The Practical Features of the Apostasy
T. Croskery 1 Timothy 4:3-5 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats… The apostle does not enumerate the doctrinal errors of the apostates, but touches upon two practical characteristics which would fall under general observation. I. THERE WAS A PROHIBITION OR RESTRAINT UPON MARRIAGE. "Forbidding to marry." 1. This was an ascetic tendency already manifested in the East, especially among the Essenes of Palestine and the Therapeutae of Egypt. 2. It may have already influenced Christian opinion in the Corinthian Church; for the apostle is obliged to solve spiritualistic doubts regarding marriage (1 Corinthians 7.). 3. The tendency developed in less than a century into a Gnostic contempt for marriage. 4. It entered patristic theology in the form of an exaggerated admiration for virginity, to the disparagement of married life. 5. It developed inside the Latin and Greek Churches into the celibacy of the clergy and the religious orders. 6. It was a tendency wholly opposed to Scripture teaching. (1) It forbade what Scripture allowed: "Marriage is honorable in all" (Hebrews 13:2). (2) It forbade the marriage of ministers, while Old Testament priests and New Testament ministers were to be "husbands of one wife" (1 Timothy 3:2). "Have we not power to lead about a wife, a sister?" (1 Corinthians 9:5). Several of the apostles made use of this power: "As well as other apostles.... and Cephas." (3) The reason why the apostle says so little here concerning the restriction on marriage, and so much on that respecting meats, is probably because the one was so manifestly opposed to the whole plan of creation, that the common sense of men would reject it as unnatural and wrong. Perhaps, also, the one tendency had not assumed so definite a form as the other. The very liberty allowed under the gospel to abstain from marriage was not grounded on the idea of the superior holiness of celibacy or virginity, but on its affording in special circumstances greater opportunities and freedom for spiritual work (1 Corinthians 7:32-37). II. THERE WAS A PROHIBITION OR RESTRAINT UPON THE USE OF CERTAIN KINDS OF FOOD. "And commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving by them who believe and know the truth." Probably the restriction was as to the use of flesh. The Essenes and the Therapoutae abstained from particular kinds of food. The Gnostic schools developed the tendency still more, and in due time it was stereotyped into the penitential usages of Romanism. The apostle argues strenuously against this abuse. 1. It was contrary to God's design in creation. (1) All food was from the hand of the Maker; nothing was therefore to be accounted common or unclean under the gospel. (2) All food was good. "For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused." It was not, therefore, for man to place restrictions upon what God had given with such a liberal hand for his use. "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof." 2. The conditions under which the true design of God in creation is fulfilled. (1) The food was for all creatures; but "believers and those who have known the truth" had a covenant right to it, and the true end of creation was only fully satisfied in them. (2) The right manner of receiving the food provided. "If it be received with thanksgiving;" for it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer. This implies (a) that food is to be gratefully received as God's gift; (b) that our thanksgiving is presented on the objective side by the Word of God, and on the subjective side by prayer. Thus the custom of grace before and after meat is grounded in a Divine command. - T.C. Parallel Verses KJV: Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. WEB: forbidding marriage and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.