Through the Bible one can trace a very simple and helpful pattern of understanding God’s biblical Historic and Prophetic Plan of the Ages by asking this simple question:  

How and by whom is God evangelizing lost men and women 

at any given time of human history?

By answering this question of “the Steward of Evangelism” for any given passage in the Bible offers, one finds a very nice framework for a rather consistent and comprehensive method of interpreting the Bible. This will be the first key to understanding the sweep of biblical history and eschatology, from the Garden of Eden in Genesis though The Day of the LORD in Revelation. 

A dispensation is not simply a period of time but a stewardship, as a way in which God administers His will in this world, specifically regarding the Gospel of Eternal Salvation. Dispensations do not differ in ways of salvation but in evangelism of salvation by faith in the work of Christ on the cross and His resurrection. So, what God had for Adam somewhat differed for Abraham and for Peter and Paul.

Hence, the best description of God’s “Divine Plan of the Ages” for evangelism could be called “Stewardship Dispensationalism.”  It reveals a chronology of Four Evangelistic Turning-Points of events in the Bible in both history and prophecy:

1. God’s “First Gospel” in Genesis 3:15 to Adam about redemption in Christ first and second comings.  In speaking to Satan about him and Christ God explained, “And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” This Gospel was passed on from parents to children to evangelize people nation-by-nation.
2. God’s Call of Abraham in Genesis 12:3 to be an evangelizing blessing to all nations, as the Lord asserted, “I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” – fulfilled with the first coming of Christ in His Life, Crucifixion, and Resurrection.
3. The Birth of the Church in Acts 2 to evangelize all the world.
4. “The Day of the LORD” immediately after Christ returns to take His Church, as God brings judgment on the earth for seven years, and Christ then returns back with His Church for the Battle of Armageddon followed by His Messianic Kingdom on earth, in which He will evangelize and reign for 1,000 years, culminating with The Great White Throne Judgment to prepare for the New Heaven and New Earth and New Jerusalem.[1]

We are presently in the third event of the age of the Church.  This fourth event is the second key to understanding biblical eschatology. However, the phrase, “The Day of the LORD”, originally began in describing God’s judgment of decadent Judah and various nations with the conquest of Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians by the exiled prophet, Ezekiel, in Ezekiel 13:5 and 30:3.  But all along it had developed a greater eschatological significance.

The Eschatonic Day of the LORD or Jehovah, specifically called HaYom YaHWeH, is notably:

1. A long-standing Prophecy of the Hebrew Prophets in both the Old and New Testaments.
2. Yet-Future for us, having never yet occurred on such a Grand and Prophesied Scale.
3. Imminent always in its Coming with specific Prophecies at the Event.
4. A Time of Divine Global Judgment of Terror with God “Setting the Record Straight!”
5. A Time of Universal Divine Bliss and Peace with an Earthly Regeneration.
6. Very Jewish-focused with a Jewish Temple.
7. The Final Capstone of The Ages.

This eschatological event with various specific prophecies[2] has never happened and, thus, is yet to be fulfilled on earth at some time in the future.  However, very often through the Old Testament era of The Prophets God’s very various judgments on Israel around 720 BC and Judah around 600 BC, as noted above, are presented, as precursors to The Day of the LORD. This Eschatonic Day of the LORD is notably very Jewish, very imminent, very eventful, very broad, very detailed, very judgments-ridden, very paradisal and very real.  Yet its imminency coincides with the imminency of the end of the Evangelistic Stewardship of the Church in the Church Age, as the Harpagé or Rapture. This Day of the LORD is a comprehensive expression for The Eschaton (all Last Things in the future) that begins the Harpagé or Rapture[3] of the Church’s removal and continues with a 7-year Judgment by God call the Tribulation with a Tribulational Jewish Temple, culminating in The Battle of Armageddon that with The Regeneration will bring in the Messianic Millennial Kingdom with a Millennial Temple complex.  The most extensive description The Day of the LORD[4] can be found in Revelation 8 through 20.  Thus, the imminency of its beginning is the biblical understanding of the imminency of the Harpagé or Rapture. 

This understanding of the imminency of The Day of the LORD with the Harpage/Rapture is not so much like approaching it closer and closer each day, but that it is “at hand” (as in James 5:8; 1 Peter 4:7; Revelation 22:10).  One might could picture it, not so much as though one were traveling east on Interstate 40 closer and closer to the Atlantic Ocean, but rather that it could be pictured, as traveling along Interstate 95 and watching the Atlantic Ocean in the east, traveling from Miami, Florida, to Woodstock, Maine. You travel along on and on and then suddenly you are out there walking in the Atlantic surf.

The Day of the LORD will be both[5] terrifying[6] and glorious[7] – a time of Enormous Evil followed by a time of Glorious Good – a time of Global Tribulation and then Global Regeneration, in that these two sets of events together are all called “The Day of the LORD”[8] (HaYom Yahweh).  It is worth noting how “The Day” will be a time of the depths of sin’s darkness and then of the heights of God’s light, since Genesis began the definition of “a day,” as evening and then morning in Genesis 1:5, “God called the light day, and the darkness He called night; and there was evening and there was morning one[9] day.”   The original prophecy of The Day of the Lord began with the nation of Israel in the land and will have its future focus on the nation and people of Israel back in the land. 

In the meantime, the present “mystery” is that this has not happened yet and is not happening, and God has chosen not to reveal the specific time that it will happen.  The present focus is on and through the Church that was a mystery to the Jewish prophets.   Paul  used this word, “mystery,” for the Church and the present Church Age in Ephesians 3:9-11, “And to bring to light for all what is the Stewardship [literally, Economy] of the Mystery having been hidden from the ages in God, the One creating all things through Jesus Christ, in order that there might be made known now to the rulers and the authorities in the upper heavenlies through the Church the multifaceted Wisdom of God, according to a Plan of the Ages, which he made in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  The Church is God’s present “Steward” of the Gospel in Evangelism. This had not been revealed fully in the Old Testament.  However, The Day of the LORD[10] had been prophesied and has always been imminent for Israel.  Now for the Church it continues to be imminent but will begin with the yet-future Harpagé in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, popularly called The Rapture.  Chronologically, this Rapture appears to be the initial event of “the day of the Lord” found in 1 Thessalonians 5:2 and the rest of the New Testament. This “day” is mentioned in prophecy of the future[11] in such a way that “the Day of Christ” – “that Day”[12] – “The Day of the LORD” may all tie together, so that this period of Tribulation would the immediately be following the Rapture of the Church. 

It is interesting to note how beginning in Genesis 1 God specified a “day” would begin at sunset through the darkness of the night and continue through the light of dawn of the day until the following sunset.  Thus, His “Day” would begin with the sunset of the darkness of sin and continue through the night of judgment by Him to continue through to the day of the light of His Son’s Millennial Kingdom of Righteousness on earth.

There has been a popular misinterpretation of this “day,” as being simply a “single day” alone, where all these details of Christ’s Second Coming are not taken to be literally occurring in the future over a period of years. This is specifically referred to, as “Amillennialism.”  Its problem is that it takes a too simplistic and non-literal view of The Day of the LORD, aside from a simple and short event of its occurring, and then time will be no more. 

God through all the ages has chosen to use people to evangelize other people with His gospel of redemption and salvation.  John described an angel in Revelation 14:6, “And I saw the angel flying in mid-heaven, having an eternal Gospel…”  The Gospel is the same through all the ages.

As He has moved from using one group or individual to another through history, an interesting pattern can be found through the Bible from “Genesis to Revelation.  God began with Adam’s family by using various individuals and then families to evangelize other families with the special revelation that God had given them. These families became the nations, as listed in Genesis 10.  The Hebrew term for “nations,” goyim, is often translated “Gentiles,” when referring to peoples outside of Israel.  Albeit before Abraham, all people were Gentiles. 

It was with the call of Abraham in Genesis 12 that God began to use one nation, the Hebrews, as His avenue or “steward” of evangelism.  In Genesis 14:13, Abraham is specifically called “the Hebrew,” as “one who passed over” the river (that is, the EuphratesRiver), to be used of God in a land which He was giving to Abraham to fulfill the ministry which He had planned for him.  So, in a sense Abraham began, as a Gentile, and became a Hebrew through faith and regeneration.  God continued to use this one nation through Isaac and Jacob (renamed Israel), as Paul explained in Acts 13:47, “For thus the Lord commanded us, ‘I have placed you for a light to the Gentile nations, that you might be for salvation unto the end of the earth.’” The Lord designated Israel to help the Gentiles understand the Gospel of eternal salvation worldwide, as prophesied in Isaiah 49:6.  Ultimately, it would be through Jacob’s son, Judah, that among his descendants (called Judeans or Jews) the Messiah or the Christ would come.

When Israel, as a nation, rejected their Messiah, Jesus, God changed His steward-administration of evangelism from Israel to a new entity called The Church being composed then of Jewish believers and Gentile believers alike.  Presently this new steward-administration of evangelism called “The Age of The Church” is made up of believers who are awaiting the imminent return of Jesus, as He comes and takes His Church in the resurrection to heaven.  After this, God has prophesied of seven more years of an evangelistic ministry by Israel here on earth.  In this yet future period God will continue and finish His prophesied and promised plan of a final period of The Age of Israel described, as “Tribulation” by Jesus in Matthew 24:29.  At the end of this seven-year period, Christ will come a second time to earth and establish a 1,000-year kingdom, a future golden age of righteousness.

As a plan of the ages, God did not reveal all of this to Moses in his Book of the Law, Genesis through Deuteronomy, or even to the rest of the early biblical writers.  But portion by portion in His progressive revelation from Genesis on God revealed details of His Plan the Ages even on through Revelation.  For example, in this progressive revelation the animal sacrificial system was developed in detail in the Law of Moses.  But, after Christ’s resurrection, this animal sacrificial system was set aside in the Church during the Church Age.  However, Jesus in Matthew 24:15 refers to “abomination of desolation” during the future Tribulation (in the context of Daniel 9:27 and 12:11), “Therefore, when you might see the abomination of desolation spoken by Daniel the prophet, having stood in the holy place – have the one reading think.”  This is describing a yet-future resumption of these animal sacrifices which will then be a memorial to the cross. 

Prophesied after this time of Tribulation is the glorious part of the fulfillment of The Day of the LORD in a millennial kingdom on earth. Jesus described this in the ultimate sense within His model prayer in Matthew 6:10, “Have your kingdom come; have your will be done, even on the earth, as it is in heaven.”

So, the key to understanding God’s panorama of Bible history and prophecy is to ask, “Whom has God placed on earth to be responsible or stewardship for evangelism?” at any given point in human history.  This responsibility or administration or stewardship has commonly been called “a dispensation.”  This term, “dispensation”, came from dispensatio, the common translation in Latin versions of the New Testament for the Greek word, oikonomia.  This very word was brought directly into the English language, as “economy.”

The original meaning of “economy” in English, according to The Oxford English Dictionary[13] is a “management of a house; management in general.”  It came to mean “a society ordered after the manner of a family” and “in a wider sense: the administration of the concerns and resources of any community of establishment with a view to orderly conduct and productiveness.”  Interestingly, popular usage of the word, “economy,” came to have a rather narrow meaning in current vernacular with its financial connotation. 

In reference to the Gospel and evangelism, as “the administration of concerns and resources,” this latter, original meaning can be applied directly to the New Testament Greek word, oikonomia, commonly translated in English, as “dispensation.”[14]   This word could then be transliterated and translated with this general, derived meaning, as “economy,” as it had been used in generations gone-by.  The term, “stewardship,” seems to portray the modern English equivalent. 

In the New Testament, oikonomia appears at first blush to be used four apparently different ways according to its context and theological thrust:

1. The management or stewardship of an estate, as in Luke 16:2-4.
2. Training in the faith, as in 1 Timothy 1:4.
3. A commission or stewardship by God of a ministry and revelation, as in 1 Corinthians 9:17; Colossians 1:25; and Ephesians 3:2.
4. An administration of God’s plan for evangelism, as in Ephesians 1:10 and 3:9 concerning The Church.

However, the critical thing to note is how all of these four semantic fields of meanings are not a matter of “either/or” both “both/and/altogether.”  These four semantic fields blend progressively into the best descriptive expression of how God has and will set up His “Divine Plan of the Ages” for evangelism in what can be called “STEWARDSHIP DISPENSATIONALISM” – specifically – 

A Commissioned Set of Four Specific Stewardships of Administration

of God’s Plan for the Ministry of Revelation and Evangelism 

throughout Each Phase of All of Human History Past, Present, and Future:

Gentiles, Israel, The Church, Israel again, and Christ’s Kingdom on Earth

Thus, in Ephesians 3:2 and 9 Paul has this play on words between usages 3 and 4 above, where he wrote in verse 2 regarding his apostolic commission and stewardship of revelations from God to him concerning The Mysterion which is The Church; and then in verse 9 he wrote of The Church itself having its commission and stewardship in its own evangelistic ministry, of which Paul was a key apostle.  A parallel to this is also found in Colossians 1:25 and 26, where Paul has a similar development of the connection. Presently, those in Christ’s Church are the center of this plan.  The focus of the Gospel in each age (or dispensation, that is, “stewardship”) is always Jesus Christ’s atonement and redemption, be it prophetic or historical. Salvation in each age comes by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, as Lord, either prophetically or historically.

Simply put, God’s Stewardships or Economies of Evangelism found in the Bible are The Age of Gentiles, The Age of Israel, The Age of The Church (The Mystery), and the Day of the LORD, as The Tribulation (a continuation of The Age of Israel), and The Age of Christ (The Messianic, Millennial Kingdom Age).

Over the years there have been many ways Bible students and scholars have sought to format in historic and prophetic periods their various numbers of “ages” in Dispensationalism.  However, one begins with a notable focus each on King Christ, The Church, Israel, and the nations of pre-Israel before Abraham, these four form a reverse-order chronology of four ages within five specific periods of time (with consideration that the years of The Church Age is yet undetermined). Some may try to subdivide these four ages (beyond Israel and The Tribulation subdivision) with further subdivisions that do have any differences in the “stewardship” among such subdivisions.  Others may try to consolidate and combine The 7-year Tribulation with The Church Age in Historic Premillennialism, even though they respectively represent two different “stewardships” of Church and Israel.  Still others may try to consolidate and combine The Millennial Age of Christ with The Church Age in Postmillennialism.

[1] Peter explains with an all-encompassing description of only its very beginning and its very ending in 2 Peter 3:10, “But the day of the Lord will come, as a robber in the night, on which day the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the elements being burned will be dissolved, and the earth and the works in it will be burned up.”   Within this abbreviated reference by Peter regarding “The Day of the LORD/YHWH” there is a wide Eschaton of The Rapture, The Judgment Seat of Christ, The Marriage Supper of the Lamb, The Tribulation, The Second Advent, and The Millennial Kingdom, and then The New Heaven and New Earth and New Jerusalem.

[2] A partial list of such prophecies about “The Day of the LORD” [HaYom Yahweh] are Genesis 3:15; 2 Samuel 7:16; Psalm 2:8; 24:7-10; 37:10-11; 45:2-17; 110:1-7; Isaiah 2; 9:7; 11; 19:18-25; 12; 26-27; 28:16-22; 32-35; 42; 49; 60-62; 65:20-25; Jeremiah 23:5-6; 30:17; 31:23-40; 33; Ezekiel 28:25-26; 36:16-38; 37:15-28; 38; 40-48; Daniel 2:35c; 9:24 12:2-13; Hosea 2:13; 3:5; 14; Joel 2:3, 19, 22-32; 3:18; Amos 5:24; Zechariah 8; 9:10; 10:12; 14:16-21; Malachi 4:2, 4; Matthew 19:28; 24:1-25:46; Romans 8:21and Revelation 2:27 and 6-20, specifically 12:5; 19:15; 20:4-7.

[3]This Hapagmos/Rapture could be compared to being the first domino to fall with a “domino-effect” happening over a 1007-year period.

[4] Although, seven basic components of the coming “Day of the LORD” comprehensively will be:  1) Israel back in the land evangelizing during a 7-year Tribulation immediately after the Rapture of the Church, 2) The Battle of Armageddon with Christ Second Coming, 2) The Regeneration for the Millennial Kingdom on Earth, 4) God’s judgment on Satan and the ungodly armies of humanity at the end of the Millennial Kingdom, 5) The Great White Throne Judgment, 6) The Dissolution of the present Heaven [Universe] and present Earth, and 7) The New Heaven and New Earth and New Jerusalem.  (It is interesting to note how the three Fall Holydays in Lev. 23 prophetically in a pattern appoint to the first three.)

[5] See Malachi 4:5; Joel 2:31; Acts 2:20; Zephaniah 1:14; Haggai 2:6-7 .

[6] Revelation 6:17 – “because the great day of His anger came, and who is able to stand?”

[7] 2 Thessalonians 1:10 – “When he comes on that day to be extolled among his saints, and to be venerated among all those believing…”

[8] English tradition particularly in the Old Testament often translates Yahweh [YHWH], as LORD [all caps].

[9] It is interesting to note that Moses used the cardinal number “one” here instead of the ordinal number “first,” and then proceeded in Genesis 1:8, 13, 19, 23, 31; 2:2 to use ordinal numbers, specifically “second” through “seventh,” where the cardinal number, “one,” in verse 5 specifies that “one day” is being defined, as “there was evening and there was morning” – first darkness then light.

[10] One can illustrate the teaching’s chronology of “The Day of the LORD” to be much like the poster of a movie picturing various scenes from the motion picture all in one picture along with the video of the scenes chronologically viewed in its duration.  The Israeli prophets spoke of and described the “poster” called The Day of the LORD, as being an event though made up of series of events covering some yet-future 1007 years, as the “video of the movie.”

[11] This “day” is notable mentioned and alluded to in Mat. 24:36; 25:13; Acts 2:20; Acts 17:31; Rom. 2:5, 16; 1 Cor. 1:8; 3:14; 5:5; 2 Cor. 1:14; Phil. 1:6, 10; Phil. 2:16; 1 Thes. 5:2, 4; 2 Thes. 1:10; 2:2,3; 2 Tim. 1:12, 18; 4:8; Heb. 10:25; 1 Pet.2:12; 2 Pet. 3:10.

[12] In Isaiah “in that day” occurs some 44 times but with reference to prophecies in the future Eschaton in 2:11, 17, 20; 4:1, 2; 5:30; 7:18, 21, 23; 10:23, 27; 11:10, 11; 12:1, 4; 17:4, 7, 9; 19:16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24; 24:21; 25:9; 26:1; 27:1, 2, 12, 13; 28:5; 29:18; 30:23; 31:7; 52:6.

[13]The Oxford English Dictionary, volume 4, page 34.

[14] The Latin Vulgate commonly translates the Greek word, oikonomia, as dispensatio.