There is one True & Living God, that much is clear! Scripture makes this manifestly clear & the Spirit within tells us undoubtedly that this is so! Whether one holds a trinitarian or unitarian view of our Creator, one thing is attested to by all believers, our God is One!
The phrase 'all in all' has been bandied around for years, with believers deciding that it means anything from, 'when Jesus returns again to defeat the last enemy ( death ), He will hand the kingdom over to His Father ( I Corinthians 15 )' to, 'all in all' means that once Jesus made us a new creation, God is at home in everyone'! As it is not my purpose here to make a case either for or against this brand ( common ) of universalism, we will not delve into the latter right now. However, the first statement ( most of it, anyway ) IS biblically sound! Paul did write, 'Then [ comes ] the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power' ( I Corinthians 15:24 ). After this, Paul wrote, then God would be 'all in all'!
Though biblically sound & accepted by the majority ( 'majority rules?' ) for thousands of years, perhaps, that Jesus did not defeat the last enemy ( death ) is an idea whose time has come to fall & never rise again! The fallical notion that Jesus did not fulfill His purpose in coming as the Messiah of the Jews is so absurd that if it weren't so serious a matter, it would be almost laughable!
There is no question, however, that God IS 'all in all'! He has taken up residence with ( in ) His People, whether you believe this to be a spiritual or physical reality. There are those who believe that this is merely a spiritual reality, with only the third person ( ? ) of the Godhead actually indwelling the believer currently ( the Father & Son to come later, apparently? ), while there are others who believe that the Godhead ( bad translation ) currently resides ( fully ) with ( in the midst of ) the People of God ( John 14:23 )! This, I believe, I believe is the only truly viable position & the only one that really does justice to both Scripture ) what we know of the Nature of God!
Much of the dilemma or conundrum we are faced with can be solved by realizing that, as Israel's Messiah & He who raised Israel ( spiritually ) from the dead, Jesus DID defeat the last enemy ( death ) for Israel & through Israel, those were are incorporated into the Son of God ( Hosea 11:1 )! There is now & has been for the last few decades ( at least ), much discussion ( usually rather heated ) about whether Adam was the head ( progenitor ) of mankind, or whether he was simply the first of God's Covenant Creation. If he was mankind's progenitor, then we may well understand that his death, which according to certain people, did not come till 969 years later ( even though God told him, 'in the day you eat.............' ) did not symbolize that of national physical Israel & was the death that is 'the last enemy' that Paul speaks of!
However, if Adam was simply the beginning of God's Covenant Creation & did indeed die the day he ate, as God promised, if he was indeed, Israel's covenant head, as Paul seems to suggest ( Romans 5:12 ), then the Purpose for which Jesus came was truly & actually fulfilled! Jesus actually defeated the last enemy, handed the Kingdom over to God the Father, Who is now 'all in all', according to Paul! Now; what about that fascinating little 'all in all'??
If the death of Adam for which Jesus shed His precious blood was truly physical death, he ( the first Adam ) being the one through whom death entered the world, then 'all in all' could easily ( in fact, one might say 'must' ) be understood universally, as 'all in Adam died, so all in Christ shall be made alive'! With Adam taking his rightful place as the head, or first 'king' of Israel, we see that the death which the Christ defeated on the cross was the spiritual death that Adam died the day he ate. Adam's removal from the blessings of the Garden of God was, in this sense, the death that Jesus came to save His People from!
Charles Haddon Shank
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