Part 5 of a Study of the Seven Dispensations
Allowing the Word to speak for itself, we see that God’s dealing with man in various time periods, changes. The Dispensationalists (if one wants a label) have seen these changes and have categorized them in different numbers of periods and with different biblical labels. The most common and accepted number and name has been “seven dispensations from innocence to millennium;” these can be verified by specific references and by the obvious integration of God’s perfect plan in time.
The dispensation that we are interested in here is the Dispensation of Law. John the Beloved wrote, in John 1:17, “The Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” So, we have an inspired statement from Scripture that lets us know, now, that it has happened … that the Law was given to Moses… and thus, the institution of the Dispensation of Law was initiated by God at that time.
We will approach this subject in an effort to better understand this economy of God, “The Law,” by considering the following divisions:
First, the progression from the preceding dispensations to the Dispensation of Law.
Second, the recognizing of the timing of God in the giving of the Law.
Third, the giving of the Law with its absolute demands on the lifestyle of the nation. Thus is seen the reason for the giving of the Tabernacle and the Priesthood at the same time.
Fourth, the failure of the people of God, under the law, and their missing of the symbolic and typical truth in the sacrifices. The teachings in these symbols were to make clear the prophets’ cry of a coming Messiah. He would come, not as a conquering king, but as a lowly, suffering servant, to provide redemption for mankind.
I. The Progression to the Dispensation of Law
It was God’s purpose to lead His greatest creation – man and mankind – into redemption and eternal joy and bliss with Him in eternity. After experiencing the Fall, Adam and Eve, the progenitors of the human race, understood the meaning of “Paradise Lost.”
It was God’s purpose to lead His greatest creation – man and mankind – into redemption and eternal joy and bliss with Him in eternity.
Their first desire was for the promise of Gen. 3:15 to be fulfilled in their immediate lifetime. So, they looked for the “seed.” Genesis 4:1 reads from the Masoretic Text:
“And Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and she said I have gotten a man from Jehovah.”
Note: from is the sign of the direct object, and is never translated. Therefore, she said, “I have gotten a man, Jehovah.”
She really believed that, in her first conception, God would supply the Messiah, the seed, to deliver them from their terrible fallen condition. But this was not God’s plan. Down through time, to the flood, men were looking for God to fulfill this promise of a deliverer. Noah’s name meant “comfort” or “rest.” Thus, up to the time of the Flood, they wanted deliverance from the toil of their hands, but the coming Messiah was not to be given just yet.
Even after such devastation as seen in the Flood, mankind, again, drifted away from God to follow a man called Nimrod, who exalted himself to the position of a god.
After the failure at the Tower of Babel, and some years afterward, God chooses a man, and from him promises to raise up a new nation of people who will be the ones used of God to bring in this promised Messiah.
God’s plan is unfolding through the dispensations up to the point where He raises up a nation through Abraham … from Abraham to Isaac, to Jacob, on through the 12 tribes, and ultimately to Jesus.
After 400 years of suffering in Egypt, God called another man, Moses, who would eventually lead the people of God out of bondage to an organized nation of people through Abraham, and we come to the Dispensation of Law, given through Moses, after the Exodus.
II. The Timing of God in Giving the Law
The crossing of the Red Sea was the final severance from the bondage of Egypt and the pagan gods of their world. Israel was organized in the wilderness into a twelve-tribe nation and traveled through the land in an orderly fashion, being led by God by day and by night. Unfortunately, because of their unbelief, they did not go in and possess the land that God had promised them at that time. As a result, they wandered forty years in the wilderness. God used this time to organize them, give them testings to prove what was in their heart, and finally to give them the Law and the Tabernacle.
III. The Giving of the Law
In the 19th and 20th chapters of the book of Exodus, we have the fulfillment of the Age of Promise and the beginning of the Age of the Law. From this point on, Israel would be under obligation to keep the law given to Moses on Mount Sinai. It is interesting to see how God prepared them for this change of economy. The progression of revelation was coming very slowly, but here again, God breaks through to impress His chosen people of His plan.
From this point on, Israel would be under obligation to keep the law given to Moses on Mount Sinai.
In Chapter 19 of Exodus, we read where they came into the wilderness of Sinai, where they camped before the mount. Here it was that God spoke to Moses directly, and He told him that He was going to make this people a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, fi they would obey His voice and keep His covenant. When Moses returned from the mount and told the people what God had said to him, they all answered together, “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” Exodus 19:8. God im-pressed them by appearing to them in a mighty, powerful demonstration of thunderings and lightnings, with a thick cloud upon the mountain, and a voice of a trumpet exceedingly loud, so that all feared and trembled.
In chapter 20 of Exodus, we have the record of God giving the Law, as embodied in the Ten Commandments. This was to be the guidance for their lives in relationship to God and to their fellow man. This law was written in stone by the finger of God and is absolute in the sense that it is a demonstration of the character of God and of what God wants of His creatures who were made in His image.
Exodus 20:18-19 indicate that the people were made aware of the seriousness of the giving of this law, for the passage reads:
“And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar of. And they said unto Moses, ‘Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.'”
It was obvious that God had made a great impression in this important change of the Dispensation of Law. But God, being omniscient, realized the heart of man and thus proceeded to give the Tabernacle with the Priesthood.
So, the giving of the Tabernacle was essentially for two reasons. First, to make a place for those who were looking for the covering over of their sins and restoration of fellowship with God. Second, to give a symbolic object lesson concerning the need for the substitutionary sacrifice to atone for their sins. All through the history of all the dispensations, God did teach this lesson: the need for the payment for sins. But now, the progressive revelation is becoming much clearer to grasp. God declares that, without the hindsight, but it is just as much misunderstood today by the masses of people as it was in the days of Moses. God, in His love and grace, knew that man could not keep the law. So, He gave a means of covering over the sins and maintaining fellowship until the next step of the revelation would come, in the coming of the Lord as the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world.
God, in His love and grace, knew that man could not keep the law.
Likewise, the Priesthood was given dispensationally, to Israel as a means of teaching the people that God has chosen that a High Priest, alone, was eligible to take the blood into the Holiest of Holies and sprinkle it on the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant, to atone for the sins of the people. The book of Hebrews makes it very clear concerning the added revelation in our time: Jesus was our High Priest, after the order of Melchizedek, who had neither father nor mother. He not only was our High Priest but was the sacrificial Lamb who shed His own blood and has
carried it into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled it on the mercy seat of the Ark in the true tabernacle of God in Heaven.
IV. The Purpose of the Law and Failure of the People
It must be understood that “The Law” went beyond the Ten Commandments. God included all the instructions of the law, which covered every area of life, called judgments. These are found in Exodus, Chapters 21 through 23.
As we consider the purpose of the Law, we find that Paul, in the New Testament, in the book of Galatians, makes this clear. Obviously, God had set up a theocracy in which the people were to have God as their head. The judgments were to be administered by the leadership given first to Moses, then to Joshua, and later to the Judges that God raised up after they were settled in the land.
Paul, the apostle, in Galatians 3:16- 18, says:
“Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, and to seeds, as of many; but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thiry years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance by of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise.”
So, the Law was not given to disannul the promises of God to Abraham. “Then, why was the Law given?” is the logical question. And Paul lists six (6) reasons why the Law was given.
First, the Law was added because of transgression until the seed should come to whom the promise was made cf. Galatians 3;19. The law was given not to establish righteousness, for “if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law,” writes Paul. (But, the law was given to show the exceeding sinfulness of sin). Sin and the sinful nature existed since the fall, which is proven by the death of all men from Adam to Moses. But, men only became transgressors after the law was given, as noted in Romans 5:13-14.
“For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.’
Again, Paul writes in Romans 5:20:
“Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.”
We see clear evidence given that the law, first of all, was added to show the exceeding sinfulness of sin.
Thus, we see clear evidence given that the law, first of all, was added to show the exceeding sinfulness of sin.
Second, the law concluded all under sin. Galatians 3:22. This most certainly is true, and none can claim to have attained. God says, “There is none that doeth good, no not one.” Romans 3:12, and again, “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23. Thus, the law makes it clear that everyone who ever existed in time is a sinner in need of salvation.
Third, the law was given as an interim dealing of God with man, “Till the seed should come.” Galatians 3:19b. When the seed, which is Christ, comes, then the law will be done away with. Paul clarifies this in Romans 4:4-5 when he says,
“Now in him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”
Fourth, the law kept man “shut up unto faith which should afterwards be revealed,” Galatians 3:23. The law pointed out the lost condition of man, and made him realize that he could not possibly keep the law to be saved. James noted this in James 2:10,11,
“For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.”
Therefore, the law pointed men to the impossibility of attaining salvation by their own efforts of keeping the law.
The Law was a school teacher to bring us to Christ so that we might be justified by faith.
Fifth, the Law was a school teacher to bring us to Christ so that we might be justified by faith. Galatians 3:24. The whole program of God, then, in the giving of the Law, was to teach mankind that which is demanded by God for him to enter His presence and enjoy the future eternity with Him. God is teaching fallen man God’s own character and standards and showing him how far short he falls of himself turn to God; the Lord will graciously accept him and guide him farther into the joy of the Christian life.
Finally, having come to faith, man is no longer under the law… the schoolmaster… but now follows a higher law of living in the strength and power of the spirit. Galatians 3:25. Note must be made, here, of Romans 8:2-4,
“For the law of the Spirit of life, in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
What the law could never do, the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus is able to do. That is the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk after the Spirit and not after the flesh.
This is the logical progression into the next dispensation, the Dispensation of Grace. The coming Messiah had first to come as a suffering servant, a bloody sacrifice for sin, typified hundreds of times in the offerings made for sin before He could ever come as the conquering king.
Robert J. Terrey (1920 – 2002) was the founding Dean of the Graduate School of Theology at Baptist Bible College in Springfield, MO. He held a B.A. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.Div., and a Th.M. from Central Baptist Theological Seminary, a D.Min. from Luther Rice Seminary, and a Th.D. from Louisiana Baptist Theological Seminary.
Originally published in the Baptist Bible Tribune, December 1991
Click here to read the Introduction to the Series.
Click here to read The Dispensation of Innocence.
Click here to read The Dispensation of Conscience.
Click here to read The Dispensation of Huma Government.
Click here to read The Dispensation of Promise.
