Gnosticism — A Dead Corpse

There are a few brilliant fools today, claiming to preach the gospel, who deny the new birth, who deny that the believer receives a new nature by God’s mighty operation of grace. They claim to have “new light.” But their new light is the old darkness of pagan Gnosticism.

 Gnosticism is the teaching that salvation is arrived at by acquired knowledge, not by divine regeneration. This philosophy of vain deceit denies the necessity of the new birth, denies that the believer is given a new nature by the Spirit of God, denies that righteousness is imparted and that we are made partakers of the divine nature in regeneration. Gnostics speak of God’s saving grace as nothing but a “principle” (an accepted philosophical rule). Gnosticism is a dead corpse that has been around for a long time. The early church was plagued with the heresy; and the church today is still plagued with it. Gnostics vainly imagine that they are the spiritually elite, that they were the only ones who have true, saving knowledge. They look upon those of us who believe God’s revelation of himself in his Word and trust Christ as our Wisdom as well as our Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption as ignorant people, without spiritual understanding. In essence, Gnostics are people who, as Paul puts it, who know “Christ after the flesh,” by mere carnal reason, which is to say they are people with religious knowledge who are totally void of grace and spiritual life, groping in darkness.

Don Fortner 20051008