The Truth War (18 page)

MANY WHO NEVER
FORMALLY AFFIRMED
THE HERESY WERE
NONETHELESS PERFECTLY
WILLING TO MAKE PEACE
WITH THOSE WHO DID.
JEROME, WHO LIVED AND
MINISTERED WHEN
ARIANISM WAS AT THE
PEAK OF ITS POPULARITY,
RECOUNTED AFTERWARD,
SAID THAT THE WHOLE
WORLD AWOKE WITH A
GROAN, “ASTONISHED TO
FIND ITSELF ARIAN.”

Even when Arius died suddenly, eleven years after Nicea, popular sympathy for his doctrine continued to spread like leaven for several decades after that. At one point it seemed the whole church might become Arian. In fact, much of the visible church in the fourth century (including a large number of bishops) did ultimately fall prey to Arianism in one way or another. (Even the bishop of Rome signed an Arian creed.) Many who never formally affirmed the heresy were nonetheless perfectly willing to make peace with those who did. Jerome, who lived and ministered when Arianism was at the peak of its popularity, recounted afterward that the whole world awoke with a groan, “astonished to find itself Arian.”
⁵
The voice in the church who continued to oppose Arianism most loudly was Athanasius. He steadfastly refused, against intense political and ecclesiastical pressure, to settle the dispute by compromise. He would not consent to the reinstatement of Arius. He continued to write and preach about the deity of Christ.

When someone suggested to Athanasius that the whole world was against his unyielding, uncompromising stance in the controversy, he replied, “Then I am against the world.” To this day, the slogan
“Athanasius contra mundum”
(“Athanasius against the world”) is the epitaph usually associated with his name. He patiently and thoroughly refuted the Arian heresy point by point with Scripture. He remained firm no matter what the cost to him personally. In fact, over the course of his life, Athanasius was ultimately forced into exile no less than five times by a succession of emperors with strong Arian sympathies. He died before seeing the full fruits of his labors, but he is remembered today as one of the most courageous truth warriors the church has ever produced.

ARIANISM'S FINAL DEMISE

Even the sudden death of Arius did not instantly resolve the Arian crisis. But perhaps it did mark the beginning of the end. Arianism simply could not withstand biblical scrutiny in the long run. Without Arius's personal charisma, ability to shade word meanings, and skill at cleverly obscuring the seriousness of the error, Arianism's real character became all too obvious. The influence of this heresy soon began to decline and finally all but disappeared from mainstream Christianity. The persistence and biblical commitment of Athanasius and a handful of others finally paid off.

A letter from Athanasius to a fellow bishop records how Arius met his end in Constantinople in 336. Arius had appealed directly to Constantine for formal reinstatement to the church. By then, Constantine's eagerness to see Arius reinstated was well-known, and he agreed to a personal meeting with the heretic. Constantine listened to Arius swear that his faith was orthodox. The emperor then gave Arius a somewhat equivocal blessing: “If your faith is orthodox, you have sworn well. But if your faith is impious and yet you have sworn, let God from heaven judge you.”
⁶

Although Constantine's authority was civil and not ecclesiastical, the relationship between church and state under a Christian ruler was not an issue the church had dealt with before Constantine's time. Whether the emperor should have any kind of authority in church issues or not was a point that had not yet been adequately considered by most in the church. Because of the emperor's political clout, however, most bishops automatically deferred to his wishes as a matter of policy. His words of blessing upon Arius may have been regarded by most bishops as a binding order to reinstate the heretic.

Arius certainly took it that way. He left his meeting with the emperor and went straight to the church to attempt to partake of Communion. There he was refused permission by the godly bishop of Constantinople.

Some of Arius's friends who were still members in good standing in the church immediately wrote a strong protest to the bishop. As far as they were concerned, the emperor's pronouncement was a formal and legal sanction that the bishop was obliged to honor. They announced that a large group of them intended to accompany Arius to the church on the following day to receive Communion together.

Athanasius records that the bishop of Constantinople prayed, “If Arius is to be joined to the Church tomorrow, let me depart, and do not destroy the pious with the impious. But if you will take pity and spare the church . . . remove Arius, so that heresy may not come in with him, and impiety not be regarded as piety.”

According to Athanasius, Arius evidently emboldened by his audience with the emperor and his friends' subsequent support, spent the afternoon making speeches and boasting of his impending triumph, until “compelled by a call of nature,” he quickly excused himself. Stricken by a sudden and violent attack of cholera, Arius died that very day.

Again, Arianism did not instantly die with him. The error continued to trouble the church for at least a generation after that. But finally, owing to the convincing biblical defense made by Athanasius, the poisonous effects of Arian doctrine itself, and the rise of younger, more faithful men like Jerome to positions of influence in the church, the tide began to turn. Within a hundred years, Arianism had all but died out.

Although Arianism persists even today in quasi-Christian groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, and a few lesser cults,
⁷
the demise of Arianism as a dominant force in church history is a testimony to the power of one man's faithful diligence in the Truth War.
⁸
God uses faithful warriors for the truth as His instruments to preserve the gospel for each succeeding generation. Only the unfaithful have no interest in being useful to the Lord in that way.

My salvation and yours depends on a true understanding of Christ and who He is. A false christ is a damning deception (1 John 4:15; 5:1, 5, 10–12, 20; 2 John 7–11). The doctrine of Christ is no mere academic or secondary truth. This whole episode is a prime lesson about how much is at stake in the Truth War. It is also a classic example of how false teachers use subtlety to advance their cause.

WHY WE MUST KEEP OUR GUARD UP

The Arian conflict also exemplifies what kind of spiritual chaos false teachers can cause when the church becomes weary of conflict and decides to cease fighting for a season.

One of the main lessons of Jude's epistle is that Christians must never cease fighting. We cannot pretend error is no longer worth battling in our generation. We should not imagine that the enemy has finally shifted into retreat mode. The war against the truth goes on continuously, unrelentingly, on multiple fronts—and it always has.

Jude's epistle has a very broad sweep. That fact stands out starkly because the epistle is so short. Jude takes a condensed, fish-eye view of all history, starting from the beginning of time. He shows that the Truth War has been a perpetual reality ever since sin first entered the universe. The long struggle between truth and falsehood is one of the central themes of all history. It has been a long, protracted, uninterrupted state of siege—and we are still in the thick of the battle.

JUDE TAKES A CONDENSED,
FISH-EYE VIEW OF ALL
HISTORY, STARTING FROM
THE BEGINNING OF TIME.
HE SHOWS THAT THE TRUTH
WAR HAS BEEN A PERPETUAL
REALITY EVER SINCE SIN
FIRST ENTERED THE
UNIVERSE. THE LONG
STRUGGLE BETWEEN TRUTH
AND FALSEHOOD IS ONE OF
THE CENTRAL THEMES OF
ALL HISTORY.

Jude mentions, for example, the fall of Satan and the angels who followed him (v. 6). He refers to Adam by name (v. 14). He speaks of the error of Cain (v. 11). He alludes to the preaching of Enoch, and hence the apostasy of that generation (v. 14–15) .He recounts the immorality of Sodom and Gomorrah (v.7), the false teaching of Balaam (v. 11), and the rebellion of Korah (v. 11). The spiritual war as he describes it covers the whole course of human history.

The big-picture perspective is deliberately designed to help us understand the sweeping saga of what God is doing. What Jude lays out in a few words is a CliffsNotes perspective on the long war against truth. The point is that we are still embroiled in that conflict today, and we cannot afford to lay down our arms. There is a good and valid reason that the church on earth has always been known as “the church militant.” Our generation has by no means been granted an exemption from the necessary conflict. As a matter of fact, Christianity in our time is besieged with spiritual pretenders, and their lies are as subtle and as dangerous as ever. Some of them are even the same old lies simply recycled for a new generation.

Sabellianism, for instance, has made a strong comeback. The hallmark of “Oneness Pentecostalism” is a denial of the Trinity and a view of the Godhead that is indistinguishable from ancient Sabellianism. Yet many—perhaps
most
—in the evangelical movement today are perfectly willing to ignore the lessons of Scripture and history, set aside the whole disagreement as something entirely nonessential, and embrace contemporary Sabellianism as a legitimate expression of authentic Christian faith. For at least a decade now, evangelical best-seller lists have included a steady stream of works by authors and musicians who deny the doctrine of the Trinity. They hold to a distinctive version of
modalism.
That is the official position of “Oneness Pentecostals” and the United Pentecostal Church International. As these groups and their popular spokespersons have found increasing acceptance in the evangelical mainstream, modalism is suddenly being accepted as if it were a valid evangelical option.

In that regard, our era mirrors exactly what was happening in Athanasius's time. Multitudes have blithely declared all conflict and strife over doctrine in the church a thing of the past—as if all the serious threats to the truth had already been vanquished and the church could now ignore the threat of ungodly false teachers who creep in unnoticed.

The reality is quite different. The false church is growing. Waves of apostasy are rolling higher and higher and higher as we move ever closer to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember that in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, Paul indicates that the final cataclysmic earthly judgment (the day of the Lord) will be preceded by “
the
falling away”—an era of apostasy, and a time of “unrighteous deception” (v. 10, emphasis added) more widespread and more spiritually devastating than anything the world has ever seen.

The ages-old war against truth is simply setting the stage for that final, desperate uprising. All of history has been one long, steady march to that goal. It is now closer than it has ever been.

6

THE EVIL OF FALSE TEACHING: HOW ERROR TURNS GRACE INTO LICENTIOUSNESS

Certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were
marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the
grace of our God into lewdness.

—Jude 4

W
hy is it so vital to fight for the truth? Because truth is W
_the
only thing that can liberate people from the bondage of sin and give them eternal life (John 8:32; 14:6). That is precisely what Paul meant when he said the gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16; 1 Corinthians 1:18).

Truth (the simple truth of the gospel, to be specific) is necessary for salvation. “For ‘whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.' [But how] shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:13–14). Scripture is clear about this: there is no hope of salvation apart from hearing and believing the truth about Christ (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:21).

That is why nothing is more destructive than false religion. Mere ignorance is devastating enough: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). But gospel-corrupting apostasy is the most sinister of all evils. It not only conceals the very core of all truth from those who most desperately need it, but it also breeds more and more iniquity.

APOSTATE FALSE TEACHERS
WHO REMAIN IN THE
CHURCH AND UNDERMINE
TRUE FAITH ARE OFTEN
EXTREMELY SUBTLE, BUT
THEY ARE NEVER HARMLESS.
HERESY ALWAYS BREEDS
MORE EVIL, AND THE CLOSER
ANY LIE COMES TO THE
HEART OF THE GOSPEL, THE
MORE DIABOLICAL IS THE
FRUIT IT BEARS.

As a matter of fact, apostate religion is dynamic in the same way gospel truth is—but it produces exactly the opposite results. It intensifies sin's bondage, multiplies sin's pollutions, and magnifies sin's consequences. In every way imaginable, false religion makes the calamity of sin worse than ever.

In other words, teaching gospel-corrupting error as if it were biblical truth is no insignificant sin. Apostasy is always portrayed in Scripture as a deadly danger. Apostate false teachers who remain in the church and undermine true faith are often extremely subtle, but they are never harmless. Heresy always breeds more evil, and the closer any lie comes to the heart of the gospel, the more diabolical is the fruit it bears.