Scofield’s early theological training came under the Rev. James H. Brookes, pastor of the Walnut Street Presbyterian Church, St. Louis. Brookes was a friend and student of John Nelson Darby, the Plymouth Brethren leader. “J.N. Darby is usually regarded as the founder of Dispensationalism” (The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, Zondervan, 1978). Scofield’s biographer, Charles Trumbull, stated that Scofield was ignorant of things Christian up to 1879, the year he assigned to his conversion...
...In Rees’ ordination sermon “Dr.” Scofield said that people “are amazed when (they) turn back to the preaching of Finney and find that the very substance of it was stiff doctrine. But because it was
God’s (italics in original) doctrine, men fell in thousands at the feet of Jesus, so in our day we find Spurgeon and Moody, preachers of the dear old doctrines” (Canfield, p. 136). But, as previously discussed, Finney’s doctrines were 180 degrees from Spurgeon’s, and did not represent the old, tried and true biblical teaching. Nonetheless, Scofield revealed that his own teaching belonged to Finney’s school of thought....
Dispensationalism
Dispensationalism teaches that there have been a variety of dispensations or administrations throughout history. At the heart of the differing dispensations have been different methods or ways that God has dealt with His people. According to Scofield, a dispensation is “a period of time during which man is tested in respect of obedience to some specific revelation of the will of God” (Douglas, p. 303-italics original).
Scofield listed seven dispensations: Innocence, Conscience, Human Government, Promise, Law, Grace, and the Kingdom.
Dispensationalism’s unique contribution to theology is the belief that God treats or judges people differently in each dispensation. God’s treated people differently during the dispensation of Conscience than He did during the dispensation of Innocence, different during the dispensation of Promise than during Human Government, different during
the dispensation of the Grace than the Law. This view is, however, contrary to historic, orthodox Christianity (what has been understood to be historic, orthodox Christianity until the Modern Age, that is).
The older view taught that God always treated or judged people by the same criteria because God is just and never changing. Particularly, the churches of the Protestant Reformation championed this view when they called the Church of Rome to Reformation. The Protestant churches turned away from the innovations and changes brought about by Rome. They not only went back to the Old Testament, but they returned to the original sources to study it.
The danger inherent in Dispensationalism is that people will believe that only certain parts of the Bible are relevant to them because they live in a particular dispensation. Too often such people believe that they can dispense with God’s law, that the whole of the Old Testament law no longer applies because we live in a dispensation of grace. However, the founders of Protestantism-Luther, Calvin, Knox, Owen, etc.-proclaimed that salvation was by grace alone, start to finish, cover-to-cover. Salvation has always been by grace. Abraham was saved by grace, as was Noah and Moses and Isaiah, etc.
The thing that people don’t realize is that Dispensationalism is a relatively new theology that was popularized by Scofield and his Reference Bible
http://pilgrim-platform.org/2010/c-i-scofield/