I have been resting my weary being on the Father of all fathers now for 63 years. I know He can be trusted to be & do what a wonderful Father is & does.
If you behold this glorious One as the God of unending torment you must continue to enjoy Him in that nasty horizon!
"It is in Him, and through the shedding of His blood, that we have our deliverance--the forgiveness of our offences--so abundant was God's grace, the grace which He, the possessor of all wisdom and understanding, lavished upon us, when He made known to us the secret of His will. And this is in harmony with God's merciful purpose for the government of the world when the times are ripe for it--the purpose which He has cherished in His own mind of restoring the whole creation to find its one Head in Christ; yes, things in Heaven and things on earth, to find their one Head in Him."
[Gen 3:14-19 NASB] 14 The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; 15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel." 16 To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you." 17 Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it'; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. 18 "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; 19 By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return."
God curses the animals, the people, the ground - all of creation - because of Adam's sin. This is Adam's judgement. What did the animals do? What sin did the ground perform? Adam's judgement was universal. It was a valid and just judgement so long as no sinless people would ever be found. But then Jesus came and live a sinless life, and so Adam's judgement must be repealed.
[Rev 5:4-5 NASB] 4 Then I [began] to weep greatly because no one was found worthy to open the book or to look into it; 5 and one of the elders said to me, "Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals."
[1Co 15:21-22, 26 NASB] 21 For since by a man [came] death, by a man also [came] the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. ... 26 The last enemy that will be abolished is death.
[Rom 5:16, 18 NASB] 16 The gift is not like [that which came] through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment [arose] from one [transgression] resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift [arose] from many transgressions resulting in justification. ... 18 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.
Notice Romans 5:16. It says the gift is NOT like the transgression. On the one had, one man sinned rusulting in condemnation. On the other hand, the free gift arose from many transgressions. It occured to me that, to undo death for ALL of mankind who are under Adam's death, you would only have to forgive 1 sin. But what does this say? The gift of grace doesn't cover the one sin, it covers many sins. In other words, Jesus' sacrifice covers the SECOND judgment, not the first.
But when it says in Adam all die, but in Christ, all will be made alive, it is talking about the resurrection. The resurrection is an undoing of Adam's judgment. Since Christ's work on the cross doesn't cover the first judgement, but the second it must mean that Adam's universal judgement is repealed in lieu of individual judgements.
Jesus will judge the church:
[Mat 25:31-34 NASB] 31 "But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 "All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. 34 "Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
Then God will judge the world in the great white throne judgement - an individual judgement. In this judgement, the earth and the animals are not judged.
[Rev 20:11-15 NASB] 11 Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is [the book] of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. 13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one [of them] according to their deeds. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
We know that the animals and earth will be restored.
[Isa 65:25 NASB] 25 "The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox; and dust will be the serpent's food. They will do no evil or harm in all My holy mountain," says the LORD.
[Rom 8:18-23 NASB] 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. 23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for [our] adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
The resurrection of man, the redemption of the animals, the ground, and all of creation can all be accomplished by a repeal of Adam's judgement. We know from 1 Corinthians 15:26 that Adam's judgement will be abolished. This does not negate nor preclude the possibility of a second, individual judgement to follow. Universalists conflate the repeal of Adam's corporate judgement with the redemption of Christ's second judgment.
