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More than once we have mentioned that church leaders need to be on the lookout for error. They have a duty to recognize and refute it whenever it arises. We have also commented that this is something that is rarely done today. Postmodernism encourages us to "live and let live." If we swallow that line, however, we are in danger of surrendering the gospel.
Given that, there is need to look more closely at what we might call the anatomy of error - its causes and character. Paul's words to Timothy in the opening part of 1Timothy 4 provide a basis for doing that.
The apostle mentions in these verses that he has a specific message from the Holy Spirit saying, "in later times some will abandon the faith" (1 Timothy 4:1). They will do so by following "deceiving spirits and things taught by demons" (v. 1). These errors will not come directly from demons, but through human agents, teachers who are "hypocritical liars whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron" (v. 2).
John Stott helpfully identifies three stages in the process of apostasy in these verses. The first, the immediate cause, is the acceptance of demon-inspired errors. The second and instrumental cause is the influence of morally bankrupt teachers - the human agents who actually spread the error. Thirdly, there is the ultimate cause, the rejection of the testimony of conscience. The downward slide to apostasy begins with people hardening their consciences. This exposes them to devilish delusions, which in turn they spread freely among others.
Aspects of these three steps bear examining more closely. The starting point of error - tampering with the conscience - is worth noting in particular. Conscience is a God-given warning bell that helps us monitor the rightness and wrongness of what we think and do. We should heed its warnings. When we don't it becomes seared or "cauterized." "By constantly arguing with conscience, stifling its warnings and muffling its bell," Stott writes, "its voice is smothered and eventually silenced" (p. 112).
When that happens, it makes us morally insensitive. We are no longer alert to what is right and wrong. More than that, it makes us positively liable to any error that will justify our conscience-defying actions. Satan knows this and is ever ready to provide a heart-quieting substitute. "We do not take this fact sufficiently seriously," says Stott. "Scripture portrays the devil not only as the tempter, enticing people into sin, but also as the deceiver, seducing people into error" (p. 111). There is not only a Spirit of truth in the world, but a spirit of falsehood, "who is able to delude, drug, bewitch and even blind people" (p. 111).
People who swallow the devil's lies become ready teachers. They not only delude themselves, they also poison others. Paul speaks of such people as hypocritical liars, that is, intentional deceivers. They are hypocrites in the sense that they are putting up a front when they teach things they don't really believe themselves. And they are liars because what they teach is false. They are a dangerous source of spiritual infection.
"The grim sequence of events in the career of the false teachers has now been revealed," writes Stott. "It is a perilous downward path from the deaf ear and the cauterized conscience to the deliberate lie, the deception of demons and the ruination of others" (p. 112). If these are the roots of error, then it is surely worth opposing.