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Over the years I have on occasion appealed to something I call the Northern Kingdom Analogy. The New Testament repeatedly reminds us that the Old Testament serves as an example. There were false prophets among them just as there will be among us. In Christ, we participated in the same events, and partake of the same spiritual meat and drink. The typology is relevant as well, and especially so when one understands Revelation provides a multi-faceted view of Church History cast in Old Testament forms and symbolism. Throughout the epistles, but especially in Jude and Revelation, there’s a direct analogy to Old Testament antecedents.
The Old Testament theme of large-scale apostasy with a persevering remnant is also spelled out in the New Testament. There are many who wrongly dispute this but in every case they rely on either Judaized assumptions regarding the Kingdom or in some form of over-realized eschatology – reading Old Testament prophetic perspective and idiom in rather literalist terms and applying it (without warrant) to the Last Days or Church Age.
The Old Testament though fulfilled and no longer normative reveals a scenario that in many respects parallels our own. Many are befuddled by this and lose their way blending and confusing Old Covenant forms and types with New Covenant life which is set in a non-theocratic pilgrim-remnant setting – and one in which the higher calling and ethics of the Kingdom preclude Christian participation in the state or expectations of political mastery and domination. To compare Old Testament Israel to society at large (as is commonly done) is to distort the analogy made by the apostles. Israel (and Judah) are pictures of the Church in various states of faithfulness and apostasy. They are not pictures of sacral societies within a false construct known as Christendom. In New Testament terms, the only sacral or covenant society is the Church. To covenantalize other cultural, tribal, or political entities is a heresy. This is an elephant in the room for the Church today and one so deeply entrenched that few understand the issue.
With the Old Testament paradigm before us, we find a situation in which the majority of professors, the majority of those within the outward confines of the covenant are apostate and as such can (in one sense) be written off. They’re not pagans. They’re apostates.
This doesn’t mean we write off individuals, but large swaths of Christianity are not worth engaging with on any serious level. Remnants exist as we see (by analogy) in the Northern Kingdom, and we can be sure that even in these otherwise apostate quarters there are even now seven-thousand that have not bowed the knee to Baal.
Many forget or have not quite understood that the Northern Kingdom worshipped Jehovah but was engaged in false Jehovah worship – in particular at the shrines of Dan and Bethel. Their altars and priesthood were illegitimate as were their worship practices. They were not recognized and this is demonstrated on more than one occasion.
The Northern Kingdom also succumbed to overt Baal worship for a season but generally its problem was not the open embrace of pagan gods, but syncretism – and we see analogies in the larger ‘Church’ today. This is not to say that the raw and naked idolatry of Baal worship (as it were) doesn’t also rear its head at times in the context of the Church. Indeed the New Testament itself reveals this as one immediately thinks of the Jezebel analogy in the Revelation letters - though it is difficult to say just what exactly was happening there. It's just as likely this was also a case of syncretism. But this example also makes it clear that such analogies are by no means required to be exact replications or reiterations to be valid comparisons. The spirit of the error (overtly pagan or syncretistic) is what is germane. In other words we can say that Baal worship, illegitimate shrine worship, and High Place worship are still with us today.
The false priests and apostate kings of the north could be rebuked by the prophets or (like Elisha’s example with regard to Jehoram), treated with a kind of dismissal or contempt. How we would want to manage that today is a question worthy considering.
And so what groups today could be reckoned as ‘Northern Kingdom’-type apostates?
The numbers are considerable, overwhelming, and tragic and yet consider that of the twelve tribes – a full 5/6 fell into this kind of apostasy. Could such a ratio be relevant for today?
For starters I would relegate Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy to this category. They are an exact representation of the kind of syncretism and apostasy we see in the post-Rehoboam epoch. When compared and contrasted with each other, there are differences to be sure and at times one or the other is superior on specific points of doctrine and practice. If pressed, I would argue Constantinople is superior while others would argue for Rome. Both retain a place in larger discussions and calculations and yet should not be reckoned as legitimate expressions of the New Testament Church. They are apostate bodies that have lost their way.
Next would be the Mainline Churches that have succumbed to Theological Liberalism. They retain the language of historic Christianity and yet have replaced its substance with that of another religious movement. They speak Christian (as it were) but their epistemology is pure Enlightenment and this plays out in their truncated metaphysics and humanist ethics. Machen’s 1923 brilliant (if somewhat flawed) work ‘Christianity and Liberalism’ sufficiently demonstrated this.
Finally, I would place the Charismatic Movement in this category which itself is broad and touches in some respects the Roman Catholic, Liberal, and Evangelical sectors – the latter of which I have not yet addressed. The movement in many respects typifies what we might think of when it comes to ‘High Place’ worship. In reality, its parallels with Rome are substantial – in some cases little more than a different style rooted in the same kinds of error and extra-scriptural authority. It is therefore no coincidence that the movement also has a prominent place and presence within the Roman communion. The two movements are in many respects compatible. And when it comes to other issues, the Charismatic Churches and their theology easily find a place within the spectrum of post-war Neo-Evangelicalism – today’s Evangelical movement.
This is not to say that all people in these Northern/Apostate camps are lost. I would never want to say that and I don’t believe it. Additionally I’m making sweeping generalisations here for the sake of argument. The truth is there is a considerable spectrum to the nature of these errors. They are serious and I don’t want to downplay them in any way, shape, or form but thankfully not all adherents are consistent or compliant with what their churches actually teach.
And increasingly these lines are blurred – there are some Catholics that are near Evangelical in practice and have much in common with that movement – large numbers of both factions being interested only in a kind of 'broad strokes' Christianity in terms of doctrine, with a primary emphasis on culture.
The Evangelical movement itself is flirting with apostasy and many sections of that massive and diverse sphere are rapidly descending into this unfortunate status – but I wouldn’t write them off in the same way I would Rome, Constantinople or the others. At least not yet, but it would seem the leaders of this larger movement are rapidly descending down that road.
As already suggested, there is considerable overlap within Evangelicalism and the Charismatic movement which complicates the question. And increasingly there are Evangelicals that are exhibiting tendencies that place them on the fringe of Theological Liberalism – just as there are those in the Mainline churches that are conservative enough that they qualify as liberal Evangelicals or even could be placed on the fringe of traditionalism and yet are not Confessional Protestants. It’s complicated, but there are general trends and categories we can identify.
And it needs to be stated clearly that while I would put Evangelicalism and Confessionalism in the ‘Southern’ or ‘Judaean’ category and thus grant them legitimacy, this in no way suggests these movements should be endorsed or encouraged.
I am very interested in what’s happening in Rome, in the Mainline, and to some extent within the Charismatic fold. The interests are sometimes limited to a kind of observation knowing that whatever is happening will percolate, permutate, and affect other sections of the larger ‘Church’.
This brings us to Judah. What was the status of Judah during the divided kingdom? And we might also reflect on its ‘survivor’ status through the period of exile and restoration, but that’s a larger and more involved discussion.
Judah was the realm where the faith was kept and yet readers will know that it was not kept well or consistently. Judah was plagued by bad kings, negligent priests, and false prophets. So of the twelve tribes, the 1/6 represented by Judah-Benjamin was also plagued by error, false teaching, false worship and the like - and yet this was the area of valid covenant status and discussion. The north was out of the picture in terms of legitimacy. The south was legitimate but itself inundated with destructive errors and the seeds of apostasy (as it were) were sprouting everywhere.
Corruption and syncretism afflicted the covenant people. While the syncretism wasn’t on the order of the Dan and Bethel shrines in the Northern Kingdom, or its flirtations with Baal worship, there was still Jehovah worship taking place at the high places.
Worldly wisdom and polytheistic proclivities are unable to grasp the problems associated with this unofficial ‘high place’ worship and this is demonstrated by the Assyrian general’s mocking denunciation outside the walls of Jerusalem in 2 Kings 18 and Isaiah 36. He thought it absurd for Judah to call on Jehovah for protection when Hezekiah had torn down ‘His’ high places. It demonstrates that the high place worship was Jehovah-based – but still repeatedly condemned. The Rabshakeh was ignorant of the theological issues and failed to understand that their removal actually glorified God and Hezekiah was praised for it.
Continuing the analogy, the Judaean false prophets defied the Word of God as exhibited in the inspired record of the true prophets. We don’t have such prophets today on the order of Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, or Zechariah, but we do have the Word, the Oracle of God. And in many respects the New Covenant is superior. The true Church (as it were) is marked out by its fidelity to the Oracular Revelation - the Word of Christ the Prophet. Just as in Judah, the faithful followed the prophets, in the New Testament we follow the Prophet.
Not the tradition, not the magisterium, not the utterances of usurper-prophets in the form of pseudo-charismatic leaders, not marketing studies, political alliances, and conformity to bourgeois values, and not confessions written by neo-scholastic advocates of a new Christendom – the faithful remnant that is the Last Days Church follows the Oracles of the Prophet.
The false prophets in Judah are revealed as court figures – like many Evangelicals today. They didn’t call the covenant nation to repentance but affirmed the straying covenant community by crying ‘peace, peace’ – in other words, do not fear as God is on your side, when in fact He wasn’t. They were covenant breakers under judgment and in danger of apostasy. The notion of being handed over to a reprobate mind which is mentioned in the New Testament also seems very pertinent for our day.
Many today twist these words to suggest the false prophets taught pacifism. Clearly those who say so have not read the passages carefully or are inept expositors as this has nothing to do with their ‘peace’ message. It was not about an absence of violence but an assurance that they needn’t worry that they had earned the displeasure or judgment of God.
In many cases it's clear enough these are Right-wing theologians that hate the New Testament’s teaching concerning non-resistance and are disingenuously (or out of ignorance) finding a way to ‘score a point’ against the argument by equating it with the teachings of the false prophets – what amounts to a double distortion.
In the twisted thinking of today’s Evangelicals they cannot see the analogy with the Church. Even those who believe the Zionist state represents God’s covenant, they commonly think in terms of Israel as an analogy (not for the Church) but for America – just as others might do so for Britain. They think of Judah/Israel as American society and so the apostate elements are the Democrats, progressives, or the ‘other’, while the conservative Right-wing Churches are the faithful - those who are given the ‘peace, peace’ assurance of the false prophets.
But this whole understanding distorts the analogy. America is a pagan country like the Philistia, Tyre, Egypt, and Babylon. The covenant is not located in the nation but the Church. And in the Church (which is the Israel/Judah analogy) it is these same Evangelicals who preach the ‘peace, peace’ message of the false prophets. They don’t believe they are under judgment or that God might be angry with them and so it never occurs to them to the re-think or challenge the common doctrinal and ethical assumptions that govern them. They never stop and weigh whether the economic system they support is compatible with New Testament ethics. The same is true of their nationalism, support for war, and their championing of gun culture. The New Testament does not shape their thinking about the values of the middle class, how they would view refugees or immigrants, or questions regarding whether or not New Testament Christians should work for the state, utilize the courts, or participate in the system and endorse its assumptions. To question the ideological foundations of Classical Liberalism, the regime of rights or the notion of social contract is beyond comprehension for many of them. Few are even capable of thinking in these terms and all the more when they read such passages in both Old and New Testaments and think only in terms of the larger society and their domestic political opposition.