A dispensation is a particular arrangement by which God regulates the way human or angelic beings relate to Him. Apparent in the Bible is the fact that history contains a divinely planned succession of unique arrangements. Through the diversity of the dispensations, angelic and human beings have been, are now, and will continue to be tested in various ways.There is some debate on just how many dispensations there are and where they are divided on the timeline. Yet no matter how the dispensations are divided or subdivided, there are two very key dispensations which are completely overlooked by many (but certainly not all) dispensationalists. These administrations are: (1) the Dispensation of Angelic Testing, and (2) the Dispensation of Christ's Unglorified Humanity.
The Dispensation of Angelic Testing
The Dispensation of Angelic Testing explains the very reason man was created in the first place. Although this divinely appointed arrangement took place prior to the dispensations of human history, it must, nevertheless, be classified as a dispensation. At some time before the creation of the universe, God created the angelic host. The universe, including earth, was created to be inhabited by the angels. The Bible tells us that all of the sons of God (angelic beings) shouted for joy when God laid the foundation of the earth (Job 38:7), the creation described in the first verse of the Bible:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
The word for "create" in Genesis 1:1 is bara. Nelson's Expository Dictionary of the Old Testament explains the importance of this word:
This verb is of profound theological significance, since it has only God as the subject. Only God can "create" in the sense implied by bara. The verb expresses creation out of nothing, an idea seen clearly in passages having to do with creation on a cosmic scale. All other verbs for "creating" allow a much broader range of meaning; they have both human and divine subjects, and are used in contexts where bringing something or someone into existence is not the issue.[1]
Bear in mind, for future reference, that bara is the word used for the creation of the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1:1, and that this word is not used again in the Genesis account until the creation of animal life in 1:21.
The first dispensation of human history, which operated from the creation of Adam to the fall, is often referred to as Innocence. But there was a very important age before the first dispensation of human history. Before the creation of the man and woman, which initiated the Dispensation of Innocence, God the Son created the original universe, including the earth. He created the material universe out from nothing. And remember, the angels had already been created when the foundation of the earth was laid (Job 38:7), so the creation of the angelic realm obviously preceded the creation of the material universe.
Angels have the ability to travel back and forth from the presence of God to various places in the universe. They were delegated the authority to rule in the universe, and they were apparently assigned various responsibilities as well. Lucifer was given territory in the original Eden (Ezekiel 28:13). There is no reason to assume that this Eden was not in the same location as the later Eden. It was during this time that Lucifer solicited a rebellion against God:
" '…I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.' " (Isaiah 14:14)
Lucifer's own immense beauty had obsessed him, and he had apparently become occupied with approbation and admiration from his fellow creatures, until he resolved to be like God Himself. This resulted in a revolt, in which approximately one third of the angels were effectively seduced by Lucifer (Revelation 12:4). The rebellion was centered upon one tiny planet in the universe: Earth, where Lucifer had been assigned and given dominion. The revolt of Lucifer brought the earth into a state of chaos. The earth was enveloped in darkness and became chaotic. This is shown in the second verse of Genesis:
And the earth was formless and void… (Genesis 1:2a)
The verse begins with a disjunctive clause. "And" would more accurately be translated as "But," followed by the verb hayah in the qal perfect, "became." "Formless" is tohu, formlessness, confusion, emptiness, a place of chaos. "Void" is bohu, emptiness, or waste. A better rendering of Genesis 1:1-2a would be:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
But the earth became a state of chaos and waste…
We know that in the beginning (when the heavens and the earth were originally created) the heavens and the earth were not created in a state of chaos and waste. Isaiah verifies this:
For thus says the Lord who created [bara] the heavens
(He is the God who formed the earth and made it,
He established it and did not create [bara] it a waste place [tohu],
But formed it to be inhabited),
"I am the Lord, and there is none else." (Isaiah 45:18)
It was after the original pristine creation that the earth plunged into chaos. Although there is much speculation on the nature of the earth both prior to and during the chaotic state, there is not really much Biblical information describing it. Suffice it to say that the chaos was the result of a test; that is, a failed test! The Dispensation of Angelic Testing was failed through the negative volition of Lucifer and the angels he led into conspiracy. Ever since negative volition was expressed by Lucifer, there has been a great war raging between the forces of God and the forces of Satan (a name ascribed to Lucifer since his rebellion). We refer to this warfare as the angelic conflict.
As a result of Lucifer's rebellion, Lucifer and his coconspirators have been sentenced to the Lake of Fire (Matthew 25:41). This everlasting fire has been prepared for them because of their revolt, and we know that the sentence will be executed at the very end of Christ's one thousand year reign over earth (Revelation 20:10). This will mark the end of the last dispensation of human history, which will in turn launch the beginning of a new heaven and earth.
The Appeal Trial of Satan
Now the fact that there is so long a delay in the execution of the sentence imposed upon Satan appears on the surface to be at odds with a divine standard given in the book of Ecclesiastes:
Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil. (Ecclesiastes 8:11)
Granted, this verse imparts a principle of establishment for the human race, but it is a divine standard nonetheless. Why, then, is there such a long delay in the carrying out of God's sentence upon the fallen angels? We would have to deduce one of two possibilities: Either God is unjust and fails to fulfill His own principles, or, an appeal was filed by Satan, and the justice of God is allowing this appeal. Since the former is unthinkable, we are really forced to conclude the latter! Human history runs concurrently with this appeal trial. We cannot possibly understand our purpose as human beings, or God's will for our lives, or why there is suffering, or a number of other things—unless we understand the nature of the angelic conflict and the appeal trial of Satan. And it is only through these doctrines that we can understand the significance of suffering for the believer in Christ.
Satan As His Own Attorney
Since his fall, Satan has been acting as his own attorney, attempting to gather enough evidence to win his case on appeal. This Hebrew word satan means "an adversary." It comes into the Koine Greek as Satanas, and carries the same meaning. Satan is God's courtroom opponent. The Greek word that is translated "the devil" is diabolos, a slanderer or false accuser. He is referred to as the adversary in 1 Peter 5:8, which is antidikos, literally, an "opponent in a lawsuit."[2] Satan's defense strategy is "the lie" (Romans 1:25). He contends that the justice of God is inconsistent and arbitrary. The case he tries to establish could be summarized in this way: "How could a loving God send His creatures into the Lake of Fire? God is not fair!" Satan is the quintessence of the victim mentality. He seeks to prove that under the right circumstances any and every created being with free volition would have made the same choices he did. He has refused to accept the responsibility for his own decisions and actions.
We have seen how the earth became a state of chaos and waste (Genesis 1:2a). Let's continue in verse 2:
...and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. (Genesis 1:2b,c)
From Genesis 1:2a on, what the Bible describes is not the original creation, but the restoration of the earth from its chaotic state. The earth is a very insignificant part of the universe, spatially considered. But it is this tiny speck in God’s universe that is the focus of the Scriptures because of its prominence in the conflict which began long before human history. The six-day creation account in Genesis describes the restoration of planet earth. This restoration has actually provided a courtroom for Satan's appeal trial. But now, a second category of creatures has become involved: the human race. We referred to the first dispensation of human history as Innocence, because when the man and woman were created and placed in the garden, they were in a perfect environment which was established for them through the restoration of the planet (Genesis 1:2c-25).
The perfect environment of the restoration is a replication of the environment in which Lucifer originally sinned. The human race is made up of creatures who are inferior to angelic beings in terms of power and intellect—yet they resemble angels in that they have capacity for thought and choice. The dispensations of human history always involve the testing of free volition, and they make up the means through which the appeal trial of Satan is conducted. In fact, human history should be seen as an extension of the angelic conflict. Volition toward the prohibition against eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the issue in the Dispensation of Innocence. In the subsequent dispensations of human history, the issue is volition toward the Gospel followed by the volition of the believer toward the spiritual life. In fact, Satan's attack during his appeal trial is on human volition in those two critical areas. Angels have already made their crucial decisions, so he does not attack angelic volition. He cannot directly attack deity, or God's sovereignty, or divine volition. Satan's battle is for the mentality of the human soul.
The Dispensation of Christ's Unglorified Humanity
As we have seen, the Dispensation of Angelic Testing is one of the two dispensations that are commonly neglected by dispensationalists. The other is the Dispensation of Christ's Unglorified Humanity. The Dispensation of Christ's Unglorified Humanity was the special administration under which the humanity of Christ pioneered a unique spiritual life. At His birth, Jesus entered humanity in what theologians call the Hypostatic Union. This comes from the Greek word hupostasis, "...a taking of a thing upon one's self; an assumed position...."[3] The Hypostatic Union is the term used to describe the reality that in the person of the incarnate Christ there are two natures. These natures are inseparably united, yet there is no mixture or loss of these separate identities. In the Hypostatic Union there is no diminishing of the attributes of either nature. His deity is eternal, and from His birth into the human race Jesus has existed, and continues to exist, as both total deity (John 8:58) and total humanity (1 Timothy 2:5).
The Dispensation of Christ's Unglorified Humanity is an administration which is recorded in the four Gospels. The time period[4] involved began with the virgin birth of Christ and terminated with His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension to the Father in heaven.
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. (Philippians 2:5-7)
"Emptied Himself" is well translated, coming from the aorist active indicative of kenoo, to empty. Arndt and Gingrich translate: "...he emptied himself, divested himself of his privileges...."[5] God was self-limited in function during the Dispensation of Christ's Unglorified Humanity. Entering the human race in true humanity, the Second Person of the Trinity limited Himself by submitting to the plan of the Father, which included undergoing grueling examination by Satan for the purpose of testimony in the appeal trial. As Jesus underwent this testing, He was required to refrain from using His own deity and to instead rely upon a system provided by the Father which included the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the intake and application of doctrine. In Luke 2:52, as Jesus grew physically, He also grew spiritually by assimilating doctrine under the continuous filling of the Holy Spirit. He accomplished this as He set aside the privileges that accompanied His deity and subjected Himself to parental authority, governmental authority, and the spiritual authority prescribed for Judaism at that time. When He reached spiritual maturity, Christ's spiritual life was vindicated by the testimony of His Father:
...and behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased." (Matthew 3:17)
Through this statement, Jesus was actually being presented as a witness for the prosecution in Satan's appeal trial. He was a credible witness because of His impeccability up to this point, under the principle of freedom. In the Hypostatic Union, Jesus was the only truly free person to be born into the devil's world. After the man and the woman had failed the test of the Dispensation of Innocence (Genesis 2:16-17; 3:6), every human being has inherited the sin nature from Adam (Romans 5:12). Christ, however, bypassed the problem of the inherited sin nature through the virgin birth. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35); therefore, unlike the rest of humanity, He had no sin nature. Jesus was thus free from the authority of the sin nature, from the authority of the devil, from the imputation of Adam's original sin, and from the condemnation of spiritual death. And He had now grown, as a human being, to spiritual maturity under the Father's care and provision, and through the ministry of the Holy Spirit to Him. Now it was time for "cross-examination."
The Cross-Examination of Jesus
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
And after He has fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. (Matthew 4:1-2)
If this does not seem like that great a test to you, just try not eating for forty days! The hunger had to be excruciating.
And the tempter came and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." (Matthew 4:3)
Satan knew that Christ had the power to accomplish such a miracle. The deity of Christ was, in fact, sustaining the universe even as they conversed (Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3). Turning the stones into bread would have been no problem. Satan was attempting to get Jesus to operate independently of the plan of the Father. This would show that Christ's humanity could not depend on the Father's provision.
But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.'” (Matthew 4:4)
Jesus was quoting from Deuteronomy 8:3. The real issue here is not simply that Satan was refuted with the Word of God; but that Jesus, under the filling of the Holy Spirit, was applying Bible doctrine which he had incorporated into His human soul. Christ's deity could have instantly changed the stones into bread, or even pepperoni pizzas, had He wished. Miracles require only divine sovereignty, but Satan's cross-examination tested Christ's human response to the plan of the Father. Instead of frantically scrambling for an independent solution, Jesus, in adherence to the Father's plan, restricted the independent use of His deity. He did not summon a miracle. He applied Bible doctrine. Instead of speaking to the stones, He addressed Satan, thereby providing crucial testimony for the prosecution in Satan's appeal trial. Further testimony was provided in the two subsequent tests (Matthew 4:5-10). With this testimony He answered any and every possible argument from Satan, including the argument that under the right circumstances any being with free volition would, like Lucifer, have chosen against God. He also answered the argument of Satan which implies that the provision and the justice of God on behalf of His created beings are insufficient and inconsistent.
The Resolution of the Angelic Conflict
The Bible clearly teaches that Christ, in hypostatic union and continuously under the filling of the Holy Spirit, completely fulfilled the plan of the Father, utilizing only what was provided by the Father through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He accomplished this by using the system of problem solving that the Word of God creates in the human soul when it is received with humility and on a consistent basis. Bible doctrine in the soul actually creates its own system of problem solving. Christ thus fulfilled His very own spiritual life, becoming the "star witness" for the prosecution in the appeal trial of Satan.
But wait—there's more! There is another key concept in the appeal trial of Satan. The standard for this concept is found in Deuteronomy:
On the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. (Deuteronomy 17:6)
This, like Ecclesiastes 8:11, is a principle of divine establishment for man; yet if God commands it for us, He does not violate it Himself! In order to be completely fair and consistent with His own standard of justice, God has provided for additional witnesses in the appeal trial of Satan.
...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith… (Hebrews 12:2a)
"Author" is archegos, "...founder … originator … the originating power…."[6] "Perfecter" is teleiotes, "accomplisher, finisher."[7] The noun "faith" is articular, pointing out individual identity. Jesus founded and completed the spiritual life which has been passed along to believers in union with Him. Jesus pioneered the unique spiritual life which functions on the filling of the Holy Spirit. Every believer during the present dispensation is immediately placed into union with Christ through the baptism of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13; Galatians 3:27). Through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, each believer receives the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19; Romans 8:9) and the option to be, moment by moment, under the filling of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), which is the means of the fulfillment of the spiritual life which Jesus pioneered.
In accordance with the principle of Deuteronomy 17:6, believers who go on to fulfill the spiritual life pioneered by our Lord provide the additional witnesses for the prosecution which are required by the justice of God. Moreover, believers of the other dispensations have had, or will have, the potential to be witnesses as well, although the mechanics of their spiritual lives differ. And thus, the great question, "Why are we here?" has been answered. Man was created to resolve the angelic conflict.
Footnotes:
1. Merrill Unger and William White, Jr., eds., Nelson’s Expository Dictionary of the Old Testament, PC Study Bible (Seattle: Biblesoft, 1992).
2. William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), p. 74.
3. Wesley J. Perschbacher, The New Analytical Greek Lexicon (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1990), p.422.
4. On the timeline, the Dispensation of Christ’s Unglorified Humanity ran concurrently with the later years of the Mosaic Dispensation. Christ was under the Law of Moses as were all of the Jews at that time. However, no other human being was under the dispensation Jesus was under as He was tested as to problem solving through the application of doctrine under the continuous filling of the Holy Spirit.
5. Arndt and Gingrich, op. cit., p. 428.
6. Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), p. 252.
7. Ibid., p. 1770.
Scripture quotations taken from the NASB. http://www.lockman.org/
This article is a revised excerpt from Then the Proconsul Believed: A study of the Acts of the Apostles, Volume I—Acts Chapters 1—13, by Lee Griffith, available free of charge, upon request.
Copyright © 2006 Lee Griffith. All rights reserved.
