Decoding The Da Vinci Code – Part 6
“Counting M&M’s or Choosing Ice Cream?”
How many M&M’s are in this jar? (Have them guess).
It isn’t a matter of opinion. There is a correct number.
Picture of ice cream cones
What is the best ice cream flavor and brand? (Have some give answer). Mine is Graeter’s, found in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the best flavor is double chocolate chunk – describe finding the chunks like finding the holy grail of ice cream experience.
When you decide what to believe in terms of your faith, which is it more like? Estimating the number of M&Ms in a jar, a fact that can be verified? Or choosing your favorite ice cream, a purely subjective decision?
The problem is that a large majority of Americans (even American Christians) do not believe in the existence of absolute truth. In other words, they do no accept that what is right or true for one person is universally true for another – in any area of life.
Video Clip – interviews – “What Is Absolute Truth?” (from Sermonspice.com)
The reality is that most people today feel the realm of faith and truth about faith is more like choosing ice cream than counting M&M’s. Truth is a matter of opinion or personal preference, they say. It’s relative. Therefore, they don’t feel they can tell another person what they ought to believe, since whatever that person already believes is true for them under this system.
As a result, many are no longer sure there is such a thing as truth, objective reality, or a God who is knowable. Many are scanning the list of options like a menu of ice cream flavors, unaware God has made himself known, and he can be identified in an objective way.
As I bring this series of messages to a close today, understand this: One of the reasons that The Da Vinci Code is so popular is that it suggests – not so subtly - that faith is not an objective quest but a subjective one. Dan Brown wants us to feel that faith is something that we choose like ice cream. He hints many times at what is known as Gnosticism.
Some 20 years after she wrote a book called The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels wrote a book called Beyond Belief. She plays a big part in Dan Brown’s work in writing The Da Vinci Code. In a particularly candid and confessional part of her book, Pagels talks about how she had been alienated from Christian faith while in high school: She was part of an evangelical church when a Jewish friend died, and her fellow Christians told her that since the friend was not born again, she was going to hell.
Though this turned her off from the church, she maintained a lively interest in New Testament studies and the early church. While doing doctoral work at Harvard, she had what she considered an epiphany. She was reading the Gospel of Thomas (which we talked about a few weeks ago) when she came across this alleged saying of Jesus: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.”
She comments: “The strength of this saying is that it does not tell us what to believe but challenges us to discover what lies hidden within ourselves; and with a shock of recognition, I realized that this perspective seemed to me self evidently true.”
A comparison of the false Gospel of Thomas and the true Gospel of John reveals how far down this road she has traveled. In John, there is an “I and God” relationship, a vine and branches relationship, that involves an essential connection between Jesus Christ and us for salvation. But in Thomas, it is a matter of “I am God.” The self is deified and is seen as the finish line of faith.
Here we find the appeal to personal impressions or experience as the final authority. The believer is not asked to believe specific things that come from without (by revelation), nor to submit to any authority but the self. Instead, we are to be the measure of ourselves and to find our own truths within us.
In this book, we see Pagels’s story of suffering and feeling betrayed, and her long spiritual journey to a reconfigured perversion of Christianity. And it is evident that the Gnostic texts have helped lead her in that direction.
What Elaine Pagels has done is what a large number of people in America have done. They have decided that matters of faith are in the realm of the subjective. In other words, it doesn’t really matter what you believe, as long as you are sincere. Now, in our more rational moments, we know that is absurd, but it is also a comfortable place to be. It is non-threatening. It does not require much of you. It allows you to feel good about almost everyone’s beliefs. But ignorance is not always bliss.
In the end, we still have to make arguments based on history, on what has objectively happened. What I have tried to demonstrate in the past five weeks is that God has made Himself and the way of salvation known, objectively, to the world.
And why did God do it this way?
1. So we can trust in His Son for salvation and be reconciled to God.
John 14:6 – “Jesus told him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.’”
Acts 4:11-12 – “For Jesus is the one referred to in the Scriptures, where it says, `The stone that you builders rejected has now become the cornerstone.’ There is salvation in no one else! There is no other name in all of heaven for people to call on to save them."
But there is a way – that’s the Good News. Why is it not seen as good news? Why is it seen as narrow minded and intolerant by so many? Because people don’t like to be told what to do, what to believe. They like limitless choices. We live in a world of choices. Woe to the business that says to the consumer it’s one way or nothing! But when we take that attitude to God – we are not letting God be God. God has offered grace and mercy. He didn’t have to. We don’t deserve His grace. That is an oxymoron – deserved grace. A reasonable response from any sinner ought to be incredible surprise and joy that God gave us a way – and a free gift at that – to be reconciled to Him.
Why all paths can’t lead to God –
Sin – Isaiah 59:2 – “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God.” (NASB)
God is love, but so much more than that. He is holy and righteous. Because He is righteous, it means He will always be true to His own nature. He will not and cannot, depart from it. So He cannot ignore sin. He cannot be in the presence of sin.
Proverbs 14:12 (16:25) – “There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death.”
Other paths reject how God said sin must be dealt with.
So God must separate Himself from sin. Only the cross offers the solution to satisfy both God’s holiness and therefore wrath against sin and his love and therefore His desire to save sinners. It isn’t something man would have dreamed up. In fact, the cross seems foolish – unless you first understand the nature of God as He has revealed Himself.
Romans 6:23 – two parts – “For the wages of sin is death, BUT the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Someone who faced the same dilemma as Elaine Pagels about faith in God approached it differently. His name is Lee Strobel, a former atheist who used to be a renowned reported at the Chicago Tribune. His quest to disprove the historical claims of Christianity led him to become a Christian instead. He wrote in his book The Case For Christ, “I’ll admit it: I was ambushed by the amount and quality of the evidence that Jesus is the unique Son of God. As I sat at my desk that Sunday afternoon, I shook my head in amazement. I had seen defendants carted off to the death chamber on much less convincing proof! The cumulative facts and data pointed unmistakably toward a conclusion that I wasn’t entirely comfortable in reaching. Frankly, I had wanted to believe that the deification of Jesus was the result of legendary development in which well-meaning but misguided people slowly turned a wise sage into the mythological Son of God. That seemed safe and reassuring; after all, a roving apocalyprtic preacher from the first century could make no demands on me.” (p. 264)
Lee Strobel was willing to get past his pride – if the evidence overwhelmingly pointed to Jesus being who He claimed to be. He wasn’t comfortable with the conclusion at first. After all, it meant he was accountable to God and was in fact a sinner separated by God. But Lee also knew that was not the end of the story. Yes, he had to face up to his sin, but he also came face to face with the One who loves him most and offered him forgiveness.
2. So we can have assurance of salvation
Be secure in the most important thing in life. And take joy that we can have full confidence in our salvation. If I can be secure in what happens to me after death, then I can face anything in this life.
Romans 5:6-11 – “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, no one is likely to die for a good person, though someone might be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s judgment. For since we were restored to friendship with God by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be delivered from eternal punishment by his life. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God--all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of God.”
Why people don’t like to talk about God – illus: our landlords.
FEAR
GUILT
People sense their separateness from God. But if we just accept the way of forgiveness and reconciliation He has provided in Jesus, we don’t have to. We can have peace with God, and it is a free gift.
Ephesians 2:8-9 – “God saved you by his special favor when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it”
1 John 5:10-12 – “The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son. And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.”
Your salvation as a believer in Christ is secure in the character of God. God would have to lie for you not to be saved. How likely is that? God says it’s impossible. So if you continue in your faith in Jesus as your Savior, you can rest assured that heaven is yours, and you serve Him out of gratitude, not fear. Obedience and works are still important, but not as a basis for your salvation. They are important because now more than ever, you realize that your life belongs to God who bought you back and you serve Him out of gratitude – an obligation of a servant who is blessed beyond measure.
3 So we can spread the message to a world peering at all the ice cream flavors – unsure – afraid, guilt ridden and not sure how to cope.
1 Peter 3:15 – “You must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it.”
2 Corinthians 5:18-20 – “All this newness of life is from God, who brought us back to himself through what Christ did. And God has given us the task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. This is the wonderful message he has given us to tell others. We are Christ’s ambassadors, and God is using us to speak to you. We urge you, as though Christ himself were here pleading with you, ‘Be reconciled to God!’”
The church in America is at an important point. Will we succeed or fail to fulfill our calling to our culture? Will we defend the hope we have in Jesus or silently let a generation pass by – just letting them peer at all the ice cream flavors, thinking that it’s just a matter of opinion – of being sincere in whatever you believe? Or worse, will we realize our obligation to share the only way to salvation and yet fail to do so?
Remember what makes Christianity unique. It’s the claim of Jesus Christ, who he claimed to be. That’s what separates the Christian faith from all the other major world religions. Christianity says that God has pursued man. Other religions say man must pursue God. Christianity says God has DONE for us what we could not do for ourselves. Other religions tells us what we must DO to make ourselves acceptable to God.
With Tom Hanks playing the lead role in the movie version of The Da Vinci Code next spring, it is sure to keep this book and the controversy surrounding it at the forefront of debate. Take the challenge. Be ready to give people a reason for the hope you have in Christ.
