In this episode, delve into the origins of Satan with Steve, as he challenges traditional views and explores biblical narratives. Engage in a comprehensive discussion on free will and predestination, and unpack profound insights on Revelation 20’s symbolism. With engaging caller questions, Steve offers a rich tapestry of biblical understanding, leaving no stone unturned.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
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. And taking your calls, as always. Right now I’m looking at a mostly open switchboard. It’s a very good opportunity for you to get through if you’re interested in being on the program. If you have questions you’d like to ask and have discussed, about the Bible, about the Christian faith, problems you have with Christianity, maybe just problems you have with something the host has said, feel free to give me a call. We’ll be glad to talk to you. The number to call is 844. That’s 844-484-5737. And I want to remind you, if you are in Southern California, which a lot of our listeners are, but we’ve got listeners all over the country, so I guess the rest of you can tune out for just about 30 seconds here. There are a couple of things happening this Saturday that happen once a month in Southern California. One of them is our men’s Bible studies this Saturday morning at 8 o’clock in Temecula. And the other is Saturday evening in Buena Park. We’re going to have an overview and introduction to the book of 1 John. We’re going to look at the whole book. And it’s a great book. So if you’re interested in that, that’s what we’re doing. This Saturday morning, men’s Bible study at 8 in the morning in Temecula. And the overview of the book of 1 John in Buena Park in the evenings. And the information specifically about the locations of those places is posted at our website, thenarrowpath.com, under the tab that says announcements. All right. Well, we’re going to go to the phones now and talk first of all to Carrie from Fort Worth, Texas. Hi, Carrie. Welcome. Oops. I thought I hit your button. Hi. How are you doing?
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi, Steve. Steve, I need some help with Romans 11.
SPEAKER 01 :
25 and 26.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right. And if I could, if I could read the passage and then tell you the way I understand it, and then you can maybe straighten me out if you need to. Okay. I’m reading from the New American Standard. It says, For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation. that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And thus, all Israel will be saved, just as it is written. The way I’m kind of reading this and the way I see it punctuated, when he talks about the mystery, I do not want you to be uninformed of this mystery. To me, he has explained the mystery already. in the previous passages. And then he says, I do not want you to be, lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial pardoning has happened to Israel until the fullness of gentleness has come in. So I’m thinking that he is explaining the estimation that after the comment that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And the way I’m kind of reading this is that that’s not what Paul wants them to believe, that there has been. He does not want them to believe that there’s been a partial hardening. Why would you read it that way?
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, here’s what he’s saying. He says, let me read it to you, and we’ll see where you’re getting caught here. I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own eyes. So he wants them to be aware of a mystery. And he says, this is the mystery. That blindness, in part, has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, and thus all Israel will be saved. Now, that’s the truth. That’s the mystery that he doesn’t want them to be ignorant about.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. I was kind of taking that as that he was explaining what the estimation in their own eyes would be.
SPEAKER 01 :
No, no, no, no. So where he said, lest you be wise in your own eyes or in your own opinion. I see. So you thought he was saying that their opinion was that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness has come. No. No, he’s affirming that. You see, the whole purpose of Romans 9 through 11 is to explain the question, why is it that the Old Testament prophets said, when the Messiah comes, Israel will be saved. And yet Jesus has come, and according to the Christians, Jesus is the Messiah, and yet Jesus has come and gone, and Israel is not saved. So, what’s up with that? That’s the problem. And Paul actually says, well, all Israel will be saved in this way. Thus means in this way. How? By the elimination of those in Israel who don’t belong in it. And he’s just explained that in the verses just immediately previously, where He talked about Israel as an olive tree, and the branches are the people. And some of the branches, he said, have been broken off because of their unbelief. So they’re not part of Israel anymore. They’re not part of the tree anymore. Of course, those who did not reject Christ, and that was many thousands, many tens of thousands of Jews, did accept Christ. And they are branches that were not broken off. So they’re still Israel. The believing Jews are still part of the Israel tree. But the Jews that rejected Christ and their unbelief, they were broken off the tree. So Israel has been reduced to only include the faithful remnant of Israel. Now, Paul says that Gentiles also who have believed have been added to the tree. Of course, that was even true in the Old Testament. If a Gentile wanted to become part of Israel, they could. In that case, they’d have to be circumcised because of the Old Covenant. But there were many Gentiles who became part of Israel in the Old Testament. So have there now. In fact, there’s a lot more. that have joined the believing Israel. Believing Gentiles have been grafted in the tree. Now, the tree is Israel, always has been. And so he’s now saying Israel is comprised of a portion of the Jews, namely the portion that believed. And those who are not believers have been broken off. They’re not part of Israel anymore. And now Gentiles have been added to them, and they’re one organism. And this is the mystery that Paul teaches about not only here but elsewhere. For example, in Ephesians chapter 3, he talks about the mystery. He does elsewhere too. But he says in chapter 3, verse 3, how that by revelation Christ made known to me the mystery, as I’ve briefly written already. by which, when you read it, you may understand my knowledge of the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men. He says, verse 6, that, here’s the mystery, that Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body and partakers of his promises in Christ through the gospel, meaning fellow heirs with the Jews. So what was not clear in the Old Testament, even though it’s always been the case that Gentiles could be converted or proselytized It was not clear that they would be formed into one body that is the body of Christ. And that body of Christ is an organic image. We are collectively the body of Christ. We are the members of the corporate body of Christ. Paul shifts the metaphor in Romans 11 to be another kind of organism, a tree, which is also made up of individual members, branches. It’s very parallel to the idea of a body of Christ, but the reason he uses the olive tree in Romans is because he’s talking about it from the side of, what about Israel? Isn’t Israel supposed to be saved? They are. They are. This is how they’re saved. A portion of them, as unbelievers, have been removed. And then, of course, the Gentiles have been added. So Israel is made up of believing Jews and believing Gentiles, which is also what we call the church. And that shouldn’t surprise us because Israel in the Old Testament was called the church also. In the Septuagint, the word ekklesia, which is what we translate as church in the New Testament, The word ekklesia in the Greek Old Testament referred to Israel. So the word ekklesia originally was a term for Israel, and it still is. But, of course, what Paul said in Romans 9-6 at the beginning of this discussion was they are not all Israel who are of Israel. That is, not all those who have Israeli roots or, you know, ancestry. Not all of those who are racially Jews are Israel, as God counts it. And in Romans 9, 27, he says, even Isaiah said, only a remnant of the numerous Jews. He said, though the children of Israel be as the sand of the seashore, meaning very numerous, only the remnant will be saved. So now Paul started his discussion by making that point. Not everybody who’s Jewish is really Israel. And the Jews who are not of the remnant will not be saved. Only the remnant will be saved. So at the end of the discussion, the same discussion in chapter 11, verse 26, where he says, in this way all Israel will be saved, he doesn’t mean the unbelieving Israel. He’s already said they’re not included. It’s the remnant of Israel that will be saved. But they are joined in the same olive tree by believing Gentiles. And in this way, all Israel, including the Gentile branches, and that is not just Jewish believers, excluding some, but including all the believing Gentiles, this olive tree, which is Israel, is all saved. And it’s all made up of believers. So this is how it happens. Some of the Jews are cut off because they’re hardened. Some are included. Then Gentiles come in. As a result, all Israel is saved, just like the prophet said it would be. But you have to redefine Israel, which is what Paul does. And he says he wasn’t the first to do it. Isaiah did it first. Isaiah did it first where he said only the remnant will be saved. So Paul’s not making something up. He’s pointing something out that any Jew who wanted to pay attention could have seen. So anyway, that’s what he’s saying. And so the mystery is the mystery, frankly, of the church, of the Jew and the Gentile being one body, or in this case one tree, one organism sharing the same destiny, which was not something the Jews really ever focused on or quite understood, I think. I appreciate your call, Kerry. I hope that helps. Rick from Los Angeles, California. Welcome. Hi. Thank you for taking my call.
SPEAKER 09 :
I appreciate your ministry. You are truly a blessing in many people’s lives, including my own. Thank you. This weekend, I kind of let my imagination run wild, and I was thinking about the Garden of Eden and the temptation. But more of that was my question, rather, I should say. My question is, where would you place the fall of Lucifer in the creation narrative as far as that’s concerned? And how was the dynamic between his fall and his involvement in the Garden of Eden?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I think the most common view that Christians hold is that Satan fell. He was an angel and that he fell. before Adam and Eve were created. And there’s been a lot of speculation. You said you’re letting your imagination run wild. Actually, theologians have done exactly the same thing. And as a result of their imaginations running wild, they’ve come up with a scenario like the following that is not taught anywhere in Scripture. They say Lucifer was one of the three top angels in heaven, along with Gabriel and Michael. and that a third of the other angels were kind of under their supervision. And Lucifer was, they say, a beautiful and skilled musician, and he was the worship leader of the angels, something the Bible never says anywhere, of course. But, I mean, this is their imagination going on. And so he became very vain and very proud, and he decided to go off on his own independently of God and to rebel against God. And he failed in that, but the third of the angels that he had been overseeing fell with him, and they became perhaps the demons. Some would say the demons are some other entities, but the point is that Lucifer then, according to this view, became the devil. And they would say the reason he attacked Adam and Eve and the rest of us who are Christians is that he had spite toward God. He resented God. you know, having lost this conflict with God. Now, some would even say, and this too is all speculation, it’s not in the Bible, some would say that he was jealous of man. that man was given higher honor than he was. And so he wanted to destroy man, corrupt man. Some say that he wanted to cause man to fall so that he could argue against his own punishment because he had fallen. If God’s highest creation could fall too. then how could Satan be blamed for that? Now, let me just say, nothing that I’ve just said is anywhere in the Bible, nor even to my mind even implied anywhere in the Bible. It’s based on, as I understand it, a misunderstanding of a couple of Old Testament passages primarily. one of them being Isaiah 14, 12 through 15, and the other is Ezekiel 28, verse 12 through something or another, through many, many verses. Now, these passages do not mention the devil. And one of them, the one in Isaiah, does mention Lucifer in the King James Version, and it treats it like it’s a name, like it’s the devil’s name. And we often think of it that way because of the way the tradition. But actually, the word Lucifer is not a biblical name at all. Lucifer is a Latin word. Now, the Bible, the Old Testament was written not in Latin, but it was written in Hebrew. And the word in Hebrew is one that means the bright shining one or the morning star or the light bearer. These are terms that the Hebrew word can be translated as well. When the Hebrew Bible was translated into Latin in the 4th century A.D. or 5th by Jerome, he used a Latin word that means light bearer. And in Latin, that’s the word Lucifer. So the word Lucifer was in the Latin Bible simply as a translation of the Hebrew word for light bearer. Now, when the King James was made, and they translated the Old Testament from the Hebrew, for some reason they retained the Latin version of the word lightbearer instead of the Hebrew one. And they treated it, Lucifer, which is a Latin word, as if that is a name. But in the Hebrew it wasn’t a name. It wasn’t anyone’s name in the Hebrew Old Testament. It was just calling the king of Babylon Lucifer. A bright light there. And that’s sort of just a flattery of royalty. There’s all kinds of terms people used to call royalty as flattery. And that’s one of them. But the passage in Isaiah 14, and that chapter is the only chapter in the Bible that even has the word in it, which the King James translates Lucifer. That chapter tells us in the earlier verses it’s talking to the king of Babylon, not to an angel. So there’s actually nothing in the Bible that would identify Lucifer with the devil at all. Or with an angel. It’s a term that was mistakenly brought over into the English Bible as if it is a proper name. When in the Hebrew it was not at all. In fact, the word Lucifer isn’t even in the Hebrew Bible. Because it’s not a name, it’s a word. And so there’s no mention in the Bible of Lucifer being an angel. Certainly there’s no mention of the devil being an angel anywhere. So this is all tradition. Now, I will say this. If, indeed, the devil was an angel and fell, then we would have to say that was before Adam and Eve were created. That would have to be before probably the six days of creation or as part of it. or maybe immediately after it. But it would be, obviously when Adam and Eve were created, they were then tempted by the serpent. If he was a fallen angel, that fall would have taken place sometime prior to that. But the origins of Satan lie enshrouded in mystery. There’s absolutely no discussion in the Bible of where Satan came from. We would have to say he was created by God, simply because everything was created by God. At one time, there was only God. Everything else that came into being was created by him. So the most we can say about Satan is what we can say about everything. He and everything else was a creation of God. But whether he’s created good and went bad, or whether he’s created evil, neutral and went bad or created bad. You know, people have different theories about that, but the Bible doesn’t really address that at all. So much of what you’ve heard and probably most people listening have heard, it’s just not in it. It’s just not in the Bible. So that’s about, you know, the most we can say about the subject. All right. Let’s talk to Ryan from Spartanburg, South Carolina. Ryan, welcome.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, Steve. Thank you so much for taking my call. I have a question on free will. It’s a question that was posed to me, and I just didn’t know how to answer it or where to go. But I was arguing with a friend that, you know, obviously people go to hell because of the free will choices that they make. And he said, If God knows everything and he knows who is going to choose him and not choose him, the first order of operation is that God chooses to create you first before you have a choice to reject or accept Jesus. So if he knows you are going to reject, like say that I’m going to reject Jesus, I’m going to go to hell and I’m going to make that choice. If God knows that ahead of time and his choice comes first to create me, The question was, is he not choosing then to create me knowing that I’m going to reject him anyways? And so he’s choosing to create me to send me to hell. Okay, go ahead. The only rebuttal I could think was that perhaps I have kids and they go to know God or something I do in my life affects someone else that happens to know God. But barring that, that somebody doesn’t and they just die without having kids or something, how would you, I guess, rebut that?
SPEAKER 01 :
I’m not sure what your rebuttal was.
SPEAKER 04 :
I was pushing back and saying that perhaps if I was to have kids and I choose to go to hell, but my kids accept Jesus and they go to heaven, that God would still make me knowing that. I got you. I got you. Yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay. Yeah, well, that’s definitely the case. I mean, if God knows that somebody’s going to be doomed and go to hell by their own choice, but that they’re going to have children or grandchildren or descendants somewhere, they’re going to be children of God, going to follow Christ. and maybe be very important people, the idea that, well, God shouldn’t make the person who he knows is going to go to hell is kind of imposing on God a tremendous restriction that doesn’t make much sense. I mean, well, if a person chooses to go to hell, that’s their choice, right? I mean, a person has that choice. And if they choose to do that, we can say, well, God shouldn’t have created them then because he knew they were going to do that. Well, but maybe he knows also some other things, and that is that by them being created and existing, there’s going to be some other people in the world down the line descended from them who are going to change the world in a good way. I mean, we can’t really, you know, if God knows the future, he knows all of it. And, you know, we can’t say that God is obligated not to make someone because they are going to reject him. Now, of course, the argument is if God knows for sure that certain people are going to reject him before they’re ever born, then they don’t really have a choice to do anything else. And philosophically, that sounds correct. Philosophically, that’s a conundrum. How is their will free if God already knows before they make the choices what they’re going to do? Well, I mean, those who say that that’s unanswerable simply are pretending to know a lot more about God than is available for us to know. I don’t know how God existed forever and ever and ever without having a beginning. That’s kind of above my pay scale. I don’t know how God is everywhere at once attending to the prayers of people all over the world simultaneously. That too is above my pay scale. If God knows all future things, That too, how he does that, I don’t know. Now, there are some people who say God knows the future because there’s like three different answers. One is that because he’s going to make it happen, that he’s ordering everything, he’s ordained everything, so he knows what he’s going to make happen, and so obviously he knows what’s going to happen because it’s determined by his decision to make it happen. That’s like the Calvinist view. Another view is, would be that God doesn’t make it happen, but he’s able to trace the present trajectory of things infinitely far into the future, so that he can see like a chain reaction, or like if there’s dominoes lined up, a thousand dominoes in a whole strange configuration, that God knows by this domino falling, he can predict where the last one’s going to fall. You know, because it’s just going to happen. Again, he’s not, in a sense, dictating everything if he didn’t set the dominoes up himself. But he can see when one domino falls where it’s all going and can predict it. That’s another thing. Now, there’s also a Greek idea, which the church has mostly adopted. And that is that God is outside of time. He lives in some kind of continuous eternal zone where there’s no such thing as past, present, and future. But what is past, present, and future for us belongs to a realm that was created by God. which he does not necessarily inhabit. Time is a creation of God just like matter is in space, and God is transcendent to it. And their suggestion is he can see the past, present, and future simultaneously just like, I mean, in a way that we cannot. So, you know, if he has some power to just see it and know it, but he’s not causing it, then obviously the choices can be still free choices, but he’s simply aware of them before they happen. He didn’t cause them. He didn’t interfere with the freedom of the person making it. Now, again, if somebody says, well, if he knows these people are going to do wrong, why doesn’t he just not, you know, how can they do anything else? They can’t be free. And my thought is, If he knows they’re going to freely make a choice, it’s because they’re going to. It’s not because he makes them do it. It’s because that’s exactly what they are, in fact, going to do. Now, if they say, well, he knows they’re going to, so why doesn’t he stop it? Well, if he stops it, then they’re not going to do it. So he doesn’t know they’re going to. God doesn’t, you know, if God knows I’m going to do something, it’s because I’m actually going to do it. If he prevents me from doing it, then that’s not going to be part of history at all. That’s not going to even happen. So, of course, he doesn’t even know it. If something has to actually be real in some realm. potentially real or actually real in order for it to be known. And so, you know, if God just took out everybody who was going to choose to reject him, well, they’d never exist and they’d never reject him. So he wouldn’t know they’re going to reject him because, frankly, they’re not. They don’t exist. So this is philosophically confusing to us. So what we have to do is figure that, you know, there’s many things about God that, frankly, are quite above our ability to understand and explain. But if he says that he knows certain things or demonstrates that he does, and he also demonstrates that we have a choice and we are seen to make them, and God shows disappointment when we make bad choices, then we have to just take it all and say, well, God understands that, and frankly, he’s the only one who needs to. Why would I need to understand it? You know, maybe curiosity killed the cat. It might kill the Christian, too. You know, if you’re trying to understand things that are beyond our kin and beyond our, you know, legitimacy to know. Hey, I need to take a break here. But we have another half hour coming up. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We are listener supported. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Check it out. And I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 03 :
If you’ve been listening to The Narrow Path for very long, you know how much it has enhanced your study and understanding of Scripture and possibly your whole Christian life. Don’t you think all your friends should benefit from the program as you have? You help to partner with us in impacting the body of Christ when you tell all your friends to listen to The Narrow Path. If you have not done so, visit the website thenarrowpath.com and discover all that is available for your learning pleasure.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour, taking your calls. Our lines are full at the moment, but if you want to try to get through in a few minutes, there may be an open line for you at this number. Here’s the number, 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. Our next caller is Todd calling from Sacramento, California. Hi, Todd. Welcome. Hi, Steve. Hey, before I answer my question,
SPEAKER 02 :
I just wanted to tell you that I listened to your teaching on the kingdom of God, and it was just amazing, brother. I really appreciated it. Thank you. Praise the Lord. All right. So, anyway, I’ve just recently changed my position from being a dispensationalist, premillennialist, and I’m having trouble understanding Revelations 20, verse 7, I think it is, where it’s talking about Satan being released. And outside of an all-millennial perspective, I can’t make it make sense to me at all. Could you give me your slant on that and what you believe that is all about? And I’ll take my answer off the air. Appreciate it.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right, sure. Well, Revelation 20 is taken differently, obviously, by pre-millennialists than the way it is taken by all-millennialists. Pre-millennialists believe the 1,000 years described in Revelation 20 is a future period of time that will begin when Jesus comes back. So he’s going to come back and establish the 1,000-year reign on earth. The amillennialists believe that this is symbolic. of what Jesus established when he came the first time. So the difference between an amillennialist and a premillennialist is about when this thousand years takes place. They all agree that it’s established by the coming of Christ, but the question is, is it the first coming or the second coming? Now, I’m amillennial, so I believe it’s established at the first coming of Christ, and the premillennialists, dispensationalists, and others who are premillennial believe it’s going to be established in the future. Now, Both have to deal with the fact. that Satan is said to be bound for the majority of this time, but then he’s loosed for a little while at the end, and he goes out to deceive the world again. And the result is he gathers the nations against the beloved city, which is a term for the people of God, the community of Christ, what we might call the true church. And therefore there’s a persecution of the church, which apparently is global because it involves all the nations of the world, it says. So that’s something worse than… for the church that has never happened before. Because although the church has been persecuted terribly by the Roman Empire and by communists and by you know, other groups that were anti-Christian. It never was global. It was always, you know, possible, for example, for Christians to live in some other part of the world and be exempt from whatever terrible persecution was going on somewhere else. But it looks to me like it’s describing a global persecution of the people of God. Now, the premillennialists believe that’s in the future, that is to say the whole thousand years is in the future, and that the little while that Satan has loosed to give us trouble, will be at the end of that future thousand-year period of time. The amillennialist believes the present age is symbolically represented as a thousand years, but that at the end of it, there will be such a time when Satan is loosed again for a little while. We don’t know what a little while looks like. We’d like to think it’s very short, but we don’t know. Obviously shorter than the lengthier period that’s called a thousand years. But both premillennials and omelettes would have to deal with the fact that after Satan’s been bound for a long time, he’s loosed again. to cause trouble for Christians. Now, it doesn’t come to anything because it says in Revelation 20 and verse 9 that, you know, fire from heaven comes down and destroys Satan and those who are with him. So the church is vindicated, rescued. I take that as anomalous. I take that to be the second coming of Christ that that happens. That’s when the Bible says that the wicked will be judged and Satan will be judged and so forth. So that’s, you know, I guess if we say, well, why? Why is Satan loosed again once he’s been put out of commission? I would say on the amillennial position. It would simply be a final sifting. You’ve got the whole 2,000 years or whatever by that time it will have been of harvesting, bringing in the grain, and then there’s a time of sifting, wheat from chaff. And that’s what Satan is best at, and that is sorting out. Remember, Jesus told Peter, Satan has requested of God, or actually he said demanded, that he be able to sift you disciples. Sifting them means put them in a sieve so that the grain is preserved and the chaff falls through. Now, Satan had approached God with the desire to sift the disciples that way to see if there’s any bad ones in there. And of course there was. There was Judas. And Peter himself appeared to be one too when he denied Christ three times. But Jesus said, I prayed for you and when you repent, when you’re converted, strengthen your brethren. So, You know, the sifting takes place. It took place of the disciples themselves. It was the work of Satan. I think that many times after a revival, there’s persecution and that persecution sifts out. But those who came in the revival, some of them are the real deal, real converts. Some are just kind of following the crowds and joining up with the religious, you know. And then comes the testing. And the testing sifts out the wheat from the chaff. And that’s what God has done again and again throughout history. And that looks like what’s happening at the very end of this age before Jesus comes back. There’s one final sifting, a global one. And that purifies the church. Of course, it removes the chaff and leaves only the good wheat. And therefore, when Jesus comes, he has a pure people to take to himself. So that would explain why this would happen at the end of the present age. Now, after Jesus comes back, if he sets up the millennium at that time, like the premillennial thinks… And Satan’s bound for a thousand years. And the world is in righteousness with Christ on earth with his disciples in Jerusalem. That’s what the premillennials believed. I’m not sure why Satan would be let out. And frankly, I’m not sure why it would do Satan any good if Jesus is here on earth in his glorified form. I mean… In Revelation chapter 20, it says that I saw him that sat on the throne from whose face the heavens and the earth fled away and there’s no place for them. The face and the glory of Christ that is coming is, you know, it’s irresistible. I mean, you’re not going to have some kind of, you know, rebellion against him after that. In fact, it says in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 8 and following, it says that Jesus is going to come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who don’t know God. and who don’t obey the gospel. In 2 Thessalonians 2, it says the man of sin will be destroyed at the brightness of Christ’s coming. Christ’s coming is so glorious. It’s hard to imagine that, A, anyone would survive it that wasn’t preserved by him, and, B, that if someone did survive it, that they’d think for a moment that they could overthrow him, you know? So, I mean, to me, I’m not really sure how the loosing of Satan after Jesus had been here for a thousand years and was still here. how that would be a threat to anyone. After all, realize that when Jesus comes back, we’re all raised from the dead. We’re all glorified bodies. We’re all, you know, we’re immortal. And whoever isn’t a Christian isn’t. So in the premillennial scheme of things, at the end of a thousand years, Satan’s loosed, and there’s gazillions of unbelievers who are still mortal because they’re not glorified. They’re not nonbelievers. And they’re coming against a company of people who are all immortal, and Jesus among them. You know, how in the world is this supposed to be a threat to anybody? It just doesn’t make sense to me. It once did. I mean, I can’t say it really once did. I once believed it. I’m not sure that I can say I’ve sorted through those particular questions, but perhaps if I had, I would have given up on premillennialism earlier, but… Yeah, Satan being loosed is a mystery of sorts. I mean, why would God let him loose? I’ve heard people ask that a lot. But I think if it’s at the end of this present age, just before Jesus comes back, it’s a time of final sorting, sorting out between the wheat and the chaff and so forth. So that would be my guess. I mean, it’s an educated guess, I hope. Anyway, I hope that’s helpful to you. All right, our next caller is Ben from Richardson, Texas. Ben, welcome. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, Steve, I have a disagreement with you, which is rare, but when Adam and Eve were told to be fruitful and multiply, I’m thinking they probably did so they had children. Yes, they did, many children. And then they sinned and had at Cain and Abel.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now, why would you think they had a lot of children before they sinned?
SPEAKER 07 :
Because God tells them now you will have pain and childbearing. Yes.
SPEAKER 01 :
So they had childbearing before without pain. Well, he didn’t say that. He didn’t say you’ll have more pain now than you’ve had in the past. He just said you will have pain in childbearing. That apparently would not have been… the case, if they hadn’t sinned. But it doesn’t say whether or not they’d had any children previously without less pain. That’s reading something into the text I’m not willing to read into it. See, the Bible indicates that death and sin came into the world through Adam. And if he had children before he sinned, and then he sinned, well, his children were innocent then. I mean, his children would be unaffected By that, it seems to me. Whereas the Bible seems to pin a lot on Adam in that respect of humans’ plight and fallenness. You know, if Adam sinned and there were other people that he’d already fathered and who were living independently of him, then his sin wouldn’t have any effect on their fall. You know, I mean, I’m not sure how it would. In any case, there’s no need to see it that way because right after Adam and Eve were created, we read of them sinning. Now, they may indeed have, it may have been a little while after they were created that they sinned, but there’s no suggestion of a period of time. or of enough time for them to have children. I mean, that’s guessing too much. It says in Genesis 5 that Adam lived 130 years until Seth was born, and then it mentions he had sons and daughters. So the command God gave them to be fruitful and multiply, they did fulfill. But that’s not recorded before the fall. That’s after the fall. So I don’t really see an argument there. But, you know, I’m not going to – I wouldn’t fight you over it. I just don’t – I don’t find that persuasive.
SPEAKER 07 :
I’m saying it – did I get cut off? No, you’re there. Oh, okay. If my theory is right, which we’re going to find out someday, right, which is kind of funny, then Adam’s birth – or his timeline started when he sinned. So he was – He was going to be, well, he wasn’t going to be eternal, but immortal. And his time started when he sinned. So that’s my theory.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, I wouldn’t accept that either. I think his time started when he started, which was on the sixth day of creation he began. And then days and years and months were already being measured. It says that on the fourth day God made the sun, moon, and stars, and they were to register times and seasons and months and years. So I would think that the measurement of months and years and so forth began on the fourth day when these things were created. And Adam was created the sixth day. It seems to me that his time was measured in months and years from the point that he began, just like everything else that was created after that. So I think that when it says he lived to be 930 years old, That would be from his creation, not from his fall. Now, you’re arguing that he was made immortal. I don’t think he was made immortal. I don’t think anyone was immortal except God. It says that in 1 Timothy 6.16. It says God alone possesses immortality. Now, we can participate in his eternal life in Christ. And that’s what it says in 1 John 5, verses 11 and 12. It says this is the message that God has given to us, eternal life. This life is in his Son. He that has a son has life, and he that does not have the Son of God has not life. So only Christ has the eternal life. But if we are in him, that’s also where the eternal life is. It’s in him. So we have. eternal life in Him. If we abide in Him, we live forever as He does. That’s what I understand to be taught. Now, Adam and Eve could have lived forever because there was a tree called the Tree of Life, and God specifically said in Genesis 3 that if they would eat of that, they would live forever. But it’s obvious that He was saying that if they don’t eat of it, they won’t live forever. So they weren’t naturally immortal. But they could be. They were potentially immortal, just like we are potentially immortal. We’re not naturally immortal either. But if we have Christ, we will not perish, but we’ll have everlasting life. And so immortality is a gift from God bestowed on conditions, in our case, in the condition of our clinging to Christ and abiding in him. In Adam and Eve’s case, the condition was that they eat the tree of life, and then they would live forever. But neither we nor they were created immortal. At least the Bible would say we weren’t. So, you know, I think some of the assumptions you’re making are just different ones that I’m making, but it doesn’t bother me for people to think that way. I just would register my own disagreement from that. Okay, let’s talk to Chuck from Honolulu. Chuck, I’m going to give you another chance. Let’s see how you do. Hello.
SPEAKER 08 :
I wanted to ask you about the Trinity. There’s the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. And is the Father the head God, and then the second member, the Son, is basically the son of that?
SPEAKER 01 :
father and the father is actually the unapproachable god well uh that’s not how i understand the trinity uh there probably are people who would think that way um but the trinity doctrine would not say that god is the chief god they’d say that god is father son and holy spirit that the three persons are all part of who god is um Now, many Trinitarians, probably most, would say that Jesus was the eternal Son of God. For all time, he was always the Son of God. The Bible doesn’t actually say it that way. The Bible says he was the Word. He was always one with God. He was with the Father, and he was God. And he’s the Word. And the Spirit was there, too, right at the very beginning of creation, we read. So, We don’t read of a father-son connection between the word and the Father. But when Jesus was born on earth, he had no earthly father. God was his father by God, and therefore he’s called the Son of God. And that’s what the angel told Mary in Luke chapter 5. when he announced that she was going to have a child. She said, how can this be? I’ve never known a man. And the angel said to her, well, the Spirit of God will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you, and therefore that holy thing that will be born of you will be called the Son of God. Okay, so she said, I don’t have a man to be the father of my child. And the angel said, that’s okay. God will do that. God, his spirit will come upon you and his power will overshadow. And that which is conceived will be not the son of a man, but the son of God. And God will take the place of a man in fathering this baby. But the baby that was born and was forever after to this day referred to as the son of God was prior to that referred to in the Bible as the word. And so the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory as of the only begotten son of a father, it says. So anyway, yeah, there are some kind of mysterious things about the Trinity. And some of the things that are commonly said, I would say them differently because I don’t see the traditional explanation actually confirmed in Scripture. But I do agree with the Trinity doctrine in general, which says that God is one. There’s only one God. And that in another sense, he is divisible into three. the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. And if that’s hard to understand, well, we can make up our own religion if we want to, and people do it all the time. Or we can just say, well, there’s many things about God that simply are beyond my akin. I can’t understand fully. Thank you for your call. Let’s talk to James from Hartford, Connecticut. James, welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hello.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hi, a lot of crackling on your line. Yes, uh-huh.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m sorry.
SPEAKER 01 :
We’ve got a bad line. We’ve got a bad connection. There’s a lot of cracking. Could you get to your question quickly and then we’ll hang up and I’ll answer it if I can. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 05 :
Sure. Okay. So it was about the… I was listening about what you had said about Satan and the things you were saying, well, this isn’t in the Bible, that isn’t in the Bible.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right.
SPEAKER 05 :
And it says in the Bible, though, that And John, the last chapter of John, the last few lines, that there are so many things that Jesus did that they can’t all fit in the Bible. So that is sort of the… I’m coming from an Orthodox, a Greek Orthodox type of teaching here. And they say that the Holy Tradition is about 50% of of the faith, and a lot of things are not. So I was very intrigued. I sort of got the end of this thing about Satan, that he wasn’t an angel. But then Jesus says in the Bible, I saw Satan fall. I saw him fall.
SPEAKER 01 :
How do you know better where that is? Yeah, that’s Luke 10, 18, I think it is. Yeah, well, you know, he didn’t say he saw an angel fall. He said he saw Satan fall. And we see Satan fall also, for example, in Revelation 12, verse 9, where he’s defeated and he’s cast out of heaven, but he’s a dragon. He’s not an angel. We even have Jesus saying, as he’s going to the cross, in John chapter 12, I think it’s verse 31, he says, Now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. So at the cross, we do see Satan being cast out, falling and so forth. I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Jesus, I think, saw that, as it were, prophetically, in the fact that the demons were being cast out by the disciples, which is the context in Luke 10. Anyway, the crackling is really bad on your line, but let me just say this, that I never said that Satan is not a fallen angel. All that I said, and what I said is true, is that the Bible doesn’t ever mention him being a fallen angel or even an angel at all. Now, that is true. There’s no mention in the Bible of Satan ever being an angel. And there’s never really a clear reference to him having his beginning as the evil one by falling from being something better. Jesus said, you know, the devil is a sinner from the beginning. Or he said the devil is a murderer from the beginning. In 1 John 3.8, it says the devil sinned from the beginning. So, I mean, we don’t have any reference to the devil being better than he was. But there are passages that people use to say that he was, and I believe they’re misusing the passages. You know, Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28 are the famous, most popular passages. But they don’t really say anything about an angel there, and they don’t say anything about Satan directly. So my position is not that Satan is not a fallen angel. My position is if he is, well, that is a possibility. It’s at least one possibility, but it’s not taught in Scripture. Now, you mentioned that as a Greek Orthodox, you recognize that not everything that you believe is in Scripture is. and that you said that the holy traditions make up probably 50% of your faith, well, then that explains it. That’s one of the things. The idea that Satan is the fallen angel is one of those traditions that makes up part of your faith. I’m not Greek Orthodox or Catholic. I’m pretty standard Protestant, and I believe the Bible is the ultimate authority. The Bible does not tell me with certainty that the devil is not a fallen angel, so he might be. But it doesn’t tell me that he is. So he might not be. In other words, there’s many things the Bible doesn’t say. Theologians throughout history have tried to fill in the gaps of what the Bible doesn’t say with things that they think make sense to them. Well, fine. People may have that tendency to do that. But I’m not going to teach anything as a doctrine that God didn’t tell me, especially about something like that, which we could never know without him telling us. That’s the thing. I mean, anything that we say about the origin of Satan that we can’t find in the Bible is It’s obviously people coming up with an idea about something that people have no knowledge of unless God tells us about it. And so my position is I don’t care if the devil’s a fallen angel or not. I don’t say that he is or isn’t. I’m just saying the nature of the data is that, you know, the Bible doesn’t tell us that. I appreciate you, you know. Check into that. Your line is too bad to continue this call. We’re almost out of time. In fact, I’m sorry to say we probably are out of time, but I’m always tempted to let one more person have a little say if they can do it in a minute’s time. We do have about a minute, Dan, from Atlanta, Georgia. If you can use that, you’re welcome to. I’ll try to answer quickly if you can ask quickly.
SPEAKER 11 :
Steve, long-time listener, first-time caller, thanks for what you do. I’ll be quick. Got a discussion with a relative of mine who’s asking or was thinking that Jesus still had his earthly body while he’s in heaven. What type of body does he have in heaven? Yes, sir. Thank you. I’m going to hang up and let you work your magic.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you. Well, Jesus has a body. He has a resurrected body, which is glorified. It’s not exactly what I’d call a worldly body. The earthly body he had before he was crucified was obviously a mortal body. We know because it died, and immortals can’t die. So, Jesus had an immortal body. He was in one place at a time. He was restricted in that respect, unlike before he came to earth where he was everywhere at once. That’s what God is. Jesus was in a body that got tired. God never gets tired, but his body got tired. That was a body like ours. But then when he rose from the dead, he had a body not like ours. We’re told he was raised immortal. He was raised glorified. We see that his body had capabilities of doing things that ours do not, like appearing somewhere and then disappearing before people’s eyes. I mean, his body was different. But it was the same body. It was just the same body that had undergone change. We know it was the same body because otherwise the tomb wouldn’t be empty. It’s the same body that was in the tomb and came out. And it also still had the marks of nails in his wrists and of the spear in his side. So we know this is not a different body. It’s just a body that had become different. It had been glorified. And it’s immortal. And because it’s immortal, obviously, it’s still alive now where he is at the right hand of God. That would be my understanding, and I think most Christians’ understanding of that. I appreciate your call. I’m sorry we couldn’t take more time with it. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. We are listener supported. If you’d like to write to us, the address is The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Our website, everything’s for free, but you can donate from there if you want to. It’s thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us. Let’s talk again tomorrow.
