Christ’s Defeat of Demons, Sin, and Death with Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick - Part 3

On today’s Bible Answer Man broadcast (07/10/24), we pick up where we ended on our previous broadcast and present more of an episode of the Hank Unplugged podcast. Hank is talking with 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 how “Christ is Risen” summarizes the Gospel, why people often miss the reality of the Resurrection, and the role of faithfulness in the theology of salvation.

Episode Transcript

(00:07):
From the Christian Research Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina. This is the Bible
answer Man Broadcast with Hank Anagraph.We're on the air because truth matters and
life matters. More on today's specialedition of the Bible answer Man. We
pick up where we ended on ourprevious broadcast and present more of an episode

(00:27):
of the Hank Unplugged podcast. Hankis talking with Father Andrew Stephen Damik,
author of A Rise o God,The Gospel of Christ's Defeat of Demons,
sin and Death. Now let's joinHank and Father Andrew in their conversation that
great sermon by Saint John Crasosten thatis preached for Pasca for Easter. You

(00:49):
know, Christ has risen in deathlesslyand Christ has risen the demons are fallen
like it's a blasting of the truthagainst the enemies of God. And it
is the most glorious good news possiblefor mankind because we're being rescued from all
of that. And one of thereasons why I think this is really important
to understand it, to know andto take within ourselves is that often when

(01:10):
people look at the problems of theworld, they tend to think, okay,
there's God out there somewhere if theybelieve that there's a God, and
then there's humanity, and look,there's lots of evil, so this must
be either God's fault, like he'seither causing all this evil or he's allowing
it. Or we just think,okay, this is humanity. So if
we just sort of evolve, thenwe can sort of take care of this.
But the problem is, of courseit's not working right. And even

(01:33):
on an individual level, faithful Christiansmight say, why is it that I
keep sinning? Why is it Ihave this inclination? Why do I keep
being tempted? You know? Andwhen we don't realize that there's this third
set of actors in the world,the dark powers, then that's when all
of these problems of theodicy, youknow, the problem of evil and so
forth, really become almost unsolvable.Yeah. So, in essence, Christ,

(01:57):
in his mission, you serve thefall. As you say, if
you look through a gospel like theGospel of Matthew, you see over and
over again examples of exorcism that heundoes the fall. Secondly through the forgiveness
of sins. And then what youjust touched on briefly, resurrection, which

(02:19):
I'd like you to say a littlemore about, because resurrection is the very
heart of the Gospel. It's whatPaul says is of first importance. And
in First Corinthians, chapter fifteen,Paul gives a four part argument for the
resurrection not being something that we believethrough blind faith, but rather faith in

(02:45):
irrefutable fact. So he says,Jesus Christ died, there's no doubt whatsoever
about the fatal torment of Jesus Christ. The tomb ultimately was empty. Christianity
cannot survive and identify Bible doom containingthe corpse of Christ. Christ appeared and
gave many convincing proofs that he wasalive, and as a result of that,

(03:10):
the disciples were utterly transformed. Theywere willing to die for the notion
that Christ is God, that itis Christ to is God, not Caesar,
who is Lord and Savior. Soresurrection again is the very heart of
the Gospel. And yet many people, it seems to me, have little

(03:32):
concept of what resurrection entails. Inother words, they don't understand the physicality
of resurrection that in resurrection, inthe time when Jesus appears, the second
time when he overcomes the power ofsin and death and Satan that we are

(03:53):
going to be resurrected, immortal,imperishable, incorruptible, Sir. There's a
physicality to resurrection, both the resurrectionof Jesus Christ and our resurrections. That
has often missed when you talk aboutthe heart of the gospel, right.
I think the reason why a lotof people miss that is because there's this

(04:14):
sort of idea that the goal ofChristianity is to go to Heaven when you
die. He's dead now, he'sin a better place. He's with Jesus.
End of story. But that isnot the end of the story.
Anti Rite, in one of hisbooks, has a great phrase, and
I'm not sure if he coined it, but this is where I read it
from. He talks about life afterlife after death. So a lot of

(04:38):
people talk about life after death,and by that they tend to think about
going to Heaven when you die orgoing to Hades when you die. But
that's not really the Christian story.The Christian story is there's sort of two
stages. There's what happens immediately whenyou die, which is that your body
and your soul are parted from eachother, right, but that is temporary.

(05:00):
You experience a kind of foretaste duringthis period of your eventual eternal experience.
Right, So either bliss for therighteous or damnation again both in a
sort of partial way. But thereis going to come a day when the
final resurrection happens and all will beraised, and the bodies and souls we

(05:21):
put back together and will be raisedincorruptible, like you said, So there
is another stage that is yet tocome, even for those who have departed
this life immediately. And it saysin scripture that in this resurrection that well,
to use the words of Jesus,right, he says that the sons

(05:42):
of the resurrection become sons of Godand equals the angels. So it doesn't
mean that we'll be restored back tothis kind of life that you and I
are experiencing right now, because frankly, this life has a lot of death
about it. Not just that wedie, but that we are dying,
that we're you know, imperfect,we're perishable, you know, aches and
pens all that. But it's notjust that all of that is going to

(06:02):
go away. It's that there's actuallygoing to be an elevation of human nature,
such that those who are among therighteous, those who are obedient to
Christ are going to be, ashe says, equal to the angels.
Now, that doesn't mean we turninto the bodyless hosts, right, We
don't turn into the species that wetend to call angel, but rather we

(06:24):
become elevated to function like them,to reign with Christ forever, right,
to help take care of his cosmos, to fill up the spaces that those
fallen angels who left behind what theywere supposed to be doing, what they
were supposed to be doing, Weare going to be assigned to do that
now, right, And that's whatthe resurrection entails. It's not just a
restoration of souls to bodies, butthis elevation of human nature to become even

(06:48):
more like Christ, and for thatactually to continue in an infinite eternal progression,
so more and more and more andmore. That's why in the Orthodox
Church, for instance, we singabout the Lord's mother that she's become more
honorable than the Cherubim and more gloriousbeyond compare than. So Cherubim and Seraphim
are the throne guardian angels. Theyare the highest ranks of angels who are

(07:11):
directly next to the throne of God, as it's depicted in scripture, and
we say about her that she's higherthan that, that she's even higher than
that. And you know she's usuallydepicted in icons of staining at his right
hand right. So that's the possibilityfor human nature, that's the potential.
That's what resurrection is really really about. And you know, someone who does
not believe in the resurrection, orthat's not a part of their picture of

(07:33):
what the life of the Age tocome is about, that's not Christian.
That's something else. I love thefact that you brought up the Blessed Mother
of God because she is the quintessenceof what it means to become gods by
grace. She's the quintessence of whatit means to be deified. And I

(07:53):
wonder if you could elaborate on that, because this is such a big part
of the Orthodox story of the OrthodoxGospel. I think about Saint Ephrem the
Syrian, who depicts the Paradise narrativeas a paradigm of deification and talks about
how paradise occupies and operates as aliminal space. It's part of the created

(08:18):
cosmos that is intended to serve asa venue for divine and human interaction.
And Adam and Eve are two,as it were, forever eat from the
Tree of Life and by that betransformed from one glory to another. But
instead they ate from the Tree ofKnowledge, which was planted in this picture

(08:43):
halfway up the mountain, and thetree of Life being located at the apex
of the mountain with the chicaino gloryof God. And so the story that
Efrom the Syrian talks about is thestory of Adam and Eve. Had they
rejected the serpent, they would haveeaten from the Tree of Life, and

(09:03):
the Tree of Knowledge would not havebeen withheld from them. From the one
they would have gained infallible knowledge.From the other they would have received immortality
along with their humanity. But itis through the death of Christ on the
cross, it is through the resurrectionfrom the dead, that Christ return Adam

(09:24):
and humanity to the life of Eden. In other words, it is bringing
us back to the possibility that wecan have a transformation in our nature,
and that this is the very exchangeabout which all of scripture is written.
That God became man so that manmight become God. God's by grace and

(09:46):
how all of this happens within thecontext of the church, because it is
in the church that we receive thevery graces that transform us. Yeah,
I mean you can see in thattemptation to the Tree of the Knowledge of
Good and Eve will again that themeof knowledge that mankind was not ready for
yet that's presented to him by ademon. So what is paradise. Paradise

(10:09):
is the experience of being with God. Paradise is the place where God is
present with mankind. And so Christhimself becomes that presence on earth. And
that's why we often describe his motheras being a mystical paradise, because she
became the place where God is presentwith man on earth. And so,
you know, what is theoses?You know, the third piece of the

(10:33):
Gospel is what does the conqueror expectof the people that he's about to come
into the midst of. So whatdoes he expect? He expects faithfulness.
And I think this is one ofthe biggest problems with a lot of Christian
preaching and discussion and writing and soforth in America in our day, is
that there's this notion that faith issimply believing something, don't go away,

(10:56):
and just a few moments will rejoinHanging Canagraphs conversation with Father Andrew Stephen Damick.
Contrary to popular misconceptions, the Gospelof 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

(11:18):
in his coming to earth, hissuffering and death, and his resurrection.
Christ conquered demons, sin and death. To receive your copy of Arise O
God, the Gospel of Christ's Defeatof Demons, sin and Death by Father
Andrew Stephen Damick, call eight eighteight seven thousand CRII and make a gift

(11:39):
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(12:01):
Matters, Life Matters More by HankHannigraph is essentially two books in one because
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(12:22):
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(14:13):
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(14:35):
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(15:07):
Man host Hank Cantagraph and his guestfather Andrew Stephen Damk in their conversation.
And I think this is one ofthe biggest problems with a lot of Christian
preaching and discussion and writing and soforth in America in our day, is
that there's this notion that faith issimply believing something right, just sort of

(15:28):
agreeing that it's true. Right,Okay, Yeah, I agree that Jesus
is the son of God. Iagree he's the savior of the world.
I agree that I you know,I'm sinful, right, But this isn't
what it means at all. Actually, And indeed, like Saint James says
about this kind of faith, youknow, can such a faith save you?
Right? Like that's no good,right, it's really faithful nests faithful
ness. That's what God expects ofus. And that's where all the commandments,

(15:52):
not just the commandments to be moral, but the commandments for worship,
the commandments for repentance, all ofthis stuff. This is what it's all
aimed at is faithfulness, loyalty,coming back to God again and again and
again, showing that he's the onlyGod that you worship, right, the
only one that you really have thisallegiance to. And the reason why that
has everything to do with theoses tobecoming, as you said, gods by

(16:15):
grace is because the ones who aretruly faithful to God, the prototypes of
that faithfulness are the angelic hoasts,right. You know, these are the
first sort of sentient creations He makesas the angels, and you know,
most of them stay faithful to him, and then a group fall away.

(16:37):
The ones who are faithful to him, they not only remain loyal, but
they carry out his ministry in thisworld. Right, they do the works
of God, showing themselves to betruly the sons of God. You know,
not in the way that Christ isthe unique son of God, but
sons of God in the sense thatthey do the works of the Father,
right, because you see that themeall through scripture. You know, to

(17:00):
do the works of your father iswhat makes you a true son of that
father. Right. So theosis isnot just like an individual kind of experience
of divine stuff. You know,of like, okay, I'm getting better,
I'm glowing in the dark or whatever. It's actually to become like the
angelic coasts. They are the originalsaints, right. The Old Testament uses

(17:22):
the Hebrew term that we translated aseither holy ones or saints. They're the
original saints, right, And sowhen human beings are later called saints,
human beings who are truly faithful toGod, they're being given this holy ones
title that previously was applied to theangels, right. And that's why Christ
says in Luke twenty thirty six thatthe sons of the Resurrection become sons of

(17:45):
God and equal to the angels.Right. You know, probably the most
famous Patristic text about theosis is SaintAthanasius is on the Incarnation, where you've
got that very famous saying, youknow, God became un or God became
man, so that men might becomeGod or might become divine, depending on
how you want to translate it.But what's often kind of not realized is

(18:07):
that Saint Athanasius's whole model for Theosesis actually within the context of adoption as
the sons of God. In otherwords, that being part of God's family
and becoming like this rank of angels, this highest rank of angels. That's
what theoses is, right, Sowe participate in His glory and grace and

(18:30):
therefore become like him through faithfulness.So now this makes a lot more sense
of that very famous phrase for bygrace, are you saved through faithfulness?
Right? Through faithfulness? And thisis that not of yourselves. It's a
gift from God, which doesn't meanthat God makes you be faithful. It
means that God gives you the wayto be faithful. He makes it possible

(18:52):
for you to be faithful, soyou have to take that up. You
actually have to be faithful, youknow, which it makes a lot more
sense of all of the commands todo. Christ said, he says over
and over again, if you loveme, you'll keep my commandments. Those
things are associated over and over inscripture. Right, he doesn't say if
you love me, I'm gonna makeyou keep my commandments, and he says
you'll keep them. So faithfulness ispart and parcel of this idea of becoming

(19:15):
sons of God, of becoming likeChrist. Well, father Andrew, A
lot of people would say at thispoint, you just snuck in something here,
You snuck in the idea that wecan earn our salvation by taking the
word faith and rendering it faithfulness.Explain to the audience how that is not

(19:37):
what you're doing, even though youare saying that a proper rendering of the
text would be that just shall liveby faithfulness. Right. I think the
problem comes because, you know,modern American Christianity is deeply shaped by the
Reformation, which itself was deeply shapedby the theology that came before it,
and so so Ceriology. So thetheology of salvation was generally understood around the

(20:06):
time of the late Medieval period inthe Renaissance as being about what's called satisfaction.
So God has to be satisfied,and so then how exactly do you
satisfy God's justice, his wrath isanger, whatever word you want to use.
Well, they came up with differentanswers for that, right, So
with the Reformation, they came upwith this notion of solofide by faith alone.

(20:29):
And if you're going to satisfy somethingby doing something, that's a kind
of exchange, right, like youhave to pay it off one way or
another. So the argument really wasn'tabout whether God needs to be paid off.
The argument was about how you payGod off. Right, So with
the Reformation it was sola fide byfaith alone, whereas with Roman Catholicism there

(20:51):
was a much more kind of complexsystem, you know, having to do
with merits and indulgences and all thiskind of stuff. But they shared the
same basis of satisfaction as being kindof the key question for salvation. Right.
And you know, when you havethis sense of an exchange or paying
off, then it becomes very possibleto say, okay, well I've gotten
this taken care of. Now it'staken care of. But if you've got

(21:15):
instead this complex system with merits andindulgences and so forth, to someone who
believes, look I've got this paidoff, that's going to look like,
oh, I have to keep workinghard in order to really get this paid
off. And so then that doeslook like earning your salvation. Now.
You know, Roman Catholics have neverofficially taught that idea that you earn your
salvation. They would say that isa distortion of what we believe. But

(21:37):
for the Orthodox, the idea ofsatisfying God is not even on the table.
Right. The problems that we haveis not that God's mind needs to
be changed or is mood, orthat God is bound by some kind of
metaphysical sense of justice, because God'snot bound by anything. Rather, the
problem is we have, as Isaid, death, sin, and demons.

(22:00):
Christ defeats them. And the reasonwhy this makes so much sense in
terms of a context of faithfulness isbecause if you look closely at the scriptures,
you can see that the confrontation withpaganism is always present throughout the whole

(22:21):
Old Testament and the New Testaments.Everywhere as well. There's a sense of
there's the worship of the Most HighGod, and then there's the worship of
the gods of the nations. Andwhy was Israel regarded as unfaithful to God
so many times? It was preciselybecause they set up shrines and altars to
demons and they worshiped them, likeSolomon himself set up altars to a local

(22:47):
Canaanite god, and they were setup in the courts of the Temple to
Yahweh. I mean this is theworst. That they were there for like
two hundred years until one of thetwo really good kings, Josiah, eliminated
that he burned them all down right. This sense of there's being a sort
of competition. Mankind experiences this tensionbetween worship of the gods and worship of

(23:07):
Yahweh that's always present. That's alwayspresent, right, And so faithfulness then
is understood as not going after thoseother gods. It's about remaining loyal and
true to the Most High God.That's what faithfulness is. Now. That
doesn't earn anything Like It's not likeif I'm faithful to my wife that I

(23:30):
have earned my marriage, right,I didn't earn that. But if I'm
going to have a marriage, Ineed to be faithful to her. You
know. The interesting kind of ironyof this is that, especially a lot
of evangelicals, they like to emphasizethat Christianity is a relationship. And I
mean, I agree, absolutely arelationship, But if the relationship is mainly
a relationship of kind of exchange,you know, a relationship of satisfaction,

(23:53):
that's a commercial relationship. Now I'mnot saying that evangelicals don't experience intimacy with
God or anything like that, butfaithfulness that is really core to any relationship,
whether it's a relationship of marriage orfriendship or family or whatever. And
so part of the problem is thatwe've reduced what faith means in the ancient

(24:15):
context, like we have a sayingand even in modern English to keep faith,
and then the opposite is to breakfaith. Right, So that's about
loyalty and disloyalty, and loyalty doesn'tearn salvation. It's just about doing the
works of your father so that youbecome more and more like him. You
know, when my children obey me, they don't earn being part of my
family. They are part of myfamily, but they become more characteristic of

(24:37):
who I am, who my wifeis, whore family is. So that's
what it means. Faithfulness is notabout earning anything, because it's not a
commercial exchange to begin with, butit is the proper rendering of the text.
If you are to translate the textfaithfully, you would use the word
faithfulness as opposed to faith. Thejust shall live by faithfulness. Yeah,

(25:00):
I think in modern English that's theword that does the job that the Greek
and He were trying to do.Faith in English used to have much more
of a sense of loyalty, andwe still, like I said, we
have these leavings of that idea withphrases like keeping faith and breaking faith but
it's now been kind of shifted.A lot of people understand faith to mean
I believe something is true, right, I agree that it's true, but

(25:23):
I mean the demons know the truth. They agree that it's true, but
they're not faithful. You know,they have a certain kind of faith,
but they're not faithful. That's thedifference. Well, we've run out of
time for today special edition of theBible answer Man Broadcast, but be sure
to tune in again next time whenwe'll continue Hank Hanagraft's conversation with Father Andrew

(25:44):
Stephen Damck, author Arise, OhGod, The Gospel of Christ's Defeat of
Demons, Sin and Death. Ourfirm commitment here at the Christian Research Institute
is to defend the faith once forall, delivered to the Saints and equip
believers to become true disciples of JesusChrist. In appreciation for your vital gift

(26:07):
to help strengthen and expand CRI's mindshaping, life changing outreaches, Hank would
like to send you a copy ofArise, Oh God, The Gospel of
Christ's Defeat of Demons, Sin andDeath. Call a resource consultant at eight
eight eight seven thousand CRII eight eighteight seven thousand CRII, or visit our

(26:30):
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(27:00):
Hank Hanigraph has dedicated his life todefending truth. Because truth matters.
Yet, an encounter with Christians inthe underground Church of China left Hanograph contemplating
his Christian experience. They were experiencingsomething beyond truth. They were experiencing life.
Truth matters. Life matters More byHank Hanigraph is two books in one.

(27:21):
Because Truth Matters. Part one equipsChristians to defend the essential truths of
the historic Christian faith. In Parttwo, Hank explains why life matters more
and how we can experience the heightof human existence union with God. Prepare
to move past intellectually knowing about Godto experientially knowing God in Christ. To
receive your copy of Truth Matters.Life matters More. The unexpected beauty of

(27:45):
an authentic Christian Life called eight eighteight seven thousand CRI and make a gift
to support the Christian Research institutes lifechanging outreaches eight eight eight seven thousand CRI
or visit us at equipped dot org.