Change of Dispensations; Gal. 2:14
As there have been changes in
the secular classroom, the same thing has happened in the Christian classroom
and has affected Christian curriculum. What is seen in a lot of the broad-range
Christian curriculum packages that churches buy is that they are doing the same
thing. There is no doctrine being taught. If there is application it is more an
application towards morality than it is spirituality. If all we teach people is
how to live—that is morality in some sense—without teaching the biblical
precepts for living the spiritual life which underlies the action then what we
get is a lot of Christians who run around who are looking good on the outside,
like the Pharisees, but on the inside they have no appreciation for the
dynamics of the spiritual life and they have no understanding of the difference
between spirituality and good old-fashioned morality. They think, therefore,
that they have a close relationship with God because they seem to follow these
external guidelines and are fairly moral people.
Galatians
The doctrine of the Mosaic Law and
spirituality
With that as background we
understand that a major shift is taking place. In the Old Testament the Mosaic
Law was the issue exclusively in the life of
The doctrine of dispensations
1.
Acts 1:7 NASB
“He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father
has fixed by His own authority.” The word for “times” in the Greek is chronos [xronoj]; epoch
is kairos [xairoj]. The first word refers to a succession of events,
one following the other, the order of those events. The second relates to the
breakdown within those time frames, the relationship of events one to another. What
this tells us is that in terms of God’s plan for human history He has certain
chronological distinctions. There are different ages related to different
purposes. Jesus is saying that the Father is not going to give that revelation
at this point in time. Some years later when Paul wrote his first epistle to
the Thessalonians he says to them (5:1): NASB “Now as to the times
and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you.”
Implication: I gave you complete instructions about times and epochs when I was
with you. So information about these chronological distinctions in history were revealed by the apostle Paul. Jesus didn’t tell the
apostles before the day of Pentecost because the timing wasn’t right. He had
reserved that information to be revealed through the apostle Paul a few decades
later.
2.
Ephesians 1:9, 10
NASB “He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His
kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration
suitable to the fullness of the times, {that is,} the summing up of all things
in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.” The phrase, “with a
view to an administration,” contains the Greek word oikonomos [o)ikoomoj]. The first part, oikos,
is the standard word for “house”; the second is nomos,
the standard word for “law” or “rule.” The basic etymological meaning is house
law or house rule. It came to refer to the steward or administrator in a large
household, or what we would call the manager. In the KJV this word
was translated “dispensation” with a view to the dispensations suitable to the fullness
of times. The second word we need to notice here is the word “fullness.” In the
Greek it is the word pleroma [plhrwma]. This is a very critical word for understanding the
role of Christ as the precedent for the spiritual life of the church age.
Colossians 2:9 NASB “For in Him all the fullness [plhrwma] of Deity dwells in bodily form.” Then in Ephesians
3:19 NASB “and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,
that you may be filled up to all the fullness [plhrwma] of God.” So what this relates to is that we have the
fullness of God in Christ and this same fullness is to be displayed in the life
of the believer. Therefore pleroma
becomes a technical term to the spiritually mature believer. To get there we
have to do it through the unique spiritual life of the church age which is
based on God the Holy Spirit. The role of the Holy Spirit makes this a unique
age, a unique dispensation, so that this same word is used to relate to that;
it is the dispensation of pleroma.
It is the dispensation of pleroma
because the believers are going to be able to achieve completion in the
spiritual life and maturity, which means that they participate in the pleroma of God in terms of the full character
of Christ. What the Holy Spirit produces in our life reflects the character of
Christ.
3.
Our basic word
meaning of oikonomos is steward or
administrator, which refers to a house. A house has a certain set of rules and
regulations. House laws and administrations change. Sometimes a corporation
will be bought out by another corporation and the management changes. Certain
rules stay the same; other rules change. The house law shifts as you go from
one administration to another administration. A dispensation refers to God’s
management of human history through various periods of time. In these periods
of time some things stay the same—salvation is always the same, faith alone in
Christ alone; but some things are different. In the Old Testament, especially
in the age of
4.
Definition: A
dispensation is a period of human history expressed in terms of divine
revelation. That means that God demarcates the beginning and the ending of that
time period by revelation. There is going to be some word from God to indicate
the beginning and the end; that something has changed. History is a sequence of
divine administration divided into eras or ages, each having a unique
characteristic, as well as certain functions in common with other ages. These
consecutive eras reflect the unfolding of God’s plan for mankind and constitute
the divine viewpoint of human history and the theological interpretation of
history. So if we do not have an understanding of dispensations to that degree
we will misunderstand and misinterpret all of human history.
5.
What is it that
demarcates these dispensational shifts? This brings in another important
concept throughout the Bible and that is the entire subject of covenants. What
is a covenant? A covenant, very simply put, is a contract between two parties. There
are two kinds of contracts/covenants. There are unconditional covenants and
there are conditional covenants. In an unconditional covenant God who is the
party of the first part makes a sovereign decision to obligate Himself in grace
to man, who the party of the second part, and nothing
is dependent upon the party of the second part. It is a free gift, in other
words. A conditional covenant is a covenant wherein God as party of the first
part promises to bless the party of the second part on the basis of certain
conditions fulfilled by the party of the second part. There is only one
conditional covenant in the Bible: the Mosaic covenant. And the Mosaic covenant
was only temporal. It was given for a specified period of time from