How do we Recognize Heresy and the Heretic?
An early tip off comes when you hear it proudly stated, "No Creed but the Bible" and this is usually accompanied with quoting the Apostle John out of context in the following:
"And as for you, the anointing which ye received of him abideth in you, and
ye need not that any one teach you; but as his anointing teacheth you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, ye abide in him." (1John 2:27, ERV)
It is obvious, John is teaching them in that very statement, and God gave teachers to the church so the believers do need to be taught and we know God does not make a mistake. The following are 3 verses about heresy and heretics:
"
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions,
heresies," (Gal 5:19-20, ERV)
"
A man that is heretical after a first and second admonition refuse; knowing that such a one is perverted, and sinneth, being self-condemned." (Titus 3:10-11, ERV)
"But there arose false prophets also among the people, as among you also there shall be false teachers, who shall privily bring in
destructive heresies, denying even the Master that bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction." (2Pet 2:1, ERV)
From the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament -
"Yet there is from the outset a suspicion of the
haíresis within Christianity itself, not through the development of orthodoxy, but through the basic incompatibility of
ekklēsía[church] and
haíresis[heresy] (cf. Gal. 5:20; 1 Cor. 11:18-19). In 1 Cor. 1: 10ff.
haíresis has a sifting purpose. In 2 Pet. 2:1 it affects the church’s very basis; a
haíresis creates a new society alongside the
ekklēsía and thus makes the
ekklēsía itself a
haíresis and not the comprehensive people of God. This is unacceptable."
"An heretic, according to the notation of the word, is either one that makes choice of an opinion upon his own judgment,
contrary to the generally received sense of the churches of Christ, and prefers it to theirs, and obstinately persists in it" John Gill comment on Titus 3:10
There is a key to recognizing heretics in the following passage:
"knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation. For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost." (2Pet 1:20-21, ERV) Or, " a matter of one’s own interpretation", RSV
The "private interpretation" is contrasted to what? What is indwelt by the Holy Spirit as well as the individual regenerate child of God? The body of Christ, the church itself. It is not one single denomination as the Roman Catholics like to claim for themselves as the sole interpreter, but the church universal. In our day we are blessed to read how the body of Christ has interpreted various passages, because we can access over 100 commentaries from over the past 500 years from various
historic denominations and see where the body of Christ in various denominations have had general agreement on various passages and points of doctrine. These are available online:
https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng.html