In the Scriptures there is a clear distinction between different dispensations, and the line of these dispensations ties together the entire Bible. According to the Bible, there are four dispensations; according to some Bible scholars, there are seven dispensations. The former emphasizes the content of the dispensations, and the latter emphasizes God’s seven arrangements with regard to man. Now let us consider the line of dispensations according to these two ways of division.
Romans 5:14 says, “Death reigned from Adam until Moses.” From Adam to Moses men fell under the authority of sin. In this dispensation, men were under sin and ruled by death, so death reigned through sin. The record in Genesis 5 says that after Adam was created, he lived for a number of years and died; he begot a son named Seth, who also lived for a number of years and died. The entire record of chapter 5 is filled with these words—lived, begot, and died. Why do people die? People die because of sin. So from Adam to Moses, even though there was no law, men lived in sin and were under death.
John 1:17 says, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and reality came through Jesus Christ.” In the period of time from Moses to the first coming of Christ, the law was present in addition to sin and death. When the law was given, it confirmed the situation of man being under sin and death; this period is called the dispensation of the law.
Hebrews 9:26 and 28 tell us that in the first coming of Christ man’s sin was put away, and in His second coming, man’s salvation will be fully consummated. Between these two comings there is the dispensation of grace, which is the dispensation of the church.
In His death related to His first coming, the Lord Jesus satisfied the righteous requirements of the law and also abolished the requirement to live by the law of the commandments in ordinances (Rom. 8:3; Eph. 2:15). He bore our sins, that is, dealt with our sins, and nullified death. Thus He opened the door of grace, bringing in grace that grace could reign. Now anyone who receives Him is immediately released from the law, from sin, and from death to enter into grace.
The period of one thousand years—from the Lord’s second coming, the beginning of the millennial kingdom, until the end of the millennial kingdom—is the dispensation of righteousness. In this dispensation, righteousness will reign as king; Christ will judge all the people of the earth with righteousness.
As soon as this dispensation is over, the new heaven and new earth, eternity without ending, will begin. This is recorded in Revelation 21 to 22. Before the first dispensation, there was eternity, and after the fourth dispensation there will be eternity. First, there was eternity without beginning, and lastly, there will be eternity without ending. Between these two eternities there is a gap called time, and time is subdivided into four dispensations. This is how the dispensations are divided according to the Bible.