Gnosticism. [NÄ·stə·siz·əm, noun] Any secret-knowledge religion. Usually, one of the secret-knowledge religions practiced in the Roman Empire, which taught one could be saved through that religion’s secrets and rituals. Gnostics borrowed ideas from many religions, particularly Christianity.
Gnostic. [NÄ·stik, noun/adj.] Has to do with secret religious knowledge. One who believes in, teaches, and follows such knowledge. Considered heretic by Christians, who believe God has no such secret knowledge.
From time to time you’ll see motivational speakers announce they’re gonna reveal secrets. “Secrets to a better marriage!” “Learn the five secrets to a better career!” “The secret to a happy life—revealed!” People love the idea of discovering secrets. So this is a smart way to publicize one’s speech.
From time to time you’ll see Christians claim they’re gonna reveal secrets. “God’s secret plan for your life.” “God’s secret plan for the End.” “Mysteries of the book of Ezekiel—revealed!” And sometimes they’re just doing as the motivational speakers do: They’re trying to grab your attention with the word “secret,” but these things aren’t really secrets. They’re just not widely known.
But sometimes Christians do teach these things are secrets.
And that’s when we have a problem. Because that’s not how Christianity works. God isn’t about secrets. He’s about revelation. He wants people to know about him. He wants everyone to know Jesus is Lord, and what Jesus taught, and how to follow him and be saved. Jesus told us to tell everyone.
Who were the Gnostics?
Back during the Roman Empire, the Gnostics (from the word gnostikós, “one good at knowing things”) were those folks who had what we call “mystery religions.” In their religions they had a lot of mysteries, a lot of secret knowledge, and the only people who got to know the secrets were members of that religion. You had to go through special initiations before you could be a member. Usually you also had to pay a lot of money. Usually there were multiple levels of membership: A first-level Gnostic had only been through a certain number of ceremonies, and had only paid a certain amount of money, but if you wanted to become a second-level Gnostic, it meant more ceremonies and more money. Then you’d be taught all the second-level mysteries. Of course there were also third-level mysteries… and fourth-level, fifth-level, tenth-level, hundredth-level, and so on.
Where’d all these secrets come from? Gnostics claimed they got them from the gods. Which gods? Odd gods. The Gnostics rarely claimed they heard from the usual Greco-Roman gods everyone was familiar with; those gods had their own temples, and their own prophets, who would loudly object they never heard such things from their gods. So they’d pick more obscure gods. Usually eastern gods—Egyptian gods, Persian gods, Indian gods, Arab gods, and yes, Jewish gods. True, the Jews only had the one god—until the Christians came along and said God is, mysteriously, also three. The Gnostics grabbed hold of that mystery the instant they heard of it.
Every once in a while you might hear about some previously-unknown gospel that’s just been discovered: The gospel of Thomas, or the gospel of Judas, or the gospel of Mary Magdalene, or the gospel of Philip, or whomever. Most pagans are surprised to hear there were other gospels than the four we have in the bible. Many Christians are, too. But most Christians already know there are other gospels—and that they weren’t included in the New Testament because they weren’t written by Christians. They were written by Gnostics. They claim to have secret knowledge of Jesus. They share it—and it makes no sense, because the only people who can interpret this secret knowledge would be, no surprise, Gnostic priests.
Gnostics started glomming onto Jesus stories as soon as Christianity appeared, which is why we read about them in the bible from time to time. They were the ones teaching Jesus hadn’t really been raised from the dead, but spiritually raised from the dead. For this reason John called them antichrists. (2Jn 7)
Generally, Gnostics—borrowing some ideas from Plato—taught it wasn’t God who created the universe. God is spirit, but the universe is made of decaying, nasty matter, and Gnostics wouldn’t believe God would sully his hands with such stuff. So they believed some subordinate god—a craftsman, or dimi-urgós, or Demiurge—was the actual creator, and had done a rotten job. Unlike Plato, the Gnostics taught God and the Demiurge were fighting over creation: God wanted us to become pure spirit, and the Gnostics would tell us how. You can see why they didn’t teach Jesus was resurrected. Such an idea went against their basic beliefs.
Gnostics today don’t necessarily call themselves Gnostic, but they’re doing the same things: They borrow elements from assorted odd religions—a bit of Hinduism here, a bit of Buddhism there, a pinch of Zoroastrian theology, a pinch of Muslim theology. Throw a little Jesus onto it to attract any lapsed Christians, and claim what Jesus was really trying to teach was what they teach. And if you want to learn the secrets of the universe from them, you can! Just attend their moderately-priced introductory seminar. Buy their books, buy their DVDs. Then they’ll share their secrets with you.
Among their teachings were that if you embraced your pure spirit nature, you’d never die—well, you would die, but then you’d be pure spirit, and more “alive” than you’d ever been on earth, so that was just as good. You’d never sin, and never need to worry about obeying commands because you were above it all. (The only command you need worry about was keeping your religion’s secrets.)
But as John pointed out, God doesn’t do secrets.
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
—John, 1 John 1.5-10 ESV
God reveals secrets.
From time to time you’ll hear a Christian explain that God knows the big picture, and hasn’t chosen to reveal that big picture to us. “The deep things of God,” and all that. But that phrase comes from 1 Corinthians 2.10, “But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.” (KJV) Or to put it in current English, “For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets.” (NLT)
God’s thing is revelation, not concealment. God wants us to know him, not wonder what he’s like and wander around in a fog.
Yes, there are some things God’s not gonna tell us. Yet. For example, the freaky End Times visions in Revelation have been largely left uninterpreted. Not that people don’t try to interpret them on their own, but the Holy Spirit obviously has no part of their interpretations—there’s far too much fear involved for our Comforter to be mixed up in it. God left them mysterious because he’d rather we not get in the way of the End unfolding: If Christians knew precisely who the Beast was, some of us would try to assassinate him long before he could do anything.
There’s also issues of privacy. Secrets and privacy aren’t the same thing: Some things are none of our business. When Christians confess our sins to one another, I have no business sharing what others confess to me. That’s for them to share. Sometimes God wants them to share it with everyone; sometimes not, or not yet.
From time to time God tells me things about other people. Sometimes he tells me to keep those things to myself—to not share them with anyone, even the people they’re about. He hasn’t told me why. My guess is he means to change me with that revelation, not them: He wants me to pray for them, or minister to them. But they’re not yet ready to hear what God knows about them. When they are, he’ll tell them.
See, God knows how to handle us. He knows what to tell us and when. We don’t. We jump the gun: We share too much, too soon, and what we meant for encouragement winds up freaking other people out. We give God’s messages before he wants us to, like the premature prophets who can’t wait to gossip about the latest they heard from God. Yes, gossip. If God doesn’t want it spread around yet, then that’s precisely what it is.
Still, while God has a few things he’s keeping close to the chest for now, his goal is to reveal everything.
But that’s not at all what Gnostics—both in bible times, and today—have taught. They teach God has a lot of secrets. But they, conveniently enough, have had some of those secrets explained to them. And they’ll share them with you—if you follow them, and compensate them financially.
No no no. Don’t fall for that. The gospel is free. The secrets of the Kingdom are free to those who are in the Kingdom. (Lk 8.10) And anyone can join the Kingdom—and need pay nothing to do so. The water of life costs us nothing. (Rv 22.17) God has nothing to hide, and when we follow him, we have nothing to hide.