_2. The Identity of the Dispensation of the Meridian of Time and the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times Considered:_ Owing to the phraseology of certain passages of Scripture, making reference to the coming of Messiah in the flesh, and to the work of God in those days, the Dispensation of the Meridian of Time is mistaken for the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times. In Mark's Gospel, for instance, John the Baptist is represented as saying, "_The time is fulfilled_, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the Gospel."[A] The words in black type are usually understood to make reference to the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times. Again it is written: "_But when the fullness of the time was come_, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law." [B] The words, "when the fullness of the time was come," are supposed to refer to the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times. Other passages of Scripture referring to the days of Messiah's personal ministry among men in the flesh, speak of them as the "last days." Paul, in the opening sentence of his letter to the Hebrews, does this: "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath _in these last days_ spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things."[C]; So St. John, in addressing the Saints in his day: "Little children, it is the lost time: and as ye have heard that anti-Christ shall come, even now are there many anti-Christs; whereby we know that it is the last time."[D] These, with two other special passages of Scripture, to be separately considered, constitute the authority upon which the Meridian Dispensation is confounded with the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times. And yet all these passages are susceptible of quite a different and more natural rendering. Without controversy it will be conceded that the Lord had an appointed time for His Son Jesus to come to earth in the flesh and perform the mission that had been assigned Him; to suffer; to die; to arise again from the dead. And when the fullness of this time was come, God indeed sent forth His Son into the world. As for those inspired writers who speak of the "last days," and the "last times"--they speak relatively; that is, with reference to former days and times; and, of course, the days and times in which they lived to them were the last days, and the last times; but they were not the last days of the earth's temporal existence; they were not the last days in any general sense at all, as there have been now some two thousand years of days since then. They were not the "last days" that are understood as immediately preceding the glorious coming of the Son of God. [Footnote A: Mark i:15.] [Footnote B: Gal. iv:4.] [Footnote C: Heb. i:1, 2.] [Footnote D: John ii:18.]