📖 The Seven Dispensations

This dispensation extends from the creation of Adam to the expulsion from Eden. Adam, created innocent and ignorant of good and evil, was placed in the garden of Eden with his wife, Eve, and put under responsibility to abstain from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The Dispensation of Innocence resulted in the first failure of man, and in its far-reaching effects, the most disastrous. It closed in judgment — "So he drove out the man."

By the Fall, Adam and Eve acquired, and transmitted to the race, the knowledge of good and evil. This gave conscience a basis for right moral judgment, and hence the race came under this measure of responsibility to do good and eschew evil.

The result of the Dispensation of Conscience, while there was no institution of government and of law, was that "all flesh had corrupted his way on the earth"; that "the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually"; and God closed the second testing of the natural man with judgment — the Flood.

Out of the fearful judgment of the Flood God saved eight persons, to whom, after the waters were assuaged, He gave the purified earth with ample power to govern it. This, Noah and his descendants were responsible to do.

The Dispensation of Human Government resulted, upon the plain of Shinar, in the impious attempt to become independent of God and closed in judgment — the Confusion of Tongues.

Out of the dispersed descendants of the builders of Babel, God now calls one man, Abram, with whom He enters into covenant. Some of the promises to Abram and his descendants were purely gracious and unconditional. These either have been, or will yet be literally fulfilled. Other promises were conditional upon the faithfulness and obedience of the Israelites.

Every one of these conditions was violated, and the Dispensation of Promise resulted in the failure of Israel and closed in the judgment of Bondage in Egypt. The book of Genesis, which opens with the sublime words, "In the beginning God created," closes with, "In a coffin in Egypt."

Again the grace of God came to the help of helpless man and redeemed the chosen people out of the hand of the oppressor. In the wilderness of Sinai He proposed to them the Covenant of Law. Instead of humbly pleading for a continued relation of grace, they presumptuously answered: "All that the Lord hath spoken we will do."

The history of Israel in the wilderness and in the Land is one long record of flagrant, persistent violation of the Law, and at last, after multiplied warnings, God closed the testing of man by Law in judgment: first Israel, and then Judah, were driven out of the Land into a dispersion which still continues. A feeble remnant returned under Ezra and Nehemiah, of which, in due time, Christ came: "Born of a woman—made under the Law." Him both Jews and Gentiles conspired to crucify.

The sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ introduced the dispensation of pure grace—which means undeserved favor, or God Giving righteousness instead of God Requiring righteousness, as under the Law. Salvation, perfect and eternal, is now freely offered to Jew and Gentile upon the acknowledgment of sin, or repentance, with faith in Christ.

"For by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, that no man should glory." (Eph. 2:8,9)

The predicted result of this testing of man under grace is judgment upon an unbelieving world and an apostate Church. The first event in the closing of this dispensation will be the descent of the Lord from heaven, when sleeping saints will be raised and, together with believers then living, caught up "to meet the Lord in the air." Then follows the brief period called "the great tribulation."

After the purifying judgments which attend the personal return of Christ to the earth, He will reign over restored Israel and over the earth for one thousand years. This is the period commonly called the Millennium. The seat of His power will be Jerusalem, and the saints, including the saved of the Dispensation of Grace, viz., the Church, will be associated with Him in His glory.

But when Satan is "loosed a little season," he finds the natural heart as prone to evil as ever, and easily gathers the nations to battle against the Lord and His saints, and this last dispensation closes, like all the others, in judgment. The "great white throne" is set, the wicked dead are raised and finally judged, and then come the "new heaven and a new earth"—eternity is begun.