all these passages, as in Phil. 3: 14, the article is used, and just as Gal. 4: 26 can mean

nothing else than the Jerusalem which is above, so Phil. 3: 14 can mean nothing more

than the vocation which is above, or as rendered in the A.V., "the high calling." We want

no false hopes or expectations. Many of the Lord's believing children have entertained

the hope of an "upward calling" by reason of the interpretation given to this verse. If

there be such a calling on high for the members of the one body it must be founded upon

some other scripture than this. We have a high and a super-heavenly calling. With this

our hope is definitely linked.

Further phases of this wondrous subject we hope to consider in our next article.

When the Lord Jesus Christ is met in the air by those who shall be gathered to Him,

He will already have been proclaimed throughout the heavens. The clarion cry, "The

kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ," will have

been heard above.

The Lord will have at length risen up from His place at the right hand of God, for His

enemies will have been prepared as a footstool for His feet. The times of refreshing

which are to flow from the presence of the Lord will have drawn near. Heaven's King

will be about to take the sceptre and reign. At what point of this great scene does the

church of the one body realize its hope? Are they summoned by the Archangel Michael,

the Prince who stands for the people of Israel? Do the members of His body, whose

whole sphere of blessing is in the super-heavenlies, do they meet the Lord in the air? If

they do, the usage and meaning of the word "meet" indicate that like the virgins in the

parable, or Paul's friends who met him on the way to Rome, they accompany Him on His

journey and return with Him to the earth. This, however, seems hardly to accord with the

expression, "the hope of your calling," for that calling is clearly connected with the

It will be remembered that a few verses in Col. 1: restate the teaching of Eph. 1: 18,

adding information in several particulars and in one especially to the point just now.

Col. 1: 25-27 tells us that Paul was made a minister of the church of the one body

according to the dispensation of God given him to you (Gentiles, Eph. 3: 1, 2), which

ministry filled up the Word of God. This completing of the Word was the mystery which

had been hidden since the ages and since the generations (which generations commenced

in Gen. 2:), but is now manifested during this dispensation to His saints, to whom God

would make known Who is (or what is) the riches of the glory of this mystery (see

2: 2, 3) among (en) the Gentiles, which is Christ among (en) you, the hope of the

GLORY. The fact that God could deal with the Gentiles irrespective of Israel, was

evidenced by the proclamation of Christ among them in the terms of the mystery, and

was itself the pledge of a hope which Ephesians 1: had already defined as "the hope of