How to Not Fall Away
I was recently driving with my young daughter a few days after she publicly professed her faith in Christ. She asked an important question: Not everyone who says they trust in Jesus stays faithful to him. How can I be sure that isn’t me?
You can probably think of someone who at one time claimed to trust in Christ but later fell away. A contemporary term for this is deconstruction. Scripture uses a more catastrophic image: some, “concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck” (1 Tim. 1:19–20). Paul wasn’t exaggerating. He had been shipwrecked (2 Cor. 11:25). He knew that apostasy was no less tragic than the sinking of a vessel on which people’s lives depend. These apostates Paul names—Hymenaeus and Alexander—punctuate Paul’s charge to the church to “wage the good warfare, having faith and a good conscience.”
How can the failures of others help you be diligent in resisting apostasy?
Take Heed Lest You Fall
The surest way to fall away from the faith is to assume you are immune to falling away (1 Cor. 10:12). “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb. 3:12–13). Jesus exhorted even his closest friends: “Abide in Me… If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned (John 15:6). Perseverance in the faith requires constant vigilance. “We have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end” (Heb. 3:14).
Understand the End of Apostasy
Apostasy is not simply a different way to practice faith. Apostates turn off the path that leads to eternal life. Those who renounce faith will be cut off from the tree of life (Rom. 11:22). “For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them” (2 Peter 2:20–21).
Not everyone publishes their apostasy in carefully postured social media posts. Some who have professed the Christian faith quietly stop coming to church and bearing fruit but continue to identify as Christians. They want to avoid a public scandal. But they simply postpone the most scandalous confrontation imaginable. On the Day of Judgment Jesus will say to all apostates: “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness” (Matt. 7:23).
Beware of the “Wrong-Side-of-History” Narrative
It isn’t hard to read in some popular deconstruction announcements a discomfort with the worldview clash that Christianity demands. The world will always see serious Christians as being on the wrong side of history; biblical morality seems ignorant and contrary to human progress. Christians will face “the tribulations and persecutions on account of the world” (Matt. 13:21).
So be careful what you repent of. Some deconstructing people “repent” of the church’s alleged self-righteousness, a fear-based approach to life, mistreatment of women (or men), faulty parenting, and bigotry toward those with different sexual understanding and practice. But genuine repentance isn’t conditioned by what the world presently condemns. It is comprehensive sorrow over sin and the practice of new ideas and actions that more clearly reflect God (2 Cor. 7:10).
The “wrong-side-of-history” motif is like trying to solve a constantly changing maze. To be politically or socially fashionable you will have to change your religious boundary markers and risk apostasy.
Beware of Gradual Drift
Most people who fall away from the faith don’t experience a sudden, Damascus-road-type de-conversion. Studies indicate that a strong majority of those who leave the faith do so gradually. Every time we ignore the urging of our conscience we smooth and broaden the path of apostasy. We need to develop the kind of spiritual disciplines and friendships that will help ensure that if we begin to drift church leaders, family, and friends will notice and take action.
Anticipate Deconstruction
Maturity guarantees some level of worldview deconstruction. Those raised in a covenant home begin their life of faith by believing nearly everything they learn from parents and other close influencers. But maturity happens when we scrutinize the faith we have inherited (1 Cor. 13:11) by searching the Scriptures and searching our souls. Parents and church leaders should welcome the intimidating, genuine questions of their children. If you enter a phase of confusion over who you are and where you are headed don’t assume you have fallen away. Trust that God’s gift of true faith is robust enough to handle all the twists and turns of your life.
Confess the Historic Faith
Sound, time-tested public theological formulations ground believers in truth that is bigger and more biblical than our own fluctuating ideas. Historic confessions help us know what we must believe as God’s children. We must trust that God is, that he has revealed himself both in nature and Scripture, and that he will reject those who reject him and reward those who earnestly seek him (Heb. 11:6). Confessions allow for significant latitude of expression while providing a solid biblical foundation on which to build, and boundaries within which to work.
Trust God to Keep You from Stumbling
Writing to Christians who seemed to be on the brink of apostasy the apostle to the Hebrews was still optimistic: “We are not of those who draw back to perdition but of those who believe to the saving of the soul” (Heb. 10:39). He’s teaching us to be hopeful. Don’t agonize over the weakness of your faith, the holes in your understanding, or the unbelief mixed in with your faith. Be confident in Christ. It is not your faith that makes you lovely to God but only Christ’s righteousness which you receive by faith. Life is complicated. We are all tempted to compromise. But we have a matchless simplicity in Christ (1 Cor. 11:3). Hidden in Christ alone we are safe. He “is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 25).
