(Long Version)
By: Timothy Homan
Acts 3: 20-21 And that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the times of the restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.
Jesus is the comeback King
Like a team losing and discouraged, and it appears that losing is all but certain, I believe Jesus is intentionally appearing weak and irrelevant in this age before he displays his kingship in a big way as he demonstrates a “comeback” from behind when all seems lost to evil.
To use a baseball analogy, it’s the bottom of the 9th inning, game seven world series, home team down by three, two outs, bases loaded, full count, and we’ll even say it’s an away game for the home team with hostile fans. It’s Jesus up to bat. Can he do it? Can he save the game? It just feels impossible but my faith has shown me that Jesus not only just can, but will pull off the win!
I believe in the end Jesus will redeem all of humanity and I believe the Bible richly declares this, of which many examples in scripture will be shown below.
I believe Jesus’ power is greater than Satan’s power in the big picture of the story.
It is hard to see this at first glance of scripture against the tide of mistranslations and translation word choice but I stand firm in my conviction with an avid and energetic minority today that traditional understandings most of us grew up with have the final outcome wrong. As a result there is a great deal of harm being done to God’s character, his sovereignty, and to the psychology of many Christians including children, who are effectively being taught that God is safe and he loves you, but if you don’t choose him he will torture you forever in hell.
That’s a paradox the modern church needs to confront. If John 3:16 is correct, words that Jesus spoke, “For God so loved the world…….” and the Apostle Paul’s belief and statement in 1 Cor 13:8 that “Love Never Fails.” are true, then where is the room for eternal torment in the storyline? God’s love for His creation does not fail to reach its goal.
The argument that God can do what he wants doesn’t solve this problem because that can be argued on either side of the debate. I believe God can do what he wants as well, and that the original languages of the bible show his punishments are temporal because they are corrective and productive in their nature, not aimlessly punitive or retributive.
I believe the early Christian church in the first century had a majority that believed this view of universal reconciliation (see this link on the early Catechetical schools) and I believe the Church has historically trended away from this view because of our natural bias that wants to believe we had something to do with our salvation and the desired destruction of our enemies, something Jesus specifically spoke against.
As a result, the bible we read today has been translated and interpreted in a way that misrepresents the purposes of God’s judgements and sells God’s glory and his goodness short. For a full theological explanation of this view this is a great starting point. www.salvationforall.org The author Brett Baughman is a friend of mine and I can personally attest to his sincerity and authenticity of his conviction about the topic.
I believe there’s something wrong with the storyline. It seems as though Satan has functionally won and succeeded in turning the will of the vast majority of humans against God. Can Jesus save them? I say yes! In fact it’s become my impression that it’s God’s plan all along to allow this perception that God is aloof and has lost control. But I believe he hasn’t lost control and he will demonstrate his greatness into the ages to come in a big way. This is how God will bring glory to himself, that His name might be truly great in ALL the earth! It’s a shockingly good ending and I believe Jesus is the Comeback King.
I believe God’s will is greater and more powerful than ours.
It’s that simple. Jesus’ name literally means, “God is salvation”. He isn’t just the provider of salvation, He IS our salvation. Salvation is His work not ours. It’s not, “Man is salvation”. It’s GOD IS SALVATION. And it’s not just that God brings an offering of salvation to the table and then he stops there waiting for our response, as if our faith is up to us to create. Each believer in Jesus in God’s own timing is given a measure of faith. (Romans 12:3)
When you realize that there is a promise of a good ending and the restoration of everyone, it’s ok to let go of our idol that we chose God, instead rest in His promise and His work in us and eventually everyone around us whether this side of the grave or the next.
God actually brings his salvation to the table and then begins to transform us himself. He creates the revelation of his salvation in us like a deposit of a seed and then that seed sprouts our faith and it’s the job of the church to declare what God has done and is doing to the rest of the world.
The Church has a ministry (message) of reconciliation to declare.
I believe the most basic description of what our job is as the church is summarized by the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5: 18-19.
18 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their wrongdoings against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
The tenses in the Greek translation here point to a past and present tense reality that Jesus reconciled everyone on the cross. Even before our repentance! I believe repentance happens when we realize what God has already done.
The Bible uses the analogy of fruit to describe God’s spirit in us. Fruit implies it came from a tree and a tree implies it started with a seed.
Our conscious awareness of the earliest fruits of that seed growing in us is where our salvation story begins, but we shouldn’t take credit for it because it was God’s work in us that planted that seed in us and started the process of change.
I believe God’s offering of salvation is not a weak impotent offering with no power behind it and I believe the Gospel is a verb not a noun. It doesn’t just sit there waiting, it takes action.
I can emphatically say from my experience that our story is God’s work from beginning to the end. In fact that is an actual statement from Jesus, “I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.” History starts and ends with Him!
Isaiah 46:10 says “Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My plan will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’;” NASB
God has declared the end of the story, that’s bad news for our pride that our free wills control our destiny.
There are many examples in scripture of God influencing the will of men for his purpose. Pharaoh mentioned in Romans 9 comes to mind, where his heart was hardened by God.
Look at Saul/Paul. God just showed up as a bright light. I don’t think you could convince Paul that he chose his salvation. In fact read Paul’s take on who’s “work” his salvation is. Ephesians 2: 8-10 We shouldn’t be boasting in our wills or our work! It is God who softens and hardens hearts in this age for a larger purpose for the ages to come.
“8 For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.” (NASB)”
Many Christians view their will as being the final say so in their salvation story but I think God makes the first move taking residence in us before we choose him. He just does it. It’s his work in us first and that’s why we choose Him. We are responding to his action in us already when we “choose” Christ. And I believe he will do that with everyone on God’s timing in this age and in the ages to come beyond the grave.
Arminians will have more trouble with this, but this argumentation is very familiar to Calvinists regarding free will. The view I hold is a step further and solves the Arminian Calvinism debate, because they can’t both be true.
The God of the Arminian view I believe is a weak God who is just a cheerleader on the sidelines (No, offense intended to cheerleaders, they just can’t control what happens on the field) with no power to actually change wills to save. He loves you, and offers salvation but he can’t actually cause anyone to believe. It’s up to our free wills and it causes us to worship ourselves as if we had something to do with our salvation. In this view I believe love fails many people in the end of the story if eternal torment is correct, contrary to 1 Cor 13 which says Love never Fails.
The God of Calvinism I believe is a monster who only chose some, and doesn’t actually love everyone. “It’s really hard to say we are taking Jesus’ words seriously when we read verses like John 3:16 For God so Loved the world…… and believe in Calvinism.
But both views are Biblical views. They both have clear support in scripture, they just can’t both be true. You see individual belief emphasized, yet you see election emphasized. The view I hold I believe makes more sense of both views.
Yes, God loves everyone, not just some like the Calvinists say, but he is choosing an elect now, the church, to bring in all of God’s soldiers into his army. And Christ has plans for his soldier, his Bride in the ages to come in eternity. And when we do believe, it is the result of God’s work already in us. It’s truly a story of a good God and a good ending. There’s no other way around it when you have such radical forgiveness emphasized by Jesus.
We the church, will rule and reign with Christ humbly, not like earthly rulers, as we declare and minister to the rest of creation God’s plan for the restoration of all things as declared by Peter in Acts 3:21
I believe we need to stop worshipping our “free will”.
I believe that in the end as God works his plan for the ages, Jesus will be Lord of everyone as Philippians 2: 9-11 says.
(Easy to Read Version) ERV
9 So God raised him up to the most important place
and gave him the name that is greater than any other name.
10 God did this so that every person will bow down to honor the name of Jesus.
Everyone in heaven, on earth, and under the earth will bow.
11 They will all confess, “Jesus Christ is Lord,”
and this will bring glory to God the Father.
What pops off the page at me about verse 10 here is the statement, “God did this so that every person will………..” Changed hearts comes ultimately from God, and our hope is rooted in His timing, not our wills!
I believe the end of the story in scripture, even beyond the seeming conclusions of Revelation 20,21,22 is the apostle Paul’s understanding of the end of God’s plan as described in 1 Corinthians 15
21 For since by a man death came, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in [i]Christ all will be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming, 24 then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to our God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. 25 For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. ***
(Nothing should cause us to assume eternal torment with the imagery of putting enemies under His feet, but rather an image of Phillipians 2: 10-11 as mentioned above, “Every knee will bow……”)
26 The last enemy that will be abolished is death. 27 For HE HAS PUT ALL THINGS IN SUBJECTION UNDER HIS FEET. But when He says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is clear that this excludes the Father who put all things in subjection to Him. 28 When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.
God will be ALL in everyone. Wow! This statement has equal and I believe greater authority above and beyond what are traditionally considered eternal torment proof texts.
In John 12:32 Jesus was directly quoted as saying “When I am lifted up, (on the cross) I will draw (Greek word means literally drag) ALL MEN to myself.
See https://biblehub.com/greek/1670.htm The root verb in Greek here is helko which means “to drag”. Why would the translators use a weaker word in the English translation like “draw” when the Greek translation is pretty uncontroversial that it literally means “drag”?
Now that we know this, our minds should not move right past these statements of Jesus. Our minds don’t know what to do with them in light of traditional understanding of God’s judgments and our rigid and seemingly unshakeable doctrines of eternal torment/eternal separation, but Jesus did clearly say this. These were His words quoted not mine.
It is my belief that this was not a wish or a wanting but a commanding promise that He will bring all men to himself.
But how does that work with passages in the English translations that clearly seem to teach eternal torment and/or eternal separation exists after death for those who don’t know him?
I’ve discovered in my observation about scripture, there is two categories of verses on the topic of the final outcome of God’s plan for the ages to come.
There are verses that at the surface seem to clearly speak of eternal punishment, etc. See this article from The Gospel Coalition- Ten Foundational Verses for Eternal Punishment in Hell
I agree if those translations are correct it seems case closed about the topic. A closer look has shown me in the resources I will point the reader to that there are translation issues with the translation of the Hebrew and Greek word behind the English words eternal and everlasting.
The Greek word “Aionios” and all of its various tenses and forms used in the new testament for example has the root noun “Aion” at it’s base. The greek word Aion uncontroversially means age, which clearly means a period of time with a beginning and an end with a limited duration.
When the noun “aion” becomes an adjective it cannot take on more meaning than it’s root noun. To give an example of the problem here, compare the noun “sun” which we all know implies brightness, with the adjective form “sunny”. The adjective “sunny” will never be able to take on a meaning that implies darkness because an adjective cannot take on more or completely different or opposite meaning of it’s root noun.
So in the case of the Greek word “aion” which means “age”, a limited period of time with a beginning and an end, it cannot suddenly become an eternal or infinite period of time when used in it’s adjective form “aionios”. This was a big mistake made by the Catholic Church when they translated the Greek new Testament into Latin and as a result many concordances today translate it as eternal when the audience in the first century wouldn’t have assumed that meaning.
In fact there’s a very scholarly work by Ilaria Rameli – Terms for Eternity: Aiônios and Aïdios in Classical and Christian Texts that explains the use of aionios in contemorary texts of the biblical period and it just didn’t mean eternal in the sense we use it in English.
Here’s a Amazon Review of one person about this work and you can see the impression an honest look at the issue can bring.
“I’m half way through the book and enjoying it immensely. It’s mostly academical in its read, but I was expecting that. The beginning of the book covers the classical uses of Aiônios and Aïdios from Plato to Aristotle. This background is necessary because the origin of the words will influence the writers intent of usage.
I’ve really appreciated Ramelli’s research and passion for these topics. Her book “A Larger Hope” was my introduction to apokatastasis and the early churches belief in it.
This book is definitely worth buying if you are serious about digging into the root of our English uses of “forever, everlasting and eternal”. With the doctrine of eternal conscience torment being the dominate theology in western churches, it can be an uncomfortable read, once you realize there’s an entirely different opinion shared by both the New Testament writers and the early church fathers.”
So what does “aionios” mean? It means “age during” in it’s simplest form. It’s an amplifying adjective that implies a quality to the subject.
But on top of that debate among scholars about the proper translation of the word aionios/eternal, there is another massive point in my mind.
There a many verses in the Bible that either flat out say, or their statements taken to their highest logical end clearly say that Jesus is the savior of everyone and will be reconciled to everyone in the end.
Here are a handful of them, that either directly say or logically imply God’s plans are for everyone. Here is an extensive list on tenmaker.org May we not sell the gospel short!
Gen 12:3 And in you [Abraham] all the families of the earth will be blessed. (people are what make up families)
Gen 22:18 And in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice. (This promise is repeated over and over throughout scripture.)
Psalms 33:8 Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. (These same people who are fearing the Lord are also standing in awe, so the sense of what is meant by fearing the Lord is that of respect, reverence, and love for His works.)
Psalms 66:1,4 Shout joyfully to God, all the earth…All the earth will worship Thee, and will sing praises to Thee; they will sing praises to Thy name.
Isaiah 45:22-23 Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; (This is a firm declaration of His commanding purpose, not just a general call or request for repentance, as is evident by the rest of the verse.) For I am God, and there is no other. I have sworn by Myself, the word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness and will not turn back, that to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.
Lamentations 3:31-32 For the Lord will not reject forever, for if He causes grief, then He will have compassion according to His abundant lovingkindness.
Zeph 3:8-9 Indeed, My decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out on them My indignation, all My burning anger; for all the earth will be devoured by the fire of My zeal. For then I will give to the peoples purified lips, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord, to serve Him shoulder to shoulder.
Mal 2:10 Do we not all have one father? Has not one God created us? (This was a statement amongst Jews, yet the author saw our commonality of having the same creator as what makes us his children.)
Matt 18:12,14 What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying? Thus it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish.
Luke 2:10 And the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all the people.“ (The greatest message we could tell at Christmas)
Luke 23:34 Jesus said, “Father forgive them; they know not what they do.” (Jesus demonstrated forgiveness before repentance here)
John 1:29 The next day he [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming to him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (It doesn’t say, “Behold the Lamb of God who offers/tries to take away the sin of the world.” he actually takes the sin away.)
John 3:17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through Him.
John 12:32 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw (Greek is literally drag) all men to Myself.
Acts 3:20-21 And that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the times of the restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.
Rom 5:18-20 So then as through one transgression [Adam’s] there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness [Christ’s] there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many (everyone) were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One, the many (everyone) will be made righteous. And the Law came in that the transgression might increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more! (The power of God’s grace is more powerful than the power of the original transgression.)
Rom 8:19-21 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it in hope, that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (This sure points to the idea that the fall was part of God’s plan)
Rom 11:15 For if their rejection (the Jew’s rejection of Christ) be the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
Rom 11:25 For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles has come in; and thus all Israel will be saved. (The context of this chapter was clearly talking about physical Israel, we must account for this in our theology)
Rom 11:32,33 For God has shut up all in disobedience that He might show mercy to all. Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
Rom 11;36 For from Him (Christ) and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.
Rom 14:4 Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and stand he will, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
(What a powerful statement about the power of God to do the work in our lives!)
Rom 14:11 For as it is written, “As I live”, says the Lord, “every knee shall bow to me (repentance), and every tongue shall give praise to God”. (worship) (Yes. Your Bible Says that!)
I Cor 3:15 If any man’s work is burned up, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire. (This brings a need for a study on the imagery of fire in scripture.)
I Cor 5:4,5 In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. (See I Peter 4:6!)
I Cor 13:8 Love never fails.
(It bears repeating: “Love never fails!” God is love. His love can not fail! To lose even one would mean that love failed to find and save that one. To lose millions for eternity, as some believe, would mean that love failed miserably and completely! However, His plan, His purpose, His desire, and His nature has always been and always will be love for His creation!)
I Cor 15:22,28 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. But each in his own order… (This phrase is the real key to understanding God’s purposes in relation to His time schedule.) “And when all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, that God may be all in all.“
(All in ALL. This is my favorite verse in the Bible, I don’t see how it could get more clear. We must believe what we read here! May our blinders come off so we can see. Paul sees clearly to the end, and makes this ultimate and most concise declaration of the eternal purposes of God!)
I Cor 15:54 But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
( “The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (I Cor 15:26)…This refers to all death, both physical death and spiritual death. Then the only thing that shall remain is…Life!)
II Cor 5:14,15 For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; (what are the implications that everyone died with Christ?) and He died for all, that they (whose the they?) should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.
II Cor 5:18 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was (and is) in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us (the church) the word of reconciliation.
Gal 3:8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the nations (everyone) by faith, (faith is a work of God, remember the verse that each of us is given our own measure of faith) preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations shall be blessed in you.”
(According to Paul, preaching the reconciliation of all is in fact preaching the gospel.)
Eph 1:9,10 He make known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fulness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things (everyone) in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth.
Eph 1:22,23 And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all.
Eph 4:5,6 There is…one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
Eph 4:10 He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things. (all things is everyone)
Phil 2:9-11 Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
(Remember that “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” I Cor 12:3)
Col 1:19-22 For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fulness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.
(How could Paul state it any more clearly!)
Col 3:11 Christ is all, and in all.
(All creation is birthed in Christ; all creation remains in Christ; but not all of creation has been awakened to Christ (“Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give thee light.” Eph 5:14))
I Tim 4:10 It is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.
(Only believers are privileged with an opportunity to escape the coming wrath and experience the fruits of the Spirit and the blessings of the kingdom in this life, as well as in the coming ages.)
Titus 2:11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men.
Heb 1:2 In these last days He has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. (Think about the implications that Christ is the heir of all things.)
Heb 2:8 For in subjecting all things to him (man), He left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him…But we do see Him who has been made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God He might taste death for every one.
Heb 9:26 But now once at the consummation He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
(Though not yet evident, sin will finally be completely put away, and all creation, which is waiting anxiously for its redemption (Rom 8:19), will be set free!)
I Peter 3:18-20 For Christ also died for sins once for all (people), the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah… (the people in Noah’s day had another oppourtunity?)
I Peter 4:6 For the gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead, (yes, God works even after we die) that even though they are judged in the flesh as men, they may live in the spirit according to the will of God. (see I Cor 5:5)
(Peter is still referring to the souls in prison from the days of Noah, whom Christ preached to, presumably following His crucifixion and descension into the “lower parts of the earth”, in which He “lead captive a host of captives…” (Ephes 4:8,9). This is a remarkable revelation given to Peter concerning the purpose of God’s judgements on mankind in order to bring about his future plans for them to live in the Spirit!)
II Peter 3:8,9 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing (literally “not purposing”, from the Greek: boulema, “predetermined purpose”) that any should perish but for all to come to repentance.
(His promise is still the original promise given to Abraham, that …”in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”)
I John 2:2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. (In light of all of the other biblical evidence, this should be seen as a reality not just an offering.)
I John 4:14 And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. (Key word here is “be”)
Rev 5:13 And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.”
Rev 15:3,4 And they sang the song of Moses… and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and marvelous are Thy works, O Lord God, the Almighty; Righteous and true are Thy ways, Thou King of the Nations. Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? (It’s unlikely anyone in eternal torment will be glorifying God) For Thou alone art holy; For all the nations will come and worship before Thee, for Thy righteous acts have been revealed.”
In Conclusion
There is strong Biblical evidence for Christian Universalism.
I understand the natural disagreement most Christians will have against this view, but one challenge I give is, what do you say all of these verses above mean if they don’t mean what I’m claiming they mean? You’ve got some explaining to do as well. I put the ball in your court to talk down these verses from what I think they mean and explain them inside the paradigm of eternal torment. I think the traditional view does way more twisting of these verses to force them down from their logical meaning to fit the traditional paradigm than what many would claim my view does to their seeming eternal torment texts.
I see a bigger Jesus than I ever imagined. I think it’s more of a question of not will he do it, but how and when will he do it. If the Church joined behind this message, the gates of hell (Greek word hades for the grave) will not prevail against the church as declared in Matthew 16:18.
And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades (the grave) will not overcome it.
Don’t read into scripture what you believe, but rather believe what you read. This reality of a victorious Gospel is right there under our noses and I see many people waking up in the church and realizing we have a hell problem. Yes, there are punishments that are corrective in purpose after death (even for believers) but they are not eternal, and they are productive because God’s is a good Father and so that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord!
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