The Narrow Path 10/15

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 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 you'd like to call in and discuss about the Bible about Christianity. Maybe you're not a Christian, you'd like to talk about why you're not a Christian. I always am eager to hear those kinds of calls I can't imagine why anyone who has taken any trouble to inform themselves of the evidence would not be a Christian, but maybe you have and maybe you're not and maybe you'd like to tell us why.

I'd be glad to hear it. If you're a Christian that doesn't mean you're going to agree with the host, although I am a Christian too, there are many issues that people disagree about even who are followers of Christ and so if you want to talk about something where your view is different than mine, we always welcome that. The number to call is 844-484-5737 that's 844-484-5737 and tonight as I've been announcing this week I'm going to be speaking, actually having a Q&A in Indianapolis and that's where I am at the moment in the home of our hosts who have set this meeting up and it's tonight at 7 pm and if you're interested in joining us, I would assume that means you're listening somewhere near Indianapolis, though you're certainly welcome to fly in from wherever you live. We welcome you, but you'll have to call ahead so do it early. And then on Sunday, in a few days from now, I'm also speaking in Battleground, Indiana and that's going to be at the Battleground Bible Church in I guess it's West Lafayette in Indiana and so these are a couple of Indiana things happening just in the next few days. Now next week for our Oregon listeners and we have a lot of our original audience going back 23 years when we first started this program are in Oregon because our first station was in Oregon and we've got people who've been listening that long. I'll be speaking in the Albany area in Oregon next Tuesday night and if I'm speaking anywhere else in Oregon right now, besides the Youth with a Mission school in Salem, I'm not aware of it yet and it might get set up.

Anyway, those are some of the things coming up for anyone who's interested and accessible to those areas. We've got people waiting on line although there's one line open right now if you'd like to grab it. It's 844-484-5737. Scott from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Not too very far from where I'm sitting. How are you doing, Scott? I'm doing well. Hi.

Thank you for taking my call, by the way. I have a question about a specific verse. I guess I want to give you the verse first and then give you my question. It's out of John's Gospel chapter 8, verse 24. I'll just read it if I may.

I have the ESV. I think Jesus is talking to the Jews and He says, I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins. I've had this verse presented to me in the past to say that Jesus is saying that if you don't believe that He is God, that's what He means by that I am He, that you will die in your sins. Therefore, it is required that you have at least that understanding that Jesus is God in order to be saved. I think that I've heard you argue that you don't have to have that kind of clarity necessarily. Maybe you even used Jesus' disciples as an example. Maybe not all of them had that clarity.

Help me understand this verse in light of that. Do you get where I'm going? Sure, I do. In fact, I have to say I used the argument that those people have used. I used that myself when I was younger. When I say that I'm afraid I'll sound condescending.

I have looked at it differently since I've grown older, but I'll just tell you what I thought at the time and what I think now. In the Greek, when it says, I am He, the He would normally be in italics in most Bibles because the word He is not in the Greek text. The phrase I am He in the Greek is ego emi.

That's two words. I am. And that's the same phrase he uses later at the end of the chapter in verse 58 when he says before Abram was ego emi.

I am. And almost all translators render that I am rather than I am He. But in verse 24, Jesus said if you don't believe that I am or ego emi, the translators usually add the word He. Now, the reason this is so is because ego emi literally means I, I am He.

Ego means I, and emi, the word by itself just means I am. So you kind of have an emphasis, I, I am. But the word He is not in that phrase. So it's simply I am. And of course, when this term is used by Jesus, or at least by John in translating Jesus, Aramaic, in John 8.58, and he says before he remembers I am, I think all Trinitarians, at least like myself, believe Jesus was making a claim to being God, the I am.

So why would you not do so in verse 24 also? Now, there's some reasons not to do so, but one of the things is that the term ego emi, though it literally means I am, it also is used in connection with the phrase I am He. Even if the word He is not included, it is implied.

For example, in the next chapter of John, in John chapter 9 and verse 9, Jesus has healed the blind man, and his friends who knew him before said, is this the one who used to be blind? And others say, nah, it's just someone who looks like him. And the man says, I am He. And he says, ego emi, the same phrase that Jesus uses both in John 8.24 and 8.58. So in other words, it's the normal way of saying I am He.

And you wouldn't normally translate I am unless you had some special reason to do so. Now, the special reason to do so in John 8.58, which Jesus said before Abram was I am, ego emi, is because he's making a statement about his eternal existence. And so he's saying something more than I am He because the He wouldn't really refer to anyone in particular, obviously. However, in verse 24 where he says, if you don't believe that I am He, he could be simply mean if you don't believe I'm the Messiah, which is what they would be expected to recognize. They have asked him very recently in the passage, how long will you keep us in suspense if you're the Messiah, tell us plainly.

Now, they're asking if he's the Messiah, and that was the question on everyone's mind. No one was really asking was he God. Because even the disciples at this point didn't fully grasp that he was God. That's a pretty strange concept for a Jew to accept, that a man would be God.

It's like the opposite of the Jewish theology. God is not a man. That God can appear as a man or become a man, no one would deny, but the Jews didn't expect that. And so no one was thinking Jesus is God. I mean, even the miracles he did from God could have been interpreted as the same kind of miracles that Elijah did or Elisha, and they weren't God. So Jesus has actually, at this point, never announced plainly that he is God. Frankly, he had never really announced publicly that he was the Messiah even.

He wanted that to be discovered by those to whom the Father revealed it. Jesus never made any real public declaration of being the Messiah, though he did privately tell his disciples on one occasion, and he told the woman at the well, and he told Caiaphas when he was on trial. But when he was out preaching to the masses, he didn't say, I'm the Messiah, or I'm God.

This is not what actually, he wasn't making a specific claim like that. But the people were wondering not whether he was God, but whether he was the Messiah. And he says, if you don't believe I'm he, then you'll die in your sins. Now, in all likelihood, when he says, if you don't believe I am he, he means if you don't believe I'm the one I'm claiming to be, who I say I am, you're not believing me, you're counting me to be a liar and an imposter.

If you think me an imposter, you'll die in your sins. So, it is true that in that verse, John 8 24, it does in the Greek say, ego ami, which means and can mean, and sometimes does mean, I am. But it's the same phrase that would be translated where our speaker was intending to say, I am he, and we find it translated that way probably more often in the Bible. So, your friend who is saying that has probably the ego ami phrase in mind where he says, Jesus is saying, you have to believe I'm God, you have to believe ego ami, I am. But no one took up stones to stone him there because they didn't understand him to be claiming to be God. Later in the chapter when he said before Abram was ego ami, they took up stones to stone him because they recognized he was claiming to be God. He was, you know, now he didn't speak Greek in all likelihood, so the term ego ami was not probably the words he used. He was speaking Aramaic. But when John translated what Jesus said into Greek, he chose the typical Greek phrase for both either to say, I am, when that was appropriate, or to say, I am he. In this case, in John 8 24, I believe I am he would be better, and it probably has the meaning of, you know, if you don't believe that I am who I am presenting myself to be, then you're going to die in your sins.

Why? Because I've got the way of life for you. I've got the way to prevent you from dying your sins.

If you don't accept who I am, you'll miss it. And that's what I think he's saying. I don't think he's saying if you don't sign a post-Nicene doctrinal statement saying that you believe that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, then you'll die in your sins.

That's what maybe your friends think, but I'm pretty sure that's not what Jesus meant. That's a very good explanation. Thank you very much. Scott, thanks for your call. God bless you. Richard from Seal Beach, California, welcome to The Narrow Path.

Thanks for calling. My question concerns Luke 18. I've heard many definitions of this. What exactly is your definition of the eye of a needle? And I will listen to you on the radio.

Thank you. Jesus is recorded as having said, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. And that sounds pretty radical.

I mean, it sounds pretty amazing. Because, frankly, the Jews thought that rich men were rich because God was blessing them. And now he says, you know, yeah, maybe, but they're not going to get into the kingdom unless a camel can go through the eye of a needle.

Now, this bothers some people. So, a standard interpretation that has come to be given by many commentators is that there was a certain gate in the walls of Jerusalem, a lower gate, a smaller gate than the average gates. And at night when they closed up all the gates for the defense of the city, this gate was still something that, you know, a late arrival after dark could still get through there.

It was, obviously, an easily defensible small gate, so they would let people come in. But it was too small for a camel to walk through. And so they say, if you really wanted your camel to go through that gate, you'd have to unload it and it'd have to get down on its knees and scoot down its belly, but it could barely do it. And they say that this little gate was called the eye of the needle in Jesus' time. So, they're suggesting that what Jesus is saying, that as it's difficult for a camel to get through that gate, it's difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

Now, there's a couple problems here. One is that, historically, there is no documentation that there was ever such a gate in Jesus' time in the wall of Jerusalem called the eye of the needle. There might have been a small gate, but there's simply no confirmation from history that they called a certain gate the eye of the needle. So, it would not be natural for the hearers to simply associate it with that gate. The claim that there was such a gate and that it bore such a title is, I don't know who made it up, but it sure has been a welcome one to a lot of rich Christians, and so they have repeated it.

The problem is that it is not impossible, even on that explanation, for a camel to get through a gate like that. It's difficult, but not impossible. But Jesus, when he said it, the disciples said, who then can be saved? He said, with God it's impossible.

Excuse me, with man it's impossible. With God, he said, nothing should be called impossible. So, he was talking about something that was clearly an impossibility, as impossible as a man to stay alive in a whale for three days and be vomited out in good shape. These are miracles that God can do.

And you don't see that kind of miracle all the time, but God is capable of doing it. So, this is you know, I believe he's talking about a real needle and a real camel. Now, there is an alternative understanding, which has some merit, and that is that they say that in Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke, the word for a rope or a cable is very similar to the word for camel. And that we might have a textual variant here, or a textual flaw, that somebody translating Jesus' original statement substituted his original word, which was for a rope or a cable, and put in the word for a camel. On that view, Jesus is saying it's easier for a rope to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. I have no idea whether this is likely to have taken place in the manuscripts, but if it did, it's still an impossibility. You can't put a rope through an eye of a needle. Actually, that imagery makes a measure of sense, because what you normally do put through an eye of a needle is a strand of something of which a rope is a much larger sample.

So, you know, he might be saying, I'm not saying he was. This is just an explanation some have given, that Jesus originally said it's easier for a cable or a rope to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. But it wouldn't change the impossibility of it. The point is, he's saying with man, this is an impossibility.

But with God, nothing should be called impossible. All right, I appreciate that call. James from Santa Rosa, also California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Oops, I pushed the button, but you didn't get the right color. There we are. Hi, James. You're there. Good, thanks. Don't forget, but do speak up loudly, because you're not very loud, and I'd love to hear what you have to say. Go ahead. All right, all right.

Better. So the longer that I study Christianity, the more I realize that most people and most every denomination, even people among denominations, have different views on what they believe. And I've come to realize that it's not so much what doctrines people believe, but as long as they believe in Christ.

And now when I was a new Christian, I used to listen to pastors who at the time I thought were very anointed, like David Wilkerson was one of my favorite pastors, and he's done tremendous things for the ministry. But I tend to see longer I become a Christian that God is actually light. He's actually light, and the more we learn about him, the more truth we learn about him, it's like the more of his light even shines upon my physical eyes. And so when I see these men of God like David Wilkerson preach sermons that hell is an eternal place where people go and this God that they believe in tortures them forever and ever and ever. I can't come to believe that how could this not actually affect the man that's preaching? I mean if you believe that your Creator is of a certain quality in nature, how could that not affect every aspect of your life from that point on and cause me to fear? I hear what you're saying, and by the way, I love David Wilkerson, the late David Wilkerson, and many other preachers who taught this eternal torment view of hell, but you've raised a good point. And actually I bring it up in my book on the three views of hell, one of the arguments that some people raise against the traditional doctrine is that how can you believe that God sees every human being unless they jump through the right hoops and become a Christian, that every human being is worthy to be tortured endlessly, eternally. If you believe that, how can you not somewhat pick up a bit of a hatred toward those people if God hates them that much? I mean the idea is God certainly must hate them or else He wouldn't do that. And if God hates them, then we ought to hate them. It is said that Queen Mary, I think Mary Queen of Scots it was, it might have been Bloody Mary, the other queen, I get them confused, but one of them persecuting Protestants and burning them at the stake, someone asked how she could do that as a Christian, and she said, well, if God sees fit to burn them in hell forever and ever, then why should I not imitate the divine justice and do so myself?

And that's a reasonable thing to think, really. I mean, if God hates them that much, my loyalty to Him should cause me to take the same position about them He takes, if He does. And I think that this idea of eternal torment has caused many Christians who would otherwise be more loving to assume a much less charitable view of the unbeliever than I think God has. I believe God has a very charitable view of the unbeliever. God so loved the world, which was, by the way, mostly comprised of unbelievers, so much that He gave His only Son to actually die for the world. So, it sounds to me like God had an immense love for sinners. Jesus said, greater love has no man than this, than that He laid down His life for His friends, but He also laid down His life for His enemies.

Paul says that about us. He says, we were God's enemies in Romans, chapter 5, and Christ died for us. So, Jesus died for His friends and His enemies.

I think He died for His enemies in order that He might claim from among them friends and obtain friends that way, but He died for everybody because He loved everybody, and He's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. So, God doesn't want anyone to go to hell, but if God doesn't want anyone to go to hell, but let's just say some must because they have free will, and He's not going to interfere with their free will, then He at least should make hell be whatever is consistent with what He thinks they ought to receive. You see, we shouldn't assume that somehow God, who is sovereign, was under obligation placed upon Him by someone above Himself, that hell had to be a certain way. Whatever hell is, is exactly what God wanted it to be.

There's no way to get around that. No one gave instructions or orders to God when He created hell to say, okay, here's what it's got to be. It's got to be eternal torment. If it is eternal torment, it's because God chose it to be that, despite other options open to Him. The three views of hell I point out that there are other options He could choose. He could choose not to torment people forever.

He could choose to annihilate them. That would be much more merciful. It would be like putting down your rabid dog.

You love the dog, but it's not going to get any better, so you just end its existence. That would be much more merciful than keeping them alive to torture them. By the way, when I was preparing my book on the three views of hell, I actually read probably a dozen commentaries from the traditional view by some of the best authors and best evangelical leaders who advanced and defended the traditional view, and many of them admitted that they believe that people are not naturally immortal. I didn't realize this because when I was promoting the traditional view, I thought people are naturally immortal, and therefore God had no choice. They're not going to die.

They can't die. They're immortal, so they either have to be alive somewhere, either with God or away from God. That was my rationale for it, but most of the leading theologians in the evangelical camp don't believe that man is naturally immortal. They believe that God prolongs their existence eternally just so they can continue to suffer.

Now, this is horrendous. I mean, to me, when I believed in the traditional doctrine, I thought that God didn't have any choice in the matter. He made them immortal. You can't kill something that's immortal, so they've just got to be somewhere else, which is going to be a lot worse than if they've been with Him.

But, I mean, when I got older, I rethought this. I thought, well, God can do whatever He wants to. If He can make a camel go through the eye of a needle, He could cause a soul, even if it were immortal, to cease to be immortal. He can change things if He wants to.

The truth is that hell is what God wants it to be, or else He would have made it something else. He could have annihilated sinners who didn't receive Him, or He could continue to deal with them after they've died and give them further opportunity to repent if He was really committed to their salvation. And frankly, I have to say, Jesus dying for people sounds like God was pretty committed to people's salvation, so if He wanted, He could do that. I don't know which thing He did, but I will say this.

Given three options that were clearly open to God to choose from, for Him to choose eternal torment to punish people for billions and billions of years, and that's just getting started because they spent 70 years or less rebelling against Him. He can do that. Don't let any Calvinist say that I'm saying that God doesn't have the right.

He's got the right to do whatever He wants. The real question is, what does He want, and why would He want it? What would I want from my enemies? Frankly, if I wanted to torture my enemies forever, I think the Sermon on the Mount would tell me I'm sinning, not that I'm being like God.

I'm sinning. Jesus said we should love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us and bless those who curse us so that we'll be like our Father in heaven. God loves His enemies.

He blesses those who curse Him, and so forth. He punishes because that's got to be done. Justice requires punishment for evil doing, but then we have to ask, what kind of punishment does God find necessary?

It is a very strange thing, I have to say. If God chose to torture people forever and ever, and they never have a chance to repent or to die, then He never resolves the problem of sin in the world, because there will always be people in hell cursing Him. There will always be people in hell who deserve to be there. There will be people who have done things in this life that deserve endless torment, and if they deserve endless torment, then it can never be satisfied, because the right penalty is endless. And therefore, it resolves nothing except to ventilate God's eternal wrath against people that had the chutzpah to not believe in Him. Now, I'll tell you what, I have children who don't follow my ways, and although I'm on good terms with them now, some of them have rebelled against me in the past, I never would have thought, boy, if I get a chance, I'm going to burn them.

If I get a chance, I'm going to torment them. It's the furthest thing from my mind, and I seriously doubt that I'm more loving than God is. In fact, no, I'm not more loving than God is. So, you've raised some points here. Whatever hell is, is truly what God wants it to be, and whatever He wants it to be tells you exactly what kind of a person He is, because if I wanted to torment my rebellious children, or my enemies, I'd be a certain kind of person. If I wanted to forgive them, or just see that justice happened, but them suffer as little as possible, then that would depict me as a different kind of person. We have to ask what kind of person is God, and what we have an answer to that in Jesus.

Jesus said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. And so, we might have to rethink some of our traditions. Listen, I need to take a break at this point. I appreciate your call, brother, and you raised some interesting points. We have another half hour coming. We're not going away.

Don't you go away. The Narrow Path is listener supported. You can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. You can support us there if you want, or you can just take stuff.

Everything's free at thenarrowpath.com. I'll be right back. Stay tuned.

Share what you know. Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we are live for another half hour, taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, or a different view from the host, and you'd like to talk about those things, feel free to give me a call in the next half hour. The number is 844-484-5737.

That's 844-484-5737. I'm going to announce this again because it's tonight that it takes place. We're not on the air in Indianapolis, but I'm here broadcasting from Indianapolis because I'm going to be speaking tonight. But it's a very small gathering because we don't have many listeners in this area. And therefore, we've got room for more if you're interested in joining us. The meeting is going to be held in a business office, Suite A, at the address I'm about to give you.

It's called, what's it called? My Agent Real Estate. Okay, the company there is My Agent Real Estate. The address, if you want to jot it down, is 7855 South Emerson Avenue, Suite A in Indianapolis.

That's 7855 South Emerson Avenue, Suite A. So that's tonight. It's 7 o'clock. It's just a Q&A, and if you'd like to join us, it's very casual. You're welcome to do so. You do have to RSVP, though. Oh, not anymore? Okay.

Looks like we don't have to RSVP anymore. All right. Good. And, oh, I have another announcement I almost forgot. And that is that some of you know that I've written a couple of books on the Kingdom of God just this year. And that the first comes out today. Or maybe yesterday. I got a notification by email from Amazon that the copy I ordered was shipped, I guess, yesterday. We'd been told it was going to come out on the 15th, which is today. The Kindle version came out a week or so ago. But if you have already pre-ordered this book, I assume it's in the mail now.

If you weren't aware of the book, you can get it at Amazon or Barnes & Noble online. You just have to look up my name, really. Do a search for my name.

Steve Gregg. The last name is G-R-E-G-G. And the first of these two books is now in print and now available. It's called Empire of the Risen Son. And this is about the Kingdom of God. It's the first of two books on the subject, both of which bearing the same title, Empire of the Risen Son. The first book has the subtitle There is Another King. The second book, when it comes out, has another subtitle, All the King's Men. And the second book is about discipleship.

The first one is simply about expounding on what the Kingdom of God is and understanding what Jesus was talking about. Okay, enough on those things. Let's go to the phones and talk to who's been here the longest. It is Harold from Fort Worth, Texas. Harold, welcome to The Narrow Path. How are you? I'm fine, thank you. A question about a brief comment you made last week about the book of Revelation. As I remembered, I think you said, were the fact most of those events occurred in the past. Is that generally correct, Steve? That is a correct representation of my view. There are four different views of Revelation. Mine is that most of those events occurred in the past, yes.

I'm not a predator, but I understand generally the idea. So I'd just be curious if you would mind saying what's to come as opposed to what occurred in the past. Anna, thank you very much. I'm going to hang up and listen on the radio. Okay, well, thank you for your call.

Good to hear from you, Harold. Well, what I believe is yet to come is the actual second coming of Christ. You know, when Jesus ascended into heaven in Acts chapter 1, the angels said to the disciples, this same Jesus whom you have seen ascend into heaven will come again in like manner as you saw him go. So Jesus went away visibly, physically into heaven.

He's going to come back in the same manner. Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4, the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them to meet Him in the air. So there's the rapture and the resurrection that will take place when Jesus Himself comes. Now the reason I emphasize the Lord Himself will come, since that's the wording of the passage, is that there are passages in the Bible, the Old and the New Testament, that speak of God coming or Jesus coming, but which are not necessarily referring to the second coming. They're not referring to Him literally and personally coming in those passages, but rather the coming of the Lord in some passages is a poetic way or a symbolic way of speaking of God talking about some event on earth, usually the destruction of a nation at the hands of another nation in war. But because the Bible assumes that this destruction is something that God has brought about as a judgment on the defeated nation, the Bible writers, Old and New Testament, speak in terms of the Lord comes. The Lord has come.

That is in the person of these invading armies. You'll find many examples of this in the Bible, but of course in those cases it's not literally talking about God coming. It's not talking about Jesus personally returning. It's talking about an army being come due to God's arranging of matters and God's arranging it because He Himself is judging the invaded nation. And so it's figuratively that He's coming in the person of these armies. But there are passages that say this same Jesus will come in the same way that you saw Him go, or the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with His shot.

We're just making it clear we're not talking figuratively here. We're not talking about an army that we're symbolically referring to God coming. This is the Lord Himself. This is the same Jesus coming in the same way that He left.

And these are passages that clearly are arguing for something that has not yet happened. Jesus has not come back in the way that He left. He has not raised the dead. He has not raptured the church. He has not burned up His enemies in flaming fire. He has not melted the cosmos and replaced it with a new heaven, new earth. And these are all things that I think the Bible says He's going to do.

So let's face it. The book of Revelation doesn't make very many references to that, but I think it does make some. I think there are some references in Revelation to the second coming of Christ. If you wonder which ones I think are, no one is obligated to agree with me, but I would say that the seventh trumpet in Revelation 11 and verse 15 is describing the second coming of Christ. I personally believe that Revelation 20 verse 9, where Satan and his hordes are surrounding the beloved city, but fire from heaven comes down and consumes them, I think that's the second coming of Christ. It agrees with the language of Paul in 2 Thessalonians who said that Jesus will come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who don't know God. So, I mean, I personally don't see everything in Revelation as fulfilled in 70 AD.

There are people who do. There are people who are called full preterists, and they do believe that everything happened in 70 AD. There's nothing else to happen. They believe the new heavens, new earth has come. The resurrection took place. The rapture took place. The devil is gone now.

There's no devil on the earth because he's in the lake of fire. This is the view of people who are called full preterists, which means they believe everything that is predicted in the Bible has been fulfilled a long time ago. This, to my mind, is not a responsible exegetical position.

I've said why for many reasons in the past. And I've debated full preterists. But a partial preterist, which is what you should probably call me, is someone who believes that part of those prophecies, some of the prophecies, not all of them, have been fulfilled in the past.

And that's not really a radical position for a Christian to take. It might be an unfamiliar position to take about the book of Revelation if we've been taught that it's all about the end of the world. But all Christians are partial preterists in the sense that they believe some prophecies have been fulfilled in the past. That's what the word preterist means. Preterist means that you believe that a prophecy was fulfilled in the past rather than something awaiting fulfillment in the future. All Christians, for example, believe that many messianic Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled when Jesus was here. So we take a preterist view to those prophecies. Whereas the Jews who reject Christ, they take a futurist view. They think the Messiah is still going to come and fulfill those prophecies. We say, no, they were fulfilled in the past. For Christians, that's not controversial.

But vis-a-vis our conflict with Judaism, that would be controversial. But we know that many things that were predicted—Jesus, for example, saying that Jerusalem would be destroyed and not one stone would be left standing on another—we know that happened in AD. So we recognize that as a prophecy that has a past fulfillment. Just like the Old Testament prophecies about the fall of Babylon or Assyria or Edom or Moab, all those nations have fallen.

The Philistines are all gone now. And they were predicted. So we see those fulfillments as past fulfillments. That's a preterist view of those prophecies. It's just that while all Christians recognize a past fulfillment of many prophecies, many Christians do not see a past fulfillment of the prophecies in the book of Revelation. Which, by the way, there's nothing in the book of Revelation that says there's a future fulfillment.

That is, future from our point of view. John, several times in the book of Revelation, told his readers the things he's describing will take place shortly. These are about to take place, he said. The time is at hand, he said. And so, certainly, if we take his wording more or less literally in those statements, then he's saying to his readers, who lived 2,000 years ago, that the things he's describing would happen not so very far off. And if he was not mistaken, then we who do live pretty far off from that time would be wise to suggest, okay, if those were describing things that were not very far off when John wrote them, then they must have been fulfilled by now.

And that would be the argument for a preterist view of the book of Revelation. I appreciate that call very much. Carl from looks like La Mesa, California. Hi, Carl. Welcome.

Thank you, Steve. Really appreciate your ministry, I want to say, first of all. In Isaiah 64, 6, that's the famous filthy rags verse, I'm sure you're familiar with it.

Often used in an evangelistic situation to point out to the lost that their good works will not get them to heaven. However, in Acts 10 verse 4, we have an unsaved individual there who says that his good works came up before God as a pleasant thing to God. So I'm wondering, should we really be using, that's my question, should we be using Isaiah 64, 6 in that way in evangelism? What do you think?

Absolutely not. It is true that we are sinners. It is true that we fall short of the glory of God. It is true that we are condemned by our sin unless we find forgiveness through Christ.

Those things are all true and we make those points when we evangelize. But there are certain verses that we ought not to use because they're not applicable. One of them is the passage in Isaiah you mentioned, where it says all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Now a very common usage of that is to say Isaiah is talking about every one of us, every human being, no matter what good works we do, they're offensive to God.

They're not just not good enough. It's not just that we can't be good enough to go to heaven, but when we try to do good works we're actually presenting to God something absolutely filthy. And some pastors attempting to be very graphic will say the term used in the Hebrew actually refers to a soiled menstrual cloth, which would be very offensive to the Jews and that God was trying to be very offensive to them. All of our righteousnesses are as soiled menstrual cloths.

I mean you don't present something like that to God. And so it's a very strong statement that Isaiah is making to his generation who were in fact practicing Jewish ritual religion, offering sacrifices and doing the things that Judaism externally called for, but their hearts were far from God. Isaiah earlier said in his book, speaking for God, these people draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In Isaiah chapter 1 he told them, I hate your sacrifices and your new moons and your holy days and all that stuff. He says these are an abomination to me.

Not because he didn't like religion at all, but because of the people themselves. He says your hearts are wicked. Your hands are full of the blood of innocent people. Learn to do righteousness.

Learn to do justice. Come let us reason together, he says in verse 18, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as wool. God is, through the prophet Isaiah, God is rebuking the nation of Judah and Israel until Israel fell in the middle of his ministry.

Then he only addressed Judah. But he's saying you guys are very religious. All these righteousnesses you're doing, which is a reference to their temple observances and so forth. Those are like filthy rags to God.

Now that's true. They were because, frankly, if you're a hater of God or if you're at least a lover of his rivals and you're worshiping idols, for example, that's very offensive to God. And if you pretend that you love God at a time when you certainly don't and you offer alleged worship actions to him, it's incredibly offensive to him. He hates hypocrisy. That's what Isaiah is telling them.

Now, there would no doubt be cases of people today in exactly the same position. It says in Proverbs three times that the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord. Now, a sacrifice is an act of worship in the temple. If it's offered by a person who's wicked, meaning somebody who lives a life of sin and rebellion against God, but they show up on the Sabbath and offer an animal sacrifice, that's not only not good enough, it's an abomination to God, just like the filthy rags Isaiah speaks of. So Isaiah is saying the same thing that Proverbs says numerous times, that those who are offering these sacrifices, all these righteousnesses they're presenting to God, they're abominable. They're like filthy rags to God. And I'm sure there are very many people throughout history and in our own day to whom that would apply, but he's not making a statement about all human actions that are intended to be good. There are people who are being good.

It's not good enough to be saved, but they're trying to be good because they do care about God. I mean, there are people in other religions, and of no religion at all, who really are seeking after God, and that's why they find him. You mentioned Cornelius. Cornelius, in Acts chapter 10, was a pagan. He was a Roman. His ancestors and his upbringing was worshiping the Roman deities, the Roman gods. This is total paganism, and he had not yet converted.

He had been impressed with Judaism and become a God-fearing Gentile, and therefore he had apparently been attracted to Israel's God. But he still didn't know about Jesus, and yet the good things he did trying to please Israel's God were pleasant in God's light, because God is not against good works. He's for good works. It's a question of whether doing good works is good enough to atone for our sins.

It is not. We've all sinned, and we can't atone for our sins by good works, but that doesn't mean that God is offended when we, though very inadequately, try to do works that will please him. He sees the heart. Now, see, many evangelicals say, yeah, well, he sees the wickedness in every person's heart, and therefore even when they do good deeds, he sees it's all hypocritical. Well, you're reading something into that if you say that, because the Bible doesn't say that. The Bible doesn't say that everybody who does good deeds is a hypocrite.

Certainly Cornelius wasn't viewed that way. He wasn't a Christian. He was doing good deeds.

Also the centurion that came to Jesus with the sixth servant. The Jews, the Jewish leaders of all people who hated Gentiles came to Jesus and said, this man is a good man. He's built us a synagogue. He's helped the poor.

You should do something for him, which is interesting. Jesus didn't say, don't you realize him building a synagogue and helping the poor? That's all filthy rags.

No, it was not filthy rags. Jesus didn't say it would save him, and this is what we have to distinguish between. Whether good works will save you or not is one question. Whether good works are better in the sight of God than bad works is a different question. Of course, God is more offended by evil works than by sincerely attempted good works.

Even if they're not adequate, God is not offended. All of our righteousnesses, that is every good thing a person tries to do is not necessarily like filthy rags to God, but certainly there are people that were in Isaiah's day and there are today. People who pretend to be lovers of God and they do a lot of philanthropic work and they do a lot of religious things, but their hearts are far from God. They don't love God at all.

In fact, they love wickedness. They have secret sin in their life and so forth. Well, they're wicked, and their sacrifices to God are an abomination to him, and that's what Isaiah is saying. We have to remember when we find this kind of statement in Isaiah or in Jeremiah who said that can a leopard change his spots or an Ethiopian change his skin? He says, then may you, who are accustomed to doing evil, turn and do righteousness. Now, this kind of statement is often quoted by people trying to demonstrate the doctrine of total depravity, and they say, see, you can't change any more than a leopard can change his spots. Your heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.

Who can know it? Your righteousnesses are like filthy rags. Well, all those things were in fact true of the people that the prophets are speaking to. We have to remember that the prophets were not writing a systematic theology, and this was their chapter on anthropology showing that human beings are all this way. These people are not writing theology.

They're prophetic denunciations of their generation, explaining what it is that's offensive to God in their generation. But it doesn't mean that's true of everybody. In fact, sometimes people say, well, the sinner of the Bible says their thoughts and intents of their heart are only evil continually. No, it doesn't say that about all sinners. It says that about the people that had to be wiped out in the flood.

They had become so corrupt that every thought of theirs was evil. It's not saying, again, Genesis 6 is not trying to give us a proof text for our books on systematic theology about the sinfulness of man. Basically, it's describing actual people and giving the reason why they had to be wiped out. If everyone was like that, God would have to repeatedly wipe us all out in floods, but He hasn't done that. There are people seeking God who don't yet know Him, and their seeking Him like Cornelius did is not offensive to God. It may not be adequate to save them, but it's something that, as in Cornelius' case, God saw it, He honored it, He respected it, and He revealed to Cornelius a way to become aware of the way of salvation. In this case, He told him how to get in touch with Peter, but he did it not because he was finding Cornelius' actions like filthy rags.

He liked them, but he wanted that man to know more about himself because he looked like a good man. That's what I think the Bible says. In fact, when Peter came and preached to Cornelius, he didn't preach the way that our modern preachers do. Here he comes into the house of a pagan, uncircumcised, and for all Peter knew, there had never been a believing, uncircumcised man. To a Jewish Christian, that was a very offensive thing. He comes into a man who has not heard a note about Christ, and instead of coming and saying, listen you pagans, all your righteousnesses are like filthy rags, he came and he said, you know, as a Jew, I've always been prejudiced against people like you. As a Jew, I'm not even allowed to come into your house, but he says, God has shown me that He's not a respecter of persons, but that everyone in every nation who does good and what is pleasing to Him is acceptable to Him.

Now, acceptable to Him doesn't mean, you know, saved necessarily, but it means that that attempt in every nation on the part of people to do what's right in the sight of God, he recognizes that favorably, and no doubt that's one of the reasons he allows missionaries to be sent to them or allows further revelation to be given to them. But, yeah, this idea that every human being who tries to do a good thing, they're just doing something that God's offended by, so they might as well not try. They might as well go out and loot. They might as well go out and kill people. What difference does it make? That would be filthy rags to God, too, but so are all their attempts at good deeds.

Well, no, the Bible does not teach that, and unfortunately, people who have a particular doctrine they're trying to prove often will take a verse way out of context and act like it proves their point, when in fact it in no sense does. All right, Carl, I appreciate your call, brother. Let's talk to Mark from West Hartford, Connecticut.

Mark, welcome to the Narrow Path. Hey, you there? Hey, yeah, I'm here.

But not for long. You better speak up because I'm going to be off the air here in about three minutes, so I am here, but I'll be gone in four minutes, so go ahead. Okay, I get it. You're not there.

Okay, I'm sorry. I wanted to talk to you. Let's talk to Milton from Pasadena, California. Welcome to the Narrow Path. I am here.

Are you? Hi, Steve. This is Milton, first time caller. Steve, I know our time is short, so I'll be kind of brief here. But my concern is that the final judgment for non-believers, the idea of eternal torment, I think it's more mental emotional than physical. It's something we don't fully realize and fully understand. I'm concerned, Steve, that we, with our human minds, we don't even have our resurrected bodies yet, so we don't know the totality of what the Bible really means. I think we have to be very cautious in putting a negative spin assessment on what is clearly taught in the Bible related to the ultimate outcome. Let me know if I'm getting you right here. Apparently you can't hear me.

Let me know if I'm getting it right. I think what you're saying is since we don't know whether the torment of hell is really physical torment, such as being inflicted by torturers, or whether it really refers to something like some psychological regret, being tormented by wishing you hadn't done what you did and fully realizing the magnitude of your sins. Maybe it's that kind of torment. And that fires of hell are simply a symbol of that. That's what I think you're saying.

That's what I'm going to answer since I don't have much time. You could be right. I mean, you could be right that the fires of hell are symbolic and that they refer to the burning of regret and remorse that people may feel once they've gone to hell and they recognize how horrible their deeds were that they had taken lightly when they're alive and they realize how glorious God is and how offensive it is that they had rejected Him and ignored Him or whatever. That could be the nature of the torment.

I won't rule that out. I'm not one who believes that God inflicts torture on people. Even if there is eternal torment, it would not be my view that God is inflicting it, but that people now see things as they are, perhaps. They now realize how evil they were.

They have regrets or whatever. That would be sensible. And it sounds like maybe that's what you're suggesting. And I think you're maybe calling because I was talking about how unloving it would seem for God to torture people forever and ever and ever. And perhaps I think your point is this.

I would give you more time to make it except I'm going to be off the air here in about a minute. I think what you're saying is even if torment is forever and ever, it's self-inflicted. It's not really something God is inflicting on them. And I can see value in that position. I don't think you're necessarily wrong, but there are other views, too, that may be more substantiated in Scripture. But my position all along is that the Scripture is not as clear as we could wish it were on the matter of hell.

And I appreciate you sharing your alternative view. You've been listening to The Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are listener supported. You can write to us at The Narrow Path Box 1730, Temecula, California 92593. You can also go to our website. You can donate there, but if you don't want to donate, you can still just take whatever's there.

There's thousands of resources at thenarrowpath.com. Let's talk again tomorrow. Thanks for joining us. God bless you.