In this thoughtful and wide-ranging episode of The Narrow Path, Steve Gregg fields live questions from callers on weighty theological issues. Kicking off with a clear and reasoned critique of Calvinist doctrine, Steve unpacks the idea of total depravity, explaining how the term is defined within Calvinism and why he rejects its assumptions—especially the idea of total inability. The conversation explores how metaphorical language like being “dead in sin” is often misunderstood and misapplied.
A second caller sparks a fascinating discussion about eternal life and whether all people are innately immortal. Steve draws from both Scripture and early Christian thought
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour each weekday afternoon taking your calls. And if you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, feel free to give us a call. We’ll talk to you about it here on the air. If you differ from the host in your viewpoint and want to talk about that, feel free to call, and we’ll talk about that on the air as well. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. There’s a few open lines right now. If you want to call now, it’s a good time to get through. 844-484-5737. And our first caller today is Kerry calling from Fort Worth, Texas. Hi, Kerry. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, hi, Steve. I know you’re not a Calvinist, but does the Bible teach a form of total depravity? And if it does, what type of definition would you give it?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, the term total depravity usually has a very specific definition within Calvinism. I don’t know if it’s commonly used with any other definition. When I was younger and before I knew really what Calvinism taught, I would have said that I believed in total depravity, but I didn’t know what that really meant technically. What I would have meant… was I believe in the universal sinfulness of man. That is, I believe all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So that would be, you know, what I think as a person who didn’t know very much about the subject would have thought was meant by total depravity. And so if you had asked me in those days, and this is when I was quite young, I was in my teens, but if you said you believe in total depravity, I would have said yes. But if you asked what do you mean by that, I would have said, well, everybody’s a sinner. Now, if you were a Calvinist trying to pick my brain about that, you’d say, well, do you believe that a sinner is capable of repenting and believing in Christ? I would have said yes. And they would have said, well, then you don’t believe in total depravity. So total depravity, as the term usually is used, doesn’t just mean that everybody’s a sinner. I think the Bible’s pretty clear about that. Everybody is a sinner. But total depravity doesn’t mean that. Total depravity means that the whole human nature is so shot through with sinful tendency and sinful inclinations that you really can’t do anything at all that’s truly good because nothing you do is really for the glory of God. And nothing is truly good unless it’s done for the glory of God. And they would say the condition of the one who is in total depravity is death. in trespasses and sins, a term that Paul used in Ephesians chapter 2, and a very similar term in Colossians chapter 2, where he said we’re dead in trespasses. Now, they would say a person who’s dead cannot do anything. That means they can’t repent and they can’t believe. And therefore, if you’re dead in trespasses and sins, you can’t repent or believe. And obviously, I would have probably thought, well, in those days, well, then how can anyone be saved if we’re all dead? In trespasses and sins, we can’t repent or believe. How can anyone become a Christian? And they would have said, well, if you are unconditionally elect by God to be saved, then he will give you life. He will raise you from the dead spiritually so that you can believe and repent. In other words, you will be regenerated. You’ll be born again. And as a result of being born again, you will believe and repent. Now, I would have said at that time, but doesn’t the Bible say everywhere? that you have to believe first, and then you can be born again? And they would have said, no, it doesn’t. And I would have said, yes, it does. And that’s where we would have broken down. We would not have been able to end this, because they believe that the Bible teaches that regeneration, or being born again, precedes faith. And the Bible teaches, I believe, that faith precedes being born again. And being born again is a consequence of faith. They believe faith is a consequence of being born again. So it’s a totally different thing. Now, they can only believe that because they believe in total depravity, which means to them if you are not born again already, if you don’t have a new nature, if you just have your fallen nature, you can’t do anything even positive in any sense, in any measure positive toward God. which faith and repentance would be positive actions. And so you can’t do that because you’re dead to those things. Now, I totally don’t believe the Bible teaches such a thing. Sure, it does use the term dead in trespass and sins. But obviously, I mean, there’s no reason to assume that the metaphor of being dead in that usage specifically means you can’t believe or repent. A person who’s dead can’t do anything. Not only can they not repent or believe if they’re truly dead, They can’t breathe. They can’t walk across the room. They can’t eat a meal. They can’t choose a vocation or a spouse. They can’t go to school. In other words, to be dead in trespasses and sins, if that’s the condition of all unbelievers, and if dead means you can’t do anything because dead people can’t, then you would be literally dead and you couldn’t do anything. But since they know that we’re not literally dead… They know that unbelievers can do all kinds of things that literally dead people cannot do. They say, well, no, there’s only a few things that are limited to the person who’s dead in trespasses. And those are the things that are necessary to bring you to God, like faith and repentance. And my position would be, and where are you getting that? Where are you getting that limitation? Either if dead in trespasses and sins means that a person in that condition is literally dead and unable to do anything, then you can’t limit it to a couple of things they can’t do, at least not arbitrarily, which is what they’re doing. On the other hand, if it doesn’t speak of inability at all, and you can be dead in trespasses and do virtually anything a human being can do, then you can’t just stick in a couple of things and say, well, these things you can’t do when you’re dead in trespasses. The Bible doesn’t do so. This is Calvin’s theology. It’s actually Augustinian theology, but… You know, when you talk about total depravity, you’re talking about total inability. The Bible doesn’t do that. I mean, notably, using dead as a metaphor for somebody who’s in sin is used by Jesus long before Paul ever used the term. Jesus talked about the prodigal son. And when the prodigal son was away from his father, he repented and he returned to his father. And his father said, my son was dead and now he’s alive. Well, when was he dead? Well, he was dead back when he was alienated from his father. That’s what being dead meant. He was alienated from his father. He was dead to him. But it didn’t prevent him from repenting and coming home. So being metaphorically dead in the Bible doesn’t say anything about what you can or cannot do. It talks about your status in terms of relationship to your father. And the Jews still speak that way. If their child, I mean, at least the older style Jews, If their child becomes a Christian, for example, it’s not unheard of for a Jewish parent to say, you’re dead to us. That doesn’t mean you’re literally unable to do anything. It means that our relationship with you is as good as dead. And that’s what the father meant in the prodigal son. My son was dead. He means to me that now he’s alive. He was lost, but now he’s found. Now, there’s no reason to believe that Paul meant anything else than that. When he said that we were dead, that is dead to God in our trespasses and sins. But he’s not talking about a subjective inability to do anything. He’s just talking about the relationship is we’re as good as dead in terms of that relationship with God until we repent, until we believe. But we can do that. And that’s why the Bible calls sinners to do that, because they are able to do so.
SPEAKER 08 :
So, Steve, yeah, I’ve always kind of viewed total depravity as it’s just that sin has permeated every aspect of humanity.
SPEAKER 03 :
That is part of their doctrine. That’s part of how they would describe it. They would say that everything we do is tainted by sin. It doesn’t mean that like total depravity might sound like it means you’re as bad as you can be. But they would say, no, if you were as bad as you could be, you’d be a monster. You’d be a sociopath. You’d be a serial killer. I mean, you could be much worse than you are. But they would use the term absolute depravity for that condition. They said, we’re not absolutely depraved, but we’re totally depraved. Well, you know, they’re making these words up. The Bible doesn’t use any of these words. So I guess they can use the words how they want to. But since they made up the words, they have the right to give the definitions. Total depravity means that everything you do is tainted by sin in your nature. Even your good deeds are tainted by sin, which makes them evil. And therefore, even if you try to repent or believe, of course, you won’t with good intentions. You may do so for selfish reasons, they would say, but you wouldn’t do it for proper reasons. So, yeah, total depravity would say that you never do anything except out of sinful motives, even good deeds. I don’t believe that.
SPEAKER 08 :
So you don’t try to redefine that at all?
SPEAKER 03 :
Redefine total depravity? No, no. Why should I use their word when I don’t believe their doctrine?
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I mean, if I were to do so, it would be kind of a mealy-mouthed thing to do. It’s like if I’m dealing with a Calvinist who wants me to believe in total depravity, and I say, oh, yeah, I believe in total depravity, but secretly have my own definition of it, I’m just kind of, I’m really, you know, I’m not a deceiver. I don’t want to do that. I’ll just say, no, I know what you mean by that term, and I don’t believe what you mean by that. That’s not my belief. Nor was it the belief of any Christians before Augustine for the first 400 years. Hey, thanks again, Steve. All right. So they would say there’s no good in us. And Paul said in his flesh there’s no good thing, of course. But we have to understand what that means. Because the Bible does describe some people who are not converted as good. I mean, just look up the word good in a concordance. You’ll see quite a few people are said to be good. And not all of them are Christians. I mean, Cornelius is a remarkable case. Cornelius was a pagan, a Roman, not even Jewish. He knew about the Jewish God, but he had not embraced Christ. And he was not born again. But he was a good man. He did good things. And God liked what he did, you know, and sent Peter to preach to him so he could hear the gospel. So to say that an unbeliever can’t do any good things, that simply is not agreeable with anything the Bible teaches. All right.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, Kerry, good talking to you. Our next caller is Kirsten from Escondido, California, who I think we talked to on the Zoom meeting last night. Hi, Kirsten. Welcome.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hi. Yes. Can you hear me?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, good. Okay. Yes, I did talk to you last night. Thank you. I just want to thank you also so much for all that you do serving us as we try to wrestle through all these questions. And my question today is about eternal life. And I have this question because I’m not entirely convinced that everybody has eternal life. And I say that because of the verse that’s always in the back of my mind, that the Bible says that God alone possesses immortality. Right. And also, throughout the Bible, we’re told that it’s the gift of God is eternal life. And he who has a son has life. He who does not have a son of God does not have life. Things like that. And it seems like, so I think about it sometimes, it almost seems like if you think of it as an either, either or, like it’s either you have you’re going to have conscious punishment forever, or if you believe the gospel and then you’ll escape it, it seems like that makes it a consequence rather than a gift. And to me, it just, that doesn’t, it seems wrong to me. Okay, I hear what you’re saying. I did listen to your lectures on the three veils of hell, but I just wondered if you could offer your thoughts.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure. Well, the ancient Greeks, prior to the time of Christ, had a view that people were immortal, that the soul is immortal or the spirit is immortal of all people. And this was not found in, for example, Hebrew theology in the Old Testament. But it was read into the Bible by later Christian scholars, especially Augustine, but others before him had thought this too. like Tertullian, that man is innately immortal. And this is one of the reasons why the doctrine that hell is a place of eternal conscious torment was accepted and became normative, because the assumption was everybody, whether they’re saved or not, is going to live forever somewhere. And if you don’t qualify to live with God because your sins have not been forgiven and you haven’t received Christ, Well, you’ve got to live somewhere, and since you can’t live with God, you have to live away from God forever. And away from God forever is what hell was considered to be. And then, of course, all kinds of embellishments like fire and brimstone and things like that could be added to that. But the point was that the basic justification for eternal conscious torment was the assumption that everybody is eternally conscious. And that to be away from all good and all God that gives is a torment. So, you know, if everyone’s eternally conscious, then, of course, those who aren’t with God are going to be miserable for eternity. Now, you quoted a very important verse, 1 Timothy 6.16, which says that God alone or Christ alone possesses immortality. Now, that means nobody is innately immortal. Now, a lot of people mistakenly think, and I think this comes from the Greek view of things, but not from the biblical view, they think that when God made Adam and Eve, he made the first immortal people, the first immortal creatures. All the animals were mortal, but the humans, when God breathed into them the breath of life, they became immortal beings. Now, the Bible doesn’t say that anywhere. But they assumed then that the punishment for sin was that these immortal beings were now condemned to eternal torment. Now, the Bible doesn’t say that anywhere either. What the Bible said, what God said to Adam and Eve is the day they eat of the bad tree, they will die. He didn’t say you’ll live forever, but in the place you don’t want to be. He said the day you eat of it, you’ll die. In other words, the punishment for sin is death, not continued life. forever and ever. Paul said the wages of sin is death. Ezekiel said the soul that sins, it shall die. This is the penalty everywhere in Scripture for sin. That’s why Jesus could pay for the penalty of sin simply by dying. He didn’t have to go into eternal torment. He simply had to die. And he paid the penalty for sin by dying. So that’s the penalty for sin. Now, it’s not as if when Adam and Eve sinned, God brought a new phenomenon into them, making them mortal so that they would die. But rather, he simply deprived them of the opportunity to become immortal. We remember, if you read Genesis chapter 3, that when Adam and Eve sinned, God said, okay, we’re going to not let them eat of the tree of life because if they do that, they’ll live forever. Now, the tree of life was not forbidden to them before they sinned. In fact, the assumption is they could eat it and should. So that as they ate from the tree of life, they would live forever. But they don’t naturally live forever. The tree of life and continually eating from it. is what sustained their life and would do so forever until they got banished from it. And when they had to stop eating the tree of life, whatever immortality it would have conferred was deprived. They were deprived of it. So their natural mortality kicked in. So when God said the day you eat it, you’ll die, he didn’t mean I’m going to invent something new and impose it on you called death. He’s simply saying you are mortals. And if you don’t eat of it, you can live forever by eating of the tree of life. But if you sin, I won’t let you eat of the tree of life. And so what’s going to happen? Of course, you’re going to die. That’s what happens to mortal beings. All beings are mortal except God. That’s what 1 Timothy 6.16 says. Now, in Romans 2, Paul says the same thing here, where he said in verse 6, Romans 2, 6 through, let’s say, we’re going to look through verse 8 probably here, 6 through 8. It says, God will render to each one according to his deeds eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality. But to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, etc. Now, he said to those who, by patient continuance in doing good, if they seek for glory, honor, and immortality, they will receive eternal life. That’s Romans 2.7. They don’t have eternal life unless they seek for it. They don’t have immortality unless they seek for it. If we were naturally immortal, why would we seek for immortality? Now, the wages of sin is death. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Everyone knows John 3.16. They just don’t think about it. John 3.16 says that whosoever believes in him will not perish, which means be destroyed. The word usually means die in its usage in the Bible. Whoever believes in him will not perish, but will have everlasting life. So having immortality, having everlasting life, is a consequence of believing. And the Bible says that everywhere. The Bible doesn’t say anything contrary to that anywhere. So you have good reason to doubt that people naturally have eternal life. The Bible indicates that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son, He that has the Son has life, and he who does not have the Son of God does not have life, which John has already defined as eternal life. That’s 1 John 5, verses 11 and 12. This is the testimony that God has given us, Christians, eternal life. And this life is in his Son. Why? Because the Son alone possesses immortality. We can’t have it unless we’re in him. So he that has the Son has the life. He that does not have the Son of God does not have eternal life. Now, of course, people who disagree with this and say, no, humans are naturally immortal, they have to take those verses and say, well, when it’s talked about eternal life as the gift of God, it doesn’t mean immortality per se, since everybody is naturally immortal in their theology. It just means a better quality of life. forever because people in hell have eternal life too but just it’s not worthy to be called life because it’s so miserable well that you know that’s that’s not the meaning of life life does not have the meaning of pleasantness uh and death does not have the meaning of miserable life death is the absence of life life is being alive and uh So the Bible is very clear about that. I mean, I can’t say that I always saw it so clearly because I was raised with more traditional views myself. But, I mean, once you see it, you can’t unsee it. It’s everywhere in the Scripture. And you find that eternal life is a gift given to those who are in Christ through faith. And those who don’t have Christ don’t have that life, the Bible says. So I think your instincts are correct, Kirsten.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you so much. What you’re saying makes sense. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. Good talking to you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Bye now. Okay, let’s see. We’re going to talk to Louie from Linwood, Washington. Hi, Louie. Welcome. Hi.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I had a question pertaining to the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. As you know, in Mark 15, Mark clearly says he was tied to the cross or nailed to the cross at the third hour of the day or 9 a.m., the time of the morning sacrifice when a spotless male lamb was routinely, traditionally, in accordance with Moses, sacrificed. But John, the Gospel of John implies that Jesus was tied to the cross, nailed to the cross.
SPEAKER 03 :
John tells us that he was still on trial before Pilate at the sixth hour. Right?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, right. And so he would have had a three hour less time on the cross from what I could see. And so I’m sure Jesus would have appreciated not having to be on the cross for six hours and only three hours, but I believe Mark… more accurate, and that perhaps John’s account was lost, and they tried to refill John’s testimony from memory, and they made an error. That’s all I could think happened.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I mean, that’s a theory. I don’t know of any… For example, I don’t know of any evidence that would support that theory, but one could hold it. My theory… which is not original with me, there’s lots of scholars who would hold to it, though probably some would disagree with it, is that Mark, who’s writing as a Jew and using Jewish references, is using the Jewish way of reckoning the hours of a day. To the Jews, the day began at six in the morning and ended at six at night. And The 12 hours was the day. And then, of course, the hours of the night were from 6 at night to 6 in the morning. Now, therefore, in Jewish reckoning, the third hour of the day, and that’s basically, that’s when Mark tells us that Jesus was crucified at the third hour of the day. Well, if using Jewish reckoning, the day begins at 6, the third hour would be 9 o’clock. So Mark is telling us, apparently, that Jesus was crucified at 9 o’clock. Now, John has Jesus still standing on trial and not yet crucified, not even yet condemned, at what John calls the sixth hour of the day. Now, if he’s using the Jewish reckoning, that’s noon. That means that Jesus is crucified at 9 in the morning, and he’s still on trial, not yet crucified at noon the same day. which is impossible, of course. But the theory that some have held, and I think is reasonable, is that John is following the Roman reckoning. He’s writing in Ephesus. I think all scholars believe that John was in Ephesus when he wrote John, and that they were a Roman colony. They used Roman conventions of culture. And so he’s writing his book to an audience that used the Roman way of thinking about the hours of the day. Now, the Romans, from what I read, started the day at midnight, just like you and I do. So the sixth hour of the day, when Jesus was still on trial before Pilate, would be, by Roman reckoning, if that’s what John is using, that’d be six in the morning. So the third hour of the day, by Jewish reckoning, is nine in the morning. But the sixth hour of the day, by Roman reckoning, just like ours, is six in the morning. Now, that solves the problem because John would then be telling us that Jesus was on trial at six in the morning. And Mark would also be right because he tells us Jesus was crucified three hours later at nine in the morning. So, that sounds very doable to me. And that’s, it may not be the only answer, but to me it’s a reasonable answer. And I, you know, actually I don’t know of another better answer, but I appreciate your call. I hope that helps to solve the problem for you. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We have another half hour coming, so don’t go away. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be right back. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for an hour, well, another half hour. We’re halfway through each weekday afternoon, and we hope if you’re not a regular listener, you might make a note to tune in. every day, because we take your calls for a whole hour, and you can call in with questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, and we’ll talk about them together. You can even call in to disagree with the host. We’ll talk about that. We have a half hour left, and if you’d like to be on the program, we have a few lines open you could get through. Right now, if you call 844-484-5737, that number again is 844- 484-5737. Our next caller is David from Andover, Kansas. Hi, David. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Hello.
SPEAKER 04 :
I have a question for you from Ezekiel 320. It says, again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die. Because he did not give him warning, he shall die in his sin. I’m wondering… What do you mean when God talks about placing a stumbling block before someone?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, he doesn’t explain what he means by a stumbling block. Of course, the context, and this is also found in chapter 18 of Ezekiel, the same teaching is in both places. In chapter 18, it seems clearer to me that he’s talking about a man who falls away from God in Ezekiel’s day. will die because the nation was facing death and judgment. Ezekiel wrote at a time when the Babylonians were coming to destroy Jerusalem and the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going to be slaughtered. And so he’s saying the wicked will be slaughtered, the righteous will be spared. And in the similar passage in Ezekiel 18, he says, now, if a man is a wicked man, you know, if he repents, he won’t die if he becomes a good man. If a man’s a good man and he goes bad, well, then he will die. He says the soul that sins will die. And he goes into this other thing, says that, you know, if a man is wicked, but he has a son who’s righteous, then the son will not die for his father’s wickedness. He’s going into great detail to say that God will not punish anybody except sin. for their own sin. They won’t be punished for their father’s sins, for example, or grandfather’s sins. Now, in saying this, in chapter 3, he refers to God putting a stumbling block in front of the person, and that could be any number of things. He talks about a righteous man turning bad. It could mean that a temptation comes along, which tests this man, and he stumbles over it, becomes a bad man and therefore he falls into that sin now I don’t know what that temptation would be there might be any number of temptations at a time where the nation is being threatened people might be in danger of turning to their idols for help that’s something that the Jews did very commonly in the Old Testament that’s why they were being judged but they didn’t learn their lessons so he might mean that because of the danger that’s coming on the nation they might turn to another God and seeking help from him. And so that certainly would be stumbling into idolatry, which is something that would bring death under the law. A Jew who worshipped idols was to be put to death. But the main point he’s making here in these verses is the responsibility that the prophet bears as a watchman, that these people, you know, the danger is coming. And they may turn to God or they may turn away from God. If they turn away from God, they stumble. If they turn to God, they’ll be saved. But he’s saying that if you don’t warn them and they don’t turn to God and they stumble and die, well, that’s on you, Ezekiel, because I told you to warn them. And if you don’t, I mean, that’s going to be on them, too. Of course, they’ll be punished for what they did, but you’re going to become partially guilty for what happened to them because you should have warned them and they might have repented. So shame on you. Their blood is on your head. But he said, but if you do warn them of the danger and they don’t repent, then their blood is not on your head. You discharged your duty and their blood is simply on their head. And that’s the teaching there in that part of Chapter 3. And also it’s in Chapter 18. The chapters kind of double each other, kind of repeat each other in some respects. Okay, thank you. That’s helpful. Do you have time for another question? Well, my lines are full, but if I can do it quickly, I’ll go. Okay.
SPEAKER 04 :
I guess in Psalm 42, 7, it says, I don’t understand what that means at all. If you could help me with that, that would be great.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, I’ve heard that phrase from this psalm quoted all my life, and I always found it not at all clear what it means. He’s talking about how he’s panting for God. He’s apparently far away from the temple. He might even be in exile, but he’s somehow not able to go to Jerusalem, not able to go to the temple, and his heart longs for that. He wants to connect with God again in the temple, but he’s not able to do it. he encourages himself in verse 5 and in verse 11 to say that, well, it will happen again. I will yet praise him. You know, he’ll bring me back where I can praise him again. But what I’m longing for is grieving me to be so far away. And when he says, deep calls unto deep at the noise of your waterfalls, I’m not really sure if the waterfalls, he says, all your waves and billows have gone over me. It sounds to me like that’s not literal waterfalls. I mean, all your waves and billows, I mean waves, have gone over me. Sounds like, you know, I’ve been hit by waves of misfortune or whatever. I mean, it sounds like he’s using a metaphor for waves. And the deep normally would refer to the ocean. But then in the context of waves that are metaphorical, the deep might be metaphorical too. I don’t think the man is literally in the water with waves going over him. So I don’t know what it is saying. It may be saying that in the deep places of my soul, there’s a calling out for, you know, that which I’m thirsting for. Because it begins at the beginning of the psalm by saying, as a deer pants for the water brooks. So my soul pants for you, oh my God. So he begins the psalm with the metaphor of a deer that’s panting for water. Now, he’s not a deer, and it’s not really water he’s panting for. So it may be when he’s saying, deep calls unto deep at the noise of your waterfalls. Maybe what he means is, maybe where he is, there are waterfalls. Maybe there is a deep pool that the water is falling into. But he feels that his desire is for not that kind of water. His desire is for a deeper kind of water. He’s thirsting for God. But it’s a very strange phrase, and preachers have used it a lot, but I’ve never known what they were seeing in it. It’s used devotionally a lot. And it’s like many things in the Psalms, they’re poetry. And because they’re poetry, they’re not really literal. I mean, poetry uses metaphor, it uses figures of speech, it uses hyperbole, it uses lots of different things that we don’t use when we’re trying to describe things literally. And it’s not always easy to tell what the metaphors are meaning. So I’m going to plead kind of ignorance here, though I have to say, you know, for over 50 years, I’ve wondered that, and I haven’t really found a great answer. You might find one in less time than that, but I haven’t. So I’m going to be ignorant about that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Great. Thank you. I appreciate you just sort of going back to the main point of the passage and then thinking about what it means in that context. Thank you for that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I think he’s saying something about his heart yearnings. Deep within him, he’s yearning for the thing that he’s thirsting for, which is God. But it’s not clear how those words or those images are making that point.
SPEAKER 04 :
I thought maybe there’s a connection to the sound of roaring waters that comes with some of the visions of God.
SPEAKER 03 :
I don’t know that he has been given any visions of God. Most Jews have not. He’s not even David. This is written for the sons of Korah. Some of the songwriting priests. If he had any visions from God, we don’t know it. And most people do not have visions. But, yeah, so I wouldn’t go there very quickly. But I just think it’s a hard metaphor to explain. But I think most people who quote it are probably correct in that they seem to think he’s talking about the deep longings of his soul, which is introduced in the opening verse of the psalm. Great. All right. Thank you, Steve. Really appreciate it. Okay, Dave. God bless you. All right, let’s talk to Nelson in Fort Worth, Texas. Hi, Nelson. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, I was having a question about that time unit measurement. The sundial of Ahaz, we may assume that it was 12 divisions from sunset or sunrise to sunset that they made 12 hours, but How do we know how they really did come up with what we have today is 60 minutes to an hour? How do we know if they had a cruder type of measurement of passage of time, like an hourglass that Ben Franklin invented was exactly an hour? But prior to that, how do we know that they didn’t have a – Another concept of passage of a time, an hour was not an hour as we think today.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, let me just say this before, I mean, you’ve already said your question. I think you’re trying to find a way to stop saying it. I don’t know. I don’t know how they would know. There are ancient ways that people kept track of the passage of time. Like how did they know at night when there’s no sun on the sundial? How did they know an hour had passed? Or a watch, a watch was three hours and a different time. centuries would change, the changing of the guard was every three hours at the watch. So how did they measure that? Well, I think there may have been something comparable to an hourglass. Yeah, they didn’t have a modern hourglass. They might have had something like that. They might have used candles. You can mark candles, and they burn at a certain rate. And when they get down to a certain mark, okay, that’s been an hour. Okay, here’s another one. It’s down to the next mark. There’s lots of ancient ways to tell time, but they might not have been extremely exact. They may have been more approximate. I mean, after all, we have what we call the nuclear clock or whatever they call it that is perfect time, but the watch on my arm has to be corrected once in a while. My watch is an electronic device. It’s very modern, but it still kind of gets off a little bit, so I’m sure that ancient forms of measuring time, they must have not been perfect, but they must have been close enough to be able to function. And, you know, if their hour wasn’t exactly 60 minutes like ours, I don’t know how we’d ever find that out. You know, there’s no way we can go back there and see how long, you know, put a stopwatch on it. One of our stopwatches to watch whatever it is they’re measuring time by to see if it’s exactly 60 minutes. On the other hand, I can’t imagine why it would matter. I mean, today, why would it matter to me whether their hour was exactly the length of my hour or not? That’s the kind of thing that wouldn’t really, wouldn’t excite me to find out. But they had their ways, and I suspect their ways were not exact. Ours are much more exact. But even ours, some of our modern clocks aren’t exact either. All right, let’s talk to Kim in Arlington, Washington. Kim, welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hello.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hi. I had a question about, well, have you seen the articles that Mike Wyatt had on finding Noah’s Ark and… Ron Wyatt, you mean?
SPEAKER 03 :
Are you talking about Ron Wyatt?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, that’s it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, go ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, and… And then he said he turned the information over to the Jerusalem authorities. And then we’ve never heard anything more about it. Have you?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, Ron White is dead now, and we can’t really interview him. But he did a lot of writing on his own alleged archaeological findings. First of all, this doesn’t prove anything, but just to put things in perspective, he was an amateur archaeologist. He was not a trained archaeologist or anything like that, but he was an amateur, kind of a hobbyist at archaeology. He was a Seventh-day Adventist, I believe. And he went looking for things which he claims he found. He claims he found the Ark of the Covenant. He claims he found Noah’s Ark. He found everything that nobody else… Yeah, found everything that nobody else can find. But on the other hand, no one has seen them since he found them either. So it’s kind of an interesting thing. I wouldn’t hold it against him that he’s amateur, but many archaeologists didn’t view him as having any credibility at all. Now, we could say that they were against him because he’s intruding into their realm or whatever. We can say they were jealous. But the truth is, If he found the Ark of the Covenant, I think it’s almost certain we would know exactly where it is and it would be on display somewhere. That would be an extremely valuable artifact. The thing was covered with gold. The mercy seat was a solid gold slab, probably weighed a ton. It’s just, I mean, that thing would be, if anyone knew even vaguely where it was, they’d go after it and they’d take it out and they’d put it on display. It would be one of the greatest finds in history. modern history. Now, Ron Wyatt, I mean, it would be of no value as a religious item because the Ark of the Covenant isn’t of any value in the New Covenant. It’s an article of the Old Covenant, which is defunct. But Ron Wyatt claims that he found this and the Ark of Noah, too, which, I mean, it’s a little easier to say the Ark of the Covenant is still hidden in a cave under a mountain under Golgotha, to be exact. I guess you could say that because the Ark of the Covenant is small enough it might be down there, but Noah’s Ark would be kind of hard to hide if you found it. I mean, it’s like longer than, what, four football fields or something. I forget the exact length now. But the thing is that he claimed that it was in a cave inside the mountain under where the cross stood. And I guess he knew where the cross stood exactly. And that there’s a crack in the mountain from the top down to where the blood of Jesus dripped down through this crack and dropped down on the mercy seat in this cave where the Ark of the Covenant was. Now, that sounds like fiction to me. You know, how could it get close enough to know? and see that there’s drops of blood on it. He said it couldn’t be removed. It was where he couldn’t get it out. And so he just left it there, of course. What else would you do? If you can’t get it out, you just leave it, right? No, you’d go in there and you’d excavate and you’d get teams in there and you’d chip out the rocks and you’d get it out. I mean, the fact that nobody has done that, makes me think that the thing is fabrication. I mean, even his description of the blood dripping through the crackers, that’s just the kind of thing that someone would fabricate. I can’t believe it’s true. But I just, you know, I don’t have any real respect for his findings. Back in the 90s, I read a book he wrote about some of his findings. And I don’t know. I don’t want to speak badly of him. But he also found Mount Sinai, of course. and anything else that is hard to find, he’s found it. But I just don’t really trust him. I mean, I’m not saying that I know him to be a liar. I just, all I can say is I don’t trust him.
SPEAKER 07 :
Are you still there? Yeah. Okay. What I recently called and asked about was the Essenes. Now, they were up until about, what, 200 B.C.? ? And then got driven out of Jerusalem or something?
SPEAKER 03 :
No, they were wiped out at the same time Jerusalem was in 70 A.D.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
Or 73. Yeah, I mean, the Romans didn’t come out there to the Dead Sea area to conquer their group at the same time they did Jerusalem. Once Jerusalem was conquered, the Romans later, I think, destroyed these same communities, too. And that’s why they hid. the Dead Sea Scrolls in caves at that time so that they wouldn’t be destroyed, and thankfully they were not.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, so that was in A.D. It wasn’t prior. I just heard that the Jewish, you know, the Pharisees and others had turned against them, and some of the Pharisees were, I mean, some of the Essenes were getting killed.
SPEAKER 03 :
In Jerusalem? Well, if you’re talking about when they got started, I was talking about when they came to an end. Yeah, I don’t know. I’m not sure anyone knows, but maybe they do. I don’t know exactly when they started their group out there in the wilderness. If someone told you it was 200 B.C., that probably is not very wide of the mark. It’s probably around then. The Dead Sea Scrolls are often said to be written maybe about 100 B.C., and, of course, they were buried there. around 73 or 70 AD, but I don’t know when they got started. And I also don’t know how they were treated by the Pharisees. There were, however, about 200 years before Christ, or more like maybe about 150 years before Christ, there were intrigues and infighting and so forth in the Jewish community. John Hyrcanus, the Hasmonean dynasty that came from the Maccabeans, they were kind of ruling by their own self-appointment and so forth. And there was killing each other off and there were assassinations and things like that. I don’t know specifically how these scenes may have played into that. It may be that they were persecuted at that time and fled into the wilderness at that time. I couldn’t verify that.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right. Well, thank you very much. I do appreciate it. I had this question popping in my mind for a while. All right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Well, thank you for calling.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you. God bless.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, you too. Bye now. All right. Our next caller is Mike from Whidbey Island, Washington. Hi, Mike. Welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. Hi. I want to bring up what the Synod of Tort that happens in the 1600s between the Calvinists and the Armenians. And it’s a very important piece of history that everybody needs to read that calls themselves a Christian. And I don’t think you’ve read that yet. You haven’t studied that very much, have you?
SPEAKER 03 :
The Synod of Tort? Yes. Yes. Well, I haven’t studied it specifically in depth, but I do mention it in my church history lectures, but it’s not a synod that I have expertise in.
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s very, very, very important for everybody to read this, and you can look it up, the history of this, on gotquestions.org. There’s a huge article on it, okay? And the sad thing is that the Armenian is, Armenians, they wanted to have a church and state review of this. But the Calvinists didn’t want the state involved. But they insisted that the state be involved. And that was a big negative to them. The Armenians insisted that the state be involved. And it turned out that the guy that was doing this, Johann von Older-Barnselt.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, Mike, I’m going to ask you, I’m looking at the clock, and I only have a few minutes. You’re going to have to cut to the chase. What is this call about?
SPEAKER 05 :
And all I’m saying is that he died because they lost. Meaning, the Calvinists won this debate, but this guy died because the state said he was a heretic, and they put him to death. I’m just saying, this is the level… of this debate, and Calvinists won the debate. And all I’m asking you is to consider reading R.C. Sproul’s book, What is Reformed Theology? He explains it in a very general, nice, kind way. R.C. Sproul, What is Reformed Theology? But wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
SPEAKER 03 :
I already know what Reformed Theology is, and I’m not going to read Sproul’s book, so what am I going to learn of value to me? I mean… Somebody died. Lots of people died. Lots of people were martyred and called heretics in those days. Luther would have died as a heretic if he hadn’t been kidnapped by the prince of Germany who hid him from the Catholics who were trying to kill him. People died a lot in those days for being heretics. But, I mean, is this something you’ve just learned about and so you’re excited about? I mean, this is something that’s not that unusual in terms of church history. And I don’t need to read R.C. Sproul’s book to find out what Reformed theology is. I’ve known for decades what it is.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m just saying, I think this synod where it had eight formed countries and also Great Britain, Germany, and Switzerland attended it.
SPEAKER 03 :
What is the importance of my focusing on this particular synod? I’m just curious. I mean, I know there’s lots of synods.
SPEAKER 05 :
I believe it proves that Calvinism is true and Armenianism is false.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, I see. Okay. Well, no, a synod can’t prove that a theology is true. What a synod demonstrates is that a majority of people who vote on an issue stand on one side of the issue. They may be right or wrong. You may not be aware, there have been many church councils that, you know, like the 7th Church Council in history, actually said that you should have… images in the church and icons. And so this is something that I don’t know that you, if you’re a Protestant, I don’t think you’d agree with that. But councils don’t, just because a council rules on something, that doesn’t prove that it’s true. Truth is not determined by majority vote. So, you know, if you think that because this council of Dort condemned Arminianism and even killed a guy over it, that proves Calvinism is To my mind, if they killed somebody over it, it may prove that they weren’t even Christians because Christians don’t kill each other. There are people who call themselves Christians who kill each other, but the Bible says no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. So if they killed an Arminian and you think that proves that Catholicism is true. I’d say, well, it doesn’t prove that those people were even saved. It might even prove they weren’t. So I’m not demonizing Calvinism or Arminianism. I’m saying that it’s a non-sequitur to say, okay, this council, they decided that Calvinism is true, and they really meant it. They meant it enough to kill somebody about it, and therefore that proves it’s true. That’s not how I look at evidence to decide what’s true. I’d rather look at the Bible and see what it says is true. All right. I was going to take another call, but I’m looking at the clock. There’s not much time. Maybe we’ve got about a minute. Wesley from Indianapolis, do you have a short question, or are we going to have to take you another day?
SPEAKER 10 :
Maybe. So I know Elohim. I think Elohim means God the Father, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
Not necessarily. Elohim is simply a word for God.
SPEAKER 10 :
Oh, okay. Well, then I also heard that Eloah. Elohim, I heard, was a masculine word for God. Eloha is another word for God. Is it like the root of it or something?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, the root of it is the word El. E-L. That’s God. And there are different forms of it. Elohim is actually a plural form of it, but it’s used as a singular sometimes in certain constructions. But what’s the bottom line that you’re going for? Because you’ve got to give it to me in ten seconds here.
SPEAKER 10 :
And so are there other forms… that are used in the Bible?
SPEAKER 03 :
Is it just El and Elohim? Yeah, there are different forms of El and Eloah and Elohim. Those are all words used in the Bible, and they’re different forms based on one root. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. We are listener-supported. Our website, if you’d like to help us out, is thenarrowpath.com. Check it out. Everything’s free at thenarrowpath.com.
