Each dispensational age has its own ‘body of truth.’ The Post-Acts epistles written by Paul as “The Prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles” (Eph. 3:1) constitute the Truth for the Time of Today. Now, in such a claim there is a test as follows.

• First, it supposes that there can be certain “truth” in God’s Word that is not for all times.
• Secondly, it supposes that such a discrimination of the times is proper and Scriptural.
• Thirdly, it supposes that four epistles (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and 2 Timothy) constitute The Doctrinal Truth that is for Today.

Let’s take these three divisions of our subject and examine them separately in the light of all Scripture.

FIRST, can there be “truth” that is true at one time, but not true at another?

In one sense, any word that God has said is eternally, unalterably, true. The law given through Moses is as true to-day as when it was first instituted. Yet, not one of those who read these words has ever kept all those laws, which are true, nor has he any intention of doing so. The “law of Moses” contains commands that were not only enjoined upon the people of Israel, but also accompanied by severe penalties for non-observance.

There was a series of commands accompanied by the threat for disobedience, that “He shall be cut off from his people.” Such are; the rite of circumcision (Gen. 17:14), the eating of leaven during the days of unleavened bread (Exo. 12:15), the keeping of the sabbath (Exo. 31:14, “shall be put to death”), the keeping of the day of atonement (Lev. 23:29), observance of the Passover (Num. 9:13), the purification upon touching a dead body (Num. 19:13, 20).

Now either these passages are the truth of God, or they are not. We believe that they are truth, the words of Moses being endorsed by the Saviour Himself (Luke 24:27, John 5: 46, 47). Here therefore are words of truth, recognized as truth by believers, who nevertheless agree that they have not obeyed them, and do not intend to obey them, yet they have Not Suffered The Penalties Involved, nor do they expect to.

Why? This is because these were truths for another ‘time’… for ‘another dispensational age.’

As we have already observed, in the self-same Bible that maintains, with such solemnity, circumcision and the keeping of the Sabbath day. Yet. we also read “If ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing… ye are fallen from grace” (Gal.5:2 and 4). Again, to the same effect, Paul later wrote, “Let no man therefore judge you in meat foods], or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days” (Col. 2: 16).

How are we to reconcile these, apparently, conflicting statements? You must be circumcised; you must not be circumcised. You must keep the Sabbath day; you should not keep the Sabbath day. You will be cut off if you fail to observe these commandments; you will fall from grace if you do. Unless the whole of the revelation of God is to be reduced to a mass of contradictions, SURELY THERE IS A KEY PROVIDED that will give us an honourable and satisfying solution of these apparent contradictions. That key is implied in the term ‘Dispensational Truth,’ as the principle of ‘Right Division,’ in other words “truth for the times.”

SECONDLY. Such a discrimination between one scripture and another is both proper and Scriptural. When the Apostle Paul enjoined us in 2Timothy 2:15 to “rightly to divide the word of truth,” or when he urged the Philippians to “approve things that are excellent” (Phili. 1:10) or, as the margin indicates, to “try the things that differ,” he had this principle of interpretation in view. When the Apostle Paul distinguishes between Jew and Gentile, between kingdom and church, between earthly promises and “heavenly places,” between Bride and Body, between the citizenship of the New Jerusalem on earth and being seated together of some “in heavenly places,” each portion of Scripture is recognized as “truth,” but not every portion referred to as “truth for all times.” This principle of discrimination is called “dispensational truth,” simply because all these differences are the result of changes in the developing purposes of God toward eternity.

THIRDLY: After Israel had ‘fallen’ and been set aside (cf. Rom. 11:11-12, 15, 25), as it was finally consummated in Acts 28:28, we find Paul still a prisoner at Rome. Yet he was free to receive all who would come to him, and in that condition, he remained for two years. From that prison he wrote four epistles, each indelibly bearing the marks of his imprisonment in the body of the epistle. These four epistles are Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. Subsequently, he wrote the second epistle to Timothy, in which he again refers to the fact and significance of his imprisonment.

“I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you GENTILES, if ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to youward” (Eph. 3:1-2). “I am an ambassador in bonds” (Eph. 6:20).

These words make it clear that Paul, as the prisoner, had a special stewardship regarding the Gentiles, and we read further that this stewardship relates to “a mystery [a God held secret]” revealed for the first time to men through Paul, and that it “completes” the Word of God (Eph. 3: 3-11; Col. 1: 23-27). It is of the essence of a mystery [secret] that it should be “hid” until the time arrives for it to be revealed, and these scriptures, cited above, show that this mystery [secret] was “hid in God,” “hid from ages and from generations” but has “now” been made manifest through the exclusive ministry of Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ.

Now to the believer, brought up in orthodoxy, accustomed to the phrase ‘the church began at Pentecost,’ taking to himself as a matter of course the words “we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand” (Psa. 95:7), the results of the application of “right division” and the somewhat startling claims of “dispensational truth,” may seem after all to rest upon the somewhat uncertain basis of human deduction and inference.

It may be that if we can discover that those dispensational changes which subdivide the purposes of the ages, have always been announced, and that spiritual deduction only finds its place after, and not before, the announcement has been made public, and the recognition of the differences that claim attention and which are vital to the full acknowledgment of Our Calling Today may be simplified.

In order to discern the changing dispensations, we may collect and note the “things that differ,” we may observe that one Biblical calling is associated with the period “BEFORE the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4), and another calling with a period “FROM [OR SINCE] the foundation of the world.” (Matt 25:34). We may observe that in one calling Christ is “King”; in another Christ is represented as “Priest after the order of Melchisedec,” and in another He is denominated “HEAD over all things to the church which is His body.”

We may observe that some believers (i.e., Israel) are of a calling “to inherit the earth”, but that others find their place in the “New Jerusalem” on earth, and yet others are “blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places” (i.e., the Gentile “body of Christ”), which is the sphere of blessing ‘where Christ sits at the right hand of God’… “far above” (Eph. 1:20-21).

We might moreover bring forward the prevalence of miraculous gifts and the persistence of “the hope of Israel,” right through the Acts of the Apostles to the last chapter, then comparing this state of affairs with … Paul’s teaching of what we call his ‘Prison Epistles.’

These, and many other studies are a legitimate approach to the ‘study’ of the Scriptures, and fulfils the injunction of “comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” In this present study the key word is the word “witness.” Our contention is that Every Dispensational Change Is Introduced, Or Accompanied By An Accredited Witness Testifying. We aren’t left to our own searching, we find witnesses at intervals along the way, declaring in the name of Him that sent them that this or that change has taken place. If this be so, then we should become acquainted with so important a feature in the unfolding of the divine purpose.

The first thing that we must do is to discover who, and what are called “witnesses” in the New Testament. We can avoid wasted time with those witnesses referred to who have no bearing upon the subject in hand. You will discover these witnesses of significance listed below.

(1) JOHN THE BAPTIST. “The same came for a witness” (John 1:7).

(2) THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.  “I am one that bear witness of Myself” (John 8:18).

(a)  The Father bears witness of Christ. “The Father that sent Me beareth witness” (John 8:18).

(b) The Holy Spirit’s witness of Christ. “He shall testify of Me” (John 15:26).

(c) The Scriptures bear witness of Christ. “They are they which testify of Me” (John 5:39).

(3) SUPERNATURAL GIFTS AND SIGNS.

(a)  As to Christ. “The works that I do, bear witness of Me” (John 5:36).

(b) As to the Apostles. “God also bearing them witness … with signs” (Heb. 2:4)

(4) As to PETER and THE TWELVE. “Ye shall be witnesses unto Me” (Acts 1:8)

(5) THE APOSTLE PAUL,

(a)  Paul, BEFORE Acts 28, is “His witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard” (Acts 22: 15). (b)  Paul both before and after Acts 28: “A witness both of these things which thou hast seen and of those things in the which I will [yet] appear” (Acts 26:16).

(c)  Paul AFTER Acts 28: “Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner…’’ (II Tim. 1:8).