“Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit”
When we read the Old Testament how do we come to a full understanding of how and why God worked? Why He did what He did?
God told Israel to destroy utterly and completely the people of the nations around them. Men, women, children, and everything they had.
Was that genocide?
God destroyed all but 8 of the earth’s inhabitants with a global flood. Was that genocide?
Unless we understand history through the lens of the dispensations Paul spoke of in his epistle to the Ephesians we will never be able to reconcile the loving God we know with the events He promulgated in the Old Testament.
Why did He instruct Israel to destroy everyone and everything of the nations around them whose iniquity had come to the full?
Why did God only make a covenant with Israel? And not with the whole world?
Why would God use those like pharoah He made no covenant with to show His power?
Because all that has been done in the prior dispensations was leading to this one where all men have the opportunity to become a “new creation.” To be made spiritual children of the Spiritual God that made all that has been made. We who are born again are the culmination of God’s plan for mankind. And as such we are the reason God works dispensationally to make Himself known, here a little and there a little, to all men.
Paul said in Gal.4:4,5 that “When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” This fulness of time is a clue we need to have to help us understand God’s dispensational timelines.
Paul said it was because of man’s ignorance during the time before Moses that God winked at sin. Here Paul is saying that it was because men did not have the law to point out what was sin that caused this ignorance. And that because of this God did not punish their sin. Why? Because as he also wrote in Rom.4:15, “Where there is no law there is no transgression.”
Paul said this so we who are alive in this dispensation would know that until the law the sins of men were not imputed, that is, counted against them for punishment. This includes all sin with the exception of the sin of unbelief.
Because unbelief has always been the only sin that could keep men from heaven. Paul says in Acts17:30,31 “And the times of this ignorance God winked at…” This means that before Moses God winked at their sin because without the law they were ignorant about right and wrong. But, as Paul says in the last 1/2 of vs.30 and vs 31 God never winked at their idolatry. And still doesn’t.
This is why Paul said, “but now [God] commandeth all men every where to repent:
31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.”
When God judges in righteousness it means He judges by whether we have trusted in Jesus or not. Because John17:3 tells us that eternal life is knowing Him. And in Gal.2:16 Paul shows us that trusting Jesus(knowing Him) as He trusted the Father is righteousness.or justified as it is translated in this verse. They are the same word in the Greek.
This is why from the time God made Adam till Moses unbelief was and is still the only sin that could keep a man from going to heaven. And after Moses until Jesus came while Israel was under the law unbelief was also the only sin that kept a man from heaven. And today, in this dispensation of the grace of God, the only sin that can keep a man from going to heaven is still the sin of unbelief.
This is why when Jesus said in the dispensation in which the Holy Spirit comes when He will reprove the world of sin, the only sin He mentions is the sin of unbelief. This is critical for us to understand if we are going to understand what God is doing in the dispensation we are in today.
Because without it and by keeping counsel with Old Covenant thinking, I will if you will, men will misunderstand God’s motives in the things He does. Both in the Old Covenant and how He relates to us today.
Thinking God must punish sin as was true in the Old Covenant is just one of those ways they misunderstand what God is doing today. Because the only sin that is punished by God today, and that only in the life to come, because men in this dispensation today are not under the law but under grace, is the sin of unbelief.
This means that the misery a person goes through who has rejected Jesus is self inflicted. They live by the fleshly natural man who has no ability to receive from God. They are blind men bumping into everyone causing all kinds of pain for themselves and for others. Many searing their conscience as with a hot iron as Paul said in 1Tim.4:2.
This is just one reason that as a believer it is so important to know how to rightly divide the word of truth. Because when we don’t we get all sorts of wires crossed when trying to understand how God is relating to people today. Compared to how He related to people in the Old Covenant, and even before that.
This is why when reading Romans so many misunderstand Paul’s meaning because they read into it Old Covenant thinking. Old Covenant thinking gets in the way of our New Covenant relationship with God. The Old Covenant thinking “if you will then I will” does irreparable damage to New Covenant thinking “I will even when you don’t”, ie Jesus died for those who did not know Him. For the ungodly and sinners. Those who don’t believe.
Let me give you an example of how people misunderstand Romans. In Rom.6:23 Paul says “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Short and simple, right? But, packed with meaning.
The context for this is in the verses just before it where Paul says, “20 For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.
21 What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.
22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.” And even back to. Vs.14 where Paul tells Israel “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”
So Paul says that slaves to sin are free from righteousness whose end is death. Why? Because under the law as Israel was before Jesus came the wages of sin was death. Not spiritual death. Not separation from God for all eternity. But, only physical death.
So what we see here in Rom.6:23 is Paul telling Israel what it is to be under the law. And how that under the law the wages of sin is death. And in the second part of the verse Paul tells them what it is to be in Christ. Where the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. Wages= Old Covenant. Gift= New Covenant.
See how if not for understanding dispensations we could not understand Paul’s teaching? And why it is vitally important that we do understand Paul’s doctrine on dispensations?
This is why Peter said of Paul’s teaching, “even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.”
So we see clearly here that not only does Peter endorse everything that Paul teaches. But, he also says that those who misunderstand Paul’s dispensational doctrine wrest his teachings to their own destruction.
Do you see why I said dispensational doctrine is so important? Because without it we cannot understand Paul’s gospel. Nor can we really understand God’s dealings with men throughout the ages. And in this age Paul calls the “dispensation of the grace of God.”
This is what Peter meant also when he said in 1Peter2:9,10 when speaking to Jews who now believed in Jesus, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;
Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.”
When was Israel not a people? They had a covenant with God long before Jesus came, right? Peter says this of them not because of the covenant they had with God. But, because these who had the covenant did not trust in Jesus when He came. We will not understand this if we don’t think dispensationally as Paul taught.
We will also not understand the reason Jesus said He had to go away or the Holy Spirit cannot come in John16:7. We would not understand why it is that after millennia we read John’s Revelation saying Jesus begins speaking to the churches in Asia Minor in Rev.2,3. And we most certainly will not be able to understand what Jesus was telling Nicodemus in John3:1-8 about being born again.
And how what Jesus said to him would mean something to him only after Jesus died. Because only after Jesus died and rose from the grave would the dispensation of the grace of God begin. Where men could now be born again by a spirit created in the by God when we believe in Jesus for eternal life. And in His resurrection for immortality.
Because to be born again is man being made a spiritual being for the first time in history. Having a spirit created in him when he trusts in Jesus and His resurrection that no man ever had before.
This is possible only in this dispensation. Only in the age we are now living in that is between when Jesus came for the lost sheep of the house of Israel the first time. And when He comes for those lost sheep again at His second coming.
So now, if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus. And believe in your heart that He has raised from the dead. You shall be saved. Born again by a spirit God creates in you. One that joins you to Him for eternity. One that makes you His child and therefore heir to His kingdom.
If you will do this then you will be made a new creature in Christ Jesus. If you will do this then you will have eternal life now, and immortality at the resurrection. If you will do this… then I will see you there or in the air!
