Sermon Tone Analysis

Last week we saw how Constantine called together 300 bishops at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD to discuss the doctrinal disputes concerning the divinity of Jesus and the relationship of Jesus to God the Father.

One of the bishops named Arius said that Jesus was more than a man, but less than God—denying the divinity of Jesus—which was pronounced as heresy.

We also saw that another bishop named Eusebius stated that Jesus had a nature similar to that of God, but not the same.

We learned that to refute these heresies, the Council at Nicaea wrote down what they believed was truth in what is called the Nicene Creed.

As we continue in this third message in the series about /The DaVinci Code/ by Dan Brown, we want to remember that our purpose is to fulfill the scripture in 1 Peter 3:15 (NIV) “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.

*Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have*.

But do this with gentleness and respect.”

Although we may encounter people who will believe this deception, we are not to treat them with disrespect, but to share the truth with them.

It is the truth that will set them free (John 8:32).

This week we turn our attention to “That Other bible” or what is called the Gnostic bible.

Prior to this video how many knew that there was a Gnostic bible?

We have probably all heard about the recent “discovery” of the /Gospel of Judas—/a Gnostic gospel.

So what is the Gnostic bible and why does it matter what it says?

Is our Bible the truth or is the Gnostic bible the truth?

How do we know?

The word Gnostic comes from the Greek “/gnosis/” which means “to know, perceive, or understand.”

This is a primary word used in the New Testament over 220 times.

The knowledge it is talking about is fragmentary and incomplete.

(The opposite of gnosis is “agnosis” or what we would call “agnostic”—a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God.

[1])

*1108.

**γν**ῶ**σις** **/gnó/**/̄/**/sis/*; gen.

/gnó//̄//seōs/, fem.

noun from /ginó//̄//skō/ (1097), to know.

Knowledge.

Present and fragmentary knowledge [2]

Does this mean that knowledge is bad?  No, that is not what we are saying.

Knowledge through the centuries is what has given us the ability to read, write, think—advancing civilization to the technological state it is in today.

The pursuit of knowledge is good, that is why we have colleges and universities.

In fact, the Bible tells us to get knowledge (wisdom), but to also get understanding with our knowledge (wisdom).

Prov 4:5-7 (NIV) Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my words or swerve from them.

6 Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you.

7 Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom.

Though it cost all you have, get understanding.

The knowledge of the Bible is different from the knowledge of the Gnostic bible.

In the Gnostic bible (or sometimes called the “secret gospels”), knowledge is hidden and only available to those who have been enlightened.

“The Gnostics believed that they were privy to spiritual experiences that gave them an inside track on a religious interpretation of the world.

Their version of Christianity was, among other things, profeminine.

God is sometimes described as androgynous—that is both male and female.”[3]

The Gnostics combined the ideas of the Greek philosopher named Plato with the saying of Jesus to get many of their ideas.

“Plato . . .

felt that human beings had a spark of divine intelligence, and that a man becomes more god-like as he develops his intellect and his ability to reason.”[4]

When we examine the Hebrew (O.T.) concept of knowledge we find that knowledge was gained through intimate experience and relationship.

“The Hebrew concept of knowledge, the verb “to know” occurs frequently in a technical sense for the covenantal bond.

Thus “to know” God (e.g., Deut.

34:10; Judg.

2:10; Hos.

8:1–2) or another person (e.g., Deut.

28:33; Ruth 2:11; cf. the sexual bond; e.g., Judg.

21:12) means to enter into an intimate bond with that other.”

[5] 

So we see that there is a big difference between the Bible concept of knowledge and the Gnostic bible’s concept of knowledge.

The knowledge of the Bible is not hidden, but openly revealed through intimacy with God.

God does not hold back His knowledge for only certain ones, but freely gives it to all who seek it.

James 1:4 (NIV) If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

1 Tim 2:3-4 (NIV) This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

A /Time/ magazine article stated that these Gnostic gospels “fill a perceived need for alternative views of the Christ story on the part of New Age seekers and of mainline believers uncomfortable with some of their faith’s theological restrictions.”[6]

In plain English that means that if we are uncomfortable with a Gospel we just throw it out and get a new one.

If the virgin birth of Jesus is too much for us to handle, we deny it.

If the resurrection is too unbelievable to accept, we dismiss it as falsehood.

If the requirements for salvation (to confess our sins, confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, and to believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead (Rom 10:9)) are just too much, then we make up our own path to save ourselves.

This is the spirit of antichrist that promotes tolerance and diversity in addition to the pro-feminist viewpoint of our society.

So how do we know which version is correct?

The real Bible “has stood the test of time and the disciplines of history and archaeology.”[7]

History has proven that the truths of the Bible are true and worth dying for—as many martyrs throughout the centuries will testify.

Our American society was founded upon the basic principles of the Bible.

The sayings of Jesus and the Bible have literally shaped numerous nations over hundreds of centuries.

Archaeology has done nothing but prove that the statements of the Bible are true and historically accurate.

Outside sources have supported the facts of the Bible, like the Roman historian Josephus.

The Gnostic bible on the other hand has not stood up to these same tests.

There are no references to cities, or other geographical sites, nor are there specific historical events which can be confirmed.

The Gnostic bible is more concerned with ideas not events.

The New Testament is not only concerned with what Jesus taught, but what He *did*—miracles, healings, dying on the cross to bring salvation, resurrecting from the dead, and ascending into heaven where He is seated at the right hand of the Father.

The first criteria that Dr Lutzer mentioned by which we can judge the books and determine which one is the genuine is spurious authorship.

That means the books go by names like /The Gospel of Peter, The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Phillip, The Gospel of Judas./

Yet although they bear the name of apostles or key figures, they can be dated to be much later than the writers would have lived.

They were not written by eye witnesses to the life of Jesus as we have in our Bible.

Luke 1:1-4 (NIV) Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.

3 Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

[1]

Luke the physician “carefully investigated everything from the beginning” from the eyewitnesses (apostles) and as a doctor would have been meticulous in his search for the truth and how he recorded it.

Matthew was one of Jesus disciples who wrote a gospel to prove to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah who had fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament.

Mark (John Mark) traveled with Paul and Barnabus and wrote his gospel for those who lived outside Israel to show the power of Jesus.

John was the beloved disciple who wrote his gospel to prove the divinity of Jesus and later is given the Revelation while he is exiled on the isle of Patmos.

Paul wrote 2~/3 of the New Testament and his journeys can even be traced today in modern Turkey and Greece (In 1973 I spent 30 days in Western Turkey and saw some of the very sites that Paul visited in his missionary journeys).

Peter was the apostle who was part of the inner circle with Jesus and wrote 2 letters to churches during the time of persecution.

Each of these “eyewitnesses and servants of the word” are historically traceable as real people and the facts they present in their writings have been critically examined through the centuries.

What would be better to read about George Washington, a book written during the time he lived or shortly after, or one that was written centuries later and speculated on what he said and did?

An eyewitness account would be much better than second hand stories that had been turned into legends.

So where did the Gnostic writings come from?

In 1945 an Arab peasant in Egypt discovered a red earthenware jar that contained 13 leather-bound papyrus books written in the Coptic language.

Dates of these writings were from 150 AD to the 4th or 5th centuries.

Contrast that with the writings of our New Testament, which were written from about 40-70 AD and you will see that the true Gospels were written much earlier than the Gnostic gospels.

This is the other criteria that Dr Lutzer referred to that we can use to judge the books to see which is genuine—when they were written.

We will look more at the actual canonization of the Bible in a later message, so we will not discuss that now.

Let me say quickly that we must not confuse the Gnostic writings with The Dead Sea Scrolls or the Apocrypha.

We’ll talk more about the Apocrypha later.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947 in the Qumran area northwest of the Dead Sea in Israel.

They were written by a group called the Essenes, of which we believe John the Baptist belonged to.

Among the texts are portions or fragments of all books of the Hebrew canon with the exception of the book of Esther.

The most complete text is that of the Isaiah scroll[8] which can be seen today in the Shrine of The Book in Jerusalem.

Thus the Dead Sea Scrolls gave us the most complete proof of the Old Testament.

Unlike the Gnostic gospels which cannot be used to prove the existence of any Biblical books or events.

(“The writers of the New Testament agreed with Gnosticism that there is a knowledge which leads to salvation.