Ephesians 1:10 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Some copies join the last clause of the former verse with this, leaving out the relative which, and concluding the sentence at good pleasure, and then read: He purposed in himself, that in the dispensation, & c.; but most read it as our translators have rendered it, only some understand an explicative particle, to wit, in the beginning of this verse, to wit, that in the dispensation, &c.; but either way the scope of the words is the same, viz. to give the sum of that mystery of God's will, mentioned before. In the dispensation; in that administration or distribution of the good things of God's house; which he had determined should be in the fulness of time. It is a metaphor taken from a steward, who distributes and dispenseth according to his master's order to those that are in the house, Luke 12:42. The church is the house of God, God himself the Master of the family, Christ the Steward that governs the house; those spiritual blessings, mentioned Ephesians 1:3, are the good things he gives out. These treasures of God's grace had been opened but to a few, and dispensed sparingly under the Old Testament, the more full communication of them being reserved till the fulness of times, when they were to be dispensed by Christ. The fulness of times; the time appointed of the Father for the appearance of Christ in the flesh, (according to former promises), the promulgation of the gospel, and thereby the gathering together in one all things in Christ. It is spoken in opposition to the times and ages before Christ's coming, which God would have run out till the set time came which he had pitched upon, and believers expected: see Galatians 4:2,4. Gather together in one; to recapitulate; either to sum up as men do several lesser numbers in one total sum, which is the foot of the account, but called by the Greeks the head of it, and set at the top; or as orators do the several parts of their speeches in fewer words; thus all former prophecies, promises, types, and shadows centred, and were fulfilled, and as it were summed up, in Christ: or rather, to unite unto, and gather together again under, one head things before divided and scattered. All things; all intellectual beings, or all persons, as Galatians 3:22. In Christ; as their Head, under which they might be united to God, and to each other. Which are in heaven; either saints departed, who have already obtained salvation by Christ, or rather the holy angels, that still keep their first station. Which are on earth; the elect of God among men here upon earth in their several generations. The meaning of the whole seems to be, that whereas the order and harmony of God's principal workmanship, intellectual creatures, angels and men, had been disturbed and broken by the entering of sin into the world; all mankind, and many of the angels, having apostatized from him, and the remnant of them being in their own nature labile and mutable; God would, in his appointed time, give Christ (the Heir of all things) the honour of being the repairer of this breach, by gathering together again the disjointed members of his creation in and under Christ as their Head and Governor, confirming the good angels in their good estate, and recovering his elect among men from their apostate condition. Though it be true, that not only believers under the Old Testament were saved, but the elect angels confirmed before Christ's coming, yet both the one and the other was with a respect to Christ as their Head, and the foundation of their union with God; and out of whom, as the one, being lost, could not have been restored, so the fall of the other could not have been prevented, nor their happiness secured.