THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF APOSTASY – Part 8
Partial Apostasy from the Gospel
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)
In 1957 the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) perpetrated one of the greatest April Fool’s Day hoaxes when the current-affairs program Panorama aired a three-minute ‘documentary’ of the spaghetti harvest in Ticino, Switzerland. Afterwards the BBC was inundated with hundreds of requests by viewers wanting to know where they could obtain a spaghetti tree so they too could grow and harvest their own spaghetti. Similar hoaxes, whether done in jest or with malicious intentions, have been perpetrated throughout the history of mankind, thereby demonstrating that it is relatively easy to deceive people into believing a lie when they are ignorant of the truth, especially if the lie is dressed up in the garb of plausible truth by a ‘reputable’ source. The fact of Jesus’ bodily resurrection was explained away by just such a lie, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep’” (Mt 28:13). This was a plausible lie presented by a ‘reputable’ source, and as such, “this story was widely spread among the Jews and is to this day” (Mt 28:15). Deception is an art form and has always been one of the primary tools of warfare, both in the natural and the spiritual realm; thus all the biblical admonitions for Christians to “watch and pray”, “be on guard”, “be alert”, “do not be deceived”, “let no one deceive you”, and to grow in the true knowledge of the Lord. The greatest antidote and enemy to error and deception is truth, which is why unregenerate men and women hate the light and love the darkness, “lest his deeds should be exposed” (Jn 3:20), and why they “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Rm 1:18). Nothing is more capable of exposing and correcting lies, deceptions, and errors than the Bible, “Your word is truth” (Jn 17:17), and “no lie is of the truth” (1 Jn 2:21), which is why nothing has been the subject of attack, corruption, manipulation, and the deceptions of men and devils more than the holy Word of God.
Sin and Satan are deceitful because they present sin, error, and evil to the mind as something other than they really are. False teaching comes disguised as plausible truth; false teachers “disguise themselves as servants of righteousness;” (2 Cor 11:15); false churches hide behind orthodox statements of faith; false predictions, wild guesses, mystical experiences, and the deceptions of someone’s own heart are disguised as ‘prophecy’, a ‘word of knowledge’, and ‘new revelation’ from God (Jer 23:25-28; Ezk 22:28); wolves disguise themselves in sheep’s clothing (Mt 7:15; Ac 20:29); immorality and evil of every sort is disguised as virtue so that the acceptance, affirmation, and celebration of sin is today called ‘love’, and obedience to God’s Word and will is called ‘hate’. If it is relatively easy to deceive people in the realm of natural knowledge, how much easier is it to deceive the minds of people into believing a spiritual lie who are not only ignorant of spiritual truth, but have an inbred and natural hostility and hatred to spiritual truth, and who would rather believe in a lie, no matter how irrational and unscriptural, than in the truth. It was precisely because He spoke the truth that the Jews did not believe Jesus, “But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me” (Jn 8:45). The Galatians, who at first had received Paul “as an angel of God” (Gal 4:14), later regarded him as an enemy because he told them the truth, “Have I therefore become your enemy by telling you the truth?” (Gal 4:16). Today this hostility to biblical truth has become so conspicuous and fashionable, even among professing Christians, that, “they hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks with integrity” (Am 5:10), and, “he who turns aside from evil makes himself a prey” (Is 59:15). Concerning this willful hostility to truth on the part of unregenerate men and women, the great eighteenth century pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards once wrote,
“Sinners are ready to excuse themselves in their blindness; whereas…the blindness that naturally possesses the hearts of men, is not a merely negative thing, but they are blinded by “the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb 3:13). There is a perverseness in their blindness. There is not a mere absence of light, but a malignant opposition to the light…. Christ observes, “that this is their condemnation, that light is come into the world, yet men loved darkness rather than the light.”[1]
The question is exceedingly simple. Are men and women born basically good (or at least with an equal propensity for good or evil), as we have been told by modern culture and false religion now for decades, or are they born inherently bad and evil? How do we answer this question? The non-Christian world affirms the former, which today includes the bulk of contemporary evangelicalism, but if we simply consult what God has told us in His Word, the answer becomes perfectly clear. From Genesis to Revelation the Bible clearly teaches that, with the exception of the man Jesus Christ, all people are, in the sight of God, born sinners, and are “by nature children of wrath” (Eph 2:3). If we are by nature children of wrath, then we are by nature not merely ‘broken’ creatures, but sinful and evil creatures. The apostle Paul makes this abundantly clear by a series of quotations from the Old Testament beginning with Psalm 14:1-3, “There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, not even one” (Rm 3:10-12). He reiterates this same truth a few chapters later in Romans 8:6-8, “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,”. Why is the fleshly and natural mind death? “Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God;” and how is this inbred hostility expressed; “for it does not subject itself to the law of God,”; and why not; “for it is not even able to do so;”. Paul states this same truth in his first letter to the church in Corinth, “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor 2:14). The only thing which restrains unregenerate men and women from being as evil as they could be is God’s common grace. This is because, as the great Scottish Puritan Thomas Boston once stated,
“There is in the unrenewed will an aversion to good. Sin is the natural man’s element; he is as unwilling to part with it as fish are to come out of the water onto dry land. He not only cannot come to Christ, but he will not come (John 5:40). He is polluted and hates to be washed (Jer 13:27), …. He is sick and utterly adverse to the remedy; he loves his disease so, that he loathes his Physician. He is a captive, a prisoner, and a slave, but he loves his conqueror, his jailor, and master; he is fond of his fetters, prison, and drudgery, and has no liking to liberty. …. There is in the will of man a natural ‘proneness to evil’, a woeful bent towards sin. Men naturally are ‘bent to backsliding from God’ (Hos 11:7). They hang, as the word is, towards backsliding; even as a hanging wall, whose breaking ‘cometh suddenly at an instant’. Set holiness and life upon one side, sin and death upon the other. Leave the unrenewed will to itself it will choose sin and reject holiness. This is no more to be doubted, than that water poured on the side of a hill will run downward, and not upward; or that a flame will ascend, and not descend.” [2]
Unregenerate men and women cannot, that is, they have no spiritual capacity or desire to understand, much less love and obey, spiritual truth. This is because fallen human nature, being from birth “hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds” (Col 1:21), has an inbred opposition to the truths and doctrines of God’s Word. From birth “men loved darkness rather than the light” (Jn 3:20), and “the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gn 8:21). How else are we to explain how someone like a Hitler or a Stalin or a Mao can deceive the population of an entire nation into committing the most unimaginable atrocities? How else are we to explain how the most sinful, vile, abominable, and unnatural immoralities and lifestyles which less than fifty years ago would have been regarded, and rightly so, as wicked, unnatural, irrational, perverse, and even insane by even the non-Christian world, have now become universally accepted, celebrated, and glorified by not only the culture, but by the bulk of modern evangelicalism, to the extent that it can cost a person their job to simply state the obvious fact that a man cannot be a woman? It is a mark of great spiritual and moral blindness when people are blind and hostile toward the most obvious truths and distinctions. History and experience prove that it is relatively easy to get unregenerate men and women to side with and give hearty approval to evil, even the most irrational and self-destructive forms of evil, as we are currently witnessing not just in our culture, but within the mass of contemporary evangelicalism. A Christianity that sides with the world and evil against the Word of God, apologizes for, denies, and seeks to explain away the plain meaning of Scripture, and tolerates and embraces as ‘Christian’ the most blatantly sinful and worldly lifestyles, immoralities, false teachings, and false teachers, can hardly be the one true faith taught by Jesus and His apostles. The Bible everywhere teaches us to see ourselves as God sees us, and having done that, to despair, mourn, beat on our chest, and cry out to God, “God be merciful to me, the sinner!” (Lk 18:13). Yet despite the clear and unambiguous teaching of Scripture, modern evangelicalism continues to represent sinners and the world as basically good, albeit somewhat ‘broken’. What J. Gresham Machen said almost ninety years ago regarding modern evangelism’s view of man is even more true today,
“I know that some people hold that an exception is to be found in this gloomy chorus of the Biblical books. Paul, they admit, believed that all are sinners and need to have their sins washed away in a holy victim’s blood, but Jesus, they say, appealed with confidence to the good that men’s hearts contained …. I am amazed when I hear people talk in that way. I am not amazed because they show thereby that they themselves have no consciousness of sin. Alas, the lack of a consciousness of sin is only too common among those whose hearts have never been touched by the Holy Spirit in saving grace. But what does amaze me is that educated men, living in the supposedly enlightened twentieth century, should show so little historical sense as to attribute their own pagan confidence in humanity to Jesus of Nazareth. I am not surprised that they have confidence in man, but I am considerably surprised that they think that Jesus had. Of course if they think so they must put the four gospels aside,”[3]
This is precisely what modern evangelicalism has done; it has set aside not only the Bible’s teaching regarding the true nature of man, but its truths and doctrines regarding the true nature of God, of sin, of salvation and regeneration, and of what it means to be Christian. Set aside the true gospel from any church, and that church is not worth preserving. Having lost its saltiness, it is good for nothing. There is nothing so useless as a ‘church’ or ‘Christianity’ or an ‘evangelicalism’ without the true gospel of Jesus Christ; rather it only adds to the evil and immorality by undermining and weakening the restraints which true Christianity imposes on the hearts of sinful mankind. There is today, among all of modern evangelicalism, a conspicuous absence of all knowledge of true Christianity. Not one in a hundred professing Christians are able to explain even one of the most basic doctrines of Christianity or discern the difference between true and false doctrine, nor do they show the slightest desire to know the difference. Where we should expect to find the most light and love of the truth, sadly, we find the most miserable self-imposed darkness, self-deception, confusion, indifference, and hostility to biblical truth. Like apostate Israel, modern evangelicalism says, if not in words, then by actions, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them” (Mal 2:17). In other words, when it comes to spiritual truth, unregenerate men and women prefer, choose, and love lies over the truth. They “loved the darkness rather than the light” (Jn 3:19). They have an inbred hostility to spiritual truth and a natural affinity for what is deceitful, dishonest, and evil. They hate the truth and love lies, evil, and deceptions. They “drag iniquity with the cords of falsehood, and sin as if with cart ropes” (Is 5:18); “they delight in falsehood” (Ps 62:4); they “delight in doing evil, and rejoice in the perversity of evil” (Prov 2:14); their “feet run rapidly to evil” (Prov 6:18); “they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations,” (Is 66:3); they “are accustomed to doing evil” (Jer 13:23) they “pursued a course of sensuality” (1 Pt 4:3).
This is what separates natural from spiritual deception. When anyone discovers they have been deceived in the natural realm, they instinctively turn away from what they now know to be a lie. ‘Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me’, has become an axiom. “Thus says the Lord, ‘Do men fall and not get up again? Does one turn away and not repent?’” (Jer 8:4). If someone falls down they instinctively try to get up again. If they turn from the right way, they return to it as quickly as they can. Not to do so would be irrational. Yet this is precisely how the apostate acts. “Why then has this people, Jerusalem, turned away in continual apostasy?”; it is because, “They hold fast to deceit, they refuse to return” (Jer 8:5). The more they are shown their error, the more tightly they cling to it. Having strayed from the way of truth and obedience, the apostate exhibits no desire or inclination to either rise or return; instead they hold fast to their deceptions, false doctrines, false teachers, and forms of godliness, convince themselves and their conscience that the lies and evil they believe are true, good, and virtuous, until it becomes too late to repent. In other words, their apostasy is irreversible.
Despite this clear teaching of Scripture, people still cling to the false hope and delusion that apostasy is somehow reversible. This is seen in the typical response to the now all too frequent announcement by some notable ‘Christian’ that they no longer believe in God or are no longer a Christian. Inevitably the responses take the form of expressions of hopes and prayers for their repentance, cautions against judging their defection as damnable and irreversible apostasy, or antidotal stories of people who at one time fell away but years later ‘returned to the fold’, as if these stories nullify the clear teaching of the Bible. This is because the truth of something is now judged based on feelings, emotions, human reason, popular opinion, and personal experience, not the Bible. Ignored is the plain teaching of Scripture, namely, that it is impossible to renew the apostate to repentance (Hb 6:6; 10:26-31), and, “it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment given to them” (2 Pet 2:21), and, “They went out from us, but they were not really of us;” (1 Jn 2:19), and, “They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed” (Tit 2:16). Then there is the clear teaching of Jesus Himself, “If (and only if) you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;” (Jn 8:31); “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch, and dries up; and they gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned” (Jn 15:6). Referring to this last passage, the great twentieth century theologian John Murray wrote,
“The crucial test of true faith is endurance to the end, abiding in Christ, and continuance in his word. This emphasis of Scripture should teach us two things, (1) It provides us with the meaning of falling away, of apostasy. It is possible to give all the outward signs of faith in Christ and obedience to him, to witness for a time a good confession and show great zeal for Christ and his kingdom, and then lose interest and become indifferent, if not hostile, to the claims of Christ and his kingdom …. There is of course, a great deal of variation within this class of people. Some appear to be converted, they boil over with enthusiasm for a little while, and then suddenly cool off. They disappear from the fellowship of the saints. Others do not show the same enthusiasm; their attachment to the faith of Christ has never been one of pronounced character. But in the course of time it becomes precariously tenuous and finally the tie is completely broken …. (2) We must appreciate the lengths and the heights to which a temporary faith may carry those who have it …. The Scripture itself, therefore, leads us to the conclusion that it is possible to have very uplifting, ennobling, reforming, and exhilarating experiences of contact with the supernatural forces which are operative in God’s kingdom of grace that these forces produce effects in us which to human observation are hardly distinguishable from those produced by God’s regenerating and sanctifying grace and yet not be partakers of Christ and heirs of eternal life. A doctrine of perseverance that fails to take account of such a possibility and of its actuality in certain cases is a distorted one and ministers to a laxity which is quite contrary to the interests of perseverance. Indeed it is not the doctrine of perseverance at all.” [4]
All attempts to evade the force and plain meaning of the truths and doctrines of Scripture only betray the fallacy of the cause and position which such evasions are trying to defend. This describes not only our culture in general, but the bulk of modern evangelicalism, namely, the innumerable attempts to evade the clear meaning, truths, authority, sufficiency, and inerrancy of Scripture. The danger which the apostle Paul warned the Corinthians against, and which the author of Hebrews warned his readers (Hb 2:1), and which the Bible repeatedly warns us, has been realized by modern evangelicalism, namely, “as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” (2 Cor 11:3). Modern evangelicalism and the mass of professing Christians today, just like the Corinthians, “bear beautifully” (anechomai – “are tolerant of; patient with; willingly listen to”) anyone who “comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted,” (2 Cor 11:4). Yet, when it comes to the plain, absolute, and objective truths of Scripture, “they will not endure sound doctrine” (2 Tim 4:3). This describes the Jesus, spirit, and gospels taught and believed by contemporary evangelicalism and the bulk of professing Christians, namely, a different Jesus, a different spirit, and a different gospel than that revealed and taught by Holy Scripture; a Jesus and gospels that are calculated to give no offence to the natural mind, avoid any conviction, shame, or guilt for sin, scoffs at sound doctrine, makes no demands or dogmatic statements of absolute truth, and which affirms that a lifestyle of sin is consistent with being Christian. Just like apostate Israel, modern evangelicalism shows no desire to correct its ways, but instead clings tenaciously to its false Christs, false gospels, false theologies of regeneration, false conceptions and representations of what it is to be Christian, and its deceitful and relativistic forms of godliness.
As to beliefs and morals among professing Christians, the diversity is so great that the epithet ‘Cafeteria Christians’ is an apt description for the way they pick and choose what parts of the Bible they believe. They are Christian by their definition of Christian, which, for them, is the only one that really counts. Professing to believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, they in fact and in practice believe otherwise, and respond to its truths, commands, and doctrines with obvious resentment and hostility, as if it was an arrogant act of hateful, narrow-minded, mean-spirited, divisive, uncharitable, and unchristian bigotry to expose their error, call sin by its right names, discern true from false, and believe in and teach the plainest truths and doctrines of the Bible. What Paul said of the worldly and carnal widow, that she “is dead even while she lives” (1 Tim 5:6), and what Jesus said of the church of Sardis, “that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead” (Rev 3:1), is equally and irrefutably true of contemporary evangelicalism. Like a dead fish, modern evangelicalism lacks both the will and ability to swim against the present torrent of false doctrines, lies, and evil; rather it is being swept away by them. Only a living fish can swim against the current. In pursuing the favor, money, power, success, influence, friendship, and admiration of the world, modern evangelicalism has chosen the wide and well-trodden road that leads to destruction, and the Lord calls all true believers to turn away from this road, “You shall not follow a multitude in doing evil,” (Ex 23:2). When people obstinately cling to their deceptions, refuse to repent, call evil good and good evil, and instead go deeper into depravity and call belief and obedience to God’s Word ‘hate’, they reach the point where they cannot repent. The willful and obstinate corruption, rejection of, and hostility to truth becomes a judicial, divine, and incurable hardening and blinding to truth. They may hold to various forms of godliness, make a pretense of faith in Jesus Christ and belief in the gospel, but they are blind and hostile to its plainest truths and doctrines whose clear meaning they can only evade by interpretations so tortured and far-fetched that they betray the weakness of the position which they are trying to support and their inbred hostility to the truth. People who are already immersed in deception and entangled in error, naturally desire to justify themselves by the number of followers they can seduce into their error. Success and numbers, not divine revelation, becomes the standard for truth. This is modern evangelicalism.
It is a sad and all too obvious reality that very little of what professes to be Christian today shows any signs of being truly regenerate; rather just the opposite is true. It bears all the marks of an unregenerate mind, namely, it is “alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds” (Col 1:21); it indulges “the desires of the flesh and of the mind” (Eph 2:3); it goes out of its way to be a friend of the world (Jm 4:4); it loves the world and the things in the world (1 Jn 2:15); it highly esteems what is detestable in the sight of God (Lk 16:15); it pays attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons (1 Tim 4:1); it will not endure sound doctrine (2 Tim 4:3); it has accumulated “for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires” (2 Tim 4:3); it has turned away from the truth and turned aside to myths (2 Tim 4:4); it “says to the wicked, ‘You are righteous,’” (Prov 24:24); it has no love of the truth so as to be saved (2 Thes 2:10); it makes “no distinction between the holy and the profane,” (Ezk 22:26); it says “’Thus says the Lord God’, when the Lord has not spoken” (Ezk 22:28); like the scribes and Pharisees, it invents legalistic loop-holes to circumvent and invalidate the plain meaning of God’s commands, prohibitions, principles, and doctrines (Mk 7:9-13); it does not practice righteousness (1 Jn 3:10); it has, and continues to secretly introduced destructive heresies (2 Pt 1); it speaks “as from the world, and the world listens to them” (1 Jn 4:5); it turns “the grace of our God into licentiousness” (Jude 4). Today the minds of multitudes have been led astray, deceived, familiarized, and desensitized with an untold number of false gospels, false Christs, false worship, false doctrines, false spirituality, and false conceptions and definitions of Christian. We live in a time when despite the volume and availability of biblical truth, the strangest teachings and misrepresentations prevail about the true nature of Christianity. It is ignorantly assumed that the most outrageous, worldly, unbiblical, carnal, undiscerning, materialistic, scripture-twisting, self-serving, immoral, and disobedient people are true representatives of what it is to be Christian, yet to speak the truth in love and expose the unfruitful deeds of darkness is regarded as arrogant, divisive, and unchristian. If this is not spiritual deception and divine judicial blindness, I know not what it is.
I speak without reference to any specific persons, groups, institutions, or denominations. This apostasy from the gospel on the part of modern evangelicalism is across the board; it knows no boundaries; it is general in its scope; it is universal. From the prestigious ivory towers of religious academia to the nominal Christian in the pew, from popular and famous preachers to the local Sunday school teacher, from international Christian media organizations to the obscure blog-writer, from entire denominations and mega-churches to the small country chapel; rich or poor, liberal or conservative, young or old, new ‘convert’ or life-long churchgoer, educated or uneducated, professional theologian or cultural Christian, it is an undeniable fact that the generality of professing Christians have today partially apostatized from the true gospel of Jesus Christ, and in its place have substituted numerous and various forms of godliness tailored to fit the tastes, ways, and opinions of the times, and to which they cut and paste Christian terminology and call by the name of ‘Christian’ and ‘evangelical’. It does not ask what is true, but what is safest, what is popular, what is expedient, what is inclusive, what is politically and socially correct, and what works. In times of apostasy and general defection from the true gospel, to be holy as God is holy is that with which God is greatly pleased. To be faithful, steadfast, and holy in an adulterous generation and in degenerate times is a Christian’s honor. In the words of the great Puritan Thomas Watson, “The more outrageous others are in sin, the more courageous we should be for truth”.[5]
Straying from the Faith
There are three essential and fundamental parts to the true gospel of Jesus Christ. First, is the truth of its doctrines. It is “the writing of truth” (Dan 10:21) which is the object and ground of faith. Second, is the holiness of its commands, principles, and instructions, which are the subject of our obedience. Third, is the purity of the foundations of its worship, which is the test and trial of our profession of faith and obedience. It is with respect to these three that we will examine the reasons, causes, and occasions of the apostasy from them which is in the world today. From every one of these we can identify numerous, deplorable, and obvious apostasies on the part of modern evangelicalism.
First, is the truth or doctrine of the gospel, which is the object of our faith, and is the basis of its instructions, of the holiness which it requires, and of the worship that it prescribes. Wherever this is neglected and forsaken, the others cannot be maintained and preserved. People may profess the truth, yet fail to live in obedience to it, “They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him,” (Tit 1:16). They may call Jesus, ‘Lord, Lord’, and not do what He says (Lk 6:46). They can be merely hearers of God’s Word, but not doers (Ezk 33:31; Jm 1:22). They can have an academic, theoretical, speculative, and scholarly knowledge of the Bible, but like the Sadducees, “not understand the Scriptures, or the power of God” (Mk 12:24). Without a new nature and a real belief of the gospel from the heart, no one can be as obedient as they ought, “But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness” (Rm 6:17, 18). The obedience which the gospel requires is “the obedience of faith” (Rm 1:5; 16:26), or being “obedient to the faith” (Ac 6:7), or being “obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed” (Rm 6:17). It is this which “the grace of God” alone instructs “us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age,” (Tit 2:11, 12), and by which we present our “bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship” (Rm 12:1). Wherever this truth is neglected, renounced, rejected, forsaken, corrupted, edited, or distorted, to the extent that it is, to the same extent there will be an apostasy from all other concerns of the gospel. A different gospel and false theology of regeneration will always produce a different and apostate Christianity, namely, a form of godliness that denies its power (2 Tim 3:5).
What we will discover in our examination is that all sorts of persons, all churches, and all institutions are, and always have been, exceedingly prone to drifting and turning away from the truth of the doctrine of the gospel, that is, to “turn away their ears from the truth” (singular) – namely, from the one and only true gospel – “and will turn aside to myths” (plural) – that is, to all sorts and various kinds of lies, false doctrines, and erroneous gospels (2 Tim 4:4). They have routinely done so in the past, and those that are in the world today are of the same nature and inclination. Where are the seven churches of Asia to whom the apostle John wrote The Book of Revelation? Where are the once great churches of Europe? Where are the universities of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and others which were founded to train men for the gospel ministry, not to mention the innumerable organizations and individuals who at one time professed, and even still profess, to be Christian, yet have either drifted into false doctrine, heresy, and apostasy or have abandoned the faith altogether? All have gone the way of the world. All are either extinct or apostate, and many other people, churches, denominations, and institutions have either now joined them, or are well on their way to being added to their number. The apostle Paul, when facing his imminent execution, rejoiced in the fact that he had, “kept the faith;” (2 Tim 4:7). “For I am”, he says, “already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Tim 4:6-8). Paul attributed the certain hope and prospect of his future reward and glorification to one particular fact, namely, that he had “kept THE faith”, which he did not do without the severest warfare and conflict against both the hostility and opposition of men and the deceptions of Satan.
What most consider to be so easy and ordinary that it can be accomplished with a minimal amount of effort, diligence, perseverance, knowledge, and watchfulness, Paul regarded as the highest and hardest triumph of faith, one that could only be attained by the most diligent, prayerful, watchful, costly, and persistent conflict and effort. The numerous and repeated exhortations which he made to his beloved child in the faith, Timothy, to be diligent and careful in this regard, reveal the importance he placed on it, the difficulty involved in it, and the danger of failure associated with it. For instance, “This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith,” (1 Tim 1:18, 19); “But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness;” (1 Tim 4:7); “Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them, …. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things; for as you do this you will insure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you” (1 Tim 4: 15, 16); “But flee from these things you man of God; and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith;” (1 Tim 6:11, 12); “O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called “knowledge” – which some have professed and thus gone astray from the faith” (1 Tim 6:20, 21); “Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you” (2 Tim 1:14); “Suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (2 Tim 2:3); “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth” (2 Tim 2:15). “Now flee from youthful lusts, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart” (2 Tim 2:22); “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction” (2 Tim 4:2). In his letter to Titus, Paul clearly warns of “many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers,” (Tit 1:10) who were leading astray the church in Crete; men “who must be silenced because they are upsetting” (anatrepo – to overturn; ruin; destroy) “whole families, teaching things they should not teach, for the sake of sordid gain” (Tit 1:11), and whom Paul would have Titus severely rebuke, “This testimony is true. For this cause reprove them severely that they may be sound in the faith, not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth” (Tit 1:13, 14). Paul warned the church in Ephesus, “that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Ac 20:29, 30). Peter warned his readers of those who, “forsaking the right way they have gone astray,” (2 Pt 2:15), and of false teachers “who will secretly introduce destructive heresies” (that is, erroneous and unbiblical ideologies and schools of thought), “even denying the Master who bought them,” (2 Pt 2:1). The apostle John warned, “many deceivers have gone out into the world,” (2 Jn 7). Jesus severely rebuked the church of Thyatira for its tolerance of “the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray, so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols” (Rev 2:20). There would be no need for “appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), if there were not people always in every age who were ready to corrupt it, dilute it, twist it, and turn away from it.
It is not hard to produce examples of this drifting and falling away among all the churches in the world since they were first established by the preaching of the doctrines of the gospel. Such examples provide abundant evidence for our assertion that all sorts of people and churches have always been prone to apostasy from the doctrines of the gospel, the reasons and causes for which we shall explore. This defection from the truth has exhibited itself wherever God’s Word has been known. How soon after the Flood did people turn to idolatry and self-worship in building the tower of Babel? How soon after their deliverance from Egypt did the Israelites make for themselves a golden calf? How soon after entering the land of Canaan did the Israelites begin to serve the Baals (Jug 2:11)? Not long after their return from Babylonian captivity the priests of Israel “turned aside from the way; you have caused many to stumble by the instruction; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi,” (Mal 2:8). The long, sad history of Israel is one of a continual proneness to all sorts of apostasy, so much so that by the time John the Baptist began his public ministry, the nation of Israel was thoroughly and irreversibly apostate, “For this cause they could not believe,” (Jn 12:39). They could not believe because they would not believe (Jn 5:40); therefore, God judicially hardened them so that they could not believe, “What then? That which Israel is seeking for, it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened” (Rm 11:7). It is to be feared that the pretense and appearance which many churches and professing Christians make of being in a better condition than apostate Israel is due to the fact that they have not had their ways, practices, and evil deeds exposed and recorded by the Spirit of God as theirs were.
The First Century Church
Of all the churches ever planted and established in the world, those which were gathered and established by the apostles had the greatest advantage to know the pure doctrines and truths of the gospel, as well as the greatest reasons and incentives to persevere in those truths and doctrines. The truth of the doctrines taught by the apostles were confirmed “both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit” (Hb 2:4), and, “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles” (2 Cor 12:12). Considering the divine calling and enabling of the apostles, their faithfulness to “not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God” (Ac 20:27), their authority as being directly taught, commissioned, and sent by Jesus Christ Himself (Ac 1:8; Gal 1:12), their message being not “the word of men”, but “the word of God” (1 Thes 2:13), the absolute infallibility and inerrancy of all the truths they delivered with no mixture of human error, their leaving an inerrant, authoritative, and sufficient written record of their teaching and doctrine, so “that at any time after my departure you may be able to call these things to mind” (2 Pt 1:15), and that what they wrote “is the Lord’s commandment” (2 Cor 14:37), it would be rational to think that there would be no reason, no excuse, or no pretext for anyone to drift or depart in the least from the truths, doctrines, and commands which they were taught, or any opportunity for Satan or false teachers to deceive and mislead them. No doubt most of us imagine that if we had been taught directly by one of the apostles himself, nothing could ever tempt us to doubt, waver, or compromise, much less to deny and renounce any of the truths which we were taught. Sadly, this notion is like what the Pharisees thought concerning the Old Testament prophets, “If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets” (Mt 23:30). Yet these same people conspired to crucify the Son of God. It is like the rich man in hell who thought that if someone rose from the dead to warn his five brothers, then they would repent and believe; yet, as Jesus said in this parable, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead” (Lk 16:27-31). Without a constant, prayerful, and diligent watchfulness, resolve, and dependence on the Spirit of God to persevere and remain steadfast and immovable in the doctrines of the gospel, we also would be led astray “by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming” (Eph 4:14), even if we had been taught by all the apostles put together. The Bible provides us with numerous examples from most of the churches founded by the apostles of this proclivity to drift from, surrender, and apostatize from evangelical truths and principles, and which they, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, recorded in the New Testament.
New Testament Examples
The church of Corinth was a church called out of a degraded, decedent, and immoral pagan culture. During Paul’s time the population of Corinth was about 700,000, two-thirds of which were slaves. The city was filled with pagan shrines and temples, the most prominent being the Temple of Aphrodite, the ‘goddess of love’. Her worshipers eagerly availed themselves of the one thousand Hieroduli (temple prostitutes). People from all over the Roman Empire came to Corinth to spend money on a vacation from morality. The city became so notorious for its vice, debauchery, and licentiousness that the term Korinthiazomai – “to behave like a Corinthian” – became synonymous for prostitution, fornication, and every sort of illicit immorality and perversion. Corinth was the ‘sin-city’ of the ancient world. Originally planted by the apostle Paul on his second missionary journey (Ac 18:1-7) and watered by Apollos, that great defender of the gospel, “I planted, but Apollos watered,” (1 Cor 3:6), no one can doubt that the church in Corinth was well instructed by them in all the doctrines and principles of the gospel, seeing that Paul spent a year and a half continuously teaching them, “he settled there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them” (Ac 18:11). Yet, within about four years of his founding the church, and before Paul wrote to them his first epistle, many of the Corinthians had reverted to their old immoral lifestyles and practices (1 Cor 5:1, 2; 6:15-18), and many had fallen into the error of denying the resurrection, “how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” (1 Cor 15:12), thereby destroying, as Paul declares, the whole doctrine of Christ’s resurrection, and rendering their faith altogether worthless (1 Cor 15:13-17). It had become evident to Paul that, despite all of his and Apollos’ faithful and diligent teaching in the doctrines of the gospel, within the church of Corinth there were some who still had no knowledge of God (1 Cor 15:34). By the time he wrote Second Corinthians, less than a year later, Paul found it necessary to exhort the Corinthians “not to receive the grace of God in vain,” (2 Cor 6:1), and was concerned that he “may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, immorality, and sensuality which they have practiced” (2 Cor 12:21), and concluded his letter with an exhortation for the Corinthians to “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!” (2 Cor 13:5).
The churches of Galatia are another tragic example. Founded by Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey (Ac 13:13-14:23), these churches had been fully instructed in the doctrine of justification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone apart from works. The Galatians had received the gospel with so much joy, and with such a sense of blessing, that they esteemed Paul “as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus Himself” (Gal 4:14), and were so grateful that they “would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me” (Gal 4:15). Yet after all of this, the Galatian churches were suddenly “bewitched” (baskaino – to deceive by devious and crafty means – Gal 3:1) by false teachers who professed Jesus, but added works to grace. So sudden was their defection from the gospel of grace and justification by faith alone that Paul was “amazed that you are so quickly deserting (metatithemi – to turn away from; to abandon one’s loyalty to; to become apostate) Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different (heteros – of a different kind or class) gospel” (Gal 1:6). The Galatians had abandoned their trust and loyalty to the true gospel of grace and transferred them to a false gospel of salvation based on works. They had begun by the Spirit, but were deceived into believing their final salvation was based on their works, “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Gal 3:3). Even though the gospel of grace had been attested by “miracles among you” (Gal 3:5), they still all of a sudden apostatized from it. They listened to the voice of a stranger, not that of the Good Shepherd, the reason for which, as we shall see, always lies in the unrenewed mind. Jesus said that His true sheep abide in His Word (Jn 8:31), and “follow him, because they know his voice. And a stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers …. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (Jn 10:4, 5, 27).
The Galatians’ strange, sudden, and inexplicable defection from the true gospel for a different gospel and different Jesus made Paul wonder if there was not some powerful spiritual bewitching behind it, and caused him to “fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain” (Gal 4:11). Paul did not think, as many do today, that if someone teaches a great deal of truth, a little false doctrine may be excused, overlooked, and allowed. It is precisely such teaching that is guaranteed to do the most harm, as Paul warned the Galatian churches, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough” (Gal 5:9). A little false doctrine “will spread like gangrene” (2 Tim 2:17). One little drop of poison in a gallon of pure water can kill. To mingle the truth of God with the error of men – not error in things indifferent and in which someone can err and still be saved, but error in doctrines essential to salvation – is deadly. Modern evangelicalism has forgotten the truth expressed by J.C. Ryle almost two-hundred years ago, and that is,
“False doctrine and heresy are even worse than schism. If people separate themselves from teaching which is positively false and unscriptural, they ought to be praised rather than reproved. In such cases separation is a virtue and not a sin …. The old saying must never be forgotten, ‘He is the schismatic who causes the schism’ …. Controversy in religion is a hateful thing …. But there is one thing which is even worse than controversy, and that is false doctrine, allowed, and permitted without protest or molestation.”[6]
In the same way we see many today who in a short period of time renounce many or all of the principles of sound doctrine in which they have been instructed, and embrace teachings, ideologies, opinions, interpretations, and systems that are the direct opposite of them. In every generation there have been men and women which arise from within the church who drift into man-centered and works-based systems of justification, false theologies of regeneration, or, like the Montanist teaching of the second century which the church at that time condemned as heresy, advocate, defend, and redefine the continuation of the gift of prophecy, thereby undermining the authority, sufficiency, and truth of Scripture. Concerning this heresy (which, by the way, modern evangelicalism no longer considers heresy) Dr. Robert Thomas once observed,
“Second-century Christians rightly valued the survival of the truth over the establishment of a unity that would have encompassed Montanist teaching. If they had sought a middle ground with the Montanists’ error regarding the gift of prophecy, that would have seriously retarded the progress of the church. They did the right thing in labeling the movement as unorthodox …. thereby preserving the right perspective regarding the true nature of New Testament prophecy.”[7]
Having drifted from the truth, those who live in error attempt to integrate their error into the church so as to cause others to stumble with them. Being deceived, they attempt to deceive others, often by introducing faulty systems of interpretation which deconstruct the plain meaning of Scripture, and reconstruct it to what they think it should mean in order to support their error. Such manipulation of Scripture is nothing new. In every generation there have been those who advocate “a different doctrine”, and who do “not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness” (1 Tim 6:3). The Pharisees and Sadducees did it with the Old Testament, and, as one modern author has noted,
“For centuries, some Bible scholars have attempted to “interpret” the words of God for their own ends. Origen, called by some the “father” of allegorical interpretation, lived and taught during the early 200s at a school in Alexandria, Egypt. Essentially, he insisted the real meaning of Scripture was not in the historical narrative but in some spiritual truth that could be gleaned only by searching for its hidden sense. Origen coined 40 terms for this “heavenly sense” …. He was particularly driven to accommodate the science of his day …. Origen was determined to conform the words of Scripture to the understanding of the day.” [8]
The same determination characterizes modern evangelicalism, as Dr. Robert Thomas described in 2002,
“The decade of the 1970’s wreaked havoc upon the cause of evangelicalism. Several evangelical seminaries and colleges experienced significant changes from the directions envisioned by their founders …. Changes in hermeneutics [i.e. principles of interpretation] have coincided with changes in evangelicalism …. In 1978 the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy was convened to deal with such issues. Evangelicals saw that they must define biblical inerrancy more precisely. The council issued its statement on biblical inerrancy, but postponed its specific findings on hermeneutics until a future meeting. Rather than define evangelical hermeneutics more carefully at this second meeting in 1982, the theologians’ discussions initiated more confusion about biblical interpretation than had existed before.”[9]
The natural consequence of this ongoing confusion for modern evangelicalism was, as David Wells described in 2001,
“It was clear to us, even in 1975, that Evangelicalism was about to change, the core consensus was beginning to weaken, strategic coherence was beginning to disappear, and that in the absence of these things we could anticipate seeing many new ad hoc definitions as to what Evangelicalism was and many new ad hoc silences when it was not what it was supposed to be. We were right …. The truth of the matter is that the fraying at the edges of the evangelical world has now turned into an unraveling at its center. First came the new definitions about who evangelicals were. Then the boundaries were shifted. Then they were crossed. And now the reality of God is redefined and made altogether more accommodating to our postmodern culture.”[10]
It was during this same time period that Iain Murray noticed a marked shift of priorities within evangelicalism,
“We have seen that the new evangelicalism, launched with such promise, had lost its way in the United States by the late 1960s …. this happened because there was an element of pragmatism inherent in the movement, an element which was to overrule biblical principles with disastrous consequences.”[11]
It was Origen’s allegorical method of interpretation that led to all the heresies introduced by Roman Catholicism, its perversion of and defection from the doctrine of justification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone apart from works, the corruption of God’s worship, and which immersed the church into a thousand years of spiritual darkness and gross superstition until the plain meaning of Scripture and the true gospel was recovered by the Protestant Reformation. Likewise, it has been the shifts in principles of biblical interpretation adopted, taught, and implemented by contemporary evangelicalism, solely for pragmatic and self-serving reasons, that have decimated modern Christianity. Playing fast and loose with the Word of God will always lead to apostasy from the truths, doctrines, and principles of Scripture. This defection from the true gospel by the Galatians was, as Paul declared, in effect a renunciation of all their spiritual privileges in Christ, “You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace” (Gal 5:4); that is, from the doctrine of justification by grace into a justification based on works. It is not that works of obedience are not important for the Christian. They are very important. They are the evidence of justification, but they contribute nothing to justification. They cannot save your soul. They cannot get you into heaven. They cannot deliver you from the wrath of God. To add works to grace is to renounce the doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone, and place oneself “under obligation to keep the whole law” (Gal 5:3) in order to be justified, which is a spiritual and moral impossibility, “because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight;” (Rm 3:20). The words of John Murray still ring true today,
“This truth that God justifies needs to be underlined. We do not justify ourselves. Justification is not our apology nor is it the effect of a process of self-excusation. It is not even our confession nor the good feeling that may be induced in us by confession. Justification is not any religious exercise in which we engage however noble and good that religious exercise may be. If we are to understand justification and appropriate its grace we must turn our thought to the action of God in justifying the ungodly. At no point is the free grace of God more manifest than in his justifying – “being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24). The truth of justification has suffered at the hands of human perversion as much as any doctrine of Scripture.” [12]
The reason why this doctrine has been the subject of corruption and deceptions in all ages of the church, both by legalists and antinomians, is, as the great Puritan genius John Owen once wrote,
“And there cannot be a more effectual engine plied for the ruin of religion, than for men to declaim against the doctrine of justification by faith alone, …. For the doctrine of justification is directive of Christian practice, and in no other evangelical truth is the whole of our obedience more concerned; for the foundation, reasons, and motives of all our duty towards God are contained therein. Wherefore, in order unto a due improvement of them ought it to be taught, and not otherwise. That which alone we aim (or ought so to do) to learn in it and by it, is how we may get and maintain peace with God, and so to live unto him as to be accepted with him in what we do …. Wherefore, to carry it out of the understandings of ordinary Christians, by speculative notions and distinctions, is disserviceable unto the faith of the church; yea, the mixing of evangelical revelations with philosophical notions hath been, in sundry ages, the poison of religion.” [13]
While we may be grieved, troubled, and discouraged that so many today are so ready and willing to fall away in the same manner from the truths, principles, and doctrines of Scripture, yet we should not be surprised or think it strange and unheard of, seeing that entire churches evangelized and instructed by the apostles themselves, fell away so soon after their founding. The church of Laodicea, not many years after its founding, had become lukewarm and spiritually “wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked” (Rev 3:16, 17). It is more than probable that many in her sister church, the church in Colossi (Col 4:16), were taken “captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men” (Col 2:8), and that false teaching had defrauded many within the church of their “prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind,” (Col 2:18). If this were not the case, Epaphras would not have traveled from Colossi to Rome where Paul was under house arrest to report about the serious threat to the church in Colossi from a growing heresy, and which prompted Paul to write this letter. By the time John wrote the book of Revelation, the once vibrant church in Ephesus had left its first love (Rev 2:4), and five of the seven churches to which he wrote had fallen into gross error and apostasy.
In his letters to Timothy and Titus, Paul warns them of the readiness of all sorts of people to defect from the truth (2 Tim 4:3, 4), and “fall away from the faith,” (1 Tim 4:1), and even gave specific examples by naming certain individuals who had fallen away from the faith themselves and were treacherously working to undermine the faith of others and lead them astray (1 Tim 1:20; 2 Tim 2:17; 4:10, 14; Tit 1:12, 16). The apostle John, who lived longer than any other apostle, witnessed more of this falling away from the faith and defection from the truths and doctrines of the gospel. Therefore, in his epistles he describes the apostasies that were being promoted and taught by false teachers who professed to believe in Jesus. He exposed their lies, deceptions, and seductions by which they promoted their false doctrines and false Jesus, warned believers of the danger posed by them, and exhorted believers in their responsibility to persevere and overcome. Peter’s second epistle as well as Jude’s were written with the same purpose. Paul closed his epistle to the Roman’s with an exhortation for the church to “keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hinderances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ, but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting” (Rm 16:17, 18).
Apart from our natural spiritual blindness, our inbred hostility to the Word of God, and our natural affinity for sin and evil, it would be impossible to explain, much less understand the profound negligence and false security of most churches and professing Christians in the world when it comes to believing, trusting, following, and obeying the truths, principles, and doctrines of the gospel. Some think they are so secure, privileged, and well-grounded that they can never be seduced, deceived, mistaken, or have their minds led astray from their loyalty, devotion, and obedience to them. Others are carnal, worldly, sensual, careless, and willfully ignorant under their profession of faith, making no distinction between truth and error or truth and almost truth, or think that it takes virtually no diligence, perseverance, and effort to abide in the truths they have been taught. Others think all this emphasis on truth and doctrine is too divisive and unnecessary when all the Bible requires, or so they believe, is to ‘love Jesus’, not realizing that it is impossible to truly love who they do not know, or that true love for Jesus is expressed by abiding in and obeying His Word, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, …. He who does not love Me does not keep My words;” (Jn 14:23, 24).
It is these things which have led to the apostasy that characterizes modern evangelicalism. If the New Testament churches founded by the apostles themselves were prone to deceptions, corruptions, and defections from the gospel, and many of them actually did, at least for a season, fall away from essential doctrines of the gospel, and in all probability were only recovered by the diligent, dogmatic, faithful, loving, and forceful response of apostolic authority and wisdom, how can we, who do not have their advantages, nor have we seen and experienced, as they did, the “signs, wonders, and various miracles” which accompanied the preaching of the apostles, and having all the same causes of apostasy, both inward and outward, which they had, expect to remain steadfast and keep the faith unless we diligently and studiously apply ourselves to all the means which God has given for our perseverance in the one true faith which was once for all delivered to the saints? Modern evangelicalism is living proof of the apostasy that always results from neglecting, drifting from, corrupting, and rejecting the Word of God. To be deceived in the essential truths and doctrines of the gospel, to be deceived into trusting in and believing that false doctrine and a false gospel is true, is far worse than being deceived into thinking that spaghetti grows on trees. To be wrong in the truths, doctrines, and principles of the gospel is to be wrong for eternity.
In our next study we will examine what was the state of the churches after the close of the canon of Scripture and the death of the apostles.
[1] Jonathan Edwards, ‘Man’s Natural Blindness in Religion’ in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol 2 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2005 Reprint of 1834 edition), 252.
[2] Thomas Boston, Human Nature in its Fourfold State (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, Reprint 2015), 99, 102.
[3] J. Gresham Machen, The Christian View of Man (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, Reprint 2002), 199-200.
[4] John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), 152, 153.
[5] Thomas Watson, The Great Gain of Godliness (Banner of Truth: Edinburgh, 2006), 5.
[6] J.C. Ryle, Warnings to the Churches (London: Banner of Truth, 1967), 109-110.
[7] Robert L. Thomas, Understanding Spiritual Gifts (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1999), 142.
[8] Henry Morris III, After Eden, (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2003), 170-171.
[9] Robert L. Thomas, Evangelical Hermeneutics: The Old Versus the New (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2002), 13-18.
[10] Quoted in Robert L. Thomas, Evangelical Hermeneutics, 15, 16.
[11] Iain Murray, Evangelicalism Divided: A Record of Crucial Change in the Years 1950 to 2000 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2000), 51.
[12] John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), 118.
[13] John Owen, The Works of John Owen, Vol 5 (Banner of Truth: Edinburgh, Reprint 1998), 5, 10.