Christ’s Defeat of Demons, Sin, and Death with Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick - Part 1

On today’s Bible Answer Man broadcast (07/08/24), 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):
From the Christian Research Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina. This is the Bible
answer Man Broadcast with Hank Hanigraph.We are on the air because truth matters
and life matters. More. Ontoday's special edition of the Bible answer Man
Broadcast, we present a previously recordedepisode of the Hank Unplugged Podcast. Hank's

(00:28):
guest is Father Andrew Stephen Damck,author of Arise O God, The Gospel
of Christ's Defeat of Demons, Sinand Death. Here now is Hank Canigraph
and Welcome to another edition of theHank Unplugged Podcast. We are committed to
bring it the most interesting, informativeand inspirational people on the planet directly to

(00:51):
your earbuds, and we're going todo that very thing. Today. We
have the opportunity to interview on thispodcast the very reverent Archpriest Andrew Stephen Damik.
Father Andrew is the chief content Officerof Ancient Faith Ministries, and that
means a lot to me personally.When I became Orthodox, John Antonia Matos,

(01:17):
who founded Ancient Faith Ministries, theycame to my chrismation and I will
never forget that, and I'll alwaysbe grateful for their presence that day.
John Atonia Mattics, by the way, were responsible for Moody's radio operations until
he converted to Orthodoxy, and asa result of becoming Orthodox, has now

(01:40):
developed an incredible media outreach through publicationsand through podcasts and through broadcasts, and
he's making an incredible difference for atime and for eternity in that capacity.
But back to Father Andrew. Heis well known throughout the England speaking Orthodox
world, not only for his booksand podcasts, but also via his documentaries

(02:07):
and online videos. Father Andrew isthe author of some very significant books and
we do make them available through theministry of the Christian Research Institute. You
can check out these books online atequip dot org. And for those that
stand shoulder to shoulder with us inthe battle for life and truth, happy

(02:28):
to send a copy to you ofeither Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy or arise O God,
which is going to be something thatwe're going to focus in on in
this particular podcast. So he isa great author of These are two of
his books. There are many otherbooks that he has written. Will list
them on the web at equip dotorg. But with that short introduction,

(02:52):
Father Andrew I am so delighted tohost you today. Thank you very much,
it's great to be here. Let'sget into your book, Ariiseo God,
the Gospel of Christ's defeat of demon, sin, and death. I
oftentimes think in this regard of whathas been said by Nicholas Cabasilis, where

(03:13):
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 death,
and the barrier of death by hisresurrection. And today we want to
focus in on the gospel of Christ'sdefeat. He defeated demons, he defeated

(03:39):
sin, he defeated death. Andin your book Ariizo God, you start
by asking a basic question, andthat question is what is the gospel?
But perhaps we ought to negate thatand ask you the question at the very
beginning of what the God is?Not? Yeah, you know, I

(04:01):
think if you were to ask mostChristians in America today what exactly is the
gospel, what they would tell youis that it's essentially the story of how
you get saved. Right. Soit's a story about what my problem is
and what Christ can do to fixmy problem, and the thing that I
want everyone's to know is that's notwhat the gospel is, according to what

(04:25):
the scriptures say. And indeed,if you look at in the New Testament,
when someone has the Gospel preached tothem, they then respond with what
must I do to be saved?Which is a really interesting thing to note
because if the gospel is what youhave to do or you know, how
you get saved, then why wouldthey ask that question having just heard it?

(04:47):
Right? It's kind of redundant,you know, to say, well,
you just told me how I getsaved, and now I'm going to
ask what must I do to besaved? So that means that the gospel
actually isn't the answer to the questionwhat must I do to be saved?
The gospel, I like to say, is something that's happening whether we like
it or not. The gospel isthe announcement of a victory. Right.

(05:09):
And because I think most people thesedays think that the gospel is what must
I do to be saved? Thenthe problem is that it tends to get
preached like a kind of sales pitch. Right. So you know what's a
sales pitch, Well, someone comesto you and says, look, you
have a problem. And you maynot even know that you have this problem,
but he's going to tell you youhave a problem, and I have

(05:30):
the solution. And you know,for three easy payments of nineteen ninety five
or whatever, I can provide youwith a solution to that problem. And
I mean, certainly it's not inChristens circle. Is always presented that cynically,
to be sure, but there's stillthe sense of like, look,
you have a problem. Your problemis sin, your problem is estrangement from
God, and I have the answerto that. I have the answer to
that problem. But because this ideathat that's what the Gospel is pervades a

(05:57):
lot of preaching in our day,then a lot of preaching is received by
people as a kind of sales pitch. And it's no wonder it sounds like
a sales pitch. And although thetruth is it's interesting actually if you look
at the history of sales pitches inthe United States, they're actually based on
this idea of what the gospel is. So it actually goes in the other
direction, right. You know,preachers were telling big audiences of people in

(06:19):
the eighteenth and nineteenth century in theUnited States about the massive problem that they
had and that they had the solutionfor it. And a lot of marketeers
realize that that narrative works to sellproducts too, right, But that's not
what the gospel is according to scripture. According to scripture, the gospel is
the announcement of a victory. Andthe reason why we know that's the case

(06:42):
is actually because the gospel writers usedthe word evangelion, which is the Greek
word that we usually translate as gospelor good news. They use that word
to describe their message about Jesus,but it wasn't a word they made up,
and it wasn't actually just a genericword for good news. It was
a word that actually had a veryspecific meaning within that place and time and

(07:05):
culture. And generally what it meantwas a herald would ride into the city
you lived in and he would makean announcement, and usually it was a
series of announcements, so that wouldbe expressed as evangelia in the plural good
news is, so to speak.And there were three parts to that announcement.

(07:26):
Number one, he was announcing whohis lord and master was, and
often that would include like a biglist of titles and so forth. Number
two, he was announcing what hismaster had accomplished, and usually that was
that he had just defeated someone inbattle, probably not too far from your
city, and many times it wasthe person who ruled over you. So
now your ruler had been defeated,and there was this announcement that someone else

(07:48):
was taking over. And then thethird piece was what does that ruler who's
coming to town expect of everyone that'sgoing to be his subjects? Right,
So this is a word that everybodyknew at the time, and they had
heard many times. And indeed,like there's a very famous inscription for people
who study these things in a placecalled Priini, which is now in modern
Turkey, which was announcing almost exactlythose things. But it was not about

(08:11):
Jesus, and in fact, itwas years before Jesus was born. It
was about Caesar Augustus. You knowthat this was the Gospel of Caesar,
but this is just one of manymany gospels that had been preached at the
time. So when the gospel writerschose that word, they were saying,
look, this is a genre youall know. It's an announcement about a
conqueror, about what he did andabout what he expects. And now we're

(08:37):
telling you this is the final evangelion, and they expressed it in the singular
like this is the one and only. And so that's what a gospel was
in the first century. You know, the Herald would not write in a
town and say, look, ifyou'd like to become a member of Caesar's
community, then here's what you needto do, you know, and here's
all the great things that Caesar isgoing to offer you. Like it was

(08:58):
not a pitch in any way.It was really more of a warning.
In fact, he was coming totown, he had defeated his enemies,
and his kingdom was coming, right, and so that's why then the announcement
of the Gospel begins with repent,for the Kingdom of God is at hand,
not let me tell you what Jesuscan do for your life, right,
So asking the question what must Ido to be saved is legitimate,

(09:24):
and maybe we'll get into that lateron. But what you've pointed out in
the book is that that is notthe gospel. That's a response to the
gospel. The other thing that Ithink is very interesting on what you just
said is that what you've described withrespect to the word gospel sounds like literary
subversion, in other words, whereChristians are using the language of the culture

(09:50):
and now applying it in a differentsense. So in the culture, the
gospel was the gospel, as Jesusmentioned of Caesar Augusta. Since 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,

(10:13):
it was an act of sedition becauseit was saying, no, that's
not the gospel, here's the realgospel. Yeah, exactly. I mean
people in the time had heard alot of gospels. Anytime someone was going
to set up his administration in yourcity, you were going to hear a
new one. Right. But it'sinteresting if you look at some of the
titles that Caesar claimed for himself andhis gospel. He described himself as savior

(10:37):
of the world. He described himselfas the son of a God. He
said that no one had ever donefor the world what he had done.
Right. And so what Christians aresaying is now hold on a second wrong.
Actually, Jesus is the one thatall of that language really applies to.
And in fact, even more,don't go away in just a few

(10:58):
moments, we'll rejoin hang canagraphs conversationwith Father Andrew Stephen Damick. Contrary to
popular misconceptions, the Gospel of JesusChrist is not about what Jesus can do
for your life. It's not eventhe answer to the question how can I
be saved? Rather, it isthe declaration of a victory in his coming

(11:20):
to earth, his suffering and death, and his resurrection. Christ conquered demons,
sin and death. To receive yourcopy of Arise O God, the
Gospel of Christ's Defeat of Demons,sin and Death by Father Andrew Stephen Damick,
call eight eight eight seven thousand CRIIand make a gift to support the
Christian Research Institutes mind shaping life changingoutreaches eight eight eight seven thousand CRII or

(11:48):
visitors at equip dot org. That'sequip dot org. The Complete Bible answer
Book Collector's Edition is the comprehensive collectionof the most often asked questions Hank Hannigraph
has received throughout his four decades ashost of the Bible answer Man broadcast.

(12:13):
With more than half a million copiesalready in print, this newly revised and
expanded Collector's Edition helped seekers and skepticsalike sort through the truth on topics such
as reliability of the Bible, religionsand cults, the resurrection and afterlife,
and many more issues vital to abetter understanding of God in Christ and our

(12:33):
relationship to Him. To receive yourcopy of the Complete Bible answer Book Collector's
Edition Revised and expanded, call eighteight eight seven thousand CRII and make a
gift to support the Christian Research Institute'slife changing outreaches eight eight eight seven thousand
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(13:03):
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(13:24):
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(13:48):
of membership at equip dot org.Once again, that's equip dot org.
Hank Hannagraph has dedicated his life todefending truth because truth matters. However,
his life and ministry were radically transformedby another three word phrase, Life matters

(14:11):
more. Truth matters because Christianity isrooted in history and evidence. Life matters
more because it is the experience ofunion with God. The goal of Christian
life is union with God. Allattempts to understand Christianity from a solely rational
perspective put us in danger of devolvinginto a transactional rather than transformational relationship with

(14:33):
God. Truth Matters, Life mattersMore will equip you to move beyond intellectually
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Matters, Life Matters More called eighteight eight seven thousand CRI and make a
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(14:54):
CRI or visit us online at equippdot org. Well, let's rejoin Bible
Answerman host Hank Canagraph and his guestfather Andrew Stephen Damk in their conversation.

(15:15):
But it's interesting if you look atsome of the titles that Caesar claimed for
himself and his Gospel, he describedhimself as savior of the world. He
described himself as the son of aGod. And so what Christians are saying
is Jesus is the one that allof that language really applies to. And
in fact, even more, he'snot just defeated some army, but actually

(15:35):
his victory is on a cosmic scale. So yeah, it's definitely a seditious
act of treason to say that Jesusis lord, because if Jesus is Lord,
if Jesus is the savior of theworld, that means that Caesar or
whoever your local senator is that wasdeclaring his hegemony over you, that they're
not. One of the things thatI found very interesting in reading through your

(15:56):
book is you make the point thatthe Lord's Prayer in it of itself is
a declaration of the Gospel. Andever since I read your book, I've
looked at the Lord's Prayer differently.I actually wrote a book that was a
number one best seller called the Prayerof Jesus talking about the Lord's Prayer,

(16:17):
but I had never, even inwriting that book, thought of this as
a declaration of gospel. Yeah.I think that the reason why most people,
in looking at the Lord's Prayer wouldnot see the Gospel in it is
because of this understanding that the Gospelis a kind of solution for the problems

(16:37):
of your life. I mean,you know, again, it could be
the big problem of where do Ispend eternity? So I'm not downplaying that
at all. But if people understandthat the Gospel is actually a declaration that
the Kingdom of God is being establishedand it's pushing out all of the kingdoms
that have been existing, then youbegin to see how references to God being

(17:00):
in heaven and his will being doneon both earth as it is in Heaven
is actually a declaration that he's reclaimingthis authority for himself. And indeed,
I mean, it's the last thingthat he said, right before he has
sent it into heaven. He said, all power or all authority depending on
which translation you're reading, in Heavenand on Earth has been given to me.

(17:22):
And he says, go therefore andmake disciples of all nations, baptizing
them and so forth. The pointbeing that he's reclaiming his cosmos that he
created, that has been subjected tothe rule of demons. He's reclaiming it,
and so he's sending out the apostlesto be part of that army that's
defeating the dark powers. That's whatthe spreading of the Gospel is, and

(17:45):
indeed, spreading the gospel, preachingthe gospel actually is part of what the
gospel is because the Gospel's declaration ofvictory and the act of preaching it participates
in that victory. The victory expands, so to speak, and becomes really
final through the preaching of the gospel. So what is a proper understanding of

(18:06):
the Gospel of Jesus Christ entail?This is sort of asking a question that
is summarized by the subtitle of yourbook, that the Gospel of Jesus Christ
is a defeat of demons, ofsin, and of death. Perhaps we
can go through that point by point, because I think what we're dealing with

(18:27):
here, Father Andrew, is amacro issue for people. There are so
many people in the Christian world ingeneral that are confused about what the Gospel
actually entails, and you say numberone that it entails the defeat of demons,

(18:48):
It entails to the defeat of sinand ultimately the defeat of death.
Can you tackle that for us?Right? So, Jesus solves the three
problems of mankind essentially in the reverseorder of how we got them right.
So, if you look at Genesischapter three, you see that Adam and

(19:11):
Eve sin against God. Although it'sinteresting the word that's used there for what
they did is actually not sin.That doesn't come until later, but it
is a sin what they did.They disobeyed him. They transgressed to commandment,
and as a result of that transgression, they became mortal. Right,
God gives them mortality in response tothat. And it's interesting if you look

(19:36):
at what happens there, it's notjust the fall of Adam and Eve.
It's actually the fall of that demonwho was hanging around the garden and who
tempted Eve and drew Adam and Eveinto his pre existing rebellion against God,
and so he's actually cast out aswell. God says to him, look,
you're gonna crawl on the ground andeat ashes in dust. This is
not a story of how snakes cameto eat dirt. People in the ancient

(19:59):
world who wrote this down, theyknew that snake's dirty dirt. I mean
they'd seen them eat mice and ratsand whatever. So this is not about
snakes. This is actually about aserpentine demon, you know, a demon
who's described in serpentine language. Soit's not what he looks like, it
is what he is like, yeah, exactly, And I mean we could
go into why he's described in serpentineways. It has to do with the

(20:22):
idea that he is one of theseraphim, you know, these throne guardian
angels who are traditionally described with sortof serpentine language. It's only after this
fall that you then get the strongassociation of snakes with evil as a result
of this. Right, but he'scast down, and it says that he's
gonna crawl in his belon and he'sgonna eat ashes and dust. Ancient people
understood the realm of ashes and dustwas the realm of death. Right,

(20:44):
so everything is stripped from him exceptthe power of death. And we see
in the New Testament. Then whois this one that has the power of
death? Well, that's the double, the one who has the power of
death. Right. So what happensis that Adam and Eve are given mortality
when they transgress this commandment. Andthat's because, without going too much in
the detail here, mortality is neededin order for someone to repent. The

(21:07):
changeability that lends someone mortality is alsothe changeability that you need to repent.
It's why demons can't repent because they'renot mortal, right, So God gives
them death so that their sin wouldnot last forever, so that they would
have the possibility of repentance. Right. So that's problem number one, and
you see there's a demon already involvedthere, so they gain death, and

(21:29):
then with the introduction of death intohumanity, then the force of sin is
unleashed into the world. Right.And sin is described especially when you're looking
at the situation with Cain. SoCain is by a lot of the Fathers
is described as sort of the prototypicalsinner. It's not really Adam. Cain
is the one who is the sinner, right, and of course he sins

(21:51):
by killing his brother. But Godsays, look, Cain, sin is
crouching at your door, and it'sgoing to master you unless you master yourself,
unless you you know gain control overyourself. And of course we know
that he doesn't gain control. Sincontrols him. And the word that's used
in the Hebrew of the scriptures forsin crouching at his door, is actually

(22:11):
a loanword from Acadian into Hebrew,which refers to a kind of demon that
slithers up through cracks in the earth. And so there's this image of this
demon that comes out of the groundand is going to leap on Cain to
overtake him. And then we seewith Cain then as after he kills his
brother, he leaves this area thatwas near Eden where Adam and Eve lived

(22:34):
after they were cast out of Eden, cast out of Paradise, and he
goes off and basically he becomes thefounder of civilization as we know it.
And sin proliferates, right, Itjust grows and grows and grows. So
that's the second problem is sin.And again there's a demonic force that's present
there in the infection of mankind withsin. And the third problem of mankind

(23:00):
is introduced connected with the Tower ofBabel story. Actually, and a lot
of people don't see this because it'snot immediately apparent in the account in Genesis
about the Tower of Babel. Butwe do know, of course, if
you read that account that these people, essentially this is civilization tries to reach
God. Says they're building a tower. Now, if you're an ancient person,

(23:22):
you understand what's going on here,which is they're actually trying to build
a ziggorot and they want to usethat to try to worship God through the
means of idolatry. That's why youbuild a big tower in the middle of
your civilization, right, is specificallyto control your God through means of idolatry.
Right. And so God of courseis going to have none of that,

(23:44):
and so he does descend in responseto their construction project. But he
doesn't descend in order to be controlledby them, but instead to divide them
up. And of course we knowthat he divides their languages. Now,
so and understand what happens next,you have to look at some other parts
of the Old test especially some passagesfrom Deuteronomy. There's discussion there about when
the Most High descended that he thendivided the nations up, and it says

(24:08):
he numbered them according to the numberof the sons of God. So what
does that mean? Right, Well, the sons of God. That's actually
a reference to an angelic rank.So because mankind's sin was beginning to really
proliferate now, and because God hadalready promised that he was not going to

(24:29):
destroy the world again with a massivecataclysmic flood like he had done just a
few chapters earlier. From all ofthis, God withdraws his presence because for
the evil of mankind to be inthe presence of the holiness of God is
actually destructive to mankind, which iswhy the flood comes. So God withdraws
his direct presence from mankind, buthe doesn't abandon mankind. Instead, he

(24:49):
assigns them, as it says,to the sons of God. So basically
what happens is he sets up angelicgovernors to rule mankind by proxy. And
there's there's also other references in notjust Deuteronomy, but other places in the
Old Testament, where there's the talkabout mankind falling into the worship, particularly
of the stars and the heavenly bodies. Ancient people associated the heavenly bodies with

(25:15):
angelic beings. So essentially what's happeningis that the angels who had been assigned
to govern the nations on God's behalf, that these nations begin to worship those
angelic beings, and then the angelicbeings accept that worship, and this is
actually the origins of paganism. Well, we've run out of time for today

(25:36):
special edition of the Bible answer ManBroadcast, but be sure to tune in
again next time when we'll continue HankHanagraph's conversation with Father Andrew Stephen Damck,
author Arise, Oh God, theGospel of Christ's Defeat of Demons, Sin
and Death. Our firm commitment hereat the Christian Research Institute is to defend

(25:56):
the faith once for all delivered tothe Saints and equip believers to become true
disciples of Jesus Christ. In appreciationfor your vital gift to help strengthen and
expand CRI's mind shaping, life changingoutreaches, Hank would like to send you
a copy of Arise, Oh God, The Gospel of Christ's Defeat of Demons,

(26:18):
Sin and Death. Call a resourceconsultant at eight eight eight seven thousand
CRII eight eight eight seven thousand CRII, or visit our website equip dot org.
That's equip dot org. You canalso write CRII at Post Office box
eighty five hundred, Charlotte, NorthCarolina, zip code two eight two seven

(26:44):
one. The Bible answer Man Broadcastis funded by listeners just like you.
We're on the air because truth mattersand life matters more. The Complete Bible
answer Book Collector's Edition is the comprehensivecollection of the most often asked questions Hank

(27:07):
Hannigraph has received throughout his four decadesas host of The Bible answer Man Broadcast.
With more than half a million copiesalready in print, this newly revised
and expanded Collector's Edition helped seekers andskeptics alike sort through the truth on topics
such as reliability of the Bible,religions and cults, the resurrection and afterlife,

(27:29):
and many more issues vital to abetter understanding of God in Christ and
our relationship to Him. To receiveyour copy of the Complete Bible answer Book
Collector's Edition, Revised and Expanded,call eight eight eight seven thousand CRII and
make a gift to support the ChristianResearch Institute's life changing outreaches eight eight eight

(27:52):
seven thousand CRII or visit us atEQUIP dot org.