David Stewart, Jr.
Introduction
During His ministry, the Savior Jesus Christ
established His church according to divine pattern and taught the way of
salvation. He established His church and
commissioned apostles to lead it. A
century later, there were no more apostles, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit
had vanished from among professing Christians.
Doctrines were changed and a non-biblical church hierarchy was
established. Many find it difficult to
reconcile the teachings, practices, leadership, and history of the so-called
“orthodox” Christian churches of today with the standards of the New Testament
church. What happened to the early
church? Did God continue to guide it
until the present, or was there a general Christian apostasy?
Evidence of Apostasy in the New Testament
The apostolic leaders of the early Church forsaw the
impending apostasy. The Apostle Paul
warns Timothy: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound
doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers,
having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and
shall be turned unto fables" (2 Timothy 2:3-4). He charges Timothy: "guard what has been
entrusted to you. Avoid the godless chatter and contradictions of what is
falsely called knowledge [gnosis], for by professing it some have missed the
mark as regards the faith " (1 Timothy 6:20-21, RSV). The Greek text uses the word gnôsis
(knowledge), a likely reference to gnostic heresies already threatening the
early church. In his epistle to the
Corinthians, Paul addresses difficulties incurred by unstable members and
addresses heresies they introduced (1 Corinthians 11-15). Paul taught the elders of
Paul reminded the Thessalonians of his prior teachings
that Christ’s coming would not occur until after a “falling away” and
"that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and
exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that
he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God" (2
Thessalonians 2:3-5). The Greek word
apostasía (apostasy), which connotes open rebellion or revolution in other
Greek writings, is used in this passage translated as "falling away"
in the King James Bible. Paul teaches
that the institution of the church would survive, but with the “son of
perdition” supplanting God at its head, and warns that "the mystery of
iniquity doth already work" (2 Thessalonians 2:7). The church of the apostasía with God no
longer at its head would cease to be God's church.
John taught the readers of his first epistle that they
were living in the “the last time” (eschátê hôra-literally "last
hour") (1 John 2:18-19). The
Revelation of Saint John documents that apostasy was already destroying the
church during the apostles' lives. Of
the seven churches of
Scriptural and contemporary records document that the
Church was full of dissensions by the end of the first century. Paul compared the apostles to a parade of
men “appointed to death,” a “spectacle to the world” on their way to execution
(1 Corinthians 4:9). Herod killed James,
the brother of John, in 44 A.D. (Acts 12:2).
James, brother of the Lord, was executed in 62 AD. Peter and Paul were
executed by Nero’s persecution between 64 and 68 AD. The apostle John, who
outlived the rest, was imprisoned on the Isle of Patmos at the time of the
writing of the Book of Revelation and was unable to visit the churches
personally. John was not seen after the
“times of Trajan” (A.D. 98 to 117).[1]
Many additional passages in the New Testament describe
struggles with early heresies and false practices and prophecies of future
apostasy from with the Church (Galatians 1:6-7, 1 Timothy 4:1, Titus
1:10-11,13-14, 2 Peter 2:1-2, 1 John 2:18-19, 1 John 4:1, Jude 1:4).
Contemporary Witnesses of the Apostasy
Through their apostolic priesthood and divine
spiritual gifts, Peter, Paul, John, and the Apostles could speak God’s word
with power and authority and regulate the integrity of the Church. Without such men in the church, no one could
appeal to the voice of God that comes through His appointed servants. The letters of the bishops Clement of Rome,
Ignatius of Antioch, and Polycarp of Smyrna, dating from the time of John’s
Revelation and slightly after, provide insight into the Christan apostasy from
these contemporary witnesses. These are
critical years “when nonapostolic church government was first fashioned and,
oddly, the most poorly documented years in Christian history.”[2]
Their writings illuminate the
front of “a very ill-lit tunnel [that] extends from the later apostolic age to
the great apologists of the middle and later 2nd century.”[3]
The writings of the “pre-Nicene church visibly shows the shock of losing
apostolic leadership; the earlier the writing, the deeper that shock.”[4]
While bishops and other church
officers are mentioned during the apostolic era, it is interesting that the
only two offices which we can directly document from New Testament record as
being commissioned by directly by Christ during his earthly ministry, that of
the apostles and the seventy (Luke 10:1-4), were completely absent from the
apostate Church only a century later.
The divine leadership of the Church chosen by God was subverted and
replaced by a hierarchy of man-made offices found nowhere in scripture – popes,
archbishops, cardinals, and so forth – filled with unauthorized men. The
prophet Isaiah had prophesied centuries earlier of a future time: “The earth
also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed
the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant” (D&C
24:5). In examining the Christian
apostasy, we find numerous changes in the ordinances and organization of the
Church that are nowhere authorized by scripture.
Clement of Rome, identified by Eusebius as being the
same Clement praised by Paul as having his name written "in the Book of
Life" (Philippians 4:3), wrote to the Corinthian church to express his
shock that they had deposed local church leaders appointed by the apostles “with
the consent of the whole church.” The jealousy of “a few rash and self-willed
persons” (1 Clement 1) brought rejection of the authorized priesthood
leaders. Clement states: “Your schism
has turned aside many, has cast many into discouragement, many to doubt, all of
us to grief, and your sedition continues.” (1 Clement 46:9.) On his way to execution in
Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp all recognized that
they lacked apostolic authority to direct the church. When correcting doctrinal errors and false
practices that had arisen in local churches, the Apostle Paul began his New
Testament letters by invoking his apostolic powers. Bishop Clement writes as an equal to an
equal, but without authoritative direction, from “the
Eusebius, a fourth-century Christian author, makes
scores of references to apostasies and heresies within the church.[6]
Eusebius quotes Hegesippus (AD 100-180)
that until the times of Trajan (AD 98-117) the church “continued a virgin pure
and incorrupt; but after the sacred company of the apostles ended their lives
by various kinds of death, then the conspiracy of impious error began to take
place, through the deceit of false teachers" (Eusebius Ecclesiastical
History 1.3.32). Eusebius wrote that
after the apostles, “with our greater freedom a change came over us. We yielded
to pride and sloth. We yielded to mutual envy and abuse. We warred upon
ourselves as occasion offered, and we used the weapons and the spears of words.
Leaders fought with leaders and laity formed factions against laity.
Unspeakable hypocrisy and dissimulation traveled to the farthest limits of
evil.”[7]
Eusebius referred to heresies held by
leaders of the Church: “Beryllus… Bishop of Bostra in Arabia, perverted the
true doctrine of the Church and tried to bring in ideas alien to the Faith,
actually asserting that our Savior and Lord did not pre-exist in His own form
of being before He made His home among men, and had no divinity of His own but
only the Father’s dwelling in Him.”[8] He noted the continued spread of apostasy at
high levels under
From Priesthood to Priestcraft
In his third epistle, the Apostle John wrote that
Diotrephes, a local church leader "who loveth to have the
preeminence," would not receive him.
He writes of Diotrephes "prating against us with malicious words:
and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and
forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church" (3 John
1:9-10). This passage represents the
first recorded instance in the New Testament where priestcrafts are forcefully
imposed by apostate elements within the Church, with obedient saints being
excommunicated by apostate leaders. After the Apostles were gone, these
apostate elements eventually became dominant within the church.
Of priesthood authority, the Apostle Paul writes: “no
man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was
Aaron” (Hebrews 5:4). The apostles had
also strictly forbidden the buying and selling of priesthood powers (Acts
8:14-24). Yet in the fourth century, the
emporer
The Book of Mormon prophet Mormon wrote of a similar
apostasy which occurred among his own people in the ancient
The destructive nature of priestcraft “enforced by the
sword” is also seen in the history of the apostate church of the Eastern
hemisphere. Between 100 AD and the great
schism in 1054 AD, at least 222,000 Christians were killed by the apostate
Church.[10] After the Schism, over 5,170,000 other
Christians were killed by the persecutions of the Roman Catholic church alone,
in addition to millions of Muslims, Jews, and pagans killed by Christians
through religious wars and persecution.
Remembering the New Testament churches that the Lord stated he would
“cast off” if they did not repent speedily (Revelation 2&3) for sins that
pale in comparison to the atrocities of the apostate Christian church, it would
be difficult to seriously believe that a just, eternal, and unchanging God
would continue to guide and direct the fallen church. Many historians and bible scholars
acknowledge as much. In a work prepared
by seventy-three noted theologians and Bible students, we read: "...we
must not expect to see the
Apostasy Recognized By Reformationists
Many of the early Protestant reformationists
recognized that a universal apostasy had occurred. Early Anabaptist reformer Thomas Muntzer
believed that “the Christian church lost its virginity and became an adulteress
soon after the death of the disciples of the apostles because of corrupt
leadership, manifested in the predominance of a clergy who cared more for the
amassing of property and power than for the acquiring of spiritual virtues.”[12] Reformer Sebastian Franck believed that the
“outward church of Christ was wasted immediately after the apostles because the
early Fathers, whom he calls ‘wolves’ and ‘anti-christs’, justified war, power
of magistracy, tithes, the priesthood, etc.”[13]
That they are “wolves” within Christ’s flock, Franck states, is “proved by
their works, especially [those] of Clement [of Alexandria], Irenaeus,
Tertullian, Cyprian, Chrysostom, Hilary, Cyril, Origen, and others which are
merely child’s play and quite unlike the spirit of the apostles, that is,
filled with commandments, laws, sacramental elements and all kinds of human
inventions.”[14] Roger Williams (1604-1683), pastor of the
oldest Baptist Church in America at Providence, Rhode Island, gave up his ministry
on the grounds that "there is no regularly-constituted church on earth,
nor any person authorized to administer any Church ordinance: nor can there be,
until new apostles are sent by the great Head of the Church, for whose coming I
am seeking."[15] He noted that "the apostasy... hath so
far corrupted all, that there can be no recovery out of that apostasy until
Christ shall send forth new apostles to plant churches anew."[16] John Wesley (1703-1791), the founder of
Methodism, stated that from the time of
Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969), an eminent
American Baptist clergyman and author, wrote: "Christianity today has largely
left the religion which he preached, taught and lived, and has substituted
another kind of religion altogether. If Jesus should come back to now, hear the
mythologies built up around him, see the creedalism, denominationalism,
sacramentalism, carried on in his name, he would certainly say, 'If this is
Christianity, I am not a Christian.'"[18] One prominent historian stated,
"Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it. The Greek mind,
dying, came to a transmigrated life in the theology and liturgy of the
Church."[19]
The Restoration
God and Jesus Christ restored the Church of Jesus
Christ in modern times through the young prophet Joseph Smith. The power of the priesthood and the offices
of the primitive church, including the apostleship, were restored to
earth. Through ongoing revelation,
Christ directs His church today just as in ancient times. “The power of God unto salvation” (Romans
1:16 ) is absent from all but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
which the Lord himself has proclaimed to be “the only true and living church
upon the face of the whole earth” (D&C 1:30 ).
Just as the early apostles foresaw the apostasy, the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ before the Savior would return to judge the earth was also foreseen. The Savior taught: “Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up” (Matthew 15:13). Only Christ’s church will stand in the eternities. Those who know and follow the Savior’s voice come unto Him in His restored church. Only in this church can we receive the full teachings of the gospel, Christ’s words today through modern prophets and apostles, and the ordinances of salvation necessary for eternal life.
[1] Irenaeus. Against Heresies. 2.22.5 and 3.3.4.
[2] Anderson, Richard Lloyd. Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp: Three Bishops between the Apostles and Apostasy.” Ensign. August 1976.
[3] A. F. Walls in James Dixon Douglas (ed.), New Bible Dictionary (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Ferdmans, 1965 revision), p. 941
[4] Anderson, Richard Lloyd. Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp: Three Bishops between the Apostles and Apostasy.” Ensign. August 1976.
[5]
[6] Merrill, Hyde M.
"The Great Apostasy as Seen by Eusebius.” Ensign, November 1972, 34.
[7] Colm Luibheid
(translator): Eusebius, The Essential Eusebius (New York and Toronto: New
American Library, 1966), p. 138.
[8] G. A. Williamson (translator): Eusebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1965), pp. 270.
[9] Anderson, Richard
Lloyd. Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp: Three Bishops between the Apostles and
Apostasy.” Ensign. August 1976.
[10] Barrett and Johnson, World Christian Trends, 2001.
[11] Smith, William.
Smith's Dictionary of the Bible,
[12] Muntzer, “Sermon before the Princes” (Allstedt, 13 July 1524), in Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers, ed. G.H. Williams (Philadelphia, Westminster Press 1957): 51 (103-4).
[13] Franck, Letter to Campanus, in Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers, op. cit., 151-2.
[14] Franck quoted in GH
Williams, 148-9 (103-4).
[15] Picturesque
[16] Underhill, Edward,
"Struggles and Triumphs of Religious Liberty", cited in William F.
Anderson, "Apostasy or Succession, Which?", pp. 238-39)
[17] Wesley's Works, vol. 7, 89:26, 27
[18] Daniel H. Williams, “The Corruption of the Church and its
Tradition”, in Williams, Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism
(Eerdmans
1999): 101-131
[19] Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, 3:595