Join Steve Gregg on today’s episode of the Narrow Path as we dive into engaging discussions with callers from around the country. Topics range from profound theological questions like the salvation of babies to the nuanced interpretation of scriptural texts such as the harmony of the Gospels. Guest callers bring to the table challenging inquiries concerning their understanding of key biblical concepts, making for an enlightening and thought-provoking session.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
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. We take your phone calls during this hour and you can ask questions about things in the Bible that disturb you or confuse you and we’ll talk about them together. If you are not a Christian and the whole Bible confuses or disturbs you, feel free to call me about that. I’d be glad to talk to you about that as well. If you disagree with the host… on any point that you’ve ever heard me say on the air or heard me say elsewhere, feel free to give me a call. I’ll be glad to talk to you about that as well. So there’s wide open opportunities here. And speaking of opportunities, this is the first day this week that I can say our lines are not full at the moment. We have fully, I think, it looks like we have three lines open right now, which is pretty unusual and a great opportunity for you. I talked to somebody today who said they had Tried to call in several times and always found the lines busy. Well, if you call right now, you won’t. We do have calls waiting, but we have some open lines as well. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. A couple of announcements. One of them, this is the last time I’ll be making it because it’s happening tonight. Tonight at 7 p.m. Pacific time, we have our monthly Zoom meeting. Now, the Zoom meeting is a lot like the show. People ask questions and we talk about them. And how it’s different is we’re not limited strictly to an hour to do it. And we can see each other and talk to each other more or less face-to-face on Zoom. So that’s what we do once a month. There’s also, that’s tonight at 7, and then coming up in less than a week now, six days from now, next Tuesday, or I guess we could say this Tuesday, there is going to be a talk I’m giving in Southern California, in San Juan Capistrano, at the Ranch Church. That’s the Ranch Church in San Juan Capistrano. I’m giving a talk on the Four Views of Revelation. And we welcome you to join us. Now, I talked to somebody from there today, and I guess I’d heard, but I wasn’t sure if this was open to everybody. I had heard there’s going to be like a meal served, provided at 530. The meeting, the talk, is from 6 to 8. So this is next Tuesday. From 6 o’clock to 8 o’clock, I’ll talk on the four views. But the half hour before that, they’ll be serving food, but they need to know how many people are coming. So it’s kind of a sign up for it, but it’s free. So if you’d like to come, there’s information about that, and there’s also information about our Zoom meeting, how to log into that. Both are found at our website under the tab that says announcements. So we always have that announcement tab there that will inform you of anything that’s coming up that I’ll be doing. And so tonight, the Zoom meeting, Tuesday, we’ll be having this talk on Revelation at the Ranch Church in San Juan Capistrano, California, with a meal served in the half hour prior. So we would love to see you there. You have to kind of contact them to let them know you want to come because they will then be prepared to feed you. All right. Enough announcements. We’ve got our lines full now. So let’s talk to… Let’s see. Jimmy in Staten Island, New York. Hi, Jimmy. Welcome.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi, Steve. May I ask you a follow-up question from Monday regarding babies?
SPEAKER 04 :
Sure.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, great. I believe a baby in the womb needs to be saved by Jesus through preaching and prayer. If you agree, why? If not, why not? And one more question. Are pre-born babies in Christ or in Adam? Regarding 1 Corinthians 15, 22. I’m going to hang up and take my answer over to you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, that’s fine. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Do babies have to be saved through Christ? Yes. Do they have to be preached to? I don’t know what good that would do. Babies don’t understand any language when they’re born. They still need to be saved by Christ, but Christ is quite capable of doing that. Christ died for everybody, and therefore Christ can save anyone who he sees as innocent or anyone he sees as worthy or anyone that he really wants to save. I mean, as long as there’s no impediment to it. I don’t know of any impediment in a newborn baby resisting God or somehow rejecting Christ’s sacrifice. So, yeah, babies need to be saved by Christ just like everyone does. There’s no salvation apart from Christ. The question is, will some people be saved by Christ? who have never had the gospel preached to them. In my opinion, a baby that dies, who knows nothing, I believe they’re saved by Christ. Now, you said our newborn baby is born in Adam or in Christ. Kind of both. I mean, there’s a sense in which I’m in Adam. I’m still going to die physically. I’m physically descended from Adam, but I have a different status, a more important status, and that is I am now in Christ, the second Adam, so that even if I die, I will live, the Bible says. And so I have status as a son of Adam, which is why my body is decaying and will someday stop breathing. But, you know, Christ was in Adam, too, by the way. But I’m now in Christ, which I consider to be a subcategory. Now, I could be wrong. I mean, it’s frankly a theoretical question. It doesn’t really have any impact on the way we live. But But as far as explaining mysterious things, that’s how I would look at it. Now, Romans, you mentioned 1 Corinthians 15. I was thinking of Romans 5 because we talked about that last time. It also is relevant to this. But in 1 Corinthians 15, it says that in Adam, all die, verse 22. Even so, in Christ, all shall be made alive. Okay? Okay. So actually in verse 22, the Greek term, in Adam all are dying, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. So we’re all dying in Adam. Our bodies, as they are now in their natural state, are definitely Adamic. We have Adam’s physical nature and so forth, and they are dying. Now, a baby when he’s born is in Adam in that sense. But I believe they’re also, I don’t think they’re in Christ in the sense that we are, because we come to be in Christ when we’re regenerated and when we become part of his body. In fact, I think that’s what being in Christ means, being in his body, being in one of his organs, part of him. Just like my organs are in me and your organs are in you. So all Christians who are in the body of Christ are in Christ. Now, what about people like babies that die and they’ve never been part of the body of Christ? Well, I don’t know that I can speak for God on this because the Bible doesn’t answer it in so many terms. I can only answer according to a general sense that I have of what the Bible would imply. I believe that a child, a baby, can be saved by the mercy of God through Christ. without having had the experience of being in the body of Christ. I believe that’s true of people in the Old Testament, too. The Old Testament saints are saved by the mercy of God and on the merits of Christ. But as near as I can tell, they were never in the body of Christ. They were never in Christ. Now, I could be wrong about that because the Bible doesn’t, to my mind, speak in those terms unambiguously. And so, you know, you’re just asking my thoughts about that. And I, as I often say, and the world’s greatest authority on my own opinion. So that would be my opinion. I think a baby can be saved by Christ without ever having been converted, without ever having come to be in the body of Christ or in Christ in that sense that we are. But saved means, of course, that if they die, they are under the mercy of God. They are under what Christ has done. And one reason I would say that is because when it talks about Adam and Christ in Romans chapter 5, which is where I thought you were going to go, but there’s two passages, one 1 Corinthians 15 and one Romans 5, that talks about Adam and Christ. But it seems to be saying that what Adam did to man was less extensive and less significant than what Christ did. I mean, some of this language in Romans 5 is very difficult to follow Paul’s train of thought. But he does say this in Romans 5.15, but the free gift is not like the offense. That is, the free gift that comes in Christ is not identical in terms of extent and so forth as the offense of Adam, how he impacted us. He says, for if by one man’s offense, that is Adam’s, many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace By the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. So all experienced death because of what Adam did. But much more, Christ did much more for the race than Adam did against it. And there’s more places where Paul talks about much more. We find that earlier in the chapter, too, that much more. Like in chapter 5, verse 8 and 9, God demonstrated his own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us much more than, having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. This much more seems to be something that Paul’s trying to get across. Adam did a great deal of damage for the human race. It affected every human being. But Christ did much more to counteract Adam. Now, if Adam’s actions affected every human being, and Christ’s actions affected only a few, then we’d have to say Adam did much more. to condemn the world than Christ did to redeem it. If Adam was able to condemn everybody and Christ was only able to redeem some, I mean, if that was God’s plan, fine. God’s welcome to do it. He’s sovereign. If God wants to only save a few of the people or only make salvation available to a few people, even though Adam did much more, that’s fine, but you wouldn’t be saying that Jesus did much more than Adam. You’d be saying he did actually much less. At least he did something. At least he did something to save a few. But I believe that Christ’s death is capable of saving all. But just like Adam’s sin was a choice, and those of us who sin do so by choice, so also being in Christ is something we do by choice, and not all make the same choice. But to suggest that Jesus didn’t die for everybody and didn’t make salvation and justification available to everybody, when in fact Adam made condemnation available to everybody, in fact imposed it on us, would be to say, well, Jesus, you know, he tried to cut his losses. He did the best he could. Jesus, you know, of course he couldn’t do as much good for mankind as Adam did harm, but you know, he kind of minimized the damage by dying for some. Now, that’s not the way Paul talks. So I believe that, you know, as children are born under the effects and the damage that Adam has done, I think now that Christ has come, children are born also under the grace that Christ has brought. But I believe they do reach an age of accountability, at which time they reject that grace, and they choose the dark path, and they They bring condemnation upon themselves. And this would be agreeable with what Jesus taught about condemnation. In John chapter 3, he says in verse 17, For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He who believes in him is not condemned, but he who does not believe… that is, whoever would disbelieve, is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation. Okay, so the world is condemned. What condemns them? What is the thing that results in condemnation for a person in the fertile world? This is the condemnation, that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. So I believe that little babies don’t have much light. I think babies are born kind of ignorant, in fact, almost completely ignorant. Eventually, they come to a place where light comes into their world, where the knowledge of Christ or of God is accessible to them, where they have moral sense. And that’s what we call the age of accountability. And then, of course, if they love darkness when the light has come, that’s what condemns them. They weren’t condemned at birth. They were innocent at birth. But But Jesus said, this is what condemnation is, when light comes and a person hates the light and chooses the darkness. That’s when they’re condemned. And that agrees with what Paul said also in Romans chapter 1, where he said, when he’s talking about how, you know, we need redemption because of the condemnation, the wrath of God that’s upon us. But he said in verse 18, Romans 1, 18, for the wrath of God. is revealed from heaven against what? All ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. So that’s like the people, they have the light, but they don’t want the light. They reject the light. They hide from the light. They love the darkness. These are people who suppress the truth. Now, by the way, you can’t suppress truth if you’ve never been exposed to it. You can’t suppress something that you don’t have any access to. But when the truth comes to you, when the light comes to you, if you suppress it, well, the wrath of God is against those who do that. This is the condemnation, Jesus says. So Paul and Jesus both agree that condemnation comes upon people when they have enough light or truth to reject it, and they do so. And frankly, all men have done that in some measure once they’ve reached the point that they can, but little babies, I think, are not at that point. And therefore, I believe… until they reject the light, just as Adam brought default condemnation on mankind, I think Jesus brought default salvation on the human race until someone gets to the point where they turn on God, and they do. Everyone does. But babies haven’t yet. So, you know, someone says, well, that’s really different than what I’ve heard. Okay. I don’t think you have to believe what I do. I used to believe more like you do, I think, but But, you know, I do study the Bible, and I actually try to justify my beliefs from Scripture. So I was taught, you know, basic, normal Augustinian evangelical stuff all my life and taught it because it seemed like, you know, that’s what Christians teach. And then when I studied the Bible, I realized, first of all, not everyone follows Augustine, and secondly, not everything Augustine said was in the Bible. And so, you know, you kind of have to work through it yourself. But the point is… It doesn’t matter if you work through it or not. You don’t have to know. I don’t have to know what happens to babies. God has to know what happens to babies. Babies die whether I want them to or not. I thankfully can look at the scriptures and say, I believe that babies who die before the age of accountability die on good terms with God. If someone thinks they don’t, well, then I guess we’ll find out when we go to heaven and find out those things. But at least I believe the Bible teaches that. And if I’m wrong, it’s not the kind of thing that’s going to hurt me or the children. It’s not going to hurt anybody to believe it, especially if I believe it on the basis of what Scripture says. But anyway, that would be my answer to your question in a nutshell, 20 minutes nutshell. Kerry from Fort Worth, Texas. Welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi, Steve. I’m thinking that a harmony of the Gospels would be a useful tool. But I’m also thinking that there’s probably a lot of disagreement as to where certain passages should go?
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s correct, too. That’s correct.
SPEAKER 06 :
Someone needs to be careful when they’re choosing a harmony of the Gospels?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I don’t know how much good it does to be careful because there are some events in the life of Jesus that we simply don’t know the chronology. We don’t know if this was on this occasion or a later occasion because different Gospels record it at different points. The Gospels in general, especially Synoptic Gospels, do not generally follow the same order of events to a T. I mean, they follow a general outline of Jesus’ life, the same, but some of the events they put in different places chronologically, and that’s because it was not necessarily their aim to give a fully chronological account. In many cases, they are gathering the sayings of Jesus or the actions of Jesus in a topical arrangement. In other words, they’re not pretending that everything really happened in the exact order they’re saying. They’re just saying these things really happened, and they gather the information topically. Now, that being so, that raises questions. We don’t have enough data to know for sure exactly what the relationship was chronologically between a certain event and another one, although with many of them we do. I would say it’s the minority of pericopes pericopes, they’re called little segments of the life of Jesus. It’s the minority of those that we would have serious questions about when they happened. It is possible to harmonize, for the most part, the life of Jesus, because in many cases there’s a whole string of events that the writer will say, after this he did this, and after this he did this, or the next week, or the next Sabbath, or eight days later he did this. In those cases they’re giving us actual chronological connections between what they just told us and what they’re about to tell us. But they don’t always do that. And so it’s not a matter of whether the harmony of the Gospels you’re using was that they were being careful. Two or three people could be equally careful and have a few disagreements about when something was done. For example, the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew places that in a certain location And it’s three chapters long in Matthew 5 through 7. Luke places it in a different place and not location, but, you know, sequence of things. And it’s only half a chapter long there. And, you know, it’s not certain. Did Jesus give two sermons that were similar on different occasions? Possibly he did. Or did he only give one, and Matthew and Luke include their portions of it where they do, and they’re not too concerned about chronology? Those are the kind of questions that, you know, there will be different theories about that, but whichever one is true or false isn’t going to matter much. That Jesus really said those words is really the thing that’s of interest to a person who wants to follow Jesus. So, yeah, I think our chronology of the Gospels or harmony of the Gospels is often good, partly because you can look at the same story as it’s recorded in Matthew and Mark and Luke, and see maybe details that one will include that the others leave out, so you get a fuller grasp of the story. But I’ve got more than one harmony of the Gospels. They wouldn’t agree with each other 100%, but they are going to follow pretty close. And, you know, insofar as they don’t know, they’re going to have to guess. And if they guess wrong, I think nothing is lost by it for the most part. Thank you for your question, though. Derek from Atlanta, Georgia. Hey, Derek, is this the Derek I know?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, we’ve never met, but I have called before.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, because there is a Derek in Atlanta, Georgia that I have met before. Okay, go ahead. Welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thanks for taking the call, Steve, and thank you for your ministry. I wanted some clarity in teaching a Sunday school class. An issue came up around Colossians 115, Christ being the firstborn from the dead.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
And We have instances of resurrections in Acts and the story of Christ’s ministry. And the Old Testament. Sir?
SPEAKER 04 :
And the Old Testament, too. Elijah and Elisha both raised the dead, yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
So is it safe to say that the others were not raised in a glorified body is the distinction?
SPEAKER 04 :
I believe so, yeah. When Paul says that Jesus is the firstfruits of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15… What he’s saying is all who are in Christ are going to be raised as he was. And he talks about how this body was buried in weakness to be raised in power. It’s buried in dishonor. It’s going to be raised in glory and so forth. He’s talking about the glorification of the body in the resurrection. Christ is the first person to experience that. The fact that some people physically died and physically came back a few days later or a few hours later, or a few minutes later in some cases, is not relevant to the question of whether Jesus was the first fruits from the dead. Because Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, where he makes that statement, is clearly talking about the resurrection of the last day when we become immortal in immortal bodies. And the Bible has numerous things to say about that. But it’s clear that when Jesus raised Lazarus or Jairus’ daughter or the son of the widow in Maine or when Elijah or Elisha raised people, These people simply had been dead a very short time, had not decomposed, and came back to life again and lived out, we assume, a natural lifetime. It was just a resuscitation of a recently deceased corpse. Whereas the resurrection is going to take everyone who’s died throughout history and reconstitute them and raise them in a very different kind of body. So, yes, I think you’re correct about your guess there.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thanks for the clarification, Steve.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, Derek, God bless you. God bless. All right. We’re going to talk next to Steve in Newport Beach, California. Hi, Steve. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 10 :
Greetings. How are you?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, thanks.
SPEAKER 10 :
Very, very good. So I’ll make this real brief. I just sometimes the good Lord gives me kind of an inspiration, kind of a revelation. And, you know, because I’ve read the scriptures for about 30 years and sometimes I struggle and sometimes I understand and like the part where he’s telling Moses to tell Pharaoh to let my children go, or I’m going to send these plagues on you. And then God says, but I hardened his heart, or I will harden his heart, so that he can’t let the children go. And then it makes you wonder, well, wait a minute now. So God is saying to Pharaoh, either let my children go, or you’re going to suffer, pal, or I’m going to throw these plagues on you. But then he says, but I’m going to harden his heart so that he won’t let the children go.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. So let me just say, Pharaoh was under judgment from God because of his wickedness. In fact, the whole nation of Egypt was under judgment. In chapter 12 of Exodus, where this is being talked about, God says he’s going to have judgment on all the gods of Egypt. Now, the ten plagues each focused a different deity that the Egyptians worshipped. It also, each plague devastated the whole nation of Egypt. I mean, these were judgments on Pharaoh, but he’s the representative of the whole land that he served. He was a wicked man. He abused his slaves. He killed innocent people. That’s what the Pharaohs did. And God was going to judge him. And More than that, the whole land of Egypt was going to suffer under him. So God could say, this can be done the easy way or the hard way. But God says, I’m going to do it the hard way. I want to make sure this lesson sticks. So God could have, you know, could have just killed Pharaoh’s firstborn the first day and Pharaoh could have let them go. Or God could go through the whole series of ten plagues and not let Pharaoh change his mind until the tenth one. Because that would bring the whole series of Judges’ Arms. This was something that was done because God already had adequate grounds for judging Egypt and Pharaoh, and he just decided to spread it out in such a way that it would be the utmost devastation. So he hardened Pharaoh’s heart because if Pharaoh had not, had let the people go prematurely, God wouldn’t feel justified in continuing to punish. So anyway, this is something a little above our understanding realm of authority to do, but that’s what God did, and I accept it. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. Our website’s thenarrowpath.com. Don’t go away. We have another half hour. Stay tuned.
SPEAKER 03 :
Do you find that reading the Bible leaves you scratching your head with more new questions than you had before you read it, but don’t know where to go for answers? You may be interested then in Steve Gregg’s many online lectures, downloadable without charge from our website, thenarrowpath.com. There’s no charge for anything at thenarrowpath.com. Visit us there and be amazed at all you have been missing.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour taking your calls. And we have a couple of lines open right now. If you want to call in right now, you’ll get in line. We’ll probably get to your call before we’re done. Today, 844 is the number, 844-484-5737. Once again, all those 8s and 4s are confusing, so I’ll go through it slowly. 844-484. 57, 37, if you’d like to be on the program. All right. Let’s talk next to Grayson in Atlanta, Georgia. Hi, Grayson. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, Steve. I just wanted to thank you for your ministry. And I do have a quick question afterwards. But I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been in church for all my life. I’m 50 years old. But I grew up in an IFB-type, easy-believe-in-some-type church. And it wasn’t until I heard you speak on the kingdom of God about a year and a half ago that I realized that I was actually not saved. I’d never been converted. And I heard you speak about it, and you asked the question that if you were to take a poll of regular churchgoers, what is the kingdom of God, that you may find that a lot of them don’t know. And at that time, I asked myself that question. I actually wrote it down in a notebook. I said… I wrote down two questions. I wrote down, one, what is the kingdom of God? And two, why don’t I know? And then I wrote under that, the answers to this may change everything. And I want to let you know that it did. After studying, I realized that I had never actually submitted to Jesus as my king. And as a result, I ended up making that decision and accepting Christ as my Savior for real.
SPEAKER 04 :
Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER 09 :
I just wanted to thank you for that. Thank you so much for your ministry.
SPEAKER 04 :
That is fantastic. Did you read my books on the subject or just hear my lectures?
SPEAKER 09 :
Both.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
I heard your lectures, but then I decided that I wanted to have a hard copy of your book so that I could use a highlighter, things to go back to and find easier. And I found myself highlighting a whole bunch of things. Okay. I really can’t stress enough that your ministry has legitimately changed my eternal destiny and my life. And I really much appreciate it. Thank you for being here.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, that testimony makes the whole 60 years of ministry worth it.
SPEAKER 09 :
Absolutely. Thank you so much. And then a quick question from Matthew 24, verse 14. One thing that I’m unclear just a little bit on, you know, it’s a wording, as you know, it says this gospel of the kingdom must be preached through all the world before the end comes. Is the end there speaking of the end of that age, the age of simple sacrifice? And is the world similar to Luke chapter 2 where Caesar sent out a decree that all the world should be taxed? Or are we talking about the actual end of the world? And if so, I mean, the ramifications of that could be many because, once again, all my life in church, and I had never heard the gospel of the kingdom actually preached. So if we’re waiting for that to be done throughout the world before the end of the world and the second coming of Christ comes, that leads you to believe that that may be a while. Because, again, you know, here in the United States, all my life in church, and I’ve never heard a full-length sermon on the kingdom of God before I came across your teachings.
SPEAKER 04 :
That is scary, isn’t it? Yeah, definitely. The famous verse, often quoted, and rightly so, it’s important, is this gospel of the kingdom. Now, specifically the gospel of the kingdom. Now, there’s only one gospel in the Bible, but it’s not always referred to as the gospel of the kingdom. Sometimes it’s called gospel of Christ, gospel of God, and some of the gospel of peace, gospel of grace. These are all terms for the same gospel. But Jesus’ favorite term was the gospel of the kingdom. when he spoke of the kingdom. And it says, this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come. Now, of course, you and I probably were both raised with the impression that whenever you see the term the end, we mean the end of the world, the end times, you know, signs of the end. Now, the context here raises questions as to whether that’s the end he’s talking about or not, because they actually had asked him at the beginning of this discourse in verse 3, what would be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?
SPEAKER 01 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 04 :
The end of the age. Now, he has just predicted the destruction of the temple. And he’s going to go on and tell them things that will happen prior to the destruction of the temple, because it would happen in 70 AD. And then he actually says later on, this generation will not pass until these things happen. So it sounds like the end… of the age he’s talking about. It’s not the end of the world. It’s the end of the temple age, the second temple age, the Jewish age, frankly. And therefore, when he says, this gospel will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come, there seems a good case to be made that the end he speaks of is the end of the temple system. But then, of course, the question then becomes, well, was the gospel preached to all the world? before 70 A.D., before the end came of the temple system? And the answer is, in one sense, it was. Because, as you pointed out, in Luke chapter 2, verse 1, it tells us that Caesar Augustus put out a decree that all the world should be registered for taxation. Now, it meant, of course, the Roman world. It says all the world, but the term all the world in Scripture means generally speaking, meant all the world that was relevant to the people at that time. You know, Australia, North and South America, you know, China and, you know, South Africa. Those were not part of the relevant world to them in those days. The Roman world is the world that they usually spoke of in that way. And Paul, in Colossians, which was written before 70 AD, in Colossians 1.6, he said that the gospel has come to you, Colossians, as it has also in all the world, and is bringing forth fruit. Now, so he says at the time he’s writing, the gospel has come into all the world. Now, we have to understand, of course, he’s using that differently than we would. It’s a hyperbole. It has come to the Roman world, largely through Paul and his companions. But, of course, there were parts of the globe that had never heard the gospel. But Paul’s using this hyperbole. Now, the question is, if Paul could use the hyperbole saying in his own day that the gospel had reached the whole world, could Jesus be using the same hyperbole? He says this gospel will reach in all the world. It certainly is possible. It certainly is not unreasonable to say that the end he’s talking about is the end they asked about, which was the end of the temple system, and that the gospel in Paul’s day, which was he died before 70 A.D., that the gospel, he said, had been preached in all the world. Now, we would realize that there’s a lot more world than he and they knew about. And even if he did know about it, he might still have spoken the same way. He’s talking about the reader’s world, the world they’re in, which is the Roman world, the Mediterranean world. Not denying or confirming that there’s other continents somewhere that are irrelevant to them. Anyway, the point here is that He could be just talking about A.D.
SPEAKER 1 :
70.
SPEAKER 04 :
Now, on the other hand, in my opinion, the disciples’ question may have had implications that they didn’t state. They may have assumed that the fall of Jerusalem would also be at the same time as the end of the whole human history, at the end of the world, real world. I don’t know if they did or not. I don’t know if they did or not. So when they said, what will be the sign of your, that this will happen, that not one stone of the temple will be left standing on another, which Jesus predicted. When will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age? They may not have been thinking, strictly speaking, of the Jewish age. They might have thought the end of the Jewish age is the end of everything. They didn’t know otherwise. And they may have been asking out of some ignorance. But it seems to me very possible. I don’t say this is so. It seems to be possible that in answering them, he answered, first of all, questions relevant to the destruction of the temple. But then, in verse 36, well, verse 35, he says, Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will by no means pass away. But of that day and hour, no one knows. Now, he’s just told them the temple destruction will take place within that generation. But the end of the world? No one knows about that. You see, his heaven and earth will pass away. Well, that didn’t happen in 70 AD, of course. It will happen someday. But no one knows the day or the hour that that will happen. And then he begins to talk, in my opinion, about the end of the actual world at the second coming of Christ. Now, this is not artificial. Some people think it’s not consistent to take the first part about 70 days, the second part about the end of the world, except it is. It is consistent to do that. And I’ve written two whole chapters on this very transition in all of the discourse in my book, Why Not Full Preterism? Because I’m not a full preterist, but that’s another issue. The point is that I think that there are times when Jesus might, in fact… in his answer about 70 AD, interject things that are relevant to the end of the world as well. And which things those are, I would have an opinion about, but I wouldn’t have time to go into in detail now because of all the calls waiting. So I’m going to be, I guess a full preterist would say I’m going to be really weaselly here, because I think it could refer to 70 AD, but I think there’s also a possibility it refers to the end of the world. Now, let me say this. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that it only applies to 70 AD. This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world, that is the Roman world, as a witness to all nations, and then the end, that is the end of the Jewish temple system, will come in 70 AD. Let’s say that’s what he means in Matthew 24, 14. Would that mean that it’s not necessary to preach the gospel of the world now? Because, frankly, I mean… However much the gospel may have been preached after 70 A.D., Paul seemed content that it had been preached in all the world in his day. So, I mean, maybe it’s irrelevant, the preaching of the gospel to all the continents that have been discovered since then. I think not. When Jesus gave the Great Commission in Matthew 28, 18 through 20, he said, All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations. Now, all the nations, all those in heaven and earth, or, well, on earth at least, he’s also got all authority in heaven. But his authority extends to all earth. And so go to all the earth, go to all the nations, make disciples, and teach them to observe everything I’ve commanded you. So whether Matthew 24, 14 is saying that the end of the world will not come until the gospel of the kingdom has been preached throughout, which it might be, Or whether it’s simply talking about AD 70 there, we know from another passage that we are commissioned to go and reach the entire world and to bring all the world into subjection to Christ, teaching them to observe his commandments. And so, you know, I’m inclined to say that whether or not Matthew 24, 14 is talking about AD 70 or the end of the world would not change the way I look at our mission. Because, obviously, God wants the whole world as we know it, not as they knew it back then, the whole world as we know it. Heaven and earth is under his authority. We’re supposed to make disciples out of them. And so, you know, the evangelization of the whole world insofar as it’s accessible to us is still on the table. And I have to assume that’s one of the reasons why Jesus hasn’t come back yet. It’s because that’s still going on and there are still places to reach. So it’s either or or both and. Certainly your question is not an uncommon one when we begin to look at all of the discourse as primarily about the destruction of Jerusalem. Well, then does any of it have to do with the end of the world? I think parts of it do. And I’d be pretty strong on the parts after verse 36. Some of the parts before that I think may, by way of parenthesis, anticipate that too in the context of talking about something else. But, you know, again, the disciples, for all we know, because they didn’t have a complete eschatology yet, they’d only been three and a half years with Jesus, and most of what Jesus said on record with them didn’t really clarify any of this. When they heard the temple was going to be destroyed, they may very well just assume, oh, that’s the end of the world. And so… you know, kind of accommodating both of those points, though not equating them. Jesus may have alluded to both in his answer, at least parts of his answer, about one and parts of his answer about another.
SPEAKER 09 :
That does, that makes perfect sense. And I know you have to go, once again, just to reiterate, much appreciated your ministry. You helped to change my life, and not just mine, my family as well. You know, I’m married, so of course my wife is… is right there with that and, you know, just can’t tell you how much I appreciate you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, that thrills both me and my wife. My wife is sitting across from showing delight to hear that. We both are excited to hear that. The same. My wife’s here as well. There she is giggling. Hi, wife. God bless you guys. Great to hear from you. Wonderful to hear. Take care. Bye now. And by the way, on this all of it discourse thing, it is confusing, but I do have a book which is not entirely about the Olivet Discourse. It’s more about eschatology in general. It’s a refutation of full preterism from a partial preterist point of view. I’m a partial preterist, and I believe that all Christians are in some measure partial preterists because all Christians believe that some prophecy has been fulfilled in the past. But the full preterist believes that all prophecy is fulfilled in the past, and everything, the second coming, the resurrection, the new heavens and the new earth, the judgment, all that, the destruction, all that happened in 780, they say, which to my mind is way off, way off what the Bible teaches, and certainly no one in the church believed that until the 1970s. But the thing is, I wrote a book against full preterism, and in it, there are two full chapters analyzing the Olivet Discourse, and I think that those are very helpful to those who have not studied it from this point of view. Anyway, that book is called Why Not Full Preterism? I don’t sell my books, but you can get it from wherever you do buy books. Amazon probably is a good place. All right. Let’s talk to Rick in Phoenix, Arizona. Hi, Rick. Welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hi, Steve. I’m enjoying your show today. Very interesting input lately. You have some knowledgeable people calling in. That’s very nice. I just wanted to bring up a couple of things. First of all, it’s not a stretch. When you look at… a lot of the really visceral kind of language in the prophecies, Old Testament prophecies and the prophecies towards 70 A.D. and the possible prophecies that might possibly be pertaining to the end of the world. You know, some of those things were so outlandish, you know, like people’s eyes melting in their heads and things.
SPEAKER 04 :
Zechariah 14, yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, just absolute unbelievable burning and that the earth itself and the heavens and the earth are going to be dissolved in a fizzling, fusing ball of elements. I think that was Peter, I believe.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s 2 Peter 3, yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, something like that. I wish I could remember them like you do. Bad student here, not a good student. But anyway, it’s not a stretch in this modern day. As time has gone on, you can see the possibilities of those things. Back then, it was just something that couldn’t possibly happen unless… unless everything was canceled. But now you could see an actual war that could happen, and a lot of those kinds of things have happened.
SPEAKER 04 :
I understand. You’re not the first to bring this up. Actually, back in 1970, Hal Lindsey and the teachers of eschatology that I listened to back, this is 56 years ago, they were saying the same kind of thing. They were saying in a nuclear war, Some of our weapons could cause eyeballs to melt in their sockets and things like that. And so, I mean, this has been actually a favorite way of interpreting Zechariah 14. And, you know, also, yeah, 2 Peter 3 about the earth shall melt, the elements will melt with fervent heat. I personally, I see 2 Peter 3 being about the second coming of Christ and about God. purging the earth in order to remake another one with or without nuclear weapons as he can do this easily. Um, but the, the Zechariah 14, I don’t even think is about that. I think that’s strictly apocalyptic language, but that’s me. I mean, some people take it very literally and, uh, It would seem, if it’s supposed to be fulfilled very literally, then it must be in the future, because in ancient times we didn’t have weapons that would cause people, their eyes to melt in their sockets. And I suppose we do now, but whether we do or not, I don’t think that’s the context or the meaning of Zechariah. Though I do believe there’s an actual melting away of the earth in 2 Peter 3, which I do not believe is written in apocalyptic. It’s not an apocalyptic text. book. It’s not an apocalyptic passage as near as I can tell. That makes it different from Zechariah. But I appreciate your input. Thanks for sharing that. Bonnie in Auburn, Maine. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, hi. I have a simple question. I don’t know if it’s simple, but for me, my sister called me last night, and she was talking to me about a Bible, and to me the only Bible is you know, God’s Bible. And she wants to buy this Bible. It’s the Ethiopian Bible.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 01 :
Have you ever heard of that Bible?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes. Yeah, the Ethiopian Bible would be the, you know, the main difference is going to be that they have some books in there that our Bible doesn’t have. You know, the church has, from early centuries, has been kind of geographically divided And not in the sense of, you know, in a divisive way, but in the sense of just people being separated by space. And in Ethiopia and Egypt, the Coptic churches, you know, took their course. And obviously in Rome and Western Europe, the church took a certain course. In the east, Turkey and east of that, you know, and Greece, the church took its own way, from which we have the Eastern Orthodox today. We’ve got the Catholic in the West. We’ve got the Eastern Orthodox in the East. And even further east, we have the Eastern Catholic Church, which is even different from the Eastern Orthodox. Now, these are churches that, you know, they took their shape and developed kind of independently from each other, not without any cross-pollinization because people did sometimes travel to these areas from one another. But But let’s face it, they didn’t have the Internet, they didn’t have telephones, they didn’t have U.S. mail to take a lot of communication, and they didn’t have fast transportation. So most churches in the Far East, let’s say, or down in Africa, weren’t regularly in contact with, say, the Western church. And so when the choice was made of which books they have in their Bible, some of these churches chose differently. For example, the Eastern church chose to use the Greek Old Testaments. Whereas the Western church used the Hebrew Old Testament. The Catholic church included some books we call the Apocrypha that were written between the Old and the New Testament times. And the Ethiopian church did too. And I’m not that familiar with the Ethiopian Bible. People have asked me about it before. I’ve looked it up, but I haven’t done deep research. My impression was that they pretty much got the same books we have, except that they include the book of Enoch. And then someone else said, no, they have quite a few other books. So I’m not really familiar with the contents of the Ethiopian Bible, but I would say this. I would expect, for example, all the books that you find in your Bible will also be found in that Bible. It’s just that they’ll have some more books. And I would say the books they add don’t really have the status of the Bible. I don’t think the additional books were written by prophets or apostles. That’s the point. The Protestant church accepts Old Testament books that were written by prophets in which the Jews recognized in their canon of Old Testament books. The Protestant just took over the Jewish canon of the Old Testament. And then the New Testament, the Western Church pretty much accepted just the writings of the apostles and their associates. Now, most of the Bibles do the same thing with the New Testament. You know, I know the Catholic Church has the same New Testament books as the Protestant do. I don’t know if any of the Eastern churches or Ethiopian churches have any additions to the New Testament. They might. But it’s mainly the Old Testament books. They deviate from the Jewish collection. They include it, but they also include books that were never part of the Jewish Bible. And that’s what Protestants don’t do. It doesn’t hurt you to have it, just like it doesn’t hurt you to have a Catholic Bible. It’s got the seven books in the Catholic Bible that aren’t in our Protestant Bible. It doesn’t hurt to read them. They’re not heretical. They’re not a problem. It’s just we need to recognize that books written by prophets and apostles… have the status of being the Word of God. And books that were not written by prophets or apostles are simply religious books that people wrote who, as far as we know, had never claimed to be inspired people. So we don’t take them as inspired books. That would be the main thing to recognize if you’re looking at a Bible that has additional books. And the Ethiopian Bible does have other books in it. Okay, Michael in Effingham, New Hampshire. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, Steve, thanks for taking my call. I always seem to get the end of the hour, but I got a question. We were doing our Tuesday night Bible study, and we were studying the transfiguration in Mark 9 and Luke 9. And we arrived at the fact that Elijah and Moses represented the law and the prophets.
SPEAKER 04 :
I agree.
SPEAKER 05 :
yeah, when Jesus was up there, a rabbit hole is like, what were they discussing? Were they doing strategy? But I was wondering, do you have a topical lecture on the transfiguration or is that true verse by verse?
SPEAKER 04 :
Uh, that’d be verse by verse. I, of course I have, um, I have verse by verse through Matthew, verse by verse through Mark and verse by verse through Luke. Luke also has a transfiguration in Luke chapter nine. Right. And, um, I also have a set of lectures called The Life and Teachings of Christ, which is, I believe, like 95 lectures that harmonize the gospel. So when you get to the Transfiguration, I’m bringing in all the material from Mark and Matthew and Luke on the same story. So you get more comprehensive. But let me just say this. It says in Luke 9, 31, Moses and Elijah were talking to Jesus about Christ. his exodus, which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem. New King James says his decease, but in the Greek it’s the word exodus. And so here’s Moses who led the children of Israel in the exodus, and then he’s joined by Elijah who represents the prophets, I believe, and they’re talking to Jesus about the exodus that Jesus is going to accomplish through his death and resurrection. So that’s what they were talking about. They were talking about, I think we’re to understand that they came and gave their endorsement, just like Paul says in Romans chapter 1 and again in Romans chapter 3, that the gospel of Christ was testified to by the law and the prophets. And I think what we have here is the representative of the law, Moses, and the representative of the prophets, Elijah, were there kind of endorsing Christ. They were testifying to him about the significance of his work he was going to accomplish. Now, what’s interesting is that Peter wanted to keep them all there. He said, let’s build three tabernacles, one for Moses, one for Elijah, one for Jesus. But that wasn’t a wise suggestion, and a cloud came down. Moses and Elijah disappeared. Only Jesus was left, and a voice from heaven said, this is my son. Hear him. In other words, the disciples, being Jewish, had heard the law and the prophets all their lives. And God is now saying, yeah, but they’ve come. They’ve endorsed Jesus. They’re gone now. He’s the one you’re going to listen to from now on. Here’s my son. Hear him. That’s what I think is the significance of that particular thing. I’ve got to go. Sorry to say. Thanks for joining us, brother. Sorry you got to tail end of this program again. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We are listener supported. You can write to us at The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. or go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. We’ve got a Zoom meeting tonight. Check our website.
