With respect to this subject, we will refer to three Scriptures:
First: “When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law” (Gal. 4:4).
Second: “In the dispensation of the fullness 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; in whom also we have obtained an inheritance” (Eph. 1:10-11).
Third: “The angel... sware by Him that liveth forever and ever... that there should be time [delay] no longer: but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished” (Rev. 10:5-7).
These three portions of Scripture mark out the great leading events or epochs of God’s dealings towards the world. The first of them is past; the two others, future. We shall now endeavor to ascertain from Scripture to what past dealings and ways of God the expression in Galatians refers: “When the fullness of the time was come.” We must, consequently, take a general glance at the past history of man, as revealed to us, from the beginning until that moment.
Dominion and Government
If we turn to Genesis 1-2, we find that God, having created the man and the woman in innocence, bestowed upon them a joint universal dominion over all that God had created in this world. But Satan came in and succeeded in overthrowing him from this universal lordship; man had fallen under his power and become estranged from God. Adam passes out from the presence of God and from a state into which he could never return. Then begins the trial of man in this condition, which lasts about four thousand years, till the “fullness of the time was come.”
For about 1600 or 1700 years of this trial, God left men to themselves (God always preserving a witness in the world for Himself) till the flood, when the earth was “corrupt before God, and ... was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth” (Gen. 6:11-12). And the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished; this ended the trial of man left to himself without law. Noah and his family are saved through the judgment of the world, and we find him on the earth thus cleansed. Into his hand God places the sword of government. (Adam had lordship; Noah, government.)
Idolatry
A new principle now finds a place in the hearts of men; the worship of demons began. When men knew God, “they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened: professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beasts, and creeping things” (Rom. 1:21-23). Man cannot do without something to rule his conscience and heart; if he has not God as above him, he will have something else. Satan gets this place, and man turns to the worship of demons. “What the nations sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God” (1 Cor. 10:20 JND).
In such a state of things man’s heart became filled with self-will — self-will which shows itself in independence of God. This was expressed in the building of Babel. This meets its judgment from God, who gives restraint of the confusion of different languages, a hindrance to the common purpose of man’s heart.
Israel and the Law
When the world had thus gone into idolatry, God separated to Himself one man — Abraham — and in him a nation — Israel—that He might place man under another test on new ground. The law represented to man the test of his responsibility as a fallen child of Adam and the authority of God. This fresh trial lasted until the captivity of Babylon. After the history of the royalty of Israel and its failure, God removed the seat of His government from the center from which He had governed the world, and then He transferred the supreme power of the world into the hands of the Gentiles, beginning with Babylon and its king, Nebuchadnezzar.
The Times of the Gentiles
How then will he use it? Lifted up in pride of heart, he makes of himself a center and endeavors to make a religious and idolatrous center of unity apart from God. Lifted up in pride, he says, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?” (Dan. 4:30). He loses his moral reason and becomes a beast, thus typifying, as their head, the power of the Gentiles in the whole period of their existence, till the “times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke 21:24).
And now into the moral wilderness of this world and into that little spot on which He had bestowed such care came His last trial for man. “Then said the lord of the vineyard, what shall I do? I will send My beloved Son: it may be they will reverence Him when they see Him. But when the husbandmen saw Him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the heir: come, let us kill Him, that the inheritance may be ours. So they cast Him out of the vineyard, and killed Him” (Luke 20:13-15). Thus ended the probation of man for 4000 years, under every form of trial. The fullness of the time was come (Gal. 4:4-5).
God Sent His Son
God had sent forth His Son, who was so received. The Son had come to seek and to save that which was lost! He took the twofold position: “made under the law,” through which the Jew was under condemnation, but His purpose was to redeem, by His death, them that were under the law, that those who believe, of both Jew and Gentile, might receive the adoption of sons — that God might display the exceeding riches of His grace towards those who were under sin and condemnation.
To those who believe, God reveals His purpose — “that in the dispensation of the fullness 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; in whom also we have obtained an inheritance” (Eph. 1:10-11). And when that time shall have come, the strong angel swears by Him that lives forever and ever that the “mystery of God” should be finished (Rev. 10).
The Mystery of God
During the interval between the “fullness of the time” and the “dispensation of the fullness of times,” “the mystery of God,” of Rev. 10, goes on. This is His non-intervention in open power to set things right in the world, while He watches over all in secret — the time when He bears with long-suffering the evil, without judging it. The church of God suffers through this interval in the “kingdom and patience of Jesus.” Gentile domination goes on in the world. The great image of Daniel 2 has not yet received the blow upon its feet by the stone cut out without hands. The whole creation groans and travails in pain, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God (Rom. 8:19-22). Satan goes about unrestrained, as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Jesus, rejected by the world, sits at God’s right hand, waiting till His enemies are made His footstool (Psa. 110; Heb. 10).
The Son of Man in Dominion
If we turn to Psalm 8, we shall find that there is a “Son of Man” on whom this dominion is bestowed. “Thou madest Him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under His feet: all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas” (Psa. 8:6-8). Who is this “Son of Man”? And where is this dominion to be exercised and enjoyed? It is the second (last) Adam — the Son of Man — to whom this headship is given. It is in an age to come this dominion is to be exercised and enjoyed. Meanwhile, when waiting for the assumption of this headship, He is “crowned with glory and honor.”
All things that had been marred and destroyed in the hands of the first Adam shall be more than made good in the last Adam, the Son of Man. He takes the headship of Psalm 8 not only by right, but by redemption, as the inheritance had fallen under the power of the enemy through man’s sin. The joint-heirs will then enjoy unitedly with Him this headship in the heavenly glory, and the name of the Lord shall be excellent in all the earth.
F. G. Patterson (adapted)