NoCo Jr Interview (2024)

No Compromise Radio

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00:11

Welcome to No Compromised Radio Ministry, Mike Ebendroth here, duplex radio, and I hear a noisy Luke Ebendroth on the other side of the line.

00:20

Luke, welcome to No Compromised Radio Ministry. Welcome. Thank you. I appreciate it.

00:25

I don't know why I'm welcoming you, too. What is all— Welcome one another as God in Christ has welcomed you.

00:31

It's welcome one another. Oh, okay. I like that. You know, sometimes I would say, instead of, you're welcome, if somebody said thank you, instead of saying you're welcome,

00:40

I just say welcome, but that's kind of wrong to say, isn't it? Yeah, I think it is, and you know who didn't like that so much is your wife, my mother.

00:50

I thought of the exact same thing. Luke Ebendroth is my son. Luke, you are now—are you 27 or 28?

00:59

I'm 27. Okay, 27. Later this fall, you'll be 28. You've been married for how many months?

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10 months? 11 months? Something like that? I think it's almost 10. I should know off the top of my head.

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I think we're almost at 10. That's okay. And you're expecting—do we know if it's a little boy or girl?

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I think you're not telling anybody, right? No, we're going to wait. Wait to find out after they're born.

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Not wait until they can decide. Wait until they're born, and then we'll recognize the reality of what their gender is.

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Okay. I don't know why I'm laughing. I just talked to you for a couple minutes this morning, or just a while ago, and I said, well,

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I just was going to record a show, but before you called, I had no idea what I was going to talk about, and you said, well, we still don't know what we're going to talk about.

01:48

I do have one thing I want to talk about. You ran into Mike Horton the other day on campus. He's a professor at Westminster Seminary, of which you're a student,

01:57

Escondido. And give me the little slogan that he said. It was in the context of some people add laws to God's salvation.

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Some people say they don't want to obey when they've been saved. So we've got neonomians, we've got antinomians, you know, two sides of, we've got to ditch on either side when it comes to regular salvation, biblical salvation, that is.

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What did Horton say? He said something, well, we were talking,

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I was talking to one of my friends, Aaron Sasani, who is sent out by Pat's church. He's another student, and he always calls me a different name, a different effective.

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He sends my way every time he sees me. So he told me that he called me an antinomian or something.

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And I brought that up to Dr. Horton, and he said that he actually attributed it to Robert Godfrey, to Dr.

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Godfrey. And he said that neonomians usually are, antinomians usually aren't.

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So that was the saying. So basically people who other people call neonomians, usually they're right.

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And oftentimes people who are called antinomians by others, usually, you know, they're not really antinomians.

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I thought that was pretty good, didn't you? Me too, I like it. It flows off the tongue. Neonomians usually are, antinomians usually aren't.

03:27

That's a new tagline for No Compromise Radio Ministry. Wow, that's quite the tagline.

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It used to always be, you know, always biblical, always provocative, always in that order, when it was more of a discernment ministry. Now I talk about justification so much, and sanctification, and how not to conflate them, that it'd be good.

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Neonomians usually aren't, or usually are. I've already messed up my own tagline. No, the neonomians usually are, antinomians usually aren't.

03:57

Well, I saw on Twitter the other day, someone said something about antinomians. And, you know, it's kind of like I wanted to respond, can you name one?

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Right? Are there real antinomians? I guess there are in the non -lordship camp of Zane Hodges, Dallas Seminary, Old School.

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Not all the Dallas guys, but in that wing of, you know, anti -lordship.

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And who? Tulian? Was Tulian, you know, was he coming across as...

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Well... Yeah, go ahead. And, you know, the people that we know that were from Dallas Seminary, while they might have held to that view, and I'm not defending that view, it was obviously incorrect, and definitely at odds with the

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Reformed tradition, and Scripture, more importantly. But I think if you, the people that we know that would hold to that view,

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I think they're pretty godly people that, you know, probably put me to shame.

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So... Right, I think... I think even those people. Yeah, I think, Luke, there would be the anti -lordship people like Zane Hodges, then the non -lordship folks in the kind of Wesleyan realm of sanctification, that is some of the

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Dallas people, probably Ryrie and others, and the people that you know and that I know, the

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Stanley Two Saints and others. They're godly people. They're not antinomian.

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They're just not probably the Master Seminary lordship people. Do you remember meeting, by the way,

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Stanley Two Saints? We had lunch with him and he and his wife. I do, and we had lunch with Howard Hendricks as well, which

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I really like Howard Hendricks a lot. I still like his little lectures on different things about discipleship and practical stuff.

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I like Howard Hendricks. He's one of the great communicators, but especially for a conference at Mount Hermon in the summer to listen to Howie.

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That was good. I remember when he had his eye taken out and brain cancer and all these other things, but he still had a lot of joy, and I appreciate those times.

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Speaking of which, Luke, I never forgot the time when Dwight Pentecost got up at Mount Hermon and preached, and he preached

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Romans 6, and at a Dallas seminary conference he said, in light of this passage, there's no such thing as free will.

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And I was pretty impressed by that. I was a young seminary student, and I thought that he gets that there's no free will in the sense that, you know, you're in the bad way, no free will.

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I mean, I know you're going to tell me there's a real free will if it's defined right according to the

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Second London. I get that, but you know what I'm saying. Wills are enslaved to sin. Right.

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See, now you have to be careful. Yeah, and I think you could probably distinguish between, when you talk about antinomianism, we might mean by that, and we do have people in the

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American church who, because of the gospel and because of the free grace of God, they conclude, I can live however

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I want, and there's not really a real, maybe there's not even a real trust in Christ there.

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And that's one way of speaking about antinomianism. But then in a more technical sense, antinomianism is anti -law.

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So if you are not Sabbatarian, most people, at least in the

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Reformed tradition, would say you're an antinomian. But they might not accuse you of not being a pious individual who wants to walk with the

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Lord closely. So there's even technical, there's a distinction there, which I think we probably didn't make coming from a different background than the

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Reformed tradition. I think you're probably right. Yes, certainly when you think about free grace, there's people that, like Jude 4 says, they're godless men, and they change the grace of God into licentiousness and immorality,

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Jude 4. But Paul knows, anticipating responses when it comes to justification after Romans 3, 4, and 5.

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Should we go on sinning so that grace may increase? And we know the answer. And elsewhere, like in Galatians, we're not to use our freedom to indulge in sin.

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So as far as I know, I've not met one person that distinguishes these, you know, neonomian, antinomian, this kind of discussion, justification, sanctification.

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I don't know of one person who says, I want to sin as much as I can because I can. Right. Right, and I think what

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I love to think about is, well, even if we do have people who are abusing grace, there's a section from Luther, I believe it's in his

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Galatians commentary, where he talks about people will abuse the gospel.

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People will sin because grace abounds. That's why Paul has to give this command.

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But what are we then to do? Do we, as stewards, as those who have been entrusted with the gospel, who are to guard the deposit that we've been entrusted with, to carefully adhere to what's been written, to protect the tradition, not man -made tradition, but the tradition of Scripture and the gospel.

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Are we then, because of pragmatism and people abusing grace, are we to change the message?

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And Luther then goes on to say something like, and I'm paraphrasing because I'm in the car driving by the ocean, looking at the waves, but Luther says, what are we going to do then?

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Give them the law? Because people can't be trusted with the gospel and they'll abuse it. Are we going to now give them the law?

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The thing that is not going to sanctify them, it's not going to have any transforming power.

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It's only going to condemn. The only thing we can give sinners, because we are not, we have no authority, but a derived authority and a ministerial authority, we have to still give them the gospel.

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And then we warn and then we church discipline, then we confront, then we exhort, but we are not allowed to change the message because it's not our message.

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Maybe we could get dogs, and next time we get dogs, we call one antinomian and the other neonomism.

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Yeah, but what if it switches around and one is way more obedient and it's the antinomian? What happens then?

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You said Luther, so here's a Luther quote on Romans 12. A law driver insists with threats and penalties.

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A preacher of grace lures and incites with divine goodness and compassion shown to us, for he wants no unwilling works and reluctant services.

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He wants joyful and delightful services of God. Isn't that good?

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That's great. Yeah. It's so good. And by the way, people always want to say Luther is an antinomian, especially in certain reform circles.

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You know, that's Lutheran. That's a Lutheran view of this. That's a Lutheran view of that. And there are Lutheran, there are distinctions between what we believe and what the

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Lutheran church teaches. But Luther is the one who came up with the term antinomian, defending the importance of obedience in the

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Christian life. So that's just that one for free. That's from Dr. Clark, so I can't take credit, but I like it.

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You're a crypto -Lutheran, Luke. Well, if I'm a crypto -Lutheran as it pertains to justification and law gospel, thank you.

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Thanks for the compliment. Appreciate that. Jerry Bridges has that great book,

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Transforming Grace, and here's a little snippet. I'll read the snippet of the book,

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Transforming Grace, subtitled Living Confidently in God's Unfailing Love, and then you give me whatever comment you want.

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Bridges. I was asked to speak on the lordship of Jesus Christ at a conference.

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I knew the intended objective was to challenge the audience to submit to the lordship of Christ in the affairs of their everyday lives.

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But I began the message by speaking on God's goodness. After I had spent 15 or 20 minutes on the goodness of God, then

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I began to talk about the lordship of Christ in our lives. Comments?

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That's good. Yeah. Well, of course, and we have to preach and teach the lordship of Jesus Christ, that Jesus is

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Lord of all, and He reigns and rules over all things, seated at the right hand of the Father, and that should be something that we love as Christians, and that we can say with the early church,

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Jesus is Lord. So I think that's great, and it just reminds me of some reading that I'm doing right now for class through Meredith Klein, and he talks about the

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Abrahamic covenant and how even to Abraham, who

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Paul summarizes as receiving the gospel in the Abrahamic covenant, and that might be argued and parsed out differently by different people, but who

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Paul says this is the gospel, the Abrahamic covenant, and yet in the Abrahamic covenant, God gives exhortations.

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He says, walk this way. Walk before me and be blameless. And so even in that share example of a gracious, unconditional covenant where God swears the oath, we see that there are still implications for the

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Christian life and that repentance is an evangelical saving grace. It doesn't mean that it justifies, but it is present in the believer.

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So that's why I just reminded me of Klein. I just like that example of even Abraham, in that great example of the gospel, he is given commandments that he doesn't do to earn the inheritance, but that he does out of gratitude.

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Look, why do you think certain people from certain theological traditions and backgrounds don't seem to hear us or to understand us when we talk like this?

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What do you think the rub is? I think sometimes, at least

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I could speak for myself when I started hearing these different things. If you come for me,

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I'll just speak for myself because I can't speak for other people. But for myself, I'm a prideful person.

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So if I haven't heard about something before and something maybe hasn't gotten the airtime that it deserves, and I've studied the

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Bible for a long time, and I did study the Bible before I learned some of these things, it can be hard to adjust and change your views with new information.

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So I think that's a factor. And then I think sometimes these conversations get derailed by certain eschatological views.

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What do you believe about the end times? What do you believe about the rapture? What are your views on the nation of Israel?

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And so the views that we are talking about or the teachings that we're talking about are usually connected with covenant theology.

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And usually covenant theology is connected to amillennialism. And so there's such a desire to avoid the amillennial position or anything besides other eschatology, eschatological views, that you're going to now neglect things like the law of gospel distinction or the covenant of works and the covenant of grace because of these inherent connections.

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So I think those things are connected. I think it's actually right to see. If you go down the road of law of gospel, you're probably going to go down the road of covenant theology.

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That's true. But this is just Protestantism. This is just being a

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Christian that is following the Protestant Reformation. And not because the Reformation or the

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Reformed tradition is in and of itself inspired, but because it's biblical. Talking to Luke Abenroth today on No Compromise Radio Ministry.

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And when you talk law of gospel, we're essentially talking, as you know, Luke, covenant of works and covenant of grace.

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So I think you've got that nailed down. A thought just occurred to me while you were talking. Some people are saying, you know what, we don't talk about the lordship of Jesus enough.

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And we believe that Jesus is Lord. Obviously, we're just trying to say to people, you don't have to forsake sin in order to come to Christ.

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We want to have that lordship talk in a different manner. But some people who are criticizing us, they don't even think

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Jesus is ruling today. Isn't that interesting? So talk about how are we the non -lordship ones when they're denying the lordship of Jesus ruling today

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Davidic throne. Right. Right. That's true. It's a good observation.

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I just think it becomes an emotional discussion. So, you know, we don't want to be emotional. We talk about these things and we want to hear someone out.

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And we want to hear their conclusions and we want to ask questions. So I understand when you've been saying something or you think a certain way.

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And I think these people that you're talking about, this group who really wants to emphasize other aspects of faith besides the principal parts which are arresting and receiving.

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I think that they have a true desire to see obedience and sanctification.

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But unfortunately, I think there's a muddying of the waters of what faith really is.

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And I think a lot of it could just be cleared up by going to the church history. We can look at faith and repentance and we can say with the apostles, repent and believe.

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But we can still say that faith alone is the instrument by which we are justified before God.

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That faith is the only thing that we rest in to receive the promises of the gospel. And repentance is an evangelical saving grace that every person who puts their trust in Jesus Christ will have repentance.

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But there's a reason why in our tradition, and I don't mean to say that over and over like we just hold to a tradition.

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But in the believers that have gone before that have the Holy Spirit, that have pointed out these things from the scripture, there's a reason why responding to Roman Catholicism they didn't talk about justification by repentance.

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They didn't say that repentance and faith are the same thing. They're connected, but they're different and they are to be distinguished.

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So they're not separated, but they are distinguished. I like that. Have you read any of the

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Richard Mueller, is it four volumes or three volumes? I think

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I'm working on volume three now. Wow. I'm on his simplicity section, but I haven't read one or two.

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I just skipped ahead to three. Well, I don't know what it's even about, but I know it's probably over my head.

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I think the number one is on scriptures or something like that. Three is on attributes and essence of God, Trinity, stuff like that.

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Let me give you a quote by someone, and then you just—I'm not even going to tell you who it is. But in the context of holy living and possibly making the inference that I can live whatever way

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I want if I'm completely justified and will never be unjustified, here's what one guy said.

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The problem isn't that we made the gospel too good. The problem is we didn't make the gospel good enough.

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What do you make of that in terms of if we forget how wonderful the gospel is, that's going to affect the way we live?

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Yeah, I don't know if I understand the quote, so maybe you have to read more when we hear your thoughts about it. Well, if you've got people who call themselves

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Christians and who are, and they're trying to get away with sin because they think they're justified, how do you solve the problem for those people?

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And is that to add more legalism and more law to grace, or is it to have them be amazed by how great

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God is and how generous He is and how good really Jesus is in the work of redemption, and so that you're overloaded now with gratitude and respond properly?

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I think that's what the guy was after. Right, well, that sounds great. And I think the thing to really change the conversation, and if you're speaking to somebody about this, then you could just slow down with them and just tell them,

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I want to obey. I want to grow in holiness. I want to fight sin. But then you could just,

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I think, set the conversation a little bit differently by saying, I want to obey from the heart, and I want other people to obey from the heart.

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I want to sincerely love Christ. Because I love Christ, I want to obey

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His commandments, and I want to rejoice in the Lord, and I want to have peace in all my circumstances and be content.

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And the way to get there, even by the model of the epistles, is by the freeness of the gospel, by assurance in the promises of God in Christ.

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It's not by manipulating that assurance, not by trying to take it away. Yes, there are people that have false assurance, and those people, when they're living in unrepentant sin, are to be confronted.

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And then, you know, because we're Christians and we live in a relationship with others in the church, then that sin is to be dealt with in the process of church discipline.

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But I just think if you can reframe the conversation about wanting sincere obedience from the heart, it helps people.

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Because how are you going to produce sincere obedience? If you make it all about, have you done enough, is there any area in your life that you're not surrendered, then the obedience comes out of a motive of fear.

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I believe the Belgian Confession uses the language of servile works, you know, and then you'll fall back into fear.

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And even that famous hymn talks about servile works were done. And it's this servant mindset.

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And what we're after is we want to be obedient as sons. And the works that are done in fear are not pleasing to God as our

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Father. That doesn't mean that we should only obey when we feel like it. But at the end of the day, we are after a real heart obedience to God.

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And what affects that is the preaching of the gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ.

22:43

Awesome. That's good insight, Luke. Give me some more insight from some of your West Cal classes lately.

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Have you learned anything that's kind of stuck in your mind lately that you thought, oh, that's a great thought, or that was a good reminder, or that was new?

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What's gone on in your mind since we've talked last? I think just there's a lot of thoughts that I have about Westminster.

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I've really loved the seminary and learning a lot. When I can read books, then I'm not studying Greek and Hebrew, which

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I am thankful for, but which is much more challenging. It's even more fun. So I think I'm in the medieval church and reformation class with Dr.

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R. Scott Clark right now. It just keeps coming up is just how similar the issues are that we have to deal with.

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Over and over, the same issues are brought up. The same enemies are confronted.

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The same perversions and twistings of the gospel must be combated every generation.

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And so you see things like, for example, the remonstrance of the Armenians and the federal vision theology.

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These things are the same. As Dr. Clark says, I think he got this from Chris Gordon, but if you read some of the statements about the remonstrance in the

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Canons of Dort, and you just take out the word remonstrant and put in federal visionist, it fits like a glove.

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So just things like that. Or, for example, this idea of medieval theology, the context that Luther and the reformers grew up in, with what we've had to memorize for one of our tests with what's called the facientibus, a

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Latin phrase for what most of probably your listeners have already heard, the idea that those who do what lies within them,

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God will not deny grace. This idea that you are saved by grace and cooperation with grace.

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And let's really avoid these legal categories, this cold legalism of justification and being declared righteous and having

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Christ's obedience imputed to your account. Let's get rid of that. What we really need is we need a relationship that's personal, that's close, that's real, that's actually transforming.

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And if we don't have that, we cannot stand before God. And just that idea is so prevalent, whether you look at the new perspective on Paul, whether you look at the federal vision heresy, whether you look at final justification advocates, which are everywhere in evangelicalism that were justified now, but there's this future aspect of justification.

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And they're all basically saying the same thing. You are saved by grace and by cooperation with grace.

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And when you get that into your system, when you start to hear that and you see what that produced in honest men like Luther and their despair, whenever you see it anywhere else, you just want to run.

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You want to run or you want to pull out the sword and stand and fight. So I think that's one of the most beneficial things about a seminary education or even just educated in church history is just to remember that there's really not new issues and to have,

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I was just explaining to my wife today, to have bumper rails like you're bowling with your kids and you put these rails up and you've got these protections to make sure you don't just go down the gutter of the same heresies of Pelagianism, Semi -Pelagianism,

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Trent. I mean, I know I've said things in my life that sound like the counsel of Trent, and I regret that.

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You and I were talking the other day. It's interesting how accurately Trent summarized the

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Reformation doctrines. You want to know what we believe? You can see what

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Trent says, and we believe exactly what they're condemning. I know also,

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Luke, that you've been learning a lot from Dr. Clark, and tell me how you've learned from his required reading of the

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Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter. Yeah, well,

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I think if he hears this, he's not going to be happy with that question. I'll just say it for him. It's not true.

27:08

Dr. Clark, I don't think you are. I think he would actually, you know what, though? He would have us read it if we were—we're not doing the—we're not talking about the

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English Reformation much or Puritanism, which is much later, whatever that even means, you know, Puritanism, but we're not covering that era of history.

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I think he would actually have us read that because we do read a lot of works and authors that we don't agree with, but I'm sure he'd probably want us to read it and then use it at the next camping trip to start our fires.

27:39

Well, Luke, it's been good to talk with you today. Before we end our conversation, any thoughts about being a new dad?

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You know, I know what it was like to be a dad for the first time and things that went through my mind. What's going through your mind these days about the

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July 4th due date and the excitement of being a dad?

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I think there's a lot of things going through my mind. One of them is time to buckle up.

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You know, I want to be a good leader. I want to be a good dad. I want to be disciplined. I want to lead by example.

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So it is a motivating force. But also I think another thing is I'm just excited.

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I'm just excited to meet the baby, to be a dad. And then when you, you know,

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I haven't been married very long, but when I got married, you understand more about what, why does the

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Lord picture his relationship to us as Christ in the church or as the bride and the groom?

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And you understand that more and you get older. And I'm sure for you, when you have grandkids or you do have grandkids now, it's even different.

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But just being able to understand the fatherly instinct that I already have, and then I know that's going to be increased when we actually have the baby.

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I'm excited for that. Just to understand the Lord's provision and his desire to protect more as I feel that way about my own child.

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So I think it's going to be sanctifying in multiple senses. It's kind of like the law of gospel right there to end on.

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I get the law. I did the law first. That's okay. But I want to grow. I want to man up. I want to make sure

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I'm a good example, that I'm a good leader. And then I got this other desire that I want to understand who

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God is more as my father. So there we go. I didn't even mean to do that. It's just built into the system.

29:31

Well, one of the things that's really helped me the last 10 years, especially Luke, is to work through, and I know you already know this, but for the sake of our listeners, sometimes we make our human fathers—whoa—our human fathers, we'll give them the benefit of the doubt or we'll say, oh, we admire that in them as they provide for, pity, protect.

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They don't kick out their children because of disobedience. And then we make our sinful human fathers more, quote -unquote, like God than God himself is.

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And if we pity, provide, and protect, how much more does the Lord do that as he is our father because of the son's work?

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That's great. Well, I'm excited to have even a better example of that. Yeah, it's so true.

30:19

Well, thanks for being on No Compromise Radio today. You're off of Twitter now, right,

30:25

Luke? So people can't get ahold of you even if they wanted to. I don't think they need to get ahold of me.

30:31

They usually remember my age. I don't really have much to say, at least writing -wise. I'd be happy for them to hear me on this or preach someday, but I think maybe your advice about writing books when you're older is probably good for Twitter.

30:46

That's probably right. I've kind of backed off of most of my Twitter comments, but once in a while at midnight