May 11, 2021 Show with Andreas Köstenberger on “Signs of the Messiah: An Introduction to John’s Gospel”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours and we hope to hear from you the listener with your own questions and now here's your host

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County Pennsylvania Lake City Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 11th day of May 2021.

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I'm always thrilled to have my brilliant guest today return to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio for another interview.

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His name is Andreas Kostenberger a leading evangelical scholar and prolific writer, author, editor or translator of close to 50 books including

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God Marriage and Family, A Theology of John's Gospel, Excellence and the

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Commentary on 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus and the Biblical Theology for Christian Proclamation series.

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He is the editor of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, visiting fellow at St.

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Edmund's College in Cambridge, England, research professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology and director of the

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Center for Biblical Studies at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and founder of Biblical Foundations.

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Today we are going to be addressing his latest book published by Lexham Press, Signs of the

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Messiah an Introduction to John's Gospel and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Dr.

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Andreas Kostenberger. Hey Chris I'm thrilled to join you. And I'm going to give our listeners our email address right away in the event that they'd like to join us with a question on the

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Biblical Signs of the Messiah. Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. As always please give us at least your first name, your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Let's say you are evolving in your understanding of theology, you have come to be at odds with your own pastors and congregation and perhaps denomination or you're a pastor yourself and perhaps you've even come to be at odds with your co -elders or your denomination or whatever the case is that would compel you to remain anonymous, please feel free to remain so.

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If it indeed it is a personal and private issue but please if it's just a general question on theology please give us at least your first name, city and state and country of residence.

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So why don't you first of all tell our listeners what you are teaching here at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

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I know you're on sabbatical right now and writing but tell us about Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

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Yes, so I teach biblical theology, hermeneutics, biblical interpretation,

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Johannan literature, especially John's Gospel. I teach a class on ancient

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Jewish and Greco -Roman literature, the so -called Second Temple literature and I'm also the director of the

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Center for Biblical Studies which publishes a podcast and book notices and other helpful resources for pastors and really anybody who is interested in the serious study of scripture.

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And tell us about this organization you have founded known as Biblical Foundations. Yes, so my wife and I have been married for over 30 years.

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We have four children, two boys and two girls. We're all grown and so we have a passion for the biblical teaching on God's design for man and woman.

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And my original book you mentioned in the introduction which is

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God, Marriage, and Family was published over 15 years ago and ever since then we've had an increasing burden to call people back to the

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Biblical Foundations on marriage and the family. We've also written several books on biblical parenting including one called

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Equipping for Life and so my wife and I often speak at marriage conferences or we do parenting workshops just because marriage and parenting is such an important part of our lives and I feel like sometimes people don't follow our

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Maker's blueprint and as a result needlessly suffer. You know, we don't have to make our own rules or follow our own ideas when scripture has given us just an incredible amount of revelation on God and marriage was his idea and he has given us a blueprint in scripture on how to live as husband and wife, as parents, and so we have really enjoyed that and as you know it's only grown in relevance exponentially over the last five or ten years especially.

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Well, if anybody wants to find out more about these two organizations,

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Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary to begin with, that website is mbts .edu,

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mbts .edu, and Biblical Foundations can be found at biblicalfoundations .org,

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biblicalfoundations .org. Obviously, from what you have just told us, the

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Gospel of John is something that is very near and dear to your heart, obviously it should be to every

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Christian, but it has so captivated you that you have devoted much of your study as a theologian and occupied much of your mind, heart, and time as a teacher and a professor to focus on this

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Gospel. What about this Gospel so intrigued you and captured your heart that you have chosen to really focus on this

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Gospel? Well, the simplicity of language and yet the profanity of theology, its high view of Jesus as divine, as God, and you know, as a result,

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I think it's just such a wonderful tool to use in evangelism and discipleship.

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The Church Fathers said that John's Gospel is deep enough for an elephant to swim and yet for a little child not to drown.

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I think, you know, I couldn't have said it any better. It's just a masterful book that was written,

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I believe, by the person who was closest to Jesus during his three -and -a -half -year earthly ministry, the

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Apostle John, the son of Zebedee, one of the twelve apostles, actually one of the three in Jesus' inner circle, the one who witnessed all the strategic events in Jesus' life, and so it's just so vital for our faith that we know that we can base our faith in Jesus on reliable eyewitness testimony, and I think

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John's Gospel is just incredibly authoritative and accurate and foundational to our faith.

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Amen. And in fact, as a Reformed Baptist, theologically

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Calvinistic, if you will, I know that the Gospel of John, even as a tract, if you were to just use the information, the

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God -breathed information that John wrote in that Gospel, even separately from the rest of the

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Scriptures, it makes a powerful tract to lead those to see and by the guiding of the

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Holy Spirit understand the doctrines of sovereign grace, wouldn't you agree? Oh, absolutely.

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I think, you know, it's not a coincidence that John's Gospel was probably the number one source, theological source, for the early church councils and the first creeds, just because John, you know,

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Clement of Alexandria, now their early father, called him the spiritual gospel, and I think by that he meant that John had some penetrating insights into, you know, important doctrinal truths, such as the two natures of Jesus, human and divine, with the fact that he eternally preexisted with God, his deity

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I already mentioned, and so the Trinity, you know, and on and on it goes.

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So John's Gospel has been just incredibly influential, even in early formulations of the

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Christian faith. Now, who would you say your primary intended audience is for, or readership, is for signs of the

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Messiah? I think it may be somewhat misleading when people read the subtitle

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An Introduction to John's Gospel. The only reason I say that is because this book will have great benefit not only for a new believer, but even for a seasoned

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Christian that may have overlooked some of the insights that you have in this gospel, even if they've been saved for many decades.

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Yeah, I think that's a great question, and obviously I've devoted almost 30 years of my scholarship to studying the

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Gospel of John, and so what I've tried in this book is to almost, like, replicate what

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John has done to use simple language, but to still convey some profound theological truths in it.

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Originally, some of those chapters were presentations

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I gave for the Church workshops for people, either maybe pastors who are planning to preach on John's Gospel, to equip them to have a good sense of the structure of the book, and of some of the major theological themes, especially the seven signs of Jesus, other serious students of Scripture, but at the same time,

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I genuinely wanted this also to be a first introduction for someone, maybe who is a seeker, or wants to have a book that helps them assess the claims of Jesus, because I think that is why

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John wrote the book, to persuade people that Jesus, in fact, was the

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Messiah, because, you know, it's proven by some of the things he did, especially those manifestations of his power in the various signs that he performed, and so it is written to really anyone who loves theology, who loves

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Jesus, or who simply wants to assess the claims of Christ for themselves. Now, you have this book broken up into three parts, so if you could explain part one, which has under that heading,

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Authorship, Prologue, and Canacycle. Yes, so, you know, I spent quite a bit of time on establishing who the author was, and I think

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I do that in part because the authority of the book rests, in no small degree, on the credibility of the author, the

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Apostle John, and also because today there are many scholars, Chris, as you know, who deny that the

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Apostle John actually wrote the Gospel of John. That may come as a surprise to maybe some of our listeners, but if you've at all been exposed to scholarship on the

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Gospel, there are many today who claim that the book was written by maybe a group of later

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Christians, sometimes called the Johannine community, after John had long died, and so they, in that case, would have received the

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Gospel second -hand, you know, and some of it, sometimes things might change, you know, in a half -century or so of passing on some of those stories, and so I think it's very vital to understand that the so -called

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Beloved Disciple, as he calls himself in the Gospel, the disciple Jesus loved, was in fact none other than the

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Apostle John. So I spent about 20 pages or so to show that that disciple is in the

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Gospel paired with the Apostle Peter, again and again and again, at all the strategic junctures of Jesus' ministry in the

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Upper Room, at the High Priest Courtyard, at the Cross at the Empty Tomb, later at the

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Resurrection appearances, and so when you look at the historical evidence, who was that disciple who was closely aligned with the

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Apostle Peter? Clearly it was the Apostle John. You see that in Acts chapters 3 and 4, chapter 8, they're even mentioned side -by -side in Paul's letter to the

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Galatians, chapter 2, verse 9, and so I think it's very important to establish against the majority of Joannan scholarship that the

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Apostle John actually wrote the Gospel. And so that's where I start, and then I also spend quite a bit of time on the prologue, because again, the prologue gives us all the major themes in the

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Gospel. He introduces Jesus as divine, and he kind of sets the tone for the rest of the

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Gospel. So that is what I focus on in the first part, and then

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I get people started on the so -called Book of Signs, which is where all of Jesus' signs are actually found in chapters 1 through 12 in John's Gospel.

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We already have a listener question, Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, and Arnie asks, in Isaiah 7 -14, we read,

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Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name

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Emmanuel. When I have had conversations with my Jewish friends and neighbors and acquaintances, they will typically tell me, if they know anything about Hebrew, that the word for virgin in this verse actually can mean a young girl.

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How do you overcome that objection from a Jewish person? Yes. Now, of course,

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John doesn't mention the virgin birth as such. He makes a great deal, you know, about the point that Jesus' existence didn't begin as a baby in a manger.

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Rather, you know, he already was with God in creation, and he existed from all eternity.

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So when it comes to the passage in Isaiah, it's of course mentioned prominently in Matthew, in his birth narrative.

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I think he uses, there's a range of meaning of that word.

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It's true it can just mean woman, but it also can mean virgin. And so Matthew taps into the more narrow definition of, you know, the word

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Alma in the Hebrew or Parthenos in the Greek, as literally a virgin.

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And of course, the supernatural conception of Jesus in Mary's womb by the

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Holy Spirit is a major doctrine of Christianity, and is affirmed not only by Matthew, but also by Luke.

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And yes, they use Isaiah, or Matthew does, but it is what you might call double fulfillment of prophecy, meaning there was an immediate fulfillment in Isaiah's day.

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And then there is a, you know, a more distant fulfillment, which Matthew asserts occurred when

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Jesus was literally born, not just of a young woman, even though she was a bat, but of an actual virgin.

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And I think it's clear that Matthew believes that and explains that in Matthew chapter 1, verses 18 through 25.

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Now, perhaps you could correct me if I took a wrong approach.

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When I personally had this brought up to me by a very good friend of mine for many years who's an

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Orthodox Jew, when he went back to his rabbi after I had, you know, routinely been evangelizing him with certain key texts and so on, he came back to me and said the very thing that the listener,

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Arnie in Perry County, said, oh, my rabbi says that that text just means young girl.

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And I actually stopped him in his tracks, and he saw the validity of my point when I said, how is that a sign?

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If it says, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign, I said, most mothers, when they were giving birth to their first children, that is, were young girls back then.

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So that could not be a sign when you have multiple, countless thousands of women giving birth as teens.

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Absolutely. There's obviously a very unusual prophecy at work.

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And two resources there would be one, I wrote a book with a co -author called The First Days of Jesus, and there we have, you know,

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I think five or six chapters just on the Matthew and birth narrative. So we have a lot more details, of course, you know, on that topic there.

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And the other thing I would add is, it's intriguing to me that the listener mentioned

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Isaiah 7 -14 because of the mention of the word sign. And of course, John, right, my whole book revolves around John's featuring seven signs of Jesus.

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And I believe, in many ways, John took over this emphasis on signs from the book of Isaiah.

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I actually wrote an article for Familias, which is an online journal published by the

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Gospel Coalition. And so if the listener's interested, I think it'd be easy enough to check out, you know, by my first and last name, and then simply looking it up under John's gospel and Isaiah's signs theology.

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So Isaiah also focuses on very striking signs that point toward the

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Messiah. And then it's not a coincidence that John features many of those signs.

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And so let's start to stick our toes in the water, as it were, when it comes to the

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Cana Wedding and the Temple Clearing as two primary texts that contain signs of Christ's Messiahship.

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Yeah, so scholars typically refer to chapters 2 -4 in John's gospel as the

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Cana Cycle because the first and the last event in those three chapters both take place in Cana.

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And so it's commonly believed that John organized the material in the form of a ministry cycle, beginning and ending in Cana.

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And in fact, John numbers the signs and says the turning of water into wine at the

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Cana Wedding in chapter 2, verses 1 -11, was the first sign Jesus performed in Cana.

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And then at the end of chapter 4, he heals the son of a royal official long -distance, remarkably.

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And there, John's assistants found a second sign Jesus performed in Cana. And so John doesn't leave it, you know, to our ingenuity to figure out that he wants to show that those messianic signs of Jesus are basically controlling the theological landscape.

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And then in between, he features, I believe, not everyone would agree with this, but I think there's strong evidence that the cleansing of the

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Temple in Jerusalem is one of those Jerusalem signs that are mentioned in chapter 2, verse 23, and then also

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Nicodemus mentions it in chapter 3, verse 2. And of course, Nicodemus is paying Jesus a visit in Jerusalem.

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I think the tricky part there is that we tend to think of signs typically as miracles. Now, the

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Temple cleansing is not a miracle in a technical sense, but I think sometimes in the Old Testament you see that there's prophetic signs as well that involve symbolism, prophetic symbolism.

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In this case, Jesus overthrowing the tables of the money changers and so forth.

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So the symbolism is that the Temple will be destroyed, and then Jesus even raises the bar in saying, he's not really talking about the literal

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Temple, he's talking about his own body being a spiritual Temple. His body will be destroyed and then after three days be raised again.

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And so in some ways, then, the Temple clearing is a prophetic, symbolic act of Jesus that prefigures his own crucifixion and resurrection.

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That's pretty advanced theology, but I love it about John, that he is so theologically penetrating in his thoughts.

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And I want to pick up on the Temple clearing when we come back from our first break. If anybody has a question for Dr.

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Kostenberger, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Oh, and I forgot to tell Arnie in Perry County, guess what? You have won a free copy of this beautiful little hardback book,

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Signs of the Messiah, An Introduction to John's Gospel, by our guest today,

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Andreas Kostenberger. Compliments of our friends at Lexham Press, and also compliments of our friends at cvbbs .com,

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Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who will be shipping it out to you at no cost to you or to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the entire program is Dr. Andreas Kostenberger and we are discussing his new book,

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Signs of the Messiah, An Introduction to John's Gospel, published by Lexham Press.

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If you have a question, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com

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Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

36:52

USA. Before we go to any more listener questions, I want to revisit the cleansing of the temple, or the clearing of the temple.

37:01

Now, I know that it can't be technically described as a miracle what

37:09

Jesus did, but it is quite astounding that this one man, there's nothing in the scriptures that say that Jesus Christ looked like the

37:22

Incredible Hulk, but this one man with a whip drove out the entire temple of money changers.

37:32

That is quite an astounding feat. Why do you think it is that these men did not just decide to overpower him?

37:41

What was it that made them scatter like children? Yeah, we see that repeatedly, especially in John's Gospel, that there was a presence about Jesus.

37:53

You know, you think of his arrest, and the arresting officers basically fall face down to the ground, so there's some spiritual power emanating from him that really transcends human explanation, and I think that's part of John's point here, that Jesus has

38:16

Messianic authority. And that's important because who had authority over the temple area?

38:22

Well, it was the Sadducees. It was the temple authorities. And so by cleansing the temple,

38:27

Jesus implicitly and explicitly challenged the powers that be.

38:33

And so the result you see in John 2, 18, the Jewish people and the authorities are saying, what sign do you show us for doing these things?

38:42

And I think this is thick Johannine irony, because as Jesus goes on to explain, he's just performed a sign.

38:50

And by asking for a sign, the authorities show that they missed the sign

38:55

Jesus had just performed. And so rather than perform another sign, Jesus goes on to explain the significance of the temple cleansing, and he relates it to the destruction of the temple, which we are told is actually not the physical temple.

39:13

Of course, we know the physical temple was destroyed in 70 AD, and it's very interesting that John probably writes after 70

39:20

AD, and so his readers would have known that Jesus could not have been talking just about the destruction of the physical temple, but he's talking about his own body.

39:31

And so I believe that the occasion for John writing his gospel is to show, especially to the

39:38

Jewish people, that Jesus was the new temple. He was the replacement of the old temple that had already been destroyed.

39:45

And so this is a classic case of apologetic and of evangelism that exploits this void that arose from the destruction of the physical sanctuary and points people to Jesus, the spiritual temple.

40:03

Now, I have heard a very well -known Christian who

40:08

I actually view as a modern -day hero. I'm not going to say his name because you may be in disagreement with him.

40:16

Maybe you won't be. I don't know. But in spite of me viewing him as a hero,

40:23

I really paused and wondered if he was correct on this. He said that Jesus, when he chased the money changers out of the temple, never actually struck anyone with the whip.

40:37

It was his cracking of the whip or waving of it and his commanding voice that was frightening enough to them to make them leave, and that actually whipping any of them would have been outside of his character.

40:50

Is that a correct assessment, in your opinion? Well, you know, looking here, and of course,

40:57

I believe that the temple cleansing that Jesus recorded is an earlier temple cleansing because it's in John 2, it's at the beginning of Jesus' ministry.

41:05

I think John's gospel is roughly chronological, while in the other three gospels,

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Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the so -called synoptic gospels, those three evangelists record actually a later temple cleansing.

41:18

So I happen to believe, as quite a few scholars do, that Jesus cleansed the temple both at the beginning and at the end of his messianic ministry, or at least twice.

41:29

And so, to me, that tells me that Jesus, pretty much every time he set foot into that temple area, something in him was just deeply perturbed by the, you know, the corruption of temple worship, that, you know, the sale of sacrificial animals and the merchants, you know, making a profit out of the sale of those animals.

41:57

And so, I think, in John, he simply says in verse 15 of chapter 2, in making a whip of courts, he drove them all out of the temple.

42:09

So, in context, I think that refers not just to the animals, but also to the money changers sitting there, because they're mentioned at the end of verse 14.

42:18

So, whether or not he directly, you know, whipped them out, or he got scared and ran the moment he started wielding the whip, you know, it's a little hard to know.

42:31

But it's, in any case, a powerful display on Jesus' part of his messianic authority.

42:37

In other words, he did not want the house of God to be corrupted, you know, into just a bazaar, if you will.

42:45

Now, having said what you've just said, there being a mystery behind whether he actually made physical contact with the whip and the money changers, you're still open to the idea that he did actually whip some human beings.

43:04

Yeah, I mean, it's ultimately an argument from silence, I guess. You know, as a scholar, I'm always careful to, you know, draw inferences beyond what the past is actually saying.

43:16

I think the emphasis clearly there is on just the messianic authority that Jesus displays there, and that he literally cleanses the temple of all that defiles the true worship of God.

43:30

I think that was, you know, it says in verse 17 that the disciples saw all of that, and they remembered there was written, "...zeal

43:37

for your house will consume me." So I think that's, you know, John's own commentary on that passage.

43:43

It's just that Jesus' passion and his zeal for God is just what they were just struck by, and so this is a very, it's not a miracle in a narrow sense like we talked about, but it is a striking display of Jesus' messianic authority.

44:01

So it is, I believe, a Johannine sign. We have

44:07

Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, and she asks, could the temple -cleansing passage be used to rebuke those that we know who are members of churches that have carnivals and other such things on church property in order to raise money?

44:30

Well, I think you can't help but think of modern -day examples where people use the church as a source of profit.

44:40

And, you know, that clearly calls for discernment, and to some extent it is also a matter of motive.

44:50

But I think it's important to be scrupulous, to not intermingle, you know, enriching oneself at the expense of what is clearly meant to be a sacred and holy place.

45:04

So, you know, without knowing exactly what Susan is thinking about, yes,

45:14

I mean, there could often be conflicts of interest. You know, and again, I'm not necessarily talking about, you know, maybe half the church in the foyer, there's a little bookstore where the church at cost makes available some helpful

45:29

Bible study tools, you know. My pastor just sighed with relief hearing you say that.

45:38

So partly it comes down to, you know, motive, and, you know,

45:43

Jesus said you can't serve two masters. You know, you can't serve both God and money. And so I've known many godly, mature

45:52

Christians who are very careful, you know, say they're real estate agents, you know, they cannot sell houses, you know, in Sunday school.

46:01

And to keep those who are there... Especially to lie about the profits, since we know what happened when another real estate sales lied about to the church.

46:12

Yeah. Ananias and Sapphira, for those of you who are wondering. Right, yes.

46:17

It's a great question. I like the contemporary relevance of it. There clearly is, you know, a message there for us to be really careful and even to call out people, you know, who violate that principle.

46:33

I was raised Roman Catholic before becoming a born -again Christian. Even as a

46:40

Catholic teenager, when I would go to the carnivals that my church conducted,

46:46

I always, even then, scratched my head about blatant, overt gambling going on, you know, at these bazaars.

46:59

Yeah. Which is actually a good phrase for them. Now, obviously, I'm sure you would agree there is something different about the

47:07

Old Covenant temple than a modern -day church building and parking lot.

47:13

Yes. But at the same time, I've heard very convincing arguments by guests here that the church should not be targeting the unbelieving world around them to raise money.

47:25

Even though we may accept gifts during the worship service from unbelievers who are present.

47:31

We don't ask every person who puts money in a collection plate, are you a believer? But at the same time, to target the community in that way is somewhat unbiblical.

47:44

There's no biblical evidence that the church did that. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think you're right that there's some differences.

47:51

You know, I think today the church is ultimately God's people, you know, who are gathered, you know, as opposed to the actual brick and mortar of the building.

48:02

But still, I remember, you know, visiting England a few years back and saw that there was one cathedral that I wanted to look at.

48:12

And I walked into the sanctuary and there was a coffee shop in there. And, you know, something in me just really, you know,

48:19

I could never have sipped a cappuccino, you know, there. You know, when you look at the beautiful stained -glass windows, and I was just really grieving over the, just the post -Christian, you know, culture in so much of Europe, which is where I grew up.

48:37

And, yeah, it's, you know, it's very sad if you see that, you know, beautiful house of worship is basically denigrated into just a place of commerce.

48:50

We have Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina. Greetings, brothers. I know when I study

48:55

God's holy scriptures, sometimes I see something that I hadn't noticed before in several readings.

49:02

In writing this, did you know, did you notice any new insights that you hadn't seen in your studies before?

49:10

So when you were writing the book we were discussing, did anything go, wow, I didn't notice that. Did anything happen like that?

49:16

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it's really interesting. Just around, you know, that time,

49:23

I must have read John 3, 16 of all verses, you know, hundreds of times.

49:32

And, of course, we're all very familiar with the, you know, the phrase, God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

49:44

And it occurred to me that Jesus telling Nicodemus that, or even if it's written by the evangelist, which some believe, as a commentary on the conversation that just took place between Jesus and Nicodemus, Nicodemus would actually not have agreed that God loves the world.

50:04

Of course, all of us today would agree, I would assume, or most of us, but in the first century,

50:11

Jews believed that God loves the Jewish people, but he hates the Gentiles.

50:17

Yeah, and the world is actually synonymous with the word Gentiles. Yeah, so for him that would have been offensive and deeply counter -cultural.

50:27

So I came to realize that I was too familiar with the verse, and I needed to kind of read it, you know, as I would hear it the way

50:38

Nicodemus, the first century Jewish teacher, heard it. So that would be one example of, you know, how even a verse as famous as John 3 .16,

50:48

you can read it for the maybe 223rd time and see something that you missed, you know, the first 222 times.

50:57

By the way, both Susan Margaret and Grady, you have both won a free copy of Signs of the

51:05

Messiah, an Introduction to John's Gospel by our guest Andreas J. Kostenberger, compliments of Lexham Press, and compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

51:15

We'll be shipping it out to you at no charge to you or Iron Trip and Zion Radio. Please make sure, the both of you, that we have your mailing addresses.

51:25

And by the way, Grady, I want to thank you as a regular, very faithful and generous supporter of Iron Trip and Zion Radio for always remembering to get your gift to us every month.

51:40

And it means to me much more than you'll ever know, brother. And thank you so much.

51:45

And we're going to our midway break right now, folks. Please be patient with us because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

51:52

FM in Lake City, Florida, who airs this program twice a day in a prerecorded format, they require of us a longer break in the middle of the show because they are required by the

52:02

FCC to air their own public service announcements and other local things that geographically localize this program and all of their programming to Lake City, Florida.

52:12

So please be patient as we take this longer than normal break. And also use this time wisely because we are simultaneously airing our globally heard commercials.

52:22

We depend on our advertisers to exist. We depend absolutely positively depend on the finances that come through these ad campaigns to remain on the air.

52:33

So please write down as much of the information as you can provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently and successfully respond to our advertisers.

52:42

And that not only means buying products from them and using their services and visiting their churches and supporting their parachurch organizations, which we hope you do all of those things whenever possible.

52:54

But it also means please respond to them to just say thank you for sponsoring

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53:08

So write down that information provided by our advertisers and also write down questions for Dr. Andreas Kastenberger about the signs of the

53:17

Messiah in the Gospel of John. And our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

53:22

chrisarnson at gmail .com. We'll be right back after these messages. So don't go away. Hi, I'm Phil Johnson, host and executive director of Grace to You, the media ministry of John MacArthur.

53:45

I hope you plan to join me and Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio for the

53:51

G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, Thursday, September 30th through Saturday, October 2nd.

53:57

The theme this year is Christ is supreme over all. My friend Chris Arnson and I will be joined by several of our other friends, including

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Votie Baucom, Justin Peters, Daryl Bernard Harrison, Virgil Walker, and James White.

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More than 20 other speakers will be joining us and the lineup this year includes my pastor, John MacArthur.

54:19

For details, visit g3conference .com. That's g3conference .com.

54:25

Chris Arnson and I hope to see you September 30th through October 2nd at G3 2021.

54:32

This is Phil Johnson reminding you that Christ is supreme over all. When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Anthony Uvino, founder of thereformrookie .com

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and co -founder of New York Apologetics, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.

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I'm Pastor Tim Bushong of Syracuse Baptist Church in Syracuse, Indiana, and the NASB is my

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Joe Bianchi, president of Calvi Press Publishing in Greenville, South Carolina, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Jake Korn of Switzerland Community Church in Switzerland, Florida, and the

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

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Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio financially.

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Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers, which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

57:09

Lord Jesus Christ. And, of course, the end of which we strive is the glory of God.

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If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe ten minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

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Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our

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Sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ today and always.

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Here's what Gary DeMar, President of American Vision, had to say about Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio recently.

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Good to be back, Chris. I always enjoy our time here. I have to tell you, you're one of the better interviewers out there, and I've been doing this for more than 30 years.

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Wow, that's some compliment. How much do I owe you for that? You don't have to owe me anything.

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We're in good shape. I'm glad you said it on the air so I don't have to brag about myself.

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Tell your friends and loved ones about Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio, airing live Monday through Friday, 4 to 6 p .m.

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Eastern Time, at ironsharpensironradio .com. I'm Dr.

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Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

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Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.

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It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God, like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

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I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.

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That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.

01:00:02

That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

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The Wokeness in the Gospel conference is coming to Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas, June 11th and 12th.

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Pastor Tom Buck of First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas. Like Satan in the Garden, woke hermeneutics undermines the very authority of the

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Confronting the lies being impressed upon the culture today, threatening even to divide the Church, and answering with the

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Call Lindbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402.

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Or visit lindbrookbaptist .org. That's lindbrookbaptist .org. Anchored in Truth Ministries is the mission arm of Grace Life Church of the

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If you love Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio, one of the best ways you can help keep the show on the air is by supporting our advertisers.

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One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what Chris Hansen is doing is

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Dan is the president and founder of the Historical Bible Society. Their mission?

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To foster belief in the credibility of Scripture as the written word of God. They go to various churches, schools, and institutions to publicly display a rare collection of biblical texts, along with a fascinating presentation by Mr.

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Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio on the air. Hi, this is

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John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona, taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnson and the

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Iron Sharpen's Iron podcast. I consider Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions.

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While always defending the key doctrines of the Christian faith, I've always been happy to point people to this podcast, knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the

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This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised Chris up for just such a time.

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And knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer and in finances.

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I'm pleased to do so, and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

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I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com,

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and always remember to mention Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Before I return to our discussion with Dr.

01:09:43

Andreas Kostenberger, I just have some very important announcements to make.

01:09:49

First of all, we've got some upcoming programs that you definitely don't want to miss.

01:09:55

Let me grab my calendar. Tomorrow on this program, we are being visited once again by my friend

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Professor David Engelsma, who is going to be addressing part two of a discussion we began last month on his new two -volume commentary on the

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Belgic Confession. That's tomorrow, May 12th, here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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And you've been hearing the ads for Anchored in Truth Ministries, one of our latest sponsors.

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Well, Chad Epperson of Anchored in Truth Ministries will be our guest on Thursday the 13th of May.

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And on Friday, we've got my dear friend Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III, addressing a topic that we haven't picked yet, but I'm sure it's going to be fascinating because Dr.

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Moorcraft masters every subject that we address in this program. I'm looking forward to finding out myself what he will be discussing.

01:10:54

That's Friday, the 14th of May, on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And we've got a whole bunch of stuff in your future, the week after that, next week, and the week after that, and so on.

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01:15:06

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, but I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Dr.

01:15:14

Andreas Kastenberger, and we are discussing a fascinating and very important subject,

01:15:21

Signs of the Messiah, an Introduction to John's Gospel. We have

01:15:27

CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who wants to know, I have heard from pastors who are teetotalers, for lack of a better term, those who believe in total and complete abstinence from partaking in alcoholic beverages, that the wine that Jesus created from water miraculously at the wedding feast of Cana was nothing more than high -quality grape juice, unfermented.

01:16:01

They say that if he actually created fermented wine, that people at this wedding party would have fallen into the sin of drunkenness due to the vast quantities of wine that were being consumed.

01:16:16

What is your response to this? I think that's wrong.

01:16:24

You know, the Greek word, oinostere, translated wine, typically would be fermented drink.

01:16:33

It would probably be weaker than today's wine. If I remember correctly, it was diluted with water, probably more than wine would be today.

01:16:45

As a matter of fact, it just so happens I wrote the article on wine in a major reference work,

01:16:52

The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels. And so that would be a great resource to read up on the first -century

01:17:03

Palestinian customs when it comes to wine. But I think even in the account of the wedding at Cana, it's clear that it says here, everyone serves the good one first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine, and drunk freely, could also mean that they've had too much to drink.

01:17:29

So, yes, certainly that's always a possibility, but I don't think that's an argument against the fact that I think all

01:17:37

English translations I know translate the Greek word oinos with wine.

01:17:43

And so even though there's some cultural differences in the amount of water that was added, it was still fermented.

01:17:50

So I hope that answers the question. There's sometimes maybe other agendas entering in here.

01:17:56

You know why people might argue that wine was this grape juice, but I don't think it's borne out by background research or by the original

01:18:06

Greek language. You know, it's interesting. Years ago, I'm assuming John MacArthur has the same view today, although I don't know that with absolute certainty, but he is a teetotaler and believes that Christians should be teetotalers.

01:18:21

But he actually uses as an argument in his series on the subject that one of the very things that you mentioned, he said that one of the reasons why drinking fermented wine today is problematic for a

01:18:40

Christian is that typically people do not mix wine with water as they did in Jesus' day.

01:18:47

And he said, I don't know if you would back this up historically, but he said even pagans of the day were known to mix their wine with water.

01:18:56

And today, a wine connoisseur would likely smack you across the face if you were to start watering down some fine wine that he was serving at his dinner table.

01:19:07

But anyway, interesting subject. I am a former drunkard, so although I do not believe that no

01:19:17

Christians have the liberty to partake in intoxicating beverages, as long as they do it with moderation and don't fall into the sin of drunkenness,

01:19:26

I myself know that I could never touch wine again, as a beverage, that is.

01:19:33

I have visited churches that use it in the Lord's Supper, for instance, but it's such a tiny amount. But thank you,

01:19:39

CJ. You've also won a free copy of the book, Signs of the Messiah, An Introduction to John's Gospel.

01:19:46

Make sure that we have your mailing address, so that CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, can ship that book out to you.

01:19:53

And we thank Lexham Press once again for the gift. Just on that same subject of the fermentation that likely occurred with the wine that Jesus miraculously created from water, is there something specific about the fermentation that is key to it being a sign of his

01:20:14

Messiahship? Well, I think in the Old Testament, wine is often associated with just joy and gladness.

01:20:24

In times, the coming of the Messiah, Jesus, even at the institution of the

01:20:30

New Covenant, tells the Twelve Apostles that you will not drink from the fruit of the vine until he comes again at the

01:20:38

Messianic banquet, you know, at the end of time. So I think that there is this, the fact that Jesus' first sign in John's Gospel was performed at a wedding,

01:20:50

I think there's some clear Messianic overtones in addition to just the miracle associated with, you know, turning water into wine, especially as you mentioned, such a large quantity of it.

01:21:04

Well, the second part of your book, as we said before, your book is broken up into three parts, and the second part concentrates on the festival cycle, if you could explain.

01:21:17

Yeah, so there's a bit of a shift of gears in chapter 5. Chapters 5 through 10 are often referred to as the festival cycle because here, the major way

01:21:29

John presents the earthly ministry of Jesus is he shows him attend several

01:21:35

Jewish festivals. In chapter 5, it's an unnamed festival. Chapter 6, it's

01:21:41

Passover. Chapter 7 and 8, it's the Jewish feast of tabernacles or booths.

01:21:47

And then in chapter 10, he mentions the feast of dedication or Hanukkah. So he shows that Jesus was a religiously devout

01:21:57

Jew who, as was customary, attended whenever possible

01:22:03

Passover, especially in Jerusalem. And at the same time, what a better place to reveal himself as the

01:22:13

Messiah, the one to whom the symbolism in those festivals pointed to.

01:22:18

For instance, Passover, of course, Jesus was the Lamb of God, or tabernacles, which had torch lighting and water -pouring ceremonies.

01:22:32

And Jesus, of course, identifies himself as the Light of the World. So implicit in that presentation is the fact that Jesus fulfilled the very essence of the

01:22:47

Jewish festival calendar. And just like we mentioned, he was the New Temple. He was also the

01:22:52

Passover. And, you know, often those feasts are linked with I Am statements, and Jesus would say things like,

01:23:01

I am the Bread of Life, or I am the Resurrection and the Life. And so John shows that Jesus, in his very essence, embodies the essence to which those

01:23:14

Jewish festivals pointed. And that should be added evidence that Jesus was the long -awaited

01:23:22

Messiah. And let's see here.

01:23:27

We have actually related to that topic. We have an anonymous listener who says,

01:23:33

I'm remaining anonymous because many of my very close friends are Messianic Jews, and I don't want to unnecessarily offend them.

01:23:40

But do you believe that Christians should celebrate, not as a mandatory rite, but as festivals that point to the

01:23:48

Messiahship of Jesus? Do we have the liberty to celebrate the Old Covenant festivals today?

01:23:56

Yeah, I think there's no reason why that would not be appropriate.

01:24:03

I think, of course, living in the New Testament period, the primary celebration would be the

01:24:09

Lord's Supper. But clearly we can cherish our Old Testament heritage as Christians, especially as Messianic Jews.

01:24:19

And, of course, as I mentioned, in many ways, there is embedded symbolism that is

01:24:27

Christological in nature. And so it can even reinforce our belief in Jesus as Messiah.

01:24:34

And so clearly, in many ways, even for those of us who are not Jews, we can participate in those celebrations and understand

01:24:44

Jesus better. And so I would say it's not commanded, it's not required, but it certainly can enrich our faith.

01:24:57

Thank you, Anonymous. If you give us your full mailing address and your full name, of course, off air and your follow -up email, you'll receive a free copy of the book we are addressing today,

01:25:12

Signs of the Messiah, An Introduction to John's Gospel, by our guest,

01:25:19

Andreas Kostenberger, published by Lexham Press. And we want to thank Lexham Press for providing these free books to us.

01:25:26

And also we want to thank our friends at cvbbs .com,

01:25:32

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, for shipping these books out to our listeners.

01:25:39

What else do you have to share that is key in regard to the festival cycle?

01:25:46

Definitely, yeah. So here we have three more signs. There's a nice symmetry to John's presentation of signs.

01:25:52

You have, as I mentioned, the first three are in the Cana cycle, and signs four through six.

01:25:57

Three more are in the festival cycle, which are the healing of the invalid who have been unable to walk for 38 years.

01:26:05

John features a lot of hard miracles. Clearly, that would be a hard miracle. Also, Jesus' feeding of the 5 ,000 men plus women and children, so probably well over 20 ,000 people, with just five loaves of bread and two fish in Chapter 6.

01:26:24

That's the only sign of Jesus in John's Gospel. It is also recorded in the other three

01:26:30

Gospels, by the way. And then the sixth sign, and the third in the festival cycle,

01:26:36

Jesus opens the eyes of a man who had been born blind. Now, that was virtually unheard of in the ancient world.

01:26:44

And all of that, you know, Jesus' healing of the sick, his opening the eyes of a man who had been born blind, or even his raising of people from the dead, fulfilled the

01:26:55

Old Testament portrait of the coming Messiah. And so John features such a variety of messianic signs of Jesus just for people to understand that Jesus fulfilled all the variegated expectations that the

01:27:14

Old Testament prophets raised about the coming Messiah. Yes, and the imagery of healing when it comes to blindness, when it comes to the raising of the dead, and other miracles that Jesus performed, they have such a vividly clear picture of salvation, don't they?

01:27:41

Yeah, and you know, John doesn't feature any parables, which is really stunning when you think about it, you know, especially since they're so prominent in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

01:27:51

But I think John's point is that Jesus, in real life, opened the eyes of blind people.

01:28:00

And so at the end of chapter 9, the Pharisees are quoted as saying, so are we blind too?

01:28:06

And so John shows the deeper spiritual meaning of Jesus' healing of blind people.

01:28:14

And there's this irony that the people who know themselves to be blind, there's hope for them, and there's healing.

01:28:22

At the same time, people who deny there's spiritual blindness, there's no hope for them. And so he shows that the

01:28:29

Jewish authorities who claim to be seeing spiritually, they actually are falling short, while the man who was born blind is healed by Jesus and becomes an ardent disciple, even a worshiper of Jesus.

01:28:47

So really the only one who worships Jesus prior to the resurrection in John's gospel.

01:28:53

You know, I have heard, perhaps you have as well, that I've heard from non -Calvinists, people who are non -Reformed and even anti -Reformed, that it would have been cruel for Jesus, in fact it still is, in their opinion, cruel, if Jesus were commanding people to do something that they were incapable of doing.

01:29:24

And in the discussion between a Calvinist and Arminian, it would be obviously the issue of believing and repenting.

01:29:32

And we who are Reformed, believing in the total depravity of man, we believe that although an unregenerate person can have an intellectual belief or understanding, he cannot have a saving faith in Christ, apart from the miracle of regeneration first occurring in his heart.

01:29:54

Because the Bible is clear that no man can please God in the flesh, and therefore, if believing in Christ, savingly and repenting are pleasing to God, we can't do those in the flesh.

01:30:08

Perhaps you could correct me if I'm wrong, but I have retorted to that idea of cruelty.

01:30:17

First of all, the classic passage of Lazarus being raised from the dead, he had no choice in that matter.

01:30:23

But even if you go to the healing of the lame man, to say to a lame man, take up your bed and walk, would have been cruel, other than the fact that Jesus healed him, just as he does with an unregenerate person in regard to regenerating their heart when he tells them to repent and believe.

01:30:48

Am I making sense here? Yeah, absolutely. I think John talks repeatedly about God drawing people, and people are not able to come to God unless he draws them.

01:31:05

And so I think John puts God first. He says that God is the one who sovereignly draws people to himself.

01:31:16

And he says that people's unbelief even confirms Scripture. I think the primary point is at the end of John chapter 12, where John writes that though Jesus had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him.

01:31:35

So they chose not to believe. But then it says, that fulfilled the word spoken by the prophet

01:31:41

Isaiah, the Lord who has believed our message. And then John adds something really striking.

01:31:48

He says that therefore they could not believe. Not just that they would not believe, but they could not believe.

01:31:55

And so I think there's a sense in which they're held responsible for something that ultimately was impossible for them.

01:32:05

And I know my friend Don Carson wrote his dissertation on this very tricky subject of divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

01:32:16

And ultimately I think it's beyond human understanding. It's a paradox.

01:32:21

It's two sides of one coin. The Bible affirms both. We're responsible and ultimately

01:32:27

God is sovereign. We have another anonymous listener who says, some of my closest friends and brothers and sisters in Christ with whom

01:32:40

I share fellowship regularly are charismatic and Pentecostal. I was wondering what your views are regarding the miracles of Jesus if they are perpetuated through his followers today or if they ceased with the ceasing of the apostles.

01:33:02

Yes, so of course that takes us a little bit beyond the gospel of John to the book of Acts and beyond, which is totally fine.

01:33:11

Of course it's interesting that in John's gospel, Jesus is the only one who performs signs because signs are presented as evidence that he's the

01:33:22

Messiah. Remember, it says that not even John the Baptist performed any signs. It says that at the end of chapter 10 of John's gospel.

01:33:31

But it's true then, you get to the book of Acts and there the apostles are performing signs.

01:33:37

I think primarily the function of the signs is to authenticate the apostles as authorized messengers of Jesus who proclaim the resurrection of Jesus at a time when there was no

01:33:51

New Testament. And so I believe now that we do have a completed canon of 66 books, there is clearly no longer a need to authenticate apostles because we have the scriptures as God's complete revelation to us.

01:34:14

So as a result, I think that, you know,

01:34:21

Jesus said in John 14, 12, greater works than these will ye do.

01:34:27

And so I think by greater works, I take this to mean that we can now offer the gospel to anyone who cares to believe and they will at that moment, if they repent and trust in Christ, receive the

01:34:43

Holy Spirit. And so conversion and regeneration are the greatest miracles associated with the life of faith.

01:34:56

Amen. Even the great miracles that Christ performed when it came to feeding the poor and, you know, out of 12 loaves and fishes, that did not result always in people getting saved.

01:35:19

Correct. That is John's very point. I couldn't agree more. I think that's really the foundational insight, that people could see the external powerful act, but if they didn't trust in Jesus, the one who performed those signs, then the purpose of that sign was not accomplished.

01:35:40

And so you have in John that fascinating contrast between the invalid in Chapter 5 who is healed by Jesus, but who ultimately does not believe.

01:35:49

He actually reports Jesus to the authorities, and there's just not even a shred of faith, as far as you can tell.

01:35:54

And then in Chapter 9, I mentioned the man born blind who becomes a worshipper of Jesus.

01:36:00

And so I think what John wants to show is that this, the man born blind is epitomizing the right approach and the right response to Jesus' miracles, meaning you put your trust in Jesus, and the miracle is just kind of an aid to faith.

01:36:21

It's a means to an end, but the end is faith in Jesus.

01:36:28

And so sometimes what we do is we elevate the miracle, or we don't understand their true purpose.

01:36:35

So I think that's really at the very heart of what I try to show in Signs of the Messiah. By the way, folks, the number 12 tumbled out of my mouth because I was thinking of the number of apostles, since we were speaking about miracles in the apostolic era.

01:36:50

I meant five loaves and two fishes. Well, we are going to our final break right now.

01:36:59

It's going to be much more brief than the other breaks. And when we return, I want you to speak about what you have to offer in Part 3, the final part of your book, when it comes to a conclusion to the

01:37:12

Book of Signs and Book of Exaltation. And our email address again, folks, is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

01:37:21

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. We're running out of time, so if you intend to ask a question, please send it in immediately.

01:37:27

We'll be right back after these messages, so do not go away. Hello, dear ones.

01:37:40

My name is Justin Peters and my friend Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I are frequently blessed to share great times of fellowship with one another at conferences all over the

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If you intend to send in an email with a question, do it immediately, please, because we're rapidly running out of time. ChrisOrenson at gmail .com

01:49:42

ChrisOrenson at gmail .com And Dr. Kostenberger, as I said before we went to the break, if you could let us know the importance of the third part of the book in referring to the conclusion to Book of Signs and Book of Exaltation.

01:50:00

Yes, thank you. And, of course, I really appreciate being in your show. It's just a bit of a taste for our readers.

01:50:06

I'd love for them to read and get a copy of the book Signs of the Messiah and to read for themselves.

01:50:12

But the first two parts have three signs each, and the last part, as you mentioned, only has one sign.

01:50:21

But what a sign it is. It's utterly unique. The raising of Lazarus is the climax.

01:50:27

It is a resurrection which foreshadows Jesus' own resurrection.

01:50:33

It's not included in the three earlier Gospels. And so this is just a striking demonstration of Jesus' messianic authority.

01:50:49

As you know, Lazarus had been dead for four days already. His body is already emitting an odor of death.

01:50:59

And Jesus, as he's talking to his sisters, they have given up all hope of seeing their brother alive again.

01:51:08

And yet there's this long buildup in chapter 11.

01:51:14

That's what I love about John's Gospel. He has those lengthy narratives. And it kind of builds up to Jesus finally arriving at the tomb.

01:51:23

And he tells the bystanders to take away the stone, which, again, makes you think of Jesus' own empty tomb.

01:51:31

And then he prays and then very succinctly just commands

01:51:39

Lazarus. He says, Lazarus, come out. And then my favorite verse in all of John's Gospel, it says literally the dead man came out.

01:51:49

The dead man came out. And it says his hands and feet are bound with linen strips and his face was wrapped with a cloth.

01:51:58

So you can hardly imagine how Lazarus was able to come out. But somehow he must have just kind of like stumbled out.

01:52:06

And Jesus tells the bystanders to unbind him and to let him go. And then the scene abruptly shifts.

01:52:13

And so in John's Gospel, this is the number seven. The seven sign is the number of perfection or completion.

01:52:23

And so after this, it's clear that there's no sign

01:52:28

Jesus could do. If people don't believe after seeing that sign, nothing will induce them to put their faith in Jesus.

01:52:36

And so this is sort of a final push to get people to come face -to -face with Jesus' claims.

01:52:45

And the one thing about John is he's very black and white in a good way.

01:52:52

And so for him, it's all about to believe or not to believe in Jesus.

01:52:58

That's ultimately the only question that matters. And so the purpose statement says, Jesus did many other signs that are not written in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the

01:53:11

Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name, John 20, 30, and 31.

01:53:18

In the other Gospels, we hear a lot about salvation. Now John distinctly uses the word life.

01:53:26

Jesus is the life giver, just like God is the creator and life giver. And so for all of us who are interested in life, even abundant life, remember it says in John 10, 10 that Jesus says,

01:53:38

I've come to give life and to give it abundantly. Jesus is the source of that life.

01:53:45

We have Joseph in South Central Pennsylvania who says, there are heretics and members of cults who do believe in the

01:53:55

Messiahship of Jesus, but reject his deity. They claim that he could have fulfilled the prophecies of him being the

01:54:06

Messiah without embracing the fact that he is God. Is your book helpful to point such heretics to the reality that Jesus is indeed both

01:54:19

God and man? Oh, absolutely. I think, you know, I talk about the framing, you know, like two bookends of the prologue that starts out affirming that Jesus was not only with God a

01:54:34

Christian, but he himself was God. And then at the end of the prologue, he talks about that Jesus, who himself was

01:54:41

God, made God known. And of course, then at the end of the gospel, you have this other bookend where Thomas worships

01:54:50

Jesus and, you know, falls down and says, my Lord and my God. And we talk about the festival cycle.

01:54:56

And again, it's framed by references to Jesus' deity. And those authorities are attempting to stone him on account of blasphemy because they say he who was a mere man made himself out to be

01:55:10

God. And of course, the irony is that Jesus didn't just make himself out to be, he didn't just merely claim to be

01:55:15

God. He actually was God. And so that's, I think, one of the things I love most about John's gospel and I talk about extensively in The Signs of the

01:55:25

Messiah, is that John presents, even more clearly than the earlier three gospels, presents

01:55:30

Jesus unequivocally, unapologetically as God himself. Now, perhaps you have heard, just as I have, the comeback from Jehovah's Witnesses in regard to Thomas, his declaration or proclamation that Jesus was

01:55:51

God. They will say, he was doing nothing more than many people still do today.

01:55:57

When they are astonished by something, they will say, oh my Lord, or oh my God, etc. How do you respond to that claim?

01:56:06

Yes, well, like I said, the claim that Jesus is

01:56:12

God is just built into the very fabric of John's gospel.

01:56:17

Even if, for argument's sake, you were to dismiss Thomas' confession, which surely would be a mistake, you're still left with strategically placed references, you know, at the beginning and end of the prologue, beginning and end of the festival cycle, and even at the trial, at the end, the

01:56:39

Jews accuse, the authorities accuse Jesus of many things, but in the end, when

01:56:45

Pilate is not kind of taking the bait, they say, well, the true reason is because this man has to die, because he has made himself out to be

01:56:54

God. And it was blasphemy. For them, they were committed monotheists, and so they believed there could only be one

01:57:02

God. You know, the famous Jewish confession in Deuteronomy 6 was,

01:57:09

Hear Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. So for them, Jesus was blaspheming because he claimed to be

01:57:16

God. And that amounted to blasphemy in their eyes. And yet, John, who was

01:57:21

Jewish, affirmed unequivocally that Jesus was God. So here you see the early stages of the

01:57:29

Christian doctrine of the Trinity. You know, there's one God in three persons.

01:57:37

And I think in another book called Father, Son, and Spirit, the

01:57:42

Trinity in John's Gospel, the first chapter that I've written is on Jewish monotheism and John's claim that Jesus was

01:57:51

God. So it's hard to explain that in just a few sound bites, but I certainly invite the listener and certainly anybody who comes out of a cult, whether Jehovah's Witnesses or, you know, even

01:58:05

Mormonism or some other cults, I invite them to read John's Gospel, to read

01:58:10

Signs of the Messiah, to read Father, Son, and Spirit, and to see for themselves if Jesus, you know, clearly claimed to be

01:58:18

God. I think there's no other explanation why the authorities would have crucified Jesus.

01:58:25

They didn't crucify him like C .S. Lewis said because he was such a good teacher, right? There was something deeply offensive in what he claimed to be.

01:58:34

Amen. Well, I want to thank you so much for being such an excellent guest. I look forward to your return to this program.

01:58:40

Thank you. Dr. Kostenberger, I want to remind our listeners about the various websites where people can find out more about you and get in touch with you.

01:58:50

First of all, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary's website is mbts .edu,

01:58:58

mbts .edu, and Biblical Foundations' website is biblicalfoundations .org,

01:59:05

biblicalfoundations .org. You can find out more about Signs of the Messiah and Introduction to John's Gospel at lexhampress .com,

01:59:14

l -e -x -h -a -m -press .com. But I would ask you to please purchase it at our sponsor's website,

01:59:23

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service's website, cvbbs .com, cvbbs .com.

01:59:28

That does not hurt Lexham Press at all because cvbbs has to order it from them. And if they don't have it in stock immediately, they will get it for you.

01:59:36

I want to thank you so much. As I said, Dr. Kostenberger, I want to thank everybody who listened today, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater