Scripture References: John 1:1-8; Colossians 1:15-17
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us . . . full of grace and truth.”
Never were more majestic words ever put down on paper. Never was so much grand truth stated in so few words. They introduce the simplest and profoundest of the Gospels. The purpose of this Gospel is “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31).
Jesus had a message for His contemporaries. But does He have a message for us in this modern space-fairing age? The purpose of this message is to show that He does.
In order to understand any book one must know at least a little something of its background. John wrote this Gospel while in Ephesus. Primarily, its message was directed toward the Greeks.
In the first century A.D., there appeared a philosophy known as Gnosticism. Its name comes from the Greek word gnosis, meaning “knowledge.” Gnostics held that people were saved by advancing in knowledge.
However, Gnostics faced a problem in explaining the origin of the universe. They believed and said that God is absolutely good, and matter is absolutely evil. How, then, could such an absolutely good God create such an absolutely evil universe? To their own satisfaction, at least, they imagined a series of beings coming out of God in descending order, each having less deity than the one above it. The lowest one had enough deity to create, but so little as to be able to create evil matter.
Coming in to contact with Christianity, Gnostics identified Christ as that lowest being. Thus they saw Him as a created being, a demigod, almost (but not quite) a demon since He created evil matter.
Furthermore, the Gnostics divided into two groups concerning Jesus Christ. The Docetic Gnostics (from dokeō, “I seem”) said that Christ did not have a real flesh-and-blood body. He only seemed to have one. They denied the humanity of Christ. The Cerinthian Gnostics (from their leader Cerinthus) held that Christ neither was born, nor did He die. Deity came upon Jesus at His baptism and left Him on the cross. So they denied the deity of Jesus. These views cut through the heart of Christian theology. It is as great a heresy to deny Christ’s humanity as to deny Jesus’ deity. So both Paul, in Colossians, and John, in his Gospel and 1 John, wrote to refute this heresy.
Gnostics are still with us, for anyone who denies either Jesus’ deity or Christ’s humanity is a neo-Gnostic. It is our purpose, therefore, to look at Jesus Christ in three relationships: to God, to the natural order, and to us.
To Be Continued
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 
You must be logged in to post a comment.