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Does the literal, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ matter? Should the previous question even be asked?
Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.
In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.
Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.
Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. Mike Abendroth, and it is Thursday here in real time, raining about 73 degrees in September in New England. Central Mass. I think I should probably go out on the roads tonight later at about 8 .30 p .m. because they will be clear.
The streets will be clean. The roads will not be impacted because it�s football season and the New England Patriots, Thomas Brady, will be at the helm and engage. So info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. If you would like to write us, you can.
If you�d like to go to the website, it�s been revamped. The guys have done a great job, Jonathan and Josh and others have done a great job with it. If you say, �Well, what�s that one show about do babies go to heaven when they die
You just type that in. �What�s the show about Mother Teresa and Jeffrey Dahmer and the scandal of grace I think that was my favorite show. You just type that in. �What about a tithe �What about robbing God with our tithes
Just trying not to make any comment. �What about the message You know, �Is that a book burning Remember when we started this show five, six years ago, this is a book burner or a page turner.
Some books I�d recommend. It�s a page turner, a theological page turner. Or it�d be a book burner and we�d have book burning things. Some people would send me pictures of their books that they had burned.
Purpose Driven, Heaven�s for Real, Prayer of Habez, you know, those type of things. But then dopey guys started burning Korans down in Florida and that just took the ignition out of my switch. I�ll have a question for you today.
How important is the resurrection? Well, let�s just think generally. If you, like a group back in Jesus�s day, the Sadducees, don�t believe in a resurrection, then you live for today because your theology influences your methodology.
What you believe determines how you live, what you do. They�re tied together. And so if you say, �Well, when I die, that�s it. They�re just putting me six feet under. Then maybe you don�t want to get caught and go to jail.
Maybe you don�t want to have your wife kick you out of the house because you had an affair. But a lot of other areas you just cut corners because ain�t nobody saw you, nobody�s getting hurt. You might as well cut corners a little bit.
What if you believe in the resurrection and you die and stand before God after you�re dead? Even though your body�s dead, your spirit�s still alive, and then God will give you a new body commensurate with your nature, either redeemed or lost, one able to withstand the joys of heaven forever and experience those great joys, and the other withstand the horrors of hell forever, a body that won�t die.
If you believe in the resurrection, it changes everything. And of course, it�s not really the real gospel without the resurrection, is it? It is central to the gospel, and when you look at even Luke�s Acts, Luke wrote both of those, Luke and Acts.
The Acts, what�s Acts about, A-C-T-S? I don�t mean Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication, I mean it�s the Acts of Jesus. It continues on talking about the person and work of Jesus Christ.
In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit, to the apostles whom he had chosen.
He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. And if you look in your Greek text, a very, very interesting word that Acts starts with, I�ll give you a hint, �men.
Not the English word �men no! But what does that signify, and what�s going on there? So you might want to study that. I think you might be glad you did. Did I just whistle when I talked? Do you ever kind of, maybe you�re tired or something, and whistle while you talk?
I think that has to do probably with teeth, right? Teeth. And I went to the dentist. How long does it take me to figure out when the dentist says, �Do you floss Once a week. But I use those little white toothpick things daily.
Oh, that doesn�t get down in the gum, so just floss the teeth you want to keep. Am I five? Yeah, I must be because I still don�t do what he says. And there�s something about it when your mouth�s open.
Do you floss? No, he can tell. I guess if you have a lady doctor, a dentist, she could tell. But you just have to tell the truth. Take your lumps, right? Tell the truth, take your lumps. So the resurrection is very important.
The first day of the week, Luke chapter 24 talks about. How critical is that, the first day of the week? What starts going through your mind when you think about the first day of the week in New and the body of the Lord Jesus.
Friends, if Jesus wasn�t raised from the dead, it�s all over. It�s all worthless. It means nothing. Ecclesiastes is your life, it�s transient, it�s a vapor. And the animals that die, you�re no better than they are.
And actually, they�re no better than you because you just die and they bury you. I have not had to literally bury someone, but I�ve literally buried animals before. And so the dirt goes over and that�s it.
Thanks for the memories. But when the text says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, �For I deliver it to you as of first importance. Right? There are a lot of things in the Bible that are important, i .e., all of them, but some are more important.
And this is one of those more important things that Paul received, that Christ the Messiah died not for his own sins, but for our sins, that�s substitutionary atonement language, in accordance with the Scriptures.
You can go back to Isaiah 53, if you�d like, or look at sin-bearing and see a motif throughout the Old Testament that he was buried. Look at the language, �He died. He was buried. He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.
He appeared. Jesus is the active one. He was raised from the dead on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. Psalm 16, or just the general tenor of Scripture, �He�s going to have to live. Davidic Covenant, �He�s going to have to live.
And so you have to say resurrection is important. Now when I was in Germany, I think the last time I went, I took a train ride over to the Potsdam area. Maybe you like one of the new David Bowie songs that talks about Potsdamer Platz.
I don�t think it�s so new anymore. But I went to Bonhoeffer�Bonhoeffer, I don�t know how you actually say it in Deutsch. You can probably type it in your iPhone. So I went to his house. So there�s two houses that look pretty similar.
One is his mom and dad�s and one was his, and then there are train tracks really close by where he was placed and sent off to be incarcerated. We have to set up a time to go to the Bonhoeffer Museum. I�ve been to Germany several times before, and I�m interested in things like Wittenberg.
What�s my favorite thing in all of Germany outside the Christian people there? Well, in terms of sightseeing, it�s Wittenberg and things that are Luther. My kids, it was so funny when we were traveling there, we did 90 days, 9 countries, mainly in Germany.
And so we would get up and the kids would say, �What Luther thing are we seeing today Or they would say, �Dad, we have to see something about Martin Luther again today. Yes, I mean, hey, let�s go up to this castle, show you this castle where he was kidnapped and taken to by his friends so he wouldn�t get killed.
Or here�s the place where he stood, here I stand type of area. What city is that in? Worms, Worms. By the way, the spot where they�ve got it marked out, this is where Luther stood. Here I stand, allegedly.
I mean, some people don�t think he said that, but at least that was the tenor of his speech. The tour guide said, �Well, it really wasn�t here. We got to the town, by the way, and I could not find anything really.
And so I went to the library and I said, �I�m all the way here from the States and I�m trying to find these places and could anybody help us And so the librarian, the head librarian, gave us a little tour.
So he said, �No, this is not the spot. The spot is over there, but it�s in the sun, and so people like to be here under the trees in the shade. So I liked the castle, Vortburg Castle, where Luther was hiding.
I liked Wittenberg�s, where Luther�s house was, the Luther House, the Luther House. I liked, what else did I like? I like seeing the Lutheran New Testament, got to hold that. I said, �How much is it worth
�20 million euros. �20 euros? I�ll take two. I said, �Can my son hold it He was about six. �Sure. Yeah. I said, �Don�t you drop that. Put it under your shirt. Let�s get out of here. But my favorite thing in all of Germany was Luther�s pulpit.
That�s what I was thankful for, was Luther�s pulpit, where the truth could go out and be proclaimed. It wasn�t his death mask, or his funeral pyre. It wasn�t the door. It�s no longer the door, but we say it�s the door, the 95 Theses door.
So that was my favorite spot. Well, I�m not a big I mean, I like the Reformation. I like church history. And I like Germany, so the Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and I like World War II. I like ice cream slushes.
Cream slushes. But I�m not the big Bonhoeffer fan. And, of course, Erich Metaxas, his book, it�s fun to read, but how truthful and how evangelical Dietrich is, that�s a debatable fact. And I think Erich makes him more evangelical, and you might just ask yourself the question, is this in line with Erich�s overall theology, bent, ministry, et cetera?
No. So anyway, here�s the �so� again. They say I say �so� sometimes, so, therefore, and, but, in addition, rather, because where am I going? Mike even wrote No Capitalists Radio. This is for Fred. This is a new show, Fred.
This is 2015. Donald Trump has surged to 31 percent, and that�s how I can tell you it�s 2013. No, it�s 2015, September. I think tomorrow is 9 -11, technically. So I�m not the biggest Bonhoeffer fan, but I do like church history.
I do like Christian history. I do like men that stood up against Hitler. It was much easier to be a Christian pastor in Hitler�s realm than it was in the Russian realm. That�s a different subject for a different day.
So I take the tour, and I say all that just to digress because I just want you to know I�m not crazy in love with Bonhoeffer. I mean, the cost of discipleship, of course there are true things in that, but was he liberal in many areas?
Well, I think so. So, so, so, I think so is different than the connection. So sitting around the tour, there�s about three or four other people there, myself, and it was a German man speaking English for the tour because I signed up for the English tour.
Imagine that. And we got to see a variety of his things, his desk, some of his papers, let�s see what else, his peach coffee mug. That was fascinating. That was fascinating. I didn�t know he liked dark coffee.
And we�re all asking questions, getting the tour, it was a rainy day, and I just raised my hand. And here�s what happened. I said, �Did Dietrich Bonhoeffer believe in the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ
And the guy looked at me, he goes, �Of course not. Now, let�s say he�s wrong. Fascinating story though, isn�t it? Because this is story time. This is Mike�s story time here. Well, this story reminds me of Karl Barth.
Karl Barth, German? No, he spoke German. Swiss, I believe, but of course we clump him in with a lot of German theologians. And remember, he comes to America, I want to say in the �30s, and he is going to talk.
And he�s in front of the news. He�s in front of the press, and AP�s there, UPI, was that at the time, UPI, AP and UPI. And Karl Henry wanted to ask him a question. So he said, �My name is Karl Henry, I�m the editor of Christianity Today.
And he wanted to know that if there was a camera, if you had an iPhone in the tomb, what would the iPhone record? Was there a literal bodily resurrection or not? And so Barth didn�t like it because Barth�s going to deny that.
And so he said, �Are you with Christianity Today or Christianity Yesterday Of course, everybody laughed. The great Karl Barth is there. If I would have been around, it would have been neat to see who Karl Barth was.
Karl Henry, he said later, �I had to take this verse out of context, but I needed to. I�m with Christianity Yesterday, Today, and Forever. Pretty fascinating. Well, doing some research, I found a personal letter from Karl Barth to Jeffrey Bromley, who is a co-editor of Christianity Today.
And so here is the letter. When you turn on No Compromise Radio, you get the bad letters, right? �Please excuse me and please try to understand that I cannot and will not answer the questions these people put.
To do so in time requested would in any case be impossible for me, but even if I had the time and strength, I would not enter into a discussion of the questions proposed. Such a discussion would have to rest on the primary presupposition that those who ask the questions have read, learned, pondered the many things I have already said and written about these matters.
They have obviously not done this, but have ignored the many hundreds of pages in the CD where they might at least have found out, not necessarily under the headings of history, universalism, etc., where I really stand and do not stand.
From that point they could have gone to pose further questions. I sincerely respect the seriousness with which a man like Burkauer studies me and then makes his criticisms. I can then answer him in detail.
But I cannot respect the questions of these people from Christianity Today, for they do not focus on the reasons for my statements but on certain foolishly drawn deductions from them. Their questions are thus superficial.
Now remember, this is in the day when Christianity Today was much more evangelical and much more conservative. It was theological. It was a theological magazine. They've done studies on leadership magazine, articles percentage-wise in the magazine regarding theology and the Bible in the old days and now.
Now it's all relevant stuff and practical stuff. So, here we go. Reminds me of the N .T. Wright type of attitude. In my opinion, you haven't, maybe it's not even N .T. Wright but his followers, you haven't read all the stuff, so how could you possibly know these questions are so superficial?
Have you read all the work yet? It reminds me of that. In a different way, it reminds me of Keller when approached, �Do you still believe in contemplative prayer and some of these labyrinth type things and mystical, Roman Catholic mystical things
Because it's on your website. If I find out on our website that we've got contemplative prayer, mystical Roman Catholic stuff on there that we're not critiquing, I'm going to get it off right then. And so, then Keller says, �Well, everything you need to know about what I believe in prayer is in my book.
And I think to myself, �That means just buy my book now to figure out what you believe, and you're not in your book going to say, �I don't believe that other stuff anymore because that's not what you put in your book.
If you don't believe that stuff anymore, and by the way, we all can learn and grow, I've believed in tons of dopey things before. I can't think of one right now, but honestly, I've thought, I mean, I believe things that were wrong, so you just have to make it right.
You just don't keep saying, �Well, this is the new thing. And I understand you can't go back and correct a thousand different books with publishers, and there's already 9 ,000 copies or 90 ,000 copies printed.
I understand all that, but you can sure pull something off the website in about three seconds. Get that thing off. The letter from Karl Barth to George Bromley, co-editor of Christianity Today, continues.
The decisive point, however, is this, the second presupposition of a fruitful discussion between them and me would have to be that we are able to talk on a common plane. But these men have already had their so-called orthodoxy for a long time.
They are closed to anything else. They will cling to it at all costs. Sounds kind of good to me, by the way, clinging, holding fast to. And they can adopt toward me only the role of prosecuting attorneys, trying to establish whether what I represent agrees or disagrees with their orthodoxy, in which I, for my part, have no interest.
And that is so for today. Forget 80 years ago. None of their questions, Barth says, leaves me with the impression that they want to seek with me the truth that is greater than us all. They take the stance of those who happily possess it already and who hope to enhance their happiness by succeeding in proving to themselves and the world that I do not share this happiness.
Indeed, they have long since decided and publicly proclaimed that I am a heretic, possibly, Vantill, the worst heretic of all time. I don't know what the question mark Vantill is. Maybe Vantill went after him.
So be it, said Barth. You know, yeah, I deny penalty substitution and, you know, deal with it. Get over it. But they should not expect me to take the trouble to give them the satisfaction of offering explanations which they simply use to confirm the judgment they have already passed on me.
Dear Dr. Bromley, you will no doubt remember what I said in the preface to CD 4 .2 in the words of the 18th century poem on those who eat up men. The continuation of the poem is as follows. For there is no true love where one man eats another.
These fundamentalists want to eat me up. They have not yet come to a better mind and attitude as I once hoped. I can thus give them neither an angry nor a gentle answer, but instead no answer at all. With friendly greetings, yours, Carl Barth.
P .S. I ask you to convey what I have said in a suitable manner to the people in Christianity today. Carl Barth. Who would ever think on No Compromise Radio we'd be reading Barth letters? So when it comes to the lordship of Jesus, we know he's Lord for lots of reasons.
But in the mind of Luke, it's tied to the resurrection. Jesus as Lord. You've got to have the lordship of Christ via the resurrection. If he's not raised from the dead, he's not anything. He's not Lord.
He's dead is what he is. He's not Lord. God has fixed a day, right? He wants people everywhere to repent because he's fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.
And of this, he has given assurance to all by, what, raising him from the dead. Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, but others said, we will hear you again about this. So Paul went out from their midst.
But some men joined him and believed, and among those were Dionysius, the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. The resurrection is crucial. The resurrection is critical. The resurrection is a hinge.
It's a gospel hinge. No gospel without it. And so when you preach the gospel, I hope you talk about what the Bible says God requires, God's holiness, God's justice, God's love and providing atonement, like Jesus the God-man, God's power, God's stamp of approval because he raised Jesus from the dead.
So because of that, there's a fixed day for judgment. My name is Mike Abendroth, this is No Compromise Radio, talk to you soon.
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 10 .15 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.
The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.