Damnable Heresies

Forerunner, "Personal," February 1995

Today, the largest body of the true church of God is rapidly being swept away by damnable heresies from the faith once delivered. Christians are warned of destructive and blasphemous doctrines being brought into the church in II Peter 2:1-3:


It is instructive for us to study these verses more closely because they show us in a general way that traitors will come from within the church and subvert many to following their carnal ways.


In II Peter 2:2, "destructive" or "pernicious" (KJV) is more accurately translated "lascivious." Lascivious means "to excite to lust or lewdness." These heresies will seem to provide something we carnally consider very desirable for our well-being. But all the while the liberties (verse 19) they promise in their false teachings will be so destructive that they only serve to deny Jesus Christ (verse 1).


Why are false teachings so deserving of condemnation? False teaching perverts the direction and outcome of our lives, unless we reject or repent of it, if we had once accepted it. On the other hand, possessing true doctrines and beliefs is of exceeding importance because what a person believes determines his attitude and conduct. Right thoughts precede right actions. Our beliefs express themselves in social relations, daily work and home life.

Alarming as II Peter 2:1-3 is, Peter neither tells us what heresy is in general, nor indicates what the future heresies will be. Besides these, he does not identify the real source of heresy either.

Heresy is the translation of the Greek hairesis—meaning literally "choice" or "selection"—which has an interesting secular as well as biblical history. Until its biblical use, it had no evil connotation. Even in the Bible, it is mostly used to refer to a party or a philosophy with which a person had chosen to identify or ally himself. Thus, hairesis is frequently translated "sect." In Acts, Luke applies it to the Sadducees (5:17) and the Pharisees (15:5; 26:5). Outsiders also used hairesis in Acts 24:5, 14 and 28:22 to identify the Christian church.



The Real Source of Heresy

From the Bible's point of view, a heresy is a lie. No matter how attractively it may be wrapped or how appealing it may be to our vanity, it is a deviation from the truth of God that promotes or actually produces schism—division—in the church.

Lies and division within the church make it very easy to identify the real source of heresy. In John 8:44 Jesus says of the Devil, "He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it." John adds in Revelation 12:9, "So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world."

Satan introduced heresy into human life through Adam and Eve when he induced them to sin by telling them, "You will not surely die" (Genesis 3:4). They believed this perversion of God's truth, and upon sinning, the destructive course began. By being cast from the Garden of Eden, they were almost immediately separated from God. They did not live and prosper as Satan's cruel perversion led them to believe. Instead, the Devil exploited them through their innocence and desires, and through sin they became his slaves. Hundreds of years later, they died just as God said they would.

The Devil's attempts to deceive through false teaching have never stopped. Jesus warned in Mark 13:22 that, as we approach the end, it will be especially intensive; "For false christs and false prophets will rise and show signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect." He warns that, if it is possible for us to be deceived, we will be deceived by false doctrines.

The source of false doctrine is demonic. Paul writes in I Timothy 4:1-2:


Paul is writing of men who listen to, consider, follow and then teach doctrines twisted from their biblical base (II Peter 3:16).



As far back as Leviticus 17:7, God warned through Moses that, when the Israelites sacrificed before an idol, they were really sacrificing to demons. The apostle Paul picked up on this, using it to express his concern over the behavior of some in the Corinthian church:






Heresy and Apostasy

Some think that, when someone accepts heresy, he will "leave the church." That may occur on some occasions, but this confuses hairesis with apostasia. In II Thessalonians 2:3, apostasia is translated "falling away" in both the KJV and NKJV, giving the impression that it refers to leaving an organization. But apostasia means "to depart from truth"! One can remain in an organization and be departing from truth all along.



Loving the truth so intensely that it motivates us to pursue it carefully and diligently—so much that we make it an operative part of our everyday life—will prove to be the difference between being saved and perishing in the next few years. Each of us will have to be concerned enough about the spiritual teaching we receive to search the Scriptures prayerfully and diligently to verify it (Acts 17:11). Proving all things (I Thessalonians 5:21, KJV) is so much better than lazily accepting the word of someone who appears to be trustworthy.

The Bible plainly indicates the thrust and purpose of Satan's heresies. The first and clearest example is shown in the account of his seduction of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:1-5). His opening parry (verse 1) cast doubt on the veracity of what God had directly told them: "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat" (Genesis 2:17). When he detected they were wavering, he countered by skewering them with a bald-faced lie (Genesis 3:4).

The key is getting a person to doubt. It removes conviction and replaces it with uncertainty. Doubt stifles courage and promotes fear. By sinning, Adam and Eve immediately showed their faithlessness to God.

Paul writes in II Corinthians 11:3, "But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." Simplicity means single, without ulterior motive, pure, sincere and unambiguous. Vincent's Word Studies (vol. 3, p. 346), defines it as "single-hearted loyalty." It is the opposite of deceit, guile, error and wandering.


Another factor in most heresy is that it offers something appealing to human appetites or vanity. Notice the heady appeal in the heresy Satan taught Adam and Eve:


Their imagination and desires built upon Satan's subtle suggestion that God was not being totally honest. If they followed the serpent's teaching, they could possess the benefits God was withholding.

We find these same basic elements in Satan's temptation of Jesus. But here the Devil also challenges Jesus to put God's Word to the test to get something for Himself (Matthew 4:5-7; Luke 4:9-12). Satan is saying, "You say You believe that God cannot lie, that He will indeed do what He says. Go ahead—test Him!" Never mind that Satan twisted the spirit of Psalm 91:11-12 into what amounts to tempting God through an evil motivation.

Satan's Plan of Attack

These examples clearly show the modus operandi of the father of lies (John 8:44). Because he is leading, guiding and inspiring his ministers, they will be using the same basic approaches, even though they appear as angels of light. Satan hates God's law because it is the way of righteousness (Psalm 119:172). This is why the carnal mind of man is not subject to the law of God (Romans 8:7). Through his ministers' false teaching, Satan will make every effort to deceive people to break God's laws.

From what has occurred within the church of God, we can see how Satan has attacked and continues to attack through heresy.

First, he inspires a steady stream of small changes called "adjustments," "clarifications" or "refinements" to revealed and established doctrines. Several of these may slip by without notice, but the overall effect will be to begin to cast doubt on what was previously believed. Careful and disciplined submission to God will begin to slacken as people become uncertain about what is right. For a member who is becoming aware of the threatening nature of the "refinements," this is a critical juncture. He may either opt to scrutinize the changes more closely or to ignore them.

At this point Satan's ministers may "adjust" a fairly important doctrine to test the reaction of the membership. The doctrine may not be critical to salvation, but may nonetheless shed important light on the process.

Second, he inspires his ministers to make a "refinement" to the overall message of Jesus Christ and the apostles. In altering the focus of the teaching from what the Master plainly said is the message He brought from God, Satan redirects the church toward a teaching essential to salvation but not the overall goal.

Third, he moves to obscure the nature of God. This, combined with altering God's purpose, will cast a member into deep confusion about how he is supposed to conduct his life. In the Bible's first chapter, God clearly states that He created us in His image (Genesis 1:26-27), and the New Testament makes clear we are being transformed into the very image of Christ (Romans 8:29; II Corinthians 3:18; Philippians 3:21). But the "new" teaching changes what the Father and Son are like, and thus changes how a Christian conducts his life.

No wonder God was so angry when Israel, just after leaving Egypt, made a golden calf! "These be your gods, O Israel," they proclaimed (Exodus 32:4). The Israelites redefined the nature of God according to their own imagination! Because they felt more comfortable with a god with the nature of a calf, they rejected Genesis 1:26 in favor of a form more acceptable to the masses.

Fourth, if people are still accepting the heresies, Satan begins teaching that we no longer need to keep some of God's laws. This is especially effective if the laws chosen are ones that seem to give members more immediate control over their time, money and destiny. On the surface, at least, such teachings give people more freedom to make choices and appeal to their devotion to God.

Most will accept these major changes, if they are announced under the right conditions:

• When they are made at the end of an extremely long, rapid-fire sermon.

• When members are practically brain dead from too much information at one time.

• When members cannot follow the argument closely in their Bibles because of the dim light and rapid delivery.

• When the argument is camouflaged by much that is indeed true, leading the people into an agreeing attitude.

In the cold light of reality, these changes would make God look bad. Some members would question why these doctrines had never been adequately explained before. Others would wonder why God had not been powerful enough or cared enough to institute them before. Instead, they would reason, He had allowed His end-time church to suffer for generations without these wonderful teachings. But Satan lays the blame on the shoulders of the former administration which was not nearly as "scholarly" or "understanding" as the present one.

First-Century Heresy

This is exactly what happened in the first century! Notice what Paul says in II Corinthians 11:1-4, 13:


What had happened? Paul had to deal with the Corinthian congregation because they had fallen under the sway of false apostles! These false ministers had convinced many of the brethren that they knew more and better than the apostle through whom they had heard, believed, learned and been converted to the gospel. They were in the process of throwing aside what they had learned from Paul in favor of what they were hearing from these new "apostles."

Paul was not the only apostle who had to confront this problem. John writes this toward the end of the first century:


Notice his frequent use of "we" and "our." What is John doing? He was establishing his authority for what he was teaching! He is saying that what he writes in this epistle he received firsthand from Christ! During his day, false teachers were contacting Christian congregations claiming that John was a one-hundred-year-old fuddy-duddy who was "out of touch" with reality. What they were teaching was the truth, they said. John later labeled these people as antichrists (I John 2:18). His first epistle is an exhortation to reestablish their faith in the original beliefs and doctrines by and into which they had been converted.

Finally, Jude makes it abundantly clear what was happening within the first-century church:


The lesson is written in the Book, recorded for our admonition. Is it being repeated, now, in our time? I think there is only one answer to that.

The Dangers of Heresy Today

A major part of the church of God is losing its uniqueness. It is blending back into the world from which it was once separated. It is no longer capable of making a witness to the world because there is nothing different for the world to hear in its message and observe in its conduct. Our distinctiveness lies in the fact that we really do believe God, love Him and show it by keeping His commandments—including the Sabbaths. We also show our distinctiveness in that we really do love each other in a warm, family relationship.

The apostatizing portion of the church is putting itself in very grave danger. Notice God's warning in Revelation 13:16-17:


Later, He adds:




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