Spiritual Gifts

THE APOSTASY

We find in the Scriptures that the manifestation of the gift of prophecy is closely allied with obedience to the law of God. When the people faithfully followed the Lord, He favored them with instruction through His prophets. As they fell into sin and departed from His Law, they had no vision from God, as already shown. So it is emphatically true, as expressed by Solomon. “Where there is no vision, the people perish; but he that keepeth the law, happy is he,” Proverbs 29:18. They are happy, for, as they obey the Lord’s law, He is pleased to favor them with instruction through His prophets. SGL 19.3

We have seen that the early church began its work with a manifestation of all the gifts of the Spirit, and with many prophets among them; but the apostle Paul predicted that there would come an apostasy. Of this he said to the elders of the Ephesus church: “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.” Acts 20:29-30. Also to the church in Thessalonica, he said that there should “come a falling away,” and “that man of sin be revealed.” And of him the apostle said he should sit “in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4. SGL 20.1

It is a fact that, while the early church maintained their purity, the Lord manifested among them the gifts of His Spirit; but as the apostasy developed, their condition became more and more like that of ancient Israel, of whom He said: “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear.” Isaiah 59:2. SGL 20.2

Neander,in his “Church History,” thus speaks of the Montanists of the second century: “The Montanists looked upon it expressly as something characteristic of this last epoch of the development of the kingdom of God that, according to the prophecies of Joel then in course of fulfilment, the gifts of the Spirit should indifferently be shed abroad over all classes of Christians of both sexes.” “It appears also to have been the doctrine of the Montanists that the season of the last and richest outpouring of the Holy Spirit would form the last age of the church, and precede the second coming of Christ, and be the fulfilment of the prophecy of Joel.” -Rose’s Neander, pp.330,332. SGL 20.3

John Wesley, in speaking of the Montanists, says: “By reflecting on an odd book which I had read in this journey (“The General Delusion of Christians with Regard to Prophecy”), I was fully convinced of what I had long suspected, (1) That the Montanists, in the second and third centuries, were real, scriptural Christians; and, (2) that the grand reason why the miraculous gifts were so soon withdrawn, was not only that faith and holiness were well-nigh lost, but that dry, formal, orthodox men began even then to ridicule whatever gifts they had not themselves, and to decry them all, as either madness or imposture.”-Wesley’s Journal, vol. 3, p.496. SGL 21.1

To the question, “If you allow miracles before the empire became Christian, why not afterward too?” Mr. Wesley answers: “Because after the empire became Christian, a general corruption both of faith and morals infected the Christian church, which by that revolution, as St. Jerome says: ‘lost as much of her virtue as it had gained of wealth and power.’”-Wesley’s Works, p.706. SGL 21.2