This special “Best of” edition of The Narrow Path brings together standout listener calls covering core Bible and theology questions—fast-moving, thoughtful, and practical.
You’ll hear a deep dive into dispensationalism: where it came from, how Darby and Scofield framed the system, and why some versions treat Jesus’ kingdom teachings—like the Sermon on the Mount—as “for another age.” The discussion touches on Calvary Chapel history and how these ideas did (or didn’t) show up in everyday church teaching.
The episode also tackles difficult church-history and doctrine topics: the Spanish Inquisition and how coercion, power, and “religious monopoly” shaped medieval Europe; and the
SPEAKER 07 :
This is the best of the Narrow Path Radio broadcast. The following is pre-recorded.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Program, hosted by Steve Gray. Steve is not in the studio today, so calls from listeners will not be able to be taken. In the place of the usual format, we’ve put together some of the best calls from past programs. They cover a variety of topics important to anyone interested in the Bible and Christianity. In addition to the radio program, The Narrow Path has a website you can go to, www.thenarrowpath.com, where you can find hundreds of resources that can all be downloaded for free. And now, please enjoy this special collection of calls to Steve Gray and The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sandy from San Jose is our first caller today. Sandy, you got in right at the front again. Welcome.
SPEAKER 12 :
I got lucky. I called early. So, hey, just a real quick note. The reason I’m even listening to your podcast is because someone had recommended that book, Your Four Views of Revelation. Found that, found your name, and here I am today after all these years.
SPEAKER 03 :
How many years ago was that? How long ago was that?
SPEAKER 12 :
Steve, it’s got to be six or seven years ago is my guess.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, you’ve been calling me. You’ve been calling me almost that long, I think.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, yeah. It was actually through Dumar’s ministry, although I don’t really listen to him anymore, but that’s what kind of got me here. So here I am six or seven years later, all the wiser, I hope, and more humble. Hey, I had a question about dispensationalism. You had said something a week or two ago. I may have misunderstood it, so I looked for clarification. And I think what I heard you say was the dispensationalists believe that In the church age, we are not to be following Christ, or we only follow Christ. You said something like that. I may have totally misunderstood it, that that was only for the people that Jesus was talking to at that time. Did I hear that right, or did I totally miss that?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you got the general idea. According to John Nelson Darby, the inventor of dispensationalism, and C.I. Schofield, one of the biggest promoters of dispensationalism in the Schofield Reference Bible, they made it very clear that the teaching of Jesus, which he gave, for example, in the Sermon on the Mount, the teachings he gave to his disciples, those were supposed to be the ethics of the kingdom of God because Jesus was expecting or offering the kingdom of God to the Jews. Now, because the Jews rejected him, that kingdom offer is said to have been postponed. And it will reemerge at the second coming of Christ. When Jesus comes back, he’ll establish the kingdom during the millennium. This is what dispensationalism teaches. So we live between the time that Jesus’ kingdom offer was rejected by the Jews and the time that he will return and establish the millennial kingdom, they say. This period that we live in is called the dispensation of grace or the dispensation of the church. And they say that during this time, It’s a different dispensation, therefore a different set of rules, a different policy. That if the Jews had accepted Christ, then the kingdom would have been established and the things like the Sermon on the Mount would have been relevant. But because they rejected him, we now are saved by grace. There’s no works involved. And because of that, all the things that Jesus taught about obedience and holiness are really more directly applicable today. to the kingdom age and will be applicable during the millennium, but not now. Now, not all dispensationalists believe this way, and that’s because not all dispensationalists know what dispensationalism teaches. This is what dispensationalism teaches. And anyone can find out for themselves by reading Darby or Schofield or any of the founders of the movement. And there are still dispensationalists who teach this unashamedly. But there are others, let’s say, like me, when I was a dispensationalist, who didn’t know that that was part of the teaching of dispensationalism. So I just assumed that the teaching of Jesus was for me as a Christian. And thankfully I believed that because it is true. But dispensationalism in its purest form doesn’t teach that, does not teach that the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus’ teaching are for us in this day.
SPEAKER 12 :
So therefore, what is a Christian from a dispensationalist, RBS viewpoint supposed to do today? How do we live? What are we supposed to do?
SPEAKER 03 :
Just believe in Jesus and rejoice in your salvation and wait for the coming of the Lord. And, you know, do good works. I mean, most dispensationalists agree that we should do good works, but we shouldn’t think them essential, you know. I mean, there is a world to reach out there. And so telling people about Jesus is something that most of them would say is important. But basically they would say that in many cases, when I say they, you have to realize there’s lots of different dispensationalists that say the same thing. But there are some who would say mainly our task is to get saved by grace and to spread that salvation to others by telling others about the message of grace. And so just getting people to receive the grace of God is pretty much the mission of the church in the view of some people. A lot of dispossessors don’t know that.
SPEAKER 12 :
But that seems to be an underpinning, and the denomination that I no longer belong to, that you knew I used to belong to, and I don’t want to bring up that denomination, they’re steeped in this. And would you say, based on the teaching of the founder of that, that this is sort of his belief?
SPEAKER 03 :
The founder of that denomination? Yes.
SPEAKER 12 :
Let me just put it right out there. With Calvary Chapel, with Chuck Smith, do you think this is one of his core beliefs? I mean, you were under his tutelage for a long time. Would you say Chuck was extreme on that?
SPEAKER 03 :
I sat over Chuck for five years, and there were certain dispensational teachings I don’t remember ever hearing from him. Now, he might have taught them. He might have taught them, and they might have gone over my head because I was a teenager, you know. You know, he taught verse by verse through the whole Bible. And so lots of things probably went over my head. For example, I don’t remember him teaching when I was at Calvary Chapel. I don’t remember him teaching that the temple sacrifices would be restored in the millennium. But I think I heard him teach it later in his life. But I didn’t even know that was part of the dispensational system when I was sitting there in Calvary Chapel. And I don’t know if Chuck was teaching it. If he was, like I said, it went over my head. And I probably would have bailed out of there if I’d heard it, you know.
SPEAKER 12 :
Would he have taught, though, that if you recall, just remembering what you remember, would he have taught that, you know, love Jesus and do good works and love Jesus and it would have stopped there? Would that then, or is that too much of a broad sweep?
SPEAKER 03 :
Chuck had a very strong emphasis on love, which I think is positive. I think there’s a great strength of Calvary Chapel that they emphasize love. Love for God and love for each other. And I think that that’s what Christianity does emphasize. Now, when Chuck taught through the Sermon on the Mount, I’d have to listen to his tapes to remember because it’s been 40 years since I taught it. But all I know is that if Chuck believed… I know Chuck used the Schofield Reference Bible. I mean, he taught from the Schofield Reference Bible and recommended it. And I know what Schofield says about it. So assuming Chuck agreed with Schofield on that, I don’t know for sure, but if he did… then he didn’t emphasize very much, not enough for us Jesus freaks to pick it up. I mean, I don’t remember Chuck ever saying, oh, the Sermon on the Mount is not for us today. This is for the kingdom age when Jesus returns. If he thought that, he never said that. It would have surprised me to hear him say it. But when I was older and I studied dispensational theologians and realized that this is what they taught, I was surprised because I hadn’t heard some of that stuff while I was at Calvary.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, so the last point, and I’ll get off, is I like when you say Darby invented dispensationalism versus like Einstein discovered the theory of relativity. I think there’s a difference there, you know. Well, of course. I like the fact that you make that distinction.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I do now, of course. When I was a dispensationalist and I learned that Darby had innovated the view, I assumed that he had discovered it the same way as Einstein discovered relativity. But, you know, looking back, I can see there’s not enough biblical basis for the view to speak of it that way. Let’s talk to Stephen from Seattle, Washington next. Stephen, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. I’ve got a question. I heard Patrick Dredd on the radio a couple of days ago say that there’s no verses in the New Testament that gives permission for the killing of other people for difference in religious beliefs. I’m sorry, who said that?
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, I don’t know him.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay, go ahead. Okay, gotcha. He said that, he goes, you might be wondering then about the Spanish Inquisition, but he said the Catholic Church had good reason to do that, and I was wondering what their reason is and how they justified what they did.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, yeah, I don’t think they had any good reason to do it. the Catholic Church had a monopoly on the culture of Western Europe. And whenever there were groups that disagreed significantly and showed any evidence of being able to influence others away from Catholic beliefs, the Roman Catholic Church saw them as like a cancer in the body that had to be removed. And the Spanish Inquisition, where they tortured such people, was often seeking to get them to repent and to turn back to the Mother Church. Although, if they didn’t repent, I think killing them was considered to be the last expedient that was necessary. Of course, they were wrong, I believe, in terms of biblical theology. And I would imagine that most Catholics would not think it’s right to do that today. I’m not sure. We live in a time now where we have pluralistic societies. We don’t have any duplication. of the milieu that they had in the Middle Ages, because, like I say, the Roman Catholic Church was the dominant paradigm. And it was a time of monarchies and things like that, so even if the Roman Catholic Church had not been the dominant paradigm, there would be some monarch in every country whose ideas had to prevail, and any disagreement with them would be seen as dangerous. They didn’t in those days have the idea of a free marketplace of ideas in which Christianity had to compete against all other ideas for validity, which I think we have now as an improvement over that. I think some Christians might feel more comfortable in a land where Christianity was mandated by the government, but I don’t think that’s ever a good idea because it’s going to have to be then, well, whose version of Christianity, whose private opinions are going to be mandated, and you lose freedom of thought. It is my conviction… that the truth will always have the best arguments, whether we’re talking about different ideas that Christians hold from each other or different ideas that Christianity teaches contrary to other religions or systems. I think that if Christianity is true, it should have no problem holding its own in an open marketplace of ideas where the pros and cons of different viewpoints are presented. So the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages didn’t think that. They just didn’t have any confidence that their views could stand up in the presence of dissenters. And that’s probably because they couldn’t. I think in many cases the Waldenses and the Hussites and the Luthers and people like that who were dissenting from the Roman Catholic Church had unanswerable reason and logic that was very convincing. And eventually it prevailed in many parts of Europe.
SPEAKER 08 :
And would you say that the reason why they stopped, like, you know, torturing and burning people at the stake and stuff was just because of the fact that they were getting so much bad publicity from doing it?
SPEAKER 03 :
I’m not sure that’d be the way to put it. It seems to me that the reason that they stopped doing that kind of thing was because they lost the power to do it. I don’t know that they ever repented. They might have, but I haven’t heard. I haven’t heard that the Roman Catholic Church ever repented of that behavior or wouldn’t do it again if they could. I just don’t know. But I don’t think they could continue because what happened is after Luther became popular in Germany and the prince of Germany protected Luther against the popes. The popes tried to kill him, but he was protected by the German prince. Well, then we had wars between countries like Germany and other countries that were Catholic. And, you know, the Lutheran ideas spread like crazy through much of Europe. And so whole countries became sympathetic toward Luther, while some remained sympathetic toward the Catholic Church, and they had wars. That is, the Roman Catholic Church would attack to try to bring these Protestants back under the Mother Church. But finding the resistance too strong, the Catholic Church had to kind of give that up eventually. So what they came up with was the Peace of Augsburg, where every country could have its own religion, whatever the prince wanted. They could be Catholic or Protestant. And then, of course, the Enlightenment came, and things like the French Revolution, where the revolutionaries overthrew the Catholic Church in France and so forth, so that it just became less a given than it used to be, that the Pope could have his way with people. You know, I mean, through many of the centuries of the Middle Ages, the Pope would get his way, no matter what. I mean, all the kings were subject to him in Western Europe. But… But eventually, when many of these kings were no longer subject to him, and where he was essentially driven out of some countries, it became impossible then for the Roman Catholic Church to keep their hegemony on the thinking of the people and to enforce it by tortures and so forth.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay. Thank you very much, Steve. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, Stephen. Thanks for your call. Bye now. All right. Eric from Sacramento is our next caller. Hi, Eric.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hi. Sorry about that. I was listening, of course. Hey, I have a question about the atonement and just exactly who Jesus was paying the ransom to. The popular and most common idea is that he’s paying the ransom to the Father to satisfy the Father’s sense of justice, and I’ve recently been hearing that in a study that the early Christians pretty much believe that Jesus paid the ransom to Satan.
SPEAKER 03 :
That is correct, that the early Christians did think that way. I don’t agree with them. For one thing, if a kidnapper steals a person, and charges a ransom before he returns them, and he receives payment of the ransom, well, then who’s the winner? The kidnapper wins because he got what he wanted. He got paid what he wanted to be paid. Now, I don’t believe that we’re supposed to see the ransom that Christ paid as being paid to pay off somebody, neither Satan nor God. I believe that there’s several different metaphors for the atonement in the Bible. Sometimes there’s a courtroom metaphor. Sometimes there’s the ransom metaphor. Sometimes there’s a slave market metaphor. Sometimes there’s other metaphors for what Jesus accomplished. I think each of them is trying to get across a slightly different aspect of what Christ accomplished in the atonement. But I don’t think the idea of a ransom can be pressed in every detail. It’s more that a payment is made and somebody is released is really the idea related to atonement. And, of course, when there is a ransom paid, that does bring about release of a captive. But as far as who’s being paid, I don’t know that the metaphors be pressed that far. As I understand it, God did not require some kind of payment to himself. In order to forgive us. I believe God was already disposed to forgive us. I don’t think he was holding out and unwilling to forgive us until he got adequate payment. And that would be what many people would see in the suggestion that God was paid off. If Satan was paid off, then Satan’s the winner in the deal. He pulled off a crime and he got what he wanted out of it. He got paid. And crime pays for him. And the Bible certainly does not indicate that Satan wins. In fact, the Bible always speaks about the atonement as that which defeated Satan and crushed Satan and disarmed Satan and destroyed him. So, clearly, it’s not Satan who got something out of the deal either. My understanding would simply be that God, in his character of justice, which is something he has no option but to maintain because he can’t change his character, and he is a perfectly just God. And more than that, as the creator of the universe. He is the one who’s, in a sense, morally in the position to judge the moral standing of the universe and determine whether it’s going to continue and on what terms and so forth. That is to say, he’s the judge and the creator, just like the father of a family has to make judgment calls between disputes between children and wrongs done and has to say, okay, here’s how we’re going to write this and so forth. So God as our father or God as judge or whichever metaphor we choose to use, because the Bible uses many of those, He’s the one who needs to make sure that justice is done. And it’s not that he has to get a payment. It’s not that the devil has to get a payment. I think it’s simply that the balances of justice have to be balanced. And that any imbalance is a matter of neglect on God’s part. You see, it’s not Jesus who paid God for something. It’s God who purchased us. It’s God who sent his son to purchase us. You know, it’s not like God was somehow expecting somebody else to pay him off, and he wouldn’t be any further ahead that way. You know, if he sent Jesus to pay him, that’s like if my kid comes to me and says, give me a dollar so I can buy you a present. Well, I might give him a dollar so he can buy me a present, but I wouldn’t think that I’d come out ahead a dollar in that deal. You know, obviously, if I have to provide the dollar with which the payment’s made, and God is the one who provided, his son. He’s the one who gave. God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son. He wasn’t demanding some kind of payment and being reluctant on his part to forgive. Now, I think the idea of ransom, the idea of the courtroom, the idea of slave market, all these things are human institutions which, up to a certain point, serve to illustrate something about what God accomplished in Christ. But I think that anyone who seizes upon any of those metaphors and makes them the whole picture and presses every detail of the analogy to a human corresponding institution is going to get tangled up in probably absurdities, really. And I don’t think the Bible expects us to press the metaphors that far. I think the idea here is that a payment was made and we were set free. That’s what we know happens when someone is ransomed out of slavery or out of prison or out of kidnapping. So that’s why I think Jesus said he gave his life a ransom for many, because it was a payment he made, which brought about deliverance. But again, it invites the question, well, who’s being paid? And I think the answer is nobody is being paid, but justice itself demands that there is a penalty for evil that is done, that evil cannot just be allowed to go unredressed. not in a moral universe that’s governed by a good judge, a good God. There has to be some redress of crimes or else God has created and maintains an unjust and criminal world. And so we have committed the crimes. And of course, one way to redress that situation is to send us all to hell. That would fix it. That would be just because that’s what we deserve. Another way, is what God chose to do, and that is to take our crimes upon himself in the person of his son and die instead of us. Now, there’s no exact parallel to that in any human institution, whether you use the slave market, whether you use the courtroom, whether you use ransom. There’s no human institution that has an exact parallel. And so the Bible uses a multitude of partial parallels, things in parallel. in our society that would, in one way or another, shed some light on this transaction. But I think, in a sense, what Jesus did in atoning for us is unique. It has no exact parallel in any human construct or institution or law code or anything like that. And therefore, I think to insist… That since Jesus died as a ransom, we have to find somebody who got paid off. Because that’s what a ransom means when we use it in terms of human ransoms. But I think we get tangled up in absurdity when we insist that God was paid off or that Satan was paid off. God did not need to be paid off because he was already willing to provide the forgiveness. And he was willing to pay the price himself to have it acquired. The devil can’t be the one who’s paid off because he’s always said to be the one who was defeated in the transaction, not paid off and not rewarded. So I think this ransom thing, we might push it a little further than we’re supposed to if we’re trying to answer specifically, well, who was it paid to? I don’t think that’s a question that the Bible intends for us to ask, nor that it’s a sensible question in terms of what really happened, in my opinion.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right, right. Okay, well, as far as Satan being defeated, maybe he didn’t expect Jesus to break free from Hades. Maybe he thought that he would be trapped there and that the surprise was that Jesus was sinless and death couldn’t hold him.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I’m sure that was a surprise to Satan. Yeah, I agree.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah. Well, thanks, Steve.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. I appreciate your call, Eric. Thanks for joining us today. Let’s see. We’ve got not very long for another call here, and we’re going to take a break soon. Let’s talk to John from McMinnville, Oregon. John, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. If we don’t have time before the break, we can continue after the break.
SPEAKER 13 :
Hey, there’s Steve. Hi. I just talked with you today. So I’m calling about the article that I had emailed you. For the benefit of the listeners, I’ll just – Mention what this is about. We might need to pick it up on the other side of the break. Probably will. There’s some heavy lifting in there, perhaps. But, you know, I sent Steve an article having to do with the Eastern Orthodox understanding of what they call theosis. The idea of theosis, according to the Orthodox Church, is that we are partakers of the divine nature in such a way that they’ll employ terms like being illuminated, divinization, becoming divine. And then they’ll also call on quotes from some of the early fathers, like Athanasius, who says a quote that he said that God became what we are so we can become what he is.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 13 :
And so it’s kind of an interesting thing. I really, really appreciate the idea that of being partakers of the divine nature. I think that’s a beautiful thing. And also that we become one with Christ as Christ is one with the Father. Yet I’m just kind of, I’m not so sure about the use of all of the terms that they use and how they describe the whole thing. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on that as that part of the articulation.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you’re right. We’re going to pick this up after the break, and I will as soon as we’ve taken the break. So please stay tuned, and we’ll come back to you, John, and the other calls who are waiting as well. You’re going to hear the music in just a second here, and that means I’ve got just 60 seconds to say goodbye to some of our listeners who are listening to us on a station that only carries the first half hour, and we’ll be discontinuing the broadcast right now on those stations. Most of our stations continue for another half hour. We have an hour-long program, and for those of you listening to most of those stations, we’ll be right back with another half hour. For those of you who are leaving us at this time, we want you to know you can hear the whole program from the website, thenarrowpath.com. We also want you to know that The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry, and you can write to us at The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. You can donate from the website if you want to, though everything there is free. But again, the website is thenarrowpath.com. For those of you sticking with us, please stay tuned for 30 seconds, and we’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 02 :
Small is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to life. Welcome to The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Steve has nothing to sell you today but everything to give you. When the radio show is over, go to thenarrowpath.com where you can study, learn, and enjoy with free topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse-by-verse teachings, and archives of all The Narrow Path radio shows. We thank you for supporting the listeners supported Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. See you at thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 07 :
This is the best of the Narrow Path Radio broadcast. The following is pre-recorded.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome to the Narrow Path Radio program hosted by Steve Gray. Steve is not in the studio today, so calls from listeners will not be able to be taken. In the place of the usual format, we’ve put together some of the best calls from past programs. They cover a variety of topics important to anyone interested in the Bible and Christianity. In addition to the radio program, The Narrow Path has a website you can go to, www.thenarrowpath.com, where you can find hundreds of resources that can all be downloaded for free. And now, please enjoy this special collection of calls to Steve Gregg and The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. Now, getting back to our call, before the break, we have John from McMinnville, Oregon, on the line here. And John emailed me a… an article the other day and wants me to comment on it. The article is about the Eastern Orthodox Church and its view called theosis. Theos, that’s the word God. Theosis to them means becoming God. They also call it divinization, that is becoming divine, or even deification, which means becoming God. And the idea of the paper, I have to say I’m not as familiar with the Eastern Orthodox Church and its doctrines as I am with, say, Protestant churches and even Roman Catholic churches’ doctrines. But I have studied some, and I’ve certainly had conversations with quite a few Eastern Orthodox people. And it was helpful to see the article because it kind of clarified some of their views for me. It seemed to me that they had quite a few scriptures about our union with Christ, our union with God, but none of them actually spoke of us becoming God. And the article began… by quoting Jesus saying, I said you are gods. And they said, see, Jesus said we’re all gods. Of course, he didn’t mean that in the way that they’re using it because he was speaking to the Pharisees. And he certainly was not going to suggest that they had been divinized or that they had been deified or that they were gods. He was just quoting. from the Psalms, where God was speaking to the judges and saying, you are gods, but he said, you’ll die like men. In other words, he said, I said you were gods, in the sense that God had referred to the judges of Israel as if they were little gods, little representations of himself. They were like little gods. But he says, but you’ve got to realize that you’re not behaving in a godlike way, and therefore you’re going to die like men. You’re just mortal men. You’re not gods at all. And Jesus, quoting that, was not quoting it in order to affirm that his hearers were gods, but actually to point out to them their own inconsistency because they had taken up stones to stone him in John 10. And he had said to them, I perform many good works for my father in your presence. For which of these good works do you stone me? And they said, not for a good work, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, are making yourself God. And Jesus then quoted from the psalm. He said, is it not written in your law? I said you are gods. And then Jesus said, now if those to whom the word of God came are called gods, are you going to stone me because I said I’m the son of God? Now, of course, Jesus is not arguing that people are gods. He’s pointing out that the Pharisees are already familiar with that kind of language, even in their own Bible. Now, the meaning of that statement would have to be explored separately. The point he’s making is, You’re killing me, you think, because I’ve said something offensive, and when I said I’m the son of God, doesn’t your own Bible speak to some people and say they are gods? That sounds even more offensive, and yet you don’t find fault with them. He’s pointing out to them that they’re being inconsistent by busting him for his choice of words when there’s even a more almost shocking choice of words in their own scriptures that don’t seem to bother them. Now, to say that people are gods… is something that some of the church fathers did suggest, but they didn’t mean that they are real gods. They meant that we are, you know, in God’s family, just like my children are people, like I’m a person. So God’s children, they said, you know, we have the divine nature. But what does that really mean? It doesn’t mean we’re like gods on Mount Olympus or like we’re gods like God in heaven. It just means that we have the nature of God in us because we’ve been born of God. But we also have human nature, which is something God himself, the Father, does not have. Jesus does. But God the Father is not a human being. And we are. And we have human frailty and we have human sinfulness. And therefore we aren’t equal to God in any sense. Now, as I read the article on theosis that you sent me, it sounded like they clarified that they’re not saying that people are equal to God. but that we just share in the divine nature. Now, I’ve never had a problem with that statement before. I mean, I’ve taught from it many, many times in 2 Peter 1, verse 4, where Peter says, by which we have been given exceeding great and precious promises, that through these we may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. I’ve always loved that verse, and I’ve taught on it many times. I believe that what Peter is saying is, being a Christian… isn’t simply becoming an adherent to a religious system or somebody who affirms a group of doctrines. Being a Christian is being born again of God and having God’s nature given to us. I don’t think Peter is referring to anything different there than when the Bible talks about us having the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God, and he has… come to dwell inside of us so that we possess within us God’s own nature. This divine nature is really in the Holy Spirit, not so much as part of me, but the Holy Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I’m a child of God. The Holy Spirit becomes intimately in fellowship with me and almost a part of me, but I’m not necessarily a part of him in the sense that we’d be an appendage of God or anything like that. I think a lot of what I read there in that article, John, sounded to me just like semantics, because there’s an awful lot of quotations of verses that I love and which I teach from frequently, but I’ve never seen them as affirming that we are gods or that we become gods. But then the disclaimers they gave in the article made me think that they don’t take that either. It’s almost like they’re not affirming very much different, except they’re using more striking terminology. But they’re not affirming very much different than what people like A.W. Tozer would affirm. Namely, that we have an intimacy with God that’s sharing his nature. We’re born again. We have something of the nature of God in us. And that’s what I think it means to be partakers of the divine nature. By the Holy Spirit coming to us, he imparts to us a new life. And this new life is a species of God. We’re his children. But it doesn’t make us gods, and it doesn’t even mean that we will someday be gods, like the Mormons would say. I think it just means we’re not merely human. We are human, but we have another dimension to our life, which is a divine dimension that we share with God. And I guess I’ve always thought that was kind of a given in Christian theology. I can’t remember a time in my life where I didn’t think that was so. But I never referred to it as theosis. I never thought it was being deified. I think those words are careless. I really think it’s a semantic question because I’m not really sure what they’re talking about. Maybe they are talking about something more than what I’m thinking of. But, I mean, the verses they gave, the disclaimers they gave, it almost sounded like they’re not really saying anything very shocking at all. They’re just using shocking language for it, saying, you know, we’ve become gods. Well, but if they then give all these qualifications, well, we don’t become equal with God. We don’t become the same kind of person God is. Well, then basically they’re affirming what I would affirm, and they’re using terms that I would not choose to use, and then they’re walking back those terms a little bit by saying, well, we’re not saying this. In other words, they walk back to where I am anyway. Now, there could be something far more implied in what they’re saying than what I’m getting. But from what they said in that article, I just thought, well, I could say the same thing, only just not use that kind of controversial verbiage.
SPEAKER 13 :
You know, you came to the same point, the exact same place that I did, in the sense of I can relate with a lot of things that they’re saying and really appreciate what they’re saying, in the sense of if they’re qualifying and saying, hold on a second, we need to clarify it. We’re not saying that we become gods personally. There’s a difference there. I’m like, okay, well, I just don’t see any use whatsoever in the language that they’re using.
SPEAKER 03 :
I agree with you because the language is the same as the language used by New Age people. That’s exactly it. And New Age people certainly don’t mean what I mean. Now, it may be that the Greek Orthodox would say, well, that the New Age people have stolen our verbiage. We can’t be held responsible for that. We were saying it thousands of years ago. And the New Age came along more recently and just picked up the language. We can’t be held responsible for that. And maybe they’re right about that. However, it seems to me that what they are saying could be said in terms that are much less necessary to walk back from, you know.
SPEAKER 13 :
Right. And also, it does seem to me that another element that comes to mind about, does it not say that you are gods? And the author, in his way, he often uses this term, does this not speak of, kind of an odd little characteristic there, but does this not speak of theosis? Actually, no, that can’t speak of theosis. Because even, let’s just say, even if it was talking about that, that’s Old Testament. No one’s going to be experiencing that pre-regeneration.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that’s a good point. That’s a good point. Jesus is quoting the Old Testament. And I’m not sure, but I don’t think the Greek Orthodox believe that Old Testament people were gods or experienced theosis. And if some did, it wouldn’t be the ones that Psalm 86 was written to, or 82, because that psalm is written to judges that were corrupt. And Jesus, when he quoted it, was speaking to Jews who were corrupt. He was not talking to the top flight saints here and saying, boy, you are gods now, you know. I think he definitely misses the point when he quotes that passage.
SPEAKER 13 :
Interesting conversation. I was curious to hear your thoughts on that and for your time.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, John, thanks for your call. God bless you.
SPEAKER 13 :
God bless you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Bye now. All right. Let’s talk to Don from Vancouver, Washington. Don, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hi, Steve.
SPEAKER 11 :
I have come to the point where I do not believe in the inherent immortality of the soul. I think you share that. Would that be correct?
SPEAKER 03 :
I think you’re probably right, yeah.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay, and now, and I know the arguments that then I would use and I assume you would use for the most part. I think there’s a good base for believing that. If, however, you were somebody who did not agree with us, you believed in the inherent immortality of the soul, how would you, in a positive sense, defend that and promote that, and what logic and or scriptures would you use? I’m just trying to, as I’ve Read it myself, I now don’t understand where a person would find a strong position to defend that belief with. Could you do that? I can take this off the air.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, thank you, Don. You’ll be glad to address that.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay, thanks.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you for your call. What Don’s talking about is the doctrine which most Christians hold, and that is that human beings are innately immortal. That is, from the moment you are conceived or born, one or the other, You’re going to live forever. Now, you’ll either live forever in heaven or you’ll live forever in hell, they would say. You’re either saved and with God forever or separate from God forever, but you’re going to be forever somewhere because you are immortal. Now, Don is saying, where does it say that in the Bible? And the Bible doesn’t say that anywhere. In fact, the Bible says in 1 Timothy 6.16, God alone possesses immortality. And that’s emphatic. Only God possesses immortality. The Bible says whosoever believes in Christ will not perish but will have everlasting life. So everlasting life is given to those who believe. Adam and Eve were not made inherently immortal. They had to, if they wished to live forever, they would have to eat of the tree of life. Because of their sin, they were debarred from the tree of life and so they didn’t live forever. Because human beings aren’t made to live forever without the tree of life or without Christ. And so Only in Christ, the Bible would suggest, do people have eternal life. And apart from that, people are not immortal. Now, what doctrines, I mean, what scriptures then would be used to support the idea of man being innately immortal? You know, I’ve searched for that, too, because I was raised assuming people are immortal. And it’s true. I assumed it. I assumed that’s what the Bible taught. I based it partly on, of course, as I think most people do, that the Bible says man is made in God’s image, as opposed to the animals. They’re not made in God’s image. And so from that it was deduced, I suppose, not very logically necessarily, but that the animals don’t live forever, but we do because God lives forever and we’re made in his image, so we have immortality like him. But since Paul said that only God has immortality, not us, then it would be a mistake to say that just because we’re made in God’s image, that means that we have all of his attributes, including immortality. There are many of God’s attributes we don’t possess. For example, we’re not invisible. The Bible refers to God, the only wise God, immortal and invisible. We’re not born immortal and we’re not born invisible, but God is. We are made in God’s image, but not in that respect. God is omnipotent. I’m not. God is omnipresent. I’m certainly not. and omniscient, I’m not any of those things. So the fact that man is made in God’s image doesn’t mean that everything that we can say about God can also be said about man. And without being able to do that, we can’t just assume that since God is immortal, people must be immortal because they’re made in God’s image. It’s just not reasoning very sensibly, and it certainly isn’t biblical. But as I looked for the proofs of human immortality in the Bible, I found that those who defended it defended it on one basis, and that is on the basis of the traditional doctrine of hell. Because, of course, we know that the Bible teaches that Christians have eternal life as a gift from God. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And therefore, it would seem like unbelievers don’t have eternal life. And yet, the traditional view of hell teaches that unbelievers are never going to die either. that unbelievers are going to be tormented forever and ever and ever and ever without any relief and without any end. And therefore, based on that traditional view of hell, it has often been assumed, I guess, unbelievers are immortal too. And therefore, believers are immortal and unbelievers are immortal. I guess that all people are immortal because that takes in everybody. And I think that it also helps people feel a little bit better about the traditional view of hell, which otherwise would seem to be obnoxious more, by saying, well, you know, it’s not so much that God wants people to go to hell, but what can he do? They’re going to live forever somewhere. If they reject him and don’t want to live with him, what’s left? But they have to live forever away from him, and that’s what hell is. So it’s not really God being mean or anything like that. He’s just got these immortal people he’s got on his hands to deal with, and some of them are going to live with him. The rest, what’s he going to do? They’re going to have to live immortally in a place of torment. And so, again, it’s all based on the traditional view of hell. If the traditional view of hell is true, one might assume that all people are immortal, even those who are not saved, since those who are not saved will be tormented consciously forever. They must be immortal. Now, what’s interesting, when I was writing my book on the three views of hell, I read more books on the traditional view of hell, defending it, than on any other view. And what I found was, to my surprise, many of the most famous books evangelical theologians who defended the traditional view of hell, they also argued that man is not innately immortal. They taught that man will be made immortal in the resurrection so that they can be tormented in hell. In other words, some of the respected evangelical defenders of the traditional view argued They agreed that man’s not innately immortal. Only God is. And that all immortality is a gift from God. But they believe, because they believe in the traditional view of hell, that God is going to have to imbue the lost in the resurrection. He’s going to have to imbue them with immortality so that they can suffer forever and ever. And we are left to believe that if he didn’t give them that immortality, they would simply burn up in hell and be no more. Which means… that them suffering hell is something that God is not required, but he insists upon. Because if he didn’t proactively give them eternal life so that they wouldn’t perish in hell, but had to suffer forever in it, if he didn’t do that, they’d just come to an end. Their suffering would end. And that means, if that view is true, that God really wants people suffering hell, that somehow he takes more pleasure in wicked people suffering forever and ever and ever in hell, than apparently in them just being extinguished and not suffering anymore. This is a very hard doctrine. And frankly, I don’t think it has anything in its support scripturally. The Bible says God’s not willing that any should perish. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He wants all men to be saved. And if they aren’t saved, it’s hard to imagine that someone who loves the world so much that he wants all men to be saved, that he turns on them in such a vicious way. if they don’t get saved, that although he loved them and wanted them to be his children, he’s changed his mind as soon as they failed to become his children. Now he wants to torture them. Death isn’t good enough for them. They’ve got to be tortured forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. And just to make sure they are, whereas they would naturally perish otherwise, he supernaturally imbues them with immortality, which they didn’t have before, so that they can suffer forever. Now, if that doesn’t sound like an obnoxious doctrine to someone listening to me, I’m not sure where your sensitivities are. I don’t think that this describes the God that Jesus Christ came to reveal to us. I myself don’t. Now, if people are naturally immortal, then we may still have this issue. They may still have to suffer forever in hell. But the Bible does not seem to teach that people are naturally immortal. And I said just now, many of the traditional evangelical scholars believe agree that man’s not naturally immortal, but believe that God will give the lost immortality so that they can suffer forever. Just so they can suffer forever. And that is, to my mind, a very strange opinion about God. And yet they feel compelled to do it because the traditional doctrine of hell, it just goes unquestioned in their minds. And as you know, if you’ve read my Three Views of Hell book, um, There are three views of hell, and the traditional one is not the one that has the most scriptural support in general. You can find probably four or five verses in the Bible that seem to support the traditional view of hell, as opposed to scores or hundreds of passages that seem to support alternative views of hell. So, anyway, that’s for people to look into on their own. But you asked how would someone defend the immortality of the lost, the natural immortality of man. They do so by appeal to the traditional doctrine of hell. That’s the only way they can do it biblically. Lou, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you. This is kind of a controversial question. If you don’t want to answer it, I can understand it. This is involving politics. If there’s two people running for president, one’s a Muslim, the other one’s a born-again Christian. However, I like the program of the Muslim better. But then again, I don’t want to see an Antichrist as head of our nation. So could you give me your opinion on what should a Christian do in a case like that?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, in general, I would, of course, rather see a person who wanted to glorify Jesus Christ at the head of every nation, if that were possible. And given the choice between a Christian who is competent and any non-Christian, Muslim or otherwise, who’s not competent or who is equally competent, I’d favor the Christian simply because I know that a person is really a Christian. For one thing, they’re not going to deny the rights of citizens to be Christians. If a Muslim became president, I don’t know that they’d have the power to deny those rights, but that would be something that they might show an interest in doing because Islam does not believe in pluralism. It believes in Sharia law. So I’d be very loathe to vote for a Muslim head of state for the simple reason that that would strike me as endangering our ability to speak freely in the future about the things of God. And I would like to be able to continue to do that.
SPEAKER 01 :
There’s a verse in the Old Testament, every nation that forgets God, God will destroy.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, well, unfortunately, our nation has already forgotten God. Fortunately, the church still has some people in it who haven’t forgotten God. But the nation in its policies for a long time has been acting as if there’s no God. Or if they believe there’s a God, they’re thumbing their nose at him. In any case, most of the time what we get is two non-Christians running for office, or at least two people that we cannot verify whether they are Christians or not. In that case, I would definitely choose the one who’s got the better governing philosophy, who wants to uphold freedom, and the Constitution. I don’t believe the Constitution is an inspired document. I don’t respect it like I respect the Bible. But I think the Constitution is a better founding document than any other nation was ever founded upon. And I think it would be a shame to have – well, it is a shame that we’re losing – many of the freedoms that it gave to our ancestors. So I don’t think a president has to be a Christian. You know, usually we don’t get the choice of really an evangelical Christian versus somebody else, like in the last election. I don’t know if Mr. Trump is a Christian, but he, you know, I heard a rumor that he had become one, but he didn’t seem very much like a Christian to me. On the other hand, his opponent didn’t seem like a Christian either. So, I mean, you choose which one’s going to govern better based on what they say and believe. So… You don’t really always pick a Christian. A lot of times that’s not an option. There might be, when Mr. Trump leaves office, there might be Pence. I like Mr. Pence. I don’t know how he would govern, but he certainly would not seek to infringe upon our freedoms. I’m pretty sure of that.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, thank you very much. That was a great answer. Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, Lou, thanks for your call. Paul, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, thanks, Steve. Thanks for all you do for the Christian community. I was wondering, have you seen the movie End of the Spear, which is about the slaying of five missionaries in 1956?
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, I never actually saw the movie. I remember hearing when it came out. I’m very familiar with the story because I’m familiar with Jim Elliott and Elizabeth Elliott. Of course, Nate Saint was one of the missionaries who died there, too. I have not seen the movie.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. Well, at the end of the movie, Steve Faith is dialoguing with one of the Indians and about the murder, and the Indian tells him that he saw the spirit of, and this was one of the Indians that killed the missionaries, saw the spirit of Nate Sate rising, or an angel was taking him up before he was dead.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s interesting.
SPEAKER 09 :
I wondered what you thought about that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you know, it’s hard to know what to say. hard to know what to make of the mystical experience of, at that time, a non-Christian native. Of course, the native became a Christian, but he would have been a pagan at the time that he saw it. But it could be that he saw something that God allowed him to see something genuine so that he, for one thing, just is a sign to him. And secondly, perhaps to encourage Nate Saint’s family to hear such a thing as that. I don’t know. You know, I’ve often thought that when Christians die, as martyrs, especially gruesome ways. Now, these guys didn’t die gruesomely. They were speared to death, which was somewhat quick. But, I mean, there are Christians who were slowly killed, you know, by wild beasts and things like that. I sometimes wonder, you know, if God does something special in their case to make it not like it would be for, as we would imagine it. Well, we know for one thing, even Christians and non-Christians alike, when you get a serious injury, often your body goes into shock so you don’t even feel it for a while. You know, people sometimes gotten their arms cut off and didn’t realize it until they looked over and saw it was gone because they felt no pain initially. God may have built into humans something of a mechanism like that to make it possible for them to endure horrible things. And if a person’s dying of these things, maybe they die before the pain sets in. Or maybe the moment before they die, God takes their spirit out of them, which would be technically when they die, but they might… You know, they might not appear to die before that. I don’t know. I had not heard that particular story. I knew that the natives had gotten saved and so forth, and I’d be interested in hearing that testimony, but I wouldn’t know exactly what to make of it. That’s fascinating. Thanks for sharing that.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Bye.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. God bless you. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. My name is Steve Gregg, and we are on Monday through Friday at this time. We are listener-supported. If you’d like to help us pay the radio bills, that’s where the money goes. If you donate, we don’t have any paid staff, but we do pay for the radio time. You can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. You can also go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Take everything free, but you can donate there if you want to, thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us. Let’s talk again tomorrow. God bless you.
