God All in All

As for the end of the world and the completion of all things, we have already said in earlier pages, as far as we were able and as far as the authority of holy Scripture allowed us, what we think is enough for teaching. Here we will only add a few words of warning, since the order of the inquiry has brought us back to the subject. The highest good, which the whole of rational nature is reaching for, and which is also called the end of all good things, is defined by many philosophers this way: the highest good, they say, is to become as like God as a person possibly can. But I regard that definition not so much as a discovery of theirs as a view taken over from holy Scripture. [a]

Moses points it out before any of the philosophers, when he describes the first creation of man in these words: “And God said, Let us make man in our own image and after our likeness.” Then he adds: “So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them, and he blessed them.” Now the words “in the image of God he created him,” with no mention of the word “likeness,” can mean nothing else than this: that man received the dignity of God’s image at his first creation, but that the perfecting of his likeness was held back for the end. He was to gain it for himself by his own hard work in imitating God. The possibility of reaching perfection was granted him at the beginning, in the dignity of the divine image; the full realization of the divine likeness is reached at the end, by doing the work.

That this is how it stands, the apostle John points out more clearly and beyond mistaking, when he says: “Little children, we do not yet know what we shall be; but if a revelation is made to us from the Savior, you will say without any doubt, we shall be like him.” By these words he shows with the utmost certainty that what is to be hoped for is not only the end of all things, which he says was still unknown to him, but the likeness to God as well, which will be given in proportion to how completely we have deserved it. The Lord himself in the Gospel not only declares that these same things are still to come, but that they are to be brought about by his own asking, since he himself graciously undertakes to obtain them from the Father for his disciples: “Father, I want those also to be with me where I am; and as you and I are one, may they also be one in us.” In these words the divine likeness itself already seems to be moving forward, if we may put it that way — from merely being like, to becoming one and the same; for in the completion, the end, God is beyond doubt “all and in all.” And on this point some raise a question: whether the nature of bodily matter, even when it has been cleansed and purified and made altogether spiritual, does not still seem to stand in the way of reaching the dignity of that likeness, or of belonging to that oneness. For a bodily nature cannot appear capable of any resemblance to a divine nature, which is certainly not bodily; nor can it truly and rightly be called one with it — especially since the truths of our religion teach us that the one case of being one, the Son with the Father, must be referred to something peculiar to that nature.

Since it is promised that in the end God will be all and in all, we must not suppose, as is only reasonable, that animals — sheep or other livestock — arrive at that end; otherwise it would follow that God dwelt even in animals, in sheep or livestock. The same holds for pieces of wood or stones, or it would have to be said that God is in these too. And nothing wicked may be supposed to reach that end either, or, while God is said to be in all things, he would also have to be said to be in a vessel of wickedness. For if we now assert that God is everywhere and in all things, on the ground that nothing can be empty of God, we still do not say that he is now “all things” in those in whom he is. So we must look more carefully at what it is that marks the perfection of blessedness and the end of all things — where God is said not merely to be in all things, but to be “all in all.” Let us ask, then, what all these things are that God is to become in everyone. [h]

In my judgment, the words that say God is “all in all” mean that he is “all” in each individual person. And he will be “all” in each individual in this way: when everything that any rational mind can feel or understand or think — a mind scoured clean of the dregs of every kind of vice, with every cloud of wickedness swept completely away — will be wholly God; when it will no longer look at or hold on to anything but God; when God will be the measure and standard of all its movements. In that way God will be “all,” for there will no longer be any distinction of good and evil, since evil nowhere exists; God is all things, and no evil is near him. Nor will there any longer be a desire to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in a man who is always in possession of good and to whom God is all. So when the end has been brought back round to the beginning, and the finish of things matched against their start, that state of things will be restored in which rational nature was first placed, when it had no need to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When every feeling of wickedness has been taken away, and the individual has been purified and cleansed, then he who alone is the one good God becomes “all” to him — and not in the case of a few individuals, or of a fair number, but he himself is “all in all.” And when death no longer exists anywhere, nor the sting of death, nor any evil at all, then truly God will be “all in all.” [i]

But some are of the opinion that this perfection and blessedness of rational creatures, or natures, can only stay in the condition we have described — that all should possess God and God be all things to them — if they are in no way held back by being joined to a bodily nature. Otherwise, they think, the glory of the highest blessedness is blocked by the mixing in of any material substance. But this subject we have discussed at greater length, as may be seen in the earlier pages.

Now, since we find the apostle mentioning a spiritual body, let us ask, as well as we are able, what idea we are to form of such a thing. As far as our understanding can grasp it, we take a spiritual body to be of a kind that ought to be lived in not only by all holy and perfect souls, but also by all those creatures that will be set free from the slavery of decay. About the body too the apostle has said, “We have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” — that is, in the dwellings of the blessed. From this statement we may form some guess at how pure, how fine, how glorious the qualities of that body are, if we set it beside bodies that are heavenly and of the most brilliant splendor and were nevertheless made with hands and are visible to our sight. But of that body it is said that it is a house not made with hands, and eternal in the heavens. Since, then, “the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are not seen are eternal,” all those bodies that we see, whether on earth or in heaven, which can be seen and have been made with hands and are not eternal, are far surpassed in glory by the one that is not visible, not made with hands, and is eternal. From that comparison we may conceive how great the beauty and splendor and brilliance of a spiritual body are, and how true it is that “what no eye has seen, and no ear heard, and what has not entered the heart of man, God has prepared for those who love him.” [k]

We ought not, however, to doubt that the nature of this present body of ours may, by the will of the God who made it what it is, be raised to those qualities of fineness and purity and splendor, according as the state of things requires and the deserts of our rational nature demand. In fact, when the world called for variety and difference, matter gave itself up with complete obedience, through all the different appearances and kinds of things, to the Creator as to its Lord and Maker, so that he might draw out of it the various forms of heavenly and earthly beings. But once things have begun to hurry toward that completion in which all are one, as the Father is one with the Son, it may be understood as a reasonable inference that where all are one there will no longer be any difference.

The last enemy, moreover, the one called death, is said to be destroyed for this reason: so that nothing of a sorrowful kind may be left when death does not exist, and nothing hostile when there is no enemy. The destruction of the last enemy is to be understood, however, not as if its substance, which was formed by God, is to perish, but because its mind and its hostile will, which came not from God but from itself, are to be destroyed. Its destruction, then, will not be its ceasing to exist, but its ceasing to be an enemy, and ceasing to be death. For nothing is impossible to the Almighty, and nothing is beyond its Creator’s healing; for he made all things so that they might exist, and the things that were made in order to exist cannot cease to be. That is also why they will admit of change and variety, so as to be placed, according to what they deserve, in a better or a worse position. But no destruction of substance can happen to the things that were created by God to exist permanently. For things that in the common opinion are believed to perish, the nature either of our faith or of the truth will not allow us to suppose destroyed. [n]

Our flesh, for instance, is supposed by ignorant men and unbelievers to be destroyed after death, so completely that it keeps no trace at all of its former substance. We, however, who believe in its resurrection, understand that death has produced only a change, and that its substance certainly remains; that by the will of its Creator, and at the appointed time, it will be restored to life; and that a second change will take place in it, so that what was at first flesh formed out of earthly soil, and was afterwards dissolved by death and reduced again to dust and ashes — for it is said, “You are dust, and to dust you will return” — will be raised again from the earth, and after that, according to the deserts of the soul that lives in it, will advance to the glory of a spiritual body.

Into this condition, then, we are to suppose that all this bodily substance of ours will be brought, when all things are restored to a state of unity and God is all in all. And this result must be understood as coming about not suddenly, but slowly and by degrees, since the work of mending and correcting will go on unnoticed in individual cases through countless and unmeasured ages — some outrunning others and heading for the heights by a swifter course, others following close at hand, and some a long way behind. And so, through the many uncounted ranks of those who are making progress and being reconciled to God after having been his enemies, the last enemy is reached at last, the one called death, so that he too may be destroyed and be an enemy no longer. [q]

When all rational souls have been restored to a condition of this kind, then the nature of this body of ours will undergo a change into the glory of a spiritual body. For with rational natures we do not see it to be the case that some have lived in a degraded condition because of their sins while others were called to happiness because of their merits; we see instead those same souls that had once been sinful helped, after their turning and their reconciliation to God, into a state of happiness. In the same way we are to think about the nature of the body: the one we now make use of in its meanness and decay and weakness is not a different body from the one we will possess in incorruption and power and glory. It is the same body. When it has thrown off the weaknesses in which it is now entangled, it will be transformed into a condition of glory and made spiritual, so that what was a vessel of dishonor may be cleansed and become a vessel for honor, a home of blessedness. And we are to believe that in this condition too, by the will of the Creator, it will remain forever without any change, as the apostle’s words confirm: “We have a house, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

For the faith of the church does not admit the view of certain Greek philosophers, that besides the body made up of four elements there is another, fifth body, different in all its parts and unlike this present body of ours. Nobody can produce the slightest hint of evidence for such an opinion out of sacred Scripture, and no reasoning from the facts will allow it to be accepted — especially since the holy apostle plainly declares that it is not new bodies that are given to those who rise from the dead, but that they receive the very same ones they had possessed while living, transformed from a worse condition into a better. For his words are: “It is sown a natural body, it will rise a spiritual body; it is sown in corruption, it will rise in incorruption; it is sown in weakness, it will rise in power; it is sown in dishonor, it will rise in glory.” So, just as there is a kind of advance in a man — so that from being first a natural being, not understanding what belongs to the Spirit of God, he reaches by instruction the stage of being made a spiritual being, judging all things while he himself is judged by no one — so too, with the state of the body, we are to hold that this very body, which is now called a natural body because of the service it does the soul, will by a certain progress reach a spiritual condition and quality, once the soul, joined to God, has been made one spirit with him, the body even then serving the spirit, so to speak. This is all the more so since, as we have often pointed out, bodily nature was so formed by the Creator that it passes easily into whatever condition he wishes or the nature of the case demands.

The whole of this reasoning, then, comes to this: that God created two general natures — a visible one, that is, a bodily nature, and an invisible one, which is not bodily. These two natures admit of two different kinds of change. The invisible and rational nature changes in mind and purpose, because it has freedom of will, and for that reason is found sometimes practicing good and sometimes the opposite. But this bodily nature admits of a change in substance; and so God, who arranges all things, has this matter at his service for the shaping, or the making, or the reworking of whatever he wishes, so that bodily nature may be transmuted and transformed into any forms or kinds whatever, as the deserts of things may demand. The prophet plainly has this in view when he says, “It is God who makes all things and transforms them.” [u]

And now the point to investigate is this: whether, when God is all in all, the whole of bodily nature will, at the completion of all things, consist of one kind, and the only quality of body be the one that will shine in the indescribable glory we are to regard as the spiritual body’s future possession. For if we understand the matter rightly, this is the statement of Moses at the beginning of his book, where he says, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” For that is the beginning of all creation, and to that beginning the end and completion of all things must be brought back — so that that heaven and that earth may be the home and resting place of the devout, and so that all the holy ones, and the meek, may first obtain an inheritance in that land, since this is the teaching of the law, and of the prophets, and of the Gospel. [v]

In that land I believe there exist the true and living forms of the worship that Moses handed down under the shadow of the law — the worship of which it is said that “they serve a copy and shadow of heavenly things,” meaning those who were held in subjection under the law. To Moses himself the order was given, “See that you make them after the form and pattern that were shown you on the mountain.” From this it appears to me that, just as on this earth the law was a kind of attendant, conducting to Christ those who were to be brought to him by it, so that after the law’s training they might more easily take in the more perfect teachings of Christ, so also another earth, which receives all the saints into it, may first steep them and shape them by the institutions of the true and everlasting law, so that they may more easily lay hold of those perfect institutions of heaven, to which nothing can be added — where there will truly be that Gospel which is called everlasting, and that covenant, always new, which will never grow old.