2.2 Framing the Ages

Another word for “completion” is the Kingdom of God, the outward expression of all things as God intends. Completion very much includes all true and final appearance. The ruling verse of the Kingdom is Revelation 12:10. Now have come the salvation, power, and kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ. – Is now come.

Yet another term for completion/kingdom is Father Revealed, God known by all as He is. God’s principle of the fulness of times RULES the actuality and the unfolding of this Kingdom, and hence the outline of our study.

A Period of Time. In these present final days God has spoken us inside His Son, whom He appointed heir of all, and through whom He forms the ages (Hebrews 1:1-2). Time is entirely OF God; time is the unfolding of His knowledge. We know our Father NEW every morning forever.

An age is a specific period of time with a beginning and an end, a period of time inside of which God intends a specific measure or quality of His knowledge to be proven out. Every next measure or quality of the knowledge of God must be proven out inside of concrete reality, inside of time and space, inside of heaven and earth. That’s our job forever. Notice that God forms or frames the ages – through Jesus.

The Film Strip. A wonderful illustration for us of this “unfolding” of God’s purposes through time is the film strip. A film strip is made up of thousands of distinct little pictures that are each a moment of time. Every moment and every picture of the entire story is already there, complete and waiting in the film strip, yet to the viewer, only one of those moments is seen in one moment of viewing. To the viewer watching the film, each next scene is a flow, an unfolding of things that were already waiting to come.

In our own lives, then, each next moment is God’s next thought concerning us, coming out from our shared life together, that is, out from Christ, as the present reality of the Kingdom, God seen and known through us.

Already Written. Let’s transfer that thought to the framing of the ages and to God’s specific purpose through time for the unfolding of His knowledge, which is always Christ Jesus proven faithful and true. There will never be any unfolding of God forever that does not come through Christ Jesus proven faithful and true through us His body, His heaven-earth form.

The “film strip” is God’s Pro-Thesis, already written, already complete, yet the things to come are unknown by creation. Then, each individual frame, each moment of viewing, must come through the projector, that is, the Spirit, and be known as light and sound, image and voice, to those experiencing the story. This is the unfolding of God into our knowing forever.

The Aeons. In this lesson, we want to talk about God’s use throughout the New Testament of the Greek word aeon, that is, an age, a bounded period of time. Then, in the next lesson, we will look at the unfolding of the Kingdom. God has established set periods of time, called ages. The term, “the ages to come” means that there are many future ages of which we presently know nothing. On the other hand, the statement, “the life of the age to come” is not speaking of a separate age, but of the completion of our present age, that is, the time we are calling “The Age of Tabernacles,” the seventh “day” of the present age.

The concept of “ages” can be a bit confusing, partly because God has ages inside of ages and ages out from ages. The confusion lessens, however, when we say, “purposes inside of purposes” and “purposes out from purposes.”

Some Qualities. Let’s consider some of the qualities of an age. We can do that because we know a lot about the present age in which we live. It will be appropriate, then, to extend these qualities to future ages.

First, the age in which we live is seven thousand years in length. Technically, the seventh millennium, which we call “the Age of Tabernacles,” is still part of this present age in its larger meaning. God has a very specific purpose for this totality of seven thousand years. In fact, much of that purpose, though initially spoken across six millennium, will come to full outward appearance only through the seventh millennium. We then see, however, that this present age is split up into a number of smaller “ages” or “dispensations.”

Overlapping Each Other. These smaller dispensations can often overlap each other or even run simultaneously. For instance, we see that there are 3000 years of human life on this earth without God’s demonstration of what He means by Tabernacles, until that moment when He filled Solomon’s temple with His glory. Then, there are 3000 more years in which God’s people, whether Jew or Christian, don’t really understand what Tabernacles means. Then – bang – Tabernacles arises as the final 1000 years. Yet the dispensation of the law, which began and ended at precisely 1500 years, overlapped the layout for Tabernacles.

Start with God’s Purpose. Here is the point. God has different purposes unfolding simultaneously. Each purpose has its own time period, and they often overlap. Seasons and ages, short or long, flow entirely according to God’s differing purposes. And God’s differing purposes can relate to individuals, groups of people, or all creation. Here’s our rule, then. Start with God’s PURPOSE, and you can mark the age.

Then we see that the transition from one age to the next is dramatic, it unfolds over a number of years, and yet it is marked by a primary event. Let’s compare two age transitions to understand.

Two Transitions. First, the transition from the age of the law given to the children of Israel to the age of the gospel given to the Church is marked at it’s dramatic center by the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet that transition time began in 5 BC with the angel announcing the birth of John the Baptist and it ended with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

The transition from the time of the in-part Church to the time of the completed Church, that is, the Age of Tabernacles, is marked by the resurrection of our bodies out from death. Yet that transition time began in AD 1948 with the simultaneous outpouring of Latter Rain marking the Feast of Trumpets and the beast crawling up out of the abyss.

A Seven-Year “Age.” Then, if our bodies are swallowed up by life sometime in the year 2029, that does not mean that the transition between the two ages is complete. I suspect that we will consider the transition to be complete when all peoples remaining alive have accepted the rule of the resurrected sons of God over the whole earth, and I suspect that will be a specific event for the history books.

Then, we see that God has appointed a very short age of seven years inside of this larger transition period, a short age that is “the fullness of times” for a number of differing purposes. This short seven-year period has two great purposes of critical importance. The first is the proving of Christ faithful and true, and the second is the proving of this world as FALSE.

Two Critical Purposes. Now, I say “seven years” without being certain of its precise length. I am satisfied for myself that we are inside of it right now, and I will be happy to tell you when it is completed as soon as that moment comes.

Let’s consider what God means by “the fullness of times” as it relates to these two CRITICAL purposes. 1. Christ must be proven true. 2. The world must be proven false. And both of these are proven in one place only, inside of and through the Church. We have learned from Daniel and Nehemiah not to place ourselves “above” the Church, but as her and for her sake.

God’s Set-Forth Purpose. And we have learned from Esther that one small group of people can stand before God in the place of and for the sake of the entire Church, for all who call upon Jesus’ name. The Completion taking place among the few becomes the Completion taking place among the many.

Thus we look again at the Garden of Eden and the river flowing out from it, except this time we see that the river is Life, flowing out from those who eat only of the Tree of Life. The firstfruits of Christ, synergeoing with God, are the continual source of the completion of God inside all creation. This was God’s intentions, His Pro-Thesis, His set-forth purpose from the very start.

Salvation Revealed. Now, Part 2 of this text, “Salvation Revealed,” is a study of this very short, but super-important “Age” of the proving of Christ. We are speaking of the term, “the fulness of times,” and the term, “the completion of the age” (sometimes called “the end of this present age”).

In the chapters of that section our first focus will be on how Jesus is proven faithful and true as every Word God speaks, through us His Church – what such a thing looks like. Our second focus, then, will be on how the world, that is, everything that opposes Christ Jesus, is proven false through us His Church – what such a thing looks like. All of these chapters are being written now in full conjunction with our study of John’s vision called “The Apocalypse Now.”

The Age of Tabernacles. Part 3 of this text is a consideration of the Age of Tabernacles, a specific time-period, which I am satisfied for myself will be 1000 years in length. Yet I do not set myself as a “predictor” of the future. I am convinced that God’s purpose for the Age of Tabernacles is to establish through us inside this present heaven-earth a full human life and culture as He intended when He placed Adam and Eve into the garden. It would not surprise me if that intention included humans on this earth clocking past their 1000^th birthday.

I am also convinced that the Age of Tabernacles began in the year of our Lord, 2022, and that we are right now inside the completion of this present age of human folly.

Judgment Now Come. The “ages to come” are vague, partly because they do not concern us right now, except as a point on the horizon towards which we are heading. That point is the completion of Paul’s gospel, that is, every knee bowing and every tongue speaking Christ, and Jesus returning to the Father with all creation restored.

Nonetheless, it is very important to us now as sons of God in the completion of this present age to know what God means by that point of Paul’s gospel, something that may well take some ages to complete. You see, very much inside of the Kingdom come now is this line from Revelation 20:4 – And I saw thrones and they sat upon them and judgment was given to them.

Our Judgment. We are judges, we are seated upon the Mercy Seat, and the authority and judgment of God is in our eyes and in our mouths. God intends for us to know the end of all judgment of this time of rebellion, in order that we might know all present judgment.

What would one say to a mother who has just aborted her baby? To judge in the present moment out from the end of all judgment is to ask her how will she respond when see sees her baby again, fully real and whole, but broken in sobs of tears, “Mom, why did you murder me? It hurt so terribly. Did you hate me so much?” God’s restitution requires a life for a life, and it requires double. Justice will bring that mother under her child until all is restored.

The Determination of God. Here is what we understand. God’s purposes are certain, and they unfold bit by bit through much human time. Yet those purposes and determinations are RELENTLESS, as a river flowing to the sea, carrying all inside its movement. Never will any purpose of God in any individual life, or in any moment of time, be thwarted or turned aside. Every knee bowing and every tongue speaking Christ IS all justice COMPLETE.

As sons of God in the completion of this age, we stand UPON FIRM inside of that relentless determination of God. We live “in the moment,” God and us together, but never “for the moment.” Rather we live for the revelation of God in all.