God all in all-- this will be the grand conclusion of the great drama of the world's history and of Christ's redemption. There will come a day - the glory is such we can form no conception of it, the mystery is so deep we cannot realize it - when the Son shall deliver up the Kingdom that God gave Him and which He won with His own blood and established and perfected from the throne of His glory. "He shall deliver up the Kingdom unto the Father ... that God may be all in all."

All in all -- such is the grand goal of our God! He will yet be everything to everyone of His creatures, as it is fitting He should be. Nothing less will satisfy His heart for "He has created all things, and for His pleasure they are and were created" (Rev. 4:11). Nothing less will vindicate His love or form a fit conclusion for the sin and sorrow and death of the ages. Let us with joy believe it! Let us exult as we receive it! Let us be "laborers together with God" to accomplish it! May this simple phrase, that the smallest child can utter, become the very basis of our being, the background of every act, the key to every occurrence, a light in every darkness, a balm for every wound, and our ages-lasting consolation and good hope.

Let us awake from the terrifying nightmare of Babylon's delusions and let us wing our spirits to God's glorious consummation. Here is a vision worthy of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ - GOD ALL IN ALL. And now, this ultimate reality must begin in us who have received the call to sonship. If this is what fills the heart of Christ; if this expresses the one end of the work of Christ, then, if I would have the spirit of Christ in me, the motto of my life must be: Everything made subject and swallowed up in Him "that God may be all in all." What a life that will be when that really becomes our banner! To serve the Father fully, wholly, only, to have Him all in all! I am praying, believing, and pressing on "that God may be all in all;" that the day of glory may be hastened. I am fighting the good fight of faith, and the Holy Spirit makes His wrestling within me with unutterable longing, "that God may be all in all."

Would that all the saints of God realized with what a grand cause we are working and praying; that all had some conception of the Kingdom we are partakers of, and what a manifestation of God we are preparing for! That He is not All in all at the present is quite obvious, for only a fraction have faintly felt that God was indeed ALL to them. Some have known Him as their Saviour, some have experienced Him as their healer, some have received gracious gifts from His hands, some have acknowledged Him as their Lord, some have found Him as their ALL. Happy are they who know Him thus! They have tasted of the cup ineffable, which quenches every thirst and brims with every blessing.

I am living for this, that Christ may have the Kingdom to deliver up to the Father, and then God will be all in all. I am living for Him, and I shall be there not only as a witness, but I will have a part in it all. The Kingdom delivered up, the Son made subject, and God all in all! I shall have a part in it and in adoring worship share the glory and blessedness. Let us take this home to our hearts that it may rule our lives - this one thought, this one faith, this one aim, this one joy: Christ lived and died and reigns; I live and die and in His power I reign only for this one thing, "that God may be all in all!" Everything in history is moving inexorably toward a day when Jesus will have conquered everything and everyone. Like a mountain of soil before a gigantic bulldozer steadily moving forward, all that can be conquered is being collected into the loving arms of Jesus, whose right it is to rule. He will then turn it over to God the Father "that God may be All in All."

When Christ ascended on high after His resurrection, He led many captives out of the pit and also set forth this greater purpose: "Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things " (Eph. 4:9-10). The message is clear - redemption does not include only the salvation of mankind, as wonderful and glorious as that aspect is, but it also includes the complete transformation of the entire universe so that God shall fill all things. There shall not be left one corner of this vast universe where He shall not be Lord and King. Everything everywhere shall be restored to the beautiful harmony and order of the love of God. Indeed, HE SHALL FILL ALL THINGS SO THAT "GOD MAY BE ALL IN ALL."

V. Gelesnoff wrote:

"The current Evangelical Theology involves in its system belief in the deathlessness of sin, the indestructibility of error, and permanence of evil. That though there was a time in the history of the universe when sin in any shape or form did not exist, when no cry of pain or sense of guilt darkened the all-extensive bliss and holiness of creation, yet since sin has once effected an entrance into such a scene, it has come in NEVER TO GO OUT AGAIN, indestructible, unconquerable, ineradicable, endless. Absolute happiness and sinlessness have forever vanished like the phantom of a dream. The 'eternal state' is a universe endlessly finding room for myriads of souls rolling and writhing in the burning agonies of ceaseless flame, eternally sinful, vile and morally hideous. It pictures the final perfection (?) yet to be attained as having room for a vast cesspool of immoral and degraded beings, continually existing in opposition to God.

"This system of doctrine, though as old as man, as venerable as the tradition, as hoary as the pyramids, as 'orthodox' as anything in ancient or modern theology, is a misconception, a travesty of God's character, a caricature of His wisdom, and must be relegated to the scrapheap of ancestral error.

"Gladly do we turn from this figment of natural reason to the grand, simple statements of the unadorned Word of God. It looks forward to a time when God shall be all in all, when heaven and earth shall be purged from every stain of sin's pollution. It anticipates that glad occasion when every heart shall beat in unison with the heart of God; every mind shall harmonize with the Divine Wisdom and Purpose; every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord"

While we praise God for every moving of His Spirit and each step of His all-wise plan, the fact remains that none of the revivals of history have ever once-for-all defeated satan, sin, and death. No revival in any land has turned the whole world to God! No dealing of God with humanity has ever brought to pass the total triumph of His Kingdom in all realms! Sin and death still stalk across the earth, the vast masses of humanity held tight in their terrible clutches. Is there no deliverance for these? How truly the whole creation groans and travails in pain together, waiting, not for another Luther, nor another Paul, nor another Finney, nor another Peter, nor another Moody; waiting not for another Pentecost, nor for another healing campaign, nor for another prophet. "For the earnest expectation of the creation waits for THE MANIFESTATION OF THE SONS OF GOD" (Rom. 8:19). And why does all creation wait with bated breath, standing on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of God's Sons coming into their own? "For the creation itself ALSO shall be delivered ... INTO THE GLORIOUS LIBERTY OF THE SONS OF GOD!" (Rom. 8:21). Praise God!

Thank God, Dan 7:27 is really true! "And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom, under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve Him!" Thank God, Eph. 1:10 is actually the fully inspired Word of God! "And this is in harmony with God's merciful purpose for the Government of the world when the times are ripe for it - the purpose which He has cherished in His own mind of restoring the whole creation to find its one Head in Christ; yes, things in heaven and things on earth, to find their one Head IN HIM" (Weymouth).

A little seed is the beginning of a great tree. A mustard seed becomes a tree in which the birds of the air can nestle. That great day of which our text speaks, when Christ shall deliver up the Kingdom to the Father, and God shall be All in All - that is the great tree of the Kingdom of God reaching its perfect consummation and glory. Oh, beloved, let us take the seed of that glory into our hearts and let us bow in lowly surrender and submission, saying "Amen, Lord; this be my one thought, this be my life - to yield myself to the unutterable yearnings of the Holy Spirit that I may not rest, but ever keep my vision set on that day the day of glory, when in very deed God shall be ALL IN ALL." God help everyone who reads these lines, God help us all to yield ourselves to Him, that we may be in the fullest and total sense the firstfruits of His redemption. Amen!

WILL GOD BE -

ALL in Few?...ALL in Many?...ALL in Most?...

SOME in Some?...SOME in All?...

or - ALL in ALL?...
You can count on it! That is God's plan!