FALLING AWAY FROM STEADFASTNESS.
“Ye therefore,
beloved, seeing that ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being
led away with the error of the wicked,
fall from your own steadfastness.”-2 Pet. 3:17.
THIS exhortation
applies to the Lord’s consecrated people living at the present time. The proof
of this is found in the context: the Apostle has just been portraying some of
the events connected with the day of the Lord in which we are living-the “Day
of Vengeance.” In verse ten he has pointed out that the present age will end
with the dissolution of the symbolic “heavens” and the symbolic “earth,” which,
as we have elsewhere shown, signifies the utter disruption of the
present social and ecclesiastical order. In verse thirteen he points out that
we are looking for a new order of things, and not hoping either to patch up the
old order ourselves, or that others will succeed in patching what the Lord has
declared “shall pass away.” And now in our text he refers to “these things.”
In the eleventh verse he points out that those who have such expectations
should be separate and distinct from all other people in the world, saying,
“What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and
godliness?” And then in our text and in the verse preceding it, he points out
that at this particular time the Adversary will get advantage of certain ones,
will beguile them, get them to wrest the Scriptures, and thus to deceive
themselves to their own destruction;-to their loss of present light at least.
Finding thus that the Apostle is particularly addressing ourselves, let us
indeed give earnest heed to his counsel; for we well know that we live in what
the Apostle Paul calls that “evil day.”-Eph. 6:13.
We notice further that the Apostle is not addressing the worldly, nor even
the average nominal Christian; but he specifies that his warning is to the
“beloved,” who already had attained to “steadfastness.” This implies that they
had become rooted and grounded and built up, both in the knowledge and in the
love of God; for only such ever become steadfast. Does it surprise us that the
Apostle should address such a developed class of Christians and warn them of
their own personal danger of falling into the “error of the wicked?” It does
strike us as peculiar, and we are inclined to think that there must be some
hidden meaning in the expression-“error of the wicked.”
It would be past comprehension that such a class as the Apostle has just
described should be in great danger of falling into such errors of the wicked
as blasphemy, or murder, or arson, or theft. We must look the matter up more
carefully, and see whether or not the translators have given us a faithful
rendering of the Apostle’s words. We find that they have not, and that the
word wicked is too strong: the Greek word is athemos; according
to Prof. Young’s Analytical Concordance (undisputed authority) it signifies “unsettled,”
or “lawless.” Now, the passage seems more reasonable. There is danger,
we can readily see, that those once established in the truth might be so led
away as to become unsettled, and to wrest the Scriptures, “handle the word of
God deceitfully,” and thus become lawless in the sense that they would set
aside the Word or Law of God, and take instead thereof a twisted interpretation
which would the better suit some theory of their own. Such a wrong course the
Apostle points out would surely unsettle them, and eventually mean the
destruction of their spiritual interests; and that they would go into “outer
darkness” in respect to “present truth.” “Beware, lest ye also, being
led away with the error of the unsettled, fall from your own
steadfastness.”
The Apostle’s language not only points to the present time, but seems to
imply that there would be previous fallings away or siftings, which he calls
“the error of the wicked”-literally, “the delusions of the unsettled or
lawless.” The implication seems to be, that the not settled ones would first
be shaken out, and that subsequently there would come a still more insidious trial
which would test even the “steadfast.” We inquire therefore, have there been,
during this “harvest” time (whilst we are waiting for the dissolution of the
present order of things and for the establishment of the new order of
things)-have there been such siftings or fallings away by delusions which have
affected those not settled?
We answer: Yes, there have been several: we might recount some of these.
First of all came a shaking directly upon the subject of the ransom: Certain
lawless ones, “heady,” rejected the testimony of the Lord’s Word, denying the
Lord having “bought us” with his own precious blood. They would accept
Christ as an example only, and claimed to be able to follow that
example, and that they needed no sin-offering to compensate for their
imperfections, inherited or personal. This the Adversary’s first move was
remarkably bold, yet it found adherents who were not rooted and grounded upon
the testimony of the Lord’s Word. Then came the “flat earth” theory, whose
advocates strangely concluded that the shape of the earth is a part of the
gospel; the result was that certain others of the unstable were “led away” in
that delusion, by not settled leaders who wrested certain Scriptures to their
own confusion and to the extinguishment of what light they had enjoyed.
Then came another delusion in effect teaching the old doctrine of
Universalism,-that God would finally force eternal salvation upon all men and
even upon Satan himself. This theory of course also denied the ransom; because
to have admitted that the condemnation to death pronounced in Eden could not be
set aside without a ransom, a corresponding price, would logically have
implied that disobedience under the second trial, secured by the ransom, would
similarly bring an everlasting punishment-everlasting death-from which there
could be no resurrection. Hence, this theory boldly denied the ransom, wrested
or twisted the Scriptures which speak of the Second death as “everlasting
destruction from the presence of the Lord,” handling this and other Scriptures
so deceitfully as to declare that the Second death would be a great blessing to
all upon whom it would come. Of course none but unstable souls could be
beguiled by such open and arrogant perversions of the Word of God.
But, still another sifting came for the “unlearned” and unsettled, not
thoroughly furnished with the whole armor of God; this was the teaching that
God is the author and instigator of all the sin, crime and wickedness there is
in the world; and that after he shall become weary of evil doing he will
reform, change his course and incite all mankind to righteousness and holiness,
as he now (this theory claims) incites the majority to sin, etc. Of all the
theories which the Adversary has brought out in this “evil day,” this one seems
to be the most blasphemous. So-called “orthodoxy” is certainly quite
blasphemous enough, in claiming that God, after permitting his creatures to be
“born in sin and shapen in iniquity” (which he had nothing to do with bringing
upon them), claims that, as a punishment for sins which they could not avoid,
the vast majority of the human family will be imprisoned in a flaming hell of
unspeakable torture, and divinely provided with everlasting life, so that they
shall never be able to escape those sufferings by death, and that the devil
will be similarly supplied with eternal life (but free from pain) for the
purpose of torturing them; and that fuel for the torture will to all eternity
be provided by divine power. We say that this is extremely blasphemous of the
divine character, yet it is as nothing at all in comparison to the teaching
which claims that God is the instigator, the first cause, of all the sin and
crime and wickedness in the world. This theory also wrested some Scriptures to
its support, just as Spiritism and Christian Science do. Of course, only those
who had never become thoroughly rooted and grounded in the truth could ever be
“led away” by such a blasphemous delusion as this.
The Anglo-Israel question, and communistic and social questions, “led
away” from the truth, and into more or less darkness and confusion, some others
who were not well rooted and grounded in the knowledge of the fact that all
present institutions will go down, and that the new order of things to be
introduced will not be of human institution, but the work of God through the
glorified Christ.
But the Apostle comes in our text to a time after such delusions
had “led away” those not established or settled; and his warning is given to
the steadfast. The implication seems to be that the Adversary has more
subtle delusions before us than any of those in the past; and that the fully
consecrated of the Lord’s people may need to be more than ever on guard against
“the wiles of the devil.”-“Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things
[that all of the affairs, reforms, etc., of the present time will avail
nothing, and that all the present institutions will pass away, and that God is
about to establish his own Kingdom in his own way;-and knowing further, that just
at this particular time there will be a special sifting and testing of those
who are in the light], beware lest ye ALSO, being led away
with the error of the wicked [the unsettled or lawless who do not
bow implicitly to the Lord’s Word, but wrest it to establish theories of their
own], fall from your own steadfastness.”
(While the “siftings” specially affect those who have been brought by the
Lord into the light of present truth, yet in a more general way and along
different lines slightly different siftings are in progress with the nominal
church as a whole. Each denomination is being shaken, and the theories of
Evolution, Spiritism, Christian Science, Theosophy and Moralism are making
great inroads upon all who have named the name of Christ, even if they have not
come into the light of the “harvest” truth. Unsettled, lacking the knowledge
of the divine Word and plan, necessary in this evil day, the whole
nominal church is gradually losing its faith in the Bible, under the lead of
its most able ministers, who, blinded to present truth, and unable to rightly
divide the Word of truth, are generally coming to hold the opinion, that their
own ideas respecting truth (“higher criticism”) are superior to the Scripture
presentations.)
The Apostle in our text cautions that we beware against being “led
away.” The word here rendered “led away” occurs in only one other place in
the Scriptures (Gal. 2:13), where the Apostle Paul says, “Barnabas also was carried
away with their dissimulation.” The words “carried away” give the
same thought as “led away” but a little more strongly: they imply that the
danger to the steadfast will be along some line which would sweep away
or carry away their judgments from the fixed statements of the divine
Word, through personal preference, or sympathy, or through the influence of
some one held in respect or esteem. Let us all therefore be on guard, that
whoever may, consciously or unconsciously, become the instrument of the
Adversary, and seek to lead us away from the sure testimonies of the Lord’s
Word (whether congenial to our natural tastes or uncongenial), we may not be
“carried away” but that we may be more determined than ever that-
“To our Lord we will be true
Who bought us with his blood.
Only Jesus will we know,
And Jesus crucified.”
While we see that the danger to the majority of God’s people will be
through being “carried away” by sympathy, influence, etc., we must
remember that this implies that their will be certain leaders of thought
whose conduct will tend to carry away the others. It is not necessary for us
to suppose that these leaders into error will knowingly and intentionally get
wrong themselves, and carry away numbers with them into their delusions and
lawless disregard for the testimony of the Lord’s Word, wresting its
statements. We may rather assume that in a majority of instances these leaders
will be themselves deceived; as the Apostle expresses it-“deceiving and being
[themselves] deceived.”-2 Tim. 3:13.
All who seek to teach the divine plan to others are
exposed to peculiar temptations, so that the honor of serving the Lord and his
people demands a correspondingly larger measure of the graces of the holy
spirit, as well as of knowledge. The tendency of knowledge, as the
Apostle points out, is merely to puff up, make vain and conceited, and to
become a temptation of the Adversary, to draw away followers after them. (Acts
20:30.) Whoever therefore would be an instructor of
others, a mouth-piece of the Lord, should cultivate all the various graces of
the holy spirit, including meekness; that these combined (Love) with knowledge,
may build up himself as well as build up those to whom he ministers. “Knowledge
[alone] puffeth up, but Love buildeth up.”-1 Cor. 8:1.
Let us not forget that there is a way, and one way only, whereby we may insure
ourselves against falling into any of these traps of the Adversary. This
insurance is not secured wholly by knowledge, altho knowledge is a very
important element in it: it is secured chiefly by obedience to the principles
laid down in the Lord’s Word, and illustrated in the life and character of our
Lord and his apostles. The same Apostle who addresses us this caution against
falling from our own steadfastness, tells us in the same epistle (1:5-12), “If
ye do these things, ye shall never fall: for so an entrance shall be
ministered unto you abundantly, into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ.”
What things? Does he give us the particulars of this work of grace that
will so insure us against falling that we shall receive the great
prize? Yes. He tells us that it is by continually adding to our stock of the
heavenly graces,-“Add to your faith fortitude, and to fortitude knowledge, and
to knowledge self-control, and to self-control patience, and to patience piety,
and to piety brotherly-kindness, and to brotherly-kindness Love; for these
things being in you and abounding, they will not permit you to be inactive or
unfruitful in the knowledge [personal intimacy, acquaintance] of our Lord Jesus
Christ....Therefore, brethren, give the more earnest heed that you may make
your calling and election sure, for if ye do these things ye shall never fall.”