By Water & Blood

Chapter 15: How it is said that all things will be subjected to the Son, and he to the Father

But one must attend to the fact that the apostle said that all things will be subjected to the Son himself, and that he teaches that by the same subjection the Son too will be subjected to the Father, saying, “And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him,

that God may be all in all.” This he does not hear. For the apostle does not say that God will be “all” in the Son, but “in all”; which would rather have seemed to signify some conjunction and union of all things, if God is to be all things in all. But he interprets the subjection of the Son as the union of the Word, which will become one and the same with the Father, just as it was before, as he himself said.

If, then, he defines the subjection to the Father as union, it would follow that the subjection of all things to the Son also signifies the same union with him; so that the Son would no longer exist by himself, nor would the multitudes of the saved who are to be subjected to him live their own life, but there would come about a kind of fusion (συναλοιφή) and confusion of the universe, the Son and all the rest becoming one and the same—and not only so, but with God himself as well.

For if all things are united to the Son, and the Son to the Father, by being subjected, see what follows from the argument.

But just as the apostle, in saying that “all things” will be subjected to the Son, did not indicate union, but the obedience that comes from free choice, and the glory and honour which all things will render to him as Saviour and King of the universe, in the same way his being subjected to the Father would signify nothing else than the glory and honour and reverence and magnificence and free obedience which he too will render “to God, even the Father,” when he has prepared all to be worthy of the Father’s Godhead.

For in the meantime, since they are not yet worthy of it, he himself, taking the lead as a kind of common Saviour of all, reigns with a kingdom that corrects the imperfect and heals those in need of healing, bringing the enemies of the kingdom under his feet. This the Psalm establishes when it says, “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.”

But when he has put the enemies under his feet, and has established those worthy of his kingdom in unending life, then death too, the enemy of all, will be destroyed last. For since no one will die any longer, and those worthy of the kingdom will then live in eternal life, death will likely be idle, no longer having any whom it might kill.

These things having been thus made ready, all the saints will be subjected to the Son of God with a saving subjection: living eternally in him who is Life, becoming wise in him who is Wisdom, and made rational (λόγιοι) in him who is Word. So too they will become christs, anointed with the Spirit of his fragrance; and they will be shown forth as luminaries of the new age, being supplied with their lights from him; and they will be sons of God, adorned with the Spirit of adoption; and those who are to be subjected to him will share in the other powers within him, so as to become righteous from his righteousness and holy from his holiness. And since “the Word was God,” he will not begrudge them even Godhead (θεότης).

Thus the apostle will be proved true in foretelling that the saints will become “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.” Indeed, they will also make use of heavenly bodies like the sun and moon and stars, sharing in this too in his glory;

which the same apostle established when he said, “From whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our body of humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto his body of glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.” You see how, by his being able to subdue all things to himself, he will also bring about the transformation of our body, making ours too “fashioned like unto his body of glory.”

But if ours will be “fashioned like unto his body of glory,” how much more will the body of his glory itself share in his kingdom? And if ours will be swallowed up by life, as the apostle testified, saying, “Not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life,” how much more will his own body, as having served his Godhead, be swallowed up—not by life alone, like ours, but also by his Godhead? Let no one, then, inquire, or be at a loss within himself, as to what one ought to reckon concerning the Saviour’s body, when he hears Paul plainly saying that “mortality” must be swallowed up “of life,” and that our body will be fashioned like “unto the body” of Christ’s glory, “according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”

So, then, he will subdue all things to himself; and one must understand the saving subjection to be of such a kind, according to which “the Son also himself shall be subject unto him that put all things under him.” He will render an unutterable and ineffable subjection, befitting him alone, when, having ranged all those under him about himself like a choir, he will bring them “to God, even the Father,” offering to him the glory and the honour and the reverence and the majesty, as to the cause of all good things.