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. Well, we can't presume about the future, so maybe we won't live for a whole hour. Some of us may die before that. I might even die, but the show is scheduled to be live every day for an hour. This is another one of those days. We've been doing that for 29 years, so chances are good we'll be live for an hour today and hopefully for years to come, if the Lord wills.

That means because we are live, you can call in during the program and raise questions to be discussed about the Bible or the Christian faith. You can also raise disagreements you have with the host. We'll be glad to discuss those things too. We have no commercial breaks, so that gives us a full hour. Well, it's actually 55 minutes, I have to tell you the truth, to discuss these things. We're looking at some of our lines have calls waiting and some are open. So if you want to call now and get through, this is a good time. The number is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. Our first caller today is Joe calling from Jacksonville, Florida. Hi, Joe. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Joe: Hi, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. My question is, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I'm having a hard time understanding if it's something beyond conversion and water baptism, or if it's something that happens at the moment of conversion. I just wanted to get your take on that.

Steve Gregg: Well, I think it can happen either way, depending on how God works in a given situation. The house of Cornelius in Acts chapter 10 all were baptized in the Spirit while they were listening to the Gospel preached to them. I assume they in their own hearts received Christ, and then God filled them with the Spirit. They weren't even baptized in water yet.

On most other occasions, it would appear the norm was to baptize people in water and then to lay hands on them to be baptized in the Spirit. Now, we know of at least one exception to this pattern, and that is besides the house of Cornelius, and that is the case of Philip in Samaria in Acts chapter 8. He preached the Gospel, he baptized the believers, but for whatever reason he did not lay hands on them. So Peter and John came down sometime later and did lay hands on these people, and they were baptized in the Spirit.

Now, these are anecdotal cases. We don't have anything in the Bible that teaches us in like a teaching portion of the Bible, that teaches us what it's supposed to be like. What we do know is that being filled with the Spirit is something we are all exhorted to be. In Ephesians 5:18, Paul says, "Do not be drunk with wine, which is dissipation, but be filled with Holy Spirit."

We know that the disciples in the upper room were filled with Holy Spirit when the Spirit came upon them, and that Jesus had predicted this the previous chapter in Acts 1:8. He said, "When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you'll receive power." A few verses earlier than that in Acts 1:5, he referred to this event as being baptized in the Holy Spirit.

Now, that's the data. That's not the synthesis of the data. Now, however we synthesize the data will be the way that we're going to look at the situation. Unfortunately, we don't have so many instances to feed into our databank to figure out everything we'd like to know. One thing that the later scriptures do say, when I mean later than the book of Acts, in the epistles, they do mention that all Christians have the Holy Spirit. This is how we become born again. The Holy Spirit, we're born of the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit comes and he gives life to our mortal souls and he bears witness with our spirit that we're the children of God.

Paul says in Romans 8:9, "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he's not one of his," which means that everyone who really is belonging to Christ does have the Spirit. First John tells us in a couple of places, once in 1 John chapter 3 and then in the next chapter, chapter 4, twice he mentions that we know that God dwells in us and that we dwell in him because of the Spirit that he's given us. Or in one place it says because he's given us of his Spirit.

So the presence of the Holy Spirit in the believer is something that is a mark of genuine conversion, genuine rebirth, genuine eternal life being given to us. Now, how do we put all this together? Well, I tell you the way that I do, and you can decide if you're going to do it a different way or not. But the way I do is this: that whenever a person really is born again, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell inside, incorporates that person as part of the body of Christ, a living stone in the temple of the Holy Spirit, which is the church corporate. He causes the person to pass from spiritual death to spiritual life. That's what I think happens at conversion. That is a work of the Spirit and the Spirit then dwells in that person.

Whether that person is filled with the Spirit or not is a matter of degree. We know that because in Ephesians 1, Paul said that the Christians he's writing to had already received the Holy Spirit at their conversion. But in chapter 5, he tells those same people to be being filled with the Holy Spirit, which means just because you have the Spirit doesn't mean you're filled with the Spirit. Just because you got filled with the Spirit on one occasion doesn't mean you still are today. Paul said you need to be being filled. That's really what most people would say the verb tense there in Ephesians 5:18 refers to.

So being filled with the Spirit is a matter of degree, and I suppose the goal is to always be as filled with the Spirit as we can be. Now, you talked about the baptism of the Spirit. As near as I can tell, and I do this simply by juxtaposing the various scriptures that use the language, the only time Jesus spoke of being baptized in the Holy Spirit is in Acts 1:5. Now, John the Baptist had used that term previous to that, but we're not following John's teaching so much, we're more concerned about Jesus's teaching.

Jesus said in Acts 1:5, "John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." Now, the prediction is concerning the same thing that he mentioned three verses later, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you." So the baptism of the Spirit is an empowering of the Spirit coming upon a person. And then, of course, the fulfillment of those promises found in Acts chapter 2 and verse 4 says they were all filled with the Spirit. So being filled with the Spirit is apparently identified with the Spirit coming upon you, not necessarily coming in you because frankly, I believe the Holy Spirit comes in every person at conversion.

But if you say, "Well, how do you know the Holy Spirit's on them or not on them? How do you know if they've been baptized in the Spirit?" Well, I guess you'd have to just ask: did they receive power? You know, I mean, Jesus said you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you. So is a person living a life that exhibits the power of the Holy Spirit in their resistance to the world and the flesh and the devil? Are they walking with Christ in the power that God gives? Are they obedient to him? Now, I don't mean perfectly so, I just mean is this their trajectory? Is their life changed in ways that are characterized by obedience and love and confidence in Christ? If so, then there's a good chance that that person is filled with the Spirit.

Now, what if someone says, "Well, I seem to be filled with the Spirit, it seems to me, but I've never had anyone lay hands on me." Well, neither did the house of Cornelius have anyone lay hands on them. Neither did the 120 in the upper room on the day of Pentecost, no one laid hands on them either. It is normative in the book of Acts it would appear for this to happen with the laying on of hands, and no doubt it was the habit of the ministers to lay hands on the baptized converts at the time of the impartation of the baptism of the Holy Spirit or the fullness of the Spirit. But to say that if this rite has been neglected that there's no way they could be filled with the Spirit would certainly be to go beyond what scripture says.

I believe there's many people who are filled with the Holy Spirit who've never had hands laid upon them. I also believe that since the early church practiced the laying on of hands, it would be well for churches to practice that too. When someone is converted and baptized, to have hands laid upon them to be filled with the Spirit, that would be simply the church continuing to do what the apostles did and I think that's a correct thing to do. But God is not bound or restricted by what practices we perform. He can fill someone with the Holy Spirit without anyone else around if he wants to. So that's my synthesis of the data. If you want more of an organized teaching on the subject, I have lectures on that at the website thenarrowpath.com under the tab that says Topical Lectures. There's a series there called Charisma and Character and I talk about the baptism of the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit, all that stuff there in much more detail.

Joe: Okay, cool. That helped a lot. Thank you very much, Steve.

Steve Gregg: Okay, Joe. Thanks for your call. Good talking to you. Bob in Prescott Valley, Arizona. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Bob: Hi, Steve. I just finished reading your book on Hell and wanted to commend you for the vast amount of research that went into writing that book and let you know that your effort is very much appreciated.

Steve Gregg: Thank you.

Bob: Yeah. I've also done some other research on the subject and been thinking that there may be another way to look at hell that seems to have some support from the likes of CS Lewis and NT Wright. So I wanted to get your opinion on this. Scripture identifies two present realities: life in God's kingdom and life outside of it. So the question is, could what Jesus calls Gehenna be understood primarily as the condition of existing outside of God's kingdom? And as such, it would be a condition that has already begun, and many of the biblical metaphors associated with hell such as darkness, anguish, separation, weeping and gnashing of teeth could describe what life apart from God's kingdom is like even now. Do you think that has any biblical merit and if not, what passages could you think that contradict it?

Steve Gregg: Well, I don't know that that's a different view of hell unless you're saying that it only pertains to this life. I mean, I think that most Christians would agree that darkness and torment and that kind of thing, even refining fire are parts of the experience of people in this world. And unbelievers, of course, are in a special kind of darkness that believers come out of when we come out of the darkness into the light. Gnashing of teeth and so forth, all those things certainly have their counterparts in this life.

The question of what hell is like is specifically the question of what happens in the Lake of Fire. And if we would say, "Well, in the Lake of Fire, this just continues, only maybe worse." Okay, well then that's fine. That in itself would not so much be an alternative to the other three views, so much as something that could be wedded with the other three views. If the other three views all have in common the idea that hell is a place where there is refining fire, or just let's just say fire, and that fire either destroys or refines or does nothing but torment. Those are the three different views. We could easily say, "Yeah, and that is a continuation of the spiritual darkness and torment and so forth that comes with being alienated from God in this life, it's just that it continues in another realm."

So in other words, what you're suggesting, as I understand it, would be fine. It would be agreeable with almost any of the views of hell. I don't know that it represents a fourth alternative, but yeah, it's not a bad observation.

Bob: Yeah, I think that it does allow for all three of those views that you wrote about in your book to survive this concept. So I thought I just wanted to see what you thought about that idea.

Steve Gregg: All right, yeah. Well, I appreciate that and thanks for joining us.

Bob: All right. Thank you.

Steve Gregg: God bless. Dan in Dallas, Texas. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Dan: Hey, Steve. How are you doing? Love your show, first time to call. Like to get your perspective on something. I was raised in the Free Grace movement, which I think you're pretty familiar with. The idea being that all you need to do for salvation is to believe in Jesus for eternal life. There is no repentance, confession, etc. It's only believe in Jesus for eternal life. The argument is predicated on that the Gospel of John, of the four gospels, is the only one that was evangelistic in nature, and that since that never mentions repentance or anything else, therefore those things are not required for salvation. I would like the Steve Gregg take on that argument because I don't think I've ever heard you specifically address that argument about it being that John was evangelistic and therefore that's all you have to do for salvation.

Steve Gregg: Well, I think all the gospels are evangelistic, to tell you the truth. I mean, the Gospel of Mark begins with the words, "The Gospel of Jesus Christ." Now, the word "Evangel" means preaching the Gospel. "Evangel" is the word "Gospel" in Anglicized from the Greek, "euangelion" is Gospel. In English, that's "Evangel." An evangelist is one who preaches the Gospel. Evangelism is the preaching of the Gospel. When Mark is writing the Gospel for people to read, he's presenting the Gospel. That would be an evangelistic thing.

Luke, who's writing to an individual, seems to be possibly evangelizing him too. It seems like Theophilus, the recipient of the book of Luke, had heard things about the Gospel. It's not clear whether he was certain and persuaded of them or not. The reason I ask that is, let me just read you how Luke begins his Gospel. He says to his reader, "Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which are most surely believed among us, that is us Christians, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all the things from the first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed." Now Theophilus has been instructed in the life of Christ apparently, he must know something about it. But Luke is writing so that he will know the certainty of it, which may mean that the man was uncommitted. He'd received information about the Gospel, but may not have been fully persuaded of it. In which case, Luke would be doing something we could call evangelistic or maybe apologetic work.

Matthew, of course, doesn't say why he wrote, but the assumption seems to be that he wrote to Jews. I mean, the early church fathers said Matthew wrote to Jews, which would suggest he's writing to convert Jews. And he spends a lot of his ink quoting Old Testament passages as being fulfilled in what Jesus did, which would be a thing you would do if you're trying to prove to the Jews that Jesus is the Messiah, that is if you're trying to evangelize them. All four of the gospels have come down to us called gospels. Now, it's true they don't all refer to themselves by the term gospels. They don't label themselves that way, although Mark does. Mark 1:1 says, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God," then he goes to the story.

But all of them are telling the same story, pretty much. I mean, John obviously has some more details about things that others don't have and vice versa. But they're all giving the story of Jesus, which Mark refers to as the Gospel. So the good news of Jesus is the story of Jesus, what he did, that he came, that he lived, he died, he taught certain things, he rose and ascended on high. So this is the Gospel. I would say all the gospels therefore are evangelistic in so far as a reader is expected to hear the Gospel from them.

Now, John is filling in gaps. I mean, almost all scholars agree that John was the last gospel to be written. There's no reason to believe that it, any more than the other gospels, was written to evangelize non-Christians. We do know at the end of John's gospel he says, "These things are written so that you may believe on Jesus and have life." But then, you know, Luke says, "I'm writing this so that you'll know the certainty of the things that Christians are teaching."

I think that all the gospels, I don't think any of them are specifically written to people who know nothing about the Gospel or any of them lack the interest in persuasion of people that the story is true. So I think it'd be very artificial to say John's gospel is evangelistic and the others are not. That could not be proven from any of the evidence from within any of the gospels.

But more than that, if you said, "Well, John's the evangelistic one, so the things that Matthew, Mark, and Luke recorded on the subject of salvation and the kingdom of God and eternal life, those don't matter because they weren't written to evangelize people." That's a really silly thing to say, I think.

The thing is, you said that the hyper-grace movement or the Free Grace movement teaches that you just have to believe in Jesus for eternal life to be saved. Where in the Bible does it say to believe in Jesus for eternal life? The Bible does say that those who believe in Christ will have eternal life. In fact, in the other gospels, we do see Jesus evangelizing the rich young ruler, I think all three of the synoptics have it, and he says, "What thing must I do to have eternal life?" Okay, so and Jesus tells him what to do. And it's not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, he says keep the law. And the guy says, "Okay, I haven't done that." I have done that, but he said Jesus, "Well, you haven't given your goods to the poor, do that and you'll have life, you'll be fine."

Now, here's the thing. If we say John wrote to evangelize people but Matthew, Mark, and Luke didn't, and yet Jesus is recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke evangelizing a guy who asked what I must do to have eternal life. Anyone who says, "Well, the whole gospel, the whole message is believe in Jesus for eternal life." Well, that's just making the Gospel of John the only Gospel, you know, the only discussion of the subject. It wouldn't agree with Paul's preaching, it wouldn't agree with Matthew, Mark, or Luke. It's just like saying John's the only writer who got it right.

But you see, even John, I believe, says that you're not a Christian if you're not obedient. In 1 John chapter 2, he said, "Whoever says I know God, I know Christ, and does not keep his commandments is a liar." In other words, if a person isn't keeping Christ's commandments, he's not a Christian. Now, I'm not saying that 1 John is written to be evangelistic, but he certainly gives John's ideas about this stuff. John believes you have to obey Christ. That's what all the gospels teach.

I mean, Jesus said in John, the Gospel of John, the evangelistic one that your group said is the evangelistic one, in John 8:31, Jesus said, "If you continue in my words, then you're my disciples indeed and you'll know the truth and the truth will make you free." Okay, so following Jesus's words, continuing to follow Jesus's words, that's what being a disciple is. That's also what Matthew says about it. Matthew has Jesus saying go and make disciples and teach them to observe everything I've commanded you.

Okay, so to say that John's gospel has a different story of salvation than the others is simply to selectively read verses that you want to read out of context from John. Now, the Bible does say throughout the Bible, throughout the New Testament, that we need to believe in Jesus. But nowhere does it say we need to believe in him for eternal life. That is to say, our faith is specifically that if I believe in him, I'm going to have eternal life. Now, I will, I'm not saying we won't. I'm just saying that's not what the Bible tells us to believe. We're supposed to believe that he's the king, that he's the Lord, that he's the one that we have to obey. That's what a king and a Lord means. Even Paul says, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved." There's no salvation without the Lordship of Christ. There's no kingdom of God entrance without the kingship of Christ. And this is the topic of the whole New Testament, including John.

So it's interesting too that John does use the word "eternal life" more frequently than the other gospels do. But the other gospels use the term "kingdom of God" more frequently than John does. But they're all the same because when the rich young ruler said, "What must I do to have eternal life?" Jesus said, "Well, blah, blah, blah," and the man didn't want to do it. And Jesus said, "Well, how hardly shall a rich man enter the kingdom of God." The man was asking about eternal life and he rejected it, and Jesus commented on how difficult it is for a man like that to enter the kingdom of God. Obviously, entering the kingdom of God and having eternal life are the same thing. And the disciples then said, "Well, then who can be saved?"

In other words, the man used the term "have eternal life." Speaking of the same phenomenon, Jesus talked about entering the kingdom of God. Speaking of the same phenomenon, the disciples spoke of being saved. Now, if John uses the term "eternal life" more often than the others do, although he also includes "kingdom of God," I mean, Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Unless you're born from above, you will not inherit the, you will not enter the kingdom of God." That's in John's gospel. And I dare say he could have said you will not have eternal life because the message of the Bible is that God gives us eternal life in our involvement in his kingdom. We have to pass from death unto life by passing from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of Christ. That's what Paul said has happened to Christians in Colossians 1:13, that God has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of his love. So salvation is coming out of darkness into the kingdom. That's also coming out of death to life.

So these terms are interchangeable. No, I totally would disagree with the assumption of the Free Grace people that John's gospel alone tells us how to be saved. No, that's the whole New Testament talks about that. I need to take a break, but we have another half hour coming up. Don't go away. This is The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Check it out, there's tons of stuff, it's all free at thenarrowpath.com. I'll be back in 30 seconds. Don't go away.

Steve Gregg: Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. Our lines are full right now so I won't give out the phone number. You'd just get a busy signal. But if the lines open up, I'll be giving out that number again. Otherwise, just feel free to listen to the questions others who are waiting will be asking. And that includes Michael in San Diego, California. Hi, Michael. Welcome to The Narrow Path.

Michael: Hello. I was reading Paul's letter to the Romans in the last chapter, chapter 16, verse 22. It says, "I, Tertius, who wrote this letter, also greet you in Christ." I, so Paul didn't write his own letter? Is he dictating it?

Steve Gregg: Right. Yeah, I mean, that's generally how things were done. The average, we write our own letters, it's very easy. We all have keyboards, we all have email, and before that we all had access to tablets of paper and pens and ink and envelopes and stamps. Those are pretty big luxuries from modern times. They didn't have affordable paper, they didn't have affordable ink, they didn't have of course the kind of delivery systems we have for mail.

Paper was either made in Egypt out of papyrus or in many cases probably more often on parchment, which is goat skin. I mean, that's pretty expensive stuff. And then pens had to be made from feathers and ink had to be made from squishing bugs and things like that and berries and such. It was expensive and most people just didn't, you couldn't just run down to Office Depot and pick up a few pens and a tab of paper. There were professional people who were called amanuenses. We would just call them secretaries. And if you wanted to write a letter, the likelihood is not very great that you would have personally access to the materials. You might if you did a lot of this kind of thing, but if you're in jail like Paul was a lot of the time and so forth, it's easier just to grab an amanuensis and have them do it for you.

Now, in all likelihood, the amanuenses who wrote for Paul's letters probably were not professionals that he paid to write for them, although they might have that might have been their jobs. Probably they are Christian brothers who voluntarily did it for him as a ministry. But yeah, Peter, when he wrote 1 Peter, at the end of 1 Peter, he says that he wrote it by Silvanus, who he said who he said, "I believe a faithful brother." Almost all scholars agree that means Silvanus was his amanuensis. And then when 2 Peter was written, we don't know who wrote it, but the style was very different than 1 Peter. But there's a good chance he had a different amanuensis because the amanuensis would not just take down dictation. They would generally speaking listen to what is said and then write it down. And generally, often the literary value or style of the writing was more that of the amanuensis himself. And of course, the dictator of the letter, someone like Paul or Peter, would read the letter for to give their approval before it'd be sent. So it was genuinely their letter. They dictated and then they'd have final approval they'd give, but it was written down and sometimes in some measure the sentences were formed and composed by the amanuensis himself.

So when Tertius, who's Paul is sending greetings to a whole bunch of people in Rome in Romans chapter 16, and it seems like Paul just stops to take a breath or take a drink of water or something and the amanuensis just sticks this in, "I, Tertius, who wrote this epistle, also send also greet you in the Lord." And that's just an interruption in Paul's dictation where apparently Tertius was a Christian brother who probably was voluntarily serving as the amanuensis for the letter and he sticks his greetings in there too. It's kind of unexpected, kind of interesting.

Michael: That's very interesting. And last name, could you spell that "amanzuensis" thing please?

Steve Gregg: Yes, it's A-M-A-N-U-E-N-S-I-S. So it's "amanuensis." Exactly how it sounds.

Michael: Thanks, and before final, so Luke, I understand your previous caller, Luke wrote it himself? He was not using an amanuensis?

Steve Gregg: Well, I don't know that he was or was not. Luke's writings are among the best Greek style and the most smooth and high quality Greek in the entire New Testament. Luke's writings and Hebrews were among the best. Paul's was a little choppy. Now, Luke was a physician, he was a Greek man, probably Greek was his native tongue whereas Paul probably had Aramaic as a native tongue but also knew Greek. But you know, it's possible that the high quality of Greek in Luke's writings represent his own skill as a writer. We don't know that he used an amanuensis although there's a possibility that he did. But you see, an amanuensis is not a ghostwriter. He's not somebody who says, "Here, I'm going to write a letter and we're going to put your name on it, Luke or Paul." No, he's somebody who is taking dictation, but you know, can smooth out the sentences. Yes.

Michael: Okay, like a personal secretary. Yes. Thank you very much, that's fascinating. Thank you so much.

Steve Gregg: Okay, Michael. Thanks for your call. Good talking to you. We're going to talk next to Stephen in San Diego, also in San Diego, two in a row from San Diego. Hi, Stephen.

Stephen: Hello. I have heard that you cannot lose your salvation, but what happens if someone converts to another religion or later in life completely rejects Jesus?

Steve Gregg: Well, I also learned that you cannot lose your salvation in the church that I grew up in. And if you asked them that very question you asked, they would have said one of two things. There's two different possibilities. They would argue what one option would be: that the fact that you left the faith means you never really converted. In other words, you may have thought you were really a Christian, but the fact that you fell away and went to another religion proves that you never really were a real Christian in the first place, you only thought you were.

The other view would be: if you truly became a Christian, you still might drift off into error, even into atheism, maybe even into Satanism. But once you're saved, it's like God's got a hook in you and you can't get away from him. It's like a fish on a hook. And you can rebel all you want, you're still stuck, you're going to heaven whether you want to or not. And that would be the other view. Now, I don't hold either of those two views today because I don't see the Bible teaching that once you have gained your salvation you cannot lose it. In fact, I find continual warnings, almost every New Testament writer, I think every New Testament writer, contains in his writings warnings about the danger of a believer falling away. And the warning is there because it talks about how they fall away to the wrath of God.

The book of Hebrews, for example, has quite a few of these kinds of warnings. Jesus made warnings like this. Paul did certainly. Paul even said about himself, he said, "I keep my body under, I buffet my flesh because after I have preached to others, I don't want to become reprobate." He said that's at the very end of 1 Corinthians 9. But I mean, there's lots of places like that. 2 Peter chapter 2 says about certain people it were better for them if they never had known the way of righteousness than to know it and fall away. He said those who have escaped the world's entanglements by the knowledge of our Lord Savior Jesus Christ and become entangled again therein, it's worse for them than before they were saved. So it doesn't sound like they're saved anymore, but they are people he describes as who have escaped the world through knowing Jesus and knowing the way of righteousness.

So it doesn't matter whether you read Jesus, Paul, Peter, James. James talks about it. "Brethren," meaning Christian brethren, "if any of you are overtaken in a fault and one converts him," or he says, "if any of you errs from the truth and one converts him, let him know that he that converts the sinner from the error of his way shall save his soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins." So I mean, it doesn't matter whether we're talking about Peter or John or James or Paul or Jesus, they all say the same thing. So whoever says that you can't lose your salvation, there's no Bible verse that says that. Now, there are Bible verses that are quoted to say that as if they say that, but they don't. I mean, I know those verses, I was raised believing they taught that too until I studied them, until I studied what the Bible says and realized, wait a minute, these verses that I'm hanging my hope of unconditional security upon, they don't offer unconditional security.

The security of the believer is just that: of the believer. Now, if I was a believer when I was five years old, and I was by the way, then I had security then. If I'm a believer now at age 73, I still have security, that's true. If I become an unbeliever next year, I don't have security because the security is not for the unbeliever but for the believer. The person who is the believer, by definition, is one who is believing, not the one who used to believe. If you used to believe but you don't now, you're not a believer. So that's fairly simple. So no, I mean, people who say, well, once saved always saved, if they mean that even a former believer is still saved though they're not a believer now, then they've got a different religion than the one taught in the Bible. Appreciate your call, brother.

By the way, we've got a few calls still waiting, but we also have some lines open if you want to try to get in. We might be able to get some more calls in. The number is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. All right, let's talk to Ron in Indianapolis, Indiana. Hi, Ron. Good to hear from you. All you need to turn your radio down. I don't need to hear me giving the phone number again. I'm on the radio. All right, let's talk to Ron. Hey Ron, why are you listening to your radio? Yeah, we don't want your radio. I can't hear you because I'm listening to your radio and you. No, I can't hear two conversations at once. You got to turn your radio off. Now I could hear you if you're talking.

Ron: I didn't realize I was doing that, Steve. Can you hear me?

Steve Gregg: Yeah, go ahead.

Ron: Okay. Forget about the excuse I made for the yesterday, I apologize. Steve, a moment ago I thought I heard you say that John's not being evangelistic. And I understand that, but my question is this: does not John 3:16 say, "For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life"?

Steve Gregg: Yes, but I didn't say John's not being evangelistic. The caller said that he used to belong to a movement which said that only John's Gospel is evangelistic. They didn't believe the other Gospels were evangelistic. And I said no, that's not true, all the Gospels are evangelistic. I didn't say John isn't. He's one of the Gospels too. Right?

Ron: Yes, but I'm not saying that John was the only. I'm asking, does John 3:16 not mean what it says?

Steve Gregg: It means exactly what it says, as does the rest of the Bible. Whosoever believes in Jesus will not perish but have everlasting life. Okay, what is someone who believes in Jesus? It's a believer. Now, if you believe in Jesus, then that applies to you. If you don't believe in Jesus, it doesn't. It's rather quite simple.

The person who believes, that's in the present tense. The person who believes in the way that the Bible's talking about believing Jesus. And the reason I say in the way that the Bible's talking about because there's different ways of believing. The devils believe also but they're not saved. So I mean, a person can believe certain things about Jesus and not be saved. But if a person believes savingly in Christ, that is to say their total confidence is in him, they're faithful to him, they're devoted to his Lordship and kingship, which is by the way what you have to believe that he's king and Lord. Well then, yeah, if you believe on him, you've got eternal life. Now, what if you stop believing in him? Well, you're not a believer anymore. You don't have eternal life.

The eternal life is in him. It says in 1 John 5:11-12, it says that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. It's not separate from his Son, it's in his Son. And he says, "He that has the Son has life, meaning eternal life. He who does not have the Son does not have eternal life." So in Christ we have eternal life. If we abide in him or remain in him, we are totally secure that we'll always have eternal life, and there's no reason why we shouldn't abide in him. There's certainly the vast majority of true Christians do, and there's no reason, no excuse for not. But if a person doesn't remain in him, that is if you're not in Christ, even if you used to be, you're not in the vine. You're not attached to the vine. The branches that are not attached to the vine don't receive the life. So the life is in Christ. When we're in him, we have that life. It's his life. It's not ours, it's his. So we have it in him. If we aren't in him anymore, well, he still has it, and all the branches that are still in the vine still have it too. We just don't because it's still there, we're just not tapped into it, we're just not partaking.

So the Bible indicates that those who are believing in Christ are drawing upon his life because our faith incorporates us into him. But we are very much warned not to be those who used to be in him. Jesus said about the vine and the branches, he said in John 15:6, "If any branch does not remain in me, he's cast forth as a branch and withered, and they gather them and burn them." So a branch that doesn't stay in Christ isn't going to have that life anymore. Christ still has it, the vine still has it, all the branches in the vine still have it. It's still there, it's just not in the branch that no longer is in the vine. So that's what John 3:16 tells us, as well as of course many other places in scripture.

All right, let's talk to Brad in Plaistow, New Hampshire. Hi, Brad. Welcome to the Narrow Path.

Brad: Yes, hi, Steve. Thank you so much for taking my call. I love your ministry. I'm going to just pose my question quickly and then I'll take the answer off the air if that's okay with you. I was speaking to a pastor friend yesterday and he mentioned a trend that he's receiving emails almost on a daily basis of these companies using AI to create sermons. That's the first time I've ever heard of that and I said, "Oh, that sounds awful." I was wondering if you could just talk about your feelings and your thoughts about this.

Steve Gregg: Okay, yeah. Thanks for your call. You know, years ago when I was running a Bible school, this back in the 90s, I used to get advertisements in the mail from companies that wrote sermons for pastors. It's a subscription service. They'd say, "You know, pay this much per month and we'll send you each month four Sunday morning sermons and four midweek Bible studies and stuff." You don't have to do any work at all, we'll just do it all and you can just count on us. Well, I thought that stunk. I tossed it of course. I thought that's the most absurd thing in the world.

Because I believe, now if AI is doing it, to my mind it's even worse. At least if somebody else is writing sermons, they might be a Christian writing them. AI isn't a Christian because Christians are humans, not robots. And so, I mean, to have sermons that are not written by Christians doesn't make any sense to me. Now, someone says, "Oh, but AI draws from the writings of Christians, of course, obviously." Well, that's true, and so can any person who's a Christian or not a Christian if they happen to have a good organizational mind. They can read lots of books by Christians, put quotes in there, make outlines, come up with a well-crafted sermon. But it's just information. It's not anointed unless God anoints it.

Now, of course, a person, I don't know what God will choose to anoint and what he will not. But if God doesn't anoint the sermon, I don't care how well-crafted it is. It could be written by the most genius Christian person there is, the most eloquent and articulate and well-schooled Christian who can make the very best sermons technically imaginable. If the Holy Spirit isn't in it, it's flesh. It's just flesh, it's not spirit. And whatever's born of the flesh is still flesh. Whatever's born of the spirit is spirit.

I believe that it's not only important for sermons and Bible studies and so forth to be created and delivered by Christians, I believe it's important for them to be Christians who are called by God to do that and gifted by God to do that and anointed by God to do that. Now, I believe that AI could probably write a lot better Bible study than I could write. And I'm sure it could write better sermons than I can. I mean, when I've asked AI to do research on stuff, it's really good at finding information, and it's very good at organizing information, and it can do it a lot faster than I can.

But I would never let it do my study for me. I mean, it's if there's one particular question I have that I don't know where to get the answer, I'll ask AI. But you know, that'd just be part of my research like I would get from reading some books or whatever. Once you've read and gotten the information, what you actually say to the congregation, what you actually say to the people of God has got to be what the Holy Spirit leads you to say and do. Now, you might he might lead you in the preparation. I'm not saying you have to be extemporaneous in the pulpit. Some people do well that way, some people don't. If a person isn't good at being extemporaneous, they can be led by the Holy Spirit in their preparation. But AI in my opinion is not going to be led by the Holy Spirit in its preparation. It's going to do a technically amazing job of putting together information, which anyone who hears us say, "Wow, that was well-crafted. That was well-researched. That was a really informative thing."

But the point of speaking from the pulpit to the people of God or as far as I'm concerned from the radio or anywhere else is to speak as the oracles of God. Peter said there's different kinds of gifts including speaking gifts. This is in 1 Peter chapter 4. He said if those who have speaking gifts speak, they should speak as the oracles of God. That means like the inspired prophets. Now, not everyone's a prophet, but it should be our desire that the Holy Spirit will speak through us and that we will speak what the Holy Spirit guides us to say. And this can be, we could arrange what we're going to say before and ask God's Spirit to guide us in that. But AI is not asking the Holy Spirit to guide it. So no, I think that's a really bad idea. First of all, I would never let anyone else write my sermons even if they're better at it than I am. If they're better at it than I am, I might as well do something else with my life. Let them do it. If I don't have something to offer that God has given me to give the body of Christ, then why should I be waste my time? Let someone else who has that gift do it. But AI doesn't have that gift. AI is a robot. And so no, I think that's a really bad idea.

Hey, we're going to talk to Priscilla next from Vancouver, BC. Hi, Priscilla. How you doing?

Priscilla: Hi there, salute. Okay, discernment. What is discernment and the fine line between having discernment and not being prejudiced or stereotypical? Big salute, all praises to be God. I'll take my answer off air.

Steve Gregg: Okay, Priscilla. Thanks for your call. Discernment is the ability to recognize right from wrong. Prejudice, the very word means to pre-judge. "Judice" in the word prejudice is a form of the word judicious or judging. And so pre-judging means that you've reached a conclusion before you've investigated. You've judged the matter in advance, prior to investigation, prior to research.

So if you're prejudiced against let's just say against black people, or Jews, or Asians, or white people, if there's some group of people that you're prejudiced against, that means that you've already judged them before you have even learned anything about them, that is as individuals. You may have learned that some people of that race have ripped you off, or that many have, maybe all the people you know of that particular race have done have been a disappointment to you so that you've simply formed an opinion beforehand whenever you meet someone of that of that ethnicity or whatever, you've just decided, okay, they're bad. Well, that's prejudice because you haven't given them a chance, you haven't investigated, you haven't heard them out.

You know, in John chapter 7, when the Pharisees were plotting to kill Jesus, Nicodemus spoke out and said, "Does our law condemn a man before it hears what he has to say and what he does?" It was a rhetorical question. He's saying, of course we shouldn't do that. We shouldn't condemn somebody until we know what they're saying and doing. That is to say you don't make a judgment prior to investigation. Now, once you do investigate, you may find out that the person is a wonderful person or a very bad person because people of every demographic can be very bad people.

If someone makes a statement about people from Gen Z or Millennials or Baby Boomers, and you do hear of course statements about these kind of people, generalities many times. It's often the case that generalities are close to the truth in the sense that whole groups of people can be culturally shaped together in certain ways. But individuals still make their choices to be righteous or unrighteous, to be good or bad. And so even if it's true if baby boomers as a whole, and that's what I am, I'm a baby boomer, if some very negative things can be said about what the contribution of the baby boomers has been to American society, I can perhaps agree with the general statement. But that doesn't mean when I meet a baby boomer like myself that I'm going to think badly of that person until I discover whether they conform to the generality of the statement or they're an exception to it. Where a person who's prejudiced against let's say against black people, they judge black people or it could be any people, we could mention any demographic. But let's say a lot of people have been prejudiced in the past against black people and the white people have been in some times in our history. They're judging all black people without knowing individuals.

A prejudiced person doesn't give people a chance to prove themselves. Discernment is part of the judging process but not the condemning process. It's part of the information gathering process. If I'm sensing that this person is arrogant or dishonest or whatever because of my contact with them, that's not being prejudiced. That's picking up data. That's adding that to what I now know about that person and then I can of course be more in a position to make a judgment about that person, not based on what group they belong to, but based on what I've actually picked up from contact with them.

Hey, I'm out of time. Thank you for your call. You've been listening to The Narrow Path. My name is Steve Gregg. We are listener supported. You can write to us at The Narrow Path at the address at our website or just donate from the website which is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.