Apostasy

Apostasy- BT

Introduction
    The category ‘apostasy’ functions in theologiccal discourse for the open and final repudiation of one’s allegiance to God in Christ. Consideration of the theme is warranted by the language and logic of the biblical writers and also by church life and pastoral concern.
    John Owen, writing from the atemporal perspective of Puritan thought, defines the essence of apostasy as ‘a total renunciation of all the constituent principles and doctrines of Christianity’. This entails a ‘voluntary, resolved relinquishment of … the gospel, the faith, rule and obedience thereof’. A distinction is generally drawn between apostasy and backsliding, a less radical decay of one’s Christian integrity, for the latter does not involve ‘resolved relinquishment’. This distinction is useful in some contexts, but the Bible does not always separate the two neatly. For example, the same Hebrew noun (m§s¥u®b≈a®) in Jeremiah 2:19; 5:6 and 14:7 is translated ‘backsliding[s]’ in the NIV and ‘apostasies’ in the NRSV. At what point in real life does backsliding degenerate into apostasy? Biblical theology may not offer an easy answer, but it can provide a framework of conceptual and historical models to which one can look for analogies to one’s own historical situation.
    The biblical language evoked by the category ‘apostasy’ is various and suggestive. The verbs ‘forsake’ (Deut. 31:16, NRSV), ‘turn aside [from following God]’ (1 Kgs. 9:6), ‘wander’ (Jer. 14:10), ‘rebel [against God]’ (Ezek. 2:3), ‘cast [God behind one’s back]’ (Ezek. 23:35), ‘commit treachery’ (Dan. 9:7), ‘commit whoredom’ (Hos. 1:2), ‘fall away’ (Matt. 24:10), ‘neglect’ (Heb. 2:3), ‘turn away’ (Heb. 3:12), ‘shrink back’ (Heb. 10:39) and ‘go out’ (1 John 2:19) occur in contexts concerned with spiritual decline so egregious as to merit consideration as apostasy.
    Biblical imagery adds to this richness of expression. Jerusalem’s silver becomes dross and her wine is mixed with water (Is. 1:22). Israel degenerates from a choice vine to a wild vine (Jer. 2:21). She is an unfaithful wife to her husband Yahweh (Hos. 1–3). The nation is like a defective bow that can no longer shoot straight (Hos. 7:16). Apostates in the Christian church are like well-watered ground that produces not a good crop but thorns and thistles, the end of which is to be burned (Heb. 6:7–8).

Apostasy in the OT
    Beginning with the fall of Adam in Genesis 3, the apostate impulse in the human heart becomes the salient feature of the race. But apostasy finds its most pungent expression among the covenant people, by reason of the covenant itself, especially when apostates reach a sort of ‘critical mass’ in the corporate soul of the community so that the whole nation departs from its allegiance to God. This ominous development among the chosen nation is apostasy in the fullest sense. After a long-standing pattern of spiritual defection was established in the course of Israel’s history, the nation was eventually abandoned to itself and allowed to be swallowed up in foreign exile.
    Early indications of Israel’s intractable apostasy include their worship of the golden calf (Exod. 32), their yoking themselves to the Baal of Peor (Num. 25) and the period of the judges (cf. Judg. 2:11–19). That these events were not isolated anomalies but true indications of the nation’s apostate soul is implied by Psalm 106. The poet reviews Israel’s record of resistance to God and identifies it as national uncleanness and prostitution (v. 39), which so angers God that ‘he gave them into the hand of the nations’ (v. 41).
    During the period of the monarchy, apostasy in Israel developed with ultimately devastating effect. It was manifested in flirtation with the fertility religion of the Baals, and entanglement in political alliances with foreign powers. By the first Israel rejected the loving provision of God; by the second they rejected his protective security. The prophet Hosea, addressing the northern kingdom in its latter decades, exposes the moral offensiveness of both in the language of spiritual harlotry. He unveils a shocking vision of Yahweh as a husband rejected by his adulterous wife (Hos. 1–3, et passim). Jeremiah, addressing the southern kingdom, laments that nation’s lust for idols and alliances (Jer. 2), borrowing from Hosea’s marital imagery. In 3:6–12 Jeremiah boldly identifies Israel as Apostasy incarnate (m§s¥u®b≈a® yiseéraΩ}el) and Judah, the even more guilty offender, as Treachery (bogeda® y§h¥da®). Ezekiel 16 embellishes the prophetic vision still further. The nation was like a pitiful, abandoned infant girl, rescued by Yahweh and raised up to be an exquisite young woman, favoured by him with rich privilege and, indeed, married to her kind benefactor. But she used his gifts to finance liaisons with other lovers. In Ezekiel 23 the prophet re-tells the stories of both northern and southern kingdoms in terms of two sisters who corrupted themselves from their youth, but with the greater guilt falling upon Judah.
    Interestingly, the prophetic language for apostasy suggests that it is, as it were, the photographic negative of repentance. For example, in Jeremiah 3:12 the prophet calls apostate (m§s¥u®b≈a®) Israel to return (s¥u®b≈a®). In 3:14 and 22 he calls the apostates (s¥o®b≈aœbˆîm) to return (s¥u®b≈u®). In 8:5 the prophet agonizes over why the people apostatize (s¥o®b≈§b≈a®) with perpetual apostasy (m§s¥b≈a®), refusing to return (laœs¥u®b≈). Both repentance and apostasy are acts of turning (s¥u®b≈), but one is turning towards God and the other is turning away from him. Apostasy is a kind of perverse anti-conversion.
    With some conspicuous exceptions, the overall history of the OT people of God is one of their refusing the grace of God and turning away from him. This can be seen in passages like Ezekiel 20:1–39, Nehemiah 9:6–37 and Daniel 9:4–19, which review Israel’s history with a sweep of the prophetic eye and discover there a damning pattern of defection which must be regarded as apostasy. But remarkably, condemnation is not the end for the apostate people of God. Yahweh may ‘divorce’ his adulterous wife (Hos. 1:9; 2:2), but he will win her heart again (Hos. 2:14–15). He will betroth her to himself again in re-created moral virginity (Hos. 2:19–20). He will heal Israel’s apostasy and love them without any precondition (Jer. 3:22; Hos. 14:4). God shuts them up to disobedience, that he might show them mercy, and the nation’s mouth be stopped (Ezek. 16:59–63; cf. Rom. 11:1–32).

Apostasy in the NT
    Although the Christian church is receiving the promised outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:14–21) and has inherited better arrangements for its life and worship than Israel enjoyed (Heb., passim), apostasy is very much within the scope of NT concern. Indeed, Jesus predicted that the present, age-long delay before the end would be characterized by tribulation, such that many will ‘fall away’ (Matt. 24:10; cf. D. A. Carson, ‘Matthew’, in EBC, pp. 495, 498–499). The disciples themselves confirmed Jesus’ prophetic word when they deserted him in Gethsemane (Matt. 26:56), although they were later restored. Within this historical framework of tribulation, which increases the temptation to fall away, the danger of apostasy remains until the end. (See Eschatology.)
    Any consideration of apostasy in NT teaching must begin with the conviction that Jesus Christ occupies the ultimate position in the redemptive purposes of God (Heb. 1:1–4). As the consummation of OT revelation, Jesus is the final and greatest God-revealer. With all lines of redemptive history converging on him, calculated repudiation of the all-sufficiency of Jesus must be regarded with the utmost seriousness.
    The letter to the Hebrews solemnly insists upon the irreversibility of apostasy after exposure to the power of the Christian gospel (Heb. 6:4–6; cf. 12:16–17). Wilful persistence in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, such that one shrinks back from fixing one’s faith upon the Son of God, exposes one to ‘a fury of fire’ (Heb. 10:26–31). A perfect faith is not required. The people of God are ‘ignorant and wayward’ (Heb. 5:2). But Jesus is able to help his people when they are tested (Heb. 2:18). He can sympathize with their weakness, having been tested himself, and is therefore approachable (Heb. 4:15–16). To refuse his resources of mercy and grace in time of need could lead to an apostate condition, in which one holds the Son of God up to contempt (Heb. 6:6) – hardly consistent with ‘things that belong to salvation’ (Heb. 6:9). Such a view may not preclude a church’s or denomination’s recovery, but it offers no encouragement for individuals who apostatize. The author’s position may be summed up, according to Paul Ellingworth, as follows: ‘Nowhere does the writer of Hebrews leave his readers any room for the hope that, if they abandon faith in Christ, they may find, so to speak, a fallback position in their former (in particular, Jewish) beliefs and practices. Christ has made the old covenant old (8:13), so that there is now nowhere else to go. To abandon Christ, or to accord him anything but the highest place in the universe, is not to adopt an alternative religious option, but simply “to fall away from the living God” (3:12).’ (‘Hebrews and the anticipation of completion’, Themelios 14, 1988, p. 10.)
    The apostle Paul is amazed to see the Galatians ‘deserting’ the one who called them in the grace of Christ for another gospel (Gal. 1:6), and he condemns anyone who ‘perverts’ the true gospel (1:7–9). He also warns against hypocritical teachers who advocate asceticism (1 Tim. 4:1–5), glorifying physical deprivation and denying the goodness of God. The apostle anticipates a time when church people will have ‘itching ears’ and so will turn away from the truth to myths (2 Tim. 4:3–4). He cautions the Ephesian elders against ‘savage wolves’ and those who will distort the truth to mislead the church (Acts 20:29–30; cf. 2 Pet. 2:1–2; Jude 3–4). These passages accurately illustrate the troubling spiritual atmosphere in which believers must demonstrate the genuineness of their faith and avoid apostasy.
    Personal illustrations of apostasy may include Judas Iscariot (Luke 22:22), Hymenaeus and Alexander (1 Tim. 1:19–20) and Demas (2 Tim. 4:10). The immoral man in 1 Corinthians 5:1–5 is not an apostate; his continuing identification with the church is aggravating the scandal.
    Paul’s prophecy of ‘the lawless one’ (2 Thess. 2:1–12) who will draw the world away into rebellion against God may not describe apostasy in the strict sense. This agent of evil intrudes himself into the temple of God (2:4), but the interpretation of this ‘temple’ is an arguable point. He holds sway over ‘all who have not believed the truth’ (2:12), as distinct from the church (2:13–17).

Apostasy and Perseverance
    Jesus insisted that some who experience real spiritual power and name him ‘Lord’ will be rejected as ‘evil-doers’ (Matt. 7:21–23; cf. Heb. 6:4–6). He discerned in some an unconvincing faith (John 2:23–25). He posited various responses to the gospel, some of which are initially promising but prove hollow in the end (Luke 8:11–15). It is the believer’s perseverance to the end that validates a claim to Christian faith and authenticates spiritual experience (Col. 1:21–23; Heb. 3:14; 6:11–12; 2 John 9). The apostle John accounts for those who walk away from their former identification with Christ in this way: ‘They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But by going out they made it plain that none of them belongs to us’ (1 John 2:19).
    Larger theological systems, Calvinist or Arminian, may unintentionally blunt the edge of the biblical witness either by diminishing one’s sense of the need to persevere or by subverting one’s confidence in God’s commitment to and provision for the struggling saint.
    Scripture affirms both God’s active work in his people and their own responsibility to pursue salvation (Phil. 2:12–13). Ultimately, the believer lays hold of God himself as ‘him who is able to keep you from falling’ (Jude 24). But the hypocrisy of apostates is eventually exposed, however impressive their profession of faith may be for a time.
    See also: ADULTERY; FAITH.

Bibliography
    D. A. Carson, ‘Reflections on Christian assurance’, WTJ 54, 1992, pp. 31–46; J. M. Gundry Volf, Paul and Perseverance: Staying in and Falling Away (Tübingen, 1990); I. H. Marshall, Kept by the Power of God: A Study of Perseverance and Falling Away (Minneapolis and Carlisle, 1975, 1995); idem, ‘The problem of apostasy in New Testament theology’, in Jesus the Saviour: Studies in New Testament Theology (London, 1990); R. C. Ortlund, Jr., Whoredom: God’s Unfaithful Wife in Biblical Theology (Leicester and Grand Rapids, 1996); R. Wakely, in NIDOTTE 2, pp. 1121–1123; J. Owen, The Nature and Causes of Apostasy from the Gospel, in The Works of John Owen, vol. 7 (Edinburgh, repr. 1979).
R. C. ORTLUND, JR.