There are some points on which I could have shown more clearly, I think, how entirely without foundation the groundwork of the paper on οἰκονομίαis, but nothing important that I am aware in principle. For instance, headship is not at all involved in οἰκονομία. That, I think, I have noticed. But when the writer says, “the administration of affairs was entrusted to the angels of heaven, and especially during the Mosaic period," (page 416) that is precisely οἰκονομία.—The principal point is the entire absence of redemption and the resurrection state in the author's plan.
His reasoning about grace is all false. Grace from the beginning was, through the introduction of sin, the only means of remedy, and shall be to the end; but the reigning in righteousness is not now the principle of God's direct government in the earth. It will be in the millennium.
Another point is forgotten, that the Church is to be taken up to heaven, and forms part of the earthly system only so far as reigning over it. The Old Testament speaks, no doubt, of the millennial state on earth, and partially of principles now in activity, which warrant the present state of things by the testimony of God, so as to close the mouth of a Jew; but it never speaks of the Church's condition in the millennium, more than of its state now. It does not enlarge on the Church's portion at that time, nor on its heavenly state more than on its present condition. It is not only, that the Old Testament prophecies speak largely of the millennial glory, and little of this earlier age of the dispensation, (adopting, for a moment, the writer's phraseology,) but that they never speak of the Church at all. It was a hidden mystery. The total ignorance of this mystery makes all the writer's remarks a blank in spiritual intelligence to him who, knows it.
The rest is, I believe, sufficiently noticed; but I would observe, as to the passage in Ephesians, I do not think πλήρωματὼντωναἰώνωνwould have any just sense. Αἰῶες form a series of which we can have a συντέλεια, but not, as it seems to me, a πλήρωμα. Whereas, καιροὶare seasons or opportunities, time in a moral character of suitableness according to God. There is a time of having all complete according to God, as to administration, and that will, I apprehend, be τὸπλήρωματῶνκαιρῶν. We have (Acts 1) the χρόνουςand the καιροὺς,the suited times which the Father has kept in His own power. If καιρὸς is taken in the more material meaning of period, the sense is evident, as the accomplishment of a date known to Divine wisdom, not of systematic αἰώνωνhaving each a specific character.
But another point struck me in reading the passage. I cannot doubt a moment that the apostle treats it as a thing yet future. We have redemption through His blood, says he, and God has made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself for the administration of the fullness of times. We have part in this inheritance, and have the Spirit meanwhile as an earnest until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of His glory. Hence, he speaks of the hope of His calling, and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. All this language is absolutely demonstrative to my mind that the apostle speaks of the fullness of times as a thing wholly to come.
The grand mistake as to reasoning already noticed is, that the existence of the person who is to govern is the epoch of the administration being committed to Him. It is not even the revelation of His person in the state in which it was to be committed to Him; nor were the circumstances such that He could hold it.
I have treated the de Jure question in my letter. As to οἰκονομία,administration, it is not a question of de jure, but of exercise of power in the actual ordering of what is administered. No one could have said that the period of Cromwell's power was the administration of Charles II., however royalist he might have been. When did Christ, while living, formally claim the government of the world? Even down here, of heaven He clearly did not, while as man in a life of flesh and blood. But all is confusion in the tract between Messiah, Son of man, and Son of God. I have already noticed the comment of Heb. 2. on Ps. 8., but even the sure mercies of David proved, according to the apostle, the resurrection. (Acts 13.) And, instead of claiming the world as His own, Christ repeatedly declared the contrary; and I think we may say, in the most positive manner, that He was not asked as yet to have the heathen for His inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession. He prays for His elect; but when He takes the world, He will rule the nations with a rod of iron, and break them in pieces like a potter's vessel. And I repeat, the title of His person is not administration. Nor, though all saved are saved by grace, is ruling with a rod of iron the principles on which God's dealings are now carried on with the world.
Ever yours affectionately, J. N. D.
[I do not believe that the passage (Eph. 1:1010That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: (Ephesians 1:10)) applies to the postmillennial state, which cannot properly be called a dispensation; for it is eternity; and the heading up all things to be administered by Him in whom we have received an inheritance who have first trusted (or pre-trusted) in Christ, (that is, before His manifestation in glory,) evidently speaks of the special time of Christ's administration as the glorified mall, and our association with Him in that glory. The fullness of times itself is not an expression for eternity. That would not be called times or seasons, (καιρῶν,) and the heading up all things in the man, as administrator, is not God being all in all, and the Son subject, as in 1 Cor. 15, Rev. 21; and this view of the passage is completely confirmed by verses 22 and 23. The heading up all things in Christ for the οἰκονομία,the administration of that fullness of times, is hardly the period after his having delivered up the kingdom; nor does the administration of the fullness of limes or seasons signify eternity. It refers to the inheritance in which we are joint-heirs with Christ, when, having suffered, we reign, having meanwhile the earnest of the inheritance till the redemption of the purchased possession. After that, God is to be all in all, and the Son Himself subject, and not reigning as man.]