The pattern of spiritual conquest is nothing new. It’s what the church has exhibited from its very beginnings, and Jonathan Edwards traces its outworking through the early centuries with characteristic verve:

‘Though the learning and power of the Roman Empire were so great, and both were employed to the utmost against Christianity; yet all was in vain. They could neither root it out, nor stop its progress. In spite of all, the Kingdom of Christ wonderfully prevailed, and Satan’s heathen kingdom mouldered and consumed away before it … And it was very observable that, for the most part, the more they persecuted the church, the more it increased … Justin Martyr, an eminent father in the christian church, says, that in his days there was no part of mankind, whether Greeks or Barbarians, or by what name soever they were called, where prayers and thanksgivings were not made to the great Creator of the world, through the name of the crucified Jesus.’¹Jonathan Edwards, A History of the Work of Redemption, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 1 (The Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), 591. See Garry J. William, ‘Jonathan Edwards,’ in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 467-72.

Notice the Direction of Travel

The source, trajectory and end-point of Christ’s person and work as prophet, priest and king is God the Father.

John’s prologue closes with the declaration: ‘No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.’²American Standard Version. A literal translation of the Greek text: ho ōn eis ton kolpon tou patros. Kolpon means ‘lap area, side, bosom, chest.’

Jesus Christ, the Word of God incarnate, has come from the bosom of his Father to bring us back to the bosom of his Father.

To his disciples he describes his mission in exactly these terms — the Son coming from the Father to make the Father known: ‘All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him’ (Matt 11:27).

The Handover

In 1 Corinthians 15:20-28 Paul describes the fulfilment of that mission on the Last Day as the ‘consummation of the Fatherhood of the Father.’³Jurgen Moltmann, The Crucified God (SCM Press, 1974) 266.

‘Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power’ (v 24). The Son will hand over the Kingdom to God the Father, and will himself be subject to him, ‘so that God may be all in all’ (v 28).

Why the Father Is the End-Point

Why should the Father be where Christ’s rule terminates?

Not only because of the Trinitarian nature of God, but because — as Paul argues — it’s the nature of the outworking of the cross and resurrection, which is precisely where the passage begins.

Through the consummation of the history of the message of the cross working in our history, we are being re-made in the image of his Son. We are children of God, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters of Christ.

That is: we, his redeemed creation, are being brought into a filial relationship with God. And at the same time, the Son in his kingly work shows his subordination to the Father — so that the promised end is truly the ‘consummation of the Fatherhood of the Father.’

Read those two movements together. We become children. He shows himself Son. And the result is a Father with a family.

Glory

‘Glory’ is the biblical term for the Divine splendour in which the whole creation is to participate at the End.

The history of Christ and the history of the world converge there — not in the abolition of the creature but in its perfection, and not in the dissolving of the Son’s work but in its handing over, complete.

What the Threefold Office Was Always For

It’s worth pausing at the close of this survey to notice what the three offices have been doing all along.

The Prophet spoke for God, and by his Word and Spirit still speaks. The Priest offered himself once for all, and on the strength of that offering still intercedes. The King reigns now at the Father’s right hand, subduing every rival power.

None of the three is a separate department of work. Each is the whole Christ, seen from an angle — and each terminates in the same place.

He reveals the Father. He reconciles us to the Father. He hands the Kingdom to the Father.

The offices differ. The destination does not.

A Family, Not a Court

There’s something worth dwelling on in the language Paul reaches for.

He might have described the end of history in terms of a court — subjects, thrones, dominions, submission. He does use that language, and it’s real: every rule and authority and power destroyed, everything put under his feet.

But the sentence he ends on isn’t about a throne. It’s ‘so that God may be all in all’ — and the shape of the relationship he has been describing throughout is that of a Father with children who bear the family likeness.

The conquest is real. It is a means. And what it clears the ground for is a household.

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• 1
  Jonathan Edwards, A History of the Work of Redemption, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 1 (The Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), 591. See Garry J. William, ‘Jonathan Edwards,’ in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 467-72. ↩︎
• 2
  American Standard Version. A literal translation of the Greek text: ho ōn eis ton kolpon tou patros. Kolpon means ‘lap area, side, bosom, chest.’ ↩︎
• 3
  Jurgen Moltmann, The Crucified God (SCM Press, 1974) 266. ↩︎