Gospel Imperatives

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Reflections on Branson, Conference Ministry, and Church Life

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and today, real time, is May 5th, Cinco de Mayo. What am I doing here? I�m trying to look outside to see any turkeys, but somebody pulled the shade down.

I don�t want to get up now and change it. A lot has happened since I recorded the last show. I just got back from Branson, Missouri, the Evangelical Las Vegas, I like to call it, and Brannon House was very kind to have me come and speak again at the mansion this time.

The Oak Ridge Boys play there. We used to speak at the Oak Ridge Boys Theater. This is actually kind of a step up. It�s nicer. Seats about the same amount of people, and there are folks from around the country who came to the Worldview Weekend Conference.

I spoke on C .S. Lewis, style over substance, question mark, and then I talked about biblical masculinity and how feminism has creeped into the church, the canary in the coal mine syndrome. Anyway, I was glad to meet people, big group of folks from Kansas City, some folks that I saw from last year who listened.

Truth be told, three people came up to me and said, �Where�s Tuesday guy Just to get under my skin. Somebody came up to me and said, �If a surfer like messes you up and does something bad in front of you, what�s that called again

I said, �Kooks. He goes, �That�s it, kooks. We brought a bunch of books. We had a little booth there, and I always place my booth next to Mike and Jane Gendron because I really love them, love their ministry, love them as a couple, and we�ve struck up a friendship over the last couple of years.

I don�t know why. Maybe that�s why I get these letters from Luis regarding Catholic response to Gendron. I said to Gendron face-to-face, �Why am I getting these letters He said, �I get them too.

So, Luis, I hope you�re listening, Lois, Luis or Lois, I don�t know. Anyway, there were other speakers. Jimmy DeYoung was there. He fell off the platform, and they had to call the ambulance, but I think he�s fine.

That was kind of the big imbroglio there. Who else was there? Jesse Johnson. I appreciate Jesse. He�s at Emanuel Bible, is that what it�s called, in the D .C. area. You can read him on Cripplegate. Brandon spoke a couple of times, and I know when Brandon speaks, I�m going to hear something about Kierkegaard or Nietzsche or something like that, so I�m always happy.

Anyway, my name is Mike Ebenroth. This is No Compromise Radio. I think you can listen to those messages somehow through the Worldview Weekend site, and I appreciate that. We�ve been on Worldview Weekend for, I think, four years now, and Brandon hosts No Compromise Television, and he hosts No Compromise Radio, and then I speak for him a couple times a year.

I mean, I preach. I don�t speak for him like an agent or a lawyer, but I preach for him. Now, next year, I think I might be gone in Germany for a sabbatical during that time, but I�m tempted to fly back for that conference because it�s such a great conference.

One of the things that I take away from that conference is there are a lot of people in America and, of course, across the world who don�t have a good church to go to, and they go to these conferences and websites and shows even like this to supplement their Bible teaching that they get on Sunday.

You know, it�s bad if you don�t have well, let me back up. It�s bad if you aren�t part of a church community, a church body maybe I should say that. That�s a better word, body versus community. We�re all broken and wounded.

The other thing is I was so glad that there were so many ladies who came up to me and said, �We listen to No Compromise Radio. So if you came up to me during Branson and said, �We listen to NoCo Radio, and you�re nicer in person I commend you.

Not one of them said that, but I think they meant it. I always say if you�re an immature lady, you�re definitely not going to like No Compromise Radio. But that almost sets it up like only the mature ones listen, I guess if the shoe fits, right?

What is on my desk today? Oh, I do have just on a side note, Lifeway. I don�t think they�re selling I don�t think this is the Southern Baptist Company. I got this down at the health food store. Lifeway protein kefir, non-fat cultured milk smoothie, 40 grams of protein in this salted caramel.

You can either say caramel or caramel probiotic. So that�s the new drink of choice. You can�t ship it, though. See, I can promote this. If I promote Peet�s, you guys send me Peet�s coffee, for which I�m glad.

R. Scott Clark on Imperative and Indicative, Law and Gospel

But you can�t send this because it�s got to stay cool. In front of me is a great article by R. Scott Clarke. I know Dr. Clarke used to listen. I don�t know if he does anymore, but he probably listens at 1 .5 speed.

Imperative and Indicative Law and Gospel. Imperative and Indicative, semi-colon, Law and Gospel, R. Scott Clarke. He was responding to a listener, writer named James, about law, grace, distinctions, imperative, indicatives.

I�m not going to read the whole article. You can pull it up on the website. Clarke answers it, and he answers it well. And for many years here on the show, I have tried to make the distinction that, as Bovink would say, you know, repent and believe.

Those are responses to the gospel. They aren�t good news in and of themselves. The gospel is, of course, it�s more than historic, but it�s something in history. It�s news about what Jesus has done. And if you go to 1 Corinthians 15, one through five-ish, and study that, you will find as of first importance, here Jesus, specifically the text says Christ, the Messiah, dies for sinners, dies for our sins, according to the scriptures, right?

He dies, he�s buried, and he�s raised from the dead, according to the scriptures. And that is an indicative. Those are a series of indicatives. There are no commands there. You know, back in the old days, the Dallas Seminary folks would say, �See, there�s no word repent in 1 Corinthians 15 and that is the summary of the gospel.

That is the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15. And I think they were misunderstanding. Of course, repentance isn�t in the gospel. Repentance and belief are commands, yes, they are responses to the gospel, but technically speaking, to use Bovink�s words, they aren�t part of the gospel.

Now here, Clark, I think, helps us as we kind of parse through that mentally, and even it will help you when you�re evangelizing. I, speaking of our Scott Clark, am influenced by the Reformed theologian, Caspar Ulvianus, 1536 -87, who consistently treated the imperative to repent as an expression of the law, not of the gospel, okay?

So far, so good. I mean, it�s all going to be good, but that�s easy for me to grasp. In contrast, he treated the imperative to believe as a gospel imperative. Now how would that work in your mind? How does that get processed as you think about these law and gospel categories, or if you�d like to use indicative imperative categories, is it good news?

Is it good news to believe? Is it good news that Jesus, because He, with the Father, loves sinners, and the Father sends the Son on a rescue mission to lay down His life and pay the penalty for all the sinners who would ever believe in Him, that is, the bride, the elect.

In contrast, he treated the imperative to believe as a gospel imperative. Now here�s the thing that�s just a great way to think about it, and I just think studying history and historical theology helps.

The difference between repent and believe lies in the object of each, okay? I won�t read any more for a second, but if you just think out loud with me or listen actively, active listener, I�m a visual learner.

Repent from or of your sins, turn from your sins, turn from that way of thinking. Then the object of repentance happens to be with us. The object of faith, believe on, or as Acts 16 says in the KJV, I believe, and it�s closer to the Greek, by the way, the KJV, believe unto the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved, ye shall be saved, I don�t know the rest of the part of the verse in King James.

Let me read this again. He treated the imperative to believe as a gospel imperative. The difference lies in the object of each. Faith and repentance have distinct objects. Faith looks to Christ, that�s the object, faith, that�s why it�s called a gospel imperative, and to his obedience for us.

Repentance, however, considers our sin, acknowledges it, and turns away from it. So, Scott Clark, influenced by Olvianus, said, by the way, I talked to, I don�t know if I pronounced these words right, I think R. Scott Clark is pronounced correctly, and repentance and belief are pronounced correctly.

I have been notified that that really good Bible that I have, that deluxe Mamba Bible that I have, it�s not Schuller, it�s Schuyler. They didn�t give me a pronunciation guide, so I�m just trying to do people a favor.

Some listeners have said they�ve ordered it, so the publisher should be happy that I promoted it on the show. I�m waiting for my copy sent free. We don�t get many free things around here. We get some things.

We get Henno mugs. That�s what we get free, and I don�t know what else we get. Faith looks to Christ and to his obedience for us. Repentance, however, considers our sin, acknowledges it, and turns away from it.

This is why olivianus, I want to say it that way, olivianus, repentance to the law, which teaches us the greatness of our sin and misery, and faith to the gospel, which announces free salvation for helpless sinners.

There is a corollary here to law and gospel. Both make promises, but they do so on the basis of different conditions to be met. When the condition to be met is obedience, then it seems that we are talking about the law, about performance, about do this and live.

This is what some older Reformed theologians, I�m still quoting Clark, called an antecedent condition. According to the Reformed understanding, Christ has fulfilled the antecedent condition of obedience, i .e., covenant of works, for the elect or for the believer in his place as his substitute.

The believer receives the benefit of what Christ has done by grace alone through faith alone. The imperative belief, Scott Clark goes on to say, refers not to the law, but to the gospel. It is a call to receive freely what Christ has done for us, because he talks about Luther saying faith is an empty hand.

I think that's helpful. I think it's helpful. I now know more of a nuance than I knew before when it comes to gospel imperatives, because we're still calling, it's an imperative, we're calling people to believe, but we're having them believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that particular second person of the Trinity.

So there you have it on No Compromise Radio. Aren't you glad? You'll need to read that, Indicative Imperative Law and Gospel. And as I've stated many times in the past, when you go outside and you see street preachers, and I know there are many evangelists who listen to No Compromise Radio, and I'm happy for that, you want to make sure you have both law and gospel.

You want to make sure you have Indicative Imperative if you'd like to have that bifurcation instead. Many years ago, I was in Dublin with my wife. We had a couple days layover on our way to Rome for our 15th wedding anniversary.

Wasn't that fun? We saved up for some free points on the airline, and we received a free hotel in Rome from a friend, and it was just one of those lifetime trips, trip of a lifetime. And since we've went back, so it's two trips in a lifetime.

Anyway, we were in Dublin and I was looking for some cool sunglasses. Not that I'm into fashion or anything like that, but anyway, we were looking for some cool sunglasses, and out in the public square where there's a lot of shopping and cool stores, you know, kind of the H &M type of stores and higher ups.

There was a guy preaching, and he was on a little box, and he was a well-dressed man, and isn't there a song like that? Is that a Joe Jackson song, well-dressed man? I don't think so. And he was saying repent, he was saying believe, he was saying flee from the wrath to come, he was saying turn or burn, a lot of those things, and frankly, everything he said was a biblical concept, but it was all law.

It was all imperatively driven. I just made up that word, but it sounds really good, and I made it an adverb. Imperatively driven. Imperatively, I think, is fine, but imperatively driven, that's a new purpose-driven, imperatively driven.

Actually, purpose-driven life is imperatively driven. That's one of the problems with it. Back on target, back on point. I walked up to him, and I did not walk up to him with an aggressive posture. I walked up, might I say, sheepishly.

I wanted to have him see that I was not in attack mode, and he had kind of a friend with him. I don't think it was a bodyguard, but he was also well-dressed. I mean, they were dressed like you would see black Muslims dressed on the street corners in Philadelphia.

Very well-dressed. He was preaching, and I walked up to him, and I said, when I teach my students to preach the gospel, because I didn't know how to say it, but this is true. When I teach my students how to preach the gospel, I tell them they also have to give the indicatives, not just the imperatives.

I tell them to stress what Jesus has done and who he is, and in light of that, repent and believe. And then I put my head down and walked away. And out of the corner of my ear, is there a corner of my ear?

Most of the corners of my ear have hair growing in them. I said to Kim, if you ever have to put me in a rest home, just please, for the love of God, make sure you take care of the nose hairs, the ear hairs, that kind of stuff.

Can't stand it. I put up with it in other people, but on me personally, I mean, if you look at a man, you should just not be drawn to the hairs growing out of his nose. I just think there's some, you know, I'm not Ed Young Jr. in pastor fashion, but there needs to be a little grooming.

Men need to be groomed. And wives, if you put up with that, it's your fault. I walked away from this man after reminding him to talk about Jesus and not just turn, burn, repent, forsake, circumcise your hearts.

There's lots of imperatives in the Bible, flee, follow, forsake, even alliteration is on No Compromise Radio, always alliterate. And I walked away and he immediately changed his tune because he recognized what he was doing was wrong.

He had more courage than I did. I needed glasses and I had a better theological training, not because I was better. I've just been to lots of seminaries in my life. I've been to four seminaries and have, I have degrees from two of those and I actually teach at three seminaries and I have degrees from two of those.

How does that work? And he said, Jesus Christ, the virgin born God, man died on a cross. He loves sinners like you and he died on the cross for sinners like you and was raised from the dead and is coming back.

You must repent and believe. I could about cry thinking about that right now. I didn't with my body, but in my mind I stretched my hands up like a referee going to give a touchdown signal. I was so happy with my brains and his courage, we could go places.

But it is typical for the outside evangelist to focus on repent and believe. Frankly, I get it. So many people in evangelicalism are afraid to say repent. If you read the whole Christ by Sinclair Ferguson, you can see in the Bible when people are commanded to repent, they respond with belief and vice versa.

You don't have to say repent from your sins to give a proper gospel and its response. You don't have to do that. If you say believe, I think built into the word believe is repent. But since it is so in light of the anti-lordship position by Zane Hodges and others, Ryrie wasn't anti-lordship, he was just non-lordship.

But I think if we say repent, because it's not been talked about, no repentance, and people forget the value and importance of talking about repentance. There's no problem with getting up saying repent.

I pretty much just say repent and believe. I just have that in my mind. So every time I'm talking to an unbeliever, repent and believe. Turn from your sin and turn toward the Savior with faith, taking God at his word.

Knowledge, assent, and trust. I understand why people like to say repent, believe, trust, follow, forsake, circumcise. I'm trying to think of some of the other imperatives. But now as we think about it some, when you are saying repent, the object of your repentance is your sins, you, if you will.

And when you say believe, the reason why Elvianus and R. Scott Clark call it gospel imperatives, and you'll read other writers who say the same thing. It's because the object of faith is not us, it's who God is.

And faith is, of course, non-meritorious. It's a non-meritorious instrument that doesn't die on the cross. Faith doesn't live a perfect life. Faith doesn't die on the cross. Faith is not raised from the dead.

Faith isn't returning. It's taking God at his word, believing what God has said, knowledge, assent, and trust. And notitia, assensus, and fiducia, fiduciary matters, trusting, willing. Sometimes I say, do you believe Jesus enough to follow him?

And what I mean by that, I'm not trying to conflate things with gospel imperatives. What I'm trying to say is America's got a bad view of belief. But even there, God's words are powerful enough that if I don't explain it, I could still say that.

If you're preaching the gospel, you want to make sure you preach good news. And it's not good news, turn from your sins, and you will be saved. That's not good news, but that's the response to the good news.

That's what we tell people. But remember, we're telling people who are physically alive, but spiritually dead. Dead in trespasses and sins. We're telling people to do what they can't do. But thankfully, we're talking to people who have had Adam's sin imputed to their account, immediate imputation.

And then consequently, because of the antecedent sin of Adam credited to their account, they are born sinful and they have sinful natures. And we tell them to repent and believe. And we're thankful that even as we talk about antecedent words here with the article, that Jesus has lived the perfect life.

He did die on the cross and he was raised from the dead. For those of you who say, do you know what? I don't really understand this. I give you our Scott Clark. The imperative belief refers not to law, but to gospel.

It is a call to receive freely what Christ has done for us. So, talk about what Jesus did and then talk about response. If you've ever heard people talk this way, the gospel is not do, do, do. It's done, done, done.

Now see, that is good news. It's not ever good news if I have to do something because I failed. Do this and live isn't good news. I can't do it. It's only good news if I tell people Jesus has done this and lived.

And if you trust in him, you are seen in Christ and you receive his act of obedience, credit to your account, et cetera, not et cetera, et cetera, then that's good news. So, when you preach the gospel, if you want to have a takeaway today, you want to talk about who Jesus is.

That would be good because most people don't know much about Jesus these days. And then you say, and I like to say this to people, no response to the good news of what Jesus did and who he is, no response is a response.

It is a stiff arm. It is no thank you. It is I don't care. It is I don't care what he did and said. I've got my own life to live. No response is a response. So, your response, if you'd like to have it based on law, the object of yourself, your own sin rather, repent.

And then if you want to have another true imperative, believe is an imperative. But the reason why it's a gospel imperative is because you're thinking about who Jesus is. In other words, faith isn't meritorious.

Ephesians 2, 8, Philippians 1, 29, Acts, I want to say 14, but I might be wrong about they believe through grace or they believe by grace. If you are evangelist and you talk about Jesus a lot and you don't really know the categories law, gospel, you're not sure of all the details.

I just commend you for preaching the gospel because people get saved by hearing a message about Christ. Romans 10, 17. That's how they get saved. Faith comes through hearing a message about Christ. So, I commend you for preaching the gospel.

Make sure you talk about Jesus and the response that God commands when it comes to repenting and believing. My name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. Right now, you can get all our episodes online for free.

They might be going into a vault sometime. So, you better download them now. Heads up for that. And we've got both sexual fidelity and things that go bump in the church on sale on the website. Talk to you soon.