Universalism...why not?

[Dartman]

Believing the Scriptures is not wishful thinking.

This statement is true, but would only apply to you ..... IF ... you actually had Scriptures that clearly state your theories.... you don't.
In stead, there are more than 100 that discuss the punishment of the wicked in graphic, and specific terms.

You're EO & have never read re the Universalist belief in the Early Church Fathers?

The Church Fathers on Universalism

They contradict Scripture too, and are the very heretics Paul warned about in Acts 20 and 2 Thess 2, like I've told you before.

How about you explain this passage;

Mal 4:1-3
For, behold, the day cometh, it burneth as a furnace; and all the proud, and all that work wickedness, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith Jehovah of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

2 But unto you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings; and ye shall go forth, and gambol as calves of the stall.

3 And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I make, saith Jehovah of hosts.

 

[Dartman]

An excellent study for those researching universalist theories is, study how "if" is used in the Bible, and what "if" means in context.

 

[ClementofA]

This statement is true, but would only apply to you ..... IF ... you actually had Scriptures that clearly state your theories.... you don't.

So you say. Yet many disagree with you.

In stead, there are more than 100 that discuss the punishment of the wicked in graphic, and specific terms.

Mere punishment is irrelevant to the topic of endless punishment & universalism.
Who denies mere punishment? Children are punished for their own good.

Most of the passages claiming support for endless punishment rely on the mistranslation of the Greek words aion/ios.

Others are often easily shown to not support the theory of endless sadism. As universalists have repeatedly demonstrated here for years.

They contradict Scripture too, and are the very heretics Paul warned about in Acts 20 and 2 Thess 2, like I've told you before.

How about you explain this passage;

Mal 4:1-3
For, behold, the day cometh, it burneth as a furnace; and all the proud, and all that work wickedness, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith Jehovah of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

2 But unto you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings; and ye shall go forth, and gambol as calves of the stall.

3 And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I make, saith Jehovah of hosts.

Where does this say anyone will be annihilated or tortured forever?

God will be "All in all" & all "in Christ" (1 Cor.15:22, 28).

1Cor.15:22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

 

[JacksBratt]

Peter denied the Lord 3 times & still was saved & became an apostle.

I believe Christ means denying Him in your entire life actions. People who are adamant that there is no God, or Jesus was just a good teacher sort of thing and stood by this, argued and lived a live with this view.

That is "denying" Him.

 

[JacksBratt]

Where is this idea of "waiting " coming from and why is it being repeated?

Well..........If you are knowledgeable of who Christ is, now, and are knowledgeable of your sins, now, BUT refuse or procrastinate your request for salvation, you are basically "waiting" until you die and get that second chance after death.
Otherwise, you would be dropping to your knees now.....if there was provided for you any sort of indication that there is no postmortem type salvation.

 

[JacksBratt]

How do you conclude that?

I trusted Christ for my salvation 29 years ago.
I then trusted Christ for everyone's salvation 11 years ago.


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I may have misunderstood you. In post 384 you responded to one of my posts:




JacksBratt said: ↑

In the end...........if you know scripture as well as you do, to be able to discuss and argue the points here.....................why wait and see? Why not just accept that He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and that He made the ultimate sacrifice for your sins.

Chaela said:
Why is this even a discussion?

And what better way to glorify Him and His sacrifice than to accept that He might be 100% successful in executing it, as would be fitting for a King of King and Lord of Lords?

I assumed you were saying that belief or waiting for postmortem salvation was glorifying Him.

 

[JacksBratt]

True.

The whole "no second chances" argument really doesn't make much sense. Besides, the "second chance" option is supposedly available to those who die never having heard of Christ, so yeah...

It does when you realize that Peter showed honest, apparent and heartfelt remorse for this denial.

Again, this passage is not talking about a one off thing that is followed by confession, accepting ownership for the mistake, remorse and repentance.

No, this is talking about a life of denial of Christ.

 

[JacksBratt]

If all knowledge were given to anyone, i think they'd explode or be God. Where does the Bible say that?

Even after all the miracles Thomas saw, he still doubted. Yet Jesus saved him & made him one of the 12 apostles. But you think God will torture billions forever who never had a fraction of the evidences Thomas recieved? Ridiculous.

It says it here:

1 Corinthians 13:1221st Century King James Version (KJ21)

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then shall I know, even as also I am known.

I was wrong that we will know everything instantly. After reading some more, this website explains it quite well: Heaven: Chapter 32, What Will We Know and Learn? - Resources - Eternal Perspective Ministries


We will know much much more than we know here and be fully aware of Christ's true attributes and the error of our lifes actions, to the extent that we will be unable to be saved by faith.


Here is a sample:

The apostle Paul wrote: “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12, emphasis added). The italicized words are based on two different Greek words: ginosko and epiginosko. The prefix epi intensifies the word to mean “to really know” or “to know extensively.” However, when the word is used of humans, it never means absolute knowledge.

 

[JacksBratt]

Wow! Really???

So every poor schmuck who was living in the European continent before and during the time of Christ, every Eskimo in Alaska, the Native Americans in North America, and a great host of others who, through the simple fate of their birth outside of Jerusalem and the Jewish faith, never heard the Gospel and of Christ are basically screwed???

You cannot lump the people from all era's into one pot.... The people we are discussing are those the hear the gospel, yet don't repent in hopes of a second chance after death.

Now, you are moving the goal posts and bringing those that were alive before the time of Christ or have not heard the gospel..... totally different scenario...YET they still have reasons, in God's righteous judgement, for which they will be held accountable.

Remember this verse? It deals with those who never heard the gospel, yet will still have no excuse...

Romans 1:19-2121st Century King James Version (KJ21)

19 because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath shown it unto them.


20 For from the creation of the world the invisible things of Him are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.


21 For when they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God, nor were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

 

[JacksBratt]

So.....let me see if I'm understanding you: A person dies---they then recognize and profess Jesus as God and praise Him--yet you believe God will respond in a way that demonstrates they're "too late"? They missed their window of opportunity?

When a person, who is not saved, dies, they do not go to the same place that a person who is saved goes...
A saved person goes to be with Christ. An unsaved person does not, but waits until the white throne judgement at the end of the millennium. There will be a quick sorting of "was this person a soul that has salvation?" That will be the quick judgement.

At the white throne judgement, the unbeliever will be held accountable and judged on their actions and works on this earth.

At death, a saved person is given salvation based on their faith in Christ's blood. Their judgement will then be to determine their honor, crowns and rewards while the exist in heaven.

Two quite different situations. One, the sinner given sentence for their actions, as they were not saved, it will only determine or confirm their second death.
The other, the saved, gets salvation, not by works, but, once saved is judged by the works they did in Christ's name, only to determine their rewards.

The sinner is never questioned on a ability for salvation, at this point, as it is already a done deal.
The believer, also, is not questioned on their right to salvation, as it is also already determined and a done deal.

Let me ask this: WHY (of course this is COMPLETELY conjecture)....do you believe God is interested in reconciling us to Him? Do you believe it's more of a test we must pass (where He longs for the "top of the class" students)?

Not at all. He created us for fellowship. Sin keeps us from that possibility. Salvation is a release from sin so that His original purpose for us can be realized. However, salvation is a free gift but must be accepted by the recipient. Not forced on by the giver.

It's not a test. It's a mandatory action as someone must pay for the sins of the soul of each individual....

 

[Albion]

I agree with some but not everything in that post, Jack, but I do think it's a big mistake for people to assume that anyone will instantly become a different person in the afterlife, suddenly praising Christ when he finds himself in the presence of the Lord, although he was unrepentant at the moment of death.

 

[JacksBratt]

I agree with some but not everything in that post, Jack, but I do think it's a big mistake for people to assume that anyone will instantly become a different person in the afterlife, suddenly praising Christ when he finds himself in the presence of the Lord, although he was unrepentant at the moment of death.

Maybe I didn't explain myself very well.

Every knee shall bow, but I don't think it will be all jumping for joy. I am sure there will be resentment, embarrassment, unwillingness combined with the weight of the knowledge that it is mandatory and rightfully deserved worship and honor.

Not only that, buy combined with the knowledge of their soon to come demise.

However, every knee will bow. Every soul and creation will give Christ His rightful worship, no matter what emotions or feelings regarding that honor is combined with.

 

[Albion]

However, every knee will bow. Every soul and creation will give Christ His rightful worship, no matter what emotions or feelings regarding that honor is combined with.

In other words, the meaning would be that Joseph Stalin's knee and each ISIS terrorist's knee will bow alongside St. Francis of Assisi. I'm uneasy with that interpretation, but who knows? And of course, if everyone does acclaim God the Father and/or Christ--because they can hardly do otherwise when confronted with perfection and their eyes are opened--that doesn't mean that they'll escape all the consequences of a life lived badly.

 

[Mike Fleming]

I realize that the evidence for universalism is weaker than the evidence for annihilationsim but there is evidence for it. What makes you think that Paul is wrong when he said that Jesus' one act of obedience leads to life and justification for all men?

 

[Light of the East]

Since you've decided to share what you despise, I would like to share as well. What frustrates me is individuals severe lack of understanding concerning who God is and what God wants, and what God will do.

Who God is, what God wants, and what God will do have already been clearly defined in Scripture:

1Jo 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

Therefore, every action of God, everything we think we know about God, must be understood from actions coming solely from love. Everything that He does is done within His character of love, therefore, anything or any description of Him that lacks or runs afoul of this description is false.

We also therefore know the will of God:

1 Tim 2: 4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

John Calvin must have somehow missed this verse. Or maybe, like Luther, he was prone to cutting verses out of the Bible that went against his personal interpretation. God is sovereign, and He makes all His holy will come to pass. Therefore, all men will eventually be saved. This is clear and it is Scripture.

God is not a creature that is subject to ideals of men, though He is personal, He has supreme dignity and freedom as the only autonomous being. God is the supreme authority of ALL of His creation. God is the author, He created ALL things and therefore is the ultimate authority. He owns it, and because of His ownership gives Him the unquestionable right to do what is pleasing to His holy will.

Or what has been called by theologians, the "Monarchical Will of the Father" as the Divine King. No one is arguing against that at all. What we do have a serious problem with is interpreting that complete, total, divine will in a manner more consistent with the wrathful pagan "gods" of antiquity rather than in the revelation of Scripture that God is love. Calvinism describes Zeus, not Jesus.

God created ALL things for His own glory, not for anyone or anything else. We add nothing, absolutely nothing to His glory or His righteousness.

Nope! Not even close to what Scripture reveals to us.

Rev. 4: 11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

And what is the pleasure of God? His glory? NO! A thousand times no!!!! His pleasure is what is the essential ontological reality of His very being - LOVE!!!! Calvinists don't get that at all!!!

By His grace, He has given us life by creating us. By His grace, while we are spiritually dead in trespasses and sin, He has made us spiritually alive through the work of the Holy Spirit. By His grace, though His enemies as children of Wrath He has adopted us as children of God.

Yes, everything in all Creation is an expression of His grace, His unmerited favor. Nothing we mere creatures can do could earn anything from Him. He is indebted to no created being. It is all pure grace, but grace comes from His love.

All are sinners. No one deserves life. No one deserves salvation. God abhors sin, and any who would stand before Him in their sin would instantly perish. Yet out of the the masses, many will be called to faith in Christ so that His righteousness will present them without blemish to the Father. We are grateful that He would allow for ANY to be saved.

The wretched and false doctrine of "election" is inconsistent with God as love. You are (and I say this as an X-Calvinist for 12 years) blinded by your presuppositions. The hardest thing for all of us (me included) is to read the Bible without presuppositions. We tend to make up our minds first, and then bend the Scriptures to support our presuppositions. Everyone of us here is doing that to some degree.

God elects no one to eternal wrath. The "election" of God is not from some divine caprice in which He arbitrarily chooses some to suffer eternally, even infants who have done no wrong.
I cannot find the verse now, but Christ told the Pharisees that the reason they could not understand was because they had chosen evil over good, and God was giving them what they had chosen. The verse is used as a common proof text for "election," but it actually proves just the opposite, that God honors our choices and gives us the blindness we desire.

 

[Mike Fleming]

Paul was referring to ALL men as in Jews and Gentiles. Remember that God was sending Paul to preach to the Gentiles and to defend the cause of the Gospel going out to ALL men, and not just within the Jewish circle. It was Paul's calling to reach out to the Greeks, Romans and anyone else who listened, while Peter's calling was to the Jews. This has nothing to do with a universalist idea that we all go to heaven and that there is any opportunity beyond death for repentance. Revelation 20 warns that anyone whose name is not found in the Lamb's Book of Life will be thrown into the lake of fire, along with the beast and his false prophet and it says they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

 

[Light of the East]

The way that Universalist fashion God is according to wishful thinking. They don't believe that there are consequences that would eternally separate them from God, because they have a desire to live lifestyles according to their own wills and lifestyles contrary to what Jesus taught and at the same time believe that God won't dare send them to eternal punishment and separation from him.

Who exactly is dictating terms to who?

You see, I mentioned in previous posts that they will...

1 Forsake the blood covenant and side with the world.

You have now crossed over into the realm of slander and false witness. I am highly tempted to report this post to the mods. To infer that somehow because I think that God is love and will strive to save all, I desire drunkenness, fornication, blasphemy, idolatry, and the other sins mentioned in Galatians 5 is a reprehensible smear on my character and the character of all who hold to this doctrine in good faith, along with saints such as St. Isaac the Syrian. You should be ashamed of yourself!!

2 Pay little to no regard to what Jesus had instructed, by denying him and saying that he was only instructing the Jews and not us, the church. So that Jesus is NOT the final authority in matters concerning life.

Another reprehensible smear, without any substance at all. It is precisely because we are studying the Word of God that we have questions or have come to this conclusion. You really need to see your priest for Confession this weekend!!

3 Their will trumps the will of God the Father.

1 Tim 2: 4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

This last accusation is so patently false that it deserves no further comment. Shame on you!

We have the Anthtopos of Sin being manifest in our times, who think and promote the efficacy to change the times and laws of God and to promote an autonomous law society to serve the creature rather than the Creator.

The same Universalist lie is being spouted on the unsuspecting and it will ultimately initiate and end in the great falling away from the faith.

Why Universalist believe in an autonomous society, is to embrace the sins of the world, in that they can live life to the fullest, without the guilt and acknowledgement that certain lifestyles are abhorrent to God.

In this regard God and his Christ is relegated to being passengers to their own creation. Universalism is a hijacking of the true Christian faith from within.

 

[Light of the East]

Absolutely, you have hit the nail on the head with several of your posts. If one can simply wait it out, what point is there to doing anything that God has commanded? They would say "I have no need to love God, or my neighbor because God loves me enough."

One second in the fire of God's chastening scourges would be enough to show you what a ridiculous statement that is. We should be warning people that their sin will earn them painful chastening in the next life.

Who would have thought that a Presbyterian Christian (A dreadful Calvinist even!) and an Eastern Orthodox Christian would strongly agree on any point!

 

[Light of the East]

Believing the Scriptures is not wishful thinking.

You're EO & have never read re the Universalist belief in the Early Church Fathers?

The Church Fathers on Universalism

He is a very strange Orthodox who sounds very much like he is a recent convert from Evangelicalism or Fundamentalism.

 

[Albion]

But that line of thought assumes a certain view of universal salvation that is not what the universalists in early Christian history or more studious universalists these days assume about the afterlife.

It's not that everyone will be ushered immediately into heaven, the good and the bad equally...with the bad of course saying that they are sorry for the transgressions they didn't regret at all while alive in the flesh. Universalism most often seems to be described as an ULTIMATE rehabilitation that follows considerable punishment, etc.