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

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Welcome to the Proverbs and Witness, this is Pastor Patrick Hines here at Ridwell Heights Presbyterian Church in Kingsport, Tennessee.

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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

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Biblical and Christian Worldview, which is probably the worst title ever come up with for a YouTube channel because it's way too long.

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And back then I was responding to Hank Hanegraaff and ended up getting into a lot of interesting dialogues with people from the

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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.

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There was one fellow in particular who was commenting on videos and I was responding to him and he was a very interesting person.

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He looks real young and he and his wife evidently converted to Eastern Orthodoxy from some form of Protestantism apparently.

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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.

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But eventually he sent me a link to a long sermon, I think it was 56 minutes long, which

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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

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Eastern Orthodox perspective. Now the sermon is by a fellow who's actually,

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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

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

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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

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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.

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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

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Jesus did when he died is as flawed fatally as it could possibly be.

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And this young guy sent me a link to this sermon and begged me, you know,

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Pastor, please with an open heart and an open mind listen to this sermon and it was appalling.

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But it was a great opportunity to preach the gospel, it was a great opportunity to contrast this

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Eastern Orthodox priest's understanding of Christianity and of the

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Bible with the truth. And a number of people found this video to be very helpful and there's actually a two -part video.

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The first video is just about the first half of the sermon and then I did another episode of Toward a

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Biblical and Christian Worldview way back. But now I'm just going to make it two installments of the Protestant Witness.

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So this is my pretty passionate response to this. I had listened to this sermon a couple times.

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I went jogging and listened to it twice because I kept thinking, was there something in here that was supposed to impress me?

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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.

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I hope that before he died that he repudiated this and actually believed what scripture says about the cross of Jesus Christ.

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But I hope that you will find this to be helpful. And just FYI, I used to put this cheesy

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Constantinople song way back when I first started doing Eastern Orthodoxy videos.

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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

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Radio Free Constantinople because James White does Radio Free Geneva with his anti -Calvinism stuff.

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So yeah, not very original, but yeah, that was fun. So enjoy.

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Today is our first ever Radio Free Constantinople.

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Sorry, I don't have a good introduction. But the Constantinople song I thought would be somewhat appropriate.

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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

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Internet and responding to Muslim attacks on Christianity, Radio Free Damascus. Well, I was given a link to a sermon by an

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Eastern Orthodox clergy person of some kind, and I wanted to do a program and start responding to it.

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This is probably going to take several programs. I think it'd probably take forever to get through. It's 56 minutes long, 56 minutes and 34 seconds.

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And this is Father Hopko is his name. And I actually had heard him before.

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There's a TV program called Orthodoxy Today and had listened to a couple of those on YouTube and I thought, wow, he sounds like he's a liberal.

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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

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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

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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,

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The Reverend, 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 like 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.

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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.

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And I would say exactly all those things that Dr. Hodge says to this guy,

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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.

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And yet in other places in the sermon he'll affirm that, so what exactly does it mean that he satisfies divine justice?

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And then you just think, this sermon, this message, I've listened to it twice.

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Okay, so this would 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.

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Sermon I've ever listened to on any topic, on any topic. And he makes errors concerning the original languages many times in this.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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And so this sermon is an exercise in obfuscation by a person who rejects sola scriptura.

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And I've said this before and I'll say it again. Those who reject and deny the doctrine of sola scriptura, they can't do exegesis of scripture.

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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.

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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

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Christian faith can be what it is had Jesus of Nazareth never lived, died or rose from the dead.

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Because that doesn't really do it. Somehow that brings victory and makes everything right, but it's not taking away punishment.

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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.

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We've heard that in recent years from the liberals and from neo -orthodox commentators and folks like that.

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I wasn't expecting to hear a sermon that reminded me of something by Friedrich Schleiermacher from an allegedly ostensibly conservative

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Eastern Orthodox person. But that said, that introductory stuff aside, let's go ahead and get into it.

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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.

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The cross is there, decorated. It's usually right in the middle of the church when the chairs aren't in.

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And we have been contemplating the cross of Christ Friday night all day yesterday and this morning at the liturgy.

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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.

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These are all words that are biblical words. They're Old Testamental words. They're New Testamental words.

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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.

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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.

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So he's already preparing them for it. Why is it that when

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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.

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Paul, he says that in the popular way of putting it and also the writings of St.

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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.

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He died for us. Pronobis or Huperimon, he died for us. Right.

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Huperimon in Greek means in behalf of us. That preposition Huper is very important.

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It has to do with substitution in behalf of us. Huperimon means in behalf of us.

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And how is that understood, especially in terms of ransom, in terms of payment, because the imagery is used of bought with a price.

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We don't belong to ourself. We belong to him because he purchased us with his blood.

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These are images that are used in the scriptures. Yeah. And the way that they're used in scriptures is very clear.

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Romans chapter five and Romans chapter three were justified by the blood of Christ.

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Meaning what? It is the shed blood of Jesus that that deals with divine anger, divine punishment for sin.

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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

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Holy of Holies and would sprinkle blood upon the mercy seat where the wings of the art of the cherubim on top of the

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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.

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So these are all things that this guy not only does not believe, but detests, as you're going to hear.

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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

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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.

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The writings of what we call the New Testament. Really? Are there people there that had never even heard of the

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New Testament? It sounds like it. All of which were written by Jews and were interpreting the law of the

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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

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Christians, perhaps many, perhaps even most people who read the

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Bible. Yeah, I 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.

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Because there's no other way to look at it. What does the scripture teach us? The wages of sin is death.

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So what did Jesus have to come do? Die. The punishment, the penalty for sin against God is death.

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So what did Jesus have to come do? Take the punishment. He died for our sins.

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He took the punishment, the wrath, all of it upon himself. That's why the

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Garden of Gethsemane, you see him praying, Mark 14, 32 and following. He felt falling down to the ground.

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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.

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

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Simplistically put, very over -simplistically put, but sometimes that over -simplistic way is expressed very graphically and very strongly in certain type of writing and in film.

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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?

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The Passion of the Christ. Just say no to The Passion of the Christ. It's a horrendous movie.

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My favorite part of that movie is when Peter betrays Jesus and he goes to Mary and he's calling her mother.

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It's a Roman Catholic hit piece is what was what that film is and all the weird stuff in it, you know, it's just you want to understand that the death of Jesus Christ, God gave us his word.

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Read one of the Gospels. Read John chapter 18 to the end of the Gospel of John and that there's where you will see what the death of Jesus is about in terms of what happened.

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It seems to be something like this. Human beings. Okay, I want to get prepared for this.

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Here he explains Christianity. He explains Christianity in the simple, straightforward terms that it's given to us in the

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Bible. And then he rejects it. So listen carefully, Adam or humanity has sinned.

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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.

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OK, so Adam has sinned and all humanity in him has sinned.

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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.

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I just looked through, just, you know, randomly picked one book of the Old Testament, the book of Numbers. Numbers 11 verse 1.

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Now, when the people complained, it displeased the Lord, for the Lord heard it and his anger was aroused.

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So the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some in the outskirts of the camp. Numbers 11 verse 10.

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Then Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, everyone at the door of his tent, and the anger of the

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Lord was greatly aroused. Numbers 12, 9. So the anger of the Lord was aroused against them. Numbers 22, 22.

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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.

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This is Balaam riding a donkey and so on. Numbers 25, the issue of Baal of Peor, where the people were engaged in immorality there.

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Numbers 25, 3. So Israel was joined to Baal of Peor and the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel.

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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

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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.

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Numbers 32, 13. So the Lord's anger was aroused against Israel and he made them wander in the wilderness 40 years.

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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.

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I think the anger of the Lord is a is a real thing. It's a real issue. Human beings are deserving of punishment.

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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.

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For in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. Paul's interpretation of that, Romans 5, 12 -19.

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Through one man's disobedience, sin entered the world and death through sin and thus death spread to all men because all sinned.

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That's why everybody dies. Death is, is everybody listening? The punishment for sin.

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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.

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But listen as he continues. However, since it is God who is offended, human beings cannot pay the proper penalty or the proper punishment there.

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No, it's not because it's God who's offended. It's because we are we are finite and he's infinite.

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And the sin that we've committed against him incurs infinite debt, infinite and infinite wrath.

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Therefore, God so loved the world. It's very odd to me.

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This is the third time I've listened to the sermon. This man and also in the program, the

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Orthodoxy today, with sublime awe and reverence will quote

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Eastern Orthodox theologians. But when he quotes scripture, he'll finish quotations of scripture with a chuckle.

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He's mocking the Bible. For God so loved the world. Oh, that's not funny.

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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

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Virgin, born as a human. Yes. To pay the penalty of punishment.

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Yes. 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.

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That's exactly what it is. That's exactly what it is. Listen to Romans 3, 18 and following.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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God set forth as a propitiation. That is a propitiation by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness, his justice, because in his forbearance,

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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.

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Now, that's exactly what this guy is denying. Listen, if you've committed a crime by law, you got to pay the penalty.

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Yeah, we're guilty of having broken the law of God.

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That's why all of us are going to die. Now, if you're guilty, you got to pay the penalty.

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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.

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The penalty has to be equal to the crime. Yeah. But if you offend God, then you have to pay a divine penalty.

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

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That's exactly correct. In fact, that just reminded me of Psalm 49 says something to that effect, as I recall.

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Listen, for their redemption is costly. The redemption of their souls is costly and it shall cease forever.

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That they should that he should continue to live eternally and not see the pit for he sees those who trust in their wealth and boast in the most of their riches.

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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.

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

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Just bear in mind, these are things this is what he does not believe. He does not believe this. This is the view that most

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Christians even believe this silliness is God loves the world. And it's an act of love sends his son to be punished, to suffer.

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Yeah. And the penalty is suffering. That's the demonstration of God's Dikaiosune, his justice, his righteousness.

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Romans chapter three, twenty four, twenty five and twenty six. Right there. Black ink on white paper.

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He doesn't believe it. You see, getting beaten, mocked, ridiculed, spit upon, nailed to the cross and killed.

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Yeah. And then God is satisfied. Exactly. That's the whole point of everything.

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Listen to the old prophecy of this from Isaiah 53. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

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Yet we esteem him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions.

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

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He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.

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The chastisement for our peace was upon him. And by his stripes, we are here healed.

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We are listening to a man mocking, mocking. What Jesus did to save his people from their sins.

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Unbelievable. This is theory is even sometimes called the satisfaction theory.

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He's just he just laughs at it. Wow. You got to satisfy divine justice.

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That's what Romans 3 is talking about. The demonstration of his righteousness through faith in his blood.

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His shed blood being justified freely by his grace to the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

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Listen, whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness, to satisfy divine justice, define the righteousness.

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That's what the shed blood of Christ on the cross does. And you got to assuage divine wrath.

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That's what he lost area on means a sacrifice, which turns aside divine wrath.

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That's what he lost most and he lost area on are talking about the turning away of the anger of God against sin, the turning away of the punishment for sin.

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And the only way the wrath of God can be taken off from us is if justice is served.

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The only way that justice can be served is if the penalty is paid and the only way that, do you hear the mockery from this guy?

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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,

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Christ died for us much more than having now been justified by his blood.

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We shall be saved from wrath through him. Penalty can be paid is if there is a divine victim who gets punished enough that God would be satisfied.

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Sometimes this theory is called the vicarious atonement theory that God's son,

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Jesus is in our place. We can't do it. That's what Hupperr -Hemon means.

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Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. Having become a curse, Hupperr -Hemon, in behalf of us.

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Jesus was cursed. Galatians 3, 13, the curse of the law, the curse of our disobedience to it fell upon Jesus Christ.

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Isaiah 53, 6, and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

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Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. Having become a curse, Hupperr -Hemon, in behalf of us.

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Divine justice is demonstrated and satisfied by the death of Jesus and his shed blood.

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And this guy is not only rejects that, uh, he's mocking it. So he takes our place.

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Yeah, that's what Hupperr -Hemon means. Takes our place in behalf of us. He takes our place and stands in our stead kind of like a scapegoat.

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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

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Old Testament that deals with this issue and explains it exactly. The whole idea of the entire sacrificial system.

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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.

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The scapegoat, it bore away the sins of the people. The Passover lamb that was sacrificed, the blood of the lamb on the doorpost.

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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?

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He would pass over that house. Why? Justice has been satisfied, at least in a prefigured sense there in the

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Old Testament. That's why Paul says 1 Corinthians 5, 7, I believe it is, Christ our

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Passover was sacrificed for us in behalf of us. He is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

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Why? Because the punishment for sin has fallen on him. That's how I'm reconciled to God.

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This is the heart of Christianity. If you don't get this, you don't get anything. In the old covenant or in the

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Hellenistic world, 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.

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And that's a common theme in human life and human literature. Both Abrahamic, both

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Jewish, Muslim, Christian tradition, as well as the Christian tradition.

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Yeah. You can't understand the faith at all without those images, without, because those are the images the

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Bible uses. Redemption, propitiation, reconciliation, ransom. I mean, it's right there.

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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.

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That's the whole point. That's the whole, that's the Christian faith for you. Jesus himself said to his opponents, which of you convicts me of sin?

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Jesus committed no sin. As the book of Hebrews says, he was tempted at all points, just as we are yet without sin.

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His sinless perfection is what makes him able to bear the wrath and punishment for our sins.

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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.

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And so that's it. Yeah. That's what Romans 3, 19, all the world is guilty before God.

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That's what the scripture says. This guy doesn't believe what scripture says, but that's not going to affect me. Remember what

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I said? Those who deny soul scriptura, they can't read the Bible. They can't read scripture. They don't, they don't care what the

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

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Christian faith and not only doesn't understand it, but is mocking it. A kind of theme that human beings are familiar with.

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So it's sometimes called a vicarious atonement. Sometimes it's called the satisfaction.

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How do you have a non -vicarious atonement? How do you have a non -substitutionary atonement? Jesus atoned for,

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I don't know. No, no, no, not for our sins. No, no, no, no, no. You could not punish for anything. See, that's why

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I said, this guy's understanding of Christianity can be what it is without the cross. That's a problem to satisfy.

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And that's the same thing I always thought too about the liberals and the neo -Orthodox, um, and other false religions, um, through the ages that I've studied condition of the law to satisfy divine wrath.

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Sometimes it's called substitutionary. That's what Huper Heimon means in behalf of us.

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He is the substitute in behalf of us in our place. And that's a way that many people understand the expression

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Christ died for us. What other way to understand it is there? He certainly doesn't give us one.

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If you're hoping to hear one, you're not going to hear it. Christ died for you. Christ died for me.

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It's interpreted as being in place of me. That's what Huper Heimon means in behalf of us.

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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

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I can, um, I can, uh, how can you say, plug into it and make it my own.

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You see, and that is often explained that the way you do it.

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And here, again, this is incredibly oversimplified in the caricature, almost form, but historically the ways that we're, um,

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I'm tempted to say dreamt up, uh, to explain this. You hear his contempt.

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How do we, um, uh, so this is all dreamed up. How do we, uh, tap into this or make it our own?

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Um, you repent and believe the gospel. That's read the book of Acts. That's what the people said.

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What must we do to be saved? Repent and believe, repent and be baptized. Believe that.

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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

36:47

Anselm of Canterbury. That always blows my mind. I've heard so many of these people make this claim.

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Um, that the first time anyone ever says something about this is

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Anselm, Anselm of Canterbury in the 11th century.

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I mean, it is just ridiculous. It is absolutely ridiculous. The idea that, um, the first time anyone ever comes up with this idea is, is that, is, uh,

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Kyrdeios Homo by Anselm, which is by the way, which is a great, uh, great, uh, book on this issue.

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I'd like to read a quotation. One of my favorite quotations, uh, from church history. Uh, this is, uh, let me just read the quotation.

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I'll give you the citation here in a moment. Oh, the sweet exchange for what else but his righteousness would have covered our sins and whom was it possible for us lawless and ungodly men to have been justified save only in the son of God.

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Oh, the sweet exchange. Oh, the inscrutable creation. Oh the unexpected benefits that the iniquity of many should be concealed in one righteous man and the righteousness of one should justify many that are iniquitous.

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Having then in the former time demonstrated the inability of our nature to obtain life and having now revealed a savior able to save even creatures which have no ability, he will that for both reasons, we should believe in his goodness and should regard him as nurse, father, teacher, counselor, physician, mind, light, honor, glory, strength, and life.

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Listen to that. Oh, the unexpected benefits that the iniquity of many should be concealed in one righteous man and the righteousness of one should justify many that are iniquitous.

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That's from the epistle of Mophetes to Diognetus in the year 130

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A .D. Also, Gashok is another one who very clearly teaches the idea of substitutionary atonement.

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It's found in many others. I would recommend the first 248 pages of James Buchanan's work on justification and the history of the doctrine of justification.

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There are clear witnesses and testimonies to this in every century from the time the apostles died.

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Who was in England, who was a Benedictine a monk in the 11th century and he wrote a book called core deus homo, why

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God became man. And what I'm describing now is a or the popular understanding of what he said.

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Some of you might want to get into a debate about what he actually said and I wouldn't mind doing that if you would like to.

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It might be boring to many people here. It'd be boring and wouldn't be boring to me. Core deus homo is a great book here, but I think there's a way in which he could be understood as an

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Augustinian Platonist rather than a feudalistic middle aged man. But in any, and the fact that you could be understand very easily as following the worldview of Plotinus as well, if you want to have that debate, this became a popular teaching.

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And then the question was, well, how do I relate to Christ's death if he died for me?

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So that the effects of his death could become my own. And here again, in a very oversimplified manner, there were certain

40:01

Christians who said you do this by acquiring the merits of Christ's death on the cross through actions of the church like sacraments, making pilgrimages, giving donations, right?

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Which really is a complete repudiation of the concept, excuse me, of grace. You don't get the merits of Christ by, by doing works.

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Um, it's always best to just go back to what scripture says. How are we justified by faith apart from works?

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And there was even a system developed that each person has so much punishment to pay for their sins and they've got to pay it before they die.

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And this is of course talking about Catholicism, the medieval Roman Catholic synthesis and the whole idea of temporal and eternal guilt and venial and mortal sin and so on and so forth, which

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I would categorically reject evidently as he would as well. It was called the temporal punishment due to sin.

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But if you couldn't pay the punishment before you died, then you went to purgatory.

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And then that punishment was even measured symbolically or literally depending on how people interpret it as days.

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So many days of punishment that you would have to pay. Then the claim was if you did certain actions like donations, pilgrimages, even beatings, people would beat themselves and so on to pay off the days and then they had less to suffer and they could go to heaven when they died.

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And that's true. That's what medieval Rome was like. And if they didn't, they went to purgatory and then they either paid the punishment or actions in the church like having masses for them or lighting candles for them or giving donations for them or going on pilgrimages for them could reduce the punishment.

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But it was basically a punitive type of understanding. Generally speaking, again, terribly oversimplifying.

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There were Christians, which we normally call Protestants who said, no, we don't believe that.

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You accept Jesus as your savior and all the sins are forgiven. The guilt is taken away.

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The punishment is paid. He paid it totally on the cross. There's nothing more that we can do there.

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We are saved by faith, not by works. He's quoting passage after passage after passage after passage from the new

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Testament. He just mocks it. He just laughs at it. I just, I mean, I hear that and I think, okay, surely there's some

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Eastern Orthodox people who actually read the Bible sometimes who have got to listen to that and go, yeah, but he's quoting, he's quoting scripture and everything he's saying, you know, it's not by works, you know, laughing, chuckling.

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That's what the scripture says over and over again. Now he doesn't believe it. Why doesn't he believe it?

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Because he doesn't believe in soul scriptura. If you don't believe in soul scriptura, you can't interpret scripture at all. You're a complete slave to your external authority.

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No indulgences. None of this is acceptable. You accept Jesus as your savior and then

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God's wrath is taken off you because it was put on him. Yeah. God made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that in him we will become the righteousness of God.

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Second Corinthians five 21 Galatians three 13. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. Having become a curse who pair him own in behalf of us.

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Um, Isaiah 53 six and the Lord has laid on him the iniquities of us all. The chastisement for our peace was laid upon him.

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He was bruised for our iniquities right there in scripture. You don't have to get punished anymore because he got punished for you.

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You hear the mockery. He's just mocking the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is mocking what

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Jesus came to do. We're saved from the wrath of God by Jesus's death, which is a hellos theory on a propitiation, a removal of divine wrath.

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The punishment for our sins, the chastisement for our sins was up on him.

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That's why Paul can say in Romans five one, therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

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Lord Jesus Christ. He substituted for you. He died for you. He died for me.

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And if you accept it that way, it's hard to listen to his mockery. Um, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near him on the day of judgment.

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Um, to answer to the Lord Jesus Christ. Why did you dare to wear a clerical collar and dress up like that and stand in a pulpit and mock me and mock what

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I did to save my people from their sins? Then you are now right with God and everything's okay.

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And if you die, you go to heaven. If you believe it. Yeah. You hear, you hear his contempt for the truth.

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It's really sad. Now this particular theory was repulsive to many people.

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Yeah. The truth is, is often very repulsive to people. Uh, that the

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Jewish people looked at the cross of Christ and the idea that, you know, blood dripping from a first century

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Palestinian Jew could save them. Um, as, as, uh, as foolishness, that's foolishness to those who are perishing.

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the Greeks seek wisdom. Um, Jews seek signs, but we preach Christ crucified. And as I said before,

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I think that this man's entire understanding of Christianity can be what it is without the cross at all. And then you had some

45:44

Christians who said, all of this is just total nonsense. They weren't Christians. Anyone who looks at the death of Jesus and the fact that it does take the punishment for sin away and makes us right with God.

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Yes. Right with God in the sense of justified before him, reconciled to him through the death of his son.

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When people are repulsed by that, they're not Christians. Okay. There's something else, but they are not Christians.

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I remember once I went to the American Academy of religion and I went to the lesbian Christology. And you know, this, this part here,

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I just, I just have to comment on real quick. I have no earthly idea why he would want to align himself with lesbian preachers, a lesbian preachers on Christology because,

46:30

Hey, they agree with me. Listen to this. I used to like to go there. I wrote a book a little bit on that subject, but I'd go there and sit there and listen to all the speeches.

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And I remember once where I was in total sympathy with the speaker who said, this is nuts.

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It's as if God were a punitive father who had to beat his kid in order so he could be satisfied.

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And he's so angry that he's got to punish it so much. Although the anger doesn't go away and he can't punish us enough.

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So he sends his son and he beats him up on the cross or he lets him get beat up on the cross.

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And then the father's happy. And because he punished his son sufficiently and if people believe in it, then they can go to heaven.

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And that woman said, this is absolute madness. And I wanted to,

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I didn't do it, but I wanted to stand up and say, yeah, I agree with you. It's total madness.

47:32

You hear that? It's ridiculous. Un believable.

47:37

The guy that sent me the link to this said, you know, dear pastor Hines, please listen to this with an open mind.

47:44

And I want to say, this is blasphemy of the highest order. This is one of the most insulting, degrading treatments of my dear

47:54

Lord and Savior's death. It's not, I got to get beat up on the cross and, and I did satisfy divine wrath.

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And just, you just think it's like someone raking their fingers down a, on a chalkboard.

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That's not it at all. That's a caricature of what is real. God is holy.

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And when his holiness is violated, divine retribution and divine wrath and punishment are just as much a part of God's nature as his love is, as his mercy is.

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God cannot just overlook human sin. It's punishment has to be dealt with.

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That's what Jesus came into the world to do. The fact that you think it's madness, sir, doesn't make it madness.

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The fact that you despise it with everything in your soul doesn't mean that we should despise it too.

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Do you see those of us who see the depth of our own sin and trust in the glorious death of our

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Lord Jesus to take that punishment away and because of it have peace with God through Jesus Christ, because of it, we are saved and delivered from the wrath of God by his propitiatory shed blood on that cross.

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We love that glorious truth. We love God for what he did in sending

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Jesus to take a debt that was not his upon himself to be. Yes, indeed punished to fall under the hammer blow of God's anger and wrath.

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It's not to bring this into human categories. I got to abuse my child and I've got to beat up my kid on the cross to talk about Jesus as God's kid is blasphemy.

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And this part of this sermon, I just, I just couldn't, couldn't believe how can, how can someone think

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I'm going to listen to this? I love the Bible. I love the word of God. I've been studying it for many, many, many years. How can anyone think

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I'm actually going to be impressed with something like this? Absolute blasphemy and disgusting perversion of the word of God.

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It is not biblical. Yes, it is. One thing you'll notice in the sermon, he doesn't go to any of the texts that teach this and try to tell us what they really mean.

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It is not the understanding it is man. And in the year 130

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AD, and I could multiply quotations from the patristic sources on this. That's what they thought it meant.

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And by the way, okay, so a lesbian, a lesbian on a Christology agrees with him.

50:22

Okay, that's great. I've also read a lot of liberals, neo -Orthodox and a lot of non -believers trying to make sense out of scripture who, who agree with you a hundred percent, sir.

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So congratulations. The liberals, the neo -Orthodox and other God haters are in your corner. And they think that the atonement of Christ for sin is madness too.

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Now the theme for tonight then is if that isn't how it should be understood, then how in the world are we supposed to understand it?

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Everything you thought you ever knew about the cross is wrong. And so now we're going to be told what we're supposed to believe about it, but brace yourself.

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You're not going to get anything clear at all. The language of he bore our iniquities.

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Yeah. He bore our iniquities. That doesn't mean that he was punished for being told.

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That's just absurd. I can't believe that the guy that sent me the link to this actually thinks I'm going to go, wow, that's deep.

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The language of, um, by his wounds, we are healed the language of ransom.

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He paid the price. Yes. The language of, in other words, everything in the whole

51:35

Bible on the topic, how am I supposed to understand it? Since I don't believe anything that it says redemption, the language of propitiation, the language of expiation, the language that says when he died on the cross, all the requirements of the law of God were fulfilled.

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It's right. Everything was made right. Yeah. Even the understanding that because of Christ's death on the cross, any wrath or anger of God that he would have for his creatures is removed.

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Those are biblical teachings. Now that I've explained to you,

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I don't believe any of it. So how do I explain all this stuff about bearing the wrath and satisfying divine justice and bearing our iniquities and taking the punishment away?

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How, how do I explain all this? Well, as I said, if you're hoping that he's going to do that, your hope is in vain that we are bought with a price.

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He purchased us with his blood and he was mocked, spit upon, reviled, beaten, whipped.

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Yeah. And that's what Isaiah 53 explains for our iniquities for our transgressions for the sake of our peace.

53:00

Yeah. That's what all that was for. How can anyone not see that? Well, you can't see it cause you're blind.

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Left half dead and then dragged the cross and somebody had to carry it and then he was nailed to it and hung on it and then they put him in a spear in his side and he died.

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Yeah. How do you understand all that suffering if you don't see it as the punishment for sin? As I said, don't hold your breath.

53:23

And that's the center of the Christian faith. Yeah. And it doesn't make any sense in this guy's system at all.

53:30

And as I said, having listened, this is the third time through the sermon. This man's understanding of Christianity can be what it is without the cross.

53:38

The passion of Christ and the death of Christ on the cross is the center of the

53:44

Christian faith. And it is a salvation, a healing, a redemption, a ransom, a deliverance, a liberation, a healing, a making right, a reconciliation.

53:57

All of this is true. But how then do you understand it? How is it to be understood?

54:04

Okay. You've said that enough times now. Why don't you get to it? And then I kept thinking, there's 42 minutes left to go in the sermon.

54:11

I kept thinking, so, okay, since everything scripture says about it is wrong and you don't believe it and you find it mad and disgusting, how are we supposed to understand this?

54:21

As I said, don't hold your breath. Well, I'm going to try now to explain how the

54:28

Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition understands this. Beginning with the interpretation of the

54:33

Bible, Isaiah, the law of the Psalms, the prophets and the four gospels and the writings of the apostles through history.

54:43

Please do. We've been saying here and some apologies to those who were here

54:49

Friday and yesterday. You have to repeat a bit. It is our conviction that Christianity appeared on planet earth as a gospel and the gospel is a good news, but it's not good news in general.

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It's a specific technical term, Evangelion, which means the good news of a

55:12

King that he has been victorious in battle over his enemies. No, it doesn't.

55:19

Evangelion means good news and the way that the apostle Paul describes it in first Corinthians 15, three and four, the gospel is that Christ died for our sins in behalf of our sins.

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According to the scriptures that he was buried and that he rose again the third day. According to the scriptures. Now is

55:38

Jesus a King? Yes, indeed he is. He sits on the throne of his father, David. Is he victorious? Yes, indeed he is because he has propitiated the wrath of God against sin and he has redeemed his people and the atonement of Christ does have cosmic effects.

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Romans eight 21, the whole creation will be redeemed by the death of Christ. But what he just said is not true.

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And that he has triumphed that he has conquered and his subjects. And see the whole

56:06

Christus Victor model only makes sense. It can only be what it is.

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If you understand that the death of Christ takes the punishment for sin away, it's because he has done that, that he is victorious.

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That's what these people don't get. You can't have the cross as a demonstration of victory unless it removes

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God's wrath against sin and reconciles these people to God. And his people are now safe.

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They are now saved. They are now protected. Saved from what? Protected from what?

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The scripture says saved from the wrath of God, from the punishment for sin.

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Nothing can harm them. No evil can touch them. The last enemy death itself has been destroyed and everything is now been made right.

56:54

Everything is the way that it ought to be. The king is rejoicing and everyone is rejoicing with him.

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And the deliverance has taken place. Deliverance from what?

57:09

From the wrath of God against sin. That's the Christian gospel basically.

57:16

No it's not. If your understanding of the gospel has no reference to Jesus taking the punishment for sin away, then you're not talking about New Testament Christianity at all.

57:26

Oral Testament. This gospel also presupposes or includes that Christianity is therefore a conviction about a person.

57:41

Christianity is not a spiritual path. Christianity is not a moral code.

57:48

Christianity is not a cultic ritual system. Christianity is not a philosophy or an ethical system.

57:55

And I would even would like to say very clearly, Christianity is not a religion. It's the fulfillment of all

58:03

Christia, of all religion. And it's not a religion at all. It is the activity of God, the one true

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God. And the knowledge of that God and the understanding and the communion with that God that is given to human beings forever as a free gift through the incarnation on the planet earth of God's divine son.

58:36

That's grotesquely reductionistic. Does God reveal things about himself through the incarnation?

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Of course. Of course he does. Does Jesus teach us the true vision of the character of God, the heart of God?

58:49

You want to understand who God is? You look to Jesus Christ without a doubt. Yes. But the purpose for which he came into the world was to save his people from their sins.

58:57

Now, that's not reducing it. That's all you guys ever talk about is the cross, the cross, the cross. That is the heart and soul of the

59:02

Christian faith. However, there is a path of moral uprightness that we are called upon by God to walk.

59:09

Christianity does give us a biblical ethic that we are to follow as those who know God and are reconciled to God through Jesus Christ.

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But to simply describe it as it is the impartation of knowledge to the incarnation. No, it's not.

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No, it's not. The incarnation's primary mission is to make known the father and to reconcile people to God through the death of Jesus Christ.

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That's Jesus of Nazareth. And the very first Christian creed that you find, if you read the

59:41

Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, particularly, the first confession is the confession that answers the question of Jesus to his disciples, who do you say that I am?

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Not what do you think of my teaching? How do you relate to my doctrine? What do you think of my philosophy? Would you like to follow my path?

01:00:02

No. Who do you say that I am? But those things aren't excluded. I mean, you look at other things that Jesus said in the

01:00:08

Gospels. He says, if anyone wills to do my will, he will know that the doctrine is true.

01:00:14

So if anyone would come after me, he must take up his cross and follow me. It is a path. It does include those other things.

01:00:22

That's not to the exclusion of them. But yes, in Matthew 16, it's also, I believe, in Mark 8, at Caesarea Philippi, when

01:00:29

Jesus asks his disciples that question and Peter says, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. That's certainly highly significant.

01:00:34

I am. And in Mark and Luke, the confession is made by Peter, the leader of the apostles.

01:00:42

You are the Christ. So the minute that he is called the Christ with a definite article.

01:00:49

The anointed, the Messiah, is the Greek word for the Hebrew word

01:00:54

Messiah, the anointed one. So there's a confession about him as being the

01:01:00

Christ. Now, at the time of Jesus, there were many, many, many theories about what a Christ would be like, what he would do, how it would work.

01:01:07

There was not one clear idea at all. And in fact, what Christians, we

01:01:12

Christians anyway, Eastern Orthodox Christians believe is that the disclosure and the revelation of what it meant for Jesus to be

01:01:20

Christ was outrageously blasphemous to most of the people of the time.

01:01:27

In fact, the Apostle Paul would say to the Jews, it was a scandal on and to the Greeks, it was idiocy, moria, that's where you get the word moron.

01:01:38

Ironically, it's those things to this guy, too. Moronic.

01:01:43

It was scandalous and moronic teaching. Just as it is to you, sir.

01:01:53

But he's confessed as the anointed one, the Christ, but is a very unique understanding of what it meant to be the

01:02:05

Christ. And what it will be, because we're pressed for time here tonight, it will be the most outrageous teaching that the

01:02:15

Christ is the suffering servant of Yahweh. He is the one who is led as a lamb to the slaughter.

01:02:26

Yeah. But why does he suffer? Oh, that's right. For our iniquities, for our sins, in behalf of our having broken the law, he bears the curse, the punishment.

01:02:41

Who before his shears is dumb is the 51st chapter of the prophet Isaiah, who does not open his mouth, who bears the scorn of people, who is ridiculed without beauty or form, who bears the sin of all, who is the man that bears the sin of all,

01:03:01

I mean, the punishment for sin and of sorrows covered with grief, you know, with malefactors in his death, with a rich man in his burial.

01:03:10

And Christians interpreted that as the reason for confessing Jesus of Nazareth as the

01:03:16

Christ. Because all those things happened to Jesus, and then he was raised from the dead and the tomb was empty.

01:03:26

And then they had to say, what was that all about? And probably it took them a little while to figure it out or to see what it was.

01:03:37

And probably the main person of early Christianity who saw it most clearly and explained it most explicitly was a

01:03:48

Pharisaic Jewish disciple of Gamaliel named Shoel, who became

01:03:54

Paul. The Apostle, right. But the thing is, though, they understood it because it had been revealed to them by God.

01:04:03

That's the whole point. So there's the first confession. Jesus is the Christ, but the

01:04:09

Christ has to be crucified. See, and that's what in his system. There really is no reason for him to be crucified because God has no punishment for sin.

01:04:18

You're going to hear later in the sermon. God doesn't want to punish anybody, he says. And I'm going to go ahead and stop there.

01:04:25

I want to try to keep each one of these under an hour. But let's see, we are 20 minutes and 18 seconds into that sermon and it's 36, 16 left to go.

01:04:36

So that's installment number one of Radio Free Constantinople. This is

01:04:50

Pastor Patrick Hines of Bridwell Heights Presbyterian Church, located at 108 Bridwell Heights Road in Kingsport, Tennessee.

01:04:56

And you've been listening to the Protestant Witness podcast. Please feel free to join us for worship any

01:05:01

Sunday morning at 11 a .m. sharp, where we open the word of God together, sing his praises and rejoice in the gospel of our risen

01:05:07

Lord. You can find us on the web at www .bridwellheightspca .org.

01:05:13

And may the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.