What constitutes a "CULT"

Technically, from one perspective, no. But it's a matter of emphasis. The Gnostics thought the body was bad so they said Jesus as God could not appear in a real human body. That is what 1 John is addressing in that verse. The human flesh of Jesus - an actual, material body, was the Gnostics' sticking point with Jesus. I am just trying to be accurate at to what their issue was as it relates to that one verse. This is what Docetism is.

 

Yes, but His deity as well when one takes all of the writings of John into consideration.

You used the phrase "actual human body" and that's a semantic precision with which I would agree. He had an actual birth, He felt actual pain and suffering when He was on the cross, He actually died as a human being and shed actual blood giving up His life as our ransom.

All these truths were/are denied in one way or another by those in error to this very day.

They claimed that though He had a body it was a body like the one that appeared to Abraham and the other "theophanies". Or like that of an angel appearing to people as a "man" but not an "actual" (by birth) human body.

Jesus was truly human in that He was flesh (sarx), born of a woman, mortal, subject to death, feeling hunger, pain. So, yes, He had an actual human body in every sense of the phrase (apart from sin).

Those in error were baffled as to how God could become a real flesh man with an actual human body.

The pharisees had it backwards:

"thou, being a man, makest thyself God" when in reality it was God being made a flesh and blood man.

There were many kinds of "heretics" manifest in the early years of the church. Gnostics were only one of many. They all had a problem with one or the other, His deity or His humanity (or both) and the distinction between the persons of the Father and the Son.

That it why I believe John was very precise with the word sarx and that the LOGOS was God, was with God and became sarx.

Marcia, I admire your scriptural ablitity and my pupose is not to contradict or say you are wrong but to add (FWIW) a little more to your knowledge.

I appreciated the same as you pointed out to me the "oneness" Pentecostal doctrine which I had forgotten.


HankD

 

Yes, I was talking about something called Docetism, or variations of it. Appearing to have a physical material body but not actually having one. I was addressing one specific verse that another poster asked about, not anything else. That one verse was addressing this heresy (most believe).

Yes, I know there were many heresies, but it is a pretty universal agreement that this verse I was responding to is addressing the heresy of Docetism or something similar. That's all I was saying - someone asked if that verse was a good test for heresy, and I said it was not a test for all heresies but it was written to refute this particular heresy (Docetism or an early form of it). Also, we see it in 1 John 1:1 where the John emphasizes the physicality of Jesus -- "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life--"
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Okay, thanks. I actually discuss Gnosticism (and refutations of early forms of it we see in the Bible) when I talk about New Age, so I've had to become somewhat familiar with it. I also know some of the early heresies such as Arianism (which is like what the JWs believe) and Sabellianism (which is the modalism of some of the Oneness followers), as well as several others. These are important to know because they are still around today, just with different names.

 

Yes and they will be till He comes. It's good to know that there are people like yourself to help the deceived. It's a difficult and often times a discouraging ministry.

Keep up the labor of love.

HankD

 

Thank you, Hank! :wavey: