Deception

There has been enormous deception in the Christian world over the centuries. We only have to think of the time of the Spanish Inquisition, when people were burned at the stake for believing differently in a number of respects from what the great, in my view misguided, Roman Catholic Church prescribed.

Of course, the devil, God’s great adversary, is hell-bent on seeing to it that we are led astray from the simple truth of the gospel to other things that may look like the gospel but simply are not, thus robbing us of the simple message that is the power of salvation for everyone who believes (Romans 1:16).

From the very beginning of the Bible, you see the adversary, in the shape of the serpent, acting with the sole purpose of deceiving mankind so that man would no longer be dependent on and obedient to his Creator. That instead of worshipping God, perhaps unintentionally, we would begin to worship the devil.

In this article I would like to highlight a number of issues relating to deception. I want to look at some of the deceptions mentioned in the Bible, and of course the deception of all deceptions, the Fall. I also want to go into the history of the Church and point out some of the things that are biblically wrong. I also want to dwell on our modern times and some of the temptations that are prevalent.

One of the things I want to touch on is how deception works, what strategies the enemy uses to get us to see things a different way. A common comment in this regard is: “That’s outdated” or “We think differently nowadays”.

This is not meant to be an exhaustive listing, I just want to touch on some issues with the intention that we will be stimulated to seek God and expect answers from Him.

The Fall

The Fall is described in the Bible in Genesis 3:1-24. God completed His creation by creating man in His image. He then gave man a place to live in His presence, the “Garden of Eden”, to walk with Him in the cool of the evening (Genesis 3:8). In this Garden, also called Paradise, God had planted the Tree of Life, which would bear fruit that would provide man with eternal life, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Man was not allowed to eat from the latter tree, or he would loose his immortality and die.

In this way, God has made man and his life dependent on obedience to God. Love is voluntary and therefore cannot be exercised without a conscious decision. In the Bible, you will see that there is often a connection between loving God on the one hand and obeying Him on the other (see John 14:15, 21, 23 and 1 John 5:3).

One day, as man is walking in the garden, the serpent, that is the devil, goes on the attack to tempt man to abandon obedience and the loving dependence on God and to become self-sufficient. He does not use blatant lies, but plays very subtly on people’s emotions. He tells the “truth”, but not the whole truth; he uses the “truth” to cloak a lie.

And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?(Genesis 3:1)

The truth is that God spoke, the truth is that there is one tree from which they were not allowed to eat, but the suggestion that this applies to ‘any tree’ or to all trees is a lie.

₂And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: ₃but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. ₄And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: ₅for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
(Genesis 3: 2-5)

When the woman answers, the devil comes with his big attack. Again, lie wrapped in truth. The truth is that we will be like God, knowing good and evil. The lie is that we will not die. The truth that we will be like God is also only partly true, we will be sovereign, dependent on our own understanding, burdened with increasing personal responsibility. What the devil does not tell us is that we lack the power to live up to this responsibility, because God has kept it to Himself, so that only in complete dependence on Him we are able to truly love Him.

The result of the lie is that the woman begins to look at the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, with the result that they both eat of it.

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
(Genesis 3: 6)

The result is that man is placed under the condemnation and becomes mortal. He is denied access to the Tree of Life. He is thrown back on himself with all its consequences. We only have to look at the Bible and at the newspaper to understand what this means. Man, who is called to love God and to live in dependence and obedience to God, and thus to be an image-bearer of God (Genesis 1:26), is thrown back upon himself, and the glory of God is gone.

The devil has not changed. He still uses the same methods to deceive people. His main focus is on people who want to love God and do what pleases Him. Even today he uses truth to wrap up his lies.

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: (1 Petrus 5:8)

We have to assume that even today the devil is still trying to draw us and the Church away from God. So we are to be on guard, even today.

The early Church

Very early on in the Church we see the need for the apostles to act against the deceptions that are emerging. The first major attack is on the freedom of the young Christians. By trying to convince them that they should be circumcised according to Jewish custom, and then also keep teh lwas of Mozes theway it was understood by the Jews[1] . Later, you will also find deceptions of a different order. Deceptions arising from popular philosophies and social developments. Here the devil uses a questionable and dangerous strategy; he penetrates the Church (Galatians 2:4, 1 John 2:19, Jude 1:4). In addition to the great attempt to eradicate the young Church by imprisoning and often killing young Christians, first on the initiative of the Jewish leaders and later also by the Roman authorities, he uses methods to destroy the Church from within by changing the content of the message, sometimes subtly, and thus invalidating it. This attack is referred to in the Bible as the work of the Antichrist (1 John 2:18-19). I will focus on four deceptions that the early church faced, namely:

1. Jewish Legalism (traditional Orthodoxy)
2. Lawlessness (liberalism)
3. New Women (social criticism)
4. Greek philosophy (modern thought)

After Paul and Barnabas had planted a few churches in the area of southern Galatia during their first missionary journey, the churches of Antioch in Pisidia, Ikonium, Lystra and Derbe (see Ac 13:13 – 14:20), things soon went wrong. We read that under the pressure of persecution, Paul and Barnabas were only able to stay with the fledgling churches for a short time at a time. So a foundation was laid, but it is understandable that it is still very fragile. When immediately afterwards so-called brothers from the circle of the Pharisees go there to convince these young Christians that they should be circumcised, confusion ensues. Not surprisingly, it became necessary to take action. Paul and Barnabas are sent to Jerusalem to present the case to the apostles and elders of the church there (see Ac 15:1-34). Paul defended the gospel as he had preached it to these Gentiles..

The background to this deception is to be found in the Jewish religious culture of the time. Long before Christ, there was talk of baptism by immersion, known as proselyte baptism. When a gentile came to believe in God and wanted to become part of God’s people, he had to be baptised and then circumcised and learn to keep the Law of Moses. Baptism was meant to wash away the uncleanness, for a gentile was considered unclean; Jewish tradition even forbids a Jew to touch a gentile because he is unclean. Being in the same house as a gentile or sitting at the same table with a gentile was therefore taboo. Even in the early church, in the church of Antioch, this was such an issue (Galatians 2:11-14). Paul vehemently opposes this and even corrects Peter when he suddenly decides not to sit at the same table with Gentiles.

The Epistles of Paul

Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians was written in response to this situation. In the first chapter he identifies the deception. In the second chapter of this letter Paul defends himself against the accusations of this group of Pharisaic Jews. In chapters 3 and 4 he explains the fast difference between the Old and New Covenant and the status of the Law in the Gospel. In chapter 5 you will find the correct application of the law in the command to love the brother (Galatians 5:13-14) and how we can bear fruit to God in our lives.

You will also find references to the same problem in other epistles, albeit in a slightly different way. Then, in Paul’s letter to the Colossians, the issue is no longer circumcision, but eating and drinking and keeping Sabbaths and holidays (Colossians 2:16-17).

The Epistle to the Romans also breathes the atmosphere of struggle. Paul states emphatically that, contrary to what Jewish tradition would have us believe, Jews cannot be justified by keeping the law.

By the way, that is not possible at all, even in the Old Testament perspective. In addition to the 10 Commandments, there are the sacrificial ordinances. It seems to me that if there had been a way to be justified by keeping the 10 commandments, these sacrifices would have been unnecessary. The Bible tells us that these sacrifices are a type of the reality that is in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:24, Colossians 2:16-17, Hebrews 9:9). So the deception that came from this group of Pharisees is not only unscriptural from a New Testament perspective, but also from an Old Testament perspective.

Lawlessness

Another group of false brethren is mentioned in the Epistles of Peter and Jude (2 Peter 2, Jude 1:4). This deception focuses on the fact that grace is so abundant that one can sin at will. Jude also speaks of “certain people who have crept in”. Jude accuses them of turning grace into licentiousness.[2]

Paul also addresses this issue in his Epistle to the Romans, specifically in chapter 6, where he twice declares his “GOD FORBID” to a question that has to do with “continuing in sin” (Romans 6:1) and “sinning because we are no longer under the law” (Romans 6:15).

I have often heard, often from the pulpit, that grace is so abundant that we can continue in sin. While I believe that grace is sufficient, there is a huge pitfall here, which is that we become indifferent to the fact that we are still sinning, and therefore do not take the Bible’s call to sanctification seriously. Grace is conditioned on repentance and confession. If we sincerely love God, we no longer want to sin, even though we still sometimes make mistakes out of weakness, but we have not made sin our core business (1 John 3:9, which could also be translated as “core business”). Sanctification is therefore not an optional extra, but a required thing (Hebrews 12:14).

New women

When we read in the Bible how Jesus treated women, we see that He gave women a prime position, contrary to what was common in that culture. Mary sat at the feet of Jesus (Luke 10:38-42), a place reserved for men in the culture of the time. To sit at the feet of a Rabbi was to belong to his inner circle of disciples. Paul sat at the feet of Gamaliel (Ac 22:3). So Martha’s request to Jesus to have Mary help her serve was not only because Martha did not want to do everything on her own, but also because of the culture which dictated that the woman’s place in such situations was ‘in the kitchen’.

Jesus appeared to women first after his resurrection, Paul often used women in his apostolic ministry. And so there are many more examples of women taking a full place in the life of the churches.

However, the early Church was confronted with another phenomenon, the so-called “new women”. This women’s movement was accompanied by a renunciation of marriage. These women often began to behave and dress like a prostitute and had a contempt for all things male. For sex they used concubines, men they had with them for sexual purposes only. These women were extremely autonomous and paid little or no attention to their immediate surroundings.

Because the position of women in the church was very different to that of that culture, the influence of these “new women” soon began to be felt in the churches.

1 Timothy 2

In the second chapter of Paul’s first Epistle to Timothy (1 Timothy 2:9-15), Paul gives a number of prescriptions on how women should dress and behave. In the light of the above, it is reasonable to conclude that Paul was not telling women to go back to the ‘kitchen’, but was counteracting what he saw as an excessive situation created by the influence of these ‘new women’.

Other Epistles show that the apostles put a very high value on marriage and a sober morality surrounding it (Ephesians 5:22-33, Colossians 3:18-19, 1 Peter 3:1-7). On the one hand, wives are to submit to their husbands; on the other hand, husbands are to love their wives and treat them as if they were fragile dishes. What is very much expressed here is that “one should esteem the other above himself” (Philippians 2:3) and that the division of roles between them is functional and not formally positional.

Greek philosophy

In the final section, I would like to describe the influence of Greco-Roman thinking in this context. Particularly in the second half of the first century, the influence of what is known as ‘Gnosis’ began to be clearly felt. In this philosophy, the view concerning the body and the mind had gone so far that these people could not believe that the body and everything associated with it was of any importance. They had to try to transcend the physical state through meditation and the like. In Hinduism you find much of the same kind of thing. Gnosis was about the deeper spiritual. Influenced by this philosophy, a doctrine began to develop in the young church which began to deny the bodily appearance of Jesus (1 John 4:1-6). It was unthinkable to these people that God, as the supreme spiritual being, would lower himself to the hideous physical state. Jesus was therefore seen as something of an ethereal apparition. John, in his first Epistle, explicitly opposes this doctrine, calling it a heresy or a deception of the Antichrist, and that this doctrine, by denying the bodily coming of Jesus, nullifies the work of Jesus on the cross.

In Conclusion

As Jesus foretells in the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30), the Kingdom of God in its manifestation in this world will consist of a mixture of wheat and tares[3]. The other parables also illustrate such a relationship. The pressure from within, from people who call themselves Christians but who are not really Christians, arises right from the first century of the Church. On four fronts:

1. Religious thinking
2. Liberal thinking
3. Social development
4. Modern thinking

In addition, the pressure from the surrounding community is great, the pressure from the religious community, especially the Jewish community at that time, is felt from the very first day. Not much later you also see pressure from the social environment, which eventually led to severe persecution by various Roman emperors.

In the remainder of this article, I will show that while there have been some changes here and there in the shape of deception, the pressures are still strong on the same fronts today.

Church History

Throughout history there have always been attacks on the essence of the gospel. What began in the time of the apostles has continued and intensified ever since the apostels died.

The Gospel of John describes Jesus turning water into wine as the first sign (John 2:1-11). There is much to be said about the symbolism of this miracle, but I don’t want to go into that in this context. I want to make a comparison between what Jesus did and what the Church has done with it over the centuries.

Jesus turned water into wine, and the Church has always diluted that wine with water.

Let us say that, in this comparison, wine symbolises the power and life of the gospel and its eternal value, and water symbolises human measure, often shape without content. While the Bible explains the ‘flow’ of life, the Church has always been about form and ritual. Jesus says that the new wine belongs in new wineskins, but the church has either brought back the old wineskins, with all their consequences for the new wine, or it has settled for a wineskin without wine, an empty shell, so to speak. In this chapter I want to touch on some of these issues to paint a picture of how deception has done its work in the Church.

Constantine the Great

In the first half of the fourth century, when the Church of Jesus Christ was about 300 years old, the Church was on the verge of fundamental change. It wasn’t just the influence of Constantine, let’s just say the time was ready, given the developments within the Church.

Emperor Constantine the Great is said to have come to faith and become part of the Church. We may doubt the authenticity of this conversion. He was not exactly humble, judging by the mausoleum he built for himself. In this mausoleum he placed the remains of the 12 apostles and made a tomb for himself, with himself in the centre and the apostles in a circle around him. Jesus warns us to look for the fruit of people and not for their fine words: You will not gather grapes from a thorn bush” (Matthew 7:15-20).

Having come to faith, he did what a proper emperor does – he took over the leadership of the church. From a structural point of view, he made three major changes:

1. He built the first church buildings,
2. He introduced a pagan-based priesthood,
3. He introduced the hierarchical model of leadership

He was also a notorious anti-Semite, so anything that had the slightest whiff of Jewishness had to disappear. The, in his words, ‘Jewish’ Sabbath and festivals were banned.[4]

Building

Emperor Constantine built the first church in the form of a theatre, with a stage in the centre and seating in a semicircle around it.

In the added picture the semicircles represent the seating and standing areas and the blue area represents the stage.

The congregation was then divided into two parts. There was an active group of people who had to do their thing on the stage, called the “cleris”, and next to them the “laymen” who sat in the auditorium as spectators. On the stage was an altar set up for the celebration of the Lord’s Table.

Over the centuries, this concept has undergone many changes, but what is typical of all such buildings is that there is a stage for the priests’ activities and a hall for the common people.

Constantine placed the priest’s ministry on the platform, and after the Reformation it shifted to the pastor and the pulpit. In modern churches, the pulpit is again giving way to the platform, where other liturgical acts take place alongside the proclamation of the Word. In modern evangelical churches, music ministry has moved to the platform also.

For the first 300 years of its existence, the Church did not have a building, the major events took place in public spaces, the other activities of the Church took place in people’s homes. In other words, during this period, the Church was in no way associated with a building; the Church was the people. With the introduction of buildings, people began to associate the Church more and more with a place to go, especially on Sundays, for Mass or a worship service. As a result, worship also became associated with that building.

Priest

Constantine the Great also introduced a separate priesthood, similar to that found in Greco-Roman religious culture. The priests were specially selected and trained. These priests were paid by the government and had access to Constantine’s court. This abolished the biblical idea that every believer is a priest (1 Peter 2:5 and 9, Matthew 23:7-11) and that we are therefore all brothers equal to one another.

The Reformation in the 16th and 17th centuries brought a theological change with the restoration of the ‘priesthood of all believers’. In practice, however, this did not mean that everyone in the church was again entitled to participate in or lead all activities. In the various church ordinations, the proclamation of the word and the administration of the sacraments were still reserved for a person trained and ordained for this purpose, the pastor or vicar.

To this day, you see this division of roles between ‘clergy’ and ‘laity’, in one shape or other, in almost all types of church. Even within what we call the house church culture, you still often find this separation of roles.

Hierarchy

As the leader of a great empire, Emperor Constantine also did what could be expected of him in terms of leadership. Firstly, he set himself up as the leader of the church, but he also gave great powers to the bishops, the overseers of the early church. These powers allowed the bishops to make decisions without consulting the congregation.

Soon after this hierarchical model of leadership was introduced, several layers of hierarchy began to emerge. Archbishops were then appointed from the circle of bishops to lead a group of bishops, and it was not long before the ‘bishop of all bishops’, the pope, appeared. However, this model of leadership is explicitly denounced as unacceptable in the Bible by Jesus himself, who says: “So it shall not be among you” (Matthew 20:25-28).

This model of leadership can be found in various forms in almost all churches. The Pope is, of course, specific to the Roman Catholic Church, but the other Orthodox churches, such as the Greek and Russian, as well as the Syrian and Coptic, also have an ecclesiastical head. The Anglican Church is even headed by the King of England.

Within the Reformation, you can see the model flattening out a bit and often a so-called “multi-headed leadership” emerging. This multi-headed leadership still has far-reaching powers. The idea that ‘you are all brothers’ (Matthew 23:8), that we therefore make the important decisions together as a congregation, is usually not prominent or glaringly absent.

Constantine the Great took no serious notice of the words of Paul to the Romans, words that should have been expressly heeded by him as Roman ruler:

…And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (Romans 12:2)

He was above all the one who brought the church into conformity with the world. All the changes he made were either borrowed from his own position as emperor or copied from what was common in Greco-Roman religious culture.

Middle Ages

There is no period in the history of the Church when the Gospel was so much suppressed as during the Middle Ages. Popes who behaved like despots, the great political power of the Church of Rome. The Vatican at one time covered about half of what is now Italy. The Pope often determined who would become king or emperor.

Reconciliation had become a commodity, Rome’s great St Peter’s was built with money from ‘indulgences’, which people could buy to receive atonement for their sins.

Calls for change were stifled in blood. The Roman Curia and the Spanish Inquisition are notorious. The burning at the stake and other massacres of Protestants speak volumes,[5]. The fact that there are so many people with French names in the Netherlands dates back to the time when many Protestant Huguenots had to flee for their lives from France. Protestant Holland was a save haven for them.

Many monastic orders were also founded in the Middle Ages, in part from a call to devotion to God on a spiritual level, often with a strong social commitment. Many of the old sea dikes in Friesland, the north of the Netherlands, were literally the work of monks.

Throughout the centuries, in spite of pressure and persecution, there have been small groups who have taught and lived the Gospel in an original way. An example of such a group are the so-called Waldensians. Throughout the Middle Ages they remained critical of the Church, its hierarchy and priestly ministry. They paid a high price for this. It is partly thanks to these dedicated Christians that a reformation was initiated.

Reformation

During the Reformation, the appearance of the church changed dramatically. Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, and with him came people like Calvin and Zwingli. Many people came to a renewed faith in Jesus Christ through the dedicated preaching of these people and their followers. People sought out these preachers en masse, while these preachers increasingly had to work in secret. They would go and preach somewhere in the field or forest and people knew where to find them.

The big change was that much of the deception that had crept into the Church was exposed and removed. Even within the large Catholic Church much changed. For example, the system of selling indulgences was abolished.

In the Netherlands there was the great iconoclasm, an attempt to put an end to the veneration of Mary and the many saints who had taken the place of Jesus Christ. In countries that managed to break away politically from kings allied to the Roman Catholic Church, the central church became Protestant, the altar as the central point of the church was replaced by the pulpit. The art of printing was invented and Bibles were printed so that anyone who wanted one could have one, something that in the Catholic churches was reserved for theologians and other high officials. The Netherlands became Calvinist, much of Germany and Scandinavia Lutheran.

But centuries of deception are hard to undo in one generation. When 30 years later the call for adult baptism came from the Anabaptist movement, even the Protestant church was not ready for it. Even Luther is said to have said that adult baptism was more biblical than infant baptism, but the Protestant churches stuck to infant baptism. The main reason was that a view of church and state had emerged which in many ways was not very different from that of the Catholics. Church and society were one; it was inconceivable to people like Luther, and especially Calvin, that in a nation not everyone would be part of the same church. The image was ‘one nation under God’, and the city-state of Geneva under Calvin was pretty much the prototype for this. As a result, the Netherlands had a state church to which everyone belonged by birth. For a time, it was even a legal requirement to have your babies baptised. If you were not part of that church, you were effectively outlawed. The Mennonite movement also had a hard time in our Protestant country. If the Protestant church was not actively involved in the persecution of the Anabaptist Mennonites, it at least turned a blind eye and had blood on its hands.

It is only years later that we see that real religious freedom came after the separation of church and state. It was only then that the door was really opened for the Bible to be used again as a guide in every way.

In conclusion

From the very beginning of the Church there has been deception on many fronts. However, from the time Emperor Constantine the Great began to interfere in the Church, the Church came under the influence of doctrines and practices that were undoubtedly derived from Greco-Roman social and religious structures. The lowest point was, of course, the Dark Ages. The Church had completely abandoned the Gospel, and it was only in small, often inconspicuous groups that the Gospel could still be found. With the advent of the Reformation, not all these deceptions had been eliminated.

The question now is, what about today? Have we in our churches finally said goodbye to all these false teachings and deceptions?

In the next section I want to look at how deception has always worked and still works today. We are still dealing with the same devil who is cunningly working to deceive the Church of Jesus Christ. It is good to remember in advance that it is the Lord Jesus himself who warns us of the deceptions we face (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21).

Deception today

In this section, I first want to discuss what deception actually is, what the adversary of God is trying to accomplish with it, how deception works, and how we should guard against it. Then I will outline some of the threats that we are currently facing in our Churches.

What is deception

There are a number of variants of deception that we come across in the Bible:

1. Temptation into sin (Matthew 8:6-9, Mark 9:43-48)
2. False teachings
3. Undermining the power of the Gospel

In the image to the right, I have a railway track in mind. At one point we reach a turnout and are faced with the choice of deviating from the straight track. If we could see immediately where the track behind the switch would lead, we might not fall for the deception. But the devil has a secret strategy. He uses plausible arguments to tempt us to go along with him for a little while. Once we have made this choice, it seems that we are still on the right track. We are going in the same direction as those who are on the right track. It is only much later, when we reach the ‘point of no return‘, when our track suddenly bends.

The question then is whether we are still able to face what is unfolding. Often we are already so caught up in all sorts of things, or so blinded, that the way back has become almost, if not completely, impossible.

Temptation into sin

Although Satan is the source of all deception; he is called the father of all lies (John 8:44), it is not correct to focus on him alone. In Matthew 8 we see a number of sources of temptation into sin.

• People around us (verses 6,7)
• The world (verse 7)
• Things within us (verses 8,9)

This temptation is an attempt to get us to disobey His Word, to “do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord” (e.g. Deuteronomy 31:29). At stake is the fundamental commandment that we should love God above all else and our neighbour as ourselves (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:36-40). In practical terms, this standard is articulated in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17). This standard is further underlined and sharpened by Jesus in the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ (Matthew 5-7), according to which it is not only a question of not acting, but also of not desiring what is in our hearts (Matthew 5:28).

The devil’s deception is to belittle the truth of God’s Word or to declare it inapplicable. As we saw in the first chapter of this article, he already accomplished this in Genesis 3.

A common argument is that we are ‘no longer under the law’ but under grace. We then refer to Paul’s words in his Epistles (Galatians 2:15-21, Romans 3:21-30). But this is not the entirety of what Paul has to say. In chapters 6 to 8 of Romans, he devotes a great deal of attention to it. Grace in his eyes is not a licence to sin (see also Jude 1:4), on the contrary, we no longer live according to the flesh (Galatians 5:16), we are no longer of this world (Galatians 6:14).

Acoording to A.W.Pink [6]we are saved because there has come an end to:

• The pleasure of sin, we no longer take pleasure in it, we have grown to dislike everything to do with sin.
• The punishment of sin, our sin is forgiven,
• the power of sin, we no longer have to sin, we are no longer slaves to sin,
• the presence of sin, sin is at least on the verge of disappearing from our lives.

False teachings

Paul, in his Epistle to the churches of Galatia, pronounces the so-called ‘anathema’ (Galatians 1:9) on the preacher of another gospel. This shows that the content of what we believe affects the ultimate destination of our lives. In Galatians he then goes on to describe a piece of deception coming from what he calls ‘false brethren’ from Jerusalem. I described this in the chapter on the early church. The way it is conducted here is very typical of deception.

• Take a piece of truth
• Rotate it a quarter turn
• Then offer this as the (ultimate) truth

Typically, it makes frequent use of the Bible.

• Truth is juxtaposed with truth.
• Verses are taken out of context.
• Things are added to or taken away from the Word of God.
• Personal experience becomes leading
• Teaching things that are quasi-biblical

Truth is juxtaposed with truth

What often happens is that the Old and New Testaments are played off against each other. For example, things are dismissed as Old Testament or legalistic. The need to obey the Word of God is often dismissed as legalism. When I once pointed out that we have removed repentance from the gospel, the immediate response was: ‘We are not under the law, are we? What we often fail to realise is that at the time of the birth of the New Testament, people only had the Old Testament scriptures. Paul’s exhortation to Timothy to use the Bible referred primarily to the Old Testament (2 Timothy 3:16). Much of the New Testament had not yet been written. The great battle that Paul had with the Jews was not with the Old Testament, but with the Jewish tradition, such as the Talmud, and the way in which it explained the Old Testament. Paul himself, a Pharisee by birth, was schooled in this like no other. When Paul explains that we cannot be justified by works of the law, he is not contradicting the Old Testament, but explaining it as it should be explained. Jesus does the same in the Sermon on the Mount. When Jesus, contrary to the Jewish interpretation of ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’, explains that even ‘looking without touching’ is called adultery in the heart (Matthew 5:27-28), that says enough. It is not so much the text but its explication.

Isolated verses

By using isolated verses and then randomly putting them together, you can make the Bible say very different things from what was intended. See below for a funny example of reassembling verses.

And he ^(Judas) cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself
(Matthew 27:5)

 Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.
(Luke 10:37).

Any straightforward reader of the Bible knows that this is not allowed. And yet we often do such things.

A common phenomenon is that we have created a picture of something in our mind and then look for passages in the Bible that confirm this picture. Our Western need to fit things into a logical system, expressed in dogma, carries this huge risk. We then tend to make the passages that fit into our system bigger than they are, and to ignore, distort or rationalise away passages that claim otherwise (Psalm 119:160 ^{(NAS )} The sum of the word is truth and not just parts of it).

How we handle the promises of God is another such example. We make a list of God’s promises and are then instructed to build upon these promises, which we call faith. Often we are also instructed to proclaim the promises, believing that the words we utter have the power to actually bring about what has been promised. What we often fail to realise is that a promise in the Bible is usually accompanied by a condition that we have to fulfil in order to benefit from it. And what about promises that are of a negative nature towards us?

Adding to the Bible

There is a great danger in using all sorts of other sources of knowledge besides the Bible. Examples are Joseph Smith’s golden plates, the Book of Mormon of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the so-called Mormons. Apart from these inchoate additions, we are constantly under the influence of anything and everything. We read books and magazines, we watch television and surf the Internet. We often pick up bits of wisdom that play a role in the way we view things. Chances are that this often unbiblical wisdom will colour the Bible. Christian pastoral ministry is often laced with all sorts of wisdom from modern psychology, sociology and anthropology. Our view of the human person is often shaped by this and therefore influences the way we try to help people. It often involves well-intentioned but often unbiblical advice.

Sometimes these things are so obvious in our Christian culture that we don’t even realise they are unbiblical. In evangelistic sermons we often ask people to give their hearts to the Lord Jesus, or to invite or allow Jesus into their hearts. Even for me, this was so obvious that I never thought about it. But there is no mention of it in the Bible or anywhere else. When Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 causes the people to be pricked to the heart and ask the apostles, “What must we do, brothers?”, this is followed by a call to repentance and baptism:

₃₇Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? ₃₈Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. ₃₉For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. (Acts 2:37-39)

When you discover something like this, everything inside you is shaken to its foundations. How can something so evangelical at the same time be so unscriptural?

Taking away from the Word of God

When we add things to the Word of God, we simultaneously diminish it. We make other things more important than the Word, and at the same time the simple explanation is negated. In the example above about our evangelistic message, not only have we added something, but the biblical need for repentance is not mentioned. Of course, these are more subtle forms, but statements such as ‘this is out of date’ are commonplace. Biblical teaching on sexuality, marriage and family is dismissed, usually out of self-interest or to ease our consciences, as no longer of this day and age. Of course, much biblical teaching can be relegated to the realm of fables. At the end of the last book of the Bible, the Revelation of John, there is an important warning:

₁₈For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: ₁₉and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.(Openbaring 22:18,19, Zie ook Deuteronomium 4:2 en 12:32)

The question is, does this apply only to the book of Revelation, or to the whole Bible? Especially when you put it next to Jesus’ statement below:

₁₇Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. ₁₈For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. ₁₉Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.  (Matthew 5:17-19)

It appears to be more precarious than we often think.

Spiritual experience

Having personal spiritual experiences is very beneficial in our lives. Often these experiences are moments in our lives that take us to yhe next level. The moment we become a believer is a deep spiritual experience for many. When we are baptised, when we receive the Holy Spirit, when we receive the forgiveness of sins and many other things that have to do with having a relationship with God are often accompanied by deep spiritual experiences. Revivals such as the so-called ‘Awakenings’ in America, and also the Welsh revival and the Pentecostal revival that started in Asusa Street, were accompanied by very deep spiritual experiences that had a great impact on people locally and globally.

The danger of spiritual experience is not so much the spiritual experience itself, although vigilance is needed there too, the danger is that we then tend to make our spiritual experience the guiding light of our lives. When we do this, a pattern emerges in our lives where we become dependent on periodic, sometimes daily or weekly, moments of spiritual experience. The younger generation of Westerners often live in a mode of ‘if it feels good, it is good’. As a result, the younger generation in particular tends to let spiritual experience and the good feeling that comes with it be the guiding principle, even in the area of right and wrong, and not to see the Bible, especially the 10 Commandments, as an irrefutable standard.

A cry often heard in certain circles is that the things of God, the things of the Spirit, cannot be grasped with the mind. We are urged to turn our minds off, otherwise the spiritual experience or insight will pass us by. I myself have often heard this call and have followed it for a time. I myself have tasted the bitter fruit of it in my life. During this period of seeking deep spiritual experience, it led to tensions in my marriage and family. Family relationships were also unnecessarily strained. The hunt for experience led me to subordinate the simple text of the Bible to the experience, but the problem is that it doesn’t work that way. Instead of growth in faith and holiness, it led to weakness and sin. If God hadn’t graciously confronted me with the content of entire books of the Bible, I don’t know what would have become of me. Later in this article I will discuss the strategy of deception in this area, its short and long term consequences, and how we should guard against it.

Quasi-biblical

If the lie presented itself as a clear lie, most of us would not fall for it. So the danger is that the lie presents itself as the truth. The great trick is that deception uses the vocabulary, the language, of truth. Christians can be hopelessly at odds with each other over issues that seem biblical. Let me give an example from the history of the church in the last century.

A discussion arose within the Reformed churches in the Netherlands about the ‘alleged New Birth’. This discussion became so heated in 1944 that a large part of the Reformed separated from the Reformed churches. This was the beginning of the birth of the “Freed Reformed Church”. I do not want to go into all the differences between the two groups, because they went beyond the discussion of regeneration. Nor do I want to go into the content of the discussion itself and who was on the right side. The important question is this: Are we, according to what Jesus says, born again, or are we not? (John 3:3-8) This is about something that may or may not be a reality in our lives, and it should not be a discussion of a theological concept, however biblical it may seem. What often happens is that we have lost the reality of things over the years, but conceptually nothing has changed, often it is only the next generation that dares to expose the hypocrisy of the ’empty concept’. In the little table below I would like to contrast a few things.

Biblical reality expressed in verb	Term expressed as a noun
How do you do it, or how does it work in practice?	Was is het?
Repent	Repentance
Be baptised	Water baptism
Receiving the Spirit	Baptism in the Spirit
We must be born again	Regeneration
We must believe the gospel	Faith

It is not always wrong to talk in concepts, as long as we keep in mind that there is an action or event underlying it. The tabulation is meant to make us consider, not to make black-and-white judgements.

The big question is this: Are we still engaged with the reality of things?

The great shift

In this final section I would like to mention a few things in particular, things that we have begun to shift. I remind you of the picture of the railway tracks from the previous section.

In this context, I would like to mention two texts that can, in my opinion, help us to recognise deception.

₂₄Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
(Matthew 7:24)

looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. (Hebrews 12:2^a)

To avoid being deceived, we must be obedient to Jesus and keep our eyes on Him. Paul talks about how the love of the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:10) will preserve us. When we allow our obedience to the simple Word of God and our focus on Jesus Christ to weaken, we enter the danger zone. I like to call this ‘shifting of the Focus’. Other things come to the forefront. Let me give some examples of solid shifts of focus that I will take to the extreme. Everyone has to decide for themselves where they sit on this sloping surface.

Shift: Christ -> Church

I have written before about the Catholic Church and how itself has taken the centre stage. Do as we tell you and everything will be fine.

In our day this is less of an issue in evangelical churches, but what I do see is a shift towards emphasising church growth as the ultimate goal. We then take the seeker-sensitive approach. We try to get people in regardless of their heart condition. As long as they are brought in first, the rest is a matter of secondary concern. We develop beautiful programmes and work with beautiful audio-visual resources, respond to people’s needs and make all sorts of promises, the fulfilment of which is doubtful. The gospel is offered as an answer to feelings of powerlessness, pain and frustration. We stop talking about sin, about things like justice and judgement, because that only turns people off. Words like ‘repentance’ are either not uttered or are given a completely different meaning.

Shift: Christ ->Hierarchy

Leadership in the Church is based on God-given authority. Jesus speaks of becoming like children (Matthew 18:4) and leading as servants. Healthy leadership is based on beeing an example worthy of imitation (1 Peter 5:1-4). As we have seen, in the fourth century the emperor Constantine shifted leadership to a hierarchy. Even today I encounter churches with strong authoritarian leadership. Again, there is more or less coerced obedience to the leader. They appeal to the Bible (Hebrews 13:17) and then say that we should just do as we are told and that as leaders they are responsible for the outcome. This blatantly contradicts the apostles’ statement that we should obey God rather than men (Acts 4:19). As individual Christians, we always remain responsible for whom we acknowledge as our pastors; we are not to follow them blindly.

This phenomenon is particularly strong in the more cultish movements. When the leader then falls, the congregation falls with him.

Shift: Christ -> Ministry

Christ has given ministries to the church, people who have been called and equipped by God, often through years of difficulty and struggle. They are people who have something of God within them that can be passed on in the churches. These ministries are not appointed by men, nor are they based on theological training, for example. In general, they are also not people who are ahead of the curve, but have learned in depth how dependent they are on God.

When the focus here begins to shift, ministries emerge that are an end to themselves and a means for the person involved to profile themselves. People who call themselves ‘apostles so and so’ or leaders who call themselves ‘bishops’ are just a few examples of how this can sometimes happen (3 John :9). These kinds of ministries often claim a hierarchical position of leadership and put pressure on people to do as they say. We then come under such influence that at some point we begin to believe everything they say. In the beginning, the ‘truth’ is often spoken, but in time we are taken in by their lie.

Often schools are established, prophetic schools or schools of ministry, to train people for ministry in the same way.

Shift: Christ -> Spirit

God has given us His Spirit. This outpouring is described in Acts 2. Jesus had also foretold it in John 14-16. Paul’s statements about being led by the Spirit are evident.

But here too there is a danger in shifting the focus. What we are doing is giving the Holy Spirit a kind of status separate from the Bible. Especially in the Gospel of John, Jesus explains in detail what the Holy Spirit will be doing. In these chapters Jesus emphasises the great unity that exists between the Father and the Son on the one hand and the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, on the other.

In his first letter, John warns us of the spirit of antichrist and urges us to test the spirits, explicitly establishing a relationship between the Spirit of God and the person of Jesus Christ (1 John 4:1-6). I have learnt not to simply believe anyone who says they are led by the Holy Spirit based upon the clour of their eyes so to speak. Too often I have had to find out that another spirit was at work in certain situations. We are often challenged to be spiritually blank, and people want to lay hands on us all the time. What is very misleading is that people working from such a spirit often use the vocabulary of the Gospel. But if you look more closely, you will see that the central focus on “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2) is no longer present. School programmes in which the cross, sin and repentance are not part of the curriculum or are only a side issue. Jesus explicitly says that the Spirit will teach us about Him and His work (John 14:26, John 15:26, John 16:12-15). Just as Jesus draws attention away from Himself to the “Father who sent Me” (John 14:24 … and the word which you hear is not from Me, but from the Father who sent Me). The Holy Spirit does not draw attention to Himself, but to the Father and to Jesus Christ.

The gifts of the Spirit also take on a different character as a result of the shift, the focus is no longer on Jesus and the building up of his church, but on the gifts themselves. Words of prophecy, words of knowledge or wisdom are used to ‘stick a feather in our cap’, so to speak, with the ultimate aim of binding us to the man with his gifting. The content of true prophecy is primarily Jesus Christ, not the individual Christian. Furthermore, the gift is consistent with the purpose for which the Spirit was poured out. When guests come to our church who are not Christians, the Spirit uses the gift of prophecy to convince the person of sin, righteousness and judgment (1 Corinthians 14:24-25, John 16:8). This is a much less popular approach than we would often like, and it may lead to persecution. An example in the Acts of the Apostles is Stephen (Acts 6:8 – 7:60) who has to pay with his life for the prophetic word he speaks. (The whole speech that Stephen gives here is an example of biblical prophecy as far as I am concerned).

Shift: Christ -> Shape

One pattern that plays a role, especially in the more traditional churches, is that the format in which something is cast becomes the most important. By the way, even in churches of an evangelical persuasion, we are not entirely without this phenomenon. There is a great emphasis on the liturgy. Within the Catholic Church, of course, there is the high church liturgy, full of forms and symbols, beautifully dressed people, full of imagery. In many cases the content is so tied to the ritual that we no longer have awareness that there is a reality to the Kingdom of God that can become part of our daily lives and the lives of the congregation. Instead of seeking the reality of the Kingdom, we presume it the moment the ritual takes place.

It is too short-sighted to look only at the High Church liturgy and its relatives. I myself come from a Reformed background and have seen a great emphasis on a proper order of worship. I remember the struggle in my youth when a new liturgy was introduced in our church. You had to stand at certain times and then sit again later. The theologians within the church had thought very deeply and fundamentally about this; it was all correct in every detail. At the same time, because of the introduction of ‘all this newness’, you could see people becoming unhappy in the church and either starting to go against the grain or seeking refuge elsewhere.

But what about the baptism of adults by immersion in water? Even baptism must not become a ritual. Paul explains in Romans 6:3,4 what baptism really does in our lives. What is important here is what happens spiritually in our lives, namely that the old man is buried and at the same time we are held under water to express this. But if form takes precedence here, there is a danger that while we are holding people under water, the intended reality is not taking place. I have heard many baptismal testimonies that were not at all about conversion and saying goodbye to the old life and choosing to serve Him for the rest of our lives. What I often heard were things like ‘I feel so at home here’, ‘we have so much fun together’, ‘it gives me such a warm feeling’. Of course, I cannot judge from these words alone whether or not there is a real change in life, but the wording, and often later the lack of commitment, still make me wonder. The big question is whether, in such cases, baptism really does what it is supposed to do biblically..

Perhaps this also applies to other things we do. We have a nice exterior, but often without substance. Jesus says that the new wine belongs in a new wine skin (Matthew 9:17, Mark 2:22, Luke 5:37-38), but the question is, what is the point of a new wine skin if there is no new wine to put into it?

Shift: Christ -> Theology

In the previous section I presented a small table in which I placed verbs against concepts. To repent versus conversion, and so on. We Westerners, because of our Western background based on the way of thinking of Greco-Roman culture, sometimes have an almost indomitable need to put things into a system. We develop a systematic theology in which we want to put biblical truth. This then provides the much sought after clarity and certainty that we so desperately seek. On the other hand, it also creates the framework for us to reject certain things that do not fit into our system. As a boy from a Reformed background, when I expressed that I had come to faith at a Youth for Christ evening, there was a dismissive response at home. My grandmother even called it Methodist drivel. What she really meant was that it was not Reformed, it did not fit into the system of thought she had been taught in the Reformed Church.

Even today in evangelical circles we reject each other on the basis of such things. Some emphasise passages that have to do with the fact that God must do it in His grace, otherwise it is empty, while others emphasise passages that point to our responsibility. We then fight tooth and nail because we think the two are mutually exclusive. It is either God’s work or our responsibility. Biblically, the two simply can co-exist fully, they should not exclude each other but rather complement each other. An example of a text where the two seeme to be directly juxtaposed is Paul’s letter to the Philippians:

₁₂Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. ₁₃For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13)

We are called in this text to accept our responsibility in the light of the fact that even the will is a gift from God. In his grace he takes care of everything, but he does not relieve us of our responsibility to participate in that grace. The moment we understand that the two are not mutually exclusive but complementary, we will stop fighting each other. If we keep our eyes on Christ, and in humility give each other the benefit of the doubt, and love one another as the Lord has commanded us to love ourselves, we will be able to walk in unity despite differences in approach.

In conclusion

It is impractical to cover everything in detail and with sufficient justification in an article such as this. Therefore, the article is intended to provoke thought and challenge us to pray in deep dependence on God, continually opening, examining and understanding His Word. I have had to revise my views several times over the years as the Bible has opened up to me on certain issues. I am still learning every day. For me, I have only one prayer, and it comes from the Bible:

₁₁Teach me thy way, O LORD; I will walk in thy truth: Unite my heart to fear thy name.(Psalm 86:11)

This prayer, if uttered in humility and dependence on God, will arm us against the constant deception to which we are exposed.

What I would like to add is that we are not called to stifle the truth for the sake of grace, Jesus is full of grace and truth (John 1:14), where grace and truth are not opposites, which would require us to search for the right balance [7], but that we understand that 100% truth must go with 100% grace and vice versa.

There are a number of other verses I would like to quote for futher consideration:

₂₀Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!(Isaiah 5:20)

₁₄They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.  (Jeremiah 6:14)

₂₃If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.  (Mark 4:23)

₂₇For the heart of this people is waxed gross,
And their ears are dull of hearing,
And their eyes have they closed;
Lest they should see with their eyes,
And hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart,
And should be converted,
And I should heal them.(Acts 28:27)

 ₃For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 
(2 Timothy 4:3)

The question on my mind is this: Do I love people enough to tell them the truth without shame or fear, or do I want to be popular with words that are pleasing to the ears of the listener?

Do I have the courage to open my mouth and say what’s on my heart in love when I see a threat on the horizon?

Godspeed!

Footnotes:

[1] What is meant here is that they do this according to Jewish custom, including the so-called “tradition”, especially the Mishnah and the Talmud, and not according to the simple commandments of God in the Torah.

[2] In English, this word is translated as ‘lasciviousness’, which can be translated as ‘licence to sin’.

[3] In the original text, ‘dolik’ is specifically meant here, and has ‘the appearance of wheat’. This is only apparent to the untrained eye when the grain begins to ripen. A full ear of wheat will buckle under the weight of ripe grains, but the ear of dolik will remain upright, its fruit unusable and poisonous.

[4]This article will not elaborate on the major consequences this had for the church and Christianity; this will be dealt with in a separate article in due course.

[5] It is estimated that the number of deaths for which the ‘holy chair’ is responsible is in the order of 50 million.

[6] http://www.pbministries.org/books/pink/Four_Fold_Salvation/index.htm

“Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). First, save them from the pleasure or love of sin by bestowing a nature which hates it: this is the great miracle of grace. Second, save them from the penalty or punishment of sin, by remitting all its guilt: this is the grand marvel of grace. Third, save them from the power or dominion of sin, by the workings of His Spirit: this reveals the wondrous might of grace. Fourth, save them from the presence or inbeing of sin: this will demonstrate the glorious magnitude of grace. May it please the Lord to bless these elementary but most important articles to many of His little ones, and make their “big” brothers and sisters smaller in their own esteem.

[7] Balance is a concept dissected from pagan religions and philosophies and not from the Bible, an example being the balance between Yin and Yang from Buddhism.