The Privileges of the Apostate
By John Fast
For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame. – Hebrews 6:4-6 (NASB)
Times of apostasy are not times of no religion, but of false religion. They are not marked by an absence of ‘faith’, but by a falling away from “the faith” (1 Tim 4:1), that is, from true, biblical, historic, and doctrinal Christianity. It is natural by creation for men and women to worship, and it is natural by corruption for fallen men and women to worship anything other than the one true God. Even the atheist deifies and worships himself. In the time of “the apostasy” prophesied by the apostle Paul (2 Thes 2:3), and which ushers in the Tribulation, the world will worship the beast (Rv 13:4). In place of the true, there is the false – false Christs, false gospels, false worship, false churches, false teachers, false conversions, false doctrines, false spirituality, false humility, false love, false unity, false knowledge, false reasonings, false interpretations, false assurance, false hopes, false repentance, false evangelicalism, false Christianity. For everything true, Satan has his counterfeits, which are so like the genuine that the apostle Paul calls them “another Jesus…a different spirit…a different gospel” (2 Cor 11:4), but in reality, they are clever imitations. Like the magicians of Egypt (Ex 7:11), Satan will do something as much like the truth, and yet, as unlike it as possible. He and his servants will come as near to the truth as possible in order to lead the mind astray from the truth. It is a grave error to think that false teachers never speak the truth, but just the opposite; they often speak a great deal of truth, and affirm much true doctrine. Yet, false teachers are the ministers of Satan, no matter how much they transform themselves into ministers of righteousness (2 Cor 11:15).
The first instrument chosen by Satan to deceive Eve and lead her mind astray was the serpent, because it “was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made” (Gn 3:1). The choice of his instruments is a principal part of Satan’s strategy. Not everyone is qualified to be a successful false teacher. The deadliest errors and worst deceptions need the smoothest orators and those highly skilled in deception (Col 2:8; 2 Th 2:10), namely, men and women who can almost indiscernibly mix their errors in among many precious truths, sprinkle their poison among the sweetest of gospel truths, and insert into Scripture what it does not teach. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing, and can counterfeit the voice of the shepherds in order to deceive and destroy the sheep. It is not just the false teacher, however, who is blind to spiritual and moral truth, but, as we are told by Jesus, it is also those who follow them – “blind guides of the blind” (Mt 15:14) – both of them alike, the leader and the follower, “will fall into a pit” (Mt 15:14). They suffer the same fate because they believe and cling to the same errors; both alike walk in darkness. Only a true work of regeneration can turn us “from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God,” (Ac 26:18).
The Bible must, therefore, be the only test and touchstone to assess and discover errors in belief, doctrine, and practice. It is not enough to convince a person of error, or that their beliefs differ from historic Christianity. They must first be brought to Scripture and tested to see how they agree or disagree with it, or else the one who charges another with error may be found to be in as great or greater error themselves. Painting error with legitimate names, such as ‘evangelical’, does not legitimize the error; instead, it washes all meaning out of the name. When we compare modern evangelicalism with the biblical marks of true Christianity, it becomes instantly and painfully obvious that there is nothing ‘evangelical’ about the mass of contemporary evangelicalism; rather it is a different gospel and a crafty imitation of the true. None are more disposed, more eager to receive, and more tenacious to defend errors than those who are themselves in error, and are the heads and ringleaders of erroneous doctrines and sects, especially after they have contended on behalf of bad and unbiblical causes, defended them, and deeply invested their reputation and self-interests. Those in error will defend the errors of others, because they cannot expose other’s errors without subjecting their own errors to exposure. Errors, like pernicious weeds, having once been sown in a field or garden, are impossible to eradicate, especially when they are hereditary and generational, having grown up with us from infancy. Spiritual dangers alarm us less than temporal. People are more careful to protect their bodies from an infectious disease than they are to guard their hearts and minds against infectious and destructive errors in belief and doctrine, yet an error in the mind is more destructive and damning to the soul than any physical disease, and as damning and destructive as an error of immorality and worldliness. They are careful to ‘social distance’ from other people to avoid contracting a disease, but they take no care to distance themselves from error, heresy, false teaching, false teachers, false doctrine, false churches and denominations, or false Christianity (Rm 16:17; 1 Tim 6:20, 21; 2 Tim 3:5; 2 Pet 3:17).
Once a mind becomes leavened with error, only a sovereign work of God’s grace can transform the mind. The Sadducees believed and taught a most destructive error regarding the resurrection, which Jesus clearly refuted and proved from Scripture to be erroneous, to the astonishment of all who heard Him, yet this did not change what the Sadducees believed and taught (Mt 22:31-33). The Pharisees believed many erroneous things about the Law, salvation, righteousness, sin, and the Messiah, which Jesus repeatedly refuted from Scripture, but this did not change what they believed and taught. Modern evangelicalism finds itself in the same situation. No matter how often many of its leaders, teachings, practices, and doctrines are exposed by Scripture as erroneous, nothing changes; rather things only get worse. It is bad to continue to hold on to error and walk in darkness because of a lack of truth, but it is infinitely worse to believe and cling to error against the light of truth. To turn away from the light is to turn to darkness. To turn away from the truth is to turn aside to myths (2 Tim 4:4). The more light that is rejected, the deeper the spiritual and moral darkness becomes, and usually incurs God’s judicial blindness, thereby giving the mind over to a spirit of error. To substitute darkness for light is the same thing as calling evil good, and to substitute light for darkness is the same thing as calling good evil (Is 5:20). When the light that characterizes the bulk of modern evangelicalism is darkness and error, how great is that darkness (Mt 6:23). The ‘Dark Ages’ were dark because the light of God’s Word and gospel truth were virtually extinguished for a thousand years by the erroneous and superstitious doctrines and practices of Roman Catholicism, until they were recovered by the Reformers. Today, the light of God’s Word and gospel truth has been virtually extinguished by mainline Protestantism and modern evangelicalism, plunging us into a time of gross moral and spiritual darkness. Wherever the light of God’s Word is unknown, or wherever it is known but corrupted and rejected, there the people will walk and live in moral and spiritual darkness.
Going from Light to Darkness
Around 1885 J.C. Ryle, the great nineteenth century British pastor and author, in describing the moral and spiritual condition of England one hundred years earlier and prior to the eighteenth century Great Awakening wrote,
“From the year 1700 till about the era of the French Revolution, England seemed barren of all that is really good…. There was darkness in high places and darkness in low places – darkness in the court, the camp, the Parliament, and the bar – darkness in country, and darkness in town – darkness among rich, and darkness among poor – a gross, thick, religious and moral darkness – a darkness that might be felt.”[1]
That the days in which we now live are dark and evil is a truth too plain to require any defense, and that they are likely to get worse few can doubt who investigate the spiritual and moral nature and causes of evil and times of apostasy. Natural man, being “darkened in their understanding” (Eph 4:18), gravitates to the darkness and loves the darkness, “men loved the darkness rather than the light” (Jn 3:19). In the absence of, or rejection of truth, people will always gravitate to what is false, and try to convince themselves that the falsehood they believe is true. When people “will not endure sound doctrine” (2 Tm 4:3), they “will accumulate for themselves teachers according to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths” (2 Tm 4:3, 4). This is the current moral and spiritual condition of not only this nation, but of much of the world. There is a moral and spiritual darkness and evil than can be felt by all who have any remaining sense of right and wrong, who are still willing and able to distinguish between good and evil and between truth and error, who have not seared their conscience, and who have not already been given over to a depraved mind, that is, a mind that calls evil good and good evil. This darkness is evidenced by the conflicting, schizophrenic, and erroneous religious beliefs held by the mass of professing Christians, and by the appalling and abysmal biblical, theological, and historical ignorance and indifference that now characterizes the bulk of modern evangelicalism. The cause of this current moral and spiritual darkness is the same as that which produced the darkness which characterized the horrible moral and spiritual condition of England prior to The Great Awakening.
Arnold Dallimore, in his two-volume biography of George Whitefield, described the spiritual and moral conditions before the Revival when he wrote, “In the decade between 1730 and 1740 the life of England was foul with moral corruption and crippled by spiritual decay,”.[2] This was because a hundred years earlier, “Englishmen were given to believe that the life of unfettered licentiousness might be indulged in with impunity. In this assurance much of the nation threw off restraint and plunged itself heedlessly into a course of godlessness, drunkenness, immorality and gambling.”[3] It was at this time that the English people were introduced to a form of religious rationalism known as Deism, which its proponents claimed was in fact true Christianity. In doing so they introduced and invented all sorts of seemingly rational and logical arguments against the Bible, its doctrines, and biblical and historic Christianity. The result was,
“To Englishmen who had already rejected the idea of moral restraint Deism proved especially welcome. It removed from their thoughts the God of the Bible, the God of holiness and justice whom the Puritans had preached, and substituted this vague Deity found, as they believed, in nature. In its assertion that man was not held responsible for his actions and that there was no judgment day, it rationalized the sin with impunity concept and, as a result, was widely received. Deism gradually made its way into the thought of the nation. Its influence began to be felt between 1660 and 1670, and the successive appearance of each of its books increased its popularity.”[4]
In meeting the challenge presented by this counterfeit form of godliness based on fallen human reason and logic, the church was, for the most part, totally impotent, and in no way prepared to confront, refute, and withstand the blitzkrieg of Deism and its resulting lifestyle of immorality, self-gratification, godlessness, and practical atheism. As J.C Ryle noted, the majority of England’s spiritual leaders were at this time, “mere men of the world. They were unfit for their position….The vast majority of them where sunk in worldliness, and neither knew nor cared anything about their profession….They seemed determined to know everything except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”[5] One modern publisher has written,
“In the first half of the eighteenth century, England was in a state of religious and moral decay. For many years the land had been sinking into darkness and paganism. Intemperance and immorality, crime and cruelty were increasingly becoming the characteristics of the age. The national church was in such a dead condition that instead of being salt, preserving the nation from corruption, she was only adding to the immorality by weakening the restraints which Christianity imposed on the lusts of men.”[6]
The spiritual and moral conditions in Scotland were no better as decades of theological and doctrinal compromise, decay, and indifference began to bear their bitter fruit,
“Doctrinal exposition was not encouraged, nor was there to be any stirring appeal to conscience; instead, the Christian religion was set forward as a system of the highest morality, offering some hope of an immortality of bliss, but providing no pardon to the poor sinner anxious about the past. The new teaching took full account of ignorance but had little sense of sin; it did not offer enough! …. Around the year 1740 the situation was indeed critical for the Church of Scotland. Within it was a new and growing generation of ministers who were more concerned with culture than conversions – a group of ‘Senecan’ clergy who spoke of their Covenanting forbearers with contempt and amusement.”[7]
When one of this new generation of Scottish ministers, Francis Hutcheson, preached to his father’s congregation in his absence – a congregation accustomed to biblical and doctrinal preaching,
“all the congregation except three persons left the service before the sermon ended. One of them told his father, ‘Your silly loon, Frank, has fashed a’ the congregation wi’ his idle cackle: for he has been babbling this oor aboot a gude and benevolent God, and that the sauls o’ the Heathens themsels will gang to heeven, if they follow the light of their ain consciences. Not a word does the daf boy ken, speer, or say abou the gude, auld, comfortable doctrine of election, reprobation, original sin and faith. Hoot, mon, awa’ wi’ sic a fellow.’[8]
The same situation prevails today. We are experiencing the fruit of at least three generations of ministers who are more concerned with culture, numbers, popularity, position, self-promotion, politics, worldly success, and profits than with faithfulness and obedience to God’s Word. The great spiritual leaders of the past, men like Jonathan Edwards, the Puritans, J.C. Ryle, Charles Spurgeon, Archibald Alexander, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, along with a host of others and the truths and doctrines they preached, are all but forgotten or spoken against with scorn, contempt, derision, and ignorance. Instead of equipping the saints, exhorting in sound doctrine, explaining the Scriptures, confronting sin and error, exposing the unfruitful deeds of darkness, guarding what has been entrusted to them, calling sinners to repentance and faith, accurately handling the Word of God, and working to convert the world, modern evangelicalism has, for all intents and purposes, been thoroughly converted to the world, thereby ‘weakening the restraints which Christianity imposed on the lusts of men’, and plunging the nation into the current cesspool of moral and spiritual darkness. We are witnessing the fruition of what Charles Spurgeon warned against over a century ago,
“Some things are true and some things are false: I regard that as an axiom; but there are many persons who evidently do not believe it. The current principle of the present age seems to be, ‘Some things are either true or false, according to the point of view from which you look at them. Black is white, and white is black according to circumstances; and it does not particularly matter which you call it. Truth of course is true, but it would be rude to say that the opposite is a lie; we must not be bigoted,’…Our forefathers were particular about maintaining landmarks; they had strong notions about fixed points of revealed doctrine, and were very tenacious of what they believed to be scriptural; their fields were protected by hedges and ditches, but their sons have grubbed up the hedges, filled up the ditches, laid all level, and played at leapfrog with the boundary stones. The school of modern thought laughs at the ridiculous positiveness of Reformers and Puritans; it is advancing in glorious liberality, and before long will publish a grand alliance between heaven and hell, or, rather, an amalgamation of the two establishments upon terms of mutual concessions, allowing falsehood and truth to lie side by side, like the lion with the lamb.”[9]
What Spurgeon warned of for the future is today the sad reality. Modern evangelicalism has made an alliance with the kingdom of darkness. It allows truth and falsehood to lie side by side, and makes little or no attempt to differentiate between the clean and the unclean, between the true and the false, and between what is Christian and what is not Christian. All one has to do is observe the sins, behaviors, values, beliefs, and practices that many today believe are compatible with being a Christian. All one has to do is listen to the popular man-centered conceptions of God and the gospel and what it means to be Christian to realize that a true understanding of them has, for the most part, been lost by the mass of modern evangelicalism. People are not ‘broken’; rather they are by nature haters of God and children of wrath. Jesus did not come to ‘fill a God-shaped whole in your heart’, or to ‘help us become better people’, as if we are basically good, and merely in need of some help to be better and more self-fulfilled. Christianity is not God fixing and renovating the old man, but creating a new creature in Christ. The heart, mind, will, and affections are not made right with God by a principle of self-effort and self-renovation, but by a divine work of regeneration. Christianity is not about Jesus helping us to be better people, but about God making us a holy people who, “like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; (1 Pt 1:15), and to be “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;” (1 Pt 2:9). It is not about making Christianity attractive to the world, but it is “to keep oneself unstained by the world” (Jm 1:27). It is not about God making our life in this world better, but dying to self and this world and living “the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God” (1 Pt 4:2). It is not God filling a void in our old corrupt hearts, but “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezk 36:26). To merely fill a void in a stony heart leaves the heart a heart of stone.
In contemporary man-centered evangelicalism, mankind and not God is the supreme object of God’s love and affection. Mankind has been made the ultimate end of God and His plan of salvation, even when the Bible clearly declares that the ultimate end in God saving sinners from His wrath is “to the praise of His glory” (Eph 1:12). In modern evangelicalism, God exists for man not man for God. People who consider themselves the highest good and ultimate end, would have the same place not only in the thoughts of other people, but also in the thoughts of God. Nothing is more natural to natural men than the desire to have their own corrupt judgments, thinking, and opinions be the ultimate rule and standard for the judgment, thinking, and opinions of the rest of mankind, even to the point, as we are witnessing today, of censuring, punishing, and viciously excoriating those who expose and oppose the ways and thinking of darkness with the light of truth. Those who love themselves above all else, and all other things and persons for themselves and their own ends, would make themselves and not God the ultimate standard of right and wrong, good and evil, truth and error, and the chief end of all other persons, and even of God. There is nothing more natural for unregenerate people than to pull God down to their own beliefs, opinions, and practices, and to invent a god according to their own imaginations. It is much easier to deny the God of the Bible than to deny sin, the world, and self, so people invent beliefs and opinions that are friendly to their lusts, errors, sins, pride, and own understanding, then burrow deep into Scripture to find crutches to support and authorize their erroneous beliefs and practices, thereby using the name of God to justify their sin and self-worship. Today, even forgiveness has become a means of self-worship. It is the personal psychological and emotional benefits, not the glory of God and Jesus Christ, that are often the primary motive for forgiveness. Jesus said the reason why the world hates Him is because He testifies of it, that its deeds are evil (Jn 7:7). The world, its false religions, and counterfeit forms of Christianity have not changed their attitude toward the truth of God’s Word. Darkness still hates the light (Jn 3:19, 20).
In addition to the assault from Deism, there was at the same time among spiritual leaders on both sides of the Atlantic a growing apathy, indifference, and indefiniteness to sound doctrine, particularly the biblical doctrine of salvation. Iain Murray describes this shift when he writes,
“A hundred years earlier, the Puritans had argued that Arminianism – that is to say the belief that God loves all men equally, and that the reception of the benefits of Christ’s redemption depends upon the right use of man’s free-will – was a serious distortion of the gospel and that it would necessarily lead to a superficial, worldly Christianity. But before the end to the seventeenth century a noticeable change of attitude over this controversy had occurred in England.”[10]
Addressing this new and noticeable change of attitude, the great Puritan leader John Owen said in a sermon preached in London in 1676,
“Little did I think I should ever have lived in this world to find the minds of professors grown altogether indifferent as to the doctrine of God’s eternal election, the sovereign efficacy of grace in the conversion of sinners, justification by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ; but many are, as to all these things, grown to an indifferency: they know not whether they are so or not….We are not so much concerned for the truth as our forefathers; I wish I could say we were as holy.”[11]
This describes the condition of modern evangelicalism; it has more regard for numbers, popularity, entertainment, politics, pragmatism, marketing, humanitarianism, ‘social justice’, cultural trends, and worldly success than for truth, and it is by no means as holy, that is, separate and distinct from the world, as our forefathers. Today there is a version of ‘Christianity’ to accommodate virtually every belief, taste, sin, error, fad, preference, lifestyle, and whim imaginable. The only ‘truth’ that is valued is that which serves our own carnal self-interests, inflates our own self-importance, and validates our errors and opinions. Those who serve God solely with respect to themselves are prepared to accept any idolatry; their religion will warp and change with the times and their own self-interests. They will deny the true God for a god of their own invention whenever their own self-interest demands it, and will give the same reverence to the basest conception of God, which thy now pretend to give to God. Jude’s description of a false teacher, “wandering stars” (Jude 13), applies to the bulk of modern evangelicalism; theologically and doctrinally it is all over the map, it has no fixed course, but warps and changes with the times. Jonathan Edwards in America, as had John Owen in England before him, understood that true Christianity could not long be sustained if pragmatic concessions to human reason, logic, and experience were made to accommodate objections to biblical truths and doctrines, especially the biblical doctrine of salvation and what it is to be Christian. These men, and others like them, understood the danger of compromising with error, as Iain Murray writes,
“The danger from Arminianism lay not simply in a few particular errors but in its whole tendency. While it claimed to be based on Scripture the popular strength of its arguments depended on the contention that Calvinistic belief is not reconcilable to human reason: How, its exponents asked, can a sovereign election be reconciled with God’s universal compassion? or the unchangeable purpose of God in salvation with man’s free agency? This mode of argument by-passed two facts; first that reason is impaired, depraved, and corrupted, and second, that the gospel requires men to believe things above reason merely on the authority of divine revelation.”[12]
It was this growing and encroaching danger from Arminianism and similar man-centered doctrines that Jonathan Edwards, in his farewell sermon in 1750, warned his congregation against,
“Another thing that vastly concerns the future prosperity of the town, is, that you should watch against the encroachments of error; and particularly Arminianism, and doctrines of like tendency” (i.e. man-centered doctrines) ….“These doctrines at this day are much more prevalent than they were…The progress they have made in the land, within this seven years, seems to have been vastly greater than at any time in the like space before. And they are still prevailing and creeping into almost all parts of the land, threatening the utter ruin of the credit of those doctrines which are the peculiar glory of the gospel, and the interest of vital piety.”[13]
The words of nineteenth century Scottish theologian William Garden Blaikie are both necessary and applicable for our time,
“And with reference to modern thought, [Christianity] endeavours to find for it its due place, but in marked subordination to the fact that Christianity is a supernatural revelation from God; that its lessons rest on divine authority; and that while reason is to receive, to explain, and to harmonise the body of revealed truth, it is not to usurp the throne, but to serve only as the handmaid of revelation.”[14]
Within modern evangelicalism, human reason, experience, pragmatism, and popular opinion, not the Bible, are now the ultimate authority. The Bible, for the most part, has become the handmaid of human reason and pragmatism. The same causes, namely, the elevation of human reason, wisdom, and experience above the authority of Scripture, the apathic, indifferent, indefinite, and subjective attitude toward truth, the rejection of any objective moral standard and restraint, and a ‘sin with impunity’ attitude toward immorality and evil, have resulted in the current appalling moral and spiritual darkness that characterizes not just the world in general, but the mass of modern evangelicalism in particular. The God of holiness and justice has been replaced by a vague deity of love, tolerance, benevolence, and acceptance. The fundamental reason why modern evangelicalism is hostile to the true gospel and biblical Christianity is, that it is at its core man-centered and worldly-minded, not God-centered and spiritually-minded, and to be worldly-minded is the same thing as being “devoid of the Spirit” (Jude 19); it is the same thing as being fleshly-minded, and “the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God;” (Rm 8:7). This hostility of mind expresses itself in that the mind “does not subject itself to the law of God,” (Rm 8:7). It refuses to be ruled and governed by the law and Word of God. Since God’s ways are not man’s ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts, but are opposed to all that we value, love, and highly esteem, “that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God” (Lk 16:15), a new religion has been invented, one that uses the same terminology as biblical Christianity and that calls itself ‘Christian’ and ‘evangelical’, but is, in reality, a different gospel, a different spirit, a different religion that exalts man and human reason, not God, Jesus Christ, and His Word, and that makes human reason and opinion, not God’s Word, the ultimate authority. It is a ‘Christianity’ that is not Christian, and an ‘evangelicalism’ that is not evangelical, but Satan’s clever imitation that has taken the truth, “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8), and inverted it into “love is God”, with “love” defined as accepting anyone and anything – anything, that is, except divine truth. True love for God, however, hates evil and keeps His commandments, “Hate evil, you who love the Lord” (Ps 97:10); “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (Jn 14:15). How ironic that in a time when the mass of professing Christians rejects the idea of a just, holy, and offended God who justly judges and condemns sinners who spurn and corrupt His grace, patience, mercy, love, and truth, to eternal torment in hell, we are at the same time inundated with cries and demands for ‘justice’ by people who have rejected not only any moral restraint, but the authority of Scripture, the righteousness of God, the true gospel, and biblical and historic Christianity.
The same people who have habitually rejected and scorned God’s Word and standards are today admired and praised by the world as ‘champions of justice’. Such a ‘justice’, however, cannot help but be warped and depraved, because, “Evil men do not understand justice,” (Pv 28:5); therefore, “the law (i.e. God’s law) is ignored and justice is never upheld. For the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice comes out perverted” (Hab 1:4). By all biblical criteria these people are perverters of justice and truth, not champions of justice and truth, and are to be exposed, rebuked, and avoided, not praised and admired. Whether they are Supreme Court justices who trample underfoot the Word of God, or noted scholars and theologians who twist the Scriptures to their own destruction, they are children of the devil and of the kingdom of darkness. By allowing the culture to define ‘justice’, and imposing that definition on the Bible, they “turn justice into wormwood and cast righteousness down to the earth” (Am 5:7). They are those who, like the Pharisees, justify themselves in the sight of men by appealing to human reason, emotion, and experience (Lk 16:15). They think God thinks the way they think, and values what they value, not believing the words of Jesus, “that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God” (Lk 16:15). Some may find this assessment offensive, but it is much safer and more in keeping with the example of Jesus to offend apostates, scoffers, false teachers, and nominal Christians with biblical truth and sound doctrine than to have their approval and praise, “Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this statement?” (Mt 15:12).
Do we fear offending man but not the just and holy God? How is it we are not afraid of the torments of hell which all who scorn, corrupt, and are offended at God’s Word must justly suffer? This apostate and atheistical age mocks and laughs holiness, purity, judgment, biblical truth, and conscience to scorn, but let them mock and laugh now, for they will wail in torment for eternity. These same people dare not demand justice from the God of justice, “For the Lord is a God of justice;” (Is 30:18); “The Lord is righteous…; He will do no injustice (Zeph 3:5). Instead, they revolt against or scoff at the notion that they are the objects of His just and terrible wrath. “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hb 10:31), but despite this fact, “mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming (i.e. His coming in judgment)?’” (2 Pt 3:3, 4). And why do they mock at God’s present and future judgment? Not because the Bible does not clearly teach them, but because they reject the truthfulness and authority of Scripture, and because they cannot reconcile this doctrine with their own carnal and corrupt reason, experience, errors, and idolatrous conception of God. They do not believe that God is “A jealous and avenging God is the Lord; the Lord is avenging and wrathful. The Lord takes vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies” (Nah 1:2). Like apostate Israel, most of modern evangelicalism has “lied about the Lord and said, ‘Not He; misfortune will not come on us; and we will not see sword or famine. And the prophets are as wind, and the word is not in them.” (Jer 5:12, 13), and like the false prophets of Israel, “they keep saying to those who despise Me, ‘The Lord has said, “You will have peace”’; and as for everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart, they say, ‘Calamity will not come upon you.’” (Jer 23:17). As a result, “those who guide this people are leading them astray; and those who are guided by them are brought to confusion” (Is 9:16). There is no greater and more just law of God, than that the inventors and perpetrators of evil and wickedness perish by their own evil ways and schemes. Like wicked Haman, they are destroyed by their own evil ideologies, schemes, and actions (Est 7:10); they reap what they sow. “Who understands the power of Your anger, and Your fury, according to the fear that is due You?” (Ps 90:11). Certainly not the mass of modern evangelicalism.
When biblical truth and doctrines must first pass the test of, and be reconciled with corrupt, depraved, carnal, and faulty human reason, logic, ‘science’, and experience before they can be believed and practiced, and when pragmatism replaces biblical principle, then very little of true Christianity will remain. Confidence and trust in ourselves and in our own understanding is a defection from God, “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the Lord” (Jer 17:5). Natural men seek safety and security in natural things, “A rich man’s wealth is his strong city, and like a high wall in his own imagination” (Pv 18:11), but like apostate Israel they learn too late that, “their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord” (Ezk 7:19). Hypocrites, deceivers, and the deceived shelter themselves under the cover of falsehoods, “The overwhelming scourge will not reach us when it passes by, for we have made falsehood our refuge and we have concealed ourselves with deception” (Is 28:15). They never doubt that they will be preserved when others suffer under the wrath of God. The godly, however, make God alone their fortress (Ps 56:3, 4; 91:2); they fix their “hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pt 1:13).
When we depart from God to trust in ourselves and in our own understanding, we deify self. Human reason refuses to submit to the authority of Scripture; it refuses to subject itself to the rule of faith; fallen human reason refuses to bow to God’s revelation, but works to conform the Bible to fallen human reason. It is out of this arrogancy of fallen human reason that, as from Pandora’s Box, swarms of errors and heresies have gone out into the world. This is the condition in which modern evangelicalism now finds itself – a condition of apostasy from historic and biblical Christianity and the inevitable moral and spiritual darkness which always ensues. When people, churches, or nations “leave the paths of uprightness”, they will inevitably “walk in the ways of darkness” (Pv 2:13) – a horrible and self-destructive moral and spiritual darkness that can be felt. They will reap what they have sown, “Your own wickedness will correct you, and your apostasies will reprove you; know therefore and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God,”; “Your ways and your deeds have brought these things to you. This is your evil. How bitter! How it has touched your heart!” (Jer 2:19; 4:18). Where there is no light, or where people have rejected the light, or where they hate the light and will not come to the light, or where they substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, then they consign themselves to live in a gross, thick, and impenetrable moral and spiritual darkness. Error can never, under any circumstances, produce the effects of truth; darkness can never produce the effects of light; a lie and error, no matter how ancient, can never become true; “the bad tree bears bad fruit” (Mt 7:17).
The Word of God and the truths, commands, promises, principles, warnings, and doctrines it teaches are often called “light” by Scripture, “Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path” (Ps 119:105); “For the commandment is a lamp, and the teaching is light;” (Pv 6:23). As the incarnate Word of God, Jesus is the Light of the world, “I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (Jn 8:12). To “follow” Jesus involves much more than just a superficial commitment. It involves much more than just professing to be a Christian, belonging to a church or denomination, being baptized, assenting to some biblical truths, or being ‘conservative’ instead of ‘liberal’ or ‘progressive’. It is a complete devotion to Christ and His Word and His will; it is an absolute submission to His Lordship; it is an unconditional trust in Him and all His Word; it is a total repudiation of our own will, ways, and understanding; it requires dying to self, sin, and this world (Mt 16:24), and it is a precondition for entering into the kingdom of God (Mt 10:38). Everyone who refuses to follow Jesus on His terms continues to walk in darkness.
Two things are always necessary for clear vision, the presence of light, and a functioning eye. Either of these without the other is useless, but combined the mind can perceive the glory of God in the physical world. The same is true in the spiritual realm. The light of truth is necessary, but it is not enough. Until the mind is transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit to where it can understand and love the truth, then it will be heard and read without any transforming effect on the heart and mind, without subduing the power of sinful and selfish desires, without producing a holy life, without believing as true and the mind submitting to whatsoever is revealed in the Word of God, without a desire to obey all it commands, without producing a holy fear and reverence for God and love for all His Word, without forsaking the world, without being willing to die to self, to do anything, be anything or nothing, suffer anything for the glory and honor of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The defect is not in the light, but in the fallen, depraved, and unregenerate mind which is by nature blind and hostile to spiritual and moral truth (2 Cor 2:14), a blindness vividly described by Jonathan Edwards and manifested today on a scale unprecedented in modern history,
“And so far has that principle of blindness prevailed, with respect to the things of religion, that it has in a great measure extinguished all light in the minds of many, even in matters of morality, and things that have but a distant relation to religion. So that many whole nations have professedly approved of many things directly contrary to the light of nature; and the most horrid vices and immoralities have been esteemed harmless, yea, accounted virtues among them; such as revenge, cruelty, and incest. Many nations have openly allowed the practice of sodomy….They have not only embraced errors which are very contrary to truth, but very contrary to humanity; not only against the light of nature, but against the more innocent inclinations of nature….Thus they have embraced many gross delusions, that are as contrary as possible to natural affections. Such as offering up their own children in sacrifice to their idol….And the parents have not only offered them up to death, but they have brought them, and offered them up to the most cruel and tormenting deaths:….So strong has been the tendency of the hearts of men to delusion, that it has overcome those strong natural affections which men have to the fruit of their own bodies.”[15]
This describes much of the world today. This moral and spiritual darkness is now so profound that it has extinguished all moral and spiritual light not only among people of the world, but even from the minds of the mass of professing Christians. The most horrid, irrational, unnatural, and self-destructive ideologies, vices, and immoralities are now defended, celebrated, and institutionalized as virtues, deemed consistent with being a Christian, and even protected by law. Parents sacrifice their children to their idols of success, career, materialism, popularity, self-gratification, entertainment, the world, and the culture, and even offer them up to the cruel, barbaric, inhuman, and tormenting death of abortion, or to be used as Guinee pigs in the demonic ideology of ‘transgenderism’. When Israel forsook the one true God for idols, it was for the idols of the cultures that were around them, “they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them,” (Jug 2:12). When Israel sacrificed their children it was to demons, “They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons,” (Ps 106:37). The idols they worshiped were demonic, “They sacrificed to demons who were not God, to gods whom they had not known, new gods who came lately, whom your fathers did not dread” (Dt 32:17). Nothing has changed. Modern evangelicalism has followed suit in worshiping the idols of the culture, new gods who came lately, resulting in the same moral and spiritual darkness. God has placed such a strong natural instinct and inclination into the nature of most living creatures that they will expose and endanger their own lives to protect their own offspring. Mankind is the only creature that fights for the ‘right’ to slaughter their own children at will by the millions, and that rejects and perverts what even animals know and do by natural instinct, because man is the only creature that has a mind and nature depraved and corrupted by sin, that is hostile to the Word and will of God, and that can be spiritually and morally blinded by the god of this world to the horrible, irrational, and self-destructive nature of sin and apostasy. All the light in the world cannot make a blind person see, and like the apostates described by the author of Hebrews, great spiritual privileges do not true Christians make.
Tasted the Powers of the Age to Come
The final privilege which the author of Hebrews attributes to these apostates is they had “tasted…the powers of the age to come” (Hb 6:5). It is connected to the fourth privilege, that of having “tasted the good word of God”, by an emphatic repetition of the imagery of tasting, indicating that “the good word of God” and the works of power were inseparable in their experience of these privileges. The good word of God is the word preached, and these apostates had tasted of its goodness when they heard it preached to them, and responded to the gospel’s message of salvation. The “powers of the age to come” are the powerful, mighty, and miraculous works of the Holy Spirit mentioned in Hebrews 2:3, 4 that often accompanied and verified the preaching and teaching of the apostles, “After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will” (Hb 2:3, 4). Notice that the author of Hebrews places himself and his readers third generation from Christ. God’s message of salvation was “first spoken through the Lord”, then it “was confirmed…by those who heard, God also bearing witness with them”, then, it was “confirmed to us”. First Christ, then “those who heard”, then “us”. The author as well as his readers had experienced the powerful and marvelous works of the Holy Spirit performed through the apostles and their associates.
What these “signs and wonders and miracles” were is to be found in The Book of Acts, otherwise known as The Acts of the Apostles. In the formation of the early church, the preaching of the Word often went hand in hand with signs, as is clear from Romans 15:19, “in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit; so that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.” And as Paul told the Corinthians, “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles” (2 Cor 12:12; cf. Rm 15:19). The spiritual gift of tongues was one of these signs, and was intended as a sign to unbelieving Israel (1 Cor 14:21-22; cf. Isaiah 28:11-12) in order to demonstrate that God was now beginning a new work among the Gentiles. With the dawn of the church age, God was no longer revealing Himself exclusively through the nation of Israel, but to all people in all languages. The inclusion of the Gentiles into God’s plan of salvation marked a transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant (Eph. 2:11-22). However, once the period of transition was ended, there was no further need for this sign. What Paul said concerning the gift of tongues in 1 Corinthians 13:8, “if there are tongues, they will cease;” happened by the close of the apostolic era.
In both the Old and New Testaments, the periods in which God was giving new revelation through His prophets and apostles were also times of signs, wonders, and miracles. Such was the ministry of Moses, of Elijah and Elisha, and of the prophets. Such was the ministry of John the Baptist (Jn 1:23), of Jesus (Jn 10:37, 38), and of His apostles and some of their associates, “And Stephen, full of grace and power, was performing great wonders and signs among the people” (Ac 6:8). The primary purpose of signs, wonders, and miracles was to confirm the validity of the messenger and the message he preached, as Hebrews 2:3, 4 makes perfectly clear. The word “confirmed” in Hebrews 2:4 (bebaioo) means “to put something beyond doubt”. The message of the gospel was confirmed by signs and wonders and miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit to the Hebrew Christians by those who had heard it from the Lord Jesus, but ultimately it was the power of God, manifested in signs and wonders and various miracles, that was the source of this confirming activity. The truth of the gospel was confirmed to these apostates beyond a shadow of a doubt, making their apostasy all the more heinous.
As the gospel spread throughout the Roman Empire, the radical transformation that it effected in the lives of Christians became proof enough for the claims of Christianity (2 Cor 3:2-3), so that by the close of the apostolic era, the gospel and its messengers were no longer in need of divine validation from signs and wonders and miracles. This is not to say that God does not still perform miracles today in answer to prayer, but it does mean that all the so-called “signs and wonders” gifts claimed by Pentecostalism, the Word of Faith Movement, New Apostolic Reformation, and various charismatic denominations, churches, and teachers, ceased to exist by the close of the apostolic era. With the completion of the canon of Scripture no new revelation was or has been given by God; therefore, there is no new revelation in need of validation by signs and wonders and miracles. The greatest danger to the church posed by the charismatic idea of continuing revelation from God is that it undermines the sufficiency of Scripture. It either implicitly or explicitly denies the profundity of the Bible to meet all our deepest needs. It teaches people to trust in their own mystical and subjective experiences and impressions rather than God’s infallible Word. Once a person pretends to be led by the Spirit as their only guide and rule apart from the written Word of God, and oftentimes contrary to it, there is no sin or error into which their deceived and deluded imagination will not carry them, all under a sinful pretext of being led by the Spirit, and to claim that the Spirit taught them something other than or more than what the written Word of God teaches. This is to attribute their error to the Holy Spirit. The source of all extra-biblical revelation is not the mind of God, but the mind and imagination of the one making a claim to extra-biblical revelation, “They are leading you into futility; they speak a vision of their own imagination, not from the mouth of the Lord” (Jer 23:16). God’s revelation is complete, “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). The Christian needs no other revelation. The only validation a Christian needs and receives for the truth of Scripture is the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit, “The one who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself;” (1 Jn 5:10; cf. Rm 8:16; Eph 1:13; 1 Jn 4:13).
These apostates described by the author of Hebrews had experienced in their own persons the marvelous and powerful operations of the Holy Spirit in the confirmation of the gospel message. Such an experience only served to aggravate and elevate the guilt of their apostasy, making it “impossible to renew them again to repentance,” (Hb 6:6). The only sin which the Bible declares to be unpardonable is the sin against the Holy Spirt, “but whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age, or in the age to come” (Mt 12:32). The word “against” is the Greek preposition kata, and when used, as it is here, with the genitive case, denotes opposition, and means “against; in opposition to; antagonistic toward; in conflict with”. The Pharisee’s expressed their opposition and hostility against the Holy Spirit by attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to the devil (Mt 12:24). In other words, they called light darkness and good evil. These apostates described by our author expressed their opposition and hostility against the Holy Spirit by rejecting the truth of the gospel that had been confirmed to them by “signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit” (Hb 2:4). This opposition took the form of their abandoning the truths of the gospel and returning to Judaism, and in so doing they “trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace” (Hb 10:29).
The only way they could do this was by attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to something or someone other than the Holy Spirit. Like the Pharisees, they sought to explain away the powerful works of the Spirit by attributing them to something other than the Spirit, and like the Exodus generation, they remained unbelieving and disobedient even in the face of the mighty works of the Holy Spirit, “How long will this people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs which I have performed in their midst?” (Num 14:11). Signs, wonders, and miracles do not convert, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead” (Lk 16:31). Jesus performed signs and miracles which no one else had ever done (Jn 15:24), “But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him” (Jn 12:37). The same was true of these apostates. They denied that the powerful and marvelous effects they had experienced were the mighty operations of the Holy Spirit. Instead they attributed them to some second cause. When someone attributes the work of the Holy Spirit to the devil, as did the Pharisees, and as do many today who attribute the powerful convicting work of the Holy Spirit to a lie of the devil, they then express their opposition to the person of the Holy Spirit. Likewise, when someone attributes the counterfeit works of the devil, or their own sinful desires, or the unfruitful deeds of darkness, or erroneous extra-biblical revelation to the Holy Spirit, or declares that such things are compatible with the holy nature and character of the Holy Spirit, this is to be guilty of speaking against the Holy Spirit; it is in effect to call darkness light and evil good. As the great Puritan Steven Charnock once observed, “It is worse than absolute atheism, or a denial of God…It is more commendable to think Him not to be, than to think Him such a one as is inconsistent with His nature. Better to deny His existence, than deny His nature.”[16]
Portrait of an Apostate
From the description given by the author of Hebrews, we can now determine what sort of people were these apostates. First, we can determine what they were not, namely, they were never true and sincere Christians in the proper biblical sense of the word. They were, like the bulk of modern evangelicalism, Christians in name only, not by new birth, at least they are never described as such. They had, as Paul warned some in Corinth not to do, received the grace of God in vain, “we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain” (2 Cor 6:1). The warning implies a real danger and possibility, otherwise the warning is meaningless. In their description they are never once said to have saving faith, to have a love of the truth, or to have given evidence of bearing the fruit of the Spirit; rather just the opposite is true. In the following verses they are compared to the ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it, but yields only thorns and thistles (Hb 6:7, 8). This is not true of genuine Christians. These apostates never have any descriptive term applied to them that the New Testament writers ascribed to true believers. For instance, they are never called children of God, saints by calling, saints in Christ Jesus, to be born again, those who have been justified and sanctified in Christ Jesus, sons of God by adoption, a holy people, nor do they have any other term unique to true Christians applied to them. Our author distinguishes the recipients of his letter from these apostates by stating, “we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation” (Hb 6:9); things such as “your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints” (Hb 6:10). True salvation is never alone; rather it is always accompanied by visible fruit by which the character of the tree may be known. In this way, and in many other instances, does our author make a distinction between true believers and these apostates.
Secondly, we can determine who our author intends. They were people who not so long before had made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ and converted from Judaism to Christianity after having had the gospel confirmed to them by the powerful operations of the Holy Spirit. They themselves had “tasted…the powers of the age to come”, implying that they had not only witnessed, but also benefited from the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit. But, despite having tasted the powers of the age to come, and despite having made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ, they fell away. They still had “an evil, unbelieving heart,” (Hb 3:12). They were still in darkness. Their nature remained unchanged. Like the Jews in Jerusalem who believed in Jesus, “beholding the signs which He was doing” (Jn 2:23), their faith was not the faith that is the fruit of regeneration; rather it was a “miracle faith”. They were like many of Jesus’ disciples who, despite having witnessed His signs and miracles, “were not walking with Him anymore” (Jn 6:66), when the demands of discipleship became too strict and narrow. Like Demas, their supposed conversion had at first appeared to be genuine enough so as to be regarded a true believer and a distinguished fellow worker by other Christians (Philem 24), but, when following Christ became too costly, and when the cultural pressure became too great, they fell away, shrank back, and returned to the world (2 Tim 4:10). Like a sow after it has been washed, they returned to wallow in the mire because their nature remained unchanged (2 Pt 2:22). Now, it must have been some horrible inward disposition, some enmity in their nature, some strong hostility against the truth and holiness of Christ and the gospel, some intense love of the world and sin and self, that could turn such people away from the faith and extinguish all the moral and spiritual light and conviction of truth they had at one time so joyously received. Jesus described such people in His parable of the sower, “when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy;….but are only temporary; then when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away” (Mk 4:16, 17).
This is precisely what our author says about these apostates; they “have fallen away” (Hb 6:6 – Gk. parapesontas). This is the only time that this word appears in the New Testament, and it means “to forsake; to turn away; to fall away; to abandon a former relationship or association; to commit apostasy”. Its root word is pipto, “to fall”. To “fall away” (parapipto) is not the same as to “stumble” (ptaio). Paul makes a distinction between “stumbling” and “falling” in Romans 11:11, with “falling” being much more serious, “I say then, they did not stumble (ptaio) so as to fall (pipto), did they? May it never be!” Paul denies that the unbelieving Jews of his day had fallen irredeemably and irrecoverably. But such was not the case with these apostates, as signified by the word used to describe their falling away, and by the assertion that “it is impossible to renew them again to repentance” (Hb 6:6). The falling away described by our author is not a temporary falling into some particular sin or another; rather it describes something that is a premeditated, willful, and deliberate act. It is not a falling into some error because they had not yet had their senses trained to discern good from evil teaching (Hb 5:14); rather, it must have been a total abandonment and renunciation of all the fundamental doctrines of Christianity – doctrines such as the inerrancy, inspiration, authority, sufficiency, and historicity of all of Scripture; the fall of man as described in Genesis and the subsequent corruption of his nature by sin; the deity, Lordship, and absolute sovereignty of Jesus Christ, His virgin birth, substitutionary death and atonement, and bodily resurrection; the sovereignty of God in salvation; the Triune nature of God; the holy law of God as the rule of life for every Christian; the necessity and nature of regeneration; faith in the imputed sinless righteousness of Christ alone for justification; sanctification, which is increasing conformity to the law of God and His image, as evidence of justification; mankind’s total inability to save himself from the wrath of God by means of good works; eternal punishment in hell of all who do not obey the gospel of Jesus Christ, repent of their sin, and trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior; the necessity of separation from the world and a holy life – all these and similar doctrines they must have utterly renounced and abandoned in their return to Judaism. Their renunciation and abandonment must have been openly professed in word and action. This is the “falling away” described by the author of Hebrews; it is a voluntary and willful renunciation and abandonment of, and apostasy from the gospel, the faith, the doctrines, the rule, and the obedience of historic and biblical Christianity, which they could not do without casting the greatest contempt upon the person of Jesus Christ, and trampling under foot the Son of God, and insulting the Spirit of grace (Hb 10:29).
Such an abandonment of the gospel has many horrible consequences, not the least of which is God giving the mind over to a spirit of error and gross moral and spiritual darkness. Many people who would not or dare not, for selfish and self-serving motives, openly renounce the gospel and its doctrines, nevertheless utterly renounce them in their hearts, minds, and actions, “They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him,” (Tit 1:16). In the sight of God their falling away is complete and total, and all they do to cover their apostasy by twisting Scripture, and by an external compliance with some form of Christianity, is in the sight of God, a mocking of Him, and the highest aggravation of their sin. Today, such people call themselves ‘evangelicals’ and ‘Christians’. These are the kind of people who make up the bulk of modern evangelicalism, who are openly embraced and affirmed as evangelical Christians, and which constitute much of the leadership within modern evangelicalism. Is it any wonder we are in a season of horrible moral and spiritual darkness – a darkness that might be felt.
Here we see the reason for all unbelief. That which has the most of God in it, meets with the greatest enmity from us, and that which has the least of God and the most of the world and flesh, is met with the greatest receptivity by us. This is the reason why people are more for error, darkness, false doctrines, false gospels, false worship, and false Christianity than for the true, because the true deifies God and debases and humbles man. Thus, the reason it is easier to attract and reduce people to a ‘Christianity’ and ‘evangelicalism’ that exalts man, human wisdom and pride, and gratifies and flatters the flesh, than to the true which demands that we deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Christ. The love of sin and darkness characterizes our fallen human nature, “men loved the darkness rather than the light,” (Jn 3:19), and has extinguished all love for God and His Word. If the nature of man is inclined to sin and self, as it is, then it must be by nature antagonistic to anything that opposes them. Instead of desiring to do the will of God, we desire to “indulge the desires of the flesh and the mind,” (Eph 2:3), and to do the desires of our father the devil (Jn 8:44); therefore, we are in need of some other principle in us to make us desire to do the will of God.
Here we see the cause of all the apostasy in the world. Unbelief is never overcome in those who remain “alienated and hostile in mind,” (Col 1:21), and whose nature remains unchanged. They will not live to God and His glory as they live to themselves and their own glory (Eph 4:17, 18). They loathe the rule of God, and do not find the joy in doing His will that they find in doing their own will. They will judge and define what is good and right and just for them rather than have God define and judge it for them. When people fall away from truth to error, it is to those errors which promise to more serve their lusts, promote their ambitions, gratify their covetousness, and justify their sin that disputes with Jesus Christ for Lordship, and which they desire to serve before Him; “they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God” (Jn 12:43). Preferring the approval and praise of men rather than that of God was the reason why they would not confess and be ruled by Jesus as Lord. This describes the bulk of modern evangelicalism and its leaders.
Thus, we see the necessity of a new nature to overcome our old hostile, self-centered, and atheistical nature. Our nature and will must be changed. Since this enmity against God and His will is rooted in our fallen nature, the change must be in our nature. There must be a supernatural principle before we can live a supernatural life, that is, live to God and His will, since we are by nature alienated from the life of God (Col 1:21). The aversion from and hatred of our natures toward God is as strong as our inclination toward and love for sin, self, and the world. We are hostile toward one, and friendly with the other. This nature must be crushed and a new nature created before we can make Jesus Christ, His gospel, His commandments, His life our rule and our ultimate end. As long as people love the darkness and their deeds are evil, they will not come to the light and subject themselves to the law of God, much less while their natures are evil. Until a person’s nature is changed, all the service they render to God is performed from some man-centered, selfish, and self-seeking motive, from some evil “intent of man’s heart [that] is evil from his youth” (Gn 8:21), from wrong notions of God, wrong notions of salvation, wrong notions of Christian, or corrupt motives. All their pretenses of devotion to God are but the adoration of some idol of the mind and culture. The only thing that can expel darkness is light, but light rejected blinds. More than light is needed to see; we must also have a new nature. The only remedy for moral and spiritual darkness is the pure, unadulterated gospel of Jesus Christ, its doctrines, its rule, and obedience to it. Only the pure gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Rm 1:16), and only the sovereign power of God working through His inerrant Word can open blind eyes and create a new nature, “so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God,” (Ac 26:18). The very thing that fallen men are by nature most hostile toward, remains the only true hope for mankind.
I had hoped to conclude the description of these apostates in this study, but to do so would make this study much too long. Two things remain to be considered regarding the ‘falling away’ of these apostates; (1) the impossibility of their repentance, and all that is implied by that statement, and, (2) the reason for such an impossibility. Lord willing, this is what I shall examine in the next study.
[1] J.C. Ryle, Christian Leaders of the 18th Century (Edinburgh: Reprint Banner of Truth, 1978), 13, 14.
[2] Arnold Dallimore, George Whitefield: The life and times of the great evangelist of the 18th century revival (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1970), 19.
[3] Ibid, 19.
[4] Ibid, 21.
[5] Ryle, Christian Leaders, 16, 17.
[6] Letters of John Newton (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2007), vii.
[7] Arthur Fawcett, The Cambuslang Revival: The Scottish Evangelical Revival of the eighteenth century (London: Banner of Truth, 1971), 17,18, 27.
[8] Ibid, fn, 18.
[9] Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students (Ross-shire: Christian Focus, 1998), 251.
[10] Iain Murray, Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1987), 105.
[11] John Owen, The Works of John Owen. Vol 9 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965), 327.
[12] Murray, Jonathan Edwards, 106.
[13] Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol 1 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, Reprint of 1834 edition), ccxlix.
[14] William Garden Blaikie, The Preachers of Scotland From the Sixth to the Nineteenth Century (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1888), 11.
[15]Jonathan Edwards, ‘Man’s Natural Blindness in the Things of Religion’ in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol 2 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, Reprint of 1834 edition), 248.
[16] Steven Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, Reprint 1996), 158.