04.12.06

Da Vinci, Judas, and Gnosticism, Oh My!

Posted in Recent Events at 8:06 am by CLP

If you pay any attention to national news you most likely have heard extensive coverage on the recent translation of the Gospel of Judas. This ancient scroll was discovered in caves in Egypt many years ago and has been passed around between collectors and traders until it was recently acquired by a group of preservationists. It is a Gnostic gospel believed to have been written around the third to fourth century.

Gnosticism was a growing movement that began in early Christianity and continued into the late fourth century that claimed to have special knowledge about the revelations of Jesus Christ (the word Gnostic means “knowledge”). They believed that having that special knowledge was the key to salvation and not faith in Jesus’ life, burial, and resurrection. The Gnostics also taught that the flesh was inherently evil and that for Jesus to have not sinned He could never has existed as a man in the flesh therefore they taught that Jesus existed in a “spirit form” and was never incarnated in the flesh.

The basic plot of the Gospel of Judas is that Judas was not actually a traitor but instead a co-conspirator alongside Jesus plotting in His death. In the story, Jesus comes to Judas and proclaims him as His favorite disciple because Judas was the only one who understood that Jesus must die as a suffering servant. When Jesus comes to Judas He instructs Judas to sell him out to the Sanhedrin.

Gnosticism in nothing new to the church and neither are their false gospels. The canonization of the New Testament dealt with these issues by rejecting previous Gnostic gospels such as the Gospel of Mary (Magdalene) and the Gospel of Thomas from which the Da Vinci Code is based off of. These teachings are heretical and are contradictory to the extensive historical documentation of who Jesus really was and what he taught.

As professing believers we are at a great point to defend our faith. With the recent news coverage of the Gospel of Judas and the movie The Da Vinci Code coming out soon we must be willing and able to defend our faith with knowledge and confidence because apologetics is a duty of every believer. Already, I have had people coming to me who think they have found a “nail in the coffin” issue against Christianity from these “lost” gospels and supposed cover-ups. Simply tell them that these things are nothing new even though it is being touted as such and that Gnosticism and missing gospels are not being covered up by the church because we have no need to do so.

Finally, be open about it. Not only can we defend our faith accurately with facts but we can use these many opportunities to share the true gospel with the people we encounter.

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