“Splintering Off”

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Last week in Sunday school, we were discussing how it seemed like the nature of God in the Old Testament seemed different than the nature of God in the New Testament.  (The New Testament nature of God seemed more forgiving and less wrathful).  My pastor mentioned there was a second century heretical movement called “Marcionism” that actually taught there was a difference.  Supposedly, this man named Marcion actually broke away from the church and began his own movement.  My pastor said the early church fought against this early heresy, and it eventually died out.  I’m not good with history, so I didn’t want to ask my pastor to explain this further in front of the Sunday school class.  Could you explain this a bit further?  How were these early christians able to keep the true biblical teachings on track and avoid these early heresies?

Sincerely,
Mad At Marcion

Dear Mad At Marcion,

Marcionism was a real movement, and it was combated by the early christians the same way all false teaching is – by comparing the teaching to the Bible.  The Bible teaches that God is the same today, forever, and always (Heb 13:8).  It teaches that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (who were all Old Testament people) is the same God of the New Testament (Acts 3:13).  New Testament christians compared the Scriptures to what Marcion was teaching… and found Marcion to be wrong.

We are told to do the same thing today.  There are lots of people who say they believe in Christ but teach a different gospel (Matt 7:21-23).  Paul said that such false teachers distort the Scriptures and are bound for hell (Gal 1:8).  Our job is to test all preaching against the Bible (1 Jn 4:1).  There are lots of churches, but only one Bible.  God never intended for all the religious confusion we see today (Eph 4:4-6).  If we want to be confident of our salvation, it is important that we never accept what people say unless it matches the Bible.  The Bible is the ultimate standard of faith (Rom 10:17); accept no substitute.

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