What Does A Dispensationalist Believe?
Q. Hi. I am a big fan of your site. I truly feel the Lord has given you a gift of interpretation and teaching. I’m writing you because I also am pre trib, pre mil, and believe in the different dispensations, but realize that I don’t know them all. You mentioned seven. Could you briefly list them and describe them for me, and I’m sure others as well? Thanks God bless.
A. A Dispensationalist believes that throughout history God has dealt with His people in different ways as part of the process of revealing His character and plan for mankind. Scholars have identified seven distinct Dispensations. Each one has has begun with an agreement between God and man that man has subsequently broken, ending the relationship in failure and requiring a judgment.
1) Innocence … Between the Creation and the fall of man in the Garden when God interacted freely and personally with man. Adam and Eve broke the only rule and were expelled from the Garden. Sin entered the world.
2) Conscience … Between the Fall and the Flood God allowed man’s conscience to rule without Divine interference. The result of this was “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5) God destroyed all but 8 of them in the Great Flood.
3) Human Government — from Noah to the Tower of Babel. Man disobeyed God’s commandment to go forth and replenish the Earth, setting about instead to build a great city and tower from which to study astrology. Man’s language was confused, causing the people to be scattered through out the world, and the Tower was destroyed.
4) Promise — God set aside Abraham’s descendants as the Chosen People and promised Abraham and Sarah a son. But they produced one on their own, causing enmity between the Jews and Arabs that continues to this day. Abraham’s descendants spent 400 years in Egypt.
5) Law — from Mt. Sinai to Pentecost. God gave Moses the 10 Commandments and promised the Jews a land of their own and a life of peace and plenty if they obeyed. They didn’t and God expelled them from their land.
6) Grace — The Church Age. No longer requiring righteousness through works, God granted righteousness by grace through faith in the completed Work of Christ to all who accept. Most will not and will be punished through eternity. (It’s important to realize that Grace didn’t replace Law, it just interrupted it. Law has another 7 years to run, called Daniel’s 70th Week.)
7) Kingdom — the 1000 Year Reign of Christ. With Satan bound, all unbelievers expelled from the planet, and God once again dwelling in his midst, you’d think man could live in a manner pleasing to God. He can’t and rebels at the first opportunity. God sends fire to consume them all.
As you can see, this is oversimplification in the extreme, but may serve to motivate further study on your own.
