Who is the true gnostic? Is the knowledge of the glory of God transforming you into His image and likeness?
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The True Gnostic
Tag: Clement- Stromata
Grace was the Father revealing the mysteries to the apostles and that is what they instructed the perfect with. The mysteries in the old testament were hid until the time of the apostles for them to unveil it. This revealed knowledge wasn’t for everyone, only for the sincere in heart. There was also knowledge that was passed down from the apostles that they didn’t write down as the Hebrews did the same thing. This is called apostolic tradition as referenced in 2 Thessalonians 2:15.
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KNOWLEDGE AND LOVE
The word Torah (Law) is defined as ‘instruction’. By understanding the true Torah, we gain a desire for knowledge of the Lord. Walking out (being obedient to) the Torah produces the love of knowledge in us. Love is keeping the commandments and doing so will lead us to immortality.
Love is manifest in our suffering of martyrdom, our works, and teachings (written and oral). We are to love God through our obedience; we cannot simply profess our love, as Jesus said there are those who only worship with their lips. The fulfillment of the Torah (Law) is love. There are those who are obedient out of fear of punishment, but on the other hand there are those who will fulfill the Torah out of love.
Only the heretics believe that the we only need to open our mouth to confess. Just confessing with your mouth is the belief of a hypocrite. Our confession is without our works, our deeds. There are death bead confessions before you die to confess, it is not acceptable to the Lord. We confess to be in God by walking out the commandments.
There are those, who out of their foolish and irrational behaviour make martyrdom out to be as if it is some type of competition. We should not be afraid to face death, however we are to take care of ourselves and not purposely come to our perceptions lest we become an accomplice to our own death.
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LOVE AND THE KISS OF CHARITY
To greet each other with a holy kiss is mystical, it’s not a physical kiss. Our expression of love towards each other and showing our love to God is by keeping His commandments. By teaching other, the commandments, we are greeting each other with a holy kiss. An unholy kiss would be poisonous (as Jesus said beware of the venom of the Pharisees).
The Decalogue, or the Ten Commandments, have a lot more depth and meaning than just a list of do’s and don’ts. They are said to contain the images of heaven and earth, and contain the power of the universe since they were written by the finger of God, which is the power of creation. The ten commandments are given to teach us how to have dominion over our carnal nature.
The 10 commandments, also known as the Decalogue, corresponds 10 senses. We are shown how these commandments help renew our spiritual senses. The two tablets representing heaven and earth are showing us how we become a new heaven and new earth. The Decalogue is not a list of doe’s and don’ts, it is divine instruction to renew our inner man, the soul.
Our point of view of leaving the things of this world are usually occupied by thinking we’re giving up or loosing things, in reality it is to our benefit when we understand it. To overcome our bad habits, we must exercise in walking out the word to undo the habits and deeds of the old man. When one comes to the knowledge of the truth we begin to hate the pleasures of the flesh.