Blog Series Intention Recap
Grace.
We sing about it. We name churches after it. We talk about being saved by it. But what exactly is grace? And just as importantly, what it isn’t?
Is grace God’s New Testament replacement for Old Testament Law? Were Abraham, Moses, and David saved differently than we are? If salvation is entirely by grace, do our works matter?
Those questions take us across the biblical story, where we discover something remarkably consistent:
Grace isn’t God’s backup plan.
From Abraham to the apostles, sinful people have always needed what they could never earn for themselves: God’s grace.
Over the last four weeks, we’ll look at what grace is, what it isn’t, and why different ages and responsibilities have never meant different ways of salvation.
Different ages. Different responsibilities. One Savior. Grace through faith.
This page is a post in the series “Grace: A Study On What It Is And What It Isn’t.” Click here to see the rest of the posts.
Let’s jump into Week #4:
"Grace in Every Age"...
"Doesn't dispensationalism teach different ways of salvation?"
If you have spent any time around conversations about how to read the Bible, you have probably heard some version of that question. The criticism goes like this: dispensationalists divide the Bible into different ages, so they must believe God saved people differently in each one. Israel was saved by keeping the Law. The Church is saved by grace. Different eras, different plans.
It is a fair question to ask. And to be fair, some older dispensational language was imprecise enough to reinforce that impression.
But the question deserves an answer from Scripture, not just from a definition. So instead of starting with a chart, let's start with the Bible's own witnesses: a prophet, an apostle, and a long line of ordinary people who lived centuries apart and had one thing in common.
They lived by faith.
Why it Matters:
A dispensation is a stewardship: how God administers His purposes at a particular point in history. It is not a separate way of salvation.
The prophets, the apostles, and Hebrews 11 all testify to the same thing: God's people have always lived by faith.
The cross reaches backward as well as forward. Those who trusted God before Yeshua’s death were saved on the basis of the same sacrifice as those who trust Him after it.
We don't have to erase the differences between Israel and the Church to see that every sinner is saved the same way.
Go Deeper:
What Is a Dispensation?
The word comes from the Greek oikonomia, which gives us our word "economy." It describes the management of a household: a stewardship, an administration. Paul uses it of his own calling:
"assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you" (Ephesians 3:2, ESV)
Notice the phrase: "the stewardship of God's grace." Even the word itself is tied to grace.
A dispensation describes how God orders His dealings with people at a particular point in His unfolding plan: what He reveals, what He entrusts to them, and what He expects of them. And Scripture shows real differences.
Noah was told to build an ark. Abraham was told to leave his country. Israel under Moses received a tabernacle, a priesthood, and a covenant with the nation. The Church has none of those things, and it has responsibilities of its own that Israel under Moses never had.
Those differences are real, and flattening them would do violence to the text. Noah was not Israel. Israel is not the Church.
But stewardship is not salvation. Different arrangements for living with God have never meant different ways of being made right with God.
The Righteous Shall Live by Faith
Centuries after Moses, the prophet Habakkuk looked out at a nation full of violence and injustice and asked God how long it would go on. God's answer included one of the most important lines in the Old Testament:
"Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith." (Habakkuk 2:4, ESV)
Two kinds of people. One is proud, trusting himself. The other is righteous, and he lives by faith.
Habakkuk lived under the Law of Moses. He was a prophet to Israel. And the principle God gave him was not "the righteous shall live by his performance." It was faith.
Paul quotes this verse twice to explain how anyone is justified:
"Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for 'The righteous shall live by faith.'" (Galatians 3:11, ESV)
He quotes it again at the very beginning of Romans (Romans 1:17). Paul is not introducing a new idea. He is reading his Bible.
"By Faith"
If Habakkuk states the principle, Hebrews 11 shows it lived out across the whole biblical story.
By faith Abel offered a better sacrifice.
By faith Enoch walked with God.
By faith Noah built the ark.
By faith Abraham left home, not knowing where he was going.
By faith Sarah received power to conceive.
By faith Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph looked ahead to promises they would not live to see.
By faith Moses chose to suffer with God's people rather than enjoy Egypt.
By faith Rahab welcomed the spies.
Different people. Different centuries. Different responsibilities. Different amounts of revelation. Abel knew far less than Moses. Rahab was a Canaanite who had heard only reports of what Israel's God had done. Noah never saw a tabernacle. Abraham never heard the Ten Commandments.
One repeated phrase: by faith.
Hebrews summarizes it this way: "And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him." (Hebrews 11:6, ESV)
Then the writer says something remarkable: "These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar" (Hebrews 11:13, ESV). They trusted God for what they had not yet seen.
The revelation was different. The response was the same: they trusted God.
How Could God Save Anyone Before the Cross?
This brings us to a question that has been hanging over this entire series.
If the Messiah's death is the only basis on which God forgives sin, how were Abraham, David, Habakkuk, and Rahab forgiven centuries before the cross?
Paul answers directly in Romans 3:
"...and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." (Romans 3:24–26, ESV)
Look at the phrase "he had passed over former sins." For centuries, God forgave people who trusted Him. He counted righteousness to Abraham. He covered David's sin. He accepted the faith of those who brought their sacrifices with repentant hearts.
That raised a real question. How could a just God simply pass over sin?
The cross is the answer. When Yeshua (Jesus) died, God publicly demonstrated that He had never simply overlooked sin. Israel's sacrifices pointed forward to the sacrifice that could actually take away sin. God's forgiveness before Calvary had always rested on the work the Messiah would accomplish. At the cross, history revealed that basis.
The cross happened at one point in history, but its saving work undergirds salvation in every age.
Abraham trusted what God had revealed to him. We trust what God has now revealed concerning His Son. Both are saved by the same Savior.
How does this help me understand “Grace: A Study On What It Is And What It Isn’t?”
What Changes, and What Doesn't
Put all of that together, and a simple framework emerges.
What changes?
Revelation. God progressively reveals more of His plan. Abraham knew more than Abel. Moses knew more than Abraham. The prophets saw further still. The apostles saw the promise fulfilled in the Messiah.
Responsibility. God gives different responsibilities to people at different points in history. Noah built an ark. Israel kept the Mosaic covenant. The Church is called to make disciples of all nations.
Stewardship. Noah, Abraham, Israel under Moses, and the Church are not interchangeable. Each has its own place in God's plan.
What doesn't change?
The problem: sin. Every person in every age has needed rescue.
The source: God's grace. No one has ever earned it.
The basis: the Messiah's atoning work, whether anticipated or accomplished.
The means: faith. God's people have always received His grace by trusting Him.
The content of revelation grows. The means of receiving salvation remains faith. And the basis has always been the same sacrifice.
Does This Erase the Distinctions?
But recognizing one way of salvation does not require us to erase the biblical distinctions between Israel and the Church.
Abraham was saved by faith, and God still made specific promises to Abraham's physical descendants. Israel's national calling, covenants, and future in God's plan are not canceled because individual Israelites were always justified by faith. The Church is a distinct work of God in this age, and it does not replace the nation God chose.
Distinction does not require different ways of salvation. And one way of salvation does not require erasing distinctions.
You may have seen dispensational charts that call the present age "the dispensation of grace." That label can sound as though grace began at Pentecost. It did not. The label describes a distinctive stewardship of God's grace in the present age (Ephesians 3:2). It does not mean grace itself began there. As we have seen, grace was there before the Law, at Sinai, in the prophets, and in every life Hebrews 11 describes.
Grace does not belong to one dispensation. God's people in every dispensation have depended on it.
One Savior, Every Age
What It Is. What It Isn't.
Over four weeks, we have looked at grace from four directions. Here is what we have found.
Grace is: God giving sinful people what they could never earn and do not deserve. Grace isn't: A new plan God introduced because the Law failed.
Grace is: God acting first, then teaching His redeemed people how to live. Grace isn't: Freedom from every command, responsibility, or consequence.
Grace is: God's gift that does not stop at pardon, but changes the one it saves. Grace isn't: Permission to live as though belonging to the Messiah changes nothing.
Grace is: The source of salvation in every age and under every stewardship. Grace isn't: The property of a single dispensation.
Standing in a Long Line
The truth Paul states to the Ephesians describes every believer's salvation in every age:
"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." (Ephesians 2:8–9, ESV)
If you have trusted Yeshua, you are standing in a very long line. Abel is in it. Noah is in it. Abraham, who believed God under the stars. Israelites who brought their sacrifices with broken and contrite hearts. Habakkuk, waiting on God in a violent age. Rahab, a Canaanite woman who had only heard the reports.
None of them earned a place in that line. Neither did you.
They had less revelation than we have. Some had far less. But they trusted what God had revealed to them, and they were saved by the same grace, on the basis of the same sacrifice.
This week, read Hebrews 11 in one sitting. As you read each "by faith," remember that every one of those names belonged to a sinner who needed grace. Then ask yourself:
Am I trusting what God has done, or what I am doing?
Does seeing grace across the whole Bible change the way I read the people, promises, and commands I find there?
God's administration changes.
God's way of saving sinners does not.
It has always been grace.
