Hello friends, I am new here and I apologize if this is an inappropriate place to post this announcement. Nonetheless, just wanted to share that I’m running a series on Salvation, Universalism, hell, etc. on my blog. I will post the content here under this thread as well.
The blog is here: videoaudiodisco.blogspot.ca/2012 … ction.html
Always love.
jmw
Jesus suggested (okay, commanded) that it would be better to remove the log of wood from one’s own eye before attempting to pinch out the speck of sawdust in the eye of another. This is good teaching, especially for Christians regarding the doctrine of salvation. For most of my life I have endured the fingers of many a Christian poking 'round my eye in order to pinch out the specks of dust in my theology of salvation… all the while wondering when their own lumber yard would receive any attention. That time has come. It is time to devote some attention to the spectrum of views on Christian salvation - which, I assure you, are all a bit speckled with sawdust.
To put matters simply, all the views of Christian salvation are ‘flawed’. There is no such thing as “the clear teaching of Scripture” on the matter. Scripture is ambiguous and conflicting. This is why we must employ our intellect, our tradition, and our experience of the Holy Spirit, as well as the Bible (these 4 sources of revelation are often know as the “Quadrilateral”). In a day and age where multitudes of people are dissatisfied with the traditional views of Christian salvation, it behooves us to reflect, reread, and perhaps reform (ecclesia semper reformanda).
Personally, I am becoming more and more ‘convinced’ by the theology of Universalism (I prefer the term ‘Full Salvation’). The posts in this series are drawn and adapted from articles that aim to expound the viability of Full Salvation: the notion that all of creation will be saved by God through Jesus the Christ and will live eternally with God. Nevertheless, this view is not without its own baggage, and I aim to present some of that as well.
Some of the topics ahead include:
Problems with Calvinism & Arminianism
Annihilationism
C.S. Lewis and The Great Divorce
Original Sin
The History of Hell
Jesus and Hell
Human Freedom
Christian Mission
Eastern Orthodox View of Salvation
Christian Universalists
This little blog series derives its name from Ravi Holy’s dissertation entitled “Damned Nonsense: An Argument for Universalism Consisting of a Critique of All the Alternatives to It” and will adapt much of that work.
Please enjoy the posts. Please respond. Please share and tweet. Please wrestle with the arguments. And please be respectful.
JM,
Since the topic is more specifically “soteriology”, I’m going to move the thread there, but I’ll leave a shadow link back here in Biblical theology.
Looking forward to it, J.
I’ve read Ravi Holy’s e-book, and really liked it.
OK, thanks Jason
Post #1: Talbott’s Triad… (Everyone here knows this already!)
videoaudiodisco.blogspot.ca/2012 … triad.html
Better material to come…
Problems with C.S. Lewis (i.e. the Great Divorce, etc.)
Does Original Sin (or Total Depravity) mean that all are going to hell by default?
NO!!
videoaudiodisco.blogspot.ca/2012 … about.html
Perhaps the visceral opposition to Universal Salvation is a product of humanity’s fundamental bent toward UN-GRACE…
videoaudiodisco.blogspot.ca/2012 … grace.html
-jmw
I WANTED TO POST THIS ONE IN FULL…
Damned Nonsense! Post #6: How about Universalism?
This post is part of the Damned Nonsense! series, a collection of posts exploring the Christian doctrine of salvation. It is named after a dissertation by Ravi Holy entitled “Damned Nonsense: An Argument for Universalism Consisting of a Critique of All the Alternatives to It.” While some of the series’ content is adapted from Holy’s work, not all opinions expressed in this series are Holy’s. Please check out all the posts in this series!
In today’s post I’d like to put forth the basic support for Universalism. Admittedly, this post may seem a bit underwhelming for some readers. I say this for a few reasons. First, I have already presented a lot of support for Universalism in the form of arguments against Calvinsism, Arminianism, Annihilationism, Lewisim, and Original Sin (see posts 1-5). Second, I will not deal with hell in today’s post. That will be in post #'s 7 and 8. Third, the reader may be looking for something that does not exist, that is, a flawless argument for Universalism. I have noticed that many skeptics of Universalism expect its proponents to offer some kind of clear-cut answer to ‘prove’ that it is undeniably true. This is unfortunate and I can tell you that you will not find ‘proof’ in this blog series. The point is not for universalism to “win the day,” but to lose its false caricature as heresy. Whether or not you discover enough material to consider Universalism as a hopeful alternative to the traditional views is up to you and God. At the end of the day, I simply wish to put forward some good thoughts on this topic and allow you the reader to explore. So let’s get to it.
I concluded yesterday’s post on 'Original Ungrace" with this:
If grace is grace, and if there is nothing we can do to make God love us more or less, than how is it that some end up in heaven and others in hell? It would seem that there are only two options. Option 1: Those who end up in hell are not wanted by God (Calvinism). Option 2: Those who end up in hell did not do their part to receive their “free grace” (Arminianism). Or maybe there is an option 3?
Option 3 is, of course, Universalism. More specifically, option 3 is the belief that nobody remains in hell forever because the God who desires all to be saved has given pure grace to all through Christ and will therefore save all. Thus, the major point that I want to put forward in today’s post is that Universalism hinges upon two biblical/orthodox claims about God: 1) God desires the salvation of all. 2) God is sovereign.
In the book Universal Salvation? The Current Debate, the Calvinist theologian Daniel Strange writes that “Talbott is indeed correct that if Christ died for everyone then everyone will be saved,” (p.160, original italics). Contrary to Calvinism and Arminianism, this is exactly what Universalism champions. Christ died for all and therefore all will be saved. Let us therefore begin by examining where Universalists find support for the claim that Christ died for all.
As with any theology rightly to be named Christian, they begin with the Gospels’ witness to the Incarnation of God in Jesus of Nazareth (Heb. 1:3). Firstly, let us ask if there is any indication that the God revealed by Jesus desires the salvation of all. In his life and ministry Jesus actively pursued those who were “lost” and “un-elect” (e.g. Matt. 9:9-13; Mark 5:24-34; Luke 6:27-29, John 4:7ff). One does not have to read very far into the Gospels to see that Jesus reveals a God who desires the inclusion of all and sundry. In a series of parables Jesus compares God to a shepherd who pursues a lost sheep until he finds it; to a woman who pursues a lost coin until she finds it; and to a father who breaks social norms, forgives beyond measure, and embraces his lost son because he has been found (Luke 15)! Jesus himself referred to his ministry as the year of radical debt-forgiveness (Luke 4:19) and his own death as the means to “draw all men” to himself (John 12:32). Because of this Universalists believe that Jesus unequivocally desires the salvation of all.
In addition to the four gospels, the New Testament conveys a God who desires all to be saved. The support for this is found explicitly in Acts 3:21, 1 Tim. 2:1-4, 4:10, 2 Peter 3:9; and implicitly in Rom. 11:32; 1 Cor. 15:28; 2 Cor. 5:13-19; Eph. 1:7-10; 1 John 2:2 and many others (you get the point). Universalists interpret the New Testament as communicating a strong witness to God’s desire to save all.
At this point Universalists are still in good company. Many people believe that God desires the salvation of all. What separates Universalists from others is that they actually believe that God will achieve the salvation of all. This belief is rooted in the second orthodox claim: God is sovereign. This claim needs little defense because it is the presupposition of most Christian theology: if God is God, then God achieves God’s purposes. (Process theology presents a slightly different view of God’s sovereignty, but that is another blog series entirely!)
However, in addition to the claim that God is sovereign and therefore achieves what God wills, Universalists find evidence in the New Testament that God actually achieved the salvation of all in the Christ Event (the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus). I’m trying not to proof text too much, but the following are among several passages that are used to support this view:
Romans 5:18 - Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.
Romans 11:32 - For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
2 Cor. 5:18-19 - All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
Col. 1:19-20 - For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
1 John 2:2 - He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
1 Tim. 2:6 - Christ Jesus “gave himself as a ransom for all men”
Heb. 2:9 - Jesus tasted “death for everyone”
In other words, Universalists answer the question “Did Christ die for all?” with a “Yes.” Not everyone agrees with this view. John Piper, for example, has written on the limited nature of Christ’s atonement in several places such as here. Nevertheless, Universalism proposes that the death and resurrection of Christ is the ontological event of God’s salvation of all. As I understand it, the Christ Event is the eschatological judgment and salvation of all of humankind. This is why the resurrection is the beginning of the New Creation, the eschatological beginning of the New Age. (This is how I personally understand the New Testament at this point in time)
Though not a Universalist himself, N.T. Wright seems to agree with Universalism that the Christ Event is efficacious for the whole world:
“There [in Romans 8], Paul outlines and celebrates the hope that one day the entire cosmos will have its own great exodus, its liberation from bondage to decay. The point is this: the covenant between God and Israel was always designed to be God’s means of saving the whole world. It was never supposed to be the means whereby God would have a private little group of people who would be saved while the rest of the world went to hell (whatever you might mean by that). Thus, when God is faithful to the covenant in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and in the work of the Spirit, it makes nonsense of the Pauline gospel to imagine that the be-all and end-all of this operation is so that God can have another, merely different private little group of people who are saved while the world is consigned to the cosmic wastepaper basket.” (from What Saint Paul Really Said, 163-164)
It seems that the church father St. Athanasius interpreted the Christ Event similarly: “For He alone, being Word of the Father and above all, was in consequence both able to recreate all, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father. …For this reason, therefore, He assumed a body capable of death, in order that it, through belonging to the Word Who is above all, might become in dying a sufficient exchange for all, and, itself remaining incorruptible through His indwelling, might thereafter put an end to corruption for all others as well, by the grace of the resurrection.” (from The Incarnation of the Word)
Theologian Jürgen Moltmann is, in fact, a Universalist and claims that “the realistic consequence of the theology of the cross can only be the restoration of all things.” According to Moltmann “Christ ‘suffered the true and total hell of God-forsakenness’ for all people on the cross. Therefore all people are already included in the new creation which began with the resurrection. Since Christ died for all when all were sinners, ‘all will be made righteous without any merit on their part’.” (Holy, 13. Moltmann quotes taken from The Coming of God)
It does not take a learned theologian to notice that Univeralism is totally centered around the unique and decisive events of Jesus the Christ. In this sense, Universalism is fundamentally Christian. It does not begin with the “feel good” belief that God will save all and then run back to the Bible to dig for support. On the contrary, Universalism is rooted in the New Testament texts that communicate that God not only desires the salvation of all, but also achieved this in the Christ Event.
I think this is a good place to stop for today. The major points that I wanted to communicate in today’s post are:
Universalism hinges upon two biblical / orthodox claims about God: 1) God desires the salvation of all. 2) God is sovereign.
At the heart of Universalism is the conditional proposal: if Christ died for all then all will be saved.
Universalism begins with the biblical witness, especially the Christ Event, and concludes that God not only desires the salvation of all but has ontologically / eschatologically won the salvation of all in the Christ Event
I want to conclude today’s post with some wisdom from the great 20th century theologian Karl Barth. In his colossal Church Dogmatics he reminded us that even if we cannot argue the certainty of Universalism, “We are surely commanded the more definitely to hope and pray for it!” (CD vol. 4:3:1, 478)
If you don’t hope and pray for it, why not?
-jmw
Been following the series. Great stuff, Josh.
Post #7: Jesus & Hell…
There is a fascinating passage in Jeremiah chapter 7 in which Jeremiah speaks on behalf of the God of Israel and says this:
“The people of Judah have done what I said was evil, says the Lord. They have set up their hateful idols in the place where I have chosen to be worshiped and have made it unclean. The people of Judah have built places of worship at Topheth in the Valley of Hinnom. There they burned their own sons and daughters as sacrifices, something I never commanded. It never even entered my mind.” (Jeremiah 7:30-31)
The Valley of Hinnom was a specific location outside of Jerusalem that evolved into what the New Testament authors called “Gehenna” in Greek and what our contemporary bibles call “hell.” (This is also the roots of Islam’s concept of hell called “Jahannam”) As one can see from the Jeremiah text, the Valley of Hinnom was a horrific scene where pagan idol worship led to human sacrifice. Isaiah also alluded to this scene when he wrote of a “burning place” (30:33) where “the fire is not quenched and the worm does not die,” (66:24). This real, historical scene provides the background to our contemporary notion of hell. The similarities are obvious: fire, suffering, death, etc. Over hundreds of years it evolved from a particular location associated with a particular cult into a concept associated with the fate of the wicked. This is the same location/concept (Gehenna) that Jesus spoke no less than 11 times according to the Gospels.
It is for this reason that I find the passage in Jeremiah 7:31 so fascinating. Maybe you didn’t catch it in your reading, but Jeremiah, who is speaking on behalf of God, describes this hellish scene of fire and human suffering as " something I never commanded. It never even entered my mind." Hold the phone. Is God saying that the mere thought of humans being consumed in fire is abhorrent? Jeremiah mentions the Valley of Hinnom a second time:
“And they built the high places of Ba’al, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.” (32:35)
I won’t belabor the point. These passages in Jeremiah are extremely interesting because they portray God as totally repulsed by the Valley of Hinnom. How, we may ask, can the God who abhors the Valley of Hinnom be the same God that sends people to a place of fire and torment? How can the God who abhors the Valley of Hinnom become incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth and speak of hell? The traditional view answers with the disturbing picture of God as both compassionate and wrathful, loving and “just,” abhorring death and also dealing eternal death.
Universalism, on the other hand, offers a consistent picture of the God who abhors the Valley of Hinnom, Gehenna, and all hells. Let us, therefore, take a closer look at what to do with the concept of hell as found in the Bible.
Hell Prior to the New Testament
The word “hell” never appears in the Old Testament. Aside from the Valley of Hinnom, the only thing we find is the concept of Sheol, an “underworld” or “place of the dead” that is neither positive nor negative; it is simply the place of all the dead. Old Testament Judaism really had no concept of hell. It was during the Exile (500’s BCE) that Judaism began to adopt myths of the afterlife from surrounding cultures. Brian McLaren writes, “The Jews have a lot of contact with these people of other cultures and religions during the Exile in Babylon and during the continuing occupation by the Persians, Greeks, and Romans, so it’s natural that there would be some amount of syncretism or mixture between the very this-worldly Judaism of the pre-Exilic period and these other-worldly, speculative elements, especially with the Persian religion of Zoroaster,” (The Last Word and the Word After That, 81).
Other-worldly speculations became popular during the Exile as Jews attempted to make theological sense of their experience. The Jews saw themselves as God’s chosen people. Their entire story was based upon the covenant that God had made with Israel. Therefore, when the exiles and foreign occupations occurred they were forced to speculate as to how their current oppression would be resolved. The answer that many adopted was that the faithful would be vindicated in the afterlife, while their oppressors would have ‘hell’ to pay in the afterlife. It was also during the Second Temple period that many Jewish freedom fighters revolted against foreign occupiers (e.g. the Maccabean Revolt). Belief in postmortem justice was an essential element to such revolutionary violence. For more on this see N.T. Wright’s The New Testament and the People of God (especially 216ff).
The major point here is that the concept of hell is nowhere to be found in the Old Testament. It is obviously something that developed sometime between the Exile and the New Testament. Indeed, David Powys writes, “Gehenna’ is nowhere found in the Hebrew Bible but may be found in the Pseudopigrapha, Palestinian Targums, and New Testament,” (Hell: A Hard Look at a Hard Question, 177). James A. Brooks confirms that it was “During intertestamental times [Gehenna (Greek), or the Valley of Hinnom (Hebrew)] became the garbage and sewage dump of Jerusalem and a symbol of the place of punishment (1 Enoch 27:3; 4 Ezra 7:36) because worms and fires were always consuming the refuse,” (Mark: The New American Commentary). If you want a detailed development of hell in the intertestamental period then see David Powys’ book.
Hell in the New Testament
The above chart reveals the various words translated as “hell” (thank you, Wikipedia). As you can plainly see, the Jewish concepts of Sheol and Valley of Hinnom (Ge Hinom) evolved, notably in step with Hellenistic thought. The classical Greek term “Hades” occurs 10 times and is used to convey both a general realm of the dead (Rev. 1:18, 20:13-14) and that of a negative fate (Matt. 11:23). Also Greek, the term “Tartaro” (from “Tartarus”) is used once in 2 Peter 2:4 to refer to God sending angels to a place of punishment. More than any others, however, the word “Gehenna” appears in the New Testament 11 times, namely on the lips of Jesus. Thus it is upon this word and Jesus himself that I wish to focus. Let the reader not forget what we have learned about the history of “Gehenna” above.
Jesus and Hell
Reformed pastor Timothy Keller denounces Universalism after saying, “Jesus talks more about hell and punishment than all the rest of the authors and speakers in the Bible put together.” Yes, Jesus talked about hell a lot. But mere quantity of usage is not an argument. Words have to be interpreted in their context to understand their meaning. I’m sure there are plenty of old books that use the word "gay"a lot. Should the quantity of that one word lead us to believe that the authors intended what we now mean by the word “gay?” Obviously not.
We must interpret Jesus’ speaking about hell and punishment in the context of his prophetic ministry in first-century Judea at a climactic moment in the story of Israel.
First of all, Jesus was a prophet. “Prophets in the Jewish tradition characteristically announced the judgment of the covenant god upon his rebellious people, and (sometimes) announced also the inauguration of a new movement, a time when Israel’s god would again act graciously for his people. Part of Jesus’ prophetic persona was that he did both.” (N.T Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 182-3). “Jesus’ message, so far from omitting or toning down the warning of judgment, seems from a wide variety of texts to have emphasized it continually. We might have guessed as much from the traditions which report on his public image: he was likened not only to John the Baptist but to Elijah and Jeremiah… Once we see Jesus in this light, a great many sayings come together and make sense.” (Wright, JVG, 326-7)
So how exactly ought we interpret Jesus’ warnings and talk about hell? Wright continues: “We may regard these warnings as threatening the end of the present nation of Israel, if they do not repent. In the sad, noble and utterly Jewish tradition of Elijah, Jeremiah and John the Baptist, Jesus announced the coming judgment of Israel’s covenant god on his people, a judgment consisting of a great national, social and cultural disaster, ultimately comprehensible only in theological terms.” (Wright, JVG, 184-5) Let us examine some examples.
In all three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) Jesus pronounces judgment upon various Galilean towns because they do not heed his message of the coming judgment and the kingdom of God. In Matt. 10:14-15 he says to his disciples:
‘If anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than that town.’
Wright explains, “Once again, this was not a prediction of a non-spatio-temporal ‘last judgment’. It was a straightforward warning of what would happen if this or that Galilean village refused his way of peace which Jesus had come to bring. This was amplified in the words of woe uttered over Chorazin, Bethsaida, and even Jesus’ own adopted home town of Capernaum. Judgment would fall upon them which would make the judgment of Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom seem mild by comparison. The horrifying thing was that Jesus was using, as models for the coming judgment on villages within Israel, images of judgment taken straight from the Old Testament…” (JVG, 329)
“The catalogue of judgment upon the scribes and Pharisees, as it appears in the material common to Matthew and Luke, concludes with a further warning that is specific to ‘this generation’:
‘Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to Gehenna? Therefore, I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all this will come upon this generation.’ (Matt. 23:32-36)
Faced with this prospect, it would be better to abandon that which was most cherished rather than go straight ahead into the conflagration:
‘If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go to Gehenna, to unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. For every one will be salted with fire.’ (Mark 9:43-49)
The judgment was coming upon ‘this generation’, now caught in the act of rejecting the final messenger who had been sent to call it back to obedience.” (Wright, JVG, 330)
“Luke 13 opens with a double solemn warning. Unless Israel repents of her headlong rush into destruction, she will suffer the same fate as those whom Pilate killed, or who were crushed by the tower of Siloam: in other words, Roman swords and falling masonry will be their fate if they persist in going the way of idolatrous nationalism (13:1-5).” (JVG, 331) As one begins to understand the socio-historical context of Jesus’ ministry, as well as the story of Israel, it becomes increasingly clear that his teaching about Gehenna is nothing less than a prophetic warning of present tense, this-worldly destruction.
One classic passage that is often cited as proof of Jesus’ teaching the traditional view of hell is the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31. Again Wright is helpful:
"The parable is not, as often supposed, a description of the afterlife, warning people to be sure of their ultimate destination. If that were its point, it would not be a parable: a story about someone getting lost in London would not be a parable if addressed to people attempting to find their way through that city without a map. We have perhaps been misled, not for the first time, by the too-ready assumption, in the teeth of evidence, that Jesus ‘must really’ have been primarily concerned to teach people ‘how to get to heaven after death’. The reality is uncomfortably different.
The welcome of Lazarus by Abraham evokes the welcome of the prodigal by the father [Luke 15:11-33], and with much the same point. The heavenly reality, in which the poor and outcast would be welcomed into Abraham’s bosom (as everyone would know from [a well known] folk-tale), was coming true in flesh and blood as Jesus welcomed the outcasts, just as the father’s welcome to the returning son was a story about what Jesus was actually doing then and there. … The point of this, when the story is seen as a traditional tale with a new ending, was not so much what would happen to both in the end… but rather what was happening to both rich and poor in the present time. (255)
Another popular passage in which Jesus speaks of hell is Luke 12:4-7:
‘I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has the power to cast into Gehenna; yes, I tell you, fear him! Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.’
“Some have seen ‘the one who can cast into Gehenna’ as YHWH [God]; but this is unrealistic. Jesus did not, to be sure, perceive Israel’s god as a kindly liberal grandfather who would never hurt a fly, let a lone send anyone to Gehenna. But again and again - not least in the very next verse of this paragraph - Israel’s god is portrayed as the creator and sustainer, one who can be lovingly trusted in all circumstance, not the one who waits with a large stick to beat anyone who steps out of line. Rather, here we have a redefinition of the battle in terms of the identification of the real enemy. The one who can kill the body is the imagined enemy, Rome. Who then is the real enemy? Surely not Israel’s own god. The real enemy is the accuser, the satan.” (Wright, JVG, 454-5)
What we see over and over again in Jesus’ career as an itinerant prophet is that he announced imminent judgment upon Israel if they did not turn from their self-righteous, violent, nationalistic ways and follow Jesus’ way of peace: “Those who take the sword will perish by the sword,” (Matt. 26:52). This is evidenced again in the Olivet Discourse as Jesus predicts the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple.
At the end of Jesus’ life we find a final, cogent warning as Jesus warns the women who weep for him that they should instead weep for themselves. “There will come a time when they will utter a terrible ‘beatitude’: Blessed are the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never gave suck!’ The great blessing of children will be turned into shame; for if they (the Romans) do this when the wood is green, when the condemned one is innocent of violent revolt, what will happen when the wood is dry, when the children at present playing in the streets grow up into a revolutionary force that will pit itself directly against Rome? Jesus, knowing that Israel has now finally rejected the one road of peace, knows also that within the next generation she will find herself embroiled in a war that she cannot but lose, and lose horribly.” (Wright, JVG, 332)
And lose horribly she did. About 30 years later, in the same generation, the Jews revolted against the Romans in 66 C.E., which led to the ultimate destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. “The entire city was plundered and burned in A.D. 70 and it must have seemed that not one stone remained upon another (see Luke 19:43-44). Christians in the city are reported to have escaped to Pella. Tens of thousands of Jews perished and were thrown outside the wall into the Valley of Hinnom.” (The Biblical World: A Dictionary of Biblical Archeology, ed. Charles F. Pfeiffer, 323)
Let that sink in.
Though I have not examined each of the 11 occurrences of “Gehenna” on Jesus’ lips, the above study clearly demonstrates that Jesus’ talk about hell was not about the afterlife but rather about a present tense, this-worldly devastation. Jesus was warning that if Israel did not repent and “enter the kingdom of God,” that is, Jesus’ way of living, then there would come a time when the whole city of Jerusalem would be indistinguishable from the smoldering trash dump outside the city. Every single occurrence of “Gehenna” in the Synoptic Gospels should be interpreted in this manner. To read our contemporary [Greek mythological] understanding of hell back into Jesus’ words is to miss his point entirely and prolong the harm caused by this absurd [mis]interpretation that is behind the traditional view of hell.
In Jesus of Nazareth we find the incarnation of the God who abhors the Valley of Hinnom. In Jesus we find the prophet of God who warns us to turn from our wicked ways so that we might not turn our world into Gehenna. In the final analysis, Gehenna is no mere metaphor for a place in the afterlife, it is a literal, present tense place of evil where humankind has turned from the will of God.
I cannot think of anything more EVIL than to twist the meaning of hell as Jesus used it into an other-worldly concept or metaphor that turns our eyes from the current hells in this world happening all around us. This is the ultimate evil of the traditional view of hell. And it is this distorted understanding of hell that prevents us from seeing the Gehennas of our world.
With the God who abhors Gehenna, may we weep for ourselves and the hell we have caused for refusing the Way of Jesus and His Kingdom.
Amen to that, Josh.
WHAT ABOUT POSTMORTEM HELL??? WHAT ABOUT ULTIMATE JUSTICE???
In this post I argue what many have said in forums here: hell is a transitional state to prepare all of us - including me! - for life in the Trinitarian Love of God.
videoaudiodisco.blogspot.ca/2012 … -with.html
Freedom. This is the issue that causes me the most amount of confusion and doubt when it comes to Universalism. Not only is freedom essential to love, but also Jesus did not force anyone to follow him, he only invited them. If God is love, then God must respect human freedom. Will everyone ultimately choose God? Will God save people against their will? Or, does salvation ultimately rest in the free choice of the individual? How can Universalism claim that all will be saved when it is clear that not everyone chooses God in this life?
**In today’s post I would like to address the topic of freedom with the following thesis: “Necessity may not be the opposite of freedom.” (C.S. Lewis) This is a bit of a long post, so grab a cup of coffee and sit back for a slow read.
**
Most Christians today believe that salvation comes down to our choice. This is evidenced in the dominance of Arminianism in contemporary Protestant theology. The Anglican theologian Alister McGrath affirms this perspective in his book Justification by Faith:
“The decision to accept or reject God remains our decision, a decision for which we and we alone are responsible. God gives us every assistance possible to make the decision he wants us to make, but he cannot make that decision for us. God enables us to accept his offer of forgiveness and renewal by removing or disarming every obstacle in its path – obstacles such as spiritual blindness, arrogance, confusion, a compromised freedom of the will, and so forth. But, in the end, God cannot and does not make that decision for us. To affirm human dignity is to affirm our ability to say “No!” to God – an affirmation the New Testament and the Christian tradition have no hesitation in making. Universalism perverts the gospel of the love of God into an obscene scene of theological rape quite unworthy of the God whom we encounter in the face of Jesus Christ.” (106)
These are strong words and they ring true for a great many Christians today. When we read the gospels it seems that salvation in the kingdom of God is inherently participatory. Jesus did not force people to follow him, he only invited them. It seems logical then that salvation requires the individual to make a conscious decision to follow Christ, accept God’s love, etc. The fundamental claim that McGrath argues is that God cannot do something for us, that is, in place of us.
I must admit that I have been sympathetic to this argument for most of my life. It seems clear that human beings play an essential role in their salvation. Conventional wisdom claims that God offers salvation to humankind as a free gift to accept or reject, all we must do is accept it. Ultimately, salvation comes down to our choice. God cannot do anything for us.
At this point a question is raised: Isn’t this exactly what God did, in fact, do? Didn’t Jesus die for us - in our place - in order to reconcile all creation to God? If humankind was “like sheep without a shepherd,” if Christ died for us “while we were still sinners,” if we were “made alive when we weredead,” then what Jesus did for us was done precisely because we were unable to do anything to save ourselves.
The Arminian view, which emphasizes human freedom, typically argues that God’s work in Christ ‘makes it possible’ for human beings to be saved, but the final step is ultimately up to the individual. In other words, Christ made all people ‘savable’ but respects our freedom to choose or reject that salvation. This is the predominate view of Christian salvation today, but it may, in fact, be problematic. Let’s explore.
Holy writes, “It seems to me that, in spite of his attempts to be faithful to the Reformed understanding of the pure-gift-nature of salvation and faith, [McGrath] is still giving the casting vote to the human will. He might be saying that salvation is 99.999% God’s work with only 0.001% required from us, but… if anything is required from us in order to be saved, if it is possible to be damned because ofour failure to do something, then salvation is, ultimately by works.” (Holy, 36, italics original)
And elsewhere: “Arminian theology seems to make nonsense of Paul’s statements about the impossibilty of boasting in Ephesians 2:8-9 and Romans 3:7. If it is our choice that either ‘qualifies’(!) us for salvation or condemns us to damnation, as Arminianism suggests, then the correct answer to the question, ‘Why is John Doe saved?’ is not ’because Jesus died for his sins’. According to Arminianism, Jesus died for everybody’s sins. What has made the difference, in the final analysis, is John Doe’s own decision. …To say ‘Yes, you have to do something to be saved but you are not saved by anything you do’ is simply nonsensical.” (Holy, 8, italics original)
Holy uncovers the flaw of Arminianism and its hidden idol: human sovereignty. Jürgen Moltmann suggests that the popularity of Arminianism “fits the modern age, in which human beings believe that they are the measure of all things, and the centre of the world and that therefore everything depends on their decision.” On the contrary, he argues, “all will be made righteous without any merit on their part,” (Moltmann in Holy, 13).
Does this mean that human beings do not have the genuine freedom to refuse God’s love? Does this mean that human beings will be saved against their free will? The answer to both of these questions is “no.” Universalism affirms the genuine freedom of all human beings: ”Unswerving insistence on the inviolability of freedom must be maintained from beginning to end if all that follows is not to fall away into self-contradiction and futility,” (John Robinson in Holy, 37). Yet Universalism also contends that all persons will ultimately choose God because the love of God is irresistible.
At this point many protest that the irresistibility of God’s love denies human freedom. This is precisely the argument of McGrath above: if we are unable to say “No” then we have lost our freedom and the love of God is perverted. Universalism proposes that this debate all depends on how we understand the nature of human freedom. We in the modern West like to believe that freedom is defined by the ability to choose. Put simply, freedom is the fact of having options. Notice, however, that this interpretation of freedom has nothing to do with truth, only choice. This definition allows for the illusion of freedom when, in fact, one is not free. (Is this not the status of “freedom” in America today?)
Accordingly, we Westerners believe that we possess this kind of pure libertarian freedom, a freedom that allows each individual to do whatever s/he pleases. “The individual is sovereign” says modernity. But this is an illusion. In reality, none of us choose to come into existence and the existence into which we are born is finite, restricted, and governed by a design outside our own making. Furthermore, if we are born into sin (as most Christians believe) then we are not, in fact, free but rather enslaved, unable to say “Yes” to God. This does not sound like libertarian freedom at all. Ultimately, it is only God who possesses pure libertarian freedom, only God is sovereign.
Genuine human freedom, from a Christian perspective, is the freedom to be who we are in Christ. According to this view, individuals are only free when they have come to know the truth. Only then are they free to become yoked with Christ in the true reality of God’s Trinitarian love. Richard Bauckham explains:
“The way to respect the difference between the unrestricted, sovereign(!) freedom of God and the limited, creaturely freedom that is properly human is to realize that humans become truly free, in an appropriately human way, not by copying God but in relationship to God. …[G]enuine freedom – as opposed to the freedom imagined in hyperindividualism – is not self-constituting and independent of anything outside itself but is constituted and formed in human relationships and in concrete situations. …[H]uman freedom is relational and is situated within the narrative of God’s Trinitarian love for the world. It is not an inherent property but an experience of growing into freedom in relationship to God. It is not a matter of mere emancipation from external constraints, like the degenerate freedom of the contemporary West, but a process of formation of the self in relationship. And while this freedom is limited, its limitation is not experienced as an evil one but as the creaturely condition for relationship with the infinite God.” (God and the Crisis of Freedom, 204-205)
The irony of Arminianism is that it emphasizes precisely the kind of freedom that human beings cannotpossess, i.e. sovereign, libertarian freedom. In doing this, it builds its soteriology on a delusional foundation (and hubris!). Contrary to this, Bauckham insists that human beings are free only when they have come into right relationship with God. Anything less than this is not freedom at all, but enslavement to a delusion. Freedom has less to do with the capacity to choose and more to do with what is true. It is this understanding of freedom that informs Universalism.
In fact, isn’t this the kind of freedom we find in the letters of Paul? When it comes to freedom, Paul is not a modern American presupposing that everyone is already free and has the freedom to choose. No, Paul insists that everyone is in bondage until they are free in Christ (see Gal. 4:8-9). Not only are we not free, but our liberation is an act that God does, not us (Gal. 4:9). In Galatians 5:1 we find Paul’s profound words: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.”
To further understand this view of human freedom, let’s take as an example the conversion of C.S. Lewis as found in his autobiographical Surprised by Joy:
“The odd thing was that before God closed in on me, I was in fact offered what now appears a moment of wholly free choice. In a sense. I was going up Headington Hill on the top of a bus. Without words and (I think) almost without images, a fact about myself somehow presented to me. I became aware that I was holding something at bay, or shutting something out. Or, if you like, that I was wearing some stiff clothing, like corsets, or even a suit of armour, as if I were a lobster. I felt myself being, there and then, given a free choice. I could open the door or keep it shut; I could unbuckle the armour or keep it on. Neither choice was presented as a duty; no threat or promise was attached to either, though I knew that to open the door or to take off the corset meant the incalculable. The choice appeared to be momentous but it was also strangely unemotional. I was moved by no desire or fears. In a sense I was not moved by anything. I chose to open, unbuckle, to loosen the rein. I say, ‘I chose’, yet it did not really seem possible to do the opposite. On the other hand, I was aware of no motives. You could argue that I was not a free agent, but I am more inclined to think that this came nearer to being a perfectly free act than most that I have ever done. Necessity may not be the opposite of freedom, and perhaps a man is most free when, instead of producing motives, he could only say, ‘I am what I do.’"
Here Lewis describes his “free choice” as something rather paradoxical. While his choice was certainly conscious (“I became aware”), it was also instinctive and natural (“I was aware of no motives. You could argue that I was not a free agent”). In the final analysis, Lewis discovered something that he could not resist, something so necessary that “it did not really seem possible to do the opposite.” Yet he still describes his choice as “nearer to being a perfectly free act” than most he had ever done. Søren Kierkegaard captures this paradox when he wrote the following:
“Christianity teaches that you should choose the one thing needful, but in such a way that there must be no question of any choice. … Consequently, the very fact that there is no choice expresses the tremendous passion or intensity with which one chooses. Can there be a more accurate expression for the fact that freedom of choice is only a formal condition of freedom and that emphasizing freedom of choice as such means the sure loss of freedom? The very truth of freedom of choice is that there must be no choice, even though there is a choice.” (Provocations, 289)
Lewis’ account is not unique. Stories of Christian conversion often reveal the paradox of making what seems to be an irresistible choice (e.g. the conversion of former atheist and French Communist, André Frossard). What Lewis and many others describe in their conversion is the kind of human freedom that allows for Universalism to affirm both the free will of every person and the universal salvation of all. As Walter Wangerin Jr. once wrote, “True obedience was ever an act of freedom!”
In the final analysis, salvation is inherently participatory. It requires a kind of synergism between the grace of God and human freedom. But Universalism proposes that this free choice (or “cooperation” or “participation”) is ultimately irresistible. As it was for the Paul the Pharisee when confronted by Jesus on the road to Damascus, so too shall it be when human beings are confronted with the profound truth of God in Jesus Christ. Put another way, in the end “every knee shall bow.” (Rom. 14:11)
BAGGAGE…
As I have mentioned from the start, every view of salvation has its baggage, including Universalism. When it comes to today’s topic I think Universalism has lots of baggage. Here are a few ideas that deserve to be explored further.
Universal salvation obviously depends on postmortem conversion. This is not a huge problem per se, but many will argue that it is not supported in Scripture. In fact, the Bible seems rather ambiguous about it. More problematic are the details of this postmortem conversion, which leads me to #2.
Universalism, especially as I have argued in this post, seems to rely on the hope of a vague postmortem encounter with God or the “Truth.” Universalists rarely describe this encounter (because it is naturally impossible), but rather assume that whatever it entails, people will find it beautiful and irresistible. Is this postmortem encounter with someone/something other than Jesus? Or a different Jesus than the one we find in the gospels?
The issue for me is that God has been revealed in Jesus of Nazareth and it is this crucified/risen Jesus who is Lord. If we want to see God, we look at Jesus (John 8:12-47, etc.). My question for Universalists who hope in postmortem conversion is, ‘Who will be encountered in the End?’ It cannot simply be a vague “Love” but rather the One Who is Love and bears the scars of God’s Love. Will those who reject Jesus now find him irresistible later? This is a good issue to explore, especially since Jesuswas rejected by many in real life. This leads to #3.
Universalism assumes that in the End God will be irresistible. So the question is: Who/What are people rejecting today? This is perhaps more of a haunting question for the Church since She has done so much damage in promoting a God that looks nothing like Jesus. (see chapter 10 in Shane Claiborne’s The Irresistible Revolution for a good place to explore this issue) Nevertheless, the question remains and is deeply tied to #2.
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Alright, that is quite enough for today. Let’s summarize to conclude this post.
It seems that for God to respect human freedom then we must possess that capacity to say “No.”
Arminianism endorses this modern, libertarian view of freedom. Freedom is defined by the capacity to choose.
Universalism endorses a view of freedom quite different from the modern, libertarian view. Freedom is to be who we are in Christ. We are only free when we are in right relationship with God.
Because of this view of freedom, Universalists propose that God will ultimately be irresistible because God offers true freedom.
In the final analysis, “Necessity may not be the opposite of freedom.”
Problems:
All of this depends on postmortem conversion, which is a speculation at best.
Postmortem conversion seems to rely on a vague picture of people encountering an “irresistible God.” But, God is revealed in the Crucified Messiah. The King of the Cosmos is the non-violent one whose power is perfect in weakness. Will this be “irresistible” to all people?
Not everyone finds Christ irresistible now, so why assume that all people will later?
May the Church, who is the Body of Christ, actually embody the Jesus who is irresistible. Amen.
Once again; Great post Josh.