In this episode of The Narrow Path, host Steve Gregg dives deep into the nuances of spiritual gifts versus natural talents. The show opens with a discussion on the itinerary of upcoming speaking engagements across the Midwest, before moving into a fascinating dialogue on how spiritual gifts are believed to be bestowed by the Holy Spirit, unlike natural talents which are inherent. This segment inspires thought-provoking questions about our gifts and how they are used in service to the body of Christ.
SPEAKER 04 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are live for an hour each weekday afternoon, commercial free, just time to talk to you on the phone for this hour. If you call in with your questions about the Bible or about the Christian faith, Perhaps you have a different view from the host, want to talk about that difference of opinion. We certainly welcome that. We have some lines open as I speak. If you call now, you can get through. The number is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. And we’d be glad to talk to you. The only announcement I have to make, I’ve been making for some weeks now. A couple weeks from now, I’ll be doing an itinerary of speaking. Eleven days in the Midwest, mostly in Michigan, but I’ll be in Indianapolis one time, and I’ll also be in Illinois in Rochelle and in Mount Carroll, Illinois, I think a couple days each, if I’m not mistaken. So there’s that general region. I’ll be speaking in for a period of 11 days from the 15th. I have been saying the 16th, but we’ve got it now, an appointment on the 15th also. through the 26th of August. If you live in that area, go to our website and check under announcements. The website is thenarrowpath.com. There’s a tab that says announcements. You can find the time and place of all those gatherings. We’re going to go directly to the phones then and talk to Kirsten in Escondido, California. Hi, Kirsten. Good to hear from you again. Hi, Steve.
SPEAKER 07 :
My question is about spiritual gifts. And specifically with respect to unbelievers, like, is there a difference between spiritual gifts and, say, talents? Or what’s the difference between what a believer gets and what, say, someone naturally has or is good at?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. Well, a natural talent is not the same thing as a spiritual gift. Because Paul talks about the gifts as something that the Holy Spirit bestows on each person. And that’s assuming the person possesses the Holy Spirit. Only believers, at least scripturally speaking, it would appear that only the believers receive the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you with power, that power is manifested in one or another person. of what’s called the gifts of the Spirit. Now, some of these gifts are supernatural, which you would never expect to see, you know, anyone having a natural talent for it. But some of these gifts that are listed are the kinds of things a person might be said to have natural talents in. For example, there’s a gift of leading, leadership. There’s a gift of encouraging. There’s a gift of showing mercy. There’s a gift of teaching. There’s, you know, gift of giving gifts. The gift of helping. Those are gifts that Paul lists in Romans 12. He has another list in 1 Corinthians 12. But the point is that a lot of those things I just named, there’s a lot of unbelievers that do those things pretty well. There’s a lot of unbelievers who are excellent teachers or who are excellent helpers or encouragers. or leaders, they have leadership skills. And those would be, I would say, natural gifts that they have. Now, when such a person who has such a natural gift becomes a Christian and is filled with the Spirit, God may very well choose to activate some of those talents with the overlay of anointing of His Holy Spirit so that the person is doing those things guided by the Holy Spirit and with the additional gifts spiritual power in it. For example, let’s just take teaching because that’s the one I’m most familiar with. There are people who are not Christians who are no doubt better at teaching than I am, I’m sure. But their teaching gift would not be a gift of the Holy Spirit. It would be presumably a natural ability since they don’t have the Holy Spirit. But if they became Christians, God might or might not have you know, use them in teaching. I would expect he would. He might not. He actually might use something else. Their natural gift of teaching might be something they would never really be used by God to do because he calls them to do something else. But my guess is that most times when people have native gifts, these probably are a precursor of what God intends to use them in. For example, a person is a teacher. Before he becomes a Christian… is honing, you know, first of all, public speaking abilities, perhaps, or learning material, learning to be a researcher, depending on whatever it is they teach. But those skills, of course, can come in handy if God calls that person to become a Bible teacher or a spiritual teacher in the body of Christ. On the other hand, all that research and all that natural ability does not make them a spiritual teacher, even if they start talking about spiritual subjects. Only the Holy Spirit can make you an instrument of the body of Christ, and each gift of the Spirit represents somebody who’s operating in one of the functions of the body of Christ, teaching being one of them. And so my thought is that, for example, before I was filled with the Spirit, I did public speaking. You know, I read my Bible a lot. I wanted to be a preacher of sorts. I wanted to be an evangelist or something when I was a kid. But when I actually got to the Spirit, God didn’t use me as I thought in those kinds of areas, but he did. use me to teach the Bible. Now, I suspect that my ability to teach the Bible bears some relationship to my inclinations and my studies and so forth that I did before I was a Bible teacher, but When you’re anointed by God to do something, and that would even be if it’s the gift of helps or the gift of leading or the gift of encouragement or the gift of showing mercy or the gift of giving even, I believe that those are things that people can do if they’re not Christians, but they don’t do them in such a way as will edify the body of Christ. Only the Holy Spirit’s activity will edify the body of Christ. Again, using teaching as an example, and this statement could apply to any number of other natural abilities that then become somebody’s function in the body of Christ when they’re filled with the Spirit. A teacher, an excellent teacher, the most gifted teacher in the world who’s not a Christian, the most his teaching can do is maybe pass along information effectively, And perhaps inspire others to study that information. Perhaps inspire others to want to be teachers, too, because they’ve got a mentor like that. Now, those are good things. But if you’re a teacher in the body of Christ, if that’s your gift, all those things may also be true. But quite separately, there’s another overlay here. of God’s anointing, which not only passes along information, but passes along life, a rather nebulous quality of spiritual life, which is carried in the Word of God to our souls by the Holy Spirit. So, you know, I’ve definitely known the difference between listening to a very polished teacher, well-educated, extremely articulate teacher, who impressed me immensely on the one hand And hearing another person who teaches, maybe they’re skilled as much as the other person, maybe less so, but they impact me spiritually. I mean, when they speak, the Holy Spirit is doing something when they’re speaking. And that’s what I would consider to be the difference between, say, a natural gift and a spiritual gift, that a person who’s a helper can do that, whether they’re a Christian or not. But if that is their spiritual gift, it’s going to be guided by the Spirit. It’s going to be, you know, anointed by the Spirit in a way that brings actual blessing, you know, that will bring spiritual blessing to people. And that’s what the Holy Spirit would be doing.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, thank you. That makes sense. Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, Kirsten, thanks for your call.
SPEAKER 07 :
Uh-huh.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you. Okay, our next caller is Hank from Youngsville, North Carolina. Hi, Hank.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, Steve. Thank you. I just wanted to… I have a question here about Isaiah 14.12 and also Ezekiel 28.13. Yesterday you spoke to somebody about Lucifer, and you said that refers to the king of Tyre. No, the king of Babylon.
SPEAKER 04 :
The king of Babylon.
SPEAKER 03 :
King of Babylon. Okay, then he was the king of Babylon, but it’s described in Ezekiel 28.13 as being a significant cherub. My question is, who was this king, and why is he such an important figure in the Garden of Eden?
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, first of all, you’re confusing the two passages. Lucifer is not mentioned in Ezekiel 28, where we read of a cherub in the Garden of Eden. We’ve got two passages, and they’re about different kings. One of them is Isaiah 14. which, along with Isaiah 13, chapter 13 and 14, are both about Babylon, the fate and the fall of Babylon. And at Isaiah 14, 12, it begins to speak to the king of Babylon. Actually, it speaks to the king of Babylon earlier also. I think verse 4 or 5, it begins to address the king of Babylon. And that same person, apparently, is addressed as bright, shining one or light bearer in verse 12. Now, The Hebrew word means light bearer, but the Latin version, which was a translation of the Hebrew made in the fourth century by Jerome, used the word Lucifer. because that’s the Latin word for a light bearer. And so translating the Hebrew into Latin, there’s the Hebrew word light bearer. Naturally enough, Jerome translates it as Lucifer, which is what light bearer is in Latin. So the strange thing is that when this came to be translated into English, the English translators didn’t do the same thing Jerome did. Jerome translated the Hebrew word into his own language, Latin, the English translators translated the Latin word into English, or didn’t translate it, just carried it over into English. So we have the Latin word Lucifer, where the Hebrew just says light bearer. And it’s not really, in the Bible, it’s not a proper name at all. But because it remained unchanged when brought over from Latin into English, it’s treated like a proper name, and Christians have usually identified it as a proper name, and usually they’ve identified it as Satan. But nothing in the Hebrew text, nothing in Isaiah 14 at all, refers to Satan. At least, if it does, it’s hidden. There’s no overt reference to the devil anywhere in the passage. Now, when you get over into Ezekiel, there’s another passage which Christians have traditionally applied to Satan. But again, that passage, Ezekiel 28… doesn’t mention the devil anywhere either. It is part of a long three-chapter section in Ezekiel that’s against the city of Tyre, a pagan city of Phoenicia north of Israel, which was the wealthiest commercial city on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean in that day, and very proud and very powerful and very wealthy. And there’s three chapters in Ezekiel devoted to denouncing the pride of and the corruption of that city. And the passage you’re referring to is part of that prophecy. And it’s chapter 28, verse 12 and following. It says it’s to the prince of Tyre, which prince in the Bible means king or ruler in general. It says, you know, say to the prince of Tyre. And then it begins to talk about you were in Eden, the garden of God. You had every precious stone for your covering, you know. You were perfect in wisdom and perfect in beauty and perfect in all your ways until iniquity was found in you, and you were the anointed cherub that covers. And then it goes on and says, by the abundance of your trading, you became corrupted, and so forth. Now, the city of Tyre and its leaders would become corrupted by the abundance of their trading is a very natural thing. How, if we’re going to say, well, this is talking about Satan now, How would Satan’s corruption be related to his commerce, his trading? I mean, was that going on in heaven and then he was corrupted by trading in heaven and then he fell? Hardly makes any sense. And besides, there’s nothing in the passage that gives the slightest indication that we have stopped talking about Tyre, which is what the two and a half chapters prior to that are about. And then it’s saying, this is to the prince of Tyre, and it says these famous words. There’s nothing that says it’s transferred to talk about somebody else, like maybe the devil. There’s no reference to the devil in the passage. It is strictly traditional, and without the slightest merit or support in the passage or in Scripture at all, that we have traditionally applied the king of Tyre to Satan in this passage. Now, it is true, it says of him that he was in the garden of God, the garden of Eden. Well, that’s not literally true of the king of Tyre, but Ezekiel has no interest in being literally true. Ezekiel writes in poetry, there’s a later king, three chapters later in Ezekiel 31, who is said to have been a tree in the Garden of Eden. Now, the king of Assyria, he was not a tree, a literal tree in the Garden of Eden, and the king of Tyre was not a literal anything in the Garden of Eden. Neither of those men were in the Garden of Eden. It’s poetry. This is impressionistic poetry. It means you had it made, basically is what you’re saying. You had it made in the shade. You were in paradise. You really had it going until… You got corrupted. Now you have to fall. And that’s what he’s saying to Tyre. That’s what he said to Assyria. That’s what he said to Babylon and Isaiah. So this is what’s going on. Now, it’s true, mentioning the king of Tyre as being in the Garden of Eden, which is symbolic, obviously, because he wasn’t. He says there in Ezekiel 28, you were the anointed cherub that covers. Now, a cherub is some kind of an angelic kind of a creature, right? Traditionally, Christians have said, and they base it on this passage, but without any warrant, because this passage doesn’t give any warrant for it. But they say this is talking to Satan. And we commonly hear that Lucifer is the same person as Satan. Of course, Lucifer is not even a name found in the Bible at all in the Hebrew. But the thing is, they say Lucifer was Satan, and Satan was, they say, an archangel, the way I was raised. I was taught that there were three archangels, Michael, Gabriel, and Lucifer, and one of them fell and became the devil. You’ve probably heard similar things. None of that is in the Bible. There’s only one archangel mentioned in the Bible. That’s Michael, who in Jude verse 9 is called the archangel Michael. Gabriel is never called an archangel, and Lucifer is never even called an angel of any kind, nor is the king of Tyre called an angel. He is called a cherub twice in the passage. He’s a cherub in the garden. Okay, so then we must be talking about one of the characters in the Garden of Eden, right? Well, if we’re being literal, but then we’d have to have the same reasons to be literal when it calls the Assyrian a tree in the Garden of Eden, which nobody believes is the case. This is imagery. This is poetry. But the point is, let’s, for the sake of argument, consider that Ezekiel is being literal, that the king of Tyre, to whom he’s speaking, really was a cherub in the Garden of Eden. Now, a cherub is not the same thing as an angel or even of an archangel. So if this is referring to Satan, it’s not saying he was an angel. It’s not saying he was an archangel. It’s saying he was a cherub. And by the way, there was a cherub in the Garden of Eden, you might recall. After Adam and Eve sinned, God judged them by banning them from eating of the tree of life. To prevent them from doing so, he took a cherub, which was one of his own servants, some being, a creature from heaven, such as Ezekiel had described in chapter 1 and in chapter 10, he described cherubs, very strange creatures. But he took a cherub and a flaming sword, to guard the way to the tree of life so that people could eat of it. So of all the characters that we know of that were in the Garden of Eden, there were apparently five. God was in the Garden of Eden. The devil was in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden. And this cherub were in the Garden of Eden. The devil is not identified with the cherub. When I said the devil was in the Garden of Eden, I’m referring, of course, to the serpent. Of the four characters in the Garden of Eden, one was the serpent, and we identify that one, and so does the book of Revelation identify that one as Satan. But that wasn’t the cherub. If the king of Tyre was literally a cherub in the Garden of Eden, then he is that creature that God set to guard the way to the tree of life with a flaming sword, which is not the same as the serpent. So there’s nothing in Ezekiel 28 that would give us any impression that it is addressed to Satan. It’s not even addressed to anyone who really was in the Garden of Eden. That’s a figure of speech. So, I mean, this view that both Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 are about Satan. By the way, that view has been around a very long time. It’s been around since like the early church. There were early church fathers who took it that way. But then I’ve never decided that I’ll interpret the Scripture based on what church fathers said, although I trust that they were right in many things. But if the Bible itself doesn’t support them, I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to support them if the Bible doesn’t support them. There’s nothing in the Bible that ever says Satan was an angel or that said that he was certainly an archangel or anything like that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, Steve, thank you. That’s very clear now. And one has to distinguish between literal and figurative, and that’s difficult. But thank you very much. I do have a better understanding.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, great. Thanks for your call. And as far as figurative and literal, it is sometimes difficult to know if something is figurative or literal, although generally speaking, there are some basic ways of knowing. One is that if something is written as a historical narrative, like Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, well, not Leviticus so much, but let’s say Numbers, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, those are historical books. Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, those are all historical narratives. Generally speaking, they just tell a historical narrative the way we would. I mean, not exactly. They have their own figures of speech, too, but they are telling stories that are essentially taken to be literal historical accounts. When you get into the poetic literature, which you do as soon as you get to the book of Job, you’ve got Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon. You’ve got Ecclesiastes in there, and then you’ve got all the prophets that are written mostly in poetry. Virtually everything after the book of Esther in the Old Testament is written in poetry. There are some portions that are not, but all the prophets used poetry most of the time when they wrote. And as soon as you know that you’ve passed from a genre of historical narrative… to a genre which is using poetry, you at least need to suspect that you’re going to find hyperbole, you’re going to find metaphor, you’re going to find all the figures of speech that are normal poetry, and which you would not normally use if you’re trying to be strictly literal. Now, Ezekiel is no different than the other prophets in this respect, except that he’s more symbolic than some. I mean, Ezekiel is really unusual in that respect. All the prophets in the Bible wrote in poetry. Ezekiel used imagery that was really far-fetched in many cases, much more than the others. But still, you know, it’s not like nothing they said has any literal meaning. They all have literal meanings. It’s that poetry, which is like biblical poetry, it has a literal meaning. It’s just not expressed in literal terms. That is to say, you can’t just take the words that they say and say, oh, they literally mean that. What we can say is they are literally talking about something and saying something about it, but they’re doing it in poetic imagery. So, I mean, what is Ezekiel saying about the king of Tyre? He’s saying that the man was wealthy, the man was privileged, the man was known for his great wisdom, or the city at least was, and beauty. And he became corrupted by his trading, and he fell from grace. And he’s compared to the cherub in Eden, which, by the way, as far as we know, that cherub never fell from grace, never had a problem, but is more describing it as a responsible position. God is a guardian. A king is supposed to be the guardian of his nation. And so as the cherub in the Garden of Eden was guarding, was assigned with the responsibility of guarding the way of life, the king of Tyre, like every king, was charged with guarding their people and their country and things like that. So, I mean, this is the kind of imagery that’s used. It’s saying something that is literally true. It’s just not using literal terminology to do it. That’s the case with poetry, generally speaking. I appreciate your call very much. Glad for the chance to talk about that. Michael in Englewood, California, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, wow, that was quick. Okay, Steve, I wanted to ask you about what could be a reason why fornication was not listed as a commandment like adultery was. I’m asking this because last week there was a caller who, who’s kind of going through something that I’m kind of going through as far as massages with Happy Endings. And I’m, of course, referring to Matthew 528. But I’m like, if you’re single, how can you really look at a woman to lust on her? And commit adultery. Because if you’re not married, you can’t commit adultery. So I guess my question is… Well, unless she is.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, unless she is. Yeah, right. I mean, let me just say this. Jesus is, when he says, whoever looks at a woman to lust after her… has committed adultery with her in his heart. He’s clearly referring to a married woman because actually the word woman in the Greek is the same word for wife. Wife and woman are the same word. So it could be translated whoever looks at a wife, somebody else’s wife in other words, and looks at her with less is committing adultery with her in his heart. The idea being what you’re doing in your heart is the same thing that would be adultery if you did it physically. Now, it’s no doubt possible to commit fornication in your heart too. I mean, looking at a woman who’s not married. and lusting is also dishonoring to her, and would be basically, you know, that’d be fornication in the heart. But, of course, as you pointed out, the Ten Commandments don’t mention fornication, per se. They mention adultery, and Jesus is pointing out, you’ve heard that it was said you should not commit adultery. He’s quoting the Seventh Commandment, and he says, but you’ve done that in your heart, if you’ve even… done it in your heart, you know, since you’ve done it. So, but as far as why didn’t God list fornication as well as in the Ten Commandments, I suppose you mean, I guess he only wanted to fill ten slots there and, you know, adultery was the major issue he had in mind, but there’s three chapters following the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are in Exodus 20, and the three chapters following that, chapters 21 through 23, we have what’s called the Book of the Covenant, which kind of expands on the principles of the Ten Commandments, and there’s lots of things about fornication there. Now, fornication, of course, means any kind of sexual misconduct. Adultery would technically be a form of fornication because it’s sexual misconduct, but fornication has a broader usage. It would include prostitution, premarital sex, sexism. homosexuality, bestiality, incest, those things, you know, they’re all forms of fornication. And so even though the Ten Commandments only mentions adultery, the laws, that list of laws three chapters long immediately after the Ten Commandments mentions several different forms of fornication as wrong. So, yeah, I mean, you need to avoid looking at a woman with lust anyway. obviously, because you’re simply tempting yourself if you allow yourself to do that. But Jesus’ statement technically referred to adultery in the heart. But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have said the same thing about fornication or several other sins that one might do in their heart. He’s just saying, you’ve heard you can’t commit adultery. Well, I’m saying you shouldn’t do it in your heart either. I need to take a break. I’m sorry, we couldn’t go further on this right now. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. My name is Steve Gregg. We are listener-supported. Our website’s isthenarrowpath.com. We’re taking a 30-second break or so, and I’ll be back with another half hour. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 01 :
If you enjoy the Narrow Path radio program, you’d really like the resources at our website, thenarrowpath.com, where hundreds of biblical lectures and messages by our host, Steve Gregg, can be accessed without charge and listened to at your convenience. If you have not done so, visit the website, thenarrowpath.com, and discover all that is available for your learning pleasure.
SPEAKER 04 :
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, about the Christian faith, you disagree with the host, want to tell me why, feel free to give me a call. The number is 844-484-5737. Once again, that number is 844-484-5737. And by the way, I’m looking at a switchboard that is mostly open. We’re going to talk next to Richard in Dallas, Texas. But if you call now, there’s a very good chance you’ll get right through because our switchboard has a lot of open lines at the moment. And that’s 844-484-5737. Richard in Dallas, Texas. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, how are you doing, Steve? Thanks for taking my call. And this question is, I guess it’s stemming from having recent conversations with dispensationalists regarding the temple of God. And I have listened to some of your material, and I completely agree. And I sometimes think that it’s best to – so I try to lay out a foundation of the – we know that there was a decree for the first one. We know there’s a decree for the second one. And then I ask, okay, can you show me where there’s a decree for a third one? And you’ll have some go to Ezekiel, but I guess the thing is if the temple of God is – is somewhat understood, and when we read the New Testament, that it is the collective body of believers, it is the church. I don’t know how they tie it into the Antichrist, because if I were to take the definition by John, it seems to be that the Antichrist is completely contrary to what they’re trying to say. In other words, if they’re saying the Antichrist is somebody who claims to be the Messiah, Jesus, and ultimately God himself, that right there in itself seems to contradict the definition that John gives in 1 and 2 John. And so I don’t know how else to really, you know, I guess make an argument for it other than there’s no one in Scripture… I agree with you when Paul says, you know, and when he explains who the temple of God is and where God dwells, but yet there’s nowhere else in Scripture that says, okay, well, Paul, we understand that, but when is this temple that you’re speaking of now, when is it going to be built? In other words, there’s I don’t find anything else. So I don’t know how they come to that conclusion.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, let me address this, okay? So what you’re talking about is the third temple. And is there anything in the scripture about a third Jewish temple? The first temple, as we all know, was built by Solomon. And most Christians who have ever read the Bible know that that temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. But decades later, a group of people, the Jewish exiles from Babylon, came back to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel, and they built the temple again. That was the second temple. That second temple was still standing when Jesus came. And so when Jesus taught in the temple, he was in the second temple. Solomon’s temple was the first and had been destroyed 500 years earlier, and now he was in the second temple. The second temple was destroyed in A.D. 70 by the Romans. And there’s never been a third temple since. Now, what you’re referring to is the fact that dispensationalists believe that there will be a third temple, that the Jews will build their temple in Jerusalem again, that they’ll start up the sacrificial system again, which is the only reason you’d build a temple. The temple was not ever used for worshiping Jesus. It was used for offering animal sacrifices to God, which, of course, is totally obsolete now. But the point is, Many people think that’s going to happen. And then they think that when the Antichrist comes, he’s going to play a significant role with reference to the temple, that he’s going to defile the temple like Antiochus Epiphanes defiled the temple back in the days almost two centuries before Christ. And then they believe that’s the middle of the tribulation period, and then there’s great persecution of the Jews by the Antichrist. So they believe that there’s prophecies about a third temple, about an Antichrist coming and actually setting up an image of himself in that temple. They refer to that as the abomination of desolation, that act of the Antichrist setting up his image in the third temple. Just to be clear, there’s nothing in the Bible that clearly predicts a third temple. If you ask them where you find such a temple, a third temple in the Bible, there’s basically four places they will suggest. Two of them in the Old Testament and two in the New Testament. The two in the Old Testament are Ezekiel, chapters 40 through 47. The last portion of the book of Ezekiel describes a temple. He is told to measure the dimension or an angel goes out and measures the dimensions of a temple and gives their measurements and things. And Ezekiel writes that down. Now, a lot of people say, well, Ezekiel was in Babylon after the second temple was destroyed. So as he’s seen a vision of another temple, that would have to be a third temple. And so they would say this is a prediction of the third temple. On the other hand, one can say, where is it predicted that this third temple will be built? We have a description. We have a blueprint of a third temple. We don’t have a prediction that it will necessarily be built. And it strongly suggested that the coming of this third temple into reality was very much dependent on the response of the Jews in terms of repenting of their old sins, which had caused the second one to be destroyed. The second temple is destroyed because of the sins of the people of Judea. And there’s a suggestion in Ezekiel 43, verses 10 and 11, which is in the middle of this description of this temple that Ezekiel gives. Verse 10 and 11, it says in Ezekiel 43, son of man, describe the temple. which he’s just describing in these chapters, to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed, implying repentant, of their iniquities, and let them measure the pattern. And if they are ashamed, meaning repentant, of all that they have done, make known to them the design of the temple and its arrangement and its exits and its entrances, its entirety, its entire design and so forth. Now, what he says is, I’m giving you this blueprint of the temple, the design and its entrances and all the details. You need to show this to the children of Israel who were, by the way, in exile in Babylon with him. And he said, if they are ashamed, I think we can read if they are repentant, if they are, you know, greatly grieved over their sins to the point where it’s, you know, they’ve pretty much resolved not to ever do that again. That’s what repentance would be. Then he said, show them. In other words, it sounds like this is going to be available to them if they repent. And that statement, if they are ashamed, suggests that it is a conditional thing. If they aren’t ashamed, if they don’t repent, well, then all bets are off. This temple may just, you know, the plans may just be of no value to them because they don’t meet the conditions for it by repenting. Now, did they repent? Well, The truth is, while there may have been over a million Jews who went into captivity in Babylon, only 50,000 of them came back. Now, this was after the Babylonian exile ended, and all the Jews had a decree from Cyrus permitting them to go back and build the temple in Jerusalem. They were no longer in bondage, but some didn’t want to go. Imagine that, Jews being content to dwell without a temple. The temple was the center of their whole identity as the people of God, their worship in the Jerusalem temple. And now they have the opportunity to go and restore it. And, you know, like 90% of them or more just decided, nah, I think I like it here in Babylon. We’re pretty comfortable. We’ll just stay here. And so some tiny little remnant of them, it says in Ezra chapter 1, verse 5, the ones that the Lord moved them. They were moved by the Lord. They went back and they did build the temple. But it was a much smaller temple. They didn’t have the manpower. They didn’t have the resources to build the temple that’s described here. So it never got built. Now, lots of people say, well, therefore, it will have to be built in the millennium. There’s a lot of people who think this temple will be built in the millennium. There’s nothing in Ezekiel about any millennium. There’s nothing in Ezekiel that predicts that this will be built. It just says, here’s a design. Here’s a blueprint. If the people are sufficiently ashamed, this will be relevant to them. I would dare say that if only 50,000 people, probably over a million, even cared about worshipping God, and the rest wanted to stay in Babylon, and a tiny, tiny remnant went back and wanted to worship God and build a temple, that doesn’t reflect national repentance to me. And therefore, I would say they did not meet the condition for this temple to exist. And this is the temple that might have been, but there’s no prediction that despite the their failure to repent, he’s going to have them build this temple again. There’s no prediction of that. It was conditional, and they didn’t meet the conditions. So this passage… cannot responsibly be held to teach there’s going to be a third temple. What other Old Testament passages? Well, Zechariah 14 describes people going to the temple and offering animal sacrifices there and so forth. And I won’t go into this in detail like I did with Ezekiel, but Zechariah 14 is very frequently applied by dispensationalists and some others to the end times. Sometimes they think that Zechariah 14 is describing the second coming of Christ and the millennium after that. All I can say is, as someone who has studied Ezekiel extensively and taught through it verse by verse probably 15 or 20 times, I don’t see anything in Zechariah that suggests this is about the end times. I don’t think it is. Zechariah 14 is the culmination of a section in Zechariah, which is chapters 9 through 14. At least four or five of the verses in this section are quoted in the New Testament and applied to the first century, including Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, him being betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, the shepherd being smitten and the sheep scattering in the Garden of Gethsemane. These are all in that section. This is the first coming. It’s not talking about the second coming of Christ. It’s talking about the first coming of Christ. And there’s the destruction of the temple in Ezekiel. I keep saying Ezekiel. In Zechariah 14, verses 1 and 2, it talks about the city being destroyed again. That happened in 70 A.D., And then there’s this poetic, apocalyptic description of things, which is not literal. But the point is, the time frame of the entire passage, at least the parts of it we can identify from quotations in the New Testament, which is quite a few, is the first coming of Christ. There’s nothing that says it’s about the second coming of Christ or that period of time. So, again, just because there’s a mention of a temple, well, there was a temple at the first coming of Christ. Okay, so that was there. But the mention of a temple in that chapter does not predict a third temple. As far as you know, after the second temple was destroyed, never again was there a prediction of another temple in Jerusalem. Now, I said there’s two New Testament passages, too. One of them is 2 Thessalonians 2, where Paul talks about the man of sins sits in the temple of God, claiming that he himself is God. I’ll find you a verse number for that. Take me a second to look it up here. That is 2 Thessalonians 2 and verse 4. That the man of sin opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped so that he sits in as God in the temple of God. showing himself that he’s God. So Paul is talking about something future from his point of view. And since maybe 20 years after this was written, the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. And, you know, the things Paul describes here did not happen in that period of time. Many people think, well, he’s talking about a third temple. You know, there was a second temple standing when he wrote. He never mentioned there’d be a third temple, but the very fact that he mentions a temple of God and the time frame of his saying seems to put it maybe later than the second temple, so it must be a third temple. Except for the fact that Paul uses the term temple of God three times in his writings. This is one of them, and he leaves it rather obscure what he means by the temple of God, but the other two times are not obscure at all. The other two times are in 1 Corinthians 3.16 and 2 Corinthians 6.16. It’s also 3.16, yeah. So in 1 and 2 Corinthians, Paul says to the church, do you not know that you are the temple of God? And that, you know, the Holy Spirit dwells in you. So the term temple of God, in two of the three cases that Paul uses the term, he makes it very clear he’s talking about the church as the temple of God. In this third instance, he doesn’t mention whether he means the church or not, but I think all things being equal. the burden of proof would be heavy upon anyone who said he’s not referring to the same temple of God here as he was referring to in 1 and 2 Corinthians. So the temple had that meaning to Paul, and therefore it’s very likely that this particular man of sin is predicted to sit in the church. And, of course, the reformers all believed that that happened. They thought the pope. They thought the rise of the papacy was the man of sin. In fact, I mean, this is not just the Reformers, but the whole Protestant movement for like the first 300 years held that the papacy was this man of sin. And you’ll find it in all the commentaries. You’ll even find it in the introduction to the King James Version of the Bibles. And the translators of the King James, the first page of the King James Version is an epistle dedicatory that the translators dedicated the book to King James himself. And they mentioned early on, they said, you know, that man of sin has been dealt such a deadly blow by you, King James, that he’ll never recover. They mean King James of Protestant had driven the Catholic presence out of the monarchy of England. And the man of sin is the papacy. And that’s what all the Protestants said. So if you had lived 200 years ago and were a Protestant. you’d never dream that the man of sin was anything other than the papacy. That’s a more modern dispensationalist viewpoint. And the temple of God that the papacy sits in is not a Jewish temple in Jerusalem, but is the church of God, which is the term Paul generally means when he says temple of God. So, so far, we’ve got two Old Testament passages, one New Testament passage, that have nothing to do with the third temple. The only remaining one is in Revelation 11. where John sees a temple. In my opinion, he sees the second temple. I think he’s seeing the temple that was later destroyed in A.D.
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70.
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But since many dispensationalists, they usually believe that the book of Revelation was written after the destruction of the second temple. a position I disagree with, but they hold it anyway. Then they would say, well, the temple he sees then must be an end times temple. They move everything in Revelation to the end of the world, which the writer did not do. The writer told his readers these things were going to shortly take place. He repeated this again and again in the book of Romans. This is about to take place. The time is at hand. But dispensation, no, that wasn’t true, actually. They weren’t about to take place. The time was not at all at hand. It was a couple thousand years off. And so they make up their own interpretation that sends off the fulfillment of Revelation off into the future thousands of years, quite contrary to the actual words of the book itself. In my opinion, it was written before the fall of the temple in Jerusalem, and the temple that John sees is the temple in Jerusalem in his own time. It was still standing. And therefore, there’s no mention here or anywhere else in the Bible of a third temple. So I just say, you know, all that whole idea of a third temple comes from four passages of Scripture, all of which are interpreted in ways that are not responsible, not exegetical. They are simply someone decided there’s got to be a third temple. And this, by the way, was decided by some of the church fathers. There were a few of the church fathers who did describe the Antichrist as a man who had, defile the Jewish temple. And they wrote this after the second temple. So they did, in fact, believe in a third temple. But the church fathers believed a lot of things I don’t believe, too. So, I mean, again, I’d rather go with the Bible. And if you exegete scripture, I don’t think you’ll find any evidence for a third temple. By the way, if you’d like an article I wrote for that for the Christian Research Journal some years ago, You can go to Matthew713.com, and there’s a category of articles there. You can click on articles, and you can find an article I wrote called something like Understanding Ezekiel’s Temple, and I go into detail into that stuff. All right. I hope that’s helpful to you, brother. Let’s talk to – let’s see who’s been there the longest – Looks like it’s going to be Richard from Dallas, Texas. Richard, welcome.
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Hey, Steve, it’s still me, so I don’t know.
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Oh, that was you. So I was talking to you all this time. Okay, sorry. I forgot who I was talking to.
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Well, you know, and just to respond to that, I completely agree with everything you’ve explained, and I’ve also come to that realization by reading the Bible myself because I was taught some things years ago, and it just never settled well with me. And even myself, and I don’t know how you feel about it, but I just don’t think that in this day and age a literal one man is going to rise above and the whole world will bow. It’s not even reasonable to even just fathom that just because of the way the world works even now.
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Well, let me just say this because we have a lot of calls waiting and only a few minutes left. I don’t know if there will be a one man who rises up to rule the world. I don’t see it as impossible simply because there’s an awful lot of powerful people trying to bring about a one-world government. I don’t think it’s predicted. I don’t think that an individual Antichrist as a one-world dictator is predicted in any passage of Scripture. You cannot reasonably make the beast of Revelation 13 that. You can’t, as I just mentioned, the man of sin, which is sometimes thought of as an Antichrist. That’s not the best way to understand that, in my opinion. And the little horns in Daniel, I don’t think, are about an individual necessarily. So I don’t know that, I mean, these are the passages people use to try to support that doctrine, but I’m not sure that they have good exegetical reason for that. Hey, I need to try to get someone else on here. I took a lot of time with you. God bless you, Richard. All right. Next caller is Michael from Bothell, Washington. Hi, Michael. Welcome.
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Hi there. I just had a quick question. I am somewhat of a baby in the faith. And I was wondering if the Jewish people are still the chosen people, or was that fulfilled with Jesus? And I’ve been told, thinking that we are now the body of Christ, the chosen people is considered replacement theology.
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Yeah, that’s what they say. Well, I believe what they’re calling replacement theology, that’s not the right name. It’s not a good name for it. They say that replacement theology is a teaching that the church has replaced Israel. Ask anyone who’s talked about replacement theology what they mean by that. They say that’s the view that the church replaced Israel. I don’t hold that, but I do hold what is usually called replacement theology wrong. Replacement theology is that the new covenant has replaced the old covenant. And that shouldn’t even be controversial, except that most Jews have rejected the new covenant. And so some people want the old covenant somehow to still apply to them. to make them God’s special people through it. But, no, the New Testament teaches there’s a new covenant. It says this in Hebrews 8.13. There’s a new covenant which has made the old covenant obsolete. And certainly when Jesus made the new covenant with the disciples in the upper room, this was understood by the Christians. Okay, this is now instead of the old covenant. We had the covenant made at Mount Sinai, the law, Moses and so forth. And now we have the new covenant made by Christ. And so the new covenant has replaced the old or superseded. That would be the true teaching of replacement theology. And it is the true teaching of Scripture. Now, all that really means is that anyone can be in relationship with God. As the Jews once had the possibility of being, they still have the possibility of being, but it won’t be on the terms of the covenant God made at Mount Sinai. If anyone’s going to be in that right relationship, it’s going to be through the new covenant, which Christ made. And by the way, some people say, well, the Jews rejected that, but the Gentiles accepted it. No, most Gentiles don’t accept it, and an awful lot of Jews did. In all likelihood, the first 10 or 20 or more thousand Christians were Jews in Jerusalem. before any Gentiles were saved. So the church didn’t replace Israel. It was made up of Israel. It was made up of the faithful remnant of Israel. who also called themselves the church in the early days of Acts. And it’s still the same church. It’s not like they disappeared and we came in instead. The church has grown with Jews. There’s lots of Jews in the church now, too. A lot of believing Jews and Gentiles. This is what replacement theology teaches, but it’s not replacing the Jews with the church. It’s replacing the old covenant with the new covenant. Now, if we say, are the Jews still chosen people? I guess before I could answer, I’d say, chosen for what? In the Old Testament, they were chosen for a specific mission, and that was that they would bring the seed of Abraham into the world through whom all the nations, not just Israel, but through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. That was the promise made to Abraham. The Jewish nation was descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they were chosen to be the ones that would bring the Messiah into the world, which is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise. They did. The Jewish nation did bring the Messiah into the world. Mission accomplished. Now, do they have another mission? Not that I know of. I mean, there’s none mentioned in the Bible. So if we say, well, you know, are they still chosen? I’d say, well, I know what they were chosen for, and they did what they were chosen for. That mission is accomplished 2,000 years ago. What are they chosen for now? I don’t know of anything that the Bible says they’re chosen for other than all people. What God’s desire for them is the same as for all people, that they embrace the Messiah. that they become saved. Paul said, my heart’s desire for Israel is that they may be saved. He didn’t say that they might return to the land of Israel and drive out the Palestinians. That wasn’t part of his hope for Israel. And by the way, there were more Jews outside of Israel than inside of Israel in his day, just as is the case now. In fact, a larger percentage of the world Jewish population is in Israel today. than was in Paul’s day. I think only about a third of the population of the Jews was in Israel in his day. But the point is, he didn’t say, my desire for Israel is that all those two-thirds of the Jews in the diaspora, that they’ll come back to the land. This was God’s plan for them. No, he said, my heart’s desire for Israel is that they’ll be saved. And you don’t have to be in land or anywhere else to be saved. You can be saved right where you’re sitting. And so we find no evidence in the Bible that Paul had any interest in Like the Zionist project or that the Jews are chosen to have that land. I’m not against them being there, by the way. I’m not anti-Israel. I’m not anti-Semitic. I’m just saying you don’t find any New Testament teaching. After they brought the Messiah into the world, I don’t read of a second mission for them. I think now that they brought the Messiah into the world, their first obligation was to receive him as their king. And many of them did. Tens of thousands of them did. But a lot of them didn’t. It’s actually possible that there’s a larger percentage of Jews who have become Christians than the percentage of Gentiles who have. I don’t know what the percentages would be. Nobody knows. But the thing is, to say the Jews rejected the Messiah and the Gentiles accepted him, not quite. It’s more that a remnant of the Jews accepted the Messiah and the rest rejected him. And that remnant that accepted him are exactly… stand on exactly the same terms as Gentiles, except that there’s no Jew or Gentile in Christ. But those who reject Christ are all on the same grounds, too, whether they’re Jew or Gentile. You’re not better off being Jewish if you’re not a follower of the Messiah, and there’s no special plan for the Jews that the Bible identifies since Jesus has come. Now, I know a lot of Scripture people quote to say something different than that. I’ve spoken a lot about that. I’ve written a lot about that. Let me recommend to you, since we’re out of time, the music’s playing. Go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. That’s thenarrowpath.com. There’s a tab there that says Topical Lectures. And if you scroll down there, you’ll see the word Israel. And the name of the series is called What Are We to Make of Israel? It’s 12 lectures. But I go into all the scriptures that people that you’ve heard have said, you know, make Israel still special to God. And we execute those scriptures, and I’d recommend you listen to them. Even if you don’t end up agreeing, you should at least be aware that most of the church, through most of history, has seen it the way that I describe it. Dispensationalism, which arose two centuries ago, brought in a new idea. But the church has always held more or less what I’ve been saying. Okay, I’m out of time. Thanks for joining us. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
