Transcription

Connor:
You’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways.

Chris:
Hey, well, my name is Chris Zarbaugh.

Jeff:
And I’m Jeff Forester, and we’re the Bible Guys. We are the Bible Guys. Yes, and so we have a very special episode scheduled for you today.

Chris:
Because our series ended sort of midweek, and so we thought, you know, actually Desiree thought it’d be a good idea to throw some bonus episodes together.

Jeff:
Right, and she’s clearly the brains behind the operation. Of course she is. Yes.

Chris:
And also, this is one of our favorite segments and some of our listeners’ favorite segments called Stump the Pastor. We’re doing a compilation of a couple of different ones that I think you’re going to enjoy today.

Jeff:
Yeah. So sit back and enjoy Stump the Pastor on The Bible Guys.

Chris:
So today we have a segment called Stump the Pastor.

Jeff:
Oh, these are fun.

Chris:
Yes. And this is written by Brian L. Ooh, Brian. And this is how it reads. The Bible mentions how Jesus was tempted by the devil, but never sinned. Do you think it was because he was setting an example for us and showing us how to overcome temptations, or do you think that Jesus, being the Son of God, was physically and otherwise unable to sin? Brian L. Wow. Well, this is a big question, isn’t it?

Jeff:
Well, this is a fraught with minefields. So thanks, Brian. It just… Yeah.

Chris:
Well, to those who… Roll this grenade in the room.

Jeff:
So there are fields of thought on both sides of this issue. Was it possible for Jesus to sin? So because he was 100% man, was it possible to sin? On the other side, because he was 100% God, God can’t sin. So, right? Well, then if Jesus couldn’t sin, then was it really a temptation? Right? Was he just going through the motions? I think that’s kind of what Brian is asking here. I think so too. But he asks it with only two ideas.

Chris:
Isn’t it true though, that like, Either answer is a heretic, according to the other sides of pain.

Jeff:
Oh, yeah. So there throughout Christianity, there have been various heresies that have sprung up on both sides that, you know, Jesus wasn’t actually man or that he was less man and more God or whatever or the other side. So, you know, All I would say is we’re going to stumble through this a little bit. We’re going to give our opinions on it. And all of the YouTube theologians out there that want to fire off a bunch of angry emails at us, hey, we’ve been called heretics by better than you.

Chris:
Probably.

Jeff:
So, but here’s the thing. There’s a third piece to this. So he says, was he going through the motions to show us how to overcome temptation or was this a legitimate temptation? Or because he was God, then it wasn’t a temptation, right? Those would be the sides of this equation. So here’s what I would say. I believe that it was 100% a legitimate temptation.

Chris:
Yeah. You said there was a third thing.

Jeff:
Yeah, I forgot where I was going with it. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Oh, so the power of the Holy Spirit. So I believe that Jesus, everything Jesus did, Jesus said, you’ll be able to, my followers will do greater things than I do. And it’s because of the Holy Spirit. Right? So I believe that what Jesus did is he walked in the power of the Holy Spirit as a man, is what he did, even as he was perfectly God. And that’s a…

Chris:
So let’s get back to the temptation. You said they’re legitimate temptations.

Jeff:
I think that they were 100% legitimate temptations. Yes.

Chris:
So I wrote a paper on this in college, by the way, and got an F. Which, by the way, before you say that, because Hebrew says he was tempted in every way,

Jeff:
Right? Even as we were. Right.

Chris:
Even as we were, and he chose not to sin. And that verse implies that he can relate to how we struggle. That’s right. Right? And if it’s impossible for us to sin, that’s the only way that could be the same. That’s right. But if it’s possible for us to sin, then he can relate to our struggle. Right.

Jeff:
Yeah. So I wrote a paper on this in college and got an F. So he gave me an A for writing and structure and an F for content. Disagreed with what I said. and warned me that I was a heretic on this. But I was trying to split the difference. Here’s what I believe. I believe that Jesus was 100% God, 100% man. As God, the Bible says he cannot sin. As man, we’re all tempted to sin, and it’s legitimate, right? In the power of the Holy Spirit, he avoided sinning. I believe that if Jesus had to sin, he would have ceased to be God. right, is what would have happened. But he did not sin. And so I think that that temptation was fraught with tremendous danger. Every time Jesus would be tempted to sin, I think it was fraught with tremendous danger for all of humanity at that point. But being God, he navigated it perfectly. Right? So I don’t think he overcame sin because he was God. I think he was tempted as a man and overcame sin in the power of the Holy Spirit. Right? Because if you remember, the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove. Then he went out into the wilderness to be tempted for 40 days. Right? Right. And then, by the way, the temptations that you see, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, those are the three temptations Satan brought. Those are the three that are recorded. But it says he was tempted for 40 days and 40 nights. So, it was a different thing, but what it’s highlighting is the fact that Jesus overcame those temptations through the power of the Holy Spirit and through the Word of God. And I think that those are the two bullets we have in our gun against the devil, too, is the power of the Holy Spirit and the words of God.

Chris:
Yeah, that’s great. Yeah, and I also want to acknowledge, you know, the postmodern part of me that says, you know, Most of the time, we are given limited information. Sure. And so, you know, I mean, we know some things for sure, right? And that’s what we base everything off of, right? And we know that it’s impossible for God to sin, that he cannot exist with sin. We also know that on the cross, Jesus became sin, right? According to 1 Corinthians.

Jeff:
1 Corinthians. So in other words, He who knew no sin became sin for us.

Chris:
Yes. Right. And so now, He didn’t choose sin. Sin was put upon Him.

Jeff:
Right. Right? Like the scapegoat in the Old Testament.

Chris:
Yes, like the scapegoat in the Old Testament. So, we do know that he still was God in that moment, and yet there was sin on him as a person, right? And so, in that moment, it’s believed that there’s a separation, you know, on the cross on the ninth hour, which is like three o’clock in the afternoon, when he shouts out, my God, why have you forsaken me? The theory is that God the Father forsook him, right? He was forsaken. Turned his back on sin. So he must have turned his back or removed his presence, right? Sure. Jesus found himself separated for the first time. Yeah. And by the way, we don’t fully understand intrinsically how they work together relationally. Right, right. So we’re taking our best guess on our knowledge because we don’t quite understand fully how that is, but we know for certain that he was forsaken. Yes. Right? And we also know for sure that he was still God and he had sin as a part of who he was.

Jeff:
Right. So God has some way to separate these two things, the flesh, right? The humanity and the Godhead in some way, where Jesus was able to preserve his deity. God was able to preserve the deity of Christ while he became the embodiment of sin so that God could bring judgment on it. It’s very confusing to us. I think the mechanisms of that are far more complex than we can wrap our Oh, completely.

Chris:
And again, I mean, if God wanted us to know exactly how it worked, he’d say, let me tell you how this is going to work, right? He didn’t say any of those things. So, we are left with limited information to guess about God, but the things that we cling to, certainly, are the things that we know are true about God.

Jeff:
The fact that he is God and his sacrifice was good enough for us, and at the same time, we should be encouraged that he was tempted just like we are, but he didn’t sin. And then Paul tells us later, you know, in Corinthians, that there’s no temptation that’s taken you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, and he will give us a way to escape, right? And so, that way to escape, I believe, is through the power of the Holy Spirit, surrender to him, and through God’s words, cleaning our minds, changing our minds, resetting our priorities.

Chris:
1 Corinthians 10, 12 is what you just quoted because that’s the first verse I ever memorized. Oh, wow. Really?

Jeff:
Yeah. So this is an incredibly complex thing. And trust me, I feel like we did the best we could to walk the razor’s edge because there are heresies on both sides of this. It’s not unreasonable to ask the question, I don’t know that you build your entire theology over the answer to this, because it’s more complex than we can totally work out.

Chris:
And by the way, it’s worth noting as well, that at the moment that Jesus became sin, understand that that the principles of sin were already in motion for the forgiveness of them, right? Because sin demands a sacrifice. Sin demands a shedding of blood. So, the principles of sin were in motion as he became sin, right? So, he was already shedding his blood.

Jeff:
He was atoning for the sin that he became. Yes.

Chris:
So, I mean, there’s definitely something there.

Jeff:
It was all happening at the same time. Right.

Chris:
It’s not as if God, in His infinite wisdom and in infinity past, was just living in sin.

Jeff:
Do you remember, what is it you remember better than me? Remember the thing that they try to put in a box in the Thor movies? They try to put in the power thing or whatever.

Chris:
Oh, are you talking about the Spiderman movie?

Jeff:
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It’s, um, uh, I forget. Anyways, sometimes in the superhero movies, they try to take this power and put it in a, in a box, right. To contain this, uh, this, this power. It’s almost like that’s what happens at the cross. Jesus becomes sin, but it’s encapsulated in the fact that He was atoning for it. God was atoning for this powerful sin at the same time and contained all of the violence and the danger and the horror of this sin. At the exact same time He was atoning for it, He became it. right? And it kind of, it kind of encapsulated this in a way that made it possible for him then to defeat death and sin and hell in the grave. And then his resurrection demonstrates this power.

Chris:
So anyways, I don’t know what that is, but… I think that maybe you’re thinking of a movie that Thor was in that wasn’t a Thor movie.

Jeff:
The Tesseract. It’s what I was thinking. Oh, the Tesseract. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris:
Which was in Odin’s chambers.

Jeff:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Chris:
Yeah. Well, they didn’t put it in a box. The Tesseract was already in a box.

Jeff:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But they trying to contain this power.

Chris:
Because my mind had about 75 references of things getting put in a box.

Jeff:
Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. So it’s kind of this encapsulated danger power thing that happens. Anyways. Well, Sarah G asks this one and it’s a tough one. Do you want me to read it and you take a shot at it? Sure. Okay, good. I’m glad you’re taking a shot at this one. Yes. So Sarah G asks, when loved ones pass away, some people say that they’re now watching over us. Do you really think that people in heaven can look down on earth and see what’s going on?

Chris:
Yeah. So here’s the bottom line. Most of the answers, in fact, almost all the answers to these questions are, we don’t know. Right. Because, and again, this is the difference between, I always like to say this, it’s the difference between The modern church and the postmodern church? Yeah. So one of the very definitions of postmodernity is being okay with the mystery of God, you know, as opposed to, you know, the modern era, which says everything that can be known is able to be known and can be found, which by the way, was the cause of all denominations, was in that modern era, right? It can be known. We disagree, right? Thousands of people disagree, denominations. Uh, and I’m not, I’m not a guy who just says, Hey, who knows? I’m not that guy. But what I am is I embrace the mystery of God and saying like, um, God only gives us this much information on this topic. So we have what three or four references that we could look to. Uh, you know, we have, uh, you know, we have the cloud of witnesses verse that people use to talk about this in Hebrews. Uh, uh, what is it? 11. Right. And then there’s the story of the rich man and Lazarus, where somebody looks out from eternity and has knowledge of somebody on earth. You know, in heaven, there’s knowledge of somebody on earth. So the point is, there’s only a few different places where we have knowledge. But for the most part, if God wanted us to know, he would let us know. So I think the ultimate answer is we don’t know. But I am going to say this. None of the evidence supports it. None of the evidence leans toward that truth that our loved ones look down. But ultimately, I, again, am the firm believer just because we only have two or three little nuggets and none of them lean toward it, All we have left is logic and reasoning. And I would just say… Which God invented. Sure, sure. But I would just say, ultimately, it’s completely possible, even if there’s no evidence for it. Even if logic says… And I know what you’re going to say.

Jeff:
Oh, then let me say it.

Chris:
I think I lean toward it’s not likely. Yeah. But I completely am open to getting to heaven and God saying, oh yeah, that’s completely true. Here’s how it’s possible.

Jeff:
We do know that angels watch us, right? That was being spoken there in the last two days ago’s reading.

Chris:
Angels watching over me.

Jeff:
But I would say the logic of it would be if your loved one was in heaven in eternity, they’re outside of time and space at this point, there is no more disease. It’s perfect life. For them to witness every moment of your life dying would be a lot of grief in heaven. For them to witness every sin you commit while they’re sitting next to the one who paid the ransom for your sin, I think would be tremendous grief. I think when you start to work out the logic of it, would it be heaven for them if they were always only grieving over you? Right. So for us, we have these few delightful moments each day, and those are the moments we live for. And we live for those vacations and those beautiful sunsets and things like that. But most of life is a struggle because we live under a curse. And so I have a hard time believing that people released from the curse would turn around and watch us living in the curse all the time. Right. So the logic of it doesn’t stand up for me, but it does come from the very strong Catholic tradition of the saints are the ones who are intermediaries for us and they answer our prayers and take care of us and all those things. The Bible doesn’t teach that. The Bible teaches that Jesus is our intermediary. He’s our intercessor. He’s the one that goes between. He’s the hero and doesn’t reference the idea that saints take care of us at all. But that’s where that tradition would come from, would be from that idea. So I don’t see the logic of it and I don’t see the biblical reinforcement of it, but I understand the desire for it.

Chris:
before so you know you know if you want your husband or your wife is you know uh… in and by the way i heard i’d know people personally who are uh… refused to build the to think that’s not true i don’t care what you say sir i’m leaving it open because i know my wife is looking down on me straight now sir and and and there’s no way that that’s not true but i know that there are people listening here that absolutely are thinking that and i’m gonna say that uh… again there’s the you can work through the logic of it, which God gave to us. You could look at the different references to it, but ultimately, we just don’t know. And by the way, the verse that does say there’s a cloud of witnesses, therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, the Bible says. The word witnesses doesn’t mean people who always are watching. Right. Right? Because you could witness to your friend. Right. And that means you’re proclaiming the truth of Jesus Christ.

Jeff:
Well, they’re testifying the same thing we’re testifying of. Right. It’s talking about the ones who came before us that testified of Christ. That’s right. And testified of faith, because that whole phrase is in the context of the hall of faith in the Bible. So it’s these clouds of witnesses testifying to the power of faith. And so a witness doesn’t have to be just watching in the moment, watching us. It’s that they are testifying as a witness of the same things we’re testifying of. That’s really what I believe the author of Hebrews is talking about, which we’ll get to. We’ll get to in a few weeks. We’ll be in Hebrews.

Chris:
And by the way, the other thought is more appealing. You just said, I understand the desire for it. Like, it would be cooler if such a great cloud of witnesses meant that there’s a stadium of people who’ve gone on before us that are cheering us on, you know, like the Roman Coliseum. Right.

Jeff:
And that may be, not to over talk yet, but that may be a little bit of an overemphasis of the importance of what happens on this planet in this short little 70 years or 80 years. and it may be a under-emphasis of how incredible eternity is. Right. Right? So they’re in eternity. And I just, I, yeah, it’s a great question, Sarah. And I understand the motive behind it, but I don’t know that there’s a lot of reinforcement biblically for it. Yep. That’s good.

Chris:
So there’s the answer. That’s the best one. That’s the best answer we have.

Jeff:
That might be one of the hardest ones to answer that we’ve dealt with so far. Yeah, I think so too. Because all the rest of you can just emphatically go, I don’t know. And this one is like, ooh.

Chris:
Yeah. But I mean, the reasoning, you know, working out the thoughts and the logic of it and the leanings, because that’s all we have is leanings, our leanings. And so, you know, it is important to stack it up against what we do know, which, you know, we sort of referenced already. So this comes from Angela V. And Angela V. writes this question. Why do we have to bear the burdens of Adam and Eve’s sin? when he, God, could have arranged things so that each one of us had the chance to be born with a clean slate and make our own mistakes free of a tainted universe. But first of all, wow, what a question.

Jeff:
Yeah, that’s a thinker’s question right there. Yeah, for sure.

Chris:
You know, I mean, because, by the way, that question seems to be born out of, that’s not fair.

Jeff:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Wow.

Chris:
It’s like I inherited a sin nature from Adam and Eve. How is that fair?

Jeff:
Yeah. I wish I could have taken my own shot at this sinlessness thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, well one, I think we all would have failed, you know, on this because we, we have a free will and free wills tend to choose self. Yeah.

Chris:
Well, true love cannot exist without free will. So God could have made us like robots. He could have created us to make us love him and respond. But he doesn’t. He decides to give us free will to choose good and evil, choose love or not love. And it’s because that is truly love. And we are made and created to love and be in relationship with God.

Jeff:
This whole human story is a love story.

Chris:
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, go ahead and continue.

Jeff:
Oh boy. So I get to answer this one. Well, I mean, we can both answer it. So one, I think on the surface, the best answer is the Bible doesn’t specifically say why. Sure.

Chris:
Well, most of these questions are, I don’t know.

Jeff:
But there are a lot of biblical principles that we can kind of extract from. Sure. And I think a couple of scientific things. First off, Romans and Corinthians both talk about how, like in Romans, it says, wherefore is by one man sin into the world and death by sin. So death passed upon all men for all have sinned. That’s the premise behind this question. OK, so Adam sinned. And so then Now we’re all sinners. We’re all born with a sin nature. Right. So. Then it goes on in Romans and says, so then because one person was willing to die, he could die for all sin too. Right.

Chris:
Which is the second Adam, which is Jesus.

Jeff:
That’s right. So God, so we tend to think of ourselves only from the perspective of being autonomous individuals. And yes, we are, we have a free will, but we are also part of humanity. And so we all emanate from Adam and Eve. We all come from them. So things that are broken, So, this really gets into biology a little bit, the whole concept of progeny, the idea of the sharing of DNA in order to make the next life, all of these things. And so, these two broken, dying creatures, they were living creatures. Then they were broken, dying creatures. They were made to live forever.

Chris:
You’re talking about the original Adam and Eve? Yes.

Jeff:
Yes. They were made to live forever. Then they sinned. And the Bible says immediately they began to die. That was the idea, that you will die. And it’s physical, spiritual death. So then at this point, then they had this broken, genetics, I believe, in the same way that the Bible says that the whole earth and all of creation groans under the weight of the brokenness of the universe. Everything broke. Sure. Nature broke. Everything broke at that point. And then, you know, a man and a woman comes together and they blend DNA and then that gets passed on, that gets passed on. So in the process of progeny, the process of new life, we’re also being, it’s being handed off from already sinful creatures, broken creatures. And it’s in that context then that we are all related back to Adam with the, we were formed, we were created in with sin, right? Not in sin, but with sin. But that’s the bad news. The good news is then that also makes it possible with Jesus being the second Adam, Jesus’ one sacrifice pays the price for all of humanity as well. Right.

Chris:
Which is a beautiful picture. And it’s really something that I don’t think people think about, but it’s a great truth to understand that generations pass on the physical. And so, and then not only that, but even our personalities are very much like our traits, everything else. But there’s also a spiritual part of every human being. There’s a soul and there’s a spirit. And so it’s important to recognize that it wasn’t just a physical death that was, you know, that came from the curse of sin, it was a spiritual death, right? And that they became sinful, and that portion also gets passed down to us.

Jeff:
Yeah, and I don’t understand it all. And, you know, the Bible’s not a science book. I believe it’s accurate with what it says about scientific things. But there’s a lot of science in there. But it’s not a science book, so it doesn’t really get into all these things. But I do know this, that, you know, it talks about how sin is passed down from generation to generation, that the father’s sins will be visited on the third and fourth generation. We do know now, here in the last 25 years or so, as we’ve really begun to dig into DNA, we do know that there are genetic predispositions for alcoholism within certain families. That some families, some people, they can touch alcohol, it’s not a problem. Other people, they drink alcohol one time. and they’re going to be alcoholics or whatever, that we do know that there are genetic predispositions for anger. We know that there are genetic predispositions for aggression. We know that there’s genetic predispositions for intelligence and lack thereof. We know that there’s a genetic predisposition for so many things that wind up being negatives in our life. And that comes because now God did not create us that way. Sin broke us. And those broken pieces then get passed on through Adam’s children. That’s just what happens. So God didn’t create you sinful. God created your parents perfect, you know, in Adam and Eve. And then with Adam and Eve being broken, all of their progeny is broken and only Jesus can fix it.

Chris:
You know, that movie came to mind. Do you remember the Emperor’s New Groove? Yes. You called out many of our parents. Remember that scene where she goes, great, great, great, great, great, great, great aunt. Remember that? No. Twice removed. No. You don’t remember that? No. Okay. All right. I’m about myself.

Jeff:
It’s pretty, it’s pretty sophisticated though. It sounds like. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris:
Well, Emperor’s New Groove is great. So, yeah, they are our parents a long time ago. And so, the question then is not just practical, but also there’s a second side of that question, which is, couldn’t God have done that, right? So, if God decided to make every individual born with a clean slate, according to this question, right? And maybe things aren’t passed down and we all start brand new.

Jeff:
If life began with storks dropping babies off at houses, where we weren’t physically connected or genetically connected to other humans. And every parent relationship was just an adoptive relationship where each person is spontaneously created in some way. But that’s not what he did.

Chris:
That’s not what he did. And if he did do that, my feeling is all of us would fail anyway. Oh, absolutely. Because the Bible tells us that no person can keep all of the law. That’s right. Because God is sinless and he is perfect. And our nature is not that way.

Jeff:
I think so. So the official answer would be, I’m not sure that the Bible actually says specifically why. He doesn’t always say why. He just says what most of the time. That’s right. That’s right. But I think that this is a really great thinking question. I think that Angela, it really shows kind of a depth of thought in asking it. And I’ll be honest with you, Angela, I’ve asked those same kind of questions before too. Yeah, that’s great. Yeah. I think it’s a really good, really good way of looking at it. The issue would be this. It’s okay that God didn’t do it that way. Right. Because if we see this as entirely a love story, then, I mean, this is that typical epic story that we tell over and over and over again in our movies. You’re a movie buff. In our movies over and over and over again, some of the greatest movies, some of the greatest dramas, the best stories throughout human history are always, you know, there’s the beloved, and the beloved gets captured away by the evil one or by the dragon, is kidnapped, is in danger, maybe even tempted to give in to this evil dragon or whatever. And then the hero comes and at great peril to himself, willing to sacrifice everything, comes and rescues his beloved and maybe even has to die in order to set her free and defeat the evil one. We tell that story over and over and over again, just with different, you know, characters or whatever. But we’ve been telling that story for thousands of years. And the reason is, I think, deep down inside, we know that is the story of humanity. Right. That really is. Right. And so there’s some some value, I think, in saying, OK, this is the way God chose and I’m in that system. God’s not unfair. God only always does good. And he delights in the love story he’s telling. And the good news is you have the ability and the autonomy to be able to choose love or choose yourself. That’s it, right? And by turning to the move of the Holy Spirit, He draws you to the Father, right? The work of Jesus on the cross pays the price. But there is a moment when you are confronted with your sin and either you repent and turn to Christ and experience the love of Christ through forgiveness of sins, or you don’t. And that’s the story of of humanity. And that’s a beautiful story that he’s telling.