Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
Keeping an outward show of religion through profession, observance and ceremony while the life remains unchanged denies its inward sanctifying and transforming work. The power so denied is Christ Himself received within, the Holy Spirit working in the soul, divine grace, and the vitalizing power of truth and faith that lays hold of His imputed righteousness to cleanse the heart and bear fruit. It foretells the perilous religious condition of the last days just before Christ's second coming, when wickedness and corruption will keep increasing rather than the world being converted. It describes popular and fallen churches and nominal Christians who retain outward religion while concealing worldly aims and fashionable sins, a form that will appear also among God's professed people, whole congregations and self-sufficient workers. From such turn away means not to be deceived or imitate their practices but to separate from their influence and conformity, and instead to enter a living connection with God through communion, yielding to the Spirit and an experimental knowledge of Christ formed within in meekness, shown by good works, mercy and self-denying service.
Words and Immediate Context
Having a form of godliness is keeping outward appearance, profession, and religious observance while the life denies its sanctifying and transforming power. It describes professed Christians in the last days who retain the form while concealing the sins Paul lists, even among those serving in holy things, with daily lives showing selfish and harmful traits while professing to love and obey God. This state is a religious decline resembling the apostasy of the early church and leading to the same results, a warning for the present days concerning many who have departed from the faith. Those described are pleasure-lovers rather than lovers of God, worldly and unchanged in character, with no heart union with Christ and no true connection with Him, so that profession does not change character and believers are not to be deceived by them or imitate their practices but to turn away, learning from God's word how to shun these evils and overcome.
Denying the power is rejecting its inward, life-giving work to cleanse the heart, convert and sanctify the life, and bear fruit, since mere theory, ceremony, and outward talent cannot save. It is doing religious work in carnal lines to please and attract people so means will flow into the treasury, interposing something between the soul and the Savior instead of bringing every sinner into communication with Christ. It buries the saving truth of Christ and Him crucified under a mass of words, foolish and unlearned questions, striving about words, drollery, novelty, romance, and vain philosophy. No external forms, even those God has commanded, are of value unless accompanied by an inward work of cleansing, for outward works alone will never make a man perfect before God and nothing but repentance and faith can make an impure heart pure, while profession without inward holiness does not make the church a light in the world or give it power to reach the unsaved. Outward religion without the Spirit's power is not true godliness, for the power had nearly ceased in the churches because people were separated from God, not because the Lord had stopped offering grace, and flippant talk about Bible truth cannot replace personal conversion or teach others to give their hearts to God.
The power denied is Christ Himself received as the power of God and the wisdom of God. It is the power of Jesus and His grace, producing piety, humility, and holiness of heart and life, with love and concern for souls, and God still waits to show grace to those who look in faith to the cross and rely on Jesus as strength and salvation. It is the Holy Spirit working in the soul and divine grace making unselfish work with pure principles and holy motives effective, in contrast to mechanical religious work where exact procedures, training, and set forms take the place of Jesus. It is the vitalizing power of truth and of faith that lays hold of Christ's imputed righteousness, the source of virtue, spiritual power, and life, without which religious appearance deceives its possessors about their corruption and leaves them ignorant of God's holiness and of rest upon Christ's perfection. A vital connection with Christ makes truth bear good fruit, as Christ within is revealed through saving grace, sympathy, and love for perishing souls, and from such powerless professors believers are to turn away by preaching the truth as it is in Jesus with the burden of Christ crucified, letting saving truth stand out clear and prominent in every discourse with practical godliness and feeding the flock as faithful examples.
The verse closes the perilous-times list of lovers of self, money, and pleasure more than God, with boasting, pride, disobedience to parents, unthankfulness, unholiness, and kindred traits. Men will be covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, and high-minded, putting self and their own practices and tendencies where God's law should be and worshiping themselves, controlled by selfishness in all its forms. They claim to be religious while in works they deny God, being disobedient and reprobate unto every good work, resisting the truth with corrupt minds and rejected concerning the faith like Jannes and Jambres who opposed Moses, standing in contrast to those who live godly in Christ and suffer persecution while evil men and seducers grow worse, deceiving and being deceived. They are unruly vain talkers and deceivers who will not endure sound doctrine but after their own lusts heap to themselves teachers having itching ears and turn away their ears from the truth unto fables. This class will be developed among God's professed people as well as in the world, so God's people must see and understand this condition, turn away from such people, work entirely contrary to their selfish ways, and stand where every jot of power is used to magnify God and His truth.
The verse belongs to all Scripture given by inspiration of God and deemed essential from eternity for salvation. It was defined from eternity by infinite truths and revealed for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works, glorifying his own life and the lives of fellow men not only by possessing truth but by communicating it. It is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness to meet the danger of powerless profession, to reprove, rebuke, and correct sharply that men may be sound in the faith. Therefore the word is to be preached in season and out of season with reproving, rebuking, and exhorting with all longsuffering and doctrine, heeding Scripture's warnings, resisting false teaching, calling sin by its right name, maintaining order, standing fast in one spirit with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, and remaining faithful.
Prophecy of Last Days
The verse foretells the perilous religious condition of the last days just before the second coming of Christ and the close of this dispensation. It describes professed Christians and popular churches of that time who retain an outward form of godliness while denying its power, even concealing the sins Paul lists while serving in holy things. Those professors are not merely heathen but claim to be religious, resisting the truth with corrupt minds and rejected concerning the faith like Jannes and Jambres who opposed Moses, in contrast to those who live godly in Christ and suffer persecution while evil men and seducers grow worse deceiving and being deceived. This decline resembles the apostasy of the early church and leads to the same results, preparing the way for churches to unite around shared doctrines, seek civil authority, and use it to enforce religious uniformity and punish dissent. Having the form while denying the power means keeping outward religion while rejecting its inward power, worshiping the reflection of self and setting human practices and tendencies where God's law should be, with love of self, money, and pleasure more than God joined to boasting, pride, disobedience, unthankfulness, unholiness, lack of natural affection, fierceness, treachery, and contempt for good, from whom the duty is to turn away.
Wickedness and corruption will keep increasing to the end rather than the world being converted into a temporal millennium. Bible students are warned not to trust false assurances of peace and safety nor be deceived about the world's true condition near Christ's coming. Lawlessness, violence, seducing spirits, and rejection of grace will prevail even in professedly Christian households and in the very courts of the temple, with weakening of moral obligation showing outward religion without its power. Papists, Protestants, and worldly people will accept that empty form when they mistake Spiritualist wonders for divine power and unite in a movement they expect will convert the world and usher in the millennium.
Seeing this wickedness and corruption fulfilled should strengthen faith in the final triumph of Christ's kingdom, show the time has come and the period of the earth in its present state is nearing its end, and encourage courageous work. It is part of the terrible word-picture through the apostles that the present state of the world fulfills, showing sin and violence increasing as the end approaches and the close of this dispensation draws near. As that close draws near the responsibility resting upon men is greater than ever before and the position of Christ's followers most solemn, with God's messengers bearing a testimony that condemns those who refuse it while only a few choose to walk in the light Christ brought to enlighten the whole earth.
Specific last-day signs in the passage include rebellion and defiance against authority among youth in their relation to teaching and authority. They include knowingly breaking the seventh commandment and gratifying the loose passions of the carnal heart while professing godliness, even after hearing straight truth and blazing light, remaining unsanctified, disgracing the cause, then confessing sorrow yet kept in the embrace and fellowship of the church with all the privileges of the house of God. Such prayers and exhortations are a stink in the nostrils of God, bring His frown and curse upon the camp, remove the ark, and keep Him from dwelling in the assemblies, while God purifies unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works and those who plaster over this enormous sin and move on heedlessly will be left to their own ways to be filled with their own doings. Men will know the Scriptures and profess godliness while sinking low under uncontrolled low passions, denying the power of godliness in life, increasing moral corruption by secret precept and practice and leading unsuspecting minds into confusion of ideas as to what constitutes sin, showing the world fast falling into hopeless corruption. Neglect of marital faithfulness with corrupt self-indulgent affections is a sign of the last days, as when a married man lets his wife occupy second place in his affections and dishonors himself and God, or a woman receives affection from another woman's husband and shows herself in need of repentance and conversion, whereas Christ takes charge of the affections of those who love and honor God and causes them to center on proper objects so a husband respects, cherishes, and loves his wife as his wife and the mother of his children and guards himself carefully so impurity does not abide in mind or heart. Denial of power is lack of self-control and moral power to restrain appetite and keep all passions in subjection, seen in general pollution and strange abandonment of principle when the world becomes like Sodom and very near the fullness of crime and abominable corruption before the flood, in impure corrupt habits, illegal associations, licentiousness, vanity, flirting, and familiar intimacy between men and women, from which God alone can keep, so the virtuous and refined must not make companions of the impure, seek their society, place themselves in their way, encourage intimacy, or allow indulgence of flirting or courting.
People and Churches Described
The verse describes the condition of popular and fallen churches in the last days, where nominal Christians retain an outward form of religion while rejecting its inward power. It applies at this time to all churches throughout the world, every word of the chapter fitting the present lethargic slumber that calls brethren to wake, trim their lamps with grace, and shine in clear bright rays to a dark world in order to fit up a people to stand in the day of the Lord. As churches move farther from truth and closer to the world, those who love God above all will be unable to remain connected with lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, and separation will follow. It portrays people who may even serve in holy things yet conceal the sins Paul lists, and whose decline resembles the apostasy of the early church and leads to the same results. Where pride and love of the world are retained after conversion, where self-denial and following Jesus are refused, and where worldly activities and possessions crowd out God and eternal things, religion keeps only outward appearance without power.
The same form without power will appear not only in the world but among God's professed people in perilous times. Men in the church will be lovers of self and controlled by selfishness in all its forms, covetous, proud, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, and lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, putting self and their own practices where God's law should be and worshiping themselves. This class includes whole churches professing to keep the commandments and to look for the second coming, yet fast resembling ancient Israel in want of piety through indifference, pride, love of the world and cold formality, destitute of self-control while appetite and passion bear sway and self is made prominent. It includes those claiming great light in advance of others whose spirituality does not keep pace with numerical growth, leaving them no better than others who have godliness in name but not in power, with some blinded by self-complacency into carelessness and others seeing the danger yet failing to exert will to seek victory. High claims and pretentious profession joined to unchristian lives that deny the faith are like a fruitless fig tree with leaves but no fruit, arbitrary, dictatorial, overbearing, boastful and unconsecrated even among ministers handling sacred truths, and unless they repent their candlestick will be removed. Against this condition there is great need for vigilance, for understanding and turning away, for working entirely contrary to selfish ways, and for using every jot of ability to magnify God and His truth.
In Battle Creek, the college, and other institutions the verse exposes those who keep outward religion while by unconsecrated lives they deny the power of truth to make men wise unto salvation and disregard God's purpose in establishing the work. It shows a church maintaining forms of religion but lacking abiding principles of righteousness, a spiritual deception upon both people and watchmen, where faith and devotion are not proportioned to privileges and opportunities. That makes the place most dangerous to choose, so that those contemplating removing there or sending children there should consider well and stay away unless there is decided change and marked transformation. Pharisaism and self-righteousness there is always a snare, and contact with it causes loss of missionary spirit and spiritual discernment, as with those who left their own field to move without a call from the Lord. Such hollow outward profession, tolerated until it lowers the standard of piety, lacks new life from Christ and the moral fruit of a heart purified by obedience to truth, in contrast to the apostles who suffered poverty, disgrace, abuse and even death for truth's sake and rejoiced to be counted worthy to suffer for Christ. Deliverance comes by feeling the power of truth in the heart and bringing its principles into daily life, producing reform, and by divine overturning and scattering of those who moved without a call.
The description also covers corrupt city conditions such as San Francisco and Oakland, including officials whose public duty is to restrain evil but who themselves practice it, from whom the command is to turn away. It describes physicians in health institutions who profess godliness under cover of the medical calling while remaining servants of sin, with impure hearts careless of morals and influence, loose, dishonest, selfish, hypocritical and partial. Denying the power in them means refusing obligation to follow Christ like other workers, refusing to have the heart garrisoned with grace, and refusing to attend religious services and place themselves in the channel of light, so Satan gains entrance and works his will. The fruit is lack of strict honesty and fidelity in dealings, wrong and suffering to people, spread of impurity, vice and soul-destroying guilt, ruin of deluded victims for time and eternity, and dishonor to the holy faith instead of recommending it by consecrated unselfish influence. It likewise exposes avarice and hard Pharisaism contradicting profession and bringing scorn from honest worldly people.
At home, parents may profess godliness while competing for worldly favor and display and shaping the family by the world's standards, exercising a deceptive destructive influence over children and giving godliness only outward form while denying its power to form Christlike character. Claiming to be Christians while manifesting heartlessness toward a mother, cherishing unchristian feelings toward one another, and casting a parent out of the home under selfishness is having a form of religion while denying its power. Such religion leaves persons lacking every heavenly grace, with prayers that do not rise as fragrance before God nor obtain answer in peace and mercy, and with character that is an offense to God. What is done to the mother is registered in heaven as done unto Christ, yet those in this condition do not know their spiritual state and hold a far better opinion of themselves than they deserve because the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. They need humbly to examine thoughts, spirit, purposes, words and actions by Scripture, to have hearts hardened by bitterness and hatred broken before Jesus, to let His grace soften and melt them, and to be converted and transformed or they will go on in sparks of their own kindling and lie down in darkness. Those who keep this form without power, retaining outward religion while lacking its spirit, can become the fiercest persecutors of Christ's servants, especially when taught truths that conflict with their beliefs and practices.
Marks of Powerless Profession
Its common marks are love of pleasure more than love of God, selfishness in all its forms, pride, covetousness, and worldly conformity, with men loving self, money, and pleasure more than God while putting self and human practices where God's law should be and worshiping themselves. They remain worldly and unchanged in character, with boasting, disobedience, unthankfulness, unholiness, lack of natural affection, fierceness, treachery, contempt for good, and no heart union with Christ, and their profession does not change the life. Such religion misrepresents Christ, lowers the standard for others, decoys souls, and calls believers not to be deceived or to imitate it but to guard against its traits in themselves, to use influence to keep others from them, and to turn away and work entirely contrary to selfish ways.
Like a leafy but fruitless fig tree, outward profession conceals inward barrenness and deformity, with leaves of profession but no inward crucifixion of sin, no Christ formed within, and no corresponding fruit to the glory of God. It is having lamps without communicating light, receiving light and privileges without improving them, refusing to arise and shine when light has come, and remaining fruitless despite reviving influences and under condemnation. Its evidences are pride, selfishness, irritability, peevishness, fretfulness, frivolity, discontent, lack of charity, unkindness, censoriousness, evil thinking and evil speaking, with the chambers of the soul desecrated, no good works, mercy and devotion, and more hope for the open sinner than for those claiming great light while daily life belies profession.
It professes to know God and keep His law while works deny Him, mistaking outward form for spirit and power and supposing to be rich and needing nothing while poor, wretched, blind and naked. Sabbath observance, prayer, church membership, and a place among members may be maintained without obedience from the heart, without willingly keeping all requirements, without purification and sanctification of the heart, and without union to Christ and His manifest saving presence. It is seeing truth without perceiving its importance and hearing without understanding because life is not conformed to it, presuming on favor while following own judgment, disregarding guidance, and resting satisfied as if accepted while sinning against Him, with selfish acts, wrong words, neglected duties, secret sin and deceit recorded in heaven. The form is appearing right before others, seeking approbation, office, promotion and show while proud, selfish, worldly and untransformed, instead of loving God with all heart and neighbor as self, ridding life of selfishness, imitating Christ in unselfish good, having mind transformed and powers sanctified, dealing with impartial justice, bearing perfect fruit, and coming out separate to bear inspection by Him whose eyes are too pure to behold iniquity.
It includes false prophets and teachers departed from the faith to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, who keep outward appearance while rejecting power and whose work is to tear down what God is building through falsehood and misrepresentation. They mislead through pleasing fables clothed with garments of light, exaltation of nature as God, unrestrained license of will, counsel of the ungodly, and corruptions like those among the antediluvians, hypnotizing minds with mind-over-mind control so one acts out another's will as a machine, which has no place in Christian or medical work and leads to destruction not restoration. They include false accusers and despisers of the good who attack the faithful, and resistance is by God's Word, by standing firm holding faith and a good conscience, and by turning away.
In business relations such professors are to be feared and turned away from because when connected with the cause they will surely betray trust, be overcome by the tempter, imperil the cause, let self control, and show an overbearing, critical spirit lacking compassion and thoughtful tenderness toward those needing care.
It appears in intemperate eating and drinking, which wars against truth and leaves professors unpurified and unsanctified even while appearing godly and preaching the gospel. Especially ministers' use of animal food works against health and perception, weakens the force of the message proclaimed, and may lead the weak in faith away from the right path.
It appears in following demoralizing fashions, luxurious living, extravagant dress, pride, vanity, deception, and worldly pressure, showing Christ is not formed within and character is not godly despite appearance. The idolatry of dress weakens humble and lovely character and takes time from prayer and study of the Word, while true godliness is shown in Christlike character and conduct.
It appears in spiritless prayer that is mere form, neither blessing nor edifying hearers, and in neglected vocal and family worship with no living connection, no honoring God in the home, no teaching children to love and fear Him, and no bold approach with clean hands, pure heart, and holy hands lifted without wrath and doubting. It appears in covetous grasping and close dealing where hurry and constant work leave hired workers and self hardly time to pray, where every nerve is strained to save means that blesses neither self nor others, and where economy is stretched into meanness to add to treasure, which is despised and unless reformed eats flesh as fire until there is faithful stewardship and right disposal of the Lord's goods. It appears in theatrical singing and worldly display where singers have no interest in God's Word, have not sought its truths, and have hearts not in harmony with words, which cannot unite with the heavenly choir, for singing must be in spirit and with understanding. The empty form grows by loving the world without the Father's love, neglecting the Word where warnings are pointed out, and letting cares, surfeiting, drunkenness and perplexities crowd out prayer, against which stands earnest, energetic, agonizing wrestling like Jacob's, I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me.
It cloaks fanaticism that wounds the cause, disheartens and scatters the flock, and casts fear among trembling conscientious believers even by persons once trusted, calling for testimony borne against it where harm was done and for turning away. It cloaks hypocrisy, grave sin, and persistent iniquity, including knowing seventh-commandment breaking and gratifying carnal passion after hearing straight truth and blazing light, with prayers and exhortations a stink bringing frown and curse, removing the ark and keeping God from assemblies. Such sin is not to be plastered over, excused, or concealed while retaining embrace, fellowship and privileges, but to be put away through discipline, suspension and separation until repentance, for practicing iniquity while professing holiness brings severer judgment and God is purifying a peculiar people zealous of good works.
It keeps children in popular schools and homes shaped by the world, where principles form outward appearance without power and attainments remain low with drifting minds. Parents professing godliness may exercise deceptive, destructive influence by competing for worldly favor and display and shaping the family by worldly standards, giving only form while denying power to form Christlike character. Godliness must be practical religion brought into life, leaving worldly practices, customs, superstitions and policy and learning truth so a visible difference appears, which is the reason for separation from worldly churches and schools and for colleges to bring students out of the world.
In Sabbath-school and educational work it is indifference, Pharisaism, spiritual indolence, and mechanical order without high holy aspirations, earnest love for souls, or the spirit of Jesus directed to bringing pupils to saving knowledge. Formal order and good facilities are not enough, for lifeless formal religion without transformed heart makes pupils less responsive to spiritual influence. That spirit in a teacher reproduces itself in scholars, so youth must never be placed under such persons but turned to teachers who drink deeply of salvation and labor with aptitude, sympathy, perseverance and Christlike skill until souls are convicted and reformed.
In ministry it is popularity that avoids the cross, the law's claims, and coming judgment, which does not trouble the natural heart or provoke opposition, while truth accompanied by the Spirit convicts with power. It is unconverted preaching where ministers speak Bible truth without being converted or leading others to give hearts to God, hearing and acknowledging whole truth without being sanctified by it, so truth preached does not save the preacher unless it sanctifies, and faithful conduct must show the holy calling. It is ceremonial machinery and reliance on set forms instead of Jesus and His grace, with exact procedures and training taking His place and piety, humility, holiness, love and concern for souls absent, leaving workers dry and powerless, for less dependence on forms and more of power producing holiness of heart and life are essential.
Its other signs are cold criticism, avarice, divisive stubbornness over nonvital matters, half-hearted service, disorder and untidiness that make men forget God, and a hard unimpressible spirit that hates humility and rests satisfied with form while distant from God without deep desire to devote life to His cause. They mark spiritual darkness, low true piety, and unconverted profession within the church, calling for higher standard, true reform, individual heart-searching, putting away sin, correcting evil tendencies, learning distrust of self and dependence on God, and joining earnest prayer rather than routine sacred service.
Historical Examples Cited
Jewish priests, rulers and Pharisees before Christ's first coming and at Pentecost kept the forms and ceremonies of the priesthood and were strict in outward keeping of the law with show of piety, zeal and devotion, while their hearts were not in the work and lacked personal piety, virtuous character, charity, mercy, love for God, and Abraham's faith and piety. Their holy garments and lofty manners and impressive clothing concealed ambitious, corrupt and criminal hearts, malice, pride, boastfulness, hypocrisy, love of worldly honors, ambition to be exalted through riches, and taking advantage of the poor and especially of widow and fatherless by exacting heavy sums on religious pretenses for their own advantage. The more they lacked qualifications for the sacred work of priests of the most high God, the more tenacious they were of outward show, and like a leafy but fruitless fig tree their outward appearance hid absence of holiness and godly power. Caiaphas illustrates this, for his priestly office was bought and sold under an unbelieving government rather than appointed by God and not after the order of Melchizedek, and his outward form gave him power to oppress while seeking to kill an innocent man. They were ambitious for earthly riches and glory and unwilling to come to Christ to receive light, and Satan made them vigilant in lifeless formalism to steel their hearts against the evidences of Messiahship, so they deceived the people into rejecting Christ and John exposed and denounced their hypocrisy. From such the convicted people must turn by no longer looking to those men for counsel nor waiting for them to acknowledge Christ before daring to do so, for continuing to follow them would keep them from ever accepting Him.
After rejecting the gospel the Jews continued zealously to observe religious rites though God's presence and Spirit were no longer manifest among them, preserving religious forms while lacking living spiritual power. When the Spirit is finally withdrawn people may still regard themselves as God's people and keep up religious practices, while satanic influence inspires a zeal that looks like zeal for God. This warns that rejecting divine light leaves form without vital godliness and brings spiritual darkness, and what was true of the Jewish nation after God's presence and glory departed will be true at the end of the world after the sanctuary's decision is made, though the people will not know their destiny is fixed. In Israel many continued those forms after the Lord's glory had departed, while the faithful by contrast reproved, counseled and entreated others, and some who had dishonored God repented and humbled themselves.
Merely outward religion without power to change the heart appeals to people who have not been renewed by God's Spirit and lack personal experiential knowledge of Christ, because it permits self-indulgence while substituting rituals, confession to another person, and bodily penance for renouncing sin and yielding to Christ. The forms of Roman worship attract unrenewed hearts on this ground, and many accept its ceremonies as godliness while their hearts remain unrenewed. Papists, Protestants and worldly people illustrate the same empty form when they unite and mistake Spiritualist wonders and their union for a divine movement they expect will convert the world and usher in the millennium.
Judas exemplifies the class among professed followers of Christ who have only a form of godliness, for he professed discipleship, saw the beauty of Christ's character, had opportunity to study and follow the divine Pattern, heard His teaching and felt conviction, yet refused to humble the heart, confess sins, yield ideas and desires to wisdom from heaven, and practice the truth. Having the outward profession of a disciple, his dishonest conduct and yielding to temptation showed denial of power in words and actions through violating conscience, yielding to temptation, choosing darkness instead of light, and cherishing evil desires, covetousness, revengeful passions, and dark and sullen thoughts until Satan gained full control and brought him into bondage, dishonoring the Master professed to be loved. John by contrast illustrates true godliness and sanctification, for he learned of Jesus in humility, warred earnestly against faults, died daily to self, overcame sin, and was sanctified through the truth as a doer of the word and not a hearer only. The same outward form without inward life is seen in the disciples who left Jesus, like a husk without a kernel, and their decision was never reversed.
The early falling away came when heathen idolaters professed belief in the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ without change of heart and united with the followers of Jesus, keeping idolatry while only changing the objects of worship to images of saints and even of Christ and Mary the mother of Jesus. That outward profession of Christianity and union with Christians while keeping idolatry and corrupting the doctrines of the Bible corrupted the Christian religion so the church lost its purity and power, and turning away meant refusing to unite with that corruption, preserving purity, worshiping God alone, and refusing to bow to any image of anything in heaven above or in earth beneath. This decline resembles the last-days state of religious decline before the Lord comes, in which people keep outward form while rejecting power, and it will lead to the same results and prepare the way for churches to unite around shared doctrines, seek civil authority, and use it to enforce religious uniformity and punish dissent. The same form without living connection with God is seen in those who rejected the light of the first and second angels' messages, or accepted it and later renounced their faith as a delusion and rejected the Spirit of God so the Spirit no longer pleaded with them and they became vulnerable to Satan's delusions, while those who had not seen the light were not guilty of rejecting it and are not included in this class. It is also head religion holding Campbellistic views that blind the eyes to the necessity of the Spirit of God upon heart and life for correct religious experience and exemplifying Christ's life, for without humility and the purifying, sanctifying work of truth this form cannot be united with the work of the third angel and prepares the way for apostasy and rebellion.
Doctrinal Connections Taught
All Scripture was deemed essential from eternity for salvation, given by inspiration for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction that the man of God may be perfect and thoroughly furnished unto all good works, and therefore the word must be preached in season and out of season with reproving, rebuking and exhorting with longsuffering and doctrine. The need is urgent because there are unruly vain talkers and deceivers who keep a form of godliness while in works denying God, disobedient and reprobate unto every good work, who will not endure sound doctrine but after their own lusts heap to themselves teachers having itching ears and turn away their ears from the truth unto fables. Against that danger faithful sentinels must reprove and rebuke sharply that men may be sound in the faith, call sin by its right name, maintain order in the church, stand fast in one spirit with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, have the lowly mind of Christ, suffer for His sake, and turn away from such workers unless they repent and are transformed.
True liberty rests on obedience to the commandments in spirit and in letter, putting God's law first rather than giving the mind to worldly gain and disregarding His commands for personal advantage. Claiming liberty apart from loyalty to the commandments is illegal and fearfully dangerous, for it gives license to the carnal heart, lets the mind run wild, often results in great evil, and is scarcely a step from lawless liberty to licentiousness. Many at the present day have a knowledge of the law and acknowledge its claims yet do not obey its precepts from the heart with faithful and willing obedience to all its requirements, and though confident and boastful as if especially favored of Heaven they have only the form of godliness. Warnings, counsel and reproof make only a momentary impression before they return to their own ways, presumptuously devising and executing plans by finite judgment and giving little heed to divine providence, while to the obedient alone will the promises of blessing, support and guidance be fulfilled. That powerless form is also linked to human traditions and customs that make the commandments void, for observing tradition or receiving baptism does not save from death apart from loving God with all the being and loving the neighbor, in contrast to striving for the crown of immortal glory.
Complacent hearers who listen for years to solemn soul-stirring truths, including justification by faith and the righteousness of Christ, without practicing what pleases God and without love and gratitude, grow less sensible of truth's preciousness, unmoved by reproof and warning, spiritually dead in trespasses and sins, coming and going like a door on its hinges. Their continued complacency makes them less responsive to truth and to the gospel message, and by resisting Christ's offer of faith and love as the heavenly Merchantman displaying the richest jewels they remain lukewarm instead of becoming loving and zealous. Though invited to buy gold tried in the fire and white raiment and eyesalve, they steel their hearts and keep lukewarm complacency with folded hands instead of exchanging lukewarmness for love and zeal, and to praise the world and God at the same time is in no way acceptable. A name for being alive does not make them alive, for without the love of God in the soul religious forms are worthless, and this is having a name to live while being dead as said to Sardis. That deadness is not the death needed for growth in grace, the burial with Christ in baptism to rise in newness of life putting away hereditary and cultivated tendencies to wrong, the death to self and to desires that would dishonor Christ which means eternal life. It is the deficiency of shepherds who do not discern their spiritual need, who do not keep pure principles uncontaminated by worldly influences and are careless of their own standing, exerting no saving influence, including those who once acted a prominent part yet offer outward homage while the heart prized by Christ for loyalty is estranged, and if continued God will reject them with abhorrence unless they awake before it is everlastingly too late.
Taking the name of Christ while denying His character in life is the form without power, and the true standard is the golden rule, for anything short of it is deception and spurious religion. The power is seen in placing Christ's high estimate on human beings for whom He gave Himself, and in caring for human needs, sufferings and rights, while to be careless of them and to slight the claims of the poor, the suffering and the sinful is to prove traitors to Christ. Mere possession and defense of biblical truth does not complete faith or advance the divine life, for true religion includes practical care for the afflicted and keeping oneself unspotted from the world, and self-deception is dangerous when people think they stand on the right foundation and God accepts their works while failing to conform to His will. Because men profess Christ without living His character, Christianity has little power in the world and the name of the Lord is blasphemed. The same denial appears when professed Christians manifest heartlessness toward a mother and unchristian feelings toward one another, casting a parent out under selfishness, leaving them lacking every heavenly grace with prayers that rise with no fragrance and obtain no answer in peace and mercy, and what is done to the mother is registered in heaven as done unto Christ. Those in this condition do not know their own state, hold a better opinion of themselves than they deserve because the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, and need to examine thoughts, spirit, purposes, words and actions by Scripture, break hearts hardened by bitterness before Jesus, let His grace soften and melt them, and be converted and transformed or go on in sparks of their own kindling to lie down in darkness.
Command to Turn Away
From such turn away means not to be deceived by outward religion or to imitate its practices, but to see and understand the selfish, perilous-time condition, to resist its influence with the Word, and to guard against its traits in oneself. It describes men in the last days, in the church as well as in the world, who are lovers of self, money, and pleasure more than God, covetous, proud, boastful, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, disobedient, fierce, treacherous, and despisers of good, yet keeping an outward form of godliness while denying its inward power. To have the form while denying the power is to keep outward religion while rejecting its inward, transforming work, worshiping self and putting human practices and tendencies where God's law should be, remaining worldly and unchanged with no heart union with Christ. The same warning exposes the corrupt condition of cities like San Francisco and Oakland, including officials whose duty is to restrain evil while practicing it, from whom believers are to turn away. Because this class will develop among God's professed people, there is great need to stand where every jot of power is used to magnify God and His truth and to work entirely contrary to selfish ways.
The command requires separation from worldly churches, popular schools, and worldly conformity, and refusal to unite God's peculiar people with powerless professors. Principles taught in popular schools may form such outward professors, so children are to be separated from those schools just as believers are called to leave worldly churches. In churches that move farther from truth and closer to the world, those who love God above all will eventually be unable to remain connected with lovers of pleasure more than God, and the widening difference will make separation necessary. Knowing truth and having outward form are not enough when faith and power are lacking, for without that power victories do not last and people strengthen one another in error and conceal faults instead of growing in grace, so harmful attachments are to be broken and a more separate stand taken that God may be honored. Uniting God's peculiar people with mere professors retards progress, destroys the marks of peculiarity God has placed upon them, and works against what God and angels are doing to bring His people up to the standard and elevate them. That separation belongs to a close, testing, shaking work for this time, in which the valiant and whole-hearted endure the trying process and those who endure to the end receive the crown of life.
Youth must turn from attractive worldly companions, despisers, licentious literature, and pleasure-loving teachers, choosing associates and reading with sacred care. Worldly companions whose appearance is attractive continually throw out suggestions against the Bible, undermine foundations of faith, and corrupt the conscientiousness of old-fashioned gospel religion, and in an age of licentiousness bold in sin youth must be fortified with firm principles lest they be exposed to society as corrupt in morals as Sodom. Meeting despisers who mock Christianity, youth must depend on a higher power and higher teaching rather than mortals, with moral power and courage to stand for truth, to confess Jesus as Saviour, Redeemer, and center of hope of eternal life, and to separate by refusing to remain where Christ is despised. Argument alone will not touch scoffers, but firm allegiance to heaven lived out in a life for Christ silences them and convinces them of the falseness of their doctrines where argument fails. Outward godliness without inward power in a teacher appears as indifference, Pharisaism, and spiritual indolence with no high, holy aspirations, and that spirit reproduces itself in scholars, so youth must never be placed under such persons but turned to teachers who drink deeply of salvation, love souls earnestly, and labor with aptitude, sympathy, perseverance, and Christlike skill until souls are convicted and reformed. The denial of power is also lack of self-control and moral power to restrain appetite and keep passions in subjection, seen in impure habits, unlawful associations, licentiousness, vanity, flirting, and familiar intimacy between men and women, from which only God can keep, so the virtuous and refined must not make companions of the impure, seek their society, place themselves in their way, encourage intimacy, or allow indulgence of flirting or courting.
Persistent violators, fanatics who scatter the flock, and cloaks for sin are to face testimony, discipline, suspension from fellowship, and separation until repentance and transformation. Professed believers who knowingly break the seventh commandment and gratify carnal passion, though they have heard straight truth and blazing light for the last days, remain unsanctified, disgrace the cause, and if kept in embrace and fellowship with all privileges bring God's frown and curse upon the camp, remove the ark, and keep Him from dwelling in assemblies, their prayers and exhortations being a stink in His nostrils. Those who plaster over this enormous sin and move on heedlessly will be left to their ways to be filled with their own doings, while God purifies a peculiar people zealous of good works, so breakers of the seventh commandment should be suspended and denied fellowship and privileges. Practicing iniquity while professing holiness brings especially severe judgment, and the warning calls for sin to be put away rather than excused or concealed, including through church discipline and separation from persistent sinners. A cloak of godliness can also hide a fanatical spirit that wounds the cause, disheartens and scatters God's children, and casts fear among trembling conscientious believers even by persons once trusted, which calls for bearing testimony against it where the harm is done and for turning away from those who spread fear and reproach.
Ministers fulfill the command by preaching Christ crucified plainly, feeding the flock as faithful examples, and calling for wakefulness, trimmed lamps, and a people fitted to stand in the day of the Lord. Having the form while denying the power is doing religious work in carnal lines to please and attract people so means will flow into the treasury, interposing something between the soul and the Saviour instead of bringing every sinner into communication with Christ. It buries saving truth under masses of words, foolish and unlearned questions, striving about words, drollery, novelty, romance, and vain philosophy, while the power denied is Christ Himself received as the power and wisdom of God. Turning away is done by preaching truth as it is in Jesus with the burden of Christ crucified, keeping close to the work, letting saving truth stand clear and prominent in every discourse with practical godliness, speaking to please God not men, and overseeing the flock as a faithful ensample. Such professors are unruly vain talkers and deceivers who in works deny God, being disobedient and reprobate to every good work, who will not endure sound doctrine but heap teachers with itching ears and turn ears from truth to fables, so all Scripture given by inspiration is to reprove, rebuke, and correct sharply that they may be sound in faith, while faithful sentinels call sin by its right name, maintain order, stand fast striving together for the gospel with the lowly mind of Christ, suffer for Him, and turn from such workers unless they repent and are transformed. The chapter fits the present condition of all churches and calls brethren to wake from lethargic slumber, trim lamps with grace, let them shine in clear bright rays to a dark world, and bear the message that fits up a people to stand in the day of the Lord and come to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Religion of mere outward form without the Spirit's power does not bring truth home to heart or conscience, and a popular ministry avoiding the cross, the claims of law, and coming judgment provokes no opposition from the unconverted heart, so truth must be presented with the Spirit's convicting power lest an unconsecrated minister weaken its effect and lower the standard.
Call to True Godliness
True godliness is a living connection with God formed by communion with Him, yielding to the Holy Spirit, and an experimental knowledge of Christ formed within in meekness and gentleness. It is not resting in appearances, valuing and promoting truth, or associating with believers while unchanged, hearing words and professing love with the mouth while the heart pursues other desires and self remains prominent. Without receiving and practicing the messages heard and bringing divine power into daily life, the unseen world and eternal reward do not move the heart, and the approaching day of the Lord awakens neither alarm nor joy. A vital union makes truth bear good fruit, with Christ within revealed in saving grace, sympathy and love for perishing souls, and with the daily life showing the sanctifying power of truth and Christ abiding by faith through His mind and spirit. Conduct opposed to the fruits of the Spirit or to God's work of separating His people from the world contradicts profession, and those who deny Him before people will be denied before the angels.
Its evidence is working power seen in good works, mercy, sincere devotion, self-denial, cross-bearing and unselfish service that reflect the brightness of the Sun of Righteousness to all around. Such religion receives the rays of heaven and lets light shine before men in works that glorify the Father, with prayers and entreaties imbued with the Holy Spirit that melt and subdue the soul, with zeal, effort, liberality, untiring labor, fervent petitions for power and wisdom, and God's cause made the chief business of life, changing hearts, homes, churches and the world. Christians are not to withdraw from the world but to serve its people and bear fruit that distinguishes them from it, while outward show concealing pride, selfishness and other unsanctified traits, with words and actions contradicting profession, proves barren like a leafy but fruitless fig tree. Young people especially need this good, sanctifying, uplifting religion with a sanctified mind, learning to discern it from mere form in the perilous crisis of the last days. Argument alone will not touch scoffers and despisers who mock Christianity, but moral power and courage to stand for truth, confess Jesus as Saviour and center of hope, separate from contemptuous conversation, and live firm allegiance to the God of heaven silences them and convinces them of the falseness of their doctrines.
Receiving this power requires true contrition, confession, conversion, daily dying to self, zealous repentance of backslidings, blotting out of sin, and washing the robe of character white in the Lamb's blood so the name is retained in the book of life. No external forms, even those commanded by God, have value without an inward work of cleansing, and outward works alone never make a person perfect before God, for only repentance and faith can make an impure heart pure, while good intentions, resolutions and acts cannot substitute for repentance, faith and willing obedience with decided changes in life and character. Each person must seek God individually, search the heart, put away sin, correct evil tendencies, distrust self and depend on God rather than rely on religious profession, for unconverted members may fail even to join in earnest prayer. This need is urgent because perilous times with lukewarmness, apostasy and every kind of deception are upon us near the close of time, when many cheat their own souls, claim righteousness without the fruit of true conversion, demand smooth things and deceits, and lose the smile and inspiration of the Spirit under divine displeasure because their deeds are evil. Faith fixed on the cross and trust in Jesus as strength and salvation restore what was lost when people separated themselves from God, for the power had almost ceased in the churches not because grace was withheld but because connection was broken.
Without this power, profession is darkness, condemnation and worthless form that cannot save, for salvation requires a deep and living experience. Having lamps without communicating light, receiving light and privileges without improving them, refusing to arise and shine when light has come and glory has risen, and bearing no fruit to God's glory leaves persons fruitless despite reviving influences and under divine condemnation. In the time of trouble each one's work will be tested, with work of lasting worth pictured as gold, silver and precious stones sheltered in the Lord's pavilion, while work like wood, hay and stubble cannot protect its maker from wrath. Merely formal religion does not call sinners to recognize guilt and repent and can be accepted by the world because it lacks the Spirit and character of Christ, while living godliness in Christlike purity and conduct provokes opposition, and those lacking it will not stand when persecution comes and may abandon truth for another platform. Religious forms can continue after spiritual power is gone, with people still regarding themselves as God's people and keeping up practices while satanic influence inspires a zeal that looks like zeal for God, as with the Jewish nation after God's presence departed, so it will be at the end after the sanctuary decision though people will not know their destiny is fixed, and unless formalists and boasting hypocrites repent their candlestick will be removed.
When the power of truth is felt in the heart and its principles are brought into daily life there is a great movement of reform, in contrast to Pharisaism and self-righteousness which is always a snare. That outward religion without inward change causes loss of missionary spirit and spiritual discernment, as seen where those who moved without a call left undone work and came under its influence, and deliverance comes by divine overturning and scattering. The power denied is the vitalizing, sanctifying power of truth whose simplicity has been lost in a round of ceremonies, and though experienced in years gone by it has been replaced by outward show, leaving many professing truth in darkness without experimental knowledge of Christ as Redeemer and of what He is and will be to them, needing the spirit and life of God breathed into them as into dry bones. Keeping a mechanical form after Christ and His love are shut out quenches kindling of soul at the name of Jesus and fervent early love for souls with earnest desire to represent the Saviour's love, leaving coldness, criticism and exacting ways. That love must be won back and spent in saving the tempted, tried and perishing, for if those entrusted with the work refuse, others with less light, experience and opportunity will rise to take their place in the service offered to the church.
Keeping an outward show of religion through profession, observance and ceremony while the life remains unchanged denies its inward sanctifying and transforming work. The power so denied is Christ Himself received within, the Holy Spirit working in the soul, divine grace, and the vitalizing power of truth and faith that lays hold of His imputed righteousness to cleanse the heart and bear fruit. It foretells the perilous religious condition of the last days just before Christ's second coming, when wickedness and corruption will keep increasing rather than the world being converted. It describes popular and fallen churches and nominal Christians who retain outward religion while concealing worldly aims and fashionable sins, a form that will appear also among God's professed people, whole congregations and self-sufficient workers. From such turn away means not to be deceived or imitate their practices but to separate from their influence and conformity, and instead to enter a living connection with God through communion, yielding to the Spirit and an experimental knowledge of Christ formed within in meekness, shown by good works, mercy and self-denying service.
Words and Immediate Context
Having a form of godliness is keeping outward appearance, profession, and religious observance while the life denies its sanctifying and transforming power. It describes professed Christians in the last days who retain the form while concealing the sins Paul lists, even among those serving in holy things, with daily lives showing selfish and harmful traits while professing to love and obey God. This state is a religious decline resembling the apostasy of the early church and leading to the same results, a warning for the present days concerning many who have departed from the faith. Those described are pleasure-lovers rather than lovers of God, worldly and unchanged in character, with no heart union with Christ and no true connection with Him, so that profession does not change character and believers are not to be deceived by them or imitate their practices but to turn away, learning from God's word how to shun these evils and overcome.
Denying the power is rejecting its inward, life-giving work to cleanse the heart, convert and sanctify the life, and bear fruit, since mere theory, ceremony, and outward talent cannot save. It is doing religious work in carnal lines to please and attract people so means will flow into the treasury, interposing something between the soul and the Savior instead of bringing every sinner into communication with Christ. It buries the saving truth of Christ and Him crucified under a mass of words, foolish and unlearned questions, striving about words, drollery, novelty, romance, and vain philosophy. No external forms, even those God has commanded, are of value unless accompanied by an inward work of cleansing, for outward works alone will never make a man perfect before God and nothing but repentance and faith can make an impure heart pure, while profession without inward holiness does not make the church a light in the world or give it power to reach the unsaved. Outward religion without the Spirit's power is not true godliness, for the power had nearly ceased in the churches because people were separated from God, not because the Lord had stopped offering grace, and flippant talk about Bible truth cannot replace personal conversion or teach others to give their hearts to God.
The power denied is Christ Himself received as the power of God and the wisdom of God. It is the power of Jesus and His grace, producing piety, humility, and holiness of heart and life, with love and concern for souls, and God still waits to show grace to those who look in faith to the cross and rely on Jesus as strength and salvation. It is the Holy Spirit working in the soul and divine grace making unselfish work with pure principles and holy motives effective, in contrast to mechanical religious work where exact procedures, training, and set forms take the place of Jesus. It is the vitalizing power of truth and of faith that lays hold of Christ's imputed righteousness, the source of virtue, spiritual power, and life, without which religious appearance deceives its possessors about their corruption and leaves them ignorant of God's holiness and of rest upon Christ's perfection. A vital connection with Christ makes truth bear good fruit, as Christ within is revealed through saving grace, sympathy, and love for perishing souls, and from such powerless professors believers are to turn away by preaching the truth as it is in Jesus with the burden of Christ crucified, letting saving truth stand out clear and prominent in every discourse with practical godliness and feeding the flock as faithful examples.
The verse closes the perilous-times list of lovers of self, money, and pleasure more than God, with boasting, pride, disobedience to parents, unthankfulness, unholiness, and kindred traits. Men will be covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, and high-minded, putting self and their own practices and tendencies where God's law should be and worshiping themselves, controlled by selfishness in all its forms. They claim to be religious while in works they deny God, being disobedient and reprobate unto every good work, resisting the truth with corrupt minds and rejected concerning the faith like Jannes and Jambres who opposed Moses, standing in contrast to those who live godly in Christ and suffer persecution while evil men and seducers grow worse, deceiving and being deceived. They are unruly vain talkers and deceivers who will not endure sound doctrine but after their own lusts heap to themselves teachers having itching ears and turn away their ears from the truth unto fables. This class will be developed among God's professed people as well as in the world, so God's people must see and understand this condition, turn away from such people, work entirely contrary to their selfish ways, and stand where every jot of power is used to magnify God and His truth.
The verse belongs to all Scripture given by inspiration of God and deemed essential from eternity for salvation. It was defined from eternity by infinite truths and revealed for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works, glorifying his own life and the lives of fellow men not only by possessing truth but by communicating it. It is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness to meet the danger of powerless profession, to reprove, rebuke, and correct sharply that men may be sound in the faith. Therefore the word is to be preached in season and out of season with reproving, rebuking, and exhorting with all longsuffering and doctrine, heeding Scripture's warnings, resisting false teaching, calling sin by its right name, maintaining order, standing fast in one spirit with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, and remaining faithful.
Prophecy of Last Days
The verse foretells the perilous religious condition of the last days just before the second coming of Christ and the close of this dispensation. It describes professed Christians and popular churches of that time who retain an outward form of godliness while denying its power, even concealing the sins Paul lists while serving in holy things. Those professors are not merely heathen but claim to be religious, resisting the truth with corrupt minds and rejected concerning the faith like Jannes and Jambres who opposed Moses, in contrast to those who live godly in Christ and suffer persecution while evil men and seducers grow worse deceiving and being deceived. This decline resembles the apostasy of the early church and leads to the same results, preparing the way for churches to unite around shared doctrines, seek civil authority, and use it to enforce religious uniformity and punish dissent. Having the form while denying the power means keeping outward religion while rejecting its inward power, worshiping the reflection of self and setting human practices and tendencies where God's law should be, with love of self, money, and pleasure more than God joined to boasting, pride, disobedience, unthankfulness, unholiness, lack of natural affection, fierceness, treachery, and contempt for good, from whom the duty is to turn away.
Wickedness and corruption will keep increasing to the end rather than the world being converted into a temporal millennium. Bible students are warned not to trust false assurances of peace and safety nor be deceived about the world's true condition near Christ's coming. Lawlessness, violence, seducing spirits, and rejection of grace will prevail even in professedly Christian households and in the very courts of the temple, with weakening of moral obligation showing outward religion without its power. Papists, Protestants, and worldly people will accept that empty form when they mistake Spiritualist wonders for divine power and unite in a movement they expect will convert the world and usher in the millennium.
Seeing this wickedness and corruption fulfilled should strengthen faith in the final triumph of Christ's kingdom, show the time has come and the period of the earth in its present state is nearing its end, and encourage courageous work. It is part of the terrible word-picture through the apostles that the present state of the world fulfills, showing sin and violence increasing as the end approaches and the close of this dispensation draws near. As that close draws near the responsibility resting upon men is greater than ever before and the position of Christ's followers most solemn, with God's messengers bearing a testimony that condemns those who refuse it while only a few choose to walk in the light Christ brought to enlighten the whole earth.
Specific last-day signs in the passage include rebellion and defiance against authority among youth in their relation to teaching and authority. They include knowingly breaking the seventh commandment and gratifying the loose passions of the carnal heart while professing godliness, even after hearing straight truth and blazing light, remaining unsanctified, disgracing the cause, then confessing sorrow yet kept in the embrace and fellowship of the church with all the privileges of the house of God. Such prayers and exhortations are a stink in the nostrils of God, bring His frown and curse upon the camp, remove the ark, and keep Him from dwelling in the assemblies, while God purifies unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works and those who plaster over this enormous sin and move on heedlessly will be left to their own ways to be filled with their own doings. Men will know the Scriptures and profess godliness while sinking low under uncontrolled low passions, denying the power of godliness in life, increasing moral corruption by secret precept and practice and leading unsuspecting minds into confusion of ideas as to what constitutes sin, showing the world fast falling into hopeless corruption. Neglect of marital faithfulness with corrupt self-indulgent affections is a sign of the last days, as when a married man lets his wife occupy second place in his affections and dishonors himself and God, or a woman receives affection from another woman's husband and shows herself in need of repentance and conversion, whereas Christ takes charge of the affections of those who love and honor God and causes them to center on proper objects so a husband respects, cherishes, and loves his wife as his wife and the mother of his children and guards himself carefully so impurity does not abide in mind or heart. Denial of power is lack of self-control and moral power to restrain appetite and keep all passions in subjection, seen in general pollution and strange abandonment of principle when the world becomes like Sodom and very near the fullness of crime and abominable corruption before the flood, in impure corrupt habits, illegal associations, licentiousness, vanity, flirting, and familiar intimacy between men and women, from which God alone can keep, so the virtuous and refined must not make companions of the impure, seek their society, place themselves in their way, encourage intimacy, or allow indulgence of flirting or courting.
People and Churches Described
The verse describes the condition of popular and fallen churches in the last days, where nominal Christians retain an outward form of religion while rejecting its inward power. It applies at this time to all churches throughout the world, every word of the chapter fitting the present lethargic slumber that calls brethren to wake, trim their lamps with grace, and shine in clear bright rays to a dark world in order to fit up a people to stand in the day of the Lord. As churches move farther from truth and closer to the world, those who love God above all will be unable to remain connected with lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, and separation will follow. It portrays people who may even serve in holy things yet conceal the sins Paul lists, and whose decline resembles the apostasy of the early church and leads to the same results. Where pride and love of the world are retained after conversion, where self-denial and following Jesus are refused, and where worldly activities and possessions crowd out God and eternal things, religion keeps only outward appearance without power.
The same form without power will appear not only in the world but among God's professed people in perilous times. Men in the church will be lovers of self and controlled by selfishness in all its forms, covetous, proud, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, and lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, putting self and their own practices where God's law should be and worshiping themselves. This class includes whole churches professing to keep the commandments and to look for the second coming, yet fast resembling ancient Israel in want of piety through indifference, pride, love of the world and cold formality, destitute of self-control while appetite and passion bear sway and self is made prominent. It includes those claiming great light in advance of others whose spirituality does not keep pace with numerical growth, leaving them no better than others who have godliness in name but not in power, with some blinded by self-complacency into carelessness and others seeing the danger yet failing to exert will to seek victory. High claims and pretentious profession joined to unchristian lives that deny the faith are like a fruitless fig tree with leaves but no fruit, arbitrary, dictatorial, overbearing, boastful and unconsecrated even among ministers handling sacred truths, and unless they repent their candlestick will be removed. Against this condition there is great need for vigilance, for understanding and turning away, for working entirely contrary to selfish ways, and for using every jot of ability to magnify God and His truth.
In Battle Creek, the college, and other institutions the verse exposes those who keep outward religion while by unconsecrated lives they deny the power of truth to make men wise unto salvation and disregard God's purpose in establishing the work. It shows a church maintaining forms of religion but lacking abiding principles of righteousness, a spiritual deception upon both people and watchmen, where faith and devotion are not proportioned to privileges and opportunities. That makes the place most dangerous to choose, so that those contemplating removing there or sending children there should consider well and stay away unless there is decided change and marked transformation. Pharisaism and self-righteousness there is always a snare, and contact with it causes loss of missionary spirit and spiritual discernment, as with those who left their own field to move without a call from the Lord. Such hollow outward profession, tolerated until it lowers the standard of piety, lacks new life from Christ and the moral fruit of a heart purified by obedience to truth, in contrast to the apostles who suffered poverty, disgrace, abuse and even death for truth's sake and rejoiced to be counted worthy to suffer for Christ. Deliverance comes by feeling the power of truth in the heart and bringing its principles into daily life, producing reform, and by divine overturning and scattering of those who moved without a call.
The description also covers corrupt city conditions such as San Francisco and Oakland, including officials whose public duty is to restrain evil but who themselves practice it, from whom the command is to turn away. It describes physicians in health institutions who profess godliness under cover of the medical calling while remaining servants of sin, with impure hearts careless of morals and influence, loose, dishonest, selfish, hypocritical and partial. Denying the power in them means refusing obligation to follow Christ like other workers, refusing to have the heart garrisoned with grace, and refusing to attend religious services and place themselves in the channel of light, so Satan gains entrance and works his will. The fruit is lack of strict honesty and fidelity in dealings, wrong and suffering to people, spread of impurity, vice and soul-destroying guilt, ruin of deluded victims for time and eternity, and dishonor to the holy faith instead of recommending it by consecrated unselfish influence. It likewise exposes avarice and hard Pharisaism contradicting profession and bringing scorn from honest worldly people.
At home, parents may profess godliness while competing for worldly favor and display and shaping the family by the world's standards, exercising a deceptive destructive influence over children and giving godliness only outward form while denying its power to form Christlike character. Claiming to be Christians while manifesting heartlessness toward a mother, cherishing unchristian feelings toward one another, and casting a parent out of the home under selfishness is having a form of religion while denying its power. Such religion leaves persons lacking every heavenly grace, with prayers that do not rise as fragrance before God nor obtain answer in peace and mercy, and with character that is an offense to God. What is done to the mother is registered in heaven as done unto Christ, yet those in this condition do not know their spiritual state and hold a far better opinion of themselves than they deserve because the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. They need humbly to examine thoughts, spirit, purposes, words and actions by Scripture, to have hearts hardened by bitterness and hatred broken before Jesus, to let His grace soften and melt them, and to be converted and transformed or they will go on in sparks of their own kindling and lie down in darkness. Those who keep this form without power, retaining outward religion while lacking its spirit, can become the fiercest persecutors of Christ's servants, especially when taught truths that conflict with their beliefs and practices.
Marks of Powerless Profession
Its common marks are love of pleasure more than love of God, selfishness in all its forms, pride, covetousness, and worldly conformity, with men loving self, money, and pleasure more than God while putting self and human practices where God's law should be and worshiping themselves. They remain worldly and unchanged in character, with boasting, disobedience, unthankfulness, unholiness, lack of natural affection, fierceness, treachery, contempt for good, and no heart union with Christ, and their profession does not change the life. Such religion misrepresents Christ, lowers the standard for others, decoys souls, and calls believers not to be deceived or to imitate it but to guard against its traits in themselves, to use influence to keep others from them, and to turn away and work entirely contrary to selfish ways.
Like a leafy but fruitless fig tree, outward profession conceals inward barrenness and deformity, with leaves of profession but no inward crucifixion of sin, no Christ formed within, and no corresponding fruit to the glory of God. It is having lamps without communicating light, receiving light and privileges without improving them, refusing to arise and shine when light has come, and remaining fruitless despite reviving influences and under condemnation. Its evidences are pride, selfishness, irritability, peevishness, fretfulness, frivolity, discontent, lack of charity, unkindness, censoriousness, evil thinking and evil speaking, with the chambers of the soul desecrated, no good works, mercy and devotion, and more hope for the open sinner than for those claiming great light while daily life belies profession.
It professes to know God and keep His law while works deny Him, mistaking outward form for spirit and power and supposing to be rich and needing nothing while poor, wretched, blind and naked. Sabbath observance, prayer, church membership, and a place among members may be maintained without obedience from the heart, without willingly keeping all requirements, without purification and sanctification of the heart, and without union to Christ and His manifest saving presence. It is seeing truth without perceiving its importance and hearing without understanding because life is not conformed to it, presuming on favor while following own judgment, disregarding guidance, and resting satisfied as if accepted while sinning against Him, with selfish acts, wrong words, neglected duties, secret sin and deceit recorded in heaven. The form is appearing right before others, seeking approbation, office, promotion and show while proud, selfish, worldly and untransformed, instead of loving God with all heart and neighbor as self, ridding life of selfishness, imitating Christ in unselfish good, having mind transformed and powers sanctified, dealing with impartial justice, bearing perfect fruit, and coming out separate to bear inspection by Him whose eyes are too pure to behold iniquity.
It includes false prophets and teachers departed from the faith to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, who keep outward appearance while rejecting power and whose work is to tear down what God is building through falsehood and misrepresentation. They mislead through pleasing fables clothed with garments of light, exaltation of nature as God, unrestrained license of will, counsel of the ungodly, and corruptions like those among the antediluvians, hypnotizing minds with mind-over-mind control so one acts out another's will as a machine, which has no place in Christian or medical work and leads to destruction not restoration. They include false accusers and despisers of the good who attack the faithful, and resistance is by God's Word, by standing firm holding faith and a good conscience, and by turning away.
In business relations such professors are to be feared and turned away from because when connected with the cause they will surely betray trust, be overcome by the tempter, imperil the cause, let self control, and show an overbearing, critical spirit lacking compassion and thoughtful tenderness toward those needing care.
It appears in intemperate eating and drinking, which wars against truth and leaves professors unpurified and unsanctified even while appearing godly and preaching the gospel. Especially ministers' use of animal food works against health and perception, weakens the force of the message proclaimed, and may lead the weak in faith away from the right path.
It appears in following demoralizing fashions, luxurious living, extravagant dress, pride, vanity, deception, and worldly pressure, showing Christ is not formed within and character is not godly despite appearance. The idolatry of dress weakens humble and lovely character and takes time from prayer and study of the Word, while true godliness is shown in Christlike character and conduct.
It appears in spiritless prayer that is mere form, neither blessing nor edifying hearers, and in neglected vocal and family worship with no living connection, no honoring God in the home, no teaching children to love and fear Him, and no bold approach with clean hands, pure heart, and holy hands lifted without wrath and doubting. It appears in covetous grasping and close dealing where hurry and constant work leave hired workers and self hardly time to pray, where every nerve is strained to save means that blesses neither self nor others, and where economy is stretched into meanness to add to treasure, which is despised and unless reformed eats flesh as fire until there is faithful stewardship and right disposal of the Lord's goods. It appears in theatrical singing and worldly display where singers have no interest in God's Word, have not sought its truths, and have hearts not in harmony with words, which cannot unite with the heavenly choir, for singing must be in spirit and with understanding. The empty form grows by loving the world without the Father's love, neglecting the Word where warnings are pointed out, and letting cares, surfeiting, drunkenness and perplexities crowd out prayer, against which stands earnest, energetic, agonizing wrestling like Jacob's, I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me.
It cloaks fanaticism that wounds the cause, disheartens and scatters the flock, and casts fear among trembling conscientious believers even by persons once trusted, calling for testimony borne against it where harm was done and for turning away. It cloaks hypocrisy, grave sin, and persistent iniquity, including knowing seventh-commandment breaking and gratifying carnal passion after hearing straight truth and blazing light, with prayers and exhortations a stink bringing frown and curse, removing the ark and keeping God from assemblies. Such sin is not to be plastered over, excused, or concealed while retaining embrace, fellowship and privileges, but to be put away through discipline, suspension and separation until repentance, for practicing iniquity while professing holiness brings severer judgment and God is purifying a peculiar people zealous of good works.
It keeps children in popular schools and homes shaped by the world, where principles form outward appearance without power and attainments remain low with drifting minds. Parents professing godliness may exercise deceptive, destructive influence by competing for worldly favor and display and shaping the family by worldly standards, giving only form while denying power to form Christlike character. Godliness must be practical religion brought into life, leaving worldly practices, customs, superstitions and policy and learning truth so a visible difference appears, which is the reason for separation from worldly churches and schools and for colleges to bring students out of the world.
In Sabbath-school and educational work it is indifference, Pharisaism, spiritual indolence, and mechanical order without high holy aspirations, earnest love for souls, or the spirit of Jesus directed to bringing pupils to saving knowledge. Formal order and good facilities are not enough, for lifeless formal religion without transformed heart makes pupils less responsive to spiritual influence. That spirit in a teacher reproduces itself in scholars, so youth must never be placed under such persons but turned to teachers who drink deeply of salvation and labor with aptitude, sympathy, perseverance and Christlike skill until souls are convicted and reformed.
In ministry it is popularity that avoids the cross, the law's claims, and coming judgment, which does not trouble the natural heart or provoke opposition, while truth accompanied by the Spirit convicts with power. It is unconverted preaching where ministers speak Bible truth without being converted or leading others to give hearts to God, hearing and acknowledging whole truth without being sanctified by it, so truth preached does not save the preacher unless it sanctifies, and faithful conduct must show the holy calling. It is ceremonial machinery and reliance on set forms instead of Jesus and His grace, with exact procedures and training taking His place and piety, humility, holiness, love and concern for souls absent, leaving workers dry and powerless, for less dependence on forms and more of power producing holiness of heart and life are essential.
Its other signs are cold criticism, avarice, divisive stubbornness over nonvital matters, half-hearted service, disorder and untidiness that make men forget God, and a hard unimpressible spirit that hates humility and rests satisfied with form while distant from God without deep desire to devote life to His cause. They mark spiritual darkness, low true piety, and unconverted profession within the church, calling for higher standard, true reform, individual heart-searching, putting away sin, correcting evil tendencies, learning distrust of self and dependence on God, and joining earnest prayer rather than routine sacred service.
Historical Examples Cited
Jewish priests, rulers and Pharisees before Christ's first coming and at Pentecost kept the forms and ceremonies of the priesthood and were strict in outward keeping of the law with show of piety, zeal and devotion, while their hearts were not in the work and lacked personal piety, virtuous character, charity, mercy, love for God, and Abraham's faith and piety. Their holy garments and lofty manners and impressive clothing concealed ambitious, corrupt and criminal hearts, malice, pride, boastfulness, hypocrisy, love of worldly honors, ambition to be exalted through riches, and taking advantage of the poor and especially of widow and fatherless by exacting heavy sums on religious pretenses for their own advantage. The more they lacked qualifications for the sacred work of priests of the most high God, the more tenacious they were of outward show, and like a leafy but fruitless fig tree their outward appearance hid absence of holiness and godly power. Caiaphas illustrates this, for his priestly office was bought and sold under an unbelieving government rather than appointed by God and not after the order of Melchizedek, and his outward form gave him power to oppress while seeking to kill an innocent man. They were ambitious for earthly riches and glory and unwilling to come to Christ to receive light, and Satan made them vigilant in lifeless formalism to steel their hearts against the evidences of Messiahship, so they deceived the people into rejecting Christ and John exposed and denounced their hypocrisy. From such the convicted people must turn by no longer looking to those men for counsel nor waiting for them to acknowledge Christ before daring to do so, for continuing to follow them would keep them from ever accepting Him.
After rejecting the gospel the Jews continued zealously to observe religious rites though God's presence and Spirit were no longer manifest among them, preserving religious forms while lacking living spiritual power. When the Spirit is finally withdrawn people may still regard themselves as God's people and keep up religious practices, while satanic influence inspires a zeal that looks like zeal for God. This warns that rejecting divine light leaves form without vital godliness and brings spiritual darkness, and what was true of the Jewish nation after God's presence and glory departed will be true at the end of the world after the sanctuary's decision is made, though the people will not know their destiny is fixed. In Israel many continued those forms after the Lord's glory had departed, while the faithful by contrast reproved, counseled and entreated others, and some who had dishonored God repented and humbled themselves.
Merely outward religion without power to change the heart appeals to people who have not been renewed by God's Spirit and lack personal experiential knowledge of Christ, because it permits self-indulgence while substituting rituals, confession to another person, and bodily penance for renouncing sin and yielding to Christ. The forms of Roman worship attract unrenewed hearts on this ground, and many accept its ceremonies as godliness while their hearts remain unrenewed. Papists, Protestants and worldly people illustrate the same empty form when they unite and mistake Spiritualist wonders and their union for a divine movement they expect will convert the world and usher in the millennium.
Judas exemplifies the class among professed followers of Christ who have only a form of godliness, for he professed discipleship, saw the beauty of Christ's character, had opportunity to study and follow the divine Pattern, heard His teaching and felt conviction, yet refused to humble the heart, confess sins, yield ideas and desires to wisdom from heaven, and practice the truth. Having the outward profession of a disciple, his dishonest conduct and yielding to temptation showed denial of power in words and actions through violating conscience, yielding to temptation, choosing darkness instead of light, and cherishing evil desires, covetousness, revengeful passions, and dark and sullen thoughts until Satan gained full control and brought him into bondage, dishonoring the Master professed to be loved. John by contrast illustrates true godliness and sanctification, for he learned of Jesus in humility, warred earnestly against faults, died daily to self, overcame sin, and was sanctified through the truth as a doer of the word and not a hearer only. The same outward form without inward life is seen in the disciples who left Jesus, like a husk without a kernel, and their decision was never reversed.
The early falling away came when heathen idolaters professed belief in the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ without change of heart and united with the followers of Jesus, keeping idolatry while only changing the objects of worship to images of saints and even of Christ and Mary the mother of Jesus. That outward profession of Christianity and union with Christians while keeping idolatry and corrupting the doctrines of the Bible corrupted the Christian religion so the church lost its purity and power, and turning away meant refusing to unite with that corruption, preserving purity, worshiping God alone, and refusing to bow to any image of anything in heaven above or in earth beneath. This decline resembles the last-days state of religious decline before the Lord comes, in which people keep outward form while rejecting power, and it will lead to the same results and prepare the way for churches to unite around shared doctrines, seek civil authority, and use it to enforce religious uniformity and punish dissent. The same form without living connection with God is seen in those who rejected the light of the first and second angels' messages, or accepted it and later renounced their faith as a delusion and rejected the Spirit of God so the Spirit no longer pleaded with them and they became vulnerable to Satan's delusions, while those who had not seen the light were not guilty of rejecting it and are not included in this class. It is also head religion holding Campbellistic views that blind the eyes to the necessity of the Spirit of God upon heart and life for correct religious experience and exemplifying Christ's life, for without humility and the purifying, sanctifying work of truth this form cannot be united with the work of the third angel and prepares the way for apostasy and rebellion.
Doctrinal Connections Taught
All Scripture was deemed essential from eternity for salvation, given by inspiration for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction that the man of God may be perfect and thoroughly furnished unto all good works, and therefore the word must be preached in season and out of season with reproving, rebuking and exhorting with longsuffering and doctrine. The need is urgent because there are unruly vain talkers and deceivers who keep a form of godliness while in works denying God, disobedient and reprobate unto every good work, who will not endure sound doctrine but after their own lusts heap to themselves teachers having itching ears and turn away their ears from the truth unto fables. Against that danger faithful sentinels must reprove and rebuke sharply that men may be sound in the faith, call sin by its right name, maintain order in the church, stand fast in one spirit with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, have the lowly mind of Christ, suffer for His sake, and turn away from such workers unless they repent and are transformed.
True liberty rests on obedience to the commandments in spirit and in letter, putting God's law first rather than giving the mind to worldly gain and disregarding His commands for personal advantage. Claiming liberty apart from loyalty to the commandments is illegal and fearfully dangerous, for it gives license to the carnal heart, lets the mind run wild, often results in great evil, and is scarcely a step from lawless liberty to licentiousness. Many at the present day have a knowledge of the law and acknowledge its claims yet do not obey its precepts from the heart with faithful and willing obedience to all its requirements, and though confident and boastful as if especially favored of Heaven they have only the form of godliness. Warnings, counsel and reproof make only a momentary impression before they return to their own ways, presumptuously devising and executing plans by finite judgment and giving little heed to divine providence, while to the obedient alone will the promises of blessing, support and guidance be fulfilled. That powerless form is also linked to human traditions and customs that make the commandments void, for observing tradition or receiving baptism does not save from death apart from loving God with all the being and loving the neighbor, in contrast to striving for the crown of immortal glory.
Complacent hearers who listen for years to solemn soul-stirring truths, including justification by faith and the righteousness of Christ, without practicing what pleases God and without love and gratitude, grow less sensible of truth's preciousness, unmoved by reproof and warning, spiritually dead in trespasses and sins, coming and going like a door on its hinges. Their continued complacency makes them less responsive to truth and to the gospel message, and by resisting Christ's offer of faith and love as the heavenly Merchantman displaying the richest jewels they remain lukewarm instead of becoming loving and zealous. Though invited to buy gold tried in the fire and white raiment and eyesalve, they steel their hearts and keep lukewarm complacency with folded hands instead of exchanging lukewarmness for love and zeal, and to praise the world and God at the same time is in no way acceptable. A name for being alive does not make them alive, for without the love of God in the soul religious forms are worthless, and this is having a name to live while being dead as said to Sardis. That deadness is not the death needed for growth in grace, the burial with Christ in baptism to rise in newness of life putting away hereditary and cultivated tendencies to wrong, the death to self and to desires that would dishonor Christ which means eternal life. It is the deficiency of shepherds who do not discern their spiritual need, who do not keep pure principles uncontaminated by worldly influences and are careless of their own standing, exerting no saving influence, including those who once acted a prominent part yet offer outward homage while the heart prized by Christ for loyalty is estranged, and if continued God will reject them with abhorrence unless they awake before it is everlastingly too late.
Taking the name of Christ while denying His character in life is the form without power, and the true standard is the golden rule, for anything short of it is deception and spurious religion. The power is seen in placing Christ's high estimate on human beings for whom He gave Himself, and in caring for human needs, sufferings and rights, while to be careless of them and to slight the claims of the poor, the suffering and the sinful is to prove traitors to Christ. Mere possession and defense of biblical truth does not complete faith or advance the divine life, for true religion includes practical care for the afflicted and keeping oneself unspotted from the world, and self-deception is dangerous when people think they stand on the right foundation and God accepts their works while failing to conform to His will. Because men profess Christ without living His character, Christianity has little power in the world and the name of the Lord is blasphemed. The same denial appears when professed Christians manifest heartlessness toward a mother and unchristian feelings toward one another, casting a parent out under selfishness, leaving them lacking every heavenly grace with prayers that rise with no fragrance and obtain no answer in peace and mercy, and what is done to the mother is registered in heaven as done unto Christ. Those in this condition do not know their own state, hold a better opinion of themselves than they deserve because the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, and need to examine thoughts, spirit, purposes, words and actions by Scripture, break hearts hardened by bitterness before Jesus, let His grace soften and melt them, and be converted and transformed or go on in sparks of their own kindling to lie down in darkness.
Command to Turn Away
From such turn away means not to be deceived by outward religion or to imitate its practices, but to see and understand the selfish, perilous-time condition, to resist its influence with the Word, and to guard against its traits in oneself. It describes men in the last days, in the church as well as in the world, who are lovers of self, money, and pleasure more than God, covetous, proud, boastful, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, disobedient, fierce, treacherous, and despisers of good, yet keeping an outward form of godliness while denying its inward power. To have the form while denying the power is to keep outward religion while rejecting its inward, transforming work, worshiping self and putting human practices and tendencies where God's law should be, remaining worldly and unchanged with no heart union with Christ. The same warning exposes the corrupt condition of cities like San Francisco and Oakland, including officials whose duty is to restrain evil while practicing it, from whom believers are to turn away. Because this class will develop among God's professed people, there is great need to stand where every jot of power is used to magnify God and His truth and to work entirely contrary to selfish ways.
The command requires separation from worldly churches, popular schools, and worldly conformity, and refusal to unite God's peculiar people with powerless professors. Principles taught in popular schools may form such outward professors, so children are to be separated from those schools just as believers are called to leave worldly churches. In churches that move farther from truth and closer to the world, those who love God above all will eventually be unable to remain connected with lovers of pleasure more than God, and the widening difference will make separation necessary. Knowing truth and having outward form are not enough when faith and power are lacking, for without that power victories do not last and people strengthen one another in error and conceal faults instead of growing in grace, so harmful attachments are to be broken and a more separate stand taken that God may be honored. Uniting God's peculiar people with mere professors retards progress, destroys the marks of peculiarity God has placed upon them, and works against what God and angels are doing to bring His people up to the standard and elevate them. That separation belongs to a close, testing, shaking work for this time, in which the valiant and whole-hearted endure the trying process and those who endure to the end receive the crown of life.
Youth must turn from attractive worldly companions, despisers, licentious literature, and pleasure-loving teachers, choosing associates and reading with sacred care. Worldly companions whose appearance is attractive continually throw out suggestions against the Bible, undermine foundations of faith, and corrupt the conscientiousness of old-fashioned gospel religion, and in an age of licentiousness bold in sin youth must be fortified with firm principles lest they be exposed to society as corrupt in morals as Sodom. Meeting despisers who mock Christianity, youth must depend on a higher power and higher teaching rather than mortals, with moral power and courage to stand for truth, to confess Jesus as Saviour, Redeemer, and center of hope of eternal life, and to separate by refusing to remain where Christ is despised. Argument alone will not touch scoffers, but firm allegiance to heaven lived out in a life for Christ silences them and convinces them of the falseness of their doctrines where argument fails. Outward godliness without inward power in a teacher appears as indifference, Pharisaism, and spiritual indolence with no high, holy aspirations, and that spirit reproduces itself in scholars, so youth must never be placed under such persons but turned to teachers who drink deeply of salvation, love souls earnestly, and labor with aptitude, sympathy, perseverance, and Christlike skill until souls are convicted and reformed. The denial of power is also lack of self-control and moral power to restrain appetite and keep passions in subjection, seen in impure habits, unlawful associations, licentiousness, vanity, flirting, and familiar intimacy between men and women, from which only God can keep, so the virtuous and refined must not make companions of the impure, seek their society, place themselves in their way, encourage intimacy, or allow indulgence of flirting or courting.
Persistent violators, fanatics who scatter the flock, and cloaks for sin are to face testimony, discipline, suspension from fellowship, and separation until repentance and transformation. Professed believers who knowingly break the seventh commandment and gratify carnal passion, though they have heard straight truth and blazing light for the last days, remain unsanctified, disgrace the cause, and if kept in embrace and fellowship with all privileges bring God's frown and curse upon the camp, remove the ark, and keep Him from dwelling in assemblies, their prayers and exhortations being a stink in His nostrils. Those who plaster over this enormous sin and move on heedlessly will be left to their ways to be filled with their own doings, while God purifies a peculiar people zealous of good works, so breakers of the seventh commandment should be suspended and denied fellowship and privileges. Practicing iniquity while professing holiness brings especially severe judgment, and the warning calls for sin to be put away rather than excused or concealed, including through church discipline and separation from persistent sinners. A cloak of godliness can also hide a fanatical spirit that wounds the cause, disheartens and scatters God's children, and casts fear among trembling conscientious believers even by persons once trusted, which calls for bearing testimony against it where the harm is done and for turning away from those who spread fear and reproach.
Ministers fulfill the command by preaching Christ crucified plainly, feeding the flock as faithful examples, and calling for wakefulness, trimmed lamps, and a people fitted to stand in the day of the Lord. Having the form while denying the power is doing religious work in carnal lines to please and attract people so means will flow into the treasury, interposing something between the soul and the Saviour instead of bringing every sinner into communication with Christ. It buries saving truth under masses of words, foolish and unlearned questions, striving about words, drollery, novelty, romance, and vain philosophy, while the power denied is Christ Himself received as the power and wisdom of God. Turning away is done by preaching truth as it is in Jesus with the burden of Christ crucified, keeping close to the work, letting saving truth stand clear and prominent in every discourse with practical godliness, speaking to please God not men, and overseeing the flock as a faithful ensample. Such professors are unruly vain talkers and deceivers who in works deny God, being disobedient and reprobate to every good work, who will not endure sound doctrine but heap teachers with itching ears and turn ears from truth to fables, so all Scripture given by inspiration is to reprove, rebuke, and correct sharply that they may be sound in faith, while faithful sentinels call sin by its right name, maintain order, stand fast striving together for the gospel with the lowly mind of Christ, suffer for Him, and turn from such workers unless they repent and are transformed. The chapter fits the present condition of all churches and calls brethren to wake from lethargic slumber, trim lamps with grace, let them shine in clear bright rays to a dark world, and bear the message that fits up a people to stand in the day of the Lord and come to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Religion of mere outward form without the Spirit's power does not bring truth home to heart or conscience, and a popular ministry avoiding the cross, the claims of law, and coming judgment provokes no opposition from the unconverted heart, so truth must be presented with the Spirit's convicting power lest an unconsecrated minister weaken its effect and lower the standard.
Call to True Godliness
True godliness is a living connection with God formed by communion with Him, yielding to the Holy Spirit, and an experimental knowledge of Christ formed within in meekness and gentleness. It is not resting in appearances, valuing and promoting truth, or associating with believers while unchanged, hearing words and professing love with the mouth while the heart pursues other desires and self remains prominent. Without receiving and practicing the messages heard and bringing divine power into daily life, the unseen world and eternal reward do not move the heart, and the approaching day of the Lord awakens neither alarm nor joy. A vital union makes truth bear good fruit, with Christ within revealed in saving grace, sympathy and love for perishing souls, and with the daily life showing the sanctifying power of truth and Christ abiding by faith through His mind and spirit. Conduct opposed to the fruits of the Spirit or to God's work of separating His people from the world contradicts profession, and those who deny Him before people will be denied before the angels.
Its evidence is working power seen in good works, mercy, sincere devotion, self-denial, cross-bearing and unselfish service that reflect the brightness of the Sun of Righteousness to all around. Such religion receives the rays of heaven and lets light shine before men in works that glorify the Father, with prayers and entreaties imbued with the Holy Spirit that melt and subdue the soul, with zeal, effort, liberality, untiring labor, fervent petitions for power and wisdom, and God's cause made the chief business of life, changing hearts, homes, churches and the world. Christians are not to withdraw from the world but to serve its people and bear fruit that distinguishes them from it, while outward show concealing pride, selfishness and other unsanctified traits, with words and actions contradicting profession, proves barren like a leafy but fruitless fig tree. Young people especially need this good, sanctifying, uplifting religion with a sanctified mind, learning to discern it from mere form in the perilous crisis of the last days. Argument alone will not touch scoffers and despisers who mock Christianity, but moral power and courage to stand for truth, confess Jesus as Saviour and center of hope, separate from contemptuous conversation, and live firm allegiance to the God of heaven silences them and convinces them of the falseness of their doctrines.
Receiving this power requires true contrition, confession, conversion, daily dying to self, zealous repentance of backslidings, blotting out of sin, and washing the robe of character white in the Lamb's blood so the name is retained in the book of life. No external forms, even those commanded by God, have value without an inward work of cleansing, and outward works alone never make a person perfect before God, for only repentance and faith can make an impure heart pure, while good intentions, resolutions and acts cannot substitute for repentance, faith and willing obedience with decided changes in life and character. Each person must seek God individually, search the heart, put away sin, correct evil tendencies, distrust self and depend on God rather than rely on religious profession, for unconverted members may fail even to join in earnest prayer. This need is urgent because perilous times with lukewarmness, apostasy and every kind of deception are upon us near the close of time, when many cheat their own souls, claim righteousness without the fruit of true conversion, demand smooth things and deceits, and lose the smile and inspiration of the Spirit under divine displeasure because their deeds are evil. Faith fixed on the cross and trust in Jesus as strength and salvation restore what was lost when people separated themselves from God, for the power had almost ceased in the churches not because grace was withheld but because connection was broken.
Without this power, profession is darkness, condemnation and worthless form that cannot save, for salvation requires a deep and living experience. Having lamps without communicating light, receiving light and privileges without improving them, refusing to arise and shine when light has come and glory has risen, and bearing no fruit to God's glory leaves persons fruitless despite reviving influences and under divine condemnation. In the time of trouble each one's work will be tested, with work of lasting worth pictured as gold, silver and precious stones sheltered in the Lord's pavilion, while work like wood, hay and stubble cannot protect its maker from wrath. Merely formal religion does not call sinners to recognize guilt and repent and can be accepted by the world because it lacks the Spirit and character of Christ, while living godliness in Christlike purity and conduct provokes opposition, and those lacking it will not stand when persecution comes and may abandon truth for another platform. Religious forms can continue after spiritual power is gone, with people still regarding themselves as God's people and keeping up practices while satanic influence inspires a zeal that looks like zeal for God, as with the Jewish nation after God's presence departed, so it will be at the end after the sanctuary decision though people will not know their destiny is fixed, and unless formalists and boasting hypocrites repent their candlestick will be removed.
When the power of truth is felt in the heart and its principles are brought into daily life there is a great movement of reform, in contrast to Pharisaism and self-righteousness which is always a snare. That outward religion without inward change causes loss of missionary spirit and spiritual discernment, as seen where those who moved without a call left undone work and came under its influence, and deliverance comes by divine overturning and scattering. The power denied is the vitalizing, sanctifying power of truth whose simplicity has been lost in a round of ceremonies, and though experienced in years gone by it has been replaced by outward show, leaving many professing truth in darkness without experimental knowledge of Christ as Redeemer and of what He is and will be to them, needing the spirit and life of God breathed into them as into dry bones. Keeping a mechanical form after Christ and His love are shut out quenches kindling of soul at the name of Jesus and fervent early love for souls with earnest desire to represent the Saviour's love, leaving coldness, criticism and exacting ways. That love must be won back and spent in saving the tempted, tried and perishing, for if those entrusted with the work refuse, others with less light, experience and opportunity will rise to take their place in the service offered to the church.