CHRISTIAN GNOSTICISM?

Christian Gnosticism?
By Mary Ann Wray

“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God's curse!" Galatians 1: 8

"But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ." 2 Corinthians 11: 3

Any one or any group that elevates revelation or their interpretation of scriptures above the logos of scripture and the basic teachings of Christ can very well be a Gnostic at heart. What is a gnostic? Here are some tell tale clues. In a nutshell, Christian Gnosticism today typically resist the idea of Church, its government, and assembling with saints under the leadership of elders, deacons and fivefold giftings. It is replaced with the idea that everyone in the Kingdom is equal with Christ and one another, therefore there is no need for government or structure in the church and through revelation we transcend flesh. Kingdom theology replaces Church (ekklesia: God's called out ones to assemble together). Today it is found in a lot of teachings that take random scripture and fits them into a philosophy that distorts the traditional teachings of Jesus Christ and the Apostles, with ethereal revelations that are new and cutting edge so to speak.

As knowledge continues to increase exponentially in the earth, so does man's insatiable thirst for it. Knowledge in itself is amoral but when knowledge creates more speculation, theories, doubts about Biblical Revelations and foundational Scriptural truths, such knowledge is being picked from the wrong tree. Knowledge is designed to edify not puff up. The knowledge and wisdom from above is pure and peaceable because it comes from the Father of Lights. The Father's nature is love.

"We know that "We all possess knowledge." But knowledge puffs up while love builds up." 1 Corinthians 8: 1


"The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out." Proverbs 18: 15. In this verse the writer is referring to the knowledge of God which by the way is found primarily through scripture; not that which elevates information or man above the knowledge of Christ.

The entire book of Colossians was written by the Apostle Paul in prison to counter the teachings of the Gnostics that crept into the early church at Colossae. Their teachings supplanted Christ's centrality and supremacy in creation, revelation, redemption and the Church. In Paul’s time, it was a strange mixture of Christian teaching, certain extra biblical Jewish traditions and pagan philosophy similar to the cults of today. The cult spirit (Anti-Christ) is still at, work saints of God, and the only way you will dodge deception is to get in the BOOK and learn it well!

Keep in mind that Satan is very cunning and as the centuries have passed he comes up with new flavors of heresy. It will always be laced with an element of truth (scripture) but only the discerning will be able to detect it being off. Jesus said, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump”. In other words, a little heresy can corrupt an entire man’s way of thinking and eventually lead them off the path of life and the way of Jesus Christ himself!

Discernment (the ability to identify and detect right from wrong) is primarily gained from one’s knowledge of scripture. The inward witness of the spirit can only be as accurate as one’s thorough knowledge of scripture-Old and New Testaments. Therefore, we have to test anything and everything by the Word of God, comparing scripture with scripture in the context of the Book it was written-never one scripture taken out of context. Look at what occurred in the Book of Acts that every Christian should model for themselves today. Just because some charismatic ‘guru’, teacher or preacher said it doesn’t make it “gospel”. Search the scriptures daily for yourself and see what God says! It is noted that the only Scriptures available during the time of the Berean’s were Old Testament scrolls! The New Testament scrolls were in the making: there were no printing presses, Internet, Strong’s Concordances, Vines Expository Dictionaries or the like! Gnostic Christians teach that Old Testament scriptures are law and no longer relevant yet the Bereans used the OT to validate everything the Apostle Paul taught.

“As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men. Acts 17: 10-12

MORE INFORMATION ON GNOSTICISM

 “There was a broad range of beliefs among the various independent Gnostic systems or schools. However, the following points are believed to be generally accurate throughout the movement:

*Their Role: They believed that they alone truly understood Christ's message, and that other streams of thought within Christianity had misinterpreted Jesus' mission and sayings.
*Gnosis: Knowledge to them was not an intellectual exercise; it was not a passive understanding of some aspect of spirituality. Rather, knowledge had a redeeming and liberating function that helped the individual break free of bondage to the world.
*Duality of spirit and body: Spirit is of divine origin and good; the body is inherently earthly and evil. Gnostics were hostile to the physical world, to matter and the human body. But they believed that trapped within some people's bodies were the sparks of divinity or seeds of light that were supplied to humanity by Sophia (goddess of wisdom).
*Salvation: A person attains salvation by learning secret knowledge of their spiritual essence: a divine spark of light or spirit. They then have the opportunity to escape from the prison of their bodies at death. Their soul can ascend to be reunited with the Supreme God at the time of their death.
*Christ: The role of the redeemer in Gnostic belief is heavily debated at this time. Gnostics seem to have looked upon Christ as a revealer or liberator, rather than a savior or judge. His purpose was to spread knowledge which would free individuals from the Demiurge's control and allow them to return to their spiritual home with the Supreme God at death. Some Gnostic groups promoted Docetism, the belief that Christ was pure spirit and only had a phantom body; Jesus just appeared to be human to his followers. They reasoned that a true emissary from the Supreme God could not have been overcome by the evil of the world, and to have suffered and died. These beliefs were considered heresy by many non-Gnostic Christians. Some Gnostics believed that Christ's resurrection occurred at or before Jesus' death on the cross. They defined his resurrection as occurring when his spirit was liberated from his body. *

The Universe is divided into three Kingdoms:

* 1. The "Earthly Cosmos": The earth is the center of the universe, and is composed of the world that we know of and an underworld. It is surrounded by air and by 7 concentric heavenly spheres: one for each of the Moon, Venus, Mercury, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Within these spheres live demonic, tyrannical entities called Archons. Beyond them lies Paradise which contains the "Tree of Life", the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil", and the flaming, turning sword of Genesis 3:24. Beyond Paradise was the sphere of the fixed stars, divided into the 12 signs of the zodiac.  2. The "Intermediate Kingdom is composed of an inner blue circle of darkness and an outer yellow ring of light. Within these rings is a sphere which is the realm of Sophia (goddess of wisdom).  3. The "Kingdom of God" consists of two spheres: an outer one of the unknowable Supreme God, and inner ring of the Son.”(the previous excerpt was taken from http://www.religioustolerance.org/gnostic2.htm) I don’t know about you but I can see ‘gnosticm’ alive and prevalent in the church today-not only the world. I personally, am very leery of some “kingdom” teachers today. I find that much of what they teach veers off the centrality of the cross and mixes ‘success’ and striving for excellence or personal ‘perfection’ through means other than personal consecration, holiness, the power of the Spirit and picking up ones’ cross daily. They teach salvation in essence, is obtained through ‘revelation knowledge’. Grace has become a means to excuse carnality, a lack of commitment to a local church, a lack of consecration, and somehow elevates man beyond the reality that we have a mind and body that must be renewed and brought under subjection to the Holy Spirit daily (Romans 8: 6-10; Col 3: 5 & Galatians 2: 20).   Listen, We MUST get in the WORD of GOD and shun extra biblical revelations at all costs and/ or anything that takes the purity and simplicity of Christ’s/ Apostolic teachings and twists it to their own intellectual interpretations! The enemy uses these ‘intellects’ to prey on the young, naïve, spiritually immature, gullible women and weak willed men. Their followers will reject Biblical teachings and take exception to anything that demands personal sacrifice, obedience to Christ, His lordship, the community of the saints, Biblical authority and denying self for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. (I have bolded and underlines certain portions below for emphasis) “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people. They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.” 2 Timothy 3: 1-9