Introduction
Timothy was exhorted to be “a workman that has not to be ashamed,
cutting in a straight line the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2: 15). This
“cutting in a straight line” implies not only the need for care and
precision in the way in which we handle the Word, but also that such
handling must involve dividing it up. Orthodox
theology, by contrast, has consistently taught the opposite. We
have, for example, four inspired accounts of the life of the Lord on
earth, but men have treated this fact almost as a mistake, and
endeavoured to make them into one. The path of God’s workman is to
recognise the divine wisdom in causing four Gospels to be written
and to seek out their differences, thereby cutting the Word where
God would have it cut, and releasing a bounty of truth.
The Bible tells us that “God having spoken in many
parts and in many ways formerly to the fathers in the prophets, at
the end of these days has spoken to us in [the person of the] Son”
(Heb. 1: 1). The time in which God spoke “to the fathers” is thus
set in contrast to the time in which He has spoken “to us”. One
lesson of this is that the times and seasons of Scripture must be
distinguished if Scripture is to be rightly understood. They must be
separated out before we can really get at the truth.
Dispensations
Now if God has spoken in many parts and in many ways, then the
means by which He has chosen to administer those
different times and seasons also varies. For example,
in the Millennium, or the “administration of the fulness of times”,
God will “head up all things in the Christ” (Eph. 1: 10). However,
while that will be His principle of administration over this earth
then, it is quite clear that it is not His principle
of administration now. In the day in which we live the
kingdom of the heavens is in mystery form (hidden or secret), and
only “to the assembly” (Eph. 1: 22) is Christ “head over all
things”. Certainly “the heavens do rule” (Dan. 4:26) even now, but
not in the
direct and public
way they will during the thousand year reign of Christ. Thus each
time and season is characterised by a different method of divine
administration. We call these periods of time
dispensations.
Like many other truths, what the Bible presents as to
the times and seasons has been formulated by theologians into a
system of doctrine: dispensationalism. How far this school of
teaching agrees with the Bible is for others to decide, but of one
fact there can be no doubt: the Bible is
dispensational. Furthermore, there can be little or no understanding
of the Word of God unless there is at least a rudimentary
appreciation of this fact. A dispensational approach to Scripture
tends to clarity and light; lumping everything together with no
consideration of the things God has made to differ leads inevitably
to confusion.
It is not difficult to find an illustration. The people of God were
once instructed to “take heed to do all the words of this law”
(Deut. 31: 12). By contrast, the people of God in Paul’s day were
told that “ye are not under law but under grace” (Rom. 6: 14). All
becomes clear when it is seen that the law belongs to the time and
season in which God had placed it. Under Moses, God’s people were
responsible to obey the law; under Christ they have “been made dead
to the law” (Rom. 7: 4). Sadly, multitudes of Christians today do
not see this. They hear the OT read, but fail to divide it properly,
and understand the interpretation as belonging to them. They thus
put themselves under law, instead of being “led by the Spirit” (Gal.
5: 18), and consequently fail to enjoy the liberty in which Christ
has “set us free” (v1).
Another example: while many expressions in the Psalms
rightly give comfort and encouragement to Christians, it does not
alter the fact that their primary application is to the Jew under
law. There is scarcely a Psalm which a present–day believer could
intelligently apply throughout to himself. How can it be of “the
meekness and gentleness of the Christ” (2 Cor. 10: 1) to sing “Happy
he that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the rock” (Ps.
137: 9)? Yet such language will be on the lips of Jewish believers
in the coming “time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jer. 30: 7).
The
Garden
The first distinct period of time that Scripture presents is that
of man in innocence—Adam in the Garden of Eden. Of
that probably brief period we are told little, but he was clearly
able to commune with God unhindered. However, the moment sin came in
and man ceased to be innocent, the way of approach to God was tied
to sacrifice. There will never be a return to communing with
God without a sacrifice. Some teach that all men are
children of God, thereby denying the need for an offering, and in
effect saying that “Christ has died for nothing” (Gal. 2: 21). They
presume to approach God as they are. Scripture is quite plain: by
nature we are children “of wrath” (Eph. 2: 3) and the right to be
called the children of God is limited to “those that believe on his
name” (John 1: 12). When Paul quotes the Greek poets saying “we are
also his offspring” (Acts 17: 28), the sense is simply that mankind
is a product of God’s creatorial power. It is a fundamental truth
that the world unfallen man knew has been lost forever. Sometimes
people define justification as “just as if I never sinned” as if to
put the believer back in Eden, but I am not reckoned innocent, but
“constituted righteous” (Rom. 5: 19). If Eden is a
Paradise Lost
(to borrow Milton’s expression), then the believer has a better
Paradise Gained.
The Old
World.
The world in which Noah preached is described as an “old world” (2
Pet. 2: 5) and the fact that it is described as
old
distinguishes it from “the present heavens and the earth” (2 Pet. 3:
7). Peter also contrasts the end of that world with the end of the
present world: “and an earth, having its subsistence out of water
and in water, by the word of God, through which [waters] the then
world, deluged with water, perished. But the present heavens and the
earth by his word are laid up in store, kept for fire unto a day of
judgment and destruction of ungodly men” (vs 5–7). Thus the present
world will one day be replaced by “a new heaven and a new
earth” (Rev. 21: 1) “wherein dwells righteousness” (2 Pet. 3:
13).
We know little of this old world. The Lord equated the
moral conditions of the period leading to its end with the moral
conditions immediately prior to His coming again: “But as in the
days of Noe, so also shall be the coming of the Son of man” (Matt.
24: 37). Those who rejected Noah’s preaching perished in the flood,
but they were not annihilated. Their spirits are currently “in
prison” (1 Pet. 3: 19) awaiting the final judgment of the great
white throne (see Rev. 20: 11–15).
The Times
of Ignorance
Idolatry was not known in the period before the flood but it
appears to have risen up rapidly afterwards. Even Abraham “served
other gods” (Josh. 24: 2) in Ur of the Chaldees. When Paul viewed
the idolatry of the Athenians from Mars Hill and their altar “To the
unknown God” (Acts 17: 23), he was moved to preach the Gospel to
them saying that God had “overlooked the times of ignorance” (v30).
These men were the foremost philosophers of their day, intelligent
but ignorant as to the truth. Science would have us believe that man
is evolving—improving himself—but God’s Word presents another
picture. This period that Paul describes as “the times of ignorance”
actually began much better
for man left the
ark with a knowledge of the true God. Alas for the descendants of
one who “walked with God” (Gen. 6: 9), that “knowing God, they …
fell into folly in their thoughts … professing themselves to be
wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible
God into [the] likeness of an image of corruptible man” (Rom. 1:
21–23). This is devolution not evolution.
Now the times of ignorance, though a distinct period,
was not a dispensation in the strict sense, because for most of its
duration God chose to administer the earth through His people
Israel. If we borrow the language of 1 Cor. 9, there were those
“under law”, and those “without law” (vs. 20, 21;
see also Rom. 2: 12). Thus the bulk of the Bible, right through and
into the Gospels,
is concerned with God’s dealings with one nation on earth on the
grounds of the Mosaic Law.
This Age
and the Coming One
The Jews recognised only two ages: “this age” and “the coming
[one]” (Matt. 12: 32). The coming age is the day of Israel’s glory
when her Messiah will be on the throne. The writer of the Hebrews
refers to it as “the habitable world which is to come, of which we
speak” (Heb. 2: 5), while Paul writes of how Christ has been exalted
above “every name named, not only in this age, but also in that to
come” (Eph. 1: 21). As far as the Jew understood things, “this age”
would run right up to the millennial reign of Christ. He knew
nothing of a parenthesis in between, unmentioned in prophecy, and
filled by the Assembly.
Before and after the flood, God dealt with mankind on
an individual basis: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
However, in the book of Exodus we have a significant change. First
we read that God looked down on the “children of Israel” and
“acknowledged [them]” and then He refers to them for the first time
as “my people” (Exod. 2: 25; 3: 7). God demanded of Pharaoh that he
“Let my people go, that they may serve me” (Exod. 7: 16) and having
broken off their chains of bondage, brought them across the Red Sea
and into the wilderness. At Sinai, the Law was delivered to Moses
and Israel entered into a solemn covenant with God saying “All that
Jehovah has spoken will we do!” (Exod. 19: 8). Furthermore, God
commanded that “they shall make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell
among them” (Exod. 25: 8). This brief summary suffices to show the
unique place in which Israel as a nation was set.
Despite these advantages, the Law was but “a shadow of
the coming good things” (Heb. 10: 1), our “tutor up to Christ” (Gal.
3: 24). Christian worship is “by [the] Spirit of God” (Phil. 3: 3),
but the worship under the Law, though according to “the
representation and shadow of heavenly things” (Heb. 8: 5) was by
forms and rituals. The offerer could have no settled peace, “for
blood of bulls and goats [is] incapable of taking away sins” (Heb.
10: 4) and access into the very presence of God had “not yet been
made manifest while as yet the first tabernacle has [its] standing”
(Heb. 9: 8). By contrast, in Christianity, we find that “perfect
love casts out fear” (1 John 4: 18) and that “God has sent out the
Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:
6).
The Times
of the Nations
Israel was set up to be God’s kingdom on earth. At first it was
said of them that “Jehovah your God was your king” (1 Sam. 12: 12),
but the people desired a king “like all the nations” (1 Sam. 8: 5)
and so God gave them Saul. The inception of this form of the kingdom
was accompanied by a solemn warning: “If ye fear Jehovah, and serve
him … and rebel not against the commandment of Jehovah, then both ye
and the king also that reigns over you shall continue following
Jehovah your God. But if ye will not hearken to the voice of Jehovah
… then will the hand of Jehovah be against you” (1 Sam. 12: 14–15).
As we know, God bore long with the waywardness of His people, but
eventually He sent Nebuchadnezzar to destroy Jerusalem, and carry
her people into captivity. From this point on “Jerusalem shall be
trodden down of [the] nations until [the] times of [the] nations be
fulfilled” (Luke 21: 24). During this period, Israel shall “abide
many
days without
king” (Hos. 3: 4), and the world will be administered by successive
Gentile powers to “whom the God of the heavens hath given the
kingdom” (Daniel 2: 37) as set forth in the great image of
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. The culmination of this will be the great
tribulation when the nations shall tread the “holy city … under foot
forty–two months” (Rev. 11: 2), following which a “deliverer shall
come out of Zion” (Rom. 11:26) and Jerusalem will be re–established
as God’s earthly centre of rule “and all the nations shall flow unto
it” (Is. 2: 2).
The ‘times of the nations’ will therefore be brought
to an end only when the Lord returns as Israel’s Messiah, and
restores the Jews to their earthly prominence. As a period, it thus
overlaps both with the dispensation of the Law (“this age” in Jewish
terms) and today’s dispensation of grace (which the Jew knew nothing
about). In the old dispensation the Law was the means by which God
dealt with man (the Gentiles being left largely to their own
devices), whilst grace is the theme of the present dispensation. The
‘times of the nations’ however, is a narrower idea than either of
the dispensations it overlaps, being confined to the means by which
the world is administered politically.
The ‘times of the nations’ were already running when
the Lord entered this world, but He also came “under law” (Gal. 4:
4). Thus the message he preached was totally in accord with his
background as a Jew (see Matt. 5: 17). The so–called
Sermon on
the Mount for example, sets out the principles that would mark
the kingdom. This coming millennial age (see Matt. 12: 32) formed
the basis of His preaching “Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens
has drawn nigh” (Matt. 4: 17). This was not the Gospel of “Christ
crucified” (1 Cor. 1: 23)—how could it be?—but the good news to
those “awaiting the consolation of Israel” (Luke 2: 25) and the
nation’s restoration to prominence under Christ as king. Of course,
as we know, this Gospel was rejected, the kingdom put on hold
(hidden, as it were, in mystery form), and the building of Christ’s
Assembly announced.
The Seven
Assemblies
That the Gentiles should be equally blessed with the Jews, and both
reconciled “in one body to God” (Eph. 2: 16) was a mystery (or
secret) which was “hidden from ages and from generations” (Col. 1:
26). Accordingly, the OT makes no reference to the Assembly, and the
language used in its first mention in the NT makes it clear that it
was not yet in existence. Certainly Israel is referred to by Stephen
as “the assembly in the wilderness” (Acts 7: 38) but the expression
“my assembly” (Matt. 16: 18, my emphasis) is specific.
The martyrdom of Stephen revealed a number of the unique features of
the Christian dispensation, namely a man “full of [the] Holy Spirit”
on earth, bound together with a glorified saviour in heaven (Acts 7:
55). The doctrine of this would be later set out by Paul, God’s
chosen vessel for the purpose.
Once the Assembly had been “made manifest” (Rom. 16:
26), the way was open for God to set out its history prophetically.
This was left to the apostle John in his addresses to “the seven
assemblies” (Rev. 1: 4). He was told to “Write therefore what thou
hast seen, and the things that are, and the things that are about to
be after these” (v19). Having written of the state of each of the
seven assemblies (“the things that are”), he is instructed to “Come
up here, and I will shew thee the things which must take place
after these things” (Rev. 4: 1, my emphasis). That there
is no gap is a clear indication that the seven addresses, while
obviously relevant to conditions in John’s day, also had a prophetic
character. Some object to this, but the parallelism between each
assembly and successive stages of ecclesiastical history is too
marked to be ignored. It is nonsensical to separate out a portion of
the book as not prophetic when the whole is entitled “the words of
the prophecy” (Rev. 1: 3).
Conclusion
Much more could be said, but space precludes us. The “present
course of things” (Titus 2: 12) will not go on forever, for we are
now in the Laodicean phase of Assembly history, and the “appearing
of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Tim. 6: 14) is surely very near. Our
day is not noted for its lack of teachers, but “sound teaching” (2
Tim. 4: 3) is rapidly disappearing. More than ever, the faithful
Christian needs to “strive diligently … cutting in a straight line
the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2: 15). These things matter for many are
being “tossed and carried about” (Eph. 4: 14) by false and erroneous
doctrines. A dispensational approach to Scripture is the only sure
path through the Babel of voices that assault us from every side.
