April 8, 2024 Show with Tobias Riemenschneider on “The Belligerent Manliness of Christ”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father, James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer, George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister, George Norcross, and sports legend, Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors and Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs 27, verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. 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, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, 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. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy eclipse day on Monday, April the 8th, 2024.

And today, the world, or at least a part of it, is experiencing a rare astronomical experience, apparently like no other. Today's eclipse will be unusually accessible to millions of people, and it was widely anticipated not only for its remarkable period of darkness, but for its rare timing.

No total solar eclipse will be visible from the contiguous United States again until 2044, 20 years from now. But I'm even more excited, much more excited, infinitely more excited, about today's guest.

Today's guest is a returning guest, and his name is Pastor Tobias Riemenschneider, pastor of Evangelical Reformed Baptist Church in Frankfurt, Germany. He's a trained lawyer, the founder of Pro Reggae Ministries, he's an anti-abortion activist, co-author of the Frankfurt Declaration of Christian and Civil Liberties, and the author of the book, Resisting Tyranny, a Christian Response to Government Overreach.

And today we are addressing the theme of an utterly remarkable sermon Tobias recently preached in Mesa, Arizona at Apologia Church. The theme of that message was the belligerent manliness of Christ. I was utterly amazed listening and watching this sermon on YouTube, knowing that that was the very first sermon Pastor Tobias ever preached in the English language, German being his native tongue.

And you would have never guessed that in a million years, and you will never have guessed it when you watch this video, and I hope that all of you do, because he looked and sounded extremely comfortable speaking and preaching in the English language.

But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Pastor Tobias Riemenschneider.

Thank you so much for having me on again, Chris. And it's great, great to know that I'm more exciting than a total eclipse.

Well, you definitely are, actually. At least to me.

Thank you.

And by the way, more important than anything that we are going to discuss today, Pastor Tobias Riemenschneider informed me that my fake German accent in my parody of Martin Luther, party, hearty, Marty, and the protesters, several songs that I created and recorded a number of years ago, over 20 years ago, he got a kick out of that audio recording and said that my German accent was spot on.

I can now go home to glory, knowing.

Yeah, it was very convincing.

I share Simeon's readiness now to depart this earth. But for the sake of our listeners who have not heard you yet on The Dividing Line, Dr. James R. White's webcast, or my dear friend, Pastor Keith Foskey's podcast, your Calvinist podcast with Keith Foskey, for the sake of those who missed the last time you were on Iron Trump and Zion Radio as well, why don't you tell our listeners in more detail about Evangelical Reform Baptist Church in Frankfurt, Germany?

Evangelical Reformed Baptist Church in Frankfurt and the Need for Reformed Churches in Germany

Yes, so the church was constituted in November 2016. So what is this now? Coming up to eight years. The church planting work began in April 2014. And it was actually not started by me, but by my co-pastor, Peter Schilt.

He was sent to Frankfurt to plant a new Reform Baptist Church. And on the very first Bible study he had in his living room in Frankfurt, I was there and I stayed and became his partner and co-pastor when the church was constituted.

We are a 1689 Reform Baptist Church, one of only very few in Germany. We now have about, on each given Sunday, about 150, 160 people attending our services. Many of them young families with children. So of this 160 people, about 60 are young children.

So we are a young and a growing church. And yeah, we also try not to just do church on the Lord's day, just to come together, to preach and listen on the Lord's day. But we want to have an effect on the culture or even also helping other Christians in the German speaking world.

We are doing podcasts. We are on the streets evangelizing. We are fighting abortion. We are currently in the process of building a school, a classical Christian school, and also a publisher for Reform Theology, which is also very needed in Germany.

So we are trying the best we can to not just live for us, but to be a light to others in our country and to advance the kingdom of Christ.

Hallelujah. Well, if anybody is visiting Germany on vacation, or perhaps you're among our listeners in Germany, we do have Iron Trip and Zion Radio listeners in Germany. And the fact that over the past years, I've gotten at least five church recommendation requests from listeners in Germany for churches near the various cities in which they live is proof of the fact that we do have German listeners in Germany.

And in fact, I just recently requested of Pastor Tobias recommendations for two listeners, two different listeners in Germany, and two different cities who are looking for solid Reformed churches and preferably Reformed Baptist churches.

So we both know, both Pastor Tobias and I, and especially Pastor Tobias since he lives there, that a lot of prayer needs to ascend to our Lord's throne of grace that the doctrines of the Protestant Reformation would be rekindled in that very country where Martin Luther was used of God to spark the flames of the Protestant Reformation and that the true doctrines of sovereign grace would be one day prevalent in that country.

And sadly and tragically, they are scarcely found in churches there today. And I would hope that even within my lifetime, there would come a point where when a listener in Germany asks for a church recommendation, I can easily find one for them no matter what city they live in.

And I know that that is a great burden on your heart as well, brother.

Yes, I'm just reminded. So yesterday on the Lord's Day, we had visitors from Zurich, from Switzerland, and they came all the way, I'm not sure, six, seven hours or so. They drove to visit our church and they brought a huge basket, a gift basket with beautiful stuff from Switzerland.

I'm sure those two, so far for my co-pastor Peter and I, and I'm sure those two gift baskets were very expensive because they were really good stuff in there. And just to show you how great the need actually is.

So there are people from Zurich in Switzerland driving up to us six, seven hours, giving us these presents because they are so grateful that they can listen to something. They don't really have anything in their vicinity, at least not that they know of.

So there's really a great need in the German-speaking world for more Reformed churches. And that's just one story to illustrate that maybe.

Yeah, well, if anybody, as I was starting to say, if anybody either who lives in Germany or is visiting Germany, or if they have family, friends, and loved ones living in Germany, especially if they live in Frankfurt, Germany, you can visit the website of the Evangelical Reformed Baptist Church of Frankfurt at erb-frankfurt .de.

Erb-frankfurt .de, I'm sorry. And if you are not living in or visiting Frankfurt but some other city, contact Pastor Tobias and perhaps he'll be able to help you find a solid church. Even if it's not one that agrees with our Reformed faith and our confession, perhaps it will at least be a gospel-centered, Christ-centered, and faithful gospel-preaching church.

And we will repeat that information later on in the program. And please also tell us, our listeners, about the Frankfurt Declaration of Christian and Civil Liberties.

The Frankfurt Declaration of Christian and Civil Liberties

Oh, yeah. So I wrote this declaration together with two pastors, one from France, he's actually an American pastor, but he has been a missionary to France for 40 years, and a pastor from South Africa.

And we met over, I'm not exactly sure, for at least half a year, maybe longer. We regularly met to write this declaration. And this is in response, especially to the state measures regarding COVID. We felt that this was a huge overreach of the state, at least in many countries, certainly in Germany and other countries.

And we thought that the church needs to respond to that with a declaration. And so that was the idea. We drafted this declaration. It's not just about COVID, it's broader. We tried to get something, to put together something that is not just relevant for a few COVID years, but tackles those issues on a more basic level, which will hopefully be helpful for years, and maybe even longer to come.

It is really dealing with the core issues that we face in our societies and our cultures. What is truth? Who does decide what is good and what is evil, what is right and what is wrong? Does the state decide this, or does God decide this?

And also how should individuals, how should Christians, and how should the church respond to overreaches? So what if the state says, well, there is no God over me, so this makes me God, and I now say what is good and what is evil, and I call good evil and evil good.

For example, I tell you now that it is good to be a homosexual or a transgender, and you have to agree and to follow along. How should the church respond to those issues? And so I hope this is a document that will be helpful on a very basic level, how to deal with all the issues we see in our current culture, at least in the Western world.

Yes, and this Frankfurt Declaration is available in a number of languages, including English, and you can find out more about it at frankfurtdeclaration .com, frankfurtdeclaration .com. Isn't it fascinating how the minions of Satan, the evil ones, and in particular leftists, will always accuse their enemies of the very things that they are doing?

Yes, yes, exactly.

And they always make the charge that it is we conservative Bible-believing Christians that are trying to take over governments and so on and impose our beliefs and will upon all the citizens of any nation where you happen to live, and in reality, they are aggressively doing that.

And since they make the false claim that it is different for them because their views are not religious in nature, they seem to get away with this, and leftist ideology and anti-Christian worldview is religious, it's just a very dangerous, false, and satanic religion, right?

Right, all the people who claim that they have no religion, they just don't know they have, but we are always influenced by some spirit. It's either the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, or it is some demonic spirit.

And yeah, people who claim they have no religion are just, either they are not really telling the truth or they just don't know how influenced they actually are by those religions, by those ideologies that are anti-Christian.

Amen, well, today, our specific topic, as I've already mentioned, is the theme of a sermon that I recently viewed that was preached by Tobias Riemenschneider at Apologia Church in Mesa, Arizona during one of his visits here to the States, and it was his very first English sermon that he's ever preached.

By the way, was this your first visit to the States?

No, it was my third time. Actually, the first time was 22 years ago in 2002. That was the first time I encountered born-again Christians. I was with a host family in Wisconsin, and that was the beginning of my conversion.

And then I came back a few years later to visit them again. But I've not been to the States for probably 10 years now or so. So it's the first time in a long time, yeah.

Well, you know, you just reminded me, one of our listeners, Mary in Cork, Ireland, was so thrilled to hear of your testimony because she listened to our previous interview. And she operates a boarding house, for lack of a better term, travelers rent rooms in her home in Cork, Ireland from all over the world.

And she is a Christian, so she was very encouraged that the evangelism and the not only speaking and declaring the gospel of Christ verbally, but living it out right before the eyes of those lodging in her home gave her more confidence that the Lord was going to use that to bring souls to saving faith.

Yes. So hope you're listening today, Mary in Cork, Ireland. But the theme, the belligerent manliness of Christ. Belligerent, first of all, I think typically, at least in America, when that comes up in a phrase, it's usually some kind of an insult.

Like, stop being so belligerent. But really, really, it just means, does it not, that you are ready to do battle and do battle over worthy causes. Not to invent reasons to go to war with people or to be the hostile aggressor against the innocents, but protecting those that you love from harm, whether it be in your home or whether it be in your nation.

And so belligerent does not need to be viewed as a negative adjective, correct?

Right, right. So I think it comes from the Latin bellum, right? I think that's still in there, bellum, which means war. So it means being ready to go to war. And I know that it has some negative connotation, or at least can have some negative connotations.

So I knew this title would be a little provoking, but I wanted it to be that way, so.

You know, in our modern culture, and it's actually been going on for decades, but even if you didn't use a provocative term like that, the very notion of highlighting the masculinity of Christ is tragically going to raise eyebrows with many people, even in so-called conservative Bible-believing churches and homes.

Yeah, yeah, and you know, I've preached this message in German two weeks or so before I preached it in America. I still changed a lot. I worked at least two or three more days on the message to make some changes, yeah, to adapt it a little bit to the situation in America.

But I basically essentially preached the same message in Germany and in America. And I think I preached it both times, once at my church, once at Apologia Church. I think I preached it both times in a, well, in a setting, yeah, to an audience that is a little used to that maybe.

But I, of course, know that there are many to whom this very idea of a manly and maybe sometimes even aggressive and belligerent Christ is very foreign, and they have huge issues with that, yeah, because that's not, you know, and even, so, you know, the comments are activated under the sermon, so you can read a bit through the comments.

And I did that because in my church, we do not have the comments activated, they're deactivated. So it was interesting for me to read a little bit through the comments. And you sometimes get this, that people are really trying to warn you, yeah, but if you build a entire theology out of this, but no one is saying that we are doing that, you know.

And it's interesting how careful everyone wants to be when it's about the manliness and the strength of Christ. But if I've preached a sermon on the meekness or the gentleness of Christ, I'm pretty sure no one would have warned against making a theology out of this also.

So, and of course, there are probably more dangers. I'm not even sure if that's true, but there might be more dangers if you want to imitate a belligerent manliness of Christ, because Christ, of course, has a holy and always sinless wrath.

And everything he does and says is sinless and holy. And we, of course, often don't have. So our wrath might be partly holy and partly unholy. So, of course, there are some traps, but the entire idea of the sermon was, no, we are called to imitate Christ.

And I believe we are called to imitate him in everything because everything he does is absolutely good and righteous and holy. And that's not just true for his meekness and gentleness and love, but it's also true for his manliness and strength and harsh words he sometimes used.

Now, how do you think many Christians I mean, it's possible that this might even include the majority of Christians, at least professing Christians, arrived at this notion of Jesus Christ being this pacifist that, it's amazing that even some who believe in the inerrancy of scripture, you wonder how did they come up with this idea reading the Gospels and reading the Bible?

This idea, you sometimes wonder, did they get this idea from television and movie depictions of Jesus where Jesus Christ is always depicted or at least many times, most of the time, especially in the past, as if he is walking around on a heavy dose of Valium or something and almost bordering on effeminate.

And the only time that you see him with the manly side come out is when they accurately depict him driving out the money changers from the temple. They usually include that story because it is such a amazing story and it would be ridiculous to leave it out.

But where did this come from? I mean, to your knowledge, I don't know how much searching you've done into history about this, but I mean, was that always a prevalent error in church history dating back centuries even or even millennia where people were passing on this understanding of Jesus as being almost, to give an analogy or a stereotype, the hippie who is tranquilized on some kind of drug and never raises his voice or never shows an ounce of robust manliness in his public ministry?

Yeah, so I guess it's difficult to say where this started. I don't think, I mean, I'm sure that feminism has something to do with it because feminism now tells us that any manliness is toxic, but I don't think it started with feminism.

I think it started much earlier. Even if you look at older pictures, hundreds of years old, where the pictures that depict Jesus. So normally he is shown as a very handsome, soft, long-haired, almost metrosexual man.

I think Wally Baulkham in his famous sermon, Sisyphus Jesus, he said, you know, he has such a beautiful hair, he could work as a shampoo model.

In fact, every single depiction on film and basically in art as well that I've ever seen of Jesus, they all violate the scripture because they make him a GQ model. They use an actor that is stunningly handsome to portray him, and the Bible is clear that he was not.

Yeah, yeah, and you know, even if you look back, there is this, oh, what's the word? So they have this cloth where they claim that's actually the cloth that Jesus was wrapped in.

Oh, the Shroud of Turin.

Exactly, exactly, the Shroud of Turin, exactly. And even that shows Jesus, a picture of Jesus that is close to that one, right, with this long hair and so on. And of course, you know, we don't know exactly how Jesus looked.

The Bible doesn't explain that to us. So, you know, I was wondering if this maybe, maybe even has something to do, and I'm just speculating, I'm not sure of that, maybe even goes back to the times of the New Testament when we had at least some rise of proto-Gnosticism or even worship of angels.

If something of that has something to do with that. So a Jesus that is not really a man anymore, but is more like some angelic being that really has no human emotions anymore. So it seems to me that something like that has happened, that we actually made Jesus not really a human, not really a man, but something more like an angelic being floating over everything.

But Jesus was and still is a true man and true God, but he's also truly man. And this aspect, I think, got somehow lost. You know, if you read through some of those passages, you know, I preached especially on Matthew 23, where Jesus, for the last time, really takes on the Pharisees and scribes in the temple.

If you read this and imagine how this actually happened to back then, 2000 years ago, it's really difficult to read this and not see how much emotion was in there and how much wrath and even fear. And I think that's how we have to read the Bible.

We have to understand that he was not just truly God, but also truly man. And he had emotions and there was wrath and there was fear. And only then actually make those scenes really sense. You talked about the cleansing of the temple, turning over of tables and so on.

I always, and I think many Christians probably have, had really difficulties with those passages because that was not Jesus-like. That was not Christ-like. And I couldn't really understand why did Christ behave in that way?

But if you actually read the Bible correctly, yeah, really imagine how did this really happen and Jesus really acting as a man in this real situation with real emotions and so on, I think then things become much more clearer and Christ becomes much more a true man and not just some, I don't know, angelic being floating above everything.

Yeah, in fact, it recalls to my memory from decades ago on one of Bill Maher's old television shows, I don't know if you have any idea of being a native of Germany and still a citizen there, if you have any knowledge of who Bill Maher is, but he's a former stand-up comedian who has become a political talk show host.

And he is typically quite left-wing, although sometimes he surprises his listeners by coming up with common-sense approaches that would tend to be more popular amongst conservatives. But years ago, he was interviewing a Christian, and I can't remember who it was, that was definitely a theologically-reformed Christian.

In fact, I remember he had a baseball cap that had a picture of John Calvin's face on it. And he was talking about how Christ is going to punish the wicked and so on. And Bill Maher said, that's not the Jesus we all know and love.

And for the first time I can recall ever, Bill Maher being silenced to the point where he couldn't respond. When this guest said, Mr. Maher, you don't know the first thing about Jesus Christ. And it was patently obvious he didn't, but that is a very common understanding.

I can even remember being at a Bible study and the pastor, who was a sovereign grace-believing man, a Calvinist, Reformed Baptist, was saying that we should not, in our evangelism, walk around saying to everyone we meet, even when we don't know if they're saved or lost, and they're total strangers to us, Jesus loves you and died for you.

And this woman, who was a member of the church, when she was asked, because she was protesting this, she was asked to point out a scripture, any scripture, where that was the line of evangelism by anyone in New Testament days.

And she couldn't find any verse, because there isn't any. And she said, well, I don't care. I'm still going to tell people that. Because it's this idea that we only want to focus on the kind and loving Jesus, and we are offering, in our bad terminology that's unbiblical, false comfort and hope to people who are reprobates and enemies of Christ.

Am I going too far there?

No, you're absolutely right. So it would be a lie to tell someone, God loves you, Christ loves you, when he is a reprobate, because the Bible actually says that God hates those. Many would say, no, God hates sin, but he loves the sinner.

Well, that is true for us who are saved, who are Christians. He loves us, even though we still sin. But the reprobate sinner, it's I think it's Psalm 11 or 12, it's all over the Psalms, but somewhere specifically it says, his soul hates them.

So all his being, all his feelings, speaking in a human way, but his entire being hates the sinner, not just the sin, the sinner, and his wrath is upon those who are his enemies, and who do not turn and believe in Christ.

In fact, R .C. Sproul responded to that statement. Jesus hates the sin, but loves the sinner. R .C. Sproul responded, but he sends sinners to hell. He doesn't send sins to hell.

Exactly, yeah, right. No one in hell will say, oh, God loves me. He just hates my sin. No, that's not how it is, yeah.

Well, let's pick up where we left off there, because we have to go to our first break. If anybody has a question for Pastor Tobias Riemenschneider on the belligerent manliness of Jesus Christ, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Don't go away, we're gonna be right back.

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Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur. In the film, Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner, Eric Liddell, remarked that he felt God's pleasure when he ran.

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So go to royaldiadem .com today and mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We do have a listener questions. I wasn't planning on taking a listener question so soon, but since it has relevance to what we were just saying before the break, we have Prudence in Watermill, Long Island, New York, who asks, where in the Bible does it say Jesus was ugly?

Well, it doesn't say that, but in Isaiah 53, two, it says that he has no stately form or majesty that we would look at him, nor an appearance that we would take pleasure in him. And other translations, like the King James Bible uses the phrase that he hath no form nor comeliness, and more modern translations say he had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him.

So he was probably just an average-looking Jew, am I right, Tobias? Oh, sorry about that, I had you on mute, Tobias.

Oh, okay.

I said he was probably just an average-looking Jew, correct?

Yeah, yes. So there was nothing in his outward appearance that would have drawn people especially to him. So probably not a model.

Right. So if you could, I think I interrupted you before the break, so if you wanted to continue on the thread that you were planning to take us.

Yes, yes, happy to do so. Maybe just one thing I said before that we have this image of Jesus like an angelic being floating over everything. Of course, we also have unbiblical images of angels, especially if you think an angel is a rabbi, baby.

No, they are indeed very old and huge creatures that can kill thousands of the best soldiers in one night.

Yeah, and they struck terror in the minds and hearts of people when they saw them.

Exactly, exactly. So also angels are not just beautiful models and some effeminate beings also. So yeah, but just to make that clear. And so where we left off, I guess, is why is it that we have this image of Jesus that we even will tell people, we know Jesus loves you, Jesus loves everyone, which is just not true.

That's not the biblical teaching. And some people would say, yeah, but so did God love the world? That's true, he loved the world he has made, but that does not mean that he loves every single sinner, especially, yeah, the Bible tells us otherwise.

And I think one reason why we have this effeminate and rather weak and just all forgiving and all loving Jesus is that he is harmless. No, he is not a threat to anyone. No one has to be afraid of him.

He's a nice guy, he means you no harm. And that is something everyone can easily cope with. Even the unbeliever can like a Jesus like that. But if you have actually the biblical view of Jesus, then he becomes terrifying.

You know, when we read in Revelation that all people will cry out even to the mountains, to fall on them and hide them from the wrath of the lamb. So that is Jesus. His wrath is so terrifying that people would rather be smashed by rocks.

And so in the beginning of Revelation, when John first sees Jesus, he falls on his face like dead. So that is what happens if you see Jesus. You almost die. That's the fear he strikes in people. And of course, no one likes that.

No one wants that. So we rather have a weak and friendly and harmless Jesus. And the problem is if that is our Jesus, then the church becomes like him. So the church also becomes effeminate and weak and eventually harmless.

Harmless to Satan and his kingdom. There's no real power left in the church to actually go to battle, to actually fight Satan, fight darkness, and really advance the kingdom with all the means Christ gave us.

And that's not just being nice and friendly to everyone, but that's also using the word of God as a sword that pierces and a hammer that smashes.