Prophetic Insight Into the Ages: How It Unlocks Your Spiritual Potential

Times change but creation does not.

When God moved from one dispensation, time period, to another, it usually happened in one day. Yesterday ended the dispensation of conscience and today began the dispensation of human government. Yet the trees looked the same as they did yesterday, and rivers, mountains and oceans did not change. God’s righteousness, looking at man’s attitude toward eternal issues, caused Him to change direction.

It’s a lot like the White House, the Capitol, and other buildings in Washington D.C. The buildings look the same as they did in the early 1900s, but the ways of governing inside of them are far from the pureness and idealism assumed by the people who voted for them.

God had two time periods He looked forward to—the two thousand years of the Church Age and the coming one thousand year millennial reign of Jesus Christ. The Church Age was hidden, a secret, called the mystery more than once in the New Testament epistles. It was known only to the Godhead and unknown by angels, Satan and his kingdom, and all mankind. It would not be revealed until the writing of the New Testament epistles.

Yet, the millennial reign of Christ is taught by many of the Old Testament prophets and frequently mentioned in the New Testament. The Church Age was designed by God to be a preview of the Millennium. This is why a millennial passage from Joel was spoken by Peter on the day the Church Age began (see Acts 2:16-18).

The word for dispensation in the Greek means “an administrator of a household.” The Greek word is oikonomia (oikos, “house,” and nomos, “law”: “the law of the house”), a time period or administration. Synonyms are also used for dispensations, including time periods, ages, times and seasons.

There are seven dispensations, or administrations of times, from Adam to the end of the millennial reign of Jesus Christ. We will cover them shortly in an upcoming section of this chapter.

The Integration of the Old and New Testaments

God, who at various times [polumeros, “time periods”] and in various ways [polutropos, “ways”] spoke in time past [Old Testament] to the [ Jewish] fathers by the prophets [Old Testament writers], has in these last days [Church Age] spoken to us by His Son [New Testament writers] whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds [aion, “ages, dispensations”] (Hebrews 1:1-2).

The same God, our Father, spoke in the Old Testament and the New Testament. He spoke in the Old Testament through the prophets. He spoke in the New Testament through Christ, His Son, who spoke through the apostles.

He spoke to two groups of people, one mainly in each testament—to the Jews and Israel in the Old Testament and to the Gentiles and the Church in the New Testament.

The Difference Between the Old and New Testaments

How God approached mankind has always been different in each time period. There were personal visits of God through angels, prophets, sacrifices, the cloud, fire, and the law.

But how man approached God has always been the same in each time period, including our own. Man has always approached God by faith.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it [faith] the elders [Old Testament patriarchs] obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds [aion, “ages, dispensations”] were framed [fit together] by the word [rhema, “spoken word”] of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible (Hebrews 11:1-3).

Seven Dispensations, Times, or Seasons

These seven are also called times and seasons, during which certain foreordained events took place. In the seven time periods, God began each in perfection or divine repair from the previous. Man ended each with sin and rebellion toward God. God then began the next time period with a clean slate. The seven are:

1.   Innocence. It lasted from Adam and Eve’s creation to their fall.

2.   Conscience. It lasted from the fall of man to the flood of Noah.

3.   Human Government. It remained from the flood of Noah to the Tower of Babel.

4.   Promise. Beginning with God’s choice of Abraham and lasting until God’s deliverance of Israel from Egyptian captivity.

5.   The Law. It was given at Mount Sinai and ended at the cross.

6.   The Church. Our time period, the longest dispensation, the dispensation of grace. This will last from the Day of Pentecost until the Church is removed at the rapture. Then the seven years of the Tribulation will occur, and afterward the final time period will be brought in.

7.   The Millennium. This one thousand year time period lasts from the end of the Tribulation to the judgment of all the unrighteous who ever lived or are alive, the Great White Throne Judgment.

After all the dispensations are over, the earth will be renovated and enter the eternity of eternities. God’s home, heaven, will come, resting over and lighting the renovated earth forever. All humans who occupy the earth will no longer have natural bodies but will have resurrection bodies. Sin will never exist again nor nighttime. All demons, fallen angels, Satan, and sinners will have been removed along with the curse on the earth. They will have been thrown into the Lake of Fire forever. And we forever will occupy the new perfect earth in our resurrection body. We will be able to instantly visit anyplace in the universe we desire—just think of it and be there.

There are Also Times or Time Periods

Times periods usually overlap or include other dispensations. There are five time periods:

1.   Gentiles: Adam to Abraham (four dispensations)

2.   Jews: Abraham to Jesus Christ’s Ascension (two dispensations)

3.   Gentiles: Pentecost to Rapture of the Church (one dispensation)

4.   Jews: Tribulation (one dispensation)

5.   Gentiles and Jews: Millennium (one dispensation, the dispensation of the fullness of times, Ephesians 1:10)

The Mystery

Mystery (musterion) refers to teachings hidden in the past but revealed to us today. Like mysteries today, clues were dropped before the time of understanding came.

Clues were scattered in the Old Testament and the four gospels about the Church and New Testament teachings. Jesus first used the word church with His disciples in Matthew 13:11 and Mark 4:10-11.

Mystery is the New Testament Time Period, the Church Age

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles—if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages [dispensations] was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel (Ephesians 3:1-6).

In the New Testament, mystery refers to Church Age teachings and doctrine. Church Age is another name for the dispensation of the mystery. And the word mystery is a synonym for the Church. As stated before, the Church Age is the longest dispensation. So far it is over two thousand years. It began at Pentecost and will end at the catching away, the removal of the Church, the rapture.

The mystery teaches of a united Jewish and Gentile Church, which could be seen from the inception of the Church on the Day of Pentecost. Gentile and Jewish people received Jesus, became members of the Body of Christ, and the first local church was begun in Jerusalem on the day the Holy Spirit was given to believers in His fullness.

The first recorded problem in the early church was favoritism toward the Jewish widows over the Gentile widows in the giving out of food and money (see Acts 6:1). Walls between races are easily removed with God by the blood of His Son Jesus. But it takes much time to remove those barriers with people, even born-again and Spirit-filled people.

Understanding the Mystery Produces Obedience to God

Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world [dispensations] began but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith (Romans 16:25-26).

The New Testament epistles (Acts through Jude) and the first three chapters of Revelation are directed toward the Church and the day we are living in. The Church Age began at Pentecost and will end at the rapture of the Church. Because so much of God’s dealings with us changed with the coming of the Holy Spirit, a new set of writings had to be given called the New Testament. And the main areas of doctrines and teachings for our dispensation are found in the New Testament epis- tles, Acts through Jude.

What was seen in the Old Testament as types and shadows find their reality in the life, crucifix- ion, death, burial, quickening, and resurrection of Jesus. Here the reality of the types and shadows are clearly seen and taught by their application to our lives today on this side of the work of the cross and the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Mystery includes (these occur in the Church Age and are not taught in Old Testament):

1.   The individual priesthood of each believer

2.   The indwelling of the Holy Spirit

3.   The infilling of the Holy Spirit

4.   The Church

5.   The Body of Christ

6.   The Bride of Christ

7.   Spiritual gifts made available to all believers

Mystery does not include:

1.   The death of Jesus

2.   The ascension of Jesus

3.   The seating of Jesus in Heaven

These all occurred before the Church Age and the day of Pentecost. They are well documented in the Old Testament.

4.   The tribulation

5.   The Millennium

6.   The eternal state

These occur after the rapture of the Church at the end of the Church Age and are well documented in the Old Testament.