THE MOST COMMNON FORM OF APOSTASY
Whenever we hear of ‘apostasy’,
images of people denying Jesus as Lord and Savior in the middle of torture or
persecution, tend to come into our minds. In fact, the Roman circus, Christians
thrown to the lions, or the Communists religious persecutions of the Soviet
Union or Albania, may represent better this term, ‘apostasy’. But definitely,
they are not the only ones.
There has always been
a more subtle way of denying Christ in the most degrading manner, that however,
it has passed unnoticed and almost socially accepted by most Christians through
the ages, and more now than before, and it is interreligious marriage.
Christianity teaches
as a rule, that a Christian should not marry a non-Christian (2Corinthians
6:14). Even though this verse does not refer directly to marriage, but to
different social alliances, marriage is the most intimate and common way of social
union that exists in the world.
Marriage implies not
only a social contract, but also a willful agreement to sexual, emotional and
economic mingling, that affects greatly the whole person of the ones involved,
and is considered to be the pillar of society and the reproduction factory of
human life.
The biblical context
speaks against social unions, specifically in religious and moral matters, more
than sexual, economic, or otherwise (2Cor 6:16-17); which includes marriages of
Christians with non-Christians. At first sight, this may seem more of a moral cliché
than a real apostasy, but there is a sinister angle to this phenomenon that not
many have come to realize.
Once a Christian has
repented and is baptized willingly, or has made a profession of faith voluntarily,
he becomes a ‘born-again’ creature, who having taken to himself the death of Jesus,
he has received the Holy Spirit and is called to eternal life. He becomes a ‘Child
of God’, a ‘Son of Light’. If one of these Children of God, desires to unite
his life to a partner, it is only natural to expect this partner to share in
the same faith, and become a real ‘companion’ in life. No partner can have a
real union with someone, if he or she do not profess the same beliefs.
Spiritual union is the essence of marriage, expressed in sexual intercourse,
for intimacy and procreation. Without this spiritual communion, there cannot be
a real perfect union in a couple. Their union becomes only carnal and superficial,
looking each of them to different hopes, that in the end both will become
illusory.
But there is a darker
implication.
If the Christian
partner, for emotional reasons, decides to adopt the partner’s religion, he or
she will be rejecting Jesus as Lord and Savior of their lives, denying Him forthrightly
the moment he or she make a profession of faith into a different religion.
This means that the
partner adopting the new religion of the partner, is admitting that Jesus was a
liar, and so were his Apostles. He will be implying that the Bible is false,
and that there is condemnation in Jesus’s doctrine; and that the new religion
he or she is adopting, it is more than the religion Jesus of Nazareth professed.
And what makes it even more humiliating, is that this change will be motivated
not for doctrinal error, but for more carnal and mundane reasons. Like the pieces of silver Judas Iscariot’s.
A person who does
this, has denied Christ, and made a public act of apostasy, and has won eternal
condemnation for rejecting the Only Son of God’s sacrifice on the Cross, becoming
he or she, sons of Satan, and inheritors of eternal condemnation in the Lake of
Fire.
There is forgiveness
is a detractor like that repents and confesses JESUS’ Glory again in public.
But while that happens, they should be avoided, as apostates.
Omar Flores.
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