Join us as we dissect the term ‘Christian nationalism’ and its implications across different denominations. In a complex world of overlapping political and spiritual ideologies, we strive to understand where Christians stand today. We further explore the shift in Roman Catholic doctrines over time, and how scripture versus tradition plays a pivotal role in shaping beliefs. Engage with us in this in-depth examination, seeking to answer questions that enhance our understanding of faith and tradition.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 09 :
Good afternoon, and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. And if it’s Monday, this must be California, because I’ve been away probably more days of the past six weeks than I have been home in California. I just got back this morning. I left Texas this morning about, what? 6.30 this morning and Texas time and now I’m home and doing the show from home I’ve been doing the show from Texas for the past well over a week and so it’s good to be home my lines are full Had a great time, frankly, with all the people I met in Texas. I spoke in 11 days, 11 cities, I think it was. Maybe it was 10 days, 10 cities, I forget. But, yeah, just last night I was speaking in Dallas, and I’ve spoken the Houston area and the Dallas area and the San Antonio area kind of. So I was pretty busy and a little tired, but I’m glad to be home. But I was also awfully glad to meet the very kind people there. and appreciative people, much more than I generally feel like I deserve. But I appreciate all of you guys, and thank you for coming out to the meetings and interacting with me. All right, we’re going to go to the phones, but let me give you the number here. The lines are full, so you don’t want to call right now. But if you call in a few minutes, we may have lines opening up. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, maybe challenges to the host, feel free to give me a call. The number is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. Our first caller today is Dylan calling from Benton, Arkansas. Dylan, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you. Yep, thank you so much for taking my call. Just a quick question. I was having a… a conversation with a co-worker today, and he doesn’t think that angels are perfect, unlike God. Like, God is uncomparably perfect, but he doesn’t believe they are perfect, and I had always thought they were. And I’m curious your thought on that, and that led to the thought of Jesus. He was perfect, but he doesn’t – my co-worker thinks that he – could not sin and I think that he could sin which made him perfect because he chose to be holy so I’m just kind of it’s kind of got me rattled a little bit and I’m curious your thoughts on those two like could Jesus have sinned if he wanted to you know then nullifying what he did or you know him coming to redeem humanity and then are angels perfect or what’s your thoughts on that thanks for Thank you for your answer.
SPEAKER 09 :
Sure. Sure. I’ll be glad to answer those questions the best I can. As far as using the word perfect, that’s really a hard word to know how to use because perfect technically would mean complete. There’s nothing lacking. It’s like when we talk about Adam and Eve before they sinned. Were they perfect or were they just innocent? They were pure and innocent. But I couldn’t say they were perfect because anyone who still has some development to do is not yet perfect. When you’re perfect, you’re already fully developed in all the ways that you ever will be. There’s no room for improvement. Like the Apostle Paul said, In Philippians 3, he said he wasn’t perfect. He said, not that I’m already perfect, but he said, this one thing I do, you know, forgetting the things that are before and looking to those which are ahead, I press on toward the mark of the prize in Christ Jesus. So, you know, he said he’s not perfect, but that… And angels, you know, I would say the angels that have not sinned are sinless, if that’s what we mean, that they have not sinned. But angels could sin, apparently, because the Bible speaks of angels who did. In 2 Peter 2, I think it’s verse 4, and then in Jude, I think it’s verse 6, it mentions angels who have sinned, which means they were capable of sinning, just like Adam and Eve were capable of sinning. But most of them didn’t, I trust. And the ones that didn’t, would we call them perfect? Well, I’d say they’re perfectly innocent. They haven’t sinned. But if perfect means there’d be no way that they could improve, for example, I would say God has perfect power and knowledge and presence. That’s what we mean by omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient. So he’s perfect in those areas. But humans and angels… aren’t perfect, are not in that respect. We don’t have perfect knowledge. There’s things we can learn. I assume that’s true of angels, too, since they’re not God. I don’t expect they’re omniscient. They’re not omnipresent. So if there’s ways that some of their characteristics could be imagined to be better, then perfect is not quite the most accurate word to use for it. But I’d say the unfallen angels are innocent. I think that’d be the best way to put it. Now, if he means perfect in the sense that they can’t fall, I’m not sure that perfect means that. But if he does mean that, then no, angels are not perfect. They can fall and have fallen in the past. But that’s the problem. Defining the word perfect, if we just mean perfectly innocent, then I’d say the ones who haven’t sinned are apparently perfectly innocent. But perfect in all their traits? Yes. I don’t think anything but God can literally be perfect in every respect. Now, he said, could Jesus have sinned? This is a doctrine that has been debated. The idea that Jesus could not sin because he’s God is called the doctrine of the impeccability of Christ. It is considered to be the orthodox teaching that Jesus could not sin. Now, like yourself, I don’t see anything in the Bible that says that Jesus could not sin, and I think probably he could, but just didn’t. He was tempted in every way like we are, yet without sin, the Bible says. And I’m not sure how anything would be a real temptation to you if it was something that was beyond the range of your possibility of doing. For example, I’m not tempted to run 100 miles an hour on a track. with my legs. I just can’t do it, so I’m not even tempted to do it. How could I be tempted to do that, which I know is impossible? And if Jesus couldn’t sin, I’m not sure how he could be tempted to sin, at least not like I am, because I can sin. When temptation is offered to me, it’s actually something, generally speaking, that is an option. I could do it. It’s possible. And if it’s not possible, it’s not really a temptation at all, I don’t think. So if Jesus could be tempted, I think, you know, if he’s tempted like we are, he’s tempted with things that he could do. For example, when the devil said, turn these rocks into bread because you’re hungry, I think that’s something Jesus could have done. He didn’t. He chose not to. But I don’t think it’s something that he couldn’t have done. And if he had done it, apparently, that would be sinning. But he never sinned. That’s the point. Now, you said it’s more impressive of Jesus that he could sin but didn’t. And I would agree with you about that. If somebody can sin but refuses to do so, I would say that’s a lot more virtuous than somebody who doesn’t sin because it’s simply not anything they can do. You know, I can’t eat a 10-pound rock. I can’t even put it in my mouth, so I’m not tempted to do it. And if it was a wrong thing to do, I suspect it would be, you know, the fact that I don’t do it is no virtue of mine. It’s something I can’t do. So I think Jesus probably could have done everything he was tempted to do, but didn’t. Now, the statement that Jesus couldn’t sin, and that’s, again, the doctrine is called the impeccability of Christ. It’s a classic doctrine. And people who believe like you and me about this, our view is considered to be a heresy. But don’t worry. Lots of good people have been called heretics. I mean, you know, the Reformers were all called heretics. Some of the church fathers were called heretics, even though they weren’t. It’s just because some council, usually Roman Catholic, made a judgment against what they believed and called them heretics. So I’m not really afraid of the word heretic if we’re talking about something that some council several hundred years ago judged. I’m interested in whether what I believe is taught in Scripture or not. Now, the Bible doesn’t teach that Jesus could sin, but it doesn’t teach that he couldn’t. And I believe the fact that he was tempted, as we are, and we know the things he was tempted with were not impossible for him, means he could have done it. But the philosophical case is that God can’t sin because God is too perfect to sin, and therefore Jesus, since he was God… Couldn’t sin either. But it gets a little slippery to say, well, because God can’t do it, Jesus can’t, since Jesus is God. Remember, when we say Jesus is God, we really need to put a finer point on that. He made a distinction between himself and the Father. He is God, but the Bible doesn’t just say Jesus is God. It says he was the word, which is God, made flesh. He is God in a human form. And taking on a human form changed some things. It didn’t change his character, but it did make him vulnerable to things that, as God, he would not have been vulnerable to. For example, God never slumbers or sleeps. He never gets weary, it says in Isaiah. Jesus got really weary and fell asleep, and sometimes it was hard to wake up even in a storm. So how could it be that God, who is not weary, is in the boat with the disciples sleeping? And he’s very weary. Well, it’s because he’s also a human. He’s not just God. He’s a human, too. He took on human disadvantages. Jesus didn’t know everything. God knows everything. But he said he didn’t. He said, for example, about one thing. He said, only my father knows that. I don’t know that. The angels and I don’t know that. So Jesus didn’t have omniscience when he was here. He said so. And there’s other things. You know, God can’t die. God is immortal. Jesus died. So by becoming a man, he took on mortality also. So, I mean, we see that by taking on human nature, Jesus took on vulnerabilities that he would not have had had he never become incarnate. And one of those vulnerabilities is obviously to be tempted. James tells us in James chapter 1, God cannot be tempted with evil. And yet Jesus was tempted with evil. So what do we do with that? Well, he was a human being. He was God in a human form. And as a human form, he took on a real human nature. He didn’t just put on a costume like a hand puts on a glove. He took on human nature along with his own divine nature. And as such, had vulnerabilities. He could die. He could be tempted. Those things are stated in Scripture. We know that. And yet God can’t be tempted or die. So could he have sinned? Well, the fact that he could be tempted, I think, points in the direction that he probably could have. But it’s the more remarkable that he could have and didn’t. That’s my understanding. It sounds like it’s your understanding. You and I are heretics together on that point, I guess. Well, that’s an honor to me. Yeah, I’m not afraid to be called a heretic as long as what I say is what the Bible teaches, or at least it’s not against what the Bible teaches.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right, brother. Thank you.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay, Dylan. God bless you. Bye now. Marty in Brooklyn, New York. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, Steve. I haven’t spoken to you for quite a while. How are you? I’m fine. What’s up? What’s your question? I have two questions. If you can only do one, I’ll call back another time for that. Noah… Noah’s son Ham saw him naked in his tent. This one I could never figure out. He told his two brothers. His brothers covered up Noah. When Noah got up, he cursed Ham’s descendants. So I wondered what your thoughts are on that. And the second question is, certain people in those days you heard, like Abraham, Noah, They would bless people. They would curse people. They seem to have authority from God. And I wonder, do we still have that authority as Christians?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, good questions. Okay, I’ll be glad to address those. As far as Noah cursing Canaan, the son of Ham, I think what he did to Canaan is more on the lines of a prophecy about Canaan. He said, cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants he shall be to his brothers. And that happened. The Canaanites who descended from Canaan. Now, not the man Canaan. Many times when there’s a blessing or a curse, for example, when Jacob blessed his sons, his 12 sons, these blessings, generally speaking, did not come on them as individuals, but on their descendants. Even the blessings that God promised to Abraham, most of them didn’t happen in his lifetime. They happened to his descendants. So a blessing on Abraham or on Jacob or on Jacob’s sons or, in this case, Noah’s son or grandson, Canaan, occurs. these often describe not what’s going to happen to that person, but what’s going to happen to his descendants. Now, you know, when people, when an older man, a father, which happens a lot in the Bible, blesses his son, or I suppose in the inverse, if he curses his son, the question then is, is he just seeing that this is true and prophesying about it? I mean, was this going to be true in any case? And he simply has it revealed to him. He announces it. Or is he determining it? Are his words determining the outcome of things? I’m not entirely sure about that. And, you know, sometimes it may be the one and sometimes the other. I don’t know. It’s a very mysterious thing, this whole business of blessing and cursing. But I would say this. I’m willing to believe that Noah’s remarks about Canaan had nothing to do with what Ham did. when Noah was passed out drunk, Ham did something wrong. And when Noah awoke, he cursed not Ham, but Canaan. But we don’t have any evidence that Canaan did anything wrong. And therefore, it seems to me that Noah may have just been prophesying that the Canaanites, the descendants of Canaan, would suffer God’s curse for their evil deeds It doesn’t mean that the man Canaan did it, did evil deeds, but his sons, you know, it’s not because of anything he did, but just a fact. The Canaanites became very wicked and eventually had to be removed from Canaan when the Israelites conquered it under Joshua. So I don’t know. There’s much mystery about blessings and curses. You said, can we still do that? You know, I’m not really positive if we can bless and curse in the sense of bringing something upon somebody. If so, then we should probably just bless them. And we do say that. God bless you, you know, and we pray for people to be blessed. But I’m not sure we even have in most cases, a clear picture in our mind of what it is we’re wishing for. What’s it look like if they get blessed? What’s that mean? It’s just, in our case, it’s more or less a well-wishing. Now, if a person is a prophet, maybe he can pronounce well. curses or blessings. But on the other hand, if a person is a prophet and speaks of a good future or negative future for someone, it’s not clear if he’s bringing it about or simply seeing it and predicting it. So there’s, yeah, I can’t answer those questions with certainty because, well, I don’t believe the Bible teaches us what the answer is. We do see, though, that patriarchal blessings, like those that Jacob gave to his 12 sons and others have given, tend to come true. And therefore, it’s not clear whether the one doing the blessing just saw the future and spoke prophetically about it or determined the future by his words. That is a matter worthy of curiosity, but I’m not sure we have a direct answer in Scripture about it. So I certainly wouldn’t curse anybody, but I have sometimes prayed for God to, you know, cause somebody to fail in an evil thing that they’re involved in. I don’t wish evil on them, though, but I do wish for them to fail in their evil projects. And I certainly pray for people to be blessed in whatever way God sees fit. But I don’t see these as the parallels of a patriarch blessing his sons as Jacob and Noah and others did. So I guess I don’t have a very good answer for you. Just a rambling question. set of thoughts. And I’m not sure that the Bible actually answers that question for us. Sorry. Popeye in Nashville, Tennessee. I know who Popeye is. Hi, Popeye. Good to hear from you. Hey, you know who this is. I do. I only know one Popeye. Go ahead. There’s only one Popeye.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, so question, um, What is, in your opinion, what is Christian nationalism? And is it strictly, is it more of a phenomenon that’s more with the Reformed churches who hold to a post-mill view? Or could other Protestant churches, or even Catholic churches, hold to that view? Let’s say even historic premillennial or amillennial, like we kind of tend to be. Could we hold to a Christian nationalist view? without it really messing up some of our other doctrinal issues we have.
SPEAKER 09 :
You know, I’ve always been asked this before. I really do not know what Christian nationalism means. I think I know what most people who are called Christian nationalists are thinking, but I’m not sure if that’s what the term would necessarily mean.
SPEAKER 04 :
They think that we need to take control of the political powers in the state and round them up and bring them back to truth, Their belief is that Christ, as we both know, Christ has all power and authority, and Christ has inherited the nations. Therefore, our job through the Great Commission is to take these nations back to Christ.
SPEAKER 09 :
The thing is, though, that’s what has always been called Christian Reconstructionism. There’s been a movement for decades and decades. called Christian Reconstructionism, and it is held by post-millennial people. Though I think I read a book by a premillennialist who said he was a Reconstructionist, too. But, yeah, post-millennials believe, of course, that the world’s going to be more or less converted, and that being so, the nations will be ordered along the lines of Christian standards. And so Christian Reconstructionism, is very much agreeable to postmillennialism, and most of the people, I think, who hold that view are postmillennial, and most of them are Calvinists, too. It’s a subgroup of the Reformed. Not all Reformed theologians believe in it, but the Christian Reconstructionists believe I don’t know where, I think they might be thought to be started with Rush Dooney, who’s been dead for a long time now. But Roussas John Rush Dooney was an author who influenced a lot of younger theologians. Greg Bonson also influenced a lot of young theologians. And guys like Gary North and Gary DeMar and Kenneth Gentry and David Chilton would have been the younger guys who came up as, and their movement was called Christian Reconstructionism. And they did believe, not so much that you’re going to seize the power from the pagans. I mean, maybe they would speak that way. But the way I understood it was that Christians, since we are in a nation that allows us to vote and have influence and run for office and things like that, which many Christians in the world are not in that circumstance, but that American Christians really have a stewardship that we should promote righteousness government, righteous laws. Now, the Reconstructionists had a more controversial angle on that. They believed that they’re also called theonomists, which means the law of God, theonomy. They believed that the laws that God gave to Moses, not the sacrifice laws or the tabernacle laws and that kind of stuff, but the civil laws, the laws about civil penalties and criminal penalties that are found in the law of Moses, that those, because God is just and only gives just laws, that those Old Testament civil codes are actually the purest and most just codes that any government could ever adopt. And so the Christian Reconstructists and theonomists, they’re kind of the same people, they generally have advocated for using the moral codes, or not the moral, but the civil codes of the Old Testament. as a standard for, for example, America and all nations. Now, that’s slightly different than what I think is Christian nationalism, although maybe, I don’t see Christian nationalism as another name for Christian Reconstructionism, though I could see the possibility that someone is in both camps. Nationalism is the hard part here. Nationalism usually means, in most talks, that you favor the well-being and the prosperity of your own nation as opposed to being an internationalist and thinking, you know, we’re going to have a one-world government or at least something like that. A nationalist is someone who’s kind of resistant to the idea of a nation losing its sovereignty by joining a group like the United Nations or something or the World Economic Council or whatever it’s called, forum. And they really want their own nation to govern itself and to benefit from its own labors and its own economic policies and so forth. So an American nationalist would normally be like an America first person. And that’s what nationalism generally means. Now, Christian nationalist could mean somebody who’s a nationalist who’s also a Christian. But I don’t think that’s how the term is used. It might be. If it is, then I don’t see anything necessarily wrong with it. I think that, especially in a nation like America, I don’t think we are more important than people in other nations. But I think the prosperity of America is good for other nations. I think when America is strong and prosperous… it’s had a very positive effect on the global situation. At least the poor have been elevated tremendously by the prosperity of America. And even the political influence of America has spawned democracies all over the world that probably wouldn’t have come up. So I actually think it’s good for America to prosper and to prosper. And to do well. But I say that because of God’s concern for the whole world. Now, see, Christianity is itself described in the Bible as a holy nation. And if Christian nationalist just means that you’re a Christian who are zealous for the nation, the holy nation, the church. That’s something very different, but I could see the words meaning that. So I always want people to say, if they ask what I think are Christian nationalists, please define it so I know exactly what you’re asking. I can tell you what I think about certain positions if they’re described to me, but labels sometimes are unclear to me. But anyway, I’m not against nationalism, and I’m certainly not against being a Christian. But I’m not a Christian nationalist. I don’t call myself that. Anyway, I’m not sure. what it’s supposed to mean. But I appreciate your call, brother. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We have another half hour coming. Don’t go away. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds.
SPEAKER 01 :
Small is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to life. We’re proud to welcome you to The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Steve has nothing to sell you today but everything to give you. When today’s radio show is over, we invite you to visit thenarrowpath.com where you’ll find topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse-by-verse teachings, and the archives of all the radio shows. Study, learn, and enjoy. We thank you for supporting the listener-supported Narrow Path with Steve Gregg.
SPEAKER 09 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour. Taking your calls. At the beginning of the last half hour, our lines were full. Our lines right now are almost full. I think there’s one line open. If you want to call, the number is 844- 484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. We’re going to go to the phones and talk to Haas from Nashville, Tennessee. How are you doing, Haas?
SPEAKER 03 :
Good, Steve. Thanks for taking my call today. I’ve been wrestling with an issue for the past year. I’ve been doing a lot of study. And I see like in Proverbs, it kind of got brought up when I was studying the fear of the Lord and I started digging into that. And then in Proverbs, it also talks about the fear of the Lord is the hatred of evil. And so the thing I’ve been wrestling with is like this hatred of evil. Like I feel like that’s pretty easy for me to hate evil and to call it out when I see it. But then on the flip side, you know, we’re called to love others and to love others and pray for our enemies. And I was just wondering if you might have some insight on how to kind of reconcile those two, like fearing the Lord, hating evil, but then also like seeing people that are doing these evil things and that are also called out in Scripture. You know, God says that a lot of these evil things are an abomination to him, and he hates the people who do these things. So that’s what I’ve been wrestling with, and I was hoping that gives an insight for you.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, well, the word hate and the word love in the Bible sometimes are used differently than we might normally use them. We usually think of love and hate as opposite emotions. If I love someone, it means I like them an awful lot. In fact, I like them maybe uniquely. Maybe I like them intensely. I like them so much, I’m going to say I love them. You’d say the same thing about your favorite dessert or your dog or something else, too. The word love, as we use it, typically refers to an emotion. And likewise, when we use the word hate, it usually means an emotion. Like, I don’t like it. In fact, I really, really don’t like it. In fact, I hate it. Now, what you like and don’t like, however intensely, are emotional things. Love and hate in the Bible are not strictly emotional things. Of course, people have emotions of love and hate in the Bible, too. But the way the terms are usually used, have more to do with actions towards somebody. For example, Jesus said, greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend. So love is, the best of love at its extreme is you lay down your life for someone. Now you could do that because you really, really like them. Or you can do that even if you don’t really, really like them. When Jesus was hanging on the cross, he was dying for those people who were cursing him and hurling insults. He probably didn’t like that. He probably didn’t like them. To like something is a matter of taste. Some things I like, other people don’t like, and there’s no fault in it because we have different tastes. And most of us don’t like someone spitting on us and insulting us and stuff. We don’t like that. And we don’t like people who do that. But if we’ll lay down our lives for them anyway, as Jesus said, to love your enemies. Well, you don’t love your enemies emotionally. You love your enemies by serving them. He said, do good to those who persecute you and such. That’s loving them. You know, when Jesus on a couple of occasions said that you have to love your neighbor as you love yourself, And he said, this is the whole law and the prophets. He also said, stating the same principle a slightly different way, in Matthew 7, 12, he said, what you would have men do to you, do that to them. Now, that’s loving them as you love yourself. You want people to do something for you because you love yourself. If you love them, you will do to them what you want done to you. And he said, this is the whole law and the prophets. Both statements are said to be the whole law and the prophets. Because both statements are different ways of looking at the same fact. Doing something. Doing to others what you want done. Up to the point of even dying for them. Now, you can do those things without any emotion of liking them or feeling loving toward them. So, you see in the Bible, love and hate have to do many times not with how one feels, but but how one behaves towards somebody else in their reaction to them. Now, I can’t love and hate emotionally the same thing at the same time. So, I mean, God can’t love the world and hate the world. That is, he can’t love sinners and hate the same sinners at the same moment if we’re talking about emotions. But he can love the world in the sense that he’s committed to their good, And even the unbeliever, so he wishes that if they’re on a self-destructive or evil path, he wishes they’d change because it’d be good for them and everyone else concerned. He desires their best. But he may act in opposition to them. He may hurt them. Even as a parent disciplines a child because they love the child. Now, the disciplining, the child might feel that’s hatred. He’s being treated a way that he really doesn’t like. And yet the parent may love the child and be doing what the child views as harm. But the point is that God wants all people to be saved. But he really hates in the sense that he opposes and acts against those who do evil. To say that either of those are, strictly speaking, an emotion would be a mistake. And that’s where the problem lies. How could God hate people and love them? Well, we’re thinking that hatred is a really strong emotion of dislike. And love is a really strong emotion of liking. But really, God can be acting harshly towards someone in opposition to what they’re doing and still be doing it for their good. And there might be no emotion of any kind about it. I’m not saying that God doesn’t have any emotion. I’m just saying that for the purpose of discussing this point. there might be no emotion about it. It may be that a judge who has no harsh emotions toward the person he has to condemn still has to condemn him. Because that’s an act of hatred, though it’s not coming from hatred. I mean, in the Bible, doing harm to someone is, in a sense, hating them, just like doing good to somebody is loving them. That’s why it says in Malachi, Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated. Now, I don’t think God had bad emotions toward Esau. Esau wasn’t a terrible man. He didn’t do things necessarily even worse than Jacob did. God didn’t have any… I don’t think he was provoked by Esau to dislike him. But what he’s saying is he made a promise to Jacob that he didn’t make to Esau. And he fulfilled it. He did good to Jacob’s people, Israel. And he didn’t do good… To Esau’s people, eat them. That’s what Malachi 1, 2, and 3 is saying. So the idea here of doing good or behaving in a way unpleasant to the person is often what lies behind the words love and hate. And now when it says that the fear of the Lord is to hate evil or God hates evil, it means that, of course, he opposes it. It doesn’t mean he has necessarily hatred in terms of emotions toward the person who is evil, but he certainly hates what they’re doing and he has to oppose it. A doctor hates the cancer, especially if the cancer is in his own child. But if he’s a benevolent doctor, he hates cancer in any patient. But he doesn’t hate the patient. Jesus compared himself to a doctor visiting the sick. He said, those who are well don’t need a physician, but they are sick. So also I have… I’ve not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repent. So he’s describing sinners as sick, and he’s the doctor. Now, when a doctor is dealing with sick people, he doesn’t hate the patient. But he’d better have an adverse attitude toward the sickness and toward the virus or to the germs or to the cancer or whatever is killing the person. And that’s how God is toward sin. He hates sin because sin hurts the people he loves. He doesn’t hate the sinner. He died for the sinners. And you can’t show more love than that for someone. God loves the world, but he opposes sin. He actively opposes it. Just like love is actively doing good for someone, hatred, in this sense, is actively not doing something good for them. In fact, maybe doing something painful to them that they don’t like.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you, Steve. Can I share something with you just real quick?
SPEAKER 02 :
Uh-huh.
SPEAKER 03 :
The fact that you were talking about the child and parent representation and then also the doctor hating cancer actually really resonates with me because I’m a father of three, and my oldest daughter has been fighting off non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma for the past year and a half. So that really resonated with me, and I thank you for that.
SPEAKER 09 :
I’m sorry for your daughter and you to be going through such a thing. But, yeah, you know what it means to love your daughter and hate the cancer or whatever. Yeah, she’s doing well. Well, good. I’m glad. Well, thank you for your call, Hus. Okay, bye now. Okay, Brian from Wilsonville, Oregon is next. Brian, welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi, Steve. Hi. Thanks for taking the call. My question goes kind of along with the first couple questions of the day. It’s kind of a difficult one. I don’t know that there is a real clear answer for it, but I was just wondering if you would comment. I’m just kind of curious about this, and I don’t think it has any far-reaching implications either way. But my question has to do with the Lord Jesus. The Word became flesh. And so, like, is Jesus still a person? He ascended to heaven. He sat down at the right hand of the Father. But what was he before as the second person of the Trinity? Was he, like, not flesh or was he not a person? And did that change when the word became flesh? And so it’s kind of hard for me to articulate that question, but I hope you get the gist of what I’m getting at. You know, what is he now? What was he before as the second person of the Trinity?
SPEAKER 09 :
All right. Well, the Bible doesn’t use the word second person of the Trinity or first or third person. In fact, it doesn’t use the word persons like we do. I’m not saying I don’t oppose the use of the term, but the word person, when we talk about the Trinity… it’s a term that the councils came up with when they’re trying to make sense of the fact that God is one and God is three. So they said, well, he’s one in substance but three in person. And so we speak of the Father as the first person and Jesus the second person and the Holy Spirit the third person in the Trinity. We’re using language the Bible doesn’t use, but we’re using language I think is legitimate. Because God is personal. Now, being personal doesn’t mean he has a body. I have a friend who’s argued with me at length about this. He said, you shouldn’t say God is a person because, you know, he’s not a human. Well, the word person doesn’t mean human. We may usually be talking about human persons when we talk about persons, but technically the word person means one who has personal identity. traits like intelligence and consciousness and rationality and emotion. I mean, in other words, not an impersonal thing, but a personal thing. The electricity and nuclear power would be examples of power that are impersonal. They don’t have any consciousness or self-awareness or any will or anything. But a human does, and so do angels, and so does God. And all of them are therefore personal beings rather than impersonal beings. So when we say that Jesus was, let’s say, the second person of the Trinity, if we want to use that traditional language, in saying he’s a person doesn’t mean that he’s a human or has a body. It means that he is, the Bible says he’s a spirit. Jesus said God is a spirit, and I believe that God is. The Father, Son, Holy Spirit, or I think more properly, God, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit prior to the incarnation. I believe all were spirit. I don’t think they had bodies. But Jesus does now. He became a human being, but he wasn’t just an ordinary human being. He was a real human being with a real body, real mortality, real will and intelligence and so forth like people have. But in some way that is never explained, and I think Christians are not even wise to try to speculate too much about it, in some way Jesus was God taking on the nature of a human being. Now, you know, I realize that’s kind of an interesting, intriguing thought, and people want to say, well, they want to know more about it. How do I understand it? Well, I don’t know. The Bible doesn’t tell us how to understand it. It just tells us it’s true. So Jesus took on a bodily form. I should say the word took on a bodily form. And we call him Jesus of Nazareth. Now, after he died, he rose from the dead in bodily form also. In fact, it was the same body because the body that was in the tomb was absent from the tomb when he rose. Because it was his body, and even the resurrection body had the holes in the hands and the hole in the side still from the crucifixion. So we know it was the same body, but it was different. Same body changed. And again, we may have no good analogy for this, although maybe we could think of a caterpillar when it becomes a butterfly. It’s all the same body chemicals and so forth, just reorganized into a superior body. form, certainly I think we’d agree a butterfly’s form is superior to a caterpillar form. It’s the same critter, same person. If it was a personal being, it’s the same individual specimen and it’s something different now. Jesus’ body took on different characteristics and was glorified and the Bible says that so will we. When we rise from the dead, our bodies will take on those same traits. It says in Philippians chapter 3 that Jesus will change our vile body into the image of his glorious body. So we’re going to have those kinds of bodies too. Now, is he still in a body? Well, yeah. Yeah, he still is. And he’s still a man. He’s still God and man. But we know that’s true because Paul, writing long after Jesus ascended into heaven and quite near the end of his own life, Paul said there’s one God and one mediator between God and man, The man, Christ Jesus. So he’s saying that Jesus now, of course, glorified, raised, sitting at the right hand of the Father. He still calls him the man, Christ Jesus. So when God became man or when the word of God became man. That was permanent. Although he was only a mortal man for a few decades, he’s eternally a glorified man, which is what we will eternally be when we’re resurrected, too, when he returns. So that’s how I understand those things.
SPEAKER 08 :
The only thing that stumps me about that is that, like, you know, we know God doesn’t change. And, like, from clear eternity past… You know, why did the Word all of a sudden decide to become a man? I know this is kind of getting out there.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, it wasn’t all of a sudden. It was predicted in Genesis chapter 3 that a seed of the woman would come. And, of course, in God’s mind, he knew, but he hadn’t revealed yet, that that seed of the woman would be God coming through the woman’s seed. And so it wasn’t just all of a sudden. It was, in fact, the Bible says Christ is the land that was slain before the foundation of the world. So this apparently is God’s eternal counsel that he would come, as he did in Christ, and redeem the world. So there’s not a suddenness about it. Now, in saying that God doesn’t change, we usually say that, and the only verse we really have for it is Malachi chapter, I think it’s chapter 3. God says, I am the Lord. I do not change. And we have the doctrine of the immutability of God. It means not changing. God doesn’t change. And that’s pretty much the verse we use. We can use philosophical reasoning to also support that. But the verse in Malachi says, I am the Lord, I do not change. He’s not really saying that he doesn’t do different things or have different policies or different covenants at different times. He has different policies at times, but And certainly becoming a man was a change of a sort. He took on human nature. But it was, I mean, God does go through some changes, obviously, in some respects. But when he said, I do not change, in the context, he’s saying, he said, I do not change, therefore you are not consumed. In other words, Israel, you have displeased me. If I wasn’t so consistent and unchanging, I would have consumed you guys, but I have a, I have a promise I made to Abraham and so forth, and I’m not defaulting on that. So when he says, I do not change, what he’s saying is, I don’t back down. In fact, there’s a reference in Psalm 15 commending the person who swears to his own hurt and does not change. He doesn’t back down from what he swore to do just because it’s going to hurt him to do it. And so the change that God says he doesn’t do is he doesn’t back away from what he said he would do. He could change. If he’s very disappointed with these people, he could change and say, I’m not going to do what I said I’d do, but I’m consistent. I’m loyal. I’m faithful. You can count on me to be this way. That’s what he means when he says I don’t change. He’s not saying… Nothing about me in any sense undergoes any kind of change. I think God essentially doesn’t change. But when one aspect of God, if we use that term, I’m not sure that’s the right term, but when the word takes on human form, that certainly was a change for him. Though the Father didn’t take on human form and the Spirit didn’t take on human form, I don’t think. So we have, you know, the Father doesn’t change, didn’t change. But Jesus, you know, that does represent a change. It was a long promised change. There’s a long plan to change in the plan of God. So if we say, well, I find that too mysterious. Okay. Okay. There’s no sin about finding something mysterious. And, you know, how would I serve God better than I do now? if I understood this particular thing fully. You know, unless you’re not serving God very well now, I’d have to say, knowing those things probably wouldn’t make you serve Him any better. I think you serve God because you love him, not because you understand all the mysterious stuff about him. But I know there’s nothing wrong with asking those things, especially if you’re wondering if the Bible gives us answers. But these things are not explained for us. And I think it’s because, in many respects, they’re above our pay grade, and God doesn’t think we need to understand them. He reveals things on a need-to-know basis. And mostly what he thinks we need to know is the stuff that makes it possible for us to live in a way that pleases him, not necessarily that we would understand every mysterious thing there is about God. In Deuteronomy 29.29, it says, The secret things belong to the Lord, but the things he has revealed are for us and for our children that we might learn to do things according to the words of this law. So God hasn’t revealed everything, but what he has revealed is there to get us to be obedient and to live a certain way. So there’s a lot of mysterious abstract theology that Christians debate about, picture it differently in their minds. But really being right or wrong about those things aren’t going to change very much about about how you live for Christ, and therefore God hasn’t necessarily been at pains to spell them out in terms that make it easy for us to understand, or even maybe possible for us to understand. All right, we’re running out of time, but not out of callers. We’ve got a bunch of them. Let’s talk to Gary from Nutley, New Jersey. Hi, Gary. Welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, hi, Steve. Thank you for taking my call. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you. Now that you’re – my question is similar to what you ended with the last gentleman. As far as the Catholic – Roman Catholic Church, I hear a lot of stuff since the Pope passed away, and I was a Roman Catholic. And I hear a lot that they went away from the Bible and the gospel. That’s really not a biblically-based or gospel-based – Can you explain when that happened? I never really knew that. I’m born again and saved now, but I noticed that. I didn’t know. I’ll stay on the line. Could you explain what happened there?
SPEAKER 09 :
Sure. Well, it happened gradually, you know, and this would happen to any movement that lasts through the centuries unless they’re really sticking very strongly to the Bible and say we will not change our doctrines. unless we see that the Bible requires it. Protestants profess to be loyal to the Bible. Now, frankly, Protestant denominations often are not as loyal to the Bible as they claim to be, and they have their own traditions, too, that don’t come from the Bible. But the Catholic Church, actually, unlike Protestants, the Catholic Church says they believe the tradition that develops over time. If it’s formally… you know, endorsed by the leadership of the Catholic Church, it’s just as true as the Bible is. Now, Protestants don’t believe that. The Bible is unique. It’s the Word of God, and traditions of men might be good or bad, depending on how they match up with the Bible. That’s the Protestant attitude. I’m a Protestant. But the Catholic Church did develop a lot of traditions, and some of them went against Scripture. You know, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees, saying, you keep your traditions down. But you violate the Scripture in order to keep them. In other words, you have traditions that are anti-Scriptural, and you go with the traditions and not Scripture. That’s in Matthew 15 and Mark 7. He said, you know, full well you reject the Word of God to keep your traditions, he said, which is not a good thing. And I think that in some respects, many churches have done that. Certainly the Catholic Church has, for example. The idea that a priest should not be married, or even that the church should have priests. The New Testament doesn’t mention the church having any priests. It has elders, and they’re not supposed to be single. They’re supposed to be the husband of one wife. So for a church to be led by a single man who’s not married is simply, I mean, it’s the tradition of the Catholic Church. It’s required. In Paul’s writings, it’s forbidden. So, I mean, that’s a tradition that’s contrary. The veneration of Mary, praying through Mary or the saints, that doesn’t seem to be agreeable with Jesus’ teaching. He says, you just talk to the Father when you pray. Just say, Our Father. He’ll listen to you. He loves you. So you don’t need intermediaries like them. There’s a lot of things like that. The Catholic Church believes in something called purgatory. The Bible doesn’t talk about that. No, the Bible doesn’t teach against purgatory necessarily. So, I don’t know, I mean, it’s a tradition I don’t believe is true, and it’s not biblical, but I’m not going to fight over that one, because the Bible doesn’t really discuss purgatory one way or the other. But yeah, the Catholic Church has adopted a number of traditions that are not biblical. In that respect, they are a lot like a lot of Protestant denominations that have their traditions that aren’t biblical. The difference being The Protestants, in theory, are correctable from Scripture because they say they only believe what the Scripture says. And presumably, if they are honest and you show them that their traditions are unscriptural, then if they believe in the soul of Scripture, they should change their traditions. And probably there’s a good basis for getting them to do so since they claim the Scripture is all they want. But the Catholic Church doesn’t even make that claim. The Catholic Church claims that church tradition is as binding as Scripture, as authoritative as Scripture. So you can’t correct them from Scripture. And this is a problem, I think. Again, all institutional Christianity has drifted into traditions that are not scriptural, and that’s not a good thing. But I think as long as a people… are saying, I will go with the Scripture. If you can show me it’s true, I’ll give up any tradition that I have that’s a tradition of man. Well, then that’s a hopeful situation because the traditions that are wrong can be corrected. But, you know, unfortunately, the Roman Catholic Church says, yeah, we’re not going to be corrected from Scripture alone. We’re going to go with Scripture and traditions. And in their case, the traditions always trump the Scripture if they don’t agree with each other. I’m out of time. Sorry to say, you’re listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Hope you check it out. There’s a lot of free resources. Everything’s free. And you can donate there if you wish. Talk tomorrow.
