The Church Gnostic

Christians must learn that redemption is the recovery and enhancement of creation. Christ didn’t die to save us from creation or the material world, but from sin.

Feb 16, 2024

Dear Friends and Supporters:

Consider this theological paradigm (stop me if you’ve heard it before). The Old Testament was good for its time, but it’s far inferior to the New Testament. The Jews are God’s earthly, fleshly people, and the church is his spiritual, heavenly people. The promises to the Jews are physical promises, but promises for the Gentile church are heavenly promises, and not for this life, for this earth. The Old Testament law was given to the Jews, and the New Testament, especially Paul’s writings, were giving to the church.

Man himself is composed of three separate parts: body, soul, and spirit. The body is corrupt and can’t be redeemed in this life. The soul and spirit are linked together, however, and the great goal is that, at our death, the spirit and soul will be released from the body and will fly through the heavenlies to be with the Lord himself, where we’ll all be eternally disembodied spirits.

The world is getting worse and worse, and our hope isn’t in this life. Evil will triumph in human history until Christ returns. Therefore, any attempt by us to influence culture or the world for the Lord and his kingdom is doomed to failure and a waste of time. We don’t confront cultural evil; we escape from it. There will be a resurrection one day, to be sure, but that’s after the Second Advent and, anyway, the really important thing is being with the Lord, not the resurrection, whose rationale isn’t exactly clear.

If that narrative sounds uncomfortably familiar, let me elaborate on today’s Gnosticized Christianity infecting many conservative churches and make you a little more uncomfortable. (See another treatment of this topic with an identical title I wrote 25 years ago.)

War on Materiality

Because the physical body in this life is so evil (or so goes the Gnostic narrative), we must be very careful to avoid its appetites. We must be very cautious about enjoying sex, and we mustn’t consider food and the physical world as all that important. Our ideal is almost to be abstemious: abstain from delightful bodily activities as much as possible so we can be wholly given to the Lord.

Material things lead us away from God, while non-material things lead us toward God. So then the material creation, and culture shaped by that creation, food and sex and money and houses and church buildings and mountain-climbing and kayaking and baseball, while not specifically sinful, are inclined to lead us to sin and in some cases are simply best avoided.

“Flesh” is (Often) Ethical, Not Physical

When today’s Gnostics in the church read the word flesh (sarx) in the New Testament, they equate it with the human body, but this often isn’t the actual meaning at all. Rather, “flesh” is a theological term, notably in Paul. It means any element of human existence under the sway of rebellion against God, whether physical or non-physical. When he writes in Romans 7:18, for example, “For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not,” he’s obviously not saying there is nothing good in his body. In this sense, evil thoughts are just as “fleshly” as fornication. They’re not somehow less sinful because they’re not material.

Creation certainly can lead us away from God if we follow our sinful, idolatrous hearts. This is one of the main themes of Romans 1, in fact.

But the same chapter points out that God is clearly seen in creation. To a surrendered heart, creation draws us toward God, not away from him. The variable here is not creation, but the religious state of man’s heart.

Therefore, we can honor God just as much while fishing or hunting as we can sitting in our chair and thinking lofty, “spiritual” thoughts.

Spiritual Is Not Non-Physical

That term spiritual (pneumatikos) is misdefined just as the word flesh is. Whenever some Christians read the word “spiritual,” they assume it means non-physical. It certainly doesn’t. When Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 15 (for example) of Christ’s resurrected “spiritual body,” he obviously doesn’t mean disembodiment. The term “spiritual” usually means dominated by the Holy Spirit. We might say it means “Holy Spirit turbocharged.” Jesus Christ’s resurrection body is a spiritually and ethically turbocharged body. It’s certainly not non-corporeal.

“Church leaders who can’t navigate from ‘In the beginning’ forfeit legitimacy.”

Jeffery J. Ventrella

Privileging the non-material and de-privileging the material is a Gnostic tenet. In the Bible, the conflict is never between physical and non-physical; it’s between righteousness and sin. Sin is the problem; materiality is not the problem. It’s useful to remember that Jesus Christ was born and lived and died and rose and will return and exists today in a body, and that the evilest being in the universe is pure spirit.

Despite what many Christians tinged with Gnosticism seem to believe, Jesus didn’t die to save us from material creation. He died to restore man and man’s body and all of the rest of creation to its proper, God-honoring status.

Gnosticized Soteriology and Eschatology

Consider also: The popular idea that Jesus died to “take us to heaven” is more Gnostic than biblical. It’s true that those who’ve trusted in Jesus Christ will be forever with the Lord (1 Thes. 4:16–17), but we will be forever with him on a resurrected earth, an Easter earth we could say, as the heavens descend and the Triune God lives eternally with his people (Rev. 21:1–4). We don’t die and “go up to heaven.” God comes down to Earth to dwell with man and his creation.

In the Bible, the great hope of individual salvation isn’t merely being with the Lord, but the final resurrection (1 Cor. 15; Jn. 5:28–29; 11:25; Rom. 8:11). Our being in its totality will have been redeemed, and we will glorify God in Jesus Christ on a renovated, resurrected earth for all eternity (Rev. 21:1–8).

Think of it: the material creation is so “very good” that God himself will live in it eternally.

The fact that this construction sounds so dangerously materialistic and this-worldly to Christians indicates how far we’ve drifted from not only biblical soteriology (doctrine of salvation) and eschatology (doctrine of future things) but also biblical anthropology (doctrine of man).

Gnosticized Anthropology

The biblical truth is that man is a synthetic being, “synthetic” not as in artificial, but as in synthesis. The immaterial aspect of man (spirit) is woven into his body. When the body dies, the spirit returns to God who gave it (Ec. 12:7), with whom it awaits the resurrection.

But — and this is the critical point — this disembodied existence isn’t man in his fulness, and it is a rupture in the created order. Man without a body can exist, but he is not what God intended. A disembodied human existence is an abnormality imposed by sin on God’s good creation order. Ponder the fact that had man never sinned, his spirit would have never severed from his body. Disembodiment is abnormal anthropology. The resurrection restores man to his full humanity, that is, restores the creational order.

Embodied Worship

This brings up a point not often appreciated: if man cannot be fully human without a body, he cannot love and worship God as effectively in a disembodied state.

This truth turns on its head the Gnostic notion that death is a great spiritual liberation, an anticipated state in which man is free truly to worship God in all his fullness. This is false. It’s true that after we die, we no longer sin, but because we’re not resurrected, sin still has a claim on us. That claim is only finally abolished in our resurrection (1 Cor. 15:42ff.). Disembodiment is a curse that only the resurrection lifts.

To worship God fully, freely, comprehensively, we must worship him in a presently redeemed, and finally resurrected, body.

Conclusion

In conclusion, only a return to a comprehensively creational Christianity can cure the Gnostic virus. Conservatives must quit exalting redemption to the exclusion of creation. They must learn that redemption is the recovery and enhancement of creation. Christ didn’t die to save us from creation or the material world, but from sin. Pastors must take the lead in recovering creational Christianity. In the words of my friend Jeff Ventrella of Truthxchange: “Church leaders who can’t navigate from ‘In the beginning’ forfeit legitimacy.”

We must learn our calling to reclaim the world for Christ the King, preaching the gospel to bring nations under the Lord’s authority and reclaim all areas of life for the King — science, education, music, politics, technology, entertainment, and art. If Jesus is not Lord of all, he’s not Lord at all.

Only in these ways can we cure the church of its Gnosticized Christianity and restore a healthy body capable of pressing the Lord’s kingdom here on God’s good earth.

Yours for the King,

Founder & President, Center for Cultural Leadership

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