Marcion was a wealthy second-century Roman who
studied Jewish scripture and compared it to the teachings of Christ. He maintained
that the teachings of Christ were incompatible with that of the Old Testament. He
believed that Jesus is the Messiah and that Paul is Jesus’ chief apostle.
However, Marcion denied the humanity of Christ and held that He is not the God
of the Old Testament. Marcion claimed that the God of the Old Testament is a
demiurge, an evil being, who is separate and lower than the God of the New
Testament. Marcion saw God in the New Testament portrayed as loving and
forgiving, very unlike the God of the Old Testament, who Marcion viewed as jealous,
wrathful, and genocidal. He taught that the demiurge created a world filled
with suffering and imperfection. This, Marcion maintained, is not the true God.
Furthermore, since the Old Testament God is the God of the Hebrews, Marcion
maintained that any association with the Hebrew religion is evil.
Regarding
Christ’s work in salvation, Marcion claimed that Christ was not sent to save
the Jews, but to bring salvation from the demiurge and to make known the truth
of the good God, who may not have even been known by the demiurge. He claimed
that those who were loyal to the demiurge crucified Christ.
Marcion
developed a canon, which included an edited version of Luke, called “Gospel of
Christ”. His canon did not include any of the Old Testament, nor did it include
certain parts of the New Testament such as the prophecies of Christ, His birth,
His baptism, and His death. Marcion wanted to show that Christ was revealed as
a man, but was not really a man. Thus, he eliminated parts of Scripture that
attest to Christ’s humanity.
Marcion’s
teachings brought division in the early church. For the first time in the post-apostolic
period, the church was led to formulate creeds in order to defend itself from
these and other heresies. This also led to the adoption of the current canon of
the New Testament.
Marcion
was also a legalist who imposed strict laws upon his followers. He believed in
a strict moral structure and prohibited sex of any sort, even between married
couples.
Marcion
was a heretic who did not believe in the inerrant, authoritative Word of God.
He, just like many other heretics before and after him, chose which parts of
Scripture to believe and which ones to deny. He claimed that Christ’s teachings
contradict the Old Testament, but any knowledgeable reader of Scripture would
know what Christ really said about the Old Testament. Jesus quoted Old
Testament Scripture numerous times and accused the Jewish religious leaders of
abusing the law. He even said that He did not come to destroy, contradict, or
even revise the law, but that He came to fulfill the law (Matthew 5:17-18). Jesus
spoke of the Old Testament often. He lived His life according to the law.
The
humanity of Christ is also clearly presented in Scripture. Two of the most
notable references are John 1, in which Christ is presented as the eternal Word
which took on flesh, and Hebrews 4:14-16, which presents Christ as the Great
High Priest Who is able to sympathize with His people.
The
claim that the Old Testament God is a demiurge is nothing new. Marcion takes
this belief from the Gnostics. Marcion cannot truly comprehend the justice and
righteousness of God (Who can?) so he asserts that God is evil because he
judges humans for their sins.
The majority of
Marcionist teaching is based on human reasoning. Marcion struggled with the
answers to difficult and confusing questions, such as how a just God can
sentence people to death, or how a good God would allow evil to occur. His
questions were unlike questions that are currently being asked in post-modern
evangelicalism. They are legitimate questions. But Marcion was not satisfied by
the answers he found in Scripture, so he sought to form his own conclusions
apart from Scripture and based on conjecture and reasoning. This is the problem
that occurs when we stray from Biblical teaching. Scripture teaches that man is
totally depraved and unable to find the answers to life’s difficult questions
on his own (Jeremiah 17:9). Therefore we cannot find truth outside of Christ
and His inspired, infallible, and authoritative Word.
