A Covenant Response to: "Is Eastern Orthodoxy Promoting a Different Gospel?"
- Charles
- Aug 8
- 6 min read
Updated: Aug 11
Fair Use Notice:
This image incorporates visual elements from the YouTube video Is Eastern Orthodoxy Promoting a Different Gospel? by Samuel Farag, published on the American Gospel YouTube Channel. The original video can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Eble1-83tA.
This usage is for the purposes of commentary, critique, education, and theological analysis within a covenant-based study. Such use is non-commercial and transformative, consistent with the principles of fair use under U.S. copyright law (17 U.S.C. § 107). All rights remain with the original creators.
A Video by Samuel Farag – American Gospel YouTube Channel
Introduction
The video Is Eastern Orthodoxy Promoting a Different Gospel?, produced by Samuel Farag, a pastor at Bethel Church, and released on the American Gospel YouTube Channel, aims to expose certain teachings within the Eastern Orthodox Church that the presenter believes constitute “another gospel.”
The covenant lens affirms the gravity of such a claim. The gospel is not merely a message about personal salvation—it is the formal announcement of YHWH’s New Covenant fulfilled in Messiah Yeshua. It is the sovereign act of the Bridegroom sealing His eternal vows with His own blood, writing those vows upon the hearts of His people through the Ruach HaKodosh, and calling the Bride into faithfulness (Jeremiah 31:31–34; Luke 22:20; Hebrews 9:15–17).
To preach another gospel is to alter the covenant’s terms—adding conditions for entry, substituting mediators, or shifting the source of covenant authority from YHWH’s Word to human tradition. This is why Paul’s rebuke in Galatians 1 is so forceful: “If we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed” (vv. 8–9).
Farag’s video rightly identifies several Eastern Orthodox teachings that raise covenant concerns. However, a fuller analysis benefits from clarifying the covenant structure itself and from ensuring each critique is explicitly anchored in that framework. This response will affirm the areas where the video is in alignment with covenant fidelity, highlight doctrinal breaches through that lens, and note where clarification or refinement would strengthen the argument.
The Covenant Framework: Why Authority Matters
Farag’s Point
Farag cites the Confession of Dositheus (1672), in which the Eastern Orthodox Church declares itself as infallible as Scripture.
Covenant Perspective
In the covenant structure, the Sovereign alone determines the terms of the covenant. The written covenant document—Scripture—contains those terms and is the final authority. The Ruach HaKodosh, who inspired the prophets and apostles, ensures its purity and permanence (2 Peter 1:20–21; Isaiah 40:8).
When an ecclesial body claims equal infallibility, it is functionally creating a co-sovereign—a second lawgiver. This is a direct violation of the First Word (“You shall have no other gods before Me,” Exodus 20:3) in its covenantal application: no rival source of ultimate authority may be enthroned alongside YHWH’s Word.
Clarification Needed
Farag rightly flags the danger, but the covenant analysis would be strengthened by showing why this is not merely a Protestant concern but a covenant violation—one that rewrites the “authority clause” of the covenant and shifts allegiance from the Bridegroom to a human institution.
The Seventh Ecumenical Council and the Veneration of Icons
Farag’s Point
He references the anathemas of the Second Council of Nicaea (787 AD), which condemn those who reject icon veneration, and shows how this imposes a salvation-linked requirement foreign to Scripture.
Covenant Perspective
The Second Word prohibits making or bowing to graven images (Exodus 20:4–6). In the covenant narrative, worship belongs solely to YHWH and is offered without physical intermediaries. Even symbolic “aids” to devotion easily become rival mediators of presence—contradicting the reality that under the New Covenant, the Ruach HaKodosh Himself indwells the believer as the means of access (John 4:23–24; 1 Corinthians 6:19).
Mandatory veneration of icons creates a parallel access point to the Sovereign, effectively rewriting the covenant’s worship clause.
Clarification Needed
Farag effectively cites the council and its condemnations, but a covenant reading would emphasize that the prohibition against idolatry is not merely about avoiding pagan statues—it is about preserving the exclusive relational access between Bride and Bridegroom. Any requirement to approach Him through a visual object competes with the covenant’s intimacy structure.
Mary as Mediator
Farag’s Point
The video documents hymns, prayers, and homilies within Orthodoxy that describe Mary as propitiator, forgiver of sins, and sole channel of divine gifts.
Covenant Perspective
The covenant grants a single Mediator—Messiah Yeshua—who fulfills the High Priest role (1 Timothy 2:5; Hebrews 7:25). Access to the throne is direct, without human or angelic intermediaries (Hebrews 4:14–16).
Making Mary a necessary mediator changes the covenant access clause, requiring the Bride to approach through someone other than her Bridegroom. This undermines His exclusive priesthood and the sufficiency of His blood to ratify the covenant (Hebrews 9:12).
Clarification Needed
Farag rightly exposes the problem, but his argument could be strengthened by clarifying that under the New Covenant, any additional required mediator is a breach of fidelity—the spiritual equivalent of introducing another spouse into a marriage covenant.
Justification by Faith and Covenant Entry
Farag’s Point
He shows that Orthodoxy rejects justification by faith apart from works, teaching that works are necessary to merit salvation.
Covenant Perspective
Covenant entry is always by grace through faith (Genesis 15:6; Ephesians 2:8–9). Works are the fruit of covenant life (John 15:5; Galatians 5:6), not the root of covenant standing. To make works a co-purchase of covenant blessing is to transform the marriage gift into a negotiated contract.
This inversion confuses the basis of the covenant (grace through faith) with the evidence of covenant fidelity (good works), a confusion Paul dismantles in Romans 4:4–5.
Clarification Needed
Farag correctly identifies the issue but could clarify the distinction between justification as covenant entry and sanctification as covenant faithfulness. Without this distinction, critics can misrepresent the position as denying the necessity of obedience—which the covenant affirms as the fruit of genuine union.
Penal Substitutionary Atonement and Covenant Ratification
Farag’s Point
He notes that Orthodoxy often rejects penal substitution, favoring a view in which God simply forgives without a penalty being borne.
Covenant Perspective
In covenant law, breach carries a death penalty (Genesis 2:17; Ezekiel 18:4). Messiah’s death is the blood-oath ratification in which the Sovereign Himself accepts the penalty on behalf of the Bride (Isaiah 53:5–6; 1 Peter 2:24). Without the penalty satisfied, the covenant is neither just nor secure.
Rejecting substitution strips the cross of its covenant-legal function, turning it into a mere moral example rather than the transaction in which the debt of sin is fully paid.
Clarification Needed
Farag’s critique is on target, but framing this in terms of covenant oath and penalty would make clear that substitution is not a theological preference—it is the very mechanism by which the New Covenant is enacted.
Restricting Access to Scripture
Farag’s Point
The video highlights Orthodox restrictions on personal Scripture reading without doctrinal oversight.
Covenant Perspective
Under the New Covenant, the Bridegroom’s words are addressed to the whole Bride (Deuteronomy 31:11–13; Jeremiah 31:34). The Ruach HaKodosh enables each believer to know Him directly (1 John 2:27). Placing an institutional gatekeeper between the Bride and His Word undermines the covenant promise that “they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest.”
Clarification Needed
Farag presents this well, but tying it to the Jeremiah 31 promise would strengthen the point: restricted access is a reversal of one of the New Covenant’s defining features.
Overall Assessment of the Video
From a covenant perspective, Farag’s video provides valuable exposure of Eastern Orthodox doctrines that introduce additions or alterations to the gospel. His use of direct quotations from Orthodox sources makes the case stronger than mere summarization would.
Where the presentation could be clarified or strengthened is in:
Explicitly framing each concern as a covenant breach rather than simply a doctrinal error.
Making the case that the New Covenant’s structure—proposal, acceptance, blood ratification, and fellowship—means these changes are not secondary but fundamental.
Showing how the “Bride/Bridegroom” imagery clarifies the relational stakes of adding mediators or rival authorities.
Conclusion: Returning to Covenant Faithfulness
The gospel is the covenant fulfilled. It is the announcement that YHWH’s eternal vows, once written on stone, are now inscribed on the hearts of His people by the Ruach HaKodosh, sealed by the blood of Messiah, and guarded by His own intercession.
To alter its terms by:
Elevating human tradition to the same authority as Scripture,
Mandating image-veneration,
Adding Mary as a required mediator,
Making works co-purchase salvation,
Denying the substitutionary nature of the cross, or
Restricting direct access to the covenant document,
…is to preach a different gospel. The covenant call is to hear the Bridegroom’s voice alone, trust in His finished work, and walk in faithfulness born of love.
As Farag’s video urges, and as the covenant itself demands: “Come out of her, My people” (Revelation 18:4), and return to the simplicity and purity of devotion to Messiah (2 Corinthians 11:2–4).
Attribution:
Portions of this work incorporate content from the video Is Eastern Orthodoxy Promoting a Different Gospel? by Samuel Farag, published on the American Gospel YouTube Channel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Eble1-83tA. Used under the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY). Changes include covenant-based theological commentary, analysis, and additional written material. All other content © Ten Words Press.
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