Get to Know God’s Covenants & Dispensations

• Four essentials for understanding covenants & dispensations
  • They demonstrate God’s sovereign and overarching purpose for history and relationship to Man, all to manifest His glory.  God has ruled and continues to rule over the earth in successive dispensations or “administrations”.
  • The Scriptures must consistently be interpreted literally (normally), grammatically, and historically in order to understand this biblical foundation to man’s history.
  • There is an ongoing distinction between Israel and the Church and this distinction involves a literal future for Israel into eternity with the literal future fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel which we see throughout Scripture, especially the Millennial Kingdom.
• Consistent and thorough Bible Study
  • Covenants are agreements or promises, in the Bible the major ones are between God & man, all but two are “unconditional”, i.e. God says “I’ll do this on My own.”
  • They are clearly presented in the Bible as God reveals Himself to key godly leaders and declares promises for His people, providing revelation of key truths that declare and elaborate His redemptive plan
  • God-honoring study of His Word requires consistent study of the Bible using the literal, normal, historic approach to interpreting the Bible, avoiding spiritualization of passages unless the passage clearly indicates that it is needed (e.g. this results in interpreting prophecy literally, understanding that the Church & Israel are distinct entities in God’s plan, and anticipating a literal Rapture of the church before the Tribulation and then a literal Second Coming of Jesus Christ and establishment of the literal Millennial Kingdom)
  • Dispensations or “administrations” (Eph.1:10; 3:2) are observed by this careful Bible study and demonstrate a progressive expansion of God’s revealed truth as the administers His relationship with man and builds the framework for Redemption.
• God’s Administration of His Plan through the Ages
  • Eph. 1:10 is a key verse that Paul uses to express God’s ongoing and developing relationship with man. Paul says there is now revealed a dispensation of time in which God will finally reveal the Messiah and His plan for the Church.
    • The word “time”, refers to a specific time, or a careful plan
    • The term “Administration” – Gk “oikonomia”
      • A servant in charge of a household, Lu 16:1-13 – the unjust steward brought forward to account for his administration of the household
      • Consider the significance of God referring to His plan this way
      • cp Gal 3:13-18, 26-28; 4:4-7 to see Law as a past “administration”
    • The phrase “fullness of times” to a point in God’s plan when all the milestones are completed – this underscores the cosmic significance of the work of Christ.
    • See also Gal.4:4; 1 Cor. 15:24-28; Col. 1:17-22
    • Constable commentary (e-Sword), suggests 3 key elements of dispensations:
      1. Divine revelation of God’s requirement for human conduct
      2. Consequent human responsibility
      3. A period of time in which God tests people for obedience
• Get to know the Dispensations & Covenants
  Use this chart to look up key scriptures for each dispensation/covenant (You can copy/save this to your computer and paste into a Word document to make it larger).  This will give you an excellent grasp of the scope of God’s Plan for the Ages.  Click here to get another chart that provides a more detailed depiction of the covenants and dispensations.