This edition of The Narrow Path features a wide-ranging live call-in discussion as Steve Gregg answers listener questions on some of the most debated topics in Christianity and theology.
The program begins with a caller asking about atheist author Richard Dawkins and whether Christians should feel intimidated by arguments against the virgin birth and miracles. Steve responds with an extended discussion about materialism, naturalism, miracles, and the philosophical assumptions behind atheism. He argues that belief in the supernatural is not irrational and pushes back against the claim that science alone can explain every aspect of reality.
Later, callers ask detailed questions
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we are live from 2 to 3 p.m. Pacific time every weekday and all across the country at the relevant time frames of different time zones. The purpose of the program being live is that you can interact by telephone, on the air, With the host, if you’d like to, if you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith that you’d like to ask or have discussed, if you disagree with the host or want a balanced comment, we’d love to have you call. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. And I think we’re just going to go directly to the phones now and talk to Tom in Gainesville, Florida. Hi, Tom. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. You’re on the air.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi. Thank you. Thank you. Richard Dawkins intimidates me. I know he’s not rational. Right. He says it’s a biology question if Mary was a virgin.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, no, it’s a question of whether the supernatural exists or not. That’s the question. You see, Dawkins is not only an atheist, he’s what we call a materialist. It’s a worldview. A materialist worldview believes there’s nothing in the universe except the material universe itself. There’s nothing but the natural world. It’s also called naturalism. Naturalism and materialism means that it’s strictly a material universe governed by natural laws. There’s nothing that can happen that does not agree with natural law. Now, obviously, according to natural law, a woman who is a virgin cannot get pregnant. But that’s kind of, it’s a reductionist worldview. It’s unnecessarily reductionist. It’s kind of a narrow-minded view to say that, well, the only thing that can exist are natural things. Now, the reason I say that that’s reductionist is because almost everyone in human history, in all religions, all cultures, all lands, at all times, have believed there is something more than the natural world. A naturalist can say, well, those were superstitious ages. They were superstitious. They didn’t know any better. Well, the truth is there are people living in our age who are not in the least bit superstitious. They’re not the least bit uninformed. There are scientists who hold just as much education and experience and rank as Richard Dawkins, maybe not as many as on his side, but there’s still plenty of fully trained scientists who still believe in the supernatural. These would have to include ones who are Christians, perhaps some who are Jewish, those who are Muslim. And, you know, that’s an awful lot of people out there, and they’re not uneducated. Now, if he says, well, they’re just biased by their religious viewpoint. No doubt they are. And he is too. He’s biased by his religious viewpoint. His religious viewpoint is there’s no God and there’s no supernatural. Now, that statement is every bit as much a faith statement as any religious statement because he’s never had any, there’s no evidence that there’s no God. There’s no evidence that there’s no supernatural. If anything, human history has been full of what people claim to be evidence of the supernatural and things that, you know, science, scientific discovery will not change. For example, if you you hear that somebody has been dead for three days and they come back alive, or that somebody has walked on top of water. And it’s not just a visual gimmick. You know, the idea that those kinds of things have been reported by eyewitnesses. And, of course, those ones come from the Bible, but you don’t need the Bible for that. You can go to Hinduism. You can go to many other places, and there are reports of things that will never be explainable by science. The only thing the scientists can say is, We don’t believe they happened because there’s no way that science will ever explain how a man can walk on top of water or how a virgin can become pregnant. But you see, the people who claim these things are not saying that people can do that. They’re not saying that men can walk on water or rise from the dead or that virgin women can become pregnant. Naturally, that doesn’t happen. But, you see, not everyone is as reductionistic in their worldview as a few, a very relatively small percentage of modern people who say they’re atheists or materialists. And they would say, well, there’s nothing there except the universe. Well, most people who’ve lived throughout And I would say the majority of people who live right now on the earth, even among the most educated, would deny that. They would say, no, there is at least the possibility that there’s something besides nature, that there’s the supernatural. There could be a God. There could be gods. There could be demons. There could be miracles. Now, Dawkins is one of those very, very narrow-minded people who says, I don’t care what anyone else thinks. I don’t care what anyone else has ever seen. I don’t care what the evidence is. My religion, he wouldn’t use that word, but that’s what it is. My religion is there is nothing outside the natural world. OK, well, he’s welcome to it, but no one should be intimidated by that. I would say, you know, I have a quote from Dawkins. I like to quote a lot of time in one of his books. He said, you know, next time somebody tells you something is true, ask them what evidence they have for that. And if they don’t have very good evidence, then I would think twice about considering anything they say. That’s Richard Dawkins’ philosophy, but he doesn’t follow it, of course, because he believes that all living things evolved from originally a non-living thing. There’s been no evidence whatsoever has been forthcoming. Scientists can’t even imagine how it could happen. It could. Maybe someday scientists will know, but they don’t have any now. So if I say to Richard Dawkins, you know, everyone I know, even every scientist, even every atheist who has ever seen a new life appear, saw it appear from an existing life. No one has ever seen a new life appear from what is not life at all. But you believe it did. So what evidence do you have for that? Because if you don’t have good evidence, I think I’ll think twice about taking you seriously. In other words, you don’t have to be intimidated by people like this. These people are just blustering from their own, you know, rather narrow-minded religious position, which is there’s no God, there’s no supernatural. But I’m not saying that we have to believe there is a supernatural. I do. I believe there’s supernatural. I believe there’s God, obviously. And so do most people on the planet believe there’s a supernatural. So I’m in pretty good company there, as well as some bad company, because some people who believe in the supernatural are very superstitious. They could be of other religions. They could be magicians and things like that. Those are not the people I care to be associated with in my beliefs. I’m a Christian. But the truth is, Christians share one thing in common with almost everyone who’s ever lived, and that is this world is not all there is. Christians believe, however, that the God that exists has actually revealed himself to us and even visited us in the form of Jesus Christ. So we have some distinctives in our view. But Dawkins isn’t making statements against our distinctives. He’s making statements against every human being’s opinion about this matter, other than the little tiny coterie of people like himself who say, no, nothing out there, nothing there. Which is, of course, and by the way, he wants to call people like himself bright. I don’t know if you’re aware of that. He coined the word bright, B-R-I-G-H-T-S, as a sort of a label for people like himself who are atheists. Well, he doesn’t sound very bright to me. Not bright enough, actually. Because if I’m going to say there does not exist anywhere in reality, blank. Fill in the blank. Anything. He’s saying there’s no supernatural. There’s no God anywhere in reality. Okay. Okay. You could stick any other word in there. If you want to say, in the whole universe, there does not exist any X, well, then what you’re saying is, I know everything that’s in the universe, and there’s no X there. Because an intelligent person who’s not overwhelmed with arrogance would say, I have never encountered X. I don’t think any of my friends have ever encountered X. I’m not really sure anyone has. Living today has encountered X, but I don’t know that there is no X because I would have to know everything there is to know in the universe in order to know that. Now, Dawkins doesn’t mind that. He will never say he knows everything in the universe, but he has no shame about making claims that only someone who claims to know everything in the universe could possibly make. And this is where he looks a little ridiculous, as do all atheists who insist there’s no God or no supernatural. I mean, they certainly have the right to that religious view, just like I have a right to mine. Mine just happens to have some evidence in its favor. His does not. And so, you know, why be intimidated by him? He’s just, you know, atheists have not just arisen with him. And he’s not even the brightest of them. You know, there have been before his time, mostly not biologists, but philosophers who are atheists who could make very, very robust arguments against God. Dawkins is no philosopher. I mean, he shows himself to be no philosopher when he says, if someone tells you something is true and they don’t have evidence, don’t believe them. And he doesn’t realize how unself-observant he is, that his view has no proof of it either. You know, he’s just not a deep thinker outside of his field of biology. He may be the greatest biologist in the world. I don’t think he is, but he may be among the best biologists. Biologists in the world. But the question of miracles, and that’s what a virgin birth would be, the question of miracles does not lie within the province of what a biologist studies. Because what a biologist is an expert at is biological things, biological systems. God is not a biological system. Angels or demons, if they exist, are not biological systems. The whole realm of the supernatural is not a biological thing. Biology is part of nature. So a man who can only study nature but makes pronouncements about all things outside of nature, they don’t exist, is simply, he’s the one who ought to be intimidated that someone might challenge him on that. And he has been challenged. And every time he’s debated a Christian, at least when he debated John Lennox or Alistair McGrath or, you know, frankly, every theist he’s ever debated, Dawkins ends up looking like a, naive person who doesn’t even understand the issues so you know I’m sorry that you’re intimidated by him but you know if you read somebody that’s got gazillions of fans who are you know he’s kind of their guru and he says really really strong and hostile statements about Christians hey you know get used to it that’s what the world’s all about the world doesn’t like Christianity and some people are more vociferous and more stupid about the statements they make than others and And more mean. But so what? They’ve always been there. Dawkins is not the best of them. He’s not even close to the most impressive of them. He’s a good writer. He’s clever. That’s also why Christopher Hitchens became popular. He had no evidence against God any more than Dawkins does. He just is a clever guy. When a person can say what they want to say in a clever, amusing way, it makes them look like they’re the clever one, and whoever they’re criticizing is really not very clever at all. There’s a lot of clever Christians out there, but the point is being a clever Christian doesn’t prove that Christianity is true either. Cleverness doesn’t prove anything. An uneducated wash woman who’s had an encounter with God knows more about that subject than than the most educated atheist scientist or philosopher. So, you know, I’m afraid that he’s just not in touch with the universe or even with the available intelligent theories about the universe. which educated people hold to this day. He’s just in his little echo chamber where everyone glad hands him because he’s saying what they like to say, and they like to say it because they feel as he does. But that’s just it. Dawkins, everything he says is about his feelings. He doesn’t give anything like evidence that there’s no God. You know, I say, well, he’s given lots of evidence for evolution. Okay, let him give the evidence for evolution. That still doesn’t tell us whether there’s a God or not. Let’s say we accepted it. I don’t, but let’s say we believe everything came from evolution or through evolution. We still have to decide whether God was behind the picture, whether he created the first things that began to evolve. That’s what Darwin believed. In the original edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species, which I had when I was a teenager, I was amazed to read, When you got to the last paragraph, he said that, you know, the first thing was created. The first living thing was created. And from then on, nature took over and evolved everything. Well, I don’t agree with him on that, but it’s interesting. But he knew, Darwin was fully convinced of evolution, but it didn’t prove to him there was no God. So anyway, I think many times pseudo-intellectuals, I mean, Dawkins is not a pseudo-scientist. Dawkins is a real scientist, but he’s a pseudo-intellectual when it comes to talking about things that aren’t in his field. He’s a mere layman, and he doesn’t know as much about God as I knew when I was 12 years old, and I didn’t have any education at that point. So anyway, that’s what I think about Dawkins. Do not be afraid. He’s just all blessed here. Wow, I’m less intimidated now. Good, you should be. Thank you, brother. Good talking to you. Okay, Cameron in Columbia, Tennessee, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, Steve. My friend and I have been talking about the spiritual gift of tongues, and my friend’s position is that all tongues in the Bible is… in human language for the purpose of spreading the gospel and doesn’t accept the theory of a personal private language or the possibility of there being some type of spiritual language that only God can hear.
SPEAKER 02 :
I know the position. Yeah, I know the position. Let me just say this. I don’t know if when people speak in tongues, if they’re ever speaking a language that is not also known by somebody in the world as a human language. I do know that when they speak in tongues, the speaker doesn’t know, and that’s the point of it. That’s why it’s a spiritual miraculous gift. They’re able to speak a language they didn’t learn. It may very well be, in most cases or many cases, a language somebody else does understand. But if somebody wants to say, and this is what cessationists do, often say, people who don’t believe in the gift of tongues anymore. They say, well, you know, the tongues was used to spread the gospel throughout the world. And, you know, the apostles all were from one area and they had to reach the whole world of many languages. So God gave them the gift of tongues to do that. There’s a number of problems I have with that. First of all, we have no reason to believe that the apostles, when they preached in many nations, preached in the local dialects of those nations. they all spoke Greek. Everyone in the world spoke Greek. They had local dialects, too. They were multilingual. It’s interesting when Paul came to, I guess it was Lystra, that the people were shouting out that the gods had come among us because they were saying that he and Barnabas were gods because they’d worked a miracle. And Paul and Barnabas didn’t understand what they were saying. But they preached them nonetheless. They didn’t know their language. They preached in Greek. Everyone knew Greek. That had been true for 300 years before the time of Christ. The whole Mediterranean world was conquered by Alexander the Great and was imposed on them, the Greek language. So everyone was pretty fluent in Greek. They didn’t need to speak in supernatural tongues to preach the gospel. And the second thing it says, although we only have a handful or approximately a handful of passages that even mention the gift of tongues, we don’t have any, not one, passage that speaks of anyone preaching the gospel in tongues. In other words, we have no evidence that it was for the purpose of preaching the gospel. What we do know is on the day of Pentecost, and Paul mentions this in 1 Corinthians 14, speaking in tongues was a sign to the unbelievers. The gospel was preached to these people by Peter, speaking in one language, which we probably can assume was Greek. All the 120 people speaking in 15 languages mentioned in Acts chapter 2 They weren’t preaching the gospel. They were declaring the wonderful works of God. They were praising God. But the fact that they were doing it in languages they could not have known is what was a sign to the people from those regions who recognized their regional dialects being spoken by people who would be in no position to know them. That was a miracle. So they could understand them. But what they understood was not a gospel presentation. Instead, the people said, what’s this all about? And Peter got up and preached to everybody. Everyone who knew all those different languages, they could understand Peter because he spoke in Greek and everyone knew Greek. Now, as far as that goes, when the Bible does talk about the purpose of tongues, there’s never any suggestion that it has ever had anything to do with preaching the gospel. As Paul said, tongues is a sign to unbelievers, as it clearly was on the day of Pentecost. Signs, I mean, healing the sick, casting out demons, raising the dead, those are signs to unbelievers too. Speaking in tongues was also. None of those things involve specifically preaching the gospel. They give… They give a credence to the gospel when it’s preached in intelligible words to people. If they’ve seen a miracle, that’s supposed to help them understand this is a supernatural message. There’s supernatural things happening around it. But that does not suggest at all that anyone ever preached the gospel using the gifted tongues. Now, in 1 Corinthians 14… Paul knows of other uses for tongues. He mentions two others besides as a sign to unbelievers. In the opening verses of 1 Corinthians 14, Paul said that the person who speaks in tongues does not speak to men, but to God. Now, throughout that passage, Throughout that chapter, he talks about praying in tongues and blessing God in tongues and giving thanks in tongues. Those are the terms he uses to describe tongues speaking in the church. Giving thanks, blessing God, praying, those are directed toward God. Those are not speaking to people. On the day of Pentecost, they were speaking to the crowds about God. That was a different thing. But that was not in the church either. That was in an evangelistic setting. The church in the New Testament was the gathering of people who were already converted. No one was speaking in tongues in the church as a sign to convert people. But what did they speak in tongues for? Well, because the person speaking didn’t know the language, there had to be also a supernatural gift of interpretation. Paul said that people should not speak in tongues in the church unless there is this supernatural interpretation also. Now, notably, one thing that Paul said about it in 1 Corinthians 14 is, And I’ll have to turn there. It’s either verse two or four. I sometimes get mixed up about this. Yeah. In verse two, he says, for he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God, for no one understands him. OK, so if your friend said, well, speaking in tongues was only spoken to people who could understand it. Well, that doesn’t sound like Paul had gotten that memo. He said, when you speak in tongues, he’s meaning in the church. No one there understands you. He says, but in the spirit, you’re speaking mysteries. And it’s because no one understands that Paul insists that it be accompanied with a supernatural gift of interpretation. Even in verse 13, he says, if you speak in tongues, maybe you should pray that you can interpret. Now that you have to pray that you can interpret means you don’t know what it is. The interpretation has to be given to you supernaturally. So the statement that some people make, The tongues we use primarily, it’s only human languages used to preach the gospel. First of all, there’s not one verse in the Bible to support any part of that. I mean, it is true. We do know of cases where people spoke in human languages. But there are cases, Paul says, where no one understands. Is that because although they’re speaking in human languages, nobody there knows that language? Or maybe they’re speaking a language that no one would know? I don’t know. But the point is, it’s not the purpose of tongues to be understood for the preaching of the gospel. It was unnecessary in the first century to do that because of the universal knowledge of the Greek language. And Paul indicates that in the church, Tongues has to be supernaturally interpreted because no one understands it. Now, if your friend says the only purpose of tongues is to be understood by the hearers, I think they’d better maybe go back to the Bible and maybe reconsider their cessationism. Cessationism is the doctrine that the gifts have ceased since the time of the apostles. And they’re trying to make excuses why people today shouldn’t speak in tongues or those who think they are doing so are not really doing so. That’s what they’re trying to argue. I say, well, before you argue that, you might try to find out if there’s a single verse of Scripture that would help support your case. Because without it, it’s going to be very unconvincing.
SPEAKER 08 :
Do you think that the gift of tongues has a function as a private prayer language for self-edification?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, yes. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14, for he who speaks in a tongue edifies himself. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that. Edify means builds up, spiritually enriches and builds yourself up. In Jude, verse 20, Jude actually tells us through that. In Jude 20, it says, build yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. Now, Paul refers to tongues as praying in the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 14. Verse 15 and 14, praying in the spirit. So Jude says, build yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. Now, prayer is not done or not supposedly done in a meeting that people can’t understand what you’re saying. But Paul does say. If there’s no interpreter and someone who doesn’t speak in tongues, let him speak to himself and to God. Meaning, let’s just be quiet about it. That’s 1 Corinthians 14, 28. He says, if there’s no interpreter, let him, that is the tongue speaker, keep silent, which in Greek means be quiet in the church, and let him speak to himself and to God. This may mean you can whisper tongues as a whisper prayer in tongues in the church, or maybe you should just not do it in the church at all. You should just do it when you’re not in the church, when you’re by yourself. So obviously Paul is in favor of private prayers in tongues. And he suggests that when you speak in tongues, you don’t know what you’re saying. But see, when you’re praying, it’s not as important that you know what you’re saying as that God does. Because you’re not talking to you, you’re talking to God. Now you say, but what good does it do for me to pray things I don’t know I’m saying? I’m not really quite sure. But I don’t think God would give that gift if there’s no good in it at all. Paul does say in another place, not referring to tongues specifically, but maybe including it. In Romans 8, he says, you know, sometimes the Holy Spirit helps us in our infirmities. We don’t always know what to pray for as we ought. He says in the Holy Spirit. You know, assists us. He helps us by, you know, groans and utterances that are groans. Let me see the exact words he uses here. It’s Romans 8, 26 and 27. Likewise, the spirit also helps our weaknesses for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought. But the spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. Now, he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Now, we always hope our prayers are according to the will of God. And when we choose our prayers, we hope they are the will of God. But if the Holy Spirit is bringing prayers out through us, Paul says they are according to the will of God, which is, of course, a great advantage. Now, he doesn’t mention tongues. He mentions groans. But he’s talking about being inarticulate. There’s times when you really can’t put your prayers into words. You can just groan. I would say that when someone’s praying in tongues privately, very possibly that would fall in the same category. You’re not choosing the words. You don’t know what to say, so the Holy Spirit gives yours. That’s my assumption. I could be wrong on that one point. But as far as your friend is concerned, they’re wrong completely on their points. I need to take a break. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We have another half hour coming up, so don’t go away. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. It’s chock full of resources. Everything is free at thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds, so don’t go away.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for another half hour taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or Christianity or you want to disagree with the host, feel free to give me a call. We welcome those calls at this number, 844- Our next call comes from Matthew in New Jersey. You’re on the air, Matthew. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, Steve. Thanks for taking the call. Quickly, I don’t know if you recall, it was the last call yesterday. You hung up on me by mistake. And listening to your explanation was as good as any answer to a question I could have asked. That was great.
SPEAKER 02 :
I don’t remember it. What was your question? Are you calling back up the same question or another one?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I never even got the question out. Oh, okay. Go for it. Go for it. So the question is Psalm 39. I guess just… I’ll just keep it simple and maybe just kind of your overview, a brief description. And it’s really like 10, from 10 through 13, it kind of throws me off. I’ve obviously like researched this, but of course, I was hoping to get your kind of an overview from you. Just kind of a brief run through of Psalm 39, if you don’t mind.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I’d have to read every verse to do the run through. It’s 13 verses long. you know, I’m not really sure what the issue is for you. Because psalms, you know, they meander through various points and something is catching your attention. You said 10 through 13. Let me read 10 through 13 and see. You can tell me what you’re wondering about it. The psalmist says, who in this case is David, he says, remove your plague from me. I am consumed by the blow of your hand. When with rebukes you correct a man for iniquity, You make his beauty melt away like a moth. Surely every man is vapor. Selah. Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry. Do not be silent to my tears, for I am a stranger with you, a sojourner, as all my fathers were. Remove your gaze from me that I may regain strength before I go away and am no more. Okay, so, I mean, I don’t see this as an unusual psalm. I mean, David is… He’s feeling burdened by things that have happened to him. He seems to view them as God’s discipline on him, as opposed to just bad luck. I mean, there are times when David is complaining that he’s got enemies that are afflicting him for no good reason. This does not appear to be one of those. It sounds like he may have enemies. In fact, that may be the issue. He may be suffering from Absalom’s rebellion, for example. We don’t know what the situation was, but uh if if it was from absalom’s rebellion then he he the plague is that he’s been ousted from his throne chased out of town by his son who wants to kill him uh that’s a pretty bad thing to come on him but but uh in this case he’s not like in some of the psalms he says you know those who hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head well that’s not what he’s saying here he’s not saying there’s no cause he sees it as the discipline of the lord um And, of course, in some cases it was, especially with Absalom. Or maybe the plague that came when David numbered the people. That also came upon him because it was a different situation. But in David’s life, there were times when he did things wrong, and the upshot of it turned out to be really painful and costly to him. Now, one of those situations, apparently, is happening here. He’s not He’s not in the position that he sometimes is in where, you know, I didn’t do anything and they hate me. They chased me for no good reason. I didn’t say anything wrong to them. You know, some of the Psalms talk that way. But he’s talking like he’s under God’s discipline. Remove your plague from me. I am consumed by the blow of your hand. And, you know, so, I mean, he’s seeing God as the one disciplining him. Also in verse 13, remove your gaze from me, which would mean, God’s talking about, I mean, David’s talking about God’s angry gaze, God’s scornful gaze, which he feels more than, I mean, you can’t see God. You can’t see God looking at you, but he feels God’s displeasure is the point here by the blow of God’s hand. He says, so that I might regain strength before I go away and no more. And that’s kind of what the whole section is about. There’s something, though, about it that’s striking you as needing explanation. Could you clarify what that would be?
SPEAKER 05 :
Steve, I think you nailed it, to be candid. Okay. Turn your gaze away. I don’t know what situation I would be in to make me pray those words.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, of course, we always want God to be watching us. And you might say, why wouldn’t David want to be watching? You know, when people do things wrong, That’s when they don’t want God eavesdropping. I mentioned Christopher Hitchens in the first half hour. Christopher Hitchens made it very clear he didn’t want to believe in God because he doesn’t like the idea of a big brother eavesdropping on him all the time, spying on him all the time. When people are doing things that they are pretty sure God won’t approve of, they kind of wish that he wasn’t looking. But if you’re a person like David or hopefully yourself or myself, a Christian, I want God watching me. That doesn’t mean I don’t ever do anything that would embarrass me for him to see. I do. But all in all, it’s better to have him watching all the time because he’s on my side and he knows I’m on his side. Now, in this case, David was such a man who had always been on God’s side, except for his moments when he did things that he later realized were very, not only embarrassing, but sometimes very harmful. And, uh, And when the judgment of God came on him, the discipline of God, he could sense that God was looking on him with disapproval. That gaze he’s talking about is obviously a disapproving gaze. But he didn’t see God’s face gazing at him. That’s how he interpreted God’s treatment of him. God, you’re obviously looking unfavorably upon me. That’s why your hand has given me such a blow. It’s all poetic language, but you can see what… you can see what the dynamics were of what he was talking about. All right.
SPEAKER 05 :
No, that’s awesome. Beautiful. Thank you, Steve.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, Matthew. God bless. Good talking to you. Okay. Let’s see. We’ve got Jimmy in Staten Island, New York. Hi, Jimmy. Good to hear from you again.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi, Craig. Steve. Just a brief statement and then a question. I know where you stand with John 15. Your position is that the branches were truly in Christ and later left. But the text pushes back on that pretty hard. Jesus says, abide in me and I in you. That I in you is the part that produces fruit. If someone was genuinely attached to the vine, you’d expect the vine’s life to be flowing through them. The fact that they produce no fruit and wither suggests that the life of Christ was never actually in them, even though they were outwardly attached. That’s exactly what happened.
SPEAKER 02 :
I don’t know who you’re reading. I don’t know who you’re reading, but that’s not sensible.
SPEAKER 04 :
He looked like a disciple, but Christ was never in him producing fruit. So the person who appeared to be in Christ actually wasn’t, which matches 1 John 2.19. They went out from us, but they were not of us. If they had been of us, they would have continued with us.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this.
SPEAKER 04 :
Here’s a question. Here’s a question.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I have a question, too. Let me ask.
SPEAKER 04 :
I should be able to speak also.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m not hanging up on you. No. Let me ask you a question, okay? Okay. Let me ask you a question.
SPEAKER 04 :
I just wanted to get it out.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, are you saying, well, you’ve got it written in front of you, so you can stop there and pick it up when I go on. I’m asking you, are you saying that you don’t believe the apostles in the upper room were really in Christ? Because that’s who he’s talking about. He says, I’m the vine, you, the guys in the room, you are the branches. Now, if everyone remains in me. you’ll produce fruit. If any of you don’t remain in me, you’ll be cast forth. Judas would be a good example of that. Now, let me ask you, you’re saying then that the people he was talking to at the Last Supper, which is where this was uttered, they weren’t really in him? They weren’t really true disciples? They didn’t have eternal life yet?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, I believe they did have eternal life. Oh, okay, so why are you saying… He’s making a theoretical statement that if any bit he’s making a theoretical statement that I abide in you and I in him and my question is Christ was truly in them I know you have difficulty with those that look like they were believers because the trauma that you went through when you were younger none of that is true don’t tell me what I have trouble with because I don’t have any trouble with that but what is your question let me see if this is your question because it sounds like your question is this
SPEAKER 02 :
If they ever had the life of Christ in them, then they would bear fruit. Is that what you’re saying?
SPEAKER 04 :
The fruit of the Spirit, yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. But if they ceased to have Christ in them, they would cease to bear that fruit, I’d say.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, he that began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.
SPEAKER 02 :
But that’s uttered to a church. That’s uttered to the church corporately in Philippians. Yeah, God began a good work in the church in Philippi, and he’s going to finish his work in the church of Philippi. That doesn’t tell you whether every person in the church of Philippi is going to continue, or even if every person who was attending that church was even saved. So, I mean, Paul doesn’t make that promise to every individual, you know, but he makes it to the church as a whole. That’s the letters to a church. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 04 :
I don’t want to take up too much time. My point is that if Christ is truly in somebody, he’s not going to leave them, and they’re going to bear fruit. If Christ is not in a person, they are not going to bear fruit, and that’s why they wither. And they don’t take themselves away, it says, that the Father takes them away.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, no, no, you’re reading the wrong verse. I’m reading verse 6. He says, if anyone does not remain in me. he is cast forth as a branch. Why is he cast forth? Because he didn’t remain in him. That’s the condition. If you don’t remain in me, you’ll be cast forth as a branch. Yeah, God does take away. Verse 2 says, every branch of me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. Although the actual Greek word isn’t take away. It means he lifts them up. So some Calvinists actually believe that he’s talking about If they aren’t bearing fruit, God will do whatever he has to do, lift them up off the ground so that they get more sunlight or whatever, so that they will bear fruit. You’re right, the King James and the New King James, he’ll cast them forth. But lift them up is what every Calvinist I’ve ever met says it should be translated. Now, and you’re a Calvinist, but I’m not sure if you’re reading a different Calvinist than I have read. But the point here is, You’re saying the branch that doesn’t remain in him never was in him. And you quote 1 John 2 where it talks about some people who were false teachers who denied that Jesus is the Christ and they had been kind of in the church for a while and they left. And he says they were never of us because if they were of us, they would have stayed around. Well, no doubt that’s true of those people. He doesn’t say no one ever leaves Christ alone. without having, who wasn’t in him. There’s no statement like that in the Bible. And, you know, you can’t just take the words of Jesus and twist them to fit a doctrine when the words themselves are very plain. Jesus said, I am the vine, you are the branches. Okay, he’s the vine. That’s the whole plant, by the way. That’s not just the stalk. The vine is a whole plant. It includes the branches, the twigs, the leaves, the fruit. Everything is, that’s a vine. A vine is a whole plant. He’s the whole plant. We are like members of his body or like branches of his organism. We are the branches in him. Now, because we are branches in him, his life is indeed in us. That’s just the point. The point he’s making is if you remain in me, as branches remain in a vine, then fruit can be born. Why? Because the vine’s life is in those branches. That’s the only reason branches bear fruit. If the vine’s life was not in those branches, they wouldn’t bear fruit. Now, he does say, abide in me, which means the Greek word is to remain in me. Now, that means that, okay, you’re in me. Now you have to remain there. To remain somewhere means stay where you are. The disciples were, in fact, in Christ. I don’t know if they knew how they got to be in Christ or whatever. They weren’t Calvinists, so they didn’t really have any, you know, maybe they didn’t have theories about that. But however they may have come to be in Christ, it is incumbent on them to stay in him. It’s a command. It’s not a prediction. He doesn’t say, if you are a branch in me, you will abide in me. That’d be nice. That’d help your theory. But… He doesn’t ever say that. He doesn’t say you will. He says he commands them to do it. Now, you don’t command someone to do something. Like if I told you, you’re going to go to sleep now for eight hours. Make sure you stay breathing and your heart’s beating while you’re asleep. Well, you don’t have any choice about that. Why should I give you any instructions about that? You’re asleep. You can’t decide if you’re going to breathe or heartbeat or not. You know, if it’s inevitable that you’re going to remain in him, why waste breath saying no? Now, make sure you do. Make sure you abide. Don’t be one of those who doesn’t abide and is cast forth as a branch and withers. Now, you’re missing the point. What you’ve done, I think even maybe reading Arthur Pink or someone like that or some other Calvinist who makes this argument because it doesn’t make sense. The argument doesn’t make sense, but it’s a necessary argument to Calvinism. This is a very non-Calvinistic statement Jesus makes. And Calvinists, of course, have to do something about non-Calvinistic statements. You know, I’ve had Calvinists call me and say, this isn’t about salvation. It’s about fruit-bearing. You know, as a Christian, you might bear fruit, you might not bear fruit. This is saying you have to abide in me so that you’ll bear fruit. And if you don’t abide in me, you won’t bear fruit. Yeah, but if you don’t abide in him, you’re not saved. That’s the point. I mean, the reason you bear fruit… When you abide in him, it’s because his life is in you, and he is producing the fruit through you. You’re part of the organism of Christ. He’s the vine. You’re part of that vine, a branch of it. And just like I said, you’re part of the body of Christ. The whole thing is him, but you’re an arm or a leg or an eye or a nose. It’s a composite organism with various parts, and each part, we are each a part of it. And in the case of the vine, we are part of the vine. Now, that vine that gets thrown away did not have to. He tells them to abide in him. Presumably, he wouldn’t say that if it wasn’t up to them. And he says, if you abide in me, you’ll bear much fruit. If you don’t abide in me, which apparently is the other alternative could happen, then you’ll be cast forth as a branch and burned. Now, you know, I’m afraid there’s nothing but exegesis of convenience for Calvinists to make this mean anything other than if you are in Christ as they were and remain in Christ, you’ll be fruitful. If you don’t remain in Christ, you won’t be in him because remaining in him is continuing to be in him. And if you’re not in him anymore, you’re not saved. And you won’t bear fruit. I mean, I’m not adding or subtracting or even twisting anything. This is exactly what Jesus says. So I’m afraid your explanation, I’m afraid I can’t buy it. Although I know you call frequently. I don’t mind. I always enjoy hearing your arguments. But this one simply is going off the rails. Thank you for your call. Carrie from Fort Worth, Texas. Welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hello. Hello. Hi, I just wanted some understanding on the Lord’s Sabbath. I know many traditions practice worship on Sunday. I myself go on Sunday. But I’ve also, I was watching a documentary where it stated like that the Roman Catholics were actually the ones that changed it to Sunday, that we should be observing the Lord’s Day as Sunday. as was stated on Revelation, when God says, remember my day, Sabbath day, which should be on Saturday. I just kind of wanted some understanding on that.
SPEAKER 02 :
I just want to make sure that I’m not… I mean, you were watching a Sabbath day Adventist reel, apparently, and these are their arguments. First of all, the book of Revelation never mentions a single thing about Sabbath keeping. What they point out is that the good guys in Revelation are the ones who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. That’s what it says in the last verse of Revelation 12. And there’s other references to those who keep the commandments of God. Now, to a Seventh-day Adventist, the commandments of God is code for the Ten Commandments. I’m not sure why it would be. There are like 613 commandments of God in the Old Testament, including the Ten Commandments. and a whole bunch of others that include offering animal sacrifices, avoiding eating certain foods, making pilgrimages three times a year to the temple. Those are in the commands of God, too. But we’re not under those commands. Those are the old covenant commands. Jesus said, go and make disciples. Teach them to observe everything I have commanded you. The Seventh-day Adventists say, well, he’s God, so that means the Old Testament. No, his disciples didn’t know him to be God at that point. They clearly didn’t know he was God at that point. And so he didn’t expect them to understand and say, keep all the law of Moses. In fact, they had seen him on the Mount of Transfiguration, and Moses had appeared with him along with Elijah. And they wanted to retain Moses and Elijah. Peter said, let’s build three tabernacles, one for Moses, one for Elijah, and one for you, Jesus. And then Moses and Elijah disappeared. And only Jesus was there. And a voice from heaven says, this is my son. Hear him. In other words, not Moses and Elijah. Moses and Elijah who stand for the law and the prophets. The law and the prophets of the Old Testament. They were the authorities over the Jewish people under the first covenant. But now Jesus is the one who’s there, the son of God. And God says, this is my son. Hear him very emphatically. Don’t keep Moses and Elijah on as your guides. You’ve got a guide right here in my son. The book of Hebrews opens that way, too. It says that God, in opening verses, God, who at sundry times and diverse manners spoke in times past to our fathers through the prophets, has in these last days spoken through his son. who’s the bright shining of his glory in the express image of his person. So, in other words, Jesus has come as the ultimate witness and guide and Lord. And instead of following the commands that Moses gave, which were part of an old covenant, and by the way, we know they were the old covenant, The Ten Commandments are even called the covenant in the Old Testament. It refers to it as the covenant. Yet, they were given at Mount Sinai. And the book of Hebrews tells us in chapter 8 of Hebrews, verse 13, that the covenant given at Sinai is obsolete because a new covenant has come making it obsolete. Jesus made a new covenant. He’s the new Lord. He’s the new king. He’s the one who gives the commandments. He said, a new commandment I give unto you. that you love one another. He’s the new covenant leader. And, you know, the disciples who went up on the Mount of Transfiguration with him had all their lives been listening to Moses and Elijah, or as were the law and the prophets. That’s what was taught in the synagogues for them to obey. But now God is saying, no, my son is the one here now. Heed him from now on. And so Jesus says, has fully replaced the law and the prophets as the definer of what God wants us to do. And there’s nothing in the New Testament that tells us that he ever told anyone to keep the Sabbath. He did not. Nor do any of the apostles. Interesting, too, because the Old Testament not only included the Sabbath in the Ten Commandments right up front, but continually, again and again, rebuked people for not keeping the Sabbath and insisted they keep the Sabbath. There was even a death penalty on those who worked on the Sabbath. This was a pretty major part of the Old Covenant. But when the Old Covenant passed away, a new one has come, and godly behavior is defined not by the Old Covenant now, but by the new one, by Christ himself. So you don’t find Christ ever commanding anyone to keep the Sabbath. And more often than not, the conflicts he had with the Pharisees was because he wasn’t keeping the Sabbath as they thought he should. So we don’t find the early church keeping the Sabbath. They didn’t understand Christ or Paul or Peter to be telling us to keep the Sabbath. But Seventh-day Adventists might be right that it was the Catholic Pope who said the Sabbath has changed to Sunday. But, so what? The early church didn’t keep the Sabbath. I mean, if they were Jewish, some of them still probably kept Sabbath, as anyone’s welcome to if they want to. But the early church, we have witness of it in the time of the apostles, met on Sundays. I mean, you know, Paul, when he’s in I think it was entire when he preached and Eutychus fell out of the window. That was on the Sabbath. They met together to break bread on the Sabbath. I’m not, excuse me, first day of the week, not Sabbath. On the first day of the week, Sunday, they met together to break bread. And Paul was speaking and, you know, the guy fell asleep. Also, we know from among the earliest church fathers that Sunday was called the Lord’s Day. And that Sunday was the day that the Christians gathered. we have witnesses of that in the first couple centuries. This is long before there were any Roman Catholics or any popes. There was no actual pope to speak of until around 600 A.D. Some of the popish ideas were developing a few centuries before that, but in the second century after Christ, no one talked about popes or the Roman church or anything like that. It was not You know, that’s a thing that developed traditionally over the centuries. The early church typically worshipped on what they called the Lord’s Day, which was also called the first day of the week, which we call Sunday. But let me just say this. They didn’t change the Sabbath to Sunday. They simply did not see anything in the New Testament that made it obligatory to keep the Sabbath. And I agree with them. I see nothing in the teachings of Jesus or the apostles that makes it obligatory for Christians to even consider the Sabbath. If you want to worship on Saturday, I can’t see anything wrong with it. Or Sunday. Or Wednesday, for that matter. Or any day. You know, Paul said to the Roman Christians in Romans 14.5, he’s talking about different preferences and convictions among Christians in the church. They didn’t all have quite the same preferences about this. But he said, one man esteems one day above another. Another man esteems every day alike. Let everyone be fully persuaded in his own mind. Now, nobody who keeps the Sabbath as the Sabbath could be said to keep every day alike. It’s obviously if a man esteems every day alike, he’s not concerned Saturday or Sunday or any particular day, a special day. He treats every day alike. And I think Paul did because the other people were keeping one day special. Now, how do we know which side Paul was on? He was on the side of liberty. He said, let everyone be fully persuaded in his own mind, which is a position he could not have taken if he believed they should be keeping one day holy. Some of the church were. Probably the Jewish Christians were probably keeping Sabbath holy. I wouldn’t be surprised. Or Sunday. I don’t know. But we don’t know. He doesn’t say. But one group in the church thought they should keep a holy day. The other group thought, why? Why not let every day be holy? And I believe Paul had to be on the side of the second, though he quite diplomatically didn’t take sides. But when he said, you know, let’s have liberty in this matter. You can’t give people liberty if they’re under obligation to do a legalistic thing like keep a holy day. It’s clear that he thought that those who just treated every day alike, which is another way of saying they didn’t keep any day special. They had liberty to do that, which means there was no obligation in Paul’s mind for anyone to keep one day special, or else he should have rebuked them for not doing so. Yeah, I don’t, you know, every day, you can worship on Sunday or Saturday, I don’t care. God doesn’t care. He wants you to not forsake the assembling of yourself with Christians, but the only time you get a chance to meet with Christians is Thursday night, or Tuesday night, or Wednesday morning, or something like that. That doesn’t matter. Every day is alike because every day is a holy day. Sabbath was not primarily a day to go to church. Sabbath was a day to not work, to stay at home and not work. Yes, under the law, they eventually were having meetings on the Sabbath day, but the main commandment was not their meetings. They could have meetings lots of different times. The Sabbath was for not working, and that law was not reiterated by Christ or imposed on the church at all. I’m out of time. Sorry to say, you’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
