Romans 11:25 refers, not to the Coming of the Deliverer, but to the duration

of Israel's blindness.

If the prison epistles belong to the same dispensation as that which

obtains throughout the rest of the New Testament, or even in that part of it

which follows the Gospels, then the hope will be the same, and will be

expressed in similar terms.  It will take place at the same time, in similar

circumstances, and in the same sphere.  There need be no mystery about our

quest here; we have but to 'search and see'.  While it is true that spiritual

things can only be spiritually discerned, it is also true that the spirit of

wisdom and revelation is not needed to count the number of times the parousia

is mentioned in Ephesians, or to determine whether or not the archangel's

voice is said to arouse the members of the One Body.

In Ephesians 1:17 -23 we have a wonderful prayer recorded.  It was in

the first instance the prayer of the apostle Paul for the Ephesian saints,

and he prays for nothing less than the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the

knowledge (or acknowledgment) of 'Him' -- either of Him (the Lord) or of it

(the mystery) or probably of both, for they are inseparable (Col. 2:2 R.V.).

This spirit of revelation is, in the first instance, that 'ye may know what

is the hope of His calling'.  Now if the hope before the Ephesians had been

already expounded in Paul's earlier epistles and public ministry, why should

teaching cease at Ephesians 1:16 and prayer for revelation commence?  The

prayer includes three subjects, two of which are confessedly new:

'The riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints' and 'The

exceeding greatness of His power to us -ward who believe ... when He

raised Him from the dead ... far above all' (Eph. 1:18-21).

The hope of His calling forms one of the seven features in the unity of

the Spirit given in Ephesians 4, where it is called 'the hope of your

calling'.  This one hope cannot be severed from the 'one body' and the 'one

Spirit', for they are linked by the words 'even as ye are called -- in one

hope of your calling'.

There is no actual mention of the Second Coming of the Lord in

Ephesians, but one or two statements are given

that look forward to the end, and we must consider the evidence which they

provide.  'The dispensation of the fulness of times' when all things shall be

gathered up in Christ, whether things in heaven or in earth, may refer to the

great consummation towards which the purpose of the ages moves, but if it

does, nothing is said as to the Lord's Coming from heaven to earth.

In Ephesians 1:12 we read: 'that we should be to the praise of His

glory, who first trusted in Christ'.  The word for 'first trusted' is, in the

original, proelpizo, and does not occur elsewhere in either the New

Testament, or the LXX -- its literal meaning is 'pre -hoped', if we could

tolerate so un -English a word.  The passage is in correspondence with the

words of verse 6 as shown in the structure:

Eph. 1:5,6.

A

Predestinated as children.

B

According to the good pleasure of His will.

C

To the praise of the glory of His grace.