The Restitution Of All Things

hedrick

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Has all this brought you any closer to accepting universalism?
No. I don't consider the later councils to have any authority. I have reservations even about Nicea, but the Nicene Creed is a useful summary of traditional Christianity. But what the 5th and 7th did or didn't say about universalism has no influence on what I think. It also has no effect on whether universalism is orthodox according to the major traditions. Those traditions already have a settled view. Your view or mine of what the councils actually said won't have any effect.

I'm more interested in what Jesus and the undisputed letters of Paul said. Paul is most easily understood as universalist. John has some universalistic hints. The Synoptics don't quite have the same future vision as Paul, though it's possible that the punishment taught there is finite (i.e. comes to an end at some point).

To me there are two plausible scenarios:
  • Take the obvious reading of Paul. The punishment described in the Gospels is real but finite.
  • Take the obvious reading of the Synoptics. The universalist sections of Paul aren't meant literally.
 
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No. I don't consider the later councils to have any authority. I have reservations even about Nicea, but the Nicene Creed is a useful summary of traditional Christianity. But what the 5th and 7th did or didn't say about universalism has no influence on what I think. It also has no effect on whether universalism is orthodox according to the major traditions. Those traditions already have a settled view. Your view or mine of what the councils actually said won't have any effect.

I'm more interested in what Jesus and the undisputed letters of Paul said. Paul is most easily understood as universalist. John has some universalistic hints. The Synoptics don't quite have the same future vision as Paul, though it's possible that the punishment taught there is finite (i.e. comes to an end at some point).

To me there are two plausible scenarios:
  • Take the obvious reading of Paul. The punishment described in the Gospels is real but finite.
  • Take the obvious reading of the Synoptics. The universalist sections of Paul aren't meant literally.

I can appreciate your line of reasoning. If there is a tension to be resolved, rejoice at finding a 'remez,' an apparent contradiction which conceals a great truth. For it is the glory of God to hide a thing and the glory of kings to seek it out (Pro 25:2).

May I suggest it is resolved by accepting salvation as the overarching hermeneutical principle. Which interpretation is more consistent with aleph-tav Yahusha? Or do you say there's a truer interpretive lens?

The great truth IS universal salvation. Praise the Lord!
 
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Apocatastasis - OrthodoxWiki


The anathemas of the local Council of Constantinople in 453, which is understood by most commentators to be confirmed by the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553, posthumously excommunicated Origen and anyone following specific points of his teachings. These Anathemas Condemned his protology of pre-existent souls And His Eschatology Of Universal Restoration Of All Things "which follows from" his protology:

  • If anyone asserts the fabulous pre-existence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it: let him be anathema. (First anathema against Origen)
  • If anyone shall say that all reasonable beings will one day be united in one, when the hypostases as well as the numbers and the bodies shall have disappeared, and that the knowledge of the world to come will carry with it the ruin of the worlds, and the rejection of bodies as also the abolition of [all] names, and that there shall be finally an identity of the γνῶσις and of the hypostasis; moreover, that in this pretended apocatastasis, spirits only will continue to exist, as it was in the feigned pre-existence: let him be anathema. (Fourteenth anathema against Origen)
The decisions of ecumenical councils have universal authority in the Orthodox Church. Only doctrinal definitions have the force of dogma. Local councils only have authority within specific geographic limits.


.

So there you have it Jude:

Our findings are that the sum total of ecumenical evidence against apocatastasis consists of:
  • Nil decrees or canons.
  • Nil direct condemnations.
  • 2 anathemas against limited restoration.*
  • 1 definition in favour of endless punishment, buried in the fine print at the tail end of the reports of the 6th session of the last Council in 787 AD.
*The condemned 'monstrous fable' on this topic was the theory of restoration of souls only, and not of 'all things'.

If you have anything further, please speak or forever hold your peace.
 
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FineLinen

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So there you have it Jude:

Our findings are that the sum total of ecumenical evidence against apocatastasis consists of:
  • Nil decrees or canons.
  • Nil direct condemnations.
  • 2 anathemas against limited restoration.*
  • 1 definition in favour of endless punishment, buried in the fine print at the tail end of the reports of the 6th session of the last Council in 787 AD.
*The condemned 'monstrous fable' on this topic was the theory of restoration of souls only, and not of 'all things'.

If you have anything further, please speak or forever hold your peace.

Dear S.M.: A "monstrous fable" indeed! The God of ta panta is NOT the God of fables or wishful thinking. He not only restores ALL, He transforms "the all" in the glorious process of transformation with the finished product complete!

Our God is the God of metamorphoo
 
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Jude1:3Contendforthefaith

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So there you have it Jude:

Our findings are that the sum total of ecumenical evidence against apocatastasis consists of:
  • Nil decrees or canons.
  • Nil direct condemnations.
  • 2 anathemas against limited restoration.*
  • 1 definition in favour of endless punishment, buried in the fine print at the tail end of the reports of the 6th session of the last Council in 787 AD.
*The condemned 'monstrous fable' on this topic was the theory of restoration of souls only, and not of 'all things'.

If you have anything further, please speak or forever hold your peace.


I don't have anything more to add.


.
 
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I don't have anything more to add.


.
Thank you Jude.

I shall in future therefore consider it fair to characterise any allegation that universalism is formally unorthodox or heretical as itself a 'monstrous fable'.
 
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FineLinen

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God’s Utter Extravagance=
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"To say that sin, assuming it to be opposed to God, has the power of creating a world antagonistic to God as everlasting as He is, attributes to it a power equal at least to His; since according to this view, souls whom God willed to be saved, and for whom Christ died, are held in bondage under the power of sin for ever; and all this in opposition to the Word of God, which says that God’s Son was “manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil…” -Andrew Jukes (The Restitution of all Things)

“To go on punishing for ever, simply for punishment’s sake, shocks every sentiment of justice. And the case is so much worse when the punishment is really the prolongation of evil, when it is but making evil endless.” -Thomas Allin, Christ Triumphant-

"The almighty maker of souls has various methods of restoring them to the divine image; it is impossible his power can fail; it is impossible for his image to be entirely obliterated; it is impossible that misery, sin, and discord can be eternal! –Alison R. Cockburn-
 
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FineLinen

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The Nature of God's Judgments

It is love alone in the holy Deity that will allow no peace to the wicked, nor ever cease its judgments till every sinner is forced to confess that it is good for him that he has been in trouble, and thankfully own that not the wrath but the love of God has plucked out that right eye, cut off that right band, which he ought to have done but would not do for himself and his own salvation. --William Law

It is claimed that it takes the iron out of Christianity because it removes the threat. No longer can the sinner be dangled over the pit of hell. No longer can what Burn’s called the “hangmen’s whip” of the fear of Hell be threateningly cracked over the sinner. But the kind of universalism in which I believe has not simply obliterated hell and said that everything will be all right for everyone; it has stated grimly that, if you will have it so, you can go to Heaven via Hell. –William Barclay

A belief in God’s universal love to all his creatures, and that he will finally restore all those of them that are miserable to happiness, is a polar truth. It leads to truths upon all subjects, more especially upon the subject of government. It establishes the equality of mankind – it abolishes the punishment of death for any crime – and converts jails into houses of repentance and reformation.– Benjamin Rush
 
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FineLinen

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This thread is just "patrañas". Unfollowing.

Dear David: What you are reading and not comprehending is the fact the Restitution of the radical ALL is Fathers "cherished" Purpose in Himself. It is most assuredly not patrañas in any shape or form!

Chosen in His design

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FineLinen

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“This is the God of the gospel of grace. A God who, out of love for us, sent the only Son He ever had wrapped in our skin. He learned how to walk, stumbled and fell, cried for His milk, sweated blood in the night, was lashed with a whip and showered with spit, was fixed to a cross, and died whispering forgiveness on us all.”

- Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt out-

Sin vs Grace

"Sin disturbed relations with God in everything and everyone, but the extent of the disturbance was not clear until God spelled it out in detail to Moses. So death, this huge abyss separating us from God, dominated the landscape from Adam to Moses. Even those who didn't sin precisely as Adam did by disobeying a specific command of God still had to experience this termination of life, this separation from God. But Adam, who got us into this, also points ahead to the One who will get us out of it.

Yet the rescuing gift is not exactly parallel to the death-dealing sin.

If one man's sin put crowds of people at the dead-end abyss of separation from God, just think what God's gift poured through one man, Jesus Christ, will do!

There's no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift.

The verdict on that one sin was the death sentence; the verdict on the many sins that followed was this wonderful life sentence. If death got the upper hand through one man's wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?

Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life!

One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right.

All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down.

All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life - a life that goes on and on and on, world without end." -The Message-
 
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FineLinen

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Friends: All over the world the Spirit of the Lord is moving with a mighty visitation just as the Prophets said it would be. The sky is taking on a different hue as a new Day breaks upon the horizon of God's mighty purposes in HIMSELF.

He is the Father of all fathers. His purpose for you is beyond mere words, centered in the outer laminar spheres of the unspeakable unknown of His glory.


You have been chosen in His Design
 
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FineLinen

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"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross."

Please note

"Things" should be in [bracket]. It is NOT in the koine: NOT!

The Father has a complete guarantee with His handiwork (the Plan of all plans). All possible defects have been thoroughly examined & found to be defect free. In short, it is a perfect product completely ready for the creation He has made.

He prides himself on setting right each and every product He has made!
 
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