1 Corinthians 15:24

“Then the end, when He shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father: when He shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power.”

The εἶτα, then, does not allow us to identify the time of the τέλος, the end, with that of the Advent. Paul would have required to say in that sense τότε, at that time, and not εἶτα, then or thereafter. The εἶτα implies, in the mind of the apostle, a longer or shorter interval between the Advent and what he calls the end.

What is this end? According to Theodoret, Bengel, Meyer, Osiander: the end of the resurrection, the third act of the drama of which we have just seen the first two (the resurrection of Christ and that of believers); consequently the universal resurrection. But would not Paul have qualified the word the end more precisely, if such had been his thought? And would he not have brought out more clearly the relation between this third phase and the two preceding? Used without qualification, as it is here, the end must designate the end absolutely speaking, πάντων τὸ τέλος, the end of all things, as Peter puts it (1 Ephesians 4:7), the goal of the entire economy of education, redemption, and sanctification, the time when God's thought shall be at length fully realized in regard to man, come to his perfect stature in Christ. Chrysostom explains: the end of the present age; which is true only if we include within the present age the whole interval between the Advent and the end; Holsten: the end of this created world, which, when believers have once been removed by resurrection to a higher world and hostile powers vanquished, has no more value and passes away. This critic rightly points out the mistake of Meyer, who thinks that Paul makes the present age end at the Advent, failing to remember that so long as death is not destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26), the present age still continues. Besides, the apostle will say positively what he understands by the end in 1 Corinthians 15:28.

And what fact shall mark this solemn epoch which the apostle calls the end? He explains in the following words: when He shall deliver up the kingdom to God and the Father. A reading which is found in two Byz. and in the T. R. runs: “When He shall have delivered up,” ὅταν παραδῷ (the aorist subjunctive). If this were the true reading, the end would not coincide with the delivering up of the kingdom into the hands of the Father; it would follow it. But this reading is too weakly supported and has not sufficiently appreciable intrinsic superiority to make it preferable to that of the Alex. and Greco-Lat. documents. The latter read παραδιδοῖ or παραδιδῷ (two equivalent forms of the present subjunctive), which signifies: “When He delivers up,” for: “when He shall deliver up. ” According to this reading, what Paul calls the end coincides absolutely with the delivering up of the kingdom into the hands of the Father. The same follows from 1 Corinthians 15:28.

We may understand by βασιλεία (the reign), either the kingdom, the state of things in which God shall reign perfectly, or the kingship, the dominion exercised over this state of things. The second is the more natural meaning according to 1 Corinthians 15:25 (“He must reign till...”) and 1 Corinthians 15:28, where it is said the kingdom of the Father must follow from the cessation of that of the Son.

In the expression: to God and the Father, are contained the two relations of Jesus to God: His subordination to Him as His God and His essential union to Him as His Father.

How will the interval be filled between the Advent and the end when the kingdom shall pass from the Son's hands into those of the Father? This is what the apostle explains in the following words: When He shall have put down all rule...He really uses here the subjunctive aorist, according to all the documents, which proves that he is taking a step backwards. For this aorist is equivalent to our future perfect. It implies that the event which is about to be mentioned will transpire, on the one hand, immediately before the end, on the other, after the Advent. It is obvious how false it is to translate, as is often done: “When He shall have delivered up the kingdom to the Father and put down all powers...” This translation makes two events coincide, which, according to Paul, are successive. The meaning, on the contrary, is: “When He shall deliver up the kingdom to God and the Father, after having put down all powers...” The Advent will therefore be separated from the end (the delivering up of the kingdom) by an epoch of judgment. The word καταργεῖν strictly signifies: to reduce to impotence; hence to put down a power. The powers put down can only be the powers hostile to God and His kingdom; for they are called enemies in 1 Corinthians 15:25, and their fall is the condition of the establishment of the Divine kingdom (1 Corinthians 15:28). It has been thought that the reference here was to earthly powers (Calvin, Grotius); but the terms used by the apostle are so frequently employed by him to designate the invisible powers which contend against God and which seek to drag mankind into their opposition to His kingdom (comp. Romans 8:38; Colossians 1:13; Colossians 1:16; Colossians 2:15; Ephesians 2:2; Ephesians 6:11-12), that it is impossible to depart from this almost technical meaning. What confirms this explanation is, that in 1 Corinthians 15:26 death personified is ranked among the powers put down by the reigning and judging Christ. By ἀρχή, command, may be understood the superior beings who, in this invisible domain, exercise command over the others; the ἐξουσίαι designate authorities armed with legal qualification; δυνάμεις, the executive forces. The πᾶσαν, all, is not repeated with the third term, which would have been monotonous.

Such, then, will be the use of the interval between the Advent and the end. This period of judgment will only end with the complete reduction of the last enemy; and it must be so, for such is the declaration of Scripture.