[Groesbeck Hurricane]

Just for informational sake, I will input what a friend of mine had to say as we were discussing this same subject yesterday:

The Gnostics were a group of misdirected philosophers who built their lives in denial of the divine paradox of Christ's very existence...the fact that their opinion on Judas directly contradicts Christ's own words about him should at the very least cause one to consider the source. The Gnostics believed that all spirit was good and that all flesh was evil, and denied the corporeal existence of the person of Christ. Since, they said, a perfectly good being cannot inhabit sinful flesh, Christ cannot have been a physical being, but must have been a benevolent apparition. They missed the point entirely, that Christ was God, and came in the flesh to redeem fallen Man from its inherited sinful nature by sacrificing the very flesh he put on as an atonement for the sins of everyone, in accordance with Jewish law.



In reality, no single fact "enabled" or "made possible" Christ's crucifixion other than this one: That he willingly gave his life. ("No one takes my life from me. I give it freely." are the words of Christ.) The mechanics are irrelevant, and the fact that an act of betrayal led to his arrest, which led to his mock trial, which led to his beating, which led to...etc. does not mean that the act of betrayal was in fact a good deed. Christ at the last supper said that the one who betrayed him would be lost to him. The line from the Passion of the Christ, when Judas goes and tries to give the money back to the Pharisees, is a reference to Jewish law. (He becomes overwhelmed with grief and cries out, "I have shed innocent blood!" then apparently either gets possessed or goes insane and hangs himself.) Judas' actions were evil. That God made good come out of it does not mean that the act was itself a good act.



That this document is as old as it is demands attention from a historical perspective, I'll be the first to agree. However, examination of its contents, assuming they are truly represented by this article, as I believe they are, will probably show that this is nothing more than a very very old heretical opinion held by a group of heretics (the Gnostics) and should not be considered a "viable alternative to traditional Christian doctrine."



Brian