Dive into this thought-provoking episode where host Steve Gregg tackles the complex subject of free will versus divine foreknowledge. Listen as he unpacks theological perspectives, including Calvinism and Arminianism, where listeners are invited to explore how these views align or conflict with the notion of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. Whether you’re new to these terms or seeking deeper understanding, this episode offers a nuanced discussion on the philosophical implications of divine omniscience and our day-to-day decisions.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour each weekday afternoon. Taking your calls, if you have questions about the Bible or about the Christian faith, well, feel free to join us. You can give me a call and we’ll talk about those questions. If you see things differently than the host and want a balanced comment, we can talk about that. You can call me about that as well. The number is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. And speaking of disagreements, I’m going to be having a debate with a gentleman named Dr. Michael Brown about the subject of modern Israel. Is modern Israel a fulfillment of biblical prophecy? Not one debate, three. And these are live, face-to-face debates. It’s going to be in Dallas, Texas, or Fort Worth. It’s not entirely clear which it is. The church that’s invited us to do it there has two campuses, and one of them is bigger than the other. So we’re not sure how many people to expect. We will, of course, announce beforehand when we make a decision, but it will be either in Dallas or Fort Worth at the campuses of Mercy Culture Church. Okay. One of them is much larger than the other. So we’re not sure at this point which one it will be, but we have information at our website so far. There will be three debates, and they will all be about modern-day Israel’s status biblically. And Friday night, there will be one. There will be one Saturday morning, I think one Saturday afternoon. So it’s a weekend affair. If you’re interested in that, that’s November 7th and 8th. Information about that is at our website, thenarrowpath.com. Now, before that, much before that, actually, this month, actually, this coming week, What is this? Today is the second. It’s going to be on the ninth, a week from today, actually. I’ll be beginning an itinerary in Oregon, and I’ll be up there for almost two weeks teaching various places all over the place. So if you’re listening in Oregon, there’s a good chance I’ll be speaking somewhere near to where you are. If you want to find out about that and attend any of our meetings, you’re welcome to do so. The information, as always, is at our website, donenarrowpath.com, under announcements. So whether you’re interested in any of these Oregon meetings this month or the debate in Texas with Dr. Michael Brown next month, that information can be found at our website, donenarrowpath.com, under announcements. Now, if you’d like to be on the show today, we have a few lines open. Two of them just filled up as I was speaking. We have one line open. And you can call me at 844-484-5737. Our first caller today is Eli in Payette, Idaho. Eli, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hi there. So I just listened, well, a little ways ago, I listened to a lecture by Dr. Greg Bonson, and he made a really good point. I was wondering if you could talk on. So he said that if God foreknows the future, that if God prognostico his foreexperience the future, is the future certain to happen? And he’s talking against our free will, which you probably have guessed. And he also makes the point that God is aware of the contingency of But that doesn’t change him experiencing what is certain to happen and how that works against man’s free will. So just wondering if you could talk on that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, well, far be it for me to pit myself against such a great intellect as Greg Bonson, but I would have to say I don’t necessarily follow his reasoning there. Of course, Greg Bonson was a Calvinist. And Calvinists do believe that God not only foreknows, but predestined and foreordained all things that will happen, including every sin and every righteous deed and every conversion and every defection from Christ. And everything that happens is inevitable. It’s going to happen because God foreordained it and God is sovereign and nothing can happen apart from what he has foreordained. That’s what Calvinists believe. Now, if that is true, of course, it does eliminate free will. Now, some Calvinists try to retain along with that doctrine some semblance of free will. They sometimes say they believe in compatibilistic free will. Compatibilistic simply means a kind of free will that is compatible with this idea that God ordains everything that happens. Now, not all Calvinists would explain how those two things could be compatible, but on the face of it, It would seem to any logical thinker that if everything is determined by God inevitably and nothing can go against it, then all of us who are going to act out this script are doing so without having any real say in the matter. We don’t have any real free will. But Calvinists do make a hard point to answer, and that is that if you say God doesn’t foreordain all things, but only that he knows all things, if you believe that he foreknows everything that’s going to happen, then isn’t that the same thing as it being determined? I mean, whether God intended to determine it or not, does not his knowing it determine it? Because how could he know something’s going to happen unless it is inevitably going to happen? If there’s any chance that it won’t happen, because let’s say we have a choice in the matter and we might choose differently, well, then how could he know for sure that it’s going to happen? If he knows with certainty it’s going to happen, then it is going to happen. And if he knows it in advance, then it’s predetermined. Now, some people, in order to get out of that conundrum, have adopted openness theology. Now, openness theology is the view that God, though he knows all things, future choices that are not yet made by moral beings are not things because they don’t exist. They haven’t been done yet. God knows everything that’s going on in the universe. He knows everything that’s going on at this moment. He knows everything that he intends to do and that he is going to do. But the only thing they would say is not available for him to know is what we’re going to do, what choices we’re going to make. Now, some people say that this compromises God’s omniscience. And I guess it depends on how you would define omniscience, although the Bible doesn’t ever define omniscience for us. But omniscience means knowing everything. But the openness theologians would say, well, God does know everything. but choices that haven’t been made yet aren’t things. They don’t exist. They don’t exist in any world at this point. They will exist when they happen, but they can happen one way or the other because we have free will, and therefore they cannot be determined, and they can’t be certainly known to happen. Now, this is problematic, especially with Reformed theology, but even with Arminian theology. Lots of Arminians would say, oh, that’s too compromising of God’s foreknowledge of God’s omniscience although you know it’s it’s very difficult to know for sure if I mean the Bible doesn’t use the word omniscience by the way but if it did as theologians use it it’s not clear whether omniscience would refer to things being known even though they don’t exist and you know I mean there are there’s lots of things that don’t exist in the universe and And we’d have to assume that God doesn’t know of their existence since it doesn’t exist. Now, if something came to exist in the future, like a free choice that hasn’t been made yet by somebody like you or me, then God would certainly know it. He might even know it just before it’s made or sometime before it’s made. But they would say it doesn’t exist, so he doesn’t know it, just so he doesn’t know about any pink unicorns. On the moon. Why doesn’t God know about those? He’s omniscient. Well, because they don’t exist. That’s why. I mean, omniscience doesn’t mean he knows everything that doesn’t exist. I mean, he would know that it doesn’t exist. Anyway, there’s a deep philosophical question. Now, I don’t embrace openness theology myself. I’ve always been Arminian. But I can certainly see the sense in an openness theology argument. As an Arminian… Most Arminians would say God does know the future, though he’s not the one who determines it. Our choices determine what will happen to us. Some of these choices haven’t been made yet, but they will be. And we’re the ones who are going to make them. God’s not making them for us. We’ll make them. But they are going to be made. And in that sense, that’s part of the future. And if God knows the future, he knows we’re going to make those choices, though he doesn’t ordain for us to do so, nor take any responsibility for them, that we’re going to do it. Now, you know, him knowing we’re going to do it might give us some comfort just in knowing that, you know, there’s nothing outside the range of his knowledge. But I’m not sure what it changes in terms of realities that we live through. If God knows I’m going to make a free choice or if he doesn’t know I’m going to make a free choice, I’m still going to make it. I’m still going to make a free choice. And life and history go on just as whether God had known it or not. So it’s more of a theoretical question. Does God know these things before? And if he does, of course, how does he know them? How does God know them? Now, the Calvinists, like Greg Bonson, would say, well, God knows the future because he’s foreordained it. In other words, God’s sovereignty has foreordained everything that’s going to happen, which means, of course, he knows what’s going to happen. It’s going to happen exactly the way he preordained it to happen. Nothing can happen differently. And unless God foreordains it, they would say, he can’t really know whether it’s going to happen or not. Now, most Arminians would say, well, he might. He might have ways of knowing it’s going to happen that we don’t know about. We really are not on his level. We really don’t know very much about how God’s nature operates. How does he know anything? How does he know everything that’s going on at this moment? Well, that’s not really ever told to us. How can he be omnipresent? How can he be eternal? How can he have never begun? I don’t know, but I believe those things about him. There’s a lot of things about God that are just above my pay grade, including if he knows all future things, how he does. I don’t know. So it’s not my problem. I don’t have to know it. I would say for me to place limits on what God can know, because I can’t imagine how he could know it. is for me to suggest that I’m kind of on God’s level in a way, in terms of understanding how things are possible and how things work. I don’t. I’m not on his level. Some people say, C.S. Lewis, for example, is one, but many Christians say, That God lives in a realm outside of time where everything past, present, and future is in the eternal now for him. There is no actual future from his point of view because he’s outside the realm of time. He knows the future and the past. What we call the future, what we call the past, and what we call the present, they’re all present to him. And therefore he knows the future without in any sense causing it to be present. Well, I mean, that’s a philosophical point that some have made. The Bible doesn’t teach that anywhere, so we can’t say that the Bible says that, but it’s not impossible that that’s true. Some people think God knows the future that we will do, the things we will do in the future, the same way he knew that Peter would deny him three times before the cock crows. Now, I could say he knew that because he had absolute foreknowledge of the future, but a person who could argue, well, maybe he doesn’t have absolute foreknowledge of the future in the sense that he’s outside of time, like some say. Maybe he knew Peter would do that because he knew the trajectory of things, that he knew what Peter was like. He knew how much pressure Peter could stand without caving in. He knew Peter better than Peter knew himself. And Peter felt he would die before he denied Christ. But Jesus knew him better than that. And he also knew there were going to be three opportunities that would be too much for Peter to overcome, just knowing Peter’s limitations and so forth. And therefore he could predict that Peter would deny him three times before the cock crows and then would repent after that. Four moral choices that Peter hadn’t made yet, and Jesus predicted them accurately. So some would say, well, Jesus could just say, not because he was outside of time and could see the future that way, but because he knows all things and He knows what Peter’s limits are. He knew what Peter was like. He knew what’s going to happen. He could see the trajectory of things and look forward and see where things are going, just like, you know, a computer could foresee where, you know, if you hit a cue ball and you break a bunch of billiard balls, once they start heading in motion, a computer could predict where they’re all going to go. And God is better than a computer for that. Now, that may be true. That may be true. And that’s the way the openness people would explain Peter’s, you know, Peter’s being predicted to deny Christ three times. Jesus knew it because he knew Peter. Well, but the point I would make is, suppose that is true. Suppose Jesus knew it just because he knew Peter very well, and he knew everything that’s going on, and he could calculate perfectly what’s going to go on. Okay, so that was fulfilled within a few hours. Let’s just say within eight or nine or ten hours of the prediction, these things happened. But if Jesus could predict four moral choices that Peter had not yet made, and that he would make in the next, let’s say, 10 hours, could he have done the same thing on the same basis to predict what Peter would do the next 24 hours or 48 hours or 72 hours or 72 days? I mean, where’s the limits of this? If God can kind of calculate from present trajectories of things exactly what someone’s going to do, Well, how far out can he predict that? Who says that 10 hours is the limit? Maybe there’s no limit. Maybe he can do that all the way up a thousand years from now. So I don’t really know. All I can say is that to say that man has no free choice, I mean, only the illusion of free choice because everything’s foreordained by God. and therefore just playing out a script that we don’t have any real choices about. It simply goes against everything the Bible teaches about personal responsibility. God blames people for making choices that they make. Obviously, he can’t blame them. If they’re just doing what he foreordained they would inevitably do. You know, if you drop a rock… from a building and it lands on someone’s head, you don’t blame the rock. The rock had no say in the matter. You have to blame the person who dropped the rock. And so, you know, if we have nothing to say about what we do, there’s no responsibility and there can’t really be any righteous judgment. The Bible everywhere assumes that people could do things differently than they actually end up doing them, which means their actions were not foreordained. I think of Cain, for example. when he didn’t offer the kind of sacrifice he should have, and Abel did. And Cain was angry at Abel. This is in Genesis chapter 4. God said, Cain, why are you so upset? If you do well, you also will be accepted. Okay, here we go. If you do well, you will be accepted like Abel was. Oh, so Cain wasn’t predestined to do the wrong thing? He could actually have done the right thing? He could have been accepted instead of been rejected, God seems to be saying that. If God isn’t saying that, that’s certainly the impression he’s giving. And if he’s just teasing, if he’s teasing Cain, you know, Cain really couldn’t do anything different, but God’s acting as if he could and telling him he could. Well, then God is, we can’t trust much of anything God says if that’s the way he talks about things. I think if we follow what God actually says about choice and responsibility throughout Scripture, We have to assume man has responsibility because he has choice. Anyone’s theology that rules that out, I’m just going to have to disagree with. All right. Let’s talk to Ron in Orange County, California. Hi, Ron. Welcome. Hello, Steve.
SPEAKER 05 :
I hope you’re doing well today. So far, so good. Okay, great, great. I love your show. Thank you. It’s really good to talk to you again. I have a question for you. It seems that you lean heavily towards the younger position. Am I correct about that?
SPEAKER 02 :
That would be my default leaning, yes.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, so my question is this. If you had to put it on a scale of 1 to 10, and 10 being that the Bible is definitive that it leans towards a a younger earth and one being it doesn’t lean any way at all, which would kind of be where I would come from. Where would you put that? And then I got a follow-up question to that, which is this. I was listening to your lecture on the authority of scriptures, the science and the Bible part, and around the 40-minute mark, you use the terminology that people kind of are weaseling their way into some of these positions. Um, I just wanted to see if you would still hold to that. So those are my two questions. Do you think the Bible is definitive on young versus old? And the second one, do you think that people who are, uh, they’re kind of making excuses for this, I guess.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
How would you answer that?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I would say this, uh, you said what, you know, a scale of one to 10 or whatever, you know, what do I think is the likelihood that the Bible is leaning toward younger? I’m going to give it a, uh, a five or six. I think it’s about 50-50. I think it’s about 50-50. And what I mean by that is, if the Bible is intended, if Genesis 1 is intended to be taken literally, then I’d say it’s about 100%. If Genesis 1 is literally telling us how things happened, I would say it’s 100% young earth. If the Genesis 1 is written in some literary form, which the readers were not intended to take literally… then all bets are off. We then have to ask, how were they supposed to take it? Now, there are other ways to take things. I mean, there’s many things in the Bible that are parables or metaphors or hyperboles, or there’s even one case in the Bible of a fable where the trees went out looking to make a king for themselves. That’s what we call a fable. That’s in the ninth chapter of Judges. And, you know, there’s There’s apocalyptic literature and so forth. Now, I don’t see Genesis 1 as belonging to any of those categories. Poetry is another one. I mean, there’s lots of ways the Bible expresses truth besides literal narration. But Genesis in general is a book of literal narration. Now, some might say, but Genesis 1 kind of stands out on its own, different from the rest of the book. You know, obviously when we’re talking about people by name and what they did, we’ve got the language of narration. But when we’re talking about the creation of the universe and everything in it, this could be given to us in sort of an elaborate creation poem that isn’t intended to be understood literally. I’ve heard that, and I could see that as a possibility. I’m just not sure that I have a good enough reason to take it that way. Now, I would if I felt… that every argument, scientific argument, for the young earth was invalid. And that every argument for the old earth was valid. In other words, I’m talking about outside the Bible. If the Bible says that the earth is round, then I take it literally as it’s round. If it says it’s flat, I’m interested in knowing, is this a literal statement or is this a poetic statement? In my understanding, every scripture that people use to say the earth is flat says, is found in poetic literature, which means it’s not safe to assume that it’s being literal. Now, Genesis 1 is not obviously poetry, though it has a certain symmetry about it that kind of resembles poetry. And so some people think it is poetry. I’m not convinced that it is. I’m not 100% convinced that it’s not. In other words, while you asked how I lean, I lean about 50-50. If it is poetry, then we needn’t have any speculation about the age of the earth. It could be old or young. If it is literal historical narration, then we’ve got a young earth on our hands. So the question then has got to be, which is true? Is it literal or is it not literal? Well, then we’d have to look to science for that, of course. And there are scientific evidences that are used to prove the old Earth that is very ancient, 4.5 billion years old. And there are the same scientific evidences interpreted through a different worldview, different grid, that fit reasonably well, I think well enough, into a young Earth worldview. So to my mind, the interpretation of the evidence is going to depend on which worldview you’re looking at and which way you think you have a default grounds for leaning. Now, I said my default view leans toward a young earth. I say my default view because whatever is by default could be changed if there was good reason to. You know, if there’s some kind of evidence that just cannot be explained in terms of the earth, well, then I’m going to very strongly consider going to an older view. I don’t have any investment in either view. If God made the earth a few thousand years ago or a few billion years ago, it wouldn’t make a dime’s worth of difference to me. So I don’t have any investment in the old earth or young earth. I’m just a Bible reader. I try to do justice to the Bible. I’m aware that some things I take literally might conceivably be intended figuratively. But until I have good reason to take them other than literally, my default is to take them literally.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. That makes sense. Because I know there’s ministries out there who take, like, the word yom and things like that and say, okay, that could mean a 24-hour day or that could mean something much longer. And you’re all right with that? Absolutely.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, no, I don’t take it that way. No, I think that if we’re taking the passage literally, we’ve got to take a 24-hour day. The question is whether the whole chapter is intended to be a literal description or whether it’s a poetic description that is somewhat dislodged from the actual details of the historical facts, but getting across to us the idea that God is the creator of all these things and did it by his words. I could, you know, I could take it either way, but Yom, if we’re going to take this, Yom is the word for day, as you said, is defined as the evening and morning. Evening and morning were the first day. Evening and morning were the second day. So, and we read of the first day only after we find that he separates the light from the darkness, and he calls the darkness night, and the light he calls day. And evening and morning were the first day. So, I understand it to mean evening and morning was the passage of one cycle of light and dark. And that would be due to the turning of the earth, I think. I think the movement of the earth on its axis is what determines the passage of day and night. And if the earth was moving at the same speed it is now, a day and a night would be just as long as they are from our reckoning. So I don’t know of any reason to move away from that, but if there was one, I could. Because my Christian faith does not depend on a young earth. That’s the main thing. Hey, I need to take a break, but I hope that’s helpful to you. You’re listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. We have another half hour coming, so don’t go. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. And I’m going to take a brief break, 30 seconds. Not even long enough to go to the bathroom. And I’ll be back. We’ll take another half hour of calls. Stay tuned.
SPEAKER 01 :
Are you aware of the wide variety of teachings available without charge at the Narrow Path website? In several hundred lectures, Steve Gregg covers every book of the Bible individually and gives separate teachings on approximately 300 important biblical topics. There is no charge for anything at our website. Visit us there and you’ll be amazed at all you’ve been missing. That web address again is www.thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour. Taking your calls. If you’ve got questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, I’d be glad to talk to you. If you disagree with me, I’d love to talk to you about that, too. I will say the lines are full at the moment, so don’t call right now. If you call in a few minutes, we may find a line has opened up and you may get through. We’d love for that to happen. So the number is 844-484-5737. And going to the phones, we’ll talk again this time to Tim from Sun City, Arizona. Hi, Tim.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi, Steve. I have a Day of Atonement question for you, and that is from Leviticus chapter 16, where it talks about the two goats. I’ve heard two schools of thought on those goats. The first one, the two goats both represent Christ, of course, taking our sins on the cross as a sacrifice. And then the second goat also represents Christ taking our sins away as far as the east is from the west or whatever. And the second theory I’ve heard is the first goat represents Christ again on the cross, and then the second goat actually represents Satan, where in the end, ultimately, all of humanity’s sins will be placed on Satan, and he’ll be sent away into the lake of fire or wherever, and since he caused all of the problems and the sins of humanity, ultimately all those sins will be set upon Satan. And I was just wondering how you see it. What are your thoughts on this topic?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. The two views, as I know them, are very similar to what you said, but I’ve understood them somewhat differently. Of course, you’re referring to the ritual of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16, where two identical goats are chosen for this ritual. And they are so identical, you can’t choose between them except by casting lots. One of them becomes the sacrifice, and one becomes the scapegoat, as we call it in English. Now, one is sacrificed, and the other is led off into the wilderness to die. Domestic goats aren’t able to live in the wilderness with the predators and things like that. And so… both of them, I think the hands are laid upon them, and the sins are confessed over them, so the people’s sins apparently are transferred to these goats. Now, as you said, one view is that both of them represent Christ in different aspects. The one that is sacrificed is Christ as the sacrifice for sins, and the scapegoat, which goes off and carries off the sins that are spoken over it, off into the woods and dies, It refers to him taking our sins from us. The other view sees the first goat the same way. The first goat is the sacrifice, Christ. And the other one, instead of saying for scapegoat, in Hebrew it says for Azazel. Now, some say Azazel is a demon god of the wilderness, and that there’s some kind of superstitious idea here of placating this demon god, Azazel, by sending him a goat also. Now, I’ve just always kind of resisted that second explanation because I can’t imagine why God would instruct his people to send a goat off to a demon god. The goat does not survive it. The goat does not defeat the demon god. As Christ, of course, defeated Satan, the goat presumably dies. And And, you know, whatever Azazel has to do with it, who knows? I myself have never favored that particular view. It may be because you tend to believe what you heard first until it’s proven otherwise. And I first heard it as, you know, two different aspects of what Christ accomplished through his death. Each goat represents Christ in a different sense. It was when I was older. when I was in my 20s, I suppose, that I first learned this second view about Azazel. But it just never rang true to me. Now, that doesn’t mean I’m right and it’s wrong. It just means that if you’re asking my opinion, I’m the world’s greatest authority on my own opinion. And so I can say that my opinion is I would apply both of them to Christ before I would be considering God telling them to sacrifice a goat or send a goat off as a gift to a demon god in the wilderness just doesn’t strike me as agreeable with God’s general mind and teaching. Now, there may be something, like you said, that maybe the goat becomes Azazel, that it becomes the demon god, and it bears the sins of the people, and that’s like Satan bearing guilt for all he’s caused of the sins of mankind. To my mind, that’s a little more elaborate explanation. It’s not quite so simple. And, you know, I guess I’d kind of take the Occam’s razor approach. You know, the explanation that requires the least peripheral, you know, arguments and so forth is probably the correct one. So I’m going to just go with the standard tradition that I was raised with. And I may live and die mistaken about that. and it won’t hurt me at all. But anyway, you did ask my opinion, and that is where I would stand on it. I go with both goats representing Christ.
SPEAKER 04 :
So the vast majority then, the mainstream view then is that Christ, the two goats both represent Christ. That’s the mainstream view?
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m not going to say that’s the mainstream view because mainstream views change over time. I believe it’s the older view. I believe that they both represent Christ was probably the mainstream view at one time. Scholars kind of tend to change what’s the mainstream view in the minds of the public. I mean, for example, the idea that Moses wrote the whole Pentateuch. was the mainstream view through all Jewish and Christian history up until the 19th century. But then scholars began to introduce the documentary hypothesis, which says that Genesis wasn’t written by Moses, but it’s a bunch of oral traditions from four different streams that eventually got put together. And I don’t accept that, but that has become kind of a mainstream view, especially among liberal scholars. I’m not a liberal scholar, so I don’t have any loyalty to liberal scholarship. I think in many cases, liberal scholarship is developed or is guided by unbelief. But I’m not saying the Azazel theory is. It may be that most scholars say would hold the Azazel demon god theory. I seem to encounter it a lot these days, but… I don’t think it was always the prevailing theory. It certainly wasn’t in my knowledge.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. Thanks, Steve. That was very helpful. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, Tim. Thanks for your call. All right. Let’s talk to Michael in Fort Worth. I’m sorry, Fort Washington, Maryland. Hi, Michael. Welcome. Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
How are you doing, Steve? I love the show. Thanks. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. Yes, I was. kind of, you know, I’m trying to look at the Bible through a lens of, I mean, not even a lens, but just being open and not getting caught up in these other, you know, dispensation lists and all these different, you know, viewpoints. But in looking at Zechariah, right, Zechariah 12, 10, when Yahweh is speaking about, you know, Jerusalem looking upon him, the one looking upon me whom they have pierced and what not. I know there’s different instances where pierced has been used. I don’t know if it’s a different, maybe different in the Hebrew or a different meaning. But, of course, everybody says that’s supposed to be a reference to Jesus. And I know there are references like in Isaiah 53, you know, the piercing and Psalm 22 and things of that nature. But was it the same thing? What is the take on that? What is the timeline for that? And is that speaking of something else?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, that verse is paraphrased slash quoted by John in the Gospel of John, chapter 19, verse 37. John 19, 37. If you read a couple of verses before, it says in verse 34, but one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear. And immediately blood and water came out. And he who has seen, meaning John has testified, and his testimony is true, and he knows that he’s telling the truth so that you may believe, for these things were done that the scriptures should be fulfilled. And then he quotes from two scriptures. Verse 36 quotes, which is probably a reference to Exodus 12, 46, where it says the Passover lamb should not have any broken bones. And then verse 37, and again, another scripture says, and here he quotes Zechariah 12, 10, they shall look on him whom they pierced. Now, in my opinion, the reason he’s quoting this is because he says he saw Jesus pierced. He saw the spear pierce him in blood and water. And this was witnessed by the author. And so he says, the scripture does say, they shall look on him whom they pierced, which would be tying this into the time of the crucifixion. Now, almost everybody I know thinks, or when they teach, they say, that Zechariah 12.10 is talking about a future revival among the Jews, you know, when Jesus returns. You know, it says, I will pour out on the house of David, on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplication, and they’ll look on me whom they have pierced. And they’ll mourn for him as one mourns for his only son and grieve for him as one grieves for a firstborn. Now, a lot of people are applying that to the end of the world when Jesus comes back. And, you know, the Jews, they say, well, then repent. They’ll see him. They’ll mourn. They’ll repent. And so they see this as referring to a future, you know, conversion and revival of the Jewish people when Jesus comes back. The problem I have with it is that… Zechariah 9 through 14, the last six chapters of Zechariah, although much of them, especially 12 through 14, people apply to the end of the age, there’s actually nothing in these passages that mention the end of the age. There’s nothing in these passages that mention the second coming of Christ. There are quite a few verses, I think I found about half a dozen, five or six verses in this section that are quoted in the New Testament, but never quoted about the end times. I mean, for example, at the end of chapter 11, you’ve got him betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. That’s not at the second coming. That’s his first coming. You know, in chapter 13, verse 7, it says, Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is my companion, says the Lord. Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. Well, Jesus quoted that, Matthew 26, 31, said that would be fulfilled that very night in the Garden of Gethsemane. And there’s multiple things here. I mean, there’s quite a bit in this section of Zechariah that is quoted in the New Testament as having its fulfillment at the first coming of Christ. And there’s nothing in it that unambiguously is quoted as applying to the second coming of Christ. Now, some people might think this particular verse we’re talking about does. Because Revelation kind of quotes it in Revelation 1-7, which says that, you know, he’s coming quickly and every eye shall see him, even those who pierced him. And they’ll mourn for him, all the tribes will sure mourn and so forth. And that’s obviously referring to this verse here. And some people say, well, see, but Revelation is talking about the second coming. Well, I don’t think it is. I don’t think Revelation is talking about the second coming. So that’s a disputed point. But, you know, that one disputed case would be the absolute only case of any verses in Zechariah 9 through 14 that one could imagine was applying to the second coming of Christ. I believe pouring out the spirit of grace and supplication on Jerusalem happened at Pentecost. and you know and and just the next verses in chapter 13 say and in that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of david for the inhabitants of jerusalem for sin and uncleanness well it wasn’t the crucifixion of jesus when that fountain for cleansing of sin was opened i mean uh Isn’t it the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses from all sin, according to 1 John 1.7? You know, there’s so many things here. In chapter 14, verse 1, he says, I’ll gather all the nations together against Jerusalem. The city will be taken. The house will be rifled. The women will be ravished. That happened in A.D.
SPEAKER 1 :
70.
SPEAKER 02 :
So, I mean, I’m not really sure how there’s anything in this passage that one could confidently apply to the end times. Especially since there’s at least a handful of passages in this section that are quoted in the New Testament and applied to the first coming of Jesus. Where does it shift? Where does it shift from the first coming to the second coming? There’s no natural shift there.
SPEAKER 03 :
I figured there had to be some kind of embellishment there. I don’t know if that’s making sense to me timeline-wise, you know, but… Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, but I do appreciate… Yeah, if you ask me, I place the entire… Chapter 9, I think, begins with Alexander the Great in the early chapters and his conquest of the Persian Empire, but there’s also interjection in chapter 9, verse 9, of Jesus coming on a donkey into Jerusalem. That was also fulfilled in the first century. So, I mean, and it’s quoted as such. So, I mean, you’ve got the history of the intertestamental period… being followed, I think, in chapters 9 through 11 for the most part. But the coming of the Messiah is interjected, as it is throughout all prophetic books, in places wherever a prophet speaks of God delivering his people. More often than not, the prophet will then say something about the Messiah because that’s the ultimate, final, important time that God’s going to save his people. But in chapter 9, the first eight verses, are talking about how God’s delivering Jerusalem from Alexander the Great’s conquest, and Josephus tells us how that happened. We know it happened. But then as soon as it talks about that, God delivering his house from the onslaught of the Greeks, there’s this business about the Messiah riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, and salvation comes with him. And then after a verse or two about that, it goes on and talks about the Maccabean Wars, where it says God raises up the children of Zion against the children of the Greeks. There never was a time in history… that the Greeks and Israel fought each other except the Maccabean Wars, which is what it’s obviously talking about. And I think, and then, of course, you get to Chapter 11, you’ve got the Messiah, again, being, you know, betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, and so forth, and through the rest of the book. I think it’s all fulfilled no later than AD 70. Anyway, that’s my take, and I would challenge anyone to prove that wrong.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, yeah. What would you recommend for like a guide as far as history? When you read the Bible, things are helping. Well, let me recommend this.
SPEAKER 02 :
If you go to my website, thenarrowpath.com, my verse-by-verse lectures through Zechariah, I go over this in detail. So if you just go to thenarrowpath.com, hit the tab that says verse-by-verse lectures. Pick Zechariah. Find Zechariah 9 through 14 and listen to those lectures. I think that’ll clear those things up, in my opinion, for you. Hey, I appreciate your calling.
SPEAKER 01 :
Try to get some more calls in.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, God bless you. We don’t have much time, but we have a lot of calls waiting. Let’s see. We’re going to talk to Wendy in Pepperell, Massachusetts. Hi, Wendy. Welcome. Welcome.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi, Steve. Thank you for your program and your website. I have a question about angels, Gabriel and Michael in particular. A lot of 19th century gravestones have an angel blowing a trumpet on them, and I was told that angel on the gravestones is Gabriel. So, one, I was wondering if there’s any biblical passages about Gabriel blowing a trumpet. And number two, in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, when it says… the Lord will descend with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God. Do you think that voice of the archangel is Michael and the trumpet of God, do you think that’s the same angel of Michael, or do you think a different angel is blowing that trumpet, or no angel at all of your opinion on that passage?
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. Well, only two angels are mentioned by name in Scripture. There’s lots of angels mentioned, but only two of them are named for us. One is Michael, one is Gabriel. Of those two, only Michael is ever referred to as the archangel. In the book of Jude, verse 9, Michael is referred to as the archangel, Michael. So the only archangel we know of. Now, the word archangel means chief. Arche means the chief or the leader of the angels or the chief angel. So Michael is apparently the chief archangel. Gabriel is important, too. Gabriel brought messages to Daniel in chapter 10 of Daniel and so forth. Gabriel also came to Mary and to Joseph and told them about the birth of Jesus and so forth. So, Gabriel was an important angel, too. But only Gabriel and Michael are named, and only Michael is called an archangel. Now, when Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4, “…the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout on the voice of the archangel.” But we don’t know of any other archangel than Michael, so I suppose it is Michael. And the trump of God. Now, it’s not clear whether Michael is blowing that trumpet or some of the other angels are blowing the trumpets. We’re not really told. But as far as gravestones having a statue of an angel blowing trumpet, my assumption is, though I don’t know because I was never consulted about why they would do that, but I think they do it because the dead are expected to rise when the when the trumpet of God sounds. And the idea of the angel blowing the trumpet is not… I don’t know any other way to depict that in a statue than to have some being, an angel presumably, blowing the trumpet. So I assume that’s what’s meant there. I mean, perhaps some research would bring out there’s some more arcane or unimaginable reason that people did that. But that’s the one that would seem to be in some way, joined to Scripture, which is probably the best explanation for why they did that. All right. Thank you for your call. Let’s talk to Keith in Sacramento, California. Keith, welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hello, Mr. Steve. I’ve attended an independent fundamental Baptist church since 2017. And in the IFB movement, I’ve noticed that study Bibles are extremely common. Some of the main ones being the Schofields, Ryrie, Rockman, and the Companion Bible by E.W. Bollinger. He’s a hyper-dispensationist. And I personally don’t think that the pre-mill doctrine would be as prevalent without study Bibles. So my question is this. Is there something in Scripture that would… indicate we don’t need man’s interpretation in order to understand God’s word. The one scripture that comes to mind is 1 John 2, 27.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, I was thinking of it too.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I’m totally against study Bibles and think we should be getting our thoughts and doctrine from God, but I guess a follow-up would be, do you personally recommend a study Bible or do you use one yourself? So I’ll just listen, I’ll tune in, and God bless you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you. Thanks for your call. Yeah, the verse I thought of is the same one. You mentioned 1 John 2, 27, the anointing which you’ve received from him abides in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you, but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in him. So, I mean, ultimately we don’t depend on the notes or commentary of man, and that would equally apply to the comments of a radio talk show host giving his commentary like I do. You don’t have to depend on people like me. But that doesn’t mean there’s no place for learning from people. I mean, one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned by Paul is the gift of teaching. So although we learn from the Holy Spirit, we learn through whatever means the Holy Spirit chooses. And if he gives a gift of teaching as a spiritual gift and we learn something from it, we could say, well, the Holy Spirit is guiding us through that gift. teaching gift, but we can’t trust that everybody who teaches has such a teaching gift or is actually, you know, understands the truth well enough. So we can’t just trust people, any people. You can’t trust me. You can’t trust Ryrie. You can’t trust Schofield. You’ve got to only trust God. And what it’s, you know, 1 Thessalonians 5.21 says, test all things and hold fast what is good. So you’ve got to test everything. You hear me? Give an interpretation. Test it. If it’s not good, don’t hold to it. If it is good, hold to it. Same thing with Ryrie or Schofield. The problem is that Ryrie and Schofield and Walford and these others and E.W. Bollinger, their commentary is right on the Bible page. I mean, the very Bible you’re reading for devotions, you can hardly avoid looking down at the bottom of the page and seeing what they say things mean. which kind of gives an unfair advantage to their views. It gives their particular theology a privileged position that many people may not know they should challenge, knowing that just because someone puts his opinions at the bottom of the Bible page doesn’t mean he knows any more than anybody else does about it. It probably means he has a doctorate or something like that, but having a doctorate doesn’t mean anything. People of every theological camp sometimes have doctorates. So you can’t just trust that someone who’s had an education necessarily knows the truth. That you have to get from study and from meditation on the scripture and being guided by the Holy Spirit. So, yeah, I don’t use a study Bible, but I have some. My shelf has a bunch of them, but they’re up there with my commentaries because a study Bible has commentary in it. If there’s a passage I’m interested in knowing what various people have thought about it because it’s obscure, I might pull out my commentaries and my study Bibles and kind of look and see what people say. But I don’t use a study Bible for my own reading. I don’t need them for that. Now, some study Bibles are not too… slanted, but every person who makes comments has his own opinions, including yours truly, and you just have to be aware that sometimes you’re getting a human opinion, even if the author doesn’t know he’s just giving his opinion. He thinks it’s true, but his education or his insights are human and limited, and therefore could be mistaken. And so could yours. But the thing is that you don’t have to learn the correct interpretation of everything the first time you read it. As we follow Christ, we should be learning all our lives. And my views on lots of things have changed, but not all at once. Not by reading somebody’s commentary and saying, oh, okay, now I’ve changed my mind. Or by hearing some teacher say, oh, now I know it’s true. But rather… By meditating day and night on the Word of God for the past 55 years, it has led me over years to change my mind on things. And someone says, well, I’m kind of in a hurry. I don’t want to wait 55 years. Well, you’re out of luck. You learn as quickly as God wants you to learn. But you’ll learn most quickly if you do what the Bible instructs, which is to meditate day and night on the Word of God. The more you meditate on it, the more you’re going to see through interpretations you once held that don’t make sense in light of what you’re beginning to see. And, you know, learning, we should see. We’ve gotten the impression that if you want to be a pastor or teacher, just go to four years Bible college or maybe maybe a seminary, too. And in a few years time, you can get all this downloaded information into your head. Now you’re qualified to teach. Well, that’s not really how it is. You’re qualified to teach if you’re living in the Word of God and living out the Word of God. That is to say, you’re immersed in it. You’re meditating day and night on it over years of time, and you’re living by it. And as you live by it, the truth of it is unfolded to you, too. Being a Christian is a lifetime commitment. Some people just want to invest a few years and not have to learn anything after that. No, you might have to change your mind about things. when you’ve been a Christian for 60 years. And that’s okay, because it’s fun to learn. I’d rather not come to a place where I’m not learning anything else. Life would get so boring for me. Anyway, I’m out of time. No, I don’t recommend a particular study Bible, but each one has some value. It’s just something you shouldn’t trust in or depend upon. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. We are listener-supported. You can donate there if you want, but everything’s free at thenarrowpath.com.
