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Wednesday, October 22, 2008

What's Your Password?

The ancient Gnostics opposed Christianity in the Church’s infancy. They rejected the belief that salvation was purchased by the shedding of the blood of the God-man, Jesus Christ. How could God wrap Himself in human flesh, they questioned, when all forms of matter are evil? Further, they rejected the teaching that human beings may know God by simply trusting in Jesus as their Savior. Salvation by grace through faith seemed absurd to the Gnostics. It didn’t square with their belief that the way to God involves elaborate knowledge and secret passwords.

The Gnostics derived their name from the Greek work for “knowledge,” and considered themselves intellectual know-it-alls. They were the forerunners of so many self-proclaimed modern intellectuals who reject salvation by grace and devise elaborate philosophies about God and truth.

The apostle Paul identified Christ as the One “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3), and he warned his readers about the Gnostic error. “Beware lest anyone cheats you through philosophy and vain deceit,” he wrote in verse 8. In spite of modern-day post-modern thinking and widely accepted humanistic thinking, Christ is still the source of true wisdom and knowledge, and He alone saves sinners by grace through faith.

If a contemporary Gnostic demands a secret password for finding God, why not tell him it is JOHN14:6?

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