Dispensationalism

Dispensation of Innocence

4004 BCE

RULING FACTOR - Positive disposition toward God
RESPONSIBILITY - Edenic covenant: keep garden, fill & subdue the earth, and don’t eat from TKGE
REVELATION - Everything is new revelation at this point
TEST - Trust God’s word [obedience] or rebellion (dependence vs. independence)
FAILURE - Eve and Adam eat the fruit
JUDGMENT - on the serpent, the woman, the earth because of man

Dispensation of Conscience

4000 BCE

ASSOCIATED COVENANT: Adamic Covenant
RULING FACTOR - Conscience (sense of right and wrong)
RESPONSIBILITY - Creation mandate
REVELATION - Sacrifice (substitutionary atonement)
TEST - Fulfill creation mandate (fill the earth with Godly people); dependence on God
FAILURE - Gen. 6:5
JUDGMENT - Flood

Dispensation of Human Government

2348 BCE

ASSOCIATED COVENANT: Noahic Covenant
RULING FACTOR - Human Government
RESPONSIBILITY - Creation mandate; trust God
REVELATION - Fear of man on animals, new diet (meat added, but no blood), capital punishment, promise against world-wide floods
TEST - Fulfill creation mandate (fill the earth); trust God
FAILURE - Tower of Babel (failure to fulfill the creation mandate; trying to be like God)
JUDGMENT - confusion of tongues / languages (result: dispersion over the earth)

Dispensation of Promise

1996 BCE

ASSOCIATED COVENANT: Abrahamic