We shall present some of
the assertions of these religious groups: “The devil began to introduce
dogmatic changes, as of Emperor Constantine’s time, deceiving quite a
few of the bishops… So, they developed a different theology to that of
the Bible, because they embraced too much of Plato’s philosophy….
Eventually, a complete deterioration set in… With the passing years and
centuries, historical Christianity became a religion that had completely
distanced itself from the apostolic simplicity and spirituality, so that
today, it appears entirely mutated…. During the fifth century,
Christianity appeared to have conquered idolatry, however, idolatry had
already corrupted Christianity.” (Evangelical magazine RESEARCH AND
FAITH, March-April 1992, page 8)
“However, after the demise
of the Apostles, a gradual change came over the Church. During the 2nd,
3rd and 4th centuries, many in the Church
distorted and even rejected the truths that Christ and the Apostles had
taught. (Adventist magazine “HERALD”, July-September 2004, page 19)
“Because the Church, with
its careless stance, altered its God-founded constitution, thus
upsetting everything.” (The book “THE REVERSALS OF RELIGION” by S.
Charalambakis, page 26) This same author asserts that the church that
“the Disciples of the Divine Savior delivered to us, was preserved to
the 3rd century”, hence, he proposes, “this is the Church
that we must return to: the roots” (RETURN TO THE GENUINE ORTHODOX
CHRISTIAN ROOTS, page 9). In another of his texts, he maintains that the
apostasy took place later on: “Based on biblical and historical facts,
we know that the Church retained its Apostolic guidelines up to about
500 A.D.” (pamphlet “THE ORTHODOX CHURCH AND ITS HISTORY”)
As we can see, there is no
agreement as to when the Church apostatized; others place it in the 2nd
century, others in the 3rd and others in the 4th
or 5th. So, where is the truth? Did the Church of Christ
really fall into apostasy? What does the Holy Bible teach on this
matter? If apostasy did occur, when did it occur historically and which
teachings did it affect?
One,
huge
contradiction
If however, the Ancient
Church did not remain within the truth – as various protestant
groups and heresies maintain – then they have a serious problem. They
place themselves in the predicament of acknowledging the authority of an
apostate Church that ruled on the Canon of the New Testament! How can
they trust the Canon of the 27 books of the New Testament, if it was
composed by alleged apostates of the truth? How can they be certain
that those involved had made the correct choice as to which books are
divinely inspired or not, if they had apostatized from the divine
truth? If the Church had apostatized, how can they be sure that those
people hadn’t chosen the books that were considered expedient and
rejected those that weren’t to their advantage? If, on the other hand,
they trust the Canon of the New Testament, then they –unwittingly- also
trust the Church that created that Canon!
The oldest, complete
catalogue of the 27 books of the New Testament did not exist until 367
A.D., when Athanasios the Great wrote his 39th commemorative
epistle!!
The Canon that we have, was finalized in 397 A.D., in the Council
(Synod) of Carthage. At least that Church – which gave us the Canon for
the New Testament – was surely “a pillar and foundation of the truth”
(Timothy I, 3:15). If the Church had indeed preserved apostolic
tradition, then it certainly was capable of deciding on the Canon of
valid books for the New Testament; if, however, it had become corrupt
and apostate, it would obviously not have preserved apostolic
tradition and subsequently any decision that it may have reached for
this Canon would have been erroneous! To quote the Holy Bible: “Who can
extract the clean from the unclean? No-one” (Job, 14:4 – Vamvas
Translation). But, if we accept that apostolic tradition was
properly preserved by that Church, qualifying it to decide on the Canon,
then it could not have been in apostasy!
Consequently, those who
maintain that the Church had apostatized, have only two choices:
-
Either to reject the
Canon on the 27 books of the New Testament ruled by that “apostate”
Church and commence their own councils (synods) and discussions in
order to instate a new Canon for the New Testament, or:
-
Admit that they have
made a mistake and that the Canon on the New Testament that they
acknowledge could not have been created by an “apostate”
Church.
The Emergence of the New Testament Canon- Daniel Lieuwen- (www.orthodoxinfo.com).
Objections with ‘evidential’ verses
Various Protestants invoke
certain passages, in order to support the alleged apostasy of the
Church. They assert that what the Apostle Paul prophesied in his
Epistle I to Timothy has been fulfilled, i.e., ‘in later times, some
will apostatize from the Faith, paying attention to spirits of deception
and to demonic teachings etc.’..
But
this passage of Timothy I, 4:1 doesn’t imply that the entire
Church was supposedly going to apostatize. The verse clearly says that
‘……..
some will apostatize from the Faith….’,
not the entire Church! The
Holy Bible speaks of those who will apostatize, in other verses also:
“…. With faith and an innocent conscience, which some –
after discarding it – became shipwrecked in their
faith” (Timothy I, 1:19); “which some, in professing it,
strayed from the faith” (Timothy I, 6:21). Furthermore,
in Acts 20:28-30, there is no inference that the entire Church is going
to apostatize; it only says that “some men will
appear, who will teach the truth falsified” (Evangelic translation
“Logos”).
The
Holy Bible says: “They
came forth from among you, but they weren’t one of your kind; for if
they were one of your kind, they would have stayed with you. But they
came forth so that it might be revealed, that not all of them are one of
your kind.”
(John I, 2:19). It is obvious that this verse proves that those
individuals who apostatize from the true faith DO NOT remain in the
Church, but move out of it, thus allowing the Church to preserve its
dogmatic teaching unadulterated!
[2]
From letter of some reader of Researcher
The Church
cannot apostatize!
According to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Church
cannot apostatize:
“… the portals of
the underworld shall not overpower her
(the
Church)” (Matthew, 16:18). The Holy Bible also clearly states that the
truth shall remain in the Church forever: “...for the truth, which
resides in you, and
shall be with you for all time”
(John II, 2); just as Jesus Christ Himself likewise promises that He
shall continuously
be
with the Church, from the 1st century to the end of time,
unfailingly:
“I am with you, for all days, until the end of time”
(Matthew, 28:80). The Holy Spirit also
eternally
resides in the Church,
continuously,
from the 1st century: “And I shall ask the Father, and He
shall send you another Paraclete,
to remain with you to the
end of time”
(John 14:16).
Therefore, the Church cannot
ever
apostatize, because Christ – the head of the Church – remains forever
joined to His Body, just as the Holy Spirit remains continuously within
it, to guide it throughout the truth (John 14:26), hence the truth must
also perpetually reside within the Church! If the Church had indeed
apostatized, as various teachers of deception claim, it would mean that
Christ had given false promises, which He didn’t keep! But, isn’t that
a blasphemous conjecture?
However, some protestants maintain that those promises do apply, but not
to the visible Church, only the invisible one! But the Holy Bible
doesn’t say that the Church founded by Christ was an invisible one!
Quite the opposite, it very clearly talks about a
visible Church:
“ ….and if someone disobeys them,
tell this to the Church;
but, if he disobeys
the Church
also, then you should treat him as a gentile and a tax-collector”
(Matthew 18:17). If the Church is invisible, then how does someone
speak to the Church, and how does an…. invisible Church reprimand the
one who has sinned?
“For I
am the least of the apostles, who is unworthy to be called an apostle,
because I persecuted
the Church of God”
(Corinthians I, 15:9). If the Church were invisible, then how did Paul
manage to persecute it?
“For
if one does not know how to govern his own home,
how shall he take care of
the church of God?”
(Timothy I, 3:5). How does a bishop take care of an ….. invisible
Church?”
These
are just a few of the verses that prove that the Church founded by
Christ is definitely
visible,
and not invisible. Consequently, in this visible Church, the promises
that it cannot apostatize hold true, and the truth, Jesus Christ, and
the Holy Spirit will remain inside it eternally!
An
amazing admission by a Bible scholar
The biblical
theologian Rick Wade mentions in his article “Scripture
and
Tradition
in
the
Early
Church”
(www.probe.org/docs/tradition.html)
that occasionally, someone will find references to the idea of a
“decline” of the Church after the conversion of the emperor Constantine
during the 4th century. Some believe that under Constantine, the Church
began to slip, into a state religion that became corrupted by power and
riches…. This threw a heavy cloak over the whole of ecclesiastic
history, up to the era of Reform. Tradition was considered to be an
element of a corrupt and institutionalized church. While it is true that
the newly-acquired freedom that the Church enjoyed under Constantine had
its negative points, it doesn’t mean that the Church “declined” as some
say. During all of its history, the Church may have made mistakes in its
dealings with secular society and its during its discovering how to
appropriately handle the freedom and power that it had acquired, but,
the idea that the Church rapidly became corrupt and that the councils
(synods) that were convened during his reign were merely the emperor’s
pawns, is too naïve a notion. The Church continued to be faithful to
its duty of clarifying and spreading the apostolic tradition. “The faith
that was confessed and practiced by the ancient churches was not defined
by the political intrigues of emperors and the hierarchies of the
prelates” Williams said.[3].
“The essential form and
structure of the Christian identity was something that the fourth
century inherited and continued to expand, through biblical
explanation and the liturgical life as expressed in the tradition of the
Symbols of the Faith.”
Let’s take a look at what
ensued after Constantine’s reign. Williams says: “…The theology that
developed after Constantine did not reflect a radically subversive shift
in the Holy Bible and apostolic tradition. On the contrary, the most
important Symbols of the Faith (Creed) and official dogmatic discussions
were the conscious expansion of a precedent Tradition and teaching of
the New Testament, in an attempt to formulate the Christian
understanding of God and salvation in the light of new challenges. The
reason this is important for our study, is that some have allowed this
idea (of the Church’s decline towards the end of the Patristic period)
to influence them to the point of rejecting the whole of that period.
This is wrong. There was good and there was bad for the Church under
Constantine’s reign. Nevertheless, the Church continued to develop
itself in its understanding of the apostolic Tradition. We should not
ignore the ancient church because of unfortunate setbacks.”
Is
a
political
power’s
favor,
proof
of
apostasy?
Most Greek
(*) Protestants, Jehovah’s Witnesses,
Mormons etc. believe that the Church apostatized because Constantine the
Great ended the persecutions and swayed the Empire’s favor towards
Christians. But does the Holy Bible agree with this?
Let’s take a look at the
Persian Emperor Cyrus as an example. The Holy Bible says that God
spurred Cyrus’ heart (an idolatrous king!) into rebuilding the
destroyed temple of God in Jerusalem, and to even return the sacred
vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had stolen from it (Ezra, chapter 1). Was
the favor of the idolatrous king towards the Judeans (especially his
initiative to rebuild the Temple of God) proof that Israel had
apostatized from the truth at the time? The Holy Bible replies with a
resounding NO, because God stated the following about the idolatrous
king Cyrus: “He is my shepherd, and he will perform all my errands;
and I say unto Jerusalem: “You shall be rebuilt” and to the temple:
“your foundations shall be planted” (Isaiah 44:28, Translation “PERGAMOS”).
So, the Holy Bible clearly indicates that God can use even worldly
potentates in order for His will to be done (Proverbs 21:1). The same
happened with Constantine the Great: God swayed the favor of the
idolatrous Emperor to the benefit of the Christians, using him as His
instrument in order to terminate the state’s persecutions of the Church
and allow the unhindered spreading of the Gospel throughout the Empire.
Consequently, the assertion
of many contemporary movements that the Church apostatized opposes the
Holy Bible as well as common logic, because if their assertion is
accepted, then the Canon of the New Testament that they hold in their
hands loses its validity! In closing, we submit something that the
familiar Protestant Hank Hanegraaf said to the Mormons (although the
same applies to every religious group that stresses the same argument:
“In reply to this teaching (of the church’s apostasy), we should ask the
Mormons exactly how would the Church be able to praise God ‘in every
generation, for ever and ever’, if – as the Apostle Paul clearly
wrote in Ephesians 3:21- it had declined into complete apostasy?” (www.equip.org/free/CP0306.htm).