This comes as a shock to me, and likely will to you as well. In the days of the early Congregation ("Church"), there was a religious group who strongly disputed the Congregation's stance on salvation and works. This religious group taught that man is totally depraved, that we are saved solely by grace, that works play no role in our salvation, and that we cannot lose our salvation once we obtain it. Sound familiar? Guess what? This religious group was labeled as heretics by the early Christians.
You might be thinking, "This group of 'heretics' were the real Christians while these 'orthodox' Christians were really heretics." However, such a conclusion is impossible. Who was this religious group?
The Gnostics!
If you think the Gnostics were "true Christians," observe what the apostle John said about them: "Many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist" (2 John 7).
If our evangelical doctrine of salvation is true, we are faced with the uncomfortable reality that this doctrine was first taught by "deceivers and antichrists" before it was taught by Luther, Calvin, and others. I do not know about you, but this kind of revelation makes me draw closer to the Lord to search out His Scriptures more clearly.
The Bible says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, so that no one may boast" (Eph. 2:8-9). The Bible also says, "You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone" (James 2:24). Our doctrine of salvation accepts the former but essentially nullifies the latter. The early Christian doctrine of salvation gave equal weight to both.
I already came to terms with this fact a couple years ago through my personal studies, realizing that faith and works are two sides of the same coin. A gift is no less a gift simply because it is conditioned on obedience. The belief to the contrary is a fallacious form of argumentation known as the "False Dilemma," asserting that it is either one or the other.
Clement of Rome was personally taught by the apostle Paul. Polycarp was personally taught by the apostle John. Funny how these men supposedly "got it wrong" and we, 1500 years later with Luther and Calvin, being so far removed from both Paul and John, somehow "got it right." All I can say to stubborn Christians who pridefully assert their arrogance here is, Keep on dreaming!
Show humility and reform your beliefs by conforming them with the Scriptures. Whose interpretation is more likely to be correct? The early Christians, who lived in the same culture, spoke Greek natively and could read the New Testament in the original Greek of the apostles, and who were personally taught by the apostles? Or some theologian, scholar, or "pastor" today who has to study ancient Greek for years as part of his training, cannot speak it fluently, and has trouble understanding it without the aid of a Greek-English Lexicon, who even devoting their entire lives to studying the cultural and historical background of New Testament Christianity still will never understand it as well as people who actually lived in it, and who are nineteen hundred years removed from the apostles? Guess where I am going to bank my money?
Both the Congregation and the Gnostics claimed they had the true gospel. Tertullian wrote,
"I say that my gospel is the true one. Marcion [a leading Gnostic teacher] says that his is. I say that Marcion's gospel is adulterated. He says mine is. Now, how can we settle this stand-off, unless we use the principle of time. According to this principle, authority lies with the one who is prior in time. It's based on the elemental truth that corruption (of doctrine) lies with the one who is shown to have originated later in time. Since error is falsification of truth, truth must necessarily precede error."
Why do Christians today choose doctrines that were first taught 1,400 years or more after the deaths of the apostles over ones that were taught within a few decades of their lives? Who necessarily speaks the true biblical beliefs of faith? The early Christians (A.D. 70-313), or modern evangelical Christians (beginning 500 years ago)? Ignorance and arrogance suggests the early Christians were ignorant and that we Christians today are more wise, intelligent, and knowledgeable than they were and thus we have the more correct doctrine. Sorry, but that is logically false. Good luck with that!
Second century Christians were basically only one generation away from the apostles. We are nineteen centuries away! How reasonable it it for us to argue that, after nineteen hundred years, evangelical Christianity is basically unchanged from that of the apostles? Especially when claiming that orthodox Christianity had radically changed only 50 years after the apostles died? This requires some serious critical thinking.
Where our beliefs conflict and contradict theirs, it is wise for us to reform and conform our beliefs with theirs.