Muslims who converted to Christianity is said to be an apostate. Muslim apostates who lives in countries such as Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, usually suffers from heavy persecutions.
Apostasy from Islam is said to be punishable by death! But this is not so in the post-Christian West. A person whatever religious affiliation he/she might has apostate from doesn’t have to fear from persecution that is all too common in Muslim countries.
What is an Apostate?
The writer of 2 Thessalonian wrote, “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition..,(2:3). The key word here is falling away which is equivalent to the Greek word apostasia or apostasy in English. The falling away simply means separating or divorce in Greek.
An apostate is falling away from its true original faith. Abandoning its former belief for something else. For example, a liberal denomination or church that denies the authority of Scripture or the deity of Christ is an apostate denomination or church.
Great puritan and an Oxford theologian John Owen (1616-1683) tells us the causes and reasons for apostasy;
“Men forsake the gospel because of the rooted enmity in their minds to all spiritual things. ‘The carnal mind is enmity against God’ (Rom. 8:7).” The natural man ‘professes to know God, but in works denies him, being abominable, and disobedient, and disqualified for every good work’ (Titus 1:16).” (Apostasy from the Gospel, John Owen).
Apostasy is unthinkable for a true Christian. Those who fall away into apostasy shows only that he/she really didn’t have a genuine faith in the first place.
Apostle John wrote; “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” 1 John 2:19.
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