The dispensation of law extended from the giving of the law by Moses to the first coming of Christ (John 1:17). In this dispensation God used His law to deal with man by exposing man’s sin and weakness (Rom. 5:20a; 3:20b; 8:3a), that man might be led to Christ (Gal. 3:24).
The dispensation of grace includes the period from Christ’s first coming to Christ’s second coming. In this dispensation God uses grace (John 1:14, 16; 1 Cor. 15:10) to work the fallen sinners into Christ (1 Cor. 1:30) and to work Christ into them (Gal. 1:16a; 2:20b; Col. 1:27b), thus producing the church (Eph. 1:22-23).
The dispensation of righteousness (the dispensation of the kingdom) will begin at Christ’s second coming and continue until the end of the millennium. In this dispensation God will use the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens to reward, according to His righteousness (2 Tim. 4:8), the perfected righteous ones, the overcoming saints, of the Old Testament (Heb. 12:23; 11:39-40), and the overcoming believers in Christ of the New Testament (Matt. 24:45-47; 25:21, 23), and He will also perfect the immature New Testament believers in Christ (Matt. 24:48-51; 25:26-30). Although the dispensation of righteousness will be times of restoration of all things (Acts 3:21; Matt. 19:28), it will not be a dispensation in the new heaven and new earth when all God’s work of the new creation will be finished. Rather, it will still be a dispensation in the old creation, during which God will still be working in His chosen and redeemed ones. There will still be sinners who die accursed (Isa. 65:20), and the nations as the peoples on the earth will still have the rebellious fallen nature of the old creation, such that at the end of the millennium their corrupted and old created nature will reappear to rebel against God (Rev. 20:7-9). Hence, according to His righteousness and for His righteousness’ sake, God will use the last dispensation of the old creation to discipline and perfect the believers who neglect His grace and are unwilling to be faithful on the way of His grace. God’s disciplining and perfecting work will cause those who would not seek maturity in life before, to have maturity in life, and will qualify them to enter into the new heaven and new earth to be the constituents of the New Jerusalem; thus, they will be able to share together with the earlier mature believers the enjoyment of the blessing of God’s eternal life in its ultimate consummation in eternity.
At the end of the dispensation of grace, God will insert a short period, from the beginning of the great tribulation to the end of the great tribulation (Matt. 24:21), to carry out His work of restoration in the remaining nations. During the great tribulation, Antichrist will lead the nations on the earth in rebellion against God and persecute God’s people. On the one hand, God will smite and destroy Antichrist and the nations who follow him; on the other hand, He will carry out His work of restoration in a group of people of the nations, that they may become His people in the earthly section of the millennial kingdom.
During the great tribulation, when Antichrist will persecute the people of Israel and the Christians, God will send an angel to mid-heaven to announce the eternal gospel to those settled on the earth, telling them to fear God, that is, not to follow Antichrist in persecuting the aforementioned two kinds of God’s people, and to worship God who has made the heaven and the earth and the sea, that is, not to worship the image of Antichrist (Rev. 14:6-7; 13:14-15). Through the eternal gospel God will gain a group of righteous people, the sheep justified by Christ in Matthew 25:31-40. (See point III.B.2 in Lesson Twenty-three and point IV.E in this lesson.) They will be saved, but they will not be regenerated in the spirit to have God’s life. They will merely be restored in their created natural life and be brought back to the original state of God’s creation.