“That God May Be Everything to Every One”

“When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to every one.”   I Corinthians 15:28

 

I read the above translation in my Revised Standard Version Interlinear New Testament by Zondervan this morning. The verse in other versions reads “…that God may be all in all.” (ESV)  Doesn’t it mean the same thing?  But I love the way it was presented in the RSV. What a beautiful way to describe something that we know must be a very personal encounter between God and man.  We are after all made in His image and share “personhood” with Him.  So to hear that His ultimate goal is to “be everything to every one”  just accelerates our anticipation for when “all things are made new” and “His dwelling place is with man”.  (Revelation 21)

Then I checked to see what my ESV study notes said about this verse:

“God will be all in all, not in the sense that God will be everything and everything will be God, as some eastern religions imagine, but in the sense that God’s supreme authority over everything will be eternally established, never to be threatened again.”

 

I agree.  I don’t believe this verse is saying that all is merging into God as one entity. The entire context (the entire Bible) would not support that idea.  But what did the study notes actually conclude it was saying?  Well, it seems that the best interpretation they can give as traditionalists is that it means God is sovereign eternally and that His authority will “never be threatened again.” Dr. Frank S. Thielman covered the notes for I Corinthians and I must say he passed up the opportunity to highlight and render for us an absolutely astonishing and breath-taking passage!

A couple of thoughts in response to the ESV commentary on this verse.  First I must note that I don’t see anywhere in Scripture where God’s sovereign authority is ever depicted as threatened.  Perhaps allowed to be tested by His permission but NEVER threatened. So here is a passage exploding with wonder, glory and drama and Dr. Thielman serves us up two self-evident points:  God is not the same as us-and-the-trees and God is not going to be “threatened” by His own creation.  Why did Dr. Thielman avoid interacting with the heart of the passage and offer instead his patent observations?

Second, I was so deflated when I read those sterile words after reading the RSV’s rendering of the culmination of history as God forever being… “everything to every one.” I believe the RVS’s translation resonates with our human intuition that knows that God must be both all-loving and all-powerful.  What a beautiful, faithful, personal and powerful God we serve!