To Satan, the counsels of God are as secret, until revealed, as to the children of men. It must have appeared a marvelous triumph of his ingenuity and devilish craft when he apparently succeeded in overturning the plans of the prophetic teachings of God, by securing the rejection and crucifixion of God’s King. That the Messiah should take into His hand the reins of earthly government and set up a kingdom of heaven on earth was clearly demonstrated in the Word. That the Messiah had come and no such kingdom had been set up was also clear from the facts. That the prophecies should ever be capable of a literal fulfillment, such as should vindicate the truthfulness of God and His Word, seemed to him, doubtless, as impossible as it has seemed to thousands of God’s own children, who have abandoned the expectation and exchanged it for the fruitless effort to spiritualize the prophecies into a forced and unnatural harmony with existing events.
While many still cling to this error, Satan has assuredly long since been undeceived. The revelation of “the mystery,” unfolded in vain before the eyes of some of God’s children, has been seen of him with clearer discernment. This is not mere conjecture; it is the teaching of the Word itself. In the epistle to the Ephesians, the Apostle, in opening his commission “to make all see what is the dispensation of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God,” adds, “who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God” (Eph. 3:9-109And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: 10To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, (Ephesians 3:9‑10)).
The Display of God’s Wisdom
Here we have the fact that the display of God’s manifold wisdom, by means of the church, was contemplated in His purpose before the creation, with express reference to “the principalities and powers in heavenly places.” Now, if, in Ephesians 1:2121Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: (Ephesians 1:21) and Colossians 2:1010And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power: (Colossians 2:10), “principalities and powers” seem employed to designate celestial inhabitants in favor with God, in Ephesians 6:1212For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (Ephesians 6:12) the same is used for the deadly enemies of God and man, the wicked spirits known elsewhere as “the devil and his angels.” By them this manifold wisdom will be learned to their confusion and dismay, as by the others to their edification and joy, through the demonstration of God’s ability to accomplish results. This highest and most blessed work is done through the instrumentality of the very elements that seemed most to thwart his plans and traverse his purposes.
Do you dream of a gradually diffused gospel, converting the world under the agency of the Spirit, and ushering in a millennium of spiritual blessedness, without the presence of a personal Messiah, in manifested glory on the throne of His father David? If so, you will have to revise this position before you will be able “to see what is the dispensation of the mystery.” Can a child of God rest satisfied that such a victory should abide in the hands of Satan, as if he had frustrated the literal accomplishment of prophecy and reduced God to the necessity of giving to it only a so-called spiritual accomplishment? No simple reader of the Word could ever suppose this to be correct. No; Satan has not triumphed. God’s purpose is not abandoned; his plans have not been frustrated. A foreseen postponement, yes, has delayed the immediate establishment, but in Satan’s seeming victory the prince of darkness has outwitted himself; he has accomplished God’s secret purpose to suspend, for a season, the erection of the throne, in order to prepare a bride for His King, to be associated with Him in His reign. The church of the living God, a people brought into a special place of nearness, shall have part in His exaltation and glory; those who own and take part with Him in His humiliation and rejection, because they “suffer” with Him, shall also “reign with Him.” They will fill that very place in the heavenlies — the place where Satan and his angels now are. They are the powers of the air of which he is prince. These “wicked spirits in the heavenlies” war in spiritual conflict against the saints.
The Kingdom on Earth
The Old Testament prophecies spoke only of earth; there was no intimation of a people to fill the place of the Satanic powers, no word of their being dispossessed in favor of a people redeemed from the earth. This was a secret, a mystery hid in God. Satan’s seeming triumph gave occasion both to the unfolding and to the accomplishment of God’s multiform wisdom, His grace and His glory. The kingdom which Satan thought to frustrate will yet be set up on earth — the millennium of New Testament prophecy. The literal accomplishment of every detail of God’s Word and the full vindication of the faithfulness of God and the truthfulness of His prophets will be established.
The Present Dispensation
The present dispensation is a parenthetic period, contemplated indeed in the counsels of God, but not revealed till “given” to Paul who set it forth.
Once this truth is seen, it becomes the key to the interpretation of Scripture and to “rightly dividing the word of truth,” in the distinguishing of things Jewish from things Christian. Until it is seen, neither Testament can be understood aright, and Christianity, instead of having its proper and distinctive character, is degraded into a sort of revised form of Judaism.
Christ and the Church
All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid in “the mystery,” so that the dispensation of it, as given to Paul, is the filling up, or completing, of the Word of God. Christ is the center of the truth and ways of God, but the Christ of God’s counsels is not simply the man Christ Jesus, but “as the body is one, and hath many members, so also is Christ.” It is “Christ and the church” — the mystery — the second Adam, not alone, but with His Eve united with Him under a common name. As Adam was incomplete without Eve, so is the Christ of God’s counsels and purposes incomplete without “the church, which is His body, the fullness [or complement] of Him that filleth all in all” (Eph. 1:22-2322And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, 23Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all. (Ephesians 1:22‑23)). With good reason Paul would pray that “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (Eph. 1:1818The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, (Ephesians 1:18)).
Adapted from
The Christian Friend, 3:81