When the Apostle Paul preached at
Ephesus, his ministry continued there for two years and “all that
inhabited Asia heard the word of the Lord” (Acts 19: 10). Not only
that, but “with might the word of the Lord increased and prevailed”
(see v20). And yet, at the close of the apostle’s ministry, with the
time of his departure at hand, he laments that “all who [are] in
Asia … have turned away from me” (2 Tim. 1: 15). How could this be?
How could there be such a rapid turning away? We are often told that
we must go back to the first three centuries to find the purity of
the faith and worship of the primitive church, but it is clear from
this comparison of Acts and 2 Timothy that to use even the first
century as our standard is a grave mistake. Indeed, it is very
evident that we cannot even rely on what was happening in the
apostle’s own lifetime!
The turning away from Paul could hardly have
been merely personal but must have included his teaching as well.
Thus in 2 Tim. 2: 18 he speaks of those who “as to the truth have
gone astray”, while in chapter three he refers to those who
“withstand the truth” (v8), and again in the fourth chapter he
speaks of who “turn away their ear from the truth, and will have
turned aside to fables” (v4). To turn away from Paul was thus to
turn away from Pauline doctrine.
It was this abandonment of the truth as taught
by the Holy Spirit through Paul that led necessarily to the loss of
the teaching concerning the mystery—the truth concerning the one
body of Christ. The effect of this was to put everything wrong
ecclesiastically: the Head in heaven was replaced by a head on
earth, the uniting power of the Spirit replaced by political and
fleshly amalgamation, and instead of recognising the one body, men
set about making their own organisations composed of both real and
unreal professors.
Also lost was the truth of the Lord’s promised
return from heaven to catch up the living saints and to raise the
dead in Christ. Other hopes (or rather fears) came in their place,
namely death and judgment. Justification by faith being lost as
well, the future was something to be dreaded, instead of looked for
in all the confidence that comes from the Christian’s perfect
standing in Christ. The way was now open for the full tide of error
to come in like a flood, with all the corruption and superstition
which was eventually headed up in what have become commonly known as
the
Dark Ages.
Everyone is familiar with the term, and with
the fact. But what
were the
Dark Ages? How did they
come about? They were not brought on suddenly by some untoward
event. There must have been some cause, something that made such
ages possible. Nor is the darkness wholly gone, for Roman
Catholicism strenuously resisted the light of
The Reformation, while
the Eastern Orthodox churches never experienced a significant
working of that nature at all. And what was
The Reformation itself
but the beginning of a recovery of the great Pauline doctrines that
began to be lost in the apostle’s lifetime—truths that are set out
in detail in Paul’s so–called Church Epistles?
Justification by grace through faith was the first great truth to
which a remnant in the church was recovered—the truth over which the
great battle of sixteenth century was fought and won. However, while
Protestantism began well, it did not go on as it should have done.
As the Lord said prophetically, “I have not found thy works complete
before my God” (Rev. 3: 2). Not until the nineteenth century did the
Lord’s return from heaven begin to be widely taught again as the
blessed hope of His Church. The last of the three truths to be
recover was what is taught in Ephesians—the truth of the mystery. As
it was the first to go, so, it seems, was it the last to be
recovered.
We are now in the twenty–first century, and the
question that needs to be asked is ‘Where do the Lord’s people today
stand in relation to these great truths?’—and, more particularly,
‘Where do
you and I stand?’
What is gained can just as easily be lost, and it is to be feared
that the process of spiritual regression to the
Dark Ages (at least in
the Western world) is already well under way. We ought not to be
surprised at this, for the Scriptures indicate that the power that
held sway in the Dark Ages
of past history, will rise to prominence again at the end of the age
(see Rev. 17: 18). The increasing tendency in the professing church
to exchange distinctive Christian doctrine for a vague mysticism is
surely preparation for this. Thousands of those who profess to be
Christians know little or nothing of the Church Epistles. The four
Gospels and the Sermon on the
Mount are taken as the essence of Christianity, instead of the
Epistles specially addressed to assemblies. Hence the great
ignorance of Christians generally as to all that God has made Christ
to be to His People, and all that He has made them to be in Him.
Some may doubt that we are heading for another
Dark Ages. They
fondly imagine that, at least in their little circle, there is a
“little power” and that they have “kept my word” (Rev. 3: 8). Thank
God
if it is so, but it
is to be feared that there is an eroding tide that many seem
oblivious to. Take the truth of the mystery. The ablest exponents of
this doctrine are now a shattered force, divided and scattered in
obvious contradiction of the great truth of the one body. Where has
been the “holding fast the head” (Col. 2: 19) in all this? For
direction, many simply follow what others do rather than seeking
guidance from above, while their concept of love “towards all the
saints” (Eph. 1: 15) appears constrained by the limits of the narrow
circle in which they walk, where a similar ecclesiastical history
seems to be the glue that holds all together.
Lip–service is thus paid to the doctrine
of the mystery, but the practical outworking is becoming ever more
detached from the teaching that supposedly lies behind it. What
attracted persons to such gatherings in the first place was not only
the doctrine taught, but the practical outworking of that doctrine
among the saints. Unless that spiritual reality is regained, it will
not be long before the truth ends up existing only on bookshelves.
The same spiritual downgrade is evident in
relation to the truth of the Lord’s return. It is clear that whereas
the first modern exponents of this doctrine were truly awaiting
God’s Son from the heavens (see 1 Thess. 1: 10), their spiritual
children soon became mere students of prophetic truth, and (morally
speaking) “sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play” (1
Cor. 10: 7). Thus unlike our forefathers, we are worldly, and we are
worldly because we are idolatrous, for the essence of idolatry is
the pleasure–seeking spirit that marks the world in which we
live—the gratification of self. It should be no great surprise if
gospel work in the West seemingly produces so few converts when most
Western Christians live like those around them—in contrast to the
great father of the faithful (see Rom. 4: 16) who “sojourned as a
stranger in the land of promise as a foreign country … for he waited
for the city which has foundations” (Heb. 11: 9, 10).
Is the Gospel itself also being lost? One
wonders. Granted there is much gospel preaching and general
evangelical activity (which we need to pray earnestly for), but
there appears to be much less knowledge regarding Gospel doctrine
than there was. Many of us appear to be not far in advance of
Apollos who needed to have the way of God unfolded to him “more
exactly” (Acts 18: 26). How much ministry do we hear on the blessed
truths contained in the epistles to the Romans and Galatians? Very
little. Nor is plucking out a verse or two here and there to
discourse on the same as a comprehensive exposition of the doctrine
in its context. Is it any wonder that so many are ill–established in
the truth that they purport to believe, and are susceptible to being
tossed and carried about by every false teaching that comes along?
We need not only to believe the Gospel but to be
established in it as
well.
In the light of all this, it would be easy to
wring our hands and say ‘All is lost!’—but that would not be the
path of faith. The Word of God has anticipated that “in [the] last
days difficult times shall be there” (2 Tim. 3: 1) and the man of
God will thus turn to that same Word for help and guidance as to how
to proceed in such days. Paul could say of Timothy that he had been
“thoroughly
acquainted with my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith ...” (2
Tim. 3: 10, my emphasis), and that he was to
abide in the things which he had learned from him (see v14).
Fidelity to the distinctive
truths of Christianity is thus the only antidote to the increasing
darkness in Christendom. May you and I be marked out, like
Timothy, as men and women of God in an increasingly difficult day!
