BE INTOLERANT OF FALSE TEACHERS


By Akin Ojumu

Much of what we know about the day-to-day lives of the apostles of the Lord Jesus came from extra-biblical sources. In the immediate post-apostolic period, stories about the pioneers of the Christian faith were told by the early Church Fathers who were their successors. Several accounts about how these holy men conducted themselves and their daily interactions with others within the context of their societies are gleaned from the books and writings of their disciples.

One of such stories, which I find particularly fascinating, is recounted by Irenaeus. The story is about the chance encounter at a bathhouse in Ephesus between John the apostle and a known heretic, a fellow by the name Cerinthus.

For those who don’t know about him, Irenaeus was a student of Polycarp, who himself was the disciple of John the apostle. Later, Irenaeus became the Bishop of Lyon and a stalwart opponent of heresy. He was influential in the development of the biblical canon. His work, Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies), written around 180 AD, was a refutation of Gnosticism.

In Against Heresies, Irenaeus gives an account of the day John the apostle ran into a heretic, Cerinthus, at a bathhouse in Ephesus.

“There are also those who heard from him [Polycarp] that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed out of the bathhouse without bathing, exclaiming, “Let us flee, lest even the bathhouse fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.”” (3.3.4; trans. Philip Schaff in ANF 1:1062).

Such was the foreboding that John had for heresy that he couldn’t stand being under the same roof with a heretic. Fearing that the roof of the bathhouse was going to collapse as a result of God’s wrathful judgement against Cerinthus, John the apostle fled. As he was running out of the building, he warned people to run for their lives far away from a heretic who is accursed, or anathema, by God.

So, who exactly was this Cerinthus, the heretic, that so terrified John the apostle?

Well, Cerinthus was one of the forerunners of heresies in the Church. As an arch-heretic (aka heresiarch), he taught that the material/physical world was created by angels and not by the Almighty God. Cerinthus also denied that Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary, was fully the incarnate Christ. In his view, the spirit of the divine Christ came upon the human Jesus at His baptism and left Him shortly before His death.

This denial that the Lord Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man was one of the many varieties of Docetism, a type of Gnosticism, that plagued the early Church. The heresy was so widespread and popular that it threatened the orthodox confession of the full deity and full humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was this false belief that John the apostle refuted in his First Epistle where he repeatedly asserts that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the incarnate Christ.

1 John 5:1
“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.”

Given the grave peril the teachings of Cerinthus presented to the Church, it’s understandable that John the apostle would have such a visceral reaction to being under the same roof as a heresiarch. Because John understood the dire consequences of consuming the poison Cerinthus was teaching, it’s no wonder he would not want to be near him.

When you compare the trepidation and chagrin that John felt with being under the same roof as Cerinthus with how modern-day Believers cuddle false teachers, it becomes apparent that the Church has become desensitized to false teachings. The further along we get in this Church age, the higher the tolerance levels of Church folks to heresies, it seems. 

Everywhere you turn, false teachers are not only being tolerated, but they are also celebrated and venerated. Impostors now preside over the largest Churches in the world today. These scoundrels have mega platforms from where they exercise larger than influence over hundreds of thousands of people. With their bullhorns, they drown out the voices of the remnant few sounding the alarm about the dangers and perils these charlatans pose to the spiritual well-being of their followers.

When false teachers invade a Church, they never announce themselves as such, thus making them difficult to be detected. Like the snakes that they are, they sneak in and embed themselves within the Church surreptitiously. It’s through vigilance and a heightened sense of alertness that false teachers can be unmasked.

Matthew 7:15
“Beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.”

Notwithstanding, as good as they are in hiding their true identity, false teachers expose themselves by their fruits. You can always recognize false teachers not only by the fruit of their immoral conduct, but, more importantly, by the fruit of their false teachings.

Matthew 7:16-20
“You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.”

John the apostle makes it explicitly clear what the Believers response should be to false teachers. Anyone who teaches any gospel contrary to the biblical Gospel are not to be welcomed. Those who give aid and comfort to false teachers are partakers in their evil.

2 John 1:10-11
“If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

Heretics are dangerous and deceptive. Their goal is to deceive believers and lead them away from truth that can save them into errors that will destroy them. False teachers pervert the mind and poison the soul. These charlatans stand opposed to the Lord Jesus Christ and His Kingdom. They are enemies of Christ. You’ll do well to mark and avoid them.

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