It has been pointed out to me just how derelict I have been in blogging. All I can say is that I am flattered anyone noticed. So in honor of those requests, I am posting my notes for my Friday Night Gospel Study presentation. This will be given July 1.

THE APOSTASY

We have to begin this discussion by setting some background. There are three points I want to make about what was going on in the early church. I will try to make these points in 10 minutes each, leaving 30 minutes for discussion of the central event which crystallized the apostasy and, in my mind, kind of made it official. [Although it had happened long before this, insidiously, it was the Council of Nicea which stands out in my mind as the point in history we can point to which makes it a done deal, no turning back and all the churches thereafter signed up that his creed was the official document of the apostasy. It was not the apostasy, it was just the formal signed declaration which assured they would teach ever after the doctrines of men and reason and not the doctrines of Christ and of revelation.]

It is very clear that from this point forward the churches taught the philosophies of men, mingled with scripture.

Point #1: What is happening in the early church?

The far flung world was made large by the difficulty of communication and travel. Letters took long journeys and replies were slow. Each of the apostles worked diligently to testify of Christ in all the world. [Acts1:8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.] As we shall see, the apostles initially had a narrow of view of what this meant, but then we are in pre-Pentecost days here and the weight of revelation in the church was yet to come.

A big question in the church concerned the relationship of the church and the gospel to the Jewish and the gentile members. There are three populations in the church:

The Jews living in the area of Jerusalem, the Jews living in the Greek/Roman world, the Diaspora, and the gentile converts, or Greeks as they were often called.

Now here I am giving my view and I am doing it in 10 minutes so it is quick and broad brush, but I think it will help as a context.

The Jewish Christians came up through the Jewish religion. They were the chosen people of God. The worked hard at their religion, which required a great deal more of them than did the pagan religions which surrounded them. [N.B. “Pagan” here means non-Jewish and/or non Christian. Pagan religions were generally polytheistic and imbued nature with religious powers which they respected and celebrated. Pagan does not have the negative connotation that it does today in our ordinarily language, e.g., “sinner” or “reprobate.”]

So here might be the Jewish Christian view of the world. We are the chosen people, we had Moses who gave us God’s law and we live the Law of Moses. Our prophets prophesied of the Messiah to come and that He would come through Judah. The Messiah did come, we are still the same chosen people [after all, the Messiah did come to us] and we keep going as Jews, Children of Abraham and of the covenant, with the now re-instituted and expanded Gospel. Still right, still chosen, still doing the same things only bundled in faith and not the performances of the Law, etc, etc.

Peter was clearly of such a mind as this in the beginning of his ministry as well. He began to change through the revelation to take the gospel to the gentiles, beginning with Cornelius, It is interesting to me that the Lord used the metaphor of Food, non-Kosher we would say today. Peter said he had never eaten that which was unclean. But he was corrected – things thought to be unclean in the past are not so now. By understanding this vision perhaps Peter also begins to understand that not only will the gospel go to the gentiles, to all the world, but that the Law truly is done away.

There were two issues which brought this into clear focus; Circumcision and the sitting at table with gentiles. From a Jewish Christian point of view, new converts needed to be circumcised to keep the Abrahamic covenant [Genesis 17:9-11]. In fact, this did happen in some cases. But in Acts 15 we have the model for the resolution of doctrinal questions in the Church. You go to the Prophet, to the 12, and they discuss it, pray about it and receive revelation.

The gentile convert view might look something like this: This is a new dispensation of the gospel. We believe the message and are baptized as a sign of our covenant with God. We are not Jews nor do we need to be. But the Law of Moses was fulfilled in Christ, but literally and figuratively. We are the Children of Christ, not Abraham.

This set of issues plays its way throughout the New Testament letters and the Book of Acts. If you keep this in mind as you read and study, you will be impressed with just how difficult a problem it was to solve in the actual practices of the various congregations throughout the New Testament world.

Point #2: The Problem of Works

Works #1

Works of the Law of Moses. These are all of the performances, sacrifices and rituals required by the Law to teach the people to look forward to the Messiah and how to recognize him. He would be the fulfillment of the Law. A) He would personally keep all aspects of the Law, fulfill it in his own life. He did all the things required of a faithful Jew of the day. B) He was also the fulfillment of the Law in that He was the Messiah, the sacrifice, the LAMB OF GOD put upon the altar for us. So the Law was fulfilled in reality – not cast aside, but completed.

This was a sticking point in the New Testament church and much of Paul’s writing dealt with these issues. It is important to differentiate between when Paul is talking about these kinds of works vs. when he talks about Works #2 or Works#3.

Works#2

The ordinances, judgments, sacraments of the church are often referred to as works. For example, baptism is an ordinance or sacrament of the church.

The problem here is both simple and very insidious. Here is the simple way to think about these “works.” Is baptism necessary? Yes. Is baptism sufficient? No.

[Acts 19 shows us good intentions are not enough and there are right and wrong ways for baptism, but that is for another day. Joseph Smith commented that you might as well baptize a bag of sand as to baptize someone who was not full of faith and repentant.]

The problem with Works#2 will be discussed in a moment.

So we ask, In what way is baptism not sufficient?

This brings us directly to Works#3.

This version of works refers to personal righteousness, service, charity of heart and “good deeds.”

Are they necessary? Yes.

Are they sufficient? No. [1 Corinthians 13, Section 121:34-46, Matt 7:24ff]

This issue became difficult as a growing worldwide church became large, somewhat contentious over doctrine and as confused as the primitive church over practices. Institutional solutions to problems were solved through synods, conferences, rhetoric, dialectic, heated debate, etc and eventually voted on or decreed by the head of the church or of the government. Many issues and doctrines were not “settled” for 1000 years! Some, like faith vs. works, is still a contentious issue throughout Christendom and we could spend hours on this. [The main problem is those who want to craft a theology out of verses read in isolation and out of context. The New Testament is not a theological treatise and was not written that way and to wrest the scriptures in that way leads to creeds which are an abomination is the sight of God.]

The church in the middle ages became more aligned to procedure and ordinances. You can, after all, keep track of this – its empirical. The issues of faith and good works took a back seat. This lead to abuses [there are always abuses, even in our church, see 121 again. Thankfully, though, we have no “career paths” in the church and release people from leadership and make them followers again to reduce the chances of personality cults, etc.]. The REFORMERS, especially, Martin Luther, set out to bring things back into balance, not to overthrow the church. They wanted, in a sense to bring into balance Faith and Works (ordinances) and Works (personal righteousness).

Point #3: So where did we go wrong?

It is difficult to describe the processes in the early church in any detail. We just don’t know the facts. Most of what we “know” is inferred from history, context and thoughtful speculation. We do know some things:

The testimony of the Savior and the spiritual writings of the early leaders were powerful enough to echo through the centuries and endure to our time.

Devoted people spent much of their lives in service so that we could have the scriptures. This includes the Jews and the early Christians.

The Brethren appear to have more difficulties keeping the churches in line than they did in creating new churches through preaching. Splinter groups, setting up on their own terms but using the name of the church and some of its writings (and some of their own) were a confusion and a distraction.

The church cannot be run according to man’s wisdom. Paul saw that early on and warned against it. Note that he was one of the brightest and most gifted and he knew of the folly of men's wisdom (foolishness to God).

There were constant warnings of apostasy – both individual and institutional. We should not be surprised that the church did not remain.

With the loss of apostolic authority, the loss of direction became an obvious problem. No longer did people act with true authority, but took that honor unto themselves. (Heb 5:4)

Peter really captures these problems in a letter to James:

“They think they are able to interpret my own words better than I can, telling their hearers they are conveying my very thoughts to them – while such things never entered my head. If they take such liberties while I am alive, what will they do when I am gone?”

Well, he was gone and so were the 12. The now leaderless church struggled for identity, direction and guidance. Where was the Moses, the Samuel, the Peter, for their time? Priesthood leadership from ordinary people called of God by prophecy was replaced by scholars trained in classical Hellenistic philosophy, dialectic and rhetoric. The church began to be followers of Aristotle, Plato and other philosophical schools and THE LANGUAGE OF THE CHURCH BECAME THE LANGUAGE OF PHILOSOPHY and SO DID THE DOCTRINES – mingled with scripture.

All this come to a crescendo with Constantine. He became tired of the bickering and “wrestling” in the church and called the church leaders into council and told them they were not to leave until the problem was solved.

What Problem? The problem of a church nearly 300 years old did not know who or what they were worshiping.

We will now take a sneak peak at the Council of Nicea, because it is a living laboratory of how man’s wisdom is foolishness to God.

[The look at Nicea is coming in the next Blog]