Was There a Great Apostasy?
- Cole Morganti
- Jun 23, 2023
- 5 min read
A core teaching in the Latter-day Saint Church is that an event which they call 'The Great Apostasy' occurred after the deaths of the apostles in the 1st century. The LDS Church claims that immediately following these deaths, the church that the apostles left behind turned away from truth and in turn, God removed from them the authority of the priesthood keys (as taught by the LDS Church) and allowed the scriptures to get corrupted.
In a book designed for teaching and answering LDS Church questions, it states this:
did everyone fall away?
The obvious question to be answered is if this apostasy occurred. Many in the LDS Church will use 2 Thessalonians 2: 1-3 to point to the fact this apostasy happened. What is failed to be recognized is that Paul is speaking about the end times. He claims that an 'apostasia' first will come. But, what is left out is that the son of perdition will also be revealed; the man of lawlessness.
The son of perdition is a singular person (in the Greek), who can be identified as the same seed of the enemy found in Genesis 3, the antichrist. A reading of the whole chapter shows the context Paul is talking about is "The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 1).
It would be a stretch to say this text is teaching a complete apostasy from priesthood authority in order to minister the ordinances of the gospel (a concept unique to LDS Theology).
When the great apostasy came, where was the man of lawlessness?
a corrupted gospel restored?
The next thing to consider is this statement made often in LDS material:
As written by Paul in his letter to the Romans, the gospel is, "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth;"
Romans 1:16
This means if the gospel was lost, then no one could have been saved since its corruption, due to it being the power of god unto salvation. Jesus stated Himself that the Scriptures testify of Him (John 5:39), yet people refused to come to Him in order to have life, which is the free gift of those who believe (Romans 6:23).
Therefore, just like John stated in his gospel, we must use the scriptures to learn about Jesus and the gospel (John 20:31). This in turn means, we need the scriptures to learn how to be saved. But if the gospel was lost, it must mean the Bible's gospel message was corrupted.
was the bible corrupted?
This point comes up over and over again and is crucial to the discussion between Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints. If the bible was corrupted, then there very well may be a need for a restoration. But, we know the bible has been consistently and miraculously kept preserved through out the millennia. With over 5000+ manuscripts in the New Testament's original language, as well as many Old Testament manuscripts and cross translations, we can be very confident we have what the Holy Spirit-inspired authors wrote down.
Even if there were/are changes, non-Christian scholars like Bart Erhman concede that the content of the gospel has not been tampered with:
“...the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.”
If this is true, then at least on the subject of scripture corruption, The Great Apostasy did not occur. We can trust that we've always had the gospel unto salvation since the time of its deliverance.
old truths received once more?
The next point to consider is, if the content of the gospel and even the idea of who God is¹ was lost in this great apostasy, wouldn't these things need to be given to us again? Some of the things that are said to have been absent but have now been restored are:
For Latter-day Saints: What can this be other than a second occurrence of God bringing not only the content of the faith back but also its practice (e.g. temple ordinances)? With how detailed this apostasy is, it actually comes into contradiction with what the bible has been teaching previously. Consider this verse:
"...earnestly contend for the faith which was once² delivered unto the saints."
Jude 3
Jude, inspired by God, is writing to other believers about an apostasy (ironically) that will come at the end times. Jude is encouraging and admonishing the audience to defend the faith and for believers in Jesus for eternal life not to waiver at His great message. Funny enough, Jude, who's main purpose is to warn of a great apostasy (great as in number), tells the readers that this faith has been delivered and will only be delivered once!
The question to be addressed is: What is ' the faith' in verse 3? Earlier we talked about the content of what was supposedly corrupted in the LDS Church's great apostasy was so that we could demonstrate that no matter what we define 'the faith' as, Jude said it was delivered only once.
If we define 'the faith' as any of the following:
knowledge of who god really is
the knowledge of the atonement
the practice of the faith
the scriptures
the authority of the priesthood (as defined by the LDS Church)
Then Jude was wrong in saying it was only delivered once because these things would have had to have been part of the restoration by Joseph Smith in the 1800's. That's at least twice!
CONCLUSION
with these points, we think it is plain to see that The Great Apostasy as the LDS Church has taught, did not occur in the history of the church.
As a disclaimer, we are not saying apostasy is something that doesn't happen, nor are we saying there won't be many people who will fall away from the faith in the future. all we are saying is that the content of the gospel, that believing in Jesus gives you eternal life and forgiveness of sins through His death on the cross, has never been lost and never needed to be restored.
POINTS SUMMARIZED
2 THESSLONIANS 2 IS TALKING ABOUT THE END TIMES, IF THE GREAT APOSTASY HAPPENED, THE ANTICHRIST SHOULD HAVE ALSO APPEARED.
THE BIBLE HASN'T BEEN CORRUPTED, THEREFORE WE NEVER LOST THE CONTENT OF THE GOSPEL.
IF THE FAITH HAS ONLY BEEN DELIVERED ONCE (AS STATED IN JUDE), JOSEPH SMITH COULD NOT HAVE HELPED BRING IT BACK. THAT WOULD BE DELIVERING IT TWICE.
¹"The true doctrine of the Godhead was lost in the apostasy that followed the Savior’s mortal ministry and the deaths of His Apostles." -Godhead, Doctrinal Study; lds.org
²Translated as 'once' in the King James Version, best understood as 'once for all'. modern translations show this emphasis found in the Greek; some even chose to translate this phrase as 'once and for all time' or 'forever'.
