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In this episode of The Narrow Path, Steve Gregg dives deep into what it means to truly love in the Christian context, focusing on the instructions in Colossians 3. Join us as we discuss how Christian love transcends simple emotions like affection and delves into a divine characteristic integral to the Christian faith. Through insightful discussion, Steve explains how love, as illustrated in the Bible, is not merely an emotion but a commitment, often requiring a conscious decision to act in the best interests of others.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
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 we can interact in real time with callers like yourself, listeners who want to become callers. You can call in if you have questions about the Bible you’d like first to discuss. Challenges to the Bible are welcome. Challenges to my positions on anything are welcome. Feel free to call. If you have any interest… in theology or Bible or Christianity or ethics or Christian history, things like that. And so that’s really what we do. And if you’re new, we welcome you. We hope you become a regular listener and caller when you need to be. If you want to call, we have some lines open right now. Those lines are accessed at this number, 844-484. 5737. Once again, that’s 844-484-5737. I need to announce for those people who live in Southern California, and there’s a lot of people living in Southern California, that we have a Bible study for men in Temecula once a month on Saturday mornings. The third Saturday of the month, which is this coming Saturday, And we welcome you to join us if you’re a man and want to drive to it. I say Southern California and not strictly Temecula, where we actually hold the meeting, only because people who come to that meeting are not necessarily from Temecula. They come from Los Angeles. They come from San Diego. They come from places further out. And so just anyone in Southern California who’s interested, men’s Bible study this Saturday morning, 8 o’clock. If you want to know where it is, go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. and look under announcements. You’ll find that information. And with that said, we’ll go directly to our phones and talk to Jack from Huntsville, Alabama. Jack, welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you, Steve, for taking my call. I wanted to ask you about your understanding of what love means in Colossians chapter 3, where it tells us to… beyond Christian behavior listed in verses 12 and 13, kindness, humbleness, etc., we are to put on love. And I wonder how you would define that love, what motivates that love, and what is it?
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. Well, love, such as Paul is referring to here, which is agape, of course, is not something that Paul assumes to be generated by simply our willpower. Sometimes kind behaviors to other people can be generated by mere willpower. When he says, put on tender mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, bearing with one another, forgiving one another. Actually, this is something you can do. You have a choice to do. But the capstone of all of this, and that under which all of these things naturally arise is agape. I mean, you can, without loving people, you can still be kind to them. You can still be patient with them. You can be generous to them. You can be that way whether you love someone or not. But you can’t have agape toward them if you don’t love them because agape is love. It’s the kind of love that Paul thinks we have as a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Of course, John is the one who told us in 1 John 4, 7 that God is love. And Paul has told us in 1 Corinthians 13 that love is the greatest thing of all. And if he has love, I should say if he doesn’t have love, it doesn’t matter what else he has. He has nothing. He is nothing without love. Jesus said in John 13, 34 and 35 that this is how all men will know that you’re Christians, that by love. your love that you have for one another. So this is a distinctive Christian thing. There are non-Christians who have an emotion that they call love, and that’s fine. That’s good. Love is nice. It’s a very pleasant thing to be in love or to love someone. It’s certainly better than hating somebody, especially if you have to live around them. But love makes life pleasant, but that’s not the kind of love that the Bible is talking about. Jesus and John and Paul all emphasize it’s a Christian distinctive. Agape love is the Christian distinctive because it’s the nature of God himself. The Bible says, who that does not love does not know God in 1 John 4, 8. So if you don’t know love, if you don’t have this agape, you don’t know God. On the other hand, he says everyone who does love is born of God and knows God. So this is something that is only the case with people who are born again. So besides being just a nice person, being warmly disposed and affectionate towards somebody, those are kinds of love. It’s just not the kind of love that the Bible says is unique love. that distinguishes a person as a Christian. Now, what is love then that distinguishes it? It’s the character of God himself. God is agape. God is love. And therefore, we don’t have that by nature until we have a second nature, until we are partakers of the divine nature, as 2 Peter 1.4 talks about. God’s nature is given to us by the infusion into our lives of the Holy Spirit. by regeneration, and by the empowering of the Spirit, to walk in the Spirit, who produces the fruit of the Spirit. That is to say, if we’re walking in the Spirit, if we’re filled with the Spirit, we are then going to be producing, like a tree produces fruit quite naturally without effort, we’re going to be producing this kind of love, because that’s going to be what’s in us. We’re being changed into the image of Christ, and that is the function. That is the main function a characteristic of the character of Christ that manifests in us when we are changed. But 2 Corinthians 3.18 says we’re being changed through the Holy Spirit. He says we’re being changed from glory to glory into the image of Christ, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. So having the love of Christ. Remember, Jesus said, this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. So it’s not just that you feel affection toward God. Others, as all people do towards somebody or another, but that you love people the way Jesus did. That when they crucify you, you still, quite naturally, what comes out of your heart is, Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they do. An example of a Christian like that is Stephen, who was being stoned to death, and he just said, Father, do not lay this sin to their charge. That’s the character of Christ in that man. You know, when you’re squeezed like a sponge, whatever you’re saturated with is what comes out. And so when you’re under pressure, and let’s say people are throwing stones at you to kill you, or they’ve hung you on a cross, or they’re doing some other thing to you that’s unpleasant, which may be far less than that, you are under pressure. And what will come out of you is love, if you are filled with the Holy Spirit, because God is love. Now, therefore, when Paul says, you know, above all things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection, He’s saying that it’s not just enough to do these other things which represent kindness and decency, which you should be doing anyway, but you need to make sure that these things are colored by, maybe generated by, something else that you as a Christian have, and that is because you’re filled with the Holy Spirit and you have the fruit of the Spirit, which is love. Now, what that looks like, what that means, well, it’ll make you do all those things he’s just said. I mean, if you really love someone, you’ll be generous toward them, you’ll be patient toward them, you’ll be, you know, whatever, forgiving of them. The things that Paul lists there, that’s what love looks like. But it’s more than just what it looks like, because love isn’t just something that is manifested in behavior or although it always will be, it’s not just that. It’s that which arises from a new nature, a nature that is generated and being fashioned in us by the Spirit of Christ to whom we yield and trust and upon whom we depend every day for everything. Now, I realize that might sound like labor intensive. I’ve got to consciously be thinking about trusting in God’s Spirit every day, every moment? Well, I don’t know about the conscious part. I think basically to form the habit usually requires a conscious effort. Say, I need to remember this. I need to remember to walk in the Spirit. I need to remember to trust God. I need to remember to ask God to give me the power through His Spirit. I need to remember to imitate Christ, whose Spirit is in me, and be like Him. I mean, obviously, when you have habits of mind before you’re a Christian, they don’t include that mental furniture that I just described. But when you become a Christian, and of course it’s not automatic, especially if you haven’t been raised Christian and it’s a new thing for you, you need to obviously remind yourself of that. It does become kind of an imposition on your thinking on a regular basis, consciously and deliberately. But honestly, it doesn’t take very long of doing that before God’s Spirit begins to, you know, transform you into the image of that which you have determined to cooperate with God in order to become. And God does change you to be like him. He does make you desire the good of others above your own. That’s the main thing. First of all, to desire God’s happiness above your own. That’s what it means to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. The other thing, love your neighbor as you love yourself, is to desire your neighbor’s happiness and well-being more than your own. And by happiness, I don’t mean, of course, that every frivolous thing they think would make them happy, you try to cater to. I mean what you know as a Christian is in the best interest of other people, including, let’s say, disciplining your children. You might say, well, that doesn’t make them very happy when I do that. Yeah, not in the short term, it doesn’t. But the Bible indicates that in the long term, it makes them much happier. It’s much more for their good. So in other words, you’re not just going to do the wishy-washy, kind-hearted thing, every impulse that comes up through your sentimentality. That’s not what love looks like. Love is doing for others what you know would be the best thing for them, even at your own expense and at the sacrifice of your own convenience, time and money. So, I mean, this is what Jesus did. This is what love looks like. We grow in that. I mean, it’s a fruit. Fruit shows up on a tree, but it has to ripen. And so it has to mature. And even the Bible talks about that, giving the example of a wheat harvest, how the wheat has to mature before it is harvested. But before that, it’s in the blade and then the head, and then eventually mature grain in the head. That’s spirituality.
SPEAKER 05 :
So can this love be without affection?
SPEAKER 03 :
Possibly. Possibly. I think… I mean, affection is obviously an emotion, right? I mean, affection means I feel affectionate towards somebody. I feel warm towards somebody. You like someone or you intensely like them. Right, right. It’s definitely an emotion. But love isn’t in itself an emotion. Love, I think, is conducive to producing such emotions. But love itself isn’t a further back condition. reorientation of not I but Christ, not I but that person will come first in my life. I’m going to treat them, even if I don’t like them, I’m going to treat them as somebody whose needs and destiny and well-being are as important as my own. And that’s what love is. That’s what loving your neighbor as yourself means, or as Jesus rephrased it in Matthew 7, 12, what you want people to do to you, do that to them. That’s the same thing as love your neighbor as you love yourself. It’s what you do to people. And there may be times when you do that in spite of the fact that the particular emotions that make this a pleasant thing to do are not present. You do it anyway. You do it because that’s what… You do it not because you’re legalistic. You might say, if I don’t feel warm towards somebody, how can I… How can I behave warmly toward them except in a legalistic way? No. People do that in a legalistic way sometimes. That’s not what’s recommended. What’s recommended here is you don’t feel naturally the warmth of emotion toward everybody. And that changes sometimes from day to day because our emotions, they blow in and they blow out with the wind. We’re very changeable in our emotions. So we can’t really allow our emotions to be determiner of our spiritual life because we sometimes have absolutely no control over what we feel but if we behave if we behave kindly toward them out of a commitment to their well-being not legalistically but because we have a commitment to their well-being even if we don’t feel warm toward them we still recognize because we are Christians that they are made in God’s image God loves them Jesus died for them they are as important as we are
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s what I wanted to say. Couldn’t you use the motivation, the fact that they are created in God’s image and they have the potential of being a citizen in heaven and they’d be lovable, there’d be affection involved in that. You would like that about them.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, we would like to have affection toward them, but we don’t always. But, yeah, it is, in fact, the fact that they are made in God’s image is given by James in chapter 3. as one of the reasons to treat them well. In James 3.13, well, let me look further down.
SPEAKER 05 :
That would involve affection. That would be a very valuable thing.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Yeah, the verse I’m thinking of is James 3.13. 9 and following, he says, With our mouth we bless God the Father, and with the same mouth we curse men who have been made after the similitude or likeness of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. This should not be, my brothers. So, you know, he says we should not curse men with the same mouth that we bless God with since those men are made in the image of God. And so, you know, yeah. Now, let me just say, There’s no reason to believe that Jesus liked everybody. He loved everybody. And he said, greater love has no man than this. So he laid down his life for his friends. And Jesus was treating all people like friends. Even Judas in the garden. Jesus said to Judas when he betrayed him, friend. Do you betray the son of man with a kiss? Jesus adopted friends who had been his enemies, who made themselves enemies. He treated them like friends. He died for them. That’s love. But it doesn’t mean he felt great about it. In fact, we know he was sweating great drops of blood with the conflicts over it.
SPEAKER 05 :
You don’t think he had affection for everyone?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I don’t know how he felt about everyone. It’s possible. Sure, it’s absolutely possible that he did. Pardon me? He said he so loved the world. Right. He said he so loved the world, that God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son. Well, that’s just it. When you love someone, you do for them what they need. And by giving his son, God was definitely addressing the needs. But, see, I could do that for someone, even if I found them obnoxious. So long as I consider, okay, as obnoxious as this person is, as much as I don’t like them, and liking is entirely an emotion, as much as this person grates on my emotions, and I’m always relieved when they’re not here, you know, as much as that may be so, they are still a person made in God’s image. And therefore, that commitment is a commitment on my part to treat them as God would treat them, right? And so, I mean, treating someone well because you value them is not the same thing as saying you like them. Some people are very obnoxious. I don’t think when people were driving nails into Jesus’ hands, I don’t think he’s saying, hey, I like you guys. I really like you a lot. You guys are really giving me a lot of pleasure right now. Let’s hang out.
SPEAKER 05 :
But you could like them because they’re made in God’s image.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that’s not, okay, it depends on what you call like. If you’re calling like something other than I am, maybe. I consider liking something to be an emotion. Liking is an emotion. We have absolutely no control over what we have. Well, I shouldn’t say absolutely no control, but we have to a very large degree no control over our emotions. Those things, they come and they go. I appreciate your call. I hope it helps. Donald in Long Beach, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hello, Steve. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for the privilege of being able to talk to you briefly and answer my question. Okay, my topic of my question is along the lines of eternal security. Even though I don’t believe in that, I believe that someone can walk away from the faith. But before I ask my question and have you explain it, I just want to preface real quick. Years ago, I read a lot of sermons from Spurgeon, and I heard Spurgeon, you know, trying to educate some young pastors. And when they give Bible sermons, he said, Every message that you give, every sermon that you give, you should always try to find a road to the cross somewhere in your message. The reason I bring that up is sometimes I hear pastors in every book of the Bible they’re in, they always try to find the road to you can never lose your salvation. It’s kind of funny. Anyways, my question is on the word sanctified. When I read Hebrews 10, 26, 6 through 30, and verse 30 says, God will judge his people. Verse 29, the word sanctified. I read a commentary where this commentator said that word sanctified in the Greek is the same as the word sanctified in 1 Corinthians 7.14 about an unbelieving husband or wife, their believing husband or believing wife. will sanctify them. You know, can you comment on that? I believe, you know, aren’t they set apart for salvation by God? Didn’t they have faith in Hebrews 10, 29? And then how can you make that comparison with an unbelieving spouse? And what does that really mean in 1 Corinthians 7, 14? Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, first of all, the word sanctified, no doubt, is the same Greek word every time it occurs in your English translation. Being the same word, though, doesn’t mean that in different contexts it will always have the same meaning. I mean, the meaning is set apart. That’s what sanctified means. It means set apart. Principally, it means set apart for God. So that the tabernacle was sanctified. Sanctified means holy. Holy means… is a very close, similar root word in the Greek and the Hebrew to the word sanctified. The word sanctified means to be made holy, and the word holy means to be set apart. Now, generally speaking, set apart means set apart for God or for special purposes. Now, you know, when the Bible talks about us being sanctified, in Hebrews especially, it seems to me that the whole idea of getting saved sanctifies us or sets us apart for God. Now, that just means we’re in a different category than all of the human beings. We have been claimed by God to be his special people, as others are not. We’ve been set apart from the rest of the world to be his special people. That’s what sanctified means. Now, it can be used in various ways. Peter says in 1 Peter 1, you know, as he who has called you is holy, so be ye holy also. in all manner of behavior. In other words, it’s not just the status that you were set apart, but you need to behave like it. That’s another aspect. It’s the same word as to be sanctified. It has ramifications on your behavior, although those ramifications arise from status. Because you have been put aside for God, then you need to live your life and make your decisions in life consistent with that condition of being set apart for God. Just like the cups and the bowls in the tabernacle were holy. Well, how could they be holy? They’re just cups and bowls. Well, because they were set apart for God. And therefore, they had to be used only for those things which cups and bowls set apart for God should be used for. And that’s the same thing with us. We’re set apart for God. And our bodies, our minds, our assets should be used only the way things that are set apart for God should be. Now, what about 1 Corinthians 7? Paul says that if a woman or a man is saved and married to an unsaved spouse, that by being in the home, they are sanctifying their spouse. And he says also, as a result, your children are also holy, which could be said to be sanctified too, which means this, I believe. I mean, someone could have a different meaning for it, but I don’t think they’d have good grounds to. I think it just means that a person, a non-believer who’s married to a Christian, is set apart from other non-believers in his circumstances to be dealt with by God because he lives under the same roof with somebody who follows Christ and who is exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit, exhibiting Christ to them and no doubt speaking to them of the things of Christ. They are kind of trapped. They’re kind of a captive audience. And they are thus in a different position than all other people who aren’t in such a captive situation to their spouse. So Paul is encouraging the Christian, even if the spouse is not saved, stay with them. Don’t leave them. Stay with them as long as they will stay. He says if they want to leave, let them go. That’s on them. But you don’t cause the divorce because you being in the house with them puts them in a different position than they would be if you weren’t there. Because with you there, they are set aside. for God to be dealing with them in a different way because they’re continually exposed to the gospel and its consequences in a person’s life and the children too. Now, some people go so far as to say, well, you know, if a non-Christian is married to a Christian, that means the non-Christian will get saved because they’re sanctified. Well, no, I think what Paul means is they could. In fact, he says that. How do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? In the very context, the very same passage. How do you know, O man, whether you’ll save your wife? That is, you don’t know if you will or not. There’s no guarantees about this. But certainly your goal is that this would be the case. And, you know, if you left the marriage, then the opportunity to do that would seem to be greatly diminished, if not entirely eliminated. So he’s saying don’t leave them. Because you don’t know, but you might get them saved. And he says they’re already sanctified, in a sense, by being in the marriage. They might even get saved. So being sanctified isn’t the same thing as a guarantee of getting saved in that particular usage of the word. I think what he’s simply saying is those people are kind of set apart from other secular people because they’re locked in a habitation with the gospel. In their spouse’s life. And I don’t think that’s any guarantee that they’ll convert. Though, of course, many times they do. But that’s not what Paul’s guaranteeing. He’s simply saying they’re in a situation that God has put them in, set apart for special dealings, which may result in their salvation. And you don’t want to interfere with that unless they themselves leave the marriage. That’s what Paul, I think, says. I appreciate your call, Donald. I’ve got to take this break. And we have another half hour coming up for more calls. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We are listener supported. If you’d like to write to us, you can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or you can donate from our website, which is thenarrowpath.com. Everything at the website is free, so you don’t have to donate. Thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds, and we have another half hour, so don’t go away. Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Toward a Radically Christian Counterculture, as well as hundreds of other stimulating lectures, can be downloaded in MP3 format without charge from the Narrow Path website, www.thenarrowpath.com. There is no charge for anything at the Narrow Path website. Visit us and be amazed at all you’ve been missing. That web address, www.thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Craig, and we are still taking calls for another half hour. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, the number to reach me here is 844-484-5737. Our next caller today is Mark in West Hartford, Connecticut. Hi, Mark. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hello, Steve. My question has to do with the dating throughout the Bible. Most of the dating is usually relative to a sovereign’s reign. There’s never a numeral date that I have not seen within the Bible itself. So my curiosity was, why is it that the Jews, let’s say, of Old Testament times, did they have a number date that they would work at that point? And then we come to the birth of Christ, and… Now we have a number of dates going from his birth to our date and also from his birth back to, let’s say, when David reigned and whatnot. So why wouldn’t, if we got the date at zero when Christ was born and David was, I don’t know what, 1600 years before Christ, why wouldn’t we just add 1600 to the zero and then work off of that? So we’re at 2000. it would be, you know, 3600 would be the date of, or 3625 of 26 of today’s date. What I’m trying to get is, the question is basically, why isn’t there any numeral dating throughout the Bible outside of, you know, off of the sovereign’s reign?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you know, I’m not sure what else you would mark it from. In the Old Testament, Jesus had not yet come. So they didn’t say, Like in 2 Kings, it won’t say, in the year 593 B.C., this happened. Well, because B.C. means before Christ. 506, so many years before Christ, they didn’t know how long it would be until Christ. So they did what everyone did. If you’re going to number dates, you’re going to have to have a starting point that everyone considers to be a sensible place to look at it.
SPEAKER 07 :
So in the time of Abraham, did he not have a basis to know how long whatever the world has been? Did he not have a date?
SPEAKER 03 :
He might have. I don’t know how many people would. The Bible never tells us what year the earth came about. I’ll tell you this. The Jewish calendar is different than ours because they don’t recognize Christ, so they don’t divide the years between before and after Christ. For example, this year for us, it’s 2026, the year of our Lord. That is during the reign of Christ. The reign of Christ has been 2,026 years so far. And that’s dating the same way they did from the Old Testament, from the third year of Hezekiah, or from the second year of any particular king, Zechariah, or whatever king you want. You know, they start with the reign of a king because that affects everybody, and you’ve got to start somewhere. Now, they could have started with the Exodus. I don’t know. They didn’t. The Jews’ calendar, I think, starts at the assumed creation date, though I don’t think most Jews believe that creation happened 6,000 years ago. But the current year, according to the Jewish calendar right now, is 5786, which is, of course, almost 6,000, and obviously dating from the creation of the world. But I don’t know that, you know, I mean, as far as when the creation of the world took place, I don’t know if ancient Jews had worked out the numbers for that like later Jews did. And the later Jews might not have gotten it right, for all we know. They worked, obviously, from the genealogies and things like that. But, I mean, the reason that dates in the Bible are dated from the beginning of the reign of a king is is, first of all, they have to start with something. And secondly, the reign of the king is the most important current, you know, reality for the people living under that reign. So that’s pretty much… And if they say, well, this happened in the seventh year of Josiah, and this other thing happened in, you know, the first year of Manasseh or something, or vice versa, you know, well, people… people are going to relate those events with the reign of that king, and that’s why they used it. And we still do, because the number 2026 A.D. literally means the 2026th year of Christ’s reign, because Christ assumed his throne at his ascension, and it’s been 226 or more years since then. And so that’s how things are. That’s just a convention. We don’t have to do it that way, but that’s how it’s been chosen to be done.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right. When did the early church begin to number the dates from Christ’s birth as opposed to adding them to the reigns of other kings?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, why would they add them to the reigns of other kings, I mean, in a sense? I mean, first of all, all the kings of Israel and Judah ceased to exist about 586 B.C. So by the time Christ came… It had been over half a millennium since anyone was dating anything from Jewish kings. They were, of course, in a particular year of Tiberius Caesar. You know, Jesus began his ministry, according to Luke, I think it was the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar or something like that. I mean, Caesar was the king they were measuring from in those days, and everybody had that date as a point of reference. Yeah, I mean, as far as when they started dating from the birth of Christ, I’ve read that somewhere. It’s a few centuries later. Someone decided they figured out what they thought was the year that Jesus was born, and they started dating from then. Especially when the Roman Empire became Christian, the reign of Christ became more significant to them than the reign of Caesar.
SPEAKER 07 :
And didn’t think it necessary, apparently, to add it to the previous years before Christ to get another…
SPEAKER 03 :
Then that would really confuse things. That would really confuse things. Okay, so in other words, if you say, thinking about Christ’s reign, it’s been, let’s say, 300 years ago. Thinking about Christ’s reign, this is the year 300. But considering the reign of David, this is the year 1300. Now, from the reign of Solomon, this is the year 1260 or something. I mean, why? Why would they have so many starting points? I mean, the dates in their calendars and on their histories already existed as established dates before Jesus came. I can’t imagine why they’d want to go back and change everything on all the calendars of the world. You know, Jesus began reigning not before he was born. He began reigning after he was born. So that’s why they don’t add the numbers before that to the date, because the date is saying how long it is that Christ has been on the throne. And that’s been 20, 26 years, roughly. I mean, the number’s not exactly right. But that’s the justification for using that number. All right. Let’s talk to Jarge in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Forgive me if I misspelled or mispronounced your name. Welcome.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hello.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi, how are you?
SPEAKER 03 :
I’m fine. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 09 :
I have a question about the thousand years. that the Bible talks about. Are we in the beginning or at the end of the thousand years, or we haven’t get there yet?
SPEAKER 03 :
Of what years? The thousand years?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, there’s a prophecy about a thousand years where Christ is going to reign on the earth.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that’s what we’re sometimes told, it says. Actually, there’s no prophecy in the Bible that says Christ is going to reign for a thousand years on the earth. The only place that mentions a thousand years as a time frame is Revelation 20. So you get through all the books of the Bible and almost all the way through the last book of the Bible before you ever hear about a thousand year reign. And you finally get to it just two chapters before the Bible is over in Revelation 20. Now, it does say that the saints reign with Christ for a thousand years. That’s what Revelation 20 says. It doesn’t say they reigned on earth with him for a thousand years. In fact, John says that he saw the souls of those who were martyred for Christ. Now, the disembodied souls of the martyrs, those are not here on earth. They’re in heaven. And it says, I saw the souls of those who were beheaded for Christ, and they reigned with Christ for the thousand years. So the reign in Revelation 20 does not appear to be discussing an earthly reign. Now, if somebody wants to say, well… the thousand years there is an earthly reign, but it’s also, of course, the departed saints are reigning in heaven too during that time, so both could be true. Well, I suppose both could be true, and since that is the case, many people have felt they should argue for an earthly reign of a thousand years. Although the Bible never specifically mentions one, you might as well, if you’re going to hold that view, imply it or assume it or whatever. Now, there’s only one place that the thousand-year reign of Christ is mentioned, and it’s not mentioned as being on earth. Revelation 20 does not mention Jesus being on earth at that time. It does not mention there being a reign on earth at that time. We could say, well, it doesn’t deny it, and that’s true, it doesn’t. So a person could read that in. I, generally speaking, prefer viewpoints that don’t require me to read things into a passage that have no basis for being read into them. And therefore, I’m not what we call a premillennialist. The premillennialist believes that when Jesus returns, this chapter, Revelation 20, will be fulfilled in him setting up an earthly reign of a thousand years on this planet. Again, the passage doesn’t say that anywhere, but that’s basically what they believe, and so that’s called the premillennial. Millennium, of course, means a thousand years. So they believe in a premillennial return of Christ. He’s going to come back before the millennium. This has not been the majority view of the church throughout history, but it is a very popular one now, and it was also somewhat popular in the early centuries of the church. There were different views. But for most of church history, the view that was dominant has been that the thousand years is symbolic of the age between the first and the second coming of Christ. The binding of Satan being symbolic for what Christ did in defeating Satan at his first coming. And then at the end of the thousand years. In verse 9 of Revelation 20, there’s fire from heaven comes down and destroys Satan and the enemy. And, of course, Paul said that’s what happens at the second coming of Christ. In 2 Thessalonians 1.8, Jesus will come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who don’t know God and who don’t obey the gospel. So, you know, the view of the church through most of history has been that, you know, the time between the first coming of Christ where he bound Satan and the second coming of Christ where he comes in fire and destroys Satan, That’s the 1,000 years, so the church age, some people would call it. Now, you might say, but that’s been more than 1,000 years. It has. It has, and it might be much more before it’s done. But the number 1,000 is, generally speaking, not something you find literally used in the Bible. 1,000 is a very nice round number, and it’s used a number of times, but as far as I know, never, except in maybe a census or something where there’s actual statistics given. It’s always used… Basically, figuratively, to just mean a very long time. Someone says a day to the Lord is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day. It just means that what’s a long time to us is a short time for God, is basically what it’s saying. When it says that God keeps covenant for a thousand generations, well, a thousand is a round number. It’s not exact. A day in his courts is better than a thousand years. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. The number thousand in the Bible is almost, I don’t think it’s ever used literally unless it’s in one of the censuses where there were a thousand of these people as opposed to all the different numbers of the other peoples. So when thousand is contrasted with other more precise numbers, I would take it literally. But when it’s used in poetry or in apocalyptic literature or impressionistically, then I don’t think we are expected to take it literally, but to see it simply as an indefinite, very large number. So that’s what I think about the thousand years. I think it’s the age we’re living in. I appreciate your call. I hope that helps. If you want a deeper dive into this, I have lectures at my website, thenarrowpath.com. Under the Topical Lectures series, there’s a series called When Shall These Things Be? It deals with all the eschatological topics, the rapture, the tribulation, the millennium, the final judgment, That kind of stuff. The series is called When Shall These Things Be? It’s at our website, thenarrowpath.com, under the tab that says Topical Lectures. You’ll find there more than one lecture about the millennium, and I do go into these things in considerably more depth than I can here in this format on the show. I hope that helps you. Let’s talk to Steve in Bryan, Ohio. Steve, welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, so… In Revelation chapter 22 verse 19 is a very strict warning not to take words out of the book of prophecy. That person’s part will be taken out of the book of life and out of the holy city. Apparently these words teach that that person will not go to heaven if you take words out away from the book of Revelation. I notice in the very last book, the very last verse of the very last book of the Bible, Revelation 22, 21, Christ has been taken out of many of the Bibles, such as the New American Standard, the New International Version, the Message, the Living Translation, Contemporary English Version, New Century Version, and others. What’s your opinion of this? It seems that the devil is attempting to sneak something in there, the very last verse of the Bible. He wants to take out the primary reason for the Bible, Christ. He wants to try to take that word out.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I’m not sure I see it that way. There are manuscripts of the book of Revelation that contain the word Christ in that verse, but the oldest ones we have don’t. And the reason that some English Bibles don’t have it is because they’re seeking to be faithful to the oldest manuscripts. Now, whether that’s a good project or not, maybe the manuscripts that aren’t the oldest, maybe they should be preferred, that’s always been debated. But nobody is, no English translator is adding or subtracting the word Christ from that verse in the Greek manuscripts they’re using. Some manuscripts have it, some don’t. Now, why do some have it and some don’t? Well, somebody obviously either added it or subtracted it somewhere back, you know, hundreds of years ago when this was being copied. Someone either added it and it wasn’t in the original or it was in the original and someone left it out because that’s the only way we could have two different versions in different manuscripts. Now, since we don’t know who, you know, we don’t know which one is really original, But most scholars think that the version that didn’t have the word Christ in it is the original form, and that somebody later added the word Christ. We don’t know if they’re right or not. And, you know, so we really can’t know who to blame if there’s anyone to be blamed at all. For example, it seems strange to suggest that somebody would have some nefarious intent in taking the word Christ out of this particular verse. when they don’t take it out of any of the other, or most of the other verses in the Bible that have Christ. I mean, in other words, if somebody’s trying to tamper with the Bible, and the way they specifically want to tamper it is to get rid of the word Christ, they wouldn’t do it just in this one verse. The other several hundred times that the word of Christ appears in the New Testament, they’d have to take it out of there too, and they didn’t. These older manuscripts don’t. There are a few other verses, I think, where the word Christ is not found in the older manuscripts, but it’s not… it’s not less likely that the original said, the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you all, and some overzealous scribe added the word Christ. I mean, we don’t know. There’s certainly nothing in the verse that itself would tell us whether the word Christ was originally in it or not. So this is the issue. So did someone take it out? Maybe. Did somebody add it? Possibly. But did somebody do it for sinister reasons? Almost certainly not. I’m sure that whoever did it was being as faithful to the text as they knew how to be. I mean, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt, and they might have been not good people at all. But if they were not good people, we certainly don’t find any evidence of that in this particular case. Because those versions that leave out the word Christ here, they are being faithful, in fact, to the oldest manuscripts that we have. Those who have the word Christ are being faithful to other manuscripts that are not quite so old, but which they trust. The point is, translators usually use the manuscripts they think are best, even if they make a mistake. I appreciate your call. Let’s see. Tony in Orcas Island, Washington. Hi, Tony. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Oh, hi.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, so glad to get a hold of you. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit and sinned, they… knew they were naked, and they heard the Lord walking. And I’m curious, was it Jesus that they heard walking? Because the Father is a spirit.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. Now, God, on many occasions, I don’t know if I should say many, but a number of occasions, I suppose more than one would be many, even one would be a lot, comes to earth in a human form. and interacts with people like Abraham. We read in Genesis 18.1 that Abraham saw the Lord, and he looked up from his tent and saw three men. One of them was Yahweh, and the other two were angels. Jacob wrestled with a man all night and identified that man as God. He says, I’ve seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. And that man changed his name, and Jacob accepted his authority to do that and called himself Israel after that. Similar things happened to Manoah and his wife, the parents of Samson. And from time to time, people did have visitations from God where he appeared in a physical form. Now, you’re right. God is a spirit and does not essentially have physical form. At least that’s what… Christian theology teaches and seems to agree with what Jesus said about God being a spirit. But that doesn’t mean that he can’t take on, for the sake of making himself visible or audible, a visible or audible form, or both. That is, God can appear in what the theologians refer to as theophanies. The word theophany means an appearance of God. And God appears. And when he appears, he could appear as in an ethereal, non-physical form. In fact, sometimes people like Isaiah and others have seen visions of God where he wasn’t probably physically manifested. It’s probably just a visual thing that God’s revealing to their mind, like a dream. But other times, God does appear in visible form. And whenever God appears in that kind of a form, whether it’s a human form or as a pillar of cloud or pillar of fire or some other form that’s visible. We call those theophanies. Now, therefore, I think that when God was walking in the garden, he was, no doubt, in a physical form. Probably so. So he could interact with the physical people that he was in a relationship with. But this would be a theophany. God is not essentially physical. But he can do whatever he wants to, including appear or take on a momentary physical manifestation of himself anytime he wants to. Now, is this Jesus? Some Christians think so. In fact, a lot of Christians think so. Since Jesus is God and existed as the Word of God from the beginning, that is before Adam and Eve existed, some people believe that when we talk about theophanies, We should really be using the word Christophany, which means not appearance of God, but appearance of Christ, meaning the appearance of the second person of the Trinity, the Word of God, in a human form, which would be no more impossible than the other thing we were talking about. I mean, if God appears that way or Christ appears that way prior to his incarnation, it would make no difference. However, I think in most cases we don’t have… the kind of information given to us in the text that would make us certain to say this is a Christophany rather than a Theophany. And because we’re not told, in fact, in most cases we’re not even given hints, we would be probably at liberty to imagine that it’s just God taking on a human form or Christ himself, also God at that time, revealing himself prior to his incarnation in his earthly life. Now, Some people might say, well, there’s reason to believe it is Christ because, A, for example, God, Yahweh, who appeared on earth to Abram in chapter 18, is the Yahweh who in chapter 19 of Genesis sent fire from heaven. And it says, so Yahweh sent fire from heaven from Yahweh, or sent fire from Yahweh in heaven. And the way that’s worded, some people think, oh, well, there’s kind of two Yahwehs here. There’s the Yahweh who’s on earth. meeting with Abraham and so forth and going to Sodom, and then he’s sending fire from Yahweh in heaven. So, I mean, there are people, I’ve heard numerous theologians have thought this is referring to two Yahwehs and the one on earth, no doubt, a reference to Christ. But I’m not sure that wording necessarily justifies that conclusion. I’m not against it. I just don’t, I wouldn’t go there with any confidence because I don’t think that can be, I don’t think that point can be made with certainty from the wording. But it is interesting that when Jacob wrestled with that man that he later called God, and it was a physical, you know, altercation, because Jacob was physically crippled by the touch he received during that fight. He asked the man, what is your name? And the man said, why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful? Now, that’s how it reads in the King James English. There’s modern translations might say secret. But in the King James, people who’ve read that, whoa, his name is wonderful? Who’s that? You know, Jesus’ name is wonderful. Although we have to say that the word wonderful there in Genesis is a different Hebrew word than the word wonderful in Isaiah chapter 9 and verse 7, where it says his name shall be called wonderful. So it might be a similar concept, might be the same concept, but it’s a different word. Hebrew word. So, I mean, there are hints that have led some people to think, yeah, this is an appearance of Christ walking in the garden in these Theophanies. We should call them Christophanies. But frankly, those hints are not something you could go to the mat about with confidence, in my opinion. All right. Thank you for your call. There’s another Tony. Our last caller was Tony in Washington. This is Tony from Danville, California. But I have to say, Tony, we don’t really have much time. Do you have a short question? If not, we can hold it until tomorrow.
SPEAKER 05 :
Probably until tomorrow.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, yeah, so we can give you more time and end with dignity. All right, then this is our last call of the day. And we have probably in just about a minute we’ll be hearing our music playing. So I’ll just tell our audience that if you’re not familiar with our mobile app, you really should be. It’s free, of course, like most apps are. And it contains, it accesses you to everything on our website, which means archives of this radio program going back many years. Thousands of programs are archived there. And you can go to them there. You can call live from the app and be on the show when it’s on the air. You can listen to all the lectures at the website at And there are links there from the app to our YouTube channel and several other valuable auxiliary sites that have features that you’d be amazed about if you checked them out. Now, how do you get our app? You don’t go to the App Store, and you don’t go to Google Play. You go to your browser. Go to Safari or Google or something on your phone, and go to the website thenarrowpath.app. thenarrowpath.app. and it’ll show you how to download it to your phone. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Have a great evening.
