True… 
Ran,
My view of the atonement is that Jesus was sent not so much to do what we couldn’t do, but rather to do what God couldn’t do. As the ultimate human representative agent/emissary of God, Jesus demonstrated in his own life and death the unsurpassable love of God for sinners, thereby effectively doing what God could not do himself. I understand Jesus’ death to be the ultimate demonstration of how far God’s love would go in order to save us. By sending his “only begotten Son” into the world, God demonstrated the depth of his love for sinners and made known the resolve of his heart to reconcile us to himself. The death of Christ was not an act to appease an offended deity. Nor was it a commercial or legal transaction to satisfy the demands of retributive justice. It was, above all else, an act of love. Jesus declared, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (John 15:13). To die on behalf of one’ friends was to show the fullest extent of one’s love for them (John 13:1). But Jesus died not only on behalf of his friends, but on behalf of all who were, at the time, his enemies (Luke 23:34; Rom 5:8; 2 Cor 5:14-15; Gal 2:20; Eph 5:2; 1 Pet 3:18; 1 John 3:16).
Good thoughts, Justin. This fits with my understanding of the atonement quite well. And if this is what Ran meant when he said that Jesus “punished himself,” then I can agree with that. 
The afterlife is a part of the eternal realm. God the Son didn’t originate in our world anyway. When Jesus died, God the Son just located to another realm. That’s all death is anyway, right? The body dies, but the soul goes somewhere else.
They weren’t true (at least in a certain sense). God was there, in fact, the trinity is so inseparable that the Father was there in the Son and felt the separation too. But undoubtedly Jesus felt just like we do sometimes that God was ten million miles away.
Also, Jesus was quoting an amazingly beautiful Psalm that at the end spelled out restitution, peace and restoration for everyone including himself:
Here’s a chapter from a book that does a really good job explaining all of that, I think: christiangallery.com/1chap5.html
Thanks Stellar! I don’t pretend I understand but will read the linked pages with interest. I do sometimes feel that just because we can say something in language e.g. the eternal God died - doesn’t mean we are describing a logical possibility e.g. God creates a rock that is too heavy for God to lift.
Cheers anyway at attempting to rewire my brain 
With regards to "this age and the age to come, doesn’t the Bible speak of the end of the ages, though? That “eternity” begins at the end of the ages?
1 Cor 10:11 reads, “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.” And in Heb 9:26 we read, “But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”
Evidently the “end (or “ends”) of the ages” took place during the generation in which Paul and his contemporaries lived. My opinion is that Paul and the author of Hebrews had the ages under the Old Covenant dispensation in view, which terminated in 70 AD with the overthrow of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple. If they meant all the ages that ever were and ever would be, then it would have included the “age to come” as well (which wouldn’t make much sense).
Stellar,
I enjoyed the article very much. Only I hesitate to agree with the author that Jesus “felt” abandoned by God on the Cross.
My impression is more that in the “Eloi” cry, he was teaching–as in everything he did he was teaching. His words were for those “with ears to hear,” to comfort them–perhaps at the time they would have been too grieved to understand, but later they would remember–and tell them that though it seemed that he was forsaken by God, it was not really so. “For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him.”
The Psalm is one of triumph and victory, and I think Christ was declaring his victory even then.
Sonia
How in the world can eternity begin if it is the very essence of infinity? Unless you’re just talking about endless phases of existence, which causes eternity to lose all its meaning in that sense.
You better change your mind, ya damn heathen! I missed my bus this morning because of you.
But seriously, I don’t think it’s that there’s no reality to the wording, I think it’s that the wording’s inadequate to fully represent the unique phenomena.
Sonia, why not? I think that if he didn’t experience that he can’t be said to have completely fulfilled his priestly role.
It’s not something I feel very strongly about–not an opinion I would die for. But it* seems* to me that his faith would have been strong enough not to doubt his father’s presence with him, and thus his words would have been for the benefit of his hearers.
Why do you think it was necessary for him to feel forsaken in order to fulfill his priestly role? I can’t see any need for it, but I’m still working through what I believe about ‘his priestly role’.
Sonia
Well put like that how could I refuse
Of course, He did what we couldn’t do - destroy death. No mere man could do that. Faithful men (with their own demonstrations) have been held captive by death for eons. They didn’t need a ‘demonstration’ - they needed to be freed. If any of them had been asked to take on the sins of the world they would have done it to be freed. But they couldn’t do it.
Apparently, my words were poorly chosen, Ran. I wasn’t trying to deny the former but to affirm and emphasize the latter, since I don’t think this aspect of Christ’s mission is much recognized. I agree with you that no “mere man” could have done what Jesus did, for his mission required that he be sinless. I also don’t see Jesus’ death as only a “demonstration” (although the fact that it was cannot be denied - 1Pet 2:20-25).
Honestly, considering the requirement, how can you possibly maintain that He was not God? If He was not a ‘mere man’ then what was He?
We’ve been over this, Ran. One can believe Jesus was and is more than a “mere man” without holding to the doctrine that he is God. Or do you think he had to be God because he was conceived in the womb of a virgin? Or because he was completely sinless from his birth to his death? Or because he was given “all authority in heaven and on earth?” Assuming for the sake of argument that Jesus is not the second member of a “triune God” but a being who is fully human, would not these facts alone make him more than a “mere man?”
Certainly, but what? A highly capable man? People worship people but not God - they have no trouble doing that. And if one comes along more capable, then they worship that man or woman or cow or some other created thing. Anything but God.
I still can’t understand your paradigm - it makes no sense to me. Not even logically.
Do you believe that he existed before the virgin conception?
Hi Justin,
I believe Jesus began to exist when “the logos became flesh” (John 1:14).
Just FYI for you and anyone else who wants to know more about my position: I’ll be glad to answer questions like the one above with a brief statement of my position, but at this point I’m not really wanting to get into a large-scale discussion/debate on this topic any time soon as it would be far too time-consuming for me right now, and it would likely prevent me from being able to engage in discussion on topics that I think are more relevant to the doctrine of universal salvation.
The following are a few threads that some may find helpful in better understanding my position:
Wow, that’s alot of good meat, there. I hope I have time for it all someday.
Mainly I just wanted to know your answer to that because if you in fact believed that he existed before the virgin birth, and in fact that he existed from the very beginning of our world, and shared omnipotence with the Father, why you don’t just make the final step and call him God. And if you claimed that he didn’t exist before then, I was contemplating asking you what you thought of certain verses. But it’s whatevs.
It’s an interesting difference in belief, I’m not sure what to make of the implications. But as long as we both believe that love conquers all, I think that it may not be such a terrible difference.
That’s the way I see it, too.
I don’t want to go into all the topical points brought up since pseudonymous Aaron complained about me welcoming someone who doesn’t complain about his identity being confirmable – I think I’ve talked about all of them in-depth elsewhere.
But I do want to say that I rejoice in the return of the Real Aaron (i.e. Aaron Reynolds Welch) because, despite the fact that he and I strongly disagree on even more things than BornAgain/Aaron37 disagree on, AaronW by and large is a fine, sober, thoughtful, careful, chivalrous opponent.
Which, not incidentally, means he’s a lot tougher as an opponent, too. http://www.wargamer.com/forums/upfiles/smiley/duel.gif
The same goes for (the even-more-pseudonymous) FiredUp2000, by the way: he’s turning out to be much like Glenn Peoples as an opponent to universalism, and I wish we had another 20 or 30 members here like them. (The same could be said for Roofus, although he’s more on the fence.)
I don’t welcome AaronW’s doctrines, per se – I don’t agree with many of them, and I don’t welcome him here ‘because’ he also happens to be a universalist. I welcome him because of how he is who he is. We have, after all, banned several more universalists here (including trinitarian ones) than non-universalists due to how they insist on behaving.
It’s quite typical of A37 that he wouldn’t understand this; or that by his own criteria we should have not welcomed A37 either, since he fundamentally disagrees with us on a major point of belief.
Which, not incidentally, is one key reason why A37 won’t be welcome here on the forum for a while. Let it be done to him as he would have be done to others.