TPW 59 Eastern Orthodoxy's Anti-Biblical View of the Cross of Christ - Part 1

Welcome to the Proverbs and Witness, this is Pastor Patrick Hines here at Ridwell Heights Presbyterian Church in Kingsport, Tennessee. And today I'm going to do a little blast from the past. I kept a lot of the old videos and files from Toward a Biblical and Christian Worldview, which is probably the worst title ever come up with for a YouTube channel because it's way too long.

And back then I was responding to Hank Hanegraaff and ended up getting into a lot of interesting dialogues with people from the Eastern Orthodox religion because they were unhappy with my criticisms of Hank Hanegraaff and I don't know how these people found my videos and.

Stuff. But they did.

There was one fellow in particular who was commenting on videos and I was responding to him and he was a very interesting person. He looks real young and he and his wife evidently converted to Eastern Orthodoxy from some form of Protestantism apparently.

But I noticed that this guy was a little bit different because he sounded like a flaming liberal and it was very strange talking to him and dialoguing with him. But eventually he sent me a link to a long sermon, I think it was 56 minutes long, which I guess it's not that long, I've preached that long before.

But anyway it was a fairly lengthy sermon on the cross from an Eastern Orthodox perspective. Now the sermon is by a fellow who's actually, I didn't know this at the time I did this first video, which I'm just going to put the audio here on the Protestant Witness.

He died, I think, back in 2015, but I assumed he was someone who was still alive and preaching.

Now.

But it was really sad to listen to this sermon and I responded to it in a fairly passionate way because it is one of the most direct denials of the Christian faith I've ever listened to and listening to Father Thomas Hopko preach was literally like being transported into the past to a sermon by someone like Harry Emerson Fosdick, Henry Van Dyke, or Friedrich Schleiermacher.

This guy does not believe that God has wrath against sin, does not believe that God is required by his holiness and his retributive justice to punish sin, and because of that this man's understanding of what Jesus did when he died is as flawed fatally as it could possibly be.

This young guy sent me a link to this sermon and begged me, you know, Pastor, please, with an open heart and an open mind listen to this sermon and it was appalling. But it was a great opportunity to preach the gospel, it was a great opportunity to contrast this Eastern Orthodox priest's understanding of Christianity and of the Bible with the.

Truth.

And a number of people found this video to be very helpful and there's actually a two-part video. The first video is just about the first half of the sermon and then I did another episode of Toward a Biblical and Christian Worldview way back.

But now I'm just going to make it two installments of the Protestant Witness. So this is my pretty passionate response to this. I had listened to the sermon a couple times. I went jogging and listened to it twice because I kept thinking, was there something in here that was supposed to impress me?

Because it was just terrible. So I'm just warning you ahead of time, just brace yourself. This is a pretty bad sermon by a man who very sadly has died. I hope that before he died that he repudiated this and actually believed what scripture says about the cross of Jesus Christ.

But I hope that you will find this to be helpful. And just FYI, I used to put this cheesy Constantinople song way back when I was doing, when I first started doing Eastern Orthodoxy videos. So just bear with me.

The sound quality is not very good but you'll hear the silly song. And I was just looking for something to put at the beginning of these and I called it Radio Free Constantinople because James White does Radio Free Geneva with his anti-Calvinism.

Stuff.

So yeah, not very original but yeah, that was fun. So enjoy. Today is our first ever Radio Free Constantinople. Sorry, I don't have a good introduction. But the Constantinople song I thought would be somewhat appropriate.

Radio Free Constantinople. I know Dr. White has done Radio Free Geneva, Radio Free Damascus, you know, responding to the anti-Calvinist screeds that are out there on the internet and responding to Muslim attacks on Christianity, Radio Free Damascus.

Well, I was given a link to a sermon by an Eastern Orthodox clergy person of some kind and I wanted to do a program and start responding to it. This is probably going to take several programs. I think it'll probably take forever to get through.

It's 56 minutes long. 56 minutes and 34 seconds. And this is Father Hopko is his name. And I actually had heard him before. There's a TV program called Orthodoxy Today and had listened to a couple of those on YouTube and thought, wow, he sounds like he's a liberal.

And this sermon here, I've listened to it a couple of times. It's called Understanding Jesus's Death. And it seemed like it was some kind of an outreach of some kind to non-Orthodox people or maybe even people with no exposure to Christianity at all.

Because a lot of times he talks about, and those are part of the 27 books that we call the New Testament. I'm like, are there people there that have never heard of Christianity or something? You have to tell them that those are in the New Testament as opposed to the Old Testament.

But that's what it sounded like. It sounded like it was some kind of an evangelistic, actually, I shouldn't say evangelistic as there is no gospel to anything that this guy has to say. In fact, the sermon seems to have as its primary focus the repudiation of everything that is taught in Scripture about the atonement of Jesus Christ.

And you know, I've just been reading a book on the atonement by the late Dr. Archibald Alexander Hodge, the son of Charles Hodge, and I came across a section that reminded me a lot of this particular message that I listened to by Father Hopko.

Charles Hodge here says regarding those who oppose the idea of a substitutionary atonement where Jesus is indeed punished at the cross for the sins of his people.

He says this, quote,.

"...besides, these very men necessarily violate their own principle, showing that practically it serves only as a cover under which their hostility to the truth is disguised. It is plain enough that Coleridge," that was a person he's responding to, "...Coleridge held and taught under all the cloud of his mysterious language the old, meager, and oft-discarded moral theory of the atonement.

The Reverend Subdean Garden," that's another guy, "...in the Tracts for Priests and People makes it very plain that while his professed object is to maintain the atonement as a fact, while all human theories as to its nature are alike rejected, his real interest in the matter is to reject the principle which has been always professed by the Church in all its branches, that the direct and central design and effect of Christ's death was to propitiate the principle of justice in the divine nature.

The same is true in degree also in the advocates of the governmental theory. Its positions are possible only when vaguely and generally stated. When a strict account is asked as to what is meant by a substitute for a penalty or as to the connection between the non-penal sufferings of an innocent person and the forgiveness of the unpunished sins of the guilty subjects of divine government, no answer is made, and we venture to assert that upon their theory no answer is possible.".

And I would say exactly all those things that Dr. Hodge says to this guy, Father Hopko. He detests the idea that Jesus is bearing divine justice upon the cross, that he is bearing the penalty of sin on the cross.

And yet in other places in the sermon he'll affirm that, so what exactly does it mean that he satisfies divine justice? And then you just think, this sermon, this message, I've listened to it twice. So this will be the third time I've listened to it going through it here in installments here.

And it is without question the most thoroughly confusing sermon I've ever listened to on any topic, on any topic. And he makes errors concerning the original languages many times in this. He's quoting stuff I think from memory.

This sounds like kind of a polished presentation that he's made before, but we'll go through a lot of that stuff. But all of that is just window dressing to hide his prejudice against the idea that Jesus's death on the cross actually satisfies divine justice by taking the punishment for sin away.

And he knows he's got a lot to deal with because that is one of the clearest teachings of the Bible from the beginning to the end, it is. And so this sermon is an exercise in obfuscation by a person who rejects sola scriptura.

And I've said this before and I'll say it again. Um, those who reject and deny the doctrine of sola scriptura, they can't do exegesis of scripture. They can't. They are not capable of doing it. As long as there's this other authority in place that's telling them what they have to see and what scripture is allowed to say, they can't handle scripture accurately.

They just can't. And so I would also assert this, having listened to this sermon twice, this man's understanding of Christianity, his understanding of the Christian faith can be what it is had Jesus of Nazareth never lived, died or rose from the dead.

Because that doesn't really do it. Somehow that brings victory and makes everything right, but it's not taking away punishment. Somehow it just makes everything right. And you're left going, you know, for those who have studied historical theology and know about the history of the doctrine of the atonement, we've heard that before.

We've heard that in recent years from the liberals and from neo-Orthodox commentators and folks like that. I wasn't expecting to hear a sermon that reminded me of something by Friedrich Schleiermacher from an allegedly ostensibly conservative Eastern Orthodox person.

But that said, that introductory stuff aside, let's go ahead and get into it. This is going to take several installments here to get through, but let's go ahead and listen to Father Hopko.

As Father mentioned, this mid-week of the great fast is the week dedicated to the cross. The cross is there, decorated. It's usually right in the middle of the church when the chairs aren't in. And we have been contemplating the cross of Christ Friday night, all day yesterday, and this morning at the liturgy, and now tonight we're finishing.

Tonight we have a very specific topic, and that has to do with the understanding of Jesus's death as an expiation or a propitiation for sin, and as a redemption, a buying back, or a ransom. These are all words that are biblical words.

They're Old Testamental words. They're New Testamental words.

And he's going to have to try to show you why they don't actually mean what they mean. The word propitiation, hilasterion in Greek, hilasmos, means a sacrifice which removes divine anger and wrath. That's what the word means.

And he knows that if he's got an evangelical audience, he's going to have to try to explain this stuff away. So he's already preparing them for it.

Why is it that when Jesus, because Jesus is crucified, and indeed because of his whole life, which is culminated ultimately in his passion and death, why is this considered to be a redemption, our redemption, or a redemption from our sins, in popular way of putting it, which is also written in, for example, the writings of St. Paul.

He says that in the popular way of putting it, and also the writings of St. Paul. Yeah, that's right. This is biblical stuff that he's setting you up to reject.

It would be that Christ died for us. He died for us. Pronobis, or huperimon, he died for us.

Right, huperhimon in Greek means in behalf of us. That preposition, huper, is very important. It has to do with substitution, in behalf of us. Huperhimon means in behalf of us.

And how is that understood, especially in terms of ransom, in terms of payment, because the imagery is used of bought with a price. We don't belong to ourself. We belong to him because he purchased us with his blood.

These are images that are used in scriptures.

Yeah, and the way that they're used in scriptures is very clear. Romans chapter 5 and Romans chapter 3 were justified by the blood of Christ, meaning it is the shed blood of Jesus that deals with divine anger, divine punishment for sin.

That is what appeases the wrath of God. That's what hilasterion means. That's what propitiation means. That's why the high priest went into the Holy of Holies and would sprinkle blood upon the mercy seat, where the wings of the cherubim on top of the Ark of the Covenant met is the mercy seat, the propitiatory, the hilasterion.

And that would be the removal of divine wrath, divine punishment for sin. So these are all things that this guy not only does not believe, but detests, as you're.

Going to hear.

In the Hebrew scriptures, they're used in certain ways, and then they're used in the scriptures of what we call the writings of the New Testament.

See, that's why I thought this must be a sermon that was meant for people who have a pagan background, no exposure to Christianity at all. The writings of what we call the New Testament.

Really?

Are there people there that had never even heard of the New Testament? It sounds like it.

All of which were written by Jews and were interpreting the law of the Psalms and the prophets of what we would call the Old Testament. So what we want to do tonight is to focus on that particular issue and to do so, as Father John mentioned, because it really appears that some Christians, perhaps many, perhaps.

Even most people who read the Bible, yeah, think what he's about to say.

Listen, understand the suffering and the death of Christ when they're looking at it within these images, primarily in terms of punishment, because there's no other way to look at it.

What does the scripture teach us? The wages of sin is death. So what did Jesus have to come do?

Die.

The punishment, the penalty for sin against God is death. So what did Jesus have to come do? Take the punishment. He died for our sins. He took the punishment, the wrath, all of it upon himself. That's why the Garden of Gethsemane, you see him praying, Mark 14, 32 and following.

He's falling down to the ground. He's praying, Lord, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. It was such a horrific ordeal. He knows that the full force of the anger of God against sin is coming.

But this guy, this person preaching this message, he doesn't believe that.

Of punishment, simplistically put, very oversimplistically put, but sometimes that oversimplistic way is expressed very graphically and very strongly in certain type of writing.

And in film.

For example, the film by Mel Gibson that was quite popular a couple of years ago around this time of year, what was it called? The Passion of the Christ.

Just say no to The Passion of the Christ. It's a horrendous movie. My favorite part of that movie is Peter. When Peter betrays Jesus and he goes to Mary and he's calling her mother. It's a Roman Catholic hit piece is what that film is.

And all the weird stuff in it. You want to understand that the death of Jesus Christ, God gave us his word. Read one of the Gospels. Read John chapter 18 to the end of the Gospel of John and there's where you will see what the death of Jesus is about in terms of what happened.

It seems to be something like this.

Human beings.

Okay, I want to get prepared for this. Here he explains Christianity. He explains Christianity in the simple, straightforward terms that it's given to us in the Bible, and then he rejects it. So listen carefully.

Adam or humanity has sinned. God is angry because of the sin. And in order to be made right with God, you got to get punished for what you have done.

Okay, so Adam has sinned and all humanity in him has sinned. And God is angry. Notice he chuckles when he says that. It's almost like he doesn't believe that God is angry at sin. I just looked through just, you know, randomly picked one book of the Old Testament, the book of Numbers.

Numbers 11 verse 1. Now, when the people complained, it displeased the Lord. For the Lord heard it, and his anger was aroused. So the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some in the outskirts of the camp.

Numbers 11 verse 10. Then Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, everyone at the door of his tent, and the anger of the Lord was greatly aroused. Numbers 12, 9. So the anger of the Lord was aroused against them.

Numbers 22, 22. Then God's anger was aroused because he went and the angel of the Lord took his stand in the way as an adversary against him. This is Balaam riding the donkey and so on. Numbers 25, the issue of Baal of Peor, where the people were engaged in immorality there.

Numbers 25, 3. So Israel was joined to Baal of Peor, and the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel. Then the Lord said to Moses, take all the leaders of the people and hang the offenders before the Lord out in the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.

Numbers 32, 10. So the Lord's anger was aroused on that day, and he swore an oath saying, etc. Numbers 32, 13. So the Lord's anger was aroused against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness 40 years.

Verse 14. And look, you have risen in your father's place, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more the fierce anger of Yahweh against Israel. I think the anger of the Lord is a real thing. It's a real issue.

Human beings are deserving of punishment. When God first made his covenant with Adam in Genesis 2, 16, he says, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree which is in the midst of the garden you shall not eat of it, for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die.

Paul's interpretation of that, Romans 5, 12 -19. Through one man's disobedience, sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned. That's why everybody dies.

Death is, is everybody listening, the punishment for sin. That's why the second Adam, when he came into the world, Jesus Christ, had to do what?

Die.

To take the punishment for sin away, so that in him we would have everlasting life. But listen as he continues.

However, since it is God who is offended, human beings cannot pay the proper penalty or the proper punishment.

No, it's not because it's God who's offended, it's because we are finite, and he's infinite, and the sin that we've committed against him incurs infinite debt, infinite wrath. It's very odd to me, this is the third time I've listened to this sermon.

This man, and also in the program, the Orthodoxy today, with sublime awe and reverence will quote Eastern Orthodox theologians. But when he quotes scripture, he'll finish quotations of scripture with a chuckle.

He's mocking the Bible. For God so loved the world. Oh, that's not funny, that's John 3, 16. That's something our Lord said, that it was inscripturated for us.

That he sent his only son, who is divine with the same divinity as God is himself, born on earth of the virgin, born as a human, to pay the penalty of punishment that is due to the sins of humanity, and that therefore the passion and suffering of Christ, and his being put to death, is interpreted as a punishment for our guilt.

That's exactly what it is. That's exactly what it is. Listen to Romans 3, 18 and following. After you get that whole catena of passages from the Psalms and the prophets from Romans 3, 9 through 17, it finishes with, there is no fear of God before their eyes.

Now listen, verse 19. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Guilty before God. And then when Paul announces the gospel, how does he describe it?

But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.

For there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation, that is hilasterion, a propitiation by his blood through faith, to demonstrate his dikaiosune, his righteousness, his justice.

Because in his forbearance, God had passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate at the present time his dikaiosune, his righteousness, his justice, that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Now that's exactly what this guy is denying.

Listen.

If you've committed a crime by law, you got to pay the penalty.

Yeah, we're guilty of having broken the law of God. That's why all of us are going to die. Now, if you're guilty, you got to pay the penalty. Yeah, that's the whole reason Jesus came, was to take the punitive retribution, the punishment, the penalty, what scripture calls the misthos, the wages of sin, which is death, were laid upon him.

The penalty has to be equal to the crime.

Yeah.

But if you offend God, then you have to pay a divine penalty.

Right.

But no one can pay a divine penalty. The whole of humanity cannot pay a divine penalty.

That's exactly correct. In fact, that just reminded me of Psalm 49 says something to that effect, as I recall. Listen, for their redemption is costly. The redemption of their souls is costly, and it shall cease forever, that he should continue to live eternally and not see the pit.

For he sees, yeah, those who trust in their wealth and boast in the multitude of their. None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him, for the redemption of their souls is costly.

Because none of us are divine. So then the solution to that particular problem is.

Just bear in mind, this is what he does not believe. He does not believe this. This is the view that most Christians even believe, this silliness.

God loves the world, and it's an act of love, sends his son to be punished, to suffer.

Yeah.

And the penalty is suffering.

That's the demonstration of God's Dikaiosune, his justice, his righteousness. Romans chapter 3, 24, 25 and 26. Right there, black ink on white paper. He doesn't believe it.

You see, getting beaten, mocked, ridiculed, spit upon, nailed to the cross and killed.

Yeah.

And then God is satisfied.

Exactly.

That's the whole point of everything. Listen to the old prophecy of this from Isaiah 53. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. You hear that? The wounds, the beating on his head with the reeds, with people's hands, the scourging, the mocking, the spitting.

He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him. And by his stripes, we are healed. We are listening to a man mocking, mocking what Jesus did to save his people from their sins.

Unbelievable.

This theory is even sometimes called the satisfaction theory.

He's just, he just laughs at it.

Wow.

You've got to satisfy divine justice.

That's what Romans 3 is talking about. The demonstration of his righteousness through faith in his blood, his shed blood, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Listen, whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness, to satisfy divine justice, divine righteousness. That's what the shed blood of Christ on the cross does.

And you gotta assuage divine wrath.

That's what hilasterion means. A sacrifice which turns aside divine wrath. That's what hilasmos and hilasterion are talking about. The turning away of the anger of God against sin. The turning away of the punishment for sin.

Do you hear the mockery from this guy? He's mocking this. Romans 5, 8, listen to God's word. But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

Right there.

Penalty can be paid as if there is a divine victim who gets punished enough that God would be satisfied. Sometimes this theory is called the vicarious atonement theory. That God's son, Jesus, is in our place.

We can't do it.

That's what huperheimon means. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse, huperheimon, in behalf of us. Jesus was cursed. Galatians 3, 13. The curse of the law. The curse of our disobedience to it fell upon Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 53, 6. And Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse, huperheimon, in behalf of us. Divine justice is demonstrated and satisfied by the death of Jesus and his shed blood.

And this guy not only rejects that, he's mocking it.

So he takes our place.

Yeah, that's what huperheimon means. Takes our place, in behalf of us.

He takes our place and stands in our stead, kind of like a scapegoat.

Which is an image from Leviticus 16 in the Old Testament. Kind of like a scapegoat. I mean, yeah, that's one of the images in the Old Testament that deals with this issue and explains it exactly. The whole idea of the entire sacrificial system.

Think about the first seven chapters of the book of Leviticus. What would they do? When you laid your hands on the head of the animal, there was a transference of guilt and it shall make atonement for you.

The scapegoat. It bore away the sins of the people. The Passover lamb that was sacrificed. The blood of the lamb on the doorpost. Just a beautiful picture of the coming of Jesus Christ. And what did the angel of Yahweh do when he saw the blood of the lamb?

He would pass over that house.

Why?

Justice has been satisfied, at least in a prefigured sense there in the Old Testament. That's why Paul says, 1 Corinthians 5, 7, I believe it is, Christ, our Passover was sacrificed for us, in behalf of us.

He is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Why?

Because the punishment for sin has fallen on him. That's how I'm reconciled to God. This is the heart of Christianity. If you don't get this, you don't get anything.

In the Old Covenant, or in the Hellenistic world, a pharmakos, some kind of a victim that's offered for the sake of the healing, or the salvation, or the liberation, or the redemption of other people.

And that's a common theme in human life and human literature, both Abrahamic, both Jewish, Muslim, Christian tradition, as well as...

In the Christian tradition, yeah. You can't understand the faith at all without those images, because those are the images the Bible uses. Redemption, propitiation, reconciliation, ransom. I mean, it's right there.

It's Hellenistic, and even other peoples on the planet Earth. The idea of the innocent victim being sacrificed for the sake of others, and so on, to pay the penalty.

That's the whole point.

That's the Christian faith for you. Jesus himself said to his opponents, which of you convicts me of sin? Jesus committed no sin. As the book of Hebrews says, he was tempted at all points just as we are, yet without sin.

His sinless perfection is what makes him able to bear the wrath and punishment for our sins. God made him who knew no sin to be sin in our behalf, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God.

To get rid of the guilt. And so that's it.

Yeah, that's Romans 3 .19. All the world is guilty before God. That's what the scripture says. This guy doesn't believe what scripture says, but that's not going to affect me. Remember what I said? Those who deny soul scriptura, they can't read the Bible.

They can't read scripture. They don't care what the Bible says. They have another authority that tells them what to believe. And so now you have a guy that doesn't even understand the heart and soul of the entire Christian faith.

And not only doesn't understand it, but is mocking it.

A kind of theme that human beings are familiar with. So it's sometimes called a vicarious atonement. Sometimes it's called satisfaction.

How do you have a non-vicarious atonement? How do you have a non-substitutionary atonement? Jesus atoned for, I don't know. Not for our sins.

No, no, no, no, no.

You could not punish for anything. See, that's why I said this guy's understanding of Christianity can be what it is without the cross. That's a problem.

...to satisfy the...

And that's the same thing I always thought, too, about the liberals and the neo-orthodox and other false religions through the ages that I've studied.

...condition of the law to satisfy divine wrath. Sometimes it's called substitutionary.

That's what huperheimon means. In behalf of us. He is the substitute in behalf of us.

In our place. And that's a way that many people understand the expression. Christ died for us.

What other way to understand it is there? He certainly doesn't give us one. If you're hoping to hear one, you're not going to hear it.

Christ died for you. Christ died for me. It's interpreted as being in place of me.

That's what huperheimon means. In behalf of us. Some people interpret it... That's not an interpretation. That's what the words mean.

And then there's a kind of further interpretation that because this has happened, that then I can, how can you say, plug into it and make it my own. And that is often explained that the way you do it.

And here, again, this is incredibly oversimplified in the caricature almost form. But historically, the ways that we're... I'm tempted to say dreamt up to explain this.

You hear his contempt.

How do we...

This is all dreamed up. How do we tap into this or make it our own? You repent and believe the gospel. Read the book of Acts. That's what the people said. What must we do to be saved? Repent and believe.

Repent and be baptized.

Believe.

That's what the apostles said to people.

And by the way, historically, this theory was first very detailed and written by a man called Anselm of Canterbury.

That always blows my mind. I've heard so many of these people make this claim. That the first time anyone ever says something about this is Anselm of Canterbury in the 11th century. I mean, it is just ridiculous.

It is absolutely ridiculous. The idea that the first time anyone ever comes up.

With this idea is that.