The Narrow Path 07/29/2026

Steve Gregg: Good afternoon and welcome to The Narrow Path Radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for an hour each weekday afternoon to take your calls. If you have questions you'd like to call in and discuss on the air about the Bible, about Christianity, about anything about your spiritual journey, about any disagreement you might have with the host, feel free to call and we'll talk about those things. We have a few lines open still at this moment. If you want to call now the number is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. If you'd like to be on the program, you have a question or a disagreement with the host. We welcome both equally. So feel free to join us. There are a few lines open at the moment. Our first caller today is Martin from Phoenix, Arizona. Hi Martin, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Guest (Male): Yeah. Yeah, good afternoon, Steve. Hey, I was listening to a radio show late last, late last week on the like a late, late night show. There was this lady who claimed to be an expert on angels. And she said that one day Lucifer would repent and and return to heaven to be with God again. And I, I've, you know, I'm not an expert in the Bible, you know, or anything or the Jewish Talmud or the Torah or anything. I've never heard this. Is there something in the Bible that talks about the repentance of Satan?
Steve Gregg: No, actually, it would seem like the Bible would teach the opposite. We do read of Satan being cast into the Lake of Fire in Revelation 20, verse 10, and it says that, you know, he's tormented forever and ever, day and night there. So it sounds like he's not getting out. So I'm not really sure what made her think she's an expert on angels. You know, a person could be, you know, an expert on at least as much as the Bible tells us about angels, but it doesn't really talk about angels enough to make anyone feel like they know very much. We know angels are created by God. It would appear that some of the angels rebelled against God, so they must have had free will like we, like we have. And we know they're being punished. We know those things about angels. We know that they're powerful beings. They can do superhuman things in the service of God. Fallen angels may have powers like that too, though we're not given so much information about that. We're not really told very much about angels. I was listening to somebody on a podcast that somebody posted on our Facebook page, I think. Some Catholic priest who's an exorcist talking about angels, and he was making all these statements about angels that honestly, there's not a, not a line in the Bible to support them. And so there must be a lot of people who think that it's okay to make up stuff and say, this is, I'm an expert on this subject because I made this up myself and I'm an expert on my own opinion. But, no, there's whoever it was, I'm sure you were listening to Coast to Coast. They have people like that all the time, you know, they're experts on shape shifting, you know, reptilians and
Guest (Male): Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was, it was a, it was a doctor, Alicia Dawson. She wrote a book called angelic ancestry and she claimed this was the, so it was going to finally happen in the end or something and I don't know, I never heard of that.
Steve Gregg: No, she doesn't have the Bible on her side. Now, Origen, an early church father is sometimes said to have taught that all people, including demons and Satan, will someday be saved. That God's redemption through Christ will include all things that God created including the devil. Now, there's some question whether Origen actually taught that. There are some, I think, I think Jerome said that Origen's writings do not contain those teachings. Origen is sometimes accused of believing that even the devil would be saved, perhaps because people who don't like Origen, they've heard a rumor about that and so they, they like to pass along rumors about theologians they don't like. But it's not clear at all that he did take that view. And Augustine, who critiqued Origen, because Origen did believe in universalism, he believed that all people will someday turn to Christ, even those who go to hell will someday turn to Christ and be saved. You know, Origen taught that. And Augustine, who critiqued Origen said, well, that doesn't make sense because if God's too merciful to let any people perish, then he'd have to redeem the devil and Satan too. Which Augustine is given that as a example of something that Origen would not agree with, which made him think that the other part of Origen's view was inappropriate, that it's, that'd be, you know, there'd be some inconsistency in God redeeming man but not the angels who fell. And so, Augustine apparently did not believe that Origen taught that the fallen angels will be saved. And he's, you know, he was only what 100 years after Origen and probably had written, read his writing. So I don't think Origen taught that the devil will be saved and I don't think the Bible teaches it. So anyone who says that is true and also says they're an expert on the subject of angels, they're mistaken on one of those two statements. And I think I know which one.
Guest (Male): Okay.
Steve Gregg: All right, thank you for your call. Beverly in Mesa, Arizona, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Guest (Female): Yes. My question is in Matthew 28:18, the Lord says that all power is given unto him in heaven and in Earth. Then in Second Thessalonians 2:9, it says that Satan comes. Let me read it so I get it exactly right.
Steve Gregg: It says the man of lawlessness comes in the power of Satan.
Guest (Female): Well, mine, this is King James. It says even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and. How can was that? Well, how can he come with all power when, when the Lord has all power?
Steve Gregg: Well, here's a case where power is not the same word in the Greek and not the same meaning. In Matthew 28:18, when Jesus said, the King James says all power is given to me in heaven and Earth, the Greek word there translated power is exousia. Exousia doesn't really mean power so much as it means authority. A person may have authority and not have power, or they may have power and not have authority, or they may have both. But Jesus claimed that God had given him all authority. Now, what is authority? Authority is the right to make the decisions about something. The person in authority is the one who's to be submitted to and followed because he has the inherent right to arbitrate things. So when Jesus said, I have all authority in heaven and Earth, he means he's the rule, he's the rightful ruler. Everyone should obey him. God has given him the position above all principalities and powers and above every name that is named that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord. Paul said in Ephesians and Philippians. So Christ is the ultimate ruler. Now, a person who has authority may or may not impose that authority. It may be, for example, like parents have authority over their children. Some parents strongly impose their authority and don't allow any kind of deviation from obedience from their children. Others are a little more easy going about things and sometimes their kids don't obey them when they should. And the parents don't make them do it. I mean, these are different styles of governing. A parent has authority over his children, whether the children obey or not. The children should, that's what authority means. You should obey anyone who has divinely appointed authority. That means that God put them in charge and for you to rebel against them is to rebel against God. But people sometimes do and not everybody enforces their authority against those who disobey or at least not immediately. So, you know, a king can be a tyrant and a dictator and everyone has to do what he says and, and he makes sure they do and he doesn't allow any any disobedience without horrible repercussions. Or a king can give some measure of liberty or can overlook law breaking in cases that he thinks it's, it's not important enough to make an issue of. The people who break the law in any case are in the wrong. Whether they, whether the king makes them pay for that or not is, is not the issue. The question is, should they obey the king? Morally, yes. He's the one that they should obey. Should parents obey, should children obey their parents? Yes. Morally, children should. Whether the children do or not is another question, but they should because of the authority. Christ has all authority, which means everyone should obey him because God has made him the rightful ruler. And any, you know, breach of his authority, any disobedience against him is punishable. Now, that doesn't mean that God makes everyone obey Jesus, but there is going to be a judgment day. And Jesus said on the day of judgment, people, the words I have spoken to you will judge you in the last day. That is, when people stand before God, they'll be judged by whether they obeyed Jesus or not. Why? Because he's the authority, they should have obeyed him. They're required to. That he didn't make them do it during this lifetime doesn't mean that they were getting away with something. It means that he was forestalling enforcement. Now, a wise person when they learn that Jesus has all authority, will obey him willingly. A good child will obey their parents willingly. A good employee will obey the management of their company willingly. And so forth. This is, this is what authority means. Now, Christ has all authority. He also has all, all power, but that's not what Jesus is saying. Now, in Second Thessalonians, where it says the man of sin will come with works, mighty works, according to the working of Satan with all power and line and wonders. That word is probably dunamis. It's not exousia anyway. It's not authority. It's, it's the word that means power, exhibition of energy, of, of power and strength. Now, a person might have authority and strength. For example, a father might be much stronger than his children and he can make them obey him. He has authority over them and he has the strength to enforce it. On the other hand, a father could be a quadriplegic and have no strength at all to enforce his will, but he still has authority. The children should still obey him because of his authority, but he doesn't have the power to make them do it. So there's difference between having power to do something and authority to do something. And the devil has power, but he has no authority. Christ has all authority. If the devil had authority, that would mean there'd be some people who should obey him because that's what authority means. The right to be obeyed, the, the moral right to be obeyed. Satan doesn't have the moral right to be obeyed. There's nobody who should obey him, but he does have the power to do bad things. It's, it's just like, you know, nobody has the right under ordinary circumstances to violate the traffic laws. There might be extenuating circumstances where the statement is, is not true, but in virtually all other all such situations, people should obey the traffic laws. But people have the ability not to. People have cars sometimes that are much more powerful than to be restricted to going the speed limit. But the authority of the law should restrict them. Not, it's not the power. They have to restrain the power to disobey because of the authority. And so Christ has authority over everything. Everyone should obey him. Anyone who does not obey him is breaching a divine mandate that all should bow to him. All should obey him. But people do have the power to do otherwise sometimes, at least until the Judgment Day. And Satan's that way too. Satan should obey Christ too. He won't. He has the power to disobey. He also has the power to do stuff. Supernatural stuff. And that's what I think Second Thessalonians 2 is talking about, that the man of sin comes with supernatural abilities provided by Satan. Now, that Satan has supernatural abilities doesn't mean he has any authority. And, and actually, all of us have abilities. Anyone of us who have the strength to move our arms and legs can walk around, we can go where we shouldn't be, we can do what we shouldn't do. We have the power to do it. We just don't have the right to. We're doing the wrong thing if we do it. Satan's that way too. His powers are different than human powers because he's supernatural. So his powers are supernatural. He can do things that we would call miracles, or magic or something like that. And it's, it's in his power to do it. That doesn't mean it's okay. So although the King James version speaks about Satan having all power, and line wonders and his works, and and Jesus said all power in heaven and Earth is given to me. It's not the same word or the same concept in the Greek. Jesus is speaking about his authority and Paul is talking about the Satan's power, which means simply his ability to do stuff. And anyone who thinks the devil doesn't have ability to do stuff should probably read the first couple chapters of Job and that will disabuse them of that, of that ignorance. Thank you, Beverly for your call. Mike in Cool, California, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Guest (Male): Good afternoon, Steve. Hope you're having a blessed day.
Steve Gregg: So far, so good.
Guest (Male): Yeah, I've been reading Ezekiel and I got to chapter 28, basically 12 through 19 and it puzzles me.
Steve Gregg: Uh-huh.
Guest (Male): It talks about him talk, uh, lamenting for the King of Tyre and it says, thus say the Lord, I'm sure you know all about it. You were the seal for for perfection, full of wisdom. I don't want to read the whole thing. It says you were in the Garden of Eden. You were an anointed cherub. So, who was he exactly talking about? I never thought that the King of Tyre, number one, was that old and that he was a cherub.
Steve Gregg: Yeah. Well, there's, there's one way, one thing we have to say is that either the description of him is literal, and in which case his identity is not. Or else his identity is literal and the description is not literal because you're right. The man who is the King of Tyre in the, you know, sixth century BC, when Ezekiel wrote this, was not also living in the Garden of Eden. So some people say, well, the part about the Garden of Eden and the cherub and all that stuff, that's all literal, but the the expression King of Tyre is not literal. They would say the King of Tyre here actually represents Satan. And why he would be called the King of Tyre is not known. They would say, well, perhaps it's because he's the actual power behind the throne of the real King of Tyre, the human King of Tyre. And so what they do is they don't take Ezekiel literally when he says he's talking to the King of Tyre. But they do take the, the description of, of the King of Tyre literally, and they say he's a literal cherub. He's literally in Eden. Now, the other way we can go on this, of course, is to say he is talking about the literal King of Tyre, and he's not being literal when he talks about him being in Eden, and when he talks about him being a cherub. Now, in my opinion, the latter position is, is better. Because Ezekiel, not just 28, but also 27 and even, uh, actually chapters 26, 27 and 28 are all about the city of Tyre and its king. And the, the king is mentioned many times during this time. So, and Tyre is. So when he says in chapter 28, 12, this is about the King of Tyre. Take up this lamentation for the King of Tyre. Uh, there's no reason to think he's not talking about the King of Tyre or anybody other than the King of Tyre. Now, what, what do we find him saying? He says things that are not literally true of the King of Tyre, but we have to ask ourselves, is that, is that characteristic for Ezekiel's writings? It is absolutely characteristic for him to use poetry. For example, he described a little earlier in the chapter, he described her, or chapter 27, that, uh, Tyre was a, a merchant ship. A beautiful merchant ship. And made from cedar and of Lebanon and so forth and oaks of Basan. Now, now Tyre, the city was not a ship and it wasn't made, it wasn't a wooden ship. A wooden ship is a figure of speech. It is a, a metaphor. It is not a, it's a poetic description. And Ezekiel's writings are full of poetic descriptions of things. And when he comes to describe the Prince of Tyre, or the King of Tyre, as a cherub, who was in the Garden of Eden, he's not being literal. He's being poetic. Now, let me give you a couple reasons to, to believe that. First of all, we know that the devil was not a cherub in the Garden of Eden. He was a serpent in the Garden of Eden. Serpent and cherub are not the same thing. Now, in Genesis chapter 3, there is a cherub in the Garden of Eden, but it's not the same as the serpent. There's, in the Garden of Eden, there's God, there's Adam, there's Eve, there's the serpent, and there's a cherub. The cherub is not a bad guy. The cherub's a good guy. When God penalizes Adam and Eve for eating of the wrong tree, he debars them from eating of the tree of life. And he does that by setting a guardian cherub around the tree of life with a flaming sword. Now, that cherub is not a bad guy, he's certainly not Satan. Now, if, if Ezekiel is saying that the King of Tyre is literally a cherub in the Garden of Eden, then he must be identifying him with this cherub that has a flaming sword guarding the way to the tree of life, who is not the same as the serpent. The serpent is the devil. And so, he's clearly not talking about the devil, even if he's being literal here. Okay? Now, there's no reason to believe he's being literal because human beings are not cherubs. And there's never a time when a cherub became the king over a city like Tyre, a pagan city. More than that, there's other places where he compares other kings to similar things. For example, if you go three chapters later, Ezekiel 31, he's, he's, he says in verse 3, indeed, Assyria, the nation of Assyria, was a cedar in Lebanon with fine branches and shaded forest. Now, that's not literal. Countries are not trees. Assyria was never a cedar in Lebanon, okay? But reading on what it says about it is, uh, it says in verse 9, speaking about Assyria, it says, I made it beautiful with the multitude of its branches so that the trees of Eden, all the trees in Eden, envied it that were in the Garden of God. Okay, so Assyria was a tree that was envied by all the trees in the Garden of Eden. So, was it in the Garden of Eden too? Okay, then we'd have to say the King of Tyre then was a cherub in the Garden of Eden, and Assyria was a tree in the Garden of Eden. But neither Assyria nor the King of Tyre were ever literally in the Garden of Eden. Now, we might say that somebody had it made in the shade and they're in paradise or, you know, they've got it, they've got a perfect environment like the Garden of Eden. We could speak figuratively like that. We could say that somebody's like a cherub and from what we know of cherubs actually from what the Bible says, they appear to be guardians, like guarding the way to the tree of life, guarding the mercy seat and the Ark of the Covenant, guarding the entrance to the tabernacle. They're, they're embroidered all over the, the curtains. So, a king is like a guardian that God has appointed over his people. And if the circumstances are idyllic, it might be that he could be said he was in the Garden of Eden, not in a literal sense, anymore than anyone else is literally in paradise, but we sometimes speak about people's situation being paradisaical. So, I mean, this is just poetic language. So, there's no reason to take it literally. Actually, he goes on to say in chapter 28, to the King of Tyre, that he was corrupted by his merchandising, by his trading. It says that in verse 18. This is Ezekiel 28:18, speaking to the same King of Tyre who's a cherub, who was in the Garden of Eden. He says, you defiled your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities, by the iniquity of your trading. Therefore, I brought fire from your midst. I devoured you and I turned you into ashes upon the Earth. Okay, I don't think the devil was ever turned into ashes on the Earth or anyone was literally except maybe in Dead Sea and Bahu, but the, the thing here is that it says that whoever he's addressing was corrupted by their merchandising, by their trading. Now, Tyre was a merchant city. It was a commercial city, very wealthy. And therefore it's very reasonable to suggest that the King of Tyre might well have been corrupted by his, you know, prosperity as a, a trading head of a trading kingdom. But Satan, are we going to say that Satan was somewhere in heaven with, you know, running a concession, selling and buying things to the angels and and because he was not honest about this, he got kicked out of heaven? That's a, that's stretching things a little too far. It seems to me. There's nothing in Ezekiel 28 that needs to be taken literally in that description of the King of Tyre, anymore than the other descriptions of kings in Ezekiel. It's the most common thing in Ezekiel to not use literal language, but it's also common for him to address literal kingdoms. But when he does, he, he denounces them in poetic terms. And that's what he's doing in Ezekiel 28, verses 12 through 18. So, hopefully, that will not be quite so confusing in the future.
Guest (Male): It just seemed to go back and forth from one verse to the next verse, one being symbolic, the next one being literal, where it came out.
Steve Gregg: Well, you can tell which ones. I mean, you can tell which ones are, are symbolic, yeah.
Guest (Male): I just was confused there. I'm thinking, how the heck could that be?
Steve Gregg: Yeah. Well, you know,
Guest (Male): You answered my question.
Steve Gregg: Okay, yeah. Well, you should know that, uh, from a very long time ago, at least the time of Tertullian in the second century, Christians have mostly identified this prophecy as if it's about Satan. And that's because they've done what I said, you shouldn't do. They're taking the King of Tyre as a symbol of his identity and they're taking the description as literal. Which is the opposite, opposite way of doing things. Yeah, so.
Guest (Male): Okay. Well, thank you so much. You got me straightened out.
Steve Gregg: All right. Good talking to you.
Guest (Male): Have a great. Have a blessed day.
Steve Gregg: Thanks for your call. You too. All right, uh, let's see, we've got a, we've got a break coming up here. We've got plenty of calls waiting. There's one line open. If you want to occupy it, you can dial 8 or you probably don't want to dial it if you're under 40 years old. A dial, just push the buttons on your phone. 844-484-5737. And, uh, and you can occupy that line. We'll get to your call in the next half hour. We have a break at the bottom of the hour, right now. And so, I'm not going to take a call until after that break. During that break, we like to make you familiar with some of the things available at our website, TheNarrowPath.com. Uh, there are over 1500 lectures of mine, uh, audio lectures. You can listen to for free, verse by verse through the entire Bible, uh, topically through hundreds and hundreds of topics. Everything is free. There are other resources. There's other links to other resources that we provide on other websites and our and also our YouTube channel and so forth. Uh, there's just no end, seemingly no end to the resources available through our website. Go there. TheNarrowPath.com. You won't have to pay for a thing. We won't even ask you to give us a contact information. We won't even know you were there. Just go and take what you want at TheNarrowPath.com. The Narrow Path is listener supported. We don't sell anything. We don't have sponsors. If you'd like to help us stay on the air, you can write to us at The Narrow Path, PO Box 1730, Temecula, California 92593. Again, you can take anything you want or donate if you wish also at TheNarrowPath.com. I'll be back in 30 seconds. We have another half hour. Don't go away.
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Steve Gregg: Welcome back to The Narrow Path Radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour. We're taking calls this whole half hour as we always do from people who call in with questions from the Bible or the Christian faith or or disagreements with the hosts they want to talk about. Right now our lines are full so I won't bother giving out the phone number, but I hope you'll enjoy listening to the questions of those that are going to go on next. And the first of those is Dave from Gold Beach, Oregon. Welcome to The Narrow Path, Dave.
Guest (Male): Thank you very much for taking my call. Years ago when I was in Spokane, Washington, I bought a book of yours about hell, the three views of hell. Yeah.
Steve Gregg: Yeah.
Guest (Male): I got to Steve. I've always thought there's only one way in hell. I always thought it's kind of a different than God's nature. He doesn't I I thought it was a burning hell and brimstone and all that. Finally, I I I realized that that is not the only way to look at hell. And I eliminated it. That's not my way now anymore. Uh-huh. But the question is, there is a guy, I can't remember his name and what chapter in your book, that Jesus, he didn't anyways, he, he made an adjective. He says, the rich man. And then he used a noun, Lazarus. And who in the heck was this guy? He's supposed to be real high up in the church.
Steve Gregg: Uh, well, no, Lazarus and the rich man were not necessarily real people. This was at least most, I think, Christians have believed that this is a parable. Parables are stories that Jesus made up in order to illustrate the point he wants to make. They're not about real people necessarily. When Jesus said a certain man so good seed in his field and when he slept his enemy through so tears in his field, he's not talking about an actual person. I mean, this could have happened. People probably any number of people may have had this experience, but in history, but he's not talking about an actual case. He's just making a story that has features that will illustrate points he wants to make. And that's, many people think the story of Lazarus and the rich man is a story like that. Now, not everyone does. In fact, for many years, I myself thought that Lazarus and the rich man was an actual case of a real man named Lazarus and a real rich man. And it's not impossible that that is so. I mean, there could have been. It could be. There's just no reason in the world to have to insist upon it. I mean, it is very much like many other parables, and especially it's, it's actually more like some of the parables of the Pharisees and the scribes and the rabbis than like other parables of Jesus. In fact, there's so many parables of the rabbis in the Talmud that are similar to this that many most modern scholars seem to think Jesus has simply borrowed a motif, a very common motif from standard rabbinic preaching and teaching, and made it his own. Neither the rabbis nor Jesus expected people to believe they were telling a true story, but an illustrative one. And so that he, he's making a story very similar to some of the stories you find in the Talmud which the Jewish rabbis taught, but he's making his own point from it. The point being, of course, ultimately at the end of the parable, that if people are not listening to Moses and the prophets already, which is the Bible they already had in his day, then they won't be convinced even if a man rises from the dead. And I believe that's an allusion to Jesus rising from the dead, that if the Jews are already disobedient to Moses and the prophets, they'll be equally disobedient and unimpressed by Jesus. I think the point that's being made even after he rises from the dead. If so, his, his prediction certainly came true. Now, that's what most people think. Now, the word Lazarus is a Greek form of the Hebrew name Eleazar. And, and, you know, there are people named Eleazar in the Old Testament, but he's not talking about. There's obviously another Lazarus in the New Testament in John chapter 11, Jesus had a friend named Lazarus who died and he raised him from the dead, but this is not him. Because in this case, Lazarus in the story was not sent back to warn anybody. The rich man asked Abraham to send Lazarus back so he could warn the rich man's brothers about the state of, you know, people in hell. And, and he was denied that request. So, Lazarus in the story did not go back from the dead back to the land of the living, whereas the other Lazarus, the friend of Jesus, actually did. Jesus raised him from the dead. So we're not talking about the same Lazarus here. I believe that we're probably dealing with a parable. Now, when you say something about the man was someone important in the early church, I'm not really sure what you're referring to. I don't know if you mean the, the man in the story, or, or which man in the story, I'm not really sure what you're getting, but I, I think I, I can say with confidence that there was never any one in the church fathers that identified anyone living among them as, as the characters from this story. So, you know, if, there, there may have well been a Lazarus who was famous in the early church. In fact, the Lazarus that Jesus rose from the dead probably would become a famous man in the early church. But, uh, because he was in the Jerusalem area and the church was in Jerusalem and so forth. So, he was probably a prominent member, but we don't read of his activities in the book of Acts at all. So, the story is, uh, the story is not in my opinion about real people. And if it is, they're not any real people that we can identify with any, anyone we know in history. I appreciate your call. Our next caller is, um, Carrie in Sacramento, California. Hi, Carrie, welcome.
Guest (Female): Hi, Steve. Can you hear me?
Steve Gregg: Yes, go ahead.
Guest (Female): Oh, perfect. Uh, yeah, I'm calling about a previous call that you had with a caller regarding Jesus speaking Aramaic. I'm aware of the distinctions between God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. And my question would be, um, when God was speaking in the old language, wasn't it Hebrew? And how would it be that Jesus was speaking in Aramaic? Um, there, well, the two languages collide. Well, they, well, does it make sense that Jesus was speaking in Aramaic and God is speaking in Hebrew? Can you clarify that and then what scripture would I be able to find that?
Steve Gregg: Okay, first of all, if we say God spoke Hebrew, you're probably referring to the Old Testament times. Uh, when God spoke to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and to the children of Israel and so forth. Uh, he would have spoken Hebrew because that was their language. If, if they had been Americans, he probably would have spoken in English to them. If they'd been, uh, Brazilian, he probably would have spoken Portuguese. God just speaks whatever language people understand. God is not uh, he's multilingual, let's face it, he can, he can speak all the languages that he wants to. So, so anyway, you know, in the Old Testament, the people he spoke to were Hebrew speaking. So he spoke to them in their language. Now, by, near the end of the Old Testament period, which by the way, lasted like 4,000 years from Adam to the end of the Old Testament period is about 4,000 years as we calculate it. Um, the, the Jews actually began to speak other languages besides Hebrew. One of them was Greek. Because about 300 years before Christ, Alexander the Great conquered the, the entire Mediterranean region, including Israel, and imposed the Greek language on everybody. So they, they knew Greek. But all the, all these lands that, that had learned Greek, also remembered their local dialects. Now, the in Israel, the local dialect, you know, centuries before Christ, had been Hebrew. And, but, but prior to Christ by several centuries, Syriac or Aramaic was, uh, coming into the region in use. It was used for trade. It was used more broadly than Hebrew was, you know, internationally and so forth. And so it began to displace Hebrew in common usage in Palestine. This is true even back when Daniel was writing 600 years before Christ, because of the 12 chapters in Daniel, six of them were written in Hebrew, and six of them were written in Aramaic. Likewise, around the same time, when Ezra was written, uh, part of it was in Aramaic and part of it was in Hebrew. So it's kind of unusual, not, not many of the Old Testament books have Aramaic in them, but there are a few of them, a few chapters in the Old Testament in the later books of the Old Testament that, that were written in Aramaic. And that's because Aramaic was becoming more common in usage in the Middle East, even among the Jews than Hebrew. Now, this, you know, hundreds of years later, by Jesus' time, Aramaic is, it, most scholars believe Aramaic had become pretty much the common speech language of, of, of Palestine. And that's why Jesus and his disciples would have been raised speaking it. Again, if they'd been raised in France, they would have been raised speaking French. Uh, but and it, it wouldn't be nonsensical to say God spoke to the Old Testament people in Hebrew and and Jesus spoke French, if indeed he was raised in France and and spoke French. So, I mean, it makes perfectly good sense that God would speak through his messengers or even directly from heaven in whatever language was understood by the people he was speaking to. So in Jesus' day, mostly they spoke Aramaic, though some people, uh, some of the Jews still had, knew some Hebrew. And Aramaic was very similar to Hebrew as a language. Uh, and then everyone also knew Greek. And there were some people, like in, in Europe today, there's people who, you know, individuals who speak three or four languages, probably most Europeans do because there's so much interaction with other nations. So, uh, the people in Palestine may have known several languages. They probably knew some Latin too, since they were under the Roman dominion, but, but their, um, their lingua familiaris was, uh, was Aramaic, I think. And that's probably the language Jesus spoke, most scholars believe.
Guest (Female): Okay. Thank you. Steve. All right, thank you.
Steve Gregg: Okay, Carrie, thanks for your call. Okay, we're going to talk to Tom from Seattle, Washington next. Hi Tom, welcome to The Narrow Path.
Guest (Male): Hey, uh, thank you, Steve. Um, enjoying listening to your program. Hey, um, thank you. I was wondering if you could, um, explain a little bit on, uh, Malachi, first Malachi where, um, God said, um,
Steve Gregg: Esau I hate. Esau I hated. Yes.
Guest (Male): Yes. Could, uh, you explain that? I mean, there, does that, that it just show that God chose, um, uh, Jacob instead of Esau or is there more to it?
Steve Gregg: Well, it, it is referring to the fact that God did choose Jacob over Esau. Now, it's not talking about for salvation because we aren't, we don't read anywhere in the Bible that Jacob was saved and Esau was lost. Uh, we don't know that Esau was lost. In his early life, he did some sinful things that we're told not to imitate. The book of Hebrews warns us not to be carnal like Esau was. But he lived a long time and in the later records of him, he seemed to be a better guy. He may very well have died in faith the same faith as his, uh, you know, father Isaac. And, uh, so, uh, you know, this is not talking about God choosing anyone for salvation particularly. That's not what Paul's, that's not what Malachi's talking about. And Paul quotes this also when he likewise not speaking of God choosing anyone individually for salvation. Uh, God did choose Jacob. But choosing Jacob really means he chose Jacob's line, his, his people. And, and he didn't choose Esau, that is, he didn't choose Esau's people. Uh, Abraham and Isaac had been promised by God that, that their seed, their offspring, would bring the blessing to the nations. And in the New Testament, we read that seed is Jesus. So, when Abraham had eight children, which he did have, God had to decide which one of those would be the family line that would bring forth the Messiah. And he chose Isaac and not Ishmael or the other six children of Keturah. Uh, then when Ishmael was, I mean, when Isaac was the chosen one, he had two sons, Jacob and Esau. And God had to choose one of those to be the family line that the Messiah would come through. Now, this is not choosing a man to go to hell or to go to heaven. This has nothing to do with the man's personal salvation. It has to do with his, his earthly significance as a progenitor of the race that would bring nation, the nations, uh, to the blessing of God, the Messiah. So God chose Jacob to be the one through whom that would happen. He did not choose Esau. Now, when the Bible says, I hated this person, I love that person, it's speaking in terms much more severe than we would use to say the same thing. Many times the Bible contrast someone who's hated and someone who's loved only to, you know, if we say I hate somebody, we mean I really am hostile toward them. I have great animosity toward them. It doesn't always mean that. It means that I have favored one over the other. My treatment of one has been exceedingly generous. That's the one I loved. The one I hated is the one I passed over and did not treat that way. I, I didn't, I didn't favor them in the same sense. Uh, we see that term used other places in the Old Testament. We even see Jesus using those terms that way when he said, no one can serve two masters. He'll have to love the one and hate the other. Now, wait a minute. No, if you had two jobs and two bosses, why would you have to hate one of them? He's not saying hate in the sense we mean. He means you'll have to favor one over the other. You can't be equally loyal to two different bosses who have different, to two different, uh, you know, agendas. You've got to pick one to be favored. And God favored Jacob over Esau. That's what Jacob, I loved. Esau, I hated him. Now, secondly, this is not talking about the salvation of Jacob or of Esau. It's talking about the nations that came from these men. God chose the nation of Jacob, and that nation was also called Israel. Because by the way, Jacob was also called Israel. His name was Jacob and his name was also Israel. The people that came from him were also called Israel and Jacob throughout scripture. And the people who came from Esau, whose name was also Edom, were sometimes referred to in later scripture as Esau or as Edom. Uh, so, in other words, the man who pro is the progenitor of the race, sometimes gives his name to the race. The Amalekites are sometimes called Amalek because Amalek was the founder of that line of people. So they are called Amalek. That's the guy's name. So, in other words, Jacob, I have loved means the nation of Jacob, Israel, I have favored. Esau's nation, which was the Edomites, I have not. And he gives an example because Malachi is writing after God has returned the Jews from the Babylonian captivity back to their land, favored them, restored them from that, that, uh, that suffering in Babylon. But he has not done the same thing for the Edomites. When the Babylonians conquered, uh, Israel, in 586 BC, three years later, in 583 BC, he also conquered the Edomites and took them into captivity. So both Jacob and Esau went into captivity. That is their nations. But God restored Jacob's nation and he did not restore Esau's. Esau's nation was never restored. And that's what's been referred to here. He says, uh, Jacob, I have loved, Esau, I have hated, and I laid his mountains and his heritage for the jackals, laid waste his mountains for the jackals of the wilderness. So, he says, even though Edom has said, we have been impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places. Thus says the Lord of Hosts, he may build, but I'll throw it down again. Now, what he's saying is, I have not treated the nation of Edom or Esau with the same favoritism that I did toward Jacob and Israel. What Malachi is saying is, Israel should be thankful. They should honor God because he's shown them special favor that he didn't show to their brother nation, the Edomites, because Jacob and Esau were twins. So this is what he's saying. He's not, he's not talking about anybody being saved, anyone being lost. Now, Paul quotes this in Romans 9, where he's also not talking about anyone being saved or lost. He means the same thing in Romans 9 that Malachi means. And we know he's talking about nations because in Romans 9, in addition to this statement that he quotes, Jacob, I have loved, Esau, I have hated. He also, Paul also quotes in the same place another verse from Genesis, I think it's 23, 25 or 25, 23, uh, which I think it's 25, 23. Where God said, the younger, uh, the older shall serve the younger. Now, Paul quotes that also. The older is Esau and the younger is Jacob. And the prophecy that Paul is quoting was uttered to Rebecca when she was pregnant, where God said two nations are in your womb. Two peoples will be separated from your feet and one shall be greater than the other and the younger, the older shall serve the younger. He's talking about nations, not, not, there's two individuals in her womb, but God says, yeah, these are two nations. The, the nation of the older will serve the nation of the younger. That is Esau's nation will serve the Israelites, which did happen. Now, by the way, Esau himself never served Jacob. That never happened. So he's not talking about personal destinies. He's talking about national destinies, which is the main concern of the Old Testament. Okay, I almost out of time here, who's been here the longest? I have to say Roger in Bakersfield, California has been the longest. Hi Roger, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Guest (Male): Thank you. Uh, I'm asking about the dry bones and I think Ezekiel 37. I understand that to be the earthly nation of Israel that was dead spiritually, but then when the New Testament when the Holy Spirit came that came to life and the law was in their heart rather than a on stone. Uh,
Steve Gregg: I agree.
Guest (Male): Is that?
Steve Gregg: Okay, yeah, yeah. I mean, he sees these dry bones. He is told by God to prophesy to the bones. And when he does, they jiggle and jangle and assemble themselves into skeletons again, and then flesh and skin and hair come on them, but they're still dead. There's, there's no spirit or no breath in them, it says. They're just standing there like an army without any life in them. So, Ezekiel's told to prophesy to the spirit. And the spirit comes and comes into them and they come alive. Now, the interpretation is in verse 11. He says, then he said to me, Son of Man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, our bones are dry, our hope is lost and we ourselves are cut off. Now, notice the present tense. This is what Israel was saying in Ezekiel's time. They were in Babylon. Their nation had been destroyed and scattered like scattered bones of dead people across the desert. The nation of Israel did not exist anymore. And its, and its members, the dry bones, who are now captives in Babylon, their attitude, God says, is they're saying our bones are dry, our hope is gone. But then he says, well, I'm going to, I'm going to come, I'm going to cause you to come out of your graves and I'm going to put my spirit in you, verse 13 and 14, and you'll live. Now, this is what happened. The, the assembling of them out of the graves and back to their own land occurred through the decree of Cyrus in 539 BC. The Jews came back, at least the remnant came back from Babylon, and they restored their nation again. That fulfilled the first part of this prophecy, the reassembling of the bones into, you know, healthy looking bodies. But they had no life in them. There's, there's no spiritual life in that city. That doesn't mean there weren't any spiritual people, but the city was not the habitation of the Holy Spirit like it had been in, say, in the days of Solomon. So, he said, I'm also going to pour my spirit out on you. That's the second thing. And that happened at the Day of Pentecost. So, God brought the Jews back from Babylon, restored their nation as he said he would do in 539 BC. And half a millennium later, when the Messiah came, he poured out his spirit on them at the Day of Pentecost and gave them that life which they lacked, uh, after the captivity when they were assembled as a nation politically only, but not as a spiritual body. And of course, they became a spiritual body in Christ on the Day of Pentecost. So that's, that's what it's about. Now, a lot of people think this is about the end times, but there's nothing in the passage that can be said to apply to the end times. It was talking about the condition Israel was in at that time and what God was going to do. Two things. Reassemble them to their land, and then pour his spirit on them. God has done both. He reassembled them to their land five centuries before Christ. And in a few years after Jesus died and rose, he poured out his spirit on the remnant in Jerusalem as he said he would. And that was the beginning of the body of Christ, the living body of Christ, which we call the church. It was mostly made up of Jews originally, but now Jews and Gentiles are equally in it. You've been listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is TheNarrowPath.com. Thanks for joining us. Let's talk again tomorrow.