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The books I mentioned in my previous post by Horton and Knox clarify this. Summarizing gnosticism as "salvation by knowledge" is a bit of an over-simplification. Primitive gnosticism denied the incarnation. Contemporary gnosticism in American Evangelicalism does not deny that the Logos took on human nature; but it does deny that salvation comes to us through the vehicle of material sacraments (i.e. baptism, Eucharist, etc.). All the graces of salvation come to us, according to contemporary gnosticism, directly through the Spirit, apart from material means. For contemporary gnosticism, we are saved by the "Word", by "hearing the Word", and thus by knowledge. That Word need not be incarnate. Our bodies need no physical sacraments. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word", and that's all we need, according to contemporary gnosticism. Salvation is all internal, all about the soul and spirit, not about the body. It is just the establishing of a personal relationship between Jesus and me. That's contemporary gnosticism.

-A8

Thank you so much for the further explanation!

Nevertheless, I dismiss it out-of-hand because there is no ipso facto as it suggests here:

For contemporary gnosticism, we are saved by the "Word", by "hearing the Word", and thus by knowledge.

Rather it is despite "knowledge" that we are saved - which is to say we receive a "divine revelation." IOW, that Jesus Christ is Lord is not something we can reason or perceive by hearing or other senses.

Why do ye not understand my speech? [even] because ye cannot hear my word. - John 8:43

The persons to whom Christ was speaking were hearing Him physically, their physical ears were registering the pressure waves and their physical brains were processing - but they were not hearing Him spiritually.

That is the difference - spiritual hearing is nothing man can develop for himself, it is a gift of God.

But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any [man] pluck them out of my hand. - John 10:26-28

Some of the folks I have known might, say, be prone to calling a dead black cat a flying pink elephant with green stripes.

I tend to disagree with their label.

Sounds like the author mentioned has an axe to grind and so trumped up something in favor of his axe and tradition etc. Doesn't fly with me in the least.

I have a fair amount of patience for a lot of repetition.

But at some point redundant redundant again again btoken broken records records of the gnostic labeling sort are extremely unatractive and will be ignored.

Impartation of the awareness that Christ is Lord and all the other spiritual truths by Holy Spirit--whether involving the Bible, or not, IS NOT GNOSTIC regardless of what some yea-hoo author decides to label them.

The logical result would be that Holy Spirit is gnnostic, which is absurd.