Join Bob George on Classic Christianity Radio as he guides listeners through thought-provoking questions about the fulfillment of the law, our relationship with Jesus, and the meaning of grace in our daily lives. Engage in conversations that emphasize the centrality of Christ and the transformative power of the new covenant. Through enlightening discussions, listeners explore key scriptural truths that reveal Jesus’ role in fulfilling the law and ushering in a life led by the Spirit.
Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George. Today we are pleased to present a special radio show featuring call-in listeners from Bob’s original people-to-people daily radio program that was on the air for over 30 years, offering real answers for real-life problems as he addresses common questions as well as the tough issues of today, directing callers to the centrality of Christ in you, your only hope of glory. We want to remind our listeners that Bob George Ministries needs your financial support to continue to have Classic Christianity Radio on the air. Please visit BobGeorge.net to find out how you can help support us financially. Let’s now join Bob as he presents practical biblical insights as he helps people experience a life of faith, hope, and love in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER 03 :
We’re going to go to Belmont, California, listening on KCBC. Raymond, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, how are you, Bob?
SPEAKER 03 :
Doing good, Raymond.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, I was going to ask you about, was that Matthew where Jesus said, not one dot or tittle will pass until these things be fulfilled?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
I wanted to ask you about that. Does that mean it won’t be passed until he died on the cross and took our place? Is that what it means, until these things be fulfilled?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, he fulfilled. Jesus fulfilled the law. The fulfillment of the law would be walking in sinless perfection. In every aspect of the law, James amplified that by saying if you kept the entire law and it’s violated in one point, you’re guilty of breaking all of it. And so no man was ever able to fulfill the law except Christ Jesus. So he’s saying that there will be one thing subtracted from the law until everything is fulfilled, and that’s what he came to do. And as a matter of fact, it then tells us that the law has been fulfilled in us now because of our relationship to the one who did fulfill the law, that the law has been fulfilled in us who do not walk after the flesh but after the Spirit. We couldn’t fulfill it, but through our identity to the one who did, we are considered righteous in the sight of God.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s good news, isn’t it?
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s very good news, yeah. I wondered what your opinion on that, because before I couldn’t understand it, because it seemed like a lot of churches are trying to make it sound like it’s still in existence. They tell these things to be fulfilled and make it sound like it means the end of time, but I was thinking it couldn’t mean the end of time, because he was the only one that could keep it, you know, fulfill the law. You and I can’t do that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely. Yeah, and he fulfilled it. That’s what enabled him to usher in a new covenant. Had there not been the fulfillment of the old, how could he have ushered in the new? And that’s why we’re told that we are ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter that kills, but of the spirit that gives life. And so that’s our ministry today, is to teach people the grace of God and that we have been freed from the demands of the law that we cannot keep. Only one did, and that was Jesus. But when we have identified ourselves with him by faith, why, we are then attached to the one who did complete the law and fulfill it. And therefore, the law, it says, has been fulfilled in you who do not live according to the flesh but according to the spirit. It’s good news. We couldn’t fulfill it. If we were under the law and we appeared before God, we’d go to hell.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, yeah, because one thing, even if it’s not physical, it’s thought in your head, then you… Absolutely. There you go.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely, yeah. So, again, you know, I have two passages of Scripture, Raymond. I think about Romans 8.14, where it says, “…because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” And the opposite of that would be that those who are led by the law are not sons of God. Those who are led by the Spirit are sons of God. And so you have to reverse those kind of things in order to get meaning to them. If you’re led by the Spirit, you’re a son of God. If you’re not led by the Spirit, you’re led by the law, you’re not a son of God. And then in Galatians 5.18, but if you’re led by the Spirit, if that is true, which is walking by faith, you’re not under the law. Which means that if you’re under the law, you can’t be led by the Spirit. No other interpretation you can make to that.
SPEAKER 05 :
So a non-believer, somebody that’s unsaved, they have to be living under the law.
SPEAKER 03 :
And under the demands of the law that the wages of sin is death. But you see, then we come to Christ by faith and fall from grace back to the law again, which took place in the early church as well as today. And it’s not that we’re not indwelt by the Spirit of God. It’s the fact that we are not led by the Spirit of God because we’re under the law. And that’s what it says. To those of you who are led by the Spirit are sons of God. So if you’re led by the Spirit… The evidence is you’re a son of God. One way you know you’re a son of God is being led by the Spirit. And if you are led by the Spirit, you’re not under the law. Because if you try to be under the law, you can’t be led by the Spirit. And so that’s why you have so many denominations, so many interpretations of the Scripture, is people who possibly are in Christ but have allowed themselves to get back under the law, and instead of being led by the Spirit, they’re led by the flesh, and they interpret Scripture in a fleshly manner.
SPEAKER 05 :
So many works, a lot of them, you know. I felt like that when I was growing up most of the time, and now I’m starting to just it’s weird, you know, I’m 43 and I’ve been in church my whole life. I’m just beginning to start to understand grace. You know, I go, boy, that really makes sense because for a while it felt like it was hard to make sense, but now it makes a lot of sense.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
And you just look at it yourself, you know, and study it. Like you said, instead of listening to man and all that, have the spirit reveal it to you. Really starting to understand it a lot better. I really appreciate you guys over the last two or three years. There’s just so much out there, you know, that’s just so contrary to the word, so much works oriented, you know, it’s like… And it’s really good to know that he’s not that. Like now if I mess up, I know I can say, God, you know, just help me not to do that. I don’t have to say, please forgive me or feel like I’m going to be beat over the head because I, you know, he didn’t eradicate sin in our life. He just took the consequence away when we believe in him. Am I saying that correct?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and he took sin away from the eyes of God. When it talks about he took away our sin, who did he take it away from? The eyes of God so that when God looks upon us, The reason that he doesn’t see our sin, he’s already seen it, and he saw it at the cross, all of it. And that’s why Jesus went to a cross to die for the sins of the entire world throughout all eternity and say it’s finished, it’s done, it’s paid in full. Now, when something is paid in full, you don’t keep pulling the check up and trying to collect more money. It’s done. It’s finished. You file it. And the same thing is true. God has dealt with our sin. It was placed upon Jesus. It was judged. The verdict was guilty. The punishment was death. And Jesus took it all. That’s why there’s none left for us. No condemnation awaiting us who belong to Christ Jesus. So today he’s dealing with you and me as his son on the basis of new life. In sonship, he’s dealing with us on the basis of a family relationship. And therefore, you say, when we blow it… why we can thank god for the forgiveness that was extended to us at the cross and then to identify the root of why we did what we did and the root of it is we started believing the dumb lie of satan and start believing the truth of god and therefore we keep asking for the renewing of our mind and the will to listen to the voice of god and to exercise the truth of it you know okay my brother
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, you guys take care.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, Raymond, thanks for your call, pal.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, have a good day.
SPEAKER 03 :
Bye-bye now. Let’s go to San Diego, California. Let’s go on Kay Bright. Murray… Murray C.O. Murray C.O., you’re on the air, my brother.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you, brothers, for taking my call. I have a quick question concerning Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons. Because, you know, as you know, they are very faithful in preaching their doctrines. I have a few friends and acquaintances that believe that way. So I just want to know, can they be saved believing the way they do?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, do you think you could be saved by denying who Jesus is?
SPEAKER 02 :
No.
SPEAKER 03 :
No? Well, then that takes care of Jehovah’s Witness and Mormons. They believe that God was a glorified man. As he was, you are, and as he became, you too can become. So they believe that, which is not true. God is God, and God in the form of Christ Jesus came to this earth to bring salvation. He didn’t move over here to America. So they have a different Jesus. The Mormons have a different Jesus than the Jesus of the Bible. Sound like they’re all together, but we’re not. You do not put Jesus when he said, if somebody says he’s out here, he’s out there, don’t bother to go. That the next time you see Jesus, he’ll be coming in the clouds and the whole world will see him. But yet they say, no, he came over to America. No, he didn’t. The Jesus of the Bible ascended into heaven from Israel and he will come back to Israel. And so there’s a different Jesus. The Jehovah’s Witness do not believe Jesus is God, so they do not believe in Jesus of the Bible. who declared himself to be God, and who the apostles testified to that truth. So those people are called Antichrist. Now, I don’t care whether you are a Jew or a Gentile, and we have people today who think that because you’re a Jew and you follow the Old Testament that you’re going to be saved. I’ve got news for you. Those people are called Antichrist. Anybody who is Antichrist, in other words, anti what the Bible revealed about Jesus, is called an Antichrist. And so I do not believe that that’s the qualification for heaven is being an antichrist. So when you, as a Jehovah’s Witness, spend their lives marching up and down streets trying to get people convinced that Jesus is not God, I certainly do not believe that you could call them Christ followers, not the Christ of the Bible. So the answer to your question there is whether you’re a Mormon, Jehovah’s Witness, or a Baptist, or a Presbyterian, or a Catholic, or whoever you are, if you do not believe in the Jesus of the Bible and what he came to do for you and me. In other words, it’s not just believing that he existed, but what did he come to accomplish for me that I could not accomplish for myself? And that is salvation. And that is salvation through his death and his burial and his resurrection. And so it’s coming to the fullness, not of just of who he was, but I put my faith in who he was and what he came to accomplish for me in his death and burial and resurrection. And when we put our faith in that, there is no Jesus that died for some sins. only a Jesus that took away the sins of the world. That’s why it says there’s now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That’s why when it says Jesus is coming back, that he’s not coming back to bear sin. Why? He’s already done it, and he isn’t going to do it again. So there is no such thing as putting your faith in a Jesus that died for some sins then and that we have to keep ourselves forgiven through sacrificial system, confession booth, 1 John 1, 9, or any of the other systems that we personally have come up with in order to keep ourselves forgiven. That Jesus doesn’t exist. The Jesus that you put your faith in is the one who cried out from the cross, it is finished, paid in full, not in part. It’s the Jesus that went into the grave and entered into my death with me and was raised from the dead so that that life that raised him from the dead can save me from my problem of spiritual death that when you were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave all your sins. That’s the Jesus we put our faith in. And so there are many, many people out there who say, I believe in Jesus, but absolutely spit in the face of what he accomplished for them at the cross. Continue begging him for what in him they already have. And I believe that Hebrews… in the passage of Hebrews, it absolutely, in Hebrews 10, beginning in verse 26, it absolutely would scare the daylights out of me if I was continuing, and continuing to try to keep myself forgiven instead of accepting what Christ Jesus did for me at the cross. When I read those passages, I think it is strong as horseradish in regard to the fact that if you’re not going to accept the totality of what Jesus did There is no sacrifice for sins left. So it’s a very important issue. Does that help, my brother?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, thank you. That will help me encourage myself to share with my friend to believe in the real Jesus and having the peace that we have in him.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Well, I appreciate it, my friend. Thank you, Mauricio. God bless, pal. Bye-bye now. Quickly, let’s go to New Orleans, WLNO. Dexter, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hello?
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, Dexter.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, Sido earlier, Bob. This is a little bit of background. I belong to a church fellowship where we believe in spiritual sons and spiritual mothers. Now, understanding the relationship that Paul had with Timothy as he addressed him as a son, how do you feel about that? It doesn’t say that Timothy ever called him father. where it says that Timothy, or rather that Paul addressed him as a son. How do you feel about spiritual fathers and spiritual mothers?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I think it’s not biblical. It’s a name. You know, we use that as somebody that kind of led you to Christ, that he’s my spiritual father, but that’s not true because he didn’t save you. He didn’t conceive you. Bill Bright led me to the Lord. He didn’t conceive me for sure. That all was done by the Holy Spirit. He was just an instrument that was used to give the gospel to me. And that’s what I would call him. I don’t call him my spiritual father, although it wouldn’t be anything wrong necessarily with saying that if you know what it means. But it’s not true because he didn’t birth me. Christ did. And that’s why I think it says, don’t accredit to man what only God can do. And I think the problem with that is you can almost get a misconception that that man saved me. I think when you hear people do that, Billy Graham saved me. No, he didn’t. If he did, you’re going to look like a Billy Graham convert. Brother, we have to go off the air, Dexter, but it’s a good question. You call again, okay? Yes, sir. God bless you, friend. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 01 :
Are you looking for encouragement and deeper understanding of God’s Word? Head over to BobGeorge.net where you’ll find books, CDs, and study guides created to help you grow in your faith. And when you order or donate, you’re also helping Bob George Ministries continue sharing the good news with listeners across the country. Your donation, large or small, makes a lasting impact. Visit BobGeorge.net today to explore helpful resources and partner with us in spreading God’s truth. That’s BobGeorge.net. Together, let’s keep this ministry moving forward.
SPEAKER 03 :
Let’s go to Santa Ana, California. Let’s go on K-Bright. And Bill, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, Bob.
SPEAKER 03 :
How are you, brother?
SPEAKER 07 :
Great. I’m reading Classic Christianity for about the third time, and it’s coming clearer and clearer for me with the life. And you got me into Hebrews with, you know, where it’s all rest and rest and rest. And it’s something I was reading in Chapter 8 where even your neighbor, it’ll be written on their heart. You won’t have to be going to your neighbor. It’s out of Jeremiah, I guess, the same reference, chapter 31, verse 31 to 34. My question is, is that for us Gentiles, that peace? Do you know what I’m talking about?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, Bill, the scriptures… The book of Hebrews was directed to the Hebrew, but certainly applicable to the Gentile. And the reason that it’s applicable to the Gentile is because, again, he’s talking about the new covenant. That’s what this passage is about. Their sons, I’ll forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more. That’s calling the covenant new. He’s made the first one obsolete. Then what is obsolete is aging and should soon disappear. Again, tying in a little bit to what we were just talking about, we don’t have a problem realizing that. that the law and the old covenant is obsolete and aging and should soon disappear. But when it talks about some of the gifts that should also disappear, why, we don’t pay attention to that. Both of them should disappear. They’ve been used, and they were used for the purpose that God gave them, and they’re not necessary anymore. The old covenant is not a covenant of salvation by grace. It’s law. And it was certainly applicable to the Jew, but applicable to the Gentile as well. Precisely why Paul said that we have been made ministers of the new covenant. There he was speaking to the Gentile world, of the new covenant, not of the old that kills, but of the new that gives life.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, it’s getting real clear. And I really appreciate your ministry.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, we appreciate, Bill, the fact that your heart is open to learn the truth and let the truth set you free. It is. Okay, brother, that’s great. God bless you, my friend. We’re going to go to Indianapolis, Indiana, listening on WBRI. Lex, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hello, Bob.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, Lex.
SPEAKER 06 :
Just a minute. Turn down the radio. I just wanted to ask you, I’m a Christian. I’d like to, all I do, only religion I have, I get up in the morning, I ask Father God to hold me close to Jesus. And just my clinging to Jesus will be pleasing in his sight. Do you have any more than this?
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s pretty good, brother. I don’t know, I think you’re going to improve on that. The issue is, Lex, you say, how do you pray you talk to God the way you would talk to your best friend? I say you talk to God the way you would talk to your best friend.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, you do.
SPEAKER 03 :
And Jesus said that I call you my friend. And you’re not a slave anymore. You’re a friend of God. And to be able to go into the presence of God, it says to walk boldly into the presence of God, calling him daddy or Abba father. And that’s what the word Abba means is daddy father. And so you go into the presence of God the same way that a young child would go into the presence of his daddy father. and crawl up into his arms and receive instruction and to talk to him.
SPEAKER 06 :
I see myself doing this. This is a way we should go with a humble heart.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, absolutely, Lex. And I think the other thing, too, is this. I know that what takes place is, again, with emphasis on, We have so much emphasis on prayer and many times no emphasis on absorbing the word of God. If I don’t know what the word of God says, how am I going to ever intelligently pray to God? So, again, you must do, if he gave me two ears and one mouth, I think he wants us to use it proportionately and do twice as much listening as we do talking. But many times we ignore the listening. We ignore the Bible study. We ignore going into the Word of God in order to get to know the author and just talk about talking all the time. But I don’t want to do that. I want to spend twice the amount of time listening to God than I do talking to him. And I think that’s just good advice for any Christian.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, yes. What God has to say is much more important. It’s very important. And I think The sin of this country today is ignorance of the Bible.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. Well, I think even more than that is they don’t care about the Bible.
SPEAKER 06 :
They don’t care about it.
SPEAKER 03 :
They don’t care a thing about it. They don’t think it has any merit to it. And as a result of that, why? You see, Lex, at the Garden of Eden, everything started right there. He said, in all of this garden, you can eat from any tree that you want. except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And on the day you eat thereof and decide that you do not need God to determine right from wrong and good from evil, you will surely die. And that’s exactly what happened. What has man been doing ever since that fall? Trying to determine right from wrong and good from evil on his own. That’s why we have situational ethics. That’s why we have people that say it’s not a sin, it’s an alternate lifestyle. You know, it’s not worry, it’s a healthy concern. We come up with all of these man-made ideas instead of listening to what God says and then saying that’s what truth is. And so truth sets you free, and error is what keeps you in bondage. And the majority of the people, and quite frankly in this country, are in bondage because of not having a clue what truth is. Because you’re never going to know truth until you come to the Word of God. The Word of God. And I am the truth. Absolutely, brother.
SPEAKER 06 :
Now, Bob, no matter where you are at, In your Christian walk, you do not measure up to God’s standards, and neither do I. Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I’m glad you mentioned me in that line, because I’ll guarantee you that’s true. No, the thing of it is, Lex, he had to make you righteous. In other words, I don’t have any righteousness on my own. The only thing I have is unrighteousness. It’s only his righteousness. Yeah, but he imputed his righteousness to you and me, so that I stand today righteous in the sight of God, not because of anything that I’ve done. but because of everything that he has done. And so do you. We stand clothed, we’re talking about, clothed in the righteousness of Christ. What does it mean to be clothed in something? Well, when God looks at you, he sees the righteousness of Christ Jesus. And that’s our new identity. Like I say, I’m not a Baptist or a people to people or a Methodist or a Catholic. I’m a child of the living God.
SPEAKER 06 :
We should belong together.
SPEAKER 03 :
to that true body of believers in christ right it’s the one the bible speaks of exactly yeah it’s not the people that gather on the corner of walk and don’t walk uh no it’s it’s the people in that in that assembly who are in christ jesus that’s his church he’s the head we’re the body and the people who are in that church regardless whether it’s an evangelical church or non it’s only the people in there who are born again that are really a part of christ church that other is just a a reasonable facsimile of it, but it is not the reality. Yes.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I just thank God for your ministry. I try to listen to you. I really enjoy listening to you, because I think you’re telling the truth. As much I learned that, you know, I’ve been taught all my life that John 9, we ask forgiveness of our sin. I’ve been taught that, and we all have. Right. And, uh, But like I said, I believe the sin of this nation is ignorance of the word of God. And I know I am included.
SPEAKER 03 :
I agree with you. And the more that’s why we have no excuse. We all have Bibles in our hands, probably five or six in my home or seven or eight. That’s right. How many times do we sit down and watch? Do we pick it up and read? Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
But how do you, other than hear God, I ask him every day, every night to speak to me. And how do you? Other than he speaks to me through his word. Yep. And then you have, I think, in your heart and in your belly, you have a feeling from God.
SPEAKER 03 :
I think where it says in the scripture to delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart, that I believe that if I’m abiding in Jesus and I’m relying on Christ and I have a desire, and it certainly is not contrary to the clear teaching of scripture, it means to move out on it. because he says, if you delight in me, I will give you the desires of your heart. So he speaks to us many times through the desires of our heart, and the way we match that up as this coming from God or from Satan is, is it consistent with the truth and the word of God?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes. Well, I’ve ordered your Bible study from Christianity, your book, and I’d like to start. Do you know, if you know of some… A Bible study here in Indianapolis. I’d appreciate it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, Lex, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to put you on hold, and our operator will get that information to you. And we thank you for calling, my brother, and God bless you, my friend. God bless you. You hang on now, okay?
SPEAKER 01 :
Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another, and praise the Lord. Amen.
SPEAKER 07 :
Put Jesus first in your life and turn your life around.
