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AND THE PURPOSE OF THE AGES
Resurrection and the purpose of the Ages
In Ephesians 3:8-11 the apostle Paul refers to the unfolding of the dispensation of the Mystery (secret)
`according to the eternal purpose which He (God) purposed in Jesus Christ our Lord'. Sometimes it is necessary to
sacrifice the magnificent prose of the Authorised Version in order to get nearer to the meaning of the original
Hebrew and Greek. A more literal rendering of verse eleven would be `According to the purpose of the ages which
He made in Christ Jesus our Lord'. The ages are the great platform of time on which God is working out a mighty
plan embracing heaven and earth, centred in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Bible is God's record of this plan,
revealed step by step according to His matchless wisdom. A careful study of the New Testament shows that this
mighty purpose is said to be by, through, in or with Christ and we do well to realise that there is no phase of it that is
not essentially connected with Him and His atoning death and resurrection. In fact we can say that the truth of
resurrection connected with the Lord and His redeemed people is the basis which holds this great plan together.
What a pity then that this doctrine has been practically jettisoned by modern Christendom or mere lip service paid to
it! How many Christian preachers and expositors give it a place in their ministry apart from Easter Sunday? Yet the
apostle Paul did not hesitate to write to the church at Corinth: `If Christ be not raised, your faith is VAIN; ye are yet
in your sins'. Such was and still is the hopeless position of living believers apart from the resurrection of the Lord.
And what of God's children who have died? `Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are PERISHED'.
This is strong language, but the apostle was dealing with truth so fundamental that it was warranted. Let us notice
the various ways in which the great truth of resurrection impinges upon the purpose of the ages.
(1) The Lord Himself.-It is hardly possible to read the eleventh and twelfth chapters of Matthew's Gospel
without realising that events recorded there were working to a climax. The Lord had come to His earthly people
Israel and presented His credentials as Messiah by working daily in their midst the very miracles that the Old
Testament had predicted He would accomplish at His advent. He was indeed a man `approved of God among you
by miracles and wonders and signs' as Peter expressed it (Acts 2:22). But in spite of all this, unbelief was doing its
deadly work in the hearts of the people of Israel. `Then began He to upbraid the cities wherein most of His mighty
works were done, because they repented not' (Matt. 11:20). `And He did not many mighty works there because of
their unbelief' (Matt. 13:58). This unbelief was such as to cause the Lord to marvel (Mark 6:6). He had presented
Himself in His threefold capacity as Prophet (Matt. 12:41), Priest (verse 6) and King (verse 42) and yet they had the
impertinence to ask for a sign:
`But He answered and said unto them, An evil, and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall
no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the
whale's belly; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth' (12:39,40).
Later on, the Lord referred again to Jonah as being the only sign that would be given to that unbelieving
generation (16:4). Apart from the fact that the Saviour set His seal upon the truth of Jonah being swallowed by the
great fish, it is evident that there was more in this incident than appears on the surface. Too often it is understood to
mean that Jonah was miraculously preserved alive inside the fish and afterwards vomited upon the dry land. In
which case one might well ask how the prophet could be a true picture of the death of the Lord Jesus and His
entombment for three days and three nights? Jonah does not hesitate to describe the belly of the sea monster as
`sheol' the grave (2:2 translated `hell' cf. Psa. 16:10) and `shachath' corruption (2:6). This word is rendered the
`grave' in Job 33:22. The belly of the fish was as the grave to Jonah. Moreover the `as' and the `so' of Matthew
12:40 would lead one to believe that Jonah, after uttering the prayer recorded in chapter two of the prophecy,
actually died and was brought to life again when given up by the great fish, so becoming a perfect type of the Lord's
*
death and resurrection. This occasion in the Lord's ministry was not the only time that He stressed His
resurrection as a sign to those who would not believe.
*
We are aware that some Christian expositors would not go as far as this, but we ask the reader to test what is
written in the true Berean spirit.