Of The Secret and Wild-Geese

Well, school is back in session here in my local municipality, and mothers are rejoicing.  :)
Young, impressionable minds are being sent of to be filled with .... what?  Do you know?  It is impossible to impart basic knowledge outside the context of faith...faith in something....  Well, maybe math is an exception. But, otherwise, values imbue all the knowledge that your children will be taught in school.  Whose values?  Whose "truth"?

If you look up the word "gnosis" in Google, you'll find this definition:  "the knowledge of spiritual mysteries".  We've already examined the Gnostic philosophy to some extent. As a reminder, these heretics taught salvation was only possible through a complex series of initiations and steps, rules and traditions, which would lead to "secret knowledge".  In other words, they took the simple truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and enveloped it in layer after layer of heretical complexities.

Do you believe that Gnosticism is dead, some moldy-oldy philosophy that only existed in the first century A.D.?  I assure you that it is alive and well.  Satan both disguises and imitates truth.  As the eons roll on, he adapts his falsehoods to fit the current trends.  For example:

Some religions manifest elements of Gnosticism today.  There is mystic underwear.  There are secret names for spouses. There are secret rituals and secret vaults of documents which cannot be allowed to see the light of day.  Some religions....Satanism, for one....meet entirely in secret.  Who are the Satanists?  They walk among us, masquerading as everyday people.  But, that's another blog post for another day.

So, Paul addresses this matter of "secret knowledge" in today's passage, Colossians 2:2-4, which I'm reproducing here from The Message version.

2-4 I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God’s great mystery. All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery and nowhere else. And we’ve been shown the mystery! I’m telling you this because I don’t want anyone leading you off on some wild-goose chase, after other so-called mysteries, or “the Secret.”

There is no Secret.  There is only the Truth, which is found in Jesus Christ and His one-and-only, transparent salvation.  And, there is error.  Basically, any "faith", that wants to talk to you about these mystic "add-ons' to your belief in Jesus Christ, is false.

Then, there is the religion of secularism.  Yes, secularism is a religion.  Anything that sets itself up in opposition to the Word of God, manifested in the person and supreme deity of Jesus Christ is a religion.  Nabeel Qureshi, who wrote Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus, has a new book out at the end of this month. It deconstructs the Muslim faith in which he was steeped from birth, well into his 20's. The Muslims recognize Jesus Christ, although only as one of several enlightened, human prophets.

But, back to secularism, the religion of our public schools and other public institutions.  Here are some examples of this most insidious religion, whose basic tenet is that there is no god but man himself.  "Man is his own god", in other words.  This belief infuses much of the world in which we live today.  One of the most recent manifestations of this was seen at the Republican National Convention last month, when the nominee stood at the podium to announce that he alone can fix what is wrong with the United States.  Ok.  Right.

That was a rather egregious overstatement.  Most of the time, Satan is much more subtle, beguiling our youth with garbage such as evolution, revisionist history, the right to abortion, a broadened definition of marriage and other such philosophies which are contrary to the Truth found in the Word of God, namely in Jesus Christ.  Dr. Peterson, who translated Paul's words in The Message's contemporary language calls these "wild-goose chases".

Our young people are led to believe that faith-based Truth is an evidence of a weak mind, of someone who is not truly intelligent or intellectual.  They take off after a "secret" which does not exist, which does not satisfy, even if it is attained.

As responsible parents, it is our responsibility to guard our youth from these deceptive, erroneous philosophies which will wreck their lives.  As a former public school educator for 35 years, I can say with a great deal of knowledge that if I had it to do over again, I would not educate my children today in the public schools.  The humanistic influences are simply too great for a Christian parent to overcome in their time with their children at home and church.

We are our children's first and best teachers.  In that God-ordained role, we must teach them the Truth, including that which Paul expresses here: only through Jesus Christ can the mind and spirit have confidence and rest.  In Jesus, we can learn as much of God as we can manage, for a lifetime and beyond.  As far as the other mysteries of the universe?  Some of the greatest minds that ever lived, those who made the greatest discoveries of all time, were Christ-worshippers:  Bacon, Copernicus, Kepler, Descartes, Pascal, Newton, Mendel, to name a few.1

Father, Your Son is All, and all Truth resides in, is embodied in Him.  We need seek no other Source, no other Secret.  By accepting Him as Savior and following Him throughout our lives, our minds can have confidence and rest.  A restful, centered mind is then freed to learn more of You, all the mysteries which it is Your will for us to discover.  May we teach this Truth to our children, in accordance with Your scriptural command.  In Jesus' name, amen.

Source:

1   http://coldcasechristianity.com/2013/the-rich-historic-roll-call-of-great-christian-thinkers-and-scientists/

Image Inexplicable

Most Bible commentators I've read believe that Paul wrote his letter to the Colossians because that little church was being unduly influenced by Gnostics.  (Sounds like a group of aliens from Star Trek, doesn't it?)  We'll look more deeply into the beliefs of Gnosticism later, but let's start by confronting a couple of their false beliefs.  The first is that Jesus Christ was merely one of God's manifestations (appearances, emanations) to an evil, material world.  Gnostics also believe that all physical matter is evil and that God could have no contact with it.1

Because of this alarming incursion of Gnosticism into the Colossian church, Paul launches into a series of verses in which he describes who Jesus Christ actually was and is.

15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation,

16for all things in heaven and on earth were created by him – all things, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions, whether principalities or powers – all things were created through him and for him.

17He himself is before all things and all things are held together in him.

18He is the head of the body, the church, as well as the beginning, the firstborn from among the dead, so that he himself may become first in all things.

19For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in the Son

20and through him to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross – through him, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

Paul begins with establishing the deity of Christ by detailing His various interactions with mankind, as you see in the verses above.

Today, we are going to focus on verses 15-16:  incarnation versus emanation.

I do not fully understand the mystery that happened between God the Father and God the Son, when the decision was made to give the Father "form" - - material, physical form.  This is not fully explained in the Bible, perhaps because we don't have the capacity to understand.  Most certainly, this occurred before any other created thing was created, because both verses 15 and 16 state that it occurred prior to creation AND that Christ WAS the creator of ALL things.  So, in a move that runs totally counter to Gnosticism, we see the Creator God the Son making the material and constructing the spiritual realms.  The apostle Peter also confirms this in 1 Peter 1:20.

He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was manifested in these last times for your sake. 
(NET)

A little bit ago, I was musing...does God the Father or Son or Holy Spirit EVER in the Bible manifest as any created thing?  Oh, He inhabits created spaces, such as when "His glory filled the Temple".  In other scriptures He is referred to (in his Christ form) as "the angel of the Lord".  But, He never manifests as an eagle or a bear or a serpent (as Satan did).  He is called the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and C.S. Lewis portrayed Him as the lion, Aslan, in his fictitious allegory series, The Chronicles of Narnia.  But....He always takes the form of a man, the God-Man, whom we learned at his birth to call, Jesus.

Man was created by Jesus Christ, the God-Man, in His image.  Jesus is the image of God the Father, who Himself is Spirit, invisible. And we are created in His (Jesus') image.

"Through him and for him" - - -

Having expounded upon the first, let's consider the last.  We, mankind, were created FOR God, for Jesus Christ, who knew what the future held for Him, who knew that, even in creating us we would fall into sin; we would need a Redeemer, and that He was the only One who could save us.

"Slain, from the foundation of the world".... 

(Revelation 13:8 KJV)

Not only did He create all things, He became us, became a human, ultimately the human named Jesus Christ, fully God and fully Man.  The incarnation (the "en-fleshing", encasing in human flesh) of the invisible God.  The human body is not evil, as Gnostics claim.  If it were, Jesus would never have incarnated Himself into one!

As a result of The Fall, all human love, all of it, is tainted by self-interest.  I am unable to conceive of a love like Jesus Christ's, a love so pure and holy.   A love that could not bear to see us forever lost, forever separated from Him, a perfect love which constrained Him to snatch us back from the pit of Hell at an incalculable personal cost.

This is not an aloof, removed God, afraid to get His hands dirty.  This is a God who not only plunged right into the fallen world, to abide with us, but who also longs to be with each of us in every way, every day, even now.  This is a God who finished redemption's work so that all of Gnosticism's rule-following is rendered void, and replaced those heresies with grace, pure grace alone.

Hallelujah for that!

https://youtu.be/YnM3lc-LyzY


Source:

1   Wiersbe, Warren W., and Warren W. Wiersbe. The Wiersbe Bible Commentary: The Complete New Testament in One Volume. Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2007. Print, p. 659.