THE FALSE TEACHINGS OF UNIVERSALISM - BEWARE!

ClementofA said:

That link wasn't to a "word of website"! Obviously you never even clicked on it. If you had you would have been enlightened to realize it was to my posts on this forum:

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ClementofA said:

Here ya go: the finiteness of "eternal life" (aionon zoe) in John?

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ClementofA said:

My post had several bible verse quotes & references in support of universalism. You do realize that is the subject of this thread, right?

My post also had a number of comments from highly regarded scholars. Like you yourself have quoted.



Everything. Point by point.



Nonsense. And the post is full of scholars, not me, talking. If you had read it you should have known that:





Indeed. Are you planning to ever address this post:



I do, as i have shown you in dozens of posts.

And you have no scripture that teaches that the wicked NEVER receive eternal life after the second coming.



"Vincent's Word Studies
At the name of Jesus (ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι)
Rev., better, in the name. The name means here the personal name; but as including all that is involved in the name. See on Matthew 28:19. Hence the salutation is not at the name of Jesus, as by bowing when the name is uttered, but, as Ellicott rightly says: "the spiritual sphere, the holy element as it were, in which every prayer is to be offered and every knee to bow." Compare Ephesians 5:20." Philippians 2 Commentary - Vincent's Word Studies

"In the NT κάμπτω is found only in combination with γόνυ (γόνατα), and in this connection it is used trans. with γόνυ (γόνατα) as obj. (R. 11:4; Eph. 3:14) and instrans. with γόνυ as subj. (R. 14:11; Phil.2:10)."

"κάμπτειν γόνυ (γόνατα) is the gesture of full inner submission in worship before the one whom we bow the knee. Thus in R. 14:11 bowing the knee is linked with confession within the context of a judgement scene, and in Phil. 2:10 it again accompanies confession with reference to the worship of the exalted Kyrios Jesus by the cosmos. At R. 11:4 κάμπτειν γόνυ τῇ Βάαλ signifies surrender to Baal, and at Eph. 3:14...is a solemn description of the attitude of submission to God in prayer" (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT), Vol.3, p.594-595, Heinrich Schlier, ed. Kittel., Eerdmans, 1978).

"2:10-11 These final verses of the christologial hymn describe the universal homage and acclamation that will be accorded the one whose name ranks above all others...the adoration is in honour of the exalted Christ...the parallel words of v.11b describe explicitly the act of reverence as paid directly to the Son and 'to the glory of God the Father'. It is clear that Jesus is the one being worshipped."

"...'Every knee shall bow'. The universal scope of the adoration offered to Jesus as Lord is described by the words 'every knee shall bow' and 'every tongue confess'. (v.11)...The bending of the knee was an expression denoting great reverence and submission in the OT, especially marking the humble approach of the worshipper who felt his need so keenly that he could not stand upright before God. While the usual position in prayer was that of standing (e.g., Je. 18:20; 1 Ki. 18:15; 17:1, etc), in times of special need or extremity the worshipper fell on his knees (so Ez. 9:5, 15). Likewise in the Gospels people stand to pray (Lk.18:11, 13) and Jesus assumes His disciples will stand (cf. Mt.6:5); but when there is an acute sense of need or urgent entreaty, the supplicant falls down before God. So Jesus in Gethsemane bows down in lowly submission and distress (Mt.26:9; Mk.14:35; Lk.22:41). The bowing of the knee here at Phil. 2:10, as Martin puts it, is 'a mark of extreme abasement and submission (as in Eph. iii.14) and denotes that the universal homage marks the subjection of those who kneel to the lordship of Christ'.47"

"...Is. 45:22-25...The Lord...swears solemnly by his own life that 'every knee will bow before me; by me every tongue will swear'...the words of v.23, which are reiterated in Phil. 2:10-11, express the notion of the universal and final homage to Yahweh.

"...By invoking Is.45:23 as its proof-text the author of the hymn and the...community in which the hymn originated live 'in confident expectation that this salvation will soon be universally visible'.55"

(The New International Greek Testament Commentary (NIGTC): The Epistle to the Phillipians, Peter T. Obrien, 1991, p.233ff)

"bend the knee in worship, LXX Is.45.23, etc.":

https://translate.academic.ru/κάμπτω/el/xx/
Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, κάμπτω

"No hypocritical confession will satisfy God. “No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost” (1Cor. 12:3). Further, Phil. 2:11 says that the confession is “to the glory of God the Father.” No confession compulsion and force would glorify God the Father.” The whole text implies a real change of heart to make this confession truly “in the Name of Jesus” and “to the glory of God the Father.” Note, further, that those who “bow” and “confess” are in heaven," “in earth,” and “underearth.” This includes the whole creation of God."
Is Hell Eternal? Or Will God's Plan Fail? Ch. 8 The Neglected Age

"Talbot argues Paul anticipated this exhaustive reconciliation because of the verb he chose: confess. According to Talbot, “he chose a verb that throughout the Septuagint implies not only confession, but the offer of praise and thanksgiving as well.”3 He goes on to suggest that, while a king or queen could force a subject to bow against their will, praise and thanksgiving can only come from the heart:

" “either those who bow before Jesus Christ and declare openly that he is Lord do so sincerely and by their own choice or they do not. If they do this sincerely and by their own choice, then there can be but one reason: They too have been reconciled to God.4” "

Rev.5:13 And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are on the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for the eons of the eons.

Isa.45:21b and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me. 22 Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. 23 I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth inrighteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.

Phil.2:9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (NASB)

"Keep in mind these 2 simple observations:

The text In Isaiah 45:22-23 that inspires 2:9-11 uses the future tense.

(2) The other NT text referring to the worship of everyone “in heaven, on earth, and under the earth” presents a vision of what happens, not of what might happen (Rev. 5:13)."

This includes everyone in the universe, including the dead and demons:

Rev.5:13 And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are on the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.

John speaks of "every creature" & to emphasize this again he repeats "and all that are in them":

Rev.5:13 And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are on the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour,
and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.

This worship (v.13) uses the same worshipful words as the redeemed of vs 9-10 use in v.12:

12 Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.

All this being in the context of salvation - "the Lamb that was slain" (v.12 & 13).

“How ironic that those who believe God will not violate the ‘free ’will of man have no problem believing He will violate His own free will—that all men should be saved!” - David Nuckols

“He does not save men by arbitrary force. He saves by their wills, through moral influence. God has resources in his universe, the all conquering agencies of love, to make the unwilling soul willing! He has light enough to make the blind see, and love enough to melt the hardened heart.” -Quillen Hamilton Shinn

"It's tempting for me to believe that God is the grand master playing chess and we are the 5 year old rookie. Theoretically we are "free" to win the chess game, it is possible. No not really in the libertarian sense - it is unlikely to the point of virtual zero. in other words, God will always get His way, despite our best efforts not to be saved."

According to the Bible mercy will triumph over judgement.

Love will conquer all.

Scholar's Corner: The Center for Bible studies in Christian Universalism

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ClementofA said:

Evidently many would disagree with you.

In the early church universalism was the orthodox (biblical) view & may have been the orthodox (majority) view for centuries (see urls below) prior to the dark ages.
It may also be today, or be on the way to becoming, the majority Christian view (see urls below):

Early Church Writings Fathers:
Church Fathers & Universalism since Early Church times
Indeed Very Many: Universalism in the Early Church
Early church writings re final destiny (paradise, Gospel, incarnation, Jehovah) - Christianity - - City-Data Forum
Articles on the history of Christian Universalism throughout the centuries
https://s3.amazonaws.com/unsearchab.../©CPC+The+Ancient+History+of+Universalism.pdf
http://www.tentmaker.org/books/Prevailing.shtml
Lawrence R. Farley

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ClementofA said:

The point is many disagree with your biblical interpretation.

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ClementofA said:

Then why do you post the opinions of men like they are infallible popes? You know, the article you spammed in 4 posts earlier in this thread? And BDAG? etc.

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ClementofA said:

No one said a lexicon is a Pope. Is English not your first language? Here is what was said:

The point is many disagree with your biblical interpretation.

Then why do you post the opinions of men like they are infallible popes? You know, the article you spammed in 4 posts earlier in this thread? And BDAG? etc.

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ClementofA said:

I posted:

The point is many disagree with your biblical interpretation.

You replied:

Absolute fact.

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ClementofA said:

"An argument from authority (argumentum ab auctoritate), also called an appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam, is a form of defeasible[1] argument in which the opinion of an authority on a topic is used as evidence to support an argument. It is well known as a fallacy,..."

Your popes, again, you have blind faith in. What did Jesus say, the blind lead the blind?

"'How can you say, "We are wise, for we have the law of the LORD," when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely? (Jer.8:8)

Your "qualified" men following the Douay & KJV traditions of men of "the church" of the Inquisitions, Crusades & dark ages have been caught in a deception (Jer.8:8-9):

Considering, then, that the Greek word aionios has a range of meanings, biased men should not have rendered the word in Mt.25:46 by their theological opinions as "everlasting". Thus they did not translate the word, but interpreted it. OTOH the versions with age-lasting, eonian & the like gave faithful translations & left the interpreting up to the readers as to what specific meaning within the "range of meanings" the word holds in any specific context. What biased scholars after the Douay & KJV traditions of the dark ages "church" have done is change the words of Scriptures to their own opinions, which is shameful.

Jeremiah 8:8 "How can you say, 'We are wise, And the law of the LORD is with us'? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes Has made it into a lie.
9 "The wise men are put to shame, They are dismayed and caught; Behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD..."

"After all, not only Walvoord, Buis, and Inge, but all intelligent students acknowledge that olam and aiõn sometimes refer to limited duration. Here is my point: The supposed special reference or usage of a word is not the province of the translator but of the interpreter. Since these authors themselves plainly indicate that the usage of a word is a matter of interpretation, it follows (1) that it is not a matter of translation, and (2) that it is wrong for any translation effectually to decide that which must necessarily remain a matter of interpretation concerning these words in question. Therefore, olam and aiõn should never be translated by the thought of “endlessness,” but only by that of indefinite duration (as in the anglicized transliteration “eon” which appears in the Concordant Version)."

Eon As Indefinte Duration, Part Three | Concordant Publishing Concern

"Add not to His words, lest He reason with thee, And thou hast been found false."(Prov.30:6)

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According to the Scriptures, God is Love Omnipotent, not a mythical deception infinitely worse than Hitler, Bin Laden & Satan combined.

“I affirm that there is not in the whole voluminous code of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, from the beginning of Genesis, to the end of Revelation, one single passage,
one solitary text, in which the doctrine of the eternity of hell-torments is taught."

1 John 2:27 But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.

"The Third Law of Theology: For every theologian there is an equal and opposite theologian."

Eastern Orthodox scholar David Bentley Hart comments in his extensive notes (Concluding Scientific Postscript) re aionios following his translation of the New Testament:

"...John Chrysostom, in his commentary on Ephesians, even used the word aionios of the kingdom of the devil specifically to indicate that it is temporary (for it will last only until the end of the present age, he explains). In the early centuries of the church, especially in the Greek and Syrian East, the lexical plasticity of the noun and the adjective was fully appreciated -and often exploited - by a number of Christian theologians and exegetes (especially such explicit universalists as the great Alexandrians Clement and Origen, the "pillar of orthodoxy" Gregory of Nyssa and his equally redoubtable sister Makrina, the great Syrian fathers Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus, and Isaac of Ninevah, and so on, as well as many other more rhetorically reserved universalists, such as Gregory of Nazianzus)."

"Late in the fourth century, for instance, Basil the Great, bishop of Caesarea, reported that the vast majority of his fellow Christians (at least, in the Greek-speaking East with which he was familiar) assumed that "hell" is not an eternal condition, and that the "aionios punishment" of the age to come would end when the soul had been purified of its sins and thus prepared for union with God. Well into the sixth century, the great Platonist philosopher Olympiodorus the Younger could state as rather obvious that the suffering of wicked souls in Tartarus is certainly not endless, atelevtos, but is merely aionios; and the squalidly brutal and witless Christian emperor Justinian, as part of his campaign to extinguish the universalism of the "Origenists", found it necessary to substitute the word atelevtetos for aionios when describing the punishments of hell, since the latter word was not decisive..."

"As late as the thirteenth century, the East Syrian bishop Solomon of Bostra, in his authoritative compilation of the teachings of the "holy fathers" of Syrian Christian tradition, simply stated as a matter of fact that in the New Testament le-alam (the Syriac rendering of aionios) does not mean eternal, and that of course hell is not endless. And the fourteenth-century East Syrian Patriarch Timotheus II thought it uncontroversial to assert that the aionios pains of hell will come to an end when the souls cleansed by them, through the prayers of the saints, enter paradise" (The New Testament: A Translation, by David Bentley Hart, 2017, p.539-540).

https://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-David-Bentley-Hart/dp/0300186096

The same Greek words for "eternal fire" (or age-lasting fire, or eonian fire, etc, as literal Bibles translate it) are used of the "eternal fire" (Jude 1:7) that burned Sodom & was
not "eternal" but temporary, i.e. finite.

The same Greek word for "eternal", i.e. aionios, is also used by early church father Chrysostom of an obviously finite duration here:

"For that his[Satan's] kingdom is of this age,[αἰώνιος] i.e., will cease with the present age[αιώνι] ..." (Homily 4 on Ephesians, Chapter II. Verses 1-3). CHURCH FATHERS: Homily 4 on Ephesians (Chrysostom)

Could most modern translations be in error?

Most Bible translations (=opinions of Scripture) be in error? (Micah, traditions, Gospels) - Christianity - - City-Data Forum

the finiteness of "eternal life" (aionon zoe) in John?

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ClementofA said:

Which Bible is that?

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ClementofA said:

Lam.3:31For the Lord will NOT cast off FOR EVER: 32But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. 33For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve THE CHILDREN OF MEN. (KJV, emphasis mine)

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