What is apostasy and how can I recognize it?

What is apostasy and how can I recognize it? We're going to answer that question. This is a condensed answer. For a deeper look, check out GotQuestions .org. Apostasy, from the Greek word apostasia, means a defiance of an established system or authority, a rebellion, an abandonment, or breach of faith.

Apostasy as Rebellion, Abandonment, and False Doctrine

In the first century world, apostasy was a technical term for a political revolt or defection. Even now, apostasy threatens the body of Christ. The Bible warns about people like Arius, a Christian priest who was determined to emphasize the oneness of God.

However, he went too far in his teaching and became a false doctrinal teacher. With respect to apostasy, it is critical that all Christians understand two important things, how to recognize apostasy and apostate teachers, and why apostate teaching is so deadly.

As to the forms of apostasy, there are two main types. One, a falling away from key and true doctrines of the Bible into heretical and false teachings. And two, a complete renunciation of the Christian faith, resulting in a full abandonment of Christ.

Arius represents both forms. He denied a key Christian truth and the divinity of Christ, and that began a downhill slide into a full departure from the faith. Jude was the half-brother of Jesus and a leader in the early church.

Jude’s Warning About Apostates Who Slip Into the Church

In his New Testament letter, he outlines how to recognize apostasy and strongly urges everyone in the body of Christ to contend earnestly for the faith, not just leaders. For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

In this one verse, Jude provides three traits of apostasy and apostate teachers. One, apostasy is subtle. Jude used the word crept to describe its entry into the church. Apostasy is cunning, crafty, and rare to be overt or easily detectable.

Two, Jude describes the apostates as ungodly and as those who use God's grace as a license to commit unrighteous acts. Jude takes it a step further and lists an additional 17 unflattering traits that help identify the apostates.

Three, apostates deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.

They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed. Through their unrighteous behavior, the apostates show their true selves. Every New Testament book except Philemon contains warnings about false teaching.

Why False Teaching Is So Serious

Why is this? God takes apostasy and false teaching very seriously, simply because ideas have consequences. Right thinking and its fruit produce goodness, whereas wrong thinking and its accompanying action result in undesired penalties.

It should be remembered, Satan came into the garden with an idea for the purpose of condemning all humankind, with the only remedy being the sacrificial death of God's Son. In AD 325, the Council of Nicaea convened on the issue of Arius and his teaching.

Much to his dismay, the end result was his excommunication and a statement in the Nicaean Creed that affirmed Christ's divinity. Arius' spiritual children are still in existence today in the form of cults who deny Christ's true essence and person.

Discernment, Contending for the Faith, and the Closing Appeal

It is critical, now more than ever, that every believer pray for discernment, combat apostasy, and contend earnestly for the faith that has once and for all been delivered to the saints. That answers the question, what is apostasy and how can I recognize it?

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