The Scofield Reference Bible
claims to give us a summary, an arrangement, a condensing of the mass of Biblical
writings of the previous half century. It thereby became responsible, on the
basis of its own words, to recognize the Spirit’s testimony to assembly truth
during that time. Or, are we to understand that this is one of the
"expository novelties, and merely personal views and
interpretations," which, it is frankly stated, "have been
rejected"? (See "Introduction," paragraph II.)

 

I will now tell you how I regard
this effort, in the light of what God had done in the 19th century.

 

I understand that, when the
"brethren" began bearing their testimony, even the simple Gospel was
very little known; the state of things in Christendom was dead indeed. As the
testimony spread, it came to be recognized that if anyone wished the truth he
must go where it was ministered, which was where "brethren" were
speaking. Further, it was understood that the truth ministered called for
action, and that this action separated souls from the world, from the camp, but
chiefly to Christ. These doctrines were everywhere resisted by leaders of
various sects, so that quite a literature developed, pro and con. The movement,
being of God however, spread in spite of men’s opposition.

 

Eventually, a change of tactics
came in. Some portions from letters of J. N. Darby, written in 1874 and 1875
from Boston and New York on what was, I think, his last of several trips to
America, will make clear what this change was. I quote from "Letters"
Vol. 2, page 365, written from Boston, Sept. 27, 1874:

 

"The state of the churches is
scandalous indeed; pious souls groan, but where are instruments to be found to
guide them in the good way? God has raised up a few—several ministers even have
left their systems—but it is a drop of water in the wide sea, and there is a
great effort to keep souls in the various systems while taking advantage of the
light which brethren have and preaching their doctrines. They do not even
conceal it. One of the most active, who has visited Europe, told ministers that
they could not keep up with the brethren unless they read their books, but he
was doing everything he could to prevent souls leaving their various systems
called churches. It is a new wile of the enemy."

 

Page 370, New York, 1874:
"The difficulty is that a diligent effort has been made to disseminate the
truths we have been taught so that people should have them, and not act on
them—remain where they are. Eminent ministers preach the Lord’s coming, the
ruin of the church, liberty of ministry, and avowedly from brethren’s books,
and stay where they are, and there is a general deadening of conscience."

 

Page 371:"After all, they
spoil the truths where they do not act on them."

 

Page 408:New York, Apr. 8,
1875:"Others, who still cling to the professing church with partial
apprehensions of truth and much error, make their boast that it can be had
without leaving the systems around us—nay, sometimes openly urging continuance
in them:but it is felt that brethren have what others have not." From the
above quotations you will see what the change was, to which I referred. Instead
of united opposition to the truths newly proclaimed, many of those truths were
now held and taught by denominational men; but the truths were divorced from
the path and presented so as to prevent souls from taking the position those
truths call for.

 

The consequence of this, if
successful, would simply be the destruction of the corporate testimony produced
by the truths, and so the disappearance of separation truth from the earth;
while various local bodies in the systems of men, plus independent gatherings
here and there, would be identified with certain truths, without the truth that
gathers souls to Christ scripturally.

 

Now in our day, that which had
begun to appear in 1874 has become the accepted point of view in certain sections
of Christendom. "Take all the truth the brethren have, but beware of the
brethren," is the formula that one hears of again and again. Is it
difficult to see that the Scofield Reference Bible fits right into that plan?
To have the truths, but so as not to act on them—"remain where they
are"; this was the idea. Do not the Scofield "helps" promote
exactly that tendency? Do not the Editors exemplify it?

 

The immediate outcome of this
was "a general deadening of conscience." Does the Scofield Reference
Edition promote the deliverance of souls from the systems? Do we find persons
coming to us saying, "I have been studying the helps in the Scofield
Bible; I can no longer remain in sects, or among independents; I must get where
unity of assemblies is maintained, where association with evil is recognized as
defiling, where the discipline of one assembly is binding upon all, where the
rights of Christ and the Spirit in the assembly are owned"? Do we?

 

Instead, we find many who only
recently were in this or that modernistic realm, who have become dissatisfied
with it and now have the Scofield "helps" and the general line of
things that go along with that nowadays (fundamentalism, etc.) who stop there,
refusing to even entertain the considerations which put "brethren"
where they were and which maintain whatever is now according to God. In the
esteem of Mr. Darby, this preaching of the same doctrines as brethren, and yet
holding souls in the systems, was "a new wile of the enemy." And he
was a man who weighed his words.

 

"I value the Scofield Bible
for the excellent things it sets forth," someone may say. Yes, I value
each of those excellent things, too. But I lament that the Scofield Bible
should have claimed to set forth a complete line of truth, and then discriminated
(without notice, too, so far as I can see,) against all that precious line of
assembly truth which is so vital to the present walk of the saints. I love the
truth which it will not give us, as well as that which it gives. It grieves me
to realize that many think they have it all, while that is left out.

 

I am sure that God would not
deprive His people of this line of truth, and also that it is now the very
special time when God has called attention to it. If God, then, would give the
saints assembly truth, and the Scofield Bible, while assuring its readers that
it gives them a complete treatment, omits that and offers substitutes, I leave
it to you to draw your own conclusion.

 

That this should be done in the
very atmosphere where so many precious truths do receive satisfactory treatment
within the contemplated scope of the effort, makes it the more glaring, once
attention is called to it; at the same time it is the better concealed from one
who does not know that this test ought to be applied. I do not know of any
truths set forth in the Scofield "helps," which are not found in the
writings of those who walked in the path of the Word. We are not therefore
dependent upon this Reference Edition for these truths. And how many passages
are found to yield most precious teachings, once the truth of the assembly is
allowed, which teachings could not possibly find any place in the realm of
confusion with which the producers of the Scofield "helps" were
ecclesiastically identified.

 

"Assembly truth" has
made the Bible a new Book to me, precious as it was before. To think of God’s
people stopping with the mixture involved in the Scofield position, deeply
pains me. We dare not read any more into that which Mr. Scofield says, than the
ecclesiastical position with which he associated himself permits. The same is
true of his colleagues.

 

It may be handy to have all this
material in one volume, etc. But they, the Editors, did not acknowledge
Scriptural assembly order; hence nothing in their notes is intended to apply to
that.

 

(To be continued.)