April 5, 2023 Show with Andreas Köstenberger on “The Final Days of Jesus”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson,

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with your own questions.

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Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this

fifth day of April, 2023, the last April before

Easter, and I am thrilled to have a returning guest.

He was actually just with us on March 31st, was the

last time he was with us to discuss his book, Biblical Theology, A Canonical Thematic and

Ethical Approach, but today he is going to be discussing a book that is

very timely for this time of year, but is obviously of infinite value

any time of year, The Final Days of Jesus.

Andreas Kastenberger is a leading evangelical scholar and prolific writer, author, editor, or

translator of close to 50 books, including God, Marriage, and Family, A Theology

of John's Gospel, Excellence, a commentary on 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus,

and the Biblical Theology for Christian Proclamation series, and he's also an editor of the Journal of

the Evangelical Theological Society, and a visiting fellow at St. Edmund's College in Cambridge, England.

He is also the co -founder of Biblical Foundations, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back

to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. Andreas Kastenberger.

Terrific to be with you again, I really appreciate it.

For the sake of our listeners who have not heard you on the program before, perhaps they missed your

March 31st interview, or perhaps they heard you and just don't remember the details behind Biblical

Foundations, please share that information with our listeners.

Yes, thank you so very much.

Well, my wife and I have been married for 33 years, and we have four

grown children, and we've so much enjoyed our journey in our marriage and also as

parents, and so Biblical Foundations is primarily

seeking to be a resource for couples and for families

on how to have a good marriage, how to be good parents, and as you

mentioned, the storefront is the BiblicalFoundations .org website where we have

just a lot of helpful resources, and we've written several books on marriage and the

family as well, including Equipping for Life and Parenting Essentials.

Well, if anybody wants more details on Biblical Foundations, go to BiblicalFoundations .org,

BiblicalFoundations .org.

Well, as I said, this book that you have written, The Final Days of Jesus, is obviously

very timely, and as we approach Good Friday and

commemorate the death of Jesus Christ on Golgotha's cross,

who paid the perfect payment and paid the perfect

sacrifice for the sins of his people and satisfied the wrath

of his Father on that cross through his perpetuatory death,

and obviously subsequent to that, the glorious resurrection of

our Lord and the ascension into heaven to be seated at the right hand of the Father.

As we approach these days coming up, there are

obviously, you know as well as I do, many books

that have been written by great Christian minds throughout the centuries,

including even some contemporary authors who have written on the

death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

What made you say to yourself, I've got to add something to the volumes that are already

available in The Final Days of Jesus?

Well, I need to give credit to Justin Taylor, who is the publisher of Crossway, who approached me with the

idea for this project because he wanted to have an aid for the family

and for people in the church how to follow Jesus along on his journey

in this final week of his earthly

ministry, and as the subtitle of our book says, it's the most important week

of the most important person who ever lived, and so I think that by itself already justifies devoting

a book to it.

The book essentially reproduces the text that referred to

Jesus' final week in the ESV, English Standard Version, translation, and then we provide

a brief commentary, you know, day by day.

Now, perhaps you could let us know your thoughts on

what Christians, and we'll include genuine Bible

-believing Christians, and also non -believers, or at least

perhaps nominal Christians who are not truly regenerate, but what does

humanity that is aware of this story, I mean, it's a very globally known

story for two millennia that, you know, even even those that

bear no resemblance to Christianity, they may be atheists, they may be orthodox Jews, they may be

Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists, most people know something about this story,

but what is it that you think universally many of us,

including genuine Christians, get wrong about this?

That's a great question.

You know, when I was working on the book, it was really a devotional

experience.

What a privilege to work on a book on the final days of Jesus, and what really struck me increasingly

is that, you know, we sometimes think of the gospel as more like an

abstract story where we affirm certain key doctrines, such as

the crucifixion, burial, resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ,

but tracing Jesus' steps in his final week

on earth made me realize this is not just an abstract set of affirmations.

This is actually a story of a historical person who

was living and breathing, and who is dying for us, and who rose again, and who

sustained a set of relationships with his close followers, and who antagonized the authorities, and so

this is the story of all stories, the true story that

shows God's Son dying on the cross for our sins, and so

I think as C .S. Lewis once said, Christianity is the true myth, the one that

is actually real, and true, and historical, and explains

everything else, all the other stories.

Now, when it comes to something that people may be getting wrong about this story,

do you think that far too often, and perhaps we even as not only Christians, but theologically Reformed

Christians, sometime when we hear the story, either read from the scriptures, preached

from a pulpit, perhaps we are even

seeing a movie that involves the resurrection, and I know that there's a huge debate, especially amongst

Reformed Christians, on whether that's even appropriate, especially if the

person of Jesus is depicted in a film by an actor, but sometimes do you think

that we forget that there was something far more

excruciating, and tormenting, and

horrible, and unthinkably painful

that Jesus was awaiting, that in

actuality, and I'm not saying this to undermine the significance of the physical torture

he experienced, but sometimes we just look at this as only

the execution of a man, and what a man would be going

through, through his own emotions, his own fears, and so

on, and of course Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, not to ever

undermine or diminish either of those aspects, but

isn't the fact that he was awaiting to actually have his father's wrath poured

upon him something that is even more infinitely terrifying than any

of those physical things that he experienced, the scourging at the pillar, and the

all kinds of torment, the mocking, the being nailed to the cross,

and so on.

There have been martyrs, countless millions of martyrs

throughout the centuries who were only men, and not

God as well as what we have in the case of Jesus Christ, who was fully God and fully man.

But we have to realize that this

execution of Jesus, which he voluntarily participated in

at the orchestration of his own father, even though it was done by the sinful hands of wicked

men, this is a unique experience that no one will

ever encounter.

So even though the fact there have been many martyrs, this is a very.

Unique situation, isn't it?

Yes, Chris, that is so true.

You know, we look at the crucifixion actually from a human point of view, and

indeed Jesus met our needs for salvation, and we can be eternally grateful

for that.

But especially John's Gospel presents Jesus' death and

suffering from the vantage point of the Holy Trinity, the relationship that Jesus

as the Son had with God the Father.

And I think John makes the point that Jesus first and foremost

died not for humanity but for the Father, because it was the Father's will

for him to give his life for sinful humanity to

provide salvation.

And so in the end you have Jesus' so -called night priestly prayer in John 17, which is

directed to the Father, and Jesus tells the Father that he has accomplished the mission that the Father has

given to him.

And so that is just a beautiful picture.

I think like you like you described it, of the Trinity

jointly working together on behalf of

humanity's salvation, but it is not just an anthropocentric

act.

It is a theocentric act.

It's a transaction that first and foremost occurs among the persons of the Holy Trinity.

So your book is laid out from the Sunday

prior to Easter Sunday, the week before, all the

way through that glorious resurrection day.

What can you tell us, obviously in summary form, about

that Sunday one week before the the resurrection of Christ?

Yes, so we follow the traditional biblical progression starting with

Palm Sunday.

Of course we just celebrated Palm Sunday a few days ago, and so we see here Jesus

triumphantly entering the city of Jerusalem.

He was mounted humbly on a donkey in keeping with the way

Solomon entered Jerusalem, son of David, and also in

keeping with prophetic messianic predictions such as Zechariah chapter

9.

And the crowds are hailing him

as Messiah and Deliverer, and they wave palm branches, hence

the name Palm Sunday.

But one suspects that they did not fully understand that Jesus would

have to be crucified and would have to suffer.

So there's a certain element of misunderstanding at Palm Sunday, but

that triumphal entry is the main event that happens on that first day of the

final week of Jesus.

Now I'm assuming that those who were giving honor

to Christ as he was riding that donkey must have had some kind

of a familiarity with the Old Testament prophecies that would

give that picture that Jesus fulfilled.

Otherwise it would have been a somewhat of a comical picture.

I don't mean any obviously blasphemy or disrespect to our Lord, but

you would think that if this was a book, meaning the scriptures,

if it was written by your average novelist,

let's say, Jesus would have been riding in on a white stallion or something like that.

Here you have him riding in on a donkey with his feet probably nearly dragging on the ground.

It is a humorous picture, even though it's a very important and solemn event.

That's very interesting because, of course, in Revelation chapter 19, Jesus is indeed portrayed

as the rider on a white horse where he returns triumphantly.

But at his first coming, you're exactly right.

He corrects expectations to some extent,

and he sends a message, I think, by his manner of entry that he is not going

to be that national hero that some people were expecting.

So it all has to do with managing expectations.

And for those with eyes to see, they should have recognized that

this was not the kind of Messiah that the zealots were expecting or

that others in Jewish life were expecting, who were

hoping that the Messiah would overthrow the Romans and would reestablish

Israel's political control over their own territory.

So, because of the fact we do have seven days to go through here,

tell us about the significance of the Monday after Palm

Sunday.

Yes, that's right.

Now, on Monday, we...

By the way, correction, there's eight days.

I said seven.

Right.

So on Monday, we see that Jesus engages in a fairly enigmatic

action, which is he, when he was on his way into the city of Jerusalem, and he

typically stayed outside the city in Bethany, and then

entered the city, short walk with his disciples the following morning, he curses

a fig tree.

And of course, the fig tree symbolized Israel.

And Jesus, of course, was very disappointed, shall

we say, with Israel for Israel's failure to bear spiritual

fruit.

And so the curse on the fig tree symbolizes God's judgment

on Israel.

And then, continuing on that note of judgment, Jesus enters the

temple and cleanses it, the famous cleansing of the temple, which again,

in prophetic fashion, acted out God's judgment on Israel.

Matthew presents that in this intercalated form, some people call that a

Markan sandwich, where he starts with the cursing of the fig tree, then moves to

the cleansing of the temple, and then returns to the

story of the fig tree.

And so the bookends, the cursing of the fig tree, interpret what's in the heart of that

section, which is the cleansing of the temple.

So it's all about God's impending judgment on Israel, and

especially its corrupt worship at the temple.

Now, there seems to be a disagreement amongst Christian scholars

even, even those that would be in agreement with us on many matters of

theology, if not most, as to whether or not when

Jesus was in the temple, cleansing the temple by chasing

out the money changers after he had fashioned a whip, there are some who say there was no

way that Jesus actually ever made contact with any of those individuals

with that whip, and that he was just frightening them to run out.

And others have said that they believe he wouldn't have fashioned the whip unless he intended to use it for the

reasons a whip is used.

What is.

Your opinion on that?

I'm agnostic on this.

I've been asked that question before, and I looked very closely at the

synoptic accounts in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and I think it is simply left to inference, and so I

understand that different people draw different inferences from that, but it doesn't clearly say whether or not

Jesus actually literally struck anybody with that whip, and so it's simply up to

our logic of whether or not, you know, how we construe

the background to him fashioning that whip and driving out the money changers.

Now, do you think that there's anything.

In the scriptures about the descriptions of Christ

that would negate

us going with the one option that he did actually whip individuals?

He obviously couldn't have time to whip every single one of them, but is there anything

that would defy the character of Christ if he indeed.

Did physically hurt people by whipping them?

Well, probably.

I would think that whole debate, to my mind, kind of misses the main point why Jesus

fashioned in the first place, which is just to corrupt the temple, to basically

expel those who are corrupting worship, and so his purpose was not, you know, so much to

literally whip anybody, but more it was a symbolic prophetic signs act,

and I think the reality that he sought to convey there was

that God's wrath

was pertained to the corruption of Jewish

worship.

Well, we have to go to our first commercial break right now.

If you have a question for Andreas Kostenberger, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail

.com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, at least your city and state, and your country of residence, and only

remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back after these messages with more of Dr. Andreas Kostenberger.

And our discussion of the final days of Jesus.

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We're now back with Andreas Kostenberger, who is a co -founder of Biblical Foundations.

We are discussing one of his very timely books, The Final Days of Jesus,

and our email address, if you care to join us on the air, is chrisarnson at gmail

.com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com, and

give us your first name, at least, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside

the USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a

personal and private matter.

Let's say you have an opinion or a belief on anything that we are discussing

today that is different than what your own congregation is being taught,

and you feel uncomfortable identifying yourself, or perhaps you're the pastor yourself, and you have a disagreement with

your own elders or your denomination.

We understand that, that those would be reasons to remain anonymous, but if it's just a general question, please give us your first name, at least,

city and state of residence, and your country of residence.

And we have a question for you.

It's actually a first -time questioner who sent in this question.

Joel, from right here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

I'm curious how Dr. Kostenberger explains the three days from Jesus's death

till resurrection.

How we get three days and three nights, like Jesus said, of Jonah in Matthew 1240, from

Friday till dawn on Sunday.

I am often asked by new Christians and would love to hear how he explains it.

That actually came up recently when I interviewed one of those rare advocates

of a Thursday crucifixion, Dr. Andreas, I'm sorry, not Dr.

Kostenberger, Dr. A .M. Brewster.

A .M. Brewster, I'm sorry, biblical counselor A .M. Brewster.

And there are even advocates of a Wednesday crucifixion, and perhaps

you can correct me if I'm wrong, Dr. Kostenberger, but I think that Lorraine Bettner may have held to a Wednesday crucifixion.

But that would, a Wednesday crucifixion would allow for

three little literal 24 -hour days, which the traditional Friday day

of the.

Crucifixion does not.

But if you could explain that.

Well, I'll try.

I get that question quite a bit as well.

And, you know, there's multiple reasons why people might ask that question.

And I don't know the person who wrote in, you know, it could be that there's a genuine question,

or it could be that, you know, in some cases, detractors of the Christian faith

think that here they finally have an error in Scripture, because clearly, literally,

Jesus was not in the tomb for three days and three nights, right?

He was only the tomb for parts of three days and two nights.

And so if you press that, you know, some people might

to a literalistic level, there would be an error in Scripture.

I don't think so, though, because there's plenty of evidence that for Jewish people,

they would use a day and a night as a shorthand for a day.

And so, you know, for Jonah to be in the belly of the big fish for

three days and three nights, essentially, he was in the belly of the big fish for three days.

So how do you get three days then for Jesus to be in the tomb for three days?

Well, by inclusive reckoning, because what Jewish people did in the first century

is that even a partial day, they would count as a day or

a full day.

And so if you count that way, then Jesus was in the tomb for a

little bit on Friday, what we call Friday, then on the entire day, Saturday,

and then for part of a day, Sunday.

So even though you could say, well, there's only one full day and two partial days, the

Jews would still count that as three full days.

So that is the best I can do.

I think that's completely satisfactory.

But I understand that I would probably not convince a hardcore fundamentalist with that answer.

Well, some might equate the literal.

Six -day creation view, which is my view, the young earth

creationist view, they may equate the importance of that with three days in

the tomb of Christ.

So I don't know what your thoughts on the differences between those two

scenarios are.

Yeah, I would just say that the big story here is that Jesus rose from the dead.

Amen.

Well, thank you, Joel.

And you have won a free copy of the very book we are addressing today,

The Final Days of Jesus, the most important week of the most important person who ever lived.

Since you live right here in Carlisle, might I suggest that you go

to Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service rather than having them mail it to you.

And it's right on Rittner Highway in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

And tell them that you are a listener of Iron Trip and Zion Radio and that you won

The Final Days of Jesus by Andreas Kastenberger.

And again, for the sake of time, we have to move

along if we're going to try to cover each of these eight days that we already addressed.

And if you could move on to the significance of the.

Resurrection of Christ.

The Tuesday before the resurrection of Christ.

Absolutely.

I think one thing that really strikes me, and that is, I think, so admirable is that in many ways Jesus did

in the final week of his life what he did during his entire ministry, which is he

went and taught in the temple.

And, you know, like he would later defend himself, he said he taught

publicly.

And so his teaching is a matter of public record.

And so that's what he did on Tuesday.

And he's promptly accosted and, you know, challenged by the

authorities who ask him, you know, what makes you think that you can cleanse the

temple and drive out the money changers and disrupt the commerce there?

And so he says, well, I'm going to answer that question if you answer

one of my questions, which is, was the baptism of John from heaven or

was it from man?

And make a long story short, they refused to answer because he had them

either way.

And so he says, well, neither will I answer your question.

And so for the rest of the day, you see him engage in various interchanges with the

Jewish authorities who try to trick him and trap him.

And he masterfully parries all their attacks.

And clearly, you know, his wisdom is far

superior to that of the Jewish authorities.

Okay, now let's move on before the midway break to the

significance of the Wednesday prior to.

The resurrection of Christ.

Yes, and that is a short answer because we

hardly have any record of anything happening on Wednesday.

It's very intriguing.

This is the quiet, the calm before the storm.

All we hear is that the authorities continue to plot against

Jesus and try to find an inconspicuous

way to get rid of him without antagonizing the Roman authorities

or causing disruption of the festival.

Remember, there were probably hundreds of thousands of pilgrims in the holy city that week.

And so they are struggling to decide how to best proceed

in their persecution of Jesus.

But that's pretty much all that we know that happened on Wednesday.

Now, this plotting, this scheming of the Pharisees and the

Sadducees to bring about the execution of Christ,

which obviously they could have never done without the orchestration of this event by

the Father, by God himself, and through the voluntarily laying down of his

life by Jesus Christ himself.

But one of the things that is interesting whenever I

consider this, do you, I mean, I don't know if there's enough

information in the scriptures to come to a conclusion with certainty,

but it would seem to me that the Pharisees especially,

not necessarily the Jews in the crowds crying out for

Barabbas to be spared, that were just ordinary men

and women.

But when you consider the Pharisees and their knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures

calling out for the death of Christ, and even having an

increase in their fury against him and their hatred of him when they

saw him doing miracles, when he was actually doing things that should

have led them to say, this is truly the Son of God, this is truly the Messiah,

this is not an ordinary man.

And yet they did not do that and they cried out for his death.

Were these people conscious of the fact that

yes, this is the Messiah, but he is intruding into our religion

and we want him dead?

Or is this just a case of unregenerate people who, even though they know

the scriptures well, they just didn't see

Jesus in those scriptures?

It's a fascinating question and, you know, it would take us quite a while to adequately address that

question, but I think the most important thing to say here is that I think

John's gospel is very clear that ultimately Jesus was crucified on the charge of blasphemy.

And so I think the Pharisees were rigid monotheists.

They believed there was one and only one God, and Jesus violated their rigid understanding

of monotheism by claiming to be God.

And so by their simple logic is there could only be one God, and so there

could not be a second God.

And so they were convinced that Jesus was guilty of blasphemy and therefore had to

be, you know, stoned or crucified.

Well, let's now move in to the next day, the Thursday

before the resurrection of Christ.

Yes, of course, that is the day of the famous Last Supper

in the upper room, where Jesus gathered with his

12 apostles to celebrate the Jewish Passover, and where

he also instituted the new covenant in his body and his blood.

And, of course, John's gospel gives us a priceless treasure in

form of the so -called farewell or upper room discourse, where we have five wonderful

chapters of Jesus engaging in an act of

humble servitude by washing his disciples' feet, and then by instructing them about the coming of the Holy

Spirit and about the implications of his impending crucifixion.

We actually have a listener who is asking about something that you just mentioned.

We have Christopher in Western Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who asks,

why is it that during the Last Supper we have Jesus Christ washing

the feet of his disciples, and yet very, very few denominations

today continue that practice when they observe the Lord's Supper?

Because they understand that Jesus tried to set an

example of humble servanthood, which in that culture took on the

form of washing feet, because what you had is a

custom of ancient hospitality that if somebody had you over

for dinner, and you arrived walking the dusty roads in your sandals,

your feet were dirty.

And so they provided typically a household servant with a basin full

of water to wash your feet upon entering to the house, so that

when you ate dinner and your feet were actually right beside the face of the

person next to you, hygiene was properly

served.

Now, of course, in our case, we typically don't walk to a dinner invitation

in our sandals and so have no need for someone to wash our feet.

First, Timothy 5, I think it's verse 18, is very helpful here, because there Paul

mentions that widows qualified for church

support if they have washed the feet of the saints.

And quite transparently, he didn't mean literally washed feet, but it is used

as a metaphor or as a symbol of serving the needs of

others.

Now, perhaps this is more of a pastoral question,.

But there are millions of Christians that live in areas

where the common thing amongst the people living

in those areas is to walk with sandals or even barefoot.

And if the church were to continue that practice in those areas, would this be out of

line, in your opinion?

I know this is.

More of a pastoral question, but those areas.

Well, it depends on what their hermeneutic is, you know, what their way of interpreting Scripture is.

If they take it literally, then I think they are certainly welcome to continue it, but their way

of interpreting that passage would still be mistaken.

But yeah, I mean, it all depends on what's appropriate in a given culture.

So if there's continuity between first century Palestine and that particular culture,

then certainly that could still be a meaningful gesture.

Yeah, it actually meant.

Something that made logical sense in Jesus's day, whereas in the West

in the 21st century, it would, especially from somebody visiting a church, it would just seem

extremely bizarre.

It wouldn't be part of an ordinary

act.

And obviously the enhanced addition to that is that you're not having a servant to do that,

you're humbling yourself by washing the feet of the visitor yourself, as

Christ did.

But interesting.

Well, we have to go to our midway break right now, and I just want to remind our listeners at the midway break,

as always, is longer than the other breaks in the show, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake

City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show, because the FCC requires

of them to localize Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and all of their programming

geographically to Lake City, Florida.

They do that with their own public service announcements and other local things that

they air during the midway break, while we simultaneously air our globally heard

commercials.

So I'm asking you to please use this time wisely.

Write down as much of the contact information provided by our advertisers as you possibly can

to further ensure that you will more frequently and successfully contact our

advertisers, whether you're buying their products, using their services, supporting their parachurch organizations,

or visiting their churches.

But when you can't do any of those things, there is something that every single Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener can do, if you

really love this show.

You can contact our advertisers, as many of them as possible, and say, thank you for

sponsoring Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

That is, if indeed you really love the show and are truly grateful that there are people and

organizations out there that think so highly of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio that they share with us

a portion of the money that God has blessed them with.

So please contact our advertisers at the very least to thank them for sponsoring Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And also send in your questions to Dr. Andreas Kastenberger about the final days of Jesus.

Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live

outside the USA.

Don't go away, we're going to be right back after these messages with more of Dr. Andreas Kastenberger and the.

Final days of Jesus.

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

I'm very excited to announce.

That my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta,

Georgia again for the G3 National Conference.

That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday, the 23rd.

On a theme that I've been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the

sovereignty of God.

I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott

Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries.

And there's more great news, Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio can get you a 30 discount

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Chris Arnson, I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday, the 23rd for the G3

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Make sure you stop by the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Exhibitor booth and say hi to Chris Arnson while

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When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio

first launched in 2005,.

The publishers of the New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors.

It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been

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I'm Dr. Tony Costa,.

Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love, Hope

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It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God, like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in

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Or call 631 -696 -5711.

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Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa

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If you love Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, one of the best ways you can help keep the show on the air is

by supporting our advertisers.

One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what Chris Arnton is doing is

Daniel P. Patafuco, serious injury lawyer and Christian apologist.

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Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio on the air.

Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor.

Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio has had a long -time partnership with our friends at

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Such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio listeners from all over the world.

Here's Joe Reilly, a listener in Ireland, who wants you to know about a guest on the show.

He really loves hearing interviewed, Dr. Joe Moorcraft.

I'm Joe Reilly, a faithful Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland,

going back to 2005.

One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpen's Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft.

If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio, Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming,

Georgia are largely to thank, since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

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James White of Alpha Omega.

Ministries here.

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Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said,.

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The man who never reads will never be read.

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He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves he has no brains of his own.

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Before I return to my discussion with Dr. Andreas Kostenberger on his book, The

Final Days of Jesus, we just have a couple of very important announcements to make.

First of all, if you love this show, folks, and you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, go to ironsharpensironradio

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Also, for all men and ministry leadership, the next Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free

Pastors Luncheon is Thursday of next week, the Thursday after Easter,

April 13th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, which is in

Perry County, Pennsylvania.

My two featured speakers are Dr. William Webster, who is a Banner of Truth author and pastor in

Battleground, Washington, and also Reverend David T. King, who is a co -author along with

Dr. Webster, and he is a pastor in Katy, Texas.

And this is free of charge, so you're fed spiritually, fed physically, all for free.

This was the brainchild of my precious late wife back in the 1990s, and I continue

conducting these Free Pastors Luncheon even after she has gone home to glory in the presence of Christ

for eternity, and I do so in loving memory of her, in an honor and tribute to her.

And in addition to those things you're getting for free, you're going to be leaving with a heavy sack of free brand new

books personally selected by me and donated by major publishers all over the United States and United

Kingdom.

You can't beat that, so if you can get to Loisville, Pennsylvania next

week on Thursday, please try to be there if you're a man in ministry leadership.

If you want to register for free, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put luncheon in the

subject line.

The three days following that Free Pastors Luncheon, those same two speakers, Dr. Webster and

Reverend King, will be conducting an Iron Trump and Zion Radio free conference at a different church.

This will be Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Friday, April 14th,

Saturday, April 15th, and Sunday, April 16th.

The theme of this free three -day conference is The Gospel Removed by Rome, Rescued by

the Reformers, and Rejected by Modern Evangelicals.

If you'd like to register for that conference, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put conference in

the subject line.

And you could also include luncheon and conference if you're attending both, and give me the number of people

that will be joining you at each event.

So send that email to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Also, if you are not a member of a Christ -honoring, biblically faithful church, no matter where you live in the world, I have

extensive lists spanning the globe and have helped many people in our audience find churches, sometimes

even within a couple of minutes from where they live.

So if you are spiritually homeless, you don't have a good, solid, Christ -honoring

church where you are a member, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line.

That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Dr. Andreas Kastenberger about the final days of

Jesus.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give us the first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence

if you live outside of the USA.

And now we approach one of the most significant days in all of

history, a day that is certainly an essential day

for any sinner to be made right with God, the day that only

Jesus Christ, the perfect God -man, the perfect sacrificial lamb,

the spotless Passover lamb, only he could have died this

propitiatory sacrificial death in order to appease the Father

and have our sins imputed to him while his sins are

imputed to us.

We are speaking of that day known as Good Friday, and if you could pick up there with

additional significance of.

That very holy day.

Absolutely, Chris, and you know I love the gospel of John, and John

is remarkable because he actually says that at the cross

Jesus was lifted up, and there's a word play involved here because

of course he was physically lifted up, but he was also

spiritually exalted because of his obedience

to God.

And so in the end, the

crucifixion, the way John casts it and presents it

was the successful completion of Jesus' mission from the

Father.

God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him should not

perish but have eternal life.

And so the famous cry in the Greek, it is

finished, in John 19 .30 is really a cry of triumph.

Jesus persisted and was obedient and showed

his love for people all the way to the cross.

Now, what happened on what we call Good Friday is that after nightfall, Jesus

is, after he prays at Gethsemane, is betrayed by Judas

and is arrested.

He is taken and brought to trial before the

Jewish and the Roman authorities, first in the formal hearing before Annas, the former

high priest, and then a formal Sanhedrin hearing in the early morning hours of

Good Friday, and then he's taken to Pilate, who is the Roman governor alone

had the power to impose the

death sentence, capital punishment, on Jesus by crucifixion.

And then Jesus is crucified.

And later that afternoon, hurriedly

buried in Joseph of Arimathea's new tomb.

Praise God.

And you are a fellow Reformed believer.

Isn't there a very crucial distinction between our

understanding of the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ on

Golgotha, that he paid in full

100 that

was necessary to redeem his people from their sins and

from hell.

This was a finished and complete and perfectly accomplished

mission.

And those that he intended to save will certainly, at some

point, be regenerated by him and will be

added to his number.

It seems to me that as well -intentioned as our brothers and sisters in Christ are

who disagree with that, they unintentionally, unconsciously, truly diminish

the power of what occurred on that cross.

Am I making sense here?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And you know, this is not even just a matter of Reformed theology.

I think John himself teaches very clearly that divine election and

predestination and divine sovereignty.

And he says things such as that no one can come to the Father unless the Father

draws him.

And he who comes to me, I will in no way cast out.

And, you know, similar statements.

So I wrote a book, A Theology of John's Gospel and Letters, where I have a whole

chapter on election and predestination and divine sovereignty and

human responsibility.

And actually, I've been accused by some to be a Calvinist based on that definition.

So I told him, well, I just try to interpret Scripture as fairly and as

responsibly as I can.

And we move on now to a day that does have some

of its own controversy.

We have the Saturday prior to the resurrection of Jesus.

And first, I'd like you to begin by talking about the significance of this day before I add

to your explanation, the controversies that have arisen.

About that day.

Absolutely.

So just like Wednesday, Saturday, you know, there's very little information in

Scripture.

We don't know what the disciples were doing that day.

We assume they went into hiding out of fear of the authorities being afraid that they might

be next.

Ironically, the only action we have, and I say ironically, because it involved the

Pharisees going to Pilate to ask him to secure Jesus' tomb.

And it's ironic because obviously, they didn't believe in doing any work on the Sabbath.

And so here they walked over to Pilate's residence.

And also, they, in some ways, seem to take Jesus'

prediction that he would arise in the third day seriously enough that they wanted to secure the tomb, at least

so that the disciples couldn't steal the body and afterwards claim that Jesus had risen from the dead.

So be that as it may, it seems Pilate agreed with this.

And so as far as we know, there was a contingent of both Roman and Jewish

security forces positioned at the tomb.

And of course, again, it played right into the hands of Christians because that

way, nobody could legitimately claim that anybody stole the body because the guards would certainly

have stopped them from doing so.

Now, the area of controversy, well, there's probably more than.

The one that I'm thinking of, but I'm specifically referring to something that actually just came up

recently in one of my interviews on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, where

we hear or read in 1 Peter 3.

Let's start with verse 18.

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all time, the just for the unjust,

so that he might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the

Spirit, in which he also went and made proclamation to the

spirits in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept

waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is eight

persons were brought safely through the water.

That very mysterious sounding text about

Jesus making a proclamation to the spirits in.

Prison.

Can you tell us your exegesis of that?

Yeah, that's a very appropriate, but clearly very difficult question.

Christ's whereabouts on the Sabbath.

I believe the reference there is to

demonic spirits, who were probably cohabitating with human

females.

Genesis 6 says as much in the days of

Noah, at the outset of the flood, and Jesus proclaimed

his triumph over Satan, specifically to that group

of demonic spirits, once it had been accomplished.

So, you know, I realize there's other ways to interpret this, but

in our book, The Cradle of Cross and the Crown, in the chapter in 1 Peter, we give a fairly detailed

explanation of this, as well as we, I think there's at least four major views on this.

So, this is our view.

Wow, that's interesting, because the most predominant one I have heard is that that is

Jesus revealing to the Old Testament saints that he was the one

that they were hoping and waiting.

For and unconsciously worshiping in the Old Covenant.

Yeah, I think the word spirits or spirits in prison in 1 Peter 3

.19 is usually not referring to human spirits, but is typically to, you

know, angelic or demonic beings.

So, that's one exegetical issue to navigate there.

Okay, and now we arrive.

I'm so glad that we were able to fit all eight days in this discussion.

Now we arrive at Resurrection Sunday itself.

You would think that there needs no further explanation, but tell us what you

have in store for us in your book about that.

Absolutely.

So, Jesus died Friday afternoon, probably around three in the

afternoon.

And, of course, at sundown, the Jewish Sabbath began, on which no work must be done.

And so, you see that there was only a short window during which Jesus'

body needed to be taken down from the cross and needed to be

prepared for burial and then laid in that tomb before the sunset.

And so, that would explain why after waiting, you know, on the Sabbath, a

group of women went to the tomb early Sunday morning to complete

some of the unfinished business that Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea had

not been able to accomplish because of the shortness of time before the Sabbath

started.

And, as you know, Mary Magdalene approaches the tomb and already finds it empty.

The stone had been rolled away.

I always wonder how the women thought they would gain access to the tomb because certainly they could not have rolled

away that stone.

But then later, so Mary reports

to Peter and John that the tomb is empty, and they rush to the tomb and find that,

indeed, it was.

Angels appear to them.

And then later, Jesus actually appears first to Mary Magdalene.

She doesn't recognize Him at first, thinks He's the gardener, again, very ironic.

And then later that day, He appears to two disciples on the road to

Emmaus, which was just outside of Jerusalem.

And then that same evening, still on Resurrection Sunday, Jesus appears to the

11, actually to the 10 apostles, of course, without

Judas and also without Thomas.

So we can see that Jesus had a very busy Resurrection Sunday, and we pretty much

know what He did all day because He appeared to numerous people that first

Resurrection Sunday.

Now, the importance of the eyewitnesses to this,

and also the importance of the

truthfulness or the evidence towards the truthfulness of the resurrection

of Christ and the scriptures that describe it.

There has been a saying, and it's been said in different ways, but you

have a saying that while many people may die for a lie,

very few, if any, would ever die for something they knew to be a lie.

And you have eyewitnesses to this resurrection,

some of whom were martyrs for the faith.

And you even have, obviously, some of the more prominent disciples.

In fact, all of Jesus' apostles were martyred,

with the exception of John on the Isle of Patmos.

And it would be totally a bizarre phenomenon if any of these people,

especially a great number of them, were to know in their minds, yes, this is a

lie.

Jesus' friends are making this resurrection story up, but I'm willing to die for it anyway.

People typically don't do that kind of a thing.

You do have, as I said in the quote, you have people dying for lies.

You have Muslims that fly into buildings and are on suicide missions and all kinds of things like

that.

And you may even just have members of false religions dying

as they refuse to convert or something of that nature.

But these people don't know what they're doing is dying for a lie.

So if you could discuss the importance of this eyewitness aspect.

Absolutely.

I couldn't agree more with everything you just said.

It's completely inconceivable, you know, that virtually

all the apostles would knowingly die for what they knew it was true, say, if they had stolen the

body and then claimed that Jesus had risen.

I think in addition, what is really intriguing to me is that in John Chapter

20, for example, none of the disciples actually really expected Jesus to rise.

We see that Mary still, when she already sees Jesus,

suspects him to be the gardener.

And she has this idea that somebody stole Jesus' body.

And she tells Jesus, if he knows where the body is, to give it to her so she

can perform proper services on it.

And also John and Peter, first, when they see the empty tomb, he says they still did not

believe that Jesus had risen from the dead.

And you see multiple times in Scripture, people don't recognize Jesus for who he is.

So clearly his body, his resurrected body had been

transformed to the point that he could appear and disappear at will, he could walk

through doors, he could do all kinds of things.

So yes, I think there's a whole long list of arguments that

the only really plausible explanation for the

accounts of Jesus' resurrection is that it actually happened historically.

Yeah, that's a key point as well, because.

There are atheists who have throughout history, and

members of false religions, who have said the whole thing is a fairy tale, it's all a

myth, a legend, a fable.

And yet today, in the 21st century, I have been told, in fact, I was even told this by an

atheist apologist, when I years ago

asked him, I challenged him to debate my friend Dr. James R. White of

Alpha and Omega Ministries on the historicity of Jesus Christ.

Was Jesus a true person from history, or was

he the product of pagan fables and so on?

As many have said over the centuries that he's nothing more than a different version of a

pagan story.

This atheist said to me, well, no atheist worth his salt believes that anymore.

They believe Jesus was a real person who walked the earth.

They just don't believe he was God.

So there is historic evidence from eyewitnesses

to Christians, who they themselves were not Christians,

and yet they wrote about the fact that at least those who died

for their allegiance to Christ believed he was resurrected.

Even if these historians who have written about this, who were contemporaries

of the apostles in the first century, and years subsequent to

that, they knew that this was a reality, even if they didn't believe the

resurrection itself was something that happened.

Am I right?

Yeah, absolutely.

I think both Jewish historians and Roman historians

attest certainly to the fact that Jesus existed.

I think the most famous are on the Jewish side, the historian Josephus, who

was born in 37 A .D. and who died in 100 A .D. and wrote

well -known works, The Antiquities of the Jews and the Jewish War.

He has the famous Testimonium Flavianum, where he mentions

Jesus at some length.

And on the Greco -Roman side, you have well -known historians such as Tiberius

in his Annals and also Suetonius in his history talking about

Jesus being crucified under the Roman governor Pontius

Pilate and so forth.

So I think there's sufficient evidence that even a diehard

skeptic and agnostic like Bart Ehrman, who is the chairman of the religion department

at UNC, wrote a book defending the historicity of.

Jesus.

Yes, for those of our listeners who are unfamiliar with Bart Ehrman, he was a professing

evangelical who was even viewed by his mentor, Dr.

Metzger, as a rising star in the evangelical faith.

And he renounced his faith and became an agnostic.

I believe he is an agnostic and not an atheist.

I could be wrong about that.

But the thing that's interesting about Bart Ehrman is,

if you didn't know his background, sometimes when you're watching him, let's say, on

a major cable network who is having a documentary that

some of these networks have during this time of year, and during Christmas especially, where

they will have historians and scholars give their thoughts on

the life of Jesus.

And Bart Ehrman will be on there sometimes amongst a

variety of different people, some that might be even Christian themselves.

And you don't know necessarily that Bart Ehrman is an unbeliever, because he is speaking of

Jesus as somebody who is a true.

Figure from history.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

We actually wrote two books, Daryl Bach from Dallas Seminary and Josh Shatro and I,

Truth Matters, and also Truth in a Culture of Doubt, for any listeners who are interested in

conservative believing responses to some of Bart Ehrman's

hardened skeptical arguments against the Christian faith, the Bible, Jesus deity, and.

So forth.

We have to go to our final break right now, and when we return we're going to listen to or hear a

question from Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina, who is one of our most faithful and loyal

listeners and supporters as well.

And if you have a question that you would like to ask and get in line behind Grady, now

is the time to do it, because we are rapidly running out of time.

Send it to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state and country of residence.

Don't go away.

We will be right back with Dr. Andreas Kostenberger and the final days of Jesus right after these messages

from our.

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As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron

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And of course, the end from which we strive is the glory of God.

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes,

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Systematic and applied theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

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If anybody wants more details on that church, go to heritagepresbyterianchurch .com.

We're now back with Andreas Kastenberger, and we are discussing the

final days of Jesus.

We have Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina, who asks, greetings, brothers.

Over 35 years ago, the triune God drew me to himself and by grace through faith

saved me from his wrath.

I'm still amazed and astonished at his plan to save us as unworthy as we are.

As the hymn writer said, hallelujah, what a savior.

The only way our father can get all the glory for our salvation is that he did it

all.

Why do you think some Christians believe it was their decision, especially when

Ephesians 2 says we're dead.

In our trespasses?

Well, because they are misinformed

or they have not cared to search the scriptures for themselves, but have listened to

perhaps those who misinterpret scripture.

But clearly, the biblical gospel is justification by faith

alone, through grace alone, in Christ alone.

I actually find it very interesting that the listener is quoting Ephesians 2 because

I was going to, in conclusion here, quote Ephesians 1, if I may,

verses 19 and 20, which is one of my favorite verses in the New

Testament, and I think it shows that that very same power that raised

Jesus from the dead is now at work in those of us who believe.

That's what Paul writes in Ephesians 1, 19.

He prays that believers understand what is the measurable greatness of his

power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he

raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.

I just can't think of anything more encouraging than for us to consider that

the Spirit did not merely raise Christ from the dead, but that same Spirit is now at

work.

In those of us who believe.

Amen.

Well, Grady, you have won the final copy that we have available of the final

days of Jesus, the most important week of the most important person who

ever lived, compliments of our friends at Crossway and also compliments of our friends

at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service who will actually be the ones shipping that book out to you at no charge to

you or to us.

I would like you to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our.

Listeners right now, Andreas.

Thank you so much, Chris.

First of all, thanks for having me on.

This has been a wonderful, well -moderated two hours of walking with Jesus through the last

week of his earthly life.

And of course, we know he's exalted with God in heaven right now.

He's preparing a place for us, and then he will return to take us home to be with him.

I just wanted to inform our listeners of just two things.

One is there's actually a prequel to the final days of Jesus, the first days of

Jesus, which is all about why we celebrate Christmas and the first Christmas is only eight

short months away.

And also, there is ample resources available on the final days of

Jesus on our website, BiblicalFoundations .org.

You can go there and you can simply type in final days or Easter, and you will see interviews,

you will see articles, you will see videos on each of the days of

Jesus' final week.

So I wish our listeners a very meaningful celebration

of Christ's crucifixion and especially his resurrection.

Amen.

And if you want to visit Dr. Andreas.

Kastenberger's website, it's BiblicalFoundations .org.

Thank you so much for being such a magnificent guest once again.

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than

you are a sinner.