Lord of Spirits - What Must I Do to Be Saved? [Ep. 136]

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. 1 Enoch 48:4-5.

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 Steven Damick and Father Steven D. Young host this live call-in show focused on enchantment in creation, the union of the seen and unseen, as made by God and experienced by mankind throughout history. Welcome to the Lord of Spirits.

>> Greetings, dragon slayers, giant killers. You are in the unfortunate position of listening to the 136th episode of the Lord of Spirits podcast. I'm Father Andrew Steven Damick, still in Pennsylvania for now. And with me is Father Steven D. Young. Not the swamp thing, but certainly a swamp thing.

>> The green calls to you. Coming to you live from Lafayette, Louisiana. And we are live and we're going to start taking your calls in the second half of the show. Tonight we're talking about a huge topic, salvation. All Christians use this term.

>> Wait, are are are we live?

>> I think so. Or is this... do we des do we deserve to be?

>> Most people won't even know the difference because... and and is that the question? And if so, who answers? Who answers?

>> Thank you. Uh, you completely got me sidetracked with that.

>> As is my want.

>> Yes. Yes. Actually, I literally ran across a tweet today saying that someone started saying "as is my want" because they heard you and occasionally me saying that on.

>> So, when you say you literally ran across it, like someone left their phone on the ground or...

>> That's correct. Yes. With my car?

>> Yeah.

>> Um, yeah. Yeah. Salvation. We're talking about salvation. All Christians use this term. Uh, do we all mean the same thing by it? No, we clearly do not. Is it possible to have a full orbed understanding of salvation by closely looking at the scriptures? Yes. Obvious rhetorical questions. So, that was easy. Good night. Actually, I'm going to leave Father Steven to ramble for the next three hours alone, which from what I have read is what a number of you out there in podcast land have been hoping for for literally years now.

>> So, you just took our lead in like really literally and are going full-time sabbatical.

>> That's right. That's right. Or or Father Steven, you can start by telling me whether theosis, theosis, see how say theosis, theosis...

>> Say theosis.

>> I know it sounds like it's some kind of like ptosis.

>> Like osmosis.

>> Disease.

>> It's like osmosis.

>> I know it's theosis.

>> Or Moses.

>> Who supposes his toes are roses.

>> Whether theosis is it really just an Orthodox add-on um to this idea of salvation or or what is it in the Bible, Father Steven?

>> What?

>> Since my options were it's an add-on or what? I choose what.

>> Um, yes. So, uh, we're going to be talking about what salvation is, how you get it, not so much about whether you can lose it. That's a whole other topic.

>> Uh, unless somebody calls in to ask that question.

>> A free will, free will Baptist on the line.

>> Yes. Yes. And or a Calvinist. A pugnacious Calvinist. Um, but uh, we're... Yeah. What is salvation and how do we get it? And so salvation, getting saved. Are you saved? Uh, you've been saved. Uh, it's one of those, one of those terms that everybody from a Christian background uses all the time.

>> Yeah. Yeah. But I I think often if pressed, right, will have a hard time defining exactly what it means or you'll get into the weeds, right, of what we call soteriology, right? Um, so, you know, probably, I think the most common way people understand that getting saved is, uh, they think it means that, uh, you're you're going to go to heaven instead of hell when you die.

>> Yeah. You had a conversion experience. You got saved. And so now you're you're going to go to heaven instead of hell.

>> Heaven everlasting is your reward. Uh, played into by the whole, uh, Walmart parking lot evangelist evangelism tactic of, "If you died tonight, do you know where you..."

>> I know I had someone do that to me one time and I was quite quite a bit younger than I am now. And I said, um, "I'm a Christian, dude." And the guy started pressing me though, like, "No, no, do you know?" I was like, "I mean, look, I've done the thing. I'm a Christian. I go to church." He couldn't. He just had a script, I guess. I don't know. Oh, it was weird.

>> Yeah, you should have told him you'd been, uh, you'd been wicked and so you were going to Indiana when you die.

>> Um, but, uh, is Indiana, is Indiana the afterlife for Ohio? Is that what it is?

>> If you're bad.

>> It's like the Druids believe if you if you're really good at life, you get reincarnated in China.

>> Right. I mean, there's, you know, traditional Finnish paganism, uh, hell is basically an island off of Finland.

>> Yes. So, in this case, Ohioans are the opposite of the Druids and Indiana is the opposite of China.

>> I'm seeing it.

>> Yeah. I think it's, I I don't see how anyone could doubt those connections. Um, but that definition, going to heaven, saved from hell when you die, is literally never what the word saved means in the Bible.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> At all. Ever. Not once. Right. Um, and in fact, that term is used with subtly different shades of meaning in different parts of the Bible and in different contexts. Uh, and so, uh, we're going to, we're going to do what we love to do on this show. Start at the very beginning of the book of Genesis. It's a very good place to start.

>> We're gonna, we're going to take you on a survey of, uh, what the word, what salvation means in some of these different contexts and how one gets, receives, achieves, accomplishes it, right? Um, so that's that's our trajectory for this episode. Um, so that we can, we can, uh, read and understand, uh, that term in scripture a little more knowingly. So we start with, we start with Adam, our first person. Uh, he was not a shooter. Um, but we, we start with Adam and we're actually starting with Adam before the expulsion from paradise.

>> Pre-papacy man, as it were.

>> Yes, Adam in Eden. This is where we're starting. Uh, and that may seem counterintuitive based on the way salvation is talked about in a lot of circles.

>> Yeah. Usually it's this idea that salvation is a thing that happens because things went wrong.

>> Right. Adam messed things up and so now people need to be saved.

>> Yeah. Saved from what Adam did, the consequences of what Adam did. Uh, God being mad at Adam for what he did and taking it out on the rest of us. Um, right, however you're saying that. But the question, what is salvation for Adam? Uh, in the Christian tradition, and I'm saying it that way deliberately because, um, I number one, I want to be fair, right? Um, but also, right, a version of this understanding is not foreign to even Protestantism, like classical actual Protestantism. This way of thinking may be very foreign to a lot of evangelical folks. Um, but is it for them? The idea that the question, what, what is salvation for Adam is a coherent question. Right? There was salvation for Adam. Adam was on a path to salvation in Eden. Um, and the great evidence of that, of course, is that contra, uh, certain Platonic, uh, individuals, um, Adam and all of creation, for that matter, is created in motion. Adam was not created in a kind of static, unchanging perfection.

>> Yeah. Right. If he had been, he couldn't have sinned, right? There had to be mutability for him to sin, like definitionally, right? So, Adam is created. All of creation, everything in that is created is created in motion toward a telos, toward a perfection of that thing, a perfection of each created nature. So, Adam was created toward a telos, toward an end, toward a goal, toward a purpose and motion toward it. Okay. But that motion and change also allows for motion away from, right?

>> Yeah. And he couldn't have fallen if Adam was created as sort of this crystallized perfection.

>> Right. Right. So what did this path or this road toward maturity or perfection or completion, right, mean for Adam? Well, if you look at classical Protestant sources that have this understanding, uh, what they will talk about is they will say, well, Adam is created and he's given one commandment. And you may even have heard this idea even in Orthodox circles, even in Roman Catholic circles, right? Adam is given one commandment. And in in the, uh, classical Protestant view, he was, uh, Adam was undergoing a sort of probationary period. And if he had kept that one commandment to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, right? If he had not done that for some period, for some period of time, he would have passed probation and essentially been saved.

>> Right. Um, he would have then been transformed sort of automatically into his perfected state in which often, depending on who you're reading, he would have been kind of crystallized, right? Um, so this is less an image of a path or a road he was on as God was testing him. If he had succeeded, he would have been rewarded. He failed, so he was punished. Right? That's that sort of paradigm. But if we read closely in Genesis, it is not in fact the case that he only received one commandment. Yeah. He received three commandments. There are three imperatives. Two of them positive and then the one negative. And so the one negative, uh, commandment, we've already talked about, tree of knowledge of good and evil, of that tree he was not to eat. But remember, as we've talked about on the show before, he received two others to number one, fill the earth, and he fill it with life. And number two, subdue it. Put it into order. So he had two positive commands, one negative command. Don't do this. Do do these two things. And this is why we have the idea of him being on a road or a path or on a way, right, toward perfection, because filling the earth is something that would have taken place over time, right, a series of choices, right?

>> Well, and and perfection, you know, sometimes people think of, you know, to be perfect is to be, I don't know, one rather than zero, you know, like those are the only two options. Um, you know, like they say, "Well, I'm I'm not perfect," meaning I've done bad things. And so therefore, perfection must mean I have done no bad things. But, but also there's a sense of perfection as in maturity, something getting riper, better, more fully what it's supposed to be. That doesn't necessarily mean there's flaws in it, just that it's not there yet. Like a baby is not perfect because a baby is is not full grown.

>> Right.

>> Right. Um, and is in a process that will lead to that, right? Um, yeah. And so, uh, commandments, this is going to be important tonight. We tend to attach the idea of commandments directly to the idea of sin. Commandments are just telling you not to do certain things, right? That are bad things. But that's not. Commandments are just imperatives. You can have a negative or a positive imperative. Right? If I tell you, "Go out there, find something good to eat and enjoy yourself," that's an imperative. That's a commandment. That's a command, right? There's just nothing negative about it. Or I could say to you, "When you go out there and you're enjoying yourself, don't eat too much and make yourself sick." That's a negative commandment, right? That's warning you off from something bad. So, Adam had not just, right, "Here's what fully mature, complete man looks like in the future," but he was on a path that led there by doing certain things and not and not doing another thing, right? He had a way of life laid out to him, right, and set before him. Now, like I said, we've talked before on the show about, uh, those two positive commandments, right? That Genesis is very clear that Eden is not or paradise is not the whole world.

>> Right. It is a place, right? Um, and that when the earth is supposed to be filled with life and subdued and put in order, right, that a garden like Eden or paradise is sort of the perfect example of that, right? Where a garden, unlike a bayou, uh, is is in good order, right? There's lots of living things in the bayou, but they're not in good order, right? Uh, a parking lot is in very good order, but there's no life there, right? Unless, you know, it hasn't been paved recently and it's cracking open and and life is coming through, is growing up from underneath it. But when that happens, that disrupts the order of the parking lot, right? That's one at the expense of the other. Whereas a garden that's a well-tended garden is perfectly in order. And because it is in in perfect order, it brings forth life in greater abundance. Right? So those go together in a garden. And so one way of summarizing Adam's job, which he shares with his wife, is to turn the whole world into Eden, to expand the boundaries of Eden until it is all creation. Um, and through that process, right, this is what it means that he is to be the image of God, because we were just told, right, at the beginning of Genesis chapter 1, that at the beginning of God's creation of the world, the world was formless or disordered or chaotic and empty. And God proceeded on the six days of creation to put the creation in order and then to fill it with life. First three days, second three days. We talked about that before. And so Adam going and filling the world and subduing it and putting it in order is him doing what God does, him participating in God's work.

>> Yeah. It's just extending, you know, um...

>> To use a Tolkienesque term, it is subcreation.

>> Yeah. And in so doing, he not only would have fulfilled the purpose he was created for, but by serving as the image of God in creation, he would have become like God.

>> Yeah. And so this is what St. Basil the Great is talking about when he says, talking about theosis, that man is the creature who is commanded to become God. And you may be like, "Well, I missed that commandment. That commandment, it's not one of the 10. It's not one of the..." Right? And you flip around trying to find, "Well, it's right here in Genesis, uh, 2." Right? That's the command. That's what "fill the earth and subdue it" means. Means to become like God, right? By doing this. And so, as we've talked about, all the fathers say, St. Andrew of Caesarea says, "All the fathers say that the devil fell through envy." This is what the envy was based on.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. The devil's envy was based on this destiny of humanity, right? This potential of humanity, this path on which humanity was set that he was not, right? And so even though, right, even though the devil was at the point of creation higher up in the hierarchy of creation, right, a greater being, as it were, right, of a higher order, right? Man was created a little lower than the angels, right? But then, right, has this ability to be crowned with glory and honor, God's own glory, right, and to be honored by the rest of creation. And this is what, what leads the the devil to envy and, uh, to his attempt to destroy humanity and his fall, uh, in, uh, Genesis, uh, 3. But there's also here, right, as this is laid out here in the first couple chapters of Genesis, uh, there's also a certain mystery. What is that mystery? Well, how is it possible for humanity to do this? And why is it only possible for humanity to do this? Why couldn't the devil similar become like God in the same way that Adam could have, right? I mean, it might be obvious if we're talking about, like, why a paramecium can't, right? But like, why can't a seraphim, right? Like, why can't a cherubim?

>> Why not the angels? I mean, right?

>> Come on.

>> Um, yeah. So, there is, there is this mystery. It's not going to go on forever, but in, in the first few chapters of Genesis, there is this mystery, right?

>> We have, we will have solved it by the third half of this show.

>> Yes. All will be revealed. You probably figured it out already, but anyway, um, this actually revealed yesterday liturgically. Um, but...

>> Indeed.

>> Um...

>> Indeed. Uh, so this is Adam right before, before the fall, right? And, and what salvation meant for him. So salvation would have meant for him following those commandments, becoming like God, becoming mature and complete, being formed into the image of, of perfect man. That, that is what salvation meant for him before. Okay. So now Adam falls. Adam is expelled from paradise. His wife becomes Eve, right? The mother of all living. They are now outside of paradise, right? But, but as the the curses in Genesis 3 make clear, the purpose of humanity, the goal of humanity has not changed.

>> Yeah. It's still, you know, fill the earth, subdue it, do the things that God made Adam and Eve for, right?

>> So woman is still going to give birth, right, and make more people. But now it is going to be painful and difficult. Man is still going to put the world into order, civilized by working the ground to bring forth food. But now it's going to be difficult. They're still going to have to work together to do it. But as it says in, in the curse that's announced to, to Eve, it's going to be difficult for them to do that, to work together, right? Um, so while the purpose remains the same, these other elements, these other factors, these foreign elements have now entered in and present obstacles, right, that stand between humanity and the purpose for which God created humanity. And we've, we've talked about those before, but just to make sure we're all on the same page. So, first element is sin, right? Through Adam, sin enters the world. And then it's crouching at the door waiting for his son, right? Then because sin has now entered the world, right, and evil has now entered in the world, God says, uh, "It's not good that man should live forever in this state." Right? There are created things that are evil and immortal. They're called demons. Right? So God said, "It's not good that humanity become like the demons." Right? And so he brings about death, physical death, meaning we have a mortal life in this world with a beginning, middle, and end, right? To allow for repentance, but we still die. So there's now sin and death, right? And then the curse that's put on the devil in Genesis chapter 3, right, is he's made the Lord of the dead. He's given the power of death, as Hebrews says, right? So that power of death, right, death and the sin that, uh, requires it and brings it about, uh, is wielded against humanity by the devil and other demonic powers to corrupt and destroy humanity. So you have sin, death, and the demonic powers, right, now interposed between humanity and the goal for which humanity was created. And so now, after the expulsion from paradise, when we ask the question, "What does salvation mean for Adam?" At its core, it means the same thing. It means him growing to maturity and completeness and the full measure of the perfect man and becoming like God. But for that to happen, sin is going to have to be dealt with, death is going to have to be dealt with, and the demonic powers are going to have to be dealt with, right? In order to make that again possible, uh, for, for humanity. And so the next major figure we come to as we're reading Genesis, uh, who's, who's, uh, in the business of salvation, shall we say, uh, is Noah.

>> Yeah. So we find Noah. Uh, we're at the point where, as the text says, uh, we, we read through a couple chapters of the descent of Cain's line, right? It starts out with Cain, the first murderer, and goes downhill from there. Um, until we're at the point in, uh, Genesis 5 and 6 where, uh, we're told that everyone on Earth's thoughts were always evil all the time. Yeah. Which, I mean, obviously it's not taken to be absolute. You have Noah, but...

>> Pretty much everybody else.

>> Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. And even, even Calvinists don't think people are that bad. Okay.

>> Um.

>> Usually they lean into that.

>> Yeah. No. No. Total depravity does not mean you are the worst you could possibly be. But these people were the worst they could possibly be. Um, they were all they could be and less. Um, and then we're told that Noah is righteous from his generation, meaning he is a, he's fundamentally different, right, in how he lives and what he does than the rest, the rest of his generation. Okay. So, what is salvation for Noah? Well, salvation for Noah is being saved from the rest of humanity, to be blunt, right? To be saved from the sin and evil that has taken over his world completely, right? From top to bottom. Um, but, but there is a difference here because when you hear about, when you're talking about Genesis in the early chapters, so you're talking about someone being saved from the evils of the world, uh, you might think of Enoch. And yes, I pronounce it like the sleeve stack. I don't care. Feel, feel free to post your comment. Don't care. Still gonna say Enoch. Um...

>> Enoch.

>> Who Enoch is, is like the, one of only a couple people who actually do get raptured in the Bible. Um, so Enoch is sort of removed from the wickedness and evil of the world. That's not what happens with Noah. And the reason that's not what happens with Noah is everybody starts reading the story of Noah with Genesis chapter 6, but he's actually born at the end of chapter 5. And at his birth, his father makes a prophecy, that the world is going to be saved through Noah. The creation is going to be saved through Noah. Okay? And so for that to happen, we can't just pluck Noah out of the world, right? And let the world continue going, you know, where, right? Because it's already kind of there. Um, and so instead, right, the answer is Noah is preserved. The righteous man is preserved as God, as we talked about in our flood episode, you know, unmakes and remakes the creation, but purifies the creation from sin and cuts off sin, puts an end to it, uh, by putting an end to all the sinners. Um, hating the sin and loving the sinner is a good motto for, for, for you and I in this life, but eventually, uh, the chickens come home to roost for the unrepentant sinner, right? Um, and so sin is cut off by everyone being wiped out and the waters purify the creation, right, from the sin and the wickedness, right? And Noah is preserved and emerges on the other side and is told what? "Fill the earth and subdue it." Right.

>> Right.

>> Um, start over.

>> Right. So once he is saved through the waters, right, from the sin and evil in the world, uh, someone like St. Peter might compare that to baptism. Then on the other side, what is salvation for him? It's what it was for Adam, regionally, right? It's, it's, uh, becoming like God, being conformed to the measure of the perfect man, right? That's salvation for him on the other side once he's been saved from that. But there's, there's still a problem, right? Uh, sin is still around, right? See, Ham.

>> Sin is still around. Uh, death is certainly still around, right? The flood doesn't deal with death. In fact, the flood is used death to deal with sin.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. Death is first put into place, human death at least, in in Genesis chapter 3, to deal with sin, right? In the sense of putting a limit on sin by limiting human lifespans, but also, um, but also to, um, I forgot where I was going with that. I forgot what he also was. Um, but so nothing's put into place to to deal with sin.

>> Stephen.

>> Yeah, I know. I know.

>> Maybe this awaits me in two months, I guess.

>> Is this what awaits me in two months when I finally catch up to your current age?

>> I'm sure all that time you spend sleeping at night doesn't count. So, you'll probably be, um... No. So, so that's the original purpose of death is to, is to cut off sin, right? Um, and to, to create repentance from sin by the knowledge of death. That's where I was going with it. Um, but this is sort of in extremis, death being used to deal with, uh, to deal with sin. Okay. So the next figure we get, there's not really one single figure. You may be thinking we're going to the Tower of Babel next, but there's not sort of a righteous man at the center of the Tower of Babel. Tower of Babel story. Unless, and we're not going down this rabbit hole tonight, but potentially another time we will. Um, unless it's Abraham himself at the Tower of Babel, which there's a rich Jewish literature about that idea. Um, but the next figure we get is Abraham. The next righteous man we meet is Abraham.

>> Yeah. And so we meet Abraham in Ur, right? He's living in Ur of the Chaldees. He's living in a world, I mean, it's, it's the Sumerian Renaissance, as we've talked about before. You can go back and listen to the Abraham episode. He's living at the height of, uh, Ur's civilization thus far up to that point. Um, but, uh, there's a big giant ziggurat built in the center of the city during his lifetime that's a temple to a pagan god, right? And so we know that even in his own household, there are people who are bound to these demonic powers, uh, masquerading as gods. He lives in a world that is just corrupt like this. And while the, the separating of the nations, we've talked about how at Babel, we sort of get this picture that things are descending quickly toward the point they were before the flood, right? We have Nimrod show up who's sort of our token Nephilim, right? We have people becoming evil again, doing great evil things, and God sort of scatters the nations, and that kind of puts off the descent of the whole world into total evil, but only puts it off, right? Uh, things aren't moving in a positive direction. Uh, they're just maybe moving a little more slowly.

>> Um, so what is, what is salvation for Abraham? Well, in his own life, right, part of it is being called out of that world.

>> Yeah. I mean, that's kind of the, the, the big turning point moment in the life of Abraham is God comes to him and says, "Time to go."

>> Yeah. It's time to leave this city, right? Um, this city with the ziggurat in the middle that's a pagan temple. This city devoted to a pagan god where a demon holds sway, right? Uh, to get away from that, to go out to another land to live nomadically, right? To remove himself, uh, from that whole, that whole lifestyle, right? Um, and in the context of that, uh, Abraham receives these, these two promises or these promises that have, set of promises that have two prongs, right? Um, one of them is that he's going to have descendants. He's going to have lots of them, right? Uh, this quantity, but then there's also a promise about his descendants regarding, uh, quality, that they will shine like the stars of heaven.

>> Yeah. To be blessed as the stars and multiply as the sands of the sea.

>> Yes. And so, uh, he's also promised, right, this particular chunk of land, right? And that land to which he is brought, in which his many descendants will dwell not nomadically, but more permanently, not permanently, but more permanently than Abraham did. Um, then serves as this sign. When you see these things accomplished, right, then you will know that the rest of the promise is true regarding becoming like the stars of heaven. Uh, and as we talked about in the Abraham episode, when you said "stars of heaven" to, uh, someone from Ur, they were thinking of gods.

>> Yeah. Yeah. What we would call angelic beings, right? Because we get sketchy about gods in the plural, right? Um, that's what, that's what they would think about. So when you're saying your descendants are going to be like them, this is a reiteration of the promise, right? This is a reiteration of the promise, right, of man's destiny, right? That through Abraham and his seed, right, that original purpose for which humanity was created is going to be accomplished. And, right, within the context of those promises, it is implied that sin and death and the powers, that the demonic powers are going to be dealt with. How is that implied? Right? Well, it's implied in first and most obviously in that humanity is going to be restored to its its original purpose, right? Uh, which, as we said, those serve as barriers. But also, it's critically important to remember Isaac.

>> The special significance of Isaac. Um, not only is Isaac the seed of Abraham in a singular way, right? So, Abraham had a bunch of sons.

>> Right?

>> Many sons had father Abraham.

>> Back.

>> I am one of them. So are you.

>> Uh, not in this sense. I mean, literally,

>> Right? Biologically, it's not even just Isaac and Ishmael. There were more.

>> Um,

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

>> After Sarah died. Um, so he had a bunch of sons, right? And they had sons and they, so they became whole nations, right? Um, but there was also this singular son, right? This singular son, this singular son, right, represents a kind of singular hope, right? And people jump really quickly to, "Oh, well, he's the one, he's the one who's going to receive the promises." Well, no. We've talked about this before on the show several times. Actually, all of those kids received parts of the promises.

>> H, right? Both parts of the land, right? So, his grandson, Esau, isn't Jacob isn't the firstborn, but still gets part of the land that was promised to Abraham. See Deuteronomy chapter 2.

>> Right.

>> Right. Um, so they receive that promise. That means, by the way, since that is the sign that they also have open to them the promise of salvation. They're still human. They're still in the image of God. Right? So that salvation that goes all the way back to the creation of Adam is also open to them, even though they're not going to be quote unquote Israelites, right? Um, so there's that singular element, but we also have to remember that that singular element, Isaac, the singular son, right, uh, the one who's going to have this special role, right? So the firstborn is the one who administered the inheritance, right? But the other sons also, when dealt with justly, received an inheritance, um, comes from a womb that the text describes as dead.

>> Sarah's womb, as an extremely elderly woman, is described as being dead. Uh, but that is where, that's where Isaac comes from. So that life, that hope, that one who's going to administer the inheritance, that singular seed, right, overcomes death. Isaac overcomes death by coming into existence.

>> Yeah.

>> Which is a sign, right, that death itself is going to be overcome. And if death itself is going to be overcome, that means the purpose for it existing will have to be overcome, and the demonic powers who wield it will have to be overcome. Right? So that's sort of, that's what I mean by it implies that that will be taken care of.

>> Yeah. So, so the defeat of sin and demons is implied in the defeat of death.

>> Right?

>> Yeah. Cool.

>> So if you can remember all the way back to the beginning of this podcast, many subs were...

>> So much younger then.

>> Yes. I had so much hope. Humanity in the future. It's all gone. No. Um, well, it is all gone now. But, um, but it was gone a long time ago, Frank. I've been running on fumes since like sixth grade. Um, so, uh, we, we said not only are we going to talk about what salvation is, right? We've been talking about that for Adam and Noah and Abraham, what salvation was, we also said we were going to talk about how you receive it.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. Uh, how it comes to you, right? Because as we see with Adam, right off the bat, the fact that God created Adam for a particular purpose, toward a particular end, even in motion toward a particular end, did not guarantee that Adam would achieve that end. Likewise Noah, likewise Abraham, right? And so what is the key in all three cases? The key in all three cases, we can clearly see, and St. Paul will fill you in very quickly if you don't notice this yourself, is faithfulness. The way Adam would have received salvation, the way he would have been conformed, uh, to to the likeness of perfect man, the way he would have become like God, and those are the same thing, even though it's mysterious as to how, uh, the way he would have done that was by being faithful in keeping the three commandments he was given, by faithfully following the way of life that God had set before him to do these things and not do that thing, right? Uh, Noah, right, gets gets told about the flood, has prophesied that the world's going to be saved through him. But what does he have to do to receive that?

>> Build that ark.

>> He spends a hundred years building a boat.

>> I mean, probably way over budget, too.

>> Yes. Uh, so, not, not to harp too much, uh, on our Calvinist friends, but we can clearly see that salvation in the case of Adam and Noah is not monergistic in either case, right? They have to do a thing.

>> They have to do a thing. Yeah. God doesn't build the boat for him. He closes the door, but he doesn't build the boat for him. Right. Um, and so then Abraham, how does he receive salvation? Faithfulness. He doesn't just sit in Ur and say, "Yes, God, I believe you that I will have many children and, uh, they will all live in that land and they will become like the stars of heaven. I'm totally on board."

>> Right.

>> And God credited it to him for righteousness. Yeah. Now I've got this game of the, the royal game of to get back to. Uh...

>> Hey, how did you know what I was?

>> Um, you can play it online now, you know.

>> Yeah. So that's what I assume you're doing through most of these episodes. You're just, you know, you hear me going wa wa wa wa wa wa wa and you're just real game of...

>> Oh, it's time for a...

>> Yeah.

>> Um, and then I, yeah. Then I read off a Bible quote. There's a long pause and then you come in and read it cuz...

>> Like, "Oh, yes, yes, quick pull up on B online."

>> So, uh, he, same thing, right? He, he, he does what God tells him to do, right?

>> Now, someone out there may object. Someone from any number of backgrounds may object and say, "Hold on a second. St. Paul said Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteousness."

>> Yeah.

>> So I guess like...

>> Imputation.

>> You know, even though he did actually go, like he, he, uh, he didn't actually have to, um, and that, yes, and that God just, he believes that God just says, "Okay, you're righteous. You're perfect." Or whatever, right? Like you're, you're done. You're there. Okay. Um, but that's, that's reading a ton of things into the text. First of all, believed, right, is the word that we're translating faithfulness.

>> So, what St. Paul really says is Abraham was faithful and God credited him as righteous. And that credited probably more like reckoned, right?

>> Yeah. It's he was faithful. Oh. Oh, yes. That's righteousness.

>> Yes. So, what St. Paul is doing there is he's telling you the standard by which Abraham was reckoned to be righteous. Okay? So if I say to you, right, that, you know, uh, my friend, uh, uh, Pete Vandervine is tall, you're going to hear the Dutch last name and believe me. But if I say, right, "He's really tall." You might say, unless if we're, if we're on an old late night show, you'd be like, "How tall is he?"

>> No, but you say, "Well, what do you mean tall?"

>> Yeah.

>> Tall compared to who? Tall compared to what? Right? Um, because, you know, in a, a person in certain countries, I don't want to get myself in too much trouble here, but a person in certain countries who's like 6'2" would be considered tall, maybe even really tall. In the Netherlands, 6'2" is like you're 13. Um, so, right, like somebody in the Netherlands who's like 6'7" would be considered tall. Really tall, right? Like you got to, you got to say when you're using any comparative like that, you got to say compared to what or by what standard, right? So if you're going to say somebody's a righteous dude, right? You've, you've got to have some kind of standard. It might be what the, what the cool kids at the high school say, but in this case, we're told that the standard by which God reckons him to be righteous is that he was faithful to what God called him to do.

>> Not that he is the sausage king of Chicago.

>> Yeah. That's all that, that's all that that's saying. That's all that that's saying. There, there is no complex, there's no judicial language there.

>> Yeah. I know you want there to be some of you guys, right? Um, by the way, if you, if you want to take quote unquote justification as forensic language, that he's being declared right, he's declared righteous, right? To be perfectly righteous, then that happens to him twice because it happens in Genesis 15 and again in chapter 22. Uh...

>> Oh.

>> And in both cases when he does something, but, uh, um, right, so don't, don't, don't read too much into that. Right. That's the standard. Right. But as we said, that's a standard for everybody we've seen so far in Genesis. That's a standard for Adam. That's a standard for Noah. That's a standard for Abraham. Are they faithful in what God calls them to do, right? In, in the, the life, the way of life that he puts before them, are they faithful to it or not, right? And if they are, they make progress, right, despite the problems of sin and death and the devil, right, uh, toward being conformed, uh, to the likeness of God, to the, to the perfect man. Uh, and if they are faithless, then they make the opposite of progress in that regard.

>> All right. Well, we're going to go ahead and take our first break and we'll be right back and get your calls here on this episode of the Lord of Spirits Podcast.

Father Andrew Steven Damick and Father Steven D. Young 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 855 AF radio. Ancient Near Eastern texts such as the Baal cycle portray the pagan god Baal as a rebel, the hero of a revolution, worshiped and glorified for his long string of victories. In The Baal Book, a biography of the devil, Father Steven D. Young shows that the Hebrew scriptures consciously turned the Baal story on its head, depicting him as a failed and defeated rebel who nonetheless tries to steal the glory that belongs to Almighty God. From these scriptures, the figure of the devil emerged within Jewish and Christian tradition. Father Steven works through the Old and New Testament passages that refer to various Baal stories. And he surveys Baal worship through followers' beliefs, religious practices, and liturgical life to show that the figures of Baal and the devil, the prince of demons, are one and the same. You can find The Baal Book at store.ancientfaith.com. That's store.ancientfaith.com.

We're back now with the Lord of Spirits with Father Andrew Steven Damick and Father Steven D. Young. If you have a question, call now at 855-237-2346. That's 855 AF radio.

>> Hey, welcome back everybody. How do you like that ad there, father? We, we got a voice over saying the Baal book rather than...

>> Yeah. So, yeah. And, and no disrespect to...

>> The the the speaker of the previous commercial that no...

>> I do like the Baal pronunciation better. Um, I do wonder why you recorded this one at a discotheque in Brussels.

>> I wonder why you have so much knowledge of discotheques in Brussels.

>> But other than that, I mean, doesn't every...

>> I bet some people in the YouTube chat have knowledge of discotheques in Brussels. Um, so we actually have a bunch of callers and, um, I'm feeling a little wild tonight. They're not, I don't, maybe one of them is somewhat on topic, but I'm just going to go ahead and let these, let three people through. Are, are you cool with that, Father?

>> Yes. Let us all do what is right in our own eyes.

>> That's right. That's right. So, uh, okay. Well, our first caller is John from Missouri. John, welcome to Lord of the Spirits podcast.

>> Hey, fathers. A long time caller, first time listener.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've heard that one before.

>> It's possibly true.

>> Original.

>> It can't be a longtime caller. What does that even mean? Like we've been talking for 8 seconds. He could be, he could be somebody...

>> You.

>> He could be somebody who heard about me on the internet and was just enraged. He's like, "I need to call in a guy even though I never listened to his show." When is it on? Is that the case, John from Missouri?

>> Perhaps.

>> Oh, okay. It's gonna be a little quirky. What, what's on your mind out there?

>> Um, so this is going on the Julia and Latria, uh, discussion. So, like, I agree with you guys, like, um, you know, worship involves a sacrifice, but, uh, John is rebuked by the angel in the book of Revelation for what is like, it says it's worship. I don't know if there's like a, a translation kind of thing going on, and does that mean there's like a veneration issue that's, or a veneration that's only for God alone? Uh, could you elaborate on that?

>> Yes, I think we covered this in our Angel of the Lord episode, which now is years ago. I think maybe was that the end of 2021, maybe. I think so.

>> Time is a flat circle. I don't know.

>> I know. I know. Uh, yeah. So, yeah, as I recall, uh, I don't have the Greek text in front of me, but I, as I recall, what it says is that he, he bowed down in front of him like that. That's what it literally is. I think it uses...

>> Proskuneo, actually.

>> Um, so he's clearly not...

>> Pulling out, you know, animals or bread or wine or anything like that to offer sacrifice. So then the question would be, why does the angel stop him from doing that? And, um, as I recall, it's, it's because, uh, it's to let John know that this is not the Angel of the Lord. In other words, this is not the Son of God. Um, even though venerating an angel in and of itself is not a bad thing, but that John might have thought, "Oh, I'm in the presence of Christ here." Um, because, I mean, here's the thing. If bowing down in front of someone should only be given to God, then what about all the other times in the scriptures when other people bow down and no one calls them idolaters? You know, there's a lot of prostration going on. David and Jonathan do that with each other. No one calls them idolaters. Um, there's a lot of stuff where people fall down in front of other people and bow down in front of them. Right? So clearly this angel is not saying to John, "No, no, you must only prostrate in front of God," because that's just not been a thing up to that point. So the only context that makes sense is that John was mistaking him for the Angel of the Lord and he was letting him know, "No, no, just, just get up. Come on. We, we got somewhere to go." Um...

He's doing the whole psychop thing as he's taking him on on a visionary tour. Um, am I remember correctly, Father? Is that is that what we basically said in that episode?

Yeah, I mean, I mean, roughly. Yeah. Because, because St. John sees Christ in several different forms or images, right, in his vision, right? He sees Christ with bronze skin and white hair and right, and he sees, uh, the lamb, right? Uh, and he, right, so he's seeing angels, he's seeing Christ in different, uh, imagery, right, in his vision. Um, and so it's, it's about clarifying who he is.

Larger point though, once again, is we, and by we here, I mean like the Orthodox Church historically, are not making a claim that the words "worship" and "veneration" are, or any particular Greek words or Latin words or Syriac words, right, translated in the same way, are used as technical terms everywhere in scripture and everywhere in the fathers.

Right. Right.

Right. Um,

The point is the actions that you're taking, not the words that are used.

Those words are just labels to put on the distinction.

So we could say there is A that you offer to God alone, which is primarily sacrifice. There is B, which you offer to everyone as it is due to them. Right? Including God, but also including glorified humans, angels, other living humans, your parents, right? Etc., etc. Uh, we could just call them A and B, right? To make that distinction, right? Um, so yeah, don't, there's, I, I think a lot of people seem to think that we're, we're saying, "No, this is like definitional to this word in English or in Greek." And so then, you know, they come to the Sunday of the Holy Cross and they hear, "Before thy cross we bow down in worship," and they're like, "Aha, I caught you. You're doing an idolatry." Right. Um, and right, that we're not claiming these are technical terms. These are fluid terms in English. They're fluid terms in Greek. We're just using them as labels because you have to do something. Even if it's A and B or one and two, right? You have, when you make a distinction, you have to identify somehow the two things you're distinguishing.

Yeah. So, does that clear things up for you, John in Missouri, or do you find us hopelessly idolatrous?

Idolatrous.

I mean, I hope you're not idolatrous because I do a lot of venerating and it's like, I don't really want to go to hell. So, I'd be, that'd be a bummer.

That would be a bummer. I feel like, I feel like we should have someone clip what you just said, John, and just, just play that every so often. I don't want to go, "Oh, that would be a bummer. That's the best thing I've heard all day."

Perhaps the ultimate bummer.

Yes. The last of all bummer.

Yeah. What? What could be worse? So, all right. Well, thank you very much for calling, John. God bless you.

All right. Thank you very much.

Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. Our next caller,

Think of it, think of it this way, dear listener. Right. You've got a ham and cheese sandwich. You've got a hot dog. Right. Those are two different things. You could come and say, "Is not a hot dog also kind of a sandwich? It's between bread, right?" And it would be like, "Okay, yes, but we both know that the hot dog and the ham and cheese sandwich are two different things, so just let me make my distinction."

Right. Right. Exactly. I mean, part of the problem, of course, is that, and people don't seem to feel this deep down, but like the English word "worship" for most of its history has meant "venerate," which is why I think I've mentioned this before on the show that, you know, even today, um, you know, judges in, uh, the UK and Princess Leia in Star Wars are referred to as "Your Worship." Um, and, you know, the Anglican wedding service, the couple each say to each other, "With my body, I thee worship." Um, so they're definitely not offering sacrifices to each other or treating the other one like a god. Um, they're, they're saying, "I, I venerate you." Um, so, yeah, the point is, what is the action? What is the action? Actually.

I have some bad news for you, Father Andrew.

What's that?

Other than yourself, I don't think anyone feels English animology deep in their bones. I really am going home now.

Yeah.

Are you going to go, are you going to go home and pray like Elijah that the Lord just takes your life because you're the only one left to appreciate?

Everyone else has bowed the knee to—

Yes. Recency.

—to modern usage.

That's right. That's right. Um, okay. So, our next caller is Joseph from, uh, Nevada. So, welcome, Joseph. Welcome to the Lord of Spirits podcast. Do we have you, Joseph from Nevada?

Oh, I'm sorry. Uh, Father's blessed. I was on mute. Um, just wanted to, uh, to to raise this objection from playing devil's advocate. The Protestants are going to say, "Well, all this stuff about venerating and worship and all this stuff, uh, but not for salvation." They're just going to say, "But not for salvation. Go to church, read the Bible, but not for salvation."

For what then?

I mean, that's the thing, you know, honestly, that question is part of why I left Protestantism. Really? Like, I had a sense of like the kind of, now, I mean, there's a lot of different kinds of Protestantism, don't at me. I literally have a 400-page book basically saying that, uh, but, but in the version of Protestantism that I was in, we believed in "once saved, always saved," right? So I had done the thing. I had had the moment, uh, and I had gotten saved. And so since I had that, then one of the big questions that eventually kind of occurred to me was, why am I doing all this other stuff? Why is all this other stuff important? It feels important. It seems important. I want it to be important, but what is it actually for? And the best kinds of answers that I could get were something like, "Well, it contributes to your growth." Which, okay, but like, hey, I've got heaven in the bag, so, you know, what does that even mean, buddy? You know, more crowns in the hereafter. How many crowns can one man cast down anyway? Um, so, yeah, I mean, it was be, it was, it was because of a sense that that doctrinely speaking, at least within my, you know, my frame, that all those other things weren't really actually important, that they didn't critically matter. So that's what I would, that's what I would say to that. Um, and why would, you know, why would Christ, why would all the apostles, why would the prophets constantly be urging people to faithfulness if it didn't really matter?

Absolutely. I mean, I have so much more of a sense of purpose now. Um, I mean, like, there's actually a purpose for all the things that we're doing. And if, if, if salvation is the purpose, then that's, that's a full Christian life. Not just sanctific, like a symbolic sanctific, like this, the sanctification deal, the growth thing, then just becomes memorial and and and nominalistic.

Yeah. Yeah.

So my callboard says that you had another question about the one that Father Steven calls Enoch.

Yes. Just a passing one. Um, they're, they're going to use that as a type and shadow of the rapture. And I actually had kind of an eye-opening moment as I was waiting. Um, I'm a former Messianic. I'm not ethnically Jewish, but I was kind of raised around Messianic Jews all my life.

In Israel and all this type of stuff. So, I kind of had the revelation that this whole dispensationalist rapture deal is just so that they could, uh, create another covenant and do the Judaizing thing on this earth and replace the church, which is that function for salvation. Uh, I kind of had that eye-opening. I hope I'm articulating it right, but like, yeah. Um, but the question is, how to respond to that, that that's a type of rapture?

That Enoch being, I'm sorry, Enoch.

I can't do it. Enoch being—

Go watch some Land of the Lost. You'll get into that.

—being taken is a, a, it's a pre-rapture, like it's a rapture preview.

Yes, pretty much.

What do you think of that, Stephen?

Well, I did make that joke, but, yeah, the—

In terms of the, the dispensationalists, as you say, they do seem, you know, just dead set on helping the Antichrist build the third temple.

Uh, what is that, right? What is that all about?

Especially like, really, you read, read St. John of Damascus' precise exposition of the Orthodox faith where he talks about the, uh, the Antichrist rebuilding the, the Jewish temple and being worshiped in it. It gives you the heebie-jeebies about our dispensationalist friends. Like, guys, you know. Um, yeah, and that, it is a weird, I don't think it's fair to Judizers to call to call them Judizers.

Isn't that sad that I have more sympathy for Judizers than for them?

Um, Judizers are responsible for fewer deaths.

Um, the, because they, they don't really, they basically fetishize Jewish people.

Yeah. That's, which is, I mean, we—

Which Jewish people, by the way, find really creepy.

Yeah. I mean, this morning when we were doing our briefing for this episode, Father Steven and I were discussing—

Making a big list of all the things that modern Orthodox Jews do that would weird out the particular set of like evangelicals and dispensationalists who fetishize them.

Yeah.

You know, like we're like, for instance, they go and pray at the tomb of Abraham.

You know, uh, fun stuff like that.

Um, yeah.

Yeah. But, yeah, so it's, so basically, I, I'm, I'm, I guess saying no to your question, but with the proviso that I think it's actually worse than you're suggesting. Uh, yeah. And it's, it's, it's a deeply steeped political ideology, meaning it's about violence primarily.

Yeah.

And where to direct it.

Yep. Yep.

All right. Well, I hope that helps, Joseph.

Yes. Thank you. And, yeah, that's exactly why you listen. Thanks.

Yeah.

Great. Great. Thank you. All right.

Build another one. All right. Here we go.

We're gonna take one more call. Uh, and, uh, this is, this is Josh, who's calling from Ann Arbor, Michigan. So, Josh, welcome to Lord of Spirits podcast.

Hello. Father's blessed.

God bless you. You made it in. You sound vaguely relieved.

It's true. I tried before but didn't quite make it.

I know. Sometimes Mike just randomly hangs up on people, you know. Mike Dan, what can we say about that guy?

He just starts hitting the the button and he just doesn't want to deal with callers, you know.

I get that a lot, to be honest.

I'm thinking about docking his vacation time just because it would be fun.

He gets vacation time.

Yeah, we're, we're a very nice employer to work for, actually.

I thought you had him shackled to the, uh, to the board.

He shackles himself. I mean, this guy sleeps, he, he sleeps in the studio. The great thing is is he can't answer us right now. But on—

Nowhere else to go.

Yeah, there we go. That's true.

You don't pay him enough to have a place to live, you know.

Try to throw him out of there at night. He's like, "I need a place to sleep." So he just handcuffs himself to the board.

That's right. All right. Sorry, Josh. Uh, we're just, you know, we, I, you know, I, for whatever reason, I've been remiss in making fun of, of, you know, giving creative nicknames to Mike Dan over the last couple episodes. We have to kind of make up for that, uh, a little bit, you know, otherwise his priest told us that he would remove his blessing for him to work for us. So I'm trying to keep him employed. That's really what—

It'll be completely out of that.

That's right. That's right. That's right. So what's, what's, what's up there in, uh, in Michigan that's on your mind?

Well, I'm a, a former PSA believer. So my question is about Isaiah 53. Um, I understand you read the, the Greek version generally, but—

You're kind of breaking up, but we heard you say, "I heard you, you read the Greek version."

Right? The Hebrew version of Isaiah 53:10 says, "Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him."

So you're asking, "Is that not penal substitutionary atonement?"

It just sounds like it's something that the father is doing against the son.

What do you think? What do you think, Father Steven? Is, is that indeed have we, have we got—

The older translation translations say he was—

He was pleased to crush him.

—um,

But all that all that means is that, uh, what happened to Christ was God's will.

Yeah.

Not something the father did against him.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's not like, I mean, imagine, right?

Well, also imagine like, you know, the father's up there like grinning.

Right?

Well, no, that, yeah.

I know. So, pleased.

What?

So, the, the "to crush him" part, right? It was his will to crush him. When you see the word "to" like that, that's an infinitive in English.

Yeah.

Right. Because it's translating an infinitive construct form in Hebrew, right? But an infinitive is just the verb sort of in its simplest state. So, um, the, the, you could translate it, uh, as easily "crushing him was his will" or "his being crushed," even, because there's no, there's no tense to an infinitive and an infinitive does not have a subject or a direct object. The crushing of him. It's just considering the action in and of itself. The crushing of him was God's will. That he wanted to do a woodenly literal translation of the Hebrew. His being crushed was God's will. Um, and, and that's right, the, the Garden of Gethsemane.

Yeah. "Not my will, but thine." "Not my will, but thine be done." Fathers tell us, you know, six ecumenical council, that's the, the "my will" there is the, uh, is Christ's human will. "Thy will" is the divine will, right? Which Christ shares with the Father and the Spirit, right? Meaning all three persons of the Trinity. It was their will. It was their plan, right? That Christ be crushed. That what happened to him in his crucifixion happened.

Yeah. And I mean, the thing is, penal substitutionary atonement in its true sense has a bunch of very specific parts to it. I, I think part of the problem with people pointing at stuff is that they assume that model, right? And then they see something that looks like it's one piece of it and they say, "Ah, the rest of the model must be there." You know, um, the idea that it was the will of God that Christ should die does not imply the whole rest of the, the penal, penal substitutionary atonement model.

Right. You also have to ask, so when, when, if, if we're doing exegesis, if we're trying to determine, "What is this verse, this verse in Isaiah teaching?" Okay. Uh, do, how would, how would Isaiah be setting forth an an atonement model, right? Like, you would have to argue here Isaiah is explaining to everyone how, right, like the mechanism of, or part of the mechanism in this case, it's only part of it, part of the mechanism by which God is going to justify sinners without them actually not being sinners.

Yeah. And I mean, and also just a few verses before that one, right? We, we have a verse that gets explicitly interpreted in the Gospels where it says, "He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." Uh, isn't it in Matthew's Gospel? I can't recall.

Um, he says that was fulfilled when Christ healed people.

Right? Not fulfilled when you know, not fulfilled when Christ was crucified, actually, but when he healed people.

Right. But more importantly, more importantly, because it talks about him bearing our infirmities, right? And St. Matthew is clearly not saying like, when, when Christ healed a paralyzed person, he became paralyzed, right? Or when he, he, uh, healed a blind person, he became blind. Or he healed a leper and he got leprosy, right? He's talking, it's talking about he's curing them. He's purifying them of leprosy. He's healing them. So when that same language is applied to sin, why would, why would we interpret it differently than St. Matthew interprets it?

Yeah. Yep.

Right. That it means Christ taking away sin, purifying people from sin, right? Cleansing them from sin, healing them from sin. It would mean the same thing. But so it, it doesn't make sense for Isaiah to be like, just throwing out pieces of an atonement model in a prophecy 700 years before Christ died, right?

Okay. But what, what does make sense, right? Allow me to suggest is the idea that the, because the servant is also talking about Israel there. It's not talking about Israel instead of the Messiah. Part of why Jesus is the Messiah is that he embodies Israel and recapitulates Israel, right? That the sufferings of Israel, the sufferings of the Israelite people, and in its ultimate fulfillment, the sufferings of Christ are all according to God's knowledge and plan. Right? Meaning God's people don't suffer, and ultimately Christ didn't suffer because God couldn't stop it from happening. Right? It wasn't a surprise. It wasn't that something overpowered or overwhelmed God, right? Like the Assyrians thought their gods had beaten the God of Israel when they, when they conquered Israel. The Babylonians thought Marduk had had conquered the God of Israel when they conquered Israel. Right? So contextually, Isaiah has every reason to be talking about that this didn't happen outside the will of God. That God has a purpose for it. God is going to bring good out of it. Right? And it then makes sense for the New Testament writers to take that and apply that to Christ as the ultimate fulfillment where it's filled to overflowing because this is the ultimate evil, right, inflicted on God himself, and yet it is part of God's plan and and God brings the greatest good possible out of it.

Yeah.

Yep.

Which of those does it make sense for Isaiah to be talking about? This is like the, the Romans problem with a lot of Calvinist proof texts in Romans is they first have to justify why is St. Paul writing to the church in Rome to describe some abstract theological principles to them. Isn't it more likely he's writing to them to address some issues they're actually facing, like he does in all of his epistles? Right. So, there's a, there's a framing question that we have to answer before we start trying to do exegesis.

Yep. Yep. Does that make sense, Josh? That makes, so you—

All right. You broke up there, but I'm going to go ahead and fill in what you, it sounded like that makes absolute perfect sense. You guys are geniuses. Thank you. Right. Is that basically what you said?

Exactly. Yep.

All right. Great. Thanks for calling, Josh. All right. It's the second half. We're not going to start with Genesis this time, but with with Exodus.

That would be weird if we started the second half with Gen. Although we've probably done that. We probably, there's at least one episode, I'm sure, where we start in the Stone Age in the first half.

Yes.

And then like second half is Genesis. I'm sure we've done that at least once.

Yeah. Yeah.

Um,

Moses. Moses. Moses.

Yes. Now we're getting to Moses, who, as we mentioned before, supposes his toes are roses. But Moses supposes erroneously. For Moses, he knows his toes aren't roses, as he supposes his toes to be. I feel like you're reliving some moment of your childhood there.

No. Uh, uh, this is actually another Danny Kaye reference, which is becoming a theme on the show now.

Oh. Wow.

Wait, are you saying that Danny Kaye was not a part of your childhood? Like, at least on TV?

I mean, a little bit. Not a huge part.

Okay.

I mean, not like Charles Nelson Reilly or something, but low-key he was. Um, so yes, this brings us to Moses. We've moved from Genesis to Exodus in a whole half of the show.

Um, so you may be thinking, "Oh, now we're going to talk about salvation of the Torah." And I say, "Hold your horses, friend. We need to talk about Moses himself first, right?"

Moses the person.

What is salvation for Moses? The person. So the first part of his life, the first 80 years or so, um, is essentially a sort of recapitulation of the life of Abraham. If you think about it, right? So Abraham, when we meet him, is in Ur, number one city, number one civilization in the world at the apex of human civilization. And Moses ends up in Egypt, which at the time he's alive, is one of, if not the most, and I'm not doing the date of the Exodus, uh, most powerful civilizations in the world, right? Um, apex of human civilization, right? He's right there in it, but it is under the control of the gods of Egypt, who are demonic powers who get judged in the Passover, remember? Um, and so, uh, Moses ends up facing potentially a death sentence because he murders, uh, the Egyptian. He goes on the lamb. So he leaves that civilization, he goes out into the wilderness and he lives as a nomadic herdsman, the way Abraham left Ur and went and became a nomadic herdsman. Um, so there is an element of salvation from the powers and potentially from sin and death in terms of if he had gotten caught for murder, uh, in Moses' early life, right? Those obstacles. But what we see with salvation for Moses then in sort of the third act of his life, the last 40 years, is something of a return to form. What is, what is salvation for Moses in that part of his life? Well, it is speaking to God face to face. It is seeing God, right? Seeing God. Uh, he is made as God to Pharaoh, right? So he becomes like God. He sees God, right? And there aren't a whole pile of people who see God, right?

Um, and if we're talking about in the Torah, you've basically got four. You've got Moses, and you've got Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

Right? Um, and you may not have thought about this, but you know, why do we get the list Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and there's not like Joseph or Judah or somebody on the end there? None of the 12 patriarchs, none of the sons of, uh, of Israel of Jacob saw God. Joseph had and interpreted dreams, right? But Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all saw God directly. Spoke with him, right? Wrestled with him in one case. Um, and Moses does, uh, on Mount Sinai. And so the core of this is that, that those four, right, are our first biblical saints. The way we in the church use the term saint.

Yeah.

Right.

They are for people who have achieved that purpose for which humans were created, who have faithfully moved in that direction. And so now stand in the presence of God and continue right down that path toward the image of the perfect man, toward the likeness of God, right? Um, so that's true for Moses, the per person, but then of course Moses gives the Torah, right? God gives it through Moses, you should say, right? God gives the Torah through Moses. The Torah is now given to the people of Israel as Israel is formed. And so we need to talk about, if we're going to talk about salvation and the Torah, we've got to talk about sort of three levels of the Torah. Three levels at which the Torah functions, shall we say. Um, and we're going to talk about these in ascending order. So, we're going to start with sort of the lowest tier, right, of the Torah, and then we're going to ascend. Seems appropriate. Seems St. Gregory of Nyssa.

So, sort of the lowest level at which the Torah functions has to do with the land. Okay? Because remember, the land was promised to Abraham as a sign, right? He was brought into the land himself to dwell in it as a nomad, as a sign that it would be given to his descendants. But it was being given to his descendants as a sign of the greater promise, right, of salvation in the original sense, the original Adam theosis sense.

Um, so it's, it's given to, was going to be given to them as a sign. And now as the Torah is given, Israel is being given its peace because remember, Edom already had its peace. Moab already had its peace. Am, the other Abrahamites already had their pieces of the land. Israel is the one who shows up last, right? Um, they're being given their piece of the land. But that giving of the land by God as an inheritance to Israel is pre-Torah. Meaning Israel isn't given the Torah, commanded to keep it. They keep it for some period of time perfectly, and then God gives them the land.

Right. No, that's not how it happens.

Yeah. He doesn't give them the Torah in Egypt and they keep it and so he brings them out of Egypt, right? They're brought out of Egypt and brought to the land before the Torah. Okay? So it is not conditional to them receiving the Torah or receiving the land. The Torah is not conditional to them receiving the land. How is the land received? And to understand even what that question means, maybe we need to step back a a step and look at something, which is that we're told in Deuteronomy 2 about the other Abrahamites having been given their portions of the land promised to their father Abraham. Israel comes last. We don't get all those gritty details. We're just told that that happens. That happened, right? That they drove out the certain giant clans and were given the land by God and it was theirs as part of the inheritance from Abraham. Uh, in Joshua, we get the gritty details of what happens with Israel in particular and the 12 tribes in particular. Um, and so on one hand, we have like in Numbers, uh, everybody's favorite book of the Bible. Um,

We should do like a year-long Numbers, uh, study.

I kind of did.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's playing right now on the—

Yeah, it's kind of being posted right now.

It's right now it's playing on that podcast. That is what some of these people want.

Just you.

Me rambling.

Yes.

Uh, it's a cure for insomnia. I mean, you got to give it that.

Someone in the, someone in the chat, uh, no, no, no, not in the chat, actually on Facebook said that, um, I do power naps during this show, but I can say right, right in my sleep, apparently. So,

Just putting that out there.

I, I don't think Father Andrew actually power naps during the show. Uh, cuz if he did power nap during the show, if he was able to do that, we wouldn't have to start so early so we could get to bed.

That seems fair.

Um,

Tough but fair. So, so we get these, we get these gritty details about the 12 tribes and in Numbers, we get laid out, okay, this not just this tribe, but this clan and this tribe, this family, they get these pieces of land. It's laid out very particularly, right? And those pieces of land are supposed to not only be given to each of those families, but they're supposed to stay in those families. Remember, it all reverts in the year of Jubilee if they had celebrated that, uh, right? And then we read Joshua and we see that, uh, Israel was not exactly batting a thousand in terms of taking possession of of exactly that land.

Right.

Right. Um, they take a lot of it, some tribes more of it, some less of their parcels, right? Um, some like Dan just say, "Forget about it," and go and take a different parcel.

They don't like their allotment, so they—

Yeah. So, right, all these things happen, right? And you're like, "Well, that's, that's messy and weird." So, and, and you might get to the end of Joshua and be like, uh, "Yeah. So, it doesn't sound like they actually got the land God promised them." And then at the end of the book of Joshua, it says they got all the land God promised to them. Says there's not one promise to Abraham that wasn't fulfilled right there at the end of Joshua. None left. Sorry, dispensationalists. Like, there really are just proof, proof texts at the end of the book of Joshua that destroy dispensationalism. Like, it's insane. Especially since dispensationalists are all about like, "We need to read the Bible literally," right? Like, it literally says all the promises to Abraham were fulfilled in the second millennium BC. Now, now you're going to allegorize.

Um,

But we want to launch missiles at people.

Yeah, we want to kill people. Uh, and this is a good excuse. Um, there's plenty of other excuses. People have been killing people throughout human history, right?

Yeah. Without mystery.

They didn't always use the Bible as an excuse.

Yeah.

In fact, it's relatively rare. Um, so, uh, the, so that seems at odds to us, right? You could, you could almost forgive the Zionists because of the cognitive dissonance. I mean, almost. Um, right, in that, right, on one hand, you read, "Okay, this land is being given to these people," and then on the other hand, uh, "Here's, here's the land that those people actually received," and, and, and there's not a matchup. Right? By the way, in case anyone is wondering, the reference to Joshua is Joshua 23:15. So, just there it is, by the way, everybody.

Yeah.

Well, is that the Orthodox Study Bible or, uh—

No, you know, I don't, I don't know what the Orthodox—

The versification is different in the Orthodox Study Bible.

Yeah. No, this is—

So that's, I just want to clarify for people that—

Most Bibles.

Everybody else's Bible. Yeah. Your dispensationalist will be using that Bible. So, not the Orthodox Study Bible. So,

Right. Right. Um, that's, that's the versification to go by. Um, right. So, uh, and the key there that bridges that gap is faithfulness, right? Faithfulness because God said, "Here is the land that I am giving you. Here is your inheritance." Right? And then he doesn't just say, "There you go." Just like he didn't say, "There you go" to Abraham. Abraham had to get up and move to the other side of the known world. Noah had to spend 100 years building a boat. Right? He says to them, "Go take it. I will be with you. You will be victorious. You'll be successful. Go take it." Right? And some of them went and took it, and some of them didn't.

Yeah. And those who were faithful received their inheritance, and those that were not did not. Right? This is a critically important paradigm related to salvation. Right? If you don't understand this, you won't understand Romans. Right? Because as we're going to talk about in the third half, spoilers, Christ accomplishes a lot of things on behalf of all humanity. Not just some, not just a select or elect few. Behalf of all humanity, but all humanity does not receive those things that Christ accomplished because they aren't faithful. Yeah. Right. And so the same thing is true here. So God can say that he kept all his promises, right? The example I used this morning, and this is a very up-to-date, up-to-the-minute example. If you get a phone call saying, "You won a free VCR, you just have to go down to the mall and pick it up."

What's a VCR? What's a mall?

And you decide, "I am not going to drive my Saturn over to the mall to get my free VCR. I'm just going to sit at home." You cannot then like wait six months and say, "Yeah, that guy lied to me when he told me I won a free VCR. I never got the VCR, right?" I know you could all relate. Everyone listening can relate regardless of their age.

Um, especially to owning a Saturn. Yes.

Um, right. And so the same thing, right? So your Israelite who didn't receive his land thing can't sit there and say, "Oh, God told me he was going to give me this land, but he didn't."

Yeah. They have to go take it.

Yeah. He did. You just didn't go take, go take it, right? He told you, "Go here and you will get it," and you didn't go there. So you didn't get it, right? Um, so then, right, as we said, that's pre-Torah, right? That's not with reference to the Torah. So the Torah, the way the Torah relates to the land is after the fact. The life that they will have in the land or not have in the land is going to be based on faithfulness to the commandments of the Torah. And that's why when you get to the end of the book of Deuteronomy and you get to the blessings and the curses, the blessings and the curses are not about going to heaven or going to hell. There's nothing in the Torah that says if you keep the Torah perfectly, you go to heaven,

Right?

Yep.

Or achieve salvation.

Yeah.

Or anything like that. It says, "If you keep the Torah perfectly, you will have a long and healthy and prosperous life in the land. And if not, you're going to end up dead or in exile, right?" And we all know which of those two Israel corporately chose, right, historically, because we've read the rest of the Old Testament, right? But, so, as we said, this is the lowest level, right? This is the lowest level is dealing with the land and life in the land. Now, even this lowest level of the Torah, remember the land functions as a sign, right? It's it's an icon. Okay? It is an image. So, it's not just this, right? It points to more than this, but it is pointing, right? It is pointing. Part of what it's pointing to is a pattern. It's a pattern we already not only read about in Genesis but talked about tonight. That is the pattern of Adam being formed the way Israel was formed. Adam being placed in the garden. Right? Israel being brought into the land. Adam being unfaithful and being expelled from paradise. Israel being unfaithful and being expelled from the land into exile. Right? It's a pattern that repeats. Right? Um, and so it points, the land points to bigger things. Right? But at a very base level, there is this sort of land level, right? What's the next level up? The next level up is the way the Torah interacts with sin. Okay? So now we've moved from something that's at the level of icon, something that's at the level of sign, to, okay, now we're talking about sin. Now we're talking about this obstacle on the path of salvation. Okay? And how the Torah relates to that. Okay? The Torah does not and does not claim to solve the problem of sin. Okay? Doesn't solve it. In fact, it can't solve it. New Testament, St. Paul, and everybody else in the New Testament is going to make this point. The Torah can't, doesn't solve this problem. It doesn't promise to solve this problem. But it does certain things in managing this problem. Okay? And so there's sort of three ways that we're going to talk about that the Torah aids with the sin problem.

Oh, we got, we just got a, I was going to say, we just got a really relevant question in the YouTube chat which directly connects what you're saying. So the question is, "What I'd like to know is why the Torah is so complicated in its commandments compared to what Adam was given?" So I think what you're about to say kind of answers this.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so sin in the world, right, certainly complicates things, right? Um, death in the world, certainly complicates things, right? Adam did not have to deal with mortality. He did not have to deal with sin. Uh, he did not have to deal with the effects of sin on himself and on his own, meaning like weakness, right? Um, and, uh, he did not have the demonic powers, right? Corrupting when, when one showed up to corrupt him, it happened real, it worked real fast. But that's, um, he did not have face, uh, demonic influence the way we do, right? And so, as I was just saying, yeah, the Torah was going to address this, but the Torah isn't going to solve this. Um, the three ways, right, that we're going to talk about that that the Torah interacts with sin. First of all, the Torah brings the knowledge of sin. St. Paul talks about this extensively, like in Romans. Uh, the Torah doesn't invent sin. Yeah, sin has an existential reality to it. You know, it is actually destructive to you whether anyone told you not to do that or not.

Right. Right. So, there are some people who take this view, uh, that, uh, the, uh, something is a sin because God said not to do it, right? Uh, which is kind of a weird nominalist view, but that, that there's, right, it's not essentially a sin, God just said not to do it, and so now it's a sin, right? So that there being, being a commandment makes it a sin, right? And that is the exact opposite of the truth, right? And I can give you a perfect example from the Torah itself, okay? Uh, Uh, does anyone want to argue with me based on the stories of say, Jacob and Leah and Rachel, that, uh, polygamy was not a problem before the Torah?

Yeah. It did not go well.

Right? Like, uh, uh, you say adultery was not a problem before, right? The, the, the Ten Commandments. Um, lying was cool. No. Yeah, bearing false witness was totally cool, but then God had to say, "No, stop." Everybody's like, "Oh, man. I love bearing false witness." Um, yeah, that, that's, that's not a thing. Right. The Torah brings the knowledge of sin, right? Now, you, you know what is sin and what is not. It's like warning labels, right? Those can be helpful if you pay attention to them. Those can save your life if you pay attention to them. Right? And now St. Paul points out that even in this case, uh, that they sometimes have a perverse counter effect, right? Um, I don't know if women have had this experience, but as someone who was once a teenage boy, uh, the quickest way to get me to try to do something was to tell me that I, I'm not allowed to, it was dangerous, or I shouldn't do it. That was sort of the quickest way to get me to do it. And St. Paul talks about how he himself in his own experience, right, how he hadn't even thought about coveting until he read, "Thou shalt not covet." Right? You read—

Yeah.

—"You're not allowed to do this," and it's like, "Oh."

Right.

Just like when you're, when you're in confession, you know, if you're a priest, like, don't, don't give the person any ideas.

Yeah.

Don't mention sins that they haven't heard of before.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. You have to limit your questions, right?

Right. Right. That's—

Like, you may want to ask, "You mean consecutively or simultaneously?" But that's not always good to ask, right?

Right. Um, the, uh, so, right, so to an extent, but the Torah lays out, "Here is what is sin, here is what is dangerous, here is what is deadly in the world, right? Here is what to avoid." Um, the Torah also provides a means of directly managing sin, not dealing with it once and for all, because you have to keep doing it, right? You have to keep doing the sin offerings every day. You have to keep doing the Day of Atonement every year, right? But there is this sort of management system, right? Uh, to manage sin, confession, repentance, right? That is, that is built in there. Uh, and the Torah also has provisions that are intended to help us understand sin, right? A lot, and, and what I'm referring to under this heading is a lot of the commandments in the Torah that have to do with uncleanness. Like we've talked about before, unclean is not the same thing as sin. Okay? It is not a sin to go to the bathroom, right? Okay. Um, the, uh, but it leaves you unclean. But the rules for clean and unclean, not only are many of them good as community health regulations, right, at a very literal level, but also the way mildew is handled, right? The way people with contagious skin disorders are handled. These give images of what sin is like. How it infects. How it spreads if not dealt with properly. How it requires cleansing and purification. How that cleansing and purification have to be total. You can't leave a little. You can't, or it will come back in for, right? All of these things are meant to educate about sin and how it works, right? To aid people in avoiding sin, to aid people in repentance, right? But none of those commandments actually touch on sin's existence.

Yeah. Ending it once and for all,

Right? Or, or its ability to get its hands on somebody if they yield to it, right? Um, but that is a, that is a, a deeper level than the land stuff, right? Um, but then, and very importantly, and often lost sight of, right, unfortunately, is the upper tier, the actual purpose of the Torah, which is about, surprise, surprise, uh, if you've been tracking with us so far this episode, about imaging God, about being formed in the likeness of God. And it's not just me saying this is the highest part of the Torah. Christ says so. Yes. In Matthew 23:23, where he says, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others." So what is weightier? I mean, just mean more serious? No,

No, it's, I mean, that's how most people read it is it just means the most serious part.

Yeah. Well, I, I do have to note by the way that "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees" is literally cursing them.

Yeah.

So, sorry Trenhorn. Um, but, uh, yeah. So notice, right, the weightier matters.

Justice, mercy, faithfulness, right? These are the weightier matters. So the word that means weighty or heavy in Hebrew is *cavode*. *Cavode* is also often translated as glory, as in God's. But also often, right, to separate it from the word you've probably heard in terms of what the Hebrew word is for God's glory is *shakina*, right?

*Shakina* glory.

Yeah.

That's how I was heard it when I was growing up.

*Shakina* uh is God's glory as in like the manifestation, the glory cloud, right? The fiery cloud that we see manifests itself. *Cavode* is the word that Moses uses when he tells God he wants to see his *cavode*. Right? Sometimes translated in English that he wants to see his glory when he's told, "You can't see me and live."

Yeah.

Right. Which, by the way, remember is nine verses after it says that Moses spoke to him face to face.

Right. Right. Right. And so this idea of weight of heaviness is far closer to the later concept of essence or being. Right? So what, what Christ is saying here is that justice and mercy and faithfulness are the core of the Torah, the essence of the Torah.

Yeah. And these other things like tithing from your herb garden, right, are peripheral, right? Now, he doesn't say they're unimportant or dumb or don't worry about them.

Yeah. He says, "Do those things, but—"

Yeah.

"—without neglecting the core." Right.

Yeah.

Right. And also, by the way, right. Well, continue that. So, we have this mistaken idea that, and we've talked about this on the show before, the, the sort of translation chain that gets us from the word Torah to the word law in English. But because we're so used to referring to it as the law and seeing it translated as law, we immediately think about it in legalistic terms. Shocking, I know, that something called the law would be thought of in a legalistic way, right? But that's not at all the way it was thought about by anyone in the first century. That's not the way Christ talks about it. Right? Um, Christ, of course, says when asked about the greatest commandment, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength." Right? "The second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself." Right? "In these is summed up all the Torah and the prophets." It's not just the whole Torah is summed up in it, but the whole Hebrew Bible, the whole scriptures are summed up in those two.

commandments, right? Meaning, if you're if you do those, you're doing everything else that's required of you, right? And St. Paul says the same thing in Romans. He says, "The one who loves keeps the whole Torah."

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Right. And it's not just Christ and St. Paul. Christ and St. Paul are certainly enough.

>> Yeah. I mean I mean this and well this also reminds me of a similar kind of saying um which I think it was um our petristics professor passed on at least he said it to my class. I think you had the same Petristics professor I did Dr. Venamine

>> and he said he remember

>> he didn't pass on that's not what you were saying. He passed on this saying

>> he passed on this saying which he passed on.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> That Yeah. He is still living. May God grant him many.

>> Don't anyone freaking out. Yeah.

>> Yeah. Yeah. No, but I mean I remember him saying, you know, seminarians, believe it or not, everybody have endless conversations about things that you don't need to have endless conversations about. And one of them is fasting. And he uh which seems to be a particular obsession with American Orthodox Christians, but um I mean fasting is very important, but endless conversations about it are not usually. Um, but I remember him saying that there was he was in a situation where I think it was a fasting day, but he was visiting a friend who took him to a restaurant and then he he he realized there was really nothing at the restaurant that was fast friendly. And then the person said to him, I think he was in Greece in Greek uh a saying which I don't know what it sounds like in Greek, but the saying was essentially that love obviates the necessity of the fast. you know that that the hospitality and the love that was being shown is greater than the gain that can be had from the aesthetical action of fasting for a particular meal. You know, so it it it shows the same kind of principle, you know, that that love is the fulfillment of of the whole law of God. Now, that doesn't mean you you know, hey, I I love you. I can do whatever I want, you know. No, no, no, no, no. It's not the that's not the point at all. But that that genuine Christian love is doing it. It's doing what go what God wants.

>> You will do all those other things if you are truly loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and straight. The end, right? Yeah. Um that's why St. Paul, right, he gives the fruit of the spirit. He says against such things there is no law. Right.

>> Yeah.

>> Um so yeah. So it's it's not just Christ and St. Paul who who held to this, right? This is I mean they they would certainly be enough, right? But they were not like this is not revisionism, right? When Christ says those two sum up the law of the prophets, all the teachers of the law around them, right? All the Torah teachers, all the Pharisees and stuff are like you have spoken well, right? Like they all acknowledge, right? Like yes, that is true. That's why in Matthew 23:23 that we just heard, Christ calls them hypocrites, right? because they know and would agree that the core, the center, the important is things like justice and mercy and faithfulness are the core of the Torah. They know that. They just don't act like it. They just don't live like it, thus making them hypocrites. Right? So, this isn't some novel Christ comes along, St. Paul or St. Paul comes along and turns the whole Torah on its head, right? Uh no, this is the way everyone read it, right? This is what it said because this is what it's teaching, right? Um yeah. So that is the deepest and most important level right is manifesting justice, mercy, right? Faithfulness. What are these? These are what we the other extra call divine energies. These are God's activity in the world, right? So the core of the Torah, the Torah is really about is setting forth a way of life, right? That leads to being formed in the image of the perfect man, being formed into the likeness of God, right? Which are the same thing again, right? That's ultimately what it's aimed at. That's complicated by the fact that we also have to manage sin and these other issues, right? Um that have intervened. But the core of it is still the same same idea of salvation. So then what is what is salvation for an Israelite and how did they receive it? Right? Well, like we just said, it meant they were faithful in following the way of life that God had set out before them in the Torah. Right? But what does it mean? right to keep Torah. This is the essential question that everybody was asking. This is this is the essential question that was asked to Christ when he gave the response, right, of the the greatest commandments, right? This is what all of these questions and discussions in Jewish circles in the first century AD were about. What does it mean to keep Torah? They all understood that this is what we need to do, but what does it really mean?

>> Yeah.

>> Right. And they all because they all knew it couldn't and didn't just mean like, okay, I follow this ris list of rules legalistically, mechanically, right? They all knew that wasn't it, right? And so what are we saying? We're saying that the core of the Torah and the way they found salvation was by pursuing man's original purpose, becoming like God, right? Following these core things of the way of life, right? Putting putting the world in order, filling it with life, right? and these other elements of the Torah, these lower levels, right, of having land to live on and raise your family on and having a means of dealing with sin, those are there to facilitate the core pursuit of salvation.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. To make that possible. And part of what accentuates this is when we ask the question. So we just ask that question, what does it mean for an Israelite? Whether they're an Israelite in the undivided kingdom, whether they're an Israelite in the northern kingdom, a Judahite in the southern kingdom, a Judite in exile, a Judeian after the exile, right, with keeping Torah. But if we go during that same time period and we say, "What is salvation for a non-Israelite? And how does the non-Israelite receive it?" Because they haven't been given the Torah.

>> Yeah.

>> They don't have all this teaching about how to be faithful to God,

>> right? They don't have this way of living set out in detail before them in the Torah, right? Which and this is why St. Paul in in Romans 2 is saying like even though he's talking about Gentiles, you right, he says, what are you just saying the Torah is no big deal? He's like, no, it was a big deal. We had all of this given to us, right? That they did not, right? But salvation was still possible for them because we see people non, right? all kinds of other people all all through the Old Testament who are not Israelites, who don't become Israelites, right? Like Ruth becomes an Israelite even though she's a Moabitete. Um non doesn't become an Israelite, right? There are plenty of who don't become Israelites and yet become followers of the God of Israel and and pursue salvation, right? So for example, they don't have this whole means of managing and dealing with sin. Yeah. So what's going on with their sin right now? There's certain sin that we find talked about in the story of Noah. Things that are addressed to everyone, not just Israelites, like not committing murder, right? not doing human sacrifices to your pagan gods, right? Like there are certain things, right, that even an odd general knows are sin. But most of this stuff, right, they don't know. Well, what we're told by the New Testament, I know this might be a freakout moment for some people, but what St. Paul explicitly says in both Acts 17 and Romans 1 is that during this whole period before the coming of Christ, God overlooked the sins of the Gentiles.

>> Yeah. I mean, it's what it says.

>> Now, I know some of you folks out there think that's not possible.

>> Yes, God must punish sin.

>> Yes. God is not able to overlook sin, right?

>> Yeah. Uh but right that's what we're told right but we're told it in the context of right because they were not given the Torah God was patient with them and God had a lower standard with them but for example in Romans that's why in Romans 1 St. Paul says, "Now the wrath of God is being revealed against the sin of of the nations and talks about all the sins that the nations are committing." Right? Now that the gospel is going out to them, now they're called to repent. Now the gift that was only given to Israel is being given through Israel to the whole world. Now they have to repent. In previous days they could plead ignorance, right? Now they can't, right? Um and this interestingly so this idea that uh Gentiles that non non-Jews have this kind of leeway in terms of sin is still a belief of orthodox Judaism. So after some extended ex discussions for example I have had orthodox Jewish people tell me after I explain right the orthodox doctrine of the trinity to them they say well from a Jewish perspective they still think it's idolatry right they're not they're not signing on for the doctrine of the trinity right but they'll tell me that they think it's within the amount of idolatry that's allowed to Gentiles Wow. Now, that may make some people's heads explode, right? Like, wait, what? They believe Gentiles are allowed a certain amount of idolatry? Well, yes, because they weren't given the Torah. So, Orthodox Jews still believe this is the case. There's a lot of things. and uh the commandments, right? You you've heard us talk on the show before about Acts 15 being a very literal interpretation of Leviticus and that the vast majority of the commandments in the Torah were were never seen to apply to Gentiles. But Orthodox Judaism takes that farther today. They say Gentiles are forbidden to keep them. So they would say Gentiles are forbidden to keep the Sabbath. weird. I mean, uh,

>> right.

>> Check me. Yeah. Yeah.

>> Check roots people sabotar dispensationalists and trans Jews.

>> Adventists.

>> Yeah. Dispensationalists and trans Jews. You need to get to know some actual Jews.

>> Um.

>> Yeah.

>> Because you're going to find out they don't believe and practice what you think they do. Um, so yeah, so they still have that leeway and and that's juxtaposed against what what St. Paul says in like Romans 1 from the Christian perspective because Gentiles are now included, right, in the church, which is Israel, right? Because they're now included, now they're held to the high standard,

>> right?

>> Yeah. um to the the high standard of the core of the Torah, right, that we were talking about of the highest level of the Torah. Um and so, but so if we're talking about before the birth of Christ, Gentiles, uh they found salvation and St. Paul talks about this in Romans 2. They found salvation by keeping the righteous requirements of the Torah on them even though they didn't have it.

>> Yeah.

>> So they functioned as a Torah for themselves as St. Paul says.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

>> Right. And what was that? That was imaging God in their world. Being merciful, being just,

>> the weightier matters of the law,

>> in their dealings, right? um these kind of things, right? And and uh and pursuing God. But what that makes abundantly clear, right? So when St. Paul comes and says the works of the Torah, meaning the particular commandments given to the Jewish people were never about salvation, right? That becomes obvious once we think about this because yes, everyone from all the other nations who found salvation found it without them, right? That that wasn't right. And that's why St. Paul goes back to Abraham

>> pre- Torah,

>> right? pre- Torah and talks about how Abraham found salvation, right? And points out that uh you you cannot that the mistake the Judaizers were making is that they were treating the Torah commandments as sort of a renegotiation of terms of the covenant with Abraham. Right? Meaning all of these other provisos were being put on the promise about becoming like the stars of heaven. Now you've got to be circumcised to become like the stars of heaven. And St. Paul is saying no. He's got a two-pronged attack. Number one, right? He points to Abraham in Genesis 15 because he hasn't been circumcised yet. And number two, he points to non-Jews finding salvation

>> before their inclusion.

>> Yeah. Albe it sporadically.

>> Yep. Yep.

>> All righty. Well, that wraps up the second half of this episode of Lord of Spirits. We right back with the third half. See you soon.

Father Andrew Steven Damik and Father Steven D. Young 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 855A radio. Written by Father Pavl Soek of Blessed Memory with wisdom and a deep love for God. The Essentials in Orthodox Christian Catechism is a book for all who hunger to understand what it means to live as an Orthodox Christian. From an explanation of the creed to an exploration of the sacraments and the role of holy scripture and tradition, this slim volume contains everything the new convert needs to participate fully in the church and to grow in faith as an Orthodox Christian. Find it today at store.cientfaith.com. That's store.cientfaith.com. We're back now with the Lord of Spirits with Father Andrew Steven Damik and Father Steven D. Young. If you have a question, call now at 855-2372346. That's 855 AF radio.

>> And we're back. Hope everybody's enjoying this this uh episode. We're just a couple weeks out from uh from Holy Week. I should mention, by the way, we will have an episode releasing on Thursday night of Holy Week, but we will be in church, so it will be a pre-recorded episode. Um, but nonetheless, you will have something for your listening pleasure from either, you know, if you're on the west coast to listen to before you go get go to church or if you're on the east coast. I don't know, you can stay up late as Father Steven, I guess, after one of the biggest one of the biggest uh services of Holy Week, the the Passion 12 Passions Gospels Mattens. But, um, yeah, we'll be there.

>> Well, I'm hoping that unlike certain years, I won't be up at 2 in the morning uh passing a kidney stone on that. Oh, thank you for that memory. Uh,

>> you weren't there.

>> I wasn't there, but I remember you describing it to me as

>> there's

>> Where were you in my hour of greatest need, Father Andrew?

>> Well, um, apparently according to someone in, uh, I don't know if I sent you the meme that was created for this, but according to someone in our Lord of Spirits group, there's people literally dreaming me into their homes. So, maybe you could have done that. I don't know.

>> Oh, what's the name of that movie? There's this There's this uh uh Nicholas Cage movie that came out last year.

>> Yes. I didn't see

>> where he starts appearing in people's dreams.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, and

>> like a professor. It's actually a really interesting movie. Uh

>> really, even though it's got Nicholas Cage?

>> No, it it is it is it's it's interesting because Yeah. like he's this college professor and and like he starts students start saying he's appearing in their dreams and he's doing these like nice reassuring things and so he becomes this sort of weird celebrity but then they start having dreams where he's doing like horrible things. Oh,

>> and like people turned on him and he's like, I didn't do anything. Like I'm

>> Well, yeah, apparently. So, what's what's kind of funny though, is is so the one of the memes that was made because of this I had nothing to do with this. Zero nothing to do with this. Uh it's

>> he thinks protest too much.

>> No. Well, so there's there's this supposedly a bunch of people all over the world have dreams about some guy and they draw pictures of him and all the pictures look alike, you know, and so there's a website um thisman.org. Have you dreamed this man? And you can go to that website and you can submit your photos or not photos but your drawings uh and describe your experiences and so forth. Um, it's not me. I mean doesn't it's not me I swear. Uh, but maybe it's starting out there in Kansas now because that's where the dreamer apparently was. Um, so I don't know. You never know. I could be in your home through your dreams, Father Stephen. That's all I'm That's all I'm saying. I'm not doing it, you know. I'm I'm just living my life.

>> Trying to think. I don't I don't think I've ever had a dream with you in it.

>> I don't remember having ever having one with you in it either. So, you know, I don't usually dream of ogres. Um, okay. Okay, so we do actually have a couple of callers and one is another John from Missouri. Now, if it's not the same John, do we know it's the same Missouri? So, John, in whichever Missouri you're in, is it the same Missouri?

>> What form of misery?

>> I'm feeling kind of like Cooper looking at his doppelganger. You know, Missouri is where is is where the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say that the second coming is going to happen in Independence, Missouri. Did you know that? And that that that religious organization bought have bought a whole bunch of land around Independence, Missouri for the mustering of the saints.

>> I did not know that, father. I actually live in the northwest corner. It's almost not Missouri. Kind of like Iowa and Nebraska put together. Oh, what do you get when you put Iowa and Nebraska together? Apparently you

>> Oh, no. Sorry. All right. Well, what what is on your mind?

>> Well, Father Andrew, I wanted to uh ask perhaps a warm-up question for you, especially since you're an expert on uh rings, one ring in particular. Oh.

>> Uh what was the actual function of the green ring from the Black Lodge? the green ring from the black lodge.

>> Maybe Father.

>> See, if I were Father Stephen, I would just make something up, but uh I'm just

>> I actually know the answer. So,

>> yeah, I'm sure you do. Go ahead.

>> Uh it it protected you from lodge spirits possessing you.

>> Oh, well, there you go.

>> It seemed really weird, but I I couldn't quite put my finger on whether or not it helped you or if it took you into the lodge and made things worse for you. Not. No. If you Well, I was thinking in one of the missing pieces uh uh they uh take the ring off Annie.

>> I do remember that. But there's also the with this ring Ivy wed. So, I don't know.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Um

>> Yeah. I see now this is a Twin Peaks thing.

>> Yes, it is.

>> Uh yeah. I've never I watched I think I watched eight minutes of the first episode and I was like I

>> You don't like creepy?

>> So

>> again, I don't like creepy. What can I say? It's the same reason I watched eight minutes of Stranger Things. But I did watch several episodes of Doctor Who.

>> But then if you'd asked about the green rings in The Magician's Nephew, I mean, I could tell you all about that, but

>> Oh, that's Lewis. I don't know anything about that.

>> I know. I know. Well, you at least know. How about How about the the power rings used by uh TNT and Dan the Dynamite?

>> That's probably out of my league, too.

>> Yeah, I went way in the crates on that one.

>> I could have just done a Green Lantern thing, but no, no, I had to go for like quality comics of the 1940s. Well, fathers, I had a uh a question about um a topic that I think has almost addressed before on the podcast, especially when we were dipping into conversations about hell. Um I'm considering going back to uh Tahos to finish my um uh first masters potentially. Um, and I was trying to think of different uh topics. Um, and uh, this one thing that keeps recurring to me um, is something that I've saw a long time ago. So I became Orthodox in 2011 and um one of my uh Orthodox mentors who felt like he was too old to be my godfather shared the river of fire uh theology with me and the

>> yes

>> the um what do you want to call it the the script or the the written up portion of of that original talk.

>> Um and I was very surprised and bothered by it. I was former Protestant. Um, but since being Orthodox now for, you know, over a decade, um, I've seen lots of things from the Holy Fathers that talk about hell um, almost materially. But I I can tell, especially um, with St. Johnum um, or even um, St. Ignatius, Branchininov, that they they have room for nuance even if they're being very direct in their descriptions. Um, and they're very careful to not say that it's a material fire. Um, but then every there's two categories of Orthodox books on death primarily that I've seen. Ones that espouse what I would call same places theology and ones that uh don't talk about hell at all because they're focused more on the transition during death um and the potential meaning of toll houses. Um, and then I found maybe two Orthodox books that very briefly mention um, hell as being a quote unquote place. And of course, I think there's room for nuance with what place means with that as well. But I think the issue is that I feel like River of Fire and and same place like hell is the same or hell is God's love experienced it differently. Um, but this kind of implication of um a sort of semi um let me see if I say it right apocatasis

>> apocatasis

>> where everybody goes to heaven they just some people experience it as hell and that this is somehow more loving than Protestant or Roman Catholic formulations of what hell is and I've heard it in two homalies and the leadup was always about as long as my leadup that I've had hell. And it usually starts with a subject that has nothing to do with hell. And it ends up with orthodoxy is more merciful because our doctrine of hell is that hell isn't a place, it's God's love. And of course, the quotes that they use are quotes taken completely out of context from the fathers. And everybody's favorite father for this is St. Isaac thean. And the literal quote that they use, he ends with hell. the the primary torment of hell will be regret which is not an experience of God's love but an experience person. Um, so anyways, I I was wondering if we could get kind of like at least from your two perspectives and experience uh a a more definitive perspective on on how to uh calibrate this because I just I feel like there's got to be plenty of maybe untransated u material from the fathers about death and hell and um like but what but that it's not translated because it's not interesting or because it's scary or it doesn't seem like it's it's about salvation. But if it's a kind of um apocatasis, then it's it's actually a kind of salvation. It's just a sal death. And then of course the other question is where are our bodies at, right? If if we have bodies, are we is it semi- originism where we have bodies but we're floating around the orb and we just experience God differently or are we are we in a location and how does that correspond to actually the work that uh you were talking about earlier with mankind's salvation is primarily um lived out through working and what eternal life would be.

>> Wow. Um okay. Yeah, I remember I remember when I was first becoming Orthodox now almost 30 years ago that that article the river of fire by Alexander Calamos was a big hit that it really got circulated around and honestly back in the late 1990s when there wasn't a lot about Orthodox Christianity on the internet that was one of the early pieces that was on back then and so my sense is that it's had a kind of outsized effect on English-speaking Orthodox Christianity because of its availability from that sort of early point. Um, and ear not not early in the sense of orthodoxy in America, but early in the sense of orthodoxy becoming more um accessible to people because of the internet, right? Um, so here's here's my um here's my opinions about that article. Um, well, first I'll say that actually there were some rather interesting and lengthy critiques of it that went around which unfortunately are not on the internet anymore. Um, cuz they were very fascinating to read. But I I there's something about it that I think is true. Like the sense that our God is a consuming fire, right? Death by holiness, that kind of stuff, which of course we've talked about many times on this show. um the idea that being in the presence of God in an in an unrepentant manner um is harmful to you, right? So that's totally a thing. But my problem with the picture, and I I'm pretty sure that you can still read this article on the internet. I'm that it's still out there. My problem with that picture is that it fundamentally presents one's eternal destiny, you know, which we can shorthand call heaven or hell, you know, bliss, salvation in the kingdom of God or damnation with all of that that entails. My my problem with it is that it fundamentally depicts God as passive. that what you experience in the afterlife is God just pouring out the same thing on everybody, but it's up to you how you're going to experience it. Um, so that's not completely wrong. It is up to you what your experience of the life of the age to come is. But it's not that God is this sort of passive divine being emanating whatever on everyone and you just, you know, either have the receptors for it or you don't. Um, it said, and the reason I don't like that is because it says explicitly in the gospels that God sends people to one or the other destination that he sends them. that it's that God is actively making a judgment based on who that person is, based on what they have done, but he's he's actively doing it right. And the other problem is that of course all language about the life of the age to come, human language is going to tend to be metaphorical in some way because we can't really encapsulate it. But the problem with saying, "Well, it's not two different places. It's really one place." You're literally correcting the language of the Bible when you do that. Now, I'm not saying that means we need to literalize and absolutize this sort of two place language. But we shouldn't say it's not that because that language is in the scriptures, you know, enter into the kingdom or depart, I never knew you. That's that's location language. Okay? Uh that's in Matthew chapter 25, which of course we hear every year on the Sunday of the last judgment. And you know, we should if we're going to know any part of the Bible, you should definitely know the Gospels. So I I I that's those are my problems with that article. I think it's it does some good things, but it also fundamentally distorts um scriptural language. It it denies scriptural language, which I mean, I'm used to hearing that kind of thing from like liberal mainline Protestants. you know, they want to just write parts of the Bible off that they don't like. I'm used to that kind of thing. But for a faithful Orthodox Christian to do that, no. No, you can't do that. Any theology that you're going to give about the life of the age to come or about anything orthodox Christian needs to take the scriptures into account and needs to take the scriptures as the basis for what you're going to say. Needs to take the scriptures as the core of what you're going to say. This is this is the very center of our tradition as Orthodox Christians. So if you're saying something and you're basically correcting the scriptures, then you have a big big methodological problem, right? So um I I mean I think in like I said, I think in some ways that article is useful, in some ways I don't I don't think it is. So I will now invite the um actually from my colleague in Louisiana.

>> Yeah, I don't like the article as much as you do. Uh I think it's way worse than liberal Protestantism. liberal Protestants uh just say everybody goes to heaven or there isn't one.

>> Yeah.

>> Like uh cuz they've heard imagine too many times. Um

>> wasn't that the most inspiring song we heard during COVID though?

>> It is if you're a boomer lib. Yeah. Um so uh Yeah. And so the reason this is worse to me is like just people can we stop and think once in a while. Uh like stop and think about it. Okay? Is God not aware that his love is like torturing these people eternally?

>> Right? If he is aware and he loves them, why is he torturing them eternally? Like you're basically turning God into Lenny from Of Men.

>> Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

>> Right? like this is I mean, it's it's it's as bad as uh what I would compare it to is uh the uh the universalist goofballs who try to do the purgatorial hell thing where they're like oh no like if someone doesn't love God and doesn't want to be doesn't want to be with him then he just like puts them in this torture chamber until they do love him.

>> Yeah. He's going to beat them until they

>> and I'm like, "Oh yeah, that's way better. Now God is Glen Close from Fatal Attraction." Like what? Like like how that's not better, dude. Like that's right. Um yeah. So there's that. Um this whole idea of place. Yeah. As Father Andrew said, like first of all, every father, every father is clear to the point of if you deny it, you're not a Christian about the bodily resurrection.

>> Yes.

>> Okay? Uh even our Roman Catholic friends with so much emphasis on the beatotific vision and so much cognitive dissonance about how that works with the bodily resurrection affirm the bodily resurrection. Okay? You you can't be a Christian and deny the bodily resurrection. You it doesn't work.

>> Um so we're we're we're not talking about heaven or hell and them being one place or two places. We're talking about everyone's going to be resurrected. We're talking about the life of the world to come. the new heavens and the new earth, the transfigured, renewed heavens and earth and our transfigured, resurrected bodies to which, as we've been talking about on the show recently, categories of space and time will not apply in the same way.

>> Yeah. I mean, there's still material. There's still but but

>> yeah. And so we get we get when we talk hear about the state of eternal condemnation, we get metaphors in scripture and in the fathers that don't work together. If you have a fire that's eternally burning, how can it also be complete darkness? Yeah. Right. We also get madness and the demon of the human person and the demonization of the human, right? Like there are all these things and there's being shut outside, right? As as Father Andrew just quoted, Christ says, "Depart from me." How do you depart from someone who's omniresent, right? Like you you literally can't take it literally. It's impossible to take it literally. Um so we're told enough to know this is bad. Inconceivably bad. Like literally, we can't conceive of how horrible this fate is, right? And we're not able to understand what that will be like because we, as we've said on the show recently, right, in this life, in our mortal flesh, right, constrained as we are by categories of time and space, we can't imagine what it's like to not be so, right? And so, we can only get analogies and imagery and this kind of thing to communicate to us. But those images were given communicate very evocatively that this is something that we want to avoid at all costs. It is indeed a major bummer. Uh that's what we call a call back in the biz. Um

>> right. So yeah, so that that's what that's about. And so, uh, yeah, the the the I I think a lot of the discussion you're reading is people need to sit and think about it a little more. It's it's it's uh you you're take people are taking images and ideas very literally and running with them in in odd directions and the directions they're running with those images actually kind of evade the point of the image in the first place. Right? Like the purpose of the imagery of the river of fire in Daniel and the lake of fire in St. Matthew's Gospel in Revelation is not to soften our idea of God's judgment. So if you run with that imagery in a way that is deliberately intended to try to soften someone's view of God's judgment, right, you're like deliberately It seems breaking something, right? And and mis misleading people.

>> Yeah.

>> So, we should stop doing it.

>> That said,

>> well,

>> I have held from the Usenet days that the white lodge and the black lodge are the same place and that's why there's checkered board flooring.

>> Oh, you mentioned checkered board flooring. Now, all the

>> That's what I have to say about that.

>> The Freemason freakouts will be on us. All right. Um I So you got a couple of good rants there, John. What do you think?

>> Well, no. I mean, I I guess I have like a couple short questions just as feedback because obviously I have um a lot more that could be said on it, right? That that's not worth um a brief phone call. Um and we don't have two more hours to push this into the first five hour episode talking about Twin Peaks and how it relates to

>> No, we don't.

>> Atonement.

>> No, we do not. I would love to. That could be a separate podcast. I think Father Steven should do his own independent Twin Peaks commentary podcast

>> with Faith host it.

>> No, we will not. But that's why I said independent with a little bit of professional wrestling thrown in as well.

>> I could tie it in like you did with Tolken,

>> Father Stephen. So, do you think this would be worth a thesis in some kind of way of working out the details on the scriptural and petristic tradition and expanding it possibly into a more holistic direction?

>> Yeah, I think I think uh and even even uh framing it as a response to river of fire might be a good way to frame such a thesis. Yeah.

>> I was thinking of uh calling it hell isn't good.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Why you shouldn't love hell.

>> Why God doesn't love hell and neither should you.

>> Heaven isn't going to hurt. Although you should definitely check out Father Steven's article, Hell Unfortunately, Yes. on the Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy web blog.

>> I would definitely have to check that out.

>> Yeah. Yes.

>> So, Father might be brief brief question.

>> Heaven isn't too far away. Keep that in mind is

>> maybe do you know what that's worth? Um, sorry. Go ahead, John. Go ahead. Go ahead.

>> No, no. So, Father Stephen, on the the brief, because you mentioned that you disagreed with Jay Dyer on Twin Peaks, and I think I might as well. Um, what's what's the the gist of the meaning of the show? And does it change if you watch uh not just season one and two, but also Firew Walk with me? And then does it change if you walk watch season 3?

>> I I don't think it changes. Uh I I think you get sort of a purified refined form of it in the later stuff. Um and I think there's a whole bunch of themes. So too much too much to talk about right now. Uh

>> thank you for entertaining me, fathers. You're blessed.

>> I'm not I'm not sure how much I disagree with Jay because Jay is evasive and running from debate on on the topic. So, uh, yeah, I'll just throw that in there at the end.

>> All right. All right. Well, thank you for calling, John. Uh, we'll take one more call. We have Jim. Jim. Jim. Jim calling from St. Augustine, Florida. I always have to remind myself not to say St. Augustine. I know it's Augustine down there. I've been there. So, Jim, welcome to the Lord of Spirits podcast.

>> Jim, I have a question first. Do you often turn toward a camera no one else can see and make facial expressions?

>> Um, I do not.

>> Okay. You're not that gym then. That's why different gym. Um, okay.

>> I apolog I don't I don't get the reference, but

>> it's okay. Just join the club. You and I will be over here together. Um,

>> so what what's on your mind, Jim? Well, my kids um loved Singing in the Rain and the first two times that they watched it, I thought that Donald O'Connor was Danny Kay. Um, I didn't know if Danny Kay does a rendition of Moses, the poses, poses are roses, or did Father Steven have the same take that I did on Singing in the Rain.

>> All right.

>> No, he he he did it also.

>> He did it.

>> That's an old bit.

>> That's an old vaudeville bit.

>> Yeah. A lot of covers back in those days. Actually, you can find it on YouTube. You can get Danny Kay doing this particular tongue twister in 1951 on YouTube.

>> So, he predated Singing of the Rain.

>> He was the OG. Well, no, it was before him. It's like Niagara Falls. Slowly I turned step by step, inch by inch. Anyway,

>> all right.

>> Enough.

>> Well, that was it.

>> That was a nice easy question. Thank you very much, Jim.

>> Lovely town you have there. You have Everybody should know, by the way, St. Augustine has an actual like late Renaissance era fort. I think it's the only one in uh North America. Um definitely a nice old fort. Um built by the Spanish, so definitely worth checking out. Uh all right, third half of this episode. Um head on into the New Testament. Yeah. I suppose I like that Danny Kay is now on topic on this show.

>> I I mean, who doesn't like Danny K

>> at all times, right? Like

>> I loved him in White Christmas. He was just a lot of fun. And yeah, anyway,

>> completely non-controversial movie.

>> Um, snow. Okay, sorry. So, yes. So now the New Testament. Um so we find as you might have seen coming uh longtime listeners, we find the fulfillment of these things we've been talking about on our way from Genesis uh through the Old Testament in uh the New Testament. And so for example um not just in terms of the actual literal setting out of this idea by St. Paul in uh Romans 5 but in general New Testament we see Christ presented as the second Adam uh in that Christ is the perfect image of God. Right? He images the father perfectly. This is I mean this is all over the New Testament but think in say St. John's gospel, right? The words he says are the father's words. The things he does are the father's deeds, right?

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

>> Um

>> I must be about my father's business.

>> If you have seen me, you have seen the father, right? Yeah.

>> Uh and then of course St. Paul and and Hebrews,

>> right? uh he's the express image, right, of of his hypostoas, right, um of the father. And not only that, not only is he the perfect imager of God, but through him the world, the creation uh is finding and will find its ultimate transformation, right, into into paradise, right? So he succeeds right where uh Adam failed but that's the telos right but if we go back to the beginning and again you I'm sure saw this coming dear listener uh that the mystery which was hidden from everlasting and unknown of the angels um as it were um is revealed in Christ. Why is it that humanity and only humanity is able to be formed in this way into the likeness of God? Right? Uh how is that how is the measure and and the form of the the perfect man also the perfect likeness of God? Well, it is because of the perfect union of God and man, of the divine nature and our human nature in the person of Jesus Christ, right? And so the incarnation is the basis of theosis and was the basis of theosis for Adam. Right? This is what's being gotten at by you'll occasionally hear people say that I may even even phrased it this way uh in the past. In fact, I probably have at least at some point that the the church fathers will say that even if Adam had not fallen, had not been expelled from paradise, Christ would have been incarnate.

>> Yeah. And I mean that conveys the idea but is not quite the idea in the sense that what they're really getting at is this is that the basis of theosis being the purpose for which Adam was created and the commandment he was given as St. Basil the Great said was the incarnation.

>> So the incarnation is presupposed by the creation of Adam. is what they're getting at. Uh that it is not an instance of fall or expulsion from paradise, therefore incarnation, right? Because his creation presupposed it, right? Um we also see Christ presented in the New Testament as the new Israel, right? We talked about how Israel corporately uh had this kind of recapitulation or was another corporate instantiation of the pattern that we saw with Adam, right? Being created, brought into the land, right, etc., right? Um Christ actually recapitulates and accomplishes the goal that Israel was created for and failed at. Right? Because as Christ affirms, salvation is from the Jews, right?

>> The idea was not that Israel was the chosen people. They were quote unquote saved. All the other nations were damned or just not saved or whatever. Uh it is that God was saving the world through Israel the way he saved the world through Noah, right? He was saving the world through Israel, right? And the way that was to happen was by Israel keeping Torah, by being different than all the other nations of the world, right? They would draw the other nations of the world to come and worship uh the God of Israel. They would draw them to return to God having been scattered at Babel. Draw them to return to the true God who had created them. Right? And Israel fails at that because Israel is unfaithful. Christ, right, as faithful accomplishes this and ends up drawing all the nations, right, back to their creator. Uh so Christ is the the uh the basis right for the osis for salvation from adamon right for the core of salvation. Uh Christ is the one who overcomes the separation between Jew and Gentile, between Israel and the nations, right? Who overcomes the the the scattering of the nations, right? Christ also deals with the obstacles that come about because of of uh Adam's sin. Christ deals with sin how? by removing it and by purifying us the world, right? from it. Think flood again, right? That we talked about in the first half, right? Removes sin, purifies from sin. So with sin removed, right, with Christ having dealt with sin, so we no longer need the repetitive management because Christ has dealt with it. That means death has served its purpose. Death having served its purpose, Christ takes that power back from the devil as Hebrews says, right? The one who had held the power of death was the devil. Christ defeats him and Christ therefore becomes the judge of the living and the dead. No one else has any claim on humanity. And finally, Christ defeats the powers by what? By disarming them. This is the language St. Paul uses, right? He disarms the powers and principalities. What is how does he disarm them? Their weapon was death. Their weapon was temptation of sin which leads to death. Having dealt with those, they are now disarmed. They are now unable, right, to uh to afflict uh the saints. So then Christ having done all of these things, Christ having done all of these things, what is what is salvation? What is salvation for us now? For everyone now, right? Salvation is right. Those obstacles being removed, being freed from sin and death by what Christ has done. And then that being accomplished, salvation is what it always was from the creation of Adam. It's the ois. It's becoming like God. And that's based not in what Christ has done, but in who Christ is, right? who the person of Christ is. That's what salvation is. How is it received, right? How do any of us receive it? Right? Well, we receive

It through the fulfillment of the Torah. As we've talked about in the show before, the church is Israel. It is the restored Israel, right? And so, we still have the Torah still in your Bible. It's right there at the beginning, right? Uh, but now, right, it has received it as practice in a fulfilled way, right? So, for example, the sin that was managed before is now done away with when we receive the forgiveness of sin, the purification from sin, the cleansing from sin that comes from Christ, which we receive first of all in baptism for the remission of sin, and then in ongoing forgiveness through confession, through repentance, through absolution, right? And so the sacraments now are the fulfillment of sacraments of the church. CR series are the fulfillment of the sacraments of the Torah. If you go back and listen to those sacrament episodes, that's how every single one of them is structured.

Yeah. You start all the old testament.

Yep.

Yeah. Right. And show how it takes on a fulfilled form, right? In in the new, right? And so in the same way that a way of life grounded in commandments, three of them, right, was was set before Adam, right? And he was called to become like God through faithfully following those commandments as a way of life, right? The same way a way of life has been set before us. And it's actually summed up by three commandments: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. And repent, right? That summarizes the whole thing, right? There's details, right? And there's a a a whole detailed life of the church that, like the other levels of the Torah, facilitates us doing that, right? Empowers us to do that, enables us to do that, right, with the life of the church. And so, how do we receive salvation? We receive salvation by faithfully following, right, that way of life that's been set before us. The person who's been forgiven, the first person person who's received the forgiveness of sins, the person who's had terror of death taken away by Christ, the person who has been set free from sin and from therefore from the demonic powers. That person stands in the same position as Adam did, right? Meaning we are on a pathway that leads to be leads into infinity but toward Christ and becoming like him. The full measure of the perfect man, which is Jesus Christ, and the likeness of God, which is our Lord Jesus Christ, right? And that way of life is characterized by the fruit of the spirit. You may notice that those things which Christ called the weight, the heaviness, the core of the Torah were fruit of the spirit.

Right? Because

St. Paul says in Romans, right, the spirit writes the Torah in our hearts. The spirit empowers us to keep its righteous requirements. The spirit empowers us uh to follow Christ, right? And that brings about our transformation into the likeness of Christ. And that in turn transforms transforms the world around us and allows us to become what humanity was uh created to be. And so this is actually kind of summed up here in closing in uh Hebrews 6 verses 1 and two.

Yeah. Which reads this way: Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

Yeah. Notice those things that St. Paul calls elementary doctrines as this lower level, not the core, not the weightier part.

Yeah. This is the this is the basics.

Yeah. Are everything you will hear about in a lot of churches. There is no beyond that, right? Now I'm talking about churches like buildings of worship, houses of worship, right? When you go there and attend there, those that is all you will hear about, right? And what you will find is now I'm not saying there is no depth to any tradition other than the Orthodox tradition. I am not saying that. But what you'll find is every time one of those other traditions tries to go deeper, they're going to be groping around in the dark toward a concept of theosis. H maybe this is why so many uh so many um confessional Protestants like uh Father Alexander Schmeman.

Yeah. They're they're going to be groping around toward toward a concept of theosis, whether it's it's called deification, right? And even a lot of the way the beatific vision is talked about uh in uh uh Roman Catholicism, right? When you start going deep, right? And when a lot of them start going deep, they start going to Eastern fathers. Um, even ones who technically aren't saints in Roman Catholicism. Um, this is why you dig deep into the reformed tradition, you start finding stuff about mystical union with Christ. uh When you start digging into the Lutheran tradition, especi more recently like in the late 20th century, they just started using the term theosis um uh right everywhere that's what you find right because and that's not a coincidence that's not just them going like I don't know I got nothing that the Orthodox come up with anything right It's because uh what we've been trying to lay out to you tonight, dear listener, is real. It's in the Bible from literally we started the first page of Genesis.

Yeah.

Right. And if we wanted to, we could quote and end up on the last page of Revelation.

Yeah.

That that theosis, right? This idea of us becoming conformed to the likeness, the perfect man who is the perfect likeness of God, right? Our Lord Jesus Christ. That's it. That's what salvation is. It's the basis on which man was created, the purpose for which he was created. It's where we end up in the life of of uh the world to come. It's the core and the center and the weighty part of the Torah.

It's there all the way through. It gets entangled with and obscured by and these obstacles of sin and death and the devil present themselves, right? But they're not the real issue, right? They're not the real issue. They're they're not what salvation is really about. They're not what human life is really about, right? Uh, they are these foreign invaders, right? We we get rid of them. We get healthy. We get rid of the the the infection, right? Now we're ready to get back to business.

Yeah.

Now we're ready to get to work.

Yeah.

That's also my final comments. So you can go ahead and close us out.

Oh wow. Okay.

They give you the last word, so take all the shot.

Hey. Well, I mean, usually I get the first words and then you take the last words. But, um, so I I you know, as as as I've been working through this since we were briefing on it and and of course I'm having this conversation uh here on the air, I've been trying to think about the best way to to encapsulate this to some extent so that people can um have a have a good clear takeaway uh but also something that they can uh communicate to other people as well. And and what I um came up with here right actually just a few minutes ago as as you were speaking here at the end is is I think that most conversations about salvation, as you said, you know, in a lot of other a lot of sermons you're going to hear in other churches, is about what you're saved from. It's about what you're saved from. Um, and I mean, and that's not wrong. Okay. We're definitely saved from a number of things. Short list: demons, sin, and death. Um, that's what we're saved from. And, you know, it's important to go through like what St. Paul calls the elementary doctrines of Christ. Like, we need that stuff. This is this is catechism and we need to be reminded of it. We need to be kind of refocused on it, reentered on it. It's it's absolutely critical, right? But it's but it's only one part of the picture, what you're saved from. There's also what you're saved for. What you're saved for, right? And I think this is the big problem with this whole, you know, are you going to heaven or hell when you die? Like, I'm saved from hell so I can go to heaven. Well, what is heaven? Well, it's not hell. It's great, in fact. Or I guess I guess if you're Alexander Calamos, they're they're the same thing. Um, it's just, you know, some people do it differently. Um, but no, there there's a saved four, right? So in Ephesians chapter 2, um, St. Paul says, "For by," this is starting with verse 8, "for by grace you have been saved through faith or through faithfulness, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast." And as we've talked about before on on the show, um, you know, faithfulness is that through which we are saved. And the path of faithfulness, you know, this is not your own doing. God, you know, you didn't come up with it. God gave you this path of faithfulness, right? And and when he says it's not a result of work so that no one may boast, uh, you know, you can certainly read that in the way that every Protestant naturally would, which is like, "No, you can't earn your way to heaven." Okay, yes, we agree with that. Uh, but but also speaking to Ephesians, former pagans, it's not the result of like works, you know, great feats of feats feats of greatness like, you know, the demigods do in in the pagan context. you know it that's through that's the means through which you gain the blissfulness of the gods right so it's not that but then it says this in verse 10, this is the part I want to focus on: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. This is what we are saved for. This is what we were created for, that we should walk in them. So, we're saved from demon, sin, and death. Yes, it's okay to save. You're saved from damnation. That's fine. But you're saved for participation in the energies of God. You're saved for doing the works of God. You're saved for doing what Adam and Eve were given at the very beginning: cultivate this world, put this world in order, shape this world, and fill it with life. Fill it with all kinds of life. This is what we're made for, right? And so the life of repentance then is not only the stuff you're saved from, getting rid of the stuff you're saved from, although yeah, you got to do that. You got to you got to turn your back on demon, sin, and death. You got to do that. But it's also what you're saved for. And so we're not waiting into the life of the age to come to start doing the works of God. We're we're supposed to be doing them now. And so much I think of the existential experience that people have with trying to repent is it's kind of a lengthy exercise of trying to say stop it to themselves. Stop it. Stop sinning. Um, which okay, you know, maybe in the moment of sin, you need to at least hear that voice, cut it out, you know, stop it. Um, but the the way to grow out of the the desire for sin is is to practice the the virtues. It's to practice the good works of God. You know, often when we focus simply on trying to stop sin, actually that can become very, very self-absorbed. Look at me. Look at all the bad things I do. I need to stop it. Um, and then, you know, we can kind of wallow in guilt. And guilt is not repentance, folks. Um, and of course, then you usually at some point comes despair. And despair leads to all kinds of bad stuff. But if we do the works of faithfulness that God has given us to do, if we walk in them, as St. Paul says, these good works that God prepared beforehand for us, that we were created in Christ Jesus for good works, then we become more like Christ. Then our wills are aligned with the will of God, and they no longer are leaning in the direction of sin. Instead, they're trained in the direction of Christ. They're trained in the direction of beauty. They're trained in the direction of goodness, love, longsuffering, faithfulness, generosity, worship, all of these things. So, how do you repent? I mean, do the stuff your priest kept keeps telling you to do. That's the way. That's the way Christ says, "If you love me, you keep my commandments." That pairing of love and keeping the commandments of God is everywhere in the Bible. Everywhere over and over and over and over and over again. And and that's how we become like Christ. That's what we are saved for. We're saved for good works. We're saved to become equal to the angels. That's not just a status. It's not just a title of sons of God. It's also work to do. It's also taking care of this world and that includes other people above all else, really. So, yeah, it's not just what we're saved from, it's what we're saved for. And indeed, the more that we focus on what we're saved for, the more that what we're saved from withers and dies and has no power over you. So, especially as we're finishing up Great Lent here and we're about to head into Holy Week and Pascha, I hope that these um these great gems from the Holy Scriptures will be a source of encouragement and and joy, frankly, for everyone out there. So, well, that's our show for tonight. Thank you for listening, everybody. Um, if you didn't happen to get through to us live, unlike those two men named John from Missouri, uh, we'd still like to hear from you. You can email us lordofspirits@ancientfaith.com. You can message us at our Facebook page. You can also leave us a voicemail at speakpipe.com/lordofspirits. And if you have basic questions about Orthodox Christianity or you need help finding a parish, go to orthodoxintro.org and you'll get some good responses. And join us for our live broadcast on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month at 6:00 p.m. Eastern, 3:00 p.m. Pacific. You look like a perfect fit for a girl in need of a tourniquet. If you're on Facebook, you can follow our page. You can join our big old discussion group and leave ratings and reviews wherever you get your podcasts. And please share this show with one of your friends. And finally, be sure to go to ancientfaith.com/support and help make sure we and lots of other AFR podcasters stay on the air because I can tell you know what it's like the long farewell of the hunger strike.

Thank you. Good night and may God bless you always. You've been listening to the Lord of Spirits with Orthodox Christian Priests Father Andrew Steven Damick and Father Stephen D. Young, 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* 10,000, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing." Revelation 5:11-12.