Founders of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Part 2

 

In the study of Scripture and future things, perhaps no theory gets more publicity and believers than the pre-tribulation rapture theory, which says the rapture of Christians to heaven will occur before the disastrous tribulation (spoken of in Revelation 6 and Matthew 24-25).  But I believe this view  (also called the “pretrib” view) to be faulty, and have laid forth a chronology in three blogs elsewhere in this website. You can also read my relevant bio of John Darby (last week’s blog), who, as a founder of the pre-trib theory, was a false prophet. The post-trib view, also shared by many scholars, is not as popular, because it has Christians enduring persecution and death in the tribulation.  But it has the advantage of being based solely on Scripture, as I have lots of verses backing it up.

Their pre-trib view has fascinating books and a movie (“Left Behind”) backing it up.  They also have their Scriptural backup, which are shaky. But one way to decide is to take a good look at their main founders, C.I. Scofield and John Darby. They lack any credibility, as we saw in Mr. Darby last week—and we’ll see today, as we look at Mr. Scofield.

Even modern believers of the pre-trib idea admit its weakness.  The Christian college that churns out the most pre-trib pastors is Dallas Theological Seminary.  One of its presidents, John Walvoord, wrote over 30 books, many celebrating this view of end-time events.  The only problem is, Walvoord, revered as the academic patriarch of pre-trib, is quoted as saying:  “There is no passage (of Scripture) that expressly teaches the pre-tribulation rapture.”  Attempts to do so, as he said, are “strained.”  Walvoord tried hard to paint the early church fathers pre-tribulationists, too—but he failed, as most objective scholars agree.  Most of the early church fathers (before the Catholics ruled) were post-tribulational (see last week’s blog for clarification).  A modern scholar, Dr. John MacArthur, says the only way you conclude pre-trib is, it’s “between the lines.”  So, in a black-and-white printed Bible, the pre-trib view is….in the white! Where there’s no print. Saying this, he’s really saying, “I don’t have the proper proof, but this is my opinion.”  But you can hardly make doctrine out of people’s speculations and opinions, but that’s what happened. Popularity really decided it, not Scripture.

It doesn’t help that another one of their believers, Edgar Whisenant, predicted the rapture would occur in 1988, sometime between Sept. 11 and Sept. 13. He published two books about this, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988 and On Borrowed Time. Eventually, 300,000 copies of 88 Reasons were mailed free of charge to ministers across America, and 4.5 million copies were sold in bookstores and elsewhere. Whisenant was quoted as saying "Only if the Bible is in error am I wrong; and I say that to every preacher in town" and "[I]f there were a king in this country and I could gamble with my life, I would stake my life on Rosh Hashana 1988."  Well, it’s a good thing he didn’t bet.  He was clearly deceived—and wrong, since there was no rapture in his life (he died in 2001).  (H e also predicted the rapture on three other, different, years, but everyone lost interest).

So I would like to take the time to go back to the idea’s founders.  Last week it was John Darby.  This week we look at C.I. Scofield.  You will find their biographies  stimulating, to say the least.

It is well known that Cyrus Ingerson Scofield (1843-1921) was instrumental in bringing the dispensationalist theology to the world through his Scofield Reference Bible, first published in 1909.  To quote Wikipedia:

“It was largely through the influence of Scofield's notes that dispensationalism grew in influence among fundamentalist Christians in the United States. Scofield's notes on the Book of Revelation are a major source for the various timetables, judgments, and plagues elaborated on by popular religious writers such as Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye; and in part because of the success of the Scofield Reference Bible, twentieth-century American fundamentalists placed greater stress on eschatological speculation…”

Scofield was really a Bible commentator--surprising, though, since he never had a theological degree.  That did not stop him from the audacity of placing his notes right among the pages of Scripture—a new idea at the time—for his Scofield Reference Bible.  The arrogance was breathtaking, but that’s not all.

I would not trust a Bible commentator that had a long series of questionable events in his past—would you?  Carrying on with other women while still married, for example.  Along with several other crimes.  What about the fact that his hijinks continued after he was allegedly saved, publicly?  And here’s one:  though he never had a theological degree, he claimed to be Doctor of Divinity.  Let’s look at all the proof.

Scofield claimed he was a lawyer.  But there was no record of any law degree or passing any bar exam.  He was apprenticed as a lawyer, but as you will see below, too many obstacles prevented his becoming a lawyer. A newspaper hounded him, which was a good thing, considering this was the Bible, God's Word, after all.

So, unfortunately, we have to start with an alias that he used frequently--a sure indication of a con man.

The November 29, 1877 edition of the Milwaukee Daily Sentinel reported that:

"A fellow named Charles Ingerson, who for 2 weeks past boarded at the Metropolitan Hotel, is under arrest for vagrancy. The fellow pretended to be the owner of a 1,300 acre plantation near Mobile and was paving the way to a union with a fair daughter of the South side, when his career here was suddenly brought to a close by the landlord of the hotel, Mr. Sam D. Maynard, who cared more to save the lady than to call him to account for the amount of the board-bill."

The same newspaper on December 4, 1877 followed up on this developing story, saying, "Ingerson, arrested on a charge of vagrancy by the landlord of the Metropolitan Hotel, is to be set free. His affianced settled his board-bill and the course of true love will again run smooth."

On December 17, 1877 we read further: "The fellow Ingerson, who talked freely of his large cotton plantation away down South, is again under arrest for vagrancy. He wheedled his affianced into paying his board-bill at the Metropolitan Hotel and has since managed to exhaust her pin-money and the loose change of a number of South Siders."

Luckily for "Ingerson," the local reporters did not find out that he was already married, having a wife and two daughters who were living in Atchison, Kansas. They would have killed a few trees with the print that would result.

We hear yet more of "Ingerson" from the October 3, 1878, issue of the paper, which was still off slightly on his real name that they had found out:

"Cyrus Schofield [sic] alias Chas. Ingerson, who has been hanging around here since the first of July, and who figured conspicuously at the Metropolitan Hotel in Milwaukee a year ago, was arrested here [Horicon, Wisconsin] Tuesday morning on a charge of forgery, dispatches having been received by Deputy Sheriff A. E. Hart from parties in St. Louis to hold Mr. Schofield until an officer should arrive to take him in charge. Mr. Hart lodged the gentleman in our county jail, where he awaits the arrival of the Chief of Police of St. Louis."

All of this is significant, because many years later, Scofield, who eventually became famous as a Congregationalist preacher and editor of the Scofield Reference Bible, also made the claim that he had maintained a successful law practice in St. Louis during the very same period of time that he was experiencing all these problems with the law in Wisconsin.

How could Scofield have maintained a large law practice in St. Louis in this period, if he spent most of that time either in Wisconsin or in jail?

Wikipedia’s comments include that he was a “self-confessed” heavy drinker, and his dirty tricks included, most spectacularly, his time period helping a Kansas Senator, Ingalls, around 1873.  Mr. Ingalls was forced to fire him the same year he hired him because Scofield accepted bribes, stole political contributions intended for Ingalls, and forged signatures on bank promissory notes.  The last of those charges earned him jail time--again.

By now, some of my patient readers may be thinking, "What do we care about his background, as long as Scofield was saved in 1879?" and, "It is unfair to bring up offenses committed by Scofield before he was saved."  Well, fact was, he returned from Milwaukee to St. Louis around the end of 1877, and then left St. Louis in the late summer of 1878 to avoid a forgery charge. He was returned to St. Louis on October 8, 1878, and spent much of the following year in jail, until his case was finally dismissed in November, 1879.  But we have further: let’s see if his ‘salvation’ made a difference:

Scofield's conversion to Christianity is variously claimed to the year 1879 or 1880. He testified that he was saved through the witness of one of his “law clients,” Thomas McPheeters. Scofield's biographer Charles Trumbull states that McPheeters witnessed to Scofield and won him to the Lord in Scofield's law office. BUT efforts have been made to locate that office without success.

To add to the confusion, there are other stories of how Scofield was converted. A story that appeared in the Atchison, Kansas Patriot, and the Topeka, Kansas Daily Capitol, in 1881 stated that Scofield, having spent 6 months in jail in St. Louis, was converted while in jail. (I thought it was in his law office with a client?) But his ways did not change, even if that story is true; after his release from jail, he began a courtship with a Christian woman, alleging that he was now divorced from his wife in Kansas (which was not true - they were still married until 1883).

More to the story:

As of 1899, Scofield still owed a lot of people in Atchison, Kansas, a lot of money which he had not yet paid back. This was noted in an article in the Kansas City Journal on December 28, 1899. Scofield had attracted the notice of the paper by officiating at the funeral of the famous evangelist D.L. Moody.

Jean Rushing, of East Tenness State University, in her unpublished biography of Scofield, notes:

"Atchison residents still sought restitution from Scofield after he became a clergyman, the paper reported. 'When approached by his Kansas creditors, Parson Scofield declared that he is poor and unable to pay.' Perhaps what Rev. Scofield owed in Atchison, Kansas, far exceeded his income sources--but  if he didn’t take 7 months’ vacation abroad, he might have made some headway in paying the debts."

Most fundamental churches today would expel such a scoundrel from the membership. They certainly would not make such a man into an almost infallible source of Christian doctrine, and yet that is exactly what modern dispensationalists have made out of Scofield.

What about Scofield's marriage? When he got saved, surely he returned to the wife and children he had abandoned in Kansas, and took up his proper role as husband and provider, like a Christian man should. Right? Wrong!

David Lutzweiler, in his Scofield biography, In Praise of Folly, notes that:

"Leontine Scofield, the wife, had drawn up that first pleading for divorce. The papers were filed on December 9, [1881] charging that her husband had 'absented himself from his said wife and children, and had not been with them but abandoned them with the intention of not returning to them again.' The divorce was final in December 1883.

Scofield's followers have made all sorts of excuses for his divorce. They say that there was no way the newly saved Scofield could be expected to get along with a fanatically Roman Catholic spouse.

However, it is not clear that Scofield ever made any attempt to reconcile with his wife. But his Christian “scruples” (if he had any) about being unequally yoked to an unsaved spouse had nothing to do with it.

The August 27, 1881, the Topeka Daily Capital reported:

"Cyrus I. Schofield [sic] formerly of Kansas, late lawyer, politician,… has left the state and a destitute family and took refuge in Canada... In the latter part of his confinement, Schofield became converted, or professedly so. After this change of heart his wealthy sister came forward and paid his way out by settling the forgeries, and the next we hear of him he is ordained as a minister of the Congregational Church.

“In the meantime the courtship between himself and the pretty young representative of the Flower Mission continued.  Schofield represented at first that his wife had obtained a decree of divorce. When the falsity of this story was ascertained by inquiries of our district clerk (ed note:  She did not even file for divorce until several months later), he started on another lie that a divorce would be obtained, that he loved his children better than his life, but that the incompatibility of his wife's temper and her religious zeal in the Catholic Church was such that he could not possibly live with her.

Rushing reports on how Scofield's divorce was hurriedly finalized, right around the time that he was being ordained by the Congregational Churches of North Texas:

"Leontine Scofield filed for divorce just days before the council held the ordainment ceremony...later freed from 'being unequally yoked,' Scofield took notice of Hettie Hall Van Wartz, another northerner who relocated to Dallas, Texas, from Michigan. Hettie and her sister Mattie joined First Congregational Church just one day after the court filed Scofield's divorce.  Dallas County, Texas, issued a marriage certificate to Cyrus Scofield and Hettie H. Van Wartz and they married on March 11, 1884."

In the information that Scofield submitted for publication in the 1912 edition of "Who's Who," he omitted any reference to his first wife and his children. At that time, knowledge of his divorce and remarriage would have been very damaging to his reputation.

The 1912 "Who's Who" entry contains other errors that could have been based only on information supplied by Scofield. It states that Scofield served in the Tennessee Infantry from May 1861 "to the close of Civil War." But the Civil War ended in April, 1865. It is a matter of record that Scofield was discharged, then conscripted, then deserted to the Union—in 1862.

Scofield moved to St Louis, Missouri, and was living there at the time of General Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Virginia, in April, 1865. However, he told his biographer Trumbull that he was "12 miles from Appomattox" at the time of the surrender, and said he claimed his share of Union Army food supplies that were transferred by General Grant to Lee's troops.

In his "Who's Who" entry, he gave the date of his second marriage as July 14, 1884, which is 4 months after the correct date of March 11. There was a simple reason for this lie. Canfield states, "It was reported by Trumbull and others that Cyrus and Hettie were married after a friendship of about 6 months. Now backdating 6 months from March, 1884, takes us back to September, 1883. So Cyrus was seeing Hettie before he was divorced.  Cyrus was then still legally bound to Leontine and not morally free to court Hettie or anyone else."

Scofield prudently omitted any mention of his alleged, and totally undocumented, D.D. degree (Doctor of Divinity) in his "Who's Who" entry. There is no record of any educational institution granting Scofield such a degree, but that did not stop him from claiming to have such a degree on the front page of his Scofield Reference Bible. Actually, we have no record of Scofield receiving any formal theological education.

Not only did Scofield expunge from the public record any mention of his first wife and children, but it is a matter of record that he never provided them any substantial financial support, even after he started receiving generous royalties from sales of the Scofield Reference Bible.

Nowadays there are serious legal penalties, as well as social ostracism and disgrace, for fathers who fail to pay child support, but for Scofield it was evidently okay.

On May 4, 1921, Scofield wrote to his daughter Abigail, in response to a request for money, and advised her to pray to a Roman Catholic saint for the money.

The purpose of delving into Scofield's personal history is to point out that a man with his serious failings and problems ought not to be considered a good source of doctrine and practice for fundamentalist churches today. Actually, his continual habit of lying, according to Scripture, meant he was unsaved, and bound for hell.  See Revelation 21:8:

But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

So let’s throw him out for a source of doctrine on such an important subject.

Acknowledgements:

Wikipedia

Thomas Williamson, “C.I. Scofield, The Rest of the Story”

Founders of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture

 

 A disastrous worldwide tribulation of seven years is coming; the Bible says so, particularly in Matthew 24, Daniel 9, and in Revelation. (Preterist followers take note: The happenings predicted in those and other chapters did not already occur by AD 70.) The tribulation may be in the distant future—or it may be soon. You may not be in it--or you may. So we need to prepare, just in case. It would be nice if we could figure out what will happen when.  There is, after all, a Second Coming of Jesus as Judge of each of us spoken in the Bible chapters above, as well as elsewhere. Will it be heaven or hell for you? Matthew 7:13-14 say the majority will end up in hell. We all deserve hell, either ignoring God or in rebellion against God by repeating sin, and not feeling like stopping—or not able to stop. Scripture elsewhere will tell you how to avoid hell. We must learn to really study Scripture and find out His requirements to gain heaven.

Unfortunately, the chapters above also say that those that are His disciples will suffer persecution in the last half of the tribulation. Many will become martyrs.

Could Christians be raptured before those terrible events, called the pre-tribulation rapture theory, or do they have to suffer through it, and only get raptured toward the end of it (the post-tribulation theory)?  The two opposite theories have been under hot debate for over a century. I would like to share this thought, which may shake you of your fondness for thinking you’ll escape all the trouble of the tribulation and don’t want to read anything else. The pre-tribulation rapture theory of that seven years has a severe weakness: it requires a “two stage” Second Coming by the Lord; the first, in “secret,” to rapture Christians for heaven before the tribulation; then, 7 years later, after the tribulation, the second “stage” of His return would basically be His coming in Judgment. But this really makes the Second Coming into the Second and Third Coming. That’s how the pre-trib would actually be. You simply can’t make the “secret coming” a secret event. But Scripture talks only of a one-event Second Coming. Having this gigantic doctrinal problem, “pre-trib” should have been a dead theory on arrival. But such has not been the case.  It is popular—but only, I suspect, because (1) People don’t read their Bible with some detail; or (2) People want the future to be rosy, not like ending up as a martyr or, as Jesus also said, carrying a cross for Him (Luke 9:23).

 

Consider the earliest church fathers, like Polycarp and Irenaeus--those who were close to the Lord’s apostles, who knew Greek and who, as their own writings show, knew their Bible like nobody’s business. (We’re talking from 50 AD to 200 AD, so we’re not talking Catholics.) Most of those early scholars believed His Second Coming would be one event, at the end of tribulation, to rescue His saints from God’s wrath, which happens in Revelation 8 and 9. (The tribulation and God’s wrath are not the same thing, Scriptures show.) So they believed in a post-tribulation rapture. That adds to the credibility of the “post” view, due to the advantages these church fathers had over us. Christians would, under that theory, have to suffer through almost all of the 7-year tribulation.  Then Christ would come to save Christians from the worst disaster, called God’s wrath. God’s wrath, once Christians are removed, would then be poured out.

 

Thus, the post-tribulation view held the sway among those who believed that there would actually be such a future event.  It was the most widely taught for almost 1800 years. (In fairness, there are large Christian groups that have taught that there are NO future rapture events laid out in the Book of Revelation—maintaining that those Scriptures are just “spiritualizing.”) 

 

 Scripture teaches the post-tribulation view.  II Thessalonians 2:1, 3, and 4 says:

 

Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you…³ Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, ⁴ who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.

 

The “man of sin,” as Scripture elsewhere confirms, is the Antichrist-- unfortunately the main character in the worldwide tribulation.  Particularly note vv. 3-4, where it says the Antichrist will be revealed when he “sits as God in the temple of God.” That particular detail happens in the middle of the tribulation, according to Daniel 9:27:

 

He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him. ”

 

What is the ‘covenant?’ The Antichrist (most likely the person spoken here) makes a covenant, most likely with the Jews, probably an effort of peace to stop a Mideast war. As Scripture shows, he “revealed” who he really was. By demanding that he be worshipped. He knew that the Jews and the Christians would never do that, so he would have to declare war on them. That happens after one-half of the tribulation has passed. You may also question, what is ‘seven?’ Since in diplomacy, you don’t have something as serious as a covenant for seven weeks, or seven months, it has to be for years—seven years—the time of the tribulation. Halfway through he “sits as God in the Temple” by sitting in the holy of holies place in the Jewish new Temple, and he discontinues the sacrifices and offerings to God—because he wants to be worshipped as God. This is desolation to the eyes of God, and what he does will be an abomination. Perhaps setting up an image of himself would qualify as an abomination. His sitting in the holy of holies definitely was.

 

That’s when he begins persecuting Jews and Christians all the way to the end of the tribulation. So you may feel that I have too many “likelies” and “probablies” in my theory, and you are not convinced that Christians have to go through the tribulation. So you maybe still like the “pre-tribulation” theory. Well, I have another approach to prove it:  Let’s look at the men who created this theory of the pre-tribulation rapture.

 

Scripture warns us repeatedly not to be deceived on this important subject, and to dismiss the words of a false prophet who would tell you otherwise. Look at Matthew 24:4: Take heed that no one deceives you…and at II Peter 2:1:

 

 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you

 

Next, Scripture insists that it is confident that with unbiased study, it is possible to ascertain the important chronology of events about rapture in Revelation, since in Rev. 1:3 it says:

 

Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it…

 

How is it possible to “keep those things written in it” if the meaning is totally unclear and can’t be determined? Why would God urge us to read Revelation and promises a blessing if we do, if in fact it is incomprehensible?  I believe God has His truth in there, able to be found. We just have to keep our emotions out of it—like making the mistake of choosing a theology that promises we won’t suffer in those days.  Truth is, though, Jesus promises that His people have to suffer.  See John 16:33:

 

…in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

 

Now I’m getting to the point of this paper: one way to find out which tribulation theory is correct, let’s see if a founder of that theory is a false prophet.  The way to do that, it is necessary to look at their fruits—i.e, the outward manifestation of whether this kind of person was of godly behavior and doctrine that agrees with Scripture. If a man’s life doesn’t bear fruit, that demeans the credibility for his rapture theory. Therefore, to find out, there is nothing wrong with looking up a serious biography of a theory’s founder.  God would not put His truth into the mind of a worldly man, or a false prophet.  So, this week and next week, let’s “check the fruit” of the “pre-trib” theory’s founders.  Let’s see if the theory’s founders are godly men.  The founders of the pre-tribulation rapture are John Nelson Darby and C.I. Scofield.  This week we check the fruit of Mr. Darby; next week, Mr. Scofield.  I dug into the past, as the acknowledgements below indicate.

 

As far as calling him a “founder,” John Darby was the first to broadcast the “pre-trib” theory, beginning around 1833, for almost 50 years--but he got the idea from others. But he was the first to be a persuasive speaker on the subject--and he had connections.

 

His theory is really claiming a lot: he is really saying that the church (speaking of ALL believers here), despite many Scriptures and many scholars on this important subject, was in the dark for 1800 years.  And Mr. Darby gave us the light.  Seems presumptuous, especially since he never took a theology class. I have several blogs elsewhere on this—on one blog, we took 3 weeks to carefully give Scriptural proof behind the post-tribulation theory.

 

Mr. Darby lived from 1800-1882. He was outwardly holy, even as a young man in his 20s; he met with other Christians frequently to discuss principles and ideas and for prayer.  Fate turned in his direction when, in a prayer meeting in England, he met Edward Irving. Irving has been called “the father of modern pentecostalism.” Irving led or was involved with many charismatic revivals that were breaking out in England, Scotland, and Ireland—and these included tongues and prophesying.  As a result, he was kicked out of his Presbyterian bishopric, so he ended up founding a group, and called it the Catholic Apostolic Church. His strong arm of leadership caused it to also be called the “Irvingite” group.  Most of Irving’s small groups would try to get “in the Spirit” and worship and prophesy.  People would rush and travel the country when they would hear that “the Lord is speaking” somewhere, or people are laying forth new prophecy.  The End of Times was a big subject in that day.  As it turned out, in one group there were many followers of Mary MacDonald, a 15-year-old waif who was often sick (she died in her mid-30s). She spent much of her life seemingly in an altered state of consciousness, speaking, sometimes in tongues, sometimes loudly, about visions that she saw, or about what the future holds. In a fateful March 30, 1830 session, a writer who kept a journal about everything MacDonald said, wrote about one of her visions, and she quoted this: “here we first see the distinction between that final stage of the Lord’s coming, when every eye shall see him, and His prior appearing in glory to them that look for Him.”  Thus the two-stage second advent was born.  Placing the first stage, the “prior appearing,” before the tribulation was a brilliant choice, as it became popular as Irving and Darby interpreted it.  So, then, the pre-tribulation theory was born from the mouth of a sickly 15-year old charismatic.  So, was this based on Scripture?  No--it was created from her vision.

 

Mr. Darby was also at that session, and didn’t take to the theory at first, but grew to like it, and was busy by 1833 spreading the idea around in his speeches, which he did frequently.  Britain liked it.  He also visited America at least five times, and got the friendship of Dwight L. Moody, who passed it on in America. Mr. C.I. Scofield later took the ball on this one by inserting it in his Bible (next week on him). 

 

Darby was also the leader of several prayer groups himself, and named them the “Brethren,” or “Plymouth Brethren.”  (I was a member of one of them). But while he got a lot of followers, he had trouble within his groups.  It seems that he was a bit of a tyrant, wanting the groups to accept his doctrines, and not consider anything else.  For many, the “pre-trib” doctrine had a lot of holes that he couldn't satisfactorily explain.  But they could see that Darby chafed under authority or accountability.  One of his 24-page papers has the title of Episcopacy (this means church structure, teamwork, and leadership): What Ground is there in Scripture or History for Calling it an Institution of God?  He concludes there wasn’t supposed to be any hierarchy, despite Scripture which confirmed otherwise (I Timothy 3 and elsewhere). Here’s a quote of his from Wikipedia: the very notion of a clergyman was a sin against the Holy Spirit. He liked the laity (regular members) preaching.  But this seems to be an effort to reduce Scriptural competence. That way he got to meet with the lay preacher, and tell him what was good, and what was missing the mark.

 

This “no hierarchy” ecclesiology is heretical, though a milder one. But he continued this tendency, being a determined skeptic of tradition and criticism.  In this, as in many others, his new ideas disagreed with the Bible.  Who is correct?  The inspired Word of God, of course. Not Mr. Darby.

 

He seemed to lack the compassion that we would expect from a godly leader.  Jesus taught leaders to be servants at heart (Luke 22:25-26). Darby liked to rule over men. Here is a rebuke from a letter he got from his friend, Anthony Norris: “they (ie, some people in the groups) felt that though you are only a brother in an Elder's house, you exercised more than a Father’s power, without a Father’s heart of mercy.”

 

For the adept among my readers, he also taught an ultra-dispensationalism.  This was about God’s covenants with different groups of Jews over different periods of time. There were problems with how he took it to extremes—some of his doctrine just came out of his head, without a clear Scripture basis; and it forced him, when backed into a corner, to chase things into many odd rabbit-holes.  For instance, he believed the Book of James does not belong in the New Testament. Here’s his original Introduction to the Book (not in later editions): “The Epistle of James is not addressed to the “assembly” (or churches), and does not take the ground of apostolic authority.”  You see, he first makes the outlandish statement that James is not addressed to the church (thus saying, we would get no benefit from reading this important Book). Then he beats that by saying the Book does not have “apostolic authority.”  That’s saying it’s not inspired.  Such a statement is heretical, and it tries to throw out II Timothy 3:16:

 

ALL Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. 

 

What was in the Bible was decided in 325 AD.  Darby, as usual, decided we have it wrong, and he is smarter than that.  Darby felt that James was addressed to Israelites, not the church.  Darby has this thing about separating Jews from Gentiles when it’s convenient.  His notes from his book include the following for Matthew 5‑7, the Sermon on the Mount: “The multitudes (ed., note that that includes Gentiles) were present, but the discourse (i.e, the Sermon on the Mount) was addressed to His disciples” (who were Jewish)—so he claimed.  It's like Jesus said, "OK, Jews on this side of me, Gentiles on the other.  Now, I've got a few words for the Jews, here, so you Gentiles ignore us right now, I'll address you shortly.”  I’ve always felt that all the Word was for everyone, as II Timothy (above) says. All of us get a benefit from every word.  Jesus’ New Testament (or New Covenant) was for all who wanted to follow Him.  There is One Gospel, One faith now.   

 

Darby's comments said, basically, that most of Matthew is critical reading for everyone, but we Gentiles should just skip the Sermon on the Mount, they only apply to Jews.  Darby does the same thing in Matthew 24-25, about the end times, claiming that those particular verses only apply to Jews.  But there is no Scripture that backs that kind of dividing people. He created it out of speculation.

 

Getting back to Matthew 5-7, here is another note Darby made: “… moral principles and precepts, not redemption, are the subject of the (Sermon on the Mount) discourse.” But, I argue, what about Matthew 5:22?  It emphasizes that hate is like murder, and says: “whoever says ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.” Who gets an eternity in hell, is definitely talking about redemption, or lack of it.

 

And what about 5:29?  It emphasizes that we need to control our sin (if we don’t, we love sin more than God, and that’s idolatry).  The verse, a hyperbole (exaggeration to prove a point) says:

 

“And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and. not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

 

That last phrase certainly has a lot to do with redemption.  But, not to worry, supposedly, about this verse: I'm a Gentile.  In the same vein, see Matthew 6:14-15 and 6:19-21.  The point is, to dismiss the Sermon on the Mount as not having redemptive power is seriously heretical.  If we get saved, and repent, we must live a holy life.  These verses are relevant to all His saved--they tell us what a holy life consists of. They emphasize that thought should be holy as well as action.  They therefore have redemption as their goal.

Mr. Darby got so high-minded that he said, and wrote, that all the Christian churches of his day were apostate (ie, fell away from Jesus’ doctrine).  This is from his written papers:  "The actings (sic) of Satan...in corrupting the church, must be familiar to anyone acquainted with the word of God."  So, Mr. Darby must school us with the Truth--as he sees it.

 

He also had some issues with the humanity of Christ. He taught that when Christ became incarnate, He fully assumed sinful human nature so that His sinless life depended on the power of the Holy Spirit.  This was considered heretical, since orthodoxy taught that Jesus had an innately sinless human nature (PS: He got his own idea from Irving).

 

He also got in trouble, on another very important issue. This is from a tract he wrote called “Remarks on a tract, circulated by the Irvingites.” In it Darby says: “if they taught that God was not manifest in the flesh at all, a Christian ought' not to look to the scriptures to see if it was right, and that if he did, he would get no good out of it” You can see how wishy-washy he was on whether Jesus was in the flesh—he’s suggesting that Jesus’ presence on earth, it’s possible that He was like a ghost. This is bordering on an extremely important heresy. Here is what II John 1:7 has to say about being uncertain about Jesus appearing in the flesh:

 

"For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist." 

 

 

I am not saying he was The Antichrist. The word is used in the above verse as a high condemnation of heresy, the kind that destroys the beliefs of Christians and deceives them into following a demonic vein about Jesus. This by itself should mean that whatever he comes up with is not from God, but from the devil. Not a light thing to pass over. This in itself would be an effective reason to disavow any of his theories. He was a false prophet.

 

Well, all this was too much for scholars like George Muller (a godly man who later built orphanages and Christian schooling for over 100,000 children), who refused to accept many of his ideas or his questionable Scriptural backing.  Muller, who originally was a follower of Darby, split and formed a separate group, called the “Open Brethren.”  Darby was miffed at that, since he was losing complete control, and he was angered enough to not allow ANY of his own group (now called the Exclusive Brethren) to take communion with ANYone from the Open groups. But this is divisive:  these are saved brothers!  These are all Brethren!  This punitiveness became an ongoing trait of his: for instance, he also made a rule where if one of their branches had excluded a person from Christian fellowship, that person remained excluded from all other of his branches, who must then treat the excluded person as a leper (a violation of Matthew 18’s rules on church discipline). He also took the liberty of attacking church “enemies” in public.  It should have been dealt with in private, as Matthew 18 commands.  These behaviors of divisiveness and punishment are totally anti-Spiritual.  Christ counseled us in His last prayer to be one, not divided by argumentation (John 17:21). Granted, with the denominations, we have the same sin of not being in unity, but he carried divisiveness to new lengths. Paul definitely would call Darby “controlled by his sinful nature” when he says in 1 Corinthians 3:3: 

 

You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature? Aren’t you living like people of the world? 

 

In fact, he took his exclusivism so far as to also ban any member of a group called the Bethesda Brethren as well, since they harbored a man named Newton, who, he felt, tried to take over his group while he was gone.  All this was way past petty--it was plain mean-spirited, and grudging as well, not something a Christian person would do. Darby’s childish tyranny of always wanting HIS ecclesiology and HIS eschatology was coming forth too loud and strong.  Paul in the book of Romans urges us to avoid people like Darby:

 

Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them. ¹⁸ For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ

 

Jude tells us in verse 19 that people like Darby are people of the world, “devoid of the Spirit.”  Note that that phrase means Darby might not be saved:

 

It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.

 

While he was leader of his groups, many other splits occurred.  The whole Plymouth Brethren’s growth was stunted by these rules. The Gospel didn’t go out like it should have. Even after his death, some of the Exclusive groups of Plymouth Brethren divided more, and some groups delved into even more strange behaviors, and were even considered cults.  They had many people assessing their doctrines as heretical.  One of the best Christian orators and scholars of that day, Charles H. Spurgeon, pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, actually was so concerned that he published criticism of Darby and Brethrenism.  And he accused them that they “rejected the vicarious purpose of Christ's obedience as well as imputed righteousness.” Accusing him of denying the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to believers is a serious heresy. Darby’s quote on the matter in an 1865 tract confirms this:

“My adversaries insist that Christ kept the law for us, and that that constitutes our positive righteousness before God. This I deny: Scripture teaches no such doctrine; but it teaches the contrary…I affirm that those who teach it are in this respect false teachers.”

One Scripture alone makes Mr. Darby mistaken: Romans 4:6:

Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works…

 Spurgeon viewed these heresies of such importance and so central to the Gospel that it led him to publish a statement about the rest of their belief in his magazine, the Sword and Trowel.  This kind of direct criticism was seldom seen in that day.

There can be no final word about Mr. Darby better than a prophetic word to him spoken by a German group that he conferenced with.  It was written rather early in 1836, but predictive of his worsened behavior later:

your union (is) daily becoming one of doctrine and opinion more than life and love, your government will become – unseen, perhaps, and unexpressed, yet – one wherein, overwhelmingly, is felt the authority of men; you will be known more by what you witness against than what you witness for…

 

Acknowledgements:  Wikipedia, Stem Publishing, Bible Truth Publishers, Plymouth Brethren Archives, and a book:  The Incredible Cover-Up, by Dave MacPherson. YouTube: The Church Impotent: Dispensationalism

 

 Thank God for the internet