Could you explain in simple terms what it means to say that God will be all in all?

Dear Father Angelo,
could you explain in simple terms what it means to say that God will be all in all?
Thanks a lot, in communion of prayer.
Rosa

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Priest’s answer

Dear Rosa,
1. The words you quoted are found in 1Cor 15:28 where Saint Paul says: “When everything is subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all”.
Here, Saint Paul talks about Christ as man and chief of mankind.
At the end of the world, everything will be subjected to Him. Both the saved, of their own free will, and the damned will be subjected to Him: “For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1Cor 15:25).

2. It is necessary for it to be so because the Father “put all things at his feet” (Ps 8:7).
And “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:10-11). 

2. Then, everyone will confess that God reigns, even His enemies.
The elect will confess it with the joy of happiness and the damned with their confusion, Saint Thomas says.

4. When everything will be subjected to Him, including death (through the resurrection of the dead), Christ as man and chief of mankind will submit to the Father so that, in the new realm, God will be recognized as Lord of all and author of all that is good. 

5. The reason for this subjection is explained by Saint Thomas as so: “So that the soul of man may rest completely in God and God alone may be his happiness. For at the present time in one person there is life and in another virtue, and in yet another glory. But then God will be in each one life, salvation, virtue, and glory.” (Commentary on the Letter to the Philippians).  

6. This is evident to all of us: in the present life, God is present in some through grace and, in those who have moved onto eternal life, through glory. Then, however, there will be the fullness of God in all, so that there won’t be anything left for the elect to desire, precisely because God is all in all.

Wishing that God will always be in you through grace and, in the next life, through glory, I bless you and remember you in my prayers.
Father Angelo

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