Was Adam Real?

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. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry, take four. That's what's nice about being in the studio though, and not having this live live. It's just only Memorex live.

It's no pressure. I feel like it's live right now.

I feel like life is worth living. I totally agree, but to die is gain.

That's true. For me to live as Christ and to die as gain is absolutely true. Why did God then give us such a desire for self-preservation, I wonder? Do those conflict, Steve?

I don't know, but that's a very good question. Perhaps another show.

Well, that's kind of like Michael Horton when he said on the White Horse Inn, you've got conflicting hymnology. And so one hymn is, this world is not my own, I'm just a passing through. This world's not my home, I'm just a passing through.

And then you have another song about This is my father's world. This is my father's world, see? It's just conflicting, but we just take everything together. And we just accept two truths. They're both true.

They're both true. This is not my home, I'm just passing through, but this is my father's world. Oh, man. Steve, I hold in my hot little hand, although it is wound up like a club, like it's an instrument, I have in my hand the new Christianity today.

And that is one ugly dude on the cover.

June, 2011. Now, without even opening up the magazine, it's got a picture of the Nebraska man on the front. Yeah. The Nathander, all Nathander Mr. Piltdown, or whatever, right? Yeah, that's right. Neanderthal.

Neanderthal, yes. Piltdown. And then it says, the search for the historical Adam. Some scholars believe genome science cast doubt on the existence of the first man and woman. Others say the integrity of the faith require it, the state of the debate.

Now, I'm actually sad. I'm actually, I have my feelings hurt. Why is this a debate? Steve, why are we debating this? As Rodney King would say, why are we fighting?

I have absolutely no idea, because it's not like the Bible is silent on this. You want to know where the historical Adam is? Well, I think he's in Genesis 1, Genesis 2. He's all through, he lives quite a while in Genesis, as a matter of fact.

You know, he actually made it all the way to the New Testament, too. Yeah. And he made it in Romans chapter 5.

And Jesus actually referred to him, too. And so it's like, he's a genuine, real person. I mean, it is kind of a funny name for a story, the search for the historical Adam.

Well, maybe Christianity today wants to sell magazines, and I don't fault them for that. They can sell magazines, that's fine. But I just don't like the very cover, because it tends towards evolution and other things.

And I really don't care if science hasn't caught up to the biblical facts yet. Am I an obscurantist for that, a troglodyte?

Yeah, what's the difference between that cover and Newsweek or Time or anything else?

If it was Christianity today, I would just expect, I don't know what Adam looks like, but something else. Maybe this is Adam after the fall. What he looks like. He is one ugly dude, that's all I can say.

If it was agnostics for today, our bio And unkempt. Yeah, bio Unkempt. If this was Biologos Forum today, if this was agnostics today, evolution today, Darwin today, this would be a perfect cover.

But I just am, this is not the main reason I don't like the article, like the magazine, but I do think that was poor taste. Very poor. So Steve, when I open up the very next page into the cover, we have different people trying to sell things in Christianity today, and I think that's fine.

They should probably sell my new book, Jesus Christ. What is the name of my new book? The Sovereignty and Supremacy of Jesus Christ. They should probably try to sell that.

That'd be fine, I wouldn't mind that. And they're willing for it, you know, if the price is right.

NIV, Come Closer. You know, this is my new title, and there'll be a show on this on No Compromise Radio. My title for this should be, This Isn't Your Dad's NIV.

For real, I mean, come closer, get a little closer. It's like the last show we did about snakes. Get a little closer to the snake, get a little closer.

As we turn the pages, Steve, what else strikes you on Christianity today, this potpourri of Christianity today? Some articles may be good, some articles might not be good. We could probably buy a Dallas Willard book on spiritual walking or something if we wanted to.

We're walking, we're walking, we're walking. By the way, I have a question for you,.

And this is No Compromise style. Steve, there must be, but tell me if there are, any quality books, biblically literate, that is to say, good quality, evangelical, Reformed books on NAV Press besides Jerry Bridges.

Okay, so. I want there to be. Well, I just went through the long and extensive list.

You know, in the old days, they were so full of psychology, people didn't call it NAV Press, they call it NAV Depressed. I want there to be, but besides Jerry Bridges, I'm wondering what's happening with all the Dallas Willard stuff and everything else.

I hope I'm wrong if you're. Is he the weatherman guy? I think he's that weather guy on TV that lost a lot of weight. Yeah, yeah. Dallas Willard. Pass me another Diet Coke, would you? Okay, Adam. Do we need a real Adam theologically?

And what are the implications of this issue, Steve?

Well, do we need a real Adam?

For Christianity to exist, must there have been a real Adam? He had to be the first man ever. And we have him.

You know, I find it so, and I don't know how many times I've said this during my life, but if you don't believe that Genesis 1 is literal, if you don't believe in a literal historical Adam, then please tell me when the literal nature of the Bible kicks in.

Is that in Genesis 3? In Genesis, where is that? At the flood? And if not at the flood, is it with Joseph? When does the Bible become reliable? When can we start actually saying, okay, this is true? Because if we don't have that at all, then what are we doing?

Genesis 1, can you imagine Tim Keller said, was supposed to be poetical, yet he knows even in his recent article, I think in the Gospel Coalition, that Genesis 2 and 3 must be literal because he knows that you have to have a literal Adam as a federal head because then you need to have a literal last Adam.

I almost said second Adam, but then there could be third and fourth. Last Adam, Jesus Christ. And so when do you kick in? We just kick in in Genesis chapter 1 and we believe at No Compromise Radio, the three great imputations and one of them being Adam's sin imputed to all the race because God in his wisdom chose Adam as the federal representative.

I saw that trivia question here recently, what are the three imputations? And I'm going, we talk so much about double imputation that I just thought I had to take a breath and kind of go, oh, what's the third one?

We all focus on our sins to Christ, his righteousness to us. And we like those, but a lot of times we forget about that third imputation, Adam and his fall being imputed to us. We don't think about that as often or we don't say it as an imputation, but it is an imputation because we didn't actually sin.

Adam sinned in our stead, in our place. He was our representative.

And as S. Lewis Johnson said, I really liked that arrangement of God that Adam would be our federal representative for two reasons. One, as Lewis said, I would have sinned sooner than Adam did. And two, I like the second representation, Jesus Christ, who can then provide me all the righteousness I need.

If you don't have the first Adam, you don't need the second Adam. Let me read Romans 5, verse 12. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned, for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.

Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those sinning, was not like the transgression of Nebraska man. Oh, sorry. Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. One man, one federal representative, one man affecting all those in him.

And his name was Adam. Which means? Which means, when I look at the cover of Christianity today. Oh, I just meant the word. Which means Adam. Adam. What does it mean? I don't know, from the ground or something.

Yeah, dirt. Okay. The search for historical Adam. Well, I don't think we're ever going to find his bones. Do you, Steve? Not likely, no. Okay. And how would you identify him anyway? Well, maybe they'd be in an ossuary named Adam.

Adam, Jesus, we find him in the reliability of scripture and in the inerrancy of scripture. Jesus, I think he probably would have come along as the Messiah and said, this whole deal about Genesis 1 and Adam and Eve and the fall and Satan and the flood.

Those are just stories. Those are myths. This is Gilgamesh-eth, Gilgamesh-ish, like.

The Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh. I'm going to give up. The Gilgamesh myth.

This is Jonah. It was made up. It's an allegory for the love of God and Israel and Gentiles and all that. But Jesus affirmed and confirmed the Old Testament.

It really is stunning when you start looking at things that liberals write, and I mean by liberals, liberals who would consider themselves Christians and how they pick apart the authenticity and the historicity of the Bible and then pretend like they're Christians.

Either God gave us and preserved the word that he intended us to have or he didn't and basically everything that we know, we don't know. And this is the kind of game that they want to play. And it's really not a game because lives and eternal destinies are at stake.

Why are we worrying about the historical Adam when we, I mean, I'm not saying that we should disavow the historical Adam, but what I am saying is that they're wasting time on this when the gospel is being watered down and lost and disputed about.

And to me, this is just folly.

Romans goes on to say about this last Adam in Romans 5 .15, but the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, I think he was probably a Homo sapien or something.

I don't know when he began to walk upright on the earth, this one man. Just kidding. Much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many. And so we have the one man, Adam, his sins imputed to all those in Adam.

And then we have the one man, Jesus, who is going to do what Adam failed to do, what Israel failed to do, what we failed to do. And Jesus lived the perfect righteous life. And that's why in 1 John 2, Jesus is called the righteous.

And so now that's the second imputation. And the last imputation, as Steve said, is our sins credited to Jesus's account. And so we have to have a literal Adam. And so I just wish the Christianity today, I wish they'd say our job is ministry minded.

And that is to say, we want to encourage the church by telling her to believe what the Bible has always taught and what church history has taught about the historicity of Adam. Amen.

I mean, I would rather see an opinion piece called the gospel, where are you? Because sadly, it's the gospel that is missing in most of our churches. And for people to be, they could be blissfully unaware of the scientific research as to whether Adam did, I mean, as if they could prove it, as if they could somehow go on a time capsule, 6 ,000 years back and prove or disprove whether Adam was a single person.

So in No Compromise Radio today, we're talking about the importance of believing the Bible, to be under the Bible, not over the Bible, to not be a higher critic, that is to say which verses apply, which ones don't, how to interpret this rightly versus wrongly.

And we believe that we died in Adam and that we live in Christ, just as the ESV study notes show. Steve, what else in Christianity today do we have? I'm looking at the same page I think you are, and this is the briefing.

This is the briefing. What do we do with Bin Laden and his death? And notice I didn't say Osama because then sometimes I say inadvertently Obama, and I don't want to do that. What do we do with the death of Osama Bin Laden?

Mr. Bin Laden.

Well, and I mean, the highlight or the headline there is rejoicing in the death of the wicked. And there are many people that were happy that he is dead. In fact, you know, they have a survey here from the Pew Research Center that says 72 of Americans were relieved, would describe themselves as relieved, 60 as proud, 58 as happy, and 16 as afraid.

And I don't know if they're afraid because they thought they were next or if they're afraid because they expect retaliation, although I suspect the latter. But I just think, you know, I'm not, I didn't do cartwheels when he was killed, when Bin Laden was killed.

However, I did think, you know, it is justice. If you're going to set about making your life about killing people, about causing destruction and terror and chaos, then Romans 13 says, you know, that the government doesn't bear the sword for nothing, that it has the right to bring about justice.

And it did in this case.

Well, Moeller's got a good quote here on this page in the briefing, and they quote Moeller. And he basically says that it should be more sober than celebratory. That is to say that, you know, somebody is executed and making some giant celebration, Fourth of July, festive, you know, festival type of environment, that wouldn't be the best.

I think Moeller's right there, don't you?

Well, I mean, compare this to the end of World War II. Now, when you're celebrating the end of a war, now that is something to celebrate because it's an end to the death and to the destruction and really to, I would say that war in a sense is wrong.

I mean, I'm certain that God is not approving it in this sense that it is the destruction of many image bearers. And in this case, what we have is people celebrating the death of one image bearer, but not the end of the bloodshed.

This is not the end of anything. You know, this is just the end of one man's life.

But could this be the end of the world as we know it? No, but I still feel fine. Rick Warren tweeted Proverbs 21, verse 15, when justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous, but terror to evildoers.

And you know, I have to admit, I was very, very shocked. I was flabbergasted. I was stunned. It was a veritable slain in the spirit for Mike Ebenroth that he tweeted the ESV, not the message.

That is stunning, or the contemporary English version, or any number of truly, truly bad versions.

If I have memory that serves me well, Steve, is it not the Unforgiven movie by Clint Eastwood? I don't even know if I've seen the movie, but I've heard about the scene where Clint Eastwood, some kind of renegade cowboy, kills another man.

The guy didn't really have time to defend himself, and Eastwood's partner was appalled and aghast and said, how could you do that? We don't even know if he had it coming. How'd you know he had it coming?

And Eastwood said, everybody's got it coming. Got it coming, yeah. What's the classic line? But Bin Laden had it coming more than other people. It's hard to argue with that. What about the rest of Christianity today?

Is there anything in here that you find stimulating, provocative, biblical in that order? Amish bankruptcy, something like that?

Well, I would, Amish bankruptcy, you know, the milk prices have gone so high that they're unable to sell milk across state lines.

You've got to cut down your rumspringa tonight, honey.

Yeah, I was struck by this article here about the cultural medium in the Christian message. What kind of Christians do contemporary services produce? By D .H. Williams, who is a professor at Baylor University, teaches patristics and historical theology.

And what struck me is he went to a service here recently, and he talked about the typical thing, the rock music and the insipid lyrics. And he said, you know what? I'm pretty much used to that. Nothing like that bothered me, but I thought this part was interesting here.

He says, immediately after the scene, without any announcement, much less Paul's words of institution about the Lord's table in 1 Corinthians 11, the elements of the Lord's table were hurriedly handed around.

Now listen to this. Again, I was amazed at the blandly efficient nature of this activity. We could have been passing pretzels and soda pop. No one offered any guidance whatsoever on the sharing of this critical ordinance or sacrament.

It seemed a strictly vertical encounter between each individual and God. In other words, just kind of an experiential moment, but there was no instruction, no warnings, no kind of, all right, now we're gonna have communion.

Let us just focus on Christ and his work on behalf of believers. Nothing, just a passing, quick passing of the Lord's table. This almost reminds me, as I look at the picture of this, Steve,.

It just reminds me of rock concerts. It reminds me of stadium events. I remember I went to the US Festival in 1983, which was kind of a 1980s version of Woodstock and the Clash and David Bowie and these kinds of people up there.

And I don't know, someplace north of Riverside. And it's this huge event. Now I'm not against large churches, but I'm against these large churches that this author goes on to say, next came the sermon offered by a capable person who worked very hard to relate while teaching some biblical content.

I mean, just looking at the picture again, it sort of looks like these are the people who are

It's like Elevation Church is what it looks like. Well, I just thought. These are the people.

Who are responsible enough to not go out and get drunk Saturday night, but they don't really have to miss the party because they can get the party Sunday morning.

Well, to quote the theologian back in 1986, Magic Johnson, after winning the championship over the Celtics, it's time to potty, potty, potty. Well, I hate to change the subject, Steve, on Christianity Today, but if you flip over one page to page 49, at least they sell new Catholic CDs.

It's good. Yeah, John Michael Talbot. Yeah. They've got some Catholic CDs, Worship and Bow Down, features John Michael Talbot's new Mass of Rebirth, the new Roman Missal translation. When I was a kid, I always loved the Missal because in my mind, I didn't have to think about what M-I-S-S-A-L was, M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I.

I could always think of Missals, and I thought the Catholic Church was pretty cool and relevant to have Missals. Sure. You know, with all the money the Pope has,.

He should have some Missals. I don't know what country they're pointing out, but did you say the new Roman, the new Roman, or I'm sorry, the Mass of Rebirth, in other words, like it's really large and a lot of people are getting Massive?

Well, so many Christians are being taken in by Roman Catholic theology, including free will, that it has been Massive. And you can get the new book there, too, available, The Universal Monk, The Way of the New Monastics.

And I subtitled that, When the Way of Paul is Not Enough.

Yeah, well, he subtitled it, Walk Down an Ancient Path in the Modern World and Find Inner Peace and Unity. I mean, it sounds more Buddhist or something than Christian, doesn't it?

I could probably write a new book. You know, let's have a new service around here. Finding the Gospel in the comic book Thor. Excellent, excellent idea. Good, bad, evil, ying, yang, brother, ice creatures, low key, low key.

All right, now, let us commend Christianity Today. Page 61, no Adam, no Eve, no gospel. And it must be from one of the writers of Christianity Today because we have no author's name listed. I'm very, very happy that they would say, without Adam, without Eve, we don't have the gospel.

And then they quote John Collins' new book, Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? Crossway, 2011.

Well, they also quote B .B. Warfield, so that's good. Or they refer to him, they say, the Princeton theologian taught in the wake of Darwinian evolution. And he and fellow evangelical leaders saw good reasons to believe that humanity's physical form was descended from other animals, that's bad.

But two key biblical teachings kept these theologians from eating the whole Darwinian apple. And they go on and explain it. I think the two principles that should keep anyone from believing in evolution and eating the whole Darwinian apple, as it were, are this, the Bible is true.

And the Bible doesn't allow for evolution. Absolutely. So now let me make my next statement about this same editorial view on where we stand. I like the title, but I pretty much don't like anything else.

No Adam, no Eve, no gospel. Subtitle, the historical Adam debate won't be resolved tomorrow, so stay engaged. And it ends with this, this is what they say. This is Christianity today, although it does talk about the state of Christianity today.

At this juncture, we counsel patience. We don't need another fundamentalist reaction against science. We need instead a positive interdisciplinary engagement that recognizes the goodwill of all involved and that creative thinking takes time.

In the long run, it may be the humility of our K-love scholars as much as their technical expertise that will bring us to deeper knowledge of the truth.

Can I recommend that we just take a five-year moratorium and not make any kind of judgments about this at all? And we'll just consult some experts, some biologists, some theologians, some psychologists, and watch some Indiana Jones movies, and then we'll see where we are in five years.

How does that sound?

Of course we want to be nice to people who deny the truth, but we don't capitulate and we don't put our arms around one another. And then to say, this is a fundamentalist reaction. Those that state that Adam was a real person, that he was the first man created by God, this is, now we're fundamentalist.

If we say, we don't really care what science tries to say because we know what the Bible teaches and what science will ultimately show to be true.

If fundamentalist means that we believe in the inspired word of God as it stands, okay, and that we are not willing to kind of capitulate or even negotiate with science or anything, any other field of endeavor, if being a fundamentalist means that we believe in the original Adam as spoken of in the Gospels or in the Bible and Christ of the Gospels and all manner of truth that is in scripture, then call me a fundamentalist.

Well, I'll call you a person that doesn't want to compromise. So this is nocompromiseradio .com. Write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com. Adam is real. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text. Please come and join us.

Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.