part0013

"And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth . And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh ." [Genesis 9:12-15]

Before the end of the Age, most dispensationalists would say that there will be a total of seven covenants and seven dispensations. Because they always go together, they would also say that so far there has been six of each where the world is currently in number six. So five of the covenants and dispensations have already passed which means that they can be identified, studied, analyzed, and evaluated.

In the above passage the Lord had just established a new covenant with Noah. Before that covenant, He had previously had covenants with Adam and Eve while they had still been in the Garden of Eden and then with humanity once those first two human beings had been forced out of the garden. Those covenants had been called the Edenic Covenant and the Adamic Covenant, respectively. So how they had gotten their names should be obvious. But as was just indicated above, each covenant has been or will be associated with a dispensation. Each dispensation describes how God has dealt with or how He will deal with the individuals in the earth at that time. So a dispensation always involves a test that the people involved always ultimately fail. Because of that certain failure, each dispensation also always involves a type of judgment. In the Garden of Eden, for example, Adam and Eve had failed because they had eaten fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The judgment was that they had been forced out of the garden. Once outside, humanity had failed by being exceedingly wicked and also by having improper sexual relations between the godly and the ungodly people of that time. The judgment with that failure had been the Great Flood that had destroyed all life on earth except Noah and his family.

Following that second failure but before that second judgment, God had spoken to Noah's heart about the coming flood and had told him that He would establish a new covenant with him. Genesis 6:18 says, "But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee ." So once the waters of that flood had receded from the earth, God had kept His promise to Noah and had established His new covenant with him. In Genesis 9:12-15 which was quoted above, the new covenant had promised that a rainbow would appear in the sky following a bad rain storm. The rainbow would be a reminder to human beings of the time when God had brought the flood and also an indication to Him that He would NEVER destroy all life on earth by a flood again. Thus, whenever a person sees a rainbow in the sky, his or her thoughts should be on the Noahic covenant that God had established with Noah.

But as was stated above, each covenant has also been or will be associated with a dispensation. In addition, each of the five dispensations that have already passed has also involved a test and has resulted in a failure of that test. So, each of those five dispensations has ended with a type of judgment. The first two tests and failures have already been mentioned above. With the third covenant and dispensation which is the Noahic Covenant, the eight human beings had been commanded to multiply, to divide into separate nations, and to govern themselves. That had been the test. Genesis 9:1-7 says, "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth …Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein ." That passage shows Noah and his family being given the test of multiplying and of dividing. It also shows them being given the test of governing themselves in that it showed them how to deal with murderers. One should note, though, that capital punishment was clearly seen in those verses to be a function of civil government and NEVER a justification for any person to take the law into his or her own hands.

The dispensation with the Noahic Covenant had also ended with failure, however, because the people had NOT divided into separate nations. About one hundred years after the flood, they had still been huddled in one small place. But even worse than that, they had begun to openly defy God by trying to build a very tall tower in case it ever rained so much again. Genesis 11:1-4 says, "And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there . And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven ; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." Their plan had been very obvious. They had wanted to build a tower so tall that God would have had to flood heaven if He had ever wanted to destroy all life again by another flood. Obviously they had not succeeded. So their resulting judgment was that God had confounded their language so that they had no longer been able to easily communicate with each other. Then, He had scattered them abroad so that they would be divided into nations.

The Edenic Covenant, the Adamic Covenant, and the Noahic Covenant had been the first three covenants along with their respective dispensations. The other two covenants and dispensations that have already been completed are the Abrahamic Covenant and the Mosaic Covenant. In the dispensation of God's covenant with Abraham, Abraham was to become the father of a great nation that would be blessed with financial and spiritual prosperity. Whole nations would be blessed or be cursed based solely upon how they had treated Abraham's brethren. Then in the course of time, his family would be given the Promised Land. In the dispensation of God's covenant with Moses, the law had been given to show people God's holiness, to instruct them in His discipline, and to remind them of His salvation. The judgment of the failed Abrahamic Covenant had been the four hundred years of Jewish captivity in Egypt. The judgment of the failed Mosaic Covenant had been that the nation of Israel had been judged and that sin had been judged on the cross at Calvary.

The final two covenants are called the New Covenant which is the time of grace in which the world currently exists and then the Davidic Covenant. The New Covenant has been characterized by the revealing of God's grace towards lost sinners. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." In those verses, God has availed Himself to receive any UNSAVED sinner that comes to Him by faith in the right attitude and in the right spirit. But He has ALWAYS done that. So the real difference with the New Covenant is that His grace that leads to salvation has been clearly taught and explained in the Bible for the first time. Before the New Covenant, the doctrine of "salvation by grace" had not been as easily understood as it is today. Thus, one should note that with each covenant and with each dispensation the Lord has revealed more and more about Himself. However, because He never changes, the obvious conclusion is that those truths about Him had ALWAYS been true even before they had been revealed to human beings or recorded in the Bible. The final covenant, which is the Davidic Covenant, will be a perfect environment on earth in which Jesus will reign for one thousand years.