Gnostics vs. Paul
This is the third and final in a series on how a Christian should view his body. First, we briefly introduced the Christian perspective. Next, we looked at how Plato has influenced some Christian beliefs about the body. Today, we look at another group which was heavily influenced by Platonic belief - the Gnostics. There has been a lot of talk about Gnosticism lately with the approaching release of the Da Vinci Code movie and the recently debated Gospel of Thomas. It would not be practical to speak of all the Gnostic beliefs, nor are all Gnostic beliefs universal among Gnostics. However, one may speak in a general sense about their view of the body.
The Gnostic theology finds much of its basis in Platonic thought. N. T. Wright quotes Helmut Koester, who introduced the Gospel of Thomas (a Gnostic gospel):
In order to return to one’s origin, the disciple is to become separate from the world by ‘stripping off’ the fleshly garment and ‘passing by’ the present corruptible existence.
A common theme found in many of the Gnostic writings is that the flesh and the material world are evil and corrupted. Our “resurrection†will be a purely spiritual one when we leave our bodies behind. As in Plato, there is a desire to escape suffering by being united with eternal essences. For the Gnostics, secret knowledge allows this escape to take place. Cary states that the Gnostics were the first Christians to believe “this world is not my homeâ€. They believed they came from the heavenly world, belonged there and would return to it.
Now certainly, the world is not the home of the Christian in some sense (the world being corrupted by sin or the secular philosophy of the world), but in a real sense we were made for this world and a material existence.
It will be that “mortal†putting on “immortality†and that “corruptible†putting on “incorruptible†that will be our ultimate reality. Our hope is not some disembodied immaterial eternal existence, but a bodily existence, communing with our Lord and Savior who also lives forever in an embodied existence (his resurrection body) . I Cor 15:52-55 summarizes:
The trumpet shall sound; the dead shall be raised incorruptible; and we shall be changed. For this corruptible (body) must clothe itself with incorruptibility; and this mortal (body) must clothe itself with immortality. When this corruptible (body) has clothed itself with incorruptibility, and this mortal (body) has clothed itself with immortality, then shall come to pass the word that is written: Death is swallowed up into victory. Where is your victory, death? Where is your sting?
Wright argues that this repetition Paul uses in the foregoing verses is not unintentional. He is attempting to “stress against the doubters and the questioners, to make it clear to all the Christians in Corinth that the body is meant for the lord, and the lord for the body, and that the lord in whose own person death had been defeated would one day implement that defeat on behalf of all his people. They will not lose their bodies; nor will they be found ‘naked’. They will ‘put on a new suit of clothes’, will be given a new type of physicality…that…cannot wear out, cannot corrupt, cannot die (p 357-58).