THE DA VINCI CODE: TRUTH AND DECEPTION
DR. JIM DIXON
JUNE 4, 2006
1 TIMOTHY 4:1-2, 2 TIMOTHY 4:1-4
The Da Vinci Code is of course the name of Dan Brown’s bestselling, incredibly popular novel. It has been translated into 43 languages. It tops bestselling lists nationally and internationally. For a record setting three years, it has sold millions upon millions of copies. And of course, for some people, the book has given them a whole new worldview—a new view of Christianity, a new view of Jesus Christ, a new view of holy scripture. And pastors in this nation and in other nations have had parishioners, men and women, come up to them and ask questions. “Was Jesus married? Who was Mary Magdalene? Can we trust the Bible? What are the Gnostic gospels?” There have been countless questions.
Dan Brown, the author of the book, has been interviewed on radio and on television, and he has said that his novel is fiction, but he has also said that it is substantially true, and one hardly knows how to respond to that. I mean, it is true that Rome is in Italy and that Paris is in France and London in England. But apart from some of the basic geographical facts, there’s not a whole lot in the Da Vinci Code that you should take seriously. There’s not much about art or literature or organizations or history or religion that you should take seriously. The book consists of a massive number of historical lies and distortions and theological errors.
Of course, most recently the book has been made into a movie, and the movie is not critically acclaimed, and yet its opening weekend set records as it gathered $250 million worldwide. And the movie was less malignant theologically than the book. Some of the attacks on Christianity were kind of toned down. I saw the movie and I read the book, but I must say that both the movie and the book are somewhat offensive to me. Ron Howard, who directed the movie, claims he just doesn’t understand this. He doesn’t understand why anybody would be offended because, he says, it’s fiction.
He says that spy thrillers do not need to have disclaimers. And yet surely, Ron Howard knows that most spy thrillers do not attack the foundations of the Christian faith. And most spy thrillers do not attack the person of Jesus Christ. Ron Howard cannot be that naive. Now, this morning, I want us to focus briefly on three subjects as we look at a biblical and Christian response to the Da Vinci Code.
The first subject is the deity of Jesus Christ. In the book, it is stated that early Christians did not believe in the deity of Christ. They did not believe in the divinity of Christ. We’re told in the book that in the first, second, and third centuries, Christians just viewed Jesus as a wonderful man and a great teacher, but just a man.
The book claims that Constantine the Great, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in the fourth century, imposed the doctrine of the deity of Christ upon the Christian church in the Council of Nicaea, which met in 325 AD. So we have this message in the Da Vinci Code that it was Constantine the Great who imposed the doctrine of the deity of Christ upon the Christian church, when previously the Christian church had simply viewed Jesus as a man. Now, historically, this is ludicrous. And when you read this, you don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. I mean, you can look in the Gospel of John and in the prologue where Jesus is called the Word and John writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” And then John says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. And we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father.” And those words were not written in the fourth century. They were not written during the time of Constantine the Great. They were written in the first century, in the latter portion of the first century, about 90 to 95 AD. You can look in the book of Hebrews, in the first chapter, and you see these words: “In various ways, God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, God has spoken through His Son, whom He has appointed the heir of all things and through whom also He created the worlds. He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp, the very imprint, of His nature, upholding the universe By his word of power.”
Those are amazing words. And they were not crafted in the fourth century during the time of Constantine the Great. They were written in the first century, in the year 80 AD when the book of Hebrews was composed.
You can look in the book of Colossians, the first chapter, and you see these words: “Jesus Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. For in Him all the fullness of deity was pleased to dwell bodily.” I mean, it can’t be stated any more clearly than that. In Him, all the fullness of deity was pleased to dwell bodily. And those words, again, were not written in the fourth century—not in the time of Constantine, the Great. They were written in the first century, in the year 60 AD. Many scholars believe that Paul is quoting a Christological hymn on the deity of Christ that was composed in the infancy of the church, at its very birth, because from the beginning Christians believed in the deity of Jesus Christ.
And so, Dr. JND Kelly, who is a professor at Oxford University, has made this statement: “The beliefs that Jesus was both human and divine were all but universal. Those beliefs were all but universal in the centuries prior to the Council of Nicaea.” You see, the Council of Nicaea did not meet to discuss whether or not Jesus was God. They met to discuss how Jesus could be both God and man simultaneously and how to define His divine nature more clearly. That’s why the Council of Nicaea met. There was not a close vote, as the Da Vinci Code claims, in the Council of Nicaea. The vote was 300 to two—hardly a close vote.
Of course, Dan Brown surely knows these things. He’s not a stupid man. So you have to wonder what agenda he’s pressing. And there’s no doubt what Dan Brown’s agenda is. It is to undermine and discredit Orthodox Christian doctrine. Dan Brown hates Orthodox Christian doctrine. And of course, the Bible tells us, “In the last days, many will depart from the faith.” And the Bible tells us, “In the last days, many will no longer endure sound teaching.” And of course, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Olivet discourse said that in the last days there would come false Chrisst. And of course, there are false portraits of Christ increasingly in the world today. I mean, is it the Jesus of Orthodox Christianity? Is it the Jesus of gnostic Christianity? Is it the Jesus of secular Christianity?
I can tell you this: the devil has an agenda. I mean, Jesus said that the devil is the the ruler, the prince of this age. He has an agenda. He wants to discredit Orthodox Christian doctrine. You know, every Wednesday I sit in my office at home, and it’s on Wednesdays that I prepare my sermons. I do that at home. I sit in my study, and I can look out into the street. We live on a cul-de-sac, and I see car after car drive into our cul-de-sac. It’s that way every Wednesday. They circle the cul-de-sac and drive right out, and you can look and you can see on their faces that they’re very confused. And I understand why. We live on Timbercrest Drive. And the problem is that we live in a very confusing area, and there are three different streets named Timbercrest—Timbercrest Drive, Timbercrest place, and Timbercrest Street. And they are all right there. And people are confused. They don’t know which Timbercrest, so they’re lost.
You understand that’s what the devil wants. “Which Christ?” The devil just wants confusion. I hope you understand. The real Christ is the Christ of the Bible. It’s the Orthodox Christ. It’s Emmanuel. Jesus is God with us. In Him all the fullness of deity was pleased to dwell. The church of Jesus Christ has believed that from the very beginning.
The second subject is the subject of biblical authority. In the book the Da Vinci Code, it is stated that the lies perpetrated by the orthodox Christian church are from the least reliable of sources, namely the New Testament. It says that the orthodox Christian church is perpetrating lies upon the world because it bases its teaching on the least reliable of sources, the New Testament. That’s what the Da Vinci Code claims. And it also claims that the most reliable sources would not be the New Testament, but the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gnostic gospels.
Again, this is incomprehensibly crazy. The Dead Sea Scrolls do not even talk about Jesus Christ. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found near the Dead Sea in the region of Qumran and in caves. And the Dead Sea Scrolls consists of ancient scrolls relating to the Old Testament (not the New Testament) and some intertestamental scrolls. But there is nothing relating to the New Testament in the Dead Sea Scrolls; there’s nothing related to the person or life of Jesus Christ and nothing related to Christianity in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
So Dan Brown doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And of course, the Gnostic gospels are gospels that were written far later than the biblical gospels. Of course, Dan Brown claims that the Council of Nicaea, again, in the fourth century under Emperor Constantine prejudicially created the New Testament canon and chose four gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—prejudicially out of 80 available gospels. He claims that out of 80 available gospels, four were prejudicially chosen: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
And of course, the idea is that the Gnostic gospels should have been chosen and canonized. Now, of course, there are a number of Gnostic gospels. The gospel of Judas has been in the paper most recently because a full script of the gospel of Judas has now been found. And the newspapers present this as though maybe it should be part of the Bible—Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Judas. They present it as if maybe that’s the way it ought to be, because they kind of present it as though the Gospel of Judas should have credibility. But understand the gospel of Judas was written in the year 160 AD. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are first-century gospels. They were written between 50 AD and 95 AD. Most scholars date Mark closer to 50 AD and John closer to 95 AD, but they’re all first century. They are the earliest testimonies available. The Gnostic gospels are all written later. The gospel of Judas 160 AD, 130 years after Jesus and Judas died.
The Gnostic gospels are all pseudographic. They’re all falsely attributed to people who never had anything to do with them. Every scholar—conservative, and liberal—will acknowledge you’re not going to find out a lot about Jesus or Judas in the Gospel of Judas. Of course, the newspapers don’t tell you this, but there’s also in the Gospel of Judas so much crazy stuff. I mean, it talks about the mystical kingdom of Barbelo. It talks about 72 heavens and 360 firmaments and countless gods and demigods. But of course, the newspapers don’t tell you that because they want to create confusion as though, “Hey, the Bible’s up for grabs.” And it’s not.
Of course, at Nag Hammadi in Northern Egypt they discovered ancient Gnostic scrolls—Coptic scrolls, 52 of them—five of which could be called gospels. I mean, there’s never been 80 gospels, but five Gnostic gospels were found at Nag Hammadi. These Gnostic gospels were written in the second century, third century, and fourth century—nothing from the first century.
The earliest Gnostic gospel is the gospel of Thomas. There are some scholars who date it into the first century, but most scholars date the gospel of Thomas at 130 to 140 AD, well into the second century, because the Gnosticism in the gospel of Thomas is developed beyond what Gnosticism was in the first century.
Of course, I think today it’s very important to understand what Gnosticism is. There’s a neo gnostic movement today, and many writers and many periodicals and magazines are Gnostic. So, understand what Gnosticism is. Some people have said that Gnosticism was a sect of Christianity, a kind of Christian cult that grew out of Christianity. That’s not true. Some people have said, well, Gnosticism is kind of an alternative form of Christianity that that developed from the very beginning along with orthodox Christianity, so that you have these two competing forms of Christianity, orthodox and Gnostic, growing side by side. That’s not true. I mean, most scholars today know it’s not true. If you read the latest writings, you know Gnosticism was a separate religion. Actually, Gnosticism was a separate group of religions, and the word Gnostic is retrofitted onto these religious groups.
The word Gnostic simply means knowledge, or hidden knowledge, or mysterious knowledge. And all of these religious groups claim special knowledge. They were therefore Gnostics. These various religious groups were also syncretistic. They had this in common. They were syncretistic. They combined various religions. So, Gnosticism, as it developed in the late first century, second, third, and fourth century, grew out of Greek philosophy, it grew out of eastern religious thought (particularly Persian Zoroastrianism), and it also grew out of Egyptian mythology. All of these things were combined into Gnostic systems.
All Gnostic religious groups were dualistic. They believe that matter was evil and spirit was good. They believe that everything material is evil. Your body is evil. The house you live in is evil. The tree out front is evil. The earth itself is evil. The stars in the sky, the universe, it’s all evil, because it’s matter. Matter and the physical world is evil. Only spiritual, only the realm of the spirit, is good. So what the Gnostic religions had to figure out was, “Why do we have material things? Why is there this physical world?” And the Gnostics concluded it’s because of an evil God. We have this evil physical world because it was created by an evil God. And they called that evil God the demiurge, which simply means “the maker.” The demiurge was the maker, the evil God who made the mistake of creating the physical, material universe.
So you have this situation in the world. Gnostic religions believed you have this situation with souls trapped in evil, physical bodies desperately needing to escape. But not all was lost, because in Gnosticism there was this belief that certain individuals have a divine spark. Not everybody, because Gnosticism is an elitist religion, but certain individuals have a divine spark. The Gnostics taught that from the Pleroma, from the fullness of God, sometimes called Bythos, sometimes called the abyss. But from the Pleroma came this divine spark into certain people, into certain souls. And these people were called pneumatic. I mean, on the earth, there’s three types of people according to Gnostics: pneumatic people, psychic people, and hylic people. Pneumatic people have the divine spark. There’s God within. Psychic people just have good souls. Hylic people are dominated by the material and the physical, and the overwhelming mass of humanity is hylic, They have no hope.
But there is hope, particularly for the pneumatic. We have the divine spark. And so the Gnostics taught that from the Pleroma would come a divine emanation, a divine manifestation who would release the divine spark amongst the pneumatic people. And of course, in certain forms of Gnosticism, Greek and Roman deities were viewed as those emanations. But Christianity came into the world. Orthodox Christianity, first century Christianity (understand that Gnostics were already synchronous—they loved to combine religions from everywhere) came into the world, so Gnostics begin to adapt certain parts of Christianity into the religious constructs. And many Gnostics decided that Jesus Christ was the primary manifestation of the Pleroma. He was seen as the fullness of God come to release the divine spark amongst all the pneumatic people.
And so, within the Gnostic world, much of which was non-Christian, you begin to see Christian Gnostic sects. There were three dominant ones. The largest one was under the leadership of Valentinus, who was an Alexandrian Egyptian. He was a Christian Gnostic. And of course, the Gnostics developed their own gospels. They wrote their own gospels and they made stuff up. They wrote them in the second century and in the third century and in the fourth century. And they were all pseudographical—New Testament people were given in the title of these gospels, but the New Testament person had nothing to do with the book. Gnostic theology permeated these writings, but it doesn’t have anything to do with biblical authority.
The books of the Bible are from the first century. They’re reliable. It didn’t happen in the fourth century in the time of Constantine the Great. In fact, in the year 1760, a guy named Muratori discovered what is now called the Muratorian Scroll, or the Muratorian Library. And the Muratorian Scroll contains a second-century (from the year 190) summation of orthodox books, or books that are canonical and it includes Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 13 epistles of Paul, first and second John, Jude, Revelation, and the book of Acts. It is almost identical to the Bible you have in your hand, or that I have in my hand. This was from the second century. The Synoptics—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—were circulating in the first century. The Gospel of John, early in the second century, was quoted by Ignatius, in the year 107 AD.
I tell you, this is all a smokescreen. There’s no reason for you to doubt the canonicity of holy scripture and the books contained therein. But of course, again, Dan Brown and people like him, even the secular media and press, have an agenda. They want to take away your faith. They want it all to be up for grabs. They don’t want any authority in their life, no one to tell them what to do.
Well, finally, just a couple of words about the Holy Grail in Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. What in the world is the Holy Grail? I know many of you have seen the well-known movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. There’s a scene in that movie where Walter Donovan shows Indiana Jones an ancient sandstone tablet, and on the tablet Dr. Jones deciphers that it has directions to find the Holy Grail, which is revealed to be the cup used by Christ during the last supper. And the movie has a lot of imagination, a lot of myth, a lot of hocus-pocus. But it has this right: The Holy Grail was the cup of Christ, which Jesus used at the Last Supper.
Throughout history, throughout Christendom, throughout the Christian world, the Holy Grail has always been and ever will be. The Holy Grail is set apart—holy—for God’s use. A lot of myths developed surrounding the cup that instituted the Lord’s Supper. One myth was that Joseph of Arimathea used the cup to catch the blood of Christ from the cross. One was that Joseph of Arimathea took the cup to Glastonbury in England. And of course, later in England the whole Arthurian legends and the Knights of the Round Table developed. It was all myth. But the Holy Grail, you understand, is the cup of Jesus Christ. Of course, in the Da Vinci Code, the Holy Grail is the womb of Mary Magdalene. And Mary Magdalene is the wife of Jesus, and she bears the child of Jesus. And since she has that child in her womb, she has the blood of Christ in her womb, and therefore her womb is the Holy Grail.
Of course, it’s hard to know how to respond to an idea so crazy. And of course, Dan Brown in the Da Vinci Code claims that Leonardo da Vinci in his masterpiece called the Last Supper painted on the monastery wall at Santa Maria delle Grazie put a secret code. He claims that to the right of Christ is not John the beloved disciple but Mary Magdalene, and there is the form of a “V,” which represents femininity and which represents the Holy Grail, the womb of Mary Magdalene.
Of course, he claims that Mary Magdalene was married to Jesus. And he claims that this can be historically proven through a gospel called the Gospel of Philip. And this is also bogus. You know, you think Christians are upset about the movie and the book, but the art world is far more upset. I mean, all over the world, scholars from Oxford, Cambridge, and Ivy League schools, all say this is so bogus. Leonardo da Vinci always painted young men in an androgynous way, adding feminine characteristics. That’s how he painted young man. And that wasn’t just true of Leonardo da Vinci. It was true of all the masters during a 300 year period. There’s not one reliable art scholar who believes that the person to the right of Jesus Christ in Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper was Mary Magdalene.
It’s just fanciful thinking. And of course, the Gospel of Philip was another one of those Gnostic gospels. According to Dan Brown, the Gospel of Philip teaches that Mary was the companion of Jesus. And he says, in this Aramaic gospel, the word companion means marriage. He says that the gospel claims that Jesus kissed Mary and that, again, this indicated marriage and romantic relationship. Of course, scholars know this is not true. First of all, the gospel of Philip was not an Aramaic gospel. It was a Coptic gospel. It was never written in Aramaic. And the word for companion in the book comes from the Coptic form of the Greek word koinonia, which simply means partner, fellowship, coworker, co-laborer, or friend. It doesn’t mean wife. And of course, the kiss that Jesus gave Mary Magdalene in the Gospel of Philip was the holy kiss, the kiss of friendship that was given to all the disciples. Even if the Gospel of Philip had said that Mary Magdalene was married to Jesus Christ (which it doesn’t), the proper response would be, “Who cares?” Because it’s the Gospel of Philip. I mean, the Gospel of Philip is a Gnostic gospel. It was written between 160 AD and 300 AD, 130 years to 270 years after the life of Christ. You’ve got first century documents here.
The discouraging thing I think for every pastor is people who have claimed to know Christ for years and then will pick up a book like this and get confused. That’s the discouraging thing. Keep the faith and don’t be discouraged. Don’t be discouraged, because truth wins. Truth wins. Remember that as we come to this summer series, this eight-part series on the last times.
The Dixon family from which I come has a long history. Almost a thousand years ago, Malcolm II, who was King of Scotland a thousand years ago, won the battle of Chatum. And he was given the land of Lothian. And in the land of Lothian was the land of Keth. And so Malcolm II gave the land of Keth to his descendants and his descendants took the land of Keth as their own names, as their own name.
They call themselves the clan Keth or the clan Keith. And through the years, the clan Keth or the clan Keith had the responsibility of guarding the king of the Scots and protecting him. They also had the responsibility of guarding the Scottish crown jewels. There are many septs within the clan Keith, and one of the septs is the Dixon sept. And the Dixons come from the clan Keith, and it’s all from Lothian, which is south of the region of Edinburgh. My great-great-grandfather was Arthur Dixon, and he lived in England, came from Scotland, from the land of Lothian and from the region of the clan Keth. But I want you to see the family crest.
You see the Dixon family crest, which means nothing. I mean, what would you care? But I want you to see the Latin words, “Veritas Vincent.” What does that mean? It means “Truth conquers.” “Truth prevails.” That’s an appropriate motto for every Christian, Veritas Vincent. Believe that truth does prevail. I thank God for books, some of which you could get in our library books, like the books by James Garlow on the Da Vinci Code books; like the books by Bach, Darrell Bach. These are reputable scholars. You can get them in our bookstore. And I thank God for truth prevailing.
Sometimes I thank God for publications like US News and World Report, which just this month did this cover article called What’s Wrong with the Da Vinci Code. And it’s a wonderful article. It defends orthodox Christianity. It shows how everything regarding the Gnostic gospels and Mary Magdalene is totally bogus. It’s a wonderful, wonderful article. Get it if you can. But truth prevails. Truth prevails. Remember that when you’re reading an article in the newspaper that gets you kind of upset. Remember “Veritas Vincent”—truth prevails. And Jesus said, “I’m the truth”—“ego ami he aletheia.” And someday He’s going to come again. I promise you, truth will prevail. Fear not; just keep the faith. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.