Literal Resurrection (Part 1)

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.

The Resurrection as Central to the Gospel

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, Abendraft, Haferhorf, Admiral. So what�s going on today? Well, today is the day we�re going to talk about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now why are we going to talk about the resurrection of Christ Jesus? Well, it is central to the Christian faith. It is mandatory to believe. It is part of the gospel. How can Jesus�s death be good news if He stayed in the grave?

When Jesus died on the cross and said, �It is finished, te telestai, the work that the Father had sent Him to do was done completely and the redemption that Christ accomplished was done. That doesn�t sound right, but Christ accomplished redemption.

So how do we know it worked? If Jesus wasn�t raised from the dead, there are all kinds of domino-like conclusions that prove fatal to Christianity. Jesus is not raised from the dead. Well, what He said in Luke 18 and other passages about how the Son of Man is going to suffer and die and be raised on the third day, He would be a liar.

Old Testament prophecies, Psalm 16 and the general tenor of the Old Testament, Isaiah 53, that�s �Joan and the belly of the whale for three days and fish for three days and three nights. Those are all wrong, and then God�s proved to be a liar.

Jesus is not raised from the dead, then He had His own sin maybe to die for. That would be a possible ramification. All these are untenable. And so Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 tries to tell us that.

There are bad domino-like effects to denying the resurrection of Jesus, and the whole time, of course, there he�s trying to prove the point that your bodies will be raised. And one of the reasons why we know our bodies are going to be raised is because Jesus was raised from the dead.

And so Christianity has always taught the centrality of the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus. How do we know that Christ�s death was satisfactory and that what He did was a pleasing aroma, as it were, to the Father?

How do we know justification was accomplished at the cross? And so in Romans chapter 4, verse 25, it says that He was raised for our justification. That�s not really the best way to think of it. He was raised because �for�, our word �for� is like Heinz 57, it means all kinds of things.

He was raised because of our justification. We were justified at the cross, redemption accomplished. And we know that this is true because Jesus was vindicated by the Father by raising Him from the dead.

Yes, it was true. He was raised because of our justification. Because the justification worked, it happened. The ransom, Christ Jesus� death, was sufficient as He bore our sins on the body, on His body, on the tree.

So resurrection is central. So maybe you could call this �Easter message� in September or October, whenever this plays, but the resurrection of Christ Jesus is central. So why would we be surprised if people tried to attack the resurrection?

Denying the Resurrection Through Modernism and Sin

There are sophisticated attacks, there are blatant attacks. Some people will say, �I�m a modernist, I�m a post-modernist, I�m a most modernist, and therefore I deny all supernatural miracles. And if you deny supernatural miracles, then you deny the resurrection, because it was a supernatural thing.

When you read Mark chapters 1 through 15, you�ll see that regularly when Jesus does something that is supernatural, the response is fear and amazement. And so when Jesus is raised from the dead, Mark chapter 16, the response was, what do you think?

Fear and amazement, because it�s supernatural. This is not natural, this is above nature. This is something that God does supernaturally. And so it shouldn�t surprise us that some who are modernists say, �Well, I�m a rationalist and I cannot be a supernaturalist.

Other people deny the resurrection because they like to sin. Just no fun sleeping with your girlfriend or boyfriend or doing any other kind of sin when you realize that your body will be raised one day and you�ll stand before God.

And if you�re not a Christian, God will specially design your body for the torments of the damned forever and ever and ever. That�s no fun. It makes no fun at midnight on a Friday night getting drunk or doing whatever people do with their sins.

So people like to deny the resurrection because it frees them from their guilty conscience to do everything they can to construct an image of reality so that they think there�s no life after death, just rest in peace.

And so there are many reasons, but I think the biggest reason or what�s energizing this whole issue is, if this is such an important thing, without the resurrection, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 that our faith is in vain, our preaching, the content of our preaching is in vain.

The apostles are liars and they misrepresent God as false witnesses, that we have no hope and we�re to be most pitied. There are untenable consequences to denying the resurrection, and Paul wants to make sure no one does.

Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and He was buried and He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. You have to believe in the resurrection. Now in front of me I have the Jefferson Bible, and Jefferson was a non-supernaturalist, and it says in the very end, �There they laid Jesus and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher and departed.

That�s it, page 158, that�s the last sentence in the Jefferson Bible. So let�s just gut all the supernatural stuff out of the Bible and that�s how it ends. This is William Barclay. Some Christians use Barclay and they forget that he denies supernaturalism.

And so if you want to have a background of Ephesus, then Barclay might be your guy, but if you want to have a believer who�s commentating on things, then I would have you be cautious. Now let�s talk about some people in the news these days regarding the resurrection.

N.T. Wright, Marcus Borg, and Evangelical Confusion

And the one that I want to talk about specifically for a moment is N .T. Wright, Bishop N .T. Wright. Now evangelicals have fallen in love with Wright, and he�s talked about justification in a way that is not biblical.

He has talked about the reality of the resurrection, some just think his resurrection stuff is just the best. But I want to give you a quote of his, and I want you to think to yourself, �Is this the kind of person that you think I should read on a regular basis?

Will this theologian help me or hurt me Now we could talk about the new perspective on Paul and his error there, but I�m just going to read you something very simply, and this is why I don�t think it�s right for evangelical leaders to promote N .T. Wright.

They�re not helping their congregation sift through the issues. Does Wright say things that are occasionally right and in an eloquent way? Yes. But if I ever read his commentary on Colossians, I think it�s Colossians, the Tyndale series, I don�t even quote him.

I just say a scholar says, because I�m trying to get my people to imbibe things that are going to help them. And Wright is so smart that if you�re not careful, you just buy what he�s going to say. So let me just read you this in light of the resurrection of Christ Jesus, literal, physical resurrection.

What do you think of this? �I have friends said N .T. Wright, �who I am quite certain, quite sure, are Christians who do not believe in the bodily resurrection. But the view I take of them, and they know this, is that they are very, very muddled.

For some reason, I�m looking at 1 Corinthians 15, trying to see the domino effects of denying the resurrection, and I don�t see kind of muddled, but maybe that�s a British word I don�t know about. They would probably return the compliment.

Marcus Borg, and he is a Christ denier, Marcus Borg really does not believe Jesus was bodily raised from the dead. But I know Marcus well. He loves Jesus and believes in him passionately. The philosophical and cultural world he has lived in has made it very, very difficult for him to believe in the bodily resurrection.

I actually think that�s a major problem, and it affects most of whatever else he does, and I think that it means he has all sorts of flaws as a teacher, but I don�t want to say he isn�t a Christian. I do think, however, that churches that lose their grip on the bodily resurrection are in deep trouble, and that for healthy Christian life individually and corporately, belief in the bodily resurrection is foundational.

Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection from the dead? For if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if it is true that the dead are not raised.

For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those who also have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

If in Christ we have hoped in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. Now, let�s just talk about this with all generosity and all kindness and gentleness, always biblical, always kind, always no-compromise radio.

Granted, for the disciples initially, this was a hard thing to swallow. Let me just read you some verses. Now, you've got to hear me out on this so you don't turn me off as a compromiser. Luke 28. Excuse me, Luke 28, la, la, la, ha, ha, ha, that would be Matthew 28, it has 28 chapters, but this is Luke 24.

They remembered his words, �In returning from the tomb, they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary, the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles.

Jesus is alive. �But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb, stooping and looking in. He saw the linen cloths by themselves, and he went home marveling at what had happened.

Let me read you Matthew 28. See, Matthew 28's in there. I just wanted to read Luke first. Matthew 28, 16, �Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.

And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. So, I'm not saying that initially for the disciples that this was something that just came normally and naturally to everyone. There was some doubt regarding that because this is a wild thing, an amazing thing, a fascinating thing, practically an unbelievable thing that Jesus would raise himself from the dead, that the Father would raise him, that the Spirit would raise him.

This is unbelievable. Why? Because people just don't raise themselves from the dead. Now if they thought a little bit more about the Old Testament, if they thought about what Jesus had said to them several times about the Son of Man must suffer and be killed and buried and die and be raised from the dead on the third day, if they thought about that a little bit more, maybe they wouldn't have doubted as much.

But kind of easy for us to say as we look back and we have all of Scripture telling us about Jesus appearing to the apostles and to James and to the twelve and to the other apostles, small a, and to Father 500 and then to Paul later on the Damascus Road, one untimely born, we have the Scriptures.

But they didn't have the Scriptures then, they just had the Old Testament. And so there was some doubt to this. But now we've moved past the doubt and we have the canon of Scripture and it's very clear.

Jesus was raised from the dead. That is what the Scriptures teach. And you even have things like the Westminster Confession, something that would not be Scripture but trying to summarize Scripture, just telling us about what the Church has taught, what the Bible teaches.

Jesus was crucified and died, buried and remained under the power of death, yet saw no corruption. On the third day he rose from the dead with the same body in which he suffered, with which he ascended into heaven.

Even an unbeliever said, until the time of the Reformation, the creeds of the West spoke only of the resurrection of the flesh. Isn't that interesting? Resurrection of the flesh. So what we're trying to say is, by the time the Corinthian letter was written, early 50s, this was a non-negotiable issue.

This was confirmed by sight, this was confirmed by number of witnesses, this was a fact. And without believing this fact, you can't be a Christian. So for N .T. Wright to say Marcus Borg is just disillusioned or muddled or something, I just don't get it.

I don't get it at all. We have to have not just a religious leader who influenced and who taught and who gave some examples. If this religious leader, Jesus, is still in his tomb, unlike all the other religious leaders who, if they're still in their shrines or their crypts or their tombs and lay their decaying, Jesus can't be in the grave.

He has to be at the right hand of the Father with his glorified, literal, physical body. One scholar said he surveyed the ETS Society, that's Evangelical Theological Society, and they have to say that the Bible's inerrant.

That's the only thing you have to say. I think that's pretty lame, that's the only thing they have to say, but that's what they have to say. Do you believe that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead in the same material body of flesh and bones in which he died?

11 said no. 11 said no. So, when liberals like Wolfhard Pannenberg say the future body will be a different one from the present body, not a fleshly one, but a spiritual body, I know why liberals say it.

Paul Tillich, who's dead now, said it's absurd to ask what happened to the body of Christ in the tomb. He doesn't want to go there. Karl Barth, he doesn't want the cameras there filming something because they would show that it was a literal, physical resurrection.

Rudolf Bultmann, he said the resurrection, of course, simply cannot be a visible fact in the realm of human history. You know, I understand that. Liberal Baptist Henson, Paul was convinced that the Christ who appeared to him belonged to another order of existence than the Christ the disciples had known in the flesh.

The risen Christ has not a physical but a spiritual body. Now, they're not trying to say that Jesus is in a glorified body. They're trying to say it doesn't have anything to do with flesh. Now, we are going to look later, maybe next time, about Jesus eating in his resurrected body and it's of the flesh, etc.

How can Thomas be told, put your finger in my side, etc.? But that the liberals say this, you know, I know why they're liberals and they have this agenda. So, I don't believe in what they say, but I get what they say.

You have Murray Harris, who's written some really good things. I hate to try to say that, but he has. He said, quote, that after his resurrection, Jesus' essential state was one of invisibility and immateriality.

He adds that the resurrection body of Christians will be neither fleshly nor fleshy. And he talks about second embodiment and all this kind of stuff. I just don't know what makes someone, at the time he was at Trinity, say things like this.

I have no idea. But the one that I find the most fascinating in our little discussion here on the resurrection is what does the Pope say about the resurrection? Now, the Roman Catholic Church in the New Catechism, which he helped put together, by the way, the public teaching of the Catholic Church is there was a literal resurrection.

And so, voila, we believe something that the Roman Catholic Church teaches. See, we get that. We believe in the Trinity, other things. But Ratzinger, Joseph Ratzinger, wrote a book called Introduction to Christianity before he was the Pope.

And do you know, interestingly, he denied the resurrection of the body. Now, as lots of people think that Ratzinger is the uber conservative hatchet man, and then he became the Pope. I think if you study the background of Ratzinger, you're not going to find so much conservativism as you will find some mixtures of progressive and mixtures of modernistic thinking.

And so, listen how Ratzinger denies the resurrection of the body. Quote, it now becomes clear that the real heart of faith in the resurrection does not consist at all in the idea of the restoration of bodies, to which we have reduced it in our thinking.

Such is the case, even though this is the pictorial image used throughout the Bible. Even though the Bible uses that image, that's not really what we think. That's not really what the Bible teaches. Even though everybody says it, that's not the case.

When he uses the word body or flesh, quote, in effect, it means the world of man. Paul teaches not the resurrection of the physical bodies, but the resurrection of persons, and this not in the return of the flesh body that is the biological structure, an idea Ratzinger thinks as impossible.

Not even the resurrection of Jesus? Does he believe in that? In Principles of Catholic Theology, Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, Ignatius Press 2009, page 186, Joseph Ratzinger said, the resurrection cannot be in a historical event in the same sense as the crucifixion is.

And I'm supposed to think he's the leader of the church? The resurrection cannot be in a historical event in the same sense as the crucifixion is. Principles of Catholic Theology, Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, Joseph Ratzinger, Ignatius Press 2009, page 186.

He also said Christ is, quote, the one who died on the cross and to the eye of faith rose again from the dead. In his book, Introduction to Christianity, page 152. So see, the eye of faith sees that. It's true in your mind, but it wasn't a literal, physical resurrection.

What are we thinking? I just don't have any idea what's going on. But the New Catechism of the Catholic Church, approved with apostolic authority by Pope John Paul, says the resurrection of the flesh means not only that the immortal soul will live on after death, but that even our mortal body will come to life again, paragraph 536.

Compare Catechism 997, 1016, and 1017. Now, credit to where credit's due. The Roman Catholic position with apostolic authority is that it's a literal resurrection. That's right. I'm not saying the way of salvation is correct, their view of Christ and what he did on the cross is correct.

I'm not saying any of that. I'm saying they do have that correct. So, let's just think about this for a second. If I were to interview some people to be elders of the local church, let's say you're a church and you're looking for a new pastor.

You think you should ask this question, do you believe there's sin, people sin? Do you believe in the fall? Do you believe in inerrancy? Do you believe in substitutionary atonement? Do you believe in the soon return of Christ, the imminent return of Christ?

Do you believe in heaven? Do you believe in hell? Do you believe there's an angel? Do you believe there's Satan? Those are all questions that you would probably ask, right? I guess these days you would ask, what's your vision statement?

What's your goal for the church? How are you going to get new people in? Do you like rock music? I mean, I don't know what you ask people. Do you think some time or another you might ask what the gospel is and do you believe in the literal resurrection?

So, we have the Pope either not ask the question or through the smoke and the mirrors and all the voting and everything else, it's not even an issue. Friends, if there's an elder here at this church or there's an elder at your church who denies the literal bodily resurrection, in God's eyes, he's not an elder.

And in your eyes, you need to remove him from being an elder. And don't wait until the dopey three years on, one year off deal. No, there's a reason and way to remove elders who are disobedient to the faith.

And so 1 Timothy chapter 5 is very clear on what we do, and we would rebuke them for such. They could not stay around as an elder with a really good people, people, people, persons, and they have a lot of money and they're on the board and they're a big shot.

They denies the resurrection. He denies the resurrection. Friends, this is a fundamental doctrine. We don't want to be like Karl Barth or Tillich or Voltmann. Jehovah's Witnesses say that he was a divine spirit being, an invisible spirit creature.

He wasn't bodily raised. We don't want to be like these people. Granted, it was hard to believe initially, but it's not hard to believe now. We believe what God has told us. Some people said, oh, it's a hallucination.

Mary Magdalene had an imagination and the weak minded disciples repeated it. Christian vice said in 1838, the little Christian society resuscitated Jesus in their hearts by the intense love by which they bore him.

Not good. Jesus was raised from the dead and you're going to see him come back in the same body with which he was raised and which he ate with.

Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. 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 6. 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.

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