Apostasy, Creeds and Confessions, Part 7
by Fred T. Di Lella
The Church Apostatizes
As ardent as the early New Testament church had been for the truth and against error, though, tragically she began to become tolerant of various “new (and old) devices against the truth.” She began to close her eyes to, permit, and eventually even welcome the teaching of false doctrines. Idolatrous, superstitious worship and a hierarchical, tyrannical, self-serving, corrupt, and ignorant priesthood sprang up and permeated the church. Lamentably, the church, which had been called to be “the pillar and ground of the truth”, actually became the most vicious and vehement enemy of the truth. While being executed, the Covenanter martyr, Pastor James Ferguson, warned: “Toleration is the cutthroat of the true religion.”
Rather than “contending for the faith once delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), the church departed from the truth and embraced the most abominable forms of error. Rather than “holding fast the form of sound words” (2Tim.1:13); unsound words took a fast hold on her unfaithful and recreant ministry. Rather than being separate from the world and “not learning the ways of the Canaanites, she became very worldly, assimilating the philosophies of the heathen and absorbing the idolatrous rituals of the pagans.[1] Rather than “standing fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith” (Phil.1:27), this apostate church of Rome labored to suppress the truth and to propagate error. Rather than being the valiant guardian of the truth, this unfaithful church of Rome became a synagogue of Satan and vigilant advocate of falsehood. Instead of being a diligent preserver of the truth, she became the dreaded persecutor of those who earnestly “held fast to the truth”.[2] Oh, how the church had fallen from her high calling as the “pillar and ground of the truth!”
The church had truly become “the church of Rome.” She no longer warranted the title, “the church of the Living and True God” (1Tim.3:15). Not only did the Bible (the Law) condemn this apostate church, but church history and the Church’s Testimony also damned her. While the word of God and her very own ancient creeds sounded forth and safeguarded the truth, her treasonous (to the King of kings and Lord of lords) teachings and corrupt practices denied, denounced, and even demonstrably showed forth her outright hatred for the truth.
“Although every man may be a liar” (Rom.3:4), however, the great covenant God cannot lie. He has promised “that the gates of hell shall not prevail against His church” (Matt.16:17). He has pledged that “the knowledge of the Lord (Christ) shall cover the Earth.”[3] Therefore, the Lord, throughout this time of widespread apostasy, kept for Himself a remnant that would not bow their knee to the church of Rome, namely, the Mother of Harlots.[4]
The Faithful Remnant: The Reformers Contend for the Truth
After centuries of defection from the truth, the Lord, due to His faithfulness to His promises,[5] graciously employed His faithful remnant to usher in the Reformation. Once again, the true gospel of Christ began to sound forth and the Lord in His abundant mercy saved multitudes out of their sin and misery.
Names like Luther, Zwingli, Farel, Calvin, and Knox issue forth sweet memories to every true Christian. These men of God fearlessly braved the cruel oppression of antichrist; so that they might preach the genuine gospel of Christ.
During this blessed time of returning “to the old paths” (Jer.6:16), the leaders of the reformed church were not foolish enough to be content merely with full meeting places. Instead, they remembered the critical calling of the church to be “the pillar and ground of the truth.”
Reformed pastors wrote catechisms, confessions, and covenants to stand for the truth and against all error.[6] The well-known Geneva Bible, providing a sound exposition of the Scriptures for the common reader, also served as one of the important guardians of the truth during the 1st Century of the Reformed church.
As the reformation advanced, the ministers of the gospel (together with their flocks) recognized more and more the absolute necessity of teaching, defending, and preserving the truth. Not only did they have the tragic example[7] of the wretched, apostate church of Rome, but they also had the infectious infiltration of savage wolves into their own midst, who were bringing in old and new heresies.
This led the reformed churches to call synods and assemblies to denounce all doctrines contrary to the truth and to proclaim precisely “the faith once delivered to the saints.” Carefully, cautiously, and prayerfully taking heed to the Law (the Scriptures) and the Testimony,[8] these under-shepherds set forth and safeguarded the truth of God with indisputable precision and exactness, they also contradicted and condemned the errors of papism and other prevalent false teachings.
In fulfilling her mission as “the pillar and ground of the truth,” the reformed church had the additional advantage of looking back and seeing where the church had departed from the Law and the Testimony. Her leaders sadly saw how the church “had not walked by the same rule”; how the church had not “minded the same thing”; how the church had not walked according to what she had “already attained;[9] how the church had not gone forth by the footsteps of the flock (Song 1:7, 8). These elders were determined not to let this backsliding take place again. They resolved to hold fast to the church’s former attainments. They were committed to “the old paths,” to “the ancient landmarks,” to “the footsteps of the flock.” They dogmatically decided that they would not concede, that they would not sacrifice even one tiny particle of truth for the sake of unity. “They had bought the truth and would not sell it” (Prov.23:23). They were committed to “contending for the faith once delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).
These brethren also longed “to press on to perfection” (Philip.3:7-16). They had possessed the added benefit of seeing where the Testimony of their fathers in the faith had not been (and continued not to be) precise enough to combat certain heterodox teachings and practices that historically “had crept in unawares” (Jude 4) and would also continue to plague and pollute the church, if they were not summarily, promptly, and specifically condemned.[10]
[1] Due to her frequent fights for the basic issues of the Person, natures, and work of Christ; the Trinity; and the Gospel of sovereign, free grace and due to her regular and painful persecutions, the church had not treated other crucial matters with precision. Since the defection from the truth in these other crucial areas took place over several centuries, many of the leaders probably did not recognize the rising up of hierarchical church government. Tragically, they, rather, accommodated it. During the horrendous and tempestuous times of heresy and continual persecution, strong ecclesiastical leadership may have seemed more expedient and practical. The remnant before and during the reformation, however, witnessed and experienced the fatal fruit of unbiblical church government: superstitious, liturgical, idolatrous “worship”; a prideful, ignorant, corrupt and immoral “clergy”; the promotion of numerous self-serving, heretical doctrines; the suppression of the truth; and the tyrannical dominion over and oppression of the Lord’s true sheep. The Reformers had the unpleasant, but quite informative, opportunity to witness these appalling abuses and also to behold the cancerous infestation of contemporary heretics. They, therefore, resolved to promote and preserve the truth in the critical realms of church government and worship. The Reformers vividly saw the disastrous results of their fathers not having protected and maintained the truth in these vital matters. Now that these Reformers possessed more knowledge (Luke 12) and much more of a testimony, they had no intention of being guilty of ignoring these imperative issues. Hence, the Reformers with great conviction and care bore testimony for Biblical church government (i.e., Presbyterianism) and the Scriptural Law of worship (the Regulative Principle of worship) and they also bore witness against all unbiblical viewpoints (and practices) in these matters.
Covenanting
In many nations the church acknowledged her awesome responsibility to the cause of God and His truth. Because she comprehended her indispensable mission as “the pillar and ground of the truth”, because she grasped the absolute necessity of the Law and the Testimony; her under-shepherds (together with their flocks) banded together in covenants with the Living and True God as had the children of Israel with Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Asa, Joash, Hezekiah, Josiah, Nehemiah; and as the Waldensians and many other godly Christians had also done in Centuries past. In these morally obligatory covenants these brethren vowed to acknowledge and recognize God to be the Only true God and their God and also to keep His commandments, to keep and preserve His truth[11] pure and entire for themselves and their posterity; and they also pledged themselves “to abhor and detest all contrary doctrine and false religion.”
The Pinnacle of the Reformation
In Scotland, England, and Ireland the last multi-national covenant (Solemn League and Covenant) and church council (Westminster Assembly) took place. In the Covenants (National and Solemn League) and in the Westminster Standards we find the fullest statement of the Scriptural attainments of the church. These covenants and standards clearly and accurately set forth the Law and the Testimony of the church. These priceless documents uncompromisingly stand for the cause of God and His truth. These invaluable Covenants plainly and passionately promote the truth and, as God continually commands, intolerantly and incisively condemn all error.
The following quotes from the covenants (National and Solemn League) exemplify the church’s Scriptural love for the truth and hatred of all error:
…and therefore we believe with our hearts, confess with our mouths, subscribe with our hands, and constantly affirm, before God and the whole world, that this only is the true Christian faith and religion, pleasing God, and bringing salvation to man, which now is, by the mercy of God, revealed to the world by the preaching of the blessed evangel and is received, believed, and defended by many and sundry notable kirks and realms, but chiefly by the kirk of Scotland.
To the which Confession and Form of Religion we willingly agree in our conscience in all points, as unto God’s undoubted truth and verity, grounded only upon his written word. And therefore we abhor and detest all contrary religion and doctrine.
…do condemn the Pope’s erroneous doctrine, or any other erroneous repugnant to any of the articles of the true and Christian religion…and ordains the spreaders and makers of books or libels, or letters or writs of that nature, to be punished…and ordains all sayers, wilful hearers, and concealers of the mass, the maintainers and resettlers of the priests, Jesuits, trafficking Papists, to be punished without any exception or restriction.
…and shall abolish and gainstand all false religion contrary to the same (i.e., the true Christian religion).
…we are obliged to detest and abhor them, amongst other particular heads of Papistry abjured therein…to continue in the profession and obedience of the foresaid religion; and that we shall defend the same, and resist all these contrary errors and corruptions, according to our vocation, and to the uttermost of that power that God hath put in our life.
That we shall in like manner, without respect of persons, endeavor the extirpation of Popery, Prelacy…superstition, heresy, schism, profaneness, and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godliness, lest we partake in other men’s sins, and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues.
In a Solemn Acknowledgment of Publick Sins and Breaches of the Covenant, the brethren again acknowledged their obligation to love the turth and hate error:
Because religion is of all things the most excellent and precious, the advancing and promoting the power thereof against all ungodliness and profanity, the securing and preserving the purity thereof against all error, heresy, and schism, and namely, Independency, Anabaptism, Antinomianism, Arminianism, and Socinianism, Familism, Libertinism, Scepticism, and Erastianism.
[1] The Romish church is very syncretistic. She has absorbed a plethora of antiscriptural secular and “religious” pagan ideas and practices (e.g., free will, prayer beads, purgatory, virgin worship, candle lighting, prayers for the dead, all-saints day, holy water, prayers to saints, graven images, X-mass, Easter, the blasphemous title – Pontifex Maximus).
[2] E.g., Heb.3:6; Rev.2:25; 3:3; 6:9.
[3] E.g., Pss.65; 67; Isa.2.
[4] E.g., Rom.11:1-11; Rev.17;18.
[5] E.g., Deut.7:7; 2Cor.1:20.
[6] The Genevan Book of Order manifests this urgent desire to promote and preserve the truth. For he that is the wisdom of the Father, the brightness of his glory, the true light, the Word of life, yea truth and life itself, can he give unto his Church (for the which he paid the ransom of his blood) that which should not be a sufficient assurance for the same? Can the Word of truth deceive us? the way of life misguide us? the Word of salvation damn us? God keep us from such blasphemies, and so direct our hearts with his Holy Spirit, that we may not only content ourselves with his wisdom, but so rejoice in the same, that we may abhor all things contrary…Presbyterian Heritage Publications pp.9, 10.
[7] I.e., historic and contemporary.
[8] I.e., God’s historical workings in His Church, “the pillar and ground of the truth.”
[9] E.g., Philip.3:16; Rev.2:25; 3:3; 6:9.
[10] Due to her frequent fights for the basic issues of the Person, natures, and work of Christ; the Trinity; and the Gospel of sovereign, free grace and due to her regular and painful persecutions, the church had not treated other crucial matters with precision. Since the defection from the truth in these other crucial areas took place over several centuries, many of the leaders probably did not recognize the rising up of hierarchical church government. Tragically, they, rather, accommodated it. During the horrendous and tempestuous times of heresy and continual persecution, strong ecclesiastical leadership may have seemed more expedient and practical. The remnant before and during the reformation, however, witnessed and experienced the fatal fruit of unbiblical church government: superstitious, liturgical, idolatrous “worship”; a prideful, ignorant, corrupt and immoral “clergy”; the promotion of numerous self-serving, heretical doctrines; the suppression of the truth; and the tyrannical dominion over and oppression of the Lord’s true sheep. The Reformers had the unpleasant, but quite informative, opportunity to witness these appalling abuses and also to behold the cancerous infestation of contemporary heretics. They, therefore, resolved to promote and preserve the truth in the critical realms of church government and worship. The Reformers vividly saw the disastrous results of their fathers not having protected and maintained the truth in these vital matters. Now that these Reformers possessed more knowledge (Luke 12) and much more of a testimony, they had no intention of being guilty of ignoring these imperative issues. Hence, the Reformers with great conviction and care bore testimony for Biblical church government (i.e., Presbyterianism) and the Scriptural Law of worship (the Regulative Principle of worship) and they also bore witness against all unbiblical viewpoints (and practices) in these matters.
[11] Viz., “the only true Christian religion.”
Rev. Fred Di Lella is pastor of Covenanted Reformation Church in TX which is part of The Biblical Reformed Synod of Christ the King.
