NOTE: Several of the subjects touched in Volume 3 of these Bible Study Outlines are also dealt with in Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth, by the same author. While the material in the two publications is very similar, there would be profit in doing an initial study in one publication and then reviewing the subject in the other. Both publications, and the associated Chart of the Seven Dispensations, can be accessed via the Resource Menu.

D. Promise

Out of the dispersed descendants of the builders of Babel, God now calls one man, Abram, with whom He enters into a covenant. Some of the promises to Abram and his descendants were purely gracious and unconditional. These either have been, or will yet be, literally fulfilled. Other promises were conditonal upon the faithfulness and obedience of the Israelites. Every one of these conditions was violated, and the Dispensation of Promise resulted in the utter failure of Israel, and closed in the judgment of the Egyptian bondage.

• Man's state: Genesis 12:1-3 - "I will make of thee a great nation" (see Genesis 13:14-17; 15:5)
• Man's responsibility: Genesis 26:2,3 - "Go not down into Egypt"
• Man's failure: Genesis 47:1 - "My father and my brethren... are come out of the land of Canaan"
• The judgment: Exodus 1:8-14 - "[The Egyptians] made their lives bitter with hard bondage"

E. Law

Again the grace of God came to the help of the helpless man and redeemed the chosen people out of the land of the oppressor. In the Wilderness of Sinai, He proposed to them the covenant of Law. Instead of humbly pleading for a continued relation of grace, they presumptuously answered: "All that the Lord hath spoken we will do" (Exodus 19:8). The history of Israel in the wilderness and in the land is one long record of flagrant, persistent violations of the Law, and at last, after multiplied warnings, God closed the testing of man by the Law in judgment. First Israel [the northern kingdom], and then Judah [the southern kingdom], were driven out of the land into dispersion. A feeble remnant returned under Ezra and Nehemiah, of which in due time, Christ came: "Made of a woman, made under the Law" (Galatians 4:4). Him, both Jews and Gentiles conspired to crucify.

• Man's state: Exodus 19:1-4 - "Brought you unto Myself"
• Man's responsibility: Exodus 19:5,6 - "Obey My voice... keep my covenant" (see Romans 10:5)
• Man's failure: 2Kings 17:7-17 - "The children of Israel had sinned against the Lord" (see Acts 2:22,23)
• The judgment: 2Kings 17:1-6; 20; 25:1-11 - "Carried Israel away into Assyria" (see Luke 21:20-24)

F. Grace

The sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ introduced the dispensation of pure grace -- which means undeserved favor, or God giving righteousnessd instead of God requiring righteousness, as under the Law. Salvation, perfect and eternal, is now freely offered to Jew and Gentile upon the one condition of faith.

• Man's state: Romans 3:19-23 - "Guilty before God"
• Man's predicted future: Matthew 24:37-39 - "As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be" (see Luke 19:11-27; 18:8)
• Man's responsibility: John 1:11-13 - "Receive Him... believe" (see John 3:36)
• The judgment: 2Thessalonians 2:7-12 - "Them that perish"

The first event in the closing of this dispensation will be the coming of the Lord [for His own] (1Thessalonians 4:16,17).

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