The same truth is emphasized in Rom. 16:25:  “Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began.”

This new age of the Gentiles was also to have its hope centered in Jesus Christ, but in His sacrificial death rather than His kingly reign.  It was to be an age in which the Gentiles were to be visited and a people called out from them for His own Person (Acts 15:14); and these people, who are the real Church, were to be built together upon a rock (Matt. 16:18); their glorious salvation and final heavenly perfection were to rest only on His perfect and finished work for them.  By this Divine transformation, He would secure, out of all nations, both Gentiles and Jews, a heavenly people; wholly fitted in quality to be His own body, His heavenly bride, and a kingdom of priests unto God.

All this, though not revealed in past ages, was known in the councils of God (Acts 15:18) and is parenthetical in the history of the Jew.  It is a delay of their earthly kingdom and in no way its fulfillment or substitute.

Want of knowledge of the right divisions of truth is also evident in the general impression that God has cast off His people, the Jews, and that the Gentiles are their rightful successors and the recipients of the blessings of their unfulfilled prophecies.  This confusion is due to a failure to distinguish between this and the following age.

Two distinct lines of seed were promised to Abraham.  One, an earthly seed, to be like the dust of the earth, without number (Gen. 13:16), centered wholly in the earth by a relationship of physical generation:  the other seed were likened to the stars of heaven, without number (Gen. 15:5), centered wholly in the heavenlies by a relationship of Spirit regeneration, which is the present answer of God to all true Abrahamic faith (Rom. 4:1-5).  The earthly people found their origin in the physical fatherhood of Abraham:  while the heavenly people find theirs in the shed blood of Christ.  One had an earthly history from Abraham to their dispersion among the Gentiles—­a history which will yet be resumed and the everlasting covenants fulfilled in the faithfulness of God:  the other has a transient earthly pilgrimage from the Cross to their completion; when they will be caught up to meet and marry their Bridegroom, and be forever with the Lord (I Thes. 4:13-17).

To one, Christ is the coming glorious Messiah, who will actually sit upon the throne of His father, David (Lu. 1:31-33), in a literal earthly kingdom (else all Scripture language fails):  to the other, He is the glorious Head of the Body, and coming Bridegroom.  One of these lines of seed are the favored subjects in the earthly kingdom:  while the other is to be in His bosom as a bride, and be associated with Him in His reign (I Cor. 6:2; Rev. 3:21).

As these two lines of seed are everywhere distinct, there must be at least two separate ages for the accomplishment of these ends.  What, then, are these ages?