 In this Easter season we celebrate God's raising of Jesus from the dead, as we see it explained and expounded in the New Testament Scriptures. But in fact, the Messiah has been raised from the dead as the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For, since it was through a human that death arrived, it's through a human that the resurrection from the dead has arrived. All die in Adam, you see, and all will be made alive in the Messiah. Each, however, in proper order, the Messiah rises as the first fruits. Then those who belong to the Messiah will rise at the time of his royal arrival. Then comes the end, the goal, when he hands over the kingly rule to God the Father, when he has destroyed all rule and all authority and power. He has to go on ruling, you see, until he has put all his enemies under his feet. Death is the last enemy to be destroyed because he has put all things under his feet. But when it says that everything is put in order under him, it's obvious that this doesn't include the one who put everything in order under him. No, when everything is put in order under him, then the Son himself will be placed in proper order under the one who placed everything in order under him, so that God may be all in all. That's a bit of a mouthful, but what Paul is trying to do is to explain the central truth of the resurrection and the big world view which it carries with it, that because of Jesus' resurrection, we now know that the new era of God's long-awaited plan has opened up. The Jewish people in Paul's day talked about the present age and the age to come, and in the age to come they thought everything would be put right and the dead would be raised. And Paul has to tell them that actually the present age and the age to come overlap. The age to come has been launched with the resurrection of Jesus, and now the present age and the age to come are rather awkwardly overlapping with one another. That's where we live with what we theologians call the now and the not yet. And it's very important to get the balance between those two right. Some people want a bit too much now and forget that it's still a matter of labor and struggle and often anguish in prayer. Other people are so concerned about the continuing darkness of the present world that they imply that Jesus will only really be reigning when he comes again in glory at the end of all things. But no, Paul is clear here. He must go on reigning until he's put all his enemies under his feet. In other words, from Jesus' resurrection and ascension, he is already enthroned as the Lord of the world. It's easy to get this wrong because in the Christian creeds that many of us say in our worship every Sunday, we say he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end, as though the kingdom is something which would only start then. No, the kingdom is already launched through Jesus. You can tell that if you have one of those Bibles with cross references because in the middle of this passage, Paul refers to Daniel chapter 7, the time when the Son of Man is exalted so that he now has overtaken all rule and all authority and all power. Matthew does the same thing at the end of his gospel when he has the risen Jesus say, Your authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. And what we find here is the rushing together of the scriptural witness. Paul said at the beginning of the chapter that the Messiah was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. And here we find several bits of Old Testament scripture coming together. Daniel 7, Psalm 2, which is the messianic psalm about the true Davidic king being set in authority over the world. So interestingly, Psalm 8, because this is about Jesus as the human being who is now the world's true Lord. So often people in popular thought and even some unthinking Christians alas imagine that Jesus, well, he was a human being, but then when he died, he was raised from the dead so he sort of went back to being God again, as though his humanity doesn't matter. That's a complete misunderstanding. While Jesus was here with us as a human being, a man among humans, as he died, he was God incarnate. The four gospels make that quite clear as do Paul and the letter to the Hebrews and so on. Equally, the fact that he is now exalted doesn't mean, oh well, that's because he's God. It's also because he is the one of whom Psalm 8 said, what are human beings that you're mindful of them? You have made them little lower than the angels to crown them with glory and honour, putting all things in subjection under their feet. And in the old translation which made that in the singular, it was what is man that you are mindful of him? Paul says, here is the man, here is the human being. He is exalted, as in Adam all die, so in the Messiah all shall be made alive. And we look back at the whole sweep of God's purposes, from Genesis to Revelation. Paul is echoing a lot of Genesis 1, 2 and 3 in this chapter by the way. And we see that when God made the world, he had a specific purpose for human beings within that world. And now it appears that the purpose marked out for humans in the first place was a role designed, a job specification designed if you like, for God's own personal use. He came as the human being to do what had to be done, to establish God's kingdom on earth as in heaven. That's where we live at the moment and will continue until the time when at his second coming, and only at his second coming, all the rest of his people will be raised to new life. And then, at last, the whole creation will be filled, as the prophet said, with the knowledge and glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. This is the time when God will be all in all.