Bible Discussion Thread

INTRODUCTION TO 1 JOHN (Part 4):

It's kind of interesting that the false teachers that taught Gnosticism didn't come from outside the church, but inside the church. They started spreading this in the church, and so the church had to do something about it.

Gnostic doctrine was based on dualism which asserted that physical matter was inherently evil, and spirit was good. They taught that everything physical is evil, and everything spirit is good.

At the time John was leading the churches in Asia, Gnosticism had two main groups. One was the Docetic Gnostics. They taught that Jesus's physical body was not real but only seemed to be physical. This is known as asceticism from a Greek word that means "to appear."

They said it appeared to be a body, but it was not a physical body because physical is evil, therefore He could not have had a physical body. So, they denied His humanity. They believed in His Deity, but they denied His humanity.

Then there were the Cerinthians, led by Cerinthus, who taught that Christ's Spirit descended upon the human Jesus at his baptism, but left him just before the crucifixion.

So, what they came up with was that Jesus really did have a physical body, but it was like their version of "rent a body," in that here's Jesus standing there to get baptized, and the Spirit of Christ comes upon Him, and Christ takes over Jesus' body and uses Him for three years.

And right when they went to crucify Jesus, Christ left Jesus and they crucified Jesus up on the cross, and that's why He says "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"

But hey "it's scripture if you piece it all together!" This is what is meant by Gnosticism.