Mrs. Waite: Weren't you disturbed when you heard about the Gospel of Judas being
discovered? Didn't it upset you to learn that in the Gospel of Judas (1) the
precious Scriptures that we hold to dearly are doubted; (2) that Jesus said in
that Gospel of Judas that Judas was his very special friend; (3) and that He
knew He had to die and get out of this world so He would have His "special
friend" Judas betray him? Of course, that is all heresy. I want to have my
husband talk a little bit about this. We hear all kinds of things about
so-called "Christian" Gnostics who believe that the way of salvation is by
secret knowledge delivered by Jesus to his inner circle. We hear about Gnostic
gospels because we remember the Gospel of Mary in the Da Vinci Code and we know
how false that was and how those people said that Jesus was married to Mary
Magdalene. This also is complete heresy.
Mrs. Waite: Dr. Waite, I'm really glad you're here. We have tried real hard to
get together. Can you tell us something about Gnosticism and about why we are
all being swallowed up so by this Gospel of Judas which is absolutely wrong.
Dr. Waite: The Gospel of Judas is just the fourteenth of thirteen other false
Gnostic gospels and other books that were written in the days of the early
church. They are all Apocryphal or false books. They were never received by the
churches into the canon of Scripture, that is, they were never accepted as
genuine Scripture.
Let me list these false Gnostic productions:
The Prayer of the Apostle Paul
The Apocryphon of James
The Apocryphon of John
The Gospel of Thomas
The Gospel of Philip
The Book of Thomas the Contender
The (First) Apocalypse of James
The (Second) Apocalypse of James
The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles
The Apocalypse of Peter
The Letter of Peter to Philip
The Act of Peter
The Secret Gospel of Mark, and most recently discovered,
The Gospel of Judas
Mrs. Waite: I didn't really realize there were so many of these awful gospels
and Gnostic books. Now, you are going to tell us about the Gnostics.
Dr. Waite: Yes, these are other gospels of the Gnostics. I am taking this
material, by the way, from a 235 large-page book entitled Gnosticism: The
Doctrinal Foundation of the New Bible Versions by Mrs. Janet Moser from
Southfield, Michigan. (It is BFT #2732 and is available from the Bible For
Today, 900 Park Avenue, Collingswood, NJ 08108 for a gift of $25.00.) She has
written an excellent study in very great detail about Gnosticism.
Mrs. Waite: When Mrs. Moser first came to our house and talked about this, I
couldn't understand what she was talking about. But you knew what she was
talking about.
Dr. Waite: The word, "Gnostics," comes from the Greek word, GNOSIS, which means
"knowledge." The Gnostics believed that super knowledge, as Mrs. Waite mentioned
earlier, brings a person to salvation. For the Gnostics, you have to be
super-knowledgeable in order to be saved. What are some of the Gnostic
doctrines? For instance, in Soteriology, the Doctrine of Salvation, they believe
that Lucifer (the Devil) is the Saviour. Sophia, a woman deity, is the redeemer,
not the Lord Jesus Christ. They believe the means of salvation is that man is
saved by GNOSIS or knowledge.
Mrs. Waite: I remember Sophia is the goddess of Theo, and awhile ago people were
worshiping her.
Dr. Waite: That's right. The Gnostics believe that people are saved by the
symbolic death of Christ, not by the blood of Christ. (This is very similar to
the false teaching of John MacArthur about the blood of Christ. He teaches that
blood is only a symbol or figure of speech about death.) Then, in the Gnostic
faith, people are saved and perfected by asceticism or self-denial.
Mrs. Waite: Is asceticism where they beat themselves?
Dr. Waite:
Yes, that is part of asceticism. They sometimes beat themselves or
hurt themselves in other ways in order to gain salvation or merit with God. They
also believe that they are saved by following the example of the Redeemer rather
than genuine faith in Him. They believe people can be saved by sacraments, saved
by baptism, saved by formulas, saved by initiation rites, and saved by faith in
themselves. They believe that angles and even Satan will be saved. This is a
horrible doctrine. They even believe that the Lord Jesus Christ had to be
redeemed because He had a fallen nature. They didn't believe that He was perfect
God and perfect Man at all.
Mrs. Waite: Did this Gnosticism start in Egypt?
Dr. Waite: Yes, it began in Alexandria, Egypt. This was the center and source of
the teachings of Gnosticism.
Mrs. Waite: Isn't that also where a lot of the wrong manuscripts of our Bible
came from?
Dr. Waite: Yes, the leading Gnostics of Alexandria were (1) Clement of
Alexandria, (2) Origin, and (3) Eusebius. The false manuscripts that form the
basis of most modern Bible versions of today originated in this
Gnostic-dominated city of Alexandria. The main two manuscripts are the Vatican
("B") and the Sinai ("Aleph") manuscripts. They were made in the Gnostic
headquarters of Alexandria, Egypt and form, as Mrs. Moser as stated in the title
of her book, "The Doctrinal Foundation of the New Bible Versions."
Mrs. Waite: The Vatican and the Sinai are the Gnostic manuscripts that the New
International Version and the New American Standard Version are based upon?
Dr. Waite: Yes, the NIV, the NASV, the American Standard Version, the Revised
Standard Version, the New Revised Standard Version, the English Standard
Version, Good News for Modern Man, the Message, the Amplified Version, the
Living Version, and 99% of the other modern versions in English and every
foreign language in the world are based on the Gnostic Vatican ("B") and Sinai
("Aleph") Greek manuscripts. In the book I have been quoting from,
Gnosticism,
the Doctrinal Foundation of the New Bible Versions, we can see that every one of
these false doctrines that the Gnostics believed are found somewhere in the
Vatican and Sinai manuscripts ("B" and "Aleph") and the translations which are
based upon them.
In fact, the Gnostic manuscripts of "B" (Vatican) and "Aleph"
(Sinai) which Westcott and Hort used to form their false Greek New Testament,
drop out 2,886 Greek Words compared to the Received Greek Words that underlie
our King James Bible. In many instances, the result of these dropped out Words
was to conform the verse to the Gnostic heresies.
There are a total of over 8,000 differences (some minor differences and some
major differences) between the false Critical Texts (of either Westcott and Hort,
Nestle/Aland, or the United Bible Societies) and the Received Text Words
underlying the King James Bible.
In addition, and most importantly, because of the false Gnostic heresies, there
are 356 doctrinal passages where the Gnostic manuscripts of Vatican and Sinai
have followed the Gnostic false doctrines rather than the true doctrines found
in the Received Greek Text underlying the King James Bible. These 356 doctrinal
passages are also found in the NIV, the NASV, and the other English and
foreign-language translations based upon the Gnostic Vatican and Sinai
manuscripts.
Another false doctrine that the Gnostics believe is that the whole world will be
saved. In other words, they believe in universal salvation. This is absolutely
false. Only those who genuinely believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as their
Saviour will be saved.
Mrs. Waite: Universalism came from the Gnostics?
Dr. Waite:
Yes, that's right. Not only that, but they also believe that
salvation is a myth and not an historical event. They believe that some of the
evidences and proof that a person is saved is that they will become luminous (or
shining), they will speak in tongues (like the modern charismatic movement
teaches), and that you will enter the kingdom of God laughing (like the
"laughing revivals" in Toronto, Canada, a few years ago).
Mrs. Waite: What does "luminous" mean?
Dr. Waite: It means "light-bearing, or shining." I guess it is like having a
shiny nose or a shiny forehead. Some men and women use powder to get rid of the
shine. I guess the Gnostics liked it. The Lord Jesus Christ, according to
Gnosticism, is not the Son of God. They believe that Joseph was His literal
father and not God the Holy Spirit by means of the Virgin birth. So, to the
Gnostics, the Lord Jesus Christ was just a human being like all of us. This is
blasphemous.
According to the Gnostics, idolatry is not evil. The Gnostics believe that
marriage is evil.
Mrs. Waite: Marriage is evil?
Dr. Waite: That's right. But, on the contrary, they don't think either
prostitution, or homosexuality, or bisexuality, is evil. They believe these sins
are signs of perfection. They don't believe in a literal heaven or a literal
hell. The doctrines of the Christian faith are torn asunder. The Gnostics deny
the deity of Christ, His bodily resurrection, the saving power of the blood of
Christ, salvation by God's grace through genuine saving faith, and practically
all of the other important doctrines that the Bible teaches. Basically, Mrs.
Waite, that is what the Gnostics believe. There are many other details found in
Mrs. Moser's book on Gnosticism: The Doctrinal Foundation of the New Bible
Versions. This newly discovered and advertised Gospel of Judas is just one more
part of the multitude of heretical and blasphemous teachings of the Gnostics of
Alexandria, Egypt.
Mrs. Waite: I read here in this paper from The National Geographic that Bob Ehrman is chair of religious study at the University of North Carolina, in
Chapel Hill. He says, "This Gospel of Judas has a completely different
understanding of God, the world, Christ's Salvation, human existence, not to
mention of Judas, himself, that came to be embodied in the Christian creed and
cannon." So, this Judas Gospel is really rank heresy isn't it?
Dr. Waite: Yes, it is. No question about it. Judas was an evil person. The Lord
Jesus Christ said that one of the twelve disciples (meaning Judas) was "a devil"
(John 6:70). Of Judas it is written: "devil . . . put into the heart of Judas
Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray Him" (John 13:2). It is also said of Judas,
"Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the
twelve" (Luke 22:3). The Lord Jesus said to Judas, "What thou doest, do quickly"
(Luke 22:3). He went out and betrayed the Saviour. Judas was not a "friend," but
an enemy, and to represent him as a "friend" is absolutely erroneous and false.
Mrs. Waite: I know. It is terrible.
Dr. Waite: As someone has said, "With ‘friends' like that, who needs enemies?"
Mrs. Waite: Jesus had many enemies besides Judas when they crucified Him on
Calvary. He came to this world to die for the sins of the world.
Dr. Waite: That's right. That was His mission given to Him by God the Father.
Mrs. Waite:
He gave His life so that you and I and the people listening could be
born again. The apostle Peter said of Him, "Who His own Self bare our sins in
His own body on the tree . . ." (1 Peter 2:24). He was the "Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29b). Then he was buried and rose
bodily from the grave, which was the most miraculous thing.
Dr. Waite: The modernists and liberals say that Christ arose, but they don't
mean that it was a bodily resurrection. They just mean His spirit arose. The
congregations don't realize that when liberal pastors talk about "resurrection,"
they are not meaning a bodily resurrection. If you were to ask them if they mean
a bodily resurrection of the Saviour, they would say "No." They just mean that
His spirit arose.
Mrs. Waite: I hope that none of you girls go to that kind of church where they
say one thing, but mean another. Come and visit us at the Bible For Today
Baptist Church. We are starting the book of 2 Corinthians this week, verse by
verse. Our pianist touches our hearts with his music. Gertrude Sanborn has
written
"They have taken away my Lord, she wept.
He was not there.
She did not believe He was risen
And so she was in deep despair
But we understand more than Mary,
For God had raised His dear Son.
So let us not weep in the Garden,
On the grave of our dear absent one."
John 20:13,
"And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto
them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid
him."
Maybe you have laid somebody in the grave this very year and you grieve.
Dear
heart, I know this upsets you to have someone die, but most of all I'm wondering
about you.
If you should die would you go to be with the Lord Jesus
Christ in Heaven?
If you should die, where would your soul go? Would you be like Judas, "a
son of perdition" (John 17:12)?
Or would you be like those of us who know Jesus
Christ as our Saviour?
B.F.T. #3270
