What Does Ephesians 3:2 Mean?

In spite of God's clear teachings in Deuteronomy 29:29 and other passages, the idea of dispensations hangs around. The Oxford Dictionary defines the theological use of the noun dispensation as a "divinely ordained order prevailing at a particular period of history" (emphasis ours). A dispensation, therefore, is a period of history, an age, or an epoch.

Most dispensationalists identify one of those historical periods as the Dispensation of Law or similar term. They generally conclude that today, in what many of them call variously the Dispensation of Grace or the New Testament Dispensation, "we and our descendants" do not need to keep the law of God. It is, they say, not part of the present dispensation.

This notion, however, is a clear denial of God's Word. In fact, God's people from the beginning have obeyed that law, and the Scriptures inform us, they will continue to obey it. Here are some examples:

1. Noah knew about clean and unclean animals, as Genesis 7:1-3 indicates. When God gave him the specifications concerning the cargo he was to load onto the ark, he knew exactly what God was talking about—centuries before God gave the law of clean and unclean meats to Moses, as recorded in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14.

2. When Noah disembarked from the ark, he built an altar and offered an offering (Genesis 8:20). The law concerning offerings, rehearsed most specifically nearly a millennium later in Leviticus 1-5, was no foreign concept to Noah. In fact, Genesis 8:20 specifically alludes to the burnt offering, the specifications of which are written in Leviticus 1. Clearly, Noah both knew and obeyed God's law in detail.

3. Genesis 26:5 indicates that Abraham obeyed God's commandments, statutes, and laws. He did this five centuries before God revealed the Ten Commandments to Moses.

4. Looking forward into the Kingdom period, the Millennium, we see that the law will continue to exist at that time: "For out of Zion shall go forth the law." See Isaiah's Millennial prophecy, stated in Isaiah 2:2-4.

5. Ezekiel 44:9 indicates that physical circumcision will be practiced in the Millennium: "Thus says the Lord GOD: 'No foreigner, uncircumcised in heart and flesh, of all the foreigners who are among the people of Israel, shall enter My sanctuary, including any foreigner who is among the children of Israel.'" While circumcision is a covenant first given to Abraham (Genesis 17), God later attached it to the law (see most specifically Leviticus 12:3, but also Exodus 12:48). It has not been "done away"; Ezekiel 44 indicates God that will enforce it in the future.

These witnesses testify to the fact that God's people obeyed the law well before the so-called "Dispensation of Law," and will continue to keep it after the so-called "Dispensation of Grace"—yes, on into the Millennium, when Jesus Christ will reign on the earth.

At heart, dispensationalists believe that God deals differently with people during different periods of history. They believe and teach this in spite of His assurance, recorded in Malachi 3:6, that He does not change, and as Hebrews 13:8 declares, Christ is "the same yesterday, today, and forever." Our God does not modify His tactics every few hundred or few thousand years due to societal changes or advances in learning or technology. He has had one message from the beginning.

His law is integral to that message, the gospel of the Kingdom of God (Mark 1:14-15). Jesus says plainly, "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17). Through His perfectly law-abiding life, He showed us the way to be prepared to enter His Kingdom, and the apostle John enjoins us in this vein, "He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked (I John 2:6).

There is no doubt about it: God's "perfect law of liberty," His "royal law" (James 1:25; 2:8), remains God's standard of conduct now as much as ever.

Charles Whitaker
The Law Continues

Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing Ephesians 3:2:

Galatians 1:6
Galatians 1:6-8
Ephesians 1:9-10

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