Union with Christ # 13

1. Eternal Union with Christ (continued)

Now, it is helpful if you can arrange the ages as segments of a circle rather than in a straight line. If you take the straight line idea, you leave a lot of unfinished ends, one after another, but if you arrange them in a circle, then you find them all meeting at one point. They are not just unfinished ends in themselves, but they find their fulfillment at one point: all the ages gather around and meet at one center - the age in which all the ages meet. "Upon whom the ends of the ages are come": that does not only refer to past ages. It refers also to future ages: for they come into this, they take their character from this age, they take their meaning from this age, so that ages past and future are centered in this dispensation. And when this dispensation comes in in fullness - for, although it was introduced in a way by the coming of Christ in the flesh, the age did not come in fullness until the day of Pentecost: it would seem that on the day of Pentecost heaven could wait no longer, the Holy Spirit could wait no longer, all Divine purposes could wait no longer; and immediately they had the signal - the signal being Christ taking His seat at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens - immediately they got that signal, it was as though they all rushed in and brought this marvelous sense of arrival, of having come. There is a lot in that - "When the day of Pentecost was now fully come": it has probably a larger sense than that it was well into the hours of the day. It proved to be as though everything had been waiting for this, everything had been looking for this, everything had been breathless in its suspense for this, and there was such fullness in that day and with the coming of that day that it has overflowed backward and forward into all the ages - fullness of meaning to the past and fullness of character to the future. It reached back to past eternity and it reached on unto the ages of the ages. What the fiftieth year and day meant in the Jewish economy was far transcended on this "Day of Pentecost."

And what happened on the day of Pentecost? Well, the Church was born: the age of the Church in fullness commenced. We are told distinctly by the Apostle that this whole thing, this mystery, had been "hid for ages and generations; but now hath it been manifested," and that the ministry is "to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which from all ages hath been hid in God" (Colossians 1:26; Ephesians 3:9). You see, it is this "elect" which is the heart of the ages and of the universe.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 14 - (a. The Fact Governed By the Meaning of Christ)