Sunday
Morning Bible Study
May 21, 2006
Introduction
We read last week:
(2 Tim 4:3-4 NKJV) For the
time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their
own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves
teachers; {4} and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned
aside to fables.
The Gnostics
Dan Brown makes a big deal over all the supposed ancient Scriptures that
the church rejected, hid, or burned in order to keep a bunch of men in control
over the church.
At one point, one of the characters (Leigh Teabing) says that there had
been 80 gospels, but the church only kept four of them.
We mentioned last week that there were actually something less than 20
pieces of writing that were called “gospels”.
Many of those rejected by the early church fall into the category of
“Gnosticism”.
The Gnostic writings for the most part had been lost until 1945, when a
farmer in Nag Hammadi, Egypt,
was fertilizing his field when he discovered some ancient jars containing the
majority of these writings. Just
recently another work known as the “Gospel of Judas”, originally found in the
1970s, was translated and released to the world.
Rather than derive their beliefs from the Old Testament Scriptures, the
Gnostics based the core of their beliefs on the Greek philosopher Plato.
The Gnostics had a two main parts to their beliefs.
1. Material is evil, spiritual is
good.
They believed that everything in the material world was evil and everything
in the spiritual world was good.
Because of this, they had a difficult time understanding how a good,
spiritual God could create a physical, material world. And so they reasoned that God must have
created a series of angels who created more angels, who created more angels
until you got to the level where a lower created being created the physical
world.
Even though Dan Brown makes it sound as if these other writings promoted
the “humanity” of Jesus, the Gnostics actually believed in the divinity of
Jesus, but not in the humanity of Jesus.
They believed that Jesus was a spirit-being who floated above the
ground.
2. Salvation comes from secret
knowledge.
They believed that you were saved by learning secret “knowledge”.
The word “Gnostic” means “knowledge”.
And if you learned their secrets, you were saved.
Which was older?
If you read “The Da Vinci Code”, you can get the idea that these other
writings were older than the texts that we have in our Bible today, but the
truth is just the opposite. The four
gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the only writings called “gospels”
that were written in the first century.
The Gnostic “Gospel of Thomas” was written somewhere around 150 AD, and
the rest of the Gnostic works were written between the third and ninth
centuries. The Gnostic writings aren’t
older, they’re newer. This is one of the
reasons the church fathers rejected them.
They contain strange sayings,
…God is a man-eater. For this reason men are
[sacrificed] to him. Before men were sacrificed animals were being sacrificed,
since those to whom they were sacrificed were not gods. '
From the Gospel of
Thomas (nothing but a bunch of disconnected sayings, some of them sound
very close to the actual sayings in Scripture, others are a little strange …)
114. Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary
leave us, for females don't deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will
guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit
resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."
Chapter 5: 1) But they were grieved.
They wept greatly, saying, How shall we go to the Gentiles and preach the
gospel of the Kingdom of the Son of Man? If they did not spare Him, how will
they spare us? 2) Then Mary stood up, greeted them all, and said to her
brethren, Do not weep and do not grieve nor be irresolute, for His grace will
be entirely with you and will protect you. 3) But rather, let us praise His
greatness, for He has prepared us and made us into Men.
The “Gospel
of James” is a fanciful tale about the birth of Jesus’ mother Mary, and how
she grew up, became married to Joseph (with a priest threatening Joseph if he
didn’t marry her), how she became pregnant, and then the actual process of
birth of Jesus.
Why were the Gnostic writings rejected?
1. They weren’t old enough.
The books and letters we have in the New Testament were written in the
first century, the Gnostic writings weren’t.
2. They got their theology wrong.
When you read the New Testament, you clearly see that Jesus was both fully
human and fully God. The Gnostics could
not accept the fact that God had taken on human flesh. They did not believe in the
resurrection. Some taught that Jesus did
not die on the cross but a substitute died for Him. They believed salvation came from knowing
secrets, not through faith in what Jesus for us on the cross. All of it is contrary to Scripture.
3. Bogus history.
Though most of the works are just a bunch of random sayings, some contain
supposed historical accounts (like the Gospel of James). All I can say is, read them. It will become obvious that this is
manufactured stuff.
4. Fake authors.
The New Testament writings were accepted in part because it was recognized
that they were written either by the original apostles or their
contemporaries. The Gnostic gospels
claimed to be linked to the apostles, but everyone understood this was just a
trick to get them accepted.
The “Divine Feminine”
One of the things that has attracted a lot of gals to “The Da Vinci Code”
is this thing called the “Divine Feminine”.
Now before I go any further, let me say that I would have to agree that
women are indeed divine. But I don’t
think that’s what Mr. Brown is talking about.
And I also have to say that not only are women “divine”, but they’re
generally smarter than men as well … (show pictures, “why women are smarter
than men”). And there are some things
men shouldn’t do, like babysit … (show pics)
The claim: Mary was supposed to be
in charge.
He claims that Jesus intended for the church to be run by Mary Magdalene,
but that from the beginning the apostles plotted against Mary and took the
reigns of the church from her. Brown
claims that Jesus and Mary got married, and had a daughter named Sarah. He
claims that the church has branded Mary as the prostitute who washed Jesus’
feet, even though the Bible never says that of her.
What does the Bible say?
Mary was indeed important, she was the first to see Jesus after the
resurrection.
She was a woman delivered from demons.
(Mark 16:9 NKJV) Now when He
rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene,
out of whom He had cast seven demons.
Brown claims that in actuality the worship of God has always been through
the woman.
“Langdon’s Jewish students always looked flabbergasted when he first told
them that the early Jewish tradition involved ritualistic sex. In the Temple, no less. Early Jews believed that the
Holy of Holies in Solomon’s Temple
housed not only God but also His powerful female equal, Shekinah. Men seeking spiritual wholeness came to the Temple
to visit priestesses - or hierodules –
with whom they made love and experienced the divine through physical union.”
(pg. 309)
Huh? Where he got these ideas, I don’t have a clue. He didn’t get them from the Scriptures. It was the pagan idol worship that involved
sexual rites, not Biblical Judaism.
Brown claims that Da Vinci knew these kinds of things and hid clues in his
paintings.
About the Mona Lisa:
Brown claims that Leonardo’s worship of the goddess and the feminine can be
seen in his Mona Lisa painting. That name comes from two Egyptian deities: the
god Amon and the goddess Isis, whose “ancient pictogram was once
called L’ISA. The title Mona Lisa, then, is really “an anagram of the divine
union of male and female (p. 120-121).
The truth: History
says: Leonardo Da Vinci did not even
name this particular painting. None of his works, in fact, were titled by him.
The Mona Lisa was catalogued by author Giorgio Vasari in his book Lives of the Artists (1550), thirty
years after Leonardo’s death. It was he who first called it the Monna Lisa,
which in English was shortened to Mona Lisa. It simply means Madame Lisa, and
refers to the likely subject: Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, the wife of
Francesco del Giocondo.
About the Last Supper:
Have you heard the claim that the figure thought to be the apostle John is
actually Mary Magdalene?
This from: Art, Truth and 'The Da
Vinci Code' — Separating Fact From Fiction by Fred Sanders
“Every age has its own standards of fashion, taste, and human beauty. In
the Italian Renaissance, a handsome young man was usually portrayed in a way
that emphasized his rosy cheeks, conspicuous beardlessness and curly hair.
Since "the disciple Jesus loved" is always portrayed as a young man,
Leonardo paints him according to Renaissance standards. Look at any five paintings
of "The Last Supper" from a century on either side of Leonardo, and
you will see the same kind of face for John. Either all the artists were in on
the conspiracy, or there isn't one. All The Da Vinci Code proves in
this respect is that John looks girly to Dan Brown, but not to Leonardo.
“And so it goes throughout the book, with numerous factual errors regarding
Leonardo and the art of the Renaissance. As one art historian summarizes,
"The author's grasp of the historical Leonardo is shaky."
Brown: The church has made sex to be
shameful.
He makes the claim that God intended sex to be the thing that makes man and
woman spiritually whole, but the church has changed the concept of sex as being
a shameful act.
I don’t know what the Catholic church teaches, but the Bible says:
(Heb 13:4 NKJV) Marriage is
honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God
will judge.
God created sex. It was His idea
that it was not good for man to be alone.
The concept of two becoming one was God’s design.
Could Jesus have been married?
If He had been married, it wouldn’t have been a sin. But there are two things to consider:
1. There is no mention in Scripture
of Jesus ever being married.
Even in the Gnostic gospels, there is no mention of this – in fact the
Gnostics would have thought Jesus being married impossible.
2. He was already engaged. To us.
We, the church, are the Bride of Christ, not Mary Magdalene.
Brown makes an incredible claim about the name of God:
“The Jewish Tetragrammaton YHWH—the sacred name for God—in fact derived
from Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the
pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah” (p. 309).
The truth is, the name “Jehovah” is not God’s name at all, but a
misunderstanding of the Hebrew Bible.
Ancient Hebrew was composed of only consonants. If you saw the phrase “H drv th cr t th str”,
would you be able to make it out? We
know how to fill in the blanks, and so did the ancient Hebrews. But during the Babylonian captivity, the Jews
became afraid that their children would forget the old language, and so they
devised a system of dots and dashes to place above and below the letters,
vowels to help with the pronunciation of the words. It might look like “He drove
the car to the store”. When the scribes came to the name of God in
the text, YHWH, they were concerned that the reader might actually pronounce
God’s name, and they felt that God’s name was too holy to pronounce. So they took the vowels of the Hebrew word adonai, or “adonai”, which means “lord”, and stuck them
inside the consonants of God’s name. The
result looked something like YaHoWaH, or, if you run it through the German scholars,
Jehovah. That would remind the reader
not to pronounce God’s name, but instead to say “adonai”, which is,
“Lord”. Our English Bibles follow this
same idea in the Old Testament and instead of writing out “Yahweh”, they will print “LORD”, in all capital letters, to let you
know this is God’s name.
As for the word Havah, there is nothing “pre-Hebraic” about it. This is
simply “Eve” in Hebrew and it appears in the Old Testament in Gen. 3:20.
The claim: The church has suppressed
women.
Brown claims that for 2,000 years the church has been suppressing
women.
The Truth: Have women been suppressed
through Christianity and Judaism?
Old Jewish proverb: Woman was not
taken from man's head to rule over him, or from his foot to be trodden on by
him, but from his side to be his companion.
True religion elevates women to be at the side of men, not at their feet.
Compare the place of women in the Christian world versus that of the Muslim
or Hindu world. Ladies, would you rather
live in the nations that came from Christian roots (like Europe
and the United States),
or would you rather live in a Muslim country wearing a “burkha”, or in a Hindu
country, walking seven steps behind your husband at all times?
I believe Christianity has liberated women, not suppressed them.
The Bible says:
(Gal 3:28
NKJV) There is neither Jew nor Greek,
there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are
all one in Christ Jesus.
By the end of the book, Brown has systematically removed the God of the
Bible and left the reader with what he considers the true source of salvation –
having sex with a woman.
There’s a twisted logic to his agenda.
He makes his point of claiming that Jesus was not divine, and in fact we
ought to instead be worshipping the “divine feminine”, just as Jesus did.
The Bible tells us not to be surprised with this conclusion:
(Rom 1:22-25 NKJV)
Professing to be wise, they became fools, {23} and changed the glory of
the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man; and birds and
four-footed animals and creeping things. {24} Therefore God also gave them up
to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among
themselves, {25} who exchanged the truth
of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the
Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
The Deity of Christ
Of all the bones I have to pick with Mr. Brown, this is the most important
one.
From TDC, pg. 233, talking about the Council of Nicaea:
“At this gathering,” Teabing said, “many aspects of Christianity were
debated and voted upon – the date of Easter, the role of the bishops, the
administration of sacraments, and, of course, the divinity of Jesus.” “I don’t follow. His divinity?” “My dear,” Teabing declared, “until that
moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet … a
great and powerful man, but a man
nonetheless. A mortal.” “Not the Son of God?” “Right,” Teabing said. “Jesus’ establishment as ‘the Son of God’ was
officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea.” “Hold on.
You’re saying Jesus’ divinity was the result of a vote?” “A relatively close vote at that,” Teabing added. “Nonetheless, establishing Christ’s divinity
was critical to the further unification of the Roman empire
and to the new Vatican power base. By officially endorsing Jesus as the Son of
God, Constantine turned Jesus into
a deity who existed beyond the scope of the human world, an entity whose power
was unchallengeable. This not only
precluded further pagan challenges to Christianity, but now the followers of
Christ were able to redeem themselves only
via the established sacred channel – the Roman Catholic Church.”
There are lots of problems with these assertions. For one thing, the Roman Catholic church didn’t come into existence until around 600
AD, 275 years after the Council of Nicaea.
Then there’s the actual record of the council itself …
The Council of Nicaea –
The Council was indeed called together by Emperor Constantine, but it’s
purpose was to deal with a growing heresy in the church being promoted by a
fellow named Arius. Arianism (much like
modern Jehovah’s Witnesses) taught that Jesus was not God, but that Jesus was
just a man. Arius was a persuasive man and had caused many to follow him.
When the council convened, it was attended by 318 bishops from around the
Christian world. There were three groups
of bishops – the first group was led by the bishop of Alexandria,
a fellow named Alexander, they held the orthodox position that Jesus was both
God and Man were in the minority. Arius
led a second group of about twenty that held to his view that Jesus was just a
man. The third more larger group wasn’t
sure what to believe. There was a lot of
discussion and in the end all but two of the bishops ended up agreeing that
Jesus was both God and Man. 316 to 2 – is that a “close” vote?
Source: Philip Schaff and David
Schley Schaff, History of the Christian Church (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos
Research Systems, Inc., 1997). Vol. 3:9:120.
Did the idea of Jesus being God originate at Nicaea?
No, it originated from the Scriptures that had already been written centuries
before.
How I know that Jesus is God?
What I'm going to give you this morning, as many Scriptures as I'm going to
use, is really only an overview. We're
just scratching the surface.
1. The Old Testament speaks of
His deity
(Isa 9:6
NKJV) For unto us a Child is born, Unto
us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name
will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of
Peace.
2. He called Himself God.
(John 10:30 NKJV)
"I and My Father are one."
3. The Jews understood that Jesus
was calling Himself God, and Jesus never corrected them.
(John 10:33 NKJV) The Jews answered Him,
saying, "For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and
because You, being a Man, make Yourself God."
4. The apostles called Him God to
His face.
(John 20:28 NKJV) And Thomas answered and said
to Him, "My Lord and my God!"
5. He received and approved
worship from humans.
(Mat 14:33 NKJV) Then those who were in the
boat came and worshiped Him, saying, "Truly You are the Son of God."
And yet the Hebrew Scriptures
clearly state that God is the only one who is to be worshipped (Ex. 20:3-6).
6. The apostles called Him God in
their writings.
(Titus 2:13 NKJV) looking for the blessed hope
and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,
7. Even God calls Him God.
(Heb 1:8
NKJV) But to the Son He says: "Your
throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of righteousness is the scepter
of Your Kingdom.
If you pay close attention to the context, you find out that it is God
speaking. God is calling the Son, “God”.
Why is it important?
Isn't it only important that I believe in Jesus? Why do I have to believe
He's God?
1. There are other Jesus-es.
Paul rebuked the Corinthians for putting up with all kinds of strange
doctrines.
(2 Cor 11:2-4 NKJV) For I am
jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband,
that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. {3} But I fear, lest
somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be
corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. {4} For if he who comes
preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different
spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not
accepted; you may well put up with it!
It's important that you don't just stop at the name Jesus, but understand
correctly which Jesus it is you believe in.
To the Mormons, Jesus is the half-brother to Lucifer.
To the Jehovah's witnesses, Jesus is really Michael the archangel.
To Dan Brown in the DaVinci Code, Jesus was just a man.
There are these other fake Jesus-es designed by Satan to lead you away from
the real thing.
Not all Jesus-es are alike.
2. The payment for our sins
depends upon it.
Your whole relationship with God, and your eternal destiny depends upon how
you choose to pay for your sins.
The Bible says:
(Rom 3:23 NKJV)
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
We are all sinners. And committing
sin brings a penalty…
(Rom 6:23 NKJV)
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in
Christ Jesus our Lord.
This is spiritual death, separation from God, eternal
separation, hell.
The entire Bible lays out one thing clearly, that God has set up a system
whereby you can allow somebody else to pay for your sins.
That's the whole point behind the sacrifices in the Old
Testament, getting man used to the idea that he can allow someone else to pay
the price (like a lamb).
But for it to work, the one paying the bill was to be
“spotless”, otherwise when they paid the price of death, they’d only be paying
for their own bill, not yours.
That's what the Old Testament was hinting at when it
required the sacrifices to be "spotless" animals.
If I were to go through life without any sin (an
impossible task), I could choose at the end of my life to pay for your sin,
die, and go to hell for eternity in your place.
But since I'm not sinless, when I die, I’ll only pay for
my own sin, and go to hell.
And even if I could do it, I could only pay the price for
one person.
But with Jesus, we don't have to worry.
Yet if Jesus was spotless, but just an ordinary human and
not God, then how many people’s sins could He die for?
Only one other person.
But being God in the flesh, He didn't have just one finite
lift to lay down in death, but an infinite life to lay down.
And so He could pay for the sins of the entire world.
This is why the Bible says:
(Heb 10:14 NKJV)
For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being
sanctified.
If Jesus is not God, then He cannot fully pay for all of
our sins according to God's standards.
Have you trusted yet in the real Jesus?
Have you asked Him to pay for your sins?
What are you waiting for?