"A dispensation is a period of time during which man is tested in respect of obedience to some specific revelation of the will of God." (Scofield Reference Bible) Therefore, dispensationalism is the belief that God progressively and specifically reveals himself in different ways over time.
I just received Charles C. Ryrie's book on dispensationalism. No worries to all you covenanters, I also bought Michael Horton's book on Covenant theology.
Tell me if the definition above is biblical and/or if you have a better definition for how God deals with man.
I agree with this definition. But the interesting part of this concept is its age. For this was taught, and very clearly taught, in the very oldest Christian commentary on Bible prophecy of any significant length that has survived to the present day. (We know of older such commentaries, but ALL of them either were only rather short, of have been lost.)
The commentary I speak of is believed to have been published between the years 186 and 188 A.D., and was written by Irenaeus. It spans five volumes in total, but the section almost totally devoted to end time prophecy is the last 12 chapters of the fifth and last volume.
Irenaeus said:
“Therefore the Son of the Father declares [Him] from the beginning, inasmuch as He was with the Father from the beginning, who did also show to the human race prophetic visions, and diversities of gifts, and His own ministrations, and the glory of the Father, in regular order and connection, at the fitting time for the benefit [of mankind]. For where there is a regular succession, there is also fixedness; and where fixedness, there suitability to the period; and where suitability, there also utility. And for this reason did the Word become the dispenser of the paternal grace for the benefit of men, for whom He made such great dispensations, revealing God indeed to men, but presenting man to God, and preserving at the same time the invisibility of the Father, lest man should at any time become a despiser of God, and that he should always possess something towards which he might advance; but, on the other hand, revealing God to men through many dispensations, lest man, failing away from God altogether, should cease to exist.” (Against Heresies, by Irenaeus, book IV, chapter XX, section 7.)
Before we go on, we need to notice certain key parts of this statement. Irenaeus said that God has “from the beginning” shown “to the human race prophetic visions” “in regular order and connection, at the fitting time,” and in “a regular succession,” with “suitability to the period.” And we particularly need to notice his statement that the Word was “revealing God to men through many dispensations.”
A little further on in the same chapter, Irenaeus clarified this by saying, “The only-begotten God, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared [Him];’ and He does Himself also interpret the Word of the Father as being rich and great); not in one figure, nor in one character, did He appear to those seeing Him, but according to the reasons and effects aimed at in His dispensations, as it is written in Daniel.” And further down in the same section, he added, “Thus does the Word of God always preserve the outlines, as it were, of things to come, and points out to men the various forms (species), as it were, of the dispensations of the Father, teaching us the things pertaining to God.” (Against Heresies, by Irenaeus, book IV, chapter XX, section 11.)
And a few chapters later, Irenaeus further said, “There is one and the same God the Father, and His Word, who has been always present with the human race, by means indeed of various dispensations, and has wrought out many things, and saved from the beginning those who are saved, (for these are they who love God, and follow the Word of God according to the class to which they belong,) and has judged those who are judged, that is, those who forget God, and are blasphemous, and transgressors of His word.” (Against Heresies, by Irenaeus, book IV, chapter XXVIII, section 2.)
We already noticed in the first quotation we examined that Irenaeus said that the Word was “revealing God to men through many dispensations,” and that he said that this was done “at the fitting time,” in “a regular succession,” with “suitability to the period.” Now we see that he added that the Word “has been always present with the human race,” and saved various individuals “according to the class to which they belong.”
All of this was about past dispensations, but Irenaeus not only spoke of past dispensations, but of future ones as well, saying, “Inasmuch, therefore, as the opinions of certain [orthodox persons] are derived from heretical discourses, they are both ignorant of God’s dispensations, and of the mystery of the resurrection of the just, and of the [earthly] kingdom which is the commencement of incorruption, by means of which kingdom those who shall be worthy are accustomed gradually to partake of the divine nature; and it is necessary to tell them respecting those things, that it behoves the righteous first to receive the promise of the inheritance which God promised to the fathers, and to reign in it, when they rise again to behold God in this creation which is renovated, and that the judgment should take place afterwards.” (Against Heresies, by Irenaeus, book V, chapter XXXII, section 1.)
In this short summary, I have included only a few statements that summarized his thoughts on the matter. But he spoke of these things many times, using the word dispensation, or its plural form dispensations, well over eighty times. He explicitly named a few of these dispensations, namely “the dispensation of the law,” (book III, chapter XI, section 7, and again in book III, chapter XV, section 3) which he also called “the Levitical Dispensation,” (book IV, Title of chapter XVII.) “the Mosaic dispensation,” (book IV, chapter XXXVI, section 2.) and “the legal dispensation.” (book III, chapter X, section 2 and the title of book V, chapter VIII.) He used this last term a third time, contrasting it with “the new dispensation of liberty” in book III, chapter X, section 4. Finally, he referred to “the future dispensation of the human race.” (book III, chapter XXII, section 3.) We should also note that he used the term the “dispensations of God,” eight times, in book I, chapter X, section 1, book I, chapter XVI, section 3, book II, chapter XXV, section 3, book III, chapter XI, section 9, book IV, chapter XX, section 10, book IV, chapter XXI, section 3, book IV, chapter XXIII, section 1, and book IV, chapter XXXIII, section 1.
Irenaeus insisted that his doctrine of the dispensations was what the church had always taught, saying, ““The Church, though dispersed through our the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents...” (Against Heresies, by Irenaeus, book I, chapter X, section 1.) He said again that “Where, therefore, the gifts of the Lord have been placed, there it behoves us to learn the truth, [namely,] from those who possess that succession of the Church which is from the apostles, and among whom exists that which is sound and blameless in conduct, as well as that which is unadulterated and incorrupt in speech. For these also preserve this faith of ours in one God who created all things; and they increase that love [which we have] for the Son of God, who accomplished such marvellous dispensations for our sake: and they expound the Scriptures to us without danger, neither blaspheming God, nor dishonouring the patriarchs, nor despising the prophets.” (Against Heresies, by Irenaeus, book IV, chapter XXVI, section 5.)
We know from the writings of John Nelson Darby that he read the early church fathers, so is it any surprise, then, that when he began to write about how God works in various ways at different times, he should have chosen the word “dispensations” to describe these various periods of time? In so doing, he was not only using the very words of scripture, but the same word used by Irenaeus to describe these same ideas.