There are a various words used to explain or define reversals in beliefs and conducts related to Christian faith and life. Like most factors in Christian life there are similar and analogical factors in natural life. The prisoner sent to prison for thievery is instructed while in prison about what is wrong about thievery, what he needs to believe and do to avoid incarceration again after completing the present sentence. He acknowledges the truth of what he hears, and may be given parole before his sentence is fulfilled. Many of these persons will steal again. Caught again, they will again go to prison. They are now known as recividists, which is the penal system’s term for backsliders. Having functioned wrongfully in the social order, and checked in conduct by isolation denying freedom, instructed in ways of human rights, the criminal on release from prison is perceived as forgiven. The debt to society has been paid, and he may return to it with head up, and opportunity for a better life. He steals again. He is now looked upon, even in the penal system, as lower in any respect than the first offender. He has not been overlooked. The two ways have been made clear to him, and he chooses the lower rather than the higher, where the better things, the better self, may be found. Part of the burden of guilt is that he has failed the society. He is not a model of life for his family, his neighbors, or his country. He went in a direction violating trust, was pulled from it, but returns to it. As the pig may be washed, and return to the mire, he has done the same. He not only loses the respect of others, he has rejected the social values and become something lesser than the person whom he could have become. It is a tragic mixture. The personal authority has been turned to self-destruction, perhaps denial of himself. At the least he is selfish and menacing in some way.
Scripture provides extensive commentary on the weakness of mankind to take a direction of either failure or, at best, lesser value. In compassion, God holds out opportunity for something better. In some part it is taken, but the effort, the cost, the life that it takes to achieve the better level is deliberately rejected, for the lesser. Here is the carnal person, the backslider, the apostate, the Judas. In spite of information, the laws, the sense of values, the historical record, the pleas of wiser persons, and the warnings of the inner self, the higher is surrendered for the lesser. Love and loyalty are not valued. Wrong is, by the actions, made primary over right. Arrogance is offered for humility. Character is sacrificed to deviousness.
The pattern can be followed in the history of Israel in the Scriptures. The people, as a whole people, or in their tribes, were up and down, in and out. Groups can follow the pattern as well as individuals. Jeremiah, early in his prophecy, notes the problem. The recividism was ugly, and distracting from truth and righteousness. While this or that tribe might experience revival, others were dropping away. Backsliding became a habit. The crucial turn came on the death of Solomon. The tribes focused on their own interests without sufficient attention to the pattern for all given to them from God. They saw nations and tribes around them and turned to secularism for their models. Ten of the tribes turned in one direction. Judah and the remnants of Benjamin took another, more suited to the laws of Moses. Eventually the northern tribes became Samaritans, following capture by secular nations. The south, Judah, held on for decades, showing promise and failure, ultimately failing divine direction, so falling to capture. Some decades later a remnant returned to restore what was lost, and did so. They too ultimately fell to backsliding. It is human weakness present in secular as well as spiritual contexts. John the Baptist and Jesus appear as voices to make clear the way to truth, God’s grace, and redemption. That preaching and concern remain with every generation. We have that duty of warning to remember the old paths noted by Jeremiah – those that are unchanging with an unchanging God and standard. (Jeremiah 6:16) But right must be believed and practiced. History and experience hold out for the gospel of God’s care in redemptive action, for resources against backsliding, found in biblical renewal/revival. True seekers/leaders learn recovery. That recovery is not only for individuals who may have wandered from the path, but is even more serious for groups, even institutions like churches and governments, education and business. The pressures and influences of the larger entities lead us inevitably forward or backward. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020