Interpretations: Dispensation of Government

After being in the ark with the animals, God told Noah to exit the ark with his family and all the living animals with him, Genesis 7:11, 8:14-17. Noah then made an altar to the Lord and offered a burnt sacrifice to the Lord from every clean bird and animal, and the Lord responded by saying in His heart that He would never again curse the ground for man’s sake, despite the constant evil imagination of man, Genesis 8:20-22. Then the Lord initiated the third dispensation.

The Identification of the parties involved is the entire human race, where:

• This dispensation began when Noah and his family exited the ark
• God spoke to Noah and his sons, and He expanded their diet to eat meat. They were allowed to eat animals, but not their blood, Genesis 9:3-4

The dispensational test was:

• God told them to be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth, Genesis 9:1
• He gave man the responsibility to execute capital punishment upon the man who sheds the blood of another man in a corporate sense, not in man’s vengeance on another, Genesis 9:6, Romans 12:19, Romans 13:1-4

The dispensational failure was:

• They governed for self and not according to God’s will, Isaiah 53:6
• They did not replenish the earth, but instead, they coalesced as a single entity in one location. Trying to be like gods themselves, they built a tower reaching to heaven to avoid being scattered over the world, Genesis 11:1-4

The dispensational judgment was:

• • The Lord came down and confused their language, and He scattered them across the world, Genesis 11:5-9
• o This is the beginning of the “nations of the Gentiles”
• o Before God’s judgment, all mankind spoke the same language and were one in kinship. After God’s judgment, many new languages suddenly arose and resulted in the creation of many new segments of people groups who migrated to other parts of the world
• o Despite the failure and judgment of this dispensation upon the Gentiles, God did not abandon them. He provided a pathway of salvation for all mankind through Israel, via the next dispensation. Yet, God still provided for Gentile salvation. Examples of God reaching out to the Gentiles and using them in the Old Testament include Job (which the book of Job is about), the King of Salem, Melchizedek who blessed Abram, Genesis 14:18-20, Jethro, the father-in-law to Moses, who blessed Moses, Aaron, and the elders of Israel, Exodus 18:12, the widow in Zarephath, 1Kings 17:8-24, Naaman the Syrian, 2Kings 5:1-14, the inhabitants of Nineveh, Jonah 3:1-10, and King Nebuchadnezzar Daniel 4:1-37, to name a few
• • This dispensation of government continues on, and will end with the dispensation of the kingdom, when Christ Jesus returns to earth, establishes His earthly kingdom and sits on the throne of David, Daniel 2:44-45

The following graphic shows mankind’s lineage extending from only eight people on the ark, where potentially billions of people populated the earth before the flood and were destroyed in God’s worldwide judgement. The entire population of the world today came through three families from Noah; Shem, Ham, and Japheth, Genesis 9:18-29. Descendants of these family’s makeup the whole worldwide population until the end of the dispensation of the kingdom.