For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. (Hebrews 4:3)

Does the above sound to you like God works in fits and jerks, first demanding of people that they live righteously, and then installing a new dispensation in which people are not required to keep His commandments?

The plan of redemption is one plan, from Adam through to the new Jerusalem. God always has had one timeless vision. This vision of man in His image and at rest in His will was created in six days. Then God rested. Our sole task in this present life is to discover what God declared at the beginning of the world concerning us as an individual, and to press into God's rest day by day.

God's goal concerning man is that man walk uprightly, be merciful, and walk humbly with God. That goal is the same from eternity to eternity. The only changes occur as God keeps speaking to us and bringing us closer to Himself.

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; (Hebrews 1:1,2)

The path of the righteous is as the dawn that ushers in light that increases until the fullness of day arrives.

The philosophy of Dispensationalism fragments the continuity of God's program, throwing it into an incomprehensible, morally destructive chaos.

If a person were to sit down and deliberately attempt to render the Scriptures incoherent, to isolate the Jews from the Divine redemption, and to introduce moral chaos into the Christian churches, he would have a difficult time improving on the theological model termed Dispensationalism.

The dispensational model of Bible interpretation implies that God does not know what He is doing. God attempts a certain way of dealing with man, and when that doesn't produce the results He desires He attempts a different way. The covenants of God from the creation of Adam are seen as disconnected efforts. Now God has abandoned all methods of improving fallen man and has decided to receive him in his wretched moral state.

What a pitiful portrayal of God's knowledge and power!

Perhaps we misunderstand the concept of Dispensationalism, but the above is what was presented to us when we first became a Christian.

God knew what He was doing before the creation of the world. In the beginning God created all things through to the new Jerusalem. Then He rested. We are to enter that rest.

The only reason God gave the Law of Moses was to keep sin in check until the promised Seed should appear. It never was contemplated that the Law of Moses would produce the new Jerusalem, the Wife of the Lamb.

To be continued.