At this point it will be well to explain what is meant by dispensation. Concerning this word, Dr. Farr says,
The word “Dispensation” is rarely used as the designation of an epoch of time. It implies a method of working, an economy. It often implies time and then may be used as synonymous with age. There are seven dispensations: “The Paradisaic, Antediluvian, Patriarchal, Mosaic, Messianic, Christian and Millennial.”
To put it very simply, the seven different dispensations are seven different methods employed by God, the Holy Spirit, in revealing vital truths to man. But here again, we must note the unity in diversity, or dispensational teaching will tend to confuse rather than to enlighten. Although the methods differ, the truths revealed are common to all the dispensations, as we shall see if we carefully examine the specific revelation of each dispensation. Reducing these revelations to their last analysis, we find that the truths revealed are those concerning God’s Eternal Purpose for the human race, i.e., Sonship through faith in the Eternal Son.
In each dispensation, human beings could truthfully say, “God hath given us Eternal Life, and this Life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath the Life, and he that hath not the Son, hath not the Life.”
In the Paradisaic dispensation we see this Life symbolized by the tree of life in the midst of the garden, of which man might have partaken had he chosen so to do. This was God’s first method of teaching human beings, but man’s disobedience to the revealed will of God necessitated another method of teaching; therefore we see the “slain lamb,” and perceive that identification with the sin-bearer was now the revelation of God to sinful man.
From this time we see God’s wonderful Plan of Redemption, like the petals of the rose, slowly unfolding from dispensation to dispensation with increasing fragrance into the full blown flower. We see that each succeeding dispensation has served to reveal with increasing clearness the exceeding sinfulness of sin and the completeness of the marvelous Plan of Redemption that God’s Love has provided. In each dispensation, man has become a child of God only through a definite act of faith. Each regenerated being has said, “I am a sinner-saved by grace.”
Thus we see the unification of the dispensations, and we are able to perceive that dispensations and ages serve only as the temporary scaffolding of God’s Eternal Structure. We may also liken the dispensations to the furrows in a cornfield. Until the harvest time, the corn growing in one furrow may be distinguished from that growing in another furrow; but when all the corn is stored in the corn bin, it is impossible to state in which furrow each ear grew. Therefore, we must be very careful not to unduly magnify dispensational methods and the diversities that are clearly discernible in the out-working of God’s great Redemptive Plan. “The diversities are great-the unity is greater” (Adolph Saphir). Eventually only two classes of human beings will be found in the universe-those who share the Eternal Life of God and those who do not.
The teacher should now call attention to the smaller circle attached to the large gilt disc symbolizing Uncreated Life, and explain that this circle symbolizes the totality of the regenerated human beings, i.e., the complete number of human personalities filled with the Uncreated or Eternal Life of God in Christ Jesus. We may also consider these saints as God’s Household-His great family of “sons brought to glory”; and as each member of this Household is individually joined to Christ, we are led to see that these saints constitute the Body, of which He is the Head.
Following the analogy of the formation of the physical human body, we are able to see that the formation of this mystical Body is a hidden secret process. The language of Psalm 139:16, in reference to the literal physical human body, may well be applied to this mystical Body: “Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect, and in Thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.”
The Eternal Son needed a human, physical body for His great Sacrificial work and declares, “A body hast Thou prepared Me” (Heb. 10:5). As truly does He need a Body for the manifestation of that Redemptive work, and of this Body He can also say, “A Body hast Thou prepared Me”; and God has written in His Book all the members of this Body, “which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them”; for we read in Revelation 13:8 and 17:8 of the names in the Book of the Life of the slain Lamb, written from the foundation of the world. We also read in Ephesians 1:4 that these members were chosen “in Him before the foundation of the world.”
As a body is for the manifestation of that which is invisible, it follows that only the total number of regenerated human beings will adequately, completely manifest that measure of Eternal Life which God has stored in His Eternal Son for human beings. It will take all the saints of every age and dispensation to embody this Life, and not until the last being who was “marked out before the foundation of the world” has appropriated and manifested this Life, can the mystical Body of Christ organically be complete.
Christ’s prayer “that they all may be one in Us” will yet be fully answered, and
All His saints from all the ages,
Every clime and tongue
All together then will worship
In a faultless song.
Thus we see that in a time yet future, Christ shall “see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied.”
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