Getting An Understanding - The Fullness of Times
/By Joseph L. Watkins
Without question this verse has proven to have been one of the most difficult in all Scripture, and yet if we take each word, keeping each in their correct order that they have come to us in the great text, Eph. 1:10:
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The one filling the times summing up
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the things in the Christ the Ones
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both in the heavens and the ones
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upon the earth in Him
The little word eis (#1519) is best when we render it with a view unto, and the word #3622, which is dispensation, is better thought of as a message. The one aspect of this or any dispensation is the message of truth that the Lord desires to be dispensed out among His own. It is the new message that calls for a new dispensation. If there is no new message of truth there is no dispensation. So, as I view this, our word message is a good replacement for the word dispensation that we find here. And in this Epistle of Ephesians, the Lord's message to His saints is always in view, so we are reading: "With a view unto the message, the one (message) filling (full) the times." This word times (#2540, Strong's Concordance, and pg. 457, The New Englishman's Greek Concordance) says, "time, primarily a certain point or period of time." Sometimes this word is rendered with our word season, so we must answer the logical question - what season? Or what time? The only reasonable season or period of time here is "the time of revelation" - that season that our all-wise Maker was making His word known unto man. This message was His last message unto men and was to fill full these times, as we read in Col. 1:25 (as it is in the Greek text):
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Whereof became I minister regarding
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the dispensational message the one God
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the one given to me with a view unto
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you to fulfill the word of the God
Yes, this message from our most loving Creator was His last word of truth that any man has received to give unto another man. Now, please do not misunderstand what I am trying to say to you; yes, the Lord or the Spirit of all truth certainly can and does speak forth His truth of His word that he many enlighten men in that truth. But He never gives His word to one man in order that that man give those words of truth unto another man. So if a man should say unto you that he was told of God to give you this or that, just tell that man he is a liar, and ask him why the Lord cannot give you this message Himself. There is a bit more in this verse that we should think about; the word #346, which the KJV renders gather together, and I have summing up, and in Rom. 13:9 they have briefly comprehended. This word is made up words #303 and #2775, up, head, and has the idea to sum or add up, or to total up the head, or high number. So this last message is to sum up or complete all the things that our God has to say about Christ Jesus, both in the heavens, and upon the earth; everything that is in Him. Yes, it is all right here in His word, and this one last, great message of truth tops it all off. After our God, in the Spirit of truth, has spoken forth this one last divine message unto the Apostle Paul, there is nothing more that can be said; all truth has been revealed, and from that day (perhaps some time in A.D. 63) until the present time, our God has not given us any new words of truth - not one word.
However, we must know our great, all-loving Creator has not died, or even taken a day off, as some very foolish men have said; and the reason He has not given us any new message is perhaps because we have not read or understood, or appreciated much of His last message to us. But we must know that He has been, and is this day, very, very fully occupied, working and creating new faithing ones in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:10).
Yes, as we have very diligently and in all earnestness been endeavoring to say and make understandable to each and every saint of God in Christ Jesus. This new message out of our great God, Christ Jesus, has very little, to almost nothing, concerning life in Christ Jesus. The book of Ephesians is not a message unto or for the unsaved in Adam, but rather it is a divine message unto the saints of God, in Christ Jesus. This new message from our God is a divine invitation, a calling unto His saints to embrace and cast their lot with His other body members, or as some would say, His church, which is His Body.
The one aspect of all this that so greatly demands our undivided attention and interest is this new message, the one message of truth that our Lord says completed, or finished, or filled-full, the truth of His Words of Truth. This message is the most important message in all of His revealed truth. This message is the one message our God desires that every one of His saints will become a faithing one unto. This message is God's truth for today, that all saints should believe, and please forgive me, for I must ask you - are you a faithing one concerning this message, and if you are not, why are you not?
jlw
