Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six
Early Departure
In one sense, I’m circling back to part one of this series, by reaffirming the early departure from the path of truth in the early church. Some might say this is a convenient historical position, but what is most convenient is viewing an early deviation from true doctrine as the original right or correct belief and practice. When one reads scripture, he can see the truth already attacked and defended. Many already were turning and had turned from right doctrine. It was happening, happens, and will continue even as predicted by the Lord Jesus Christ.
Because a doctrine, like many of those in Roman Catholicism and in Protestant theology, is very old, does not mean that it is the original belief. Scripture is the authority for all doctrine, but an accurate view of history takes into consideration early attacks on true doctrine and what that means for a historical argument. Just because someone believed something at the end of the first century or in the second doesn’t mean that it is the right doctrine.
Before the Completion of the Bible
Galatians and Acts 15
Almost every major category of heresies existed before the completion of the Bible. Paul dealt with legalism in Galatians, almost the entire epistle correcting where false teachers took people off the divine and then apostolic way of truth. You also will read this in Acts 15 when Peter and Paul rise and address what had occurred and was occurring between the Jerusalem and Antioch churches.
John’s Writings
The Apostle John in his epistles confronted a form of proto-Gnosticism, denying the true nature of Jesus Christ in either his incarnation or post-resurrection. This included Docetism (the belief that Jesus only appeared to have a physical body) and Cerinthianism (the idea that the divine Christ spirit temporarily inhabited the human Jesus)—in his epistles, primarily 1 John and 2 John. These heresies emphasized a dualistic view where spirit was good and matter evil, denied Jesus’ full humanity, claimed special “knowledge” (gnosis) for salvation beyond faith in Christ, and sometimes led to antinomian behavior (living without regard for sin) or asceticism.
Paul’s Epistles
The Apostle Paul corrects several eschatological heresies like those are very important, as if they are essential. Some were spreading false teachings as if they were coming by him (2 Thess 2:1-2), asserting that someone forged a letter as if it was Pauline. One of these false teachings was that the day of the Lord had already happened. Things were going wrong in Thessalonica because of what the church members heard in eschatological teachings that belied what Paul taught them from his apostolic office.
1 Corinthians is full of treating false teachings that arose in Corinth, contradicting what Paul taught with divine authority to that church when he was there with that group. False teachers so snookered the church that in 2 Corinthians we see Paul distraught over what’s happening, even causing him to temporarily quit his ministry in Troas. He must write 1 Corinthians 15 because of a widespread denial of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. False teaching led to large deceit over the spiritual gifts that he repudiated in 1 Corinthians 12-14.
Jesus in Revelation 2-3
When Jesus sends letters to the seven churches through John the Apostle while on the island of Patmos in the late first century, recorded in Revelation 2-3, He admonishes many false doctrines of false teachers. Ephesus tolerated false apostles. Smyrna harbored those who claimed to be Jews, who were not. Pergamos allowed the false doctrine of Balaam and the Nicolaitans.
Not a Legitimate Argument
Above I chronicled many different ways false teachers presented false doctrines that took hold in churches. One should assume that this behavior would continue and even rise in magnitude. Some of the seeds of future false doctrine, perhaps presented in a different manner in a more seducing way, are found in the New Testament. It is a warning that this would continue, which it did. Early false doctrine is not a legitimate argument in favor of it.
The false doctrines that arose in the actual founding of Roman Catholicism and then the continued wrong teachings of the state church came by means of a major error of interpretation, that is, allegorization. This does not follow the example of Jesus and the Apostles. Doubling down on allegorization does no good, only harms, and then just because teachers did it early after the founding of the church doesn’t make it right. It was a bad idea then and it still is. No one should trust those who justify and use it.
Evidence of Increased Domination of Error
A kind of historical argument is cheap and sloppy. The evidence is that false doctrine entered early and then dominated, which led to something like a narrow road of truth and broad road of error. This view of history then says correction occurred over a millennium later with the Protestant Reformation, however, keeping infant sprinkling, state churchism, a modified sacramental system, and an almost identical ecclesiology and eschatology with their trappings.
A correct view of history will not contradict what Jesus said about the perpetuity of His churches. It would not introduce doctrine that did not exist, then say that it is true because of a theory, the Petrine one. This allowed and even authorized new revelation, ex cathedra. A right historical view would not justify a wholesale departure from the before established, true gospel and authenticate mass apostasy. This same history includes an inquisition that killed over a hundred thousand French Protestants in their homes, many varied torture methods to force nonconformists to recant, and multiple painful types of execution of dissidents.
Scripture reveals many and massive attacks on true doctrine by false teachers early in the history of the church. More false doctrine and practice is not an outlier, but the norm. Those directly involved in producing a false doctrine, especially by means of allegorical interpretation, then used force to persecute opposition and destroyed any works that contradicted state church teachings. Synods prohibited laypeople from reading the Bible in common languages. The state church eliminated non-Catholic materials and perverted historical accuracy.
The Bible Versus Early Error
The Bible alone provides an authoritative basis for rejecting early deviation from the truth. Paucity of historical evidence of early orthodox belief and practice does not provide a legitimate basis for accepting unscriptural doctrine. It evinces how effective the opposition to the truth and presents a major obstacle to saving faith. Also, it explains how Satan blinds and someone ever learning still never comes to knowledge of the truth.
Early error is still error. We read all the false doctrine already established in the first century in the Bible itself. The opposition to these falsehoods in the New Testament record warns of the possible severe consequences. What they warned against actually transpired. When Paul said, “Beware of philosophy,” that easily would include proto-Platonic spiritualization and related Gnostic perversion. Without the heeding of the warning, this grew and became the majority position. That didn’t make it right.