What Does 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 mean?

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24 Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For he “has put everything under his feet.”[c] 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. 28 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.

Recall that the earliest chapters of the Bible took place in ancient Sumer. Concerning the Sumer, Thorkild Jacobsen writes:

Under the early political forms, which are here reflected, the king (lugal) was usually a young man whose task it was to lead the army in war. The supreme ruler was an older, experiences administrator, here Ninurta’s father, Enlil. Thus his military exploits serve to impose and maintain Enlil’s authority. (Thorkild Jacobsen, The Harps that once . . . Sumerian Poetry in Translation (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1987), 236.)

The relationship between Ninurta, the storm god of Sumer, and Enlil is very similar, it seems, between the relationship between Christ and the Father. It is Christ who is also king and who leads God’s armies into battle (Revelation 19:11-16. 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 also seems to echo this relationship.

1 Corinthians 15:24-28 seems to mirror the ancient relationship between the lugal or king and the older, more experienced king of kings or emperor. 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 should not be used to suggest that Christ’s reign ends after He hands His kingdom back over to the Father. For example after Jesus conquers death (1 Corinthians 15:25) he is still shown to be reigning albeit in a role inferior to that of the Father in Revelation 21:23. Ephesians 1:19-21 also makes this idea clear: “That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.” The age to come mentioned in Ephesians 1:21 is the Messianic Age aka the New Jerusalem. In Ephesians 2:6-7 there is mention of not just the coming age, aka the New Jerusalem, but rather “the coming ages.” Are there ages beyond the New Jerusalem? Ephesians 2:6-7 reads, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”

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