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

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The Beautiful Heresy

OK. Perhaps you're new to Universalism and you think you've stumbled across some new age, new-fangled heresy. Would it surprise you to know that Universalism was present in the early church and that people like Origen and Clement gleaned it from the scriptures? Would it surprise you that Eternal Torment (ET) wasn't commonly accepted until around the year 500?

The Beautiful Heresy- Christian Universalism: The Early Church

The First 500 Years

Universalism, the Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church During its First Five Hundred Years
 
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God's Plan Of The Ages

“During the present wicked eon (Gal.1:4), Sin reigns, Satan who is said to be “the god of this eon” (2 Cor.4:4) blinds and deceives mankind, and death swallows up the race (1 Cor.15:22).

But notwithstanding, God is over all and is in supreme control. He is the eonian God.

In due time He will deliver the entire creation and bring good out of all the suffering mankind is called upon to endure (Rom.8;18-23).”

God's Plan Of the Ages (with Concordance))

The eons of the Bible With Concordance, God’s purpose of the eons.

The whole of created life shall be delivered/set free from the bondage of corruption...
 
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Marvin Vincent D.D., (Professor of Sacred Literature at Union Theological Seminary, New York)

Word Studies in the New Testament

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HFF3AS2...ng=UTF8&btkr=1

Consider the N. T. use of aion. Does “eternity” make any sense in the following passages?

What will be the sign… of the end of the eternity (Mt. 24: 3).

I am with you… to the end of the eternity (Mt. 28: 20).

The sons of this eternity are more shrewd (Lu. 16: 8).

The sons of this eternity marry (Lu. 20: 34). Worthy to attain that eternity (Lu. 20: 35).

Since the eternity began (Jn. 9: 32; Ac. 3: 21).

Conformed to this eternity (Ro. 12: 2).

Mystery kept secret since the eternity began but now made manifest (Ro. 16: 25-26).

Where is the disputer of this eternity (1Co. 1: 20)?

Wisdom of this eternity, nor of the rulers of this eternity… ordained before the eternities… which none of the rulers of this eternity… (1Co. 2: 6-8)

Wise in this eternity (1Co. 3: 18).

Upon whom the ends of the eternities have come. (1Co. 10: 11)

God of this eternity has blinded (2Co. 4: 4).

Deliver us from this present evil eternity (Ga. 1: 4).

And those are but a few places where “eternity” makes no sense whatsoever.

Our hope of immortality does not reside in the word aion but in God’s very nature.
 
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jimmiej;55067171 said:
A definition of the Christian doctrine of salvation would be “The deliverance, by the grace of God, from eternal punishment for sin which is granted to those who accept by faith God’s conditions of repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus.” Salvation is available in Jesus alone (John 14:6; Acts 4:12) and is dependent on God alone for provision, assurance, and security.

Dear Jimmie: My friend there is simply no such animal as "eternal punishment"! There is no such thing! Our God punishes, & as the Father of all fathers, punishes with one object in view: change and transformation.

Furthermore salvation is not "available" in the Lord Jesus Christ: He is the Mercy Seat for our sins & not our sins ONLY, but for the sins of the whole world i.e. the hilasmos of the holos.

Now Jimmie, F.L. wants you to focus>>>>

"God IS the Saviour of all mankind, especially those who believe/trust in Him. Command this and teach this"

Please Note

1. God is Saviour: NOT a potential SAVIOUR

2. Especially= malista: malista does NOT mean only!

3. Only = monos or monon

Jesus the Christ IS the Soter of the all, the ta panta
 
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"Some have asked what good does it do to believe that God will save all men. You might as well ask what good it does to believe that God will save some men... Every evangelist believes that it is God's will to save some men during this present time, or he would not be an evangelist. And if a man does not believe that God will save any men past this present age, what does he expect to be doing in the ages to come? To what end, then, is such a man's "sonship" ministry? Why strive and labor to be a Son, to set creation free, if what God is accomplishing in redemption during this present age is all there is...If there is no out-working of redemption in the ages to come, no extension, nor expansion of the kingdom of God beyond the formation of the Body of Christ, they why not settle for the fundamentalist's version of heaven and content ourselves with spending eternity shouting up and down the golden streets, waving palm branches and strumming harps? --J. Preston Eby

J. Preston Eby – Kingdom Resources
 
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Not just saved: Reconciled & made righteous

Up until the time of Augustine, most Christians believed in universal salvation.

Dr. Edwin Abbott, headmaster of the City of London School, wrote in his Cambridge Sermons -

“An argument was introduced by Augustine, and since his day incessantly repeated, that if aionios kolasis does not mean “endless punishment,” then there is no security for the believer that aionios zoe means “endless life,” and that he will enjoy the promise of endless happiness.

But Matt. 25:46 shows the “eonian chastisement” and “eonian life” are of the same duration-lasting during the eons, and when the eons end, as Scripture states they will (1 Cor. 10:11; Heb. 9:26), the time called “eonian” is past and the life called “eonian” is finished, but life continues beyond the eons, as Paul teaches at 1 Cor. 15:26:

“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” (which must refer to the lake of fire, for the first death cannot be the last enemy). That is, the last, the final one in order. How will it be destroyed?

First Corinthians 15:22 gives the answer: “For as IN ADAM ALL are dying, even so IN CHRIST ALL shall be made alive.” Death is destroyed when ALL have been made alive, IN CHRIST.” - Dr. Edwin Abbott-

Note the wording

"In Christ all shall be made alive"

NOT

All who are in Christ shall be made alive
 
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Full Restoration

“The feast of tabernacles means the feast of in gathering. It takes an eight day period to bring in the fullness of the in gathering. Eight is the number of new beginnings in scripture or full restoration.

1 Corinthians 15 is the last chapter in the Bible. The fifteenth chapter clearly shows how great the totality of the feast of tabernacles will be. ‘As in Adam all die (every preacher will agree that all people are in Adam but few believe that the word all mean all in the second part of the verse) so in Christ all shall be made alive.’ Jesus is going to gather all together in Himself. He will have everyone in His nature.

Everything that occurs, occurs in the plan and order of God. In 1 Corinthians 15 God shows that there are different orders. The highest order is Jesus Christ. Everything will, in time, be brought into Jesus Christ. All shall be gathered into Him. When this is done then Jesus, the Son, will turn all over to the Father. It is then we find that time ends, for God becomes All in all (verse 28). -Chas. Weller-

The whole of created life shall be delivered...
 
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A. E. Knoch

A critic who believed in eternal torment said, “Knoch and his colleagues will yet have to answer to God for so defiantly opposing the plain teachings of God’s holy word."

His reply=

"Let me assure our brother, beloved by the Lord, that we fully expect to answer to God for all our acts, and will rejoice to see all that is not of God destroyed by the fiery test of that day. But such threats do not alarm us in the least. We know a God of transcendent grace.

The character of the God you worship will determine your ways and your words. We trust it will be so with us also, for we would delight to be like Him. Hence, we do not threaten you with His wrath, but commend you to His grace.

Perhaps no sin can be so great as to distort His words and defame His character. But His grace is superbly sufficient, His love is lavish in its long-suffering. It never lapses, but looks longingly for the reconciliation which is the justification and crown of all His ways with His creatures.

So, as we close with the absolute certainty of a reconciliation between us, we anticipate it on our part and throw all enmity aside. We are conciliated no matter what you do. While your words and ways have seemed to us to be offensively unlike His, this only gives greater ground for grace. This of itself justifies them, for grace must have a foil.

We close, then, with a prayer for such an outpouring of His grace on your own head as will force you to feel the affection which is found in Him for all the creatures of His hand and heart." A.E. Knoch

His lavish long suffering love never lapses
 
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Although John Wesley is not on record as a universalist, he was greatly influenced by the Moravians, many of whom were universalists. He quoted from Sixteen Discourses (Moravian Literature), the following statement, “By his (Christ’s) name, all can and shall obtain life and salvation.” One of Wesley’s intimate friends, Peter Bohler wrote: “All the damned souls shall yet be brought up out of hell.” (Bohler was made the Bishop of American Moravians, next in rank to Zinzendorf). (Source: A Cloud of Witnesses, by John Wesley Hanson, p 54)

The Reformer Martin Luther had hope for all. In his letter to Hanseu Von Rechenberg in 1522, Luther wrote: "God forbid that I should limit the time of acquiring faith to the present life. In the depth of the Divine mercy there may be opportunity to win it in the future." Bengel's book, Gnomon, quotes Luther's exposition of Hosea as accepting the idea that Christ appeared to souls of some who in the time of Noah had been unbelieving, that they might recognize that their sins were forgiven through His sacrifice.

Richard J. Bauckham

Lecturer in the history of Christian thought at the University of Manchester

... Since 1800 this situation has entirely changed, and no traditional doctrine has been so widely abandoned as that of eternal punishment. Its advocates among theologians today must be fewer than ever before.... Among the less conservative, universal salvation, either as hope or as dogma, is now so widely accepted that many theologians assume it virtually without argument."

Dr. J.I. Packer has noted that Universalism "has in this century quietly become part of the orthodoxy of many Christian thinkers and groups."

D. B. Eller asserts in the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology that it is clear that "Universalism, in a variety of forms, continues to have appeal for contemporary faith, in both liberal and conservative circles."

Dr. E.W. Bullinger (The Companion Bible)

"We have not an impotent Father, or a disappointed Christ, or a defeated Holy Ghost, as is so commonly preached; but an omnipotent Father, and all-victorious Christ, and an almighty Holy Spirit, able to break the hardest of heart and subdue the stoutest will."
 
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No one can deny that the New Testament contains a special revelation of the parental tie uniting us to God.

When we pray and say, "our Father," these two words convey the spirit of the whole Gospel.

Now, it is not too much to assert that the view generally held is an absolute negation of all that the parental tie implies. It robs the relation of all meaning.

We have the very spirit of popular Christianity conveyed in the well-known line which tells us that we are ever in the great Taskmaster's eye."

The great Taskmaster ---note the term, for it reduces to mockery the divine Fatherhood, though that is of the very essence of Christianity.

What, for instance, shall we say of such a Father's appeal to those who, as He knows, will never hear? To Him there is no future -all is present ; the "lost" are lost, and yet He calls them; they are, on the traditional creed, virtually damned; and He knows it, and yet invites them to come and be saved.

But all this difficulty comes from uniting two things absolutely irreconcilable -endless love and power, and yet endless evil. If we want to retain endless sin, let us return to the God of Calvin: nowhere else shall we find solid footing. This God at least is Lord and Master. He issues no invitations, knowing them to be in fact futile. He saves all whom He wants to save. His will must prevail. His Son sheds no drop of blood in vain, All for whom He dies are in fact saved, while the rest go to the devil. All this is hard -nay, cruel; but it is at least logical, intelligible.

Contrast with this system the flabby creed of our pseudo-orthodoxy.

Long ago it was shrewdly said by an old Calvinist, "universal salvation is credible, if universal Redemption be true." For it shocks the reason to be told of an universal Redemption, when all that is meant is an attempt at the redemption of all the race, which fails; it shocks the reason no less to be told of an unchanging love which wholly ceases the moment the last breath leaves the frail body.” - Thomas Allin (Christ Triumphant)-
 
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Am I then to believe that the same God Who expends millions of years in slowly fitting this earth for man's habitation, will only allow to man himself a few fleeting years, or months, or hours, as it may be, as his sole preparation time for eternity?

To settle questions so unspeakably great in their issue -questions stretching away to a horizon so far distant that no power of thought can follow them-in such hot haste, does seem quite at variance with our heavenly Father's ways.

Is God's action outside man so slow, and within man so hurried? Is the husk of far more value than the seed? Are millions of years allotted to fashioning man's earthly home, while for man's spiritual training for eternity, but a few brief years are given, and these so largely broken up by sleep, by work, by disease, by ignorance?

What should we say -to take a homely illustration -of an arrangement allotting 10,000 years to fashioning a man's coat, or building his house, while assigning to his whole education but a few hours?” -Thomas Allin (Christ Triumphant)

Thomas Allin: Christ Triumphant — The Works of George MacDonald
 
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Arminian Belief vs Calvinist Belief vs. Universal Salvation

Arminian 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 cooperate with my Son properly before you die, then I am going to raise you from the dead and I will either annihilate you, or sustain you alive in an inescapable state of eternal torment.”

Christ’s apparent mission: To save from annihilation or eternal torment only those who are lucky enough to hear about Jesus before they die, and also have enough good sense to properly cooperate with Him before they die.

Calvinist Belief- It’s as if God says

“Since there is nothing you can do about it because you are totally depraved and you are not one of the elect, it is obvious that I created most of you for the purpose of either annihilating you or letting you suffer eternal torment. However, I am going to unconditionally choose a few of you to go to heaven where you will be happy forever.”

Christ’s apparent mission: To let everyone be annihilated, or suffer eternal torment except the unconditionally elected few that He rescues by His irresistible grace.

Universal Reconciliation (mine) – God says

“Sooner or later, because of what Christ accomplished by His death and resurrection, I am going to save all of you from everything from which you need to be saved, including your stubborn will.”

Christ’s scriptural mission: ‘And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world’ (1 John 4:14).

I worship a Jesus Who will be completely successful in accomplishing the reason why His Father sent Him.

Christ was prophesied to take away the sin of the world (Jn. 1:29), so how then can a sinless world suffer everlasting punishment?! How absurd! Christ is the Saviour of the world (Jn. 4:42; 1 Jn. 4:14), and He will save it!" -Roger Tutt-

Every knee, every tongue in antiphonal worship of the Lord God
 
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There are many dwelling places in Father's house, or places of abode. None of those dimensions of dwelling are the same, but range from glorious to super magnificent. No two unions with the Christ are the same in the "many" mansions of our glorious God.

Expansion of our beings is a present tense operation by/in His Life and glorious beyond description.

Recently astronomers were drawn to one pinprick of light in the heavens. Do you know what they found? Thousands of more galaxies and stars cascading from that pinprick. Rest assured of this; our God has vast areas within each of us reserved for His expression.

God is the Source, Guide & Goal of ta panta

ta panta= the all
 
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Testimony of Pastor Mark Deckard

I wanted to put into writing my own journey out of hell. That is to say my journey out of the doctrine of eternal conscious torment. In a way it is a journey out of a personal hell because this doctrine did in fact torment me for a long time. As a non denominational pastor of 30 years with a full gospel Assembly of God back ground, I was reaching a place of intense inward struggle with all that I knew about Gods grace and love and acceptance, and then having to believe an alarm goes off and He transforms into a merciless judge who hates anyone who for a plethora of reasons did not come into Christ in their short span on earth.

I fought this for a long time. Of course hell is forever. Its right there in the bible.

The only problem was that this created an ever increasing spiritual dissonance inside of me of which the effect on my life and spirituality and view of the world I did not fully comprehend.

Could believing in eternal conscience torment make a person more judgmental, less merciful, more prone to anxiety and depression and even make carnal thoughts and temptations harder to resist?

Could this undermine the gift of grace a person was promised in Christ and keep them from living in the peace and joy and love that is supposed to accompany those born again?

I would have never guessed that could be the case.

The fact is I struggled in all those things for so long. I knew the standards I was to live by but I just assumed the devil was really concentrating on me because I'm a leader and we get more enemy fire.
But when I finally opened my heart and began to read the volumes of online study available from the well researched and well reasoned proponents of Universal Reconciliation, It was like a desert was being filled with streams of living water down inside of me. I began to experience the grace powered life like never before.

As I look back I realize that my spirit never really bore witness with the doctrine of eternal hell.

The truth is I could muster the confession if asked directly, but I never really preached it. Not out of a deliberate refusal or a fear of man. I have preached many things people did not want to hear about Gods Word on all manner of human sins. I want to be a faithful messenger even if it leads to some people walking away because of unbelief. I don’t scratch ears. But descriptions of a hell of eternal punishment were not flowing from my inner man onto the page like so many other things from Gods Word. Maybe that's because that's never been what the Spirit was saying to the world. In fact I found myself wishing that hell might just be a temporary situation for sinners even before I was enlightened in the truths of Evangelical Universalism. That must have been God preparing my heart for a personal reformation.

Yet I was very vigilant about my doctrine. I had seen others go off onto extra biblical tangents and lead people astray. I saw the legalist and the mystics of the early church corrected and rebuked by the Apostles in the epistles and how they passionately defended the flock from the false teachers.

I saw how famous pastors were leaving sound doctrine and claiming all will go to heaven and there was no hell and that all religions lead to God and that all lifestyles are OK as long as we have love. Maybe its wrong of me to say this, but I don’t have a good feeling about Rob Bell or William Paul Young. I don’t think they want to lead people to repentance. I think they are trying to make repentance irrelevant. I don’t like the tricks they play with the bible. I heard Rob bell say in a video that God sent Jonah to bless Nineveh but Jonah refused to go. That made me angry because he deliberately exploited the ignorance of the general public and distorted the mission of Jonah which was to say “40 more days and Nineveh shall perish!”

In judging peoples sincerity I have always found that you can identify an ulterior motive by looking for contradictions in their actions and words. I have seen many try to exploit or undermine others over the years through feigned love or spirituality. But I was able to see early on before others that they were up to something because their actions betrayed their words in irreconcilable ways that identified their true agenda.

The doctrine of eternal conscious torment, built on certain wordings in the New Testament, just did not agree with the rest of the picture the bible was painting about God. There was a fundamental contradiction that for me betrayed a flaw, but not in Gods Word or plan. It betrayed a flaw in the nameless, faceless, unaccountable people who the worlds understanding of God has been handed to as gatekeepers. These are the translators of the original manuscripts.

In considering how the bible reveals God I see two modes. Statements and stories. The thing about a statement is that every single word in a short statement about God has the power to misinform us if chosen or translated wrongly. Whereas in story mode, certain words can tolerate variation or even a little inaccuracy, yet you still come out with a clear accurate picture of what happened and what the story reveals about God.

As I look at all the stories about Gods dealing with people, I see an unrelenting determination for love and mercy and restoration to win out in the end.

Mercy triumphs over judgement! James 2:13

Yet some New Testament statements about Gods dealings with man at the end of the age seem to conflict with these stories. This of course is not a bible error. As many have so skillfully illustrated there are some serious translation issues and Gnostic pollution in the formation of our traditional doctrines.

I would close this post by saying I am experiencing a renaissance of joy in my life as I study the words of the wonderful people on this forum and other Evangelical Universalists across the web. I feel a brand new passion for the lost in my personal ministry, a renewed thirst for prayer and I can't wait to engage the world on a whole new basis of spiritual motivation which is flowing from a more perfect way.

Please know that I realize I don't have every position perfectly organized in this belief and I may say things that you could correct in some way. But this is not an argument, its my testimony and I hope its appreciated as such.
 
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" When I was from ten to fourteen years of age, I attended prayer meetings...I would return to my home and with the utmost sincerity ask God to take me out of the world if He would only save me from hell. I professed to love God, Said I hoped I loved Him as I heard my elders do.... my love must have been similar to the love a woman would feel to a tyrant who with a loaded pistol pointed at her heart bade her love him or die. I grew to know that true love cannot be forced. We cannot love the unlovely. "We love Him because He first loved us." -P.T. Barnum-

P. T. Barnum

WHY I AM A UNIVERSALIST - P.T. BARNUM
 
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Acts 3:21

"Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." (KJV)

"Who is to be kept in heaven till the time when all things are put right, of which God has given word by the mouth of his holy prophets, who have been from the earliest times." (BBE)

"Whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from long ago."(Common)

"Whom heaven indeed must receive till the times of the restoring of all things, of which God has spoken by the mouth of his holy prophets since time began." (Darby)

"Heaven must receive him until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through the voice of his holy prophets." (ISV)

Whom, indeed, heaven must retain till the time of the accomplishment of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets, from the beginning of time. (LO)

"Whom the heavens must receive until the time of restoration of all things. "God spoke of this ages ago, through the mouth of his holy prophets." (Montgomery)

"Whom the heavens must retain, until the completion of the times of those things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of his holy prophets of old." (Murdock)

"Unto whom, indeed, heaven must needs give welcome, until the times of the due establishment of all things, of which God hath spoken through the mouth of his holy age-past prophets." (Rotherham)

"Whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God spoke long ago by the mouth of his holy prophets." (WEB)

"Heaven must receive Him until those times of which God has spoken from the earliest ages through the lips of His holy Prophets--the times of the reconstitution of all things." (Weymouth)

"Whom it behoveth heaven, indeed, to receive till times of a restitution of all things, of which God spake through the mouth of all His holy prophets from the age." (YLT)

"...of universal restoration" TCNT

"....of the great Restoration" (James Moffatt)

"....for the universal reformation..." (Goodspeed}

"....when all things are put right" (BAS)

"...when all is restored anew." Monsig. Ronald Knox

"...until the whole world is re-created" Rieu

"...until the final recovery of all things from sin." Kenneth Taylor

What does restitution mean?

Restitution= Apokatastsis

Apokatastsis=

Restoration of a true theocracy.

Of the perfect state before the fall.

Apokatastsis Rooted In Apokathistemi

Apokathistemi=


To restore to its former state.

To be in its former state.

Apokathistemi Rooted In Apo

Apo=


Of any kind of separation of one thing from another by which the union or fellowship of the two is destroyed.

Of the place whence anything is, comes, befalls, is taken of origin of a cause.


Apokathistemi Rooted In Kathistemi

Kathistemi=


To set/ place/ put.

To set one over a thing (in charge of it)

To appoint one to administer an office.

To set down as/ constitute/ to declare/ show to be.

To constitute/ to render/ make/ cause to be.

To conduct or bring to a certain place.

Apokathistemi Rooted In Histemi

Histemi=


To cause or make to stand/ to place/ put/ set.

To make firm, fix establish.

To uphold or sustain the authority or force of anything/to set or place in a balance.

What Sayeth the Scriptures?

Universalism is Not in the Bible
 
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Christian Universalism by Jurgen Moltmann

"Because the judgment serves the new creation of all things, its justice is a healing creative justice according to the future, not a retaliatory justice referring to the past. Separating people into believers and unbelievers is wrong because it is godless. God is not the enemy of unbelievers or the executioner of the godless.. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.."

What is the goal of Christ's judgment?

THE GOSPEL OF THE JUDGMENT AND NEW CREATION OF ALL THINGS

The goal of helping victims and rectifying culprits is the triumph of God’s creative justice over everything godless in heaven, earth and below the earth, not the great reckoning with wages and punishments. This victory of divine justice leads to God’s great day of reconciliation on this earth, not to division of humankind into blessed and damned and the end of the world. On Judgment Day, “all tears will be wiped away from their eyes,” the tears of suffering and the tears of repentance. “There will be no mourning, crying or pain” (Rev 21,4).

Thus the Last Judgment is penultimate, not ultimate and is not the end of God’s works. It is only a first step in a transition or transformation from transitoriness to intransitoriness. The new eternal creation created on the foundation of justice is definitive. Because the judgment serves this new creation of all things, its justice is a healing, creative justice reestablishing life according to this future, not a retaliatory justice referring to the past. The judgment serves the new creation, not sin and death as the great reckoning. It was the error of the Christian tradition in picture and idea, piety and teaching to see only judgment on the past and not God’s new world beyond the judgment and thus not believing the new beginning in the end.

The practice and endurance of evil are not always apportioned to different persons and groups of persons. Victims can also be perpetrators. In many persons, the perpetrator side and the victim side of evil are inseparably connected. The knowledge that the coming judge will judge us as perpetrators and as victims, reject the Pharisee in us and accept the sinner in us and reconcile us with ourselves. Judging victims and perpetrators is always a social judging. We do not stand isolated and dependent on ourselves before the judge as in human criminal courts or in nightly pangs of conscience. The perpetrators stand together with their victims, Cain with Abel, the powerful with the powerless, the murderers with the murdered. Humanity’s story of woe is inseparably joined with the collective history of culpability.

Continued below


Christian Universalism by Jurgen Moltmann : Indybay
 
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The New Testament offers staring-points. The New Testament understands Judgment Day as the “day of the Son of man” on which the crucified and resurrected Christ will be revealed and all the world before him.

Both will appear out of their concealment in the light of truth, the Christ now hidden in God and the person hidden from him/herself. The eternal light will be revealed to them. What is now hidden in nature will be transparent because persons are physical and natural beings connected with the nature of the earth. We cannot be separated from the nature of the earth, neither in the resurrection nor in the end-time judgment.

Christ will be revealed as the crucified and resurrected victor over sin, death and hell, not as the avenger or retaliator.

Christ will be revealed as the Everlasting One and leader of life. He will judge according to the justice he proclaimed and practiced through his community with sinners and tax collectors. Otherwise no one could recognize him.

God’s justice is a creative justice.

The victims of sin and violence are supported, healed and brought to life by God’s righteousness. The perpetrators of sin and violence will experience a rectifying transformative justice. They will change by being redeemed together with their victims. The crucified Christ who encounters them together with their victims will save them. They will “die off” in their atrocities to be “reborn “ to a new life.

Helping and supporting the victims and straightening the perpetrators as the victory of God’s creative justice over everything godless, not the great reckoning with rewards and punishments. This victory of divine justice leads to God’s great day of reconciliation on this earth, not to the division into blessed and damned.

Seen this way, the Last Judgment is not the end of God’s works. It is only the first step of a transformation out of transitoriness into intransitoriness. The new eternal creation will be created on the foundation of justice. Because the judgment serves this new creation of all things, its future-oriented justice is creative and not only a requiting justice referring to the past. It was the mistake of Christian tradition in picture and concept, piety and teaching to only see the judgment over the past of this world and not God’s new world through the judgment.

Christian Universalism by Jurgen Moltmann : Indybay
 
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