Darby's Ages

A friend made some comments recently that spurred me to take down some of my books by J. N. Darby and restart my reading through Collected Writings. I was reading through Vol. 25 when I came across this remarkable paragraph (http://www.stempublishing.com/authors/darby/EXPOSIT/25017_20E.html):

We have seen the Lord shewing out His own rejection, in grace, followed by an entirely new order of things. The church, brought in subsequently, is not an age, properly so called, but a heavenly episode between the ages. There are three ages spoken of in Scripture: the age before the law; the age under the law; and the millennial age. Christ was "made under the law," and that age is not finished yet. The disciples said to Him, "What shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the age?" That was the age when He was there, but when they rejected Him, the age was suspended. As He straitly charged Peter to tell no man He was the Christ, saying, "the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected," etc. Therefore He says to them, "Ye shall not see me, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." We, who form a part of the church of God, and not having anything to do with the earth, are in no sense an age, but are a heavenly people united to Christ above, during the suspension of this age, filling up the gap between the Lord's leaving the Jews, and His return to them again. So in Romans 11 we have the olive tree with some of the branches broken off, and others graffed in. This is the tree with its root in the earth, and consequently it could have nothing directly to do with the church in heaven. Some of the branches were broken off, and some left; but this could never be said of the church, the body united to its head, at the right hand of God. The church, of course, does fill up a certain place and time, but it is during the suspension of the age to which Christ came. Characteristically we belong to that which is above and beyond anything connected with this world. It is grace that has set us there, and that is not of earth but of heaven.

I thought it worthy of note because of some comments I had made a couple years ago about Darby's dispensationalism.

Darby claims, "there are three ages spoken of in Scripture: the age before the law; the age under the law; and the millennial age". And he goes further to note that, "the church, of course, does fill up a certain place and time, but it is during the suspension of the age to which Christ came."

Obviously this flatly contradicts more mainstream dispensationalist thinking. That's not to say that he's right and they're wrong... but there is an obvious and distinctive contrast.