Learning How To Combat Heresy

But if there is no resurrection of the dead,

then Christ is not risen.

And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching

is empty and your faith is empty.

Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God,

because we have testified of God

that He raised up Christ,

whom He did not raise up -- -- if in fact

the dead do not rise.  For if the dead do not rise,

then Christ is not risen.  For if the dead do not rise,

then Christ is not risen.  And if Christ has not risen,

your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!

1 Corinthians 15: 13 -- 17

            The early church had to combat several heresies, i.e., Gnosticism, Judaism, and other heresies, one that Paul had to address to the Corinthians whereby the resurrection taught as a false doctrine.  The church today also has to combat heresies and false teaching; as did the early church; not much has changed.  Ignatius, who was a student of John the Apostle, was the third bishop of Antioch, and is now counted among the Apostolic Fathers of the Christian Church, who wrote (c. 105) while on his way to to Rome, where according to Christian tradition he met his martyrdom by being fed to wild beasts, he wrote a series of letters which have been preserved as an example of very early Christian theology: "Keep yourselves always from those evil plants that Jesus Christ does not tend.  For they are not the planting of the Father.  For as many as are of God and of Jesus Christ are also with the bishop.... If anyone walks according to a strange opinion, he does not agree with the passion" (Ignatius c.105; italics mine).  Writing in a cart for some seven months knowing that he was facing his death in Rome he was not deterred from speaking and writing about what the truth is for a person to be an Authentic Christian: "Therefore, it is fitting that you should keep aloof from such persons; i.e., heretics, and not to speak of them either in private or in public" (Ignatius c.105; italics mine).  Tertullian, also an early church father who wrote some 90 years after Ignatius stated: "Heresies would have no power if men would cease to wonder that they have such power.  For it either happens that, while men wonder, they fall into a snare. Or, because they are ensnared, they cherish their surprise -- -- as if heresies were so powerful because of some truth which belong to them" (Tertullian, c.197, Italics mine).  Many people over the years of Christianity and even in our day have been ensnared to false teaching and heresies because they are looking for some sort of supernatural power and because the best lie is one that is encased in some truth and by this lie even some Authentic Christians have left authentic Christianity to follow what they now feel is proper and authentic Christianity when it is not!  Tertullian: "Some ask,’ How did it come to pass that this woman or that man, who were the most faithful, the most prudent, and the most approved in the church, have gone over to the other side?... However, what if a bishop, a deacon, a widow, a virgin, a teacher, or even a martyr has fallen from the rule?  Will heresies on that account appear to possess the truth?  Do we prove the faith by the persons, or the persons by the faith" (Tertullian, c.197, Italics mine)?  We have such schools as the one that is in my town, The School of Supernatural, an arm of the Bethel Church, who teach that one can seek and find and to obtain some supernatural gift.  They teach that there is need for some special revelation because what the apostles and other men who were inspired by God to write was not all that was needed for Christianity; this is not new for this heresy had to be combated in the early church: "The heretics insist that [apostles] did not reveal everything to men.  Rather, they say that the apostles proclaimed some things openly and to all the world, but that they disclosed other things only in secret and to a few” (Tertullian, c.197, Italics mine).  False teachers and heretics always seem to have some veil of validity as to what they say and teach and promote, but when examined they are found to twist and misuse scripture to fit their theology.  Paul had to address a blow against such heresy: "The apostle delivers a similar blow against those who said that ‘the resurrection was already past.’  Such an opinion did the Valentinians assert" (Tertullian, c.197, Italics mine).  People seem to always be looking for a bigger and better way so when those men who speak eloquently and seem to have something "new," a "secret," "the key" and other such things are simply attempting to present a new and better god than the one that is found in the Bible: "A better god has been discovered [by the heretics]: one who never takes offense, is never angry, never inflict punishments, has prepared no fire in Gehenna, and requires no gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness!  He is purely and simply "good."  He indeed forbids all delinquency -- -- but only in word.  He is in you, if you are willing to pay him homage.  This is for the sake of appearances, so that you may seen to honor God.  For He does not want your fear" (Tertullian, c.207, Italics mine).  Even in the early church there was this "sloppy agape" and it is being taught today that if one is just good, or give some sort of special homage to God, if one only just exercises some sort of special gift even though it may not be a gift given to them by God, then they are "Christian."

            The Gospel is more than our acknowledging that Jesus Christ lived.  No, all the active work is not the same as spiritual activity, in fact active work may be the counter of spiritual activity.  Too often, people utilize God for the sake of getting peace and joy, that is, we do not want to realize Jesus Christ, but only our enjoyment of Him.  If so, those are steps in the wrong direction for we have taken things which are effects and try to make them causes; that is, we have set aside our study of God's Word, and our pragmatic application of His commands and we have made the "effects" have priority in our worship to God.

The works of the LORD are great,

            studied by all who have pleasure in them.

 Psalm 111: 3

Our God is Holy and Awesome

Richard L. Crumb