4:2† ^By this you know the Spĭrit of the Almĭghty: every spirit who confesses that Yĕshua Mĕssiah has come in flesh, from the Almĭghty is; In order to understand Yōḥanan here we have to understand that the Torah and Prophets prove that Mĕssiah is one and the same being as the Mĕssenger of Yăhwēh, who is identified as Yăhwēh in one way or another almost every time he appears in the Torah and Prophets. This person is the same as the Messiah. The Gnostics sowed their heresy with a two pronged attack. First they denied the Mĕssenger of Yăhwēh was Yăhwēh (thus denying that Yăhwēh had ever appeared directly in the flesh before). Then they turned the concept of Mĕssiah into a spiritual doctrine whereby the Messiah Spirit is still identified as Yăhwēh’s Spĭrit, but the divine Mĕssiah they say did not actually become a person wrapped in flesh. He only dwelt with a mere human wrapped in flesh. By doing this they separated the person of Yĕshūa̒, whom they regarded as a mere man, from the Mĕssiah Spĭrit dwelling him him. This then is a subtle and clever denial that Yĕshūa̒ as Mĕssiah came in the flesh. For they have disconnected Yĕshūa̒’s identity from being Yăhwēh the Mĕssiah. This allows them to confess that the Mĕssiah is Yăhwēh. But do not be deceived. They have redefined things so that the person of Yĕshūa̒ is not the same as the Mĕssiah!
Similarly, they hold that the Mĕssenger of Yăhwēh is a mere angel, a created being with a non-divine personality, who has allowed Yăhwēh’s Spĭrit to use him as a portal to speak in his name. Yĕshūa̒, they say, is like the non-divine being of the angel, and the Mĕssiah, they say is the Spĭrit speaking through the mere human.
With this knowledge of the ancient heresy in hand, we need to understand that a confession that Mĕssiah is Yăhwēh coupled with a denial that Yĕshūa̒ is the same person as Yăhwēh the Mĕssiah is indeed a denial of the Faith! This ancient heresy later became known as Nestorianism, and sank deep into parts of the Syriac speaking Church of the East. As a deadly and fatal heresy, it has revived in the Aramaic Primacy cult that pretends to hold the Messianic Faith.
This heresy cannot and should not be tolerated. Holding it is departure from the truth faith. The deity of the person of Yĕshūa̒ and his divine nature is an essential and non-negotiable part of the Faith. It is the difference between worshiping the true Gŏd and failure to worship the true Gŏd. That is a black and white difference. And one who denies who the true Gŏd is, is and athiest or an idolator.
The divine nature of Mĕssiah and his complete identity with the person of Yĕshūa̒ is as important as holding to the commandments of Yăhwēh, to the Sabbath and the feast days, and the other means by which he is worshiped. But Satan has launched his all out attack on the Faith at precisely that point.
Be suspicious of any Hebrew Roots teacher that puts down the Greek texts in favor of Aramaic, or who tries to teach doctrine from alleged understanding of the Syriac. The Syriac teaches no different from the Greek texts. They are simply hiding behind the mystique of this form of late form Hebrew to teach false doctrine! They are causing believers to hate their Christian roots all too quickly and indiscriminately. They are claiming superior knowledge where it cannot often be verified by the average believer. Be suspicious of what cannot be verified. It may deceive you.
5:16‡ ^If anyone shall see his brother sinning a sin not leading to death, he will ask, and the Almĭghty will give him life (that is, for those sinning not to death). There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this.‡ The sin that leads to death is the sin with the high hand against the truth (cf. Num. 15:30-31; Gal. 5:19-21; 1Cor. 6:9-10). The sin with the high hand is anti-faith, or faithlessness. One who is truly committed to Gŏd does not Sin with a capital “S”. Yōḥanan said this because the Gnostic heretics were claiming on the one hand that they were without sin in spirit, but on the other hand that they could sin in the flesh and it would make no difference. The person with true fidelity to Mĕssiah does not sin in this way.
On the other hand, no one is perfect, and the faithful sin in ignorance and circumstances that prevent them from fully carrying out their duty to Gŏd. If anyone sees a brother sinning in this way, knowing he or she has a faithful commitment to Mĕssiah, then one should pray for them, and they will be delivered.
If a Gnostic sees the faithful keeping commandments they do not (because they are ignorant of the true faith), because their notion of morality is arbitrary, and especially if it is defined in the Law of Yăhwēh the commandments they are not keeping, then they immediately set up the straw man argument that the faithful are not keeping the commandments that they oppose and on this basis condemn the faithful. If the Gnostic understood true faithfulness as fidelity to Mĕssiah then Gnostic would come to realize that how one obeys or disobeys a commandment makes the difference as to whether one has real faith or not. The Gnostic therefore ignores the difference between Sin that leads to death, and sin that does not. This is because the Gnostic does not believe in real faithfulness, but only an intellectual assent to certain philosophical propositions about salvation that they have been deceived into believing. The Gnostic therefore condemns the faithful because they do not agree with their pseudo-intellectual doctrines of believe only. And for hatred at this level, Yōḥanan rightly excommunicated them. Gnostics are actually prevented by their philosophy from obeying the commandments because they believe that if they do obey the commandments then they might be doing works, and they might loose their salvation under any circumstance presented to them by which they ought to obey. And some commandments they have classified as causing automatic loss of salvation if they are obeyed, namely Sabbath, or circumcision, or the laws of clean and unclean. By taking this stance they are continuing Emperor Hadrian’s Jihad against the faithful on the spiritual level, and are committing spiritual genocide, which in the end is real murder.
The Church today is full of Christians acting out the Gnostic legacy of lawlessness and condemnation of anyone who does not share their lawless theology. These hypocrites try to hide behind more orthodox expressions of faith, or something sounding close to what is Scriptural. And this deceives a lot of other Christians who have read their Bibles in context, and have some notion of the correct definitions of Biblical terms. But when they talk to a Christian with a Gnostic heart they do not realize that the definitions have been changed on them. The words are the same, but new meanings have been put on the words.
Gnostic influence in the modern age goes under the name of Calvinistic-Dispensationalism, a movement exemplified by Lewis Sperry Chafer, who tossed out the Reformed concept of the moral law for a concept of no-law, and further developed in the theology of Scofield and Ryrie. But we get a whiff of these heresies in other places also, such as Dale Ratzlaff’s inquistion against Seventh Day Adventists for whom abandoning the Sabbath is a mortal sin.
These Gnostic Christians who have no moral law at all, with no absolutes, and no foundation for their arbitrary notions of spirituallity, who condemn Christians showing their faithfulness to Mĕssiah by obeying the commandments, need to be told in no uncertain terms that they are false usurpers of the faith once delivered to the Saints, and that they are nothing but spies for the Anti-Messiah seeking to destroy the Assembly of Yisra’ēl.