I was looking at some websites regarding the book of Enoch and got onto a rather scary looking website called yourgoingtohell.com and they were speaking of the passage from Galations chapter 1:8-9. The website does seem to be scaremongering and was probably the sort of website that would have scared me to death as a kid (and still shakes me up a bit) but the reading from Galations is very strong against those who would preach another Gospel. This would seem to indicate that for those who do this they are without hope completely. How would a universalist look at this passage?
Well, let’s see. I believe that the triune God created the heavens and the earth. I believe that we sinned and that our sin caused us both physical and spiritual death. This sinful nature is epidemic - all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin is death. I believe that God, the word, became flesh and dwelt among us. He lived a sinless life and was crucified by the religious leaders and Romans. He died for us in order to redeem us, to save us. I believe he rose on the third day in his body and ascended back to heaven after presenting himself to many witnesses. I believe that if we place our faith in Jesus as Messiah (If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised HIm from the dead, you will be saved) that salvation will come to you and anyone else in your household who will hold true to that confession. I believe that Jesus will return a second time and that he will judge the living and the dead. There are differing views on end times and the scriptures leave it open so that honest folks can differ with the important part being that Jesus does return and reward each person according to what he has done. I have hope (being a hopeful universalist) that Jesus’ love on the cross accomplishes His full purpose according to Colossians “God, in Christ, reconciled all things to Himself” and that hell will eventually empty itself as those who are punished, repent and turn in real faith toward Christ. Do I think that God is going to sentence me to an eternity of hell for this hope? Why would he? You mean that he will punish us forever for misunderstanding the biblical texts while maintaining our confession of faith in Him as the “only way, truth and life”? I have a hard time seeing this as being true. That certainly doesn’t look like a different gospel to me. It differs only in the final count. Salvation is the same. Hell is the same except in duration and that’s all.
Are we not ALL heretics to some degree? Think about it. Do you have ALL of your theology completely correct? Of course not! Everyone is wrong to some degree. What is the Lord seeking? Those who will believe in Jesus as Messiah as stated above (simplified of course)
I think it certainly should make everyone pause and a consider what they are preaching, especially if they’re trying to win human approval. I also agree with Paul that if we aren’t preaching Christ, we are under God’s curse (i.e. God will actively hinder our self-centred/self-destructive plans, which is actually the kindest thing He could be doing).
However, if we look at some of the Paul’s statements above, and in chapter as a whole, EU:
]does preach Christ/]
]is more interested in God’s approval, rather than human approval/]
]does affirm Jesus Christ & God the Father as the authority (v1)/]
]does affirm Christ raised from the dead (v1)/]
]does affirm the Church is a family (v2)/]
]does affirm that grace & peace come from God (v3)/]
]does affirm Jesus gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age (v4)/:m]
]does affirm God the Father deserves all the glory always (v5)/]
]does affirm the Gospel is a revelation from God (v11)/]
I could go on 
I honestly don’t think EU is another gospel.
I do not think EU is another Gospel. I can not commit fully to it but I do not believe it to be heretical, I was just thinking more about the fact that if someone were to preach a gospel that were false and not Christ-centred, that saying let him be accursed at least seemed to me to be an indication of that person “cut off from Christ and God” (wesley’s notes). I just wondered how the universalist perspective would view these people. I think that I read more into that than it gives and allowed that website to shake me up a little because they more or less said that such people were completely without hope.
I’m glad to hear that, although I’d still love you even if you didn’t think that 
That’s ok, I think it takes time to grow in confidence, things should continue to “click” as you read, pray, trust & obey (i.e. the HS reveals things over time).
No one is completely without hope, at least not from God’s perspective. Here’s an example of someone who actively preached a different Gospel for awhile, but God grafted in.
This is actually encouraging, Jesus is immensely patient & merciful even to the the worst of sinners!
Also remember Romans has a big section on how Israel has been “cut off”, for a purpose, but will get grafted back in later. There are numerous examples of God destroying/destructing/cursing/killing things before restoring them, take Christ on the Cross for example, or Jonah (2:6) who even when to the pit for aionios before God rescued him only 3 days later.
Better to avoid being “cut off”, but even when we come across people who are (as we were!), you can offer them hope, the Gospel, so they can be grafted in.
There seems to have been a pattern toward the end of the New Testament writings, gospels aside from this, but they tend to leave the readers with warning about false teachings, false prophets, another gospel . . .on and on . . . and the mainline church assumes that they’ve ducked the danger and they continue to carry the torch of authenticity of God’s truths so that anyone who now comes in with a different opinion than theres would then be “the one” Scripture warns them about.
But . … what if . . .
What if the reason why the warnings were given was “not” because the Holy Spirit thought we should keep an eye out for it and nip it in the bud when it makes the attempt to sneak in our back doors and closets. But instead, what if the warnings were given because God knew it was going to happen? What if the church blindly has already allowed the false teachings in it’s theological doors, causing it to establish boundary lines that God never instructed to be drawn in the first place?
And what if “now” is the generation that God is calling “back” to the origin of truth and because the church has spent so much time and energy embracing the false truth, it doesn’t recognize the real truth for what it is? It wouldn’t be the first time it happened. The religious leaders of Jesus day were so confident that they knew the truth that they not only rejected Jesus message and Jesus himself, the very fulfillment of the Scriptures they thought they were embracing, but they murdered him because they thought they were so right.
Does not Scriptures state that those that are last will be first and those that are least would be greatest? Truth doesn’t come by way of corporate enforcement, it comes by way of personal relationship. Truth sets people free. Not just from sin, but from the power of our “self”. Those that are born again into a church, may be considered free from the wages of sin, but now they’re in the bondages of religion . . .they need to be born again . . .again . . .
I personally believe the false teaching is already a very big part of the church system without them even realizing it.
i’ve thought this about a number of teachings for a while! well put.
i have also felt it’s time for another reformation for a while…though until UR i didn’t know what form that would take! just that things were broken and wrong!
EU, as i understand it, does exactly as Alex said…it affirms all the doctrines most of us think of as “core”, that the Bible seems to require. all that has happened is we’ve said “God is all powerful and thus able to save” and “God WANTS to save”. adding these together, to me, is what led me this final furlong. i still have doubts, but they crumble when i consider the evidence.
to me, this is not another gospel…even if we’re wrong and some will be lost (which seems increasingly doubtful to me), the hope for the salvation of all bears wonderful fruit, and i think embodies some of the characteristics of love that Paul discusses in 1 Corinthians 13.
The warning/declaration is “let him be cursed”, doomed to destruction, Gal.1.8-9. Note that it doesn’t say anything about ECT or even that “cursed” is speaking of post-mortem punishment. It’s a general negative term that is meant to illicit fear of punishment. It is not meant to explain what that punishment will be, but to refer to it vaguely which carries much more “fear” with it. It’s vagueness makes it more fearful.
As a father, warning my children of a spanking in vague terms is much more fearful for them than if I said, “If you do this you’ll get 6 swats with the belt.” My youngest son will even ask, once he knows that a spanking is coming, how many licks he’s going to get for the knowing lessons the fear of the punishment.
The passage is a declaration of judgment against those who present a gospel different from what Paul presented. It is spoken of in vague terms, not meant to specify what the punishment, curse, doom shall be, but to assure the hearers that God will make things right. And to some degree it’s an expression of Paul’s own frustration with those who were undermining his work. It doesn’t affirm ECT or even annihilation, though such is usually read into it.
If Paul wanted to affirm and warn of ECT for whoever, Tartarus, the hellish realm of Hades in Greek mythology, would have been a natural term to use. But of course, Paul never warns of Tartarus.
I also think, not only is this not “another” gospel but the original one, but it’s not something that can be harnessed and turned into a movement or a new denomination. I think God is breaking the denominational mold, calling his bride out from a corporate business of a religious experience and he’s leading her back into a personal, inward, individual relationship of intimacy with him. Rather than cookie cut people into a slogan of a belief, God takes our differences and enhances them with his Spirit which strengthens all of us, it bonds us into one body, embracing the differences rather than using the sword of Truth to cut everyone down to the “same” size. Are we not to be a “peculiar people”? We are unique, we are irreplacable, we are his workmanship crafted by his infinite imaginative power of creation. How can you even think you could ever contain it or “corporatize” it? My relationship with God is not a business. I am not “of” a corporation, denomination, association or even a republic. I am an individual who has had an individual experience of intimacy that goes beyond any understanding of any other man and I don’t want to water it down, keep it hidden, or “tone it down”. I want it to over take my own understanding of who I think I am and I want it to transform those around me to are still bound by the identity of the church they attend. Not to mention those who haven’t even had a religious experience yet.
But what God is doing, he’s doing in people, not in a church. He’s doing in hearts, not in someone’s head. There’ve been questions about why don’t we see more churches that support this kind of thing. My understanding is, because if we took this precious gift and applied it to yet another church system, we’d kill it in the same way previous revivals have been choked out. Good intentions by those whom the revivals fell on, but the majority of our churches now, the majority of the denominations are originally from a revival in one fashion or another. And many denominations are man’s attempt to “preserve” a manna experience that can not be preserved. It’s a daily experience for individual families to embrace, not for corporate leaders to generalize and ration.
Until we get ourselves to an understanding that what God is doing, he’s doing according to “his” plan and principles, not according to how we “think” it should be done, until we see that this is evidence of the wind that comes from where no man knows and it goes to where no man can predict SUCH ARE THOSE WHO ARE BORN OF THE SPIRIT . . .until we come to a place where we are free enough to change direction without warning, to be able to stretch here, contract there . . .that we are a living and breathing body of intimacy with the Father that has no foundation that is brittle and unbending, until we enter into “this” reality, we’ll never comprehend just what it is that God has given us and if we don’t know what it is, then we also won’t be able to be reproductive with it effectively either.
We’ll do what we were raised by others to do, we’ll bottle it, we’ll package it, we’ll advertise it and sell it . . .like it’s some commodity. But God’s no longer willing to be a “product” that religious salesmen who wear fake smiles and hungry pockets are trying to sell to the masses that they don’t view as brothers or sisters, but as targetted customers that “must have” the latest, cutting edge version of God in their lives . . . God is after intimacy and not only was he willing to sacrifice his Son to redeem us back to him, now, he’s also willing to undress, he’s willing to remove the veils. He’s willing to reveal the fulness of Christ to us . . .but that only comes through intimate relationship with him. Not through religion. Not through extreme self-discipline . . .not through personal “interpretation” of his Word . . .but through intimacy. Through the willingness to walk away from what we “think” we know, what we “think” we are, from where we “think” we’re going and just let him lead us to whereever he wants us to go, to think, to see . . .just put all of our trust in him . . .that means there’s no need to “defend” what we see or who we are. For me to defend where I am is saying I think the other individual opposing me has the authority over me to where I feel I need to appease their demands before I can flourish in the house God has led me into.
Let Freedom ring!!
Yes Nathan, I agree, UR is not “another Gospel”, I believe it is “the Gospel” that Paul preached. As to whether another denomination is needed, hmm, I don’t know. It sure would be helpful to have fellowships around the world that at least are open to their members believing in UR, fellowships where “loving God and loving one another is enough!” That actually sounds like a good theme for a church.
How about…
Freedom Fellowship,
Where Loving God and Loving One Another is Enough!
My 6 year old son last Sunday morning actually very seriously and thoughtfully said, “You know dad, some day, I want to go to a church where loving God and loving people is enough.”
It was a very proud moment for me, his father. Just thinking of it, I stand/sit a little straighter, my shoulders pull back a little, my chest fills with a little more air, and I think and/or say, “That’s my boy!”
man i love your posts!