The Narrow Path 11/2

Okay. 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 or about the Christian faith, this is one place you can ask them, and we can discuss them quite openly and as honestly as I know how. If you have a difference of opinion from the host and want to call to express that opinion and maybe tell us why, feel free to do so. You're welcome on the program. And even if you are, of course, if you're not a Christian and you have even objections against the Bible or Christianity, I don't object at all to you calling and stating them.

We can talk about it. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. Now, some calls are waiting, and the studio has told me they're having some kind of a little bit of a hangup with the phone call, so there's at least two callers waiting, and I'm not sure how soon we'll be able to get to them.

Probably in the next few minutes. Okay. We're going to talk, first of all, to Michael in Watsonville, California. Michael, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hello, Michael.

Hi. Yes, there you are. Can you hear me okay? Yeah, but you could be louder.

Speak into the phone as loudly as you can. That's better. Yes, go ahead. Okay.

Is that a little bit better? Yes, it is. Go ahead. All right. So I now have access to YouTube.

I've never had that, but my friend that I'm renting a room from in Watsonville, she has that on her Smart TV. So I've been watching a lot, and I don't know if you're familiar with the so-called Four Horsemen of Atheism, Sam Harris, Christopher Dix. Absolutely. I've read their books, yes. And I don't know of the fourth gentleman. I'm not as familiar with that.

Okay. It's Richard Dawkins. It's Christopher Hitchens, who's now deceased. It's Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris.

Those are called the Four Horsemen. That's right. And I actually watched a debate between Sam Harris and William Lynn Craig. Have you heard of him? He's a Christian. Oh, yes. Very familiar.

Yes. And one of the objections that was raised by, I think, Sam Harris is that the view of eternal damnation, that a being would be created and then basically thrown into eternal suffering. Sam Harris, I think it was him. It might have been one of the other three atheists, but someone said that if a person believes that they'll be shaking in their boots, you know, afraid of being cast into the lake of fire. And I don't know how many people are aware, because you wrote a book called, I forget the title of it, but it was about the alternative views of the afterlife.

And many Christians aren't even aware of that. Right. So are you calling mainly to give a plug for the book? No, no, no, no.

The book is very, very, very well written. But I'm saying that this criticism offered by one of the atheists of that view as, you know, the fire and brimstone, you'd better toe the line or you're going to hell. I'm not exactly an atheist in the sense that in the absolute sense, but in the Eastern traditions, they do speak of hell, but it's not forever. Okay. Yeah, well, okay.

Let me address that if I can. What you're saying is that Sam Harris or whoever was in the debate that you're talking about had brought the objection of eternal punishment. You didn't mention the specifics of his objection, but it's an objection that virtually all atheists have, and frankly, a lot of Christians have. A lot of Christians recognize that eternal punishment is not, first of all, it's not a winsome doctrine. And one reason it's not winsome is it doesn't seem to be a just doctrine. It doesn't seem that punishment is then proportionate to guilt. And God is always said to be a just God, and it seems hard to know how that becomes a just punishment.

And thirdly, because it makes the character of God look bad. That is, if God could do other things besides torture forever, somebody who rejects Him. For example, God could annihilate them if He wants to. No one can tell God what He can and cannot do, right? So if God wants to annihilate people, nobody can say that He can't do so. Or if He wants to give people in hell a chance to repent and be recovered for His Kingdom, then frankly, if God wanted to, He could do that too. Or if He wants to burn them and torture them and keep them alive to suffer forever and ever, He can do that. So basically, hell is whatever God wants it to be, because if someone says, but God gave free will to people, and He can't help it if some people are going to choose to reject Him.

Well, that's not the question. The question is not whether God can keep people from rejecting Him. The question is, what does God choose to do to people who do reject Him? And frankly, what any person chooses to do to his enemies is a very good gauge of that person's character. If like Jesus on the cross, they say, Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing, that's a very merciful and generous kind of a person.

If, on the other hand, a person who has enemies says, I want to torture them, you know, hanging is too good for them, you know, I want to just torture them, and I don't want them to ever stop being tortured. Well, generally speaking, we don't consider that to be a very good person, or even a very civilized person, certainly not a Christian person, because they don't have the Spirit of Christ. Now, of course, since hell is whatever God wants it to be, some have, it seems to be reasonably suggested, that if God could do whatever He wants it to do, and He chose to keep people alive forever and ever and ever, and torture them the whole time, then He's not very much like Jesus, because Jesus loved sinners. He was a friend of sinners. He forgave even those who killed Him the greatest of all crimes. And so, you know, we know that Jesus is forgiving, but some people, because of this doctrine that God tortures people forever and ever, have assumed that God must be something a little different than Jesus, in fact, the polar opposite than Jesus.

Yet Jesus said, if you've seen Me, you've seen the Father, and I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me, which raises serious questions. Why do we believe? Why does anyone believe in eternal torment, that God is going to eternally torment sinners, when He doesn't have to? If He does it, it's only because He wants to. Now, one answer that people sometimes give is, God can do whatever He wants to.

He's God. And no one intelligent would ever argue against that, but that's not the question either. The question is not whether God has the right to do what He wants, whether God can vindicate Himself, despite doing something very horrible, seemingly, but the question is, is that what God wants? God can certainly do whatever He wants to do, but is it really what He wants to do, to torture His enemies forever and ever? I don't want to torture my enemies, frankly, for even a minute.

And if I was a judge, and had to condemn my enemies to punishment, I would certainly look for the most humane punishment that justice would allow. And so, since God could do other things, if He chooses eternal torment, it raises questions about why He and Jesus are so different from each other, in terms of their attitude toward their enemies. And this has led many people to say, well, but doesn't the Bible teach eternal torment?

Well, that's frankly open to question. As you mentioned, I wrote a book about the three views of hell, and I considered, you know, all the Scriptures in favor of eternal torment, and a number of Scriptures that are not in favor of it. I also considered all the Scriptures in favor of the idea that God annihilates people, because some Christians think that's the answer. I gave a chapter favoring that view, and a chapter critiquing that view, finding what some people think are faults with it.

And then there's a third view, of course, this was held by Origen in ancient times, and that is that God uses hell as a place to bring people to final repentance. Now, there's a lot of Scriptures on that side, too, more than you think, more than most Christians think. They can read my chapter, and you'll see there's far more than they imagined, but there's also some arguments against it. So, in my book, I actually gave all the arguments for and all the arguments against each view. But because of the, I guess, prima facie, injustice of eternal torment, many Christians believe that that's not what God does, and they feel like they've got abundant scriptural evidence for an alternative view, one or the other. So, anyone who reads my book can find out what that is. Now, Sam Harris is not the only person to object to eternal torment like I said many Christians do.

C.S. Lewis objected to it, though he seemed to believe in it. He didn't like it. He said, if there's any doctrine I could remove from the Bible, if I had the right to, I'd move out that one.

But he says, I can't. And, frankly, a number of important evangelicals, like, well, Spurgeon, for example, said that God has no love for eternal torment. J. I. Packer said he finds that the view of eternal torment is, what does he say about it? He said, no sane man would want that to be true.

Interesting. J. I. Packer believed in it, but he said no sane man would want it to be true. So, he's saying, I believe in it, but I don't want it to be true. And, does that mean God wants it to be true, so he's not like a sane man?

So, like an insane man? Interestingly, you know, Clark Pinnock, another evangelical leader, said he found the view abhorrent. So did John R.W.

Stott. So, you've got a lot of important evangelicals who have said this idea of eternal torment, first of all, is horrendous, and some of them believed it anyway, and some of them found, in Scripture, a different doctrine than this. Now, before someone decides that they already know, if they haven't studied it out, they really should study it out.

And my book is not the only place you can study it out, but obviously that's one place you can. And, you know, Charles Darwin, one of the reasons he rejected Christianity was because of the doctrine of eternal torment, which he assumed to be taught by Christianity. I wonder what would have happened if Charles Darwin had not been taught that doctrine and had been a Christian instead. How much damage he would not have done if he had been a Christian.

Likewise, Anthony Flew, who for 50 years, until fairly recent years, was the leading atheist philosopher in the world, debating Christians and so forth, he became a believer in God. But he didn't become a believer in Christ and Christianity because the one thing he said that held him back is the idea of eternal torment. He just believed that God would not do that. Now, if you're a person who's quite sure that God would do that, probably you're saying, well, you know, too bad for him.

He didn't go with what the Bible says. But the question really is, is that what the Bible says? Is that what the Bible teaches? And before someone says they know that it is, they really ought to consider the much weightier biblical evidence for alternative views and the dearth of the Scriptures that support the traditional view. I dare say, having read all the major authors on the traditional view who have written books on hell, I have looked at all their Scriptures and there's about five of them. And I say their Scriptures, they're mine too.

I was teaching it one time. But there's about five of them, five verses, that sound very much like hell is a place of eternal torment. But there's hundreds of verses that give alternative-sounding ends. For example, repeatedly, it's very clear that the Bible says that the wages of sin is death, the soul that sins will die. In the day you eat of it, God told enemies, you'll die. Well, dying isn't the same thing as staying alive and being tormented forever and ever. So there's a lot of dispute over whether the Bible teaches one doctrine or another. And that dispute is going to go on. And I think that more and more evangelicals are seeing reasons to say this doctrine of eternal torment is an insult to God, and it doesn't have as much Scriptural support as some of the other alternatives do.

So it certainly is worth looking at. Hey, Michael, I've got to take another call, but I appreciate you joining us today. And God bless you. Good talking to you.

Frank from Atlanta, Georgia. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Yes, sir. Thanks for taking my call. I'm going to just keep on one subject.

I know you have a lot of callers. I'm going to give a few brief remarks and get into my questions. And I'm going to stay on the line where I may have a little follow-up question, but I'm going to keep it brief. I know that you have a clue with the King James Bible, maybe the Geneva Bible and those things. That's where our founding fathers kind of studied the Bible, you know, and, uh, and, um, and, um, I want to know, you know, they talk about, um, Decker's independence, the constitution that says all men are created for evil in us, but men and women, and they didn't, I know there was a lot of discrimination, but, you know, it means all men and all women, all humankind, and they are, and then here's the part. And they were endowed or given maybe like a free gift. I don't like salvation from they were endowed by the creator. We know the founding fathers, we've been created, we are in Christ, you know, and we bother.

Yes, go ahead. And they, they, they were endowed by the creator with certain inalienable rights. So I guess rights you can't deny, or maybe you can take them away.

I'm not sure. And then they've mentioned free life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Maybe they're more, maybe, maybe not all three, but do you think I'm trying to find, I can't find in each, how is that concept? Did the founding fathers get that from the Bible? Was that concept in the Bible, in any form, or part of it, or what verses would support? I'm really, it seems they might have gotten that from the Bible, because a lot of them studied the Bible, but I can't figure, because I know they didn't have constitutional law, they had a Roman law, and many rabbis, and they had some voting. Okay, okay, no, I get your, I get your question right now.

Okay, so I'll go ahead and address it. So, is the statement that God has given inalienable rights to man, among them life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, is that strictly speaking biblical? It is not strictly speaking biblical. It is true that God, the Creator, has given man inalienable rights. I would have listed them differently. I think the list was drawn in some measure from Enlightenment thinking, which was not Christian, per se. Obviously, the Enlightenment took place in Europe, in England, where, well, the Bible had influenced people in their culture for centuries, and even though the Enlightenment was somewhat of a secular movement, the people in it could not fully escape the kind of awareness of reality that the Bible had imbued in their culture for many centuries before they were born.

So, they did kind of include their own thinking there. To say that God has given us the right to life is certainly true, because the Bible has a command, thou shalt not murder. And if you're not allowed to murder someone, it's because they have a right to live, and you don't have the right to take it away. It's an injustice if you violate their life. But it's not entirely inalienable, because obviously a person who commits murder has basically deprived himself of his right to life, and that's why the Bible says that he should not live, that whoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, in Genesis 9.

And of course, the law of Moses also says such things. So, I mean, it is a right to life. You can forfeit it if you do things that forfeit your right to life. Paul, for example, said in Acts 25, I think it is, he said, if I've done anything that is worthy of death, I don't object to dying.

He's on trial in court. He says, if I have done anything worthy of death, I don't object to dying. That is, he doesn't object in principle to being put to death if he's done something that is worthy of death. That is, where he would have violated his own right or forfeited his own right to life, because he did something worthy of death. Now, inalienable seems to me to mean something that can't be taken from you, and maybe your right to life cannot be taken from you.

You can forfeit it, though, in which case you and your right to life have been alienated. Now, as far as the right to liberty, we don't have in the Scripture any statement that God has given us the right to liberty, and His own people, the Jews, were in bondage, you know, a great deal of their history. And, you know, to say that God has given us all right to liberty, well, there may be some truth in it, because the Bible says where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But the Bible doesn't specifically talk about human rights in those terms. And so, I mean, that is, I would like to think that I have a right to my liberty. And I think that if anyone, you know, would capture me, there were certainly laws against kidnapping, and that would mean that if you take somebody who's a free person and make them unfree, and bring them under your control without them having earned it or done anything to make it happen, well, then, I guess you are violating a right to liberty.

It's not stated in so many terms in the Bible, but one could deduce it. Once again, it's not inalienable, right, because people do things that that would justify putting them in prison, and they give up their liberty because they do things that are deserving of it. In this case, of course, and I think the founders understood this to be the case, that what they called an inalienable right was certainly a right that you could forfeit by criminal behavior, in which case you might lose your life justly, or even lose your liberty justly. As far as the pursuit of happiness goes, I think that it's awfully hard to know exactly how to understand that, and, you know, I don't know that we have a right to pursue our happiness, but I think for somebody to prevent me from pursuing my happiness when they have no justification for doing so would seemingly be a wrong. Maybe we could call—maybe they're violating my right to happiness, or the pursuit of—we don't have a right to be happy. We have a right to pursue happiness, is what they're saying. It doesn't say everyone has a right to happiness. How could anyone guarantee that everyone would have happiness?

You know, you're not happy when your children die, or your parents die, or when your wife leaves you, or when somebody who's a friend snubs you. There's no inalienable right to being happy, but to pursuing happiness, I suppose that could be—I mean, I don't object to that formulation, but the Bible doesn't ever speak quite in those terms. So you're asking me, do these three inalienable rights found in the Declaration of Independence, do they have a biblical basis? I can say the first two have something of a biblical basis, to be sure, but to call them inalienable rights, or if that means that they can't be separated from you, that would be something I wouldn't agree with. But they cannot be taken from you unless you forfeit them justly.

They can be taken unjustly from you, but that'd be against God's law. So in general, I'm quite in harmony with the statement in the Declaration of Independence, and I can easily justify at least two of those things from the Bible, and maybe the third as well, depending on what is meant by the pursuit of happiness. Like, you know, do I have the right to pursue an education? Do I have the right to pursue a certain career that would make me happier than another, a certain marriage with a certain person?

I suppose I do. I don't know if that's an inalienable right or not, but I can't see why anyone would wish to interfere with it. It's none of their business, and maybe that's what's meant by an inalienable right. It's something that no one has any business messing with you in that area.

And if that's all they're saying, then I can see very much validity in that. So that'd be the best I probably could answer that particular question. Sir? Yes? Can I ask a comment, quick? Okay, we have a little time. Go ahead.

Okay. You know, I understand the Founding Fathers probably understood those first two or any of them could be taken away from you, and there's a certain amount of biblical status, as you say, but not a hundred percent. But maybe on the right to pursuit of happiness, the thing that Paul said, what it ever so is beautiful, lovely, and I'm not quoting you right, truth, we seek after these things, that might kind of come into the third, when maybe I'm wrong, but… Well, Paul said, think on these things. Yeah, he said, think on these things.

Yeah. Well, I mean, the Bible does say, the Bible does say, what you would want men to do to you, do the same to them. Jesus said that, and that's a summary of love your neighbor as you love yourself. So, I mean, if my neighbor is pursuing his happiness in a way that's, you know, not unlawful, and that isn't… and I have no right to interfere with that.

We could say he has a right to do that. And I certainly wouldn't want someone to interfere with my pursuit of happiness unless I was doing so in a criminal way. So, you know, so you wouldn't want to interfere with… I don't know why anyone would want to enslave somebody else. I don't know why anyone would want to kill somebody else. I've never wanted to kill anyone in my life, nor enslave them.

And nor, for that matter, to interfere with their pursuit of happiness. And so, just so, and so far, it was not hurting anybody else. So, you know, I'm very favorable toward those, toward those things. And I think that we're influenced by the Bible, and also, like I said, the Enlightenment, Plato's Republic, and things like that.

So, I think, you know, it was kind of in that direction, but they weren't totally being… but they were in the right direction, sort of, with the other influences. Well, Frank, I appreciate the call. Okay, Frank, thank you. And I'd like your message about it, sir. I appreciate that.

Yeah, the founders were definitely strongly influenced by the Bible. There's no question about that. Yeah. All right. I appreciate your calling. Thank you. Bye-bye-bye. Okay, bye now. All right, let's see if we can put Mark from West Hartford, Connecticut.

Mark, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hello.

Hey. Yeah, I've got, like, three questions. First one is, I'm on the East Coast, and I don't think you ever get out this way.

Is that true, or do you ever get out this way? And if you do, how could I know about it? That's the first question. Okay, let's stop with that one first. Stop with that one first. After the break, I'll let you ask the others.

Let me answer that one quickly. Then I have to take a break, and I'll hold you over for the answers. Okay. Okay.

Okay. I have been out to the East Coast a number of times. A lot of times it's Florida or New England.

Sometimes it's South Carolina or North Carolina or someplace, but I don't come out there anywhere near as often as I go to places that are much closer to my home, which is, of course, in the Southwest and California. But as far as what it takes to get me to come someplace, somebody pretty much has to set up, you know, a gathering where there's, you know, a number of people who would like for me to come. And I don't really require much.

I don't charge or anything like that. So it's a matter of, if you feel like you can set up a meeting, we could try to fit some way in to fit in my schedule. That's what happened. That's where I, I mean, that's how I end up going places. In general, I don't contact places asking them to book me. Actually, this trip I'm on right now is something of an exception because we were going east anyway on a family thing. And that is, we just decided to tell people we knew in the area.

If they wanted, they could set things up, and they did. But generally speaking, I don't initiate travels at all. You can always watch the announcements at our website, thenarrowpath.com, to see where I'm going to be speaking.

But if you actually want to set something up, that's entirely possible. Now, I need to take a break here, but I'll come back to you, Mark, in just a moment. You're listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we're live Monday through Friday at this same time. And we have a mobile app, which you can get for your phone. It's thenarrowpath.com. If you look it up, you'll find it for free.

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Now, I'll be back in 30 seconds, so don't go away. Tell your family. Tell your friends. Tell everyone you know about the Bible radio show that has nothing to sell you but everything to give you. And that's The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. When today's radio show is over, go to your social media and send a link to thenarrowpath.com, where everyone can find free topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse-by-verse teachings, and archives of all The Narrow Path radio shows. And tell them to listen live right here on the radio. Thank you for sharing listener-supported The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we have another half hour to take your calls if you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or a different viewpoint you want to bring up. Feel free to do so. The number is 844-484-5737.

That's 844-484-5737. And just before our break, Mark from West Hartford, Connecticut, had called, and he had three questions. He asked one before the break, and I told him I'd hold over for the next.

Go ahead, Mark. Okay, the second one, it's not a faith-shaking question, but it's just a curiosity. In Matthew 17, when Jesus is transfigured and he's got the three disciples there, Peter says, Let us make tabernacles, or tents, I don't know the correct translation, for Moses, Elijah, three tents for Moses, Elijah, and himself. My question is, how does Peter know that that's Moses and Elijah?

Obviously, he's never seen them before. Now, if this was just divine revelation at the time, or afterwards, when they got down from the mountain, Jesus pulled them, then John wrote it up in there. But it says, at the time, Peter says, Let us make it for Moses and Elijah, like he said that right then and there.

Sure. Well, there's two possible answers. One is a very simple one.

The other, I guess they're both simple, but they're very different. One of them that he knew quite naturally, because Jesus and Moses and Elijah were conversing together, and it might have been evident from their speaking, even from addressing each other by name, who all three of them were. Of course, they knew who Jesus was, although he looked extremely different, because his face began to shine, and he was transfigured, as it says. So, there were actually three people who didn't look like anyone they knew, and yet, in the conversation, and we don't know how long that conversation went, maybe it went most of the night, but they certainly would have occasion to put together who it was that's conversing. A lot of times when my wife is on the phone talking to somebody, and I walk in, I don't know who she's talking to, if I just wait a few minutes, you know, just from what she's talking about, it'll become clear who she's talking to.

And if you're listening for any kind of extended time, and especially if anyone addresses the other one by name, then that's how they would know. I don't know if that's how Peter and the others knew, although it's clear that they did, and that is one possible way they did. Another is, as you suggested, by divine revelation. When the thing was over, Jesus said to them, you know, tell the vision to no man. And so, it indicates that this was perhaps a vision, that is a divine revelation, not necessarily something that was physically happening, any more than when Ezekiel or Daniel saw visions, that the things they were seeing were literally happening in the physical world. These are more like dreams that you have when you're awake. And by the way, I believe that visions are quite analogous to dreams, quite similar. In the Bible, they're used, coupled together, as just one happens when you're asleep, and the other happens when you're awake. But there are sometimes when you might have a dream, where somebody you know of but you've never known is in the dream, and you know who they are, even though you don't really know what they look like.

I don't know that it happens very often to you, but I think that's happened to me, and I can't give any example, but it wouldn't surprise me, because in the dream, your mind is, in a sense, making the story up anyway, and the awareness of who the characters are is yours to know. In this case, they weren't making up what they were seeing. This was God revealing something to them, and there's every reason to believe that His revelation to them would include all the necessary elements, including who it is they're seeing, because it was very important that they understand this is Moses and Elijah, the representatives of the old covenant, of the law and the prophets. Moses, who gave the law, and Elijah, who is the prince of the prophets, the real authorities that the Jews looked to in the Bible. These men were passing on the baton to Jesus.

That's what they were there for. They were talking about the exodus that He would accomplish, it says, and when they said, well, when Peter said, let's make three tents, one for Moses, one for Elijah, and one for you, Jesus, in other words, let's camp out here and keep all three of you around, the others disappeared, and when Jesus alone was left, God said to him, to the disciples, this is my son, hear him. The idea being, God is showing them that it's no longer Moses and Elijah, that it's no longer the Old Testament, that there'll be heating.

It's going to be Jesus from here on out. It's not the law and the prophets. Now, the law and the prophets gave their endorsement to Jesus, just like Moses and Elijah did in the vision, but they weren't going to wait around to be sort of, you know, equal authorities with Jesus. They were passing along their role of leadership to Jesus, and so when they were gone, God said about Jesus, this is my son, listen to him. In other words, from now on, you'll be listening to Jesus rather than to the Old Testament as your authority for knowing what to do and so forth. Now, if that is in fact the message, and I believe it is, then it would be essentially part of the message that the disciples would know who it is that Jesus is talking to, who it is that's receding into obscurity in favor of His preeminence. And so I would think that if it's just a revelation from God, then probably the identities of the persons in it being as important as they were to the message of the vision would be given to them as well. Okay. Thank you.

I appreciate that perspective. And my final question has to do with baptism and with the Baptist's frame of mind and that baptism is that of immersion because of the translation of it, and I believe it's kind of loosely translated, but the question is more or less a believer's baptism, as a Baptist would say, you must be baptized as a believer's baptism as opposed to an infant baptism. And so would the apostles, I mean, it's never been documented, at least to my knowledge, in the Testament that they actually had a believer's baptism. They had the baptism of John, which was a baptism of repentance, if I'm correct with that. But there's never anywhere saying that after they believed that Jesus was the Son of God, the Christ, they were baptized again in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I mean, I guess it could be an assumption that they were.

I think it is, and I think it's an important and necessary one. You know, it's true, there is no record of the disciples being baptized as believers in Jesus. They were almost certainly baptized with John's baptism since some of them had been John's disciples, and obviously John was calling everybody to be baptized, so none of his disciples would have neglected it. However, of course, once they become believers and Christians, I assume they were re-baptized. And the reason I would say that is because we have a case that's not of the apostles themselves, but of a parallel situation in Acts 19, where Paul encountered 12 men who had been baptized with John's baptism, but they had not known about Jesus. And so when Paul preached Jesus to them, they decided to be baptized in the name of Jesus, a second baptism. And so they didn't simply say, for example, well, now that we believe in Jesus, people just figure that when we were baptized with John's baptism, that was appropriate and enough. It was assumed, apparently without speaking, that now that we're Christians, we should be baptized as Christians. Now, that was Paul's experience with people who had received John's baptism.

I would assume that that would be the understanding about such things in the church, so that the apostles, who probably had all been baptized with John's baptism, we don't know that they all were, but there's a good chance of it, that they also were later baptized with Christian baptism when they became true believers in Christ. We don't know. You're right. There's no record of it, but there are certain things. Frankly, there's no record of them ever going to the bathroom either, but we have to assume they did, and that's not equivalent. But just to say that many things can be assumed because they were normative about people in the Bible, which we are not surprised are not recorded. They don't have to be recorded in order to be implied, in my opinion.

So, yeah, I think they were rebaptized, just like the men that Paul met in Ephesus were rebaptized. I appreciate your call. Rodney from Detroit, Michigan, welcome to The Narrow Path. Good to hear from you. Pete, thanks for taking my call.

I appreciate your show, this show is such a huge blessing to us, so we appreciate the format of the show, for sure. My question is about, earlier, about the eternal torment view of hell. I know when I read the Bible, I'm sure I speak for most Christians, for sure, that we believe that God inspired His Word, and we believe that not only is the Bible an inspired book, but I believe that God even inspired the words of the Bible, so I believe that a Christian should believe that. So, like, I know when I read the Bible, and I read the New Testament, I know that pretty much every reference to hell uses the words eternal, everlasting, forever, forever, and ever, and why in the world would God, knowing that when we read His Word, we know what these words mean when we read them, why did God use those words to describe hell? Like, I think it's a very weak argument to say, well, you know, everlasting could mean this, or it could mean just a short period of time, and pretty much every reference in the Bible, when it uses everlasting, compares it to God, and His nature, and His kingdom. Why would we just, it seems like we're trying to defend God, like, you know, He created hell. I mean, that should tell us something in and of itself about God, that He even would create a place like that. So why would God use those words? Well, that's precisely the point.

Yeah, that's precisely the point. Since God created hell to be a place like it is, what do we know about God? What would He, how would He create hell?

What would He create it to be? I mean, for example, is God more or less loving than we are? My assumption is He's a lot more loving than we are, and yet I can't think of any enemy of mine that I'd want to torture. I don't think God wants to torture. In fact, God says He had no pleasure, even in the death of the wicked, He said in Ezekiel 33, 11, but rather that the wicked should turn from his evil way and live. In 2 Peter 3, He says, God's not willing that any should perish. God is on the side of sinners. That's why He sent His Son to die for sinners. He loves sinners, and therefore, if He loves sinners, and we all agree, I think, that if a terrible sinner repents on his deathbed, like the thief on the cross, that it's a great day of rejoicing of the angels of heaven because somebody got saved, even though they're a horrible sinner. And even if they died, you know, hours later, or maybe they repented on their deathbed, that this is a cause of great rejoicing, but then the assumption is that if then they die, suddenly God hates them if they haven't repented yet and wants to torture them. I don't think the Bible really teaches that. Now, you mentioned God says what He wants to say, and I agree with that. You said all the verses about hell talk about being eternal and everlasting.

Well, that's not what I have found to be the case. Most of the verses on hell, at least the verses we assume to be about hell, when I believed in the eternal torment view myself, all the verses I assumed to be about hell, with very few exceptions, did not mention anything about eternal. For example, the references to weeping and gnashing of teeth and being cast forth into outer darkness. I took all these verses to be about hell, but there's no reference in them to eternity or anything like that.

They could be short-lived. There are, in fact, a couple of verses, at least, if not three maybe, that sound like they do use that kind of word. One of them is in Matthew 25, 46, where Jesus said that the goats shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. Now, the word eternal is used that time, of eternal punishment. And then another time, we read of Satan's punishment, that he's tormented forever and ever, day and night. That's in Revelation chapter 20, verse 10, I believe. And so that's, it says forever and ever, but that's talking about the judgment on the devil and the beast and the false prophet.

It doesn't say much about anybody else there, and we don't know if there's anybody else that will suffer exactly that same fate. There will be others certainly thrown into the lake of fire, but whether they'll endure consciously there forever or not is not stated, generally speaking. This statement says everlasting, it is stated.

Where's that? Matthew 25, 46, it's stated everlasting. Right, but it doesn't mention the lake of fire. It's a very weak argument to say that that word in that particular verse means only a short period of time when every other time it doesn't.

That's a very weak argument. No, no, excuse me. Everlasting, the word aeonius never means a short period of time. It never means a short period of time. It means, depending on which Greek scholars you consult, because it is ambiguous, it means either enduring for an age or it means pertaining to an age. The word aeonius, which is translated eternal or everlasting, it's from the word aeon, age. Age is a noun, and aeonius is an adjective taken from that noun, but scholars are not agreed on whether it means enduring for an age or pertaining to an age.

It obviously has something to do with an age. It means what it says. It means everlasting. It means exactly what it says. No, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on. It means everlasting.

Hold on a minute. Don't tell me what it means. I've studied it, okay? I don't think you have.

If you have, you're not acting like you have, okay? What you're telling me right now is aeonius, the Greek word, means exactly what the English word means. You're saying it means everlasting. It says everlasting. It means that.

No, it says that in the English translation, but the question is, is that a good translation? That's really what you haven't studied and what, frankly, I'm not trying to pull rank at you, but I have. I wrote a book on it, okay? I studied the lexicons.

You haven't apparently. If you had studied the lexicons on the Greek language, you would know that I'm telling you the truth. If you don't study the Greek and you just tell me, well, the translators, they never get it wrong, and therefore, since the translators translate it as everlasting or eternal, well, that's what it has to mean. Well, then, I mean, I can't argue with you, obviously.

I can't argue with you. If you think that God wrote the English Bible and not the Greek New Testament, then we just don't have any common grounds for discussing it. Steve, the word everlasting… In English.

It's an English word. …it means what it says and says what it means. God knew… Okay, we can't… I'm sorry.

I would love to go further with this conversation, but we've hit a roadblock. You think that God wrote the English Bible, and the English Bible uses the word everlasting in some of these passages. I'm saying the Bible was not even translated into English until 1,500 or 1,600 years after it was written, okay?

So for the first 1,500 or 1,600 years, you didn't have the word everlasting in any Bible. You had translations of the word Ionyos. Ionyos was the Greek word in the original Greek language. Now, what does Ionyos mean? You're assuming it means what your English Bible says it means.

I'm sorry. You can make that assumption, but it simply isn't so. The word baptizmo means… we say it means baptized. Well, it actually means immersion in the Greek. The word church, ekklesia. We might think a church is a building with a steeple or something like that.

The word ekklesia means the assembly or the called out ones. So, I mean, we have English translations of Greek words that have become traditional translations in English. What I'm saying is that Greek scholars actually know more about the Greek language than they did back when the English translations were first being made. There's been a lot of progress in Greek scholarship, and the best Greek scholars, even conservative ones, know that the word Ionyos does not necessarily coincide with the English word everlasting. And you can just… you can repeat it over and over if you want to and say it means what it says. Well, I'd say it means what it says in the Greek, not what it necessarily says in the English. We know that it means what it says in the Greek. What we have to decide is whether the English translation is reflecting properly what the Greek says. You think it is. I think it may not be. And so, if we can't get over that difference, we're not going to be able to get anywhere in this conversation.

Steve, I know, Steve, but listen to what you're saying, though. You're saying that my English Bible is not inspired. I mean, that's ridiculous to say that. That's true. No, no, it is true.

That's ridiculous to say that. Okay, Robby, which… You're demeaning God's word by saying that because His word is inspired. I don't care if it's written in English. Okay, Robby, let me ask you a question. God's inspired His word.

Let me ask you a question. What English Bible are you using? Which English Bible are you using?

I use the King James. Okay, and you believe the King James translators were inspired men, prophets. I believe that God inspired them to put down what He wanted in His word.

And where have you gotten that impression? What's in the Scripture right now is what God wants in His word. Rodney, can you show… can you give me a Scripture that says what you're saying? I don't have to give you a Scripture. Okay, if you don't need a Scripture, then I don't either, but I have Scripture for what I'm saying. What I'm saying is you don't have Scripture for what you're saying. And I'm a Bible teacher, not a traditionalist, to say that God inspired the King James Version. For me to believe such a thing, I would need a statement of Scripture that says God inspired the King James Version, but there's no Scripture that says that.

So it's an opinion, and it's not a very enlightened one, I'm sorry to say. It's quite out of step with what Greek scholars know to be true. So yes, I am saying your English Bible is not inspired unless, of course, the translators who created it were inspired.

And if you want to argue they were, that's fine. Then were the translators who put out the Revised Version, were they inspired too? Or the ones who put out the New Living Translation, were they inspired? Or the NIV, or the New American Standard?

How many of these translators are inspired, and how do you know which ones are? You see, I'm afraid you're just going with tradition, and that's what the Pharisees did. That's what the Roman Catholics did, you know. You don't agree with Roman Catholics, I'm pretty sure, when they say Mary was a perpetual virgin and had no other children. Protestants don't see any reason to believe that because the Bible doesn't say it. But you're believing something parallel to what they believe. You're believing things about the Bible that the Bible doesn't say, just like they're believing things about Mary that the Bible doesn't say.

How is it better to believe something about the Bible that the Bible does not say than to believe something about Mary that the Bible doesn't say? If the Bible doesn't say what you're saying, you're simply mouthing a tradition, a human tradition. And your view that the English Bible, just the King James, not the other ones, are inspired, has absolutely no biblical proof whatsoever.

Nothing suggests it, and the evidence simply proves it wrong. So, you know, I'm sorry that we can't come to meeting our minds about that, but if I'm going to argue from the Greek version, you're going to argue from the English, I'm afraid we just aren't standing on the same foundation. I'm standing on the foundation of the Bible actually written by the apostles, which was in Greek, okay?

The apostles didn't write it in English. Victor from Denver, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hi there. Hey, I really enjoy your videos on YouTube I've been watching lately.

Great, thanks. Yeah, some good stuff on the Holy Spirit, and of course your website's great. I have a quick question about baptism. So what would a believer do, let's say that if they don't have a regular church home and they came to be a Christian listening to radio programs such as yours and others, as far as how would they get baptized? Well, they'd probably only get baptized if they went to a church, baptized, or found somebody else who does it for them. You know, I don't know what to say.

You're not the first person to ask me this. In fact, just last week, I met with somebody who was not part of a church. He'd become a Christian recently. He had not joined a church, but he knew it was essential to be baptized, and he asked me to baptize him, so I did, but I can't do that for everyone who asks because I'm not where they are, nor do I offer myself necessarily as one to baptize people. But you know, you could find any believer to baptize you into Christ, and if you have just a Christian friend, you could ask them to baptize you in a swimming pool or something. The Bible doesn't say that the person doing the baptizing has to be a church official by any means. Paul himself was baptized, Paul himself was baptized in water by Ananias, who's only described as a Christian. He's just a Christian in Damascus that the Lord spoke to and told him to go baptize Paul. But we don't read that he was a church leader, so there's no suggestion in the Bible that it has to be a church leader to do so.

That's a good answer, I appreciate that very much. All right, brother. And I'm glad you want to be baptized, and I hope you will be as soon as possible. You might go to a church during the week, not at a service, and ask them if they would baptize you, even though you're not intending necessarily to join their church. If they will not, then they are sinfully sectarian, okay? But I suspect most of them will not. That is, I suspect most of them are sinfully sectarian, because I will— Do they want you to be an official member of their church?

They do. And there's no biblical basis for their desire for you to be a member of their church. They just would like to have you there. And they may hold over your head, we're not going to baptize you unless you join, in which case they're being controlling. They're not following Christ. The Bible—in my lifetime, I've baptized lots of people who weren't going to be in the same fellowship with myself. But I'll tell you what, if you go to the website, Matthew713.com, there are some fellowships. There's a Find Fellowship or something like that link there. And you may find that some Christians in your area already are meeting, where you're in Denver. There may be some Christians already who've listed there that they fellowship. I think that's a place where people go when they don't have a church, and maybe they're losing hope of finding a church that they can really be part of, and they're looking for fellowship. So you might go there.

Matthew713.com, and there might be something there. Yeah. Great. Very helpful. I'll pursue that. Thanks so much.

Okay, Victor. God bless you. Thank you. And you could still be, of course, looking for a church all the while. I think Christians should look for church. But church doesn't have to be a steeple house. It doesn't have to be a 501c3 organization calling itself a church. It can be a small group of believers in a home. That can be a church meeting. That's where the early churches were.

The early churches met at home, so they didn't have steeple houses. All right. But I appreciate your call, and I certainly hope you find the fellowship you need there in Denver. David, from Portland, Oregon.

Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Thank you.

Oh, you're welcome. You know, I asked my brother-in-law, you know, who is Jesus, and he says, oh, he's the Son of God. And then, but I don't think he reads his Bible. I don't think he goes to church. And I'm wondering if he's saved. What do you think? Well, yeah, a person, let me jump in because we're running out of time here.

The music's start playing real soon. So I will try to answer it. A person is saved if they are a follower of Jesus. Now some people say, no, you're just saved if you believe in Jesus. Well, then the devil is saved because he believes in Jesus, too. Now, I mean, the Bible does not teach you just believe in Jesus.

You have to believe certain things about Jesus, and you have to agree with them and embrace them. And the Bible says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. So you have to confess with your mouth, which suggests you agree with it, that he's the Lord. And if you believe he's the Lord, that means you believe you're his slave because the Lord is someone who owns slaves. If he's the Lord of all, then he's the Lord of you. And if you're not following him, then you don't really believe he's the Lord of you. So it's when people follow Christ that they demonstrate that they believe that he's Lord and that they embrace that rather than rebel against it. When you know there's a Lord, you can only do one thing, or there's two. You can embrace it and submit to it, or you can rebel against it.

Those who rebel against Christ are not saved. We're out of time. I appreciate your call, brother.

Let's talk again tomorrow. This is Steve Gregg in The Narrow Path.