The Adamic Age.

"Dispensation" Defined.—What is meant by "dispensation." The term has a variety of meanings. To dispense is to deal out or distribute in portions, as when the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is dispensed to a religious congregation. "Dispensations of Providence" is a phrase used to describe the Creator's dealings with his creatures, either for joy or sorrow. In theology "dispensation" signifies the method or scheme whereby Deity has at different times developed his purposes and revealed himself to man. As I now use the term, it stands for the opening of the heavens and the sending forth of the Gospel and the Priesthood for purposes of salvation. It also denotes the period of time during which the saving and exalting principles thus sent forth, continue operative in pristine power and purity.

The Great Patriarch.—Adam, the patriarch of the human family, is over all the Gospel dispensations, including the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times, which is virtually all dispensations rolled into one. Nevertheless, each has its own immediate presiding authority, holding the keys of his particular period—holding them under Adam, the universal head.^[1]

Distinctive Features.—Each Gospel Dispensation has certain distinguishing characteristics, and stands for some particular development of the Divine Purpose. Thus, the First Dispensation presents the following distinctive features:

1. The institution of the Law of Sacrifice, foreshadowing the Atonement that was to be made for the redemption of fallen man.

2. The introduction and earliest promulgation of the Gospel, for which the Law of Sacrifice had prepared the way.

3. The initial exercise of the Patriarchal Power, in behalf of the whole human race.

The Law of Sacrifice.—The Law of Sacrifice was revealed from Heaven soon after our First Parents were banished from Eden. God, from whose presence they were shut out, spoke "from the way toward the Garden," commanding them to "offer the firstlings of their flocks for an offering unto the Lord." Adam obeyed, and after many days an Angel appeared to him, saying: "Why dost thou offer sacrifices unto the Lord?" Adam replied: "I know not, save the Lord commanded me." The Angel then said: "This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father. Wherefore thou shalt do all that thou doest in the name of the Son, and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name of the Son forevermore." So runs the sacred story, as rendered by Joseph the Seer.^[2]

The Past Obscured.—It is not to be supposed, however, that this was Adam's first knowledge of the sacrificial statute, concerning which he must have known before it was revealed to him in mortal life. Adam was no ordinary man. He was a great and wonderful character, and the world has not seen the last of him. Undoubtedly he was among those who sat in the eternal councils when the Gospel plan was instituted and its mighty Executor chosen. Surely he knew about the Lamb of God, already slain in the spirit before the creation of the world, and, in Adam's time, yet to be slain literally in the world—an event symbolized by the very sacrifice that the first man was offering when the Lord's messenger appeared to him.

But Adam had lost the knowledge of his spirit past. It had been temporarily taken from him in order that his agency might be free and untrammeled, his conduct uninfluenced by any recollection of a former experience. Hence the need of the Angel's coming to enlighten him, and the further need of revelation by the Holy Spirit, bringing things past to remembrance and showing things to come.

Acceptable and Unacceptable Offerings.—Adam's worship was acceptable to God, for he was in every way obedient to the divine instruction; his offering truly symbolizing the heavenly Lamb, subsequently foretokened in the Feast of the Passover. Abel made a similar offering—of the firstlings of his flock; "and the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering."^[3]

But Abel's elder brother, Cain, who also had been taught the Law of Sacrifice, took it upon himself to deviate from the course marked out. Instead of a lamb, he "brought of the fruit of the ground"—an offering in no way symbolical of the Savior. His offering was rejected;^[4] for "the ordinances must be kept in the very way God has appointed."^[5]

The Gospel Introduced.—The way was now prepared for the introduction of the great redemptive scheme that was to lift fallen man and open to him the opportunities for endless increase and progression. Instead of preaching "another gospel," or inventing some new form of ordinance, as the misguided Cain might have done, Adam adhered to the Gospel in its purity, carrying out to the letter the instructions God had given. He, by his own voice, commanded Adam to believe, to repent, and to be baptized; and, as it is written: "He was caught away by the Spirit of the Lord, and was carried down into the water, and was laid under the water, and was brought forth out of the water;" after which the Spirit descended upon him, "and he heard a voice out of heaven, saying: Thou art baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost."^[6]

"And thus the Gospel began to be preached from the beginning, being declared by holy angels sent forth from the presence of God, and by his own voice, and by the gift of the Holy Ghost. And thus all things were confirmed unto Adam by an holy ordinance, and the Gospel preached, and a decree sent forth that it should be in the world until the end thereof."^[7]

Seeming Differences Reconciled.—Apropos of that ancient decree, I was once asked to reconcile the statement concerning it with the idea of a new dispensation. The question came to me in this form: "If the Gospel was to be 'in the world' from Adam's time 'until the end,' what was the need of restoring it—bringing it back again?"

I answered, in substance: "The two propositions do not really contradict each other. The Gospel has been in the world from Adam's day until now, by a series of dispensations, reaching through the entire range of human history. The gaps between, so wide to us, count for little with Deity, to whom past, present and future are one.^[8] The finite mind is prone to take short and narrow views of things, tangling itself up in little quibbling details that often give a great deal of trouble. But the Eternal sweeps the whole universe with infinite gaze, and what seem mountains to men are less than mole-hills in His sight. He has found it necessary, at different times, to withdraw the Gospel and the Priesthood from the midst of mankind; and yet, by repeated restorations, forming a continuous chain of dispensations, he has kept the Gospel and the Priesthood in the world from the beginning down to the present."^[9]

Seth Succeeds Abel.—Abel fell a martyr to the Truth. Slain by his envious brother^[10], he was succeeded by Seth, another brother, born subsequently. Seth was typical of the Son of God, not only because he was "a perfect man," but because "his likeness was the express likeness of his father's, insomuch that he seemed to be like unto his father in all things, and could be distinguished from him only by his age."^[11]

Adam-ondi-Ahman.—Says Joseph the Seer: "I saw Adam in the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman. He called together his children and blessed them with a patriarchal blessing."^[12] The vision was of course retrospective, having reference to the time when Adam dwelt on earth. The same event is more fully set forth as follows: "Three years previous to the death of Adam, he called Seth Enos Cainan Mahalaleel Jared Enoch and Methuselah, who were all High Priests, with the residue of his posterity who were righteous, into the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman, and there bestowed upon them his last blessing.

"And the Lord appeared unto them, and they rose up and blessed Adam, and called him Michael, the Prince, the Archangel.

"And the Lord administered comfort unto Adam, and said unto him, I have set thee to be at the head—a multitude of nations shall come of thee, and thou art a prince over them forever.

"And Adam stood up in the midst of the congregation, and notwithstanding he was bowed down with age, being full of the Holy Ghost, predicted whatsoever should befall his posterity unto the latest generation."^[13]

Ancient of Days.—But Adam is to come again—is to come as the Ancient of Days, fulfilling the prophecy of Daniel.^[14] And he will come to the very place where, bowed with the weight of more than nine centuries,^[15] he blessed his posterity before the ending of his earthy career. In the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman^[16] will sit the Ancient of Days, counseling his children—all who are worthy of that high privilege—and preparing them for the coming of the Son of God.

A Close Relationship.—I have said that the Gospel dispensations are inter-related. It need only be added that the mighty patriarchal blessing—the mightiest ever given—in which Father Adam forecast the history of the human race, taken in connection with his prospective advent into the midst of his righteous descendants, upon the precise spot where he bestowed his farewell benediction and uttered his wonderful world-covering prophecy, indicates a very close relationship between the First and the Final dispensations of the Gospel.

Footnotes

1. Hist. Ch. Vol 4, pp. 208, 209. In this connection we are told that Adam's son Abel holds "the keys of his dispensation;" that is to say, of the First Dispensation, the one in which Abel figured (D. and C. 84:16). And yet it is called the Adamic Dispensation, for Adam also figured therein.2. Moses 5:4-8.3. Gen. 4:4.4. Ib. 4:5; Heb. 11:4.5. Hist. Ch. Vol. 4, pp. 208, 209.6. Moses 6:64-66.7. Ib. 5:58,59.8. Alma 40:8.9. It might also be argued that in the spirit World, which is a part of the planet that we inhabit, the Gospel has been preached for ages; so that the dead or the departed might have opportunity to embrace it (I Peter 4:6). And the withdrawal of the Gospel from this temporal sphere would not necessarily involve its withdrawal from that spiritual sphere. Thus, the divine edict, that the Gospel "should be in the world until the end thereof," receives additional vindication.10. Gen. 4:8.11. D. and C. 107:43.12. Hist. Ch. Vol. 3, p.388.13. D. and C. 107:53-56.14. Dan. 7:9, 13, 22; Hist. Ch. Vol. 3, p. 386.15. Gen. 5:5.16. D. and C. 116.