A dispensation is a period of time where God has shown how man develops and maintains a fellowship with God.
Some say there are as few as three God given periods of order, others more than 35. Since all numbers in the Bible have a consistent application and seven is the number of completeness I have a hard time finding more than seven.
The essence of each dispensation builds with each of the succeeding dispensations. Each demonstrates how to be in fellowship with God and why Man has failed his responsibility.
The first dispensation is commonly referred to as the Dispensation Of Innocence.
The Bible begins in Genesis with God creating an ideal home for the mankind He is going to create. Everything man could possibly need is provided and perfect. The man God creates is perfect, created in God’s image, totally innocent and sinless and in actual fellowship with God. Man has all the attributes of God. Whatever God can do, man can do, just in a much lesser scale.
Since man is created in the image of God he must also have the power of choice. The power of choice without the opportunity to use that choice is useless. In order for man to have the opportunity to use the power of choice God put ONE tree in the midst of the Garden’s bounty. Man is told to not touch the tree or eat of its fruit and what the result would be.
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17)
That’s it. One very simple rule.
All man has to do to remain in fellowship with God is to simply stay away from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Everything is so perfect in the Garden the Bible says God Himself moved in it in fellowship with Adam & Eve in the garden.
Along comes Satan and plants a few thoughts in Eve’s, the Man’s wife’s, head. She not only eats of it but sets it in front of Adam, her husband, and he simply eats. Sin has then entered the whole world. Prior to Adam eating of it only Eve, half of the world, had sinned or broken the the simple rule.
Man now knows the result of disobedience. Man has failed to keep the Divine order of the Dispensation Of Innocence. Man is no longer innocent, he has sinned. Man now knows that sin is any action against God, any action against your fellow man, or any action against oneself. He has separated himself from God to the point he hides from Him.
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.
8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
9 Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”
10 So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
11 And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” (Genesis 3:6-11)
Since God is so unimaginably righteous He cannot be in fellowship with any unrighteousness.
22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:22-24)
One simple rule. “Stay away from THAT one tree!” That’s all. Just do what you are told to do. Nothing more, nothing less.
The Garden is filled with everything one could freely use. One tree is to be totally left alone. To disobey is to become separated from God.
But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear. (Isaiah 59:2)
Since man is made in the image of God and God has put some part of Himself in every human being Man NEVER ceases to exist because God will NEVER cease to exist. Man will always exist somewhere. God cannot have sin anywhere around Him. He must put the disobedient someplace away from Him. The Bible refers to that place as unending torment or what we call hell-fire.
Because they ate of the forbidden tree they were removed from the Garden and from the presence of God.
The first dispensation, the Dispensation Of Innocence has come to an end. They are left on their own away from God’s fellowship because they chose to disobey one simple rule.
We are born innocent and sinless. We are totally helpless with no knowledge of right or wrong.
As we grow older we become more and more conscious of the difference between right and wrong. Sooner or later we figuratively “eat of the tree” and become separated from God and destined for the place reserved for the disobedient.
The separation from God and the Garden came from disobeying one simple rule. Our separation from God, our loss of innocence, comes from one simple disobedient action.
There is a list of sins in Romans 1:18-31 that bring about God’s wrath. While it is not the only sins listed in the Bible anyone can find themselves in it more than once. Romans 1:32 spells out the results of any one of the sins listed there, “worthy of death.”
The Bible has no concept of “death, there is only a separation from life on earth and from God.
Since man never ceases to exist God must put the disobedient somewhere away from Him and any of His blessings. That somewhere is hell-fire torment.
15 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. (Mark 16:15-16)
21 There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, (I Peter 3:21)
38 Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38)
If one has not been baptized by immersion in water for the remission of sins in obedience to the gospel of I Corinthians 15:1-4 and Romans 6:3-7 one is still in their sins and separated from God.
Marv Walker
706 816-7190
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