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Explore the dynamic tension between God’s sovereignty and human free will in this thought-provoking episode. With lively dialogue and insightful analysis, host Steve Gregg discusses the boundaries of moral ascertainment and accountability from a biblical standpoint. Engage with real-life challenges, including familial relations and moral conundrums. Plus, dive into nuanced debates on Jesus’ dual existence as both divine and human—the complexities faced during His earthly journey and what it means for spiritual seekers today.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. And as usual, we’re live. This is the case Monday through Friday most weeks, except in very rare situations. And we’ve been doing this week daily for 28 years on many stations. Right now on 80-something stations across the country. The program, if you’re not familiar with it, is one where you simply can call in with a question about the Bible or Christianity or to call to disagree with the host. You may be a Christian who disagrees on something, which is no doubt many out there. Or you might be a person who’s not a Christian and disagrees completely. And I’d be glad to hear from you as well. I would ask this, though, that if you call, there’s a couple of things. One is that you have a very clear idea of what your question is and state it up front. And if I want some more background information, I will gladly ask. We can converse about it. But what sometimes happens, I think people call and don’t know what their question is. They know they have a general subject they’re curious about. But they give a little speech. Sometimes that takes a lot of time. And, you know, our time is expensive here on the radio. So don’t give a little speech, but give your question. Or if you have a comment to make, you say, I disagree with you about this. That’s fine. Just, again, be as succinct as possible so we can get as many people in to the program. Now, I realize I’m very verbose, and I’m not always succinct, but that’s my prerogative. That’s the way I answer questions, and for 28 years, that’s the way people have supported the program to have questions answered completely. Some people don’t want such complete answers, or they just want something a little more abbreviated. I recommend you go to other radio programs for that. I’m going to answer them as I do, but we are requesting that you get directly to your question, if you would, And we can converse about it, but I’ll ask you if I need more information in order to answer. The other thing is, if you call, we’ll put you on hold, and we’ll hopefully get to you before the program’s over. Don’t leave your phone. Don’t say, well, I’ll listen to the radio in the other room, and when I hear my voice, I’ll run over and get my phone. No, there’s a delay there. You will not hear me calling your name on the radio until I’ve been calling it for about 30 seconds over the air. And we just won’t use the time that way. Okay, so those are a few things that everyone probably needs to know. And we’re going to go directly to the phone lines now. I think I gave the number. Maybe I didn’t. It’s 844-484-5737. The number again is 844-484-5737. 484-5737. And this week, from Thursday through Sunday, I’ll be speaking in a variety of places in Arizona. If you’re in Arizona, you may be interested in that. You can go to thenarrowpath.com and look under announcements. And one of the places I’m speaking is going to be in Scottsdale this Sunday, or thereabouts via Rio Verde. And the person who invited me to that is Andy, who’s our first caller today. Hi, Andy.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. And yeah, before I do ask my question, I just wanted to, on behalf of the Arizona listeners, thank you for your upcoming trip to our state. Just I want to do a quick shameless invitation to other Arizona listeners. Please join us at the chapel at Reigning Grace Ranch in North Scottsdale, as Steve was just talking about, in the Rio Verde area this Sunday, which is the fellowship my family and I attend. And Steve will be teaching a series on Cultivating Christian Character, and that’s the chapel at Reigning Grace Ranch at both 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. this Sunday. And as just a fun little fact, our Sunday service is actually in a covered horse arena. So if you’re into that sort of thing, you’re really going to love it. It’s a cowboy church, right? It is. It is. Now, as for the other reason for my call, in 1 Timothy chapter 3, Paul is talking about the qualifications for church leaders, specifically bishops and deacons. How do you think this list of qualifications should apply in the modern day? I’m specifically thinking about verses 4 and 5, which say, One who rules his house well, having his children in submission with all reverence. For if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God? If I’m not mistaken, I believe house in the Bible was the entirety of a man’s offspring, not just the people living under the same literal roof as him. So first, that’s another follow-up. Is that correct? And so in the modern day, how are we to understand where a man’s house extends to? And what characteristics about ruling your house well do you think Paul specifically has in mind that would translate to good church leadership? I’m thinking it could be care and nurture and personal accountability to make sure everything is in right order. But I guess my confusion may be coming from the fact that a man has legal authority over his children, in particular his young children that are still minors, in a way that he does not have such authority over anyone else. What are your thoughts?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, well, this is a hard one for people today because so many good Christian people have at least one or two of their children who have not remained in the faith once they became adults. And when we’re looking for elders or deacons for churches or pastors or whatever, if we look at Paul’s qualifications here, the question naturally arises that you bring up, what if this person is otherwise apparently a good elder and meets most of the qualifications, but he has adult children who are not believers? Is Paul thinking of that kind of a case, or is he thinking of a man’s control of those living under his roof? Now, it is true the word household can simply refer to your whole family without reference to their age and so forth. But I do believe that, I mean, certainly all people of all times have known that, you know, some godly people, once their children have grown up, and I mean godly people in the Bible, Samuel, for example, you know, who is both a prophet and a judge, and many others, you have had at least some of their adult children go astray. And it’s hard to know whether the parents should be held responsible for that. One might argue, well, if you had raised them right, they would stay right. Doesn’t the Bible say, train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he’s old, he will not depart from it? The Bible does say that in Proverbs. And, of course, that would be the only reason for, in any sense, laying the responsibility of an adult child a misbehavior upon the parent who no longer lives with the child. And I’m not sure that that applies. I myself have considered myself to be disqualified from eldership because of the fact that I have quite a few children. Some of them are certainly not walking with God. And so it would seem to me that that would be something someone could bring up. Now, my children are all grown. I mean, the youngest is in his 30s and the oldest is in her 50s. But And I’m in my 70s. But, you know, the thing is I don’t aspire to be an elder or a pastor of a church, never have wanted to be. And, therefore, it’s easy for me to say, well, you know, I don’t qualify because my kids are grown. But what about somebody who actually does want to be a pastor or elder or actually the church wants them to be? Let’s say they would be good for the church, but they’ve got children. who are grown and gone out of the house and who are misbehaving or whatever. I would take a more, I guess, a more lenient view of this simply because of Paul’s intention. We could be very legalistic about things that Paul says sometimes, or we can try to say, well, here’s his intention. Let me take another example. Paul says, let people in the church prophesy things. two or three only, and only if there’s an interpreter one at a time. Well, we know that he was addressing a church that was chaotic, and the people were not speaking in tongues in an orderly way. And so Paul’s trying to reign them in and give some precise parameters for them. Okay, two or three, only if there’s an interpreter, et cetera. But we don’t know if Paul would have objected to, say, four people doing it, You know, he’s obviously, he didn’t want a bunch of people speaking in tongues with no interpretation chaotically, so he’s trying to put a specific rule on them so they can gauge how to keep it orderly. But it’s order that he wants. It’s not a precise number of people speaking. And so, same thing with this. What Paul wants is leaders who have shown themselves capable of leading a family. And And, you know, so that they might be trusted to be leaders in the church of God, as Paul says. Now, there are men who have been very good leaders to their families. I won’t say I’m one of them. I tried. I tried, but I don’t think I was ideal. I think I was very weak disciplinarian, like Samuel was. That’s why Samuel, you know, he lost his kids. But I was always kind of weak in that area. So I wouldn’t make a good church leader. But the thing is, there are people who are good fathers, good disciplinarians. When their children left home, they were well-ordered believers. And then later on, when the kids got in the wrong company, they went the wrong way because they have free will. I think that Paul would probably not include that as a disqualification. I don’t know, but I think that. Because I think what Paul’s looking for is not for all the ways that he could disqualify a man. I think he’s looking for people who’ve shown themselves to have the kind of leadership ability that is exhibited in a well-ordered family. And because he wants the church to be well-ordered under their leadership. So it would have a lot to do with if a man has children living in his home and they’re not under control, then I think he’s not qualified. Because obviously he should be controlling his own household. And I mean, I can imagine situations where it might be different. I can imagine situations where a man lost control of his children because his wife was, let’s say, way out of control, and she alienated the children or whatever. But I’m not real legalistic about this. I would just say that if I saw a man who was a pastor or an elder, and I went to his house and his children who were in the home, were totally undisciplined and chaotic and misbehaving and wouldn’t obey him when he told them to stop, I’d say, okay, this man is not a good father. I mean, I’m not saying he’s not a good man and a father. He’s just not fathering well. And I would think that that’s what Paul’s concerned about, that that man does not exhibit qualifications to lead a family like the family of God.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 09 :
Good. Great. I follow a lot of that logic and agree with it. So thank you for your time again. Looking forward to seeing you in a couple days.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right, Andy. Thanks for calling. God bless you. Bye-bye. Bye now. Steve in Long Beach, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, thank you for allowing me to call. Hey, my question’s on free will, and I want to connect these two for the answer. When does an unsaved person’s spiritual light bulb, so to speak, go off inside of him? And regarding man’s free will, how does a man’s free will and God’s drawing an unsaved person to salvation work together for saving of a soul?
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, those are good questions. When does a person reach, I think what you’re talking about is the age of accountability. I don’t know if you would use that term for it, but we recognize that a baby… for example, who misbehaves, who’s a few days or a few weeks or a few months old, probably is not responsible for that. I mean, they don’t know any better. But at some point, a child reaches an age where they do know better. And we don’t hold babies responsible for bad behavior any more than we would hold a coyote responsible for bad behavior. They don’t know any different. We might have to kill the coyote if it’s killing our livestock or whatever, but we don’t think it’s morally responsible. And likewise, God, I think, does not hold babies and little children morally responsible until they reach an age which is often referred to, not in the Bible, but it’s often referred to in conversations about it, as the age of accountability. Now, no one knows exactly when that is except God. My guess is it occurs for different people at different times in their life. Developmentally, people are not all on the same page when they’re two years old, five years old, 10 years old, 15 years old, you know, that people develop differently and mature differently. So I think that would have to be, you know, what God knows only. There are some indicators, but they point wildly in different directions. For example, Adam and Eve did not feel any guilt because they weren’t guilty and felt no guilt until they sinned. Before they sinned and before they felt guilt, they were naked, but they were not ashamed. But as soon as they experienced the sense of guilt and responsibility, they were naked and ashamed, and they tried to cover themselves. Now, I’m not going to make too much of this, but it’s interesting that little babies and little children, they don’t have any self-consciousness about being naked. They run around, they don’t know the difference being naked and clothed. And you put clothes on, they may just strip them off and run around naked because they prefer it. But at a certain point, and it seems to me like for most children, this could be around five maybe years old, they don’t want to be naked in front of other people. And it’s not because they’re taught, oh, you have to wear clothes. because after all, parents do condition their children to wear clothes from infancy. But earlier than a certain age, the kids don’t see any reason for it. And then they reach a certain age, and they do internally not want to be naked. And I wonder if that bespeaks a threshold they have crossed in their maturing, in their moral awareness, that resembles Adam and Eve’s coming to that point. where they were ashamed of being naked, even in front of each other. So, I mean, that would suggest maybe five, six years old, possibly. On the other hand, there are suggestions that it could be considerably older than that. For example, the Jews have a tradition, longstanding tradition, that a boy or a girl is not really responsible for their moral actions before God. until they reach a young adult stage, which is marked by the bar mitzvah or the bat mitzvah for girls. And this usually is about 13 years old, entering into adolescence here. And when a child reaches that age and goes through the bar mitzvah, it’s suggesting they are now a child of the covenant themselves. They were under their parents’ household authority in terms of their obedience to God or not. until they reach the age where they would be expected to know how to behave and obey God and to make a decision, a responsible decision. And I think in the Jewish tradition, that would suggest that age 13, maybe 12, would be the time when they make that transition. We know that Jesus, we only have one story from Jesus’ childhood. It was when he was 12 years old, and it may have been the first time he’d gone to Jerusalem. But it’s certainly the first time we know that he had awareness of who he was, that God was his father. He mentions it on that occasion. I must be about my father’s business, or I must be in my father’s house. Some translations read differently. And that may be reflecting the Jewish idea that a child reaches a mature, responsible age to relate to God on his own, maybe around that time. Now, there’s even another suggestion that comes from Deuteronomy 1, where… you know, the Israelites, when they refused, when the spies came back and said, the land is beautiful, but it’s unconquerable. And the people were afraid, and they didn’t want to go into the land because they didn’t have confidence that God could give it to them. God was angry at them, and he sent them back wandering for 40 years in the wilderness. And later in Deuteronomy, when Moses is repeating the story, he mentions that those who had been under 20 years old at that time were, in verse 39 of chapter 1, says, Moreover, your little ones and your children, and we know that this was those 20 years old and younger, we know that from the book of Numbers, who say will be victims, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, shall go in there. That is, he’s quoting what God said back in Numbers 1. 14 or 13. And what God had said was, you know, all the Jews, all the Israelites that were over 20 were responsible for the rebellion, but their offspring who were 20 years old and younger were not responsible, would not suffer the consequences of death in the wilderness. And now Moses is repeating that story and saying, God said your little ones who you say would be victims, who today have no knowledge of good or evil. That was the category of everyone under 20. Now, I don’t think that children under 20 would be included among those who don’t know good from evil, in the sense that I would understand that. But what I’m saying is there is some kind of age of accountability that is acknowledged in Scripture. We just don’t know what age it is. And… So, you know, certainly we can say babies are at that age, but how long after birth they may remain in that condition, we don’t know. Now, your other question had to do with free will. And God’s sovereignty, as I recall. And how do we harmonize those two concepts? Well, a person cannot come to God, Jesus said in John 6, unless the Father draws him. So God has to do the drawing. But God’s drawing can be resisted. The fact that God draws someone does not predict that they will be saved. We can simply say they will not be saved if he doesn’t draw them. But he may try to draw them and they may resist and not be saved. So Jesus said in John chapter 12, I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto myself. Okay, well, Jesus is attempting to draw them into himself, but not all men come to him. And so the drawing of God is not always, you know, doesn’t always result in what God would wish. I believe there’s a sense in which God draws all people. And because God draws all people, it is possible for any to come who will. But it’s also possible for people to resist. So if I come to Christ, I have to say, well, I would never have come to him if God hadn’t drawn me. It wouldn’t have been something I would have initiated. I didn’t have the virtue for that. I was a bad sinner. But God drew me. Thank God. He took the first step. But then the responsibility was on me. Will I let him draw me or will I resist because I want to do my own thing instead of his? And that’s where free will comes in. So I think we have both. We’ve got God’s drawing and convicting by his spirit, for example. A person can feel convicted and, as a result, repent. Or one can feel convicted and kill the messenger. We see that in Acts chapter 7. Well, first of all, in Acts chapter 2, we see that when Peter preached on Pentecost, it said the people’s hearts were pricked. And they said, what must we do? And 3,000 of them got saved. So they were convicted by Peter’s words, but they got saved as a result of being convicted. However, when Stephen preached to them, it says in verse 54 of Acts 7, when they heard these things from Stephen, they were cut to the heart. Obviously, they were convicted. And they gnashed at him with their teeth, and then they stoned him to death, basically. So people can be cut to the heart by the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and they can be converted as a result. Or they can be cut to the heart and kill the messenger, or at least just resist and reject the message. So I believe being cut to the heart is the conviction of the Holy Spirit. I believe that is God seeking to draw people to himself. Jesus said in Matthew 23, I think it’s verse 37, He said, oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I would have gathered your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wing, but you would not. So he said, I wanted to draw you. I was seeking to gather you, but you didn’t want to come, so you didn’t. And in the Old Testament, God makes the same complaint in Isaiah. He says, I called, but no one responded. So God can call. He can draw. But we have free will, too. And so free will is involved in whether we get saved or not. but it doesn’t precede God’s drawing. So that’s how I would put those two things together. All right?
SPEAKER 03 :
Great answer. Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, Steve, thanks for your call. God bless you. We’ve got Daniel from Linden, New Jersey. Daniel, welcome. We may have to hold you over the break, but go ahead.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, Steve. I’ve got this question. Does God answer or make his will known To our spirit and not to our soul.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, yes. I mean, he does when he wants to. His will in general is revealed in Scripture. So we know that he always wants us to do justly and to love mercy and walk humbly with our God, for example. That’s God’s will. And most of the decisions we have to make moment by moment, day by day, can be guided by that revealed will. We know that he has specific commands about specific situations, as we would find in, say, the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5 through 7. Now, when it comes to things that the Bible doesn’t instruct us about, like whom shall I marry? Where might I choose to go to school? How would I decide if I should go to school? Which job opportunity should I take? I mean, those kinds of things the Bible generally doesn’t answer, although there may be factors in those decisions that could be guided here. by the principles of Scripture, and one choice may definitely be, may commit itself more on those principles. But there’s times when two choices can be seemingly equal. So how does God let us know in those cases what to do? Well, I think in some cases, God just works through the choice we make. He lets us make choices the way we make choices about any other thing. And we look afterwards and say, wow, God was leading me in that. We don’t always know what his will is until we move forward. It’s a very common thing for preachers to say, and I agree with them, that we want God to steer the car, but we have to put it in motion. We need to be going forward. And if God doesn’t like the way we’re going, he can block the roads. He can close the doors. He can dry up the supply or whatever. And so we choose another way. Paul and his companions, for example, in Acts chapter 16, made some false starts in a certain direction. They thought God wanted them to go, but God prevented them from doing it. We read that, for example, in Acts 16, verses 6 and 7. Now, when they had gone through Phrygia. and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asian. I’m not sure how he forbade them, but it says, after they had come to Mysia, they tried to go to Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them. Now, the Spirit did not permit them. Does that mean he told them not to, or does it say he put up roadblocks? In any case, we can see that they proceeded without having any clear guidance from the Spirit. And, of course, the Spirit was faithful to block their way or to prevent them or reveal themselves. God can speak to you through all kinds of ways, dreams and visions, prophecies. I believe in those things, but I don’t think he always does those things. I think he’ll sometimes just give you, you’ll think to do something, you’ll get a check in your spirit about it. It won’t feel like it’s quite right. That could be the Holy Spirit guiding you too. But there’s a lot of ways. I have a book called Empire of the Risen Son, book two, that has a chapter on being guided by the Holy Spirit. It might interest you. That book can be heard for free on audiobook at our website, thenarrowpath.com, under the tab that says books. I need to take a break, brother, but thank you for your call. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We have another half hour coming up. We are listener supported. If you’d like to help us out, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds, so don’t go away.
SPEAKER 01 :
If you enjoy the Narrow Path radio program, you’d really like the resources at our website, thenarrowpath.com, where hundreds of biblical lectures and messages by our host, Steve Gregg, can be accessed without charge and listened to at your convenience. If you have not done so, visit the website, thenarrowpath.com, and discover all that is available for your learning pleasure.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour, taking your calls. The number to call, if you’d like to be on it, and by the way, I’ll just give you… Notice we have a few lines open right now, so you could get through right now if you call. The number is 844-484-5737. Again, the number is 844-484-5737. Our next call comes from Dave in Hooksett, New Hampshire. Hi, Dave. Welcome. Welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hi, and I’m so happy to get through. I’ve had this question for a while. It involves a discussion I had with my pastor and another really well-respected man in our church about. Now, his claim is that there was a time when Jesus was not God, and one of his reasons was that he didn’t know the day of the return, only the Father knows. And the other half of the question is about He’s descending into hell to free the prisoners down there. You know, my contention is that he was God. He did not suffer fire. He went down there to free the prisoners and that there was never a time when he was not God. So how do I reconcile this? You know, it was a very good congenial where we all get along great and it was an awesome conversation. But I’d really love your input on this question. Could there have ever been a time when Jesus was not God? Because I don’t think there was. I don’t think there could have been.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, I don’t see how God could stop being God. If he was God before he came to earth, he was God when he came to earth, too. But he was God in the flesh. That’s what it says in the Bible. The word was God, John 1 says. But in verse 14 of John 1, It says the word became flesh and dwelt among us. So he was God, and he was in the flesh. Now, the question then would be, what are the implications of God coming in the flesh? Well, one thing it means is that, or it certainly doesn’t mean that God stopped existing other than in the flesh, just like in the Old Testament when God appeared first. in what we call theophanies, when he wrestled with Jacob all night, or when he appeared to Abraham along with two messengers that later walked off to Sodom in Genesis 18, God on many, well, I don’t know if I should say many, but on a number of occasions, appeared in a human-like form in the Old Testament to talk to Abraham or to wrestle with Jacob or to do other things like that. And yet, when God was taking on this form to wrestle with Jacob, let’s say, That doesn’t mean God wasn’t anywhere else. God was still everywhere else. This is just God invading the material world by taking on or assuming a shape of a man, a physical shape as a man. Now, this is before the incarnation, but these are examples how God could invade the world in a physical form and still exist everywhere in the universe because he’s spirit. So his spirit… could manifest in a human shape in one place and not do so everywhere else. And the difference is what we might call the difference between the universal presence of God and the manifest or revealed presence of God. God is everywhere in the universe and never ceases to be everywhere in the universe, but he manifests his presence in certain ways, tangibly, in a pillar of cloud in the Old Testament or a pillar of fire in the burning bush in human forms, that come and appear to Abraham and others. So these are cases where God’s manifest presence takes on a physical dimension, whereas his universal presence is unchanged, and it’s everywhere. Now, those are not exact analogies to the Incarnation, and the reason is that in those Old Testament cases, God didn’t come through the human race. He didn’t come as a descendant of Adam. He just appeared on earth, in whatever form he appeared, and then left again. Whereas in the case of Jesus, God came through the family line of Adam, and then of course of Shem, and then of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and eventually of David, and so forth. So when Jesus was born, his human nature wasn’t just an appearance that was kind of like a man, He was an actual man, but he was still God appearing in that way. Now, when he did become a man, he took on some human handicaps as well. When he said he didn’t know everything, he didn’t know the day or the hour, only the Father knew that. I think he was speaking literally true that he didn’t know that. Because in his human nature, he had taken on limitations of a human being. He was the same God coming down, I would say, scaled down to our size in a human person. And there’s something about this, I believe, in Philippians chapter 2. It says of Jesus in verses 5 through 7, it says, Philippians 2, verses 5 through 7, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, this is before he came to earth, he was in the form of God, that he didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he made himself of no reputation. Now, that’s a strange rendering for the King James, but in the Greek it says, he emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant, and coming in the likeness of men. Now, it says he existed beforehand as God, in the form of God, but he emptied himself. Yeah, he emptied himself in order to take on the form of a man. What did he empty himself of? Well, it doesn’t specify, but we can see in the life of Jesus, There are many of the divine privileges that he shared as God, which he gave up to be one of us. For example, God is invisible. Jesus was not. He took on a visible, tangible form. God is a spirit. Jesus was a human in flesh. God is immortal, can’t die, but human beings can.
SPEAKER 07 :
But he did disappear through the crowd. Remember, he was able to go through the crowd.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, we don’t read that he disappeared. We read that he walked through the crowd, or it doesn’t always say how he escaped. We might picture him just vanishing, but the Bible doesn’t say he does that. He did miraculous things, but so did the apostles in the book of Acts, you know, healings and miracles. you know, prophesying and knowing what people were thinking. Jesus had all those things going on. But he did those things through the Holy Spirit, just as the fully human apostles did. The fact that Jesus did miracles and prophesied and knew things other people didn’t know simply resembles similar activities of his own disciples who were not themselves God, but they were acting through the Holy Spirit as Jesus was. Jesus said, if I’m casting out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. In Acts 1, it says, Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, gave instructions to his disciples. Jesus operated through the Spirit. And it’s interesting, he didn’t receive the fullness of the Spirit upon him until his baptism, when the Spirit came upon him in the form of a dove. And before that time, he did nothing miraculous on record. But suddenly, he did all kinds of miraculous things. And I think it’s because he was filled with the Spirit, and the Spirit was gifting him, as also the Spirit later gifted the apostles. Now, in other words, I think Jesus, when he emptied himself… He lived under our handicaps, becoming mortal so that he could die. God can’t die. He can’t even be tempted with evil, but Jesus was tempted by the devil. In fact, he was tempted at all points like we are, the Bible says. So there’s things that are true of God that were not true of the one who was God appearing among us, having emptied himself into a human form. So Jesus wasn’t, for example, everywhere at once. We call that being omnipresent. When Jesus was on earth, he wasn’t omnipresent. But God is, and I believe Jesus was before he came to earth. But he limited himself, emptied himself, and had to be in one place at a time. And to get from one place to another, he had to walk there, just like you or me. And we know he wasn’t everywhere. Because there were places that he specifically says he was not. Like when Lazarus died, Jesus said, I’m glad I was not there. So he wasn’t there. Likewise… as well as not being omnipresent, he was not omniscient. Omniscient means knowing everything. Well, Jesus, as a baby, was God in the flesh, baby flesh, but he still had to learn to talk and to read and write and do those kinds of things. He wasn’t omniscient. In fact, it says in Luke, in the last verse of Luke chapter 2, it says that Jesus, as a child, increased in wisdom. and in stature, and in favor with God and man. So if he increased as a child in wisdom, it means he wasn’t born having all wisdom. He was not like his father, omniscient, when he was on earth. And that’s why when Jesus said, well, I don’t know. The angels of God don’t know the day or the hour. I don’t know. Only my father knows. Jesus did not claim to be omniscient. He claimed that he was not. And that was because, again, I believe he had taken on the handicaps of being a human being in order to be an actual human being. Another thing he didn’t have is all power. We call that omnipotence. God is omnipotent. I believe Jesus was omnipotent before he took on the form of a man. But human beings are not omnipotent. And there were things Jesus couldn’t do. The Bible says he couldn’t do many mighty works over there because of their lack of faith. Or, you know, he said, I can do nothing in myself what the Father can. When I see the Father do, that’s what I do. So, you know, Jesus had the qualities of what we could describe God in a human form. God took on a human form. But not all of God did because God was elsewhere. That’s why Jesus could pray to the Father who was outside of himself. He spoke of the Father as someone greater than himself. So I would say God the Father is the non-material spiritual God. being that created the universe. And Jesus was an instance in history of that God taking on a human nature and human limitations and living among us. But that was him. But that man, Jesus, lived with the handicaps of a human being. So he was, of course. a man and God. So the Bible, sometimes Christians say he was 100% God and 100% man. Well, that doesn’t sound mathematically very possible, and I’m not sure what they mean by that, because the Bible doesn’t say he was 100%, you know, this or that. But the Bible does say he was God, and the Bible says he was man. So we can say he is, and he was the word who was God made flesh and dwelt among us as a man. So that we can say, If we want more understanding of the details, we may be just curious about things that we’re not told and that we could never understand if we were. Now you asked about him descending into hell. There’s a lot of, some of the creeds talk about how Jesus descended into hell and preachers talk about it all the time. The Bible doesn’t really say that Jesus descended into hell in the sense that we think of hell. We might think of hell as a place of fire, and so forth, and torment, which hell for people and for the devil is. But the Bible doesn’t say he went to hell. The Bible says he went to Hades. And Hades is not the same thing as we usually think of as hell. Hades is the place where everybody went when they died. It usually translates something like, you know, the grave or the pit or something like that. It’s the place where the dead go. That’s what the word Hades means. And the Bible does say he went into Hades, but that could mean nothing more than that he was buried in a grave because everybody who died is buried in Hades. Now, what happened to Jesus in those three days there, we’re never really told. There are some verses that people have understood to say that he went down and preached to people in Hades. But the verses they use, especially 1 Peter 3.20, does not really say that Jesus did that. When he went down to, when he was dead, those, I would suggest that since I’ve taken so much time with you and we have other people waiting, you might want to go to the website Matthew713.com, Matthew713.com. And there’s a topical index of previous calls to the show, and we’ve covered that matter of Jesus descending into Hades many times. You just type the topic in, and you’ll find many calls you can listen to from the past. But I’ve got full lines now, and a lot of people need to be given a chance here. Very much. All right. Thank you, Dave. Okay. Let’s talk to Matthew in Bayville, New Jersey. Hi, Matthew. Welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, Steve. Thanks for taking the call.
SPEAKER 04 :
Uh-huh.
SPEAKER 08 :
I have a disagreement that I’d like to weigh in, if possible. Sure. Before we get into it, I appreciate everything you do, even though what I’m about to say may not seem like it. So I appreciate all the work that you do. That’s great. That being said, I think it was last week there was a caller who, maybe her brother, was up against possibly the decision of having an abortion. And… I just kind of disagree, I guess, with the way you answer the question. It just seems kind of politically charged, I hope you don’t mind me saying, where I believe the word murderer was thrown out quite a bit. And as somebody who works with churches, who deals with human trafficking of young teen girls, I was just, you know, a bit surprised that that’s how… Well, what else would you call it?
SPEAKER 04 :
If you kill an innocent human being, why would you not use the word murder for that?
SPEAKER 08 :
I mean, I just, I understand in citing 1 Peter 3.15, I just feel like there was maybe a better way to answer that. Well, I’m not sure.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, there’s only one way to answer the question of murder. If somebody is about to murder someone and you say, well, I don’t want to hurt their feelings, so I won’t tell them they’re murdering someone. Well, then they’ll have to live the rest of their life. When they realize it was murder, they have to live with that on their conscience. And I wouldn’t wish that on them. That’s not loving.
SPEAKER 08 :
I don’t disagree. It’s just some of the decisions aren’t as easy. You know, in these teen pregnancy cases, there’s cases of trisemia.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, life is full of hard decisions, and Christians often are called on to make really hard decisions, like endure great hardship at our own cost in order to do what’s right. What I said has nothing to do with politics. I think the fact that abortion has been politicized by one political party and then the other one responded sanely is a shame because they shouldn’t politicize murder. That’s a legal issue. The law of every nation should forbid murder, and most of them do. But the question of whether a baby in the womb is a human is, of course, what some people want to dispute. But no scientist can reasonably dispute it. I mean, what other species is it? It’s obviously human. And so the question is, does human life have any particular value, let’s say, more than an animal’s life? Well, if you believe in God, and you believe God made man his own image, and you know that God hates murder, and it’s the first command that God gave the capital sentence to, is those who shed man’s blood. And infants in the womb have blood, human blood, and they’re innocent. So right after the flood, the first order that God gave to Noah and his family in Genesis 9 was, Whoever sheds a man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed. So it’s like a capital crime. Now, I don’t think that we should necessarily kill people who have abortions, because many people are very confused, and some of them do it under duress. But I don’t think that we should minimize the fact that they’re killing a human being just as much as if they killed a five-year-old. I mean, a baby at six months old in the womb? and a baby at five years old or two years old outside the womb, they’re the same person, same human being, just at a different stage of their maturity. So, you know, I don’t think there’s any age when a human being can be killed, an innocent human being can be killed without it being murder. So that’s not a political question, unless people politicize it, but it’s a moral question and a legal question. And, you know, Should it be legal to rob banks? No. Well, what if someone made it a human right to rob banks? What if the Supreme Court said it’s a human right, you can rob banks? It’d still be wrong. It’d still be robbery. It’d still be theft. There’s no court in the land that can turn abortion into anything other than killing an innocent human being. So I realize that’s not the gentlest way to put it, but, you know, if somebody’s thinking about murder, you need to really grab their conscience and say, hey, wait a minute. If you do that, you’re going to live with that on your conscience. You’ve killed a human being. I love you, so I’m going to tell you the truth. You don’t lie to people that you love. And so if someone says, well, do you think I should get an abortion? And their case is, it would be a lot easier for me if I did. I’m going to tell them the truth. No, it’s never right to take the easy route and kill a human being. There’s a lot of people who, if they didn’t live on the earth, It’d be much more convenient for me because they kind of annoy me, but I don’t have any argument for killing them, you know. So that’s, you know, I appreciate you bringing that, and feel free to have the last word, but that’s, I don’t soften my tone on that subject.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, no, I understood it. And thank you so much for having the conversation, Steve. It’s just like I said, I struggle with 1 Peter 3.15 when having certain conversations. And so I know when I give answers, I have to look some of these people in their eyes. I do try not to soften it, but at the same time try to answer with gentleness and respect rather than make sure they grasp what’s going on here. Because I agree with you wholeheartedly, obviously. It’s just I deal with a lot of young women.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
You know, the M word, I just don’t like throwing around.
SPEAKER 04 :
I understand. You know, if my son was about ready to go out the door and he’s got a gun in his hand, and I say, where are you going? He says, I’m going to go kill, you know, my ex-girlfriend. I wouldn’t speak gently to him about it. I would say, this is an urgent situation here. You know, you’re about to do something horrendous. And the Bible says no murderer has eternal life in him, it says in 1 John. So you don’t want to do something that’s going to prove that you’re not saved or make you not saved. So anyway, sometimes you’ve got to grab someone and shake them and say, hey, hey, hey, don’t you know what you’re doing here? But, I mean, we need to speak the truth in love, Paul said, of course, in Ephesians 4. But how is it not loving to tell someone, hey, don’t do this. You’ll regret it the rest of your life, and you won’t be able to undo it. I think that’s very loving. Great understanding. Hey, brother, I appreciate that call very much. Thank you, Steve. Appreciate you. You have a great day or night now in New Jersey. All right. God bless you. All right. Let’s see. Our next caller is Wendell from Butler, Indiana. Hi, Wendell. Welcome.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I just wanted to make a couple of comments. In my mind, the resolution between man’s free will and God’s sovereignty is that God has given us dangerously a lot of free will and I mean, we can go out and murder and kill ourselves. We’ve got dangerous free will. But nobody in God’s sovereignty is going to be demonstrated because nobody is going to escape his judgment.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, that’s right. When we say that we have free will, that doesn’t mean that everything is permitted. When we say that God gave man free will, it doesn’t mean God can be his own God, make up his own morality, do whatever he wants with impunity. that’s not what free will means. Free will means that we have the power to assess a moral choice and make either the right choice or the wrong choice. Now, we have the power to do that. It doesn’t mean that making the wrong choice is okay. It doesn’t mean that there’s no consequences for making the wrong choice. You know, we can make right choices or wrong choices, and that’s what free will means. But yeah, if you make the wrong choice, there may be and if it’s morally wrong, then there will be a judgment for it. So I agree with you, and I very much appreciate you putting a final point on what we were talking about earlier. Thank you. Okay, let’s talk to Albert in Phoenix, Arizona. Albert, welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, how’s it going, Steve? I appreciate you taking my call. I guess my question is more of a situational and moral question. Long story short, me and my mom, I’ve never had a good relationship. My mom’s always been a very promiscuous person. I remember men coming in and out of the house growing up, and her life choices have affected all of us. And I love her. She’s the woman who gave me life and gave me birth. I find myself to be very embarrassed oftentimes to the point where I don’t want to associate myself with her, even in family gatherings. Um, so I was hoping maybe your biblical wisdom can maybe guide me on how to go about my relationship with my mom.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. You don’t live with her, I assume?
SPEAKER 06 :
No, no, no. I haven’t lived with her for a long time.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. I, I just wondered because obviously if you’re living in the home, you’d have to be dealing with her on a regular basis daily. Um, now that you’re out, you know, you’re not in the home. I think that visiting her and treating her kindly, um, And I think that that is something you can do on the occasions that you need to be with her. Being embarrassed by her, that’s a hard thing. I mean, obviously some parents are so irresponsible, so misbehaving, that they do bring shame on themselves in the eyes of their children and so forth. But you’re right. I mean, you said the right thing. She’s the one that God used to bring you into the world, and you’re indebted to her. And, you know, Paul said in 1 Timothy 5 that children need to repay their parents. By that, he was referring to when they get old and need support since they kept you alive and gave you life when you were little. When they get old and helpless, you should repay their sacrifice in that way. Now, your mother apparently did very shameful things, and I assume she knows that you don’t approve of them. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with telling your parents you don’t approve of the sinful things they do. But at the same time, you know, to avoid her at family gatherings, that doesn’t seem right to me. I think, obviously, at a family gathering, you don’t have to hang out with her all the time if there’s other family members, but… But, you know, when you are at the table with her or in a conversation with her, to speak respectfully to her is just what children ought to do to their parents, even adult children, I think. Now, you can disagree with her and tell her so, but I wouldn’t rebuke her in front of, you know, family members or anything like that. That should be in a private conversation.
SPEAKER 06 :
Correct, yeah. Okay. Well, I think I’ve been doing the right thing then if that’s the advice you’ve given me. So I appreciate your time.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, God bless you. Thanks.
SPEAKER 06 :
Likewise. Thank you. Bye now.
SPEAKER 04 :
We only have a couple minutes, but David in Greenfield, Massachusetts, you’re on. Again, we’ll have to cut off in a couple minutes, so go ahead. Your voice is cutting out. I can’t hear you. Can you be in a better spot? I’m on the highway right now. I see. Well, could you give me a brief idea of what your question is? Is it unholy to do what? To play the lottery. To play the lottery. Okay. Well, I think it’s probably not a good stewardship. It’s not so much that there’s a command of God that you shouldn’t gamble or that you shouldn’t play the lottery or whatever like that. But rather, the teaching of the New Testament is that we are stewards of everything we have, and God expects us to use his stuff. We don’t own anything. We don’t even own ourselves. We belong to God, and so does ourselves. And we should make decisions about the resources he has entrusted to us that are the best decisions for his own kingdom’s benefit. Now, some might say, well, I’m going to play the lottery, and if I win a billion dollars, I’ll give some of it to missions or something like that. Yeah, but you’re probably not going to win a billion dollars. Every time you buy a ticket, you’re probably throwing money down a hole. The likelihood that you win is not great. I would not steward any of the money I have at my disposal that way, and I’ve never bought a lottery ticket in my life. But as far as that goes, if it’s only a little bit and it’s just for fun, for entertainment, I guess I wouldn’t say much about it. But I’d be concerned more about the issues of good stewardship. Hey, I’m out of time. You’ve been listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Check it out. It’s full of resources, all free.
