A number of our readers seem to be troubled over what they call “old and new dispensations.” They seem to think that some things were obligatory in one dispensation that were not in another dispensation. This question is often raised over the matter of the Sabbath, meats, drinks, etc. First, let it be noted that God is the same always. He declares, “I am the Lord, I change not.” Mal. 3: 6. “With whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.” James 1: 17, A. R. V.
God’s plan has always been to do His children good and nothing but good. His character is always the same. It cannot change. His requirements of His people are always the same. In the nature of the case, He cannot change, for He desires that their character shall be like His own. The only difference between the dispensations, so called, is that one is a fuller development and manifestation of God’s character and love than the previous.
Our Lord had not come in Old Testament times. Men showed their faith by the offering of a clean beast, and that clean beast typified our Lord Jesus Christ. In those days, the transgression of the law was sin, just as it is now; and the only way by which sin could be taken away was faith in God, and faith was called to express itself by the offerings prescribed in the books of Moses. Of course, the people in that time got to depending upon the offerings, and upon the giving of them, for their salvation, rather than upon what the offerings symbolized; but that did not change God’s plan. Faith in God justified in those days just as now. When our Lord came, the symbols ended. When the cross was erected on Calvary, all the shadows passed away. Since that time, faith expresses itself in a simpler form. In a concrete way, it does this in baptism and in the ordinances of God’s house; but it is the same faith, and the same faith justifies from the same sin, transgression of God’s law. There is no change on the part of God. In God’s requirements, all the change there is at all is in the development and the fuller manifestation of God’s great plan of salvation. If we will bear this in mind, it will make the Bible a new book to us, and will throw light upon passages that otherwise may prove mystifying and uncertain. We will see more clearly His wisdom, and His love will lead to loving, unquestioning obedience to His law.
