If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward. Ephesians 3:2
How many dispensations are there? First, let’s describe dispensations as defined periods or ages in human history to which God has allotted distinctive administrative principles. Reformed doctrine does not recognize any dispensations, not as we understand them. Easton’s Bible Dictionary, published in 1897, recognizes three: the Patriarchial (Adam to Sinai), the Mosaic or Jewish (Sinai to Malachai), and the Christian (Christ). But most dispensationalists (you are a dispensationalist) recognize seven: Innocence, Conscience, Human Government, Promise, Law, Grace (the dispensation that we live under today), and Divine Government. Have you memorized them? You should. They are important. For a simple method to help you remember them, consider the sentence ‘I can hope people like good dinners’. The first letter of each word (ICHPLGD) is the first letter of a dispensation. (Stop now and practice!) Other than the future dispensation of Divine Government, we are currently living in the very best dispensation, which Paul identifies in our text today.
We had no place in the original dispensation of Innocence, which was only for our first parents, and which lasted for only a few days – or was it a few decades? We don’t really know. Conscience was also a temporary dispensation, and it produced a world filled with violence that terminated with the great flood. Human Government, the dispensation from the flood to Babel, produced proof of man’s inability to rise above his own pride. The dispensation of Promise, from Abraham until Moses, was good for the descendents of the patriarchs, but offered little to the rest of the world. In the dispensation of law, which reigned from Moses until the crucifixion of Christ, we see types and shadows of something better that was to come, as the book of Hebrews clearly unfolds. We are in that better dispensation, Grace.
All of the previous dispensations had their limitations, many of which are removed in our current age. For example, previous dispensations had either none of only part of the Word of God. But we have all of it (1 Corinthians 13:10). Previous dispensations were restricted to select families or to the nation of Israel. But Grace has opened the door wide to Gentiles as well as Jews, so that we are ‘no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints and of the household of God’ – Ephesians 2:19. Old Testament saints of previous dispensations experienced the work of the Holy Spirit in a limited manner. But Grace has granted to each believer universally the residency of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13). Grace also brings us into a richer relationship with each Person in the Deity, a precious family relationship. In addition, Grace enables us to all enter into the sanctuary of God for worship, prayer, and service.
Aren’t you thrilled that you have been brought into the dispensation of the Grace of God? -Jim MacIntosh