When God Became Man

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Lord of Spirits – "When God Became Man"

Date: December 13, 2024
Hosts: Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick & Fr. Stephen De Young
Theme: Exploring the relationship between the Incarnation of Christ and Old Testament theophanies, and challenging modern misconceptions about Christ’s divinity and humanity in Christian tradition.

---

Episode Overview

This episode delves deeply into the mystery of the Incarnation—how God became man in Jesus Christ—and how this is understood in Orthodox Christian tradition, especially in light of the bodily appearances (theophanies) of God in the Old Testament. The hosts challenge both ancient and modern misunderstandings about the nature and timing of the Incarnation, the humanity of Christ, heresies like Docetism, and the implications for salvation and human purpose.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction and Setting the Stage

• [03:04–03:38] The hosts introduce the evening’s topic: understanding the Incarnation when Old Testament theophanies depict God as appearing in bodily form.
  • Central Question: If the body Christ is born in comes from the Virgin Mary, how can it be the same body seen in Old Testament appearances?
  • Quick detour into heresies and history, with characteristic banter and references (including Hamlet and food in Denmark).

2. Early Christological Heresies

• [06:36–13:01] Overview of key early heresies:
  • Docetism: Claims Jesus was divine but only seemed to be human. Term from Greek dokeo (to seem). Denied Christ’s material humanity.
    • Quote: “These are groups where they taught that Jesus of Nazareth just appeared to be a human person.” — Fr. Stephen, [16:56]
  • Adoptionism/Cerinthianism: Jesus was a man upon whom the divine Logos descended at some point (often at baptism).
• [17:31–21:24] The hosts debunk the popular academic narrative (esp. from 19th-century German scholarship) that early Christians only believed in a human Jesus who was later thought of as divine.
  • Key Insight: The earliest recorded heretical arguments were not about Jesus becoming God, but about him being genuinely human.

3. Docetism: Misunderstandings and Realities

• [24:59–31:17]
  • Docetic communities were real, functioning religious groups, not just abstract doctrinal stances.
  • They're often lumped together with Gnostics, but this is misleading: their Torah-observance suggests Jewish roots, not anti-material Gnostic metaphysics.
  • Quote: “There’s a much simpler solution… these docetists are groups of Jewish Christians who believed that Jesus of Nazareth was a theophany—like the Old Testament theophanies—and not an actual human being.” — Fr. Stephen, [41:42]

4. New Testament Response to Docetism

• [44:23–52:02] The New Testament consistently and emphatically affirms the fleshly/human reality of Christ:
  • Christ’s post-resurrection body: “Touch me and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” — Jesus (Luke 24:39), [44:40]
  • “The Word became flesh…” (John 1:14), “who was descended from David according to the flesh…” (Romans 1:3), etc.
  • St. John sets the standard: “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.” (1 John 4:2), [50:15–50:27]

5. Why Emphasize Christ’s Flesh?

• [54:00–56:38] Most uses of “flesh” in the NT are negative, associated with sin, yet the apostles emphasize Christ’s “flesh” to counter the idea that he only seemed human.
• Key Observation: The persistent stress on Christ’s real humanity is evidence that such a notion was not universally accepted—or obvious—in earliest Christianity.

6. Pre-Existent, Spiritual Messiah in Judaism

• [67:14–71:51] Second-Temple Jewish literature (e.g., 1 Enoch) often speculates about a pre-existent, divine Messiah who would be revealed—laying a conceptual foundation for the doctrine of the Incarnation.

7. Theophanies: God’s Physical Appearances in the Old Testament

• [75:01–88:41] Multiple OT passages depict God with physicality:
  • Genesis 3: God walks in the garden (audibly!).
  • Exodus 24: Moses and elders “see the God of Israel… under his feet… he did not lay his hand on them;” they “beheld God and ate and drank.”
  • 1 Samuel 3, Jeremiah 1: God stands, touches, etc.
  • Genesis 18: Abraham washes the feet of “the LORD” and eats with Him.
  • Memorable Quote: “You can wash dirt off of God’s feet. And he eats!” — Fr. Stephen, [84:41]
• Key Tension: If these are “real” physical bodies, how does that square with the Son becoming man at the Annunciation?

8. Problem and Paradox: When Does the Incarnation Occur?

• [88:49–90:44]
  • Church tradition and hymnography say the feet washed by the sinful woman are the same that “walked in Eden.”
  • So: “Are we to say Christ was always incarnate? Or does ‘the Word became flesh’ mean something punctiliar?”
• Spicy Take: “Almost no Protestants believe in the virgin birth of Christ—only virgin conception.” — Fr. Stephen, [90:59–91:13]

9. Incarnation and the Nature of Change

• [94:00–98:48]
  • God is unchanging. Can the Second Person of the Trinity “take on” human nature at a point in time without change?
  • “Natures don’t do things—persons do things.” Taking “body” historically means taking a nature.

10. The Humanity of Christ: Existing in Time and Space

• [116:49–117:50]
  • Humanity, by definition, entails existing in time and space: birth, life, death, locality.
  • Christ's period as a man—from conception to death—fits within these constraints, but post-resurrection that changes.

11. The Resurrection and Transcendence of Time & Space

• [126:25–131:14]
  • Glorified Christ's resurrected humanity exists outside time and space: “He’s not bound by doors, walls, or sequence—he appears wherever and whenever.”
  • Revelation and Ephesians show: the apostles, including John, are seen enthroned in heaven already, hinting at "outside-time" realities.
  • Key Verse: “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8) — not plan B, but core to creation’s existence and goal.

12. Humanity Made According to Christ

• [143:05–148:07]
  • Icons depicting Christ breathing into Adam show that Adam (humanity) is made “according to” Christ’s image—iconographically, they have the same face.
  • “Christ is the image of the invisible God,” and all humans are created according to Him, underlining the destiny and dignity of humanity.

13. Why This Matters for Salvation and Spiritual Life

• [148:07–153:54]
  • Our destiny is in Christ: “seated in the high places,” “sons of the resurrection.”
  • Repentance and faithfulness are aligning with that purpose; salvation is about becoming truly human in Christ, not just “where you go when you die.”
  • Final Exhortation: More than intellectual speculation, the incarnation should incite awe, reverence, and humble admiration for God’s love.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (by Timestamp)

• [16:56] Fr. Stephen: “These are groups where they taught that Jesus of Nazareth just appeared to be a human person.”
• [21:24] Fr. Stephen: “There were people at the end of the first century… [arguing] ‘No, Jesus was human, not just divine.’”
• [44:40] Jesus (Luke 24:39): “Touch me and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
• [41:42] Fr. Stephen: “These docetists are groups of Jewish Christians who believed that Jesus of Nazareth was a theophany—like the Old Testament theophanies—and not an actual human being.”
• [84:41] Fr. Stephen: "You can wash dirt off of God's feet. And he eats!"
• [90:59–91:13] Fr. Stephen: “Almost no Protestants believe in the virgin birth of Christ. Conservative Protestants believe in the virgin conception of Christ. But they don’t believe that the Theotokos was a virgin after giving birth.”
• [139:13] Fr. Stephen: “This is the basis and the purpose of the creation of everything in the universe…”
• [145:00–145:46] Fr. Andrew: “Man is made in the image of God… Well, who is the image of God? Christ is the image of God… If Adam is made according to His image, it makes sense to depict that in an icon… Adam looking just like Jesus. All of this is there.”
• [151:35–153:54] Fr. Stephen (closing reflection): “There’s an important place… for awe directed toward God… for awe and admiration directed toward our Lord Jesus Christ for who he is and what he has done for us… Just sit or stand in wonder at the God who created us and the destiny that he created us for.”

---

Key Takeaway Segments and Timestamps

• First discussion of Docetism and early heresies: [06:36–23:52]
• Jewish roots and the issue with “Gnosticizing” docetism: [39:05–41:48]
• New Testament’s emphasis on Christ’s flesh: [44:23–52:02]
• Old Testament Theophanies and their implications: [75:01–88:41]
• Paradox and liturgical witness to Christ’s one body: [88:49–90:44]
• Resurrection: Christ and humanity outside of time: [126:25–131:14]
• Revelation’s vision of the 24 elders (time and eternity): [131:14–135:13]
• Summary, awe, and the spiritual utility of the mystery: [148:07–153:54]

---

Concluding Reflection

The episode masterfully weaves together scripture, early heresies, Jewish tradition, worship, and iconography to reveal a profound Orthodox vision: the Incarnation is not an “intervention” or afterthought but the very source and goal of creation. All humans are made to share in Christ’s glory, and the mystery of his being “slain before the foundation of the world” resists easy rationalization, summoning instead awe and worship. The real fruit is to live with reverence, repentance, and hopeful longing for the fullness of our human destiny in Jesus Christ.

---

For further engagement:

• Read the seven letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch ([23:35–23:48]) for early apostolic witness against docetism.
• Meditate on the icon of the creation of Adam as described ([143:05–145:46]).
• Approach the Nativity season seeking not only understanding, but awe and wonder at “the God who became man for our sake.”

---

End of Summary

Transcript

[Narrator]

He will be a staff for the righteous with which for them to stand and not to fall. And he will be the light of the nations and the hope of those whose hearts are troubled. All who dwell on the earth will fall down and worship him. And they will praise and bless and celebrate with song the lord of spirits. First Enoch, chapter 48, verses 4 through 5. The modern world doesn't acknowledge, but is nevertheless haunted by spirits, angels, demons and saints. In our time, many yearn to break free of the prison of a flat secular materialism, to see and to know reality as it truly is. What is this spiritual reality like? How do we engage with it? Well, how do we permeate everyday life with spiritual presence? Orthodox Christian priests, Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung host this live call in show focused on enchantment in creation, the the union of the seen and unseen as made by God and experienced by mankind throughout history. Welcome to the Lord of Spirits.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Thanks for that voice of Steve. Good evening, giant killers, dragon slayers, Wibbly wobbly timey wimers. You are listening to the Lord of Spirits podcast.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I'm here. I'm Father Stephen DeYoung and I'm here with an Orthodox priest.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

As Michael Horton called me today.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Shout out to old friend Mike Horton.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right, yeah. So, yes, we are live. And if you're listening to us live, you could call us at 855-237-2346 and you can talk to us. And we're going to get to your calls in the second half of the show. And our very own, our beloved Matushka, Trudy the Tank Richter will be taking those calls. This episode is sponsored by Lord of Spigots, Faucets and Fixtures. Are you concerned about what's really in your tap water? Not just contaminants from the local Superfund site or that time your cousin backed his leaky jeep into the creek. But spiritual contamination. Ever get the feeling like your morning coffee was looking back at you? Or maybe that your eggs were having some hell boiled into them? Well, we have the spigot for you. Or are all new Lord of Spigots, spiritual stones, filtration faucets, patent pending, equipped with authentic ummim and thummim shaped purifiers, will leave your tap water not just sparkling clean, but so pure from demonic presence that you'd think you were burning incense 24 7. After you install one of these, your parish priest will be coming to you for holy water. And with just one extra monthly payment of $29,999.95. You can get the optional aspergillum faucet head which will have all your tradcath friends chanting aspergis May acts now and will throw in not just one but two ancient faith branded potholder and tea cozy sets. Call now Lord of spigots, faucets and fixtures.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Why are we throwing that super expensive bone to the Western? Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So tonight we're going to tackle a subject that we've referenced many, many times over the course of our now hundreds of hours of yakking on how to understand the incarnation of Christ in light of the bodily experiences of God in the Old Testament. We've said in the past that the body with which the son of God walks in Eden or eats with Abraham is the same body taken from the Virgin Mary. How can this be? Doesn't the second person of the Trinity only become man around 2,000 years ago? But then what do we do with those very material.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's not weird. Hear us out.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay? Yeah, yeah. It's all going to work out in the end, everybody. I promise. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how do we deal with those very material experiences of God in the Old Testament? And. And this is the question I want answered. Was Hamlet fighting against Docetism when he said seems? Madam, Nay, I know not seems.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I think he was opposed to women being involved in the art of tailoring.

Was actually what was going on there.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Something is rotten in Denmark.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Probably the lutefisk.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's the whole charm of the place.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And its cuisine north of there. I know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes, yes. And we have, by the way, tuning in tonight. We've got someone from Norway, someone from Brazil, someone from Bayonne.

Who else? Who else is. Where else are you people tuning in from? I'm sure you're all over. Oh, someone from North Carolina, the old north state land of the longleaf pine.

Oh, and somewhere over the rainbow in Kansas. Very nice, very nice.

Oh, one of our listeners says, I'm not convinced Lord of Spigots is real. Why would I do a commercial for something that's not real?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. When have we ever lied to our audience?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

He's calling me a liar, apparently.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. How dare you, Sir Ormat.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Ooh, Manitoba. Manitoba. I've been to the capital of Manitoba. It is like a playground of freemasonry. I'm not even kidding about that. Manitoba.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Canada is a freemason conspiracy.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You heard it. Some from Texas.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Spirits don't believe their apologies. They aren't sincere.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, some of them from Sweden. We have a Swedish Listener. That's good. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So we have everyone from Scandinavia. Except a Dane.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Except a Dane. Do Finland. Do Finns count as Scandinavia? I. I don't know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I'm not gonna know that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Across the Baltic. Yeah, I don't. I don't know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They speak a weird native Finn language.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Florida, Panhandle. Hello, Florida. Ontario. Hello, Ontario. Yeah. All right. We got a number of countries tuning in.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. To hear us talk about what countries are tuning in.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So this is the. All very. It's all very circular and meta that you.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That you get here on the learning podcast.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You are super committed to this one being a shorter one, too. Amazing. And this is how we start.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I think you are of two minds about the whole thing, sir.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's all right. I accept my fate.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. So.

You brought up docetism there at the beginning, and that's where we're going to start. Going to start with heresies.

Just a few of the 1000 heresies practiced by a certain member of my parish.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That poor guy, it's been a while since he's called in.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It has. Yeah. He's been trolling a certain Protestant apologist on Twitter, I think.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, yes. Who I. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Instead of us on the phone.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But.

So really what we're talking about tonight, obviously, is under the subheading of Christology.

[Narrator/Announcer]

The.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The title of the episode, I think most people didn't realize, was kind of a question.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

When in terms of how do we understand the relationship between Christ's incarnation and time and space?

And so we're talking about the incarnation, we're talking about Christology.

And.

One of the ways into.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Early.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Christology.

Is actually to look at ancient heresies. Why? Well, because in the controversy over especially very early heresies.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We see.

Something. In the heretical movement, we see something being denied.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And therefore on the other side, something being asserted.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And so.

Different sorts of heresies arise at different times.

Based on what things are taken for granted, what things are seen as open for dispute.

An emphasis going one way will trigger an over emphasis going the other way that turns into something heretical and vice versa. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Sometimes you have dueling heresies.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. The correction of that heretical move too far in one direction might lead to a counter move in the other direction that then also needs to be corrected. Right.

[Narrator/Announcer]

So.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We'Re starting with what is arguably the very first Christological heresy.

And by very first, we're talking about end of the first century, beginning of the second century.

So we're dealing with Nascent Christianity and factions within it. Now, you can make a pretty good case that the earliest Christian heresy is. Is some form of Marcianism.

Marcianism is heretical on a bunch of counts.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. It's kind of a whole little. It's not one idea. It's. It's a whole system of stuff. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And it's not explicitly a Christological problem.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I mean, there's a certain polytheism problem with Marciasm.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But it's not strictly speaking.

Marcia did believe that Jesus Christ was the son of the true God. He just had another one running around.

So the other kind of contender for earliest Christological heresy. And why am I pausing to do this at the beginning? I think we all know why. Because if I don't do this, there's going to be, like, YouTube comments. Actually, we're going to get a lot of hats. Yes. Like, technically, this other one. Right. Okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So tip those fedoras everywhere. Although actually the fedora tipping guy is not the image you usually get. It's not actually fedora. It is in fact, a hat called a trilby.

[Narrator/Announcer]

So.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Mm.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Just putting that out there.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You have confirmed your title as the Earl of Pedantry for this.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right.

I mean, what podcast are we on?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So the other kind of contender for earliest Christological heresy would probably be Cerinthianism.

Yes. I know Cerinthus is somebody you all think about every day.

But Cerinthianism is sort of a version of what comes to be a larger category of heretical Christologies called adoptionism.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. The idea that Jesus is a man and he gets sort of made God. He gets adopted as the Son of God.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. That's where the adoption comes from. But just he's a divinized. He is a man who is divinized in some way at some point.

And so this is. That's a broad category. Obviously, adoptionism is called adoptionism. Rather than being called after the name of a person, there's not a guy named Adoptus who came up with it.

But it's called that because it covers this. Why? So there were adoptionists who thought that Jesus became the Son of God at the resurrection at different points. Right. But Cerinthus in particular taught that.

Jesus of Nazareth was just a man, but then at his baptism, the divine Logos came and sort of attached itself to him.

So.

You have within there the idea that the Logos, the second person of the Trinity, and Jesus are different people.

Sort of, but who are connected. And that connection happens after a certain period in Jesus life. This is actually the heresy for which the author of the Last Temptation of Christ was excommunicated from the Greek Orthodox Church.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Fun fact.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, by the way, we have someone. This might be our first time. I don't know, but we have someone tuning in from New Zealand, so hello, New Zealand.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

New zealish person.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes. Yes. And also someone said they were tuning in from Mexico. I don't remember seeing Mexico before, actually. This might be our first. First Mexican listener.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's pretty cool. Other than the radio station.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Other than the radio station. That's true. But.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

Because I wonder, like, I wonder if they could hear me talking quietly in the background of their music.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I'm sure you converted several of them.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's possible.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's probably.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Somebody. Somebody on Twitter said, I have converted more people to Christianity than Pope Francis. And I didn't know how to take that.

I wasn't sure.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Where does one even begin? Even begin?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

So I'm probably. It was meant as a compliment or a shot at Pope Francis. I don't know. It could be, you know. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Porque no los does.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

So Cerinthus lived very early on. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So end of first, Beginning of the second century.

So some people will say that, but.

Corinthianism as such.

Didn'T sort of become a significant movement.

That's why, for example, if you've studied early Christianity, you've heard of adoptionism and probably not of Cerinthianism. Right.

There isn't a big sort of movement surrounding him. Whereas docetism. Right. Even though it's also not named after a person, it's not named after Okie doke or something.

It forms some kind of.

Cohesive group in the sense that there were some kind of congregation, some kind of communities that could be identified as docetist communities.

By Saint Ignatius of Antioch, amongst others.

And so. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So he throws a lot of wonderful shade at them.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. So what is docetism? Well, docetism.

Comes from the. Everybody, you know, everybody always says it comes from the verb dokeo, which means to seem. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But there's a noun, doxa, that means seeming.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Which is doxa, or the way something appears. Yeah. Glory.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It could also mean opinion, but Opinion. But it's that group of.

That group of Greek.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Related to the word dogma as well.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. Well, that doxa is the one in orthodoxy.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But it means to seem or to appear. Right. Or seeming or appearance, if we're talking about the noun. And the idea here is that.

These are groups where they taught that Jesus of Nazareth just appeared to be a human person.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. They completely agreed.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Seemed to be a human person.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

They agreed that he's divine, but they're like his humanity just kind of apparent or seeming. That's the reason why Saint Ignatius at one point says they're the seeming ones. In other words, those are the fakes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. So this is the end of the first, beginning of the second century.

Now by the way.

I know we've beaten this hopefully to death, right.

If not, here's round 18 on the.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Looks of exhume this dead horse of.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Us going after our 19th century German friends and their view of the evolution of theology.

And this is really the Bauer hypothesis. This is really Christology, evolutionary Christology. We're going after this time rather than the Trinity or what have you.

But this idea, right, which is still.

Especially if you pick up sort of out of date books.

You will still find touted that, oh.

In the first century everyone believed that Jesus was just a man, that he was a prophet, that he was a human prophet, a human messiah. And then you know, a little bit later they started thinking he was like kind of divine in some sense.

And then it's only when you get to like the 4th century that anybody thinks he's.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I mean there's even, I mean there's relatively recent books about this. I think there's one with titles like When Jesus Became God or something like that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, relatively. We're old, Father Andrew.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

We'Re seven sevens. Fathers.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You just like refer to a recent book that came out 20 years ago.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh no. Yes, I'm out of touch.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, yes, your bones are drawing to powder. And Bart Ehrman, who wrote that book has changed his position since then.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, there's also one by a guy named. I haven't read it. Richard Rubenstein called When Jesus Became God.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But the Bart Ehrman. And then there was a response book that a bunch of evangelicals wrote called When God Became Jesus.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Ehrman's book is How Jesus became.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, How Jesus became.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

There you go.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So, but he's, he's now changed now I still disagree with him. For example, he basically thinks St. Paul was an Aryan. Oh, but that's, that's closer than what he used to say, right? He used to say St. Paul just thought Jesus of Nazareth was a human. So he's kind of moving in the right direction. But the problem, and I think this is part of, I mean I can't speak for him, I don't know his mind, but I think part of why he changed his mind is just it seems pretty obvious that if one of our earliest, if not the earliest, Christological heresies consists of groups of people believing that Jesus is divine and not human.

That that whole evolutionary thing kind of falls apart.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean.

It'S amazing. I mean, it's astonishing. It's breathtaking to me how many people have this view. And yet almost all of the early arguments over Christology for centuries are not about whether he's God or how he's God, it's whether and how he's human.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, we are early on. Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Even. Yeah, even Arianism is a version of that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Accepts that he's divine. Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

In some sense, just in a different sense, that is correct. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. So I mean, this alone should totally flip that. Right? Like.

Hello, there were people at the end of the first century.

Who Christians had to argue with to say, no, Jesus was human, not just divine.

I don't know how you get from that fact, which they would acknowledge is a fact. They don't deny that the Docetus existed. Yeah, right. I don't know how you get from there to. Everybody just thought he was a human messiah and then gradually they started thinking he was more and more divine. That it just doesn't make. You can't hold those two things together.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean, you know St. Ignatius, who is literally a. Not even a second generation Christian, like a half a one and a 1.5 generation Christian.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Apostles.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, he's with the apostles. He's ordained by the apostles. He's a disciple of the Apostle John, probably ordained by St. Peter.

He's our best, earliest.

Source for the. Not just the existence of the Docetists, but what they believe. He's constantly arguing with them in his seven letters.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. You know, his seven letters that everyone agrees are legit.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. And he's your wildest liberal.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Your wackiest Protestant. All agree that these letters are legit.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

He talks about the flesh of Jesus over and over and over and over again. Like it's really something that he's really hammering on.

You know, but also he's human, you guys.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But also importantly, he never does that at the expense of Christ being divine.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, absolutely not.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Absolutely never says, oh now hold your horses, guys. He's not divine, he's actually human.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Or he's half and half. No, he's not that divine because he's kind of human. Right. He argues passionately for Christ's humanity while also fully acknowledging everything the Docetists want to say about Christ's divinity and in some cases more.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And I mean, and you know, listener, if you don't, if you don't believe us, just take the time to read his seven letters.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You can read, they're not long.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

In the space of an hour. Yeah, you can read all seven of them in the space of an hour.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

So.

There is then this question of. Well, okay, docetism, as we said, we're, we're really just.

Talking about Christology. Right. But I, I made the statement that docetism, unlike adoptionism, that there were these actual communities, right? That this isn't just a category for lumping together everybody whose version of Christology.

Doesn'T hold to Christ's full humanity. Right. It's not just that. Now it does become that a little bit later. And in some sloppy scholarship, like they'll refer to 4th and 5th century groups as having a decentic Christology. Right. Because their Christology is similar to this. Right. But the Docetus proper are these groups are these actual communities at the end of the first or beginning of the second centuries. And that means they have other beliefs too, Right. Like they're not just gathering every day to talk about like that Jesus wasn't human.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, this is partly why Saint Ignatius not only talks about the, their Christology, but also the fact that they won't receive the Eucharist together with them. And he has this massive emphasis on worship being with the bishop, even goes so far at one point as to say.

Anyone who is not with the bishop is a worshiper of the devil. Like it's pretty strong language.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. But these, these were nonetheless functioning communities, religious communities.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. We lose, I think we lose sight of that sometimes.

When we're talking about these ancient heretical groups. Like we think the Aryans just sat around all day talking about how the Son is not equal to the Father. Yeah, like, no, they had like liturgies and they read the Bible and preached and yeah, like they had a whole thing going on. It's just they had this one, one element very wrong. Right. In their theology. And that was reflected in places in their worship and in other things. Right.

There was fallout from that, but they were also functioning communities. And so.

One of the questions then comes like, well, what kind of communities were these.

Communities? Right. And the default answer you'll get.

From most.

So the number of people actually studying docetism, Right. Like they wrote their dissertation about docetism is relatively small, as with any other hyper specialization in academia. Yeah, right. So, and in any hyper specialization in academia, you have tiers of literature, right? So you have the books on docetism written by the handful of, you know, $130 paperback Brill Books written by the people who are scholars of docetism.

Right? And they're talking about docetism on one level. So when I say most scholarship, I'm not talking about that.

Because that is like hyper nuanced and stuff, right? Like these are guys off at a quarter discussing this stuff in excruciating detail, right? I'm talking about your average. When I say most scholarship, I'm talking about certain biblical commentaries on parts of the New Testament that will refer to docetism.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Sure.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Or, you know, early church history books.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They talk about the heresy of docetism, Right. What most of those kind of things will say is they will basically treat Docetism as just, well, these are Gnostics.

Right? Now on one hand that's easy to do because Gnostic again is this big basket into which tons of groups get thrown, right? And say Irenaeus in the second half of the second century kind of uses this term, Gnostics to bunch together the Sethians and the Valentinians and the surviving, surviving Marcionite groups and a whole bunch of other groups to say, hey, they have these features in common, right? So we'll put them all in this basket as a way of talking about them. Right?

But.

It'S not like the Sethians and the Valentinians were like in communion with each other or something.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No, no, these are just sort of academic categories, right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

This is, this is just a big tent category. So on one hand, you know, looping these descendant communities into Gnosticism, right? Like you're just saying, well, okay, they're just kind of similar in certain ways, so we're just going to throw them in that basket.

But the problem is, the problem is once you do that, then people make a whole bunch of assumptions about these decidic communities.

Right? For example, the big thing that, that categorizes most of these.

Gnostic groups.

That causes them to get thrown into that basket is that there is a confused, certain confusion of metaphysics and ethics where they view matter as evil.

Right? And then spirit.

As good.

And so yes.

In most sort of gnostic schemes, they're all over the place because there's all these different fractured sects of Gnosticism. They're not going to have anything like an incarnation.

Of the Christ or the Logos. Sometimes in these Gnostic systems, the Logos and the Christ and Jesus are three different people.

It's kind of a mess, right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's wacky stuff.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There are three Jesuses in Manichaeanism, for example. Like there's.

But the point being, yes, they all pretty much never have an incarnation because matter is evil. Right. And so if they're holding some figure to be good and divine, then it can't be incarnate in matter because matter is evil.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But the fact that their belief in matter being evil causes them to say.

That the Christ just seemed to be a man, doesn't mean that the Docetists, because they said Christ just seemed to be a man, thought matter was evil.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There are other reasons why you could think that.

Right.

Now. Why would you want to bother just lumping the dostices in with Gnosticism anyway? One might ask, right? Why not just have a couple of lines in your textbook saying the docetus were groups of Christians who didn't believe that Jesus was really a man, that he just appeared to be a man. Why just leave it there. Why? Why are we putting the Gnostic label on that? What's the purpose of categorizing them with the Gnostics? Well, you have to understand is that way back in the long ago time when Father Andrew and I were young and full of life and vigor, as opposed to now.

Back then we were in the middle of what is now called the third quest for the historical Jesus.

Which didn't turn out so swell.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Kind of all felt best story ever.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, like.

Indiana Jones at least found the thing he was looking for, even if it got warehoused, you know, like.

But. And part of.

The agenda for some of the scholars involved in it.

A number of whom are now dead.

So we can speak ill of. No, I'm just kidding.

Like Robert Funk. And.

Robert Funk was a wild dude, by the way. He was the guy who started the Jesus seminar and he had been like a boy Methodist preacher, like when he was 11 and 12.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, it's such a weird phenomenon.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

He'd been like a hellfire and brimstone boy preacher.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I think it kind of had an effect on him negatively, religiously, that whole experience.

But Sergeant Jesus ever part of their. And Marcus Borg is now deceased. John Dominic Croissant is still around and kicking.

Feisty as ever. But the.

Part of the agenda of some of those folks was they were trying really hard to make an argument that Gnosticism preceded orthodox Christianity. Yeah, they really wanted to argue, especially Funk, that.

Gnosticism was the original Christianity and it was actually orthodox Christianity, what we now call orthodox Christianity, that was a heretical offshoot of the original Gnosticism.

And you know, we will go into all the reasons why of that. A lot of it had to do with not understanding Gnosticism. But.

There was this kind of view, very boomerific view, that somehow Gnosticism was like sexually liberated and.

Gender egalitarian and all this stuff, which is absolutely not true. But that was the idea where as opposed to.

Mean old, crusty, misogynist Christianity.

And so they made all kinds of arguments, hypothesizing an early Aramaic version of the Gospel of Thomas that we don't have, that was written before the canonical gospels, on and on and on. Right. And so there was this impetus throughout that sort of movement to try to make Gnosticism as early as possible. The problem with this whole thing, of course, is that gnosticism is a 2nd century phenomenon, a mid 2nd century phenomenon.

It is in the mid 2nd century an attempt to, in some cases not all sort of sprinkle Christian terminology and symbolism across paganism.

And make this sort of syncretistic hybrid.

They do the same thing with Judaism. They do the same thing with different forms of.

Eastern religion.

Insofar as they had access to it. They just sort of gets sprinkled and syncretized with Greco Roman paganism, with Egyptian religion.

So really that. That's what Gnosticism is. It's this syncretistic tradition within.

Greco Roman paganism in the mid second century. So by roping or looping Docetism, which actually did exist at the end of the first century.

Into Gnosticism, by making it a kind of Gnosticism. Well, look, we just put Gnosticism back into the first century, boys.

We just need another 60 years or so and we're golden. Right.

Unfortunately, they couldn't manage to get gnosticism back that 60 years. It just didn't work.

And it all fell apart.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I mean, I was gonna say, I think it's partly because like, Christianity just isn't that well known yet. You know, by that point that you get this sort of weird philosophical speculation and magic systems and whatever that is. Gnosticism starting to mess with it. Right, let's see.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They were trying to. Of course, this is connected to quest for the historical Jesus. They were trying to mess with the historical Jesus.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, of course.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And turn Jesus into some kind of philosopher sorcerer thing, depending on. And the real. Honestly, the. Even some of the participants now have kind of yielded to the analysis that when you go looking for the historical Jesus, the Jesus you find, looks a lot like you.

At best, it looks like an idealized version of you. Right. Like it looks like what you aspire to be.

And so, yeah.

Even among the participants of the Jesus seminar and the third quest for the historical Jesus.

They all publish their books on the historical Jesus. And none of them agreed with each other about anything hardly. You know, which makes it real hard to argue that this is the product of like objective scholarly research when everybody's conclusions are completely different.

In terms of some pretty basic things. Right.

Well, so if we, so we rule this out, we say like, there's no reason to bring Gnosticism into this discussion.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

What else do we know about these Dcetic communities? Well, I think one of the things that we know.

That'S been mostly treated as confusing.

In the literature is St. Ignatius makes a pretty clear references in the midst of talking about these dossed groups to them strictly keeping the Torah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

As in like circumcision, the whole shebang, like keeping it as if they were Jews. Right.

And this, of course, like I said, this gets treated as a problem in the literature because the literature, and again, I'm not talking about the top end stuff from the hyper specialists, but I'm talking about the general literature. General literature says, well, docetism is gnostic.

How does that fit with. You have to be circumcised in the flesh and keep kosher.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Because why would Gnosticism care about that kind of thing?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, right. In fact, Gnosticism tends to be kind of Marcionite. They tend to really not like the Old Testament. Yeah, right. So it doesn't make a lot of sense. So you get some, you read, start reading journal articles about this. You get some people proposing things.

A lot of people just ignore the stuff about Torah keeping because it doesn't make sense to them. You get some people proposing, well, maybe this is a Jewish Gnostic group.

Right.

That he's dealing with, to try to like split the difference. Right. And there are some phenomena in the second century, like I mentioned, that you could kind of call Jewish Gnosticism but again, they're Jewish Gnosticism. So there's like Judaism sprinkled across it. But they're not like Pharisees.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They're not like, they're not, you know, focused on keeping the Torah. It's not within, this is not a phenomenon within Rabbinic Judaism. Yeah, right. This is something else.

Let me propose, there's a much simpler solution here. Right. Again, flush Gnosticism out of the picture. Why would a Jewish group. Why would a Jewish group.

That accepts Jesus as the Messiah.

Think that he wasn't human?

Well, there's a lot of theophanies in the Old Testament, right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

God appears a whole bunch of times. We've talked about a lot. Go to our Christology episodes. Old Testament Christology episodes. Right. God appears, shows up, does things. People see him in the Old Testament. Right. Seems to me to be a much simpler solution that these docetists are groups of Jewish Christians.

Who believed that Jesus of Nazareth was a theophany.

Right. Like the Old Testament theophanies and not an actual human being.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And one can see how from the perspective of.

The rest of Christianity, this would be a problem.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

This would be a problem.

So.

How early can we trace docetism? Well, one of the things people will do with this again in the literature is they'll say, well, are there anti docetic texts in the New Testament?

Are there places where we see, say in the epistles of the New Testament where we see.

The authors writing against docetism or against ascetic communities?

The answer to that, properly speaking, is no.

Right. The technically correct answer, that is the best kind of correct is no, because those groups don't exist yet as the epistles are being read.

But really, yes.

In the sense that. In the sense that there are texts in the New Testament which.

Because of what they say. Right. Attack, criticize, refute Docetism.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Even though they weren't originally aimed at.

These groups that didn't exist yet.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. So in the same way that later the church fathers could say, oh, this text is aimed at refuting Donatism. While Donatists lived in the 4th century.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So none of the apostles were like having visions. There will be a heretic in the 4th century. I must refute him. Right.

But things they wrote apply to the things that Donatus got wrong.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. When the fathers went looking for stuff in the scriptures to express the faith that they believed in, this was stuff that they pointed at.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And so there's a whole series of texts here that we're going to go through relatively quickly.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Relative for us.

That emphasize the fact that Jesus.

Has specifically flesh, but also bones, blood. Right. Human material reality.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Okay. We're going to start with Luke 24:39. This is one of the post resurrection appearances of Jesus. This is Jesus speaking. He says, see my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So he's this Is after the resurrection.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Pretty straightforward. Not a ghost.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. Still has this body. And let me say, I'm not going to mention the person today, but of respect for the person.

But an intelligent person.

Used this verse as kind of a weird proof text to argue that Jesus after the resurrection, didn't have any blood. I know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Because it said flesh and bones.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because it says flesh and bones. The argument, I guess, is that as we're gonna see a little later, flesh and blood would be the more common colocation.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But it says flesh and bones.

Allow me to suggest that if we read this whole verse again.

See my hands and my feet, that as I myself touch me. And see.

When you touch a person, you don't feel their blood.

You feel their flesh in their bones, that they are solid and therefore not a spirit.

Right. Christ doesn't say.

The fact that Christ doesn't say in that verse, cut me. Do I not bleed? The second one for tonight.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

There you go.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The fact that he doesn't say that doesn't mean he doesn't have blood. Right. That's a false conclusion to jump to.

But he does have flesh. So even after the resurrection here, this is emphasizing he still has his material body.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

Okay. John, chapter 1, verse 14. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory. Glory is of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and. And truth.

The famous prologue of John. The Word became flesh.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Acts, chapter 2, verse 31. He foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Now, this is important because again, this is talking about the resurrection.

Right. If Christ was just a spirit or a ghost, his flesh still would have seen corruption in the grave.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Or if it's just even after the.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Resurrection he has left behind, there'd be no point in mentioning that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right. St. Paul in Romans, chapter one, verse three. This is continuing, continuing a previous sentence concerning his Son, who is descended from David according to the flesh. So emphasizing that his descent from David is the way that everyone else is descended from their ancestors.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You know, he has a family tree.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Just like humans.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep, yep. So, okay, same book, Romans, chapter 9, verse 5. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. Wait a minute.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

He is part of Jewish ethni.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

God overall.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Man.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. But he is part of the Jewish ethni here.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

According to the flesh from the patriarchs, from their race or nation or. Yeah.

All right. Ephesians 2:14. For he himself is our peace. That's speaking of Christ, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And this is referring to. This is referring to the crucifixion.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So this is referring to his death according to the flesh.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

In the flesh. Yeah. Okay. Hebrews 2:14. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So he partook of flesh and blood.

Like the humans who he is saving.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep. And then emphasizing through death, you know, he has that human body, therefore he can die. Okay. First Peter 4:1 2. Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking. For whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for human passions, but for the will of God. So that's Christ's suffering in the flesh. And so if we also suffer in the flesh.

Joining our suffering to him, we cease from sin so that our time again in the flesh is no longer, as he says, for human passions, but according to God's will instead.

Yep, yep. Okay. First John 4:2. By this, you know, the spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.

So again, that emphasis on it's pretty straightforward. The human body. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right, our final one, second John 17. For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's the same thing in the negative sense.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. So St. John, in those two epistles, sets this up as the sort of shibboleth for discerning spirits.

Is, did Jesus Christ come in the flesh?

And St. John is the one New Testament author who was alive at the end of the first century and who actually could have been dealing with something like Donatism.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Docetism, you mean? Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Or docetism. Yes. Not Donatism.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Two centuries out. Yeah. And.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And again, what the venerable Bead says about First John 2, verse 2. Oh, but yeah, yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And again, Ignatius is his disciple, so they're connected very much together.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

And so I. I think.

I think texts like that are so familiar to us.

And the fact that, yes, Jesus is human.

Is so taken for granted by Us.

I think most, most of our cultural. In America today, most of our cultural depictions of Jesus.

If they err. Err on the side of human, all too human. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And, you know, we're maybe a little more prone to lose sight of Christ's divinity than likewise.

You know, we've got.

People on a certain television network having visions of Jesus playing the saxophone over their beds at night.

We've got a lot. Is that real bad? Paintings of cuddly Jesus giving people and animals hugs.

You know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. But I mean, you know, the people in first century Judea, they saw him.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Do wonders, you know, more than any prophet had ever done. Greater stuff than any prophet had ever done. And as it says in the Gospels, hundreds of people saw him raised from the dead.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And you know, on a more at least quasi scholarly level, no serious person denies that Jesus existed as a human.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And I'll reiterate that anyone who. Anyone who comes to you and tells you that Jesus never existed is not a serious person.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

See Bart Ehrman's excellent book on the subject. Right. And let Bart explain to you why you're not a serious person if you think Jesus never existed. Friend of the show, Bart Ehrman.

So still, the offer is still good, by the way. Yeah. Dimly aware of my. And this show's existence now. We know.

And that we refer to him as a friend of the show.

So if you hear this Bart or someone passes it on to you, you still have open invitation to come on the show at any time.

Completely unironically. Right. To talk about whatever.

The only person who has that.

Is the show Bert Ehrman.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I say on, on the, on the rest is history podcasts. Most of their friends of the show are all dead for centuries, so there's no, no danger of them coming on.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, who knows?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So. But, yeah, so it doesn't, it doesn't strike us when we read like that list. And we could list more quotes, trust me. But those are just representative. When you read a list of quotes like that, the fact that they keep talking about Christ's flesh doesn't strike us.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But if you just go.

Do the strong's concordance thing.

Look at how flesh is talked about in the New Testament.

The vast majority of uses of the term flesh are negative.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There is, for example, a distinction in St. Paul where when he's talking about our physicality, our material physicality, he talks about our body. And when he's talking about our sinful desires and passions, he talks about our flesh.

Right. And St. Paul made some of those quotes about Christ that we just read are from St. Paul.

St. Peter. Right. After talking about Christ, suffering in the flesh, is talking about making no provision for the flesh and its desires. Right. On and on and on. Right. So.

It seems counterintuitive.

That the apostles, the way they usually talk about flesh, human flesh, that they would want to attribute that to Jesus because they're also all completely clear that Jesus was not a sinner.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

So why would they do that? Why would they use that term? Why wouldn't they use some other term?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Why would they do that?

Especially if.

Everyone at the time agreed he was a human person.

Why would you feel the need to keep pointing to the flesh? Right.

It seems really weird because when you.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Dig into it, clearly some people did not believe it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, Right. And we're not saying they're necessarily already docetists around, but again, where did docetism come from? And what we find and what we've talked about before on the show in various contexts and that we're going to be talking about more now in the second half is the fact that by the time you get to the first century within Second Temple Judaism, there is this belief, a very firm, solid belief expressed in various ways that the Messiah.

Right. Who is going to come is some kind of pre existing divine or divinized being, the Logos, the Son of man, the Messiah. This is a being that already existed before coming as the Messiah. Right. This is an idea that a whole lot of people have.

But we'll revisit that. You've heard us talk about this before, but we're going to revisit it again and focus in on it here in the second half coming up.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, that's the first half of this episode of the Lord of Spirits. We're going to take a short break and we'll be right back. See you soon.

[Narrator]

Father Andrew Stephen Damick and father Stephen DeYoung will be back in a moment to take your calls on the next part of the Lord of Spirits. Give them a call at 855-23-7-2346. That's 855-AF-ADIO.

The centuries after the Protestant Reformation brought about a radical reinterpretation of The Epistles of St. Paul, disconnected from any historical reality. But Paul operated during his entire life as a faithful Pharisee within the Roman Jewish world. In St. Paul the Pharisee, Jewish Apostle to all nations, Father Stephen DeYoung surveys Paul's life in writings, interpreting them within the holy tradition of the Orthodox Church. This survey is followed by DeYoung's interpretive translation of St. Paul's epistles, which deliberately avoids overly familiar terminology. By using words and ideas grounded in 1st century Judaism, DeYoung hopes to unsettle commonly held notions and help the reader reassess St. Paul in his historical context. Available now at store ancientfaith.com Again, that is store.ancient faith.com. we're back now with the Lord of Spirits with Father Andrew, Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung. If you have a question, call now at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hey, thanks. Voice of Steve. I was actually talking to the real Steve the other day on the telephone. He is more than.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Are you implying that the voice of Steve is a fake?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No, he only seems to know 8. That's the wrong half. Yeah. So. Well, we, before we dive into the second half, we actually do have someone calling from Colorado, it seems.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Is it friend of the show, Bart Ehrman?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's probably not. Probably not. Yeah, It's Alec. So, Alec, welcome to the Lord of Spirits podcast.

[Caller Alec]

Thank you so much for having me. Fathers bless God bless you.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

What's on your mind, Alec?

[Caller Alec]

Well, longtime fan, so thank you so much for taking the time. A question that might be somewhat pertinent tonight, though I guess we'd have to rewind time a little bit. In the Gospels, there are mentions of both the disciples and our Lord preaching the gospel. And Father Ender, I've read your book on this topic. And so I'm curious, what was the gospel they were preaching at that time, before the crucifixion and resurrection had happened? I don't think we're as much getting into Jesus being as open about his proclamation as the incarnate Son at that time. So what was the gospel they were preaching?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I mean, the short version of it is simply repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. Right. It says this very explicitly, you know, that Christ is preaching that gospel, John the Baptist is preaching that gospel. Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. Certainly all the things that Jesus was about to do.

Would not have been in the content of that necessarily. But.

That'S the idea is that that there's this conquest that is coming.

And Jesus is the conqueror. And so you need to repent if you're going to be on board with what's coming. Right. So all the details are not quite there yet, but the message is there. And I mean, it's clearly effective. People are repenting when John the Baptist preaches that even before Jesus is on the public scene, you know.

So, so, yeah, I mean, that's, that's what it is. Very basically. It's, it's, it's, it's really about you. You need to change your way of living because the kingdom is coming and this is how citizens of the kingdom live, you know, so that's, that's the, the action item, so to speak, is repent. Because things are about to change. Everything's about to change. It's at hand. As, as St. John says, the ax is laid to the root of. You know, so, yeah, I mean, they're not saying Jesus has been crucified and risen from the dead yet. But of course, there are points, there are points when Jesus tells that to his disciples.

You know, one point where Peter kind of says, you know, rebukes him, like, stop saying that. That's weird.

But yeah, it's, yeah, it's repent. For the kingdom of God is at hand. Is there anything I left out there, Father?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, and I mean, in context, the kingdom of God is at hand brings the whole prophetic.

Corpus to us, right. For Jewish people, so they understand this is referring to the day of the Lord, the day when God will visit his people. He will judge the.

Heavens of the earth. His enemies will be defeated. Right. So saying the kingdom of God is at hand and therefore you need to repent that they would have understood it within that prophetic context. This is about to happen.

Therefore, now is the time. Now is the time to repent. No more procrastinating, no more putting off. Right. This is about to happen. But, and it's not that the content of what Christ was about to do wasn't in it. It was in it, but it would have been phrased and framed the way what Christ was going to do is framed, for example, in Isaiah.

Right. Or in, in Ezekiel. Right. So it would have, it would have been.

Described in that prophetic mode.

Right. And I think this is part of the reason why there you see the different.

Reception between Saint John the Forerunner and Christ not by someone like Herod, but by.

The people.

Right.

St. John the Forerunner is still speaking in the terms they're used to hearing, but it's just telling them that time is coming soon. Yeah, Right. And that was a time that they were looking at with hope and fear and he was telling them what they needed to do to prepare for it. Right. Whereas especially when you get into the latter portion of Christ's Ministry. And he does start, as Father Andrew said, he starts saying, oh, I'm gonna go to Jerusalem and be crucified.

Oh, you know, this is gonna happen. That's where people start going, whoa, hey, wait, time out. What? That's not what we're expecting. Wait, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

We thought the Christ remains forever.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right. And so.

That'S where you start seeing people drift away and even some people becoming antagonistic.

To Jesus and the idea that he's the Messiah. Right.

Within that context.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. That clear things up there for you, Alec?

[Caller Alec]

I think it does. And I think. Would you maybe also say that in kind of foreshadowing the ultimate triumph over the dark spiritual powers with the resurrection and Holy Saturday, do you have the casting out that's happening as well, sort of, you know, paving the way for kind of the more fuller. Fuller defeat that was soon to come.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes. Although, I mean, I would say that that's just like, you know.

The army has landed on the beach and immediately begins shooting the enemy. That's what happens with Jesus in the exorcism. Yes, they're not all quite wiped out yet, but like, the exorcisms are not just a foreshadowing, it's the. It's the initial assault.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. But also exorcism was. We talked about this. In at least one episode, exorcism was associated with the Davidic Messiah. Yeah, in the sense it was. There were a set of Psalms of David that were used for exorcism.

And that's likely connected to the fact that it's David who finishes wiping out the giant clans.

He's the one who does the mop up.

And so there's a connection there with the Davidic Messiah also, which is why.

In the Synoptic Gospels, Christ's exorcism activity is sort of particularly important.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right, thanks for calling, Alec.

[Caller Alec]

Thank you so much, fathers. Both your work has been very helpful in leading me toward the church. So keep up the good work.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Thank God. Pray for us, please. Okay, continuing on with the second half.

Yeah. So, okay, you said at the end that the first half that there is this idea of a pre existent spiritual messiah that existed in second template Jewish, second temple, Jewish thought.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Easy for you to say.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I know, I know. So where is that coming from? Like, why are they interpreting things that way?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. So, well, and some of this is, you know, review of things we've talked about, but.

There is.

See, our Old Testament chrysology episodes, which we're not going to review in toto here. Obviously there's more than how many were there? Three or four?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Several. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So there is this second Yahweh figure in the Hebrew Bible.

There is, and that's defined in various ways. One of them is we talk about, there is this sort of blanket statement repeated many times over that no one could see the God of Israel, no one could see capital G God. No one could see Yahweh and live. And then we have a whole bunch of examples of people seeing Yahweh and living.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Wait a minute.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And sort of the Logos classicus of this, that really gives us, that really problematizes it for us is reading through Exodus 30, chapter 33.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Where we're told that Moses.

Speaks to God face to face the way a man speaks to his friend. It's literally mouth to mouth in the Hebrew.

And then nine verses later.

Nine verses later, Moses asks God to show him his glory, his chavod. And God says, you cannot see me and live. And it's like, wait a minute, like you don't even have to turn a page, like.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So clearly there's a Yahweh that can be seen and a Yahweh that you can't see.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And so this is one of the basic breakdowns and this is what St. John is commenting on in his prologue, not the verse we read previously, but when he says no one has seen God at any time.

Right. But depending on your manuscript tradition, the unique God or the unique Son who is in the bosom of the Father has made him known.

Right. And again, St. John is not retconning the Old Testament, he's saying all those times when people saw God, who they were seeing was the sun, the Logos. Yeah, right. But that bosom of the Father language is important there too, Right. Because that's language when you read second temple Jewish texts that talk about a pre existent Messiah. So take for example in the book of Enoch, first Enoch in the book of Parables.

When it talks about the Son of Man, right. This, this pre existing Messiah figure who had identifies as the Messiah who is going to come into the world and be the Messiah, it identifies this figure as being sort of hidden in the bosom of the Father from essentially eternity past, from before the creation of the world.

And who is then going to be revealed on earth as the Messiah. And so that language, that traditional language is what St. John is referring to there when he talks about him being in the bosom of the Father.

So.

This is a very common thing as you read through. And they don't all agree about who this figure is going to be. Right. I'm not saying they all believed in orthodox Christian Christology. Exactly. In Second Temple Judaism. That is not at all what I'm saying because this is still what they're doing is they're reading prophecy, they're reading the Hebrew scriptures and they're trying to figure it out. Yeah, right. And they have this shape and they have this shadow and they have this outline and they have these types. And from that they're trying to figure this out. Right. And then the reality of that, of course becomes clear.

Once you know, that figure actually reveals himself in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. But they have this outline and there are these different titles like the Son of Man referring to the Daniel text. Right. Which we've talked about before on the show.

And we've talked about before on the show how one of the ways that this idea that there are these two persons.

Of Yahweh gets reflected in the Targums is that the.

The Aramaic Targums will, in these places where someone sees or interacts directly with God, insert the word memra, which means word. Right. So instead of, you know.

Instead of saying God appeared to Abraham, it'll say the word of God appeared to Abraham.

This is where the Logos language comes from in St. John and in Philo.

Logos being Greek, it's the debar Yahweh in Hebrew.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All this, like I said, we've talked about this a bunch of times on the show in different contexts, especially those Old Testament Christology contexts.

Why are we talking about it again here? Well, so.

What we were talking about, I don't imagine we have a ton of.

Docetist listeners.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Call in.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Correct me if I'm wrong. Yes, call it, if you're a docetist, I guess, and tell me I'm wrong.

Feel free to call in about whatever. But.

So what we're going through there. Yes. Christ came in the flesh. Christ, flesh and blood. Yes. That was probably non controversial to 99.999% of our readers. Right. Or our listeners.

And probably what we were just talking about because we've spent dozens of hours at this point on this show talking about Old Testament Christology and theophanies. People have probably most of our listeners who have listened to that. If this is, if tonight's not your first night, you're probably at least somewhat on board with those ideas of the second power in heaven and this kind of thing being an idea that already existed in Second Temple Judaism before Christianity. Here's where it Gets problematic.

A lot of these appearances of God in the Old Testament, these theophanies, these appearances that we're going to say are the second person of the Holy Trinity, that are the Son. Right. That are the Logos.

That are the Son of Man. Right. That are ultimately Christ. Right. A lot of these appearances, even though they're in the Hebrew Scriptures, even though they're in the Christian Old Testament, when this figure appears.

He has bodily physicality.

Yeah, he has bodily physicality that does things and that functions. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Which you have to ask then, so what is that body? Is he incarnate more than once? I mean, like, you know, you have to come up with some way of understanding what's going on with these Old Testament appearances that are not just appearing.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We've got some examples.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We've got some specific examples here. One of them just in general, we're not going to read the whole chapter, but remember, of course, Genesis 3, God comes walking in the garden.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And more importantly than just that imagery. Right. The verb halach. Right. God is moving. You know, you could say, well, walking shouldn't be literal there, except.

Adam and Eve or man and woman at that point. Hear him walking?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. What are they hearing?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, they hear him walking. Crunch, crunch on the ground. Right. Physicality.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep.

All right, we're going to cover part of Exodus chapter 24. So I'm going to read through this. It's the first 18 verses.

Then he, that's God, said to Moses, come up to the Lord. You and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and 70 of the elders of Israel and worship from afar. Moses alone shall come near to the Lord, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him. Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said all the words that the Lord has spoken, we will do. And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mount and 12 pillars, according to the 12 Tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the people of Israel who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do, and we will be obedient. And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and 70 of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet, as it were, a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel. They beheld God and ate and drank. The Lord said to Moses, come up to me on the mountain and wait here, that I may give you the tablets of stone with the law and the commandment which I have written for their instruction. So Moses rose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God, and he said to the elders, wait here for us until we return to you. And behold, Aaron and Hur are with you. Whoever has a dispute, let him go to them. Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the Lord dwelt on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day, he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. Now, the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in sight of the people of Israel. Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay, so.

Not only do.

Moses and Aaron and Nadab and Abihu, who are not long for this world.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

At this point, not only do they see the God of Israel. Right. But notice under his feet describes this pavement under his feet. Meaning he's standing and they're seeing feet. Yes, feet on the ground. Weight. Right. And it says he did not lay his hand on them.

Meaning he could have. He has hands.

Right. Which could have come into tactile contact.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. With these people.

Next example.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right, the next one is First Samuel, chapter three, verses one through ten. Now, the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli. And the word of the Lord was rare in the. Rare in those days. Word of the Lord was rare in those days. There was no frequent vision at that time. Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called Samuel and he said, here I am, and ran to Eli and said, here I am for you. Called me. But he said, I did not call. Lie down again. So he went and lay down. And the Lord called again Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, here I am, for you called me. But he said, I did not call my son. Lie down again. Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. And the Lord called Samuel again, the third time. And he arose and went to Eli and said, here I am, for you called me. Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, go, lie down. And if he calls you, you shall say, speak, Lord, for your servant hears. So Samuel went and lay down in his place. And the Lord came and stood calling, as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. And Samuel said, speak for your servant hears.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Notice. God comes and stands.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

In a particular place. So the important part here is not just like he appeared in some kind of human form, but that he stood.

Weight on feet, on ground.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And we're not going to read this part, but you could also think of when he comes and stands on the rock before Moses strikes it.

Right. Not just appearing above it, not just some form visible above it. Right. So.

The ones we're going through here are specifically ones that have this kind of material physicality. Right. So there are plenty of places. Yes. Where it just says God appears. You know.

We can't prove, even if he appears in some human looking way. We can't. There's not the tactile sense of weighted physicality. But the ones we're talking about, the ones we're going through here, we're going through because there is that sense. Right. There is a materiality.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Right. Yeah. All right. The next one is From Jeremiah, chapter 1, verses 9 and 10. So this is real short. Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, behold, I put my words in your mouth. See, I've set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.

Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So Lord puts out his hand and touches his mouth. There is physical contact.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. This is not just God put his words in my mouth. I felt it. His hand reached out. Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And now this next one is the real. We saved this one for last here because this is the one that really problematizes it the most.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, we've mentioned this many times.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So this is Genesis 18, verses 1 through 8. And the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre. As he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. And the he here, by the way, everybody, is Abraham. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth and said, o Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought and wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree while I bring a morsel of bread that you may refresh yourselves. And after that you may pass on, since you have come to your servant. So they said, do as you have said. And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, quick, three seahs of fine flour, knead it and make cakes. And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man who prepared it quickly. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared and set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So.

You can wash dirt off of God's feet.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And he eats.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep. I have a question here, and maybe you can. I don't know if this is a translation thing. I mean, if you keep reading, it's clear that this is Yahweh and two angels.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Because. Because he sends the two down. I think it's the beginning of chapter 19, if I recall.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Sends them down to Sodom to get lot to Sodom.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And it says that there are two angels. It says that, yes. So what is this by. When it says here that they ate. He stood by them under the tree while they ate. Who's the they?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, well, it would be.

I mean, it's hard to fence that off. Right.

It's. At least God could potentially be the angels.

Somehow. It's not ruled out by the text.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So it's just.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But they could also include Sarah and other people in the household. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Like perhaps they're standing while.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And, you know, even Abraham could be standing and eating and could be included in the. In the they.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. So if your question is, does that include the angels? There's no way to know for absolutes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I mean, the reason why I'm asking that, everybody is because, you know, angels do not have material bodies.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So generally speaking.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes, that's true.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. We want.

So.

Yeah. But. So the reason this really problematizes things is not just an abstract point of like, well, wait a minute. Because obviously someone could just Say, well, if God wants to make himself tangible, he can make himself tangible. God can do whatever he wants. Right. If he wants to make angels temporarily tangible and able to eat, he can do that. Right.

And of course, we'd have to say, yes, God can do whatever he wants. Right.

But the problem is.

In almost all of his post resurrection appearances.

I should say almost all. In most of his post resurrection appearances.

Christ very deliberately eats something in front of the apostles.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

To prove that he's been raised from the dead bodily.

And is not a spirit or a ghost.

So if theophanies.

Even his own appearances before the incarnation.

Can eat.

How does that work? Right.

See the problem here?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

See the problematic thing here that we may not have thought about before when we're reading about God eating in Genesis and then see Christ eating after the resurrection appearances.

And then, you know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

If.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We want to just punt. Right. Because we could find. Of course, if you've been to an orthodox church, especially if you've been to Holy Week.

You will hear a lot of things. You will hear that the feet that the sinful woman washed with her tears were the same feet that walked in Eden.

Right? Yeah, same feet, just thrown out there.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

We didn't make that up, by the way, everybody. We've mentioned that a bunch of times, but we did not make that up. That is.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No, in the liturgical church, it's in the Cassiany.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. So.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And plenty more where that came from. Yeah, right, right. Plenty more where that came from. That's just one example of many. So then, okay, well, as weird as it seems, we'll just take the other route, right? And we'll say, okay, well.

Jesus was always incarnate in some sense.

Right. Jesus is sort of eternally incarnate in some sense. Well, then what does it mean when St. John said the Word.

Became flesh.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Or that the creed says that he became man.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. He was made man. Yeah.

What does that mean if we want to go the other way? Right. So there's not an easy out from this problem. Right. If we want to uphold all of these things as being true, and we have to assume that since we're talking about some of the same church fathers, some of the same hypnographers.

We'Re affirming both of these things.

We're affirming both of these things. There is a particular point that we celebrate on the Feast of the Annunciation.

When Jesus the Messiah is conceived in the womb of the Theotokos.

At that moment, he takes human flesh from her Right. We affirm that.

But we also affirm that this is him in the Old Testament. These are the same feet, same hands.

Meaning the ones he received from the Theotokos.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep, yep.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And by the way, since this is turning out to be a kind of short half, let me just throw this out here. I haven't had a spicy take yet. This episode, I don't feel like.

So here's today's spicy take.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right. All right, let's do it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Almost no. Protestants believe in the virgin birth of Christ.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Conservative Protestants believe in the virgin conception of Christ.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But they don't believe that the Theotokos was a virgin after giving birth.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Referring.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There you go. Send your angry letters to Father Andrew at ancientfaith.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

What does Father Stephen mean by that?

You ask yourself? Yeah, no, it's. I mean, you're obviously referring to her physical state, the physical state of her.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Life and her perpetual virginity.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right. Okay. Well, that said, on that note. Yeah, we're gonna go ahead and take our second.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Or if you're angry and want to call in, you could do that too.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And we'll be right back with the third half of this episode of the Lord of Spirits.

[Narrator]

Father Andrew, Stephen Damick and father Stephen DeYoung will be back in a moment to take your calls on the next part of the Lord of Spirits. Give them a call at 855-237-2346. That's 8555-AF-RADIO.

[Narrator/Announcer]

How do you explain the sacraments? It's easy to say. They're mysteries that we have to take on faith or on the authority of tradition and. But that is not how the early Christians understood them. To them and to all ancient people, the idea that physical objects had spiritual power was very intuitive, whereas modern people tend to find this difficult, bizarre, or even unchristian. This is because we live in an era shaped by secularism, a way of viewing a world that's incompatible with sacramental thinking. Because secular ideas are at the heart of our culture, modern people tend to think in secular ways without realizing it. Even the most well meaning of us. How then do we live in, but not be of a secular culture? We need to understand the enchanted sacramental way that the early Christians viewed the world. But we also need to understand secularism. What is it really? Where did it come from? And how does it influence how we think about religion? Journey to Reality Sacramental Life in a Secular Age breaks down these important issues in the accessible, non academic language and is an ideal introduction for young readers, catechumens and seekers, as well as for any Orthodox Christians who want to deepen their understanding of the sacraments.

[Narrator]

Journey to Reality Sacramental Life in a Secular Age by Zachary Porcou, now [e-mail] Again, that is store.ancientfaith.com we're back now with the Lord of Spirits with Father Andrew, Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung. If you have a question, call now at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hey, welcome back, everybody. It's the third half. I know that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Bring back the commercial for that video thing with you and Rick Rockingham, because I love the breaks.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's true. It's a nice long. That's a long, long trailer. I think it's like two, three minutes long.

By the way.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Long, long, long, long, long trailer, though.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, it's true.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's the Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz movie.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Speaking of Richard Roland, his wife just gave birth to their sixth child today. So congratulations, Richard and Sophia. And now Richard will start getting a gazillion text messages from people because I mentioned that here on the podcast, but.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I hear he hasn't named the baby yet. So send him your suggestions. No, he has.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

He has.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Send him suggestions. Good names for the baby.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. The third half. It's where everyone thinks we can't do math. How could there be three halves? Because it's a show and a half, people. I keep telling you that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. More than you bargained for, more than you ever wanted. More than you can stand.

So, okay, as is our want, we finally get down to the question of exactly when, when does God become man? Since we've now exploded and problematized as the, as, as academics of the last.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Few years, everything's gotten problematic.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We're all canceled.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

Yeah. So.

What does that mean? I mean, can, like. Because here's one of the problems. If Jesus is God and he changes from sort of just God into God and man. Right. Isn't that what people kind of seem to believe?

We're saying that God has changed, but.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Does God change?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So let me be clear. God doesn't change.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Sorry. Open theists, process, theologians, Hegelians, Galleons.

Et cetera. No, God does not change.

Pretty clear in the scriptures.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But. Yes. Right. Then that begs the question, does that include the sun?

Because it would seem like.

A divine person taking on human nature at a particular point in Time would constitute a change. There's a before and an after, and the after is different than the before.

Right.

On the other hand.

The Epistle of the Hebrews tells us that Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And our hymnography and our creedal statements tell us that he was incarnate without change or alteration.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep. Or as I heard one amazing, amazingly bad translation say, without flux. Like, I cannot sing the word flux. I'm sorry.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Sans flux.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I know. Without flux.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They may have just really hated Chris Chimney. Doctor who.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's a deep cut anyway.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The. Yeah. So the idea that.

It sure sounds like a change or an alteration is obviously out there and needing to be countered.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

And when we say that God doesn't change, right. We mean.

The persons of the Holy Trinity don't change. Right. So someone could try to get around that problem by saying, well, okay, right, Christ is a divine person. So there was no change to Christ's divine nature when he took on human nature. Right. So see, God doesn't change.

But that doesn't cut it. Right. Because when we talk about Christ.

Whether.

Quote unquote before or quote unquote after the incarnation, we are talking about the person.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Natures don't do things.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. We're talking about the person. We are not talking about one nature or the other. We are saying Christ doesn't change.

And by the way, this is a reminder, since we're bringing up the hypnography and we're bringing up a lot of these things as sources. You will sometimes in different fathers at different sources and a different hypnography. See references to Christ taking a body. Right. Taking a body from the body of the Theotokos.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And remember.

You got to go way back in the Way back machine on this one to some of our earliest episodes. But remember what we talked about, body meaning in this context, Right. That a body is a nexus of powers or potentialities. And so body was the word that was used for what we now more commonly use the term nature.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Nature is not really a biblical word. St. Paul starts using it, but when St. Paul starts using it, he uses feces differently than the Greeks are using it at the time.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I mean, something different by it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So, yeah, before we roll on, we actually do have a caller.

Yes. So Catherine is calling from Edmonton, Alberta. So is this Catherine of the Great White Ziphone?

[Caller Catherine]

Hello, Fathers. Yes, this is Catherine from the Great White Ziphone. And I am actually in the mountains of Alberta right now.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So I know in the mountains. I remember you.

[Caller Catherine]

Ah, yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I met Catherine when I myself was in Alberta in Edmonton. So I. Yes, I recall you well.

So, yeah, you wanted to say something about or ask about Father Steven's super spicy take there at the end of the second half.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Caller Catherine]

Oh, I mean, I pretty much have my thumb on the call button the whole show, you know, and that was, to me, that's all you needed.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Teetered you over the brigade, you know, like.

[Caller Catherine]

But it's, it's an important thing because, you know.

As a former Protestant, like I am becoming Orthodox now. I just, I wonder why they believe that, you know, Christ has, you know, he had brothers. Yes, James and stuff and whatnot. And. But Protestants seem to miss that Christ was adopted in a sense that Mary didn't have other sons, she didn't bear other children. And if Protestants are. And this is the spicy take, you know.

If they're so biblically orientated, why do they believe that. That Christ had other siblings in the Bible?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I mean, there are people referred to as his brothers and sisters.

[Caller Catherine]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And I think, I mean, honestly, I think some of it is simply anti Catholic stuff. Right. You know, Catholics also believe in the ever virginity of Mary.

And, and I think, you know, a big piece of the way that, I mean, I'm painting with a very broad brush right now, but a big roller perhaps. What's that?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

A roller, perhaps?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes, yes, exactly. Or you know, like a spray gun of paint. But the way many Protestants regard the Virgin Mary is they're so. They're often so disturbed by, allergic to, unhappy with the Roman Catholic emphasis on the veneration of the Virgin Mary that they try to downplay her significance as much as possible. And so one of the ways that that's done is by saying, look, she's just an ordinary person. Right. And so what would an ordinary person who's just been married do? Have lots more kids, you know, and of course, you know, the typical. I haven't watched the new Netflix movie called Mary and I frankly don't intend.

[Caller Catherine]

To, but I'm not going to.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The pictures I've seen, the pictures I've seen, it's the young couple of Mary and Joseph. This is, this is.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It is a rancid pile of blasphemy.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, you've seen it. Okay.

[Caller Catherine]

Honestly, the only thing, the only thing that stopped me was that. That Joseph was young. I was like, they got it wrong.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And what. Whose conscience has been seared by a hot iron?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right. Father Stephen likes watching horror movies.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

BLASPHEMY.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But yeah. Whereas I can't speak from a Catholic point of view, but from an orthodox point of view, she is the new ark of the covenant. She became the place that God dwelt bodily on earth.

Set aside as a dwelling place for the Lord. And that's for him alone. Right. But as you said, there is a big problem with looking at the brothers and sisters of Jesus in the Gospels and saying that these are children of Mary. And that's because it doesn't ever say that they are her children. It doesn't say that.

[Caller Catherine]

Not. Not explicitly. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No. It doesn't even imply it. There's nowhere that it says that they are her children. Right. They are called his brothers and sisters. But in Greek, that. The New Testament is written in the. And I don't. I mean, Father, can. You can mention the Hebrew. Whether it does in Hebrew, too. But the word that's there for, like, brother Adelphos, and it's just Adelphi, I think is for sister.

Does not necessarily mean a child of my father and mother. It can mean my cousin. It can mean my uncle. Like, I mean, those are actual examples.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

In the one key place. Right. The whole quote is, is this not the carpenter's son? Are these not his brothers and sisters? Well, the answer to the first question, is this not the carpenter's son? Is technically no. Right, right, right. Like, biologically no. Right, But. But no. So part. Part of the issue here, there's a couple issues that come together because the Protestant reformers did not deny this in any way. Luther believed in the perpetual virginity.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Calvin did.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Calvin, Swingley did.

Bullinger, Melanchthon. We could keep going.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, we have the receipts for all this.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I think even Martin Chemnitz, as late as that. So this is a much more modern thing.

And.

I think there is an element of what Father Andrew was. Was pointing to of. Of Romophobia. But.

I think the core. Well, I'll get to that in a second. The. The verse. I want to delineate the issue between us because the way a lot of Protestants will express this is. Well, look, I'm just reading what the Bible says. The most natural way to read this. This is that they're his biological brothers and sisters. Right.

And I say, right, okay, but you don't believe that.

You don't believe that they had the same two parents as Jesus.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay. So you don't believe that. That you believe that the way to read that is that they are his half brothers and sisters.

I believe the way to read that is that they are his stepbrothers and sisters.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The text of the Bible by itself cannot resolve that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Whether the word brother means half brother or stepbrother. Right.

[Caller Catherine]

Can I ask something?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Caller Catherine]

So, you know. You know, when the point where it's like Jesus is saying.

You know, who is my. Who is my mother, who is my brother, who is my sister? Right. And they're. And they're freaking out and they're like, you're gonna die. Like, who? Like, you know, like you're. You're creating a problem here. And it's like they know that he's the only son. I mean, they know that he's the only son of Mary. So who's gonna look after Mary? Right. So if he gets killed, who's going to look after his mother?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, that's right. You have Christ on the cross entrusting his mother to St. John.

Why would he do that if St. James was right there?

[Caller Catherine]

Yeah, exactly.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

One of the most pious Jewish men who ever lived wouldn't take care of his own mother.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Unless she's not his mother.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. So there's a whole pile of things there that don't make sense the other way. But what I think, honestly, is motivating it and the reason why.

It'S so much more severe now, and I think this comes out of Puritanism. You may be dimly aware that the Puritans had a weird obsession with sex.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Being Canadian. I know, you know, it's different than it is for us down here, but here there's this weird obsession with sex and Puritanism.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And when I say weird, I mean weird. A lot of people don't know. A lot of Puritan groups, for example, couples got married in the nude in a closet.

They put their hands out. Yeah. Weird stuff. Weird stuff. There's a whole thing of bedfellows. There's a lot of weird puritan stuff surrounding sex. But this is really morphed into a culture wars thing now. And the most common thing I think, motivating this now, when you talk to Protestants, evangelicals about this, is, and some of them will even say it to you, mostly guys, that it would have been a sin for the theotokos to refuse to have sex with her husband.

[Caller Catherine]

Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But.

[Caller Catherine]

But the thing is, though, is that she wasn't married. She was.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. So this is being motivated by this weird culture war thing of.

Women don't have the right to deny sex to their husbands.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And they're projecting that onto the theotokos in a fairly Blasphemous way.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And. And onto Joseph in a pretty blasphemous way.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And so. Yeah.

Yeah. The.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean, part of it is that, like.

You know, like, one of the big reasons that we've been doing this show for the last four years is trying to help us all experience the world and see the world in a more enchanted way. Right. And if you don't look at this woman.

With the language that scripture uses to describe her. Right. That she's the one that he shall be called the Son of the Most High, that God himself has dwelled inside her, and that means something about her body. Right.

[Narrator/Announcer]

If.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

If you don't believe that there are holy places, then. Then that's not going to make any sense, you know, And. And. And then this is from the point of view of Joseph, who, like, you're the tabernacle. What am I, you know. You know, if I can't enter into the holy of holies of the tabernacle or temple, I. How am I. No, no, no. You know. Right. That's how. That's how a person who has a.

[Caller Catherine]

Sense of sacred, never mind a building, let alone a human being.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right. That's okay.

[Caller Catherine]

Yeah. And that's the beautiful thing about. About. Pardon me, but that's the beautiful thing about, you know, learning about the. The importance of her. Like, we're talking about, you know, God. God becoming a man. He became a man through Mary, who was a woman and had a body. And it's like the sanctity of her, of who she was. She was kind of a nun, wasn't she? Yes, like, essentially. And she was supposed to be a nun, but she dedicated to God. Blessed that she. But she was so blessed that she gave birth to God. I mean, like, why would you want to have. No, like, I'm making a little joke here, but why would you need to have, like. I mean, you. You kind of had the best. Like, you know, you're. You're the most blessed for a reason. Right. Why. Why is there. It's sort of the point of.

[Caller Alec]

Of her.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And there's a skewed.

Continuing on. The Puritanism period is attack. There's. There's a skewed, weirdly dysfunctional sexual ethic within most of evangelicalism.

Which I say this as a kid who spent a chunk of his adolescence listening to speeches about how sex was the greatest thing in the world, just the ultimate, most wonderful thing ever, as long as you do it when you're married. Because if you do it before that. You'll get a disease and die.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Having that just over and over and over again. And that has made a lot of people who grew up around that stuff, you know, who had Josh McDowell drumming that into their head or something.

Think that marriage is basically about having sex.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Especially I'm speaking as a man. Right, right. Adolescent men want to have sex. It is the worst thing you could possibly do unless you get married. And then it's wonderful and great and you could do it as much as you want.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And everything's good. And that's not. That's not the real world.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, in the iron, break a teddy.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Adolescent male.

[Caller Catherine]

Well, and that's not. And fathers. You know, one thing, I, I don't mean to interject, but I do want to say that in the Orthodox Church, it's not, you know, you can do whatever you want now. It's martyrdom.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Caller Catherine]

And so is a whole other gambit.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. If you have a healthier view of what marriage is about. Right. Then the, then.

The, the Theotokos, that St. Joseph the betrothed makes sense to you.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Caller Catherine]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

If your view of marriage is that distorted, dysfunctional one that's all based around sex, permission, basically, then.

That bleeds into your view of their marriage and you think that somehow, oh, well, that marriage is not a godly marriage, then if they're not having sex.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean, you know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. You see how it gets warped around and so I'm not saying this to bash on them. Right? No, because like I said, they had this drummed into their heads as kids.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well. And heck, I mean, like, they have a dysfunctional view now, frankly, Josh McDowell himself, who was very instrumental in a lot of that for a particular period. He's not even a Christian anymore. You know, he kissed all that stuff goodbye, frankly, to use, you know, to riff on the title of his book.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No, that's not Josh McDowell. That's another guy.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, oh, who is that guy?

I have to look that up now.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The I kiss dating to go buy guy. I know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Joshua Harris. Joshua Harris. Okay. I'm sorry. I don't know whether Josh McDowell is still a Christian. I assume he is Joshua Harris.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I don't know if he's still alive.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

His son is an apologist, but yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It'S Joshua Harris who has left Christianity, God bless him. But anyway, thank you very much for calling, Catherine. It's a great time. Which is actually related to a lot of this stuff in an oblique way.

About The Incarnation. But I think it underlines more clearly what the incarnation is.

[Caller Catherine]

Well, it is Advent, fathers.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So. Exactly. How about that? How about that? So, all right, thank you again. Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So if you're an angry, sex crazed evangelical, send your hate mail to father andrew ancient faith dot com.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, Josh McDowell is still alive, but he's like 85, it seems. Yeah. How about that? Anyway.

Okay. Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So, yeah, So a lot of times body means nature.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

In very ancient and early writings. So when it's talking about Christ taking a body, it's talking about him taking human nature.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And.

So how could we say that Christ did this and he did this at a certain point.

But that when that happened it was not a change and it was true, quote, unquote, before that point.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, exactly. Does that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, so the first thing we have to say is that humanity exists in time and space, like definitionally.

Right. Every human exists in time and space. It's material. We have a material element to our being.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So the materiality, that's space.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Anything material exists in. In space.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Time.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We born over time, right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We get old and so. And that includes the fact that humans are born.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There is a. There's a point in time and space at which.

Humanity begins. And there is a point in time and space.

After, since the expulsion from paradise, at which the human soul, the human life, is separated from the human body that we call death. Right. Now, of course, we believe in the bodily resurrection. But between birth and death for a human being, there is.

A bodily, material existence.

That takes place within space and time across a given span of time. And you move through space over the course of that period of time. Right. Therefore, if Christ takes upon himself our humanity, our human nature, that means de facto.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

De facto. He is going to have a birth. He's going to be born of a woman.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

At a point in time. So he's going to be conceived nine months later, give or take. He's going to be born.

Right. He is going to live. Right. And although Christ was by nature not mortal, he voluntarily laid down his life.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Died.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And so there is this period sometimes called Christ's earthly ministry, his earthly life. That period between. I would say this, this will probably be the thing that gets all the hate mail. But that, I would say goes from 3 BC to 30 AD or AD 30. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

This 33 year period, Christ, earthly mystery is earthly life. That is a human life in time and space. Right. He has that. If he didn't have that. Right. Then it Would be hard to say. He's human. Yeah, right. But he did. So that's part of what we mean by the incarnation, right? Him taking our human nature. He has that right.

Now, a note, a little. Talk a little further about Christ's death. And I'm doing this because I've heard some things recently. There are all kinds of things, dear listener, that I get into on this program that you think to yourself, wow, that's a weird rabbit hole Father Stephen is going down.

And I don't just mean the weird pop culture sub references.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

There haven't been a lot of those in this episode, actually.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, there have. You just haven't gotten them.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I know. There you go.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So.

The. A lot of times, you know, I see things, I hear things.

Often stupid things.

And, you know, rather than just getting triggered in the moment and ranting at empty air like the lunatic I am, or going outside my house and yelling at passersby, oh, I wait. I wait for this program.

And I rant to all of you, the listeners.

This one's mostly related to what we're talking about, which is better than sometimes. But in several places, in a weird synchronicity, I've heard people.

Trying to talk about the death of Christ theologically and saying all kinds of weird, incoherent things. Okay? So that's why I want to talk about this. We talk Christ's birth, right? His conception, his birth, the beginning, the ending. As we said, he's not mortal. So what do we mean when we say Christ died?

What do we mean when we say Christ died? Because discussion, there's all this stuff of like, well, did God die? How could God die? You're saying God died. Right. You'll get that from Muslim and Jewish folks. Right? And when they ask that question.

Right. It's not clear what they mean by the word died.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I mean, for a human to die means that the soul is separated from the body.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right? Your human soul is separated from your human body.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It does not mean. It does not mean. I don't know why people seem to think this does not mean that you cease to exist.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right? It never means that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It never means that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay, so when we say that our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross, we mean he died. His human soul was separated from his human body.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And sorry, Omni heretic William Lane Craig, he had a human soul. We covered this in 381.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

We had a council about this.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, this is long settled, my friend.

Right. So Christ's human soul is separated from his human Body. His human body is placed in a grave. His human soul goes down into Sheol, down into Hades, to harrow it.

And in his divinity, he's still everywhere.

In heaven and on earth and in the regions under the earth and on the throne with the Father and the Spirit.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The whole shebang in the grave of the body, and he's. With the soul is God. Yep.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So right now, this does not mean. Or are you saying only his human nature died?

We're not talking about that. This isn't where we talk about natures.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Natures don't die.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Natures don't die.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

They don't do anything.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay. As a matter of fact, what would that mean?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

When a human dies, his human nature doesn't die.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Well, and there's.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

He doesn't stop being human.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

There's one human nature that suggests that we're all dead sudden. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The only way for human nature to die would be if you stopped being human.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So maybe if you want to talk about that in terms of spiritual death or something, as a metaphor. Okay. But that's not what happens when someone dies, Right? They don't lose their nature. They aren't denatured. Okay. And we're not saying the divine nature obviously died on the cross because what would that even mean?

Right. So we're saying Christ's human soul was separated from his human body, and in the resurrection they were restored.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Same way in our resurrection, our human body and our human soul will be reunited and restored, renewed. So that's what we're talking about. Now you can say.

Rhetorically, right. As some of our hymns do in Holy Week, or things to this effect. You can say God died on the cross. Yeah, but what do you mean by that? You mean by that Jesus is God and Jesus died on the cross?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right.

We mean it in the same way that we say that the Virgin Mary is the mother of. Of God.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. You're definitely not saying the father died on the cross. You're definitely not saying the Holy Spirit died on the cross. You're not saying the divine nature or the divine essence died on the cross. None of these things are coherent statements.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You are saying the person Jesus Christ died on the cross because his human soul was separated from his human body.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So the person Jesus Christ died on the cross, he is God and ergo, transitive property. You could say God died on the cross, just like when St. Peter in Acts refers to Christ's blood as God's blood. Right.

Christ's blood is God's blood, right? It is blood that belongs to God, but it's human blood. It's Christ's human blood that belongs to God and therefore is God's blood.

So anyway, I felt the need to clarify that.

In the face of chicanery, right? But that is to say, apropos of our topic tonight, Christ had a human conception, right? Albeit a virginal one. He had a human gestation, he had a human birth.

Right? Grew to physical maturity as a human, and he died a human death, albeit voluntarily, right? He died a human death.

But now that brings us to the resurrection. Because what we're just talking about is the way humanity exists within time and space, which is true, but humanity also exists outside of time and space.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You have to affirm this unless you're a Sadducee.

Right?

If you. If you're going to say humanity doesn't exist outside of time and space unless you're a Sadducee or an atheist. But I repeat myself anyway.

Because to say humanity does not exist outside time and space is to say there is nothing when you die, there's nothing afterwards.

[Narrator]

Words.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There'S nothing before conception, there's nothing after death, right? Simply cease to exist in both directions. Human existence is confined to time and space. That, of course, is not what we believe as Christians.

Or people of most other religions, frankly. But, so humanity also exists outside of time and space, right? Outside of the materiality of this world and this life, there is human existence, right? And for us as Christians.

This takes the form of resurrection. And.

This is not just the resurrection on the last day.

But St. John in Revelation will refer to the saints in glorious, having experienced the first resurrection.

Right? They have already experienced the first spiritual resurrection, the reconnection of the soul to God. Right? Because remember, it's been a while since we repeated this, although we've repeated it a bunch of times on the show.

John of Damascus. There's two kinds of death. Physical death, separation of the human soul from the human body, spiritual death, the separation of the human soul from God.

And so the first resurrection, the spiritual resurrection, is the reconnection, the full reconnection of the soul to God. This is what the saints have already experienced. So they are now truly alive.

Not dead, right? This is why Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive, not dead. And Christ says, when he's talking to the Sadducees about it, he says to them.

Right, that the fact that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive is proof.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Of the resurrection, suggesting they are resurrected.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. And that's before his resurrection, right?

In terms of time and space, the first resurrection.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And so Christ's resurrection is the beginning of the bodily resurrection.

It reveals to us insofar as it has been revealed to us what our resurrection, our bodily resurrection will be like and what resurrected humanity looks like. And what we see very quickly in the resurrection appearances of Christ is that he is not inhabiting time and space in the same way that we do on this side of the resurrection.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

He can walk through doors. He doesn't appear the same to people.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

He appears in the midst of people, just all of a sudden, just suddenly.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That this is not bound by time and space. Okay. And the fact that it's not bound by. Right. Those are spatial examples. Right.

The only added piece we're talking about here.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Is the fact that it's also not bound by time.

And if it's not bound by time, it's not bound by time in either direction.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So we have the existence of Christ's humanity in time and space.

Right. Roughly 3 BC to AD 30. We have the existence of Christ, including his humanity outside of time and space.

After the resurrection. His resurrection.

Right. And because that is outside of time and space, those feet can walk in the garden.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Now.

A little bit more evidence.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

From.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The book of Revelation.

St. John the Apostle is having this vision.

In this vision, he sees, famously, 24 elders. And we've talked about how there's a couple pieces to what's going on here with there being 24 elders. One of them is that 24 is 1/3 of 72. Right. So Revelation 12, the devil casts down one third of the stars. Right. Let's say John sees these human elders, these human presbyters, human priests, technically.

As part of the angelic host that is worshiping God in his God enthroned. That third that were swept out of the heavens have been replaced by. Now these human saints. 24 is also two sets of 12. The 12 patriarchs of the 12 tribe of Israel and the 12 apostles.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And there's a couple passages where they show up. Just quick passages.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. So you've got Revelation 4, 4 which says, around the throne were 24 thrones, and seated on the thrones were 24 elders clothed in white garments with golden crowns on their heads. So there they are. And then Also in Revelation 5, verses 8 through 10, we actually hear from them and see them do some stuff. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song saying, worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood. You ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth. I seem to remember reading this translation in which. This is in the first person plural, we, you've ransomed.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, they're clearly talking about themselves.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Because they're sitting on 24 Thrones.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

With crowns on their heads.

Right.

And they're the priests. Right. They're the. Yeah, the members of the kingdom. Right. So all that may be familiar to you, but if you pause and think for A second.

If 12 of those 24 elders are the 12 apostles, that means one of them is St. John.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

He's seeing himself.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

He is having a vision of himself. And if you think that's a weird way to read this, I would refer you to what St. Paul says in Ephesians, chapter two, verse six.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. By the way, I did just look up. It does say us there in the Greek. So this. I was reading the ESV there, by the way, everybody. So they tweaked it a little bit. Okay. Ephesians 2. 6. And raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That's St. Paul talking about himself.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

One of the apostles.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And that raised and seated. Right. Is in a Greek verbal tense. That means it's accomplished already.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So this brings us to sort of.

The locusts that I know we've at least referred to in this context.

Of the.

Of Christ's incarnation being both at a time, but also being true outside of time and space. And that is the reference in Revelation 13, verse 8.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And so this, by the way, and I'm going to read the. The King James for this one. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of life, of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And the reason why I mentioned the King James is because, like, this gets translated in other ways. Like sometimes they'll say, those whose names are not written from the foundation of the world in the book of life, of the Lamb slain, which is fiddling with the Greek. Yeah. So is that a reasonable translation? I mean, what's really going on there?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. It's translators looking at the Lamb having been slain from before the foundation of the World and being like, well, that can't be true because it happened at this point in time.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

They're reading in a linear way.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And they say, well, that can't be it. So the Book of Life must be from before the foundation of the world.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

World. Yeah, but grammatically that's not really consistent with what.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's not really consistent what's going on there, number one. Number two, despite what some people may tell you if they've only had one year of Greek, word order is significant in Greek.

And number three, if you understand how the Book of Life works, that doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, I mean, a Calvinist would love to be able to take it that way, that God filled everybody into the Book of Life before the world was created.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The first thing it's done is he publishes this book.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But all you got to do is go through the scripture and look at places where it talks about people being blotted out of the Book of Life.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And we've talked about.

On the show before the Book of Life be connected to these heavenly tablets. The idea is that these are the books that are recording the things that happen that unfold in creation.

So the idea that the names were all written in it before the creation doesn't make any sense in terms of how the Book of Life was understood.

Right. Even if you did warp the text, to put it that way. So that dog don't hunt. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The Greek is not really ambiguous here enough to do that. And again, if conceptually doesn't work.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Another.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Way that people have tried to take this is to understand, well, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. This is. Well, there's this plan. God has a plan.

That involves Christ offering himself sacrificially on the cross. And the plan is from before the foundation of the world. Because God was sitting back there in the past and he knew what would happen in the future. And so he came up with a plan.

Does anyone see the problem here?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

God is not a material thing that occupies time and space.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. He knows all at once.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. Right. So that doesn't make sense either. Right. What is being said here by St. John, right. Is that Christ's self offering on the cross, which obviously intimately involves his humanity.

Right. It's what, it's what makes it possible.

So Christ the second person of the Trinity, having taken upon himself our human nature, his self offering on the cross, this is the basis.

For the creation of everything in the universe.

And this is the purpose.

Of the creation of everything in the universe, as St. Paul says.

About Christ.

Through whom and for whom are all things created?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And I mean, St. John essentially says the same thing in the prologue of his gospel. And Christ says, I am the alpha and the omega.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. The basis of the purpose, the telos, the beginning and the end, the alpha, the omega. Right. That's what St. John is saying.

And this is all over the New Testament if you look for it. Right. Like I said, St. Paul has it. St. John has this as a major theme, as we just said. Right. So the incarnation, Christ's humanity is a fact of creation.

It is the goal, it is the purpose, it is the whole thing.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It is. The whole thing is what Saint Maximus is getting at with the Logos and the, the logia of creation.

All being connected to him.

Christ stands at the center. So this isn't a plan God came up with to deal with human sin.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. It's not plan B.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

This isn't any. Anything like that. Right. This is the whole game plan. Right. God created a world, a universe, and he created people to share his love with.

And the way he does both of those things, the way he creates, the way he reveals himself, the way he shows his love, is through.

The humanity of Christ.

Through the incarnation of Christ, through.

That's how it happens.

And the only way we come to know God.

Is in the person of the incarnate Jesus Christ. That's not just true. Since he was born circa 3 B.C. that's true. In the Old Testament.

St. John said, no one has seen the Father, the only begotten or the unique Son. The unique God saved in bosom has made him known. But that's also true, to go back a few episodes.

Christ was the way that your primitive hunter gatherers in the Neolithic era.

Came to know God.

He is the way in which God is inscribed in the creation.

In the sky they looked at at night.

The ground they foraged for food.

The love they shared with their families. Right. Christ was inscribed in all of that.

And that's how they came to know God and how to find salvation.

So the Incarnation is at the center of everything.

Right. But goes beyond just.

This world's materiality and our understanding of the flow of time and the limits of space.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So to wrap things up here.

If you happen to be watching this or listening really to this episode via YouTube or you've seen the promo images for this particular episode, the icon that's in that image is the creation of Adam. And if you look at it, you can see on the Left is Christ, and on the right and slightly below him is Adam.

And you can see Christ breathing the breath of life into Adam. There's a really interesting detail if you look closely at this icon, and you may not notice this unless someone points this out to you, but you might also notice it for yourself once you see it. You can't unsee it. And that is that God in the flesh in this icon of the creation of Adam, his face and Adam's face are the same face. Right. So what is going on with that? Well.

Man is made in the image of God, or as it says in the Greek text of Genesis, he is made according to the image of God.

And this is depicted in icons quite literally. Well, who is the image of God? Christ is the image of God. He is the image of the invisible Father. And so if Adam, if humanity is made according to his image, it makes sense to depict that in an icon in terms of Adam looking just like Jesus. Just like Jesus. And it's Jesus in this icon. It is very clearly Jesus. You know, this is not the faceless Jack chick Christ. This is Jesus.

And.

That is a very profound icon in light of everything we've just said for the last two and a half hours.

So if Christ, the incarnate Christ is the basis of creation and the purpose of creation, and he makes us according to him. According to him, he who is the image of God, what does that say about humanity vis a vis the whole creation?

It means that this whole creation is summed up in humanity. And that when we talk in Christianity about mankind being the pinnacle of creation, the center of creation, the priest of creation, all of this stuff, it's because we are made according to Christ.

It's not like a special status. You know, God made all these creatures and said, oh, I like this one. I'll make him the chief of everything. No, it's that baked into the very nature of humanity.

Is that we are meant to be in Christ.

The Christ who created all things, the Christ through whom all things were created, the Christ for whom all things were created, the Christ slain from the foundation of the world, the Christ who is enthroned in glory. And we are invited to sit on thrones next to. To his, that Christ, the one and only Christ, Jesus, the Son of God, the Son and word of God.

That's the. The purpose of humanity. That's our very purpose.

Right. Someone was asking in the YouTube chat, like, what does this have to do with our salvation? It has everything to do with our salvation, because salvation is not just where do I go when I die?

Like, one of the themes we've talked about for the last four plus years in this podcast is the destiny of humanity in Christ.

And that destiny is to be, as St. Paul said, seated in the high places with him.

That destiny is to be glorified, to become by grace what he is by nature. To become. One of my favorite verses, Luke 20:36, Jesus himself says, sons of God, equal to the angels, sons of the resurrection.

Right?

And all of this is apparent in this icon of God making Adam, of Christ making Adam. And you see, they have the same face. They have the same face. All of this is there. And if you understand, then this aspect of the incarnation that we've been talking about for this episode.

I hope it will drive you to repentance.

You know, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. That's what the kingdom of God is.

That's what the kingdom of God is. And our repentance is moving towards being.

Worthy of that.

We don't make ourselves worthy. It's Christ who made us, who makes us worthy, but he gives us the way to receive that from Him. He gives us the way to live.

The way to repent.

This faithfulness is a gift from God. We didn't come up with it ourselves. St. Paul says that. And therefore it's through that faithfulness, by grace, that we are saved.

So.

I feel like I say this at the end of a lot of our episodes, but far from this being about just sort of speculating on weird, esoteric, pedantic theological minutiae.

This once again goes to the right, to the heart of what it means to be Christians.

And it is the Alpha and the Omega in the Scriptures itself, Genesis to Revelation.

But most especially in the face of Jesus Christ, our true God, our Savior, the Redeemer of our souls.

So that's what all this means to me.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So.

Yeah, you brought up somebody asking, what does this have to do with our salvation?

So this particular episode.

I hope you didn't learn anything.

And I hope it is of no practical value to you.

And I hope it doesn't help you with your repentance or your salvation.

I wanted to do something else during this nativity season where we're celebrating Christ's incarnation.

Because.

I think there's one thing needful for a lot of us. And as always, when I say these kind of things, I'm including myself. Right.

We want to learn things and we want to understand things.

We.

Can become obsessed sometimes to the point of scrupulosity, with our own sin and repentance, working out our own salvation.

And obsessed with the practical matters of living in community.

All of which are important, all of which are important.

But I think there's also an important place.

Moving past all that work, all that toil and all those very important things day to day.

For awe.

Directed toward God.

Toward awe and admiration directed toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

For who he is and what he has done for us.

And this is very much available to us in our orthodox worship.

If we're looking for it, if we're not noodling around in a copy of the service text trying to understand it and trying to reconcile this statement on this page with that statement over there. Well, how do those make sense together?

We're not obsessed with the fact that we, you know, got cut off and cussed somebody out on the way to church and we feel guilty about it. And if we could set all those things aside for a minute.

And just get in touch with who God is and what he has done and who Christ is and what he has done, which goes so far beyond what we can comprehend.

What we can reason about, what we could explain with some cool proof texts and fancy logical arguments.

That leaves. This is one of my favorite verses of the Akathos to the Theotokos that leaves the philosophers as voiceless as fish.

Right? Just being in rapt awe for a while. That's what I hope. Thinking about some of the things.

Some of the brain hurts things, some of the things that don't quite make sense, some of the things that make us nervous that we talked about in this episode.

That's the effect I hope it will have for.

Me and for our listeners tonight. There will be some moment here as we approach Nativity or as we celebrate the feast, or as with family, celebrating the feast, friends, where we'll have that moment of just wrapped awe.

Where we stop trying to understand and explain.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We stop worrying about ourselves and we stop worrying about the day to day things of this life.

And just sit or stand in wonder.

At the God who created us and the destiny that he created us for.

That's where I'm aiming.

With this episode. That's why I think we sometimes need to talk about things that are past the limit of what we can really understand.

And push past that barrier. So that's my hope. Our next episode is going to be pre recorded, but so this is the last time before Nativity. I'm going to talk to you guys live. But that's my. That's my Christmas wish for you Amen.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, that's our show for tonight, everybody. Thanks for tuning in. If you didn't happen to get through to us live, we'd still like to hear from you. You can email [e-mail] you can message us our Facebook page. You can also leave us a [e-mail] LordOfSpirits that's we're gonna do our next episode, by the way, is those voicemail. And if you have basic questions about Orthodox Christianity or you need help to find an actual 3D parish, head over to OrthodoxIntro.org join us for our live.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Broadcast on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month at 7pm Eastern, 4pm Pacific. He faces forward trading in his blindness for the world of love and time is raging may it rage in vain.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And if you use Facebook you can follow our page, you can join our our discussion group and please review and rate this podcast wherever it is you happen to listen to it and share it with a friend who is going to benefit from it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Finally, be sure to go to ancientfaith.com stroke support and help make sure we and lots of other AFR podcasters stay on the air. You always had it but you never knew so boots and saddles get on your feet there's no surrender because there's no retreat the bells are sounding Bring this match to an end we are the descendants of giant men.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Thank you, good night, God bless you.

[Narrator]

You've been listening to the Lord of Spirits with Orthodox Christian priests, Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung, a listener supported presentation of Ancient Faith Radio. And I beheld and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders, and the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, word worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and Blessing. Revelation, chapter 5, verses 11 through 12.