I’m not sure what I am right now but I read this and wanted to know the thoughts of others on it. Thanks
ovrlnd.com/Universalism/ChallengeUnie.html
By the initial logic of DB (the poster), the only way Arminianists (and their Western and Eastern Catholic predecessors) can be sure God intends to save all sinners is to know exactly how many sinners ever have or ever will exist. “This is common sense. ‘All’ means you can account for every single soul numerically. Otherwise this ‘all’ is a meaningless term that can hide unverifiable conditions.”
By exactly the same token, the only way Calvinists (and their Augustinian Catholic predecessors) can be sure God shall succeed in saving everyone He intends to save, is to know exactly how many of these specially elected persons ever have or ever will exist. “This is common sense. ‘All’ means you can account for every single soul numerically. Otherwise this ‘all’ is a meaningless term that can hide unverifiable conditions.”
Perhaps DB means to argue not only that God has only intended to save some, not all, sinners from sin, but also that God won’t even succeed in saving some of this partial number – which would be the 4th position that I’ve never actually seen anyone formally take, although in practice many Arminians end up going this route (God never even intended to save rebel angels, only humans; but while He intended and acted to save all humans, in practice He fails at this, too, or maybe changes His mind about doing even that.) But this principle could be extended to similar absurdities: the only way to be sure God is the creator and sustainer of all is to know exactly how many creatures or even particles of creation ever have or ever will exist, and then check each one to be sure God not only created it but acts to sustain it (instead of this particle being self-independently existent, or ultimately existent on some independent fact other than God, like impersonal Nature, or the Goddess Nature, or the evil Anti-God, or turtles on top of turtles down forever, or whatever.) “This is common sense. ‘All’ means you can account for every single [particle or] soul numerically. Otherwise this ‘all’ is a meaningless term that can hide unverifiable conditions.”
If DB is a negative agnostic who isn’t even an atheist (which would also involve making similar “all” claims about ontological reality), then we have other more basic and logically prior disagreements before getting to any kind of soteriology (or even to any kind of theology) – and even then I expect this supposed principle will end up looping around to bite the negative agnostic in the ass! (Unless the negative agnostic has the agnosticism of a rock and so holds no beliefs about anything at all.)
If DB is anything more than a negative agnostic (the sort who denies we can know anything at all philosophically, or even more broadly than that perhaps – not a positive agnostic who simply acknowledges that she doesn’t currently know the answer to some set of topics), then I’ll be more worried about this supposed challenge when he shows that it isn’t just as solvent for him as for, supposedly, us.
His Part 2 is similarly flawed: he appeals to the fact that there is disagreement as evidence. “So the Bible does not appear to be conclusive for the universalist side because if it were, then every intelligent reader would see universal salvation as a fact.”
As evidence of what? That the burden of proof must rest on the universalist but not on the traditionalist somehow. But if his principle held water, it could just as easily be flipped around by replacing the topics.
Well then, QED! 
Part 3 then moves to a mere prooftext challenge, which if actually applied would lead directly to doctrinal chaos, since DB insists that we absolutely ignore context in checking what a statement does or does not mean. This is the most fundamental of the fundamentalistic sceptic’s moves, but DB acts like he’s on the side of “traditional” Christianity. Is he a sceptic trying to troll by intentionally ignorant challenges? Or is he so insistent on non-universalism being true that he’s willing to pretend he isn’t undercutting his own positions by the same degree, if that somehow counts against non-universalism? (But of course, DB then defends traditionalist interpretations by appeal to what he thinks is sufficient context to explain the meaning of various prooftexts.)
And since any of us could come up with various things said by Paul which non-universalists would instantly complain about being taken out of context, DB insists that the statement has to be from Jesus in the Gospels.
And then since we could come up with something like John 3:17, where Jesus (or possibly John in commentary, which I’m surprised he doesn’t try appealing to) says Jesus comes into the world so that the world {so_the_} (I’m not at a keyboard where I can add uppermarks to indicate long o and long e, so I’m designating there with subsequent underscore spacemarks), and since that tense in Greek is an aorist passive subjective which can be legitimately interpreted several ways (thanks to underlying Aramaic fashions), he insists we must go with the King James Version and not any other translation (since that version goes with the option “might be saved”, stressing the subjunctive potentiality or possibility.)
No doubt if we pointed out something like John 17:2, which even in the KJV has Jesus saying, “As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh so that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him”, he would complain that this verse by itself could easily be talking about Satan giving this power to the Anticrhist, or (if he wanted to get picky about the Greek) that “should give” is a subjunctive mood again and so that even if this was talking about God and Jesus that doesn’t mean Jesus will succeed in the goal for which God gave all flesh (not potentially but actually) to Jesus. Or he might complain that this verse doesn’t say what eternal life mean. Or that this verse doesn’t explicitly say that Jesus is the one saying it.
And if we pointed out something like John 5:23, where even in the KJV it says “That all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father”, he might complain that the verse doesn’t explicitly say that Jesus is saying it; and that even if it did, the verse doesn’t say what is happening so that all men should honor the Son and the Father equally (even if that means Jesus and God, which the verse does not specifically say by itself); and even if that involved something like raising those who don’t currently honor the Son and the Father to judgment so that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father, the word “honor” in English (unlike the underlying Greek word) can involve falsely honoring someone, which this verse doesn’t say God wouldn’t aim toward or wouldn’t accept as a result; and anyway it isn’t like the verse says that those who honor the Son shall pass from death into life; and even if those things could be established from something called “context”, that wouldn’t mean God would succeed in the goal of this judgment, since Jesus only says possibly (in the subjunctive mood in Greek, since who cares about how Aramaic speakers like Jesus talking to fellow Jews might use that manner of speaking) all people might come to honor the Son and the Father equally.
And JB has a final demand that he is quite sure couldn’t be met anyway, which he is prepared to fall back on as a last resort (but he makes it the first demand to establish that he will settle for nothing other than this): Jesus must state, in these words (presumably JB would accept the Greek equivalent) “all men will be saved”.
After all, “one does not find that Jesus ever states that ‘God is a single multipersonal ground of all existence neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance’ or even that ‘God is a Trinity’. The word Trinity is not even a Biblical word! Could it not have been very easy for Jesus to say once and for all that “God is a Trinity?” That would have ended all arguments on this point. WHY DIDN’T JESUS END THIS ARGUMENT FOR ALL TIME WITH A SIMPLE STATEMENT?”
…wait, sorry, I was flashing over to the standard complaint “traditionalist” trinitarian apologists like myself have to constantly field from non-trinitarians. But for all I know JB is non-traditionalist on this point and so would accept the same argument when applied against other “traditionalist” positions like the Trinity.
“For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned,” JB.
Which Jesus said to men who had insisted that God wouldn’t or couldn’t save a sinner whose last state was worse than his former (a situation which Jesus says those men shall consequently be put into), and so for Jesus to save him anyway must mean Jesus wasn’t from God. “Either make the tree good and his fruit good, or make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt,” when talking about God and salvation, JB, “for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment.”
After all, we know what’s going to happen to men who insist that God cannot or will not save those whom they insist God cannot or would not save, and so who scattereth abroad instead of gathering with Him, thus being against God instead of for Him.
Right?
Part 4 then goes to Paul, and again depends completely on ignoring context, but also on ignoring the force of the Greek when that seems inconvenient now. 1 Tim 2:4 involves a word for “will” (as in “God will have all men to be saved”), which Paul elsewhere uses when stressing that God shall accomplish His will to save those He intends to save even swearing upon Himself to show the assurance. (Which at least one of the “traditionalist” parties stresses, though not the other “traditionalist” party. JB is apparently an Arm traditionalist not a Calv traditionalist.) So this is not a case of possibility vs actuality in context of how Paul uses that term when talking about salvation; and neither is it a case grammatically, since the subjunctive isn’t involved at all. It’s a present active indicative tense: it describes what is presently true. JB would have been better off trying to suggest that since the verse doesn’t say one way or another, then God might change His mind about what He is presently definitely willing, and that this possibility (instead of the possibility God won’t change His mind about getting this done, any more than changing His mind about bringing all men to a knowledge of the truth – which JB doesn’t quote as part of that verse but which I suspect he would actually affirm) sinks a universalist appeal to the verse as testimony about God’s definite intentions.
Nor can JB daff off the event of all men being saved (and coming to a knowledge of the truth) as grammatically subjunctive (although personally I doubt he’s going that deep; he seems to only be taking the KJV English grammar as authoritative). Because it isn’t. It’s an aorist infinitive which by relation to the aorist means all men being saved (and coming to the knowledge of the truth) is being topically considered without regard to temporal past, present, or future. (Since I try very hard to be fair, I’ll add that this doesn’t technically shut down the possibility that only a possibility of all men coming to a knowledge of the truth… and being saved 
… is being talked about here.)
JB wants to question whether God’s will shall be done in this regard – so why isn’t he questioning whether “all” really means God wills “all” men to be saved? Has he counted all the men that ever lived or shall lived and checked particularly to be sure God intends them to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth? If not, that’s just wishful thinking on his part, right? “This is common sense. ‘All’ means you can account for every single soul numerically. Otherwise this ‘all’ is a meaningless term that can hide unverifiable conditions.”
But being an Arminian he doesn’t use his own challenge against himself there, because that would be doctrinally suicidal, and what’s really important is to be non-universalist, not to be fair in criticism, after all.
But anyway, being Arminian, he questions God’s will being accomplished on this by observing that sinners act against God’s will to bring about real results all the time. He knows there are verses strongly testifying that this won’t be such a final thwarting of God’s will, citing specifically “His word does not return void to Him” in context of the certainty of salvation, probably from Isaiah 45 (he doesn’t specify) – and he thinks that sin itself proves that God’s word can and shall return void to Him when it comes to the topic of saving sinners from their sins.
He cites the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”, as though the prayer that this shall be eventually accomplished is instantly voided by it not yet having been accomplished and thus the need for Jesus to pray that it shall be accomplished. If this isn’t an example of insane troll logic, I don’t know what is!
In fact other “traditionalists”, namely the Calvinistic traditionalists, will jump up and down on his arguments here all day long, so he needn’t bother treating universalists as non-traditionalists about this. We’re just as “traditionalist” as Calvs are on this topic. Just like we’re just as “traditionalist” as Arms are on the topic of God’s saving scope. JB wouldn’t accept for a second if weak appeals like this were being aimed at the Arminian gospel assurance by Calvs; but he thinks such weak tactics are appropriate when aiming back in the other direction.
Suffice to say that universal salvation doesn’t necessarily mean there shall be no judgment, no punishment, and no woe (such as to St. Paul if he does not preach the gospel). It only means the woe coming to St. Paul if he doesn’t preach the gospel isn’t a hopelessly final woe.
And what happened to JB’s principle that God’s will for X is not necessarily imposed on everyone? Does he mean God’s will for X is necessarily imposed on some people? God’s will to save some people is necessarily imposed on some people? God’s will to save all people is necessarily imposed on some people? God’s will for final punishment is apparently necessarily imposed on everyone. God’s will for judging impenitent sinners is necessarily imposed on everyone of that category. God’s will that all men shall be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth, looks like is necessarily imposed on St. Paul! “for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!” So God’s will for X is necessarily imposed when that seems convenient for non-universalism, but not otherwise? Hm! If only I could honorably demand the kind of verbal criteria for this in a Biblical witness which JB demands when he thinks that demand is convenient for him!
JB’s attempt at ignoring that the “many” and the “all” are exactly parallel for sinners as for saved, is typical, but rarely as bluntly ignorant as he puts it (in red letter emphasis even).
Why isn’t JB saying in regard to the “many were made sinners”, “Why did Paul not use the word ALL in verse 19 following on the heels of the ‘all’ used in verse 18? If judgment came upon ALL men to condemnation by the offense of one, then why were not ALL made sinners by one man’s disobedience?”
In fact, “many” can mean “all”, and “all” can mean “many”. What counts is the context. Where sin exceeds, God’s saving grace superexceeds, for not as the sin is the freely given grace. The free gift abounds to the same “many” who are dead thanks to the offense of one, and moreso for the free gift is NOT simply equal and parallel to the sin. God doesn’t wait for us to receive the free gift before reconciling us to Himself by the death of His son, and if we have been reconciled to God how much moreso shall we be saved into His life.
That means everyone shall in fact receive the free gift, sooner or later. JB is conveniently ignoring the parallel of the “many” so that he can pretend the difference between “all” and “many” when it comes to salvation can involve some distinction about who ends up being saved.
In fact, JB flipflops back and forth between Arminianism (agreeing that by the righteousness of Jesus the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life) and Calvinism (insisting that Jesus was once offered to bear the sins of many, explicitly only many and not all), if Calvinism seems more appropriate than Arminianism for opposing universalism.
And then, since he can’t actually accept with Calvinists the restriction that Jesus was offered on the cross as a sacrifice to bear the sins of only many, he instantly flipflops back again, that the gift of grace secured and enacted by Jesus on the cross is offered to ALL (in all-caps emphasis) just not accepted by more than MANY (but not only MANY being made sinners, that has to mean ALL).
The pattern is indeed consistent – but only in his consistent inconsistency against universalism.
And the damnation signifies, let’s hear it, “that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father”. Which all men? The all men being raised to “damnation” for not honoring the Son and the Father – the other all men already honor the Son even as they honor the Father.
Why did Jesus day that to even one of the thieves? He wasn’t honoring the Son with the honor equal to the Father; he didn’t even call Jesus “Lord”! Did Jesus miss the boat on that one to to make it crystal-clear to every reader for all time that exactly full and correct beliefs are what count for being saved?
But JB is only opposing the kind of universalism that insists everyone goes to paradise immediately regardless of any considerations. (And without distinction for what counts as “paradise” in the context of that scene, which I doubt JB has any idea about: the good side of hades.)
This is simply ignorance; “confess” translates a technical term that involves loyal praise, so even though the word “salvation” doesn’t occur in that verse the idea is absolutely there. The idea of loyal allegiance is also there in the Hebrew of Isaiah where Paul is citing, where God says His word shall not come back in vain that every tongue shall swear allegiance to Him. Bowing doesn’t have to entail actual loyalty to the person, but confession does. Which is why Paul says elsewhere that no one can confess Jesus to be Lord apart from the Holy Spirit, and insists that to be saved one must confess Jesus is Lord.
Amazingly, but predictably, JB effectively insists that God seeks and accepts the kind of false worship implied in what he needs there to avoid universal salvation.
Part 5 can be answered on its own terms, that universal salvation is not about salvation from being punished in any way for any length of time. In fact, the people being punished in the Deuteronomy song that the Herbaist is citing, are being punished to death so that they will finally learn better, repent, be vindicated (for they are still His people), and be reconciled to God and to those who weren’t punished to death.
Ironically, by insisting (when he’s being Arminian which is usually) that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross shall be in vain, JB himself is trampling underfoot the sacrifice of the Son of God and so is under the ban he himself appeals to here. Welp, so much for JB! – no no, there is no hope for him, he has trampled the sacrifice of the Son of God on the cross and regarded it as being in vain, JB must be certainly punished hopelessly now!
At least Calvinists, who would ask the same question, “So how is everybody covered by Christ and saved”, would not answer that question with everyone being covered by Christ anyway, nor would they say “the sacrifice has stopped covering such people” – it never did cover some people at all (they would say), and so (they would say) we aren’t trampling underfoot the body and blood of the Son of God and regarding His sacrifice as being in vain!
This, not incidentally, is why some hardcore Calvs regard Arms who die without becoming Calvs as non-elect who shall certainly be permanently damned. Perhaps incidentally, JB doesn’t mention the criteria for the Hebraist making this warning to his own congregation – it might raise the question of whether considering Christ’s sacrifice on the cross to be in vain, counts as considering Christ’s sacrifice on the cross to be in vain, but maybe he just didn’t think that was important, or maybe that the answer was obviously that counting the sacrifice as vain doesn’t count in as counting the sacrifice as vain so why even bring it up.
Frankly, JB’s argument is a mess from start to finish. That he himself is not intellectually persuaded is obviously true, duh, but I’m not sure that goes for much when his intellectual aptitude is of the sort exhibited here. He certainly does not persuade me that we “have absolutely no scriptural evidence to submit on such a crucial issue” – and he won’t persuade people who are keeping better track of the language, contexts, etc., than he does.
If the premise is that God can change His mind about willing all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth, then:
1.) Why is that premise being presented? Is it a conclusion from prior argumentation? Let’s take a look at that before calling the premise against 1 Tim 2.
2.) Is it a hypothetical? Then it should be tested abductively by comparison with the evidence, in which case testimony from Paul about God ultra-assuring He’s going to get this done would falsify the practical strength of the hypothesis: even if it happens to be technically possible that God could change His intentions about this, He isn’t going to.
I could however grant that this depends on whether 1 Tim and, let’s say, Ephesians, are either genuinely from Paul or at least accurately represent his teaching. I treat them as being authoritative Pauline teaching, but I’m aware there are authorship disputes. (Ironically, one of the grounds for authorship disputes on various Pauline epistles, is that the author sounds too universalistic! 
) Arguably 1 Tim features a few additions (perhaps from Timothy himself, since if they’re additions they’re clearly super-early) that don’t synch up verbally well with Paul’s teaching elsewhere. Whether 2:4 is one such thing could be disputed, which would lead to a larger comparative analysis with surrounding context and undisputed Pauline works – and I’m confident from long experience 2:4 will hold up under that scrutiny as legitimate Pauline teaching.
If the premise is that God will change His mind about willing all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth, then that premise being stronger as a claim would come under the same scrutiny but moreso. Obviously if the premise is accepted, then either 1 Tim 2:4 isn’t genuine Pauline teaching, or Paul was teaching wrongly, or at best the statement is irrelevant and so also irrelevant to Paul’s own reason for making the appeal by proportion – Paul is expecting us to follow suit with God’s intentions, as a ground for praying for the salvation of people his original audience might otherwise prefer not to be saved (i.e. pagan authorities and people who are otherwise oppressing Christians). If God will change His mind about at least some of those people being saved and coming to a knowledge of the truth, then my motivation for praying for people I don’t care for will be reduced proportionately. Whereas, if God’s intention to save them, too, is ultra-assured, then I’m the one sinning against God (maybe to punishment) if I don’t get my heart in gear and cooperate with God in this matter.
(Which not-incidentally is a topic I find repeated across most if not all categories of NT authority, especially but not restricted to Jesus’ warnings.)
I’m referring to non-believers who use tactics similar to the religious fundamentalists in a popularly pejorative sense.
I realize it it’s sad that the term “fundamentalism” has been spoiled, but sceptics aren’t to blame for that. Religious believers (usually Christian, in the modern West) doing things like DB in this article are to blame for that.
As a Christian apologist I have to deal with this inane behavior from radical sceptics; but they learned their trollish behaviors from people like DB – who wouldn’t for a moment accept such tactics made by non-believers against things he himself believes. But he thinks such nonsense is fine when he’s the one aiming it for his own purposes.
No, I’m being sarcastic about his method, which is selectively atomistic when he wants it to be: if it doesn’t testify to X right that very moment, why the verse might mean all kinds of not-X instead! So to get around a verse basically testifying to X, he might as well apply the tactic to other parts of the verse, if his tactic was actually valid.
It’s a sarcastic reduction to absurdity about his process: taken to its logical end, it would mean theological chaos. (Which, remember, was my original complaint, as you quoted above.)
Yes. Also because Jesus is praising His Father by appeal to this point, so the glorification would be undercut by any ultimate failure. Even non-trinitarians ought to be concerned about that (this verse is very near a famous anti-trinitarian prooftext, incidentally); but such a failure would be maximally catastrophic if trinitarian theism is true. Or rather the other way around: if ortho-trin is true, this failure to bring all creatures to do only justice at last must be impossible. (Relatedly, God has a habit of swearing upon Himself, often in regard to personal relations between the Father and the Son, to accomplish this salvation.)
Also, the subjunctive mood of Greek isn’t ironclad about only referring to mere possibilities or potentialities, especially when an Aramaic speaker is behind what’s being translated. No non-universalist, whether Arm or Calv, would for a single moment grant that those who consistently believe in the only-begotten Son given by the Father only might be having eonian life; but the famous John 3:16 ends with a subjunctive mood: {hina pas} “so that everyone” (because the word for all is singular, and the subsequent grammar follows suit) {ho pisteuôn} “that is trusting” (present active participle) {eis auton} “in Him” {mê apolêtai} “may not be destroying himself” (aorist middle subjunctive) {all’echê(i)} “but may be taking” (present active subjunctive) {zôên aiônion} “eonian life”.
Well then, it’s only possible for someone trusting God to save them to perhaps not be destroying himself but to perhaps be getting eonian life instead!
But even though I strenuously doubt DB was going so deep as to check on Greek tenses anyway, I wanted to be fair about making a serious possible objection (not merely sarcastic objections like the Satan/Anti-christ one): the basic meaning of the subjunctive mood does, technically, refer to possibilities or potentialities.
No, he makes what he thinks are positive arguments excluding universal salvation. But he wants there to be total silence on the other side of the account, and is willing to fall back on ridiculous criteria he himself would not (and should not) accept when such methods are tried against him.
It isn’t as though he starts with this as a criteria and then self-critically allows that there actually is testimony that doesn’t meet his criteria – at the end of his paper he’s still insisting on this as a criteria that must be met, along with other criteria that would instantly and blatantly self-refute his own positions if such methods were actually valid, i.e. requiring a numerical count of all of a proposed set of “all” as the only way to legitimately mean “all” instead of only wish-fulfillment delusion about “all” being all. Again that’s the kind of insane troll logic a goofy internet sceptic might try against John 3:16 really meaning that God at least intends that all who trust in Him might be saved! Oh, have you counted to be sure that everyone trusting in God has a mere possibility of being saved? If not, then you’re only making a wish-fulfillment assertion that it’s even possible for some of that {pas} who believe in God to be possibly saved!
DB is of course only reading the KJV, which is why he doesn’t see the (ostensible) “possibility” grammar there (the KJV doesn’t translate the verbal grammar that way – nor should they); but he can surely see that “all”, and he doesn’t require that stupid criteria in favor of being sure the “all” there actually means “all” instead of only “some”.
I stick with 1 Tim. 4:10 - For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.
The Bible tells us that God is the Savior of all, ESPECIALLY them that believe. Faith is for this age not the next. For those who don’t have faith in this age they will suffer in the lake of fire. But will be saved. The Bible also speaks of the present Heavens and Earth being destroyed or perishing in fire. But it also says there will be a New Heaven and Earth. This is the same for those in the lake of fire. Just as those who are crucified with Christ have faith and are baptized into Christ’s death and with water as the old sinful self is destroyed those in the lake of fire are baptized in fire as the old sinful self is destroyed. The gates of the city remain open forever as the Bible tells us they will never be shut. Those who are destroyed and baptized in the lake of fire come into the city to quench their thirst with living water as God reconciles all to Himself. It tells us in Colossians that God created all in heaven and earth and will reconcile all. Satan, evil, and the old sinful self are destroyed in the lake of fire.
Matthew 10:29-31 says this: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” From this I would say that we are all accounted for. However,my perspective on the Bible is that it speaks of things which pertain to life on earth. I would say that there really is no proof of what occurs in the afterlife. But, the way I see it, man is not God. We are neither perfect, nor do we have perfect knowledge of all things. This is why God is forgiving and merciful.
Apart from the rather sloppy grammar of the original, which makes me doubt the writer’s competence, two points spring to mind.
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The counting argument is a red herring, or more exactly a kippered blue whale. I can say correctly “I have delivered all the letters” even if I haven’t counted them, because I know that there was a pile of letters to deliver, I picked them all up, I did nothing with any of them other than delivering them, and I have none left.
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The choice of quotes is very selective. The writer states “For that matter who among Peter, James, Jude, or John ever used the phrase “all men will be saved”, much less focus on the idea?” However he conveniently omits 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
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When I was first considering universalism I looked at a number of verses that pointed in the opposite direction. What I discovered was that there is an anti-universalist spin on church tradition which had affected the way the bible is read and translated. For example αιών is in places translated as “eternal”, which is simply wrong, it means a finite period of time. The writer seems to have fallen into the trap of believing the translation rather than checking it properly.
Quite frankly I find the article unconvincing.
The text that resolves the issue for me is 2 Peter 3:9 which says ( Strong’s definitions included) ,
’ The Lord is not (Gk= ‘ou’= not, none, nothing) slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not (Gk= ‘me’= not, not at all, none at all ) willing ( Gk= ‘boúlomai’ =“resolutely plan”,planning for, intending, ) for anyone (Gk= ‘tis’= anyone at all ) to perish, but everyone (Gk =‘pantas’ = all, everyone) to come to repentance’.
The Greek word ‘boulomai’ is a very strong term according to Strongs and means, in the strongest language possible, that God is ‘resolutely planning’ for all to come to repentance, which results in salvation.
**What God ‘resolutely plans’, MUST happen.
Therefore ALL will ultimately be redeemed.**
The actual mechanics of it, how it will exactly come about…I do not really know, although there are ‘hints’ in the Bible about how this Universal Reconciliation will take place…but how can we know exactly how God will redeem all ?..I / we are not almighty God…but HE knows how He will ultimately redeem the entire human race…I, we, just need to trust His word and the fact that He WILL do it…we need to truly believe that ‘all things are possible with God’.
This text can save much time searching scripture for ever more texts supporting UR because according to 2 Peter 3:9 it’s a done deal.God has said it, we must believe it.
The Bible PLAINLY states Jesus Christ is the savior of ALL men, of ALL people.
‘For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe’.1 Timothy 4:10
In their efforts to prove Jesus does not save ALL, ‘hellists’ will try to make “especially” and “exclusively” mean the same thing. That’s where the dictionary definition will show, along with examples, that especially is an inclusive word by nature. Another defense is that they’ll say that Jesus is the Savior of the world in terms of potential but not in results. That can be challenged in myriad ways. Doesn’t mean they’ll listen though.
I did a quick word study on ‘malista’, the Greek word Paul uses which means ‘especially’…Paul NEVER uses ‘malista’ in the sense of something being ‘exclusive’.
Paul’s use of the Greek word ‘malista’ (English meaning=‘especially’)
Galatians 6:10
Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
Philippians 4:22
All God’s people here send you greetings, especially those who belong to Caesar’s household.
1 Timothy 5:8
Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
1 Timothy 5:17
The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching.
2 Timothy 4:13
When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls,** especially **the parchments.
Titus 1:10
For there are many rebellious people, full of meaningless talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision group.
Philemon 1:16
no more as a servant, but above a servant – a brother beloved, especially to me, and how much more to thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord!
so how can ‘malista’ in 1 Timothy 4:10 possibly be meant in the ‘exclusive’ sense ?.
1 Timothy 4:10
For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.
The ‘hellists’ are being patently absurd. By saying that in 1 Tim 4:10 the word ‘especially’(‘malista’) is meant in the exclusive sense, they are in effect saying that Paul has contradicted himself, has contradicted his use of ‘malista’ in all the other Pauline passages where it is plainly used in an inclusive sense.The ‘ECT crowd’ are clutching at straws.