different lines of truth are united, inasmuch as God is working out a mighty

purpose, affecting heaven and earth, and that these changes of dispensational

dealings instead of indicating experiment or caprice, are so many links in a

wondrous chain.  (See Pleroma, p. 197).  None but a superficial reader of the

Bible will assume that the Scriptures are given to explain everything, or to

answer all the inquiries of the human mind.  There are some things which God

kept secret for thousands of years, never revealed until He committed them to

the apostle Paul (see Eph. 3).  There are some things concerning which we are

told hardly anything.  Take for example the Bible record of Satan.  His first

introduction into the page of Scripture is as a fallen being (Gen. 3).  No

explanation is offered, no reason is given.  We start the record of the

purpose of God as pertains to man with a revealed yet unexplained fact.  As

it is with Satan's beginning, so with the last we hear of him.  In Revelation

20 he is put into the lake of fire there to be tormented unto the ages of the

ages.  What happens to him at the end of that period Scripture does not say.

The nearer Scripture approaches that section of God's purpose that is

connected with Israel, the plainer and more definite it becomes.  Israel's

history fills the bulk of the Bible.  The Nations have a comparatively small

space, while the Church occupies a small portion of the New Testament.

Things in heaven, the spiritual powers, are concerned with the great purpose

unfolded in the Word, yet we know very little of what their place in that

purpose will be.

There are many references in the Scriptures to the fact of a purpose,

and it may be well for us to establish this before we proceed to inquire into

details.  Romans 8:28; 9:11; Ephesians 1:11 and 2 Timothy 1:9 are sufficient

to show that the salvation of men is part of a purpose.  The word prothesis

means `a placing before', and indicates a well -considered plan.  That this

plan or purpose is unalterable Ephesians 1:9 and Jeremiah 51:29 will be

sufficient to prove.  The words in 2 Timothy 1:9, `before the world began',

are not strictly true as a translation.  The original reads pro chronon

aionion and should be rendered `before age -times'.  Another occurrence of

this same expression is found in Titus 1:2, where a somewhat parallel

doctrine is discovered.  Before the age -times, then, the purpose of God was

formed, and in harmony with this is the teaching that the members of the One

Body were `chosen in Him before the foundation of the world'.  Not only is it

important to see that the purpose or plan of God was made before the age

times, but that the very ages themselves are a necessary part and platform

for the unfolding and ripening of that purpose.  Ephesians 3:11 (A.V.) speaks

of an `eternal purpose'.  Now while the thought in these words is very

majestic, the teaching of the passage is not strictly rendered by them.  The

word `eternal' is an adjective, whereas in Ephesians 3:11 it is not the

adjective aionios that is used, but aion, `age'.  The true rendering of the

passage, therefore, should be, `according to a purpose of the ages'.

The Bible is occupied with that purpose.  The Bible spans the ages.

What was before the ages, and what lies beyond, is not strictly within the

scope of the Book.  Men labour to explain and emphasize eternity.  Philosophy

may burden the mind with the effort to grasp `that which has neither

beginning nor end, that which has neither centre nor circumference', but the

Bible does not.  Scripture commences with, `In the beginning God'.  From that

basis, the Scriptures unfold the purpose of the ages.

Having surveyed the Scriptures with regard to the fact of the purpose,

we next consider some passages which relate to its fulfilment.  Here at once