MUSELTOF COUNTERCULT AND APOLOGETICS
WITNESS TO THE WORD
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QUESTION:
"According to my Scofield Reference Bible, Israel remains the
wife of Jehovah and is only temporarily put aside and Christ's
work with the Church is separate from that. I have been taught
differently to this. Can you explain?" F.C.
California.
ANSWER
The Scofield Reference Bible was the standard work which
originally popularised J. Darby's Dispensationalism ;
however, even many who loosely hold to some form of
dispensationalism are now distancing themselves from it. The book
comprises a King James Version Bible but with Scofield's noted
added at the bottom of the pages. But these notes are often in
error and this dubious 'reference work' has lost the respect
which it once enjoyed. My questioner picked the following quote
out of his version of the Scofield Reference:
'..Israel is the wife of Jehovah, now disowned but yet to be
restored, is the clear teaching of the passages. (the writer
refers to Hosea 2:16-23) This relationship is not to be
confounded with that of the church to Christ. In the mystery of
the divine tri-unity both are true. The New Testament speaks of
the church as a virgin espoused to one husband (2 Corinthians
11:1,2), which never could be said of an adulterous wife restored
in grace. Israel is, then, to be restored and forgiven wife of
Jehovah, the church the virgin wife of the Lamb. Israel,
Jehovah's earthly wife(Hosea 2:23); the church the Lamb's
heavenly bride (Revelation 19:7).'
(Scofield, page 922).
Truthfully this passage shows somewhat alarming confusion for one
who has written a 'Reference Bible'. I am simply going to quote
the answer to the very same quote which H.C. Heffren D.D.
picked up about twenty-five years ago in his great little volume,
Thine is the Kingdom:
'The above description given by the Scofield R.B. footnotes
reveals a complete misunderstanding of the true Bible explanation
of the situation, and it is also a very alarming misconception of
the relation within the Godhead that the Father could have an
adulterous wife on earth called Israel, and at the same time the
Son have a chaste wife called the church. The mystery is very
easily corrected by the first four verses in Romans 7, as
follows: "Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know
the law) how that the law hath dominion over over a man as long
as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the
law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be
dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then, if,
while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she
shall be called an adulteress, but if her husband be dead, she is
free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be
married to another man. 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."
Paul used this analogy to emphasize and illustrate both the
legality and the finality of our relationship to Israel and the
Law, and the termination of the earthly kingdom of Israel. In
Romans 7, he compares the law covenant with the marriage
covenant. A woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as
he lives. When he dies she is legally free to marry another
without incurring guilt or wrong doing. This, Paul says,
corresponds to our relationship to the law covenant. As long as
the law was in effect, it was valid and binding upon its subjects
(Romans 7:4).
It is as clear as words can make anything that the Law and its
relationship to Israel is compared to the death of a husband, and
the wife which in this case is the church, is free to marry
another. So consequently the teaching is that the woman in this
case, the church, is free to be married to Christ who is the
Groom and the church is the Bride, and by this union to bring
forth fruit for God.
(Thine is the Kingdom , Heffren, pages 97-98, Gospel
Contact Press, Alberta, 1981).
Heffren summarizes the problem of Scofield's view superbly, but I
would just add that to split the affinities and direction of the
Father and Son the way Scofield does is virtually tantamount to a
teaching of two Gods!
This seems to be a clear example of perverting the natural use of
Scripture in order to accommodate a theory which is extra
to that Scripture. Theologians call this the practise of
eisegesis - that is, to put things into the
Scriptures, rather than exegesis - which means to draw
understanding out of the Scriptures.
Museltof
2003
UK
APOLOGETICS
MUSELTOF COUNTERCULT AND APOLOGETICS
WITNESS
TO THE WORD
(Hundreds of links to Apologetics/Theology/Christian Living
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