Christ's Voluntary Submission and God's Final Supremacy

When all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also himself be subject (1 Corinthians 15:28). Christ's kingdom exists to bring rebels to obedience within God's government. It began virtually with the first human rebellion, when the promise came that "the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head" (Genesis 3:15). After Christ's death and resurrection, His kingdom was actually established, and His ambassadors have besought men to be reconciled to God ever since. This kingdom operates remedially rather than judicially—Christ rules by constraint rather than restraint.

Christ's final subjection of Himself represents not humiliation but the completion of His mediatorial work. When He assumed human nature and submitted to the Cross, His voluntary subjection was never derogatory to His Divinity. Christ was Elohim manifested in flesh. When He yields up the lordship of the mediatorial kingdom, His glory remains unchanged—only the form of administration alters.

The text speaks ultimately of God as "all in all." This does not mean the Son dissolves into the Father, for the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—remains eternally undivided. The mediatorial kingdom's purpose completed, the Divine absoluteness stands revealed through universal, voluntary, glad consent. When Adonai becomes absolutely our "all in all," the Divine will reigns supreme not through force but through the willing hearts of all creation.