One of the many infallible proofs of the Scriptures being authored by the omniscient, Almighty God is its anticipation of error. Jude demonstrates this with these words: “But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts” (Jude 17-18).
In the past two millennia, not one single religious error has arisen which cannot be refuted by what is found written in the New Testament by its inspired penmen.
Jude specifically writes of change agents (v. 4) who ultimately seek to destroy the faith which blesses us with a common salvation in Christ. A remembrance of the apostles’ doctrine is the remedy to these flattering spiritual dreamers.
While in Miletus at the close of his third missionary journey, the apostle Paul warned the Ephesian elders of an approaching attack by savage wolves arising from within them. He predicted the coming of spiritual shepherd(s) who would speak perverse things and create an apostate movement away from God’s intended organization and government of each autonomous local congregation (Acts 20:29-30). Paul ceaseless warnings for three years while with them coupled with God and His word after his departure from them were the divine remedy to this approaching spiritual disaster (Acts 20:31-32).
Peter writes of scoffers who deny the second appearing of Christ because they have embraced uniformitarianism, an essential tenet of the false theory of evolution and the seed of the noxious weed called modernism (2 Peter 3:3-4). The remedy for this error is found in being “mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of…the apostles of the Lord and Savior” (2 Peter 3:2).
The Holy Spirit via the apostle Paul gave Timothy and us specific falsehoods which would be taught and embraced by those who have departed from the faith: the forbidding of marriage and the commanding of abstinence from certain foods. This is because they have given heed to deceiving spirits instead of the Spirit of truth; they have embraced the doctrines of demons and have rejected sound doctrine (1 Timothy 4:1-3). To avoid such spiritual darkness, Timothy needs to be “nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine” which he has been carefully following” (1 Timothy 4:6).
Every past, present, and future false doctrine was anticipated in the Bible; therefore remembering the words which were spoken by the New Testament’s apostles and prophets is the only sane and safe course of action.
