In this episode of The Narrow Path, immerse yourself in a deep dive into the intricacies of faith, salvation, and the ever-controversial topic of modern-day prophets and apostles. Steve Gregg engages with callers from across the country, providing thoughtful responses to complex theological questions. Listen as we navigate through the significant themes of faith preceding regeneration and examine the resurrection’s timing as discussed in Corinthians. If you’re curious about how dreams might be a vehicle for divine communication, this episode will illuminate your understanding.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
You’re listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. We have an hour together, which is a true Monday through Friday, and we take your calls during this hour. So if you’d like to join us, I’d be glad to talk to you. The number to call is 844-484-5737. Now, if you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, you want to ask those questions, you want to disagree with the host, feel free to give me a call at Be glad to talk to you about those things. Again, the number is 844-484-5737. Let’s see, today is, let’s see, the last day of the week and my last opportunity to mention that tomorrow night, actually tomorrow morning and tomorrow night, I have meetings in Southern California. Tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock in Temecula. I have a Bible study for men. If you’re a man and want to come to Temecula at 8 o’clock in the morning, we have a study we’re going through of 1 Timothy. And we’d love to have you join us then tomorrow. Tomorrow evening. In Buena Park, which is also in Southern California, we have a study open to everybody. It’s held at the Way Fellowship Church at 6 in the evening tomorrow, and this study is going to be a survey of the Book of Revelation. And if you’re interested in those things, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, look under the tab that says Announcements, and you’ll find under Tomorrow’s Date, which is July 19th, You’ll find the time and location of those gatherings, and you can join us. All right. Our lines are full, so I’m going to go directly to the phone lines so we can talk to some of these people. We’re going to talk, first of all, it looks like, to Rick from Roseville, California. Rick, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi, Steve. I have a question about two passages that seem to contradict each other. I know God doesn’t contradict his word. So the error is on my part. The first one is James 5. It says the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. The second one is Romans 3, verse 10, where it says there are no righteous men. No, not even one.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Yeah, well, there are righteous men. The Bible says that, you know, whosoever is righteous, behaves righteously, practices righteousness. And what Romans is doing is not affirming that there’s nobody who could be called righteous. What it’s doing is quoting from a psalm, Psalm 14. If you look at Romans 3, verses 9 through 19, And Paul says, what then, in verse 9, are we, he means Jews, better than they, meaning Gentiles? He says, not at all, for we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin, as it is written. And then he quotes from several different Old Testament sources, mostly Psalms. I think one of the quotes is from Isaiah, and the rest, I believe, are from the Psalms. And one of them says this. This is from Psalm 14. There is none righteous, no, not one. There’s none who understands. There’s none who seeks after God. They have all gone out of their way. They have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good, no, not one. Now, that’s one of the quotes he gives, and it’s from Psalm 14. Now, some people, and especially Calvinists, would say, well, this proves, of course, that nobody is righteous. We’re all totally wicked people. Doesn’t the psalmist say there’s none good, no, not one, not none righteous? Yeah, well, if you look at the Psalm 14 where he says that, it says in verse 1, the fool has said in his heart there’s no God. They are corrupt. They have done abominable things. There is none that does good. Okay, so we’re talking about people who are fools who deny there’s a God. Then he says, The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, corrupt, etc., etc. There’s none that does good, no, not one. And then it says this in verse 5. He says, There they are, meaning the wicked, are in great fear. For God is with the generation of the righteous. Okay, wait a minute here. So God looks down on man, and there’s all these atheists who say there’s no God, and they don’t do good. There’s none seeking God. But God is on the side, it says, of the generation of the righteous. Well, doesn’t that mean there is a generation of the righteous? Doesn’t that mean there are righteous people? Mm-hmm. So David, when he says there’s none that does good, no, not one. First off, you remember when we’re reading poetry, poetry uses hyperbole. It uses metaphors. It uses lots of different images, figures of speech. And it’s very commonplace in Hebrew poetry for there to be that kind of hyperbole. You know, there’s not one person who is doing the right thing. Well, David was doing the right thing. He was righteous at this point in his life and had been for much of his life. He was a man after God’s own heart. There were other righteous people. And he mentions there is a generation of the righteous, which is a way of saying a group of people who are righteous, whom God is on their side. So he’s not being absolute when he says there’s none righteous. It sounds absolute, but before the psalm is over, he makes it very clear it’s not absolute. It’s a generic assessment of humanity at the time that David’s writing. There are not many good men around, hardly any. There doesn’t seem to be one. and yet he does acknowledge there are righteous people, and so does the Bible in many other places. Job, God’s own testimony about Job was that he was a man who feared God and avoided unrighteousness. He’s a godly life. He’s perfect in God’s sight. So, To take one verse out of a psalm, which is using hyperbole, and say, well, that means no one is righteous, is to misuse the Bible. But some might say, but Paul said it. Well, no, Paul quoted this verse. If we ask ourselves, why did he quote this verse? And the other verses that he quoted here in this passage in Romans 3 also, we only have to ask, what is the point that Paul’s trying to make and why is he quoting all these verses? The other verses he quotes in the same passage in Romans 3, beginning of verse 13, says, “…their throat is an open tomb, with their tongues they practice deceit, the poison of asps is under their lips.” Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Well, not everybody’s are. Destruction and misery are in their ways. The way of peace they have not known. There’s no fear of God before their eyes. Okay, so these are different scriptures from the Old Testament that Paul quotes in rapid succession. Why is he quoting them? Well, he starts it in verse 10 with, as it is written. And when he says, as it’s written, he’s quoting verses to support what he has just said before. He says, are we Jews better than Gentiles? No, not at all. We previously charged that both Jews and Greeks are under sin, as it is written. Now, he’s not writing these verses to prove that Gentiles are sinners. His readers have no doubt about that. In Paul’s day, Gentiles were either Christian or they were pagans, and pagans did horrible things. He’s writing to shame the self-righteousness of the Jews. How do I know that? Well, you only have to read the previous chapter. He says in chapter 2, verse 17, Indeed, you are called a Jew. You rest on the law. You make your boast in God, that you know his will and approve of the things that are excellent being instructed out of the law. You’re confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness. An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having the form of knowledge and truth in the law. Then he says, you therefore who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach, he’s talking to the Jews, that a man should not steal. Do you steal? Well, some Jews obviously do. Not all. You who say do not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? Well, once again, some Jews do. Not all, but some do. The point is being a Jew doesn’t prevent you from doing that. You’re not better because you’re a Jew if you don’t steal or if you don’t commit adultery. It’s because you’re a better man than somebody who does. But it’s not because you’re Jewish. Jews do these things too is the point he’s making. And that’s the point he’s still making when he’s in chapter 3 where he says in verse 9, Are we Jews better than Gentiles? The answer is no, we’re not. Let me quote you some scriptures that prove it. Now, he quotes these statements from David and Isaiah over the next almost 10 verses. And what is he proving? He’s proving that Jews are not better than Gentiles. Well, how do these verses do that? Because David was not talking about Gentiles. He was talking about his own people. So was Isaiah. These people were denouncing their own Jewish people who were disobedient to God. The point he’s trying to make is this. These denunciations, although maybe they use hyperbole, they’re poetic. We can’t take them totally literally. There were exceptions. But the point is, these horrible things that are said about these sinners are not being said about Gentile sinners. They’re being said in these cases about Jewish sinners. And he’s trying to make the point that Jews are no better than Gentiles. No worse either. Jews are not worse than Gentiles, but everyone’s this way. But since the Jews thought that they were better than Gentiles, he says, well, look at these things that are said about you guys by your own prophets, by your own writers. And so he’s not trying to make a case that all people are unrighteous. Even David didn’t make that case in the passage Paul’s quoting. But after he quotes all these, in verse 19, Paul says, after he’s quoted the last of these denunciations, verse 19 says, now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law. What he means is the law means the Old Testament scriptures. He’s referring to what he’s just quoted. He’s quoted all these passages from the scriptures, which he’s calling the law. He says, now, whatever the law says, it’s saying to people who are under the law. Well, who is under the law? The Jews were. The Gentiles were not. God never gave the law to the Gentiles. He’s pointing out these are statements that are not made about Gentiles. They’re made about Jews. And while Paul is not anti-Semitic, obviously, nor should we be. After all, Paul was a Jew, and so was Jesus. You can’t be anti-Semite and Christian at the same time. But he was saying that any arrogance the Jews had toward the Gentiles, and there was a lot of it, actually, was misplaced. And he says, your own prophets tell you. So when he quotes David saying, there’s none righteous, no, not one, none are seeking after God. Paul’s not trying to establish a case of, what should we say, total depravity, as, say, the Calvinists wanted. He’s trying to point out that these awful things, although truly they are hyperbole, as so much of the prophets and the Psalms are, they’re poetic, they use hyperbole, but even though they’re not literally true of every last man or woman, they are nonetheless true of the people of whom David was speaking, and they were not Gentiles, but Jews. So, At this point in Romans, Paul is not trying to establish that every man is a sinner so much as he’s trying to point out that there is no class of men, say, or no race of men that are less sinful than others. The Jews thinking themselves to be an exception. He’s saying you’re not. So he’s not trying to make the point that there’s no one really righteous. He does quote an Old Testament verse that uses that phrase. But, of course, even there it’s a hyperbole. You clarified it very well. Thank you, and have a great weekend. Thanks for calling, Rick. Good talking to you. Tom from Tacoma, Washington. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Yes.
SPEAKER 08 :
This is on divorce, remarriage, legalism, and salvation, kind of based on questions that you answered on the air over the past 10, 15 years that left some loose ends in my head. I suppose as a young fellow that was raised in the church, he was a Christian. He believed that Jesus was the Son of God. and he decides to marry a young lady in the church, and after about a year, he doesn’t feel that, he felt that it was a mistake, and so he ends up divorcing her non-biblically, and remarries another lady, ends up having a baby in that relationship, and some men from his church come, a community team, and And they told him that he’s committed fornication because his divorce wasn’t biblically based. And Jesus said that fornicators would not enter into the kingdom of heaven. And he says, well, I’m not going to leave this relationship. We’ve made a covenant. I’ve made a covenant with this lady and stuff. And so the people left. About a year later, The same committee comes back to his house and says, we’ve got some good news for you. We found on reliable sources that your former wife lived with two or three guys, ended up marrying one, and now has a child. And so you now have a clear path to have a biblical divorce because she sins. And the guy says, wow, I – because my wife sinned, I ought to thank her because now I have my salvation back. And so anyways, my first answer to that would probably be God wasn’t saved to start off with to treat his wife that way. However, once he was saved, did he lose his salvation? Well, let me address that question.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, sure. So being saved is not based on whether you’re married or divorced. Being saved is based on the fact that you have made a commitment to Jesus Christ, that he’s your Lord, he’s your Savior, he’s your King. From this day on, you’re going to pursue his will, not your own. And if a person has made that commitment genuinely, that’s what it means to be converted. If they have not made that commitment genuinely, then they’re not converted. Now, how can you know if somebody’s really converted? Well, you can watch their life. Do they do the things that they believe Christ wants them to do? Are they sincere? Are they consistent in it? When they fail, do they repent of it? Because, I mean, repentance means that you’re really sorry you did it because it really wasn’t the thing that it’s not aligned with what you really want to do with your life. You want to obey Jesus. And you didn’t. You stumbled and sinned. And you realize you sinned. And because you really do want to obey Jesus, you repent. You’re sad. You wish you hadn’t done it. You want to make it right if possible. Those are all aspects of demonstrating that you have that commitment to Christ. Now, I have sometimes said that a person cannot abandon a faithful spouse without abandoning their commitment to God. I believe that is true, except perhaps on one condition. That would be if they don’t know what God has said about this. And the churches have done a very bad job of teaching what the Bible says about this, and therefore they’ve allowed many people who might be otherwise fairly sincere Christians to destroy their marriages because they haven’t been told. God forbids you to do that. Now, if a man leaves his faithful wife and he claims to be a Christian, somebody should speak to him and say, you’re not allowed to do that. You made vows. God tells you never to make a vow and to break it. You’re breaking your vow. Jesus said if you leave your wife for any cause other than fornication and you marry another, you’re committing adultery. So, I mean, once that man has been informed of that, Now you find out if he’s really committed to Christ or not. Because a man committed to Christ will say, oh, my goodness, I’ve done a horrible thing. This is horrible. I repent. What can I do to make it right? How can I go back and undo this if it’s possible? Now, you see, and I’m not saying he has to do that to get saved. That response will show that he is a person committed to Christ, and a person committed to Christ is saved. In other words, his doing the right thing is not going to save him, but his failure to do the right thing would show that he’s not a man who has a serious commitment to obeying Christ in the first place. So, you know, if a person says he’s a Christian and he goes off, leaves his wife, marries somebody else, and you confront him and say, hey, listen, Jesus said you can’t do that. That’s adultery when you do that. You need to go back to your wife. Well, if he says, oh, I don’t care what Jesus said. I’m in a happy situation right now. I don’t like my wife. There’s a reason I left her, and I don’t want to go back to her. I like where I’m at now. Leave me alone. Okay, that man is not a Christian. I mean, he may say he is, but a Christian doesn’t respond that way when they’re told, Jesus said to do the opposite of what you’re doing. And they say, I don’t care. I don’t care what Jesus said. I’m into me, not into him. You know, I’m into what I want, not what Jesus wants. That person has not, either he has not or he’s not continuing to be a Christian. He’s not become a Christian. You become a Christian when you deny yourself and take up your cross and follow Jesus. Now, sometimes we are imperfect in our walk, obviously. The Bible says in many things we stumble. But the truth is, imperfection is a very different thing than saying, I’m going to rebel against what God said. If a man said, okay, I’ve divorced my wife. I’ve married another woman wrongfully. I have children. I don’t really want to go back to my wife. But if that’s what God wants me to do, I would do it. But I can’t because my wife now has said she won’t take me back or she’s remarried now or something like that. Well, okay, he can stay in that marriage because it’s not possible to undo the harm he did. He can’t go back and make restitution for it. although he could support his children, even if they’re with his ex-wife or something. But the thing is, he can’t undo the damage, but he would if he could. He really wishes he could. He’s very, very sorry that he did it, and he would do anything, if it were possible, to rectify it. But it’s not possible, so you just go and sin no more. That’s the thing. Now, the guy you described, you know, when he did the wrong thing and people told him he was doing the wrong thing, he didn’t want to do the right thing. And so I guess they told him, well, then you’re not a Christian. And, you know, God’s the final judge of that. But I would have to agree that all the evidence from that would be that he’s not a Christian. If he’s told that Jesus commands this and he says, I don’t care what Jesus commands. Who is he to tell me what to do? I know what I want to do. That person is not a Christian, obviously. No Christian has that attitude toward Jesus Christ. So, I mean, that man was almost certainly not a Christian either. And then, of course, his wife goes out and commits adultery or gets another husband or something. And now he is free to be free from his first wife and to be married to the second wife. And he says, oh, good, I have my salvation back. I don’t think so. I mean, you could. You could get saved. But you weren’t saved before your wife did that and you didn’t go back. In other words, when you knew that you had to go back to her and you had to repent, you didn’t want to and you wouldn’t. The fact that now you learn, oh, now I don’t have to, doesn’t mean you now are committed to Christ. You’re not going to be saved because you did the right thing or the wrong thing in a particular day or a particular circumstance. Or now that you can live in your rebellion and you can excuse it on what your wife did or something like that. That doesn’t save you. What saves a person is being committed to Christ now. Such a man, let’s just say he’s not so, okay, your ex-wife is remarried. You’re free to be married to your second wife. It sounds like he never did repent. But if he does repent and says, I mean, if he really comes to Christ, he could say, I did a horrible thing to my first wife. I’d give anything to go back, turn the clock back and have the chance and not do that. I wish I could not do that. At least I now am, I realize, not repentant. not necessarily going to be living in rebellion in my new marriage because I’m free to remarry, but I still did a horrible thing, and I wish I hadn’t done it. And I hope God will just let me pick up the pieces and move forward now, and I’ll follow him from this point on in every way. I mean, that would be a response he could make if he wants to be Christian. But if he’s just saying, oh, okay, so… I did the wrong thing. I rebelled against Christ. I’m still rebelling against Christ, but at least now no one can fault me for it because my wife did this thing too. No, you’re still rebelling against Christ if you’re rebelling against Christ. You’re not going to be saved just because suddenly you have an excuse for your misbehavior. You’re going to be saved if you turn your life around and become a follower of Jesus Christ with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Until you’ve done that, no matter how many excuses you have for your behavior, you’re still not a Christian. So I would tell him that. All right. I’m going to, let’s see here. We’re going to talk next to Doug in Alberta, Canada. Doug, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi, Steve. First time caller. I’ll make it quick here. I have some friends that are charismatics. And I’m just wondering, are there apostles or prophets in the church today? Kind of like the same ones that were in the New Testament.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. Well, I don’t know of any. I can’t tell you that the Bible says there wouldn’t be. Some people say, well, those gifts are just for the first century. Well, maybe they were. Maybe they were, but the Bible doesn’t say that. The Bible doesn’t tell us that. The Bible does say that the gifts of the Spirit are given to us, frankly, until the coming of Christ. It says that in 1 Corinthians 1.7, I think it is. And so, that being so, I expect the gifts of the Spirit to be around. Now, apostle and prophet are not so much… gifts of that kind as they are offices. There is a gift of prophecy, but not everyone who has the gift of prophecy has the office of a prophet. There is a gift of teaching, but not everyone who has that gift necessarily is a teacher in the church. Holding an office in the church is a little bit of a different matter than what your abilities are and stuff like that. Now, apostles and prophets are Paul speaks of the church being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Now, the foundation of the church was laid in the first century by himself and other apostles and apparently prophets. Do we still have the apostles and prophets now? I don’t know. While I would perhaps be open to the suggestion, I’ve been in charismatic circles for 55 years. I’ve taught all around the world many times in charismatic organizations. And I’ve met people who thought they were prophets or thought they were apostles, or other people thought that about them. And I’ve looked at these people without rancor and without any, you know, without, what should I say, cynicism, and I just haven’t seen any reason to believe that any of these people really are apostles or prophets. Now, that makes me suspicious that there aren’t any, but I’m not going to make an absolute statement because the Bible doesn’t say there can’t be. All I would say is… if they are, they’re certainly well hidden. And I’ve been in the kind of circles for half of a century where you might expect to find them. I’ve been in international charismatic ministry for 55 years and met the people who are sometimes said to be apostles and prophets. And I have to say, I’m not persuaded. I’m not persuaded that they are. And so it would take a pretty high bar, I think, to convince me that anyone today is. Anyone can say they are, of course. Anyone can say they’re a prophet. And once a person says they’re an apostle or a prophet, then they’re either a true one or a false one. You see, I’m neither a false prophet or a false apostle because I’m no kind of apostle or no kind of prophet. I don’t claim to be a prophet or an apostle. If I did, I would be a false apostle and a false prophet because that’s not what I am. And therefore, I’d be making a false claim. If I make no false claim, I could be a false teacher But I’m not a false apostle or prophet because I don’t claim to be one. If someone claims to be one, they’re either really one or, in the cases I’ve known of, seemingly false ones. And that would be my answer to that the best I know how. I need to take a break, but I hope that’s helpful to you, brother. We have another half hour coming up, so don’t go away. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We are listener-supported. You can go to our website and use anything there, take anything for free, or you can donate at thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 02 :
Steve Gregg has written a number of highly favorably reviewed books, which you can find at your online booksellers, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble. His books are Revelation, Four Views, Hell, Three Christian Views, and the two-volume work on the Kingdom of God called Empire of the Risen Sun. Find them by searching the name Steve Gregg at Amazon or other booksellers.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for another half hour taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or about the Christian faith, I’ll give you a phone number. And I’m looking at a switchboard that has two open lines right now, which means if you call right now, you can get on one of those. The number to call is 844-484-5737. Once again, that’s 844-484-5737. 484-5737. I want to remind you, if you are in California, or Southern California especially, that we have two meetings tomorrow. Yes, Saturday’s tomorrow. In Southern California. One is a men’s Bible study in Temecula. That’s at 8 o’clock tomorrow morning. And the other is a gathering for anybody who wishes to join us in Buena Park. And that is going to be an introduction and overview of the book of Revelation. And we’re doing that at 6 o’clock tomorrow night in Boynton Park. If you’re interested in joining us at either of those. Go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, and look under tomorrow’s date under announcements. There’s a tab that says announcements. Look there, and you’ll find it. Okay, we’re going to go back to the phone lines now and talk to Jimmy from Staten Island, New York. Hi, Jimmy. Welcome. Hi, Steve. How are you doing?
SPEAKER 07 :
I just want to thank you for last night. A little bit before the break and right after the break, you gave a little talk on the Trinity and the divinity and humanity of Christ. And I just want to recommend to anybody, that’s classic. That was so good. But anyway, the last time we spoke, it was in John 3, and you posited that somebody has to believe before they’re born again. In light of that, I want to go to Ezekiel 37, where I believe it’s a picture of salvation evangelism. And God says, can these bones live? So they’re dead. But he prophesies, which is what we do. We declare the gospel. Then he prays to the spirit, which we do. He has the Holy Spirit to give life. We can’t give life. And then they repent in verse 11. God gives us an insight to that. Now in Romans 9, and it says at the end of this, this is the whole house of Israel. And it’s According to Romans 6, they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. So I believe this is the elect. I believe this is the house of Israel, all those that become saved, and that they are new creatures. And I believe cause and effect. Now, either we affect not salvation, but the new birth. I believe salvation and the new birth are different. I’m almost done. When somebody becomes born again of God’s own initiative, not ours, we don’t initiate it. That’s the cause. The effect is the new birth. The cause is God. Then we will believe, and then we’re saved. But before that occurs, new birth, as in Ezekiel 37, we have no life. And I’ll take your explanation over there. Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, brother. Thanks for your call. Good talking to you. Yeah, what Jimmy’s talking about is there’s a controversy between Calvinism and historic Christianity, really, between two options. Does being born again, or what’s called regeneration, does that precede faith, or does it follow faith? Does faith precede regeneration? Now, depending on what you’ve been taught, you might think the answer is obvious, but The point that’s being made by the Calvinist is that people are dead in trespasses and sins, according to Ephesians 2 and Colossians 2, before they’re converted. And because they’re dead, they cannot repent. They cannot believe. Dead people cannot repent or believe, they say. And therefore, before we can believe, God has to take us from our state of being dead to the state of being alive. And that’s being born again. That’s being regenerated. And it’s only after we’re regenerated that we can repent and believe. This is what they say. Now, I don’t agree with this. This is what Jimmy and I disagree about. So the idea is that God regenerates the dead, and then they become believers. Now, we were talking about John 3 last time, I guess we were talking. Jesus told Nicodemus, we must be born again. And Nicodemus said, how can this be? How can these things be? How can a man be born again? In other words, how does regeneration take place? How can a man be regenerated? Jesus said, well, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so shall the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. Now, the serpent being raised in the wilderness that Jesus referred to is in the book of Numbers when Israel had been disobedient to God. God judged them by sending vipers, snakes among them. A lot of the people were dying from snakebite. Moses interceded for them, and God said, okay, make a bronze image of a snake. Put it up on a pole and tell the people, anyone who looks at that pole will be saved, will be healed. And so this happened. We do not read whether there’s anyone who refused to look at it or not, but they were not forced to do so. Whoever would look at the pole would be healed. If anyone decided they wouldn’t, well, obviously they wouldn’t be healed. Now, Jesus said, that’s like me. He says, I’m going to be lifted up. He means on the cross. So just as the serpent was lifted up on the pole, he says, so shall the Son of Man be lifted up. And whoever believes in him will not perish, that is, won’t die, just like those who looked at the serpent would not die, but their life would be extended. He says, well, anyone who believes in me will not perish, but will have everlasting life. Now, having everlasting life is what happens when you regenerate it. So whoever believes in Jesus will receive this life. which is through regeneration, through being born again. That’s what he’s talking about in Nicodemus. The man said, how can a man be born again? How can this be? Well, this is how it happens. You believe in Jesus, and then you will not perish. You’ll have this life that comes through being born again. That’s what he’s talking about there. Now, Ezekiel is talking about something very different than that. I realize that a preacher who has a certain doctrine about the subject could use it as an illustration, but it certainly isn’t what Ezekiel or God is saying. Ezekiel sees a valley full of dry bones scattered out, and God tells him to prophesy to the bones, and they all assemble into bodies. Not just skeletons, but flesh and skin and hair come on them, but they’re still not alive yet. They’re dead bodies, but they’re bodies now. And then he’s told, prophesy to the spirit or breath. Ruach in the Hebrew is the same word. In the New King James verse 9 says, he said to me, prophesy to the breath. which some translations say to the spirit, could be either way. And he said, and so he did, come, O breath, come, O spirit, and breathe in these slain. And then it says they came alive and they were a great army. Now, here we have bones that are scattered. Through the first prophecy of Ezekiel, they are assembled. They’re still dead. They’re not dead. They’re not alive, but now they look like living beings. They just don’t breathe yet. They don’t have any spirit in them. And so as a secondary step, he prophesies the spirit or the breath to come into them and they come alive. Now, this is not talking about individuals being born again. This is talking about the nation of Israel. Ezekiel was in Babylon, and so was the nation of Israel. They were taken captive by the Babylonians into captivity. Their nation had come to be nothing. There was nothing left of their nation. They had been a nation since the time of Joshua or Moses, and now they were nothing. Their nation was dead. And so God represents the Jews in Babylon today. scattered and hopeless like bones. He wouldn’t think they could be reassembled, although God points out they can be. But they were hopeless. And so he says in verse 11, explaining this, he says, Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off. Meaning we’ve been cut off from God, we’ve been cut off from Israel, from our nation, our bones, we’re like dry bones out in the desert, we have no hope. And the vision is saying, well they do have hope actually, because God is going to reassemble them and take them back to their land, which he did. In 539 B.C., the Babylonian captivity ended. They were given permission by their new lords, the Persians, to go back. Some of them did. They went back and built the nation again. They built the temple again. And this was the reassembling of these once scattered bones into a body again, into an army of sorts. But they didn’t have the spirit. When Moses built the tabernacle, the Spirit of God came into it in the Shekinah glory. When Solomon built the temple, the Shekinah glory came. When Zerubbabel, after the Babylonian exile, built the temple, no Shekinah glory there. The Spirit had not come to the people. They were reassembled like bodies, like bones reassembled into bodies. They looked alive. They looked like they should be alive. But they were still spiritless. Now, he says, secondarily, after restoring to their land, he’s going to pour out his spirit on them. This he did on the day of Pentecost, 500 years later. The spirit of God came upon them. And that is on the faithful remnant. It was only the faithful remnant that returned from Babylon. Only 50,000 out of the whole nation returned, so that was the faithful remnant, and God reassembled them. Then on the faithful remnant, as it stood 500 years later, he poured out his spirit in Jerusalem upon them, and that was the founding of the church. Now, there’s nothing in this that is talking about evangelism. There’s nothing in this talking about unbelievers becoming believers. Like I said, a preacher could make, I guess, some kind of sermon illustration of this if he ignores the context and doesn’t know what it’s talking about. But it’s not talking about anyone being regenerated, you know, prior to believing. These people who came back to the land from Babylon, they believed. They were believers. And then later, God poured out his spirit on them, which was, I guess we’d say, regeneration. So if we’re going to use Ezekiel 37, as an illustrator, we’d say the faith came before the regeneration. Now, we’d know that anyway from the New Testament, because of what Jesus said and what Paul said. You know, Paul says this in Colossians chapter 2. In Colossians chapter 2, beginning of verse 12, Paul said, You were buried with him in baptism, in which, that is in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. So we were raised from the dead in Christ. How? Through faith. Wait a minute. I can’t be raised from the dead through faith if I don’t have faith, right? I have to have faith first if it’s through that that I’m going to be raised from the dead. And that’s what Paul says. You were raised with him through faith in the working of God. You believed in the working of God, and he came through and raised you from the dead. But then he says in verse 13, And you being dead in your trespasses and uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made alive together with him. Again, you’ve been regenerated. He’s made you alive together with him, having forgiven you all your trespasses. Oh, wait a minute. He made you alive with him, having forgiven you. Now, having forgiven you means that happened first. That’s what the word having done this means. It means that that happened first. What happened first is he forgave you your trespasses, and then he made you alive. Well, on what occasion do we get forgiven of our trespasses? When we’re justified. Isn’t that justification, being forgiven of our trespasses? Well, how are we justified? By faith. Paul is saying, you guys believed and were justified, and God forgave your sins, and as a result of that, he has made you alive with him. So Paul is affirming, of course, that justification came before regeneration. I wouldn’t say very much before. I would say probably just a moment before. When I was justified, I probably was regenerated right after that. But I was regenerated having been justified first. And justification is by faith. So, you know, there’s certainly nothing in Paul or Jesus or the Old Testament that would argue, in my opinion, for regeneration preceding justification. And there’s a reason why no Christian ever taught that before, say, 400 A.D. The historical view of the church has always been, as I think it should be to anyone who reads the Bible today, that when you believe, you’ll be forgiven and God will forgive. regenerate you, you’ll be born again. And it was Augustine, and therefore Calvinism, that brought up this novel idea, no, no, no, no, no, you’ve got to be regenerated first, then you’ll believe. Well, nowhere in the Bible says that. In fact, everything in the Bible says the opposite. So that’s one of the many, many reasons I’m not a Calvinist. They simply have a paradigm of that they will shoehorn every scripture into fillet if they can. Of course, there’s many that they can’t, but they’ll do what they can. And they don’t read the scripture for what it actually says. Let’s talk to Bob in Roseville, California. Hi, Bob. Welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, Steve. Thank you for taking my call. My question for you is, since you’ve been a formidable dispensationalist in the past, what is the best argument that a dispensationalist gives for explaining 1 Corinthians 15, because when I read 1 Corinthians 15, I see that there’s a second coming. Then we are taken up with Christ, given our new bodies, and then death is destroyed. So I’m just wondering how someone used that differently.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, well, the dispensationalists, they read things in there that aren’t there, but they would say, well, they get that from their whole system. And we have to understand that Paul held the whole system that they held. though he never said he did, but they assumed that he had to be right, and they are right, and so he had to believe what they believed. So they have to insert things and read things into what Paul says that their system would require. Now, the one thing they find some encouragement about in 1 Corinthians 15, because it is about the resurrection from the dead, which is obviously when the rapture takes place and so forth, It says that when Jesus comes, I’ll give it here, verse 23 and 24. Better start with verse 22. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive, but each one in his own order. Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at his coming. Then comes the end. Now, to my mind, Paul is saying, Christ was, you know, everyone’s going to be raised from the dead. First was Christ, then us at his coming, and then that’s the end. Then comes the end. Now, they don’t believe that. They believe that before the end comes a thousand-year millennium, that those who are Christ’s means the church. There’s a resurrection of the Christians at Christ’s coming, meaning the rapture. Now, they place the rapture actually seven years before the coming of Christ, but we won’t worry about that. They generally say Christ’s coming is in two phases, that he comes for the church and and raptures the church before the tribulation. Then he comes with the church at the end of the tribulation. But then there’s a millennium. But see, when he says Christ was the first to be resurrected, then those who are his, that would be the church, at his coming. Now they would suggest he doesn’t mention anyone else but the church here being raised. So it must be that the non-Christians will be raised on some separate occasions. Yeah, the problem is that Paul doesn’t mention a separate occasion when the wicked are raised. Paul knew of no such thing. Paul believed that all people would be raised at the same time. Now, he is talking about those who are Christ’s specifically because he’s talking to those who are Christ’s. He’s talking to the church about when they will be resurrected. Okay, well, he’s going to raise us up, those Christians. who he’s writing to, will be raised up. We who are Christ will be raised up when he comes back. But he doesn’t say, and then later on, the unbelievers will be raised up, like a thousand years later at the end of the millennium. That’s what dispensationalists believe, but we’d have to read that in there. Then comes the end would not mean that the end comes when we’re raised from the dead, because that would suggest there’s not a thousand years after that, because then it wouldn’t be the end when we’re raised from the dead. So we would, as dispensations, say, well, what it means is, of course, in the order of events, Christ was raised, then we’ll be raised, and then the next thing will be the end. It won’t be right immediately. It’ll be a thousand years later. But probably they’d say, well, Jesus was raised 2,000 years before we will be, so it could be another thousand years before the end in the passage. But the main mileage that we would get out of this whole chapter would be, where it says that those who are Christ’s at his coming, because dispensationalists don’t believe that unbelievers will be raised until after the millennium, which is a thousand years after Christ’s coming. So that’s what they lean on heavily, those who are Christ’s. In my opinion… He’s only mentioning those who are Christ’s because that was the interest of his readers who were Christ’s. But we know from elsewhere that Paul believed in one resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous. He said that in Acts chapter 24, verse 15. Acts 24, 15, Paul said that he believed the same thing about the resurrection that the Jews did. And he says what that is. He says that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust. So Paul did not know of any two more resurrections, one of the unjust, but there’s only one, which is all that Jesus taught about also. So, you know, dispensationalists, they get what they can out of these passages, but they don’t necessarily have the best arguments, in my opinion.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, when you couple that with, we’re down to verse 50, where it talks about It’s all going to happen in the twinkling of an eye. And then when that happens, you know, we’re going to be raised and get our new bodies. And it says when that happens, then death will be destroyed. So, you know, when you group those two sections of verses together, I’m just trying to think, how do they see that that’s not going to happen that way?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, let’s face it. When people have a system, they read the verses that fit the system. And the verses that don’t fit the system, they figure, well, there’s some way that has got to fit. You know, it may not look like it fits. I may not be able to tell you exactly why it fits, but certainly Paul would not be mistaken. And if he didn’t agree with me, he’d be mistaken. So we’d say most people say that about their system. You know, I’ve got the right system and everything in the Bible fits it some way or another. Some parts don’t look like they do. But I’m going to go with the parts that look like it, and I’ll just let the other parts take care of themselves somehow. I’ll teach only the verses that say what I want to say. But you’re right. When he talks about how we will be changed in verse 51, in the moment of the twinkling of an eye, he says that’s when the dead will be raised. He didn’t say the Christian dead particularly. He just said the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we… Meaning those who are not dead shall be changed. And then he says, when this happens, that will be the fulfillment of death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is your sting? Oh, Hades, where is your victory? He’s quoting from Isaiah. And, you know, you’re right. I mean, that’s the end of death. Death has been defeated. So how could there be another thousand years or seven years plus a thousand years before the next resurrection? You know, how could there be more death? Death is defeated at that point.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, how could death continue to reign, basically, if death is defeated? I mean, it looks like death would be done away with at that point.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. I have to say, you know, I didn’t have great answers for that particular question when I was at dispensations, but then I wasn’t asked it either then. You know, I wasn’t. I wasn’t around people who weren’t dispensationalists, so I wasn’t being asked those kinds of questions. So that’s all I can say.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you, Bob. Good talking to you. All right. Let’s talk to David in Rockland, Maine. Hi, David. Welcome. Hello, Steve. Hi.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hello, Steve. Yes. Hello.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. Hello. Am I on?
SPEAKER 04 :
Hello. Hello. In God’s image we’re created, what I’d like is what should a Christian believer’s opinion be on the nipples that are on a male man’s chest? And I’ll take your opinion off the air.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. Thank you for your call. I can’t answer that. It’s a question often raised. I suppose we’d have to say this, though. Even if we weren’t made in the image of God, let’s say we evolved from apes. What are the use of the nipples on an ape’s chest? A male ape, I mean. I mean, obviously, only the females among mammals have mammary glands, but males and females have nipples. And we could ask, you know, why does an ape or a monkey, a male, have nipples? I don’t know. But I would have to say this. The problem or the question would remain the same, whether we were made in God’s image or whether we evolved from apes. Because, in fact, even more so if we evolved from apes, because according to evolution, we would not retain features that have no benefit. The purpose of natural selection is to, in the process of evolution, to retain the features only that are helpful for survival. And nipples on a male ape or on a male man do not seem to be helpful for survival. So I don’t know the answer. I mean, maybe God was just being funny. I don’t really know. But, yeah, it’s something we know to be true. Men have nipples. And we also know that God made man in his image. So all we can say is God was either just having fun with us or there was some reason for it that we don’t know about. Maybe they look better than not having them. Who knows? I know, you know, well, I’ll go no further than that. That’s a funny question, obviously. A lot of listeners I’m sure laughed when you asked it. I’ve heard it many times. All right, let’s talk to Eric from Tigard, Oregon. Eric, welcome.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey, how’s it going, Steve?
SPEAKER 03 :
Good. Why don’t you take off the speakerphone so we won’t hear all the sound around you so much.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, yeah, I’m so sorry, man. I’m on I-5 driving. Okay, go ahead. Okay, go ahead. I was just going to ask about dreams. I have a friend that, like, gets, like, a lot of dreams, and she thinks, like, it’s from God, and, like, a lot of it sounds, like, pretty spot-on, like, kind of pathetic dreams and stuff, and I just wanted to get your opinion about, like, the scriptural, you know, evidence of dreams, like, if God, like, actually speaks
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure. Well, I mean, the Bible does say that God has sometimes spoken through dreams. And usually it has to do with prophesying. In the book of Numbers, God said to Aaron and Miriam when they were rebelling against Moses. I think it’s in chapter 12 of Numbers. He said, if I, the Lord, speak to a prophet… I will speak to him in dreams or in visions or in dark sayings. And so we find people like Joseph had dreams. I mean, Joseph in the Old Testament, but Joseph in the New Testament did too. And they were prophetic dreams. Daniel had dreams, and so did Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh, and they were interpreted by prophetic men. So God sometimes does reveal things in dreams. Several of the prophets had dreams and described them, and their dreams were prophetic. prophetic. Now, the Bible doesn’t talk about the dreams that are not prophetic, but it certainly doesn’t argue that all dreams are. In my opinion, most dreams are not prophetic, but God can speak through dreams. I believe there’s two other possible sources for dreams. One would be your own mind. Your Or sometimes it may be demonic. I think if the dreams are strongly tempting or terrifying or something like that, they may be just afflictions from the devil giving you bad dreams or demons. But some dreams are from God. Now, I wouldn’t act upon anything that I thought I got in a dream unless I had some other confirmation of it because I just wouldn’t trust that I would know for sure that if a dream I had, it was from God or not. But, you know, if a woman has dreams that you know, and they’re edifying and, you know, whatever, and they’re not wrong, I don’t see any reason to reject them. Though I think some people do become a little too obsessed with their dreams when they begin to think they’re from God. I’m out of time, so I hope you have sweet dreams. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
