Da Vinci Code

 

          Doubleday, with much fanfare, released a novel in March 2003 that debuted on the New York Times bestseller list and has remained there ever since.  Doubleday claims that it is "the best selling adult novel of all time within a one-year period."  The book is titled The Da Vinci Code.  It has become so popular that it has created a marketing boom for books related to it, and it has become the subject of a major motion picture scheduled to be released in May, 2006 staring Tom Hanks, directed by Ron Howard.

          The book is a rather intriguing story about a secret society, codes, conspiracies, the Law, the Catholic Church, and supposedly new "truth" about Jesus Christ.  I’d like to do a “book review” today.  I don’t think I have done one since the eighth grade, which I entered 50 years ago.  Neither have I ever given a book report sermon; this is a first.  But allow me to review The Da Vinci Code  by making four statements:

 

I.  The novel builds an interesting story line.

          At 10:46 one evening, the renowned curator of the Louvre Museum in Paris, Jacques Sauniere dies.  He is shot by a fanatical member of a Catholic organization, called Opus Dei who tells him just before shooting him that he has killed three other leaders of his secret society.  Tragedy: those four members are the remaining men on earth with the highly secret information on the location of the Holy Grail.  The curator makes sure in the 15 minutes before he dies that he leaves enough clues for certain people to learn the important information he is carrying – about the Holy Grail.

          An hour and 44 minutes later the chief of police summons Robert Langdon at the Ritz hotel in Paris, a famous professor of religious symbology at Harvard University, who is present in the city to lecture on pagan symbolism, to the crime scene to examine the cryptic clues that are left.  Then a Paris detective, Sophia, who specializes in cryptology appears, who happens to be the granddaughter of the slain man, the foremost expert in Holy Grail studies gets involved as does the director of a Austrian bank, and others.  All the while Robert and Sophia become objects of a massive police hunt.

          The story provides serious reading pleasure that keeps you from putting the book down.  The problem arises as the Paris detective, Sophia, is being introduced to the secret society in which her grandfather was a member.  She apparently knew nothing about it and Robert, the Harvard symbologist along with Leigh Teabing, the expert in Holy Grail studies give her a crash course in the “truth” of the society.

          The entire story builds to a climax and resolves itself in one day, even though that story takes 600 pages and 105 chapters to tell.

 

 

II.  The novel displays a curious mix of “facts.”

          As I read the book I found an unusual play on fact and fiction.  The author, Dan Brown, seems to be writing fiction that he intends his reader to accept as fact.  Let me give two examples.

          There is a emphasis on “research.”  In the “acknowledgments” page he gives thanks to 12 groups for “their generous assistance in the research of the book.”  He also thanks Water Street Bookstore for “tracking down so many of my research books.”  I wondered what he meant by that.  And the list was kind of curious.  “Project Gutenberg,” for example, which he acknowledges, is an online library of public domain texts.  Thanking them for their “generous assistance in the research of the book” probably suggests that he consulted their web sites. 

          When he thanks the Catholic World News for their generous assistance I would expect that he conducted some interaction with that group.  But when the website, “Catholic Answers” contacted Phil Lawler, the editor of Catholic World News, he knew of no connection with Dan Brown.  He replied, “we were surprised and bemused to learn that Catholic World News had been listed in the acknowledgments of this book.  We cannot recall any contact whatsoever with Dan Brown. He is not listed among our past or present subscribers.”

          The author apparently is attempting to suggest that what he is writing is accurate, factual.  It suggests that it has been meticulously researched, and therefore is building a fictional story on facts. 

          The second example that Dan Brown is playing with fiction as fact is in one of the first pages of the book, a page entitled, “FACT.”  I found it a little unusual that a novel would begin this way.  It appears that Brown is assuring his readers that his story is based on certain truths.  The page contains three statements of “FACT.”  Fact # 1 – “The Priory of Sion – a European secret society founded in 1099 is a real organization . . .”  The second fact is about a Catholic sect called “Opus Dei.  And the third fact states, “all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.”            What do we readers do with these “facts?”  Are they true?  Well, the first statement is totally untrue.  The evidence shows that a group called “the Priory of Sion” began in France in 1956, rather than 1099.  It was a club created by four young Frenchmen.  One of the guys, named Pierre Plantard, turned it into a secret organization that he claimed was guarding a royal bloodline with roots back to the Crusades, the Knights Templar, and previous movements that had incorporated "Sion" into their names.  He made himself the “grand master” of the organization and came up with a list of former grand masters that included Lenardo Da Vinci and Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, and Claude Debussy, among other terribly important people. 

          It so happens that Pierre Plantard, before his death in 2002 was convicted of and spent time in jail for embezzlement, fraud and other petty crimes.  In the 90s Plantard stood before a French judge and admitted he had made everything up. 

          What are we to do with this “fact” page?  I think Brown wants us to take his claims seriously.  He has written a “novel” that will teach us “fact,” that’s presenting an argument.  You can see this on Dan Brown’s web page.  He talks about the "secret" that he unveils in The Da Vinci Code saying: “The secret I reveal is one that has been whispered for centuries.  It is not my own.  Admittedly, this may be the first time the secret has been unveiled within the format of a popular thriller, but the information is anything but new.”

          What we have in this book is sort of a non-novel novel, with a non-novel subject because it has been “whispered for centuries.”  So what “truth” is this non-novel novel unveiling?

 

III.  The novel is a nuclear attack on Christ.

          It’s not until your eyes get to page 312 that you begin to see that The Da Vinci Code is a book of theology.  All of a sudden, halfway through the book, when you are worried over how Robert and Sophie will get away from the French police, Dan Brown starts talking theology.  It’s done in a very smooth way, where Sophie is simply introduced to her roots, what her grandfather believed, what he lived for, what he was, so that she would know what her family was like.  It is also done in an authoritative way because the two people revealing the “truth” are experts in symbology and Holy Grail studies. 

          And what is this new “truth?”  I quote from page 318:  “Almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false.”   In other words, we have been trusting a giant theological cover-up for 20 centuries.  “Almost everything” we have believed about Christ needs to be dumped.

          Then rolls out almost unbelievable blasphemy.  This is not just a BB gun taking a pot shot at Christ.  This is an attempt to blow everything away.  Here are the “facts” that are presented as “gospel truth” in this book:

- Jesus is not God; he was only a man.  It wasn’t until the third century that deity was ascribed to Him.

- Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene.  They had a daughter, named Sarah.  And a holy blood line has carried on from Sarah and been protected all these years.  That blood line is still present in Europe today.

- Mary Magdalene is to be worshiped as a goddess.  Goddess worship is one of the original, trustworthy, religions that has been suppressed, especially by the Catholic church.  There is a secret society known as the Priory of Sion that still worships Mary Magdalene as a goddess and is trying to keep the truth alive.

- The Bible is not from God but man.  The gospels were chosen by Constantine, a Roman emperor in order to support his notion that Jesus was God.  Before that time, Jesus had been viewed as only a man.  The Gospels have been edited to support the claims that Christ is God.

 

- In the original Gospels, Mary Magdalene rather than Peter was directed to establish the Church.

- The Catholic Church is aware of all this and has been fighting for centuries to keep it suppressed. It has perpetuated a major, centuries-long conspiracy to hide the "truth" about Jesus Christ from the public.  It has often assassinated the descendants of Christ to keep his bloodline from growing.

- Lenardo Da Vinci was a former head of the Priory of Sion guarding the "truth" about Jesus Christ.  He planted various codes and secret symbols in his work to communicate his disapproval of the standard teaching of the church.  In his painting of the Last Supper, for example, he placed Mary Magdalene, next to Jesus as a symbol of her prominence in his teaching.  Thus even though Da Vinci painted pictures on religious themes, he at the same time laughed at the themes, because, as the head of the Priory he believed that the church was wrong.  He couldn’t say that publically without losing his head, or being sent to jail by the church, but he said it through his paintings.

- The bottom line is that the Bible you hold in your hands is not the truth.  It has been corrupted and presents a huge cover up of the truth

- And with all of this, the author, Dan Brown, claims that he is a “Christian.”

 

          Why am I talking about this book?  Why am I wasting our morning service talking about something other than the Bible?  Because I want to introduce you to a cult that is growing exponentially.  In 1982 the first of these books came out, called Holy Blood, Holy Grail.  I read it back then, and have referred to it a couple of times in various messages.  But what started as the rantings of a few weirdos has now grown to mainstream doctrine.  I found a web site that listed 149 books that have come out of Holy Blood, Holy Grail.  And just since March, 2003 and the publication of Da Vinci Code, there have been published at least 51 books on the Da Vinci Code along with two games and even two 2006 calendars.  As I said before, there is a movie coming out in May staring Tom Hanks, and if the movie contains much of this theology, the movie itself will be a broadside blast against Christ and Christianity.

          When I first read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, I was taken in by the historical details and followed the story until chapter 12 when this theology began coming out.  When I got to chapter 12, I put the book down and felt like throwing up.  I couldn’t believe that anyone would propound such garbage and blaspheme the name and credibility of our blessed Savior.  This time I didn’t throw up; instead I sat there reading the book with a mixture of anger and incredulity saying, “he’s got to be kidding; he can’t believe this.”  “Why would anyone throw away the Bible which has thousands of different indications of its truthfulness for this blasphemy that is based on nothing of any substance or trustworthiness?”  If I read this book right, Dan Brown wants to take us back to Baal worship, and goddess worship along with all the old pagan rites.

          The fact that people don’t believe that Christ is God is nothing new.  People have been blaspheming Christ since He was on earth.  But The De Vinci Code presents an organized, attractive way of saying it.  It gives what looks like a rather authoritative boost to a collective, increasingly social conclusion that broadsides the name of Christ.  On the other hand,

 

IV.  The novel presents us with an excellent opportunity to share Christ.

          How do we know that Christ is God anyway?  How do we know that the Bible is true?  How do we engage in conversation with people who are convinced by Dan Brown’s true fiction?  I want to spend the next two Sundays answering those questions.

          But let me begin today by showing you the duplicity and deception of Dan Brown’s position.  The Da Vinci Code helps us understand how the unbelieving world has to think.

 

          A.  The novel claims that Christ is “great,” but not God.  Notice how Brown talks about Jesus Christ.  In almost flowery tones of appreciation, he says, “Jesus Christ was a historical figure of staggering influence, perhaps the most enigmatic and inspirational leader the world has ever seen.  As the prophesied Messiah, Jesus toppled kings, inspired millions and founded new philosophies.  As a descendant of the lines of King Solomon and King David, Jesus possessed a rightful claim to the throne of the King of the Jews” (313).

          Three pages later, he says, “the vast majority of educated Christians know the history of their faith.  Jesus was indeed a great and powerful man.  Constantine’s underhanded political maneuvers don’t diminish the majesty of Christ’s life.  Nobody is saying Christ was a fraud, or denying that He walked the earth and inspired millions to better lives.  All we are saying is that Constantine took advantage of Christ’s substantial influence and importance.  And in doing so, he shaped the face of Christianity as we know it today” (316).

          Notice what he is doing – he is placing Jesus Christ on a high pedestal.  He is saying that Christ is one of the “greatest.”  He wasn’t a “fraud,” He was “majestic,” He “inspired millions.”  At the same time he is arguing that Christ is not God. 

          That is the “standard” unbelieving position on Christ.  History compels anyone who reads encyclopedias to admit that, “Jesus Christ was a great prophet, a wonderful man, perhaps the greatest leader the world has ever known.”  At the same time, and in the same breath, the next sentence usually comes out as, “but He is not God.”  The problem is that you can’t, logically, hold those who positions.  You can’t claim that Jesus is the greatest of men but not God.  The admission of the first one (Christ was great) requires the admission of the second one (Christ is God).  Why?

          B.  If Christ is not God, He is a bad man.  The problem for the unbeliever is that this great man says He is God.  Think about that.  It’s a pretty unique thing for someone to claim to be God.  And it makes a loud statement about the person.  Do you realize what it would do for you if you were to claim to be GOD?  That statement would make you a candidate for the psychiatric ward of a hospital, instead of a leader to be imitated and followed.  Do you realize that there is not one recognized religious leader in the history of the world who has ever claimed to be God – except Jesus?  Moses didn’t; David didn’t; Paul didn’t.  Muhammad insisted that he was a prophet of Allah. Buddha did not even believe in the existence of a personal God, and Confucius was skeptical.  Zoroaster was a worshiper, but he was not worshiped.  Not one of the recognized religious leaders of all time, ever claimed to be God – except Jesus (idea from John H. Gerstner, “Who is this Jesus?” 23?).

          The argument is very simple: Jesus is either God or a bad man.  A mere man who claims to be God is not a good man.  In fact, he is very bad, either morally or intellectually.  If he knows that he is not God, then morally he is bad.  He is a liar; he’s trying to deceive.  If he really, honestly thinks he is God, then intellectually he is in trouble.  He’s crazy, insane. 

          One of the measures of insanity is the gap between what we think we are and what we really are.  If I think I am George Washington, I am in trouble.  If I think I am a hummingbird, I’ve lost my mental drive shaft.  But if I think I am God, I’m out at the edge of consciousness, because the gap between man and God is infinite, even greater than the gap between man and hummingbird (from Peter Kreeft, “Who Was Jesus Christ?” in The Catholic Digest, 9/86, 62).

          So you really don’t have any choices here.  As Josh McDowell said, “Jesus Christ is either a Liar, a Lunatic, or He is Lord of all.”  There is no other option.  He can’t be a great man, a great leader, and not be God.

 

          C.  Christ thought that He was God.  People say, “but did He really claim to be God?”  Do we have any evidence?  The truth is that the evidence is overwhelming.  Why did His Jewish listeners decide to kill him in John 5:18?  Because, they said, He "called God his Father, making himself equal with God."  They understood what He was claiming.

          Terry read that fascinating passage in John 8:48-59 today where Jesus was quizzed about how He possessed special knowledge of Abraham.  He replies, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM" (John 8:58), applying to Himself the personal name of Yahweh in the Old Testament, “I AM” (Ex. 3:14).  The next verse relates how His audience understood exactly what he was claiming and “took up stones to stone Him” (John 8:59).  Look at some of the statements He made which would be audacious for a man to make: “if anyone keeps My word he will never see death” (51), “it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God’” (54), “your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad” (56).  Jesus wasn’t merely making claims, He was acting as God.

          He said, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30), “no one comes to the Father, except by me” (John 14:6), “He that has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).  When the high priest said to Him, “I put You under oath by the living God: Tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God!" 64 Jesus said to him, “It is as you said” (Matt 26:63-64). 

          “Who do you say that I am?" He asked His disciples.  Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." 17 Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 16:16-17).

          The chief priests and the officers, when they were manipulating Pilate to crucify Him, argued, “we have a law, and by that law He ought to die because He made Himself out to be the Son of God” (John 19:7).

          Did Jesus claim to be God?  All over the place!  He not only claimed it, He implied it in the way He taught.  He accepted worship.  He forgave sins, which no one but God could do.  He raised the dead.  He claimed that He was the final judge as to who would get into heaven.  He tells His listeners who would and who would not inherit the kingdom of God.  He pointed out the religious leaders of the day as those who wouldn’t enter the kingdom.

          The Roman centurion who watched Him die said, “truly this was the Son of God.”  The people said, “never man so spoke.”  John the Baptist stated, “behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.”  Doubting Thomas said, “My Lord and My God.”

          You can’t get away from the clear evidence that Jesus Christ viewed Himself as God, acted as God.  If He is not God, He is either one of the world’s greatest liars, or He is a lunatic fit only for the psychiatric ward.  You cannot hold what virtually all the unsaved world unthinkingly claims – that Jesus Christ is a great guy, but not God.  It is a very deceptive impossibility.

          One of the ways God can use us to share Christ is by showing people that they are thinking in an impossible way.  Here’s a suggested way to do it:           “Have you read The Da Vinci Code?” you say.  “Yes, I liked it,” your friend responds.  “What do you think about Dan Brown’s portrayal of Christ?” you ask.  “Well I think that he probably has it right – a good man, a really good man.  But people after him have messed up the details.” 

          That leads you to this important question: “Is Jesus Christ God?”  Their answer may be something like, “well, no, I don’t think so,” or “I don’t know.”  You talk about that for awhile, but somewhere in the conversation you interject this statement: “do you know that Jesus said He was God.”  “He claimed to be God.”  “How could a great man say something so outlandish?”  “If you claimed to be God today we would send you to the funny farm.”  “Why would you think that Jesus was so great when He made such insane claims?