“…So that God may be all in all.”

I’m sure you’ve probably had it happen to you at least once, somewhere, sometime, especially when you had a need.  The need: thirst.  The solution: a soda machine.  The need: to relieve oneself.  The solution: a restroom.  The need: to make an emergency call.  The solution: a pay phone (OK, this is increasingly outdated, so it applies only to old people!).  Only one little sign hung on the vending machine or the pay phone or the restroom door prevented the need from being met.  And you know what it said: “Out of order.”

You know what order is.  Order is an arrangement of things for a designed purpose.  If you remember how the Bible starts out, God made everything in a certain chronological order or sequence.  He made certain things in a certain order for a specific reason.  Each creature, for example, had and still has a very precise design to carry out very precise functions.  By the end of Day 6 everything was in place and in order, being and doing what it was supposed to be and do.  And God’s summary was that it was “very good” (Genesis 1:31).

Apparently that didn’t last long.  Enter the wily serpent, a.k.a. the mouthpiece of the devil.  As a result of his deceitful conversation with the Mother of all living, the harmony, the balance, the peace, the order of creation crashed on its way to being burned.  Death roared onto the scene raging and screaming destruction to all that God had made good in the beginning.  What followed was discord, imbalance, war and disorder, the complete antithesis of all that God is.

So what does this have to do with our focus?  In a word, everything.  Set in the great “resurrection” chapter (1 Corinthians 15) of the Bible, God says he will be “all in all” at the culminating point of all prophetical events. Regardless of the specifics of your eschatological leanings (preferred future scenarios), it is difficult to argue that Paul’s summary in verses 20-28 wraps things up.  This is end-game, where time ends and glorious eternity is all that remains.  In that “day” or “time” God will be all in all.

The key to this passage is in verse 23: “order” (NKJV) or “own turn” (NIV).  What keeps God from being all in all right now?  The events that must be fulfilled between now and then.  That’s what Paul covers in these verses.  Each event is a step.  Christ as the firstfruits of the resurrection (vs. 20, 23) was the first step.  Those alive at his coming (v. 23) are the second step.  The third is the coming kingdom (v. 25).  Death being destroyed is the next step.  The subjugation — proper ordering or arranging — of everything follows (vs. 27, 28).  The final step is when Christ submits himself to his Father with everything the way it should be.  In other words, in order.  Once everything is back in alignment, God is all in all.  This much can’t be denied.  God returns to being all in all regarding his creation, assuming he was so before the fall.

At this point we make an interesting observation.  The last time Paul used the word order in this letter was in the last verse of chapter 14.  It is his conclusion about how the main church meeting should be run: orderly.  Beginning in verse 26 we find his instructions.  God’s people came with “a hymn, a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation.”  His instructions list through the remainder of that chapter spell out a word: o-r-d-e-r!  “God is not a God of disorder, but of peace” (v. 33).  The point is, when we meet collectively as a corporate manifestation of his Body, we actually have an opportunity to move in sync with his redemptive plan to become all in all again, and possibly nudge things along toward fulfillment.  But only if we are in order.

Why else would Paul write in Ephesians 1:23, “And he put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (NKJV)?  Here he uses the very same language, but this time indicating that God “fills all in all.”  To what purpose?  That of putting all things back in order so he is once again all in all.  This word “fills” also describes the Spirit’s control over believers in 5:18.  Again, this grand cosmic purpose is the same.

So how is it when you gather with God’s people?  Do you contribute order or disorder?