Apostasy
January 12, 2011
I promised to share the lengthy components of apostasy, referenced in Hebrews 6. Secondly, I would ask that you pray for God’s discernment and discretion as you read through.
APOSTASY
Apostates are people who hear the gospel, make a profession of being Christians, become identified with a Christian church, and then abandon their profession of faith, decisively repudiate Christ, desert the Christian fellowship, and take their place with enemies of the Lord Jesus Christ. Apostasy is a sin which can be committed only by unbelievers, not by those who are deceived, but by those who knowingly, willfully, and maliciously turn against the Lord.
It should not be confused with the sin of the average unbeliever who hears the gospel but does nothing about it. For instance, a man may fail to respond to Christ after repeated invitations from the Holy Spirit. But he is not an apostate. He can be saved if he will commit himself to the Savior. Of course, if he dies in unbelief, he is lost forever, but he is not hopeless as long as he is capable of exercising faith in the Lord.
Apostasy should not be confused with backsliding. A true believer may wander far away from Christ. Through sin his fellowship with God is shattered. He may even reach the point where he is no longer recognized as a Christian. But he can be restored to full fellowship as soon as he confesses and forsakes his sin (1 John 1:9).
Apostasy is not the same as the unpardonable sin mentioned in the Gospels. That was the sin of attributing the miracles of the Lord Jesus to the prince of the demons. His miracles were actually performed in the power of the Holy Spirit. To attribute them to the devil was tantamount to blaspheming the Holy Spirit. It implied that the Holy Spirit was the devil. Jesus said that such a sin could never be forgiven, either in that age or in the age to come (Mark 3:22-30). Apostasy is similar to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit in that it is an eternal sin, but there the resemblance ends.
I believe that apostasy is the same as the sin leading to death, mentioned in 1 John 5:16b. John was writing about people who professed to be believers and had participated in the activities of local churches. They then had imbibed the false teaching teachings of the Gnostics and had spitefully left the Christian fellowship. Their deliberate departure indicated that they had never been truly born again (1 John. 2:19). By opening denying that Jesus is the Christ (1 John 2:22), they had committed the sin leading to death, and it was useless to pray for their recovery (1 John 5:16b).
Some earnest Christians are troubled when they read Hebrews 6 and similar passages. Satan uses these verses especially to unsettle believers who are having physical, mental, or emotional difficulties. They fear that they have fallen away from Christ and that there is no hope for restoration. They worry that they have drifted beyond redemption’s point. The fact that they are even concerned about it is conclusive evidence that they are NOT apostates! An apostate would not have any such fears; he/she would brazenly repudiate Christ.
If the sin of apostasy does not apply to believers, to whom then does it apply in our day? It applies, for instance, to a young man who makes a profession of faith in Christ and seems to go on brightly for a while, but then something happens in his life. Perhaps he experiences bitter persecution. Perhaps he falls into gross immorality. Or perhaps he goes off to college and is shaken by the anti-Christian arguments of atheistic teachers. With full knowledge of the truth, he deliberately turns away from it. He completely renounces Christ and viciously tramples on every sacred fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith. The Bible says it is impossible to restore such a one to repentance, and experience corroborates the Bible. We have known many who have apostatized from Christ, but we have never known one who has returned to Him.
As we approach the end of the age, we can expect a rising tide of apostasy (2 Thess. 2:3; 1 Tim. 4:1). Therefore the warning against falling away becomes more relevant with every day that passes.
(MacDonald, William (1995) Believer’s Bible Commentary, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, TN)
