which is the acme of human attainment, for when the Scriptures would describe

the excellent glory of the Lord, His garments are said to have been

`exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them' (Mark

9:3).  So too, the effect upon Israel of the Second Coming is likened to `a

refiner's fire and like fuller's soap' (Mal. 3:2).  It is this `fulled' cloth

that makes the `fulness', although there is no etymological connection

between these like -sounding words.

There is another word translated `new', kainos, which has the meaning

of `fresh, as opposed to old', `new, different from the former', and as a

compound, the meaning `to renew'.

It is this word that is used when speaking of the new covenant, the new

creation, the new man, and the new heaven and earth.  We shall have to take

this into account when we are developing the meaning and purpose of the

`fulness'.  The Septuagint version of Job 14:12 reads in place of, `till the

heavens be no more', `till the heavens are unsewn'!  The bearing of this upon

the argument of 2 Peter 3, the present firmament, and the fulness, will

appear more clearly as we proceed.

Finally, we have the word sumphoneo `to agree'.  Sumphonia is

translated `music' in Luke 15:25, and of course is the Greek original of our

word Symphony.  In Ecclesiastes 7:14, the word is used with a rather

different meaning than `agreement'.  `In the day of prosperity be joyful, but

in the day of adversity consider: God also hath set the one over against the

other, to the end that man should find nothing after him'.  This God will do

when at the end of the ages He sets His Peace over against the present

conflict, and symphony takes the place of discord.

The presence of so many terms of age -importance in

the homely parable of the patching of a torn garment

is wonderful in itself, but the wonder grows when we remember that He, in

Whom dwells all the pleroma of the Godhead bodily, used this profound and

significant term in such a homely and lowly connection.  However vast the

purpose of the ages may be, and however difficult it is for mortal minds to

follow, the first use of pleroma in the New Testament encourages the reader

in his search, for does not the purpose of the ages at length lead to a

sphere where all things are new, where that which caused the rent or

overthrow is entirely removed, and the Father is at length at home with His

redeemed family?

In the vision of Ezekiel, recorded in the opening chapters of his

prophecy, the prophet saw the living creature which he afterward identified

with the cherubim (Ezek. 10:20).  These not only had four faces, namely that

of a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle (Ezek. 1:10), but were associated with

dreadful rings and wheels, `as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel'

(Ezek. 1:16).  This element of complication, one wheel within another, seems

to be a reflection of the way in which one dispensation encloses another, so

that between the annunciation of the opening phase of the purpose, and the

attainment of its purpose and goal, a great gap intervenes, which is filled

by another and yet another succeeding dispensation until in the `fulness' of

time Christ came (Gal. 4:4) born of a woman, with a view to the fulness of

the seasons (Eph.  1:10), when He in Whom all the fulness dwells (Col. 1:19)

shall bring this purpose of the ages to its blessed consummation.