The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has proclaimed to the world consistently since its beginning that there was an apostasy of the church founded by Jesus during his earthly ministry and led by his apostles following his ascension.[1] This is a fundamental belief; in fact, the apostasy of early Christianity provides much of the very justification for the existence of the Latter-day Saint faith. If there had not been an apostasy, there would have been no need for a restoration.[2] Latter-day Saint theology asserts that the church of Jesus and his apostles came to an end within a century of its formation; the doctrines which its inspired leaders taught were corrupted and changed by others not of similar inspiration, the authority to act in God’s name was taken from the earth, and the Christian systems that then remained did not enjoy divine endorsement. It was precisely the question of divine endorsement—in Joseph Smith’s words, “which of all the sects was right” (Joseph Smith–History 1:17)—that led to the glorious event that ushered in the Restoration of the gospel, the appearance of the Father and the Son to the young Prophet. In response to Joseph Smith’s search for a true church, he was told to join none of them, “for they were all wrong,” and all their creeds were “an abomination” in the sight of God (Joseph Smith–History 1:19).

The message of the Latter-day Saints is that following seventeen centuries since the days of the apostles, the heavens were again opened, divinely authored doctrines were revealed anew, the authority to speak and act in God’s name was brought back to earth, and the Church of Jesus Christ was established by divine command.

Prophecies about Apostasy

The best single witness of the apostasy of New Testament Christianity is the New Testament itself. In it there are several statements made by Jesus and his apostles about the future of their work. Though they labored with great zeal to bring souls to the Lord and establish the church throughout the world, still their prophetic utterances concerning the end result of their efforts foretold tragedy. In short, they knew that the church would fall into apostasy shortly after their time, and they bore candid testimony of that fact. In this study we will examine selected prophetic passages in which Jesus and his apostles foretold the falling of the church or events associated with it. In the church’s earlier years, those prophecies pointed to the future. In the later years, the anticipated future had arrived. In these somber prophecies, words like “latter times,” “last time,” “last hour,” and “last days” refer not to our own time but to the last days of the early Christian church. For some passages, we will draw from responsible modern translations when they express the intended meaning better than does the King James translation.[3]

Matthew 24:5, 9–11

One of the most significant sermons of the Savior is that which is recorded in Matthew 24–25, the Olivet Discourse. In response to questions of the Twelve regarding the destruction of the temple and the destruction of the world, Jesus prophesied of events that would transpire in the near and distant future. Matthew 24:9–11 records a prophecy of great importance concerning the future 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.

The rendering of this passage in the Joseph Smith Translation places it clearly in the context of the last days of the early church (Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:4–21).

A number of important statements are contained in these verses. Verse 9 foretells the fate of the apostles themselves: affliction, hatred, and death for Christ’s sake. The only scripturally attested fulfillment of the martyrdom prophecy is the death of James at the hands of Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:1–2), but early Christian tradition tells of similar fates for other apostles.[4] Yet the killing of the apostles was not the cause of the apostasy. Other references clearly teach that true Christianity died from an internal wound, the rejection of true doctrine by the members of the church. Still, the death of those who alone held the authority to lead the church could only mean the death of the church itself.

Verse 10 provides an important prophecy of the rejection of truth by the saints. Unfortunately, the King James translation obscures its intended meaning with the phrase “Then shall many be offended.” “Offended” translates from the Greek verb skandalízō, the core meaning of which is to “trip.” In a religious context such as this, the passive voice here (a third-person plural, future tense) means to “give up one’s faith.” This is expressed in some recent translations: “Many will turn away from the faith” (TNIV), or “Many will fall from their faith” (REB). Many, the Savior foretells, will leave the faith in that day.

Verse 11 records an additional prophecy—namely, that many false prophets would arise and would “deceive many.” In that day, when the apostles would be afflicted, hated, and killed, taking their places would be “many false prophets.” The related passage in verse 5, which Joseph Smith—Matthew places in the early Christian period (Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:6), is also significant: “For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.” Notice that there would be many false Christs, and, like the many false prophets, they would deceive many. One can only lament the fact that the available sources, scriptural and nonscriptural, do not give us a complete history of the fulfillment of these words.

Acts 20:29–31

On his way from Greece to Jerusalem at the end of his third missionary journey, the apostle Paul stopped at the city of Miletus and called for the elders of nearby Ephesus (see Acts 20:18–35). On their arrival he gave an important address of which Luke records only excerpts. The prophecy relevant to the future of the church, Acts 20:29–31, reads as follows:

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.

Paul warned the elders of the province of Asia that following his departure, forces would damage the church. “Grievous wolves” would enter in and would not spare the flock. At this point in Paul’s career, he had experienced years of trouble with Judaizers trying to thwart his work of taking the gospel to Gentiles. Perhaps it was similar infiltration of apostate forces that Paul foresaw. The Judaizers, who had already had great success opposing Paul (see, for example, Galatians 1:6), were members of the church. In spite of the wolf metaphor, what Paul alluded to here was undoubtedly not physical attack or external persecution. Instead, he was describing the ascension of opposing forces within the church and their gaining power over the Saints. This is borne out as he continued by speaking about people who were part of the church in that area—and who were perhaps in Paul’s audience at that very moment—who would come forward “speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:30, ESV).

Paul ended his tragic prophecy by testifying that for three years he had warned the Saints there constantly, “with tears” (Acts 20:31). Similarly, in his prophecy of apostasy in 2 Thessalonians, which we will examine next, he also bore witness to the saints that he had warned them well in advance of the coming rebellion (see 2 Thessalonians 2:5).

2 Thessalonians 2:1–12

In Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians, he had to respond to the belief among the Thessalonian Saints that the “day of Christ” was “at hand” (2 Thessalonians 2:2). We do not know the details of the problem in Thessalonica, nor do we know its origin. The Greek verbal conjugation enéstēken, translated in the King James Bible as “is at hand,” has been rendered in a variety of ways in other translations. The basic meaning of the word is “is present,” so perhaps readings such as “has come” (ESV) and “is already here” (NRSV), as found in the majority of the versions, are more accurate than the ambiguous “at hand.”[5] Whatever the exact misunderstanding of the Thessalonians may have been, Paul responded clearly that the day of Christ’s coming would not happen until the “falling away” had taken place (verses 3–4):

Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

The King James words “falling away” are translated from the Greek noun apostasía, from which we have our word apostasy. Whereas the words “falling away” may give the incorrect impression of a process of drifting or gradually losing ground, the original term means something much more dramatic. Some modern translations use terms like “the rebellion” (ESV, NRSV, TNIV) and “the Great Revolt” (NJB). The two Greek elements combined in apostasía are the verb hístēmi, “to stand,” and apó, “away from.” The basic meaning of the word is “revolt” or “rebellion,” and ancient sources use the term to describe political rebellion and revolution.[6] Apostasía is not an invasion from without but an uprising from within. What Paul was describing in the future of Christianity was a mutiny against God and his position in the church—a mutiny by members of the church. The meaning of the word, and the evidence from the New Testament and from history, show us that the apostasía would be an inside job. And, as Paul wrote in the following verses, the rebellion would succeed.

The chief feature of this time of rebellion would be the triumph of the “man of sin.” The metaphor is striking: the “man of sin” would supplant God in God’s temple. Latter-day Saint commentators generally equate the “man of sin” mentioned in these verses with Satan, and that is clearly what Paul had in mind.[7] But the message of the passage is a general one about the replacement of a true church with a counterfeit one not acknowledged by God. As part of the apostasía, as Paul noted, Satan would be made manifest as he would exalt himself over all that is called divine. Paul used the words “temple of God” here to refer to the church, as he also did in some other places.[8] Of historical and theological significance is the fact that in this prophecy, a form of the church would survive, but as God would not be at its head, it would no longer be the church of God.

Paul’s words correspond well with evidence that we have from other scriptures. When the Lord appeared to Joseph Smith in the spring of 1820, he told the young Prophet that all the Christian churches of his day were “wrong” (Joseph Smith—History 1:19). The Book of Mormon prophet Nephi envisioned in the latter days following the restoration only two churches: “the church of the Lamb of God” and “the church of the devil” (1 Nephi 14:10). The virtuous and godly would belong to “the church of the Lamb of God,” and all wickedness would be classified as “the church of the devil.” Paul told us the same thing as he foretold the “man of sin” supplanting God as a result of the rebellion.

No one should conclude that Paul’s metaphor of the “man of sin” sitting in God’s temple means that Christianity after the time of the apostles would be satanic. The apostasy was the early process by which church members rejected the teachings and authority of the apostles, so it is not accurate to blame the later victims of that process—medieval and modern Christians. Nor is it accurate to call the later centuries “the apostasy.” Latter-day Saints should rejoice—as the heavens undoubtedly do—at the great works of righteousness and faith, and the leavening influence on the world, of those whose lives are touched in any way by Jesus Christ.

The Lord called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:30). It possesses “the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16). The restoration of the fullness of the gospel, with its priesthood and other blessings, took place because it is only in its light that salvation in its truest sense is possible to humankind. In times and places where those blessings are absent, Satan succeeds by hindering God’s children from returning to their Father’s glory. The latter-day restoration of the gospel brought back Christ’s ancient church, with God again at its head.

In Paul’s next verse (2 Thessalonians 2:5), he punctuated his prophecy by reminding the saints that he had taught them of the apostasy when he had been with them personally: “Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?” But his message did not stop there. Even at that time, said Paul, the man of sin was being restrained until he would be “revealed in his time” (verse 6, ESV). “For the mystery of lawlessness [KJV, ‘mystery of iniquity’] is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed” (verses 7–8, ESV). In these verses, Paul stated that the overt manifestation of Satan in the church was still in the future. Yet even then the “mystery of iniquity” was operating, waiting in the wings, as it were, for its chance to come to the fore. Paul wrote of some force which restrained the man of sin from making his appearance before his time, perhaps the Lord, the collective power of the apostleship, or something or someone else as the obstacle to the day of the man of sin. In any case, the message comes through clearly that Satan and his works were at that time already operational but were being held back until the divine power that restrained them would “be taken out of the way. And then shall that wicked one be revealed” (verses 7–8, Joseph Smith Translation).[9]

In verses 9–12, Paul told of Satan’s deceptive power with his church and false priesthood. They would come with “power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness.” Those who would follow them are they who “received not the love of the truth,” who “believe a lie,” and who “believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” In short, Satan’s work, accompanied by signs and miracles meant to counterfeit those of the Lord’s true servants, would prosper because the Saints would reject the truth and believe falsehood.

1 Timothy 4:1–3

In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, he prophesied concerning the departure of some of the Saints from the faith (1 Timothy 4:1–3):

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.

This prophecy has a number of features that make it of considerable interest. First, Paul specifically stated that his belief in the future defection was the result of revelation. In fact, not only did the Spirit speak these words to Paul, but it did so “expressly.” The chronological note is also important. Paul used the term “latter times” (hústeroi kairoí) to denote the period in which the developments that he foretold would take place. Paul was not speaking of our day but of the “latter times” of the early church. The message is consistent in the New Testament. A few decades later, Jude announced to his readers that they were then in “the last time” (éschatos chrónos; Jude 1:18). Similarly, John expressed to the readers of his first letter the certainty of the fact that they themselves were living in “the last hour” (eschátē hṓra; 1 John 2:18). They knew that they were in the final days of the Christian church, the period of time concerning which the Spirit spoke expressly to Paul. Paul’s term “the last days” in 2 Timothy 3:1 (eschátai hēmérai) should be understood in the same light.

As we have seen in other prophecies examined so far, the departure from the faith would be a defection from true principles of doctrine. Paul wrote that those who would depart would give heed to what he called “seducing spirits” and “doctrines of devils.” What Paul saw was not an abandonment of religion but a shifting of loyalties, from “the faith” to a false faith. Accompanying this defection would be the manifestation of the negative behaviors cited in verse 2 (see also 2 Timothy 3:2–4).

Verse 3 is interesting because it mentions two examples of the false ideas that the counterfeit religious system would foster: a prohibition against marriage and a prohibition against certain foods. Beyond that, the apostle gave no further details.

In his prophecy in 1 Timothy, Paul did not express any of the feelings of doom or urgency that are so obvious in the letters of his fellow apostle John, written about thirty-five years later. Yet for Paul, the present danger was real enough that he admonished Timothy personally to reject strange ideas (verse 7) and to remind “the brethren” of his warnings (verse 6).

2 Timothy 3:1–5, 13

In the prophecy in 2 Timothy 3, which parallels that of 1 Timothy 4, Paul told his beloved coworker that “perilous times” would come in the last days (verse 1). In this passage, he emphasized the spiritual depravity that would be characteristic of the world in that era (verses 1–4):

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,

Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,

Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.

Paul continued his sentence as follows: “having a form of godliness; but denying the power thereof” (verse 5). Latter-day Saints recognize these words as being among those spoken by the Lord to the Prophet Joseph Smith (Joseph Smith—History 1:19). Paul’s point within the context of this prophecy of apostasy is that despite the inward corruption, the outward trappings of sanctity would remain, yet the power of God would not be found there.

As Paul continued his warning to Timothy of “perilous times” ahead, he spoke with increasing concern. In verse 13 we read, “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.” The fact that Paul knew that those “perilous times” were not far in the future is demonstrated by his personal plea to Timothy in verse 14: “But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them.” Paul was confident of Timothy’s unceasing faithfulness if he would but continue in the things that the apostle had taught him and also in the words of the scriptures (verse 15). For others of Timothy’s generation, there was more cause for concern.

2 Timothy 4:3–4

Paul’s final prophecy of the abandonment of true religion is found in the last chapter of 2 Timothy. From the English Standard Version we read (2 Timothy 4:3–4):

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,

And will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

This passage paints a picture of rejection of the truth that is consistent with the other prophecies examined so far. In the verses that precede it, Paul charged Timothy strongly to “preach,” “reprove, rebuke, and exhort” (ESV). Verse 3 reveals that the reason for his urgency is the fact that he knew that a time was coming in which the Saints would no longer accept the truth.

Paul’s desire in this, his last preserved letter, was to hold off the onslaught of the inevitable rebellion. What he foresaw was not an abandonment of religion but a willful rejection of true doctrine and its replacement by doctrines which were untrue but more to the liking of the hearers. Notice that the people involved, although unwilling to put up with correct teachings, desired teachings nonetheless. Having “itching ears,” that is, a desire to hear religion, they would acquire teachers whose doctrines were acceptable to them. The final outcome of their actions would be the abandonment of truth and the acceptance of “myths.”

2 Peter 2:1–3

Paul was not alone among the apostles in prophesying doom for early Christianity. In 2 Peter, the chief apostle foretold the introduction of false teachers into the church (2 Peter 2:1–2):

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily 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.

These false teachers, according to Peter, would secretly bring in “damnable heresies.” So successful would they be that as a result of their efforts, “the way of truth” would be blasphemed (future passive from blasphēméō).[10] Verse 3 tells us more: “In their greed they will exploit you with false words” (ESV). This tells us something concerning their purpose: to exploit the members of the church (KJV, “make merchandise of you”), and their method of doing so: by making up doctrine.

1 John 2:18; Jude 1:4, 17–18

There are a few passages in the New Testament that give evidence indirectly that an apostasy had been foretold. Of these, the most informative are found in 1 John 2:18 and Jude 1:4, 17–18. These verses actually speak of apostasy already present in the church, and while doing so they make mention of the fact that the saints knew that it would come and had been warned appropriately. John wrote: “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time” (1 John 2:18). What is important at this point is the fact that John reminded the Saints to whom he wrote that they had heard earlier that a time would come—called the “last time” (eschátē hṓrā)—in which “antichrist” would come among the church. The foretold time had now arrived.

Similarly, Jude wrote: “For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 1:4 ESV). This passage tells that the readers had received warning in the past of the coming of “ungodly people” who would pervert the gospel and reject the Lord. After writing more about those predicted apostates and likening them to some of more ancient times, Jude continued (Jude 1:17–19 ESV):

But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.

They said to you, ‘In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.’

It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.

According to Jude, the apostles had foretold the coming in the “last time” (éschatos chrónos) of those who would scoff at the true faith. The “last time” had arrived, and those scoffers had come.

Revelation 13:1–9

The final prophecy to be examined is found in Revelation 13. Here we read John’s vision of the victory of the forces of Satan over the saints of the Lord. In chapter 12, John characterized the continual conflict between Satan and the works of God as the efforts of a dragon, Satan, to destroy a woman and her children. In Revelation 12:17 we read, “And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” This is part of an ongoing conflict that has existed since before humankind was placed on the earth, and it will continue until Satan suffers final defeat following the Millennium (see Revelation 20:10).

The episode from that conflict that is recorded in chapter 13 is directly relevant to the end of the early Christian church. As the vision continued, John saw the appearance of a beast, “having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy” (Revelation 13:1). This beast was the agent of the dragon, Satan, from whom he had received “his power and his throne and great authority” (Revelation 13:2 ESV). In John’s narrative, we find the beast blaspheming God, God’s name, his dwelling place, and those who live in heaven (compare blasphēméō in 2 Peter 2:2). John continued: “And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations” (Revelation 13:7).

The information provided seems sufficient for us to draw two confident conclusions about the beast metaphor, its identity, and its work. First, it is a deputy of Satan; it derives its power from him and does his work (see Revelation 13:2, 4). As God’s work is “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39), Satan’s and that of his beast is to do the opposite. The Joseph Smith Translation notes that the beast was “in the likeness of the kingdoms of the earth” (Revelation 13:1). “Kingdom” in a scriptural context can mean any kind of institution, movement, force, or power—religious, political, or otherwise. The second statement that we can make concerning the beast is that it accomplished what it was sent to do. Verse 7 records the tragic fact that it succeeded: it overcame the Saints.

In viewing John’s beast in the light of its context in Revelation 13 and other prophetic statements concerning the fall of the church, we can identify it as the institutions or forces of Satan that prevailed over early Christianity following the time of the apostles. As for the nature of those forces, it should be remembered that the scriptures we have examined so far present in clear focus the prophetic vision of the apostles: the cause of the apostasy would be the rejection of the truth by the members of the church. In this light, the beast seen by John that overcame the saints might be interpreted best as being Christianity itself—not the Christianity of Jesus, Peter, John, and Paul, but the Christianity that overcame the Saints and apostles and transformed the church.

The Great and Abominable Church

There is more to the story than what we have seen in these verses. Other New Testament passages show the process by which errant behaviors and false doctrines made their way into the early church, issues that the apostles had to deal with in their visits and letters. The New Testament epistles are almost all corrective, dealing with problems that had come to the apostles’ attention that needed inspired responses. By examining the epistles in chronological order, we see the apostasy taking place as it happened, progressing in severity as time went on.[11] Letters written in the mid-first century deal with issues that may not seem overly serious to us today, but within a few decades the apostles were dealing with trends that were serious dangers to the church’s existence. Descriptions in Revelation 2–3 show widespread problems in the church, and the New Testament’s latest document, 3 John, tells of a local church leader who rejected the authority of the last remaining apostle in the church (see 3 John 1:9–10). These circumstances were likely representative of what was happening elsewhere as well.

Nephi wrote about the time of the early apostles and prophesied of a “great and abominable church.” Its founder would be the devil, and it would remove things “which are plain and most precious” both from the scriptures and from the teachings of the church. The Bible would not go forth to the nations until it had been corrupted “through the hands of the great and abominable church,” leaving it less pure and reliable than it had been when it was first written (1 Nephi 13:4–6, 20–29). When reading these passages, some Latter-day Saints have identified the medieval Christian church as the abominable church of which Nephi wrote. This cannot be, because Nephi wrote that the corruption of the biblical text and the removal of plain and precious things from the gospel would take place before the Bible would go to the world (1 Nephi 13:29), and the spread of the Bible to the world was under way early in the second century AD.[12] Medieval Christianity was no more responsible for the apostasy than are today’s Christian churches. All Christians after the first century inherited the effects of the apostasy; they did not bring the apostasy about. By about the end of the first century, the church of the apostles was gone, the keys of the kingdom were no longer on earth, and the prophesied doctrinal evolution was already in progress.[13]

So what was the great and abominable church? It was the early church itself as it went through the process of rejecting the teachings and authority of the apostles and as it charted a path that was more pleasing to the philosophies of the world. In the New Testament passages that we have examined, Jesus and his apostles foretold, and then they later witnessed, the time when church members would look beyond the simple doctrines of the gospel and bring new ideas into the Christian faith. It was apostasía that brought about the end of the church, willful rebellion against God and his chosen servants. Church members, no longer content with “sound doctrine” but having “itching ears” (2 Timothy 4:3–4), sought out teachers whose words they found to be more “pleasing unto the carnal mind” (Alma 30:53). The early church died from internal, self-inflicted wounds. The structure survived for a time, but what was left of the institution was no longer acknowledged of Jesus as his own.

Jesus and his apostles knew that the church that they headed would come to an end shortly after their generation. They bore a somber witness to that knowledge in the record that they left behind for later readers—the New Testament. All Christians who take seriously the apostolic testimony must reckon with the prophetic word of the inspired witnesses that the forces of false religion would prevail over those of the truth and that the church which was guided by the power of the apostleship in the first century would no longer exist in the second. We thank God for the latter-day restoration of what was lost.

Kent P. Jackson, “New Testament Prophecies of Apostasy,” in Sperry Symposium Classics: The New Testament, ed. Frank F. Judd Jr. and Gaye Strathearn (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2006), 394–406.

Notes

[1] See, for example, James E. Talmage, The Great Apostasy (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1909); James E. Talmage, Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1913), 198–216.

[2] After the original publication of this article in 1983, I expanded on the theme in “Watch and Remember: The New Testament and the Great Apostasy,” in By Study and Also by Faith: Essays in Honor of Hugh W. Nibley on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, vol. 1, ed. John M. Lundquist and Stephen D. Ricks (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1990), 81–117. A brief article I wrote on the same topic appeared earlier as “Early Signs of the Apostasy,” Ensign, December 1984, 8–16. My book From Apostasy to Restoration (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1996), 8–18, summarizes the same thoughts and puts the apostasy in the broader context of early Christian history and the Restoration. This article is revised and expanded from the original publication.

[3] All biblical quotations are from the King James Version unless indicated otherwise by the following acronyms: ESV—English Standard Version; NJB—New Jerusalem Bible; NRSV—New Revised Standard Version; REB—Revised English Bible; TNIV—Today’s New International Version.

[4] John Foxe, Book of Martyrs (London: Seeley and Burnside, 1837), 1:27–32.

[5] Albrecht Oepke, “Enistemi,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Kittel, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964), 2:543–44.

[6] Heinrich Schlier, “Apostasia,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 1:513–14; F. F. Bruce, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, vol. 45 of Word Biblical Commentary (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1982), 166.

[7] See, for example, Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 3 vols. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1973), 3:63; Sidney B. Sperry, Paul’s Life and Letters (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1955), 103.

[8] See 1 Corinthians 3:16; Ephesians 2:21.

[9] See also Bruce, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 170–71.

[10] Hermann W. Beyer, “Blasphemeo,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 1:621–25.

[11] See “Watch and Remember,” 95–112; “Early Signs of the Apostasy,” 10–16; From Apostasy to Restoration, 12–18. Relevant passages (in chronological order) include: 1 Thessalonians 4:13–17; 2 Thessalonians 2:1–15; James 2:14–26; much of 1 Corinthians; 2 Corinthians 11–12; Galatians 1:6–12; 3:1–5; 4:9–11; 5:2–4; Colossians 1:12–23; 2:6–18; 1 Timothy 1:3–4; 6:3–5, 20–21; Titus 1:10–14; 3:8–9; 2 Timothy 1:15; 2:16–18, 23–26; 3:5; Jude 1:3–8, 17–19; Revelation 2–3; 1 John 2:18–26; 4:1–6; 2 John 1:7–11; 3 John 1:9–10.

[12] This is evident in the fact that New Testament passages are quoted or cited often in the earliest Christian writings of that period. See Richard D. Draper, “The Earliest ‘New Testament,’” in How the New Testament Came to Be: The Thirty-fifth Annual Sidney B. Sperry Symposium, ed. Kent P. Jackson and Frank F. Judd Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2006), 260–91.

[13] See Jackson, From Apostasy to Restoration, 19–30.