ideas.  Without embarking upon an analysis of this Gnosticism it will be of

service if we remember that they used the word pleroma, 'fulness', in which

they taught dwelt the Supreme Who brought into existence spiritual beings of

the two sexes called Aeons, who gave birth to others, until a whole family of

these beings occupied the pleroma, the chief of these Aeons was Jesus Christ.

It was against these idle speculators that Paul warned Timothy and Titus:

'Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies' (1 Tim. 1:4).

'Avoid foolish questions, and genealogies' (Tit 3.9).

The Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit were looked upon as the last

pair of this 'endless' generation of Aeons.  To the Gnostic, all matter was

evil, and was the work of the Demiurgus, the author of all evil.

Consequently they faced a problem when they considered the teaching of the

Scripture that the Saviour became Man.  Some held that 'Jesus' and 'Christ'

were two persons, and that upon 'Jesus' who was flesh and blood, descended

the 'Christ' who was the celestial Aeon.  This descent took place at the

baptism at Jordan, and 'the Christ' left the Saviour at the crucifixion.  So,

when John wrote the words quoted above, he maintained that Jesus Christ was

One before baptism and after the Crucifixion.  'This is He that came by water

and blood, even Jesus Christ' and these three, 'The spirit, the water and the

blood' agree in one, literally, 'and the three unto the one are' i.e., they

agreed that Jesus the Christ is one.  When John wrote his Gospel, the Gnostic

heresy was fast becoming a menace, and consequently there is much in his

Gospel and Epistles that is written to counter this error, such as 'The Word

was made flesh', 'The only begotten of the Father', 'That which our eyes have

looked upon and our hands have handled', 'Who is a liar but he that denieth

that Jesus is the Christ?' 'Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus

Christ is come in the flesh is not of God'.

Another heretical opinion of the Gnostics was that the body of Jesus

Christ was a 'phantom' having no real existence.  This the Saviour appears to

have anticipated when in resurrection He said, 'Behold My hands and My feet,

that it is I Myself: handle Me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and

bones, as ye see Me have' (Luke 24:39).  This, and other passages that have a

bearing upon the aspect of so great a theme we must now consider.

When Luke wrote the book of the Acts, he summed up the twenty -fourth

chapter of his Gospel in the first fifteen verses of the Acts, and gathered

up the demonstration which the Lord gave to the disciples, that He, the risen

Christ was not 'a spirit', by saying that He had 'shewed Himself alive after

His passion by many infallible proofs'.  The word 'show' taken by itself

might just as well indicate 'a mere show' as indicate a reality, but the word

employed by Luke, paristemi, is repeated in verse 10, 'Two men stood by' and

in 9:41 is used of one raised from the dead, where we read, 'He gave her His

hand ... and presented her alive', and so is a word that most aptly suits the

purpose.  The one thing that Luke 24:36 -43 was intended to teach, according

to Luke's own summary, was that what the Lord said and did was accomplished

in order to 'show Himself alive after His passion'; but the way in which this

passage is treated by some, would lead one to believe that the Lord had

turned aside from the most imperative need to 'show Himself alive after His

passion', to explaining that the resurrection body has flesh and bones, but

has no blood.  Why some enthusiast has not extracted from the same incident,

that the Lord sought to show that when we all get to heaven we shall be on a