The episode also delves into the thought-provoking themes of resurrection and doctrinal teachings around the afterlife. Steve takes time to address listener calls, debating topics like the distinct roles of the 144,000 in biblical prophecy and the differing interpretations around the millennium. Challenging both traditional and popular views, this episode promises deep exploration and insightful conversations for all who tune in.
SPEAKER 06 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour each weekday afternoon. We take your phone calls throughout the hour. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or a different viewpoint from the host and want to register your idea, why you would take a different view, we’ll be glad to hear from you. The number to call is 844-484-5737. And the lines are full right now, so don’t bother calling at the moment. But if you take that number down and call, you know, a few minutes into the program, you’ll probably find a line has opened up. Again, the number is 844-484-5737. And I again want to announce that this Saturday, just a couple days from now, in Buena Park in Orange County, California, I’ll be doing a lecture, an overview of the book of Revelation. And we welcome anyone in the area to come and join us. That’s at 6 o’clock in the evening in Buena Park. It’s our little church. called The Way Fellowship, where we’ve been holding such meetings for many years. And this is near the end. We’re going to be discontinuing these meetings in a few months, but this is the second to the last of these meetings. And again, we’ll be doing an overview of the book of Revelation. We welcome you to join us. If you don’t know where that is and want to find it out, Go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, under Announcements. And then, of course, coming up in about a month from now, just a heads up here, I’ll be speaking in a number of places in the Midwest, in Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois. I’m doing an 11-day itinerary speaking in places like Grand Rapids, Detroit, Toledo area. Indianapolis, Rochelle, Illinois, Mount Carroll, Illinois. Those are some of the places I’ll be speaking in the middle of next month, starting around the 16th. I think it’s from the 16th to the 26th. If you’re in those areas, mark your calendar and go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Look under announcements to see the locations of these gatherings. And that’s all I’ve got to say about that. Let’s talk to Craig in Auburn, Washington. Craig, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hi, Steve. Hey, I’d like to read three verses in Mark 1, verses 32 through 34 from the New King James Version, with my question being, would you agree with me that these verses are an example that Jesus did not heal all who came to Jesus for healing or deliverance, since he healed a lot of them, but not all of them? Now the verses read, at evening when the sun had set, they brought to him all who were sick and those who were demon-possessed. And the whole city was gathered together at the door. Then he healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons. And he did not allow the demons to speak because they knew him. What do you think? Do you think this?
SPEAKER 06 :
I agree with you that Jesus did not heal everybody who was sick, even those in his vicinity. For example, when he went to Nazareth, the Bible says he could do no mighty works there. He only healed a few sick people and cast out some demons. Here it speaks of a larger number. you will find places in Matthew 4 and other places, I think, where it says that Jesus went around to these various villages healing all kinds of sicknesses and so forth. Again, it doesn’t say that he healed every sick person, but healed all kinds of sicknesses. Now, this verse, someone like you or me could take this to mean he didn’t heal all the sick that night. who were there because he healed many who were sick. Of course, if he healed every sick person there and there were many of them, this could be written the same way. You know, he healed many sick people. Happened to be all the ones that were there and there were a lot of them, you know. if it said he healed many of the sick who were there, it would suggest that there was a number of sick people, and many of them he healed, but not others. So I don’t know if this verse… I mean, this could go that way. This could be saying there were lots of sick people there, not all of them, but a lot of them did get healed. I could accept that meaning. I’m just saying the wording is a little more ambiguous, and somebody who thought that he healed all the people on that occasion… and that there were many of them, could take the wording that way. But I agree with you. There are people that Jesus did not heal, a lot of people who suggest that God always wants to heal, and I don’t believe the Bible teaches that. A lot of times they’ll say, well, Jesus always healed everybody who came to him. Well, that’s just not true. The Bible speaks of cases where he did not. This might be one of those cases. I’m not sure that the wording would nail it down, in a debate with such a person, you know, so that they’d be just, you know, a mic drop moment. But at the same time, it works. It works along with the rest of, you know, the record of Jesus’ ministry that he did not heal everybody.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, and I know you’ve cited some other verses and passages that would suggest he did not heal everyone. But thank you for your take on this passage, and have a great afternoon with the calls.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, thank you for calling, Greg. Good talking to you.
SPEAKER 10 :
You bet.
SPEAKER 06 :
Bye-bye now. All right, we’re going to talk next to Howard in Boise, Idaho. Howard, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hi, Steve. As we try to translate word for word, it seems like sometimes there would be not a single word that would convey the idea. There might be a phrase needed. I was thinking of Galatians 1 where he says, “…another gospel that’s not another.” How would you distinguish between those two and others?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, of course, I don’t think this is a question of an untranslatable Greek word. You’re right. There are Greek words and Hebrew words for which we don’t have a single English word to be exactly corresponding in. And there’s a range of meanings. And so translators sometimes use different words to translate the same Greek word. Now, here the translators use the same English word. And I have to say, I don’t know, but I think that’s the same Greek word in both places, another. He says, I don’t want you to receive a different gospel. I’m not looking at the Greek right now. It’s not even in front of me. But he says, which is not another word. Now, when he says it’s not another, I think that’s an abbreviated clause. I think he means it’s not another gospel, because that’s the implication of the previous phrase. I’m afraid you might receive a different gospel, but it’s not really another gospel. A gospel is good news. And what you’re receiving, which was, of course, the Judaizing corruption of Hebrew roots that was coming into their church, he’s saying, yeah, this isn’t really another gospel. This is a different message, but it’s not a gospel. It’s not good news. And that’s at least how all commentators I’ve consulted over the years. And one of the first books I taught through in my early Christian ministry was Galatians. I remember reading commentaries on it and this very point because it sounds like he contradicts himself. He says, you know, I’m afraid you’ll receive a different gospel, but it’s not really another. Wait a minute. Is it or isn’t it? But his point is that it’s another message to be sure. It’s different than the gospel that Paul preaches. It’s just not really proper to call it a gospel at all since the word gospel means good news. And this corrupted version that’s being promulgated by the Judaizers is not really good news at all. And I think most commentators, and I would be as near as I can tell in agreement with them, he’s simply saying, yeah, I called it a different gospel, but really to put a finer point on it, it’s not really another gospel. It’s just another message.
SPEAKER 11 :
What I’ve heard is the first one is teleos, which means… a different kind, and the second one is Allah, which is like another of the same kind.
SPEAKER 06 :
Again, I’m not looking at the Greek right now, and those distinctions do exist in the Greek. I mean, like when Jesus said, I’ll send you another comforter, he uses the word that means another of the same kind, and yet there is another word that means another of a different kind. I don’t know if, you know, I’m not sure if that’s how it is in the Greek here. If a commentator or some teacher has told you that that’s the case, I’ll agree with them. I mean, that is to say, tentatively, until I would look it up. But I would tend to trust someone who said that if they know what they’re talking about generally.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay, thank you.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right. Sorry I can’t nail that down for you. God bless you. Okay, James in New York City, New York. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. You’re welcome.
SPEAKER 13 :
My question is, there was 5,000 that had to be fed, and Jesus blessed the bread and the fish. This might sound silly. How did he feed the fish? How did they cook the fish? And I asked other pastors, and they never could give me an answer on that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, since it was packed as a boy’s lunch, it probably wasn’t raw fish. It was probably smoked. I mean, there are ways to smoke fish so that it doesn’t rot without refrigeration very quickly. And, you know, people eat smoked salmon even to this day. In fact, Jews, you know, lox is, I think, smoked, if I’m not mistaken. In any case, I don’t think they cooked it up there on the grass. And I don’t think when that little boy’s mother packed his lunch that she expected him to cook it over fire. No, I know, yeah. So I believe it was not raw. Now, by the way, there are cultures that do eat fish raw. I don’t think the Jews were among them. But, you know, obviously Eskimos and such eat raw fish. So eating raw fish is not impossible. But I think that the Jews typically would smoke their fish when it wasn’t going to be cooked over an open fire. And, you know, if you’re carrying a lunch and it has fish in it, it’s probably smoked.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay. Makes sense. And John McArthur passed on the 14. My prayers go out to him, and thank you, Steve.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right. Well, we can’t pray to him, but, yeah, his work, much of his work has been left behind, and it’s great. It’s borne good fruit in many cases, and I believe it’s mixed. I think it’s mixed the benefits of it, but he certainly has done a lot of good work. And I’m sure because he’s in print and, you know, left over 50 books that he’s written behind that will be around probably forever, he is going to continue to have influence both probably both for good and maybe some that other people might not think is so good. Anyway, he’s like most people, like me. I think some things I say are helping people. Some things I have done in my life may be damaging. I hope not. Anyway, we’re all a mixed bag. Okay, let’s talk to Ben in Troy, Michigan. Ben, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. You’re welcome.
SPEAKER 12 :
So my question is, when we’re resurrected, how is it that we’ll have a perfect body?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, miraculously.
SPEAKER 12 :
What do you mean, miraculously?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, to raise a body from the dead is a miracle, okay? When Jesus rose from the dead, it’s a miracle. His body was somewhat different, but also somewhat the same. I mean, it had the features of a physical body. He himself said in Luke 24 that his physical resurrection body had flesh and bones, which he contrasts that with a spirit. He says, notice I’m not a spirit here. A spirit does not have flesh and bones like you see me have. He encourages his disciples to touch his body and put their fingers in the holes in his hands. Obviously, it’s the same body because the scars were still there that were there before he was dead. And he ate food with them. And so, you know, he clearly was a physical being. And yet his body did not have all the limitations that our physical bodies have, which suggests to me that the change happens. in our bodies, which it says in Philippians 3 that our bodies will be changed into the likeness of his glorious body. So when we’re resurrected from the dead, we’ll have the same kind of bodies. And they are physical. They’re flesh and bone. I guess maybe we’ll eat, you know, that kind of thing. And can be touched. But we’ll also have features like his. We know that among the things that were different about him were A, he was not immediately recognized by people who knew him. They came to recognize him, but upon seeing him initially, they weren’t exactly like him. He wasn’t exactly like before because Mary Magdalene didn’t recognize him immediately, but she did within a few minutes. You know, Jesus, when he appeared to Thomas, said, listen, it’s me. Here, touch me. See? Here, hold my hands in case you have any doubts. when he was eating fish at the lakeshore in John 21 with the disciples, the seven of them, it says, it has this strange statement. It says, none of them dared ask him who he was because they all knew it was the Lord. That is a very strange, that’s a very strange statement. You know, nobody dared, no one dared to ask him, suggests that some of them would have if they had dared. I mean, there must have been some kind of question mark in their mind. On the other hand, On the other hand, they knew it was him, you know. Wow. So that’s a very strange verse there. I’ve always thought it was very strange. Yeah. So anyway, he looked different. We know that he was capable of disappearing apparently instantly. And by the way, the two men on the road to Emmaus also didn’t recognize him initially, but they did, you know, later in the same day. So Jesus looked somewhat different. For some of us, that may be encouraging, that our physical bodies will look different than these ones. I mean, our resurrection bodies, hopefully, will look better. But then also we’ll be able to disappear and appear, I suppose. I’m extrapolating here, but Jesus was able to do that. He didn’t do that before his resurrection, so… I’m just thinking, you know, we don’t know. We don’t know much more than that. We have anecdotal information about Jesus’ resurrection body, and we have the promise that our bodies will be like his. So we’d have to guess about everything else.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah. Okay. Now, what do you mean by disappear? You mean like flies or like?
SPEAKER 06 :
No, he just vanished, vanished from the room. The disciples were meeting in a room with the doors shut and locked. He appeared there. He spoke with them. Then he disappeared. He wasn’t there anymore. Or we might say, I mean, to them he seemed to have disappeared. We might say he dematerialized. You know, I’m not going to go to the mat with this particular theory, but I suspect that what Jesus was able to do in his glorious body, and we also, when we have them, will probably be to materialize and to dematerialize. Now, the reason I say that Because, you know, he was sometimes visibly and tangibly among them. And then he wasn’t. And then he was again. Then he wasn’t. And it didn’t really, you know, his being among them didn’t seem to mean he knocked on the door and walked into the room. He just appeared there. Now, what’s really interesting is the first time he did this to them, Thomas was not present. And when Jesus had vanished… Thomas came back and the disciples said, Oh, we saw the Lord. He’s resurrected from the dead. And Thomas said, I won’t believe it until I put my finger in the holes in his hands, put my hand in the hole in his side. Now, Jesus was not visibly there. But eight days later, Jesus appeared to them again in the same room, Thomas being present. And the first thing he said to Thomas was, Here, put your finger in the holes of my hands and put your hand into my side. What he’s saying, I heard that. I heard that, Thomas. I heard you say you won’t believe until you do that. So do it right here. But the interesting thing is when Thomas had said it, Jesus was not visibly there. But Jesus could be saying, but I was here. You know, the truth is that Jesus spent those 40 days after his resurrection and before his ascension into heaven kind of appearing and disappearing at different times, seemingly randomly to the disciples. And then he didn’t just disappear and they never saw him again, but he actually physically was appearing to them at the time he ascended into heaven and they watched him go up. as if to say, this is my final departure here. You know, I’ve been coming and going. You never knew when I’d turn up. But now this is it. You’re going to watch me go, and I’m going to be gone. And then it was just announced that he would eventually come back in the same way that he had gone and been seen to leave, according to Acts 111. Now, what I would take from that is that the disciples had spent three years together. Walking around with Jesus, talking with him, he was as visible and tangible as anyone else. They were used to that. And then after his ascension, they were not going to see him anymore until they died and would go to heaven. So they’re going to have to live the rest of their life without that visible, physical presence of Jesus that they had been accustomed to. And he spent that 40 days conditioning them by sometimes being visible, sometimes not, but always being visible. eavesdropping, always listening in, always seeing. And I think when he spoke to Thomas the way he did, he’s saying, yeah, I heard that. You didn’t see me here, but I heard that. And this is sort of giving them the new perspective that Jesus is not going to have to always be visibly with us in order for him to be with us always, even until the end of the ages, he would promise. So those are my thoughts about it.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right. Well, thank you for your call, brother. Michael in Englewood, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi, Steve. I realize you probably had this question before, and I probably could have went to Matthew713.com, but I like talking to you, so I’ll ask you. Philippians 2.10, I believe it is, says, So my question is, does that mean, like, Some people are going to be able to not bow like, say, devil worshipers.
SPEAKER 06 :
No. Actually, when Paul said in Philippians 2.10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, and that every knee should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father, God the Father, I believe he was alluding, fairly clearly actually he was alluding, to an Isaiah passage. which is Isaiah 45, 23. And in that passage, it doesn’t use the word should, but will. In Isaiah 45, 23, it says, God says, I have sworn by myself, the word has gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return that to me. Every knee shall, that means will, bow, and every tongue shall take an oath. Now, Paul words it a little differently, but it’s obvious that he’s, when he talks about every knee should bow and every tongue should confess, it’s very much imitating the language of Isaiah. To me, every knee will bow and every tongue will take an oath, meaning an oath of allegiance. And that’s what Paul’s referring to, too. Now, there’s some question in the minds of theologians whether this every knee bowing to Jesus and every tongue confessing him as Lord simply refers to a forced action that all people, including all his enemies, will have to do. I mean, how can they fail to acknowledge him once they see him face to face, once they’re standing before him on the day of judgment?
SPEAKER 07 :
How could they not crumble?
SPEAKER 06 :
How could they not cave in? How could their rebellion continue to make them deny what is obvious to them at that point? They will bow. They will acknowledge him as Lord. Now, some say that although they will do that, it will not be that they’re being converted. It’ll be that they’re just saying what has to be said and what no one can deny at that point. but it won’t be saving them. And so this is the way I think most Christians have understood this, that even the Satanists, even the most rebellious, will in fact bow down and say Jesus is Lord, but most people believe it will be too late then. It will just be something forced upon them by the pressure of the circumstances. Now, some have said, well, that doesn’t seem to fit what Paul said, because Paul said that every knee should bow and every tongue should confess Jesus Christ the Lord to the glory of God the Father, that is, they’re doing it to glorify God. And Paul, actually in the Greek, it doesn’t say that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow. It says in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow. Now, in the name of Jesus is something that Christians do. We act in his name. Paul said in Colossians, you know, whatever you do in a word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. To be in Jesus and to be doing things in his name speaks of being a Christian. And Paul actually says that every knee, that in the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess Jesus Christ Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now, I would say this. God certainly wants people to bow and to confess Jesus as Lord, and he’s glorified by them doing it, if they mean it. You know, if it’s something they, if that’s coming from their heart. You know, to say Jesus is Lord is not particularly pleasing to God if you don’t mean it. And what glorifies God is not that you show yourself to be such an ant whom he could crush with a finger of his, that you’re so terrified that you’ll bow down and say anything that he wants you to say. Well, okay, we can say, yeah, that shows how big God is. Yeah, but I don’t know how God would be that glorified by that. You know, if somebody says, do you think I’m the smartest man in the world? Or if I said that to somebody, if I said, hey, do you think I’m the smartest man in the world? And they said, yes, well, that would be a flattery to me. If they said no, but then I put a gun to their head and say, how about now? And they said, yes, would I be flattered? I mean, would I be flattered if they said something praiseworthy of me? with a gun to their head, I don’t know that I would take that as meaningful at all. I don’t think I’d be flattered. I don’t think I’d be glorified. So some people think this is saying that everybody eventually will come to their senses. Not necessarily in this life. Some think it’ll be in the next life. I’m not arguing that. I’m saying that this is what is being argued by many from these factors in the verse. There are a lot of things in the Bible that talk about God’s will is to reconcile all things to himself in Christ. Ephesians, for example, chapter 1, verse 10, says that. And Colossians also speaks of that in Colossians chapter 1. The verse number slips my mind at the moment. But I know Ephesians 1.10 says that. So, you know, for him in Philippians to say every knee in Christ… In the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess to the glory of God the Father. That’s perhaps something that we, maybe sometimes we skip over without too much analytical thought. And if we did think more about it, maybe it’ll raise some other questions we’d have to look into. Anyway, I appreciate your call. You can hear the music. We’ve got a break here. This is not the end of the program. This is only halfway through the program. We have another half hour coming up. But at the bottom of the hour, we’d like to let you know The Narrow Path is listener-supported. We pay a lot of money to the radio stations that carry the show, so you can hear it for free. If you’d like to help us pay those bills, that’s what keeps us on the air. You can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away. We have another half hour.
SPEAKER 01 :
Small is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to life. Welcome to The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Steve has nothing to sell you today but everything to give you. When the radio show is over, go to thenarrowpath.com where you can study, learn, and enjoy with free topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse-by-verse teachings, and archives of all The Narrow Path radio shows. We thank you for supporting the listeners supported Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. See you at thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour, taking your calls. You have questions about the Bible? I have no doubt we all do. So if you’d like to call in with those questions, we will talk about them together. And we might even get them answered. Maybe not. We’ll get the juices flowing in our brains about it anyway and get us thinking about things. That’s always healthy, I think. At least it can be. So give me a call if you’d like to. The number is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. And unlike the beginning of the hour, a half hour ago, Our lines are not all full, so you can get through if you call now, 844-484-5737. Our next caller today is Slavic from Spartanburg, South Carolina. Hi, Slavic. Welcome.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi, Steve. First, I want to say that I find it mind-boggling that you started your radio show when I was five years old. I just started going to school. That’s just crazy. And you’re still going, so praise the Lord. My question is, in 1 Corinthians 5.12, Paul says that we don’t judge those who are outside the church, but we are to judge the ones who are inside the church. But then in Romans 14.4, he says, It seems like he’s saying just the opposite now by saying, who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls and will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. Is that sound counterintuitive, you think, or no? Or am I missing something here?
SPEAKER 06 :
Because in 1 Corinthians 5, when he says judging, he’s talking about condemning. And he’s talking about, in that particular case, casting somebody out of the church. He’s talking about a man who was in the church living in an incestuous relationship with his stepmother, probably, at least with his father’s wife. And that was a horrendous thing, Paul said, and the church should not tolerate it. and that they should kick him out. That’s the context. And so he says, for who am I to judge those who are outside, meaning outside the church? If this was happening by people who weren’t in our fellowship, I’d leave them alone. That’s between them and God. He says, God judges those who are outside. But he says, do you not judge those who are inside? Now, he’s talking about judging sin here. He’s talking about there’s an obnoxious, unmistakable sin. immoral behavior going on, and the church needs to take action to judge it, you know, in a tangible way by kicking the guy out. And he says, we don’t interfere in the lives of unbelievers like that. You know, that’s between them and God. God will judge them. Now, in Romans 14, when he’s talking about Christians, some of them observe a day and some don’t. And some of them eat all things and some eat only meat. He’s saying that’s not something that you have to judge. There’s no immoral behavior there. In fact, Paul specifically says, let everyone be fully persuaded in his own mind, which means give these people liberty to do either one. Now, he couldn’t say that if there was any sin going on. He couldn’t say, well, yeah, these people are sinning, but give them liberty. No, Paul never allowed people to have liberty of sin. He did allow people to have liberty of conscience when they were doing something that is not specifically sinful. It’s not specifically sinful for you to eat meat. Jesus allowed it. Jesus did it. So, I mean, obviously it’s not sinful to eat meat. It’s also not sinful to eat only vegetables. And those were the two things. Now, sometimes people who eat only vegetables will judge people who eat meat. And maybe sometimes people who eat meat will judge the people who eat only vegetables. But God doesn’t judge either of them. So who are you to do it? You’re basically saying, who are you to judge another man’s servant, meaning Jesus’ servant? To his own mastery, stands are false. Since Jesus has not forbidden what they’re doing, leave that judgment to him. It’s not for you to judge because you can’t go beyond what Jesus did about this and say, okay, Jesus didn’t say this wrong, but I’m going to say it’s wrong. Paul says, no, just leave them be. Let them follow their own conscience. We shouldn’t be judging people about things that are not sinful. But when things are sin, like fornication or incest going on in the church, that’s not even a judgment we’re making. That’s a judgment God makes. God’s the one who makes that judgment. We’re just enforcing it. So he’s talking about a very different kind of application to the idea of judging.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, okay. I see. I see. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, in one case, it’s talking about judging sin. Yeah. In the other case, it’s judging people for a matter of conscience. All right. Thanks for your call. We’re going to talk to Odell in Detroit, Michigan. Hi, Odell. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, hello there. Thank you. I have a question in the area. We’re just talking about coming up lately. Now, when believers or nonbelievers pass away or die, They always have everyone go to heaven, and then the different stages before Christ and all return and the rapture come into play. Just lately I’ve been hearing them highlight about that’s only for believers, and anyone who’s not a believer will be coming after the millennium being addressed. What is the actual foundation of all of that?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, the foundation of all of that that you’ve just described is called dispensationalism, or at least premillennialism. Premillennialism is a broad category of theology which basically says Jesus will come back and establish a millennial kingdom on earth. And therefore it’s called premillennialism because it teaches that Jesus will come back before the millennium. And so it’s a premillennial coming of Christ is what they believe in. That’s premillennialism. This is the idea that when Jesus comes back, it’s not the end of the world. It’s just the end of the world as we know it for the time being while Satan is bound temporarily and released later. And then eventually it is the end of the world, but there’s a thousand year reign in between Jesus’ return. and the end of the world. When he returns, they would say it’s not the end of the world. There’s another thousand years before that. That’s called the millennium. Now, the church throughout most of history has not been premillennial, though there have been lots of people who are. But for more of the church age than otherwise, the view of the church has been when Jesus comes back, it is the end of the world. And there’s going to be a new heavens and new earth. So there’s not this thousand years in between. The view is called amillennialism. Amillennialism is no millennium. There’s not this thousand year gap between Jesus’ second coming and the end of the world. Now, that doesn’t mean that amillennialists don’t believe in Revelation 20. They do, and that’s the only chapter in the Bible that talks about this thousand years. But amillennialists say, well, just like we take most of the book of Revelation symbolically, as everybody really does, Whether they admit it or not, there’s nobody who takes Revelation literally. It’s just always a question of how much of it do you take literally and how much do you not? But let’s face it, Revelation is the most symbolic book of the Bible. We would say that about Revelation 20 as well, as is the rest of the book of Revelation. It’s written in highly symbolic language, and the thousand years is symbolic, and the binding of Satan is symbolic. And the angel and the chain and the bottomless pit that’s related to Satan being bound, that’s all symbolic. What it is symbolizing is the fact that Satan is reduced in power dramatically in terms of his ability to deceive the nations. That’s what’s specifically said. He’s bound for a thousand years that he might not deceive the nations. And then he’s loosed for a little while, and he goes out and deceives the nations. So that’s interesting. The binding of Satan is not really a symbol for a literal lockup of Satan. So he’s not doing anything. It’s described in those terms, but Revelation describes lots of things in terms other than their literal terms. The point that’s being made, according to amillennialism, is that the binding of Satan represents what Jesus was talking about when he said that he had, in Matthew 28, 29, I think it was, he said he had, I mean, Matthew 12, 29, he said he had bound the strong man, meaning Satan. Now, he was not saying that Satan was in some literal lockup somewhere. It means that he had rendered Satan incapable of resistance, and that’s why he was able to go in and just plunder his house, as he said. He said, unless you bind the strongman, you can’t plunder his house, but I’m plundering his house. I’m casting demons out of his captives and letting them go. I’m plundering Satan’s estate, taking it from him, and you can’t do that with a strongman unless you first bind him. So he’s implying I have bound him, and that’s why he can’t stop me. Now, Satan wasn’t literally bound with a chain somewhere or in a closet or you know, with ropes or zip ties, he was not literally bound, but he was reduced to incapacity to stop Jesus. That’s what this binding of the strongman means. The binding of the dragon in Revelation 20 is not really that much different. When Jesus came, he reduced Satan to and his power over the nations to deceive them. How? By sending the gospel out to the nations. That’s how he sent the disciples. Go out and make disciples of all nations so that Satan could not deceive all the nations anymore. He’s still a deceiver. He still deceives anyone who wants to be deceived, but he can’t deceive all the nations like he could before because the gospel is now going to the nations. Judaism didn’t. Judaism before the time of Christ didn’t go out and evangelize the nations, but Christianity did. And that was the hindering of Satan’s former ability to keep the nations in the dark. That’s what amillennialists say. The thousand years during which he is bound, they say that that is simply symbolic of a very long time, just like every other reference to a thousand in the Bible is. To say that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills doesn’t really mean a literal thousand, just a lot. Or it says a day in your courts is better than a thousand. It’s not making a one-to-one correspondence between one day and literally a thousand days. It’s just a big number. to say a thousand years in your sight, or as yesterday when it was passed, like a watch in the night, as it says in Psalm 90, verse 4. That’s not literal. It’s literally like a thousand years. I mean, a thousand years is not literally like a day. It’s a big number. And so what the amillennials have always said about Revelation 20 is that that thousand years is not a future millennium, but it began with the binding of Satan at Jesus’ first coming. Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 14 says that Jesus, through death, destroyed him who had the power of death, which is the devil. Now, he didn’t destroy him in the sense of annihilating him, but the word katergeo, which is translated destroy there, means to reduce to inactivity. Well, Jesus didn’t literally reduce Satan from all activity, but he did reduce him from his activity of being the lord of the world. All authority in heaven and earth is now given to Christ, and he can’t keep the nations deceived as he did before. That’s why the church has been successful in every nation on the planet, because the truth goes out, and Satan, who used to deceive those nations, has not been able to stop it. Why? Well, he’s restricted. He can’t do that. He can still deceive people. He’s not literally… in a pit somewhere. That’s all graphic symbolism of the vision. But the question is, what is it saying? And that’s what amillennialism is interpreting that way. Now, premillennialism One type of premillennialism is also called dispensationalism. It’s the most popular type right now. That says things like what you were just saying you’ve heard, that the rapture happens, it’s just the Christians, and then a thousand years later, then the non-Christians are raised up and so forth. That’s obviously placing the millennium between the second coming of Christ, when Christians are raised, and the end of the world, which is when the unbelievers are raised. But Jesus said the believers and the unbelievers are going to be raised at the same time, in the same hour, he said. This is in John chapter 5, verse 28 and 29. Jesus said, do not marvel at this. The hour is coming in which all who were in the graves will hear his voice and come forth. Now, is he talking about the righteous or the unrighteous? Well, read on. That hour is coming when all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth, some to a resurrection of life and some to the resurrection of condemnation. In other words, the good and the bad together are coming out in that same hour. There’s not two different times. It’s one hour when they’re all coming out, Jesus said. And that agrees with what Paul said in Acts 24, 15, where he said he believes as the Jews did. And the Jews believe this, too. that there will be a resurrection from the dead, one, both of the just and the unjust, he said. That’s Acts 24, 15. So Jesus and Paul believed in one resurrection of the dead that would have the just and the unjust. Jesus said they’d both happen in the same hour. So, you know, the idea that there’s a thousand years wedged in there somehow between the resurrection of the righteous and the resurrection of the unrighteous, as dispensationalism and other premillennialists teach, simply does not seem to go along with what Jesus and Paul taught on that very subject. Okay, so I hope that’s helpful to you.
SPEAKER 04 :
I have always thought it was for everybody, but that’s why I was like, why are they trying to highlight only believers?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, it’s because of that belief about the millennium. That’s where they get that. Okay, let’s talk to Joseph in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Hi, Joseph, welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi, thanks for taking my call. My question is about the fall Jewish feasts. Now in the Bible, God says these are my feasts. So I believe that Jesus fulfilled Passover when he was crucified. He was placed in the tomb on unleavened bread. He fulfilled firstfruits. When he was the first of many to be resurrected, and then Pentecost was fulfilled when the law which had been written in stone was written in our hearts. My question to you is, do you believe, or is it possible, that the Feast of Trumpets, or Rosh Hashanah, will be fulfilled when the trumpet sounds at the rapture? As Moses ascended up Mount Sinai, believers will ascend to meet Jesus in the air. Is it possible that the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur… will be fulfilled at the second coming when God’s kingdom will be fully inaugurated? And is it possible that the Feast of Tabernacles will be fulfilled during the thousand-year reign of Christ or the wedding supper of the Lamb when God tabernacles with his people? How do you believe that the Fall Feast will be fulfilled?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, that’s a very good question. Dispensational prophecy teachers do interpret all those fall feasts just in the way that you said. And I have books about that written by them about the feasts of the Lord and so forth and how they see their fulfillment. I have to agree with you on at least one thing. The other thing will have to be tentative because I know of several possibilities. One thing I agree with you about is is the spring feasts and summer feasts, including Pentecost, were fulfilled in their spiritual fulfillment, their ultimate fulfillment in the New Testament, and they were fulfilled on the very days that the Jews would celebrate them. Of course, Jesus died on Passover, of course, and rose at Feast of Firstfruits, which was the first day of the week after that. And then, of course, Pentecost, the Spirit came. So those happened right on those festival days. And many say, well, that means that the fall feasts will, you know, whatever their spiritual fulfillment is, is going to happen when they are in the process of being celebrated. And I cannot deny that. I can’t deny that. But I will ask this. I’m not sure whether… the fall feasts are relevant to the second coming of Christ. I’m not saying they’re not. It’s just I know some other possibilities. The New Testament does not tell us, although it does kind of hint at one thing. I will say it hints at one thing. In Hebrews chapter 9, the feast of Yom Kippur and the high priest going into the Holy of Holies, which every year he did, and then, of course, before the day is over, he had come out again. Hebrews tells us that Jesus went into the Holy of Holies in heaven when he ascended. Now, he has not yet come out again. And he will come out again, I believe. He’s going to come back, and it says that at the end of Hebrews 9, that he will come again for those who are waiting for him. And that will be his second coming, which means that that ritual of the high priest going into the Holy of Holies, sprinkling blood on the mercy seat and all those things he did, and then coming out again the same day, represented the whole age of the church. It represented Jesus going in at his ascension and his coming out again at the end of the world when he returns. And in between, he’s in heaven. Like the high priest was in the Holy of Holies sprinkling blood on the mercy, Jesus is in heaven in the meantime. And he’s interceding for us as the high priest did for Israel. So it seems to me like the New Testament identifies Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, as having its fulfillment in christ going into heaven and then coming out again which of course he’s gone in but he hasn’t come out so the whole two thousand years so far has been like the day of atonement yet unfulfilled and i would see the second coming of christ then as the ultimate fulfillment of the second part of that now as far as the feast of trumpets We do know there’s going to be a trumpet sound when Jesus returns. The Lord himself shall descend with a shout with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first. And we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air, it says. 1 Thessalonians 4, verses 16 through 17. And therefore, there’s a trumpet there. Unfortunately, though, the trumpet sound is a frequently used image of a number of things. For example, in Revelation chapter 1, when John is on the island of Patmos, he hears a voice like a trumpet behind him. He turns around, he sees Jesus there. Later on in chapter 4, he hears a voice like a trumpet again, and he’s caught up into heaven to see things. And there’s trumpets, you know, there’s seven other trumpets sounded later on. In Revelation, different things happen from those trumpets. So a trumpet has more than one meaning and is used a great deal. And it’s hard to know if the Feast of Trumpets refers specifically to the trumpets, the trumpet sound at the second coming of Christ, or to anything else. I will say this, though, at the Feast of Tabernacles, too. Is that in the future? Now, you’re identifying it with the… because you said that God would dwell among us. And the Feast of Tabernacles, of course, represents Israel dwelling in tents around the tabernacle for 40 years as they wandered in the wilderness. And so that’s God dwelling in their midst. But I think the Bible says God dwells in our midst now, that we are his temple. We are the stones of his temple. I don’t know that we can say that… The Feast of Tabernacles necessarily refers to some future time because Jesus came, it says in John chapter 1 and verse 14, and he tabernacled among us. And then Paul refers to our present bodies as tabernacles. In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, he says, we know that if this tent, this tabernacle of ours should be destroyed, we have a, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, which he seems to be talking about our life in this world now is tabernacling with God. And, you know, he is certainly in our midst. Remember, Jesus said in the upper room in John 14, 23, he said, he that has my words or my commands and keeps them, he that loves me and my father will love him and we will come and make our home. with him that is whoever loves jesus and obeys the father and jesus would come and make their home with us which has happened of course at pentecost so i don’t know that tabernacles is still to be fulfilled in the future I don’t know of any future fulfillment of it that the Bible mentions. Of course, people do usually appeal to Zechariah chapter 14, which talks about all nations keeping the Feast of Tabernacles. But in my opinion, it is a mistake to identify Zechariah 14 with the end of the world, as most people do. You can listen to my lectures verse by verse on Zechariah 14 if you’d like to know what I think about that. But in other words, I do have some question. as to whether the fall feasts are to be fulfilled in the second coming. In fact, I wonder if maybe they were to be fulfilled at the birth of Jesus. It was after all then that John says he came and tabernacled among us. there were angels announcing it and things like that, just like there will be at the second coming. You know, there’s just various other ways to look at it. Jesus may well have been born in the fall. Many people think that he was. So, you know, that’s a possibility. Other people I know believe that the fall feasts do follow the life of Christ sequentially, but that they were fulfilled in A.D. 70. when Jerusalem was destroyed, and God no longer dwelt in temples made with hands, but now he dwells in tabernacles among us, in our bodies. So there’s, in answer to your question, I don’t know. I’m certainly familiar with the idea that the Fall Feast will be fulfilled tomorrow, In the end times, I’m also familiar with other possibilities, and I don’t think we have sufficient data of Scripture to nail down exactly which is correct, although it would be very nice, I think, if we did. I would like to have that information, but I’m not persuaded of the dispensational interpretation. Thank you for your call, though. Steve from Grass Valley, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling in.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, hi, Steve. Thank you. Sir, I’ve got two questions, if I can. The first one is, what is the existentialist?
SPEAKER 06 :
Existentialist is not a biblical word, and it’s a very, it’s a very, it’s a philosophy usually associated with Soren Kierkegaard, which is very complicated, very complicated. He’s a very hard man to read and understand. But it’s not a question I’m an expert at because this is about Bible questions. So do you have a second question?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. What about the 144,000? Who are they? What did they do?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, the 144,000 are said to be the firstfruits unto God. If you look in Revelation chapter 14, it says they are the firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. Well, who are the firstfruits of the church? According to James chapter 1 and verse 19, he said that the first century Jewish Christians were the firstfruits. And that would make sense in terms of Revelation’s use of them because they Revelation, I believe, is predicting the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. And in Revelation 7, 144,000 Jewish people are sealed to be protected from that. And before AD 70, before the war and the destruction of Jerusalem, the Christian Jews, the first century believing Jews, fled and did escape from those judgments. So the idea that Revelation 7 indicates that these people will escape the judgment that’s coming Well, that happened historically. They did. The Christian church in Jerusalem fled, according to Eusebius, and therefore escaped it. Now, the description of the 144,000 in Revelation 14, especially as first fruits, points toward them as well. So that’s what I would think. I think they represent the first Christians, the ones who escaped from the Holocaust of A.D.
SPEAKER 1 :
70.
SPEAKER 06 :
Though, obviously, Revelation is a book about which many people have different views, and that’s simply mine. But thank you for your call. We’re out of time. I’m sorry to those who were waiting that didn’t get on today. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. My name is Steve Gregg. We’re on Monday through Friday at this same time. We have a website, thenarrowpath.com. Check it out. Lots of resources there. We’re listener supported. If you want to write to us, it’s The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. God bless.
