This episode also tackles the sensitive topic of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and its moral implications from a Christian perspective. Hear personal stories and seek guidance on navigating the ethical challenges associated with IVF, including the fate of remaining embryos. Tune in for a thoughtful discussion that aids in reconciling scientific advancements with pro-life beliefs while remaining true to biblical teachings.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are live for an hour each weekday afternoon. We take your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, or you call in to disagree with the host, we’ll be glad to talk to you about that as well. Been doing this since 1997. That’s 28 years this year. We have one line open right now. You can call this number, 844-484-5737. That’s 844- 484-5737. Now, tonight is the first Wednesday of the month, and that means we have our monthly Zoom meeting tonight, the first Wednesday of each month. We have a Zoom meeting that you can join us on for free, of course, and it’s a Q&A time, a lot like what we do here on the program, obviously more face-to-face with the Zoom video or whatever. imagery, and it goes a little longer than this show, too. If you want to join us for that, you can find information about logging on at thenarrowpath.com under the tab that says announcements at thenarrowpath.com. The log on is there. It’s at 7 o’clock tonight Pacific time. Okay, so check out the time zone that you’re in and see what time it is for you. 7 o’clock Pacific time zone. All right, and then this weekend, I’ll be speaking in Northern California and on the Central Coast. I’ve got two meetings in San Jose, Friday and Saturday night. I have a Sunday afternoon meeting in Santa Cruz, and then I have an evening meeting on Monday night. in Ukiah. Now, if you’re interested in those meetings, again, you can find those listed at thenarrowpath.com under announcements. So that’s a good place to look if you’re trying to get any information about things that we’re doing out of the ordinary. The announcements are always there at thenarrowpath.com under announcements. All right, we’ll go to the phones right now and talk to Bob in Bellevue, Washington. Hi, Bob. Welcome. Welcome.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, good afternoon, Steve. Thanks for taking my call again. My question has to do with Ephesians 1, where Paul is talking about what we have in Christ, and he goes into great detail in that chapter numerous times about being chosen, God choosing us and predestining us. And I guess my question is, as he’s referring to this predestination, choosing, foreknowledge, what have you, is he referring to me as an individual, predestining me as a child of God, or is he perhaps talking about the church in general, choosing the church and then, of course, knowing that I would be, but more or less depending on my free will decision to be a part of that predestination. What’s your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I take the latter position, and there’s not very many times that Paul uses the word predestination or predestinate with reference to us. There’s a few places, both in Peter and in Paul, where Jesus is said to be predestined to certain things, but we were predestined according to Ephesians 1 and verse 5, and also Ephesians 1 and verse 11. Now, outside of these two cases in the first chapter of Ephesians, there’s only really two other places that the word predestined comes up in reference to us, and that would be in Romans chapter 8, verses 29 and 30. Now, I believe that both places, when Paul speaks about predestined, he has the same thought in mind. Now, in Ephesians, He says in verse 5 that having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will. And then he simply says in verse 11, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. Now, in verse 11, of course, he doesn’t say predestined to what. He just says we’ve been predestined. But in verse 5, he’s already said we’ve been predestined to adoption as sons. Now, when I was growing up, I thought that Paul kind of just used the word adoption interchangeably with the idea of being born of God. And yet the idea of adopting a child and having your own biological child are very different ideas. But I felt like since we were not children of God initially, and now we’ve been brought into the family of God, that Paul would maybe use the word adoption for that. Whereas most of the time, the rest of the Bible says we’ve been born of God. Now, if adoption and being born of God are interchangeable ideas, and he’s saying, well, we’ve been predestined to be adopted, it would suggest that God predestined us to become Christians, which would be kind of seen as an individual sort of a thing, it would seem to me. But Paul speaks of the adoption that we’re looking forward to and makes it more clear what he means by that term in Romans chapter 8, which is also where we read the other references to being predestinated. But in a verse in chapter 8 of Romans 8, That doesn’t use the word predestination. It just says in verses 21 through, let’s say, well, let’s just say verse 22 and 23, Romans 8, 22 and 23, For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now, and not only they, but we also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, which is the redemption of our bodies. Now, I take the redemption of our body to be a reference to the resurrection, when we will be resurrected in the likeness of Christ. And so he says we’re waiting for the adoption, which he identifies as the redemption of our body. So Paul seems to see the adoption is… Now, we are children of God. He’s made that very clear, because he says that in… You know, a few verses earlier, he said, as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. In verse 14, and basically the whole passage before this, he says, we are children of God now, but we’re looking forward to the adoption. So, since that, he identifies as the resurrection of the body. Being born of God is what we are now, if we’re Christians. And being adopted is what we’re looking forward to. Now, adoption… in the Roman world, adoption often meant the same thing it does pretty much for us, taking somebody else’s baby or child and adopting them to be your child. But there are several authorities I’ve read over the years, and this is not commonly, it’s not easy to find, but I think I first got this from J. Sidlow Baxter and found it a few other places, that adoption can refer to, at least as Paul uses it, not the taking of a child from another family into your family, but Having a child that is your own who reaches maturity, and at that point there’s a ceremony that the father of the child does of adoption where the child becomes the actual adult heir. Now, if that is true, and I’m no expert on these kinds of things. I mean, we’re talking about Roman Empire culture type stuff. But that’s certainly something I have heard. It would agree very much with Galatians 4, where Paul says from the beginning of Galatians 4, Now I say that the heir, the heir of an estate, he means, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is the master of all. But he is under guardians and stewards until the appointed time, appointed by the father. Even so, we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world, but When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. Now, notice he says, he talks about an heir. An heir is like, even though he’s a natural-born child, he’s no better off in his privileges than a slave in the household until the time that the father chooses to elevate him to the position of of a mature son and to give him the position of being, as it were, ruler of the estate. And that seems to agree with what I read elsewhere about adoption can be referring to a native-born son being transferred from, as it were, childhood into a position of adult privilege. Now, Paul, I think, sees us in that role because we are children of God, But we’re looking forward to that adoption. That is where we pass from being children of God into mature sons and inherit all things, which I believe happens when Jesus comes back and we’re resurrected. Paul refers to the adoption as the redemption of our body in Romans 8, verse 23. Now, that being so, when he says in Ephesians 1 that we’re predestined for adoption, Unless Paul has changed his theology between the time he wrote Romans and the time he wrote Ephesians, he’s talking about we’ve been predestined to be resurrected at the end of time. That God has predestined for his people, the church, to experience the resurrection. He’s not talking about people being adopted into the family of God in the sense of sinners being converted and born again. That’s not what we’re predestined for. We’re predestined because we are children of God. We’ve been predestined to experience this privilege of adoption at the time of the resurrection. Now, if that’s what he means in Ephesians, then it should be no surprise because that’s what he says in Romans 8, another passage than the one we were looking at a moment ago. Same chapter. But in Romans 8, 29, he says, For whom he foreknew… He also predestined. Okay, so whom he foreknew. Virtually all commentators I’m aware of, including Calvinists, believe that the ones that he foreknew are the Christians. Us. Okay, so speaking of us, us he also predestined. To what? To be conformed to the image of his son. Well, isn’t that what happens in the resurrection? Aren’t we going to be resurrected in his likeness? Doesn’t John say in 1 John chapter 3, Beloved, now we are the children of God, but it does not yet appear what we shall be. But when he shall appear, we shall be like him. For we shall see him as he is. So when Jesus comes and erases the dead and glorifies the saints. We will be conformed to the image of his son. And that’s what God has predestined for those that he foreknew. So we who believe are the ones that he foreknew. And it says, so taken as a category, those that he foreknew, he has a plan for. He has a plan for his church collectively. all who were in the church. Now, he doesn’t say how we got into the church. He assumes we know that from the rest of the Scripture. We come to be in the church by repenting of our sins and believing in Christ and becoming followers of Christ, which everywhere in Scripture is said to be our responsibility, our decision. We’ll be punished if we don’t do it. We’ll be rewarded if we do. Obviously, this is something that isn’t done for us. We have that role to play. So, But we who have done so belong to that category, those whom he foreknew and those who are the church. And he says he’s predestined us to be conformed to the image of his son, which Paul believes will happen when Jesus raises us from the dead at his coming. And so when in Ephesians he says we’ve been predestined for adoption as sons. It sounds like he’s got the same thing in mind, you know, the resurrection and the glorification. So predestination in the only two passages where Paul talks about it is said to be something not that someone was predestined to be saved, but something that is predestined for those who are saved. Those who are saved, whom he foreknew, we who are the church, he has predestined something for us, a destiny for the church when Jesus returns. We’ll be resurrected and glorified and be in his image. And I believe that’s what predestination refers to in Paul.
SPEAKER 04 :
Could you give the scripture verse, Steve, about being conformed to his image and all?
SPEAKER 05 :
The one I just used in Romans 8, 29.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I’ve got that down.
SPEAKER 05 :
1 John chapter 3, verses 2, I think verse 2. Okay. Thank you, sir. I appreciate your insights. Okay, Bob. God bless you. You too. Bye now. All right, Amanda in Seattle, Washington. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hi, Steve. Thank you for taking my call. I have a question regarding IVF, in vitro fertilization, and kind of the consequences of IVF. My husband and I did it in 2018 after about five years of unexplained infertility, and now we have three beautiful children. When we first did IVF, we kind of adopted the idea that any leftover embryos wouldn’t be considered a quote-unquote life. until or unless they were put into my womb. And that’s kind of how we justified any leftover embryos when we do finish our family. And the more we’ve grown in our faith and, you know, the years of being parents and just growing, we kind of have realized that that idea doesn’t actually fall in line with the Bible or our pro-life beliefs. So we have… You know, been very convicted about it because we do have seven leftover embryos that are just frozen right now waiting. And we might do one more. So we’ve repented. We know that God has forgiven us, but that doesn’t solve the problem at hand of what’s going to happen with these leftover embryos. Because we know that their lives now, they’re embryos that are just waiting. So we realized that we either need to have them or we need to donate them. So we’ve kind of started the process of hand-selecting a couple through a Christian agency who is like us in our beliefs. And I’m assuming that you agree with our… you know, the fact of the matter of what needs to be done with the embryos. I’m wondering if you have any advice or any scriptures just to kind of help us come to terms with the idea of our 100% biological children that look like our children growing up in families that not our family. Like, how do we make that okay in our hearts?
SPEAKER 05 :
Right. Well, I have some good friends who’ve had children through in vitro fertilization. And I never knew much about the process, so I just rejoiced with them when they did it. And I’m sure that they did, too. I don’t know how much thought they’ve given to the ethics of what you do with the other embryos. I don’t even think I knew that there were other embryos because I just didn’t know much about the process. But I have learned since then that the process of trying to get a viable embryo It means that you try to fertilize several eggs simultaneously. And, you know, if one doesn’t take, you maybe insert another one. And if it implants, then all good. Then what do you do with the others that aren’t implanted, aren’t inserted? And, of course, it is a pro-life concern. And I… You know, as a pro-life person, I just believe that once God has started a baby growing, which takes place at conception, or maybe when it’s implanted in the uterus, I really don’t know. I don’t know how God looks exactly at that. It may be that a fertilized embryo in God’s sight isn’t really viable until it’s implanted, in which case, you know he’d see these differently but I if I were in the position that you’re in and I had come to have convictions with this, I would… Well, people would do different things. If my wife and I were like this, I would make the choice to try to implant them all. Not all at once, but I don’t want to have ten children, you know, if that’s what God wants. But on the other hand, I wouldn’t see any sin in donating them to another couple that wants to get pregnant, because I mean, that’d be like, you know, giving up a baby for adoption. I don’t think there’s a sin in giving up a baby for adoption that you can’t raise. It certainly is better than aborting a baby or, you know, killing the baby or leaving it out on the curb in the elements. I don’t think there’s any sin in giving a child up for adoption for its good if the other option is it’s probably going to die. So I think these fertilized embryos, again, I don’t know exactly how God sees it because this technology simply wasn’t available in biblical times. So there’s no comments in the Bible specifically about it, so we have to try to apply general convictions to this new scenario i think uh i myself would tend to regard them all as if they’re fertilized they’re alive and um i think that if if my wife and i had done this and we came to these convictions that this was so uh i think we’d probably plan to have as many babies as we could get from that batch and uh And, you know, when they’re born, if they’re simply beyond what we can care for, I mean, I suppose adopting out would be an option, but I would rather care for all my own children myself. And I can understand how you would, too. But if you felt like, wow, we just can’t, we don’t intend to have more than four kids or five or whatever is your limit, and you have some few more embryos, I don’t really see how it would be a sin to donate those to couples. It would be like giving a child up for adoption. And, you know, I just wouldn’t see that as a sin. So I say you can make your own choice about it. I think you’re right in not seeing them as disposable. You know, they’re not something that you could just let them die and that would be okay. But… On the other hand, there’s options even for a pregnancy. There’s options, you know. Abortion is not one of them. Having the baby or giving up the baby would be the two things, and I would say that that would apply to the embryos too.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay. Thank you.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right. Well, God bless you, and I appreciate the fact that you’re going to want to follow your conscience about that.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. Thank you, Steve.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right. God bless you, Amanda. Bye now.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, God bless you.
SPEAKER 05 :
God bless. Kerry from Fort Worth, Texas. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you, Steve. I’ve kind of noticed that in the Old Testament that the followers of God are described as his wife, but yet in the New Testament the followers are described as a bride, as someone preparing to become a wife. Could you comment on the differences or if there is a difference?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, Israel was referred to as God’s wife. And his wife was joined to him by covenant at Mount Sinai. And therefore, for them to worship other gods was considered like a wife sleeping with another man other than her husband. So, you know, their idolatry was considered to be adultery against God. Now, this would be so whether Israel was considered to be God’s wife or betrothed. Because in Jewish society, when a man and woman were betrothed, you would refer to them as husband and wife, even if they’re not yet married, not yet living together. For example, the Bible says that when Mary and Joseph had not yet married, Joseph went with Mary, his betrothed wife, to Bethlehem before Jesus was born. It was Jewish custom to think of betrothal as the vows. I mean, that’s vows, but they’re not until they go through a second ceremony, marriage. They weren’t really regarded as vows. available to live together. So it may be that when God referred to Israel as his wife, that he was even thinking of her being betrothed only. On the other hand, it’s a different situation. Jesus is going to be joined with his wife, When he comes back, I believe. That’s how I understand it. And Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 that he has betrothed us, the church, to Christ. So we are his betrothed. And in Revelation 19, I believe, now there’s a lot of ways to look at Revelation. Some would see it differently than I do. But I believe that’s talking about our being joined with him at his second coming. That being, as it were, the wedding and the end of betrothal, the beginning of wedding. So we, at that point, would be the bride. But I don’t think that Israel looked forward to a second ceremony. I mean, Mount Sinai was it. So probably referring to Israel as the wife was because they weren’t just betrothed to God. They had made their vows to God and that they were now his wife. But when Christ has come, we have, in a sense, were betrothed. And we have to be loyal to him. But we haven’t been joined with him because he’s not here. The imagery, you know, there’s a sense which these are metaphors. You know, Paul said, for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. He said, this is a great mystery. I speak concerning Christ and the church. He’s saying that marriage between a man and woman is a metaphor for or a type of Christ and the church. But it doesn’t mean that the wedding is a literal wedding. I mean, there’s a lot of symbolism there. But our relation to Christ right now is like somebody waiting to be joined with the bridegroom. And Bertroth had already promised to him. And when he comes back is when we’ll be joined. So I think using the term bride for the time when we come to be joined with Christ is appropriate enough. But I wouldn’t make too much of the distinction between Israel being called a wife and the church being called a bride. I think that the whole idea is covenantally promised, covenantally faithful, like a man and woman who are either betrothed or married. It’s just that in the New Testament, it’s kind of two phases, where in the Old Testament, I think they jumped right out of Egypt into a marriage with God at Mount Sinai. I don’t know if there’s any deeper reasons for one being called a wife and the other being called a bride, but I wouldn’t make, myself, I wouldn’t make much of it. That is of the difference. All right, I’m going to have to take a break here, and then we’ll come back. We have plenty of calls waiting for our second half hour, which will follow immediately. At this point, we simply let our listeners know that The Narrow Path is listener-supported. You can write to us at The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. You can also donate if you want from the website, though everything there is without charge. The website is thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away. We’ll have another half hour together.
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 05 :
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’re interested in calling with questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, or to see things differently than the host and want to say so, the number to call is 844-484-5737. And it looks to me like the switchboard has just filled up, so if you call now, you’ll get a busy signal or something like that. So try later on if you want to. Also, I want to remind you, because this is Wednesday, tonight we have our once-a-month Zoom meeting for anyone who wants to join us there. It’s a Q&A time. And if you’d like to join us, it’s at 7 o’clock p.m. Pacific time. And you can find the login information at our website, thenarrowpath.com, under Announcements. All right, our next caller is Kevin from Baytown, Texas. And by the way, I will be coming to Texas later this month. I’ll be speaking for about a week. I’ll be in the Houston area, the Dallas area, and several other areas. So if you’re in Texas and interested in seeing where I’ll be, feel free, again, to go to thenarrowpath.com and look at the announcements. All right, Kevin, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for coming.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, Steve. I just finished listening to your God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Salvation series. Really amazing. And I was wondering if you ever considered putting that into a book form where it could be handed out.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right, right. I have considered it. I think there’s a lot of good books already on the subject. But, of course, not all of them take it the way I do where I try to give the strong points of both sides. So have I considered it? It’s crossed my mind. Whether I’ll do it or not remains to be seen.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, I had like a three-part question about open theology. Okay. So the first is when God dialogues with Abraham about Sodom and Gomorrah, when God dialogues with Moses basically concerning, you know, he’s going to destroy Israel and Moses intercedes. Talks him out of it. Yeah, is this God being anthropomorphic or is God changing his intentions or desires based on Moses’ intercessions?
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s going to depend on who you talk to. I believe that when God’s talking to Abraham about Sodom and Gomorrah, it clearly is anthropomorphic. because, and by that, for those who don’t know what that means, anthropomorphic means God is presenting himself in a human form, because he’s talking to a human being. We know that in that chapter, which is Genesis 18, at the very beginning of the chapter, verse 1 says, Abraham saw God, and then it’s described that three men, two of them were angels, and one was God, came to eat with him. And, you know, in human bodies, like, Two of those men went on to Sodom and became, or later described as two angels who helped Lot escape. But the one who is referred to as God, as you move toward the end of chapter 18, is telling Abraham that he’s going to visit Sodom. And in that place, he says, the wickedness of Sodom has come up before me, meaning I’ve heard reports of it. And I’m going to go down there and see for myself if it’s as bad as I’ve heard. And he says… And if it is, I’ll know. Now, of course, there’s no possibility that God standing there before Abraham did not know whether Sodom was as wicked as he’d heard. I mean, that’s not even really talking about God knowing the future. That’s just God knowing what’s going on several miles away and has been going on for a long time before. So it has more to do with God even knowing the present. Now, there can be no doubt that God knew what was going on in Sodom, but he talks as if he didn’t know. He talks as if he’s going to go and find out. Now, that’s very similar, it seems to me, to when God told Abram to offer his son Isaac, and when Abram complied, God said, don’t do it, for now I know that you fear me. Well, again, this is not talking about God’s ignorance about future things. He’s talking about what’s in Abram’s heart. I now know that you fear me. Well, before Abram did that, did God know whether Abram feared him or not? Or did he just figure that out just then? Obviously, these are cases of anthropomorphism where God speaks as if he doesn’t know things, which he certainly did know. We see it in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve hear God coming in the garden to investigate or to visit with them or whatever, and they hide. And God says, where are you, Adam? And Adam said, I’m here in the bushes. I was naked, so I hid. God said, well, how did you know you’re naked? You didn’t eat that fruit, did you? Now, you know, like God doesn’t know the answer to that. God doesn’t know where Adam is. You can hide from God in bushes and he won’t know where you are. Obviously, God is talking as if he’s got the same limitations as a man. Now, why does God do that? Maybe because he’s awfully intimidating if he doesn’t reduce himself to being like us in his presentation of himself. Remember, it says that a man wrestled with Jacob all night and couldn’t defeat him. And it later was revealed that that was God. And, you know, in the form of man, could God not defeat an old man who’s like, you know, 100 years old? which is what Jacob was about that time. So, I mean, and then he touches Jacob, and Jacob’s crippled and can’t win. Now, that God had the power to do that, to cripple him any time he wished, and yet all night long wrestled with him as if he couldn’t beat him. We can see these kinds of encounters God is reducing himself in his disclosure of himself to people as if he’s kind of on their level. Now, he isn’t. And the Bible certainly makes clear that he isn’t. He’s the creator of everything. He’s everywhere. He can certainly defeat an old man in a wrestling match, or frankly, he could defeat a whole nation just by speaking. The Bible says he spoke a word and the earth melted, you know. So here we have God reducing himself to interact with man as if he’s at his level. Now, when the Israelites made a golden calf and Moses, who was up on the mountain, didn’t know about it, but God did. God said to Moses, get out of my way. They’ve made a golden calf. I’m going to go and destroy them. And Moses talks him out of it. And then it says, and God said, okay, I won’t do it. You’re asking, did God really change his mind? Well, I think that we could say if Moses had not interceded, that God would have done that. But because of the intercession, God did it. But whether God knew that, how that was going to turn out beforehand or not, I don’t think he had any doubt. You know, I think what Moses did, God knew he would do. But it is true that God will do something, in some cases, unless someone intercedes to stop it. That’s why it says in James, you know, you have not because you ask not. Well, that means I would have it if I asked, but I didn’t ask, so I don’t have it. That means my prayers have changed something. God was going to do something or not do something, and my prayers could have changed that. And that’s what we see in intercession. When Moses intercedes, or even Abraham interceding for Sodom, we see intercession. Jesus interceded for his disciples. I have to assume that without that intercession, things would have turned out differently. But to say that God didn’t know that that intercession was going to happen, And didn’t know how it would turn out would be another thing altogether. Now, people who are open as theologians, they would say God doesn’t know those things. And therefore, you know, possibly Moses interceding for the people caught God by surprise. And God said, whoa, I didn’t know you’d do that. I guess I won’t. I guess I’ll change my mind for you, you know. Well, if we wanted to say that was the case in that instance, we’d have to say similar things about the other cases I mentioned, where God pretends like he doesn’t know where Adam’s hiding. He pretends he doesn’t know how bad Sodom is at the moment, pretends he doesn’t know whether Abram’s a God-fearing man or not. You know, it seems to me that these are all cases of anthropomorphism, where God, for whatever reason, presents himself as if he were a man, and therefore talks with men as if he has the same kind of limitations that a man has, when he certainly doesn’t.
SPEAKER 07 :
The last question is, why do you think that determinists who compromise the, at least in my opinion, the holiness of God, the purity of God, the making him the author of sin, are tolerated and sometimes celebrated in the church as And an open theist who has a difference of opinion on the omniscience of God, they’re often treated as heretics.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I think the reason that many people treat openness theology as a heresy is because it’s a newer theology. Because Augustine was essentially a Calvinist, you know, back, what, 1,700 years ago. And, in fact, Calvinism got his… Calvin got his doctrines from Augustine. So Augustine’s been around a long time, and the Reformers were followers of Augustine. And therefore, if we’re products of the Reformation, if we’re Protestants, we’re just used to people making those kinds of claims about God because that’s what Calvin and Augustine said. But if we’ve come out of that or don’t believe that, we still realize that most Protestants have believed that. And so it’s sort of seen as a tolerable alternative theology, even if we don’t believe it ourselves. But then comes openness theology as a new kid in town, and nobody has agreed with that, although that is historically. Now, there’s plenty of good people who believe it now, and I don’t think that openness theology, though I don’t agree with it, I don’t think it’s any worse than, you know, I don’t think it’s even as bad as as the Calvinist idea, because all that openness does is question whether time is of a nature that future unmade decisions can be known before they happen. Those who are not openness, like myself, would say, well, God somehow has viewing rights of the future and knows it before before we do, openness, people say, well, we don’t think the future is that way. We don’t think the future is viewable. And so there’s a difference there. And it seems to be more of a difference of a philosophy of what time is like than a theological difference. Because openness, people would say, yeah, God knows everything. I mean, they’re not denying God’s omniscient. They’re just saying he knows everything, but future choices that haven’t been made yet aren’t things. He knows everything. But those aren’t things. They don’t exist in any world. And therefore, they can’t be known until they become something. And then, of course, God knows all things. So, you know, it’s a bit of a… I think especially Calvinists are very offended by openness theology. An Arminian like myself can see that they have a point while not agreeing with it and not be so offended. But at least openness theology, like Arminianism, does not impugn the character of God. It may redefine or reexamine some of his, what should we say, attributes of magnitude, specifically omniscience, and try to redefine what that might or might not mean. But Calvinism actually impugns the character of God and makes him delight in in reprobating most of mankind to eternal torment, giving them no actual choice. They have the appearance of choice, but they don’t have any actual choice because their destiny was predestined by God before they were born, so they’re not going to change anything. And he does that according to the Westminster Confession, according to the good pleasure of his will. It’s his good pleasure to damn these people, even though they’ve never had a choice to do otherwise. The Bible, of course, argues that that isn’t God’s good pleasure. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. But Calvinism says he does. So that makes a very different person. God’s not just a, we’re not talking about God’s, the extent of omniscience. We’re talking about whether he’s really a good God or not. Whether he loves righteousness or whether he kind of likes, he likes righteousness, but he likes also people to be wicked and go to hell. Because that’s what he decided when he could have decided anything he wanted. So I think the Calvinist doctrine is certainly much more offensive than the differences I have with openness theology. And by the way, I once heard years ago, when I first heard about openness theology, someone said it was like Pelagianism, which of course is the polar opposite of Calvinism, Pelagianism. But I was just looking at some old church father quotes just earlier today, and there was one by Pelagius, and it was interesting because he mentioned God knows the future. God foreknew who would be Christians and so forth. So I guess Pelagius was not openness, though I once heard someone say that he was. Anyway, those are some meanderings of my thoughts about that. Kevin, I need to take another call. God bless you. Bye now. All right. Our next caller is Adam from Lancaster, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path, Adam.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hello, Steve. Thank you so much for taking my call. I’m really appreciative of your time. I appreciate it. have learned much from you, and I thank you. I was doing the… You’re welcome. I was doing a Bible study with my wife this morning, and she was reading Joshua, and we were talking about the land was given to Israel, all of the land he conquered. And then during that process, she was elaborating on why would God say, do not murder, and yet completely annihilate all of the different groups of people, whether it’s the Jezebelites and all these different groups of people. So we were reading across Joshua. So I’d like to get your feedback on that. It would be appreciative.
SPEAKER 05 :
Sure. Well, first of all, in the Old Testament, as in the New, it never says that killing is always wrong because the Old Testament obviously approves of capital punishment. Murder is not the same thing as all killing. That is not all killing is murder. Killing is the unjust killing of an innocent person when it’s not according to justice. And so, you know, if I come over to my neighbor’s house and kill my neighbor when they don’t deserve it, that is murder. If he kills me in self-defense while I’m trying to kill him, that seems just enough for him to do. Or if I do kill him, if I do murder him and the judge throws me in jail and I go to the electric chair, that’s just also because I’m not innocent. For a person who does something worthy of death to receive the death penalty is not a case of murder. It’s a case of just retribution. And Paul himself is the one who tells us that. And we’ll get to the Canaanites in a moment. But in Acts chapter 25… Paul says this when he’s on trial for his life. He’s actually done nothing wrong, but he’s been accused of things that his accusers are trying to get him killed. And he’s speaking before Festus, the Roman governor. And in Acts 25, 11, he says, For if I am an offender or have committed anything worthy of death, I do not object to dying. But if there’s nothing in these things to which these men accuse me of, no one can deliver me to them. I appeal to Caesar. So he says, if I’ve actually done something worthy of death, you know, and they kill me for it, I’m not going to object. I can’t object on principle. You know, if I’ve done something worthy of death, I deserve to die. I can’t complain if I die. But if I’m innocent, they can’t kill me. That’s not good. That’s not okay. So he’s saying he recognizes there are crimes that are correctly capital crimes. And if he had committed one, he says he couldn’t object to capital punishment, even if he was the one being killed. And that’s the Christian position. Now, people can do things that subject them to death. Now, therefore, not all killing of human beings in the Bible is treated as murder. Now, there’s also such thing as war. And in some wars, obviously, there’s a lot of killing, usually of combatants, usually of, you know, of people who, if you didn’t kill them, they’re going to try to kill you. So in a sense, it can be self-defense unless you’re the invaders. Now, Israel were the invaders in Canaan. And God did tell them to wipe out the whole society, which included noncombatants and even innocent children. And there’s been a lot of ways that Christians have explained that. But my position is this, that Israel was not acting on a private vendetta here. A murderer is acting on his own for his own advantage or because of his own hatred for somebody or his own anger. But Israel didn’t have any particular gripes against the Canaanites. God did. They were God’s armies. That’s what they were said to be. The angel that appeared to Joshua before he made his first invasion against Jericho said that the angel said, I’m the commander of the Lord’s armies. And I’m telling you how to conduct this war. So Israel was seen as God’s armies, taking commands from God. And this puts them in a unique position, which they could not just assume themselves, and which they would not, as far as I know, have any particular interest in taking on themselves. In fact, God had commanded them to go in and take the land from the Canaanites 40 years earlier, and they didn’t want to. They said, no, this looks like too big a challenge for us. We’ll just stay here. We’ll go back to Egypt or whatever, you know. So it wasn’t like Israel had some vendetta against the Canaanites and wanted to kill them because they hated them. It was that this was a society that may be analogous to Sodom and Gomorrah, whom God had directly killed in the fire and brimstone, men, women, and children. Or like the flood, where God killed men, women, and children in the flood. God… God’s the creator of everything. Everyone answers to him, and everyone’s going to die. And they’ll die when he says so. Some people die young. Some die old. Some die innocent. Some die guilty. I mean, everyone dies. That’s the wages of sin. And God has the right to decide, okay, I’m done with Sodom and Gomorrah. I’m done with these people, these antediluvians who are, you know, the world’s full of violence, and every thought and imagination of their heart is only evil continually. And I’m done with these Canaanites. And this time, instead of a flood or fire from heaven, I’m going to send my armies in it. Israel is going to be my armies in this. Now, on other occasions, the Babylonians were God’s armies coming against Israel. And in the New Testament, Jesus even referred to the Romans coming and destroying Jerusalem as God’s armies. So it’s not that Israel is always God’s armies. It’s that when God has a score to settle with a society that has become so evil, that he’s just got to remove them from the face of the earth or they’re like a cancer. They’re going to destroy and corrupt everything. He can call somebody, Israel, Babylon, Rome, anyone he wants to, and say, okay, I’m recruiting you to go and conquer these people and get rid of them. Now, you see, this makes it very clear that this wasn’t just Israel being aggressive. and doing things that would be wrong for you or me to do to someone who is our neighbor. If I killed an innocent child, I’d be a murderer because I’d be doing it on my own. If I was part of an army that was sent by God to liquidate a whole society because they had become so corrupt, just like Sodom and Gomorrah had become, or the world had become in the time of Noah, well, then it’s a different moral situation. Now, I realize an unbeliever would say, yeah, but, you know, God doesn’t really tell armies that God doesn’t even exist. You know, these were the Israelites pretending that God gave them a mandate and so forth. Well, I mean, if you’re an unbeliever, you’re an unbeliever. I can’t help that. Obviously, if you don’t believe there’s a God, you’re not going to believe that Israel was sent by God to carry out God’s judgment on this society. But I’m not obligated to be an unbeliever. Thanks. You can be one. I’m not, you know.
SPEAKER 06 :
I’ve heard that they’ve said to me, oh, it’s hypocritical. God’s expecting individuals to do righteous. And then in this case, those of the innocent who didn’t have any say-so one way or the other were wiped out.
SPEAKER 05 :
An innocent child that dies of cancer doesn’t deserve to die, at least not at the hands of man. In that case, they don’t die at the hands of men. They die at the hands of a disease. But children, unfortunately, all people, innocent and guilty, all die. And like I said earlier, since, you know, God is the one who has the right to say when is the right time for anyone to die, it’s apparently, for some people, it’s all ages. Some children die in childbirth. Some die in infancy. Some die in childhood. Some die in their adolescence. I mean… We can’t really say why God said this is your time to go. I had a wife who died at age 25 in an accident, okay, back in 1980. But, I mean, I wouldn’t have guessed it was her time to go. And I don’t think she died because she was guilty of anything. I think she was a very godly woman who went straight to heaven. And I think that happens to children when they die, too. When children die, I think they go straight to heaven. That’s my understanding. So, you know, we say, well… It’s wrong to kill an innocent child. Well, it would be wrong for me to do so. It’s not wrong for God to take anyone’s life at any time. The real issue is to decide if he’s just or not. It’s not whether he lets somebody die at any particular age. It’s what does he do with them after that. And I believe that children who die, die innocent. And Calvinists don’t believe that, but I believe that. And therefore, I believe they are saved. And so, frankly… I would rather have died when I was young and gone straight to be with Jesus than to have to go through some of the things as an adult I’ve had to go through. But I don’t get to make that choice. God does. And you see, a person who’s a believer in God actually doesn’t say, God, give me an answer for why you’re doing it because I’m not going to believe in you unless you have a good answer for me. A person who talks that way doesn’t even know who God is. You don’t talk to God that way. You can if you want, but you won’t be okay. And you’ll have to answer to them sometime, too. I just, you know, people just don’t understand who God is. And unfortunately, we live in an age, a very non-God-fearing age, where people think they can just answer against God, and that’s okay. They’ve got the right to do that, they think. No, we don’t. Who are you to answer against God, oh man?
SPEAKER 06 :
So the bottom line, the summary, though, would be God is God, and he had his reason for doing this, which is essentially they were an idolatrous civilization of sorts or group of people, and he had enough, and so he did what he did. That would be the summation of that paradox.
SPEAKER 05 :
Frankly, yeah, many of those kids were going to die at the hands of their own parents if they didn’t die this way because the Canaanites sacrificed many of their children to Moloch. burned them alive on a brass statue filled with fire and had an orgy in front of the idol while the baby screamed its last breaths. That was Canaanite religion. So, I mean, for God to have tolerated them that long is amazing. But, yeah, I mean, frankly… You know, believing in God involves also believing that you are not God and that God doesn’t stand under you to be judged by you. It’s the other way around. And that’s the very difference between a Christian and non-Christian. A Christian once thought that he or she was the center of the universe but has repented and now recognized, oh, I’m sorry, that’s God’s position, not mine. So, I mean, anyone who’s asking those questions and seriously putting God on the dock, putting God on trial, that person has not met God yet. They may call themselves a Christian, but they don’t know what a Christian is. A Christian is one who submits to God, not one who thinks that God owes him an explanation. God owes you no such explanation, though he always has a good one he could give. I’m out of time. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. My name is Steve Gregg, and our website is thenarrowpath.com. Lots of resources, all free.
