What does it mean to gather together in one all things in Christ (Ephesians 1:10)?

But there is more. Not only has He thus abounded to us in connection with His grace, but also in connection with His wisdom. Verse 8 speaks of "wisdom and prudence [or, intelligence]." The secrets of His wisdom He has made known in order that we may intelligently enter into and enjoy them. God has always acted according to His own will, though in the presence of sin and its ravages He chose for long ages to keep the main purpose of His will as a secret or mystery; and the pleasure of His will and purpose has always been good, for He is good. This is a great fact that we do well to lay hold of firmly. The "pleasure of His will" is good (ver. 5). The "pleasure which He has purposed in Himself" is good (ver. 9). God's pleasure and purpose is not connected with judgment, though that work, which He calls His "strange work," is necessary, and to be fulfilled in due season.

Verse 10 tells us what the real secret of His will and purpose is. In the coming age, spoken of here as "the fulness of times," He is going to gather together in one all things in Christ, both things earthly and things heavenly. No mention is made here of things infernal, for this predicted gathering together is in connection with a world of blessing, and consequently things infernal lie outside it. By establishing Christ as the exalted and glorified Head of all things there will be established on earth as well as in heaven a divine system of unity and blessing. Sin is lawlessness: it makes of every man in effect a little unit on his own, finding his only centre in himself. Hence during all these ages in which sin has been reigning, no matter how skilfully men try to engineer their unities, disintegration has been the order of the day. God has His unity. He is working towards it. When Christ is publicly established in glory as Head, God's purpose as to unity will be reached, as far as His government of heavenly and earthly things is concerned.

The coming age is going to witness at last the fullest possible harmony between the heavens and the earth, and Christ Head in both spheres, producing the unity. All is in Him. But then through grace we are already in Him, and thus have obtained an inheritance in all this wealth of blessing. That to which we are destined has been settled beforehand, not according to our need, nor even according to our thoughts or wishes, but according to the purpose of God, who effects all things as He pleases. We may be sure, as a consequence of this, that no possible slip can come between us and the inheritance to which we are destined.

It is God's pleasure, in the dispensation of the fulness of times, to gather together in one all things in Christ. The “fulness of times” would hardly refer to the eternal state, for then God will be all in all. It would seem to have in view the world to come — the Millennial day — when the full result of the ways of God in government will be seen in perfection. All the principles of government that have been committed to men at different times, and in which men have so completely failed, will be seen in perfection under the administration of Christ. The ruin of the times has been seen under the government of man; the “fulness”, or perfection, of the times, will be seen when Christ reigns. Then every created thing or being, in heaven and earth, will move under His control and at His direction. As a result, unity, harmony and peace will prevail. Such is the secret, or mystery, of the will of God for the glory of Christ.

But the next verse opens up another subject: "Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence." It is not said, "abounded toward us in forgiving us," because full forgiveness is a positive need. But when we hear of "wisdom and prudence," it is a question of God's counsels about His Son, over and independent of all thought of necessities. He says, as it were, You are able now to enter into My thoughts, and understand them when I speak. You are delivered from anxiety about your sins, and are free now to enter into My purpose. "Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself." And this secret of His will is, "That in the dispensation of the fulness 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." (Ver. 9-11.) We have clearly here, in these central verses, the fact that we are capacitated (the question of sin being settled in our souls) to hear what God has to say to us about all other things. He has not now merely to tell us what He is going to do upon the earth, as He dealt with Abraham. The relationship is higher than that which was made known to the patriarchs. At the beginning, when the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, He brought them to Adam, the lord of creation, to see what he would call them; and whatsoever he called each living creature, that became its name. "And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field." (Gen. 2:19-20.) This was conferred wisdom in the domain of nature. But now it is far more profound and comprehensive; for it is a question of the supremacy of the second Man and of the discernment which suffices for and suits its boundless heights and depths. Accordingly, God has made His grace to abound towards us in every sort of wisdom and intelligence. Whatever displays His character and Christ's glory, He makes known to us. He treats us, not as servants, but as friends. He has one thing nearer than aught else — what He is going to do for His Son: and He imparts to us the secrets nearest to His own heart.

If any person say, I do not want to understand mysteries, I answer, You do not want to know what God wishes to teach you. Unbelief always shows itself in some character of hostility to God. He, in His perfect goodness, gives the comfort of salvation, and then opens out these other truths. "Having made known unto us the mystery of his will." This does not mean something you cannot understand, but what you could not know before God told you. Do not turn away and say, All I want to know is to be saved. We ought to desire to learn all God deigns to teach us. The word "mystery" means what God was pleased to keep secret — something He had not before revealed, but quite intelligible when it is unfolded. "Mystery," in a popular sense, is totally different from its use in the word of God. There are many things very wonderful in the prophecies, but they are not called mysteries. Brought out now for the first time, it is the mystery of His will. There are many mysteries explained in the New Testament as those of the kingdom of heaven. Babylon, too, is called a mystery. The mystery here is, that God means to unite all things in heaven and in earth, under the headship of our Lord. He does not mean to have the heavens, as they are now, completely severed from the earth, but to have a united system of heavenly and earthly glory, all under Christ — this is the mystery of His will.

But Ephesians 1 points us not merely to the heavenly glory, but to the union under Christ of the heavenlies and the earthlies — of all things both which are in the heavens and which are on the earth. It is not that all are to be reduced to the same level, but that all must be gathered in one united system, as having one head over all, even Christ. But the church is not included in any of these things. We are not confounded with either; on the contrary, we are spoken of as those who have obtained an inheritance in Christ over all. The church is not to be a glorious people only, over which Christ is to reign. We are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ — not merely heirs under Christ, but with Him — according to the blessed type given at the very beginning of man's history, where, while Adam had the glory of being head over this lower world, his wife shares the dominion in virtue of her union with him. The church is the spiritual Eve of the Lord Jesus, the bride of the last Adam. This may somewhat explain the force of the words in Ephesians 1:10, 23, and it shows us the importance of the day we are looking at in Revelation 20. For "the thousand years" answer to this very period, when the administration will be in the hands of the Lord Jesus, the exalted and manifested Head over all things, and the church will share all along with Him.

Secondly — The mystery of God's will, the knowledge of which is thus entrusted "to the Church, has reference to a period here termed "the dispensation of the fulness of times." Many have supposed that this denotes the present dispensation, confounding it with another expression used in Gal. 4:4, "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son." But the fulness of time, and the dispensation of the fulness of times, are two very different expressions. "When the time appointed in divine counsels was fully come, God sent forth his Son," would seem to be the plain, obvious meaning of the one. The other designates a period, "the dispensation of the fulness of times," in which all things in heaven and in earth are to be gathered together in one, that is, in Christ. This is evidently something future. The reconciliation of all things in heaven and in earth, we have already seen in Col. 1, is future, though peace has been already made by the blood of the cross. The Church is now reconciled; but things in heaven and on earth are yet to be reconciled. So here in Eph. 1 — the Church is blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, and has confided to it the knowledge of the mystery of God's will: but things in heaven and things on earth are not yet being gathered, much less actually gathered together in one in Christ. The Church itself is being gathered for the heavens; but it is of things in heaven and things on earth that it is said they are all to be gathered together in Christ.

Here we are introduced to another, and yet future, dispensation; equally secret to the by-gone ages, but now brought forth, as the complement of the uncovered mystery - to wit, the union, under the sceptre of the Messiah, of heavenly as well as earthly things in one kingdom of God. This coming dispensation is termed that of the fulness of times or seasons, as that in which the dealings of God with this earth (to which times and seasons, kronoi kai kairoi, belong) will attain their completion; and that which characterises it is the gathering together - literally, the heading up - of all things in heaven and on earth in the Christ. The language is peculiar, and strikingly impressive, this heading up. Has the reader ever seen a cooper "heading up" a cask? He groups the staves together on end, around the head of the cask, fitted into the "chime" or groove, cut in each to enable it to receive and grasp the beveled edge of the head. When all are in position, be tightens a hoop around, and drives on hoop after hoop, till all the separate pieces are firmly compacted into one vessel. Did he drive the hoops on the upright staves, without the head, the first stroke of the hammer would cast all into confusion. The centre of cohesion, around which the staves are headed up, is the head or end of the cask; and once that is in place, the greater the compression, the firmer and better the work.

Christ is the centre and head, in whom are to be headed up all the separate elements, both heavenly and earthly, whose union, under the hand and sceptre of the Messiah, like that of the union of Jew and Gentile in one, under the present dispensation, was wholly foreign to the scope of Old Testament revelations.

"The mystery of God" must not be confounded with the mystery of His will in Eph. 1:9. This last is what has been always near to His heart, for it involves the glory not of the church only but of Christ. It is "according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself." There was no one that suggested it. It was His own will. And what is the mystery of His will? "That in the dispensation of the fulness 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." All these things that Satan has scattered now will be reunited in one under Christ. Mercy and truth will then meet together, righteousness and peace kiss each other. This is true even now for the believer, as far as his own reconciliation to God is concerned. Satan may challenge you: — How can it be had in the presence of so much evil within? No wonder that this cuts right into the conscience of the man that doubts God, and even of the one that believes Him, if he is looking at himself. When occupied with myself these doubts may well arise, but not if I am looking only to Christ. He alone is entitled to give me rest before God. It is Christ alone who can dissipate the waves and the winds. Satan has set man against God in every way, even against goodness coming down from Him; but God is not going to allow evil to pass a certain limit. Though Satan's opposition is allowed to frustrate God's plans for the present, yet every one of the ways in which He has been at work in the earth from the first is destined to triumph and to triumph together in the end. (Hosea 2:21, 23.) There was a man set up in Adam; there was government put into the hands of Noah; there was God's calling given to Abraham; there was the long and patient test of the law; finally, there was the mission of His Son and of His Spirit. All these things, so to speak, have been streams from God flowing through this earth. They have been refused or corrupted by man from the first, and through the enemy's power men will abuse these very dealings of God to bring in the most daring and deadly conspiracy that the world has ever seen — Satan and man combined against God, who will allow all this evil to come out, and will then put an end to it by judgment. This is the finishing of the mystery.

Verse 10 gives us the explanation of this mystery. God gathers together in one all things in Christ in the dispensation of the fulness of times. All that which preceded was preparatory; as the law, the prophets, etc. This verse speaks of the fulness of times, when God will arrange all things according to His mind, by setting Christ at the head of all things; and it is by being united to Him that we are made partakers of the inheritance. God acts of His own will to bring about what He wills. All shall be gathered together in one in Christ. It is by Him that all has been created, and by Him all is to be reconciled; and this is set forth here as the result of the counsels of God.

He has also taken us into His confidence, and made known to us the mystery of His will, that in the coming age He is going to gather everything in heaven and upon earth under Christ. To us the heavens seem far away, and things are apparently greatly scattered throughout the universe. But in the dispensation of the fullness of times he will unite the whole universe under one Head. He will bring together, govern, control, and direct the whole creation. He who could say, “The foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has not where to lay His head” will have the pre-eminence in every department of the heavens and of the earth. The dispensation of the fullness of times is the culmination of all the ways of God with His rebellious creatures. In that day everything that was foreshadowed by men lifted by God into a position of prominence from Adam downward, and who failed, every one of them, in the trust committed to them, will be found centred in Christ, who maintained and shall maintain all to the glory and praise of God.

In Him we have obtained an inheritance, for whatever He inherits we inherit along with Him, and with Him we are joint-heirs. And this “according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will.” It is not given to us in answer to any request or desire on our part. He has acted from Himself in His infinite wisdom and eternal love. We have not been consulted about this, nor about any blessing that He has bestowed upon us. And it is well for us that He has thus acted, for had He left the deciding of our blessings to ourselves, hired servants and not sons would have been our eternal portion.

In the dispensation (administration, stewardship) of the fullness of the times He is going to head up all things in One, in Christ. This peculiar expression, "the fullness of times," leads us on to the world-to-come when our blessed Lord, God's anointed Man, will be supreme in the universe, manifested and acknowledged as such, by every intelligent being. Many are the times which have run their course during the history of the ways of God. These were all marked by failure on the part of men to carry through to finality and fruition whatever had been committed to them of God. All that has ever been entrusted to man has broken down in his incapable hands. How blessed to look forward to that coming period when everything of God which has come out in His past dealings, gathered up in the capable hands of the Man of His pleasure, shall be seen in glorious display. "The pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hands."