The Beza Briefing - The First Adam

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, ìBut we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour ,î 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 isnít for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as weíre called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Hereís our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. Mike Abendroth here.

Feeling pretty good today. Itís January 4th, 2022, and this show should air January 6th, 2022. So welcome, January 6th. Probably all kinds of things in the news on January 6th. But I donít want to really talk about that.

Thank you for praying. I feel pretty good. Usually tired, but feeling good. Iíve got some kind of frog in my throat. I think itís unrelated, irrespective, regardless ofóit has nothing to do with me being sick, and the doctor said my lungs are slowly getting better, and I try to work out and all that stuff.

He said, ìWell, thatís good for your body, but your lungs justóit just takes time .î So they found some inch-long abscess or something, and they said, ìThatís probably just some COVID thing. Letís have another CAT scan in a month, and if you have any sharp pains or fever, then come in .î But so far, no sharp pains, no fever.

Theodore Beza on the First Adam and the Last Adam

Today on No Compromise Radio, I want to pick up something that Iíve neglected in the past, and I have good reason. Part of the reason is Iím just scatterbrained. The other part of the reason is I was fairly sick for quite some time, and I have in front of me a book that Iíd like you to get sometime, and it is called The Christian Faith by Theodore Beza.

You can pick this up. Mine is published by, as I said, printing in Crawford, England. I think you can get other ones. But itís a short little systematic theology written by Theodore Beza, and itís important for you to read.

Iím reading now a summary of The Christian Faith by Louis Burkhoff. Thatíd be another one thatís excellent. I just read a little section every day. Today I read the section on creation, which talks about the pitfalls of evolution, talks a little bit about days and how many days, and is it a literal day, is it not?

Talks about the creation of angels and what they do. Pretty good section about angels, actually, that reminded me I probably should just do a whole show on what angels do, who they are. I was encouraged when I read that.

But todayís not Burkhoff. Today is Theodore Beza, and so far weíve been doing some briefings with Beza, and we have covered the Trinity, and now weíre into, not God the Father, we did that as well, Christ the Son.

And the way this is set up is, itís set up with the numbering system, itís the third chapter and then itís the sixth paragraph, so that would be 3 -6. If itís the fourth chapter and the second paragraph, thatíd be 4 -2.

But today weíre in chapter 3, I want to say verse 7, section 7, talking about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. What Iím going to do is Iím going to read a little section. I hope youíre encouraged by it. I hope youíre challenged by it.

I hope you believe it. I hope you go get the book, and then Iíll just talk a little bit about the issue. Weíll see what Iím going to say. My son said to me today, ìWhat are you going to talk about when you go into the studio and record some shows ?î And I said, ìWell, that would be very interesting .î And for me, lots of times itís, ìCan you talk cogently, coherently, for 25 minutes, and keep peopleís attention ?î Thereís something to be said for keeping attention.

Thatís why I try to teach my preaching students not to preach for 65 minutes, 68 minutes, 70 minutes, 58 minutes. Stop. Stop that. I donít know where that comes from, but itís rarely good. Iíve met many people that can preach on Sundays, week after week, 60 minutes.

I mean, they can, but I donít know what the congregationís thinking. If you go to a Sunday night, maybe you preach longer because the elect have shown up. If youíre at a conference and youíre asked to speak for 75 minutes, okay, I get all that.

The Necessity of Adam's Original Righteousness

Beza, Christian faith, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 3 .7. Why it was necessary that the first man be created pure. What Bezaís going to do, as we think about the last Adam, and weíre going to have to think about the first Adam, and what the public man, Adam, in the garden did or didnít do, and then what the last public man, the federal head, the covenant head, what Jesus did and didnít do.

So as Adam didnít obey and he sinned, Jesus didnít sin but he obeyed, and thereís a correlation there. Thereís a type-anti type, and we want to make sure we understand that. In order to execute this decree, it was necessary that God create man good and pure.

God, being good, can do nothing which is not good. Moreover, if man had been created wicked, God would not have had a just reason to punish the wickedness of which he would have been the author and creator.

Isnít that very important? It is very, very crucial for Christian theology. Now, if I was going to think about what kids might say, ìGod donít make no junk .î Right? ÌI am who I am in self-esteem, and I made this way .î Or if it was homosexuality, ìI was born this way .î And of course, if we want to, if someone said, ìWell, theyíre born a homosexual ,î I think thereís some theological nuance that I want to give, but at the end of the day, I could say, ìWell, I was born a fornicator .î Right?

And that doesnít get me off the hook, unless God made someone a homosexual and God made someone a fornicator. Because if he made me to fornicate, then it would be on him. If fornication is sin, and it is, and I made a fornicator, I made a sinner, then I just do what sinners do.

I just do what fornicators do. But Ecclesiastes, and of course here, thatís what Bayes is pulling from, God makes man, he made Adam, not a deceiver, not a liar, not someone with unbelief, not someone with lawlessness, but he made Adam upright.

And while Adam had the capabilities to sin, and did, because he was not in a glorified state, he was not made initially as a sinner. Right? So if God makes you a sinner, then you sinners do everything that sinners do, i .e. sin.

And youíre going to have to have the first man created pure, otherwise why would God punish? If he makes a robot to do robot things, then why would the robot get punished for doing robot-y things? Or if youíre an England robot.

The Fall, Imputation, and the First Death

3 .8. ÌIt was necessary that man lose his purity. It was also necessary, of course, that man be created good, yet in such a manner that he be mutable, changeable, however, and fall, by his own fault, from the state of goodness.

For if sin had not thus entered into the world, God would not have found such a great occasion to magnify his mercy ,î Romans 11 .32, ìin saving those whom he has predestined to salvation, nor such a great reason to manifest his justice in condemning those whom he has predestined to his wrath, in order to punish them for their sins .î Now these are my words, Mike Abendrothís words.

So God creates man upright, but he also creates him, them, Adam and Eve, mutable. And you can look at Augustineís little fourfold state and all that stuff. Able to sin, not able to sin, not able to unbe able to sin, you know, all that.

I donít have it in front of me, and Iíll blame my COVID fog. But Adam was able to sin. Letís just say, hereís what I want to say, Adam theoretically obeys God. God tells him not to do, he doesnít do. What God tells him to do, he does.

And he acts righteously. He obeys the law. The positive aspect of the law, Adam upholds. Who would we be praising now? To whom would our praise belong? It wouldnít belong with the Lord Jesus because he wouldnít need to come, itíd be with Adam.

And Adam had to fail the probationary period. And while created good, heís still mutable, and by his own fault, Beza says, he falls. And good thing, because if he didnít fall, then how does God show his justice, and how does God show his mercy?

Interesting to work through. 3 .9, ìHow God created man good. The Lord, therefore, at the time which seemed good to him to execute his eternal purpose, created man, male and female, in his likeness and image, that is to say, in righteousness and true holiness.

Reinforcing the fact, from Genesis 1, Ecclesiastes 7, and Ephesians 4 .24, that in fact God creates man upright .î Thatís key to this, thatís a linchpin in this whole theological system. 3 .10, ìHow man, including all his posterity, made himself liable to the first and second death .î Now Beza writes, ìMan, being created thus, voluntarily and without any constraint, wasnít God making him, tempting him, driving him, enticing him, whipping him, allied himself to the devil by sin.

He thus made himself liable to the first and second death, real death and spiritual death, including all his posterity .î Why? Because he was a public man. He was a representative. He was a federal, covenantal head.

Because God wanted him to be that, ìincluding all his posterity, and in consequence he has also made himself and all his liable to everything which leads to one or the other of these two deaths .î Now when you think about imputation, and you think about Adamís sin, first sin imputed to everyoneís account, except of course for the sinless Lord Jesus, thatís how we talk about the fall, Adamís sin imputed to our account.

Then we say this, consequently, Adam became a sinner. We want to make sure we have the federal headís initial sin and the imputation of that sin from him to us down before we just quick rush to, ìWeíre all sinners .î Thereís a reason why weíre all sinners, and you can look at Romans chapter 5, 12 and following for that.

First death, die, physical death, and then thereís the death of deaths, not in the death of Christ, but the death of death, that is, the death of deaths, the worst death of all, as we might say, the Lord of Lords, to emphasize what kind of Lord it is, the death of deaths, that is, spiritual death, or the second death.

Original Sin, the Bondage of the Will, and Total Depravity

Chapter 3, verse 11, and again, this is Mike Abendroth, weíre going through Theodore Bezos, the Christian faith, a little mini systematic theology. It is only about 111 pages long or so, and Iím just reading the section now on Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and weíre seeing a parallel between Adams, Adam in the garden, and Adam, the Lord Jesus.

311, ìThe way which leads to the first death, the corruption of nature accompanied by a thousand other defects which spring from the sin of Adam through hereditary transmission subjects every man to the first death.

This is the separation of the soul from the body and the putrefaction of the body .î. Isnít it interesting how he says, ìcorruption of nature accompanied by a thousand other defects .î Donít we see that in the world?

The corruption of nature and all the ways it is corrupted, and whether itís DNA corrupted or itís our immune system corrupted or some bad bug, bad cancer gets in there or whatever it might be, a thousand other defects.

I think it was Thomas Watson who said, ìThere are as many ways to die as there are pores in your skin .î. Thatís a lot. Oh, brother. And here, once Adam sinned, the consequences of him being now a sinner just permeated everything.

It just affected everything, right? It affects emotions, it affects the will, the conscience, the mind, intellect, everything. It is what we say, ìwhole depravity .î When I say total depravity, what I mean by that is not that men and women could be as bad as they could be.

Some are very bad. But as they say, Hitler even was nice to his dog until he shot him. But whole, W-H-O-L-E, that is to say, all of manís faculties, all of manís reasonings, all of manís emotions, feelings, conscience, body, the whole of man is affected by the fall.

And thatís bad, and thatís affected his body, and heís going to need a different body to live forever, either in the presence of God in eternal bliss or in the presence of God in eternal hell. 312, the first death cannot be eternal.

The first death cannot be eternal, for if it were so, the body at least would escape eternal death, which consists of perpetual pain and punishment. Similarly, it would never enjoy eternal happiness. By this means, the eternal decree of God concerning the manifestation of His mercy and justice would be annihilated.

And so weíre thankful that Jesus Christ, the resurrection and life, has destroyed death and our bodies, right, and you think of 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 13 and following, how do you encourage one another with these words?

Itís by talking about the Lord Jesus is going to come, and the dead in Christ are going to rise first, and our bodies are going to be changed, right? We think of 1 Corinthians 15, our temporal mortal bodies that have been affected by cancer and lung disease and COVID and all these things.

Now I donít hear so well, I donít see so well, I donít taste so well. I remember the days when actually coffee worked. What if that was the eternal? What if this was an eternal? We would not think thatís good.

Thatís why the first death cannot be eternal. I mean, just think of the consequences of that and the ramifications long term. 313, the way which leads to the second death. Beza writes, ìThe internal corruption of the whole man, no faculty accepted, is what we call original sin .î See, this is the whole, W-H-O-L-E.

ÌIt makes every man, from the first moment of his conception, a child of wrath ,î thatís Ephesians 2, ìand in consequence, subject to the second and eternal death .î Heís not saying theyíre not subject to the first death, but this is even more grave.

How grave? Very grave. ÌFor to say it in a word, this corruption, Beza states, makes us truly incapable and even enemies of all good, and enslaves us totally to sin. This is why St. Augustine said, conformably to Scripture, that human nature has been deprived of its liberty since the will of man was conquered by the corruption to which it yielded .î What a sad, pitiable state that is.

For Adam and for all of us. I mean, could there be anything just more grotesque, more, oh, regrets, to just go back in time and undo what youíve done, but knowing that itís impossible. That is very, very sobering.

ÌHuman nature has been deprived of its liberty since the will of man was conquered by the corruption to which it yielded .î. Oh, this makes me want to groan. Oh. Beza concludes in 313, ìElsewhere, he says, that man, by misuse of his free will, lost both of it and himself.

Elsewhere again, men, he says, strive to find what there is of good in their will, but I do not know how they will be able to find it .î. Thatís brilliant. Thatís why I want you to read Beza when Iím talking about free will.

Okay, we run around looking for what goodís in our will, and they donít even know how to find it. Youíve lost your ring in the sand, and what do you do? You just start digging. You donít know. You donít even know where to dig, right?

You lost it four weeks ago, and the tides have come up and down, and you wish you could think of something like a magnet or metal detector. ÌMen, he says, strive to find what there is of good in their will, but I do not know how they would be able to find it .î Itís impossible.

So now our wills are in bondage. Youíre either free from sinís effects, free from Godís sovereignty, free from Satanís control, free from the enslaving power of the world system. Youíre either free from all those, which youíre not, or youíre enslaved.

Bondage of the will. Thatís a key book. Luther writes The Bondage of the Will in contrast to Erasmusí Freedom of the Will. And if you mean freedom of the will that youíre free to choose based on the nature that you have, fine, but free will is used so many times poorly, I donít like to use the word free will.

Because youíre not free from sin, youíre not free from the world, youíre not free from Satan, and youíre certainly not free from Godís will. Because the kingís heart is in the hands of the Lord, and he turns it whatever way he wishes.

Slaves of sin, Romans 6. Doing the will of Satan, 2 Timothy chapter 2. So is that freedom? Really? Is that freedom to you? Slavery is in freedom. And therefore, when we talk about free will, itís a vacuous term, really, until you define what youíre saying.

Okay, can a bird with a broken wing be free to fly? Well, yeah, theyíre free to fly, but they canít do it. And thatís why we need someone to rescue us. Not to assist us, not to co-operate with us, but to rescue us.

Natural Revelation and the Limits of Free Will

3 .14, our last one for today on the Beza Briefing, ìHowever, we do not deny that men have enough light to render them inexcusable ,î Romans 1, ìwhich is true .î Thatís natural revelation. It doesnít save, it just condemns.

ÌWe do not strip them of their natural faculties, for we say that they have been corrupted, not removed .î So they still can think, they can still feel. ÌThus reason, judgment, and the will, and other things remain.

Men are not pieces of wood .î It reminds me of Luther talking about blocks of wood. ÌNeither do we strip them of free will, Beza, provided that one adds that it is, all of it, nothing but darkness and enmity against God.

Provided that, by this word free will, one does not understand a natural power to think, to desire, and to do either good or evil. The will is not constrained, yet cannot but continually desire only evil .î John 3, Romans 7.

ÌAccordingly, Scripture defines what is good quite differently from human reason. For Scripture, the nature of an unregenerate man, that is to say, of a man who is not restored and as recreated by grace, is not only damaged, it is also totally corrupted and voluntarily enslaved to sin.

Thus St. Augustine said that the corruption which followed the sin of Adam, and which is the punishment of it, has changed liberty into necessity .î Elsewhere he says that free will, captive to sin such as it is, serves for nothing but to sin.

You're free to sin all you want. Do you have freedom? Well, in the sense that you're free to sin, yes. Beza concludes, ìIt sins necessarily, but all the time voluntarily .î. Amazing. So for us, as Beza is working through the section, section three, where he starts with the Trinity, then he moves to the Father, now he's talking about the Son.

He's trying to make sure we understand the first man and the last man, the first Adam and the last Adam. And if you read Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15, that will help you as we understand both are federal representatives, right?

You have two senators that represent you, and when they vote something, then essentially you vote that because they're your representatives. And he has to make sure that we see this correlation between Adam, and then eventually he'll drive us toward the three imputations.

The three imputations, Adam's sin to all of his posterity, except for the Lord Jesus. Remember the Holy Spirit hovering and protecting Mary's egg in her womb, so there would be no sin, or sin nature for the Lord Jesus.

And then Jesus' perfect law-keeping to our account, and then our sins to Jesus' account. That is, in fact, those are, in fact, the three imputations. They are reckoned, they are accounted, they are imputed, they are forensically declared.

So those are the words that I've got for that right now. My name is Mike Abendroth, this is No Compromise Radio Ministry. If you want to write us, or maybe you want a bunch of sexual fidelity books at a pretty discount price, I have those.

And at my son's request, I'm trying to finish up the book that I started 10 years ago on parenting. I don't know if it'll ever come out, I've got probably 20 ,000 words written, I don't know when it'll come out.

I've learned a lot of things the hard way, and therefore I'm no expert except an expert on what not to do, so we can learn from that. But pray for me if you would on that, Mike Abendroth.

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 10 .15, and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org, or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.