“Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings” (Hebrews 13:7–9, ESV).

The flow is deliberate: remember the leaders who taught faithfully, observe how they lived and died, imitate their faith. And then the declaration: Jesus Christ is the same. And then the warning: do not be led away by strange teachings. The unchanging Christ is the antidote to doctrinal drift. The leaders who taught faithfully were teaching about a Christ who does not change. The faith we are called to imitate was faith in a stable Savior. And the strange teachings that would lead us away are strange precisely because they present a different Christ—a Christ who has updated, evolved, progressed beyond what the apostles taught.

The church in every generation faces this pressure. New teachings arise that claim to represent an advance, a development, a more enlightened understanding. They present themselves as progress. But the test is straightforward: Is this the same Christ?

Is this the faith once for all delivered to the saints? Is this consistent with what was taught from the beginning? If Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, then the teachings that were true yesterday remain true today. The doctrines do not expire, the ethics do not evolve, and the gospel does not require updating. What the apostles delivered is what the church must guard, not because the church is backward, but because the Christ it proclaims is unchanging.

-Herb Berkley, quoted from his pre-publication manuscript of a book soon to be released. We will post when the book is released.