The dispensation of Israel. Part 1. A man called Moses

The dispensation of Israel. Part 1. A man called Moses.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

The third era in the dispensation of the Gentiles, the age of the Patriarchs, was around 2,050 B.C. to 1441 B.C. and, while there was no written canon of Scripture at that time, this period is covered from Gen 12 to Exo 12.

Once again, the age of the Patriarchs ended with the Egyptians in control [Egypt represents the cosmic system] and the Jews in slavery, another dispensation ending with man’s failure.

REV 11:8 - because Jerusalem was given up to business pursuits, idolatry, and pleasure, it is compared to Egypt.
REV 11:8 And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified [Jerusalem].

The responsibility of the patriarchs was simply to believe and serve God, and God gave them every material and spiritual provision to encourage them to do this.

Finally Jacob led the people to Egypt, and soon the judgment of slavery was brought on them.
But God again graciously provided a deliverer and in the process of deliverance killed their oppressors.

The second Theocentric dispensation -
The dispensation of the Jews or Israel.

Moses is a descendant from the tribe of Levi and is the greatest born-again genius of the O.T.

Moses was an extremely powerful man; his strength was fantastic; he was extremely powerful, well built, and handsome.

Moses was a genius in the field of music.
He was a genius in the field of literature and writing.

He was a genius in engineering and built two of the great treasure cities in Egypt.

He was a military genius, an administrative genius, and he had doctrine, common sense, good manners, and wisdom.

He was just a baby when the order to execute all Jewish children under a certain age was given.

It is here that we have the giving of the Law, and the promise of the Mosaic Covenant.
It is here that we see the erecting of that remarkable symbolical structure, the Tabernacle.

It is here that we mark the transition of the Israelites from being merely a plurality of Jewish tribes into one nation.

The title “Exodus,” means “outgoing,” and it accurately conveys the main subject of the book; but two other subjects are associated with the Exodus, as being the direct outcome of it: the Law and the Tabernacle.

His parents refused to comply with such an evil order and so his mother, by an act of great faith, put Moses in a little basket that floated and she sealed it up and floated it down the Nile River, EXO 2:3.

God used a tiny ark occupied by the greatest individual in the Old Testament.

She called him Moses because in the Hebrew Mosheh means drawn from the water.

For 39 years Moses grew up in the palace as a great man.
He spent 40 years living in the palace as an Egyptian prince.

Moses discovered his origin (that of a Jew), and he believed in TLJC and grew spiritually.

All of his life he would be one of the greatest leaders who ever lived, and yet he was a leader who was rejected by his own people.

1. He was of lowly poor parents and birth; so was the Lord Jesus Christ in respect to His flesh, or human nature, being born of a poor virgin.
2. Moses was no sooner born, but he was exposed to the wrath of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who sought to put him to death; so Christ in His infancy was sought by king Herod to be slain; but both by God’s extraordinary providence were delivered.

3. Moses was of a meek and sweet disposition, above all that dwelt upon the earth, yet full of zeal for God and indignation against sin and evil; so Christ was a pattern of meekness and humility, “Learn of me,”
MAT 11:28,29.
4. Moses was appointed by God, and set to deliver Israel out of Pharaoh’s cruel bondage; so Jesus Christ was appointed and sent to deliver all of the Israel of God from the cruel bondage of Satan, a heavy oppression and burden of sin.

5. Moses was sent to lead Israel towards Canaan; so Jesus Christ leads us to heaven, the type of Canaan.
6. Moses gave the law, having first received it from the hand of God; so Jesus Christ gave us the law of the Gospel, as He received it from his Father.

7. Moses performed many mighty miracles in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness, to confirm the Law, and to show Israel that he was really sent of God.

So Jesus Christ performed many strange and wonderful miracles, by sea and land, in towns and deserts, to manifest His glory, to show He was sent of God and to confirm His doctrine.

8. Moses instituted the Passover; so Christ, the true Moses, instituted the Lord’s Supper.

9. Moses in his faithfulness was a type of Christ; he was faithful as a servant; he did all things exactly according to the pattern showed him on the mount; so Christ in all things was faithful as a Son, HEB 3:5-6.

10. Moses married an Ethiopian, a stranger, from the black race; so TLJC embraced the Gentiles, who were strangers to God, and by reason of sin, as dark as sin and evil could make them.

11. Moses sweetened the bitter waters of Marah, by a tree cast into it; so Christ sweetens all our afflictions by the means of His cross.
12. Moses led Israel through the Red sea; Christ leads His Church through a sea of tribulation.

Moses fled into the desert and there he spent 39-40 years. After that, he came to the burning bush experience.
The patience of this man, his courage, his mental attitude, his marvelous spiritual life, and the humility of this man was fantastic.

NUM 12:3 (Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.)

After telling the Jews not to intermarry with other races, Moses went out and married an Ethiopian woman, his second wife, and his sister Miriam began to malign him and his second wife.

DEU 7:3; EXO 34:11-16 - Moses taught against intermarriage, but here he married an Ethiopian woman.
Jude 1:8 Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities [or those in positions of authority].

Moses is the human author of the first five books of the Bible under God the H.S.

The Jews became a nation when God led them out of Egypt, culminating that transitional age of the patriarchs in which He established the Jewish race.

God says in effect, “Alright mankind, I established a race called the Hebrews; now I’ll establish from them a nation called Israel and Jews.”

As in the age of the Jewish patriarchs, the human race still consisted of a large population divided into many languages, cultures, and nations.

But now with the Exodus, the Jews being set free from slavery, God established one particular nation to represent Him as His missionary agency on earth.

The spiritual heritage of Israel continued, as it had begun through the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the Jews expressed their faith toward God as they offered the Passover lamb.

This chosen nation would be given a divine legacy in writing and would manifest God’s character as never before in history, DEU 4:6-8,32-40.

He made this nation the recipient, custodian, and communicator of the written canon of Scripture.

Not only would Israel furnish the human authors of the Old Testament canon, but the history and function of Israel herself would be recorded forever in Scripture.
The God of Israel, who is Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity (LUK 1:68), personally ruled the theocratic kingdom.

The Mosaic Law is a remarkable legal system that defined freedom and civil responsibility in Israel for believers and unbelievers alike.
The Law also set forth the precise spiritual ceremonies by which the Jews would worship God.

Because their God was also their king, it was the responsibility of everyone in Israel to observe the Mosaic Law as part of Jewish national life, although the spiritual provisions were properly meaningful for believers only.

As a single, integrated whole, the Mosaic Law focused on the Tabernacle (and later the Temple) where the presence of God resided.

Offerings, rituals, and holy day observances conducted there anticipated the day when God would come in the flesh as the promised Messiah.
For the orderly conduct of these rituals and for the oral communication of God’s written Word, the Law instituted the Levitical priesthood, DEU 31:9-13; 33:10.

The Mosaic Law was a new phenomenon, a thorough system of private and public duty in Israel under the immediate rule of God.

This was the time in human history, of the dispensation of direct revelation and writings from God.

There was a book filled with divine guidance and commands for man to live a long life and prosper, even for the unbeliever.

In the next dispensation, JOH 1:14, the Word will become flesh, a member of the human race and dwell among us, and man will even reject that.

1TI 3:16 And by common confession great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh,

The rituals prescribed by the Mosaic Law were a dramatic “shadow of what is to come,”
COL 2:17; HEB 8:5; 10:1.

When Christ later came in the flesh, the reality fulfilled the shadows, making this magnificent heritage of rituals suddenly obsolete, HEB 8:13.

In the Church-age the believer’s way of life manifests the all-powerful reality rather than the shadow.

The sequence of promises that guarantee the coming of Christ, beginning with the “Seed” revealed to Adam and Eve,
GEN 3:15, and continuing with the promises made to Noah, GEN 9:26, proceeded to become more specific.

The Messiah would come from the race of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; from the nation of Israel; from the tribe of Judah; from the family of Jesse; from the royal lineage of King David.

1. The Abrahamic Covenant, GEN 12:1-3; 13:16; 22:15-18; 26:4; 28:14; 35:11; EXO 6:2-8.

2. The Palestinian Covenant, GEN 13:15; 15:18-21; 26:3-5; 28:13-15; 35:12; EXO 6:4,8; NUM 34:1-12; DEU 30:1-9; JOS 1:2-4; JER 32:36-44; EZE 11:16-21; 36:21-38.

3. The Mosaic Law (Gen-Deu.)
a. Codex I: The Freedom Code (the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments)
b. Codex II: The Spiritual Code (including a complete shadow presentation of Christ and His saving work [Christology and soteriology])
c. Codex III: The Establishment Code (civil statutes for Israel)

4. The Davidic Covenant, 2SA 7:8-17; PSA 89:20-37.

5. The New Covenant to Israel, JER 31:31-34; cf. HEB 8:8-12; 10:15-17.

They did not and never will belong to Gentiles living throughout the world,
DEU 4:8; ROM 2:12-14, although Israel was founded to benefit all nations of the earth.

Nor did God’s covenants with Israel anticipate the Church, which transcends ethnic distinctions and national boundaries, and which in O.T. times remained an undisclosed mystery, ACT 15:5,24; ROM 6:14; GAL 2:19.