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Oh, my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, and lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need.
We should always, always have hope. God bless you, friend.
Yes, it makes a mockery out of God's fair justice and things do not appear so apparent when one looks at the Scriptures.
The Scriptures are clear that the wicked are destroyed, but in the view of Universalism they are not destroyed but they are reformed?
It makes living this life as if it does not matter. If everyone will eventually be saved, then why bother to accept Christ and to live for Him?
Yes, it makes a mockery out of God's fair justice and things do not appear so apparent when one looks at the Scriptures. The Scriptures are clear that the wicked are destroyed...
Love Omnipotent has all eternity to wait & keep trying to save people. And given His willingness & ability to draw men to Himself an infinite number of times through eternity, it is mathematically impossible for anyone to reject Him an infinite number of times. Each time the man has a free choice to choose or reject God there is a chance he will choose God. Given an infinite number of such chances, the odds are impossible that he will not eventually choose God. So all will be saved.
"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."
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“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
“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
"God did not leave anything to chance, he's not a gambler he's an investor and that investment reaps dividends every time, if it takes a fundamentalist eternity to so."
"Who is stronger? Man with his free will or God who will have all men to be saved?"
According to the Bible mercy will triumph over judgement (James 2:13). So love will conquer all.
Catherine Marshall
"..Nothing can be lost that is not first owned. Just as a parent is compelled by civil law to be responsible for his family and his property, so the Creator --by His own divine law--is compelled to take care of the children He has created. And that means not only caring for the good children, but for the bad ones and lost ones as well. So the word lost came to be for Mrs. Smith, a term of greatest comfort. If a person is a "lost sinner" it only means that he is temporarily separated from the Good Shepherd who owns him. The Shepherd is bound by all duties of ownership to go after all those who are lost until they are found. -Catherine Marshall- (Beyond Ourselves) Note Mrs. Smith= Hannah W. Smith
Your ignoring the fact that the word thélō used both in verse 1 Timothy 2:4 and 2 Peter 3:9 not only means to !
Apollumi is the word linked with olethros destruction, and in fact rests on it. In either case it can be demonstrated that both have salvation encapsulated within the operation. In the case of the individual turned over to Satan (no indication he was a believer) but surely an attendee in Corinth for olethros destruction, salvation is most assuredly in the final chapter, and his spirit being “saved” in the day of the Lord.
Loss? Definitely, but salvation of his spirit.
Apollumi is rooted in olethros and is used in numerous passages of the New Covenant: again salvation is linked with this word.
Let us listen carefully to the Master of the Reconciliation…
"If you save your life, you will apollumi it. But if you apollumi your life for My sake you will save it."
Dear Jason: The anointed word of St Paul is no "mockery"! Our Father's "cherished" purpose in Himself is the restoration of the ta panta!
Dr. Marvin Vincent
from Word Studies in the New Testament
by Dr. Marvin R. Vincent
Olethron Aionion (eternal destruction)
'Aion, transliterated aeon, is a period of longer or shorter duration, having a beginning and an end, and complete in itself. Aristotle (peri ouravou, i. 9,15) says: "The period which includes the whole time of one's life is called the aeon of each one." Hence it often means the life of a man, as in Homer, where one's life (aion) is said to leave him or to consume away (Iliad v. 685; Odyssey v. 160).
It is not, however, limited to human life; it signifies any period in the course of events, as the period or age before Christ; the period of the millenium; the mythological period before the beginnings of history.
The word has not "a stationary and mechanical value" (De Quincey). It does not mean a period of a fixed length for all cases. There are as many aeons as entities, the respective durations of which are fixed by the normal conditions of the several entities. There is one aeon of a human life, another of the life of a nation, another of a crow's life, another of an oak's life. The length of the aeon depends on the subject to which it is attached.
Sometimes translated world
It is sometimes translated world; world represents a period or a series of periods of time. See Matt 12:32; 13:40,49; Luke 1:70; 1 Cor 1:20; 2:6; Eph 1:21. Similarly oi aiones, the worlds, the universe, the aggregate of the ages or periods, and their contents which are included in the duration of the world. 1 Cor 2:7; 10:11; Heb 1:2; 9:26; 11:3.
The word always carries the notion of time, and not of eternity. It always means a period of time.
Otherwise it would be impossible to account for the plural, or for such qualifying expressions as this age, or the age to come. It does not mean something endless or everlasting. To deduce that meaning from its relation to aei is absurd; for, apart from the fact that the meaning of a word is not definitely fixed by its derivation, aei does not signify endless duration. When the writer of the Pastoral Epistles quotes the saying that the Cretans are always (aei) liars (Tit. 1:12), he surely does not mean that the Cretans will go on lying to all eternity. See also Acts 7:51; 2 Cor. 4:11; 6:10; Heb 3:10; 1 Pet. 3:15. Aei means habitually or continually within the limit of the subject's life. In our colloquial dialect everlastingly is used in the same way. "The boy is everlastingly tormenting me to buy him a drum."
In the New Testament the history of the world is conceived as developed through a succession of aeons.
A series of such aeons precedes the introduction of a new series inaugurated by the Christian dispensation, and the end of the world and the second coming of Christ are to mark the beginning of another series. Eph. 1:21; 2:7; 3:9,21; 1 Cor 10:11; compare Heb. 9:26. He includes the series of aeons in one great aeon, 'o aion ton aionon, the aeon of the aeons (Eph. 3:21); and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews describe the throne of God as enduring unto the aeon of the aeons (Heb 1:8). The plural is also used, aeons of the aeons, signifying all the successive periods which make up the sum total of the ages collectively. Rom. 16:27; Gal. 1:5; Philip. 4:20, etc. This plural phrase is applied by Paul to God only.
The adjective aionios in like manner carries the idea of time. Neither the noun nor the adjective, in themselves, carry the sense of endless or everlasting.
They may acquire that sense by their connotation, as, on the other hand, aidios, which means everlasting, has its meaning limited to a given point of time in Jude 6. Aionios means enduring through or pertaining to a period of time. Both the noun and the adjective are applied to limited periods. Thus the phrase eis ton aiona, habitually rendered forever, is often used of duration which is limited in the very nature of the case. See, for a few out of many instances, LXX, Exod 21:6; 29:9; 32:13; Josh. 14:9 1 Sam 8:13; Lev. 25:46; Deut. 15:17; 1 Chron. 28:4;. See also Matt. 21:19; John 13:8 1 Cor. 8:13. The same is true of aionios. Out of 150 instances in LXX, four-fifths imply limited duration. For a few instances see Gen. 48:4; Num. 10:8; 15:15; Prov. 22:28; Jonah 2:6; Hab. 3:6; Isa. 61:17.
Words which are habitually applied to things temporal or material cannot carry in themselves the sense of endlessness.
Even when applied to God, we are not forced to render aionios everlasting. Of course the life of God is endless; but the question is whether, in describing God as aionios, it was intended to describe the duration of his being, or whether some different and larger idea was not contemplated. That God lives longer then men, and lives on everlastingly, and has lived everlastingly, are, no doubt, great and significant facts; yet they are not the dominant or the most impressive facts in God's relations to time. God's eternity does not stand merely or chiefly for a scale of length.
It is not primarily a mathematical but a moral fact.
The relations of God to time include and imply far more than the bare fact of endless continuance. They carry with them the fact that God transcends time; works on different principles and on a vaster scale than the wisdom of time provides; oversteps the conditions and the motives of time; marshals the successive aeons from a point outside of time, on lines which run out into his own measureless cycles, and for sublime moral ends which the creature of threescore and ten years cannot grasp and does not even suspect.
Everlastingness
There is a word for everlasting if that idea is demanded. That aiodios occurs rarely in the New Testament and in LXX does not prove that its place was taken by aionios. It rather goes to show that less importance was attached to the bare idea of everlastingness than later theological thought has given it. Paul uses the word once, in Rom. 1:20, where he speaks of "the everlasting power and divinity of God." In Rom. 16:26 he speaks of the eternal God (tou aioniou theou); but that he does not mean the everlasting God is perfectly clear from the context. He has said that "the mystery" has been kept in silence in times eternal (chronois aioniois), by which he does not mean everlasting times, but the successive aeons which elapsed before Christ was proclaimed. God therefore is described as the God of the aeons, the God who pervaded and controlled those periods before the incarnation. To the same effect is the title 'o basileus ton aionon, the King of the aeons, applied to God in 1 Tim. 1:17; Rev. 15:3; compare Tob. 13:6, 10.
The phrase pro chronon aionion, before eternal times (2 Tim. 1:9; Tit. 1:2), cannot mean before everlasting times. To say that God bestowed grace on men, or promised them eternal life before endless times, would be absurd. The meaning is of old, as Luke 1:70. The grace and the promise were given in time, but far back in the ages, before the times of reckoning the aeons.
Zoe aionios eternal life, which occurs 42 times in N. T., but not in LXX, is not endless life, but life pertaining to a certain age or aeon, or continuing during that aeon.
I repeat, life may be endless. The life in union with Christ is endless, but the fact is not expressed by aionios. Kolasis aionios, rendered everlasting punishment (Matt. 25:46), is the punishment peculiar to an aeon other then that in which Christ is speaking. In some cases zoe aionios does not refer specifically to the life beyond time, but rather to the aeon or dispensation of Messiah which succeeds the legal dispensation. See Matt. 19:16; John 5:39. John says that zoe aionios is the presentpossession of those who believe on the Son of God, John 3:36; 5:24; 6:47,54. The Father's commandment is zoe aionios, John 12.50; to know the only true God and Jesus Christ is zoe aionios. John 17:3.
Bishop Westcott very justly says, commenting upon the terms used by John to describe life under different aspects: "In considering these phrases it is necessary to premise that in spiritual things we must guard against all conclusions which rest upon the notions of succession and duration. 'Eternal life' is that which St. Paul speaks of as'e outos Zoe the life which is life indeed, and 'e zoe tou theou, the life of God. It is not an endless duration of being in time, but being of which time is not a measure. We have indeed no powers to grasp the idea except through forms and images of sense. These must be used, but we must not transfer them as realities to another order."
Thus, while aionios carries the idea of time, though not of endlessness, there belongs to it also, more or less, a sense of quality.
Its character is ethical rather than mathematical. The deepest significance of the life beyond time lies, not in endlessness, but in the moral quality of the aeon into which the life passes. It is comparatively unimportant whether or not the rich fool, when his soul was required of him (Luke 12:20), entered upon a state that was endless. The principal, the tremendous fact, as Christ unmistakably puts it, was that, in the new aeon, the motives, the aims, the conditions, the successes and awards of time counted for nothing. In time, his barns and their contents were everything; the soul was nothing. In the new life the soul was first and everything, and the barns and storehouses nothing. The bliss of the sanctified does not consist primarily in its endlessness, but in the nobler moral conditions of the new aeon, the years of the holy and eternal God. Duration is a secondary idea. When it enters it enters as an accompaniment and outgrowth of moral conditions.
Olethron destruction
In the present passage it is urged that olethron destruction points to an unchangeable, irremediable, and endless condition. If this be true, if olethros is extinction, then the passage teaches the annihilation of the wicked, in which case the adjective aionios is superfluous, since extinction is final, and excludes the idea of duration. But olethros does not always mean destruction or extinction. Take the kindred verb apollumi to destroy, put an end to, or in the middle voice, to be lost, to perish. Peter says "the world being deluged with water, perished (apoleto, 2 Pet. 3:6); but the world did not become extinct, it was renewed. In Heb. 1:11,12, quoted from Ps. 102, we read concerning the heavens and the earth as compared with the eternity of God, "they shall perish" (apolountai). But the perishing is only preparatory to change and renewal. "They shall be changed" (allagesontai). Compare Isa. 51:6,16; 65:22; 2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1. Similarly, "the Son of man came to save that which was lost" (apololos), Luke 19:10. Jesus charged his apostles to go to the lost (apololota) sheep of the house of Israel, Matt. 10:6, compare 15:24, "He that shall lose (apolese) his life for my sake shall find it," Matt. 16:25. Compare Luke 15:6,9,32.
In this passage, the word destruction is qualified.
It is "destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power," at his second coming, in the new aeon. In other words, it is the severance, at a given point of time, of those who obey not the gospel from the presence and the glory of Christ. Aionios may therefore describe this severance as continuing during the millenial aeon between Christ's coming and the final judgment; as being for the wicked prolonged throughout that aeon and characteristic of it, or it may describe the severance as characterising or enduring through a period or aeon succeeding the final judgment, the extent of which period is not defined. In neither case is aionios, to be interpreted as everlasting or endless.
Anyways, what I am getting at is if you seek to defend your position with me, I would kindly ask that you make your case primarily with the English words in my Bible. For I do not believe they conflict.
Well, I glanced at your post because you wrote a lot, but I appear to agree with you that aeon is an age or temporary set amount of time. I also agree that both the Bible and real life have used the word "forever" (for ever - KJV) as a metaphor. This appears to fit the context, the consistent use of that word through the Bible as a whole, and God's goodness, and fair justice.
I'll leave that to God to judge. In any case the point of my response was to answer why people go to the LOF.
More literal, accurate & faithful translations read like the following:
Mt.12:31 Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be pardoned men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be pardoned. 32 Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be pardoned, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be pardoned, either in this age or in the one to come. (CLV)
The parallel passage in Mark says in literal translations:
28 Verily, I am saying to you that all shall be pardoned the sons of mankind, the penalties of the sins and the blasphemies, whatsoever they should be blaspheming, 29 yet whoever should be blaspheming against the holy spirit is having no pardon for the eon, but is liable to the eonian penalty for the sin-" (CLV)
Dear Jason: My case shall rest upon the koine from which we shall see what English Bibles are in conformity. The fact is there are translations that are not in conformity! That my friend is easy to demonstrate. Would you like to start with "damnation" from the koine krima; perhaps aionios and aidios would be more acceptable. What English Bible are you following?
Dear Jason: I appreciate you glancing at Dr. Marvin Vincent, an individual standing tall in koine. It is encouraging that you grasp aeons. Can you disclose what aionios means & how it compares with aidios?
Dear Jason: Repentance is "granted" & flows like all other aspects from the Source & Guide of the ta nta. If you do not wish to pursue discussion with me I am comfortable with that decision. If you do however, you must be prepared to stand on the koine GreekWe did not repent hearing the Greek. .
Again, as I said before, I primarily prefer to discuss with other believers involving what our Bibles say in the English
I posted:
You ignore the context. The context is speaking of actions in this life (Mt.7:13-19, 22-23) & their consequences on a certain "day" (7:22), not final destiny or eternal destinies. On that "day" (7:22) some will suffer punishment by "fire" (7:19). On that particular "day" not everyone will enter "heaven", even if they say "Lord" (7:20) & claim to have done miracles in His name (7:22).
You replied:
Jesus clearly connects verses 21 & 22 by using "Lord, Lord" in both verses. Verses 22-23 explain Jesus' meaning in verse 21 of the immediate context.
Berean Literal Bible
Not everyone saying to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but the one doing the will of My Father in the heavens. (Mt.7:21)
Matthew 7:21 Interlinear: 'Not every one who is saying to me Lord, lord, shall come into the reign of the heavens; but he who is doing the will of my Father who is in the heavens.
Only those - "doing" (present tense, Mt.7:21) - the will of God will enter the "kingdom of the heavens". While - you - were not "doing" His will, you were disqualified. So there was a time when - you - & all other rebels like you - would not have been able to "enter into the kingdom of the heavens". To enter this kingdom rebels must change their ways and do the will of God. Mt.7:21 places no time limits on when rebels may change their ways & do God's will. Mt.7:21 does not say anyone will never enter the kingdom. So it fails as an isolated out of context "proof text" against biblical universalism.
Matthew 7:21-23 tells us, like 1 Cor.6:9-11, that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom. First the unrighteous must change & become righteous so that they may enter. Paul says some of those who became righteous were formerly those who could not enter the kingdom because they were unrighteous:
1 Cor 6:9-11
"Know ye not that THE UNRIGHTEOUS shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."
"And SUCH WERE SOME OF YOU: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God."
As a commentator says:
"Wait a minute. If the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God, why does Paul say "and such were some of you?" If they were unrighteous, then how did they inherit the kingdom?"
"They had to be cleansed first, of course. As long as anyone is not cleansed, they have no part inside. But once cleansed, they entered the kingdom."
So the passages you quoted are perfectly harmonious with Scriptural universal salvation.
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