The Narrow Path 08/05/2026

Steve Gregg: Good afternoon, and welcome to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are live Monday through Friday for an hour each afternoon or evening, for some in the Eastern Time Zones, all across the nation. We’ve been doing the program for 29 years, so we have some old listeners and frequent callers and some new listeners because we added 10 new stations just in the last month. Now, we don’t usually add that many a month. We don’t have that kind of money. We just—a good opportunity came up and so we were able to add 10 more stations. We have nearly 100 stations were on now and we welcome you. If you’re unfamiliar with the program, it’s a one-hour, commercial-free, live phone-in program. Now, some stations aren’t carrying the live program because they have something else in that time slot, so there will be some people who are listening to a delayed, a tape-delayed program. But mostly our listeners are listening live and that would be from 2:00 to 3:00, that’s Pacific Time, in the afternoon. And you know, if you’re on the East Coast, it’s what, 5:00 to 6:00 and so forth. Anyway, if you’re listening during the live show, you can call in. That’s the idea. And you can ask questions. We can talk about them on the air about the Bible or the Christian faith. Sometimes you may hear an answer from this host that doesn’t agree with what you think the right answer is and you can call in and bring correction. I don’t say this all the time, but I’ve said it before. I used to be frustrated listening to Christian radio when I heard somebody say something that didn’t sound right. I couldn’t call in. They weren’t live programs. They were recorded programs. And I couldn’t, you know, I couldn’t register my disagreement. And in many cases, you know, you could write to their program and you never know if someone read the letter or not. But even if they did, the audience that heard the thing that needed correcting didn’t get to hear your letter. That is to say, you can talk to the people who run the program, but they’re not going to tell the audience that you corrected them. You can correct this program in real time. That’s the great thing about live radio. If you think I’ve said something mistaken or wrong and you know a better answer biblically, we welcome you. We’d love to have you call in and bring correction. And that’s a great privilege when you have a live call-in program. I mean, a great privilege to the audience. So, if you’d like to call, the number is 844-484-5737. That number again is 844-484-5737. There’s one announcement I need to make before I start taking the calls that are waiting on our switchboard, and that is that tonight—many of you probably never notice whether this is the case or not, but it’s the first Wednesday of the month. And on the first Wednesday of every month, we have a Zoom meeting. Only once a month, so this is your opportunity. If you want to be on it tonight, you can join us. Basically, it’s conducted just like this radio show is. You ask questions, we talk about them. It’s a Q&A. And if you’d like to do so, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. If you look under the tab that says announcements, it’s got all the places I’m speaking and such. And it has tonight, the log-in information to join us on Zoom, which we’d love to have you do. So, if you want to join the Zoom meeting tonight, it’s 7:00 Pacific Time. Go to thenarrowpath.com, click the tab that says announcements, look down at today’s date, which is Wednesday, August 5th, and it’ll give you the log-in information. You can join us on Zoom tonight and we’d love to have you there. All right, let’s go to the phones now. Our lines are full. Our first caller today is Mark from Eagan, Minnesota. Hi Mark, welcome.
Guest (Male): Hello, thank you. I had a question on the book Jesus Calling by Sarah Young. I’m wondering if you know about the book and what your impressions are about it.
Steve Gregg: Well, I know about the book in that I’ve seen it, people talk about it. It exists. As I understand it, it’s written by a woman who is writing as if Jesus is speaking almost like prophetically through her. So, it’s written like it’s Jesus talking. What do I think of it? Well, I’ll tell you this. There’s a certain kind of Christian that will find it edifying. There’s another kind of Christian like myself who would find it somewhat—what shall I say, bold for an author to write words that they make up from their own head and say, "this is Jesus talking." To me, it’s also bad when a person in a church stands up and says, "thus says the Lord," and gives a prophecy that’s not from the Lord. Whenever you say you’re speaking as God, there’s a certain weight attached to your words, a certain responsibility on your part to make sure you don’t misrepresent God. Now, the Bible says that teachers will have a stricter judgment than ordinary people. I’m a teacher. That’s what I do. And I realize there’s a stricter judgment on me because if I say something is true, there’s always the possibility I’m not right and I may mislead somebody. Every teacher has the danger of doing that. However, as a teacher, I’m not claiming to be speaking as Jesus. I’m not claiming that I’m Jesus. I’m claiming to be me, a fallible human being like all other Christians who at the very best can give the answers that I believe based on my integrity and my study and whatever expertise I’ve obtained. I can give answers that I truly believe are true. But everyone listening to me knows that’s me talking. That’s not Jesus talking. And therefore, just like it says of the Bereans in Acts 17, people should be searching the scriptures. They should listen to teachers and they should search the scriptures daily to see if this is true. Now, of course, they should do the same thing if they’re reading Jesus Calling, but Jesus Calling has a different layer of authority that is at least claimed for it. It’s claimed that Jesus is speaking, not some guy like me who’s just doing his best to understand what the Bible says, but Jesus himself. And if Jesus is said to be speaking, then it’s like a prophet. And a friend of mine years ago said, "You know, if anyone claims to be a prophet, they are. They’re either a false prophet or a true prophet." But they’re a prophet of some kind. The Old Testament refers to false prophets without calling them false prophets, just calls them prophets. But it makes it very clear when they’re not speaking from God and they are indeed what we’d call false prophets. The New Testament uses the word "false prophet" to speak of such people. But the Old Testament just calls them prophets. A prophet said this. Now, why do they say that? They call him a prophet because that’s a person who speaks as if they are speaking for God, as God, is a prophet. In many cases, they’re not a true prophet and they’re a false prophet. Sometimes they’re making it up, sometimes they’re speaking from an evil spirit. There’s different ways one can assess their speech. But if they’re claiming to be speaking for God, they are claiming prophetic utterance. And if they are not in fact speaking for God, they are falsely speaking prophetically. Go ahead.
Guest (Male): Can I defend it for a second?
Steve Gregg: Sure.
Guest (Male): So, I got this book from a friend years ago, probably 10 years ago, and I’ve read it and I never thought anything about it. Because if you haven’t seen the book, what she does day-by-day, she’s talking like from Jesus’ perspective, but then at the very end she’s got like three or four Bible verses for you to look up. So, it’s almost like she’s communicating what the Bible’s going to say. And here’s a reminder of what a preacher would say. And then, "Here’s this for today’s verse, take time to rest by the wayside for I am not in a hurry. When you rush, you forget who you are and whose you are. Remember that you are royalty in my kingdom." Now you look up the three verses, Psalm 37:7, 1 Peter 2:9, I mean, she lists them there. It’s almost like it’s explaining what she’s saying or she’s explaining what the Bible says.
Steve Gregg: I understand now. If I give somebody an answer and I quote some Bible verses, what I’m doing by quoting the verses is saying, "These are the verses that I’m basing my thoughts on. This is my understanding of these verses." I’m not saying that because I can quote Bible verses you must trust everything I say. And that’s the nature of being a teacher. A teacher doesn’t expect people to trust everything they say. If someone has to trust everything I say, I might as well claim to be a prophet. Now, when somebody speaks as if they are Jesus—now, let’s see, an older, discerning Christian if they read it, they might say, "Well, that’s creative, that’s edifying, that’s encouraging, but it certainly isn’t Jesus speaking, it’s this woman who’s writing it." But a person who’s not a discerning Christian reads it and they say, "Oh, this is how Jesus talks. This is what Jesus would say to me today." And it’s just not—I mean, if she uses Bible verses, why not just read the Bible verses? Why have somebody fake that they are Jesus and give their impression of it? The whole idea that "you are royalty" and so forth is a very popular view in some denominations. It’s not stated in the Bible except—I mean, our Father is God and so we will reign with him. So, I mean, I guess that’s—but the Bible doesn’t tell us to be looking at ourselves like we’re kings, and some churches do. But obviously what is being there represented as the words of Jesus are the ideas of a Christian woman. I presume she’s Christian. I’m sure she believes she is anyway. And that her views, like the views of any Christian, are fallible. I mean, she’ll reflect the views that she reads into those passages. If I looked at the same passages, I might not read the same views into them. But whether I do or not, she’s not Jesus. And so you asked my opinion, that’s my opinion. And I’m the world’s greatest authority on my own opinion.
Guest (Male): Sounds good. Thank you.
Steve Gregg: Okay Mark, thanks for your call. All right, our next caller is George in Detroit, Michigan. Hi George, welcome.
Guest (Male): Hi Steve, can you hear me?
Steve Gregg: Uh-huh.
Guest (Male): Okay, great. Steve, from time to time I listen to the show and I’m not really calling to debate today. I just want to make an interesting inquiry because there’s often times there’s a lot of study in the New Testament, but there’s Old Testament scripture—and I’m going to give one in particular, I think it’s Isaiah 34:5—where Jehovah is saying that—talking about his sword that he’s going to bathe these people of Idumea. And my question to you is that are the people of Idumea a people of Roman culture? And why is it that oftentimes when you hear from the pulpit subjects like that are ignored? It’s just interesting hearing your opinion. Only because people say that they’re going to become a Christian, get saved, and then that’s it, they just go to heaven. But the prophecy is still true. So I’m going to stop there and give you a chance to reflect on it.
Steve Gregg: Okay, well, I’m trying to understand what it is you think should be said more about this. It’s true. Did you say Idumea? The Idumeans were the Edomites. And this is a prophecy against Edom. Now, this prophecy was fulfilled in 583 BC and the Edomites were destroyed or their kingdom was destroyed by the Babylonians. They were never restored again and don’t exist today. The last known Edomite or Idumean was Herod the Great who died in the year 4 BC. So, we don’t have any of these people around today. This prophecy is about some people who lived in Isaiah’s day and the judgment that was coming upon them, which did come upon them. So this prophecy, like very many prophecies, predicted something would happen and then in later history, the very thing predicted did happen. So you seem to be concerned that churches aren’t talking about this very much. I don’t know very many congregations that have—
Guest (Male): Let me ask a question. Could you take it—could you take your phone off speakerphone? There’s so much noise coming through.
Steve Gregg: Yeah, the noise is louder than your voice.
Guest (Male): Okay, how about that? Is that better?
Steve Gregg: I think that’s better. Go ahead. So what were you going to say?
Guest (Male): So, when I look at it, I thought that Isaiah’s—not only was it a prophecy, but it’s a prophecy about a future day, not that it’s been fulfilled. Because God has not—it just doesn’t look like a people group doesn’t just die just like the Gentiles are still here, the Jewish people that were scattered across the four corners of the earth, they’re still here.
Steve Gregg: Right, but that doesn’t have anything to do with this prophecy. This prophecy is talking about the nation of Edom. The nation of Edom lived from the days of Jacob until the time of the Babylonian exile. And Isaiah’s writing 100 years before that time. He’s writing 100 years before the exile, but he’s predicting that the Edomites will suffer this judgment, which they did, and basically that was the end of them. So if we say, "Well, I think it’ll be fulfilled in the future," I’d have to say, "Well, okay, if there’s no Edomites alive today, where are the future Edomites going to come from that this is going to happen to?" And again, it’s not just talking about a people group, it’s talking about a nation. So Edom is not a nation today. If we say, "Well, maybe some Edomite genetic descendants exist in the sense that maybe somebody’s got Edomite great-great-great-great-great-grandfather or something like that." Well, maybe that could be true, but that’s not the same thing as the nation of Edom existing. And we know it’s the nation of Edom because it talks about their main cities. It talks about Bozrah. It talks about the other cities that were part of that. Bozrah is mentioned and there’s in the prophecy there’s other cities that come into the picture too. So I just don’t really—yeah, I don’t see any reason not to take this in the straightforward sense like so many prophecies of Isaiah. In Isaiah, he also talks about the fall of Babylon, which happened in 539 BC. He talks about the fall of the Philistines, who don’t even exist anymore. But they did disappear in that time. So I mean, there are ancient nations that were the enemies of Israel and God often gave prophetic information about how they would come to their end. And we look back in history and see how they did come to their end. And we recognize that as a fulfillment of prophecy. Just like when Micah said in Micah 5:2, "The Messiah would be born in Bethlehem." Well, we can look back in history and say, "Well, Jesus was born in Bethlehem." Mission accomplished, prophecy fulfilled. And we don’t have to assume that there’s going to be another Messiah born in Bethlehem some other time. It’s already been fulfilled once in Christ and we don’t look for multiple fulfillments out of thin air.
Guest (Male): Cool, appreciate it. Don’t necessarily agree with everything, but that’s okay. Hey man, thanks for taking my call.
Steve Gregg: Thanks George, good talking to you. Okay, let’s see. Rez from the Bay Area is our next caller. Hi Rez, good to hear from you again.
Guest (Male): Hey Steve, two kind of separate questions, but they tie in together. The first one had to do with when Jesus said in the New Testament, "Nobody has seen or heard from the Father until now." I can’t remember the rest, but "nobody’s seen or heard from the Father until now." But then it goes back to what you were talking about a couple days ago when you mentioned that Jesus defeated Satan at the cross. And when I hear that, it kind of sounds to me like before that period of time, there was this rivalry between Satan and Jesus, and they were trying to see who was going to have dominion over the earth. And Satan all of a sudden got dominion over the earth up until the time that Jesus came and died on the cross. But before that, he was just out inhabiting the world and deceiving people and convincing people of things. And nobody heard from God up until that time because they couldn’t because Satan wasn’t defeated at the cross. So that’s why I said the first question almost tied into the main point. I don’t understand what it really means when Jesus defeated Satan at the cross.
Steve Gregg: Okay, well, first of all, to say that nobody before Jesus died on the cross, that nobody ever heard from God, certainly is not what Jesus would mean to affirm. He affirmed many times in his preaching that Moses heard from God. Certainly all the Jews understood that Abraham had heard from God. And certainly that the prophets had spoken for God and heard from God. So that was all before the time of Jesus. So Jesus would never affirm that before he came along nobody had heard from God. He actually affirmed that what the Law and the Prophets said, which were written by Moses and the prophets and also the Psalms, he quotes all of them as something that God had spoken in the past. Sometimes he even just called it the words of God or the commands of God when he’s quoting these passages. So what Jesus would be saying, of course, is that among his opponents there before him criticizing him, none of them knew God. None of them had heard or seen God and therefore they were not in a position to critique what he had to say because he had come from God. That’s his point. Now, as far as what it means that Jesus defeated Satan, well, we have to understand the whole sweep of the metanarrative of biblical history that man was given the choice to be loyal to God or not. In order that that choice might exist as a real option, God allowed there to be a tempter, a tester to see if Adam and Eve would be loyal to God when given the opportunity to be disloyal. And of course, they chose to be disloyal and they became loyal to Satan. Now, the Bible seems to indicate that when Satan—this gave Satan an advantage over humanity. First of all, because our sinning—and that’s what becoming loyal to Satan involved, sinning—sinning brings us into bondage to powers that we were not subject to before sin. When you sin, you become a slave of sin and that’s the realm that Satan dominates. And of course, the whole thing that Satan wants to do is to keep you bound in sin and such. And people were. People continued to be. Now, there were people that heard from God during that time. In fact, a lot of people heard from God. Noah did, Enoch did, Abraham did, Isaac, Jacob, and others did. So it’s not as if Jesus is saying that nobody before he came ever heard from God. But hearing from God is a different thing than being set free from the bondage of sin. And that was not accomplished through the Law of Moses. That was not accomplished through the information given in the Psalms or the prophets. That rescue from the power of darkness required somebody who could actually defeat Satan himself. When Jesus cast demons out and his adversaries said he was doing it by the power of Beelzebub the prince of demons, Jesus said, "No, no, I’m doing it by the power of God. I actually—I’m plundering the strong man’s house." This is what he said in Matthew 12:29, that he was plundering Satan’s house. And he says, "You can’t do that unless you first bind the strong man." Now, he’s saying if a strong man has a house and you want to plunder it, you gotta incapacitate him. And Jesus was saying that by casting demons out he was demonstrating that he had in fact incapacitated Satan. Satan could not resist. Satan could not stop him. And the only reason Satan was able to engineer his crucifixion is because that was in the plan of God and Jesus allowed it to happen. Jesus surrendered himself to that fate. He didn’t have to. When Satan wanted to kill Jesus, Jesus himself said, "You know, if I wanted to, I could call 12 legions of angels and they’d deliver me. I don’t have to go through with this if I don’t want to." But he knew it was the Father’s will and therefore he submitted to it. And the devil had no idea what was going on. Why was Jesus all of a sudden—Jesus had so much power that he could cast out 2,000 demons out of a man with a single word. His power over Satan was seemingly limitless and then suddenly he presents himself defenseless and helpless and lets Satan drag him to the cross and crucify him. But see, Jesus wasn’t defenseless. Jesus actually said, "No one takes my life from me. No one can take it from me. I have the power to lay it down and I have the power to take it up again," which he said he was going to do and he did. So Jesus was never really at the mercy of the devil. He was always the one who had the upper hand. But when he died and rose again, what he did among other things—I mean, the Bible does say he conquered Satan at the cross. I mean, it says that in Hebrews 2:14 and in Colossians 2:15. These verses say that Jesus defeated or disarmed or destroyed the enemy at the cross. He had bound him first and then he destroyed him or disabled him. Now, what’s that mean? One thing it means—and we see this in Revelation 12—is that prior to Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, Satan had the ability to accuse people of their sins before God, which of course is a basis of alienation from God. While people are alienated from God, they remain completely under the power of Satan. And the Bible in Revelation 12 describes Satan as the accuser of the brethren. But when Jesus died and rose again and ascended into heaven, it says the dragon was cast out who had been accusing the brethren all the time and he’s cast out. He’s not allowed to do that anymore. God will not listen to accusations against God’s people because Jesus has expunged the record, as it were, of those who are his followers. So that’s a defeat of Satan. He can’t keep us under condemnation. He can’t keep us alienated from God and he can’t keep us from following God. And so that’s what it means that Jesus defeated him at the cross. I need to take a break here. I appreciate your call. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We are listener-supported. You can write to us at The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California 92593, or go to our website thenarrowpath.com. We have another half hour, so don’t go away. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. In a 16-lecture series entitled The Authority of Scripture, Steve Gregg not only thoroughly presents the case for the Bible’s authority but also explains specifically how this truth is to be applied to a believer’s daily walk and outlook. The Authority of Scripture, as well as hundreds of other stimulating lectures, can be downloaded in MP3 format without charge from our website thenarrowpath.com. Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for another half hour taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith you want to talk about, we’ll be glad to talk to you. You have to call this number: 844-484-5737. Right now I’m looking at just one line open on our switchboard, which you could occupy if you call right now: 844-484-5737. And I want to remind you that tonight at 7:00 PM Pacific Time, there’s a Zoom meeting which you are welcome to join. It’s a Q&A time like this and it’s only with, of course, more face-to-face type opportunity on Zoom. And so that’s tonight at 7:00 PM Pacific Time. If you want to know how to log into that, you’re welcome to do so. Go to thenarrowpath.com, go to the tab that says announcements, find today’s date and see the log-in information there and go ahead and log in. We’ll see you tonight. All right, let’s talk next to Matthew from Nevada City, California. Hi Matthew, welcome.
Guest (Male): Mr. Steve, I hope you can hear me all right. It’s a little strange sounding. I had a brilliant question for you, but I want to tack on to what you were talking about in reference to the book of Jesus Calling instead because I think that there’s actually a pretty real threat to believers between that and shows like The Chosen and many, many other Christian literatures out there where we find it much easier to read books like that and to watch shows like that where they’re almost with authority portraying Christ. And we take that almost as scripture and we put it and adopt it into our hearts and into our lives and we start to do that more than actual scripture, more than the actual Bible study, more than the actual teachings of the Word and being prompted and led by the Holy Spirit. And I’ve never been able to put my finger on why I couldn’t watch The Chosen until you gave your response to the earlier caller. And so I’m curious if you feel the same way where it’s almost like easier for believers to read things like that and to do that more than actual scripture. Does that make sense?
Steve Gregg: I hear you. Yeah, let me jump in here. And by the way, if you had a second question, I’ll give you a chance for that too after I respond to this part. I just put you on hold so I could get in and say something and then we’ll put you back on the air. Yeah, well, The Chosen and Jesus Calling and books like that, or TV shows like that, or whatever, or even any movies about Bible stories. I’ve always wondered what the appeal is. And I realize, of course, the appeal is that some people don’t want to read the Bible. Now, I want to say this. There are people who have read the Bible and they know their Bible very well and they may enjoy watching these just because it’s better than some secular entertainment and they’re quite aware of where the show is going off biblical script and so forth and they just kind of take it with a grain of salt. They realize that somebody has written a fictional set of episodes that are roughly about Jesus and his disciples. When I say roughly, they kind of follow a generic kind of a narrative that resembles that in the Bible. And some of the things in it are directly from the Bible, but probably what, 90% or more of it is fiction. And it’s fiction that is thought to be hopefully true to life, really like Jesus and the disciples. But again, I think, well, if somebody already has the gospels pretty much memorized and understands them and they really are kind of experts on Jesus and what the true story is, it won’t hurt them to see fictional depictions of it. But it might grieve them. I know that’s my case. When I watch—and this, whether I watch a movie about David or about Moses or about Samson or about Jesus or the book of Acts, anytime they deviate from the way it is in the Bible, it kind of grieves me to see it. I think, well, why do they think the way they changed it is better than the way it really was? And what is this going to do to people who don’t read the Bible and just see these movies and assume that these movies are somehow true to what the Bible says when in many cases they certainly are not? Now, again, I know people who know the Bible really well and they enjoy watching The Chosen. I can’t say I hate it. When people say, "What do you think of The Chosen?" I’m not a hater. I don’t hate it. I think in some ways the personality of Jesus that Jonathan Roumie plays on The Chosen, I kind of like it. I mean, that is, I’m attracted to him as a person. But apart from that, a lot of the disciples I find to be fairly unlikable. And I don’t much like the idea that I would get a bad taste in my mouth about some of the apostles of Jesus Christ from a fictional thing that may not represent the way they were at all. I don’t want to get negative stuff in my mind about good people, about Christian leaders, and about Jesus or whatever. So I mean, why do I need that? Now, I’m not going to say bad things about people who like it because if they like it just because it’s kind of interesting to see this fanciful way that some Christian author has retold the story and in a way that maybe could be true that way—I mean, it could have happened that way. We don’t know. It’s 100% fiction. That is to say, The Chosen isn’t really about Jesus. It’s about the disciples. And you get Jesus thrown in there too, but many of the episodes I saw—I only watched the first season and didn’t have sufficient interest to watch the second, but everyone was asking me about it, so I watched it—the episodes I saw often were mostly about this or that disciple and everything—everything—was made up. It’s just fantasy or fiction. And I think, okay, why do I need that? Now, I will say this. For some people, they read the gospels and it’s not real to them. And I’m going to have to wonder why not. When I read the gospels, it’s pretty real to me. I mean, I feel like I’m in the story. But that was something that happened to me after I got baptized in the Spirit, I have to admit. When I was a youth reading the Bible and a believer in Jesus, but in my early teens and stuff, I probably would have to say those stories were not as real to me as I find them now. When I got baptized in the Spirit when I was 16, that changed everything. I read them and I was like—I was there. I mean, it was a reality. The Bible came alive and it was like the world I was living in. And it still is in a way. I mean, very much. So I understand maybe some people don’t have that experience and maybe these things make Jesus seem more real to them. The problem is, if you need something fiction to make Jesus seem real, then what is it that’s seeming real? The fiction? You’ve got the real story in the Bible. And so again, my thought is I don’t know that everyone who likes The Chosen is a bad person or doesn’t or not even a biblically literate person. There’s no doubt many people very familiar with the real story who just find entertainment in the story on TV. I guess I’m not really one of them. So like I say, I’m not a hater, but it certainly isn’t something I’m going to recommend the average person watch. Same thing for Jesus Calling. I mean, I probably have the same concerns about that, as you mentioned. Okay, I’m going to let you back on. You had another question, Matthew.
Guest (Male): Okay, thank you. Thank you for that. So, since I was a little boy, every time I heard the Gospel of John, Jesus on the cross and he said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" I remember being a little boy and being like, "No, he didn’t. He never did." But a few years ago, I had this moment of realization that I want to know if this is biblically accurate. My understanding what kind of gave me peace in that scripture is that potentially in that very moment Jesus was covered head-to-toe in the sins of the world and whatever connection he had with the Father had to be severed just for that moment because God is only holy. The Father is only holy and there’s not much more to elaborate on that. He’s so holy that even that connection with the Son when he’s covered in our sin, that connection had to be severed. And when I thought about it like that, it gave me kind of peace and understanding to him saying, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" right before his death. And I want to know what your thoughts are on that.
Steve Gregg: Well, that’s kind of how I grew up understanding it too. I mean, it does say that Christ who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. That’s 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 21. And I was raised to believe, and this could be true—I’m not saying it isn’t true—that when Jesus was on the cross, this is saying he became sin. Why? Because in 1 Peter 2, I think it’s verse 24, it says, "He himself took our sins in his own body on the cross, on the tree, that we being dead to sin should live unto righteousness." So Jesus took our sins on himself. In Isaiah 53:6, it says, "All we like sheep have gone astray," that is, we’ve all sinned, "and we’ve turned everyone to his own way, but the Lord laid on him, that is, on Jesus, the iniquity of us all." So, I mean, these verses have given the impression that when Jesus was on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, he like a sacrificial lamb basically was counted to be the one guilty of those sins even though he hadn’t done them. He didn’t commit those sins and he was an innocent lamb, but like the innocent lambs that were offered in sacrifice, they had their hands laid upon them, the sins of the people were confessed over them. Apparently the lamb symbolically became the bearer of that guilt and then was put to death in their place. That seems to be like a picture of Jesus that he was totally innocent, but he became the sin bearer like a sacrifice and the sin bearer now is treated as if he’s the sin committer. And so there’s a some kind of a transaction there where God treated Jesus as if he wasn’t the innocent Son of God that he was, but by Christ’s willing taking of our sins upon himself, God allowed that to happen so that Jesus was treated as the sinner. And therefore when we read Jesus on the cross saying, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" it was understood to mean this is what was happening at that moment. That Jesus was bearing our sin, he was no longer being treated as the innocent Son of God that he was, he’s being treated as if he’s the sinful party because that’s how the transaction was carried out and he died in the place of the sinners, thus paying the penalty for sin. Now, I’m inclined to believe this still. There are different views of the atonement than this and there is truth in some of them, but that doesn’t mean there’s not truth in this one. You know, there are different ways to look at what happened to Jesus on the cross. And some reject the picture I just gave, which is called the substitutionary penal substitution view of the atonement. There are other views other than penal substitution which I think are also true, but some prefer a different view and then they say this one’s not true. I think we got too much scripture on our side in this, but we also have scripture suggesting other meanings of the atonement. So I believe it’s a multi-faceted thing. Now, does that mean that this is what Jesus was affirming when he said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Maybe. In fact, I never heard any Christians who thought otherwise until probably the 1990s. And by the way, I’d been in the ministry for 25 years at that time and I’d always heard this explanation that you gave, that Jesus was treated as covered in sin or as being sin and therefore God had to turn against him for a moment. And I’m not going to say that’s wrong. But I never heard anyone say any other views than that until I was in my 40s, I guess. And then I heard, I think it was Hank Hanegraaff, who said that he didn’t think that’s what was happening there. And that surprised me at the time, but it got me thinking. You know, what that let me know is that not all Christians think the same thing. And whenever I hear that about something that I didn’t realize that about, I want to study it out. And I realized that there is another way of looking at it, maybe more than one. But and that is that of course we know that Jesus was quoting Psalm 22:1 where David said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me and from the words of my groaning?" Now, this is not a theological statement on his part. This is a lament or a cry of anguish. He’s feeling abandoned by God and he’s expressing his emotions in this statement. It’s not making a theological statement. God had not in fact abandoned David. And in this very Psalm, he seems to even acknowledge that. He says in verse 19, "But you, O Lord, do not be far from me, O my strength, hasten to help me. Deliver me from the sword and my precious life from the power of the dog." And then a few verses later he says, "God has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted," meaning himself, that is, David. "Nor has he hidden his face from him, but when he cried to him, he heard." Now, at the beginning of the Psalm he says, "God, why have you forsaken me?" But as he kind of talks through, he says, "Well, God really hasn’t forsaken me. He hasn’t despised me. He has not hidden his face from me. He has not ignored my cry. He’s paying attention. He’s on my side." And so the Psalm itself does not teach that God had really abandoned David. David just felt like God had abandoned him. And his cry in verse 1 is a cry of anguish such as many people might cry out when they feel that is the case even though they know better that it isn’t so. Now, having said that, that still doesn’t change the meaning of what Jesus said. But it does raise questions about it. Because Jesus was quoting Psalm 22, which gives us reason to believe that he knew the Psalm and that he wanted to call that Psalm to the attention of the hearers. And why would he do that? Well, because if they read a little further into the Psalm, you’ll find him saying this in verse 14, "I am poured out like water," David says, "all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, it is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd. My tongue clings to my jaws. I have brought—you have brought me to the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me," meaning Gentiles. "The assembly of the wicked has enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. They look and stare at me. They divide my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots." Now, that’s what David says in Psalm 22. But obviously if someone thinks about that Psalm, that’s what was happening right before the eyes of those who watched Jesus be crucified. They pierced my hands and feet, Gentiles, Romans, had surrounded me, they’re casting lots for my clothing. That happened. That happened just like that. So some people think that Jesus was not making a theological declaration, but he was rather calling attention to this Psalm which was so vividly and literally fulfilled in terms of the crucifixion of Christ and the things surrounding it. So in other words, there’s more than one view about that. But I could hear you. I mean, I will say what you explained is what I always would explain, what was always explained that way to me when I was young, and I don’t see any reason to reject it. I’m not saying, in other words, that you’re wrong. I’m saying that that’s one view. There are some people who might hold a different outlook on that particular one. Yeah.
Guest (Male): So you don’t believe that David did have—you don’t believe that God ever hid his face from David like in that scripture that you’re referencing?
Steve Gregg: Well, no, I don’t think so because David often lamented and gave emotional cries out that weren’t intended to be taken as specifically theological true statements, but rather crying out that he feels like he’s suffering wrongfully. Job did the same thing. You know, I mean, it’s kind of a—these are poetic books too, by the way. So if you think otherwise, that’s okay because I can’t prove that I’m right or wrong or that you’re wrong. All I can say is there are different ways of looking at that.
Guest (Male): Thank you for letting me ask that question. I appreciate you.
Steve Gregg: Well, thanks for your call, Matthew. Good talking to you. All right, we’re going to talk next to Cody in Castleberry, Florida. Hi Cody, welcome.
Guest (Male): Hey, how you doing, Mr. Steve?
Steve Gregg: Good, thanks.
Guest (Male): So I was just recently introduced to your videos by a friend, which I greatly enjoyed. Especially I was listening to a podcast of yours on your book where you talk about hell and the state of the dead, which I definitely reject the eternal conscious suffering view essentially. So I just have a question. I just was wondering if you could kind of speak or talk on your interpretation of Daniel, namely Daniel chapter 2, 7, and 12. So mainly the legs of iron and the feet of clay and iron and what you think that represents.
Steve Gregg: Well, the image in Daniel 2 has a head of gold, a chest of silver, a belly of bronze, and the legs are iron and clay. This was in a dream that Nebuchadnezzar had of this human-like image, a statue. And Daniel interprets it as representing Nebuchadnezzar and his empire, which is the Babylonian as the head of gold. And the other three metals as you move down toward the ground from the head to the feet represent successive empires that would come. And he said there’d be another one after Nebuchadnezzar, which would be inferior to him, which is silver instead of gold. And that we know was the Media-Persian empire that conquered Babylon. And then there’s a belly of bronze that represents the Grecian empire, at least most people believe that under Alexander the Great which conquered the Persians. And then the legs of iron are considered to be the Roman empire by most people. The Church Fathers believed that, most people believe that today. I’ve heard a different interpretation. Some people believe that the chest of silver is just the Medes, and then the belly of bronze is the Persians, and then the legs of iron are the Greeks. But if so, the prophecy was incorrect because the prophecy said that in the time of the legs of iron, in that time God would set up his kingdom. And God in fact did that during the Roman empire, not the Grecian empire. But I personally take the more commonly held view, which is that the legs of iron are the Roman empire.
Guest (Male): So how would that correspond to the feet of clay being intertwined with the iron that represents the Roman empire?
Steve Gregg: Well, it says that the feet being of iron and clay, it says specifically it’s partly brittle, partly strong like iron and partly brittle like clay as Daniel says. Which seems to my mind to suggest that the strength of the Roman empire became compromised very possibly by the inclusion of too many different conquered peoples and their cultures that didn’t mix together. They didn’t cohere together because he mentions specifically that clay and iron do not join together. They don’t hold together. And so it would suggest that as Rome conquered all these different cultures in North Africa and Eastern Europe and Western Europe and so forth, that these cultures and their different languages—certainly the barbarians up to the north—they just didn’t mix well. They didn’t have a good—they weren’t able to have a multicultural empire successfully. And that’s probably true of all empires that try to be multicultural. They eventually break down. I think America is a good example of that. You know, we allow all people from all nations can immigrate here. But because some of them hold onto their cultures and they’re not—we’re not really a melting pot anymore. They don’t melt, they just kind of separate. Some of the cultures are very adverse to others. For example, the Sharia law is very adverse to our constitutional way of government. So the same thing is happening here. But Daniel’s not talking about us. Same thing happens I think anytime one empire tries to have so many disagreeable elements in it. And I think that happened to the Roman empire too. So that is how I would understand that. All right? Thanks for your call. All right, let’s see here. Shannon from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, welcome to The Narrow Path.
Guest (Male): Hi Steve, how are you doing?
Steve Gregg: Good, thanks.
Guest (Male): My question is in regards to immigration and verses about treating the stranger in your land kindly and how we can draw on those for the immigration situation we have in our country today.
Steve Gregg: Sure. Well, we should treat everyone kindly. I mean, we should love even our enemies and immigrants are not necessarily our enemies. Some of them might be, but let’s face it, I mean, there’s all kinds of people who immigrate, some are friendly, some are not. Even the ones who are enemies, we should be kind toward because God is kind toward his enemies. However, when it comes to government policy, first of all, governments do not operate on the same principles as the kingdom of God. Anyone from any background can become part of the kingdom of God, but they become a new creation. They’re born again. They’re all part of one culture under one king, Jesus. And they all embrace that culture and they all embrace Christ. If they don’t, they’re not in the kingdom. So the kingdom of God is the only cohesive culture that can easily accommodate a bunch of different people and do so very freely as they convert. Now, when it comes to secular countries, there’s always a danger that people from outside who don’t share the values or the assumptions of that country, if they come in great numbers, it will compromise the safety of that country. And so governments have to make some kinds of rules about how much of that they allow. And when people break those rules, let’s say by the million, let’s just say hundreds of thousands of people come crossing the border and it’s illegal, that’s not immigration, that’s an invasion. And in biblical times, although Israel was to be kind to immigrants, they were never required to be gentle with invaders. They were able to defend themselves from invaders. So it’s one thing to be kind, it’s one thing to be gentle and generous and loving, it’s another thing to uphold laws, especially laws that protect the citizenry and that’s what I think about immigration. Hey, I need to take off now. We’ve got our Zoom meeting tonight for those interested. The Narrow Path is listener-supported. If you want to go to our website thenarrowpath.com, you can see how to donate or not. There’s free resources there too. Have a good night.