In this episode of The Narrow Path, Steve Gregg engages listeners with a series of deep theological discussions and Q&A. The episode opens with announcements about upcoming local events and a potential follow-up call from Dr. Michael Brown regarding a recent debate. Steve addresses Ben from Canada’s question about the millennial kingdom, advocating the amillennialist view that the millennium is symbolic of the current age between Christ’s first coming and His return. This sets the stage for various other topics including a theological exploration of Jesus’ divinity and the implications of different biblical interpretations.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour each weekday afternoon so that you can call in and ask questions about the Bible or the Christian faith and we’ll talk about them. Or you can call in to disagree with the host and we’ll talk about that. Be glad to have you do so. The number to call is 844- 484-5737. By the way, I’m looking at an open switchboard, and I mean completely open. It’s very uncommon. I mean, usually at the beginning of a program, we might not even have one or two open lines. We’ve got a whole switchboard open for some reason. I hope that doesn’t mean our phone system’s down, but give us a try. I’ve got some announcements to make, but the number to call is 844-484-5737. One announcement I have is that this Saturday morning we have our monthly men’s Bible study in Temecula. You’re welcome to join us for that if you’re a man and if you can get to Temecula by 8 o’clock Saturday morning. That’s one announcement. Then that evening we have a Boynton Park meeting, and that’s going to be a Q&A. That’s one of the few Q&A-type meetings I ever do locally in Southern California. I travel a lot. And I do a lot of Q&As in other places, but I don’t have a regular Q&A meeting in Southern California. Even the Boynton Park meeting, which we’ve been meeting for once a month for a long time, for years, usually has been a lecture. But this time, the last of these meetings in the foreseeable future, I’m going to be doing Q&A. So that’s in Boynton Park this Saturday night. So Saturday morning. men’s Bible study in Temecula Saturday evening, the Boynton Park Q&A for anybody who wants to show up there. If you don’t know where that is and you want to come, you can go to thenarrowpath.com and you’ll then go into the tab that says announcements and there will be the information you need there. I might also mention that I don’t know which state it may be, but Dr. Michael Brown, whom I debated last weekend, wants to have further conversation with me, and he suggested he’d call the program here probably sometime before the end of the week. I don’t think it’ll be today. It might be tomorrow. I’m not sure. But I believe he’ll call at the beginning of the program in the next day or two. And in that case, I’m going to devote the first half hour to follow-up discussions with him regarding the debate. And then we’ll take regular Q&A after that first half hour. So we don’t usually feature guests on the program. This is kind of a special occasion because of the debate. And even so, we’ll still have Q&A in the second half of the program, whatever that is. I think it might be tomorrow, but I’m not sure. Anyway, just thought I’d give you a heads up about that. Now we’re going to go to the phone lines because now our lines are full indeed. Ben in Victoria, Canada is our first caller. Welcome to the narrow path.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hi, Ben.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, Steve. How are you doing?
SPEAKER 02 :
Good. Good. I was just listening to your program on and off for a while, and I was just wondering, personal question, not anything with the Bible, but what are you looking forward to doing in the millennium kingdom?
SPEAKER 05 :
I don’t expect a millennial kingdom.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m a millennialist. The idea that there’s a future millennial kingdom is a a view that’s been pretty much a minority view in church history, although many, many people hold it, including some of the church fathers. And many, many people today hold the idea that there will be a millennium after Jesus returns. Most Christians throughout history, and I’m of the opinion of the majority in this case, though I just want to say majority doesn’t count for anything. It just so happens that it is the majority opinion, believe that the millennium in Revelation 20 is symbolic. for the period between the binding of Satan at Christ’s first coming, which he said he had done in Matthew 12. He said he had bound the strong man. That means Satan. So between that time and the time that Jesus returns, which in Revelation 20 is mentioned in verse 9, when flaming fire comes out of heaven and destroys the wicked, Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 1.8, that’s what will happen when Jesus returns. He’ll come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who don’t know God. Therefore, between the binding of Satan at Christ’s first coming and the destruction of Satan and the enemies of God at the second coming, the so-called thousand years is symbolic for a long period of time in which we are currently living. That’s the amillennial view. And that’s the view that I happen to hold. Now, I didn’t always. I was premillennial when I was younger. And I will say this. When I was premillennial, I didn’t have a very clear idea of what we’d be doing during the millennium. It seemed to me like Jesus coming is the climax of all world history and resolves all the problems that men have taken to resolve on their own, which cannot be resolved without him, that he would come back and resolve all of his problems. But then, of course… the idea that there’s a future millennium makes the second coming of Christ rather not really climactic because there’s another thousand years, another rebellion, and another chance for the enemy to challenge Jesus, and then there’s another judgment. So, you know, I just felt like, okay, when Jesus comes back, what am I going to do then? Well, who knows, because the millennial kingdom is only mentioned in one place, and that’s in Revelation 20. And there’s not the slightest mention of what people on earth with Christ at that time would be doing. John does see in his vision the saints who have died reigning in heaven on thrones during that period of time. But it does not say… you know, what people on earth would be doing during that time. However, in my opinion, and I believe this has more scriptural support than any alternative opinion, is that this is talking about the present age, so what I’m doing now is what I expect to be doing throughout my lifetime, which is living during that time. Okay, thanks for bringing it up. Okay, Ben, thanks for your call. Colton from Sacramento, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, thanks for taking my call. I just had a simple question. I’ve been going to church recently, and I was talking to one of the guys afterwards, and we got onto the discussion of they had a lesson prior that said Jesus is God, and I just had questions with the guy, curious if I was wrong or not, but I just don’t see how that’s, I see that that’s not correct or that I see that that sort of slogan is kind of what brings upon a lot of the issues we see today. And I was having trouble conveying that to them or wondering if I was kind of wrong. And I was wondering what your opinion was on that. People who preach and say that Jesus is God.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, the statement, quote, Jesus is God, end quote, is not actually found in Scripture. But it’s not as if… You know, theologians and scholars throughout history have been unaware of that. What they had to do in the early centuries of the church is discuss in what sense he is divine, because that was something the Bible does definitely speak of him being uniquely divine. and even speaks of him as God, although we don’t find the words Jesus is God, but several times in the New Testament Jesus is spoken of as God, and yet also in the New Testament we find Jesus distinguished from his Father, and yet the Bible says there’s only one God. Now, certainly the Father is God. Galatians 1.1 refers to God the Father, but other places actually refer to Jesus as God, And yet Jesus distinguishes between himself and the Father, and there’s only one God. So how do we work that out? Well, that’s something the theologians did wrestle with a great deal and still do. Most Christians, certainly the ones that are regarded to be Orthodox Christians, do believe that Jesus is God and the Father is God and the Holy Spirit is God. but that there’s only one God. So they’d say, in a sense, God is only one God. In another sense, he is three something else. And usually the term that’s used is persons. He’s three persons and one God. Now, this is not using biblical terminology. The Bible doesn’t use the word persons, but I have no objection to it. I mean, the creedal statement says, chooses the best words they know to convey whatever it is they understand the Bible to teach. But it did take the church some serious period of deliberations to come up with this explanation because of the two kinds of data about Jesus and God in the Bible. There’s those data that kind of equate Jesus with God, and there’s those data that distinguish him from the Father, although both of them are called God, but there’s only one God. So this is a mysterious thing. Now, it’s not strictly a biblical statement to say Jesus is God, but what it is biblical to say is the Word was God and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. So if the Word was God and the Word, who is God, became flesh and dwelt among us, and he’s referring to Jesus when it says the word became flesh, referring to Jesus coming, then Jesus is the word made flesh, and the word is God. So we could say Jesus is God in the flesh, as opposed to the Father, who is God not in the flesh. So the distinguishing is not between two gods, but two different ways that God has been. He is and has always been a spirit, Jesus said. But he also, at a certain point, became flesh. And Jesus is what God is in the flesh. But you see, this is a mysterious thing. So it’s not really wrong to say Jesus is God, except it is confusing because sometimes people say, but wait a minute, I thought the Father is God. Didn’t Jesus say the Father is greater than I? Didn’t Jesus say I didn’t come to do my own will but the will of my Father? Didn’t he speak of the Father as someone different from himself when he said, I am one witness, I bear witness of myself, but then I have another witness, my Father bears witness of me. So he’s talking about two witnesses, himself and the Father, like two different individuals. So this is a difficult thing to put into words that are strictly biblical. That doesn’t mean the concept isn’t true. I don’t think that getting the wording right is as important as some people do. But I think the emphasis that Jesus is God, that preachers sometimes make, should be teased out a little better or been a little clearer that, well, he’s God, but so is the Father God, and they are distinguished in some sense from each other. Jesus, it says in Philippians 2, existed in the form of God, But he emptied himself and took on the form of a servant and lived among us and died on the cross. And therefore God has highly exalted him and given him the name of every name. So there’s clearly a distinction between Jesus and the Father. And there’s also identity. To my mind, the most we can say with certainty about this is that the Bible teaches that Jesus is in some sense God. and in some sense distinguish from the Father, which means that you either have two persons in God, or you’ve got to have some other kind of explanation. Then when you bring the Holy Spirit into it, if he’s a person, he is called God. Well, then you’ve got three persons in God. So is that possible? Well, it is possible if the Bible teaches it. Is it something we can easily understand? Well, speaking strictly for myself, no. No, it’s not something that’s easy to understand. But I can say that I know in other domains it is possible to say that some people are one in a certain sense and two or more in another sense. The most obvious biblical sense comes up right at the very beginning of the Bible in Genesis 2.24. It says that a man and his wife are one, flesh. And yet they are two. But they are one in a certain sense. But they’re two in a different sense. So that’s not contradictory. It’s not contradictory to say a man and his wife are two. If we’re speaking of a certain sense, they’re two individuals. And to also say that they are one. If one in that sense means a different way or a different sense than they are two. If we’re saying they are in one sense two and in the same sense one, then we’re talking nonsense. But if in one sense there are two, another sense there are one, we’re not talking nonsense. And we could say God, in one sense, is one. And in another sense, seems to be three. And Jesus is among those three. So, well, if someone says, well, help me picture that or let me work that out mathematically, I can’t do that for you. If the Bible did it for you, I would represent to you what it says. But the Bible doesn’t do that. we come to that conclusion simply by the fact that the Bible often asserts there’s only one God. And then it asserts also, in various places, that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. And then in yet other places, it says that the Father and the Son are distinct from each other in certain senses. And the Holy Spirit is distinct from the Father and the Son in certain senses, but also one with them in another sense. So, We’ve got something, you know, we’ve got some deep mystery here, I think. At least if it’s not a deep mystery, which I think it is. But if it’s not, then it’s at least left somewhat mysterious to us. And the Bible’s not giving us a full explanation.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you. I appreciate it. I agree. It’s very, it needs a paragraph answer almost is what it seems like.
SPEAKER 05 :
Or a book length. Who knows?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, right on. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, Colton. God bless. Okay, David in Post Falls, Idaho. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, Steve. Yeah, thanks a lot for taking my call. Really appreciate your thorough study of topics that you attack and the way you answer questions. So the question I have is about when John wrote Revelation, because I’ve got friends that are really going hard, full preterists on me. And that was one thing that I thought, well, here’s a real kind of a wild card I can put on the table that, you know, if John didn’t write Revelation until in the 90s or something, then where are we? Then how can you have this full fulfillment thing? And anyway, I would love to… I mean, I’m trying to study it on my own, but I’m not coming up with a lot of resources or sources. So, thank you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, well, sure. Well, you’re absolutely right. If Revelation was written in the mid-90s, there’s no possibility that it was predicting the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD or the events of the previous three years that led up to it. A prophecy doesn’t predict things that happened 25 years before the prophecy was uttered. But, of course, that’s open to question. Was it written in the 90s or was it written in the 60s? Those are two reputable questions. And I would say one cannot choose between them with absolute certainty. What you can do is weigh the evidence. There’s two kinds of evidence about the date of writing of Revelation. One would be what we call internal evidence. And that would be taking clues from inside the book, from things the book itself says about its own timing or about things that give us a clue of its timing. That’s called internal evidence. And then there’s something called external evidence, which simply means what person’s external to the book, like early authorities, early church fathers thought and things like that. What was said about it by those closest to the time that it was written. Now, I would say this. that the external evidence can go both ways. But I think the strength of the external evidence is, in some respects, stronger to the later date. But I think the evidence from inside the book is much stronger for the earlier date. So we’ve got – this is why it’s hard to decide anything with certainty about this, because you do have, for example, Irenaeus, who lived in the late 2nd century – But he was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of John himself. So we’ve got Irenaeus two generations removed from John. and he made a statement which most people understand to mean that he is saying the book of Revelation was written late in the reign of Domitian, the emperor, around 96 AD. And so Irenaeus was a very influential church father. Many modern scholars simply take his word for that, and it appears that lots of the church fathers after him either used him as their source and agreed with him, or else had some other external source that he himself had and agreed with him. So a lot of the church fathers would have indicated that John wrote this in the reign of Domitian around 96 AD. Now, that’s the external evidence, because that’s really opinions or statements about the book made by people who are external to the book. They’re not in the book. Okay, so that’s one line of evidence. And I will say this, there is also external evidence that seems to point to the earlier date, but it’s not, in my opinion, there’s not as many testimonies to that in the early church. Maybe one of the earliest ones is around the same time as Irenaeus, and that’s what they call the Muratorian Canon, which gave the impression that the book of Revelation was written before Paul died. I won’t get into that right now. My book, Revelation 4 Views, A Parallel Commentary, goes into more detail in all of the evidence for the date of Revelation, both sides. So if you want to check out my book, you can. And you might be able to check it out from the library or something if you don’t want to buy it. But the internal evidence seems to point to the earlier date. Now, let’s just say all the external evidence pointed in one direction and all the internal evidence pointed in the opposite direction. Are we at a stalemate? In my opinion, the internal evidence is more important because the internal evidence is inspired. The writer who wrote it was inspired by the Holy Spirit. External comments about it are written by people who were not inspired. So I would give a slightly, if not considerable, advantage to the internal evidence. rather than the external. That is, if they were completely at odds with each other. My statement a moment ago is true that there is some external evidence for the early date and seemingly more for the later date. But the internal evidence seems to be entirely for the early date. Now, late date advocates sometimes list things inside the book that they think point to a later date, And I’ve looked at those very carefully, and I think I just can’t see that being a real argument. The points they bring up are not at all definitive of the date. But as far as internal evidence of the early date, you’ve got at least three things of importance, maybe four. One of the things is that John keeps telling the readers that the things he’s writing about will shortly take place. Now, after he wrote it, what shortly took place after that shortly? Well, if he wrote it in 96, nothing. Nothing in particular happened shortly after that. That would correlate with anything in the book. If he wrote it at the early date, then the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish war definitely happened shortly after that and very much correlate on most points with what the book predicts. Now, beyond that, there’s the fact that in Revelation 11, 1 and 2, the temple seems to be standing in Jerusalem, although there’s a prediction that that it’s going to be given over to the Gentiles and they’ll trample it underfoot. Well, that trampling of the temple underfoot happened in 70 A.D. And Revelation 11, 1 and 2 seems to be saying that that’s going to happen. In other words, he sees the temple is still standing at the time of writing, but he predicts that it’s going to be given over to be trampled by the Gentiles. Well, it did happen in 70 A.D., If it was written in the time of Domitian, the temple was no more. It was gone. And therefore, the presence of the temple in chapter 11 seems to point to the earlier date. Now, also, there’s the fact that in Revelation 17.10, he says there are seven kings, five are fallen, and one now is, and another yet to come. If he’s talking about emperors, and many scholars think he is, There were five emperors that died before the sixth one, which was Nero. And therefore, many think he’s saying that Nero is the current emperor. He says five have fallen, one now is. Now, John is writing at an actual historical period of time to readers. And he says, hey, one of them, the sixth one now is. So he’s talking about the time he’s writing. The sixth emperor was. Now, the sixth actual emperor was Nero. Nero died at his own hand in 68 AD. He killed himself. And if Nero was still living and was the current emperor when John wrote, then it was written. It’s the name of a man. It’s the number of a name. Now, I won’t go into the Gammatria concept, how that letters were sometimes used for numbers, but it’s a commonly known thing, that a name could be reduced to its numeric equivalent. There is no known Roman figure, no known world leader here. whose name easily can be rendered 666, except for Caesar Nero. Caesar Nero, if his name is given in the Hebrew form, the Hebrew letters add up to 666. So he’s saying that his readers should be able to figure out who he is talking about. He says, let him that has wisdom calculate wisdom. The number of the beast. It’s the man’s name. His number is 666. Now, remember, John’s writing to people in the first century, either during the reign of Nero or the time of Domitian, one or the other. And he tells his readers, if you’ve got wisdom, you should be able to figure out this man’s name. It works out to 666. Clearly, he’s talking about somebody living at that time. whom his readers should be able to figure out who he is. If it’s anyone living in our time, there’s no way he could expect his readers to figure out who it is, nor would he know his name in all likelihood. So he’s talking about whoever is basically the beast at that time. It was either Domitian or Nero. The number 666 does not in any form represent the name of Domitian. But it can of Nero. So there’s three things, four in the book. One is that the things were going to shortly take place. One was that the temple was still standing. One is that the sixth emperor was ruling, which would be Nero. And one was the number of the beast who was at that time knowable to those who had wisdom and could calculate the number. And, of course, the number could be applied to Nero. It is not capable of being applied to anyone else in that time. So those are reasons for taking an early date. Now, I’m not a full preterist. In fact, I wrote a whole book against full preterism called Why Not Full Preterism. But I’m not going to disagree with them that Revelation looks like it was written before 70 A.D. I appreciate your call. I need to really take a break here. But thank you for joining us. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We have another half hour coming. We’re not done, so don’t go away. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Check it out. Lots of free stuff there. thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 03 :
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 05 :
Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Craig, and we have another half hour to go, so we can take your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, or you disagree with the host and want to say why, feel free to give me a call. The number is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. Our next caller today is Steve from Newport Beach, California. Hi, Steve. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 08 :
Greetings. Thank you. I just have a quick analogy regarding Jesus being God. And I wanted to throw this out, and then you can hack it all up and figure out if I’m right or wrong or crazy. Just an analogy. But I look at it this way. The Bible’s true, absolutely. Everything is true. Jesus being the Son of God. However, I look at it like God the Father, this is just an analogy, is like the sun and the solar system. And then Jesus… is like, of course, the sun. Like, imagine him having a perfectly clean mirror. And basically, what’s happening is, God the Father is shining his light on Jesus. So Jesus is, when you look at Jesus, if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father, when you look at Jesus, you’re seeing a perfect mirror. reflection of god and it’s just an analogy it’s not exactly like that but that’s kind of how i look at it because um the bible is very clear that jesus is distinctly um different in some ways that he’s the son he’s flesh there’s a lot and he prayed to the father um so it’s kind of like a boat it’s like he is in a way he’s different he’s the son but in another way he’s the same So that’s kind of how I look at it. When we really look at Jesus, we are seeing an exact reflection of God the Father. And that’s why we can trust everything that Jesus says and does, because it’s really God’s words, it’s God’s light, and God’s spirit that is speaking through Jesus. That’s all I wanted to say.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, yeah, I don’t dislike that analogy. I’ve heard one similar that I might like even better, but I mean, I’m not saying yours is necessarily flawed. It’s just that many people have tried to come up with analogies of the Trinity or the relationship between the Father and the Son, which have, you know, maybe each one has its own merit, but I haven’t yet heard an absolutely perfect analogy of Partly because I’m not sure there is a perfect analogy in the natural world for something so transcendently powerful. you know, amazing and beyond our kin. But the Eastern Orthodox Church, I don’t know if this is their official explanation, but some Eastern Orthodox teachers have taught, and this to my mind sounds good, like yourself, that God the Father is like the Son, and that Jesus is like the light of the Son. The Holy Spirit is like the energy or the heat of the sun. Now, this would make them indistinguishable because as long as the sun has existed, its light and its heat have existed too. The sun never existed without light or heat. And therefore, you know, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, they all proceed from the Father. And Jesus is referred to light here. When he’s called the word in John chapter 1, he says, in him was light, and that light is the life of men. Well, certainly, if we were to find a natural analogy, the light of the sun is the light that gives us life. That is, the light of the sun provides the ability of crops to grow and And all of that, I mean, the sunlight is, I mean, most pagan religions who don’t know the real God, they make the sun into the main God because they see it as the source of light and life. So, you know, that Jesus could be likened to the light of the sun. which certainly is something that is co-eternal with. The light of the sun could certainly say, if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the sun, because it is the light of the sun that we see. We don’t see the sun apart from its light. And so it is sort of like the sun extending itself into our world. And along with that light comes the heat or the warmth or the energy of the sun to us. And the Holy Spirit certainly could be seen that way too. So I’m not saying that’s a perfect analogy, but I’ve heard people try to give lots of analogies about the Trinity. Some of them are, to my mind, not very good. Sometimes they’ll say, well, it’s like water can be in solid, liquid, or vapor form. It’s still water. Well, that’s true, but it’s not solid, liquid, and vapor all at the same time. So that would be a better analogy for a modalist viewpoint. And although that is true of water, and there are people who are modalists and think that God was once the Father and then he became the Son and now he’s the Holy Spirit, they don’t believe that he’s all three at the same time. So, I mean, that’s not really a – it may be a good analogy for modalism, but it’s not a good one for the Trinity view. Then, of course, there’s those who say it’s like an egg that has the shell and the egg white and the yolk. But, you know, that’s just saying an egg has three parts, you know. Some say it’s like a human. They say humans have a body and a soul and a spirit, but what human? Well, okay. I mean, those could be true. I mean, those could be true analogies. The Bible doesn’t use those. So we don’t know if the Bible would endorse those analogies, but who’s to say they’re wrong? But the idea of the sun and the light of the sun and the heat of the sun, as I think is an idea originating from Eastern Orthodoxy, strikes me as workable, very workable. Whether any of these analogies is really quite adequate or not, who can say? I guess God can, but he hasn’t told us. So anyway, I appreciate you weighing in on that. It’s not a bad analogy. Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were gone. I hit the button just as you started speaking. I’m sorry. Hank in Youngville, North Carolina. Welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi. Hello. Thank you, Steve. I would like to just ask you, about the love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, and specifically in verse 8, where it mentions prophecies, tongues, and knowledge. Prophecies will fail, tongues will cease, knowledge will vanish away. How does one interpret this in the light of the church age, or perhaps the age that we live in right now?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, yeah. That’s a good point. I think I can help you on that. At least I hope I can. Oh, just, I’m sorry. Go ahead. What were you about to say?
SPEAKER 06 :
I’ll take it off the air.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, okay. Okay, that’s fine. Thank you. Yeah, one of the biggest things that has to be solved first, but then that’s not your main question, but what does it mean by knowledge? he likens it to tongues and prophecy and knowledge. These are the things that will vanish away. Now, in his list of the gifts in the previous chapter, tongues was a gift, prophecy was a gift, and something called the word of knowledge was a gift. So, you know, since he’s listed nine gifts in chapter 12, and the three things he mentions here are all on that list, He may be speaking of the special gift of the word of knowledge. On the other hand, he doesn’t say it quite that clearly. So he might mean that all knowledge as we know it will be done away. But that would have to be natural knowledge. But I think he’s more likely talking about the gift of knowledge. Because he’s not really saying that knowledge… as a phenomenon, will not exist. In fact, he says, we know in part, but then we will know even better than we know now. We’ll know as we are known. So it’s not as if all knowledge, as we would use that word, is somehow going to disappear. It’s going to increase. Now, that raises questions about what does he mean about tongues and prophecy and knowledge? They’re going to vanish away. In what sense are they going to vanish away? I think we can only answer that by appeal to his next verses, which I believe are given to explain this question. What are you talking about, Paul? How are these things going to pass away? What are you talking about? His answer is, In verse 9, for we know in part, we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect has come or mature, the word perfect can mean mature or perfect or complete. He says, when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part or partial will be done away. Now, what does he mean by that? Prophecy and tongues and knowledge as we have now, they’re really only partial. They’re not perfect yet. They’re not complete. Now, later when he says, now we know in part, then we’ll know as we are also known, means that knowledge is going to actually be greater. It’s going to be more perfect. Right now we know in part, but then we will know as we are known. Okay, so as you talk about these things ceasing to exist, many people say yes. Some say that the gifts of the Spirit are just for a limited time. And a person that we call a cessationist, that’s an actual theological position, cessationism. It comes from the word to cease, cessation is to cease. And cessationism believes that the gifts ceased. They came to an end. They don’t exist anymore. When something happened, which Paul describes as when that which is perfect has come. Now, most of those who hold this cessationist view, maybe not all of them, most of them seem to think Paul is referring to the completion of the New Testament. That which is perfect or complete, they believe, would be the New Testament. And, you know, the New Testament was not complete when Paul was writing. He was still writing some of the books, and some of the books in the New Testament were written by him later and by other authors, too. So that he’s predicting a time when the New Testament canon will be a complete one. then we won’t need these gifts. Well, we’ll still need knowledge. In fact, if anything, it seems like the New Testament gives even more knowledge. But this is nonetheless the way that a cessationist argues, that knowledge, prophecy, and tongues, they would come to an end when the New Testament is complete. Now, one of the biggest problems of that particular theory is that Paul never indicates here or elsewhere that he believed there would ever be a New Testament canon. I don’t know if Paul ever knew that his letters would be collected here. along with the letters of Peter and John and James and the Gospels and so forth, and put into a book called the New Testament. Paul was simply writing letters to his friends, pastoral letters, actually trying to correct their problems and things like that. Whether he had a consciousness that someday these letters would be collected, and by the end of the fourth century, the church would have what they call a complete New Testament canon, including his letters. I have to say, I seriously doubt that Paul knew that If he did know that, he never said so, which brings up the point, how would he expect his readers to know that if he never told them? I mean, maybe he had divine revelation that there would be a New Testament canon. I doubt that he did, but if he did… That doesn’t mean his readers, who are ordinary Christians, that they knew it. There’s no evidence that he knew it or taught it to anyone else. So to say that that which is perfect would be expected to be understood to be the New Testament canon doesn’t make much sense. Nor does it make much sense that we should not have the gifts after the New Testament canon came. Some people say, well, if the gifts still remain after the New Testament canon, then the canon is not closed because… A gifted prophet today may speak words that should be added to the New Testament. No, no, that’s not true. None of the books of the New Testament were written by prophets. Prophets can speak, you know, a blue streak and none of it goes in the New Testament. We know there were prophets in the New Testament, like Paul told the Corinthians later in the next chapter. Let the prophets and the church speak two or three and let the others judge. We know that Philip’s daughters were prophets, according to the book of Acts. And, of course, Agabus was a prophet. But none of these people wrote scripture, because no prophet wrote any scripture in the New Testament. The Old Testament is pretty much written by prophets. But the New Testament, which supersedes the Old, is written by apostles. It’s apostolic authority, the people that Jesus handpicked to be his spokesmen. Now, they didn’t speak prophetically very often. I’m not saying they couldn’t, but they never really claimed to be. The prophets spoke like this. Thus says the Lord. I, the Lord, have this against you. I, the Lord, will do this. Prophets spoke in the voice of God himself. The apostles didn’t talk that way. They talked about Jesus in the third person. They talked about him. They didn’t speak as if his words were coming out of their mouth like a prophet’s. They spoke as if they had divine authority to speak on his behalf about things and about him. So even if there are prophets today, and there were in Paul’s day, that doesn’t mean that would have any impact on the canon of Scripture. The canon of Scripture is not written by prophets. The one exception being, of course, the book of Revelation. But that wasn’t written by a prophet, but by an apostle. It’s true he was prophesying. But he was an apostle by status and who also prophesied. I think Paul prophesied sometimes, too. We don’t have many samples of it. Okay, so I don’t think the New Testament canon is that which is perfect. Many people think it’s referring to Jesus’ second coming. And I could have some sympathy with that because Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1.7, that we will lack none of the gifts while we’re awaiting the second coming of Christ or the revelation of Jesus Christ. So the gifts will last until Jesus comes back, Paul has said earlier in this book. So when he says, when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part, meaning the gifts, will be done away. But I have a little bit of problem with that interpretation, too. Partly because Paul does not say when he who is perfect comes, which is the natural way to speak about the second coming. He said when that which is perfect is coming, which is a neuter pronoun in the Greek. Okay, so something that is perfect is coming. And that will do away with the thing that is not perfect. Now, I believe Paul may be giving us a fuller explanation in the very next verse, verse 11, where he says, When I was a child, I spoke as a child. I understood as a child. I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. Now, when I became a man, I think correlates with when that which is perfect or mature comes, right? Speaking as a child is speaking and knowing in part. A prophesied in part. It’s immature. It’s not a mature use. Now, one thing we know about the Corinthians is they were using gifts of the Spirit a great deal, and they were also very immature. In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul said, I couldn’t speak to you as unto spiritual men, but unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ. So Paul was a little bit disgusted by the immaturity of the Corinthians. And and and he’s saying the way they’re they’re practicing the gifts is a very immature thing, very self-centered. That’s why I had to tell them in this chapter, it doesn’t matter how many gifts you have. If you don’t have love, you got nothing. You are nothing. That’s how he opens this chapter. So, you know, apparently they weren’t loving. They weren’t mature in love. They were using gifts, the spirit. But it doesn’t count for anything if you’re not mature in love. Now, when he says when I was a child. Just giving an analogy. When I was a child, I just spoke and acted and thought I was a child. But when I became a man, I didn’t do that anymore. Now, he’s not saying, when I became a man, I stopped thinking and stopped speaking and stopped acting. He just stopped acting as a child. He stopped acting immaturely. When maturity came, when I became a man… I stopped doing immature things. And that’s the analogy for when that which is perfect or mature has come, then the partial will be done away. I’m thinking the best way to understand Paul here may be that right now our use of the gifts leaves much room for improvement. The time will come when we grow, especially when we grow in love, when our maturity, is complete in Christ. We will be doing these things not as children, but as adults do. We’ll be doing it more maturely. And so that’s kind of what I think that analogy of when I was a child, I think that’s what it points to. And then he says in verse 12, for now we see through a mirror dimly, but then face to face. When? When that maturity comes. Or maybe that’s when Jesus comes back. It may be that that maturity will not exist until Christ comes back. He says, for now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I am also known. This is clearly not something that’s already happened. So a cessationist really can’t take this verse seriously because we don’t see Jesus face to face. We don’t know even as also we’re known. And he says, and now abide faith, hope, and love. These three, but the greatest of these is love. Love is the best. The gifts are great, but love is the more excellent way. That is, you can exercise gifts in a loving way. or an unloving way. And he says at the end of verse 12 that love is a more excellent way. So rather than talk about the cessation of the gifts, he might be talking about the way the gifts are used. The Corinthian church was using them very immaturely, but when they grow up, they won’t be doing that anymore. Not that they won’t have gifts, but they won’t be doing it immaturely anymore. That probably is Paul’s meaning given the whole context. Kay in Tempe, Arizona. Welcome.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hello. This is Kay. Thank you, Steve, for blessing us each day, for you and your family. Be blessed. I need some of your help in understanding a very unusual person who says they believe and then they don’t believe. They’re up and they’re down. I’ve seen this going on for probably 50 years. They seem like they’re in really a lot of pain. But they’re very conflicted. And what we have is a full-blown narcissist who’s aged. And prior to the dementia, all of these habits which I’m about to mention to you were already in existence. So if you’re in this person’s company, they have a tendency to make physical contact with you, to come up behind you and rub your back. You can feel the energy leaving you. And it can take you three days or even more to be able to recover from this. And sometimes it takes longer to even bounce back. And I wondered if you might have some words, biblical word or some thoughts on this and much prayer. And, I mean, this would be a learning tool if it became a film. Believe me, there’s so much more.
SPEAKER 05 :
Let me ask you, did you say this person now has dementia? Yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, now.
SPEAKER 05 :
Are they in an institution or are they in somebody’s home?
SPEAKER 01 :
No, they’re still independently living and a family member is approaching taking care of them.
SPEAKER 05 :
I see. Well, I would just say if a person is interacting in a way that is diminishing a person’s strength or something like that. There could be something demonic in the matter. I’m not assuming that to be true. There are demons, however, and sometimes the demonic may be causing a drain by contact with this person or not. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a psychological thing that the person being touched just feels yucky, and maybe it’s more psychological than demonic, but All I can say is a person like that, when you say they believe and then they don’t believe, then they believe and they don’t believe, yeah, that’s not really believing. Now, I do believe that a person who is truly converted and truly believes may at some point drift away to the point where they lose their faith. But if you can leave the faith and then come back and leave and then come back and leave, I don’t think anyone’s ever got roots there. I think that person is just claiming to believe things at certain times and then being more honest that they don’t believe at other times. But, yeah, I don’t know what to do. I can’t tell you how to interact with that person. I guess that person can be avoided as much as possible. I mean, obviously, it’d be nice if that person could be truly saved. But if they have dementia, I don’t know that witnessing to them is going to help. And if they’ve believed and not believed and believed, it doesn’t sound like they’re ignorant of the information. Their problem is submitting to the information, submitting to the truth. And it sounds like that submission has never been complete. That person might be demonized. I don’t know. But, yeah, it doesn’t sound like they’re a safe person. So I would just recommend, you know, having as little contact with them as possible. All right, let’s talk to David from Corvallis, Oregon. Hi, David. Hello.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hi there. Hello, Steve. It’s a pleasure to speak with you, and I love the ministry, and it’s been very helpful. My question was regarding God’s sovereignty. Could you speak a bit on God’s sovereignty over a person’s life, such as the conditions of the events of their life, the day of death and whatnot?
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. Sure. Well, when we use the word sovereignty, I think we may fall into the trap of adopting a definition of sovereignty that is really strictly a Calvinistic or Augustinian one and not a truly biblical one. The word sovereignty simply means that the person who is sovereign has the right to do what they want to do. But the Calvinist view has introduced an element that doesn’t really belong to that term. And that is, it has not to do with their right to do it, but with the idea that they actually do everything that they can do. So the Calvinist believes that saying God is sovereign means that he is meticulously provident. That is, in every detail where he has the right to do something, he gets involved and intervenes and providentially makes things happen. Now, that’s a different concept than sovereignty. Sovereignty means that God can do whatever he wants to do. What he may or may not want to do is another question to be answered differently. But to a Calvinist, the idea that God is sovereign simply means that God makes everything happen that he wants to happen. Now, I believe God is absolutely sovereign. I don’t know that God intervenes at every point. I don’t think he does in every single thing. But in the case of the believer, he certainly has everything under control. The Bible says in Psalm 34, the angel of the Lord encamps around about those who fear him and delivers them. Those who fear God, God has angelic protection around them, so no harm can come to them unless God withdraws that, as he did, you know, he opened the way for Satan to hurt Job briefly, took away the hedge. It says in Psalm 91 that he has given his angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways, and in their hands they will bear you up lest you dash your foot against a stone. So, in other words, God has angels doing his will to protect you His people. That being so, we know that we cannot die unless God allows it to happen. Now, does God have in His mind, from the foundation of the earth, what day I would die? I’m not sure. The Bible doesn’t tell us whether He did or not. He might have. But I do know this, that whether He did or not, on any occasion where I might die, or when my life might be endangered, He has the ability, if He wishes, to intervene so as to remove the danger, or to protect me from it. There’s no thing can harm me unless God at least chooses to let it happen. And in my opinion, there are times when getting hurt or even dying is clearly God’s will for us. We have to die sometime. And therefore, I trust God. I trust his sovereignty. I trust his power that he won’t let anything happen to me other than what he sees as the best thing because he’s a loving God. I’m sorry I’m out of time. I can’t give a longer answer. I have lectures about that online. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us. Let’s talk again tomorrow.
