In this special best-of edition of The Narrow Path, host Steve Gregg addresses some of the most challenging questions callers have posed over the years. With biblical clarity and direct honesty, Steve discusses whether suicide always leads to hell, how the Bible views mental illness and demon possession, and the controversial topic of tattoos from a Levitical standpoint. Other conversations include a deep dive into full preterism and the resurrection, the Sabbath and Jewish roots theology, and a caller’s question about R.C. Sproul’s teachings. Steve doesn’t shy away from complex topics—instead, he tackles them head-on with scripture, logic, and
SPEAKER 10 :
This is the best of the Narrow Path Radio broadcast. The following is pre-recorded.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Program, hosted by Steve Gray. Steve is not in the studio today, so calls from listeners will not be able to be taken. In the place of the usual format, we’ve put together some of the best calls from past programs. They cover a variety of topics important to anyone interested in the Bible and Christianity. In addition to the radio program, The Narrow Path has a website. You can go to www.thenarrowpath.com, where you can find hundreds of resources that can all be downloaded for free. And now, please enjoy this special collection of calls to Steve Gregg and The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 13 :
Joey from Detroit, Michigan, is our first caller. Joey, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, thanks, Steve. How are you doing? Good. My question is kind of a controversial one, but I was just wondering what the Bible’s view is on not necessarily mental illness, but I had a friend of mine that I went to Catholic school with who ended up taking his own life, and he had his whole life ahead of him. And not to mention he was at a prestigious school, captain of a football team, and he took his life. And I’m just wondering what your interpretation is on suicide. He was a good person. Now, does he automatically, because he took his own life, does he automatically go to hell? What does the Bible look on it, or does it have any view on it?
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, so you’re not really asking about mental illness at all. You’re asking about suicide, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, I am asking about suicide. But, I mean, why would someone do this unless they had some sort of mental illness?
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, I don’t know why people do evil things, but I’m sure they have many different possible reasons. Whether there’s mental illness or not is not something the Bible really addresses directly. The Bible makes no mention of mental illness. The Bible does describe people that if they were in our society today, they would be no doubt diagnosed as mentally ill. But those people, when we find them in the Bible, are actually demon-possessed people. Now, I’m not saying everyone who’s diagnosed as mentally ill is demon-possessed. What I’m saying is the people in the Bible who were demon-possessed, if they were here today, they’d be diagnosed as mentally ill. that would mean that our society wouldn’t know what to do with them because they wouldn’t know what their real problem is. They’d call something a mental illness when, in fact, the Bible points out that it would be demonic. Now, whether there is mental illness, quite apart from this, is something the Bible does not really address. And it’s not really your question. Your question is what happens to somebody who commits suicide. I don’t know why a person commits suicide. I don’t think it necessarily means they’re mentally ill. I’ve known of some people who’ve committed suicide who had no evidence of being mentally ill at all. It’s, generally speaking, a very selfish act. If a person actually does take their own life, they’re trying to end their own suffering at the cost of causing a great deal of suffering for their parents and their friends and everyone who cared about them. So it’s extremely selfish. They might feel like they’re someone to be pitied. And no doubt, when they were alive, they may have been someone to be pitied. They may have been very sorrowful people. They may have been very unhappy people. But as soon as a person takes up a gun or a poison or some other means and kills themselves, they’re no longer to be pitied for that. That’s a criminal act. They’ve killed a human being. Now, some might say, but it’s themselves, so they have the right to kill themselves. No, they don’t. They don’t own themselves. And they’re certainly not the only person concerned about themselves.
SPEAKER 05 :
Because God owns them. Like, why, you know, you can’t own God’s children even if it’s yourself.
SPEAKER 13 :
Exactly. God owns everybody, and he doesn’t give you permission to kill them. And so if you kill yourself, it’s just not very much different than if you killed somebody else, really. I mean, it feels different, but it’s really the same thing. Most people who murder somebody else do it because they find that person inconvenient. They feel like their life would be better, and they’d suffer less if that person was gone. And a person who commits suicide generally thinks the same thing. My life would be easier if I wasn’t here. My life is unhappy. And again, they’re ending their own unhappiness, but not caring how much they destroy the lives of their own parents and the people who love them. The relatives of people who commit suicide are often traumatized for years and years and maybe the rest of their lives. So for a child to do that to their parents or to their siblings or to their friends is just one of the most cruel things they could do. And they’ve done it for no better reason than to end their own suffering. And their suffering probably, although I wouldn’t wish to minimize it, it probably was not that much greater than the suffering of many people who don’t take their lives. Some people are more cowardly than others, and the coward’s way is to commit suicide. Now, I’m not trying to make people feel bad about anyone they knew who committed suicide. I’m just telling you how it is.
SPEAKER 05 :
Just being real, Steve. Yeah, I appreciate that.
SPEAKER 13 :
But the truth is, I don’t think the fact that a person committed suicide necessarily tells you in a final sense, of whether they were a Christian or not. And I say this because even though suicide is a very non-Christian act, very inconsistent with being a Christian, Christians often do things that are inconsistent with being Christians. And then they usually repent. Unfortunately, Christians are not always consistently Christ-like. And they often do selfish things and things that hurt other people.
SPEAKER 05 :
We are sinners.
SPEAKER 13 :
We are. And the person who commits suicide, of course, has… is in a condition different than most Christians who commit other sins, in that Christians who commit other sins have a chance to repent. A person who commits suicide doesn’t have a chance to repent.
SPEAKER 05 :
So some people feel… That was going to be my second ask, was going to be if they say, God, please forgive me, and pull the trigger or kill themselves, does that forgiveness hold any significance since it was before the fact of the actions?
SPEAKER 13 :
Right. Well, God knows the heart. That’s the thing. I mean, God knows that this is a person who was always inclined to repent whenever they failed before. He might know very well that this person would repent of this if they had lived to do so. That doesn’t mean it’s okay. I don’t know. I don’t know the person’s heart. God knows the heart. All I can say is I can’t say with certainty that if the last thing you do wrong happens to be suicide… that that guarantees that you go to hell. However, on the other hand, it might, because the Bible says no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. But then the Bible says that adulterers and fornicators don’t either. So if a person is someone who commits sins and doesn’t repent of them, and is not inclined to repent of them, then they’re probably not a Christian. But again, when a person commits suicide, I don’t know if you can tell from that that they are the kind of person who would not have repented. God knows that they are the kind of person who would have repented. That is, if they are a person who is really a Christian, who was at a weak moment, succumbing to a horrible temptation, and did a terrible, cruel act against their friends and family, and would certainly have come to their senses an hour later, had they lived, and would have repented. Only God knows that kind of stuff. I don’t. But I would say this. it is perhaps the most risky thing in terms of your salvation, to commit suicide. Because, although I can’t tell you for sure that everyone who commits suicide necessarily goes to hell, I would say that if there’s anything about which such a question might be raised, it would be that one. Because, again, there’d be no actual repentance in this life for them.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right. Well, thank you so much, Steve. Hey, I just moved back in the area, and I’ve been listening to your show every day. I come home from work, and I must say your guidance has been uplifting. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, thank you. We haven’t really been on the air in Detroit that long, but I’m glad you’re in the listening audience. God bless you. Thank you. All right. Bye now. All right. Our next caller is David from Auburn, California. David, welcome to The Narrow Path. I assume it’s Auburn, California. There’s Auburns in other states, too. Yeah, they are. Auburn, Washington. Oh, Washington. Okay, great.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah. Hey, thanks so much for taking my call. I just wanted to ask a question on Leviticus 19.20 regarding tattoos. I don’t know the context too much about that passage. Maybe you can give me some insight. But the story behind it is that me, I’ve been a Christian for a couple years now, and I ended up getting tattoos. Bible passages up and down my arms. But the reason I ask is because my wife, who’s a nonbeliever, wants to get a tattoo herself, but her father passed away a couple years ago, and she wants to get a tattoo of a dragonfly to remember her father in that way. And I don’t know if the Bible touches upon any of that about marking our bodies to remember the dead or anything like that. I talked to a couple of my friends. And they’re both on both sides of the fence. I’ve got people that are saying that it’s okay to get tattoos. I’ve got other people saying it’s not. So if I can get to your insight on it, it would be great. And I’ll take my answer off the air.
SPEAKER 13 :
All right. All right. Thank you for your call, David. Now, you’re right. Christian friends are on both sides of this issue. And the Bible does have a single verse in the law that forbids people to mark their bodies or tattoo their bodies. And that is in the Old Testament law. And so some say, well, if that’s a moral law, then it would still be binding because morality doesn’t change no matter what covenant you’re under. Morality is morality. But if it’s a ceremonial law, like so many of the ones in Leviticus, then it might be that it’s not really an issue to God. Many people believe that when God forbade the giving of tattoos or the receiving of tattoos… that he was really concerned about certain pagan practices that maybe are more like for that time that don’t, you know, people who receive tattoos, they may not be getting them for the same reasons, that may not have the same significance, and therefore many people think that tattooing is in the realm of a ceremonial law and not a moral law. That is going to be one of those areas that’s questionable. for probably a long time. I lean toward the idea that the tattoo forbidding is a ceremonial thing. But since I don’t know for sure, I certainly wouldn’t want to get a tattoo. Now, if I already had them, I wouldn’t be worried about it because I just wouldn’t worry about the past or something like that. But if I were considering getting a tattoo, the fact that this is a bit ambiguous in Scripture would make it hard for me to go forward with confidence. Now, see, if your wife gets a tattoo, and she’s not even a Christian, and it’s in memory of her deceased father or something, I wouldn’t see this as getting a tattoo for the dead in the sense that, say, in Eastern religions, people honor their ancestors and almost worship them. If it’s just something to remember him by, I wouldn’t think it would be offensive. But, again, I don’t know for sure. I know lots of Christians who have tattoos, and some, I know quite a few, who wish they hadn’t gotten them. And that’s the one thing about tattoos that I always want to warn people about. Of course, the younger generation doesn’t care about it now, but when tattoos started being popular among young people, it was maybe when was it, in the 80s perhaps, I remember thinking, well, what if you don’t like that tattoo 10 years or 20 years or 30 or 50 years from now? You know, it’s still going to be there. And I can’t really imagine why somebody would… put a mark on their body, which they might regret having on their body when they don’t need it on their body. I mean, if she could wear a ring to remember her deceased father instead of get a tattoo, I can’t tell you what she should do. I mean, she’s not even a Christian, so I can’t judge whatever she does. I don’t judge those who are outside the body, Paul said. But I would suggest that getting tattoos is not the only way that someone might decorate themselves or that they might commemorate something important to themselves but it is one of those permanent ways to do it and if you know if there’s questions about it now what if one goes through with it and then decides there’s no question about it it was the wrong thing to do you know it’s just one of those things that if it’s a gray area i would stay away from it myself it seems like it is a gray area all right so that’d be my
SPEAKER 03 :
answer to you i wish i could give something a little more certain on that jeff from san francisco welcome to the narrow path thanks for calling hi steve hi um can quickly comment on the first caller about suicide uh here in san francisco people regularly jump off the golden gate bridge they attract people from all over the world and they did a documentary about it and uh And I don’t know, there’s like something romantic about jumping off the bridge. It has this world icon. And so, but I thought about that before. I almost committed suicide earlier on in my life. And had I done that, I mean, would that have sent me to hell? I mean, I don’t feel that suicide is murder. I feel, you know, you only do it because you’re you’re experiencing some great tragedy. I mean, when you get to that emotional boiling point, it’s easy to cross over.
SPEAKER 13 :
A lot of people kill their children and their husbands because it’s a great crisis for them to be with them. However, the great tragedy or crisis a person is going through, killing a human being is not one of the options open to us because humans are made in the image of God, and therefore we are doing something that desecrates God’s image. And, you know, our problem is we live in an age where people think they own themselves. And they figure, well, if I want to end my suffering this way, that’s up to me, isn’t it? Well, it would be if you owned yourself. But how would you ever have come to own yourself? You didn’t create yourself. And you didn’t redeem yourself. You’ve been purchased with a price. You’re not your own, the Bible says. So, you know, I don’t really see how it’s different than murder. It might be different than murder in the sense that there might not be quite the same amount of hatred and malice involved in it as there is an act of killing somebody you hate because you probably don’t hate yourself. But the trouble is, as I said, you cause as much grief to your survivors as you would cause to the grief of the survivors of somebody else you murdered. If you murdered somebody else, their surviving relatives and family would be traumatized for decades or for life. If you did it to yourself, your surviving relatives and friends would be traumatized too. It’s an evil and selfish and cruel thing to do. The person who’s thinking about suicide doesn’t think of it that way because they’re only thinking about themselves. Nobody would ever commit suicide unless they’re just thinking about themselves. And this is, of course, what the nature of sin is, only thinking about yourself.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I mean, for some people it’s a guilt that will drive them to suicide.
SPEAKER 13 :
True. And it’s an effort to alleviate themselves of guilt, which is making them unhappy and uncomfortable. Yeah, I mean, what I’m saying, I don’t think what I’m saying can be refuted, except maybe in a case where someone gives his life to save somebody else. A soldier who falls on a hand grenade so that his buddies don’t get killed, he’s committing suicide, but that’s a very different situation. Greater love has no end in that than to lay down his life for his friends. So, I mean, to give yourself so that somebody else can live is a supreme act of sacrifice. To just kill yourself because you’re extremely unhappy is an extreme act of cruelty. All right. I appreciate your call. Tom from Newburgh, Oregon. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 11 :
Thank you for taking my call. And I’ve heard you mention that you’ve debated atheists. My own simple thinking is that the reason why they are atheists is because they believe in God.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay, that is true. I think some of them, some of them believe there’s God, and they’re very much afraid to acknowledge that he exists, so they want to try to prove otherwise. And you can tell that this is their motive by the fact that they’re not just content to say, oh, there’s idiots out there who believe in God. I’m more enlightened and I don’t believe in God. I mean, some people are content to say that and they’re not threatened by God. But obviously people like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens and people like that, they have to destroy religion. Why? Well, because it threatens them, obviously. You know, if they really believe there was no God… For example, they don’t believe there’s a Santa Claus, and neither do I. But I don’t spend any time trying to silence people who believe in Santa Claus. I don’t want to outlaw their view. I don’t think it’s a very healthy view to believe in Santa Claus, but I don’t think anyone’s going to be hurt very much by it. I believe in freedom of thought and freedom of speech. So if somebody wants to believe in Santa Claus or teach their kids that, that’s between them and God and their kids. I don’t get threatened by it, partly because I know there is no Santa Claus. Now, if there was a… you know, a communist leader or a Muslim leader in this country trying to overthrow America, you know, I might be threatened by that. And I might try to, you know, diminish belief in him. But you don’t have to fight hard and viciously against something you don’t believe exists. The fact that you feel like you have to write whole books and have a career of arguing against something does suggest that you protest too much, you know. I think it means that you do probably believe there’s something out there that you’ve got to try to eliminate. Let’s talk next to David from Canterbury, New Hampshire. David, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, it’s good to hear you’re in there. I really enjoy your program because you make us think. I hope so. Yeah. Hey, we got cut off there. We were talking about Romans 14, 14.5, one person is seen one day above another. And are you familiar with the Jewish New Testament commentary by David Stern?
SPEAKER 13 :
I have it on my shelf, and I’ve looked some things up on it, yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
You want to look up 14.5, because… He runs about four or five pages on Romans 14, so I can’t read it all.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, I know. I’ve got lots of his books, and I’ve read some of them. He’s a leader in the Jewish Roots Movement, and I don’t agree with his outlook. Everything he does in the New Testament, he seeks to, of course, establish Jewish roots as sort of a norm of thinking about those New Testament passages. And I think he’s importing things that he wants to be there. I’ve heard many people explain Romans 14.5 as if it is not alleviating the duty to keep Sabbath and holy days. Seventh-day Adventists do this all the time. For those who don’t know, Romans 14.5 says, One man esteems one day above another, another man esteems every day alike. Now, it sounds like it’s saying that some people keep holy days, like Sabbath and maybe Jewish holy days, and other people don’t. And Paul said, it’s okay. Let everyone be fully persuaded in his own mind. Now, Seventh-day Adventists and people who follow Jewish roots, they think we should keep Jewish holidays. They think we should keep the Sabbath, or they think we should keep Jewish festivals. And so they say, well, when Paul says, one man esteems one day above another, he’s not referring to people who keep the Sabbath or or who keep Jewish festivals, as if that’s okay to not do. Well, yes, he is. I mean, he is, because the opposite is someone who keeps every day alike. Now, if somebody keeps every day alike, he’s not keeping a Sabbath day. If someone keeps every day alike, he’s not observing Jewish festivals. If a person keeps every day alike, he’s keeping every day alike, and therefore he’s not keeping holy days. So Paul said some people do keep holy days, and some people don’t. And those who do are welcome to do so if they want to, But those who don’t are welcome not to because there’s no Christian obligation to do that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Doesn’t Paul answer his own question in 15.1? He starts right out, we then who are strong ought to bear. And in 15.4 he says, for whatever things were written, the Old Testament before were written for our learnings. He’s saying, hey, we’re supposed to be teaching the Old Testament to these people who are weak.
SPEAKER 13 :
So do you make, just yourself, do you make pilgrimages three times a year to Jerusalem?
SPEAKER 04 :
Not to Jerusalem. It says where God places his name. It doesn’t have to be Jerusalem.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, where did he place his name?
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s wherever there’s a minister who’s preaching the Sabbath.
SPEAKER 13 :
Oh, so wherever a minister preaches the Sabbath. That’s the place where God has placed his name. Okay, well, you and I have very different presuppositions about that. And all I can say is Paul did say that some people observe every day alike. I’m going to do that. That’s the way I go. And, yes, I do believe the Old Testament was written for our learning, to be sure. It definitely was written for our learning. And that’s why Jesus and Paul taught from the Old Testament so much. But they didn’t teach that we should keep the law. The law is one thing.
SPEAKER 07 :
The Torah, not the law. No, no, excuse me.
SPEAKER 13 :
Torah means law. Torah means law, so we’re not talking about two different things. We’re talking about the Torah, the law. We’re not under the Torah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Torah means history, too. It doesn’t mean just law.
SPEAKER 13 :
No, it doesn’t. No, the word Torah is the Hebrew word for law. If you think it means history, then you’re adding to the word. Look it up, and thank you for calling. Okay? Let’s talk to Alex from Hesperia, California. Hello, Alex. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, thank you. Can you hear me?
SPEAKER 13 :
Yep.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, great. Thanks for taking my call, Steve. My question, I heard you were interviewed by a gentleman, a preterist, and as one of your objections to preterism, you said the verse about, you know, where the Sadducees ask Jesus about the seven wives and one husband. Okay, so… What if, I mean, the verse basically says, and let me throw this out and you tell me what you think of this interpretation of that verse. But, you know, it says those who are counted worthy to be resurrected. So obviously it’s not everybody, it’s just the worthies. And then it has to be that age. So in other words, the resurrection age, which happened in 70 A.D., and then they’ll be like the angels in heaven. So this isn’t referring to alive people on earth. This is referring to people who are dead after AD 70 when the resurrection happens. They will be like the angels in heaven, and angels don’t marry. I mean, so that’s marriage for people that are resurrected will be irrelevant because they’ll be like the angels in heaven. Spiritual resurrection is, of course, with this interpretation.
SPEAKER 13 :
So what do you think of that? Well, I think it assumes something that there’s no reason to assume, and that is that the resurrection was in A.D.
SPEAKER 1 :
70.
SPEAKER 13 :
There’s nothing in the Bible that says a resurrection occurred in A.D.
SPEAKER 1 :
70.
SPEAKER 13 :
Now, what I was asking the full preterist about that was what happened in A.D. 70 that could be described as a resurrection of the people of God. Could you answer me that?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, well, you know, 1 Corinthians 15 talked about the resurrection, and even Paul said that we who are alive… Okay, I’ve got a break coming up.
SPEAKER 13 :
Would you hold on through the break, and I’ll talk to you about this further when we come back?
SPEAKER 07 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay, because I think we’re going to need more time than we have. I need to sign off for part of our audience. Some of the stations leave the… Network, at this point, they only carry the first half hour of the program, and we are at the end of the first half hour. We have another half hour coming up, and almost all the stations that we’re on carry the whole hour. If you’re listening to a program to a station that doesn’t carry the hour and that is signed off now, you can hear the entire program at thenarrowpath.com, our website, thenarrowpath.com. Now, The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry. We pay for the time on the radio. We don’t pay for anything else. There’s no salaries. There’s no payroll. There’s no offices. There’s no overhead. There’s just really the time we spend, the money we spend to be on the air. We pay for the radio stations. So if you’d like to help us stay on the air, you can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. That’s The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593, or you can donate from the website thenarrowpath.com. If you can stay with us the next 30 seconds, we’ll be back and take some more calls.
SPEAKER 09 :
You are listening to The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. The Narrow Path is listener-supported radio. After the show, we invite you to visit thenarrowpath.com to learn more. There are topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse-by-verse teachings, and the radio archives of all our shows. So when the show is over, come on over to thenarrowpath.com. Learn, study, enjoy. We thank you for your support, and we thank you for listening each day to The Narrow Path. We now return you to The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg.
SPEAKER 10 :
This is the best of the Narrow Path Radio broadcast. The following is pre-recorded.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Program, hosted by Steve Gray. Steve is not in the studio today, so calls from listeners will not be able to be taken. In the place of the usual format, we’ve put together some of the best calls from past programs. They cover a variety of topics important to anyone interested in the Bible and Christianity. In addition to the radio program, The Narrow Path has a website. You can go to www.thenarrowpath.com, where you can find hundreds of resources that can all be downloaded for free. And now, please enjoy this special collection of calls to Steve Gregg and The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 13 :
Before our break, we were talking to Alex from Hesperia, California, who was calling about a question about full preterism. Alex, I think, probably is a full preterist. If you’re not sure what that is, That is somebody who believes that all prophecy was fulfilled with the destruction of the temple and the Torah system in A.D.
SPEAKER 1 :
70.
SPEAKER 13 :
They believe there’s no future second coming now. There is no future resurrection. There’s no future new heavens, new earth. All those things happened in A.D.
SPEAKER 1 :
70.
SPEAKER 13 :
Now, I don’t hold that view. Some people may have heard I’m a preterist. I’m a partial preterist. I think almost all Christians are partial preterists in the sense that I believe the word preterist means you believe that some prophecies have been fulfilled in the past. And essentially all Christians believe that some prophecies have been fulfilled in the past. Only the full preterist believes that all prophecies have been fulfilled in the past, including the ones about Christ and the resurrection coming. Now, we were talking before the break, and we ran out of time. And we do have full line, so I can’t go into this as long as I’d like to. But go ahead. I asked you just before the break, and I hope you have an answer ready. What is it that happened in A.D. 70 that could be described as a resurrection of the people of God?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, first of all, I don’t know if I’m the full preterist. I mean, I believe that the gospel has not gone out into the whole world. In that sense, I’m not. I do believe, at least when I’m leaning towards the resurrection did, I believe that because of a few different points. Daniel Paul, for example, talks about the resurrection being right after the tribulation. And then over and over, Paul talks about him being alive and remaining when the resurrection happens. That’s the first part. 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4, I believe. He says, we who are alive remain until the coming of the Lord.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, but you better be careful about that. Be careful about that. Because Paul says we in a collective sense of anyone who’s part of the body of Christ. He also, you will find in other passages, he talks about how we will be raised from the dead. He includes himself in a we there in several passages too. So he can’t be raised from the dead and also raptured. So the rapture is for those who are not dead yet, and the resurrection is for those who are. And Paul uses the term we when he’s talking about the resurrection and when he’s talking about the rapture. So he’s not committing himself to being alive at that time. Certainly Paul wasn’t. Paul didn’t live to 70 A.D. He died before that. So clearly if he was saying that he was going to be alive at the time of the rapture, and if that happened in 70 A.D., then he was wrong.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, but not necessarily him. I mean, it’s like when Jesus said… you know, this generation will see the coming. It doesn’t mean everybody alive, or when Jesus was talking to those people right in front of him, he said, you who are alive will see the coming. I mean, you know, so he wasn’t talking about every single person necessarily, but just that.
SPEAKER 13 :
But then we can’t take that we very seriously, because the word we means I and you, right? So if he says we… And we, the word actually means I and you. That’s what the word we means. So he would be including himself if he’s being literal. If he’s predicting that the rapture will happen in his lifetime, or even if you think he’s predicting it will happen in the lifetime of his contemporaries, he’s including himself with those that it will happen to. So I think we either have to assume that Paul either assumed wrongly that Jesus was going to rapture the church and raise the dead, in his lifetime, or else he wasn’t making a commitment like that. He’s simply saying, we, whoever we are who are Christians. See, Paul had a sense of solidarity of the body of Christ through all time. And there is a solidarity, because there’s not different churches in different generations. The body of Christ continually adds new members and loses members here and there. So the we simply means we who are Christians. That portion of the body who are alive and remain will… be caught up. That portion of the body, which is not, will be raised. That’s what we means, I believe.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, yeah, I mean, basically, yeah, I agree that the we doesn’t necessarily, I mean, I would just take the we as being that generation, but I see how you’re seeing that. But basically, I guess I would see it that the general resurrection has to do with the people in Hades, that they would be raised in 70 AD, and then that is what I think. I would see that, you know, resurrection from Hades.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, do you see that as a bodily resurrection?
SPEAKER 06 :
No.
SPEAKER 13 :
No, so you don’t believe in physical resurrection. Do you believe that Jesus’ resurrection was physical? Are you there? Hello? I’m sorry, I think you’re greening. Your phone must be getting out of range because you’re not coming through. Listen, feel free to call again. I had to turn you off because you were not responding and you must have gotten out of range. But my question for you, I’d like you to think about before you call back, would be… Since the Bible says our resurrection will be like his, he was the first fruits. He was the firstborn from the dead. The rest of us are going to be raised like he was. If you say that the resurrection of Christians is not a physical resurrection, then I would think you’d have to commit yourself to the resurrection of Jesus was not a physical resurrection. And yet Jesus’ disciples, when they first saw him, thought he was a ghost. not physical. And he said, no, touch me and see. A spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me have. So, Jesus had flesh and bones, and he made a point of letting them know that he was physically resurrected. That’s why his body wasn’t there. If he was only spiritually resurrected, his body could still be in the tomb, and his spirit could be anywhere. But, obviously, his body was gone, because it rose from the dead. Now, that would mean, if there was a resurrection in 70 AD, of all the Christians who were dead before that point, then their bodies will be gone too, like Jesus’ was gone from the tomb. It would be interesting to see if any bodies of believers remain in graves that were around more than 2,000 years. I don’t know. I don’t have any access to that information. But I’ve certainly never heard any reports that there’s a vast number of graves from Christian graveyards that are now empty inexplicably, which would be the case if their bodies came up out of them. Anyway, anyone who says the resurrection happened in AD 70 is really, to my mind, stretching beyond the credibility point. And I think they’re doing so because they’re not interpreting Scripture very well. I mean, again, most full preterists use this we thing. Paul said, we who are alive remain. Therefore, Paul was going to be alive. Well, no, he wasn’t. Well, then his readers were. No, they didn’t have to be any more than he was going to be. We means him and them. We don’t have any reason to believe. that any of them were alive in 70 A.D. They might have been, but we don’t know that. Okay, and we certainly have no evidence there was ever a resurrection in 70 A.D. Some people have tried to convince me that there was, but I’m much more beholden to evidence, and especially scriptural exegesis. Peter from Watertown, Connecticut. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 07 :
The woman at the well that Jesus met, how come he didn’t tell her to repent?
SPEAKER 13 :
Repent of what?
SPEAKER 07 :
What she was doing.
SPEAKER 13 :
Gathering water? No.
SPEAKER 07 :
Who was she living with? She had five husbands, and the man she’s living with now is not her husband.
SPEAKER 13 :
It must not have been the front burner issue in his mind. He wanted to talk to her about her soul. Oh, okay. I don’t know why Jesus didn’t say anything in particular to any particular person. And I also don’t know that he didn’t say any particular thing to any particular person, because I don’t know that we have the complete conversation recorded. we have only very short interaction between Jesus, for example, between Jesus and Nicodemus, a very important conversation that may have gone on through the evening, and yet we only have two or three interchanges recorded, and that’s in the chapter before his interchange with the woman at the well. I don’t know what Jesus did or did not say beyond what’s recorded, and if he didn’t say any particular thing, I don’t know why he didn’t, so I can’t help you on that. But if one wonders… whether Jesus thinks that a man and woman living together unmarried is wrong or not. I think Jesus was pretty much on the side of the Torah about that and pretty much on the side of traditional morality. He did, after all, refer to fornication as an evil thing in his teaching. And so that would be, without further explanation, it would probably include everything that people thought fornication meant, including a woman living with a man unmarried.
SPEAKER 07 :
I know on two occasions he told two people to stop sinning.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yep, and probably more than that.
SPEAKER 07 :
The adulterer, well, the ones that I’ve read, the adulterous woman who they didn’t throw stones at because they were convicted of their own sin.
SPEAKER 13 :
Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
And the blind man that he healed, and he said to them… Actually, no, it wasn’t him.
SPEAKER 13 :
It was the guy who was at the pool of Bethesda in John chapter 5.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, it was in the blind man?
SPEAKER 13 :
The lame man. The blind man was in chapter 9. The lame man was in chapter 5. And Jesus said, do not sin anymore, lest a worse thing happen.
SPEAKER 07 :
Or something worse will happen.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. I was just wondering.
SPEAKER 13 :
That was the question I had. Yeah, I wonder some things, too. But we just don’t know everything he said. He might have said something to her about it, or he might not have needed to, because she may have been convicted of it without his mentioning it. You know, I mean… When she knew he was a prophet, I think she felt a little convicted. I appreciate your call. Wish I could answer more authoritatively. All right. Let’s talk next to Rick from Layton, Utah. Rick, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hello. Thanks for taking my call.
SPEAKER 13 :
Sure.
SPEAKER 08 :
I wanted to ask you about the Tree of Life. What is the Tree of Life? What was the Tree of Life that they were taken, Adam and Eve were taken from and was guarded from all sides? that they were free to eat from. What is, how do you explain the tree of life?
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, I believe the tree of life was a literal tree in the Garden of Eden. Now, some people might think it’s merely symbolic. And that would just be something for people to believe if they want to believe that. But I believe it was a literal tree. But then the term tree of life is used quite a few times later in Scripture in a symbolic way. For example, in the Proverbs, it says, hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life. Let’s not talk about the literal tree in the Garden of Eden, but it’s basically talking about something that’s life-giving or life-sustaining. The tree of life, as near as I can tell, was a literal tree in the Garden of Eden, and it was one which Adam and Eve were not forbidden to eat until they sinned. God, in fact, intended them to eat of it and live forever. God never intended for them to die. They died because they sinned. He said, in the day you eat of that wrong tree, which is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he said, in the day you eat of that, you will, he says, dying, you will die. And what happened is the day they ate of it, God cut them off from the source of eternal life, which was the tree of life. Now, while I believe it was a real tree, I believe it has symbolic value. I believe Christ is the true tree of life. He’s the one that if we eat of him, we’ll live forever. That’s what he said when he said, if you eat my body and drink my blood, you’ll live forever. So it’s really partaking of Christ that causes people to live forever. And I think the tree in the garden, although I do accept it as a real tree, I think it had a symbolic representation that it represented Christ. And as they would eat of it, then their life would be extended. but they were cut off from it because of their sin, so that their life was not extended, and their natural mortality just took over, and they soon, not soon, but eventually died.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. That was exactly what I was… All right, let’s see.
SPEAKER 13 :
We’re going to talk next to… Let’s see who’s been here longer. Debbie from Kingsborough, I guess, Massachusetts. I’m not familiar with the place. Hi, Debbie.
SPEAKER 12 :
Hi, how are you?
SPEAKER 13 :
Good, thanks.
SPEAKER 12 :
Oh, thank you. Yeah, um… I wanted to go back to when you were speaking with the man about suicide, probably maybe 20 minutes ago. Yeah. My question is, I don’t know how Christians feel or yourself feel about mental illness. You know, I have a family member. who has terrible schizophrenia. And, you know, he’s been prayed over. He’s been prayed for. He prays himself. He’s a Christian. He accepted Jesus into his life years ago. He had a real experience. Prior to that, he was battling with mind difficulties. And as he got older, his illness intensified greatly to where he became very convinced of things in his mind that were happening. To this day, he feels like he’s being cursed. He’s been a very devoted Christian. He has read the Bible. He’s very knowledgeable. But he’s very tormented with a mental illness. But I’m confused because he has been in such pain. And I see him every day. You know, we are very close.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, let me jump in here because I’ve got a feeling this story could go on and on, and you’ve asked me a simple question, is what do we think about mental illness? I’m glad you told me as much as you did because it’s good to have some of that background, but I think I can give as much of an answer as I’ll ever be able to give based on what you’ve shared. It’s hard to answer about mental illness because, as I said to the previous caller, there isn’t really any biblical mention of mental illness. And the people in the Bible that we would have described as mentally ill are in the Bible described as demonized and are delivered by Jesus or the apostles supernaturally, just like he healed physical sicknesses. We might assume, although someone might not wish to, we might assume that there were two kinds of maladies that people had. One were physical maladies, which Jesus healed, and the other were spiritual maladies, which had to do with their behavior, their minds, and things like that, and those were seen as demonic, and they were remedied with exorcism. Now, I don’t believe that everyone who’s got, who’s kind of messed up in their thinking has a demon, but I do believe that anyone who’s deceived or in chronic confusion, is probably being deceived by the devil. Now, you don’t have to be demon-possessed to be deceived by the devil. But the Bible says the devil is the deceiver of the whole world. And people are deceived in different ways and about different things. If somebody is delusional, then obviously they’re seeing things not the way they are. And that’s being deceived. I would say… I would say I’d be most inclined to see demons involved, even though I’m not referring to demon possession necessarily. I believe there is such a thing as demon possession, but I don’t think everybody who’s afflicted by demonic attack could be described as possessed. But I do think that Christians are under attack all the time from demons, not all in the same way. Now, obviously… I haven’t had this particular problem myself, so I don’t know what it feels like to have it. I don’t know what he’s aware of and what he’s not aware of at those times. But I do know that some people who have had demons have been helped very much by simply focusing on the truth. The truth can make you free. But there may be more to it. People can be demonized. Or they can be not demonized. They can have much more control over their own thinking, but they’re still allowing themselves to believe lies, which the devil is telling them. I don’t know at what point we would cross a line where we call it mental illness. I mean, we might speak of it as a mental illness, just in a manner of speaking, even though it’s not a traditional illness caused by germs or by physical injury or whatever. There are people whose behaviors and thinking are very much impaired by physical things, by brain chemistry problems, by drugs, by thyroid problems, by brain tumors. There’s lots of things that can happen physically to a person that have a negative impact, an impairing effect on their thinking. And that would be the first thing I’d be interested in knowing because if that’s the problem, then it’s a regular sickness. It’s not a mental illness. It’s just a brain tumor or something like that. A mental illness is not the same thing as a physical illness. I mean, the terms are not used the same way. Even if a physical illness causes people to behave strangely or think strangely, again, if it’s caused by a thyroid condition or if it’s caused by hypoglycemia or if it’s caused by sleep deprivation, or if it’s caused by a brain chemistry problem or a brain tumor, those are not mental illness. Those are physical illness, and they should be treated like any other physical illness. But a lot of times people are called mentally ill when there’s no discernible physical cause, and the doctors just give them a label of mental illness because they don’t know what else to say about it. They can’t give a physical diagnosis of something Sometimes they guess. They’ll even tell people who have conditions, oh, you’ve got a brain chemistry condition, but they haven’t discerned one. They just assume it must be true. Because there are many diagnoses of mental illness that have no physical basis at all. And when that is the case, I’m more inclined to see it as a spiritual problem. Again, I’m not saying it has to be demon possession, although in extreme cases it could be. But I’m just saying I think it’s the devil that deceives people if people are seeing things I think the devil is not far from that situation. He’s working on them.
SPEAKER 12 :
Right. No, I appreciate that. What I’d like to say is he has asked for deliverance. Well, I think what they call mental illness is a chemical imbalance.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, if they have found a chemical imbalance in his brain… then I would accept that. If they have not, if they’re just saying people who, well, have they identified what it is? What chemical is in his brain that’s not supposed to be there?
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, oh, I see what you’re saying. Well, they’re just saying it’s an imbalance.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, see, they often say that whether they’ve found one or not because it’s their theory. Their theory is that the human body has no soul. That’s the secular view, that there is no soul, there’s no non-physical part. So everything about us must be explained physically. And brain chemistry is one of the explanations of choice among secular people. They say, well, it’s a brain chemistry problem. They can’t often find a brain chemistry imbalance in many of the patients they’ve diagnosed, but they still assume it must be. because they don’t acknowledge a spiritual component to men. Now, some Christians recognize a spiritual component, but their training has been by secular psychologists and psychiatrists, so that they often think in a secular way about these things. This is a complex situation. Obviously, I can’t diagnose him. I have no idea. But I would say that, in general, I think that some mental misbehavior is caused by physical brain problems. But I think it’s caused by that not as often as it’s claimed that it is. I think a lot of times it’s a spiritual thing.
SPEAKER 12 :
Just quickly, my brother was on the street for three years and was found naked in a canyon. Okay.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, I think this isn’t going to be quick enough. This isn’t going to be quick enough because I only have a few minutes. All my lines are full with people who want to talk to me. I’m sorry. I can’t diagnose your brother over the phone.
SPEAKER 12 :
I’m sorry. I guess what I’m trying to ask simply, and I’ll just try and get it out real quick, is this is great torment for him and pain. And I had a hard time with suicide being… so selfish. I mean, I know people in that state of mind are self-absorbed, but I don’t think everybody understands why. Well, you’re right.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, I certainly don’t understand why, but it doesn’t change the fact. I mean, if a person is self-absorbed and they go out and kill 30 people in a bar, I don’t understand why. That doesn’t change the fact they’re a murderer and that they should be tried as murderers, but I don’t know why they did it. And I guess, you know, the Bible often doesn’t really deal with the questions of why. I think psychology and psychiatry is always fascinated with the why questions. And I guess sometimes that’s helpful to know. But in many cases, I don’t even know why. I just need to know that the person has done something that they shouldn’t have done. And therefore, you know, even if someone diagnosed them as mentally ill, that shouldn’t let them off the hook. I mean, if they’re mentally ill in such a way that they kill people, then they’re a danger to society, and they should be objectively learned.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, listen, I’m out of time for this call. I’m out of time for this call. I know you’re really concerned about your brother, and I understand why. I just can’t do much more for you about it, I’m sorry to say. And I know you probably just wanted to share some of the burden that’s on your heart about it, too, but My lines are so full, I’m going to have to turn most of these calls away because we’re running out of time in the next few minutes. Craig from Bridgeport, Connecticut. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 16 :
Good afternoon. I’ll make it quick. What’s your point of view from the Bible, and how does it, in reference to R.C. Sproul’s writings? Well, okay, okay.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, it depends on which writings. I’ve read lots of R.C. Sproul’s writings, and I’ve listened to a lot of his lectures, recorded lectures, I won’t say hundreds, maybe 50 of them. And so I’m fairly familiar with him. He wrote about a lot of things that I would totally agree with him about, probably 100%. One of the things about R.C. Sproul, though, is he is a strong promoter of Calvinism, and I’m not a Calvinist, so obviously I would disagree with him on those points. So when he’s arguing for Calvinism, I think he’s mistaken. And on many other things which are not specifically about Calvinism, I would tend to agree with him. And I probably have agreed with him on more things than I’ve disagreed with him on. But, of course, Calvinism is one of his major, or of course he’s deceased now, but it was one of his major thrusts in his ministry. And therefore that was a major thrust that I had to disagree with. If you’re interested in what I think about Calvinism, I have lectures at my website called God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Salvation. A very long series, 12 lectures. But I quote R.C. Sproul, and I quote John Piper, and I quote Calvinists of all kinds, John MacArthur and so forth, and I interact with the scriptures they use and the arguments they use. And it’s a very thorough teaching. Anyone who’s fascinated with this discussion of Calvinism and non-Calvinism would probably find it helpful to go to thenarrowpath.com and go to the Topical Lectures tab. And there at the Topical Lectures tab, scroll down until you see God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Salvation. There’s a 12-lecture series there that I’d recommend if you’re interested because I leave no stone unturned. I deal with every scripture that Calvinists use, and I… I look at it in context. I deal with their arguments, so I quote them and answer them. So if you’re interested in that part of my reaction to R.C. Sproul, you can get it in detail at the website. As you can tell, I’m out of time for the program today, and my apologies to the many who are still waiting online. You’ve been listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we are listener-supported. If you’d like to write to us, the address is TheNarrowPath, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us. God bless.
