Is Everybody going to heaven?

[Cassidy]

What happens to the dead once death is abolished?

 

[Floatingaxe]

*IF LUCIFER (KJ GOT THIS WORD FROM THE LATIN VULGATE), OR SATAN IS A MAN, HE WILL BE SAVED. IN ADAM ALL DIE, IN CHRIST ALL ARE MADE ALIVE.

If? LOL!!

The correct interpretation of the often misinterpreted verse by UR folk, I share here:

1 Corinthians 15:22
Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life.


This is what Paul wrote and this is what Paul meant, inspired by God Himself. I pray the Holy Spirit opens your spiritual eyes to this simple truth.

 

[icedtea]

Its almost odd how people say are you just with Jesus to avoid hell? Because that is what got me saved, the rapture idea.
Of course not, but had I thought all are saved, I would not have accepted Jesus' offer of life. yes, I could have rejected it, free will.
But I didn't.
But the fact of hell wakes one up,makes one SEE that we were all going there because of sin, but Jesus' sacrificial death and resurrection gives us a chance NOT to.
Can anyone who images there is no hell understand that?

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

IcedTea - you don't have to imagine a future hell to recognize when you bes in a present one that won't get any better without Him ...

 

[Floatingaxe]

Its almost odd how people say are you just with Jesus to avoid hell? Because that is what got me saved, the rapture idea.
Of course not, but had I thought all are saved, I would not have accepted Jesus' offer of life. yes, I could have rejected it, free will.
But I didn't.
But the fact of hell wakes one up,makes one SEE that we were all going there because of sin, but Jesus' sacrificial death and resurrection gives us a chance NOT to.
Can anyone who images there is no hell understand that?

No, they don't get it. They believe that people are atoned for already and sinless, that their sins don't need to be repented of and to be covered by the blood, because they will be accepted by God anyhow. So they think. They don't KNOW it because it isn't Scriptural. It's a construct born out of fear and denial.

Trouble is, there is plenty that God deems unacceptable and those with unclean hearts and hands will not enter the Kingdom, no matter what one chooses to believe. God is true to Himself and He is not a schizophrenic. He makes it plain what He curses.

 

[enoch son]

You do realize the Great Reconciler is Jesus the Christ Himself, don't you?

What are you saying then that reconciliation and salvation are the same thing? One needs to be careful here and watch ones foot.

 

[enoch son]

God is God of the ages, yes. He is also outside of time, so He is infinite.

The duration of aionios (the Greek word which the English words "eternal", "everlasting" and "forever" replace) is determined by the subject to which it refers.

For instance, when aionios ("forever") is in reference to how long Jonah was in the belly of the fish, it meant 3 days.

For slaves, aionios pertained to the duration of their mortal life span.

For Solomon's temple, aionios referred to 400 years.

As it pertains to God, it encompasses and transcends time altogether. He is the God of all the ages as well as any individual one.

The term is relative, the duration of which depends upon that with which it is associated.

For a modern example, when one refers to a "long" hot dog, no one would immediately think of a hot dog as lengthy as a "long" limo. A "large" spider would never be taken to mean a spider the same size as a "large" house. A "long" business meeting does not equal a "long" winter in duration. Both are referred to as "long", yes, but what determines the duration is not the adjective "long", but rather the noun to which the adjective is referring.



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I'm so glad God wrote in Greek and Hebrew and not the tongue of rappers.

 

[enoch son]

I'm sorry but this is just to easy.

 

[enoch son]

Amen. God has always shared this as the Reconciliation Awareness.
"Universalism" = label invented by man to completely shut down all rational thought by raising emotionally-triggered red "heresy alert!" flags.

Amen sis! What man doesn't understand he just points his finger at and yells out of blindness. See jewish leaders of Jesus time. What was it they said to him? Oh yes "your father is the devil". Boy does that sound familiar where have I hear that?

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

Amen sis! What man doesn't understand he just points his finger at and yells out of blindness. See jewish leaders of Jesus time. What was it they said to him? Oh yes "your father is the devil". Boy does that sound familiar where have I hear that?

Mmm-hmm! Exactly.
Let's keep this one in mind:
Matthew 5:
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

The religious "authorities" in Jesus' day -- who believed their theology and understanding of Scripture to be 100% correct and themselves to be following the one true God rightly -- called Him a blasphemer, a madman, and even demon-possessed. They claimed He got His power from Beelzebub. :o

 

[DeborahsSong]

If? LOL!!

The correct interpretation of the often misinterpreted verse by UR folk, I share here:

1 Corinthians 15:22
Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life.

Just checked this out in my PC Study Bible, pulling the first commentary on the list, Barnes' Notes:

"If this passage means, that in Adam, or by him, all people became sinners, then the correspondent declaration 'all shall be made alive' must have reference to the words 'all die,' and must affirm the co-relative and opposite fact. If the phrase 'all die' there means all become sinners, then the phrase 'all be made alive' must mean all shall be made holy, or be recovered from their spiritual death; and thus an obvious argument is furnished for the doctrine of universal salvation, which it is difficult, if not impossible, to meet. It is not a sufficientanswer to this to say that the word 'all,' in the latter part of the sentence, means all the elect, or all the righteous; for its most natural and obvious meaning is, that is is co-extensive with the word 'all' in the former part of the verse."

 

[HEisGoodalways]

No Problem.



No, sorry. There is no such thing as punishment promised after death in the Old Testament. If there is then please supply scripture.

Please show from Genesis, the beginning, that God's judgment on mankind is endless punishment for sin.



No, you'd better believe that the early Church did not believe in endless torment. That's something that did not rear it's ugly head for at least two hundred years after Christ... one of the damnable false heresy's that Paul knew would come into the Church and warned against.

INFINITE GRACE
FROM the earliest years of my memory there stirred deep within my bosom an insatiable longing after Christ. Though only a child, I wanted to know Him who once was spat upon for me, who was crowned with thorns for me, who died and rose again and ascended into the highest heaven for me. I wanted to intimately know the Christ, the great and good Friend who was compassionate to all men, who forgave the thieves and harlots and drunkards, and healed the sick and gladdened the sorrowful, who brought the dead to life again, and loved and blessed the children. Oh! how I wanted to KNOW HIM! Sometime after my twelfth birthday, the Lord came to me in a remarkable visitation, flooding my life with billows of His presence, power and glory. From that moment Christ became a living Reality. He filled the skies. He filled the earth. He filled my life and flooded mv heart with unspeakable love for His creation. He whispered in mv ear and flooded within the depths of my spirit the precious knowledge that He is the Good Shepherd who will seek until the last lost sheep is in His fold. He proclaimed the omnipotence of His love in the sweetest of tones. The Good Shepherd who came from heaven, and gave His life, will seek, and seek, and seek, and save, and save, and save, until He has brought all men back to God. This is the work of the Redeemer and the redeemed. I remember sitting, some time after this experience, in the auditorium of the public school in the rural community where we lived in southern Alabama, looking at the several hundred students assembled there, as the Spirit mused in my heart, "Someday, someway, somewhere, CHRIST WILL SAVE THEM ALL!" The revelation was real to me, Christ was there bursting forth in my spirit, and I rose and departed with gladness that Christ is indeed Victor!
I do not hesitate to preach it. I do not hesitate to tell it. At the same time I have warned the sinner that if he sins, the face of God is against him; that if he will not submit to Christ, hell is in front of him; the way of the transgressor is hard, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men; let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the children of disobedience. But let us not falsely say that such men will never be saved; let us not limit the Holy One of Israel!
Most Christians believe that once a person dies, his or her fate is sealed for ever. If anyone has been fortunate enough to have repeated the "sinner's prayer" one moment before death stole the spirit away, he is guaranteed, according to the "orthodox" teaching, that he will go straight to heaven. Matters not whether he was truly drawn to the Son by the Holy Spirit; as long as he muttered the correct words before the final beat of his heart yielded to the stillness and silence of death, his salvation is eternally secured.
The question is, does physical death end the availability of God's grace? The death that came to Adam was first and foremost a spiritual death, and all men enter this world "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1). Does physical death render our moral character changeless? Does it irrevocably fix our eternal destiny? Are the grace and mercy of God TIED TO OUR HEARTBEAT? Here is a young man driving along the road on his way to an evangelistic meeting where he will hear an anointed message of salvation. Conditions are such that he may be saved this very night. His heart is tender. His mother is praying. The Holy Spirit will be mightily dealing. But - enroute to the meeting there is a terrible accident. The brakes are slammed on, the car skids wildly, spins uncontrollably off the highway, rolls down the embankment, crashing violently into a tree. Death is instant. Abruptly the young man is gone "out into eternity." The question comes ... was the mercy and redemption of God tied to his heartbeat? Was there mercy for him IF HE WOULD HAVE MADE IT TO THE MEETING, but eternal damnation instead BECAUSE A DRUNKEN FOOL PULLED OUT IN FRONT OF HIM IN THE DARKNESS?
I do not hesitate to say that there is not one passage of Scripture in the whole Bible that indicates that the grace of God is limited to physical life, or that the mercy of God is tied to ones heartbeat. I am sure that my readers recognize that it is the spirit of man that is of the greatest importance to God. Why should there be salvation provided as long as the mortal body remains animate, but no salvation for the much more valuable spirit of the same man or woman as soon as the last mortal breath is drawn? Oh, I know the writer to the Hebrews states, "It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment" (Heb. 9:27), but that proves nothing relative to the question under consideration. It merely establishes the fact of judgment - not the process following judgment. The passage is conspicuous for what it does not say. It does not say, "It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this ETERNAL DAMNATION." The whole theory of eternal torment rests upon a faulty translation of a couple of Greek words, and actual distortions and perversions of what the Scriptures say.
So the Church system concludes that God has both the will and the power to save a breathing man, but no will and no power to save a non breathing man. It teaches that God has both the will and the power to regenerate a spirit which has a body of dust, but no will or power to save the same spirit without a body. God's mercy and power limited to the temporary function of certain animal organs! Good heartbeat, good mercy! No heartbeat, no mercy!
If, instead of bringing every sin into judgment - punishing that sin - we and correcting the sinner - we imagine the poor sinner suffering the eternal torments of hell with its unbearable anguish, the pangs of conscience, the taunts of fiendish demons, one hour of which is more than all his earthly sorrows rolled into one - lengthen this out to endlessness and season it with hopeless despair - and its horrors will be absolutely inconceivable. Though our lips may be afraid to frame the words, our hearts will whisper, "Can such be the final fruit of God's glorious plan?" Is this the response for which He hungered when He purposed that sin should estrange His creatures from Himself? But this is far from all! Multiply this single case by scores of billions of human beings, who age after age, have been hurdled into this hopeless hell - all tortured and tormented while the ages roll, and roll, and roll... without mercy and without remedy.
If the above scenario be true then something horrid must have happened to both God and His saints in heaven. Before the death of these people God loved them all, and in many instances they loved each other, saved and unsaved alike, and would have performed a great number of kindnesses for one another. Many of these had Christian friends and loved ones who were very concerned about them and prayed earnestly for them. But now that both saint and sinner are out in "eternity," God and all the saints in heaven have either lost their love and compassion for their lost loved ones, or else God has brainwashed all the saints so that they have erased from their memory the fact that their beloved mothers and fathers, their lovely sisters and brothers, their precious daughters and sons, and their good friends and neighbors are suffering the most terrible pain and hideous torture for all eternity. So we see this: there is MORE LOVE AND COMPASSION in the natural world in God and the saved ones, than there is in the spirit world. Furthermore, there is MORE LOVE for sinners while they have bodies than there is for sinners without bodies. What has happened to cause God and the saints to turn from love and pity for the lost, to a feeling that the lost are now getting what they deserve and should suffer the torments of the damned for all eternity? What, I ask, has happened to God and the saints to cause them to love and seek the lost as long as their frail, mortal bodies endure, but to turn from that love for the precious unclothed spirit of the very same man or woman? Can we believe that God, having created all things for His pleasure, having so loved His creation that He freely gave heaven's most precious gift, after a few paltry years, the brief span of a man's mortal existence, throws up His hands in futility and disgust, saying that He has done all He can and men would not respond, so He must cease all effort, seat Himself upon His golden throne, and consign His creation to everlasting hell? Yet this is exactly what we are told today. But how foolish! God is not that fickle, and God does not give up that easily. In fact, God does not give up! He started the whole program of creation and redemption and, blessed be His wonderful name! He will not cease His work until He is Victor - "All in All" throughout all the vastnesses of infinity for evermore! How often we have heard preachers warn people that "the day of grace will soon be over for ever." Now nothing could be further from the truth, for as long as God exists the GRACE OF GOD will be with us. The end of the grace of God, were it possible, would mean the destruction of God Himself, for grace is one of His eternal, immutable attributes. Please notice that Paul shows that the grace of God is going to be displayed and made known in the AGES TO COME through those who have received it here and now in this dispensation. "And has raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ, THAT IN THE AGES TO COME HE MIGHT SHOW (Greek: exhibit, put on display for all to see) THE EXCEEDING RICHES OF HIS GRACE in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:7-8). Not only does this passage tell us of the great revelation of God's grace in the AGES TO COME, but it also shows us that it is for this very reason that God is saving a FIRSTFRUIT COMPANY now. The unveiling of the grace of God to the whole creation is the true reason for the MANIFESTATION OF THE SONS OF GOD. God has no intention of bringing all the world into the fold now. If that were His purpose He would surely bring it to pass, for He is the omnipotent God who works all things after the counsel of His own will. The whole purpose of this age is to GATHER OUT A PEOPLE TO DISPLAY HIS GRACE IN THE COMING AGES. James also declared this truth when at Jerusalem he said, "Simeon has declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles to TAKE OUT A PEOPLE FOR HIS NAME ... that the residue (rest, remainder) of men might seek after the Lord and ALL THE GENTILES upon whom My name is called...known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world" (Acts 15:14, 17, 18). This so-called "age of grace" is coming to an end, but grace will be more manifest in the future than in previous times. This age which is presently coming to a close should more properly be called THE CHURCH AGE, for grace will not end, but the present form and administration of the Church will end. In the age to come God will move from calling out a body from among the nations, to the saving of the nations themselves. In ages beyond that God shall deal with the residue of men and all the reaches of His vast creation

 

[DeborahsSong]

What happens to the dead once death is abolished?

Great Question!! Death is a state of separation from God, who is our life. When the last son of Adam repents and turns to God, receiving the atoning work of the cross, then at that moment death is abolished. There is no more dead, since all have become alive and are new creatures in Christ. The last enemy is destroyed and Christ delivers the kingdom to the Father who becomes the all in all. "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all are made alive" 1 Cor 15:22.

 

[Yekcidmij]

He is the Good Shepherd who will seek until the last lost sheep is in His fold. He proclaimed the omnipotence of His love in the sweetest of tones. The Good Shepherd who came from heaven, and gave His life, will seek, and seek, and seek, and save, and save, and save, until He has brought all men back to God.

Not everyone is a sheep. Some are goats.

I remember sitting, some time after this experience, in the auditorium of the public school in the rural community where we lived in southern Alabama, looking at the several hundred students assembled there, as the Spirit mused in my heart, "Someday, someway, somewhere, CHRIST WILL SAVE THEM ALL!" The revelation was real to me, Christ was there bursting forth in my spirit, and I rose and departed with gladness that Christ is indeed Victor!

Then you are claiming to be on par with scripture. Your words, you claim, are scripture. Forgive me for not jumping on that boat right away.

At the same time I have warned the sinner that if he sins, the face of God is against him; that if he will not submit to Christ, hell is in front of him; the way of the transgressor is hard, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men; let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the children of disobedience. But let us not falsely say that such men will never be saved; let us not limit the Holy One of Israel!

Amen. God is a Warrior and a jealous lover.

Most Christians believe that once a person dies, his or her fate is sealed for ever. If anyone has been fortunate enough to have repeated the "sinner's prayer" one moment before death stole the spirit away, he is guaranteed, according to the "orthodox" teaching, that he will go straight to heaven. Matters not whether he was truly drawn to the Son by the Holy Spirit; as long as he muttered the correct words before the final beat of his heart yielded to the stillness and silence of death, his salvation is eternally secured.

That's not the orthodox teaching I'm aquainted with. That's unorthodox and quite frankly pagan. Pagans would be the ones to try to entice the gods into action by repeating some mantra. What matters is a changed heart and that is orthodoxy.

The question comes ... was the mercy and redemption of God tied to his heartbeat? Was there mercy for him IF HE WOULD HAVE MADE IT TO THE MEETING, but eternal damnation instead BECAUSE A DRUNKEN FOOL PULLED OUT IN FRONT OF HIM IN THE DARKNESS?

The thing is, if God is both omnipotent and omniscient, He could have known that if the person made it to the meeting, He wouldn't have believed anyway. Of course even this lies on the underlying attitude that we can question God's Sovreignty. God is Sovreign, He gives life and kills, He heals and wounds, and if He sees fit to bring someone to His court for judgment, that's His perogative as Sovreign.

Multiply this single case by scores of billions of human beings, who age after age, have been hurdled into this hopeless hell - all tortured and tormented while the ages roll, and roll, and roll... without mercy and without remedy.

You imply they didn't have mercy. They did have mercy but they chose justice instead. Mercy is God's to give as He sees fit. If God doesn't grant mercy, that's His perogative as Sovreign. You think that God is required to give mercy. That is not the case. It's merciful that God allows anyone forgiveness in the first place. God was well within His character to execute justice to everyone and consign everyone to the second death. How often we forget that.

And the imagery of demons poking people with pitchforks and laughing like a freak show is a relic of Dante and reflected in modern films and is not accurate.

If the above scenario be true then something horrid must have happened to both God and His saints in heaven. Before the death of these people God loved them all, and in many instances they loved each other, saved and unsaved alike, and would have performed a great number of kindnesses for one another. Many of these had Christian friends and loved ones who were very concerned about them and prayed earnestly for them. But now that both saint and sinner are out in "eternity," God and all the saints in heaven have either lost their love and compassion for their lost loved ones, or else God has brainwashed all the saints so that they have erased from their memory the fact that their beloved mothers and fathers, their lovely sisters and brothers, their precious daughters and sons, and their good friends and neighbors are suffering the most terrible pain and hideous torture for all eternity. So we see this: there is MORE LOVE AND COMPASSION in the natural world in God and the saved ones, than there is in the spirit world. Furthermore, there is MORE LOVE for sinners while they have bodies than there is for sinners without bodies. What has happened to cause God and the saints to turn from love and pity for the lost, to a feeling that the lost are now getting what they deserve and should suffer the torments of the damned for all eternity? What, I ask, has happened to God and the saints to cause them to love and seek the lost as long as their frail, mortal bodies endure, but to turn from that love for the precious unclothed spirit of the very same man or woman? Can we believe that God, having created all things for His pleasure, having so loved His creation that He freely gave heaven's most precious gift, after a few paltry years, the brief span of a man's mortal existence, throws up His hands in futility and disgust, saying that He has done all He can and men would not respond, so He must cease all effort, seat Himself upon His golden throne, and consign His creation to everlasting hell?

There seems to be an underlying assumption here. You seem to think all the saints are to spend eternity as spirits in a place called heaven. That is not the case. Death is a curse according to the bible, not a blessing. The saints will be resurrected and live bodily on earth. The non-saints will not. That is a fundamental difference. Not everyone is raised from the dead. Those who are dead cannot choose Messiah simply because they are dead and unable to.

You also put God's Mercy over and above His Justice. In either/both instances, God is glorified and is righteous in His decision. He has mercy on whoever He wants to have mercy on. That's His perogative as Sovreign. If He only wants to raise from the dead those that are in Christ, that is His perogative, and it is merciful that He even provides that in the first place.

God's original design for us was to reflect His image. Those who choose to worship something other than God choose to reflect the image of the object they worship. To be a true human is to bear the image of God as designed to. Those who do not want to reflect the image of God will cease to be truly human. Those who God has not renewed do not reflect His image and are not raised from the dead. The bible describes this as fire and brimstone, but let's not forget that is a description and imagery of those who are not raised from the dead. The ultimate hope for the Christian is to be raised from the dead as Christ was raised from the dead and given a new life to bear the image of God as we were originally designed to. Those who are not in the Messiah are not raised from the dead. There is no second chance simply because they are dead and not alive.

 

[Yekcidmij]

"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all are made alive" 1 Cor 15:22.

Does Paul think all men are "in Messiah"? No. What does Paul think it means to be "in Messiah"? He tips us off in the very next verse:

15:20 But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 15:21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also came through a man. 15:22 For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. 15:23 But each in his own order: Christ, the firstfruits; then when Christ comes, those who belong to him.


Always read in context. Does Paul think all men are "in Messiah" and that all men belong to Messiah? Nope.

 

[Rajni]

Only the most well-known Bible verse in the world:

John 3:16
For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Amplified:
For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.

No, that doesn't answer my question. Where are the verses that say, unequivocally, that "most will die in unbelief and miss their salvation"? I realize that there is a segment of Christianity that interprets the above verses through a love-Me-or-else lense, but what I'm looking for are verses that say, inarguably, "most will die in unbelief and miss their salvation." Can you provide me with those? Thanks again!




.

 

[Rajni]

The early church used the established Scripture that all the apostles used, and that Jesus Himself taught.

Yes, the Old Testament, which doesn't say anything about eternal torment. In fact, if ET is what God taught, He would have been lying when He said such a thing never crossed His mind in Jeremiah 32:35.

As for me, I don't have a denomination, and so I follow the word as written without any particular group bias. The Holy Spirit is the revealer of the truth in Scripture.

The WoF is not a denomination, true, but it is a movement. Movements wield just as much influence over their members as denominations do.

1 Peter 1:19-21
Because of that experience, we have even greater confidence in the message proclaimed by the prophets. You must pay close attention to what they wrote, for their words are like a lamp shining in a dark place—until the Day dawns, and Christ the Morning Star shines in your hearts. Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet's own understanding, or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.

Amen. Notice that this is being said of the original prophets, not any subsequent translators, and certainly not King James.




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[Rajni]

No, you'd better believe that the early Church did not believe in endless torment. That's something that did not rear it's ugly head for at least two hundred years after Christ... one of the damnable false heresy's that Paul knew would come into the Church and warned against.

 

[Rajni]

Someone cursed is most definitely not blessed or saved or allowed into the presence of God.

The Messiah redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, "A curse on everyone who is hung on a tree!" (Galatians 3:13). So to be cursed isn't necessarily a permanent condition, given that Jesus, who outright became a curse in our place, is sitting in Heaven now, at the right hand of the Father.





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[Rajni]

What happens to the dead once death is abolished?

They are made alive again (1 Corinthians 15:22, Romans 5).




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