The Great Apostasy

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Today, we are continuing our Revelation series with our extended introduction to Matthew 24, Matthew's Olivet Discourse. This is the section of Scripture that is happening just days before Jesus is arrested and murdered, where He pulls His disciples aside, up to the Mount of Olives where everyone could get a good look at the city, and from that elevated vista, He begins telling them all about the downfall and destruction of Jerusalem. He gives them one line of evidence after another that Jerusalem would undergo an imminent destruction at the hands of Rome, which climaxed and crescendoed in AD 70. As we have noted, this is precisely what Revelation is saying as well. Both the Olivet Discourse and John's book of Revelation are about the near-term destruction of Jerusalem and the Old Covenant Jewish system that was passing away to make way for the new and better covenant of Christ. And because Christ would allow no rivals to stand in His presence, no counterfeit pathways to God, Jesus predicted that the apostate Jews would die for their crimes against God and that everything they held dear would be taken away from them and given to the New Testament Church. For that reason, Matthew 24 is the perfect introduction for a series on Revelation because it covers the same material but in a much easier and more accessible way.  

PART 1: AN OLIVET RECAP

Jesus entered Jerusalem with the echoes of prophecy swirling all around Him. He did not come that day riding on a warhorse… At least not yet… In the waning moments of Jewish peace and national sovereignty, He came like Solomon, claiming his Kingdom, riding on a humble donkey. And as He came, the people waved palm branches and cried, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" They believed their Messiah had come to overthrow Rome to restore their nation's glory. But their cheers, however loud, masked a tragic misunderstanding. Jesus was not coming to deliver them from Rome but to deliver them over to Rome. He was the King, yes, but a King bringing judgment.

As He drew near the city, His eyes fell on the temple, the beating heart of Jewish life in the first century. This sanctuary was supposed to be a house of prayer for all the nations, a place where they could come and get to know the one true God…  But it had become a den of thieves and liars, a symbol of Jewish hatred for the nations and a token to their real god, which was money, wealth, power, and greed. Corruption had infected every square inch of the temple mount and needed to be disinfected. Jesus marched into the courts, His steps deliberate, His actions unmistakable. Tables were overturned, coins scattered across the floor, and merchants scurried like rats to escape His fury. Jesus wasn't protesting. He wasn't cleaning the temple once more so that He could put it back in operation. He was cleansing the wound like a surgeon about to perform an amputation. The temple, symbolic of Israel's rot, was about to be surgically removed from the covenant she had despised. Jesus was merely prepping her for surgery. 

The following day, on His way back to the city, Jesus approached a fig tree, which is a symbol of the Jewish people (Hosea 9:10). It was full of leaves, a promise of fruit, yet when its God came looking upon it, He found no fruit. It wasn't quite the season for figs, but that wasn't the point. The tree stood as a symbol of Jewish fruitlessness. In twenty-four hours, He visited a city and its temple that was supposed to bear Him fruit and only gave Him leaves. Now, standing before this fig tree, a known symbol of Israel, Jesus cursed it, and by the time they passed it again, it had withered to its roots. His disciples were astonished, but the message was clear. Israel was about to undergo a withering; the mountaintop she lived upon and all her wealth would be cast into Roman vessels and shipped off into the sea so that what remained would be cast into the fire. Judgment was undoubtedly imminent.

Once inside the city, He told parables to the fruitless people that exposed the disease upon her branches. One was about two sons, one who said he wouldn't obey his father but later did, and another who said he would obey the Father but never followed through. "Which one did the will of his father?" Jesus asked the Jewish leaders. The answer was obvious, and so was the implication. The tax collectors and sinners, despised by the religious elite, were entering the Kingdom ahead of them because they repented and believed. But the leaders, who claimed to be faithful, were exposed as nothing more than hypocrites.

Then came the parable of the wicked tenants. A landowner sent servants to collect fruit from his vineyard, but the tenants beat them, killed them, and refused to give what was owed. Finally, the landowner sent his son, thinking they would respect him. Instead, they killed him, too, hoping to seize the inheritance. "What will the owner of the vineyard do?" Jesus asked them. The answer was chilling: He would destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others. At this point, the leaders discerned that He was speaking about them, and their fury grew even hotter.

But Jesus wasn't done. He told of a king who prepared a wedding feast for his son. The invited guests refused to come, mocking the invitation and even killing the King's messengers. Enraged, the King sent his armies, destroyed their city by setting it on fire, and invited anyone who was willing to come in. In these three successive parables, Jesus was telling the ethnocentric and racist first-century Jews that their glorious Mosaic world was going to be trampled upon by Gentile swine, that God was going to destroy His own people, and that all of this pleased the Father. We can begin to understand how this must have sounded to them on that day and at that time. 

Just to put this in a somewhat modern example. It would be like Jesus being born in the antebellum South, proclaiming to slave owners how their plantations would be given to their slaves and that all those former slave owners would be hung by the neck in the center of town. If Jesus said such a thing, it would be true, but it would also provoke a visceral kind of fury that exposed the hell inside their souls. This is precisely what was going on in Jerusalem town. 

As the tension mounted, and with the crowds temporarily on the side of Jesus, the Pharisees tried to trap Him with cleverly worded questions to sway the population of the city back onto their side. Let's face it, pulling off an illegal murder would be difficult already but downright impossible if they did not have the energy and passions of the masses. The people could be used as leverage against Rome if things went squirrely. This was a common tactic of the first-century Jewish elite.   

One of their tricks involved a coin. "Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?" they asked Jesus, hoping to catch Him in a political snare. Instead, Jesus held up the coin and asked whose image it bore. "Caesar's," they replied. "Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's," Jesus told them, "and unto God the things that are God's." This seemed straightforward enough, but His words carried a deeper, more penetrating rebuke. The coin bore Caesar's image, but the Jews, who were meant to bear the image of God, had aligned themselves with Caesar at every turn. From the Caesarian high priestly appointments among the woke Sadducees to their looking for Caesar to provide them the stability that can only be found in God, they had Caesar's imprint stamped all over them. Remember, these people uttered the maledictory line: "We have no king, but Caesar." Indeed. 

To that people, Jesus promised they would be thrown like a coin into Caesar's coffers, melted down by the fires of Titus, and brought back home to the treasuries of Rome. They were surrendering themselves to judgment, and Jesus called them to it. 

Finally, when no one had any more questions to ask, and with the entire city looking on at the spectacle, Jesus unleashed seven woes upon the scribes and Pharisees, denouncing their hypocrisy, greed, and blindness. "Woe to you," He cried repeatedly, revealing their corruption. They were whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but full of death inside. They boasted of their heritage, saying, "If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we wouldn't have killed the prophets."Yet here they were, plotting to kill the very Son of God. Jesus, like a righteous judge, pronounced the verdict upon them, saying, "All the righteous blood shed from Abel to Zechariah will fall on this generation," leaving no room for misinterpretation. 

He left the proverbial courtroom, which was the temple complex courtyard, and began walking out of the city and up to the Mount of Olives. The disciples, shaken by His words, incapable of speaking as He was delivering His fiery woes, now pointed to the temple, marveling at its grandeur and wondering if all of this could be true. Would this house really be left desolate? Jesus looked at it again, leaving no room for confusion about what He was saying, telling them: "Not one stone here will be left upon another." The disciples were stunned. The temple was the center of their world, the symbol of God's presence. Could it indeed fall?

On the Mount of Olives, the anxious disciples pressed Him for more answers: When would this happen? What signs would warn them? Was this the end of the Jewish age? You can imagine how frantic their words would have been. 

Then, faithfully answering their question, Jesus began to reveal to them all of the signs that were coming that would let them know these events were drawing near. He spoke of false messiahs, wars, and rumors of wars, famines, andearthquakes—which were birth pains signaling the judgment that was to come. He described an awful period of tribulations, where the Christians would be persecuted by the rabid Jews just before they were put down by the covenantal shotgun of God. 

Forty years later, after the disciples had witnessed all of these signs, and more still that we have not looked at, Jerusalem was burning. The temple was torn apart, stone by stone, just as He had said. The city that killed its prophets, rejected its King, and murdered the early Christians was left desolate. But amid the judgment, salvation did occur. Out of the ashes of the Old Covenant meltdown, the Church arose. Like the new generation entering the promised land, they carried the Kingdom forward, bearing fruit for their King. And that is the very Kingdom we find ourselves in today! Judgment for the rebels. Salvation for God's people. The countdown had ended. The new covenant had begun.

The apostasy Jesus predicted wasn't confined to the last days of human history…  It was an imminent apostasy. An apostasy of Jewish converts to Christ who would be turning their back on Jesus to go back to the slums of Jerusalem. The very people who had embraced the Gospel with joy and tasted the goodness of the Word of God were turning back to the picture instead of the person. The lure of their old lives, the threat of persecution, and the deceptive allure of false gospels proved too much for many. This wasn't just a footnote in history but a central piece of the story of judgment and salvation unfolding in that generation.

In today's episode, we are going to dive into this great falling away, examining how the early Church was shaken to its core by a Jewish apostasy, an abandonment of Jesus by Jewish converts who were returning back to Judaism. We'll examine how false messiahs and doctrines undermined the truth, how persecutions tempted many to abandon their faith, and how the apostles tirelessly fought to shepherd a flock under siege. From Paul's warnings against the Judaizers to Peter's vivid imagery of false teachers as unreasoning animals to John's reminder that those who left were never indeed of the faith, we'll see how the early Church confronted these challenges—and what this means for us today. 

So with that… I would like to read the verses we will be focused upon today, and then after that, I want us to jump right in. 

Matthew 24:10-13 says this: 

At that time, many will fall away, betray, and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. - Matthew 24:10-13

PART 2: THE BIBLICAL CASE FOR A JEWISH APOSTASY

Now, to begin, I want to share an example. Imagine a family driving to an amusement park. They've told their son the plan. And today's the day. From the moment his eyes flutter open, his excitement is electric, bubbling over like a few mentos tossed into a bottle of Coke. As the car rolls down the interstate, his face is glued to the window, scanning the horizon. Then he sees it—a billboard advertising the park. His heart leaps because he knows they're getting closer.

Soon, another sign appears: "10 miles to the park." Then another: "5 miles." Then "3," "2," "1." With each marker, his anticipation grows. He doesn't dismiss the signs or shrug them off as if they are irrelevant to his circumstances. He sees them and then rightly connects them to the destination he is heading to. The signs confirm the reality of what he's been promised: the theme park is getting closer. 

Hopefully, this is not revelatory to anyone, for it is simply the way signs work. Now, supposing we get this, this is also the way signs work in the New Testament. Instead of a fun-filled theme park as a joyful destination, the signs Jesus gave pointed toward unavoidable destruction. When Jesus told His disciples that Jerusalem was on a collision course with calamity, He gave them signs to watch for and road markers along the way that would help them gauge how much time they had left before they would need to abandon the sinking ship. 

Remember, these early Christians did not come to Christ and leave Jerusalem. They stayed. They sold their homes because there was no sense in keeping them if the city was going to be obliterated (Acts 2), and they spent the next forty years trying to convert the Jews. If God would allow them, they were going to pull every single Jew in the city out before it careened over the cliff's edge. But, these signs were also helpful for them because many of them stayed to the bitter end, waiting for the final exit ramp they could take before being consumed along with the city. This is precisely what happened in history. 

As we'll see in this section, Jewish apostasy was one of the signs that the early Church was to be on the lookout for, and as we will see, it was happening everywhere in the early Church. Jesus explicitly predicted that the final days of the Jewish age would be marked by a great apostasy—a defection back to Judaism by Jewish converts who abandoned Him for the old covenant. This wasn't a general falling away of all Christians, though Gentile apostasy occurred in other contexts. This was a specific Jewish apostasy tied to the unique pressures of the first century. And it was a sign, one more flashing warning that Jerusalem's judgment was imminent.

And maybe you would ask yourselves, why would Jewish converts to Christ defect from Him? After tasting the Gospel's superior sweetness, why would they return to the saccharin of the Old Covenant order? The answer is straightforward: the persecution they endured was merciless. To confess Jesus as Messiah was to draw the wrath of their Jewish neighbors, the same people who had already rejected and crucified Christ. Families were divided, livelihoods destroyed, and safety threatened. Returning to Judaism—the temple, the sacrifices, the community—offered a way out of the hell on earth these people were experiencing, a return to what felt familiar and safe. 

This, of course, was utterly sinful, it was cowardice and a damning kind of action, exposing that they were never really of Christ to start. But, the point I am making is one of sympathy. We can understand how and why goats who have made a confession would abandon that confession the moment things get complicated. We just walked through this a few years ago, during the plandemic. 

And just like the little boy in the car, those who saw the signs believed Jesus' words in Matthew 24 and found comfort in His loving warning. Those who ignored the signs barreled into the destruction Jesus promised. Now, let us look at some specific examples, beginning with one of the earliest New Testament books, the book of Galatians. 

THE JEWISH DEFECTION IN GALATIANS

The book of Galatians, written early in Paul's ministry (likely in the late 40s AD), is a fiery letter that transports us back to a time when the clash between Judaism and Christianity was raw, fierce, and often violent. As one of the first New Testament books penned, Galatians reveals how early and intense Jewish opposition to the Gospel was. It gives us a front-row seat to the battleground where Paul, once a zealous persecutor of Christians, now stood as an apostle of the risen Christ, ferociously defending the faith and calling defectors back to Jesus.

The Roman province of Galatia teemed with life, commerce, and religious activity. Among its bustling cities were scattered communities of Christians, many Jews by birth but followers of the Jesus Way. These men and women had embraced Christ as the promised Messiah, abandoning the traditions of their ancestors. Circumcision, dietary laws, and temple rituals—all the markers of Jewish identity—had been set aside in favor of the old rugged cross. For these converts, the shift was seismic, a transformation of everything they once knew, and that shift did not come without consequences.

Within their synagogues and families, they were branded as traitors. To abandon the Torah was, in the eyes of their Jewish neighbors, to abandon the covenant with God. And for this supposed betrayal, the opposition against them was fierce. Social ostracism came early, familial rejection ripped families apart, and even physical persecution became part and parcel of their daily lives. Some were beaten, others expelled from their homes, and all faced the smoldering anger of a community that refused to acknowledge Christ as Lord and as the fulfillment of their law.

Amid this turmoil, a new threat arose. A new kind of persecution ensued. In addition to the merciless beatings, floggings, and stones hurled at their faces, a new type of attack came from the Jews, but this time it came from within the Christian Church. Just 10 years after Jesus ascended into heaven, a novel virus began attacking the Christian Church, the Judaizers, who wormed their way into the meat like trichinosis and were laying their heretical larvae right into the muscular system of God's newly minted people. This horde of false teachers claimed allegiance to Christ, which is why they were insiders, but insisted that salvation required adherence to the Mosaic law. They infiltrated the Galatian churches, sowing confusion and division, and many Christians began to waver in their theology. 

The allure of returning to Judaism—with its familiar rituals and promise of acceptance—was intense. It was this compromise system that gave the persecuted a way to privately honor Jesus with their hearts while their bodies inconspicuously behaved like Jews. The hope was that this act of covenant disloyalty would appease both God and the Jews and that the blows would stop coming. Into this storm, the apostle Paul stepped, armed with the Gospel and burning with righteous indignation over what was going down.

Paul's letter begins thundering: 

"I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel"(Galatians 1:6). 

His tone isn't just disappointment; it is shock, as if a shepherd had returned to find his flock spooning with a sweet talking wolf. 

The Galatians were not drifting toward doctrinal error. They were defecting. The Judaizers' teaching—demanding circumcision, dietary restrictions, and other ceremonial laws—was more than a theological mistake or an impurity. It was a denial of Christ's sufficiency, a perversion of grace. A return to the covenant of types and shadows. And Paul's fiery rebuke reflects the gravity of the situation: their actions were a betrayal of the Gospel itself.

Paul knew the stakes. He had once been a Pharisee, zealous for the law, a man who breathed out threats against the early Christians and hunted them down like prey. In his own words,

"I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries…but when God, who had set me apart from my mother's womb, called me by His grace, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood" (Galatians 1:14-16). 

His transformation was a living rebuke to those returning to the law.

Paul describes this apostasy as a spiritual seduction: "Who has bewitched you?" he says in Galatians 3:1. The imagery evokes a kind of spellbinding deception, a witchery, a blindness that had overtaken them by some demonic enchanting power. The Judaizers had not just introduced legalism into their teachings (like a group of independent fundamentalists); they had poisoned the Galatians' very understanding of the Gospel. They were anathematizing Christians. 

Paul's argument crescendos in Galatians 3. He takes his readers back to Abraham, the father of their faith, reminding them that it was Abraham's belief in God, not his works, that "reckoned to him righteousness" (Galatians 3:6). "Those who are of faith," Paul declares, "are sons of Abraham" (Galatians 3:7). This was a skud missile aimed right at the heart of  Jewish pride, blowing up the possibility that bloodlines and law-keeping were badges of honor that would advance you in the new covenant. The true descendants of Abraham were those who trusted in Christ, not those who clung to circumcision.

Paul's pen grew sharper in Galatians 4, where he compares the old covenant to Hagar, the slave woman, and the new covenant to Sarah, the free woman. His conclusion is stark. He tells the Church to "Cast out the bondwoman and her son"(Galatians 4:30), which is His way of talking about the entire old covenant and its apologists, the Jews. To return to the law was not just unwise; it was yoking yourself into spiritual slavery. The Galatians' apostasy was a rejection of their freedom in Christ, a return to the chains of the past.

Paul's warnings in Galatians 5 are startling: 

"If you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you…" - Galatians 5:2

And: 

"You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law" - Galatians 5:4 

The language is surgical, almost violent. To embrace the cutting of circumcision was to cut oneself off from Christ. Paul is saying you can cut off the foreskin of your flesh and hope in that, but by so doing, you are casting all of your flesh into the fires of hell. This was not a minor error but a total forfeiture of the Gospel.

And just in case we are confused, Paul tells us exactly why this Jewish defection happened. Here it is in Paul's own words: 

"Those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh try to compel you to be circumcised, simply so that they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ" - Galatians 6:12 

Their insistence on circumcision was not born of conviction but cowardice. They sought to avoid the scorn of their Jewish peers, even at the cost of leading others into hell.

Now, amid this Jewish onslaught against Jesus - both with weapons and with the arguments they were wielding to lead men and women into apostasy - you might assume Paul was angry. When we get attacked relentlessly, we often respond with anger and even develop feelings of hatred, bitterness, and resentment against the ones who are attacking us. However, this was not Paul's motivation. He responds with angst because He loves the Jewish people and wants them to repent before they are destroyed. He screams at them, not with hatred, but like a mother who sees her child reaching for the hot pan on the stove. 

Paul's anguish for the Jewish Christians in Galatia is palpable. He compares himself to a mother in childbirth, groaning in spiritual agony, to make sure that they are delivered from this damnable doctrine and back again to faith. This is why Paul says in Galatians 4:

"My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you" (Galatians 4:19). 

His rebuke is not one of hatred but of deep, personal love. He longs for them to return to the freedom and grace of Christ.

Now, with this, the book of Galatians stands as a powerful testimony that persecutions were not only raging in the first-century Church but that Jesus' sign of apostasy was occurring. This was ripping the Church apart; Paul was doing everything He could to help, even writing the most scathing letter in all the New Testament to deal with the problem at hand. This is why Paul appeals to Jewish Christians:

"It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery" - Galatians 5:1

That slavery was returning to the law of Moses and spurning the resurrected Christ. That was the sign Jesus was referring to in Matthew 24, and now we have proved that it happened in the earliest days of the Christian Church. Now, let us prove that it was also happening all throughout the ministry of Paul. 

SECTION 2: THE JEWISH DEFECTION IN PAUL'S LETTERS

More than in Galatia, the great city of Thessalonica buzzed with activity. Merchants called out to sell their wares; Roman soldiers patrolled the streets with an air of dominance. Somewhere in a humble gathering place, the fledgling Church read aloud one Sunday morning for public worship a letter from their beloved apostle Paul. His words, as always, were urgent, deliberate, and filled with both fire and grace. He told the young Church: "Let no one in any way deceive you," he wrote, warning them that a great apostasy would precede the Lord's coming in judgment (2 Thessalonians 2:3). The warning was more than abstract. Paul's pen bled with the knowledge that active, cunning, relentless deceivers were working to pull the faithful away from Christ. He had seen it happening in other places before.

These deceivers were not Gentiles. They were Jewish leaders, teachers, and influencers who were coming to enact the same strategy they were doing in Galatia, but now in Thessalonica. Their mission was to drag Jewish Christians back into the old and obsolete covenant of Moses. To them, this burgeoning sect of Christ-followers was a blight on the true faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Their arguments were intellectual, their appeals emotional, and their methods ruthless. This is why Paul's warnings come across with such urgency. He knew that this was a wholesale abandonment of Christ by a group of radicalized former believers, and He was willing to do whatever it took to keep this cancer from spreading in the Thessalonican Church. But they were far from the only outpost of this new disease. 

Far to the South, nestled on a narrow isthmus between two harbors, lay another city called Corinth. This cosmopolitan city brimmed with the energy of trade and the indulgence of wealth. Its streets were a cacophony of languages, its temples a testament to human ambition and vice. In this vibrant yet morally bankrupt environment, Paul had planted a church—one that quickly became a battleground for Jewish apostasy. Here, he faced what he called "super-apostles"— false Jewish teachers who had infiltrated the Church, preaching a different Jesus and a different gospel to baby Christians and leading them astray (2 Corinthians 11:4-5). Paul's letters to Corinth are filled with his passionate defense of the Gospel and his anguish over the Church's susceptibility to such deceptions.

Further to the north, in the Roman colony of Philippi, Paul's battle against Jewish false teachers took on an even sharper tone. Philippi was a city of Roman military veterans, its streets lined with reminders of Roman glory. But the Church there faced a different kind of warfare. Amid a colony of Roman war heroes, former generals, captains, and soldiers who fought gloriously on the battlefield, a Jewish strike against the early Church was felt, and the bullets they were firing were a return to Jewish formalism. Against this group, Paul's anger burned white hot, which is why He says of them: 

"Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision," - Philippians 3:2 

The word "dogs" was not a casual insult. This was the common quip of the anti-gentile Jews who called everyone who was not like them street dogs, not even worthy of eating the scraps that fell from their tables. In our day, this would be like a white supremacist using the n-word. This was an ugly and insidious insult from a heart that had been poisoned by evil and ethnic pride at the expense of others. By calling the Jews dogs, Paul is turning the proverbial table back on them and aiming the brunt of His ire squarely at the "circumcision party," which, of course, is a group of Jews trying to get Christians to return to Mt. Sinai. 

For Paul, they were not merely misguided—they were enemies of the cross of Christ (Philippians 3:18) and indeed not citizens of Heaven so long as they clung to their Judaism (Philippians 3:20). Their insistence on circumcision and adherence to the law was nothing less than a rejection of Christ's all-sufficient sacrifice.

But, Paul did not only warn the earliest Christians in the forties and later churches in the early fifties; his entire career to the bitter end was marked by warning against this Jewish onslaught of apostasy. To Timothy, stationed in the bustling city of Ephesus—a hub of commerce and culture—Paul warned against those who desired to be teachers of the law. Still, he lacked understanding (1 Timothy 1:7). He was not warning against Roman legal scholars who were infiltrating the Church; he was warning against Jewish men who would lead the Church in Ephesus away from her first love and into the arms of the dying old covenant. He warned them against men who were captivated by myths and endless genealogies (which was a decisively Jewish habit), who would distract the Church from the truth of Christ. Paul had seen firsthand the damage that all of this would cause, and his entire career was marked by warning churches against it. 

Take the Church in Rome as an example. In Romans 1-2, we see that Jewish and Christian tensions are rising. By Romans 9-11, Paul weaves together a theological masterpiece, explaining how Israel's and Judah's rejection of Christ was part of God's sovereign design. Clearly, Paul is not encouraging believers to have their Mosaic cake and eat their Christian faith too. He was telling them that Israel and Judah were cut out of the covenant because of their infidelity and that we must not be prideful, thinking we can return to that old covenant, expecting God will not also cut us out as well. The hope that Paul puts forward consistently, from His conversion till his beheading, is that all people must turn to Jesus and give their loyalty, allegiance, and faith to Him. If they do that, they will be saved. And if the Jews who were sprinting toward destruction would repent, Paul promises that God will forgive them, too.

He says: 

"And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted back in" - Romans 11:23

To me, this proves the point. Jesus' sign of a coming Jewish defection would be evidence that the end is coming. Far from this being a sign of the end of human history, it was a sign of the end of the Jewish age, where I would like us to focus for a moment. 

SECTION 3: THE JEWISH DEFECTION IN THE LAST DAYS

To begin this section, we have to acknowledge that many in the dispensational camp are not picking up what we are laying down. Aside from all the outlandish comic book eschatology they foment, they argue that phrases like the "Last days" refer to the final moments of history. They believe these "last days" are still in our future and something we need to be on the lookout for today. Thus, when we come to the sign of a Great Apostasy, they cannot see it happening in the first century, even when we give them clear evidence that it did, because they have already convinced themselves that it will happen at some point in the future. Like the prophets of Baal, they have worked themselves up into a good old-fashioned delirium, and only the Spirit of God can change their minds. 

And, knowing that I do not possess the rhetorical panache to ensure this happens, I want to speak to those open to learning. Because the stakes of this debate are immense. A misreading of the "last days" skews the Church's understanding of its mission, its context, and its hope. And, to correct this error, we must carefully dismantle the dispensational view and prove, beyond a shadow of doubt, that the "last days" the New Testament is referring to, and signs like the Great Apostasy Jesus promised, have already happened in the first century, and not events we are still waiting on today. So, with that, let us take a quick foray into this topic so that we can move on and into truth. 

When it comes to the "last days" Dispensationalists often appeal to passages like 1 Timothy 4:1, 2 Thessalonians 2:3, and Matthew 24:10-12 to argue that a future apostasy at the end of the church age is inevitable. In their framework, the Church will continue along, mostly losing, beaten up, and barely treading water until a great and terrible apostasy occurs. This will be when a massive amount of Christians leave the faith and deny Jesus, perhaps at the hands of the Antichrist, depending on if you hold to a pre-, mid, or post-tribulation rapture. And you do get some notes on this in our day, from time to time. For instance, when celebrity Christians like Joshua Harris walk away from the faith, the grumblings of dispensationals from their storm basements can be heard: "See, I told you… The apostasy has begun! Or, after a brief conversion, Kanye is back saluting the devil, and this is somehow a sign of the end times. 

At first glance, their argument seems plausible. After all, doesn't Paul warn Timothy that "the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith" (1 Timothy 4:1)? Doesn't he tell the Thessalonians that "the day of the Lord will not come unless the apostasy comes first" (2 Thessalonians 2:3)? And didn't Jesus Himself predict that "many will fall away" in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24:10)?

But, upon a closer examination of these passages—and the contexts in which they were written—we can see that these warnings were not about the distant future. They were urgent warnings with immediacy for their occasion and intimately tied to the world Paul and his contemporaries inhabited.

Consider 1 Timothy 4:1. Paul's warning about the "latter times" comes within a letter addressing specific challenges Timothy faced in Ephesus in the first century. The false teachers Paul describes are not apocalyptic baddies from the twenty-first century but actually threats in his world to the people God called him to shepherd. These were men who taught abstinence from certain foods and forbade marriage, which were all hallmarks of Jewish asceticism that was alive and well in the first century. This is not a prophecy of global rebellion but a description of Judaizing influences threatening the early Church.

Similarly, 2 Thessalonians 2:3 must be read in light of its historical setting. Paul's reference to the "man of lawlessness"and the coming apostasy is not a cryptic allusion to events thousands of years in the future but a warning about the Jewish rejection of Christ and the rise of false teachers in his own time. This "lawlessness" is ironic. Because the same people who were touting Mosaic supremacy, killing Christians for abandoning the law, had become the lawless ones. And, while it is outside the scope of this episode, I will tell you that there were men who rose up in Jerusalem in the final moments before the city was destroyed, who fit the criteria of this "Man of Lawlessness." And while we will have to speak about my thoughts on the identity of that man at another time, the point is crystal clear. Paul is not looking at Christians suffering under the painful toil of Jewish persecutions against the Church and shifting gears to talk about a white Anglo-European antichrist that won't arise for a couple thousand years. 

Now, what about Matthew 24? Doesn't this one guarantee the dispensational exegetical tomfoolery is real? Well… No. No, it doesn't! 

Jesus' prediction of falling away, betrayal, and hatred need to be understood in their historical context and within the larger section of Jewish doom that is happening in Matthew 21-24. After 3 chapters of condemnation and woes that will be poured out on the Jews, Jesus gets specific, on the granular level, in Matthew 24, saying that the apostasy He was predicting will come about within a single generation of His prophecy (Matthew 24:34). The "last days" He described were not about the end of the cosmos but the end of the Jewish world—a catastrophic judgment on Jerusalem and the temple.

And that is a point we have often made, but it likely bears repeating. The phrase "last days" appears repeatedly in the New Testament, always with a specific context: the end of the Jewish age and the inauguration of the new covenant era. Let me say that again. When the phrase "last days" is used in the New Testament, it is not about the end of the world but the end of the Jewish covenant. This is critical to understand. 

For instance, consider the opening verses of Hebrews: 

"God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son" - Hebrews 1:1-2 

The "last days" here began the moment God began speaking through His Son. And whether you want to place that at the incarnation when Jesus first used His vocal folds, or if you're going to attach that to Pentecost when the Spirit began teaching the Church the law of Christ, you cannot get to a timeframe that the dispensationalists are peddling. In fact, you cannot get beyond AD 33, which is the latest date scholars generally accept that Pentecost occurred. So, just from this single verse, the last days began in the 30s AD, which means that the first century was the End Times. The end times for what? The world? Not hardly. The end times for the Jewish age. This is so important to grasp. 

Peter echoes this understanding of the last days in Acts 2, where he quotes Joel's prophecy about the "last days" and applies it to the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:17). For Peter, the "last days" were unfolding in front of his eyes and before the city of Jerusalem. There is simply no exegetical reason to punt them out into the future. 

Let's look at one more example. In 2 Timothy 3:1-5, he warns Timothy about difficult times to come, describing behaviors and attitudes rampant in the first-century Jewish world. Paul is not looking at Timothy and saying, "Hey Bucko, stop bellyaching about the real problems you are facing in your world so that I can talk about difficulties 2000 years from now that will not encourage you or comfort you in the slightest. That would be diabolical. And yet, that is the way every delusional dispy has to read their Bible. 

But, with Jesus saying that "this generation will not pass away until all these things take place" (Matthew 24:34), the exegetical ground beneath their feet must be, and is, tremendously shaky. We have seen that the Bible overwhelmingly speaks about the last days having already occurred in the first century. These were the last days of that old covenant era. And those last days were replete with all kinds of signs, so we would stop and notice. Along the way, we have proved over and over again that every sign Jesus predicted can be found right there, right in the pages of Holy Scripture. We are not waiting for a future Great apostasy to occur… It already did! 

Now, as we near the end of today's episode, let me give you some variations of this apostasy that happened in the first century. We have already mentioned the Judaizers briefly, but there were other Jewish-led apostasy movements as well. In order for us to properly treat the case, we should include those as well. That leads us to: 

PART 3: THE BIBLICAL CASE FOR SPECIFIC APOSTASIES

The first-century church stood in a crucible of spiritual warfare. Jewish leaders, feeling the destabilizing effects of Christ's Gospel on their religious and social order, sought to combat its spread with calculated heresies. These heresies were deliberate assaults like a trojan horse designed to lure Jewish converts to Christ with the appearance of safety, only to cause them to undergo a calamitous peril. For the Jewish leaders, if they could not crush the Church with the sword, they would do it with the tongue, they would poison it with false doctrine, hoping to inoculate its members against Christ and His Gospel. For a few moments, I want to very briefly detail a few (three to be exact) of the most common heresies the first-century Jews were using. 

THE JUDAIZING HERESY: 

The Judaizers were a persistent challenge for the early Church. These Jewish converts to Christianity couldn't let go of the Mosaic Law, treating circumcision, dietary rules, and temple rituals as essential for salvation. Their efforts to blend the old covenant with the new caused confusion, directly threatening the Gospel's central message of justification by faith alone.

Rooted in Pharisaic zeal, this heresy emerged early in the Jerusalem church, as recorded in Acts 15. Some argued Gentiles must be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses to be saved. Though leaders like James refuted this, the Judaizers gained influence, even intimidating Peter in Antioch, as Paul recounts in Galatians 2:11-14.

The cultural fervor that fueled this movement wasn't merely theological but intensely nationalistic. Historian Josephus highlights how Jewish identity was tightly woven into the Law. For the Judaizers, preserving these traditions within Christianity seemed non-negotiable.

Their impact extended into the second century, evolving into sects like the Ebionites, who rejected Paul's apostleship and denied Christ's divinity. Despite the apostles' tireless defense of grace, the shadow of this heresy lingered. Early writings like the Didache and Ignatius letters reveal ongoing struggles to reject Judaizing tendencies while respecting the faith's Jewish roots.

By AD 70, the temple's destruction dealt a critical blow to this heresy. Without its symbols, their arguments crumbled, and the Gospel's sufficiency shone clearer. Their story serves as a sobering reminder: when cultural identity eclipses Christ, it leads to division and spiritual ruin.

THE NICOLAITAN HERESY 

In stark contrast to the legalism of the Judaizers, the Nicolaitan heresy promoted moral compromise and indulgence. This movement twisted Christian liberty into justification for sin, offering an appealing but destructive alternative to the Gospel's call for holiness.

Traditionally linked to Nicholas of Antioch from Acts 6:5, the heresy likely arose from a corruption of his teachings. Nicolaitans encouraged Christians, especially in pagan-dominated cities like Pergamum and Ephesus, to engage in idolatrous rituals and immoral practices under the guise of faith. Their tactics mirrored those of Balaam, the prophet who led Israel astray through idolatry and sin.

Church leaders quickly recognized the threat. Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria condemned the Nicolaitans for distorting grace, while Jesus Himself denounced their deeds in Revelation, praising the Ephesian Church for rejecting them (Revelation 2:6) and warning Pergamum of their influence (Revelation 2:14-15).

The Nicolaitans exploited cultural pressures, offering a way to conform outwardly while maintaining a veneer of faith. This compromise undermined the distinctiveness of Christianity, making it an existential threat to the early Church. Yet, the heresy was ultimately exposed and rejected through Christ's rebuke and the vigilance of church leaders.

THE GNOSTIC HERESY

Gnosticism, a heresy blending Jewish mysticism and Greek philosophy, diverged sharply from the legalism of the Judaizers. This movement combined speculative traditions and dualistic ideas to create a dangerous worldview where the Spirit was good, matter was evil, and salvation came through secret knowledge, not Christ.

Jewish mystics had long sought hidden meanings in Scripture, paving the way for this heresy's allure. By rejecting Christ, Jewish leaders leveraged their traditions to destabilize the Church, introducing Gnosticism as an intellectualized alternative to the Gospel. For some, it was a tempting compromise—avoiding the scandal of the cross while claiming enlightenment.

Paul confronted Gnosticism directly, warning against "false knowledge" (1 Timothy 6:20) and rebuking its ascetic practices in Colossians 2:8-23. The heresy's denial of Christ's incarnation struck at the heart of the Gospel, undermining salvation and Christian hope.

Figures like Simon Magus (Acts 8) and later leaders like Valentinus and Basilides expanded these teachings, constructing systems of secret hierarchies. Yet, early church fathers like Irenaeus and Hippolytus fought back, defending the truth of Christ's humanity and divinity.

Gnosticism fractured the Church, dividing believers and threatening the simplicity of the Gospel. But the Church stood firm, rejecting speculation and holding fast to the power of Christ crucified and risen—a truth no secret knowledge could replace.

CONCLUSION

As we bring this discussion to a close, we are left with the undeniable truth that Jesus' prophetic words regarding the first-century Jewish apostasy were fulfilled with precision. The apostate rebellion, the allure of the old covenant, the false teachers, and the trials that threatened to pull God's people away—all of it culminated in the fiery judgment upon Jerusalem in AD 70. What Jesus foretold, we have proven: the Jewish age ended with a dramatic and catastrophic collapse, ushering in the triumphant and eternal reign of Christ's Kingdom through His Church.

But as sobering as this truth is, let it also serve as an encouragement. The warnings to first-century believers echo down the corridors of time to us today: do not shipwreck your faith. The pressures that lured some away then are not unlike the pressures we face now. The culture will mock you, the world will tempt you, and the devil will seek to sift you like wheat. Yet Christ, who reigns victorious, stands ready to strengthen and preserve you.

Cling to Him. Hold fast to your confession of faith without wavering (Hebrews 10:23), knowing that He who promised is faithful. Study His Word diligently, allowing it to transform your mind and guard your heart. Pray without ceasing, for your strength is found in communion with Him. Love the means of grace—public worship, the sacraments, and the fellowship of believers—for these are the lifelines He has given to sustain you. Go to Church, not as a passive observer but as an active participant in the body of Christ. And as Paul exhorted the Philippians, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure (Philippians 2:12-13).

Brothers and sisters, the race set before us is not for the faint of heart, but take courage: you do not run it alone. The Spirit of God dwells within you, the prayers of the saints surround you, and the promises of Christ ensure your victory. Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith (Hebrews 12:2), and run with endurance. Let the fulfillment of Christ's words in the first century strengthen your resolve to endure to the end so that you, too, will finish well and receive the crown of life.

We are the Church triumphant. Our King reigns, and His Kingdom will know no end. So press on, with joy and unwavering confidence, until the day we see Him face to face. All glory to the Lamb who was slain and who now reigns forever and ever. Amen.

VERSES CITED:
Hosea 9:10; Matthew 24:10-13, 24:34; Romans 1:1-2, 9-11, 11:23; Galatians 1:6, 14-16, 3:1, 3:6-7, 4:19, 4:30, 5:1-2, 5:4, 6:12; 1 Timothy 1:7, 4:1, 6:20; 2 Thessalonians 2:3; 2 Timothy 3:1-5; Colossians 2:8-23; Philippians 3:2, 3:18, 3:20; Hebrews 1:1-2, 10:23, 12:2; Acts 2:17, 8, 15; Revelation 2:6, 2:14-15.