Part 1 of a Study of the Seven Dispensations
The Dispensation of Innocence describes that time period from the creation of man until his fall into sin. It concerns those times of Adam and Eve when they lived in the garden of Eden, a paradise of pristine perfection, a time when man enjoyed an unbroken fellowship with God.
But it was also a time when man was responsible for tending to earthly duties under God. Man would rule over the fowl of the air, the fish of the sea, and the land animals as well. Man would oversee the things of earth under the providential care of God. It was a time in which man would be tested regarding his personal willingness to comply with the authority of God. The test was both pure and perfect. It was neither difficult nor deceitful. It was neither vague nor ambiguous. The consequences were clearly laid down. The benefits of obedience were both blessed and eternal, and the detriments were tragic and terminal. But man failed that test in the Garden of Eden, and the consequences are still with us.
This was a time in which man would be tested regarding his personal willingness to comply with the authority of God.
Because of that initial failure, there could be no peace, no pardon, no perpetual providence, and no propitiatory power for man without the direct intervention of God. But even prior to the point of creation, God foresaw the human plight and devised His divine plan. So the lost innocence could be restored, the banished rebel could be reconciled, the offended justice could be satisfied, the lost soul could be redeemed, and the sinner could be saved.
Please join me in considering the following pertinent points of that dispensation during which man was related to God in a state of original innocence: First, the created character; second, the comforting conditions; third, the consummate crisis; and fourth, the contemplated correction.
I. The Created Character
Man did not appear on the earthly scene by chance but by divine choice. The Bible teaches us that God created man on the sixth day of creation. We read in Genesis 1:26, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” We also read in Genesis 2:7, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”
God had previously commanded a material substance to come into being which was unformed and unfilled. We read in Genesis 1:1-2, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void.” The two expressions, “without form” and “void,” are translations of the material substance as initially spoken into existence. (One of the best renderings of the meanings of these two words, of the grammatical elements of Genesis 1:1-2, is provided by Weston W. Fields in the publication of his doctoral dissertation. His book is entitled “Unformed and Unfilled” and has been distributed by Baker Book House.) Incidentally, the expression, “And the earth was” is a statement of simple being and not a description of what it later would become. The conjunction “And” of Genesis 1:2 is called by Hebrew scholars a “waw disjunctive,” in which the narrative describes a simultaneous situation. And you will notice that without a break in the narrative, the Bible tells us that the Spirit of God began His detailed work of completing creation.
There follow, then, six creative days in which God provided the form and the filling that brought the beauty and order of this universe into existence. It is such a carefully designed and intricately ordered universe that it has ever since left man in a state of awesome wonder. It has become both a blessing to the believer and an albatross to the atheist.
The first three creative days are in perfect parallel to the last three. The first three provide the form, and the last three provide the filling. Day one produced the form of light. On its parallel day (day four), the creation of light bearers (sun, stars, moon) filled that form. (Note: light was made before the sun, meaning there were no necessary years of darkness for either vegetable, animal, or man while waiting for the sun’s rays to arrive: light preceded the sun!) Day two produced the form of upper and lower space for the earth (Hebrew: raqiya, translated “firmament,” refers to space). It was a space of moisture in the air above and thicker waters in the regions below. Then, on the parallel day five, there was the filling of that space with the fowl in the ethereal waters above and fish in the thicker waters below (incidentally, the air does have water. That’s why we get rain from the clouds where temperature and dewpoint meet and squeeze the water from the space above). Day three produced the form of dry land, and the parallel day six provided the filling of that form with the creation of land animals and man.
Genesis 1:2 “unformed” and “unfilled.”
Genesis 1:3-31 “forming” and “filling.”
The Perfect Parallel of Days of Forming and Days of Filling
The Making of Forms
- Day one: The form of light
Genesis 1:3 “Let there be light: and there was light.” - Day two: The form of space for Earth’s sky and surface
Genesis 1:6-8 the “firmament” of waters above and below. - Day three: The form of dry land
Genesis 1: 9-13
The Filling of the Forms
- Day four: The filling of the form of light with the light bearers.
Genesis 1:14-19 the “lights.” - Day five: The filling of the sky with the fowl and the lower waters with fish.
Genesis 1:20-23 - Day six: The filling of the land with land animals and mankind.
Genesis 1: 24-31
The creation of man is described in chapters one and two of Genesis. It was the crowning chronicle of creation. The creature, man, was made in the regal image of God, his creator. It was an image that revealed righteous perfection, hence, innocence, reasoning intellect, hence the ability to communicate with God and to receive a stewardship duty, and it was an image of responsible stature. Man was under God but over the creatures of the earth.
The condition of created innocence is clearly claimed by the revealed truth of Genesis 3:1, where we read: “And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”(Incidentally, since “every thing” is described as “very good” at this point in time, it is clear that Satan had not come into existence, the “anointed angel” had not fallen, and no other creature, like some supposed “preadamite” race had ever come into corruption. All things were still “very good.”) This, then, was indeed a Dispensation of Innocence.
And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.
The regal image in man included a reasoning intellect because Adam was given responsibilities that would require thoughtful planning. Adam also was given a restriction (forbidden fruit) which must be complied with by the exercise of a personal will. God did not make a robot, a mere automaton that would be maneuvered mechanically from heaven. God made a man who had the ability to think, to decide, to will, and to do.
The regal image that man bore during his state of innocence was also one of responsible position. He was placed over the other creatures and in charge of the care and conduct of earthly things. We read: “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish (Hebrew umilu, from ‘male,’ meaning to fill up for the first time) the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Genesis 1:28).
But while God gave man full dominion over the earth, He reminded Adam that God was still to be over man, and that man was willingly to comply with God’s authority or else suffer the tragic consequences of disobedience. We read, “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17). Thus did God place before man a simple, yet perfect and profound, test. It was not a difficult matter with which to comply, nor was it something that might tempt man’s pride to perform some magnanimous deed. It was simply to comply with the authority of God that commanded man to abstain from eating the fruit of one tree! Then, please observe:
II. The Comforting Conditions
God provided man with all he needed in the beautiful setting of the Garden of Eden. But God was concerned with more than the physical and material needs of man. God was concerned with the emotional and spiritual needs of man as well.
A. God’s Concerns for Man
God said that it was not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18). Now, man had the presence of God, and man was surrounded by animals that obeyed him, but man did not have a mate for the conduct of God’s will for his life until God provided the woman as his perfect mate. Man could communicate with the woman. She could share with man in the emotions of life. And the two could fulfill God’s plan for procreation, for the filling of the earth with human people after man’s own kind. God’s concern was one for man’s pleasantness, partnership, and parenthood.
1. Concern for man’s pleasantness
The woman was “good” for man (pleasant). She was good for his mental well-being, his emotional well-being, and his physical well-being. She could fill a place in man’s life that no other creature could.
2. Concern for man’s partnership
The woman was also a “helper” who vas “meet,” or appropriately sufficient, for man, showing God’s concern for man’s partnership. She could help man in the conduct of earthly duties in a way that no animal could. She could think, communicate, comfort, assist, and serve in perfect harmony with man as he carried out God’s plan for his life.
3. Concern for man’s parenthood
God so created the male and female that they might become “heirs together of the grace of life” (I Peter 3:7) and procreate, providing human children to populate the earth with mankind.
B. God’s Controls over Man
God showed His control in the making of man’s mate by causing man to sleep, then sacrifice, then see. Adam was put to sleep so that God could take a bone from his side. The sacrifice of the rib is both real and symbolic. God made the woman to be bone of Adam’s bone and flesh of his flesh. Symbolically, the woman came not from man’s head to rule over him, nor from his foot, to be trampled by him, but from his side, to be loved, protected, and cherished by him. Then God caused Adam to arouse from sleep to see what God had provided for him. In a pseudo and extra-biblical report, it has been said that Eve said, “Adam, do you love me,” and that Adam replied, “Who else?”
III. The Consummate Crisis
After the time of the sixth creative day, when God said that all was very good, there came to be a devilish tempter and a deceitful temptation. It became a consummate crisis for man in the garden. The tempter told man that he would be better off in disobedience than in obedience to God! The tempter told man that if he would disobey God that man could become equal to God … man could be his own god! Furthermore, the tempter told man that disobedience would bring him great knowledge. But the devil lied and man died.
The tempter told man that he would be better off in disobedience than in obedience to God!
A. The Tempter
The tempter is described in Genesis 3:1 as the “serpent.” This serpent was a beautiful and intelligent creature used by a powerful spirit being. We read in Revelation 12:9 that the “old serpent” is the “Devil, even Satan” and that he was expelled from heaven for his sin. We also read in Ezekiel 28:11-17 that this spirit being was created in righteousness as the “anointed cherub” who dwelled in the presence of God amidst the stones of fire. He was the highest of the angels. But he developed an ambitious pride to be like God. So he fell into sin and was expelled from heaven. He came to earth with the goal in mind of manipulating man so as to gain control of his soul and to separate man from God.
B. The Temptation
Genesis 3:1-6 informs us that the temptation began with the creation of doubt, the transition to denial, and consummated in an appealing deception. Satan cast doubt on the word of God, saying, “hath God said?” He then appealed to the lust of the flesh (showing that the forbidden fruit was “good for food”). Then he appealed to the lust of the eye (it was “pleasant to the eyes”). And he appealed to the pride of life (it seemed desirable to “make one wise”).
C. Termination
The consequence of that encounter in the Garden of Eden was the loss of paradise, the loss of innocence, the loss of life, the corruption of the environment, the sorrow and lostness of the soul, and eternal ruin. Perhaps it could be described as follows: it caused the condemnation of the soul, the cultivation of the soil, the concentration of sorrow, and the consummation of the flesh (cf. Genesis 3:16-24, Genesis 2:17).
IV. The Contemplated Correction
Before man had lost his innocence, God had foreseen his plight and planned for his redemption (cf. Revelation 13:8, Ephesians 1:4). Then, just when man was in the dismal dungeon of despairing doom, God presented the precious promise of powerful propitiation in the virgin-born Savior. God said the “seed of the woman” would crush the head of the “seed of the serpent.” God would defeat death, destroy the devil, and deliver the doomed. The powerful plan to redeem man and bring restored innocence through judicial justification was fulfilled in Christ and is declared by Hebrews 2:14-15.
We were born with a sin nature from the start. But through the blood of Christ, my sins were blotted out the day I trusted Him.
Adam and Eve were innocent until they sinned. We were born with a sin nature from the start. But through the blood of Christ, my sins were blotted out the day I trusted Him (cf. Ephesians 2:8-9; especially 2:11-14). He nailed my sins to the cross (Colossians 2:14). And I stand in Him justified, declared innocent, before God (Romans 5:1, 10:4; II Corinthians 5:21). Every other believer has the same standing before God. And one day, Jesus will come to claim us as His own. He will also present us “faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 24).
Jim Anderson has been an active pastor and an educator for many years. He has served on the faculty of Baptist Bible College, Tennessee Temple University, and Calvary Bible College. An aviator, archaeologist, and authority on Bible lands, he earned his B.A. from Ottawa University, his B.D., Th.M., and Th.D. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. He works closely with Bill Logan and Video Ministries out of High Street Baptist in Springfield but resides in Omaha, NE.
Originally published in the Baptist Bible Tribune, December 1991.
Click here to read the Introduction to the Series.
1 Trackback / Pingback
Comments are closed.