same sphere, will be subservient, for to Israel, and Israel alone, is the

Kingdom, and to Israel on the earth pertains the `adoption'.  Israel is the

firstborn among the nations.

There are other blessings that are to be enjoyed in the heavenly

country and the heavenly city.  These are the blessings of Abraham, and the

calling is that of `The Bride' (a calling that must be kept distinct from

that of the restoration of Israel, `The Wife').  Gentiles, as well as Israel,

go to form this company called `The Bride', where there is neither Jew nor

Greek, but where both alike are reckoned as Abraham's seed and heirs

according to the promise.  Instead of nations being subservient to this

company of the redeemed, it is angels who are associated with them in a

subordinate position.  To this company, in this sphere, pertains this

particular `adoption'; they are the church of the Firstborn whose names are

written in heaven.

There are, however, blessings that are neither those of Israel as a

kingdom, nor of the heavenly calling of the Bride, and these are enjoyed in

heavenly places where Christ sits, far above all principality and power and

far above all heavens.  They who enjoy them constitute neither a Kingdom nor

the Bride, but are the Body of Christ and a perfect Man.  While individuals

of Israel who believe are not precluded, this calling is mainly Gentile, for

it operates during the period of Israel's blindness.  This company also has a

citizenship, but it is one which has nothing to do with the New Jerusalem;

neither nations nor angels are subservient to it, but principalities and

powers.  To this company pertains the `adoption' associated with this sphere,

and Christ, as the Firstborn from the dead, is its Head, each believer of the

company forming a member of the Church which is His Body.

As this highest of all callings is the subject of a Secret that goes

back before the overthrow of the world (Gen. 1:2), so it goes up beyond the

`firmament that was called heaven' which spans the ages, and finds its sphere

in the super -heavens; those heavens of Genesis 1:1 which remain unmoved by

the ebb and flow of time, sin, death, or dispensational change.  (See the

chart used with the article Pleroma3).

Time must necessarily be a constituent both of the Ages and of

Dispensations, and the present article must be considered as a supplement to

the two that deal with these great themes.  Philosophers divide the subject

of time into the Absolute and the Relative.  The Scriptures deal only with

the Relative.  Some teach that with God there is no time, all is an eternal

present, but those who thus teach never appear to have any problems or

attempt to explain them.  Events happen in time and in due succession.  God

in His wondrous foreknowledge may know what things soever shall come to pass,

but that is entirely different from teaching that there is no past, present

or future with God.  If Christ became incarnate four thousand years after the

creation of Adam, then He could not have been incarnate for all eternity.

The Scripture knows no such teaching.  We read that it was `in the fulness of

time' that He was born of a woman, and the dating of Luke 2:1 -3 is not from

eternity, but when Caesar Augustus sent out a decree that all the world

should be taxed.  This was true both for God and man.

The first words of the Bible strike the note of time: `In the

beginning'* (Gen. 1:1).  If creation is not eternal and had a beginning there