WEBVTT 00:02.470 --> 00:07.510 Today on the John Ankerberg Show, statistics show that about 70% of 00:07.510 --> 00:13.250 Christian young people who attend church regularly in high school will drop out or 00:13.250 --> 00:18.350 step away from their Christian faith when they leave to attend a secular college or 00:18.350 --> 00:18.970 university. 00:19.970 --> 00:22.990 Why are they leaving behind the faith in which they were raised? 00:23.830 --> 00:28.110 Students who enter the university quickly realize they are not in Sunday school 00:28.110 --> 00:28.630 anymore. 00:29.370 --> 00:34.430 Secular professors challenge their beliefs of how Christianity began, who Jesus 00:34.430 --> 00:35.330 really was. 00:36.130 --> 00:38.230 Can we believe that he rose from the dead? 00:38.750 --> 00:40.030 How did we get the Bible? 00:40.590 --> 00:43.290 And can we really trust the information we find there? 00:44.130 --> 00:49.270 32% of Christian students said they left their faith behind because of intellectual 00:49.270 --> 00:50.910 skepticism or doubt. 00:51.370 --> 00:53.790 Their faith didn't make any sense to them anymore. 00:54.330 --> 00:56.910 Or there were too many questions they didn't think could be answered. 00:57.870 --> 01:03.250 63% of teenage Christians said they do not believe that Jesus is the son of the one 01:03.250 --> 01:03.970 true God. 01:04.270 --> 01:08.270 51% said they do not believe that Jesus rose from the dead. 01:08.870 --> 01:13.490 68% said they do not believe that the Holy Spirit is a real entity. 01:14.250 --> 01:20.030 And only 33% said that the church will play a part in their lives when they leave 01:20.030 --> 01:20.470 home. 01:21.230 --> 01:25.310 But I believe this trend can be reversed, and so I have entitled our new television 01:25.310 --> 01:31.210 series, What Your Son or Daughter Needs to Know Before They Go to the University, 01:31.650 --> 01:34.070 so they don't fall away from the faith. 01:34.630 --> 01:39.750 We will also help those watching the NBC television mini-series A.D. 01:40.110 --> 01:45.650 who have questions about the life of Jesus, his resurrection, and how the 01:45.650 --> 01:47.190 apostles spread the gospel. 01:48.010 --> 01:53.690 What evidence assures us that this all actually happened and was not fabricated 01:53.690 --> 01:55.110 by the early Christians? 01:55.890 --> 02:01.010 My guest today, who will lead us through this discussion, is Dr. Darrell Bock, 02:01.250 --> 02:05.450 one of the leading historical Jesus scholars in our country, and one of the 02:05.450 --> 02:09.690 world's foremost authorities on the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. 02:09.970 --> 02:15.110 He is Senior Research Professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological 02:15.110 --> 02:21.850 Seminary and has authored over 30 books and appeared on ABC, CNN, Fox, 02:22.070 --> 02:23.290 and the Discovery Channel. 02:23.750 --> 02:28.430 I invite you to join us for this special edition of the John Ankerberg Show. 02:32.180 --> 02:33.360 Welcome to our program. 02:33.440 --> 02:34.500 Let me ask you this question. 02:35.340 --> 02:42.300 What are the questions that your students need to know how to answer before you send 02:42.300 --> 02:46.660 them to the university in order for them to keep their faith in the Lord Jesus? 02:47.840 --> 02:53.520 When you send them to a secular university or college, there are critical professors 02:53.520 --> 02:58.500 that are talking to them about God, Bible, and Jesus, and they're not 02:58.500 --> 03:01.680 necessarily telling them what they've been hearing in church. 03:02.160 --> 03:09.460 And we're doing this program to try and prepare you and them for that experience, 03:09.940 --> 03:11.440 because you don't want them to lose their faith. 03:12.160 --> 03:14.260 And, Darrell, I'm glad that you're here today. 03:15.020 --> 03:20.360 And I want to get right down to this thing that people have said, you know, 03:20.400 --> 03:25.660 with the Gnostic gospels, the Nag Hammadi finds, and all of these new little books 03:25.660 --> 03:32.360 that have come down, that these books have changed the way we believe, okay? 03:32.900 --> 03:37.660 The gospel that's been preached for 1,900 years, okay, that's one version of 03:37.660 --> 03:38.180 Christianity. 03:38.300 --> 03:43.300 Now we realize there were other books in circulation and other ideas about Jesus, 03:43.460 --> 03:49.280 and they're saying they were just as acceptable in the sense that they were 03:49.280 --> 03:49.760 there. 03:50.080 --> 03:54.440 So how did this specific train of orthodoxy come all the way down to us? 03:54.740 --> 03:57.520 They're saying, well, there was a power play around the fourth century with the 03:57.520 --> 04:01.160 creeds, and the church imposed this and threw out all the other stuff, 04:01.380 --> 04:01.720 okay? 04:02.320 --> 04:06.840 You're saying that's not true, and you're telling us the reasons why. 04:06.860 --> 04:12.320 And you're saying, one of the ways that you examine these documents is to find 04:12.320 --> 04:16.620 out, okay, you do have documents at certain times, second, third century, 04:16.880 --> 04:20.280 talking about Jesus, using the apostles' names, all kinds of stuff. 04:21.000 --> 04:25.140 They're not connected with the apostles, but they also aren't connected in terms of 04:25.140 --> 04:30.080 the message, the theology that's been apparent in the early church right from 04:30.080 --> 04:30.640 the get-go. 04:31.320 --> 04:33.300 The theology is completely different. 04:33.560 --> 04:37.660 And you're trying to tell us today, what's the core theology that the Bible's 04:37.660 --> 04:38.920 presented from the get-go? 04:39.720 --> 04:41.380 Then you can compare it with these others. 04:41.940 --> 04:45.560 And when the Christians did it in the early days, they said, pfft, that's not 04:45.560 --> 04:46.200 what we believe. 04:46.440 --> 04:48.680 And they discarded those books, okay? 04:48.880 --> 04:50.340 So tell us what's going on here. 04:50.340 --> 04:55.340 Dr. Darrell Bock Well, what's happened is, is in 1945 we had a discovery called the 04:55.340 --> 04:56.720 Nag Hammadi codices. 04:57.020 --> 05:01.040 They did discover several extra-biblical gospels. 05:01.620 --> 05:03.700 Most of them are second century or later. 05:03.880 --> 05:07.720 They don't have any possibility even going back to the first century. 05:08.200 --> 05:13.900 So what you've got is kind of this anachronistic move to elevate the status 05:13.900 --> 05:18.380 of these gospels alongside what's going on in our first century witnesses, 05:18.380 --> 05:20.220 which are the gospels that we have. 05:20.480 --> 05:24.740 I did a book called The Missing Gospels that also worked through the nature of 05:24.740 --> 05:25.220 these claims. 05:25.340 --> 05:26.480 What were these books about? 05:26.580 --> 05:27.380 What did they say? 05:27.480 --> 05:28.360 What did they teach? 05:28.760 --> 05:33.200 And tried to show how the pedigree that they have and the theology that they teach 05:33.200 --> 05:36.900 in no way could possibly go back to Jesus and the apostles. 05:37.620 --> 05:40.920 They had a theology that was problematic not just for what it taught about Jesus. 05:41.640 --> 05:44.360 They had a theology that was problematic for what it taught about God. 05:45.460 --> 05:49.120 Christianity emerged out of Judaism out of a respect for Judaism. 05:49.260 --> 05:53.140 In fact, the early apostles went to the synagogue and basically said, this is the 05:53.140 --> 05:56.640 completion of the promise that God has offered to His people from the beginning 05:56.640 --> 05:57.700 going back to Abraham. 05:57.980 --> 06:01.960 They accepted the core theology of the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament. 06:02.860 --> 06:06.660 One of those core ideas is that God was the Creator and the creation was 06:06.660 --> 06:07.460 originally good. 06:08.180 --> 06:12.140 In this Apocryphon of John and in Gnostic gospels that tell the story of the 06:12.140 --> 06:13.780 creation, God doesn't create. 06:14.440 --> 06:15.400 Underling gods do. 06:15.480 --> 06:17.140 And they botched the job from the beginning. 06:17.260 --> 06:20.980 So not only did God not create, but the creation wasn't very good at the 06:20.980 --> 06:21.240 beginning. 06:21.340 --> 06:23.120 It was bad from the very beginning. 06:23.400 --> 06:28.700 And this dualism, this idea that the material world is inferior in comparison 06:28.700 --> 06:31.420 to the spiritual world, is a form of Neoplatonism. 06:31.780 --> 06:33.080 That's not Judaism. 06:33.360 --> 06:35.980 That's not the Judaism that fed into the early Christian movement. 06:36.360 --> 06:40.120 There is no way that material could go back to the earliest generations of the 06:40.120 --> 06:40.460 Christian faith. 06:40.460 --> 06:44.740 Ankerberg And if the church is accepting the Old Testament and then moving on with 06:44.740 --> 06:48.280 the claims of Jesus and who He is as death and resurrection and being the Savior of 06:48.280 --> 06:52.020 the world, they would have rejected that kind of theology quickly. 06:52.420 --> 06:53.120 Dr. Craig Exactly right. 06:53.540 --> 06:58.760 What we have is a, is a core theology that passes through two centuries of 06:58.760 --> 06:59.380 conversation. 06:59.560 --> 07:01.780 I need to set the stage a little bit for what we're doing. 07:02.720 --> 07:08.900 Many of the university models will say that Irenaeus is the father of orthodoxy. 07:08.980 --> 07:13.420 That really the concept of establishing a canon and of pushing the idea of an 07:13.420 --> 07:17.680 orthodoxy and pushing others aside is a product that begins to emerge at the end 07:17.680 --> 07:20.880 of the second century and then works itself out into the fourth century. 07:20.880 --> 07:21.860 Ankerberg So about 180 in Irenaeus. 07:21.860 --> 07:23.440 Dr. Craig About 180 in Irenaeus. 07:23.740 --> 07:28.860 And what, what I did years ago was to sit down and go through the doctrine of God, 07:28.940 --> 07:34.560 the doctrine of Jesus and the doctrine of salvation and go through and trace the 07:34.560 --> 07:38.840 writings before we get to Irenaeus, the, called architect of this orthodoxy. 07:39.400 --> 07:44.080 And, and trace and see if there was a core theology that was consistently running 07:44.080 --> 07:44.580 through them. 07:44.640 --> 07:48.120 And I made the argument then that there was a core theology. 07:48.260 --> 07:50.700 And I, I think the best thing to do is to just read it. 07:50.720 --> 07:52.160 Ankerberg Let's put it up on the screen for folks. 07:52.180 --> 07:55.680 Dr. Craig And, and, and the reason I'm going to do this is because when you hear 07:55.680 --> 07:58.480 it, it's, it's not going to sound like a creed on the one hand. 07:58.580 --> 08:01.100 It doesn't sound like the Bible versus New Testament on the other. 08:01.160 --> 08:04.640 But it is dealing with the themes that the New Testament is presenting. 08:05.180 --> 08:06.660 Here, here I think is the summary. 08:07.000 --> 08:08.580 There was one Creator God. 08:09.240 --> 08:10.840 Jesus was both human and divine. 08:11.300 --> 08:13.180 He truly suffered and was raised bodily. 08:13.780 --> 08:15.420 He is worthy to receive worship. 08:16.120 --> 08:20.400 Salvation was about liberation from hostile forces, but it also was about sin 08:20.400 --> 08:24.840 and forgiveness, the need to fix a flaw in humanity that made each person culpable 08:24.840 --> 08:25.740 before the Creator. 08:26.660 --> 08:30.880 This salvation was the realization of promises that God made to the world and to 08:30.880 --> 08:33.180 Israel through Israel's law and prophets. 08:33.800 --> 08:38.260 The one person Jesus Christ brought this salvation, not only by revealing the way 08:38.260 --> 08:42.340 to God and making reconciliation, but by providing for that way through His 08:42.340 --> 08:43.240 death for sin. 08:43.960 --> 08:48.440 Resurrection into a new exalted spiritual life involves salvation of the entire 08:48.440 --> 08:52.160 person, spirit, soul, and very importantly, body. 08:52.940 --> 08:56.860 Faith in this work of God through Jesus saves and brings a spiritual life that 08:56.860 --> 08:57.580 will never end. 08:57.980 --> 09:00.200 That was the orthodoxy of the earliest tradition. 09:00.780 --> 09:02.400 And that's what this tour showed. 09:02.540 --> 09:06.000 It meant that there were certain things that were ruled out from the get-go in 09:06.000 --> 09:07.100 terms of orthodoxy. 09:07.520 --> 09:10.540 God was not to be divided in such a way that He was not the Creator. 09:10.680 --> 09:14.400 He was the Creator of all things, and that initial creation was good. 09:14.940 --> 09:19.500 A division between Jesus and the Christ in terms of His basic person and work was not 09:19.500 --> 09:20.020 acceptable. 09:20.740 --> 09:25.220 Orthodoxy was that Jesus as Son of God was sent from God and came truly in the flesh 09:25.220 --> 09:26.020 and truly suffered. 09:26.600 --> 09:31.700 And third, redemption only on the spiritual plane was not the true faith. 09:31.880 --> 09:35.640 Salvation included a physical dimension of resurrection and extended into the 09:35.640 --> 09:36.520 material creation. 09:37.200 --> 09:41.180 And this meant, fourth, that Jesus came not only to point the way to faith, 09:41.260 --> 09:45.080 to be a prophet, to be a teacher of religious wisdom, or to be an example of 09:45.080 --> 09:45.780 religious faith. 09:45.940 --> 09:48.800 Rather, His work provided the means to salvation. 09:49.280 --> 09:50.760 He was far more than a prophet. 09:51.160 --> 09:55.620 He was worshiped and affirmed, sharing glory with God as His Son." That 09:55.620 --> 09:58.300 is the core theology of the first two centuries. 09:58.380 --> 10:03.100 And you can pick virtually any substantial work of the first two centuries coming out 10:03.100 --> 10:06.860 of Christianity, out of this wing of Christianity if you take it from the 10:06.860 --> 10:09.700 skeptical side, and you will hear and see that story. 10:09.820 --> 10:09.820 Ankerberg. 10:09.820 --> 10:10.020 Yeah. 10:10.200 --> 10:15.120 So if you're saying before Irenaeus at 180, you're looking at documents going 10:15.120 --> 10:20.860 back, you're saying you've got Jesus, you've got Him recorded in the Gospels, 10:21.200 --> 10:25.620 you've got the letters of Paul that are even earlier than the Gospels. 10:25.940 --> 10:31.000 Then you've got the disciples of the apostles, the guys that sat underneath the 10:31.000 --> 10:35.060 teaching when Peter would preach, or Paul would preach, or John would 10:35.060 --> 10:35.380 preach. 10:35.480 --> 10:37.220 You've got those guys, their writings. 10:37.220 --> 10:37.220 Ankerberg. 10:37.220 --> 10:38.500 You've got the speeches recorded in Acts. 10:38.500 --> 10:38.500 Ankerberg. 10:38.500 --> 10:39.540 The speeches in Acts. 10:39.980 --> 10:41.320 So you've got these things. 10:41.600 --> 10:46.080 And whether you look at what we call the 27 books of the New Testament, 10:46.540 --> 10:52.860 or whether you look at the writings of the apostles' disciples, or you look at the 10:52.860 --> 10:57.860 fathers that came after that, right from the get-go you find all of that which you 10:57.860 --> 10:58.380 just said. 10:58.480 --> 10:58.980 Dr. John Ankerberg That's right. 10:59.060 --> 11:03.180 And the real key point here is that there is a consistency of theology running 11:03.180 --> 11:04.280 through all these sources. 11:04.560 --> 11:06.300 It's running over two centuries. 11:06.720 --> 11:08.960 You can see it again and again and again. 11:09.080 --> 11:12.380 It's expressed with some variety of terminology and with some variety of 11:12.380 --> 11:12.680 emphasis. 11:13.120 --> 11:17.660 But that core story is what is being told and is what is being passed on. 11:17.720 --> 11:21.440 You'll notice it's not quite the language of the creeds, because the creeds are 11:21.440 --> 11:23.960 going to develop what is here. 11:24.120 --> 11:28.020 And it's not quite the language necessarily of individual passages of the 11:28.020 --> 11:32.720 New Testament, because what we're seeing is the synthesis of what those texts are 11:32.720 --> 11:37.020 doing out of the New Testament and the way they were conceiving kind of the whole big 11:37.020 --> 11:37.880 picture story. 11:37.880 --> 11:40.520 Ankerberg We're talking to Dr. Darrell Bock, and we're asking the question, 11:40.780 --> 11:46.940 how do you know what the early Christians, right next to Jesus, what they believed He 11:46.940 --> 11:48.960 was saying, what did they hold? 11:49.460 --> 11:51.160 How far back can we go? 11:51.820 --> 11:58.480 And we are looking at some of the material that is the earliest historical material 11:58.480 --> 12:01.460 that tells us what those Christians believed. 12:01.980 --> 12:06.060 And we're going to take a look at Romans 1, verses 1-6. 12:06.200 --> 12:09.700 This came out in 57 AD, if Jesus died at 30. 12:10.120 --> 12:13.920 The fact is that's 27 years after the fact, okay? 12:14.840 --> 12:15.820 It says, 1. 12:15.820 --> 12:20.680 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the 12:20.680 --> 12:24.940 gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets and the 12:24.940 --> 12:31.660 holy scriptures, concerning his son, who was descended from David according to 12:31.660 --> 12:36.540 the flesh, he was a man, and was declared to be the Son of God in power, 12:36.940 --> 12:40.360 according to the spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead, 12:41.000 --> 12:43.740 Jesus Christ our Lord. 12:44.280 --> 12:46.660 Darrell, talk about this. 12:46.920 --> 12:48.300 Bock Well, this is a doctrinal summary. 12:48.500 --> 12:50.040 It's like 1 Corinthians 15. 12:50.200 --> 12:54.440 It's one of three layers of early evidence that we have that everyone was exposed to 12:54.440 --> 12:54.960 in the church. 12:55.200 --> 12:56.660 Some of them are doctrinal summaries. 12:56.760 --> 12:58.240 Some of them are hymns or songs. 12:58.660 --> 13:02.080 And the third category are sacraments, things like the Lord's Supper and baptism. 13:02.440 --> 13:04.980 They all taught the core theology. 13:05.380 --> 13:08.260 They were there from the very early days in the beginning. 13:08.400 --> 13:13.440 And in this text what's important is we've got Jesus at a human level, descended from 13:13.440 --> 13:13.780 David. 13:13.900 --> 13:17.460 And we've got him, you read, the text reads, declared. 13:17.680 --> 13:19.480 The word is actually horizoned. 13:19.780 --> 13:21.680 He's marked out as Son of God. 13:21.680 --> 13:25.540 He's demonstrated or shown to be Son of God by the resurrection. 13:25.840 --> 13:29.980 Because the resurrection is God's vindication of who Jesus is and his 13:29.980 --> 13:30.540 claims. 13:30.980 --> 13:32.220 Ankerberg He's recognized here. 13:32.260 --> 13:33.020 Bock Exactly right. 13:33.120 --> 13:36.860 Just like the horizon marks off the separation from the edge of the earth to 13:36.860 --> 13:40.480 the heaven, so the resurrection marks out who Jesus is. 13:40.540 --> 13:45.160 It's like a, it's like a highway placard that says, this is who Jesus is. 13:45.200 --> 13:46.480 Take a look at what this means. 13:46.480 --> 13:47.200 Ankerberg Yeah, it's the grabber. 13:47.340 --> 13:49.240 I mean, the resurrection, that ought to tell you something. 13:49.280 --> 13:49.760 Bock That's right. 13:49.780 --> 13:50.080 Ankerberg All right. 13:50.080 --> 13:55.440 And if somebody said, well, you know, they, they made this up in 20 years. 13:56.920 --> 14:00.280 Bock Well, this is a doctrinal summary that goes back to this early period. 14:00.520 --> 14:02.940 And again, we're back to the experience of Paul. 14:03.600 --> 14:07.820 Paul's experience comes within a couple of years of the time of these events in, 14:07.920 --> 14:11.460 in the 30s when he sees Jesus on the Damascus Road. 14:11.920 --> 14:13.500 And his theology changes. 14:13.700 --> 14:17.640 It's because Jesus was being preached as the one being seated at the right hand of 14:17.640 --> 14:17.880 God. 14:18.200 --> 14:21.940 It was because the apostles were declaring that Jesus was alive, that the tomb was 14:21.940 --> 14:24.360 empty, that a resurrection had taken place. 14:24.820 --> 14:29.100 And so Paul's message connects to the apostles' message at that point. 14:29.220 --> 14:34.160 And that gap that we've talked about that runs anywhere from 20 to 60 years all of a 14:34.160 --> 14:35.740 sudden has closed shut. 14:36.180 --> 14:36.180 Bock Yeah. 14:36.540 --> 14:41.060 1 Corinthians 8, again, 1 Corinthians comes out of 55 AD. 14:41.540 --> 14:44.680 So now we're talking 25 years after Jesus passed off the scene. 14:45.060 --> 14:49.440 And Paul writes to the Corinthians, We know that an idol has no real 14:49.440 --> 14:53.180 existence, and that there is no God but one. 14:53.760 --> 14:59.140 For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are 14:59.140 --> 15:07.760 many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all 15:07.760 --> 15:13.680 things, and for whom we exist, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom 15:13.680 --> 15:16.540 are all things, and through whom we exist. 15:16.680 --> 15:21.340 Now the skeptics sometimes try to twist that and get other deities in there. 15:21.540 --> 15:22.660 What's going on here? 15:23.060 --> 15:26.140 Ankerberg Well, what's going on, of course, is we're in a polytheistic 15:26.140 --> 15:30.560 world, the Greco-Roman world, in which there are many gods being worshiped in the 15:30.560 --> 15:30.900 culture. 15:31.220 --> 15:34.780 But beyond this we have one other thing that's going on that's very, very 15:34.780 --> 15:39.400 important, and that is we have Jesus and God put together in a Benetterian 15:39.400 --> 15:43.700 statement in which both of them are presented as creators. 15:44.220 --> 15:45.840 And Jesus is not a creature. 15:46.040 --> 15:47.360 An angel is a creature. 15:48.060 --> 15:52.000 So when someone tries to say, oh, well, the way Jesus got exalted is He went 15:52.620 --> 15:53.320 up the ranks. 15:53.380 --> 15:56.800 He started off as an angel and He ended up being seated at the right hand of God. 15:57.160 --> 15:58.220 No, that can't work. 15:58.300 --> 16:03.180 What the early church is confessing very early on is Jesus is in as a creator, 16:03.300 --> 16:06.640 as a part of the divine activity that's taking place to create. 16:06.760 --> 16:08.540 He's not a creature in and of Himself. 16:08.640 --> 16:09.700 He was preexistent. 16:09.960 --> 16:11.140 He was there at the creation. 16:11.320 --> 16:12.640 He's associated with wisdom. 16:12.880 --> 16:18.100 And this is in an early doctrinal summary that reflects the view that exists about 16:18.100 --> 16:19.480 Jesus very early on. 16:19.640 --> 16:19.640 Ankerberg Yeah. 16:19.980 --> 16:21.860 Now, you folks, you like songs, right? 16:22.640 --> 16:26.460 The early Christians liked songs before they had Scripture, okay? 16:26.540 --> 16:29.360 And some of those songs became Scripture. 16:29.840 --> 16:31.320 Let's give them one, okay? 16:31.840 --> 16:38.880 It's Philippians 2, and it says, Christ Jesus, who being in very nature 16:38.880 --> 16:45.320 God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself 16:45.320 --> 16:51.820 nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, 16:52.340 --> 16:57.960 and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to 16:57.960 --> 17:00.400 death, even death on a cross. 17:01.300 --> 17:06.340 Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above 17:06.340 --> 17:13.980 every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on 17:13.980 --> 17:22.480 earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, 17:23.040 --> 17:24.800 to the glory of God the Father. 17:24.900 --> 17:25.740 That was a hymn. 17:25.740 --> 17:27.000 Dr. Reagan That was a hymn. 17:27.240 --> 17:28.440 Well, at least we think it was a hymn. 17:28.500 --> 17:30.520 If it wasn't a hymn, it's at least a doctrinal summary. 17:30.860 --> 17:34.240 And the point of this text is really significant. 17:34.360 --> 17:39.200 The last part of that passage where every knee bows and every tongue confesses is 17:39.200 --> 17:41.000 echoing language from Isaiah 45. 17:41.560 --> 17:46.620 Now, it just so happens that Isaiah 45 is probably one of the strongest texts in 17:46.620 --> 17:50.020 defense of monotheism that we have in the Hebrew Scriptures. 17:50.460 --> 17:51.960 The early church did have a Scripture. 17:52.140 --> 17:54.520 They had the Hebrew Scriptures, but they didn't have the New Testament 17:54.520 --> 17:54.760 yet. 17:55.220 --> 17:59.760 So how did they teach and reflect on the theology before there was a functioning 17:59.760 --> 18:00.300 New Testament? 18:00.400 --> 18:02.160 That's actually the question that we're answering. 18:02.580 --> 18:06.000 And it wasn't that this was being developed willy-nilly across a gap period. 18:06.200 --> 18:10.460 There was an early theology on which they were reflecting, and it was there from the 18:10.460 --> 18:11.020 very beginning. 18:11.360 --> 18:16.520 And these hymns are hymns of praise that they were singing in the services to make 18:16.520 --> 18:17.120 this point. 18:17.280 --> 18:19.020 And so notice what's happened. 18:19.540 --> 18:23.420 The God of Israel, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess. 18:23.440 --> 18:27.320 That's what the Hebrew Scripture is saying, is now described in such a way 18:27.320 --> 18:32.600 that Jesus shares in this glory, shares in this position, shares in this 18:32.600 --> 18:32.940 honor. 18:33.380 --> 18:37.480 And as a result, what we see, again, is another Benetarian statement where 18:37.480 --> 18:41.840 Jesus is put right next to God in the midst of what it is that the church is 18:41.840 --> 18:45.900 teaching, singing, and what they're doing in the midst of their services when 18:45.900 --> 18:46.860 they're worshiping God. 18:46.940 --> 18:46.940 Ankerberg. 18:46.940 --> 18:50.800 Yeah, all these passages, He's both God and man, all right? 18:50.820 --> 18:51.660 He's the Creator. 18:51.660 --> 18:53.200 I mean, it's incredible. 18:53.700 --> 18:56.640 Everybody knows about communion, the Lord's Supper, okay? 18:56.820 --> 18:58.380 Let's go back to an early document. 18:58.520 --> 18:59.700 What did they think it meant? 19:00.100 --> 19:03.820 Let's take 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul talks about the Lord's Supper. 19:03.880 --> 19:10.420 And he says, "...for I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, 19:10.900 --> 19:14.460 that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread. 19:14.760 --> 19:21.160 And when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, This is My body, which is for 19:21.160 --> 19:21.700 you. 19:22.460 --> 19:25.540 Do this in remembrance of Me. 19:26.320 --> 19:31.760 In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, This cup is the new 19:31.760 --> 19:33.160 covenant in My blood. 19:33.680 --> 19:38.040 Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me. 19:38.240 --> 19:41.960 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's 19:41.960 --> 19:44.780 death until He comes." What's going on here? 19:44.780 --> 19:48.380 Dr. Reagan Well, this is interesting because obviously the focus is on the 19:48.380 --> 19:51.100 substitutionary work that Jesus is performing in His death. 19:51.440 --> 19:56.000 It goes back to the Last Supper and where Jesus instituted this practice, 19:56.460 --> 20:00.320 indicating what His, what His life and commitment was about in His mission. 20:00.700 --> 20:04.480 What's really interesting about this is that we actually have two versions of what 20:04.480 --> 20:05.400 was said at this meal. 20:05.480 --> 20:10.340 We have Matthew and Mark who say, This blood is, is the covenant in My 20:10.340 --> 20:10.560 blood. 20:10.640 --> 20:12.460 The word new isn't even in there. 20:12.460 --> 20:16.420 Whereas in Luke and in Paul we've got new covenant in the language. 20:16.880 --> 20:19.640 This shows the differences that sometimes get exploited. 20:19.780 --> 20:22.580 But notice that this difference is not a real difference. 20:23.060 --> 20:26.740 The only covenant that could be established that wasn't in place at the 20:26.740 --> 20:29.400 time Jesus was speaking was the new covenant. 20:29.860 --> 20:34.040 So all the word, change of wording done is make explicit something that was implicit 20:34.040 --> 20:36.080 in what was said in the shorter version. 20:36.560 --> 20:39.600 So here's an example of the differences that sometimes are played against one 20:39.600 --> 20:39.880 another. 20:40.180 --> 20:43.560 And what we see is how they connect and relate to one another, not that they're in 20:43.560 --> 20:44.760 contradiction to one another. 20:44.980 --> 20:49.040 And the second point that we're seeing here is in these sacraments we get core 20:49.040 --> 20:49.420 theology. 20:49.420 --> 20:54.240 Just like in baptism, what's pictured is the washing and then the return to life, 20:54.320 --> 20:58.800 the picture of cleansing into new life so that now that I'm cleansed, the Spirit of 20:58.800 --> 21:02.600 God can come into my life and I can now walk with God with the capability that 21:02.600 --> 21:04.380 He's now given me as a result of being saved. 21:04.720 --> 21:04.720 Ankerberg. 21:04.740 --> 21:06.940 Darrell, summarize for the folks that are listening. 21:07.460 --> 21:09.220 What's the importance of what you just said? 21:09.280 --> 21:13.380 How should this encourage students who are looking for evidence about what the early 21:13.380 --> 21:14.180 Christians believed? 21:14.280 --> 21:14.280 Ankerberg. 21:14.280 --> 21:18.760 We are saying there is a core theology that is summarized in summaries, 21:18.880 --> 21:23.180 doctrinal summaries, in songs, hymns, and in sacraments, in the rites 21:23.180 --> 21:24.680 that the church was engaged in. 21:25.080 --> 21:27.460 These are practices that everyone was involved in. 21:27.520 --> 21:30.780 This wasn't some elite over here that was being taught something or some secret, 21:30.900 --> 21:33.680 some mysteries off to the side, which is what you get in Gnostic 21:33.680 --> 21:34.120 Christianity. 21:34.520 --> 21:36.260 This was something that was exposed to everybody. 21:36.420 --> 21:37.100 It's early. 21:37.100 --> 21:38.640 It's core theology. 21:38.940 --> 21:42.180 It's teaching theology before there was a functioning New Testament. 21:42.400 --> 21:46.700 And it shows that theology is early and that the core stuff was there from the 21:46.700 --> 21:47.240 very beginning. 21:47.780 --> 21:47.780 Ankerberg. 21:48.020 --> 21:50.020 All right, next week we're moving on. 21:50.080 --> 21:51.220 We're going to ask another question. 21:51.780 --> 21:52.460 Think about it. 21:52.520 --> 21:53.900 Jesus passes off the scene. 21:53.980 --> 21:58.100 You've got the twelve apostles and, and there's no New Testament. 21:59.200 --> 22:05.620 How did the early Christians after Jesus come to the conclusion, where did they get 22:05.620 --> 22:11.920 the intuition that the letters, the books of the apostles could be equated 22:11.920 --> 22:15.060 equally with the Scripture in the Old Testament? 22:15.860 --> 22:20.560 How did we develop this canon of the New Testament, the 27 books? 22:20.960 --> 22:22.680 That's a fascinating topic. 22:22.820 --> 22:24.120 I hope that you'll join us next week. 22:25.940 --> 22:29.140 Stay tuned for scenes from next week's program. 22:30.080 --> 22:33.880 Now, if you would like to have all of the information in our new series called 22:34.580 --> 22:40.240 Questions the World Will Ask About Your Faith, all three television programs in 22:40.240 --> 22:43.640 this series are available on DVD for a gift of $39. 22:44.500 --> 22:49.660 It contains the information your son or daughter needs to know before they leave 22:49.660 --> 22:52.300 home and go off to attend a secular college or university. 22:52.900 --> 22:57.400 It features one of the world's leading historical Jesus scholars, Dr. Darrell 22:57.400 --> 22:57.780 Bock. 22:58.300 --> 23:02.560 In this series, we'll help those watching the NBC television miniseries, 23:02.820 --> 23:07.700 A.D., who have questions about the life of Jesus, His death and resurrection, 23:08.300 --> 23:11.040 and how the apostles spread the gospel to the world. 23:11.800 --> 23:16.860 What evidence assures us that this all actually happened and was not fabricated 23:16.860 --> 23:17.980 by the early Christians? 23:18.520 --> 23:22.040 And what evidence shows Jesus clearly claimed to be God? 23:22.520 --> 23:27.640 How do we know Jesus really rose from the dead and actually appeared to over 500 23:27.640 --> 23:28.340 people? 23:29.060 --> 23:33.120 Can the resurrection appearances be explained away by psychological theories? 23:34.040 --> 23:39.600 All three programs in this series are available on DVD for a gift of $39. 23:40.380 --> 23:45.300 We also taped a second series called So You Don't Fall Away from the Faith. 23:45.780 --> 23:49.440 In this series, we explain how did Christianity begin? 23:50.080 --> 23:54.500 How do we know that the information in the New Testament books is the best historical 23:54.500 --> 23:57.420 evidence there is for what Jesus said and did? 23:57.980 --> 24:01.440 Then how do we know can trust what we are told about Jesus? 24:02.240 --> 24:07.140 Was the message Jesus preached changed over time by the early Christians? 24:07.740 --> 24:12.420 Or has Jesus' core message remained the same until our day? 24:13.060 --> 24:16.900 How did the early Christians come to believe that the apostles' books and 24:16.900 --> 24:21.960 letters were to be considered scripture, equal in authority with the Old Testament 24:21.960 --> 24:22.400 scriptures? 24:22.980 --> 24:26.740 And who decided which books would become part of the canon? 24:27.720 --> 24:32.960 The three programs in this series are also available on DVD for a gift of $39. 24:34.000 --> 24:39.360 Then third, we are making available two new study guides with extensive notes that 24:39.360 --> 24:41.420 parallel our two television series. 24:42.160 --> 24:47.520 Each study guide is available for a gift of $8 or for five or more copies for $5 24:47.520 --> 24:48.260 each. 24:48.980 --> 24:52.900 And finally, I'm going to include three other important series in this package. 24:53.480 --> 24:57.000 First, the battle to dethrone Jesus. 24:57.660 --> 25:02.260 Could the apostles and companions of the apostles have written a completely new 25:02.260 --> 25:05.960 story about Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? 25:06.780 --> 25:10.920 During the early period of time when the early Christians did not have the New 25:10.920 --> 25:16.320 Testament, how did they know what was true Christian belief and what was not? 25:17.140 --> 25:20.920 Well, the four programs in this series with New Testament scholars, Dr. Daniel B. 25:21.040 --> 25:25.140 Wallace and Dr. Darrell Bock, answer all of these questions. 25:26.200 --> 25:31.740 Second, our series, What About the Missing Gospels and Lost Christianities? 25:32.580 --> 25:36.900 Is the traditional Orthodox Christianity that we were taught in church true 25:36.900 --> 25:37.520 Christianity? 25:38.220 --> 25:41.340 What about the missing gospels and alternative Christianities that 25:41.340 --> 25:42.860 archaeologists have discovered? 25:43.520 --> 25:48.940 What do books like the Da Vinci Code, which sold more than 81 million copies, 25:49.580 --> 25:52.960 and other popular literature teach about Jesus? 25:53.520 --> 25:56.860 What historical evidence refutes their assertions? 25:57.380 --> 26:01.580 And then third, a response to Bill O 'Reilly's book, Killing Jesus, 26:01.900 --> 26:03.020 Part 1 and Part 2. 26:03.680 --> 26:07.160 My guests again are historian, Dr. Gary Habermas and New Testament 26:07.160 --> 26:12.520 scholar, Dr. Darrell Bock, who critique Bill O'Reilly's view of Jesus that's 26:12.520 --> 26:18.060 portrayed in his book and in his upcoming movie, which Bill O'Reilly says will break 26:18.060 --> 26:22.940 new ground in chronicling the life of the most famous human being who ever lived. 26:23.500 --> 26:28.920 Now, all six of these television series, containing 22 half-hour programs, 26:29.520 --> 26:38.700 plus the two study guides, are available for a special package now by calling us at 26:38.700 --> 26:43.340 1-800-805-3030. 26:43.880 --> 26:48.580 That's 1-800-805-3030. 26:49.360 --> 26:55.460 Or you may also order these materials at our website at jashow.org. 26:55.840 --> 26:58.340 Next week on the John Ankenberg Show... 26:58.920 --> 27:02.740 Ankerberg says our apostles are dying off and we no longer have their living word 27:02.740 --> 27:05.180 that can function in an oral context. 27:05.360 --> 27:07.580 We're now going to inscripturate their testimony. 27:08.180 --> 27:12.520 So we get Matthew and John writing as apostles, presenting that material and the 27:12.520 --> 27:13.880 material that comes through them. 27:13.960 --> 27:16.240 We have Mark representing Peter. 27:16.640 --> 27:19.540 We have Luke representing really the whole church in many ways. 27:20.000 --> 27:21.900 And that's where our gospels come from. 27:21.980 --> 27:25.900 We have the epistles that are written to deliver the testimony as Paul is seeing it 27:25.900 --> 27:26.540 and preaching it. 27:26.860 --> 27:30.600 We have Peter's material that comes from obviously one of the close apostles. 27:31.020 --> 27:33.080 We have John's material that comes from him. 27:33.420 --> 27:39.120 They become witnesses and their witness is inscripturated in what becomes the New 27:39.120 --> 27:40.360 Testament and the Word of God. 28:12.650 --> 28:19.330 And to learn how to start a relationship with Jesus Christ, go to our website at 28:19.330 --> 28:26.530 jashow.org and click on Pray to Accept Jesus Christ as your Savior.