So God just, abracadabra, changes the “stance” of a person from unrighteous to righteous! It doesn’t matter whether he is actually righteous—only that he is positionally righteous so as to avoid judgment. No correction necessary. If your child was stealing and beating up on other kids, I’m sure he would be happy if you took no action to correct him, but just pronounced him righteous.
God doesn’t tolerate unrighteousness. Unless one’s character is changed, he will persevere in unrighteousness, whether he’s pronounced righteous or not. God wants truly righteous people—not merely some kind of pretending righteousness that He thrusts upon them. Every person must be MADE righteous, and God doesn’t do that unilaterally. He does it in coöperation with the choices of the person. It sometimes requires discipline to induce proper choices. When all have been corrected, all will dwell with God forever.
The whole purpose of Christ’s sacrificial death was to save people from their sinful character. The angel told Joseph to call Mary’s son “Jesus” (Saviour) for He will save his people from their SINS. He didn’t say, "Call his name “Jesus” for He will change the stance of his people from unrighteous to righteous.
The Scripture to which you referred, doesn’t affirm the latter.
…in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
The key words here are “reconciling” and “reconciliation.” How does God reconcile people to Himself? They have to go His way, and do His will. They have to repent (have a change of heart and mind) concerning their sins, and begin to forsake them. This is made possible by the enabling grace of God.
For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all people, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and to live sensible, righteous, and devout lives in the present age, expecting the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of the great God and of our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good works. Declare these things; encourage and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you. (Titus 2:11-15)
Funny I agree with both Davo and Paidon on this point. “The righteous will live by faith!”
Contrary to standard evangelical thought I believe all mankind is already righteous through the blood of Christ whether believing or unbelieving. The status of all mankind is loved, forgiven, eternally secure. Trusting God does not change the fact that he has loved us and forgiven all mankind from the cross! However, not all mankind has a changed heart to believe the good news. The majority do not trust Christ and so even though they have a status of righteous with God they do not LIVE by faith. They are DEAD without faith.
So Davo is right that all mankind is already righteous and Paidon is right that believing mankind still needs correction and unbelieving mankind especially needs their eyes to be opened to the good news.
Time to ask a question, since Israel is bounced around a bit** here**. How does everyone here - being universalists with various theological positions, interpret Romans 11:26:
Getting back to: “Free Willism or God’s Soeveignty in Salvation of All”:
We are told in Colossians 1:16:
“for in Him is all created, that in the heavens and that on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones, or lordships, or sovereignties, or authorities, all is created through Him and for Him,”
All in created through Him. So Christ is the channel and God is the source of all. But look at the revelation right after that: “all is for Him.”
So all creation that came into being through Him is for the sole purpose of being for Him. It does not say “it is for Him if Creation just does all the right things.”
If we see a pile of money and enquire: What is that money for. The answer would be “that money is for him” as the man points at the one who will receive that money. The money is not for him if it just fulfills certain requirements.
Randy, all the Judaizers, claim that Romans 11 teaches that all ethnic Israel will be saved. And they label anyone who disagrees with them “Replacement Theologists.” The fact is that Romans 11 teaches neither.
I invite you to consider my post on the matter in the following thread (it is the 6th one):
Allow me to address only a single aspect of your question.The last prophecy that had to be fulfilled before the Second Coming was fulfilled in Acts 2. Ever since the 120 believers were baptized in the Holy Spirit in Acts 2, the Second Coming of Christ has been imminent. That means that since Pentecost in A. D. 30 nothing whatsoever has to happen before Christ can return. Therefore Christ could return before you finish reading this sentence.
As such, Romans 11:26 has nothing whatsoever to do with a future event in history. All Israel will be saved, regardless of how one understands the word “Israel”, because all of creation (of which “Israel” is a subset) will be saved.
This explains a lot… your “superficial study of Greek” hasn’t revealed to you that “aiōn” <αἰών> (age) being the root of the adjective most definitely HELPS define WHAT is “lasting” — for example it isn’t talking about a “lasting headache” but a ‘lasting age’ — hence the appropriateness of “age-lasting” or “age-enduring”. At the moment I’ll trust the likes of ‘Young’s Literal Translation’ over ‘Paidion’s Literal Interpretation’.
This is funny… previously you’ve attempted to make a case that “time” isn’t really a factor with regards to “aiōnion” <αἰώνιον> and yet here you are again this time smarting about “3 days” or “3-year” (time). As always there is the literal meaning and the applied meaning. Jesus for example describes himself as “the door”… the applied meaning of course indicating HE being the entrance unto God. Jonah did NOT know before time that he was to make a grand entrance to a beach party 3 days later and so in his natural turmoil speaks (prays) in terms of the TOTALITY (applied meaning) of his predicament, that for him surely seemed as “forever” or aiōnioi <αἰώνιοi> i.e., age-lasting / enduring, or to-the-age.
With respect to God’s view of humanity… His “abracadabra” as you would have it demeaned, was Calvary and ALL that that entailed; believe it or not but that solitary lonesome little Jew on the outskirts of Jerusalem back two millennia actually changed things.
As always Paidion in reaction you jump to the other ridiculous extreme… a child of yours might be the town thug and as repugnant as you find his behaviour (which external appearances always seem to be your MO in determining the heart of a matter) I’m guessing in your imperfect heart there might just be a skerrick of love for him; or am I crediting you with too much? Fortunately God is far beyond our faulty assessments.
Yeah that’s right… oh wait, there was of course this other murderous self-righteous thug who had that out-of-the-blue “ah ha” moment beyond his own intentions on a road to Damascus; you may have read about him??
The likes of righteous repentance is only possible BECAUSE OF the redemptive grace ALREADY IN PLAY, as is well attested to here…
“Return to Me” = repentance… something ONLY possible BECAUSE they had first been REDEEMED.
Unilaterally? WITHOUT any profession of belief in or faith towards “the First Adam” humanity in toto was unilaterally ascribed BY GOD to be in him. WITHOUT any profession of belief in or faith towards “the Last Adam” humanity in toto was unilaterally ascribed BY GOD to be in Him.
Religianity just like its Judaistic forerunner always hankers after its pound of flesh, i.e., a works righteousnessto prove oneself; it’s just called “confessing and believing”. One might object, and many do “but what if some don’t believe?” – does that make of none affect the grace of God – NO!!
Jesus… “appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself”. Christ changed forever the stance and status of humanity before Him in a most costly and yet ultimately positive way… letting folk know this (the Good News) is the privilege of those who have grasped this wondrous reality.
Paidion you place the cart before the horse — BECAUSE OF God’s PRIOR reconciliatory act in Christ (“when we were yet sinners”) man is able to subsequently move into the blessedness of LIFE (Jn 10:10; 17:3) that the reconciliation has ALREADY established… hence Paul’s following appeal “be ye therefore reconciled to God!” IOW… you’ve been made righteous (reconciled), NOW come and live in the FULL fruit OF that righteousness (reconciliation). Doing so enables blessedness beyond comprehension (Jn 14:27; 16:33). Thus what comes FIRST was… “the salvation of all people” and so facilitating and empowering said… “training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and to live sensible, righteous, and devout lives in the present age,…” etc — it helps to get the cart back behind the horse Paidion.
All Israel fully inclusive of the good, the bad and the ugly, i.e., the righteous and the UNrighteous TOGETHER were FULLY REDEEMED out of bondage FIRST, period! THEN what the faith-based response of certain ones enabled was a further entrance into the depths of blessing IN THIS LIFE that the unfaithful redeemed missed, i.e., the land of promise — can you not see this?
Randy… as a pantelist (inclusive prêterism) I understand Israel’s deliverance (salvation) i.e., covenant restoration (resurrection Ezek 36:26-27; 37: 1-14) to be what Jesus accomplished as Israel’s Messiah and that He in fact DID “turn away ungodliness from Jacob”, that is, Jesus removed the reproach that stood against Israel due to her wanton unfaithfulness such as had led into captivity under Rome… as it had previously under Babylon; of which there were prophetic promises made ALL of which Jesus fulfilled (2Cor 1:20; Lk 21:22).
Yeah, and we’ve had this conversation before. This is WHY in English “everlasting” or “eternal” is used as opposed to the clunky-ness of the more strict literal reading. BUT AGAIN you also are getting hung up on the LITERAL as opposed to applied meaning that I’ve mentioned above.
Thanks everyone, for their input, on Israel’s salvation. While the topic is “God’s Sovereignty in Salvation of All”, any valid Biblical question, does show how God’s Sovereignty unfolds. And how universalists of different theological positions, actually see how God’s Sovereignty unfolds. Enough said - for now.
You are correct that God is not “age-lasting.” However, in Revelation it is written that Christ and those with Him live for the thousand years. Does this mean they all die when the thousand years end? No.
In the Greek God is said to be the eonian God which is God pertaining to the eons. He has a relationship to all the eons. The eons were created in Christ (Eph.3:11) (so they had a beginning and so were not endless in the past). All the eons collectively will end. So they cannot be eternal in the future. So we are left with only one option: When someone was told they will have eonian life, they were told they will have life pertaining to the eon(s). That is an incredible blessing. Believers get eonian life. We get life pertaining to the next two greatest glorious eons.
Believers put on immortality and incorruption AND also live through the next two eons. When the next two eons end, it will be the end of all the eons but we will continue to live due to having immortality. Our immortality is not based on having eonian life. Get it?
It is improper to say that the adjective of aiwn, i.e., aiwnion, means age-lasting. The adjectival form of aiwn just has the duty of informing us of that which pertains to any given aiwn.
Even to say aiwn means “age” is incorrect. Aiwn does not actually mean “age.” It actually means “duration.” We know how long that duration is by definitive scriptures which tell us each duration ends.
Just as “Heavenly” informs us of something pertaining to Heaven and “American” informs us of something pertaining to America. You wouldn’t say (at least a sane person would not say) that if Bush was the American president that he was the America lasting president i.e. that he will be president as long as America lasts.
All good Paidion… even though we might be talking from the other side of the fence to each other on some of this stuff it makes for interesting conversation.
Hi, Davo. Someone is looking for a Preterit perspective (for a question or two), in the current thread On Preterism, the Second Coming and Hell. I told them you are the residential expert. Can you help them out? Thanks.
You can put the words “One saved, always saved”, into Google or Bing, for more articles (i.e. both pro and con). So if we agree with “One saved, always saved”, then you are OK. You can’t lose your salvation. As long as you believe in Jesus Christ, as a personal savior.
Now two sites I sometimes share material from - Protestant sites Got Questions and CARM - both agree with it.
To put it into a universalist perspective, it means this. All will **eventually **be saved, according to universalism. But if you side with the position “once saved, always saved”, your salvation is secure and can’t be lost. But please realize, not all Protestant churches (as well as Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox), would side with this position (i.e. “once saved, always saved”).
So do you agree with “once saved, always saved”? Why or why not? And how does it fit (or not fit) in with God’s sovereignty and universalism? And how does it fit in (or not fit in) with avoiding corrective punishment - for the universalists that advocate it?
