Gnostic Assumptions
“In orthodox Christianity, salvation is not primarily deliverance from Satan’s realm, for Satan has no real realm; rather, salvation is deliverance from the wrath of God. Satan’s oppression of men is but an expression of the wrath of God, and it is not Satan who must be dealt with, but the wrath of God.”
There are many descriptions of Gnosticism, but the best is that which recognizes that Gnosticism is the great counterfeit of Christianity, which has hounded it since the beginning. Gnosticism sees the issues of history in terms of knowledge and power, instead of in terms of faith and obedience. Gnosticism approaches history in terms of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, rather than in terms of the Tree of Life (which is approached on the basis of faith).
Gnosticism sees good and evil dualistically. For the gnostic, there is a realm of evil, with an evil god (Satan) ruling over it. This evil realm invaded God’s domain, seduced humanity, and presently rules the world. God has sent Christ to defeat Satan and to rescue men from his domain. The essence of the work on the cross was not the satisfaction of Divine justice, but a defeat of evil powers. The world is still controlled by these evil powers, and “Christians” are to forsake this world, and contemplate the next world. Salvation is rapture out of this world. Individualistic Gnosticism focuses only on the souls of believers and looks only to salvation in the next world. Communal Gnosticism goes one step farther, and calls on Christians to forsake society for a separate community within this world, while awaiting some form of rapture into the next world.
This may sound like popular evangelical Christianity. It should, for most of popular evangelical Christianity is highly infected with Gnosticism. Orthodox Christianity does not conceive of evil in the same way as Gnosticism. According to the Bible, Satan is a member of God’s court (Job 1,2). While Satan is evil, and will be punished for his rebellion, his rule over some men is entirely at God’s discretion. Indeed, when men sin, God sends Satan and his demons to punish men; and in this sense, the demons are servants of God (see I Kings 22: 19-23). Throughout the Bible, evil men are called servants of God when they act (unwittingly) to punish the sins of men, though to be sure they themselves will also in time be punished. The whole book of Habakkuk is concerned with this, for instance.
In orthodox Christianity, salvation is not primarily deliverance from Satan’s realm, for Satan has no real realm; rather, salvation is deliverance from the wrath of God. Satan’s oppression of men is but an expression of the wrath of God, and it is not Satan who must be dealt with, but the wrath of God. On the cross, Jesus Christ satisfied God’s wrath, and since God is no longer angry, God no longer allows Satan to punish His children.
Thus, orthodoxy does not see salvation primarily in terms of the defeat of evil powers, but in terms of the satisfaction of justice. There was never any need for God to defeat Satan, for Satan has never had any independent power. In the Bible, angels (including Satan) are mediators of the word-revelation of God; thus, they are advisors to humanity. Satan acted as an anti-mediator, advising Adam with an anti-word. Adam chose Satan’s anti-word over the Word of God. Essentially, however, it was humanity which was created to rule the world; angels were created as advisors. If Satan can be said to rule the Old Creation, it is only because men have allowed him to. The Old Creation has begun to pass away with the enthronement of the Son of Man as king. If we resist the devil, he will flee from us (James 4:7), for in Christ, renewed humanity is the ruler of the world.
From a review by James B. Jordan of The Moral Majority, Right or Wrong? in The Failure of the American Baptist Culture, Christianity and Civilisation No. 1.
