A Respectful Response to Hank Hanegraaff with Dr. Tony Costa

All right, welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala and today

We have a very very important topic to cover if you guys

Were able to watch the previous episode just two days ago I had Hank Hanegraaff on from the

Christian Christian Research Institute He is the current president of CRI and he is considered the

Bible Answer Man And of course, he shook the evangelical world in the Christian world in general, I suppose with his conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy and so Through various events.

I was able to get connected with him. I interviewed. Dr Walter Martins the founder of CRI his daughter

Cindy Martin and she was kind enough to connect me with Hank Hanegraaff and so one thing led to another and we were able to have

Hank Hanegraaff on to discuss Eastern Orthodoxy a topic that many are not very familiar with Myself included.

I am a seminarian. I do apologetics as you guys know, but Eastern Orthodoxy is a topic that I haven't really

Delved into as much as maybe I should so I thought that it would be a great idea after having

Hank on Explaining his view that I would have. Dr. Tony Costa back on and he is a

Scholar he's reformed, you know Protestant through and through and so I want to be able to help folks get some of apologetic application from the discussion that I've had with Hank I'm in getting the perspective of someone who really knows his stuff.

And so I'm looking forward to having a very in -depth Discussion and analysis of my discussion with Hank with dr.

Tony Costa. So we're gonna be playing The interview I had with Hank and we'll be stopping and pausing and commenting on various At various places.

So let me just briefly real quick introduced. Dr Tony Costa once again, if if you don't know who he is, we did have him on a couple of episodes before We had a month to defend the five solos of the

Reformation and this is such an important topic and of course, I'll Kind of ask my first question to Tony before we get started why this is such an important question and then we'll just dive right in so Dr.

Tony Costa has earned his BA and his MA in the study of religion Biblical studies and philosophy from the

University of Toronto. Tony received his PhD in the area of theology and New Testament studies from Rodboud, I apologize if I'm mispronouncing that University in the

Netherlands He's a member of the Society of Biblical Literature the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society his area of expertise is biblical and systematic theology

The cults as well and He also specializes in the area of the

New Age movement comparative world religions with a specialization more specifically in Islam Tony is also an ordained minister of the gospel as a

Christian apologist. Dr Costa gives reasons for the valid belief in Christianity and also advocates the unique claims of Jesus Christ He also lectures and debates at various universities and colleges on the existence of God as well as the credibility of the

Christian faith Tony is a professor of apologetics with the Toronto Baptist Seminary And he also teaches as a as an instructor with the

School of Continuing Studies at the University of Toronto in the area of New Testament studies He serves as an adjunct professor with Heritage College and Seminary in Cambridge, Ontario and Providence Theological Seminary in Franklin, Tennessee and he's lectured and ministered throughout

Canada the United States and Overseas he's the author of worship and the risen Jesus and the Pauline letters and the forthcoming book

Earliest Christian creeds and hymns what the earliest Christians believed in word and song with H &E publishing he's also a contributor of scholarly essays in Christian origins and Greco -Roman culture and Christian origins and Hellenistic Judaism and various journals

Tony is happily married to a wonderful wife Vita has three children and a grandson and resides in Toronto, Canada All right.

Well all of that out of the way. He is a very seasoned scholar and a quite a gentleman and I am very excited to have him on.

So let me bring dr. Tony Costa on the screen with me right now Hello, brother. How's it going?

I'm doing well Eli. How are you doing tonight? I'm doing very well, and I'm super excited that you've been able to join join me again and Looking forward to talking about this topic.

Yes. I'd rather be doing this and watching the presidential debates right now. Yes Well, well,

I just while I was at work I'm a teacher so I teach middle school and high school the Bible classes there at a

Christian private school and I have to switch between buildings and As I was switching between buildings, I received a a text message from a friend

Saying that they were looking forward to this discussion more than the presidential debates I guess we're trumping

Trump on this one. That's right. Well, well, we'll see I think they have a very large of viewership.

But um, yes before we start playing the discussion I had with with Hank Hanegraaff Why don't you give us kind of a brief?

Introduction as to why these issues of the Reformation because it's going to be very important to this discussion

I'm not just talking about Eastern Orthodoxy, but we're also coming at it from a uniquely Protestant perspective

Why are these topics so important for people? They're important because they they deal with the gospel at the heart of all

This is the gospel remember what Luther said that it is the doctrine of justification by faith alone

That is the hinge upon which the door Moves in other words the church stands or falls on this question

How is a sinner made right with a holy God? And so the

Apostle Paul made it clear in Galatians 1 6 to 9 that the dividing line is the gospel

He was not arguing with the Judaizers over the deity of Christ because they agreed with him on that They he didn't argue with them on the sufficiency of Scripture because they agreed with them on that But the one thing where they were in disagreement was the nature of the gospel and Paul says that if you bring a gospel other than the gospel that was preached by the

Apostles and commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ Then such a preacher or an angel if it were to appear and delivered that gospel would be anathema

And that word is a really strong word It's one of the strongest words in the Greek New Testament It literally means to be under the divine curse of God And so what is at stake here

Eli is the gospel? We're not debating the Trinity. We're not debating the creeds we agree with the fundamental doctrines of the

Christian faith, but where the Rubber -hits -the -road is on the question of how is a man or a woman made right with God in God's presence?

Hmm. Yeah, so these are very central issues and again, it is it is correct to understand that the conflict during the

Reformation was between Rome right and the reformers and so Eastern Orthodox folks tend to distance themselves because historically they were distant from that discussion

But that doesn't that doesn't alleviate whether that discussion struck at the heart of the gospel just because you weren't directly related

Doesn't mean that it's not an important question. And so I think that's still connected Now I have a first question for you before we kind of start the video here at the beginning of my discussion with Hank I Express thanks to him because he was quite generous.

He's a very busy guy. And so I was very happy to have him on but He actually was okay with me.

Just coming out at the beginning just sharing my own perspective and and I wanted to hear maybe your thoughts on on my opening comments with regards to Rome Roman Catholicism having a false gospel and Respectfully towards Hank I expressed that Eastern Orthodoxy in its rejection of Sola Fide justification by faith alone that it has a false gospel and so I appreciated that he was able to you know, allow me to say that without kind of being scared off of the interview or whatever, but Would you agree?

With my comments there or or was I off? Do you do you think this is a central gospel issue? Absolutely Again, the gospel is the dividing line and I think that what you what you did there

I think was was right It was commendable that you you told him where you stood you set down your boundaries so that he knew where you were coming from of course you and I share the conviction that the the

Church of Rome and the Orthodox Church and of course We're going to include the Oriental churches You know the

Coptic Church and the Syriac and Ethiopian that didn't get covered yesterday or when you spoke to Hank we can talk a little bit about that, but The the issue here is that we consider these churches to be apostate churches with some truth in it

Whereas those who take the view like dr Walter Martin did that the Orthodox Church is a is a true church with some false doctrine or the

Roman Catholic Church is a true Church with some Significant error and if you remember Hank told you that he believes that it has significant error

I think the issue here once again is the gospel. How are we made right with God?

again, the Apostle Paul made that the issue the burning issue in Galatians was He uses the phrase the truth of the gospel twice in that letter

And in that letter he writes it with his own hands if you remember at the end He says look with what large letters I write this write my name.

In other words Paul took it upon himself He must have been really peeved at what was going on in Galatia that he wrote the letter himself

And wrote it in his own handwriting. So That was a very disconcerting situation there and it involved the gospel of grace

All right. Well, thank you for that. Well, let's let's jump right in just a quick reminder for folks If you have any questions on this topic, we will leave some time towards the end to take some questions

Of course, if you send in a super chat, it's greatly appreciated. Your question will be asked first and Hopefully we'll give it a sufficient time for for the questions at the end

I was speaking with dr Costa before we got started and he was like, oh I watched the discussion.

I got over four pages of notes so It's it's it's a good thing that he

Not he didn't just listen to it, but he really listened to it intently and and came ready to respond and so we may

Hopefully, you know, i'm not sure how much we'll get covered here But we may have to break this up into a two -part series

But i'm sure folks who are taking the time to listen to this. They won't mind that at all So, um, so just a reminder if you have questions, uh, you can shoot them down.

So i'm going to start the discussion I don't have fancy technology. So I I picked a spot where i'm going to start and then um at any moment, uh,

Dr. Costa, you can tell me to stop and we can we can talk a little bit about um, the comments that are made Okay.

All right. Let me do this here Thank the lord for technology, right?

Let's see here All right. All right folks can see that and that's a that's a flattering

Flattering pose there. There we go. Okay, i'm gonna i'm gonna start right now. Let's let's start this Um, all right.

Well, well, let's jump right in. Um what I appreciated about uh, the fact that you agreed to come on Was that through our contact?

Um, I believe it was steven. Um, uh, that's where I stand I think there are some dividing lines all that to say.

Um I appreciate that. Um, and 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

Uh 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

I can stop it there brother Okay Yeah, let me just say that there's some there's some

Presuppositions that I think hank is holding to here and let me first start off and say that I I do appreciate hank.

I I thank him for his honesty I also want to add as well that I I found uh, many of his works very helpful

Uh, I still find his work christianity in crisis to be one of the best works On an expose on the word of faith movement

And so that book was very helpful. So I just want to state very clearly that I think he's done good work

Um, although I was clearly taken aback when he joined orthodoxy, but let me just say a couple of things

There's some of a number of presuppositions that he makes there and that is this idea of this tradition This body of tradition that is being passed on from the lord to the apostles to the church fathers

So there's a a presupposition that he's making that there's this separate stream There's the scriptures that are written and then there's this unwritten tradition

That has been written that has been passed on orally from christ to the apostles and then to the early church fathers now there's a problem with that because that he's he's he's assuming a lot here the

The church fathers clearly distinguished what they said and wrote from what scripture says um

The the the fathers of the church recognized that they were fallible And they recognized as second timothy 316 points out that all scripture is the anastas that all scripture is god -breathed

In fact, it's the only literature in that is called god -breathed It's the scriptures and augustine affirmed that athanasius affirmed that many of the eastern fathers like basil the great

Affirmed that that the scriptures are inerrant and they're authoritative And they should be the judge on what we say and so forth

The other thing he he also is assuming is this idea of there's this one church And he's assuming that that one church is the orthodox church

And that it remained static until there was this the great schism in 1054 where in the orthodox interpretation of things the west basically broke off from the east, but the roman church will say that they

They rebelled against the authority of the bishop of rome and they broke off But what he's what he's not saying is that there wasn't just the orthodox church there

There was a there were the oriental orthodox churches like the coptic church in egypt the copts, there's the syriac church in antioch, there is the

Um, the ethiopian orthodox church and these churches are very different than the orthodox church that is the byzantine orthodox church with the greek orthodox the russian the ukrainian and What is very interesting about these other churches is that they actually broke after the council of calcedon in 451 ad over the question of the two natures in christ the the hypostatic union

And so the copts and the syriac and the ethiopian church the armenian orthodox church

These churches hold to a view that rejects calcedon And holds to a view called miaphysitism which has this idea that christ

Has this this one nature the two natures basically become this unique uh one nature and so the the the the church the byzantine church and and roman catholicism and Protestantism rejected that idea and they still reject this idea.

So my whole point is this He's assuming way too much here. Uh, there are clearly different Bodies or denominations we can call it that opposed the greek orthodox church and the greek liturgy and so forth um, and so There was no just one church until 1054

And then there was this big split. There were other churches that rejected the authority of constantinople

Uh, and so I think he assumes way too much in that statement So he's presenting kind of a very surface level picture of just this you know this

This unargued unanimity that yes broken, you know only later on Correct, correct.

And so take for example, uh nestorianism Nestorius broke with the church in uh in the early 5th century and Uh, he was exiled, uh, and and now you've got you've got nestorian churches as well

Some of them went as far as away as into india and into iran Um, and and then of course you've got the whole question of the

I know hank brought this up the philioke controversy The philioke controversy was the idea that in the nicene creed

It says the holy spirit proceeds from the father, but then the western church added and the son that the holy spirit proceeds from the father and the son and so Uh, the the byzantian church rejected that and actually called it heretical

Because the idea is that the the the creeds cannot be changed There's as as hank reilly pointed out they oppose innovations or any changes um

But already in the 6th century there's tension going on between the the western church and the eastern church so again,

I I think that That hank is painting this this idea of this unanimity as you pointed out

That simply does not uh bear true to the facts anyone who reads philip schaaf the history of the church or Lattorette or any church historian will recognize that that he really has painted a very broad picture here

Now now is it the case though that there were people? Very early on in the church that held to the kind of tradition and its specific status as being equal to scripture

Did people hold to that during that very early period or do you think that it was? Well, there was an idea of the first person to mention apostolic tradition is erinace and bishop of lyon

In 150 a .d around 150 a .d. He talks about this apostolic tradition, but he does that in his work.

I believe against heretics heresies And in there he's addressing the gnostics and what the gnostics were doing is they were creating these lists of of these leaders or bishops

That could be traced back to the apostles And so because of that this is where the the mono episcopacy the the idea of the one bishop over the the the city

This arises around the middle of the second century as a reaction to the gnostic claims that their bishops could be traced back to the apostles and so what erinace does is he first introduces this concept of apostolic tradition

But in that apostolic tradition, he says that we we get this from the apostles that jesus

Was 50 years old that when he died I don't know any scholar orthodox roman catholic protestant who holds that jesus was 50 when he died

I don't think even hank holds that view But erinace is saying this in the middle of the second century and he's doing this to attack the gnostics

So already in the middle of the second century, you've got this this church father who again was very orthodox in his approach

But unfortunately, he made this outlandish claim that the apostles taught that jesus was 50 years old

And this is the first time he mentions a postal tradition And wasn't that based off a particular theological perspective, uh something to the effect of a recapitulation theory?

Yes. Yes It was it was the idea was that jesus lived Jesus lived, uh every part of every epoch

Of of the full life and so 50 was considered that full life that you could achieve So it was based on this, uh, this presupposition of this recapitulation that jesus christ was recapitulating

Uh, not just life, but he was he was recapitulating time within himself But did they hold to this idea that tradition was on the same level with uh with the scriptures?

I don't see that at all. In fact, they clearly distinguish the scriptures From from what they're saying now, we need to be careful because we have nothing against tradition

You and I understand that every church denomination has its traditions. The issue is when those traditions violate scripture

So in mark 7 when when the pharisaic traditions violated god's word jesus called the pharisees hypocrites

Because through their man -made traditions they were making the commandments of god null and void

So jesus clearly opposes tradition that that violates scripture But in terms of tradition that doesn't violate scripture.

There is no issue there even jesus Respected traditions that would not violate scripture.

We have many examples of that Yeah, sure. And I think that's very important because it's often in popular conversation.

You have presented this false dichotomy. It's scripture or tradition You right throw out the other and that's that's not the case.

I think that's important to point out All right. Well, let's let's let's continue on and uh, once again You just let me know when when something popped out or if something pops out to me i'll i'll stop it

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.

Okay, we can stop there They don't okay yeah, he mentioned when the church was young and and he does use the analogy of you know that uh that friend of his in india and that river how he could see the bottom and you want

And he talks about how you want to get to the part where you could see through the water and you could see the bottom of the river and he wants to go to when the church is young, but But what

I was surprised to find is that we know what the church like looked like when it was young And and we know where to find the church when it is young and it's not in the seven ecumenical councils

It's in the new testament And so when we go back to the first century, which is where the church was young not in the third fourth fifth sixth century

But if we go back to the first century and we go into the new testament church

What we find is the affirmation of scriptural authority we find the the position of of elders and deacons in the church

Uh, we don't find these these marion dogmas taught by paul or john or james or peter

I mean imagine in your mind that when paul was writing to these churches or when he was establishing

Uh churches where he preached that paul was walking around in priestly vestments with a turban on his head

And there were icons inside these buildings. That's not what we're talking about And so if you really want to see what the church was like when she was young You got the book of acts the book of acts shows us

What the church looked like when she was young and we know what the church looked like It was a it was an evangelistic movement.

It had jesus christ as the head of the church the the foundation of the church And it had the the the the faith once for all delivered to the saints in their possession and so forth

Uh, and and when he talks about how the protestant reformation kind of muddied the waters Well, I think the waters were already getting muddied in the second century with the gnostics and with other heretics and so and so the idea here is once again that he's making this this presupposition that The orthodox church is the church when it was young Well, that's a bandwagon argument because the roman catholic church says the same thing about itself

No, no, no, that was us that the roman catholic church was still young in those days and The protestants are like why don't we just go back to like the earliest documents that we have?

Exactly exactly and so when you look at the new testament and you look at the new testament documents and and you compare them to orthodox, uh

Theology today or you look at the orthodox liturgy Uh, or you look at uh, their veneration of icons more prayer prayers and invocations to mary

Those things are absolutely absent in the new testament And and this whole issue of justification is just swept over they just go from this idea of creation all the way to theosis

Uh, and and he talked about how the west is was more based on this judicial aspect of god's law

Well god's law is judicial by definition And and if you look at the old testament and you read romans three and four and five and six

There is no way you can get around the fact that paul uses Forensic terminology like justification.

That's a forensic term in the greek new testament. So Uh, if I want to see what the church

Is like then what did the reformers say the reformers didn't say let's get back to augustine. Let's get back to uh, justin martyr

Let's get they said ad fontes Back to the scriptures back to the fountains

In other words, the reformation was saying let's go back to these sources from whence we came and let us look at how the church was established and how the church was

Organized and it sure doesn't look like what we see in the orthodox and roman catholic church, right? And I think that's an important thing.

I mean, uh, don't get me wrong I have nothing against kind of the some of the complexity that worship and liturgy has taken

Shape just in general. I don't see anything wrong with that just in principle, but there's just a simplicity to the new testament that a lot of these later traditions kind of just add all this unnecessary intricacies that You go back to scripture and it's like where is all of this?

Um, yes, and and why is it almost completely absent? You think that there might be allusions to some of these very important things that the church seems to say is

As tradition but not in scripture. So I think that's very very important It's not so much an argument from silence, but the silence is deafening with regards very much

With very much. So and that's why they appeal to tradition. They know they need tradition

Sure because they know they're not going to get it in the scripture and so they have to supplement it with tradition But in order to do that, they need to claim the tradition is equal to scripture.

So there's an implicit denial of sola scriptura Right, right. Um, let's continue on.

Thank you for those thoughts 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's going to stop right there Yeah, I wanted to ask a question I want to ask a question when he says the waters were

Unpolluted there's a time where the waters were unpolluted I'm, just thinking weren't the waters polluted from the very beginning and so you needed a standard to differentiate

The pollution and the purity right? I mean that's right, right Yeah, but when the waters were unpolluted we could honestly say this was when the lord ministered in the world and establishing his church and so forth

And then of course you get the judaizers coming in and then the gnostics are coming in and so forth But what about first corinthians one where the apostle paul is dealing with these schisms in the church

And he's got people saying I follow apollo. I follow uh paul

I follow peter and then there's these super christians. We follow christ and paul says look is christ divided

Were you were you with the did peter die for you? Were you baptized in my name and so forth in other words already from the get -go?

You've got these these schismatic people in the church in corinth And then they're they're drunk at the lord's supper.

They come to the lord's supper and they're over drinking and so forth Uh, you've already got a church in trouble and that's because the church is made up of broken people

But again, the presumption that hank is making is that the water was clear When you had this, uh orthodox church in place and then what muddled it was, uh

Roman catholic church and then the protestant reformation by that time you couldn't even see clearly in into the through the water

And so there is there's clearly a an anti -protestant bias here

Uh the undercurrent no pun intended. There's a an undercurrent of anti -protestantism here

But if you really want to get back to when the source was clear, that's the new testament All right.

Thank you 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

Okay, we can stop there Yeah, well See this this

I mean, I love hank and and and we should continue to pray for him and pray for his health as well But this sounds more like the orthodox answer man, not the bible answer.

Yes And I think dr. Martin may have been quite shocked to find someone in the orthodox tradition leading his ministry

Even though he thought there were a true church with some error in it uh But then again if you notice, uh with the reformation and this is the time and it really got muddled

But yet the model of the reformation was post -tenebrous looks after darkness light

Not darkness not pollution But light and so the fact that people could read the word of god in their own language and and that there was revival and reformation that not only affected

Germany, but think of what happened in switzerland and then in england with don knox

And then later with william tindale and then of course The puritans coming to america all of that is a fruit of the reformation uh, which has built the west really when you think about the the

The west was built on this idea of reformation and freedom of religion freedom of speech and so forth.

So yeah All right. Good. Good point there 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 what the eastern orthodox church has always said this is

A mystery to use a latin phrase. It's the mysterium tremendum ethos kenans.

It's the mystery that causes Okay, yeah, okay Wow, so again, there's there's a lot of presupposition going on here the whole debate was zwingli and luther in in marburg

Uh the whole issue that they agreed on all these points on the reformation But where they differed was of course on the lord supper

And what hank is assuming here is that this has always been the view of the church that the church has always held to this idea

Of the real presence in the eucharist the transubstantiation Idea in the roman catholic church.

Here's the problem the the the idea of real presence and the idea of the eucharist, uh

Are not the same thing and at least in the early periods of the church. They were not seen as the same thing It later developed into they merged the two concepts together

Right, and so in the west you ended up with transubstantiation Which was thanks to well the fourth lateran council in 1215

Defined transubstantiation and then thomas aquinas, uh worked it up with aristotelian categories

And so aquinas who who was an aristotelian, uh theologian as well scholar philosopher

He used the whole concept of form and substance and substance and matter and accidents And and through aristotelian logic he tried to explain transubstantiation

So so he depends on greek philosophy to explain this novel idea called transubstantiation

But if you read augustine read augustine's commentary on john on john 6 where jesus speaks about himself as the bread of life, etc

He clearly shows us that jesus is not talking about literal flesh and blood that we're eating

He clearly says that this is spiritual food. We are eating spiritual food and that's christ himself

He offers himself and he uses the analogy of bread and uh bread and and of blood and flesh and so forth

But clearly he says it's a spiritual presence that he's talking about And so and so this can this this merger that we're talking about is something that that took centuries to develop

And and so zwingli understood that zwingli was not some Some airhead type of reformer.

He he did his history. He studied history Uh luther on the other hand luther was one of those

I I usually use the phrase that luther Had these roman klingons like he had difficulty having this he still helped these roman ideas like the mass

Uh, he he you know infant baptism, of course, all the magistro reformers were pato baptists but the point here is that it's not as Cut, you know, it's not this clean cut that hank makes it out to be

Calvin would disagree with zwingli as well and calvin would say no It's a spiritual presence whereas wingley would say no the supper is completely memorial

And luther held to the view that well some it's come to be known as consubstantiation Uh, and so yeah, but but I think it's also important too if we are to follow, uh luther

Who held to solo scriptura? Right, right Calvin who held to solo scriptura and zwingli who held to solo scriptura regardless of the disagreement to follow the

Reformed principle would require us to say well, let's check it with scripture So it's it's irrelevant as to whether you know, what did luther believe?

What did calvin believe? You know, some people often bring up. Well, you guys, you know trust luther He argued that the book of james didn't belong in it's like well who cares we tested against scripture, you see

So I think there's often appeals to these things and they don't people don't remember They forget rather that it's the principle of scripture.

We test even them against the against the word of god Correct thank god. We're not uh,

I mean even luther at the end of his life Went completely anti -semitic in his diatribe against the jews

Uh, and and of course, you know calvin was not responsible that people accuse him of he's responsible for the burning of michael cervetis

Actually, he wasn't he actually had no say in the matter other than pleading cervetus to recant

He didn't want to see him burned to death and so forth But uh, once again, uh, these were not infallible men

Did god use these crooked sticks to make straight lines? Yeah, he did and out of luther and calvin and and knox and and and even uh,

Wycliffe and hus and and tyndale god has has reformed his church. He's brought light out of darkness and so forth

So I I think once again, um, I think in the words of shakespeare that Hank protested too much

All right, very good, it's a good transition let's continue 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

Uh in the present without any innovation Okay Now, uh, 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 the talk you had but uh, there was a talk you had I watched it on youtube where you admitted that um,

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 uh, you know, billy graham, you know, we're not very much in touch with um

Church history prior to the reformation, but there is um, there is great debate

Um, especially with regards to what constitutes, uh a tradition that has a genuine apostolic connection

So you have the different divergent views between uh, the orthodox view and the roman catholic view and then of course the protestant view which which says um, uh, 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. Um, Well, what's up with this tradition?

I mean 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 Uh in the western church, I see

I activated siri when I said, um, I see the west I see the western church um

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, uh 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 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 Is simply not factual The other thing we can stop there.

I feel like okay. Yeah, I was just going to say once again Uh, because i've dealt with roman catholic apologists i've debated roman catholic apologists and everything hang says, um, it sounds like they read the same uh textbook it's like they went to the same the same school because Everything he's just said is everything roman catholic apologists tell me

We go right back to to peter. Peter was the first pope that jesus christ established

And uh the early church held to the immaculate conception the assumption of mary.

They held to purgatory They held to all of these things and so I i'm still

I mean in the interview, I was shocked to find out that that hank really didn't back up anything

He said he just assumed this he just put it out there Uh without any evidence whatsoever

He just assumed that this is the church of antiquity the orthodox church and there is a fallacy in logic eli

There's a fallacy Called the appeal to age and this idea is that if if if an idea is old

Then it must necessarily be true. And and again, that's not true Uh, it's been shown.

I mean we used to hold to a geocentric model at one time Until that was shown to be false by copernicus um

But this this idea That when people say to me, don't you know that the orthodox church or the roman catholic church?

Is the oldest church and we could trace it right back to the very beginning And and gnosticism is a very old, uh movement

It started in a very early period in the church's history, but that doesn't logically follow that therefore gnosticism is true

So we need to be careful about this And so the the idea then frankie frankie schaefer the son of the great reformed, um scholar dr.

Francis schaefer a very great mind of the church, uh, his son, uh left the reformed, uh,

Tradition and went into eastern orthodoxy as well and then eventually left and became an atheist

Uh, and so this idea that oh, I want to go to the church that that is the oldest church You're presuming that just because an institution is very old it must necessarily be true

That's that's not necessarily the case. So you're right. Eli. We need a standard by which we could judge all else

That's why we have a supreme court The supreme court makes the final judgment on all issues.

The bible is our supreme court and we need it to establish truth Sure, and and I know you're not meaning to say this because I do think uh what i'm about to say

I do think eastern orthodox people who know What they believe and why wouldn't simply argue that because it's the oldest it's true

But part of their argumentation is that it is the oldest and so that's kind of evidence towards it

So I understand that I don't want anyone to claim that there's a straw man going on here There's more to the argumentation that they use absolutely

But that's usually touted as kind of a main part of the argument Look how look how far back it goes.

And so I think that's right some good comments on your part there. All right, let's continue 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 You saw my eyes

Yeah, that's right, that's right. Well, the first thing is the famous text first timothy 315 that is is usually

Uh quoted, uh, and the way it's quoted It assumes that there's this this there's this centralized church

And this centralized church is the pillar and it's the ground of all truth when in fact many pauline commentators

If you read commentaries on first on the pastoral Officials Many commentators will point out that paul is actually thinking of the local church here

He's addressing the local church. Every local church is a pillar and ground and so When we look at this definition of the church, which is the pillar and ground of the truth

It's important to understand the language paul's using there. What is what does he mean by a pillar and ground? Well pillar and ground is the necessary requirements in order to hold something up You obviously need a pillar to hold up your roof and obviously the pillar has to rest on the ground

And so the idea here is that the church the function of the church is to uphold truth We uphold the truth of god's word and we are the salt of the world.

We are the light of the world And so the idea here of the church being the ground and pillar Is that the church fulfills a function in the world and the function is to uphold god's truth.

That's what pillars do They hold something up But the way that he is interpreting that is that well the church is this very ground but yet what does paul say?

In ephesians and first corinthians three ephesians four first corinthians three. He says look No one can lay a foundation that's already been laid and and and that foundation is christ jesus

And the prophets and the apostles christ is the cornerstone And then you've got the apostles and the prophets and the church is built on that foundation because obviously you need a foundation before you put a a a flooring down and you put pillars up in other words

We rest on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets with christ jesus himself being the cornerstone

But notice what he says next if it was not for the church You would know the canon the canon is the product of the church.

Now. That is a radical departure from the reformation radical because what it's basically saying is it is the church that created

The canon that we use today. And so what he's trying to say is that we are indebted To the church for if it was not for the church, we wouldn't know the canon of scripture

And this is a major major problem here because what they end up with is an infallible

Uh, basically you have a a list of infallible books that the church creates

Whereas we believe that we have these this collection Of this infallible collection of infallible books that god has sovereignly moved his church

To listen to the voice of the master and that's what the church father said, by the way, they said the same thing So, uh, i'm sure we'll hear more on this but this is a very common roman catholic claim as well.

Yeah, sure 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

Okay, if we can just stop there, so I mean coming from a protestant person, okay Yeah, uh, he he just flew right by the the whole idea of the masoretic text there and the septuagint

Okay, um, so maybe for our hearers we can we can define what would what we mean by these terms the septuagint

Is the greek translation of the old testament that was written starting around 250 bc

And when he referred to the palestinian bible, that's the hebrew text. This is known as the masoretic text but but what is interesting is that um is that hank doesn't mention the fact that That matthew quotes from parts of the masoretic text that we know today is the masoretic text and paul in first timothy even quotes from uh what we know today is the masoretic text majority of quotations are from the septuagint because many of the churches that were uh being

Planted were greek speaking. It was the lingua franca of the world And so of course the septuagint would be the preferable translation

But remember folks the masoretic text is still god's word the hebrew text of the old testament

Is still god's word. You see that the greek orthodox church and and many orthodox churches Don't use the masoretic text in their old testament.

Their old testament is translated from the septuagint What jerome did and this is important what jerome did was jerome?

Who translated the bible into latin the vulgate what jerome did was revolutionary jerome said look

Romans 3 2 says that god gave his oracles to the jews If if the jews don't know their old testament, nobody knows

And so what did jerome do he studied hebrew? He went to israel to He was trained by rabbis.

The only complaint he had about the rabbis was that they charged him too much But he went to study hebrew in israel and uh

He translated the old testament into latin from the hebrew And he also rejected the apocrypha why because he didn't find the apocrypha in the hebrew bible

That is the bible that is used today by uh, protestant bibles are based on the masoretic text as is the roman catholic uh bible today, uh is is derived from the masoretic text as well, so He he again he makes these really broad statements the masoretic text the septuagint

Uh, we're part of god's word and then later we have the targum the aramaic paraphrases so, um

So he could have been a lot more clear there But the implication is that the septuagint the greek translation is the preferred old testament of the church

That's not the way the early church looked at it Okay. All right. Thank you In perspective, um,

I mean that's no small point Oh, well, of course. Yeah, and I mean this is going to be uh, I mean this is a very big difference in point of of discussion with the issue of uh,

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 Um, 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 church. It was the church that gave us ultimately

Uh that codified the canon and gave us the canon Okay, we could stop there collecting it.

Yeah Well, he says the church gave us the canon um So in the old testament, um, how would a jew know?

That first samuel was canonical How would a jew know that isaiah was canonical?

There was no church you had The people of israel and they were under a monarchy the davidic monarchy.

They had a priesthood But nowhere are we told that the priesthood got together and they established the canon of the old testament

In other words, these scriptures were were already accepted. They were they were presumed to be from god and so um

The question of the old testament canon is an important question. How would a jew living before christ know?

That first samuel was canonical there was no church to tell them that um, and and therefore when you come into the question of the old testament, um,

The the the old testament canon of the orthodox church Differs from the roman catholic apocrypha as well

They have additional books and then when you go to the ethiopian orthodox church, my goodness, they've got jubilees.

They got the book of enoch they've got uh They've got these they have 81 books in their canon

And they claim they're the true church they claim that they go back to the original apostles so again, uh, there's a lot of There's there's a lot of assumptions that hank is making here and he's not taking into account

The the the different arguments that were being that were being had among these various Jerome debated, uh, augustine on the apocrypha and yet augustine didn't know in hebrew

He had no idea of the language. It's very little language knowledge of greek well, uh

Dr. Costa, I have a question then. So how do eastern orthodox with their claims of tradition and apostolic succession?

and the claims of rome with their Tradition and their claims to apostolic succession

How do they differentiate between each other? Is it just a they're throwing claims at each other?

I mean, how do they break that quote tie? It's not as though you can go back into the early church and just Neutrally and objectively look at the evidence

I mean, they're going to be looking at those documents with their set of presuppositions and their lens through which they're of course So how does that work between the roman catholic and the eastern orthodox?

How do they work those things out? Yeah, it's it's it's the race. It's basically a race to Uh the claim that they are the oldest church

So their claim to primitive their claim to being the primitive church Is is what they use on each other that the orthodox say we go way back before you guys left us in 10

Uh 54 and the roman church will say no. No, no, you did you divorced us You're the one who left me and so they get into this like the spousal dispute about who left who?

And so again, it's all based on empty claims and they're all anachronistic fallacies when you think about it

Uh because they're assuming that everyone was orthodox and the roman church assumes everyone was roman catholic and there are some you know

In in our friend james white always says incorrectly so that we need to let the church fathers be the church fathers

Don't make them presbyterians. Don't make them reform baptists or roman catholics. They are they were who they were

Warts and all um, and so that's how they make this claim is that they they claim they have a stake at antiquity here

Uh, and you mentioned a good point too. You brought up the issue of apostolic succession Um again, where do we have this in the new testament when you get to the pastoral epistles?

The apostle paul doesn't say that the offices in the church is that of an apostle a priest? And then you know, you've got the pope the the archbishops and the cardinals and he says there's two offices in the church

There's the elders and there's the deacons And he doesn't mention anything about the office of apostle continuing

You would you expect to find it in the pastorals, but it's not there All we find is elders and deacons are to lead the church

So when someone says well, we're we're descended from this apostle. We're descended from that apostle

You and I have apostolic succession. Um, um, you lie right here This here is a apostolic succession

The words of the apostles are contained herein if I want to hear what peter said It's right here what john said what mark said what james said, uh,

I don't need uh, Pope frankie to tell me what peter said I can see it in here. The voice of the apostles are still here

This is a apostolic succession. So Um, they need to make these claims because at the end of the day they have this thing called tradition and they can't live without it, so The orthodox church the roman church.

They have their own sola. I don't know if you've heard this before eli But while we have the five solas they hold to sola ecclesia church alone

The church determines the canon now. Can I say that determines all these things? Yeah, can I interject? So, yeah, um, just to clarify

Eastern orthodoxy and roman catholicism wouldn't claim that they hold to sola ecclesia.

Are you saying that sola ecclesia is An implication of their perspective.

Yeah, they won't say clarify that. Yeah, they won't say the word sola ecclesia But in practicality when you see the outworking of their

Argumentation and the outworking other theological underpinnings. It is clearly sola ecclesia.

You just heard it without the church We would not know the canon the church gave us the canon So at the end of the day the ultimate authority if the church determines the canon

Then that presumes that there is an authority beyond and above the scriptures The scriptures are subject to the judgments of men to declare them inspired

Whereas the protestant view is that it's god who defines his word as inspired because they proceed from his mouth

And therefore the the implication is definitely sola ecclesia Because at the end of the day

I've heard this from mormons. The mormon church will say We have the church of jesus christ latter -day saints and we have a living prophet

Who tells us how we should be led by god and so forth That is the same mantra that we keep hearing at the end of the day

It's not sola scriptura and and hank doesn't believe in sola scriptura. It is sola ecclesia at the end of the day.

Sure. Sure All right. Let's keep going. Uh, just real quick for folks. Um again if you have any questions, uh towards the end

We'll be taking some questions. It may look like we'll be breaking this up in two parts, which i'm sure. Uh, dr costa wouldn't mind, uh and um, but if you have any questions, please send them in and um in I haven't decided how much time but maybe not too much time.

We'll kind of uh, Listen to a couple more minutes make some comments and then take some questions. Um, and uh, we'll take it from there.

Okay? All right you're one, uh, you know kind of cover or I mean ascertaining that these are the canonical books

Uh, and and and and I mentioned earlier what I thought was a tannin Maybe a tangent but probably isn't because uh, 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 the canon Uh, 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 clemens epistle is not

Included in the canon. So there was a combination made sure well

Again, he talks about these longer lists of the canon But again, if the church determines the canon then then why is it that the the group the orthodox church the eastern orthodox church includes, um,

Books like psalm 151 you see we all thought the psalms ended at 150.

There's 150 psalms Well in the orthodox canon the old testament and their uh, their canon they have psalm 151

They have the prayer of manasseh. They have the psalms of solomon. They have third and fourth maccabees

All of these books are rejected by the roman canon. Rome declares these books apocryphal So now you've got the western church saying that the books some of the books in the orthodox canon are apocryphal

The orthodox church is saying no. No. No, so which church is right here And then the ethiopian church says well, we go back to Matthew came and established the church in ethiopia

And the ethiopian eunuch came back and gave the gospel to the ethiopians Um, and we have 81 books in our canon

So which one is right here? Remember as as hank said, it's the church that determines the canon which church

Because we seem to have a lot of confusion. Now. See the protestants are pretty simple about this We go with the jews the jews knew their books.

They knew their bibles And a great book on this topic if I can. Um Eli, this is a great book the old testament

Canon in the new testament church by roger beckwith. This is a wonderful book.

It's published by wittgenstock And this book is is really deals with this whole question about the canon

And how the early new testament church held to the canon that the jews held to Uh, and so this is a really good book on the topic

I would suggest you or your readers or your viewers rather, uh look into that. So again, um hank is

I'm, not saying he's being elusive But what i'm saying is this issue is a lot more complicated than he makes it out to be

Um, so so there is no unanimity here when it comes to the canon At least we could say we hold to the books that the jews held to Right and and all the other like the orthodox church are adding books that the jews clearly recognized they were there

But they never considered them to be inspired scripture All right. Very good You know

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 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. Uh, dr. Costa. Am I correct there?

Uh, and what was that question again? And Yeah, feel free if you think I said something that was off.

I I have no qualms about being correct, but what I said was No, okay What I was what

I said was that I was always under the impression that god gave us the canon and the church recognized it Yes, yes, and and that's that is the what we see with the old testament text as well

That you you don't hear about I mean a lot of folks will say well in 90 a .d At the council of jamnia the the rabbinic authorities came together and they determined the text of scripture actually

No, they didn't what they did was in light of the destruction of the temple in 80 70 Judaism was in crisis.

Uh, how do we survive as a people without the temple without jerusalem? and so what the what the rabbinic authorities basically did was they

They reaffirmed and codified judaism and part of that was to affirm the scriptures what we believe are the scriptures

Like athanasius and you made this point as well and it's well taken athanasius didn't say you know what i'm going to create a canon

In 367 and i'm going to put it into my 39th festal easter letter What he was doing was simply reiterating what the church had already held to sure

And and so and so I think you're absolutely right. The scriptures are are are a divine artifact given to the church by god himself

Uh, not something that the church creates So I think your question was was very legitimate

Okay. All right. Thank you sure, okay, so uh 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

Oh, all right there. Okay. There we go The protestant in me began so I was like it felt like a mosquito bit me

I was like, oh wait Yeah, let's stop right there. Why don't you what is your response to that?

Yeah, I I mean it's funny that he doesn't mention the fact there that athanasius in the same festal letter

Uh excludes the apocrypha And he even says if I can quote him here. I got his festal letter here.

Um, he he actually says Uh for the greater exactness I add this also

Writing of necessity that there are other books beside these not included in the canterful books

So origin athanasius jerome, uh, even pope gregory the great rejected the apocryphal books

It's interesting when you think about it, uh, eli that the more a church father knows hebrew like jerome

Melito of sardis and white adad Our origin you hebrew as well the more they know hebrew

The prone they are to reject the apocrypha Isn't that interesting? Whereas those who didn't know hebrew simply says

I don't trust the jews they killed christ So we're going to go with uh with this Tradition that the church held to but look at what

I want you to listen very carefully to what athanasius says in that same letter Listen to this

These the scriptures are fountains of salvation That they who thirst may be satisfied with the living words they contain now listen to this in these alone

Is proclaimed the doctrine of god that sounds like sola scriptura Sure, these alone is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness.

Let no man add to these Neither let him take ought from these for concerning these the lord put to shame the sadducees and said

You do or not knowing the scriptures and he reproved the jews saying search the scriptures for these

Testify me and then ambrose the great teacher of augustine said this how can we use those things?

Which we do not find in the holy scriptures. These guys sound really protestant to me and so uh

Athanasius was not codifying the canon He was simply reiterating what the church had already helped to sure now.

Dr. Costa Okay, can I just make one one provision origin origin said this before?

Athanasius origin was already listing the canon of the scriptures about about uh,

Before athanasius, uh, he was he was of course life long before athanasius, but origin himself

Creates a similar list which shows that in his day. The canon was pretty well understood. Sorry, go ahead.

Yeah, sorry That's okay. That's okay. Thank you for that. Um, my question is um If we quote athanasius in a way that makes him look pretty sola scriptura ish

It's not a not a knockdown argument, but definitely um a piece of evidence that can combat the accusation

That sola scriptura is is purely a reformation a reformational innovation, right? right it's a it's a piece of a data piece that I think we should we should consider and use as kind of accumulative cases we

Look back at the fathers, but um, what is it in the fathers that Catholics and orthodox appeal to that do give the impression that there's this tradition that is equal with scripture and it provides kind of a

Fuller picture because I I I would imagine they're not literally just pulling it out of nowhere we can grab instances that sound sola scriptura ish, but Who do they appeal to other than arenas, for example?

Yeah, right what what they're appealing to is this the the uh, Arenas makes reference to the the regula fide uh the rule of faith

In greek, it's the greek word canon the collection but the rule of faith is

The body of christian faith the way jude uses it Jude said the faith once for all delivered to the saints contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints

So what they do is they take this language of regula fide The rule of faith and what they do is they infuse it

With this idea that the rule of faith is tradition But it's not it's the body of christian belief

And it's not just athanasius. I mean, you know basil the great for example in his in his letters

He he says this let me just quickly quote this he says therefore let god -inspired scripture decide between us

On whichever side be found darkness and harmony with the word of god in favor of that side Will be cast the vote of truth notice how?

Basil says look let the god -inspired scriptures decide between us And whichever side the doctrines we hold to are in harmony with god's word

Let the vote of truth be cast in that direction So again, there's basil the great augustine said something very similar to this as well

Even clement, uh, if you look at clement of rome at that early stage, the holy spirit has spoken through the scriptures

He says it's god speaking to us So I think we need to be very careful the way we treat the fathers not just roman catholics

Not just orthodox but protestants as well because they did hold to some views that we would not agree with But then they held to views that rome would not agree with Sure, so yeah

Okay, and who's to decide scripture that needs to be our standard. It's that's what they said. Yeah, that's right.

That's right Okay, let's continue on. Um, we are so far 22 minutes into the interview. Why don't we try to hit the 30 mark?

And then we'll leave the second half for part two. Does that sound okay? Sounds great All right

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 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 letter as you well know since you've referenced it the festal letter didn't include certain

Books from the old testament like esther that we include today Okay All right

Um, so so your the eastern orthodox position if I can understand you correctly is that the church gave us the canon, okay

Um, that would be your position, right? Yes that a holy 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

Uh, of course luther included the longer canon. Why don't you why don't you take a moment? Sure, sure

Uh again, he's he's being very quick with those words, uh luther did not accept the apocrypha

But he did include it in the bible uh for instruction and devotion, so it's like for example, uh, we have a reference bible

And we have some commentary in there or or we have some devotion from oswald chambers or charles spurge something of that nature

Um, so luther clearly said look we're not going to just ditch these books. They're helpful, but they're not scripture

And the and the church of england did the same with the 39 articles of faith. They they came to the same conclusion and if and you may not know this this may upset our king james only friends, but Uh, the original king james version had the apocrypha in it.

That's right. It was right there It was in between the old and new testament uh, and that's not because the the um, the anglican, uh translators

Believe they were scripture. They included them because they were just held to be devotional works, but they're not inspired

And so again, he makes it sound like luther also accepted these books, but not as canonical

Um, so anyway, I I think I think he was a little fast and loose with his words there Okay.

All right. That's why it's important to know Some of the historical issues, right? Okay, exactly Why don't why don't you take a moment to kind of um 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. Uh, there are books like the wisdom of shirak uh, there there there there are all kinds of uh 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, uh, they're referenced and But the biggest part of this let's stop there let's stop there

Yeah He says they're referenced now again. What does he mean by reference? They're never quoted

I mean, you don't find quotes from maccabees or judith or tobit Or wisdom of solomon or ecclesiastes or any of those books

Um, but what is interesting is that in the epistle of jude jude makes reference to the book of enoch in jude 14

Uh, the lord comes with with ten thousands of his saints in jude 14 Why isn't that in the orthodox canon, but it is in the in the in the ethiopian orthodox canon

Why not in the earth greek orthodox canon? Jude, jude is quoting a pseudepigraphic work there

He also quotes, uh What is believed to be the assumption of moses where the archangel michael has a dispute with the devil and he says the lord rebuke you

Why isn't the assumption of moses in the canon of the orthodox church? So and and the reason it's not in there and that's why jude was a bit of a difficult book to accept because they were

Wondering why is he quoting these these sources? well Jude never quotes them as scripture.

He never says as it is written or the scripture says he doesn't use the formulaic patterns that we find um, and the only place where we have allusions to the

The apocrypha in hebrews 11 it talks about people being tortured because of their faith in the resurrection

And I think rightfully so the king james translators actually referenced second maccabees chapter 7 there

While there are allusions to it Those texts are never quoted by our lord and the apostles as scripture not even once I mean paul quotes greek philosophers in act 17 epimenides and irates of soli

We don't jump to the conclusion that the works of epimenides are not canonical Or when paul quotes the the cretan poet the all cretans are liars

We don't go and have his book included in our canon So so I think we need to be very careful here again

I think hank's not being very careful with his words. Uh, those books are never quoted as scripture in the new testament

Allusion alluded to yeah, jesus kept hanukkah. Hanukkah is mentioned in the book of maccabees Not in the old testament, but in the book of maccabees.

Yeah now to throw a bone to eastern orthodox listeners, um Admittedly, uh hank admits and we know this that he is not an authority in the orthodox church

So as you're listening to you know, an eastern orthodox person might be listening to this video. They're thinking well, I would have said this well

Great, uh, we're responding to what hank is saying And so I think it's still useful to bring out some of these uh issues and that's why

I think it's important to encourage um ongoing conversation, especially with your roman catholic friends eastern orthodox friends

Um become aware of these issues and be able to engage in meaningful discussion with them and that's what evangelism is about That's what apologetics is about and so I think it's very very important to be able to do that Um, well, dr.

Costa i'm actually going to stop here. Um, and we will uh, leave the rest for um, uh

Part two, so let me just fix out of this and let's see in the chat I know a lot of people are watching the presidential debate.

So Um, so it's okay we don't have a lot of questions this time around but that's okay Um, let's see if I can pick some from the listeners maybe a comment to mention, uh to talk about a little bit

Let's see here Uh Let's see

Some people saying this is more exciting than the presidential debate Don't don't tell president trump that That's right.

That's right Let's see here Oh, yeah, someone asked the question, uh with regards to the coptic and the ethiopian churches that you mentioned are are some of those churches still around today

Absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, the coptic church is the national church of of egypt in terms of christendom

They're around and as the ethiopian church. Absolutely. All these churches are still in existence

Uh, now someone makes a comment here, uh, there is only one church the bride of the messiah.

Um, It I what I think is presupposed in this is perhaps a concept of say the distinction between the visible church and the universal

Church, why don't you explain the distinction between the visible church and the universal church? Yeah, this is the invisible church.

Sorry. Yeah This is the distinction that that augustine made back in the in the in the fourth and fifth century the the idea of the visible church is is the local church that the

The people that you see gathering together and worshiping and and and the invisible churches or the mystical churches

It's sometimes called is the church that is known to god his elect his people the lord knows those that are his

And so the universal church are all regenerated by the holy spirit They are the true bride of christ the true bride of the messiah, uh in the local church

You have both believers and unbelievers. You have professing believers and you have genuine believers.

You got sheep and goats. You got wheat and tares Uh in the local church and that's why people come and go and that's why there's apostasy in the local church and so forth

So, uh when god looks at his church, he doesn't see denominations When he looks at his church, he sees his redeemed people from every nation every tongue every every tribe and so forth

So that's basically the difference between what we call the visible church and the invisible church

Marcus makes a comment here. Uh apostolic tradition was an event an invented concept. Do you would you agree with that statement?

Yeah, I I think that is true that uh, again. Irenaeus is the first to use the word apostolic tradition

And that's that's when he talks about the 50 year old jesus And that's when again if you start with that as your first example of apostolic tradition and claim

He claims he got that from the apostles. Sure. Uh, then we know we're we're on shaky ground So I think it is an invented concept

I think it's an invented concept much like judaism when judaism says We have two torahs.

We have the written torah and we have the oral torah The oral torah is the mishnah the talmud the gemara all the rabbinic writings

And there's only one reason why you would appeal to some type of a tradition that is outside of the bible

And that is to main to maintain authority That was my next literally my next question. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah Yeah, so that way you see the pharisees could say, you know, we we we are descended from moses

We have the authority that moses gave to joshua and so forth And and that's exactly the example of apostolic succession is we have this authority that has been passed down Through the apostles, but the problem is a lot of what they call apostolic tradition is clearly in violation

Of holy scripture and therefore it can't come from the apostles All right, very good. Uh, someone makes comment here.

We cannot deny the pedigree of the catholic church How would you respond to that? uh What it depends what they mean by the pedigree.

I mean, are they talking about the The the influence of the of the roman catholic church

The one issue I have is we we always give this title the catholic church to rome And i've been trying to tell my students for many many many years

The catholic church is the church of christ that christ church is catholic. It is universal.

It is global That's all the word catholic means In fact the greek the orthodox church claims are the catholic church, right?

Remember the creed says I believe in one holy catholic apostolic church. That's in the in the apostles creed

It's contained within the nicene creed I believe and so the catholic church is the universal church of christ

Now the pedigree of the roman catholic church. Are there good things the roman catholic church has done? Yes, I I think that their stand for life is admirable.

I think their stand for the unborn Uh is is to be commended and so forth

But when it comes to the gospel of jesus christ, uh, that's where rome, uh,

Basically gets off the bus And so that's where we need to make our distinction clear All right, uh kyperion barion asks.

Um, not really related. But is dr. Costa a reformed baptist? Hello from a reformed baptist

Yes, i'm actually more of i'm i'm actually a re -reformed baptist. No, I am a reformed baptist

In in good standing and proud to be one, okay, very good. Very good Um, there's a question here.

What is the mechanism? I think it's a good question What is the mechanism by which you can know which scriptures are inspired without assuming the scriptures that you now that you have?

Now are inspired if that question makes sense Yeah, I think that if if something is from god it necessarily will be true in its claims

It's not just a subjective, you know, the mormons talk about a burning in the bosom Uh, we're talking about something that can be objectively uh verified

Uh historically, I think prophecies The prophecies of the bible have shown their objective truth the fact that they cohere with archaeological discoveries and so forth

There's also a subjective element And and and when we read the word of god, there is a tug if you will there's a conviction

That that that is had on you that that you you have this internal witness of the holy spirit as augustine called it um

When I read the apocryphal texts to be quite honest with you Um, they're filled with historical errors

The book of judah calls nebuchadnezzar the king of assyria when he was actually the king of babylon um

And and even these other books will claim that they are not inspired They're not written by prophets and so forth.

So I think a number of factors prophecy uh truth statements historical accuracy

The fact that the bible is is very open about its itself its history It puts out its dirty laundry for everybody to see the writers never claimed to be uh sinless people.

They claimed they were they were Uh, they were a rebellious people that they sinned against god their ancestors sinned against god

There's a there's a ring of truth about it. And also the conviction of the holy spirit

We can't keep the holy spirit out of this The bible has been read by many uh scholars throughout the years many apostates many heretics many liberals

But unless the holy spirit regenerates you it will just be words on a page And so there's a sense in which yeah, god is sovereign.

So the mechanism would be miracles The uh, the witness of the holy spirit the historical accuracy.

Yes All these things would be the mechanism these things act as as things that we can apprehend understand and have a justification

Sure for believing certain books to be the inspired word of god. Sure Sure, and and there is a again there is there is to a certain extent a subjective element where there is a sense of authority and And it changes you the words have a an impact on you

They they stir your heart and convict your your your They convict you of your sin and and so this is something

I think it's a cumulative case really When we it's not just one particular thing Right, and those are those who watch my show often know that we focus a lot on presuppositional apologetics.

Some people might be um happy to know that uh, greg bonson and van till often

Also related the demonstration of the truth of the bible through a transcendental argument So one of the ways you can know the bible's true is transcendentally

Reject the worldview that it put puts forth and you couldn't have a foundation for anything And so if you remember those three important aspects of every world, do you have metaphysics or theory of reality?

epistemology or theory of knowledge our ethics our theory of how we should live our lives this coherent picture that is presented to us in Scripture if rejected you'd have a foundation for nothing at all.

So you could actually offer a sort of Philosophical transcendental argument along with all of these other aspects that uh, dr

Costa, um added to the mix there that can give us a justification for knowing that the bible is in fact the word of god

All right. Let's uh, take a couple more questions here. Uh, benjamin asks. What is oh, that's a question Sorry, I already put that up there.

Um are the apocryphal books of the roman catholics the same as the eastern orthodox church Uh, yes, they are the same but the orthodox church adds more so the roman catholic church has first and second maccabees

The uh orthodox adds third and fourth maccabees. So there's two other books Uh, and they also add the 151st psalm.

They also add the prayer of nasa So the orthodox canon is slightly larger than the roman catholic canon

Okay, okay um Someone said I know he's reformed but is he a baptist?

You're a baptist right? Yes. There we go. Just like I'm a i'm a i'm a credo baptist.

Yeah, i'm a follower of john the baptist Amen, that's right. And I teach a baptist center a reformed baptist seminary.

Yes Okay, and this comments a nice one here. I don't have a question, but i'll say I rather enjoy when you have dr

Costa on good cost on good stuff. I do too. I've been very very helpful um, all right,

I think I think uh That may be the last the early church.

I think that's it. Okay. Dr. Costa must feel lonely there in canada Are you are you are you lonely?

Dr. Costa? No, no, no I'm surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. So amen

Amen, well, um for for those of you guys, I I really encourage you guys share this video I think there's so much important stuff here going on uh that can equip you uh within the apologetics context to interact with your roman catholic friends with your eastern orthodox friends and Continue that open line of communication with gentleness and respect as first peter chapter 3 verse 15 teaches us.

Dr Costa i'm looking forward to having you on for part two where we will listen to the rest of this discussion And interact with some of the important issues concerning justification by faith alone

If I could just mention another resource for your here. Sure your viewers. There's a great book. I don't know if you've seen this before Uh, three views, uh in eastern orthodoxy and evangelicalism.

It's a great book It's a book that I I assigned to my students and we did a course on orthodox church And uh, michael horner is the reformed uh writer that responds to the orthodox position

So this is a great book published by zondervan and the ford is by j .i. Packer So it's really a great book and uh, it's worth the read

It will really help you to expand your knowledge of orthodoxy in comparison to evangelicalism

Awesome, and at the end of our next our next video too. I'd like to go through a couple of uh, Maybe good resources for people on sola scriptura.

Yes station by faith alone. We could talk a little bit about that um I think that was my last question.

Well, dr. Costa. Thank you so much. I really do appreciate your time And we're looking forward to having you back on and uh for those of you guys who are listening

Please share this content and stay tuned hit the notification bell Um to know when new episodes are coming up Hopefully i'll have some other exciting guests coming on talking about issues related to theology

Apologetics and things like that. Maybe we'll do something on the cults or something. But uh, that's it for today Thank you so much and um, hope you guys are enjoying one of the debates that The presidential debates or maybe an apologetics debate.