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The Goal of God.
(I Cor. 15: 28).
No.4.
"The End"
(I Cor. 15: 24).
pp. 18 - 20
The revelation of God's purpose opens with a `beginning' and in the N.T. reaches an
`end'. The end "is not yet" but sometimes, to perceive the end of a thing enables one to
go back and understand a little better the beginning. If the `end' be the cessation of time,
then the beginning will be the commencement of time, but to utter such a statement
produces a feeling of frustration. What can be meant by a cessation of time? It may be
perfectly true that our present mode of measuring time by the day, hour and minute, will
cease; it may be perfectly true that the timepiece of our present system will become
obsolete, but if life is to continue, if the redeemed of the Lord are not to cease to be, time,
essential time, must abide, for unless we can use the words `now', `then' and `when,
existence must cease.
It is a well known fact that the book of the Revelation is in structural correspondence
with the book of Genesis, but while the book of the Revelation is canonically the book of
the end, one passage in the epistle to the Corinthians takes us much further. Let us give
this passage the attention which the solemnity of the subject demands, and with the light
we receive, we shall be better able to go back to `the beginning' of Gen. 1: 1 with hope
of a clearer understanding of its import.
The fifteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians is devoted to the fact and
the outcome of the resurrection. It is not our intention to attempt an exposition of
I Cor. 15:, but in order to perceive the place which the section in mind occupies, we
present the following analysis. The chapter, as a whole is divided into three parts.
(1) 1-11.
EVIDENCE and EVANGELISTIC importance of resurrection.
(2) 12-34.
FACT of the resurrection established.
(3) 35-58.
MANNER of the resurrection discussed.
Taking the second and third section together, their relationship can be exhibited as
follows:
I Corinthians 15: 12 - 58.
A | 12. FACT. "How?"
B | 13-33. ADAM and CHRIST. Death destroyed. "When"
C | 34. AWAKE.
A | 35. MANNER. "How?" "With what?"
B | 36-57. FIRST and LAST ADAM. Death swallowed up. "When?"
C | 58. BE STEDFAST.