By referring to the chart, the various parts of which are numbered, the orderly series of God's ways with man will be more simply perceived, their retention in the memory aided, and the general scope of the Divine purposes and plans more easily grasped by the mind:—
1.-By far the grandest counsel of eternity, as also the grandest fact in time, is the Lamb slain (1 Peter 1:20). Then the blessing of the saints and their predestination to the place, portion and relationship of children come next in importance (Eph. 1:4,5).
2.-Geology clearly enough establishes the truth of a creation prior to Adam, but no conflict need thereby be apprehended between science and the Mosaic or rather Divine account of creation. The first verse of Genesis refers to the original creation of heaven and earth, and is an independent statement entirely apart from what follows; the second verse shows the earth in a ruined state, yet, at a period prior to man; while from Gen. 1:3-31 we have the earth got ready in six literal days as a dwelling for man. The terms "creating" and "making" are important in this connection. "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created (verse 1 of the Bible), in the day that the Lord God made (in six days Ex. 20:11) the earth and the heavens" (Gen. 2:4).
3.-Adam was created in innocence; we are born in sin (Psa. 51); in Christ humanity was holy (Luke 1:35). The period of innocence or sinlessness was a brief one, and in it Adam stood alone as Christ did before the work of the cross (John 12:24). Adam, as fallen, became the head of the race (Rom. 5:15); Christ in victorious power over death is head of His redeemed (1 Cor. 15:45). Innocence and Paradise once forfeited cannot be regained; but holiness, heaven, and eternal life are ours in Christ.
4.-For 1656 years God left man to himself. Conscience—that inward tribunal before which actions are weighed and judgment pronounced thereon—supplied the place of law and authority. Man went from bad to worse, until God in judgment swept creation by the besom of destruction—a remnant of man and the animal creation being preserved. In Noah, therefore, God instituted civil government (Gen. 9) in order to bridle the ungovernable will of man.
5.-Idolatry was introduced after the defeat of the Babel attempt to establish a universal independency apart from God (Gen. 11:1-9), and spread rapidly even in the family of Shem, so that Abram's father was an idolater (Josh. 24:2). It was this awful evil which led to the call of Abram by the Word of Jehovah and the appearing of the God of glory, thus God morally judged the world, and began a fresh depository of promise (Gal. 3:16) and committed a new testimony to man (Rom. 11).
6.-The people after celebrating the triumphs of grace on the wilderness side of the Red Sea, foolishly accepted law as the ground of blessing (Ex. 19). The law was neither given as the ground of justification nor measure of Christian life. As a principle, it applies to man in the flesh, but believers "are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit." Man before Moses was a sinner, but under the law he became a transgressor, as under Christ and grace an enemy to God.
7.-Moses, the representative of the law (2 Cor. 3:15), could not conduct the people into Canaan, type of the heavenly places; hence, Joshua, figure of Christ, in the power of the Spirit, triumphantly leads on the people to conflict and victory. Israel was ruled by judges till Saul.
8.-Israel's first king, was the man of the people's choice (1 Sam. 8); Israel's second king, was the man after God's own heart (Acts 13:22). The kingly power was continued in the tribe of Judah for 130 years after the destruction of the kingdom of Israel or ten tribes, but was finally destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar.
9.-Assyria became the place of captivity to Ephraim—the ten tribes. They have never been restored, and who and where they now are, cannot be ascertained. Ezekiel 20 details their future restoration. The Jews were deported to Babylon, and the government of the earth transferred to the Gentiles (Dan. 2); at this point of the history, "the times of the Gentiles" commence.
10.-After a captivity of 70 years, remnants of Judah are permitted to return, first under Cyrus and then under Artaxerxes; they settle again in Palestine but under Gentile subjection, and, after having been ruled over by Persia, Greece, Egypt, and Syria, the Romans in the year 63 B.C., took Jerusalem, and Judea became a tributary province to the Roman empire.
11.-Christ was crucified under Pontius Pilate, the then representative of the fourth or Latin power, was buried, raised, and ascended to heaven, all now being made subject to Him—the glorified Man (1 Peter 3:22).
12.-The descent of the Holy Ghost ten days after the ascension of Jesus, is the characteristic truth of the dispensation (Acts 2). By His coming, He has constituted believers what they were not before—the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12) and the house of God (Eph. 2:22).
13.-Jerusalem, after sustaining a siege unparalleled in history, was taken by Titus in the year 70, A.D., and thus the last historical dealings of God with His earthly people were broken; to be resumed, however, on their national return to Palestine (Isa. 18).
14.-God in grace has visited the world, and is calling out of it a people for His name. To those thus called, heaven is opened (Epistle to the Hebrews), and they are associated with Christ as joint heirs (Rom. 8:17); their prospect, hope, portion and blessings, are all heavenly-"partakers of the heavenly calling." As Eleazer, the steward of Abram's house, led Rebekah through the wilderness to Isaac—heir of all (Gen. 24), so the Holy Ghost is leading home to Christ on high the bride, sustaining and cheering her meantime by the way. Her immediate hope is the personal return of the Lord to fetch her to Himself (1 Thess. 4:13-18). The Lord will descend from heaven, and by His voice and presence change the bodies of the living saints like to His own (Phil. 3:21); He will raise the righteous dead of all ages and dispensations, and, together with the changed living, take them up in clouds, in His own most blessed likeness-"forever with the Lord.".
15.-After the rapture of the saints to heaven, Daniel's 70th week or seven years will transpire, during which Antichrist, accepted as the false Messiah by the mass of Judah thus returned, will reign as king in Palestine (Dan. 11:36), and the Roman empire be revived under a ten-kingdom form (Dan. 7; Rev. 17:8). The judgment detailed in the central part of Revelation will then be poured out upon an apostate Church and apostate Judaism.
16.-Christ, after the tribulation, will descend from heaven with all His saints and angels, and close in awful judgment "The times of the Gentiles" (Rev. 19:20,21; Dan. 2:44-45); deliver the Jews (Zech. 14) and restore Jerusalem to more than ancient grandeur (Isa. 60.).
17.-The millennium or world kingdom of Christ will then be established on and over the earth, and will exist in blessing and glory for 1000 years (Rev. 20:4). Christ and the church will together reign—one in power and glory—over the redeemed scene. Then Israel will be set in blessing on the earth, head of the nations, and Jerusalem become the metropolis of the earth (Isa. 60). The Gentiles too will be richly blest in these coming days, but subordinately to Israel (Psa. 67). Creation too will be delivered from her pain and sorrow, and rest in peace under the beneficent sway of its Creator and Preserver (Rom. 8:19-21). The kingdom-reign will continue for a period of at least 1000 years (Rev. 20).
18.-At the close of the kingdom a solemn pause ensues. Satan, who had been bound during the reign (Rev. 20:3), is let loose, and makes a last despairing attempt to occupy the throne of the world. He succeeds so far as to seduce the nations from under the rule of Christ and His saints, but quick unsparing judgment follows the impious attempt of Satan and his countless multitudes of followers -"fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them" (Rev. 20:7-9).
19.-Then the wicked dead are raised; the last of God's saints had been raised 1000 years previously (Rev. 20:5). This will be followed by the last act of the drama. Creation as a sphere for the moral display of God and man, having served its purpose, will be rolled up as a worn-out vesture by its Lord and Creator—the eternal lover of our souls (Heb. 1:12). As the heavens pass into eternal oblivion it will be with a great noise, but the earth and its works, stained with the crime and sin of thousands of years, will be burnt up (2 Peter 3).
20.-The great white throne, before which the wicked will be judged, will be set up in eternity; and the "dead, small and great," upheld before it in space by power divine, which can neither be gainsaid nor resisted. The doom pronounced is irrevocable and eternal (Rev. 20:11-15).
21.-The church will enter the eternal scene in bridal affection, and in established relationship as the Lamb's bride and wife; also as the tabernacle of God amongst men (Rev. 21:2,3).
22.-The heaven and earth will be physically new, and in them will dwell righteousness; the Divine Sitter upon the throne will break the silence of these grand, magnificent and eternal ages, saying: "Behold, I make all things new." Amen, and amen.