The Narrow Path

Steve Gregg: 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 the Christian faith, you can call and we'll talk about those on the air. If you have a difference of opinion with the host, we can talk about that on the air too if you call in. The number is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737.

And we'll go directly to the phone lines and talk to Cookie in Steely, Texas. Hi Cookie, how you doing?

Cookie: I'm doing good. Can you hear me okay, Steve? Perfect. Yeah, how are you doing, sir? I was wondering if you were going to be live today or not, so I'm glad you are. But let me get to my question, sir.

I'm reading and I'm going to be teaching Sunday on Eve, of course, in Genesis. And something that I noticed and I want you to give me some feedback on this. I'm looking at the fact that even prior to the fruit being eaten by Eve and then Adam, the question I have in my mind is, was there some kind of break in their innocence already happening, being that Adam was already allowing himself to be almost in a subservient role to Eve in taking the fruit from her? Even prior to the fruit, was there something that we should be seeing that might have been going on before sin entered through the fruit by his choice to take the fruit from his wife when he knew that was not what God told them to do?

Steve Gregg: That was actually his sin, doing that. With every sin, there's a point before it is committed and a point after it's committed. And so the actual commission of the sin, or at least the decision to commit it, is the sin. That's why Jesus said if a man looks at a woman to lust after her, he's committed adultery in his heart, or if you're angry at your brother without a cause, it's like murder because that's what motivates murder.

Well, the sin didn't begin with the murder or with the adultery. It started with the sin in the heart. Now at what point sin entered Eve's heart, we have a pretty good idea because when the serpent spoke to her, it says she saw that the fruit was good for food, was pleasant to the eyes, and it was desirable to make one wise, so she took it.

It says in James chapter 1 verse 14, "Each one is tempted when he's drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it brings forth or gives birth to sin." When desire has conceived, it brings forth sin. Temptation comes from that desire. Temptation is not sin, but when we allow ourselves to be drawn away from the path that God has assigned for us because of our desires, when we agree to that, that's when it conceives. That's when it becomes ours.

As long as the devil's suggesting to our mind sinful behavior and we're not agreeing to it, it's only temptation then. But as soon as we agree to it, that's when we have sinned. Now we may carry it out in a physical act, which is the sin coming to its fullness. But even if we don't carry out the physical act, the decision to sin is sin. And for that reason, Eve sinned when she decided to do it.

Now Adam had to make a decision about that too. Now his temptation probably was not so much that the tree looked good for food. It doesn't mention that in the text. It probably didn't care what it looked like. Eve saw it was pleasant to the eyes. Adam probably wasn't tempted by that so much. We don't know if he was even that interested in eating it to be wise as we're told that she did, but he ate it to be with her.

Now she had eaten it. I don't know how much it dawned on him that she had done the deed that doomed her, but it seems like he had a choice to make between being with her or staying with God and losing her. And he chose to go with her. And that was his sin, the choice to do it.

Cookie: Do you think it's possible there might have been sin even apart from eating the fruit with their hearts the way that you're communicating that?

Steve Gregg: The decision in their heart was the first sin.

Cookie: So they were already sinning prior to eating the fruit then?

Steve Gregg: The decision to eat the fruit and the eating of the fruit probably happened in rapid succession, probably the same thing. But I don't think that there was sin in their heart before they did it. There was desire. And remember, desire is not sin. That's what it says in James. You're tempted when you're drawn away by your desires.

Well, being drawn away by your desires, the desires have to be there before you can be drawn away by them. In fact, the desires might be there for a long time and you're resisting them and you're not sinning. But the desires are there. And when you cave in and say, okay, I'm going to go with my desire, that's when you've caved in and that's when you've sinned.

Cookie: I appreciate that. That brings some clarity because I was like, did they even have to eat the fruit for something to happen?

Steve Gregg: I don't think they had to literally eat the fruit in order for something to happen because I don't think there was anything magical or supernatural in the fruit. I think it was the act of rebellion, which was represented by eating the fruit, that changed their hearts and their minds and their conscience. They felt guilty and they tried to hide their nakedness. The fruit didn't have to be fruit. It could have been anything else. If God said you can do anything you want but just don't do this one little thing, then doing that thing would have had the same result for them because it took them across the line from being obedient to being disobedient. And that's what caused their consciences to bother them.

Some people think they died because when they ate the fruit it had some kind of quality that would give them mortality that they didn't have before. Now I think they already had mortality. I think that they could have continued to live if they ate the Tree of Life continuously. But God cut them off from that so they died. But I believe the mortality came upon them because of disobedience, not because of something magic in the fruit.

Cookie: Thank you. I appreciate that. That brought some clarity to me because I'm trying to put this lesson together. So I appreciate that. Mr. Marlon's back here saying tell Steve I said hello.

Steve Gregg: Okay, say hi to Marlon. Good to hear from you, Cookie.

Cookie: You have a good one. Bye-bye.

Steve Gregg: Bye-bye. All right. John in Detroit, Michigan is next. John, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

John: Hello, Steve. I pray that God will bless you. I would like to hear your response to my perspective on the call from Roseville, Michigan by Barbara. Although she did not ask an explicit question, I believe that it is implied in what she had to offer as to what you thought of what she had to say. So in that sense, she's asking a question: what do you think about that view?

Steve Gregg: Are you calling for her because she thinks that I wouldn't take her call?

John: You asked her if she had a question and she didn't say that she had one. But I thought that she was interested in your reaction to what she had to say and that that was implied.

Steve Gregg: Barbara calls very frequently and sometimes she does have a question, sometimes it's I can't discern a question from her. But if somebody calls and states something and their implied question is what do you think about it, well, I guess I can tell them what I think about it. The thing is, I'm mainly wanting people to ask a question rather than make a statement.

Not only Barbara, but other people too, sometimes when they call, they want to present an insight rather than ask a question. And sometimes it takes a longer time to give an insight than to ask a question. So when there's a lot of people waiting behind, I always prefer for people to get right to a question. To present a position takes up more airtime. My thought is that when people want to present a position, usually they're wanting to teach rather than inquire about something they're curious about.

And I think we pay a lot for airtime and if people want to teach regularly on the radio, they might gather a little money and get some airtime of their own so they could do that. But I don't want to keep people waiting in line who have questions while somebody explains their position about something. So that's just the way the show's set up generally speaking.

But she called the other day and the call screener put up a message that said that she had a question. I was planning to take her call. We ran out of time. There were so many other questions that we didn't get to her. But I'm not turning away her calls. But she'll do best, and everyone will do best, if when you call you say, I have a question, here's my question. And what they say should end with a question mark. That's what makes it sound like a question to me. But I appreciate your call, John. And God bless you.

Tom from Green, Maine. Welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Tom: Hi, Steve. I appreciate you. My question goes along with the first caller into the garden. And I think you kind of answered half of it already, but there's two parts. I was always taught that the human spirit was created eternal. And so my question is, how can it die because of sin? And if it wasn't created eternal, how can it go to hell forever?

Steve Gregg: Those are very good questions. I was taught those same things growing up. It was rather late in my Christian life that I discovered that the idea that the human being was created immortal is not taught in Scripture. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 6:16 that God alone possesses immortality. So creatures don't. Adam and Eve were creatures. We're all creatures. We're not immortal by nature.

Now the gospel teaches that Jesus has divine immortality and he gives it to us in him. That is, if we are in him, we share in his immortality. We become part of him. We are members of his body, of his flesh and bones. So when we become one with Christ, when we become a part of him, then the eternal life that's in him is shared with us. So we are immortal in him.

Jesus talked that way. He didn't talk about immortality in this passage, but he talked about us being branches in a vine, and he's the vine and we're the branches. And he said that if we remain in him, we'll produce fruit. And if somebody doesn't remain in him, they'll be cast forth as a branch, withered, and gathered and burned. Now he doesn't use the term eternal life there, but it's very clear that he's saying that he's the vine and the branches are part of the vine, like members of a body, branches are part of a plant that's called a vine. And they share in the life that the whole vine has. And that's why you produce fruit if you remain in him. His life produces it. That's why you wither up and die if you don't remain in him because he alone has that. I mean, a branch, if it becomes detached, will not remain eternally alive, even though it's part of a vine that has eternal life. The branch is no longer there.

So eternal life is in Jesus. And if you're in Christ, you share in his eternal life. If you are not in Christ, you're mortal. And no one else has immortality but God. And of course Christ is God, so he has it too. But Paul indicates that no one except God is immortal. And so Adam and Eve were not immortal.

And remember when they did sin, when God warned them about sin, he says, if you eat that, you're going to die. Okay, well they ate it, but they didn't immediately die. But they did die because not because they suddenly became mortal and were previously immortal, but because they were cut off from eating from the Tree of Life. God said if they eat of the Tree of Life, they'll live forever. Now they wouldn't live forever if they didn't. That's because they're not immortal. As mortal creatures, the only thing that would sustain their life forever would be eating of the Tree of Life. And that's when they sinned, God cut off access from the tree so they couldn't eat it. So they naturally died as all mortal creatures do when they're cut off from something that would sustain their life forever.

So yeah, I was taught that too. And you say, well, if they are not immortal, how could they perish in hell forever and ever? That is, how could they be tormented as if they were alive in hell? That is a very controversial thing. And there are different views of hell. The one that we've all heard most is the one that people will be conscious in hell forever and ever being tormented there. Now the Bible doesn't teach that as clearly as I once thought it did. There's a very few verses that can be used to derive that doctrine, and there's a great number of verses that seem to teach other views of hell than that. And that's why I wrote a book about the three views of hell. And I have a lecture. The book is unfortunately not free, but the lecture is at our website. It's called "Three Views of Hell".

Now I want to say that if the traditional view of hell is correct, that people do suffer forever and ever in hell, well, those who hold it, at least most of the ones who hold it, believe that God keeps them alive. They're not naturally immortal, but God keeps them alive so they can keep suffering. Now this is a horrendous idea and it really makes God look pretty bad, you know, if they would naturally just perish, and yet God says, no, no, dying is too good for you. I'm going to keep you alive forever just so you can suffer. I mean, that's really what the traditional view of hell teaches because it does not teach that man is naturally immortal. It teaches that God will extend what would otherwise be the mortal lives of the lost so they can suffer more.

I do not think this is taught in Scripture, but this is the view that I once thought, well, I didn't really think it like that until I found out that that's what it does teach. I thought before, and maybe you did too, that God made humans immortal and therefore, you know, he didn't keep them alive specially to torment them, but they just stayed alive and were tormented because they were immortal and they couldn't die. But turns out that that's really the traditional view, the theologians who write books defending it, they generally have said, no, people would perish in hell but everyone depends on God for their life. And so for them to endure forever in torment requires that God would proactively keep them from perishing, keep extending their life throughout eternity. Now nothing in the Bible says that that is true, and it certainly would make God look bad if it was. But thankfully, I can say fairly confidently the Bible doesn't teach that at all.

Tom: The Tree of Life, do you think that's a picture of Jesus? If they would have just not sinned and eaten from the Tree of Life, would there have been a need for Jesus to come?

Steve Gregg: Not for the same purposes. He wouldn't have to come and redeem people who had not fallen. But he would still no doubt come and reign, which is what he came for. He came to reign, to establish a kingdom with him as its head. Now because man fell, he first had to make an atonement. He had to redeem them from their fallen state. But had they never fallen, he could still have come and been the King.

Tom: Yeah, I just, the reason I ask these questions is I don't want to be teaching the wrong thing.

Steve Gregg: Well, this is a thing that's hard to know if you're teaching the right thing or not because a lot of the things, like the things you told me in your question, those are things I was taught also. I think many people are, but they're simply not really taught in the Bible. These are the attempts of theologians to try to fill in gaps where the Bible is not very explicit. And we need to be careful about that. I mean, sometimes it's helpful to fill in a gap with some plausible theory. But if we're teaching it, we should let people know this is a plausible theory. The Bible doesn't actually say this. The Bible actually says nothing very explicit about this. So here's a theory about how it may work, but you don't have to believe it.

Tom: Yeah, thank you, Steve.

Steve Gregg: Yeah, let me urge you to listen to my recordings at the website thenarrowpath.com under topical teachings. There's a two-lecture set on Three Views of Hell. I would recommend that because my lectures of course are all free to listen to or download. If you want to go deeper into it, I do have a book published by Zondervan called *Why Hell?* and it goes into the three views much more in depth. So just so you know those resources are there.

Tom: Great. Thank you, Steve.

Steve Gregg: Okay, Tom. God bless you. Thanks for your call. Wendell from Evansville, Indiana. Welcome to the Narrow Path.

Wendell: Steve, where in the Old Testament is there a reference regarding the fulfillment of the land promise?

Steve Gregg: Well, there's more than one, but Joshua chapter 21 is the one that's very explicit. There are others that make it clear that it was fulfilled too. I'll show you them too. But Joshua 21, and it's verses 43 through 45, which says, "So the Lord gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it. The Lord gave them rest on all around according to all that He had sworn to their fathers, and not a man of all their enemies stood against them; the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand. Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass."

Now some people say, well, but there were still Canaanites in the land after Joshua died. There were, but this says that God fulfilled His entire promise and gave them the land. Now if when He said not a man stood against them, that might mean well, not any of the Canaanites were able to defeat them. That would be true. If it's saying that there wasn't anyone left unconquered, that wouldn't be quite true. And some people might say, well, that's a hyperbole. Hyperboles sometimes do occur in the Bible. They say all this happened to everybody, but there were some exceptions. But if it is a hyperbole, then the promise itself could have been taken as a similarly hyperbole because certainly the language here is not simply saying they conquered the land. It says everything that God promised them came true.

So you know, if we say well they didn't conquer the entire land, I don't think we ever have the right to say that because the Bible says they did. But if we say but there were some people who weren't conquered, well, maybe it's hyperbole. And if it's hyperbole, then maybe the promise was too because again, it insists that everything God said did come to pass. Now some people say, but Joshua didn't conquer the land all the way over to the Euphrates. When God described the land to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He described that one of the borders would be the Euphrates River way out by Babylon. And they would say, see, that never happened.

Well, the Bible says it did. In 1 Kings chapter 4 verse 21 talks about the dominion of Solomon. Now Solomon was the king of Israel. What he ruled over, Israel controlled. And it says in 1 Kings 4:21, "So Solomon reigned over all the kingdoms from the River Euphrates to the land of the Philistines," which would be the Mediterranean Sea, "as far as the border of Egypt. They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life." So his empire did reach to the Euphrates, which is the boundary that God predicted.

There's also Nehemiah 9:8. Nehemiah is praising God for what He had done. He says that God promised land to Abraham and gave it to him. Nehemiah 9:8, talking about Abraham, "You found his heart faithful before You, and made a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, and the Girgashites," that's the promise He made to Abraham, "to give it to his descendants. You have performed Your words, for You are righteous."

So again, You promised to give them all this land and You have performed Your words. So I'm wondering where are we getting the verses that say that God didn't perform His word? Where are we getting the verses that say Israel never was given all the land? We've got Joshua, we've got 1 Kings, we've got Nehemiah, all of them say that Israel did reign over all the land or control the land that God promised them. And they did so specifically in the fulfillment of the promise, it says. So there are people, many people who make it up.

Wendell: Well, those are extremely important and I appreciate the answer.

Steve Gregg: All right, brother. God bless you. Good talking to you.

Wendell: Thank you.

Steve Gregg: Bye. All right, we got a break coming up here. I hear the music in my ear. After the break, we have another half hour, so don't go away. We're taking more phone calls in the second half as we did the first. You're listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. In addition to the daily radio show, we're on every weekday at the same time on this same station you're at. You can also listen online. We also have an app you can listen on that. But our website is particularly valuable because all the radio shows from years back are archived there, but there's also about 1,500 of my lectures on different subjects and verse by verse through the whole Bible, all free at thenarrowpath.com. You should check it out. We are listener-supported. If you want to help us stay on the air, there's also the opportunity there to donate at thenarrowpath.com. I'll be back in 30 seconds. Don't go away. We'll have another half hour.

Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and you're welcome to join us if you want to on the phones. If you have questions about the Bible you'd like to ask or about the Christian faith in any aspect, if you have a difference of opinion you want to present another side of something, feel free to give me a call. We'll talk to you about those things. I'm looking at three open lines now, so that's good. There's plenty of opportunity to get through if you call right away. The number is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737.

Our next caller is Gil calling from Long Island, New York. Hi Gil, good to hear from you again.

Gil: Yeah, thanks for being so kind to me and taking time to talk to me. In 1 John 1:9, it says, "If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and He cleanses us from all unrighteousness." And then John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." Wonder if you could expound on those two verses put together, a little sermon on the gospel so that others will hear because I just love reaching souls for Christ. Thank you.

Steve Gregg: All right, Gil. Thanks for your call. Well, of course John 3:16 says that God sent Christ because He loved the world. And the world, by the way, is against God. The world is in rebellion against God. So the fact that God loved them and sent Jesus to save them is something that John often mentions. He says it in 1 John also that it underscores how great God's love is because while we were yet sinners, Paul actually says in Romans 5, while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. That's a manifestation of the love of God. But 1 John 3 also talks about how we know the love of God for us because He sent Jesus to die for us.

So this is a great sacrifice that God has made for people who were not making any serious sacrifices for Him, in fact, were pretty much in rebellion against His rule. So that's the great love of God. Now because He loved the world, He sent Christ. And sending Jesus really amounted to God coming Himself in a human form. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, the Bible says. He laid down His life for us. The fact that Jesus did it, if His Father just made him do it and Jesus was somebody else, we might wonder well how does that speak of the love of Jesus if God's going to make him do it? But if we understand that Jesus is God come among us in the flesh so that He would be mortal long enough to actually die for us, that's a different thing. It's kind of mysterious, but that's what the Bible teaches, I believe. So God laid His own life down for us through Christ becoming a human among us as Christ.

Now it says so whoever believes in Him will not perish, meaning that we would if we didn't believe in Him. Perish, the word perish in the Greek means to be destroyed. And some people think this is referring to ultimately being annihilated after the judgment. Some understand it differently, some understand destroyed to simply mean they're ruined but not annihilated. That's one of those debates, but the point is it's a bad deal to perish. To perish means to die or to be destroyed. And whatever that really looks like is something that wise people would want to avoid.

But whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life. That is, He gives eternal life to us as a gift if we believe in Christ. Now whoever believes in Him doesn't simply mean whoever believes He existed. The devil believes Jesus existed and that doesn't make him saved. Actually, most people in Western civilization if they have any education at all believe that Jesus existed because he did exist as a human being on earth as a historical character and only strong sectarians who don't want to believe that will deny it. But no one who's really an objective historian has ever questioned seriously whether Jesus existed. Of course he did.

But it doesn't mean believing that he existed. It means believing in Him in the sense of putting your trust in Him. It means that what he said about himself, you believe it. Now what did he say about himself? He said he's the king, he's the Messiah, he's the Son of God. And therefore, believing in Him means that you surrender to his kingship. You don't rebel against it. And so surrendering to Christ as your king is what it is to become a believer, to become a follower of Jesus, to be a disciple. And that gives eternal life to those who didn't have it.

Now you mentioned 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." This is true of unbelievers if they confess to God and come to Christ, their sins are washed away. But I think John's writing to believers in this case, so that even if you are a believer, we do commit sins at times. We don't want to and we shouldn't, but we do. But God doesn't just cast us off. If we confess our sins, He cleanses us from unrighteousness and receives us as if we hadn't done that. So that's what those verses are saying. Thanks for joining us.

Let's talk to Kevin in Dresden, Maine. Hi Kevin, welcome.

Kevin: Yeah, hi, Steve. A Christian friend of mine asked me a hypothetical about the Prodigal Son. He asked if the Prodigal Son had come home and he encountered his brother first before his father was there, what would that have been like? What would that encounter be like? I was just wondering what you might have as a thought on that. What would that have looked like if the Prodigal Son encountered the brother first?

Steve Gregg: Well, we have to realize the Prodigal Son story is not an actual story of an actual man, a son and a father. It's a parable. It's a story Jesus made up to illustrate a point. And what if he had told the story differently? Well, if he had told the story differently, it would be a different story. But when you're making up a story, there's no possibility that something's going to happen different than the way you tell the story because it's not really happening anyway. So it's kind of a moot point.

Now I suppose Jesus could have told the story so that he encountered the older brother first. But it wouldn't have made the point that he wants to make. He wanted to make the point that God forgives. Now I guess he could have the brother try to interfere, which was the brother's inclination in the story. But still, for the story to exist and have any meaning, the father would still have to come and intervene. So I don't see any reason to ask what if he told the story a different way. Well, if he's trying to make the same point, telling it a different way is not going to change the result because the point he's making is the purpose for the story.

I'm not sure why your friend said that, but I think perhaps his reason might have been this. The older brother, I believe, resembled the Pharisees. The Prodigal Son was like the tax collectors and the sinners and the prostitutes that were coming to Christ and being saved. The Pharisees, as we read in the passage, objected that God shouldn't be receiving these people, just like the older brother complained that the father received back his son that was wicked whereas the older brother said I've been very obedient. That's how the Pharisees felt about themselves.

But it's interesting that his obedience to his father did not go so far as to taking on his father's attitude and his mind toward his younger brother. Yeah, he outwardly obeyed, but he didn't have his father's heart toward his son. So I think the point here is the Pharisees, they may have been outwardly obedient to the rules and regulations of the law, but they didn't share the father's heart toward sinners. And that I think is the point.

And maybe your friend was suggesting let's say in a real-life situation, what if a sinner's trying to return to God and the person he meets is a Pharisee and very harsh and very condemning and so forth, well then probably it'll keep them from coming to God. I think that maybe what your friend was implying. And so he may be correct. I mean, it's kind of a practical application of the story if it was a different story. But yeah, we're not going to really get very far saying what if Jesus told the story differently? Because he didn't, and whatever points might have been made by telling it differently, he didn't make those points. But we could imagine some similar story with similar features that would have made points, but Jesus didn't use that. Thank you for your call.

We're going to talk next to Darren in San Francisco, California. Hi Darren, welcome.

Darren: Hello, good afternoon. So glad I was able to get through. Can you hear me?

Steve Gregg: Yes.

Darren: Awesome. I've been listening to your program for several years now and am extremely blessed by it. But I've been a believer, child of God, redeemed for ten-plus years. Have a son who's in his 30s and I've been obviously want to start with witnessing to my family and he's very receptive and I can see the Lord has been working on his life and in his heart. We have these deep conversations. I know that he's there, but he's not where I'm at and I can see that the Lord's working with him. But I want to say all that to say this is we have these conversations and we get into historical things and then the subject of archaeology comes up and dinosaurs and carbon dating and you know, why does the Bible say that the earth is, you know, maybe 6,000-plus years old while other people, scientists, say that it's thousands of years old? And I'm a believer of Christ. I believe He is who He says He is, even the things that I don't understand and there's quite a few things that I don't understand and things that I think might be even incomparable to us at this point on this side. But I trust Him enough because I believe that He is who He says He is. I just want to know how would you approach or how would you discuss the topic of science, carbon dating, and dinosaurs and how all this fits?

Steve Gregg: Well, first of all, carbon dating is there's nothing about carbon dating that challenges anything in the Bible because carbon dating is not used to date anything except organic matter back as far as perhaps 5,000 to 6,000 years. So carbon dating is not what they use to get very old ages for example of dinosaur bones or whatever. When scientists, some scientists tell us that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, they're not using carbon dating to measure that, but they are using another form of dating. Usually, it's uranium-lead dating or thorium-lead dating or potassium-argon dating. And these are radioactive elements that decay very slowly into lead or potassium into argon. And if we know the half-life of these and the slowness of them, if you find a stone that's got 50% uranium and 50% lead, it is assumed that this was entirely uranium to begin with, it has half-decayed into lead, and the half-life is 4.5 billion years, so that's where they get these big numbers.

Now dinosaur bones are dated a variety of ways, but principally by what they call index fossils. The assumption is that dinosaurs died off some 70 million years ago and therefore if you find a dinosaur bone, you have to assume it was at least 70 million years ago or more that it lived and then you can date the rock that old because it had a dinosaur bone in it. But of course, part of the reason they believe dinosaurs died off 70 million years ago is because they find them in rocks that they believe on other grounds are that old. So they kind of, the bone dates the rock and the rock dates the bone and they're all based on certain assumptions, certain assumptions about those dating methods.

Now those dating methods are fairly accurate they seem in some cases, but they do get disparate dates. And again, they assume some things that we can't prove. They assume for example that the stone was entirely uranium before it decayed halfway into lead. Well, we don't know what it was originally, no one was there. There's actually no way to test it. And so there are assumptions that are made. And for this reason, there are some scientists who believe that those traditional ancient dates are to be questioned and they may revise the age of things down considerably down to thousands rather than billions of years. There's also the assumption that the rate of decay has been constant. You know, what if the uranium decays at a rate that goes half to a lead in 4.5 billion years now, but what if the rate of decay was faster before? Then it would have reached the present state quicker and it wouldn't date so old.

Now we don't know if the rate of decay has been the same. Some people think that the rate of decay has declined or decreased over the thousands of years, just as the speed of light by some measurements has slowed down too. Now not everyone agrees it slowed down, but there's quite a few scientists that have written on this and so no one really knows for sure. I mean, we really can't go back a billion years and measure the speed of light or the rate of decay of uranium. But so on the assumption that it's always been the same as now, which can't necessarily be safely assumed but we got no other way to work it unless we assume that, then of course these things seem very, very old.

Now many Christians don't believe that these things are that old. Some think the earth was created thousands of years ago and the dinosaurs lived that long ago and that it wasn't billions of years ago. Other Christians believe it was billions of years ago and they just feel like that's when God did things. In other words, Genesis 1 talks about God creating things in six days. There's different ways Christians have taken that six-day creation. One way that John Lennox has suggested is that there may have been six creative days, morning and evening each day, but that in between the days, there could have been long periods of time where God wasn't creating new things and things were developing and changing and things were going on. And then there was another day that God created some new stuff. If that were true, and I'm not saying it's true, but if it's true, it would explain how microevolution or variation is seen to have occurred within many species. Species would have on this view been created on one day and then maybe thousands or millions of years go by while they're modifying and so forth, but they can't cross certain lines like fish can't cross the amphibian line or reptiles can't cross into the bird category. Now evolutionists say they can, but we just can't really show that that has ever happened and it's really hard to imagine how transitional forms would take place and how they would even survive when they're only part made part of the trip to the next species.

So some say, well, God interjected new six there are six days of creation, He interjected new things each day and then there could have been a time between. And that would allow for a longer earth. There's lots of people who have different views, Christians, who have different views of how old the earth is. If your son just can't get over the idea that most scientists believe the earth is 4.5 billion years old, well fine, I don't see why a Christian wouldn't be able to believe that. I mean, there's different ways of looking at Genesis 1 besides the one that we maybe take most readily. And it doesn't matter because the Christian doesn't have any investment in the age of the earth. The Christian belief doesn't insist on an age of the earth. The Christian belief is what happened 2,000 years ago with Jesus and the resurrection of the dead. The fact that God made everything is a given. Jesus, you know, agreed with that, all Christians agree with that. But whether He made things billions of years ago or thousands of years ago hardly would make a difference in terms of whether Jesus lived, died, was the Son of God, rose again from the dead. I mean, all those things are not those are not challenged by any of these considerations.

If somebody believes you have to take every word of the Bible literally and there's nothing in the Bible written poetically or figuratively or parabolically or metaphorically, well then, yeah, you would probably get the impression the earth is only a few thousand years old. And maybe it is, but many Christians realize that literal interpretation is not applied to everything in the Bible and shouldn't be. There's books that are poetic, there are parables that Jesus told that aren't true stories. You have to take the genre of the literature as it is. And some people think Genesis 1 is a genre of literature that isn't intended to be taken as a literal narrative. I have no problem with it as a literal narrative and I have no problem with a young earth, but many Christians would have problems with that and so they've taken an old earth view and having done so, they're still Christians. Because once you've decided the earth was created thousands or billions of years ago, now you start finding things relevant to us after that. How long the earth took to be created is not relevant to us. It has no impact on our lives, certainly no impact on our beliefs in Jesus.

So I wouldn't be overly concerned about that. I think Christians can get hung up on things that don't have any impact on whether Christianity is true or not. I'd say get that straightened out first and then if we want to work on some of the peripheral things like the age of the earth, then do so. Oh yeah, if you go to Matthew713.com, there's a topical index of calls that I've received, lots of them, like 25,000 of them on the air over the years. And if you look up dinosaurs, there's a whole bunch of calls on that you can listen to. Matthew713.com.

Joe in Chicopee, Massachusetts. Welcome to the Narrow Path.

Joe: Hey, how are you, Steve? Thanks for taking my call. Pretty new listener, but I think I may have just missed the topic as I tuned in one day, but what is your take since Easter is coming up on the three days and three nights? I've heard different teachings, but if you could just share your thoughts on that and I'll take your call off the air so I can hear you.

Steve Gregg: Sure. Yeah, this has come up many times and I've addressed it many times, but of course there's lots of people who weren't listening before and lots of people have the question. How did Jesus spend three days and three nights in the heart of the earth as he predicted in Matthew 12:40 that he would do, and still rise on Sunday if he was crucified on Friday? Obviously, from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning, there are not three days and three nights. There's parts of three days, part of Friday, all of Saturday, and part of Sunday, but there's only two nights, Friday night and Saturday night. So how do you get three days and three nights?

Well, I'll say this as briefly as I can so get to another call, I hope. Jesus on many occasions said he would rise on the third day. And the Christians in the New Testament, after Jesus was gone, they said that he rose on the third day. Now if he rose on the third day, he wasn't three days and three nights in the tomb because if you're three days and three nights in the tomb and you rise after that, that's the fourth day. So only one time did he use the expression three days, three nights, and I believe he was using a Jewish idiom. In other words, it wasn't being literally three days and three nights. If you go to some of my calls on this at Matthew 7:13 that I've done before, I go into more detail about this. But I don't believe it was literally three days and three nights. And if it was, then he wasn't being literal when he said he rose on the third day. It's either he rose on the third day or he rose on the fourth day. If he was three days, three nights in the tomb, it was the fourth day that he rose. And I think that one time that he said that, which is Matthew 12:40, he was using a Hebrew idiom where they were just thinking of any part of one day is they call it a day and a night. Now we don't talk that way but they did, and I think that's what they would have understood him to mean. There's longer treatment of that in previous calls you'll find at Matthew 7:13 if you look that up. Matthew713.com.

Fred in Alameda, California. Welcome to the Narrow Path.

Fred: Yes, hi. I have a question. You introduced me to the term total depravity and you said that some people believe in total depravity. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, you said that was one of the things about Calvinism, that they were big on that, the Calvinists. So my problem with that concept is it's not very encouraging. I don't think it motivates people to do the right thing. And I don't believe in Joel Osteen from what people tell me about his teachings, but I don't think we should go too far in the other direction to say that man cannot do good at all because after all there's a verse in the Bible that says whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. So I just wanted you to comment on that.

Steve Gregg: That sounds more like a sermon than a question, but I agree. I agree with you on that.

Don from Rising Sun, Indiana. Welcome.

Don: Hi, thanks for taking my call, getting me squeezed in here. You've had a couple comments or calls today about the tree of life in the Garden of Eden. And I have a question about the tree of life in Revelation. And it's been a couple months ago, I believe, that you were had a call and were discussing that and I had the impression from what you were saying that we would have to eat of that tree of life on a regular basis.

Steve Gregg: Well, that's what it sounds like because it says it produces its fruits 12 times a year, in other words monthly it fruits. Why would that be necessary? I mean, we're talking about the new earth here. If you only had to eat the fruit one time and then boom, you've got eternal life and you never have to think about it again, then it wouldn't have to fruit again the next month or the next month or the next month. So I'm assuming since it continually refruits, fructifies, every month, it is something it's implying that eating of it is an ongoing thing.

Now I believe the tree of life is an image and a type of Christ. And it's certainly true that we have to keep eating of Christ. Now some people think if you just say a sinner's prayer you're saved for life no matter what you do after that and you've got eternal life and you can't lose it. But as I was talking earlier to an earlier caller, Jesus talked about himself as the vine and we're the branches. If we remain in him, you know, we are fruitful and live forever, but if we don't remain in him we're cast forth as a branch and withered and burned. So the branches continue to live with the life of the vine as long as they remain attached. So they draw upon the life of the vine continually. Whenever they're in a position where they can't do that anymore, they die.

And I think that that's how it is with Christ. We have to abide in Christ. That's the point he makes in that story. He's the vine, we're the branches. Abide in me means remain in me. It says if anyone doesn't remain in me, he'll be cast forth as a branch to wither and die. So you have to stick with Jesus. You have to continually be drawing upon his life just like you have to continually eat of the tree of life. He is the tree of life for us. And I think it's just saying that one has to remain in him. And as they remain in him, they draw continually on his immortality. We don't have any of our own. We are dependent entirely on his. But fortunately, his is available to us.

You've been listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us. Let's talk again tomorrow.