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After God created all things and mankind according to His eternal plan, His economy, God began His work on the man of His creation in order to accomplish the purpose of His eternal economy. This work can be divided into four dispensations: the dispensation of the patriarchs (the pre-law dispensation), the dispensation of law, the dispensation of grace, and the dispensation of the kingdom (the dispensation of righteousness).
God has two categories of work in the universe: the work of creation, which is the work of the old creation, and the work of building, which is the work of the new creation. The sphere of His work of the old creation was the old heaven and old earth of His original creation (Gen. 1:1); the sphere of His work of the new creation is the new heaven and new earth, which are the original God-created heaven and earth that have become old and that will be renewed through the burning of God’s judging fire (2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1).
God’s work of creation was to prepare all the materials for His work of building, that is, for the work of the new creation. He created all things wholly according to His purpose and plan (Rev. 4:11). The creation of all things was not accidental nor by chance, nor was it done in a casual way; it was something that came out of God’s will, something planned by God. In God’s plan, He decided to accomplish His work of building by means of all things; therefore, He created all things.
God’s building work, that is, His work of the new creation on the man of the old creation, is to work Himself into the created man to be his life and content that He may have a corporate expression. After man’s fall, God uses four different dispensations—the dispensation of the patriarchs, the dispensation of law, the dispensation of grace, and the dispensation of the kingdom—in the old creation, which has been corrupted by Satan and which has been judged by Him, to do the work of the new creation on the man of the old creation. He is carrying out this work by the Spirit and the life of the Triune God, who has passed through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, by His heavenly ministry after His ascension, and by the things that He will accomplish at His coming back, that He may gain a group of people to be built up into the New Jerusalem as His corporate expression in eternity.
The dispensation of the patriarchs was from Adam to Moses (Rom. 5:14). This was the dispensation before the law; hence, it is also called the pre-law dispensation. In this dispensation, God’s work on man can be divided into the following:
God created man in His image and likeness (Gen. 1:26) that man might have His life to become His expression and to represent Him in His dominion. However, God did not accomplish everything at the time He created man. He left a part, even the most central part, of His creating work incomplete; that is, He did not put His life into man. Therefore, after He finished creating man, He put man in front of the tree of life in the midst of the garden of Eden (Gen. 2:8, 9). His intention was that man should exercise his free will to choose to receive the tree of life, thereby obtaining God’s life. The tree of life symbolized God as the source of life. Therefore, for man to receive the life of the tree of life was for him to receive God Himself as life. God also warned man that in addition to the tree of life there was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which symbolized Satan as the source of sin and death. If man would touch it, the result would be death (Gen. 2:17).
Although God’s intention was that man should receive Him as life, Adam did not receive the tree of life; instead, he disobeyed God’s prohibition and took in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 3:6), receiving into himself the satanic elements of sin and death. Thus, he was constituted a sinner, falling into sin and death (Rom. 5:12). This was the first step of man’s fall. In order that the fallen man might receive His redemption in Christ, God came to the place of the fallen man to seek him and to call him. Moreover, He promised that Christ would come as the seed of the woman and as the redemptive sacrifice, shedding His blood to make redemption for sins and imparting His life to rescue the fallen man, that the fallen man might have the life of God and become God’s expression for the fulfillment of God’s eternal economy. Adam believed God’s promise, and God made coats of skins of the sacrifice for him and his wife and clothed them to cover their nakedness (Gen. 3:21). The skin of the sacrifice typifies Christ, who died and shed His blood to make redemption for sinners, as the righteousness of those who believe, that fallen sinners might be justified and accepted by God and have fellowship with God.
Adam and Eve received God’s promise of redemption and experienced the anticipated redemption. Thereafter they must have preached God’s way of redemption to their sons. As a result, Abel believed what his parents preached (Heb. 11:4) and received God’s way of redemption (Gen. 4:4). Thus, he became a feeder of sheep (Gen. 4:2), working and living for God and living by God. He knew that he had been born of fallen parents and that he was sinful, evil, and defiled in the eyes of God. Therefore, he offered bleeding sacrifices to God as offerings, not according to his own way, but according to God’s way of redemption, and thereby was accepted by God.
Abel believed the gospel preached by his parents, but his brother Cain rejected God’s way of redemption, deviating from God’s way of salvation, which resulted in the second step of man’s fall. Although he knew that God used the skin of the sacrifice as man’s clothing, he presumptuously rejected God’s way of redemption. Although he knew that man needed redemption with the shedding of blood, he refused to adopt God’s way of salvation. Rather, according to his own idea and method, he offered produce to God without the shedding of blood and was thus rejected by God (Gen. 4:3, 5a). Therefore, he was very angry and his countenance fell (Gen. 4:5), and he even killed his brother Abel (Gen. 4:8). As a result, he was cast out of the presence of Jehovah. Having lost the light of God’s countenance, he and his descendants walked their own way and invented a godless culture that included building a city for self-existence, inventing cattle-raising for making a living, inventing music for self-amusement, and inventing weapons for self-defense (Gen. 4:17-22). Eventually, this culture caused his descendants to become so wholly corrupted that they were judged by God through the flood (Gen. 6:11-13).
After the fall, man went far away from God and lost God as his supply of everything. Therefore, not only did man sense the emptiness of human life, but man also became frail and mortal. Enosh was the third generation of mankind. His name means frail, mortal man, indicating that man realized his own weakness, fragility, and mortality. Therefore, God desired that those whom He redeemed would call upon the name of Jehovah, receiving their supply from Him and enjoying His riches. Enosh thus called on the name of Jehovah, the One who eternally is (Gen. 4:26). Such calling continues throughout the entire Bible (Gen. 12:8; 26:25; Deut. 4:7; 1 Sam. 12:10; 2 Sam. 22:4) and is also enjoyed by the New Testament believers (Acts 9:14; 22:16; 1 Cor. 1:2).
The reason that God wanted man to receive His redemption and call upon the name of Jehovah was that man might walk and work with Him, so as to accomplish His purpose in redeeming man, that is, to gain a new race to express Him. Therefore, God gained Enoch and showed him the way to escape the ultimate issue of man’s fall—death. Hence, Enoch rose up and walked with God for three hundred years and was then taken away by God (Gen. 5:24), not seeing death. He not only realized that man’s emptiness and fragility needed the enjoyment of God’s riches, but he also walked with God; that is, he was not presumptuous, and he did not do things according to his own concept and desire, but he took God as his center and everything, living and doing things according to God and with God. Therefore, God caused him to be raptured and to escape death, that is, to escape the ultimate issue of man’s fall.
God went on further to gain Noah. Not only did Noah walk with God in a corrupted age, but he also worked with God and built the ark (Gen. 6:13-14). Thus, he and his whole family were saved through the ark and were delivered from God’s judging flood. Moreover, having passed through the flood in the ark, they were brought safely through by water and delivered out of the corrupted world into a new world in resurrection to begin in a new age with a new life.
According to Genesis 2, after God created man, He put man in front of Himself to be under His direct government (Gen. 2:8, 15), to live before Him and to be responsible to Him. That was the divine government. At that time there was no separation, hindrance, or frustration between God and man. Man could fellowship with God directly in his spirit; moreover, his soul was under the direction of his spirit, and his body was under the control of his soul. Man lived directly under this divine government, living and walking according to the guidance of God’s presence.
However, man disobeyed God’s prohibition and ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Thus, man was constituted a sinner (Rom. 5:19), having a record of sin against him outwardly (Rom. 5:18) and the nature of sin inwardly (Rom. 5:12). At this time, the holy, righteous God had no alternative but to leave man, and man could no longer live before God to be under His direct government. Therefore, from the time of Adam’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden to the time of Noah’s departure from the ark, God established the conscience within man to represent Himself in ruling over man. Thus, man was ruled by his own conscience and was responsible to his own conscience. That was self-government.
According to the truth of the entire Bible and also according to our experience, when God created man, He created a conscience in man. However, it was not until the time of the fall, when man partook of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that the function of the conscience was made manifest. Before the fall, man was in an innocent state, like a newborn babe. Therefore, at that time he was not ashamed of his nakedness. This proves that within man there was no concept of good and evil, right and wrong; this also indicates that there was neither the feeling nor the function of the conscience. After the fall, man immediately felt ashamed of his nakedness. This sense of shame was the beginning of the function of the conscience; that is, the function of the conscience was activated. Since then, man’s conscience has borne the responsibility of rejecting evil and accepting good, enabling man to discern right and wrong, to know what God justifies and what He condemns. Therefore, God put man under the government of his conscience to maintain human existence, that man might receive the redemption of God in Christ to accomplish God’s eternal economy.
God had prepared redemption for man that He might be man’s supply, thus enabling man to walk and work with Him; moreover, He had established the conscience within man to represent His rule over man. Nevertheless, man would not be governed by his conscience to receive God’s salvation. Thus he fell repeatedly, and was eventually judged by God through the flood. Man did not remain very long under self-government. The first person to violate the rule of the conscience was Cain. He murdered his brother Abel, lied to God, and was arrogant toward God. Later, because of man’s deeper fall, even the feeling of the conscience was cast aside. Man’s conscience became numb, as if it were seared with a hot iron, so that even when he indulged in licentiousness and lusts he hardly had any feeling at all. Therefore, before the flood the earth was filled with violence, every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was only evil continually, and all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth (Gen. 6:5, 11-12). The whole human race had become flesh (Gen. 6:3), and man was wicked and corrupt to the uttermost, so that even the most tolerant God could no longer tolerate it. Therefore, the Spirit of God had to withdraw (Gen. 6:3), and man was fully cut off from God and rejected by God. Eventually God used the flood to bring in the judgment of destruction, rescuing only the eight members of the house of Noah.
Fallen man disobeyed his own conscience and was not ruled by his conscience. Therefore, after the flood, God gave man authority over the lawless ones to maintain the existence and order of the human race in order to produce the new race, which was to be chosen and called by God, for the fulfillment of His eternal plan.
Before the flood, there was no human government. It was only after the flood that God established a deputy authority on earth. God commanded Noah, saying, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed” (Gen. 9:6). This indicates that God put man under the authority of others. Because man was neither subject to God’s government nor obedient to self-government, God had to give man authority to rule over others. As a result, soon there began to be nations, and there came into existence among the human race the control of government, the restraints of society, and the regulations of the family. For example, in a nation there are the president and other officials; in a factory, the supervisors; in a school, teachers and a principal; and in a family, parents and elder brothers. All these are deputy authorities set up by God to rule over man. Therefore, Romans 13:1 says, “Let every person be subject to the authorities over them.” This is human government. God wants the man who fell from the government of the conscience to be ruled by man and be responsible to man. God uses all the deputy authorities to maintain the human race so that the man whom He has chosen and whom He will call may come into being, that His purpose may be fulfilled.
The man who fell repeatedly failed again under human government. He openly and outwardly rejected God, worshipping as idols people and things outside of God. As a result, God rejected the created Adamic race.
Man’s fall from self-government to human government was not the final step of the fall. Man fell further, from human government to Satan’s instigation. Human government was of God’s authorization. But Satan utilized the authority that God gave man to form nations and to instigate a rebellion of the nations against God. The whole human race rebelled collectively against God’s right and authority. They made bricks of earth by human labor (Gen. 11:3), and they built a city to carry on a man-made, godless life. Moreover, they intended to build a tower that would reach into heaven in order to make themselves a name and to reject, to deny, God’s name. Eventually, they fell into idolatry. Every brick that they used to build the city and the tower of Babel bore the name of an idol. The entire human race followed Satan, rebelled against God, and worshipped idols. At this point, because man had fallen to the uttermost, God was eventually forced to give up the created race of Adam and to scatter it over the earth.
God rejected the Adamic race, which was fallen to the uttermost, and called Abraham out of it to be the father of a new race, giving him the promise of grace, that this new race would hope in the Christ who would come to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth (Gen. 22:18a; Gal. 3:14, 16).
Abraham originally lived in Ur of Chaldea, a place in which the people served demons (Josh. 24:2) and rebelled against God (Gen. 11:3-4). At that time the human race had fallen to the uttermost. Outwardly it seemed that the things Satan had done through fallen man had driven God out from the earth. But God is sovereign over all. He can never be defeated, and His purpose is unalterable. He will accomplish whatever He determines to accomplish. Satan’s interruption only affords Him the opportunity to make known His multifarious wisdom. Therefore, it was at the time that man had fallen to the uttermost that God came to the fallen place and called Abraham out from among the fallen people according to His foreknowledge, selection, and predestination before the foundation of the world, that He might have a new beginning among the fallen men. God’s calling of Abraham indicated that His work on man had turned from the created Adamic race to the called Abrahamic race (Gen. 12:2-3; Gal. 3:7-9, 14; Rom. 4:16-17). Abraham was the father of the new race.
Moreover, God gave Abraham the promise of grace: that He would cause him to bear a son (Gen. 15:4), that He would give the land of Canaan to him and to his seed (Gen. 15:7, 18-21), and that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 22:18a). God did not say, “And to the seeds,” as concerning many, but as concerning one, “And to your seed,” who is Christ (Gal. 3:16). Christ is the unique seed inheriting the promises that all the nations of the earth might be blessed. The physical aspect of the blessing was the good land (Gen. 12:7; 13:15; 17:8; 26:3-4), which was a type of the all-inclusive Christ; the spiritual aspect of the blessing is the Spirit (Gal. 3:14). Since Christ is eventually realized as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17), the blessing of the promised Spirit corresponds with the blessing of the promised land. Therefore, God gave Abraham the promise of grace in order that the new race would hope in the Christ who would come to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth.
Through His work of the new creation from Adam to Moses in the age of the patriarchs, God obtained the chosen patriarchs as the first part of the new race in His new creation, signified by the crown of twelve stars worn on the head of the universal woman in Revelation 12, for the building of the New Jerusalem as God’s expression in eternity future.
After God created all things and mankind according to His eternal plan, His economy, He uses four distinct dispensations—the dispensation of the patriarchs, the dispensation of law, the dispensation of grace, and the dispensation of the kingdom—to do His work of the new creation on the man whom He created in order to accomplish the purpose of His eternal economy. The dispensation of the patriarchs was from the creation of Adam to the giving of the law by Moses. In this dispensation, God first put the created man under His direct government that man might receive Him as life; then He caused the fallen man, the function of whose conscience had been activated by the knowledge of good and evil, to receive His redemption in Christ. He also caused man to be governed by his own conscience and to be acceptable to Him through sacrifices according to the way of redemption that He ordained. Moreover, He caused man to enjoy His riches by calling on His name so that he might walk and work with Him. Then He subjected the repeatedly fallen man under the authority which He gave to man, causing him to be ruled by man that he might live and be preserved and that He might have the opportunity to visit man. Finally, He called the new race out of the Adamic race, which was fallen to the uttermost, and gave them the promise of grace, leading them to hope in the Christ who would come to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth. In this way, God obtained the chosen patriarchs to be the first part of the new race in His new creation.
