The Magnificat (Part 2)

Reading the Gospels Wisely and Why They Matter

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry, also known as Duplex Gratia Radio, right? I don't know. Do I make the switch or not? I mean, NoCo has, it has a name, but maybe it's a bad name. Oh, NoCo Radio, that'd be kind of hard to lose, but Duplex Gratia, who knows?

But maybe people would be thinking I was following in my brother's footsteps, since he has a Latin name for his podcast, his pod, The Pactum. What about Duplex Gratia? Nevertheless, regardless, never the year regardless, that that actually works.

Today on No Compromise Radio, we are talking about drum roll. Well, you know what? I need a drum roll because I don't have a drum roll on this panel here. Well, we're talking about Jesus. Specifically, we're talking about the gospel, good news, of Jesus according to Dr. Luke.

When my son was born, my wife and I, Kimberly and I, said we'd like to name our child Luke after, of course, Dr. Luke in the Bible. We liked Luke because it was short, monosyllabic, you know, kind of tough guy sounding, Luke, Jake, Hank.

My grandpa's name was Henry. They called him Hank. What are some other monosyllabic tough guy names? Stan. I'm just kidding. I like Stan. I just lost all my viewers' names. I mean, Paul, Saul, but there's just something like Luke, Jake, I don't know, Frank.

Is Frank a tough guy name? I don't know, Mike. But I did not name him after Luke Skywalker. I just want you to know that. Gentile, Luke, my son, Luke is a Gentile. Luke's the writer of the longest gospel.

Also, he wrote a sequel called Acts. Anyway, we're talking about that. And my mind and my heart and hopefully my devotion will be centered around this book for the next several years. And I have a book that I haven't read all the way, and it's by Jonathan Pennington, called Reading the Gospels Wisely.

I was doing something else, and that's why I mispronounced the word, because there was something stuck on my arm. I don't know if it's a piece of candy. Do I eat candy, and how could it get stuck on my arm?

Have you ever seen something like that? I remember the day, somebody I know was walking in front of me, and I said, oh, you've got some, it looks like some chocolate on the back of your pants there. Maybe it was Luke.

I'm like, how do you sit on that? And then later that night, I got home and I took my slacks off, and I had chocolate on my slacks, same spot. So we didn't even sit in the same seat. So we weren't eating chocolate.

So somebody else's chocolate. Although I did have some chocolate today, some dark chocolate. And what did I have? Some plantain chips, a couple of eggs, and a blue Razz Bang. No wonder I feel horrible.

Reading the Gospels Wisely. And on page 38, he says nine reasons, he writes, nine reasons we need the Gospels. So before I talk about Luke today, I want to read these. And I've read several of them, but I haven't read them all.

The Church’s Historic Priority of the Gospels

So we're just going to do like live radio and see if I can make this thing work. Number one, we need to study the Gospels because they have been central to the church throughout its history. And then he has a word that I've never seen before, but I like the word, Tetra Evangelium, a fourfold gospel book.

Lots of times I know about the Tetragrammaton, four letters, Yahweh, but I'd never heard of the Tetra Evangelium, the fourfold gospel book. And basically what he does is he says there's a primacy in the church, in church history, of the church studying the Gospels.

I mean, this might not be the most important one, but it is interesting. He talks about the Reformers, etc. Number two, a second reason we need the Gospels is because Paul and the other New Testament writers presuppose and build on the story and teaching of Jesus.

And this is the one I'm really after. What's more godly, to read Gospels or to read epistles, to read the narrative and story of Jesus or to read doctrine about Jesus? And it's really a bad question to ask.

And it's really, it's not the right one to ask. But let's just kind of think big picture a little bit. The relationship between the Gospels and the epistles. He does have a Justin Martyr quote here that I thought was interesting.

And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place. And the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read as long as time permits. Then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs and exhorts to the imitation of these good things.

And that is Justin Martyr. And then Pennington writes, this must have been the case as well before our four Gospels became widely disseminated. That is both in oral and written form, the stories of what Jesus did and said were clearly or widely known and highly regarded.

Luke makes as much clear by referring to his prologue as many who have undertaken to compile a narrative. This is in addition to the many oral traditions that obviously existed going back to the time when Jesus was yet alive on earth.

News about Jesus' deeds spread so far and fast that soon he had trouble entering into town. All right. Now, let's think about this a little bit. Pennington writes, contributing to this confusion is reader's sense that very little of the actual stories about Jesus is found in the epistles.

This can lead one unconsciously or consciously to think of the Gospels as merely data about Jesus now to be discarded in practice, not in theory, in favor of the authorized theological and moral application of them in the rest of the New Testament.

We might be able to think of a few cases where references to Jesus' teaching and his actual life, not just his death and resurrection, crop up in the epistles. But the fact that they are few and not more obvious is rather conspicuous.

So, what do we do? How do we work through this? What's the relationship between epistles and the Gospels? I like it when he, the writer, says, let me just make sure I get this straight because I don't want to say anything out of school.

The point then is that although it may not be immediately apparent, in reality, it is the Jesus traditions later codified into the Gospels that are presupposed in all the apostolic kerygba, including the specific written applications of this in the epistles.

What implication of this I would suggest, here's what I'm after, this is like the whole show, no compromise show. We cannot truly understand Paul's or Peter's or James' doctrine or teaching without reading them through the lens of the Gospels.

All the latter teaching and pronouncements from the apostles assume and build on the Jesus tradition. Isn't that good? So, we definitely don't want to divorce them. They're tied together and they're helping us understand the theological, the epistles are helping us understand the theological ramifications of the Gospels.

That's true, and what Jesus did, that's true. But what happens a lot, at least in the circles I run in and even myself, well, these are the doctrines of redemption and propitiation and reconciliation and justification.

And I divorce them in my mind, or maybe my heart, soul, from Jesus who earned them, who was sent by the Father to procure them. And I have a great doctrine called imputation, but then I forget about the one who gave me his righteousness.

Does that make sense? Therefore, when you're reading the epistles, you read them through the lens of the Gospels, through the lens of who Jesus is. And of course, even as the canon was put together, and you look at the providence of God, we have the four Gospels first so that you read the rest in light of the four Gospels.

And therefore, I think Jonathan Pennington is right. Third, why, the question is asked, do we need the Gospels? Another closely related reason we need a healthy diet of the Gospels is because although the written form of the Gospels is subsequent to most of the epistles, the traditions behind them are not.

They go back to the time of Jesus himself, and immediately following years passed down through oral repetition. Okay, so just think about which books are written first. And if you say to yourself, I think Galatians or James is written first.

If James is written in 44 AD, let's just pick a number and you can argue about it if you'd like, 49 AD, 45 AD, or you just pick a number, Galatians 46 AD. Well, that's 13 years later, 15 years later, 10 years later, after Jesus has been resurrected and ascended into heaven.

Right? Let's just say for argument's sake, he dies at 33. And it's, you know, and the time started at zero, so now he dies at 33 AD. Well, 12 years later, 15 years later, the epistles are written, but the life of Jesus has already happened.

That's why I say regularly, if you look at the book of James, 52 imperatives and 104 verses and nothing about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. It talks about his glory, of course, in chapter two.

But how can we now interpret James, this law book? Well, does it not make sense when you think of this reason for the gospel that Pennington talks about? It makes perfect sense. If the gospels are mainly good news, right?

In the strict sense, gospel is not a demand. It's a proclamation. It's a promise. No demands in the gospel. It's good news about Jesus, et cetera. There's a general sense that gospels could be used for, gospel could be used for New Testament, Old Testament law.

And there's a little tighter definition that gospel could be, well, one of these tetra-evangelical, one of these biographies of Jesus we call the gospel, maybe unique in genre. So, therefore, we say to ourself, the life of Jesus has happened and we have good news proclaimed in the life of Jesus.

What do we do now? What do we do now that Jesus is raised? Answer, here's the law, out of gratitude, count it all joy, persevere in trials, don't show discrimination, here's what you do with the tongue, et cetera.

And that's all in the book of James. I came in with no compromise radio today. The fourth reason we need the gospels is that in them we get a more direct sense of the Bible's great storyline. Okay. The New Testament doesn't come in a vacuum, right?

There's the Old Testament that leads us. And even in the book of Luke, we've learned that 400 years earlier, there was Malachi and Malachi was talking about this curse. And Malachi also in chapter four was talking about Elijah was going to come before the Messiah would come.

And then now we have, in the spirit of Elijah, John the Baptist is going to come and he is going to be in Elizabeth's womb, once barren, no longer. And of course, Zechariah doesn't believe that. And we know the rest of the story.

The Gospels and the Biblical Storyline

Number five, number five, okay, that was the fourth reason. Now we're looking for number five. I found number six, but that doesn't help us. The fifth benefit of the gospels is that they offer a concentrated exposure to the biblical emphasis on the coming kingdom of God.

Okay, good. Sixth, we need the gospels because there are different languages or discourses of truth. Propositional doctrine, whether it be the Westminster Confession or a local Baptist church bylaws is one crucial and necessary discourse of truth, but it's not the only one.

Story or narrative is another equally valid way of presenting an approaching truth. Okay, I like that. Next, seven. Pushing this even further, I would suggest that not only are the gospels a different discourse of truth, they are in many ways a more comprehensive and paradigmatic type of map.

How many more do we have? Eight. The eighth reason we need the gospels is because encountering Jesus in narrative helps us grow in experiential knowledge and realize that reality does not always fit into neat little boxes of truth.

And finally, number nine, we need the gospels because in the gospels alone, we have a personal upfront encounter with Jesus Christ. Now out of those last four, I think I like this last one the most. Pennington said, we learn not just about Jesus and what he theologically accomplished for us and what we're supposed to do as a result, but we get to see the sweet lion and roaring lamb in action, loving people, showing compassion, teaching, discipling, rebuking, and correcting suffering and ultimately dying for us.

We encounter him in a way unique to the gospels. The doctoral moral truth that results from Jesus' life, death, and resurrection is not enough. The gospels were written so that we might experience firsthand the risen Christ, even as the original followers experienced him through the abiding ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Thus, we should read the gospels with this goal in mind, not simply seeking to reduce the gospel story to their point, but to enter into the narrative world of the gospels experientially. Well, there you have it on No Compromise Radio.

What do you think? Now, a few of those, I didn't really know what he was talking about. That's why I made no comment. If you don't know what to say, you just don't say anything at all. I mean, trying to understand what some of these things are like is very, very difficult.

It's like mission impossible. I don't know. But to be fair, I didn't read the comments after the first, second, and third, so that's why that happened. But I like the idea, especially when we are in the gospels, this up close and personal view of the Lord Jesus.

And that's why when I'm getting ready for the day at my home, like I even did today, I have the gospels on. Oh, you know what? I take that back. I don't want to lie. Today, I did something differently than I normally do.

Normally, I'm listening to the gospels as I'm getting ready to go to work, to go to church, same place, church building. Okay, I get it. I was reading Exodus 14, Israel, mountain on one side, mountain on the other side.

The other side was the Red Sea and then the Pharaoh's army and how do you get out? And of course, the Lord opens up the Red Sea and he leads the Israelites through the Red Sea, swallows up all the soldiers of Pharaoh, and they respond with song.

And I just wanted to listen to that account as I was getting ready. So most of the time, I'm in John 5 to 9. Sometimes I'm in Luke. Sometimes I like to just listen to Luke. But today it was Exodus 14, 15.

And then all of a sudden in chapter 16, they're grumbling. No water. They're grumbling. No food. No meat. I thought, yikes. And I read 1 Corinthians 10 about these as an example. And grumbling. I don't want to grumble.

The Magnificat as Prophetic Praise of Christ

I came in with No Compromise Radio Ministry. We're talking about Jesus in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Specifically, I'm in Luke 1 with the Magnificat. And I was going through this and I thought, well, this is kind of interesting because she begins to extol God for who he is and what he's done for her, and then she expands it and there's a bunch of things that she praises God for that are in the past tense.

And there's a debate in scholars within the scholarly realm, scholastic realm. Okay. We all know that there are verbs. We all know the verb tense. He has shown strength. He has scattered the proud. He has brought down.

He has filled the hungry. He has sent the rich away. He's helped his servant. He spoke to our fathers. That's Luke 1, 51 through 55. We understand those verbs are past tense. And in fact, I think they do include the past tense with God's great rescuing Israel out of Egypt and other things that God has done.

But there's also something that's called a prophetic arist tense. What's so guaranteed in the future is demonstrated by the use of a past tense. And you say, what? That seems kind of corny. Romans 8, 30.

And those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he also called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he will also glorify? No, he also glorified. Now, are you glorified? Can I talk to your spouse about that?

Of course, we're not glorified yet. I mean, if this is heaven, if this is a glorified body, why do I have to go to the doctor every week now? I mean, in the last, I don't know, several months, I've gone to the pulmonologist.

I've gone to the ENT doctor. I've gone to the dermatologist. I've gone to the general practitioner. I've gone to the, let's see, I have an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. I'm getting an appointment with the prostate doctor.

This is the glorified body with what you speak, of what you speak. Although I did ride the bicycle yesterday. A couple of days ago, I did as well. I think I've, it's not like a 200 mile week, but I think I put on 60, 70 miles in a week.

And I rode 20 miles the other day at 16 .4 miles an hour average, which is pretty good for me. It was kind of windy and it's early in the year and almost died of COVID. My lungs aren't ever going to heal all the way.

And so I was pretty happy with that. But imagine how fast I can ride with a glorified body. Now that would be a sight to behold. I'm old enough to remember Flubber, right? The Disney movie. Remember when Disney was wholesome?

You know, you don't even have to be Christian to be wholesome. And they were certainly, you know, I think Walt Disney said in Disneyland and Disney World, there'll never be a church, but you could still, you know, like that Johnny Appleseed song.

Let's see. The Lord is good to me. And so I thank the Lord, whatever. Let's see. The Lord is good to me. And so I thank the Lord for giving me the sun and the rain and the sun and the rain and the apple seed.

The Lord is whatever. Something like that, right? That's a Disney thing. You can cut that out. Spencer, if you listen to that, you can edit that out. Leave it in. What do I care? Am I prideful? Yes, but whatever.

If you listen to no compromise radio, you have to put up with a lot of stuff. So might as well just put up with that as well. We're not glorified yet, but the text speaks as we are. And so this is the same idea in Luke chapter one, as in Romans eight, it's as good as done.

And you know what she's talking about? She's talking about that baby in her womb is going to do these things. Oh, you could rehearse the great things to try you and God has done in the past, but she isn't talking about the past right now.

She's going to talk about what God will do in the future through Jesus, the baby in her womb. They are so certain, even though their future, they can be portrayed in the past tense. Wow. Jesus is being praised by Mary when Jesus is in the womb.

You know, I talked to the children when they were in the womb of my wife and I would rub her stomach. I would sing hymns. I mean, get a load of this. This is, this is amazing. The son of God, what would he be doing?

How would he run his race? Every mom probably thinks, well, what would my son grow up to be? What would my daughter grow up to be? Fathers think that this is amazing. What is Jesus going to do? The King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Well, Mary's celebrating what this great Jesus is going to do. And even we get a little hint of what it's like when she says, my spirit rejoices in God, my savior back in 47. This is future rejoicing stuff.

This is eschatological joy. She uses the past tense, but it's Mary's talking about Jesus and what Jesus will do. Little baby Jesus still growing in her womb. She knows, she believes, she has faith that Jesus, the son of God is going to fulfill the mission that God, the father sent him to do.

And she now sings with joy, the deeds of what her son, the God man will do. Verse 51, he has shown strength of his arm. He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts, mighty deeds. And of course, this is language of Old Testament with mighty deeds with his arm.

Of course, if you look in the Old Testament, we're not going to, you know, did Jesus have an arm? Yes, but that's not really the point. What's an arm look like? This is anthropomorphic thinking about the Old Testament where God's arm talks about strength.

I mean, you can look at the Old Testament and see God's eyes, ears, fingers, nose, but God is invisible. And so these are terms that help us just understand. A way to think about God, I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, Exodus 6.

Exodus 15, by the greatness of your arm, by an outstretched arm, Deuteronomy, he has shown strength of his arm. Talking about Jesus, not yet born, things that he's going to do, so sure that they're going to happen, that Jesus, the Almighty One, is going to do everything that the Father has sent him to do.

That's pretty fun. That's pretty exciting. And that's what's happened the rest of the book. He scattered the proud in their thoughts of their hearts. By the way, we say mind and heart, intellect, emotions, and here we have exactly the way the Hebrews would think about it, written in Greek, the thoughts of their hearts, the mission control center.

He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate. Didn't Jesus do that? Isn't Jesus doing that? Of course, bringing down the mighty and exalting those of humble state.

That's exactly what he does. And you think about even Revelation chapter 19, even in the future, there's more to come when Jesus comes back. This is what the Lord does. He exalts the lowly and he brings down the proud.

He's filled the hungry with good things and the rich he set away empty. This has nothing to do with liberation theology. This has everything to do. Oh, I didn't mean to do that. I pushed the wrong button.

That was actually a mistake. I was going to put our music up there and I hit the other one instead. Boy, that's bad. That's bad radio. Does Jesus ultimately feed the hungry with the good things like he's the man himself that comes down from heaven?

Absolutely. Helping the servant Israel and remembrance of mercy, speaking to the fathers. This is exactly what has happened. Jesus in the womb is going to give help for Israel. That's pretty amazing. The redeemer, fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant, faithful remnant of Israel.

Did he help when he was alive? Of course he did. Well, my name is Mike Abendroth, this is No Compromise Radio Ministry. I hope you want to read the gospels now after listening to this show. Info at NoCompromiseRadio .com.