In my previous post I mentioned that a Calvinist was trying to take me to task for titling one of my posts “Jesus was dirty”. He took this as blasphemous. Why would he do so?

The Gnostics had a very warped view of Jesus. The Gnostics had a very interesting view of what “divine” meant. Here is Valentinus:

He was continent, enduring all things. Jesus digested divinity; he ate and drank in a special way, without excreting his solids. He had such a great capacity for continence that the nourishment within him was not corrupted, for he did not experience corruption.

Notice the Gnostic focus on changing the image of Jesus into something more palatable for the Platonistic mindset. To the Gnostic, Jesus was the Messiah and thus did not exhibit the things they saw as degrading. They wished to remake Jesus into a Platonic image; this involved removing the human side of Jesus.

The Gnostics, due to their Platonism, tried to ignore the nature of Jesus (His life, His teachings, what He wore, what He ate, how He lived). Marcion went so far as depicting Jesus as a spirit and attempting to make Jesus not born at all.

But the Bible is clear. Jesus came in the flesh. He was a man. When we try to white wash Him (picturing Him as a clean hippy with conditioned hair and gleaming white teeth) we are buying into the Platonistic mindset. When we do so, we ignore the Biblical point being made. Jesus was a man, experienced our problems, and lived in the real world. He lived through hunger, work, sleep, adolescence, and even bacteria. We should not be distancing Jesus from mankind with our images of earthly physical perfection, especially when He is set as our example.