In an
attempt to refute the Latter-day Saint belief in the Great Apostasy, Protestant
Christian Darlington wrote:
While the Mormon Church goes on to try to
justify their reasons for rejecting the historic Christian faith by claiming
that Christianity apostasized (fell away from the truth) after the death of the
apostles, the Bible is clear that during the apostasy, only a few people would
fall away from the faith. In 1 Timothy 4:1, the Bible says, “Not the Spirit
speaketh expressly, that in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits,
and doctrines of devils.” (Christina R. Darlington, Misguided by Mormonism But Redeemed by God’s Grace: Leaving the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for Biblical Christianity [2d ed.;
2019], 5, emphasis in original)
There are a number of problems with this.
Firstly, Paul may have the eschaton in view, so an end-times apostasy,
not the Great Apostasy as understood by Latter-day Saints, could be in view. To
quote one commentary on the Pastoral Epistles:
The prophecy relates to the last days. For καιροί in the pl. cf. 2:6; 2 Tim 3:1; Ignatius, Eph. 11:1. ὕστερος, ‘last’, ‘later’ (Mt
21:31 v.l.***; cf. adv. ὕστερον), is
a comparative adj. = ‘second of two’; but here it can have superlative force =
‘last’ (cf. BD § 62). Bernard, 65, takes it comparatively of a period future to
the speaker, i.e. the post-Pauline period. Spicq (TLNT III, 427–31 [431]) holds that it means not ‘in the last days’
but rather ‘in days to follow, later times, the future’. But it can be used absolutely for the last times (Acta Carpi 5, cited by Lane*, 164), and the parallel in 2 Tim 3:1 (ἐν ἐσχάταις
ἡμέραις) strongly favours this option. The rendering ‘prior to the last times’ (White, 120) is impossible. (I Howard Marshall and Philip H.
Towner, A Critical and Exegetical
Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles [International Critical Commentary;
London: T&T Clark International, 2004], 537, emphasis added)
Secondly,
let us assume that Paul is speaking of events that would happen shortly after
his impending death. The term translated as “some” is τινες, the indefinite
nominative masculine plural form of τις. It does not have the force Darlington
wishes to impute to it to downplay LDS theology on this point. According to
Louw-Nida, the term is, "a reference to someone or something indefinite,
spoken or written about - 'someone, something, anyone, a, anything.' ἐάν τις ὑμῖν
εἴπῃ τι 'if anyone says anything to you' Mt 21.3; καὶ ἤλπιζέν τι σημεῖον ἰδεῖν
'and he hoped to see a sign' Lk 23.8." BDAG gives as the first definition
of τις as: "a ref. to someone or someth. indefinite, anyone, anything;
someone, something; many a one/thing, a certain one."
This more
"open-ended" understanding of τις can be seen in many places. Take
the following two examples from the First Timothy itself:
But if any (τις) widow has children or
grandchildren, they must first learn to practice piety in regard to their own
family and to make some return to their parents; for this is acceptable in the
sight of God. (1 Tim 5:4 NASB)
But if anyone (τις) does not provide for his
own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is
worse than an unbeliever. (1 Tim 5:8 NASB)
In view in
these passages are not "some" widows with children or
"some" that do not provide for his own; instead, τις in these two
verses refers to all (1) widows with children and (2) those who can provide
(and do not) for their own.
As we see,
the term can refer to a small group of people or it can refer to a much larger
group. While I would not cite 1 Tim 4:1 as evidence for LDS teaching on this issue, it cannot serve as meaningful evidence
against, too.
Thirdly, to
illustrate that more than “some” would fall away can be seen in 2 Pet 2:1-3:
But false prophets also arose among the
people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly
introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them,
bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their
sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and
in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long
ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. (NASB)
“Many” in v.
2 is πολλοι, the nominative masculine plural of πολυς. Interestingly,
"many" (πολυς) and "all" (πας) are often interchanged with
one another in the Greek New Testament. Speaking of the sacrifice of Christ, Matt
20:28 and Mark 10:45 state that Christ gave his life as a "ransom for
many" (πολλων) yet in 1 Tim 2:6, we read that Christ gave his life as a
ransom for "all men" (παντων), paralleling how God desires "all
men" (παντας ανθρωπους) to be saved in 1 Tim 2:4. Similarly, 1 John 2:2
states that Christ is the propitiation for "our sins" and then
continues, "not only for our but also for the sins of the whole
world" (ολου του κοσμου). Luke 3:6 states that "all mankind" will
see God's salvation (πασα σαρξ [lit. "all flesh"]) and John 6:51
states "this bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the
world" (κοσμου), and yet in Heb 9:28, the author states that Christ came
to "take away the sins of many people" (πολλων). Such interchanges
also occur when "many" stands for, or is equivalent to,
"all" (e.g., Luke 2:34-35; Rom 4:17; 5:15-19; 12:4) as well as
instances in which "all" would easily refer to "many" or
"much" (Luke 2:1; 1 Cor 1:5). As an aside, for a full discussion of 1
John 2:2 and similar texts that speak of Christ dying for all men, not simply members of all categories, per Calvinism, see:
Note that I
am not saying that “all” of the community is in view in 2 Pet 2:1-3; instead,
one is showing that Darlington’s understanding of 1 Tim 4:1 is not meaningful
evidence against LDS teachings about the Great Apostasy, and instead, the text
is not predicting only a relatively few people falling away, and, as a result,
LDS teaching is refuted as a result. Instead, I am showing that, if 1 Tim 4:1 and the use of "some" is biblical evidence against LDS theology, therefore 2 Pet 2:1-3 is biblical proof for LDS claims, which of course is absurd.
