Gnosticism: Secrets of the Christian Faith?

gnos·tic noun, often capitalized \ˈnäs-tik\ (the g is silent)

As you listen to The Bible Answer Man, you've probably heard Hank Hanegraaff talk about gnostic gospels and gnostic teachings, and you may wonder what gnosticism is. The term gnostic comes from the Greek gnōsis (γνῶσις), which means knowledge.

Mind/Body Dualism

For Gnostics, God didn't create the universe. Instead, the universe was fashioned and shaped from eternal matter by a Demiurge (demi-urge), which is eternal but not God - and eventually becomes the eternal opponent of God.

Gnosticism believes that matter is evil and unspiritual, and the way to be purified from its influence is through knowledge. Some trace the origin of this kind of thinking to Plato, and it certainly fits with his philosophy. Plato taught that we are composed of two parts, the material body and the non-material soul, which is the essence of life, the seat of reason, and eternal. The body weighs down the spirit and demands that we satisfy its physical needs and desires; the soul strives toward eternal spiritual truths. Body and soul are intermingled on earth and in many ways at odds with each other, but after death the soul is free from the demands of the flesh.

This kind of thinking has strongly influenced Western Christianity, although it is alien to the Old Testament mindset, which sees the breath of life permeating our physical bodies. We are designed as a unity, a being with body and soul. As we read in Genesis 2:7, "then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." (ESV) To the Hebrew mind, the body is not evil, and in the New Testament, the body of a believer is called a temple for the Holy Spirit. (1 Cor 6:19)

Just as good and evil, righteousness and sin, right and wrong are contrasted in the Jewish and Christian faiths, gnosticism makes similar distinctions, but with a different emphasis. For gnostics, the physical world is the source of evil; for people of the Book, the physical world is something that God created and called good. (Genesis 1:4, 1:10, 1:12, 1:18, 1:21, and 1:31) Evil comes from rebellion against our Creator, not from creation itself.

Yes, sin now permeates all parts of creation, from our very souls to our bodies, weather patterns, political situations, disease, and everything else that is part of creation or human society. That doesn't make creation evil; evil only infects is since the Fall.

Gnosticism began to infect the Christian church in the first century as some people tried to reinterpret biblical truths to line up with gnostic beliefs, and some of its teachings are addressed in the New Testament.

Secret Wisdom

In addition to believing that the physical world is evil and that only mind allows us to transcend and in some ways escape that evil, Gnostics also have "secret" teachings shared with initiates; it claims to know "secret" truths hidden in Scripture. there are also gnostic gospels, such as the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Mary (attributed to Mary Magdalene), Gospel of Truth, Gospel of Philip, and Gospel of Judas. These are mostly collections of wise sayings, like the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament, and they are generally dated after 100 CE - after the books in the New Testament were written.

One teaching necessitated by the gnostic view of matter is that Jesus did not truly take on human flesh but was instead a spirit who appeared to have physical being. This is the kind of heresy the Apostle John addresses in 1 John 4:1-3:

"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already." (NLT)

Christianity is not a religion of secret teachings. Although Paul writes of God's secrets in 1 Corinthians, he tells us those secrets were hidden in earlier times but have been revealed to us through Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

The Bible teaches us that God created the heavens and the earth, calling them into being by the power of his words, that creation is good, that Jesus came in human flesh, and that everything necessary for our salvation and understanding of God's truths is contained in Scripture.

Gnosticism teaches that a demiurge took existing material and crafted the universe, that matter is evil, that Jesus only appeared to be human, and that there are secret truths not contained (or at least not readily discerned) in our Bibles.

"Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength." (1 Cor. 1:22-25, NIV)

Anachronism: Out of Time

My wife and I get a kick out of watching old movies and TV shows, saying, "They ought to pull out their cell phones and dial 9-1-1" when we know perfectly well that the technology didn't exist during that period of time.

That's the basic idea behind anachronism, placing something in the wrong historical context. Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is one of the better known books to deal with technology displaced in time.

A recent caller to The Bible Answer Man asked about the Eye of the Needle gate into Jerusalem, which is so small that it is very difficult to get a camel through it. According to some, a camel can only enter on its knees, showing the position we need to assume to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. According to others, including the version this caller heard, a camel can only get through the gate if all of its burdens are removed, showing that we can only come into the Kingdom of God by casting off all of our trappings.

In Matthew 19:24, Jesus says, "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (ASV) Doesn't that seem to fit perfectly with the story of the Eye of the Needle gate?

Problem is, as Hank Hanegraaff explains, that gate into Jerusalem didn't exist in the day of Jesus - if it existed at all (and there seems to be no evidence for it), it was a medieval addition to the fortified walls surrounding the city. Thus, all of these nice stories about the real gate are anachronisms, assuming such a gate did exist once upon a time (there appears to be no evidence for it).

Since it's logically and physically impossible for a camel to go through the eye of a real needle, Jesus is saying that it's impossible for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God on their own merits or using their own wealth.

However, Jesus also said that "With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible." (Matt. 19:26 ASV) Thus the point of the parable is that we cannot achieve heaven on our own, but by God's grace all things (including entering the Kingdom) are possible.

Thanks be to God!

Imago Dei: In the Image of God

In Genesis 1, we read the beginnings of a story that starts with God planning the universe and calling it into being, crafting it into exactly the kind of place He wants it to be with subatomic particles, massive galaxies, and everything in between.

And then, as the culmination of the creation project, He made us - mankind, humanity, the human race. As recorded in Genesis 1:26-28:

God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." God created man in his own image. In God's image he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them. God said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." (WEB)

We are made in the image of God (imago dei in Latin, צֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים [tzelem elohim] in Hebrew), in the likeness of Deity.

Some believe that we have been made to physically resemble God, but God is spirit (see John 4:24). And as we read Genesis 1:26-28, we see that the image of God in us includes having dominion over (also translated rule, rule over, reign over, be masters over) all the earth and every creature on it.

In short, God told us to oversee and manage the earth He had made on His behalf.

But there's more: God created us male and female in His image. Just as God exists in intimate communion as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we are made to live in close community with each other - none closer than the union of a man and a woman in marriage.

We were designed and formed in the image of God, and every human being who has ever existed bears the image of God. That said, our likeness to God is another story - that depends on how we live before the face of God. But that's a different part of the story.

Imprimatur: The Fingerprints of God

Hank Hanegraaff often speaks of God's imprimatur in creation, a word no longer in everyday use.

Webster's dictionary defines imprimatur:

im·pri·ma·tur: noun \ˌim-prə-ˈmä-ˌtu̇r, im-ˈpri-mə-ˌtu̇r, -ˌtyu̇r\

1. a : a license to print or publish especially by Roman Catholic episcopal authority
1. b : approval of a publication under circumstances of official censorship
2. a : sanction, approval
2. b : imprint
2. c : a mark of approval or distinction 

According to Wikipedia, imprimatur "is, in the proper sense, a declaration authorizing publication of a book. The term is also applied loosely to any mark of approval or endorsement."

In short, God's imprimatur of creation means it has his approval or blessing. This is seen time and again in Genesis 1 when it states, "And God saw that it was good."

But there's a lot more going on here than God saying creation has His approval. After all, He planned it and made it, so it only stands to reason that He would approve of His handiwork. Of course creation has God's imprimatur.

I think Hank is using the term in a deeper, richer sense to say that all of creation reflects the One who created it. Just as an expert in Shakespeare can tell authentic plays and sonnets from Shakespeare-like ones and an art expert can tell an authentic Rembrandt from a forgery, those who see creation can know it has a creator - and discern some truths about the Creator.

As Romans 1:20 tells us:

"For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made." (ESV) And Psalm 19:1 reflects a similar truth: "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork." (AKJV)

Just as we can identify Shakespeare by his words and Rembrandt by his brush strokes, so we can know the fingerprints of God in creation.

And that leads into the next topic, the imago dei, the image of God in each of us, which even more clearly reveals God's creative work.

Why the Hanegraaff Code?

Since I started listening to his Bible Answer Man podcasts in October 2011, I've become a real fan of Hank Hanegraaff. He's obviously spent a lot of time studying Scripture, and he strives to share his views respectfully with those who may disagree with him. He holds some less common views, and through his books and podcasts he explains why he believes them. Even those times that I disagree with Hank, I admire the way he handles Scripture and himself. Would that all who bear the name of Christ treated those they disagree with so compassionately!

The biggest issue I have is that Hank uses quite a few words that the average person may not be familiar with, talking about God's imprimatur in creation, for instance. These terms are generally quite accurate and Hank uses them precisely, but they are not always meaningful to the average listener. The goal of this blog is to unpack those words and help you better understand them so you can mine more from his broadcasts.