Does the Bible Really Say That?: Discovering Catholic Teaching in Scripture (15 page)

CHAPTER 38

The Myth of a “Total Apostasy”

You’ve seen them riding through your neighborhood in pairs on bicycles. Mormon missionaries, clean-cut young men wearing white shirts, dark trousers and conservative ties, show up every day on thousands of doorsteps just like yours, intent on making converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—commonly known as the Mormon Church.

One of Mormonism’s main tenets is that their church is the “restored” church, a “restoration of the gospel” by their founder, Joseph Smith, Jr., in 1830. They believe that this “restoration” was necessary due to a complete falling away or “total apostasy” of the true Church established by Jesus Christ in Palestine. It’s an interesting theory, but it’s completely false.

One of the former general authorities of the Mormon Church wrote: “This universal apostasy began in the days of the ancient Apostles themselves; and it was known to and foretold by them.... With the loss of the Gospel, the nations of the earth went into a moral eclipse called the Dark Ages. Apostasy was universal.... [T]his darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored Gospel.”
¹

Wrong.

Mormonism’s total apostasy argument collapses when tested against the facts of Scripture and Church history. If the alleged “total apostasy” of the Church had actually happened, Christ himself would have been a liar when he promised: “[O]n this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18, DR).

True, the Bible does mention an apostasy in passages such as Matthew 24:4–12, Mark 13:21–23, Luke 21:7–8, Acts 20:29–30, 2 Thessalonians 2:1–12, 2 Timothy 3:1–7, 2 Timothy 4:3–4, 2 Peter 2:1–3 and Jude 1:17–19. Some of these verses say “many” will fall away, but not a single one says
all
will fall away. Also, these passages speak about these apostasies occurring during the “end times,” or the “latter days,” as the King James Bible renders it. Even Mormons will admit that the second or third centuries (when they think a total apostasy happened) were not the “latter days.”

Scripture is clear: The Church Christ established is indefectible because Christ, God himself, is unconquerable. He promised to be with his Church “even until the end of the world” (see Matthew 28:20).

In Matthew 7:24–29 Christ said that a “wise man” is the one who “built his house upon a rock.” It cannot be overcome or overwhelmed by anything. And recall that in Matthew 16:18 he promised Simon Peter, “[O]n this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.” Surely, he would not tell us to do something that he himself was incapable of doing.

In Matthew 12:29 Christ speaks of a “strong man” guarding his house. Unless an enemy can “bind” the strong man, the enemy cannot enter and plunder the house. Then in 1 Timothy 3:15 we read that the
Church
is Christ’s house. Obviously, Christ is stronger than Satan; and so Satan could not plunder Christ’s Church through apostasy unless he first bound Christ, the Strong Man. This means that there has not been, and can never be, a total apostasy of the Church, as Mormons erroneously claim. For if
it were possible, then Christ was either a liar for promising his permanent protection to the Church (Luke 14:27–30, Matthew 28:20), or a fool for making promises he couldn’t keep.

Scripture clearly evidences that Christ’s Church cannot be overcome. Isaiah 9:6–7 prophesies Christ upholding his kingdom “for evermore”: “For to us a child is born, / to us a son is given; / and the government will be upon his shoulder, / and his name will be called / ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, / Everlasting Father, / Prince of Peace.’
Of the increase of his government and of peace
/
there will be no end,
/
upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom,
/
to establish it, and to uphold it
/
with justice and with righteousness
/
from this time forth and for evermore
” (emphasis added).

Nothing will bring down Christ’s kingdom; there will never be a time when he lets it slip or fall. If the Church fell into total apostasy a few generations after Christ’s Ascension, then he did not uphold his kingdom, as Scripture promises he will.

Similarly, Daniel 2:44 says, “And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom
which shall never be destroyed
, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and
it shall stand for ever
” (emphasis added).

Here, Daniel prophesies five kingdoms: the Babylonian, the Median, the Persian, the Greek and the kingdom of God, that is, the Church. Notice that the final kingdom will “never be destroyed” and shall “stand for ever.” This prophecy could not be true if the Church had indeed collapsed into a complete apostasy and had to be restored fifteen or sixteen centuries later.

Daniel 7:14 says, “And to him was given dominion / and glory and kingdom, / that all peoples, nations, and languages / should serve him; / his dominion is an everlasting dominion, / which shall not pass away, /
and his kingdom one
/
that shall not be destroyed
”(emphasis added). Here again, this prophecy shows apostasy cannot overcome Christ’s kingdom, the Church.

One final example of how Scripture disproves the Mormon theory of a total apostasy is found in Luke 1:30–33: “And the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; / and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, / and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; /
and of his kingdom there will be no end
’” (emphasis added).

Further Reading:
Isaiah 9:6–7; Daniel 2:44–45; 7:13–14; Matthew 7:24–29; 12:29; 28:18–20; Mark 3:27; Luke 1:30–33; 14:27–30; John 14:15–20; 1 Corinthians 11:26; 2 Timothy 4:2–4; 2 Peter 2:1–2; Revelation 13:7

CHAPTER 39

The Field of Wheat and Weeds

On one occasion, Jesus put this parable before the crowd gathered around him:

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the householder came and said to him, “Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then has it weeds?” He said to them, “An enemy has done this.” The servants said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” But he said, “No; lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” (Matthew 13:24–30)

In this age of scandals in the Church, these words of Christ should reassure us. They are a reminder that, from the very beginning, the Church (the “kingdom of heaven”) has been comprised of “wheat and weeds,” good and bad, saints and sinners, and everyone in between. For the two thousand years that the Catholic Church has been in existence, it’s always been this way. At times, there may seem to be more weeds than wheat in the Church, but each generation can take consolation that in spite of bad Catholics—priests and bishops, as well as lay people— Jesus Christ is in charge. The Catholic Church is
his
Church, not ours, and it remains what it has ever been: a field of wheat and weeds.

Saint Thomas Aquinas commented on this reality in his
Summa Theologica
: “To be ‘a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle’ [Ephesians 5:27] is the ultimate end to which we are brought by the Passion of Christ. Hence this will be in heaven, and not on earth, in which ‘if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,’ as it is written” [1 John 1:8].
¹
We know that the Church and all its faithful members will eventually be purified and become the “spotless” bride of Christ (Revelation 19:7; 21:2–17), but in the meantime, the process of purification reminds us that there is much to be purified from.

Sometimes we can become discouraged in the face of scandals. Some are even tempted to abandon ship out of an understandable, though misguided, assumption that the Catholic Church cannot possibly be the true Church, given that there are so many sinful Catholics—especially when the details of these sometimes spectacular moral failings end up splashed across the front page of the newspaper. But as understandable as it is, the “abandon ship” mentality is exactly the opposite of how a Catholic should feel in the face of scandals.

First, we should recognize that our own hearts are microcosms of the Church. Each of us is a complicated mix of saint and sinner. We each have a field of wheat and weeds, virtue and sin, love for God and rebellion against him, present within us. Is it not true that your heart, like mine, has a few weeds—perhaps more than a few—flourishing in those darker recesses?

The weeds of greed, anger, gluttony, lust for sexual pleasure, deceit, hard-heartedness, gossip, laziness, drunkenness, covetousness, pride and the like are present in the hearts of many Catholics. Is it not true, then, that before we bemoan the weeds that exist in the Church, we should first attend to the weeds in our own souls?

The second reason we should never be tempted to abandon ship is that, no matter how difficult or even hopeless things in the Church may appear (and never forget that appearances are often deceiving), Jesus Christ is always true to his word. He will not let the Church be overcome by the storms of sin and temptation. No matter what.

Consider the time when Christ and the Apostles were in a boat on Lake Galilee. “But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care if we perish?’ And he awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?’” (Mark 4:35–41).

The Apostles’ complaint, “Do you not care if we perish?” is echoed in the hearts of some Catholics today, discouraged and demoralized as they are by scandals. They worry that perhaps Christ has fallen asleep on the job, or has lost interest in the Church. Neither is true, of course.

Jesus Christ “remains faithful,” as Saint Paul reminds us in 2 Timothy 2:11–15. He will not abandon his Church: “[B]ehold, I am with you all days, even till the consummation of the world” (Matthew 28:20, DR). The Lord promised, “I will not leave you orphans” (John 14:18, DR). You can trust these promises Christ made. He made them to you and to me every bit as much as he did to the Apostles.The next time you or someone you know is tempted to discouragement when the latest scandal involving a Catholic hits the news, just remember the Lord’s promise: “I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Yes, the Catholic Church, like our own hearts, is truly a field of wheat and weeds, and it will be until the end. But in the meantime, Christ wants to give us the graces we need to deal with those weeds. All we have to do is ask him (Matthew 11:28).

CHAPTER 40

Lust and Impurity

As a young man, Aurelius Augustinus was no saint. In later years, though, he became a renowned theologian and the holy bishop of Hippo, North Africa. We know him today as
Saint
Augustine, for so he became. But in his youth, sanctity was the last thing on his mind.

Before experiencing a radical conversion to Jesus Christ in his early thirties, Augustine was, to put it simply, addicted to sexual pleasure. He admitted this freely in his famous autobiography
Confessions
, which recounts with painful honesty the details of his sins and the consequences they wreaked on his life. But as he experienced so powerfully, God’s grace is more powerful than man’s sin.

The arc of Saint Augustine’s life—his loss of innocence, his descent into chronic sexual sin, his gradual struggle to free himself, his eventual liberation by God’s grace and his wholehearted embrace of virtue, especially chastity—teaches us a great deal. Many, many people these days, including many Catholics, find themselves in the grip of lust and various forms of impurity and unchastity. Many wonder if they can ever break free from their addictions. The allure of lust is so powerful, so seductive, that even Christians who know consenting to lust is wrong suffer pangs of hesitancy, as did Augustine, who once prayed in a moment of temptation: “Give me chastity...but not yet!”
¹

To make matters worse, virtually every level of modern media contributes to this problem. Eroticism and pornography flood our modern culture with the incessant message that hedonism and unlimited gratification is good, and that, conversely, self-restraint, chastity and modesty are, if not bad, at least weird.

But Scripture tells us otherwise. In Matthew 5:27–30 the Lord warns,

You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that
every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart
. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell (Matthew 5:28, emphasis added; see Matthew 15:19; Mark 7:21).

In Romans 13:14 Saint Paul says, “[P]ut on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” This is a reminder that the old saying is true: Give the devil an inch and he’ll take a mile. In other words, a seemingly minor concession to impurity can quickly snowball out of control and will cascade into serious sin. Just ask any priest who’s been hearing confessions for awhile.

Happily, the Lord provides the grace to withstand temptations toward lust and impurity, as well as the grace of forgiveness and restoration for those who repent. We have only to ask him. In John 8:1–11 we see the incident of the woman caught in adultery. Her accusers were about to stone her to death when Christ intervened, dispersing the rock-throwers with a single statement, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her” (v. 7). He forgave the weeping woman, saying, “‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you;
go, and do not sin again
’” (emphasis added).

Consider these other warnings about lust, impurity and unchastity:

1 Corinthians 6:9–11
  “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”

1 Corinthians 6:13–20
  “The body is not meant for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.... Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, ‘The two shall become one.’ But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Shun immorality. Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

Colossians 3:5–8
  “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.
In these you once walked, when you lived in them. But now put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from your mouth.”

1 Thessalonians 4:3–7
  “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like heathen who do not know God; that no man transgress, and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we solemnly forewarned you. For God has not called us for uncleanness, but in holiness.”

2 Peter 2:9–10
  “[T]he Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and
especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority
” (emphasis added).

1 John 2:15–17
  “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If any one loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides for ever.”

One final point: The word “pornography” comes from the Greek word
porneia
, which means sexual unlawfulness or immorality. Several passages in the New Testament warn about the danger of
porneia
, whether it involves physical sins of the flesh (adultery, fornication, masturbation and so on) or sins of the mind (deliberately viewing pornography, lusting in one’s heart after others, and the like).

First Thessalonians 4:3 (cited above) says to “abstain from...immorality [
porneia
].” In 1 Corinthians 6:18 Saint Paul says “shun immorality [
porneia
].” Likewise, Ephesians 5:3 says that “immorality and all impurity [
porneia
] or covetousness must not even be named among you.”

Further Reading:
CCC,
2331–2400, 2514–2533