What Is The Nicolaitan Spirit or Doctrine
What Is The Nicolaitan Spirit or Doctrine
What Is The Nicolaitan Spirit or Doctrine
Nicolaitans: One of the heretical sects that plagued the churches at Ephesus and at
Pergamum, and perhaps elsewhere. Irenaeus identifies the Nicolaitans as a Gnostic
sect: “John, the disciple of the Lord, preaches this faith (the deity of Christ), and
seeks, by the proclamation of the Gospel, to remove that error which by Cerinthus had
been disseminated among men, and a long time previously by those termed Nicolaitans,
who are an offset of that “knowledge” falsely so called, that he might confound them,
and persuade them that there is but one God, who made all things by His Word” (see
Irenaeus Against Heresies iii 11. 1; ANF vol. 1, p. 426) There is also historical evidence
of a Gnostic sect called Nitolaitans a century or so later.
Today, the doctrine is now largely taught that the gospel of Christ has made God's law
of no effect: that by “believing” we are released from the necessity of being doers of
the Word. But this is the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which Christ so unsparingly
condemned in the book of Revelation. "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers
only, deceiving your own selves." (James 1:22)