2021 Summer of Interviews: Luke Abendroth May 2020 Interview

The Organic Unity of Scripture and Reading in Large Swaths

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'".

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

Michael Lee Abendroth here at the helm, and next to me is Luke Abendroth, my son, my only son, and I don't wanna be blasphemous and say in whom I'm well-pleased, but I am pleased in you. Don't say it, then.

Don't say it, then. So, Luke, I think this is what, number six on NOCO for you, number eight or something like that? I'm not sure. Remember in the old days, we had all the prep and everything else, and today we just drive in, it's raining, it's cold, it's 40 degrees, COVID -19 day, whatever it is, and so you just hop right up and said, let's go.

You said, okay. Yeah, we got nothing else to do. So, Luke, let's, nothing else to do. One of the things I've noticed since you've been back at home for a while is you're trying to read large swaths of scripture, not just a proverb in the morning, although that's good.

Some Psalms in the morning, that would be good. I typically read Hebrews in the morning. Think that's good? Pretty good. Pretty good. Well, you've been trying to read large sections. Tell me what's the benefit of reading large sections of scripture like that.

Yeah, I mean, first of all, you've got to somehow figure out a way to earn your righteousness before God. Yeah, that's right.

You might go to hell if you don't read your Bible. I remember at home, unless you read 20 chapters, there's no breakfast. That's right, I remember that.

Covenant of works. No, I mean, I think it's just, it's helpful because although it, of course, is important to meditate on scripture and to consider passages and their implications for your life, I think, especially in the Old Testament, too, you have a lot of narrative and you make a lot more observations as you read through large portions and you remember names and you remember, oh, I just read this chapter in Genesis 1 and how does that connect with Genesis 45?

So I just think it helps you kind of see the overall narrative of scripture and how it's pointing to the coming of the Messiah and how it's all fulfilled in him and how the Old Testament really is pointing towards the Lord Jesus.

So I think it just helps you with that. And yeah, so I think that's probably the main benefit.

Luke, I think most people read the Old Testament and maybe they just think about Israel as a nation or even in 1 Corinthians 10, it says, now these things, talking about the Old Testament, specifically when Moses was in the wilderness with the people, these things took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil as they did.

Do not be idolaters as some of them were as it is written, et cetera. There's nothing wrong with looking at them saying, here's a grumbling group of people and in light of who God is, no matter what he brings providentially, we ought not to grumble.

Yeah. Right? So there's nothing wrong with that, but that's not the only part of the story. You told me the other day that you were reading something about, was it Genesis 18 and the three messengers who show up and what were they saying?

And how did you make some connections thinking about since there's one divine author, you should be able to see some patterns and types and shadows and things that sound really familiar to you as you read the Bible?

The Pre-Incarnate Christ in Genesis and Job

I'm trying to think about what I was saying. Oh, I remember. No, it was just, we were talking about that passage, how the angel of the Lord in Genesis comes with two other angels and the angel of the Lord there is addressed as Yahweh.

It is Yahweh, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus in that passage and the pre-incarnate Christ. And it's interesting how basically they come to Abraham, they say, hey, you're going to, Sarah's going to have a child.

She laughs, you have that whole scenario. And then after that, Abraham is interceding on behalf of Sodom. And he says, what if there's 50 righteous? And he kind of narrows down the amount to ask the Lord to spare the city, saying like if there's 10 righteous.

And at one point it's interesting because he's still talking with the pre-incarnate Christ, still talking with Yahweh, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus. And he says, will you not, will you, basically he questions his righteousness.

He's like, are you really righteous? Are you really just? Are you going to spare? Are you going to destroy the righteous with the wicked? And I just think it's interesting. Obviously he wouldn't, it wouldn't have to learn anything, but the pre-incarnate Christ asking if he would really be righteous.

I'm sure in a sense he's thinking, Abraham, you have no idea how far I'm going to go to show righteousness, to show justice, that at the right time, Christ would die for the ungodly. So that as it says, the apostle Paul says in Romans, so that the righteousness of God would be, so basically that God would be justified in his pardoning of old Testament saints, even Abraham himself.

Yeah, the extent of, to the extent that I'll go to keep justice upheld.

Right, yeah, you have no idea. And for your sake too, Abraham, by the way, BTW.

You were also telling me about reading through something about Job. Were you in Job 16 and you saw some kind of flicker or echo of, oh yeah, see what they're saying here. It's also said in the New Testament.

Oh, there's just, I think it's Job 16. I mean, there's all over Job. Job, I think it's nine that says, that Job says, I wish that I, or he says, there is no mediator to lay, or there is no one to lay his hand on me and lay his hand on God.

And he's longing for the mediator. And it's interesting how Job's friends, they don't necessarily have the worst theology. They kind of understand the exalted nature of who God is. They were probably classical theists and they believed in impassibility.

No, but they, and they understood the justice and equity and righteousness of God. And they were applying that to this situation. And they're saying, Job, see, you have to have some kind of sin that you're harboring because that's why God's judging you.

And so they were taking kind of this good theology about God and accusing Job with it. And it's all basically, I'm gonna accuse you. It's all in a sense law. And they're basically saying you did something and you've earned it.

And Job is longing for a mediator. And he admits, I'm a sinner. How can I stand before God? But then it's interesting. I think, yeah, it's in Job 16 that he says, I will, my tears will flood out to God.

I will cry out to him. And he will basically answer for me as like a son of man. You have it right there. You should read it. Yeah, that's pretty good memory.

My friends scorn me. This is Job 16. My eye pours out tears to God that he would argue the case of a man with God. You know, you've got all these friends arguing the case. And then it says, as a son of man does with his neighbor.

I know, it's cool. And it's interesting. God is the one who argues your case with God. God presents in a sense, not the problem obviously is not with him, but it's with us in sin. But the problem, our greatest problem is that God is holy and righteous and just.

And we have a problem with God because we're born in sin. We're born under the law. We've failed the law. We are personally sinners. And we are sinners also in our federal head, Adam. But then God is the one who argues our case with God by sending his son born under the law, born of a virgin to fulfill the obligations of the law and his obedience and suffer the curses and count us righteous by crediting us with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

And it's just, it's cool. The problem is presented because God is holy, but the answer is also presented because God is merciful and gracious in his son.

The Work of God in Children and the Simplicity of God

Great news today on No Compromise Radio with my son, Luke. Luke is 23 years old. And I just want to say a couple of things to our listeners. Of course, it's the work of God in Luke's life. And I'm very proud of him, Luke, thankful to the Lord, but proud of Luke.

I just want to make sure you listeners understand that it's not your job or responsibility to save your kids. It's to teach them the Bible, pray for them, try to lead a good example, of course. There's many things that you could do, but it's the Lord's work.

And so Luke, while you've been to a Christian university, you didn't take Bible as a major, right? You haven't been to seminary. And so lots of things that children learn are taught by the parents, the local church, and are caught in the sense that they watch people and they learn and they grow.

And so I just am very encouraged that Luke knows the word. He wants to learn it more, of course, but you can rest assured that when you plant those seeds of the Bible in the hearts of children, the word doesn't come back void.

It doesn't mean your children are always saved, but God does his work. And so for some of you parents that have those little five-year-olds running around the house and you're thinking, will this ever end?

Will they ever get it? I'm kind of on the other end now and get to watch my four children as they grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord. And so, you know what? God's word's true. It worked.

Amen. And you know, I think it would be helpful to teach the listeners that one bedtime song that you would sing about the simplicity of God. Do you remember that one? Not made up of parts, all that is in God is God.

Remember that? Yeah.

That was a good one. There's lots of things that I did for you guys that I have completely forgotten about.

Yeah, that was amazing. I remember thinking about that as a three-year-old in my bed. Well, Luke from me. Language of accommodation, that one verse about language of accommodation in there.

Probably for me, you know, when you were younger, I probably taught, I didn't say he wasn't simple, but I probably taught the opposite. I probably taught that God had some kind of passions like we do.

And I'm going to talk about the incarnation, of course. I probably taught you all kinds of crazy things.

Yeah, it's taken a while to unlearn all of that.

Divine Author, Human Authors, and the Organic Unity of Scripture

So I'm trying to unlearn certain things I was taught. But anyway, it's just encouraging to sit and listen. We didn't plan any of this stuff out. We just sit down and talk about the Lord. It's kind of what we do at home, right?

Between me working and you working, it's more difficult, but that's what we do. Tell our listeners, Luke, a little bit about divine author, human authors, and this goes back to your desire to just read the Bible.

I know you're trying to read it through in a month and you get to see these themes. No, I just got my reward. No, no, no, no. I'm just kidding. I'm the one that said it. You didn't say it. I was hoping you would, though.

Oh, you were. I was wanting you to say it. You were. You were. So I just. Well, the good news is about my guffawing and my laughter. I'm usually here doing this by myself and people think I'm strange.

You know, the secretary's thinking, what's he doing in there laughing? At least we have people here to laugh together with now. But seriously, there has been a lot of emphasis in the last 100 years in particular, last 400 years, but last 100 years in particular.

What's the author say? What's he trying to address? What is he thinking? The human author, when Paul was writing to the churches at Ephesus in the circular letter that went around, what's going on there?

And what about Job and what was Job saying? And there's nothing wrong with a human author, but I think when the human author, in our methodology and function of studying the Bible, trumps the divine author, there's a problem.

How, Luke, are you reading the Bible in these kind of large swaths with all these different authors? Is that helping you see the organic unity of Scripture with the one divine author and story?

Yeah, of course. I think you, and a lot of that comes, certain types of studying the Bible that isolate the divine author and what could he have known at all times. I mean, first of all, I don't really know how you could know what he would have known.

That seems like an interesting exercise to try to figure out what the author would have been able to know. But you definitely see that there is a divine author, that all these human authors, there's one underlying story and it's pointing to the Lord Jesus.

So I think there's actually different people kind of in both camps that at least understand that it's all pointing to Christ. But I think sometimes you can overemphasize the human author and really try to figure out what they would have known, which was pretty much, I think, an exercise started by Germans.

Not that we have anything against Germans as the Abendroth clan. I think there's our family group chat, Abendroth clan. But yeah, I mean, it doesn't seem like, it doesn't seem like you could have known.

And I mean, I think sometimes, I think sometimes the author obviously knew what he was doing, but I don't think he, he also did not know the fullness of who Jesus Christ was going to be. I think that seems, I mean, I think you're more the expert on this than I am, but it seems like it makes sense.

But I think, you know, just seeing interesting connections, I was thinking about one more thing when, when I think it's, is it Solomon or David, is gonna be crowned king. He is with the people and they're basically making a covenant to follow him.

And it's, and it says, we, they say to, to the king, I think it was Solomon, we are your bone and your flesh. And I just thought that's pretty interesting to see stuff like that, where you go, okay, you got Genesis written by Moses.

And what does he say? Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh, that's Adam's talk to his wife, Eve. Then you have later the same type of language used for the people of God to the king of Israel, the king of God's people, that the relationship of the king to his people is like that of a husband and wife.

And I think maybe, you know, the human author, I think he probably, he knew that. And he was, he was using that kind of theological language, but then later, I don't think he could have known the idea of Christ and the church and the relationship of the Messiah to his people in its fullest extent.

Maybe, maybe some hints of that, but I don't know. I'm just kind of spitballing here. I wasn't prepared for this question. And you're the real, the real, the guy that I learned some of these things from, so.

No, I think, I think you're onto something there, Luke. The question is, when the author was writing, the human author was writing, did he know, and I think your language was appropriate, did he know the full extent of what he was saying?

And I just sometimes think that they had a lesser or greater grasp of things. When I look at the New Testament and see something like Ephesians chapter one, and he talks about the mystery of his will.

We're not thinking about it's mysterious and spooky and organ music. Ghost town by the specials? Living in the ghost, living in a ghost town by the stones. Is it the stones? Well, no, the specials saying ghost town.

Oh, that's the new one. Yeah. I think the specials version was better though. For sure. Sorry. No, mystery means something that there's a truth, but we don't understand it until God shows us. And then now the mystery solved by revelation, his mind is revealed.

And I think when people say, well, the human author had to know all these things. I think the burden of proof really is on them. You have the divine author and he's using these men to write scripture.

And of course, you know, the Virgin Mary for the author of Hebrews. Amen. Amen. The point is simple. Read your Bible and think to yourself, yes, God used different people with their personalities, but here you cannot ignore the divine author with that organic unity.

And I think here's kind of the punchline to this, Luke. The only infallible interpreter of scripture is the Holy Spirit. How does that help us even look at the Old Testament?

To figure out what it means. Well, I think you can see the ultimate, the ultimate, the peak of revelation in the New Testament, in the person of Jesus Christ. And so when you go back and you observe even theological themes that you can go, like we just said, okay, well, maybe the divine author, I mean, excuse me, the human author was thinking about Genesis one and he could have been pointing forward, obviously, to the office of King and in his relationship to the people being like a marriage relationship.

But I think then when you look at Christ in the church, it helps you to go back and sort of solidify those theological themes and realities throughout scripture, starting from, okay, I know this is the, it's like when you, it's like if you started, I'm trying to think of an example.

It's like you start, I mean, you start the test with all the answers and then you kind of work back through the questions and see how they work together.

And really theologically, you see dispensationalists who will say, okay, what we wanna do is we have to interpret the new in light of the old. There's this kind of progress of revelation and unfolding of God's mind.

Or you'll have people on the other side, the non-dispensationalists, covenant theologians, they'll say, well, the way we interpret the old is in light of the new. And there are these two kind of camps when it comes to hermeneutics.

Christ in Matthew 2, Hosea 11, and the Interpretation of the Old Testament

The one place that, whether you're a covenant theologian or a dispensationalist, you, listener, ought to go to Matthew chapter two and work out what happened with this quote from Hosea. And it says, "'And he rose and took the child and his mother by night "'and departed to Egypt and remained there "'until the death of Herod.'".

This is, of course, talking about Joseph and his wife, Mary, the mother of Jesus. And so this was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, quote, "'Out of Egypt I called my son,' end quote.".

And that's kind of really almost a theological battleground for a lot of people, because do we say Israel's the son and is always the son? Or is Israel the son that was the launching pad, as it were, for the ultimate son?

Here, Jesus is called son. Israel's son. Who's the son? Jesus. Jesus. The writer of, I didn't mean Hebrews. I meant Hosea. Hosea 11, when he wrote that, was he thinking this? I think it is Hosea.

You're right, preach through Hebrews so you say the writer of every book. I'm gonna start doing that. The writer of Matthew. What is the writer of Romans doing here? The writer of Genesis. What is he saying?

And people think you're a liberal. It's like some kind of special, there's 16 ,000 Isaiah authors. Which Isaiah is this? Hey, remember, Luke, in German,.

The Torah, the Pentateuch? Remember what they're called?

Heilige Schichte, or something? No.

But that's good. The history of salvation. No, no, in the transliteration it would be. Tachsund.

I'm trying to think of all the German words that I know. You know a lot of German words.

Speck ein bisschen Deutsch. How about Moses 1, is Genesis? Oh, I like that, it's easier. Moses 2. So when you're a kid and you learn that Moses 5 is Deuteronomy, you never say to yourself, who wrote Deuteronomy?

What's Deuteronomy, is Devarim or something?

Devarim, words or something. Oh, however, the Hebrew titles for those, many of the Old Testament books are the first few words. What's Exodus then? I don't know. Whatever the first couple words are in Exodus.

But not in the English. No, no, but let's just see for fun. Exodus chapter one. Whenever I hear Exodus, I still think of the Bob Marley song. These are the names. Do you think that's it? That's Exodus.

Oh, shim. So you spent three months or so in Israel, was that fun? Oh yeah, it was awesome.

It was the best. So I had a great time there, but I think I was just having a hard time with assurance and kind of some of those things while I was there. So it wasn't as fun as I think it would be now.

Assurance, Justification by Faith Alone, and Faith Versus Faithfulness

Life's a lot more fun when you know you're going to heaven. I discovered that recently. I'm not really sure why that is, if there's causality there, but it's good.

We only have three minutes left, but if you could just summarize in three minutes or less how the Lord helped you see assurance as possible for simul justus at peccator kind of person.

I think if you understand the simul justus at peccator, then that pretty much is it. Well, and what that means is simultaneously just and sinner that the Bible presents a reality that sort of an already not yet reality, but that we are justified.

We are declared righteous in a legal courtroom with the righteousness of Jesus Christ, his obedience to the law, and we're credited with that. So before God, we stand as righteous as Jesus is and in his humanity and his obedience to the law.

And he took our sins on the cross and rose again. So I think it's, and that was his justification that he rose again. And so in our union with him, we have that justification. So understanding that we are right with God, but that we still struggle with indwelling sin as Romans seven talks about.

I think it's always an interesting passage. I find it to be a law that when I want to do good, evil lies close at hand. It's like, can I get an amen? You know, people struggle with assurance. You read that and not to try to justify anything, but you go, yes, that's my experience.

There's a struggle with sin, but we're still justified before God. I think the biggest help with assurance is, yes, we look, we do see our fruit. Our fruit does give us assurance. First, John teaches that and other passages in John, the apostle John teaches that in his gospel as well.

But I think before that, we have to look at the nature of the gospel, that it's a good news for sinners, that primarily there's a message of good news for you. If you're a sinner, if you don't think you're a sinner, there's no good news for you.

But if you are a sinner, which is exactly what most people feel when they struggle with assurance, there's good news for you. Even in the old Testament, I think it's interesting. Although Christ is so much better than sacrifices.

The people of Israel would have been walking with the different sacrifices every day, down past their neighbors. Okay, oh, that's not a free will offering. I can see that's a sin offering that, you know, Sam's got.

He's walking down the street with, and you're doing that every day. Everybody's doing all these sacrifices. I'm a sinner and I need some death to satisfy for my sins. And that death has been provided in Jesus Christ.

I think when we look to that, like Calvin talked about, assurance in a sense is the essence of faith that by the fact that you believe that Jesus died on the cross for sinners, you already believe in a sense that he died for you.

And that gives you assurance. So don't put yourself back into the scenario for your salvation. So I think that was kind of a little bit of rambling, but understanding that faith alone in Jesus Christ justifies you, gives you assurance, I think more than anything else.

And then you see, oh, my love for neighbor and my desire to honor God and to obey his law, his commands and to delight in his law. Like David says, that doesn't come from me. The fact that I want to honor the Lord, that doesn't come from me.

That comes from the Holy Spirit working in my heart to love something that I once hated. So I don't know if that was a little bit of a rambling, but No, I thought that was excellent.

And you know what, Luke? You would also say along with that, when you understand the difference between faith and faithfulness, it's one of the keys to unlock everything because the just shall live by faith.

That is shorthand for faith in the object. So you're thinking about the object of your faith, the savior who doesn't crush bruised reeds or extinguish smoldering wicks. He's very kind and gentle. Yeah, what is it?

Jesus, the only time he talks about his heart, I just read this somewhere, he's lowly and gentle in heart. Yes, Matthew 11.

That's wonderful. Well, today I have Luke Abendroth on the show, No Compromise Radio. Luke, you just did those two conferences in Central, not Central America, but in the Central part of America. One was on the five points of Calvinism and the other was on federal headship in Romans 5.

What, you know I thought you were going to say federal vision. Federal vision. The kids loved it. They really understood why it wasn't right. The federal vision part, yeah. Well, if you teach federal headship, they should understand why federal vision is not right.

That's true. That's true. Anyway, thanks for being on the show, Luke. If anybody wants to contact Luke, you can always email me and I'll forward it to Luke, Mike at No Compromise Radio. Have a great day.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.