Seven Cycles of Grace

     Throughout biblical times there were many covenants but they were all essentially the Adamic Covenant with the promise of an Edenic Covenant... a return to Paradise.
     Of course, before the fall of Adam and Eve, there was still a covenant - The Edenic Covenant, often called "The Covenant of Innocence." That covenant was formulated with the generation of mankind. What theologians call "regeneration" is not conversion, but glorification. Glorification is a return to complete innocence and perfection; a return to the image of God.  Perhaps "regeneration" pertaining to conversion is the Calvinism showing in theologians! That event is "Spiritual Enlightenment" which Jesus called "born again" (John 3:7). Regeneration is a return to the condition existing at the time before sin... back to the generation when mankind was innocent.
     The Adamic Covenant was the "Covenant of Grace." The mystery of God is that the Covenant was always the Covenant of Grace no matter what theologians call it. The Covenant of Grace is that regeneration was for all people of all times and was because of the grace of the Word... Jesus Christ. Those in the Old Testament will be glorified because they saw the redeeming death of Jesus from afar and in the future, whereas those after the crucifixion from the testimony of eye-witnesses. Abraham saw Jesus crucified in his mind's eye just as I do this moment!
     The Abrahamic Covenant was a rewording of the Adamic Covenant because the Edenic Covenant had already been violated. There were essentially two parts to the Edenic Covenant:

1. You may not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil or you will die, and 
2. You may eat of any of the other trees.

     Those "trees" were doctrines in addition to real trees. Disobedience would result in death; that is the death of the living soul. Obedience to those ordinances implied life; that the eternal soul would continue eternally living.
     The centerpiece of the other "trees" was the Tree of Life. That "Tree" represents Jesus. They could eat of "The Jesus Tree" for it was the "bread of life." All they had to do was to "dress and keep" The Jesus Tree and the ones like unto it... the other trees which represented other living souls which were to come!
     "Dress and keep" could have been translated, "serve and preserve."  Serving and preserving Jesus and our "neighbors" are the Greatest Commandment and the one like unto it. That's what Jesus was talking about! "Serving and preserving" are how Christians are to exhibit love. "The Ten Words" (Commandments) are Jesus's Words on how to accomplish the Covenant of Grace. Thus, the Mosaic Covenant is metricizing the Adamic and Abrahamic Covenants.
     God never changed covenants to suit the times ("Economy" in theological terms.) He just reworded them even more clearly each time to make them understandable so people were without excuse.
    The Adamic Covenant is given in Genesis 3:16-19, but let's focus on the following verse:

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. (Gen 3:15).

    That verse is the promise for keeping the Adamic Covenant which followed. I'm not going to explain it word for word for I wrote an entire book on that one verse, The Skull of Adam. Essentially, that verse means that sin and Satan would be stepped on by Jesus thousands of years later at Golgotha - the place of Adam's skull. Tradition has it that Adam is buried beneath Calvary and Jesus death bruised Adam's head. Adam of course represents sin and Satan. Metaphorically, it was Satan's (symbolized by Judas Iscariot) who died when Jesus was crucified because Jesus still lives today! Satan was vicariously crucified and knows of his own doom which is coming!
     Throughout the time of the judges in Israel, there were seven cycles of grace: apostasy, oppression, supplication, and deliverance. "Seven" is a holy number. In the time of judges, there were only seven cycles before God delivered a king. (Keep in mind that the first king could have represented Saul for King David is representative of Jesus.) Jesus had grace in those days seven times covering forty-years each.  Now read what Jesus said about forgiveness:

Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. (Mat 18:21:23)

     Jesus (God) had shown grace to the Israelites in seven cycles of disobedience and forgiveness. Now Peter wondered how many times that he should forgive, and Jesus made plain that seven times was just a start. It would be seventy times seven. Perhaps, the time of the judges were indicative of 40 x 7 = 280 years, and to the end, seventy times that or 19,600 years. In other words, be prepared to forgive until I return!  That is not to say that the end will come in those years, but prophecy indicates that it will be around 6000 years from creating before Jesus "rests" on the "seventh day" which may be the thousand-year reign when Jesus comes back. In other words, Jesus's grace and Covenant of Grace is until the King comes to reign just as after the period if the judges. That period represents the judgment for the disobedience of God's people up until King Jesus comes to reign.
     How many cycles of grace? Not seven, but seventy times that... 490 cycles of grace! The reign of judges were overlapping and some judges ruled at the same time. The Covenant of Grace would cycle 490 times from the Adamic Covenant until King Jesus comes again to snatch up those dead in Christ as well as living Christians. The present cycle seems to have commenced with the Great Awakening in the 1700s, or perhaps with the second "awakening" around 1802. Those were times of  forgiveness. We are now in a time of disobedience. Has another cycle started? Will this be the last cycle?
     Like it or not, disobedience in the time of judges was a result of the false Canaanite gods. God commanded that the Canaanites be destroyed, and the Israelites disobeyed. Those people live until this day and are a thorn to Jews and Christians. God knew and forewarned of Islam, and they failed to heed the warning. In the present cycle, the disobedience of the judges is the reason for calamity in the present times. The Canaanites still haunt Jews and Christians with their false god Allah.
     Islam has caused calamity in the world in cycles. Christianity and Judaism has suffered near extinction several times by Islam resurrecting the Beast Judas. He is, I believe, their Isa (Jesus). With their attempt for a global caliphate today, will it be the last cycle? I believe Jesus will come soon, and am prepared to meet him in the sky, although it may be my children or grandchildren.