Whether you’re grappling with the theological intricacies of the Trinity or the practical implications of the hypostatic union, this episode is a treasure trove of wisdom. Gregg delves deep into the essence of living a Christian life that’s true to its foundations amidst the Wild West of Western evangelical variance. Furthermore, the conversation highlights real-world applications of these theological understandings, such as the discussion on participating in or departing from traditional structures to seek true biblical teachings.
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Music Music Music Music Music
SPEAKER 03 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour each weekday afternoon, taking your calls if you have questions about the Bible or about the Christian faith and you’d like to ask them on the air, we’ll talk about them here. If you see things differently from the host and want to balance comment or disagree, feel free to do so. The number is 844-484-5737. Our lines are full right now, so if you get a busy signal or something equivalent to that, that’s why. But you can keep trying during the hour, and you will find lines are opening up throughout the hour. So just keep trying. The number is 844-484-5737. And the announcements I’ve been making all week have to do with, well, for one thing, this weekend, day after tomorrow, I’ll be speaking twice in Southern California. This is a monthly thing I generally do. I have a men’s Bible study in Temecula in the morning at 8 a.m. Saturday in Temecula, men’s Bible study. And then in the evening in Buena Park, I’m going to be doing an overview of the whole Bible in the Buena Park meeting. And this is going to be the second to the last of these meetings, I think, for a while. And we’ve been doing them for years. But I’ve gotten quite busy with a lot of travel, and we’ve had to cancel it sometimes because of that. But anyway, this one is no doubt a big one because lots of people want to look at the Bible from a bird’s eye view, see the whole thing in a glance. There’s going to be an overview of the whole Bible, surveying the whole thing in a lecture. All right, that’s this weekend, this Saturday, and that is the evening. Next month, I’ll be speaking lots of places in Oregon for about 11 days. I’ll be moving around doing different places. Feel free to check those out at our website. And then, of course, November 7th and 8th, I’m going to be debating Dr. Michael Brown about the subject of Israel, three debates in two days, on a Friday night and a Saturday. That’s going to be in Dallas, Texas. And so that’s at Mercy Culture Church in Dallas. So you might want to put that on your calendar. All of those things can be found at our website, thenarrowpath.com. That’s thenarrowpath.com under the tab that says Announcements. All right, we’re going to go to the phones and talk to Carolyn from Seattle. First of all today, Carolyn, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi, thank you, Steve. Is there any way to hear or listen in on your debate?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I’ve been asked that many times the past few days. I don’t know exactly who’s going to be in charge of that. I generally don’t. I don’t have anything to do with the audiovisual stuff of a debate. I don’t know if the church is going to do it. I don’t know if Michael Brown’s ministry is going to do it. If they don’t, I might just set up my phone and videotape it from a tripod, but that would not be a very good production. In any case, the debates will be available recorded, I’m sure, in some form. Whether they’ll be live streamed, I don’t know.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, my question was, one of my granddaughters married a young man we thought was a Christian four or five years ago, and he wants her to, and she does, now only wear dresses, no pants, wear her hair up, and she says that she’s perfect and doesn’t need to repent of anything. She says that in Revelation 5, where only Jesus was qualified to open the seal, that she would have been able to open it. What denomination? They won’t tell us what denomination they are. What denomination is that?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I have no idea of any group. I mean, I certainly know groups that want their women to wear their hair up and head covered and wear dresses. I mean, there’s quite a few groups that culturally follow that kind of norm. But the idea that you are perfect as Jesus… This might be the result of some careless preaching. Obviously, if we are in Christ, we are counted to be accepted in him. We’re righteous in him. One could argue that we are viewed with the perfection of Christ by God. But if she means by this that she doesn’t ever commit any sins, I would have to challenge her on that. She doesn’t have to repent of any sins. Right. There are. I mean, yeah, I don’t know what group she’s in. In fact, if you could ask her what group she’s in, I’d be curious to know.
SPEAKER 06 :
She won’t tell us. Neither of them will tell us.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, boy. How strange is that?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe you should go to church with them sometime and see for yourself.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, she’s in another state.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, okay. Yeah, that’s a very strange thing. I mean, she says she doesn’t have to repent because she never sins. Yeah. I’d say that she’s obviously in a cultic kind of group. I mean, if she said I’m perfect in Christ, that would be theologically a true statement, but it would not be the same statement as saying I don’t have to repent of my sins.
SPEAKER 06 :
First, we suspected maybe Mormons. But she denies that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Yeah, I don’t know either. Yeah. You know, it’s possible that she’s in a hyper-grace kind of a church, but then you wouldn’t think that a hyper-grace church would have dress codes, you know, because hyper-grace basically is saying you can do whatever you want to and you’re still saved. But they might say something like, well, once you’re a Christian, you’ve repented once and for all and you never have to repent again, even if you sinned. I mean, that might be her position, too. But, yeah, without knowing more how to put a finer point on what she’s claiming, I’m not really sure what theological stream she’s in.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you, Steve.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, Carolyn. Thank you for your call. Nelson from Fort Worth, Texas. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes. Thank you, Steve. Excellent weather out there in Oregon, Portland. It’s only in the 70s now.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s nice, yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, gee, here in the Southwest, oh, man, it’s still upper mid-90s. I know, I’m in the Southwest.
SPEAKER 03 :
I’m in Southern California, yeah.
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You know, California, that’s cooler, too, though, I think. Cooler than Texas could be. Sometimes, yeah. Yeah, it’s like in the 80s or something, I think. A lot cooler than Texas. Yeah, well, anyway. Yeah. Anyway, I’ve got two questions to ask you that are unrelated. I’d like to get your opinion or your assessment. One is, what is the earliest record other than King David saying that I shall go unto him, but he cannot come unto me when his son died, you know, who he got through the… Yeah. you know, the illegitimate, you know, relation he had with a soldier’s wife.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right, yeah, finish your question. You don’t need to tell me the whole story, just finish your question.
SPEAKER 02 :
The question is, what is the earliest account that we can see, other than King David, before him of eternity of the soul? And then my second question, unrelated, is, what is your opinion, if someone is considering Going to the Orthodox Church, the Eastern Orthodox, and getting away from the Western, Wild Wild West Christianity, or the Wild West, and going Orthodox. Well, you want my comments about doing that? I’ll hang up and take your answers off the phone.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Okay, thanks for your call. As far as the earliest reference to an eternal soul in the Bible, I don’t think there is such a reference. Okay. I don’t think the Jews believed in an eternal soul in the Old Testament, and the Bible doesn’t really talk about an eternal soul. It talks about an immortal body in the resurrection. Now, the Bible does seem to indicate that the soul has a life beyond the grave. Whether it’s eternal or not is another question. I mean, that the soul might survive death. For example, people have sometimes indicated that They’ve died and they saw Jesus or they saw hell or whatever, and they came back. I have questions about, you know, the legitimacy of most of those stories, but there may be some that are true. I don’t know. But, you know, that doesn’t tell us whether the soul is immortal. It might, if these stories are reliable, it might tell us that the soul has a post-death continuing existence for some period of time. But we don’t know. I mean, we’re not really told specifically. The Bible indicates that only God possesses immortality in 1 Timothy 6.16. Even David’s statement about his son, who had died, when he said, I will go to him, but he will not return to me. He doesn’t mention anything about the soul of his son. This is often used by people to… to suggest that the baby’s gone to heaven, his soul is in heaven, and David expects when he dies he’ll go to heaven too. But he didn’t really say it that way. He just said, I will go to him, meaning to the grave. The child is dead. He’s gone to the place where the dead go, and I will go to the place where the dead go, but my child will not return from that place. So he’s not really indicating anything about the immortality of the soul. Now, David might have believed in the immortality of Saul. I’m not saying he didn’t. And I’m not saying that we can’t. I’m just saying I don’t know of anything in the Scripture that specifically has to be interpreted in that way. But I do believe that Christians, when they die, go to be with the Lord because Paul said that’s what he was looking forward to. He has a desire to depart and be with the Lord, which is far better. better, that is, than living on. So it sounds like Paul believed that going to be with the Lord after death is a good thing. And so he must have believed that when he dies, he goes to be with the Lord. But even then, he doesn’t refer to immortality of the soul. The only immortality that I know mentioned in the Bible of the Christian is in the resurrected bodies. Paul said our bodies are born, you know, they’re sown in weakness and so forth but they are raised in power and they are immortal. He said this mortal must put on the immortal or immortality which means this mortal body must. So we know that in the resurrection we will have immortal bodies. Do we have immortal souls also? Maybe. I don’t know. All I’m saying is the Bible doesn’t address that as much as people think. A lot of people assume that the Bible talks a lot about what happens when people die. It actually says very little about what happens when people die. You know, the story of Lazarus and the rich man is sometimes given in Luke 16, beginning at verse 19. People will quote that and see the rich man and Lazarus both went to Hades where they were alive. Their souls apparently were alive. Although it’s not very clear if we’re referring to their souls there. It would seemingly be so. But the rich man said his tongue would like to be relieved with water. from the heat of the flames. So, honestly, I don’t know if we’re supposed to understand that he had a body there with a tongue or not. So, you know, that could be a parable, too. So, I mean, it’s really hard to know specifically much about the next life. But the Christian, I believe, has received eternal life. We have passed from death unto life, and we will not see any condemnation. And Paul does indicate that when we die, we will be absent from our bodies, but we will be present with the Lord in 2 Corinthians 5. And that he wanted to depart and be with the Lord in Philippians chapter 1. So those are the few things I can see, and also maybe the vision of the martyrs in Revelation 6, those who have been beheaded for Christ. And it’s not yet the end of the world, but they’re seen in heaven under the altar saying, How long, O Lord, before you avenge our deaths upon those who dwell on the earth? So… I mean, there are some indicators in the Bible that the Christians, at least, have eternal life, and therefore we have immortality in our non-physical state before we have it in a physical body. We don’t have any proof about the non-Christian in that. So we don’t really have much of a developed theology about the immortality of the soul in the Bible. As far as Eastern Orthodoxy is concerned, escaping the wild west of Western evangelicalism, Well, I think there’s more than one way to escape the wild west of Western evangelicalism. And one way is to simply not participate in the wildness of Western evangelicalism. I’m an evangelical in my convictions, but I’m not wild. You know, I’m a servant of Christ. I feel, you know, bound to what Jesus said to live righteously and holy and godly in this present world. So there’s no wildness about it. Now, there is a certain wildness in the realm of theology in evangelical circles, because in evangelical circles, it is recognized that people are to follow the scriptures. And obviously, a lot of people don’t understand the scriptures very well, so they reach different conclusions from other Christians about certain things. But they won’t reach different conclusions about the things that matter. The things that matter are, who is Jesus? What does he tell us to do? Those are the two things most important in the Christian life. And the Bible is pretty clear on those things. Very few evangelicals have veered very far from any of that. As far as, you know, other doctrines, yeah, it’s a hodgepodge out there. It’s a theological, you know, wild west, I suppose you’d say. On the other hand, if we love one another, it’s not so wild. That is to say, my brother can disagree with me on things that don’t matter, and we can both love each other and not even part company in fellowship. So it’s not all that wild. It can be. There’s a lot of wildness out there, but we should escape it by not being wild. Now, whether the escape route is into Eastern Orthodoxy, I do not know. Or even Roman Catholicism. Now, Roman Catholicism is Western religion, but it’s very much like Eastern Orthodoxy. It’s not exactly a wild West thing. I mean, the doctrines are determined by groups of bishops, and then once they have a creed, they pretty much stick with it. Both the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Church claim to have stability and consistency going back to the Apostles. So you wouldn’t even have to go east. You could go to Roman Catholicism if you’re looking to have that kind of consistency. The problem is, of course, it may be consistency in holding on to traditions that should have been abandoned. Because in the course of 2,000 years, almost every church, every institution takes on traditions. Now, the question is, are these traditions good? Are they traditions that we should hold? Or are they traditions like Jesus criticized of the Pharisees? He said they followed the traditions of men and they were hypocrites because they followed traditions rather than the word of God. So, you know, this was true of the Pharisees. Could this be true of, say, Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox? Do they have traditions that are not of God? And that are traditions of men? In my opinion, they do. And in my opinion, most Protestants do too. So there’s, you’re going to find a lot of traditions, but The cure for all of that is not to join some institution that never changes its mind about things, but to follow Christ and meditate day and night on the Scriptures and let the Holy Spirit guide you into the correct behaviors through the Scriptures. I recommend that rather than joining some kind of an institution that its boast is that it never changes its views on anything. I think if someone never changes their views on things… It means they either were omniscient from the beginning or they’re just unteachable and they will never improve the errors that they already possess. All right, let’s talk to Walter in San Diego, California. Walter, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for coming.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hello. Hi. There’s this ongoing kind of controversy about the Jews and about whether or not they are still Christians. the chosen people. And I remember one time you were asking somebody, what were they chosen for? And so I wanted to say that the Jews were chosen to bring forth to the universe, to the earth, that Jehovah is the God of the universe. And he’s the one who makes everything work. And he holds everything together. And this is a big controversy of things, because Christians certainly don’t seem to think that Jehovah is the God of the universe, but he is the God of the Bible. It talks about him, and it says that Jehovah is the universe, is the kingdom, and Jehovah is salvation. But Christians have a wholly different religion, which is
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I don’t know that Christianity is a religion at all. Unfortunately, there is a Christian religion, but it’s not necessarily what Christ started. Christ didn’t start a religion. He started a kingdom. He never spoke about starting a religion, but he spoke incessantly about establishing a kingdom. And a kingdom is different than a religion. The Jews had a kingdom in the Old Testament. God had made them his kingdom at Mount Sinai, but he said they had to be obedient to his covenant. and obey his voice, or else they would not be his kingdom anymore. And unfortunately, as you read the Old Testament, by the way, the Jews wrote the Old Testament about themselves, so we’re not saying anything anti-Semitic that Jews don’t themselves say, if they’re honest. In the Old Testament, we read continually of the disobedience of the Jews. And when Christ came, we read that they were favorable toward the death of Jesus. And as the rejection of the Messiah occurred, they broke their covenant with God. And Jesus made a new covenant, just like Jeremiah said God would. Jesus made a new covenant with the faithful Jews. And the unfaithful Jews were wiped out in A.D.
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70.
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So, you know, I don’t really recognize a Christian religion per se. Sure, Christians worship God. So did Noah. But I don’t know that Noah had a religion. I mean, what religion did he have? There was no Judaism yet. There was no priesthood or temple or anything like that, or holy days that we know about. So it seems to me that a religion is not really what Christianity originally was. I think some people have turned it into a religion, and I think to the extent that they’ve done so, they’ve lost much of the understanding of what Christianity was supposed to be in the first place. But as far as the Jews being chosen, to be a witness to the world of the God of the universe, that there’s only one God in the universe. I don’t know if they had to be chosen for that. I mean, Noah was long before there were Jews, and he knew there was only one God, and he apparently bore testimony to that. We didn’t need especially Jewish race for that. I mean, Enoch probably did that, too. He knew there was one God. And Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, that was before there were any Jews. They did, too. So, And so did Melchizedek, and so did, you know, whatever. We’ve got other people. Job knew there was only one God, and he wasn’t a Jew. So I don’t know that we could say that God chose the Jews to reveal to the world that there’s only one God in the universe. I think many godly men knew that before the Jews, and even after the Jews. There are Gentiles who have known that. But what should we say? I believe… that the promise made to Abraham would reveal the purpose that God had for the Jewish people. And that was that through his seed, all the nations and the families of the earth would be blessed. Now, according to Paul in Galatians 3, this is fulfilled by the Jews having brought Christ into the world. And Christ is the seed of Abraham through whom all the nations are blessed with salvation, which is the greatest of all blessings. So, according to New Testament teachings, The promise that God made to Abraham about his seed, which actually defines the reason the Jews existed or came into existence, was to bring this blessing to all the nations. And they did by bringing Christ into the world. So they were chosen for that. And lo and behold, they did. Christ did come into the world. But then once the Jews brought the Messiah into the world, they didn’t have a second assignment that we know of. We don’t read of any other assignment anywhere in Scripture besides that. And as I understand it, once the Jews brought the Messiah into the world, their obligation was to receive the Messiah, to follow the Messiah. And they had the first opportunity of all the nations. They had the first crack at it. And some of them did. Thousands of Jews did follow Christ. But many Jews did not. And just like many Gentiles do not today, anyone who is not a believer in Christ is not one of God’s people. And it doesn’t matter if they’re Jewish or Gentile, unbelievers. are against God and against Christ. And, you know, John said in 1 John 2 that whoever denies that Jesus is the Messiah, the same as Antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son. Now, that’s what the Bible says in the New Testament. If they reject Christ as Messiah, and, of course, the majority of Jews and pagans, too, do reject Christ as Messiah, well, they’re Antichrist. I don’t think the Bible indicates that people who are Antichrist are still chosen to do something for God. I don’t think God uses Antichrist. I think he uses Christ and his people. There’s plenty of people who are in Christ to do the tasks that God wants done. And I believe that the church is commissioned for that. That’s what Jesus commissioned them to do after he rose from the dead. He sent them to all the nations. to disciple the nations. Well, that’s something that I suppose Israel could have done if they had wanted to. If their commission was to bring the knowledge of God to all the world, maybe that’s what they should have done. But they didn’t. And now Christ said the church is going to do that. So, you know, so the question remains, if the Jews are still God’s chosen people, what are they chosen for now? Because as near as I can tell, they were only chosen to bring Christ into the world And then they became obliged to receive Christ and follow Christ, to become his disciples. And some did, but some mostly didn’t. And the ones that didn’t, they’re just like any Gentiles who don’t. I mean, anyone who rejects Christ is not chosen by God to be his agents anymore. Now, if Jewish people receive Christ, they’re part of what we call the church. And the church has that commission. So, yes, believing Jews and believing Gentiles together are chosen to do stuff, to carry out God’s purpose and spread his kingdom. Unbelieving Jews, they can hardly do that because they don’t even know the Messiah. And the kingdom is about the Messiah. So obviously, most Jews today are not believers in Christ. And as such, they can’t be chosen by God to do anything in particular. Now, someone says, what if there’s a revival and all the Jews come to Christ? Well, that’d be a wonderful thing. I hope they do. If they do, that’ll make the church that much bigger because that’s what they will be. If Jews come to Christ, they are in the church just like Paul was. Paul was a Jew. Peter was. You know, all the early Christians were Jews. The first church in Jerusalem was all Jews, Jews who believe. And that’s what a person becomes if they’re Jewish and they believe in Christ. They become part of the church. So it’s the church that’s chosen. God doesn’t use people to be his agents if they don’t believe in him, if they reject his son. If they reject the Messiah. And again, that’s not just Jews. That’s Jews or Gentiles. If you’re a Jew or a Gentile and you don’t receive Christ, you’re not chosen. As far as we know, the Bible doesn’t tell us you’re chosen for anything. What in the world are they chosen for? God doesn’t choose unbelievers to do stuff for him. He chooses his friends, not his enemies. I need to take a break here. You’re listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. We are listener supported. If you’d like to write to us, the address is The Narrow Path, PO Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Our website’s thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for watching.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour, taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, you might be able to get through. Our lines are full now, so you won’t get through at this moment. But if you want to try later, The number is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. Our next caller is Peter calling from Portland, Oregon. Peter, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, Steve. How’s it going? I’ve called a few times. I’ve been listening to you for years now. So my question is I – I have a friend that I met who lives in Ukraine, and I met him through an online game that we played together. And I’ve been playing with this same group of friends for over 10 years now. And, you know, they know me as being, you know, what I am. You know, I believe in Jesus, and I’m sold out for him. And I represent that in everyday life with them. And so it’s… this walk that I’ve been bringing them closer to trying to win them over. It’s finally showing fruit. It’s been showing fruit for the last few months. Several of the friends have been asking me questions and one of them lives in Ukraine right now. And he is, you know, he’s, he’s from there. So he’s born there. Um, he’s been asking me a lot of questions. And the question I have for you is basically his question. I want to know how you would answer it because I don’t want to mess it up basically. Um, So I’m just going to read what he sent me in a question in a form of a text. He’s asking about the war, obviously, that’s going on. And he says that, you know, and I don’t watch any of it. I’m out of the media completely. I don’t have no social media or nothing. So he says, so when the Russian Orthodox Patriarch blessing missiles, which then hit Ukraine, including churches, including four of them in the city, one three blocks away from me and another one in the biggest cathedral in a million cities straight to altar. He’s like, what is this? He said that they said such a doings are washes all sins away and they call the war a holy one. There’s other stuff there, but that’s basically, I think what he’s trying to say is, and I know he’s got broken English a little bit, but his question to me is kind of like, you know, Peter, I know that you claim to follow God, right? And I talk to him a lot, right? But he’s saying, so do these people over here, and so do these people over here. And how can we, you know, know what is true and what not is true? Like, how can we know that their God that they’re praying to isn’t God, and maybe we’re the wrong ones? You know, like, I think that’s where he’s going, you know, like, I think he’s ready to follow and to give Jesus, you know, his heart. But he’s like, how do I know that this is any different than that, basically?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, the best way you can know is by comparing both with what Jesus said. Because Christianity is not about being part of a Russian Orthodox church or a Lutheran church or a Catholic church or a Pentecostal church. Being a Christian isn’t related specifically to being in the right church. And by the way, different churches take different positions on wars and political things and so forth, which means that, of course, they can’t all be right. In fact, none of them is right all the time, probably. So what are we supposed to do? the best way to be right all the time is to follow Jesus because he’s never wrong. So I guess I’d ask him, does he think that what the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church did in whatever, I don’t know what he did, blessed missiles or something before they sent them against Christians in Ukraine, or at least professed Christians in Ukraine, do you think that that’s what Jesus would tell him to do? And, you know, that’s where I’d go with it. Does that agree with what Jesus said to do? If not, it’s not a Christian action. And by the way, I would let him know that any institutional church, you know, if it claims to be a Christian church, has to obey Jesus. And if they’re not obeying Jesus, then they’re not acting as a Christian church. So, I mean, you should judge Christianity by what it is, which is following the teachings of Jesus. and ask him, you know, have you ever known anyone who followed the teachings of Jesus who killed anybody or, you know, sent missiles against civilians or things like that? I mean, the answer is going to be no, they don’t. And so how do you know whose God is the right one? Well, Christians believe Jesus’ God is the right one, that Jesus revealed God to us and and taught us the will of God and so if he doesn’t accept that then he can just flip a coin and choose any religion he wants to including ones that call themselves Christian but they won’t be the correct ones if they’re not following Jesus if you’re not following Jesus pretty much any religion will do but what it won’t do is save you so that would be the I guess that would be the main way I’d answer him about that. Have you brought anything like that up with him?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, the only thing I think is that he wouldn’t even be able to answer it because he hasn’t even investigated himself, Jesus.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know what I mean? Well, then why is he asking you? Why is he asking you about it if he hasn’t investigated Jesus? I mean, you’re not the source of Christianity. Hey, I’m not the source. Jesus is. If you can get your hand on a Bible somewhere, there’s four books in our Bible at the beginning of the New Testament that tell us what Jesus said and what he did. That’s where you’ll find Christianity. Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. Yeah, and that’s probably what I’ll tell them, too. I love your response. No, it makes total sense. You know, as I’m sitting on the phone with you and waiting and listening to your other calls – it’s like I got the answer already. It was like, look, we know if they’re Christian or not because Paul said we know by their fruit. Like, what do they believe in? What are they doing? What are they saying? How do they live their lives? If they’re not living for Jesus, then we don’t have to believe what they say. So, and that’s what I was kind of going at.
SPEAKER 03 :
And Paul said, Paul said in 1 Timothy, chapter 6, in verse 3, 1 Timothy 6, He said, if anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the teaching, which is according to godliness, that person is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, etc., etc. Now, in other words, Paul says if they’re not agreeing with the words of Jesus, I don’t care how religious they seem to be, they’re proud. They don’t know what they’re talking about.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Steve. I really appreciate you, and I really appreciate your work, man. I’m still praying for you every day. Love you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thanks, Peter. God bless you.
SPEAKER 09 :
You too.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thanks for calling. All right. Let’s see. Our next caller is Gary in Sacramento, California. Gary, welcome.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, Steve. How you doing?
SPEAKER 03 :
Good.
SPEAKER 04 :
Good. I have a question. Maybe you can hit at this, and I’ll take my answer off. off on the radio, I’ll get off the phone. It’s concerning the hypostatic union.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hypostatic union?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, sir. I don’t know what I said, but I’m under the impression that this is mere conjecture and philosophy, seeing that there’s not enough biblical sufficient evidence to talk about the two natures in Christ. So can you kind of talk about that for us and On the opposite end, also talk about how you differentiate, let’s just say, nature from essence. And I’ll take the answer offline.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Okay. Thank you for your call. Okay. So the hypostatic union… is a theological term that speaks of the way in which the divine nature of Christ interfaces with the human nature of Christ. Now, Christianity has always taught that Christ is human, but that he’s also God, that God became a human. God took on flesh. Flesh means humanity. And he became flesh and dwelt among us. and lived as one of us, but he was still the creator God who took on the form of one of us. Now, this is a mysterious thing, obviously. How can God be a human, or how can a human be God? Well, only God knows that. But the theologians, they love to nail down things that God never nailed down. God never told us about the hypostatic union. Now, what is the hypostatic union? It has to do with the way that the union of the human nature and the divine nature of Christ, how they stood together in one man. Now, this was discussed at one of the later councils, I think in the 5th century probably, with Nestorius’ view. Nestorius believed, that Mary only was the mother of the human nature of Christ, and that God was the author of the divine nature of Christ, which suggested that Christ had a human nature distinguishable from his divine nature, and that the divine nature lived in him as a man, and so he had a human and a divine nature, but whoever was opposed to him in that particular controversy said, no, Jesus didn’t have two natures. He had one nature that was fully divine and fully human. And that’s the doctrine of the hypostatic union, that Christ’s one nature was a perfect union of human and divine nature. Now, Nestorius, who was a wonderful Christian leader, who I have a great deal of sympathy for. He was excommunicated and branded a heretic. There are still Nestorian Christians in the eastern part of the Euro-Asian continent. Nestorian Christians have continued to follow his teachings, and he was a great man. He was certainly no heretic. But because he stood on the wrong side of a rather politically controlled bishopric that ruled against him, because he believed Jesus had a divine nature and a human nature, rather than one nature that’s human and divine, that he’s called a heretic. Well, like you said, there’s no information to answer that question in the Bible. The Bible doesn’t talk about whether Jesus had one nature that was human and divine, or whether he had a human nature and a divine nature. The Bible in no way seeks to answer that question, nor does it puzzle over it, nor it doesn’t raise the question. In other words, it’s not a question that the Bible would encourage us even to wonder about or be concerned about. And yet the church became so divisive that they decided to kick out some of their best leaders because they didn’t hold to the proper politically correct position on that one thing. And so I’m going to agree with you. You said you don’t think the Bible’s clear on it. I don’t think the Bible’s clear, and I don’t think the Bible shows any interest in the subject. I mean, that Jesus is divine and human are both affirmed in the Bible. Jesus is the God-man. He is God become flesh. But what does that involve? Well, I don’t know. And I’m not going to know by talking to the theologians because they don’t know either. In fact, I’m a theologian of a sort myself. So, I mean, I’m not going to learn anything more from another theologian who has only the same Bible I have, and the Bible doesn’t answer that or address it or concern itself with it. So it’s an amazing thing that the church is willing to divide and break off from true brethren in Christ and Because they don’t agree on these hair-splitting things. And they are truly hair-splitting things. That’s why I said, oh, no, it’s very significant. Very significant if Christ had two separate natures as opposed to one human slash divine nature. Well, it may be significant in your imagination. It apparently wasn’t significant in God’s mind because he never addressed it, never gave us any information at all upon it. And so it’s one of those things that kind of disgusts me about some things that were done in church history where they began to divide the body of Christ over issues that were zero issues in the Bible, whereas unity in the body of Christ is a major issue. in the Bible. It’s the last thing Jesus prayed for, is that the church should be one. Paul said that we have to be not only maintaining the unity of the Spirit, but looking forward to coming into the unity of the faith. Paul and John, I mean, every teaching in the Bible about love is about unity, because the kind of unity we’re talking about is not theological agreement about everything. It’s about being one in the Spirit, loving each other as brethren, as parts of the same body. You know, I mean, it’s almost the whole teaching of the New Testament. Whereas the thing that they’ll sacrifice unity for… are issues that are not even concerns in the New Testament. And this is the direction the church went in the early centuries after the apostles were dead, and especially after Constantine gave the church enough peace and freedom from persecution so that they had the luxury of fighting with each other over stuff that didn’t matter. So, I mean, that’s my understanding of that. All right. Let’s talk next to David in Dallas, Texas. David, welcome. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you, Steve. So, yeah, my question is regarding the verse John 14, 28, where toward the end of the verse, Jesus says, for the Father is greater than I. So I guess my question is, Do you believe that there’s any room for, like, hierarchy within the Trinity? Because it does seem as though, you know, a couple places in the gospel, I think this might be the biggest one here, where Jesus says, you know, the Father is greater than him. But even, you know, Jesus not knowing how the things are going to play out in the end, and he says the Father, only the Father does so. I don’t know if there’s any historical Christian debate on that matter. It’s something I came across in my little reading the other day, and it popped out at me like, wow, that’s… I don’t know. I just never considered that thought. So I’ll mute and let you speak to that. So thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. Thank you for your call. Well, I will say this, that Jesus definitely indicated there’s hierarchy between him and his father. Although… He is speaking in every case about his state as an incarnate man living among men. He doesn’t really talk much about, you know, his essence and his essential relationship with his father prior to his birth in Bethlehem or before. Or even after his ascension, although the Bible has some things to say about the latter. I mean, Jesus did pray in John 17 that he would be given again the glory that he had with his father before he was on earth. So, you know, there was a there is a shared glory between Christ and the father. which apparently was set aside when he took on a lowly form, a little lower than the angels, the Bible says, to live among us as a human being. But then he returned to that glory later. However, even in that latter state, the later New Testament writers tell us that he was at the right hand of God the Father. which suggests a place of subordination to him. I mean, at the right hand, we like his first assistant kind of thing, his ruler second in power. So it does seem that at least since the incarnation, there is some kind of hierarchy there. And yet, what about before that? Well, who was Jesus before that? Well, he was the word of God. And who is the Holy Spirit? He is the Spirit of God. Okay, well, who’s God? God is God. God’s Word and God’s Spirit. we’re subject to him just like my words are subject to me. And I guess I can’t say for sure my spirit is subject to me, but I think that I can govern my spirit. He that has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down without walls, the Bible says in Proverbs. So, you know, it seems to me that my words are subject to my choices. And governing my spirit is a responsibility I have. I don’t know much about the Trinity. I mean, I believe in the Trinity, but I don’t know much about it because what’s like I was talking about the historian conflict, the Bible doesn’t say much about the hypostatic union, anything about it. And it says very little in terms of explaining the Trinity. Now, theologians say a great deal with reference to explaining the Trinity. But again, they don’t have any more Bible than we have. And so what they have to do is read into certain passages things that we may or may not agree should be read into them. The Bible is not explicit or plain in very much of its statements of the Trinity, and certainly none of them explain the Trinity. So if you said, I believe there’s hierarchy in the Trinity and Christ is subject to his Father, I think you’d be saying something that is biblically true. If you said that Jesus is God… And his father is God. I think you’re saying something that’s biblically true, too. But I think that Jesus, I think Jesus became, when he became man, he took on a form that was subject in a different sense to God. Because it says in Philippians 2 that he first existed in the form of God. But then he didn’t cling to his equality with God and humbled himself and emptied himself and took on the form of a servant. Okay, God is not a servant. He’s the ruler of the universe. But Jesus took on the form of a servant in becoming a man. And I believe that in doing so, He lived his life very much subordinate to his father, very much, you know, just with a will to do his father’s pleasure and not his own, which, of course, we should also. But your question about hierarchy in the trade, this would be something that, in my mind, and maybe there’s people whose minds would be very disagreeable with what I think, I think we’re not really given an awful lot of information about the relation between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That doesn’t mean that the Trinity Doctrine is not a necessary inference from the things we are told. I think it is. But as far as a teaching about the Trinity, I don’t think we get any of that. I don’t see any passage about it that teaches information about the Trinity Doctrine. We do read that Jesus said the Father is greater than I in John 14, 28. But a few verses earlier in the same chapter, he said, if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father. The Father is in me and I’m in my Father. Well, what’s that all mean? Well, I’m not sure. I don’t know. I’m not sure the apostles knew. I don’t think they do at that point. I’m not sure if they ever knew. But, you know, in terms of following Jesus, they knew how to follow him without even knowing what that word meant. I mean, remember when Jesus in the upper room said, have I been so long time with you and you don’t know me? Don’t you know that I’m in the Father and the Father’s in me? Well, I think they didn’t. They’ve been with him for three years. They’ve been his followers. They followed him faithfully. And they didn’t know that. I’m not sure they understood it once he said those words. I’m not sure how much they understood it then. But they certainly never made it the issue. in terms of what it means to follow Christ. Understanding those kinds of things are the things that many theologians obsess with. They like to figure out how everything fits together like pieces in a puzzle, even when the Bible doesn’t explain how those pieces fit together fully. And then, of course, what they like to do is once they’ve decided how they think it fits together, they like to call everybody else a heretic who puts it together a different way. I’m not so inclined. But anyway, I don’t know that your question can be answered in greater detail from Scripture. You can certainly get a theological book on the Trinity, and they’ll tell you all kinds of things that they believe are true. But it won’t necessarily all be things that the Bible explicitly says about the Trinity. Maybe true. But you wouldn’t know if it’s true, really, because the Bible doesn’t give us a thorough treatment. Gabriel in Sacramento, California. Welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hello.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, cool. You can hear me. Awesome. Hey, just calling in my friend, Mark. is a solo scriptural Christian, and he wanted me to call this station. I’ve never listened to your station. I was trying to turn it on, but I can’t figure out how to use the AM radio on the car. It’s kind of a new part of me. So anyway, he’s solo scriptural. I’m a traditional Roman Catholic. And the whole premise of solo scriptural – It does not make sense to me. I don’t understand the theology behind it. I don’t understand. It just doesn’t make sense when Christ so clearly established his sacraments. He so clearly established the Eucharist confession. He established his church. I mean, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I was just wondering if you have anything theologically or biblically to talk about in terms of that, like why you could argue in terms of Sola Scriptura. Anything. I just would love to hear your opinion on it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure, sure. Yeah, well, Jesus established his church, that’s for sure. But he didn’t say that the church could make up truth as they went along. You know, they were supposed to be faithful to what he taught. He told them to teach all nations to observe all things that he had commanded. So it’s not like the church was established to innovate things. The church was established to perpetuate what Jesus had taught and to be his body in his absence. So, you know, what I see is that in history, the apostles perpetuated what Jesus taught. They also… appointed other people to do the same. Paul said in, I think it’s in 2 Timothy, maybe it’s 1 Timothy 2, in verse 2, he says, you know, the things you’ve heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, the same teach to other faithful men, who in turn will teach others. So Paul said, okay, you’ve heard me teaching the truth that Christ taught. Now I’m getting old. You need to teach that to younger men, and they need to teach it to younger men than them. Keep teaching it. And that’s how they intended… for church theology to be done, that the things Paul said they should teach to others. And the same thing should be taught, and the same thing should be taught, and the same thing should be taught throughout in perpetuity. Now, what churches have done when they’ve institutionalized, and the Catholic Church did this, and other churches do the same thing, is they go beyond what Jesus said. They come up with human traditions, things Jesus never said and things the apostles never said. And that’s not what Jesus made the church to do. Now, sola scriptura simply is saying what we’re calling scripture is what was written by inspired prophets and apostles of Jesus. Okay? So the inspired prophets, they spoke the word of God. The apostles were commissioned to speak on Christ’s behalf too, so what they spoke is the word of God. And what sola scriptura says is what they said is more authoritative than what anybody else said. So, in other words, if some later bishops or some later Christians said things contrary to what the prophets and apostles said, well, those men are not inspired men. It’s something they’re not supposed to do. And if the church follows them when they do that, then that church gets off track. But the person who will remain on track is the one who will stick by what Jesus and the apostles said. And soul of scripture, it just means scripture alone. I would say, I don’t know if I want to use the term soul of scripture, though it comes down to the same thing. Basically, whatever God said through the prophets and apostles is what we have to believe. And nothing else has similar authority. That’s the soul of scripture or doctrine, as I understand it. Hey, I’m out of time. I wish I wasn’t. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
