Heresies: Then and Now

 

Heresy has always been present in the church. It was present in the old dispensation when, already at Sinai, Israel worshiped a golden calf, which they said was the god who had delivered them from Egypt (Ex. 32:4). God's constant warning against false prophets could only have been due to the presence in Israel of men who were corrupting the truth, for example in Deuteronomy 13:1-5.

The times of Christ and the apostles were no different. Christ repeatedly warned against the heresies of the scribes, Sadducees, and Pharisees, who took away the key of knowledge (Luke 11:52) and crucified the Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).

Paul frequently had to write his epistles to combat false doctrine; to the Colossians to ward off an incipient gnosticism; to the Galatians to defeat the Judaizers; and to the Thessalonians to correct errors in eschatology that they had learned from false teachers. Both Peter in 2 Peter 2 and Jude in his epistle warned against the evil men who were attempting to lead the church astray.

From the end of apostolic era until the present, the church has never been free from the threat of false doctrine. Fighting false doctrine is so crucial a part of the church's existence in the world that to ignore it is to run the risk of not understanding church history at all. One cannot learn anything significant about a man whose biography has been omitted the most important events in his life. One cannot understand the history of the church militant without understanding her battles against false doctrine.

A striking feature of heresy over the ages is the reappearance of false doctrines that had been taught in earlier times. Solomon tells us that there is nothing new under the sun (Eccl. 1:9). This is true of heresy as well as every other event. Heresy may appear in new clothing, but it remains the same heresy against which the church has fought many centuries earlier.

We can, therefore, learn from heresy and from the battle that the saints fought against it; the heresies are always very much the same. The church's calling today is no different from the calling of the church in past years: "Be thou faithful unto death" (Rev. 2:10).

If we live in ignorance of the church of past years, knowing nothing of its struggles, battles, temptations, and heresies it faced, we will be at a terrible disadvantage in our own time when heresy rises in our own church or denomination. False doctrine will seem to us to be only a new insight into the truth, and we will lose the benefit of the experience and struggle as well as the victory of our brethren from earlier centuries. We will be an easier prey for the enemy.

Knowledge of the past will give us knowledge to use in our own battles, give us assurance that Christ preserves His church against all the attacks of the enemy, provide us with skill in defending our faith, and make us joyful in knowing more fully its great truths as the Spirit of our ascended Christ has led the church to confess them.

May God be glorified through the story of the defense of His truth, and may the church be thereby strengthened in her calling.

Excerpted from the preface of Herman Hanko's 

Contending for the Faith, xvii-xviii

http://rfpa.org/collections/books-by-herman-hanko/products/contending-for-the-faith 

The Heresy of Healing Cults

In his exposition of John 16:13 (1538) the Reformer [Martin Luther] uses words which, in the light of modern developments, seem prophetic. He is speaking of possible future perversions.

If seduction and darkness were again to begin through the wrath and decree of God (as will happen after our days, it is to be feared- if the world is destined to stand longer), and the devil were to begin to perform signs through some false saint and perhaps were to cure a sick person, you would no doubt see the mob press to espouse the cause in such a way that no preaching or warning would be of any avail. Come now, they would assert (as they have hitherto done in the case if the deceased saints), say whatever you please, I have nonetheless seen and found that a certain man who devoted himself to this preacher and accepted him was thereby helped.

For in those who have no love for the truth the devil will be powerful and strong. Accordingly, they are misled by all sorts of his deceptive tricks and are not wise enough to guard against them. This is why I have said: The Holy Spirit must be present with His revelation, so that we observe the Word of Christ and His message and judge all teachings and signs, life and doing, in accordance with them. If, then, these contradict the chief doctrine and article of Christ (by which, Christ here says, the Holy Spirit is to glorify Him), we should accord them neither attention nor acceptance though it were to snow miracles daily. For whatever contradicts this teaching is certainly a pack of lies and trumped up by the devil in order to seduce souls. If you want to see and find miracles and signs, then look for them here; for this doctrine was certainly proved by miracles from heaven and by all kinds of true, divine, genuine signs, and to date it has been sustained by not a few signs against the devil and his bogus signs.

Martin Luther

What Luther Says, p. 632

Compiled by Ewald M. Plass

 

The Money-Madness of Popes

The pope is a shepherd – yes, as long as you have money, and no longer. And yet they are not ashamed of their knavery; they lead us to and fro with their bulls. They are concerned only about the accursed money and about nothing besides. Therefore I offer the advice: If this tom-foolery is not abolished, every pious Christian should open his eyes and not let himself be misled by Romish bulls, seals, and hypocrisy. Let him stay at home in his own church and be content with his Baptism, his Gospel, his faith, his Christ, and his God, who is the same everywhere; and let the pope remain a blind leader of the blind (Matt. 15:4). Neither angel nor pope can give you as much as God gives you in your parish church. Nay, the pope leads you away from the gifts of God, which you have without paying for them, to his gifts, which you must buy. He gives you lead for gold, hide for meat, the string for the purse, wax for honey, words for goods, and the letter for the spirit. You see this before your very eyes, but you are unwilling to notice it. If you are to ride to heaven on his parchment and wax, your chariot will soon go to pieces, and you will fall into hell – not in God’s name.

Let this be your fixed rule: What you must buy from the pope is neither good nor of God; for what comes from God is not only given free of charge, but all the world is punished and damned because it has not been willing to receive it for nothing.

Martin Luther

What Luther Says, pp. 1063-1064

Compiled by Ewa;d M. Plass

The Indirect Benefits of Heresies

Error and heresy must come into the world so that the elect may become approved and manifest. Their coming is in the best interests of Christians if they take the proper attitude toward it. St. Augustine, who certainly was sufficiently annoyed by wretched sectaries, says that when heresy and offense come, they produce much benefit in Christendom; for they cause Christians industriously to read Holy Scripture and with diligence to pursue it and persevere in its study. Otherwise they might let it lie on the shelf, become very secure, and say: Why, God's Word and the text of Scripture are current in our midst; it is not necessary for us to read Holy Scripture. But now we are made vigilant and watchful by the heretics and their offense, and because of the conflicts and controversies we understand God's Word better than we did before.

Martin Luther

*Heresies, therefore, are a schooling for the children of God. Luther touches on this thought in the sermon on Matt. 18.8-9, to which we have referred a number of times.*

Source:
What Luther Says, p. 639
Compiled by Ewald M. Plass

Heresies of the Ancient Church Revived

 

I don't know of anything in our Lord Jesus Christ that the devil has not assailed. Accordingly he has to start again from the beginning and rake up the old errors and heresies. Sabellius was the first; he said that Christ is God and that there is only one person in the Godhead. This is the earliest and most subtle heresy, that there is only one person, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then followed the Patripassians, who did not disagree particularly with the Sabellians. Afterward the Arians distinguished among the persons but declared that the Son was not God from eternity but was only called God, just as princes are called gods. The Manicheans followed by attacking the humanity of Christ and saying that he was a phantom who did not have a real body. Later the Photinians appeared and said that Christ indeed had a real body but lacked a soul. Thus the devil assailed Christ from stem to stern. There was nothing left to attack, and so the devil has to start all over again from the beginning.


Martin Luther
Table Talk (Between April 20 and May 16,  1532)
Luther Works Vol. 54, pp. 36-36