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Steve Gregg discusses the challenges Christians face within mixed faith marriages, providing biblical guidance and encouraging vows’ integrity, regardless of personal circumstances. This episode emphasizes keeping one’s faith aligned with scriptural instructions while navigating personal relationships. Through candid discussions on scriptural interpretations and esoteric theological debates, Steve offers practical insights into applying faith principles to daily life, making this episode a valuable resource for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of biblical teachings.
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, taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible, the Christian faith, or anything related there unto, even if you’re not a Christian, but if you are, that’s fine too. We’ll be glad to talk to you about your questions. And even if you have them, your disagreements with the host, feel free to call me at this number, 844. 844-484-5737. And I’m looking at a largely empty switchboard, not entirely. But I think I know why. Because yesterday and the day before, we didn’t have live programs. And so we had to play recorded shows. And so I imagine before calling, people are wondering, let’s just see if it’s live or not. Well, it’s live. So we have quite a few lines open. If you want to call this number right now, 844-484-5737. I had technical problems yesterday and the day before. If you were listening, you know that I started the program live, and then it turned out that my signal was not coming through. I’m remote. I’m connecting to our radio station in Portland, Oregon through Internet. And I’m in Tennessee right now. So for some reason, the connection I had made through the internet was terrible. And I had to just say, okay, let’s not do this live. Let’s just play a recorded show of past calls. And we did that. But yesterday, I thought it was going to go well. I had my internet hooked up good. But when I’m traveling like this, and I’m not always where there is good internet, I use the hotspot in my phone. My iPhone, of course, like yours, has a personal hotspot feature, and it allows me to use it if I’m in the car or somewhere else to hook up with. And I did. Before the program, I was all hooked up. I did a speed test on the Internet. It was really beautiful. I thought, well, this is good. And then like two minutes or maybe ten minutes, I don’t know, it was five minutes, some short period before the show started, I got a message on my phone, you’ve used up all your data for the month. And it took me off. It cut me out. And this is not a good thing because I actually pay for unlimited data. But actually, I had to say to the studio, just play a recording again, which I hate to do because I’d rather talk. to the people in person, which I’m hoping to do today. We have some more calls coming in. If you’d like to be on the show, it’s 844-484-5737. I mentioned I’m in Tennessee tomorrow night. I’m speaking in Church Hill, a little town up in northeastern Tennessee. And I spoke here last year, and we had a very good crowd come. Some people drove from out of state. I understand some people are coming from out of state today or tomorrow, too. And that’s tomorrow night. If you’re in Tennessee or near enough to drive in to northeastern Tennessee, feel free to check the time and place out. Kind of have to RSVP to get the address. But it’s in a home, but it’s a large room. So if you want to, there’s still time for that. And then on Sunday mornings, the next time and last time I’m teaching in Tennessee this trip, and I’ll be at a Calvary Chapel in Talbot, Tennessee. Now you might say, wait, Steve, you’re speaking in a Calvary Chapel? Yeah, this pastor… And I are friends. And I’m not going to be doing anything controversial. I’m going to be talking about the four views of Revelation on Sunday night. That’s what I’ll be doing. That’s this Sunday. So if you’re interested in those things, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Look under announcements, and you’ll see the time and place of these two remaining Tennessee meetings. Both of them are in northeastern Tennessee. All right. Now our lines are full, so let’s go and talk to our friends here who are calling in. Kerry from Fort Worth, Texas. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Good to hear from you.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yes, Dave. I was reading the other day, I believe it was in Leviticus, and about the sacrifice. And it said that the sacrifice had to be salted. And I thought that was kind of strange. I knew about the other requirements of being an unblemished sacrifice and the like. And I know, you know, in New Testament we’re talked about the salt of the earth and, you know, we are salt. But I really couldn’t see the significance of the salt with the sacrifice. Could you enlighten me a little?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, in the first seven chapters of Leviticus, there’s all these details about the offering of five different offerings that had to be presented at the tabernacle. And they’re very detailed. And one of the things it says is that every sacrifice must be offered along with salt. And another thing it says that they shouldn’t ever have mixed honey with the sacrifice. Now, this in spite of the fact that they also had grain sacrifices like cakes and things like that, and they didn’t have granulated sugar, so if they wanted to sweeten those, they’d have to use honey. But they couldn’t offer anything on the altar that had been made with honey, and they couldn’t do it without salt. Now, that’s never explained anywhere. It just says that’s what it is. Commentators have their theories. Some think that honey represents physical pleasure, sensual pleasure. The Bible sometimes speaks of honey in that way. When David said of the word of God, it’s a. more to be desired than gold and sweeter than honey in the honeycomb. David’s mentioning honey as something as, you know, quintessentially pleasurable to the flesh. And so I can’t say this is what God’s reason was, but this is what I’ve heard from commentators every time I’ve read them, which has been for many years. So the honey part may represent sensual pleasure and the absence, you know, the… The lack of it in the sacrifices may have some connotation to denying your flesh, although that’s only an educated guess. Likewise, the salt is never explained. And salt, as now, was used for two things, maybe more, but two then that we still use it for. One is for, of course, spicing food. Job said in one of the oldest books of the Bible, he said, can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt? Obviously referring to salt as something that makes food tasty. And then more often, it seems like salt refers to that which preserves meat from rotting. In fact, in those days, they didn’t even have refrigeration. So if you butchered a goat or a cow or a sheep and you couldn’t eat it all at once, it’d go bad fast unless you packed it in salt. And You know, salt is still used that way sometimes when there’s no refrigeration because it was a preservative and it prevented decay. Now, some people think that the need for salt was for that reason, that it suggested purity. Salt is used a number of ways figuratively in the Bible. God, for example, talks about a binding covenant as a covenant of salt for some reason. Now, there’s no real obvious reason why it would be called that or why salt has to be added to the sacrifice. But if salt represented that which keeps the meat from going putrid, then it would suggest, of course, purity and not putridity of the sacrifice being offered. And some think, and I can’t really think of a better answer. All I can say is the Bible doesn’t tell us that this is the right answer. But I think it’s very possible that it is simply symbolic of offering a sacrifice that’s pure. Because, of course, in a hot desert area, in days when they had no refrigeration, unless you ate an animal pretty quickly or sacrificed it quickly after it was dead, it would begin to putrefy real fast. So it may be that the use of salt, perhaps rubbing it on the sacrifice or something like that to keep it from going bad too fast, might be the reason. And I say the commentators usually suggest something along those lines. But I’m not sure they’re right, but I’m also not sure they’re wrong. I don’t know of an alternative answer since the Bible gives no answer.
SPEAKER 10 :
I also noticed that Moses used salt to purify the water in one instance, and that seemed real crazy that, you know, salt would make water pure.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, Jesus, of course, said we’re the salt of the earth, as you pointed out, which most people think that’s, That implies that our presence in the world retards the decay of society, of the human race. You know, the presence of people representing God and speaking for God and so forth keeps societies from going down the tubes more quickly. And that’s, of course, what salt was used for. I mentioned there’s other uses of salt that commentators sometimes will point out. that salt was a valuable thing, and it was sometimes even used in commercial exchange, and that the Romans were told that soldiers were sometimes paid in salt their salaries. In fact, the word salary comes from saline. It’s from salt. So when you’re paid for your work and you get a salary, The word itself commemorates the fact that salt was once used as payment for labor. So salt is a very valuable thing, and it used to be even perhaps more valuable because we don’t use it very much except for seasoning. But back then they needed it for a lot of things. We might use it for keeping the roads from freezing or something. But they didn’t have that problem in Israel. Anyway, those are thoughts. I don’t have an answer. I only have thoughts. And so those are all that I can provide. I hope that helps. If it doesn’t help, then just do what I do. Just say, I guess I don’t have to understand that. Me not understanding that won’t have any negative impact on my Christian life. Okay, let’s talk to Rick from Lake Stevens, Washington. Hi, Rick. Welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi Steve, I really appreciate your ministry. I’ve learned so much listening to it. And I have two questions. One of them, in 1 Corinthians 14, 27, or I’m sorry, it’s 28. It talks about if someone speaks in their tongues and no one interprets it, they should be silent. But how does the person speaking in tongues know
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, that’s an often asked question and a good one. What Paul actually says, if someone wants to speak in tongues but there’s no interpreter present, let him speak to himself and to God and don’t speak out in the church. Paul sees more than one use of the gift of tongues, but what he’s mainly talking about in chapter 14 is the use of the gift of tongues in the church meeting. And he also recognizes speaking in tongues as having other uses, as a sign to unbelievers that would not be in the church meeting because the unbelievers aren’t there. But, for example, on the day of Pentecost, when the people first spoke in tongues, it was a sign to the unbelievers there, you know, that something supernatural was going on. Got their attention. so that Peter could preach the gospel to them. Paul also, as you mentioned in this very passage you’re talking about, said that tongues, you can speak to God alone with tongues. You might want to speak with tongues in the church, but if there’s no interpreter present, don’t. He said if in the church people, maybe two or at the most three, should speak in tongues, one at a time, and only with interpretation. Now your question is, well, before you speak in tongues, how do you know if there’s an interpreter present? And the answer would have to be, in the early church, they knew who had that gift of interpretation. And if they knew that no one had ever in the church been, had ever functioned in the gift of interpretation of tongues, then they don’t have someone to do that. You can still talk to God, you know, quietly under your breath in tongues, but don’t disturb the gathering. Now, also, you know, Paul says to one is given this gift and to one is given that gift. If you go a couple of chapters earlier in chapter 12, he’s listing these gifts and he says one is given that gift, one’s that. To another, the gift of tongues. To another, the interpretation of tongues. It would seem that in the churches, there were those who were known to have, the gift of prophecy, those who are known to have the gift of word of knowledge, the word of wisdom, and some who are known to have the gift of tongues, or at least ministering or sharing in tongues in the service. And there were people who were known to have the gift of interpretation. But if you either didn’t have someone in the church like that, or if maybe there were people in the congregation who were known to have that gift, but they didn’t happen to be present that day, You would just keep it to yourself. Now, Paul does suggest another alternative in verse 13. He says, therefore, whoever speaks in an unknown tongue, let him pray that he might interpret. Now, you know, I guess if there’s no other person in the church to interpret, you could pray that God, if you’re going to speak in tongues, you could pray that God will give you the interpretation. Now, you’d have to have a lot of faith that that’s going to happen because if you spoke in tongues and you didn’t get the interpretation from God, then you would have, of course, violated the protocol. But on the other hand, Paul indicates that that’s something, a prayer that God would probably grant or might grant. So that would mean that there wouldn’t be many times when there’s no interpreter present. But if there was times like that, you could pray that you would interpret it. So there’s a lot of things, you know, if we could visit one of those meetings in 1 Corinthians that Paul’s describing a few times, we would probably get more of a sense of what he was alluding to, what he was regulating. You know, Paul wasn’t necessarily, I don’t think in his own mind, he was necessarily writing instructions for all churches about these matters. but he might have been, but we know that the Church of Corinth, the only church he was writing to about it, they had some problems. They were disorderly. It seems that there were lots of people maybe speaking in tongues without any interpretation, not one at a time. And certainly you can go to meetings today where that happens. But Paul was trying to regulate that and rein that in. And so, listen, only two or three of you speak in tongues, only with an interpreter. But, you know, if Paul was writing to a church that didn’t have that kind of disorderly conduct, he might not have put the exact same restrictions. He might have allowed there to be more speaking in tongues. Who knows? I mean, we don’t know what he would have written in a different state, but this is what he was writing to them, at least, about their misconduct that needed to be brought into order.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, it’s complicated.
SPEAKER 01 :
it’s made more complicated because it’s the only chapter in the whole Bible that describes the use of speaking in tongues in church there’s no other chapter in the whole Bible in any epistle or anything and then we don’t have from Paul in this chapter anything like a systematic teaching on how to speak in tongues or how you know who’s interpreting it was assumed that they knew a lot of this stuff. And so he’s not kind of developing it from scratch to an audience who’s unfamiliar with the thing, which would be helpful to us if he did. But he’s writing to an audience that are very familiar with what’s going on, and they know him well. He lived with them for 18 months before he wrote this letter. And so they had this frame of reference that we don’t have, probably, that, His instructions were intended to curtail some of the wrong things they were doing. It would be more understandable to them, no doubt, or to us if we could be among them, than it is to us not having been among them. So we have to take the principles and see as best we can how we can apply them in our own churches today.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay. Okay, my other question was, it’s been bothering my mind for about a month now, When we get to heaven, well, first of all, my understanding is that there’s God the Father sitting on a throne and Jesus is at his right hand. When we get to heaven, are we going to see God or only Jesus? And I don’t know where the Holy Spirit sits into all that, but I think no man has ever seen God yet. Are we going to see God when we get to heaven, or is it just when we get to Jesus?
SPEAKER 01 :
No man has seen God in his full disclosure. That is, no one has seen the glory of God unfiltered and unveiled. That’s when God told Moses, no one can see me and live. Yet he said elsewhere that Moses did see God. And the 70 elders of Israel said, On the mountain saw God too, it says. And Isaiah said, I saw the Lord in Isaiah 6. He was high and lifted up and his train filled the temple. In Genesis 18, it says Abraham was sitting in the cool of his tent in the heat of the day and he saw the Lord, saw Yahweh. And he looked up and saw three men coming. Two of them were angels. The other was apparently Yahweh. So there are people who have seen God. And Jesus said, if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father. So lots of people saw him when he was here. So what does it mean no one has ever seen God at any time? I believe what it means is that nobody, and even God told Moses, you can’t see me and live, my face. I think what it means is that God cannot be fully disclosed in all his glory without it being destructive to a person or even to the planet. When Jesus comes back in glory in Revelation 20, it says the whole earth and the heavens fled away from his face. And there’s no place found for them. Then there was a new heaven, new earth. But his glory is apparently quite harmful to those who are not fit to see it or capable of enduring it. In 2 Thessalonians 2, it says of the man of sin that the Lord will consume him by the brightness of his coming. So… I think what we’re to understand is that when Isaiah said, I saw the Lord, and some other similar situations, it means I saw a vision of the Lord. It’s like, did you see a couple weeks ago Donald Trump addressing the joint session of Congress? Well, many of us did, but I wasn’t there. I didn’t actually see him. I saw something on my television screen. But it wouldn’t be a mistake to say, I saw something. you know, the President give this speech, if I was watching it, then I saw it. I just didn’t see him in person. I’ve seen him through some medium of transmission called television. uh people received visions and dreams of god and saw him in those ezekiel did daniel did isaiah did they all spoke of seeing him but they they were all doing it in visions and these visions are more like dreams it’s sort of like if you have a dream about someone you know in the dream you’re seeing them but you’re not really seeing them in person in real life it’s uh You know, so it’s seeing them in a dream or in a vision is not exactly the same thing as seeing them in person. And I think that it’s saying that although many have seen God in visions and dreams, they have not seen God in his unveiled glory. And another way they’ve seen him, besides visions and dreams, as in what we call theophanies. A theophany is an appearance of God. where he veils himself apparently in a physical form, like in the pillar of cloud or in the pillar of fire. That was God in that pillar. At one point when Israel had crossed the Red Sea successfully and Egypt was trying to pursue them, it says God looked out at Egypt from the cloud and caused the sea to come back down on the Egyptians. Essentially, that God was in the cloud. They could see the cloud. And the cloud was identified with God. It was a kind of glory of God. But, you know, he was veiled in the cloud. They couldn’t see him full on. And I think also when God appeared to Abraham in the form of a man, a physical man who ate food with Abraham in his tent and spoke to him like a man does. We’re told that’s God. Another time God apparently came in that form and wrestled with Jacob all night. And at the end of it, Jacob said, I’ve seen God face to face and my life is preserved. There are times when God could take on human flesh or not human nature in those cases, but just a human form. And they could see the physical, but they couldn’t see the glory of God except veiled in that form. Now, Jesus’ body is referred to as a veil in the book of Hebrews. And Jesus said, if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father. But What John said about it is, you know, the Word was made flesh. This is John 1.14. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father. We saw the glory of God in Jesus, but not unveiled. God was there in Jesus, but veiled to our vision through the flesh of Jesus. So there are ways in which people have seen God in visions, visions. and in those rare occasions that were theophanies or even in the Incarnation. But in none of these cases did people look on the unveiled glory of God. Probably the closest that anyone came was on the Mount of Transfiguration when the three disciples up there saw the glory of God on Jesus’ face, which shone brighter than the sun. I imagine they’d have a hard time looking at that. But even that was not unveiled because he was still in the flesh there. It seems like some of that glory that inhabited him was kind of allowed to shine through his skin a bit so that they could see he was not a mere man. But, yeah, you do get mixed signals about seeing God because there’s several places, Old and New Testament, say no man has seen God at any time. No one can see God and live. And yet both the Old and the New Testament speak of people actually seeing God. But when they say they saw him, they’re not describing a, a genuine face-to-face encounter where the glory of God is presented to their… eyes unveiled. It’s veiled through some transmission apparatus in a vision or a dream, or it’s veiled through a physical form that he appears within. So it could be confusing, but obviously the same writers say both statements. The Old Testament writers will say no one can see God live. In fact, Moses is the one who was told, you can’t see my glory and live. You can’t see my face and live. And yet later on it says, God said in Numbers that Moses saw him face to face as a man, sees a man. So I think that latter case must be where God appeared to him either in a vision or very possibly in a theophany, where God took on a human form to appear to him and talk with him. That’s the best I can do with the data, but it’s a good question often asked, and that’s how I would understand the answer to be. I need to take a break at this point. You’re listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. We have another half hour coming up, so don’t go away. We are listener supported. If you’d like to help us stay on the air, you can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or you can go to our website. You can donate from there, though everything’s free, at thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds, so don’t go away.
SPEAKER 03 :
Everyone is welcome to call the narrow path and discuss areas of disagreement with the host, but if you do so, please state your disagreements succinctly at the beginning of your call and be prepared to present your scriptural arguments when asked by the host. Don’t be disappointed if you don’t have the last word or if your call is cut shorter than you prefer. Our desire is to get as many callers on the air during the short program, so please be considerate to others.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
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. If you’d like to be on the program with any questions you have about the Bible or anything like that, you can call me at this number, 844-484-5737. I’ve been announcing that I’m speaking this week in various places in Tennessee. I probably should let you know. Before the month is over, I’m also going to be speaking to quite a few places in Arizona. At least the last five days of March, and maybe more. It may be a longer stint because we haven’t necessarily put everything together yet. But we have at least the last five days of March scheduled for me to speak in a variety of places in Arizona, mostly in the Phoenix area. And so you might be – I know a lot of people listening in Arizona – You might want to look at that schedule on our website, thenarrowpath.com. Under the tab that says announcements, you can get all the information you need about those gatherings. If you’d like to join us, we’d be glad to have you. Okay, we’re going to talk next to Joe in Calhoun, Georgia. Joe, welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, Steve, how are you doing?
SPEAKER 01 :
Is this the Joe I met last night and earlier in the week? Okay.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, yeah. Great to hear from you. Yeah, I didn’t get to ask this question last night. And it comes from something that Pat Hayes said in Pelham last weekend. He mentioned that Ahijah, the Shilonite, he thought wrote some of Kings, and he used 2 Chronicles 9.29 as kind of a proof text. And I had never heard that before. I just wanted to see if you heard that before. I mean, it doesn’t come right out and say that he wrote Kings.
SPEAKER 01 :
I would not have affirmed that as he did. He may not be wrong. I’m not saying he’s wrong. What the Bible does do, is it named several sources from the time of David and Solomon that contributed to the story. You know, the books of Kings, the books of Samuel, they often say, you know, and there’s more about this if you look at such and such a book. If you look at the book of the prophet Nathan or the seer Gad or, you know, Ahijah the Shilonite or, If you look at the, there’s more about this on the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, or there’s more on this in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. There’s all these different books that are mentioned, which the authors of our biblical books were familiar with, that covered some of the same stories and even had more information about them. They apparently were not preserved entirely. Whoever wrote Samuel and whoever wrote Kings must have used the material they thought was the most useful or relevant. But they would say, if you want more information about this story, you can look in these books. Now, the books they recommend don’t exist anymore. And we’re not told even to what degree… the writers of Samuel and Kings used those books they may not have used them they may just be aware that some others had written on the reigns of these kings and here’s where you can learn more we aren’t told who wrote Kings and the Jewish tradition is that the prophet Jeremiah wrote it but Pat Hayes was saying this part of Kings was written by this author and then this part by another he could be right But that’s not really spelled out for us. We’re not told in the Book of Kings who wrote any part, or we’re not even told that different authors contributed to it. But we are told there were other books and other writers who wrote on it. Now, it’s not impossible that certain parts of Kings were lifted directly from things that were written by writers. Gad or somebody, or by Ahijah, the Shamanite or someone. But Pat was speculating a little on that. He didn’t let on how much he was speculating. And that was true about a number of things he shared. Lots of things he shared. I can’t disagree with him. That is, I can’t say they aren’t true. but in many cases what he was saying is still a bit speculative. And, you know, I was able, because I know the same material, I was able to recognize that he was giving a theory that is plausible, but he wasn’t letting on that it was a plausible theory. He spoke as if it was just the way it was.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. Yeah, I thought it was interesting that his take was Ahija wasn’t – He wasn’t necessarily far in the city. And that’s why we have the thousand wives in there.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right. I thought that was extrapolating, too, because we’re never told much about the Shiloh night. But I think Patrick was saying, well, he’s a Shiloh night. That means he’s from Shiloh. And the people from Shiloh probably believed that the temple belonged in Shiloh because that’s where the tabernacle was first standing. It had been destroyed there by the Philistines in the time of Samuel when he was a boy. But, you know, I think he was figuring that since the Shiloh Knight wrote some of the material about Solomon and there’s some negative stuff there and Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem and a Shiloh Knight from Shiloh might resent that because the tabernacle had once been in Shiloh. But to put it together the way he did is simply a creative way of, you know, putting bits and pieces together into a narrative or an idea that could be true. Or maybe they’re not.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, and they made for a good story anyway. Thank you, Steve.
SPEAKER 01 :
I appreciate it. Yeah, I have many things that I agree with Pat Hayes about. I didn’t intend to be critical of him. But like many preachers, he would state things that are theoretical as if there’s no question about them. And all my teachers did that when I was growing up. I mean, all the teachers I listened to when I was young, what I now know to be theories they had and where there’s alternative theories. They never mentioned that they were up here. They just say this is how it was. So that’s one way, a very common way of teaching. I personally, as you probably know, I’d rather say a lot of people think this is the way it is, but it could be another way, you know, when that is true. Okay, Joe. Hey, it’s great to see you those two times. God bless you.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I might see you this weekend again. Thank you. Good.
SPEAKER 01 :
Love to see you.
SPEAKER 06 :
Bye now. Okay, bye-bye.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right, let’s talk to Robert from Napa or Nampa, Idaho. Hi, Robert. Welcome.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, good afternoon, Steve. Yes, I had a question on a long debate over the years on the eternal security issue. And I see both sides has pretty good scriptures to defend their view. And I always wondered if… I try to look at it from even another perspective is from the Lord’s view is let’s say he knew all of us from even before we were born, and he would know kind of black and white that whether if we were saved or not saved, and he even knows our future in heaven or judgment. And so to the Lord, wouldn’t it be that he doesn’t really see somebody And I’m trying to wrap my thoughts around this. I haven’t really come to like an exact conclusion yet. But I’m trying to think of it from an eternal perspective.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, what you’re saying is that, you know, before we’re born, if God already knows whether we’re going to be saved or not, then there’d be no sense of talking about somebody as saved. even in their lifetime at some point, if God knows they’re going to end up not saved. So they’re not saved, right? Exactly. And that’s very agreeable with the Calvinist idea. Of course, the Calvinists would add the idea that God determined who would be saved and who would not. You wouldn’t have to have that aspect in order to conclude something you’re saying. But they would say, you know, you may appear to be saved now, But God knows if you’re elect, you will be saved. And if you’re not elect, you won’t be. And so if you end up not saved, then you never were saved. That’s what they’d say. If you really were saved, you’d persevere. Now, the thing about what you’re saying is, I mean, that’s kind of esoteric, of course. But the question that usually is under debate here is whether a person who’s been born again can ever be saved. fall away and not be regenerated anymore. And the Calvinists would say if a person doesn’t endure to the end, even if they appear to be saved, they really weren’t born again. They really weren’t ever really a Christian. They didn’t experience the newness of life and the filling of the Holy Spirit and things like that. And so they would say a lot of people look like Christians, but they haven’t really been born again. And these would be the ones who end up falling away. And God knows who they are. So they would say, you know, in a sense, God knew they were never saved because they weren’t born again.
SPEAKER 09 :
And I don’t really try to take a Calvinist position, but I’m just trying to look at it from, let’s say, God’s point of view is that he already knows everybody’s destination even before the world ends. So to the Lord, wouldn’t it?
SPEAKER 01 :
to him he wouldn’t he doesn’t see people as being saved and then unsaved and back and forward well I’m not sure I’m not sure if that’s true or not even let’s just take it as a given that God does know for the sake of our God does know how we’re all going to turn out whether we’ll be saved at the end of our lives or not that doesn’t mean that just and he also knows you know all the animals that are going to live and die in that time and all the you know, all the automobile accidents are going to happen and all the people are going to get sick and which ones are going to be cured and which are not. I mean, if he knows the end from the beginning and knows all that stuff, that doesn’t mean that everything has been determined by him because, you know, he might know very well if he has some way of knowing the future that we don’t have. He may know very well that I’m going to die in an automobile accident, but that doesn’t mean he’s determined that will be true, and it could have turned out differently. But if it did turn out differently, he’d know that other thing instead. Whatever he knows would be simply what’s going to, in fact, happen. But if he didn’t make it happen, other factors could make it happen. Now, the question would be, Is he making some people become saved and preserving them because they are elect? And also making some people be unbelievers so that they won’t be saved because they’re, as the Calvinists say, reprobate? Or does he simply, you know, it’s going to go the way it’s going to go. We’re going to make our free choices and it’s going to happen as we choose. And God simply has knowledge of how that’s going to go. See, some people say if God knows it’s going to happen a certain way, that in a sense determines that it will go that way because it can’t happen a different way than what he knows. On the other hand, they’re suggesting that his knowledge of it then sets it in stone. But it may simply be that other factors set it in stone, like the decisions I’m actually going to make are going to end things up a certain way. And if God can stand aloof of time and see it and just know that I’m going to make those things happen, then he could tell me. That’s going to happen. But that doesn’t mean he wanted it to happen or made it happen. If God knows the future, and I personally believe he does, but many Christians have their doubts about that. I mean, there is such a view, and Jews too, there’s such a view that God’s omniscience doesn’t mean he knows all that we will choose. I have to say the standard view of Christianity has always been that God knows what we will choose. But as far as finding scriptures that say God knows everything we will choose, it’s a little more difficult than it may seem to make that point. When the Bible says God knows all things, I mean, the Bible also says he can do all things. But to say he can do all things doesn’t mean he can make a square circle or make 2 plus 2 equal 5. Because that’s nonsense. They can’t. It’s by definition an impossibility. And it’s not any defect in God’s omnipotence that he can’t make 2 plus 2 equals 5. It just is not according to reality. It’s by definition 2 plus 2 equals 5. Two plus two is five. It’s not something that God could wave a magic wand and it’d come up with a different result. And so also some say, when we say God is omniscient, it doesn’t mean he knows everything that doesn’t exist and so forth. It means that he’s aware of everything. But the future choices have not happened yet, so they’re not something for him to know. No one can know them because they don’t exist. And that there are things that don’t exist and therefore are not known by anyone, including God. I mean, God doesn’t know of a third moon or a second and third moon around the earth. Why doesn’t he know about that? Because they don’t exist. There’s nothing there to know. There’s no information there. And so some people called open theists would say, well, the decisions we’re going to make haven’t been made yet, and they won’t be made until they’re made, until we make them. Therefore, there’s really nothing there in the realm that we call future that can be known at all, even by God, just because… There’s things that God doesn’t know because they don’t exist. And so that’s how they talk. And I could see sense in that. But let’s just take it as an argument that God does know what’s going to happen. It doesn’t mean, in my opinion, that there can’t be somebody who’s literally saved. at some point in their life, and they end up not saved. Now, see, if we’re thinking of saved means going to heaven, well, then only those who end up saved and end up going to heaven could be said to be saved. And I think that’s how you’re thinking of it. I think being saved means we’re on good terms with God. We’ve been born again. We have a new life. We have the Holy Spirit. We’re part of the body of Christ. This is part of being saved. And then also when we die, we go to heaven. That’s part of it, too. But the question is, can there be people who are part of the body of Christ, who are born again, who do have the Spirit, who are servants of God, genuinely, but who will fall away and in the end not be? That’s the question, I think. And in my opinion, the Bible does suggest that our choices about that will determine much of that. and that a person who is born again can, as the writer of Hebrews said, depart from the living God through an evil heart of unbelief. And we’re warned against that, we who are Christians, who are born again are warned. And so, you know, I would just say that if God knows what’s going to turn out, and he knows the exact number of people who are in the future going to die believing and go to heaven, Well, then, and therefore only they are saved. Well, I would say only they end up saved. They could be saved in all the other aspects of being a Christian before that, but fall away and not be a Christian at the end. And there have been many people like that. Paul said many would depart from the faith. But you can’t depart from the faith that you’ve never been in. You can’t depart from a place you’ve never been. So, anyway, there’s much more to be said about that, obviously. I have lectures on that, as you know, and I’m aware of the point you’re making. I think it’s a thoughtful point. I don’t know that I’d reach the same conclusion about it because I would interpret salvation as something more than just dying and going to heaven. Certainly God knows, if he knows all things future, he knows who’s going to die and go to heaven and be ultimately saved. The question is whether they were ever saved people, born again Christian people, prior to that and fell away or not. That has happened to people. The Bible predicts it would happen to many people. And we’re warned against it happening to us in the Bible. So it seems to me like that’s at least a possibility, not one that we want to. All right, Robert. Hey, thanks for your call. Thank you very much. Bye now. Chris from Vancouver, B.C. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, hi, Steve. I’ve called and inquired about this topic before, about Christian marriage, a believer marrying a nonbeliever. And I’m just trying to really understand it better and better and sort of try to see where God’s perspective is on it. And the one thing that stands out to me is when Paul speaks in Corinthians about believers marrying non-believers, The usual response I get about that is that, well, he’s speaking to those who become believers while they’re already married. But then I have also people telling me, because I am married to a non-Christian, but then I have people also telling me, okay, well, but now that you are married, well, it doesn’t, you know, just stay in that marriage because, you know, you have to keep that vow. But if Paul is speaking to people that are saved afterward, like become Christians afterwards, then this does not apply to me. And then I should, you know, who’s to say that I should stay in this marriage? And so that’s just sort of like the way I see it.
SPEAKER 01 :
What Paul addresses is simply mixed faith marriages. It just so happens that in his day, those mixed faith marriages came about through the conversion of one party and not the other in the faith. Those would be the circumstances that would lead to mixed-faith marriages since the church did not approve of Christians marrying non-Christians. And so Paul may have not ever addressed or known any such cases. But he’s talking about Christians who are married to non-Christians, and that would… That would include those Christians who are actually married non-Christians, you know, like yourself. Now, I believe that Christians are to keep their vows, not just their marriage vows, but all their vows. I mean, the Bible is very clear. One thing God seeks in humans is faithfulness. And there’s no place to exhibit faithfulness more. than keeping sacred vows that you made to God, even if it was a mistake to make them. Remember Jephthah. Jephthah made a very foolish vow, as it turns out, and wished he hadn’t. But he still kept the vow, and he’s commended for that. You know, there are times when we make vows we shouldn’t make. That might even be, in some cases, marriage vows that people take. And not only mixed marriages like what you’ve described of your own, but there’s just sometimes marrying the wrong person. And maybe both of you are Christians, but you’re not very compatible. But you married him. You made the vows. And, of course, when you’ve made a vow… It’s simply part of being a faithful person and not a betrayer and not an unfaithful person, that you keep your word. It says in Ecclesiastes 5, it’s better… to not vow at all than to make a vow and break it. And you don’t have to make a vow, but when you do, you bound. He says you bound yourself with the words of your mouth. So I would think that, you know, whether it’s a mixed marriage because they were both pagans and one got converted and the other didn’t, but they’re still married, or whether it’s a Christian who married a non-Christian, whether that was the right thing for them to do at the time or not, Once you’re married, the right thing to do is to be faithful to the vows you made. God has no pleasure in those who break vows. And, you know, it says in Psalm 15 that the one who will be welcomed in God’s presence forever is the one who gives a long list of their characteristics. One is that they swear to their own hurt and don’t change. As they make a vow, which ends up hurting them, More than they anticipated, but they don’t back out. Why? Because they’re honest people. They don’t break promises. No one should ever break a promise, even a bad promise. But I will say this. Paul did say to, you know, those couples where a Christian had a non-Christian spouse. He said, don’t leave them. How do you know you won’t win them? you know, you might win them. And so once you’re in that circumstance, you need to be faithful to keep those vows. But, of course, marriage to a non-Christian can be very difficult, especially if you’re a very zealous Christian. Now, if a person’s just a Christian in name only, say, and nothing about their life is affected by that, they may not be a Christian at all, but Even if they are, if they’re just not very zealous, they might marry somebody who doesn’t know the Lord. And as far as that goes, they still find that person attractive. I’ve always wondered if someone really loves God, as they should, with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, what would they find that they have in common with somebody who doesn’t love God at all? You know, I mean, I’ve always wondered how a zealous Republican could marry a zealous Democrat. It seems like there’d be constant fighting over almost every issue because they’re so philosophically opposed. And same thing with different religions or whatever. The more you have in common with the person you married. the more peace you’ll have in the home, it seems to me. But even people who disagree, once they’re married, they can learn to be peaceable with each other if they want to, and they should want to. Anyway, yeah, I realize that Paul’s address is to people who probably were in a different circumstance before, I should say they came into their circumstance differently than than you have. But once having coming into it, they are in that circumstance as you are. So I think his counsel would be the same to both in both cases. All right. Let’s talk to Robert from Quitman, Texas. Hi, Robert. Welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, thank you, Steve. First time caller. My question is, can you please share with me your understanding of PSA, penal substitutionary atonement?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I think that penal substitution atonement suggests that Jesus was put as a substitute for us to be punished instead of us for our sins. And there certainly are scriptures that give that impression and seem to say that. Also, the very fact that Christ’s sacrifice is foreshadowed in the Old Testament sacrifices leans that way, because that certainly was the case with the Old Testament sacrifices. The priest would lay his hand on the animal’s head. He would confess the people’s sins over it, which was like a symbolic transfer of the guilt to the animal. Then the animal would die instead of the people. So the animal assumed the role of the guilty and also assumed the penalty of the guilty for it. And that’s what I believe the Bible suggests Jesus is. He’s the sacrificed lamb. I believe all the sacrifices in the Old Testament were a foreshadowing of Christ’s sacrifice. So I believe penal substitution… cannot be avoided without dealing with those facts, though many people don’t like the penal substitution view of the atonement. And there are at least four other views that are not penal substitution. One’s called the ransom view. One’s called the moral influence view. One is called the Christus Victor view. There’s another one. It’s not coming to mind right now, but there’s different views of the atonement. that Christians have held. All of them are, you know, capable of being held by Christians who are Orthodox, that is, who are not heretics. But the Bible seems to support virtually all these different views of the Atonement. And I can’t imagine a reason why they can’t all be true. You know, it’s as if the Atonement is such a variegated mystery that God has to give several different kinds of illustrations and analogies for it, like, you know, courtroom justice or buying a prisoner out of captivity or you know Jesus setting a good example for us to follow we’re told to follow he suffered for us that we should follow in his steps that he defeated Satan through the cross that’s true all these views are true So, I’ve never understood why people would just latch on to one of these views and say, okay, now that I have this view, all the others I would reject. Why? Why would you do that? If the Bible teaches all of them, there must be that many ways to unpack the mystery of what was really accomplished in the atonement. So, anyway, I don’t have the problem some people do with the penal substitution view. Some people think it’s sane That God wasn’t willing to forgive us. And his forgiveness had to be bought off by Jesus dying. But that’s not really what the Bible is saying about that. It’s giving a different aspect of a multifaceted phenomenon. Simply saying that Jesus was able to stand in for us so that we wouldn’t have to face the penalty. Other aspects of the atonement. are equally true, which, of course, we can’t look into right now because I’m out of time. But I appreciate your call. God bless you. You’ve been listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. We are listener supported. If you’d like to help us out, you might want to go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, where everything’s free, but you can donate at thenarrowpath.com. Let’s talk again tomorrow. God bless.
