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Dispensationalism is a theological system that teaches biblical history is best understood in light of a number of successive administrations of God’s dealings with mankind, which it calls “dispensations.” It maintains fundamental distinctions between God’s plans for national Israel and for the New Testament Church, and emphasizes prophecy of the end-times and a pre-tribulation rapture of the church prior to Christ’s Second Coming. Its beginnings are usually associated with the Plymouth Brethren movement in the UK and the teachings of John Nelson Darby.

The dispensations

1. the dispensation of innocence (or freedom), (Genesis 1:1 – 3:7), prior to Adam’s fall,
2. of conscience, (Genesis 3:8 – 8:22), Adam to Noah,
3. of government, (Genesis 9:1 – 11:32), Noah to Abraham,
4. of patriarchal rule (or promise), (Genesis 12:1 – Exodus 19:25), Abraham to Moses,
5. of the Mosaic Law, (Exodus 20:1 – Acts 2:4), Moses to Christ,
6. of grace, (Acts 2:4 – Revelation 20:3), the current church age, and
7. of a literal earthly 1,000 year Millennial Kingdom that has yet to come but soon will, (Revelation 20:4 – 20:6).

Each one of these dispensations is said to represent a different way in which God deals with man, specifically a different testing for man. “These periods are marked off in Scripture by some change in God’s method of dealing with mankind, in respect to two questions: of sin, and of man’s responsibility,” explained C. I. Scofield. “Each of the dispensations may be regarded as a new test of the natural man, and each ends in judgment – marking his utter failure in every dispensation.”