Apostasy of the Church

Restoration of All Things – Part I: Apostasy of the Church

The specter of lawlessness is haunting the entire world. Many peoples lament over the dialectic of freedom vs. security, crying out for freedom. The faithful still seek signs of the Lord’s coming, while skeptics disclaim His Deity. Will He come again? Even the early Christian Church debated whether the day of the Lord had already come. To this the apostle Paul was as unequivocal as Peter and spoke the same message as Peter. The day of the Lord had NOT come, nor could it come until certain events would occur — notably the “apostasy of the church.” And after nearly 2000 years since the Lord’s resurrection, believers continue to contend with this question of the promise of His Presence (coming.) Many faithful are familiar with the concept of the Apostasy of the Church but for the most part misunderstand the true nature of Apostasy. This writing will examine the real meaning of the word in Greek, what is its nature and how it looks in our current time. Finally, the exploration of the biblical record will illuminate why the apostasy must happen and how its manifestation in full form will signal the imminent return of Christ.

With the overwhelming chaos of our time, and many of the Lord’s own words about signs of His coming, is there anything definitive that could give us cause to expect His appearance in our era, to see the long anticipated end of this current age? Could a more complete apostasy of the church be the modern day equivalent of the sin of the Amorites, and thus an indication of “the times and the seasons?”

What must we see before we see the Lord again in time and space? Turning to Jesus’ own words, which Matthew recorded as Christ’s response to the query about Elijah appearing before He, the Christ, comes.: “Elijah indeed is coming and will restore all things.”

And of Jesus coming Presence, Peter bore witness in his address in Acts 3:

whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the beginning of the age.

Acts 3:21

And this begs the question: What happens before the restoration of all things? Since Elijah comes to restore all things for His promised Presence, things must be in great disarray prior to Elijah making straight the highway in the wilderness.

Apostasy – Rebellion against God

Surely Christ laid out the perfect doctrine (teaching) and brought all that He taught them back to the minds of His disciples. It was and is “the faith once delivered to the holy ones.” (Jude 3) Why then should there needs be a restoration? Jude answers directly in the succeeding verse, namely that certain men crept in unawares and turned the grace of God into lasciviousness, denying their only Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. In short, there is an apostasy, which deceives and leads men astray. It is disobedience to the Gospel; it is the apostasy of the church.

And this apostasia, as it is called in the Greek, is not merely a falling away from the faith. It is a revolt, a rebellion, an outright insurrection against authority, in this case the only truly authority, who is above every ruler and authority, Jesus Christ.

Paul is clear that we must see this in its fullness before Christ Jesus returns. Listen to his words to the Thessalonians:

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction.

2 Thessalonians 2:1-3

From another perspective, we can get confirmation from the parable which Jesus taught in Luke 19. He confessed to speak in illustrations, so let’s examine this second witness which establishes the matter.

As they heard these things, he proceeded to tell a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. He said therefore, “A nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return. Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten minas, and said to them, ‘Engage in business until I come.’ But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to reign over us.’ When he returned, having received the kingdom, he ordered these servants to whom he had given the money to be called to him, that he might know what they had gained by doing business. The first came before him, saying, ‘Lord, your mina has made ten minas more.’ And he said to him, ‘Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities.’ And the second came, saying, ‘Lord, your mina has made five minas.’ And he said to him, ‘And you are to be over five cities.’ Then another came, saying, ‘Lord, here is your mina, which I kept laid away in a handkerchief; for I was afraid of you, because you are a severe man. You take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow.’ He said to him, ‘I will condemn you with your own words, you wicked servant! You knew that I was a severe man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow? Why then did you not put my money in the bank, and at my coming I might have collected it with interest?’ And he said to those who stood by, ‘Take the mina from him, and give it to the one who has the ten minas.’ And they said to him, ‘Lord, he has ten minas!’ ‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.’”

Luke 19:11-27

His citizens hated him. Just as John wrote: He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. This is rebellion. It is modern day Pharisaism which establishes its own “traditions of men” while rejecting the commandments of God.

And like it or not, this is the current insurrection, the apostasy of the Church, standing against the authority of their leader and king, who has articulated the Royal Law of the Kingdom. It is not a ‘falling away’ as has been taught for generations. It is a condition that is extreme, an outright rebellion against authority. The conventional ‘tradition of men’ have portrayed the apostasy as a falling away from the faith, a kind of passive decline, or backsliding away from the faith once delivered. Nothing could be further from the truth. The apostasy is an outright rebellion within the community against their king, against his requirements for obedience of the faith. It is a replacement of Christ by another, actually any other, and this is the definition of anti-Christ, one who stands ‘in place of’ Christ. It is the man of lawlessness standing in the Holy Place withing God’s Temple in the people of God, each one who has put themself in place of Christ as ruler.

To quote one lexicon: apostasia is “to rise up in open defiance of authority, with the presumed intention to overthrow it or to act in complete opposition to its demands.” And we are seeing in our day, this open defiance of the Law of Christ, an opposition to its demands. The authority of Christ in His own Church, His own body, is being overthrown, just as Korah and his comrades defied the authority of God placed in Moses and Aaron. Of course, Christ cannot be overthrown, but the intention is to install lawlessness in place of the Royal Law (James) — to love your neighbor as yourself. Rejecting this commandment of Christ, is revolting against His Kingdom and thus, apostasy of the church.

A Modern Day Revolt

The insurrection against the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on January 6 of this year was the perfect physical shadow of the spiritual reality. So-called believers rebelled against the kingdom of God, injuring and killing their neighbors in the name of Jesus Christ. They acted in complete opposition to the demands of their own proclaimed authority — Jesus Christ. What a travesty. What an abomination before man and God. What a tribute of bloodshed to the man of lawlessness. It was so much more than sedition against an historical state. The January 6th insurrection was a blow against the kingdom of God. This violent rebellion said nothing less than “We are not going to follow our Lord, but we reject His Royal Law, to love our neighbors as ourselves, but we will establish life on our terms, according to our own laws, and we will do what is right in our own eyes.” THIS IS ABSOLUTE LAWLESSNESS AND REBELLION AGAINST GOD HIMSELF.

A litany of violations of Christ’s commandments witnessed in this revolt would number in the dozens. To begin with, we are commanded to walk as He walked, to pick up our cross and follow Him, not pick up our sword (or gun) and smite our neighbor. We are also enjoined by two witnesses, Peter and Paul, from engaging in insurrection against the nation we live in. God established these nations and their spatial and temporal boundaries, for His own purposes. To rebel against our circumstances is to rebel against God.

Yet, for citizens of the Kingdom of God it is actually much worse. Carrying a banner of Jesus Christ is a statement that affirms our declaration of His Gospel and teaching. If we then behave in ways that overthrow His Gospel of Peace and His Kingdom of Righteousness, then we are in rebellion against God, and this is The Great Apostasy, The Apostasy of the Church. We are now aligned with the man of lawlessness, operating by the power of the Adversary. This is serious business, not simply a protest for rights. The book of First Samuel makes clear the evil of rebellion.

“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,

as in obeying the voice of the Lord?

Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,

and to listen than the fat of rams.

For rebellion is as the sin of divination,

and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.

Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,

he has also rejected you from being king.”

1 Samuel 15:22-23

In this snippet from the holy history of Israel, we see how God uses Saul as a figure to foreshadow not only the man of lawlessness, but also His people Israel as well, which in our time means the church. Saul did not simply ‘fall away’ from faith in YHWH, he rebelled against obedience to God. It is as the sin of witchcraft. And so is the apostasy of the church — it is as the sin of witchcraft.

Just as King Saul did, these people are following the voice of demons. Jesus laid it out for His servant John to relate to the churches in Asian Minor. Christ’s subjects can either celebrate Him on the throne or else worship demons and themselves and the work of their own hands. This as the Revelation message states is idolatry and witchcraft.

The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

Revelation 9:20-21

Some will say but this has been true since the beginning of the early church. Nothing has changed. To some extent they are right. What has changed is the attempted overthrow of all authority in Christ’s own church. Those whom he has called and chosen, and fitted for certain tasks in the body, are not acknowledged or respected. Each one does what is right in his own eyes. (Judges 21:25) “In those days there was no king in Israel.”

But now we have a King, indeed the King of kings, and STILL each one does what is right in His or her own eyes. The Law of Christ is overthrown. It is as if Christ saved all to pursue their own glory rather than redeeming all that they would give glory to God. Grace does not expand to increase Sin.

So what is different in our time is that the insurrection against the King portrayed in Luke has become FULL, the citizens of the kingdom do NOT want the king to rule over them, but they want to be a law unto themselves. And this is the REIGN OF THE MAN OF LAWLESSNESS, sitting down in the temple (of God within us) and declaring Himself God and overthrowing the true King, Jesus Christ.

When the congregations of Christendom become united as a synagogue of Satan against their presumed leader, our Lord Jesus Christ, then the apostasy of the church, the rebellion, will be complete and the man of lawlessness will have taken many captive by deception. He then may be freed to step upon the stage of world history. As Paul said to the Thessalonians:

And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.

2 Thessalonians 2:6-8

And who is He who restrains the mystery of lawlessness? Of course it is the One to whom ALL AUTHORITY IN HEAVEN AND ON EARTH is given, even Jesus Christ. How is He taken out of the way? Simple. When the people of God no longer walk in His ways to the Glory of HIS NAME, then He is out of the way so the Mystery of Iniquity can complete its course.

Thus the nature of the rebellion is clear. It is lawlessness. To love God’s people is to keep Christ’s commandments (1 John), so clearly rebellion consists in the rejection of the Lord’s commandments. And this is to fail to walk in His ways, and a failure to glorify Him.

46“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? 47Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.^c 49But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”

Luke 6:46-49

Christ Jesus not only teaches here in Luke about the nature of rebellion, this disobedience to the Gospel, this rejection of following Him and walking in His ways. He also paints a very graphic word picture of what is the result in the life of the rebellious member of His kingdom — it is the destruction of their house. And so it will be now in this time of the ultimate apostasy of the Church, major disobedience to the Royal Law, the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus which sets us free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:1-2). The House of the apostate Church, that is taking the Lord’s name in vain, by claiming Him as Lord, and being disobedient to His word. Let Paul serve as a second witness to establish the matter.

5This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering— 6since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. https://livingbreadandlivingwater.net/the-obedience-of-faith/

2 Thessalonians 1:5-8

Can you see why Christ is in the way, restraining the man of lawlessness? We need to have the deeper understanding that this applies to us on an individual level as well as to the collective consciousness of the entire planet. If we move Christ out of the way, if we treat His blood as unclean (Hebrews), if we overthrow His Grace with lawlessness, do we not engage the “mystery of iniquity” and foster it’s expansion?

And yet, that is part of the mystery of the Gospel, that in spite of the apostasy of the Church, Christ’s Body will be delivered into the Kingdom which will come on earth as it is in Heaven. And His Presence will do away with “the man of lawlessness” by the Spirit of His mouth. That One will be destroyed everywhere he is found, including within the body of believers. Christ has built His Church upon a Rock (Gk. petra) and the gates of Hades (in Greek, ‘unseen’) will not prevail against it. Our victory over the man of lawlessness within, within the Temple of God, upon the Throne, is our capacity to withstand the ‘Gates of Hades’ as a member of the body of Christ, a part of His Church.

And that brings us to “man of lawlessness,” whose revelation must precede the ‘day of the Lord.’ During this greatest time of trouble in the entire history of the nations (Daniel 12:1), the Wicked One will afflict the holy ones, the Israel of God. Contemporaneous with this period of history and the rule of ‘the lawless one’ will be the ministry of two witnesses (Revelation 11) as the Church is measured by a heavenly measure (rod). Faithful ones may see this time as “the days of Elijah,” who comes “to restore all things,” as Christ prophesied (Matthew 17). Only then does the King of kings enter into history again; only then does the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Lord and His Christ (Revelation 11:15).

The once and future story continues in Part II of this writing that portrays the ‘man of lawlessness,’ who is part of the coming restoration, albeit in a unique role as the ‘king’ of the “Apostate Church.” His role lies in the function of providing the dark alternative to the glorious Kingdom of God. This alternative kingdom is embraced by those who did not receive a love of the truth and by that became susceptible to a spirit of delusion.