Human history can be summarized in the following dispensations or ages.
1. Adam prior to the fall in the garden of Eden is known as the age of innocence.
2. From the fall in Eden to Abraham is known as the age of conscience.
3. From Abraham to Pentecost 30 A.D. is known as the age of Israel.
4. From Pentecost 30 A.D. to the rapture of the church is known as the church age.
5. From the rapture to the second coming of Christ is known as the tribulation or Daniels' seventieth week, or the time of Jacob's trouble.
6. From the second coming of Christ to the end of human history is known as the age of Christ or the millennium.
Each dispensation represents a different phase of the trial of Satan that began in eternity past. All of the objections raised by Satan are being systematically rebutted in the courtroom of Heaven. The witnesses called to the stand in each age are those humans who choose Gods' plan over Satan's'. In every dispensation the solution is found by exercising faith in the Son of God.
After the fall in the Garden of Eden the promised redeemer was known as "the seed of the woman" (Genesis 3.15). In the age of Israel the Messiah/Redeemer was foreshadowed in the various offerings and rituals found in the Mosaic law. The great juncture in human history is that time when Jesus of Nazareth was born as the God/man of Heaven. He is the seed of the woman and the Messiah of the Old Testament. With His life, death, burial, resurrection, and present session at the right hand of God; sin and death were defeated and the angelic conflict was won.
All of the dispensations of human history are centered in the Person and work of Jesus Christ. We presently live in the age of grace or the church age. This age is unique in that all three members of the Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit) indwell every believer in Jesus Christ. But only those believers born during the church age (30 A.D. to the rapture of the church, which has not happened yet) can partake in this Grace provision of God. In every dispensation the issue is faith alone in Christ alone. So everyone in every dispensation who exercises faith in Christ is saved for eternity. Those of us of the church age are known as joint heirs of Christ. What a blessing to be born and saved in this period of human history. Undeserved grace, that is God in action.
From the rapture to the second coming of Christ is that seven year period known as the tribulation. The church (the body of Christ) will not be here. The tribulation will be the greatest time of suffering in human history. In Matthew 24 Jesus said that "if those days were not shortened no one would survive". They will be shortened by the physical return of the resurrected Jesus Christ to the earth. His return will institute His 1000 year reign on earth. After the 1000 years the end of human history will occur.
Dispensations answer questions such as; "why in the Old Testament are women to be stoned for adultery but in the New Testament they are not". The old and new testaments are different dispensations and therefore subject to a different set of rules for living. The old testament was under the Mosaic law, the new testament is governed by the new testament epistles.
This is a brief synopsis of dispensations. I could go into various Bible passages that support this view. However, my goal on this blog is to scratch the surface of various doctrines..
