Even a very respectable denomination's or church organization's determination that a teaching is "heresy" cannot be taken, without examination, as absolute truth for two reasons. First, a deliberately divisive person's--a true "heretic's"-- motives are selfish rather than doctrinal and usually well-hidden behind doctrine. Second, such people sometimes take control of even respectable denominations.
Heretics, False Prophets, Try to Lead Away Followers for Themselves
Jesus’ own warnings about the false prophets who would come emphasized that they would lead followers after themselves. For instance, in Matthew 24:11, he said that many false prophets would arise, and “shall lead many astray.” (ASV) The result of this will be increasing lawlessness in the world causing the love of most to grow cold.1 He then warns that, if anyone comes who claims to be Christ, we are not to believe or follow him, because many false Christs and false prophets will arise, “so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.” 2
False Brethren Seek to Bring Us into Bondage–Their Real Focus is Selfish, Not Doctrinal
Here is the key to the matter of heresy. The divisive people against whom we are warned are trying to bring us into bondage. They do this in order to build their own following, their own organization, for their own profit. But to do this, they must make us their servants. Paul states this quite pointedly in Galatians 2:4-5 — false brethren come in to spy out our liberty in Christ in order that they may bring us into bondage. Their desire is that we may be in subjection to them. When such people take control of a church organization, their tendency is to cast out of it anyone who will not submit to them and to forbid their followers from receiving them as brothers.3 That is, when true heretics take leadership in a church or denomination, they tend to label everyone in that organization who will not submit to them (i.e., everyone who was not deceived by them) as a “heretic,” a person to be shunned. They do this to keep their own followers in bondage.
Therefore, one cannot safely determine that anything any particular church organization or group of organizations declares to be “heresy” is, in fact, heresy. A heretic may have controlled the organization itself at the time it made the judgment. It may therefore have labeled the truth a “heresy” in order to secure an evil leader’s control over “his” followers. Of course, this problem of deciding which doctrinal teachings to label as “heresies” disappears altogether when it is recognized that the “heresy” is not the teaching itself but the division into factions (hairesis) that the teaching has excused. The essence of heresy is not disagreement about doctrinal positions or about allegiances to church organizations. Neither is the essence of heresy the holding of an objectively incorrect doctrine. Rather, the essence of heresy is division in the Body of Christ, and an “heretic” is one who stealthily introduces division into that Body in order to increase his own power or wealth. In the process of creating division for his own profit, the heretic introduces false doctrines designed to bring his own followers into bondage. Simultaneously, heretics must attempt to destroy or remove from the church organization those who are not deceived by them. However, the real focus of a heretic’s activity is not doctrinal but selfish. Much division would be avoided if Christians generally recognized this.
