This is the sixth article in my series titled, Identifying and Responding to Theological Bombs that Threaten the Integrity of our Movement.

In this article we look at two potential land mines: ethical Gnosticism and intellectual Gnosticism.

(8) Ethical Gnosticism

Paul’s perspective on the final redemption of material creation in Romans 8:18-25 is a healthy warning against all modern forms of Gnosticism. The latter existed in an incipient form in the first century, as seen, for example, in the response of Paul in his epistle to the Colossians (Col. 2:20-23) and John in his first epistle (1 John 1:1-4; 4:1-5). As Gnosticism developed, its advocates embraced a dualistic view of the world in which physical matter was considered evil, and the spiritual realm was good. Hence, the body was despised, leading either to extreme asceticism (deprivation and mistreatment of the body) or extreme licentiousness (indulgence of the body), and ultimately to a denial of the doctrine of bodily resurrection. This is what I mean by “ethical” Gnosticism.

The early Gnostics attempted to solve the problem of creation and the origin of evil by positing a Demiurge, i.e., a creator or architect of the world, distinct from the Supreme Deity. The Demiurge was the God of the Old Testament, responsible for matter and evil in the cosmos. The Supreme, and utterly spiritual, and therefore good, Deity is separated from the Demiurge by a series of emanations. In creation, an emanation of God descends from pure spirit through layers of reality until it assumes its form as dense matter.

This dualistic view in which physical substance is denigrated and all things spiritual elevated resulted in their denial of the true humanity of Christ. They espoused the heresy known as Docetism (Greek, dokeō, “to seem” or “appear”). Jesus only “seemed” or “appeared” to have a physical body. The work of Christ was primarily designed to deliver humanity from the prison of earthly, material ignorance. Gnostics also laid claim to a special knowledge (gnōsis) of the truth available only to the elite and initiated, a knowledge regarded as superior to faith.

We must reckon with the fact that there is a strain of Gnosticism in some sectors of the Pentecostal/Charismatic world. Given the latter’s emphasis on the immaterial realm, physical creation is sometimes viewed as a threat to true spirituality.

But Paul’s emphasis in Romans 8 reminds us that God created matter. The physical is spiritual. When he created earth and sea and plant and animal, as well as the human body, he pronounced them “good” (Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). Material substance is not inherently evil. God intends to deliver the whole of creation from the curse of futility and environmental corruption that was imposed as a curse consequent to the fall of Adam. When Christ returns, he will not eliminate the physical realm but will inaugurate a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. 21:1), devoid of the influence of sin but still very much material in nature. When the people of God are fully redeemed and receive their glorified bodies, “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). Paul simply refuses to permit our focus on the Spirit to diminish the value of the physical and God’s creative design for what he has made.

(9) Intellectual Gnosticism

Often due to a heightened emphasis on revelatory insight into God and his purposes, an elitist mentality has emerged in which only a favored few have access to the true knowledge of God. There has always been a strain of intellectual Gnosticism in church history, but it is especially prominent among contemporary charismatics. The notion that only a select few super saints have access to the mysteries and secrets of the spiritual world has done nothing but widen the gap between those who are supposedly blessed with insight and discernment and all other sub-spiritual Christians. It is possible, in the charismatic’s pursuit of intimacy with God, to become arrogantly exclusivistic in which it is believed that only those are worthy who have attained to a certain level of esoteric spirituality. This often results in the development in church life of an “inner circle” of those who are truly enlightened.

Such people hold to the belief that religious realities confessed in faith can actually be experienced. Although Steven Ozment was speaking of medieval mysticism, his words equally apply to many in the modern charismatic world:

“The mystic [i.e., the charismatic] ventures into a realm inaccessible to the normal processes of sensation and reasoning and well beyond the grasp of faith itself; . . . mystical theology found its knowledge of God in experiences beyond the reach of man's ordinary cognitive and volitional powers. Hence, the concern among mystical writers to designate a special faculty of the soul more profound than reason and will, . . . something deep within the human soul that constantly reminds it of its eternal origin in God” (Ozment, The Age of Reform 1250-1550: An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe, [Yale University Press], 117.