Best of BAM: Christ’s Defeat of Demons, Sin, and Death with Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

On today’s Bible Answer Man broadcast, we present an episode of the Hank Unplugged podcast. Hank’s guest is Father Andrew Stephen Damick, author of Arise, O God: The Gospel of Christ’s Defeat of Demons, Sin, and Death. Hank and Fr. Andrew discuss what the Gospel is, the Gospel of Caesar, the Lord’s Prayer as a declaration of the Gospel, and how the Gospel is all about how Jesus solves the three biggest problems facing mankind—death, sin, and domination by demons.

Episode Transcript

(00:07):
You're just in time for the bestof the Bible answer Man Broadcast with Hank
Annigraph, the radio outreach of theChristian Research Institute. We're on the air
because truth matters and life matters more. On today's special edition of the Bible
answer Man Broadcast, we present apreviously recorded episode of the Hank Unplugged Podcast.

(00:28):
Hank's guest is Father Andrew Stephen Damik, author of Arise O God,
The Gospel of Christ's Defeat of Demons, Sin and Death. Here now is
Hank Hanagraph and welcome to another editionof a Hank Unplugged podcast. We are
committed to bring it the most interesting, informative and inspirational people on the planet

(00:51):
directly to your earbuts, and we'regoing to do that very thing. Today.
We have the opportunity to interview onthis podcast the very Reverend Archpriest Andrew
Stephen Daymick. Father Andrew is thechief Content Officer of Ancient Faith Ministries,

(01:11):
and that means a lot to mepersonally. When I became Orthodox, John
Antonia Mattox, who founded Ancient FaithMinistries, they came to my chrismation and
I will never forget that, andI'll always be grateful for their presence that
day. John Antonia Mattics, bythe way, were responsible for Moody's radio

(01:34):
operations until he converted to Orthodoxy,and as a result of becoming Orthodox,
has now developed an incredible media outreachthrough publications and through podcasts and through broadcasts,
and he's making an incredible difference fora time and for eternity in that
capacity. But back to Father Andrew. He is well known throughout the English

(02:00):
speaking Orthodox world, not only forhis books and podcasts, but also via
his documentaries and online videos. FatherAndrew is the author of some very significant
books and we do make them availablethrough the ministry of the Christian Research Institute.
You can check out these books onlineat equip dot org. And for

(02:23):
those that stand shoulder to shoulder withus in the battle for life and truth,
happy to send a copy to youof either Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy or arise
O God, which is going tobe something that we're going to focus in
on in this particular podcast. Sohe is a great author of These are

(02:45):
two of his books. There aremany other books that he has written.
Will list them on the web atequip dot org. But with that short
introduction, Father Andrew, I amso delighted to host you today. Thank
you very much. It's great tobe here. Let's get into your book
Ariiseo God, the Gospel of Christ'sdefeat of demons, sin, and death.

(03:06):
I oftentimes think in this regard ofwhat has been said by Nicholas Cabasilis
where he said that when Christ came, he came to overthrow a triple barrier,
the barrier of nature by his incarnation, the barrier of sin by his

(03:27):
death, and the barrier of deathby his resurrection. And today we want
to focus in on the gospel ofChrist's defeat. He defeated demons, he
defeated sin, he defeated death.And in your book A Riizo God,
you start by asking a basic question, and that question is what is the

(03:53):
gospel? But perhaps we ought tonegate that and ask you the question at
the very beginning of what the gospelis? Not? Yeah, you know,
I think if you were to askmost Christians in America today what exactly
is the gospel, what they wouldtell you is that it's essentially the story
of how you get saved. Right. So it's a story about what my

(04:15):
problem is and what Christ can doto fix my problem. And the thing
that I want everyone's to know isthat's not what the gospel is, according
to what the scriptures say. Andindeed, if you look at in the
New Testament, when someone has theGospel preached to them, they then respond
with what must I do to besaved? Which is a really interesting thing

(04:39):
to note, because if the gospelis what you have to do or you
know, how you get saved,then why would they ask that question having
just heard it? Right? It'skind of redundant, you know, to
say, well, you just toldme how I get saved, and now
I'm going to ask what must Ido to be saved? So that means
that the gospel actually isn't the answerto the question what must I do to

(05:00):
be saved? The gospel, ilike to say, is something that's happening
whether we like it or not.The gospel is the announcement of a victory.
Right. And because I think mostpeople these days think that the gospel
is what must I do to besaved? Then the problem is that it
tends to get preached like a kindof sales pitch. Right, So you

(05:21):
know what's a sales pitch? Well, someone comes to you and says,
look, you have a problem.And you may not even know that you
have this problem, but he's goingto tell you you have a problem,
and I have the solution. Andyou know, for three easy payments of
nineteen ninety five or whatever, Ican provide you with a solution to that
problem. And I mean, certainlyit's not in Christen's circle. Is always
presented that cynically, to be sure, but there's still the sense of like,

(05:44):
look, you have a problem.Your problem is sin, your problem
is estrangement from God, and Ihave the answer to that. I have
the answer to that problem. Butbecause this idea that that's what the gospel
is pervades a lot of preaching inour day, then a lot of preaching
is received by people as a kindof sales pitch. And it's no wonder
it sounds like a sales pitch.And although the truth is it's interesting actually

(06:08):
if you look at the history ofsales pitches in the United States, they're
actually based on this idea of whatthe gospel is. So it actually goes
in the other direction, right.You know, preachers were telling big audiences
of people in the eighteenth and nineteenthcentury in the United States about the massive
problem that they had and that theyhad the solution for it. And a
lot of marketeers realize that that narrativeworks to sell products, too, right,

(06:33):
But that's not what the gospel isaccording to scripture. According to scripture,
the gospel is the announcement of avictory. And the reason why we
know that's the case is actually becausethe gospel writers used the word evangelion,
which is the Greek word that weusually translate as gospel or good news.
They use that word to describe theirmessage about Jesus, but it wasn't a

(06:56):
word they made up, and itwasn't actually just a Eric word for good
news. It was a word thatactually had a very specific meaning within that
place and time and culture. Andgenerally what it meant was a herald would
ride into the city you lived inand he would make an announcement, and
usually it was a series of announcements, so that would be expressed as evangelia

(07:19):
in the plural good news is,so to speak. And there were three
parts to that announcement. Number one, he was announcing who his lord and
master was, and often that wouldinclude like a big list of titles and
so forth. Number two, hewas announcing what his master had accomplished,
and usually that was that he hadjust defeated someone in battle, probably not

(07:40):
too far from your city, andmany times it was the person who ruled
over you. So now your rulerhad been defeated, and there was this
announcement that someone else was taking over. And then the third piece was what
does that ruler who's coming to townexpect of everyone that's going to be his
subjects? Right, So this isa word that everybody knew at the time,
and they had heard many times,and indeed, like there's a very

(08:01):
famous inscription for people who study thesethings in a place called Priini, which
is now in modern Turkey, whichwas announcing almost exactly those things. But
it was not about Jesus, andin fact, it was years before Jesus
was born. It was about CaesarAugustus. You know that this was the
Gospel of Caesar, but this isjust one of many, many gospels that

(08:22):
had been preached at the time.So when the gospel writers chose that word,
they were saying, look, thisis a genre you all know.
It's an announcement about a conqueror aboutwhat he did, and about what he
expects. And now we're telling youthis is the final evangelion. And they
expressed it in the singular like thisis the one and only. And so

(08:45):
that's what a gospel was in thefirst century. You know, the Herald
would not write in a town andsay, look, if you'd like to
become a member of Caesar's community,then here's what you need to do,
you know, and here's all thegreat things that Caesar is going to offer
you. Like he was not apitch in any way. It was really
more of a warning. In fact, he was coming to town. He
had defeated his enemies, and hiskingdom was coming, right, And so

(09:07):
that's why then the announcement of theGospel begins with repent, for the Kingdom
of God is at hand. Notlet me tell you what Jesus can do
for your life, right, Soasking the question what must I do to
be saved is legitimate, and maybewe'll get into that later on. But
what you've pointed out in the bookis that that is not the gospel.

(09:31):
That's a response to the gospel.The other thing that I think is very
interesting on what you just said isthat what you've described with respect to the
word gospel sounds like literary subversion,in other words, where Christians are using
the language of the culture and nowapplying it in a different sense. So

(09:54):
in the culture, the gospel wasthe gospel, as Jesus mentioned of Caesar
Augusta. So Caesar Augustus was saying, here's the gospel, the Puck's romana.
And when the gospel writers Matthew,Mark, Luke, and John declared
their books the gospels, it wasan act of sedition because it was saying,

(10:16):
no, that's not the gospel,here's the real gospel. Yeah,
exactly. I mean people in thetime had heard a lot of gospels.
Anytime someone was going to set uphis administration in your city, you were
going to hear a new one.Right. But it's interesting if you look
at some of the titles that Caesarclaimed for himself and his gospel. He
described himself as savior of the world. He described himself as the son of

(10:39):
a God. He said that noone had ever done for the world what
he had done right. And sowhat Christians are saying is now hold on
a second wrong. Actually, Jesusis the one that all of that language
really applies to, and in fact, even more, don't go away.
In just a few moments, we'llrejoin hang canagraphs conversation with Father Andrew Stephen

(11:01):
Damick. Contrary to popular misconceptions,the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not about
what Jesus can do for your life. It's not even the answer to the
question how can I be saved?Rather, it is the declaration of a
victory in his coming to earth,his suffering and death, and his resurrection.

(11:22):
Christ conquered demons, sin and death. To receive your copy of Arise
O God, the Gospel of Christ'sDefeat of Demons, sin and Death by
Father Andrew Stephen Damick, call eighteight eight seven thousand CRII and make a
gift to support the Christian research Institutesmind Shaping Life Changing outreaches eight eight eight

(11:46):
seven thousand CRII or visitors at equipdot org. That's equip dot org.
The Complete Bible answer Book Collector's Editionis the comprehensive collection of the most often
asked questions Hank Hannigraph has received throughouthis four decades as host of the Bible

(12:11):
answer Man broadcast. With more thanhalf a million copies already in print,
This newly revised and expanded Collector's Editionhelped seekers and skeptics alike sort through the
truth on topics such as reliability ofthe Bible, religions and cults, the
resurrection and afterlife, and many moreissues vital to a better understanding of God

(12:33):
in Christ and our relationship to Him. To receive your copy of the Complete
Bible answer Book Collector's Edition Revised andExpanded, call eight eight eight seven thousand
CRII and make a gift to supportthe Christian Research Institute's life changing outreaches eight
eight eight seven thousand CRII or visitus at equip dot org. Truth Matters,

(13:01):
Life Matters More details Hank Hanigraff's personalpilgrimage from his long defensive truth to
his discovery that life matters more.Essentially, two books in one. Part
one equips Christians to defend the essentialtruths of the historic Christian faith. Part
two explains why truth is necessary buthardly sufficient. That the map is not

(13:22):
the territory, the menu is notthe meal. We are created to experience
life to the full through union withGod in Christ. Is there more to
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the unexpected beauty of an authentic Christianlife. To receive Truth Matters, Life
Matters More for yourself or as aterrific gift to a friend or loved one,

(13:45):
call eight eight eight seven thousand CRIand make a gift to support the
Christian Research Institute's life changing outreaches eighteight eight seven thousand CRI or visit us
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(14:09):
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(14:33):
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(14:54):
org. Well, let's rejoin BibleAnswerman host Hank Canagraph and his guest father
Andrew Stephen Damk in their conversation.But it's interesting if you look at some

(15:16):
of the titles that Caesar claimed forhimself and his Gospel, he described himself
as savior of the world. Hedescribed himself as the son of a God.
And so what Christians are saying isJesus is the one that all of
that language really applies to. Andin fact, even more, he's not
just defeated some army, but actuallyhis victory is on a cosmic scale.

(15:37):
So yeah, it's definitely a seditiousact of treason to say that Jesus is
lord, because if Jesus is Lord, if Jesus is the savior of the
world, that means that Caesar orwhoever your local senator is that was declaring
his hegemony over you, that they'renot. One of the things that I
found very interesting in reading through yourbook is you make the point that the

(16:00):
Lord's prayer, in it of itselfis a declaration of the Gospel. And
ever since I read your book,I've looked at the Lord's Prayer differently.
I actually wrote a book that wasa number one best seller called The Prayer
of Jesus, talking about the Lord'sPrayer, but I had never, even
in writing that book, thought ofthis as a declaration of Gospel. Yeah.

(16:23):
I think that the reason why mostpeople, in looking at the Lord's
Prayer would not see the Gospel init is because of this understanding that the
Gospel is a kind of solution forthe problems of your life. I mean,
you know, again, it couldbe the big problem of where do
I spend eternity? So I'm notdownplaying that at all. But if people

(16:45):
understand that the Gospel is actually adeclaration that the Kingdom of God is being
established and it's pushing out all ofthe kingdoms that have been existing, then
you begin to see how references toGod being in heaven and his will being
done on both earth as it isin Heaven is actually a declaration that he's

(17:08):
reclaiming this authority for himself. Andindeed, I mean it's the last thing
that he said right before he hassent it into heaven. He said,
all power or all authority, dependingon which translation you're reading in heaven and
on earth, has been given tome. And he says, go therefore
and make disciples of all nations,baptizing them and so forth. The point

(17:29):
being that he's reclaiming his cosmos thathe created, that has been subjected to
the rule of demons. He's reclaimingit, and so he's sending out the
apostles to be part of that armythat's defeating the dark powers. That's what
the spreading of the gospel is,and indeed, spreading the gospel, preaching
the gospel actually is part of whatthe gospel is because the Gospel's declaration of

(17:53):
victory and the act of preaching itparticipates in that victory. The victory expands,
so to speak, and becomes reallyfinal through the preaching of the gospel.
So, what is a proper understandingof the Gospel of Jesus Christ Entail.
This is sort of asking a questionthat is summarized by the subtitle of
your book, that the Gospel ofJesus Christ is a defeat of demons,

(18:18):
of sin and of death. Perhapswe can go through that point by point,
because I think what we're dealing withhere, Father Andrew is a macro
issue for people. There are somany people in the Christian world in general
that are confused about what the Gospelactually entails. And you say, number

(18:41):
one that it entails the defeat ofdemons, It entails to the defeat of
sin and ultimately the defeat of death. Can you tackle that for us?
Right? So, Jesus solves thethree problems of mankind essentially in the reverse

(19:03):
order of how we got them right. So, if you look at Genesis
chapter three, you see that Adamand Eve sin against God. Although it's
interesting the word that's used there forwhat they did is actually not sin.
That doesn't come until later, butit is a sin what they did.
They disobeyed him, They transgressed tocommandment, and as a result of that

(19:25):
transgression, they became mortal. Right, God gives them mortality in response to
that. And it's interesting if youlook at what happens there, it's not
just the fall of Adam and Eve. It's actually the fall of that demon
who was hanging around the garden andwho tempted Eve and drew Adam and Eve
into his pre existing rebellion against Godand so he's actually cast out as well.

(19:51):
God says to him, look,you're gonna crawl on the ground and
eat ashes in dust. This isnot a story of how snakes came to
eat dirt. People in the ancientworld who wrote this down they knew that
snake's dirty dirt. I mean they'dseen them eat mice and rats and whatever.
So this is not about snakes.This is actually about a serpentine demon,
you know, a demon who's describedin serpentine language. So it's not

(20:12):
what he looks like, it iswhat he is like, yeah, exactly,
And I mean we could go intowhy he's described in serpentine ways.
It has to do with the ideathat he is one of the seraphim,
you know, these throne guardian angelswho are traditionally described with sort of serpentine
language. It's only after this fallthat you then get the strong association of

(20:33):
snakes with evil as a result ofthis. Right, but he's cast down,
and it says that he's gonna crawlin his belon and he's gonna eat
ashes and dust. Ancient people understoodthe realm of ashes and dust was the
realm of death. Right, Soeverything is stripped from him except the power
of death. And we see inthe New Testament. Then who is this
one that has the power of death? Well, that's the double the one
who has the power of death.Right. So what happens is that Adam

(20:56):
and Eve are given mortality when theytransgress this commandment. And that's because,
without going too much in the detailhere, mortality is needed in order for
someone to repent. The changeability thatlends someone mortality is also the changeability that
you need to repent. It's whydemons can't repent because they're not mortal.
Right, So God gives them deathso that their sin would not last forever,

(21:19):
so that they would have the possibilityof repentance. Right. So that's
problem number one. And you seethere's a demon already involved there. So
they gain death, and then withthe introduction of death into humanity, then
the force of sin is unleashed intothe world. Right. And sin is
described, especially when you're looking atthe situation with Cain. So Cain is

(21:41):
by a lot of the Fathers isdescribed as sort of the prototypical sinner.
It's not really Adam Cain is theone who is the sinner, right,
And of course he sins by killinghis brother. But God says, look,
Cain, Sin is crouching at yourdoor, and it's going to master
you unless you master yourself, unlessyou, you know, gain control over
yourself. And of course we knowthat he doesn't gain control. Sin controls

(22:04):
him. And the word that's usedin the Hebrew of the scriptures for sin
crouching at his door, is actuallya loanword from Akkadian into Hebrew, which
refers to a kind of demon thatslithers up through cracks in the earth.
And so there's this image of thisdemon that comes out of the ground and
is going to leap on Cain toovertake him. And then we see with

(22:30):
Cain then as after he kills hisbrother, he leaves this area that was
near Eden where Adam and Eve livedafter they were cast out of Eden,
cast out of Paradise, and hegoes off and basically he becomes the founder
of civilization as we know it.And sin proliferates, right, It just
grows and grows and grows. Sothat's the second problem is sin. And
again there's a demonic force that's presentthere in the infection of mankind with sin.

(22:59):
And the third problem of a mankindis introduced connected with the Tower of
Babel story. Actually, and alot of people don't see this because it's
not immediately apparent in the account inGenesis about the Tower of Babel. But
we do know, of course,if you read that account that these people,
essentially this is civilization tries to reachGod. Says they're building a tower.

(23:21):
Now, if you're an ancient person, you understand what's going on here,
which is they're actually trying to builda ziggorot and they want to use
that to try to worship God throughthe means of idolatry. That's why you
build a big tower in the middleof your civilization, right, is specifically
to control your God through means ofidolatry. Right. And so God of

(23:41):
course is going to have none ofthat, and so he does descend in
response to their construction project. Buthe doesn't descend in order to be controlled
by them, but instead to dividethem up. And of course we know
that he divides their languages. Now, so and understand what happens next,
you have to look at some otherparts of the Old test especially some passages
from Deuteronomy. There's discussion there aboutwhen the most High descended that He then

(24:07):
divided the nations up, and itsays he numbered them according to the number
of the sons of God. Sowhat does that mean, right, well,
the sons of God. That's actuallya reference to an angelic rank.
So because mankind's sin was beginning toreally proliferate now, and because God had
already promised that he was not goingto destroy the world again with a massive

(24:30):
cataclysmic flood like he had done justa few chapters earlier. From all of
this, God withdraws his presence becausefor the evil of mankind to be in
the presence of the holiness of Godis actually destructive to mankind, which is
why the flood comes. So Godwithdraws his direct presence from mankind, but
he doesn't abandon mankind. Instead,he assigns them, as it says,

(24:52):
to the sons of God. Sobasically what happens is he sets up angelic
governors to rule mankind by proxy.And there's there's also other references in not
just Deuteronomy, but other places inthe Old Testament where there's the talk about
mankind falling into the worship, particularlyof the stars and the heavenly bodies.
Ancient people associated the heavenly bodies withangelic beings, So essentially what's happening is

(25:18):
that the angels who had been assignedto govern the nations on God's behalf,
that these nations begin to worship thoseangelic beings, and then the angelic beings
accept that worship, and this isactually the origins of paganism. Thank you
for listening to this special edition ofthe Bible answer Man Broadcast with Hank Hanagraph

(25:38):
and his guest Father Andrew Stephen Damik. To hear this Hank Unplugged podcast interview
in its entirety, go to equipdot org, iTunes, or wherever you
listen to your favorite podcast. Ourfirm commitment here at the Christian Research Institute
is to defend the faith once forall delivered to the Saints and equip believers

(26:00):
to become true disciples of Jesus Christ. In appreciation for your vital gift to
help strengthen and expand CRI's mind shaping, life changing outreaches, Hank would like
to send you a copy of Arise, Oh God, the Gospel of Christ's
Defeat of demons, sin and death. Call a resource consultant. At eight

(26:22):
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at Post Office box eighty five hundred, Charlotte, North Carolina, zip code
two eight two seven one. TheBible answer Man Broadcast is funded by listeners

(26:48):
just like you. We're on theair because truth matters and life matters more.
The Complete Bible answer Book Collector's Editionis the comprehensive collection of the most
often asked questions Hank Hannigraph has receivedthroughout his four decades as host of The

(27:11):
Bible answer Man Broadcast. With morethan half a million copies already in print,
this newly revised and expanded Collector's Editionhelped seekers and skeptics alike sort through
the truth on topics such as reliabilityof the Bible, religions and cults,
the resurrection and afterlife, and manymore issues vital to a better understanding of

(27:33):
God in Christ and our relationship toHim. To receive your copy of the
Complete Bible answer Book Collector's Edition,Revised and Expanded, call eight eight eight
seven thousand CRII and make a giftto support the Christian Research Institute's life changing
outreaches eight eight eight seven thousand CRIIor visit us at EQUIP dot org.