"All authority in heaven and earth has been given to Me" (Matt 28:18). From this statement, one-kingdom advocates argue that Christ now rules everything. He is the king of all the nations already because this statement suggests that there is nothing that does not belong to him. Other texts make similar statements, such as 1 Peter 3:22 and Ephesians 1:22. 1 Peter 3:22 states: "[Jesus Christ,] who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him." The oft repeated Kuyperian quotation proclaims, "There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!"
This statement is true enough in its proclamation but likely not really understood biblically by Kuyper and those who follow him. The reason why I say that is that there are two factors often missed by one-kingdom advocates. The first is understanding a figure of speech called prolepsis. This is the idea that something that has not yet taken place can be stated in a way so as to present it as having already taken place. This is often used to state the absoluteness of something occurring in the future. If it has already been done, there is no undoing it. It is going to happen. The second is a failure to identify what is being talked about when the Scripture discusses Christ's supremacy over all things. I would suggest that the Bible presents a sovereign rule of God that pictures Him as reigning over all things cosmically but only directing localized spiritual and physical authorities over the earth. So even though the devil is the god of this age, for instance, God says what he can and cannot do, but he still maintains his localized dominion over the earth. God is the emperor but the devil a king over planet earth. God rules over Israel alone as its king, preserving a people for Himself (Deut 32:8-9).
First, we need to look at Scriptures that indicate that Christ's supremacy over all things does not mean that all things are currently subject to him or that he directly rules all things as their localized ruler/king.
Hebrews 2:5-8 states the following:
For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. (Heb 2:5-8)
The context makes it clear, as well as the explicit statement in v. 9, that Auctor is applying this passage to Jesus. The "him" who does not currently reign, even though all things were subject to him, is Jesus. Why is this? Because, Auctor explains in v. 5, it is the world to come, not the present world that has been subjected to him. So he uses the phrase that God subjected all things to him, but then explains that this is the world to come, not the present world that is not currently in subjection to him.
So what is the authority given to Christ in Matthew 28:18? And why do texts like Ephesians 1:19-23 and 1 Peter 3:22 seem to suggest that all things have been subject to Christ already and other texts suggest that he has not yet subjected these things to himself?
For instance, 1 Corinthians 15:23-28 states that all things have been subjected to Christ and in the same breath Paul tells us that all things are not yet subjected to him and need to still be subjected to him in the future at which point he will hand the kingdom back over to the Father.
The fact that the world to come is the world being subjected to Christ, and that everything in this current world has been subjected to Christ already, and yet there are rulers and authorities, and even the physical world (Phil 3:21; Rom 8:19-23), that are not yet subject to him, means that at least one of the two options I presented are happening here. Either it is a case of prolepsis or Christ's supremacy refers to the position the Father has over the cosmos, not the lower regencies of the earth.
In some instances, it is a matter of prolepsis. Christ is given all things but does not yet currently have all things in his possession. In other words, he has the deed to the house but hasn't evicted the squatters yet. Those squatters have legal rights to the house still. They are the previous occupants. In this case, they are the previous localized rulers of the world, angelic and Satanic powers that were given the domain of the world in the fall of the world to the devil (Gen 3) and in the dividing up of the nations at the fall of Babel (Gen 11:1-9; Deut 32:8-9), keeping only Israel for himself, since he is the king of Israel. This is why Peter's sermon in Acts 2 quotes Psalm 110 yet again and then declares that the entire house of Israel needs to know that God has made Jesus both Messiah and Lord of that house, not David. Hence, God has restored the Davidic king to his throne, and that throne is the throne of David, the rule of Israel. Yet, Christ also reigns at God's right hand, which we will talk about next. At some point, as the book of Daniel and prophetic books proclaim, Israel with its Messiah at its head will take possession of all of the nations and all of those nations will come and bow down to it. Of course, what we learn from Acts is that Israel, the kingdom of God, is the church of Jesus Christ. So Christ currently rules over the church locally, but the rest of the powers have dominion until he abolishes all rule and authority as 1 Corinthians 15 states. This means that some passages that speak of God having already subjected all things to Christ may be proleptic in that they speak of something that is yet to be accomplished as though it has already been accomplished and currently exists even when it has not yet come about. When Revelation states that Christ was crucified before the foundation of the world, for instance, this is proleptic. Obviously, Christ wasn't literally crucified before the foundation of the world. He wasn't crucified until around A.D. 26-30. However, it is spoken of that way because his crucifixion was a such a sure thing that it was spoken of in a way as though it had already occurred from the "point" it was decreed in eternity past.
Having said this, however, there is another fundamental point that needs to be understood. As I just argued above, Christ is made the king of Israel. He is not made the king of the nations or the world for that matter. The devil is not only the invisible ruler of this world who currently is at work in it as its ruler (Eph 2:2), he is the god of this age (2 Cor 4:4), the age in which Paul is currently existing when he says this after the resurrection of Christ, after Christ has been given all authority in heaven and earth. So Christ is the king of the world but the devil is the king of the world? Christ is the Lord of the world but the devil is the god of this world/age? This makes no sense unless we understand that the terminology of all authority in heaven and earth, subjecting all things, at the right hand of God, etc. refers to Christ taking up the position of the Sovereign Lord God who reigns cosmically over all things as the Father has always reigned cosmically over all things, even while the lower regents of the devil and the fallen angels have ruled the world.
This means that Christ is ruling as King of kings and Lord of lords, i.e., the emperor of the cosmos as the Father once ruled but now has given all authority over the Son to bring about the salvation of the members of his nation, Israel, the church. Hence, he now works all things as God the Father once did. The idea is not that God the Father isn't doing anything now but that there is no disagreement between the Father and the Son in moving all things toward the one goal. This is why 1 Corinthians 15 says that once Christ has put all things under his feet he won't reign in this way anymore. Instead, he must reign until a point in time when he abolishes all of these lower regents. Once he does that, then, the text says, he'll hand the kingdom over to the Father. This is why Jesus states in Revelation 3:21. He doesn't take some other throne. He's not sitting on the devil's throne who clearly has all power in the book so much so that he gives the world power to the empire of Rome and its Caesar and has the authority and right to kill all of the members of Christ's spiritual Israel who reside in his world. The devil, not Christ, is the localized authority over the world. Christ has taken the throne of the Father that is far above all rule and authority as the cosmic King of kings and Lord of lords. He will hand this throne back to the Father once the earthly throne of Israel is all that is left in the world and he returns to rule over the world as the sole ruler of the localized domain.
Again, he is the king of Israel, the Davidic king, in reference to the world, not the king of the whole world as the under-regent of it. He rules all things in terms of directing all things toward the good of his people's salvation, preparing them for the world that Auctor tells us has been subjected to him, the world to come.
Ephesians 1:19-23 states this same bifurcation between the cosmic role of an emperor over the universe versus the localized role where Christ is head of the church, not the new ruler of the domains of the angelic rulers and authorities who are still in power. Christ does not abolish them yet here. Instead, he rules over them as God the Father has always ruled over them cosmically and toward his ultimate goal of the new heavens and earth.
And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Notice that he is made the cosmic ruler over all things but made head over all things in the church. So the entirety of the cosmos is subject to him in the sense that he rules as God the Father has always ruled, even during the localized rule of the devil, but he is made head only over all things in the church when it comes to localized dominion within the world. This means that Christ reigns in the world by reigning over his people who are the church, i.e., Israel. He rules over the cosmos by directing all things toward the goal of their salvation but this includes leaving the current rulers in their places until the time which (the Greek of 1 Cor 15:25).
This whole understanding causes us to read 1 Corinthians 15:23-28 with far more light on what is happening here, so I'm now going to translate this text from the Greek without leaving out what English translations traditionally do.
23 Ἕκαστος δὲ ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ τάγματι· ἀπαρχὴ Χριστός, ἔπειτα οἱ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ αὐτοῦ, 24 εἶτα τὸ τέλος, ὅταν ⸀παραδιδῷ τὴν βασιλείαν τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρί, ὅταν καταργήσῃ πᾶσαν ἀρχὴν καὶ πᾶσαν ἐξουσίαν καὶ δύναμιν. 25 δεῖ γὰρ αὐτὸν βασιλεύειν ἄχρι οὗ θῇ πάντας τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ. 26 ἔσχατος ἐχθρὸς καταργεῖται ὁ θάνατος·* 27 πάντα γὰρ ὑπέταξεν ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ. ὅταν δὲ εἴπῃ °ὅτι πάντα ὑποτέτακται, δῆλον ὅτι ἐκτὸς τοῦ ὑποτάξαντος αὐτῷ τὰ πάντα. 28 ὅταν δὲ ὑποταγῇ αὐτῷ τὰ πάντα, τότε °[καὶ] αὐτὸς ὁ υἱὸς ὑποταγήσεται τῷ ὑποτάξαντι αὐτῷ τὰ πάντα,* ἵνα ᾖ ὁ θεὸς °1[τὰ] πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν. (Kurt Aland et al., Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th Edition. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012), 1 Co 15:23–28).
23 But each in its own order: Christ as firstfruits, then those of Christ at his coming. 24 At that time it is the end: when he hands the kingdom over to the God and Father, when he abolishes all rule and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign until the time which he places the enemies under his feet. 26 Death is the last enemy to be abolished. 27 For He has subjected all things under his feet. But when it says, "for all things have been subjected," it is clear that the One who subjected all things to him is excepted. 28 But when all things are subjected to him then the Son himself will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to him in order that in this God will become all in all.
Now, I could go on all day with this passage but this last phrase is often missed by people. It is not until the time when all rule and authority and power, i.e., the magistrates of the localized world, are abolished that the Son will be again made subject to the Father rather than reigning together with Him on His throne. He is made subject to the Father by becoming the localized ruler of the world after abolishing the other rule and authority, as we also see in Daniel (the rock destroys all of the nations until there are no more nations for any other people except the kingdom of God, then it takes over the world). It is not until this happens that Christ gives over the kingdom/domain/throne he has been ruling, which is his Father's kingdom/domain/throne and takes up his earthly throne over the entire world as the Davidic king of Israel who has conquered the world. And it is only at this time that God will become all in all because right now God is not the God of the world, the devil is. But when Christ takes it back at his return, then God will also rule all things both cosmically and locally, and hence, be all things to all things.
Hence, there are two kingdoms. The kingdom of the devil and the kingdom of God, and it is our job to get as many people as God has chosen into the kingdom of God and prepare them for the new world. It is not our job to try and make the devil's kingdom look more like the kingdom of God. It is our job to disciple individuals in the nations by baptizing them (masculine pronoun not in agreement with "nations" a feminine noun, so showing that its individuals not whole nations btw) and teaching them all that Christ commanded. Christ is preparing the people now. The place is not yet prepared by him but will be.
So I would heartily affirm Kuyper's quotation that there is not one square inch of the world that Christ looks at and doesn't say, "Mine," if it is also understood that there is also not one square inch of the physical world that Christ looks at and has actually taken yet. He captures the souls of his people now so that he might redeem them physically in the creation of the world to come. Hence, in response to his being given authority over all things he tasks the church to do just that: As you go, make disciples, not buildings, not cultures, not governments, not breweries, etc. You can do and should do all these things just as a people, but the church has the task of making disciples because that is the work of the specific kingdom of Christ in this world until the day dawns and the kingdom of men has become the kingdom of our God and His Christ (Rev 11:15-19).
Already, Not Yet.
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