Gnosticism through the ages

Gnosticism, throughout the millennia has come in many forms.

 

I have taken some information from http://armageddonconspiracy.co.uk/the-illuminati-network(1564027).htm. Does any of this sound recognizable in our modern setting?

 

Some of its followers have been exclusive, hidden away in privacy. One group “repudiated social and moral norms and were often highly promiscuous. However, this promiscuity was more like the ‘free love’ of the 1960s. It was frequently accompanied by drug use, was intended to spread love and community, and, above all, was aimed at being a conduit to a higher plane, to spiritual emancipation and communion with the higher self.

 

“If they succeeded in linking to their higher self, they would be filled with spiritual, mystical understanding—gnosis itself—that would reveal the true nature of existence. Acting through their higher self, part of the divine order, they would no longer be capable of sinning. They would be truly free of the constraints and travails of the world. For this reason, they were called Eleutherians—from the Greek word for ‘free’.”

 

Another group, the Hesychasts were “an offshoot of the Illuminati that appeared in Macedonia in the Byzantine Empire in the 14th Century. Their activities were centred on the monastic community at Mount Athos (‘Holy Mountain’). The Hesychasts were mystics who endeavoured to see a vision of the light of the True God. They regarded this contemplation as the highest goal of humanity, taking them as close as possible to the divine order, bringing them into the company of the divine spark, their higher self. In this way they could become united with God. This experience could be described as ‘unio mystica’ (mystical union), the ecstatic feeling of being one with God.”

 

The feelings of peace and love from familiar spirits are exactly what Jehovah had expressly forbade the Israelites.

 

“Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God.”(Lev. 19:31). “And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set My face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.” (Lev. 20:6). “And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living [instead of] to the dead?” (Isa. 8:19).

 

Another, “the Alumbrados (also known as Aluminados)—the Spanish chapter of the Illuminati in the 15th and 16th centuries. Ignatius of Loyola was a senior member of the Alumbrados, assigned the task of infiltrating the Catholic Church with a new group modelled on a non-military version of the Knights Templar. The group he founded was the Jesuit Order.

 

“The Alumbrados recruited a number of ‘Conversos’—Jews who had been forced by the Spanish authorities to convert to Christianity if they wanted to remain in the country or even simply to stay alive. Many of these were well versed in the teachings of the Kabbalah. ‘Moriscos’ (forced Moorish converts) were also recruited. The Illuminati have always been happy to take new members from different traditions, provided those people are not wedded to the mainstream ‘religions’. The Conversos and Moriscos were usually those who were already uncomfortable with their original religions, though they had no fondness for Christianity, simply converting for convenience rather than through any conviction.

 

“Like the Hesychasts, the Alumbrados sought to achieve a state of perfection that would allow them to experience a vision of God; a direct transcendental encounter with the divine. At that point, when they had received the ‘light’, they would be able to communicate directly with their higher self.”

 

Still another, the “Jesuit order (The Society of Jesus) was established by the Illuminati as another attempt (following the Templars) to infiltrate Catholicism and seize power from within. Like the Knights Templar, they were known as ‘Soldiers of Christ’, though they were not a military order.”

 

The efforts of all of these groups has been to attain enlightenment without submission to the Law of God. They would not allow the Spirit of truth to strive against them and eventually bring them to the holy God. Standing before the Law by reading the Bible and the Spirit of prophecy from Ellen White and studying its principles of human treatment and service to God, always cause revulsion in us toward righteousness because of our sin nature. But, ultimately, if we let patience have her perfect work and continue to allow the truth of righteousness to boil away our rebellion, we will come forth as gold. We finally surrender to God and to His grinding and scourging of our conscience. When we surrender to His power, He shows us a Savior in His Son. “All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me; and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.” (Jn. 6:37). “Blessed are all they that wait for Him.” (Isa. 30:18).

 

This is the beautiful, eternal truth of the word of God that Satan has sought to snuff out, throughout all ages through all of his religions. Real salvation is so simple; and automatically from the outset employs the heaven/earth connection that immediately creates faith. And the end product is a justified soul, freed of the powerful torment that, through His Spirit, God brings to bear against every fallen son of Adam. Such a soul is filled with the strength to live by God’s high standard, His Law. “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.” (Heb. 10:22).

 

But, the soul whom Satan has emboldened to get to God without going through His Savior Son spends his days working hard for peace, but never to the satisfying of his soul or flesh. Satan will not permit them to be humbled and convicted by God’s Law in order to find peace. “The end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned: from which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling.” (1Tim. 1:5,6).

 

Only in the Bible is the real salvation. So full of counterfeits is the world, that only to a single man, Abraham, could God speak and draw upon his heart. So much confusion had Satan already created in the young earth after the flood. We see many ancient and still existent secret groups adding to the pantheon of different roads to salvation. Their main goal is to spare themselves of God’s scourging truth. But, in the vain attempt to have some reprieve from the grinding of the Spirit of truth from God, they all end in bondage to Satan, with a tormented “vain jangling”, “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 22:13), “vanity and vexation of spirit” (Ecc. 1:14), the peeping and muttering of glossolalia. “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it.” (Matt. 16:25).

 

Avoiding repentance before the grinding Spirit of truth must ever and always send the sinners to accept one of the thousand mystery religions, whose secret methods to salvation lead no higher than to the “higher self”, “the divine spark”. This higher self is the voice of Satan, who from the beginning has sought to lead us to himself through the promise of illumination apart from simple childlike obedience to God’s commands. “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (Gen. 3:5). But, the only way to discern between good and evil is heart service to the Creator.

 

The common people who sympathize with those that suffer, and work to bring them relief, are obtaining the knowledge of God and finding real happiness. Without studying theology or any formal education, they pick up on the signals from heaven by showing mercy to the poor and by uplifting the downtrodden. “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” (Jas. 1:27).

 

“According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;

And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;

And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.

For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” (2Pet. 1:3-11).

 

But, the higher self and the divine spark are the workshop of Satan to evade service to others and to serve only self. They also blaspheme the salvation of our fallen nature through God’s Son by seeking holiness from an assumed holy first birth, whence comes the god-likeness within. This system is the very foundation of spiritualism and the occult. The higher self and the divine spark are the familiar spirit heard in the silence of Spiritual Formation. “Thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust.” (Isa. 29:4).

 

Spiritual Formation is Gnosticism in Christian clothing. It was the worship of Baal in a Hebrew setting. Every brand of salvation separate from the reproof, correction, and scourging instruction of the Law of love, is the same one world religion of the god of this world. And all the other brands of salvation lead only to death—a living death for its worshipful votives and destruction to everyone who stands in the way of their search for more illumination. “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” (Rom. 8:13,14).

 

Jesus is our salvation. A God from without comes to us because we have nothing within to recommend to our Creator.

 

“And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:

And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;

And shall make Him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of His ears:

But with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked.

And righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His reins.” (Isa. 11:1-5).

 

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” (Prov. 9:10). Conviction, surrender to the omnipotence and omniscience of God, and accepting His humbling makes our mind and soul teachable. This is the fear of the Lord and the beginning of wisdom. This was the faith of Christ, and the pattern He left us. We should aim for the highest standard, not the lowest. This high standard was and is in the Son of God.

 

Jesus had the holy fear of His Lord. Though He was the Son of God, Christ requested nothing different for Himself than the whole requirements of His Father. And because He was divine, His humbling needed to be infinitely greater than ours. Yet, He accepted it all. “Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared; though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered.” (Heb. 5:7,8).

 

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” (Phil. 2:5-8).

 

Therefore, in the Son of God is true redemption from the pall of death which sin has brought onto the human race. All of the boasting of every group seeking release from the grip of sin must fall at the feet of Jesus. Every soul must receive peace from Christ. The love and acceptance of God can be recognized only through submission to His Son’s love. The Son’s love is true education; the Son’s self-sacrificing love is true wisdom.

 

“Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” (1Cor. 1:30). “But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” (1Cor. 1:24).

 

Everyone must come to God through Christ, taking His promise of infinite and eternal life through His infinite and eternal destruction on the cross in their place and accepting His example to die with Him, their self to be utterly crucified with His.

 

Jesus, the “the Prince of princes” (Dan. 8:25), from eternity was always the Servant of servants, whether to the hosts of heaven or to His Father.

 

“Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Sell that ye have, and give alms [to the poor]; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning;

And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, when He will return from the wedding; that when He cometh and knocketh, they may open unto Him immediately.

Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when He cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.” (Luk. 12:32-37).

 

“And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And His fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto Him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and He healed them. And there followed Him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan.” (Matt. 4:23-25).

 

Love “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies.” (1Cor. 13:7,8). Jesus was all of this to everyone He ever met. This is what the people saw in Him. This was His power from God to save. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.” (2Cor. 5:19).
 

It was the love in the Son of David, a man after the Lord’s own heart. It was through the same love and friendship, like that of His forebear, that Jesus brought to the people a knowledge of God. “And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.” (1Sam. 18:1-4). Jesus loved humanity as His own soul; our soul was knit with His. So He gave and gave and gave.

 

Do you want everlasting life in this lifetime? We will never find it in the devil’s many “illuminated” paths to godship. We will not find it in knowledge of things and earthly stuff. Curiosity of technology or history, expressions of self in the arts, or even finding self in esoteric religion will not bring salvation from sin and the deliverance from the death pall. An illuminated mind does not satisfy the suffering heart and soul. Only love will provide the escape from the cares of this world. Divine love, gracious love, was a love that came a long way from home to receive us to itself and spare us from eternal judgment.

 

“And this is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” (Jn. 6:40).

 

The Law and the Gospel is illumination. The humbling and power to obey is salvation.

 

“In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.

And the Light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.…

That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.

He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.

But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name:

Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (Jn. 1:4,5,9-13).

 

“This is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.”(1Pet. 1:25).