Universalism...why not?

[GillDouglas]

Words mean things - yet those who cannot understand or agree with the idea of God's love being big enough to forgive all will not accept the meaning of simple language, and resort to insulting those of us who insist that love really means love, not revenge.

God is love, and God does all things for His glory (1 John 4:8; Romans 11:36). Therefore, God rules the world in such a way that brings Himself maximum glory. This means that God must act justly and judge all sin accordingly, otherwise God would not be God.

God’s love for His glory motivates His wrath against sin. If there are any that are not of Christ, they have not the imputed righteousness of Christ and therefore are not protected from the wrath of God. (Colossians 1:22)

God’s wrath is a most sobering reality for many and is not good news for sinners. Yet it is the most dismissed attribute of God in our day. I would rather warn people that it is , “a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).

And words do mean things, especially the Word of God.

“But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (Romans 2:5)

"Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:45-46)

"Behold the storm of the Lord! Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest; it will burst upon the head of the wicked." (Jeremiah 30:23)

"The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies." (Nahum 1:2)

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth." (Romans 1:18)

"From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty." (Revelation 19:15)

 

[ClementofA]

What's the bad news that makes the good news so great, if eternal damnation and Hell are not real?

Damnation & hell that are not endless.

The good news of being saved for billions upon billions of limitless heavenly ages is sufficiently good news in and of itself without needing any bad news at all to make it great or prop it up.

Should we serve God because of fire insurance or because we love Him & others?

Be as your Father in heaven & love your enemies. It's the right thing to do.

 

[mkgal1]

This means that God must act justly and judge all sin accordingly, otherwise God would not be God.

Yes....He would have to judge all sin accordingly in order to be considered "just".....but it seems as if you're hinting that "justice = punishment"--and that may be humans imposing their ideas about justice onto God. His ways are not our ways.

 

[mkgal1]

And that God is a God Who hides Himself. Does it seem strange to you that He doesn't just appear & put all the atheists & agnostics doubts to rest? Does it make Him "shady" that He doesn't do so?

Sorry, ClementofA....the way I quoted your post and then responded got miscommunicated (I edited later to try to clarify that I wasn't directing my post towards you---just piggybacking off your post).

It just seems to me that for the people that believe that our time to "figure it out or you're eternally damned" is within our natural lifetime on this earth are portraying God as almost a con-man with small print that we have to be VERY careful to abide by His rules or ELSE. That's what I mean by "shady". I don't know if that muddies things more or if it even served to clarify...

 

[GillDouglas]

Yes....He would have to judge all sin accordingly in order to be considered "just".....but it seems as if you're hinting that "justice = punishment"--and that may be humans imposing their ideas about justice onto God. His ways are not our ways.

I think you are confused about who is imposing human ideas about justice onto God. Those who neglect to acknowledge the wrath of God do exactly that.

 

[mkgal1]

I think you are confused about who is imposing human ideas about justice onto God. Those who neglect to acknowledge the wrath of God do exactly that.

I don't know if we can actually escape from imposing much of our framework onto our faith.....but it's just another one of those improvable things (what's from us.....what's from God).

 

[ClementofA]

"Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:45-46)

“And these will go away into eonian correction, but the righteous into eonian life.” (Matthew 25:46)

http://www.tentmaker.org/articles/Matthew-25-46-Commentary-Amirault.html

"Eternal" Punishment (Matthew 25:46) Is NOT Found In The Greek New Testament.

 

[JacksBratt]

So your take on that is that God basically responds with a message like, "Too late....you should have figured that out when you had the opportunity .....too bad...so sad"?

Really? That's what you think of God?

No, the fact of the matter is this....

Unrighteousness cannot exist in the presence of God without being consumed. This is why God could no longer walk in the garden with Adam and Eve.

The only way anyone can be cleansed of this unrighteousness is to have the debt paid.

The payment for this debt is death.

Christ paid the debt for everyone. However, it can only be accepted by the willingness of the receiver. T

The attitude of the heart of the person, while on this earth, is the metric that is used for free will and acceptance of who Jesus is and what He has done for each person.

Soon as you pass from this dimension to the next, you will be fully aware of all of the mysteries of this universe and beyond. You will then be beyond the window of opportunity to accept the salvation of Christ as a human of finite intelligence and knowledge, with free will.

The gift of salvation is, at that moment, off the table.

So, there you stand, guilty as charged with no body to stand up for you. Christ will have to say to God, "he denied me", "he refused my pardon".

Therefore, guilty as charged, unrighteous and with no recourse, you cannot exist in the presence of God.

If you deny Christ here, He will deny you there.

God is just and cannot lie, cannot cheat, cannot sin, cannot play favorites, cannot let you be coincided washed clean and without sin, if you did not accept the cleansing power of Christs blood.

Thus, much to God's regret, He must have you sent from His presence... forever.

 

[The Times]

Presently for me, the notion that God is unable to find someone is positively absurd.

God is able to find not only someone, but countless many, as scripture states....

11Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. 12In a loud voice they were saying:

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!” (Revelation 5:11-12) (Daniel 7:10)

Jesus said.....

“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 10The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. (Matthew 3:7-10)

Notice Jesus says everything is possible with God and that includes saving all of humanity, including those that don't know him, reject him, to those who down right hate and curse him.

The question is will the Loving God force himself onto humanity as a dictator and to remove opposition and to remove all his enemies by coercion and prowess?

Again according to Jesus God could raise slave like children out of stone, where the stones have no free will and no desire to object and/or to oppose Him.

Obviously, the second option of the Original Post would apply, that is...

God can't do what he wants to do.

God could raise up a stone clone army as children, to fully submit to his authority, yet in reality while this is an option for Him or call it a want for Him, he does NOT do that, which is why he also doesn't annihilate evil itself and to wipe it from the face of this world.

Universalism whether you apply it to the Loving God or even this world, is nothing more than a dictatorship and a form of centralised control, ignoring the free will of the individual to choose good from evil.

What Universalist ideology has fashioned is another god, a god that has these characteristics....

21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. (Roman 1:21-23)

How many Universalists would condemn the sins of the world and to preach Jesus Christ as the only authority in matters concerning morality and life itself?

Virtually none!

Why one would ask.....

Because you can't truly say you love your neighbour and Love God, if you don't make Jesus the final authority in all matters.

 

[surrender1]

By what reasoning do you say that every human being "deserves" hell?

What kind of God, who is love, would create sentient beings, knowing beforehand (because He is omniscient) that they would Fall, and be willing to see them tormented forever? Is that a God whom the Bible says is love?

What kind of God do you, as a Calvinist, believe in who would create conscious beings only for the purpose of tormenting them forever? That sounds more like the mean little kid who pulls wings off flies for fun than the God whom the Scriptures say is love. Does love really do such a thing?

Perhaps it is you who do not understand the basics of the Christian faith, especially since you have welded yourself to a system of interpretation which A.) denies what the Early Church taught B.) came along 1500 years after the Apostles.

What was the purpose of Creation? Was it to create beings who would, for the greater part, simply live, sin, die, and suffer forever? Was that really what God had in mind for Adam and his posterity? Or was there something far greater that John Calvin completely missed in his ruminations? Something like what St. Athanasius stated: "God became man so that man might become god." Creation was not about the making of slaves to tend the Garden (which is how the Westminster Confession defines Adam). It was about God creating a son to become like Him one day. Made in the image and likeness, to mature in to godhood.

It is not about law, as Calvin taught. It is about a broken household where the son(s) have left the household and gone to the pig pens of sin. The Father is not waiting to get revenge on the son - indeed the Parable of the Prodigal shows that the father never once mentions payment for the atrocious behavior of the Prodigal. It is about restoration of the son to his rightful place in the family.

The Father waits for each soul to join Him in what Thomas Merton called "the cosmic dance of joy." Union in love with the Father. He is not holding a book of Law as Judge, He is opening His arms to receive His sons. The problem for us is that because of our broken natures and the passions of sin still resident within us, when we die, we will experience His love as fire which will burn away all that is not like Christ, and that will hurt - deeply.

No, man does not deserve the wrath you Calvinists are so fond of wishing upon people. Justice is the rendering to one what is his due. For man, made in the image of God, that justice is to be ultimately restored to the position and honor which we lost through Adam's Fall. That is how God will glorify Himself - by the forgiving of sinners and His ability to bring them to repentance and change them, even after death if necessary.

"It is not about law, as Calvin taught. It is about a broken household where the son(s) have left the household and gone to the pig pens of sin. The Father is not waiting to get revenge on the son - indeed the Parable of the Prodigal shows that the father never once mentions payment for the atrocious behavior of the Prodigal. It is about restoration of the son to his rightful place in the family."

Love!

 

[surrender1]

If keeping us from "eternal damnation" were the whole reason Jesus came and died on the cross....then why didn't He devote much of His teaching on this (not directing that question to you, Clement, just sort of piggybacking off your post)?

The way His words are quoted in the NT.....it's not clear enough for the church to have arrived at any settled doctrine regarding this one topic. Does that not seem strange to some of you?

Either you'd have to believe that Jesus was a shady kind of guy that wasn't a very clear communicator....and that you're just very smart to have figured out His "coded language" and you have the Golden Ticket in your hand like Charlie Bucket in Willy Wonka.

"If keeping us from "eternal damnation" were the whole reason Jesus came and died on the cross....then why didn't He devote much of His teaching on this"

Any hearing ears out there? Hello? Is this thing working?

 

[surrender1]

Yes....He would have to judge all sin accordingly in order to be considered "just".....but it seems as if you're hinting that "justice = punishment"--and that may be humans imposing their ideas about justice onto God. His ways are not our ways.

Justice = righting the wrongs
As far as this idea of judgment, God judged all humans on the cross. He judged them worthy of love. Just as given the choice between sending one child to hell over the other, the parent would not be able to choose, so God couldn't choose and said, "Take me instead!"

 

[mkgal1]

I just came across this article and thought I'd share it here:

We’ve now made it to the final point from each of the theological systems we’re considering. This last point questions whether salvation can be lost. Calvinism’s TULIP teaches the perseverance of the saints, which means that God’s elect cannot lose their salvation. Molinism’s ROSES similarly teaches that believers are eternally secure in their salvation. Arminianism has no single official position on this. While the DAISY acronym would suggest that believers can lose their salvation, the FACTS acronym would suggest that that their salvation is secure. And you’ll find Arminians landing on both sides of this debate.

Regardless of which side of this debate any individual might take, all three systems are united by an understanding of salvation that is primarily focussed on our afterlife destination. In other words, when Calvinists, Molinists, or Arminians alike refer to salvation, they are usually talking about salvation from hell. Furthermore, this salvation is typically framed in terms of an event—one’s “salvation experience,” or the moment in time that someone said a prayer and “got saved.” It is really only within this framework that the question even makes sense to be asked, whether those who “are saved” could “lose their salvation.”

By contrast, the Beautiful Gospel, while not denying the reality of hell (at least when properly understood), would argue that hell is far from being the primary focus of salvation. And while we who hold to the Beautiful Gospel may reference a point in time when we committed to following Jesus, we would not tend to think of that as the moment of our salvation.

If we wanted to pinpoint a time of salvation, we might point to that moment when the eternal Word of God wrapped himself in human flesh and entered our world through the virgin’s womb. When Jesus’ divine nature merged with our human nature, so too did our human nature assume the divine, and our salvation was secured. Or we might point to Jesus’ life and ministry. As he taught by word and action what perfect love looks like, he showed us the way of his salvation. Or we might point to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. By entering into death, he abolished death’s power once and for all.

But salvation is much more than any past-tense event. It is primarily a present-tense process. We are currently being saved every moment of every day. And it is also a future-tense state. The time is coming when our our salvation will be fully realized.

We have been saved. We are being saved. We will be saved. All three are true and necessary understandings of salvation.~Transformative Love (The Beautiful Gospel of WHEAT)

 

[PollyJetix]

"If keeping us from "eternal damnation" were the whole reason Jesus came and died on the cross....then why didn't He devote much of His teaching on this"
Any hearing ears out there? Hello? Is this thing working?

He was teaching those who believed on Him, how to live, and how not to be snookered by false teachers.

Jesus DID tell us that if we did not believe on Him, we would not be saved.

Why would he have to harp on the subject?
After all, He creates with ONE WORD.
All of creation obeys His SINGLE WORD.
Why would He be obligated to say it more than once?

If you refuse to believe ONE word He spoke, then you are an unbeliever.
It would do you no good to be told more than once.

 

[GillDouglas]

When Jesus’ divine nature merged with our human nature, so too did our human nature assume the divine, and our salvation was secured.

I'm gonna have to disagree with your WHEAT article.

 

[surrender1]

Jesus DID tell us that if we did not believe on Him, we would not be saved.

Jesus told the nation of Israel if they didn't repent they would not escape the coming judgment.

 

[Light of the East]

God is love, and God does all things for His glory (1 John 4:8; Romans 11:36).

Romans does not say that God does all things for His glory. It is St. Paul giving glory to God for His goodness. Boy, talk about reading into a text!!!

Therefore, God rules the world in such a way that brings Himself maximum glory. This means that God must act justly and judge all sin accordingly, otherwise God would not be God.

You are confusing an earthly king, whose ego is much desirous of vainglory, with our Lord, who is meek and humble. God is not self-promoting, i.e., there are no mirrors in heaven. God is love, and if you understood love properly, you would know that it is self-effacing. It does not desire its own glory nor its own way. What you are doing is anthropomorphizing God.

God’s love for His glory motivates His wrath against sin. If there are any that are not of Christ, they have not the imputed righteousness of Christ and therefore are not protected from the wrath of God. (Colossians 1:22)

God has no love for His glory, for that would be self-love. Love is giving. It is not concerned with itself. As for imputed righteousness, that is a sham, a false doctrine produced by the Reformers in response to the Roman Catholic faith which looked a great deal like "works salvation" to them because of the corruption of the Church and the clergy. The Greek in Romans does not suppor the idea of "imputation" and neither does a proper understanding of covenant theology.

God’s wrath is a most sobering reality for many and is not good news for sinners. Yet it is the most dismissed attribute of God in our day. I would rather warn people that it is , “a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).

I thought that the wrath of God was poured out upon Christ, according to religious writings I have read. If this is true, then how is God still wrathful? Did Jesus miss some sins? How can God have any wrath if He poured it out on Christ?

Of course, in the East, we reject this idea of the Cross as penal substitution. Scripture says that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. Therefore, we see God, in Christ, saying to the Father, "Father forgive them" not "Father, I can hardly wait to send them to hell."

Scripture says that the wrath of God lasts but a moment, but His mercy is forever. Seems to me that the Western church turns that around so that it is His mercy that quickly passes, but His wrath is eternal.

And words do mean things, especially the Word of God.

Yeah, but who has the right interpretation?

“But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (Romans 2:5)

"Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:45-46)

"Behold the storm of the Lord! Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest; it will burst upon the head of the wicked." (Jeremiah 30:23)

"The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies." (Nahum 1:2)

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth." (Romans 1:18)

"From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty." (Revelation 19:15)

No one who believes in Patristic Universalism denies that there is justice after death and the evil are scourged for their deeds. The question is this: does it last forever. Scripture seems to indicate that it comes to an end.

Let me ask you this: how would it hurt God or be in some way unfair that the wicked are punished in proportion to the deeds and then, if they are able to, turn to God, are forgiven, and given union with God? How is that a problem for you?

 

[Light of the East]

I'm gonna have to disagree with your WHEAT article.

Okay....what is a WHEAT article?

 

[The Times]

He was teaching those who believed on Him, how to live, and how not to be snookered by false teachers.

Jesus DID tell us that if we did not believe on Him, we would not be saved.

Why would he have to harp on the subject?
After all, He creates with ONE WORD.
All of creation obeys His SINGLE WORD.
Why would He be obligated to say it more than once?

If you refuse to believe ONE word He spoke, then you are an unbeliever.
It would do you no good to be told more than once.

Absolutely correct!

Might I also add that Jesus warned about hell and the coming end of days judgement in the singular more so than any old testament prophet or new testament apostle.

 

[The Times]

Unitarian Universalism is an ideology that prepares the world for the coming Antichrist.

Since the Unitarian Universalism ideology considers that all the sins of the world can be forgiven, then that paves the way for the man of lawlessness to give the world what it wants, the AS ABOVE SO BELOW Luciferean gospel.

However the real Jesus, the only true authority and not man, said that....

34Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 35For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. 36And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. (Matthew 10:34-36)

This is the spiritual sword of separation, that separates the Wheat from amongst the Tares, the true disciples from amongst the false disciples.

The AntiChrist as far as the sins of the world is concerned will bring in the unity of sins, under a global Unitarian Universalism Luciferean gospel.

Why else is he called the man of lawlessness, except he comes to unite the sins of the world.