Discussing the Scofield Bible, The Old Covenant and the New Covenant, and Israel

I have been conversing with a Christian friend of mine, one who does not support Israel, who believes that the current state should not exist. He also adheres to "replacement theology," which suggests that God has abandoned the Jews and now only works with Christians.

Here was the first question that I posed to him:

Hey -----!

The Scofield Bible is getting some massive excoriation at this time [on social media].

I have never read that version, since I am not interested in any version of the Bible which has someone else's comments or ideas embedded into it.

Your reasons for being vocally opposed to the Scofield, and what are the errors which it teaches? -- Please share when you have time.

Here are the responses that I received:

It altered who all Christians believed - for nearly 2,000 years - that NT Israel was. His Bible was bankrolled by the biggest Zionists in America....to swing millions of Christians into their political camp. Palestinian Christians and non-violent Muslims have paid a huge price. World peace has been altered. And due to this poor theology we treat Israel different then all other nations, in desperate need of the Gospel of the Messiah. Send me your personal email address again Arthur. I will send you a two-page short Bible study and a theological reading list that has impacted a lot of other dispensationalists.

Here is the second message I received:

Arthur:

 I fear your hermeneutical view of Scripture starts with your support of a political entity lost, apart from Jesus Christ.  The Zionist Jews of Israel are not being threatened from others.  Their hatred of the Triune God makes themselves their greatest enemy.  They have the highest tax-payer funded abortion rate in the world.  Tel Aviv is the homosexual capital of the world.  (Ask the Jewish psychologist who used to practice in San Francisco until they ran him out….and who called to thank me for burning those transgender library books.)  And they just vaccinated 61% of their population with the deadly mNRA full of spike proteins.  And they are brutally cruel to their neighbors, whom the Zionists in charge see as goyim or cattle.  God is dealing with Israel for rejecting the Messiah.  May we one day see them return to Christ, via Romans 11.  But not through more nuclear bombs and American aid.

 See my attached piece I use to ‘lit-drop’ dispensational churches in the region and my reading list.  Those who adhere to the erroneous ‘end times’ doctrine have done such harm to take Christians off the battle field.  Such harm!

And see the Meme, I produced.  The best Reformed Covenantal (we never use the word ‘Replacement’….that was made up by dispensationalists) theologians came from former pro-Israel dispensational backgrounds.  They stopped reading the Scofield margin notes and started reading the Bible.  Some of the best people sounding the warning against Zionists are Karaite Jewish Rabbis.  I appreciate them and think they could be good neighbors.

 BTW, does ‘Schaper’ have any Jewish roots to it?

Here is my first response, and extensive set of remarks to contrast with what he had shared with me:

Hey P-----!

You've made a number of great responses to me regarding this issue.

I want to make it very clear that I recognize that there is no salvation apart from Jesus Christ. I do not suggest that people can be saved apart from believing in his perfect sacrifice of the cross. Amen!

The notion however that God has cut off Jews from his loving power is just not true. He wants them to believe, and he continues to reach out to them just as he reaches out to us. He does have a special covenant with them, as he established not just in Genesis chapter 12, but has been affirmed in other passages as well throughout the old and new testaments.

Consider these passages:

"19And the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah, saying, 20Thus saith the LORD; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; 21Then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers. 22As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me." (Jeremiah 33:19-22)

And

"Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God." Hosea 1:10

 I did not accept this replacement theology. The fact is that we are blessed with believing Abraham, every person who believes in Jesus Christ. This is available to everyone, including the Jewish people. God has not cut off his covenant with them. However, because they insist on staying under the old covenant, they endure the old covenant curses. That is why, for example, they were dispersed throughout the world in AD 70.

Consider these passages, too:

"Because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus."( John 12:11)

 During Jesus earthly ministry, many Jews ended up believing in him! If he had cut them off, they would have never believed in him.

Ask for today, or in our current times, Many Jews don't even believe in God, right now, because of a great blindness due to seeing Moses and not Jesus:

"13And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: 14But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. 15But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. 16Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away." (2  Corinthians 3, versus 13 through 16)

 Regarding the rebirth of Israel as a nation:

"Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children." (Isaiah 66:8)

And

"But, The LORD liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land." (Jeremiah 23:8)

And

"Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together: a great company shall return thither." (Jeremiah 31:8)

 I wish to affirm that everything that I've shared with you is from The Bible, specifically the King James version. I have not drawn any inspiration or insight from the so-called Scofield bible. In fact I've never even read that version. I agree that nobody should settle for a version of The Bible that is replete with passages, messages and notes from someone else. The Holy Spirit reveals Jesus to us in the scriptures. We don't need to keep running to Other people to do that for us.

 My starting point is not a nation state. My starting point is Jesus Christ! My starting point is that Jesus will fufill the old covenant, and enacted a new covenant.

My last name is not a Jewish last name. I find it interesting that you're bringing up ethnic backgrounds. That's very strange. Truth has nothing to do with one's ethnic status or ancestry.

My second response:

Believe me, I am well aware of the hostility that rabbis and secular Jews have towards Christianity. That hostility is quite rampant among Muslims and other secular groups as well, so it doesn't make a lot of sense just to target Jews regarding this issue.

As we speak, especially in spite of covid 19, an incredible Christian messianic Jewish ministry has been sharing the gospel with Jews throughout Israel, and more of them are believing in Jesus!

https://www.oneforisrael.org/

I then followed up with this question:

Another question, P---:

Do you believe that christians today are still bound to try to keep the 10 commandments?

Here were the final responses that I wrote to him:

Hey P---:

I am responding now to your points about Under Law vs. Under Grace.

That is two different things.

Being under law (as to justification) where the answer is No; 

AGREED!

 opposed to we are expected to keep them (as to sanctification), where the answer is Yes.

If that is the case, then how do you respond to Paul's own words in these Epistles (these are not comments from Paul Scofield)?

"Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." (Romans 7:4)

And

"But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." (Romans 7:6)

And also:

13And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 14Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; 15And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

The passage about "handwriting of ordinances" is the Law, and it has been rendered inoperative against us because Jesus fulfilled the Law.

I agree that the WORLD needs to the Ten Commandments. We need to post the Ten Commandments in every courthouse. But for us who are believers in Christ, who have received the adoption of children. We are taught by His GRACE!

"11For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, 12Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; 13Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; 14Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." (Titus 2:11-14)

Again, Jesus fulfilled the Law. He declared as much in the Sermon on the Mount:

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." (Matthew 5:17)

Since He fulfilled the law, why would we try to keep it?

How do you respond to these statements from Paul, after receiving incredible revelation from The Lord?

"Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." (Romans 3:19)

and

"Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:" (Romans 5:20)

and

"23But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. 24Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." (Galatians 3:23-25)

Based on the revelation which Paul shares in the Epistle to the Romans, for example, the law is not a standard to live by, but rather a standard which condemns us and shows us our need for a Savior. Do you agree with what Paul writes, or do you read this differently?

Your point about holiness, sanctification is well noted. How do we become holy?

"But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:" (1 Corinthians 1:30)

and

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Christ is our sanctification, not the Law, as Paul declares to the Corinthian Church. The more that we see Him in the Word, the more that His Holy Spirit transforms us from glory to glory. AMEN.

I wanted to share these remarks with you, as well, following your statement about Old Covenant v. New Covenant. You have helped me to understand why there is such a harsh opposition to Israel and Jews. If Christians do not enter fully in the Grace of God, but attempt to go with mixture (grace and law), then inevitably they will persecute those who recognize that we no longer keep the law (Christians like me) or Jews, who do not (yet) believe in Jesus.

Thanks for your time, P---.

Take care!