The Dispensations

The Seven Dispensations

Innocence -- From the creation of man until the Fall

Conscience, or Moral Responsibility -- From the Fall until the flood

Human Government -- From the Flood until the call of Abram

Promise -- From the call of Abram until the Exodus

Law -- From Sinai until Christ

Grace -- From Pentecost until the Rapture

Kingdom -- From the Rapture until the eternal state

Innocence

Of course, there was no need for salvation. Adam and Eve were perfect in their sinlessness and in their devotion to a God who walked with them daily in the Garden of Eden. Even here, however, their faith was subjected to a test. A very simple test. Eating the fruit of a certain tree was forbidden. As long as they "kept the faith," they enjoyed the advantages of eternal life. Their works could "kill" them, but could not save them once they sinned. As long as they believed that they would die if they ate the fruit, they would live. It was when Eve believed the serpent rather than God that she began to die by eating the forbidden fruit. She no longer believed that she would die, and it was her lack of faith in the Word of God that killed her. Eating the fruit was only the fruit of the sin that she committed when she failed to believe God. Adam, however, was not deceived. He did not believe that he would become like God, as the serpent had promised Eve, who was deceived. Adam knew that he would die, and he made a conscious choice to do so rather than live without Eve whom he loved. His was not a lack of faith, but a willful decision to suffer the consequences, choosing the things of the flesh over the things of the Spirit. On the other hand, he might have chosen to trust that God would provide someone more faithful than Eve if his trust had been in God more than in his own reason.

During the dispensation of Innocence, the test was a simple one: Eat or do not eat. The consequences were devastating, death and condemnation. Adam and Eve both failed this test, as men and women have failed in every subsequent test. The grace of God was required in this dispensation as it would be in every dispensation when men failed their particular test. We cannot know how long Adam and eve may have lived faithfully in the dispensation of Innocence. We cannot know how many millennia may have passed before Satan successfully deceived Eve, but we can know with certainty that he did succeed, and that both of these people failed, making the grace of God absolutely necessary if they were to be saved. As in every dispensation, their works condemned them, but their faith in the Word of God saved them and produced the good works of blood sacrifice in accordancw with the Word of God. The dispensation of Innocence lasted from the creation of Adam until the Fall of man in the sins of both Adam and Eve.

Conscience or Moral Responsibility

The dispensation of Conscience, or Moral Responsibility, began with the Fall of man and continued until the Flood. In this dispensation, man was responsible to do all known good and to abstain from all known evil. This was the test that he was subject to during this dispensation. Knowing, however, that fallen man could not live up to those high standards, God instituted blood sacrifices.

God had told Adam in the Garden of Eden that if he sinned he would die. But God did not kill Adam immediately after he sinned. Instead, He provided, through His grace, a substitutionary sacrifice in the bodies of the animals that He slew to make the coats of skins. God established a pattern in the slaying of those animals whereby man, if he believed, could have his sins forgiven. He was required to do good, but when he failed to do so, could still be forgiven. It was really very simple. It was, again, not the sacrifices themselves, but the sinners' faith in the Word of God that lent efficacy to the sacrifice, so that the offerer would be saved. Man was not saved during the dispensation of conscience by his works. He could not be good. But he was saved by the grace of God through his faith, as demonstrated in the proper offering of blood sacrifices. The blood of bulls and goats could never take away sins, but those sacrifices were the evidence of their faith, even as our testimony today is the evidence of our faith. Had Adam not believed God, he would not have offered the sacrifices. but because he first had faith, that faith produced the works. It was faith that saved him, not the works.

With the very first generation that descended from Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, we are shown the inveterate sinfulness of the fallen heart of man. Both believed that they were sinners, for both offered sacrifices. But Cain was a man of the earth. He was willing to worship God as long as he could do it his way, and not necessarily in the way prescribed by the God whom he was to worship. If Adam and Eve had not been instructed by God to continue offering blood sacrifices for their sins, they would not have passed those instructions on to Cain and Abel. If they had not passed them on, then Abel would not have known to offer blood sacrifices, and the story of Cain and Abel would be vastly different than it is. But it is what it is, and we know that God accepted Abel's sacrifice, but not Cain's. The question is, why?

God had told Adam, "In the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die" (Gen 2:17). The wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23). If a sin is to be atoned for, it must involve death. And not only death, but also must include the shedding of blood, for the life is in the blood (see Lev 17:11). Abel believed God, but Cain, though he knew he was a sinner, believed that he could exercise his own reason and make his own understanding supersede the Word of God. Abel's sacrifice was one of faith; Cain's was one of reason. God accepted Abel's sacrifice, but not Cain's. During the dispensation of Conscience, man was responsible to do all known good, but no man was saved by doing so, for every man failed. Had Abel not been a sinner also, he would not have offered the sacrifice. In fact, it was not until after the birth of Seth, and then the birth of his son Enosh that men even began again to call upon the name of the Lord (Gen 4:26). And from that time forward, only one line of one family of all the families on the earth ever called upon God or offered the requisite sacrifices.

The entire line of Cain failed to offer blood sacrifices. And the entire line of Seth, except for the line through which Noah would eventually be born, also failed to meet the requirement of blood sacrifice for their sins. Many generations of all of the descendants of Adam and Eve failed in the dispensation of Conscience, but one small remnant continued to offer the required sacrifices because they believed in the Word of God. This was the line of Noah. All the rest perished in the Flood. Eve, the mother of all living, was named in the Bible, but Noah's wife, who ultimately also became the mother of all living, was not named.

In the dispensation of Conscience, as in the dispensation of Innocence, men failed the test of faith. Had they believed God's Word, they would have offered the proper sacrifices. The proof of their unbelief is found in the fact that not a single soul outside Noah's immediate family entered the ark. Had any other person believed, he would surely have fought desperately to get on the boat before the doors were sealed. The test in the dispensation of Conscience was to do all known good. God knew that men would fail, and so He provided a means of escaping the judgment that must surely follow. As always, those who were lost were not lost because they were sinners, but because they did not believe the Word of God, in this case, in the preaching of Noah, who exhorted them for one hundred twenty years to join him on the ark. We do not know how many millions of men and women and children were lost in the Flood. Simple faith would have saved them. The test in this dispensation was not the blood sacrifices, however, but the doing of good and the avoidance of evil. The sacrifices were merely the means of escaping the judgment necessitated by their sin. Their lack of faith was evidenced by their lack of works, but it was their lack of faith that condemned them.

Human Government

When the flood waters receded and the ark settled on Ararat, a new dispensation began. From this time forward, men were to be governed by men. Innocence had failed. Conscience had failed. Now mankind would be subjected to a different test. It would be shown that human law was insufficient to make man righteous. Salvation, however, would still be dependent upon the faith of the believer, as demonstrated in the offering of blood sacrifices, as evidenced by the fact that Noah immediately built an altar upon which to offer those sacrifices when he left the ark (Gen 8:20). And the offering of those blood sacrifices would still be dependent upon man's faith in the Word of God, else why would they be offered at all?

In the dispensation of Human Government, capital punishment was mandated for the first time. An eye for an eye. A life for a life. Since conscience had proven insufficient to order the lives of men, it would now be shown whether temporal consequences might do so. Crime and punishment became the rule, and it continues today, even as consciences also continue to live in the hearts of men. As one dispensation ends, the test of that dispensation continues in some fashion. But even under human government the issue is still faith. Though a man might commit a crime and be punished by his peers, his judgment before God could still be made substitutionary through the offering of blood sacrifices. But, as in every other dispensation, he would not make those blood sacrifices unless he first believed the Word of God that demanded them.

When it became clear that man would fail under the dispensation of Human Government, continuing in his sin, God singled out one family of men, as He had done with Adam and Eve, and as He had also done in the sparing of Noah and his family. He made specific promises to this family, and a new dispensation began.

Promise

Abram was no more righteous than his peers. He lived in what is now Iraq. In Abram's day, it was known as Chaldea, and would later be known as Babylon. That area has also been called Mesopotamia. God did not choose Abram for his personal righteousness, but simply because he was in the line of men that extended from Seth, and which would eventually produce the Christ. Abram's good fortune was sort of an accident of birth. Not really, but God could have chosen his brother instead of him, and the bloodline would have been just as proper.

Until this time, God dealt with the entire race of men. From the twelfth chapter of Genesis until the twelfth chapter of Matthew, however, God began to deal with just one family of men, those descended from Abraham, through his son Isaac. From the twelfth chapter of Genesis until the twelfth chapter of Matthew, where that family of men rejected the Messiah, God did not address His Word to the whole race, but to that single family and their descendants. The other families of men are mentioned between those two points only insofar as they affected the Jews. Most of the Bible, including the ten commandments was not addressed to Gentiles at all, but only to God's chosen people, Israel.

Human Government still existed, but God entered into a new relationship with Abram, one that He had not entered into with his ancestors. God promised to give Abram the land to which He would send him. All that was required was for Abram to go there and claim it. Abram believed God, and God accounted it to him for righteousness (See Rom 4:3; Gal 3:6). As in the offering of sacrifices by Abel and Noah, it was not Abram's going to the promised land that garnered his salvation. That was merely the fruit of his faith. God did not charge righteousness to Abram's account because he went to Canaan, but because he believed the promises He had made him. Like men today, Abram was saved by grace, through faith, for great sins are attributed to Abram even after he went to Canaan.

As with his predecessors, so it was with Abram also. He failed the test that God had put before him in this new dispensation of Promise. Here, the test was not personal morality or corporate responsibility, but to remain in the land that God had promised to him. He failed in this. A famine in the land weakened Abram's faith, and he went with Sarai into Egypt in search of food. He also subsequently went north into Assyria. He did not remain in the land. Again, however, God had ordained blood sacrifice as the atonement for sin, and it is recorded that Abram erected an altar at Bethel for the purpose of seeking that atonement. Again, it was blood sacrifice, and faith in the Word of God concerning the efficacy of that sacrifice that effected Abram's salvation. In this, as in every dispensation, salvation was by grace, through faith. Had Abram not believed God he would neither have gone to Canaan nor offered the sacrifices once he got there.

Ultimately, Abram's entire family moved to Egypt, also on account of a later famine. Joseph had preceded them on account of the treachery of his brothers, but all the family of Abram eventually found their way to Egypt, where they settled, only to find themselves enslaved for four hundred thirty years. It seems that man could not succeed even in this easiest of the dispensations to date. Nevertheless, the promises of God are sure, and the Jews would again find themselves back in the land as the next dispensation began.

Law

The captivity in Egypt was God's chastisement of His chosen people on account of their faithlessness. Abram believed God, but his descendants did not. At least, not all of them. They served Pharaoh for hundreds of years, but there was a time of deliverance prescribed by God. Moses led the Jews out of Egypt and into the Wilderness, where they would wander for forty years, until the unbelieving Jews had all died. Their descendants would follow Joshua into the Promised Land, and they would dwell there for many centuries.

First, however, God called Moses up onto Mount Sinai, where He outlined for him the details of a new dispensation, the dispensation of the Law. There, God gave Moses the tablets of stone that we are all familiar with, but, according to the Book of Hebrews (8:1-5; cp Ex 25:40), He also extended Moses's education on Sinai to include the entire code of law under which the Jews labored until the time of Christ. There were ten commandments carved in stone, but there were a total of six hundred thirteen laws that were given to Moses on the mountain. These governed every facet of Jewish life, from the religious to the civil, to the economic and the criminal. The "Mosaic" Law was that which Moses received on Sinai, and covered every aspect of the life of the Jews.

Salvation, however, did not depend upon adherence to the ten commandments any more than it does today. The Jews were not saved because they were good or moral. Indeed, the Old Testament is a sad tapestry of the violations by the Jews of their own laws and their faithlessness before a providential God. God, foreseeing the failure of the Jews under the Law, instituted many blood sacrifices and rituals for the atonement for their sins. As in every previous dispensation, the Jews were saved in this dispensation, not by making the required sacrifices, but because they believed the Word of God in respect to those sacrifices. Even under the strict requirements of the Law, salvation was by grace through faith. if any man could have kept the whole Law flawlessly, then salvation might have been by works, but the Scriptures conclude that all are sinners (Ps 14: 1-3; Rom 3:10-20). Therefore, salvation had to come through some other means than through personal morality.

There was good reason for the offering of the animals in the Garden of Eden. There was good reason for the subsequent offerings by Abel and Seth and Noah and Abram. There was good reason for the deaths of the millions of animals that were slaughtered under the dispensation of Law according to the Mosaic Law. Every drop of blood that has been shed for the atonement of sins in the history of the human race has been shed so that men would understand the significance of the Blood that would be shed at Calvary. All of the sacrificial deaths and the substitutionary shedding of animal blood pointed ahead in time to the moment when the Lamb of God would be offered to pay once and for all the penalty for every man's sins, from Adam and Eve until the very end of the world.

Blood literally flowed down off Mount Olivet in Jerusalem on the Day of Atonement as every family brought its sacrificial animal to the priest to be offered on that day. The Temple floor had gutters extending along the outer walls, and in those walls were openings for the blood to escape. The priests stood in the Temple, slitting the throats of one animal after another. The blood flowed from the animals onto the priests, and then from the priests onto the floor. It flowed across the floor and into those gutters, and then out of the building. As it flowed out of the building, it ran down the sides of the mountain, as bloody testimony to the failure of mankind in his various dispensations. And in every dispensation, man has failed his tests, from Adam and Eve in Eden, to Cain and all the descendants of Seth except Noah and his family, to Abram and his family, to Moses and the Jews. Salvation has ever and always been the same: through faith in the efficacy of the shed blood. The only difference between the dispensations is the means of testing, according to the measure of the revelation that had been received in each. Every time there was a new body of revelation, there was also a new test. God provided every means of testing, and man failed in every one. The tests have differed in each dispensation, but the means of forgiveness for failure has remaind constant throughout the ages. There has always been a remnant who continued to believe, even as there are today in this, the sixth dispensation.

The Church Age, or the Age of Grace

When Christ died on the cross at Calvary, all the sin debt -- past, present and future -- was paid in full. Jesus said, "Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law and the prophets. I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For assuredly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the Law till all is fulfilled" (Mt 5:117-18). Many preachers use these two verses to convict their listeners. They use them to place Christians under a law that never applied to them in the first place. But that is not even what those verses say. What they say is that Jesus came to fulfill the Law. This He did, by keeping the Law perfectly (He was a Jew, and He was under that Law), and then by paying its penalty on behalf of those who could not keep it. Since Jesus did not break the Law, it could not condemn Him. He was innocent.

Here we begin to see the reasoning behind the animal sacrifices. The animals were innocent also. They were not under any sort of test, had no free will, and had no sin charged to their accounts. The guilt of the sinners was merely transferred to the animals, and the animals were slain instead of the sinners. But, as noted above, the blood of bulls and goats could never take away their sins. Those sacrifices were effective as proofs of the faith of the offerers, but they served only to push the sins of the sinners ahead in time until the innocent Lamb of God would be slain, whose Blood was sufficient to pay for our sins. One of the last things Jesus said on the cross was the victorious shout, "It is finished!" (Jn 19:30). He had come to fulfill the Law, and He had done so, by first keeping it, and then paying its penalty on our behalf.

Men are not saved today because they keep the ten commandments. In fact, the Apostle Paul wrote, "Now we know that whatever the Law says, it says to those who are under the Law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God" (Rom 3:19). In the very next verse, he writes, "Therefore by the deeds of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin" (Rom 3:20). The Law of Moses was not given as a means of working one's way to heaven. It was given as a means of making the whole world guilty, so that salvation might be by God's grace, through faith.

The test in this dispensation is faith in the simple fact of Christ's death and resurrection as sufficient to pay for one's sins and to assure our entrance into heaven. There are no elaborate rituals or complicated laws. There is only simple faith in the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice to save. Despite the countless churches in the world, very, very few men and women understand that salvation is not by being good, but by faith in the accomplished work of Christ in fulfilling the Law on our behalf. He kept it, and then He paid its penalty. The sin question was settled forever at Calvary. The vast majority of the churches continue to teach adherence to a set of laws that can only condemn, but never save. Those laws could not even save before they were fulfilled. Their purpose was to condemn. If the Jews, who had the Law, and who enjoyed a special relationship with God, could not be righteous, then it was a dead certainty that the Gentiles could not keep those laws either. We are not saved today by being good, but by trusting in the substitutionary Blood that was shed on our behalf, just as in every other dispensation. Our test is the simplest ever, yet many, many men and women reject simple faith in the Word of God, preferring, as Cain did, some other method of atonement for their sins. Jesus said, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and in Your name done many wonderful works?' And then I will declare to them, 'Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity; I never knew you'" (Mt 7:21-23).

Salvation in this dispensation is by grace through faith, as in every dispensation. Paul wrote, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast" (Eph 2:8-9). In every dispensation, saving faith has produced one sort of works or another, but salvation itself was not dependent upon those works. Rather, the believer in each dispensation was motivated by his faith to do the works. Under the previous dispensations, the works involved blood sacrifices. In this one, the sacrifice has already been made (see Hebrews 10). We are not required to make any blood sacrifices, since the only sacrifice that could ever take away sins has already been offered. The works we do today have less to do with personal morality than they have to do with works of personal ministry wherein we spread the good news of God's inestimable grace. But those works do not save us. They are the evidence by which other men understand our faith. They are the proof of our faith, just as the sacrifices were the proof of the faith of the believers in earlier dispensations. And faith will be demonstrated in the next, and final, dispensation by the works of the believers in that day. But their works will not save them any more than our works are instrumental in our salvation today.

Kingdom

The last of the seven dispensations is the dispensation of the Kingdom, when Jesus Himself will sit on David's throne in Jerusalem, reigning over Israel and the entire earth. In the early years of the Kingdom, the majority of the earth's population will be saved. However, those born during that period of time will be born unsaved, just as they are today. These will need to be saved, and the test during the Kingdom Age will be faith, much as it is today. Jews will again offer sacrifices in the rebuilt Temple, though these sacrifices will not be penetential, as in the dispensation of the Law, but celebratory, in remembrance of the offering of the Lamb of God at Calvary.

The dispensation of Kingdom brings to fulfillment the various "times" spoken of in the Bible. Scofield says it best in his footnote at Revelation 20:4:

The Kingdom Age gathers into itself under Christ the various "times" spoken of in the Scriptures: (1) The time of oppression and misrule ends when Christ establishes His kingdom (Isa 11:3-4). (2) The time of testimony and divine forbearance ends in judgment (Mt 25: 31-46; Acts 17: 30-31; Rev 20: 7-15). (3) The time of toil ends in rest and reward (2 Th 1:6-7). (4) The time of suffering ends in glory (Rom 8: 17-18). (5) The time of Israel's blindness and chastisement ends in restoration and conversion (Ezek 39: 25-29; Rom 11: 25-27). (6) The times of the Gentiles end in the striking down of the image and the setting up of the kingdom of the heavens (Dan 2:34-35; Rev 19: 15-21). And (7) the time of creation's bondage ends in deliverance at the manifestation of the sons of God (Gen 3:17; Isa 11; 6-8; Rom 8: 19-21).

At the conclusion of the thousand years, Satan is realeased for a little while and instigates a final rebellion which is summarily put down by the Lord. Christ casts Satan into the lake of fire to be eternally tormented, defeats the last enemy -- death -- and then delivers up the kingdom to the Father (see 1 Cor 15:24, note, especially point 7).

This is the time when the curse is lifted from the earth, when righteousness reigns on the earth, when the ferocity of wild beasts is tamed and carnivorous eating habits are removed. It is to be a time of peace and unparalleled prosperity. Mankind has tried in its various civilizations to establish thousand-year utopian reigns, but has failed in every instance. It will not be until the Jewish Messiah reigns that mankind will find a true thousand year reign of peace and righteousness.

In every social system that man has established, social justice has lacked equity. One class has always been favored over the others. Even under communism, which was supposed to be a classless society, the ruling oligarchy ordered the economic system in such a fashion as to benefit the ruling class at the expense of the peasantry. Never has man invented an economic system that was equitable to all classes, or a judicial system that did not favor the upper classes. Not until Jesus Christ Himself sits on the throne of David in Jerusalem shall such a social system exist on the earth that is equitable to all its constituents. For, every system devised by men has been based upon the greed of its framers and has existed for the benefit and advantage of the few, built upon the backs of the many. Christ shall reign with equity for all, enforcing a universal peace and righteousness.

Even under these ideal conditions, however, there will be many who will not be saved, whose rebellious hearts will reject what their very eyes behold in favor of selfishness. these will be those whom Satan wil llead in his great rebellion at the end of the thousand years. Their rebellion must be known, and they must be slain in order that they may be raised in the second resurrection to be judged at the judgment of the great white throne. No unsaved person will be left alive on the earth at the end of the Kingdom Age, but all will have died, only to be raised at the last judgment and cast into the lake of fire.

The conclusion of the Kingdom Age will usher in the eternal state, where there is no more testing, no more sin, no more sorrow or tears. The Kingdom Age is the last of the seven dispensations, or times of testing. The revelation of God will then be complete, and all who shall be saved will be saved.

Conclusion

Many of the arguments against dispensationalism are no more than protests that it does not conform to their particular system of theology. The only widely accepted argument is that this system of interpretation teaches many different methods of salvation. However, it can be seen clearly in the discussions above that such is not the case at all. James teaches us that faith produces works. In every dispensation, faith produces the works of faith that demonstrate to other men the faith of the believer. In the early dispensations, though the test is different in each, blood sacrifice is the work that is the evidence of the faith of the offerer. In this dispensation, it is not blood sacrifice, but testimony to the one Sacrifice that has already been offered. But neither the blood sacrifices of the earlier dispensations nor the testimony of the present dispensation has any efficacy whatsoever to save anyone. Rather, in every dispensation past and present, it is the faith of the believer in the grace of God that is the effective element in the salvation of every believer who ever has or ever will be saved.

Even among the liberals and the allegorizers and spiritualizers of the Scriptures it is agreed that if a literal interpretation of the Bible is the correct method of interpretation, then there is no escaping either premillennialism, pretribulationalism or dispensationalism. This is admitted in the writings of the best of them, and is in and of itself the greatest argument in favor of dispnesationalism outside the Scriptures themselves. But the greatest argument is in the Scriptures, where a literal interpretation makes perfect sense, is consistent with all sound doctrine, presents God in his glory and man in his sin, and makes salvation dependent upon God and not man. A literal interpretation of the Bible is the only method of interpretation which does not require the twisting of entire passages of Scripture in order to make them fit into some preconceived prophetic scheme. Dispensationalism is the only system of interpretation that is consistent with a literal interpretation of the Scriptures.