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
