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Separating Fact from Fiction
I John 4
With over 60 million copies sold and
translated into 44 languages, some estimate that about 1/3 of Americans
have read Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code.
It’s been on the New York Times bestseller list for over 150 weeks,
and has moved back to number one with the release of the paperback
edition which was just in time for Easter this year. In Canada, the National
Geographic Channel commissioned a survey in 2005 and discovered that 32%
of Canadians who have read the novel believe that the theories outlined
in it are true.
Questions
raised by the Book
·
Is Jesus
God? (Almost everything our church Father’s taught us about Christ
is False – pg 235)
·
Is the
Bible True? (The Bible is a product of Man and not of God. Pg 231)
·
Was Jesus
Married? “Behold the greatest cover-up in human history…not
only married, but he was a father p.249” “Mary Magdalene was pregnant at
the time of the crucifixion…It was here in France that she gave birth to
a daughter. Her name was Sarah.” (pg. 255)
·
Lost Books
of the Bible – Teabing claims that the
Nag Hammadi texts and the Dead Sea Scrolls are
“the earliest Christian records” (245) the “unaltered
gospels” 248. But every book
in the NT is dated earlier. They rejected all of the O.T.
·
What is the
Sacred Feminine? "The Priory believes that Constantine and his male successors
successfully converted the world from matriarchal paganism to patriarchal
Christianity by waging a campaign of propaganda that demonized the sacred
feminine, obliterating the goddess from modern religion forever."
(p. 124) Jeremiah 44: 17-18
·
What about
the Holy Grail? (“The church needed to defame Mary Magdalene in
order to cover up her dangerous secret – her role as the Holy
Grail.” pg 244)
The reason why so many people have been
confused by this book is because instead of making a disclaimer at
the beginning…stating it’s fiction, like many authors do, the
author actually makes a proclaimer. On
the page before the prologue, Brown has written the word FACT in
bold capital letters and then makes the claim at the bottom of the page: “All
descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in
this novel are accurate.”
Chuck Colson warns that this book is “effectively
affirming the unbelief of nonbelievers, turning off honest seekers, and
even confusing and disillusioning many Christians.” You may be
wondering why we are focusing on this topic for three weeks. If you think I’ve lost my way,
you’ll be happy to know that we’re returning to our
verse-by-verse study of Philippians in June 18th. I see at least three purposes behind
this series.
1.
To equip
those who believe. I’m
excited for the opportunity to teach some theology, chew on some church
history and get back to the basics of how we got our Bible in the first
place. It’s time to contend for our faith and not be shaken by all
the counterfeit stuff like DaVinci and the
Gospel of Judas that is appearing today. The words of Jude 3-4
speak right to our situation: “Dear friends, although I was
very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to
write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all
entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written
about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men,
who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny
Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.”
There is no reason to be afraid. We have truth on our side.
Let’s be like the Bereans who “examined
the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts
17:11).
2.
To
engage our culture. I want to
be very clear here. I am not endorsing or recommending that you read this
book or that you go and see the movie.
That’s a choice you will have to make on your own. Whether
or not you read it or watch it, we need to be informed so that we can
intelligently interact with people in our society. That means we need to
understand when our culture gets it right and when it gets things wrong.
We should
follow the model of Paul when he spoke to the Athenians in Acts 17.
He was “greatly distressed to see that the city was full of
idols” (verse 16) but he also “reasoned” with
the people (verse 17), affirmed the fact that in every way they were “very
religious” (verse 22) and in verse 23 states, “Now
what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to
you.” After giving a theology lesson, he quoted some of
their own authors in order to engage them, which is what we’re
doing in this series. In the midst
of doing all this, he did not equivocate on the message in verse 30:
“In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he
commands all people everywhere to repent.”
3.
To share
the True Gospel – To tell the Truth about Jesus. I see this the book and the recently released movies as an
unprecedented opportunity to share the gospel. The trailer for the movie
ends with these words: “Seek the truth.” We have the
truth so let’s make sure we point people to the one who is the
Truth. We need to be prepared by making sure we’re equipped and
that we’re ready to engage in telling the truth about Jesus. 1
Peter 3:15: “But
in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an
answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you
have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” Make sure
your walk with Christ is good before you talk about the good news. Give
reasons for what you believe but make sure you do it respectfully.
Let’s take advantage of the prevailing spiritual curiosity in our
culture and leverage this phenomenon for spiritual fruit.
Summary of Storyline
Let me give you a summary of the
storyline. I’m going to leave out some of the details but I do want
to mention the highlights, or lowlights, depending on your perspective.
The book opens with the curator of a
museum lying dead. He was the Grand Master of a secret society known as
the Priory of Sion. Meanwhile, Robert Langdon,
a Harvard professor and expert in esoteric symbolism is asked to interpret
a strange symbol left on the body of the victim. He’s joined by a
young cryptologist named Sophie, who warns Robert that he is the prime
suspect in the murder. They then realize that the victim has left clues
for them to follow, and as they decipher the coded instructions, they
find out that the crime is linked to the search for the Holy Grail. They
then link up with a Holy Grail fanatic, Sir Leigh Teabing,
who instructs them on the real truth of the Grail. He cites the Gnostic
Gospels and indicates that they are more reliable than the New Testament.
The most sinister part of the book
is the notion that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that his
bloodline continues to this day in France. The DaVinci code reinterprets the Holy Grail as none
other than the remains of Jesus’ wife, Mary Magdalene. The book
claims that Jesus intended Mary Magdalene to lead the church but
“Peter had a problem with that,” thus she was declared a
prostitute and cut out of the role of leadership. According to the book,
the Catholic Church has covered up this secret for centuries. We’re
told that Leonardo DaVinci knew all this, and
used his well-known painting on the last supper to conceal many levels of
meaning, including the idea that it was Mary Magdalene who was sitting
next to Jesus, not John.
Dan
Brown’s agenda is not hidden: This book is a direct attack against
Jesus Christ, the church, and those of us who are his followers and call
him Savior and Lord. The implication of the book is that Christianity is
based on a big lie, or rather, several big lies.
Finding the Facts
The
misrepresentation of facts in the book center around 5 issues. They are:
1]
Constantine and the Council of Nicaea
2] Gnosticism and the Gnostic Gospels
3] Jesus, Mary Magdalene, & the Search for the Holy Grail
4] The Bible: How it was formed
5] The Reliability of the Bible
We
do not have time to deal with all five of these, next week I will talk
about how the Bible was formed and the reliability of the Bible. This
morning I briefly want to set the record straight on the Crown, Council
and the Creed.
Constantine became a Christian in 312 AD and legalized it
for all of the Western Roman Empire….it
was the end of most persecution.
As he consolidated his power, Constantine
found that there were disagreements in his realm about the nature of the
Son of God. The problem was that a
leader of the church
of North Africa, a
man named “Arius,” was teaching that Jesus was God, but a
different kind of God than the Father.
Although declared a heretic by many church bishops, the disputes
nonetheless continued.
As a new Christian, Constantine
said, “I can help sort this out.” So he paid the expenses for
300 bishops from across his realm to come together and council about what
was true and what wasn’t about the nature of the Son of God. This
is The Council is the Council of Nicaea, which met in 325 A.D.
Arius and his followers believed that Jesus was god, but that he was a
created god (as opposed to God the Father, who was eternally
pre-existent.) – Arius’ phrase was, "There was a time
when he was not."
The rest of Christianity disagreed with them, so they met and came up
with a statement, or creed, as it’s come to be known:
The Creed of Nicaea
"We believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, Maker of all things
visible and invisible; and in the one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
begotten of the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the
Father; God from God, Light from Light, Very God from Very God, begotten
not made, of one substance with the Father, through whom all things were
made…
Now Brown makes 3 claims in The Da Vinci Code
regarding Constantine,
the Council of Nicaea and the Creed.
1.
Constantine
at the Council of Niceaea invented the deity of
Christ in order to consolidate his power
Brown claims, Christianity as we know it was "invented" by
people, rather than revealed by God. In the book, Sir Leigh Teabing explains to Sophie that at the council the
delegates agreed on the divinity of Jesus. Then he adds, “Up to that moment in history,
Jesus was viewed by his followers as a mortal prophet…a great and
powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A mortal.” So Constantine “upgraded
Jesus’ status almost three centuries after Jesus’
death” for political reasons. (DVC, p. 233)
2.
Constantine
rejected other gospels from the New Testament (that were favorable to the
divine feminine) because they did not suit his political agenda.
To quote Teabing
again, “More than eighty
gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative
few were chosen for inclusion – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John among
them…The Bible as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman
emperor Constantine the Great.”
(pg. 231) In other words, according to The Da
Vinci Code Constantine recognized a good opportunity when he saw it and
called the council to ensure male power and accept those documents as
canonical which were favorable to his political agenda.
3.
The doctrine of Christ’s deity passed by a “relatively close
vote”.
. . . . Jesus’ establishment
as ‘the Son of God’ was officially proposed and voted on by
the Council of Nicaea.
. . . A relatively close vote at that.
(pg. 233)
Refuting
the three claims regarding Constantine and the Council of Nicaea
1. In response to the claim that Constantine invented the deity of
Christ, it has to be said that there is not a single shred of historical
evidence for this notion. As mentioned, not only was Christ’s deity
the consensus of the delegates, but this doctrine was held by the church
centuries before the council met. Two things confirm this (Church Fathers
and the Witness of Christian Martyrs:
A. The Church Fathers
• Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in Syria writing in A.D. 105, states,
“God Himself being manifested in human form . . .” Epistle
of Ignatius to the Ephesians, chapter XIX
• Clement:
“It is fitting that you should think of Jesus Christ as God”
(A.D. 150) The Second Epistle of Clement, chapter I
• Justin Martyr,
martyred in A.D. 165, also affirmed the deity of Christ in AD 160 when he
wrote “the Father of the universe has a Son; who also, being the
first-begotten Word of God, is even God”. The First Apology of Justin Martyr,
chapter LXIII
• Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons in A.D. 180 wrote, “He is
God, for the name Emmanuel indicates this” (A.D. 180). Against
Heresies, book III, chapter XXI
• Tertullian (A.D. 150-212) wrote in 20 AD. “Christ our
God.” The
Apology, Of Patience, chapter XIII
•
Origen:
“no one ought to be offended, seeing God is the Father, that the Saviour is also God . . .” (A.D. 225). Origen de Principiis,
book I, chapter II
•
Novatian:
“Christ is not man only, but God also” (A.D. 235). A Treatise of Novatain
Concerning the Trinity, chapter XVI
•
Cyprian:
“That Christ our God should come, the En-lightener and Saviour of the human race” (253 A.D.). Treatise
XII, second book, Testimonies
•
Lactantius:
“We believe Him to be God” (A.D. 304). The Divine Institutes, book V, Of
Justice, chapter III
This shows that the doctrine of the
divinity of Christ was a doctrine of the church long before the Council
of Nicaea.
B. The
Witness of Christian Martyrs. Christians knew that if Christ was God,
then they could not worship him and others – namely the Emperor.
All good citizens were required to say at a ceremony that “Caesar
is Lord”. Christians were faced with a tough choice: They either
comply as citizens or face persecution. Interestingly, the pagans saw no
conflict between emperor worship and the worship of their own gods. After
all, if your own god is not a supreme deity, then you have little choice
but to make room for other gods and celebrate diversity. However, for
Christians, Jesus is and was the supreme deity and thus to acknowledge
any other god was not possible. The thousands of early Christian martyrs
who refused to confess that “Caesar was Lord” is evidence
that Christians believed in the deity of Jesus long before the council of
Nicaea.
The Da Vinci Code claim that Constantine “upgraded
Jesus’ status” from man to God is pure fiction.
2. In response to the claim
that Constantine and his delegates decided to eliminate books from the
New Testament that were unfavorable to their theology of male rule and
sexual repression, it has to be said that this is nothing but pure
fiction.
Aha! . . . The
fundamental irony of Christianity!
The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman
emperor Constantine the Great.”(pg. 231) . . . man created [the Bible] and it has evolved
through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive
version of the book. More than
eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a
relative few were chosen for inclusion.
(pg. 231)
“Constantine
commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that
spoke of Christ’s human traits and embellished those gospels that
made Him godlike. The earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and
burned.” (234)
Practically everything we know of
the Council of Nicaea comes from the historian Eusebius. Neither he nor
anyone else gives a hint that such matters were discussed at Nicaea. Twenty
rulings were issued at Nicaea,
and the contents of all of them are still in existence today; not one of
them refers to issues regarding which books were authoritative and which
books should be included in the canon of Scripture.
3. In response to the claim
that the doctrine of the deity of Christ passed by a relatively close
vote at the Council of Nicaea, it has to be said that this is also
untrue. Only 5 out of the 318 bishops present protested the Creed. In the
end, in fact, only two refused to sign it. The outcome was not
“relatively close.
I have only scratched the surface, but
let’s take a break and look at John’s words that confronted
the counterfeits, such as the Dan Brown’s of the first century.
Let’s look at four diagnostics tools from 1 John 4.
1. Take a truth test (1). Verse 1 tells us that it’s
important to take a truth test: “Dear friends, do not believe
every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God,
because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” The
command to not believe every spirit is in the present tense. It literally
means: “Stop believing every spirit,” which indicates
that they were too gullible and accepting. The word “test”
refers to examining, proving and scrutinizing something. And the reason
we are to test for the truth is because it’s not always obvious. 2
Corinthians 11:14 reminds us that even “Satan himself
masquerades as an angel of light.” We are to stop believing
and start testing.
2. Make Christ the key (2-3). The second diagnostic when examining
something is to make sure to keep Christ as the key. If a group
doesn’t get their teaching about Jesus right, nothing else will be
right either. Look at verses 2-3: “This is how you can
recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus
Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not
acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist,
which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the
world.” The word “acknowledge” is actually the
word “confess,” which has to do with a commitment that leads
to a genuine confession. It literally means to “say the same
word,” or to say the same thing that God says about something. What
is it that the Father has said about His Son? He is Savior and Lord and
God.
Brown is essentially saying that Jesus
is not God and that what we’ve been taught about Him is all wrong.
One line from the book is very troubling: “Almost everything our
fathers taught us about Christ is false” (page 235).
Jesus is the central focus of all God
has done, is doing and is going to do. He is fully God and fully man. Any
system that denigrates His deity or dishonors his humanity is not of God.
John calls this the spirit of the antichrist.
3. Remember that God is greater (4-6). Sometimes Christians can feel intimidated
or outnumbered or even afraid. In verses 4-6, we see that we have
nothing to fear: “You, dear children, are from God and have
overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who
is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the
viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God,
and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not
listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit
of falsehood.”
Dear children, if you are born again
then you are from God and the Almighty abides within you. What a
wonderful promise.
4. Love is limitless (7). This section of John’s letter is
really a parenthesis on the topic of love. After telling his readers to
take a truth test, to make Christ the key, and remember that God is
greater than any heresy or power, we come back to the limitlessness of
love. We are to love people even if we disagree with them. This is stated
very clearly in verse 7: “Dear friends, let us love
one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of
God and knows God.” Andy Griffith, who is reportedly a
Christian, appeared on Entertainment Tonight when the cast of
the old “Andy Griffith” show came together for the funeral of
Don Knotts. They asked Andy if he said anything
to Ron Howard regarding his directing The DaVinci
Code. He responded, “Yes! I said, ‘Ron, I love
you! I don’t agree with you, but I love you.’” It
would be well of us to follow and encourage that practice as well. It is
not pleasing to the Lord for us to simply be the protectors of the truth
if we fail to love Him and others.
One reason this book has become so
popular is because people are searching for truth, meaning, and purpose. Ecclesiastes
3:11 says that God has set “eternity in the hearts of
men.” That means you will always be restless until you are
at peace with God. You don’t need DaVinci’s
Code; you need DaBible’s God. When your
world is closing in don’t you want someone who can understand? When
no one else knows how you feel, don’t you want the Lord’s
love that has been proven real? It’s time to fall on your knees and
confess that Jesus is Savior and Lord. Make Him your Forgiver and your
Leader. Do that right now as we pray.
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Baptist Sermon page.
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