Solus Christus (Part 1)

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.

Introductory Banter and Ministry Updates

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, ministry. My name is Michael Lee Abendroth, and we are working on some new intro, outro musics, that type of thing. Right now, I think it�s just me talking, so if you�ve subscribed to this and you�re wondering where all the music is and fancy intros, I think it�s just me.

This is unplugged. This is acoustic. This is U2 down at the 42nd Street Subway Station, Grand Central. What do they do, brusque? Is that what they do? They�re just down there faking people out until they start singing, but everyone knows.

Israel 2018, February. I think your registration is due in October. You can go to Pilgrim Tours, Bethlehem Bible Church, slash NOCO Radio, and my brother should be going on that trip, so that should be fun, the Dooling Abendroth brothers, and I will be my travel schedule is nothing until then, except I will be in New Zealand.

I�ll stop off at the Master Seminary to speak at chapel there in October, and then I�ll be in New Zealand for a Reformation conference, and you can look online for that. Donald Stevenson is hosting it, and it is the five solas through the Gospel of John, or in the Gospel of John, looking at the Gospel of John, understanding the solas of the Reformation.

And so I�ve been studying that a lot. I�ve been thinking about that a long time. My son is trying to FaceTime right now, and I can�t do it, although, you know what, I�m just going to do that anyway, since he�s pulling it up, and it is stopped.

So I guess I could try, if I wanted to FaceTime him, what would I end up doing? Type in FaceTime? He has not been on the show for some time. So, hey Luke. What�s up? I�m right now live on the radio, how are you?

Pretty good. All right. Recording a show on Sola Gratia and Sola Christus, Solas Christus. That�s good stuff. Yeah, last time we did a show, you were doing the Marrow Controversy, sitting right here Any words of wisdom for the folks?

Woke up. That�s my excuse. All right. Leave them. It�s a loan. It�s a price. Okay. That�s good. Well, unless it�s emergency, I�ll talk to you later. How�s that sound? All right. Bye. I love you too. Bye.

All right. There you have it. See how important this is? But, you know, I have to take my kids� phone calls. If you ask the question, how is a person right with God? In God�s eyes, when is a person good, you know, right with God?

He�s good with you. You�re acceptable. You can stand in his presence without blame, to use the language of Jude. After all, God is a thrice holy God. Remember the angels saying, �Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God Almighty.

And they are covering their faces with their wings. Creatures who are sinless, still as created beings, blushing, as it were, in the presence of a transcendently holy God. Can holiness be transcendent?

Well, God is transcendent and God is holy. That is for certain. So how do you stand in his presence? How do you approach him? Is it by an act of your own? Is it an act of someone else? Is it by declaration that you�re seen as right in God�s eyes?

Are you born that way? We go again. We go more FaceTiming. I have no idea what that is. I think that was me. I pushed the button. The button, wrongly. Are you born right with God? I think that�s many people�s view, that they would think that we are just made right with God.

When we�re born, everything�s good. Many others would believe in the �salvation by death� theory. How do you get to heaven? You go to a wedding, a funeral, or a Roman Catholic funeral. We know that person�s in heaven because basically they�re dead, maybe because they�ve been baptized.

Is it an act? Is it something that�s done to you? Is it a religious ceremony? Is it a social construct and you have to serve other people? How do you stand before a thrice holy God? As you study the Reformation, solas, you recognize that in fact they taught, because the Bible taught it, you can stand before God.

Not on your own merits or your own work or your own righteousness, because you�d be undone, but on the basis of another. You can stand before God on the basis of another. People are justified by faith alone, trusting in Christ�s perfect work.

Jesus lives the perfect life. He dies on the cross for our sins and is raised from the dead. We�re trusting not in ourselves, our own righteousness, our own self-righteousness, but in Christ alone. Sola fide.

You can also think about sola gratia, where it is by grace alone. No cooperation on our part because we are sinful and we would then wreck everything if God requires, and he does require, perfection. How could we stand before God?

It has to be his sovereign, his initiating grace, because if it was left to sinful, depraved humans, there would be no salvation. Jesus came to seek and save those who were lost. It is God�s initiative alone.

That is grace alone. And the Reformers wanted to make things even more clear as they were looking at these doctrines. Is Christ�s work sufficient? This is looking at the grace of God and salvation from another angle, from a different lens, if you will.

The Sufficiency of Christ's Work Alone

The sufficiency of the work of Christ. What else do you need besides Jesus? Is it Jesus plus? Is it something else that we could do? In other words, was Christ�s work deficient? Is it sufficient or is it deficient?

Does Jesus�s work need help? Does his atoning accomplishments need assistance? Do we need a little grease on the wheels to get things going here? A little push? Remember when my children were learning how to ride bicycles?

And by the way, next week, one week from today, I don�t know when this will air, real time, this is September 8th, but I get to ride a bicycle. I�ve been riding the recumbent bicycle. I can sit on that with no problem.

But they don�t want the brachytherapy seeds to move until 90 days after the treatment. So you have half-life for these palladium seeds. That means the first 17 days, 100 strength. Then the next 17 days, it�s 50%.

I think I�m right now down to 3 .125%. So that will last one more week. And then it�s so negligible, if the seeds move, then they move. But anyway, next week is the day I get to ride a bicycle. I feel good.

Thanks for praying for me regarding the cancer. I feel tired, sometimes distracted. No pity parties. I haven�t had those. I�ve been thankful for that. I�ve been just trying to work through it and trying to stay in shape.

I try to work out every day, even though I�m exhausted. I need to get back on the bicycle. I probably gained, I want to say 10, but that means probably 15 pounds as I�m just recuperating. So you�ll have to give me the pass if you see me.

If you see me in a suit, you won�t notice. If you see me in a swimsuit at the beach surfing, you won�t notice. But I float better now. It�s amazing how that works. I float better. With my kids, I try to teach them the bicycle riding.

What I did to prompt their determination is I would put dollar bills at certain spots on the street. If they got to that spot, then they got the dollar. If they got to the next spot, they got another dollar.

If memory serves me correctly, which it usually doesn�t anymore, if you look at the very end of the way, I put a $5 bill. That would kind of help motivate them. Grease the wheels. You don�t want to grease the skids necessarily.

So when it comes to Jesus, do we need those little helpers, those little Christ plus motivators? Are there other mediators? That would be a good way to ask the question when it comes to this. Are there other mediators?

Solo Christo is how you could say this in Latin. Our solus Christus, through Christ alone. The role of Jesus Christ when it comes to saving souls from the wrath of God and from hell and from paying for their own sins.

If you wanted to boil it all down, you could probably do that with Hebrews 4. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

We have a high priest. We have a mediator, and he is Jesus, the Messiah. We don�t say solo Jesus here, because although true, the focus is on the Messiah�s role as the anointed one, and Jesus is the center point of Christianity because he alone accomplished salvation.

He alone. So that�s what we�re trying to teach. 2 Corinthians 4 .5. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord with ourselves as your servants for Jesus�s sake. Remember, Paul came and he said, I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, even him crucified.

And him crucified, if you like that translation of Kai. The Reformers echoed Paul when he was writing to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. Luther said Jesus was the center and circumference of the Bible.

Everything revolves around Jesus and is wrapped around Jesus, and he is the hub and the fundamental person, of course, of Scripture. Zwingli, Ulrich Zwingli, said, Christ is the head of all believers who are his body, and without him the body is dead.

With Jesus we can accomplish things, without him we can do nothing. Jesus is the all in all. I think there�s an old song that used to go something like that. James Boyce said, Reformers taught that salvation is by and through the work of Jesus Christ only, which is what the slogan �Soulless Christus� refers to.

It means that through the cross and empty tomb, Jesus has done it all so that now no merit on the part of man, no merit of the saints, no works of hours performed either here or in purgatory can add to his completed saving work.

End quote. Jesus Christ is the center, and he alone works salvation. And the Reformers refined that idea a little bit more when they were talking about the gospel. And instead of having the gospel something done in us, the gospel was something done for us.

It is Christ for us. Christus pro nobis. I remember Tommy Nobis was the linebacker for the Atlanta Falcons. He reminded me of Ray Nitschke in the 60s and probably early 70s. Tommy Nobis. And here we have Christus pro nobis.

Christ for us. He came for us to do what we couldn't do, what we had to do but we couldn't do. It wasn't about what Jesus was doing in us, although sanctification and those type of things are great truths.

We're not talking about that right now. We're talking about the gospel where Jesus obeys. Jesus perfectly obeys the law. Jesus lives a perfect life. He always does what's acceptable to the Father. Jesus died on the cross as a sinless substitute.

Jesus was raised from the dead as a glorious confirmation of His work by the Father commending the Spirit attending. I sound like a Baptist. Jesus ascends. Jesus returns. It's all about Jesus. It's not our faith that did it.

It's not something that we contribute. How much did you help Jesus obey while He lived on earth? What was your part in His crucifixion in terms of did you help Him assuage the wrath of God? Did you help Jesus be raised from the dead?

And see, you now know where I'm going with all this. We are passive in this. We are recipients. We don't contribute to the story except if you want to contribute what we received from Adam, that is, sin, and then consequently we didn't believe and we disobeyed and we sinned.

This is important. Getting to the gospel correctly laid out is very important. Was Paul just going a little overboard when he said in Galatians 1, verse 6 and following, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.

As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. Christ alone, his sinless life alone as representative, his substantiating death alone for our reconciliation to the Father, for our justification for every aspect of salvation to stand in his presence.

If I ask you, why did Jesus die? You would get the answer correct. To make atonement, to have our sins forgiven, to bear our sins. You would answer that question correctly. What if I ask you, why did Jesus live?

He died because he came to seek and save those who were lost, Luke 19. He died to show that while we were still sinners, God had great love for us and he demonstrated that love toward us because Jesus died for us while we were still sinners.

But why did Jesus live? And there we'll look at statements in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21, for instance, he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

Jesus merits salvation. Jesus earns salvation. Jesus alone earns salvation. Jesus alone merits salvation. There's no one else. And that should turn the Christian's heart into thanksgiving. That should turn the Christian's heart who desires their loved ones to be saved to give them hope because without that hope in Christ Jesus that he would do the work, what are we going to do?

Wait for our sinful friends, neighbors, relatives, spouses, children, parents to do the work? Now, there's a setting for the Reformation and we have the Middle Ages and everybody's got this relationship with God but it's mediated not through Christ alone.

It's mediated through Christ plus priests, Christ plus popes, Christ plus maybe even other religions. Sometimes we think we live in this pluralistic society today with all kinds of religions vying for preeminence.

That was happening in the Renaissance as well. Petrarch, the Renaissance thinker, he wanted all the religions to just come together in one big amorphous blob. He didn't call it that. Remember that old show, The Blob?

I don't really know what's going on with the Stephen King movie. It, is that the new thing with the clowns? I don't really know about it. I've never read anything. I've just seen clown stuff everywhere.

Not sure if I'm supposed to like it or not like it. I guess if it's pop culture, you're not supposed to like it. People thought in those days, you know, other religions could save. They also thought that nature, there was a saving effect in nature, this paganism and natural religion.

But the reformers knew something about humanity. And I think it's pretty much empirically shown. Much of our life has to be worked by the process of walking by faith, not by sight. But you can empirically, and again, it's a little tongue in cheek, know that men and women are sinful.

And they're just, you know, destroyers and murderers and sinners and ungodly and unrighteous. We just look around and you can see that. And the reformers realized that you can't put faith in men and women and in humanity and in people.

If you could, then Jesus might be a good crutch. He might be a $5 bill to motivate you to get to heaven. But if you're really that bad and God has a personal relationship with you and that personal relationship is one of enemy, you're going to need some help.

You're going to need a go-between. You're going to need a mediator. You're going to need a priest, someone to stand in your place. When you say yes, that Jesus is the only way, you're saying no to something.

Everyone wants to say, we're known for what we're for. We're not known for what we're against. Now, if you're always bashing people, you're always against things all the time. Well, that's a factor. There are people out there riding their bicycles.

Oh, is that my idol? I don't know. Thankfully, in the middle of all this, that hasn't been an idol. I've been wanting to, but it's not been idolatrous. When you say yes to Jesus alone, you are saying no to any other mediator.

Christ Alone and the Need for an Advocate

Pope Mary, when John writes, 1 John, he's writing these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. Verse 13. And he wants you to have assurance.

He wants you to, of course, believe on the name and if you are believing on the name, to continue to believe that you might know. So you can know that you have eternal life. It's fascinating to me that, of course, God didn't have to give us any assurance.

He could have just said, if you believe, you're justified. And that's all we've got. But here we have a book written about this assurance. And in this very book, it says in 1 John 2. Verse 1 and 2. My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. We have, present tense, if I'm reading my Greek text correctly, we have a paraclete, an advocate before pros is the Greek word.

In the presence, in the face of God, we have an advocate. We have an intercessor. Satan, of course, accuses and we have someone who will stand up for us in God's presence. The advocate, right there, not far away, not 1 -800, not different area code.

Someone who goes to court with us, serves as our defense attorney. It's that kind of language. You have the righteous one is the one who stands before a thrice holy God. We have Jesus Christ the righteous.

If you want to have anybody stand up for you, you want to have someone like Jesus because he himself, the great high priest, is now the advocate. And it says here, he himself is the atonement for our sins.

As one man translated it, Jesus is the propitiation. We have earlier in John chapter 1, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus in his role of not just substitute but advocate to bear the sins of the wrath of God that he didn't earn, that other people earned.

John writes, my dear children, I don't want you to go sinning like these heretics, these Gnostics, these other false teachers who say Jesus isn't God. You have Jesus here as advocate and if God's going to take you to court, you're going to need Jesus as the advocate.

That's what's going to happen. This is all part of understanding Solus Christus. That is to say, God, the Son, is your only hope for salvation. It is not Jesus plus someone else. Not Jesus plus something else.

There are other mediators that people like to give, functional mediators. The Roman Pontiff, the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church says, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ and as pastor of the entire church, has full, supreme and universal power over the whole church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered, unhinderedly.

Really? The Vicar of Christ, he's the substitute or representative? Alright, when you die and stand before God, would you rather have Pope Francis or Jesus? Now, of course, my Catholic friends will talk about, yes, I have a Catholic friend.

Well, one's on earth, one's in heaven. This is very complicated, but it would, if you believed in the Pope as a mediator, it would deny Solus Christus. And the Roman Catholic Church was teaching these other things and the Reformers knew it.

Well, we're going to learn more about Solus Christus next time on No Compromise Radio. Tell your friends about NoCo Radio and the trip, especially to Israel, flying out of Boston, I think, or Omaha, or you can get to Newark,.

Or wherever you'd like. This week, 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 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.