Gnosticism - More Than A Present Threat (Re-Blog)

I recently came across an article having to do with the dangers of Gnostic thought which has infiltrated some Christian teaching. This, among other things, has been a topic of discussion with me and some of my brothers as we have gathered together for fellowship. Although an old religion, it has had a bit of a revival in recent years, especially with the discovery of the Nag Hammadi scrolls. Just "google" gnosticism and a number of sites will come up in the results, featuring current gnostic teachers. The basic idea of Gnosticism (or, those who have knowledge) is that only spirit is good, whereas the physical world is bad - including the body. Hence, the platonic idea of the soul being "freed" from the prison of the body upon death. But there are many facets to this early mix of philosophy and eastern mystic religion, some of which sadly parallels certain popular ideas within Christianity today. 

The following is a reproduction of the article I read from the blog source, focusonthekingdommagazine.org. I hop you will find it to be informative and thought provoking. Enjoy.

"In a recent article (Discernment, May/June 1999, PO Box 129, Lapeer, MI 48446), a writer remarks on the pronounced dangers of a Gnostic approach to salvation and Scripture, currently espoused in some “charismatic” circles. The author’s point is that those who rely heavily on “experience” give themselves over to subjectivity and personal feeling uncontrolled by the text of Scripture.They have faith in their own experience rather that in the promises of God. By “Gnostic” is meant a form of popular religion which originated in New Testament times and probably before. Some “Gnostics” claimed to be Christians andother Christians who opposed them saw the dangers of their allegorical, and often philosophical, approach to the Bible. Gnosticism was a blend of popular spirituality, neo-Platonism and eastern mysticism, producing an attractive “soup” designed to satisfy human spiritualhunger. “Christian” Gnostics simply appended the name of Jesus and Christ to their variety of essentially pagan teachings, and the result seemed to the less well-instructed to be close to the faith of the New Testament. Bible writers often fought the counterfeiting techniques of the Gnostics. 

The author, John Marston, who reflects on current Gnostic tendencies (and there are several prominent writers who also see parallels in contemporary Christianity), points out that one Gnostic characteristic is the failure to take plain words at their face value. This tendency has caused the rift which divides the amillennial Christian from the premillennial Christian. There is much truth in this observation. The literal and natural reading of the words of the Bible is the first choice for the wise student. For example, the noun “resurrection” in the New Testament is found some 40 times to mean the resurrection of the literally dead to life, either in the case of Jesus (the only one yet to have been resurrected) or of the faithful of all ages at the return of Jesus to the earth (see I Cor. 15:23). It would therefore be a major mistake of interpretation to decide that in Revelation 20:5 the noun resurrection cannot mean the raising of the literally dead to life again. Yet this is the grave weakness of amillennialism. 

Amillennialism (readers should not be daunted at all by the technical terms: the ideas involved are very simple) proposes that Satan has already been “bound so that he cannot deceive the nations any longer” (Rev. 20:3) and that the resurrection of the dead mentioned in Revelation 20:5 means the figurative resurrection of a person not literally dead, but dead in sin. Such“resurrection,” amillennialism teaches, happens to the individual when he or she is converted. Premillennialism says no. Resurrection, the noun, should mean what it means in some 40 other passages — the actual coming to life of adead person who has died literally. 

If any of our readers is in doubt on this point, he should consult not only the normal meaning of the noun “resurrection” (which never refers to conversion), but the immediate context in Revelation 20:1-6. Here we read plain words, crystal clear information: “Those persons who had been beheaded came to life…This is the first resurrection.” It would be an amazing misunderstanding to argue that “the coming to life” again of “those who had been beheaded” means anything other than what it says: The literally dead came back to life. Such is the strong advantage of the premillennial understanding of this passage. It takes words at their normal, natural face value. 

Gnostic tendencies are found today also in the widely held belief that man isa bipartite creature with body and immortal soul and that his “soul” departs consciously to heaven or hell at the moment of death. Thus we hear often thatso and so has “gone home to be with Jesus in heaven.” Pleasant as such a viewmay seem, it has no biblical basis. If we want to grasp the biblical view of life after death, I Thessalonians 4 is among many passages which lays it out clearly. Having described how Jesus “died and rose again,” Paul says that dead Christians will rise from death in the future. When Christ returns, Paultaught, the dead, who he says are now asleep, will be woken up from sleep (the word “raised” is the same in Greek as the word “awaken”), caught up to meet the Lord in the air and “thus we shall come to be always with the Lord.” 

Did you catch that? “Thus we shall always be with the Lord.” In this manner —by this process of being woken up at the future coming of Jesus — we shall come into the presence of Christ. By no other means. Pause and reflect. If itis possible to be “with Christ” before the resurrection, Paul would have beenwrong to say “By this means we shall be with the Lord forever.” The words of Paul, coupled with the words of Jesus in John 5:28, 29and Daniel in 12:2, tell us with complete clarity that the dead are asleep until the resurrection day. When they are raised from death (awoken from the sleep of death) they will then come into the presence of Christ and be with him forever. By resurrection, alone, and not by survival as an “immortal spirit,” we will be ushered into Christ’s presence — for the first time, at the resurrection when Jesus comes back to inaugurate his Kingdom on earth (Matt. 5:5; Rev. 5:10). 

Gnostic tendencies affected other major popular Christian doctrines. Origen (died 254 AD) was a philosophically-minded theologian whose allegorical treatment of the Bible caused him to hunt for hidden, so called “spiritual” meanings which were merely the invention of his own imagination. 

Many earnest believers are quite unaware that it was the teaching of the mystically-minded Origen about the “eternal begetting of the Son” which helped to develop the now famous teaching that Jesus is coequal and coeternal with the Father. We strongly urge that Bible students in search of saving Truth examine the roots of some of their central historic teachings. Do they really come from the Bible, or rather from the strong philosophical and Gnostic tendencies which invaded the church soon after the death of the Apostles? Paul warned us, but have we heeded? (Acts 20:28-31; II Tim 4:1ff.)"