The place of the law in the believer's life

[exIFB]

(03-21-2011 03:46 PM)Donb123 Wrote:  

(03-21-2011 03:40 PM)exIFB Wrote:  Then what is the ministration of death?

Same thing. "Ministration" would be the administering of or the application of the law of sin and death. This is the first use of The Law- the law of sin and death, the eternal law of the wages of sin is death.

You say this in spite of the verse which says the ministration of death was WRITTEN and ENGRAVED on stone, and the chapter then goes on to talk about Moses coming down from the mountain and how glorious that the ministration of death was, and now we have a better covenant.

[exIFB]

The word dispensation in the Bible only refers to God dispensing something, usually in the context. I agree with Don that dispensation in scripture does not refer to "a period of time", and that the word, as used in dispensationalism, is often misused as a period of time when it should be used to refer to God's method of dealing with mankind during a period of time.

[Tony R]

(03-21-2011 05:54 PM)Donb123 Wrote:  

(03-21-2011 05:07 PM)Tony R Wrote:  Acctually, it is not very "modern and novel" at all. Justin Martyr (AD 100-165) believed in four phases of human history in God's program. The first was from Adam to Abraham; the second was from Abraham to Moses; the third was from Moses to Christ; and the fourth was from Christ to the eternal state. The dispensational scheme of Irenaeus (AD 120-202) is four in number. They are: 1. From the Creation to the Flood. 2. From the Flood to the Law. 3. From the Law to the Gospel. 4. From the Gospel to the Eternal State. He taught that there were four zones of the world and of mankind. He saw a connection between these zones, the faces of the "four living creatures", the four gospels and the four dispensations. Some early church leaders set forth only four such dispensations, others came very close to making nearly the same divisions modern dispensationalists do.

This is some really bad revisionist history. Even the classic "Christ of the Covenants" by O. Palmer Robertson, a treatise on covenant theology talks about dispensations, epochs, sub covenants, etc.

You admitted that they don't divide the Bible up like what modern dispensationalists do and not a one of them taught a perpetual covenant based on ethnicity and none of them taught any pretribulation rapture- in other words "dispensationalism."

Quote:As far as "split[ing]-the-Bible-in-half", most Christians recognize the OT and NT. I have never spoke to anyone who did not recognize this distinction. I am curious as to what you do with the words in 2 Timothy 2:15, “rightly dividing the word of truth” [orthotomeo], which means “to make a straight cut”. Not to mention the word “dispensation” found in 1 Cor 9:17, Eph 1:10, Eph 3:2 and Col 1:25.

I don't use the KJV so that particularly bad translation which has taken on new meaning for KJV dispies doesn't work for me. All modern translations use something along the lines of "accurately handling" and LXX, the translation Jesus used for the OT, has this:

Proverbs 3:6, "In all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct (orthotomee) your paths."

Proverbs 11:5, "The righteousness of the blameless will direct (orthotomei) his way aright, but the wicked will fall by his own wickedness."

Neither of these mean anything like split down the middle so appealing to the Greek isn't helping either.

And just because the word "dispensation" is found therein doesn't mean anything like what dispensationalism teaches. That's a really simplistic argument. I suspect you didn't think it through but what you just did is the functional equivalent of me pulling out the verse that says "baptisms for the dead" and telling you that means Mormonism is true.

Thanks for the insight Donb123. I could argue but I really don't see the point .

God bless you brother.

[Tony R]

(03-21-2011 07:27 PM)exIFB Wrote:  The word dispensation in the Bible only refers to God dispensing something, usually in the context. I agree with Don that dispensation in scripture does not refer to "a period of time", and that the word, as used in dispensationalism, is often misused as a period of time when it should be used to refer to God's method of dealing with mankind during a period of time.

I never said that it had anything to with specific time periods. I know what the word means and do not disagree with what you said here, although I personally have never seen it misused in the way you are describing here.

"a period of time" vs "God's method of dealing with mankind during a period of time"

In my mind, that goes without saying.