Gnostic Eschatology

A lot of the things you first think of when you think of Gnosticism are merely cosmetic elements that were not universal (not even all Gnostics were pretending to be Christian).

It is not actually required for Gnostics to view the Yahweh of the Old Testament as an Evil Demiurge, or that there are other gods above him.  Nor to make the Serpent good.  But such things certainly were and even still are common.

It's not too hard to turn Biblical Christianity into Gnosticism with only a few key heresies.  The Greek New Testament uses many of the same key words and phrases the Gnostics later used.  Just like modern JWs and Mormons and other cults uses the same terminology Evangelicals use, but they mean different things by them.

Logos and Sophia are used largely because they are accurate Greek translations of Old Testament concepts, The Word and Wisdom.  Both the terms "Archon of the Kosmos" and "God of this World" used of Satan by Jesus in John and Paul respectively, are used in Gnosticism for the Ialdobath.

The core tenet of Gnosticism is disdain for the physical world.  The Bible tells us the Earthly realm has been corrupted by The Fall.  But it will be Restored in the End in Revelation 21-22.  And those who are Saved will be perfected in The Resurrection.

Gnosticism however views the Physical world as inherently Evil, and our Physical bodies as a prison.  So denying a literal Bodily Resurrection of all Believers is key to them.

This is of course what Amillenial and Full Preterist eschatology requires.  Denying a literal Resurrection.

One Preterist website I had studied talks about how the Resurrection is only spiritual, it's about freeing the Souls of the Saved from Sheol only.

And they tied into that a belief in either The Gap Theory or the Extended Day Theory, I don't recall which one.  They insisted physical Death was always Adam's destiny, the Fall only caused spiritual death.  And some Christians even consider theories that Adam didn't have a physical Body before the Fall.  That idea is refuted to me by him saying Eve was made of his Flesh and Bone, but I do think it's possible Blood (as we currently define it) didn't exist before The Fall.

Augustine of Hippo was both the key popularizer of Amillenial eschatology within the Church, and one of the first to reject a literal interpretation of Genesis.  He came out of Gnosticism, and was open about still revering the Platonic Philosophy from which Gnosticism was derived.

I should add of course you can be Futurist and Premillennial and still hold a Gnostic outlook, if you Believe the Resurrection is only Spiritual, which I have seen examples of.

It's funny how Dan Brown in The DaVincci Code sought to create a narrative of modern Roman Catholicism and the Gnostics as arch rivals.  Brown did not comprehend Gnosticism at all, his version of them was the opposite on this very key defining trait.  (The hardcore ancient Gnostics denied Jesus had a physical body, so their Jesus certainly didn't have sex or have children).  The Vatican meanwhile is pretty Gnostic thanks to how much of Augustine they canonized.

Problems I have with the Extended Day Theory and the Gap Theory

This is supplemental to my Fall of Lucifer post.

The Hebrew phrase translated in Genesis 1:2 "without form, and void" simply means it was unformed and unfinished. In Genesis 1:1 God Created all Matter as well as both Time and Space, but in verses 3 on He refined and perfected the details.

Chuck Missler likes to say the Gap Theory comes from Isaiah 45:18 "he created it not in vain" saying the "in Vain" part is one of key words in Hebrew of "without form and void". This is merely referring to when the 6 days are over however. When " God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good". To me that assessment would be absurd if Satan had already fallen and there had already been death.

Chuck also likes to claim that phrase is an expression of Judgment, but that's only based on later usages in different contexts.

Jeremiah 4:23-26 is however the real linchpin of the Gap Theory view of that phrase.

I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.  I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.  I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.  I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger.

The word for 'man" used here is "Adam" so they take it as meaning Pre-Adamic, so there was a Pre-Adamic civilization. But all "there was no man" means here is these cities are now uninhabited because they've been judged and their populations are dead or gone.

Those who want to see this as being about some Ancient Pre-Adamic cataclysm are ignoring the rest of the Prophecy, which mentions, Jerusalem and Judah and Ephraim and Dan. This is an End Times prophecy about the future Judgment upon our Age. All the destructive imagery here is parallel to things said in Revelation.

Another issue is the use of the term "refill and replenish". We today are used to the prefix "re" meaning doing it again or doing it over, but it didn't always mean that in 1611. But more importantly that's not what the Hebrew says, the Hebrew phrase simply means to "fill and populate", no Hebrew equivalents to the "re" prefix are used.

My objection to both the Gap Theory and the Extended Day Theory and any Old Earth model is not simply about anything in Genesis, it's primarily New Testament.

Romans 5:12 "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned"
I Corinthians 15:21 "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead."

Meaning as I said when discussing Satan's fall, nothing bad ever happened before Genesis 3.

On the subject of the Extended Day theory, there are also those who like to suggest using all kinds of technical facts about the relativity of Time, (like that time has been slowing down) to claim that all the supposed Old Earth evidence from Secular Science is in fact completely compatible with a literal interpretation of Genesis.

There may indeed be some good insights to learn from studying those issues. But what's important to keep in mind is two things.

1. The claim made by secular science about history is different in more then just how much time passes, even the order things were created is different. The Big Bang Theory claims the Sun must've existed before The Earth. Also the development of Life on this Planet is incompatible, life didn't start in the ocean Biblically.  And Genesis even says the Moon was created before the Sun.

I personally get really annoyed when people making Extended Day Theory arguments go all "how could it be a 24 Hour Day if the Sun and Moon weren't there the first few days?". But even more annoyed when people who aren't even Christians say that just to mock Young Earth Creationists, because it betrays their own principles.

The Sun, Moon and Stars are only part of how we measure a Day, what a Day actually is is the Earth's rotation. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." I believe right on Day One The Planet Earth existed, was already a sphere and was already spinning. If anything I might accept that days were shorter originally as the Earth's rotation has been slowing.

Some of you might want to argue this just means the Earth as in the element, and not specifically our planet. But Hebrew had different words for Earth (so did Greek and Latin actually), the Earth element is Adamah, which Adam was made from. Genesis 1:1 uses 'erets.  Erets can be used of Land as in land masses in addition to the planet.  But not of the element.

2. Really derives from 1, and I'd already talked about it anyway, but it's worth repeating. Any interpretation of how to fit Genesis with Science that has anything human or animal die before Adam's Sin is heretical. Meaning if your going to believe that Dinosaurs went extinct long before Man came into existence, your view is UnBibical.

To me all the supposed Evidence for Millions or Billions of years is all B.S. anyway, I honestly don't think I'd buy it even if I wasn't a believer. But addressing those things is for others more scientifically educated them myself.  I recommend Kent Hovind and Ken Ham, and also Creation Wiki.