rjprince wrote,
Look at Gen 2-3 again (I do take it literally, if it is simply a true myth, then why are we even there now?). Adam sinned; he hid; God sought him and confronted him; he tried to cover his sin his own way; God gave animal skins to the man and the woman as a covering for their nakedness even as the blood of the animals had been a covering for their sin. What is that, if not GRACE?
It’s clothing—and nothing more. Fred Flintstone also wore animal skins—are we to infer that those skins represented the grace of God?
All the world was wicked, but NOAH FOUND GRACE... Abraham justified by faith and GRACE (Rom 4:16)...
Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses were people—not ages or dispensations.
Adam found himself naked and he felt naked as a consequence of falling from grace. Did he do anything to earn the clothing that God gave to him? The Bible does not answer that question. If he did not, the clothing could be interpreted as being a result of God’s grace, but only if we interpret grace as being “God’s unmerited favor,” and God’s grace is a whole lot more than that—it is the dynamic of God by which God has chosen to save us. I don’t find any of this in a Fred Flintstone costume.
Noah, unlike Adam, chose to obey God, and his family was delivered by water from the wrath of God in the form of a flood. “Corresponding to that, baptism now saves [us].”
1 Pet. 3:18. For Christ also died for sins once for all,
the just for
the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;
19. in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits
now in prison,
20. who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through
the water.
21. Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you--not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience--through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
22. who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.
I don’t see even the slightest hint of an age or dispensation here.
Abraham, unlike Adam, chose to believe God and act upon his belief in God. In doing so, he became a type of the Christian who believes God and acts upon his belief in God.
Rom. 4:13. For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith.
14. For if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise is nullified;
15. for the Law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, there also is no violation.
16. For this reason
it is by faith, in order that
it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,
17. (as it is written, "A FATHER OF MANY NATIONS HAVE I MADE YOU") in the presence of Him whom he believed,
even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.
18. In hope against hope he believed, so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken, "SO SHALL YOUR DESCENDANTS BE."
19. Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb;
20. yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God,
21. and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform.
22. Therefore IT WAS ALSO CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.
23. Now not for his sake only was it written that it was credited to him,
24. but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead,
25.
He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.
I don’t see even the slightest hint of an age or dispensation here either.
Moses was the man that God chose to use to bring the formalized covenant of Law to the descendents of Isaac; and yet Moses, like Noah, was a type of Jesus rather than a chieftain of an age or dispensation.
1 Cor. 10:1. For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea;
2. and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
3. and all ate the same spiritual food;
4. and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ.
5. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness.
6. Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved.
7. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, "THE PEOPLE SAT DOWN TO EAT AND DRINK, AND STOOD UP TO PLAY."
8. Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day.
9. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents.
10. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.
11. Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.
12. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.
I am concluding this post with the above quote not only to demonstrate that Moses was a type of Jesus rather than a chieftain of an age or dispensation, but also to illustrate how the significance of this typology can be, and usually is, lost in dispensational theology.
(All Scriptures are from the NASB, 1995)