A Confirmation I Didn’t Ask For
Before I get into this post, I want to share something that happened while I was still wrestling with whether to publish it.
I finished the draft this morning, and I had been asking God in great detail whether what I was feeling so strongly guided to notice and research in recent weeks – this deep, persistent unease about mainstream Christianity – was genuine conviction or just my own doubt and anxiety resurfacing.
As many of you know, I have gone through a deeply spiritually guided deconstruction of the brand of Christian religion that did so much harm to me in my childhood, and I am never quick to overlook feelings of doubt or anxiety that could easily be old wounds resurfacing. I saved the final draft, closed my computer, and made my way to the kitchen. As I scanned my YouTube feed over breakfast, looking for the latest news headlines regarding the Iran War, something landed in my feed I wasn’t expecting.
A video by Tom Cote came across my feed. He was talking about the state of the church in the last days – how churches today speak about almost everything except Jesus, and how new age and new thought theologies are quietly infiltrating and in some cases outright replacing the Bible in Christian churches. He cited statistics from a Harbinger’s Daily article by Brandon Holthaus:
- Only 6% of American Christians possess a biblical worldview
- Only 37% of pastors in the United States possess a biblical worldview
- Over 60% of pastors hold a syncretistic worldview – a blend of Christianity and other belief systems
- Only 3% of sermons mention sin
- Only 24% of Americans qualify as practicing Christians – which was the most shocking thing he discussed, but it shouldn’t have shocked me at all
- Only 21% of self-identified Christians believe Satan exists and actively influences people today
I sought out the actual article from Harbinger’s Daily, sat there reading those numbers while chewing my breakfast in slow motion with what I know must’ve looked like a look of mourning on my face, and I thought about the draft sitting closed on my computer. Every number on that list was a data point underneath the conviction I had been asking God to either confirm or correct.
I don’t believe in coincidence. I believe in a God who confirms what he has already placed in you. This post is that confirmation in written form.
The Church versus The Bible
A lot of people who decide to read the Bible for themselves for the first time – people who actually sit down, open it up, and ask God about what they’re reading – quickly realize something uncomfortable, and in many ways disturbing: when it comes to mainstream theology, we’ve been duped.
It is clear that the institutional church is in the falling away, but there’s a deeper pattern that many don’t see: that it is happening systematically.
Many of us have been watching for the falling away as if it will be unmistakable; as if one day everyone will just stand up and walk out of institutional churches. But I believe the institutional church itself has already fallen. The departure isn’t coming. For the most part, it’s done.
Why would I say this? Because I have the spiritual eyes to see it, and do not let my human eyes blind them. The Bible paints the picture I see in the world, even in churches in my own community, in very clear language.
What Old Bibles Reveal
I studied an 1830 Bible and an 1863 Bible. When you read the theological notes in these Bibles – notes written by scholars who had no idea what modern Christianity would look like – something striking happens. The plain reading of scripture is right there. It is scripture matched with scripture. There are no gymnastics, no softening, and no reframing.
If you’ve ever read the Bible for yourself and felt genuinely confused about where mainstream theology gets its ideas, these notes are going to resonate with you, because they reflect what the church actually believed and taught before the drift.
For reference, the 1863 Bible I studied is a Cassell publishing house Bible – standard Holy Bible, no specific denomination – with the Old Testament, New Testament references, critical and explanatory notes, and a condensed concordance. If you would like a physical copy of this Bible, you can find it on eBay.
The Nicolaitans: A Warning We’ve Ignored
In Revelation 2:6, Jesus says:
But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
And again in verse 15:
So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.
Here’s the 1863 definition of the Nicolaitans:
Certain heretical Christians referred to in Revelation 2:6 and 15, who taught that the knowledge of God and Christ was sufficient for salvation, and that being justified by faith, they were free from the restraints of the law and might indulge in sin with impunity.
The historical record on exactly what the Nicolaitans taught is debated. Scholars have disagreed for centuries on the specifics. What is not debated is that Jesus hated both their deeds and their doctrine, and that the early church recognized them as a sect that used grace as a license for lawlessness. That much is consistent across historical sources.
What the 1863 commentary gives us is a definition that aligns precisely with that consistent thread, and when you hold it up against the predominant theology of the modern church, the resemblance is not subtle. That is the modern, mainstream message: faith alone, once saved-always saved, and repentance as a one-time change of mind that carries no ongoing obligation. That is the theology millions of people are sitting under right now. Whether or not every detail of Nicolaitan history is settled, the doctrine Jesus said he hated has a very clear home in the modern church.
These ideas were written down as heresy two hundred years ago. They still are.
Modern mainstream teaching tells most Christians a different story, but forcing the Word to say something it doesn’t say doesn’t force God to honor it.
The Law: Eternal, Not Abolished
In the notes for Exodus 19 and 20, where God gave Moses the law, the 1863 commentary says this:
Moses received from the lips of the Eternal the one fixed and immutable law of moral being. It is a law from which no individual created intelligence is exempt. It is the law of heaven as surely as it is the law of earth, the law of angels no less than the law of man. It is the law not only of time but also of eternity.
And this:
It never received its real and full exposition till it was taken up by Christ and reenacted by him in all its sublime spirituality in his Sermon on the Mount.
That is not abolition. That is elevation.
In Deuteronomy 5, another passage where the law is given, we find the same clarity and the same warning. People today completely invert what it means that Jesus is “the end of the law.” “End” here means the target, or the goal. The fulfillment and the purpose, not the termination. Jesus came to ensure obedience, not to dissolve it.
This inversion is going to send millions of people to hell. I don’t say that to be harsh. I say it because everything I find in pre-1940s scholarship says the same thing, and I want people to walk uprightly.
Psalm 119 and the Accursed
In the notes for Psalm 119, the commentary on the proud reads:
The proud — the accursed. Whoever does not obey the law of God is under a curse.
It cross-references Galatians 3:10, and when you actually read it, you can see why:
For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. (Galatians 3:10)
The curse falls on those who do not continue in the law. That’s what the text says. Now, to be fair – and I do want to be fair – Paul’s argument in Galatians genuinely is about justification by faith. The mainstream church isn’t fabricating that. No one is made right with God by law-keeping. That is true, and it matters.
But this is where the leap happens, and it is a significant one: mainstream theology moves from “the law doesn’t justify you” to “therefore the law has no claim on how you live.” That is not what Paul said. That is not what the text supports. The law cannot save you, but that is an entirely different statement from the law having no ongoing claim on the believer. Paul himself asked in Romans 6:1, “shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” And he answered his own question: “God forbid.”
Mainstream teachers take the first clause of Galatians 3:10 and stop there, teaching that keeping the law puts you under a curse. But the old notes cross-reference this passage to Psalm 119 for a reason. Read the whole verse. The curse falls on those who do not continue in all things written in the law. They’ve taken a warning about failing to keep the law and turned it into a justification for abandoning it entirely. The old notes and the plain text agree with each other perfectly. It’s the mainstream church that has made the leap.
What Happened to the Church at Thyatira
In the notes for Revelation 2, the commentators described an actual visit to Thyatira, which was one of the very churches Jesus was addressing. They wrote:
Christianity exists there in name, but it is the bare name. Its spirit has long since fled. The Greeks especially seem to be peculiarly superstitious. I visited their church and found it full of pictures and other marks of degenerate Christianity.
They were writing about a church in their own time. The question for us is: what would they say about ours? Because the same spirit that emptied Thyatira of its substance while leaving its name intact is alive and working today.
1 John and the Life We Are Expected to Live
If the Nicolaitan doctrine is that faith alone is sufficient and that Christians are free to indulge in sin, then 1 John is one of the most direct refutations of it in the entire New Testament, and the old notes treat it that way. These aren’t obscure passages; they’re plain statements about what a regenerate life actually looks like, and they leave very little room for the theology most of us grew up hearing.
The notes for 1 John 3 say:
Sinneth not. A life of sin is absolutely excluded by the higher law of redeeming love. If there be spiritual life, there must be love to God, and love to God forbids the practice of sin. The doctrine is not that of sinless perfection, but of a life of holiness as opposed to a life of sin.
And then this:
If a man is really born of God, the divine principle must remain in him and he cannot habitually and willfully commit sin.
The notes for 1 John 2 spell it out even more plainly:
The communion of Christians is a communion of saints, children of God and children of the light, and its bond is brotherly love. Accordingly, to walk in the darkness, to conform to the sinful customs of the world, and yet pretend to be of this communion is to deny the truth and to deceive ourselves.
And on the love of God:
Nothing will perfect our love either on earth or in heaven but unlimited obedience to the will of God our Savior.
The Great Delusion
There are roughly three billion professing Christians in the world today. That number can feel reassuring, but Scripture has never measured faithfulness by headcount, and I think we do ourselves a serious disservice when we let the size of a movement convince us of its soundness. Look at the numbers God actually gives us:
Eight people were saved from the flood. Eight, out of the entire earth.
Of the Israelites who left Egypt, only two entered the Promised Land with their faith intact: Joshua and Caleb. Everyone else, despite witnessing miracle after miracle, fell away in the wilderness.
Revelation speaks of 144,000 sealed from the tribes of Israel. Whether you read that number as literal or symbolic – and scholars have debated it for centuries – the point remains the same: Scripture consistently presents the faithful remnant as small, not vast. That is not my editorial opinion. That is the pattern God himself establishes from Genesis forward.
Jesus himself said the way is narrow and few there be that find it, and I’m not setting a number on who is saved, because that belongs to God alone. What I am saying is that the assumption that billions of people are walking in saving faith simply because they identify as Christian is not supported by Scripture. It never has been. And when the predominant theology of those billions teaches that obedience is optional, that repentance is a one-time transaction, and that the law has no claim on the believer, then we have to ask whether we are looking at the great falling away, hiding in plain sight.
Closing Thoughts
I want to clarify as we close – because I have written deeply on grace and on faith, and I don’t want this piece to be misread – that in this post I am not saying that works save you.
I am not saying that keeping the law earns your salvation. The grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ is the only door. That has not changed and it never will.
What I am saying is that genuine saving faith produces a changed life. It produces obedience; not perfect obedience, but pursued obedience. It creates a life oriented toward God’s law, not away from it. The old notes hammered this home: the doctrine is not sinless perfection, but a life of holiness as opposed to a life of sin. That is a distinction the mainstream church has largely lost.
When a theology removes the expectation of a transformed life entirely, it has not preached grace. It has preached something else entirely, and that something else has a name. We saw it at the beginning of this post: heresy.
There are three billion professing Christians in the world. I love them. I am not writing this to condemn anyone. I am writing this because I do not want to hear “depart from me,” and I don’t want you to hear it either. The numbers Scripture gives us are sobering. The way is narrow. The gate is narrow. We must push each other through it.
Too many are being led astray by those who claim to be leaders; by those who claim to understand theology and scripture. Yet, clearly, they do not. Clearly, they have not studied it. We must hold each other – and our Christian leaders and teachers – accountable.
We must be soberly aware of the truth of Scripture, adamantly correct its perversions, and hold accountable those who have perverted it while wearing the name of God as a badge – a credential they have not earned, a shield against accountability, and a cover for what they have not studied and do not live.
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