Here our discussion properly ends, since the age-ministry of the Holy Spirit terminates with the return of Jesus Christ in glory. But there is an "age to come" (Heb. 6: 5), succeeding "the present evil age" (Gal. 1: 4), and we may, in closing, take a glimpse at that for the light which it may throw upon the present dispensation. What significance has the phrase, "_the first-fruits of the Spirit_," which several times occurs in the New Testament? The first-fruits is but a handful compared with the whole harvest; and this is what we have in the gift of "the Holy Spirit of promise, _which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession_" (Eph. 1: 13, 14). The harvest, to which all the first-fruits look forward, is at the appearing of the Lord. Christ, by his rising from the dead, became "_the first-fruits of them that slept_" (1 Cor. 15: 20). The full harvest, of course, is at the advent, when "they that are Christ's at his coming" shall be raised up (1 Cor. 15: 23). So of the Holy Ghost. We have all the Spirit, but _not all of the Spirit_. As a person of {209} the God-head, he is here in his entirety; but as to his ministry, we have as yet but a part or earnest of his full blessing. To make this statement plain, let us observe that the work of the Holy Spirit, during this entire dispensation, is elective. He gathers from Jew and Gentile the body of Christ, the _ecclesia_, the called-out. This is his peculiar work in this gospel age. In a word, the present is the age of election, and not of universal ingathering. But is this all we have to hope for? Let the word of God answer. Paul, in considering the hope of Israel, says that there is at this present time "_a remnant according to the election of grace_"; and a little farther on he declares that in connection with the coming of the Deliverer "_all Israel shall be saved_" (Rom. 11: 5, 26). Here is an elective out-gathering, and then a universal in-gathering; or, as the apostle sums it up in this same chapter: "_If the first-fruits be holy, so also the lump_." On the other hand, James, speaking by the Holy Ghost concerning the Gentiles, says first that "God did visit the Gentiles _to take out of them a people for his name_," and "after this will I return," etc., "that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and _all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord_" (Acts 15: 14, 17). Here, again, is first an elective out-gathering and then a total in-gathering. {210}