Hebrews Lesson 99
NKJ Philippians 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in
everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be
made known to God;
We are in Hebrews and we’re not going to spend much
time in Hebrews, but just to remind you (if I can get there) where we
are. Hebrews
In verse 12 we read this sentence.
NKJ Hebrews
Methatithemi indicating a change of place or condition.
of necessity there is also a change of
the law.
The word therefore – we have another word for change metathesis
which is a cognate of the verb.
That is, out of the compelling force or logical fact
that the priesthood is changing; there is also a change of the law. Now
that is a really great verse that has an embedded doctrine in it that is
extremely important and probably overlooked a lot just because you tend to read
passed it very quickly. That is that there is a change of law and a change of
priesthood. The priesthood relates to the administration of the spiritual
life among the Jews in
Now last time I introduced the doctrine which is
related to dispensationalism trying to answer the
question in a somewhat abbreviated sense. (I have a longer series out there on
dispensations and covenants. I think it is called God’s Plan for the
Ages.) But here I am just trying to give us a little bird’s eye view of
what is involved in dispensations so you will know what we are talking
about.
A lot of people don’t really know the technical
terminology here even though some people have heard dispensational teaching in
relationship to perhaps the rapture or they are pro-Israel. They believe
that God still has a future plan for
On the other hand you also have a lot of groups, a lot
of denominations attack against dispensationalism.
Part of that is funneled by ignorance. Several
years ago there was a critique written of dispensationalism
written by a reformed theologian who had a lot of respect by the name of John Gershner. He basically set
up a series of straw men arguments and then knocked them down. (A straw
man argument is when you misrepresent the opponents view and then it is real
easy to discredit it.) Here is this world class scholar, a
recognized world class theologian who could have his honest disagreements with
dispensational theology, but he distorted and misrepresented it.
Unfortunately a lot of people have that view of what dispensationalism
is. So I thought was important to take a little time to go through and
explain exactly what dispensationalism is.
Dr. Louis Sperry Chafer was the founder and professor
of theology at Dallas Theological Seminary for many years. He used to
comment that if you were not going to
So this is a good place to stop and do this brief
overview of dispensationalism because dispensationalism isn’t saying that God changes
everything. We believe that there are certain things that continue
the same. Salvation is always by faith alone in Christ alone.
However in the Old Testament the understanding of just exactly who Christ is, is not as clear as it is today. For example from
Adam to Abraham, the Messiah would have been thought of in terms of the seed of
the woman (Genesis
Then with Abraham there is a little more clarification
that the seed is going to come and the one who will bring worldwide blessing
will come through the line of Abraham, Isaac and then Jacob. Then you
come to the Davidic Covenant in II Samuel 7 and you get clarification that the
Messiah is going to come through the line of David. So as the centuries
went by people in the Old Testament people got a clearer and clearer
understanding of things about the Messiah until finally come to passages like
Isaiah 7:14 that:
NKJ Isaiah
Behold “the” virgin (it says in the Hebrew), not “a”
virgin as most English translations have it. The definite article there
indicates that it is talking about an understood virgin, going back to the seed
of the woman.
shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall
call His name Immanuel.
Immanuel, God with us.
You have a real tight understanding that this is going
to be the incarnate God just because His name indicates that. So there is
a tighter and tighter understanding in this progress of revelation. So
that is very important in dispensationalism.
Last time I pointed out by way of review a couple of
things. Dispensations deal with time and ages. We talked about some
of the key words that you find in the Bible such as “seasons” based on the
Greek word kairos
which indicates a broad expanse of time as opposed to a narrower expanse of
time. I think that you have ages which are broad and dispensations which
are narrow. That’ll be clear by the time we finish this evening. We
also have the term aion
for age. And you have an Age of Gentiles between Adam and Abraham, no
Jews.
It is all- but you have 3 dispensations because there
are modifications of the original Creation Covenant first in Genesis 3 then
again with the Noahic Covenant. Then there is a
major shift that takes place with the call of Abraham in Genesis 12. So
you have ages and you have dispensations.
The concept of dispensation comes from the noun oikonomos which is where
we get our word economy. You can hear how they sound very similar and it
emphasizes the idea of stewardship or administration and the idea that God
administers His plan differently in different ages. There are certain
things that stay the same, but there are other things that are different.
It is important to indicate that. That’s part of dispensations.
So we define dispensations as:
A distinct and identifiable
(that means that each dispensation has specific characteristics. We will get
into that later on; this is just upfront.) administration
in the development of God’s plan and purpose for human history.
There is progress. Everything is not the
same.
As part of this we recognize three key elements as I
pointed out last time.
That’s really important to understand that distinction
between
People come along and they think, “Well, the Ten
Commandments are still for today.”
No, you are reading somebody else’s mail. That’s
a contract with somebody else, not a contract with the church - not a covenant
with the church is the biblical terminology. So it is important to
understand those distinctions when interpreting Scripture.
So from there I pointed out that in the English the
word “dispensation” means to weigh out or dispense. Once again it is part
of the idea of administration. It is the act of administering or ordering
something, dealing out or distributing something or the act of dispensing with
some requirement. So at the core of a semantic meaning (that is technical
language for basically what this word means) is that there is a
requirement. It includes within its meaning some sort of obligation,
responsibility or expectation from someone. It’s management, but there is
responsibility and accountability in relationship to something. So that
is all bound up in the idea of a dispensation.
We see in Scripture that there are certain passages
that make reference to these things. For example,
Ephesians
NKJ Ephesians 1:10 that in the dispensation of the
fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ,
both which are in heaven and which are on earth -- in Him.
That’s not now. It’s not in the past; it’s in
the future. So that indicates one division of human history. Then
in Ephesians 3:8-9 Paul talks about his responsibility, that he was given the
grace to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ. That
shows a difference because in the Old Testament their focus wasn’t to go out to
the Gentiles, but to be a light or a beacon that the Gentiles would come
to. So there is a definite shift or distinction. Paul goes on to
say:
NAS Ephesians 3:9 and to bring to light what is the
administration
Oikonomia – that’s our word for dispensation. In fact the
Old King James translated it dispensation.
of the mystery which for ages has been
hidden in God, who created all things;
So that’s a reference to the present Church Age.
It has been a mystery in the Old Testament. But now it is being
brought to light.
Then in Ephesians 3:2 talks about the fact that:
NKJ Ephesians 3:2 if indeed you have heard of the
dispensation
There is our word again, okonomia.
of the grace of God which was given to
me for you,
That is a reference to the present Church Age.
NKJ Colossians
NKJ Colossians
All of this indicates that within the Scripture itself
there is a recognition of these different
administrations that God administers history with a little bit different
obligations, responsibilities at different times.
Then we began to look at definitions. I think we
stopped about right here if I am not mistaken.
C. I. Scofield who edited
the Scofield Reference Bible was one of
the great Bible teachers that came out of the late 19th
century. He was a decorated Confederate war hero. After the war he
decided the find the solutions to life in a bottle rather than somewhere else.
He was a drunk for a number of years and then he was a lawyer as well – not
that those two go together. I am not making - no lawyer jokes here.
He was a lawyer.
It is interesting how many theologians were
lawyers. Darby who was the first to organize and categorize Scripture
began as a lawyer. Others began as lawyers. Calvin was a
lawyer. Many theologians down through history have come out of the legal
profession. It is that same kind of analysis that appeals to them.
But Scofield was part of
that whole Bible teaching milieu – the prophecy Bible conferences, Niagara
Bible Conferences, the North Hampton Bible Conference that Dwight Moody had up
in
His protégé was a young musical evangelist by the name
of Louis Sperry Chafer.
One day he told Chafer (he said), “Louis you might
make a pastoral teacher someday if you just had something to say.”
So from that point on Chafer began to study at his
mentor’s knee. Eventually Scofield became
pastor of a congregational church
Another dispensationalist from the early 20th
century…I didn’t read the quote did I?
Scofield said:
A dispensation is a period
of time during which man is tested in respect of obedience to some specific
revelation of the will of God.
That is a good tight definition. It indicates that
there is a period of time, although as I pointed out last time a dispensation
indicates the administration, in other words a timeframe. It is a period
of time during which man is tested. That is accountability for
something. That something is given by way of a specific revelation.
So there is specific change of information that takes place. That’s very
important. A dispensation isn’t based on other factors of history or
theology. There is revelation from God that God is going to function a
little differently toward people and require them to do things a little
differently. So you look for those times when God is revealing something
new in how He is going to work with the human race.
Graham Scroggie
defined dispensation this way. He said:
The word okonomia bears one significance and means an
administration whether the house or a property of the state or of a nation or
as in the present study the administration of the human race or any part of it
at any given time just as a parent would govern his house solely in different
ways.
Now the reason he uses that illustration is because
the word okonomia
comes from two Greek words, oikos
meaning house and nomos
meaning law. So house law. When you were three years old your
parents had different rules for running the house and how you would obey them
than when you were 13 and when you were 18. So the fact
that a household - and some of those rules stay the same. The fact
that a household changes the way that it administers those in the household doesn’t
imply inconsistency or that you are saying God changes or any other silly
notions that people accuse dispensationalists of. He goes on to say:
Just as a parent would
govern his household in different ways according to varying necessity yet ever for
one good end so God has at different times dealt with men in different ways
according to the necessity of the case but throughout the one grand end.
I pointed out last time that the overall purpose of
God within dispensational theology is the glory of God.
Dispensationalism is usually juxtaposed to what is called today
replacement theology. By replacement they mean that Israel is replaced by
the church in God’s plan so that the promises and covenants that were
originally given by God to the Jews in the Old Testament are now given to the
church and the church becomes the heir of the promises to Israel and national
ethnic Israel is no longer relevant - no longer significant for the plan of
God. While that doesn’t necessitate saying that they are anti-Semitic, it
does provide the soil within which anti-Semitism has often sprung, especially
during the Middle Ages when a-millennialism dominated
the church. The Jews were no longer important. God has no plan or future
for
Charles Ryrie, who was the
head of the Theology Department at Dallas Seminary when I was there, has
written a classic work, a good work that is basic in some senses but very good
analysis in other senses called Dispensationalism.
He defines a dispensation as:
A distinguishable
economy in the outworking of God’s purposes.
So he puts less of an emphasis on time which is what
the word dispensation really does emphasize - the administration aspect more
than the time aspect. But, it emphasizes that it is the outworking of
God’s purpose. And, it is distinguishable. That means there are
distinguishing marks or characteristics so you can definitely tell when one
begins and the other ends.
Around 2000 I was asked to write that article for The
Tim LaHaye Prophecy Study Bible on dispensationalism. I tried to pull several different
ideas together. I wrote:
A dispensation is a distinct
and identifiable administration (I picked that up from Dr. Ryrie.)
in the development of God’s purposes for human
history. A closely connected but not interchangeable word is age.
They are not identical. They are not synonymous. An age can be
broader than a dispensation which introduces the time element. God
manages the entirety of human history as a household, moving humanity through
sequential stages.
That is a key word sequential. They are related
and one builds on the other so that there is advance in knowledge, there is
advance in information, and there is advance in revelation.
of His administration, determined by the level of
revelation He has provided up to that time in human history.
It is very important to understand this idea of
progress of revelation. Failure to do so crops up in
the most interesting places. I go on to say:
Each administration period
is characterized by revelation, specific responsibilities, a test in relation
to those responsibilities, and failure to pass the test in God’s gracious
provisions of a solution when failure occurs.
Five things - that pretty much goes along with how Dr.
Scofield set things up. For the most part Scofield has a very workable understanding of dispensations.
So what are we saying? First of all these
distinct elements are from the viewpoint of God, not from the viewpoint of
man. It is Theo-centric not man-centered, God centered not man-centered.
We look at these in terms of how and what God reveals.
Second, there is a time when one ends and another
begins. There may be a transition period in there as one is fading out
and another is beginning like you had in the book of Acts. This is a
problem the charismatics have. They don’t
understand the transitional nature in the book of Acts. At the beginning
of the books of Acts when Peter is preaching in Acts 2 and again in Acts 3, there
is still a holdout. Technically up until 70 AD there is still the
possibility that the Jews can repent and accept Jesus as Messiah and the
millennium will come. They are still in the land and the temple is still
there. But, in another sense they have already forfeited that by their
rejection of Jesus as Messiah. God in His grace still holds out that
option.
Peter says in Acts 3 to turn to Jesus and accept the
times of refreshing which is a term of the kingdom. The times of
refreshing will come. So there is a transition period there. But it is
still clear that something is different.
On the day of Pentecost in approximately 33, the Holy
Spirit descended. Individuals who were believers in Christ are baptized into the body of Christ, were filled with the
Spirit, indwelt by the Spirit and that never happened before. It is
unique to this age so it is very clear that that’s the demarcation line.
There is some overlap.
I always have fun thinking, what would you do if you
were a Jew and you were an Old Testament saint and you lived in Rome and
you died in 45 AD before the gospel got to Rome? Are you a member
of the church or are you Old Testament
A third point is that this emphasizes the divided
administration of history. History isn’t as Henry Ford said one
time, “One damn thing after another.” It an orderly guided progression of
events that is the outworking of God’s plan. It is not just a bunch of
chaos. God is moving history and He is doing certain things and teaching
certain things in each one of these dispensations because they manifest
different characteristics and qualities. In that period from Adam to
Noah, God’s presence is still in
Adam could take his great grandchildren and his
great-great-great-great-great grandchildren down to see the cherubs standing
there with the flaming sword guarding the Garden of Eden and say, “God lives in
there.”
Did you ever think about that? They could see
the angles; and human beings could see the demons. The sons of God were
not invisible when they were cohabiting with the daughters of men in Genesis
6. Now after the Noahic flood, you don’t have
this. The angels are not visible. They are not operating on the
planet in a visible overt manner like they were before the flood. Then
you have this mass of demon activity at the time of Christ and then it sort of
fades out. A lot of people want to think that it continues demonic
activity of course, but not quite in the same way because the Messiah is not
here. It is really interesting; you have very little reference to demons
in the Old Testament. There is no demon possession, nothing like that in
the Old Testament. All of a sudden it explodes on the scene in the
gospels and then you have a little bit of a hangover when you get into
Acts. Then the epistles don’t even mention it. There isn’t one
mention of demon possession in the epistles. I wonder why that is...
New revelation designates the shift from one
dispensation to another. That is why I come back to saying that it’s the
covenants that indicate the movement. God reveals to man in the Garden of
Eden what his role and responsibility is. He is to rule over the fish of
the sea and the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field. He is to
guard and keep the garden. The wife is to be a helper to the
husband. They are to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
They are not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and
Evil. But, what happens? They disobey God and all that has to be
modified. Then you go through another period of time. There is
another worldwide cataclysm and judgment with the Noahic
flood. God comes back and has to restate each of those principles
again. They are still to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, but
now there is going to be other characteristic differences on the planet.
God gives a new set of stipulations. But, man disobeys. You have the
And then God decides “Well, heck with the whole human
race. So I am only going to work through one man and his
descendents.”
Then you have the Abrahamic
Covenant. So, new revelation comes. So each time you have new
revelation in the form of a legal contract, the dispensation shifts. When
they do, some things remain the same; some things change. For example you
are still saved by faith alone in Christ alone. God provides a
solution. Your understanding of Christ and who He is changes, is
modified, clarifies, gets tighter in focus as you go
down through the ages. If you are not saved by works in the Old
Testament, you are not saved by law. You are not saved by morality. You
are not saved by ritual any more than you are in the New Testament. You
are saved by believing the promise. In the Old Testament you look forward
to the fulfillment of the promise. Now we look
back to the fulfillment of the promise. So each
dispensation has its own responsibilities and tests. That’s indicated by
change and expansion of revelation.
Last but not least, each successive stage moves God’s
plan closer to conclusion.
When it is all said and done I think God is going to
look back and say, “See in each one of these dispensations we had conditions
and circumstances that pretty much covered every possible condition and
circumstance. Man failed in every one of them when he tried to do it on
his own. You can’t come up with another way of possibly doing it.”
What God demonstrates through all of history is that
there is only one way and that’s God’s way and you have to be dependent on
God. Nothing else works.
So how do we know when a new dispensation
begins? That’s a key question. That comes to the idea of a covenant.
Here is a quote from another very good
dispensationalist – not an American dispensationalist but a German
dispensationalist by the name of Erich Sauer. He wrote several books – The
Dawn of Redemption, The King of the Earth.
This was the first theologian that I was ever aquatinted with. The pastor
of the church where my parents were going when I was really little recommended
these books to my dad to read. He bought the King of the Earth and
read that. I think I read it when I was in junior high – excellent
book. He is a European dispensationalist so he is a little different from
the flow of dispensational thought that occurred in
A new period always begins
only when from the side of God (notice these guys are all Theo-centric.
It isn’t a man centered theology.) a
change is introduced in the compositions of principles valid up to that time;
What is the one word to describe that when a change is
introduced in the composition in the principles involved up to that time?
What is one word you use to summarize that? Revelation,
new revelation.
He says:
1. There is a
continuation of certain ordinances valid until death; some things continue the
same.
2. There is an annulment
of other regulations that were valid up to that point. Some things
change; some things stay the same.
3. There is a fresh
introduction of new principles not before valid.
That is why you can say – see you don’t have the
indwelling of the Spirit, the baptism of the Spirit, or the filling of the
Spirit in the Old Testament. When you read about the Holy Spirit
interacting with Old Testament saints, do not make the mistake of reading into
that the same behavior he has in the Church Age
because it was different. It was for a different purpose.
In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit came upon men
like Gideon, and Jephthah and Sampson not for the
purpose of their spiritual life or spiritual growth but in order to give them
military capability to defeat the enemies of
Now Arnold Fructenbaum
in his book summarizes it this way. His book is called – what is that
tee-shirt that Bruce always wears? Footsteps of the
Messiah. See you can’t forget it. He’s got 20 tee-shirts
that all say the same thing.
From God’s viewpoint a
dispensation is an administration. From man’s viewpoint a dispensation is
a responsibility. From the viewpoint of progressive revelation a
dispensation is a stage in it.
That is a stage within the progress of
revelation.
From God’s viewpoint a
dispensation is an administration. From man’s view point a dispensation
is a responsibility. From the viewpoint of progressive revelation a
dispensation is a stage in it.
Then I put this in to give you a little bit of an
idea. This comes out of Ryrie’s book Dispensationalism and gives you some different
breakdowns of dispensations from different dispensationalists.
Now one thing I want to point out because some people
think, “Ah, a dispensationalist. You have to have 7 dispensations.”
That’s a good biblical number of fullness,
right? Seven, so you have to have 7 dispensations. Some
people have 4 dispensations. Some people have 8 dispensations. The
number of dispensations is not relevant to whether or not you are a
dispensationalist. Dallas Seminary only mentions 3 dispensations in their
doctrinal statement.
Now Pierre Poiret
was a dispensationalist in the 17th century. He had 6
dispensations.
Isaac Watts the hymnist who wrote Joy to the World
was a pre-millenialist. He breaks down. He
has an early dispensational type breakdown. He breaks it down as:
He doesn’t break the Church Age down or the
Now the first consistent dispensational theologian was
an Irishman by the name of John Nelson Darby. Darby was originally
trained as a lawyer. Then he went into the clergy. He was in the
Anglican Church and broke away from the Anglican Church because he didn’t like
their ecclesiology. They were ….in his church for many reasons. For
many reasons he was right. He also came over the
You will find a lot of people who say, “How can you
believe in a pre-trib
rapture? Darby invented that. Nobody believed in that before Darby.”
Well, there are at least three different evidences
that they have discovered in the last 15 years of people who in church history
who held to the disappearance of the church prior to the tribulation. One
goes back to a document called pseudo-Ephraim. That’s who the writer was
called because he took the pseudonym of Ephraim. We don’t know who the
actual author was. He indicates that the church goes up before the time
of God’s wrath.
Then there is a Baptist (I don’t remember his name.)
president of one of the most liberal universities in the country in
Then there was another evidence
that came up on a reversal. There was a document that was discovered
written in the Maryland colony in the late 1700’s that was refuting a
pre-tribulation rapture which means that somebody had to be teaching it.
Then I was talking to Tommy the another day and he
said they found some other (he didn’t tell me what it was) but they think they
have discovered another early writing that indicates a pre-trib
rapture. So Darby just systematized this.
James Hall Brookes was a Presbyterian pastor in
James Hall Brookes had a former drunk Confederate War
hero, now Christian show up in St. Louis who he mentored by the name of Cyrus Scofield, C I Scofield. So Scofield then broke the dispensations down into what has
become classic because of the influence of the Scofield
Reference Bible.
What’s good about Scofield’s scheme is he breaks each one down because
of a covenant shift that takes place. So I think he’s got that nailed
down in terms of innocence up to the time of Adam’s fall. He is innocent
not because he is naïve but because he is judicially not guilty. He is not just not guilty, he is innocent judicially. That’s
a very good concept to hold on to. He is innocent. He becomes
guilty. Because he is legally guilty he has to become legally justified
in order to get saved. So it ties all that together. It is a very
good concept.
The Age of Conscience is from Adam to Noah. The
Age of Human Government is from Noah to Abraham and then the Age of Promise
from Abraham to Moses and then the Age of the Law, the Age of Grace and the Age
of the Kingdom. So that just shows you some different ways that
dispensationalists have broken down the periodization
of dispensations over the years.
So how does God advance the dispensations? He
does it with covenants. Now this looks like a lot up there, but it really
isn’t. You can summarize it pretty easily. First of all I say it’s
a contract. Always think of that. I think I have drilled that in to
you enough by now that a covenant is a contract.
When you signed on the dotted line to apply for a
credit card, you have signed a covenant; you have signed a contract. That
covenant that you have with your VISA company is
assigning a particular interest rate and certain responsibilities and also
punishments that are part of that contract. When you bought you house or
you leased an apartment, you have a contract. There are certain
stipulations in that contract as to how long the term of the lease is or how
long the term of the mortgage is or whether it is a fluctuating rate mortgage
or whether it is a fixed rate loan or what the percentage rate is. Let’s
say you went out and you got a 7 ½ % loan several years ago. You come
along and it’s now 2005 or 2006 and mortgage rates have dropped down to 5 ½
%.
You say, “I don’t think it is fair that I keep paying
7 ½ % on my mortgage for my mortgage rate. I am going to start paying
them 5 ½%.”
Do you think that will work? No, you can’t
change the terms in the covenant once it is enacted.
You say, “Well, my next door neighbor
got a great deal. He got a VA loan and his loan is only 4.8%. I
think I will start applying that rate to my mortgage.”
Will that work? No, you are reading your neighbor’s mail.
See this is what people do who go to the Mosaic Law
and say “I think the Mosaic Law is and I need to apply that to my life.”
What’s the problem? The Mosaic Law wasn’t
addressed to you. It was addressed to
What happens if they come to Ephesians
What is going to happen? Well, reading the wrong
mail again!
The Spirit as a restrainer
is going to be removed during the tribulation period. What about baptism
of the Holy Spirit? Somebody is going to get a hold of a Pentecostal
tract during the tribulation period and go around saying that you have to be baptized by the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues.
Oops! You are reading the wrong mail again. See, you have to be
careful with this.
So a covenant is a contract between God
who is the party of the first part who makes a sovereign disposition obligating
Himself in grace to bless man who is the party of the second part.
God is always the initiator. He’s the one who set’s the
parameters and provides the revelation.
Now there are two covenants between God and Gentiles
as a whole. Actually you could say there are three.
Then there are five covenants between God and
It doesn’t mention the church in Hebrews 8. When
Hebrews 8 comes along as we will see in a few weeks when we get there, it is a
direct quote from Jeremiah 31. It begins by saying in Hebrews 8:8:
NKJ Hebrews 8:8 Because finding fault with them, He says:
"Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new
covenant with the house of
It didn’t add “with the church.” Covenants don’t
change. It’s still the same New Covenant that you had in Jeremiah 31
through 34. Of these, what we will see is that the Mosaic Covenant was
intended to be temporary and was designed to end at a particular time.
The other covenants are permanent in nature.
Going back to the original covenant there was an Edenic responsibility given in Genesis 1. They were
to be fruitful and multiply. But in Genesis 3 in the revision there is
now going to be pain in child birth. The woman is a helper in Genesis
2. She becomes involved in this authority struggle in Genesis 3.
Man is to subdue the earth in Genesis 1. Now the earth is cursed and
there are thorns in Genesis 3.
In Genesis 1 he is to rule over the animals, but the
animals are now cursed in Genesis3. Every plant was given for food in
Genesis 2. But in Genesis 3 it is restricted to plants of the
field. In Genesis 2 man is to serve and guard the Garden of Eden.
But now he is expelled after the curse. He is not to eat of the fruit of
the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The result was now there is
spiritual death which brings physical death. This shows the correlation
between Genesis 3 and Genesis 1. Man is still to be fruitful and multiply
and fill the earth which is what is brought out in the Noahic
Covenant. So these three covenants are really modifications of the same
contract. God has to come in and as it were establish an addendum to the
contract because the conditions on man’s part have changed because of sin.
So you have two conditional or temporary covenants,
the Edenic Covenant and the Mosaic Covenant.
The Edenic Covenant has some conditions on it because
as long as they don’t eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil they can
stay in the garden.
The Mosaic Covenant
Secondly there are unconditional or permanent
covenants. I like that term permanent more because even within some of
these unconditional covenants there are conditions on their full realization
like in the Abrahamic Covenant. Those are your
two basic breakdowns.
So what do we say about these covenants then? Four things.
Now earlier dispensationalists thought that well,
there is a new covenant with
NKJ Mark
Well, there must be a new covenant for the church.
But it doesn’t say that - anywhere. So, hum. What’s the
relationship of the church to the New Covenant? The relationship is
this.
Let’s say that I am entering into this contract with
Claude here. I enter into this contract with Claude and I say that
on the basis of this legal contract that we have, I am going to bless everybody
else in this room. But the legal basis for that blessing of everybody
else in the room is the contract that he and I have. The rest of y’all
aren’t contract partners. That is what God did with Abraham.
In the Abrahamic Covenant He
said, “Through you all people will be blessed.”
The expansion of that blessing part is the New
Covenant where God says, “I am going to put a new heart in
What He is doing is the same thing.
He is saying, “I am going to establish a covenant with
One of the ways that’s done is that we are in Christ
who is one of the covenant partners. He is not the party of the second
part; He is party of the first part. So there is no new covenant for the
church, just a New Covenant for
So we conclude with Romans 9:4.
NKJ Romans 9:4 who are Israelites, to whom pertain
the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of
God, and the promises;
Paul still recognizes the Jews still get a right to
the covenants. They are Israelites, his fellow ethnic relatives. They are
Israelites.
It doesn’t say that they were taken away and given to
the church. They are still to
So here they are. You have the Gentile
Covenants.
Jewish covenants:
These are all unconditional, permanent
covenants. There is one conditional or temporary covenant. That’s
the Mosaic Covenant given in Exodus 20 to Exodus 40.
So we are almost out of time - two more quick
charts. The Age of the Gentiles is subdivided into three dispensations
based on your three different covenants. Then the Age of Israel covers
two eras – the dispensation of the patriarchs and the dispensation of the law –
The Abrahamic Covenant at the beginning and the
Mosaic Covenant comes in at Sinai.
Then you are going to have another shift when the
Messiah appears because Jesus comes along and now you are no
longer believing that God is going to provide a future Messiah.
What do you have to believe? That He is the Messiah. The
requirements shift. The test shifts. They now are to repent for the
I am going to skip these verses. We will come
back to them later.
After the cross you have the Church Age that ends with
the rapture. You all have seen it before. It ends with the
rapture. Then there is 7 years left over for the Age of Israel which is
the tribulation. That ends with the Second Coming of Christ when He comes
to establish His kingdom. That’s when the New Covenant goes into effect
and you have a literal 1,000 year reign of Christ at the
We will come back and wrap it up a little it in
summary next time.