| Man Under Conscience |
The dispensation or age of Conscience is also referred to the Adamic Covenant; where man was responsible to do all known good, and to abstain from all known evil and to approach God through sacrifice.
Many things happen in this period of time including Adam and Eves' first sons, the first murder, and the first civilization. Adam lived 930 years (see Genesis 5:5) and he died. His children then populated the earth as they knew it. One of Adams descendants was a man called Noah.
There are many symbolic things that happen throughout this period of time. This is also where alot of people get confused with the Bible and decide to put it down because of all the "begat-ing" going on. If we simply read Genesis 5+6 God is simply laying the groundwork for the things to come and man basically separates into two groups good and evil, or righteous and unrighteous; ie., Cain and Abel and Seth who was Adams third son; a good son to replace Abel who Cain murdered.(See Genesis 4:25-27)
| Symbolic Man |
Cain is a type of mere man of the earth. His belief or religion was destitute of any adequate sense of sin, guilt, or need of atonement. Many things are said of him; he worships in
Abel, on the other hand is a type of the spiritual man. His sacrifice, in which atoning blood was shed was therefore at once his confession of sin and the expression of his faith in the interposition of a substitute type of Christ.
After Cain killed Abel God sent cain out from where he lived and dwelt in the land of Nod, where he took a wife and bore a son called Enoch which means "teacher"; and they built a city and named it after his son Enoch. His son had sons who had sons etc., and one of those sons was Adah, which means "pleasure"; another was named Zillah, which means "hide"; and anothers name was Lamech, which means "conqueror" or "wild-man." So, you can see that the Cainitic civilization was not to be honored by God.
God, needing to even things out after Adam was 130 years old "knew" his wife and they bore a son and named him Seth; then Seth bore a sonand named him Enos; and it was then that man began to call upon the name of the Lord. Generations passed and eventually Lamech had a son and named him Noah.
Genesis chapter 6 talks of the flood and why God decided to destroy the earth. Genesis 6:5 "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." 6:7 "and the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man and beast; and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them."
Now Noah found grace with God and walked with God and God told Noah sad he was with mankind. He told Noah to build an ark, as he was going to destroy all living things except for Noah and his family. He also told him to bring some animals (not 2 of each kind as taught to us; see Genesis 7:2) to help replenish the earth when he was done. Read Genesis 7+8 .
The end of the second dispensation ends with the judgement of the flood. Once again throughout the second dispensation God was tested by man; and man fails, and ushers in the third dispensation called Human Government.
Dispensations
Man Innocent;First Dispensation
Human Government; Third Dispensation
Abrahamic Covenant; Fourth Dispensation
