Apostasy, The Demise of the Early Christian Church, Part Two

Monotheism

The apostle John tells us that the last hour has arrived (1 John 2:18) and that there are already many antichrists. These antichrists were members of the Lord's church (1 John 2:19) but had left the church. He goes on to say that the remaining members have the Holy Ghost and know the truth. In v. 22 John tells us that the anti-Christ don't believe in the Father and the Son, but in v. 23 it appears that they still believe in God, they just don't believe he has a son. So it is the philosophy of monotheism which had taken hold, and threatened the Church of Christ. The Romans, the Greeks and the Jews were all embracing monotheism; it was the popular idea of the time. I believe all the major schools were teaching it. It was in direct competition to the older ideas of a pantheon of gods. All three cultures had once believed in a pantheon of gods, and perhaps many still did. For many people, Christianity was a step back, a return to an older and unpopular tradition. The philosophers were running the schools now, and the philosophers taught monotheism. The idea of a heavenly family, father, mother, and son, sounded suspiciously like the old stories of jealous gods and their families. The apostles knew that they were in direct competition with philosophy, as taught through fables, and they warned people against believing them.

"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths." - 2 Timothy 4:3,4

"For we were not making up clever stories when we told you about the powerful coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We saw his majestic splendor with our own eyes" - 2 Peter 1:16

"Don't let them waste their time in endless discussion of myths and spiritual pedigrees. These things only lead to meaningless speculations, which don't help people live a life of faith in God." - 1 Timothy 1:4

In all three cases, the word being used is the Greek word 'mythos", which is the word for fables. It wasn't just the Greeks and Romans who had fables, but the Jews had their fables as well, and still do. They enemy of the truth was fables - invented stories. Sometimes, these fables or stories were about Christ, or the apostles. According to one story, Jesus was the illegitimate son of a Roman solder. Even today, there are false stories circulating about Jesus among the Jews, just as there are false stories circulating about Joseph Smith, and about the LDS church. Satan fights the truth with fables.

When Joseph Smith had his first vision, and asked which church he should join, Jesus commanded him to join none of them. Jesus explained that "all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: 'they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.' "

The professors of Christianity - those people that told Christians what to believe - were all corrupt. The creeds of the various churches were abominations - the philosophies of man mingled with scripture.