An Interview with the “Bible Answer Man” Hank Hanegraaff

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala and today

I have a very special guest with me. I've been talking about this interview for quite some time and I've had a lot of folks reach out to me whether they were excited or concerned either way but be that as it may we are here and it is a pleasure to be having

Hank Hanegraaff on which I'll introduce more formally in just a few moments. For anyone who is interested with regards to the specific topic we're going to be talking about we're going to talk a little bit about first I'm actually gonna be asking a little bit about Hank's health if you guys have been following his ministry of course he has been undergoing various treatments for well

I'm sure he'll go into detail but I want to make sure he's okay and I haven't been following it completely so I'd be interested in seeing how those developments are going and then we're gonna go into the topic of Hank's conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy and really the primary purpose here is to as I said in my previous live stream to answer that perplexing question that that always comes up you know what's

Eastern Orthodoxy and every time people ask me you know I've asked scholars and apologists and the answer is always the same well that's not really my area

I'm not really sure what they believe and so I thought it'd be a great idea to have Hank Hanegraaff on to explain his perspective his understanding of Eastern Orthodox theology and for educational purposes perhaps bring some contrast with many of my

Protestant listeners you can see kind of the comparison and contrasting between the views and use that as kind of a tool for education and so that's really the primary purpose here and so with that said

I'd like to welcome on the screen with me Hank Hanegraaff of CRI the Christian Research Institute and he is the the current

Bible Answer Man so welcome to Revealed Apologetics Hank. Thank you so much it is an honor and a pleasure to be with you.

All right well I want to ask a question my first question is what made you agree to come on to a

YouTube channel of someone you never heard of people are usually very cautious about you know like especially us

YouTube types we can be unpredictable so what on earth convinced you to come on?

Well you know you're Reformed and I come out of a Reformed tradition two of my brother -in - laws are

Reformed pastors my father was a Reformed pastor and so I have been greatly blessed by the

Reformed tradition over the years. R .C. Sproul was one of my closest friends when he was alive we often talked about Reformed theology and other theologies as well when we were playing golf and afterwards but the

Reformed tradition has had a tremendous impact on my life my my mom and dad they're absent the body they're present with the

Lord and probably two of the most stunning stirring examples of people who who walked the

Christian life in an exemplary fashion and so I have a great admiration for Reformed theologians and for the

Reformed faith there are many Reformed people that work or have worked with the Christian Research Institute over the years as well so I did know a little bit about you

I was told about you by various people that had a very high opinion of both you as a person and your ability as an apologist as well so I was happy to come on when you invited me.

Well thank you very much I appreciate that I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in some of your informal discussions with with R .C.

I'm sure you guys had some interesting conversations these kind of discussions.

He was one, Eli, he was one of the greatest people I ever met he was the absolute real deal there was no pretenses about R .C.

and so while we did not always agree I had the deepest admiration for for him as a person.

Yeah but I'm sure these kinds of discussions can kind of get very excitable so I would imagine you guys would have some interesting but probably ruin your golf swing someone's arguing

Romans 9 or something like that that must have been pretty exciting all right well just another kind of a preemptive question those who have been following your ministry maybe people who don't know you have been going through some health issues and my question is how are you doing how is that coming along well thank you so much for asking that question

Eli I was diagnosed with stage for a mental cell lymphoma

August excuse me April 15 of 2017 and so I started chemotherapy and I went into remission a number of times with the tumors kept coming back and finally this past year

I had a what's called an allergenic transplant I received the the stem cells of one of my sons

I have 12 children and one of my sons donated to stem cells and that seems to have done the job because from that time on I've been cancer free so there's no no sign whatsoever the mental cell lymphoma while I was going through the transplant itself though I I almost died a couple of times so last year

I faced my own mortality in a very very specific way in fact while I was in the hospital

I got an E. coli bacterium that almost killed me put me in a coma and when

I came out of that coma one of the things that really touched me and never left me is what the

Lord would say about what I've done for the least of these the poor and the downtrodden and so my emphasis in many ways has become what can

I do for the least of these and and some of those people are in various parts of the world for example the deletes who are also known as the untouchables they they live in India there are some 300 million of them and they're outside of the caste system they're outcasts literally they can't touch the water from the wells of those who are in the caste system and the

Muslims and the Buddhists are making an extensive effort to proselytize them but we with the love of Christ and meeting the needs of those people can can have a tremendous impact in that area of the world and so these things have stuck with me as a result of facing my my own mortality but you but you said you're cancer -free at the time right now

I am there's no sign whatsoever of the mental cell lymphoma and for that I'm deeply grateful

I'm obviously grateful for people all around the world who prayed for me during this time and as a result of being cancer -free right now

I've had the opportunity to see two new grandchildren born in the last year that I wouldn't have seen otherwise and also privileged to continue carrying on the work of the

Lord through the ministry of the Christian Research Institute in and throughout other outlets as well so so Hank 12 children

I mean that's it's very biblical of you I can't imagine that's that's pretty impressive well we had nine natural children

Eli and then okay we adopted three children as well so that's how we got to the number 12 all right fair fair enough all right well well let's jump right in what

I appreciated about the fact that you agreed to come on was that through our contact

I believe it was Steven he expressed to me that that you had no no issue with me being clear as to where I stand with Eastern Orthodoxy and that was something very much that I that I respect it is my position unlike say someone like yourself and Walter Martin and even

Cindy held to the position that she sees the Roman Catholic Church the Eastern Orthodox Church as true churches but with grave error and I'm not of that position

I and it is my position that the Roman Catholic Church does not have a saving gospel with regards to its official teaching that's just my position

I know people differ there that's where I stand I think there are some dividing line issues and the same with with Eastern Orthodoxy now that said what

I try to do on my channel and I think this is something that you could appreciate is that even if we land on those dividing line issues as kind of like we've kind of drawn the line in the sand so to speak that does not mean that communication between different perspectives can't be had there can still be meaningful discussion learning from one another as first Peter chapter 3 verse 15 says with gentleness and respect and so it's with that spirit that's

I've told people that I don't agree with Eastern Orthodoxy but I want to learn more about it I just know enough about it that I don't agree with it but I still want to learn more and I think that's still useful so all that to say

I appreciate that you agreed to come on even if I was going to kind of bring that out because I know a lot of people tend to you know move away from coming down hard on those issues

I just wanted to share from the perspective I was coming from before we got started appreciate that okay thank you very much all right so um let's go through Eastern Orthodoxy one of the questions that I get all the time is what on earth is

Eastern Orthodoxy a lot of people think that Eastern Orthodoxy is just a is just a popeless version of Roman Catholicism to be perfectly honest that was my perspective before I kind of read a little bit into the

Eastern Orthodox Church and theology but how would you define for folks just as that bare question what is

Eastern Orthodoxy well you know the first thing I would say Eli is that if you look at church history and a lot of people do not have any kind of working knowledge of church history there was a time when the church was young so there was a time when you had a tradition being passed along from our

Lord to the Apostles the Apostolic Fathers to the great early church apologists to the pre the post -Nicene

Fathers and then to every Eucharistic assembly throughout the land and this was the one church and that existed for the first thousand years of church history so up until 1054 the

Great Schism as it's called there was only one church the the

Great Schism divided the East and the West and then 500 years later there was a second

Great Schism and that Schism was between Rome and the

Reformers or the Reformers in Rome so there are schisms that took place in the church but prior to those schisms the church was young the church held to the dogmas of the seven ecumenical councils and that's why oftentimes

I say Eastern Orthodoxy is the church of the seven ecumenical councils they don't add anything to it they don't subtract anything from it and I think what's also very important to recognize about Eastern Orthodoxy is it's not innovative it's seeking to perpetuate the faith once for all delivered to the

Saints so again it's not seeking to be innovative but perpetuate the faith and I think this is a very important point because there was a time in which the stream was unpolluted a friend of mine oftentimes tells the story about when he was a boy in India he used to climb the bamboo tree and jump into the clear water of a river being able to see the bottom of that river he says he now goes back to that same place and he can't see the bottom of the river because it's polluted but if you take a canoe or a kayak and you go to the headwaters or the origin of that river the waters are still unpolluted and that in my estimation is a good depiction of what

Eastern Orthodoxy is I mean from the time of the Reformation there has been tremendous pollution of the

Christian stream I mean you think about what happened with respect to Zwingli and Luther Luther believed in the real presence of Christ Zwingli believed that Luther's belief in the real presence of Christ constituted bread worship so what happened they had a debate a very famed debate and Zwingli asked

Luther how Christ could be really present in the

Eucharist in the Thanksgiving meal he said how is that possible and Luther's response was telling he said if you can tell me how

Christ can be one person with two natures I'll tell you how Christ can really be present in the

Eucharist in other words Luther was saying with the Eastern Orthodox Church has always said this is a mystery to use a

Latin phrase it's the mysterium tremendum et fescanans it's the mystery that causes us to tremble and yet attracts us so the church did not innovate early on but from the time of Zwingli on there was all kinds of innovations the stream kept getting more and more polluted so I like to think of Eastern Orthodoxy as when the church was young and this is what's

Eastern Orthodoxy seeks to perpetuate in the present without any innovation okay now there are a couple of things there that I guess would pique the interest of some

Protestant folks and just people who are interested in church history and what I appreciated I don't remember that the talk you had but there was a talk you had

I watched it on YouTube where you admitted that the knowledge of church history prior to the

Reformation is something that we all have difficulty I mean a lot of us remember back to the

Reformation and some have even jokingly said you know modern evangelicals they only go far as back as a you know

Billy Graham you know we're not very much in touch with church history prior to the Reformation but there is there is great debate especially with regards to what constitutes a tradition that has a genuine apostolic connection so you have the different divergent views between the

Orthodox view and the Roman Catholic view and then of course the Protestant view which which says well let's go back to scripture and then you have that sola scriptura issue so why don't you speak to that and you can maybe correct me if I've said something that that was off well what's up with this tradition you said that there's an unpolluted tradition within the

Eastern Orthodox perspective but then me being naive of the details of church history which is something

I want to look into I see in the Western Church I see

I activated Siri when I said that I see the West I see the Western Church that promotes a papal infallibility and all these things that they try to argue that it's part part of the purity of apostolic tradition and then you have the

Eastern Church which says well no we're we're preserving that what's going on there how do you differentiate between the two from your perspective well the first thing that I would say

Eli with all due respect is that the Reformers and Rome have more in common than Rome does with with the

Orthodoxy there are many huge differences between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism so the the idea that Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism see eye -to -eye on substantial issues

I think is it is simply not factual the other thing that I would say with respect to your question on tradition is that if you look at Scripture Scripture tells us that the church is the ground and the pillar of truth it is the church that gave us sacred

Scripture I mean if you look at the early church there was no

New Testament Canon up until the time of the festal letter of Athanasius the

Great in 367 and even then that was just the start of codifying the

New Testament Canon so for many years the letters that were circulated in the church were very different than the

Canon that we have today and by the way and this is a bit of a tangent this is a problem that Protestants have if you look at any

Protestant Bible or virtually any Protestant Bible you have the

Masoretic text in the Old Testament and you have the Septuagint being quoted in the

New Testament so for example if you look at the Jerusalem Council Amos chapter 9 is quoted well if you look at the

Septuagint it coheres with the quotation in the New Testament but if you look at the

Palestinian text it does not and there are many examples like that so it is the church that preserved sacred tradition the epitome of which is the

Bible which I love I've spent most of my ministry and most of my adult life mining the scripture memorizing the scripture meditating on the scripture so I have a high view of scripture but I think it's important to recognize that it is the church that gave us the scriptures now okay so I mean coming from a

Protestant perspective small point of course yeah I mean this is going to be

I mean this is a very big difference in point of discussion with the issue of you know how we got the

Canon of Scripture I mean wouldn't you say though that the Canon was completed the very moment the person wrote the particular book

I mean isn't it the case wouldn't you say that the church recognizes the Canon not so much gives us the

Canon well and the church actually gave us the Canon I mean there were there were books that were used in the church that were bound together

Clement was bound together with Corinthians in the early church these were letters that were circulated in the church it was the church that gave us ultimately that codified the

Canon and gave us the Canon but codifying do you mean collecting it under one you know kind of cover or I mean surely retaining that these are the canonical books and and and and I mentioned earlier what

I thought was a tenant at maybe a tangent but probably isn't because there's also a whole discussion as to whether there's a longer

Canon in the Old Testament or whether that longer Canon doesn't belong in the

Old Testament so there are a lot of issues that have to be parsed out there as well but it was the church that determined of the

Canon there were many other books that could have been added to the

Canon and they're very edifying to read I mean if you look at the DDK for example the

DDK is edifying it's instructional it's important but it's not included in the

Canon Clements epistle is not included in the Canon so there was a determination made at a particular point in time as to what was canonical and what was not that happened in church history well

I'm confused I'm confused then I was always I was under the impression that God gave us the Canon and the church recognized the

Canon so not so much the church gives us the Canon right well but that recognition maybe there's a problem here with the words that we're using sure okay so Athanasius the

Great I'll go with your language recognizes 27 books of the

New Testament and their first codified as a coherent whole in 367 now 367 are you referring to Athanasius Festal letter yes okay so wouldn't it be the case though that the books that he's listed there are recognized as canonical prior to his listing them right

I mean it wasn't as though Athanasius was giving a declaration as these are the official books

I mean these were already accepted by the church it's not in my understanding of course that these were accepted as canonical it's just later on you have them kind of placed together under one cover and kind of quote officially like these are the ones but I mean

I well it wasn't even official then because if you look at the Old Testament the

Festal letters you will know since you've referenced it the Festal letter didn't include certain books from the

Old Testament like Esther that we include today mm -hmm okay all right so so you're the

Eastern Orthodox position if I can understand you correctly is that the church gave us the Canon okay that would be your position right yes that a whole tradition gave us the

Word of God and that the church is the ground and the pillar of truth so the

Holy Spirit working through the church through apostolic succession gives us that which is true and so we recognize the

Canon as being true and I'm making the qualification that the Canon for the

Orthodox is different than the Canon for a Protestant Bible of course

Luther included the longer Canon well why don't you want to take a moment and his translation sure sure why don't

I why don't you take a moment to kind of mention some of the books that are included in the Eastern Orthodox Canon that are not included in the

Protestant Canon I think that'd be useful for people who aren't aware of these issues well you can just look at the index

I mean there are books like Tobit there books like the Wisdom of Chirac there there there are all kinds of books that are there there are 46 books as opposed to 39 books in the

Orthodox Canon and there are parts of books as well that are included you have Maccabees first second and third

Maccabees so there are many books that are included in the Old Testament Canon they're part of the

Septuagint and they're referenced in the

New Testament sometimes indirectly but nonetheless that they're referenced and but the biggest part of this is the fact that they're part of the

Septuagint hmm so now okay so from a Protestant perspective and this usually comes up between the context of and you're spot on with regards to Protestants and Catholics having more of that connection than than the

Eastern Church but to the Protestant sensibilities when when we observe what goes on oftentimes in Roman Catholic churches and Eastern Orthodox churches there is a lot that Protestant sensibilities will say oh where is that in the

Bible so so why don't you talk a little bit about the Eastern Orthodox perspective with regards to why when a

Protestant visits an Eastern Orthodox Church and listens to some of the teaching in theology they will hear things that kind of I'm joking around makes

Protestants break out in hives there seems to be things that are inconsistent to the Protestant to Protestant ears why don't you explain why that's the case and go into the reasons why that's not a big deal or maybe

I'm representing the issues incorrectly why don't you unpack that for us yeah well I think it's a really good question

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

God the liturgy in an Orthodox Church bays you in the

Word of God in fact if you follow the liturgical calendar you're steeped in Scripture and I think that's a big big difference from modern day evangelicalism where oftentimes the

Bible is is used as a point of departure and many people that carry

Bibles have never really read the Bible or memorized the Bible or mind the Bible for all substantial worth so in Orthodoxy you get absolutely washed in the

Word of God and the focus is always on worshiping God it's not about an extravaganza for for Orthodoxy the church is the center of the universe and the center of the liturgy in fact the liturgy is the

Eucharist so when we in Orthodoxy partake of the

Eucharist we're partaking of the real presence of Christ so we're being we're being transformed through the graces that are partaken of within the context of the church so for an

Orthodox person this is not going to church this is embracing a whole life a life that's transformational so in Western theology the ark typically runs from fall to redemption in Orthodoxy the ark runs from creation to deification as Vladimir Lossky put it if you look at the history of the human race it's a history of shipwreck awaiting rescue but as Lossky put it the port of salvation is not the goal the goal is for the rescued to continue on a journey whose sole goal is union with God in other words to become partakers of the divine nature to be infused with the divine nature and this is precisely what we talk about when we talk about grace grace is partaking of the

Living God and so you can imagine by way of illustration that if you're in a shipwreck and you're saved from the raging waters you're going to be very very grateful but you don't want to stay in the port of salvation and in Eastern Orthodoxy you continue on a journey whose sole goal is union with God so there's a sense in which

Eastern Orthodoxy is not just punctiliar it's a process where you go as Paul put it from one glory to another glory with unveiled face so it is a life transformational journey and so the

Orthodox say I'm saved I'm being saved and I will be saved and I'm being transformed becoming godlike by receiving the graces which are partaken of within the church life the chief of those graces being as I just articulated of the

Eucharist mm -hmm now you mentioned a term there that I think is pops up in discussions with Eastern Orthodox folks the term deification why don't you unpack that a little bit in a little more detail what is that in a way that perhaps a

Protestant it would be helpful for them to understand yeah it his his kenosis we're talking about Christ his his emptying becomes our filling so we're talking about deification we're talking about what

Peter talked about when he said we could become partakers of the divine nature or participate in the divine nature so in Orthodoxy we're not just saved from sin we're saved for sonship to become divine sons and daughters of the king we never become what

God is in terms of his essence but we can partake of his energies and those energies transform us so by way of an analogy you can think of the

Sun you can never attain to the center of the Sun trying so would be deadly but you can certainly be impacted by the rays of the

Sun and in the analogy God is present in each ray and those rays transform us and the whole idea in Orthodoxy is to be transformed so if you look at Eastern Orthodox anthropology

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

Edenic garden well man stops halfway up and wants to become a god on his own terms he's expelled from the garden so now humanity can no longer partake of the tree of life but God has set another tree of life on the fulcrum of history and that tree of life bears the

Eucharistic bounty it is the cross and it is through Jesus Christ that the triple barrier that separates us from God is broken the barrier of nature by the incarnation of Christ the barrier of sin by the death of Christ and the barrier of death itself by the resurrection of Jesus Christ so the whole idea between or in in the system of Orthodoxy is becoming not only what we're created as an icon of God but becoming more and more godlike by partaking of the energies of God and maybe you can use another word for that the graces that God dispenses within the ground and the pillar of truth which is the church the center universe in Orthodoxy now

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

I've often been asked about the essence and energy distinction what what is that specifically within an Eastern Orthodox context

I've heard it you've alluded to it but what is it exactly well yeah we it's what

I was talking about before Eli you can never attain to the essence of God God is unknowable okay in his essence but he is knowable in his energies and it is those energies that are the graces that we're talking about so we believe that we're saved by God's grace okay you know the the

Orthodox Church is not a works centered theology say that again

I'm sorry it's not a work centered theology so so I mean though you have to get over the language barrier here because the language of the

Orthodox and the language of the the Western Church the Roman Catholics and and and and and and the process is very very different language so oftentimes you have to learn to scale the language barrier there but the the

Orthodox I mean if you look at the Orthodox study Bible at Ephesians chapter 2 you know the great passage for by grace we've been saved through faith and that not of ourselves it is gift of God not of works us anyone should boast if you look at all three of those verses you see grace faith and works but here's what the

Orthodox study Bible says how can one get from one kingdom to the other by the unity of grace faith and works not that these are equal for grace is uncreated and infinite whereas our faith is limited and can grow good works flow out of authentic faith works however cannot earn us this great treasure it is a pure gift and those who receive this gift do good we're not saved by good works but we are saved for good works see right if you look right there if I can that sounds very

Protestant ish I mean I I mean I I hold to the doctrine of justification by faith alone and I often say that I'm not good

I'm not saved by my good works but a good works is the good works that I that I do are evidence of a genuine faith so what is what is the and I apologize if this question kind of throws off throws you off track as to your line of no no you're not throwing me off track is that what is the position then of the

Eastern Orthodox perspective on the doctrine of justification by faith alone because what we hear from Roman Catholics what we hear from Eastern Orthodoxy sounds like a works -based system even though they don't flat -out say yes we're saved by our works it seems that it is the implications of the perspective but what's your stance on justification by faith alone what's the

Eastern Orthodox stance on justification by faith alone well exactly what I just said in red you know

I was just I was just gonna say in this regard if you if you turn to James chapter 2 okay

James parses it out very very well and in essence what

James is saying is we have to nurture our faith in God nurture our love for him through through our works and that's why

James says that someone will say you have faith and I have work show me your faith without your works and I will show you my faith by my works faith without works is dead says

James right and then he uses Rahab and Abraham to illustrate why faith without works is dead so the kind of faith that we're talking about here and and I'm not distinguishing this from from you in any sense but the kind of faith we're talking about is the faith of Abraham I mean

Abraham's faith was not mere intellectual assent sure Abraham trusted

God so it wasn't just hearing and saying I believe but Abraham packed up his tents left or the

Chaldees and went to a land he did not know anything about sure he trusted

God so faith is trusting it's not only knowing and agreeing but it is putting your whole trust in God and that's why

James can say faith without works is dead and then say that Abraham was called a friend of God you see then that a man is justified by works as James and not by faith alone for as the body without the spirit is dead so faith without works is dead now in the

Western Church there's a big debate between the Roman Catholics and the evangelicals or the

Reformers and Rome because the whole idea of justification is understood in juridical terms that debate is not the same debate that the

Eastern Orthodox are involved in they were never involved in any of this they never juxtaposition faith and works one against the other it was a foreign thought to them but I don't think it's the

Protestant view that they're pitted against each other if no no I'm saying the

Protestants and the Reformers or Rome and the Reformers were pitted against each other in a debate on how faith relates to works and I'm saying that in the

Eastern Church there was never ever a juxtaposition of one against the other it was simply understood from a biblical perspective well

I mean well that would be the point of contention if that is because what you're saying what I heard you say if I'm understanding you correctly it sounds very much someone in the comment why am

I still a Calvinist people in the comment section the question that that I'm wondering is what you were saying with regards to James chapter 2

I as a Protestant I'm saying yes and amen I don't I don't see the distinction between the

Protestant understanding and the Eastern Orthodox understanding based upon what you said in your estimation then what differentiates

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

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

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

Protestant you understand my question I do and it's a good question and I think this is a really difficult thing to parse out unless you understand an overall framework sure and that's what

I've been trying to communicate you have to understand a whole overall framework and you have to be able to scale the language barrier and you have to understand what salvation is a salvation as I said earlier is not just being saved from sin but it's being saved for sonship so you have to look at the larger framework of creation to deification so the port of salvation is not the goal the goal is for the saved to continue on a journey so when we talk about salvation we're not talking about it in punctiliar terms we're talking about it as a process now it is true that when an

Orthodox person is baptized or when a person is baptized as an

Orthodox Christian they have renounced the world they've renounced the devil and his kingdom and then they're baptized and they enter into a life of repentance at baptism they're forgiven they're washed they're cleansed they're united with Christ they're incorporated into the church and their temple becomes the temple of the

Holy Spirit so there is a point in time or there is a sense of a punctiliar nature to Orthodox salvation but then you begin a process and that process always takes place within a context and that context is the church and that's why the

Orthodox say you cannot have God as your father without having the church as your mother because it is in the church that you receive the graces that transform you so it isn't just this idea of fall to redemption it is the broader arch that I was talking about earlier from creation to deification and that's an ongoing process meaning that you will never come to an end of that process either in this life or in the life that is to come in eternity we will continue to grow in the graces now we are going to learn and grow and develop albeit without error but we're never going to be static we're going to continue to become more and more like God again not like God in his essence we're not talking about Mormonism we're not talking about Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh we're not talking about aberrations we're not talking about Kenneth Copeland but we're talking about the energies of God as opposed to the essence of God so let me give you an illustration that the early church once I use for I do but um so so but what you're saying there sounds a lot to me like sanctification again the language that you're using sound that's a brilliant observation that truly a brilliant observation because here's the problem and you just put your finger right on it the language systems oftentimes encompass many of the same ideologies okay it's different language but the language is driving at some of the same points and that's why

I said earlier on Eli you have to learn to scale the language barrier because the language of the

East is very different from the language of the West you know the language of the

East is more Christ Victor the language of the West is more

Christ victim not completely so but but but in terms of emphasis the emphasis in the

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

Western Church is far different from that so I I think this gets at how important it is to scale the language barrier and and I think a brilliant response on your part is that yeah

I mean the Protestants talk about justification but that's not all they talk about they also talk about sanctification

I think that's a very appropriate comment I guess you I would a hundred percent agree that we we do need to scale the language barrier by the way a little commercial for those who've never read

Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Martin there's an entire section on scaling the language barrier and that's not just in relation to the cults that's in relation to any kind of communication where people are coming from different perspectives so there is definitely a language barrier to be crossed to show for sure and by the way you mentioned

Walter Martin Walter Martin believed that the Roman Catholic Church was a true church that's right with significant error right and I would agree with that right and I I disagreed with his position there but again that's just a distinction between between myself and yourself and Dr.

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

Western Church I guess then we have to be more distinct with regards to what we mean by the Western Church because a lot of the ways that you have just in passing

I mean you're just we're having a conversation here so I'm sure precision could be there can be more precision in what you're saying but I've never heard the the

Western emphasis that that you have described as something within the

Reformed context so I've never heard from fall to redemption I hear from creation I write to be right at the beginning

God has a decree he has plans to make a covenant it's unfolding you know the process of salvation the issue of justification and sanctification

I believe those Eli I was trying to be precise because you know what

I what I'm saying is it has to do with Eastern Orthodox anthropology

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

Protestant faith understands the Bible from creation to glorification

I'm not diminishing that in any sense I just want to click as I was like well I don't know if I would if I would phrase it that way so so okay so let's let's get down to the let's use the language of of the debates so that people understand mean

Protestants think in these categories of justification by faith alone you know the soul as of the Reformation and things like that does the ether

Eastern Orthodox perspective reject a Protestant understanding of justification by faith alone yeah again for the reasons that we talked about I mean we we believe that we're saved by God's grace the emphasis is on on God's grace so the categories again are important if you make the proper distinctions in terms of the language that you're using so we we believe exactly what

Ephesians 2 8 9 & 10 says we're saved by God's grace we receive that grace through faith faith properly understood and the salvation that we embrace is progressive there's a point in time where he experienced salvation but there's also a progressive sense of salvation and that's as I said before why the

Orthodox say you're not only saved you're being saved and you will be saved see but is that a distinctive of Eastern Orthodoxy I've always

I've always understood there is a sense of a now and not yet aspect to the salvation process so I'm having well that's a good point there are a lot of Protestants that hold that good point right so a point well taken but there are a lot of Protestants too that do not hold that so there's a popular form of Protestantism in which you get people to pray a prayer sure and then they have a card that gets him into heaven and keeps them out of hell and they can live as a baptized secular humanist because they have been saved once saved always saved they've been saved and therefore but but if I can just jump in there sure yep and I agree with you there are aspects of Protestantism that reflects that but that's not an essential feature of Protestant theology those are

I would say aberrations of a consistent Protestant perspective so what I guess well and but but that's a good point and let me before you get to your question let me point that out

I I think this is part of where the problem lies there you say you reject Eastern Orthodoxy but maybe what you're rejecting is a caricature of Eastern Orthodoxy and when people have arguments with respect to Protestantism maybe in some cases they're caricaturing

Protestantism as opposed to correctly parsing it right and I definitely think that that happens and I think that's why conversations like this are so helpful but at the same time some of your explanations even as you're kind of explaining your view

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

Protestant view and the Eastern Orthodox view and so I'm having difficulty identifying what is unique to Eastern Orthodoxy and I think that we don't agree where we're gonna disagree on issues of justification so I know they're not the same but what you're saying sounds very

Protestant ish kind of well you know I mean

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

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

I mean Luther could not imagine what

Zwingli would end up saying believing and teaching I mean you know that and then

Zwingli could not believe later permutations of the

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

I wanted to go to where the church was young ie Eastern Orthodoxy is because of all the winds and ways of doctrine that keep sweeping through the

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

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

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

I'm talking you about you keep having more and more permutations that muddy the water and so you can't see the bottom anymore so I'm simply saying that Eastern Orthodoxy is going to when the church was young and one of the primary issues for me is the

Eucharist when I partake of the Eucharist I'm partaking of the real presence of Christ and that is a distinct difference from what you find within Protestantism yes and I do think that that that's an important difference there but a lot of these waves that you say are going in through the the

Orthodox Church I'm sorry the evangelical church again those are aberrations that can be with proper biblical application so though again that's not enough an essential feature of Protestantism you have well it is in the sense that everyone becomes their own

Pope I mean everyone becomes their own interpreter and so you have people that are going to the same

Bible and they're interpreting the text in different ways and starting a whole movements around their own interpretations mm -hmm this is why

I mentioned Zwingli but you could mention many other people as well I'm trying not to be confrontational on your program but I mean you could go to many other

I mean hard determinism for me is a huge issue I grew up in a

Calvinist context and hard determinism for me was a huge issue I actually left the church as a very young boy for a long long time because I couldn't handle the idea of hard determinism mm -hmm it it just seemed incredible to me to have a sense of theistic fatalism that I heard over and over again in the church that I was part of and when

I asked questions I didn't get satisfying answers so I left the church well I found out that becoming a practicing atheist didn't help the the situation much because if Madonna's merely a material girl living in a material world her choices are not free they're fatalistically determined by brain chemistry and genetics so I I didn't advance the ball a whole lot but it took me away from the church for a long period of time so there's this whole issue of robust libertarian freedom as opposed to hard determinism this is a major issue that that separates the

Orthodox from many strains within the Protestant world as well so there are many things you know for example the filio quay that's a huge issue because it gets down to the nature of God himself and virtually every single theological heresy begins with a misconception of the nature of God so there are big issues to be contended with all right well we are coming up to the hour and so I want to give an opportunity for some of the listeners to maybe ask their questions there's so much here to unpack there's a lot that I probably would have pressed back on we have points of disagree well you know what you can do it because first of all

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

I heard about you is true we had a conversation you pushed back appropriately with gentleness and with respect

RC Sproul would be proud of you well thank you well here's the thing that I try to emphasize is like you said gentleness and respect

I mean it is possible to engage in discussions that are about the Bible we can quote the

Bible but we engage in the discussions unbiblically and I think from my side of the of the dividing line

I think my reform fellows should can take a cue from what the Bible says and be more consistent with the manner in which they engage people that being said you're able to do that without compromising we disagree but we had a respectful conversation

I very much appreciate what you had to say I tell people this all the time I'm the kind of guy who listens back at my own episode so that I could sometimes as I'm multitasking

I want to listen to the conversation again but do you mind if we take like five minutes for some your questions and heads up I'm gonna be having dr.

Tony Costa on who is a reformed scholar and we'll talk a little bit about our conversation and maybe give some context from a reform perspective so we hear it we heard the

Orthodox perspective we can hear kind of a reformed response there and again there are probably many people

Eli you know I'm a newbie in the Orthodox world and so there's there's a sense in which

I'm probably not the best person I'm still learning there's so much to learn

I feel like I've been dipped into a treasure chest and I can't find the bottom of it so I'm in the process of learning and absorbing so much of Orthodoxy so there's a lot that I have to learn and there's a fair amount that I have to unlearn as well sure sure okay so here's not it's not a question but a statement but maybe you can unpack that so eos that's the east that's that's the the online abbreviation of Eastern Orthodox and there's all sorts of strange nicknames so Eastern Orthodoxy do they accept or reject the concept of original sin that's a really good question the

Eastern Orthodox do not reject the fact that we are subject to a broken gene as a result of the sin of Adam but we do not bear the sin of Adam so we are culpable for our own sin and of course there are many passages in fact whole chapters of the

Bible that bear that out like Ezekiel chapter 18 all right very good is a question well

I guess question for me who are some reformed apologists who have good critiques of Orthodox Church to be perfectly honest I don't know this is one of the reasons why

I wanted to have Hank on I wanted to kind of learn the perspective for myself since there's so much misunderstanding and and here's the thing that I think is very important it's very easy for as a

Protestant to tell the critic of Protestantism to say hey you don't understand our position and so we want people to kind of read what our position is and I think we need to do the same thing if we're gonna critique some other perspective so I think that's important to keep in mind all right let's see here

I have to scroll through it's not as technologically advanced how do you how do you go through questions in your in your well they come up on a screen so you know people call in they come up on the screen and then

I you know I'm able to so basically what I get is I get the the name of the caller where they're from and then there's usually a little thing like they're asking about this and so then

I go to the call and they ask their question okay all right that that's pretty cool all right so you have a kind of a somewhat confrontational question but I guess because they want it they want to get an answer from you okay as they're listening here

Eli's asking a question that's not being answered directly okay Hank why do you deny sola fide

I guess from a Protestant perspective as we understand it what why do you deny it and you know why don't you unpack that for us well

I don't I try to do that I mean I think what's important to recognize is that we are saved by God's grace the instrument by which we receive that grace is faith properly understood but the the point that I made is a point that comes directly from the scriptures so my my answer that question would simply be to quote a

James chapter 2 which has James saying so you see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone and then he concludes by saying for as the body without the spirit is dead so faith without works is dead so I think part of the discussion is again going back to unpacking or scaling the language barrier because the ideas here are multifaceted and there's a different perspective in terms of not only terminology but the meaning that's poured into the words so words are not univocal they're equivocal there it's not just the word you use but the meaning that you pour into the word sure okay thank you for that last question because we are now at the five five minutes the one hour mark and that was our agreed upon time so someone's asking question could you do the

Bible Answer Man broadcast so that's right as you on other things to do right now you're not a busy man could you have

Hank explain what he's learned about the Eastern Orthodox position on human nature particularly the news yeah

I mean that would have been a great thing to to get into I mean that's the seat of a human being is is is transcendently important and yeah

I mean I in the conversation we didn't get to a lot of that but but I think the point here that's important in the question is that anthropology is very very important and Eastern Orthodox view of human anthropology and other views there are differences that that bear discussion all right well that was the last question folks thank you so much for listening in if you have further questions or any desire any follow -up questions to be addressed you could email me at revealed apologetics at gmail .com

I also will be having Tony Costa to come on to talk a little bit more about this Hank Hanegraaff president of CRI the

Bible Answer Man we thank you so much for taking the time I really enjoyed this conversation as I said before I'm gonna go back and listen and you know

I'm busy as it is but darn I now have a new topic I have to throw myself into so again you know that's the whole thing

I mean we're learning together I mean I yeah I've always said that I don't want to stay static

I want to continue to learn and grow and develop and and and I believe truth really matters

I do believe as a title of my newest book truth matters life matters more I believe that we have to go beyond logical truth propositions to a living relationship with the

Lord of the universe so I I want to continue to learn and conversations like this certainly helpful in the process well

I certainly appreciate your willingness to come on and I wish you the best in terms of health and if I can just nudge a little jokingly we'll pray for you brother to come back to the fold but seriously there there are those dividing lines that are very important and I don't want to discourage people from looking into these issues