The Evangelical Universalist Forum

A Non-UR Way To Accept UR Scripture Passages At Face Value?

I specifically said I believe Jesus abolished our spiritual death in the past on the cross. I also called it “the completed abolishment”.

I also believe this abolishment works in a trans-temporal fashion (for want of a better word). Otherwise everyone God intended to save from sin (however many that is) would already have eonian life, wouldn’t need to repent from sin, and would already have automatic faith in God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) and be already completely faithful to God.

The scriptures say both things: the abolishment of our spiritual death has been completed (also the abolishment of our physical death apparently), and we’re still in both spiritual and physical death until later things happen (our active cooperation with God against our sins for the former, the general resurrection for the latter). But the abolishment of our spiritual and physical deaths, whenever that happens, depends on the abolishment of spiritual and physical death (including our spiritual and physical deaths) already being completed in Christ.

The completion of the Firstfruit guarantees the whole harvest will certainly come in. The harvest wouldn’t come in without the Firstfruit coming first, but neither is the crop already harvested yet when the Firstfruit is harvested (and sacrificed). The completion in Christ and our salvation from sin is far more centrally connected than that harvest metaphor occasionally used to describe it, but the comparison is still appropriate to that extent. (Theoretically a storm or fire or something could wipe out the crop after all in natural life; that won’t happen in regard to Christ’s harvest. That’s one big difference. :slight_smile: )

That’s why I mentioned the typical already/not-yet theme.

Putting an end to the dominion of spiritual death in this world isn’t something I was talking about specifically. But I’d relatedly apply the same already/not-yet principle. If the rulership of spiritual death (which has to do with rebel spirits) was simply over and done, there would be no need for struggle against spiritual powers, but Paul a few decades after the Passion and Resurrection says there is. Moreover, in the very scriptures under consideration in this thread, specifically the 1 Cor 15 passages, Paul indicates that the rebel spiritual powers still won’t be defeated in some significant way until sometime after the general resurrection begins (but before Christ in some sense stops reigning in order to submit all things to the Father). Whatever RevJohn means, meanwhile, has to indicate that the rebel spiritual powers will be exercising very strong dominion, more than ever before, at some point in the future of the one to whom the revelations were given. (Maybe than once depending on what the millennial rule indicates!)

I have to take such things into account, not only the testimony about the dominion of the spiritual powers being decisively finished by Christ on the cross (although that, too).

Not apart from the completed abolishment of Christ, but temporally speaking yes. It ought to be obvious enough that anyone still refusing to cooperate with God (in any Person) is, to that extent, still partaking of spiritual death. We’re even warned about that in the scriptures.

I deny that the abolishment of our spiritual death depends first and foremost on our repentance and subsequent cooperation with God, however. That would be earning our salvation, as though God refused to act to save us before we somehow convinced Him or (worse) forced Him to do so!

I wouldn’t even coherently be a supernaturalistic theist, much less a trinitarian Christian theist, if I believed (or worse taught) that.

On the other hand, how does the 2nd Person of God schism from the Father, not only while the Persons still remain loyal to one another (in some completely contradictory fashion), but also without breaking the single unity of God (resulting in the total irrevocable destruction of all reality, not only including all our past, present and future, but of God Himself)?

Even unitarians would ultimately have a problem pressing this concept, although less of an immediate conceptual problem (if Jesus is not in fact God Most High). But if trinitarian theism is true (or modalism for that matter), the problems with Jesus “literally” becoming sin become immediately absolute. It wouldn’t mean the Son never sinned against God, it would mean Jesus became original sin itself: something even Satan cannot do or be, and so even more evil than Satan!

It’s better to understand that statement figuratively.

That doesn’t mean I don’t believe Jesus spiritually died, although since this is a very technical trinitarian concept I didn’t discuss it in the previous post. But I believe Jesus spiritually died the way any of us (although in our own derivative created fashions) ought to be spiritually dying, the way the Son in God’s unity spiritually dies (for want of a better word) from all eternity: submitting loyally to the Father rather than seeking to go our own way apart from the Father. The cross is a special enaction of that, making solidarity with transgressors, so that transgressors can see the truth about God: that even if God is punishing sins God still loves sinners and doesn’t inflict such punishments from on high but voluntarily suffers along with us.

Thus, as I said, I don’t believe Jesus had to abolish His own spiritual death; not because I deny Jesus spiritually died, but because I deny His spiritual death was schisming from the Father. On the contrary, I not only affirm that Jesus’ righteous submission to the Father was a death in loyalty to (and with) the Father (giving His spirit up to the Father), but that that it was in loyalty and love to sinners, too. (Not in approval of the sins of sinners, though. On the contrary, I believe Christ voluntarily suffers on the cross all sins done by all sinners at all times and places.)

Put another way: I would say that if Christ had “abolished” His own spiritual death, there would have been no abolishment of sin (the rebel spiritual death). He would not have even gone to the cross, much less stayed until it was finished (much less descended into hades to preach to the spirits in prison).

Good discussion so far from you though. :smiley: I very much appreciate it.

I should add that Christian universalists, myself included, tend to be extremely gung ho about God having already triumphed over the spiritual death of sin, in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. At least as gung ho as Calvinists typically are on the same topic.

We have disputes among ourselves on the topic of whether this triumph involves penal substitution atonement or not (or if so what that entails), but I have yet to meet a Christian universalist who denied the finished triumph of Christ on the cross.

Some of us are more extremely gung ho than the rest of us about that triumph, to the extent of denying any need for repentance and willful cooperation at all (God supplying all of that whenever in His wisdom He thinks it’s best to get around to doing so, pre-mortem or post-mortem), and so tend to be ultra-universalists (with no punishment per se coming from God post-mortem at all because God will ensure all sin post-mortem). I don’t go that far–for which I’m sometimes accused by ultra-u’s of denying the finished work of Christ on the cross, instead of affirming a real already/not-yet situation.

(Instead of saying I deny the finished work, they ought to complain instead that it’s somehow logically inconsistent for me to affirm both the already and the not-yet. I don’t think it’s logically inconsistent, but that’s because I’m coming at the topic from a Boethian notion of God acting at right angles to natural history, which makes a big difference in how God relates in His eternal present to our natural time.)

What do you mean by trans-temporal? Gods intention was to reconcile creation back to a Gen 1 and 2 state of existence not to reconcile a certain number of people because he already knows not everyone will receive this reconciliation. God honors peoples choices. He has provided an avenue by the death and resurrection of Jesus for the whosoever’s to partake in this victory over spiritual and physical death by faith. Again this victory is already a done deal and is available now and is not dependent on one’s repentance. But it is only a done deal for you personally if you receive it by faith in this life. The “all ready-not yet” theory is destroyed by Jesus himself in Matt 12:32 and Mk 3:29. For clarification on the “all ready-not yet”: are you affirming that this present evil age is part of “the age to come”?

Spiritual and physical death both have been defeated whether people are walking in it or not. Believers still die physically because of the corrupted bodies inherited by the fall. The redemption is complete when we receive our glorified or spiritual bodies at the resurrection ( hint: that is why physical death is the last enemy to be destroyed :wink: ). We have already received the life of Jesus or God in our spirits.( Romans 6:4) Believers don’t receive spiritual life at the resurrection but the second part of the redemption( glorified bodies) that was as good as done at Jesus’ death and resurrection. (Romans 8:23)

Not sure if I’m following you with your firstfruit metaphor. :confused: This is how I understand the firsfruits in 1 Cor 15:23.

  1. Jesus was the first one to die and to be raised spiritually alive with God’s life. ( the firstfruit)
  2. They ( believers) after Christ in their own order ( dead believers are raised first then they who are alive are caught up with the Lord at Jesus’ second coming) ( the firstfuits)

Satan and his devils were stripped of their power over spiritual death. ( Heb 2:14-15)
Jesus has given the body of Christ power and dominion over Satan and his devils. ( Matt 28:18; Luke 10:17-20; Eph 1:18-23)
Whether a believer walks in this authority and power over the enemy is up to them. Most Christians are ignorant to who they are and what they can do in Christ.

How can you say you don’t deny Jesus “spiritually dying” but would not say Christ “abolished His own spiritual death”? Who’s spiritual death do you suppose He abolished if it weren’t his own? If Jesus didn’t abolish his own spiritual death how can one enjoy having victory of it? Jesus experienced “spiritual death” because he literally became sin. Not His sin but our sin. When Jesus gave up his spiritual life to the Father what do you think replaced it? The answer: Spiritual death, and after he physically died He was separated from God spiritually and experienced the torment of hell so we wouldn’t have to.( Acts 2:31)

Did Adam experience his own “spiritual death” when he sinned? Of course he did otherwise there would be no need of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Although Jesus did not sin himself against the Father but he was imputed with the sins of the world which caused him to experience “his own spiritual death” as Adam. (2 Cor 5:19;21;Isa 53)

This is why I bang on about Israels 3 harvests Passover (barley), Pentecost (wheat), Tabernacles/Ingathering (grapes). You mention 2 firstfruits above Revival (Christ and the church), however the firstfruits being accepted meant the rest of the harvest was accepted - in your 2 firstfruit scenario above they never have any effect on the rest of the harvest (humanity). In fact that way of looking at things implies that only the firstfruits are accepted and the rest of the harvest is thrown away to rot. The grapes do indeed need crushing to release their goodness BUT are equally part of the harvest - the skins are bruised and discarded but not the wine.

I think this is why people get a bit frustrated by arguments that hinge on being shown a specific verse in the Bible that unequivocally states x,y or z instead of seeing, for example, punishment passages in light of what God foreshadowed about the bigger picture in the OT with such institutions as the harvest feasts and the jubilee (among other things).

BTW I also think this has been a productive thread.

I mean that what God, Who transcends time and space, does at any point of time and space, can apply by God’s choice to other portions of the spatio-temporal sequence.

That’s why something can be entirely completed and finished from God’s perspective (which is the primary and most important perspective upon which everything else depends), and yet from our perspective as natural creatures there can still be a progression to the fulfillment of that completion afterward. The latter doesn’t deny the former; the latter depends on the former.

If God only existed within our shared natural space/time, though, then it might (would?) be true to say there is a contradiction between Him having completely finished something already and there still being a progression to fulfillment of that completion sequentially afterward.

But then God wouldn’t really be God, only a god (of the Mormon sort perhaps). We wouldn’t be talking ontologically about supernaturalistic theism any more, or at least we wouldn’t be talking about the real God yet, but only about an entity we mistook for being the real God.

I have a vested interest, as a trinitarian Christian theist (or even merely as someone trying to talk about God Most High), in avoiding that. :slight_smile:

Not that I deny this is God’s intention, too; but your distinction basically drains reconciliation of having any primary meaning of a relationship between people being restored. Whereas, I don’t think you’re going to find that term being used anywhere in scripture except in relation to personal relationships being restored between people. (I’m entirely sure there isn’t in the NT; I did a word-study on it years ago for the forum.)

Col 1 is the only even-distantly feasible exception. But that depends on reading a somewhat similar but substantially different meaning for two uses of that same term in close topical proximity. Certainly not impossible, if the context indicates so, but the contextual argument would have to be very strong. Whereas I think the contextual argument there runs entirely the other way.

(Meanwhile, you certainly aren’t getting that term application from Rom 8:19ff, for example. Even though it’s talking about your topic, Paul doesn’t use “concile” or “reconcile” or a cognate thereof when talking about the setting free of creation there.)

I recall (perhaps wrongly) you being quite anti-Calvinistic before (having converted from a Calvinistic soteriology), yet this is something a Calv would say: that God does not even intend to reconcile some people to Himself. I have heard some Calvs attempt to explain it on a line similar to this, too: He doesn’t even intend to try because He already knows they wouldn’t accept it. So why try to do something He knows He would fail at anyway? Thus God only even tries (and intends) to save those He knows He can 100% succeed at.

Arminians by contrast would strongly deny that God isn’t trying even for those people, and would strongly affirm instead that God does try (and intend) to save those persons, too, even though He already knows He won’t succeed. (With some Arms having a problem with why God would try anyway and using that as evidence for limiting God’s omniscience. Whereas on the other hand some Calvs would critique their Calv brothers for thereby undermining the omnicompetence of God, particularly in salvation from sin, which is a huge selling point for Calv theology at all.)

Anyway, maybe I’m misremembering (confusing you with ‘oxymoron’ perhaps?) and you’ve actually been a variety of Calvinist all the time; or maybe you’ve gone back to being Calv…? Because to deny God even intends to save some people from sin is categorically a Calv notion and not an Arm notion: Arminians per se of any variety would strenuously affirm God intends and so acts to save those people, too (even though He fails for whatever reason or reasons). That’s one of the big selling points for Arm theology at all.

(Arm evangelical selling point: we can trust that God really does intend and act to save everyone, even ‘you’. Calv evangelical selling point: we can trust that God really is capable of saving from sin whoever He intends to save, even ‘you’.)

Whosoever God intends to save but not anyone else? Or whosoever in all creation (per John 3:16)?

The former would be categorically Calv; the latter could be Arm or Kath (depending on what is also taught about God’s persistence to save or some lack thereof.)

I’m a very big fan of that concept, too. But I recognize there are limitations to how far He honors people’s choices. God doesn’t honor sin in any way, for example, even though He loves (and to that extent honors) the sinner. Sinners choose to be on par with God, but God couldn’t honor that choice even if He wanted to (which He doesn’t). Sinners choose to live free of any negative consequences to their sins; but God sure as hell doesn’t honor that choice either! Any punishment from God at all doesn’t fit into “honoring” those choices of sinners. Which, not incidentally, is why many Arminians (who often appeal to the concept of honoring choices) downplay or outright deny that God is actively punishing sinners at all (quite against practically every Biblical testimony on the topic).

Neither does God honor our choices to sin when He acts to any degree toward saving us from our sins, especially if He persists in any way in doing so. And just as I deny we earn God’s salvation from sin, I deny we earn His persistence to save us either. (But then some Arminians deny God’s persistence to save at all, in one or more ways.)

We’re actually in agreement here, except for “in this life”. By your statement, consequently, it isn’t yet a done deal for someone personally until they repent.

Except that you yourself just testified to it, practically in the same terms!

I think you’re reaching to find somewhere to disagree with me on. The verses you quote have nothing at all against “already/not-yet” per se, but they might have something against the not-yet continuing on after a certain point.

Or rather, they might have something in favor of the not-yet always continuing on, so that instead it is already/never! Which would be a typical Arm formulation in regard to any finally lost person (already saved and also never saved). Calvs on the other hand would split the already/never between the elect and the non-elect: the non-elect were never already (because God never even intended to save them), and the elect were never never (because God is competent enough to surely save whoever He chooses to save)!

Or, maybe the verses in question say something directly against the idea that “the last state which is worse than the first” is hopelessly final–while condemning people who would call Christ’s persistence to save even people who neglect His salvation, the work of the devil. (So long as such people hold to that belief, they certainly could not be saved from their own sins, even though Christ graciously provides their salvation, neither now nor in the age to come. But then, thanks to Christ’s continuing persistence to save even those who deny His persistence in saving sinners from sin, neither would their own situation be finally hopeless. :slight_smile: The report of that incident in Matthew’s Gospel especially, doesn’t start and stop with 12:32 after all.)

Excellent! I’m glad we agree on that! (Since I said as much myself.)

This still leaves over the final enemy still to be defeated by testimony of 1 Cor 15, though. :wink:

Already, not yet! :wink: And not incidentally, an already/not-yet that is only fulfilled post-mortem!

But hint: the abolishment of death as the final enemy happens in 1 Cor 15 after the resurrection of the righteous.

Moreover, if unbelievers never eventually receive glorified or spiritual bodies (despite certainly being resurrected into some kind of body, but one without eonian life), then in fact physical death is never destroyed: because unbelievers continue living in physical (as well as spiritual) death.

An explanation of why physical death is the final enemy destroyed, that leaves physical death permanently undestroyed, is a self-refuting explanation.

St. Paul is using a technical term referring to the practice of sacrificing the first fruits of the harvest as a thanks offering to God; the gratitude is because ideally those first fruits are a promise from God that the rest of the harvest will certainly come in.

And yet strangely we’re still fighting against them–and non-universalists routinely affirm that Satan and his devils will finally win, leading unbelievers into (or succeeding in keeping them in) final and irrevocable spiritual death.

I certainly affirm the stripping happened, but the evidence indicates the fulfillment of that stripping won’t be complete until later. (Apparently after the resurrection, per 1 Cor 15!)

Agreed on both counts, although I would add that it’s more primarily up to Christ. :wink:

I apply the same concept in my novels: the rogue angels often find themselves flattened by the secret Christian in the group; but God decides when this does and does not happen, and one of the big challenges for the Christian is whether he’s going to trust and cooperate with God even when God doesn’t immediately crush the rebel angels in his presence, or whether he’s going to try to crush them himself–even if he succeeds in the latter, he would be rebelling against God by trying to go his own way and do things apart from Him.

(I wouldn’t have quoted Matt 28:18, which is about Christ’s total authority, as testimony that Christians have been given power and dominion over Satan and his devils. Luke’s testimony, notably, also includes a similar authority given to the apostles earlier in the story (in the previous chapter, paralleled in GosMatt and GosMark) after which (also paralleled in GosMatt and GosMark) the apostles totally fail, and not from lack of trying, to exorcise a demon from a young man. Apparently they thought it was primarily up to them whether they walked in this authority and power over the enemy or not. :wink: Fasting and prayer would have taught them to be more humble about it.)

Ours. As I suppose I already said. :wink:

Because ours is a rebellious spiritual death. Christ’s spiritual death wasn’t rebellious, thus had no need for abolishing. (As I also previously said.)

Seeing as how the Father gives life to the Son in any case (whether in the eternal self-existence of God self-begetting and God self-begotten, or at all levels of the life of the Son Incarnate, including His resurrection), I wouldn’t have any problem saying that the Father per se abolishes the spiritual death of the Son. But while the Son has the authority in Himself to abolish His own physical death, and even to be eonian life (thus to be spiritual life), if He abolished His righteous and loyal spiritual death (whether in God’s self-existent multi-personal unity or at any lesser level) He wouldn’t be surrendering to the Father anymore but trying to go His own way apart from the Father.

Which would be a very different kind of spiritual death: the kind that we as sinners need saving from. Maybe the Father could save the Son from that rebellious sinful spiritual death (assuming all reality, including God, didn’t instantly poof out of existence, although I fully expect it would if the Son schismed from the Father, breaking the unity of the self-existent Trinity upon which all reality depends for existence), but the Son could no longer be accurately called our Savior.

You may not agree that the Son’s spiritual death was righteous instead of rebellious, but you ought to be able to see that my position is at least logically coherent: I affirm the sinless Son dies a righteous spiritual death in faithful surrender to the Father, consequently I deny that the Son dies a sinful spiritual death, in rebellion against the Father.

On the other hand, if Jesus did abolish His own righteous spiritual death, we either couldn’t have the victory of sharing in it (and so in His resurrection and life), or we could only have the victory (if you cared to call it that) of sharing in His rebellious sinful death. Which, completely aside from the ontological problems of such a claim, is a ‘victory’ I could only imagine Satan as Satan gladly sharing in. :wink:

But I am not ignorant that “whoever are baptized into Christ Jesus, are baptized into His death, being entombed together with Him through baptism into death, so that, even as Christ was raised out from the dead ones through the glory of the Father, thus we also should be walking in newness of life.” (Rom 6:3-4)

I gladly and gratefully share the righteous spiritual death of the Son which God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) has graciously made available (instead of abolishing!), and graciously leads me to accept; and I reject the rebel spiritual death of sin which God abolishes in me through the righteous spiritual death of the Son (which and only which can empower the blood of His cross. Without the righteous spiritual death of the Son, there either would be no physical death, or the physical death would itself be sinful in rebellion of the Son against the Father.)

Literally becoming sin means literally becoming a sinner. If you are saying He literally became us as sinners, I think we have other problems to discuss. :wink: (But if you insist on that, I will note that God saved Him, or ‘him’ rather, post-mortem despite Christ dying a sinful death in literal rebellion against God. This is not a position that will lead anywhere but to universal salvation in the end, especially if Christ became us in our sins. :mrgreen: )

Spiritual life from the Father. The Father is always giving spiritual life to the Son, and the Son is always giving it up to the Father. That’s what the loyal Father and the loyal Son do in relation to one another.

If you think the Father gave spiritual death to the Son to replace the spiritual life the Father gave to the Son and the Son gave back to the Father, then we have rather more fundamental disagreements somewhere. That would certainly not be a gospel to inspire us to have any faith in the Father, for one thing. But it would also be a schism of the substance of the Trinity.

Not coincidentally:

You have a very peculiar Bible if it reads there that Christ was separated from God spiritually and experienced the torment of hell. Because every version I have (including even the inferior so-called Textus Receptus as well as modern critical reconstructions, despite Acts having the most variant readings of any NT text) reads that Christ was not forsaken in hades (nor did His flesh experience decay). Nor is there even the slightest textual transmission variant issue I can find on this. Which shouldn’t be surprising since Peter (by Luke’s report) was quoting directly from David’s psalm again as he had already done. Which says the same thing, “for You shall not be forsaking my soul in the unseen”.

I recommend you find a better translation. :slight_smile: Whichever version you’re reading is doing you no favors.

By the same principle, had Jesus experienced Adam’s sinful spiritual death, instead of the Son’s own righteous spiritual death, the Son would have needed saving from sin just like Adam, and so could not be the savior of anyone from sin (no more than Adam could be).

Whatever translation (or very loose paraphrase?) you’re using is misleading you again: there is nothing at 2 Cor 5:19-21 even testifying to Jesus dying, much less experiencing, as you quoted from your translation, “his own spiritual death”; nor about Christ being imputed with the sins of the world; although it does say that God in Christ was reconciling the world to Himself not reckoning (or imputing as some translations have it) their offenses to them!

Isaiah 53, meanwhile, ironically contrasts our false beliefs (“we ourselves esteemed Him struck down and afflicted by God”) with the truth of the matter: He was bearing our sicknesses and pains because YHWH caused our injustices to collide in Him. (Literally to encounter Him.) He wasn’t bearing punishment from God, the prophet is quite clear about that being the wrong interpretation; He was bearing the sicknesses and pains we give when we’re being unjust. We pierce Him through with our transgressions (as sinful men pierced Him on the cross although He was innocent), we crush Him with our injustices (as He was beaten by sinful men before being hung on the cross). By oppression and unjust judgment He was taken away.

That is the sense in which YHWH “crushes” Him: it’s still by YHWH’s authority and permission (including the Son’s voluntary permission), so ultimately it’s still YHWH’s (including the Son’s) authoritative responsibility, but the action involved is to bear the abuse of sinners, not the punishment of God for sins the Son never did.

(I do affirm that the Son shares in the suffering of sinners, too, including the sufferings inflicted on sinners by the Son in judgment! But Isaiah is talking more about suffering along with victims of sin here, indeed as the chief victim of any sin by anyone anywhere. Still it is also true that the Son pours Himself out to death in being accounted, or reckoned, or imputed with the transgressors as well as with the victims of the transgressors. Which He does for the sake of the transgressors themselves. He Himself bears the transgressions of many transgressors yet intercedes for those transgressors.)

Thanks Jeff; and I haven’t even gotten around yet to actually commenting on Chad’s new article on the topic!

I may have to hold off on further correspondence with Aaron until I get that done. I’ve been distracted by a lot of things recently. (Not Aaron’s fault, but still I could have been replying to Chad during the time and effort I was replying to Aaron.)

Nooooo, I’m not a Calvinist… :wink: I mean’t to say that God made provision for every person to receive this reconciliation who wants to receive it and be restored back to a Gen 1 and 2 existence, but God already knows everyone won’t receive it. But thank God that did not stop Him sending Jesus to die and being raised for this undeserving wicked world!

Whosover in all creation who wants to believe it. Not everyone will want to, unfortunately. There were people who still didn’t believe in Jesus after performing all the miracles, healings, casting out devils, raising people from the dead, they witnessed the image of the invisible God walking the earth, and what did they do? instead of believing they wanted to kill him.

I’m convinced people don’t believe the gospel because they don’t believe there are any consequences to their choices. There are no unbelievers in Hell… Everyone is a believer but its too late. God honored their choice to be separated from Him in this world and that choice is honored in eternity as well.

Matt 12:32 and Mark 3:29 have everything to do against the not-yet continuing on past this age or the age to come. **Would not your position of the “not-yet” continuing on past this age into the age to come require that this “present evil age” is part of “the age to come” when Paul has indicated the “present evil age” has ended? In other words, it requires there to be an already–not yet in the age of what is now the not yet! ( Paul M) :confused: **

Besides that Jesus himself declares that the sin of blaspheming the HS has no forgiveness in this age or the age to come. Unless you’re one of those UR’s that keep manufacturing ages to tap dance around this truth. :wink:

Spiritual and physical death being destroyed is not contingent upon unbelievers continuing living in them. It is contingent upon the completed work of the cross and people receiving it in this life. This age of the already not-yet is coming to an end, Jason. Hint: (the consummation of this “present evil age” when Jesus comes back) :wink: Paul M eloquently puts it this way:

"The already–not yet hermeneutic works when we’re in the already–not yet age, but it was seen to be required to be employed in the age of the not yet, i.e., the age of consummation, where the already–not yet tension is done away with. The already–not yet tension doesn’t apply to the age of consummation, and to hold a doctrine which seems to demand that it does, seems ad hoc. Similar issues arise with 1 Corinthians 15. We note in this passage that Christ’s second advent is referred to. Until Christ comes again, we are in the intermediate rule, the already–not yet. Christ’s life, death, resurrection, final judgment, are all one event, spread out over time. Since Christ has been raised from the dead, history is in an important sense over. All that remains is an epilogue before the final chapter is read. At Christ’s return, the kingdom will be consummated, and the already–not yet done away with".

Question: if you believe the not-yet(reconciliation) continues into the age to come ( which would come at a high hermeneutical and exegetical price) why is the not-yet(reconciliation) not continued in this age? I’m sure there are people in hell right now and some who have been there for thousands of years would like this not-yet(reconciliation) to be extended to them. Why is God waiting for them to be resurrected unto judgment and not find them recorded in the BOL and throw them into the LOF? Why bother to do all that when He can extend the not-yet(reconciliation) in this age so the people in hell can be found recorded in the BOL?

I will address your other comments later… I want to focus on just UR right now. :wink: