The Restitution Of All Things A.K.A. Universalism

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FineLinen

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Questions Requiring Answers=

If God knew, when he created, what the end of each soul would be, is not that end as certain as if it was decreed?

Is not the merciful man always merciful to his beast?

Will not the merciful God be always as merciful to His creatures, as the merciful man is to his beast?

Is it true that the “tender mercies of the Lord are over all his works?” – (Ps. 145:9)

Is it true that the Almighty is without variableness, or the shadow of turning?

Would there be any tender mercy in the infliction of endless misery?

Are the tender mercies of the Lord like unto the tender mercies of the wicked which are cruel?

If God is not the Father of sinners, why should sinners pray, saying, “Our Father, forgive us our trespasses?”

“Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us?” – (Mal. 2:10)

If God be the Father of all men, will He do less for His children than earthly parents would do for theirs?

Is it true that God punishes us “for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness?” – (Heb. 12:11)

Would endless punishment be for our profit?
 
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FineLinen

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God's compassion never fails" =

La compassion de Dieu n'échoue jamais

Das Mitgefühl Gottes scheitert nie

La compasión de Dios nunca falla

神的憐憫永不失敗

परमेश्वर की करुणा कभी विफल नहीं होती

Gods mededogen faalt nooit.

My friend God loves you! He always has He always will!

 
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Questions Requiring Answers=

If God knew, when he created, what the end of each soul would be, is not that end as certain as if it was decreed?

Is not the merciful man always merciful to his beast?

Will not the merciful God be always as merciful to His creatures, as the merciful man is to his beast?

Is it true that the “tender mercies of the Lord are over all his works?” – (Ps. 145:9)

Is it true that the Almighty is without variableness, or the shadow of turning?

Would there be any tender mercy in the infliction of endless misery?

Are the tender mercies of the Lord like unto the tender mercies of the wicked which are cruel?

If God is not the Father of sinners, why should sinners pray, saying, “Our Father, forgive us our trespasses?”

“Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us?” – (Mal. 2:10)

If God be the Father of all men, will He do less for His children than earthly parents would do for theirs?

Is it true that God punishes us “for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness?” – (Heb. 12:11)

Would endless punishment be for our profit?
Psalms 140:10 Let burning coals fall upon them: let them be cast into the fire; into deep pits, that they rise not up again.

Isaiah 26:14 They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.
 
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FineLinen

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Grace Overwhelms

What I perceive to be a basic issue.

People who don't think salvation is 100% by God, not just 100% "provided" by God like to be in the hands of their own "free" will. That is where they feel most secure.

That is the most basic difference between ETers and URs.

Just like in the case of Lydia (whose heart the Lord opened, Acts 16:14) and Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:1-8), our cooperation to be saved is the result, not the cause, of God laying hold on us by His sovereign grace and causing Jesus to be "choice" in our heart.

The timing of the salvation of everyone is under God's sovereign control.

God arranges everything so each person will be saved according to His perfect timing for each individual.

His achievement are we - James Coram-

Part 9 Choosing What Is Choice

"No one to whom Christ is not yet choice can choose Christ.

And Christ cannot be choice to anyone to whom He has not yet been made choice.
When He is made choice He becomes choice and so is choice; or to say the same thing, He is chosen.
This first act of the believer in which Christ is consciously chosen, is merely a consequence of his new mental preference which has been graciously granted to him by God."

Arminian E.T. belief

It's as if God says

"Unless you are lucky enough to find out about my son during this lifetime, and even if you are that lucky, if you don't have the good sense to use your "free" will and cooperate with my son properly before you die, then I am going to raise you from the dead and I will sustain you alive in an inescapable state of eternal torment forever."

My advice, don't put your faith in your faith. Your faith may, and probably will be misplaced from time to time, especially if you are having faith in your self.

Put your faith in Jesus Christ instead, because even if He casts you into the Lake of Fire & Deity which is the second death it will achieve the age-during corrective chastisement that He has promised to everyone who needs it.
 
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FineLinen

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The Father Who Lost Two Sons

This is about what’s normally called The Parable of the Prodigal Son. That's only one of the two sons in the parable, the younger boy. The older boy is the one—the other son—who is lost. And the point about changing the name of the parable is that the parables are almost always misnamed.

The Parable of the Lost Sheep is not about the lost sheep.

All the sheep ever did was get lost. The parable is about the passion of the shepherd who lost the sheep to find the sheep. His passion to find is what drives the parable; and consequently it isn't the Prodigal's lostness, wasting all his money on wine, women and song in the far country; and it isn't the elder brother's grousing and complaining and score keeping that stands against him. What counts in the parable is the father's unceasing desire to find the sons he lost—both of them—and to raise both of them up from the dead.

The story, of course, you know. The story begins with the father having two sons and the youngest son comes to the father and says, "Father, divide the inheritance between me and my brother." What he’s in effect saying is,

"Dear Dad, drop dead now, legally.

Put your will into effect and just retire out of the whole business of being anything to anybody and let us have what is coming to us." So the youngest son gets the money and the older brother gets the farm. And off the younger brother goes. What he does, of course, is he spends it all—blows it all—on wild living. When he finally is in want and working, slopping hogs for a farmer and wishing that he could eat what he’s feeding the pigs, he can't stand it. When he finally comes to himself he says, "You know, I've got to do something. How many hired servants of my father's are there who have bread enough to spare and I'm perishing here with hunger? I know what I'm going to do."

Almost every preacher makes this the boy's repentance. It's not his repentance.

This is just one more dumb plan for his life.

He says, "I will go to my father and I will say, ‘Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you.'" That's true. He got that one right. "And I'm no longer worthy to be called your son." Score two. He gets that one right. But the next thing he says is dead wrong. He says, "Make me one of your hired servants." He knows—he thinks he knows—he can't go back as a dead son, and therefore he says, "I will now go back as somebody who can earn my father's favor again. I will be a good worker or whatever." This is not a real repentance, it's just a plan for a life. What it is, is enough to get him started going home, and consequently when he goes home, what happens next is an absolutely fascinating kind of thing.
What happens next?

What happens next is that the father (you must remember this) is now sitting on the front porch of the farm house. The farm house doesn't belong to him anymore. The front porch doesn't belong to him. He’s sitting in the rocker that belongs to his oldest son who is now, you know, the owner of the farm. He’s sitting there and he sees the Prodigal, the younger boy, coming down the road from far away. He sees him coming. What does he do? He rushes off the porch, runs a half mile down the road, throws his arms around the boy's neck and kisses him.

Now, this is all that Jesus does with this scene. The fascinating thing in this parable is that in the whole parable the father never says one single word to the Prodigal Son. Jesus makes the embrace, the kiss, do the whole story of saying, "I have found my son." The fascinating thing also is that when the father embraces the boy who has come home from wasting his life, the boy never gets his confession out of his mouth until after the kiss, until after the embrace. What this says to you and me who have to live with the business of trying to confess our sins is that confession is not a pre-condition of forgiveness. It’s something that you do after you know you have been forgiven. Confession is not something you do in order to get forgiveness. It’s something you do in order to celebrate the forgiveness you got for nothing. Nobody can earn forgiveness. The Prodigal knows he's a dead son. He can't come home as a son, and yet in his father's arms he rises from the dead and then he is able to come to his father's side.

What happens next is that the father, saying not a word to the Prodigal, turns to the servants and says, "Bring the best robe, bring a ring for his finger and shoes for his feet, kill the fatted calf and let us eat and be merry for this, my son, was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found." Now this is the point in the parable at which everything is going well. The dead son, the no-good Prodigal Son, is home. He has been raised from the dead by his father's embrace. He has done nothing to earn it, but now all that matters is that the father has called for the party to celebrate the finding of the lost and the resurrection of the dead.

It's the party. Every one of Jesus' parables of grace—not every one, but most of them—end with a party.

When the Shepherd finds the lost sheep, he doesn't go back to the 99, he goes home and has a party with his friends in order to celebrate the finding of the lost. The father's will to have a party is what the parable is all about. That's why you must always do, not the human race characters in the parable like the Prodigal and the elder brother, why you must always do the God character first, because it’s the God character who drives the parable.

All right, now, what we've got now is everybody dead in the parable.

The father died at the beginning, the Prodigal died in the far country: he came home dead and the father raises him. Everything is fine. And now what we've got is Jesus' genius as a storyteller. The party is in full swing, so Jesus brings back in the only person in the story left who still has a life of his own: Mr. Responsibility, Mr. Whining, Mr. Elder Brother. He comes up and hears the music and the dancing and he probably sees the waiters scurrying around with roast veal platters and everything else. And he asks one of the servants, "What is this all about? I didn't commission a party." The servant says, "No, no, your brother has come home and your father has killed the fatted calf because he received him safe and sound." And the older brother is angry and he will not go in. He will not go into the house. He is right out there in the midst of the party. He is part of the party but he will not join the party. And the next thing that happens in this: when he comes in with all this bookkeeping he says, "Look," to his father, "all these years I served you and I never broke one of your commandments and you never even gave me a goat that I could make merry with my friends. But when this your son (notice he doesn't say, this my brother) cuts off his relationship, this your son has wasted your substance with riotous living, has wasted your substance with harlots, when this son comes home you kill the fatted calf!"

I think that one of the things you could do with this is make up a speech for the father.

The father goes out in the courtyard to plead with the older son. He goes out there in order to find him as he is and to raise him from the dead. He never gives up on any of them. He says to him, "Look, Arthur (let’s call the older brother Arthur), what do you mean I never gave you a goat for a party? If you wanted to have a great veal dinner for all your friends every week in the year, you had the money and the resources. You owned this place, Arthur. You have the money and the resources to have built 52 stalls and kept the oxen fattening as you wanted them to come along, but you didn't. Why didn't you do that, Arthur? Because you're a bean counter, because you're always keeping track of everybody else. That's your problem, Arthur, and I have one recipe for you." (The father is pleading with this fellow to come out of the death of bookkeeping.) He says, "I have one recipe for you, Arthur. That is, go in, kiss your brother, and have a drink. Just shut up about all this stuff because, Arthur, you came in here already in hell, and I came out here in this courtyard to visit you in the hell in which you were."

This is the wonderful thing about this parable, because it isn't that there was a Prodigal Son who was a bad boy and who, therefore, came home and turned out to be a good boy and had a happy ending. Then the elder brother—you would think Jesus, if he was an ordinary storyteller, would have said, "Let's give the elder brother a rotten ending." He doesn't. He gives the older brother no ending. The parable ends with a freeze frame. It ends like that with just the father, and the sound goes dead—the servants may be moving around with the wine and veal—but the sound goes dead and Jesus shows you only the freeze frame of the father and the elder brother. That's the way the parable has ended for 2,000 years.

My theory about this parable is that if, for 2,000 years, he has never let it end, then you can extend that indefinitely, that this is a signal, an image of the presence of Christ to the damned. When the father goes out into the courtyard, he is an image of Christ descending into hell; and, therefore, the great message in this is the same as Psalm 139, "If I go down to hell, You are there also." God is there with us. There is no point at which the Shepherd who followed the lost sheep will ever stop following all of the damned. He will always seek the lost. He will always raise the dead. Even if the elder brother refused forever to go in and kiss his other brother, the Father would still be there pleading with him. Christ never gives up on anybody. Christ is not the enemy of the damned. He is the finder of the damned. If they don't want to be found, well there is no imagery of hell too strong like fire and brimstone and all that for that kind of stupidity. But nonetheless, the point is that you can never get away from the love that will not let you go and the elder brother standing there in the courtyard in his own hell is never going to get away from the Jesus who seeks him and wills to raise him from the dead.
 
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FineLinen

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The 2nd Death

“Orthodox theology holds the second death to be a state of endless torment in which the sufferers are held forever in conscious being by a continuous act of Divine preservation, with the soul object of a punishment without end. This however would in no sense be death. The second death does not perpetuate the hopeless condition of the sinner to all eternity.

What the Holy Spirit means by ‘fire and brimstone’ is ‘divine purification,’ or a judgment fire which consumes all that is antagonistic to divine law and love.

Before the Great White Throne, that vast throng, their naked spirits conscious now of the blazing holiness of God, will be subjected to the process of the second death. What those processes are, their intensity and their duration, we are not told. They will suffice, however, not in themselves to perfect, but to bring those who suffer them to that agreement with the judgment upon sin which they effect, and through the cross finally to reconcile them to God (Col. 1:20), in a subjection where He will be ‘All in all.’ When that acquiescence in judgment upon sin is reached, and applied in soul and spirit, then will be possible the final victory over death. Hence it is written that when this subjection is reached, then and only then, ‘the last enemy, death, shall be destroyed.’ ” -A. E. Saxby

The Lake Of Fire & Divinity

Brimstone= theion

Root of theion= Theos

Theion= the breath of Jehovah/ Theos

The Lake of Divine Fire
 
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he-man

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Grace Overwhelms

What I perceive to be a basic issue.

People who don't think salvation is 100% by God, not just 100% "provided" by God like to be in the hands of their own "free" will. That is where they feel most secure.

That is the most basic difference between ETers and URs.

Just like in the case of Lydia (whose heart the Lord opened, Acts 16:14) and Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:1-8), our cooperation to be saved is the result, not the cause, of God laying hold on us by His sovereign grace and causing Jesus to be "choice" in our heart.

The timing of the salvation of everyone is under God's sovereign control.

God arranges everything so each person will be saved according to His perfect timing for each individual.

His achievement are we - James Coram-

Part 9 Choosing What Is Choice

"No one to whom Christ is not yet choice can choose Christ.

And Christ cannot be choice to anyone to whom He has not yet been made choice.
When He is made choice He becomes choice and so is choice; or to say the same thing, He is chosen.
This first act of the believer in which Christ is consciously chosen, is merely a consequence of his new mental preference which has been graciously granted to him by God."

Arminian E.T. belief

It's as if God says

"Unless you are lucky enough to find out about my son during this lifetime, and even if you are that lucky, if you don't have the good sense to use your "free" will and cooperate with my son properly before you die, then I am going to raise you from the dead and I will sustain you alive in an inescapable state of eternal torment forever."

My advice, don't put your faith in your faith. Your faith may, and probably will be misplaced from time to time, especially if you are having faith in your self.

Put your faith in Jesus Christ instead, because even if He casts you into the Lake of Fire & Deity which is the second death it will achieve the age-during corrective chastisement that He has promised to everyone who needs it.
And the second death is
Rev 21:8  But those who are full of fear and without faith, the unclean and takers of life, those who do the sins of the flesh, and those who make use of evil powers or who give worship to images, and all those who are false, will have their part in the sea of ever-burning fire which is the second death.

2Th 1:6  For it is an act of righteousness on God's part to give trouble as their reward to those who are troubling you, 

2Th 1:7  And to you who are troubled, rest with us, when the Lord Jesus comes from heaven with the angels of his power in flames of fire, 

2Th 1:8  To give punishment to those who have no knowledge of God, and to those who do not give ear to the good news of our Lord Jesus: 

2Th 1:9  Whose reward will be eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his strength, 
 
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FineLinen

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I see an army - I hear a song
rise in the nations, beautiful and strong.
A song of mercy that shatters pride,
a song of great love that purifies.

I see warriors with hands upraised,
holding no weapon, but their swords of praise.
Strongholds shatter. Kings bow down
before the Master and yield their crowns.

And every eye will see Him as Love wins through at last.
And every heart be drawn unto the Lamb.
Every voice will cry out what every heart will know
and before the throne we stand.

I see the earth now, its groanings cease.
Creation lifts praise to the Prince of Peace.
Wars have ended and weapons fall.
An invitation to one and all.

I see the Church now as a passionate Bride.
I see her Lover with His fiery eyes.
All His longing and her desire
join as one flame in heaven’s fire.

And every eye will see Him as Love wins through at last.
And every heart be drawn unto the Lamb.
Every voice will cry out what every heart will know
and before the throne we stand.

I see a kingdom that never ends.
I see a Judge now who calls sinners ‘Friends’.
Who gathers rebels and overwhelms
Them with His mercy so He can dwell
in hearts He’s captured and rules in love.

He wraps around them a robe dipped in blood.
His tears are washing their fears away
and then He lifts them to see His face.

And every eye will see Him as Love wins through at last.
And every heart be drawn unto the Lamb.
Every voice will cry out what every heart will know
and before the throne we stand.

All will gaze in wonder at the reach of heaven’s plan.
How could mercy touch the lowest man?
Drawn from every nation, every voice,and every tongue, amazed at what the Lord of Love has done.
amazed at what the Lord of Love has done.

I see a King now and I believe.
I hear His voice now and He’s calling me.

-Song by Pastor Randy-

"Prayer requires more of the heart than of the tongue." -Adam Clarke-
 
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he-man

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Universalists place a great deal of weight on the word "aion," which means "age." From the Greek root "aion" we also have the word "aionion," which is translated in most instances in most Bibles as "eternal."

The significance of this is that Universalists maintain that there is no eternal punishment in hellfire. Therefore, they assert that the word "aionion" is in reference to "age duration"
greekaionion.gif
and can have temporal duration. With this assertion, they try to substantiate their theological position that all people everywhere will ultimately be saved.

But, what do Greek Dictionaries and Lexicons have to say about the words and phrases used in Greek that are translated into the English "age," "world," "eternal," "forever," "forever and ever," etc.? Let's find out:
aion -
aion.gif
, - age, world
    1. "for ever, an unbroken age, perpetuity of time, eternity; the worlds, universe; period of time, age."1
  1. aionion, aionios -
    aionios.gif
    - eternal
    1. "aionios," the adjective corresponding, denoting eternal. It is used of that which in nature is endless, as, e.g., of God, (Rom. 16:26), His power, (1 Tim. 6:16), His glory, (1 Pet. 5:10), the Holy Spirit, (Heb. 9:14), redemption, (Heb. 9:12), salvation, (5:9), life in Christ, (John 3:16), the resurrection body, (2 Cor. 5:1), the future rule of Christ, (2 Pet. 1:11), which is declared to be without end, (Luke 1:33), of sin that never has forgiveness, (Mark 3:29), the judgment of God, (Heb. 6:2), and of fire, one of its instruments, (Matt. 18:8; 25:41; Jude 7)."
      1. Rom. 16:26 - " . . .according to the commandment of the eternal God. . ."
      2. 1 Tim. 6:16 - ". . . To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen."
      3. 1 Pet. 5:10 - " . . . who called you to His eternal glory in Christ,"
      4. Mark 3:29 - " . . . never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin."
      5. etc.2
  2. "describes duration, either undefined but not endless, as in Rom. 16:25; 2 Tim. 1:9; Tit. 1:2; or undefined because endless as in Rom. 16:26, and the other sixty–six places in the N.T.
    1. Rom. 16:25 - " . . which has been kept secret for long ages past,"
    2. Rom 16:26 - ". . . according to the commandment of the eternal God,"
    3. 2 Tim. 1:9 - ". . . which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity,"
    4. Titus 1:2 - "the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised" long ages ago"3
  3. Eis tous aionios ton aionion -
    eistaioniongk.gif
    - Forever and Ever, Lit. "into the age of the ages"
    1. "unlimited duration of time, with particular focus upon the future - ‘always, forever, forever and ever, eternally."
    2. Phil. 4:20 - ". . .to our God and Father be the glory forever and ever."
    3. Rev. 19:3 - " . . .Her smoke rises up forever and ever."
    4. Rev. 20:10 - "And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever."4
These few references and quotes should be ample evidence that eternal hell, eternal fire, is real. It is a terrible reality, and it is all the more important to preach the gospel. The Universalists are wrong, and their theology only dilutes the need to come to Christ.
A look at the word "aionion" | CARM.org
 
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FineLinen

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"Through the Son God made the whole universe, and to the Son he has ordained that all creation shall ultimately belong."

"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. And you..."

Dr. Arthur Tappan Pierson -The Bible & Spiritual Life-

"This view (Restitution of All) is so clearly scriptural that the only surprise is that it has not been more definitely and widely held. It adds immeasurably, both to the glory of Christ as the coming King, and the Father as the former and framer of the ages. It is the period typified by the eighth day of the Mosaic Code: the perfect glory of Christ, reserved for 'the morrow after.' The millennial 'Sabbath.' And while the millenial period is limited to a thousand years, there are no definite limits to this final age of glory."

-Dr. P. B. Fitzwater- (Professor of Systematic Theology- Moody Bible Institute) Christian Theology P. 407

"Then there is the Universalist who declares that the redemption provided by Christ avails for the salvation of all men. This means that what God has done for the salvation of sinful men accrues to the benefit of all men. This view of Universalism is quite widespread. Many leaders in the evangelical church hold to this view, even though they have not dared to declare it."

From the Lutheran ELCA website......

The Christian hope for salvation, whether for the believing few or the unbelieving many, is grounded in the person and meaning of Christ alone, not in the potential of the world's religions to save, nor in the moral seriousness of humanists and people of good will, not even in the good works of pious Christians and church people. ... There is a universalist thrust in the New Testament, particularly in Paul's theology. How else can we read passages such as 'for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ' (1 Cor 15:22)?" (See also Colossians 1:15-20, Ephesians 1:9-10, 1 Corinthians 15:28.) -Carl Braaten-

The universal scope of salvation in Christ

ELCA Lutherans will say with Braaten,


"Salvation in the New Testament is what God has done to death in the resurrection of Jesus. Salvation is what God has in store for you and me and the whole world in spite of death, solely on account of the living risen Christ. ... The universal scope of salvation in Christ includes the destiny of our bodies together with the whole earth and the whole of creation. This cosmic hope is based on the promise of eternal life sealed by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Through raising Jesus from the dead, God put death to death, overcoming the deadliest enemy of life at loose in the world. This hope for the final salvation of humanity and the eternal universal restitution of all things in heaven and on earth ... is drawn from the unlimited promise of the Gospel and the magnitude of God's grace made known to the world through Christ."

A Survey of Bible Doctrine" by Charles Ryrie, Professor of Systematic Theology: Dallas Theological Seminary.

In the section on future things, he dismisses the Restitution of all things which he refers to as "Classic Universalism" as unbiblical.

However

In his K.J.V. Ryrie Study Bible, which was published a few years after his doctrine book, he says a very interesting thing in his footnote on Colossians 1:20

Col 1:20 .... to reconcile all things unto himself. Christ is the remedy for alienation from God, and eventually all things will be changed and brought into a unity in Him, even though this will involve judgment.
 
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"Through the Son God made the whole universe, and to the Son he has ordained that all creation shall ultimately belong."
"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. And you..."
Dr. Arthur Tappan Pierson -The Bible & Spiritual Life-
Psalms 140:10 Let burning coals fall upon them: let them be cast into the fire; into deep pits, that they rise not up again.

Isaiah 26:14 They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.

And what do Greek Dictionaries and Lexicons have to say about the words and phrases used in Greek that are translated into the English "age," "world," "eternal," "forever," "forever and ever," etc.? Let's find out:

aion -
aion.gif
, - age, world "for ever, an unbroken age, perpetuity of time, eternity; the worlds, universe; period of time, age."

aionion, aionios -
aionios.gif
- eternal
"aionios," the adjective corresponding, denoting eternal. It is used of that which in nature is endless, as, e.g., of God, (Rom. 16:26), His power, (1 Tim. 6:16), His glory, (1 Pet. 5:10), the Holy Spirit, (Heb. 9:14), redemption, (Heb. 9:12), salvation, (5:9), life in Christ, (John 3:16), the resurrection body, (2 Cor. 5:1), the future rule of Christ, (2 Pet. 1:11), which is declared to be without end, (Luke 1:33), of sin that never has forgiveness, (Mark 3:29), the judgment of God, (Heb. 6:2), and of fire, one of its instruments, (Matt. 18:8; 25:41; Jude 7)."
  1. Rom. 16:26 - " . . .according to the commandment of the eternal God. . ."
  2. 1 Tim. 6:16 - ". . . To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen."
  3. 1 Pet. 5:10 - " . . . who called you to His eternal glory in Christ,"
  4. Mark 3:29 - " . . . never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin."
  5. etc.2 "describes duration, either undefined but not endless, as in Rom. 16:25; 2 Tim. 1:9; Tit. 1:2; or undefined because endless as in Rom. 16:26, and the other sixty–six places in the N.T.
Rom. 16:25 - " . . which has been kept secret for long ages past,"
Rom 16:26 - ". . . according to the commandment of the eternal God,"
2 Tim. 1:9 - ". . . which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity,"
Titus 1:2 - "the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised" long ages ago"3
Eis tous aionios ton aionion -
eistaioniongk.gif
- Forever and Ever, Lit. "into the age of the ages"
"unlimited duration of time, with particular focus upon the future - ‘always, forever, forever and ever, eternally."
Phil. 4:20 - ". . .to our God and Father be the glory forever and ever."
Rev. 19:3 - " . . .Her smoke rises up forever and ever."
Rev. 20:10 - "And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be vexed day and night forever and ever."4
The Universalists are wrong, and their theology only dilutes the need to come to Christ.
A look at the word "aionion" | CARM.org
 
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FineLinen

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"How could the Bible possibly speak of the perfect victory of God our Creator who loves righteousness and cannot bear evil, if that victory really means that He cannot bring His own creatures at last to hate evil as He hates it, but must confirm multitudes, indeed the majority of them, in their choice of evil for ever and ever?... What sort of victory is it to be able only to subdue evil and prevent it harming any but those who choose it, and to be unable to bring human souls to abominate it and desire to forsake it, so that the evil itself ceases to exist?" –Hannah Hurnard-

polýs made sinners>>>>>>>polýs made righteous.
 
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"How could the Bible possibly speak of the perfect victory of God our Creator who loves righteousness and cannot bear evil, if that victory really means that He cannot bring His own creatures at last to hate evil as He hates it, but must confirm multitudes, indeed the majority of them, in their choice of evil for ever and ever?... What sort of victory is it to be able only to subdue evil and prevent it harming any but those who choose it, and to be unable to bring human souls to abominate it and desire to forsake it, so that the evil itself ceases to exist?" –Hannah Hurnard-

polýs made sinners>>>>>>>polýs made righteous.
Psalms 140:10 Let burning coals fall upon them: let them be cast into the fire; into deep pits, that they rise not up again.

Isaiah 26:14 They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.
 
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FineLinen

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Question:

Why do you believe and are convinced of Universal Reconciliation?

The following are the top 3 reasons of F.L.

1. God creates out of Himself. No aspect of His great Person is lost.

2. He does miracles. The feeding of 5000 ++ ends with gathering up the fragments that remain “that nothing be lost”. Our God loses NOTHING!

3. The most powerful word for all in koine is not #3956 pas, the radical all, but the super radical all of polýs.

Our God is the Source, the Guide, and the Goal of the all. Yes, my friends THE ALL!
 
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God's love & compassion never fails=

L'amour et la compassion de Dieu ne manquent jamais

Gods liefde & mededogen faalt nooit

El amor y la compasión de Dios nunca fallan

Божья любовь и сострадание никогда не подводят

Jumalan rakkaus ja myötätunto eivät koskaan onnistu

Gottes Liebe und Mitleid versagen nie

My friend: God loves you. He always has, He always will. His love NEVER fails!
 
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FineLinen

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Every knee bows IN/EN the Name of Jesus in all dimensions of the earth, the heavens & the underworld.

All saved, and more so, reconciled in the mighty draw of the Unlimited One.

This identical polys “made sinners” in the first Adam, are the polys “made righteous” in the Last, every last broken wreck reconciled!

Never ever limit the Holy One Of Israel!

If you imagine His will being multiple choice, know His will prevails, ALWAYS!

Salvation in the koine =esothen & sozomenos & sothesomai

There is a tense in koine known as the descriptive present, or the progressive present, which depicts an action in progress.

Yes, God IS the Saviour of all mankind, not some of mankind: all of mankind!
 
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FineLinen

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To stake out a claim in territory of Godness is the ultimate trespass. The territory of, and which is, Godness, permits no squatters.

Venturing a claim there to even the tiniest plot is verboten—nay; no way; nix that; nyet! Yet to attempt such infamy is encouraged by conventional Christian teaching. Not only is it encouraged, it is considered an absolute necessity for setting forth, and traveling successfully, on the Way.

It’s not any old plot within Godness territory we’re talking about. It’s a place of vastly strategic importance. It is situated on Deity high ground. Allow me to explain:

With whatever else it is that characterizes God, be it known that one characteristic stands out as clearly as any other, i.e., GOD ALWAYS HAS HIS WAY IN ALL THINGS…ABSOLUTELY!

There is no place for compromise on that point; there’s no, “Well, golly gee, My little creatures, I’ll cede over to y’all that particularly strategic stronghold of sovereignty. After all, I want my kingdom to include a democratic principle. Y’all deserve a vote on how We do things around here. If y’all don’t like what I propose, speak up, I’ll listen and make whatever adjustments are necessary to not infringe on your ‘free will,’ on your claim to a portion of My sovereignty. Share and share alike, is what I say.”

This nonsense must be cleared up in advance of the consummation of all things, and it will be, for it is “…that every knee will bow, of those in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and that every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil. 2: 10, 11 NASB) Jesus is not the One who bends His knee to us, except, in His self-emptying, to figuratively wash our feet, as He who came not to be served, but to serve, and give His life a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45) Nothing can stand in the way of His Lordship. Being Lord means that all authority has been given to Him in heaven and earth, with the power to enforce His authority. (Matt. 28:18; Rev. 7:12)

There is among most Christians the idea that though the Father desires great and good things for all mankind, yet they insist that things will not actually turn out that way.

They imagine that the Lordship of Christ simply amounts to Him having the authority and power to punish us for not letting Him have His Way, i.e., since they’ve staked out that strategic plot within the territory of sovereignty. They think it simply means He’s bigger and stronger than us, and if He can’t have His way, then according to the authority vested in Him by God, with the corresponding power, He’ll show us who’s boss vindictively.

We need to consider how determined Father and Son are.

It’s the cross of Christ that reveals God’s determination to have His Way. He was of a mind and will to BE, in action, what He IS by nature: perfect Love. It meant the Way of the Cross; The Via Dolorosa. With the Father, and our Lord Jesus, it was, “so be it,” and it was. Do you dare imagine that God will allow even one drop of the precious shed blood of Christ to turn out to be wasted, of having no final application to some souls? Do you dare imagine that God is a God who will settle for cutting His losses as best He can? Or do you imagine that They never planned on a universally grand and good conclusion, as is shamefully insisted by our Calvinist brethren.

Don’t think I’m only getting in the face of our Calvinist brethren. While they insist that God, from eternity, has elected some to salvation, and all the rest to damnation, and it’s in that sense that God has His Way, Arminianism perceives God to have chosen to be subject to the will of man. Dare we imagine that God will be denied the holy desire of His heart? How utterly pathetic it is that Christians have settled on it having to be one or the other of the above. The intellectual contortions involved in trying to prove one or the other would be laughable if it were not actually a matter of bearing false witness against God.

Grand and glorious is the Divine plan: God will settle for nothing less than sharing Himself in all His glory with all mankind in a new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.

(Isa. 40:5; Hab. 2:14; 2Pet. 3:13) Through Isaiah, the Lord testified that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will fill all the earth as the waters cover the sea. The sense of that glorious statement is that, when compared with the New Testament’s teaching on knowing God, it conveys that all that is earthen will be filled with the experiential and intimate knowledge of the Lord. God Himself will be what we in divine fellowship KNOW. Reality and perception shall finally meet as one. That is, we shall know God, as God knows Himself. I’m raising an issue here that is at the heart of the refreshed reformation that is presently making itself known in pulpit and pew, among the formally trained in theology, and among those who, though not formally trained in such things, know simply that their God is a good God, good always, and good to all.

-John Gavazzoni-
 
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FineLinen

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The Intimate Sovereign Control Of God

The Bible:

God is in intimate sovereign control over what the Bible means to each individual. God also controls the extent to which we will try to change the mind of others about the meaning of the Bible, and He controls the extent to which we will be successful in changing the mind of others.
I personally believe that the Bible teaches the following things about -

The will: God is in intimate sovereign control over the will of every created being. The only “free will” that anyone has is to choose in the direction of the strongest influence. Every choice we make is the product of influences that have been brought to bear upon us in the past, plus the influence that is being brought upon to bear upon us right now, and God sovereignly controls these influences. We are accountable for every choice but we are not responsible for it; God is. Every choice we make is the only one we could have made, and God will see to it that the result of every choice will be used to fit us into His master-plan in our own unique way. All loss is temporary. Even Esau’s loss was only a loss from the human point of view. From God’s point of view Esau was fulfilling His predetermined plan. Esau’s apparent loss was God’s way of fitting Esau into His master-plan in His own unique way. Even rewards are predetermined, and are the result of responses to God’s undefeatable grace. God’s grace can only be resisted temporarily, for the purpose of teaching us lessons. We are not robots, but we do have one thing in common with robots. Everything we are is the product of causality. The Bible calls us “vessels,” some of honor, and some of dishonor, with most of us somewhere in between. Satan’s greatest delusion is that he thinks he has a free will. Many believers in Christ suffer from this same delusion, but God is in intimate sovereign control over every delusion. God will never influence His creatures against their will, but in every case He will influence their wills to change, for their own good, and for His own glory. Any suffering that follows the great white throne of judgment will be for the purpose of influencing our will for our own good. Everyone is believing what they are supposed to be believing at any given point in time, and they will not change their beliefs until God wants them to.

Salvation

God is in intimate sovereign control over everyone’s salvation. The essential meaning of salvation is that God will change every negative thing that happened into something better that it happened than if it had not happened. And God will do it for every human and every evil spirit, including Satan. Salvation is a process that will be completed for the first fruits of election at the first resurrection, and for the rest of us after the second resurrection. God is in intimate sovereign control of the timing of that process, and He will not fail to fit everyone in a positive way into His master-plan. All of the negative consequences of sin and evil will be transformed for everyone. God will not just make it up to us. He will not just do a patch-up job. He will not just bring things back to where they were before sin came on the scene; but He will see to it that a far greater glory will result for everyone because sin temporarily prevailed than if it had not. I count it a great privilege and a gift from God that He has allowed me to see these things in the Bible. Only a comparatively few people see these things, so I consider myself especially blessed. I also believe that God is in intimate sovereign control over the reaction of everyone who reads these words.

God is in intimate sovereign control over everything all the time

What a wonderful thing to be able to believe.

-The documents of Roger Tutt #58-
 
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"God must be accomplishing a design invariable and without the shadow of turning, the design to save every one of us everlastingly." –Florence Nightingale

"God will seek us -- how long? Until he finds us. And when he's found the last little shriveling rebellious soul and has depopulated hell, then death will be swallowed up in victory, and Christ will turn over all things to the Father that he may be all and in all. Then every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."-Clarence Jordan - (founder of Koinonia Community, author of “Cotton Patch Gospel)

I trust that in Jesus Christ shall “all the families of the earth be blessed,” by being yet connected together in a better world, where every tie that bound heart to heart in this state of existence shall be far beyond our present conception, more enduring. –Robert Burns, 1789

“The restoration of the whole human race to purity and happiness.” This benevolent doctrine—which not only goes far as to solve the great problem of moral and physical evil, but which would, if received more generally, tend to soften the spirit of uncharitableness, so fatally prevalent among Christian sects—was maintained by that great light of the early church, Origen, and has not wanted supporters among more modern theologians." –Thomas Moore 1779-1852

"The Holy Spirit establishes the righteousness of heaven in the midst of the unrighteousness of earth, and will not stop or stay until all that is dead has been brought back to life and a new world has come into being."--Karl Barth

If you want the full and eternal truth, you have to go back to foundational beginnings. Are hell and sin and God’s judgments anywhere in Genesis 1 or 2? No. They aren’t there. God did not intend for them to be there. His intent was perfection. Thus I believe that such a foundation leads to the inescapable conclusion that perfection will again reign throughout the universe, and that sin (and hell) will ultimately be defeated. How else will God’s original intent ultimately be accomplished? –Michael Phillips

In each dispensation, God has a definite and different immediate purpose, all working toward the ultimate purpose of ridding the universe of all rebellion, so that all free moral agents will be willingly and eternally subject to God, Christ, and the Holy Ghost, as originally planned, with God all in all forever. --Finis Dake, "Notes on Genesis" in Dake's Bible
 
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