A Transfer from the Old Testament Economy to the New Testament Economy
The book of Acts is very dispensational. The word “dispensational” is, of course, the adjective form of the noun “dispensation.” The reason the book of Acts is dispensational is that it describes a great transfer that is accomplished during a period of transition. This is the transfer from the Old Testament economy to the New Testament economy.
“Economy” is an anglicized form of the Greek word oikonomia, which means dispensation. Hence, economy and dispensation are synonyms, with dispensation being the English equivalent of the Greek word oikonomia.
In the New Testament the word oikonomia denotes an arrangement. God has an arrangement, a household government, a family administration. God’s household government, or family arrangement, is what we call His economy. The transfer in the book of Acts is from God’s Old Testament arrangement to His New Testament arrangement.
A Transfer from Shadow to Reality
God’s Old Testament arrangement was altogether a matter of types, figures, shadows, and prophecies. In other words, the Old Testament arrangement of God was not in reality. Rather, it was a shadow waiting for its fulfillment.
When the Triune God became a man in the incarnation, the transfer from shadow to reality began. Everything in God’s old dispensation, or arrangement, was a shadow. But in God’s New Testament arrangement we have reality. The transfer from the shadow to the reality began with God’s incarnation, that is, with the conception of Jesus, and was completed on the day of Pentecost with the outpouring of the economical Spirit.
Problems concerning the Experience of the Transfer
Since this dispensational transfer was fully accomplished with the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, all the shadows should have been over. But those whom God chose and used had been raised in the Old Testament dispensation, and they had been saturated with and even constituted of God’s Old Testament arrangement. As a result, it was very difficult for them to forsake those things in an absolute way.
Let us take the case of Peter as an illustration. Peter was chosen by the Lord and used by Him to carry out His New Testament economy after He Himself had accomplished the transfer. Peter, however, was saturated with and constituted of the things of the old dispensation. For this reason, when Peter saw the vision of the great sheet in which were four-footed animals, reptiles, and birds, and when a voice told him to rise up, slay, and eat, Peter said, “By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common and unclean” (10:14). Knowing what the situation would be the Lord had sent an angel to Cornelius with a word concerning Peter. Furthermore, “while Peter was pondering concerning the vision, the Spirit said to him, Behold, three men are seeking you. But rise up and go down and go with them, doubting nothing, because I have sent them” (10:19-20). Peter loved the Lord, and eventually he went to the house of Cornelius. But this was a very difficult thing for Peter to do.
According to the record in Galatians 2, Peter later had further problems concerning the dispensational transfer. Paul tells us that before certain ones came from James, Peter “ate with those of the nations; but when they came, he shrank back and separated himself, fearing those of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy” (Gal. 2:12-13a). Here we see that even after the situation recorded in chapters ten and eleven of Acts, Peter still practiced hypocrisy in not daring to eat with Gentile believers openly in the presence of the brothers who had come from James in Jerusalem. From this we see how difficult it was for Peter to fully experience the dispensational transfer.
(From "Life-Study of Acts" Message 32)
