conquests, not one. Christ rose first. His people rise at His coming. Death itself is annihilated at the close of His reign.
- Destroyed — The final blow falls when death and hades give up their dead and go into the lake of fire. Power subdues what grace could not win.
- Friend — Since Christ has already won the victory, the enemy the flesh dreads is the friend faith uses to reach Christ.