Eyes Enlightened

By Oscar M. Baker

"The eyes of your understanding being enlightened..." Probably 'having been' would be better. This is something that had already happened to the saints and faithful. And the prayer is that they may come to know more, especially of the Lord Jesus Christ in Whom are all the blessings and hope enumerated.

Surely one would have to be enlightened if he were to see the seven main points of the mystery:

1. All Spiritual Blessings. Blessings too numerous to mention had been promised to Abraham and his posterity; blessings of basket and store, as well as spiritual ones. But here we come to a dispensation in which the saints have all spiritual blessings (every blessing that is spiritual). Nothing withheld.

2. In Heavenly Places. Abraham and all from him down to Paul were promised blessings in the promised land, but never in heavenly places.

3. Before the Overthrow. All had been planned in the mind of God before the end of the first Kosmos, the Katabole by water. But the kingdom had been prepared from the overthrow of the world (Kosmos, Matt. 25:34).

4. Seated Together. Enthroned with Christ in heavenly places, right now (potentially), and reckoned so. No promise was ever made to Abraham or Israel that they would ever go to the heavenly places. Their dispensation is of this earth and the New Jerusalem in the earth to come. So this is another new thing revealed.

5. The Both Made One. From Abraham till the end of Acts, no one ever dreamed that Jew and Gentile would be on an equality and be considered together as one body. That God should create a new church of Jewish and Gentile believers was first revealed by Paul.

6. No Longer Foreigners. The Gentile believers, who at one time were strangers from the covenants of promise and aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, were placed far above, even in the holiest of all, and made a part of the family of God in that place. This family is described as principalities, powers, mights, and dominions, the aristocracy of heaven.

7. A Habitation of God.  It had been no secret that the body of the believer was the temple of the Holy Spirit Who dwells in the new man or nature. And it was no secret that Christ could abide or live in the believer. And it was no secret that God desired to dwell among His people, Israel. But the truth that a body of believers would be created for to be used as a temple, a habitation of God was something new. And there will be no furniture in this temple, no altar, no lavers, no priesthood, or other things that have to do with sin and sins. This is foreshadowed by Colossians 2:16.

There is absolutely no way in which these things, these seven items, can be fitted in with the former dispensation of promise culminating in the kingdom of heaven here on earth.

(Reprinted from Truth For Today, Vol. 26, No. 7)