In this lesson, Pastor Dave Capoccia discusses the four main heresies affecting the Christian church before the fourth century. Pastor Dave emphasizes how the early church stood on the word handed down from the apostles to defend the faith and how we need to do the same today as we see new forms of the same old heresies. The four main early heresies were:
1. Monarchianism
2. Ebionism
3. Montanism
4. Gnosticism
Auto Transcript
Note: This rough transcript was automatically generated by YouTube’s AI algorithm. We provide it here for your convenience, but know it will surely contain errors as it has not been proofread or edited by a human.
approximately before the year 300 four main heresies afflicting the church and intriguingly each of these heresies had to do either with the nature of God and or the extent of God’s authoritative Revelation the nature of God and the extent of God’s authoritative Revelation the first main heresy was monarchianism monarchianism in that term you see the word monarch what is a monarchy okay it is a type of a rule by one head a King rule by one ruled by one king well monarchianism is just that it refers to a category of beliefs that deny the three persons of the trinity asserting instead that there is only one ruler one God the father and we see monarchianism emerge in Christian churches prominently in the second century but different forms of monarchianism have appeared throughout the centuries of Christianity the Trinity represents of course one of the Divine tensions or seeming paradoxes of the scripture a situation where we have the Bible asserting two seemingly contradictory ideas there is only one God that is emphatic from the Bible yet the Bible also emphatically proclaims that the father is God the son is God and the Holy Spirit is God fully God is one but God is three a man in his pride and fleshiness it does not like these kinds of tensions in the Bible and he often wants to resolve them somehow by rational explanation rather than accept by faith what the scripture says monarchianism is an effort to resolve the tension of the trinity by saying there is no Trinity it’s just one God one ruler and you might ask well how do monarchans deal with the obvious deity of Jesus and the Holy Spirit well there are two main ways that Christians professing Christians anyways in the second and third Century explained away the Trinity and they were adoptionism and sibelianism I’ll explain each of those adoptionism is the belief that Jesus was not originally God but he became God or a God he became the Son of God by adoption that was describing to this view pick up on statements in the New Testament about God begetting his son or about Jesus being exalted and people were thinking if Jesus were already God he wouldn’t need to be begotten or exalted therefore Jesus might not must not have always been God he became God they see the moment some moment during his ministry either his baptism or his resurrection or his Ascension as the moment that Jesus became God this view obviously denies the Virgin birth since Jesus would have just been a man at that point and it makes Jesus less than the father he’s just an exalted created being like a demigod or a super glorified man now that’s adoptionism sibelianism sought to explain away the trinity in a different way now you might know civilianism by another name modalism those are two words for the same idea what is modalism that’s right yes so Glenda was explaining modalism is that there’s one God who who just appears in different aspects or different forms at different times different modes and the name sibelianism that’s the way it was known in the early church it comes from the movement’s founder a man named sibelius who was a third Century priest or presbyter Elders kind of change in the way that they were viewed over time presbyters ended up being called priests sibelius was one of those guys in the civilian or modeless point of view God primarily manifested himself as the father in the Old Testament as the son in the gospels and as the Holy Spirit after Christ’s Ascension God was just putting on different masks as it were these are all really the same person just different costumes now civilianism seemingly allows Believers to affirm that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are both god well nonetheless affirming that there is only one God and even only one person in God but despite monarchism’s attempts to reconcile the Trinity by adoptionism or civilianism what is the fundamental problem with both of these views still one person and not three and why is that a problem one person and not three that’s not what the Bible teaches that’s the main problem this is not biblical always remember when dealing with heresy and you’re going to hear this again and again today we have to go back and see what do the scriptures actually say adoptionism and saying that Jesus only became God at some point during his ministry it doesn’t line up with statements of scripture like John 8 58 Jesus says truly truly I say to you before Abraham was born I am John 17 5. now father glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was or going back to the Old Testament Isaiah 9 6. for a child will be born to us a son will be given to us and the government will rest on his shoulders and his name will be called wonderful counselor Mighty God Eternal Father Prince of Peace so adoptionism goes against the scripture meanwhile sibelianism and saying that God is only one form at a time it makes Jesus ridiculously pray to himself throughout his time on Earth even though Jesus says he’s praying to the father who’s in heaven he even looks up to heaven at different times just all an act civilianism and also cannot explain what takes place at Jesus baptism Matthew 3 verses 16 to 17. the son comes up from the water the spirit descends upon the sun and the father speaks from heaven how can all those things be happening at the same time if it’s just one person civilianism also makes certain verses no longer straightforward or accurate like Jesus saying he goes to sit at the father’s right hand that makes no sense in the civilian View so note this the trinity despite what Skeptics and some secular authors assert is not something that was invented later at the Council of nicaea in 325 in the 4th century No our church fathers our early church fathers were adamant about Jesus being God and the Trinity being true according to the scriptures even before that time we hear statements like this one from tertullian in the second century early second century or I’m sorry late second century going into the third he says quote all the scriptures attest the clear existence of and distinction in the persons of the trinity and that’s from his work against praxius tertullian by the way is the Latin writer who coins our word Trinity he may have come up with a word to capture what the scripture says but it was already there it was obvious that tertullian and the other Church fathers that the Trinity is true because it’s in the Bible now that being said there is some debate about how much monarchinism took root in the church it’s a little hard to tell because tertullian writes what he does against Praxis he seems to indicate that a large number of Christians were drawn away into this heretical teaching he felt particularly compelled to write against it he saw it as a dangerous movement these early monarchian beliefs these early monarchian movements they would mostly Peter out by the end of the fourth Century civilianism adoptionism why well because it became illegal to teach them but monarching ideas would come back in a different form in the 4th century and that’s arianism talk more about that of course monarchism would also come back in Islam in the 7th century many early Christians actually saw Islam as a Christian cult when it first arrived and of course from anarchism still survives today among unitarians Oneness Pentecostals and what famous Christian cult the Jehovah Witnesses they say the same thing as the early monarchians a second major heresy in the early centuries of the church was ebbianism number two ebbianism and the names albionism and ebionite they do not come from the movement itself they were actually labels given to the movement by an opponent by the second century Church Father irenaeus of Lyon albionism comes from a word meaning poor perhaps because the ebonyites characterize themselves as poor or took vows of poverty but irenaeus probably uses that label for them sarcastically meaning that these persons were poor in Doctrine or poor when it comes to the riches of salvation who were the ebionites well the Epi nights were basically the early church version of the judaizers now who were the judaizers yeah Steve that’s exactly it if you look to the book of Acts or you look to Galatians this was a group in the New Testament Church mostly former Jews and Pharisees who said that Christians especially Gentiles they must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses in order to be saved this was the judaizers and Steve mentioned acts 15 that’s the when the Jerusalem Council takes place and meets to settle the question of whether Gentiles indeed need to keep the ceremonial law basically become Jews in order to be saved in order to be right with God and what was the council’s determination things strangled from immorality and uh there was a fourth one which I forget but yes the council determined no Gentiles do not need to become Jews they do not need to keep the ceremonial law but they should be sensitive to certain uh Jewish preferences things strangle things uh blood things sacrificed Idols I think was the fourth one and then from immorality now this decision it was pretty obvious and authoritative it unfortunately didn’t stop the early judaizers from continuing to assert among various congregations of Believers the opposite of what the apostles determined they said you still need to keep the law the mosaic law to be saved and this is why most likely we get the book of Galatians from Paul he sends it back to some of the churches he founded because the judaizers had come through and were upsetting the faith of many well the ebionites in the second and third centuries they’re just the Relentless judaizers in a new form according to irenaeus and his work against heresies the ebionites taught that submission to the Mosaic law was mandatory for Christians they added to that that Jesus was not God he was a created being he became the Son of God at his baptism hey it’s adoptionism again makes sense if you are so emphatic on the Mosaic law which emphasizes monotheism you are of a tendency to be hostile to the trinity they also taught that Paul was an apostate apostle which again kind of makes sense at least in their view because Paul’s writings particularly contradict the ebionites judaizing principles so by rejecting Paul you get rid of all those so many things that Paul says against your movement this does mean though that you reject much of the New Testament the Epi nights apparently clung particularly to the gospel of Matthew but in an altered form so how do you combat a heresy like avianism same thing as with monarchianism you go back to the scriptures and what do the scriptures say well first of all those who are relying on the scriptures had to call out the Abbey Knights for not submitting to God’s ordained Apostle Paul the churches recognized him appropriately as a spokesman of God the Abby Knights needed to as well but also like the Jerusalem Council early Christians responding to The Abbey Knights they contended that what Paul presented in his letters was entirely consistent with the Old Testament salvation has never been by The Works of the law it has always been by faith and who is one of the clearest examples of that in the Old Testament Abraham which is why he’s referred to multiple times in the New Testament as an example of faith don’t have time to read it in class today but you can look up Justin Martyrs dialogue with trifo as Justin martyr’s dialogue with trifo for an excellent presentation for why Christians do not need to keep the Old Testament ceremonial law it was being proclaimed even in the second century we are to do the same today now like monarchianism the judaizing ebbian heresy it survives today where at least two very obvious places Seventh-Day adventism they very explicitly say that Christians need to keep the law Sabbath especially and food laws the Hebrew Roots movement and I’d say even Roman Catholicism to some extent with its emphasis on externals and rituals we must particularly be aware that there will be an incessant Temptation towards legalism and externalism in the Christian church either by using the Old Testament law or a man-made tradition there’s a tendency to make obedience and external matter to make us focus on rituals and why is this well when people can focus on external works and rituals then they can really exalt themselves because they see themselves as fulfilling the law and earning their own righteousness which was the same as the Pharisees did in Jesus day but Jesus strongly confronted the Pharisees and this mindset in the gospels by clarifying that really keeping the law starts in the heart and that’s where we all utterly fail you can say hey I was baptized I did this ritual I did this prayer but when God says but you are to love the Lord with all your heart mind soul and strength every moment of your life no one can perfectly keep that law you cannot earn your salvation yeah go ahead Mark the Hebrew Roots movement yeah in many ways very similar to Seventh-Day adventism um emphasizing we need to go back we need to ReDiscover the Hebrew roots of Christianity and basically it’s just the Old Testament superimposed on top of Christianity you need to keep the Old Testament law unfortunately some of the Hebrew Roots persons apparently will call themselves Messianic Jews or a similar term which can kind of be confusing when we think about Jews for Jesus and other organizations where they also adopt a similar label oh I’m a completed Jew or I’m a Messianic Jew they’re actually different Hebrews think of that in a very different way than some Christian Jews do but yeah Hebrew Roots is another example urbanism Judy Judy ising it lives on and it’s going to come back again so we have to be prepared to respond with the scriptures a third main heresy in the early church was number three monsonism monsonism appearing in the mid-second century I mentioned this heresy on the first day of class if you were part of our group then what were the mountainous all about new prophecy that’s actually what they call their movement the name mountainism as others use it it came from the movement’s founder mountainous he was a convert from the countryside of Asia Minor in the second century and some say he was a former Pagan priest mountainous asserted that the miraculous gifts in the New Testament were still in operation in the Christian church especially prophecy mountainous actually saw himself as the Fulfillment of John 14 16 where Jesus prophesied to send a Helper and comforter the paraclete Montana said that’s me I am the holy spirit’s chosen vessel I am the organ of the paraclete but montness wasn’t alone he had with him two prophetesses Priscilla and maximilia and they formed the backbone of this new prophecy movement but they even those three were not the only ones supposedly empowered by the spirit they encouraged all their followers to pursue miraculous gifts this is why by the way if you read the acts of perpetua and Felicitas which I recommended to you in the previous class you will hear and that martyrdom account about many Christians having visions of the future or receiving Supernatural messages of comfort from God or miraculously enduring suffering say why is that well that’s because perpetua and the martyrs mentioned with her were mountainists who were monsonists and so they expected and they embraced prophetic dreams and miracles now what were mountainous usually prophesying about mostly the end of the world and the coming Kingdom of Jesus mountainists were definitely pre-millennial they fully expected that Jesus Kingdom would arrive during their lifetimes all right they they also expected that Jesus Kingdom would arrive during their lifetimes in a visible Earthly way they also prophesied about persecution and martyrdom and allegedly received messages from the Holy Spirit about various fasts and other duties that Christians were supposed to fulfill now when it came to the gospel of Salvation and most Christian doctrines the mountainous were actually quite right on they would be considered Orthodox in many ways though there was a group of civilian monsonists however there were several aspects of the mountainous movement that other Christians at the time found very concerning and for good reason first the mountainous claimed that their prophecies were binding on all Christians if you didn’t submit to the word of mountainous and his prophetesses you were considered to be in sin in their eyes and in Rebellion against God monsonus actually characterized themselves as spiritual people while those outside their movement were considered carnal people even profit killers so there’s that and then second Montana’s prophecy looked very different than prophecy seen in the Bible people describe the mountainous prophets as if they were spiritually possessed these prophets lost all self-control and spoke in a state of trance-like ecstasy and third the mountainous prophecies we’re not always accurate for example maximilia once prophesied after me there will be no more prophecy but the end that is the end of the world well maximilia died in ad 179 and the world did not end so errors like this were troubling for Christians our Christians supposed to submit the authority of these prophets and prophetesses when they weren’t always right fourth mountainous asserted that anyone could be leaders elders and prophets in the church including women but that’s somewhat logically consistent isn’t it if you think the spirit could be speaking authoritatively through anyone then it doesn’t matter when you’re looking for leaders and teachers in the church it doesn’t matter what that person’s gender is or whether that person has the biblical qualifications of being an elder or not finally the mountainous were extremely ascetic they were very strict about self-discipline denying worldly pleasures and embracing suffering for example they denied art as Vain and sinful women were not allowed to wear jewelry virgins had to wear veils marriage was discouraged remarriage was forbidden even after the death of a spouse and the Montana’s proclaimed frequent fasts from eating and drinking furthermore The Montanas were obsessed with martyrdom they saw all attempts to avoid persecution and or martyrdom as sinful compromise and a denial of Christ and such compromises were never allowed to be part of the monsonist fellowship now at first glance the mountainous extreme devotion an emphasis on spirituality seems admirable especially in the context of as we’ve seen in other lessons worldliness increasing worldliness and compromise appearing in the church a lot of Christians not standing up under persecution the mountainous clearly did and this is probably why our defender of the faith tertullian later became a mountainous or at least strongly supported them but where the monsonists right was God really bringing new prophecy and authoritative Revelation through them well most certainly not again because of what the scriptures say most mountainous prophets showed themselves to be false in multiple ways that the scripture has already told us to watch out for they were not always correct in their prophecies in Deuteronomy 18 22 says that if a prophecy doesn’t come true the person who spoke it is not God’s prophet the prophetic method of the mountainous was not biblical those who prophesy in the Bible do not do so in a way where they act possessed or in ecstasy it’s actually quite sober ecstatic prophecy has its roots in paganism not the Bible and the Montana’s founder montanus himself he twisted scripture obviously to justify his own prophecy John 14 16 is clearly not about mountainous but it is about the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in Acts 2.
there were other issues biblically with the practices and rigorous restrictions of the mountainists what they impose on themselves but the most fundamental error of this movement is the idea that there can be new revelation from God outside the scriptures that’s not true for the church age now don’t misunderstand I don’t think that or I do think that many of the montanists were true Christians it’s a little different from the ebony Knights and the monarchianists and that’s why I still recommend that you read that martyrdom account of perpetua and facilitas still there were serious dangers and problems in this idea of new Prophecy from God and we’ll say more about that with the next heresy in just a moment now do we see mountainism in a another form today say that again oh right the New Apostolic Reformation that’s right the charismatic and Pentecostal movements it’s just modernism again and we see the uh we see any many of the same characteristics many of the same errors and compromises uh like with female Authority in the church or ecstatic prophecy it’s the same things they they’ve come back now of course like the monthness not everyone in today’s continuationist movements charismaticism and Pentecostalism and Etc they don’t all believe the same thing you have to allow there’s some differences between them but what unites them is that the belief that the miraculous gifts in the New Testament especially prophecy they continue in God’s Church this is the fundamental error and it unfortunately has arisen again and again in church history and it will in the future if Christ carries people like Luther and Spurgeon they were warning people in their own times not to trust in new supposed Revelation from God not to insist that they had new prophecy so we have to do the same really what happened to montanus in the early church well many Christians condemned the next communicated them as divisive Heretics you guys are just causing division just saying everybody who doesn’t follow your prophecy is in sin we can’t fellowship with you oh not everybody condemn them but many did many Christians though join their movement they were attracted to the disciplined lifestyle and even showy spirituality of the mountainists still mountainous numbers eventually dwindled especially when Christian Roman emperors enacted laws against them so you have that kind of that double-edged sword where if there’s a an emperor who’s right on doctrinally he can be helpful for getting rid of heresies but when he goes astray then he hurts the church monsonism mostly petered out by the 4th Century but an offshoot of the montanista tertullianists it would last till about the 6th century so we’ve seen three of the main early heresies the monsonists in many ways were a radical group with their claims of new authoritative Revelation but monsonism looks extremely conservative compared to the last heresy we’ll talk about today and that is gnosticism gnosticism you know if you’ve been following Pastor Bobby’s Colossians series you already know a little bit about gnosticism the name gnosticism has the root word gnosis in it referring to what knowledge knowledge gnosticism it takes many many forms so if you’re going to say this is what gnosticism believes well actually there’s a lot of variety under that category but there are two core components to pretty much any branch of gnosticism that is first of all secret knowledge and gnosticism there is a secret knowledge which you need to learn for salvation from an expert teacher who either share his enlightened knowledge with you or show you how you can discover that knowledge yourself you can become enlightened so that’s one core belief and the other is that the material is evil and the spiritual is good material world is evil and inferior the spiritual world is good and Superior that didn’t originate with gnosticism that was a idea that appeared in Greco-Roman philosophy in the earlier centuries but it certainly was taken up by gnosticism now the secret knowledge in gnosticism is meant to help you transcend the physical world and reach the spiritual and this is what salvation is all about in gnosticism it is not about the Redemption of your soul from sin through Christ’s blood it is about the Escape of your soul from this evil physical plane of existence and the transport of your soul to the better spiritual world so to the gnostics life is not about God’s Redemption plan it is about the struggle of the material versus the immaterial matter versus spirit gnosticism’s view of God is totally mythological again there’s a lot of variety but here’s the consistent part gnostics do acknowledge a supreme Divine being usually unknowable some unknowable Supreme deity but there are also many lower emanations from that deity in other words there is a supreme god and many lesser gods that have been reproduced from this supreme god now that may sound completely ridiculous to us as a Christian belief but remember that we live in a different time as has been pointed out by others before they’re surely going to be in the decades and centuries of those who come after us many who look back at some of what we believe today and they say I can’t believe they believed that why did they compromise in that way well it was true in that time too despite how gnosticism sounds to us the appeal was definitely there in the early centuries you the gnostics would tell you can find out the real secrets to the universe you can become one of the truly enlightened ones you will no longer walk as so many of the others in ignorance you can know the secrets you can join the enlightened Society you can transcend actually many Colts basically make the same appeal today their narcissism doesn’t officially appear until the second century and this is pretty well documented elements of it some ideas of gnosticism appeared appeared apparently even in New Testament times prompting for example different statements in the New Testament including this one from John and first John in first John 4 verses 2 and 3 first John 4 2 and 3 the Apostle John writes this by this you know the spirit of God every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God this is the spirit of antichrist which you have heard that it is coming and now it is already in the world so if you were listening closely to that verse those verses what were some people apparently denying about Christ in the New Testament Church that’s right that he had a body that he was a physical person that he came in the flesh there’s a name for this belief it’s called docetism I’ve heard people call it docitism but apparently it’s pronounced docitism docetism is the idea that Christ didn’t actually have a body a physical body but only the appearance of a body this would be a stable belief of gnosticism because he can’t if if he has a physical body then he’s got evil and inferiority attached to him and we can’t have that in our religion as just one example of the type of belief in gnosticism let me share with you about the valentinian gnostics or valentinianism we know a lot about this group because this was the group that irenaeus specifically wrote against in another place in his work against heresies and using irenaeus historian Brian litvin summarizes valentinian belief in his book getting to know the church fathers here’s a few paragraphs about the valentinian gnostics from Brian Littman valentinian gnostics believed in a Heavenly fullness which consisted of 30 Angelic beings called Aeons the Aeons always came in male female pairs these conjugal pairs emitted lower Aeons and the last of these emissions was Sophia wisdom but Sophia became passionate and wickedly longed for the highest father apart from her own consort though she was though she was eventually healed from her Grievous action her evil thought which had given rise to her sin was cast out of the fullness like an aborted fetus this shapeless thought took on a personified form named mother akimoth she was in a hopeless State until the Christ came to her and enabled akamoth to bring forth substances from within herself one of the beings she brought forth was the Demi urge that’s the Greek word that means Craftsman he was the ignorant creator of the entire physical world in which we live and many Gnostic accounts the demiurge was equated with Yahweh the Jewish god of the Old Testament who foolishly thought he was the one true God only the enlightened gnostics knew he was actually a corrupted being far inferior to the goddess Sophia in order to give secret wisdom to the spiritual gnostics the demiur Yahweh is said to have given birth to a son who was fulfilled who was filled with the spiritual seed of mother akimoth this son was the Christ who passed through Mary without taking a body from her he was just like water flowing through a tube the gnostics often said the Christ inhabited the body of the man Jesus of Nazareth but his body was not made of real flesh the docidic Christ who possessed the illusion of the body came into the world to teach spiritual precepts that only in the enlightened gnostics would be able to comprehend through the purging action of this revealed knowledge the gnostics would eventually make their way into the fullness purified spirits now does that sound whack or what if the sad truth is this was being preached in the Name of Christ and many people believed in it rightly do the church fathers quote First Timothy 6 when dealing with heresies like this this is that which is falsely called knowledge another form of gnosticism was something called manichaeism and if you know a little bit about early church history you may have heard of this Branch before because a famous 4th Century Church father was a former mannequin anybody know who that was Augustine Augustine actually was a former manichaean now where did this come from this heresy developed from a man named Manny or manichaeus in Latin he was a Persian in the second century who mixed Christian Gnostic zoroastrian and even Buddhist ideas many similar to montanus he claimed to be the paraclete and to be the last of a series of prophets that included Buddha zoroaster and Jesus what came out of Manny’s mind which he ascribed to a supernatural Spirit called the twin he wrote down as scripture does this sound like anything else you’ve heard of this scripture teaches a belief which sounds like something you might see in a fantasy movie today there’s a spiritual world of light and a material world of Darkness there that are at War God is the Eternal ruler of the Kingdom of Light who is powerful but not omnipotent and Satan is the semi-eternal ruler of the kingdom of darkness each ruler has a number of other deities with them in their realms and Once Upon a Time the kingdom of darkness attacked the Kingdom of Light resulting in the temporary Universe in which humans lived where humans lived and this is a universe with light and dark mixed into the Earth and then each person salvation then for the manichaeans oops is God through Jesus trying to communicate to man about The Light Within them and show them the way into the Kingdom of Light while Satan and his demons they’re trying to consume The Light Within each person and prevent them from going to the world of light now it is knowledge of this Inner Light not repentance that brings a person to Salvation convert needs to identify with his soul with the portion of himself that is light to escape the darkness of mere matter the manichaeism gained many followers and lasted especially in the East even towards Asia beyond the 7th century my last slide here I actually have a picture of a manichean temple that still exists today in China one of manichaeisms oh I should also say the rise of it is the rise of Islam did much to squelch this heresy they didn’t like that spreading around one of manichaeism’s Chief attractions was its explanation for the problem of evil and this is something that people still wrestle with today we’re actually just talking about it in our men’s group last Tuesday in the mannequin view evil does not come from God because God is Not omnipotent evil comes from Satan who seems to have a power almost equal to God mannequin converts joined one of two groups or like different tiers of devotion you could be one of the elect and they adhere to strict lives of self-denial or you could be one of the hearers who didn’t live that strict life but who supported the elect with money and services and therefore they got some spiritual benefit Augustine he became a hearer of the manichans for a little while and like other Gnostic groups the mannequins also Embrace docitism they said Jesus did not have a real body since that would imply some Darkness within Christ he only had the appearance of body now there’s one other type of spin-off of gnosticism that I’ll mention to you before we talk about how Christians responded to gnosticism and that’s martianism not to be confused at all with Marcy our dear brother in this church nothing to do with him this is martianism emerges in the second century now there’s some debate as to whether martianism is actually Gnostic since marcian the founder only used scripture to come up with his belief system he did not assert some other Supernatural Revelation or outside authoritative source nevertheless his teaching sounds a lot like gnosticism and it may have been influenced by it Martian was a wealthy ship owner from Asia Minor and the son of a bishop son of a leader in the church in his study marcians of the Old Testament and the apostolic letters got caught up in what he saw as profound differences in how God presents himself in the different Testaments in this Quest thing would surely sound like some of what people say today why is the god of the Old Testament so angry why is laws so harsh how could he order for whole peoples to be destroyed in contrast the god of the New Testament seems to be so loving forgiving saving not judging and Jesus teaching in the New Testament seems incompatible with the Old Testament law how can this be the same God now unfortunately marcian like many today fails to notice that the we actually see many times in the Old Testament the patient compassion of God and we also see in the New Testament the holy wrath and jealousy of Jesus and the father marcine didn’t pay attention to that instead came up with a heretical answer to his questioning and can you guess what his solution was not joined together and not that God changed we actually have two different gods the gods of the Old Testament in the New Testament must be different this is what marcyon taught there are actually two gods in the Bible there’s the jealous inconsistent angry Tyrant of the Old Testament who was the Demi urge who created our flawed world and then there’s the true unknown god of the New Testament it was all righteousness and love who sent Jesus to deliver mankind not from sin but from the cruel God of the Old Testament now this Viewpoint is immediately problematic isn’t it because the New Testament Jesus himself speaks very positively about the God of the Old Testament so if you’re marcian and you’re convinced of your belief what do you do edit the New Testament change the Bible in a strange coincidence marcion does the same yet opposite thing as the ebionites marcian rejects all of the New Testament except the writings of Paul some of the writings of Paul namely 10 of his Epistles and an edited version of Luke so Martian saw Paul as the only true apostle kind of hilarious but sad at the same time Abby Knights thought Paul was an apostate Martian saw him as the only faithful apostle now how did Martian decide that Paul’s scriptures were right and all the others weren’t well pretty much just came down to his own reasoning and Analysis if a new testament passage said something positive about the God of the Old Testament or suggested that Christianity is the culmination of Old Testament Judaism well obviously that’s wrong that has to go that was basically Martian’s mindset if albinism is Christianity with a pro-jewish spin Marxism is Christianity with an anti-jewish men and it’s no accident that martianism began or Martian began to spread his teaching around 140 ad 140 that is right after the Jewish barcopa Revolt where the Romans exterminated and exiled most Jews in Palestine now Martian was condemned as a heretic excommunicated by the main Christian Church even excommunicated by his own father the bishop but martianism would stick around in Europe for a few hundred years and even longer outside Europe now let’s consider each of these varieties of Gnostic belief how does the true church respond to the gnostics to those who say we have the secret knowledge we know who God really is we know how to transcend you go back to scripture you go back to scripture and specifically what truth from the scriptures that the Bible culminating in the New Testament is the only trustworthy source of knowledge it is the only authoritative source of knowledge in Galatians 1 6-8 Paul warns that Christians ought not to listen to any gospel any supposed Revelation from God that is different from what the apostles preached in fact even if it’s brought by an Angel don’t even listen to it let that person be anathema damned to hell and this is basically what irenaeus of Leon wrote against the gnostics this is again from against heresies irenaeus says we have received the disposition of our salvation by no others but by those by whom the gospel came to us which they then preached and afterward by God’s will were delivered to us in the scriptures to be the pillar and ground of our faith the authoritative Revelation was completed by the apostles handed down to us in the scriptures and that is what we are to hold to nothing beyond that so basically the early church and even we today would say should say I don’t care where else do you think you got your secret Knowledge from it’s false it’s not authoritative it’s not true knowledge it is your own Vain and even soul damning imaginings really if you give up the scriptures if you add to them if you take away from them then you are rebelling against Christ’s own climactic Revelation the revelation of himself his revelation you’re also rebelling against the authority that he gave to his Apostles to declare and further explain that revelation Hebrews 2 1-4 warns that we better pay attention to the sun’s revelation we dare not drift away from it lest we be judged for neglecting so great a Salvation Paul further mentions in Ephesians 2 20 that the apostles and Prophets fulfilled their role as Foundation layers for the church by their teaching with that Foundation fully laid there are no new Apostles or prophets in the church in the church age to bring Revelation no not Muhammad no not zoroaster not Manny not Martian no one is going to complete God’s revelation because it has been the it has already been laid down we don’t need another Foundation we don’t need a new Foundation it’s already been laid by Jesus through his Apostles and Prophets now I spectacularly ridiculous as these different Gnostic heresies are does gnosticism live on today in Christianity it does it does how hmm yeah I think that’s actually a good insight and not just with certain ideas about social justice but even uh regarding Soul Care via psychology and Psychiatry oh no you don’t really know how to care about the care for the soul the scriptures are not enough you need our expert knowledge and we’re the only ones who really understand so with social justice or with ideas about racism or with ideas about uh psychology and Psychiatry it is often presented as if it were Gnostic knowledge so I do think that is one way we see that this kind of thinking in the church and of course Christians are being strongly pressured to integrate this integrate this into Christianity I would say really anybody who claims to be the prophet or authoritative teacher with secret knowledge about God he sets himself up just like these gnostics and we do see that today so thus standing condemned along with the gnostics are many in the charismatic movement many in the word of faith movement many Seventh-Day Adventists prophets Roman Catholic Popes Muhammad yet the clearest Revival of Christian Gnostic teaching today I would say is a certain Christian cult with authoritative scriptures outside the Bible and an absolutely bizarre cosmology what cult is that Mormonism if you want to understand what Mormonism is it’s basically revived Christian gnosticism I mean you’ve got the mythology you’ve got the extra scriptures you’ve got Joseph Smith saying I am the last prophet of God I’m the one who’s going to fix everything that got corrupted in Christian teaching it’s just gnosticism Reborn you won’t of course find there are more bizarre teachings on their website or in the mouths of their evangelists when they come to your door but if you dig a Little Deeper if you just read for example Joseph Smith’s sermon known as King philots King Philip’s discourse you will hear how plainly Gnostic Mormonism is he says in that sermon nobody can teach you any more no one can teach you the truth better than I have and you must learn how you can become Gods yourselves it’s bizarre so I’ve seen the more four main types of heresies that assaulted the early church monarchism saying that there’s only one God and no Trinity ebonism saying Christians must keep the Old Testament law modernism saying the New Testament sign gifts have returned especially new prophecy and gnosticism saying that the secret Knowledge from an enlightened teacher will deliver you from this evil Material World to the immaterial world of the spirit but before we end I do want us to ask I do want to ask an answer what was the ultimate effect of these heresies on the early church and they’re basically two there’s that mannequin Temple first fact is that many were LED astray it’s hard to know how many but understand that these heresies were not Niche movements the reason we know about them today is because they were widespread theatolian indicates that there are many who fell into the monarchian era and some historians have claimed that manichaeism that version of gnosticism was actually Christianity’s main rival in the third and fourth centuries and look for a while we didn’t know which one of those was going to win especially in the east so these facts should sober our enthusiasm a little bit when we talk about the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire and Beyond some of what actually spread was not true Christianity and some of the Christian Martyrs that we otherwise would want to admire and imitate they’re actually Heretics this is all the more tragic when we realize that all of these errors except for maybe mountainism they proclaimed a different message of salvation which meant that their adherence if they died believing in it they went to hell they were damned for their belief in these heresies they were deceived but they were also accountable and one sense they wanted the deception they did not want the true God or else as he promises in the scriptures he would have been found by them so these heresies were on the one hand deadly to men’s souls and hurtful to the church in the first three centuries yet these heresies also had the the result of strengthening the true church you say how could that be well think about your own experience when someone presents to you an idea that you don’t think is biblical but you’re not quite sure how to respond what do you end up doing you go and do research you go and search the scriptures and what is the result you end up understanding the scriptures better you become more confident in your convictions and you become more articulate in defending Christianity and this is exactly the result in the early church as people challenge Christians on the Trinity Old Testament law and the Canon of the Bible itself early Christians and church leaders they were forced to think more critically about these issues and forced to go back to the scriptures what really did belong as God’s set or Canon of Revelation how do you biblically explain Jesus relationship with the father heresy often provides the impetus to Define more clearly what the Bible actually says not to come up with new beliefs in response to heresy but to clarify what the Bible has already said and this is what we see in the early church and this is what we would see in the centuries after the or the the most early church these Concepts would show up in different Church councils and today we still appreciate those councils clear statements on biblical theology these councils really were responding to different heretical movements at the times that were affecting the church so again I say heresy often brings a clearer and more confident proclamation of the truth and that’s true with even the things that we’re dealing with today or it should be God as he always does uses something meant for evil for his own glorious purpose heresy ultimately resulted in the strengthening of the true church and we’re still benefiting from that positive result of early heresies today now next time we’ll take a look at how the early church came to consensus about the biblical Canon what really belongs in the Bible and we’ll also talk about certain doctrinal proclamations that were published via ecumenical church councils so not quite done with heresies but I’m going to focus more on Canon and councils next time all right we’re out of time let’s close in prayer Lord we thank you for our brothers and sisters of the past who stood up for your truth and who remind us who teach us once again that we must hold fast to your scriptures we must hold fast to what you gave us through the prophets and apostles we are not to look for new revelation we are not to contradict this Revelation with man’s ideas we are to hold fast to it and Proclaim it and defend it with you god with your power and your wisdom we can do this it would help us not to drift away help us to remain confident in your sufficient and supreme word in Jesus name amen thank you