Resurrection and Christology in 1 Cor 15:24–28
(avg. read time: 11–21 mins.)
As I return again to resurrection in 1 Cor 15, I will once again be adapting an extract of my dissertation. I have already gone over some aspects of resurrection and Christology in 1 Cor 15:20–23, wherein Christ is correlated with Adam. This time, I will be examining other aspects of Christology that connect Christ with God the Father. After all, beyond the aforementioned Adam-Christ contrast, Paul relates resurrection to the kingdom by reference to Christ’s post-resurrection reign (v. 25), the kingdom he reigns over and will hand over to God (vv. 24, 28), and—most frequently—Christ’s and/or God’s action of subjugation by using the language of καταργέω (twice in vv. 24, 26) and ὑποτάσσω (six times in vv. 27 [3x], 28 [3x]). The reign of Christ is of course implied by the traditional gospel proclamation, in which Christ dies, is resurrected, and is then exalted to the right hand of God. There does not seem to be any grounds for delaying this reign to some future time before the new creation, and the allusion to Ps 110 makes sense as a description of Christ’s reign if he reigns while still in the midst of rebellious enemies.1 Christ’s own resurrection entailed his reign in the present time in a similar way to how the general resurrection will entail the consummate kingdom of God (vv. 26–28). Crucial to Paul’s argument is his use of Scripture, specifically of the texts of Dan 7 and Pss 8 and 110.
Because it is the least direct, but still establishes a context for the use of the other two texts, I consider Dan 7 first. In line with his reference to the story of Adam, Paul’s use of Dan 7:14 and 27 (and, by further indirect implication, 2:44) connects resurrection with the reign of God and God’s ideal image-bearer (or, in Dan 7, the one like a Son of Man). This connection is not as frequently noted in contemporary scholarship as the noted psalms, but it was noticed among patristic interpreters. [Side-note: Here, I must correct something from my dissertation, as I had misread my notes when I composed the original list of references attached to this point on p. 189. I had thought when I said a certain reference was similar to others, that meant they also referenced Dan 7 like the text I noted. But as it turns out, of the ones I listed, only John Chrysostom, Hom. 1 Cor. 39.6; Cyril of Jerusalem, Cat. Lect. 15.29, 31–33 {since the whole lecture is headed by reference to Dan 7}; Ambrosiaster, Comm. 1 Cor. 15:24–27a; Theodoret, Comm. 1 Cor. 15:25 connected the texts. For the others, their similarity was in how they stressed that the Son’s reign did not end with him handing the kingdom to the Father.] Of course, this is not to say that scholars never note this connection, but it is less prominent in discussions, since it is less direct than the psalms.2 What these scholars and their patristic forbears have observed comports with the collocation of allusions to Dan 7 and Ps 110 elsewhere in the NT in Jesus’s statement before the Sanhedrin (Matt 26:64 // Mark 14:62 // Luke 22:69) and Stephen’s description of his vision of Jesus prior to his own death (Acts 7:56), although in the latter case Jesus is described as “standing” instead of “sitting” or “seated” at the right hand.3
The first connection between Dan 7 and Paul’s text is the eschatological concern of the kingdom, which Paul refers to here in a form uniquely—for him—unadorned with any modifiers (τὴν βασιλείαν; v. 24), as is consistent with the unadorned reference in Dan 7:14.4 Both texts—in addition to Dan 2:44—likewise present a theme of subjugation of enemy powers to God’s ideal ruler (which Dan 7 highlights with the contrast of the representative figure as one “like a son of man” with the abominable beasts that represent the non-divine kingdoms), although in this context it is the role of the Son that Paul emphasizes. The description of death as the last enemy may also owe some of its framework to the description of the fourth beast as the climactic enemy of God and the nature of the kingdom God gives to the saints.5 The conclusion of this segment in v. 28, and the kingdom significance of the same, may also resonate with Dan 7:27 with its statement of the everlasting kingdom (I analyze this conclusion in detail below). Both texts (in Dan 7, particularly in the highlighted vv. 14 and 27) also present a picture of the representative of God’s people receiving the kingdom as necessary to the saints as a whole receiving the kingdom. However, again, it is noteworthy that the process is more complex in Paul’s text as Christ must first implement God’s victory and then hand the kingdom over to the Father.
Although the uses of Pss 110 and 8 are separated here by v. 26, it seems best to consider them together. After all, Paul’s use of Ps 8:6b (8:7b LXX) in v. 27 with some grammatical modifications—πάντα ὑπέταξας ὑποκάτω τῶν ποδῶν αὐτοῦ in the LXX vs. πάντα ... ὑπέταξεν ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ in v. 27—in connection with Ps 110:1b (109:1b LXX) in v. 25 with other grammatical modifications—ἕως ἂν θῶ τοὺς ἐχθρούς σου ὑποπόδιον τῶν ποδῶν σου in the LXX vs. ἄχρι οὗ θῇ ... τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ in v. 25—fits the tendency to collocate these texts in the NT (Eph 1:20–23; Heb 1:3, 13; 2:6–9; and, more indirectly, 1 Pet 3:21b–22).6
Although Ps 8 is concerned more with protology and Ps 110 with kingdom theology and eschatology (as Christians have tied it to the reign of Christ: Matt 22:43–45 // Mark 12:35–37 // Luke 20:41–44; Matt 26:64 // Mark 14:62 // Luke 22:69; Mark 16:19; Acts 2:33–36; Rom 8:34; Eph 1:20–22; Col 3:1; Heb 8:1; 10:12–13; 12:2; 1 Pet 3:22; cf. Acts 5:31; 7:55–56), these texts are linked through the common theme of the subject’s rule, which is illustrated through the common imagery of the ruled being under the subject’s feet.7 Likewise, the former text presents an implicit eschatology through an idealized picture of human function in creation that one can hope becomes actualized again.8 The figure in Ps 110 is an ideal priestly ruler taking the place of the ideal human in Ps 8, except that the former context indicates clear hostility that is absent from the latter text.9 This connection receives further support from the explanation of the “image” concept in Ps 8 in terms of rule, as in Gen 1:26–30 (a text with which it has many other links), meaning that the ideal ruler is also the ideal image-bearer.10 These collocated texts thus became useful for describing the current role and rule of Christ as one who fulfills the position of Adam (indeed, the essential human position) as the image-bearer of God, being the priestly king who rules over creation in the midst of continuing hostility.
How, then, do these texts relate to resurrection in Paul’s argument? First, as implied by the typical gospel proclamation throughout the NT, including here in vv. 20–28, the current state in which these psalms are being fulfilled is one that is the direct result of the resurrection, since resurrection leads to exaltation. Indeed, the logical flow of this text follows the gospel progression, in which Jesus’s resurrection defeats death and precedes exaltation (Matt 28:16–18; Acts 1:3–11; 2:31–36; 5:28–32; 7:55–56; 13:30–39; 17:31–32; Rom 1:1–4; 8:34; Eph 1:17–23; Phil 3:18–21; Col 1:18–20; 2:11–15; Heb 2:5–12; 7:23–27; 12:2; 1 Pet 1:18–21; 3:18–22; Rev 1:5; 3:21; 5:5–12; 17:14; cf. Rev 20:4–6; 22:3–5), though now it is also the general resurrection that precedes the consummate kingdom.11 Second, these particular scriptures also serve to establish the cosmic context of the kingdom of God and new creation. Only in this cosmic context does resurrection make the sense that it does, and only by means of resurrection can Paul imagine people participating in this hoped-for reality. The resurrection of Jesus will be writ large on a cosmic scale in the form of new creation. If believers participate in this gospel story and they believe that the goal of it is the kingdom of God and new creation, they must also believe that their resurrection is necessary to God’s larger cosmic project and to their inheritance of it. Third, the subjection of enemies in Paul’s argument ultimately happens by resurrection, since the last enemy to be subjected—namely, through being destroyed by the divestment of its power—is death. Only when all enemies are thus subjected will the Scriptures be consummately fulfilled, meaning that not only is Jesus’s resurrection necessary for their fulfillment, but the believers’ resurrection is also necessary.
Nicholas Meyer observes of the connection between these texts that they, “share two related themes: a concern with God’s royal representative and with the exercise of dominion within the context of potentially (or actually) disruptive forces.”12 These themes fit Paul’s inaugurated eschatology, in which the eschatological event of Jesus’s resurrection has already happened, but the final subjugation of death through the general resurrection is yet to come. Genesis and Ps 8 illustrate the divine purpose for humans to rule according to the will of God, even if there is the inevitable recognition that this is not the current state of affairs because of the forces of sin and death, which creates an implicit eschatological expectation that God will restore humans to their proper function. Jesus accomplishes this restoration through his faithful life unto death, his resurrection, and the salvific union through which he becomes the new progenitor of image-bearers. Psalm 110 most directly refers to ruling even while enemies undergo subjection. It is thus an ideal text for describing what Jesus is doing now, ruling and subjecting until the subjugation is complete in his total communication of resurrection life in the general resurrection. Daniel focuses on the completion of this subjection rather than any process of it, as one representing God’s ideal ruler and image-bearer receives God’s kingdom. In Paul’s text, the connections to Daniel also primarily concern the goal of Christ’s rule and communication of his resurrection life, which is that God may be all in all. Through these texts, Paul signifies that the resurrection of Jesus and of believers draws together the beginning, middle (i.e., both the central axis and present setting of the story), and end of the grand narrative of Scripture that they serve effectively to summarize and interweave.
What is less clear in Paul’s argument is how his utilization of these texts, particularly the psalms, affects his statements in vv. 24–28a, wherein many verbs lack an explicit subject so that it is not clear if the subject is God or Christ, or at what point the subject might shift. Those who argue that God is the subject of θῇ and ὑπέταξεν, being the one who places all things under Christ’s feet, argue that the Scripture citations, in which it is clear that God is the one performing the action, are decisive for this view.13 In fact, Eph 1:20–23 uses these Scriptures with God as the referent.14 The subject of the subjection action in v. 28c (ὑποτάξαντος) is clearly God, and thus this would seem to suggest that the other uses of the verb have God as their subject.15 Uta Heil, based on a chiastic structure of vv. 24–28 with v. 26 at its center, argues that God is the subject of the verbs in vv. 27 and 28b and that this implies God as the subject in v. 24c and following.16 Likewise, the agentless passive verb in v. 26 seems to indicate God as the actor, since God is the one who raises the dead (even though the verb is different here).17
Those who advocate for Christ as the subject until v. 28b argue that, without a clear signal after v. 24, there is no reason to see here a change in subject.18 As Anthony J. Chvala-Smith argues, these considerations must be primary, “It cannot be argued that since the psalm makes God the subject, Paul must also intend it. This claim ignores the text as it stands.”19 Indeed, Jan Lambrecht has argued that a Christocentric reading of the psalms in this passage imply that Christ is the subject of the verbs supplied from these texts.20 It may be the case that God is the subject of the subjection verb in vv. 27c and 28c, but Paul clearly indicates this identification in the context of distinguishing God from Christ, who is the indirect object of God’s action in both cases.21 That chiasm is present here or that chiastic logic is operative is far from certain, as Lambrecht has extensively critiqued this approach and suggested instead that the structure of vv. 23–28 is one of a thesis (vv. 23–24) followed by explanation of the thesis’s points (vv. 25–28), which better explains the parallels in certain parts of this text without forcing specifically chiastic parallels.22 The passive verbs in vv. 25 and 26 need not signal a change of subject, since they serve well enough to signal a shift in emphasis to the fate of death.23 The insistence on God as subject because God is the one who raises the dead ignores the aforementioned point about the larger context describing Christ’s action as being like a general who implements and exercises the power of his king, so that Christ communicates resurrection life that he himself has received (vv. 22, 45). Furthermore, Joseph Plevnik has argued that the cautionary explanation in v. 27bc that the Father is not included in being subjected to Christ would make sense only if Christ has been the subject of the verbs to this point.24 Indeed, the overall case seems to favor Christ as the subject of the verbs until clear indications of a shift with the dative case appear in vv. 27c and 28c.
Still, others have suggested a mixed interpretation. L. Joseph Kreitzer argues that the overall parallelism of vv. 27–28 implies a continuity of subject for the verbs.25 This incorporates Plevnik’s type of argument but undermines the force of his conclusion by recognizing a switch where Plevnik does not expect. For the overall text in question, he asserts that it, “contains a unique, blending of christocentricity and theocentricity. We see the christocentric facet first in vv. 23 to 26 and the theocentric facet next in vv. 27 to 28. It is perhaps not surprising that these same verse divisions (vv. 23-26 and 27-28) embody the references to Ps. 110.1 and Ps. 8.6 respectively.”26 Scott M. Lewis argues similarly, noting that the key verbal action in vv. 24–26, where Christ is the subject, is καταργέω, whereas the key verbal action in vv. 27–28, where God the Father is the subject, is ὑποτάσσω.27 He summarizes this interpretation as meaning, “Christ would be the one to whom all things are subjected, but God would be the ultimate agent and source of power, protecting both Christ’s status and mission and God’s sovereignty. This harmonizes well with apocalyptic theology, which places all ultimate power and interventive force in the hands of God, with the Messiah acting as an agent.”28 This is a suitable theological summary, but it is still difficult to grapple with the change in verbs being a signal for the change in subject when there is no other clear indication of a shift. Even so, I think these arguments are on the right track. But I propose that the blending factor goes deeper.
While it may aid interpretation to be more precise as to who is at the fore of Paul’s referents, it is also important not to overemphasize the distinction, since Paul’s apparent vagueness on this matter may be part of his point. In his Christocentric reading of the psalms, Paul is surely aware as he reads Christ to be the fulfillment of these texts that it is God who subjects on behalf of the figure referred to in these passages. Is he deliberately changing the subject of the action (in one or both cases) or is he instead amplifying or augmenting it? As the ideal ruler and image-bearer, Christ receives God’s action, but he also acts on God’s behalf to establish this subjection. In the same way, he participates in God’s action of giving life and defeating death by communicating resurrection life that he has received. Paul seems to be intentional about narrowing the distinction and collapsing the distance of God and Christ, as Christ is the conduit of divine action in resurrection. In the same way, the clearest indication of subject shift in vv. 27c and 28 could signal the need to think through the previous verses with an extra theological layer of God’s action. David Garland memorably states this point: “It is impossible for Paul to think of Christ’s acting independently of God, or of God’s acting independently of Christ, or of one doing all the work while the other does nothing.”29 In Paul’s blurring of the distinction in the agent of these psalms, he may well be supplying the roots of later doctrines of the unity of divine action (opera trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa). There may be good reason for thinking that one is primary in a certain action, but Paul does not describe a case in which God and Christ are not both involved.
This blurring and blending, without totally collapsing the distinction also befits early Christian worship (e.g., Rom 9:5; 11:36; 1 Cor 8:6). As Larry Hurtado observes, “The resurrection-faith attested in the NT reflects the conviction that God has acted in a novel way that gives a new direction to history and redefines Jesus also in a remarkably more exalted way. However central Jesus was in early Christian faith, that centrality was not simply based on what Jesus did and said, but was also heavily based on what God was believed to have done.”30 That faith led to the conviction expressed in worship that Jesus was worthy of honor equal to God, or rather, that worshipping Jesus was necessary to worshipping God, and this is according to the will of the God who so harshly rebuffed idolatry.31
Another point requires further comment, namely, Christ’s action of subjecting himself in v. 28 upon transferring his kingdom to God. R. C. H. Lenski insists that, “This transfer indicates no subordination of the Son to the Father as little as the transfer of the rule to Christ originally involved a subordination of the Father to the Son. All three persons rule now and forever because of the oneness of their being, yet per eminentiam Christ rules now, the Father eventually.”32 While true, it is not so much the transfer that has posed the subordinationist problem for interpreters, but the act of subjection. The middle form of the verb is significant in indicating self-subjection. It implies that this is a voluntary action on the part of the Son in unison with and realization of the will of God, now that the messianic reign has served its purpose of implementing God’s resurrecting power. The oneness of will further contrasts Jesus with the myths that the Corinthians would have known all too well, including stories of Kronos dethroning Ouranos, only for Zeus to dethrone him, and for Zeus to thus be leery of his own seed (who seem to have been as numerous as trees in a forest).33 Christ as the Son of God is no usurper, unlike the gods the Corinthians knew, nor as the Last Adam and new progenitor of humanity is he like Adam attempted to be in his disobedience. By the same token, as R. B. Jamieson notes, “If the fact of Jesus’ crucifixion does not efface his identity as ‘Lord of glory’ (2.8), neither does his last-day submission to God the Father.”34 Indeed, both events testify to the oneness of will between the Son and the Father, leading to the dispensation of the indwelling Holy Spirit and resurrection life, in reversal of Adam’s pursuit of his own will, which led to the dispensation of sin and the death that separates from God.
To flesh out this last point a little further, it is necessary to return to the statement on the fate of death in v. 26, which is the final precondition before the climactic statement of v. 28. The fate of death as being doomed to destruction, and this concept being placed in parallel to subjection, resembles what Paul says elsewhere about Jesus’s resurrecting power as being one and the same with his power to subjugate (Phil 3:20–21). From ancient times, interpreters have recognized this destruction of death as being resurrection to everlasting life (Irenaeus, Haer. 3.23.7).35 Jesus exercises this power to resurrect as God’s agent, and so we see here an implicit appeal to the second foundation of God’s inexorable, faithful love.
If death, alongside sin (vv. 16–17, 56–57), is an enemy opposing the purpose of God regarding God’s people and God’s creation, then God’s inexorable, faithful love dictates that God will defeat death with resurrection. If death is the last enemy destroyed, then the general resurrection brings in the unopposed reign of God, much as Jesus’s resurrection inaugurated the eschatological kingdom of God. Paul Gardner summarizes the logic of vv. 25–28 well as indicating that, “The end result of God’s overcoming death in Christ, and of Christ’s vanquishing all God’s enemies, is that God reigns supreme. If there is no resurrection of the dead, it is the very reign of God himself that has been denied.”36 After all, like the kingdom promises, the resurrection is rooted in the faithful love of the God of creation and covenant.37 This text thus also appeals to the fifth foundation of kingdom and new creation, which will come to its fruition in v. 28 alongside the appeal to the second foundation.
The inexorable purpose of God—which is the exercise of God’s faithful love—is the goal toward which this passage builds: that God might be all in all (πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν; v. 28). This statement bears only a superficial resemblance to Stoic pantheism, since it otherwise lacks any of the supporting Stoic cosmological structure and emerges from a distinctly Jewish eschatological foundation.38 Some have argued that the sense of this statement is more mystical in that it indicates the direct relationship with God and the participation of all things in God.39 In this vein, David E. Fredrickson has memorably argued—after an extensive review of the primary literature in which this phrase and similar ones appeared—that this phrase was a phrase of personal relation, bespeaking the love and devotion implied in being “all things” to someone.40 He summarizes the logic of Paul in vv. 27–28 as meaning that:
When all things have been subordinated to Christ—that is, when all things receive their identity from their participation in the Son—then there will be no barriers for God to be in direct and personal relation with all of creation as the Father is directly related to the Son. In other words, God becoming all things to all is made possible by the participation of all things in Christ, whose identity is generated in his filial relation to the Father.41
However, Dieter Zeller has noted the problem with this idea. Fredrickson’s reading requires that one read this phrase in a subjective fashion (“he is all things to creation”), but the phrase in Paul is part of an objective statement about God.42 While the mystical interpretation is not necessarily incorrect, it is incomplete, especially as Fredrickson formulates it in opposition to the kingdom interpretation. In the context of a passage where Paul has been speaking about the kingdom, and about the Son handing over the kingdom immediately prior to this statement, the phrase most likely refers to God’s universal kingship in the eschatological kingdom (cf. Zech 14:9).43
As the logic of vv. 23–28 makes clear, the goal of resurrection is the eschatological kingdom of God, in which God will be all in all. What Paul has stated about God’s universal kingship in relation to resurrection reflects other Pauline statements about kingdom/kingship and resurrection (Rom 8:9–23; Eph 1:7–14; Col 1:15–20). It is also similar to the influential kingdom expectation of Dan 7, which similarly describes a representative of God’s people receiving the kingdom of God.44 The major difference in Paul—besides the explicit influence of resurrection on this picture—is that the inaugurated eschatology of Paul’s framework requires another step in this process, where the representative is now the agent of God’s subjugation of enemies and is one who will subject himself to God in contrast to the rebellious ones. The consummation of God’s kingdom will only be made possible when the executor of God’s will in heaven and on earth unifies creation in accordance with God’s will and nullifies all opposition to that will.45 A cosmos in which God is all in all can only come to be when God’s image-bearers are conformed to Christ rather than to Adam, to the death-conquering life that is of God rather than to the death that separates from God. Only then can the grand narrative be brought full circle and God’s creation fulfill God’s creative will of a world of proper order with God as Lord and the image-bearers as true, subjected image-bearers at one with God’s will in representing him.
C. E. Hill, “Paul’s Understanding of Christ’s Kingdom in I Corinthians 15:20-28,” NovT 30 (1988): 297–320. Cf. Alexander E. Stewart, “The Temporary Messianic Kingdom in Second Temple Judaism and the Delay of the Parousia,” JETS 59 (2016): 255–70; Hans-Alwin Wilcke, Das Problem eines messianischen Zwischenreichs bei Paulus, ATANT 51 (Zürich: Zwingli, 1967), 56–108.
Anthony J. Chvala-Smith, “The Boundaries of Christology: 1 Corinthians 15:20–28 and Its Exegetical Substructure” (PhD diss., Marquette University, 1993), 132–74; Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians, PNTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Cambridge: Apollos, 2010), 768–69; R. B. Jamieson, “1 Corinthians 15.28 and the Grammar of Paul’s Christology,” NTS 66 (2020): 203–4; Nicholas A. Meyer, Adam’s Dust and Adam’s Glory in the Hodayot and the Letters of Paul: Rethinking Anthropogony and Theology, NovTSup 168 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 170–71; Jeffrey Earl Peterson, “The Image of the Man from Heaven: Christological Exegesis in 1 Corinthians 15:45–49” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1997), 62–63; Eckhard J. Schnabel, Der erste Brief des Paulus an die Korinther, Historisch Theologische Auslegung (Wuppertal: Brockhaus, 2006), 922, 940; Wolfgang Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther (1 Kor. 15,1-16,24), EKKNT 7/4 (Düsseldorf: Benziger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2001), 156–57; N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 28.
On the linking of these texts, see Martin Hengel, “Psalm 110 und die Erhöhung des Auferstandenen zur Rechten Gottes,” in Anfänge der Christologie: Festschrift für Ferdinand Hahn zum 65. Geburstag, ed. Cilliers Breytenbach and Henning Paulsen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991), 57–66.
Chvala-Smith, “Boundaries,” 137–38.
Chvala-Smith, “Boundaries,” 149–55. It is an interesting coincidence, if nothing else, that death is the fourth entity Paul lists after the plural figures of principalities, powers, and authorities.
Martinus C. de Boer, “Paul’s Use of a Resurrection Tradition in 1 Cor 15,20-28,” in The Corinthian Correspondence, ed. R. Bieringer, BETL 125 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1996), 639–51; David R. Kirk, “Seeds and Bodies: Cosmology, Anthropology and Eschatology in 1 Corinthians 15:35–49” (PhD diss., University of Aberdeen, 2015), 155–56. Paul seems to derive the elided πάντας in v. 25 from Ps 8:6, which further tightens this collocation. On the grammatical changes in these references, see Chvala-Smith, “Boundaries of Christology,” 85–103; David M. Hay, Glory at the Right Hand: Psalm 110 in Early Christianity (Nashville: Abingdon, 1973), 36–37; Jan Lambrecht, “Paul’s Christological Use of Scripture in 1 Cor. 15.20-28,” NTS 28 (1982): 508–11.
See other examples of this imagery in Kenneth E. Bailey, Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes: Cultural Studies in 1 Corinthians (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2011), 446–47.
Schnabel, Korinther, 939.
On the king functioning in a priestly capacity in Israel, see 2 Sam 6:14, 17–18; 8:18; 1 Kgs 8:14, 55, 62–64.
For more on this text and Gen 1, see Rodolphe Morissette, “La citation du Psaume VIII, 7b dans I Corinthiens XV, 27a,” ScEs 24 (1972): 330–32.
On how this text fits within a larger tradition thoroughly shaped by this gospel narrative and its progression, see Roger Paul Lucas, “The Time of the Reign of Christ in 1 Corinthians 15:20-28 in Light of Early Christian Session Theology” (PhD diss., Andrews University, 1997), 197–244.
Meyer, Adam’s Dust and Adam’s Glory, 165.
F. W. Grosheide, Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953), 367–69; Hay, Glory, 60–61; Uta Heil, “Theo-logische Interpretation von 1 Kor 15,23-28,” ZNW 84 (1993): 30–31; Joost Holleman, Resurrection and Parousia: A Traditio-Historical Study of Paul’s Eschatology in 1 Corinthians 15, NovTSup 84 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 59; Lidija Novakovic, Raised from the Dead According to Scripture: The Role of Israel’s Scripture in the Early Christian Interpretations of Jesus’ Resurrection, T&T Clark Jewish and Christian Texts 12 (London: Bloomsbury; T&T Clark, 2012), 160–61; Schnabel, Korinther, 934.
Heil, “Theo-logische Interpretation,” 30–31.
Holleman, Resurrection and Parousia, 59; Novakovic, Raised, 161.
Heil, “Theo-logische Interpretation,” 29–30. Cf. B. J. Oropeza, 1 Corinthians, NCCS (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2017), 207–8. For more extensive arguments for a chiastic structure, see Hill, “Paul’s Understanding,” 300–302; Meyer, Adam’s Dust and Adam’s Glory, 169–72.
Heil, “Theo-logische Interpretation,” 32; Holleman, Resurrection and Parousia, 60; Novakovic, Raised, 160.
Chvala-Smith, “Boundaries,” 89; Raymond F. Collins, First Corinthians, SP 7 (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1999), 554; Hans Conzelmann, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, trans. James W. Leitch, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 273–74; Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, rev. ed., NICNT (Grand Rapids; Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2014), 837; L. Joseph Kreitzer, Jesus and God in Paul’s Eschatology, JSNTSup 19 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987), 149–50; Joseph Plevnik, Paul and the Parousia: An Exegetical and Theological Investigation (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1997), 130–33; Sebastian Schneider, Auferstehen: Eine neue Deutung von 1 Kor 15, FB 105 (Würzburg: Echter, 2005), 189–94.
Chvala-Smith, “Boundaries,” 89.
Lambrecht, “Christological Use,” 508–11.
Chvala-Smith, “Boundaries,” 96.
Jan Lambrecht, “Structure and Line of Thought in 1 Cor. 15:23-28,” NovT 32 (1990): 143–51.
Lambrecht, “Christological Use,” 510.
Plevnik, Paul, 133.
Kreitzer, Jesus and God, 150.
Kreitzer, Jesus and God, 151.
Scott M. Lewis, So That God May Be All in All: The Apocalyptic Message of 1 Corinthians 15:12-34 (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1998), 66. For his overall argument, see Lewis, All in All, 63–66.
Lewis, All in All, 66. Cf. Morissette, “La citation,” 335.
David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 712. Cf. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, First Corinthians, AB 32 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 574; Schrage, Korinther, 175–78.
Larry W. Hurtado, “Jesus-Devotion and the ‘Historical’ Jesus: The Resurrection of Jesus as a Test-Case,” RCT 36 (2011): 127.
Also see Larry W. Hurtado, “Resurrection-Faith and the ‘Historical’ Jesus,” JSHJ 11 (2013): 35–52.
R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul's First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1963), 675. Cf. Jamieson, “1 Corinthians 15.28,” 201: “That Jesus’ deputised reign as Messiah has an end point no more contradicts his divinity than does the fact that it has a starting point.”
Both the ancient Didymus of Alexandria, Fr. 1 Cor. 15:27–28 (Karl Staab, ed., Pauluskommentare aus der griechischen Kirche, 2nd ed. [Münster: Aschendorff, 1984], 8) and the modern Jean Héring, The First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, trans. A. W. Heathcote and P. J. Allcock (London: Epworth, 1962), 168 make this point. Cf. Wayne A. Meeks, “The Temporary Reign of the Son: 1 Cor 15:23-28,” in Texts and Contexts: Biblical Texts in Their Textual and Situational Contexts, Essays in Honor of Lars Hartman, ed. Tord Fornberg and David Hellholm (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1995), 801–11.
Jamieson, “1 Corinthians 15.28,” 200.
Cf. Pheme Perkins, Resurrection: New Testament Witness and Contemporary Reflection (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 225.
Paul Gardner, 1 Corinthians, ZECNT (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018), 685. Cf. Schnabel, Korinther, 941.
Cf. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Progress and End of History, Life after Death, and the Resurrection of the Human Person in Christianity,” trans. David W. Lutz, in Progress, Apocalypse, and Completion of History and Life after Death of the Human Person in the World Religions, ed. Peter Koslowski (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 2002), 87.
Kirk, “Seeds,” passim; Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids; Cambridge: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000), 1239; N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, vol. 4 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 1093, 1386–406.
Timothy A. Brookins and Bruce W. Longenecker, 1 Corinthians 10-16: A Handbook on the Greek Text, BHGNT (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016), 161; Martin Luther, “Commentary on 1 Corinthians 15,” 1 Corinthians 7, 1 Corinthians 15, Lectures on 1 Timothy, Luther’s Works 28, ed. Hilton C. Oswald (St. Louis: Concordia, 1973), 146; Archibald Robertson and Alfred Plummer, First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, 2nd ed., ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1914), 358.
David E. Fredrickson, “God, Christ, and All Things in 1 Corinthians 15:28,” WW 18 (1998): 254–63.
Fredrickson, “God,” 263.
Dieter Zeller, “Die Formel εἶναι τὰ πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν (1 Kor 15,28),” ZNW 101 (2010): 150–51.
Origen, Princ. 1.7.5; John Chrysostom, Hom. 1 Cor. 39.11; Severian of Gabala, In Ps. 96; Augustine, Civ. 22.30; Ambrosiaster, Comm. 1 Cor. 15:27b–28; Theodoret, Comm. 1 Cor. 15:27–28; E.-B. Allo, Saint Paul: Première Èpitre aux Corinthiens, 2nd ed. (Paris: Librairie Lecoffre, 1956), 409; C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, BNTC (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1968), 361; Karl Barth, The Resurrection of the Dead, trans. H. J. Stenning (New York; London: Revell, 1933), 170; Chvala-Smith, “Boundaries,” 263–68; Ciampa and Rosner, Corinthians, 778–79; Collins, First Corinthians, 550, 555; Conzelmann, Corinthians, 275; M. E. Dahl, The Resurrection of the Body: A Study of I Corinthians 15, SBT 1/36 (London: SCM, 1962), 78–79; Fee, Corinthians, 841–42; Fitzmyer, First Corinthians, 575; Gardner, 1 Corinthians, 685; Garland, 1 Corinthians, 714; Grosheide, Corinthians, 370; Héring, Corinthians, 168; Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993), 556–57; Jacob Kremer, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, RNT (Regensburg: Pustet, 1997), 346; Andreas Lindemann, Der erste Korintherbrief, HNT 9/1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 349; Meyer, Adam’s Dust and Adam’s Glory, 173; Morissette, “La citation,” 335–39; Oropeza, 1 Corinthians, 209; William F. Orr and James Arthur Walther, 1 Corinthians, AB 32 (New York: Doubleday, 1976), 334; Robertson and Plummer, Corinthians, 353; Schnabel, Korinther, 940–41; Schneider, Auferstehen, 195; Schrage, Korinther, 187–89; Thiselton, Corinthians, 1237–39; Emma Wasserman, “Gentile Gods at the Eschaton: A Reconsideration of Paul’s ‘Principalities and Powers’ in 1 Corinthians 15,” JBL 136 (2017): 743–45; Johannes Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief, KEK 9 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1910), 361–62; Christian Wolff, Der erste Brief des Paulus an die Korinther, THKNT 7 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2000), 390; N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, vol. 3 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 336–37; Zeller, “Die Formel,” 152. For more on the new creation resonances of this text, see Georges Steveny, “DIEU TOUT ET EN TOUS <<PANTA EN PASIN>> dans 1 Co 15.28,” in Creation, Life, and Hope: Essays in Honor of Jacques B. Doukhan, ed. Jiří Moskala (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2000), 191–208.
Chvala-Smith, “Boundaries,” 257–63.
Meyer, Adam’s Dust and Adam’s Glory, 173.