The Pathology of False Teachers (6:3-5)
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If anyone advocates a different doctrine, and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. (6:3-5)
Throughout history, deadly epidemics have ravaged mankind. In the fourteenth century, the infamous “Black Death” (an outbreak of bubonic plague) killed millions in Europe. Cholera, diphtheria, malaria, and other sicknesses have ravaged towns and cities. Our generation has witnessed the rapid spread of the fatal disease Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). More deadly than any of those diseases, however, is the plague of false teaching that has afflicted the church throughout its history. While illness may kill the body, false teaching damns the soul.
Like AIDS and the plague, false teaching has a definite, observable pathology. (Pathology is the study of the elements of abnormality that characterize a disease.) Scientists study the pathology of a disease to better equip themselves to recognize it and to combat it.
Every leader in the church should be a spiritual pathologist, able to discern deviations from spiritual health. Only then will he be equipped to diagnose the deadly disease of false teaching, and to do what is necessary to check its spread among his people. Paul warned of the subtle danger of satanic lies, describing their purveyors as
false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their deeds. (2 Cor. 11:13-15)
It takes careful discernment to see that the light is really darkness.
Paul writes these verses to teach Timothy how to diagnose satanic darkness masquerading as divine light. He gives seven symptoms that identify those infected with the spiritual disease of false teaching: their mark, attitude, mentality, effects, cause, condition, and motive.
THE MARK OF FALSE TEACHERS
If anyone advocates a different doctrine, and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness,(6:3)
Physical diseases have symptoms, or marks, by which they may be diagnosed. The same is true of false teaching. Those infected by it will manifest certain characteristics. If introduces a first-class conditional clause and assumes reality. There were already some in Ephesus who were carriers of the disease of false teaching (cf. 1:3—4, 6-7, 20; 4:1-5). Anyone indicates Paul did not want to limit his warning to any specific teaching or teachers. He gives a generic warning embracing all false teaching. It includes everything Timothy faced, as well as all the false teaching the church would subsequently encounter.
The first mark, or symptom, of false teachers is what they affirm. A false teacher advocates a different doctrine. Advocates a different doctrine is from heterodidaskaleō, a compound word from heteros (“other”) and didaskaleō (“to teach”). It describes any teaching that contradicts God’s revelation in Scripture. Such teaching is heterodoxy rather than orthodoxy.
False teaching may take many forms. It may deny God’s existence, or teach error about His nature and attributes. It may deny the Trinity. Error about Christ’s Person and work is also common in false systems. Those who deny His virgin birth, sinless perfection, substitutionary death, bodily resurrection or future return show signs of a dangerous infection. False teachers also teach error about the nature, Person, and works of the Holy Spirit. Yet another strain of the disease of false teaching denies the authenticity, inspiration, authority, or inerrancy of Scripture. That strain is particularly virulent in the church today.
To spot the carriers of spiritual disease, believers must be well grounded in Scripture. Those who know the Word will easily spot teaching contrary to it. They will be spiritual young men, who have overcome the evil one because they are strong in the knowledge of God’s Word (1 John 2:14). Since the evil one primarily operates in false systems of religion, this indicates a level of maturity where sound doctrine has been laid as a solid foundation. Spiritual young men, by knowing the Word which abides in them, overcome the lies of Satan. Those who have grown past being spiritual infants through their knowledge of sound doctrine can see error for what it is.
In his farewell address to the Ephesian elders, Paul reminded them of their responsibility to diagnose and deal with error:
I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. (Acts 20:27-32)
After warning them of the threat of false teachers, Paul pointed out the only antidote, the “word of His grace.” According to Ephesians 6:17, the Christian’s offensive weapon against false teaching is the “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” Paul defines a true spiritual leader as one “nourished on the words of the faith and … sound doctrine” (1 Tim. 4:6; cf. v. 16; 2 Tim. 1:13-14; 2:2). The primary function of a spiritual leader is to feed his people the Word. They will then avoid the noxious weeds of false doctrine and grow to maturity (cf. Eph. 4:11-15).
Another mark of false teachers is what they deny. Their teaching not only affirms error, but also does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ. Proserchomai (agree with) is in the present tense, indicating false teachers are in a continuous state of not agreeing with sound words. Sound is from hugiainō, from which the English word “hygiene” derives. False teachers are not in agreement with spiritually wholesome and beneficial words. That believers need to pay attention to sound, healthy teaching is repeatedly emphasized in the Pastoral Epistles (cf. 1 Tim. 1:10; 2 Tim. 1:13; Titus 1:9; 2:1).
Paul further describes sound words as those of our Lord Jesus Christ. That phrase refers to more than the quotes of our Lord given in the gospel. It encompasses His message as revealed in Scripture, “the word of Christ” (Col. 3:16; cf. 1 Thess. 1:8; 2 Thess. 3:1). It is that Word that provides the healthy teaching by which believers grow. Peter wrote, “Like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation” (1 Peter 2:2).
False teachers are not committed to Scripture. They may speak of Jesus and the Father, but the heart of their ministry will not be the Word of God. They will either add to it, take away from it, interpret it in some heretical fashion, add other “revelations” to it, or deny it altogether.
A third symptom of false teachers is their rejection of the doctrine conforming to godliness. The ultimate test of any teaching is whether it produces godliness. Teaching not based on Scripture will result in an unholy life. Godliness translates eusebeia, which means “piety,” “reverence,” or “likeness to God.” Such behavior is the fruit of truth. In Matthew 7:15-20, Jesus warned,
Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit; but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.
Instead of godliness, the lives of false teachers will be characterized by sin. Peter graphically describes them as
those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties, whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord. But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed, suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you, having eyes full of adultery and that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children; forsaking the right way they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, but he received a rebuke for his own transgression; for a dumb donkey, speaking with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet. These are springs without water, and mists driven by a storm, for whom the black darkness has been reserved. For speaking out arrogant words of vanity they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error, promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment delivered to them. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “A dog returns to its own vomit,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.” (2 Peter 2:10-22; cf. Jude 4, 8-16)
Heresy has no power to produce genuine godliness.
THE ATTITUDE OF FALSE TEACHERS
he is conceited (6:4a)
The attitude of false teachers can be summed up in one word: pride. It takes an immense ego to place oneself as judge of the Bible. Such egotism blatantly usurps the place of God. Conceited is from tuphoō, the same word used in 3:6. As noted in the discussion of that passage in chapter 10 of this volume, it derives from a root word meaning “smoke.” The verb means “to puff up like a cloud of smoke.” In English slang, we would describe such a person as “blowing smoke,” or “full of hot air.”
The word also implies arrogance, an inevitable mark of false teachers. To set one’s own teaching up as superior to the Word of God is the epitome of arrogance. False teachers speak “arrogant words of vanity” (2 Peter 2:18), useless talk that merely reveals their arrogant attitude. Such a man was Simon the sorcerer, who “[claimed] to be someone great” (Acts 8:9). Paul describes such a one as “inflated without cause by his fleshly mind” (Col. 2:18).
False teachers have an overinflated sense of their own importance, not hesitating to rebel against God and His Word. That merely confirms, however, that they are infected with a deadly spiritual disease.
THE MENTALITY OF FALSE TEACHERS
and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words,(6:4b)
Although a false teacher may be filled with pride over his supposed knowledge, in reality he understands nothing. All of his imagined intelligence, pretended scholarship, and supposed deeper insights amounts to mere foolishness to God (Rom. 1:22; 1 Cor. 2:9-16). Lacking insight into spiritual truth, his wisdom “is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic” (James 3:15). Those who know and believe the Word of God have far more insight into spiritual reality than the most educated heretic.
Instead of focusing on the truth, false teachers have a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words. Their disease involves a preoccupation with useless questions and fighting over words. Questions translates zētēsis, which refers to idle speculations. Logomachia (disputes about words) literally means “word battles.” False teachers do little more than quibble over terminology. They indulge in pseudo-intellectual theorizing rather than in productive study of and submission to God’s Word.
There are many examples of such specious theorizing. The Bible teaches that God created the universe in six literal twenty-four-hour days (Gen. 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31; cf. Ex. 20:11). Some, intimidated by the scientifically bankrupt theory of evolution, reject that clearly stated biblical truth. Instead, they opt for compromise positions such as theistic evolution or progressive creationism. By so doing, they hope to mollify the militant defenders of evolution.
Others, cowed by the “assured results of higher criticism,” are disciples of the thoroughly discredited Documentary Hypothesis. That view carves up the Pentateuch and assigns its authorship to four (or more) imaginary sources, the J (Yahwist), E (Elohimist), D (Deuterono-mist), and P (Priestly) sources. That theory is utterly lacking in manuscript support, and contrary to the words of our Lord, who affirmed the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch (cf. Mark 7:10; 12:26; Luke 24:44). Nevertheless, its devotees march on under the banner of “objective” scholarship and imagine that such denial of Scripture qualifies them as intellectuals. Instead of being humbled and fearful over such deviations, they are proud of their ignorance.
The New Testament also has been subjected to its share of word battles. Virtually every New Testament book has been attacked by critics who deny the traditional view of its authorship. Many refuse to accept the Gospels as straightforward historical accounts. They prefer instead to view them as a collection of myths invented by Christ’s mistaken followers after His death.
Such fruitless speculations are ultimately doctrines of demons. To engage in them is a sign of spiritual sickness.
THE EFFECTS OF FALSE TEACHERS
out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction (6:4c-5a)
As noted earlier, false teaching fails the test of truth because it fails to produce godliness. A second way it fails is in its inability to produce unity. The word battles of false teachers result in chaos and confusion. Envy is the inward discontent with the advantages or popularity enjoyed by others. It results in strife, which often manifests itself in the abusive language of slander and insult. That abusive language consists of evil suspicions, which means to ascribe evil motives to someone. The net result of false teaching is constant friction. False teachers constantly rub each other the wrong way. That helps spread their spiritual disease, much as sheep might rub together and infect each other. False teaching can never produce unity. Only the truth unifies.
THE CAUSE OF FALSE TEACHERS
between men of depraved mind (6:5b)
The external cause of false teaching is satanic deception (cf. 4:1). The internal cause, however, is the depraved or unregenerate mind of the false teacher. “The mind set on the flesh,” writes Paul, “is hostile toward God” (Rom. 8:7). Such a mind does not function normally in the spiritual realm; it does not react normally to truth. Being natural men, false teachers cannot understand the things of God, which seem foolish to them (1 Cor. 2:14). As a result, “God gave them over to a depraved mind” (Rom. 1:28; cf. Eph. 2:1-3; 4:17-19).
Not having “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16), false teachers can produce only error.
THE CONDITION OF FALSE TEACHERS
and deprived of the truth,(6:5c)
The condition of false teachers is critical; they are in a state of apostasy. Deprived is from apostereō, which means “to steal,” “rob,” or “deprive.” The passive voice of the participle indicates someone or something pulled them away from the truth. That does not imply they were saved, but that they had contact with the truth. Like those described in Hebrews 6:4-6, they were thoroughly exposed to it, but rejected it. As a result, they “have gone astray from the truth” (2 Tim. 2:18), and are “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 3:7). In 2 Timothy 3:8 Paul writes of them, “these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected as regards the faith.”
Unfortunately, their prognosis is not hopeful. Their spiritual condition is terminal. Those who are deprived of the truth are headed for judgment. Hebrews 6:6 solemnly warns of such men that “it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame.” Peter says that they bring “swift destruction upon themselves” (2 Peter 2:1). He then illustrates that truth in verses 4-9:
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly thereafter; and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day with their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.
Jude also warns of their impending doom:
For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ…[He will return] to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. (Jude 4, 15)
The severest hell will be reserved for those who, having been exposed to the truth, turned away from it (cf. Heb. 10:26-31).
THE MOTIVE OF FALSE TEACHERS
who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. (6:5d)
False teachers have a simple motivation: money. They suppose that godliness (used sarcastically of their false piety) will bring them such gain. Unlike Paul, they cannot say, “I have coveted no one’s silver or gold or clothes” (Acts 20:33). They are not “free from the love of money” (3:3). In the words of Peter, “forsaking the right way they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness” (2 Peter 2:15). Simon the sorcerer was an example of a greedy false teacher. His foolish attempt to buy the power of the Spirit brought a stinging rebuke from Peter:
Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was bestowed through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, saying, “Give this authority to me as well, so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have no part or portion in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray the Lord that if possible, the intention of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity. (Acts 8:18-23)
Our day, too, has more than its share of Simons. Their greed betrays their impure motives and marks them as false teachers.
The pathology of false teachers is clear. They deny the truth, and their teaching does not produce godly living. They are arrogant and ignorant of spiritual truth. They spend their time in foolish speculations that lead only to chaos and division. Having forsaken the truth, they face eternal destruction. And they serve money, not God. The church must take extreme care not to allow these men to spread their deadly disease. The resulting epidemic would be tragic.