Revising the Dispensationalist Ages by S Jones

Revising the Dispensationalist Ages

Dec 07, 2018 by Dr. Stephen Jones

https://gods-kingdom-ministries.net/daily-weblogs/2018/12-2018/revising-the-dispensationalist-ages/

The Dispensationalists in the 1800’s divided time into the following ages:

Innocence - Adam

Conscience - After man sinned, up to Noah’s flood
Government - After the flood, Noah to Abraham
Promise - Abraham to Moses and the giving of the Law
Law - Moses to the cross
Grace - The cross to the Millennial Kingdom
Millennial Kingdom - A 1000 year reign of Christ on earth centered in the earthly     Jerusalem, a rebuilt physical temple, and renewal of animal sacrifices

Innocence

The first, which is the time prior to Adam’s sin, is listed as “Innocence.” I have no quarrel with that designation, except that in my view that was not really an age but the original condition of man prior to sin. If we are to think in terms of ages, then it could be argued that we ought to begin even prior to Adam. If so, it would be the age of Creation, showing the acts of God, rather than the short condition of man in the time of creation.

Conscience

Dispensationalism lists “Conscience” as the age from Adam’s sin to Noah’s flood. They were conveying the idea that men had no revelation of the law at that time, and therefore, they had to rely upon the conscience alone. Scripture is unclear on this point, but surely Adam in his original condition was in full conformity to the laws of God. After all, the law has always been the expression of God’s nature and character.

Surely Adam knew God’s character inherently, whether or not he was created in a state of Innocence. No doubt Adam and Eve lacked experience and were therefore naïve, and for this reason the serpent, who was “subtle,” was able to take advantage of her. Even so, we read in 1 Timothy 2:14 that “it was not Adam who was deceived but the woman.” This may indicate that Eve was deceived and that Adam deliberately chose to join in her sin so that they would not be separated.

This suggests that Adam’s conscience knew the difference between right and wrong. Can we then assign “Conscience” to the time after the first sin but not beforehand?

In my view, the law of God as a whole was known from the beginning but men forgot it over time. Society degenerated into lawlessness until the flood destroyed it. The flood was like a reset button, starting over with Noah’s family.

More important, I believe, is to see that from Adam to the flood was 1,656 years, according to the chronology provided to us in Genesis 5. The time began with the curse upon the ground (Genesis 3:17) and ended with the reversal of the curse. When Noah was born, it was said in Genesis 5:29,

²⁹ Now he called his name Noah, saying, “This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed.”

The ground was on Cursed Time for a period of 4 x 414 years. That, of course, was a grace period, giving humanity time to repent and to find grace, as Noah did (Genesis 6:8 KJV). Most of the people remained under the authority of the cursed ground, and so they died when the curse of the law was executed by the flood itself.

We ourselves are not to be under the dominion of “the flesh,” as Paul would call it. By transferring our conscious self to the New Creation Man, we transfer our citizenship to heaven (Philippians 3:20), thus avoiding the divine judgment upon the flesh that is under the curse. Noah did this, but the people as a whole did not; hence, they died in the flood.

This curse upon the ground seems to characterize that age better than any other factor. So it seems more appropriate to me to label this not as an age of “Conscience” but as an age of Grace. Though the sentence of the law (i.e., the “curse”) was issued after Adam sinned, God gave him and his descendants a grace period before that judgment was executed.

Noah found grace, but all of the other people were given grace as a feature of God’s mercy. Noah’s grace was, in a sense, permanent, because it was internalized and was part of his nature. The rest of the people had temporary grace, which may be thought of as a probationary period.

This probationary time period of 4 x 414 years gives us the foundational revelation of Cursed Time itself. It is how Lalo Cadona’s father discovered the principle of Cursed Time in 1946. This is remarkable, because this was the only example that he had of Cursed Time. When I put together my own chronological study in 1991, I came to see at least six major examples of Cursed Time in Scripture, and at the same time I discovered that I myself had been on Cursed Time twice in the past (414-day cycles). This confirmed the principle to me.

Government

Dispensationalists justify this designation by the fact that Noah was given a few laws immediately after the flood (Genesis 9:1-7). Presumably, having a few laws justified the formation of “Government.” But one can hardly form a government, even in an infantile state, based upon a few food laws (Genesis 9:3, 4), a prohibition of murder (Genesis 9:6), and a mandate to be fruitful (Genesis 9:7). Was theft still lawful? What about adultery?

Government implies organization and structure as well, but we see no attempt to reveal such basic aspects of government. The only true governmental mandate given is in Genesis 9:2,

² And the fear of you and the terror of you shall be on every bird of the sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given.

This re-establishes the original authority that God gave man in Genesis 1:26…

²⁶ … let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

Government implies authority, but this was given even prior to the creation of man, for it is said to be the purpose of God from the beginning. How then can we say that from the flood to the promise to Abraham God set up a “dispensation” of “Government”? The Dominion Mandate of Genesis 1:26 was the origin of all authority and government, just as the Fruitfulness Mandate of Genesis 1:28 established the divine purpose to bring forth many sons (“fruit of the womb”).

These two Mandates form the Birthright itself, which was established at the beginning. Because government was inherent in the Birthright, I think the Dispensationalists established the wrong mindset in the church by calling this age “Government.”

In fact, during this time, it appears that Nimrod was the one who invented the idea of unrighteous government. As a hunter, he hunted the souls of men and enslaved them to himself. Nimrod governed not as a steward under God but as a usurper king. He set the pattern for nearly all future governments of the world.

That age of degeneration and usurpation may best be described by the biblical word lawlessness, both personal and governmental. It was founded by a hunter who sought to devour the souls of men through governmental authority, and this destroyed the original purpose of God to establish authority through biblical Unity (Genesis 2:24). Just as marriage was not supposed to give a man the right to devour the soul of his wife, so also government was not supposed to devour its people. Unity was rooted in agreement and love. Nimrod’s government brought slavery and self-interest.

This descent into lawlessness, led by Nimrod, set the backdrop and contrast to the righteousness of Abraham, who was Nimrod’s contemporary.

Promise

The Dispensationalist age of “Promise,” beginning with Abraham, inadequately describes that age, because people are left with the impression that there was no real promise until the time of Abraham. But the first promise came as early as Genesis 3:15, where the “seed” of the woman was to crush the serpent’s head. Yet the main promise came to Noah immediately after the flood, when God made the first “covenant” with the entire earth (Genesis 9:9, 10).

This promise was the first to define the scope of the New Covenant, for it was not conditional upon the earth making a vow in return. It was simply the promise of God to the earth, telling us God’s intention, and based upon God’s own ability to keep his promise.

The same can be said of the Abrahamic covenant, where God made similar promises but added the feature that He would fulfill His promise through the seed of Abraham. That seed was not ultimately a biological seed, Paul explains in Galatians 3:7, 29. The seed (children) of Abraham are those who follow His example of faith, those who have faith that God is able to keep His promise (Romans 4:21).

The New Covenant promises of God, then, can be traced back to the time of Adam and Eve, and these did not end when Moses gave the law at Mount Horeb. Therefore, to label this era by the term “Promise” can be misleading, especially if people are led to believe that God made no promises prior to Abraham.

The time, in fact, is characterized by the conflict between two forms of government that were arising in the earth. There was the world government of Nimrod that usurped power; and there was the Kingdom government of Abraham and his seed who were truly called to exercise the Dominion Mandate properly in the earth. In fact, Abraham knew the laws of God, for Genesis 26:5 says,

⁵ because Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.

Knowledge of the law was necessary for Abraham and his seed to establish righteous government. If we think of the promise to Abraham as a betrothal, followed by the actual marriage at Mount Horeb, we may see the progression of the Kingdom. Since the marriage principle (Unity) is also the basic principle of Kingdom government, it is a proper way of viewing this portion of history. The problem is that Mount Horeb proved to be an Old Covenant marriage, where God married a “bondwoman,” to use Paul’s terminology in Galatians 4:24, 25, 31.

Hence, that marriage was destined to end in divorce (Jeremiah 3:8; Hosea 2:2), so that the next age might establish a New Covenant marriage.

For this reason, I prefer to call the age from Abraham to Moses “Betrothal,” rather than “Promise.” God’s promises came much earlier than with Abraham, but the betrothal was specific to Abraham. God promised them blessings, honor, protection, and many children—all features of a betrothal. The feast days (Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles) then give us the main outline of Kingdom history, which is based upon the principle of marriage. Since marriage is of two kinds, Old Covenant and New Covenant marriage, the marriage itself took some twists and turns before the final outcome of Unity could become a reality.

So up to this point, we can revise the Dispensationalist divisions of time as follows:

1. Innocence
2. Grace
3. Lawlessness
4. Betrothal
5. Passover
6. Pentecost
7. Tabernacles

The Gospel of Jerusalem: by S Jones

THE GOSPEL OF JERUSALEM

Dec 19, 2018 by Dr. Stephen Jones

https://gods-kingdom-ministries.net/daily-weblogs/2018/12-2018/the-gospel-of-jerusalem/

When Scripture talks about the Bride of Christ, some say this is the church, while others say it is Israel. Those who say it is Israel are divided according to who they think Israel is.

Isaiah 62:4-6 addresses Jerusalem as a bride, saying,

⁴ It will no longer be said to you, “Forsaken,” nor to your land will it any longer be said, “Desolate,” but you will be called [Hephzibah] “My delight is in her,” and your land, [Beulah] “Married;” For the Lord delights in you, and to Him your land will be married. ⁵ For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you; and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you. ⁶ On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen…

This prophecy comes in the context of the restoration of the house of Israel having Jerusalem as its unified capital. Isaiah himself lived to see the exile of Israel to Assyria (Isaiah 38, 39), which in turn occurred 210 years after Israel and Judah were divided. But the prophet foresaw the reunification of Israel and Judah under the Messiah with Jerusalem as its capital.

Most people interpret this to mean that the Jewish nation that is today known as Israel is fulfilling this prophecy. Most fail to see the difference between Israel and Judah. They also interpret these names as biological references, rather than seeing these nations as legal entities. As I have shown in recent weblogs, the Israelites were taken to Assyria, while the house of Judah (“Jews”) escaped that captivity and remained in the land for more than another century before being taken temporarily to Babylon.

Two Jerusalem Brides

The key to understanding is first to know that Jerusalem is more than one city. The Hebrew word is Ierushalayim, which literally means “Two Jerusalems.” Hebrew has plurals (“im”) and duals (ayim). Ierushalayim is a dual, which means “two.” The rabbis in the past could never figure out why, but the apostles in the New Testament understood it to mean that there was an earthly city and a heavenly city.

The Old Testament prophets never distinguish between the two. Both cities are interwoven in their prophecies, and it requires discernment to know which city is being referenced in any given prophecy. Galatians 4:25, 26 shows that Paul understood this clearly. Revelation 21 describes the heavenly city while using passages from Isaiah about “Jerusalem.” It is clear from this that John also understood the difference between the two cities of Jerusalem.

So in Revelation 21:2 says,

² And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.

She is “the bride, the wife of the Lamb,” a reference to Jesus Christ (Revelation 21:9). Jesus’s wife is not the earthly Jerusalem; His wife is the “new Jerusalem.”

Yet the Bible story shows that the Old Covenant was the marriage ceremony where God (Christ) married Hagar, a bondwoman. That marriage ended in divorce (Jeremiah 3:8), and the new marriage, prophesied in the book of Revelation and elsewhere, is Christ’s marriage to a New Covenant bride, known prophetically as "Sarah.” Only Sarah can bring forth the heirs of the Kingdom.

The point is that the bride is Jerusalem, but we should know that in the big picture, there are two brides, each with her own marriage ceremony (covenant). Those two brides are yet in the world, existing side by side as groups of people, and yet one has already been divorced.

Casting out the Bondwoman Bride

The Old Covenant bride was “cast out” long ago in order to make room for the New Covenant bride. God will never again marry a bondwoman, yet there are many individuals within that Old Covenant bride (a company of people) who insist that Hagar is the true bride of Christ. They want Hagar to be the bride, because those individuals are her children, and they love their mama.

Paul makes it clear that Hagar and her children must be cast out (Galatians 4:30) in order to establish the calling of Sarah in Genesis 17:15, 16. Not many truly understand this, partly because the Dispensationalists re-instated Hagar as the bride of Christ by making the earthly city the mother of the Kingdom and by honoring fleshly people (unbelieving Jews) as chosen people.

In doing so, the Dispensationalists showed their love for their mother Hagar, and so most of the evangelical and Pentecostal churches today are blatant advocates of Hagar. The situation is comparable to the household of Abraham while he had two wives in his house and two sons that were in contention as heirs of the birthright.

At some point in history, a lawful decision or verdict must be decreed, declaring one or the other to be the heir. In Abraham’s time, this occurred when he sent Hagar and Ishmael away (Genesis 21:10-12). Abraham was a type of Christ (having two brides). Christ then came and cast out Hagar in a greater fulfillment of the word to Abraham. The separation between the two cities is obvious by reading the New Testament, and Paul gives his commentary in Galatians 4.

Paul himself had persecuted the church before his conversion (Galatians 1:13, 14), and his testimony admits that he had been an Ishmael at that time of his life. Even as Ishmael had persecuted Isaac (Galatians 4:29), so also had he persecuted the church—which, presumably was Isaac. The problem was that the church was starting to revert back to Judaism, and this was the beginning of the Christian reversion to being Ishmael, son of Hagar. Paul’s gospel was designed to warn the church against that tendency.

Reclaiming Hagar

The Dispensationalists in the 1850’s cast aside all restraint and fully pushed to make Hagar the mother of the church and the Kingdom. They did precisely what Paul warned against in his gospel to the Galatians. When Pat Boone converted to Judaism in the late 1960’s, after being taught Christian Zionism by these Dispensationalists, it began a wave of conversions. In fact, far more Christians converted to Judaism than Jews were converted to Christ.

If he and others had understood Paul’s gospel, they never would have been fooled into becoming Jews (by conversion). Yet the root problem was in their misunderstanding of the two covenants. The root problem was in thinking that a person is saved by his own vow, promise, or decision, for that is the Old Covenant method of salvation (which always fails). When someone says, “I got saved when I decided to follow Jesus,” it is the equivalent of Israel’s vow at Mount Horeb, where they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do” (Exodus 19:8).

When men are saved by the power of their own will, it is an Old Covenant attempt to be saved by the flesh. No man’s vow can save him unless he is able to fulfill his vow and be fully obedient. But the moment he sins after making that vow, his covenant is broken and is immediately null and void. He must then return to the altar and be saved again—and again. This must be repeated, as with the animal sacrifices, because it is based on the will of man. But John 1:13 says,

¹³ who were born [begotten] not of blood [i.e., bloodline], nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

New Covenant salvation is based upon the promise of God (Galatians 4:28), and New Covenant faith is the ability to believe that “what He has promised, He was able also to perform” (Romans 4:21). That is the faith of Abraham.

Those who claim Hagar as their mother are blind to the promise of God. They turn the promise into a statement of intent that is effective only if man himself gets involved with his own will of the flesh. God’s promise, however, did not depend upon man’s compliance. God’s promise was to make it happen. God took the responsibility upon Himself to make it happen—not merely to give man opportunity to make it happen.

Reclaiming the Sarah Bride

The New Covenant is a foreign doctrine to most Christians today. Having claimed Hagar as their mother, they have been blinded to the truth of “the restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21). They believe that most of humanity will be lost, except for those few who have been saved through their Old Covenant decision.

The truth is that God “will have all men to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4 KJV). At the Great White Throne, every knee will bow, and every tongue will profess Christ (Philippians 2:10, 11). Many will be judged, of course, so that they have time to mature spiritually and learn obedience (Isaiah 26:9). In the end, however, all things that were created will be put under the dominion (“feet”) of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:28; Colossians 1:16, 20), so that God may be “all in all.”

Because the outcome is based on God’s will and promise, rather than upon the will of man and his broken promises, God will have total victory in the end. This does not mean that man’s will is set aside or that any man will be saved apart from submitting his will to God’s will. Far from it. No man will be saved UNTIL he has submitted himself under the feet of Jesus Christ.

The New Covenant only ensures that God will win and that all will indeed bow their knees and profess Jesus as their Lord. The process, however, involves time, and people will be saved at different points in time. In the present age, only a few (the remnant of grace) have submitted to Christ and have been begotten by the seed of the word. In the age to come (the thousand years of the Tabernacles Age), many more will see the light, as the Stone Kingdom grows.

Then comes the Great White Throne, where all the dead are raised and are summoned to appear before the judgment seat of Christ. There all truth will be known to all, and they will then bow their knees. In other words, they will become believers in Christ and be filled with the Spirit. They will experience Passover (justification) and Pentecost (sanctification), but that last age of the baptism of fire will be necessary to bring these new believers into spiritual maturity.

During that final age, all flesh will disavow Hagar and claim Sarah as their mother. To put it another way, all flesh will become part of the Hephzibah bride of Christ, which is not the old Jerusalem but the new. John says that "the holy city" is the "new Jerusalem" (Revelation 21:2). By claiming this new mother, they will follow the pattern of the apostle Paul in his conversion from being a son of the earthly Jerusalem to a son of the heavenly Jerusalem.

This is not a matter of biological or genetic change. It is a legal matter. You are who you claim to be, not necessarily by your words but by your beliefs and actions. Hence, Paul was able to change his mother by believing the promise of God in the Abrahamic manner. This is the same pattern that all mankind will follow before the end of time as we know it.

In the end, at the Creation Jubilee (after 49,000 years of Adamic history), all debts will be cancelled, and all will return to the inheritance that they lost when Adam sinned.