Apostasy, Heresy, and the Spirit of Antichrist
Biblical apostasyis defined as a believer or unbeliever who deliberately rejects or distorts the revealed truth of the Word of God. Biblical heresyis defined as a believer or an unbeliever who rejects or distorts the truth of the Word of God as a result of being deceived by Satan or his ministers. Antichristis defined as anyone who assumes the identity of Christ or opposes Christ. The spirit of antichristis, therefore, anyone who lines up in opposition to Christ. Some people err from the truth due to ignorance, which is not an excuse. (Galatians 1:6-9; II Peter 2:1-22; Jude 1-25; I Timothy 4:1-16; II Timothy 2:24-26; 3:1-7; 4:1-4; I John 2:18-22; II Thessalonians 2:1-12; Acts 19:1-7)
Introduction
The first test of apostasy, heresy or the spirit of antichrist is theclarity of the Gospel message. Those that distort the Gospel can be, even without knowing it, apostate, heretical and antichrist. In Galatians chapter one Paul tells us what the fate should be of those that preach different gospel. He says that they should be accursed, which means to be destroyed. Paul is not saying that these people should be sent to Hell. He is using a metaphor that they should be stopped from preaching a false message. The message, of course, is already accursed. The Bible tells us to test the spirits of men. The best test is what they say about salvation and eternal life. (Galatians 1:6-9)
The Gospel is not: “turn from sin,” “do penance to atone for your sins,” “make Jesus your Lord,” “invite Christ into your heart or life,” “commit your life to Christ,” “give your heart or life to Christ,” “repent of your sins” (which they say means to feel sorry for your sins), “be water baptized,” “join a particular denomination” or any other form of human works. Those that preach this are at best ignorant of the truth and at worst apostate. In either case they are enemies of the Cross of Christ and it would be better for them to accursed or destroyed. It is a serious matter to God to distort the truth of the Gospel. It would be better for the believer to be destroyed and be taken to Heaven now, rather than to stand before Jesus at the Judgment Seat of Christ and explain to Him why he distorted His Gospel. (Philippians 3:17-19; Romans 14:10)
The Gospel message is faith alone in Christ alone. Faith is non-meritorious; all the merit is in the object of our faith, Jesus Christ.
When a person realizes that they cannot work their way to Heaven by good deeds and they change their minds (the true meaning of repentance) about Christ and by faith accept His substitutionary spiritual death on the Cross as the payment for their sin, God gives that person the gift of eternal life (salvation). (John 3:16,17,18,36; 6:47; II Corinthians 5:21; Romans 5:8; Galatians 2:16; Ephesians 2:8-9; I John 5:13)
The second test of apostasy, heresy, or the spirit of antichrist is the doctrinal accuracy of the message. This is where it takes a greater amount of doctrine in the soul to discern the false from the true. Only through spiritual growth can a believer avoid being deceived by these false teachers. There are some obvious signs that a preacher or teacher is presenting false doctrine. For example, the motive of most false teachers is to seek fortune, fame and power. There are some ministers, however, that appear to be sincere and appear to have correct motives but have allowed themselves to be deceived. Both are still teaching false doctrine and are enemies of the Cross of Christ. (II Timothy 2:25-26; II Timothy 3:1-7)
We must keep in mind that Satan and his ministers of darkness present themselves as ministers of righteousness and angels of light but are instead wolves in sheep’s clothing. One of Satan’s greatest counterfeits to the truth is emotion. Though a wonderful gift from God, the misuse of emotion leads to all kinds of false teachings. The most obvious one is displayed by the Charismatics or Pentecostals. They replace the true ministries of the Holy Spirit with emotional experience. The ministries of God the Holy Spirit are not seen or felt, they are simply facts stated in God’s Word for us to believe. (II Corinthians 11:13-15; Romans 16:18)
Though these false teachers often use Biblical phases, passages and Christian-sounding words, they distort the truth by taking passages out of context, ignoring dispensational truth or in some cases changing the meaning of God’s Word to fit their particular teaching. In some instances, they even accidentally present truth. Satan is the great counterfeiter. Therefore, what his ministers teach is mixed with a small amount of truth in order to look like the real thing. Beware… you must always evaluate the message in light of the truth of God’s Word. (II Peter 2:1-22)
A primary distortion that we see today is the misapplication of spiritual gifts. We have studied spiritual gifts in the past and you will recall that certain of these gifts were temporary. When these temporary gifts are being taught as relative for today, we have false teaching. The reason that God gave certain men in the first century these temporary gifts was for evangelism of Jews from many nations, to confirm their divine authority for the formation of the early church, to detect heresy in the early church, to confirm the truth of the Gospel and to teach doctrine not yet a part of the Canon of Scripture. Remember, they did not have the completed Canon of Scripture as we do today. God’s Word is very clear and it should be obvious to the advancing believer, that those that “use” these temporary gifts have rejected truth. It must be pointed out, that if a person has the will or the desire to know doctrinal truth, God will provide it. Therefore, if a person does not have doctrinal truth, it stands to reason that they do not want it. (I Corinthians 2:9-12, 13:8-10; Mark 16:20; Jeremiah 29:13; John 7:17, 14:26, 16:13; Acts 17:27; Romans 1:18-25; II Peter 3:9)
Temporary gifts include:
- Speaking in tongues- the ability to speak a known language not previously learned.
- Interpretation of tongues- the ability to translate these known languages.
- Healing- the ability to heal at will, regardless of the other person’s faith or lack of faith.
- Miracles- the ability to perform miracles at will.
- Faith- companion to healing and miracles involving the faith of the person with the gift not the one receiving the healing or miracle.
- Discerning of spirits- the ability to detect heresy in the church
- Knowledge- knowing Bible knowledge not yet in the Canon of Scripture
- Apostleship- men with divine authority over several churches
- Prophecy- foretelling or forth-telling events or doctrines not yet recorded in the Canon of Scripture
“Practice” of any of these temporary gifts or assigning to oneself the title of apostle or prophet (or prophetess) should raise a “red flag” for the advancing believer that these people are apostates or heretics.
The third test of apostasy, heresy, or the spirit of antichrist involves the motive of the preacher or teacher. This, of course, is very difficult to determine since we do not have the ability to read a person’s mind. We can, however, compare the fruits of their labor with the truth that we find in God’s Word. “By their fruit you shall know them.” Fruit is tantamount to production. There are two kinds of production, human good and divine good. You must know the difference. Quite often what is proclaimed to be divine good is in fact human good. We know from Scripture that all human good is wood, hay and straw and will be burned up at the Judgment Seat of Christ. It has to do with the person’s spiritual status and motive. Good done by a believer under the control of God the Holy Spirit is divine good and is rewardable in eternity. Good done by a believer that is being controlled by the sin nature (with it’s accompanying wrong mental attitude) is human good and not rewardable. Therefore, in the Christian Way of Life, attitude is everything. Wrong attitude equals wrong motive. Right attitude equals right motive. (I John 2:18-22; I Corinthians 3:11-15)
We will be able to discern this wrong motive from the false teacher only if we have developed our spiritual I.Q. through the study and application of Bible doctrine. When the motive for doing “God’s work” is to gain favor, wealth, notoriety or power, it is wrong. Even when the motive is pure, God’s work must be done God’s way, or it is still wrong. In the Christian life, the end does not justify the means. We are told to separate ourselves from these false teachers. This means we should not acknowledge them, fellowship with them, be on television with them, send them money, participate in their programs, attend their churches, attend their meetings or conferences, or in any way condone what they are doing or saying. (II Corinthians 6:11-18; II John 9-11)
You may recall the story about Adam and Eve. One sinned deliberately and the other one was deceived by Satan. Apostasy and heresy were introduced into the world. Adam deliberately disobeyed God and chose Eve over God. Eve was deceived into sin by distorting and adding to God’s Word by the influence of Satan. The result was the same for both of them, spiritual death (separation from God). Fortunately, they both chose the salvation solution provided by the same One Who had walked with them in the Garden and taught them the Word of God daily, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Do you think that apostasy and heresy are serious matters to God? (Genesis 2:16-17; 3:1-13)
There have always been false teachers around. However, the Bible tells us that as human history continues, and we draw closer to the Rapture of the Church (calling out of all believers to meet Christ in the air), false teaching will increase. I believe we are seeing a lot of what the Bible predicts as we get closer to this event. It is, therefore, our responsibility as Christians to be aware of these false teachers, identify them and have nothing to do with them.