I just read this article (it’s ridiculously long and thorough) and am honestly distressed by the strength of its argument:
[ovrlnd.com/Universalism/allthealls.html](http://www.ovrlnd.com/Universalism/allthealls.html)
I’m wondering if anyone has seen this, and am hoping someone has strong counter arguments to it.
It certainly looks impressive… I recommend taking a look at these discusions about it: Eric Landstrom's website
OPPOSERS OF CHRISTIAN UNIVERSALISM REFUTED
Arguing "aionios" from an ECT perspective - Eric Landstrom
Landström begins by saying Clement and Origin were men of their time and got many things wrong. Of course, Landström is also a man of his times and no doubt gets things wrong also. I fail to see why his ability to rise above his times (see through false assumptions etc) would be superior to these two venerated Fathers.
To pick an example, Landström berates Origin for preaching a works-based salvation, but then says, “So we know IN ORDER TO HAVE everlasting life, you’ve got to believe and have faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ.” Ok. So tell me. How sincerely and completely must I believe? On a 1-10 scale, will a 2 get me over the line? No? It has to be at least an 8? Gee. I can see I’ll really have to work at my belief! It seems Landström believes in salvation by works after all, but he simply hasn’t noticed. Moreover, if my belief saves me, how correct must my doctrines be? I mean, where’s the virtue in believing the wrong stuff? On a 1-10 scale of doctrinal correctness, will a 6 be good enough to pass? What if I have a belief of 9 but a doctrinal correctness of 2? Will I be damned? Which of the dozens of theological systems will give me the best chance of getting over the line? How can I know?
Perhaps Landström is not actually Christian but Gnostic, hence the emphasis on having the right sort of knowledge. Christians believe lost sheep are saved by good shepherds, not by good doctrines. The lostness of the sheep implies weakness of belief, not strength. What’s more, the stupid sheep doesn’t ask to be saved, or even give permission. The good shepherd just grabs it, slings it over his shoulder, and lugs it on home. This is the truth of the matter, and thank God for that!
John clearly says that whoever believes will be saved. Jesus clearly says that he will draw all men to himself. Therefore, God will not rest until all do believe. Why is this so difficult to swallow? Because people are prepared to bow the knee to an unworthy God if it means saving their own wretched skin.
At this point, I lost interest in the article.
His drawing is interesting.
If his drawing is true then it would be best to kill children, thus insuring their place in heaven. Otherwise, salvation is very tentative, not only must one be saved, but one must also be faithful.
As I breeze through it, here’s my notes:
“Christian universalism also advances the like idea, that since universalism is true, then, the doctrine of an eternal conscious hell is false.” - Wrong! For me it was studying what scripture actually affirms concerning the punishment of sin that freed me to accept UR. Scripture warns of death, destruction, etc., all primarily referencing the results of sin in this life. Scripture warns of judgment to come where we’ll be forced to face the truth concerning our lives; and for many of us there will be much weeping and grinding of teeth. But scripture does not warn of ECT. How long judgment lasts and how long we are left suffering the fire of truth, well, until the hell is burnt out of us, I trust. So for me, because I found the doctrine of ECT Hell to be false, I came to believe that UR is true.
“The doctrine of universalism is of ancient origin and has existed among many schools of Christianity that also held to gnosticism.” - Connecting the doctrine of UR to gnosticism is wrong, a straw man. Two seperate doctrines, though some have held both. Whether gnosticism is true of not has nothing to do with whether UR is true or not.
“The doctrine of universalism was condemned as heretical at the Fifth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in the sixth century (553 A.D.) and was largely neglected during the Middle Ages.” - From, the actual wording of the document it is not clear that this council did not condemn UR as heretical, but a form of what was called “Originism”. Even so, does he accept all pronouncements of the RCC as binding? I don’t think so. Also, it is interesting that the Dark Ages followed the assendency of the RCC to power, using ECT to control others. I wonder how much Darkness there was because the church tried to control people using ECT and other means of exclusion, instead of preaching the Good News of God’s love.
“It is interesting to note that the doctrinal belief of universalism, the eventual salvation of all, agrees with and embraces the lie that Satan told Eve in the garden. Satan said unto Eve, “Ye shall not surely die” (Genesis 3:4b). This same lie, told by Satan, becomes the foundational belief in the doctrine of universalism. Investigation shows the how this lie came to be included in the beliefs of those whom call themselves Christians and whom also believe in the doctrine of universalism.” - Note that the warning was “you shall surely DIE”, not ECT Hell! We believe that sin results in death, but not ECT, because that is not warned of in scripture! Something so important as ECT Hell, IF it was true would surely have been warned of specifically and repeatedly in scripture, and described in great detail – “IF” it was true! I wish this guy would read what scripture actually says and stop reading into scripture his belief in ECT Hell!
Oh well, that’s all the time I have to give to this now. Maybe I’ll take time later to review his info more and share my thoughts on it, if anyone wants to read them.
You all are awesome, and such a blessing to somone like me who is young in his faith, both in Christ and in UR.
Wow, great posts you guys. Thanks! I was blessed reading what you had to say. 
Cindy
As is the case with 99.9% of Christians…for the same reasons you gave.
And now I’ll actually contribute properly to the thread ( 
) by taking a swing at some stuff the person has written.
Wrong. The foundational belief in universalism is that God saves all. I believe God saves all. Yet I also believe that the lie satan told Eve was that she would not “die”, as in “actual physical death” and nothing more. I believe that everyone dies. Not some weird “spiritual death” or other not-to-be-found-in-Scripture phrases, but death. The kind that makes people sad at funerals. These 2 beliefs go hand in hand. Everyone is saved precisely because everyone dies. It’s the same group of people!
Believe me, this long-winded historical stuff is utterly irrelevant. The issue is whether the Scriptures teach that all will be saved or not.
Allan has commented on this already. If he hadn’t, I would have 
So what? The argument here is that since Origen believed other things that are wrong, he’s not to be trusted on universalism. I wonder if the author of the article has ever believed anything wrong. If so, should we therefore not even engage with him?
Good.
And right here, I become suspect. This guy doesn’t even know the word is “eonion” life and not eternal.
But worse, the statement is wrong. “Christ died for sins.” What is it that deals with sins? Christ died! That’s it! Nowhere are we told that if/once we receive eternal life, then we can get saved. He gives himself away because he offers no verse for this claim that to be saved once must receive eternal life. The rest of that paragraph is mumbo jumbo.
And then in the red paragraph, he writes
and clearly shows that he too believes utterly in a works based salvation.
In the same red paragraph, after discussing John 3:16-18, he asks
Easily. The words are addressed to the Jews and are about eionian life, life in the coming kingdom where Messiah will reign on the earth. This was what the Jews longed for and Jesus is saying that if the Jews don’t receive their Messiah, they will miss out on the coming age-long earthly kingdom. Why? They’ll be dead. These verses have NOTHING to do with universalism or not, because Jesus came only to the lost sheep of Israel (Matt 15:24 and Matt 10:6) and His ministry was simply not concerned with “saving the world”. That was left until Jesus was ascended, when He gave His message of reconciliation of the world to Paul.
notice here the subtle implication that anyone who belives God will save all is in the same league as a cult member.
Not all of them do!
Thank goodness, because this author has finally gotten around to telling us how to ***really ***know whether universalism is right or wrong: if it’s part of orthodox Christendom, it’s right! [/end sarcasm]
Honestly, if the author just used a little context, he’d have nothing to write about. The context is about the high priest. When the high priest died, judgment came. What was this judgment? Salvation and liberation for the guilty. Israelites who committed involuntary manslaughter needed to stay in a city of refuge. (Num 25:25, 28) The death of the high priest removed the blood guilt that polluted the land and so the manslaughterers were then released. This was the judgment of the man. Judgment = salvation. Read the book of Judges to see this in action. God sends a judge and Israel gets saved. And to cap it off, in the following verse we see the comparison. Just as the high priest dies and that leads to judgment (salvation) of the manslaughterer, so also [note: it doesn’t say “in contrast”, it says “so also”] Christ’s death leads to salvation through faith! This verse has nothing at all to do with the popular but wrong “there are no more 2nd chances of death” theology. It’s irresponsible verse-picking. Hopefully this helps.
Does the author even believe in salvation by grace? Over and over he says the one MUST make the decision. I guess it’s just bad luck that even though people must make the decision to accept Christ or suffer the consequences, they simply can’t unless God draws them. Bummer.
Another unscriptural argument.
[sidenote…I’m sorry that my tone is getting more sarcastic. I’m trying to fight it, but it’s not working.]
I’ll give it a shot.
Why assume that by death Paul meant spiritual death, when this is an unknown biblical phrase. Death means death. Not life. Again, the thing that makes people sad at funerals.
Dying in your sins means this. Jesus is speaking to Jews and he’s warning them about not being able to enter the coming kingdom. If they don’t receive the Messiah, they’ll die. (As in, they will no longer be alive.) And since they will not have received Jesus their Messiah, they’ll still be “in their sins”.
If only more apologists had tried to contact this guy…
Simple really. 
I’m not even a quarter through reading it, but I’m not doing anymore. This post is too long already. jtobiska, don’t be distressed. The argument is not even in the same ballpark as strong.
Hi jtobiska - If after you have read through what other people have given you above so far in order to deal with Lindstrom’s statements, if then you still believe Lindstrom has any argument that defeats the EU position, then why don’t you do another posting stating exactly what that argument(s) is(are). Then let the EU forum members deal with that argument(s). I think the arguments against EU are pretty weak. The best ones all seem to have foundations on inadequate Bible translations or on tradition. And those foundations are pretty inadequate. But please bring forward in specifics anything that seems to you to be prevailing against EU so we can hash it out together!
Thank you SoCalif very much for that offer! The posts that I’ve read here have helped me greatly to see that Lindstrom’s article is not as powerful as it originally seemed to me. My knowledge of and faith in UR has been increased and I feel much better now than I did when I first posted. I can’t say that at the moment I have any outstanding specific arguments that I need help with, but I will make sure to bring them here if/when they come up.
Thank you (and everyone else who has posted here) for helping me to see that
I’ve now read most of the article…I wonder if you’re mistaking ‘verbose’ for ‘thorough’, however. I will give the author credit for actually concentrating on Christian universalism and not lumping all universalism under one umbrella as so many do. Will try to work on a detailed response as time permits. I will say that it’s the Bible, properly read, which provides strong counter arguments. I wouldn’t be too distressed, Mr. Landstrom appears to mount few (if any) arguments that haven’t been hashed over dozens of times already.
In case you guys needed any further evidence of the weakness of Landstrom’s arguments, you might want to check out this link, in which our own Dr Thomas Talbott fillets Landstrom, politely but decisively - ovrlnd.com/Universalism/ttvsel.html
Cheers
Johnny