Responding to Hank Hanegraaff (Part 2)

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala and today we return for a part two of our analysis critique of my interview with Hank Hanegraaff, the president of the

Christian Research Institute. He is the current Bible Answer Man or some have dubbed him the

Orthodox Answer Man and I think that is a very perceptive way of titling him.

I think these issues that we covered in our last episode where Dr.

Tony Costa really went in to clarify and to correct certain points that Hank made in my discussion with him.

I think it's very important that we really emphasize the importance of knowing history within the context of the

Christian life but also within the context of apologetics. When we deal with our Roman Catholic friends, our

Orthodox friends, it tends to be the case that many Protestants are not very much in touch with the history of the church.

And so I think it's very important that we cover these issues and I'm not a historical scholar but I love to learn about this stuff.

I realize it's super important and it's definitely edifying for people who are listening and so it is an honor and a pleasure to have scholars and someone of Tony Costa's knowledge to come on and share a more historical perspective, a defense of a reformed

Protestant perspective and to offer, I think, a clear and biblically based and historically rooted critique of the

Orthodox position. So without further ado, I don't want to waste too much time because we want to make it through the rest of this video.

We don't intend to do a part three of this discussion. So we're going to jump right in and I'm going to just invite

Dr. Tony Costa back on the screen with me and then we will begin right away. How's it going,

Dr. Costa? How are things? I'm doing well, Eli. How are you doing? I'm hanging in there.

I had a nice long day. I worked full time from morning to around 3 .30,

rushed home. I was on Iron Sharpens Iron radio for two hours, took a quick nap and then now we're here.

So I really appreciate you coming back on. It's my pleasure. Look forward to it. All right.

Well, just real quick for those who are listening. I know we just got started just waiting for some more folks to come in.

Dr. Costa will be taking questions at the end. So please, if you have any questions, feel free to type them in the chat and I will share them with Dr.

Costa when that portion of this episode comes up. OK, if if you wish to support

Revealed Apologetics financially, we do appreciate your super chats. Those questions will go straight to the top. And and those of you who don't give super chats will try our best to get to your questions also.

OK. And just a real quick announcement. They're going to jump right into this. We are currently in the works.

Well, I have a friend of mine who is has been gracious enough to work on a

Revealed Apologetics website, which is I'm very excited about. And he's been so generous to do it free of charge.

And he is kind of knowledgeable in that kind of techie side of things. And so I greatly appreciate that.

And hopefully when that's up, I can share that with you guys. And Revealed Apologetics dot com can be a resource for people apologetically for reformed theology as well.

Just a resource for folks to kind of equip themselves and to really just edify the body.

So looking forward to that. Well, without further ado, I'm going to share my screen.

If you see, that's what we did last time. And let me actually enlarge the screen if that's possible here like that.

There we go. Much better. And we're just going to dive right in. So, Dr. Costa, I'm going to press play and you just stop me where you think we need to stop.

Or if I find a spot where I think we need to stop, we'll stop. OK. No problem. All right.

Let's let's begin books that are there. There are 46 books as opposed to 39 books in the

Orthodox canon. And there are parts of books as well that are included. You have Maccabees, first, second and third

Maccabees. So there are many books that are included in the Old Testament canon.

They're part of the Septuagint. And they're referenced in the

New Testament, sometimes indirectly, but nonetheless, they're referenced.

And but the biggest part of this is the fact that they're part of the Septuagint. We can stop there.

Now, OK, so from a Protestant perspective, and this usually comes up between the. OK. Yeah. What I was just going to say is that we often hear about the

Apocrypha being in the Septuagint. Now, the the full manuscript of the

Septuagint that we have today was obviously collected by Christians. But to say that it was part of the

Apocrypha. Remember, last week I was with you. I mentioned Robert Roger Beckwith's book, the

Old Testament Canon in the New Testament Church. And he points out that the

Jews in the Hellenistic world were familiar with these other books.

But they still held to the canonical books that we have in our

Hebrew Bible and what we call the Masoretic text. And because a number of books were added to some of the biblical books, there's a there's a tendency for people to think that they were considered canonical.

So we do have New Testament manuscripts. Well, you'll have, for example, you'll have First Clement or you may have another writing of a church father.

And the reason for that, among many reasons, is lack of available resources.

The lack of papyri was very, very expensive. But just because the full copy we have today, the full manuscript of the

Septuagint, because it has the Apocrypha, the assumption is, well, therefore, these these Jews in the

Hellenistic world accept them. That doesn't necessarily follow. We know that in Qumran, where they discovered the

Dead Sea Scrolls, we do know that some of these books were also found there. For example, they found the

Book of Enoch in Qumran. They found the book called the

Genesis Apocryphon that was found there as well. But they also found they also found commentaries, community commentaries, and commentaries on the

Bible called Peshirim. Now, this doesn't mean that the Jews accepted all of these documents on the same level with the scriptures.

So I think we just need to be careful there. And that's why I recommended Roger Beckwith's book, because he goes into great detail to show that the

Jews of Jesus' time did not hold these books to be inspired. There was a term that they used.

They talked about—they said that the books laid up in the temple. This was a term that Jews would use to refer to the canonical books.

And they would also describe the books of the canon were books that defiled the hands.

Now, that may sound a little odd. But the idea was because they were so sacred, these texts would actually defile your hands.

That's why, if you notice, when the Jews read the scriptures, they use this little hand, the little thing with the hand, the pointer.

It's called the yad. It means hand in Hebrew. You've heard of Seinfeld, yad, yad, yada.

And the idea is that you're reading along, right? Because it's sacred. The text is sacred. The apocryphal books do not defile the hands.

The Jews said, these books don't defile the hands. The implication being they're not inspired. They're not considered sacred texts.

So we hear this a lot. This is why I highly recommend Professor Roger Beckwith's book on this topic.

He goes into great detail to show that these apocryphal books were not accepted as authoritative. We can look at Josephus, first century

Jewish historian. Josephus says, we have 22 books that we regard as sacred.

And those 22 books, the number 22 is based on the fact that the Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters.

And also, they take certain books and they join them together. Ezra and Nehemiah is one book. The 12 minor prophets are considered one book, the book of the 12.

That's why they come up with number 22. But they're the equivalent of our 39. Now you use the word

Septuagint, which again, when we do live streams like this, with this specific topic, we presuppose that the audience has somewhat of a background.

Why don't you briefly define what the Septuagint is? Yeah. The word Septuagint means 70. And it comes from the

Latin word Septuagint, the 70. And this is the name of the

Greek translation of the Old Testament. And so for Jews living outside of Israel, outside of the land, these

Jews forgot their mother tongue. Just like our kids. They're born in North America.

And my kids, they come from a Portuguese background. But their

Portuguese sounds like pig Latin. I mean, you wouldn't even understand it. And I'm sure you can resonate with this too,

Eli. When your kids get older, you'll notice that they probably won't know any Spanish or maybe a few words here and there.

Well, I don't speak that. I'm an example. You're an example of that. I speak

Spanglish. So you've been Anglicized. And so a lot of these Jews were Hellenized.

That is, they adopted Greek culture. They learned the Greek language. So because they didn't have the

Bible in their tongue, there was a translation made. It is believed that it began in 250 B .C.,

starting with the Torah, the first five books of Moses. That's where we get the word Pentateuch. Pentateuch is Greek for the five scrolls, the five books.

And then the other books were added, like the prophets and the historical books and so forth.

So the Septuagint, then, is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. It is the primary

Old Testament text that the New Testament quotes from because the New Testament was written in Greek, and the apostles preached in a

Greco -Roman world where the Greek language was the lingua franca of the world. And therefore,

Paul, for example, he's writing for the Corinthians, the Philippians. These folks have no idea about the

Hebrew text because they can't read Hebrew. So they were familiar with the Septuagint. And therefore, the

New Testament, about 85 to 90 % of the time, quotes from that version of the

Old Testament. And the abbreviation scholars use for this Old Testament translation, this

Greek translation of the Old Testament, is LXX, Roman numerals for 70. All right, very good.

Thank you for that. Just real quick, folks, there are more people watching from when we started. I just want to throw out the reminder,

Dr. Costo will be taking questions. So if you do have questions, please share them in the chat. Now is the time to ask them, and we'll get back to them later on.

Also be sure to share this video. I'm sure, folks, if you have Roman Catholic friends or Orthodox friends, this will definitely make for an interesting listen and hopefully encourage some good dialogue.

All right, so let us continue, and we'll take it from here in the context of – and you're spot on with regards to Protestants and Catholics having more of that connection than the

Eastern Church. But to the Protestant sensibilities, when we observe what goes on oftentimes in Roman Catholic churches and Eastern Orthodox churches,

So why don't you talk a little bit about the Eastern Orthodox perspective with regards to –

Have you been able to hear that? Yes. Okay, just checking. All right. Okay.

Why, when a Protestant visits an Eastern Orthodox church and listens to some of the teaching and theology, they will hear things that kind of –

I'm joking around – makes Protestants break out in hives. There seems to be things that are inconsistent to Protestant ears.

Why don't you explain why that's the case and go into the reasons why that's not a big deal, or maybe

I'm representing the issues incorrectly. Why don't you unpack that for us? Yeah, well, I think it's a really good question,

Eli. I think when you go to an Orthodox church, when you walk through the church doors, you immediately recognize that you're there to worship

God. The liturgy in an Orthodox church bays you in the

Word of God. In fact, if you follow the liturgical calendar, you're steeped in Scripture.

And I think that's a big, big difference from modern -day evangelicalism, where oftentimes the Bible is used as a point of departure.

And many people that carry Bibles have never really read the Bible or memorized the

Bible or mined the Bible for all its substantial worth. So in Orthodoxy, you get absolutely washed in the

Word of God. Yeah, we can stop there, Eli. It's not about worshiping God.

Yeah, the impression there is that a lot of these Orthodox folks are immersed in God's Word and so forth.

I know a number of people in the Orthodox church, and I can share with you. This is not a blanket statement.

I'm not saying this is the case with all Orthodox members, but many of them don't know the Bible. Very much like our

Roman Catholic friends raised in the church, many of them don't know the Bible. So I'm not exactly sure what

Hank is getting at there, because most of the Orthodox folks I know have very little biblical knowledge.

And the other problem, of course, is this, you know, the language of we enter through the doors of the church and we know that we're worshiping

God. So again, the word church here, as you very well know, the word ecclesia, the word for church, is an assembly.

We need to get this idea of a building with steeples and domes and stained glass windows. We really need to get that out of our heads.

The idea is that the word church refers to an assembly of people. It's the people of God where two or three are gathered in my name.

I am there in their midst. And so for the Orthodox, the church building is like the house of God, much like the

Roman Catholic Church. This is sacred ground, and this is where the sacraments or the mysteries are practiced and so forth.

And so what you'll notice is that when he talks about the liturgy of the church, much like the

Roman Catholic Church, you have this liturgical year where you have the same readings. The Lutheran Church has it as well, and the

Anglican Church has it as well. But again, there's so much to be said here, because in the liturgical calendar of the

Orthodox Church, you have the Dormition of Mary, when

Mary passed away and then she was taken up, and then you have the days of the saints, the various saints, and so forth.

So I don't see a lot of being washed in God's Word when it comes to issues like the Dormition of the

Virgin and the birth of John the Baptist, and this saint, and Saint Constantine, and Saint Helen, and so forth.

So when you look at the liturgical calendar of the Orthodox Church, you'll notice a lot of it revolves around various saints, and various events in the life of Mary, and events in the life of John the

Baptist, for example. Dr. Acosta, let me ask this question, and I know that you can't speak with regards to all

Orthodox churches, but you see, within Orthodoxy you have Scripture, you have tradition, okay?

They hold it to equal authority, right? Do you see, or do you find in your own experience, that while they say that, and they believe that, that tradition tends to overshadow emphasis upon Scripture?

Absolutely. So much so that when you enter there, because I've been to Orthodox services, and one of my professors at the university was a

Ukrainian Catholic priest who was part of the Uniate.

The Uniate are a group of churches that are Orthodox in their liturgy, but they've come under the

Pontiff of Rome. They've come under the Roman Church, so they're in communion with the Roman Church. So part of the worship of God that Hank talks about is when you enter into these

Orthodox churches, there's also the prayers to Mary. They pray to the

Theotokos. She's called the Theotokos, which means the God -bearer, the Mother of God. And so there's also kissing the icons, and so when you come in, you will kiss the icons, and you will do the sign of the cross.

Now in the Roman Catholic Church, you do it this way. It's up, down, and then left to right.

But in the Eastern Orthodox, it's up, down, right to left. And I always taught my students, the best way to remember is this.

So West is Roman Catholic, and East is Eastern Orthodox. So they always cross themselves the other way.

But kissing of the icons and so forth. Again, this brings up a lot of questions about, is this proper worship of God?

Addressing the Virgin and praying to the Virgin, the Theotokos, is that the proper worship of God?

So again, we believe as Reformed Christians, what Romans 10, 17 says, that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the

Word of Christ. In the Orthodox Church, if you ever enter an Orthodox Church, the first thing you are struck with is not the

Word of God. The first thing you are struck with is these icons. The place lights up with colors, and there's icons all over, and there's a standard up at the front.

There's the altar, and you'll always find a picture of Christ with the Book of Life, and then the

Theotokos on the other side. And then you'll have Michael the Archangel, Gabriel the

Angel, and so forth. So what you find is that when you enter these churches, you are visually attracted.

There's a visual orientation. Same with the Roman Catholic Church. When you go into a Roman Catholic Church, your eyes are drawn to the altar, to the front.

Whereas in Reformed Protestant churches, we walk into a building, and what is the centerpiece of the building?

It's not the altar. It is the pulpit, so that our focus is not visual.

Well, if you don't go to a church where the focus is the stage with the smoke machine.

Yeah, and the rock band, and the new rock band. So the point of the Reformation was to bring this back to the hearing of God's Word because they understood that faith comes by hearing.

It's not by seeing icons and being visually stimulated. It is by hearing the Word of God.

That is the means by which God has decreed that He will save fallen human beings by the preaching of His Word that is to be heard.

And that is why, again, we focus on the reading of God's Word, not on the visual icons and statues and so forth.

Okay. All right, thank you for that. Let's continue on here, and...

There we go. About an extravaganza. For Orthodoxy, the

Church is the center of the universe, and the center of the liturgy.

In fact, the liturgy is the Eucharist. Okay, let's stop there. So when we, in Orthodoxy, partake...

Okay. Yeah, the center for Orthodoxy, here's this quote, for Orthodoxy, the

Church is the center of the universe. Well, that's not what the Bible says. The Bible doesn't say that the

Church is the center of the universe. The Bible says that in all things, Christ is to have the supremacy, the preeminence is

His. Christ is the Alpha, the Omega, the First, the Last. All things were made through Him, and they were made by Him and for Him.

He is the beginning and the end. All of creation converges on Christ, and all of creation will one day bow the knee to Christ and confess

He is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So the centrality of Christ here, when He says, for Orthodoxy, the

Church is the center of the universe, that's not what Colossians 1, 15 -18 says. It says that in all things,

He must have the preeminence. Christ is the center of the universe. So again, there's this elevation of the

Church, something that we don't see in Scripture. In Scripture, it is He that must increase, we must decrease.

So I just found it a little odd that He would say that. Okay, all right. Thank you for that.

Let's see here. All right. Of the

Eucharist, we're partaking of the real presence of Christ. So we're being transformed through the graces that are partaken of within the context of the

Church. So for an Orthodox person, this is not going to church. This is embracing a whole life, a life that's transformational.

So in Western theology, the Ark typically runs from fall to redemption.

In Orthodoxy, the Ark runs from creation to deification.

I'm going to stop there. Can you speak to that? Because once he said that, my antenna came up. It almost looked like he was trying to give the impression that the

Protestant view is kind of short -sighted, yet the Orthodox view encompasses this whole picture.

And I'm like, wow. Yeah, you beat me to the punch, Eli. I was going to tell you to stop it there as well.

My Reformed radar came up as well. Well, let me put it this way. I find that very odd.

And in one sense, what he's saying is true because the Orthodox Church focuses on this theosis, this idea of divinization.

I mean, it's not deification in the sense of Mormon exaltation. But here's the problem.

He's going from Genesis to Revelation. And in order for us to get from Genesis to Revelation, you need to see what comes in between because the fall was also necessary for us to understand why we needed the new heaven, the new earth, and the new

Jerusalem. You can't talk about the new heaven, the new earth, unless the old earth and the old heaven, something happened, something occurred.

And so without mentioning the fall, which is what Paul does, doesn't he? I mean, if you look at Paul's writings to the

Romans, what does Paul do? He starts in chapter 4 about justification. And then in chapter 5, he says, let me tell you how we got into this mess.

It's like the old Lord. Remember the old Lord and Hardy? That's a fine mess you got me into.

Well, Paul says, let me tell you how we got into this mess. In Adam, all died. Through Adam, sin entered the world.

And it went through Moses. And therefore, all die and are guilty before God. And then

Paul builds from that why we needed God to set forth Jesus Christ as a propitiation for our sins, to redeem us.

God demonstrated His love towards us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. So it's not just creation all the way to the new creation.

It is creation, fall, redemption. And so without speaking about why

God needs to recreate the heavens and the earth and the new Jerusalem and so forth, the reason why He has to do this is because Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall and Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

And all the king's men and all the king's horses could not put them back together again. But only Jesus could do that.

Jesus put us back together. So the federal headship of Adam and Christ, which is so desperately missing in orthodoxy, because to them, they don't believe in original sin.

They don't believe that we inherit Adamic sin. And so the whole idea of Romans 5 with the headship of Adam, the headship of Christ, the federal representatives of these two races is lacking in orthodoxy.

And again, how can you claim to be in line with the scriptures, in line with the gospel message, when you deprive this central part of Christ's federal headship over a new people that He has redeemed from their

Adamic identification with their forefather? So I mean, what they're basically doing is they're fast -tracking to the end.

But what about the beauty of the cross, the beauty of the resurrection, the beauty of the God -man, the incarnation?

God comes to us in the person of His Son. And so what's the point of rushing to the end when we really need to see all of those intermittent events in God's soteriological history, the events of God's salvation, which is like an orchestra with a crescendo that is reaching this end with this loud finale?

But it's like me listening to Mozart, Eli, and I'm hearing the beginning, and then it ends with ta -da!

And it's like, wait a minute. What about all those pieces in between? How did we get to that ta -da? So anyway,

I just found that very incomplete. Yeah, and I think within the Protestant tradition, if you're not pointing to people who are the extremes, where they don't focus on the importance of a consistent theology,

I've always understood, and in my experience, the Protestant tradition, understanding the importance of this full picture from creation, fall, redemption, and glorification.

I've never experienced this, you know, we're in a mess, and God comes to save us without any consideration of the whole picture.

So I thought that was kind of a caricature. But let us continue on. Vladimir Lossky put it, if you look at the history of the human race, it's a history of shipwreck awaiting rescue.

But as Lossky put it, the port of salvation is not the goal.

The goal is for the rescued to continue on a journey whose sole goal is union with God.

In other words, to become partakers of the divine nature. Yeah, we can stop there,

Eli. Yeah, that's not at all... I mean, what he's saying there does... And this has been my... I mean, if you listen to the discussion, my biggest thing was a lot of the things that he was saying looked almost exactly like how

I would explain it as a Protestant. Everything he's saying there, with the exception of his concept of theosis, we wouldn't hold it in the way that the

Orthodox... But we don't think that the sail stops at the harbor of salvation. Yeah, there's more.

Yeah, yeah. It's not unique to his position. Yeah, I was scratching my head because I was wondering...

Yeah, I'm saying amen to everything he's saying because what he's saying is true. I don't know any

Protestant that can test that, that I know of. So, I don't know. I think that he's preaching to the choir here.

Yeah, all right, let's continue. Infused with the divine nature.

And this is precisely what we talk about when we talk about grace.

Grace is partaking of the living God. And so, you can imagine by way of illustration that if you're in a shipwreck, and you're saved from the raging waters, you're going to be very, very grateful.

But you don't want to stay in the port of salvation. And in Eastern Orthodoxy, you continue on a journey whose sole goal is union with God.

So there's a sense in which Eastern Orthodoxy is not just punctiliar, it's a process where you go, as Paul put it, from one glory to another glory with unveiled face.

So it is a life transformational journey. And so, the

Orthodox say, I'm saved, I'm being saved, and I will be saved.

Yeah, you can stop there too. Yeah. We agree with them. Amen, yes, this is not unique to Orthodoxy.

By grace, you've been saved, Ephesians 2 .8. We are being saved, 1 Corinthians 1 .18.

We shall be saved, Romans 5 .9. Yeah, we understand the three tenses of salvation. You have been, you are being saved, you will be saved.

So, I don't, there's nothing under the sun here. I mean, we agree with that.

Yeah, now, I guess, I don't want to read his heart, but I got the impression, and I mean this respectfully, and maybe

I'm wrong, but I think the way that he is explaining his position is kind of like throwing the bone to the

Protestants so that we don't think it's that different. Because surely he'd have to know that these are not unique features of Orthodoxy.

I mean, there are unique features of Orthodoxy. A lot of what he says are not unique features of Orthodoxy.

And so it seems as though he's focusing on these things where we would probably on a surface level agree, and then every now and then slide in an area where there's a distinction there.

Do you see that in the kind of the things that he's saying? Yes, yes, I do, I do. Yeah. I mean, the issue of theosis is not necessarily an objectionable view.

I mean, some of the Church Fathers use that type of language. And all that means is that you are taken up into the life of the

Triune God. And yes, absolutely, we are in Christ and we shall see him as he is, and we are co -heirs with Christ and of his glory and so forth.

So while we're using different words, what they mean by theosis, basically, Eli, is what we mean by glorification.

Glorification is the graduation. It's the last stage. And that's when you're in the presence of God.

So, you know, Augustine and the Western Fathers called it the beatific vision, where you are wrapped in God's, in the vision of God himself.

The Eastern Church refers to it as being absorbed into the energies of the Trinity, that is the

Triune God, his life, you're absorbed into his life. There's nothing objectionable to that.

It's just that to Westerners, theosis sounds a little weird, because we think it means something like becoming

God, which it does not mean. Okay. All right. Just a reminder to the audience, if you have your questions, please send them in.

We'll address them towards the end. So I would encourage you guys to do that, share that, and hopefully we can get some good questions and have some broader discussion on some of the things that we're covering rather quickly here.

All right, let's continue on. Being transformed, becoming godlike by receiving the graces which are partaken of within the church life.

The chief of those graces being, as I just articulated, the Eucharist.

Now you mentioned a term there that I think is, pops up in discussions with Eastern Orthodox folks, the term deification.

Why don't you unpack that a little bit in a little more detail? What is that in a way that perhaps a Protestant would be helpful for them to understand?

Yeah, his kenosis, we're talking about Christ, his emptying becomes our filling.

So when we're talking about deification, we're talking about what Peter talked about when he said we could become partakers of the divine nature, or participate in the divine nature.

So in Orthodoxy, we're not just saved from sin, we're saved for sonship, to become divine sons and daughters of the king.

We never become what God is in terms of his essence, but we can partake of his energies and those energies transform us.

So by way of an analogy, you can think of the sun. You can never attain to the center of the sun.

Trying so would be deadly. But you can certainly be impacted by the rays of the sun, and in the analogy,

God is present in each ray, and those rays transform us.

And the whole idea in Orthodoxy is... I have a question real quick. He spoke about essence and energy.

Would a Protestant make those distinctions, or is that something unique to Orthodoxy? Because I've always heard that within the context of the

Orthodox position, the difference between God's essence and his energies. Yeah. That type of language is language that's very reminiscent of Greek philosophy.

You find some of that language in Aristotle, even though the Eastern Church is predominantly

Platonic in their view. They're more influenced by Plato. By the essence, of course, is what makes

God God. So ontologically, we will never be like... I mean, we won't become God because our essence is creature and God is creator.

But the energies in the Orthodox Church are what we can call the graces, as he calls them, the graces of God.

And so our sanctification, our fellowship with God, they would see as his energies, his graces that are given towards us.

So in that respect, there's nothing objectionable to that. You know, when Peter says in 2 Peter 1 .3

that we become partakers of the divine nature, the word divine means like God. It doesn't mean to be the same of God.

Deity is God. Divine is God -like. And so when

Peter says that we are partakers of that divine nature, we're partaking of those benefits that God provides for us in Christ.

It doesn't mean if I partake of the divine nature, I have a divine nature. I mean, that's like me saying, you know, it's my birthday,

Eli, come on over. And if you partake of my birthday cake, you become a birthday cake. Well, no, of course not.

You're partaking of the cake. It doesn't make you a cake. And so you partake of the blessings that we have in Christ and the salvation.

The gift of eternal life is something that God imparts to us from himself so that we have this eternal fellowship with him.

So it's just the different wording that the Orthodox Church uses. But I think at the end of the day, we would agree with that, just using different terminology.

Sure. I suppose if it was an ice cream cake, I wouldn't mind. I love ice cream cake. All right, let's continue.

...is to be transformed. So if you look at Eastern Orthodox anthropology,

God creates man good, but not perfect. God creates man in such a way that he can ascend up the paradisical mountain and forever eat from the tree of life, which is at the apex of the

Edenic garden. Well, man stops halfway up and wants to become a god on his own terms.

He's expelled from the garden. So now humanity can no longer partake of the tree of life, but God has set another tree of life on the fulcrum of history, and that tree of life bears the

Eucharistic bounty. It is the cross. And it is through Jesus Christ that the triple barrier that separates us from God is broken.

The barrier of nature by the incarnation of Christ, the barrier of sin by the death of Christ, and the barrier of death itself by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So the whole idea in the system of orthodoxy is becoming not only what we're created as, an icon of God, but becoming more and more godlike by partaking of the energies of God, and maybe you can use another word for that, the graces that God dispenses within the ground and the pillar of truth, which is the church, the center of the universe in orthodoxy.

Now I have heard this often, and I don't know the terminology, essence and energy.

I've often been asked about the essence and energy distinction. What is that specifically within an

Eastern Orthodox context? I've heard it. You've alluded to it, but what is it exactly? Well, yeah, it's what

I was talking about before, Eli. You can never attain to the essence of God.

God is unknowable in his essence, but he is knowable in his energies, and it is those energies that are the graces that we're talking about, so we believe that we're saved by God's grace.

Just real quick, Dr. Costa, when he speaks about the essence, would that be what we would refer to within the

West as the incomprehensibility of God? Well, the incomprehensibility of God would be one of his attributes.

The essence is what makes God God. God is spirit, and those attributes do communicate, those incommunicable attributes that only

God has, like, as you said, the incomprehensibility, immutability, infinity, omnipotence, omnipresence.

All these things are part of God's unique essence in the sense that we can never be that.

You and I will never be immutable or incomprehensible. You will never be omnipresent and so forth.

So that's what he means by that, yeah. Okay. All right. Sorry about that.

You know, the Orthodox Church is not a works -centered theology. Say that again.

I'm sorry. It's not a works -centered theology. All right, let's stop there because that caught my ear.

I heard what he said, but I wanted to make sure I heard him correctly, and perhaps you could, I mean, he's going to explain, but would you take issue with that specific terminology?

I mean, they wouldn't say... Okay. Yeah, I would say that you'll notice that the

Roman Catholic Church will tell you we are saved by God's grace. It's in the Council of Trent. The Orthodox Church will tell you, absolutely, we're saved by God's grace.

But here's where the Reformation really was a game changer. The Reformation said, it's sola gratia.

It's grace alone. And therefore, the Orthodox Church will not tell you that it's grace alone.

That's why they really need James 2. We can look at that. I think they're taking that out of context in a terrible way.

But you will never hear them say, we are saved by grace alone. They will say grace, to be sure, but you'll never hear...

The official position of the Orthodox Church is that it's grace, but it's participation in the mysteries where you can gain access to the energies of God.

So that does not communicate grace alone, sufficiency of grace. So an

Orthodox wouldn't say we're saved by faith and works, but would you say, or maybe they would,

I don't know, but perhaps if they don't say that, we would say that the implications of their theology is that there is works being inserted in there, and here's where the issue is.

Right. So it's not faith alone. It's not grace alone. And it's not... Again, they deny sola scriptura.

They deny the idea that Christ alone... They will say Christ alone, but they believe that he can be accessed through the intercession of his mother and through the saints and so forth.

So the church to them is necessary for salvation. Okay. All right.

Let's see here. So, I mean, you have to get over the language barrier here because the language of the

Orthodox and the language of the Western church, the Roman Catholics, and the

Protestants, very, very different language. So oftentimes you have to learn to scale the language barrier there.

But the Orthodox, I mean, if you look at the Orthodox study Bible at Ephesians chapter two, the great passage, for by grace we've been saved through faith and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

If you look at all three of those verses, you see grace, faith, and works.

But here's what the Orthodox study Bible says. How can one get from one kingdom to the other?

By the unity of grace, faith, and works. Not that these are equal, for grace is uncreated and infinite, whereas our faith is limited and can grow.

Good works flow out of authentic faith. Works, however, cannot earn us this great treasure.

It is a pure gift. And those who receive this gift do good.

We're not saved by good works, but we are saved for good works.

If you look - Right there, if I can interject there, that sounds very Protestant -ish.

I mean, I hold to the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and I often say that I'm not saved by my good works, but the good works that I do are evidence of a genuine faith.

So what is the - and I apologize if this question kind of throws you off track as to your line of -

No, no, you're not throwing me off track. Fair. Is that what is the position then of the

Eastern Orthodox perspective on the doctrine of justification by faith alone? Because what we hear from Roman Catholics, what we hear from Eastern Orthodoxy sounds like a works -based system, even though they don't flat out say, yes, we're saved by our works.

It seems that it is the implications of the perspective. But what's your stance on justification by faith alone?

What's the Eastern Orthodox stance on justification by faith alone? Well, exactly what I just said in red.

You know, I was just going to say in this regard - Okay, I want to stop right there.

It's just, again, this is where I was confused because he could have just said, no, we don't hold to justification by faith alone because I asked that question knowing that they don't hold to it.

However - Yeah, yeah. He said, well, it was what I just said. And what did he just say when he read from his

Orthodox study Bible is that we're not saved by works. Right. That's not really what

I'm asking. I'm asking is what role does the works play in the whole thing and whether or not that the salvation by works is an implication of that.

And I think he's now trying to sound very Protestant. Yeah, well, he didn't affirm your statement of justification by faith alone.

See, that's the point here is he cannot say that because the moment you say that, then justification is a work of God separate from anything you can do.

And it's forensic as well. This is where the Orthodox Church is lacking tremendously is that they don't focus on the forensic perspective of justification, which involves

God's declaration of a sinner being not guilty. And so the doctrine of justification by faith alone is virtually lacking in the

Orthodox Church. All right, let's let him finish here. If you turn to James chapter two.

Okay. James parses it out very, very well. And in essence, what

James is saying is we have to nurture our faith in God, nurture our love for him through our works.

And that's why James says that someone will say, you have faith and I have works, show me your faith without your works and I will show you my faith by my works.

Faith without works is dead, says James. Right. And then he uses

Rahab and Abraham to illustrate why faith without works is dead.

So the kind of faith that we're talking about here, and I'm not distinguishing this from you in any sense, but the kind of faith we're talking about is the faith of Abraham.

I mean, Abraham's faith was not mere intellectual assent. Sure. Abraham trusted

God. So it wasn't just hearing and saying, I believe, but Abraham packed up his tents, left

Ur the Chaldees and went to a land he did not know anything about. Sure. He trusted

God. So faith is trusting. It's not only knowing and agreeing, but it is putting your whole trust in God.

And that's why James can say faith without works is dead. And then say that Abraham was called a friend of God.

You see then that a man is justified by works as James and not by faith alone. For as the body without the spirit is dead.

So faith without works is dead. Now in the

Western church, there's a big debate between the Roman Catholics and the evangelicals or the reformers and Rome because the whole idea of justification is understood in juridical terms.

That debate is not the same debate that the Eastern Orthodox are involved in. They were never involved in any of this.

There we go. We're on the same wavelength. Did you catch that? I think if we're catching the same thing, here's what popped in my mind that made my antennas go up and maybe yours was something different.

But what the Orthodox tries to do, and I hear this often, is remove themselves from the debate because geographically they weren't there.

However, for me, that does not alleviate their position of answering the same issues that are brought up.

When we talk about the sufficiency of grace, all these other things. So just because they weren't involved in the

Reformation dispute between Protestants and Catholics doesn't mean that the implications of their theology have no bearing on the question.

I don't know if that's where you were going. It's that, but it's also the fact that he says the whole issue of justification as having judicial bearing, this idea of the judicial context of justification is not something that the

Orthodox talk about. That's the point. The point is that justification, in its lexical context, the word dikaio is a forensic term.

And Paul uses it in the context of penalty for sin and the wages of sin is death.

And by grace, we have been justified by faith in Christ and we have peace with God.

And so the whole language Paul uses about peace, like a peace bond with God, and we've been justified by faith, this is judicial language.

So let me get this straight. So what you're saying is, when he says the

Orthodox doesn't speak about it in those terms like you guys do, and you're saying that's a problem because that's the language of Scripture.

That's what brought the Reformation as well. The whole point of the just shall live by faith. And so the whole point here is, why is this not an issue?

Why is this not even talked about in the Orthodox Church? You cannot read the book of Romans and not be struck by this.

It is so central to Paul's argumentation. And in Galatians as well, no one's justified by the works of the law.

And so the fact that he openly admits that, I think is a gaping problem here.

Because why is this not being discussed in the Orthodox Church when it's so central to the gospel?

If you can speculate, why do you think it has not been the center of discussion within Eastern Orthodox context?

Because to them, it's all about, again, from creation all the way, you do that big jump into the new creation, the new heaven, the new earth.

So to them, everything in the Orthodox Church is about theosis. It's all about becoming united with God, becoming mystically united with God.

So they're not interested in the judicial aspects of God's law. Everything is about that you go to the church, you receive ministries, and you're being transformed, as he said, from glory to glory.

You're being transformed. So the idea there is not about confessing your sin, repenting of sin, recognizing your need for a

Savior. That's not what it is. You've received all of that at baptism. And all you're doing now is you're growing in that process.

So in their view, at baptism, that child becomes a child of God. A baby becomes a child of God.

Don't the Orthodox engage in confession and repentance, though? Wouldn't they say—

They do. Okay. So when you say they're focusing more on the process, you're not saying that they don't do those other things.

There's just not a heavy emphasis upon them. Correct. And it's not even part of their theology. It's not part of their theology.

And it just really, really, it really calls into question the importance of Scripture because you cannot read

Romans again without coming away with the sense of God's judicial act in justifying sinners by faith, which is huge.

Okay. All right, let's continue. They never juxtaposition faith and works one against the other.

It was a foreign thought to them. But I don't think it's the

Protestant view that they're pitted against each other. No, no. So I'm saying the

Protestants and the Reformers or Rome and the Reformers were pitted against each other.

Eastern Church, there was never, ever a juxtaposition of one against the other.

It was simply understood from a biblical perspective. Well, I mean, well, that would be the point of contention, if that is, because what you're saying, what

I heard you say, if I'm understanding you correctly, it sounds very much, someone in the comment, why am

I still a Calvinist? People in the comment section. The question that I'm wondering is what you were saying with regards to James chapter two, as a

Protestant, I'm saying yes and amen. I don't see the distinction between the Protestant understanding and the

Eastern Orthodox understanding based upon what you said. In your estimation, then, what differentiates?

I mean, I agree with James that you're not justified by faith alone, but he kind of brings the distinction with works there.

Protestants have a paradigm for understanding that. I'm not sure I have distinguished your thoughts on that from the

Protestant view, because a lot of what you said, if I'm understanding you correctly, I can say, sure, I have no problem with that as a

Protestant. You understand my question? I do. And it's a good question.

And I think this is a really difficult thing to parse out unless you understand an overall framework.

And that's what I've been trying to communicate. You have to understand a whole overall framework and you have to be able to scale the language barrier and you have to understand what salvation is.

Salvation, as I said earlier, is not just being saved from sin, but it's being saved for sonship.

So you have to look at the larger framework. See right there, Dr. Acosta, I agree with that.

He's still, this is what was a little frustrating in answering my questions. He's still not saying anything that's different than the

Protestant perspective. And someone might say, well, maybe that's a point of agreement, but I know it's not.

We don't have the same understanding of, so I was very confused at this point. Yeah, well, also James chapter two,

James is talking about genuine faith versus a counterfeit faith, right? Remember in 2 .14,

he says here very quickly, he says, what good is it my brothers if someone says he has faith, but does not have works?

Can that faith save him? That's the point, can that type of faith, the faith that doesn't produce works?

And the answer is no, it can't. And again, the justification that James is talking about is not the same justification that Paul talks about.

Paul's talking about justification with God before God, because God sees the heart and God declared

Abraham to be righteous and just. James is talking about justification before men.

And that's why in chapter two, he begins with this idea of someone comes into your assembly and you make the poor sit at the back.

Are you acting justly? In other words, the way we act before people, how will they see our faith unless they see our faith in action?

And so in the case of Abraham, God already justified it before he was circumcised. God already justified him before he took

Isaac up to the Mount to offer him up. But he was justified by his works when we look at him and we see

Abraham taking his son and he takes that dagger and he's ready to plunge it into the chest of his son and we go, oh my goodness, he was actually gonna pull it through.

He was actually gonna go all the way. So from God's point of view, he already knew Abraham would pass the test.

But what James is saying is, look, we are justified by works before men, not before God.

And isn't that what the Lord Jesus said in Matthew 5? Let your light shine before men that they may do what?

That they may see your good works and praise your Father who is in heaven.

And so James is not talking about justification by faith before God. It's justification by works before men.

Totally different category. All right, okay, sorry about that. I'm clicking through to see if we could...

All right, let's begin here. Let's try to take bigger chunks or we'll never finish. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Creation to deification. So the port of salvation is not the goal. The goal is for the saved to continue on a journey.

So when we talk about salvation, we're not talking about it in punctiliar terms. We're talking about it as a process.

Now it is true that when an Orthodox person is baptized or when a person is baptized as an

Orthodox Christian, they have renounced the world, they've renounced the devil and his kingdom, and then they're baptized and they enter into a life of repentance.

At baptism, they're forgiven, they're washed, they're cleansed, they're united with Christ, they're incorporated into the church, and their temple becomes the temple of the

Holy Spirit. So there is a point in time or there is a sense of a punctiliar nature to Orthodox salvation, but then you begin a process.

And that process always takes place within a context, and that context is the church. And that's why the

Orthodox say, you cannot have God as your father without having the church as your mother, because it is in the church that you receive the graces that transform you.

So it isn't just this idea of fall to redemption, it is the broader arch that I was talking about earlier from creation to deification, and that's an ongoing process, meaning that you will never come to an end of that process, either in this life or in the life that is to come.

In eternity, we will continue to grow in the graces.

Now, we are going to learn and grow and develop, albeit without error, but we're never going to be static.

We're going to continue to become more and more like God. Again, not like God in his essence.

We're not talking about Mormonism, we're not talking about Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh, we're not talking about aberrations, we're not talking about Kenneth Copeland, but we're talking about the energies of God as opposed to the essence of God.

So let me give you an illustration of the early church. One second. So what you're saying there sounds a lot to me like sanctification.

Again, the language that you're using sounds very… That's a brilliant observation, truly a brilliant observation.

Because here's the problem, and you just put your finger right on it. The language systems oftentimes encompass many of the same ideologies.

It's different language, but the language is driving at some of the same points.

And that's why I said earlier on, Eli, you have to learn to scale the language barrier, because the language of the East is very different from the language of the

West. The language of the East is more Christ -victor. The language of the

West is more Christ -victim. Let's stop there, Eli. I don't know if you see my face, my face…

That's a false dichotomy, because, yeah, of course Christ is victor, yes, but he's also the victim, because he becomes the

Lamb of God. But at the same time, he is the priest, and he's the offering at the same time.

So that is a false dichotomy. The Western Church believed that Christ was also victor,

Christus victor, and they also believed that he was the victim. So that is not necessarily true.

That really is a false dichotomy. And I think it presents the Protestant position inappropriately as just being imbalanced.

And, of course, the imbalance is attributed to the lack of an overarching tradition that can guide us.

So it's all connected there as part of the argumentation. Let's move on. But in terms of emphasis, the emphasis in the

Eastern Church is that sin is a sickness, and there's a cure for the sickness. The language, as you know, in the

Western Church is far different from that. We can stop there, Eli. Okay.

Yeah, we believe that sin is a sickness. Jeremiah 79, the heart is incurably sick.

Who can know it? Of course we know it's sick. So again, false dichotomy.

I think he's making a hasty generalization that simply is not true. Okay. The language barrier, and I think a brilliant response on your part is that, yeah,

I mean, the Protestants talk about justification, but that's not all they talk about.

They also talk about sanctification. I think that's a very appropriate comment. I guess I would 100 % agree that we do need to scale the language barrier.

By the way, a little commercial for those who've never read Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Martin. There's an entire section on scaling the language barrier, and that's not just in relation to the cults.

That's in relation to any kind of communication where people are coming from different perspectives. So there is definitely a language barrier to be crossed, for sure.

By the way, you mentioned Walter Martin. Walter Martin believed that the Roman Catholic Church was a true church with significant error.

Right. And I would agree with that. And with all due respect, Walter Martin was incorrect.

And I say that with great respect for Dr. Martin. That would be a point of disagreement there. And I think he would say the same thing about the

Orthodox Church, that it is a true church with significant error. That's right. And so it cuts both ways.

That's right. Right. And I disagreed with his position there. But again, that's just a distinction between myself and yourself and Dr.

Martin. But when you speak of the fall and redemption, but that it goes back to creation and deification, and it seems to suggest that that is the position and emphasis of the

Western Church, I guess then we have to be more distinct with regards to what we mean by the Western Church because a lot of the ways that you have – just in passing, we're having a conversation here, so I'm sure there can be more precision in what you're saying.

But I've never heard the Western emphasis that you have described as something within the reformed context.

So I've never heard from fall to redemption. I hear from creation right at the beginning. God has a decree.

He has plans to make a covenant. It's unfolding, the process of salvation, the issue of justification and sanctification. I believe those –

Eli, I was trying to be precise because what I'm saying is it has to do with Eastern Orthodox anthropology.

I don't in any way dismiss or minimize the fact that the

Protestant faith understands the Bible from creation to glorification.

I'm not diminishing that in any sense. Yeah, I just wanted to click because I was like, well, I don't know if I would phrase it that way. So okay, so let's get down to – let's use the language of the debates so that people understand.

I mean Protestants think in these categories of justification by faith alone, the solos of the Reformation and things like that. Does the Eastern Orthodox perspective reject a

Protestant understanding of justification by faith alone? Yeah, again, for the reasons that we talked about,

I mean we believe that we're saved by God's grace. The emphasis is on God's grace.

So the category – There's stuff we can say there.

There's a subtlety there. Everyone believes, Protestant, Orthodox, Catholic, everyone believes that God's grace is necessary.

Everyone agrees. But where is the disagreement, Dr. Cox? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it sufficient?

There we go. Is it grace alone? And that's not what we're hearing. So is it sufficient or is it efficient?

Of course it's efficient. Of course it's necessary. But is it sufficient? And that's not the answer the

Orthodox Church will give us. That's right. Stories, again, are important if you make the proper distinctions in terms of the language that you're using.

So we believe exactly what Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and 10 says. We're saved by God's grace.

We receive that grace through faith, faith properly understood. And the salvation that we embrace is progressive.

There's a point in time where we experience salvation, but there's also a progressive sense of salvation, and that's, as I said before, why the

Orthodox say you're not only saved, you're being saved, and you will be saved.

See, but is that a distinctive of Eastern Orthodoxy? I've always understood there is a sense of a now and not yet aspect to the salvation process.

Well, that's a good point. There are a lot of Protestants that hold that. Good point. Right. A point well taken.

But there are a lot of Protestants, too, that do not hold that. So there's a popular form of Protestantism in which you get people to pray a prayer.

Sure. And then they have a card that gets them into heaven and keeps them. See, let's stop right there. That's not a popular form of Protestantism.

That's just false doctrine. Yeah. Right? I mean, now you're melding in.

Okay, well, there's Protestant distinctives, and then there are these wackos who think you get a. It's a straw man.

It's a straw man argument. Really? Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Let's continue here. Some out of hell, and they can live as a baptized secular humanist because they have been saved.

Once saved, always saved. They've been saved. And therefore. But if I can just jump in there. And I agree with you.

There are aspects of Protestantism that reflects that. But that's not an essential feature of Protestant theology.

Those are, I would say, aberrations of a consistent Protestant perspective. But that's a good point.

And before you get to your question, let me point that out. I think this is part of where the problem lies. You say you're rejecting

Eastern Orthodoxy, but maybe what you're rejecting is a caricature of Eastern Orthodoxy. And when people have arguments with respect to Protestantism, maybe in some cases they're caricaturing

Protestantism as opposed to correctly parsing it. Which he just did. Yes.

Yes. I think he makes a good point there. We can wrongfully reject an aspect of a theology because we don't understand it.

However, notice that my question that could easily be answered with a yes or no and then an expansion of whether you reject justification by faith alone.

He rejects it, but he hasn't clearly just come out and say no. And the language he's using sounds like, well, okay.

It kind of sounds like what I'm saying anyway. So there's an ambiguity there that would be very helpful if he just flat out said,

I reject it. Here's my position. Right. Okay. All right.

Let's continue here. By the way, for those watching, I appreciate you guys watching. I'm going to say it again.

If you have any questions, please type them out in the comments and we'll get to them towards the end. I think we are making somewhat good time here, but we're going to give a little longer gaps of listening and then interject.

So we'll try to keep our words short so we can finish. But if you have questions, please send them in. Right. And I definitely think that that happens.

And I think that's why conversations like this are so helpful. But at the same time, some of your explanations, even as you're kind of explaining your view,

I don't see a distinct difference, except for a couple of things you said, between the Protestant view and the

Eastern Orthodox view. And so I'm having difficulty identifying what is unique to Eastern Orthodoxy. And I think that we don't agree.

We're going to disagree on issues of justification. But what you're saying sounds very Protestant -ish, kind of.

Well, you know, I mean, I think you have to go back to what we're talking about earlier on in the conversation. I think it's really important to consider what the church was when the church was young, because there are all kinds of varieties of Protestantism.

From the time of the Great Schism that took place in the West, between Rome and the Reformers, what happened within Protestantism is mind -blowing.

I mean, Luther could not imagine what Zwingli would end up saying, believing, and teaching.

I mean, you know that. And then Zwingli could not believe later permutations of the

Protestant Reformation. And today, one of the big problems from my perspective, and quite frankly, one of the reasons

I wanted to go to where the church was young, i .e. Eastern Orthodoxy, is because of all the winds and waves of doctrine that keep sweeping through.

Well, here we go. Here is the classic Roman Catholic position in more respectful.

I appreciate the way he presented it, but look at how many denominations there are.

There is just chaos, and that is the fruit of Sola Scriptura and Protestant theology.

So let me ask you, Dr. Acosta. Okay, we'll try to move as quickly as we can. If the

Protestant position is correct, of course, we allow some nonessential disagreements within various traditions.

Why are there so many denominations? Yeah, I mean, we have these various denominations, but these denominations are born out of disagreements on a diaphora.

These are issues that are negotiable. So, I mean, he brings up the issue of the Eucharist, the

Lord's Supper with Luther and Zwingli. But what Luther ended up teaching was that in order to justify that Christ was truly present in the elements of the

Lord's Supper, Luther had to argue for the ubiquity of Christ's body. Now, you need to understand what that means, what that implies.

I mean, that implies that Christ's body is omnipresent. Now, there's a problem, and Calvin fought back against that, because what

Calvin is saying is that's a denial of the hypostatic union of Christ, that Christ has a true human nature, and that human nature is finite.

It is glorified, immoral, but it's finite. His body cannot be everywhere at the same time.

You would need that if you believe in transubstantiation or consubstantiation. So these different denominations have arisen not through disagreements on the

Trinity, not disagreements on the deity of Christ, but disagreements on secondary issues.

And so that is not an argument to say, well, that just shows that because we have all these different denominations.

I mean, I could still have fellowship with a Presbyterian brother. I can have fellowship with a Lutheran brother.

I can have fellowship with a Baptist brother. If they trust Christ alone for their salvation, and they hold to the creeds, the

Apostles' Creed, the creeds of orthodoxy, and so forth, we're on the same page.

But even in the Orthodox Church, I mean, you have the Byzantine liturgy, and then you've got these churches like the

Ukrainian, the Polish Unita churches that are churches that are in union with Rome.

They're not in union with the Patriarch of Constantinople. And so this argument about, well, this is when the

Church was young, and this is what I'm going to do, this is the same argument Roman Catholic apologists use for why they've gone into the

Roman Church. Scott Hahn uses this argument all the time. But once again, at the end of the day, we're not talking about, you know,

I can trace this denomination so far back. What we're asking is, are these churches in line and in harmony with the teachings of Holy Scripture?

Because I'm hearing a lot about when the Church was young, when the Church was young, and this is the oldest church.

I'm hearing very little about what are the biblical earmarks of a

Christian church. So again, there is division even within the churches of the

East. You've got the Coptic Church, which the Orthodox would say, oh, Copts are heretical because they deny the

Council of Chalcedon. And the Roman Church is heretical for the Filioque insertion into the

Nicene Creed, and so forth. So what are you saying about the Protestant churches in Rome?

The Roman Church is saying about the Orthodox Church. They're saying the same thing. They're the heretics who broke off from us.

So again, at the end of the day, I think that our standard should be

Holy Scripture. And I think with the Reformers, we need to get back to the fountains, back to the sources, and that's

Holy Scripture. All right, very good. We're actually making good time. It looks like in the video, we're almost—we probably have like a little bit over 10 minutes left, and then we'll take questions.

So there's some questions coming in I think are important to address. And yes,

I do know there are people who are asking whether Hank is the best representative to have on Eastern Orthodoxy.

And we have discussed this already. He admittedly says he's not the best resource, but I'll address that during the

Q &A. We'll talk about what I'm hoping for in the future, so we'll get to that later. But for now, let's press on.

The Protestant evangelical world. I mean, I remember not long ago when I was really disillusioned with evangelicalism, there were major voices in the evangelical

Christian world with big, big platforms saying that you should never ask

God for forgiveness. To ask God for forgiveness is like spitting in the face of God. So you have this wind and wave that moves through the church, and that's what

I'm talking about. You keep having more and more permutations that muddy the water, and so you can't see the bottom anymore.

So I'm simply saying that Eastern Orthodoxy is going to, when the church was young, and one of the primary issues for me is the

Eucharist. When I partake of the Eucharist, I'm partaking of the real presence of Christ, and that is a distinct difference from what you find within Protestantism.

Yes, and I do think that that's an important difference there. But a lot of these waves that you say are going in through the evangelical church, again, those are aberrations that can be corrected with proper biblical application.

So again, that's not an essential feature of Protestantism. Well, it is in the sense that everyone becomes their own pope.

I mean, everyone becomes their own interpreter. All right, all right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's the same old argument that, and again, this stems out of the view that no one is a private interpreter of the

Bible, that the church interprets the Bible. So the undercuring here is, once again, it's sola ecclesia, it's church alone.

And the idea here is that, oh, you can just be your own pope. So again, that is just so hasty.

That is such a straw man that Hank is presenting here.

I mean, when you study your Bible, Eli, I'm sure that you ask

God for illumination, you ask God for direction, you look at the context, you want to do a proper exegesis and hermeneutics.

The Bible isn't just some putty that you take into your hand and you just conform it to whatever you'd like.

I mean, the Protestant churches also have confessions. We also have confessions that we stand by.

And if you don't abide by those confessions, then the church has the authority to expel you or to have to communicate you.

So it's just such a simplistic explanation that Hank is giving there, that Protestants are just people that get together.

It's just me and my Bible under a cherry tree, and I'm just going to come to my own conclusion about what it says.

That is so simplistic, and it really is a straw man. It really is. Now, we don't have to expand on this because of time, but people want to make a distinction between sola scriptura and solo scriptura.

And it is often hoisted upon the Protestant position that we are solo scriptura es, and we're not.

There's a difference between solo and sola, and if you're interested in that difference, you can look it up. We're not going to go into it right now, but it's an important distinction.

Yeah. Okay. And so you have people that are going to the same

Bible, and they're interpreting the text in different ways and starting a whole movement around their own interpretations.

This is why I mentioned Zwingli, but you could mention many other people as well. I'm trying not to be confrontational.

We can stop there as well. I mean, you could go to... Okay. Determinism for me is...

So you see, Eli, the whole point is everyone comes up with their own interpretation.

Okay, which interpretation is correct? It's what the Orthodox Church says. So at the end of the day, we're back to sola ecclesia.

The Church determines what the Bible says. The Roman Church determines what the Bible says.

The Mormon Church determines what the Bible says. So at the end of the day, he is a subject of the

Church. He obeys whatever the Church says. So he's not even an interpreter of Scripture.

Hank can't even understand the Bible by himself. He needs the Church to guide him. And so that is no different than what

I see in the Mormon Church, the Watchtower. It's the same ideology. And you can't say, well, we have the pedigree, because who gets to interpret what constitutes a valid pedigree?

You've got the Mormons saying, well, the divine prophet tells us that there was a great apostasy.

So we can't trust what you claim. So you're going to have to get to the issue of authority at some point. Exactly. All right.

It's a huge issue. I grew up in a Calvinist context, and hard determinism for me was a huge issue.

I actually left the Church as a very young boy for a long, long time because I couldn't handle the idea of hard determinism.

It just seemed incredible to me to have— Then become a soft determinist.

Yeah, but this idea of hard determinism, I mean, God's sovereign right to be

God and God's sovereign right to decree the end from the beginning is hard determinism?

I mean, that doesn't speak of someone who the Scripture says obeys God and loves the

Lord his God and so forth. The only people that oppose God's decrees are unregenerate people.

I mean, Pharaoh, who is the Lord that I should obey his voice? So hard determinism, if he's talking about fatal determinism in a philosophical context,

I could see where he's going. But to speak of the God of the Bible as a hard determinist, that, again, that I think is a theological straw man.

That's right, and hard determinism is not an essential feature of the Reformed tradition. You have a wide variety of perspectives. So I don't see why that would cause him to leave if you have other options.

But let's press on. I have a sense of theistic fatalism that I heard over and over again in the church that I was part of.

And when I asked questions, I didn't get satisfying answers. So I left the church. Well, I found out that becoming a practicing atheist didn't help the situation much because if Madonna is merely a material girl living in a material world, her choices are not free.

They're fatalistically determined by brainstem, strange genetics. So I didn't advance the ball a whole lot, but it took me away from the church for a long period of time.

So there's this whole issue of robust libertarian freedom as opposed to hard determinism.

This is a major issue that separates the Orthodox from many strains within the

Protestant world as well. So there are many things, you know, for example, the filioque. That's a huge issue because it gets down to the nature of God himself.

And virtually every single theological heresy begins with a misconception of the nature of God. So there are big issues to be contended with.

All right. Well, we are coming up to the hour. And so I want to give an opportunity for some of the listeners to maybe ask their questions. There's so much here to unpack.

There's a lot that I probably would have pressed back on. We have points of disagreement. Well, you know what? You can do it because, first of all,

I got to commend you. You are exactly as advertised. I've never met you before. I only heard about you.

And what I heard about you is true. We had a conversation. You pushed back appropriately.

All right. I'm going to stop there. And I do appreciate Hank's compliments there.

I thought it was a good conversation. We weren't yelling or fighting over, you know, our positions.

I was trying my best to listen to where he was coming from. And we had respectful disagreement. And I hope that that models something for everyone else watching.

You don't have to make your point by just screaming heretic and bloody murder and yelling at each other.

So there are ways to have respectful conversations. But I'm going to stop there and move to the audience questions.

Because at that point, he takes some questions, and that's really not the gist of what we wanted to critique here.

So let me ‑‑ I'm going to look for a question. Is there anything you want to say with regards to anything he said towards the end there while I kind of scroll down and find a question?

No, I think we've pretty much discussed his major points. Okay. All right.

Good. So let's see here. Well, this is interesting. There's a comment here.

Someone says, I was once EO, and I know most of them know nothing about the Bible. Now, again, that's in this person's experience.

But that says something. Churches don't always ‑‑ That's right. And a lot of these

Orthodox churches are also very cultural. So I know a lot of folks ‑‑ I know folks in the Greek Orthodox Church, and to them, it's the

Greek church. It's the Greek church. It's a cultural Greek church. And so same with the

Russian Orthodox Church. Or if you watch Seinfeld when George was trying to convert to the

Latvian Orthodox Church. And so there are ‑‑ some of these churches become almost cultural churches where people just believe, well, if you're

Greek, you should be a Greek Orthodox. Right, right. So my experience has shown that many of them don't know the

Bible. Not to say there aren't any, but a lot of them don't know the Bible. Well, I mean, if you go to the church, you participate in the energies of God and so forth.

The church will take care of you. The church is the one that will take care of you and guide you along the way.

And so Bible reading to me, in terms of the Orthodox, is not something that is primary on their schedule.

Okay. Marvin asks, where do their veneration of icons come from? I know it isn't from the gospel, so I guess he gives the idea that he doesn't see it in Scripture.

Where does it come from? Yeah, well, there was a huge fight in the early church, the iconoclasts.

There were church councils that were held. There was a council in Constantinople in the mid to late 50s—500s, rather—mid 50s to late 590s, where there was a council that condemned the use of icons and any representations of God or Christ and so forth.

In the second council of Nicaea, 787 AD, they overturned that council and basically said it was okay to venerate icons because John of Damascus, who was considered a saint in the

Orthodox Church, argued that in the Incarnation, God basically divinized matter.

He blessed matter in the Incarnation, and therefore it's perfectly fine to venerate icons or pictures of Christ and Mary and the saints.

They make a distinction between the word latria and dulia, and latria means the worship of God, and dulia, they say, is a form of veneration.

Here's the problem. The Bible never uses those types of categorical distinctions. In the

Bible, latria, dulia, proscuneo, sebezomai, threskia—all of these words are all related to the worship of God.

That's one of the things I covered in my book on the worship in the risen Jesus of the appalling letters.

So the reason why they allow that is they say veneration is not worship.

So they'll pray to Mary, but that's not worship. That's veneration, even though the actions are exactly the same as the worship of God.

So it develops out of this idea, at least by the time you come to the 5th century, this stuff is really beginning to pile up.

But there was a huge dispute among Christians about the use of icons, and there were iconoclasts, and they quoted

Romans 1, Exodus 20, against the icons. Okay, very good. Here's a question.

So can Dr. Costa bottom line it and say if he views the Orthodox as our brethren, or are the differences too vast?

Yeah, they're not our brethren in Christ. I believe they are like the Roman Church and Apostate Church.

They can't be in Christ if they don't believe the gospel of grace. If they believe the

Church is going to save them, the Church is the center of the universe. That is very different than what we read in Holy Scripture.

So are they brethren in Adam? Yes, they're brethren in Adam, but I want to see them become brethren in Christ.

So no, I don't believe they are Christian brethren. Okay. And someone asked a question that's related to that, because I think we were speaking within the context of justification by faith alone, and that perhaps there's an implication of salvation by works, and someone in the comments brought up the issue of synergism.

So can synergists be saved, in your estimation? Yeah, if by synergism it is the belief that you participate in your salvation towards being regenerated and born again,

I don't believe a synergist can be saved. Now, that's not to say that there are not people who may be ignorant of the grace of God, and they're trusting in Christ, and they're completely trusting in Christ, but they have this misperception that somehow they made that choice, as in the

Armenian case. All of the Reformers, the Magisterial Reformers, Luther, Calvin, all of them were saved while they were in the

Roman Catholic Church, all of them, before they broke off. And so they were in that system, and eventually they left it.

And so I'm willing to say that if you believe that your works contributed towards your salvation, you're lost.

You cannot be saved with the understanding that your works contributed. That's the Galatian heresy.

That's the Judaizers. But if you're talking about a Christian who believes Christ and trusts

Christ alone, but they have the misperception, they have the theological misperception that somehow they worked towards that, or they made that decision.

I think that they are truly saved. I think they are theologically wrong, because I've met many non -Calvinist folks who believe that Christ alone saves, and they're trusting

Christ alone, and they'll say, I gave my life to Jesus when I was a 12 -year -old kid, and so forth and so on.

And so I think that there are many who think they contributed to their salvation, although they are theologically in error.

And I think there are those who truly believe that their salvation was bought with their faith and their works, like cultists,

Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses. These people actually believe that they worked toward the salvation. Roman Catholics who believe that the sacraments will save them are not going to be saved.

That's not to say that there aren't Roman Catholics who are truly trusting in Christ, but from my experience, what

I have found is that they cannot remain in the Roman Church. They eventually leave.

Okay. Here's a comment, maybe you want to respond. Without the thousand -year -old hierarchy of a Catholic doctrine, there will be chaos in the

Christian Church. Well, there's chaos in the Roman Catholic Church, and there really has always been chaos in the

Roman Catholic Church, from the Babylonian captivity to the four popes running the church at the same time, moving the headquarters from Rome to Avignon.

The Roman Church has always been a divisive church. And so I think

Christ has sustained his church throughout history. I don't think there was ever a time when Christ did not have his people, his elect people.

Jesus promised he would be with his church to the end of the age. That does not mean, and I'm using a bit of Augustine's mystical church, invisible church here, there are people in the visible church that are not saved, and then there are people in the visible church that are saved.

But the Lord knows those that are his, and through the dark periods of church history,

Christ raised up men and women to be his lights, Jan Hus and John Wycliffe and so forth.

So to say that the church would be in tatters if we didn't have 1 ,000 -year -old hierarchy of the

Catholic Church is absolute nonsense. Christ is the head of his church, and Christ is leading his church, and he continues to lead his church.

And the whole idea of the Reformation as post -anniversary looks after darkness, light.

That light comes from Holy Scripture. All right, very good. A friend of mine, Andy, says,

I think it's important to remember that Hank is relatively new to the Orthodox faith. And that is true. That's not something that I did not have

Hank on pretending that he is the grand poomba of all Eastern Orthodox theology. We spoke about that.

I just thought that he was a significant Christian personality, and it was a big deal when he converted, and I thought it'd be a good opportunity to have him come on and explain from his perspective.

But yes, there are others who would do a much better job in explicating their position.

Nate asks the question, Hi, Eli. I will toss this over to you. My uncle is

Greek Orthodox. Are there any distinctives between Greek and other Orthodox positions to keep in mind when talking to Greek Orthodox people?

Well, the Greek Orthodox Church is in communion with the patriarch of Constantinople, and therefore there really is not much difference.

There are differences when you look at the churches of the East, like the Coptic churches, the

Church of Egypt, the Copts. Their liturgy is very similar to the Orthodox Church, but they do differ in some areas.

They reject Chalcedon, and so they have a view of the hypostatic union that is deemed to be heretical by the

Orthodox Church. And the same would apply to the Ethiopian Church and so forth.

So what I would suggest is this. Give your uncle the straight Gospel. Give him the

Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Gospel of God's grace. Preach repentance unto him. He is trusting his church to save him, and his church is not going to be able to save him.

It is Christ alone that saves. So be faithful to Christ. Be faithful to the Gospel. Give your uncle the

Gospel message. That's what he needs. That's the power of God unto salvation to all who believe.

All right. Plantingisbulldog says, So to me, Hank doesn't necessarily seem like the top tier

Orthodox apologist. Have you thought of getting a qualified Orthodox theologian or philosopher on? Well, I have been constantly, people have been pointing this out.

Here's the deal. Okay. There's nothing set in stone. I do not want to put words in anyone's mouth.

But I have reached out to Dr. James White and asked him if he is willing to debate where I would be moderating.

If he's willing to debate, Jay Dyer. A lot of people have pointed to Jay Dyer as a good representative of the

Orthodox position. And Dr. White has said, just in passing, there's nothing set in stone. And there's a lot going on over at Alpha and Omega Ministries.

But he said that could be a possibility. So don't know when. I'm going to try my best to be consistent and kind of check in every now and then.

But as soon as something like that can happen, which I hope it does, I'll let folks know. Because I definitely want a fair representation of both sides.

Okay? All right. Someone asked, have I ever thought about getting Trent Horn on or Patrick Madrid?

No, I have not. Because my focus was Eastern Orthodoxy. So Catholicism wasn't the focus. Maybe in the future.

Okay. Let's see here. I think this is a good one, Dr. Costa, that you could address. Some Orthodox told me

Calvinism is like Islam. And I think that's within the context of their kind of fatalistic view.

Their determinist view. Is there a difference between Muslim determinism and reformed,

I guess, our view of God's sovereignty and how he's meticulously sovereign over all the

Christians? Absolutely. In the Christian view, God's decrees have a purpose.

And that is his ultimate glory. To bring about his maximal glory. And so the reason why they say that Calvinism is like Islam is because in Islam there's a very hard doctrine.

It's called Qadr in Arabic. It's a very hard doctrine of predestination. But the difference with Islam is that Allah picks and chooses people not based on any grand purpose.

Allah can pick and choose people just for reasons that are known to him alone. There's this understanding that God in Islam is beyond our understanding.

He is unknowable. He is completely transcendent. And we do not understand his purposes. That's why

Muslims always say Inshallah. Inshallah. Meaning if Allah wills. If Allah wills. And so the hard determinism that we find in Islam is such that no

Muslim has assurance of their salvation. A Muslim could serve all his life and then in the last minute before death

Allah will send him to hell. A person may live a wicked life and they'll come within the door of death and then

Allah will say I want you to be saved. So there is no grand purpose of predestination within Islam because no one knows

Allah's will. He is completely unknowable. Whereas in the Calvinist or Reformed view

God has a purpose. He works all things for his people to those that are called according to his purpose.

He does all things according to the counsel of his will. And so the God of scripture is a

God of purpose. This is not the God of Islam. The God of Islam is a completely different deity altogether.

Hmm. All right. Very good. Do Eastern Orthodox have to be classical theists?

Even if I rejected the five solas I can't be a Catholic for this reason. Are you familiar with classical theism?

By classical theism. Is he talking about divine simplicity? He may be.

I do understand that simplicity is part of that discussion. So if you understand. I mean don't feel obligated to try and if you don't understand the question.

Yeah. I mean if by classical theists they're talking about divine simplicity.

They're not really huge fans of that because they see divine simplicity as a

Thomistic understanding. Thomas Aquinas really wrote extensively on this as an earmark of Roman Catholicism.

And so if that's what you're talking about. Yes. Dr. Costa, he's sending in some more commentary.

He says, yes, the four classical attributes simplicity, immutability, timeless, and impassibility.

So that's the context of his question. Well, those are things that we would accept as well. We believe that God is impassible and we believe that God is immutable.

Those are attributes of the God of Scripture. But to be a

Roman Catholic, you would have to adopt this idea of divine simplicity that Thomas Aquinas advocated for.

From my understanding, that is something that the Orthodox don't accept and don't subscribe to.

Okay. This is a great question. I think this is an important question to answer. Hopefully you give a nice good answer to this question.

I don't know if this is related, but how would we respond when someone presents 1 Peter 321 as support that baptism saves?

And here it is. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

Right, right. Well, I think we need to look at the context. And I think what Peter's doing is he's talking about the flood, and he's using an analogy.

The word that Peter uses there is the word antitupos, the antitype, that baptism is an antitype.

Baptism is illustrating what God actually does.

In other words, it's not the removal of dirt from the body. So Peter's not saying that this water has this magical effect on your body.

But that baptism saves you as an antitype, just like the waters of the flood kept the ark afloat while destroying everybody else.

Baptism is a picture of what God has done for you in Christ. So it's not baptism itself, but baptism as an antitype is communicating what the reality has been accomplished in your life.

And so this is a favorite text that many in the Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic Church, and even the

Lutherans, they'll take that text to prove baptism regeneration. So Peter's making it very clear.

The water doesn't do anything to you. It's not the removal of the dirt. It is a response of a good conscience towards God.

And so the act of baptism is a picture of what has already happened.

And so in baptism, we die with Christ and we are buried. That's why immersion is the perfect picture for this.

You are buried in the watery grave and you come out from the watery grave into new life.

Not that baptism accomplishes that, but baptism is a reenactment, if you will.

It is a picture of the reality. And that's what Peter's getting at. That's why he uses the word an antitype.

All right. And this is the last question. And it is for me. It's unrelated, but I'll take it.

It's the last one here. I know some people who have followed me know that I used to flirt with Molinism back in the day.

The question is, what is the biggest reason why you accept Calvinism over Molinism? That's M -O -L -I -N -I -S -M.

But no, don't be too picky. Is it strictly a bias against the denomination of who proposed the

Molinist theory? Well, Molinism was developed by a Jesuit counter -reformer,

Luis de Molina. And he developed this system to answer the theological and philosophical question of how to reconcile

God's meticulous sovereignty and human freedom and responsibility. Now, if I can be perfectly clear on this, and I think this is very important, and I know it's going to be a generic answer that people would expect me to say, but it's true.

The reason why I'm a Calvinist is because out of all the positions that I have looked into and have flirted with,

I find the Calvinistic interpretation and use of Scripture to be the most exegetically, biblically derived out of any position.

Even with some of its theological and philosophical difficulties, I think it does the most justice to a proper exegetical approach to the text.

When I adopt the Molinistic perspective, what I find is not a solid exegetical approach to Scripture.

What I find is an attempt to answer a theological and philosophical question, which in and of itself is not wrong.

But if that is the basis upon which you then have to now foist upon the Scriptures to answer this question that the

Scripture isn't asking, I think that's a problem. Now, there's more to it, but generally speaking,

I find Calvinism, the five solas, the basic soteriological perspective of the

Reformed tradition, it's just so scriptural to me. And I'm very much committed to what the

Bible says, even if that means adopting certain theological positions that cause me to be unable to answer certain questions that I would like answered.

I think that Molinism—let me share this one thing, and I'll end with this, because this was a big thing for me.

When I was studying Molinism, I found myself entrenched in philosophy. When I was studying Calvinism, I found myself entrenched in the

Scriptures. I know that might sound stereotypical for people, like, oh yeah, Molinists have their biblical defense too, but there's something about the

Reformed tradition that entrenches you in the Scriptures. Does it mean it's perfect?

No. But for me, that is a plus, and that is what drew me to the Calvinist position, and that is what led me to—and other issues, philosophical reasons as well—that led me to straying away from the

Molinist position. So I hope that answers the question. Dr. Costa, thank you so much.

I want to point other people to the previous episodes. This was a part two. Dr. Costa offered his knowledge of church history and interacting with these ideas in the previous video as well.

And, of course, you can see the original discussion with myself and Hank Hanegraaff prior to that.

I want to thank you so, so much, Dr. Costa. You have been an engaging guest, knowledgeable, funny, and definitely not boring to listen to.

So I very much appreciate you coming on. Thank you. It was a pleasure. Well, thank you very much.

And everyone else who's listening, again, keep your ears peeled for future updates with regards to Revealed Apologetics' website.

And if you have any questions for me with regards to topics you'd like me to cover, you can email me at revealedapologetics at gmail .com.

And I will keep you guys updated on future things that I'll be doing as well. So thank you so much for listening.