Reasons and Causes of Apostasy
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)
Whatever hopes, beliefs, and assurances that the vast majority of people in this world have for their life after death, they are not founded on the truth of God’s Word, which is the only sure ground of hope. When the Apostle Paul told Gentile believers in Ephesus, that before their conversion they were “having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12), he did not mean they were devoid of their own self-made hopes. They possessed the futile hopes that all non-Christians have, but they had no true hope. All their fondest hopes had no basis in Scripture; therefore they were false hopes, which were the same as no hope. It is against human nature to live devoid of hope, so people will invent and encourage themselves with false hopes rather than live without any hope at all. It is through “the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rm 15:4). All other hopes which do not have the encouragement of the Scriptures are false hopes; indeed, what other hopes can they have when the Word of God not only does not support them, but plainly contradicts, refutes, condemns, and exposes them as false. The great nineteenth century British pastor and author J.C. Ryle once wrote,
“If our hope is sound we ought to be able to turn to some text, or fact, or doctrine of God’s Word, as the source of it. Our confidence must arise from something which God has caused to be written in the Bible for our learning, and which our heart has received and believed …. It is not enough to have good feelings about the state of our souls …. Good feelings without some warrant of Scripture do not make up a good hope. It is not enough to have the good opinion of others about the state of our souls …. The good opinion of others, without the warrant of God’s Word, will never make up a good hope …. I warn everyone to beware of a hope not drawn from Scripture. It is a false hope, and many will find out this to their cost.”[1]
Hopes that are based on twisted, corrupted, fanciful, and convoluted interpretations of Scripture are just as vain and futile as those based on a denial and rejection of God’s Word. These false hopes and beliefs are built on the sandy foundation of a person’s own human reason, opinions, experiences, and imagination. Their hope is not “a living hope” (1 Pt 1:3); it is not “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hb 11:1) which is the fruit of the faith that is a gift of God; rather it is a vain hope based solely on their own prejudices and imagination and on what they want the Bible to mean, or not to mean, as the case may be. They hope that the ‘truth’ that is true for them, is really true, despite its having no basis in Scripture. Their hope is not fixed on Jesus Christ, but on their own conceptions of Jesus and on their own versions of His gospel. Everyone who has their hope truly fixed on Christ “purifies himself, just as He is pure” (1 Jn 3:3). As the great Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs once stated,
“Once the Lord has raised such a hope as this in the heart of a sinner, it will do mighty things there; it will cleanse the heart, purge it from the filth of sin, purify the heart even as Jesus Christ is pure, whom we hope to see, and be made like Him. This hope of being made like Christ hereafter does, in some measure, make us like Him for the present.”[2]
Sadly, this is not the hope which characterizes the mass of modern evangelicalism; rather its ‘hope’ is a hope that cannot be supported from Scripture. It is not a hope that purifies from sin and makes a person more like Christ, but one that provides a false assurance of salvation while living in sin and error and makes a person more like the world. Any hope that does not make a person holy and purify the heart and mind and conform them more and more to the image of Christ, and submit to the authority of Scripture, is not the hope that is from above. The obvious truth is that the hope of most professing Christians today is a Laodicean hope founded on nothing more than a person’s own opinion and self-assessment, and is a more dangerous, deceitful, and desperate enemy to Christ and His gospel than gross immorality or outright atheism. To their own way of thinking their hopes seem to be right, but when examined in the light of Scripture, they are shown to be the way of death (Prov 14:12). They have “moved away from the hope of the gospel” (Col 1:23). There is a great difference between the full assurance of a true Christian and the feeble and unstable hope of an irresolute, worldly, and vacillating professor. “Like a bad tooth and an unsteady foot is confidence in a faithless man in time of trouble” (Prov 25:19); likewise, hopes that are based on a false and fair-weather faith that compromises with the world and appeases the culture will prove to be false hopes. If our hope is biblical, examination by the light of Scripture will do us no harm, but if our hope is false, it is best to know it now while we have time and opportunity to seek a true one. Hopes that appear right in the darkness of our own human wisdom, reason, and imagination, vanish as a mist when examined against the light of God’s Word. This is why “men loved the darkness rather than the light” (Jn 3:19), because the light of God’s Word exposes all their false hopes, beliefs, and practices for what they truly are (Jn 3:20, 21).
Men Loved the Darkness
According to Jesus’ own words, not only is there a negative aversion to the light on the part of unregenerate men and women, but there is a positive love and preference for the darkness rather than for the light. The hope and belief that cannot stand the test of Scripture is not a true and living hope, but a delusion and myth, because God’s Word is always a friend to the truth, and an enemy to deception and delusion. This is why, “he who practices the truth comes to the light” (Jn 3:21), that is, they are not averse to having their hopes, beliefs, and practices examined by Scripture, while the one who hopes in myths and delusion, and practices evil “does not come to the light” (Jn 3:20). Their false and delusive beliefs upon which they base their hopes and practices cannot survive the test of Scripture; therefore, they work to support them by appealing to some other source (as, for example, does Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witness, and Islam) or by leaning on their own understanding, emotions, reasoning, presuppositions, and personal experiences (as does New Age and the charismatic movement), or by twisting or denying the plain meaning of Scripture in an effort to conform Scripture to their false hopes and beliefs (as does liberalism and progressive theology). Such has become the practice, in one way or another, of the bulk of modern evangelicalism, a practice which J.C. Ryle (1818-1900) once warned against,
“I hold it to be a most dangerous mode of interpreting Scripture, to regard everything which its words may be tortured into meaning, as a lawful interpretation of the words. I hold undoubtedly that there is a mighty depth in all Scripture, and that in this respect it stands alone. But I also hold that the words of Scripture were intended to have one definite sense, and that our first object should be to discover that sense, and adhere rigidly to it. I believe that, as a general rule, the words of Scripture are intended to have, like all other language, one plain meaning, and that to say that words do mean a thing, merely because they can be tortured into meaning it, is a most dishonorable and dangerous way of handling Scripture.”[3]
The sad fact is, most men and women would rather believe and trust in a lie and hope in delusion. They trust “in deceptive words to no avail” (Jer 7:8); “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Rm 1:18), “exchanged the truth of God for a lie” (Rm 1:25), and “turn away their ears from the truth, and … turn aside to myths” (2 Tim 4:4), then justify these myths to their own satisfaction, and encourage themselves with the belief that so many others cannot be wrong, thereby showing that despite all their claims to the contrary, they in truth “hate the light”, and evidence their inbred and natural hostility to the truths, commands, doctrines, and principles of the gospel. The authority of Scripture is replaced by the authority of self, ‘science’, and the culture. Like apostate Israel, they “have made falsehood our refuge and we have concealed ourselves with deception” (Is 28:15), and, “An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: the prophets prophecy falsely, and the priests rule on their own authority; and My people love it so!” (Jer 5:30, 31). Why do they love it so? Because “men loved the darkness rather than the light” (Jn 3:19). One of the principle reasons which the apostle Paul gives for why some fall away from the faith is that they are “paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons” (2 Tim 3:1). The same truth was expressed by the prophet Jonah, “Those who regard (samar – “pay attention to; revere”) vain idols forsake their faithfulness” (Jon 2:8). But why do they pay attention to these things? Because “men loved the darkness rather than the light” (Jn 3:19). Satan uses all his skill in deception to lead the mind astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ and to foster and support the false and presumptuous hopes of those whose minds he has darkened to the glorious truths of the gospel; hopes to which they will cling until death rips them from them, “When a wicked man dies, his expectation will perish,” (Prov 11:7). Their false hopes, no matter how sincere, cannot make their state after death hopeful, because God judges according to their true condition, not according to their own or other’s hopes and opinions. Satan’s deceptions meet with little or no opposition from the unregenerate heart and mind, and are aided and abetted not only by the natural hostility to spiritual truth that exists in the heart of every unregenerate person, but by their natural love and preference for the darkness rather than for the light. They are of their father the devil, so they want to do the desires of their father (Jn 8:44).
For most people, death is their fear, not their hope; a fear which they try to mask and assuage by various delusions suited to their own beliefs and conceptions of eternal joy and happiness. The atheist and agnostic hope that this world is all there is, and that there is no God who will judge him and condemn him to eternal torment in hell. The annihilationist hopes there is no hell, but only the cessation of existence. The Muslim imagines heaven to be an eternal carnal paradise. The Hindu hopes to be reincarnated to a better life in this world. Some who believe in God in general, hope there is no God like the one who has revealed Himself in His Word. Some hope to go to heaven simply because they were baptized, others because they at one time made a profession of faith in Jesus, others because they are too ‘nice’ to go to hell, and others because they just assume all will go to a ‘better place’ when they die. Some hope in a universal salvation and that all religions worship the same God. Some hope God’s promises are unconditional, without any qualifications required in us. Most people just hope that their ‘good’ deeds will compensate for and outweigh their bad, and that God will simply overlook their sin. So great is the darkness and apostasy of this age that many who deny and corrupt the truths and doctrines of the gospel have the reputation of being good Christians, and almost every funeral has some blind, ignorant, and flattering minister that will preach someone right into heaven who never once, in their entire life, showed any conviction of sin or love for Jesus Christ. There are many who maintain their bitter enmity against God, whom God simply leaves alone and gives them over to their depraved minds to live in comfort, health, and prosperity (Ps 73:3-9; Jer 12:1-2), and to die in hope and peace, at least in the eyes of men, and in their own eyes, only to discover what it means to be God’s enemy, and He theirs. Whatever hopes they may entertain, they all have one thing in common; none of them are founded on the truths, doctrines, and principles of the gospel, but on myths. When all is said and done, the way to heaven is and always will be found to be a hard and narrow way. Jesus has said it is so, and God has planned it so, and all the hopes, opinions, reasonings, and imaginations of men cannot make it otherwise. False hopes can never be supported from the clear and plain truth of Scripture, but only exposed for what they really are, namely, vain and futile. As The great 18th century British pastor and author Thomas Scott once wrote,
“A false confidence does not spring from evidence. They who possess it cannot give a reason for the hope that is in them. They are not confident in proportion to their conscientiousness and activity in the service of God; but without any regard to it. They do not arrive at their confidence in consequence of deep self-examination, and prayer to God to search them; but without it. They do not maintain it by constant and daily watchfulness, tenderness, and diligent examination by the rules of the word; to this they are averse: and they do not love that word that puts them upon it. They do not lose their confidence by slothfulness and sin.”[4]
The person who has no better evidence for their confidence than a strong persuasion is most certainly still an utter stranger to regeneration. The Jews were confident they would go to heaven because they were children of Abraham (Mt 3:9), and had set their hope in Moses (Jn 5:45). The church in Sardis was confident that it was alive, but in reality, it was dead (Rev 3:1). The church in Laodicea was confident that it was rich and had need of nothing when in reality it was “wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked” (Rev 3:17). Their confidence was a false confidence; it did “not spring from evidence”; it had no basis in reality. It is a horrible form of spiritual and moral blindness that prevents people from seeing their true condition and the sins that hurt, ruin, and destroy them; indeed, it is tragic to witness the apostasy of modern Christianity and the utter ruin of the culture, and that, after so much apostasy and degeneracy, neither one can see the sins that have hurt and continue to waste them away. Both modern Christianity and the culture have come to epitomize Proverbs 4:19, “the way of the wicked is like darkness; they do not know over what they stumble”, and like apostate Israel, they cannot say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?” (Is 44:20). Both refuse to attribute the ruinous consequences of their sin to their sin; rather they blame anything but the sin they love and refuse to forsake, thereby evidencing the fact that “men loved the darkness rather than the light” (Jn 3:19), and “he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes” (Jn 12:35). The blind, even after they have fallen into a ditch, continue to walk in darkness.
When people defect and turn away from the truths, doctrines, and principles of the gospel, they do not relinquish their hopes for a happy life after death, but they do forfeit all Scriptural grounds for their hope. To put a good face on their bad beliefs and practices, people will pretend to retain a love and honor for Christ and His Word while they treat both of them with contempt, all while claiming to walk in His way and keep His truth. While the unbeliever is on earth, they look for their hope, happiness, and satisfaction in the creature, and when one fails, they go to another, and in this way they spend their time in the world, constantly deceiving themselves with vain hopes. As long as a person looks to the creature for their happiness, contentment, and hope, they are a hostile enemy to God. They are left with nothing but their own imagination and self-conceived opinions as the basis for their hopes, “So are the paths of all who forget God, and the hope of the godless will perish, whose confidence is fragile, and whose trust is a spider’s web” (Job 8:13). Old Testament Israel “followed vanity and became vain, and went after the nations which surrounded them,”, and as a result, “they forsook all the commandments of the Lord their God” (2 Kgs 17:15, 16). Instead of trusting in the clear Word of God, they trusted in the deceptive words of the false prophets, “Behold, you are trusting in deceptive words to no avail” (Jer 7:8). To convict them of their horrible defection, disloyalty, unbelief, and apostasy, God through His prophets demanded that they show “what injustice did your fathers find in Me, that they went far from Me and walked after emptiness and became empty?” (Jer 2:5); “What more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done for it? Why when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones?” (Is 5:4); “My people, what have I done to you, and how have I wearied you? Answer Me.” (Mic 6:3). What reason did they have for growing weary of God’s laws and worship so that they forsook them for myths, deceptions, false and worldly beliefs and practices that could only lead to their ruin and destruction? If there was nothing lacking or defective or unjust on the part of God; if all of His ways, laws, commands, doctrines, and principles are just, holy, righteous, and good; if in keeping them there is great reward; and if by their observing them God did them good and not evil all their days, then they had no excuse for their defection, hostility, and unbelief. No reason can be given for it other than the natural inbred hostility of the fallen human heart to the nature, commands, and doctrines of God, “For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” (Jn 3:20).
Lovers of Self
It is clear from Scripture that the principle reason for unbelief and defection from the truths, doctrines, and principles of the gospel after they have been professed and received, along with the ensuing moral and spiritual consequences of such a defection, is self-love, “For men will be lovers of self,” (2 Tim 3:1, 2), and as long as men are lovers of self they will be enemies of God. The apostle Paul warned the Galatians, “For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself” (Gal 6:3), and he instructed the believers in Rome, “not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think;” (Rm 12:3). Herein lies the problem. No one thinks that their own opinion of themselves is too high. Like the churches of Sardis and Laodicea, they believe what they think about themselves is true, otherwise they would not believe it. They greedily eat up the smooth speech of false teachers who flatter and validate their sense of self-importance, feed their pride and self-perceived innate ‘goodness’ and self-righteousness, affirm their false assurances and erroneous conceptions of God and what it is to be Christian, and who provide excuses, justifications, and redefinitions for their sin. Despite the clear teaching of Scripture, the bulk of modern evangelicalism, just like our ungodly culture, promotes ‘self-esteem’, self-importance, idolatrous self-love, self-exaltation, and self-gratification as virtues. I once again quote Thomas Scott,
“It would be no harder to believe God than to believe man, but that God proposes to us such humbling mortifying truths, which our good opinion of ourselves will not permit us to receive. Man by nature is exceedingly disposed to self-exaltation and self-admiration; and has very low and disparaging views of God: but the faith which the scripture requires implies the most abasing thoughts of ourselves imaginable, and the most high honourable, and admiring apprehensions of the divine majesty, purity and excellence. This renders it so extremely difficult for proud men to believe the gospel, however reasonable and demonstrably true it may be. Thus Christ says to the Jews, How can you believe who receive honour one of another? Plainly implying that true faith, and seeking our own honour are incompatible. On the other hand every species of false religion is calculated by the grand fabricator of error to soothe this corrupt principle, and to feed self-exaltation and self-complacency. Well-knowing, from his own temper, how pleasing flattery is to pride, his conduct ever since hath been according to the original artifice, Ye shall be as Gods. Schemes of religion being thus contrived, suited to the corrupt heart of man, little pains need be employed either to render them consistent or plausible, or to confirm them by argument or evidence: they are greedily embraced and followed by multitudes, who find no inward difficulty in believing them; and they are rapidly propagated in the world. This the history of all ages proves; especially the preference which the Jews ever gave to the false prophets, who spoke smooth things, before the true prophets who declared to them the truth in the name of the Lord: and the preference given by the primitive churches to other teachers, rather than to the apostles, in particular, St. Paul, evidently for the same reason; because those teachers fed their self-righteousness, and spiritual pride, while the apostles taught them to loathe and condemn themselves…. Hence then it appears that unbelief, being evidently the effect of a corrupt temper of mind, is so far from admitting of any excuse, that it is the grand evidence of man’s proud carnal enmity against God, and contempt of him.”[5]
It is this innate self-centeredness and self-love which renders a man-centered gospel, a man-centered Jesus, and a man-centered Christianity so attractive and suited to the corrupt and fallen mind, heart, and will of men and women, which is why the gospel taught and believed by the mass of modern evangelicalism is decidedly humanitarian, therapeutic, self-affirming, self-admiring, self-willed, self-justifying, self-conceived, and man-centered. Such a ‘gospel’ meets with little resistance, requires little or no self-denial, needs no biblical foundation or evidence to make it plausible and acceptable, feeds and panders to pride and self-love, garners the greatest number of adherents, gives the greatest appearance of ‘success’, and generates the greatest amount of money. The world hates Jesus and His gospel not because they flatter it, but because they “testify of it, that its deeds are evil” (Jn 7:7). Jesus and His gospel condemn everything the world loves, which is primarily itself, which is why the ‘Jesus’ which most people profess to love is remarkably like themselves; which is why they love him, because they invented him. It is only true believers who will “not be condemned along with the world” (1 Cor 11:32). Self-denial is the first requirement for being a disciple of Jesus Christ (Mt 16:24), and self-love and self-denial are as incompatible as darkness and light. It is still a moral and spiritual impossibility to be a slave to two masters, yet the unregenerate mind is always trying to reconcile things that the Bible clearly says are irreconcilable and incompatible. This describes modern evangelicalism, which for decades has been busily engaged in trying to harmonize truth with error, the world with the church, and darkness with light, all to its own harm and ruin.
As it was with people in the past, so it is today with the bulk of contemporary evangelicalism which has defected from, corrupts, distorts, misrepresents, and renounces the truths, doctrines, commands, and principles of the gospel. The great difference is that it is a defection which is accompanied by a much greater guilt than that incurred by the Jews in their defection from the Law of Moses, because the gospel is a much clearer revelation of God, and much more glorious than that which was revealed by the law, “For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ” (Jn 1:17; cf. 2 Cor 3:7-9; Hb 1:1-3). Jesus declared to the cities of Chorazin and Capernaum that it would be more tolerable for the wicked ancient cities of Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom in the day of judgment than for them, because they had received greater revelation than those wicked cities, yet they rejected it (Matt 11:20-24). The more light that is rejected, the greater the guilt and severer the judgment. This is simply the principle of, “from everyone who has been given much shall much be required” (Lk 12:48). Nothing, therefore, can be charged against the gospel itself, nothing of which it contains or produces, and no reason or excuse can be offered that would justify why anyone should fall away from its truths, doctrines, commands, principles, or the worship and obedience it requires. Neither is there anything in the effects and fruit of it on the hearts and minds of people in delivering them from the domain of darkness and all that is evil, creating in them a new nature “which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Eph 4:24), and redeeming them “from every lawless deed and purifying for Himself a people for His own possession,” (Tit 2:14), which is the great design of the gospel.
Indeed, there have been men and women in every age who pretend to believe and teach the gospel who turn the grace of God into licentiousness, or who corrupt its truths and doctrines to serve their own carnal lusts and worldly self-interest, and who redefine what it is to be Christian, making no distinction between true and false teachers and teachings, and who choose pragmatism over faithfulness to God and His Word. It is likely more evil has been perpetrated and propagated in the name of the ‘gospel’, and more error and heresy has hid behind the name of ‘Christian’ than any other name in the history of the world. The enemies of Jesus Christ and His truth defend many a false doctrine and practice under the names of ’gospel’, ‘Christian’, and ‘church’. One old English Reformer truthfully stated, “There never was anything yet so absurd or so wicked, but it might seem easy to be covered and defended by the name of the Church”. All this confusion, ignorance, and misunderstanding concerning the gospel and what it is to be Christian is made more baffling by the Bible’s clear and unambiguous declarations concerning both. According to the Bible, “the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious” (1 Jn 3:10), and “the deeds of the flesh are evident” (Gal 5:19), and “those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal 5:21). There is nothing ambiguous about the message and demands of the gospel. There is nothing unclear about the Bible’s description of a true and false Christian, “He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God” (Jn 8:47); “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 Jn 2:15); “Little children, let no one deceive you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil;” (1 Jn 3:7, 8); “Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God” (3 Jn 11); “for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rm 8:13); “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord abstain from wickedness” (2 Tim 2:19). Any ambiguity is the result of a mind that is darkened in its understanding and still hostile toward God and His Word, and is therefore unwilling to submit the heart and mind to the plain truths and authority of Scripture (Rm 8:7), not from a lack of clarity on the part of Scripture. As Jeremiah Burroughs once warned,
“Now woe to that man whose chief comfort lies upon this false ground, that he hopes that which he hears out of the Word is not the Word. Oh, that man is in a miserable case who has no other ground for his comfort”.[6]
It should be obvious that true saving faith, the faith which is the fruit of regeneration and the gift of God, and which the Bible speaks so much about, and to which it explicitly attributes our justification, is simply and clearly described by Paul as “faith in the truth” (2 Thes 2:13). Other, more intricate and sophisticated definitions, only tend to confuse and lead the mind astray from plain Scripture and expose it to the various deceits and deceptions of Satan. The truth to be believed, trusted, and obeyed is nothing less than all the truths revealed in the Bible, not just some of them, because, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;” (2 Tim 3:16). There is no such thing as uninspired Scripture. There is no such thing as fallible Scripture. There is no such thing as unauthoritative Scripture. A faith that is not rooted and grounded in, supported by, and submissive and obedient to the truths, doctrines, demands, and authority of Scripture is not the faith of which the Bible speaks, but is a false faith. No one, for instance, can believe in evolution and be a true Christian, because evolution is a direct assault on the God of the Bible. It is impossible to harmonize evolution with the biblical account of creation because they are incompatible. While professing Christians who attempt to harmonize evolution with the Bible are willfully blind to this fact, evolutionists understand this perfectly. Thomas Huxley, who was Charles Darwin’s associate, understood this over one hundred years ago, when he wrote,
“The doctrine of Evolution, therefore, does not even come into contact with Theism, considered as a philosophical doctrine. That with which it does collide, and with which it is absolutely inconsistent, is the conception of creation, which theological speculators have based upon the history narrated in the opening of the book of Genesis.”[7]
It is “by faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible” (Heb 11:3). A god who used evolutionary processes on preexisting matter over eons of time is not the God who has revealed Himself in Scripture as having created everything out of nothing by the Word of His power in six twenty-four-hour days. One is darkness and the other is light, and what does light have in common with darkness. Likewise, a ‘faith’ that separates obedience to the law of God from saving faith is a false faith; it seeks to separate what God has joined together, “The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;” (1 Jn 2:4). It should be obvious to anyone who loves the truth that the various false doctrines and man-centered ‘gospels’ which modern evangelicalism teaches, hopes in, believes, and professes, do “not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness” (1 Tim 6:3). They cannot be supported by the plain meaning of Scripture. The true Christian may be, and often is, like the two disciples whom Jesus met on the road to Emmaus, “foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken” (Lk 24:25), but the true Christian will always, sooner or later, submit their heart, mind, and lives to the truths, doctrines, demands, and authority of Scripture, because they have the Holy Spirit indwelling them to lead them into all truth. Jesus’ true sheep hear and follow His voice, which is found only in the true meaning of Scripture, not the voice of strangers who corrupt, twist, distort, add to, explain away, and deny Scripture.
Every true believer, thus illumined by the Holy Spirit, sees the glory and truth of all of God’s Word in such a way that silences all objections. All of Scripture is seen to have the nature of divine wisdom, justice, holiness, truth, and love, so that it must all be of God. This includes the law of God to which the unbelieving mind is hostile (Rm 8:7), a hostility which can express itself in various ways, but which is now made glorious, holy, righteous, and good by the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, in which He writes the law of God on our hearts, which is one great promise of the New Covenant (Jer 31:33; Ezk 36:26, 27). By this is meant nothing less, or nothing other, than that the law of God now becomes the inward principle and governing rule of life, not the means of life, for the Christian. There is no law that can give life (Gal 3:21). The Law has indeed been abolished as a covenant, but it will forever remain as the rule of life. No one merits salvation by the works of the law, but all mankind does merit damnation by their violation of God’s law. There is a judgment and disposition of heart produced in every true believer by the Holy Spirit that corresponds to the law of God, so that they “joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man” (Rm 7:22). True love must find its expression, not just in words, but in deeds, and it must be defined by the God who is love, not by fallen men and women or the culture. We must be told by God how to express our love for God, and obedience to His commands is how Jesus defined true saving love for Him, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments …. If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; …. He who does not love Me does not keep My words;” (Jn 14:15, 23, 24). This is the great distinguishing criteria of true faith, and is the only decisive evidence of our being a true Christian, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome” (1 Jn 5:3; cf. Jm 2:18-20). Likewise, loving our neighbor is defined in terms of obedience to God’s law, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments” (1 Jn 5:2); “For this, ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet,’ and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; love therefore is the fulfillment of the law” (Rm 13:9, 10). It should be obvious to anyone with eyes to see that this is not how modern evangelicalism defines love; rather it has substituted a man-centered, self-centered, and perverted form which defines ‘love’ as accepting and affirming virtually anything and anyone. Whatever it is, it is not the love that is the fruit of the Spirit and true saving faith. In describing the nature of true regeneration, the 17th century pastor Joseph Alleine wrote,
“It changes the bias of the WILL, both as the means and end. Now the man hath new ends and designs in all his undertakings: he intends God in everything and above everything, desiring and designing nothing so much, in all his actions, as the glory of his Heavenly Father. Moreover, having pitched upon God as his chief blessedness, he chooses Christ as the principal, and holiness as the subordinate means of securing this blessedness …. He is not merely forced into Christ by the storm: but he deliberately resolves to cast himself upon the grace and truth of this Mighty Redeemer, as one able to save to the uttermost. Considering the way of Holiness also as the direct road to the kingdom, he chooses it for his path. He does not merely submit to walk in this way, but he loves and delights in it. He takes God’s testimonies, not as his bondage, but his heritage; yea, his heritage forever. He counts them not his burden, but his blessing; not his cords, but his cordials. The exercises of holiness are his [nourishment] and his element, the desire of his eyes, and the joy of his heart.”[8]
A ‘faith’ and ‘gospel’ that excludes holiness of life, and that defines holiness as anything other than obedience to the law of God, is the faith, gospel, and doctrine of demons, blind guides, and unregenerate, self-serving theologians, not the faith and gospel of the New Testament, “And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected.” (1 Jn 2:3-5). As Thomas Scott observed,
“… the false pretender to faith, being at heart an enemy to the law, expresses that enmity by words or deeds, or both; leads a loose and negligent, if not a scandalous life; is easy puffed up; has a stupefied, unfeeling conscience; and, if only he can keep up his confidence of his safe state, is little troubled about his sins, knows nothing of godly sorrow, self-loathing, or mourning for sin; but, while perhaps his ungodly life is the grief or scandal of his neighborhood, he himself is little affected about it, complains of nothing but his legality and self-righteousness, and that he is always doubting his good state; and expects ministers to soothe and comfort him in every sermon, or he will censure and revile them. This is a generation of them that are pure in their own eyes, and yet are not cleansed from their filthiness. Nor has the Lord Jesus or his gospel worse enemies in the world.”[9]
If men and women will not be ruled by God’s law, then they will be ruled by their lusts. The laws they make for themselves will promote, protect, and institutionalize their lusts, and legislate against the law of God. Immorality and evildoers are justified, protected, and honored while morality, holiness, and righteousness are condemned, punished, and vilified. When you do away with the law of God, you do away with sin and the need for repentance, because it is “through the Law comes the knowledge of sin” (Rm 3:20). Soon, evil is called good and good is called evil, any objective standard for right and wrong is expunged from the conscience, good and evil and truth and falsehood become relative, and every man does what is right in his own eyes. The voice of God’s law written on the conscience is drowned out by the clamor made by the lusts of the flesh. When a society’s lusts become too strong for its laws, then the rule of law ceases to exist. They will shut their ears to the truth of God, but will eagerly listen to the lies of Satan. They “will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths” (2 Tim 4:4). This is because unregenerate men and woman are naturally disposed to hear, believe, and love lies and false doctrine and to turn away from, reject, and hate the truth of God.
The Christian, however, is a new creature in Christ, not someone who simply bears the name and title of Christian, but only those who are a Christian inwardly; not by baptism or birth, but by new birth. The mere profession of Christianity makes no one a Christian. Affirming the truth of certain Christian doctrines is not the defining characteristic of a new nature. Calling a false ‘gospel’ the gospel does not make it the gospel; rather it is a perversion and misrepresentation of the one true gospel. A ‘gospel’ that excludes repentance, human depravity, the wrath of God, the necessity and nature of a new birth, the necessity of holy obedience, and is only grace, mercy, and ‘love’, is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. A man-centered gospel is a false and different gospel. A conversion that does not produce a love for God’s law and sincere, persevering obedience to it is a false conversion. Going through a religious ritual makes no one a Christian. Having a religious experience makes no one a member of Christ’s body. Attending and joining a ‘church’ makes no one a member of Christ’s body. Simply saying, “I love Jesus”, is a meaningless profession without active obedience to His commands. “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (Jn 14:15), is not law, but gospel, because true love for God, which is the fruit of a new nature, is evidenced by love for and obedience to all of His truths, commands, doctrines, and principles, “He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation” (Hb 5:9); “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments;” (1 Jn 5:3). The Greatest Commandment has never been rescinded. It is not a question of loving Jesus, but of what Jesus do you love; the Jesus revealed in Scripture, or the Jesus of one’s own imagination; the Jesus of the Bible, or the Jesus of popular culture and modern evangelicalism. Most love the latter and hate the former. Those who say they love Jesus and yet are hostile to His law, truths, doctrines, commands, and principles, and reject the authority of His Word only deceive themselves. Their faith is a myth. Nothing can be clearer than Jesus’ solemn words to Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (Jn 3:3).
There are others who, being blinded by the god of this world, and given over to the pursuit of a worldly, carnal, self-centered, and self-indulgent life, have no other thoughts of the true gospel but those which the devils in the two demon-possessed men had of Jesus, namely, that it is designed to “to torment us before the time” (Mt 8:29). The only evil many today fear, is the ‘evil’ which they perceive comes from the gospel, and which they blame on the gospel, or at least on too strict and ‘narrow’ of an adherence to the gospel and its truths, commands, demands, and doctrines; thus the determination to expunge God’s Word from the public sphere. They foolishly believe that an education, government, and institutions divested of God will be better. They ignorantly imagine that the world would be a much better place, that all would be peace, love, and harmony if the gospel were eradicated, or at least made broader, more inclusive, and friendly to their sin and self-interests. They absurdly suppose that all the evil in the world is to be blamed on the gospel itself, and in the twisted minds of many today, this includes the evil of racism. They imagine the gospel to be something negative, unnecessary, foolish, and detrimental to the good of mankind, or at least to their own carnal and worldly self-interests, “For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness,” (1 Cor 1:18), rather than, “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24). Like the apostle Paul’s accusers who were “bringing many serious charges against him which they could not prove” (Ac 25:7), those who hate the true gospel and try to blame it for all the evil in the world can give no reason for their hatred. Therefore, the reasons and causes of apostasy from the truths, doctrines, commands, and principles of the gospel must be searched for not in anything in the gospel itself – its truths, doctrines, commands, principles, and effects – but in the hearts and minds of those who corrupt, misrepresent, distort, and forsake it. True biblical love, and the love that is the fruit of the Spirit “does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth” (1 Cor 13:6). It should be obvious that what the world and the bulk of modern evangelicalism (for they are essentially indistinguishable) call ‘love’, ‘tolerance’, ‘acceptance’, and ‘open-minded’, the Bible clearly identifies as rejoicing in unrighteousness and hatred and hostility for God and His truth. In justifying the wicked and condemning the righteous, modern evangelicalism has become “an abomination to the Lord” (Prov 17:15). It has, for all intents and purposes, become a totally different religion than the Christianity of the Bible; a man-centered religion that, while using much of the same terminology as Christianity, has divorced itself from the person, work, truths, doctrines, and commands of Jesus Christ; a religion that worships and exalts self under the pretext of worshiping Jesus Christ. “Those who hate the Lord would pretend obedience to Him;” (Ps 81:15), applies to and describes the mass of modern evangelicalism.
If it should be supposed that contemporary evangelicalism and the lives of the generality of professing Christians are an accurate representation of the gospel, and that the hearts, minds, and lives of the generality of professing Christians were influenced and governed by the truths, doctrines, commands, and principles of the gospel, no distinction could be drawn between it and all the ungodly, secular, atheistical, pragmatic, and worldly philosophies in terms of any impact or influence on the hearts, minds, and lives of men and women, or any usefulness to mankind or for the glory of God. It is not the gospel, therefore, that has produced so much sorrow, pain, evil, strife, injustice, and immersed the world in so much darkness, immorality, lawlessness, and wickedness, but apostasy from it. Let people pretend what they will, unless they first forsake the truths and doctrines of the gospel in their hearts and minds, they will not and cannot forsake all the commands and principles of holiness, faithfulness, and morality in their lives, as has not only this nation in general, but also the bulk of modern evangelicalism in particular. The prevalence of this defection today is so great, so obvious, so flagrant and widespread, and the neglect and corruption of biblical truths, doctrines, and principles are so visible and shameless, that every attempt to warn and awaken people to this danger, to convict them of this defection, to excite them to seek a true salvation, and to identify the causes and reasons for this defection, ought to be welcomed by all who have a love of the truth, a sincere regard for the glory of God, the interests of Christ and His gospel in the world, and the eternal state of their own soul.
Causes and Reasons
The first and principle cause of apostasy is the inbred and rooted enmity and hostility to spiritual truths which by nature dominates the heart and mind of unregenerate men and women, remaining unchanged under a profession of faith in the gospel. In other words, there is a profession of faith without a new nature; they remain “hostile in mind” (Col 1:21) to some or all of the truths of Scripture; they still hate the light and love the darkness; they are still slaves of this world, and, as the great Puritan Richard Alleine once observed,
“If the world becomes their master, they yield themselves to it as servants. The strength of its temptations lies in the esteem they have for it and the affection they bear to it. Men will not bow before God when their hearts refuse to acknowledge Him, when they have chosen another god. What cannot the world lead them to if they have once made it their god! If it is their end, it will appoint them their means and way; any unrighteousness that will advance their worldly designs will be right in their eyes. Farewell faith, truth, mercy, honesty, and all consciousness of sin, further than they serve to make a gain of godliness.”[10]
This enmity shows itself when someone, having put their hope and trust in a false gospel, has that false gospel examined in the light of Scripture. When their beliefs, hopes, and practices cannot stand the test of Scripture, this enmity against spiritual truth rises up and manifests itself. Paul had no qualms with the Bereans “examining the Scriptures daily, to see if these things were so” (Ac 17:11), that is, examining his gospel, doctrine, and teaching concerning Jesus by the light of Scripture, because he knew he preached and taught “nothing but what the Prophets and Moses said was going to take place;” (Ac 26:22), that is, everything he taught was in perfect harmony with Scripture. It was “by the Scriptures” that Apollos “powerfully refuted the Jews in public”, that is, he refuted all their false beliefs concerning salvation and the Messiah, “demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ” (Ac 18:28). It was the unbelieving Jews who could not tolerate having their beliefs, practices, faulty conceptions of the Messiah, and own opinion of themselves examined by the Word of God, and who were hostile to the gospel of Jesus Christ, because it demolished all their self-righteousness. It was the unbelieving Jews who commanded the apostles “not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus” (Ac 4:18). This is true of all forms of false Christianity, all cults, all false teachers, and all false beliefs and practices; they cannot stand the test of Scripture; therefore they hate the light. It is this hostility to spiritual truth which dominates and characterizes the bulk of modern evangelicalism. It may express itself in various ways; it may be subtle or overt, course or refined; it may disguise itself with a pretext of being ‘tolerant’, ‘loving’, ‘inclusive’, ‘accepting’, ‘non-judgmental’, ‘open-minded’, ‘humble’, and ‘gracious’; it may hide behind a thin veneer of false spirituality and twisted, tortured, self-serving, and self-justifying interpretations, mystical experiences, extra-biblical revelations, and religious and humanitarian activity; it may pretend to be ‘scholarly’ and ‘scientific’; it may call its perverted message ‘the gospel’; it may use biblical terms but give them different meanings, and urge us to ‘rethink’ and ‘deconstruct’ historic biblical truths, commands, and doctrines; it may justify itself with all sorts of pragmatic and emotional arguments; it may express itself in irreverent, worldly, and carnal forms of worship, the trivialization of God’s Word, and teachings and practices that undermine and deny in practice the authority and sufficiency of Scripture; it may profess to be concerned with ‘social justice’, but the cause remains the same, namely, darkness hates the light.
The reason the mass of modern professing Christians are biblically and theologically ignorant, ambivalent, and confused is because the bulk of their teachers, while perhaps having great natural gifts of communication and a talent for showmanship, organization, flattery, and self-promotion, are spiritually blind and hostile towards the truths and doctrines of the gospel, a hostility that is manifested by their reluctance and unwillingness to preach and teach the whole counsel of God, their avoidance of the unpopular truths, doctrines, and commands of the gospel, and their penchant for twisting, distorting, manipulating, and watering down the text of Scripture in order to accommodate popular opinion and human wisdom, and avoid appearing ‘too narrow’ and a fool for Christ’s sake. They will willingly and routinely make clowns and buffoons of themselves for the sake of their own self-interests and the kingdom of darkness, but they are loath to be fools for Christ’s sake. They show no reluctance for rejecting and explaining away the clear meaning of Scripture when it conflicts with their own desires, understandings, and self-interests, but exhibit the utmost aversion to submitting their heart, mind, and lives to its plain meaning. They will yield to anything to preserve their reputations, appease their critics, endear them to the world, save their worldly treasures, and avoid troubles and persecutions, but they will not yield to the authority of God’s Word. In other words, “they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved” (2 Thes 2:10). Such resistance and hostility, however, is not only self-destructive, it is futile in light of the clear teaching of Scripture which declares that, “every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:11), or, as Jonathan Edwards once stated,
“God will make all men to know the truth of those great things which he speaks of in his word, one way or another; for he will vindicate his own truth. He has undertaken to convince all men. They who will not be convinced in this world, by the gentle and gracious methods which God uses with them now, shall be convinced hereafter by severe means. If they will not be convinced for salvation, they shall be convinced by damnation. God will make them know that he is Lord.”[11]
The apostle Paul tells us that, “the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God;” (Rm 8:7), that is, toward the nature, will, and mind of God revealed in His law and in His Son Jesus Christ, along with the obedience which God requires. This hostility toward God is expressed in that “it does not subject itself to the law of God” (Rm 8:7). The nature of this hostility, and the various ways it will express itself, I have already dealt with in detail in a previous study into ‘The Power and Presence of Indwelling Sin’. For the purposes of this study, it is enough to understand that it is not unusual for men and women to profess to believe the truths of the gospel while this hostility to spiritual truth remains unchanged within them, and even dominates their thinking, reasoning, and lives. Such were those whom the apostle Paul described, that despite their profession of faith in Christ, evidenced themselves to be “enemies of the cross of Christ” (Phil 3:18), and they exhibited this enmity by, among other things, continuing to “set their minds on earthly things” (Phil 3:19). In other words, they demonstrated by their worldly, pragmatic, carnal, and disobedient lives, and by their worldly reasoning, thinking, and values, that they were still worldly-minded, just as those were who “profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him,” (Tit 2:16). Their minds are not governed by the clear Word of God, but by their own fallen and darkened understanding. Their own lusts, desires, opinions, experiences, feelings, and observations are made the judge of Scripture rather than Scripture being the judge of these things. Likewise, many of the Jews who heard Jesus and witnessed His miracles “came to believe in Him” (Jn 8:30), yet their hearts and minds remained unchanged and hostile to His truth and demands, so much so that these same people, “picked up stones to throw at Him;” (Jn 8:59). The apostle John tells us that “many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God” (Jn 12:42, 43), clearly indicating that it is impossible to love both. Multitudes came to John the Baptist to confess their sins and be baptized by him, but although they all confessed their sins, very few forsook their sins. Multitudes followed Jesus and professed to be His disciples when they witnessed His miracles and when He was feeding them loaves and fish, but when He started preaching and making demands, “many of His disciples withdrew, and were not walking with Him anymore” (Jn 6:66). The reason which Jesus gave for their defection was their unbelief, “But there are some of you who do not believe” (Jn 6:64), and that it had not been granted to them by the Father to come to Him (Jn 6:44, 65). They were still hostile to spiritual truth. What they regarded as “a difficult statement” (Jn 6:60), and a cause of stumbling (Jn 6:61), Jesus’ true disciples understood to be “words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68). Thus it has been in all ages that many who profess to be Christians, and who give an assent to the truths of the gospel, and even teach and preach much of its truths, still never part with their love of self and this world, nor from their inward and inbred hostility against the truth, which, in time, will always manifest itself in one way or another, such as in a willful negligence, indifference, and ignorance of truth, or by open opposition against spiritual truths, or by being ashamed of and apologizing for the truth, or by the corruption and misrepresentation of truth, or by an outright rejection of truth, or by turning away from the truth to a different Jesus, different gospels, different doctrines, and myths that are according to their own self-centered desires. As Martyn Lloyd-Jones once observed,
“But perhaps the people who find the cross most offensive of all are those who on the surface seem to praise it most of all. I am thinking of the people who tell us that the cross is a very beautiful thing. They preach a lot about the cross, yes but they preach it as something that is beautiful – so touching, so affecting, so moving. And yet I would say that they, of all people, are the ones who feel the offence of the cross most of all. In fact, they feel it so much that they have got to turn it into something that it was never meant to be. They find it so offensive in its stark reality, that they philosophize it into the most beautiful thing, a kind of aesthetic enactment, and so they sentimentalize the cross and talk about it with great pathos. These, of all people, are the ones who feel the offence of the cross.”[12]
Modern evangelicalism has turned the cross into an instrument for serving and advancing its worldly agenda and self-serving ideologies. It has made it the excuse for exalting human pride and self-righteousness, encouraging and validating the narcissistic love of self, and even used it to justify the most wicked, filthy, unnatural, and immoral lifestyles. It is held up as evidence of our infinite self-worth, our self-importance, the means to health, wealth, and prosperity, and used as justification for a wicked social gospel. It is used as a cloak and covering for sin, the foundation for a man-centered, self-empowering, and antinomian non-Lordship ‘gospel’; it is used to corrupt and deny the biblical doctrine of sanctification, to turn God’s worship into a carnal, flesh-pleasing, and self-exalting form of entertainment, and to deny the sovereignty of God in salvation; it is used to support the belief in a universal salvation and given as the reason for rejecting the law of God as a rule of life, and to make a self-centered life of sin, worldliness, self-gratification, and disobedience to God’s clear commands consistent with being a Christian; in short, the cross has been abused to such an extent that it is even used to redefine what it is to be Christian. Why is the cross and its message so offensive to the natural man? Martyn Lloyd-Jones gives several reasons,
“First and foremost it is an offence to the mind …. because it cuts across all our ideas” [i.e. all our presuppositions, philosophies, opinions, and unbiblical ideologies]. “We all have ideas about everything, including religion. We think we know what makes a man a Christian. We think we know what God expects, and we are quite confident that we can do it, and that we have it in us …. The cross cuts right across it…. And then another way in which the cross offends the natural man’s mind is this: people say, and they say it quite freely, that this whole notion of the cross is immoral. To them, the idea that one man should be punished for other people’s sin is immoral. …They say it violates their sense of justice and morality.”[13]
An example of this last statement can be found in The Conformation Notebook of The Church of England by Hugh Montefiore, which states on page 20, “What the cross is not: the cross is not the Son standing in my place to take the punishment that I ought to have. Such a view is immoral. In any case, no one person could suffer the whole world’s punishment.” This is also the message of so-called Progressive Christianity, which is not Christianity, but another religion altogether. Lloyd-Jones continues,
“What he cannot really endure is that he cannot understand the cross, and that is its essential offence to him. The natural man believes that he can understand everything, and he wants to do so…. And if it is an offence to the natural man’s mind, it is still more an offence to his heart. The truth is that there is only one ultimate trouble with respect to the cross, and that is our pride …. Pride is the cause of all our troubles and that is what the world does not understand. It is not surprising. Everything is telling us to believe in ourselves, pandering to our pride, building us up and inflating us. Man, modern man! Here comes something that smashes the idol. Pride is ever the cause of the trouble and there is nothing that so hurts the natural man’s pride as the cross of Christ …. You see, the very presence of the Son of God in this world is an utter, absolute condemnation of us, every one of us. It is because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, that he ever came, and especially why he had to go to the cross. And this is the source of offence. He tells us that we are failures, that we are sinners …. He says we are equally failures …. It is a terrible thing to be told that all your effort comes to nothing. Let me put it in this form. The cross is an offence to the pride of the natural man, because it says that not only are we all sinners, not only are we all equally sinners, but it tells us we are equally helpless. We can do nothing at all. It tells us that all our righteousness is but as filthy rags. All we regard as best is dung and refuse, and absolutely useless. And it tells us, who believe in ourselves and in our capacity, that we can do nothing. That we are utterly and completely helpless and entirely hopeless. And here it offends us and it hurts us, it damns all our efforts, it is an offence to the mind and to the heart. And it is equally an offence to the will of man. It tells him: I do not care what your will is, I do not care how powerful your will. I do not care what your resolutions are. Do all you will, you will never save yourself. It crushes us to the ground. It demolishes everything that we have ever believed in. It leaves us helpless and hopeless, lost, damned, hell-deserving sinners, and that is what it says about every one of us.”[14]
It should be obvious to all who have eyes to see that not only is this not the message of the cross preached and taught by modern evangelicalism, but it is the message that is intentionally watered down, corrupted, offensive to, and assiduously avoided and denied by modern evangelicalism. For the bulk of modern evangelicalism, the word of the cross is foolishness (1 Cor 1:23), for the simple reason that “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 inbred hostility to God and His Word remains unchanged under a profession of faith in the gospel. This is the first and primary cause of apostasy from the truths, doctrines, principles, and commands of the gospel.
Design and Ends of Gospel Truths
Contrary to the beliefs, practices, and message of modern evangelicalism, the design and end of the gospel is not to make us feel good about ourselves; it is not to inflate our sense of self-importance, heal our ‘brokenness’, or to be a cloak and covering for our sin. It is not to make us healthy and prosperous in this world. Its purpose is not to rectify all the evil and injustices in the world. It is not designed to lull sinners into a false security and make them feel good about their sin, false hopes, confidences, and beliefs, and to justify their rejection of the authority of Scripture. Its message is not one of God’s love for sinners who refuse to forsake their sin. Its aim is not to create some sort of Marxist utopia on earth. The message of the cross is not, that by His death on the cross Jesus merely purchased the ‘right’ to offer salvation to all men, a blasphemous notion held by many who profess to believe the gospel. The design and end of the gospel is not to make salvation possible for all, being contingent on a person’s own freewill to make it effective. In other words, all that modern evangelicalism considers to be the design and ends of the gospel can find no support or encouragement from Scripture. The truths, doctrines, and principles of the gospel are designed to produce in all those whom God has elected unto salvation three principle ends or effects, and if the true gospel fails to produce these effects, it is more than certain that the watered down, man-centered, flimsy, lukewarm, and erroneous gospels which issue every day from the pulpits, podcasts, and press of modern evangelicalism never can and never will.
The first design and purpose of the gospel is to overturn any sense of peace, rest, and satisfaction which a person may have in their present moral and spiritual condition, strip them of any hopes they have for future blessedness based on their own works and righteousness, bring them to the end of themselves, make them know and feel the sinfulness of their sin, to see themselves as vile and hell-deserving sinners under the wrath and judgment of a holy and offended God, to utterly despair of doing anything to save themselves, and to renounce all their own works as filthy rags, and to seek salvation, righteousness, life, peace, and eternal life in Jesus Christ alone, so that they come to know that it is “by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor 1:30). The great Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs once stated, in describing true conversion, that a person must first come to understand that they are by nature “hostile toward God” (Rm 8:7), and an enemy of God and His truth,
“And truly, if we rightly understood our own natures in this particular, we would realize that there is nothing which will break the heart of a man more than…to sit down and consider, “I am an enemy unto God, and I have been in enmity against God all my days. Therefore, what can I expect but that God should be an enemy unto me everlastingly.” This is that which will strike down the proudest heart in the world. And, let me tell you, until you come to see sin like this, you do not see it to any purpose.” [15]
In describing how men and women are naturally God’s enemies, and the ways in which this enmity manifests itself, Jonathan Edwards wrote,
“Their enmity appears in their judgments, their natural relish [i.e. their delights, pleasures, enjoyments], their wills, affections, and practice. They have a very mean esteem of God …. They entertain very low and contemptable thoughts of God. Whatever honour and respect they may pretend, and make a show of towards God, if their practice be examined, it will show, that they certainly look upon him as a Being that is but little to be regarded …. They are enemies in the natural relish of their souls. They have an inbred distaste and disrelish for God’s perfections. God is not such a being as they would have. Though they are ignorant of God; yet from what they hear of him, and from what is manifest by the light of nature, they do not like him …. Their wills are contrary to his will. God’s will and theirs are exceeding cross the one to the other. God wills those things that they hate, and are most averse to; and they will those things that God hates. Hence they oppose God in their wills; there is a dreadful, violent, and obstinate opposition of the will of natural men to the will of God …. They are enemies to God in their affections. There is in every natural man a seed of malice against God. And it often dreadfully breaks forth. Though it may in great measure be hid in secure times, when God lets men alone, and they meet with no great disturbance of body or mind; yet if God does but touch men in their consciences, by manifesting to them a little of his wrath for their sins, this often brings out the principle of malice against him. This is exercised in dreadful heart-risings, inward wranglings and quarrelings, and blasphemous thoughts; wherein the heart is like a viper, hissing and spitting poison at God. And however free from it the heart may seem to be, when let alone and secure, yet a very little thing will set it in a rage …. They are enemies in their practice. They walk contrary to him. In their enmity against God, they are exceeding active. They are engaged in war against God …. They oppose themselves to his honour and glory; they oppose themselves to the interest of his kingdom in the world; they oppose themselves to the will and command of God; and oppose him in his government. They oppose God in his works, and in his declared designs; while he is doing one work, they are doing the contrary. God seeks one thing, and they seek directly the contrary. They [en]list under Satan’s banner, and are his willing soldiers in opposing the kingdom of God.”[16]
This is the first design and end of the gospel, to bring men and women to see themselves as they really are by nature, namely, vile, wicked, and willful enemies of God, and therefore under His wrath and just condemnation, utterly unable by any means of their own to avoid the eternal wrath and condemnation of God, so that they despair of doing anything by which they might cooperate with God to save themselves, are brought to see their need for a new nature which they can do nothing to effect, and to cast themselves completely on the grace of the only One who can save them, not from their problems, disillusionments, anxieties, ‘brokenness’, or feelings of unimportance, but from their sin, not just from its guilt, but from its power, and from the wrath of God, so that they flee to Christ from the wrath to come.
The transformation, renovation, and conformity of our nature, minds, wills, and affections into the likeness of God is another purpose and design of the gospel. It does this by making our minds, wills, and affections able to “receive the love of the truth so as to be saved” (2 Thes 2:10), and by giving us “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16). This change and transformation is a supernatural change, because the person who is truly born again is born of the Spirit (Jn 3:5), not by “the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn 1:13). A person can undergo great changes and reformations in their life by natural means and methods and by God’s common grace so that they, like Saul, are “changed into another man” (1 Sam 10:6), yet never become a new man. They can, like Demas, seem to be a true believer for a season, but still retain a love for this world to which they will eventually give themselves as its servant (2 Tim 4:10). In regeneration our entire nature is changed so that we become partakers of the divine nature. This must be a supernatural change. How can anyone who is dead in trespasses and sins renew themselves, any more than a dead man can raise himself from his grave? Who but the Spirit of God can give a new birth and give us a new nature, a new mind, a new will, and new affections? In regeneration spiritual truths are impressed upon us with power so as to transform us into their likeness, “But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory,” (2 Cor 3:18); “and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him” (Col 3:10). As the great Scottish Puritan Thomas Boston once wrote,
“Every thing generates its like; the child bears the image of its parent, and they who are born of God bear God’s image. Man aspiring to be as God, made himself like the devil. In his natural state he resembles the devil, as a child does his father (Jn 8:44), ‘You are of your father the devil.’ But when this happy change comes, that image of Satan is defaced, and the image of God is restored. Christ Himself, who is the brightness of His Father’s glory, is the pattern after which the new creature is made (Rom 8:29), ‘For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son.’ Hence He is said to be formed in the regenerate (Gal 4:19).”[17]
This change is a universal change, “Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Cor 5:17), as Thomas Boston explained,
“It is a blessed leaven, that leavens the whole lump, the whole spirit, and soul, and body. Original sin infects the whole man; and regenerating grace, which is the cure, goes as far as the disease. This fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness; goodness of the mind, goodness of the will, goodness of the affections, goodness of the whole man. He gets not only a new head, to know religion, or a new tongue, to talk of it, but a new heart to love and embrace it, in the whole of his conversation [i.e. his entire life]. When the Lord opens the sluice of grace on the soul’s new-birthday, the waters run through the whole man, to purify and make him fruitful. In those natural changes … there are, as it were, pieces of new cloth put into an old garment; new life sewed to an old heart; but the gracious change is a thorough change, a change both of heart and life.”[18]
A third design and end of the gospel is to engage the entire person – heart, soul, mind, will, and affections, in all their powers and abilities, in all that it does, to live to the glory of God in all holy obedience, “to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship” (Rm 12:1); “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves in all your behavior; because it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Pt 1:14, 15).
When these designs and ends of the gospel, or any part of them, are urged on the consciences and practices of men and women, even on the bulk of professing Christians, they do not like them at all. They are a yoke which they cannot bear. They chafe against them, and find them to be too narrow, too confining, too restrictive, and too burdensome. The inbred hostility to God and His truth that remains unchanged within them rises up in opposition against all of them. This is not the gospel that modern evangelicalism has been propagating for decades, and in which many have placed their hope. This is not the definition of ‘Christian’ that most professing Christians have been taught and embraced. This is not the experience of most professing Christians. This is not the evidence which supports the hopes of most people who expect to go to heaven and escape the torments of hell; rather, this is a gospel that, instead of affirming all their false hopes, beliefs, and practices, dares to sit in judgment over them. As long as the mind has only theoretical and speculative notions of gospel truths, it can affirm, be satisfied, and undisturbed by them. It can bring itself to comply with certain gospel principles and obligations, yet remain upon its old foundation of self-love, self-importance, self-sufficiency, self-satisfaction, and self-righteousness. But when the gospel, in pursuit of the purposes and ends just mentioned, comes to ransack all their false hopes and to remove men and women completely from their old foundations and principles of fallen nature, and to work in them a total and universal change and to make them new and holy creatures, it then proves annoying to them, provoking that natural hostility that is in them, and stirs up all the worldly reasonings of the flesh, all the lusts of the mind, all the carnal and worldly affections, and all the deceitfulness of sin in opposition to the gospel. In this way, spiritual truths are first neglected, then they are despised, and finally, with little or no difficulty or opposition, they are abandoned altogether. This is because men and women might intellectually and in theory embrace what is true, and assent to it as truth, which, when it is reduced to practice, the will and affections will refuse to submit and comply. The Pharisees acknowledged much spiritual truth, but they did not practice it, “for they say things, and do not do them” (Mt 23:3). Such were those who professed “to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him,” (Tit 1:16). Even though the Jews professed to believe the Scriptures which bear witness of Jesus, they were “unwilling to come to Me, that you might have life” (Jn 5:40). There are many who call Jesus ‘Lord, Lord’, yet they do not do what He says, nor do they want to (Lk 6:46). They hear His words, and often affirm the truth of them, but like the man who built his house on the sand, they do not act upon them (Mt 7:26). There is a vast difference and distinction between an academic, theoretical, and intellectual knowledge and assent to gospel truths, and having “the love of the truth so as to be saved” (2 Thes 2:10). This is what they do not have, nor do they desire to have it. It is this that makes men and women prone to turning aside from the truth, and to exchange it for the most vile, irrational, ungodly, and unbiblical errors, myths, and superstitions. In such a condition, their selfish and self-centered lusts and desires will win out over their supposed beliefs and convictions. They will first suppress the truth as to its designs and ends, and then reject it in favor of various myths. Propose to them any teachings, beliefs, and concepts that are more suited to their own self-serving desires and to their self-centered minds, and they will never fail to gain a ready and enthusiastic acceptance.
The history of the world abounds with tragic examples, among all sorts of people in all ages, who, when they have bought into and imbibed, even false, wicked, evil, and irrational beliefs and ideologies, have been indoctrinated in them, had them ingrained in their minds and consciences, and had their self-interest invested in them, that no evidence of the truth, nor any danger of the consequences can ever convince them to renounce or relinquish their error. Instead, they will obstinately continue in the most, irrational and self-destructive beliefs and practices. Their hostility to the truths of God’s Word, and their love of the darkness are so great, that they would rather die in their sin, clinging to their false hopes, than renounce and die to self, submit their minds to the authority of Scripture, and trust in the righteousness of Christ alone for salvation. This is because error, once received in the unregenerate mind as truth, takes firmer root than truth, because all error, in one way or another, is more suited to a mind that loves the darkness and hates the light. There is something in every error that, to the proud, self-centered, worldly, and unregenerate mind, makes it preferable to the truth, and there is nothing in any error that is an enemy to such a mind. This is why it is easier, for the most part, to lead astray into myths and error the minds of a thousand professing Christians who have no love of the truth, than to turn one person from their false hopes and beliefs, especially if those false beliefs affirm, flatter, and promote their pride and love of self. This is the fundamental cause of all the apostasy from the doctrines and truths of the gospel that has come to characterize almost all of modern evangelicalism. If those who profess to be Christian today had received the love of the truth so as to be saved, they would not, they could not, so easily and so universally have apostatized from the gospel of Jesus Christ, His truths, commands, doctrines, and principles, for myths, errors, and the false teachers and churches that support and propagate them, nor could they have turned away from Christ to follow after the spirit of antichrist, which is obvious that they have done. If there is one truth spoken by Jesus which epitomizes the bulk of modern evangelicalism, it is the plain truth that “men loved darkness rather than the light” (Jn 3:19).
Having discovered the first cause of apostasy from the truths and doctrines of the gospel, we are now prepared to understand what are the only true and effective ways and means for the preservation and promotion of the gospel of Jesus Christ and true Christianity where it has been known and professed. This, if the Lord wills and by His grace, is what I will attempt in the next study.
[1] J.C. Ryle, Old Paths (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2013), 92-94.
[2] Quoted in Phillip L. Simpson, A Life of Gospel Peace: A Biography of Jeremiah Burroughs (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2011), 161.
[3] J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1953), 383.
[4] Thomas Scott, The Life, Letters, and Papers of the Late Rev Thomas Scott (New Haven : Nathan Whiting, 1827), 489.
[5] Ibid, 485-486.
[6] Jeremiah Burroughs, Gospel Fear (Orlando, FL: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, Reprint 1991), 23.
[7] Quoted in Marvin L. Lubenow, Bones of Contention: A Creationists Assessment of Human Fossils (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1992), 192.
[8] Joseph Alleine, An Alarm To The Unconverted (F. Houlston and Son: London, 1812), 30-32
[9] Thomas Scott, The Life, Letters, and Papers of the Late Rev Thomas Scott (New Haven: Nathan Whiting, 1827), 484.
[10] Richard Ailiene, The World Conquered by the Faithful Christian (Grand Rapids: Soli Deo Publications, 1995), 10.
[11] 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), 255.
[12] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Cross (Wheaton, IL; Crossway Books, 1986), 44-45.
[13] Ibid, 46, 48.
[14] Ibid, 46-53.
[15] Jeremiah Burroughs, Gospel Reconciliation (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1997), 11.
[16] Jonathan Edwards, ‘Men Naturally are God’s Enemies’ in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol 2 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Reprint of 1834 edition, 2005), 130-131.
[17] Thomas Boston, Human Nature in its Fourfold State (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1964), 208.
[18] Ibid, 208-209.