To Florus 6.37

‘But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then those who belong to Christ at his coming; then the end’ (1 Corinthians 15:23–24). Elsewhere the same apostle says: ‘He is the firstborn from the dead’ (Colossians 1:18). ‘Then those who belong to Christ’: that is, the saints are caught up in the clouds (1 Thessalonians 4:17). After this, the end: these will go into the eternal kingdom, while the ungodly go into eternal fire (Matthew 25:34, 41, 46).

‘When he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he abolishes every rule and every authority and power—for he must reign until he puts all enemies under his feet; he has subjected everything beneath his feet—the last enemy, death, will be destroyed. When he says, Everything has been subjected, this plainly excludes the one who subjected everything to him. When everything has been subjected to him, then he himself will also be subject to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all’ (1 Corinthians 15:24–28).

The kingdom of God the Father means that, when the number of saints contained in his foreknowledge is complete, every dominion and all the strength of hostile power will perish. The effect of so great a mystery must be to place all justice’s enemies beneath divine feet. This will happen when eternal death sees itself destroyed and defeated by all the saints.

When all those kinds of powers have been subjected to Christ and his body through the kingdom’s manifestation, the whole glorified congregation of saints will most certainly never cease to be subject to God. The entire body worthy of the kingdom of heaven, built under Christ as head, will cling to the divine will with perfect love, so that, with every desire for faults extinguished, God may both embrace and fill everyone.