Join us as we journey through a thought-provoking exploration of scriptural paradoxes, including the debated nature of the Trinity and the divine roles of the Father and Son as seen through biblical texts. Our host offers a balanced view between firm belief and open-minded exploration, reflecting on ways listeners can better understand their faith. In addition, this episode addresses the contentious view of celebratory gatherings in church spaces, encouraging a broader perspective on what constitutes worship. Dive in for a rich dialogue that promises to enlighten and challenge your perspective.
SPEAKER 07 :
This is the best of the Narrow Path Radio broadcast. The following is pre-recorded.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Program, hosted by Steve Gray. Steve is not in the studio today, so calls from listeners will not be able to be taken. In the place of the usual format, we put together some of the best calls from past programs. They cover a variety of topics important to anyone interested in the Bible and Christianity. In addition to the radio program, The Narrow Path has a website you can go to, www.thenarrowpath.com, where you can find hundreds of resources that can all be downloaded for free. And now, please enjoy this special collection of calls to Steve Gray and The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 09 :
We’re going to talk first of all to Claudia from Hillsboro, Oregon. Claudia, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 03 :
I really enjoy your show. Thanks for your ministry.
SPEAKER 09 :
Sure.
SPEAKER 03 :
So I was looking at John 1-3, through him all things were made, without him nothing was made that has been made.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
And how do you reconcile, if you do at all, the Father being the Creator? It’s just confusing to me.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, the Father is the Creator. The Father is the Creator, but it says through the Word all things were made. Now, as you read the story of creation in Genesis, you see that God spoke, and it was so.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right.
SPEAKER 09 :
And, you know, he said, let there be light and there was light. That was his word. Likewise, in Psalm 33 and verse 6, it says, by the word of the Lord, the heavens were made and the host of them by the breath of his mouth. In other words, God did it through speaking, God through his word. And what is a word but an expression of someone’s mind and will? You know, the words I’m using right now are communicating something to you that I’m thinking about. and the words you use are communicating what you’re thinking. So, in a sense, what a word is is an expression of thought. In fact, the word word in John chapter 1 is the word logos in the Greek, and it means word, but it also means such things as thought or reason and such. So, in the beginning, God’s reasoning, God’s thoughts, God’s words are the means by which He created everything. And there’s a sense in which His Word is a personal being as well and was able to become human later on in verse 14. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. It is mysterious, but it’s not suggesting that the Father was not the Creator. It’s saying that when the Father created, He created through His Word. That Word later came to be revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. So, We can say, in a sense, that Jesus created everything, but that’s not really what the Bible says. The Bible doesn’t say Jesus created. It says that God created through him. It says that also in Colossians chapter 1. It says through him all things were created.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. So, yeah, I was trying to make an analogy like my husband and our son, like my husband works and, you know, if it wasn’t for our son, he wouldn’t have created everything. It’s just hard for like, it’s just a difficult concept.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, it is a difficult concept. And the reason it’s a difficult concept is that we don’t have any trouble understanding our own concept of a word or a thought because we have words and thoughts all the time. But our words and our thoughts are not really different. They’re not like, they don’t have separate personality from ourselves. You know, there’s me and then there’s what I’m saying. But what I’m saying really is just the conveyance of information out of my head. What I’m saying isn’t another personality than me. And yet, as I understand it, Jesus, who is the Word of God, also in some sense that is mysterious, and I don’t know if we have any excellent analogies to it, he has a personal existence of his own. I guess someone could point out that when we speak words, they, in a sense, have a separate existence of their own because they kind of can get away from us. If you tell a lie and then you later realize that it was wrong and you need to go out and collect up all the words and all the misinformation, you can’t really get it back. The story has a life of its own. Now, I don’t know if that’s an analogy. It may not be. But the sense is that when I’ve spoken… There’s a sense that my words now take on a life of their own that’s kind of independent of me. I might even wish I hadn’t spoken it, but it’s out there and it’s there, you know, especially if I post it on the Internet. So, you know, it’s me in a sense. It’s my thoughts. It’s my expression of myself. But it’s also got a life of its own once it’s been issued from my mouth or from my keyboard. And so… I don’t know if that’s a good analogy or not, because the relationship in the Godhead is so mysterious. I’ve never been really sure that the pictures I have in my own head are correct. But I’m trying to think of the language that the Bible uses and see, well, there are some ways that that might have an analogy to something we do know. But a lot of it I just take by faith without a lot of understanding.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, right. I was, and the reason I was kind of struggling with this this weekend is I came upon someone, I think it was a Jehovah’s Witnesses, I’m pretty sure, who said, kind of questioned the deity of Christ and pointed out some different scripture of where, you know, he said, well, it never says Jesus is God in the Bible. And like when you pray, like Jesus says to pray, he doesn’t pray to himself, he prays to the Father. So he’s not God. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, the problem is the Bible really does say that Jesus is God in a number of places.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I think it does.
SPEAKER 09 :
But, of course, some of those places are a little ambiguous. Right. And the Jehovah’s Witnesses are able to say, well, it doesn’t mean that. For example, John 1.1. You know, the Bible says in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Right. The fact that the Word then is identified with Jesus in the Incarnation in John 1.14… proves that this word is who we’re talking about when we’re talking about Jesus. And it says he was God. So, I mean, the Bible does say he was God, but they changed it. In their Bible, it says the word was a God. And so once they’re going to, if they’re going to change things around or interpret them differently, you know, you can’t get past their defenses in their own head. It’s not like the Jehovah’s Witnesses are searchers for truth. Far from it. They are perpetrators of a standardized doctrine. Well, frankly, so are many Christians, to tell you the truth. A lot of Christians are not searchers for truth either. But the point is, the more cult-like a group is, the less open to correction they are, and therefore the less lovers of truth. People who love truth love correction.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, he wasn’t really open to kind of, not debate, because I can’t really debate it really well, but that kind of… Can you, and I don’t know if you have time for this, I may call back, can you speak to what this person said, that when Jesus says specifically, you don’t, you know, you never say, he never says pray to me, you pray to the Father. Right. So can you comment on, well, you don’t know why, but, you know, that’s a good point, I guess.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, I can say.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. Well, the thing is that the Father truly is God. Jesus said to the Jews in John chapter 8, My Father is the one that you call your God. So we’re looking at the God of the Old Testament, the one that the Jews said was their God. Jesus said, that’s the one I’m calling my Father. So we do pray to the Father. It was the Father who created all things. It is God who did that. But who is Jesus is the question. Well, he’s the Son of God, but he’s also God. And that’s what’s difficult. But it’s the Son of God part of that makes the distinction. There’s a sense in which he’s identified with God. And there’s a sense in which he’s distinct from the Father. And he made that very clear. Even sometimes he’d mix those ideas in the same conversation. Like in John 14, when he said, If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father. Don’t you know I’m in the Father and the Father’s in me? And then before the chapter is over, the same chapter, he says, the Father is greater than I. Right, I’ll look it up and get that out, right? The Father is greater than I. Yeah, see, now, the thing is, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, they’ll take the verse, the Father is greater than I, and they’ll make that absolutely defining of their picture of the Godhead. But they will neglect the very important statement, if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father. And, you know, I’m in the Father, the Father’s in me. Now, I think they neglect that because everybody would have trouble explaining how both of those statements are true. Because, frankly, Jesus never explains it. But Jesus was not a madman. He was not schizophrenic. He was not stupid. And therefore, when somebody who’s intelligent and sane says two things very close to each other that seem like they’re diametrically opposite to each other, I think we have to consider the possibility that it’s not that they’re crazy or that they were inattentive to what they were saying, but rather it’s probably that there’s a bit of a paradox that is intended. It’s like in Proverbs, where in one verse Solomon says, don’t answer a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him. Then the next verse says, answer a fool according to his folly, so he’ll be ashamed. And you know, everyone trips over it. They say, wait, there’s two proverbs. One says do it and one says don’t do it. Now, we either have to say that Solomon was just crazy or not paying attention or else there is a paradox there. There’s one, there’s something about answering the fool as a folly that makes it desirable in some situations, and there’s something that makes it undesirable in other situations. And basically, he’s putting those two things right next to each other to illustrate the tension. And, you know, it may require some meditation and maybe even some experience to figure out what situations apply one way or what another. But the point is, we don’t assume that Solomon was not intelligent because he seemed to contradict himself. He’s smart enough to notice that’s a contradiction if it is one. But maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s a paradox. And the same thing when Jesus says he and the Father are one, and then he says, you know, or he says, if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father. And then when he says the Father is greater than I, he certainly knew that those don’t sound like the same information. But Jesus, I think, expected his disciples to be reasonable enough to know that Jesus knew more about God than they did. In fact, he knew more about God than any man did because he was God in some sense. And in some sense, he was distinguished from his father. But the sense in which he was one with his father and the sense in which he was distinguished from his father is never discussed. Theologians discuss it all the time, but Jesus didn’t. And that’s why there was a Nicene Council because Jesus hadn’t made it clear enough for theologian satisfaction. So they had to get together and hammer it out and come out with words that the Bible doesn’t use Try to explain. So they come out saying, well, the Trinity, that’s God is one in substance and three in person. Well, that might be true. But if it’s important, I wonder why Jesus didn’t say so. You know, I mean, we have to suggest, I think, if we’re going to be very responsible, that God is in one sense, three. In one sense, he’s one. That’s not contradictory, especially depending on what you mean in what sense. You know, a husband and wife, in one sense, are two people. In another sense, they’re one flesh. They’re not one and two in the same sense, but they’re one in one sense and two in another sense. Same with the Godhead. God, in one sense, is one. In another sense, he’s three. What sense? I don’t know. I’ll work on it some more. I’ve been working on it all my life. I mean, I’ve been puzzling over that and searching the scriptures and thinking about it. And what I’ve come up with is, you know what, God didn’t apparently feel it was necessary to make that very clear.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
See, the Jehovah’s Witnesses want to make it very clear. And so do most Christians.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I mean, it’s comforting to the Jehovah to say, okay, this is it, and I understand. So that’s kind of close the book and move on, where I think you don’t do the Bible justice, right? You’re kind of adding words and subtracting words just to… Right.
SPEAKER 09 :
It’s like you’re more defensive of God’s honor than he was himself. It’s like by saying God is Trinity, and I don’t understand in what way he is, you take the risk of sounding like you’re talking nonsense. But it’s God who took that risk. He’s the one who didn’t explain it. So what we have as human beings, we have a real, probably a bad tendency to be uncomfortable with being unsettled that is uncomfortable without having a firm opinion about how things fit together we’re very mechanical that way we want to know how does this trinity stuff fit together well apparently God wasn’t on the same page we are about that because he didn’t ever try to tell us how it fits together and I guess maybe it’s not the most important thing for us to know but we are required to believe what he said even if we can’t analyze it and thoroughly explain it put our hands up Right. So I believe Jesus is God. Certainly, in one sense, he is. In another sense, he’s distinguished from his father. But, you know, I’ll go back to what I said at the beginning of our conversation. I think maybe it’s like my words. In one sense, the words I speak, they’re me. I mean, that’s my mind talking there. On the other hand, once I’ve expressed myself in them, other people can get a hold of them and treat them differently than they treat me personally, you know, because the words have an existence of their own once they’ve proceeded from me. And I think that once Jesus proceeded from the Father into the human world, you know, he has, in some respects, more distinction from his Father than he had before. He proceeded out of his Father’s mouth, as it were. And I don’t want to say too much, because the more I say, the more danger I’m in of saying something heretical and something, you know, that can’t be defended.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, it’s like, yeah, it’s just kind of circles. But, I mean, you try to get to something you’re comfortable with, or
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, what I do with the Jehovah’s Witnesses in that case, see, I’ll tell you what. They are not at all content to have any mystery in it. You know, they want to… When you’ve got verses about Jesus and God that seem to make them the same, and verses about Jesus and God that seem to make them separate, and you have both in the Bible, they want to eliminate mystery, eliminate the tension, and say… What they do is they settle it on the side of, we’ll take the verses that say he’s different and we’ll ignore the verses that say he’s one with the Father. Or we’ll do something maybe very irresponsible with those verses so we don’t have to juggle it. And Christian apologists, in responding to Jehoshaphat, often take exactly the same mentality. Like, you know, we can’t let them get away with this, so we’re going to try to nail it down. more solid even than God nailed it, of course, in the Bible, you know, so that we can have an answer that’s just as good as theirs. You know, if they were at my doorstep and they wanted to talk to me about Jesus, I’d say, well, listen, I believe Jesus is God. I know you don’t. Okay, so let’s just start with that understanding. We don’t agree with each other about that. Let’s talk about what it means to follow Jesus. Are you following Jesus right now? Are you his disciple? Do you love your neighbors? Do you love yourself? Do you love God with all your heart? Are you filled with the Holy Spirit? Are you being led by the Spirit? Do you have Jesus’ yoke upon you and you’re learning from him? If so, then we’ll learn together because I’ve got his yoke upon me. I’m learning from him too. And we can learn together. I don’t know everything and you apparently don’t know everything either. So why don’t we just agree that we don’t know everything and see if we can follow Jesus the best we can. Maybe you can learn something from me. Maybe I can learn something from you. Let’s just be lovers of truth and lovers of God. I don’t think they’ll agree to that.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, I think they’re, yeah, this is the way it is and that’s the way it is. Like, white or left, right? It’s like, I’m here and you’re there. So, anyway. Yeah, I mean, yeah. So, I appreciate it. I heard your lectures online with Colossians and kind of everything that relates to being good.
SPEAKER 09 :
You know, I do have, also online, there’s a series of mine called Knowing God. It’s in the topical lecture series. And there’s, I think, one or two lectures there about the Trinity. And there’s at least one, if not two, about the deity of Christ. And there, more than here on the radio, because I don’t have the time on the radio, but there I actually do wrestle with all the relevant texts. And I come up with something that makes some sense to me, but I don’t know that it’ll be the right answer.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I mean, I’m just trying to, you know… not take something that somebody tells me. I’m just trying to do my own research kind of thing.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s what I think everyone should do.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. Okay, well, I appreciate all your help.
SPEAKER 09 :
I wish I could be more helpful. You called me for help and I didn’t give you any. But I appreciate your call.
SPEAKER 03 :
You did. Okay. Thank you very much. Have a great day.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay, Claudia. God bless you. Bye. Bye now. Okay, let’s talk to Carlos from Culver City, California. Hi, Carlos. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 1 :
Hi.
SPEAKER 12 :
Hi, Pete. God bless you. Thank you. I have a question. This is in regards to something that happened over the weekend. I do videotaping of events, and I was hired to do an anniversary for some pastors who were having 25 years of marriage. And they have their festivity done in the place where they usually have their services, like their sanctuary area. So they took out all the chairs and they put in tables and they, you know, they made it look like if it was like, you know, a party hall or whatever. And they didn’t serve alcohol or anything. It was just food. And, you know, it was just a very small group. But what kind of got to me was they were dancing particular music. Now, and my question, you know, kind of falls into, are there, I mean… I don’t even know how to ask the question, but a place like that, would it be defiled by doing something like that?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, first of all, you mean by dancing to secular music? Yeah. Well, I suppose it depends on what kind of dancing it was and what kind of music. I mean, secular music just means it’s not Christian music. And lots of music, almost all dancing music is not Christian music. There’s not very many, well, maybe there is Christian dance music, but you don’t hear of it much. I don’t, anyway. I don’t know. I guess if you object to dancing as a morally wrong thing to do, that would be one concern. If it’s that the building is being used for something other than a church service, I wouldn’t myself find any problem with that since there’s nothing sacred about a building. The early Christians just met in homes, and those homes were the same places that they probably ate regular meals and did other domestic things and maybe even had birthday parties and things like that. So if they’re celebrating something sacred, like the fact that a pastor has been married for 25 years, That’s a sacred thing. That’s not really a secular thing. Marriage is something ordained by God. And a marriage that lasts for 25 years is more rare than it used to be and something I’m supposed to celebrate. So I would see that as a positive thing. Now, I realize that you’re not used to seeing a dance or a party in a building that you’d be accustomed to going to a church service in, mainly because a lot of churches aren’t really set up for that kind of thing. In the old days, churches had pews, but this church apparently had chairs that could be removed, and therefore it’s a building that could be used for multi-purposes. So is a home. I mean, a church doesn’t have to meet in any particular kind of building, and there’s nothing really sacred about a building. God doesn’t dwell in buildings made with hands. So I wouldn’t find anything necessarily to object to, in principle, to having a celebration of a pastor’s 25 years of marriage in the same building where the church worships. In a sense, that celebration is a form of worship, too. Worship doesn’t just mean when we say prayers and hear sermons and sing religious songs. Worship is what we do with our lives. Paul said that when we present our bodies to God as a living sacrifice, that’s our spiritual worship. Paul also said, whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of Jesus Christ. And so I think that unless we would object to celebrations of this sort, there would be no reason to object to conducting a celebration like that in a building that is on other occasions used for Christian gatherings, for worship.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay. My concern was just about the dancing and the other stuff. I mean, I had never seen that before. I don’t know. It’s just so accurate.
SPEAKER 09 :
There are some churches that are opposed to dancing for various reasons. It’s more of a cultural concern, I think. But, of course, much dancing in our modern world is very sensuous and therefore very provocative of lust and so forth. And if that’s the kind of dancing they were doing, I wouldn’t be very pleased to see that going on, whether it was in a church or whether it was in a dance hall. But if the dancing was appropriate, then I don’t know why it would be inappropriate to do it in that building.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay. Well, very good. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to thank you for the book, Four Views of Revelation. I’m still reading it. I’m like you, a slow reader. I’m enjoying every bit of it, and thank God for your lifelong as far as making something so clear for us to understand.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, I appreciate the fact that it’s helpful to you. Thanks for saying so.
SPEAKER 12 :
It has been. Well, thank you, and keep up the good work.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay, Carlos. God bless you. Okay.
SPEAKER 12 :
Bye now.
SPEAKER 09 :
By the way, the book that Carlos was referring to is a book I wrote back in 1997. It’s still available from Thomas Nelson Publishers. You can get it through Amazon or anyone else that sells books online. People often call it Four Views of Revelation because that is the subject matter. The title, though, is Revelation, Four Views, a Parallel Commentary. And the reason I say that, I wouldn’t dicker about that, except that my book was published by Thomas Nelson in 1997 under the title Revelation, Four Views. And in the next year, in 1998, Zondervan published a paperback book called Four Views of Revelation. So there’s two books out with very similar titles. Mine came out a year earlier. And it’s a much larger book. Mine is a hardbound book, 500 plus pages. And the other is a paperback. But it would be easy to mistake them by their titles. My book is called Revelation, Four Views, A Parallel Commentary. And the other book is called Four Views of Revelation. But I appreciate your call, Carlos. I only have about a minute before we’re going to have to take a break at the bottom of the hour. We have some of our stations leave the network at the half hour point. The program goes on for an hour. That is another half hour. And if you are listening to a station that actually leaves the network at this point, you can hear the second half of the program by going to our website, thenarrowpath.com, where we stream the program live and we archive it for later. There’s also a podcast, and there’s also our telephone apps, which you can listen to the program all the way through on those apps. And they are free. So you might want to check those out. The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry, and we pay for the radio time. We buy the time on the radio. There’s no one paid at the Narrow Path. I’m a volunteer. Everyone’s a volunteer. We’ve got a lot of people who volunteer, but nobody gets paid a penny, and no one receives any benefits. But we do take the money that is given, and we give it to radio stations so that we can stay on the air, and that’s what we do. If you’d like to help us stay on the air, you can write to the Narrow Path. P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. You can also donate, if you want to, from our website, thenarrowpath.com. But thenarrowpath.com is a resource for you to take things for free. Everything is free there. Or you can donate at thenarrowpath.com. Please stay tuned. In about 30 seconds, we will be right back to continue the program for the second half hour.
SPEAKER 02 :
As you know, the Narrow Path radio show is Bible radio that has nothing to sell you but everything to give you. So do the right thing and share what you know with your family and friends. Tell them to tune in to the Narrow Path on this radio station or go to thenarrowpath.com where they will find topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse-by-verse teachings, and archives of all the radio shows. You know listeners supported Narrow Path with Steve Gregg? Share what you know.
SPEAKER 07 :
This is the best of the Narrow Path Radio broadcast. The following is pre-recorded.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Program, hosted by Steve Gray. Steve is not in the studio today, so calls from listeners will not be able to be taken. In the place of the usual format, we’ve put together some of the best calls from past programs. They cover a variety of topics important to anyone interested in the Bible and Christianity. In addition to the radio program, The Narrow Path has a website. You can go to www.thenarrowpath.com where you can find hundreds of resources that can all be downloaded for free. And now, please enjoy this special collection of calls to Steve Gregg and The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 09 :
We’re going to talk next to John from San Diego. John, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, last Friday you had somebody call you about John chapter 6 where Jesus said… you know, drinking his blood and eating his flesh. And you mentioned that, you know, the person was a Catholic that called you, and you said that does not pertain to the Eucharist. But you never explained that I can recall what exactly Jesus meant when he said, you know, eat his body and drink his blood.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. Well, there’s two statements in John 6 that are parallel to each other, and one of them uses the language of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and the other doesn’t. And the one that doesn’t, I think, since it is parallel to it, sort of explains what is meant by that imagery. Of course, verse 54 says, Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. If you look back at verse 40, he said, Everyone who sees the Son and believes in him has everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day. Now, both of those verses end with Such and such persons have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. But one of them, verse 54, says, Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood. The other one says, Whoever sees the Son and believes in him. In other words, coming to Christ and believing in him is what he’s referring to. And even later, when the people misunderstood him, in verse 63, he said, It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. the words I speak to you are spirit and they are life. So he explains that I’m not talking in fleshly terms, I’m talking in spiritual terms. It’s the spirit that gives life, it’s not the flesh. Now he had said in verse 54, whoever eats my flesh has eternal life. And he says, no, it’s not the flesh that gives life, it’s the spirit. I’m speaking to you in spiritual terms. The words I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. He says in verse 63. So Jesus clarifies that he’s not speaking literally about blood and flesh, he is speaking about spiritual things, a spiritual reception of him. As you physically receive food in your body and drink in your body, so you have to receive Christ in a spiritual way in your inner man and believe in him and come to him. Now, one reason I’m fairly sure that Jesus was not alluding to the Eucharist here is because he spoke in present tense. His actual words can be translated, whoever is eating my flesh and is drinking my blood has everlasting life. Well, that’s talking about something that would be in the present tense at the time he’s speaking. There were people, like his disciples apparently, who he is describing as those who are eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and they have eternal life. But they weren’t taking the Eucharist. Jesus didn’t enter the Eucharist until a year later. This statement, by the way, in John 6 was made at Passover season, we’re told at the beginning of the chapter. it was another full year when Jesus took Passover the next year that he instituted the Eucharist. So nobody at the time he was speaking here had ever heard of the Eucharist or was participating in it in any way. Yet he describes people there in the crowd, apparently his disciples or who he has in mind, who are at that time eating his flesh and drinking his blood in the sense that he’s describing. I also mentioned the other day that the book of John is full of instances where Jesus says something and people take him literally And he doesn’t mean it literally. Like in chapter 2 when he said, destroy this temple and in three days I’ll raise it up. He was talking about his body, but they understood him to mean the physical temple. When he told Nicodemus, you have to be born again. He was talking about a spiritual thing, but Nicodemus said, what, a man has to go back into his mother’s womb and be born all over again? And he told the woman as well, I have living water, which if you drink it, you’ll never thirst again. Now here’s another instance of him talking about drinking something. As in John 6, he talks about drinking his blood. Here in John 4, he talks about drinking living water. She took it literally. Oh, you don’t have a well or a bucket, I mean a rope or a bucket. How are you going to get water out of the well? But you see, people were continually misunderstanding Jesus. He was using figures of speech. When his disciples brought him food in John 4, he said, I have food you don’t know about. And they said, what, did someone bring him some food? And he said, my food is to do the will of my father who sent me and to finish his work. So see, Jesus talks about eating and he talks about drinking living water. He’s speaking of spiritual actions, but he talks in the language of physical eating and drinking, and people understood him to mean physical eating and drinking, when, in fact, we learn in most cases in Chapter 4, he was really talking about something spiritual. Okay, let’s see. Let’s talk next to… Hello, who am I speaking to here?
SPEAKER 11 :
My name is Mike. I’m calling from Tenecula.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay, gotcha. Hi, Mike.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hi. Hey, Steve, I had a question for you. I’ve watched numerous YouTube videos in regards to a lot of the, they call them the black Israelites, the people that come out on the side of New York, city streets, and I’ve noticed that a lot of them can be quite violent or talk really bad to people. And if there’s, let’s say, Caucasian people come out and ask you questions or the Jewish people that we see today in Israel, I guess my question is, is there merit to what they were saying? I mean, it makes me think about that, too, because they said the line of Ham had settled in Egypt, and they’re portraying saying that the original Israelites are what we would consider as black people today.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, that’s what they say. Yeah, I don’t think they have any right to that claim. By the way, this very question came up. on the 13th, just six days ago, on my afternoon program. And it’s the first call on the program, if you want to go back and hear it. I’ll answer you briefly. But I did address it, I think, a little more at length about a week ago. That was on October 13th. And in the afternoon program, these are archived at our website, thenarrowpath.com. So you can hear what I said then just about a week ago to someone on this. I don’t believe there’s any basis for saying that the African races are the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob any more than there is a reason to say that the Anglo-Saxons are descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There are Anglo-Israelite teachers who believe that the Anglos are the true Israel, and then, of course, there’s the opposite, the black Israelites who believe that the African people were the true Israelites. Now, neither of them have any basis, in my opinion, in historic reality. Although, of course, the Israelite people did intermarry a great deal, both in Europe and in Africa, and therefore there probably are some Anglos, certainly there would be Anglos and black people, who have some Israelite blood in them because it’s been mixed. However, that’s not what they’re saying. They’re claiming that the black races really are the Israelites, and that’s not the case. Now, you mentioned them being kind of rude. I’ve had a couple of times… Persons have called me with this viewpoint. And they have seemed a little, what should I say, a little bit aggressive, a little bit on the attack. And it seems to me that anyone who makes any kind of an issue about being an Israelite, whether it’s an Anglo-Israelite, a black Israelite, or for that matter, a Judean Israelite, anyone who makes an issue of being an Israelite by race is, to my mind, caught up in a racist error. The Bible does not indicate that God favors one race over another. He didn’t even in the Old Testament. Israel was not defined by race, but by covenant. The people that God made his covenant with and called them Israel were a mixed multitude that came out of Egypt, including some descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and some from other stock. A Gentile could be part of Israel. It was not a racial thing. It was a covenant thing. A Jewish person, born Jewish, could be cut off from Israel. by worshiping idols, the Bible says, and the law. So, you know, you could be cut off from Israel by violating the covenant, and you could be added to Israel if you’re a Gentile by keeping the covenant, which means being in Israel simply meant that you keep the covenant, regardless of what race you are. So Israel never has been a racial thing. God’s never been a racist. He was just as happy to bless Ruth or Rahab, who were from Gentile backgrounds when they became Israelites, as he was to bless, you know, any Jewish person. And he certainly, his judgment came upon Israelites like Judas, Caiaphas, and Korah, and people like that, very notably, even though they were Jewish. You know, they were not Jewish, but they were Israelite. And therefore, you know, to make an issue of being an Israelite is racist. And God’s not racist. So if a black person says, we black people are true Israelites, well, that’s racism. If the Anglos say, we Anglos are the true Israelite, That’s racism, too. Even if the Jews say we are the true Israelites, you know, if by Israelite they mean God’s chosen people that God favors, well, then that’s racist. If we believe that God favors anybody because of who their ancestors were instead of who they are, then we’re being racist. You know, I think fallen, sinful mankind seems to tend toward racism in general. I’m not sure why. It doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve never understood why anyone would be racist, but let’s face it, there seems to be a lot of that in people’s sinful nature. And so there’s lots of manifestations of that. I think the black Israelite and the Anglo-Israelite movements are both racist. I think people should just forget about race and just think about Jesus. If you’re following Jesus, you’re one of God’s people. If you’re rejecting Jesus, you’re not.
SPEAKER 11 :
So if you were, when they talk about, like I hear pastors listening on the Christian radio networks like I’m listening right now with you, and they talk about how Israel is, there are, I guess they talk about chosen people of Israel. It is not necessarily Israelites, as you would say, as like a group of people in Israel right now. It’s just a covenant between whoever’s keeping the Jesus Christ is what you’re saying.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, that’s what the Old Testament says. The Old Testament says that anyone who’s not keeping the covenant of God is cut off from Israel. And that’s pretty much what Romans 11 says about the olive tree. Also, the olive tree is Israel. He said the people who were Jews, natural branches on the tree, but who rejected Christ, are cut off. They’re not part of Israel anymore. They’re not part of the tree. But then Gentiles, who do believe in Christ, have been grafted in. So the tree consists of those who are in the new covenant, in faithful relationship with Jesus Christ. And those who are not, even if they’re Jewish, are not part of a tree, not part of Israel. That’s what Paul argues there. Now, you know, as far as people who are in Israel today, I don’t, I mean, there’s mixed ethnic groups there. There are people of Judean background there. You know, there’s Ashkenazi Jews. There’s probably some Sephardic Jews. But there’s apparently Khazars and Europeans of other kinds and Arabs and lots of other people in Israel. So Israel is a mixed racial nation. But when people say that God has a special covenant or that they’re chosen, then I’d have to say chosen for what? Now, in the Old Testament, Israel, which, as I said, was covenantally defined, not racially defined, but Israel was chosen to what? To bring the Messiah into the world. They were chosen to bring the seed of Abraham into the world who would bless all the nations. Well, Jesus is that seed of Abraham. Israel did bring the Messiah into the world. He came. They were chosen for that, and mission accomplished. You know, they did bring him. But now, everybody’s assignment is to embrace Jesus Christ, and that’s whether they’re Jew or Gentile. There’s no Jew or Gentile in the sight of God. It doesn’t matter what race you are. You’re supposed to embrace the Messiah now. The irony is that the Israeli people who brought the Messiah into the world in many cases did not embrace him themselves, which is a shame. Because they could have. And so, just like many Gentile races, they’ve rejected the Messiah for the most part. And that being so, of course, those who reject the Messiah are not God’s chosen people, except they’re chosen for destruction, because those who reject the Messiah are, as Paul says, when Jesus comes back, he comes back in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who don’t know God and who don’t believe the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Those people who will be destroyed… with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, as Paul puts it in 2 Thessalonians 1, 8, and 9, they would have to be Jews and Gentiles. So to say that somebody is chosen by God because of their race is really to make God out to base his salvation on something other than Christ, which, of course, is an anti-Christian doctrine, although many Christians don’t realize that and seem to believe it. But no, the Jews certainly were chosen by God, but we have to ask, for what? Is there anything in the Bible that says they were chosen to be saved? Not really. The Bible says they were chosen to bring the seed of Abraham into the world. That’s what God chose Abraham for, to bring a seed. And his seed was to bring the Messiah. And so that’s what they did. And like I said, mission accomplished. They were chosen for that. They had that assignment. They fulfilled the assignment. Richard from Seal Beach is our next caller. Welcome, Richard. Welcome.
SPEAKER 10 :
Good morning. About 15 minutes after your program is over, there’s a guy on the radio named Doc who says that there are at least 15 things that have to happen before the rapture. And, of course, when I go to church on Sunday, my pastor says the rapture could happen at any time. So I would just like to know your opinion on this, and I will hang up and listen to you on the radio.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, okay. Thank you. Okay, thank you. I have not heard the other broadcaster you mentioned, so I don’t know which 15 things he’s referring to. It sounds like, I mean, I don’t want to misrepresent him because I’ve never heard him, but it may be that he believes in a post-tribulation rapture, and therefore there’s a number of things associated with the tribulation that he may list that he feels have to happen before the rapture comes. And that would be one way I could see somebody saying something like that. there may be some things yet to come before the rapture occurs, because the Bible does say that God is looking for a certain kind of fruit from the earth. He said to the Pharisees that the kingdom of God was taken from them and given to a nation that would bring forth the fruit of it. Now, the church, I believe, is that nation that is to bring forth the fruit of it. And in another parable, Jesus said the kingdom of God is like a man who sowed seed, and it grew… first the blade, then the head, and then the full grain in the head, and then the harvest came, and he put in the sickle. Now, I think the harvest is the end of the world, and therefore the growth of the seed into a blade, then into a stalk with heads on it, and then heads of grain ripening, and so forth. This speaks of a certain amount of development and maturing of, I believe, of the church. And he says, now, when the grain is ripe or mature, then he puts in the sickle. Paul said in Ephesians 4 that the ministries that God has given to the church through the Holy Spirit will continue until we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a mature man. So there’s some maturity that God does desire from the church. I don’t know how mature he’s talking about. As far as I know, perhaps he could come today. I would not say that the rapture could not come today, as far as I’m concerned. whatever God wants it to if you ask me if I think it’s likely to come today I’m not really sure how I would judge that except I would say the church today does not appear to be very mature and therefore God may still wait for some further development in that area before he comes so I’m certainly willing to suggest that there’s room for improvement in the things that God’s been working on and he may wait for that improvement before he ends the you know, the act, and sends Christ to take the church out. But, in my opinion, he could come today, depending on how much he thinks remains to be done. The Bible does say this gospel will be taken to all the nations, as a witness to all the nations, and then the end shall come. But the gospel has been taken to at least all the nations by certain definitions. There may be some ethnic groups that God is still waiting for to hear the gospel. So all I can say is there’s some processes that have been going on for the past 2,000 years where there has been progress made. That is, the gospel going out to all the nations, and the church, I think, is maturing in some ways, in some places. But I think there’s more that could be done in both those areas. And therefore, God may have it in his mind to wait until we get it done. It would seem strange for Christ to wait 2,000 years for something to get done, and then to come and interrupt it when it’s getting closer to getting done. He has more patience than we have, so perhaps he isn’t going to come right away. Rhonda, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 13 :
Thank you so much. I really appreciate your show and your website, thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 13 :
My question is, a part of the Lord’s Prayer says, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. or the evil one. And, you know, I don’t understand why we would be asking God not to lead us into temptation.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, that’s a great question, because, after all, God does, in fact, allow us to be led into temptation. In fact, in Luke chapter 4, it specifically says that the Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. So he was led right into temptation, and so are we sometimes. In fact… You know, temptation is, in a sense, inevitable because we live in a world where we’re being tested, and that’s what temptation is. But I think the way the Lord’s Prayer is worded there employs a Hebrew idiom that many times we’re not that familiar with. If you listen to this program enough, you’ll hear about it from time to time. It’s called a limited negative. It’s an idiom which… takes the form that someone says, not this, but that. Like if you say, well, I don’t want coffee, I want tea. Well, that sounds like you don’t want coffee at all. But the limited negative as an idiom would be saying, I don’t want only coffee, I also want tea. In other words, the not A, but B formulation in many situations in Scripture, means not only A, but also B. And we have a lot of references we could give to this. The ones that come to mind quickly and I often give just off the top of my head would be where Jesus said, Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. Well, it sounds like he said he didn’t come to bring peace at all. But that’s not true. The Bible makes it very clear. He gave peace to his disciples. He says, my peace I give unto you. Jesus did come to bring peace. He says, these things I’ve spoken to you, that in me you might have peace. And the fruit of the Spirit is peace. So when Jesus said, I didn’t come to bring peace, we shouldn’t understand him to be saying, you know, peace is not part of my program. He says, I did not come to bring peace but a sword. And what he means by that, I didn’t come only to bring peace but also a sword. This is going to be a complex situation. There’s going to be peace, but there’s also going to be conflict. And so Jesus said, these words I spoke to you so that in me you’ll have peace. In the world you have tribulations. but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. The point here is that his statement, I did not come to bring peace, is not an absolute negative. It’s a limited negative. It’s limited by the second part of the statement. I came to bring a sword as well. So there’s a number of statements that sound like Jesus is making an absolute negative, when in fact it’s a limited negative. Another case would be in John chapter 6 where Jesus said, Do not labor for that food that perishes. but labor for the food that endures to eternal life. Now, if you take the first part of it by itself, it’s as if he tells you not to work. Don’t labor for the food that perishes. Well, most of you should go home then from work and not labor, because all you’re doing is working for food that perishes, right? Well, Jesus is not saying you shouldn’t work for food that perishes. He’s saying do not only work for the food that perishes, neglecting the more important, the food that endures to eternal life. So we’ve got this limited negative construction. Not A, but B. And it means not only A, but also B. Now, the same is used in the Lord’s Prayer where Jesus says, Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. If we understand this as a limited negative, as I think it is supposed to be understood, it means do not… merely or only lead us into temptation, but also deliver us from the wicked one. That is, we don’t want to be tempted without being delivered. We’re not saying, God, don’t lead me into temptation at all, as if it’s an absolute negative, but a limited negative. Don’t lead me into temptation only, but also deliver me from the wicked one. And that’s why I believe that particular statement is worded the way it is. So I hope that’s helpful, Rhonda. I appreciate your call. Well, let’s talk to Mike from Orange, California. Mike, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 08 :
Good morning. My call is regarding the land that God promised to Israel. All the expositors I’ve listened to and the commentaries that I’ve read agree that Israel never possessed all of the land that was promised. But they give different sizes of… of where the boundaries are of the land. And so if you’re using today’s map, would that mean that the land promised to Israel would include such countries as Jordan, Lebanon, parts of Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran? What is your feeling about the actual size of the land promised?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, when you read the promises that God made to Moses and to Abraham and so forth, They’re not always exactly the same. Sometimes God tells Abraham that he’s going to give him all of the land of the Canaanites. And he lists seven different tribes of Canaanites. He’s going to give you their land. Well, that land was all within the area we call Israel. And some of the designations of land seem to place the Jordan River as the eastern boundary and the Mediterranean as the western boundary. But there are other times when God is listing the land that he mentions the Euphrates as as one of the boundaries of the land. Now, the Euphrates is quite some distance from Israel. And if that was, in fact, the boundary of Israel, then that would include many of the Middle Eastern countries that are now Arab. And some people think that God’s got to give them that land and that he has not yet. Whatever the promised land was, it doesn’t matter very much now because God already gave it to them. And giving them the promised land was simply a type and a shadow of a larger promise. that he would give the whole world to Abraham’s seed, of which Israel is a type. Israel is a type of the seed of Abraham. Christ is the seed of Abraham. And it says in Romans 4, verse 13, that God promised Abraham and his seed the world. That is, the whole world. That they would be the heir of the world, is what Paul says in Romans 4, verse 13. So it’s not just the land of Canaan. It’s not just the land to the Euphrates. It’s the whole world. Whatever piece of land God promised them, he promised them as a type and a token of the ultimate promise that Abraham’s seed, Christ, would inherit the whole world. Now, as far as whether Israel did receive the land that was promised, I would turn your attention to Joshua chapter 21, verses 43 through 45. where it very plainly says that God gave to Israel all the land which he had sworn to give their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it. So, whatever the land boundaries were that God promised, according to Joshua, chapter 21, verse 43, God already gave them the land, all of it, that he said he would give them. But as I said, that was only a type and a shadow of the ultimate inheritance of the Messiah, the seed of Abraham, as Paul says in Romans 4, 13, which is that Christ will inherit the whole earth. And Jesus said, we will inherit with him. Lesser to the meek, they shall inherit the earth, Jesus said. We will be joint heirs with Christ someday of the whole world. You’ve been listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. We are listener supported. If you want to go to our website, you can take things for free, but you can also donate from there if you want to help us pay the bills. The website is thenarrowpath.com.
