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same word, "You were in that season without Christ, aliens, strangers, hopeless,
Godless". "That season" is contrasted with "This season" implied in 2: 13 and defined
in 1: 10. Some there are who hold that 1: 10 refers to the yet future glorious day spoken
of in I Cor. 15: (24-28) when the Son of God shall lay at the Father's feet a perfected
universe "That God may be all in all". This cannot be however, for two important
reasons:--
1.
In Eph. 1: 10 the dispensation there spoken of is a mystery, but the consummation
("God all in all") was not a mystery, having been revealed earlier in the epistle to the
Corinthians.
2.
That the future and final goal indicated in I Cor. 15: cannot with truth be called a
"dispensation".
A dispensation is a stewardship. It implies that the Lord or Owner is dealing
immediately with his possessions. All mediation ends however when the Son brings to
the Father the crowning work of the ages. Priesthood and kingship, rule and authority are
terms consistent with varying stewardships, but they are all fulfilled and resigned before
God can be all in all. Therefore that blessed period cannot be a dispensation of the grace
of God to the Gentiles. It is the dispensation pre-eminently marked by the reconciliation
of things on earth and things in heaven.
The Head of the church is Head also of principality and power. The sphere of the
church is in the superheavenlies. Now, although the world believes it not, and though
many a believer confesses "We see not yet all things put under His feet", yet now "things
in heaven and things in earth" are ranged under the one Headship of the ascended Christ.
It was to enlighten all as to this that the apostle preached the untraceable riches of the
Christ. The mystery of Rom. 16: had been kept quiet in age-times, but the mystery here
had been hidden by God from the ages. The apostle stresses this fact in Col. 1: 25, 26:--
"According to that dispensation of God which was given me for you, to complete the
word of God--the mystery which had been hidden from the ages and from the
generations, but now is made manifest to His saints."
Let us seek to realize our calling and its privileges. Though the world knows neither
our Lord and Head nor ourselves His body, let us remember that this present dispensation
is the first complete foreshadowing of the end, when throughout the range of creation
heaven and earth are to be reunited under the Headship of Christ.