God Must Be Weeping
Hollywood recently released a 2 ½
hour PG13 movie called The Da Vinci Code. It is based on a novel
(fictional story) written by Dan Brown. I never read the book, but I did
see the movie and am responding to what I saw, not what was written.
Sometimes Hollywood depicts accurately what an author writes and sometimes
it does not. In the reviews I have seen on the Da Vinci Code, Hollywood
accurately presented what was written in the book.
As I left the movie the first
thought I had was that God must be weeping in heaven. I am a father; I love
my son. If the whole world was hearing hurtful lies about my son, I would
be weeping, filled with anger, and screaming to stop the lies. Does God
feel about His son, like I would feel about mine? Probably so much more,
for He is God and loves with a perfect heart.
Overview of the
movie
The movie assails the divinity of
Christ, weaving a web of what could be seen as "hidden” historical facts
supposedly kept secret by the Church for 2,000 years.
The Da Vinci Code begins with
the murder of a French museum curator. A scholarly Harvard professor and a
beautiful French cryptologist are commissioned to decipher a message left by
the curator before his death. The message turns out to reveal the most
profound conspiracy in the history of humankind: a cover-up of the true
message of Jesus Christ by a secret arm of the Roman Catholic Church called
Opus Dei.
Before his death, the curator revealed evidence that would disprove the
divine nature of Christ. Although (according to the plot) the church tried
for centuries to suppress the evidence, great thinkers and artists planted
clues everywhere: in paintings such as the
Mona Lisa and The
Last Supper by Da Vinci, and in
the architecture of cathedrals. The movie’s overall message is to enhance
the belief that Jesus Christ was no more than an extraordinary man. Can
you hear God weeping?
The mix of
truth with non truth
Dan Brown’s book and the movie on
which it was based cleverly mix some historical truth (about 20%) with non
truth (80%) to create a new view of Christ with, I believe, the hope of
presenting Christ as an extraordinary man, but definitely not the Son of
God.
Here are a few comments Jesus
made about Himself in this regard.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes
to the Father but through Me. (John 14:6)
But Jesus kept silent. And the high priest said to
Him, “I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether You are the
Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said it yourself;
nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at
the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Matthew
26: 63-64)
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the
life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who
lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:
25-26)
In
order to make his point about Jesus, other Gospels known as the Gnostic
Gospels were introduced. According to Dan Brown’s revelations in the Da
Vinci Code these Gnostic Gospels were the true Gospels from which Christ
should be defined and portrayed. Historically these Gnostic Gospels were
rejected by the early Christians. In the film, the rejection of the
Gnostic Gospels is made to look like a rejection by the Council of Nicea
that was under the influence of the Roman Emperor Constantine. According to
the film, which horribly twists the facts, Constantine threw out the Gnostic
Gospels in preference to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
because he wanted to protect the church’s purported “false view” that Jesus
was divine. In the movie’s interpretation, Constantine never received
Christ as Lord as he said he did, but only appeared to have believed in
order to keep the powerful Christians sect happy in his empire. I can go on
and on about what the movie was trying to historically portray, but the
bottom line is that most of what was presented was a false view of history,
as well as a false view of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and the church. If you
want to know more about the real history of the time, one that most biblical
historians and scholars agree upon, then access the following web sites.
They will give you an accurate picture of the actual events surrounding
Jesus, and the true development of His church.
www.gotquestions.org/DaVinci-code-truth.html
(Note: Hold down your control key and hit the web
site)
http://www-JesusChrist.com
(Note: Hold down your control key and
hit the web site)
Read the article Mona Lisa’s
Smirk
Mixed movie
reviews
Some of the movie television
reviewers really liked the Da Vinci Code; they thought it produced a good
action-packed adventure story. There were car chases, on the
edge-of-your-seat suspense scenes, gratuitous violence, and hint of sexual
immorality. But others felt the movie was long, wordy, boring, and sported
too much meaningless dialogue.
In my opinion the film was
exciting at the beginning, but then it died as it went along. It spent way
too much time trying to explain Dan Brown’s crazy story about Jesus and His
supposed secret marriage to Mary Magdalene. I almost laughed when the
movie tried to show a secret code on Da Vinci’s great art work, the Mona
Lisa in the Louver Museum in Paris. I nearly fell off my seat when the
story tried to show how the Apostle John was actually a pregnant Mary
Magdalene in Da Vinci’s The Last Supper painting. After about 2 hours of
this stuff, my laughter turned to anger as I felt the movie persistently
trying to convince me of all the fallacies.
And what is Dan Brown’s defense?
He says, “It’s only a story of fiction, so why are you making a big deal out
of it? But in this case, I think we all should make a big deal out of it,
especially when Jesus Christ is at stake, who sacrificed Himself on a cross
so that we might all be saved.
Final thoughts
The Da Vinci Code (movie or book)
provides a great opportunity for all Christians to share just who Jesus
Christ is. Whether you chose to see the movie or read the book is up to
you and the Lord to decide.
You may chose to boycott the
movie and book, and that is okay, but you still need to be ready to give
answers to those who will want to know if what they read in the book or saw
in the movie is true.
On the other hand, you may chose
to see the movie so that you are equipped to give good answers to the
questions your friends and associates may ask after seeing it themselves.
This is okay too, watching the movie or reading the book may aid you all the
more in the answers you need to give concerning Christ. If you do, remember
you are adding to the financial coffers of Dan Brown and Hollywood. What
you might do in respect to this is take the amount of money you spent on the
movie or book, and give double that amount to a missionary in your church.
Hollywood and authors like Dan
Brown usually want three things in life: glory, fame and money. The
writing and filming of the Da Vinci Code got it for them. Dan Brown is
now a well known author, and the movie is a blockbuster. But eventually
the movie and book will fade away as do all things that are built on man’s
own glory. Eventually Dan and all those in Hollywood will grow old and
die, and their names will be forgotten by the next generation. But they
won’t be forgotten at judgement; because they must answer for everything
they have done in their lives, including portraying a false view of Christ,
the Son of God, to millions of viewers and readers.
They will be weeping then!
For we must all appear before
the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his
deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. 2
Corinthians 5:10
God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every
name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in
heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians
2:9-11
