Claim. The 2000 years from Abraham to Jesus constituted the formation-stage of the resurrection providence. God’s instrument was the Mosaic Law; the human portion was to believe in and practice it; the justification mode was justification by works. Believers who fulfilled this portion became form spirits (see dp-three-stages-of-spirit-form-life-divine) and entered the form-spirit level of the spirit-world at death.
Elaboration. Per 2.2.2. The Providence of Formation-Stage Resurrection: “During the two thousand years from Abraham to Jesus, God worked to raise people to the formation stage of resurrection… God gave the Law of the Old Testament. By believing in and practicing it, the people could fulfill their responsibility and be justified before God. Therefore, this era has been called the age of justification by works.”
The age’s spirit-ceiling: form-spirit. No pre-Christ believer, however righteous, could reach life-spirit or divine-spirit — not because they were unworthy but because the merit of the age had not yet opened the higher ceilings. “Those who achieved the level of form spirits while on earth entered and abided in the form-spirit level of the spirit world.”
Two structural consequences:
- These OT spirits would later need returning resurrection (see dp-growth-stage-returning-resurrection-of-old-testament-spirits) — descending to NT-age believers to receive the life-spirit elevation alongside them.
- DP frames Paul’s “justification by faith” not as universal-timeless but as the NT-age mode that supersedes the OT-age’s “justification by works” — both are age-relative justification modes within a larger three-mode (works / faith / attendance) historical sequence.
This is DP’s reframing of Reformation soteriology: the works/faith dichotomy is dispensational, not absolute. Sola fide is the right answer for the NT age — not for the OT age, and not for the Completed Testament age.
See also. dp-growth-stage-new-testament-age-justification-by-faith-life-spirit, dp-history-is-providence-of-restoration-through-indemnity