Join us as we delve into the deeply thought-provoking theological debates surrounding the security of believers. Our featured guest, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, unpacks common misconceptions about scripture and brings clarity to challenging biblical passages. From new names in Revelation to recognizing spiritual bodies after resurrection, this episode offers insightful and enlightening discussions tailored for every believer seeking truth. Dr. McGee also addresses whether a Christian can lose their salvation, emphasizing the eternal nature of the life Jesus offers. Enrich your understanding of these profound topics with us today as we navigate through listener questions and expert answers powered
Of all the theological debates that are being discussed among Christians, there is one that seems to cause a lot of heat but no light. Well, we hope to shed a little light on the issue of the security of the believer today, so stay with us.
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The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent word. What more can he say than to you he hath said, to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?
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Fear not, I am with thee.
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We’d like to thank you for joining us today on this question and answer program with our Bible teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee. This program is a ministry of the Through the Bible Radio Network. Before we get to our questions, though, I’d like to take a moment and thank you for your continued financial and prayer support. You know, this ministry is able to maintain our over 100 languages because of your faithfulness in responding to the Spirit prompting you. Your prayers are invaluable to our ongoing work, so we would ask that you would continue to remain faithful as the Bible bus keeps rolling along. Now let’s get to those questions. Our first one comes to us from a listener in Long Beach, California, and it says, Would you please explain why our names are changed and when this occurs?
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May I say to you that I do not personally believe our names are changed. I think that’s a misunderstanding of the passage in… Revelation, the message of Christ to the church in Pergamum, where he says in Revelation 2.17, “…he that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and I’ll give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written.” Now, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it. Now, the new name written is not the name of the individual. It’s a new name of Christ. In other words, Christ, for these believers who hear him and are overcomers, these are the ones that are to receive, if you please, a white stone. It’s an invitation. They were used that way. With the name of the one who’s sending the invitation, it’s the name of Christ, and it’s a new name. His name, not our name. May I say to you, there’s been a song written on. There’s a new name written down in glory, and it’s mine. Believe me, I can’t imagine anything that is so self-centered as that song. Why, you’d think that the most important thing in the world is that I get my name written down in heaven. And it certainly is big I. but that’s not the way that it is. He’ll give to you a name, a name that only you know, and Christ will mean, I think, something to certain believers that he’ll not mean to other believers. He’ll mean something to you that he’ll mean to no one else. How personal, how wonderful that’s going to be. Now, that is what I believe the passage means, and I do not think that you and I are going to be given a new name.
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The same listener has a second question. She says, Is the spiritual body one that can function and be recognized?
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Oh, yes. The important thing about it is it’s sown a natural body. It’s raised a spiritual body. The thing that’s carried over in resurrection is the body. In fact, the resurrection can only refer to the body and does only refer to the body. It’s sown a natural body. It’s raised a spiritual body. It’s still a body. Now, that body can be recognized. After all, the disciples, although Mary had difficulty at the tomb, and these two disciples on Emmaus rode. But there are, I think, reasons for that. I think I’ve answered that on this. program recently, by the way. But the important thing was they did finally recognize him. And the others recognized him. And they knew him. They recognized him there in the room with the door locked in Jerusalem. They recognized him by the Sea of Galilee. And they recognized him on the Mount of Olives when he went back to heaven. So that he had a body that could be recognized. And you and I have a glorified body. As he is, so shall we be. We do not know what we shall be. We know when he shall appear, we shall be like him. We shall see him as he is so that we’ll be able to see and we’ll be able to recognize. Now I do not want to be unkind, but I think that we need not only to have a scriptural understanding of this, but as someone said, some good, common, sanctified gumption today to understand some of these things. And I think we need a little of that here. Someone asked the late Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, said, Dr. Morgan, do you think I’ll recognize my loved ones in heaven? And Dr. Morgan said, you know, said, I don’t expect to be a bigger fool in heaven than I am here. And I certainly recognize them down here. certainly we will recognize them up there. And that’s one of the glorious things is we’ll recognize them and we shall know them. What a glorious, wonderful thing that’s going to be.
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Our next question comes to us from San Francisco. The listener writes, Can a born-again believer in Jesus Christ ever lose his salvation?
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And, of course, the answer to that is a born-again believer in Jesus Christ cannot lose his salvation. If you can lose it, then you never had it. And to tell the truth, you can’t lose what you never had. Therefore, you couldn’t lose your salvation. Now, the only kind of life that the Lord Jesus is offering today is eternal life. Now, if the life you got is something that you lost the second week after you were saved and you didn’t get eternal life, And what you lost was something you never had to begin with. If you’ve been born again, then you are a child of God, and you can’t undo that. Now, you can be a disgrace to your father. For instance, I can never keep from being the son of my father. That I cannot be undone. I can disgrace him. I can do many things that would be contrary to him, but I’d always be his son, and because I am his son, I would want to honor and please my father. And that is true of a child of God. If you’ve actually been born again, then he says, “…to as many as received him, to them gave he the right, the authority, the power to become the sons of God, even to those that don’t do any more nor less than simply believe in his name.” And then you remember the Lord Jesus talking to Nicodemus. He said that you must be born again. And he said that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. And the question would arise, then, how are you born again? And he said, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have, what kind of life does he offer? To a son, he offers eternal life. To as many as received him, to them gave eternal life. They have received eternal life. Now, he makes that abundantly clear in 1 John 5, 12. He that hath the son hath life. And he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. Now, the whole question rests on, do you have Christ as your Savior? Do you have Him? Well, then you have life. Well, you say, I don’t feel like it. It doesn’t rest on that. It rests on that, do you have Christ as your Savior? And somebody says, well, I can’t be sure. Well, he says in the verse 13, 1 John 5, These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. Now, somebody might say, and I have a question that’s coming up like that in just a minute, and I’m going to answer it all together. I don’t have any feelings. Shouldn’t I have feelings that I’m a child of God? Well, I hope you do, but it doesn’t rest on feelings. It doesn’t rest on anything that’s subjective. It rests upon the objective fact that Christ died for you and that you received Him as your Savior. Now, some people, that to them is a great emotional experience. To others, it is not an emotional experience whatsoever. They just accept Christ as Savior. Now is a question of whether you believe and trust Him. Now, as a son of God, you have the nature now of the Son of God, and somebody says, well, what about this Christian that sins? Well, he can’t live in sin. John says in this first epistle, he that practices the sin, he’s not born of God. Because you see, if you’re born of God, you have the nature of God. Well, when you sin, what happens? Well, you’re very unhappy to begin with, and the day will come, as it did for the prodigal son. You see, he was a son. That’s what he’s called, a prodigal son. He never was a prodigal pig. He was a son. And because he was a son, one day in the pig pen, he said, I will arise and go to my father. Now, no pig ever said that. In fact, no pig could ever say that. And if he did, He never would like the Father’s house. He just wouldn’t be supernatural to him. He started to say natural. The pig pen’s what’s natural to him. So I believe that the thing that you need to do if you want right now to know that somebody says, well, I accepted Christ and I think I’ve The next question coming up is that, I accepted Christ 25 years ago. How can I know? Well, you can know like this, because this is the place where the devil bothered me. And then I heard Dr. Schaeffer in class one day when I was a student, and that is many years ago. He said, sometimes the devil says to me, you’re not a child of God. You’ve never really accepted him, and it’s so long ago. How do you know? And so he said, when that comes to me, I say to the devil, I said to him, wait a minute. I want you to hear me right now, accept Christ as my Savior. So if I never did it before, I sure do it right now. And so friend, how about you? Can you right now say, if I never accepted him before, I accept him right now as my Savior. I trust him right now. And you’ve got the devil as a witness to that, you see, if he’s troubling you in that connection. So that I would say that this is something you can settle in your mind and heart right now.
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Moving on, we come to a question from a listener in Honolulu, Hawaii, and he says, Today, can a layman, missionary, or an ordained minister rebuke a supposed demon and order it out from a person who is acting or speaking in an evil, wicked, unchristian-like manner?
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Well, may I say two things relative to this. First of all, I do not know whether demons recognize whether a person is a layman or whether he’s a missionary or whether he’s an ordained preacher. And I don’t know that whether being an ordained preacher has anything in the world to do with this at all. I can’t find out that. You have to be an ordained person to do this sort of thing. And the second thing is, I think there’s too big an emphasis today on demonism. My, we have had an avalanche of books on demonism and on Satan today. Now, it is important that we not be ignorant of his devices and that sort of thing. But all of this overemphasis today on Satan, it’s a sort of like an overkill of a certain subject, when actually the emphasis always, regardless of the period, And we are seeing, I think, a manifestation of the supernatural, of demonism in our day. Regardless of that, the emphasis always ought to be on the person of Christ. And what we need right now is a good book on the person of Christ. Now, I don’t think it would sell very well. But if you’ll go back and look at the books that have survived down through the ages, from the beginning of the church, there are books that have put an emphasis on the person of Christ. And, by the way, you’ll know that 27 books of the New Testament put the emphasis on the person of Christ and not demonism. Now, they don’t ignore demonism, but that certainly is not the emphasis.
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Let’s now hear from a listener in Los Angeles who sent us this question. Do angels sing?
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As far as the scriptures concern, no. You will recall at the birth of the Lord Jesus, we read in Luke 2, 13, and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying… Glory to God in the highest. And not singing, but saying. Nowhere does it say that angels sing, but I do not know whether that precludes the possibility that they really do. It would seem that they do not reveal the emotion that we can. For instance, at the repentance of a sinner. We’re told that there’s joy in the presence of the angels, but doesn’t say the angels reveal that joy. Maybe that they can. We’ve got a great many false notions about angels that do not come from the scripture at all, but rather come from the Middle Ages when they used to argue at that time how many angels could dance on the point of a needle. Those were the questions they discussed in those days, and a great deal of our thinking comes from there rather than from the Word of God.
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Our next question is from a listener in Linwood, California, who writes, Does Jesus condone the actions of the unjust steward in the 16th chapter of Luke?
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No, he does not. I’ve had that question up though several times before, and I brought a message some time ago on that particular subject. What he’s actually doing is this, is saying that according to the standards of the world, According to the world, the children of this world, he says, that is out in the world, they are wiser than the children of light. In other words, according to their methods, which are absolutely questionable and crooked, they are always thinking of the future. That’s what they’re attempting to do. That’s what the average businessman is attempting to do today that’s in the world. And the one that’s even a crook is thinking of the future and of making investments that are going to yield dividends. That’s the important thing as far as the business of the world is concerned, whether it’s honest or crooked. They’re thinking of returns. Now, he says that the children of light are not smart, that they do not invest their money as they should, that they are not thinking of the dividend that can come to them. And may I say to you that I think that’s one of the most pertinent parables for the present hour. Just think of the people today that give because of some sentimental emotion. They’re moved to give and they give. And how many people today, right on the radio, they give to something they do not really know anything about. That’s one of the reasons that we always urge people to come in, visit us, get acquainted, see what we’re doing. see where the money’s going and that sort of thing. For the very simple reason, friends, and I tell it to you very candidly, there’s a lot of religious racketeering going on in Southern California and a great deal of it’s on radio today. When a man is operating without a board and You do not have reliable Christian folks that are well-known, that are looking in on this work, why it’ll pay you to investigate it. Yet a great many Christians, they do not know really what’s being done. And somebody says, well, they give you some facts and figures on the radio. They tell you about what’s being, yeah, but how do you know that’s true? Have you investigated? Have you found out that’s true? I think that a Christian ought to be as smart as that hard-headed businessman down here that’s playing the market this morning. And they’re down there doing it. So the point is that right down here, these businessmen that are down at these brokerage places watching that stock market, They’re sharp, you see. They’re thinking of an investment. Do you think they just want to give because the name of some company appeals to them? Or the fellow that runs it’s a nice fellow and he looks well and they like him and he makes a good appeal and they met him at a banquet? No, sir. That’s not the way businessmen invest. They want to know whether that concern is a reliable concern or whether it’s going to give a good return on the investment, whether the men that are running it are good, sound men. They’re thinking, you see, of a return. Now, the Lord Jesus says that Christians ought to be smart too, that you ought to investigate. And honestly, friends, I think God’s going to hold you responsible for what you give, not only the amount you give, but where you give it. And if you’re supporting something’s wrong, I think, honestly, you’re gonna hear him someday condemn you for that sort of thing, that you weren’t even as smart as the children of this world. The children of light are not. And I’m afraid that he really knew a great deal about Southern California. Honestly, when I hear where some people today, good Christian people, are giving their money. It makes me sick. It absolutely just makes me sick because I do know that what I know about some of these organizations is that they are not worthy of the support of Christian people at all. And yet these folk don’t seem to be disturbed about it.
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Here’s a question from a listener in Lakewood, California. He writes, does Hebrews 9 verse 26 mean that Christ suffered in anticipation every time a blood sacrifice was made?
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All right, now let us turn over to Hebrews 9. 927, and we’ll read that, and then we’ll, 926 it is, “…for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world, but now once in the end of the age hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” No, may I say very definitely that is not the thought here at all. He did not suffer through those sacrifices. They were merely shadows that pointed to him. For verse 25 says, Nor yet that he should offer himself often as the high priest entered into the holy place every year with blood of others. In other words, it wasn’t necessary for the Lord Jesus Christ to offer himself every year. He only did it one time in the end of the age. But all these sacrifices in the past that were offered continually, they merely pointed to him. Now that’s what the writer here in Hebrews is saying.
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Our final question is from a listener in La Mesa, California. She says, Scripture teaches that God foreknew all things. God then foreknew that Adam would fall and still gave him the freedom of will to choose to do what he did. So I was wondering, why then are we accountable for our actions? Then I consider the passage which says where sin abounds, grace abounds even more. This then reveals to me the power of Christ over sin to the glory of God. So there is no excuse that sin should have dominion over us. What do you think?
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Well, may I say that that is partially the answer. You see that in this tremendous question of why God did this at the beginning, and if God knew that Adam was going to sin, then that means that Adam’s not responsible. That kind of thinking is due to our limitation. In other words, we do not have all the facts. We do not know all of the situation. And that’s one of the reasons that we come up with some very peculiar answers relative to this. But since God made Adam a free moral agent, and that, by the way, is in the foreknowledge of God, so that a man’s freedom in there It will not affect God’s foreknowledge one way at all. Yet man is a free moral agent, and since he is, it’s a legitimate, sincere, real thing. He is responsible for the decisions that he’s going to make. But God is infinite, and therefore his knowledge of a thing like that would not affect the decision that man would make at all. God is so far above man, you see. So that we’re trying, when we try to bring that down, and because God foreknew it, he’s forcing man. That’s just where our thinking breaks down, and we’re not clear at that particular point. These are matters where I feel, actually, that we have to walk by faith more than by sight.
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Earlier, Dr. McGee mentioned his sermon from Luke 16 on the parable of the unjust steward. The title of this sermon is Could Christ Commend a Crook? It’s available on a single CD. If you’d like to know more about the wonderful things that God is accomplishing through the work of this ministry, then you’ll want to get on our mailing list for our monthly newsletter. With each issue, you’ll receive an excerpt from Dr. McGee’s teaching to enrich your soul, and then a ministry update from Greg Harris, our international director, Dr. McGee’s response to a question from our question and answer broadcast, upcoming program information, and much, much more. So if you aren’t receiving the newsletter, then this would be a great time to get started. All you need to do is to let us know that you’re interested in getting it. To do that, call 1-800-65-BIBLE, visit us online at ttb.org, or write to Questions and Answers. For those in the U.S., Box 7100, Pasadena, California, 91109. In Canada, Box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C 6B1. If you’d like to listen to this broadcast again because you missed something Dr. McGee said or you just want to review what you heard, visit our archives page online or download one of our mobile apps. Now we leave you with this prayer, that God will answer all your questions and solve all your problems.
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Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow.
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This program’s been brought to you by the faithful friends and supporters of the worldwide ministry of Through the Bible Radio Network.
