Cyrus Ingerson Scofield

“ First John is a family letter from the Father to His "little children" who are in the world. With the possible exception of the Song, it is the most intimate of the inspired writings. The world is viewed as without. The sin of a believer is treated as a child's offence against his Father, and is dealt with as a family matter (1 John 1:9; 2:1) . The moral government of the universe is not in question. The child's sin as an offence against the law had been met in the Cross, and "Jesus Christ the righteous" is now his "Advocate with the Father." ”

“ But as all redemption is unto a relationship with God of which worship, fellowship, and service are expressions, so Exodus, in the giving of the law and the provisions of sacrifice and priesthood, becomes not only the book of redemption, but also, in type, of the conditions upon which all relationships with God exist. ”

“ The tendency to idolatry seems to have been destroyed by the Jews' experience and observation of it during the captivity. Deprived of temple and priest, and of the possibility of continuing a ceremonial worship, the Jewish people were thrown back upon that which was fundamental in their faith, the revelation of God as One, the Creator, to be conceived of as having made man in His own image, and therefore as having such analogies to the nature and life of man as to be comprehensible by man, while remaining the Eternal Spirit, God. ”

“ By disobedience man came to a personal and experimental knowledge of good and evil--of good as obedience, of evil as disobedience to the known will of God. Through that knowledge conscience awoke. Expelled from Eden and placed under the second, or ADAMIC COVENANT, man was responsible to do all known good, to abstain from all known evil, and to approach God through sacrifice. The result of this second testing of man is stated in Genesis 6:5 and the dispensation ended in the judgment of the Flood. ”

“ Under the law of the kingdom, for example, no one may hope for forgiveness who has not first forgiven. Matthew 6:12,14,15. Under grace the Christian is exhorted to forgive because he is already forgiven. Ephesians 4:30-32. (2) But there is a beautiful moral application to the Christian. It always remains true that the poor in spirit, rather than the proud, are blessed, and those who mourn because of their sins, and who are meek in the consciousness of them, will hunger and thirst after righteousness, and hungering, will be filled. The merciful are "blessed," the pure in heart do "see God." ”

“ This is the central N.T. passage on prayer. In the Sermon on the Mount Christ had announced the new basis of prayer, viz.: relationship Matthew 6:9,28-32. The believer is a child of God through the new birth. (See Scofield "John 3:3") . The clear revelation of this fact at once establishes the reasonableness of prayer; a reasonableness against which the argument from the apparent uniformity of natural law shatters itself. God is more than a Creator, bringing a universe into being, and establishing laws for it; more than a decree- maker determining future events by an eternal fiat. ”

“ The theme of Galatians is the vindication of the Gospel of the grace of God from any admixture of law-conditions, which qualify or destroy its character of pure grace.
The Galatian error had two forms, both of which are refuted. The first is the teaching that obedience to the law is mingled with faith as the ground of the sinner's justification; the second, that the justified believer is made perfect by keeping the law. ”

“ The wilderness was part of the necessary discipline of the redeemed people, but not the years of wandering. The latter were due wholly to the unbelief of the people at Kadesh-barnea. The Red Sea, Marah, Elim, Sinai, were God's ways, in development and discipline, and have, of necessity, their counterpart in Christian experience. The Red Sea speaks of the cross as that which--death to Christ but life for us--separates us from Egypt, the world Galatians 6:14 Marah of God's power to turn untoward things into blessings; Elim of God's power to give rest and refreshment by the way ”

“ The essence of faith consists in receiving what God has revealed, and may be defined as that trust in the God of the Scriptures and in Jesus Christ whom He hath sent, which receives Him as Saviour and Lord, and impels to loving obedience and good works John 1:12; James 2:14-26. The particular uses of faith give rise to its secondary definitions:
(1) For salvation, faith is personal trust, apart from meritorious works, in the Lord Jesus Christ, as delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification Romans 4:5,23-25. ”

“ A Christ in the flesh, King of the Jews, could be no proper object of faith to the Gentiles, though the Jews should have believed on Him as such. For Gentiles the corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die; Christ must be lifted up on the cross and believed in as a sacrifice for sin, as seed of Abraham, not David John 12:24,32 ”