Gnosticism - Tom Elseroad

Gnosticism
Concept	Description	Summary
From Gr. gnwvsiV	"Knowledge." Knowledge is the way to salvation.	The possession of secrets which would ultimately serve the soul’s union with God.
Matter is evil	All matter including the body is evil.	It does not matter what a man does with his body. Knowledge meant freedom to participate in all sorts of indulgences. Or, from the same premise, denial of physical pleasures to avoid contamination.
Creation	Creation was an accident; a mistake. Not the work of God, but of lower deities.
God	God is spirit, separated from matter.
Dualism	God (spirit) and the world (matter) are separate. There is no contact between these two systems.
Man	Has a divine spark in his soul.	Man’s salvation is from knowledge and honoring the angelic beings who guard the spheres between God and man. Jesus is
Angels	Powers between God and man who must be honored and used as access to the higher sphere.
Jesus	Jesus did not come in the flesh. Jesus was a spirit or a lower intermediary.
Salvation	Complex system of intermediary beings. There are anti-gods, archons, and demiurge (subordinate deities). Honor to the angelic intermediaries is necessary. There is no relation to the historical OT sacrifices.
1 Jn. 4:2-3	"²By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus has come in the flesh is from God; ³and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world."	Denial of the true God and true Man, our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the mark of an antichrist.
Col. 2:8-23	"⁸…philosophy and empty deception…"	Combination of reverence to angelic intermediaries, food taboos, Judaistic borrowings.
1 Ti. 1:4f	"nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies…"	Mythology and Genealogies
1 Ti. 4:3f	"men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods…"	Asceticism
Tit. 1:10-16	"¹⁴not paying attention to Jewish myths…"	Jewish fables
2 Ti. 2:16-19	"¹⁸men who have gone astray from the truth saying that the resurrection has already taken place…"	Deny or spiritualization of the resurrections
2 Ti. 3:5-7	"⁵holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power…"	Pernicious moral conduct
1 Ti. 6:20	"…avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called ‘knowledge’"	Falsely called "knowledge"
1 Jn. 4:3; 2 Jn. 7	"³and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God;…" "⁷For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. …"	Deny Christ’s humanity
1 Co. 15:12	Deny the resurrections.

The Gnostics believed the earth is surrounded by cosmic spheres (usually 7), which separate God from man. These spheres are ruled by archons (spiritual rulers), who guard their spheres by preventing souls seeking to ascend to the realm of light from below. Man is in 3 parts: body, soul, and spirit. The spirit is enclosed in the soul and is asleep, needing to be awakened by knowledge. Salvation is whenever the spirit is awakened by knowledge. This knowledge releases man to ascend to the cosmic realm of light where the soul reunites with God. In order to penetrate the spheres, more knowledge is necessary.