In this video, I provide a broad overview of the concept of dispensations and covenants. I discuss the different dispensations and their significance, as well as the importance of understanding the relationship between the nation of Israel and God. I also touch on the unconditional promises made to Abraham and the various covenants mentioned in the Bible. No specific action is requested from viewers, but I encourage them to gain a better understanding of these topics for a deeper appreciation of biblical history and prophecy.
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Transcript
00:00 Good day to you once again. As we continue our study in Genesis and in particular introduction of the Bible and Genesis more specifically, there’s a few other things that I’d like to go over just in broad strokes.
00:17 One is what is a dispensation and then four following that, a covenant. I just want to say this to begin with.
00:26 Some people put a lot of stock in dispensations and covenants and in fact that may be part of the separation between covenant theology and dispensationalism and so on.
00:39 I don’t, I, I think it’s I think there’s value in them, but I’m not trying to get into that debate whatsoever.
00:44 Uh, but rather I think that these are tools that can be helpful for us to understand a bit more of how the Bible is organized.
00:54 One, but two, um, how God has dealt with mankind uh from the time of Adam. Right up to, to date.
01:02 And of course it has ramifications for future events as well. Um, so for what it’s worth, let’s just take a brief look at it.
01:10 I don’t want to get bogged down here too much. Uh, but I think you might find it interesting. Uh, so I begin with the question, what is a dispensation?
01:20 And, uh, dispensation is a particular period of time in which God has chosen to reveal himself to man and or deal with man in a particular way.
01:30 These periods are usually separated by a major event of spiritual importance or a biblical event that, uh, we’ll take a look at here in a minute.
01:39 Okay. Uh, what is a covenant? Uh, a covenant is a promise, agreement, or, or treaty between two parties. In this case, the covenants we are talking about are between God and man.
01:51 There are different factors and types of covenants which are important to us. The major covenants are unconditional, meaning that God will perform it regardless of the man and his position.
02:02 This is a vital, this is vital in that we are undeserving, but we can still enjoy and experience God, God’s provision of salvation.
02:11 Uh, let me explain though that there are, uh, for example, well I’m getting ahead of myself, but the Abrahamic covenant is one that’s very essential to our understanding.
02:20 Understanding of prophecy and, and just, uh, what is the relationship between the nation Israel and God and so on, and I believe that that is an unconditional, uh, promise, uh, given to Abraham.
02:32 it did not depend on him. We’ll cover that way on down the road and in our study of Genesis. But later on in the most recent, Mosaic, uh, uh, covenant, there was a condition put on it, and basically it was that if, if uh, you complete the law, if you fulfill the law, then you’ll be blessed and so on,
02:52 and if you, uh, go away from the law and disobey it, then you’ll be cursed. And so that one, uh, even though God, uh, made the covenant, covenant, it was dependent, in part at least, on man’s, uh, action and so on.
03:06 So just to be clear, there are two different main types of covenants, and, uh, we’ll take a look at them here, uh, briefly.
03:12 Uh, here’s a chart that I found, I don’t know who is the author, uh, there’s no on the reverse side.
03:20 But, uh, from, from long ago, somewhere I had this in my bible file, so, I think I can share it.
03:27 Uh, and it has references down below, as you can, uh, see, I don’t have my pointer here, but down in here it has references to go along with each period.
03:36 It gives the open event, duration, man’s, failure, ten, trend of the day. Dispensation, man’s individual responsibility. I’ve superimposed a few things on here that I want you to see just to bring it out more clearly, uh, in, in case you’re not up close to it and have a hard time reading it.
03:52 Uh, the first one here is just covering each of the seven dispensations. The first period is known as innocence. and that is, of course, from the time of Adam to the time of his sin entering.
04:04 And then we have conscience, uh, which is, uh, part of, maybe, maybe that includes also, uh, before the sin. No, I think not.
04:13 Anyway, human government, uh, promise, law, the church, uh, sometimes the church period. Or known as grace as well, the dispensation of grace.
04:24 And then you have the tribulation period and then the kingdom period. So those are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, I guess, uh, uh, it says 7 at the top here.
04:35 But I count 8. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. I think that may be because some are considered minor ones.
04:44 I don’t know if that’s true or what that is. But anyway, there’s 8 of them it seems to me. Um, what are the events?
04:52 Obviously the opening event is creation. And following that is the sin and expulsion from the garden. Of course that ends the age of innocence and begins the conscience and all of that.
05:04 The flood is kind of before the human government entered in. And Genesis, our study, will actually develop some of that.
05:13 Some of the covenant given at that time or the new dealings that God had with man of human government. Then we have the Tower of Babel in there as a major event and of course the spreading of the peoples of the earth and so on.
05:29 Then we get Exodus and the Ten Commandments. That’s the Mosaic Law given. Dispersion happens. That’s interesting. Dispersion. I don’t know why that’s there.
05:43 That’s weird. Uh Ascension of Christ. Pentecost of course. Oh dispersion I think has to do with maybe the Israel being taken into captivity and and so on.
05:56 That’s kind of an unusual word that I put in there. But anyway, uh the church. Rapture of course. It ends the period of grace or the period of the church when the church is raptured.
06:08 And then you enter into the tribulation. And then you have Armageddon and Christ’s second coming. And then finally the millennial reign that follows.
06:17 Interestingly enough, in this last section you might have a difference of opinion. There are many views of the end times and whether you’re pre-tribulation or part-tribulation or post-tribulation.
06:32 I think biblically this is probably the most the view that I hold because it is dependent. upon literal and grammatical translation of or interpretation of God’s Word.
06:48 And that’s a huge discussion of doctrine and we’re not necessarily doing that here today but nevertheless it’s a it’s an important thing to consider.
06:58 Okay, then we have a the covenants. Uh the first one is known as the Edenic Covenant and of course that was God speaking to Adam right off and we’ll talk about that.
07:08 If you eat of this tree you’ll surely die and if you you can have everything else in the garden and so on but that’s the Edenic Covenant.
07:16 It kind of coincides with the innocence before sin entered. But that’s then you have the Adamic Covenant uh which of course is the change once Adam did sin and then uh God you know spoke to him and kicked him out of the garden and so forth.
07:30 We’ll talk about that. The Noahic Covenant uh goes along with the rainbow as you know the the promise that there will never be a universal flood again.
07:40 You that does not mean that the people will not ever be judged for sin. In fact, we know from scripture that there will be a future judgment but it’s not going to be by flood.
07:49 It’s going to be by fire. Then we have the Abrahamic Covenant uh which I already had mentioned is unconditional meaning God is going to perform that and then that’s the promise that through Abraham there would be uh many people would be blessed.
08:05 Nations would be blessed and of course I think the direct reference of that is the future of Jesus Christ coming through the Abrahamic line.
08:12 Uh then you have the Sinaitic or the Mosaic or Phinehas or Palestinian. There’s several names. There’s several there of that covenant there.
08:22 Uh and there’s maybe uh different ramifications of it but uh like uh like in the story of uh Phinehas who uh stopped the plague at one point and uh but anyway all of that goes along with the law in particular and that I think is uh not unconditional.
08:39 In other words there is a dependence upon how people perform in terms of uh fulfilling the law or not. Uh and then you have the Davidic covenant and uh that of course has to do with the the line of David being on the throne of Israel uh for all time uh his line after line and uh and that’s a kind of
09:01 a interesting deal because as you know some of the children of David uh fell away from the Lord and therefore the the kingdom of Israel was divided into the north and the south but you’ll notice that uh Judah the south uh always had uh a king that was of the Davidic line uh so that’s a partial fulfillment
09:22 but I believe that the real fulfillment of that covenant is of course Jesus who is not only uh prophet and and uh and uh sacerdote I want to say in Spanish uh priest he is also the king and so um we have we have that going along with the Davidic covenant and it is of course fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
09:47 Then we have the new covenant uh and of course that goes along with the church age the new covenant started with Jesus and the the completion of the death burial resurrection bringing in a new life.
10:00 And a new way of dealing of Paul teaches a whole lot about this new covenant in Romans and also in Galatians that the law was given there for a purpose and we’ll talk about that down the road again.
10:15 But uh but yeah that salvation really comes by grace rather than by the law or through the law. Okay. How is salvation received?
10:28 What happens at death? This one is something that I’ve come up with kind of on my own although I think Scripture bears it out and I find it interesting because I’ve asked people well if if if salvation is provided in the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ which is on our timeline here is where
10:51 the cross is down there in the picture. You have the New Testament to the right and the Old Testament to the back or in meaning history before Christ.
11:00 And history after Christ. We of course living in the New Testament age or the church age we look back and at the finished work of Jesus Christ.
11:10 And we are saved by grace through faith. That becomes clear looking back. But then I ask the question sometimes, well where do what about King David?
11:21 What about Abraham? What about Moses? People that clearly in the Bible were followers of God, how were they saved? Uh if it’s based on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that had not yet occurred.
11:36 And so I ask that question and uh some people don’t really have the answer for that to be honest. And so that’s one reason I’ve come up with this diagram to try to speak to that issue.
11:46 Uh and you’ll have to excuse me for the diagram that looks like a skeleton, but I guess in some ways we are talking about the dead.
11:54 Uh the dead in Christ, whether living or dead. Uh we look back and we’re uh we’re saved by looking back at the cross and accepting that finished work of Christ by faith.
12:06 Uh church a church believer we are saved by grace through faith trusting in the completed work of Christ. Okay then for the Old Testament believer, uh they look forward to the cross.
12:20 It has a not yet been done, but I believe that they’re saved in the same way basically through faith trusting in the anticipated work of Christ.
12:28 The difference is that it has not been completed. Now there are ramifications of this because I think in fact if you studied the doctrine of what happens to the human soul in the salvation and the word Sheol comes to mind and so on, that there are, there’s belief that the people of the Old Testament
12:51 that were followers of Jesus, when they died they did not go directly into the presence of the Lord, okay. And we have the example of Samuel for example.
13:00 Uh, who was called up from the grave by Saul later on and that’s kind of an interesting thing. Uh, he was in a place of rest but it was not necessarily in the presence of the Lord.
13:12 Uh, and yet the, uh, the criminal on the cross in the time of Jesus, Jesus said to him, today you will be with me in paradise.
13:22 So there seems to be a distinction, uh, in that. And, uh, I think doctrinally it’s probably, uh, bottom line is probably the Old Testament saints were saved in the same way but they were at death, uh, held until the time of the finished work and then they’re buried.
13:40 There’s some belief that, uh, Jesus, there’s a verse that talks about Jesus going down, uh, into the grave to release the prisoners.
13:49 And some of, uh, some think that that’s what he did in the, uh, after the resurrection. He went and, and freed the captives.
14:00 Freed it, uh, that is, the Old Testament saints and brought them into his presence then. But again that’s, maybe we’re getting far afield here from our study of Genesis, but I think it’s important to have this kind of basic understanding that throughout all humanity, salvation comes by grace, by God.
14:20 God’s work, Jesus Christ, uh, death, burial, resurrection, and uh, that’s how we are saved. It’s not by works, it’s not by any, and we have a verse to go along with that that makes that clear.
14:34 Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
14:40 Not of works, lest any man should boast. So it has absolutely nothing to do with our works or our efforts.
14:48 Uh, our simple job is to put our faith, put our trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ, or in the case of the Old Testament saints, the anticipated work of Okay, what is a type?
15:04 Uh, this is another thing, typology is an interesting subject by itself, but give some examples and I’ll give kind of a definition here first.
15:12 A type is a person, thing, or event that portrays truth of someone else. It gives a picture of the other person or event.
15:20 Even though it may be far in the future. A good example is that of the brazen serpent in the wilderness for the Israelites.
15:28 All they had to do was look at it, that which obviously required faith, to be saved from the death by the snake bite.
15:35 This is a picture of Christ who was lifted up to die for us. All we must do to be saved is to accept him by faith.
15:41 So, uh they didn’t have to go touch, touch the uh brass serpent. They all they had to do was look at it and of course that involved a certain element of faith and when they did so then the snake bite was not deadly and they were saved from that.
15:57 And I believe that that is a type or a picture of Christ. Uh Jesus Christ being lifted up on the cross for us to save us from sin.
16:07 What does Genesis mean? How does this fit as a title to the book? Well, first of all, I’ve read elsewhere that uh the Pentateuch which is written by Moses, that each of those five books uh carries the title in English of the of what is the first Hebrew word of each of those books.
16:24 So uh Genesis I think comes from our word in the beginning, that word beginning there in the Hebrew right at the front, that’s probably where the word Genesis comes from.
16:34 But what does it mean? It has some other ramifications that I think are kind of interesting. Uh Genesis means origin.
16:40 Origin or beginning, that’s where we get our English word generator from, you know, when you think of a generator that provides electricity, that’s the same idea, it’s generating something, something new.
16:53 And it’s fitting as a title since this book speaks of many beginnings, so Genesis is loaded with beginnings. In it’s own pages it presents not only the beginning of the heavens and the earth, the origin of plant, animal, and human life, but also presents all the human institutions and relationships.
17:11 Perhaps the most important origins are the following, the world, or the universe, mankind, sin, and redemption. In other words, Genesis could also be interpreted as generation and has therefore a link with author has organized the book, which we’ll get into that here in the next couple of questions.
17:45 What pattern and organization do you see from the author’s use of repeated phrases? How do these phrases determine the divisions of the book?
17:55 Demonstrate this in an outline. Obviously, this would be a difficult question for you to answer ahead of time, uh, because it requires taking a look at all of Genesis and seeing it.
18:06 But, uh, just to give you a, a preview that will help you as we sort through the various lessons that I have, uh, I think this, you’ll find this interesting.
18:15 Uh, the author repeatedly uses the phrase that contains the word Toledot, uh, to the Hebrew. Uh, that is the most often translated generations in English, uh, but it is also sometimes history or account of, uh, and so on.
18:31 Uh, it includes genealogy, histories, descendants, births, and account. Uh, this word Toledot comes from the word Yalad, uh, give birth or to beget and refers to the product or the result of the subject with a focus on what is to follow.
18:48 In other words, there’s an emphasis on the birth, but the emphasis is what follows after or what is to become of that birth.
18:56 Uh, this phrase then is used as a title or introduction to each generation. Each narrative with the meaning of this is what became of so-and-so, whatever that is.
19:07 Okay, so for example, you could fill that in with Adam. This is what became of Adam. Uh, that would be one of the genealogies we’ll take a look at or one of the, uh, one of the sections of the narrative of Genesis and how it’s defined.
19:20 That the first division is like an introduction or a prologue, uh, to, of creation or of the book of Genesis, the entire book of Genesis, and therefore does not use the phrase with the word Toledot in the title.
19:35 And, uh, this all comes from, uh, Ross’s book, Creation and Blessing, which I’ll try to show in a slide of later on.
19:42 Uh, I want to make sure to give proper credit to, uh, these authors that I’ve used in, in this study.
19:48 Uh, this, let’s demonstrate this as in an outline. Okay, so here’s the divisions of, uh, Genesis. The first one, chapter 1, verse 1 to chapter 2, creation, that would be considered the, uh, prologue and you’ll see that there is no Toledot.
20:06 There is no, uh, this is the generation of, or this is the account of, or this is the history of.
20:12 Okay, but then when you get to, uh, uh, the next one, the Toledot of the heavens and the earth, uh, let me look that up.
20:20 Verse up so I can read it to you. Uh, Genesis 2 and verse 4, it says, These are the generations of the heavens and the earth, and of the earth, when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the heavens and the earth, or the earth and the heavens, sorry.
20:36 Okay, uh, so Genesis 2, 4 is the, the first time we see that, and uh, this, I’m using uh, the King James Version, and it says, this is the generations of.
20:47 If you look at the NIV, uh, for example, it will say the account of. Uh, so that’s the way that word Toledot is translated.
20:57 Okay, then you have the Toledot of Adam, which runs from, uh, chapter 5, verse 1 to 6a, then the Toledot of Noah, 6-9 to 9-29, Toledot of Shem, Ham, and Japheth is a relatively short passage, 10-1, 11-9.
21:13 I think that’s the two genealogies there, or the Toledot of Shem is the second one, 11. We’ll take a look at that in our study.
21:20 A lot of people skip over that because it’s pretty boring, but a lot of names and so on, but that does have some significance that is of interest to us.
21:30 The Toledot of Terah is 11-25, that’s actually the narrative of Abraham. Terah, and that’s why it says the descendant or the account of Terah.
21:45 Remember I said that it means what has become of Terah. Well, what has become of Terah is the story of Abraham.
21:52 And so we have that. The Toledot of Ishmael is one of the side tracks, you might say, so it’s very short. Uh, because it’s the author is more interested in the children of Israel and the development of the nation.
22:05 So then you get the Toledot of Isaac, uh, which is 25 through 35, and that’s really the story of Jacob.
22:12 And then you get the Toledot of Esau, again another side, uh, side track short but then you have the tola da of Jacob to finish up Genesis and that runs from 37 to 50.
22:24 And you’ll notice that that story is really mostly about Joseph and the, and the other 11, uh, uh, brothers of his.
22:32 Uh, Jacob is certainly in there, but what became of Jacob? Well, the whole story of Joseph and their, uh, headed down to Egypt and, uh, and, and, ended up in bondage.
22:41 Of course, Genesis doesn’t bring that out. That comes in Exodus. But, uh, but this is the way, uh, uh, uh, I think, hopefully, you all know that, uh, chapters and verses were, submitted or put into the text later on for our reference for easy, easy getting to a certain passage.
23:09 But, uh, unfortunately, whoever put in the, the numbers and the chapters and verses didn’t necessarily always follow the way the, the, uh, author had organized it to be.
23:20 But anyway, that gives you an idea of that and let’s move on then to these are used for indicating lines of descent, introducing narratives, and filling in history, or you could say passage of time.
23:33 So all of the, uh, the genealogies in particular and these stories, of course, uh, help to do all that in, uh, passage of time.
23:41 What is, what is, or what are the major themes of the message of Genesis? The central theme is the blessing of God.
23:51 In the beginning, the world was formless and void, but God put everything in order and filled the world with abundant life.
23:58 Later, when sin entered, causing chaos and chaos, thinking of the flood and Noah, he once again fixed things through his divine judgment and marvelous grace.
24:07 His redemption plan of grace is another example of his divine blessing over the chaos that resulted from sin. The first chapters, 1 through 11, focus on the primeval events and the root cause and the 12 through 50, speaks of the patriarchal history where God selects individuals for his use to complete
24:27 his redemptive plan of blessing. Uh, so there’s two major divisions, one chapters 1 through 11 and then 12 through 50, primeval events and patriarchal events.
24:37 Uh, both sections include the unfolding of God’s divine plan of grace. But the second is specifically about the protection of the ancestral line of Christ who completes the promise and blessing of God for all mankind.
24:53 We will see much more of this theme in our study of Genesis. So once again, I want to just emphasize that uh, a lot of people, I think, see the theme of Genesis as the beginnings, the creation, and all of that.
25:05 And while that is true, I think the main focus is that God has blessed us. God has, and we’re going to see that when we get right into the very first chapter and second chapter, where we take a look at the Garden of Eden and all the things that God has abundantly put in there for our benefit, so that
25:24 we might enjoy a full and complete and happy life. And so that, it all has to do with the blessing of God towards mankind.
25:33 Take a moment and if you would, after this, and just if you’re in a group or if you’re individually, take a moment and review these things and reflect on it.
25:50 Specifically, I think it’d be interesting to ask yourself, how do you see the dispensations and the covenants? And how do you see the organization of Genesis, and how do you see God’s dealing with mankind?
26:04 And maybe more specifically, what is the value of the Old Testament? Or what would we miss in the New Testament teaching if we didn’t have the background of the Old Testament?
26:17 That would be some worthy questions to ask and to discuss. Pick each other’s brains if you’re in a group and just kind of think how is this meaningful to you in terms of our study and what is our view of the value of the Old Testament and Genesis in particular.
26:35 Thanks.