"ONE SINNER"

CYRUS INGERSON SCOFIELD AND THE DOWNFALL OF FUNDAMENTALISM

Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroyeth much good.

Ecclesiastes 9: 18

For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you,
not sparing the flock.

Acts 20: 29

For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the
circumcision:
Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things
which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.

Titus 1: 10 - 11

"When I get rich I am going to have 3 homes one in a winter apartment on

Washington Heights, N. Y. City, one at Crestwood, one at Sorrento, Italy. I shall
then have duplicates - triplicates of everything in the way of belongings which I
especially value works of reference for serious studies; my favorite books,
prints &c. I shall live in N. Y., Nov. - February; Sorrente, March - May; Crestwood,
June - October. In N. Y. I shall have a large lecture room in the Carnegie Institute,
&hold forth to all & sundry who may come for biblical instruction say 3
afternoons & 3 evenings in the week. At Sorrento & Crestwood I shall write books
un peu but mostly loaf and invite my soul."i

- C. I. Scofield

INTRODUCTION: SCOFIELD'S CONTEXT AND "CONTRIBUTION"

atan was having a tough go of it. The year was 1908, and revival was in full swing under the
ministry of Jonathan Goforth in China. Only a few years before, in 1904, the great Welsh
revival had broken out and the Prince of Darkness was still losing both souls and influence in
the United Kingdom as a result. The year before that, in the United States, the great Baptist
preacher, Mordecai Ham had seen 150 professions of faith following his first service in Texas
and 30 professions of faith at the First Baptist Church of New Orleans. But upon his return to New
Orleans in 1908, 3,000 had publically professed Christ as their Saviour. And then there was that Billy
Sunday fellow with his city-wide crusades, always closing down the saloons and taverns and making
sober Christians out of old drunks and harlots....

Something had to be done, and Satan knew just the man for the job. His faithful servant and trusted
lieutenant, Cyrus Ingerson Scofield, had infiltrated Fundamentalism and was out to make his fortune on
the credulity of well-meaning Christians who were easily blown about with every wind of doctrine.
Satan had already prepared the way for him through the influence of Darwin's Evolution, Darby's
Dispensationalism and the Critical Text of Westcott and Hort. Now it was up to Scofield to package the
three together and sell the whole thing to Christianity.

And Scofield delivered. His deeply-corrupted and highly-deceptive Reference Bible first appeared for
public consumption in 1909, signaling the end of the great revivals and crusades in the Western World.
Indebted to this widely-popular Reference Bible for their newfound "insight" into the secret counsels of
the Most High and the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, Fundamentalists and Evangelicals decided that
"you don't polish brass on a sinking ship", that the "Church Age" would "end in failure", and so it wasn't
worth trying anyhow. Hands were thrown up in concession to Satan as Western Christians whined and
complained about living in "perilous times" (for Heaven's sakes, the government might take away our
tax exempt status!) and turned their attention to deciding whether Henry Kissinger or Bill Clinton was
the Antichrist, making movies and writing books about the Rapture and the "Seven-Year Tribulation
Period" and "helping" God keep his "unconditional promises" to the rising Israeli socialist regime in
Palestine that denied the Virgin Birth, the Impeccability of Christ, the Blood Atonement, the Bodily
Resurrection, and the Second Coming of Christ and purposefully suppressed the spread of the Christian
faith. Satan hadn't won a more sweeping victory since Pope Stephen II claimed temporal sovereignty for
the Papal Office during the eighth century!

Chalk one up to Old Nick for the Scofield Reference Bible. This masterpiece of Satanic subtlety had won
three important victories for him all at once. First, it had softened Christians to the Critical Text of
Westcott and Hort, which, until that point, had been largely rejected by Baptists and Protestants.

Second, it helped bridge the "Gap" (pun intended) between Evolutionists and conservative Christians by
advocating an Old Earth view that harmonized with Darwinian thought while at the same time paving
the way for a renewed Pelagianism by undermining the Scriptural teaching of the Federal Headship of
Adam. Third, it imposed or added onto the Scriptures the definitive apparatus invented by Darby known
as Dispensationalism, thereby subjecting Biblical truth to a number of a priori assumptions which
substituted eisegesis for exegesis. Consequent to the third, it completely emasculated Fundamentalism
and robbed it of the grandiose vision and enormous power that it had previously demonstrated by
substituting the defeatist view of Dispensationalism for the clear promises of victory for the Church that
had so energized and sustained believers in the many centuries before Darby and Scofield. To these, it
may be added that Scofield's own immorality in relationship to his first wife set a precedent for divorce
and remarriage that would be repeated afterwards by Fundamentalists and "Bible-believers" ranging
from Jack Hyles to Peter Ruckman.

I. SCOFIELD AND THE CRITICAL TEXT

It is to C. I Scofield, rather than either Westcott or Hort, that we must look in order to identify the
prevailing influence behind the explosion of modern English Bible versions. For although Scofield
himself did not translate any new version of Scripture, he successfully popularized the Minority Text
manuscripts upon which the modern versions of Scripture are founded by insinuating within his
footnotes a definite sense that the King James Bible was actually deficient and that Christians really
didn't have an accurate copy of God's Word after all. It is irrefutable that in the footnotes of his
Reference Bible, Scofield generated a growing sense of dissatisfaction with the King James Bible by his
very specific statements referring to the superiority of Codices Aleph, A, B, C and D, the so-called "oldest
and best manuscripts".

It must be remembered that when the Scofield Reference Bible was first published, the Revised Version
and its underlying Greek text had already been in circulation for almost three decades. But up until that
time, they had never caught on with the general audience of English-speaking Christianity, at least not in
any way that rivaled the influence of the Authorized Version. Something else was needed. Someone
had to sell it. Someone had to make the case for the Critical Text to the broader English-speaking public
in such a way that English-speaking Christians would warm up to modern versions on a larger scale. And
Scofield did exactly that in the footnotes of his Reference Bible with his statements about the "oldest
and best manuscripts". Christians didn't buy his Bible with thoughts of switching versions. But after
several decades of reading his footnotes and imbibing his insinuations of textual inferiority, they were
ready to do just that. When the New International Version hit the market in 1973, it found an audience
that was ready to replace the Authorized King James Bible with something new. Scofield hadn't edited
the Critical Text. He had simply popularized it for the general public.

II. SCOFIELD AND CREATIONISM

Scofield's assault on Biblical Creationism came within the first verses of Genesis. Commenting upon
verse two, Scofield wrote:

"the first creative act refers to the dateless past and gives scope for all the geologic ages.ii

This is an out-and-out concession to Darwinism, a public admission by a reputed and influential

"Fundamentalist" leader, a so-called "defender of the faith" held in great admiration around the world,
that Charles Darwin was correct and that the historic and orthodox view of a literal six-day Creation
through the direct and Sovereign creative power of Almighty God was nothing more than a silly
superstition entertained by simple-minded literalists naive enough to take the first chapter of Genesis at
face value. With Fundamentalists like Scofield, who needs liberals?

To the casual Christian of modern Fundamentalist or Evangelical persuasion who sees little value for
sound doctrine so long as "souls are being saved", the significance of this concession is lost. It is,
however, not something to be dismissed casually. In Romans and in I Corinthians, the Apostle Paul,
writing by inspiration of the Holy Ghost, draws attention to the doctrinal principle that death entered
the world through Adam as Federal Head of the human race. According to the Pauline view of
Anthropology, Hamartology and Soteriology, the defiant act of Adam in which he ate of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil introduced death into the world, marred Creation universally, and brought
death to the entirety of the human race.iii

The importance of this is explained by him in terms of representative authority. The fact that one man's
sin could condemn the entire human race made it equally possible that one man's obedience could save
all that believed upon him. Romans 5: 18 - 21 states it like this:

"Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the
righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.
For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be
made righteous.

Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much
more abound:
That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by
Jesus Christ our Lord.

And I Corinthians 15 puts it in the simplest of terms:

"For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."

In other words, if we accept the proposition of Scofield that Darwinism is correct or that a Gap existed in
which death occurred in Creation before Adam, then the inspired statements of Paul in Romans 5 and I
Corinthians 15 are fallacious and our Bible cannot be relied upon as a Divine Revelation from an
infallible God. Additionally, the representative principle of Adam's Federal Headship is destroyed,
undermining the applicability of its counterpart, the Federal Headship of Christ, the doctrine that one
perfectly obedient man could shed his blood and die for the sins of those that would believe upon him
as their legal representative before God. It then goes without saying that the bodily resurrection of
Christ, for which the Apostle Paul was contending in I Corinthians 15, is also inapplicable, and the entire
Christian faith is consequently void and invalid. So we are left with a choice: will we abandon the
doctrine of the Federal Headship of Christ, the blood atonement and the bodily resurrection or will we
do what Fundamentalists ought to have done in 1909 and flush Scofield's heretical and Satanic notes
down the toilet?

III. SCOFIELD AND COVENANTALISM

We have just seen that Scofield's notes undermine the doctrine of the New Covenant of Christ's blood.
But it ought to be noted that this is a pervasive problem rather than one that might be overlooked by
simply moving on to the next chapter of Genesis. Scofield's whole system, derived from the Plymouth
Brethren heresiarch, John Nelson Darby, completely subverts the Biblical principle that God deals with
man through Covenants and that a Covenantal relationship through faith in Christ as our Federal Head is
the only way to possess everlasting life.iv According to Scofield and Darby, God deals with man through
"Dispensations", rather than through Covenants.

In order to understand the Satanic nature of this switch, it is necessary to understand Scofield's
definition of a "Dispensation". Scofield's famous definition of a "Dispensation" is as follows:

"A dispensation is a period of time during which man is tested in respect of obedience to some specific
revelation of the will of God. Seven such dispensations are distinguished in Scripture."v

It may be asked in the face of this definition with what Scriptural warrant Scofield defines a Dispensation
as a time period. What Scriptural support does Scofield offer for this statement? Of course the answer
is that there is no Scriptural support for it. Nowhere does the Bible equate a Dispensation with a time
period. In Scripture, a Dispensation is simply a stewardship such as the stewardship or "dispensation of
the gospel" that the Apostle Paul was entrusted with.vi That's why out of the four times that the word is
used in Scripture, we never read of the "Dispensation of Innocence", the "Dispensation of Human
Government", the "Dispensation of Promise" or the "Dispensation of Law" that Scofield advocated.
These "dispensations" are not time periods, they are stewardships! As such, they coexist simultaneously
throughout human history! Was Adam Innocent? Yes, but he also had dominion as a Human Ruler over
the earth,vii a Law that he violated,viii a Promise of a coming Seed and Grace to be forgiven of his sin!ix
Did Noah have authority as a Human Government leader over mankind? Yes, but also he had the work
of the Law written upon his heart,x a Promise from God for assurancexi and Grace amidst a world of
iniquity.xii Did Abraham have a Promise from God? Yes, but simultaneously he had the work of the Law
written upon his heart,xiii interacted with Human Governments,xiv and had Grace to be forgiven though
he lied and had an affair with Hagar.xv Did David live under the Law of God? Yes, but he simultaneously
served as head of a Human Government,xvi had a Promise of a Messianic Sonxvii and Grace to be forgiven
of his sins of covetousness, adultery and murder.xviii Did the Apostle Paul have Grace after a life of
persecuting the Church of God? Yes, but he also acknowledged the believer's responsibility to submit to
Human Government,xix shared wonderful Promises with God's peoplexx and considered himself to be
"under the law to Christ".xxi

Beloved, can you not see the deception of Darby, Scofield and the Scofield Reference Bible? They have
depicted these various principles as being successive throughout the stages of human history, when the
Bible never utters a single syllable to that effect, but instead reveals them as operating simultaneously.
This is rightly rebuked as the wicked and abominable sin of adding to God's Word, making Scripture say
something that it never stated. This sin, of which Fundamentalists and Evangelicals have never
repented, has reduced them to the same level as the Muslims, the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses
or the Seventh Day Adventists who also add their own extra-biblical teachings to the Word of God. It
may be argued that it is not as extreme, but that's not the point. It violates the same principle: no one
has the right to add one jot or one tittle to the revelation of Scripture. Not even John Nelson Darby or C
I Scofield.

But worse than that, Scofield's Dispensational footnotes misdirect the reader away from the Covenants
that Scripture speaks of 280 different times and the condition of men and women under the respective
Covenants. Human Government, Promise, Law and Kingdom are all important, but no one is saved upon
those principles alone and God is not dealing with mankind in such vague terms as that. Even now, God
is not dealing with humanity merely in terms of Grace, but in specific terms of his relationship to the Last
Adam,xxii the Lord Jesus Christxxiii and the "blood of the everlasting covenant"xxiv No one now or at any
other period of human history has received Grace apart from that precious Covenantal blood. Until such
time as a sinner understands the vital need for forgiveness through the shed "blood of the everlasting
covenant"xxv, the substitutionary death and bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Last
Adam,xxvi he or she remains under the condemnation of the Law, the Old Covenant and is condemned by
that Law as "guilty before God".xxvii

Do you see how specific all of this is? It leaves no room for the unclear and deceptive terminology that
has permeated the vocabulary of the modern church and the modern Christian. Lost people are not
saved merely by having an ambiguous "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" that can mean almost
anything, but by a Covenantal relationship with Jesus Christ established upon the Covenantal blood that
he shed upon the cross of Calvary for the forgiveness of their sins. The Church is not called upon today
to take up an unqualified message of unspecified "Grace" that makes people comfortable but has no
context or meaning. It is called upon to take up a message of specific Grace available to sinners
condemned by the Old Covenant, the Covenant of Works, the Law of God, through the shed "blood of
the everlasting covenant".xxviii There is no room in Biblical Covenantalism for the cheap, easy "Gospel"
passed off today by televangelists such as Joel Osteen which has been increasingly finding its way into
Fundamentalist pulpits since the days of Jack Hyles. But under the misleading fog of Dispensationalist
terminology, these perversions of the Gospel have made their nests in churches around the world,
Fundamentalist, Evangelical and "Bible-believer" alike.

IV. SCOFIELD AND CONQUEST

The Scofield Reference Bible views the Church as a defeated institution. For Scofield, the "Church Age"
would end in failure.xxix Christians shouldn't waste time polishing brass on a sinking ship, but should get
ready for the Great Escape from earthly persecution and tribulation represented by the Rapture. Bereft
of the New Testaments promises of victory for the Church and the child of God, the gloomy, woeful
Dispensationalist is left with a queer theology that can only sing

"From victory unto failure his army shall he test,

'Till truth gives way to error, and whimpers home to rest."

But the Word of God says something very different about the Church and the New Testament believer.
Consider just a few of these wonderful Scriptural promises and compare them with the utter unbelief
and humanistic rationalism manifested in the Dispensationalism of the Scofield Reference Bible:

"He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with
rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." (Psalm 126: 6)

"What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that
spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give
us all things?.... Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved
us." (Romans 8: 31, 32, 37)

"Thanks be unto God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of
the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord." (I Corinthians 15: 57)

"Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest
the savour of his knowledge by us in every place." (II Corinthians 2: 14)

"For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh
the world, even our faith.
Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" (I John
5: 4 - 5)

"And I say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates
of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16: 18)

"And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." (Romans 16: 20)

The Word of God is so clear on this point that nothing remains to be said except that Scofield and his
predecessor Darby are not only guilty of adding to the Word of God what it does not say, but guilty of
stripping the Word of God of the wonderful things that it does say! In light of these encouraging
promises of Scripture, we can identify Dispensationalism as nothing less than pure and outright rebellion
against God derived from "an evil heart of unbelief"xxx and a willful intent to set man with his humanistic

rationalism upon the throne that belongs exclusively to God the Holy Spirit as the true Illuminator of
Scripture.xxxi The rebellious, unbelieving, humanistic rationalism of Dispensational theology has grieved
the Holy Ghost and emasculated Fundamentalism, robbing it of the grandiose vision and power that
marked its early beginnings.

CONCLUSION
"With God nothing shall be impossible."xxxii God can revive and restore Fundamentalism to a position of
sound doctrine once again. He can revive and restore Evangelicalism in the same way. He can even
transform that hotbed of heresy, the "Bible-believer's" movement into a bastion of sound, Biblical
orthodoxy.
But there is the aspect of human responsibility to be considered. Fundamentalists, Evangelicals and
"Bible-believers" have a responsibility to repent of their doctrinal heresy, their wicked sin of wresting
the Scriptures, of adding to God's Word and of robbing others of the truth and the promises freely
offered in the Bible. Dear Dispensationalist friend, why don't you repent, right now, right where you're
sitting? Why don't you confess your sin and ask God to forgive you through the precious "blood of the
everlasting covenant"?xxxiii Then why don't you get up and go throw your Dispensationalist literature in
the garbage? Let's reclaim what has been stolen from by Satan and his servant Scofield. Then we can
sing together in faith,

"Stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross;

Lift high His royal banner, it must not suffer loss.
From victory unto victory His army shall He lead,
Till every foe is vanquished, and Christ is Lord indeed."

Joseph M Canfield, The Incredible Scofield and His Book http://www.scribd.com/doc/54737546/The-IncredibleScofield-and-His-Book (accessed 21 May 2014).
ii
Ibid.
iii
Romans 5: 12 - 21; 8: 22 - 23; I Corinthians 15: 21 - 22, 45 - 49 KJV.
iv
John 3: 14 - 18; I John 5: 11 - 12 KJV.
v
Ministry https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/1945/03/dispensationalism-and-the-scofield-bible (accessed
21 May 2014).
vi
I Corinthians 9: 17; Ephesians 3: 2; Colossians 1: 25 KJV.
vii
Genesis 1: 28 KJV.
viii
Genesis 2: 15 - 16 KJV.
ix
Genesis 3: 15 KJV.
x
Romans 2: 14 - 15 KJV.
xi
Genesis 9: 12 - 17 KJV.
xii
Genesis 6: 8 KJV.
xiii
Romans 2: 14 - 15 KJV.
xiv
Genesis 12: 18 - 20; 14: 14 - 24; 20: 9 - 14 KJV.
xv
Genesis 12: 1 0 - 13; 16: 1 - 4; 20: 1 - 2 KJV.
xvi
II Samuel 2: 4; 5: 3 KJV
xvii
II Samuel 7: 5 - 17 KJV
xviii
II Samuel 12: 7 - 13 KJV.
xix
Romans 13: 1 KJV.
xx
Romans 16: 20 KJV.
xxi
I Corinthians 9: 20 - 21 KJV.
xxii
I Corinthians 15: 45 KJV.
xxiii
John 3: 14 - 18; Acts 4: 12; I John 5: 11 - 12 KJV.
xxiv
Hebrews 13: 20 - 21 KJV.
xxv
Ibid.
xxvi
I Corinthians 15: 45 KJV.
xxvii
Deuteronomy 9: 9, 11, 15; Romans 3: 19 - 20 KJV
xxviii
Hebrews 13: 20 - 21 KJV.
xxix
Theopedia http://www.theopedia.com/Dispensationalism (accessed 21 May 2014).
xxx
Hebrews 3: 12 KJV.
xxxi
John 16: 13; I Corinthians 2: 10 - 16; I John 2: 26 - 29 KJV.
xxxii
Luke 1: 37 KJV.
xxxiii
Hebrews 3: 12 KJV.