The Church in Apostasy

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 24, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 34.

The Church in Apostasy

THE CHURCH OF GOD. NO. 5.

The Mighty Word.

NOT long after the days of Pentecost did the called-out congregations of God retain their primitive faith and purity. In his first letter to the brethren in Thessalonica, the apostle gives fervent thanks to God as he remembers their "work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ," and this not as estimated by men, but "in the sight of God and our Father." 1 Thess. 1:3.

The secret of this faithfulness is revealed in the next chapter, "because, when ye received the Word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe." In that Word received by faith was the potency of its Author, Jesus Christ.

It was to this same Word of God that the apostle commended the elders of Ephesus: "And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the Word of His grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them that are sanctified." Acts 20:32. By the Word were the members of the church called out; by the Word were they cleansed and sanctified, by the sincere milk or strong meat of the Word are they fed and do they grow; and by the same Word are they kept. What wonder, then, that the dying charge of the old apostle to Timothy, and through him to all Christian ministers was: "I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the Word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts they shall heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables." 2 Tim. 4:1-4.

The Church in Apostasy.

But even to those apostolic congregations came the apostasy. After admonishing the elders of Ephesus to "feed the flock of God," Paul declared: "I know that after my departing grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them." Acts 20:29, 30.

Another apostle, writing years after, bears the sad message to the church at Ephesus, that she had left her "first love," and had fallen from her high estate. Rev. 2:4, 5.

Paul asks the Galatians who had bewitched them, and declares that through the false teachers they were turning "back again to the weak and beggarly rudiments, whereunto ye desire to be in bondage over again. Ye observe days, and months, and seasons, and years. I am afraid of you." Gal. 4:9-11. In other words they were turning back through vain philosophy to their former worship of "them that by nature are no gods" (verse 8), and therefore they began to practise the "days" and "times" of their heathen ancestors.

To the Thessalonicans, whose faith the apostle so highly commended in his first letter, he declares that error had crept in among them, and that they were to beware of that "mystery of iniquity" which was already at work in the congregations of God. 2 Thess. 2:1-7.

James intimates that hearts had been blinded by riches, and that strife for higher place had entered among the believers. John, in his first epistle, writing near the close of the first century, declares that the teaching of false spirits and antichrists was already abroad. And Peter in his second epistle warns of the false teachers who would soon come in among the children of God.

And the apostasy came. Half-converted heathen philosophers crept into the church. The Word of God was interpreted after the subtle disquisitions and sophistries of these teachers, until the Gospel had become well-nigh buried under a heap of heathen superstitions and traditions.

Then creed power came in to limit the Word, and bind in dead forms the living truth. The teachings of noted doctors were crystallized into a system. Men endeavored to mark out the teaching of the apostles. Different schools had different conceptions, and the war of creeds raged for centuries.

Not having the Word of God to support the creed, their devotees turned to the state and sought the support of the civil power to suppress "heresy" and to promote the "truth." Hence came the Dark Ages and all its horrible persecutions. For often the "whitest of the saints of God" were prosecuted and persecuted as heretics, and the worst of error was held by the civil law to be truth. Every species of iniquity was sanctioned by an apostate church, and the true congregation of God was hidden and hunted, according to the prophetic word, in "the wilderness" (Rev. 12:6, 14), while her rival, the apostate church, was riding in gory triumph in the seat of civil power, dominating thrones and dominions, satiated with fornication, and drunken with the blood of the saints and of the martyrs of Jesus (Rev. 17:3-8).

The prophecy clearly portrays both congregations, both churches, both synagogs. Its unerring finger points to no body of men, triumphant over all wrong, clothed in sacerdotal robes, demanding and receiving homage from saint and sinner alike, as the true church. Her type is a woman fleeing, wandering, bereft of children, hunted and persecuted. Consonant with the Word these are the evidences of her divine relationship. Blinded, weakened, ignorant of God's law as was Israel when Josiah came to the throne, trampling in her ignorance God's broken law beneath her feet, scattered throughout Babylon, torn and peeled, the called-out one, like her Lord, has had no beauty that the world desired.

But when the world had become so burdened with apostasy and wickedness, when God could endure apostasy no longer, when the world itself could bear it no longer, from different directions in the enshrouding darkness voices were heard proclaiming anew the Word of God. John of Wyclif, Huss of Bohemia, Jerome of Prague, were among the earliest. Luther the monk, Zvingle the soldier, Tyndale the scholar, were among the stalwarts which followed. These were God's heralds and soldiers of the Great Reformation.

In the Roman Church faith had come to mean the body of doctrine, salvation was by works, tradition was superior to the Bible, man had usurped the place of God. The Reformation brought in a new, yet eternal, principle. The Word of God was exalted. Faith became a living, personal thing, a channel of life between the soul and God. Union with the civil power was repudiated, and Christ and His Word were exalted.

The Reformation of the XVI. Century was the breaking of the long night of the Dark Ages. What a flood of light swept over the world! How education and progress revived! What mighty strides were made toward liberty in government! Directly and indirectly the Reformation aroused the world. But the light again grew dim.

[Of the last Reformation, our next.]