Join Steve Gregg on a journey through theological inquiries surrounding human interactions with the divine. The episode covers a range of topics such as the timeless debate of God’s omniscience versus human free will, culminating in practical guidance for Christians dealing with personal challenges like anger and what it means to backslide in faith. The listener-oriented dialogue invites callers to probe deep into their understanding of their faith.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live each weekday afternoon for an hour to take your calls if you have questions about the Bible or about the Christian faith or objections or challenges to the Bible or to the Christian faith. I’d be glad to talk to you about anything that’s on your mind along those lines. In this hour we have commercial free hour which means we’ve got a lot more time than a lot of talk shows would have in the space of an hour to actually take your calls and talk with you. We have a number of lines that are open at the moment. So if you call right now, you’ve got a very good chance of being on the air today. But you’d have to get in fairly quickly. In all likelihood, later in the program, it’s more difficult to get through. The number to call is 844. Again, that number is 844-484-5737. If you’d like to get through again, this is a good time. There may be any time during the hour that will work out for you, but the chances are better at the beginning of the program. 844-484-5737. And again, this is Friday, so I won’t get a chance to announce it again before The weekend starting Sunday and through the following Sunday and all the days in between, I’ll be speaking in various areas, various locations on various topics in Washington State. So I’m going to be in Seattle. I’m going to be south of there by a considerable amount. I’ll be north of there and a lot of places in the general vicinity. So if you’re in western Washington State, You may want to take in one of these talks. If you do, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, and there’s a tab that says Announcements, and that’s where you’ll find the information for each of these meetings, beginning on Sunday morning and then going through the next Sunday evening. All right, let’s talk to Benjamin from Greenville, Ohio. Benjamin, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you, brother. I’ve written down two questions with a quick summary, and I’ll take your response off the air if you find that necessary. Is there anywhere in the Bible that explains how God expects a marriage ceremony to be performed? And the second question is, who is expected to officiate the ceremony? And my summary is basically, what constitutes a legitimate marriage in God’s eyes?
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay. All right. I’ll be glad to talk about that. Thank you, brother. All right. God bless you. Thank you. All right. Bye now. Okay. Well, what constitutes a valid marriage? Obviously, something resembling a wedding is the beginning of a marriage in essentially every society, although that something… that resembles a wedding is not always the same thing in every society. And the two questions you asked, I think, are does God give anything like his view of what needs to be included in a wedding? And does someone special have to be there to do it? Well, there’s, of course, a lot of traditions. Almost every religion has their traditions, and even our secular society has traditions. In our secular society, the officiant of a wedding can be a judge. a sea captain, a minister, any number of things like that, so long as they get licensed to do this kind of thing by the state. Now, that would be a secular requirement. I mean, I realize I mentioned ministers in this, but it’s not the Christian religion that requires the minister to be involved. It’s the state that requires it. one of these licensed people to do the wedding. And if they don’t, then the state does not recognize it as a actual wedding. Does God, does God require these things? Well, we don’t have any actual, uh, examples in the Bible of a wedding ceremony. There are several references, both in the old and the new Testament to weddings, to marriage, to the covenant of marriage. Um, to vows that are taken and so forth, but there’s no actual description of the ceremony, you know, whether it has to be an organist playing, whether it has to be a best man or a maid of honor, whether it needs to be a minister up front. Nothing like that is ever dictated in Scripture. Now, obviously, different cultures have different norms for marriage, and the very most ancient marriages in the time of Abraham, according to one scholarly work I read on the subject, said that the – and this was, you know, in the cuneiform tablets and so forth in ancient Mesopotamia. A marriage ceremony was simply the man saying to the woman, you are my wife, and she says to him, you’re my husband, and that was it. They both stated their promise or their intention to live as a husband and wife, and that’s all it took. Now, of course, when – Abraham was seeking a wife for Isaac. He sent his servant away to Paddan Aram, and he found Rebekah, and she came back to be his wife. And the only ceremony we read of is that he took her into the tent and began to cohabit with her. Now, of course, there already was a proposal of marriage stating Isaac’s intentions, and there was already her receiving of that proposal. Although she did so in the distance. That’s why she traveled from her home to him, because she was agreed to become his wife. So we don’t read of any other ceremony. Now, there could have been some kind of ceremony, but we don’t read of it. And there’s nothing in the Bible that suggests there had to be more of a ceremony. The idea is that people have made vows to each other. Now, there are things that, you know, I think Christian traditions do. have added that actually make a lot of sense. And, in fact, even Jewish weddings and others. I mean, the fact that there are public weddings in almost every land suggests that there’s at least an intuitive understanding, if not a biblical mandate, that these weddings are witnessed by the public, or at least by some witnesses. Generally speaking, a legal wedding in the United States is not considered to be legalized if there’s no witnesses that say, yeah, I heard them say these vows. Now, there doesn’t have to be a certain amount of music, a certain number of bridal party or attendance to the bridegroom. The parents don’t even have to be there. But it should be that somebody in the person’s life knows that they’ve made this vow because marriage is not just a private decision made between two people. When people become married, they become a social unit in the society. Generally speaking, they will have children. They may try very hard not to have children, but many times they’ll have children anyway because that’s the natural result of living together sexually in a marriage. So you can sort of unnaturally try to prevent it. Or, of course, there may be people who have conditions naturally that prevent them from having children. But generally speaking, marriage is understood to be the starting of a family. not just starting of a couple, but they’re starting a social unit and their children and their marriage becomes morally relevant to the whole society. It’s not just between them. If they break their vows, this communicates to the public that vows, you think, can be broken, in which case it undermines integrity in society. That’s harmful. If a couple has children and their children are badly raised, and begin to be criminals. This affects the society. Marriage is not just a decision that two people make because they like each other and think they’d like to live together. This is a social contract that is before God and man. And therefore, the vows that are taken before God should also be taken before man. And the reason for having witnesses of these vows It’s not commanded in Scripture, but I don’t know of any society that doesn’t include them, no matter what religion they’re of, or even secular religion. Secular societies, they all expect there to be witnesses. And the custom of having those witnesses is, it implies, that we heard you. We heard you make those promises. And if you want to be trusted as a person of integrity, you better keep those promises. Because if you break those promises… then we will know that you’re a person who doesn’t mind breaking promises. I mean, we’d be very foolish to enter into any business contracts with you or trust you to do anything that you say you’ll do. Because we heard you say this, and this way the society keeps the couple accountable, basically. And that’s a very – I think it’s very important, even if the Bible doesn’t state that part. There is a sense in which it might be implying this with the fact that people who became Christians – were publicly professing this. They confessed Christ before man, and they were baptized, which was something visible, publicly visible. And, of course, our joining to Christ is likened to marriage. It’s like entering into a covenant relationship with Christ the bridegroom. And so the baptism is our public profession of our commitment to this marriage. And so, in my opinion, That would be not just a social requirement, but a very reasonable moral requirement. As far as who can officiate, the Bible doesn’t say that anyone has to officiate. Again, in a public ceremony, I suppose couples could get their family and friends around them, neighbors, church members, and say, we’re going to say these vows, we’re going to sign a contract that we’re going to keep these vows, and we want everyone to be aware of it. This could be done without a minister, simply because we don’t read of a minister ever being involved in the Bible, nor certainly we don’t read of a government official, like a judge, being involved. This is something that people, if we’re talking about the moral aspects of marriage before God, this is people taking vows that they intend to keep and that they do keep. And that’s what makes them married, as opposed to a couple who love each other and kind of think they’ll probably be together forever, and they move in together. They might even have kids together, but they don’t have any commitment, any binding vow that would keep them from breaking that commitment. You see, if a couple moves in together, and they like each other, and their kind of unspoken agreement is, as long as we love each other, we’ll stay together. Well, that’s not a promise of staying together. Because you can’t promise that you’ll always feel the same way about somebody. That’s not something you have the power to guarantee. So the vow is there to keep you honest, to keep the vows, the promises you make, whether you feel like it or not. And so those vows are at the very core of what it means to be married as opposed to being not married. And, you know, taking them, you know, in a religious ceremony will almost always have a religious officiant, a rabbi or a minister or a priest or somebody like that. But that’s not what makes it a marriage in the Bible times. I don’t know that Abraham’s family had a clergyman who came to Isaac’s wedding or any of the other millions of people in the Old Testament who got married, especially those living out in the desert, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and so forth. I imagine, since they all married and Jacob’s sons married, that this marriage was simply something that was an agreement that was made among them, and people knew what that meant. Now, our wedding vows kind of spell it out. You know, I’m going to forsake all others. I’m taking you to have and hold from this day forward in sickness and in health, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, until one of us is dead. I mean, all those things are implied in what marriage is in the Bible. It’s a lifelong commitment to each other, irregardless. No, that’s not a good word. Regardless of what circumstances may make it difficult to stay in it. So that’s what a marriage is made of. The Bible in Malachi chapter 2 talks about men who’ve divorced their wives. He says, yet she is the wife of your covenant. In other words, they made a covenant of marriage. And the man has broken it by leaving his wife. And God says, as far as I’m concerned, she’s still your wife. You’re not free because you made a covenant. And she’s the wife of that covenant. That’s Malachi 2.14, if you’re interested. Anyway, there’s a lot of things about marriage that have become conventional and traditional, and most of those traditions are good. And I would recommend that people have a wedding where they say traditional vows, simply because it spells out what many people today do not understand to be true, but which before those vows were in the weddings, like in the Middle East, Everyone understood what that meant. Everyone understood that these things were in play. Sometimes to say more is better to spell it out. Jana from Irvine, California.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi, Steve. Hi, Jana.
SPEAKER 01 :
Is this Jana A.?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, Jana.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good to hear from you again.
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, good to hear from you. I was on the Zoom call on Wednesday, and I just have to say, You’re going to put that on YouTube. You were discussing why I’m still a Christian.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, I think that has been added to YouTube as of today, I think.
SPEAKER 08 :
So good. So much amazing perspective on there. Thank you so much for doing that. Oh, my pleasure. And also, just have to tell you, my friends and I are reading to the Bible chronologically, and we’re all addicted to your teachings on the narrow path. So, Just can’t thank you enough.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I’m glad they could be of use. It’s great to hear from you. Do you have a question? Yes.
SPEAKER 08 :
I do have a question. I would like your perspective on, in Luke, when the disciples go out and they’re all excited about, you know, seeing spiritual warfare in their favor, and then Jesus says, don’t rejoice in this, but rejoice that your names are written in the book of life, or written in heaven. And then in the Psalms, when it talks about our names being written in the book of life before one of them come to be. I would love your perspective on what that book of life is, what your name’s written in heaven, if those are connected, and I would be happy to take this off here.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. Well, thanks for your call, Jane. I will address that.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay. Thank you, Steve.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. Thank you for calling. Good to hear from you. Bye-bye. Well, the book of life. Sometimes it’s called the Book of Life. Moses said, God, if you don’t forgive Israel for the sin that they’ve done, then blot my name out of your book. And Jesus there in Luke chapter 10 said, Rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Now, the Book of Life is not the term that’s used there, but it could be. It could be the same book. We read of the Book of Life particularly in Revelations. where Jesus tells one of the churches that those who overcome, that is those who are faithful unto death, will not have their lives blotted out of the book of life. That’s Revelation chapter 3 and verse 5. He says, He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot his name from the book of life. Which sounds like it can be blotted out, but that’s confusing because Because it talks about, in Revelation 13, 8, it talks about those who worship the beast. It says, all who dwell on the earth shall worship him, whose names have not been written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Now, this phrase, from the foundation of the world, is a bit ambiguous. Its placement in the sentence could make different meanings. For example, does it mean that Jesus is the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world? Or does it mean their names were written in the Book of Life of the Lamb who was slain? From the foundation of the world, they were written there. Now, I think a lot of people take it in the latter sense, that our names were written in the Book of Life before the foundation of the world. This would be, I guess, more or less a predestinarian approach to the subject. And it would suggest that God, either knowing or determining who would be saved, wrote their names down in the Book of Life, And those in the book of life then would be necessarily, their names there would mean that they are necessarily going to be saved. The problem with that particular interpretation of it is, as I said, in Revelation 3, it says, if you overcome, I won’t blot your name out of the book of life, which implies very strongly, if you’re not one of the people who overcome, which that means faithful unto death, then I will blot your name out of the book of life. And if your name can be blotted out of the book of life, How could it have been written in there before the foundation of the world? If God knew that you’re not going to make it, why would he have your name in there at all? That’s a very uncertain thing. Now, there’s some people who believe that when the Bible talks about the book of life, it’s not referring to the book of eternal life as the book of people who are saved, but rather the list of people who are living at any given time and they’re the ones who have life at the moment. And, you know, if they die, they are removed from the Book of Life. So the threat of having your name removed from the Book of Life would be simply the threat of death temporally and not necessarily of the loss of salvation. However, it seems to me that, you know, when it says that the ones who have worshipped the beast have not had their name written in the Book of Life, Well, that suggests, of course, that we’re talking about people who have not made the faith commitment to Christ. And it’s not talking about people who are simply alive, because that, I mean, everybody who’s alive would be in it then. And yet there’s talks there about people whose names are not written there. So there’s a lot of ambiguity there. Among other things, it’s not clear whether the book of life, In Revelation, it’s the same as your book, which Moses speaks of in Exodus, or written in heaven, as Jesus speaks about in Luke 10. And I could wish we had more information to tie all this together, but we don’t. What we have is a bunch of anecdotes, a bunch of datums that are kind of scattered throughout different books without a whole lot of explanation in any case. So I guess my understanding would be, The idea of having your name written in the book of life is no doubt simply a reference to being saved. Or in the Old Testament, possibly, to having your name written. You’re a citizen of Zion. You’re a citizen of God’s society. Because it does say in the Psalms, you know, that Psalm that begins, City, O city, the city of God. you know, glorious things are spoken of you. I’m kind of looking for it right now. I believe it’s in the 80s of the Psalms. But it talks about those ones who are born in her. And I think it mentions them being written there. I may be wrong. Here it is. It’s Psalm 87. Let me see what we got here. I will make mention of Rahab, blah, blah, blah. Let’s see here. Verse 5. And of Zion it will say, Now, the city of God, of course, is Zion. In David’s day, that would be Jerusalem. In the New Testament, in Hebrews chapter 12, it says that we have come to Mount Zion. We Christians. We have come to the heavenly Jerusalem, which he refers to as the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven. Now, registered in heaven, again, seems to speak of citizenship. And when Jesus told the apostles, your names are written in heaven, sounds like the same thing as registered in heaven. It means that you are citizens. You’re citizens of the holy city. You’re citizens of the city of God, of God’s society. You belong to him. And you have citizen rights and so forth. I think that’s what the book probably refers to, having the rights of citizenship. in God’s community, in God’s city. And that would simply mean it refers to anybody who is on good terms with God, really, and who have been included into Christ’s body. Now, can that be blotted out of there? I believe you can. I mean, some people don’t, but the Bible does warn Christians often about beware of stumbling, beware of falling away. Paul said many shall depart from the faith in the last days. So there’s many warnings about the danger of a Christian falling and abandoning the faith. Something that I don’t know why any real Christian would ever do. But the Bible actually testifies that some will and some have. So I’m not going to give my listeners something like a false hope that there’s nothing you can do to be removed from the book of life. If being in the book of life simply means you’re currently holding citizen status in God’s kingdom, then I guess having the name blotted out would simply be no longer having that status because you’ve defected from Christ. These are maybe some rambling, meandering thoughts rather than an organized exposition on the subject. But those are those are the thoughts that come to my head when I see Jesus talking about your names are written in heaven, that your citizenship is in heaven, as it says in Philippians chapter three. All right. I hope that helps. It may not, but it’s the best I can do. I can’t help everything. Let’s see here. Let’s talk to. It’s great to hear from you, by the way. We’re going to talk next to Brandon from Rowlett, Texas, or Rowlett. Hello, Brandon. Welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hello. How are you doing?
SPEAKER 01 :
Good. Thanks.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. My question, I guess I can tie into the last call when you were talking about having your name in the Book of Life and blotted out, which my question or wanting to know your thought process of is a lot of people say God is all-knowing. But if he’s all-knowing, how would you have your name written in but blotted out? If he knows that you could be blotted out, why would you even be written to begin with if you know you’re not supposed to be there? Or like when God said, why is Adam and Eve hiding? And, you know, why are you hiding? Well, because they took a bite of the apple. I mean, well, he wouldn’t be asking that.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right. Let me just jump in here because we’re going to get to the end of our break here. You’re right. I mean, if being written in the book of life is something that happened before the foundation of the world, and yet some of the people who are in it are going to be blotted out, it would mean that some of those that were written in it before the foundation of the world are going to defect. And wouldn’t God have known that? And if he knew that, why would he write their names in there? That’s a very good question. My answer to Jana was, I’m not so sure that the reference is to people having their names written in there before the foundation of the world. There’s two ways to take that before the foundation of the world in the verse in Revelation that I gave. It could be simply saying the lamb was slain before the foundation of the world, or it could mean their names were written in there before the foundation of the world. I would think probably the first option is it. So it would not be saying that there are people whose names were written in there before the foundation of the world. But I believe that perhaps the names are written into the book when they come to Christ. Suddenly we’re born into his family. We’re born again. And that scripture I read in Psalm 86 says of Zion, it was this one and that one were born in her. And, you know, talks about when he registers his peoples, the ones who were born there. And I believe that that’s when we’re born again. I think that’s probably when we enter that state that is perhaps symbolically referred to as having our name registered in a book. But if we defect from Christ and we become traitors to the kingdom, then I believe we can have our names blotted out of that. Hey, I need to take a break, but I hope that helps a little bit. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We are a listener-supported program. We have another half hour coming. If you’d like to help us out, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Everything’s free, but you can donate there if you wish. I’ll be back in 30 seconds, so don’t go away.
SPEAKER 02 :
In the series, When Shall These Things Be?, you’ll learn that the biblical teaching concerning the rapture, the tribulation, Armageddon, the Antichrist, and the millennium are not necessarily in agreement with the wild sensationalist versions of these doctrines found in popular prophecy teaching and Christian fiction. The lecture series entitled, When Shall These Things Be?, can be downloaded without charge from our website, thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour, taking your calls. If you’d like to be on the program, our lines are full right now, but you can call a little later. Maybe a line will be open for you at this number, 844-844-8444. 484-5737. You know, before the break, we were talking to a caller that I regrettably had to cut his call short because the break came upon us. And he had asked one question, which I sought to answer before the break. And then it sounded like he was going to go somewhere else with it. And what I did hear him say, and what I did not address, is he said, why did God… When he came into the garden, Adam and Eve had sinned and were hiding. Why did God say, where are you? Like he didn’t know. And, you know, this is something that we have to take into account when we’re reading Genesis and the Old Testament in general. And in my mind, this even prefigures God becoming incarnate in Christ in the New Testament, is that God many times in the Old Testament took on a human form Now, taking on a human form is not the same thing as being a human being. Jesus became a human being. He was born of a human mother. He had DNA going back to Adam and Eve through the line of Abraham and David. Jesus was a human being, a member of our race, and the Bible speaks very carefully to make sure that we don’t mistake that he is not. Now, in the Old Testament, though, without actually being born of woman, without actually taking on actual human nature, God sometimes took on an outward form of human. So that, for example, in Genesis 18, we read in verse 1 that Abraham looked up from his tent door and he saw God. And he saw three men. One of them was God, two were angels. And those men were so much like human beings that they were able to eat a meal with him and walk and talk with him. Now, If that was really God, and that’s certainly what the Bible tells us, then God, for the moment at least, had taken on such a human form that he could actually eat food. But we don’t know if he digested it or not. We’re not told that much. But we’re told that he was at least physical enough to eat food, physical food, and to walk and talk with Abraham. But, of course, even then, he’s on his way to Sodom. God is on his way to Sodom. to judge Sodom because he’s heard so wicked. He says that to Abraham, even in that story in Genesis 18. He says, I’ve heard Sodom’s really bad. He says, the cry against Sodom has come up to my ears. I’m going down there right now to see if it’s as I’ve heard. And if it is, I’ll know. Now, here’s God, supposedly, doesn’t know what’s going on down the road a piece, just down the road. He’s not even talking about not knowing the future. Some are not knowing What’s actually going on in Sodom? Whether the reports about Sodom are true or not. He’s going to go down there and see it with his own eyes and check it out. Now, certainly the Bible says the eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good. So God knew very well. He knew what was going on in Sodom. He didn’t have to walk down that road and, you know, enter Sodom to find out. But he talked as if he did. He talked to Abram as if he was a man. That is, as if God was a man. Now, God’s not a man. God is not limited. God is not a physical being with feet to walk on a dusty road. He’s not a being who doesn’t know what’s going on a few miles down the road from there, as a man might be. But he convincingly takes on the likeness of man, apparently including the limitations, or at least, if not really, then at least predominantly, pretending to have the limitations that a man has. And why God did this, I don’t know. I mean, I guess I could only guess that maybe God, if he didn’t come down to our level like that to speak to us, it would be so intimidating. People would fall on their faces and be distracted, you know, be terrified. But, you know, God walked with Adam and Eve. And when he did, he apparently did the same thing he did with Abraham later on. Where are you, Adam? Well, I’m here in the bushes. I was naked, you know, and I was ashamed. Well, how did you know you were naked? You didn’t eat that fruit, did you? I mean, did God not know that? I mean, is there something, was that garden the only place in the universe that God was not observing when Adam and Eve ate the fruit? Obviously not. God knows all, sees all, and therefore… when God speaks as if he’s ignorant of some of these things in these stories, it is his taking on the convincing appearance of being a man so that he can relate man to man as if he’s not infinitely greater than the man he’s talking to. So these are phenomena that we can’t hide. I mean, the Bible refers to God doing this, and yet certainly the Bible… makes it very clear that God knows what’s going on. I mean, for example, in Genesis 4, Cain has killed Abel. And God says to him, where’s your brother, Abel? I’m Cain. Where’s your brother, Abel? And Cain says, why should I care? I’m not my brother’s keeper. Now, God acted like he didn’t know the answer, just like when he asked Adam and Eve, where are you? He acted like he didn’t know the answer. But it’s not that God didn’t know the answer. Because he said, where is your brother? And Cain said, am I my brother’s keeper? God said, your brother’s blood cries out from the ground into my ears. You know, the ground that received his blood from your hand. In other words, God was fully apprised of what had happened. By asking Cain, he might have been giving Cain a chance to confess on his own. Even the same thing with Adam. Where are you? You didn’t eat that fruit, did you? And, you know, kind of give the guy a chance to confess. But he didn’t. And so when God asks those questions, it in no sense suggests that God doesn’t know the information he’s asking about. It’s just the way he’s relating with us. And that’s, I believe, you know, something that God did even more completely when he became an actual man in Jesus. He actually did lay aside his omniscience and his omnipotence, it would appear. And he certainly laid aside his omnipresence. Jesus wasn’t everywhere at once. And he said he didn’t know everything. He said, only my father knows that day and hour. I don’t know. So, I mean, Jesus made it very clear that he wasn’t just pretending. He took on the real limitations of a human being. It says in Philippians, he existed in the form of God, but he emptied himself and took on himself the form of a servant, and even to the point of being mortal and dying on the cross. So, this is… This is hard for us to understand, perhaps, but it’s an explanation of why God might ask questions about things that he already knows the answer to. All right. Let’s talk to Chuck from Vancouver, British Columbia. Chuck, welcome.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi, Steve. Thanks for taking the call. I’ve got a quick question. When Jesus was hanging on the cross, he said to the murderer that today you’ll be with me in heaven. And after Jesus dies, he goes to the grave and then is on earth for a short time after. How can I square that peg with Jesus being here on earth and yet he tells the thief on the cross that today you’ll be with me in heaven?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, the way we would normally handle that is to recognize, first of all, Jesus didn’t say you’ll be with me in heaven. He said today you’ll be with me in paradise. The question is, what is paradise and how does it relate with heaven? Now, at a later time, the Apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12, kind of equated paradise with heaven. He says, I knew a man some years ago who was caught up into the third heaven, even into paradise. So Paul did equate paradise and heaven at that point in time when he wrote 2 Corinthians. But many people believe that something changed in this very respect because when Jesus died and rose again. That when Jesus rose again, according to Hebrews chapter 10, he created a new and living way into heaven itself for believers. That is to say, believers before Jesus died and rose again did not have a way into heaven itself. Their sins had not been fully atoned for. And so it says in Hebrews 10, 19 and 20, Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way, which he consecrated for us, through the veil that is his flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, and so forth. So he talks about how God has made a way, a new and living way, into the presence of God, into heaven. And that was through the death of Jesus, which would suggest that before Jesus died and rose again, that way into heaven was not yet available. Now, that means when Jesus died and when the thief on the cross died, heaven was not a place where he could offer him quite yet. After the resurrection, he could, but this was before that. And so, paradise, which might now be equated with heaven, in those days would not necessarily have been equated with heaven. At least the Jews didn’t do so. The Jews thought of paradise… As the place that Jesus referred to as Abraham’s bosom in Luke chapter 16, from verse 19 on to the end of that chapter, the story of Lazarus and the rich man. Two men died. This is before Jesus died and rose again. Both of them went to the place where dead people went, which is called Sheol in the Old Testament or Hades in the New Testament. And the Jews believed there were two compartments in Sheol or Hades. One was where Abraham and other saints who died in faith went after they died. It was not heaven, but it was not awful. It was apparently a place of comfort for them, but the wicked would go to a different compartment in Hades, which was pretty awful, and they were tormented in flames like the rich men. Now, that was the Jewish idea of things, and it may be exactly how it was at the time, that when people died before Jesus died and rose again, they didn’t go to heaven. The ones who would later end up in heaven went to a compartment in Hades that was I guess as good as it could be for someone who’s not in heaven, but others went to the other compartment. Now, if this view is true, and it seems to have scripture on its side, then when Jesus ascended into heaven, he took with him those who were in paradise. In fact, took paradise itself to heaven, so that now, when Paul later is caught up, He recognizes paradise and heaven is the same thing now. And that’s what I think. I mean, I don’t know for sure because we’re told relatively little about it, but it seems to me that all the data we have, limited as it is, would conform to that particular pattern. It does say also in Ephesians chapter 4 that when Jesus ascended, he led a host of captives. It says that in… Ephesians chapter, what is it, four? Yeah, verse eight, Ephesians four. It says, therefore, he says, when he ascended on high, he led captivity captive. Most translations would say he led a host of captives and gave gifts to men. Now, when he ascended on high, if that’s talking about his ascension, he led a host of captives. There’s two ways to look at that. One way would be that the captives are the ones who had been in paradise, in Abram’s bosom, in Hades, but who had died in faith and were now redeemed by Christ’s death. And as he ascended, he took them to heaven with him. He led a host of them out of captivity, just like Moses had led a host of captives out of Egypt. So Jesus led these captives out of Sheol and took them into heaven with him. That’s one way of seeing that. There is admittedly another way that could be seen. And that is that the host of captives is referring to the demonic powers that Jesus conquered through his death and resurrection. Of whom it is said in Colossians chapter 2 and verse 15 that Jesus disarmed the principalities and powers. and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in the cross. That’s Colossians 2.15. Now, it says there that when Jesus arose, basically, it seems to be talking about he triumphed over the principalities, the powers, the demonic forces, and made a show of them openly. The word in the Greek here, thriambutho, actually means he led them through the arch of triumph, which was… an image from Roman generals’ conquests. They bring their, the generals and the princes that they conquered from the pagans they had, or from the barbarians they had conquered, they bring them back to Rome in chains where they’d be executed. But first they’d march them publicly through the streets through an arch of triumph to celebrate their victory over them. And Paul is using actually the word in Greek that was used for that very procession, saying that Jesus did that to the principalities and powers, his conquest of the powers of of darkness was comparable to the public display of the conquest of the pagan or the barbarian people that the Romans had conquered and paraded them publicly in humiliation through the streets of Rome. It does say that Jesus made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in the cross. So I can say that when it says he led a host of captives when he ascended, It may mean simply, maybe simply referring to the fact that, you know, when he ascended back to heaven, he, as it were, put on display his victory over the principies and powers as surely as if he had led them like conquered foes through the streets of Rome. But it also may instead mean. that he let out of prison the captives that were in Hades prior to that point. So there’s some ambiguity there. I realize that’s one of the things I say more often than many teachers prefer to. There’s ambiguity here. It’s not real clear. Sometimes I wish everything we wanted to know was very clear in the Bible. But I believe that God gives us revelation in the Bible on a need-to-know basis and not always a want-to-know. And we would like to know a lot of things that apparently God doesn’t think we need to know or else he’d have stated more about them and more clearly. Thank you for your call, though. Good talking to you. Paul from Western Indiana, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, I was wondering about Luke 11, 24 through 26. Because I’ve been having trouble with my anger and been pressing a lot lately. I haven’t said some of the words I’ve been saying since like 1987 when I got saved. You know, like Lord’s name in vain.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, of course, you need to stop doing that. But I don’t know if it’s referring to this phenomenon. I mean, it says in Luke 11, 24, when an unclean spirit goes out of a man… And by the way, unclean spirit is a word that the New Testament uses for a demon. Going out of a man refers to being exercised of a demon. One was demon-possessed and the man has now been delivered from the demon. That demon goes through dry places, seeking rest and finding none. He says, I’ll return to my house from which I came. And he comes, he finds it swept and put in order, it says. And then it says, he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself. They enter and dwell there, and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Now, Jesus certainly seems to be saying that a person who has been delivered from demons had better be… had better keep the door shut from allowing them to come back in. Because if whatever it is that allowed them in the first place remains unchanged, then that same demon will come back and bring his friends and the condition will be worse. Now, that is a statement about demon possession, which is a very special kind of situation. No doubt it extends in principle to other things. Like, for example, if you were not demon possessed, but you had an anger problem, And then when you came to Christ, you were delivered of that problem, even if it was not a demon. To return to it, you might return to it with a vengeance and have it more of a problem than it used to be. I will say this. The purpose of this statement, according to Jesus, can be seen in the parallel, which is in Matthew 12, where he teaches the same thing, but he finishes it by saying, so shall it be with this generation. In other words, he’s saying that Jesus had come to his generation of Jews and basically brought the light and brought truth and delivered them from their darkness and even cast demons out of a lot of people. The nation, that generation was like a man or analogous to a man who had been delivered of demons. But he said, you know, if you don’t fill that hole, if you don’t fill that vacancy, the demons will come back in far worse form. and this generation will be far worse off, more demonized than before. And, of course, that did happen. That’s why he said that’s how it will be in this generation. The generation that he ministered to, some of them were delivered, but certainly the nation as a whole did not embrace Christ. And then during the siege, when the Romans besieged Jerusalem, the whole population became, as it were, Crazy, insane, demonized. And you can read Josephus about that and see they became worse than before. But your problem with anger is it may or may not be similar to that. All I can say is you might have just let your spiritual guard down and just being frustrated more than you were. I’m not making any excuses for it. There’s no excuse for taking the name of the Lord in vain and doing those kinds of things or even getting out of control of anger. It’s not acceptable. not acceptable behavior. But it doesn’t mean that you’ve been invaded by a whole bunch of demons or something like that, if that’s what you’re wondering. I would just say that anger is very much a work of the flesh. I believe that a demon-possessed person might also be angry, but the Bible, generally speaking, doesn’t talk about a demon of anger. It does talk about it as a work of the flesh. wrath and anger and violence and so forth. So I wouldn’t necessarily use this verse to that. And I don’t think that I would encourage you to say, well, now I’m full of demons, if that’s what you’re thinking from it. I would encourage you to say, why have I reverted back to a state of anger I was not in previously? And obviously, it’s very possible for a Christian to lose ground in their spiritual progress. That’s what the word backslide means. The word backslide is not found in the New Testament. It’s found in the Old Testament, mostly in Jeremiah, and referring to a cow backsliding, sliding down a hill, a muddy hill when it’s trying to climb. It says in those passages, Israel is like a backsliding heifer, which simply means the heifer is trying to climb a hill. Apparently it’s muddy or something and they’re losing ground. They slip backwards instead of going forwards. And it’s not used of an individual, but of the whole nation of Israel. Though we can certainly use such a term to speak of an individual who’s losing ground spiritually when they should be going forward. And that’s why the Bible tells us to beware of Satan, to be vigilant, to be sober. Because your adversary, the devil, roams around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. It says in 1 Peter 5.8. But then it says, whom resist Satan. knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren in the world. In James 4, 7, it says, Resist the devil, and he’ll flee from you. You are being tempted by the devil. And what he appeals to is your flesh. Now, it says in Galatians 5, verse 17, The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit lusts against the flesh. And these two are contrary to one another, so that you can’t do what you want to do. That is, you can’t unless you’re walking in the spirit. You’ve got your spiritual desire to be holy and to not lose your temper and to follow Christ and to glorify God in your life. But then you’ve got the flesh that’s at war with that. And the only hope is that you’ll be filled with the Holy Spirit and walk in the Spirit. Now, psychologists can give you advice about anger management and things like that, but that’s just secular. To the Christian, we recognize that losing control of our temper, is a spiritual problem. And the resource we have is the Holy Spirit is given to us for that. Now, so I would just ask myself if I were finding in my life that I’m sliding backward, I’m losing ground spiritually from where I used to be, I would just say, okay, what was I doing when I was walking with God that I stopped doing? What am I doing differently? Let’s go back and do it as we should. And that’s really the advice That, you know, Jesus gives to the churches in Revelation. Remember from where you’ve fallen and go and repeat what you were doing before. It’s pretty much a matter of personal responsibility to maintain our walk with God. It’s like if you were, let’s just say you were really in love with your wife when you married her. But then, you know, some years later, you’re not so excited about her. And now you find yourself starting to, your eyes are straying looking at other women. you need to find out, well, wait a minute, why wasn’t I doing that when I first married? What have I done to lose my first love? I need to go back and do that again. In fact, that’s often what marriage counselors tell people when their marriage has gone still. They say, well, remember back when you loved each other? How did you behave then? Do that again. Do that again. And I would suggest the same thing for your Christian walk. What were you doing differently then? How about do that again? And But I wouldn’t in this case, as you seem to be implying, I wouldn’t in this case attribute the problem to demons. Not that it couldn’t be, but it’s just not something that I’m inclined to. It would not be my first guess. I would think it would be something more in the flesh. I’m very sorry to hear about this because it’s very frustrating when sin begins to assert power over us. Again, we have to really be vigilant and we have to wage the good warfare. That’s the answer to that. Mark from San Jose, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, thanks for answering. You know, I’ve done a lot of study on the 70 weeks, and I read this book one time in the Dead Sea Scrolls that was supposedly written a couple hundred years after Daniel and a few hundred before Christ. where they quoted the 70 weeks prophecy, and they mentioned that that was actually 10 jubilees. It fell in perfect sequence with that. So Messiah would come in 10 jubilees. And it’s also interesting, as you know, the first section is the same time as one jubilee would be. And then Matthew Henry, I’m sure you’ve read his commentary, he also believed that. And that if we start the 70 weeks with Cyrus… because he’s the guy, you know, mentioned probably 25 different details of his life.
SPEAKER 01 :
What is your question for me? We’re coming up to the end of the program. We’re running out of time. What is your question today? Yeah, I don’t have a question. Oh, well, that’s what we have the program for. All right. Well, thank you for your insights on the 70 weeks. So maybe we can get someone else in. Probably not. We’ll try. Nick from Carson City, Nevada. Welcome.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, yeah, real quick. I’m I’m thinking I kind of lean towards open theists, and just to be quick because we’re out of time, do you think, because I don’t think we can tell if the future is set or not, is it heretical to be open theists and think maybe God controls things because he’s that powerful instead of because he knows the future?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, I don’t think it’s heretical to be open theists. I’m not an open theist. When I first heard about open theism back around 1980 or so, or 79, I did think of it as heretical because people were saying they don’t believe God knows the choices we’re going to make in the future. And I saw this as sort of a denial of God’s omniscience. They’re saying he doesn’t know everything. But then I came to understand that’s not what they’re saying. They have a different view of time than I did. They didn’t have a different view of God. They believe that God knows everything. but that the future isn’t a thing yet, that the future doesn’t exist anywhere yet. And therefore, for him not to know it doesn’t mean there’s something he doesn’t know, because there’s no information content for it to be known. So it’s more of a philosophical case. I don’t really believe it’s – I don’t think that a person who’s an open theist would have any difficulty being a good Christian necessarily. But I don’t hold that view myself. But I’d be very slow to call that heretical. I’m out of time. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. We are listener supported. If you’d like to help us out, you can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Have a good weekend.
