Home Search Topics Contact About | DispensationalismThis article shall also appear in the website under the Title Understanding God And The Bible 2
The Lord has given to many believers a simple and logical system that helps them to understand Him and much of The Bible better. The name of the system is Dispensationalism. That sounds kind of exotic, but it’s really quite simple. The central idea of dispensationalism is that all of the Bible is FOR us, but not all of the Bible is TO us. I am a dispensationalist. But we are not saved by faith in dispensationalism. We are saved by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. God has dealt with men and nations in the Bible and in the course of history in several different ways. In each of these different ways God progressively reveals Himself and His plans to us. And God tests man in different ways in different dispensations. Man always fails and falls short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and is judged, unless he repents and comes to faith in God. 1. Dispensation of innocence. Some truth applies to all of the dispensations. Some truth applies to just one dispensation. Some truth applies only to certain people. Other truth overlaps more than one dispensation. It is very helpful to understand which truths apply to us here in the Dispensation of grace. The first 5 dispensations look forward to Christ. In the dispensation of grace we look back to Christ. During the 7th and future dispensation of the Kingdom Christ will be seen in person as He reigns here on earth for a thousand years. Adam and Eve were commanded not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is easily understandable that that command doesn*t apply to us, since we are not in the Garden of Eden, nor are we living during the dispensation of innocence. The Bible speaks about a future time when a lion will lie down with a lamb and a child will be able to play with snakes without harm. Those things certainly don*t happen now. They describe the dispensation of the future thousand year Kingdom when Christ shall reign here on earth. One of the most important things to learn is that we are not saved by keeping the law. God never intended to save men by law-keeping. Christ was the only one who kept the law perfectly. The law was given to bring us to Christ. The law was given to reveal to us that we can*t keep it and are sinners in need of a Saviour. In every dispensation men have been, are and will be saved by grace through faith in God. Many Bible scholars have devoted years of their lives to studying and teaching dispensationalism. It could be an almost endless study so I will conclude this one by directly quoting my Unger*s Bible Dictionary on the dispensations.
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