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

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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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

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

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He was actually just with us on March 31st, was the last time he was with us to discuss his book,

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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,

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The Final Days of Jesus. Andreas Kostenberger is a leading evangelical scholar and prolific writer, author, editor, or translator of close to 50 books, including

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God, Marriage, and Family, A Theology of John's Gospel, Excellence, a commentary on 1st and 2nd

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

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

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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.

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

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

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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.

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Yes, thank you so very much. Well, my wife and I have been married for 33 years, and we have 4 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

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website, where we have just a lot of helpful resources, and we've written several books on marriage and the family as well, including

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Equipping for Life and Parenting Essentials. Well, if anybody wants more details on Biblical Foundations, go to biblicalfoundations .org,

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biblicalfoundations .org. Well, as I said, this book that you have written,

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The Final Days of Jesus, is obviously very timely, and as we approach

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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

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Father on that cross through his perpetuatory death, and obviously subsequent to that, the glorious resurrection of our

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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

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Christian minds throughout the centuries, including even some contemporary authors who have written on the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

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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?

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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

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Jesus along on his journey in this final week of his earthly ministry, and as a subtitle of our book says, it's the most important week of the most important person who ever lived.

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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

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ESV, English Standard Version, translation, and then we provide a brief commentary day by day.

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Now perhaps you could let us know your thoughts on what

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Christians, and we'll include genuine

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Bible -believing Christians, and also non -believers, or at least perhaps nominal

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Christians who are not truly regenerate, but what does humanity that is aware of this story,

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I mean it's a very globally known story for two millennia, that even those that bear no resemblance to Christianity, they may be atheists, they may be

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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

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Christians, get wrong about this? That's a great question. You know, when

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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

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Gospel as more like an abstract story where we affirm certain key doctrines, such as the crucifixion, burial, resurrection of the

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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

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God's Son dying on the cross for our sins, and so I think as C .S.

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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.

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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

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Christians, but theologically Reformed Christians, sometime when we hear the story, either read from the

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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

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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

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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 all kinds of torment, the mocking, the being nailed to the cross, and so on.

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There have been martyrs, countless millions of martyrs throughout the centuries who were only men, and not

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

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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.

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So even though the fact there have been many martyrs, this is a very unique situation, isn't it?

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Yes, Chris, that is so true. You know, we look at the crucifixion actually from a human point of view, and indeed

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Jesus met our need for salvation, and we can be eternally grateful for that, but especially

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John's Gospel presents Jesus' death and suffering from the vantage point of the

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Holy Trinity, the relationship that Jesus as the Son had with God the

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Father, and I think John makes the point that Jesus first and foremost died not for humanity but for the

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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

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Jesus' so -called night priestly prayer in John 17, which is directed to the Father, and Jesus tells the

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Father that he has accomplished the mission that the Father has given to him, and so that is just a beautiful picture.

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I think like you described it, of the

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Trinity jointly working together on behalf of humanity's salvation, but it is not just an anthropocentric act.

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It is a theocentric act. It's a transaction that first and foremost occurs among the persons of the

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Holy Trinity. So your book is laid out from the

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Sunday prior to Easter Sunday, the week before, all the way through that glorious Resurrection Day.

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What can you tell us, obviously in summary form, about that Sunday one week before the resurrection of Christ?

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Yes, so we follow the traditional biblical progression starting with Palm Sunday.

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

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Jesus triumphantly entering the city of Jerusalem. He was mounted humbly on a donkey in keeping with the way

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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

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Palm Sunday, but one suspects that they did not fully understand that Jesus would have to be crucified and would have to suffer.

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So there is 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.

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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

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Old Testament prophecies that would give that picture that Jesus fulfilled, otherwise it would have been somewhat of a comical picture.

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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,

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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.

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

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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,

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I think, by his manner of entry that he is not going to be that national hero that some people were expecting.

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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

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Messiah would overthrow the Romans and would reestablish Israel's political control over their own territory.

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So, because of the fact we do have seven days to go through here, tell us about the significance of the

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Monday after Palm Sunday. Yes, that's right. Now on Monday, we see...

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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

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Israel. And Jesus, of course, was very disappointed, shall we say, with Israel for Israel's failure to bear spiritual fruit.

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

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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

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God's judgment on Israel. Matthew presents that in his intercalated form.

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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.

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And so the book ends, the cursing of the fig tree interpret what's in the heart of that section, which is the cleansing of the temple.

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So it's all about God's impending judgment on Israel, and especially its corrupt worship at the temple.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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?

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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?

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

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Jesus fashioned in the first place, which is just to corrupt the temple, to basically expel those who are corrupting worship.

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And so his purpose was not, you know, so much to literally whip anybody, but more it was a symbolic prophetic signs act.

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And I think that the reality that he sought to convey there was that God's wrath was pertained to the corruption of Jewish worship.

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Well, we have to go to our first commercial break right now. If you have a question for Andreas Kastenberger, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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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.

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Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages with more of Dr. Andreas Kastenberger and our discussion of the final days of Jesus.

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That's royaldiadem .com. Always mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with Andreas Kostenberger, who is a co -founder of Biblical Foundations.

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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 chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

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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

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

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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.

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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.

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And we have a question for you. It's actually a first -time questioner who sent in this question.

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Joel, from right here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. I'm curious how

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Dr. Kostenberger explains the three days from Jesus' death till resurrection.

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How we get three days and three nights, like Jesus said, of Jonah in Matthew 12, 40, from Friday till dawn on Sunday.

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

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

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

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Kostenberger, Dr. A .M. Brewster, A .M. Brewster, I'm sorry,

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Biblical Counselor A .M. Brewster. And there are even advocates of a

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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

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Wednesday crucifixion. But that would, a Wednesday crucifixion would allow for three literal 24 -hour days, which the traditional

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Friday day of the crucifixion does not. But if you could explain that. Well, I'll try.

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I get that question quite a bit as well, and there's multiple reasons why people might ask that question.

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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

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

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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.

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And so if you press that, you know, some people might to a literalistic level, there would be an error in Scripture.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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And so if you count that way, then Jesus was in the tomb for a little bit on Friday, what we call

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Friday, then on the entire day, Saturday, and then for part of the day, Sunday.

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

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Jews would still count that as three full days. So that is the best I can do.

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I think that's completely satisfactory. But I understand that I would probably not convince a hardcore fundamentalist with that answer.

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Well, some might equate the literal six day creation view, which is my view, the young earth creationist view.

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They may equate the importance of that with three days in the tomb of Christ.

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

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

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Amen. Well, thank you, Joel. And you have won a free copy of the very book we are addressing today,

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

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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

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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.

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And if you could move on to the significance of the Tuesday before the resurrection of Christ.

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

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Jesus did in the final week of His life, what He did during His entire ministry, which is

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He went and taught in the temple. And like He would later defend

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Himself, He said He taught publicly, and so His teaching is a matter of public record.

41:26

And so that's what He did on Tuesday, and He's promptly accosted and challenged by the authorities who ask

41:36

Him, you know, what makes you think that you can cleanse the temple and drive out the money changers and disrupt the commerce there?

41:46

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?

42:00

And to make a long story short, they refused to answer because He had them either way.

42:07

And so He says, well, neither will I answer your question. And so for the rest of the day, you see

42:13

Him engage in various interchanges with the Jewish authorities who try to trick

42:18

Him and trap Him. And He masterfully parries all their attacks. And clearly, you know,

42:27

His wisdom is far superior to that of the Jewish authorities.

42:35

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

42:42

Wednesday prior to the resurrection of Christ. Yes, and that is a short answer because we hardly get any record of anything happening on Wednesday.

42:54

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

43:16

Roman authorities or causing disruption of the festival.

43:22

Remember, there were probably hundreds of thousands of pilgrims in the Holy City that week.

43:27

And so they are struggling to decide how to best proceed in their persecution of Jesus.

43:37

But that's pretty much all that we know that happened on Wednesday. Now, this plotting, this scheming of the

43:45

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

43:58

Father, by God Himself, and through the voluntarily laying down of His life by Jesus Christ Himself.

44:06

But one of the things that is interesting whenever I consider this, do you,

44:17

I mean, I don't know if there's enough information in the Scriptures to come to a conclusion with certainty.

44:25

But it would seem to me that the Pharisees especially, you know, not necessarily the

44:34

Jews in the crowds crying out for Barabbas to be spared, that were just ordinary men and women.

44:44

But when you consider the Pharisees and their knowledge of the

44:50

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

45:06

Him doing miracles, when He was actually doing things that should have led them to say, this is truly the

45:15

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.

45:24

Were these people conscious of the fact that yes, this is the

45:31

Messiah, but He is intruding into our religion, and we want

45:37

Him dead, or is this just a case of unregenerate people who even though they know the

45:44

Scriptures well, they just didn't see

45:50

Jesus in those Scriptures? It's a fascinating question, and you know, it would take us quite a while to adequately address that question.

45:59

But I think the most important thing to say here is that I think

46:04

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

46:10

And so I think the Pharisees were rigid monotheists. They believed there was one and only one

46:18

God, and Jesus violated their rigid understanding of monotheism by claiming to be

46:26

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

46:32

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 stoned or crucified.

46:42

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

46:50

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

47:11

Jewish Passover. And where He also instituted the New Covenant in His body and His blood.

47:20

And of course, John's Gospel gives us a priceless treasure in form of the so -called

47:27

Farewell or Upper Room Discourse where we have five wonderful chapters of Jesus engaging in an act of humble servitude by washing

47:40

His disciples' feet. And then by instructing them about the coming of the Holy Spirit and about the implications of His impending crucifixion.

47:52

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

47:59

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

48:06

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

48:23

Lord's Supper? Because they understand that Jesus tried to set an example of humble servitude, which in that culture took on the form of washing feet.

48:40

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.

48:58

And so they provided typically a household servant with a basin full of water to wash your feet upon entering to the house.

49:09

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.

49:23

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.

49:35

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

49:41

Paul mentions that widows qualified for church support if they have washed the feet of the saints.

49:52

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.

50:04

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.

50:26

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

50:33

I know this is more of a pastoral question, but I was just curious. Well, it depends on what their hermeneutic is, you know, what their way of interpreting

50:42

Scripture is. If they take it literally, then I think they are certainly welcome to continue it, but their way of interpreting the passage would still be mistaken.

50:52

But yeah, I mean, it all depends on what's appropriate in a given culture. So if there's continuity between first century

50:59

Palestine and that particular culture, then certainly that could still be a meaningful gesture.

51:05

Yeah, it actually meant something that made logical sense in Jesus's day, whereas in the

51:13

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

51:21

It wouldn't be part of an ordinary act.

51:28

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

51:34

You're humbling yourself by washing the feet of the visitor yourself, as Christ did.

51:42

Interesting. Well, we have to go to our midway break right now, and I just want to remind our listeners that the midway break, as always, is longer than the other breaks in the show, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

51:55

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

52:01

FCC requires of them to localize Iron Shepherd's Iron Radio and all of their programming geographically to Lake City, Florida.

52:09

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.

52:23

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.

52:46

But when you can't do any of those things, there is something that every single Iron Shepherd's Iron Radio listener can do if you really love this show.

52:53

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

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Iron Shepherd's 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 Shepherd's Iron Radio that they share with us a portion of the money that God has blessed them with.

53:20

So please contact our advertisers at the very least to thank them for sponsoring Iron Shepherd's Iron Radio, and also send in your questions to Dr.

53:28

Andreas Kostenberger about the final days of Jesus. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

53:35

chrisarnson at gmail dot 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

53:43

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

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Andreas Kostenberger and the final days of Jesus. On a theme that I have been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

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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.

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01:08:49

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

01:08:55

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 .com

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Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, which is in Perry County, Pennsylvania. My two featured speakers are

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Dr. William Webster, who is a Banner of Truth author and pastor in Battleground, Washington, and also

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Rev. David T. King, who is a co -author along with Dr. Webster, and he is a pastor in Cady, Texas.

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

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

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

01:12:35

The three days following that Free Pastors Luncheon, those same two speakers, Dr. Webster and Reverend King, will be conducting an

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Iron Trump and Zion Radio free conference at a different church. This will be

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

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Saturday, April 15th, and Sunday, April 16th. The theme of this free three -day conference is

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The Gospel Removed by Rome, Rescued by the Reformers, and Rejected by Modern Evangelicals.

01:13:04

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

01:13:11

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.

01:13:21

So send that email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Also, if you are not a member of a

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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.

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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 chrisarnsen at gmail .com

01:13:49

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 Kostenberger about the final days of Jesus.

01:13:58

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Give us a first name at least.

01:14:04

Your city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside of the

01:14:10

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

01:14:18

A day that is certainly an essential day for any sinner to be made right with God.

01:14:27

The day that only Jesus Christ, the perfect God -man, the perfect sacrificial

01:14:34

Lamb, the spotless Passover Lamb, only He could have died this propitiatory sacrificial death in order to appease the wrath of the

01:14:46

Father and have our sins imputed to Him while His sins are imputed to us.

01:14:54

We are speaking of that day known as Good Friday. If you could pick up there with additional significance of that very holy day.

01:15:06

Absolutely, Chris. I love the Gospel of John and John is remarkable because he actually says that at the cross

01:15:18

Jesus was lifted up. And there's a word play involved here because of course

01:15:25

He was physically lifted up but He was also spiritually exalted because of His obedience to God.

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And so in the end the crucifixion the way

01:15:46

John casts it and presents it was the successful completion of Jesus' mission from the

01:15:55

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.

01:16:03

And so the famous cry telestai in the Greek it is finished in John 19 .30

01:16:12

is really a cry of triumph. Jesus persisted and was obedient and showed

01:16:21

His love for people all the way to the cross. Now what happened on what we call

01:16:29

Good Friday is that after nightfall Jesus is after He prays at Gethsemane is betrayed by Judas and is arrested.

01:16:40

He is taken and brought to trial before the

01:16:47

Jewish and the Roman authorities. First in the formal hearing before Annas the former high priest and then a formal

01:16:56

Sanhedrin hearing in the early morning hours of Good Friday and then

01:17:01

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

01:17:17

Jesus is crucified and later that afternoon hurriedly buried in Joseph of Arimathea's new tomb.

01:17:34

Praise God. And you are a fellow Reformed believer.

01:17:41

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

01:18:07

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.

01:18:33

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.

01:18:48

Am I making sense here? Absolutely. Yeah, and you know, this is not even just a matter of Reformed theology.

01:18:55

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

01:19:08

Father unless the Father draws Him and He who comes to me I will in no way cast out and you know similar statements.

01:19:19

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

01:19:36

I've been accused by some to be a Calvinist based on that definition. So I told him, well,

01:19:43

I just try to interpret Scripture as fairly and as responsibly as I can.

01:19:50

And we move on now to a day that does have some of its own controversy.

01:20:00

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.

01:20:19

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

01:20:25

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.

01:20:36

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

01:20:42

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

01:20:52

Sabbath and so here they walked over to Pilate's residence and also they in some ways seemed to take

01:21:01

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.

01:21:16

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

01:21:23

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.

01:21:46

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

01:22:04

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.

01:22:44

That that very mysterious sounding text about Jesus making a proclamation to the spirits in prison.

01:22:56

Can you tell us your exegesis of that? Yeah that's very appropriate but clearly very difficult question

01:23:06

Christ whereabouts on the

01:23:12

Sabbath I believe the reference there is to demonic spirits who were probably cohabitating with human females

01:23:29

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 I realize there's other ways to interpret this but in our book

01:24:00

The Cradle, the Cross and the Crown in the chapter in 1 Peter we give a fairly detailed explanation of this as well as we

01:24:07

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

01:24:17

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

01:24:31

Old Covenant. Yeah I think the word spirits or spirits in prison in 1

01:24:39

Peter 3 19 usually not referring to human spirits but it's typically to angelic or demonic beings so that's one exegetical issue to navigate there.

01:24:53

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

01:25:02

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.

01:25:16

Absolutely so Jesus died Friday afternoon probably around 3 in the afternoon and of course at sundown the

01:25:25

Jewish Sabbath began on which no work must be done and so you see that there was only a short window during which

01:25:34

Jesus' body needed to be taken down from the cross and it needed to be prepared for burial and then laid in that tomb before the sunset and so that would explain why after waiting on the

01:25:50

Sabbath a group of women went to the tomb early Sunday morning to complete some of the unfinished business that Nicodemus and Zorab of Arimathea had not been able to accomplish because of the shortness of time before the

01:26:10

Sabbath started and as you know Mary Magdalene approaches the tomb and already finds it empty.

01:26:18

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

01:26:33

Mary reports to Peter and John that the tomb is empty and they rush to the tomb and find that indeed it was.

01:26:44

Angels appear to them and then later Jesus actually appears first to Mary Magdalene.

01:26:51

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 eleven actually to the ten apostles of course without Judas and also without Thomas so we can see that Jesus had a very busy

01:27:25

Resurrection Sunday and we pretty much know what he did all day because he appeared to numerous people that first Resurrection Sunday.

01:27:36

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.

01:28:02

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.

01:28:18

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

01:28:44

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

01:28:59

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

01:29:05

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

01:29:15

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

01:29:44

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

01:30:02

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

01:30:12

Jesus to rise we see that Mary still when she already sees

01:30:19

Jesus suspects him to be the gardener and she has this idea that somebody stole

01:30:25

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

01:30:38

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

01:30:50

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

01:31:10

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

01:31:45

I have been told in fact I was even told this by an atheist apologist when

01:31:51

I years ago asked him I challenged him to debate my friend

01:31:59

Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries on the historicity of Jesus Christ was

01:32:06

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 is nothing more than a different version of a pagan story this atheist said to me well no atheist worth his soul believes that anymore they believe

01:32:31

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 they themselves were not

01:32:47

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

01:33:20

I right yeah absolutely I think both Jewish historians and Roman historians attest certainly to the fact that Jesus existed

01:33:34

I think the most famous are on the Jewish side the historian Josephus who was born in 37

01:33:43

AD and who died in 100 AD and wrote well known works the antiquities of the

01:33:50

Jews and the Jewish war he has the famous testimonium

01:33:55

Flavianum where he mentions Jesus you know at some length and on the

01:34:02

Greco -Roman side you have well known historians such as Tiberius in his annals and also

01:34:10

Suetonius in his history talking about Jesus being crucified under the

01:34:18

Roman governor Pontius Pilate and so forth so I think there is sufficient evidence that even a die hard 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

01:34:53

Dr. Metzger as a as a rising star in the evangelical faith and he renounced his faith and became an agnostic

01:35:04

I believe he is an agnostic and not an atheist I could be wrong about that but the thing that is 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 may be even

01:35:52

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 that's exactly right we actually wrote two books

01:36:07

Daryl Bach from Dallas Seminary and Josh Shatro and I Truth Matters and also

01:36:13

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

01:36:26

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 Ashboro, 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

01:36:58

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.

01:37:07

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01:55:20

We're now back with Andreas Kastenberger, and we are discussing the final days of Jesus.

01:55:27

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

01:55:33

Over 35 years ago, the triune God drew me to himself and by grace through faith saved me from his wrath.

01:55:40

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

01:55:46

As the hymn writer said, hallelujah, what a savior. The only way our heavenly father can get all the glory for our salvation is that he did it all.

01:55:56

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

01:56:02

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.

01:56:30

But clearly, the biblical gospel is justification by faith alone, through grace alone, in Christ alone.

01:56:41

I actually find it very interesting that the listener is quoting Ephesians 2 because I was going to, in conclusion here, quote

01:56:51

Ephesians 1, if I may, verses 19 and 20, which is one of my favorite verses in the

01:56:59

New Testament. And I think it shows that very same power that raised

01:57:04

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

01:57:10

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.

01:57:30

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

01:57:37

Spirit did not merely raise Christ from the dead, but that same Spirit is now at work in those of us who believe.

01:57:45

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.

01:58:13

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,

01:58:20

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.

01:58:30

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.

01:58:39

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

01:58:52

Christmas, and of course, 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.

01:59:07

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.

01:59:21

So I wish our listeners a very meaningful celebration of Christ's crucifixion and especially his resurrection.

01:59:31

Amen. And if you want to visit Dr. Andreas Kastenberger's website, it's biblicalfoundations .org.

01:59:37

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