The Easter Greeting

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

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isnít for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as weíre called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Hereís our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Meeting Jesus and the Question of His Easter Greeting

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and youíre listening, hopefully, because you like the show. You could be listening because youíre trying to nitpick and trying to do some kind of discernment blog on me.

Actually, Iím thankful that Iím not, like, so popular that everybodyís going to try to expose something bad that I said. If you go looking, you could probably dig something up. Of course, my older shows, I think Iím more Reformed now than I was.

As a matter of fact, I know I am. Maybe there were some more things back in those older shows you could dig up, but then I would quickly say, ìI donít believe that anymore, nor do I teach it. But since I donít have the resources to go through 3 ,000 and some shows, 3 ,200 shows, is that how many weíve done, and figure out what Iíve said that was right or wrong, if you hear me say something because of Friday rerun shows and you disagree, all you have to do is email me and send me the link.

Iíll listen, and then Iíll confess and change my, repent and tell you. Okay? Thatís what weíll do. No Compromise Radio. Itís super simple. If I need to say I was wrong, I will. All right. Let me ask you this question today.

If, sorry, when you meet Jesus, every unbeliever, every believer, youíll meet Jesus. And if he were to say to you one word, right, this is just a theoretical hypothetical situation, and he were to say to you one word, what would you want that one word to be?

You meet him face to face, heíll initiate the conversation, letís say. What do you think you want him to say? One word. Welcome. Would that be good? Hello? Greetings? Away. Punish. Denier. Sinner. Child.

Friend. What one word would you like to hear Jesus say on that day? Either he comes back, or you die, and meet him, whatís the word? Well, thereís a passage in the Bible where the real Jesus, the resurrected Jesus, meets his disciples and says a word.

And he actually says the word three times. He says more than one word, but for the sake of argument today, whatís the word? And depending on if you believe the Lord Jesus, everything about this word is hopeful.

If you donít believe the Lord Jesus, everything is not going to be hopeful, because thereís nothing but despair. Now, often, we love sunrise services for Resurrection Sunday. And if you want to call it Easter, okay, fine, Iím not going to correct you.

More technically, Resurrection Sunday. And of course, we know Jesus was literally bodily resurrected, right? He rose from the dead. Up from the grave, he what? Arose. Well, he, on the first day of the week, arose, and of course, Mary Magdalene, Peter running, stooping in, etc.

What happened? Maryís weeping, two angels, ìWhy are you weeping ?î ìTheyíve taken away my Lord .î Jesus is recognized by her, and she did not know that it wasÖit wasnít recognized. She didnít know it was Jesus.

He said to her, ìWoman, why are you weeping ?î etc. Well, then thereís nighttime. The nighttime of Easter or Resurrection Sunday, I donít know if we talk about it as much. So today, on No Compromise Radio, I want to tell you a little bit about Easter evening, the first Easterís evening, the Resurrection Sunday evening.

So Jesus is raised from the dead. What happened that night? The morning part we know, tomb, Mary, angel, gardener, etc. Some people know and attend sunrise services, and of course, with sunrise services, if you do a little research, as far as I can tell, the first sunrise service for Easter was back in 1732 in the hills of Saxony by some Moravians, or Moravians, depending on how you want to pronounce it.

They prayed all night, and then the men who were single, the single brethren they called them, went to the town graveyard, which was called Godís Acre, and sang hymns of praise to the risen Savior. The next year it caught on, and the whole congregation followed, and they started calling it sunrise services.

And then as the Moravians went around in their missionary endeavors, they all did that. So we like sunrise services. So maybe we could call this here, though, in John 20, verses 19 and following, a sunset service, an Easter sunset service.

Let's call it that. Jesus is alive, and He appears. Easter night sunset service. Is that okay? Does that preach? Does that kind of make it interesting? Well, I hope so, because that's going to be my sermon intro on Sunday morning.

Peace with God Through the Risen Christ

What's the Easter greeting? What's the word? The Easter greeting concerning the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus Himself. And the word is ìpeaceî. Now it's not ìpeaceî in Greek, it's where we get the word ìIreneî.

But of course, we know what we're talking about. Where are we when this is all happening in Israel? Shalom. That's really the effect of this, shalom. On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, Sunday, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ìPeace be with you.

Peace to you .î. Four words in the English, two words in the original Greek. We move from morning to evening of Easter, Resurrection Sunday, and now Jesus shows up. Why is Jesus showing up? Well, there's lots of encouragement that needs to be done, but Jesus is validating His resurrection.

He's showing that His word is true, that He keeps His promises. In Mark 8, Jesus foretold His death and resurrection, that the Son of Man must suffer many things, be rejected, killed, after three days, rise again.

Mark chapter 9, it says the same thing. Jesus said, ìThe Son of Man is going to be delivered in the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and when He is killed after three days, He will rise .î. Not just Mark 8, not just Mark 9, but Mark 10, it's the same thing.

Taking the 12 again, He began to tell them what was going to happen. Son of Man will be delivered to chief priests and scribes, condemned to death, delivered Gentiles, will mock Him, spit on Him, flog Him, and kill Him, and after three days, He will rise.

And now Jesus is going to show Himself to the disciples so that they might understand. And of course, providentially, all of them are together, short of Thomas, and Jesus is going to make sure He comforts them.

As Calvin said, He's not going to hold them in suspense any longer. Of course, they're men, they're frail, they're weak, they're hiding, they're seized with fear, and Jesus wants to help them and comfort them and strengthen their faith.

And it's needed, too, because later Paul will write in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 something that was written later than the resurrection, but certainly true for these men at this particular point. If there's no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain.

I mean, the life of Jesus would be in vain if He's still dead, right? So you think, oh, if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you're still in your sins, because then He died for His own sins.

Who's going to die for yours? Who's going to die for mine? If we have Christ in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. So Jesus, validating His resurrection, shows up on the seventh day, and even there you begin to think, okay, the whole paradigm of the world has changed.

Normally, you would work for six days, right, as a Jew, and then rest on the Sabbath, the seventh day, Saturday. And what happens now, because of the resurrection, it changes everything, right? Death of Christ, torn veil, tombs broken open, and people getting up and walking around, et cetera, supernatural events.

And then it's rest day one, then work the rest of the week. Did you get that? Six days of work, and then rest for the Jews. Lord's Day, rest, grace, love, and because of that, you respond with works. Work then rest in the old paradigm, rest then work.

The doors were shut. That means they're locked. There's more than one door. And what God wants you to understand is that Jesus shows up in a miraculous fashion with a miracle. He's showing himself as divine.

Now, most people, when you first read this, because you think Jesus is wonderful and you think he's extraordinary and supernatural and he has a glorified body now, that the doors were locked and that Jesus passed through the walls of the door.

Either walked through the door, dematerialized, or walked through the wall. Most people think he just, you know, why walk through the wall when the door's right there? He's showing how great he is, but the text doesn't tell us exactly what happened, right?

The text focuses elsewhere, but people just slide into, oh, he walked through the door and then he was there, right? Now, when Peter was in prison and he was locked in, how did Peter, in a miraculous way, that's true, how did he get out?

Did he walk through the iron bars? Calvin said, I mean, this is going to hurt, "...away then with that childish trifling which contains nothing solid and brings along with it many absurdities. Let us be satisfied with knowing that Christ intended by a remarkable miracle to confirm his disciples in their belief of his resurrection.".

It doesn't say he walked through the doors. It doesn't say, hmm, he just kind of materialized, as my friend said, kind of a Star Trek transporter thing. Now, remember, Jesus, of course, is truly divine, but he is also truly man.

And we have to make sure of that, because even in the passage, in the parallel passage in Luke, his body's flesh and bones. His body is real. You can see crucifixion scars, can you not? Jesus ate food in the account of Luke 24.

We know his body had to be truly human, and you say, yes, but it's glorified. I know, but still truly human. We don't know how he got in the room, right? You don't have Jesus walk on water and say, well, he still, he wasn't truly human.

His body was immaterial, right? It's kind of like, hmm, I have to be careful when we work through this. Most people think somehow Jesus' glorified body could make him go through a wall. Now, they wouldn't say kind of like a ghost or anything like that, but they don't ever say, well, what if he picked the lock?

What if he broke the door down? What if he came in from the roof? What if he just showed up? Remember Philip the Evangelist in Acts chapter 8, just showed up in a different place, kind of translocated someplace.

Elijah ascends into heaven. Well, you just show up, right? Jesus didn't have to go through a door. He can just show up someplace. And in the past, you'd have something called, with Anabaptist and other people, celestial flesh.

And you're like, oh, I don't know. Isn't John and Luke, aren't they trying to show us that basically Jesus is still human? He still has humanity. You might say that, well, his humanity is different now because it's glorified.

But the passage is trying to show you that his humanity is human because he could eat. You could touch him. He's got a real body. The miracle is, the wonderful thing is, the room is locked and Jesus shows up.

But Jesus' body, even before the resurrection and after the resurrection, isn't it, as the people would say, consubstantial? Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

For he himself has suffered when tempted. He is able to help those who are being tempted. Here we have, with our great salvation, the propitiation, God's wrath assuaged, and also his ministry for us as prayer.

One writer said, notice that the Hebrews teaches us Jesus' humanity is consubstantial with ours both in the crucifixion, before the resurrection, and after the resurrection in his ascension. Neither the resurrection nor the ascension entail a substantial change in our Lord's nature.

Neither resurrection nor glorification entail a communication of the properties of divinity to humanity. Jesus' humanity is portrayed for us in Scripture as local. We know that we have a representative in heaven pleading our case as it were one who is like us in every respect, sin accepted.

Our helper shares our nature, not one like it. The doors locked. It didn't say Jesus' humanity somehow materializes, dematerializes, or unmaterializes, or changes in any way, shape, or form. Oh, no, maybe he just looked human.

No, no, no. Humanity. The point is Jesus is human. Yes, he's divine. He shows up miraculously and then says, look at my body. And as my friend Scott Clark likes to talk about it, you know, we are so modernistic these days, so enlightenment driven, influenced, that we're like, you know, the door can't change because the door's a door.

So Jesus had to change. Did Jesus walk on water without changing his humanity? I hope you say yes. Did the water change? Or did Jesus' humanity change? Walking on water? Super interesting. So at the bottom of all this, what's the point, Mike?

The point is, I'm trying to undo everything you've ever learned. Just kidding. You just want to be careful. The point of the text is Jesus is showing up to grant them faith, to grant them confidence. Not to grant them faith, but I looked out the window and saw somebody walking.

He showed up to give them assurance, to not hold them in suspense any longer. Here's this great savior and in a miraculous way, he shows up on the other side of locked doors and he says, I'm the real Jesus.

Humanity. Yes, truly God, truly man. Look, he's truly man. They're all afraid of the Jews. They're all huddled up. They're scared. The disciples had almost been arrested. Jesus had said, a slave is not greater than his master.

They persecuted me. They're going to persecute you. And what does Jesus do? He shows up in their midst and he does not say, here's the point, Peter, you denier. Not once, but twice, but three times you deny me.

How could you? He doesn't show up and say, you scaredy cats. I can't believe your conduct on Good Friday. No, no rebukes. He says what to his friends? Peace, peace, peace to you, cheerfulness, prosperity, be well, shalom, fullness of blessing.

Not just hostilities have ceased, but fullness of blessing. Beasley Murray said, never had that common word shalom been so filled with meaning as when Jesus uttered it on Easter evening. His shalom on Easter evening is the compliment of it is finished on the cross for the peace of reconciliation and life from God is now imparted.

Shalom accordingly is supremely the Easter greeting. Not surprising it is included along with grace in every greeting of every epistle of Paul in the New Testament. Isn't that good? So before we get bogged down with Jesus materializing through doors and other things, here we have what's really going on.

This is the Easter evening greeting. Peace with God. Peace with God. Jesus died for their sins. Those men in the room, Jesus paid for their sins. Why would God be mad at them? God's a God of peace. He's the one that did it.

He initiated it. He, the God of peace, sanctifies people holy. Jesus is the surety of the better covenant. He's the one that took our guilt, paid our penalty, fulfilled the law in our place, raised from the dead, and thus peace is restored.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have what?

Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. That's Romans chapter 5, verse 1. What great benefits of justification of sola fide, called by one blessed accompaniments, called by another blissful consequences, justified by faith, an accomplished fact.

God accepts you, treats you as just. God doesn't treat you as liable, as committing sins, crimes against Godhead, deicide no longer, because Jesus paid it. And our response is an intellectual assent with a trust.

We have peace with God. Isn't that good? Peace with God. This is not peace of God. This is peace with God. That is amazing to me. I hope it's amazing to you. You have peace with God. It means you used to be an enemy and now you're a friend.

God's not mad at you, Christian. There's no animosity towards you, dear believer. The war with God is over. Peace has been declared. You have been reconciled to God. Peace with God, not a relationship, a status in your mind or anything else, but a relationship with God.

I don't feel at peace, Christian. You are at peace. It feels like I did some things and I've lost my peace. This is not the peace I'm talking about. You can't lose this peace. You can't lose your salvation.

Peace by the blood of the cross. No longer a barrier. Your debt has been paid in full. Isn't that good news? No longer at war with God. And your peace with God, that's face to face with God, peace. It was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Christ and through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross through him.

No longer estranged. That's amazing. Christ is our peace. And Jesus shows up to these disciples who are far from the men that they would one day be. And he says, peace. He showed them when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side, then his disciples were glad when they saw.

I'm going to make sure you understand it's me. My wounded side, my pierced hands, it's me. It wasn't a spirit. Jesus said, therefore you too now have sorrow, John 16, but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice and no one takes your joy away.

I promised and now I'm here. I fulfilled that. I'm the risen Lord. I was your sacrifice. I paid for all your sins. I'm faithful. I'm true. I'm your friend. I'm human. I'm your representative. I'm your substitute.

And then he says it again, peace be with you. Jesus said in John 20, 21, as the father sent me, even so I'm sending you. I mean, if you're at war with God, he's not going to use you to do something, not an emissary or an apostle, or even for us now sent out to do the great commission here, he says peace to you.

And by the way, the father sent me to go do work. I'm going to ascend and you're going to have the spirit of God and you're going to do the work that I'm calling you to do as my apostles. Peace. This is amazing because he understands for them to be ambassadors, they're going to need to be sent.

And he has the authority to do that very thing, to send. He received the authority from the father incarnation, and now he gives that to them to preach the gospel, to tell them the good news about the Messiah, to tell them about Jesus found in the law and the prophets and Moses and Psalms and how it was fulfilled in Jesus and how repentance of forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed in his name to all nations.

What's the Easter greeting on Easter evening? Peace. Aren't you glad you have peace with God? And if you are an unbeliever listening today, for whatever reason, you can have peace with God. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

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

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