But further. Godliness is the religion of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15-1615But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. 16And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. (1 Timothy 3:15‑16)). Our character is to be formed by it, and our service defined and directed by it. The truth is the instrument and the standard. It is that by which the Spirit works in us and with us; and it is that by which we try everything. It is an instrument in the Spirit’s hand, and a standard in ours-and the truth that is this, is connected with the dispensations of God. This is seen at once. Morals and the duties which attach to human relationships get a peculiar character from their connection with such truth- as, among other scriptures, Ephesians 4-6 would, in many particulars, illustrate for us. We are now in this dispensation to learn “Christ,” and be taught “as the truth is in Jesus.” What was holiness and service under one dispensation, ceases to be so under another. Actions change their character with the changing time. In order to do right, or to be right, according to God, we must “know the time,” as the Apostle speaks. The day was, when it was holy to call down fire from heaven to consume adversaries. But the day came, when the offer to do such a thing had to suffer rebuke-and that too, under the same supreme divine authority which had warranted, nay, inspired it, before. “Everything is beautiful in its season”-and dispensational truth is the great arbiter of seasons, telling us the times and what the Israel of God and the Church of God ought severally to do.
At one time, the Lord put the sword into the hand of His servant; at another He took it out of such a hand. Joshua and Peter tell me this. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” was a divine decree in the day of the Evangelists-but, in earlier days, every trace of Gentile rule in the land of the fathers was required to be clean blotted out by the zeal and strength of the children. It was not to be “God” and “Caesar” then, but Jehovah’s name was to be written on the land of the twelve tribes, and every stick and stone on it be claimed in the name of Jehovah of Israel, without a rival.
Places and ordinances, in like manner, change their character with dispensations. But this is more easily admitted or apprehended than the other. Mount Sinai where God came down, and which awful, consecrated spot, none were to touch but Himself, is now simply “Sinai in Arabia”-and institutions, which were once divine, and the dishonoring of which was death, are now but “beggarly elements,” “rudiments of the world.” Nay, more—they are even put in company with idols (Gal. 4). Thus what was sacred at one time, becomes common at another; while, what was unclean once, is afterward given for the communion of the saints. The serpent of brass becomes Nehushtan—a company of those who had been repudiated as “uncircumcised,” becomes “a habitation of God through the Spirit.”
Thus it is indeed so, that the character, the value with God, of actions, places, ordinances and the like, will change with changing dispensations. We are to decide on their godliness, their sacredness, their holiness, by “the truth.” And not only is it thus with changing dispensations, but with the changing phases and conditions of the same dispensation.
The harps of Israel, for instance, were struck in the days of Solomon, and songs were sung when Heman, Asaph, and Jeduthun were in the land. But in the days of Babylon, the harps were to be hung on the willows, and the songs of Zion to be silent.
So, David, according to the mind of God, when his hunger and wanderings bespoke a ruined condition of things among the people, would ask for the showbread of the temple for himself and his followers, though in the day of the integrity of Israel and their dispensation, it was lawful only for the priests to eat of it.
And thus we see, from a few samples out of many, that different stages or eras, or conditions of things, in one and the same dispensation, have their several and peculiar truth on which to ground their own peculiar claims, just as surely and simply as if they were different dispensations. The children of Israel under Joshua, and under the Judges, the Jews at home, the Jews in Babylon, the Jews returned, though all of them alike under the same covenant, had very differently the claims and service of Jehovah to answer and do. “Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the Bridegroom is with them,” I may call to mind, in connection with this. When He is taken away, then indeed they may fast (Luke 5), and ought to fast.
Surely, I may say, everything helps to show us, that dispensational truth is the great, I say not the only, rule and manner of holiness according to God. We must “know the time,” for nothing is right out of season. “The children of Issachar were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chron. 12:3232And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do; the heads of them were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their commandment. (1 Chronicles 12:32)). Scripture is full of instruction upon this principle, and leaves us at no liberty to judge the holy and the unholy, independently of “the truth.” Our godliness, our piety, in order to have a divine character, depends on our knowledge of the truth, of times and seasons as they are with God, or according to his mind in His perfect and beautiful, though changing dispensations.