Smashing Icons: Eastern Orthodoxy and True Godliness

Would you pray with me?

Heavenly Father, we come now to the throne of grace.

And Lord, I pray for the believer here that their confidence in the gospel would be strengthened this morning, that they would trust even more in Christ and his finished work.

We pray, Lord, for those who do not know the gospel or perhaps are trusting in their works along with their faith to save them.

We pray, Lord, that you would open their eyes to the reality of Christ and the good news that it is finished.

That works are not the root of our salvation, but the fruit of our salvation.

So, Lord, do this work now.

I pray that you would speak through me, give me wisdom, and help me to handle these issues fairly and yet also biblically.

And we pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Well, we we are doing a, I think it's two weeks.

I think this is the last week.

We were doing a short series called Smashing Icons.

This week's message is called Eastern Orthodoxy and True Godliness.

And last week I said that Jim Briggs came up with the title, and he's not here this Sunday.

He left me here to defend it.

But last week I pointed you to a theme verse.

It's 2 Corinthians 10, 4 and 5, important verses.

Paul says the weapons of our war warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds.

We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take everything captive, every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

So any idea, however well-intentioned it might be, if it prevents us from reaching heaven's gates, we want to biblically tear it down.

And because we want people to know the truth, the most loving thing that we can do is help people to know the truth of the gospel so that they can know Jesus Christ and stand in that assurance before the living God.

And I believe that both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy put hindrances in people's spiritual lives that prevent them from entering heaven itself.

So last week I gave you three reasons why we're doing this.

Let me review those.

First, there is a rise in this country in Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, especially with Gen Z.

Especially with Gen Z.

So if you're a Gen X or a millennial, you might not get it as much, but Gen Z is looking for tradition.

They're looking for institutional stability.

And many of the young men, they're looking for something more masculine.

And many of them that have gone into generic bland evangelical churches have experienced a real feminine culture and vibe.

And so they're going to Catholicism and Orthodoxy looking for more tradition.

It's not just young men.

Many of you might know this gentleman is called the Bible Answer Man, Hank Hanagraff.

He converted to Eastern Orthodoxy.

Many of you might know Rod Dreer and have appreciated some of his writings at the American Conservative.

He also converted to Eastern Orthodoxy.

So serious figures are embracing Orthodoxy.

It's a thing.

Third, a few of us from this church went on a trip a year ago to Greece and Ephesus.

And the joke on the trip was that it was a Greek Orthodox church tour.

Because at all of the sites that Paul visited, what the Greek Orthodox have done is they've built a church on that site.

And so in many places, the place where we think Paul might have ministered in Thessalonica or other places, Crete, they have a church.

And you go into the church and you see the icons and you see people kissing the icons.

And throughout the whole trip, everybody's saying, What's going on?

What's taking place here?

What is this type of Christianity?

And then when we would talk to people and we would ask them, ask them questions.

And the answer that I heard over and over and over again was, I don't know.

I don't know.

I'm trying to be a good person.

I'm trying to go to church.

I'm trying to make sure I do enough good works, but I don't know.

And so my heart here, listen very carefully.

My heart here is not to bash Eastern Orthodoxy.

My heart here is to win people to Christ so that people might know the truth.

And maybe there's some that are Orthodox here today, maybe there's some that will later watch online, but my heart here is that you would listen and that I would speak in love and that you might come to know and embrace the truth.

Our jumping off point, I invite you to turn again to John chapter 4, because this is the lens by which we're going to look at Eastern Orthodoxy as well.

John 4 · chapter mention

We looked at Roman Catholicism through this lens.

This is Jesus' conversation with the woman at the well.

Remember, she perceives that Jesus is a prophet because Jesus has told her how many husbands that she's had, and she says, You know, I've got a question about where we're supposed to worship.

We in the north, the Samaritans, we worship on Mount Gerizim.

You in the south, you worship in Jerusalem.

She asks this question, and Jesus responds in verse 23.

He says, The hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

And we talked about that word worship last week, proscunio, and it means to bow down, to prostrate yourself before God.

And Jesus says, those that are the true worshipers will bow down in the heart, and they'll do so in two ways, in spirit and in truth.

By spirit he means that it's not merely outward actions, it's not just going through ceremonial activities, it has to be from the heart.

You have to worship God truly in the soul in order to worship God rightly.

And by the way, the only way to have a right soul is through the biblical gospel.

You must be born again, Jesus said.

And then in truth, that we are to worship God not just in any way that we perceive that we would like to worship him.

We are to worship God the way that he has described his worship to be in the Bible, particularly the New Testament.

What have the apostles told us about how we are to worship our triune God?

So we are to worship both in spirit and in truth.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna focus on Eastern Orthodoxy the same way.

We're gonna look at what it believes about truth, how we are to approach God, and we are going to look at what they believe about how people are saved and how the individual, the individual soul, can commune with God and approach God.

But before we do that, before we do that, I need to review a little history with you.

So we're gonna get there.

We're gonna talk about what they believe about truth, we're gonna talk about what they believe about worshiping in the Spirit, but we need to review a little history, and the reason why is because we are in the West.

And in the West, we are relatively familiar with Roman Catholicism, and we are very familiar with Protestantism.

We have many Catholic friends, and and many of you were converted from Catholicism because Catholicism and Protestantism have been the two major streams of Christianity in the West.

This has been our context.

But going back into the history, let me let me begin.

In the year 1054, a papal delegation from Rome went all the way to the great city, the Byzantine city of Constantinople.

That's modern-day Istanbul, right between Europe and Asia.

And they came and they dropped a papal bull of excommunication on the altar at the great church, the Hagia Sophia, the Church of Holy Wisdom, the that great cathedral in Constantinople.

They dropped a papal bull of excommunication, they walked out the door, they shook the dust off their feet and went off into the streets.

A deacon went up onto the altar, grabbed that papal bull, and followed them out to the streets, and tried to convince them, persuade them not to do this, and they would not take it back, and it fell down into the street.

It was later recovered.

But that marked the split between the Eastern churches and Rome.

So 1054, there was a split in Christendom.

And it so happens, uh, it seems like almost every 500 years there's a great schism.

So that was 1054, and then you fast forward 1517, what happens?

Protestant Reformation, where the Protestants break off from Rome.

So uh if if you're doing your history, we're about 500 years removed from the Reformation, so buckle up.

You might be in for another one, right?

Why did this split happen?

Why did the split happen between the East and the West?

The official reason is because the West added what was called the Filioque Clause to the Nicene Creed.

The Filioque Clause, just pay attention, stay with me here.

They they added the original Nicene Constantinople Creed said that the Spirit proceeds from the Father.

We're talking about high Trinitarian doctrine.

And the early church understood that the Son was eternally begotten from the Father, not created, but eternally begotten, and that the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father.

That's what the creed states.

Well, later on, those in the West added a clause.

They said, Not only does the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father, he also proceeds from the Son.

So the Son is eternally begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son.

And the East said, Not so fast.

You can't go back and change the Nicene Creed 700 years after the fact.

Well, what do we believe?

Who was right?

Well, I think Jesus says, this is in John 16, verse 7, Jesus says, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you.

John 16:7

But if I go, I will send him to you.

That's an important phrase.

Jesus says, I will send the helper to you.

And from that, those in the West said, you know, it based on what Jesus is saying, it seems like the tr the spirit also proceeds from the Son.

And that was the rationale, and I think rightly for adding the Filio Filio means son, quay means and.

So the Filioque clause means just simply and the sun.

Well, like these things go.

So the East is very frustrated about this.

But often when you have something like this take place, a schism, it's more about parties than positions.

It's more about the drama behind the scenes than the dogma that's being argued over.

And the reality is, is that the two sides, the East and the West, had been drifting apart for a long time.

Part of it was a language difference.

Early on, in the Roman Empire, Latin was the official language of the Roman Empire.

But Greek was the language of the commoners.

Everybody spoke Koine Greek.

All the apostles wrote the New Testament in Koine Greek.

But over time, what happened?

Those in the West stopped learning Greek, and those in the East stopped learning Latin.

So there began to be a language divide.

Furthermore, the bishop in Rome began to say, I am in direct secession from the Apostle Peter.

And therefore our church in Rome is more important than the churches in Jerusalem and Constantinople and Alexandria and Egypt.

Our church has, and he uses the word, primacy.

Our church is the head honcho.

We're in charge, and everybody else needs to do what we say.

How do you think that sat with those in the East?

Oh, they pushed back against that.

Of course they did.

And so the point is that like these things go, sometimes it's just a pebble that causes the dam to break.

And I'm not saying the Filioque clause is a pebble.

It's an important Trinitarian doctrine.

But there were differences that were building up to this point that led to the split in 1054.

Well, after this, so you have the split and you have the churches going their own way, Rome in the West, Orthodoxy in the East.

And what you had in the East is you had a cult religion rise in the 600s called Islam.

And they believed that you should conquer people and convert them.

And in the year 1453, they sacked the center of Orthodoxy, Constantinople, that beautiful church, the probably the greatest church that's ever been built in terms of its architecture, its beauty, the Haggia Sophia, the Church of Holy Wisdom, was converted to a mosque.

And so the Orthodox churches had to learn to survive and live with the threat of Islam.

And in many ways, the center of gravity of Orthodoxy moved to Greece and later to Russia.

But all these different countries like Albania and these countries that we associate with the Eastern Bloc embraced Orthodoxy.

What's important to understand in the West we understand the Roman Church has a pope, and then you have cardinals, and then you have archbishops and bishops and all the rest, and we understand the institutional structure of it all.

And it's very top-down, it's very authoritarian, and it's very organized.

The Eastern churches are not that way.

There's no pope over Eastern Orthodoxy.

There's no one bishop that's in charge, but rather the relationship is built on agreed beliefs that they all share, agreed traditions that they all practice.

It's an association by consensus and mutual respect, not top-down hierarchy.

So let me read a quote here.

This is from a Eastern Orthodox bishop named Timothy Ware.

The book is called The Orthodox Church.

This is what he says.

I thought this was helpful.

He says, Western Christians, whether free churchmen, Anglicans, or Roman Catholic, have a common background in the past.

All alike, although they may not always care to admit it, have been profoundly influenced by the same events, by the papal centralization and the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, by the Renaissance, by the Reformation, and the Counter-Reformation, and by the Enlightenment.

But behind members of the Orthodox Church, Greeks, Russians, and the rest, there lies a very different background.

They have known no Middle Ages in the Western sense and have undergone no reformation or counter-reformations.

They have only been affected in an oblique way by the cultural and religious upheaval which transformed Western Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Christians in the West, both Roman and Reformed, that's us, generally start by asking the same questions, although they may disagree about the answers.

Now listen to this.

In Orthodoxy, however, it is not merely the answers that are different, the questions themselves are not the same as those in the West.

Isn't that interesting?

So different questions and arriving at somewhat different answers from us.

Let me give you an example.

In the West, whether you're Catholic or you're Protestant, the central focus is on the crucifixion.

The central focus in the life of Christ is the work of Christ on the cross, because in the West, we're focused on the issue of forgiveness.

How does sinful man be made right before a holy God?

And Catholics and Protestants debate that point, but the central focus is on the crucifixion.

In the East, the central focus is on the incarnation.

That's their focus.

The fact that God became a man.

Because what they're most interested in is then how does man then become transformed to become more like God?

And so their focus has been on this reality of the incarnation.

Moreover, rather than the church as an institution, they are more focused on the church as a mystical body of Christ.

So that's kind of a history of orthodoxy.

But now let's get to these two categories of truth and the spirit.

What do they believe about truth?

What's their authority?

How do they understand what to believe and how to properly worship God?

If you remember last week, we talked about how Protestants believe in what's called sola scriptura, that scripture and scripture alone is our highest authority.

And we talked about how Roman Catholics believe in a two prong approach of scripture and tradition, that there's two sources of authority.

In Greek Orthodoxy, it's it's holy tradition, but with a caveat.

And I say with a caveat because the question Of authority isn't so much what they're interested in.

Remember what Ware said?

He said that's that's not really the question that they're asking.

The reality is more about what do we share in common, what do we all believe, and that's our tradition.

And so they hold to a holy tradition, and that holy tradition includes Scripture, but it also includes a lot of other things.

So again, let me read from Bishop Ware what he says here.

He says, the Orthodox are always talking about tradition.

What do they mean by the word?

A tradition is commonly understood to signify an opinion, belief, or custom handed down from ancestors to posterity.

He says, tradition means the books of the Bible.

It means the creed, talking about the Nicene Creed.

It means the decrees of the ecumenical councils and the writings of the fathers.

This is a lot of things, right?

It means the canons, the service books, the holy icons.

He says, in fact, the whole system of doctrine, church government, worship, spirituality, and art, which orthodoxy has articulated over the ages.

That's a lot of things, isn't it?

He says, all of that constitutes what we call our tradition.

Where do they back this up?

Again, similar to what we talked about last week with Rome, there's several verses in Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, the second one, where Paul talks about a tradition.

For example, he says in 2 Thessalonians 2.15, so then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us.

Then he says, either by our spoken word or by our letter.

And so, similar to Catholics, the Orthodox say, see, there it is.

You have the letter, that's the scriptures, and you have the spoken word, and that encompasses all these other things that we practice that we believe.

What we say to that as Protestants is, well, Thessalonians was a very early letter along with Galatians, and all the traditions that God the Holy Spirit desired for us to practice were later recorded in Scripture itself.

Not to mention the early church did not hold that there were extra traditions that were outside of Scripture that we were to practice.

Moreover, how do we know that the traditions that the Orthodox claim to practice, whether it be about icons or anything else, actually came from the apostles?

Talked about that game telephone, where the little kids, you say one thing, and by the time it goes down the line, it's something completely different.

And that's how things are distorted over time.

But what does scripture itself say?

Paul told Timothy, all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

You don't need anything outside of the scriptures to equip you to do good works.

Nothing.

You don't need any of that.

It's written by an arch priest, Josiah Trinham.

It's called Rock and Sand, an Orthodox Appraisal of the Protestant Reformers and Their Teachings.

And he has a lovely chapter in here called Protestant Heresies.

And this is what he says here.

He says, The first principle of Protestantism, universally embraced by the main branches of Protestantism, is the principle of sola scriptura.

Sola scriptura, which means by scripture alone, is the doctrine that the Bible alone is the only infallible rule for faith and practice, and that the Bible alone contains all the knowledge that is necessary for salvation.

To that we would say, Amen.

From this fountain do the other major Protestant mistakes, errors, and heresies flow.

Did you hear that?

From this error of saying Scripture alone contains what we need for salvation, he says, this is from which all the other Protestant heresies flow.

He goes on to say, talking about the Reformers, the Protestants, he said they articulated in their confessions, as we have seen, the foundational tenet that all dogma must rest upon clear and explicit teaching of Scripture.

Again we say, Amen.

And that anything not found in Scripture cannot itself be a matter of required belief for Christians.

Listen to this.

And so there's so many quotes I went through this past week that that talk about this importance of tradition, but I think you understand where they're coming from on this.

One more thing I I would say.

The way that you understand doctrine is that you come to the church and the church interprets the doctrine for you.

And so some has have gone as far to say, for example, this individual and others, that reading and interpreting scripture alone as a Christian is not good.

That you should come to the church and and and for to give credit to where it's due, in an Eastern Orthodox service, they read a lot of scripture.

They read a ton of scripture.

There's a lot of scripture readings, but yet that interpretation of the scripture is to be done by the church.

So let me give you one more quote here.

Ought the divine scriptures to be read in the vulgar tongue by all Christians?

Answer no, for that all scripture is divinely inspired and profitable, we know, and is of such necessity that without the same it is impossible to be orthodox at all.

Nevertheless, the scriptures should not be read by all, but only by those who with fitting research have inquired into the deep things of the Spirit, and who know in what manner the divine scriptures ought to be searched and taught, and in fine read.

And he keeps going.

In other words, the church really needs to interpret the scriptures for you.

And then one last distinction here, and this is true with Catholicism as well, is that we believe that the Bible is authoritative chiefly, and that the church through the centuries, whether it be at the Council of Nicaea and following, simply recognized what books were authoritative.

Whereas in terms of Orthodoxy and Catholicism, they believe that the church is authoritative and they pronounce which books of the Bible actually belong to the canon.

So in other words, Scripture derives its authority from the church.

We believe that the church simply recognizes what God inspired and is authoritative.

So that's the understanding of truth, which is muddled, right?

Lots of things.

Not just scripture, lots of things that they're pulling from.

Now let's go to spirit.

How do you approach God in orthodoxy?

Well, you begin with baptism.

They believe that you cannot be saved unless you are baptized.

Maybe you've seen those videos on YouTube of the Orthodox baptizing little babies.

They dunk.

They dunk everyone.

They don't believe in sprinkling, like our Presbyterian friends.

They dunk the babies three times for the Holy Trinity.

And they believe that in that the child is saved.

So they believe that baptism brings regeneration.

So this is from the confession of Patriarch Docethios.

He says, Quote, We believe holy baptism, which was instituted by the Lord and is conferred in the name of the Holy Trinity to be of the highest necessity.

Listen, for without it none is able to be saved.

As the Lord saith, Whosoever is not born of water and of the Spirit shall in no wise enter the kingdom of the heavens.

Now he's quoting John chapter three there, what Jesus said to Nicodemus, when when Jesus is talking about being born of water in the spirit, he's talking about an inner cleansing of the heart.

He keeps going.

He says, Those who are not regenerated, since they have not received the remission of hereditary sin are of necessity subject to, listen, eternal punishment, and consequently cannot without baptism be saved, so that even infants ought of necessity to be baptized.

Question.

What do the scriptures teach?

Peter says, this is 1 Peter 1 23, he says, You have been born again, not of or through perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God.

So we believe that the gospel is God's power to save.

Faith comes by hearing, Paul says in Romans 10, and hearing by the word of Christ.

So the new birth, which we believe is a necessity, that everyone must be born again.

We believe that the new birth happens not automatically, simply by baptizing a baby or an adult, but the new birth happens through the preaching of the gospel, the word of God, and the Holy Spirit supernaturally uses the word of God in order to bring about the cleansing of the soul, born of water and the Spirit, so that the person may believe.

But in Orthodoxy, they believe that that all happens.

Original sin is overcome through baptism.

Now, do they believe that then we are saved by faith alone?

No, they do not.

In that moment of baptism, original sin is overcome.

There is faith created, but then throughout the life of the individual, this is so important, guys.

This is so important.

That person is saved by a combination, you could call it a synergistic work of faith and good works.

That you cannot actually know at any given point if you are saved before God, because how do you know, A, if you've done enough good works, and B that you might fall away from the faith, that the devil might tempt you, and you might actually deny the faith.

So again, this is Patriarch Dosethios.

This is this is what he says.

Very strong words, but I just want you to hear these so you know what they believe.

Quote, we believe a man to be not simply justified through faith alone, but through faith which worketh through love.

That is to say, through faith and works.

He says, But we regard works not as witnesses, certifying our calling.

That's what we believe, by the way.

We believe that the works testify to the fact that you are a believer.

You do good works because you are a Christian.

You don't do good works to become a Christian.

That's that's sola fide.

Faith alone.

Good works are the fruit of that faith.

They're saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Good works are actually working with your faith to provide salvation for you.

It's all a total package.

That's what he's saying here.

He says, through which faith becoming efficacious and as in themselves meriting through the divine promises, that each of the faithful may receive what is done through his own body, whether it be good or bad, forsooth.

In other words, at the in the final analysis, at the last judgment, you will be saved, yes, by your faith, but also by your good works before God.

I was reading this week.

This is this was an interesting resource I got.

This is the Orthodox Study Bible.

So this is the Orthodox Study Bible, page 1591.

On uh I was reading on Galatians 2.20, the note on that they had in Galatians 2.20.

Here's the note, okay?

We are not saved by works alone.

Nowhere does the New Testament say we are saved by faith alone.

We are saved by faith and not faith alone.

You know, you know what's interesting about that is if you read if you read Galatians, so that's the comment on 2.20.

If you go earlier in the chapter, this is Galatians 2.15, Paul says, We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet we know, the Jews, those who have the law, we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.

So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no man will be justified.

No man.

It's sola fide.

Faith alone in Jesus Christ is what justifies you.

What happens is if you add works to faith, it's like adding poison to a bottle of fine wine.

It ruins all of it.

Because if you add works to faith, in the final analysis, you are no longer trusting in Christ, you are trusting in your works.

The works inevitably negate faith.

Because what is faith?

Faith is trusting in the promises of God.

You're trusting in the person of Jesus Christ.

Can I really trust in Jesus Christ if I'm also trusting in my works?

No, you cannot.

And so the the waters are muddied about how one is to believe.

This is an important idea.

Uh the way that they understand salvation, the Christian life, is through this word.

It's called theosis, and we might call it deification.

Now they caveat this, and I think actually there's here something here that's it's really not too different from what we teach in the Reformed faith.

They emphasize the doctrine of union with Christ, which we do.

They emphasize the reality that the Holy Spirit indwells the believer, and that the Holy Spirit is sanctifying the believer.

That's generally what they're speaking of when they're talking about this idea of theosis.

The key text that they build this idea on is 2 Peter 1.4.

2 Peter 1.4.

This is an important verse regarding our sanctification.

Peter says, he says, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them, listen, this is an amazing phrase, you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

Now, I looked this verse up this week in my Greek Orthodox study Bible.

And this is the note about becoming partakers of the divine nature.

This does not mean we become divine by nature.

Because that would be a heresy if they believed that we could become divine by nature.

So credit to them for caveating that.

He said, They say, if we participated in God's essence, the distinction between God and man would be abolished.

That's true.

What this does mean is that we participate in God's energy, described by a number of terms in Scripture, such as glory, life, love, virtue, and power.

We are to become like God by his grace and truly his adopted children.

So then he says, but never become God by nature.

To that, listen, to that we could all agree.

And in fact, maybe we need to emphasize more in the Christian life that we become more like God through the working of the Holy Spirit.

In that way, the way that the Holy Spirit sanctifies us and indwells us, in that way, in that limited way, we are partakers of the divine nature.

Now, the whole problem with orthodoxy is they don't get the starting point right.

They don't understand the starting point.

The starting point, they think, in this whole process is baptism, is simply baptizing someone, erases original sin, and gets them started on this process of theosis or becoming more like Christ.

No, the process begins with repentance and faith.

And so if you don't have that starting point right, none of the sanctification will actually follow.

None of it.

But then here's where they go awry.

The note goes on to say according to some church fathers, this sanctification, theosis, especially.

Occurs through the Eucharist.

That's the Lord's table.

So, in other words, there's special power, special grace that is given directly through the Lord's table that propels you to become more sanctified, more like Christ.

So that's their idea of theosis.

I think many Reformed guys that have looked at this have said, you know, we in the Reformed Church need to emphasize more this reality of union with Christ.

We need to emphasize more this reality of the work of the Spirit in our midst and in our lives.

So, in this sense, maybe the Orthodox, there is a good emphasis, but the starting point is wrong, and the way that they believe that it happens is wrong.

Now, to this point, let me mention one other thing, and this is a biggie.

Icons.

Icons.

Icons are very, very important in Orthodox thought and theology about how one becomes sanctified and how one lives the Christian life.

And they develop these icons are either paintings or wooden figures that depict different events, biblical events, different uh martyrdoms of saints, or simply Jesus, Mary, who they call Theotokus, the Godbearer, and the apostles.

When you enter an Orthodox church, which we did, you go into the Orthodox Church, and the building will be separated in half by a large wall.

And that wall is a wall of paintings called the iconostasis.

And it separates the sanctuary where only the clergy, only the bishops are allowed to go behind the wall, and the the rest of the worshipers stay on the front side of the wall.

And on that wall are all the different icons.

And when we would be going into these Orthodox churches, Jim, what would they be doing?

That's right.

They would be kissing the icons.

And we looked at that and we said, what are they doing?

They're kissing the icons.

This seems idolatrous.

Now, here's what they say.

Here's what they say.

They say they describe the worship of Yahweh, of the triune God, with this word Latria, and they say, We only worship God.

Of course we don't worship the saints.

Of course we don't worship the martyrs.

But we pay proper respect to them.

I heard one Orthodox priest say, it's kind of like the reason that they kiss the icons.

He said, Imagine a soldier in a foxhole in the middle of a war, and he pulls out a picture of his wife at home before a major battle, and he kisses the picture.

He said, obviously, it doesn't mean that he believes that his wife is the picture, but he is showing respect, and this is the word that they use veneration, honor to that person through the picture.

But it's more than that.

And here's where it gets really, really, really fuzzy.

They believe that the icons are windows into heaven.

That there's essentially a portal between that icon and to the individual that the icon represents.

So let's say, for example, that you have an icon of Saint Luke.

You go into the Byzantine Church, the Greek Orthodox Church.

You're supposed to kiss the hand.

So everybody's kissing the same hand on the icon.

Have fun with that.

But when you pay respect to the icon of Saint Luke, Saint Luke, whatever he's doing in heaven, all somebody's paying respect to me.

And now a portal is open between you and that saint.

And you're giving veneration to them, and you can have fellowship, communion with that saint, and uh you can ask that saint to pray for you.

Hey, could you help me out a little bit in this situation and go to our Lord and intercede on my behalf?

And so the icons with the the Orthodox, it's almost everything.

Every Greek church you go to, everywhere they go, there's icons in the church.

They even put icons in the house.

And the icons are a visual way that they try to give worship to God and then respect to the martyrs and to the different apostles.

Well, what are we to say to that?

What are we to say to this?

First, where is any of this?

Where is any of this theology in Scripture?

It's nowhere to be found in the Word of God.

There's no no mention in the New Testament of this idea that I can contact someone in heaven through an icon.

No, there's there's no thought of that.

Now, I don't think it's necessarily wrong to have a picture of a saint, a Christian.

I say saint not in a Catholic sense, but a believer.

I don't think it's wrong.

I have a picture in my study of Martin Lloyd Jones.

I don't venerate the picture, but I I respect someone, uh and we respect different Christians, but I think that this gets dangerously close, if not crossing the line of breaking the second commandment, which forbids the making of images that represent the deity.

Now, the response to that from the Orthodox, they say, again, we only worship God.

We don't worship the other images.

So they caveat this over and over and over again, and they say the incarnation, remember how we talked about the incarnation is their main emphasis?

The fact that God became a man and was pictured gives us license to look at the pictures and give worship in terms of the deity.

So that's their argument.

I don't think it's a good argument at all.

I think it's very dangerous.

I'm not saying it's wrong to have pictures of children's books or something.

Nobody's bowing down in a children's story or a flannel board and worshiping the flannel Jesus.

I don't think that's uh a danger, but it is a danger when you're putting these images up in worship.

So do you see any images of Jesus or Mary or the saints in our worship?

No images.

No images.

Because these are real realities that are in heaven.

The images that we use are the images that were ordained in Scripture, baptism and the Lord's Supper.

So let me say here in closing, let me just give a brief evaluation here.

Positively, what we can say about orthodoxy is that their emphasis on the doctrine of the Trinity and the incarnation is commendable.

Their focus on transformation through union with Christ and the Holy Spirit is something that we too in the Reformed tradition, the Protestant tradition, should emphasize.

But negatively, negatively, and this is this is a devastating critique.

Eastern Orthodoxy denies the biblical gospel, which is the foundation stone on which the church is built.

Jim Young this morning read to me Ephesians 2 8, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and it is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not of works, so no one can boast.

Salvation is by grace alone, by faith alone, in Christ alone.

And so, friend, repent of trying to earn your way to God.

You won't do it.

You can't do it.

And trust in the gift that is offered to you in Christ.

Christ saves to the uttermost his life, his death for sinners.

So their theology of just their lack of theology of justification by faith alone robs people of assurance of salvation.

Nobody knows if they're actually saved or not.

No one in the Orthodox Church really knows.

Furthermore, icons are nowhere found in Scripture, and they create a faith that overemphasizes the lives of the saints, I believe, at the expense of Jesus Christ, who is our great high priest and mediator.

So, in returning to our starting point, we're not critiquing Eastern Orthodoxy out of spite.

If you're Orthodox, we're giving this critique because we want you to know the true gospel and come to Christ.

All that's necessary is that you trust him and believe.

And in that moment, God says, You are justified, you are forgiven, and you stand on the righteous life of Christ, and that begins true sanctification, where you become more like him, but that is the result of faith and not the grounds of it.

And then and only then can you worship Christ in spirit and in truth as a born again believer.

Praise be to God.