In this episode, listeners get to unravel the biblical narratives surrounding Jacob and Esau, diving deep into the nature of God’s favoritism and what it signifies for the offspring of Abraham. Further, the conversation shifts to Ezekiel’s temple, examining whether this ancient prophecy pertains to a future millennial reign or a second temple vision that was never realized. Explore these complex theological teachings with clarity and insight.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good afternoon, and welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we are live for an hour each weekday afternoon to take your phone calls. If you have questions you’d like to call in about the Bible or the Christian faith, or you have a different viewpoint from that of the host, you’d like to balance comment and maybe present an alternative viewpoint, feel free to do that. You’re welcome to do that here. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. And in about 10 days, or I don’t know, maybe a little more than that, I’ll be going to Oregon. And I’ll be speaking for about 11 days there in different places. We have a lot of listeners in Oregon. We’ve been in Oregon longer than any other place. We’re on 80-some-odd stations around the country in many, many states. Our original program, 28 years ago, we went on the air in Albany, Oregon. And that was the first station we were on. And so, obviously, we have a lot of listeners. We have a lot of listeners there who’ve been listening for sometimes three decades almost. Anyway, I’ll be going up there. I do that about once a year, doing an itinerary, speaking in various places. If you’re in Oregon and interested in coming to one of those gatherings, feel free to look at our website, thenarrowpath.com. And look under Announcements, and you’ll find the information. Also, not very long after that, pretty early in November, on the 7th and 8th, that’s a Friday and Saturday, I’m scheduled to have a debate with Dr. Michael Brown on the subject of the biblical teaching about Israel. Three debates. Friday night, Saturday morning, and Saturday afternoon is apparently how it’s scheduled. And that’s November 7th and 8th. That’s in Dallas, Texas. And if you’re in Texas, and we have a lot of listeners there too, or even if you just want to fly in, as some people I know are planning to do for that debate, you’ll want to go to our website to find out the details about that too. which is, again, thenarrowpath.com under the tab that says Announcements. So Oregon in October and Dallas in November, and some interesting stuff going on there. All right, our lines are full, so we’re going to talk to our listeners at this point, or our callers, I should say, who are also listeners. I hope if they’re going to ask questions, they better be listening. Okay, Donald from Long Beach, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you very much, Steve, for taking my call. I love you, brother, very much, and pray for you. Two questions, if you are inclined to do so. I don’t think they’ll take you too long, but I don’t want to presume. Anyways, my first question, I just started reading your book, Four Views of Revelation. I see the evidence that leans towards early dating. So the first question is regarding that, the early dating. One of your points is about John measuring the temple. in Revelation chapter 1, verses 1 and 2. The question is, if John was on the Isle of Patmos, how could he have left there and gone out and measured the temple? That’s my first question. Can I proceed with the second one?
SPEAKER 02 :
Sure.
SPEAKER 03 :
The second one has to do with Isaiah chapter 14. I agree with you. It’s about the fall of the king of Babylon. But I just had a thought for people who disagree with that view. if I was to be asked a question in verses 12 to 14 in that chapter, could this possibly be a typology of Satan, a type of Satan, naming him Lucifer? And that’s it.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right. Yeah, those are two good questions. I’ll be glad to address those. As far as how did John measure the temple, which was in Jerusalem, if he was on the island of Patmos? Well, He was physically on the island of Patmos, but you might remember he was caught up into heaven in chapter 4, verse 1 of Revelation. And then other times he was taken out to a wilderness to see things in chapter 17. It seems evident in chapter 11 he was taken to Jerusalem. I don’t think these things, I don’t think he physically went to any of these places. I think that all the actions in these visions were simply happening in his visions, just like like they would in a dream, you know. I mean, if you had a dream that you were on a trip to, you know, France or something like that, and you were doing things in France, and yet you’re really asleep in your bed in Long Beach, California, you could describe that. Now, if that was a prophetic dream you were having, then it would still feel and be the same. You’d still be in your bed in California, but the action of your dream would be taking place wherever it is your dream is set. So I believe that visions and dreams are very similar in that respect, at least when they’re prophetic. It causes normal dreams. But I know that in the Bible there are dreams and visions that are given by God, and that’s, of course, the assumption. of the visions in Revelation. In Daniel, Daniel had both visions and dreams. And I suppose the only difference between his visions and dreams was that he was awake for some and asleep for the other. But as they read, as we read them, they’re very similar. You can’t really tell the difference. They’re just prophetic information given in symbolic forms. So his measuring of the temple, I don’t think he left Patmos to do that. I think in the dream he was in Jerusalem or in the vision, and he was measuring it. It would actually be pretty impossible for one man probably to measure the temple physically. Literally, you know, because that temple is huge. And, you know, even if he was there in Jerusalem, I don’t think a man could easily measure such a huge complex of buildings. So I think the idea is more symbolic that, okay, you’re going to measure this temple that you’re now looking at in this vision. You’re not going to literally do it, but I’m going to describe it. It needs to be measured. And the part that’s going to be measured is going to delineate the part that’s going to be preserved. And the part that’s not measured is going to be given over to the Gentiles. In fact, technically, the word temple there in Revelation 11.1 is the word naos in the Greek, which literally refers to the Holy of Holies. So John would not be permitted to go into the temple there. and measure the Holy of Holies, not with the temple operations going on there. I don’t think anyone could go in there except the high priest. He could only do it once a year. So John would not be literally able to do this. The whole idea of him going to measure this Holy of Holies is, to my mind, just conveying the message that there was going to be destruction and the temple was generally going to be given over to the Gentiles. So, yeah, he didn’t leave Patmos to do any of these things. I’m pretty sure about that. Even when he was caught up in the heaven or was in other locations when he was doing it. I think that’s true also. I mean, I don’t know that this is true. But when Jesus was tempted out in the wilderness and it says the devil took him to a high mountain and he could see all the kingdoms of the world. Then he took him to the pinnacle of the temple and told him to jump off. I don’t think Jesus was really going places with the devil. I think these things were… presented to his mind in vision of some sort or images put to his mind. Because there isn’t really a mountain on the earth where you could, from that vantage point, see all the kingdoms of the earth, no matter where you were. So I think that these are like visionary experiences in the vision that was presented to him. I think he was in those circumstances. That’s my understanding. It could be otherwise, because no one knows for sure. Now, as far as the Isaiah 14 passage, especially verses 12 through 16, that’s the passage where the King James Version uses the word Lucifer. And it’s the only place in the Bible the word Lucifer appears. But where, as you probably know, most translations don’t even include the word Lucifer there because Lucifer is not really a proper name at all. And the King James translators apparently mistook it for a proper name. But the reason they did, I guess… it would seem, is because the word Lucifer was retained in the Latin Vulgate and then carried over into Greek manuscripts. But Lucifer just means light bearer. And it was in the Hebrew text that that word does not appear. Unlike, say, in the Hebrew text, proper names do appear. The proper name Abraham or Isaac or Jacob or Moses or David would appear in the Hebrew text. and would be retained in the Latin text. But the Hebrew word for lightbearer, which is in the original Hebrew, was translated into the word Lucifer, which means lightbearer in Latin. So it’s just the Latin word for a very different word in Hebrew, but it came to be brought over into the Greek text that was used by Erasmus as a proper name. So it was treated as a proper name by the King James translators. But in the Hebrew text, it’s not. It’s not even there in the Hebrew text, the word Lucifer. So somehow the word Lucifer came to be identified as a name of Satan. Now, this wasn’t true when Isaiah wrote. It wasn’t true even when the Latin Vulgate wrote. was translated necessarily. So it’s just something that has come through our English translation. It’s brought into Isaiah 14.12 as if it’s the name of the person being spoken to. But the person being spoken to, as you pointed out, is the king of Babylon. In verses 4 and 5, it’s very clear that the prophecy is addressed to the king of Babylon and not to some angel or something like that. Now, you ask, well, maybe could it be that the king of Babylon is spoken to as sort of a type of Satan? Well, this is actually something many people have thought. I mean, when they learn that the prophecy is not really addressed to the devil, it’s addressed to the king of Babylon, it’s hard to give up the traditional notion that this is addressed to the devil. And so, usually people, what they say is, yeah, okay, it’s addressed to the king of Babylon, but Maybe this part is addressed to the power behind the throne, the spiritual power, the devil behind the throne. And so the effort is to retain the devil as the subject of these verses, because without that, we don’t have very much about the devil in the Old Testament. I mean, he’s not mentioned as the devil anywhere in this passage or any other prophecy like that. So… What about that question? Is it possible the king of Babylon is in the picture, but he serves as a type of Satan? Well, the problem with this is that if someone in the Old Testament is a type of something else, let’s just say David is a type of the Messiah, which is true. Or we might say that Abraham offering Isaac is a type of God offering Jesus. as a sacrifice, things like that. That’s what we mean when we say somebody is a type of something. Well, the thing is, when we say that something is a type of something else, it means that it follows the same pattern. The word type in Tupos in Greek means a pattern. And therefore, if we say this thing in the Old Testament is a type of this other thing, it means that it resembles it. It follows the same pattern as that. And yet we don’t know enough about the origin of Satan to know whether anything that was said to the king of Babylon would also apply to Satan. I mean, if we were told somewhere, let’s say the New Testament told us this or some other inspired book in the Bible told us that Satan was an angel who became too proud and therefore he fell and became the devil. If we had some statement like that elsewhere in the Bible that’s plain, we might then read Isaiah 14 says, oh yeah, that’s also true of the king of Babylon here. So maybe the king of Babylon, because what is said here resembles so much what is true of the devil, we might see this as kind of a double reference here, referring to the king of Babylon and to the devil. What I’m saying is we don’t have any independent evidence that any of these things that are said to the king of Babylon have any resemblance to anything that’s true of the devil. And so we would be… it’d be entirely arbitrary for us to say, I’m going to see the devil in this also. You know, like I said, when you talk about the story of David, there’s many types of Christ in the story of David. And we could preach from the stories of David about Jesus because the Bible identifies him as a type of Christ. Actually, Joseph… the patriarch Joseph, who went into Egypt as a prisoner and so forth, and then became ruler. There’s many things in his story that resemble Jesus, and we would probably be within our right, even though the Bible doesn’t tell us that Joseph is a type of Christ. We would probably be fairly justified in saying, I’m seeing Joseph’s situation as a type of Christ, but that’s because we know enough about Christ’s situation that it resembles Joseph in many respects. But to say the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14 is a type of Satan, well, we would need some reason to make that identification because we don’t know enough about Satan to know whether there’s any parallels between the two, if you understand what I mean.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s a great answer, Steve. I love it. Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, Donald, great talking to you. Thanks for calling. Okay, Stan from Sacramento, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, hello, Steve. I really appreciate your show. I really love your humility and meekness that you treat people, especially if they disagree with you. I’m not one of those people, but I’d like to take a minute or two to give you a premise, and it’s really not a question. I’d like your take on it. This has to do with sin nature. A friend of mine sent me another caller who said that we all believe in sin nature, and you correctly pointed out that the NIV is the only one that… It says sin nature. I looked it up in all of my Bibles, the Lamsa, ASV, Fenton, Concordant, Moffat, and they all say works of the flesh. And this gets me back to 1 Corinthians 15, 22, where it says, In Adam all die, as in Christ all shall be made alive. The consequences for Adam’s sin were imputed to all mankind for all time. It doesn’t say as in Adam we all sin and Adam we all die. I believe we sin because we die. We don’t die because we sin because that judgment had already been passed. And so the same way for the same people that that was given to was Christ’s righteousness imputed to all of us. And one of the reasons this is important is because it goes to the heart of my understanding of salvation, where there can be no forgiveness of sins if we keep on sinning. In other words, not repentance, because the prophets and the disciples spoke of repentance. Now, I know it says believe, but one is that’s implicit with repentance. You’re not going to repent unless you already believe. So I’d like your comments on that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, hang with me because I may need some clarification. First of all, you’re quite right. The term sinful nature is not found in Scripture. The NIV uses it. I’m not sure if any other translations do. Some might. I’m not sure. I wouldn’t be surprised if the New Living Translations do.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, the paraphrases do, but not a legitimate Bible.
SPEAKER 02 :
Exactly, yeah. It’s a paraphrase, which is one of the things I object to about the NIV, is that they will stick their theology into the translation instead of translating it. Yeah, if you have the NIV or any version that uses the term sinful nature, they are replacing the word sarx in the Greek with sinful nature, which is the word that means flesh. Now, of course, the word sarx is used a lot in the Bible. The word flesh can mean a lot of things in the Bible. It can mean all flesh, meaning all humanity. It can refer to the flesh as opposed to the spirit as your physical body. When Paul said if he dies, he’s going to go be with the Lord, but he thinks he’ll remain in his flesh because he’ll have more fruit for his labor. He means he’s going to stay in his body. The word flesh can mean the body. It can mean humanity. It can mean other things, too. But it might, in some cases, refer to something that we might call a sin nature, but that’s disputed. I would say that we have a death nature. Okay, what I was going to say is that the NIV assumes that it means sin nature in a few passages, and instead of giving us the actual translation of the word, which is flesh, it gives us their own interpretation, which is sinful nature, which is fine if they’re right, but we don’t know that they’re right. There are different theological positions, and therefore it’s not fair for the translators to insert their theological position into the translation itself. It’s deceptive. But now, do we have a sin nature? You say we have a death nature. You mentioned, I think, 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul said that everyone died in Adam and everyone’s going to be made alive in Christ. That’s one of two places where Paul makes this contrast between Adam and Christ. The other one does speak of all men die because they sin. And that is in Romans 5, 12, where Paul says, Therefore, justice through one man, and of course he means Adam, sin entered the world, and death through sin. Thus death spread to all men because all sinned. Now, in my opinion, in saying that sin entered the world and death because of sin, he is simply referring to the historical fact that The world that God had created was good, and there was no evil in it until Adam, and by implication, Eve, who was one flesh with him. The two of them sinned through that man. He was the first man to sin, and therefore sin entered human history into the world through his actions. Now, it doesn’t say necessarily in that statement that we all sinned with him there, or that his sin was imputed to us. I mean, this is a theological position that has come to be affirmed by all who study Augustine and follow his theology. But it doesn’t mention anything that happened to the rest of us, specifically in that first line, when it says sin entered. The world just means Adam sinned, and that was the beginning of sin in human history. And death came through sin, which happened to him, and says, and thus death spread to all men because all sinned. Now, that’s been taken two different ways. Because all sinned has been taken by Augustine and his theologians that follow him to say we all sinned in Adam. Now, Paul doesn’t say we sinned in Adam. He said death came to us all because we all sinned, which could be simply saying we die because we sin. In fact, that would be the most natural way to understand it, because all sinned, all sinned there is the same expression that Paul uses in Romans 13, 23, where he says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now, in that passage, he’s not mentioning Adam’s sin. He’s talking about ours. and to say death has spread to all of us because we all sin, that would be saying that our death is the result of sin. Now, but how did Adam affect that? Well, how he affected it was, and this is, again, how I read it, Adam and Eve were not created immortal. They were created potentially immortal. There was a tree in the garden called the Tree of Life, And God said, if they eat of the tree of life, they will live forever. But there was another tree called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If they lived of that, they would not live forever. They would instead die because God would cut them off from the tree of life. But the tree of life was necessary for them to live forever, which means they were not innately immortal. They were made in such a way they could live forever if they remained obedient and were never denied access to the tree of life, which apparently would have been the case. had they not sinned, but they did sin. And as such, they were cut off from the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life was in the Garden of Eden. They were driven out of the Garden of Eden. There were no children born to them in the Garden of Eden. Eve became pregnant for the first time after they were no longer there. So they no longer had access. So they were two mortal people who had previously had access to eternal life, but didn’t possess it. They never cashed in on it. And their children didn’t either. So all of us are mortals. we wouldn’t necessarily have to be mortal if Adam hadn’t sinned because we could have been had, you know, the whole race could have had access to the tree of life and live forever. But because we were cut off from it, we all die like all mortal creatures do. So, uh, we could say that we do die. Uh, you know, we, we do die because we don’t have access to the tree of life, though. We also could say, even after Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden, um, God would have conferred a form of salvation to anyone who believed, and that’s why people like Abel, in this next generation, worshiped God and were told that he was accepted by faith. It says in chapter 11 of Hebrews, Abel, by faith, offered the better sacrifice, and God gave him a good commendation. So I think that Adam and Eve and the rest of us would have lived forever in physical bodies if we had not been deprived of access to the tree of life. But since we have been deprived of that, we’re mortals, we do die. People who don’t sin would apparently still have access to eternal life in some form, but we do sin. I mean, Paul definitely ties our dying with our sinning, but he doesn’t explain exactly how things might have been because what might have been is irrelevant because what did happen is what’s relevant. But we were all excluded from the tree of life because of Adam and Eve’s sin. And that’s what I think Paul is affirming there. And we do all die because of that. But I don’t think that’s disconnected from our own sinning.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, no. I think that probably I was just putting too much emphasis on that one verse where we would have a death nature and we sin because of death. You have clarified some things for me. And you brought up another point. I don’t mean to take up much of your time, but I had another idea when you were talking about Adam and Eve and not having an immortal… Okay, my break is coming up real quick, but quickly give me that point because we have a break. What would have happened if Adam and Eve had children before they sinned because they were created in the image of God? Would their children have been sinless and had that manifest sons of God? Rather than a death or sin nature?
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s a good question. And one of those what if this had happened things. I think that the children would have had the same test that Adam and Eve did. If Adam and Eve had children that were born prior to the fall, they would have been born as innocent as Adam and Eve were created. And if Adam and Eve had then sinned, those children that had already come from them would not still be in them. And Adam and Eve presumably would have been driven from the Garden of Eden, but their uncompromised offspring would not have been. So Adam and Eve would have died, but their children, still living in the Garden of Eden, I assume, would have been able to continue. But, of course, that’s a big what if. And I don’t think, yeah, I mean, it’s not very fruitful for us to actually speculate too much about what might have happened differently than did. I appreciate your call. I need to take a break. We have another half hour coming up, folks. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. I will be back in 30 seconds, so don’t go away.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
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’d like to be on the program with your question or your disagreement with the host, feel free to call 844-484-4844. 5737. Right now, our lines are full, so it won’t do you any good to call at the moment, but if you call in a few minutes, you might find an open line. We’re going to talk next to Alex from Kent, Washington. Alex, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hello, Steve. I have a quick question. So, in the Bible, it talks about Jacob and Esau. So, God loved Jacob, but he hated Esau. Can you just kind of explain that a little better?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, in Malachi chapter 1, verses 2 and 3, God says, Jacob, I have loved that Esau I have hated. The explanation of that, it comes in the following verses in Malachi chapter 1. Basically, he’s using the word Jacob to mean Israel, and Esau means Edom. These were two nations. Israel came from Jacob, and Edom came from Esau. In fact, it’s a very common place in the Old Testament for the nations to be referred to as named after their progenitor. So the nation of Esau and of Edom are the same. The nation of Jacob or the nation of Israel are the same. So in this particular case, Malachi is not speaking of the individuals. He’s speaking of their nations. He says, I have loved Jacob. I’ve hated Esau. And I laid his mountain’s waste, meaning Esau’s mountain’s waste. He’s referring to something that has historically happened. Namely, the Babylonians had come and conquered that region where both Israel and Edom were. Israel fell to the Babylonians in 586 B.C. And Edom had fallen three years later in 583 B.C. And they both went into captivity. Well, God restored Israel, you know, in 539 BC, but he did not ever restore Edom. So he’s saying, I’ve shown favoritism toward Israel that I did not show to Edom. That is, I saved the country, the nation of Israel out of Babylon. I did not do similarly for the nation of Esau. That’s what he’s saying. Now, when Paul quotes it, he’s pointing out that God did choose the nation of Jacob over Esau, even though Jacob and Esau were twin brothers, and that this choice was made before either of them were born or had done good or evil. That’s, of course, in Romans 9, verse 11. It says for the children, meaning Jacob and Esau, not being born nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election, might stand, not of works, but of him who calls. It was said to her, now Rebekah is the her in this, it’s Isaac’s wife, the mother of both of them, and she had both of them in her womb at the time because they were twins. It was said to her, the older shall serve the younger. That is, the nation of Esau will serve the nation of Jacob because Esau came out first, so he’s the older brother. Under the laws of primogeniture in the ancient world, the older son would have the the birthright to having greater privileges than the younger sons. That was just generally true. It was a benefit of being firstborn. But Esau was the firstborn, but before they were born, God said, well, it’s going to be the other way around here. Your firstborn, Esau, the older one, is going to serve the younger one. And so God told her that. Now, he was not talking about the individuals because Esau never did serve Jacob, never happened. But if you look at the prophecy that he’s quoting there, he’s quoting from Genesis 25-23. And when the twins were in the womb, God told Rebekah in this verse, Genesis 25-23, two nations are in your womb, and two peoples will be separated from between your feet. One shall be greater than the other, and the older shall serve the younger. So again, this is not a prophecy about the two men. It’s about two nations that would come from them. So what has happened here is that Jacob and Esau had destinies to become the progenitors of nations. And God was making prophecies about the status of the two nations that would come from these two. And so when Paul quotes that, he says, Rebecca was told, the older shall serve the younger. And then Paul says, as it is written, and now he jumps from Genesis and quotes Malachi, Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated. So Paul quotes two verses to prove that God chose between Isaac’s two sons and showed favoritism to Jacob or Israel over the Edomites. And this is, of course, true. He quotes from Genesis, he quotes from Malachi, two verses that point this out. Now what Paul is doing is arguing that just because people are descended from Abraham or Isaac… It does not make them God’s people that God chooses even among the family members. Now, this is not the first verse in Romans. Paul has developed this from verse 6 up to this point. He said, they are not all Israel who are of Israel. And then he talks about they are not all children who are descended from Abraham because God said only Isaac would be the called one. So, Abraham had eight sons, and only Isaac was the seed of Abraham in any significant sense. Then Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau, and only Jacob was significant. Now, I say significant because this is not talking about people being chosen to be saved. Paul’s not talking about who’s saved and who’s not saved. There’s nothing in the Bible that says Ishmael was not saved, but he wasn’t significant to the purposes of God. The purposes of God had to do with the fulfilling of the promise that God made to Abraham that he would fulfill through Abraham’s offspring. But not all of his offspring. Not through Ishmael, not through Midian, not through Shua, not through seven of the eight sons of Abraham, but through only one of them, Isaac. Through Isaac you see, shall we call him. And then when Isaac had two sons, the significant seed would come through Jacob, not Esau. That’s what Paul’s pointing out. Now, why is he pointing that out? It’s his way of developing his thesis statement in verse 6. They are not all Israel who are of Israel. What he’s saying is being physically descended from Abraham or Isaac or Jacob or anyone in particular doesn’t make you specifically the significant people. God, even within the family of Abram, chose some of his sons to not be significant and one to be significant. And of that significant son, Isaac, God chose only one of his sons to be significant, the other not. God favored one son over the other. Now, this favoring, there’s no suggestion in the Bible that Esau went to hell and Jacob to heaven or that Ishmael went to hell. The sons that were not chosen, And the ones who were, their eternal fate is not being discussed here. It’s not even under consideration in this discussion. What he’s discussing is that God can choose to fulfill his promises through Abraham’s seed, through part of Abraham’s family, not through all. And that’s the point. Not everyone who is physically Israelite is the Israel to whom the promises apply. That’s what he’s saying in verse 6. A little later, he points out that God is like a potter who can take one lump of clay. This is verse 21. Does not the potter have power over the clay? That from the same lump, one lump, he can make two vessels. One vessel for honor and one for dishonor. What he’s saying is Israel, collectively, is like a lump of clay. He got that from Jeremiah chapter 18. Isaiah also used that imagery. God’s the potter. Israel’s the lump of clay. But Paul says that God can take that one lump of clay, which is the nation of Israel, the people of Israel, and make two different vessels. That is, he can divide that one family, that one nation, into two categories, one for honor and one for not particular honor. So this is how Paul’s going through here. He’s talking about how God, the whole chapter 9 through 11 of Romans is his theology about Israel. And it’s answering the question, why is it that the Messiah, who’s supposed to save Israel, has come and gone and Israel didn’t get saved? And he’s saying, well, they did. But you have to remember who Israel is. Israel is not every Jew. True. It’s not the case that every Jew got saved. And if you think that’s what the Messiah was promised to do, you need to rethink this. God promised that the Messiah would save Israel. But not everyone who’s Jewish, not everyone who’s of Israel, genetically and biological, is Israel. The Israel he promised to save is a subgroup within Israel, what he calls the remnant. And that’s why in the same chapter, in verse 27, he says, Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel, though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved. In other words, Israel may be innumerable, but only the remnant are the ones who will be saved. That’s Isaiah 10, 22 that Paul quotes there. So, You know, Paul’s argument here is, who is Israel? Why are the promises of God to Israel not seemingly fulfilled? He’s saying they are. Christ has saved the true Israel. He has saved the remnant. Paul himself was part of that remnant, he says in chapter 11, verses 1 through 5. And so… You know, the early church was the remnant of Israel. The 3,000 who were saved at Pentecost, they’re all Jews and faithful. They followed Christ, so they’re the faithful remnant, and they’re saved. So Paul’s saying it was always predicted that only the remnant would be saved, not all Jews. And so what he’s doing is defending the thesis that Jesus is, in fact, the Messiah, because the Messiah had come to save Israel, according to prophecy. And many Jews say, well, how could he be the Messiah? He hasn’t saved the whole nation of Israel. And Paul says, well, you’re thinking wrong about who Israel is. The only Israel that the Messiah is saving is the faithful remnant. And not all who are in Israel as a nation belong to that Israel that is the faithful remnant. That’s why Jesus, in John chapter 1, when he saw Nathanael coming to him, says, there’s an Israelite indeed. In whom is no guile. Now, everybody around Jesus was Israelite. They were all Jews. But not all of them were Israelites indeed. Just like Jesus said later in John chapter 8, if you continue my words, you’re my disciples indeed. By saying my disciples indeed, I mean there’s a lot of people who may seem to be my disciples, but the real ones are the ones who continue my words. When he says there’s a lot of people who are out here who are Israelites, but the real Israelites are the ones in whom is no guile. By the way, that came from Zephaniah. God predicted that the Israel that would be saved would be the ones in whose mouth there’s no guile or no lie. So anyway, the point is in the Bible, and Paul is making this point very brilliantly, actually, if people would just follow his train of thought instead of trying to prove their own theological systems from what he’s not saying. You know, he’s saying, yeah, Jesus has fulfilled the promises. He is the Savior of Israel. If we understand that what the prophet said is that Israel that will be saved is simply the remnant of Israel, and every believing Jew who’s part of that remnant is a follower of Christ today, that’s the believing remnant, and they are saved. So that’s Paul’s thoughts here. All right. I appreciate your call. Let’s talk to Derek in Vancouver, B.C. Hi, Derek. Welcome. Hi, Steve.
SPEAKER 08 :
Pleasure to talk with you. Thanks for taking my call. Thank you. I have a couple questions. We’ll just see how far it gets. But first one is about Ezekiel’s temple.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
And reading through Ezekiel, you know, there’s a whole bunch of sacrifice instructions that kind of like Deuteronomy, Leviticus, also in that section. And a friend who’s a Christian said, hey, there’s no atonement sacrifices in that list. And I was going, well, if that’s true, then that feeds dispensation’s argument pretty good if it’s a millennial temple. But if that temple is actually the intended second temple, temple that never got built properly, then I guess I’d ask, why did God say, build this temple, but you don’t have to do atonement sacrifices?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, your friend is mistaken. You just need to read the passage better. In Ezekiel 45, which is right in the middle of the whole discussion of that temple, it says in Ezekiel 45, 15, And one lamb shall be given from the flock of two hundred, from the rich pastors of Israel. These shall be for grain offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings to make atonement for them, says the Lord. And then a few verses later, verse 17, it says, Then it shall be the prince’s part to give burnt offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings at the feast, the new moons, the Sabbaths, and at all the appointed seasons of the house of Israel. He shall prepare the sin offering, the grain offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offerings to make atonement for the house of Israel. So, yeah, there’s no absence of atonement here. Now, this is one reason why we know it’s not some millennial temple, because a millennial temple, which many people think this is referring to, which would be built after Jesus comes back, there’d be no atonement sacrifices. This is talking about animal blood here for atonement. That’s gone. That’s done for good.
SPEAKER 08 :
Perfect. Hey, thanks. That’s so helpful. I guess what I should have done instead of taking his word for it is read myself. Show him those verses. Excellent. Second thing, I think this might be quick, is so in your view, do you have a handful of scriptures maybe off the top of your head, Old Testament, that you think are still to be fulfilled prophecies?
SPEAKER 02 :
When it comes to fulfilled Old Testament prophecies, I believe that all of them have been fulfilled or are continuing to be fulfilled because, I mean, a lot of them talk about the church. A lot of them talk about, you know, the Messiah would come and he’s going to establish justice in the earth and so forth. And he did come 2,000 years ago and he has been establishing justice in the earth. That’s been a very large part of what has happened in the last 2,000 years. Nations that didn’t didn’t have justice, have made just laws and set more just governments and so forth. Even the existence of a Geneva Convention of Warfare, that came through in Christian Europe. The way that people used to treat their enemies in war was absolutely brutal and barbaric. And, you know, Christian principles have permeated the whole world. Not all the world has followed them well. Not all the world has even officially accepted them. But the world is a totally different place than it was before Jesus came, and it hasn’t quit yet. The Bible says in Daniel chapter 2 and verse 44 that the kingdom that God set up during the Roman Empire was like a little stone that would grow into a whole mountain to fill the earth. and that’s been happening. So that process is not finished, but it began in the time of Christ. I don’t believe there’s any prophecies in the Old Testament that have yet to be fulfilled from scratch. I believe that essentially all the events prophesied in the Old Testament happened no later than the first century, but some of the processes… that began then continue to this day and will until the end of the world. So, yeah, if we’re looking for specific international incidents or developments in modern nations or something like that that haven’t been fulfilled yet, I don’t believe there’s any of those in the Old Testament. I don’t think the Old Testament had any concern at all for modern politics.
SPEAKER 08 :
Jim, just thinking along the lines, so people that say here are – about what the millennium is going to be like. And so I looked and said, okay, what does David Jeremiah say? And I looked up all of his things. Okay, this is the millennium. This is the millennium. But when I read those, I go, that to me sounds like that could totally be after Jesus comes back. There’s no millennium. That’s just after.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, a lot of those passages, when you see how the New Testament writers quoted them, They didn’t even apply it to a time after Jesus came back. But you’re right. Even if they are to be fulfilled after Jesus comes back, there’s no mention of a thousand years, which is what the word millennial means. The Bible indicates Christ’s kingdom would have no end and be forever. There’s no place in the whole Bible that mentions a thousand-year reign of Christ except Revelation 20. And it’s one of the more controversial chapters in the whole Bible. And not everyone agrees about what that is. But, yeah, I believe that the prophecies in the Old Testament, the ones that people like David Jeremiah and many other dispensationalists would apply to the millennium, the church throughout history thought, throughout most of history, believed that those were fulfilled now, spiritually speaking. And the reason they thought that is because the apostles said so. The apostles quoted them and applied them to their own time. which, of course, was a long time before Jesus comes back. So they are fulfilled in the age that was inaugurated by the first coming of Jesus, whereas premillennialists believe that they will be inaugurated in the age that begins at the second coming of Christ. So everyone agrees that those kingdom passages in the Old Testament are launched by the coming of Christ, but the church throughout most of history believed they were launched by his first coming, and that’s what the New Testament teaches also. premillennialism teaches. No, they will be launched at a second coming. Hey, I need to take another call. We’ve got not much time left, and we’ve got plenty of calls waiting. So God bless you, Derek. Good talking to you.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you, Steve.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, bye now. Okay, Douglas from Phoenix, Arizona. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hi, Steve. I wanted to ask a question about Revelation, but I have another one that’s quicker, so I’ll go with that one. I know that there’s the traditional position that Isaiah 14 and the Ezekiel 28, I think. Uh, yeah. Talk, uh, claim to be parables about Satan, but I, I know that that’s not your position. So I wanted to ask you, what is, who, what is Satan and where did he come from in your opinion or your belief? Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, uh, he’s a creation. Uh, he’s a creation of God because nothing exists except what God created. So we can say that much. Uh, The question is whether God created him as he is now or whether he created him good and he went bad. We know that Satan is bad now. He’s been bad ever since the Garden of Eden. Was he good before that? Many people say he was good before that. But they mainly use Isaiah 14. Ezekiel 28, sometimes they’ll use Luke 10, I think it’s verse 18, and they sometimes mistakenly use Revelation 12, verses 7 through 9, and those verses they use to suggest that Satan was an angel. Now, notably, none of those verses mention Satan being an angel, and some of them don’t mention Satan at all. Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 don’t mention Satan at all. There’s nothing in there that mentions Satan. nor do they describe anyone as an angel. Now, when you get to the New Testament, you do find Satan mentioned in Luke chapter 10 and in Revelation 12, but he’s not ever seen to be an angel there. As far as we know, he’s the devil, actually. Revelation, before he falls, he’s described as a dragon. That’s not an angel. That’s a bad thing. So… There just isn’t anything in the Bible that describes Satan as having been good. And there’s some things Jesus said and John that sound like he might not have ever been good. I’m not insistent on this, but in John 8, 44, Jesus said to his opponents, you are of your father, the devil. He says the devil was a murderer from the beginning. So he doesn’t mention any time before Satan was a murderer. He was from the beginning a murderer. In 1 John 3 and verse 8, it says the devil sinned from the beginning. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean he was made a sinful being. It may mean just from the beginning of our story, he was already in that condition sinning, but he might have been better prior to that. But there’s no mention of him ever being better. So we’re left to just wonder, you know, was he created simply by God to be a tester? That’s what he’s used for now. And some people say, well, God couldn’t do that because he can’t create evil. Well, if it’s not evil for there to be a tester, if God’s purpose was that Adam and Eve and the rest of us be tested, then why would it be evil for God to make a tester? And I’ll say this, too. If it wasn’t God’s desire for there to be a tester, why is there one? I mean, if Satan was an angel and God was surprised he fell, God could have at that moment thrown him in the lake of fire. We would have never run into him. Adam and Eve would have never encountered him. God clearly put Adam and Eve in the same garden where the serpent was, where they’re going to be tempted, and even put a tree there to be the object of temptation. It’s clear God intended for us to be tested, and we are. Jesus was tested by the devil, the Bible says. And we all are tested by the devil. That’s what the word temptation means, is testing. So if God wants, if there’s a purpose for us being tested, and there clearly must be, then why wouldn’t God make a tester? He might. Or he might make an angel who then became wicked and then use him as a tester. It could go either way. God is certainly free to do what he wants to, and nobody can tell him he has to do something different. But he doesn’t tell us. He doesn’t tell us anything really about the origin of Satan, except we know he must be a creation of God originally because otherwise he would not be answerable to God. If Satan had some independent existence apart from God, God wouldn’t have any real authority to tell him what to do or to discipline him or anything like that. So, I mean, everyone believes the saints are a creation of God, at least everyone who’s not a, you know, what should we say, a pantheist or something. All right. Nelson from Fort Worth, Texas. Welcome. You’re our last caller. We have a few minutes. But you have to be on the phone. Nelson, are you there? Well, that’s too bad that our last caller just isn’t at the phone. My guess is that Nelson is somewhere else listening to his radio. Yes. Okay, you’re back. Thank you. You used up some of our time by not being on your phone. But go ahead and tell me what your question is.
SPEAKER 04 :
Quick question. On 2 Corinthians 11.14, could you give an analysis of that? And I’ll hang up and listen.
SPEAKER 02 :
2 Corinthians 11.14. Okay, before you hang up, okay, it says, No wonder Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Are you wondering if that says he is an angel of light or once was or something?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, Evangelist Billy Graham really went overboard in the 70s when he was saying an Old Testament quotation, How art thou fallen, Lucifer, son of the morning star?
SPEAKER 02 :
No, he wasn’t going overboard. He was just saying what Christians have usually believed. I don’t agree with that interpretation. He was quoting Isaiah 14 in that case. Now, one of the things people sometimes use to suggest that Satan was an angel is this statement Paul made. It says, But then the next verse says, therefore, it’s no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness. So he’s saying Satan’s ministers, you know, imitate or represent themselves as ministers of righteousness, just like Satan does. He represents himself as an angel of light. Now, of course, Satan’s ministers are not ministers of righteousness, and Satan is not an angel of light. He’s saying, Watch out for these false ministers, because just like Satan tries to convince you that he’s an angel of light, so they try to convince you that they are ministers of righteousness, and they’re not. And Satan isn’t. So, yeah, he’s not saying anything about the origin of Satan here. He’s just saying that Satan, as part of his deceptive strategies, sometimes will disguise himself as something good instead of what he really is. And that’s what his servants, his ministers will do, too. They’ll pretend to be something they’re not. I appreciate your call. I’m out of time. I’m glad we got it in. You’ve been listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. We’re listener supported. If you’d like to help us, you can write to the Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
