Systematic Theology, by Louis Berkhof - New Leaven

conscience was still the monitor of the Gentiles in his day, Rom. 2:14,15. The third is
known as the dispensation of human government, but the specific command in it which
was disobeyed and therefore rendered man liable to judgment, was not the command to
rule the world for God — of which there is no trace—, but the command to replenish
the earth. The fourth is designated the dispensation of promise and is supposed to
terminate with the giving of the law, but Paul says that the law did not disannul the
promise, and that this was still in effect in his own day, Rom. 4:13-17; Gal. 3:15-29. The
so-called dispensation of the law is replete with glorious promises, and the so-called
dispensation of grace did not abrogate the the law as a rule of life. Grace offers escape
from the law only as a condition of salvation — as it is in the covenant of works —, from
the curse of the law, and from the law as an extraneous power. (c) According to the
usual representation of this theory man is on probation right along. He failed in the first
test and thus missed the reward of eternal life, but God was compassionate and in
mercy gave him a new trial. Repeated failures led to repeated manifestations of the
mercy of God in the introduction of new trials, which, however, kept man on probation
all the time. This is not equivalent to saying that God in justice holds the natural man to
the condition of the covenant of works — which is perfectly true — but that God in
mercy and compassion — and therefore seemingly to save — gives man one chance after
another to meet the ever varying conditions, and thus to obtain eternal life by rendering
obedience to God. This representation is contrary to Scripture, which does not represent
fallen man as still on probation, but as an utter failure, totally unable to render
obedience to God, and absolutely dependent on the grace of God for salvation.
Bullinger, himself a dispensationalist, though of a somewhat different type, is right
when he says: “Man was then (in the first dispensation) what is called ‘under
probation.’ This marks off that Administration sharply and absolutely; for man is not
now under probation. To suppose that he is so, is a popular fallacy which strikes at the
root of the doctrines of grace. Man has been tried and tested, and has proved to be a
ruin.” 57 (d) This theory is also divisive in tendency, dismembering the organism of
Scripture with disastrous results. Those parts of Scripture that belong to any one of the
dispensations are addressed to, and have normative significance for, the people of that
dispensation, and for no one else. This means in the words of Charles C. Cook “that in
the Old Testament there is not one sentence that applies to the Christian as a Rule of
Faith and Practice — not a single command that is binding on him, as there is not a
single promise there given him at first hand, except what is included in the broad flow
57 How to Enjoy the Bible, p. 65.
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