CORRECTION:
I am new to my Tablet, so I made a mistake in my last post. I have specializd in addiction AND sexual education. There is in such a thing as Android sexual education… yet… Maybe in the year 2999, if everythin becomes computerized, it may.
In a more serious tone, if you turn to p. 171 of Roy K’s SA White Book, you will find a very long quote from George Macdonald.
[ADMIN NOTE: someone with a different account calling him or herself “write-ups” has [url=http://www.evangelicaluniversalist.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3221&p=46867#p46810]posted a comment from the same IP address as this member.]
[CGUNHOUSE NOTE: You can have thousands of PC behind a proxy server, they all appear to be the same IP to the outside world. That is the point of a proxy server, one point of contact on the internet, one point you have to defend against hacker attack. I am not “write-ups” so this is just a very poor attempt to discredit the me and “write-ups”.]
Chad Holtz’s repentance is sincere; when I read about his repentance I felt the joy of the Lord! I would say that I now understand the following verse:
I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. (Luk 15:7)
.andrew.:
Chad’s statement:
I repent of my past denial of hell or that a person could ever be eternally seperated from a holy God. I know now that I had no fear of God. Therefore, I had no knowledge of God (Prov. 1:7). I was a fool with an MDiv.
I understand Chad when he made this statement. The fear of the Lord drives people to His Word, because they know the power of life and death lie in the words of the Bible. Without this fear, those same words become no more than ink spots on a page and their wisdom and instruction become lost in the world and in the flesh. So in reference to your (.andrew.) original statement “that anyone holding a non eternal hell position would be a fool with no fear or knowledge of God,” has less to do about Chad’s position on hell as it does with his past self confessed lack of fear in God.
Amy:
I see a man seeking restoration and not selfish gain; I do not see a man looking for the things you mention. I see a man seeking to restore relationship with his family, his friends, his church and especially his God.
Alex Smith:
I think that you are referring to Chad’s Statement, “Love doesn’t win. God wins,” if I am wrong forgive me. I do not think that Chad was implying not to be loving, but I think it was a reference to Rob Bell’s book, “Love Wins”. For myself, I would like to add there is more to God than just love. Let’s look at John 3:16:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (love)
“that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (truth)
Some Christians believe that you can love people into heaven, but really it is not love that sets one free, but the truth.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (Joh 8:32)
As for the “Universalists fools,” those are your words not Chad’s. Chad’s reference to being a fool was in reference to his past lack of fear of God.
Johnnyparker:
I suggest that you read 2 Corinthians 2.
sass:
Could you please explain “I do hope what this guy has is real, but…Fear is not of God…It really cannot change a heart," in context of Proverbs 1:7 (used by Chad)?
Andy:
Read my comment to Alex Smith.
.andrew. and sass:
When God looks at a Christian, He see the Blood of Christ, He doesn’t see the sinner. So if we feel separated from God in any way or worried about our status with God, it is because we have drawn away from Him and not Him from us. I suggest that you read “A Normal Christian Life” by Watchman Nee; this book helped me in terms of the Blood of Christ and the relationship of the Blood to God, man and satan.
Maybe it is sincere, but it’s human nature to overreact and throw the baby out with the bathwater. God knows I’ve done this type of thing myself more than once.
Chad is still connecting his lack of fear of God with an unbiblical notion of an endless hell, a connection that exists in his mind only.
In other words, one does not have to believe in an endless hell to fear God.
[ADMIN NOTE: someone with a different account calling him or herself “cgunhouse” has posted other comments in this thread from the same IP address as this member.]
True Repentance
The fullness of the revelation of the love of God for us only comes with the knowledge and revelation of what we have been saved from. It is not just the heavy weight of our own sin, but the consequences of it - the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life (Romans 6:23). If we have not yet experienced the depth of our own sin and the price that was paid for our redemption, then has true repentance occurred in our life? David fell on his face when he realized what he had done - “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight” (Psalms 51:4). Job (a righteous man) fell on his face when he recognized how errant he’d been about his knowledge of God. Paul gloried in the cross because this is where he recognized his own depravity, and his complete inability to save himself.
True repentance gives us a crystal clear vision of our own depravity and God’s great mercy. No one deserves this kind of mercy. Presumptuous, to say the least, to think we can write our own rules as go along and that God will change to suit us. The fact of who He is is enough to drive a healthy fear into us, and a reverence to submit ourselves wholly to Him. We do not decide what is just and what is not. God is HOLY AWESOME JUST MERCIFUL, etc. etc. He is all that His Word says He is, not what we think He should be.
I believe that Chad has had this revelation of sin/consequence that comes with true repentance, hence the title of his blog, “Unchained.”
WU,
That could still very well be true (and I hope it is) without Chad having to throw Christian universalism under the bus wholesale.
After all, we don’t get to say what God is not either, such as not merciful, not interested in saving some persons from sin, or not persistent at saving some persons from sin.
Or rather, everyone gets to discover God and so to say, to the best of their ability to learn and understand, what God is and isn’t and what God does and doesn’t do. 
Non-universalists aren’t the only ones who have the privilege. The salient question is whether one or another kind of non-universalism is factually correct, or whether one or another kind of universalism is.
(If one or another kind of non-universalism is factually correct, then in fact we do get to say what God is and is not and what God does and does not do. Otherwise we aren’t evangelizing correctly. If one or another kind of universalism is factually correct, then in fact we get to say what God is and is not and what God does and does not do–but with at least slightly different details. Otherwise we aren’t evangelizing correctly. “Orthodoxy” is about rightly representing God. That’s what “ortho-doxy” means: right representation, including in properly praising God, worshiping in truth.)
Chad went with a very morally loose kind of Christian universalism that wasn’t primarily (or maybe even at all) interested in sinners being saved from their sins, but rather in sinners being saved from punishment. He wanted to keep on doing what he was doing without a threat of being punished for it sooner or later if he persisted at it. He got burned for doing so, and yay for that (so far as it goes). It would have been better for him to stick with some kind of non-universalism, even if some kind of Christian universalism is true, and take his sin damned seriously enough to cooperate with God in stopping it now.
If being scared of hopeless punishment is the only way he can bring himself to man up and do what is right, then let him be scared of it! Better that he should imply all Christian universalists are fools (wrong though he is), than that he should do injustice to his wife. 
But better still for him to come to believe God persists in acting to save all sinners from sin until God gets that fully accomplished for everyone, if that’s true, and to cooperate with God in that–first and foremost in regard to himself and his own sins now.
(Obviously if that isn’t true, then better for him to not come to believe it, or to come to disbelieve it asap, although God might still make some good use of his belief in it to lead him and others to be more righteous until then. I don’t want to presume to limit what God can accomplish even through human error–except insofar that, logically, the One Who is Truth won’t leave people in error but leads them to truth. God cannot finally accomplish that while the person remains in error of course, so that’s a clear limitation of what God can accomplish even through human error.)
Anyway, back when my brother first brought Chad to my attention last year (shortly after Rob Bell’s book was released), I opined to him at the time that he sounded like someone whom his church ought to have swiftly fired anyway. I’m sad to hear I was even more right about that than I realized, but not particularly surprised: in my experience the people who rhapsodize about being free from fear of punishment, while not talking about repentance and being freed from their sins, while also dissing people as oppressive and evil for warning about punishment for sin, tend to have sins that they want to keep doing that they don’t want to be punished for. Not everyone who does that fits the whole profile (although I don’t think they should do that in any case), but I sure wouldn’t bet ahead of verification against an example not fitting the rest of the profile.
In short: if Chad is scared of punishment now, great, he should be!–more righteousness to him, and more justice for his wife and friends and family (I hope, although fear of punishment doesn’t always lead to that either). If he needs a fear of hopeless punishment to scare him into doing the right thing, let it be so. The technical truth of the issues at stake remains unaffected, regardless of what he himself needs to convince him to work with God in doing right by other people. (Certainly people can fear God and do righteousness without fearing hopeless punishment. Although apparently not Chad. Yet.)
Having been pretty harsh there, I will add that we should be careful not to speculate or comment about Chad’s heart or motives, beyond what can be contextually inferred from what he himself wrote about his heart and motives previously in his extensive post at the new blog site.
Worth comparing, though: his two articles from last year after Rob’s book was released (or was pre-released to be more precise), which picked up some discussion here at the forum (though not from me). I thought I was very nice briefly wishing him luck trying to get a new church position here in Tennessee, even though I worried privately offsite at the time that he had gone too far in giving up a fear of God, and would eventually drag Christian universalism through the mud as a result.
Sadly, the problem was very much worse than that: a wife’s broken heart is unspeakably worse than aspersion cast on a movement based on maximal hope of salvation from sin in Christ. I would rather Chad lump us all together with his own professed attitudes about how he was a Christian universalist (according to what he himself said his attitudes were in his repentance-post reported at the top of the thread) when he goes back to believing in hopeless punishment, if that helps him be loyal and righteous and truly loving to his wife.
But he never got those attitudes toward God that he now (quite properly) derides having held when he was a Christian universalist, from any Christian universalist who fears God.
And there are plenty of Christian universalists who fear the Holy God Who has revealed Himself to us in His Word.
Whether any kind of Christian universalism is true or not is one thing. But Christian universalism wasn’t his problem; he brought his problems into it.
It isn’t the fault of Christian universalism (except of a very morally irresponsible kind) that he lost the fear of God that leads people to repent of their sins when they won’t listen to peaceful correction from God. And it was definitely not the fault of Christian universalism that he continued to love his sin more than he loved Jesus. If he used CU as a way to continue loving his sin rather than to cooperate in righteousness with God, he sure as hell didn’t get that from any purgatorial Christian universalist. (And not from most of the ultra-universalists who also frequent this forum either.)
That having been said, I hope and trust his repentance was and is sincere–I have less than no reason to believe otherwise at this time; and I have no reason to believe that he’s only saying what he thinks his church and family want him to say (but secretly still believes some kind of Christian universalism to be true) in order to get back into their good graces.
God grant him and all of us a loving fear, whenever we will not cooperate with Love Himself without fear!
And God grant him and all of us a day to come when, our love perfected, we can cast aside fear of {kolasis}.
But let nothing less than perfect Love having remade us new in perfect love, so that at last we perfectly love, cast out our fear until then!
[ADMIN NOTE: someone with a different account calling him or herself “write-ups” has [url=http://www.evangelicaluniversalist.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3221&p=46867#p46810]posted a comment from the same IP address as this member.]
[CGUNHOUSE NOTE: You can have thousands of PC behind a proxy server, they all appear to be the same IP to the outside world. That is the point of a proxy server, one point of contact on the internet, one point you have to defend against hacker attack. I am not “write-ups” so this is just a very poor attempt to discredit the me and “write-ups”.]
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Proverbs 1:7)
And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, (Rev 4:8-9)
I think that Chad Holtz hit the nail on the head on this one; it is the lack of the fear of the Lord that is the problem. The word reverence can some time be used instead of fear, and I am going to use reverence instead of fear because may Christians, Universalists and non-Universalists, don’t reverence God let alone fear him. Word like awesome and awful were some of the strongest words in the English language and they were usually used to describe God. Awesome is now use describe thing only a little better than average and awful mean terrible or bad instead of commanding awe. There are no longer words in the English language that do God justice. I once hear a minister preach on Revelation 4:8 and 9, he said that the beast around throne say “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come” from the time of their creation and for the rest of eternity! Some may think that sound boring but the minister continued by saying, the reason the beast do this is because they are responding to a new revelation of who God is and they do this for the rest of eternity! Now that is what awesome is!
And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. (Mat 19:17)
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (Joh 3:16)
The Lord is good and loving, a Christian can not argue with that and if they do Paul has an answer for those who do.
Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? (Rom 9:20)
Yet in many books dealing with universalism, the author questions the goodness and love of God by asking questions that start with “How could a good and loving God”! By doing this they place God in a place of having to defend Himself. The author then goes through some playing with words or use verses out of context. An example of a verse used out of context is John 3:16, author will quote the first part of the verse and leave out the “that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The author then throws out hell and eternal torment and come to God rescue. When you bring God down to our level you lose a reverence and fear for God, even to the point where one can make statements like “we do get to say what God is and is not and what God does and does not do” and say it twice for emphasis.
Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. (Rev 2:4)
For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house. For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God. (Heb 3:3-4)
It is about being in the presence of God or being eternally separated from God and not going to heaven or hell. Getting oneself and others into heaven and not into hell or disposing of hell is more important that being in the presence of God, they have lost there first love.
They worship the creation and not the Creator. We are to worship in spirit and truth, not worship in heaven and from our heavenly mansions.
If you ask someone, “would you like to go to heaven or hell”, how many will say hell? My guess the answer would say none, everyone want a mansion and streets of gold. If you asked the same person “would you like to worship and praise God for the rest of eternity”, what would there answer be?
And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (Joh 3:19)
Is it an attribute of a loving person, to force another person to love them when they love another, or is letting them go to be with the one they love the right and loving thing to do? When those that love darkness more stand before God at the Judgment, they will know what they lost, and the Bible does not say they will change there mind and love God more than darkness. Knowing what they lost in God will be a much greater pain and torment than any lake of fire or hell. They will live with their sin and darkness for eternity, a love that can never satisfy. Remember the earlier definition of an awesome God that is what they lost! For those that know the Gospel but know not the Lord, greater is their condemnation for they know that they had the brass ring in sight and turned away.
Many Christian, Universalist and non-Universalist, don’t reverence God because the claim love and grace as their shield and continue to sin. Yes, God will forgive, but Christian should run from sin not because of the law but because of love and reverence for the God.
So when Chad Holtz said “I know now that I had no fear of God”, it hit home for me and the issue I had with Universalism. I don’t think that Chad just hit the nail on the head I think that he hit the nail right through the board.
I think Jason’s point is well-considered. The reason Chad had no fear of God seems to be his style of universalism. Honestly, becoming an EU did not decrease my fear of God. Why? As a believer in grace, I didn’t expect to be prosecuted for my sins. It’s not that I WANTED to sin – I did NOT want to sin, in fact. But it was difficult for me to break free of certain things. I knew in a vague way that it would go badly for me if I didn’t, but logically I couldn’t see how – since Jesus had already payed the price for my sins, and since I WAS genuinely repentant every time I sinned.
However, coming to EU, I realized that even though God saved me from my sins, He also wanted me free of sinfulness. That if others would receive correction for their good – to free them from sinfulness – then there was no reason to suppose that professing Christians wouldn’t receive the same sort of correction. After all, if our Father chastises us, He deals with us as with sons (and daughters, too, of course!)
Now THAT was motivation. THAT helped to pry me loose from those niggling sins that I couldn’t seem to bring myself to quit. I was actually going to have to answer for those? Hmmmm not what I want. Better to leave them behind now. This understanding somehow seemed to free me and give me the strength to let them go, when I wasn’t able to before.
Becoming an EU has made me take sin MUCH more seriously than I did before, knowing that Father does love me so very much that He will not allow those imperfections to remain in me – and that it definitely will hurt me and shame me and grieve me if I fail to let them go in this life. Not for me, any more than I can help. No, I don’t want that. I’m determined to follow Jesus as closely as I possibly can through the able tutelage and power of the Spirit.
Not only that, but there is the prize spoken of by Paul. Now Paul’s desire to run for the prize makes sense. Before it didn’t compute. Run or the prize? Didn’t Paul know about grace? Didn’t he know there was NOTHING he could do to make Father love him more? Well, yes – of course Paul knew that, and those things are true. But there IS a prize, and that is the high calling of God in Christ Jesus – the ministry of reconciliation – the great honor of serving our still-separated brothers and sisters in this and the coming age(s?) by helping them find their way home.
I can’t imagine why Chad thought he could/should do whatever pleased him because Father would bring him home in the end anyway. Well, yes he could, and Father would, but think of the lengthening of sorrows, of deep sadness, of the long, anguished journey home. The shame of continued bondage to sin, the disappointment of our Lord, the terrible loss of missing the marriage of the Lamb, the long separation from loved ones. How could anyone be okay with that? And all for a few fleeting pleasures of sin that hurt us so terribly, and even more hurt the ones we are supposed to be loving?
I don’t understand why a person would need to live under a threat of ECT in order for him to be motivated to please our Abba. Yes, God is fearsome, awesome (in the ancient sense), terrible (ditto), holy, righteous, just, who dwells in inapproachable light.
BUT, we as His obedient and adoring children walk into the Holy of Holies through the torn veil – the flesh of our Lord, our Covenant Keeper who sacrificed Himself to make a way for us to come in. We do not need to fear; only to love, for perfect love casts out all fear. When we know His perfect love, we can forget about ourselves and cling to Abba in perfect love and trust – coming to Him as little children to our amazing, wonderful, loving Father whom we adore with all our hearts.
THAT is the proper motivation for obedience. Anything less (fear of punishment, for example) is, well, immature. It’s a step along the way, certainly, but not what Father is looking for in His children.
Blessings, Cindy
Sounds like the Stockholm Syndrome.
I don’t know, I don’t think any of them are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.
Then you’re agreeing with me on that. Right?
I’m not particularly fond of that type of tactic either. When it’s used as an argument from innuendo I think it’s incompetent procedure–unless the author is only trying to introduce non-universalistic attempts to justify God ultimately not saving all sinners from sin.
I’m rather less fond of non-universalistic attempts to answer the question, though, which I regard as being even less competent than occasional universalistic arguments from rhetorical innuendo by such a route. (Obviously, or I would still be one or another kind of non-universalist. 
)
No, by doing this they place non-universalists in a place of having to defend God, or more precisely their beliefs about God.
A practice not limited to universalists, unfortunately.
Anyone who has gotten down this far will recall you already using this example in your reply to Alex. Despite Alex not appealing to such an argument.
Most Christian universalists don’t have a problem with the truth that there is more to God than only love. What they have a problem with is the incoherent notion that God sets aside His love to accomplish justice or holiness or punishment or whatever (or worse that God sets aside His justice to fulfill His love.)
That could be true only if God is not essentially love in His own eternal self-existence. But if trinitarian theism is true, then God is essentially love in His own eternal self-existence. For God to act to fulfill non-love toward a person would be the same as for any creature to act in such a way: it would be to act against the ground of all existence. For us it would be sin. For God it would be suicide.
When Arminians are aware of this (not all are), they try to explain the final non-salvation of sinners in terms of God’s love for them.
Which leads to attempts like this:
Is loving anything while in rebellion from God perfectly true and proper love, or not? And if not, then is it an attribute of Love Himself (presumably at least a loving person) to give up leading another person to truly loving all persons (both God and their created neighbor)?
Non-universalists of an Arminian type like to talk about how supposedly it is loving of God to stop leading persons to truly love other persons. But I came to realize that makes no sense many years ago.
Neither would it be loving for God to simply rewrite the unloving person as though the person was not really a son of God but only some kind of puppet for God to string along. (Although it would be loving to do so to some degree insofar as the person was unloving through no fault of their own. That’s just healing, not tyrannical mindrape.)
But neither does anyone have freedom to exist apart from the omnipresent omniscient God in Whom are all things and by Whom all things hold together. Nor does any non-universalist anywhere (whether Arminian or Calvinist, nor their non-Protestant predecessors and contemporary parallels) think people are free to sin without inconvenient consequences from God of some kind! So the complaint about God “forcing” sinners has many strong limitations to it.
At any rate, if you want to complain that it would be unlovingly forceful of God to persistently act toward convincing sinners to repent of their sins and come to truly love other persons (both God and man), then to me that sounds like the sort of complaint someone in hell would make who just wants to be left alone to sin without being bothered by God about it. I have less than no sympathy for such complaints. I fully expect God to bother sinners about their sins for as long as it takes for God to achieve His goals thereby. If that takes into the ages of the ages, so be it.
A non-true love which True Love Himself can and will be satisfied with them having!
(Not.)
I don’t recall any universalistic book I’ve read trying to make a case by this method of splitting up John 3:16. If such books exist, I recommend you find better books. (If you’re saying Chad did this, then yes he was an idiot for doing such a thing. No doubt he’d agree about that now. )
Again, I recommend better books. No one I know, not even among the ultra-universalists, just ignores the second half of John 3:16 as a sole pretext to throw out hell and eternal torment. Also, most Christian universalists of my acquaintance are (like myself) purgatorial universalists and so do not “throw out hell” at all. We have a very robustly strong belief in God’s punishment post-mortem; we just don’t believe God’s punishment is hopeless.
Seeing as how you yourself are working really hard to try to say what God is and is not and what God does and does not do, you didn’t bother to pay attention to why I said that.
Also there is no logical connection between observing that everyone on all sides has an obligation to do the best they can to discover, understand and proclaim what God is and is not and what God does and does not do, and losing a reverence and fear for God. (The two concepts aren’t mutually exclusive, but the former absolutely does not lead logically to the latter.)
But then, there is even less than no logical connection between claiming (by tacit reference) that I have lost my reverence and fear for God, and citing a post where I repeatedly and strongly emphasize that losing fear of God is a bad idea. That was practically my whole criticism of Chad, remember? Or are you interested in doing anything more than citing bits of what someone wrote totally out of context for convenience of drawing demonstrably false inferences thereby?
Because if not, then your complaint about the John 3:16 split tactic, is the pot calling the kettle marijuana.
Every Christian universalist I know of would not only agree with that; they would emphasize the worship in spirit and truth when they critique non-universalist interpretations of scriptural testimony about how God will eventually bring all creatures everywhere (whether in the heavens or on the earth or under the earth), up to and including rebel angels, to confess and worship YHWH (including Jesus as YHWH). I’ve made that point myself numerous times: God doesn’t accept confession and worship that isn’t in spirit and in truth.
If you ask any non-universalist “will people who go to hell, up to and including rebel angels, ever worship and praise God for His mighty saving victories” (which is the technical meaning of the term translated in English as ‘confess’) “in spirit and in truth”, how many will say yes?
In my long experience, none have said yes; and I don’t have to guess hard to expect any non-universalist (as such) to ever say yes: because if they did, they wouldn’t be non-universalists anymore! Only someone who believes God will reconcile all sinners back to honest and true loyalty to Himself (thus no longer rebelling against Him, thus no longer sinning) could answer yes.
But the only other options are that those sinners don’t exist anymore at all having been annihilated (in which case the language referencing sinners is being discounted), or the sinners aren’t worshiping in spirit and in truth (in which case at best God’s intention is to bring at least some creatures to worship Him in a worldly, fleshly fashion, false at heart. Which leads to some serious theological problems elsewhere, to say the least.)
Again, you cannot possibly know many Christian universalists. Granted, this does happen: not incidentally, this was exactly my own criticism of what Chad was doing. But the abuse of the doctrine does not abolish the use. I’m actually around many Christian universalists, and most of them don’t show evidence of appealing to love and grace as their shield in order to protect their continuing to sin. (Some do, but not most.)
I and most other Christian universalists agree. I robustly believe that those who refuse to run from sin are going to be in big trouble someday, as I myself am careful to warn people about: don’t accept universalism as some kind of excuse for you to ignore your sins!
For the morally pauce kind of perverted Christian universalism he turned to, to escape the fear of punishment for the sins he insisted on continuing to commit, sure! Arminians pervert even legitimate Arminian doctrine in much the same way sometimes: ‘God loves everyone even me! And I said and did what I’m supposed to do so I don’t have to worry about being punished for backsliding!–God loves me, He wouldn’t do that!’
But if a Calvinist pointed to such a person as being their “problem” with “Arminianism”, and said he was hitting home right through the board by criticizing “Arminianism” that way, an Arminian would be right to regard that Calvinist as ignorant (and to regard that Arminian as fudging legitimate Arminian doctrine in order to protect his sins).
Incidentally: the forum system says you and “write-ups” are posting from exactly the same computer under different pseudonyms with different memberships, “cgunhouse”.
That means you’re probably using sock puppets to appear to be more than one person. Which is trolling if so.
It’s technically possible that two different people could register here with two different accounts from the same computer, however, so as an administrator I’m going to ask you to conclusively demonstrate that you and WU are two different people.
(I’m pointing this out in public so that readers on the thread will be cautioned that there is evidence, although not conclusive yet, of you being an internet troll, and so they can make an informed decision about whether to risk wasting their time replying to you. Had I checked previously, I’m sure I would have waited until you proved you were two different people. )
No, Chad was correct.
No, I have no need to defend God.
True, that is how cult arise.
I use John 3;16 a lot to show what happen when something is taken out of context or when a qualifying phrase is taken out to make it mean something else.
The verse I used in relationship to this, God said that they loved darkness, so there is no “proper love, or not”.
The book is Hope Beyond Hell.
The Jew reverence so much they when to great extents to write His name when the copied the scriptures. So to even make statements as above no matter the context it was in shows the level to our lack of reverence of God. Don’t worry I am not necessarily pointing any fingers at anyone, for I find myself falling far short in this area as well. As Christians we need to take care on what we say and how we say it.
My experiences are slightly different in that I hear love and tolerance, to what almost seems the neglect of the true, yet it is truth that set one free.
My point here is Arminian or Calvin, even from this thread the Universalist are arguing what version of Universalism you belong to, and look at all the different flavor of Christian Churches there are. If the Christian Churches of North America would listen to Proverb 1:7 and fear God and then the rest of the verse would apply and we wouldn’t have the problems we do.
We are not the same person or computer, what you are seeing is two people using the same proxy server or the same router. I work for a company that has over 20,000 people working for them and all have access to the same proxy server to access the Internet that I do.
cgunhouse,
What comfort could you offer to the Christian parent who has lost an unsaved son or daughter?
Hope Beyond Hell makes no argument from the first half of Jn 3:16 that would be influenced by the second half. Having just searched the book, the only references to Jn 3:16 (3-4 of them) that I found are made to demonstrate that God loves the whole world. Whether or not any who do not believe perish because of their unbelief has nothing to do with whether God loved them in the first place (unless of course you’re a Calvinist).
Therefore, the author is not taking Jn 3:16 out of context. He WOULD be taking it out of context if he were attempting to use it to prove that all will be saved (which he is not doing), and if he were so attempting without addressing the second half of the verse, not to mention the rest of Jesus’ teaching to Nicodemus.
I will address the second half of Jn 3:16 . . . “that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have age-during life.” Now that’s my paraphrase from off the top of my head, but I think you’ll find it accurate with the Greek. Most long-time followers of Jesus know this verse in so many versions that we mix it up a bit from time to time.
The word used here and translated “perish” is “apollumi”. I was surprised to learn that this word is also used of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son. It is also used of many, many other things which we understand to have been lost but then found. I believe that you will also be surprised if you do a Strongs search for this word in your KJV+Strongs.*
Therefore I have no problem in seeing this verse as universalistic. It is a promise that those who believe in the Son of Man (the prototypical man, last Adam, second Adam, etc.) will be received and be included in the Messianic age. This is the reference to “age-during,” which would be the more accurate Young’s Literal Translation rendering of “aionios.”
This is, according to Hebrew cultural scholars, what the Jews of Jesus’ day and previous were looking for. One reason they did NOT receive Jesus was that He didn’t fit the expected profile of conquering king, bringing in the Messianic kingdom – but I’m sure I’m not telling you anything there that you’re not already aware of.
In the very next verse, we learn that God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. Are we to understand that Jesus failed in His mission (the saving of the world), the mandate given Him by His Father, and He being empowered by the Holy Spirit? Is such a thing even possible – that God should fail?
May it never be! But He is the savior of all people, and especially those who believe.
Blessings, Cindy
*(If you haven’t got an electronic KJV+Strongs, download it free at e-sword.net/ This is a neutral resource, making no claim or pretense toward Calv, Arm, or Universalism. Modules for any of the three viewpoints are available, but you’ll have to find those for yourself – most of them either paid or available on other people’s websites.)
I found four references, one of which was only pointing out that another verse’s word for life {zôe} is found in John 3:16.
Two others as you noted cite or allude to the first half of verse 16, but only do so for purposes of establishing the same thing an Arminian would: that God loves all sinners with saving love. Gerry doesn’t carry his argument from 3:16 any farther than that, and sure isn’t sparing about his scriptural citations for carrying his argument farther elsewhere. (Also, while Gerry argues against ECT, he actually affirms hell in the sense of post-mortem lake of fire punishment in Gehenna. So he’s hardly citing only half of verse 16 in order to throw out hell by innuendo or otherwise.)
In the fourth reference, Gerry not only quotes all of verse 16 but makes a point of going on through verse 17! Whether he does so aptly to his purpose is another question, but he clearly isn’t just pretending the second half of verse 16 doesn’t exist.
(I haven’t read HBH yet, but I own a Kindle copy. )
Yep! To be apollumi’d isn’t necessarily to be finally lost or destroyed, even on non-universalistic interpretations of the term. Merely citing its occurrence in v.16 as though this is proof of something is of no value.
No doubt the second half of the verse is important. But perishing isn’t intrinsically hopeless, even if it happens in the future thanks to not trusting in God. It already happens now in the present thanks to not trusting in God!–if it was intrinsically hopeless, there would be no point for the Son to be sent to save us from perishing and to give us eonian life instead!
There can be no legitimate scriptural argument against Christian universalist from this route. (Against so-called Unitarian Universalism, which isn’t even dogmatically “unitarian” per se anymore, sure. But that’s a whole different thing–a religious pluralism that Gerry very strongly rejects in HBH, by the way. )
If I recall correctly, this was also the gist for why Gerry did cite all of John 3:16 and then on into verse 17. 
I’m sure we’ll give the totally ungrounded testimony of a completely pseudonymous member all the weight we can. But it would be better if you demonstrably proved you were two different people.
I’ve asked other admins if there’s a way we can confirm the proxy traceback from our side in some way that confirms your explanation, though.
But I agreed with Chad that his problem was lack of fear of the Lord.
Are you ever going to acknowledge that I emphatically recommend (and in this thread recommended) fearing the Lord? Or are you going to keep ignoring that?
Because Jews reverence God so much that they go to great extents to write His name when they copied the scriptures, therefore the context of what I said doesn’t matter?
That’s a sufficiently random way of ignoring what I wrote and why, I guess.
Not least because we have an obligation to correctly report to other people what God is (and is not) and what God does (and does not). This is a big part of what evangelism involves.
I recognize and respect that non-universalistic Christians have that obligation just as much as Christian universalists do. Yet in your mind this somehow equals me losing my reverence and fear of God.
(And if you weren’t pointing fingers, maybe you should have not quoted me, with other details indicating you definitely meant me, when making that charge.)
So now go to the second part: the part you skipped over. If loving anything while in rebellion from God is not a perfectly true and proper love (and I strongly agree it is not), then is it an attribute of Love Himself (Who is presumably at least a loving person) to give up leading such a person to truly love all persons?
Obviously, no it isn’t loving for God to stop leading anyone who isn’t truly loving yet to truly love other people, in order to let them go falsely love the darkness instead. No one could ever cogently argue that Love Himself would do that.
Love Himself can condemn false love; and Love can even temporarily tolerate false love in order to get other things done (and there are numerous scriptural examples for both). Bu Love can never give final authoritative permission for false love.
On the contrary, it is absolutely in the interest of Love (Who is also not only just but Justice, if trinitarian theism is true) to keep on leading unloving unjust sinners to repent of their sins and fulfill true love with justice instead.
Jason and Cindy:
If I wrote an article titled “Tasty Mushrooms” and said that all the mushrooms that we tested were tasty and neglect to say that some mushrooms are deadly or that most of our toad-stool tasters died after the taste test, would I be remiss in missing this fact? Also man was created to love and glorify God; apollumi, can mean “ruin” or the verb form “to ruin”. To ruin for the purpose for which something was created.
“Read Hell and a Loving God” (amazon.com/Hell-Loving-God-e … loving+god), the author starts the book with a story almost exactly like what you ask, but it is a grandmother.