I am going to post the following for your consideration. It begins to extrapolate the "all" of Christ's atoning work:
In Ephesians 1.10 Paul writes, "that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times [God the Father] might gather together in one the all in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth -- in Him" (my translation).
The words "gather together" here are a translation of the Greek word anakephalaiow, which literally means "to re-head-up." It was the Father's will that in the fullness of times he would send his unique son to "re-gather, via headship," in this One "the all" in Christ (and here "all" is neuter so it is inclusive of everything, not just humanity, but certainly humanity as well, as included in the all). Now that was really cumbersome. I apologize. But I believe it was necessary to gain comprehension of what's going, not only here, but elsewhere in passages like Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15. For contained in this verse is the ancient Mediterranean-world concept of "the one and the many."
As westerners we do not so much think in terms of headship. We are much more individualistic in our concepts of responsibility, for example. Each one of us is responsible for his or her own actions but not so much the consequence of those actions as spread across to others relative to their inclusion in us by way of representation; for example, if I get caught stealing from my neighbor, the authorities are not likely to chop off my children's hands too. BUT in the Mediterranean social world at the time of Christ, specifically, that was not the case at all. In that setting there was very much in place the idea of one person standing in as representative or head of the entirety of a group of people under his headship. There is much to buttress our understanding of this social construct in the writings of early Greek philosophers and writers such as Socrates via Plato, Plato himself, Aristotle, Homer, Ulysses (where, for example, you may have seen Achilles defeat the imposing champ in his victory for the all in the movie Troy), as well as others, where we extrapolate this concept of "the one and the many." Equipped with this information, we see clearly the same construct in ancient Semitic writings as well, in OT narratives like the accounts of Boaz and Ruth, and David as he stood in as head over all of Israel in his confrontation with Goliath. We see it also in Abraham as representative over all of his descendants...and Adam over all of humanity, even over all of creation.
In Ephesians 1.10 we learn that God sent his Son, the Christ to re-head-up what was relinquished in the headship of the first head/representative, Adam. Now, that was a long way of getting to misinformed statements like, "Christ isn't cleaning up Adam's mess as much as He is cleaning up Adam." You see, I think it might be better stated this way: Christ was not only cleaning up Adam; he was cleaning up Adam's mess as well ~ that being the mess he made of all humanity and even all of creation in his fall.
What is the significance of this discovery? Under the headship of Adam, everything was lost, given over to new heads like sin, death, and the devil, for example, and the impact they have had on creation itself and all contained within it. But Christ came to re-head-up the collective of Adam's relinquished headship. In the "one" Adam the "many" or the "all" fell. But in the "One" Christ, the second Adam, the head over all, the "many" (I'm narrowing it down to a discussion of humanity) are re-gathered, re-claimed, re-headed-up in him. That is, everyone represented in the headship of Adam are represented uniquely in the headship of the second Adam, Christ.
In the following passage I am going to provide a translation of the Greek text in order to bring out the Mediterranean social concept of "the one and the many," as it relates to Adam and Christ in Paul's address. The passage is Rom 5.15-19. All I will be doing is including the definite article ("the") where it appears in the Gr text. Please read it now from within the social construct of "the one and the many" or "the one and the all." Let's see how the inclusion of the definite article influences our understanding of the passage:
15 But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man's offense the many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to the many. 16 And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification. 17 For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. 18 Therefore, as through the one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through the one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. 19 For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so also by the one Man's obedience the many shall be made righteous.
Do you sense the subtle shift which takes place in our thinking when the definite article is removed as opposed to when it is included in the text? All of the Greek manuscripts we use, including the Textus Receptus, in our translations of the Gr NT into English have the definite article preceding the "one" and the "many" in this passage. This is an instance where translators have been unaware of New Testament/Mediterranean world constructs and thus literary conventions. Being unaware of this particular construct/convention, they omit the definite articles in places for sake of fluidity, which is not uncommon in Gr-to-English translations. In this case, however, their lack of awareness assisted in leading readers into confusion as to what Paul was attempting to convey here, through their misinterpretation of this passage. I digress.
The impact of this and all the-one-and-the-many texts relative to Adam and Christ is that every single person, specifically, and thing in a macro-sense, that is represented by Adam is re-headed-up by way of representation in Christ, the second Adam. Here, in Romans, we discover that the "many" of the first man are the same as the "many" of the second Man, the difference being that where the first man brought death, condemnation, and judgment to "the many," which is "all"; the second Man brought an abundance of grace, righteousness, and justification of life to "the many," which is also "all." Hence the two are similar in that they are both representatives of "all men," but they are different in what they produced for that same group of "all men."
My belief: this passage should stand as a model in our interpretation of Christ's incarnational-atoning work; for again, we may conclude that everything that is true about the existence of all humanity under the representation of the first man, is equally, entirely true in regards to our existence within the inclusion of the Second Man, Jesus Christ. As a result, the kind of questions, for instance, that this reading should be raising in our western minds is this: What are the implications of Christ's “justification” of all of humanity to our theological constructs?
Blessings to all,
