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. Most of you who have heard us before know what we do here. We take your calls if you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith. If you want to discuss those, you can disagree with the host here. If you do, feel free to give me a call and we'll talk about it.

The number to call is 844-484-5737. Our lines are full right now, so don't dial now, but you might want to take this number down. Call in a few minutes and you will probably find lines have opened up. They do throughout the hour. The number is 844-484-5737.

Our first caller today is Bob from Lakewood, California. Bob, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Bob: Thanks, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. I've been listening to you for about 10 years and I've called in on a few other questions in my mind. But my sister's been dealing with cancer for the past six months and she just passed away last night.

My question to you today would be, I've heard so many things about basically we just go to sleep or we're in limbo. Nobody really goes to heaven or hell when we pass. We wait for Jesus to come back and resurrect everything and then we're judged. I just wanted your take or feeling, your understanding about what the Bible talks about when we pass. Where does our soul sit until Jesus comes back?

Steve Gregg: The Bible does seem to answer that question, though it's not as if it speaks a great deal about it. Obviously, the Bible has a lot more to say about the resurrection of the dead, which happens when Jesus comes back, than it has to say about the intermediate state, which is between the time you die and the time that Jesus comes back to raise the dead.

Obviously, each of us dies at a different time, but we'll all be raised at the same time when Jesus comes back. That period between death, our individual deaths, and our being raised with the general resurrection, that time between is called the intermittent state. Now, you're right, there are many Christians who have believed that this is an unconscious state, that you just go into a deep sleep and you don't know anything. You just wake up from it just like is the case when you go under anesthesia to have an operation.

If you've ever done that, you know that you kind of just fade out and then you open your eyes and the operation's over. You're not aware of any passage of time. Some people feel that that's how it is when people die, that they don't sense any passage of time, but they just die and then their eyes open again and they're with God at the end of the world when Jesus raises us from the dead.

That's not an unpleasant idea. It's not, however, what I think the Bible teaches, because Paul teaches that death is a departure from this body. He specifically says we depart to be with the Lord. He said that in Philippians chapter one when he was in prison and not in very pleasant circumstances.

He said that he wasn't sure whether he'd rather live on in this suffering or die and go be with the Lord. He says in verse 21 and following, "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh," meaning if I remain in the body alive here, "this will mean fruit from my labor." That means if I live on, I can do more work, get more done.

"Yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. For I am hard pressed between the two." The two being to live on or to die. He's not sure which he prefers. He says, "I have a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you." That's Philippians chapter 1, verses 21 through 24.

Now, he said I'd like to die or depart and be with Christ. He's obviously referring to that as the alternative to living on. So departing is dying and going to be with the Lord. And he says it's far better. Now, if you're unconscious, you wouldn't necessarily be in better circumstances. You wouldn't know whether you were or not. But he says to be with Christ.

What this tells us is there's a part of us that lives in this body while we're alive. And if we're Christians, when we die, we leave this body. So the body does seem to be unconscious. It's not aware of what's going on in the casket or the grave. But the person who lived in that body has gone on elsewhere. And in this case, to be with Christ. And I believe that's a conscious experience with Christ.

Paul said the same thing essentially in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 where he said, "Therefore we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord." In verse 8, he says, "We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord."

Once again, just as in Philippians chapter 1, he speaks of departing from a body, being absent from the body, but being present with the Lord. So it doesn't sound like he sees death as a total blackout. It's more of a relocation. He's at home in the body while he's alive. When he's no longer alive, he's no longer in the body, but he's now gone to be with the Lord.

We don't have very many verses in the Bible that talk about this, but the ones we have seem to be fairly clear that Paul is saying that when we die, we go to be with the Lord, assuming we're Christians. I hope that was the case with your sister.

Bob: So in your interpretation of that, we pass on to be with the Lord, but we're not really conscious of that until he comes back to resurrect us and put us in new bodies? It's kind of a sleep state or a limbo state? Or we're actually conscious of being with him?

Steve Gregg: No, that's not my position. My position is that we go to be with the Lord and we're consciously with the Lord. The body is not conscious because we've moved out. It's the soul, and I did think that the soul was aware of that. Listening to other pastors and evangelists talk about this sleep state that we're in until he comes back and resurrects us, you believe we are consciously aware of being there with him. And would that be everybody? Because obviously some people are going to hell and some are going to heaven.

Steve Gregg: That would just be the Christians are with the Lord. Well, thank you for your call. Let's talk to Rob in New Hampshire. Rob, welcome to the Narrow Path.

Rob: I'm a little confused on how Christians should interpret or read the Old Testament. I hear a lot of stuff like people that are pro-LGBTQ will try to find what they believe is contradictions in our faith like, "Hey, you're wearing two forms of fabric there, you're eating pork." Since Jesus affirmed scriptures, how do we know which Old Testament commands are still binding on Christians under the New Covenant?

Steve Gregg: What Jesus affirmed was the moral standards of the scriptures. He said that these are the weightier matters of the law. He summed them up as justice and mercy and faithfulness. Those have to do with the character of God and our character and the way we treat other people and so forth.

He said that there are other things, like paying tithes, as the Pharisees paid tithes of mint, anise, and cumin, that were in fact required of the Jews to do. But he doesn't say they are what he calls weightier matters of the law, things that matter more. Now, the Old Testament law had quite a few things in it that we don't do anymore, including offering animal sacrifices for one thing, eating a kosher diet is another thing, observing Jewish festivals would be another one.

By those you were supposed to actually make pilgrimages to Jerusalem three times a year. We don't do that. Even people today who say that they want to keep the Torah, I don't know any of them that go to Jerusalem three times a year, so they're not keeping the Torah. They're just taking the parts they want and ignoring the parts they don't want.

The truth is all the laws of the Old Testament fall into one of two categories. And those of one category aren't all shoved into a few chapters over here and those of the other category in another set of chapters in another place. They're all mixed together because to the Jews who were under the law, they were supposed to keep them all.

In retrospect, we can see that some of them were rituals as Paul said. Paul said that no one should be able to judge us in Colossians 2, verses 16 and 17. He said don't let anyone judge you about what you eat or drink, about keeping festivals, new moon, Sabbath days. Those things were shadows for the time being. In other words, there are things in the Old Testament that aren't permanent, they were shadows.

The permanence is Christ. Christ has fulfilled them. The difference, therefore, is the shadows are the things that were pointing forward to Christ. In a sense they were reflecting symbolic rituals that have a spiritual application in the New Covenant. And now that the spiritual reality has come, we don't have to follow those rituals.

You can tell what a ritual is as opposed to a moral thing. Here's the main difference. The morals are based on God's unchanging character. God made man to be like Him, to be in His image. In the New Testament, Ephesians 5:1 says be imitators of God as dear children. It's our obligation as children of God to be like God, to imitate His character. And His character defines the moral norms for humanity.

Some of those moral norms are found in the Law of Moses, but they're not just found there. Many of them were recognized before there was a Law of Moses. Many countries have recognized these moral norms and certainly Christianity does too. Moral norms can't change because they're based on something that doesn't change, namely God's character.

The rituals can change and have changed because they are not moral in nature. You can tell they're not by asking yourself, "Could God have given these instructions differently without violating who He is?" Take the command to honor your father and your mother. That's a moral obligation because the Bible says you owe it to them. They brought you into the world, they took care of you when you're too young to take care of yourself, you owe your life to them, so you need to honor them.

In 1st Timothy 5, Paul talks about repaying your parents by honoring them in their old age and so forth. That's a matter of fairness. That's a matter of justice. God, therefore, could not have said, "Do not honor your father and your mother," because that would be commanding you to do something that's unjust. Something that's unjust is unlike God.

If God could say the opposite and it would not compromise His own character, then it's not a moral issue. For example, God could not say, "Thou shalt commit adultery." The reason He could not do that is because committing adultery is violating an oath, a marriage covenant. That means it's unfaithfulness. Well, God is not unfaithful. He does not tolerate unfaithfulness among us. Adultery is unfaithfulness and therefore it's wrong.

It was wrong before the Law of Moses was given. It was commanded in the Law of Moses to be observed. The Law of Moses is now gone, but we still have to keep it. Many pagan nations recognize it as a wrong deed too. So it's not something that's just tied up with the Law of Moses. Morals are morals. They don't change no matter what legislation is there. It just so happens that the Law of Moses included some of them, but it didn't create them. They were already important before the law was given.

Those things that are not moral are the ritual things. You can tell what they are because God would not in any way compromise His character if He said them differently. In the law, He said Israel should go to Jerusalem three times a year for these festivals. Well, what if God had said to do it two times a year instead, or five times a year instead? Would that compromise anything in God's nature? Of course not.

The rituals are symbolic. They represent something. They are fulfilled spiritually in Christ. And God didn't even have to order those rituals at all. He did, and He could have done it differently without compromising who He is. Same thing with any of these things. If the Bible says keep the seventh day holy, well, what if God had said keep three days holy: Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday? Would that compromise His character? Not in any way.

Holy days, clean and unclean foods, sacrifices, things like that are not moral issues. Now, what about wearing clothing that's part wool and part linen? If God had given that command differently, let's just say He commanded them to mix linen and wool with their clothing, would that compromise His character in any way? Of course not.

Therefore, it's a ritual. It's like other rituals that talk about not sowing two kinds of seed in one field or not plowing with a donkey and an ox together under one yoke. These are symbolic rituals that have to do with not mixing things that are not alike. But they're not moral issues. Now, what they represent may be moral issues.

Paul, for example, alluding to this matter of not plowing with a donkey and an ox together, says in 2nd Corinthians 6, "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers." He's saying that it's wrong to yoke those things together that are unlike, and in this case, spiritually unlike. So the spiritual thing may be a moral issue, but the ritual is not. It just points to that spiritual thing and it was only temporary.

So mixing fabrics and many other things, the diet that is commanded of Israel, these things are all really quite ritualistic and they don't really have anything to do, in my opinion, with morality.

People who are LGBT and always trying to find fault with the Bible, they're transparent. It's obvious that they want to do what they want to do and they don't like the fact that the Bible forbids them to do it. So what do they do? Instead of changing themselves, they try to change the Bible.

Well, people can do that if they want to, but they'll have to answer to God for that because the Bible describes what God expects of us and there will be a judgment someday and we'll all be judged by whether we conform to what He commanded us to do or not. People who don't want to, and that'd be the majority of the people on the planet I suppose, don't want to do what God says, He's given them freedom.

They can do what He doesn't want them to do, but they'll have to answer for it. There will be a judgment. And so to my mind, a wise person would say, "I want to do such and such, but looks like God's saying that's not okay, so I'm not going to do it." And see, this is the difference between someone who honors God and simply honors themselves.

Jesus said if anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. So you're not a follower of Jesus if you're putting yourself over God. That's the very thing that Satan does. That's the very thing that every rebel against God does. Now, when you become a Christian, you put God's will above your own and you embrace Christ as your Lord and King and you don't try to monkey around with the word of God to make it conform to what you want it to.

People do that all the time, but you don't do that if you're submitted to God. And God's not fooled by the way. Suppose you want to do that, suppose you change all the parts of the Bible that you don't like. Well, okay, it has been done by the way. Thomas Jefferson did that. There's the Thomas Jefferson Bible, he took out the parts he didn't like.

But when you stand before God, He's not fooled. He knows how the original read, He knows what He said. And so we can live in a delusion as long as we want to. Well, maybe not as long as we want to because we'll die when we don't want to and that's when we stop living in the delusion. And that's when we answer for whether we were honest before God or just trying to get our own way by manipulation of what He said. Yeah, He's not going to be fooled by that. God is not mocked. Don't be deceived, the Bible says. So that's what they're doing there. Daryl in Sacramento, California, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Daryl: How are you doing, Steve? I didn't know anything about justice until you brought it out about three years ago, and then I started looking into it what the Bible had to say. But you had a brother that called in about a week and a half ago, it was on a Friday, and he was complaining about the evangelical church.

I kind of agree with the brother that brought the fact then about the slavery issue and I just wanted to bring out some points because I disagree. I didn't disagree with you 100%, but I disagreed with some things you said because that particular slavery was based on just black people. It was a race-based slavery.

70% to 90% of the people that was enslaved had been kidnapped or either depending on which state they came from, they had been kidnapped or you know, they could legally sell people who were their captives, but they were creating wars to get people just to sell them to the kidnappers. And the Bible says Exodus 21:16 I think it is, that was the capital punishment. And then that part wasn't brought out.

And then they also realized that they had enslaved Christians. It was like one time in Angola, one of the bishops said they kidnapped something like 4,000 Christians. Well, when they realized they had kidnapped Christians, they felt kind of bad about it, but in 1667, they made laws to justify being able to kidnap and enslave Christians. That's something else that wasn't brought out that I thought should have been brought out and they didn't treat them like brothers in Christ like Paul told Philemon to do.

Steve Gregg: Excuse me, so what you're saying is that when I—I don't remember the call, this subject has come up a lot—but you're saying when I was talking to somebody who had called about slavery, that I didn't bring up the points that you're sharing right now? Is that what you're saying?

Daryl: Right. So it made it seem like that slavery was okay because—

Steve Gregg: Oh, well let me just say this. No. No, I never said slavery's okay. No, the points you just brought up, I make—I've made dozens of times, if not hundreds of times on this program over the last 29 years. You may have listened to one call where some of those points didn't come up. One of the reasons is because to make all the points I'd like to make on the subject of slavery would take a lecture and would take probably at least an hour or 90 minutes and I can't give all those points every time someone asks the question.

So I address their points very directly and sometimes I leave out points in one answer that I include in—at another time simply because if I gave all the points every time, I wouldn't have time. But you're quite—you're entirely correct. What we call Atlantic slavery or the African slavery, which America participated in and repented of and doesn't do anymore, that would have been death penalty stuff. Not only owning the slaves but the people who captured them.

And I would say the slave traders who bought them from those who captured them. You're right, Exodus 21 verse 16 has a law that says, "He who kidnaps a man and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death." So it was a death penalty thing to kidnap somebody and make slaves of them. And that's exactly how slavery was done in the 18th and 19th centuries before we abolished it here and before England did.

England abolished it before we did, but we were among the two first nations to really do so. And yeah, that's right. The slaves that were brought over here in ships were kidnapped by African tribes that they were at war with and then they were taken captive and then sold to traders who would bring them over here and people would buy them here.

So that kind of slavery was condemned in the Bible directly. There's no justification that can be made for it. And whereas in biblical times, slavery, if a person was a slave, it usually meant one of two things. One, they were a prisoner of war and instead of being put to death, they were kept alive and they became slaves in the society that conquered them.

Now, the purpose of the war was not to get slaves. The purpose of the war was a nation defending itself against another nation, but in the process, if they won the war, there'd be a lot of dead men and a lot of living children and women who don't have men to take care of them. And I mean, not trying to justify it, it's just different than what we think of. These captives would be taken back to the country that captured them or that conquered them.

But again, these were not slave-gathering expeditions as you had in the Americas and Africa. These were simply wars where those who survived the wars of the losing side were taken captive. And one reason they were kept slaves is so they wouldn't have a slavery revolt in the new country. That would be a possibility.

So I mean, it sucks. It sucks to be a slave and it's a shame, really, that anyone was ever made a slave. But in those cases, this was not race-based and you brought that up too in your call that in America, it was very largely race-based, but not entirely because there were black slave owners in this country too. When we had slavery here, some of the slave owners were black men.

So it wasn't entirely about race, but it was almost entirely black Africans who were kidnapped from their homes and that was atrocity of course. In biblical times, a Jewish person might have a Jewish slave. In other words, it was not a racial issue. It was an economic issue. I mentioned that a lot of the slaves in biblical times were prisoners of war. The other group of slaves were those who sold themselves into slavery for economic security.

There's a lot of people who would be homeless or beggars in the ancient times just like they are today. But one option they had was to sell themselves into slavery and their master would house them, feed them, take care of their medical, provide clothing for them and everything and they would give up their freedom for seven years.

But the Bible said then that they had to be offered their freedom, Jewish slaves anyway did. And they'd be offered their freedom after seven years. And if they didn't want their freedom, then they could stay a slave for life. So this was a very entirely different situation than anything that ever happened in this country. And what happened here was horrible. What happened in Israel in those days was unfortunate, but it wasn't the same kind of injustice that we had when we had slavery here.

Hey, I appreciate your call, brother, and we'll talk again soon. You're listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. We have another half hour coming up. If you want to find more of our resources, we have many lectures and stuff, everything free at our website. We are listener supported, you can donate there if you want. The website is thenarrowpath.com. I'll be back in 30 seconds so don't go away.

[Break]

Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour. We now have a couple of phone lines open, we didn't at the beginning of the first half hour, so you can call and get through now. The number is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. And our next caller is Gordon in Rindge, New Hampshire. Hello, Gordon, welcome.

Gordon: Hi there. How do I sound?

Steve Gregg: Sound great to me.

Gordon: Perfect. So my question is, I don't know if scripture answers this, but I want to hear your thoughts on whether it does or not. It's kind of a weird question. But did Eve realize just how bad life was after she consumed the produce from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and then decide she didn't want to be in it alone and convinced Adam to eat the stuff too? That's why Adam threw her under the bus so quickly when God approached them about it because Adam was upset with her about dragging him into it when she knew how bad it was.

Steve Gregg: Well, you're asking me to speak on something that the Bible tells us nothing about, that is Eve's motives for giving the fruit to Adam after she had eaten it. And also Adam's motives for eating it. Now, you're saying that maybe after she ate it, the consequences of having done so were realized and she didn't want to suffer alone, so she induced or tempted Adam to do it and he fell into it with her.

And then he resented her for that. So he threw her under the bus when he was talking to God, saying, "Well, the woman you gave me gave me the fruit." You know, many people have imagined different scenarios of what these people were thinking at the time, but we're not told anything about that. For example, it tells us that Eve ate the fruit and then it says, "and she gave it to her husband who was with her and he ate it."

So we read of her eating it and then him eating it in a single verse. So it really doesn't tell us much about what she felt or knew afterwards. My guess is that she didn't know much about the bad things that happened. There's a good chance that she thought, "Hey, nothing has happened, so it was an idle threat. Adam, go ahead and join me in this."

But I can't say what she was thinking. I doubt that she—I don't think it had dawned on her the moment she ate the fruit exactly what the consequences were going to be. That's why God came along and began to enumerate some of the consequences after that. Of course, I'm sure they found out through the rest of their life how much harm they had brought upon themselves and others by their sin.

But my guess would be, since it is only a guess, that she did not have the motivation you mentioned, that she didn't say, "Well, I'm going to suffer, so he's got to suffer." I think it probable that since she was deceived, the Bible says, into eating it, and Adam was not, that once she ate it just by being naive, she offered to Adam thinking that nothing had happened, there's no danger here.

And he, perhaps realizing that she had taken that step that would separate her from God forever, or at least for the time being, he had to decide whether he wanted to go with her or with God. Now I'm again imagining what he was thinking, I don't know, but this would be something that he could know and it could be a decision that he had to weigh. You know, "Okay, now my wife has just done that which God said is going to kill us if we do it. Do I want to go with her or do I want to stay with Him and be without her?"

So could be that my theory's correct, could be it's not. But one thing both theories have in common is they're speculation. Jimmy from Staten Island, New York, you're on the air.

Jimmy: Hi Steve. Last time somebody called regarding the birth of the spirit, being born again or born from above literally. And I called you on this before, and I believe that being born from above and being saved are two different events and they're being conflated I believe.

And the justification for that, besides all the other verses around it, in verse 8, "The wind bloweth where it listeth" or "The wind blows where it wants or desires, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth." So that word "so" means "in this manner" or "thus" is everyone that's born of the spirit.

Now, nobody has control of the wind. And the verse before that, it says, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." We had no control over that. "And that which is born of the spirit is spirit." So when you jump, last time you jumped to 3:16, there's not one verse in the Bible that says you have to believe to be born again.

You have to believe to be saved. It's two different things. And it's backed up by the first statement Jesus made, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." You have to see. In verse 14, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up."

So when Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, God said, "Everyone that look upon it will be spared." So we have to be able to see. So once we are born from above, or born of God, or born of the spirit, now the next step is salvation. So God presents, first He presents the new birth, and then He presents the natural progression into being saved.

Steve Gregg: All right. Let me just say for the sake of our listeners who may not be sure why you're making this point, Jimmy is a frequent caller and he's a Calvinist. And Calvinists don't believe that humans in their natural state can become believers in Christ. They don't believe that we can choose Christ because of the doctrine of total depravity, which is the first of the five points of Calvinism as they're usually itemized.

They believe that total depravity renders us incapable of believing or repenting because we're dead in trespasses and sins until God comes and brings us to life. And this bringing to life is the new birth. So it is the—and this bringing to life is also called regeneration. So the question that Calvinists and non-Calvinists disagree about would be the answer to the question, what comes first: faith or regeneration?

People who are not Calvinists believe that faith comes first, and as a result of faith, you're born again. Calvinists believe that regeneration or being born again comes first, and because that happened, you can come alive and then you can believe and repent, and that you couldn't before that. So that's why this is coming up with Jimmy. And it's a difference of opinion that I think is not hard to resolve if you just don't have a theological agenda in your mind.

To make a distinction between being born again and being saved here is a strange thing to do because Jesus does say it is through faith that we will have eternal life. And that's what being born again does. You pass from death unto life when you're regenerated, you become alive.

When Nicodemus was asking, "How can these things be?" when Jesus talked about being born of the spirit, and he said, "Well, how can these things be?" Jesus eventually says, I believe He answers him, but not until you get to verse 15 or 14. It says, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

The serpent was lifted up, the people had to look at the serpent to be healed of their snake bite. It was a simple thing to do. It wasn't something they were incapable of doing because of total depravity. They weren't so totally depraved that they couldn't look at the serpent, they could.

And he says, "Now that's parallel to what's going to happen to me. I'm going to be lifted up on the cross, and whoever believes in me will," what? "Not perish but have everlasting life." That is, they'll pass from death unto life. That is, they'll be regenerated. So regeneration comes as a result of believing.

That's what Jesus seems to say there. And he doesn't make any distinction here between believing or being saved on the one hand and being born again on the other. This distinction that you're making is your own, it's your own distinction you're reading into the passage. Nothing remotely like it in the passage.

At the end of John, because John has been a gospel that talks a lot about eternal life, and we're born again into eternal life, at the end of chapter 20 of John, verse 30, it says, "Truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book. These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name."

Now, it's very clear he's saying, I'm telling you these things Jesus did so you will believe. He doesn't say that you're dead in trespasses and sins so you can't believe so forget it. No, I'm trying to persuade you to believe because I believe it is possible for you to be persuaded into believing that Jesus is the Son of God. And when you believe, you will obtain eternal life.

So eternal life comes after believing. Paul taught the same thing, certainly in Colossians chapter 2. When Paul is talking about what Christians have experienced, he says in verse 13, Colossians 2:13, "And you, being dead in your trespasses," okay, there's that term that Calvinists make so much of.

"Being dead in trespasses," they say, well, if you're dead in trespasses, you can't believe, you can't repent. I'm not sure where they're getting that, Paul doesn't say that and Jesus doesn't say that, but they're making that up I guess. "You, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses."

Now notice the grammar here. "He has made you alive, having forgiven you," meaning that's past tense. That's the past participle. Because He has forgiven you, He has made you alive is what He's saying. And therefore you were dead in trespass and sins. But then you got forgiven. How's that happen? Well, when you believe.

The Bible says we're justified by faith. So you get forgiven, and as a result of that, having forgiven you your trespasses, He also made you alive. So again, the forgiving is before the making you alive. So I'm just not—I'm not seeing your case, Jimmy. I just don't see it as a very persuasive one.

Jimmy: Can I ask you one more question? In verse 6, it says, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." And he's doing a complete parallel to the spiritual birth. Did you have anything to say about your first birth, your fleshly birth?

Steve Gregg: No, of course not.

Jimmy: You don't exist. You don't exist. And when we become born again, we're a new creation, we're a new creature. And that's something that God did.

Steve Gregg: Right, I agree with that. But the parallel is not exact because as you said, before you were born, or we might want to say before you were conceived, you did not exist. And that's exactly what isn't true of those who are born of the spirit. They did exist before they were born of the spirit.

And not only did they exist, they had mental activity and they made choices about many things. They made choices about what they'd put on in the morning, what job they'd work at, who they would marry, whether they'd have children and how they'd raise them. People who are not Christians make those decisions all the time.

Some of them make a decision to become Christians. Now to say, "Well, of course they can make lots of decisions, they just can't make the decision to become a Christian," well, you're making that up. That's just coming out of whole cloth. You just made that up out of thin air to say that a person can choose who they will marry, but they won't choose who they will worship is, okay, say it if you want to.

But you see, that kind of a statement reflects a total investment in a certain theological prejudice which is not taught in Scripture. You have to read it in. When I first read James White in an article he wrote about Calvinism, he said, "One thing I like about Calvinism, it's a totally exegetical doctrine."

No, it isn't. It's almost totally eiseggetical. None of the things that Calvinists say about these verses are actually stated in the verses. They are reading them into the verses. They're not there. So I mean, I just say, Jimmy, ask yourself if I didn't already—if someone hadn't told me these Augustinian doctrines were true, would there be anything in these verses that would compel me?

Now you said, "Well, you didn't ask to be born the first time." True, I didn't. And before I was born the first time I didn't breathe either, or hear, or see, or talk, or do anything or think. But before you're born again, before you're born of the spirit, you do all those things. And so it's not exactly parallel.

And to suggest that when you're dead in trespass and sins, you can't repent, well tell that to the prodigal son, or frankly tell it to Jesus who made up the story of the prodigal son. He said that that son was separated from his father, was dead and was lost. Dead, yes, He said, "My son was dead and now he's alive."

But while he was dead and lost, he made a decision to go back to his father. And then he came alive again when he reunited with his father as a result of that decision. Now Jesus made that story up. Maybe He didn't know about Calvinism because He would have said—He certainly would not have said that the boy was dead at the time he made the decision to repent, but that's exactly what Jesus teaches in the story.

So I don't think Jesus ever heard of Augustine's doctrines, which is why no one heard of Augustine's doctrines before Augustine. The doctrines you're holding are the doctrines of Augustine. And for 400 years before him, no Christian teacher taught them. And I don't think anyone should be teaching them today. But Jimmy, I appreciate your call. Good to hear from you again. Let's talk to Troy in Chandler, Arizona. And by the way, we might be able to get another call or two in if you want to call right now. 844-484-5737. Troy, welcome. Thanks for calling.

Troy: Hey, thank you, Steve. I'll make it quick here. I had a little mini revelation the other morning and was thinking about the limitations of our minds here on Earth and getting a new body when we die and go to be with the Lord. And thinking about our minds and how blown away we're going to be when we get to heaven. I was thinking about scripture like "Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, the things God has in store for those who love him." Ephesians 3:20, that kind of thing. My question is, do you have any scriptures or thoughts on this? I was just getting excited about the eternal destiny and I didn't know quite how to phrase the question, but I know when in doubt ask Steve.

Steve Gregg: Well, when in doubt ask Steve a question. With reference to the specific point you're making, the only one I can think of is that Paul said, "For now we know in part, but then we shall know even as also we are known." To my mind, that's the one verse that actually says something about our mental state or our knowledge or whatever when Jesus returns.

It's very interesting that the Bible doesn't tell us more about that kind of thing. I know that when I was growing up as a Christian, and I've been a Christian since I was a child and read and thought about and studied my Bible from a very early age, I just kind of assumed because of the Christian culture I was in, that Christianity was primarily about what happens after you die.

Primarily about getting your ticket to heaven and not go to hell when you die. It seemed like—I probably got that impression because preachers always talked about going to heaven and they always talked about missing hell. And they always emphasized we're saved by faith, not by works, and by saved they meant justified, they meant we're going to go to heaven because of faith, not works.

Seemed like that was the whole emphasis. The whole emphasis was believe in Jesus and you go to heaven when you die. And so I kind of expected that to be the theme of the New Testament. It certainly isn't a theme in the Old Testament. In fact, frankly, the Old Testament doesn't even discuss that.

The New Testament does a little bit, but nowhere near as much as I thought it would. It turns out that the New Testament has very, very little to say about the next life, either in hell or heaven. Both are acknowledged to exist, but not much more is said than that. A little bit, but not much.

Almost everything else would be speculation. I don't know what our mental state will be like. I sometimes have mentioned that my mental state as an adult is very, very different than when I was a child. And Paul talks about it that way, "When I was a child, I thought as a child, I spoke as a child, I acted as a child, but when I became a man, I put away those childish things."

That's when he says, "Now we know in part, but then we'll know even as also we're known," 1st Corinthians 13. But as a child—I hate to bore those who've heard me say this because I say this fairly frequently—but when I was a child on the way to church once, I remember I asked my dad, "What's heaven going to be like?"

And I was a little child, so he had to put it in simple terms. He said, "Well, in heaven, you will have everything that you want." And as a child, I took those words very seriously and I pictured myself in heaven with a whole bunch of toys. Every toy I could imagine that I couldn't afford to buy myself now.

And with powers I don't have, the power to be invisible, the power to shrink down to the size of my toys, the power to fly. I mean, that's all the things I want and I thought, "Well, in heaven, I'll be able to do all that because I'll have everything I want." But you see, as an adult, if I were to list the things I want, they'd be different things.

I wouldn't mind being invisible or flying, things like that. I'm not sure I would see it as necessary or practical. The point is I had childish desires. I certainly don't want any more toys. I'd love to divest myself of most of what I don't need now. But the truth is that children think one way, adults think another way.

And all that Paul says is now we think like children. Then we'll think like adults. But a child can't imagine what an adult will think like. We can kind of remember what a child thinks like because we used to be them, but a child can't think like an adult and can't know what adults think. So we can't really answer the question you're asking. I wish I could, but it's not the kind of thing the Bible really discusses. So I'm going to have to say I don't know about that one. Thank you for your call though. We've got some callers to take here. Shirien from Georgia, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Shirien: Hey, how are you?

Steve Gregg: I'm fine, thanks.

Shirien: Good. Listen, first of all, I just discovered this station and I'm glad that I've been a part of it today. And secondly, I appreciate the explanation of the word challenge with the Calvinist. And thirdly, the Adam and Eve thing was, they didn't even know they were wrong until Adam bit the fruit because it said after Adam bit it, then their eyes were opened. So they couldn't have had any preconceived notions or thinking this or the other because they didn't know until after Adam bit the fruit. Is my time up?

Steve Gregg: No, do you have a question? My time's almost up.

Shirien: My question real quick, why do Christian conservatives have such a problem with socialism because the Bible talks about taking care of the least of these and the poor?

Steve Gregg: Well, that's not what socialism does. Socialism claims to do so, but see, God likes generosity. God wants us to love each other and when you love—it says in 1st John, if you see your brother have need and you shut up your bowels of compassion from him, how does the love of God dwell in you?

God wants us to love. That means He wants us to be generous. He wants us to help the poor. Socialism doesn't have anything to do with generosity. Socialism is a governmental program where they take by force money from people who are hardworking, productive people and give it away to people who may or may not be hardworking.

There's a lot of needy people in this country. Some of them can't help it and some could. But the government doesn't make a distinction. If you're poor, you get the money. If you're rich, you get it taken from you. What this involves is not generosity in any way because the people who have the money taken from them are not being generous, it's taken by law.

The government takes it by force. If they don't give it, they'll go to jail. That's not generosity. The government isn't being generous either because it's not their money. It's not that the government's giving away their own money, that would be generous. But they take somebody else's money. For me to stick a gun in my neighbor's head and say, "Give me your money so I can help my favorite charity," I'm not being generous.

See, socialism is trying to institutionalize something that should be done spiritually. The fruit of the spirit is love. And God wants us as Christians to have love for our neighbor and to share. And by the way, it's just a statistical fact that Christians contribute more to charities per capita than any other demographic does.

And used to do more before the government was confiscating money and distributing it because now of course we recognize the government's going to take care of that. But God wants us to take care of that. And us taking care of that doesn't mean the government puts a gun to our head and says, "Give us all your money so we can give it to someone else."

It means that we happily, without a gun to our head, give it to other people if they need it because we love them. So there's no love in socialism, there's just government control. And there's just confiscation of money from certain people and redistribution to people who may or may not deserve it. Remember, Paul said when he's talking about the distribution of money among the Christians, he says, "Well, if someone won't work, don't let them eat."

In other words, everybody's got to do what they can, and those who do what they can and can't get much, the others will help them out. But if someone's not doing anything and just said, "I'll let the hardworking people support me," Paul says, "No, don't put them in the redistribution, they're just leeches."

Now, there are people in this country who are leeches and there's people who are not. There's hardworking poor people and hardworking productive people should take note of them and if they can't pay their bills, we should help them out. But there's also poor people who don't work and don't want to work, and they could. Well, those are the kind of people that socialism will help support, but the Bible says not to.

So there are differences between socialism and Christianity. They're like 100% different. One is the government, which has a gun and an army and law enforcement people and courts and jails, forcing people to give their money to the government and then taking that money and giving it indiscriminately to people who are poor whether they ought to receive it or not.

That's just not a moral system and Christianity is. Remember it says in Acts chapter 2 and in Acts chapter 4 twice we read there were no poor among the Christians because those who had extra houses and lands were in the habit of selling them and bringing the money to distribute to the poor. So it says there was none among them that had need because these people were out of love and generosity sharing with each other.

This was not a government program and no one was forced to do it. That way it was actually generous. But when someone's forced to do it, there's no generosity involved. They just want to stay out of jail. And the government who has taken it from them isn't being generous because the government doesn't own the money, they stole it from someone else. And then they waste it, they don't use it on programs that Christianity would support in many cases.

Anyway, those are the differences. I do appreciate you calling with that, Shirien. That is a great question. We're out of time for today's show. You're listening to the Narrow Path. My name is Steve Gregg and we are listener supported. If you'd like to help us out, it's voluntary, we don't have a gun to your head, but if you want to help us stay on the air you can write to: The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California 92593. Our website is thenarrowpath.com.