Well, yes at the time Paul was a futurist for the end of the age of sacrifices/law which he spoke about coming soon, you have that part right.
As well, he was definitely a teacher of one redemptive covenant, fulfilled in one seed >> Christ Jesus, one TRUE vine, and he never taught the end of the age of grace.
"he never taught the end of the age of grace."
Preposterous.
To demonstrate that Paul explicitly mapped out the transition and eventual close of the present era of grace—often termed the Church Age—we must examine how his epistles outline a distinct, bracketed dispensation that concludes with a definitive, epoch-ending intervention.
Paul’s writings do not present this age as an endless historical continuum; rather, they frame it as a bounded "mystery" (*mysterion*) with a specific structural termination.
### 1. The Explicit Horizon: The "Fulfilment of the Gentiles"
In Romans 11, Paul explicitly defines the temporal boundaries of the current age of grace, contrasting it with both Israel’s temporary partial hardening and their future national restoration:
> **Romans 11:25** (ESV)
> *"For I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers, lest you be wise in yourselves: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in."*>
* **The Structural Proof:** Paul uses the Greek term *pleroma* ("fullness" or completion) paired with a temporal preposition (*achris o*, "until"). This establishes that the current period—the era where grace is primarily extended to the Gentile nations—has a hard, predetermined numerical or chronological limit. Once that administrative phase is filled to completion, the dynamic of the age shifts.
### 2. The Epochal Termination: The Catching Away (*Harpazo*)
In multiple texts, Paul anchors the end of this administration to a sudden, catastrophic termination event that closes the era of grace and ushers in divine judgment upon a lawless world:
> **1 Thessalonians 4:16–17** (ESV)
> *"For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air..."*>
* **The Structural Proof:** This event (*harpazo*, Latinized as the rapture) marks the termination point of the body of Christ's presence on earth under grace. It serves as the exact dividing line between the church's witness and the subsequent unveiling of the "Man of Lawlessness" detailed immediately in the following chapter (2 Thessalonians 2:3–8), where Paul notes that the restraining force must first be "taken out of the way" (*ek mesou genetai*).
### 3. The Definitive Marker of the Close: "Times and Seasons"
When writing to the Thessalonians regarding the transition from the era of grace to the Day of the Lord's wrath, Paul explicitly references the cessation of this era's conditions:
> **1 Thessalonians 5:1–3** (ESV)
> *"Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, 'There is peace and security,' then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains in a pregnant woman, and they will not escape."*>
* **The Structural Proof:** Paul separates those who belong to "the day" (grace/salvation) from the global system that enters sudden destruction. He affirms that the age of grace does not bleed infinitely into human utopianism; it is abruptly punctuated by the arrival of the "Day of the Lord," echoing the prophetic shift from grace to unmitigated divine indignation.
### 4. The Bounded Nature of the "Mystery" Administration
In Ephesians 3, Paul defines the Church Age specifically as a dispensational secret—a "mystery" that was *not* revealed to the prophets of the Old Testament eras:
> **Ephesians 3:4–5, 9** (ESV)
> *"When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit... and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God..."*>
* **The Structural Proof:** Logically, if an administration is introduced as a newly revealed, intercalated "mystery" hidden from past ages, it inherently possesses a defined scope—having a distinct beginning (at Pentecost/Pauline revelation) and a distinct structural conclusion, after which God resumes His direct dealing with national Israel (as outlined in Romans 11:26–27: *"And in this way all Israel will be saved"*).
Peter directly addresses this exact skepticism in his second epistle, confronting scoffers who point to the apparent continuity of nature and the passage of time to mock the promise of a definitive, age-ending intervention by God:
> **2 Peter 3:3–4, 7** (ESV)
> *"Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, 'Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.' ... But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly."*>
Peter refutes their uniformitarian assumption—the idea that the physical and administrative status quo will roll on indefinitely—by anchoring the certainty of the coming judgment to historical precedent (the destruction of the antediluvian world by water) and divine decree. He explicitly frames the present era not as an endless loop, but as a divinely bounded window of patience (*"not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance"*), which will abruptly terminate with the arrival of the Day of the Lord.
