Prior to Christ’s coming and the shedding of His blood to inaugurate God’s promised new and final covenant, Jehovah had spoken (i.e., dispensed the knowledge of His will) at various times and in diverse ways (Hebrews 1:1). In the final dispensation of His will—the dispensation which came at just the right moment/“in the fullness of the times” (Ephesians 1:10)—He spoke by His Son (Hebrews 1:2).
When the time was exactly right, “God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:5), so “He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him” (Ephesians 1:10).
As Isaiah’s prophecy (Isaiah 7:14) irrefutably proves, Jesus’ coming into this world was not—from God’s perspective—an “unplanned pregnancy”. Neither was Jesus’ death and resurrection (Isaiah 53; Acts 2:23-31). Each was eternally purposed (Ephesians 3:11).
Prior to Christ’s coming, God dispensed His will through the patriarchs (i.e., the chieftain of family clans); at Mount Sinai His will was dispensed to the Jews via the Law given to Moses by angels. In the prophets, His call to repentance and return to Him and His Law came through inspired spokesmen who foretold and forth-told His will.
In His final dispensation—the one the Scriptures call “the dispensation of the fullness of the time” in Ephesians 1:10 and “the last days” in Acts 2:17 and Hebrews 1:2—every creature of every nation is amenable to Christ and the doctrine He dispensed through His inspired apostles and prophets.
Because the fullness of the times has come, it will be Christ and His word which will judge all humanity who has lived since the inauguration day of God’s new and final covenant.
