The Da Vinci Code II

 

          In three months the movie on the Da Vinci Code is scheduled to come out featuring Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard.  The book has spent the past three years on the New York Times’ best seller list.  Two weeks ago I described the book as a nuclear attack on Jesus Christ.  It states that Jesus was a mere man, married to Mary Magdalene, who was not proclaimed as God until the Council of Nicaea in 325.  I quote, “until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a moral prophet . . . a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless.  A mortal.” . . . “Jesus’ establishment as ‘the Son of God’ was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea.’” Is Jesus God?  How do we know?  And how do we know that the Bible we hold in our hands, is trustworthy?  I want to answer these two questions today.

 

I.  How widespread was the evidence that Jesus is God?

          Before the big snow last week, we showed how the gospel of John clearly affirms Christ’s deity.  Time and time again Jesus not only claimed to be God, but He accepted worship, forgave sins, raised the dead, and identified Himself as the final judge of who would get into heaven.  It’s all over the place.  So that as Josh McDowell said, “if He was not God, He ought to get an Academy Award for His acting.”  We also emphasized that you cannot hold the two positions that the Da Vinci Code proposes, positions that are commonly accepted today as the way to describe Christ – that He was a good, a great man, a wonderful teacher and leader, but not God.  Those positions are diametrically opposed, they present a logical contradiction for the simple reason that He claimed to be God.  If He claimed to be God and He wasn’t, He was either one of the worlds greatest liars and deceivers, or He was insane, out of His mind.  As Josh McDowell has said in another place, “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.

 

          A.  Every gospel affirms Christ’s deity.  But how about the other gospels, the “Synoptics?”  Do any of them suggest that He is God?  Matthew argues that He is King of the Jews.  Mark demonstrates that He is the Father’s perfectly obedient Servant.  Luke presents Him as the perfect man.  But do any of these make clear statements of His deity?

          The answer is amazing.  It’s the same as last week – all through the Synoptic gospels Christ speaks and acts like God.  Let me show you one little story.  Luke 5:17-26 gives the account of four men bringing their paralyzed friend to Jesus.  They couldn’t get in because of the crowd, so they waxed creative and carried him up one the roof, took up a few roof tiles and lowered him down through the ceiling into Jesus’ presence.  Jesus, seeing the faith of the quartet on the roof, said to the man, “your sins are forgiven you.”  That pronouncement startled the scribes and Pharisees because they recognized its significance.  They reasoned, "Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?"  That question is the proper question.  It shows that they are thinking correctly.  Who can forgive sins but God?  Absolutely no one.  Their proper concern is that Jesus is acting like He can do what no one other than God can do.  And that is blasphemy – unless, of course, He really is God.

          Jesus understands their thinking and decides to help them work toward the proper conclusion.  He says, “is it easier to say, ‘your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘rise up and walk?’”  In other words is it easier to heal the inside or the outside?  The answer is that it would take God to do either one.  No one could instantly heal a paralyzed man so that he could walk.  In the same way, no one could forgive him of his sins.  Verse 24 is very important.  Jesus says in effect, “I am doing what I am doing next, so that you will understand who I am – that I do have authority on earth to forgive sins.”  He then heals the man by saying, “get up, pick up your stretcher, and go home.”  And the man obeys, and walks away! 

          That little incident is a clear demonstration that (1) Jesus had power to heal a paralyzed man; which also demonstrated that (2) Jesus had authority on earth to forgive sins; which also demonstrated that (3) Jesus was God, since the Pharisees had already acknowledged that only God could forgive sins.

          Do you see what Luke is saying.  Very early in Christ’s ministry the issue was placed on the table – “is this carpenter from Galilee, who acts like God, really God?”  Dr. Luke shows how Jesus is careful to help His observers make the proper conclusion.  Healing the man was a sign of Jesus’ authority to forgive the man, which was at the same time a sign that Jesus is God. 

          The interesting thing is that Matthew (9:2-8) and Mark (2:2-12) tell the same story with Jesus making the same point, “but that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”  All three writers show that very early in Christ’s ministry He demonstrates His deity. 

          So, “Jesus was viewed by His followers as a moral prophet . . . a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless?”  NO.  Sorry Dan Brown.  That is simply not true.  He was viewed as God from the start; He claimed to be God from the start.

 

          B.  Jesus was crucified because He claimed to be God.  If the Da Vinci Code is true, then why was this good, inspiring teacher crucified?  The answer in the gospels is that He was condemned to execution because He blasphemed by claiming to be God!  Notice the charge in each gospel:

          Matthew 26:63-67 – And the high priest answered and 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. Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven." 65 Then the high priest tore his clothes, saying, "He has spoken blasphemy! What further need do we have of witnesses? Look, now you have heard His blasphemy! 66 "What do you think?" They answered and said, "He is deserving of death." 67 Then they spat in His face and beat Him; and others struck Him with the palms of their hands.

          Mark records the same account in 14:61 - Again the high priest asked Him, saying to Him, "Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" 62 Jesus said, "I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven."

          Luke 23:66 As soon as it was day, the elders of the people, both chief priests and scribes, came together and led Him into their council, saying, 67 "If You are the Christ, tell us." But He said to them, "If I tell you, you will by no means believe. 68 "And if I also ask you, you will by no means answer Me or let Me go. 69 "Hereafter the Son of Man will sit on the right hand of the power of God." 70 Then they all said, "Are You then the Son of God?" So He said to them, "You rightly say that I am." 71 And they said, "What further testimony do we need? For we have heard it ourselves from His own mouth."

          John 19:7 The Jews answered him (Pilate), “we have a law, and by that law He ought to die because He made Himself out to be the Son of God.”

          Jesus was condemned to be executed because of what HE SAID!  He made it so clear at His trial as to who He was, that the Jewish leadership had to either submit to Him or demand His crucifixion.  He was crucified because the leaders understood His claim only too well, and rejected it.

          So the question to the author of the Da Vinci Code is, “why was Christ hung on a cross?”  Because He was a great teacher and leader?  Why would anyone in Israel have trouble back then with a great teacher and leader?  He was crucified because the Jewish leadership viewed Him as a blaspheming liar. 

          C.  Early disciples believed that Christ was God.  Dan Brown says, “until that moment in history (the council of Nicaea in AD 325), Jesus was viewed by His followers as a moral prophet . . . a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless.  A mortal.”  That means that we should be able to pick up from the statements of early disciples confirmatory evidence that Jesus was a great guy, but only a man.  What did the early disciples say?  We start within 10 or 20 years after the apostle John died.  We believe that John was the last of the 12 original disciples to die and that he died in 90 - 100 AD.

          1.  Ignatius of Antioch: "For our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived by Mary in accord with God's plan: of the seed of David, it is true, but also of the Holy Spirit" (Letter to the Ephesians 18:2 [A.D. 110]).

          2.  Tatian the Syrian: "We are not playing the fool, you Greeks, nor do we talk nonsense, when we report that God was born in the form of a man" (Address to the Greeks 21 [A.D. 170]).

          3.  Tertullian: "God alone is without sin. The only man who is without sin is Christ; for Christ is also God" (The Soul 41:3 [A.D. 210]).

          4.  Origen: "Although he was God, he took flesh; and having been made man, he remained what he was: God" (The Fundamental Doctrines 1:0:4 [A.D. 225]).

          Are those statements clear enough?  The latest quote, from Origen, was 100 years before the Council of Nicaea, which Dan Brown thinks decided to elevate Jesus to deity.  In light of the evidence, how can you say with a straight face that the early church simply believed that Jesus was a man?

          Thus the evidence is crystal clear – Jesus Christ not only claimed to be God, but lived on earth as God, and died on the cross, God, for our sins.

 

II.  Are the records we have of Christ’s life trustworthy?

          What can someone like Dan Brown do, then, when the evidence is so clear and plentiful?  He has to attack the records.  Since the only Christ that we know is the One who is revealed in the New Testament, specifically in the gospels, what he has to do is get rid of the gospels.  And since they are so clear in showing the deity of Christ, he has to say, “but you can’t trust them.”  How does he do that?  The Da Vinci Code claims that these gospels have all been changed.  They aren’t the originals.  And when we go back to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John for evidence about Christ, we are falling into Constantine’s subtle trap.

 

          A.  The Da Vinci Code claims that our gospels were edited.  Leigh Teabing clears his throat and declares to Sophie on page 312, “the Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven. . . . The Bible is a product of man, my dear.  Not of God. . . Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions and revisions.  History has never had a definitive version of the book” (312-313). 

          He continues, “More than eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion” (313).  “The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great” (313). 

          Now we begin to see.  Here is what has misled us.  Constantine and his men had 80 gospels to choose from.  Of course they chose the ones that most closely supported their bias and then edited them to pump up the claims of Christ.  What we have is a book that has gone through not just “many,” but “countless translations, additions and revisions” so that we have never had a “definitive version of the book.”

          That is the problem!  We have been duped all these years into thinking that the gospels we have are the real deal.  And so we go about proving from the gospels that Jesus is God without thinking about the secret “truth,” that the gospel records have been changed! 

          That’s the source of our frustration.  That’s why our lives have been so unfulfilled.  We have been sold a bill of goods by a religious conspiracy, foisted upon us by of all things, a pagan Roman ruler named, Constantine.  Cursed be Constantine.  That jerk!  Why didn’t he leave well enough alone?  Why didn’t he just leave the books the way they had been accepted?  The real truth is that this Bible we trust has been changed, and we don’t know what it was like before 325 AD.  And if we could somehow get a hold of gospel records before Constantine, we would be amazed at two things: (1) they wouldn’t be Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (because there were 76 other valid choices), and (2) they would show clearly that Jesus was merely a man.  Where could we find those gospel records before Constantine?  Is it possible?  The Da Vinci Code assures us that Constantine burned all the other records.  Is there any way of getting back before 325 AD?

 

          B.  SURPRISE!  We HAVE those early gospel records!  The truth is that the “secret” truth isn’t truth.  Let me give you four ways we know that we have those early gospels.

 

                    1.  The consistency of the APOSTLES.  What would keep an apostle from composing a fabrication – making Christ into someone He wasn’t?  Answer: the presence of other apostles.  It would be very easy for any one of the 12 to challenge any other on what he said.  In Luke 10 there were 70 other disciples.  By Acts one there were 120 disciples.  There were at least 500 followers who saw Jesus after His resurrection.  Most of them, Paul says in I Corinthians 15:6, were still alive at the time he wrote – which was 55 - 60 AD, the time when Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written.

          How many of them said, “wait a minute!  This is all overstated; Jesus was not God; He was only a man.”  The answer is none of them.  They all continued not only to say the same thing, but to keep saying it as they were persecuted, and even as they were martyred for their claim that Jesus was God.  How much easier it would have been for one of them to say, “you’re right, don’t kill me; this is all a fabrication, and there is no sense in me dying for a lie.”  But none of them ever did.  Almost all, if not all of the original apostles were martyred for their faith.

          How do we know we have the early gospel records?  Just because of the amazing consistency of the apostles’ word and lives.

 

                    2.  The consistency of the EARLY CHURCH.  The Da Vinci Code claims that there were 80 gospels to choose from and people didn’t know which ones were right, and by the time of Constantine “thousands of documents already existed chronicling His life as a mortal man” (316).  Constantine chose the wrong ones.  The early church before 325 disagrees.  The church was united in it’s belief not only that Jesus was God but that there were four gospels, and their names were not Phillip and Thomas and Magdelene and the Ebionites.

          Let me give you one quote from about 80 years after John the Apostle died.  “For as there are four quarters of the world in which we live, and four universal winds . . . so it is natural that it [the Church] should have four pillars . . . Whence it is manifest that the Word, the architect of all things, who sits upon the cherubim and holds all things together, having been manifested to men, has given us the gospel in fourfold form, but held together by one Spirit.”

          “Matthew published his Gospel among the Hebrews in their own tongue, when Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel in Rome and founding the church there.  After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself handed down to us in writing the substance of Peter’s preaching.  Luke, the follower of Paul, set down in a book the gospel preached by his teacher.  Then John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned on his breast, himself produced his Gospel, while he was living at Ephesus in Asia” (quoted from Evidence that demands a Verdict, by Josh McDowell, 66-67).

          Who gave this statement?  He was the Bishop of Lyons, who had gone there as a missionary and had turned almost the entire population of Lyons to Christ and sent missionaries to other parts of pagan Europe.  He was a student of Polycarp, who had been born in 70 AD and was a disciple of John the Apostle.  This bishop wrote a book in 180 AD called Against Heresies where he makes the statement I just quoted.  His name, Irenaeus.

          What this statement says is that by 180 AD, more than 100 years before Constantine, Irenaeus made clear that there were four and no more Gospels, that the Christian world accepted them to such an extent that they were like the four points of the compass, and he named them – Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.  He didn’t say, “we’ve got 75 gospels to choose from and we don’t know which ones fit the truth.”  He said the opposite, “the foundation of the Church rests on the gospel in fourfold form.”

 

                    3.  The consistency of the TEXT.  The New Testament has never been in “transition.”  The text has been set as in concrete, from day one.   Paul, for example, in 63 AD writes I Timothy and quotes from what he calls “scripture” (I Timothy 5:17-18).  What does he quote from?  It looks like he is quoting from the gospel of Luke, which was probably finished only a few years before.  Peter speaks of Paul in II Peter 3:15-16 and equates what he has written with “the other scriptures.”  The earliest copies we have, which are from the early 200s, less than 100 years after the apostle John died, are virtually identical to the copy you hold in your hand.  For Dan Brown to claim that “History has never had a definitive version of the book” is an unbelievably blatant lie.  It shows zero regard for history.  It doesn’t matter that Da Vinci Code begins with a “fact” page.  Dan Brown could not care less about the facts of history.