WWUTT 420 The Bible Answer Man is No Longer Biblical?

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Perhaps you've heard that Hank Hanegraaff, also known as the Bible Answer Man, has converted to Eastern or Greek Orthodoxy.

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Today we're going to hear the words of Hanegraaff himself and compare his teaching with what the

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Bible has to say when we understand the text. This is when we understand the text studying

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God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Thank you for subscribing and if this has ministered to you please let others know about our program.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you Becky. I'm going to begin today reading from 2

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Timothy chapter 3 starting in verse 14. The Apostle Paul says to his servant Timothy, But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

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All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

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Not quite two weeks ago now a controversy emerged involving the Bible Answer Man Hank Hanegraaff when on Palm Sunday, April the 9th, it was revealed that Hank Hanegraaff was chrismated into the

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Eastern Orthodox faith. Many have asked since this news as to whether or not

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Hanegraaff has left the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. This is a matter that concerns me greatly as somebody who has listened to Hank Hanegraaff for a long time.

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I have books of Hanegraaff's. I have recommended his books to members of my congregation.

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There is a What? video that I have that features an acronym that Hanegraaff devised to summarize essential

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Christian truths, and I know I've got members of my congregation that listen to Hank Hanegraaff as well.

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So, I'm going to be exploring this issue today. I do not believe that Hanegraaff is fit to be called the

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Bible Answer Man for the sole reason that he adheres to a faith and a tradition that rejects the sufficiency of the scripture.

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Now, Eastern Orthodoxy, along with that Greek Orthodoxy, Russian Orthodoxy, it all comes from the same thing.

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They do believe that the Bible is the word of God, the authoritative word of God.

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However, Eastern Orthodoxy believes that the church shares that authority, and you cannot truly know what the

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Bible says apart from church tradition, specifically the tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy.

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Now, this goes against something that Hanegraaff has believed and taught in the past, and I have heard him teach.

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As a matter of fact, if you grab his book, The Complete Bible Answer Book, he talks about this in the book, an essential

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Christian truth concerning the authority of the scriptures, that the Bible is the word of God and we submit to its authority.

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But Eastern Orthodoxy teaches that that authority is shared with church tradition, and today you're going to hear in Hanegraaff's answers that he has started to shift from relying upon the scriptures and the answers that are given to us from God's word.

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Instead, he's going to come back over and over again to the tradition of the

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Eastern Orthodox Church. We need to pray for this man, that he would repent of this lie, this snare of the devil that he has been drawn into, and return once again to the soundness of what we find in the

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Bible. He calls himself the Bible Answer Man, but is now unfit to fill that role.

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So I'm going to be playing clips from Hanegraaff today, and these are from two

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Bible Answer Man broadcasts that aired on April the 10th and April the 11th.

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Now I'm recording this on the morning of Good Friday, and you're not hearing it until Friday, April 21st.

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So I understand that James White is going to be playing clips from Hank Hanegraaff on The Dividing Line.

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I've not heard that broadcast yet. And Todd Friel is also going to be addressing this on an episode of Wretched that will air on Monday, April 17th.

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I won't get the chance to listen to those until I'm on the road. I'm traveling, God willing,

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I'm in Florida right now. So you're hearing a broadcast that was recorded a week ago and playing clips from Hanegraaff and also talking about what the

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Eastern Orthodox faith teaches and comparing that with what the scripture says.

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So this first phone call that comes up here, I'm not going to be playing any of the callers' questions. I'll summarize their question, and then you're just going to hear

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Hanegraaff's answers. But this first caller, this was the first phone call that aired on the

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April 10th broadcast, I believe, of the Bible Answer Man. This first caller asks

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Hank related to his shift in faith to the Eastern Orthodox tradition.

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He asks him about praying to dead saints, which the Eastern Orthodox Church does practice.

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And he also asks him about his definition of sola scriptura, the sufficiency of scripture and its authority.

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And the church is under the authority of the words of the Bible. Okay, here is

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Hanegraaff's response to that question. Yeah, well, good question. I think one thing that we must recognize, and this is critical, we can never pray to the saints as we pray to God.

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We certainly can pray that the saints are praying for us. And that is not only the saints who are here among us.

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All Christians are called saints from a biblical standpoint, but also those who have gone before us.

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We don't pray to the saints as, again, one prays to God, but we may pray that the saints are praying for us, asking our

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Lord Jesus Christ to guide us and sustain us down the path of life.

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Now Hanegraaff actually believes in a very westernized version of Eastern Orthodoxy because the fact of the matter is the

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Eastern Orthodox Church does teach that we can pray to the saints.

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Now, the way that Hanegraaff describes it there is we don't pray to them, but we ask them or we ask for their prayers.

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We ask that they would be praying for us. But the scripture simply does not say that anywhere.

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See that, and he doesn't give any references as to where he's drawing that from in terms of what the Bible says.

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He's getting that from church tradition. He's not getting that from the scriptures. I would speculate that he's coming to that conclusion from statements like Hebrews 12, where it says we're surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses made in the book of Revelation in chapter 4 and 5, where it says that the elders, 24 elders are surrounding the throne of God and they present the prayers of the saints.

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But that's very symbolic. There are not literally 24 men around the throne of God taking prayers in some kind of bowl and then presenting them before the

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Lord. That's not the way that we're meant to understand that. And so Hanegraaff is taking these kinds of statements and concluding that the saints are praying for us before God.

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And so we can pray to God and ask that they would continue to pray for us. But that's not in scripture. We have it stated plainly in first Timothy two, five, that there is one mediator between God and men, and that is the man,

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Christ Jesus. And so everything else that we would understand about what the scripture says concerning a great cloud of witnesses and 24 elders presenting the prayers of the saints, all of those things must be interpreted in light of the fact that there is only one mediator, and that is the man,

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Christ Jesus. So again, Hanegraaff doesn't actually, he's not actually sharing what true

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Eastern Orthodoxy teaches concerning praying to dead saints. And the scriptures state plainly in Deuteronomy 18, 11, that inquiring of the dead is an abomination to the

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Lord. Let's continue. This is still that same answer that Hanegraaff was giving, and now he goes into his definition of sola scriptura.

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The Orthodox and the Catholics have different views on this. In terms of sola scriptura,

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I have always been committed to the Bible as the infallible guide for faith and practice, and I think that's what it means.

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It means that the Bible is infallible. It was inspired by the Holy Spirit.

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We do not make this claim for the autographs, but most certainly make this claim for the, we don't make this claim for the translations,

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I should say, but we most certainly make this claim for the autographs, and the beauty is we have so many copies that we can get back to the autographer.

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Now, there are some big problems with what he just said there in just that 40 -second clip, and I'm going to narrow it down to three points.

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First of all, he makes the statement that the Bible is an infallible guide for faith and practice.

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Well, that's not sola scriptura. Remember, he's saying this in the context of answering the question, what is sola scriptura?

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The Bible is our authority, and we do what it says, and there is no word on earth that shares authority with the

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Bible. The Bible is the word of God. We do what it says. Jesus commanded his disciples in Matthew 28 in the

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Great Commission, all authority in heaven and on earth is given to me.

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Now, therefore, go. That is not a suggestion concerning faith and practice. It is the command of God to go to all nations, baptizing in the name of the

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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and lo,

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I am with you always to the very end of the age. Jesus said to his disciples, we read this in John a week ago, we've been talking about it as we've been going through 1

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John, that if you love me, you will obey my commandments. The apostle

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Paul said in Colossians 3 .16, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

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To the Thessalonians, he wrote to them, 1 Thessalonians 2 .13, we also thank God constantly that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.

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If we believe in Christ and if we love him, we will know that the Bible is his word.

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It is our authority and we will do what it says. Joshua 1 .8,

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this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.

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Psalm 1 .19 .89, forever, oh Lord, your word is settled in heaven.

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And I come back once again to the book of Matthew, the sermon on the mount where Jesus said I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

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It is our authority. It is everyone's authority, but it is those in particular who are believers in Christ who submit to that authority and do all that it says.

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And so though it is a guide for faith and practice, we have it in the Psalm said that your word is a lamp and to my feet and a light and to my path.

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It is not merely a guide for faith and practice. It is the word of God and our authority, and it does not share that authority with anyone.

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It is not a partnership between the Bible and the church to issue that authority.

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But even the church itself submits to the authority of the word of God. So that's point number one.

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Point number two, Hank doesn't truly believe that the Bible is infallible.

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Yes, he makes the statement and yes, he uses the word. But if he doesn't believe in it as his authority, which he did not define it as that, then he doesn't truly think of it as being infallible.

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He thinks infallible simply means that it doesn't ever contradict itself. You know, it's pretty consistent.

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I think what we have in the word of God is what was originally written by the original writers.

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There's no mistakes. So therefore we can call it infallible to say that it's infallible means that it's perfect.

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No other word is perfect. And so all things must submit to the perfect word of God. If he does not submit to it as authoritative or declarative, even as authoritative in his teaching of the word of God, then he doesn't truly believe that it's infallible.

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And I've pointed this out with Andy Stanley as well, who will stand in front of people and say,

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I believe the Bible is the infallible word of God, but I'm not going to quote it at all in my sermon today. Then he doesn't believe that it's infallible because he doesn't think that the

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Bible is enough for the people to be able to hear the word of God and do what it says. He needs to do his own little sermon.

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And then, you know, maybe I'll sprinkle in a few Bible verses here and there. So Hanegraaff is making that same error by claiming the

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Bible is without error, but then not using it or declaring it as authoritative.

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And then finally, here's my third point here. He makes a reference to the difference between the autographs and the translations.

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The translations are not reliable, but the autographs are. The conclusion that we can draw from that statement he's making there is that translations of the

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Bible are questionable, but the autographs are authentic. Therefore, we cannot truly know what the

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Bible says unless all of us learn Greek and read the autographs. What reason is there for me to have my

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Bible open in front of me right here, which I which I have, I need to be learning Greek and have a

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Greek New Testament open and then telling you what the Greek says. And you likewise need to be learning Greek in order to really understand what it is that I am saying to you.

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I mean, do you want to listen to a guy who calls himself the Bible answer man if he doesn't think that the translations of the

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Bible that we have are reliable enough and we need to all go learn Greek in order to truly know what the word of God says?

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I mean, there's a lot of value in learning Greek if you can, but it's not that we only come to know the true word of God when we learn it in Greek and we can't really know it in English.

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OK, this next caller, I'm going to move on to keep moving here. But this next caller asks a question concerning some of the articles that have been sprinkled about online concerning Hank's salvation, some of them saying that Hank has left the

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Christian faith. And so Hanegraaff responds to her question about that here and also talks about his newly found belief in the

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Eastern Orthodox tradition. Yeah, I mean, I am now a member of an Orthodox Church, but nothing has changed in my faith.

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I have been attending an Orthodox Church for a long time, for over two years, and really as a result of what happened when

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I went to China many, many years ago, I saw Chinese Christians who were deeply in love with the

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Lord. And I learned that while they may not have had as much intellectual acumen or knowledge as I did, they had life.

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And so I learned that while truth matters, life matters more.

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And I remember flying back from China after spending time with just common people who had a deep, intense love for the

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Lord and wondering, was I even a Christian? I was comparing my ability to communicate truth with their deep and abiding love for the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And as a result of that, one man, by the way, said to me, truth matters, life matters more.

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In other words, it is not just knowing about Jesus Christ, it is experiencing the resurrected

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Christ. And as a result of that, I started studying what was communicated by the progeny of Watchman Nee with respect to theosis, and that drove me back to the early

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Christian church. Now I agree, it is not just about knowing

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Jesus Christ, but experiencing the risen Christ. I don't take anything away from Hank concerning that point, but he repeats twice in there the statement that truth matters, but life matters more.

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You can't separate the two. You can't say that one is more important than the other when the fact of the matter is we do not even have life without the truth.

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You have Jesus stating plainly in John 14 6, I am the way, the truth and the life doesn't put them in an order as one being greater or more important than the other.

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We were brought forth by the word of truth. James 1 18 of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

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Jesus said in John 5 24, truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life.

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He does not come into judgment, but is passed from death to life by the word of God.

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John 6 63. It is the spirit who gives life and the flesh is of no help at all.

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The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. The truth is life.

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First John one. We've been reading through first John. It's there at the start of the letter where John talks about delivering the word of life.

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The life was made manifest and we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the father and was made manifest to us.

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First Peter 1 23. The apostle says you have been born again. You have been given new life, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God through the truth.

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The apostle Paul said to the Philippians, hold fast to the word of life.

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Psalm 119 25. Give me life according to your word.

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And we have this stated at the very close of the scriptures in Revelation 22 19.

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If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

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We have it stated for us also in John 3 36. Whoever has the sun has life, but whoever does not obey the sun shall not see life.

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But the wrath of God remains on him. My friends, the point that I mean to make is there is no separation between truth and life.

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There is no such thing as truth matters, but life matters more. They both matter.

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And it is a slogan of the Bible answer man broadcast that life and truth matter.

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So are they going to be changing that slogan now to truth matters, but life matters more.

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Notice that in this story that Hanegraaff shares about the Eastern Orthodox faith, he came into it because of feeling that the word of God was not enough for him.

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I thought of my ability to be able to communicate the truth and I saw the sincerity of the faith of these people in China and started to doubt whether or not

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I was really saved. I don't have any problem with a person examining their own salvation because Paul said to the

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Corinthians, test yourselves, examine yourselves to see that you are in the faith and see if you truly pass the test.

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I think that is a worthwhile endeavor to test oneself to see that we are in the faith.

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But but for him to say that he came into Eastern Orthodoxy because of what he felt, he felt incomplete knowing the truth and he needed to feel something else.

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And so that's how he came into the Eastern Orthodox tradition. This I mean, this is the story of every every charismatic who felt something.

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It wasn't enough for me to know the truth. I have to feel this. And so it's the same way that Hanegraaff came into Eastern Orthodox.

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He didn't have to do with truth, had to do it the way that he felt. And once again, I want to I want to reiterate that we do have confirmed within us the truth that we believe when when we experience the word of God in our lives, what the

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Bible says we will experience is what we experience. I don't mean to take away from anybody the experience of salvation that they have.

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I hope that you do experience it and with great joy. But you don't say that one has precedence over the other, for it is the truth that gives us life.

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It is because of the truth that we have the abundant life in Jesus Christ.

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No separation between the two. Let's continue on with Hanegraaff's answer. And I suppose over that period of time,

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I have fallen ever more in love with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

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That's sort of like my wife. I've never been more in love with my wife than I am today, and I've never been more in love with my

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Lord Jesus Christ than I am today. And so I've I've been impacted by the whole idea of knowing

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Jesus Christ, experiencing Jesus Christ and partaking of the graces of Jesus Christ through the

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Eucharist or the Lord's table. He's coming to the end of this call here, and then he's going to go into a break. So we'll be going to another call here in just a moment.

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But again, all of this is about experience. And he uses he talks about his wife. I'm more in love with my wife now than I ever have been.

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Would he say of his wife that I love experiencing life with her more than I like listening to her talk?

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Would he say that? I hope not. Or else he cannot truly say that he really loves his wife more now than he ever has.

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But this is what he's saying of Christ. I love experiencing life with Christ more than I like listening to him talk.

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All of the Bible is the word of Christ. And again, we're commanded in Colossians 316. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

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Now, with this next caller, this this gentleman calls in and says that he's not really experiencing true communion at the

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Protestant churches that he is attending. And so he's asking Hank if it's acceptable for him to attend a

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Roman Catholic church so that he can partake in the sacraments in a holy way. And so here is something that Hanegraaff says about the sacraments and also acknowledges

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Roman Catholicism as a true church, which it's not. But we'll talk about that here after his statement.

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Yeah, I believe in the real presence of Christ in in the sacraments, as the church has for the vast majority of its history.

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I personally and I've said this on the broadcast for 30 years, I believe that Roman Catholicism is a true church, but with significant error.

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The Eastern Orthodox split from the Roman Catholic Church a thousand years ago, and then the

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Protestants split from the Catholic Church 500 years later. But nonetheless, what we champion at the

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Christian Research Institute, and I mentioned this earlier on the broadcast, is an essentials unity, non -essentials liberty, and in all things, charity.

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So the real issue is, do you hold to the essentials of the historic Christian faith without equivocation?

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And the rest of the answer that Hanegraaff gives here is just a difference between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

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And I'm not going to go into all of that, but it's part of the problem with the Bible Answer Man now. He believes that church tradition is just as authoritative in understanding

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God as what we have written down in the pages of Scripture. And you can hear that coming out in his answers.

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He said earlier that nothing has changed about his beliefs. Oh, yes, they have. Oh, yeah.

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I mean, I'm a Baptist. If I were to change from being a Baptist to a

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Presbyterian, that's just a shift within Protestantism. But my beliefs will have changed.

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I think that when Hanegraaff says that his beliefs are still the same, he wants you to believe that he still holds to the same essentials.

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But the way he's interpreting the Bible and dispensing his answers has changed.

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There are people that have been listening to him for years and identified that a shift was taking place.

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And you can find it on the web. I'm sorry, I didn't grab any of these names to be able to present them to you here.

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But some who have been listening to him for a long time were theorizing he was about to become

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Orthodox. And sure enough, the news breaks after Palm Sunday that he had been chrismated into the

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Eastern Orthodox Church. Yes, this is absolutely affecting his answers. And we are told in the scriptures that we are to test everything.

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For goodness sake. In Acts chapter 17, the Bereans tested the

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Apostle Paul against the scriptures. And so it's ludicrous for Hanegraaff to be amazed that people are questioning the legitimacy of his faith.

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Now, that is a massive shift. And he deserves to be questioned, particularly the high profile that he has.

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As the Bible Answer Man, we absolutely should test everything that he is saying according to the scriptures.

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And what he's presenting here is not according to what the Bible says. He's giving answers according to Eastern Orthodox tradition.

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And he makes mention there at the very beginning that he believes in the presence of Christ in the sacraments.

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Eastern Orthodox believe the same false doctrine as the Roman Catholics do of transubstantiation. Now they define it differently.

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The Eastern Orthodox will say it's not the it's not the substance of the incarnate Christ, but the substance of the glorified

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Christ doesn't matter. They're still taking the words of Jesus and John six and twisting them to mean something that he didn't mean when he said in order to enter the kingdom of God, you must eat of my flesh and drink of my blood.

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He was talking about spiritual nourishment, not literally eating his flesh and drinking his blood, which is that's cannibalism.

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That's not what Jesus was encouraging us to do. He was giving his disciples something symbolic at the

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Last Supper when he broke the bread and passed it to them and said, this is my body, which is broken for you. This is my cup, which is being spilled for the forgiveness, which represents my blood being spilled for the forgiveness of sins.

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This was something that had yet to happen hours from now when he was going to go to the cross and his body was going to be broken and his blood was going to be spilled.

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And he said at the beginning of that evening in John chapter 13, he said to his disciples, you don't understand what

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I'm doing for you now, but later on you will understand it. And so though they didn't understand what

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Jesus was doing when he was talking about the bread being his body and the cup being his blood, they weren't tasting this going, well, this tastes like actual flesh.

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Whoa, this is your actual blood, Jesus. This is kind of creepy. It's not what they interpreted that as, and it is not what

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Jesus was presenting to them, but it was something symbolic as to what was going to happen. So when we partake in the sacraments, it's not about what it transforms into because it doesn't transform into anything.

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It's still bread and it's still wine or juice the way that we practice it in the in the

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Southern Baptist Church. It's about what it represents, not what it transforms into.

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There's nothing transformative about these two elements. I mean, here's, here's three ways that transubstantiation is a false doctrine.

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Number one, it's incredibly divisive because here the Roman Catholic Church and the

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Eastern Orthodox Church are saying, we have the true communion and the rest of you don't.

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Jesus said, John chapter six, if you want to enter the kingdom of God, you have to eat of my flesh and drink of my blood.

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Well, your communion has not been consecrated, so it has not actually turned into the actual flesh and blood of Christ.

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So if you really want to obey what Jesus said in John six, you have to come to our church and experience real communion.

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So we're, we're dividing over the Lord's table and this is the very thing that Paul was rebuking the

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Corinthians for when he told them that they were using the Lord's table in an unworthy manner because they were being divisive.

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It's also incredibly arrogant. We have the true communion and all the rest of you don't, don't understand if you're still eating bread and drinking juice, so you don't really understand communion as terrible division over something that is supposed to be a, a symbol of unity in the body of Christ, certainly not division.

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So that's one way transubstantiation is a false doctrine. Secondly, here's an argument that I've presented related to this doctrine before it presents a false eschatology.

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It's arguing for the return of Christ into the elements that Jesus enters into the bread and into the cup.

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But Jesus stated plainly in Matthew 24 that if anyone says to you, look, here is the Christ, do not believe it for the next coming of Christ will be seen as far as lightning is seen from the

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West. It'll be witnessed by the whole world. It's not going to be to a select few in secret.

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So however mitigated they claim that return of Christ is nonetheless, it is the presence of Jesus entering into the bread and the cups of false eschatology.

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And the third way that this is a false doctrine is because, uh, it is, it's the re -sacrifice of Christ.

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And in Catholic catechism, it actually says it's the re -sacrifice of Christ. But this is stated in Hebrews chapter nine, verse 28.

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So Christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him once Christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many.

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And so again, he believes that same false doctrine, the Roman Catholic church believes both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy believe that it is a combination of faith and works that saves a person.

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And one of those works that a person is supposed to be doing is partaking in the sacraments and doing it in a right way.

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Because remember, John six says, if you want to enter the kingdom of God, you have to eat of my flesh and drink of my blood.

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If you believe what is said in Ephesians two, eight, nine, it is by grace. You have been saved through faith, not of works so that no one may boast.

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It is the gift of God. It is not your own doing. If you believe that, then according to Roman Catholic catechism, you are anathema and you are excommunicated from the church.

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Now there's there is a guy that's going to call in here. This is the next phone call. Now there's a guy that calls in and corrects

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Hanegraaff's understanding of that. When Hanegraaff calls Roman Catholicism a true church and and says that they believe the essentials, this guy calls in and says, no,

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Roman Catholicism teaches that it is a shared work between God and man that saves a person.

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And here is Hanegraaff's response to that. Well, let me simply say, I appreciate your call.

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I've often defined the Roman Catholic position as best I know how with respect to Sola Fide.

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The Roman Catholic Church does not hold to a crass system of works righteousness. They believe that we are saved by God's grace through faith.

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They believe that the faith are infused with works and those works are meritorious. So this is not a crass system of works righteousness.

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We may disagree with Rome on that position when you get to the minutia of how they define faith and how they render the distinction between faith and works.

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But this has always been sort of a debate that Western Christians have had.

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That Reformation debate in the West raised the question in the Orthodox East, and I think this is something that most people don't know, in the

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Orthodox East, they were raising the question, why is there a polarization between faith and works?

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We don't know what that's all about. Because it had been settled since the apostolic era that salvation was always granted to us by the mercy of God, granted to those who followed

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Jesus Christ. This was the mercy of God. It's stated plainly in Romans 4, 5, to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

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Again, Ephesians 2, 8, 9, it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of yourselves.

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It is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one may boast. But then we go on into verse 10, where it says, for you are

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God's workmanship, created for good works, which he has prepared for you beforehand that you should walk in them.

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So it's the fact that we've been transformed, we've been justified by faith, that then creates in us a regeneration, a regenerated heart to be able to follow the statutes of God, whereas previously we could not.

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That's in the book of Ezekiel, where it says that I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes.

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So now we are able to worship God in a holy and righteous way where previously we could not.

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So if a person is truly justified, they will show in their faith good works. But it is not by those works that we are saved.

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And this is what James meant when he said that faith without works is a dead faith. If we've truly been saved by the saving work of God, then we will do the works of God and exemplify that in our practice.

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Peter talks about this also, 2 Peter chapter one, that we would supplant our faith with virtue and with brotherly love.

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You can go there and read about that. So it is it is not by works that we are saved.

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And yes, the Roman Catholic Church does teach that it is a combination of faith and works, even though Hanegraaff is saying that they don't.

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But you have this in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Part three, life in Christ, section one, man's vocation, life in the spirit.

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Chapter three, God, salvation, law and grace. Article two, grace and justification. And you skip down to twenty twenty and it says justification has been merited for us by the passion of Christ.

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It is granted us through baptism and the baptism is talking about there is water baptism.

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You're not justified until you're baptized. Eastern Orthodox Church teaches the same thing. And I had a guy that contested with me when

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I posted that video on Eastern Orthodoxy and he said, we do not teach a combination of faith and works.

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And I said, how is a person saved? And he sent me a link on baptismal regeneration. A person is saved when they're dunked in water or when they're baptized by water sprinkling is a little bit different, but then the way the

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Baptist practice it. So so anyway, I mean, this just goes on to say that Hank Hanegraaff doesn't know enough about Roman Catholicism.

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He doesn't know enough about Eastern Orthodoxy to realize that he has entered into a faith that teaches things contrary to what the scriptures say.

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But you can hear in his answers that this faith that he has now adopted is affecting the way that he is dispensing what he believes to be truth, encouraging people that it's

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OK to be a part of the Roman Catholic Church, that Roman Catholicism is a true church and they are not part of the problem that Martin Luther had with Roman Catholicism when he nailed his ninety five thesis to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg, Saxony is because he looked at the

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Roman Catholic Church and realized it's not a true church. And also Hanegraaff talks there about the

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Protestant Reformation as being something that was just against Roman Catholicism and not against Eastern Orthodoxy. I am just as much a

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Protestant against Eastern Orthodoxy as I am a Protestant against Roman Catholicism. It's the second largest church in the world and teaches the same things.

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Now, it might it might be that those doctrines have been somewhat altered a little bit, but Eastern Orthodoxy is cut from the same cloth as Roman Catholicism.

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They both come from the same place. The pit of hell, Jude says in in his letter,

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Jude one verse three, beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation,

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I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

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And that's what I'm doing in this episode of this broadcast. Paul wrote to the Galatians, Galatians one, eight, nine, even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed, as we have said before.

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So now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one that you received, let him be accursed.

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So I say to you, if there is a person in the Roman Catholic Church or the

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Eastern Orthodox tradition who is truly a born again believer in the gospel of Jesus Christ, he is a

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Christian contrary to what is being taught in those two churches, not because of what's being taught there, because they teach a false gospel.

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If he knows the true gospel, it is by the grace of God, not because of what's being taught in Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy.

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And I pray that that is the case with Hank Hanegraaff, that he believes the true gospel and does not truly understand what's being taught in Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy.

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This next caller is going to attempt to correct Hanegraaff's understanding of Roman Catholicism as well and tell

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Hanegraaff that that the Roman Catholic Church does not teach justification by grace through faith.

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Here's Hanegraaff's response to that caller, which I'm going to cut short and you'll understand why when we get to the end of it here.

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That Roman Catholicism is a true church with significant error. And I have pointed out that error.

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I have pointed that error out consistently while I have pointed out in tandem that there are many

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Roman Catholics who are brothers and sisters in the Lord. In the same sense, there are many brothers and sisters in the

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Lord within the Orthodox church and within Protestantism. But I think you need a little context to understand this issue of justification by faith.

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If you think back to Western Europe. And there you have it again.

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How do we understand justification by grace through faith? By going to Western Europe, not according to what is written in the pages of scripture.

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Once again, Hanegraaff has disqualified himself as the Bible answer man because he thinks going to Western Europe is just as credible as opening up the pages of scripture, which he's not even doing.

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He's not even showing it to us, according to the pages of scripture. Faith is not our work. It is the work of God.

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Hebrews 12 to we are to look to Jesus, the founder and the perfecter of our faith.

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He gave us our faith and is growing us in it. Also, Romans 12 three.

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We are to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

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The faith that we have in God is the work of God. It is not our work.

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It's not us concentrating hard enough and deciding one day we're going to believe. Jesus said in John 6, 29, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent.

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The fact that we have belief in God is because God has worked in us to believe, not because we manifested our faith.

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Romans 10, 7, 10, 17, which I've quoted on this broadcast many times. Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ, not by going to Western Europe.

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Now, I do believe that we can learn from church history, and I think it's important to learn from church history. But a person should not base their faith on church history because church history is messy.

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We understand the scriptures and even what we're reading about in church history. We we are to ground according to what the

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Bible has to say. Now, I listen to dead preachers that listen to them.

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Yeah, literally, like Martin Lloyd Jones, whose sermons are all recorded. I listen to those sermons and I can learn from that man just as well as I can learn from a living preacher today.

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But I'm still I'm still filtering everything that comes from the preachers that I listen to through the word of God.

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It is according to what this says first, because this is the ultimate authority. It does not share authority with church tradition.

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And so I want to state once again, plainly, as I conclude that I do not believe Hank Hanegraaff is qualified in his role as the

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Bible answer man on these two points, that because he has been chrismated into Eastern Orthodoxy, he does not believe in justification by grace through faith alone, according to what the scripture teaches, nor does he believe in the sufficiency of scripture and the authority of scripture, but rather that church tradition shares that authority.

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And for that reason, he is not a reliable source of biblical information.

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I would encourage you to seek that elsewhere. Let's lift up Hank in prayer as we come to a conclusion here.

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Dear God, I thank you for the ministry that Hank Hanegraaff has done in the past and his commitment to biblical truth.

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And I pray that you would show him that once again, grant him repentance that leads him to a knowledge of the truth and away from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.

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Let there not be others led astray because of this shift and this change that has happened in Hanegraaff's ministry.

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And it is a change. It's a huge change. We pray once again that Hanegraaff would look toward the scriptures as the sole authority of biblical truth and that he would leave this false faith of Eastern Orthodoxy and that drawing him away from this false tradition, that there would be others that would leave it as well.

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It is to you we give all glory and honor and power. It is because of you that we have been rescued from darkness and delivered into your glorious light.

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And so we give you the praise now and forever through Jesus Christ, our

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Lord, in whose name we pray. Amen. I thank you so much for listening to this broadcast.

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If perhaps you were attracted to the broadcast today because of the subject that I was addressing, I regularly do

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New Testament Bible study on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. And right now we're going through the book of 1 John. We do verse by verse exposition, submitting ourselves to the authority of what the scriptures teach.

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Then on Thursday, I do Old Testament Bible study. And on Friday, I have my own Q &A and you can submit a question to this broadcast by email, whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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I'm truly grateful for every listener that I receive. And I thank you so much for listening to When We Understand the

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Text. God bless and we'll be back to our New Testament study on Monday. This is

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When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web and we thank you for selecting ours.

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But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family. Find a good gospel teaching

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Christ -centered church to worship with this weekend and join us again Monday for more Bible study when we understand the text.