From the sixteenth century onward English Bible translations have spoken of it as the “eternal purpose” of God.a But more recently a number of Bible translators interpret the Greek phrase as “a plan of the ages.” Thus God is said to have a “plan” in connection with the Messiah.

⁶ For example, the 1897 (C.E.) translation of the letter to the Ephesians, chapter three, verses nine through eleven, by J. B. Rotherham, reads: “And to bring to light what is the administration of the sacred secret which had been hidden away from the ages in God, who did all things create: in order that now unto the principalities and the authorities in the heavenlies might be made known, through means of the assembly, the manifold wisdom of God,—according to a plan of the ages which he made in the anointed.” Even as far back as 1865 C.E. The Emphatic Diaglott, published by the newspaper editor Benjamin Wilson, contained the reading: “according to a plan of the ages, which he formed.” A number of other recent Bible translations could be cited that choose to render the Greek text in this way.b

7, 8. What illustration did C. T. Russell publish, and what did his first book say about its title?

⁷ Based on this different translation of the Greek text in Ephesians 3:11, there was published in the September, 1881, issue of Zion’s Watch Tower in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., by the editor and publisher Charles Taze Russell, the article entitled “The Plan of the Ages.” This gave the explanation of a full-page diagram called “Chart of the Ages.” We are pleased to reproduce herewith this chart for examination by all interested persons. A similar “Chart of the Ages Illustrating the Plan of God” was embodied in the book entitled “The Divine Plan of the Ages,” published by C. T. Russell in 1886.

⁸ Despite the inaccuracies that are discernible in it today, this “Chart of the Ages” served to show the line of sincere reasoning that was based upon the thought that the All-Wise, Almighty God has a “plan.” Said the opening words of Chapter I of this book:

The title of this series of Studies—“The Divine Plan of the Ages,” suggests a progression in the Divine arrangement, foreknown to our God and orderly. We believe the teachings of Divine revelation can be seen to be both beautiful and harmonious from this standpoint and from no other.

9. (a) At least what point did this widely circulated book emphasize? (b) Yet what question did it raise about a plan and God?

⁹ This book attained a circulation of more than six million copies, in a number of languages. Its circulation ceased in the year 1929 C.E. For one thing, it focused the attention of its readers on the Bible and showed that the Living God is progressive. He is getting somewhere with respect to what he has in mind for suffering humankind. We know that a man often forms a plan of action, but that behind such plan of action there is a purpose to be achieved. But the point in question is, Did the All-Wise, All-Powerful God have to frame a plan of action, a cut-and-dried course, at the time that he made his decision to accomplish something, thus obliging himself as the unchangeable God to stick to this planned course without deviation? Or, was he able to meet all emergencies and contingencies due to free will and choice on the part of his creatures, instantly and without forethought, and still reach his goal? Did he need a plan? Of course, after he has attained his goal, we can check the record of his movements and plot or map out the course that he has pursued. But was it planned just that way?c

A GOD OF PURPOSE

10. What did the Greek word proʹthe·sis literally mean, and how did the Jews use it in the Greek Septuagint?

¹⁰ Did the original Greek writer of the words in Ephesians 3:11 desire to bring out that God the Creator has a plan in connection with His Messiah? What did he mean when, in his letter written in first-century Greek, he used the word proʹthe·sis? It literally means a “setting forth or before,” thus a putting of something in view. That is why the Alexandrian Jews, when translating the inspired Hebrew Scriptures in Greek, used this Greek word in connection with the holy bread that was placed upon the golden table in the Holy compartment of the sacred tent of worship erected by the prophet Moses. This bread is ordinarily called the shewbread, but the Greek Septuagint Version speaks of it as the “loaves or cakes of presentation” (prothesis). So these loaves, by being set forth upon the golden table, were put on display, a fresh supply thereof on each weekly sabbath day.—2 Chronicles 4:19.

11. What, then, is the “proʹthe·sis” of God?

¹¹ The word proʹthe·sis was also used to mean a “statement,” or an “advance payment,” and, in grammar, it would mean a “preposition.” It was also used to mean a “prefixing,” or a “placing first.” Because the word was also used to mean an end or objective proposed, or a setting before oneself of something to be accomplished or to be achieved, it was used to mean “purpose.” (On this, see A Greek-English Lexicon by Liddell and Scott, Volume II, pages 1480-1481, reprint of 1948, under proʹthe·sis.) This latter meaning is recognized by the majority of the modern-language Bible translators. So the “proʹthe·sis” of God is his resolve, his primal decision, his purpose.d