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of Christ, we must be acquainted with the promises that await fulfillment, and the callings
that are yet to find their realization in that day.
Let us note the promises that are awaiting fulfillment and see whether they can
possibly relate to the same phase of the Second coming.
"And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our
fathers: unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night hope
to come" (Acts 26: 6, 7).
"The Fathers" belong to Israel. "Whose are the fathers" (Rom. 9: 5). "All our fathers
were under the cloud . . . . . Moses" (I Cor. 10: 1). "Moses truly said unto the fathers"
(Acts 3: 22).
The Church of the One Body is not looking for the fulfillment of the promises which
God made unto "the fathers". "The Twelve Tribes" limit this promise and hope to the
earthly sphere of blessing, and to that phase of the second advent which relates to the
earth.
The kingdom, however, had a heavenly section as well as an earthly one. Paul
addressed his epistle to the Hebrews as "Holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling"
(Heb. 3: 1), and Abraham who received the earthly inheritance as an unconditional gift,
is represented as reaching out after "a better country, that is a heavenly" (Heb. 11: 16).
This better and heavenly section of the kingdom is focused in the New Jerusalem, "the
heavenly Jerusalem" (Heb. 12: 22), which was the "Mother" of the believers at Galatia,
who, though Gentiles by nature, were Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise
(Gal. 3: 29; 4: 26). Here therefore is another set of promises with their corresponding
hope and these will not be fulfilled on the earth, or when the Lord stands upon the mount
of Olives, these will be fulfilled when the saints meet the Lord in the air. The early
epistles of Paul, Galatians, I and II Thessalonians, Hebrews, I and II Corinthians and
Romans, belong to this calling and company.
Galatians is linked with Hebrews by Jerusalem which is above, and Romans and
Galatians are vitally joined by the common fatherhood of Abraham. I Thess. 4: belongs
to this group and must be taken as expressing the hope of the church during the Acts of
the Apostles. II Thess. 2:, shows that this hope would not be entered or realized until
the days when the Beast and False Prophet of Rev. 13: are upon the scene.
This heavenly aspect of the hope, however, is not the blessed hope of the Church of
the Mystery. This company is unrelated to any promises made unto Abraham or the
fathers, neither is it related with the heavenly Jerusalem.
"The one hope of the calling" of the Church of the Mystery must harmonize with that
calling. This calling antedates all promises that are discoverable in the Old Testament. It
goes back to a period before the overthrow of the world, it is a holy calling made in
Christ before age times (Eph. 1: 3-5, 18; 4: 4; II Tim. 1: 9). Its sphere of blessing is