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In this insightful episode, host Steve Gregg delves into a complex discussion about the nature of Jesus Christ, defining…
Join Steve Gregg in another thought-provoking episode of The Narrow Path where he delves deep into the challenging questions about hell, offering insights from his book ‘Why Hell?’ as he examines different theological perspectives. Through live interactions, callers pose complex theological dilemmas, leading to a rich dialogue on biblical interpretations and controversies.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
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. The reason we have a live broadcast is so we can interact and you can interact with me in real time on the air. If you wish to call in with any questions about the Bible or the Christian to discuss together or objections, problems, disagreements you have with either the Bible or with myself, feel free to give me a call. but not right this moment. Our lines are full, but throughout the program, lines continue to open up. Call randomly, not immediately, but in a few minutes, and you will probably find a line or two have opened up. The number is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. Tomorrow morning, In Temecula, there is a men’s Bible study, if you live in Southern California, where I live. Temecula, 8 o’clock tomorrow morning, a men’s Bible study in 1 Timothy chapter 6. We’ve been doing this for years and years, but it only happens once a month. That’s why it takes years and years to get through. We started with Romans, and I haven’t gotten through all of Paul’s epistles yet. Anyway, that’s tomorrow morning at 8 for men who are in the area and wish to come. The location can be found at our website, the narrow path dot com under announcements and under tomorrow’s date, which is December 20th. And that’s, I think, the only announcement I have to make, except that next March. That’s only really about three months away. Actually, a little less because early March, March 6th, Friday, I’ll be debating. with Joel Richardson. Some of you may be familiar with him. He’s a dispensationalist influencer and teacher and author. He asked me to debate him, which is kind of nice. And so that’s going to happen in Wisconsin. Now, there will be live streaming of it. There will be posting of it afterwards on YouTube. But if you happen to live near Onalaska, is that how you say it? Onalaska? It’s spelled like the words on in Alaska. On Alaska, Wisconsin, that’s where it’s at the first free church, Friday, March 6th in Wisconsin. It’s a big church, and it’ll be a three-hour debate. On the subject of the kingdom of God, specifically, will Jesus establish the Davidic kingdom when he returns, which really spills over into all aspects of the kingdom of God, its timing, its nature, and so forth, and the throne of David. So if you’re interested in those things, put that on your calendar. It’s also posted, I believe, at our website, thenarrowpath.com, under announcements. But that’s not until next March. All right, our line’s being full. We’ll go directly to talk to Thomas in San Francisco, California. Hi, Thomas. Welcome. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi, Steve. Hi, Steve. Complex two-part question. I’ll simplify as best I can. What is your understanding of the following regarding, first, why the lost are condemned to hell forever after death, and Second, their state of being in hell. Are they being punished because none, many, some, or perhaps only one of their sins in their lifetimes on earth were not forgiven? And then, do they continue their rebellion against God in the next world, or do they finally stop sinning and are only punished forever for the sin or sins they committed in this life that they were not forgiven for?
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. Well, that’s a good topic. And I will tell you, because it’s such a big topic, I actually wrote a book back in 2013, which was revised and re-released a couple of years ago, called Why Hell? And it goes over the three different views of hell. And the reason I do, by the way, I don’t advocate any one of them, simply because they all have, first of all, a pedigree of church fathers believing them. They all have some scriptural support, and they all have their own internal logic about them. And one of those views is that people go to hell, and there they are consciously tormented forever and ever without relief ever in history, I mean in infinity, in eternity. The second view is, is that people may be punished proportionately in hell, proportionate to what they deserve. Certainly not everyone deserves the same punishment, and therefore they will receive proportionate punishment, and then they will be extinguished, so they suffer no more. They don’t exist anymore. They neither end up in heaven nor in hell in eternity. They experience what they deserve to experience, and then they are snuffed. That’s the second view. And the third view is that hell is actually a place where God continues to pursue the souls that have not been converted in this life, and he still seeks to win them over. And some church fathers, like Origen and Clement of Alexandria, actually believe that eventually, because God’s not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance, eventually all people, even in hell, will someday repent and turn to Christ and be saved through him, which continues the evangelical theme that no one is saved except through Christ. For example, nobody is saved through other religions or just by being good. Anyone who is saved would be saved by Christ, but some would be saved by Christ belatedly because they come to Christ only after they’ve died. Those three views… were all promoted by major church fathers in the first three centuries of the church around the same time. All of these views were considered within the pale of orthodoxy at the time, and each of them had their advocates among sterling fathers of the church who are very famous and admired to this day. So these three views of hell all exist. Now, you ask me, you know, why do people go to hell and so forth? Well, that’s a good question. The answer would be different depending on which of those views is correct. Now, in my book, Why Hell?, I actually consider all the arguments for each view as well as all the arguments that are usually raised against each view. I give very even-handed treatment for the most part, I think, and I also admit several times I don’t know which one is correct. Because the biblical evidence really is ambiguous. But if eternal torment, eternal conscious torment, if that’s what hell is, then the only purpose for it could be that God wanted to torment people forever and ever rather than give them any relief. which suggests that he’s got an inextinguishable wrath toward man. And one could also argue hatred toward man. Why would you do such things to people unless you hated them, who have rejected him in this life? Many people in modern times, but also in the early centuries of the church, believed that this was not a very good portrayal of God’s character. that actually the Bible portrays God as a loving God toward his enemies as well as his friends and desiring all to be saved. Yet some have always argued that there are people that will never be saved. So instead of tormenting them in eternal vindictiveness toward them, God will simply give them a just punishment and then they’ll be extinguished. The wages of sin, they say, is death. And that’s what they get, death or cease to exist. So if that is true, the purpose of hell is not to ventilate an unending wrath of God towards sin, but it’s simply to rid the universe. of people who won’t reconcile with God. I’ve read the universe of those who continue in sin to their death. And so the universe will then be cleared of sinners. Now, this would not be so, of course, if the first view, if the eternal conscious Torah view is true, many people believe that those in hell will continue in their rebellion forever and ever, which means that God never will have a universe where free from sin. He’ll just marginalize the ongoing sin that goes on for eternity into some region that we don’t have to know about or think about it. But the second view would be that God eventually does do away with all sin. Eventually, when he annihilates or extinguishes those who have not been saved, they don’t exist anymore. They don’t sin anymore. And therefore, the universe is free from sin. It’s been redeemed from all sin by that. Now, the third view is that, yeah, God will eventually have a universe without sin, not because he annihilates everyone who has been, you know, reluctant to accept him, but he keeps working on them. He eventually restores them. He eventually brings them to repentance, just like you and I have been brought to repentance so that he will do it with everyone because he wants that for everyone. And on that view, of course, the purpose of hell is rehab or restoration. So when you say, well, what’s the purpose of hell? Well, it depends. It depends on what hell is. If you want to examine those options more thoroughly, I have lectures you can get for free on my website or you can get my book from Amazon. which isn’t free from Amazon. But my book is called Why Hell? You can find it on Amazon. Look up my name, Steve Gregg. You’ll see the book on hell as well as my other books. Or you can just listen to my lectures free at thenarrowpath.com under Topical Lectures. There’s a set that’s called Three Views of Hell. It’s two lectures. And so I’d recommend that, thenarrowpath.com under Topical Lectures. You’ll find that. And by the way, I don’t mention my books all the time, and I certainly don’t sell my books. You can’t buy them from me because I won’t sell them. But with Christmas coming up, and I know a lot of people are wondering what to get for their friends or their pastors. Some of my books may be good for your pastors. I mean, I believe the books are good, judging from the reviews. But I have a book comparing the four views of Revelation. in a very even-handed way. I have a view comparing to Three Views of Hell, a book on the Three Views of Hell I just mentioned called Why Hell. I also have a two-volume set on the Kingdom of God, the most important and central subject in the Bible and certainly in the Gospel itself. And that set is called Empire of the Risen Son, books one and two. Those are books that your pastor might benefit from or that any studious Christian friend of yours or even someone who’s not a Christian but curious about that subject, because I think reading those books would be even helpful to a person who’s not yet a believer. It might help to remove some of the things that are obstacles to their belief. Let’s talk to Clint from Grenada, Mississippi. Hi, Clint. Welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, Steve. Me and my wife have been doing a Bible study on Luke, usually verse by verse, on the Neuropath website. Great. I know you said the parable of the unjust steward in chapter 16 has always been a challenge for maybe you and others to understand. You know, just a challenge period. But my wife thought about it and came up with a view on it that could be a possible theory, you know. Okay. We haven’t quite heard you explain it this way. And we even got on Matthew 7.13 and used the search engine to make sure. And I just want to run it by you. Sure. So, verse 8. Yeah, chapter 16, verse 8. So, the master commended the unjust steward because he dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. And I say to you, make friends for yourself by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they might receive you into an everlasting home. Okay, so, you know how Jesus was always real witty and You know, sometimes slightly sarcastic even maybe, you know. You know, doing the top herblies and parables. True. Could not be saying it like this. Could not be saying like, could not be saying like, okay, I see what you did. You pulled one over on me. You know, the master saying, you pulled one over on me now. I’m going to let you get away with it for now. I’m going to let you get away with it. And you just enjoy getting up your hand on me while it lasts. But your judgment is coming in the end. You know, because of your shy CDs. And you won’t enjoy what you have to spend the rest of eternity, you know. That’s how we kind of, and my wife ran that by me. And now I can’t, and it really clicks. Now I can’t see it any other way now. I was just going to see what you thought about that. You know, that interpretation of that scripture. It seems like the before and after verses kind of back that up, you know.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, yeah, I mean, I’m going to add that to the list of possible meanings. Let me just say, for the sake of whatever listeners are not familiar with the passage, there is a passage, a parable of Jesus that is somewhat troublesome to many people, and it’s not the easiest in the world to understand. Jesus tells about a man who was a steward of a rich fellow, but he had wasted his master’s goods instead of investing them profitably for his masters. And therefore, he wasn’t a very good manager of the stuff. So his master gave him walking papers. But not immediately. He said, you’ve got to, you know, he didn’t say how long, but probably a few days to draw up your accounts and turn them in. How about you hand in your books? You’re fired. Empty your desk. And the guy was thinking, okay, I’m going to be fired, you know, soon. what will I do for a living after that? And so what he did, since he still had the authority to do so, because he wasn’t actually fired yet, he would have been given notice that he would be, he used his opportunities to make friends with people who owed his master money, because as a steward, that’s the kind of business he did for his master. And he settled the accounts with several debtors, in favor of the debtors, gave them a discount. Let’s see here, we’ll just call it even if you give me this much instead of what you owe, in other words, give me the portion of it that I’m asking for instead of the whole amount, we’ll clear the account. Well, that indebted those people to him because he did them a favor. He knew he was going to be fired. And he’s going to need somewhere to go. And so he figured, okay, these people will be favorably disposed toward me and will receive me. I don’t know if he’s thinking of them receiving him as a guest in their home so much or employing me, you know, when I need employment. In any case, the master, you’d think the master would be upset because this steward had done this. But his master was more amused. Apparently, the amounts of the discounts didn’t really cripple the master’s finances. It obviously cost him something, but he was more amused at the cleverness and the shrewdness of the steward making these deals. for himself more than he was put out by whatever it cost him. And he kind of just committed for it. Now, Jesus said, now he says, now here’s what I say. Use the mammon of unrighteousness to make friends for yourself who will receive you into heavenly habitations. Or he didn’t say heavenly, he said eternal habitations when the money’s gone. Now, what I’ve suggested is that the Christian or the human being in this life is in that position that the steward was in. He’s going to be fired. He’s not going to be able to be a manager of God’s stuff forever. He’s going to die someday. We’ve got limited time to act. And we should act wisely in such a way that when our ticket is canceled, we will be going to everlasting habitations with the people that we have befriended in this situation. And, of course, it’s not exactly parallel, but it is kind of parallel in that the steward knew that he had limited opportunity, limited time, to do what would set him up long term. And that’s kind of the position we’re in. Now, you’re saying that the master was saying to him, well, okay, enjoy it while you can because you’re going to suffer for it later. Well, maybe, although I don’t see anything mentioned here about suffering. I don’t see the servant suffering later. I don’t see a judgment. And in the parable, the master was not really in a position, since he was a human master in the parable, he wasn’t in the position to threaten post-mortem punishments. Now, God can, but the master in the parable was represented as a normal man who had a manager he was dealing with. Now, Jesus does not mention the judgment so much as the conclusion of the parable, so much as the wisdom of In preparing with what little time we have for an eternal future. So, you know, it may be that there is a subtext of what you were saying that the master knew this man would have to answer for his deeds in the next life. And I’m not going to say the master didn’t know that, but I don’t see a reference to it overtly. But I’m not going to say you’re wrong. I’m just going to say this is a difficult parable. Many people have promoted various ideas about it. So I’m going to, you know, I’m not going to try to refute that. I appreciate your call, brother. Thanks for sharing that. Okay, John in Kent, Washington. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hey, Steve, I just have a quick question about the elect in Romans 11. And a few times I’ve mentioned in Matthew 24 about the elect. I was both times referring to the remnant. And is remnant like a better way to describe who the elect are versus the way they view it from a Calvinist perspective? And I’ll take your answer off the air. Thanks.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. Sure. Now, the elect, of course, the word elect means chosen. In the context of the two places you mentioned, Matthew 24 and Romans 11, both of those places are talking about the elect, that is, the remnant of the Jews, the believing remnant of the Jews. In Romans 9 through 11, Paul is, of course, talking about the fact that many of the Jews are not saved because they don’t receive Messiah, although God and Paul would like very much that they were. Paul said he’d be willing to give up his salvation if it would help. them be saved. So he had no animosity toward them. He just wished for their well-being. But they didn’t like him much. And they sought to kill him, and he wished they would find Christ. But he said there are a remnant of Jews who have. If you’re wondering how it is that God could have the Jews, his chosen people, totally cast away from him, Paul’s saying, well, he hasn’t. He hasn’t had them all cast away from him. He says, I’m a Jew. And I’m a Christian. In other words, he’s saying not all the Jews have rejected Christ. I’m an example, he says. And he says in Romans 11.5, even so then, at this present time, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. Now, the remnant means a small number. It’s a word that comes from the Old Testament. There’s many references to the remnant in the Old Testament, which refers to that smaller portion of the Jewish population that were really faithful to God, as opposed to the ones that were worshiping Baal and and ignoring God’s laws. And Paul, earlier in this discussion, in Romans 9, 27, had quoted Isaiah, which is Isaiah chapter 10, I think it’s verse 22, if I’m not mistaken, where it says that though the children of Israel be as numerous as the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved. Meaning, again, only a small number. of the Jewish race will be saved, and they are the ones, Paul says, who are their elect according to the, well, he says their remnant according to the election of grace. Two verses after that in Romans 11, 7, he says, what then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks. By that, he means the majority of the Jews. But the elect have obtained it, and the rest were hardened. So the elect is a reference to the remnant there. He’d mentioned two verses earlier. Most Jews have not received what they were seeking, but the elect ones, the remnant have. So, yes, it’s obvious that the elect there does refer to, you know, the believing Jews of his day like himself. Now, the other mention you referred to is in chapter 24, where Paul said, I mean, excuse me, Jesus said, verse 22, he said, unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved. But for the elect’s sake, those days will be shortened. Now, the elect here refers to the ones who are preserved at the time of trial that Jesus is describing. That time of trial, if you read earlier in the chapter, is when the temple was destroyed in A.D. 70, when not one stone was left standing on another, which is what Jesus predicted at the beginning of the chapter. And the disciples asked, when will that be? That’s what he’s discussing. And so… Jews were wiped out by the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, during that war and that Holocaust. But the Jewish believers escaped. And they were, you know, the time was shortened for them because they got out early. And that’s what I believe it’s referred to. So, yes, the elect in those two passages does refer to the believing Jews, particularly the believing Jews of that time, of the first generation of Christians, the Jews among them. Although, of course, there are still believing Jews and Gentiles, and they would still be the elect. Now, you mentioned Calvin’s idea of the elect. Calvin’s idea of the elect is, at least Calvinism’s, is the idea that there are some people that God, Jew and Gentile, that God chose before the foundation of the world to get saved. And if you’re not of that number, you can’t get saved and won’t. If you are of that number, you inevitably will get saved. because God’s sovereign election has determined it. So on this view, which is Calvin’s view, it’s really Augustine’s, Calvin got it from Augustine. On that view, election refers to something God, a decision God made before the world began, knowing all who would be born and live and die, In the future, he chose to save some of them. Their names, he wrote in a book, and their number cannot be added to or subtracted from. It’s a set number, set before the beginning of the world. And therefore, each of us, when born, are destined to be in one group or the other, according to Calvin. And if you were born not one of the elect, then there’s no possibility of you coming to Christ, because you’re not elect. God didn’t choose you. If you are elect, there’s no possibility of you not coming to Christ because God chose. Now, by the way, this was not a biblical doctrine. This is why no theologian ever saw it before Augustine. And Augustine, by the way, couldn’t read Greek. And that’s quite a handicap because he was talking about the New Testament. And the New Testament was written in Greek. Augustine read Latin. He could not read Greek. And it’s interesting that the church fathers before him Many of them were native Greek speakers. Their native tongue was the same as that which the New Testament was written in. And for 300 years or more, no one reading the New Testament ever saw such doctrines in it. And I don’t read Greek or Latin, but when I read the Bible, even in English, I don’t see those doctrines there. But Augustine invented them, and Calvin repeated them and codified them into Reformed theology. His view is special. He didn’t use the term the way Paul did or Jesus. So, yeah, the two passages you asked about is talking about the saved Jews, the remnant of the Jews who were believers. All right, we’re going to take a break, and we have another half hour coming. We have one line open if someone wants to call. I’m sure it will get filled. The number is 844-484-5737. We’re taking a brief break, and then we’ll have another half hour on the air taking your calls. The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry. If you’d like to help us stay on the air, you can. You can write to us at The Narrow Path, PO Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. You can donate from the website where everything is free. It’s thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away. We’ve got another half hour.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you very much.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible, the Christian faith, or maybe you have a difference of opinion from the host, you want to balance a comment, we would be delighted if you would give us a call. It looks like the one line we had open might be, There may be a caller coming in on that. In that case, you will not get through if you call right this minute. But if you call in a few minutes, you might, because there will be opening lines in the next few minutes sometime. Okay, let’s talk to Greg in Sonoma, California. Hi, Greg. Welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Blessings, Steve. I have a question on Mark chapter 9, verses 49 and 50. Everyone will be salted with fire. Yeah. And salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with each other. So what’s that mean to be salted with fire? Any changes to the other type of salt?
SPEAKER 04 :
This depends on what salt is used to mean. Salt was sometimes used as a disinfectant. It was put into wounds before they had the kinds of medicines we have. That’s why, well, people would sometimes rub salt in wounds to basically kill germs, I guess, or to help healing. And therefore, seeing salt as a disinfecting agent to say people will be salted with fire. seems to indicate that there will be fire used in some way as a disinfectant. Now, he’s been talking about the fire Gehenna in the previous verses. Just before these verses, he has said three times, it’s better to be dismembered in some respect, and to end up in life, or he says, or in the kingdom of God, in one case he says, then to remain totally intact and end up in Gehenna, in the fire. Now, most people understand Gehenna to mean hell. That’s how it’s usually translated. So, some think that this is a statement about hell. And that hell, remember I was talking about the three views of hell earlier. There are some who believe that hell is a place of purification. And that what he’s saying is that, you know, when people go into Gehenna, it’ll be a purging. Like salt cleanses or purges or disinfects. And he says everyone will be seasoned with fire and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. seasoned or salted with fire, which suggests that they’re being purged of sin. Now, I don’t necessarily take that view. It is one view that makes sense of the passage in this context. We could argue that it’s saying that the purging of Israel that was coming in the Holocaust I mentioned earlier, which came in 70 AD, would be a fiery judgment against that would also salt or purge or cleanse or disinfect Israel, leaving only the pure remnant behind. But it is a hard passage. I mean, commentaries really wrestle with it, and I do too. I mean, it’s not the easiest one to know. It’s a little bit like that unjust steward one. There are certain passages that from the beginning of my ministry to this, and that’s been 55 years, I’ve always found it kind of hard to know exactly what that means. And in every case, there’s more than one possible meaning that people suggest. But it’s not clear. There was a Talmudic maxim, which is the Pharisees and the rabbis. were Talmudic Jews that said the world cannot survive without salt. So, you know, some people think that salt, therefore, you know, speaks of that which preserves the world or disinfects the world so that it continues. But the reference to salting with fire is hard to understand, except in the context that he’s just been talking about the fires of Gehenna. Three times he’s mentioned better to be without your eye, better to be without your hand, better to be without your foot than to have all those things and be thrown into the fires of Gehenna. You know, so it is thought by some that this talk about hell as a purgative situation, though most Christians don’t believe that these days. And so it could be purging the nation of its dross or or could have another meaning. But it’s very difficult to know what Jesus meant there.
SPEAKER 05 :
Steve?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 05 :
Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with each other. I look at it as being preserved by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, that could be. And the fact that he says have salt in yourselves and be at peace, Paul seems to have that passage in mind, although he doesn’t expound on it. But in Colossians 4.6, Paul said… Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how to answer one another. So it’s not clear even what he means by having your speech seasoned with salt. But it sounds like it’s similar to having salt in yourselves and being at peace with one another. So it’s a strange metaphor, apparently. And it’s not one of the clearest ones that we find in Scripture, either in Jesus’ teaching or in Paul’s when he uses it. I appreciate your suggestion. God bless you. Thanks for your call. Okay, let’s see here. We’ve got Polly in Putnam, Connecticut. Polly, welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi there, Steve. Thank you very much. I’ve been on a journey studying Calvinism versus free will or provisionism, some call it. And there are a few gotcha verses that are, you know, they use… Here’s one that I’d like you to explain. The wedding feast where the king brought in the guests. This is Matthew 22, 14. For many are called, but few are chosen. Could you delve into that verse?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, of course I can. And before I do, I just want you to know, you say they have a few verses they use. They use lots of verses. The Calvinists have lots of verses they use. I’ve read their books. I’ve debated them. I’ve made a list of the verses that they use to support their points, and there’s at least like 50 different verses that they use frequently. I just want to say before I answer your question that the verses that they do use, I have dealt with them all in a lecture series at my website called God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Salvation. So after I answer your question here, you might want to go to our website, thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 04 :
And there’s a tab that says Topical Lectures. Find the series that’s called God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Salvation. And I deal in a series of lectures with all of the Calvinist texts. I point out the argument they make from the text. Then I talk about the context of the passage. And then I give what I believe is a more responsible way of looking at it. So that will interest you if you are delving into this controversy between Calvinism and historic Christianity. But… Anyway, in terms of the parable you’re talking about, Jesus said a king invited his friends to his son’s wedding. His friends put him off with excuses. The king got angry and sent out his armies and burned down their city, which represents, of course, God inviting the Jews, his friends, his previous people from the Old Testament times. He invited them to… to come into the kingdom of god to to participate in the celebration of the messiah and most of them did not and it angered him and he sent his armies and burned up their city that happened jerusalem was destroyed in 70 a.d as an act of god’s wrath but then the king wasn’t finished he he told his service to go out into the whole world about the highways and byways referred to the the roads that lead to foreign lands, go out that way and bring anyone into the wedding you can persuade to. And it says, and they did. And the wedding was full of guests. Now, these would not be Jews, mostly. These must be Gentiles because these were brought in from these faraway places. So after Israel rejected Christ, the nation, officially, and Jerusalem was destroyed, The message goes out almost entirely to Gentiles, and a lot of them come in. So the wedding is furnished with guests. But then the king comes to evaluate and assess the guests. Now, this, I believe, refers to the final judgment. God judged the Jews in 70 AD. He’s going to judge the Gentile people who came into the church when he returns. So the king himself comes. He finds among those who have come to the wedding, those who have responded to the gospel, those who have come into the church, someone who’s not in a wedding garment. Now, there’s a lot of people who want to equate the wedding garment with something or another, with the gospel or something, or imputed righteousness. But this was not explained that way. What it would mean to the disciples and the hearers is that this man had not come appropriately attired. He had responded to the invitation, but he did not come with any reverence or respect to the occasion or to the king. He came on his own terms. wearing what he wanted to wear instead of wearing what he knew the king would wish to have worn to his son’s wedding. So this is a reference to someone who came, responded to the gospel in some sense. They came into the church, but they didn’t come on God’s terms. They came on their own terms. And so, as it turns out at the judgment, they are thrown out. And after this man is thrown out into outer darkness, we are told, for many are called, but few are chosen. Now, everybody had been called, that is, invited to the wedding feast. Invited, the word called means invited in this case. Like in Revelation 19, blessed are those who are called to the wedding feast of the Lamb means invited. So all the people in the parable had been invited. The Jews who rejected the invitation, Gentiles, some of them who accepted it on good terms, others not. And he’s saying, okay, all these people were called. And all of them actually responded in one way, favorably or not, to the call. But only some of them are chosen in the sense that the king chooses to retain those guests who have come on his terms. The ones who have not come on his terms are cast out. So the chosen in the New Testament refers to the body of Christ. It refers to those who are incorporated in Christ. He is the chosen one. We are chosen by being in him. And so those who are allowed to continue in the wedding feast after the purging of those who came on the wrong terms, they are the ones who are chosen. So he’s basically saying God, of course, has chosen a people just as he chose Israel in the Old Testament to be a people chosen. that he would use to be the people, to be his team to accomplish his purposes. So the people he chooses to do that now are those who have come to Christ and come on God’s terms. Those who came or responded but didn’t come on God’s terms, they’re not among them. So chosen simply is a reference, I think, to those who are in Christ, those who are converted, those who are in the church, the true church, the body of Christ.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. Now, if you say there are 50 verses that Calvinists use, that’s a very small number compared to the whole narrative of the whole Bible.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, of course, you’re right.
SPEAKER 06 :
Choose this day who you will serve all through the Bible.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, yes. In fact, there have to be hundreds if not thousands of verses in the Bible that would seem to go against the Calvinist narrative. For example, every time God in the prophets or Jesus or Paul says, or in the book of Hebrews, or in the Revelation, every time God expresses disappointment with people’s unbelief, with their failure to grow, with their behavior in general, whenever God expresses disappointment, it means he did not foreordain it. The Calvinist view is that God has foreordained all that comes to pass. Everything that happens was predestined by God. He could have predestined something else to happen had he wanted to, but everything that happens is exactly what he wanted to happen, including sin, including everything. Now, if that’s true, then there’d be no occasion for God to be disappointed because nothing happens except what he determined would happen, and nothing could go against what he determined to happen. It’s inevitable. So every time God complains, and he’s doing so from Genesis through Revelation, he’s complaining about people’s choices and behaviors. Every verse that he does so, and there’s got to be thousands of them, it proves that God did not foreordain what these people did. He was upset, angry. He’s going to punish them for it. The fact that they’re punished means they’re responsible. The fact that they’re responsible means they were capable of doing something different.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you, Steve.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, Polly, good talking to you. God bless you, too. All right. Let’s talk to Barbara from Roseville, Michigan. Hi, Barbara.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, hi, Steve. Thank you for taking my call. You know, yesterday you had someone talking, you were both talking about letting the sun go down on your wrath and anger, and you were saying that it was the same thing. But I wanted to clarify something. Wrath is different than anger. Wrath is anger with a desire to want to do violence and bodily harm, maybe substituted with rage, and that’s why he said don’t let the sun go down. on your wrath because you could kill your spouse if they’ve done something.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I personally think that if wrath means what you say it means, then letting the sun go down your wrath, which means don’t hold on to it, isn’t good enough. You should never have that kind of wrath. You should never have the kind of anger that wants to do bodily harm to somebody else. Now, you might believe that they deserve bodily harm, but if you have the Spirit of Christ in you, you do not desire for anyone to suffer. I mean, Jesus knew that Jerusalem deserved everything they were going to get when the Romans would destroy them, but he wept over it and said, I wish that wasn’t true. I don’t want that to happen to you. And again, Paul says, He had great compassion on the Jews who didn’t receive Christ and would have made any sacrifice himself to see them saved, though he knew they deserved and would get punishment for their rejection of the Messiah. So I don’t think there’s ever a place in a Christian’s life for any form of anger that is attached to a desire or finding pleasure in somebody suffering harm. And I’m not really sure that the difference between anger and wrath in the Bible is what you’re saying. I’ve never discovered it to be so in the passages I’ve read. Maybe as you read it in English, maybe in your usage, anger and wrath might have those different connotations. I don’t think that would be borne out in the Greek text. But I hear you, and I appreciate you for sharing your thoughts. Kukui in Bonners Ferry, Idaho. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hi, Steve. Hi.
SPEAKER 04 :
Cold up there?
SPEAKER 10 :
Are you there?
SPEAKER 04 :
Is it cold up there?
SPEAKER 10 :
It’s about 42 degrees.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, that’s not bad. You’re up near the Canadian border, aren’t you?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yep, about 30 miles away. Yeah, welcome. Thank you. My question is, Revelation chapter 11, verse 19, it talks about heaven opening and seeing the temple and the art of his testimony, what do you think that testimony is that he’s talking about?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, in Revelation, the word testimony is used very, very frequently. from Chapter 1 all the way through Chapter 22, if you get a concordance lookup, the word witness or testimony, which are kind of the same idea. A witness is someone who bears testimony. So a witness is the person, and the testimony is what they say. They give testimony. These two words are extremely prominent words. in the book of Revelation, and it seems to almost always refer to the gospel. The testimony of the church is the gospel. In fact, John says in chapter 1, I, John, your brother, was on the island of Patmos for the testimony of Jesus Christ, meaning for preaching the gospel. And so there’s lots of references to the testimony, including here the Ark of the Testament. I think the Ark here that is seen in heaven is, well, first of all, another thing. Throughout Revelation, you see different articles of the tabernacle in heaven. You see a lampstand. You see a golden altar where incense is offered. You see apparently an altar of sacrifice where the souls of the martyrs are. You see the Ark of the Covenant here. These are different items from the tabernacle. And you’ll remember when Moses built the tabernacle, God gave him a pattern and told him, Make sure you make everything exactly according to the pattern that I showed you when you’re on the mountain. That is a heavenly prototype which exists in heaven. In Hebrews, it suggests that Jesus, when he ascended, went into the Holy of Holies in heaven and sprinkled his blood there as a high priest does on Yom Kippur in the Jewish faith. Now, The Ark of the Covenant was in the Holy of Holies. And I believe that John in Revelation, because he’s caught in heaven, sees sort of this heavenly prototype that Moses was told to make a copy of on earth. And therefore he sees the Ark. Now the Ark, why is it mentioned here? Well, the main purpose of the Ark is to speak of God’s presence here. but it was also where atonement was made, the sprinkling of blood. Now, Hebrews chapter 9 indicates that Jesus sprinkled his own blood in the Holy of Holies, which, given the parallels to the tabernacle, means on the Ark of the Covenant, on the mercy seat, which was on top of the Ark of the Covenant. Here, there’s not a specific reference to the atonement, but the Ark represented the presence of God among his people. So I just think this is a passing vision that suggests that John sees a reminder that God is present with his people. And there’s just before it. the seventh trumpet has sounded. And when it sounds, it looks like it’s the end of the world and the time of judgment. Because when it did, the hosts of heaven are singing, and they say, We give thanks to you, O Lord God of Israel, the one who is and was to come, and so forth. Because you’ve taken your great power and reign. The nations were angry. Your wrath has come. The time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that you should reward your servants, the prophets and saints, those who fear your name, small and great. and should destroy those who destroy the earth. So this looks like it’s the final judgment. I think it is. And with the judgment being described in these terms, it may be that the reason that he sees the Ark of the Covenant, which represents God’s presence in the midst of his people, is that judgment time is a frightening thing. If God’s going to reward everyone for their deeds and punish those who destroy the earth and stuff… It’s reassuring to the Christians to know that God still has retained his place among them. They are still his habitation. He still dwells in their midst. The Ark of the Covenant there in heaven might be a reminder of that. He doesn’t really give any indication of the significance of this vision. Sometimes in Revelation, a vision is given then an angel or someone will give a description of its meaning. There’s no such meaning given here. So we simply have to say, well, what’s To what purpose does he show him the ark here in heaven? And I think in the context of the final judgment, I think it’s a reassurance to the believers that God is still in their midst, despite the cataclysmic things that are going on around them. I appreciate your call. Let’s talk to Jimmy in Staten Island, New York. Jimmy, welcome.
SPEAKER 09 :
I’m on speakerphone. Is that okay?
SPEAKER 04 :
It sounds okay at the moment.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. Purpose of my call. I usually donate to my charities at the end of the year. And last year, and it’s a lot of work. You’ve got to find out who’s taking a $300,000 salary and what. Right. But at the end of last year, after I was done, I figured, wow, you don’t take a salary, and the people that work with you don’t take a salary. Let me ask you, and you were gracious enough to share your charities with me, and I would like to put them – Out there for other people that are looking for a good charity, do you mind?
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. What he’s referring to is that Jimmy asked me earlier sometime, I don’t know how long ago, what charities I personally trust to give to. And as you say, many charities are doing very good work, but lots of times their staff are highly salaried. And you mentioned $300 a year. I think that many of the larger charities… It’s more commonplace for the CEO to get $400,000 or $500,000 a year salaries, which I always think is strange. Why do I want to donate to a group that uses a half a million bucks just to pay their leaders to run the organization when, obviously, if the leader believes in their work, He should live on a more modest salary and let more money go to the poor or whatever. Anyway, you’re right. Nobody at the narrow path ever receives a salary or any pay at all. And there are other ministries, too. And you had some you wanted to suggest, right?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes. Well, you recommended them to me, and they look pretty good. I checked them out. One is Shepherd’s Heart International. Yes. One is International Christian Responses. One is unreached villages. Those are the three that you think very highly of. And there’s three more. Would you like me to give them?
SPEAKER 04 :
Sure. Now, you mentioned Unreached Villages, International Christian Response, and the first one was Shepherd’s Heart International. And by the way, one of the leaders of Shepherd’s Heart International on the board of directors is our accountant. She lives in Tennessee, and she voluntarily does all of our bookkeeping as well as that for Shepherd’s Heart. She does good work.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. There’s three more. Food for the Poor.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 09 :
Mercy Shifts. Mercy Ships and Global Christian Reliefs.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, I like all those ministries. They are among those that do give pretty big salaries to their main guys, but they also channel millions and millions of dollars to the poor in a positive way. So I do give to them as well.
SPEAKER 09 :
I appreciate the sharing with me, and I hope other people take note of that. If I may, regarding annihilation, just a thought, an insight. If annihilation is true, then that would mean Jesus’ death had to be equitable, and that would have meant that Jesus the man would have been annihilated, and that can’t be true.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it would mean that he was dead. You see, the word annihilation isn’t always attached to that view. Some people call it annihilationism. It’s usually called conditional immortality. That’s a more descriptive thing. The idea is that people are not immortal by nature, but they can be conditionally upon coming to Christ. If you’re in Christ, you receive and participate in his immortality, and therefore you have immortality conditional upon your relationship with Christ, and otherwise you don’t. In other words, the weights of sin is death, but Christ saves us from that penalty and gives us immortality. Now, the fact that the weights of sin is death, Jesus did die, and that is the penalty for death. The idea that the penalty for sin is eternal conscious torment is, is that which would seem to render Christ’s death not equitable because he didn’t spend eternity those three days. He didn’t spend eternity being tormented and so forth. So in my opinion, although I don’t have a decision I’ve made about which view is correct, that particular argument works more against the traditional view of eternal conscious torment than against the idea that Jesus died and death is the wages of sin, so he paid the wages by death. Anyway, I appreciate your call. We’re out of time for today’s program and for this week also. Feel free to call next week if you want and listen in. We’re on Monday through Friday at this time. Again, at the end of the year, we’re looking at our expenses and which stations we can afford to stay on next year. This is the time of year we make those decisions. If you’d like to help us stay on the air where you are or on stations maybe you don’t listen to, but you’re glad we’re on there, like New York and places like that where we were just talking to. you can write to us at The Narrow Path, PO Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or you can donate at our website, thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us. Have a good weekend. Let’s talk again tomorrow. I mean, Monday.