redemption with the precious blood of Christ. It is not doubted that the persons whom Peter addressed were members of Christ's body; but it is certain, that the Spirit here dwells upon the blessings which spring from the resurrection of Christ-our new and incorruptible life, holy and royal priesthood, pilgrim-calling, and the like, but never upon our union with Christ in heaven. Hence also, when the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven is referred to, it is as the power of preaching the gospel unto us, never as the One who constitutes us, Jew and Gentile, God's habitation (Ephes. ii.), or baptises us into one body (1 Cor. xii). In other words, the mystery is not treated in the Epistles of Peter, whereas it is the main subject of Ephesians.

The administration, we have seen, awaits "the fulness of times," or the expiry of the various periods appointed by Divine Wisdom. All things are out of course, and waxing worse and worse, until Christ takes the reins. The only Righteous One is still an outcast from the world, though known to the Church as crowned with glory and honour in heaven, and those who love the Lord of glory suffer here below. God's favoured earthly people is a proverb and a by-word among all nations, and driven out from a country of which God delighted to be the landlord. And what has been, what is the history of that people and land? Their oppressors, the Gentiles, have they walked in abasement or in pride? Have they honoured the King of heaven? And how fares creation? Does not the whole of it groan and travail in pain together until now? And where is Satan? Is it on earth merely that he walks about, or is there spiritual wickedness in heavenly places? Well, there is a set time for each of these things; and these times shall have a full term. Satan shall lose his sway over the air and the earth; creation shall be delivered into the liberty of the glory of God's children; the broken Gentile image shall give place to an everlasting kingdom; Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit; the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and Christ shall appear and we with Him in glory. This will be the fulness of the times spoken of.

When that fulness of times arrives, how great our joy, beloved, to see Him, not only as the Melchisedek blessing God and blessing man, but actual Possessor of heaven and earth, all things therein being headed up in Him who, though He is the most High God, administers as the exalted Man: to see Him ourselves so near Him and so truly one with Him, that then we shall at length forget all save His love and His glory. And yet, O wondrous grace! is it not so now, as regards His love? Are we not here and now members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones? Yet surely we may long for the day when, seeing Him, we shall be for ever like Him, according to that working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.

Yes, all things in heaven and earth shall be headed up in Him, and even things under the earth, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Worthily has He won such a place, that blessed One

"Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name' (Philippians, ii. 6-9).

It is false, utterly false, that Jesus took this place when He was born. It is true, that then was the fulness of the time come for God to send forth His Son. The very children were enslaved under the rudiments of the world; and all were shut up under sin. Man had proved himself competent to ruin himself under the law of God only the more readily, because it was good but he was not. But was God's business done when the Son came, made of a woman, made under the law? By no means. The incarnation was but a means, not the end. Redemption was the grand point to which God turned. Therefore the Son was thus sent and made "to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye [the Gentiles, who had not been under the law] are sons" (Gal. iv. 4.—6).

Turning to the higher and larger sphere of Colossians, we hear the same truth. In the Son of God's love we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins; "who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature." Is that His highest title? Is this His Divine glory? No; but founded upon it. He is the first-born of every creature, not because He became incarnate, not because He was the holy Man who triumphed over all the consequences of the first Adam's sin, and conquered him that led the first man captive at his will: in a word, not because He was a creature, be it the most faithful and glorious, but because He was the Creator. He is the first-born of every creature, FOR by Him were all things created. Here is His right to supremacy:

"For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist" (Col. i. 16, 17).

His primacy over all creation flows from His Divine creative power. He asserts it as man; but His title flows from another and higher source. But He is more than first-born of every creature. "He is the head of the body, the Church: who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead," which, as we have seen, is the glory especially dwelt on in Ephesians.

Sin was here below. Man, who ought to have been the first, was the lowest of all; and creation itself, by reason of him, was steeped in the bondage of corruption. And those whom God was about to bring into the Church, what were they? Alienated and enemies in their mind by wicked works. Hence though the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, though ALL THE FULNESS was pleased to dwell in Him, even that could not meet the evil and misery of man, nor the holiness and the heart of God. The light of God was there, His love was there; in Him was life, and the Life was the light of inen. Alas! it was manifest that the Jews, that all, were irreparably blind.

"If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin but now they have no cloke for their sin. He that hateth

me hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father" (John xv. 22-24).

What was to be done? "Verily, verily,” saith the Lord, "except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit." His death could alone deliver. But this was ever before the soul of our blessed Master. "I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished." "This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood" (1 John v). Hence in Colossians i. 20—22.

“And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled, in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight.”

The Church is being reconciled now. To the living members of Christ it can be said, "You hath He reconciled." Creation is not so yet, though the blood of the cross is shed on which the reconciliation is grounded; it will be so in the fulness of the times.a

It is almost needless to say that these set times are not yet completed, and that Christ has not yet all things in the heavens and on the earth headed up in Him, and that the Church is not yet reigning joint heir with Him. The translation, which has been supposed to involve one, and which to be consistent ought to involve all of these consequences is a mistake. “That for the dispensation of the fulness of times, He hath headed up for Himself all things in Christ," is a version founded upon a misconception of the force of the aorist infinitive. The infinitive being abstract, ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι is as capable of referring to the future as to the past. You cannot gather the time of actual occurrence from that word in itself. I believe that the authorised version gives the sense quite correctly. The purpose of God was, "that He might together," or "to gather together" etc. The object was not to express the time of the gathering; and this is so true, that usually the aorist infinitive is expressed in Latin and English by the present. Moreover, as here, the infinitive of the aorist is often em

At present, no such administration takes place, though we here learn God's purpose that it shall. Christ is, no doubt, head of angels, of Jews, of men, of creation. But is He now exercising these rights? Now it is of the administration when the periods are ripe that our verses speak. But none of the things are being yet gathered. On the contrary, there is yet to be a deeper crisis of rebellion than ever. It is now the time when all things are severed from Christ, or if gathered, gathered only in the ruin and wretchedness which the guile and power of Satan, have introduced. It is the time of another gathering, the gathering of the joint heirs who shall be glorified with Christ. But this is the gathering of Ephesians ii.," not of Ephesians i. It is the gathering of the members of His body, not of the subjects of His rule.

Some, I know, have conceived that by "all things in heaven and earth" is meant the Church. But first of all the expression "all things," etc., forbids the thought. The Church never was and never will be "all things." And though now the calling is being effected on earth, it is not a gathering there, but out of it; and, even when complete and in heaven, still it will not even embrace all things in heaven, where the gathering in Ephes. i. 10., is a gathering, at the same time, of all things that are in the heavens and that are on the earth under the headship of Christ. Again, not only is the Church an elect body, but in verse 11 we have members of it referred as an additional thing to the heading up all things in Christ," in whom also we have obtained" etc., and in verse 22 we have "all things" again spoken of as put by God under Christ's feet, who is given as head over all things to the Church, which therefore, far from being merged in all things, enjoys and shares His supremacy,

ployed, where we might have expected that of the future, because the action is considered in itself as concluded; and its future occurrence is sufficiently indicated by the governing verb, and the context generally. Besides this, the infin. aorist is generally used if the principal verb is in that tense.

I might add also, that it is the gathering of the scattered children of God, in virtue of Christ's death referred to in John xi.