Christian Deconstruction, Part 2

People who defect out of Christianity don't do so because the Bible can't make the case for the validity of the Christian faith.

They do so because they don't like the words that the Bible speaks. It's what do you do with Scripture? Everything focuses on hearing, believing, and obeying the words, the words. Hi friend, this is Phil Johnson. Welcome to a special edition of Grace to You with John MacArthur.

We are interrupting our regular schedule to bring you a brand new message that you're going to hear in just a minute. For a number of weeks now, John has been leading his congregation in a study of some of the most compelling conversations that Jesus Christ had with his disciples and with the religious leaders of his day. One of John's sermons, delivered just a couple of weeks ago, was so timely that we wanted to get it on the air as soon as possible. In this sermon, John digs into a troubling trend called Christian deconstruction. You may have heard a term related to this movement, Exvangelicals. These are people who once claimed to follow Christ, but who now have walked away from the standards, the structure, and the spiritual authority of the evangelical churches that they were once part of, and in many cases, they've renounced their Christian faith.

While this seems to be a new development in the church, really it's as old as the first century, as you'll see today. And so with that, here's John MacArthur with a message he preached just a couple of weeks ago on the subject of Christian deconstruction. In this contemporary scenario, maybe over the last five or six years, Christian deconstruction has become a very popular term to describe people who once professed to be Christians, but who turned away. They deconstruct their Christian faith. It primarily finds its adherents on the Internet through the normal, ubiquitous social media means as they give their testimonies to being liberated from the oppression that Christianity once was for them.

This is the typical scene. And most of them who defect do so because of an unwillingness to turn from iniquity, transgression, and sin, and be obedient to the Lord. And it comes down to that. True Christians obey, and false Christians resent that. And so trying to get a handle on that and help you to see it and understand it, I've chosen John chapter 6 as a great passage to explain this. There are so many false forms of Christianity, so many churches that preach an inadequate gospel that there's a proliferation of false disciples. There is so much sowing tares amidst the wheat that we should not be surprised that there's a lot of deconstruction, because people who aren't genuinely Christian are very likely to at some point abandon whatever profession they made about Christianity to cling to their transgressions.

There's an incident here that you would look at and say, this is a heartbreaking incident, and you would be right. This is defined most clearly by verse 66 of John 6. As a result of this, many of His disciples withdrew, and we're not walking with Him anymore, defecting disciples.

Very strong language in verse 66, very strong, expressing finality. This comes strangely, you might think, right at the high point of our Lord's ministry in Galilee. He's been doing miracles, particularly in the city of Capernaum where this incident takes place. He has been raising people from all manner of illness and disease and demon possession. He has proclaimed His deity as the Son of God, and He's demonstrated the validity of the claim by His miracle power. And then in this very chapter, He just created food to feed a crowd we would estimate of 25,000 people.

He literally created food out of nothing, a massive, incomprehensible miracle. And you would think that after that miracle and all the others that He had done in Capernaum, that His disciples would be locked down on the fact that this is indeed the Son of God, this is indeed the Messiah. But instead of that, you have this defection, this rebellion, this abandonment.

And while it seems like a horrible moment in human history, it's not uncommon. In fact, it's pretty much the pattern even in biblical history. In 2 Peter chapter 2, there's a more thorough description of apostasy in verse 20, 2 Peter 2.20, for if after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, what does that mean? That means that they have escaped the defilements of the world in the sense that they have moved into some relationship with Christianity, with the Christian religion, and so as a consequence of that, they have decreased their moral contamination from what it was in their past life. These are people who connected themselves to the church, to God's people. They escaped in some measure the corruption that was ubiquitous in their previous lives. And by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they came to understand something of the gospel. They were influenced by it. However, if they are again entangled in them, that is the defilements of the world, and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

And you get specific. It would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than having known it to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. And notice again how the gospel itself is called a holy commandment, because it always comes down to the words that God has revealed in terms of what He desires for us to do in obeying Him. And He gives two illustrations of this. It's like a dog returning to its own vomit, or a sow after washing, returning to wallow in the mire. There are people who superficially and externally by their association with Christian people, with religion, escape some measure of moral contamination.

However, it doesn't last. They are entangled again with those very things. They are overcome by them. Their last state is worse than the first. It would have been better for them if they had never known the truth.

Why? Because punishment is greater if you knew the truth and rejected it than if you didn't know it. That's Hebrews, isn't it? Chapter 10, how much severer punishment shall fall on those who knew the gospel and rejected the gospel. You can feel sadness for people who never heard the gospel and perished without the knowledge of Christ, but you have to understand that far more severe eternal punishment is waiting for people who knew the gospel, were around the gospel, exposed to the gospel, and turned away from it.

That's far more severe. It would have been better for them if they had never heard the gospel. So you have to declare to this current trend of people that are fascinated by Christian deconstruction that they would have been better off if they had never heard the gospel, for their eternal punishment will be more severe, more severe. In that same 10th chapter of the book of Hebrews, it says, there remains therefore for them no sacrifice for sin once they turn away, and all that is left is God's fury and anger and vengeance.

Nothing to trifle with, even though it's trendy and popular. The current trend in Christian defection or deconstruction or rebellion or betrayal or backsliding or whatever you want to call it is so lightly treated that people call themselves ex-vangelicals, hashtag ex-vangelical, and they wear it as a badge of liberation. They are a new group of people who have come out from under oppression, and the majority of those who opine on this Christian deconstruction talk about the liberation that they felt when they disconnected themselves from the Word of God, from Christianity. And there are on the internet countless testimonies and supposed safe spaces and therapy programs and all kinds of counseling and motivational approaches to help others deconstruct and get free from the oppression of Christ and the gospel. They look at Christianity and they identify toxic churches. They talk about oppressive patriarchy. They speak of the narrowness of biblical morality, misogyny, racism. Everything in the woke library they hold up as reasons to abandon Christianity. It's never because they looked at the Word of God and the gospel did not hold up to their scrutiny. No, it's because they love their sin and they're not willing to let go of it. And it comes down to not just Jesus, but it comes down to whether or not they will obey His commands. The Great Commission is to go into the world and teach people to obey everything I have commanded you. Christianity is an affirmation of a covenant to obey God, to obey Christ, and that means in every issue. But what the Bible has to say about morality, what the Bible has to say about women, what the Bible has to say about so many things is an offense to the contemporary culture and to the unregenerate mind that half-converted people very prone to abandon it and find themselves in the state of an apostate.

And there will be a lot of them, because there are so many churches that are preaching an inadequate gospel that are filled with non-Christians who think they're Christians, many of whom will at some point deconstruct because there was no real satisfaction in the brand of Christianity that they were exposed to. So this is what we face. So how are we to understand this? And with that we go back to John 6, back to John 6. How are we to understand this? Well here is an incident in John 6 that gives us insight into that question.

I'm just going to read it very quickly and make a few comments. Verse 60, Jesus teaching in Capernaum, verse 60, He has just fed 25,000 people in this massive miracle and taught them about Himself, therefore, verse 60, many of His disciples when they heard this said, this is a difficult statement, who can listen to it? But Jesus conscious that His disciples grumbled at this said to them, does this cause you to stumble? What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing.

The words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and are life. But there are some of you who do not believe, for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, for this reason I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted Him from the Father. As a result of this, many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.

And there's a finality in the Greek construction of that statement. So Jesus said to the twelve, you do not want to go away also, do you? Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go, You have words of eternal life.

We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God. Jesus answered them, did I myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil? Now He meant Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he was one of the twelve who was going to betray Him. This is a shocking, dramatic moment in the Galilean ministry of Jesus when not a few, but many, verse 66, verse 60, many said this is too hard to take, this is not something we can believe.

Many said that, and in verse 66, many withdrew in a final act of withdrawal, didn't walk with Jesus anymore. They're the many disciples who when Jesus had given this message said it's a difficult statement, who can listen to it? Statement there could be translated teaching, teaching, it's difficult. That's an interesting word. Difficult is scleros, get that from cirrhosis to the liver in English, that's a hardening. It means dried out, rough, harsh, stiff.

It can extend to being unpleasant, objectionable, offensive, unacceptable, violent, fierce, repulsive, defiant, grating to the mind, one lexicon says. This discourse of Jesus about Him being from heaven, being from the Father, being the bread of life, this is not acceptable to us. That He came from heaven, that He is the true food for the soul, that He is the one who can give eternal life, that He would die as an atonement, as a sacrificial substitute for sinners, this is not possible to them.

It can't be possible. If you go back to verse 41, the Jews were grumbling about Him because He said, I am the bread that came down out of heaven, and they were saying, Is not this Jesus, the Son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know, how does He now say, I have come down out of heaven? Jesus answered and said to them, Do not grumble among yourselves. They were grumbling about His claims, and they were grumbling about His description of His sacrifice. What you can say is they were fascinated by the supernatural person of Jesus. They were not interested in His words, the words that express who He was and why He came.

It was the statement, it was the message that they couldn't tolerate. Sure, people gladly welcome someone who's going to show them compassion, kindness, mercy, healing, restoration, but that's all superficial. The question is, will you accept His words? Will you accept what He said about Himself and His ministry and everything else? Verse 62, the Lord offers a plea, What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?

Why don't you just stick around until the ascension and watch Me go back into heaven to prove that I came from heaven? But the false disciples have no intention of staying because they have no interest in Jesus or His sacrifice. And He says to them in verse 63, It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. All you want is what satisfies your flesh.

To what end? The words, the words, the words that I've spoken to you are Spirit and are life. And again, let me say this, people who defect out of Christianity don't do so because the Bible can't make the case for the validity of the Christian faith. They do so because they don't like the words that the Bible speaks. Verse 64, But there are some of you who do not believe.

You're unwilling to accept the words. In John 8, 51, we read, If anyone keeps My word, he will never see death. If you continue in My word, then you're My mathetes alithos, My real disciple. It's what do you do with Scripture? John 14, John 15, If you love Me, you keep My what? My commandments.

Everything focuses on hearing, believing, and obeying the words, the words, the words. They didn't believe. They didn't believe.

Verse 64, Some of you do not believe. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe and who it was who would betray Him. Of course He knew.

He knew everything. John chapter 2 says He knew what was in the heart of man. He knew Judas, and He knew these false disciples to be false. It was their unbelief then that caused them to walk away, verse 66, as a result of this, this unbelief with regard to the words that He spoke. Many of His disciples withdrew, and were not walking with Him anymore. So that's the defection of the false disciples. The text closes with the affection of the true disciples.

It's an obvious difference. Verse 67, So Jesus said to the twelve, You do not want to go away also, do you? And then Simon Peter sums it up perfectly. Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You can create food.

No. We're not here because You create food. We're here for the words.

We're here for the words. You have words of eternal life, as Jesus said back in verse 63. It's the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and are life. Peter understood exactly what dominated the heart of a true disciple.

He wanted the words from the mouth of the Son of God. And Peter adds in verse 69, We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God, Isaiah's favorite name for God, by the way. The demons knew this, Mark 1.24, I know you, the Holy One of God, the demons said. We know who you are. You are the Holy One of God.

You have come from heaven. Your words have eternal life, and so we believe. If you're a false disciple, you reject the words. If you're a true disciple, you love the words because they are eternal life.

And that's the difference. And then in the end of this little section, Jesus answers them and said, Did I myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil? Now he meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him. We're not allowed to dwell on Peter's confession very long, actually.

Only a brief pause before we face the pathos that dominates this moment. Judas, the archetypal false disciple, is exposed. Judas didn't believe the words that Jesus spoke, had no interest in Jesus or in obeying His commands. Judas wanted temporal things, and when Jesus didn't deliver, He wanted to get out. And since he'd wasted three years of his life, he wanted to get out with some money, at least. So he started stealing from the small treasury, the materialist. No interest in the words, even though he saw who he was. So adept at hypocrisy that even the other disciples didn't know until he was exposed in the upper room about six months after this, and this is Jesus' way of sort of closing this narrative and saying, you're going to face this, and it's going to come at very high levels, a disciple, one of the twelve, the pastor of a church, the head of a Christian institution. But understand, I know who they are.

I know who they are. There's a sadness in this that is resolved really theologically. Why do I say that? Go back to verse 65. Here's where Jesus rests at this sad reality of defection. He was saying, for this reason I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.

That is a powerful statement. This salvation is all a work of God. Go back to verse 37 of John 6, all that the Father gives Me will come to Me.

Verse 44, no one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him. And here for the third time He says the same thing, no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father. This is where you resolve this, in God's sovereign will, in God's sovereign will. The bottom line for you and for all of us is, do you believe, right? Some of you have not believed.

You don't believe the words. The words of the gospel, the words of sanctification, the words of truth, but others of you believe, and for you the word is life. But in the end, we rest it all in the Father's will so that Christ will accomplish redemption. He will build His church, because that's the divine design, and it will come to pass. Thanks for listening to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm Phil Johnson. We preempted our regular schedule today to bring you a brand-new message from John. He preached this one only a couple of weeks ago, his subject, the issue of Christian deconstruction. Now, as you saw today, when professing Christians walk away from Christ or even turn against him, there's a good reason to believe that those people had never really come to saving faith in the first place. To help you see what the Bible says about true faith in Christ, and to give you a biblical standard to hold up to your life that can show you whether you're a true disciple or a false convert, we want to send you a 25-page booklet by John MacArthur called You Must Be Born Again. It's densely packed with biblical truth, and it's yours for the asking, so request your free copy today. Call us at 800-55-GRACE or go to our website, gty.org, and request John's booklet titled You Must Be Born Again.

It's one of the most well-known of Jesus' conversations, his dialogue with a Pharisee named Nicodemus in John 3. This booklet, You Must Be Born Again, digs deep into their exchange and it answers critical questions about spiritual regeneration, and in particular, how the new birth happens. Do you play a part in being born again, or is it something that God does?

Or is it somehow both? You'll understand after reading You Must Be Born Again. Now again, we want to send you a free copy of this booklet. Just let us know you want one. Our phone number, 800-55-GRACE, or you can request the booklet at our website, gty.org. Or email us your name and address and let us know you'd like a copy, and we'll send it to you. Write to letters at gty.org, that's letters at gty.org, and then on Monday we will begin a compelling study of history yet to be fulfilled in a series titled The Rapture and the Day of the Lord. You won't want to miss it, so on behalf of John MacArthur and the entire staff, I'm Phil Johnson, inviting you back for our next half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.