Bob appreciate your work and spirit! 
Hey Michael, Our assumptions about God’s nature and plan deeply differ. You seem to argue that putting Christ first means I’d no longer grieve if I believed he did not love or seek the welfare of my child. We seem to have very different feeling about our children and what love for them cares about. I think Christ is rightly put first because of who He is, the One who DOES love us. If I agreed that He has no saving love or pursuit of the eternal welfare of those made in His image that I deeply value, He would not be the Lord I know who is Love, and thus worth of our worship. He would be the Destroyer who we are called to rebuke. But of course, I find that unbiblical and inconceivable.
Hey Bob,
He is the destroyer in the sense that He allows sin to destroy. In Job when God allowed Satan to bring fire down from heaven the text goes on to say it was the fire of God. We say God hardens a heart by permitting it. Not directly causing it. God’s hatred is simply handing sinners over to their own will. The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life. I didn’t say we don’t grieve but God will heal us. People suffer loss all the time. But they go on. My grandpa died and I grieved. But I can rest knowing that if he didn’t make it that he is resting in peace. From ashes to ashes from dust to dust. This is how God’s wrath was expressed at the cross. He permitted evil to have it’s way with Christ. The worst evil in human history was meant by God for good. The saving of many lives.
Hey Michael,
If what allows you to “rest” is knowing that those you love end up “resting in peace,” really means that they end up cut off from the love of God (& from you), and annihilated from all the blessings for which those created in God’s image were created, we differ on what produces rest for us. I would see that as an eternally grievous failure of the will of the God who wills that everyone be saved. I know that you see such a victory as beyond God’s power, will, or desire. But I would find more rest in the One who promised that His Father seeks the lost “until they are found.”
Okay Bob. I see your point. Tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to hope that all will be saved.
Hey Michael,
Your response delightfully surprised me. I often say that those who even hope that God wins a universal victory of reconciliation reveal that they have a secure foot planted in His kingdom. I understand anyone who wonders if the Biblical case for such a hope is strong enough, or who perceives contrary warnings in God’s Word. And I have no doubt that you will continue to faithfully seek to grasp all the dimensions of God’s plan. But it just might be that one who senses that it would not be wicked to desire or hope that every beloved person will be redeemed will be more open to seeing riches of hope within God’s Word that were previously overlooked.
Grace be with you,
Bob
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