When the Prophet Joseph Smith was a young man, he was confused because there were so many different churches. Each church claimed they were the correct church and the others were false. Joseph felt it was important to join Christ’s true church. When God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph in the events we call the First Vision, he asked Christ which church he should join. For more information about the First Vision, click here.
Joseph was surprised when the Lord told him not to join any of the churches, and that the true church of Christ was not on the earth anymore. Joseph later admitted it had never occurred to him that maybe none of the churches were Christ’s true church (Joseph Smith-History 1:18). This was the beginning of Joseph’s understanding that, at some point in the past, the authority that Jesus Christ gave his apostles was lost, the system of prophetic leadership he established was changed. Because there were no longer prophets and apostles receiving revelation from God, false teachings were introduced and men were forced to rely on their own wisdom. There were no longer prophets and apostles receiving revelation from God (Acts 10:11) to guide His God’s kingdom.
This loss happened because of something called the Great Apostasy. “Apostasy” is a word used by the Apostle Paul (2 Thessalonians 2:3) that means “rebellion” or “mutiny.” Sometimes this event is also called “the Apostasy of the Early Christian Church.” The Great Apostasy refers to events that happened during the lifetime of the first apostles and shortly after their death, where a number of early leaders and members of Christ’s church rebelled against their priesthood leaders, rejected their authority, and abandoned some of their teachings. Some did this because they could not let go of the traditions their families had practiced for centuries and fully accept Christ’s teachings. Others simply were hungry for power and control. Because of this, God stopped calling new apostles–as he did after the death of Judah (Acts 1:26) and when he called Paul (2 Timothy 1:1), James the brother of Jesus (Galatians 1:19), and Jude the brother of Jesus, who were not members of the original twelve apostles. Eventually, there was no apostolic priesthood authority to guide the Church.
The Apostasy resulted in great challenges for Christianity. There was no longer a clear foundation of authority as Paul had taught them (Ephesians 2:20). To fill this gap, bishops began to take on power and authority they did not have before, and that had not been given them by the apostles. There were also no longer answers from Heaven to questions about God or Church doctrine. Instead, the Christian philosophers and theologians started to debate and argue. False books of scripture were written in the names of dead apostles in efforts to promote different beliefs and doctrines. It was a time of great confusion.
During the centuries after the Great Apostasy, sincere and believing Christians continued to have faith in Christ, but Christianity continued to splinter and change. New ideas were invented, such as baptizing infants and monasticism. Some were accepted and others rejected. Sometimes Christian thinkers came together in councils to argue and debate different ideas and vote on what they would believe. This was a sincere effort to bring order to chaos, but there was no apostolic authority or revelation involved in the process. Instead, these debates lasted for hundreds of years. Later, Christian leaders started using threats of violence to enforce their interpretation of doctrine and to torture or execute people who did not agree with their interpretation.
As time went on, there began to be many different churches—sometimes these divisions occurred because of political reasons, and sometimes because of disagreements regarding doctrine.
Even though the Bible teaches us there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5), there were now many faiths, and different baptisms. Some churches no longer even believed that baptism was necessary, and that faith in Christ was sufficient.
The idea of an apostasy of Christ’s church is difficult and uncomfortable. It leads us to ask: How could Christ have let His church collapse? Didn’t Christ tell Peter the gates of Hell would never prevail against His church (Matthew 16:18)?
While it might seem unbelievable that God would let his church be changed, the Old Testament reveals a clear pattern: God established his covenant with his children, but permitted them to turn away from Him and reject His teachings. God would then send prophets to teach repentance and to re-establish his covenant.
In the same way that our loving Father allows other bad things to happen in the world, God gives his children the freedom to accept or reject his Gospel and prophets, both as individuals and as groups. As Christ prophesied, hell will never prevail against His church, because when the people reject His Church, he causes it to “flee into the wilderness” (Revelation 12:6) and wait, while he permits Satan, for a time, to make war on the believers (Revelation 12:17).
But God never stops trying to speak to His children (Amos 3:7), because he knows that only through our covenant relationship with Him and by obeying his Gospel will we be able to be blessed and find happiness (Deuteronomy 28:1). We have learned from modern revelation that our loving Heavenly Father does not enjoy punishing the wicked, He weeps when the wicked make choices that cause themselves and others pain (Moses 7:28-29, 37).
Bible Verses Predicting and Revealing the Apostasy
This list is not all the verses in the Bible about apostasy, but is a summary of some important verses showing that Christ’s apostles knew that an apostasy would cause the destruction of the early Church of Christ in the first generations of Christianity. Our goal is not to make anyone doubt their faith or convince them of our interpretation. Our goal is to invite you to read these verses for yourself and then think and pray about them and ask God for wisdom. We believe that the greatest truth revealed in the Bible is that we can personally seek wisdom from God (James 1:5), and that he will answer us when we seek for Him with all our heart (Jeremiah 29:13).
In one of his final sermons before his death, Jesus prophesied about future events. One of these was a warning that an apostasy would occur within His church along with great persecution from outside of the Church: “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.”
On his way from Greece to Jerusalem, the Apostle Paul stopped at the city of Miletus and called for the elders of nearby Ephesus. He then warned them: “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.”
In Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonian Saints, he had to explain to them that they had an incorrect understanding that the “day of Christ” was soon “at hand.” Paul explained that Christ’s second coming would not take place until after the apostasy occurred. This verse teaches us that Paul knew a rebellion was coming and also that the 2nd Coming of Christ was still far in the future.
In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, he also prophesied about the apostasy: “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.” As we saw above, these “latter times” were not a reference to the end of the world, but rather the last days of the church of Christ.
Jude 1:17-19 and 1 John 2:18-19
A few decades after this warning from Paul, the apostle Jude also explained the Saints were then in “the last time” (Jude 1:17–19). The apostle John also taught in his first letter that the Saints were in “the last hour” (1 John 2:18–19). Like Paul, John and Jude knew that they were not in the final era of the world, but rather the final days of the Church before changes occurred.
In 2 Timothy, Paul once again warned the time was coming when “men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”
In addition to Paul, Jude, and John, Peter also understood the apostasy was soon to cause destruction inside the church. In 2 Peter, Peter warned that were already “false prophets also among the people,” and that soon there would be more “false teachers among you, who [secretly] shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.”
As prophesied, spiritual darkness eventually came to the world and the apostasy from Christ’s original church. Thankfully, even during those times, God continued to love his children and allowed many of the truths of Christ to be preserved in the writings of the Bible. Faithful men and women continued to pray to the Father in the name of the Son and be blessed by trying to apply Christ’s teachings in their lives and homes.
And at the appointed time, God followed the same pattern in calling once again prophets and apostles to restore lost teachings and the authorities and ordinances of His Gospel covenant. We refer to these events as the Restoration. Click here and here to read more about this restoration that took place.