The curious thing about this saying is that in each of the Gospels, Jesus speaks these words about himself and the Holy Spirit, but here the whole Trinity is mentioned.
45 Jesus said, "Grapes are not harvested from thorn bushes, and figs are not gathered from thistles, for these do not produce fruit. A good man brings good things out of what is stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him, and he says evil things. For out of the overflow of the heart he brings forth evil things." [Matthew 7:16-20; 12:33-35; Luke 6:43-46]
This is basically as it is in the Gospels.
46 Jesus said, "Among those born of women, from Adam until John the Baptist, no one is so much greater to John the Baptist that he should not lower his eyes. But I have said whoever among you becomes a child will know the kingdom and will be greater than John." [Matthew 11:11, Luke 7:28]
Once again a cryptic, gnostic twist is placed on a clear saying of Jesus.
47 Jesus said, "A man cannot mount two horses or bend two bows. A servant cannot serve two masters; he will honor the one and hate the other. No man drinks old wine and immediately desires to drink new wine. And new wine is not put into old wineskins, or they will burst; likewise old wine is not put into a new wineskin, or it will spoil. An old patch is not sewn onto a new garment, because it will tear." [Matthew 6:24 and 9:16-17; Mark 2:21-22; Luke 5:36-38 and 16:13].
This is an interesting and appropriate application of two different quotations from Jesus. I am skeptical of the gnostic intent, however. It is very easy to take things that Jesus said, give them a new context, and give them entirely new meanings. Jesus' words for us have been given to us in the context of the Bible, and that is how we should read them. For the gnostic, as for the Mormon, the "new garment" could mean something very different than what it means in the New Testament, which is the robe of Christ's own righteousness that we wear through faith.
48 Jesus said, "If two make peace with each other in a single house, they will say to a mountain, 'Move,' and it will move." [Matthew 17:20 and 18:19, Mark 11:23-24]
49 Jesus said, "Blessed are you who are alone and elect, for you will find the kingdom. For you are from it, and to it you will return."
These two sayings (48 and 49) also bring up the gnostic ideal of finding God on one's own. The gnostic thought that getting to heaven was all about a decision a person makes, or a discovery one finds. The gnostics tried to ignore passages like Ephesians 2:8, "It is by grace you have been saved... and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God." Being saved isn't up to us. It's God's gift to us.
50 Jesus said, "If they say to you, 'Where have you come from?', say to them, 'We came from the light, the place where the light came into being by itself, established itself, and appeared in their image.' If they say to you, 'Is it you?', say, 'We are its children, we are the chosen of the living Father.' If they ask, 'What is the evidence of your father in you?', say to them, 'It is motion and rest.'"
When the Church Father Irenaeus wrote "Against Heresies," he described the gnostic belief that the soul entering heaven is questioned by angels as it passes through the spheres of the heavenly realms (Adv. Haer, 1.21.5). Here, the "they" are these questioning angels. As for the idea of "motion" and "rest," the gnostics took this from the opening verses of the Bible, where the Spirit is "moving" (NIV "hovering") and after the creation the Lord "rests."
51 His disciples said to him, "When will the sleep of the dead come about, and when will the new world come?" He said to them, "What you look for has already come, but you do not know it."
Here the idea that the "new world" (which comes after the sleep of the dead -- therefore it is the resurrection) has already come is exposed. Paul wrote 1 and 2 Thessalonians against this very misunderstanding. The resurrection will come on the Last Day, not before, and not after.
This group of sayings calls into question our relationship with God. Is it something we chose for ourselves? It is something mystrious and hard to grasp? The answer to all these questions is "No." We know what our relationship to God is because of what Jesus did, not because of what we do. At the same time, we see that faith in us coming out as love. That's why John wrote:
This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. (1 John 3:11-16, NIV)
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