CHRISTIANITY AS GNOSTICISM OF DOCTRINE AND INFORMATION

I’ve never quite understood the feeling that drives people to declare others are in hell just because they don’t belong to their religion or culture — or simply because they’ve never heard a supposedly salvation-bearing piece of information.

And what about when you see a certain victorious joy on the face of the person making the condemnation?

It’s likely the deepest expression of sadism, the most horrendous thirst for power, the most inhuman display of arrogance — and the most satanic of all self-glorifying affirmations.

To claim someone went to hell for not knowing a particular doctrine or piece of information is the ultimate expression of DOGMATIC GNOSTICISM.

Yes — salvation by the illumination of objective knowledge, with a name, an address, geography, history, morality, civics, and a handful of other things...

Then someone might say: “But it’s by faith! Not by knowledge!”

Of course it is! But if that faith must be produced by a historical piece of information, then that faith is no longer truly faith — it’s knowledge. In other words, it’s gnosis — and therefore, being a doctrine that illuminates, it becomes gnosticism, not faith.

Faith precedes information — even though faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God!

So how can this be?

The Word of God is not just information. It can be information, yes, but that’s an infinitely lower dimension of what the Word really is.

The Word of God is God.

It is Person.

It is Love.

It is everything that God is.

Just as all that exists was made by and through the Word, everything else is also the Word of God. And only God can say what is not His Word.

Personally, I see the Word more than I hear it. Because it is always more incarnation than explanation.

It was with this understanding of the Word that Paul used Psalm 19 in Romans 10 — making Nature/Creation [Psalm 19] proclaim the saving Word of God to the ends of the world. So that even those without information would not be left without notion.

Those who receive the information must confess the faith with their mouth, believing in their heart, as Paul said. But those who have the Word without the information — these express their faith through their works. Because they do not possess the information that would allow them to explain the power behind their inexplicable certainty. So, by their works and their manifestations of love, they declare their faith, just as James affirmed.

Jesus made it clear in Luke 13, Matthew 7, and Matthew 25, for example, that those who receive the teaching but base their faith only on belief in doctrine and information — would be left out.

In Matthew 25, He says it was the ones who had no symbol or knowledge “of Jesus” but still did good, without even knowing it was connected to Him — these were the ones declared blessed. Because He said: “You did it to Me.” Not that there aren’t many blessed people who do have the information and, sincerely, do good because of it — as a conscious privilege.

But what can be said is that, whether in Jesus’ parables or His teachings about the end, the ones most at risk are always those who say they have the information — the saving gnosis as doctrine, the certainty that they are “the children of the kingdom.”

It’s impossible to read the four Gospels honestly, paying attention to Jesus’ actions, His ways, His treatment of people, and His teachings — all consistent with His character — and not admit this truth.

So we return to the question:What kind of evil compels someone to joyfully declare another soul is condemned — just for being different from us?

The sin of Satan was one of pride, gnosticism, and narcissism. Power as superior knowledge — or anything that exalts — is what made Satan become the devil.

That’s why the gnosis of faith in Jesus is not primarily information. It’s formation. It’s good soil that comes before the seed/information.

The saving knowledge comes from an experience with the love of God, expressed through the fruit of love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, patience, gentleness, and self-control — things against which there is no law, and I tell you, no doctrine either.

One day — or that Day — you’ll understand me.

In Him,

With all eternity as witness in love.