A Trojan Horse

              If you know something about Greek mythology you can learn a truth which has a much more recent application? First it is necessary to understand the story which was developed from ancient Greek mythology. Then we can look at the later application of the principle utilizing the story to convey a spiritual truth.

         The Greeks were involved in a long and ongoing war with the city of Troy. This was known as the Trojan War. Troy was a fenced city and the Greeks had besieged it but could not gain entrance to win a military victory.  They decided to build a very large but mobile wooden horse.  They did so and then feigned a complete departure from the besieged area. They placed many of their best warriors within the horse secretly and then made their withdrawal from the area. The people of Troy soon opened the gate and captured the horse bringing it with the gates of the city. They presumed it to be a trophy of victory. Then by night the Greek army returned to the area and the warriors in the horse came forth and crashed the gates of the city allowing the Greek army to enter by night and completely destroy their enemy thus ending the Trojan War.

             In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Cyrus Scofield was diligently working to prepare hoping for publication of a version of the Bible containing very extensive notes setting forth his views of dispensational theology. He had learned them from the teachings of John Darby, D. L.  Moody and he added his own thoughts. It was a new paradigm for teaching and allegedly understanding the divisions of Scripture. It came eventually to be known as Dispensational theology. Many of Scofield’s notes were very Zionist friendly.  That is to say they strongly supported the concept of a future millennial earthly kingdom for Jewish Israel as one of the main components of this theological system. During Scofield’s years of working on his note preparation he met and was befriended by a Zionist Jew named Samuel Untermeyer. They shared membership in an organization called the Lotos Club and spoke with one another regularly. Untermeyer was a prominent and wealthy Jewish criminal attorney in New York and had close ties to the budding Zionist movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He also had a close connection and influence with the Oxford University Press a prominent Jewish owned publishing house. He was very interested in Scofield’s Zionist friendly Bible and theological position for he saw it as an avenue to gain extreme influence for Zionism within the Christian church.  His influence eventually resulted in the publication of the first Scofield Reference Bible in 1909. This publication is controlled by the copyright obtained by Oxford University Press and has resulted in a century of promoting it through several republications even though Cyrus Scofield died in 1922. They have dishonestly continued to show him as the editor through several revisions each one becoming more definitely Zionist oriented. The Scofield Reference Bible soon became the standard for teaching within evangelical Christian circles including most of the major Bible schools and seminaries. It became a virtual Trojan horse gaining entrance by subterfuge into the Christian Church via the influence of Jewish (Christian) Zionism. The effects of the teaching have filtered down through two or three generations of teaching and preaching in evangelical and fundamentalist circles. It is now standard protocol in thousands of those assemblies affecting literally millions of Christians. The problem with all of this is that many of the theological conclusions are simply not true.

            I will briefly explain. Among numerous other errors in the paradigm there are two that blatantly stand out. First and foremost the Scriptures will simply not support the concept of an earthly millennial kingdom centered in geographical Israel. The book of Revelation as well as second Peter and other places reveal that this present earth is to be totally destroyed in the Day of the Lamb’s wrath at the end of the age. Under the New covenant there is no distinction between Jew and gentile but all become one in Christ. (Compare Galatians 3:16-18, Romans 2:28-29 and Romans 9:6-8). Thus there is no pretribulational rapture of the entire church before the tribulation to make room for God to deal with his alleged “chosen people”.  There are not two kingdoms of God and all natural distinctions have passed away in Christ Jesus.

            You may have difficulty in grasping these truths because dispensational teaching has become so pervasive. It is a deception containing many serious heresies. I would encourage you to obtain and read my latest book entitled: Christian Zionism and the Scofield Reference Bible  (Xlibris Publisning) for it takes many of the notes form the Scofield Bible and compares them directly with the Scripture to prove the fallacy of many of the conclusions which  to so many people have been a major source of deception including millions of evangelical Christians. The book provides unequivocal proof that the Zionist concepts of Dispensationalism have been a Trojan horse entering the gates of the Christian gospel and subverting it causing great  spiritual damage and deception for so many who would profess Jesus Christ.

David Lance Dean                               Many more blogs and my other book titles at:

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