One great difficulty in understanding Paul's impassioned writings lies in the fact that when his nature kindled it moved so high into the very precincts of the spiritual and the invisible that in his own mind figures were obscure, and could not but be. It was one of the evidences of elevation. It brought him nearer to the preaching of Christ than any other apostle except John. It is difficult to interpret, because there are so few of us who ever rise into that region so far as to be familiar with its phenomena.

In this passage Paul speaks of mystery; but what the mystery was to which he referred is only very dimly hinted at in the tenth verse—namely, the purpose of God, in the future, “To gather in one all things in Christ.” You will observe how extremely vague the statement is. There are no limitations, no definitions, no specializations, no ideals, except a faint flash of foreseeing that the time was coming in which this distracted and dislocated world was to come into a perfect harmony in Jesus Christ.