A Scofield Reference Bible places the biblical text and a particular interpretation of it on the same page. Before I answer whether that Bible can be trusted, we need to distinguish the Scripture from the notes. I receive the biblical text as God’s Word. Scofield’s explanations have to be examined, including the ones I agree with.
The Bible Text and Scofield’s Notes Are Not the Same Thing
A reference Bible supplies tools to help us read: introductions, headings, maps, timelines, definitions, and cross-references. Scofield added an extensive system of connected references and annotations to the King James Version. In the classic editions, he was explaining the KJV text, not writing a new translation. His chronology and theological summaries belong to that editorial material.
Cyrus Ingerson Scofield was a pastor, teacher, and editor who promoted a dispensational interpretation of Scripture. Oxford University Press first published his reference Bible in 1909, and he revised it for the 1917 “New and Improved” edition. The publisher describes that development in its account of the 1917 edition’s centenary. By putting a connected explanation of the Bible within one volume, Scofield made his teaching accessible to readers who did not own a theological library. His approach became influential in English-speaking churches and Bible institutes.
We also need to identify the edition being discussed. The 1909 and 1917 editions are not identical, and the New Scofield Reference Bible of 1967 was prepared long after Scofield’s death. Its editor, E. Schuyler English, described the committee’s work in his contemporary introduction to the revision. Later editors changed some annotations, so a criticism of a particular 1917 note should not automatically be applied to every later edition. Here I am chiefly examining the classic 1917 notes.
Scofield’s influence explains why these notes deserve attention; it does not give them apostolic authority. Nor do allegations about secret sponsors, finances, or private motives tell us whether an annotation accurately explains a verse. His published teaching is available to examine. We can read his actual argument, check the passages he uses, and judge whether the conclusion follows.
Paul told Timothy where the authority for teaching and correction belongs:
But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Scripture is breathed out by God. It teaches us what is true, exposes our errors, corrects our conduct, and equips us to serve Him. It can make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Paul attributes those qualities to the sacred writings themselves, which are sufficient to equip God’s people without Scofield’s system. No annotation becomes inspired or inerrant because a publisher places it beneath them.
I have to submit my own teaching to that correction as well. An Unforsaken study, a sermon, and a systematic theology all contain human explanations that must answer to Scripture. We should read the words in their ordinary grammatical sense, consider the historical setting and surrounding argument, and compare them with the rest of the Bible. Our study on How to Study the Bible develops that approach. A reliable explanation helps us understand the passage well enough to examine the explanation.
Dispensations Must Never Divide the One Gospel
The word dispensation translates the Greek oikonomia, which refers to a stewardship or administration. A steward was responsible for managing what had been entrusted to him. Paul uses the word in Ephesians 1:10 concerning God’s administration in the fullness of the times, and in Ephesians 3 concerning the stewardship of grace entrusted to him for the Gentiles.
Dispensationalism describes an approach to Scripture that recognizes different administrations in God’s unfolding plan. It generally maintains a distinction between Israel and the church and expects God’s promises to Israel to receive their promised fulfillment. I agree that those distinctions have biblical grounds. Adam’s responsibilities in Eden were different from Israel’s covenant obligations at Sinai, and Israel’s temple sacrifices were different from the commission Christ gave His church. We cannot understand a command properly while ignoring whom God addressed and the circumstances in which He gave it.
Scofield organized biblical history into seven dispensations: Innocency, Conscience, Human Government, Promise, Law, Grace, and the future Kingdom. His definition in the note on Genesis 1:28 emphasizes a period in which people are tested concerning their obedience to a particular revelation of God’s will. That outline recognizes real changes in human responsibility, but Scripture does not present all seven labels together as an outline we must adopt. The number, names, and precise boundaries involve interpretation.
The danger comes when those divisions suggest that God tried one method of salvation, watched it fail, and then introduced another. God was never learning through unsuccessful experiments. He knew humanity’s sin and revealed His saving purpose through history. Paul explains why even God’s holy law could not justify a sinner:
Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.
The law identifies our sin and leaves us guilty before God. Justification means that God declares the believer righteous; it is received through faith in Jesus Christ, without earning it by keeping the law. Paul grounds that declaration in Christ’s redemption through His blood. The passage’s word propitiation concerns His atoning sacrifice, through which God deals righteously with sin and grants forgiveness. Our confidence rests in what Christ accomplished.
Scofield’s wording needs careful examination here. In his 1917 note on John 1:17, he describes legal obedience as a condition of salvation belonging to an earlier testing, then contrasts it with accepting or rejecting Christ. I reject any reading of that statement that makes obedience to the Mosaic law an actual way sinners could be justified. Yet in his note on Romans 4:2, Scofield explains Abraham’s justification by faith apart from works, with works supplying visible evidence of faith. We should acknowledge that explanation rather than claim that everything he wrote taught salvation by works before Christ. His sharp wording in John still needs correction by the argument Paul makes about Abraham.
Abraham was counted righteous before Sinai, and David later described the blessing of righteousness credited apart from works. Neither man was saved through a different gospel. Paul also explains in Hebrews that animal blood could never remove sins. Those sacrifices anticipated Christ’s once-for-all offering. Old Testament believers trusted the revelation God had given them without knowing every future detail that we can now read. Their salvation, like ours, depended on God’s grace and Christ’s blood. In Galatians 3, Paul makes Abraham the example of that faith:
just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.” Yet the law is not of faith, but “the man who does them shall live by them.” Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
I understand Paul’s statement that Christ became a curse for us to refer to His bearing the public shame and bodily suffering of crucifixion, inflicted by wicked people. The Father did not curse His Son. Christ willingly gave Himself to redeem us, and the promised Spirit is received through faith.
As the promised Seed, Christ brings the blessing God promised Abraham before the Mosaic law. The law exposed transgressions and the need for redemption; it could not cancel that promise or impart life.
At Sinai, God gave His commandments to a nation He had already delivered from Egypt. The law governed Israel’s covenant life, condemned disobedience, and pointed to the need for Christ. Giving it did not mean that God had stopped being gracious or withdrawn His promise to Abraham. I therefore cannot accept a boundary between Promise and Law that implies the earlier promise was abandoned, or a boundary between Law and Grace that implies grace had previously been absent.
Christians are not under the Mosaic covenant, but we are under Christ’s authority. His grace teaches us to reject lawlessness and live in obedient love. Obedience follows salvation as the conduct of people whom God has made new; it does not earn salvation or keep us saved through our own performance.
Israel, the Church, and the Prophetic Future
The same need for careful distinctions arises when we consider Israel and the church. Paul describes what God revealed concerning Jewish and Gentile believers:
For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles– if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power. To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.
The mystery revealed to Paul concerns Gentiles becoming fellow heirs and members of the same body through the gospel. A biblical mystery is a truth God has now made known that was previously hidden. Jewish and Gentile believers belong to one church, formed as Christ’s body through Spirit baptism. They share the same Savior, receive the same salvation, and approach the Father through Him.
Gentiles do not become ethnic Israelites when they believe, and Jewish believers do not lose their ancestry. Israel remains the nation descended from Abraham through Isaac and Jacob. Its covenant promises include a future national fulfillment. I agree with Scofield that the church’s present blessings do not cancel that future or transfer every promise about Israel’s land to the church.
Replacement theology is often used for the view that the church has taken Israel’s place so completely that no distinct national fulfillment remains for Israel. People use the term somewhat differently, so we should examine what someone actually teaches. I reject the conclusion that Israel’s promised national future has been exhausted in the church. But distinguishing Israel from the church must not become a permanent spiritual separation between Jewish and Gentile believers, as though God were saving two unrelated peoples through separate gospels. In Romans 11, Paul addresses Israel’s unbelief and the Gentiles’ place in blessing:
I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness! For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.” Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.” Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
Paul’s olive tree illustrates the blessing Gentiles share through faith. They are grafted among the natural branches and draw from the richness of the same root. They have no grounds for boasting over Jewish people, because the root supports them. Unbelief explains why branches were broken off, and God is able to graft them in again when they do not continue in unbelief.
Paul also looks ahead to Israel’s turning to the Lord. Its present hardening is partial, and God’s gifts and calling are irrevocable. The natural branches remain identifiable in his explanation; they have not disappeared into a new ethnic definition of Israel. His warning concerns the Gentiles’ place in covenant blessing and rebukes the assumption that they can boast over Israel while disregarding God. Being among people who enjoy that privilege does not itself establish personal salvation. Paul is not describing God reversing the new birth of a genuine believer.
God promised Abraham descendants, blessing, and a particular land. The prophets connect Israel’s future renewal with restoration to that land, righteous Davidic rule, and knowledge of the Lord. Davidic rule means the reign of the promised King from David’s line, fulfilled in the Messiah. The New Covenant was promised to the house of Israel and the house of Judah, while the church already shares its saving blessings through Christ. Gentile believers receive Abrahamic blessing without becoming tribes to which we can reassign the geographic boundaries in Genesis.
This expectation gives us no reason to approve every policy of the present state of Israel. Nor should we identify its present condition with the completed messianic kingdom. Scripture promises a future in which Israel is spiritually renewed and its King rules righteously. Christ will also gather His church to Himself. Paul explains that promise to believers grieving the deaths of fellow Christians:
But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Christians who have died will not miss His coming. The Lord Himself will descend, the dead in Christ will rise, and living believers will be caught up together with them to meet Him. This is a bodily resurrection and an actual gathering to the Lord, after which we will always be with Him.
The precise timing requires more than this paragraph alone. In 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul distinguishes believers as children of light and says God has not appointed us to wrath. I read those assurances together with Daniel’s seventieth week, the final seven-year period in the prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27, as well as Jesus’ teaching about the Tribulation and the judgments described in Revelation. On that wider biblical basis, I understand the church’s gathering to occur before a literal seven-year Tribulation. Our study on The Rapture explains those connections more fully.
Scofield helped spread this understanding, but his name cannot supply its proof. We need to explain the relevant passages and acknowledge which conclusions depend on comparing them. Paul’s promise is meant to comfort believers and encourage readiness, holiness, and faithful service. It supplies no date for Christ’s return.
Revelation 19 describes Christ’s bodily return, and chapter 20 follows with His reign:
Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while. And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.
The repeated thousand years give the length of this coming reign, during which Satan is bound and the saints reign with Christ. I understand this as a literal millennium on earth. It fits the prophets’ expectation of Israel’s restoration, the Messiah’s righteous government, and the nations brought under His rule. I agree with Scofield’s expectation of that kingdom. Each detail of his prophetic outline still has to be established from the passage that addresses it.
Where Scofield’s Notes Conflict With Scripture
My agreement with Scofield about Israel and the coming kingdom does not extend to his explanation of creation. We can compare his notes with the opening verses of Genesis:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
The 1917 notes on Genesis 1 place the first creative act in a dateless past that allows for geologic ages. Scofield then interprets the earth’s condition in verse 2 as the result of a catastrophic divine judgment, with a suggested connection to the fall of angels. His explanation of the earth bringing forth vegetation treats it as recovery following an earlier catastrophe.
This is usually called the gap theory: an uncounted period is placed between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, containing an earlier world and its ruin. Much of the six-day account is then read as restoration. But Genesis does not describe a previous inhabited world, its judgment, or Satan’s fall between those verses. It says the earth “was without form, and void.” The Hebrew construction describes the earth’s initial condition; the context does not require us to change “was” into “became” and supply an unrecorded catastrophe.
The six days explain how God formed and filled the world He created. He later gave Israel a weekly pattern based on that work:
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
God includes heaven, earth, the sea, and everything in them within His six days of work. Israel was to work six ordinary days and rest on the seventh because He had done so. I understand that explanation to exclude geologic ages in a created world before the first day. The Bible’s creation week describes six actual days, not a restoration whose earlier ages must be supplied from outside the passage.
Someone may accept a gap while rejecting biological evolution. I am not accusing every advocate of believing that human beings evolved from animals. My objection is to the proposed gap itself: the events assigned to it are absent from the account. The related study on The Age of the Earth examines the chronology more closely.
Scofield appeals to Jeremiah’s use of the same language as evidence for an earlier judgment in Genesis. Jeremiah does describe a judgment, but we need to identify which one:
I beheld the earth, and indeed it was without form, and void; And the heavens, they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and indeed they trembled, And all the hills moved back and forth. I beheld, and indeed there was no man, And all the birds of the heavens had fled. I beheld, and indeed the fruitful land was a wilderness, And all its cities were broken down At the presence of the LORD, By His fierce anger. For thus says the LORD: “The whole land shall be desolate; Yet I will not make a full end. For this shall the earth mourn, And the heavens above be black, Because I have spoken. I have purposed and will not relent, Nor will I turn back from it.
Jeremiah 4 concerns the disaster approaching Judah and Jerusalem. The prophet depicts its severity by reversing the imagery of creation: light disappears, mountains tremble, birds flee, and fruitful land becomes a wilderness. Cities are broken down before the Lord’s anger. The surrounding chapter identifies the people being warned and the invasion they face.
Jeremiah’s use of “without form, and void” does not turn that prophecy into a report of events before Adam. Similar language can establish a shared image without identifying a shared event. Scofield’s cross-reference draws our attention to a verbal connection, but the context does not support the prehistoric judgment he places in Genesis.
I also disagree with the way his dispensational division affects the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew introduces it by telling us whom Jesus addressed:
And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
In his 1917 note on Matthew 5:2, Scofield treats the sermon as the constitution of the future earthly kingdom. He says its primary application does not give the church its privileges or duties, which he locates in the Epistles. He then expressly acknowledges moral application for Christians and says that the Spirit produces the character it describes. It would therefore misrepresent him to claim that he denied every Christian application.
Even with that qualification, I cannot accept the division he draws. Jesus spoke directly to His disciples, describing their character and responsibility as the salt of the earth and the light of the world. He addressed the heart, exposing the inadequacy of outward religious performance. His teaching carries the authority of the King for the people who follow Him.
Some instructions reflect Israel’s circumstances before the cross, so we must consider their covenant setting. Christians do not return to the Mosaic covenant merely because Jesus discussed its requirements. Yet the need to understand that setting does not remove the church’s obligation to hear and obey its Lord. After His resurrection, He commissioned the apostles this way:
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
The apostles were to make disciples among all nations, baptize them, and teach them to obey everything Jesus had commanded. His promised presence extends to the end of the age. I cannot reconcile that commission with accepting a command of Jesus for the church only when an Epistle repeats it. The Epistles explain His completed work and direct the church’s life; they do not replace the Master’s teaching.
We still have to determine how a command applies. Instructions about sacrifices, for example, require us to understand their fulfillment in Christ rather than resume animal offerings. But Paul calls all Scripture profitable for our instruction. A dispensational distinction should help us explain a passage’s place and application, without allowing us to dismiss it before we have listened to it.
How I Would Use a Scofield Reference Bible
I would begin by reading the whole biblical passage before consulting the notes. Once I understand who is speaking, whom he addresses, and how the paragraph develops, I can judge whether an annotation explains it accurately. Otherwise, I may unknowingly read Scofield’s conclusion into the verse and then cite the verse as proof of that conclusion.
His linked references can be useful for tracing covenants, sacrifice, resurrection, the kingdom, and prophecy across different books. But each reference needs to be read in its own setting. Jeremiah 4 and Genesis 1 illustrate how a real verbal connection can be pressed into an unsupported conclusion. Likewise, a promise to Israel may illuminate the hope Christians share without changing the people to whom the land was promised. One mistaken connection can carry the same assumption through twenty pages of references.
When a note seems persuasive, read the passages that could challenge it as well as those offered in its support. We can accept an accurate explanation, leave an unresolved question open, and reject a mistaken conclusion within the same volume. Scofield’s error about a gap in Genesis does not decide every question about prophecy. His correct expectation of Israel’s future does not make that gap biblical.
If the notes keep becoming difficult to distinguish from Scripture, a text-only Bible may help with primary reading. Every study Bible presents an interpretation, and changing editions will not relieve us of the responsibility to examine it. The aim is to become a more careful reader of God’s Word.
The Bible’s covenants, sacrifices, and promises lead us to Jesus Christ and direct our hope to His coming kingdom. He is the eternal Son, fully God, who became fully man. Born of a virgin, He lived without sin and willingly gave His innocent body for our sins. Wicked men tortured Him and put Him to death, inflicting the bodily punishment He bore. The Father did not punish, curse, abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on Jesus.
Through His voluntarily shed blood and death, Christ completed His saving work before His bodily resurrection. He was buried and rose bodily, and He will return. He died for the whole world, and God’s offer is genuine to every person, although people can resist and reject it. Everyone who repents and believes is forgiven and justified, receiving new birth from God. The Holy Spirit indwells and seals the believer, who is eternally secure in Christ. A Christian label does not establish that someone has been born again, and eternal security grants no permission for lawlessness.
My Final Thoughts
I can use a Scofield Reference Bible while allowing Scripture to correct its notes. I agree with its expectation of Israel’s future and Christ’s earthly kingdom, reject its gap theory, and oppose any division that suggests different ways of salvation or sets aside Jesus’ commands to His disciples. Those judgments have to stand on the biblical passages themselves. A helpful note leaves us better able to understand what God has said and respond to Him faithfully.