Apostasy is not merely a problem for peripheral or obviously half-hearted disciples. Christian leaders sometimes apostatize too. Because they love power and prestige—or because of other equally sinister motives, such as lust (Jude 4; 2 Peter 2:10) and greed (Jude 11; 1 Timothy 6:5)—even when they “fall away,” apostate leaders don’t necessarily leave the visible church. They frequently remain and continue to function as preachers, teachers, or authors. Certainly, they pretend to be Christians. They cover up their defection with subtlety. They profess faithfulness to the truth even as they try to undermine its foundations. Influential people who profess or pretend to believe the truth although they do not savingly believe it are probably the greatest internal danger the church faces.
Church history is filled with examples of this—from the Judaizers whose false gospel confused the Galatian churches, to the many corrupt televangelists of today whose avarice, moral failures, false prophecies, phony “miracles,” and erroneous doctrine are a reproach to Christianity and a stumbling block to the undiscerning.
Influential People who profess or pretend to believe the truth although they do not savingly believe it are probably the greatest danger the church faces.
To some degree, apostasy is always a willful and deliberate sin. An apostate is not someone who is merely indifferent to God’s Word or ignorant about what it teaches. Someone who has never even heard the truth is not an “apostate,” even though he or she might be a teacher in a false religion. Apostasy is a far worse sin than that. An apostate is someone who has received the light but not the life, the seed but not the fruit, the written Word but not the living Word, the truth but not a love for the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:10).
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