The man who fell repeatedly failed again under human government. He openly and outwardly rejected God, worshipping as idols people and things outside of God. As a result, God rejected the created Adamic race.
Man’s fall from self-government to human government was not the final step of the fall. Man fell further, from human government to Satan’s instigation. Human government was of God’s authorization. But Satan utilized the authority that God gave man to form nations and to instigate a rebellion of the nations against God. The whole human race rebelled collectively against God’s right and authority. They made bricks of earth by human labor (Gen. 11:3), and they built a city to carry on a man-made, godless life. Moreover, they intended to build a tower that would reach into heaven in order to make themselves a name and to reject, to deny, God’s name. Eventually, they fell into idolatry. Every brick that they used to build the city and the tower of Babel bore the name of an idol. The entire human race followed Satan, rebelled against God, and worshipped idols. At this point, because man had fallen to the uttermost, God was eventually forced to give up the created race of Adam and to scatter it over the earth.
God rejected the Adamic race, which was fallen to the uttermost, and called Abraham out of it to be the father of a new race, giving him the promise of grace, that this new race would hope in the Christ who would come to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth (Gen. 22:18a; Gal. 3:14, 16).
Abraham originally lived in Ur of Chaldea, a place in which the people served demons (Josh. 24:2) and rebelled against God (Gen. 11:3-4). At that time the human race had fallen to the uttermost. Outwardly it seemed that the things Satan had done through fallen man had driven God out from the earth. But God is sovereign over all. He can never be defeated, and His purpose is unalterable. He will accomplish whatever He determines to accomplish. Satan’s interruption only affords Him the opportunity to make known His multifarious wisdom. Therefore, it was at the time that man had fallen to the uttermost that God came to the fallen place and called Abraham out from among the fallen people according to His foreknowledge, selection, and predestination before the foundation of the world, that He might have a new beginning among the fallen men. God’s calling of Abraham indicated that His work on man had turned from the created Adamic race to the called Abrahamic race (Gen. 12:2-3; Gal. 3:7-9, 14; Rom. 4:16-17). Abraham was the father of the new race.
Moreover, God gave Abraham the promise of grace: that He would cause him to bear a son (Gen. 15:4), that He would give the land of Canaan to him and to his seed (Gen. 15:7, 18-21), and that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 22:18a). God did not say, “And to the seeds,” as concerning many, but as concerning one, “And to your seed,” who is Christ (Gal. 3:16). Christ is the unique seed inheriting the promises that all the nations of the earth might be blessed. The physical aspect of the blessing was the good land (Gen. 12:7; 13:15; 17:8; 26:3-4), which was a type of the all-inclusive Christ; the spiritual aspect of the blessing is the Spirit (Gal. 3:14). Since Christ is eventually realized as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17), the blessing of the promised Spirit corresponds with the blessing of the promised land. Therefore, God gave Abraham the promise of grace in order that the new race would hope in the Christ who would come to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth.
Through His work of the new creation from Adam to Moses in the age of the patriarchs, God obtained the chosen patriarchs as the first part of the new race in His new creation, signified by the crown of twelve stars worn on the head of the universal woman in Revelation 12, for the building of the New Jerusalem as God’s expression in eternity future.
After God created all things and mankind according to His eternal plan, His economy, He uses four distinct dispensations—the dispensation of the patriarchs, the dispensation of law, the dispensation of grace, and the dispensation of the kingdom—to do His work of the new creation on the man whom He created in order to accomplish the purpose of His eternal economy. The dispensation of the patriarchs was from the creation of Adam to the giving of the law by Moses. In this dispensation, God first put the created man under His direct government that man might receive Him as life; then He caused the fallen man, the function of whose conscience had been activated by the knowledge of good and evil, to receive His redemption in Christ. He also caused man to be governed by his own conscience and to be acceptable to Him through sacrifices according to the way of redemption that He ordained. Moreover, He caused man to enjoy His riches by calling on His name so that he might walk and work with Him. Then He subjected the repeatedly fallen man under the authority which He gave to man, causing him to be ruled by man that he might live and be preserved and that He might have the opportunity to visit man. Finally, He called the new race out of the Adamic race, which was fallen to the uttermost, and gave them the promise of grace, leading them to hope in the Christ who would come to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth. In this way, God obtained the chosen patriarchs to be the first part of the new race in His new creation.