Today is the second in our three-part series looking at the fact and the fiction of The Da Vinci Code. The topic for today concerns the absolute foundational understanding of who Jesus Christ is…and the challenges to that understanding that are raised in the book.

On Friday, I found myself driving behind an RTD bus that had an advertisement on the back of it for the coming Da Vinci Code movie. There was the familiar face of Mona Lisa and the date for the release of the movie, "Coming May 19^th." But the tag line used to pique one’s interest in seeing the movie said this, "Did the Church lie?" I have to admit, it got my dander up a bit! But that’s an example of the kind of questions being raised by the book and the soon-to-be-released movie. We ought to know whether the Church lied or not. We ought to know what we can believe and say with assurance about Jesus Christ. And we ought to have a sure reply—with patience and grace(!)—when such a question is posed by someone else…perhaps a family member, friend, or co-worker. Thus the reason for this series.

Again, there are books at the Welcome Center for you to take and read—the response from Alpha’s Nicky Gumbel has arrived and is now out there—and we are hosting a live satellite broadcast on May 21^st at 5:00 in Charter Hall that will help us all be informed about the issues and an appropriate response. Also, I came across an excellent book this week that is an easy, but very informative read. If you’re interested in reading more than the brief summaries of the books at the Welcome Center, I heartily recommend to you Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code by Bart D. Ehrman. So, "game on!" Did the Church lie? Let’s get to it!

First of all, let’s admit we all like a good conspiracy. It makes for good novel writing…and it challenges our view of history. Just how much did FDR and his administration know about Japan’s intent toward Pearl Harbor prior to December 7^th? Was the attack "allowed" to take place to spur the American public on in supporting an unavoidable war? Surely such "losers" as Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray and Sirhan Sirhan could not, on their own, take out such great leaders as John Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. There had to be a conspiracy involved! Conspiracies pique our interest and capture our imaginations.

Such is no less the case in The Da Vinci Code. The conspiracy of The Da Vinci Code is that leaders in the early Church, and especially the Roman Emperor Constantine, conspired to hide the truth about Jesus Christ. Again, as we saw last week, The Da Vinci Code’s fictional British historian, Sir Leigh Teabing, has this to say about this conspiracy:

…almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false. p. 231

Furthermore, Teabing goes on to describe the nature of this conspiracy, particularly Constantine’s role in it. A quick note about Constantine. He was Emperor of the Roman Empire from 306-337 A.D. In 310, he became a Christian, citing a vision he had before a major battle. His vision was that of a cross with the words above it, "By this sign, conquer." Subsequently, Constantine won the battle at Milvian Bridge which solidified his hold on the emperor’s throne and led to his conversion to Christianity. Teabing is correct in describing this as a major event in history. Constantine legitimized Christian faith in the Roman Empire—up to that time Christians had been persecuted for their faith. As you can imagine, this totally changed the status of the Church and of Christians within the Roman Empire. However, Teabing claims that Constantine did more than legitimize Christianity within the Roman Empire, he totally changed its theology. The conspiracy is this: Constantine believed a divine Jesus would unify and strengthen the Empire. However, up to that time—so the conspiracy goes—Jesus had been viewed as only human. A great human, but only human. Therefore, the evidence for a human Jesus must be eliminated and a divine Jesus created. Teabing says this:

Because Constantine upgraded Jesus’ status almost four centuries after Jesus’ death, thousands of documents already existed chronicling His life as a mortal man. To rewrite the history books, Constantine knew he would need a bold stroke. From this sprang the most profound moment in Christian history…Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ’s human traits and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike. The earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned… some of the gospels that Constantine attempted to eradicate managed to survive. p. 234

"Some of the gospels" is a reference to documents from the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Coptic Scrolls of Nag Hammadi. In reality, however, only the materials found at Nag Hammadi could possibly apply. As we mentioned last week, the Dead Sea Scrolls contained no gospels about Christ nor any other New Testament book—no reference anywhere to Jesus or the disciples. However, there were other "gospels" found in the material at Nag Hammadi and we’ll take a look at that in a moment. Note the claim, however, that Constantine financed a project to eliminate the "gospels that spoke of Jesus in human terms and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike." According to Teabing, the scrolls that were eliminated did the following:

The scrolls highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications, clearly confirming that the modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda—to promote the divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His influence to solidify their own power base. p. 234

According to Dan Brown’s British historian, almost three centuries after Christ, men conspired to make Jesus appear as divine when the early Church never believed that. And the scrolls that were eradicated reveal this. Quite the conspiracy, isn’t it? Except for one thing. There’s no factual support for such a claim.

To begin with, the Church, Christian believers from the very beginning believed that Jesus was both human and divine. The apostle Paul, for instance, whose letters to 1^st century churches are the earliest writings we have of the New Testament, writes this to the church at Colosse:

[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created…He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church…For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Col 1:15-20 (underline mine)

Paul wrote that around 50 A.D., very early in the life of the Church.

Then, there are these words of Paul to the church at Philippi:

Philippians 2:6-8 (underline mine)

Most scholars date these words of Paul around 61 A.D. However, good Bible translations center the text as you see it because the belief is that Paul uses the words of an even earlier hymn in the Church.

First point: Rather than the divinity of Christ being a later belief foisted upon the Church by Constantine and others, from the very beginning the Church understood Christ to be divine.

This belief in a divine Christ was based on more than the writings of Paul. The four gospels we do have—which carry significantly more attestation for authenticity than the Nag Hammadi gospels—also led the Church from the very beginning to understand the divinity of Christ. For example, Christ is described as receiving someone’s worship and he doesn’t rebuke them, which he would do if he were only human because only God deserves our worship. In Matthew, for example, as Mary Magdalene and the "other Mary" leave the empty tomb in confusion, only to be met by the resurrected Jesus:

They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Matthew 28:9

There’s no rebuke for their misplaced worship. Jesus doesn’t re-direct their worship to God, but accepts their worship of him.

Later, when Jesus meets in Galilee with the disciples:

When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Matthew 28:17

Again, no rebuke for or re-directing of their worship.

And Thomas—who missed the first meeting of the disciples with the resurrected Jesus and, consequently, doubted—worships the Lord when he does see him and is not rebuked for it:

Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!" John 20:28 (underline mine)

And, finally on the subject of scriptural support for an understanding of Jesus as divine, there are Jesus’ claims for himself and the reactions of others to those claims. In Luke, for example, the familiar story of Jesus’ healing a paralytic—you’ll recall the paralytic’s friends take him to Jesus and must lower him through a roof in order to get to Jesus because of the crowd gathered there—and Jesus tells the paralytic his sins are forgiven:

When Jesus saw their [that is, the friends’] faith, he said [to the paralytic], "Friend, your sins are forgiven. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, "Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?" Luke 5:20, 21 (underline mine)

Or, in our text for today from John’s gospel:

"We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God." John 10:33 (underline mine)

And finally, one of my favorites because Jesus unequivocally claims for himself the name for God, a name so sacred the Jews wouldn’t even say it. The name for God comes from the story of Moses before the burning bush:

Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’" Exodus 3:13, 14

Jesus claims that name for himself when he is challenged by others as to whether he thinks he is greater than their father Abraham and Jesus replies that Abraham rejoiced at seeing the glory of Jesus.

"You are not yet fifty years old," the Jews said to him, "and you have seen Abraham!" "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!" At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. John 8:57-59 (underline mine)

Well, that is the Scriptural evidence for the belief from the very beginning that Jesus is divine. Then, there is the evidence of the early writings of Church leaders. Ignatius of Antioch, for one example, late in the first century or early in the second century wrote these words:

There is one physician, both fleshly and spiritual, born and unborn, God come in the flesh, true life in death, from both Mary and God, first subject to suffering and then beyond suffering, Jesus Christ our Lord. Ignatius of Antioch (d. 110 A.D.) Note Ignatius died in 110 A.D., so this is a writing very early in the history of the Church. There are many other similar writings of early Church leaders that reveal the Church’s belief from the very beginning was that Jesus was both human and divine. It is a total falsehood to say such an understanding came later—four centuries after Jesus’ death!

As to the claim that our present gospels show the divinity of Jesus while the "omitted" gospels revealed the humanity of Jesus? Again, this is almost laughably false. Yes, our present gospels, as we’ve seen, reveal a divine Jesus. Yet, they also reveal a very human Jesus who has a human body (is sometimes tired and hungry), has human emotions (anger, love, sadness). On the other hand, the "other" gospels Teabing refers to do the opposite of what he claims. Rather than reveal the humanity of Jesus, they diminish his humanity and promote a supernatural divinity! Time doesn’t allow for a lengthy display of this fact, but let’s look at just two examples.

First, there is this from The Apocalypse of Peter:

The Savior said to me, "He whom you see above the cross, glad and laughing, is the living Jesus. But he into whose hand and feet they are driving the nails is his physical part, which is the substitute. They are putting to shame that which is in his likeness. But look at him and me. The Apocalypse of Peter, 81

As you can see, this passage reveals a fairly common trait of what is called "Gnosticism," the separation of the spiritual from the physical. The "human" figure in this example is "the substitute." The living Jesus, the true Jesus is above the cross and laughing.

Then there is this from the Gospel of Thomas, which is one of the more quoted books of "alternative" gospels:

Jesus said, "If the flesh came into being because of spirit, it is a marvel, it is a marvel of marvels. Yet I marvel at how this great wealth has come to dwell in this poverty." The Gospel of Thomas, Saying 29

Again, there is the separating of "good spirit" from "evil flesh" so typical of these "other" gospels. The "great wealth" referred to in this saying is the spiritual nature, the "poverty" is the flesh. Interestingly, The Gospel of Thomas is primarily a series of sayings by Jesus and not a narrative at all about the life of Jesus. There is little here that reveals a "human" Jesus over against the four gospels of our New Testament. To claim these are earlier gospels is false. To claim they propound a more human Jesus is false. To say their eradication was part of a giant conspiracy is false.

One final, quick thought about Constantine. It is true that Constantine called the Council of Nicea, the Council referred to in The Da Vinci Code, to settle some issues being disputed in the Christian Church. "Commissioning and financing a new Bible," however, was not one of them. Perhaps we can say more about that next week. Also, trying to determine a way to proclaim Jesus as divine is another issue that was not before the Council of Nicea. As we’ve clearly shown, that belief existed from the very beginning of Christian faith and the Church. Rather, the dominant issue before the Council was to debate, discuss and determine how to understand the divinity of Jesus. The divinity and the humanity of Jesus was something the Church believed about Jesus from the very beginning. The Council’s task was an attempt to state an understanding of how this was so. To claim that prior to 325 A.D. no one believed Jesus was divine is simply not true. If anyone can be said to be telling lies about that, it is not the Church, but rather Dan Brown and his faulty historian, Sir Leigh Teabing.

Let’s take a moment of silent reflection to ponder on the wonder and majesty of a Christ who empathizes with us because of his humanity, yet can pay the price for our sin because of his divinity.