Christians have the freedom in Christ to leave churches that have rejected biblical orthodoxy. At first glance, such a statement seemingly contradicts the teaching of the apostle John, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us” (1 John 2:19). The apostle asserts that, those who forsake their church pews have ceased to fellowship with Jesus. In other words, they have left the physical manifestation of church because they were never truly part of the spiritual or universal church that consists of all believers across eternity.
2 Marks of a True Church
But for such a statement to be true, the local church in view must be a true church—a church composed of members who are part of that spiritual or universal church. Though John does not provide the readers of 1 John with a full blueprint of a healthy church, he does note two important marks that define all local expression of the spiritual or universal church.
First, John argues that the majority of a true church’s members will be those who fellowship with the Father and the Son, having trusted in Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection for the salvation. John tells his readers, “I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake” (1 John 2:12). The natural outworking and demonstration of such faith-driven fellowship is obedience to the Savior. To quote John again, “And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3).
Second, John argues that a true church consists of those who affirm the integrity and truth of the apostolic message. In other words, a true church is composed of those who believe that the Scriptures are the inerrant, inspired, and authoritative word of God. John encourages such trust in his writings (and the Bible as a whole), declaring that his epistles and the Gospel of John contain “that which we have seen and heard…so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son, Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3). He believed his words to be the inspired words of God—free of error— in part because Jesus had promised that Holy Spirit would help John remember all that Jesus taught and said (John 14:26). Thus, John expected those who fellowshipped with the Father and the Son to share John’s assessment of the New Testament canon. To quote John, “You have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge…you know it [the truth], and you know that no lie is of the truth.” For a church to be a true church, it must be composed of those who accept the Scriptures as the word of God and of those who embrace the fellowship of the Son that comes through the Scriptures.
Anti-Christ Should Leave
Those who forsake these local manifestations of the universal or spiritual church should feel the full weight of John’s condemnation in 1 John 2:19. Their leaving does evidence a lack of saving faith. For example, Joseph Smith and Charles Taze Russell left the true church and created the Mormon and Jehovah’s Witness cults because they rejected the biblical teaching on the divinity of Jesus. These cult leaders replaced the gospel of grace with gospels of works. Similarly, when Muhammad founded Islam, he too left the true church because his belief that Jesus was nothing more than a human prophet placed him at odds with the clear teaching of Scripture and its offer of salvation through grace. These and countless others went out from their local expressions of the spiritual or universal church because they had exchanged the righteousness of the cross for that which could be won through special underwear, prayers toward Mecca, or the avoidance of caffeine.
Others walk out of the true church to worship the god of self. They reject the biblical teaching of sin and declare themselves to be generally good. Salvation no longer consists in denying oneself and following Jesus but in exploring oneself through introspective actions that range from meditation to picking up litter to exploring sexual expressions that violate the commands of Jesus. Such men and women leave their local expressions of the true church because they were never part of the spiritual or universal church.
When Antichrists Stay
While most Antichrists will leave the church, some will stay and seek to convert their local church to their errors and heresies. The apostle Peter warns of this phenomenon in his second letter, declaring that false teachers would “secretly bring in destructive heresies” into the local churches and that “many would follow their sensuality” (2 Peter 2:1–2).
Few enter the church proclaiming themselves to be false teachers. Only slowly do they demonstrate their lack of faith, teaching against the integrity of Scripture and denying elements of the faith. For example, they may proclaim their love for the Bible and then explain why they take issue with the Bible’s sexual ethic, viewing it as culturally bound and oppressive. If the church’s elders and leaders refuse to correct the new teacher, she will not graciously fade into the background. She will double down on her teaching and in time call the church to affirm the homosexual marriage of her cousin as good and proper. Having abandoned the authority of Scripture, the congregation and its leaders will have little reason to object and will eventually acquiesce to the Sunday school teacher’s request. After all, no local church wants to be culturally irrelevant or unkind.
What is true of one sector of the church will quickly become true of the whole body. If its leadership board requests the pastor to jettison the church’s doctrine of substitutionary atonement because they see it as “divine child abuse,” he will once again defer to their proposal. After all, he has no Scriptural authority upon which to challenge such claims, and no one wants to support child abuse, divine or otherwise.
Those who do speak out against the doctrinal shift will often be labeled as unloving and antiquated. With each passing Sunday, their resistance will fade more into the background of the church’s consciences. The church’s inclinations toward goodness, truth, and love will slowly atrophy and then die. The gospel of the Antichrist will supplant the gospel of Christ. As J. Gresham Machen noted, “What the liberal theologian has retained after abandoning to the enemy one Christian doctrine after another is not Christianity at all, but a religion which is so entirely different from Christianity as to belong in a distinct category.” The spiritual or universal members of the local church will be supplanted with earthly members who have never fellowshipped with either the Father os the Son.
When To Leave
When believers find themselves in a Christless church, they should leave. As the refomer Martin Luther notes in such cases, “Not he who flees the darkness, but he who remains in it, is the Antichrist.”
Prior to leaving, Christians should confront the error in their church as best they can. They should schedule a meeting with their pastors, reach out to the Sunday school teacher, or talk to their church’s deacons. But if their conversations prove fruitless and fail to effect change, then the Christian must leave. As the Puritan John Owen notes, “Where the fundamentals of religious worship are corrupted or overthrown, it is absolutely unlawful to join unto or abide in any church.”
To leave such a church does not go against the teachings of the apostle John and the broader teaching of Scripture. The believer is not forsaking truth for error but error for truth. To quote Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “To leave a church which has become apostate is not schism. That’s one’s Christian duty and nothing else.” In other words, if a local church ceases to commune with Christ and his spiritual or universal church, Christians should cease to commune with that local church. In such circumstances, they should not be vilified but praised. They have traded that which is false for that which is true.
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