I pass on to shew that Gods purpose, by the first-born from the dead to bless the later-born,--as it is written, So in Christ shall all be made alive,--is fulfilled in successive worlds or ages, or to use the language of St. Paul, according to the purpose of the ages, (Eph. iii. 11). Therefore, the dead are raised, not all together, but Every man in his own order--Christ the first-fruits--afterwards they that are Christs at His coming; (1 Cor. xv. 23) which latter resurrection, though after Christs, is yet called the resurrection from among the dead, (Phil. iii. 11.), or the first resurrection. (Rev. xx. 5). Now it is simply a matter of fact, that Christ, the first of the first-fruits, through whom all blessing reaches us, rose from the dead eighteen hundred years ago, while the Church of the first-born, who are also called first-fruits, (James i. 18; Rev. xiv. 4) will not be gathered till the great Pentecost. Some are therefore freed from death before others; and even of the first-fruits, the Head of the body, as in every proper birth, is freed before the other members. So far it is clear that this purpose of God is wrought, not at once, but through successive ages. But this fact gives a hint of further mysteries, and some key to the ages of ages, which we read of in the New Testament, during which the lost are yet held by or under death and judgment, while the saints share Christs glory, as heirs of God, in subduing all things unto Him. The fall here gives us some shadow of the restoration. For just as in Adam, all do not come out of him or die at once, but descend from or through each other, and die generation after generation, though all fell and died, as part of him, and therefore partakers of his sad inheritance; so in Christ, though all have been made alive in Him by His resurrection, all are not personally brought into His life and light at once, but one after another, and the first-born before the later-born, according to Gods good pleasure and eternal purpose. The key here as elsewhere is to be found in the details of that law, of which no jot or tittle shall pass till all be fulfilled; (Matt. v. 18) the appointed times and seasons of which, one and all, are the types or figures of the ages of the New Testament; for there is nothing in the gospel, the figure of which is not in the law, nor anything in the law, the substance of which may not be found under the gospel; Gods once oppressed and captive Israel being the vessel, in and by which He would shew out His purpose of grace and truth to other lost ones. Observe, then, not only that the first-fruits are gathered, some at the feast of the Passover, and others not till Pentecost, while the feast of ingathering, is not held until the seventh month, in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field; (Exod. xxiii. 16; Lev. xxiii. 39; Deut. xvi. 13.) but how no less distinctly both cleansing and redemption are ordained to take effect at different times and seasons. I refer to those mystic periods of seven days, (Lev. xii. 2; xiii. 5, 21, 26; xiv. 8, &c.) seven weeks, (Lev. xxiii. 15.) seven months, (Lev. xvi. 29; xxiii. 24; Numb. xxix. 1.) seven years, (Lev. xxv. 4; Deut. xv. 9, 12.) and the seven times seven years, (Lev. xxv. 8, 9.) which last complete the Jubilee, which are all different times for cleansing and blessing men,--the former of which are figures of the ages, the last, of the ages of ages, in the New Testament; under which last blessed appointment all those who had lost their inheritance, and could not go free, as some did, at the Sabbatic year of rest, might at length, after the times of times, that is the seven times seven years, regain what had been lost, and find full deliverance. For in the Sabbatic year the release was for Israel only, not for foreigners; (Deut. xv. 1, 3) while in the Jubilee, liberty was to be proclaimed to all the inhabitants of the land. (Lev. xxv. 10.) What is there in the ordinary gospel of this day, which in the least explains or fulfills these various periods, in and through which were wrought successive cleansings and redemptions, not of persons only, but of their lost inheritance? And if in the gospel, as now preached, no truth is found corresponding with these figures of the Law, is it not a proof that something is at least overlooked? God knows how much is overlooked from neglect of those Scriptures, which Saint Paul tells us are needed, to make the man of God perfect, (2 Tim. iii. 16, 17) but which by others are openly despised, and by others are neglected, as the useless shadows of a by-gone dispensation. In them is the key, under a veil perhaps, of those ages and ages of ages, during which so many are debtors and bondsmen under judgment, without their true inheritance. And though indeed it is true, that it is not for us to know the times and the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power, (Acts i. 7.) it is yet given us to know that there are such times and seasons, and in knowing it to gain still wider views of the manifold wisdom of God, and of the unsearchable riches of Christ, our Lord and Saviour. It would far exceed my measure to attempt to shew how the law in all its times figured the gospel ages. But I may give one more example to prove, that in cleansing, as in giving deliverance, Gods method is to accomplish the end through appointed seasons, which vary according to a fixed rule,--I refer to the different periods prescribed for the purification of a woman on the birth of a male or a female child. (Lev. xii. 1-5. A similar distinction of times is to be seen in the cleansing of the leper; Lev. xiv. 7, 8, 9, 10, 20; and of those who were unclean by the dead; Numb. xix. 12.) If a son is born, she is unclean in the blood of her separation seven days, after which she is in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days, making in all forty days; but if she bear a maid child, she is unclean for twice seven days, and in the blood of her purifying six and sixty days, in all eighty days; that is double the time she is unclean for a man child. For the woman is our nature, which if it receive seed, that is the word of truth, may bring forth a son, that is the new man; in which case nature, or the mother, which brings it forth, is only unclean during the seven days of this first creation, and then in the blood of purifying till the end of the forty days, which always figure this dispensation; (The number forty, wherever found in Scripture, always points to the period of this dispensation, as the time of trial or temptation; e.g. Gen. vii. 1; Exod. xxiv. 18; Ezek. iv. 6; Deut. xxv. 2, 3; S. Mark i. 13; Exod. xvi. 35; Numb. xiv. 33; 2 Sam. v. 4; 1 Kings xi. 42; Acts i. 3; and xiii. 21, &c.) for wherever Christ is formed in us, there is the hope that even our vile body shall be cleansed, when we reach the end of this present dispensation. But if, instead of bearing this new man, our nature only bear its like, a female child, that is fruits merely natural, then it is unclean for a double period, till twice seven days and twice forty pass over it. Here as elsewhere the veil will I fear hide from some what is yet revealed as to the varying times when cleansing may be looked for; but even the natural eye can see that two different times are here described; and those who receive this as the Word of God will perhaps believe that there is some teaching here, even if they cannot understand it. Those too, who believe that the Church was divinely guided in the order and appointment of the Christian Year, ought surely to consider what is involved in the fact that the purification of the woman after forty days is kept as one of the Churchs holy days, under the title of The Purification of St. Mary. (Forty days after Christmas, that is on Feb. 2.) The Church of course reckons among her greatest days the conception and birth of that New and Anointed Man, who by almighty grace and power is brought forth out of our fallen human nature; but she does not forget to mark also the cleansing according to law, at the end of the mystic forty days, of that weak nature into which the Eternal Word has come, and out of which the New Man springs. There is like teaching in every time and season of the law, and its days and years figure the ages of the New Testament. The prophets repeat the same teaching, still further opening out this part of Gods purpose, in a later age to visit those who are rejected in an earlier one, and so to work through successive worlds or ages. Thus though at the time they wrote Moab and Ammon were under a special curse, and cut off from the congregation of Israel, according to the words, Thou shalt not seek their peace or prosperity for ever, and again, Even to the tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the Lord for ever; (Deut. xxiii. 3, 6.) in obedience to which law both Ezra and Nehemiah put away, not only the wives which some Israelites had taken from these nations, but also the children born of them; (Ezra. x. 2, 3, 44; Neh. xiii. 1, 23, 25, 30.) though the prophets further declare the judgment of these nations, that Moab shall be destroyed, (Jer. xlviii. 42.) and Ammon shall be fuel for fire, and be no more remembered; (Ezek. xxi. 28, 32.) yet they declare also that in the latter days the Lord shall bring again the captivity of Moab and of the children of Ammon. (Jer. xlviii. 47, and xlix. 6.) Similar predictions are made respecting Egypt and Assyria , (Isa. xix. 21, 25.) Elam , (Jer. xlix. 39.) Sodom and her daughters, and other nations, who in the age of the prophets were strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in this world, who yet are called to rejoice with Gods people, (Deut. xxxii. 43; Rom. xv. 10.) and of whom even now an election, though sometime far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ. (Eph. ii. 12, 13.) (NOTE: Ezek. xvi. 53, 55. Compare with this S. Jude 7, where we are told that Sodom is suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. And yet of this very Sodom and her daughters the prophet declares, that they shall return to their former estate.) These nations in the flesh were enemies, and as such received the doom of old Adam; yet for them also must there be hope in the new creation, according to the promise, Behold, I make all things new. (Rev. xxi. 5.) For Christ, who, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in spirit, went in spirit and preached to the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, (1 S. Pet. iii. 18-20.) is Jesus Christ, (that is Anointed Saviour,) the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. (NOTE: Heb. xiii. 8. I may perhaps add here, that to me the scene recorded in S. Matt. viii. 28-34, and in the parallel passages of the other Evangelists, is most significant. Our Lord calls His disciples to pass over to the other side, and there heals the man possessed with devils, who had his dwelling among the tombs, exceeding fierce, whom no man could bind, no, not with chains. Christ not only heals all forms of disease in Israel, but casts out devils also on the other side of the deep waters.) Such is the light which the law and prophets give us as to Gods purpose of salvation through successive ages. But even creation and regeneration, both works of the same God, tell no less clearly, though more secretly, the same mystery. God in each shews how he works, not in one act, but by degrees, through successive days or seasons. In creation each day had its own work, to bring back some part of the creature, and one part before another, from emptiness and confusion, to light and form and order. All things do not appear at once. Much is unchanged, even after light and a heaven are formed upon the first and second days. (Gen. i. 4-8.) But these first works act on all the rest, for by Gods will this heaven is a fellow-worker with Gods Word in all the change which follows, till the whole is very good. (NOTE: The firmament was called heaven, or the arrangers, because it is an agent in arranging things on earth. This appellation was first given by God to the celestial fluid or air, when it began to act in disposing or arranging the earth and waters. And since that time the heavens have been the great agents in disposing all material things in their places and orders, and thereby producing all those wonderful effects which are attributed to them in Scripture, but which it has been of late years the fashion to ascribe to attraction, gravitation , &c.—Parkhurst, sub voce .) What is this but the very truth of the first-born serving the later-born? So in the process of our regeneration, there is a quickening, first of our spirits, then of our bodies, the quickening of our spirits being the pledge and earnest that the body also shall be delivered in its season. (Eph. i. 13, 14; Rom. viii. 11.) What a witness to Gods most blessed purpose; for our spirit is to our body what the spiritual are to this world. And just as the quickening of our spirit must in due time bring about a quickening even of our dead and vile bodies; so surely shall the quickening and manifestation of the sons of God end in saving those earthly souls who are not here quickened. Thus does the microcosm foretell the fate of the macrocosm, even as the macrocosm is full of lessons for the microcosm. But even had we not this key, the language of the New Testament, in its use of the word which our Translators have rendered for ever and for ever and ever, but which is literally for the age, or for the ages of ages, points not uncertainly to the same solution of the great riddle, though as yet the glad tidings of the ages to come have been but little opened out. The epistles of St. Paul will prove that the ages are periods, in which God is gradually working out a purpose of grace, which was ordained in Christ before the fall, and before those age-times, (2 Tim. i. 9; Tit. i. 2.) in and through which the fall is being remedied. So we read, that Gods wisdom was ordained before the ages to our glory, (1 Cor. ii. 7.) that is, that God had a purpose before the ages out of the very fall to bring greater glory both to Himself and to His fallen creature; then we are told distinctly of the purpose of the ages, (Eph. iii. 11; translated, in our Authorized Version, the eternal purpose.) shewing that the work of renewal would only be accomplished through successive ages. Then we read, that by the Son, God made the ages, (Heb. i. 2; and xi. 3.) for it was by what the Eternal Word uttered and revealed of Gods mind in each successive age that each such age became what it distinctly was; each age, like each day of creation, being different from another by the form and measure in which the Word of God was uttered or revealed in it, and therefore also by the work effected in it, the work in each successive age, as in different days of creation, being wrought first in one measure, then in another, first in one part, then in another, of the lapsed creation. Then again we read of the mystery which has been hidden from the ages, (Eph. iii. 9.) and again that the mystery, (for he repeats the words,) which hath been hid from ages and generations, is now made manifest to the saints, to whom God hath willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery; which is, Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Col. i. 26.) In another place the Apostle speaks of glory to God in the church by Christ Jesus, unto all generations of the age of ages. (Eph. iii. 21.) He further says, that Christ is set far above all principality, and power, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but in the coming one; (Eph. i. 21.) and again, that now once in the end of the ages He hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; (Heb. ix. 26.) and that on us the ends of the ages are met; (1 Cor. x. 11.) words which plainly speak of some of the ages as past, and seem to imply that other ages are approaching their consummation. Lastly, he speaks of the ages to come, in which God will shew the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus. (NOTE: Eph. ii. 4-7. I may add here that in all the following passages aion is used for this present or some other limited age or dispensation:--S. Matt. xii. 32; xiii. 39, 40; xxiv. 3; S. Luke xvi. 8; xx. 34, 35; Rom. xii. 2; 1 Cor. i. 20; ii. 6, 8; iii. 18; 2 Cor. iv. 4; Gal. i. 4; Eph. i. 21; ii. 2; vi. 12; 1 Tim. vi. 17; 2 Tim. iv. 10; Tit. ii. 12.) Now what is this purpose of the ages, which St. Paul speaks of, but of which the Church in these days seems to know, or at least says, next to nothing? I have already anticipated the answer. The ages are the fulfillment or substance of the times and seasons of the Sabbatic year and Jubilee under the old law. They are those times of refreshment from the presence of the Lord, when He shall send Jesus Christ, who before was preached; (Acts iii. 19.) and when, in due order, liberty and cleansing will be obtained by those who now are without their rightful inheritance. In the ages, and in no other mystery of the gospel, do we find those good things to come, of which the legal times and seasons were the shadow. (Heb. x. 1.) Of course, as some of these ages are to come, being indeed the times and seasons which the Father hath put in His own power, (Acts i. 7.) we can as yet know little of their distinctive character, except that, as being the ages in which God is fulfilling His purpose in Christ, we may be assured their issue must be glorious. Yet they are constantly referred to in the New Testament, and the book of the Revelation more than any other speaks of them, (Rev. i. 6, 18; iv. 9, 10; v. 13, 14; vii. 12; x. 6; xi, 15; xiv. 11; xv. 7; xix. 3; xx. 10; xxii. 5.) for this book opens out the processes and stages of the great redemption, which make up the Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gives Him; and this Revelation is not accomplished in one act, but through the ages and ages of ages, foreshadowed by the times and times of times of the old law, the age-times, again to use the language of St. Paul, in which the Lord is revealed as meeting the ruin of the creature. And the reason why we sometimes read of ages, and sometimes of the age, when both seem to refer and speak of the same one great consummation, is, that the various ages are but the component parts of a still greater age, as the seven Sabbatic years only made up one Jubilee. But because the mind of the Spirit is above them, men speak as if the varied and very unusual language of Scripture, as to the ages or the age of ages, contained no special mystery. They will see one day that the subject is dark, not because Scripture is silent, but only because mens eyes are holden. (NOTE: Every scholar knows that the expressions, ages, to the ages, age of the ages, and ages of the ages, are unlike anything which occurs in the heathen Greek writers. The reason is, that the inspired writers, and they alone, understood the mystery and purpose of the ages. They, or at least the Spirit which spake by them, saw that there would be a succession of ages, a certain number of which constituted another greater age. It seems to me that when they simply intended a duration of many ages, they wrote to the ages. When they had in view a greater and more comprehensive age, including in it many other subordinate ages, they wrote to the age of ages. When they intended the longer age alone, without regard to its constituent parts, they wrote to an aeonial age; this form of expression being a Hebraism, exactly equivalent to age of the ages: like liberty of glory, for glorious liberty, (Rom. viii. 21,) and body of our vileness, for our vile body. (Phil. iii. 21.) When they intended the several comprehensive ages collectively, they wrote to the ages of ages. Each varying form is used with a distinct purpose and meaning). At any rate, and whatever the future ages may be, those past (and St. Paul speaks of the ends of some,) are clearly not endless; and the language of Scripture as to those to come seems to teach that they are limited, since Christs mediatorial kingdom, which is for the ages of ages, must yet be delivered up to the Father, that God may be all in all. (Compare Rev. xi. 15, and 1 Cor. xv. 24.) And the fact that in Johns vision, which describes the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gives Him, our Lord is called Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, (Rev. xxi. 6.) seems to imply an end to the peculiar manifestation of Him as King and Priest, under which special offices the Revelation shews Him, offices which, as they involve lost ones to be saved and rebels ruled over, may not be needed when the lost are saved and reconciled. Would it not have been better therefore, and more respectful to the Word of God, had our Translators been content in every place to give the exact meaning of the words, which they render for ever, or for ever and ever, but which are simply for the age, or for the ages of ages; and ought they not in other passages, where the form of expression in reference to these ages is marked and peculiar, to have adhered to the precise words of Holy Scripture? I have already referred to the passage of St. Paul , in his Epistle to the Ephesians, which in our Version is rendered throughout all ages, world without end, but which is literally, to all generations of the age of ages. (Eph. iii. 21.) But even more remarkable are the words, in St. Peters Second Epistle, which our Version translates for ever; but which are literally for the day of the age; the key to which may perhaps be found in a preceding verse of the same chapter, where the Apostle says, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (Verse 8.) (NOTE: 2 Pet. iii. 18; this phrase, which, I may add here, is an exact literal translation of the words in Micah v. 2, and which in our Authorized Version are translated from everlasting.) These and other similar forms of expression cannot have been used without a purpose. It is, therefore, a matter of regret that our Translators should not have rendered them exactly and literally; for surely the words which Divine Wisdom has chosen must have a reason, even where readers and translators lack the light to apprehend it. The ages, therefore, are periods in which God works, because there is evil and His rest is broken by it, but which have an end and pass away, when the work appointed to be done in them has been accomplished. The ages, like the days of creation, speak of a prior fall: they are the times in which God works, because He cannot rest in sin and misery. His perfect rest is not in the ages, but beyond them, when the mediatorial kingdom, which is for the ages of ages, (Rev. xi. 15.) is delivered up, (1 Cor. xv. 24.) and Christ, by whom all things are wrought in the ages, goes back to the glory which He had before the age-times, that God may be all in all. (1 Cor. xv. 28.) (NOTE: 2 Tim. i. 9; and Tit. i. 2; translated, in our Version, before the world began. The Vulgate translation here is, Ante saecularia tempora, which is as literal a rendering as possible.) The words Jesus Christ, (that is, Anointed Saviour,) the same yesterday, to-day, and for the ages, (Heb. xiii. 8.) imply that through these ages a Saviour is needed, and will be found, as much as to-day and yesterday. It will I think too be found, that the adjective (aionios) founded on this word, whether applied to life, punishment, redemption, covenant, times, or even God Himself, is always connected with remedial labour, and with the idea of ages as periods in which God is working to meet and correct some awful fall. Thus the aeonial covenant, (Heb. xiii. 20) (I must coin a word, to shew what is the term used in the original,) is that which comprehends the ages, during which Jesus Christ is the same, that is, a Saviour; an office only needed for the fallen, for they that are whole need not a physician. The aeonial God, language found but once in the New Testament, refers, as the context shews, to God as working His secret of grace through aeonial times, that is, successive worlds or ages, in some of which the mystery has been hid, but now is made manifest by the commandment of the aeonial God, that is, (if I err not,) the God who works through these ages. (Please be aware that the following note, and several others to come contain some blank areas that originally held a Hebrew word in a Hebrew font. Wherever you see a blank line, just know that a Hebrew word was originally there in the book).
Posted on: Fri, 25 Jul 2014 05:51:06 +0000
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