But Christ has indeed
been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For
since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through
a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in
turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.
Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after
he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he
has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is
death. For he "has put everything under his feet." Now when it says
that "everything" has been put under him, it is clear that this does
not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done
this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under
him, so that God may be all in all. (1 Cor 15:20-28, NIV)
Commenting on 1 Cor 15:20-28, D.A. Carson wrote:
The most natural
reading of these verses is that the Son, the exalted God-man, remains, after
the consummation, eternally subject to his Father, no longer the exclusive mediator
of the Father’s sovereignty—though the
final clause, “so that God [not the ‘Father’]
may be all in all,” lays the emphasis on (the Trinitarian) God. (D.A. Carson, “John 5:26: Crux Interpretum for Eternal Generation”
in Fred Sanders and Scott R. Swain, eds. Retrieving
Eternal Generation [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2017], 79-97, here,
p.95, emphasis added)
Carson shows
that he is allowing a man-made dogma to pervert this thinking. After all, “God”
in the New Testament never has a
reference to the Tri-une being, and, furthermore, θεος is almost exclusively used of
the Father (in a handful of cases, the Son, but never the “Tri-une being”—for a
discussion, see Murray J. Harris, Jesus
as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus). Furthermore,
Paul is engaging in a midrash-like expansion/interpretation of Psa 110:1 (LXX:
109:1), so “God” in 1 Cor 15:28 denotes the first Lord of this oracle, namely the
Father, not the Tri-une being/three persons of the Godhead. For a discussion,
see:
Such is a
rather unfortunate happenstance, as Carson is a capable scholar. It does show,
however, the negative effects of holding to a false theology—no matter how
careful an exegete one wishes to be, one will be forced to engage in exegetical
fallacies.
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