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The idea that God would create untold billions of people with the full foreknowledge that most of them would be destined for eternal torture, is totally ludicrous to me
Thanks for the links rodgertutt, I will look into them, I may not be totally convinced of UR, but I will never accept the doctrine of ET either, if ET exists then God is not all loving period, if ED (annihilation) exists, he is at least merciful even if not He's not all loving
You see I still have an earthly father, he is not the most tactful of men, he has said many hurtful things to me through the years, he is not a christian, even although he isn't a christian, I KNOW without a shadow of a doubt that he would never torture me endlessly, even if it lay in his power to do so
Alison, three excellent links presenting the Christian Biblical Universalist's position are
See, this is the stuff, for better or worse, that I tried to stay away from, because when we take the whole of the Bible, the topic can be argued from a thousand different perspectives, especially when we get into the mistranslations of key words like "eternal", "forever", everlasting" and all the rest. I felt it necessary to just stick with Jesus, as He is the ultimate authority, and trumps everyone else.
CHART OF GOD’S PLAN FOR THE AGES OF TIME
No two words in the history of man have been so torturing as aion and aionion. No two words in the history of man, mishandled by man, have contributed more to the physical, emotional and spiritual harm of so many, than these. You may think I must be exaggerating. But I am not. It is the mistranslation of these two words that has foisted the false and destructive doctrine of eternal torment upon the church and the world.
Mistranslation of the Greek words "aion" and “aionion” is a master stroke of diabolical genius. No other words erroneously translated, could more effectively pervert man’s image of God and cause such widespread confusion. The following work by Joseph E. Kirk is offered in the hope that the serious seeker after scriptural truth will be aided in their quest.
Also see
AN ANALYTICAL STUDY OF WORDS An Analytical Study of Words
(especially note the quotes by the many Greek scholars in chapters three and twelve)
So I decided to discard everything outside the gospels and look only to the words of Jesus. Even then, I fear many of His sayings are not entirely accurate, as certain things He said seem to be in contradiction to one another (if we are to trust the texts).
I boiled it all down to Matt. 7:21, arguably one of the most famous passages in the entire Bible: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord' shall enter the kingdom of heaven."
Now let us strip away the superflous ..."who says to me, 'Lord, Lord'...." That leaves us with "Not everyone shall enter the kingdom of heaven" If Jesus had meant that all would enter heaven He would have said, "Everyone shall enter the kingdom of heaven." I think we can we agree on that. But, unfortunately, that nasty "not" gets in the way and ultimately nullifies the whole concept of universal reconcilation. Remember, I've thrown aside every other speaker OT and NT, since their writings, I've determined, are unreliable, not to mention the fact that Jesus' own words certainly would take precedence over anything Paul, Isaiah, or anyone else had to say. So we are left with those unalterable, inescapable, impossible-to-misinterpret eight words:
Not everyone shall enter the kingdom of heaven
I cannot get around these eight words in my mind. If someone can reconcile these eight words with universal reconcilation without resorting to Paul, or Isaiah, or any other biblical writers please help me to understand that Jesus, in saying "Not everyone shall enter the kingdom of heaven" really meant "Everyone shall enter the kingdom of heaven." I would be "eternally' (anion) grateful! (little Bible humor there)
I'm not sure why we can't resort to scripture so I will!!
Jesus is setting the condition on entering the kingdom of God. It is not enough to just call Jesus LORD LORD we must do what He says. Those who don't do what Jesus says will find themselves (to their surprise) denied entrance into the kingdom of God.
So here I'm emphasizing doing vs not doing:
Luke 6:46 And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? 47 Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: 48 He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. 49 But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.
Jesus sheds additional light here about what happens to those who are not doing His will when He comes.
Luke 12:47 And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not [himself], neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. 48 But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few [stripes]. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more. 49 I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?
Does many stripes or few stripes sound like eternal punishment to you? Not to me.
Do either of those passages say that one can not repent when they receive many stripes or few stripes?
Here is another scripture on God sending fire on the earth as judgment of sin:
Zephenia 3:8 Therefore wait upon me, saith the Lord, until the day when I rise up for a witness: because my judgment shall be on the gatherings of the nations, to draw to me kings, to pour out upon them all my fierce anger: for the whole earth shall be consumed with the fire of my jealousy.
What are the effects of that judgment likened to fire? People will turn...
Zephenia 3:9 For then will I turn to the peoples a tongue for her generation, that all may call on the name of the Lord, to serve him under one yoke. 10 From the boundaries of the rivers of Ethiopia will I receive my dispersed ones; they shall offer sacrifices to me.
Notice below that those whom God everntually receives were formetly not doing the Lord's will. They had transgressed, had magnified themselves, had disdainful pride, and saw evil as a result.
Zephenia 3:11 In that day thou shalt not be ashamed of all thy practices, wherein thou hast transgressed against me: for then will I take away from thee thy disdainful pride, and thou shalt no more magnify thyself upon my holy mountain. 12 And I will leave in thee a meek and lowly people; 13 and the remnant of Israel shall fear the name of the Lord, and shall do no iniquity, neither shall they speak vanity; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: for they shall feed, and lie down, and there shall be none to terrify them. 14 Rejoice, O daughter of Sion; cry aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem; rejoice and delight thyself with all thine heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. 15 The Lord has taken away thine iniquities, he has ransomed thee from the hand of thine enemies: the Lord, the King of Israel, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more.
And this is what the Law says too. Deuteronomy 28-29 lays out the curse of the law, Deuteronomy 30 states that one can repent from within the curse of the law.
Deuteronomy 30:1 And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee, 2 And shalt return unto the LORD thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul; 3 That then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee. 4 If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee. 5 And the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers.
So why I do not have the same problem you have is that I drop the presumption that when judgment comes, one can not repent and start doing the LORD's will from within judgment.
A time is coming when Satan himself, the instigator of human opposition and dissension will be beneath our feet. Rom. 16:20.
Now he dominates the actions of many a saint. But later his place and power will be taken from him and we will be above him, able to subdue and control the one who, next to our flesh, was the cause of most of our miseries.
Just as the enemies of Christ will figuratively find themselves a footstool for His feet, so will the greatest of all our enemies be placed beneath our power.
But best of all, we will not retaliate. We will not use our authority to further alienate and estrange Satan from God or from ourselves. We, to whom conciliation was first presented, will be conciliatory to all, and be able to bring back all our enemies into the circle of friendship and conciliation with God.
Wouldn't this be in contradiction what Scott advocates in his rebuttal to Matt Slick in which he say that satan ultimately will be reconciled to God? If so, then there would be no reason for satan to be placed beneath our feet, nor would we have any impulse to retaliate against him, since he would be made a believer with us, possibly restored to his former position as cherub-in-chief?
The idea that one can find salvation only during this life time is an unscriptural myth.
After death comes the judgment, yes, but that judgment will result in kolasis aionion which means age-during corrective chastisement for those who need it. Chapter Eleven
Kolasis aionion doesn't save. Only Jesus saves. But it will condition the rebellious sinner to sooner or later reach out for the salvation that Jesus has provided by having them temporarily experience the consequences of their rebellion.
Unlike humans with their so very limited desire and ability to actually "reform" criminals in a reformatory, God, the "Judge," has no limit to the scope of both His DESIRE (born of the fact that He IS love personified not just loving), and His ABILITY to actually achieve reformation in the heart of the sinner because of what Christ accomplished for all by His death and resurrection, through the power in the blood of His cross.
God the "Judge," has the desire, the ability, and the determination, to sooner or later, successfully save all fallen creatures from everything from which they need to be saved, INCLUDING THEIR STUBBORN WILL.
This is the kind of God that we universal transformationists see in a correctly (literally, not interpretively) translated Bible.
http://home.att.net/~spiritword/Adams/spirit15.htm
The principal word rendered judgment in the New Testament is Krisis. The word has been incorporated into the English language with the simple change of the initial letter to C— Crisis. This word in English means, "A critical period of time, decisive moment, turning point, deciding time." The Greek word has a similar meaning; "a separating, choosing, deciding, determining, judging, trial, judgment."
In the New Testament the word is used to denote the deciding time, trial or probation of man; and is spoken of in such a way as to indicate that this time of trial, probation, or judgment is given to man as a blessing and favor, and when such time arrives for any individual, class of individuals, or the world, it is cause for great rejoicing and thanksgiving; read for example the 96th Psalm, and notice how all people and even inanimate nature are called upon to exult and rejoice. "Before the Lord, for He cometh to judge the world. He shall judge the world with righteousness and the people with his truth."
This presentation of the nature of the time of judgment as a period of great rejoicing and special blessing, is in most striking contrast with the orthodox view, which makes the Judgment day a time of almost unmitigated horror and dread.
See, this is the stuff, for better or worse, that I tried to stay away from, because when we take the whole of the Bible, the topic can be argued from a thousand different perspectives, especially when we get into the mistranslations of key words like "eternal", "forever", everlasting" and all the rest. I felt it necessary to just stick with Jesus, as He is the ultimate authority, and trumps everyone else.
I do not argue either side either it is both being correct in the proper perspective that opens scripture up to greater understanding.
While Jesus trumps what our doctrines may say, Jesus is doing the will of the father, if you have seen him, you have seen the father and even Jesus said "The father is greater than I" He even admonished a man for calling him Good teacher saying there is no one good but the God.
It comes down to trust. Do we trust God? I trust God to reconcile all things and do not require a context or an essay.
Is there scripture that implies otherwise? Yes, but who drives the implication, mans perspective or scripture? God reconciles all to himself so thats where they go when they are destroyed. If that makes God all in all and God does not have evil then there is little other conclusion than conversion.
I see no one trying to promote the doctrines of exclusion that would think it wonderful and fair that they would be glad to be one of the damned. And they cannot provide any assurance that they are not, they can only claim it, and what does a claim mean to anyone?
So why I do not have the same problem you have is that I drop the presumption that when judgment comes, one can not repent and start doing the LORD's will from within judgment.
Possibly because Paul says, "It is appointed to man once to die, and afterwards, the judgement." It doesn't say "once to die, and afterwards a chance to repent."
Possibly because Paul says, "It is appointed to man once to die, and afterwards, the judgement." It doesn't say "once to die, and afterwards a chance to repent."
It doesn't say either "repentance" or "no repentence" does it? Where does the presumption of no repentence within judgment come from? There are numerous examples of repentence from within judgment throughout scripture. How is it possible for anyone to receive few stripes when Jesus comes to send fire on the earth if they can never repent?
Let me put it another way. It also doesn't say "It is appointed to man once to die, and before this, the judgement."
So what does that say about the timing of this judgment which seems to include repentance?
Zephenia 3:8 Therefore wait upon me, saith the Lord, until the day when I rise up for a witness: because my judgment shall be on the gatherings of the nations, to draw to me kings, to pour out upon them all my fierce anger: for the whole earth shall be consumed with the fire of my jealousy. 9 For then will I turn to the peoples a tongue for her generation, that all may call on the name of the Lord, to serve him under one yoke.
Last edited by Thy Kingdom Come; 07-18-2009 at 01:32 PM..
The idea that God would create untold billions of people with the full foreknowledge that most of them would be destined for eternal torture, is totally ludicrous to me
Thanks for the links rodgertutt, I will look into them, I may not be totally convinced of UR, but I will never accept the doctrine of ET either, if ET exists then God is not all loving period, if ED (annihilation) exists, he is at least merciful even if not He's not all loving
You see, alison, this is your fleshly, human concept of what is fair and just and not God's. God's ways are far above ours, and when you learn to accept that what we deem is unfair is not, in God's eyes and for His greater good, unfair, then you will be more at peace with this belief. As long as we rely on His boundless mercy, we can comprehend that, even though He wills that not all men be saved, He will still be merciful to them. That is a divine mystery we cannot fathom in this world and in our human capacity.
Last edited by thrillobyte; 07-18-2009 at 01:35 PM..
No two words in the history of man have been so torturing as aion and aionion. No two words in the history of man, mishandled by man, have contributed more to the physical, emotional and spiritual harm of so many, than these. You may think I must be exaggerating. But I am not. It is the mistranslation of these two words that has foisted the false and destructive doctrine of eternal torment upon the church and the world.
No, I agree with you. That's why I try to stay away from them, because, in the final analysis, their real meanings can never be settled to everyone's satisfaction.
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Chart of god’s plan for the ages of time
(little Bible humor there)
