The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Interesting Article

I don’t know if anyone’s come across this before, but this article has some interesting things in it …

nccg.org/mlt/sermons/3_065.html
Very intereswting reading :slight_smile:

This shares many things that affirm UR, but then turns around and says that UR is not true. And it seems to me that his logic is, well, off. For example, he quotes many passages that affirm limited punishment of sin, and then turns around and says that when it comes to the unsaved, this really doesn’t apply because breaking any law means breaking the whole Law; thus the unsaved can never pay for what they owe, thus hell. It’s really convoluted. It’s also interesting that Christians are saved by grace but then punished according to the sins they’ve committed after becoming a Christian. And non-Christians are punished forever for not recieving grace, which doesn’t seem very graceful to me.

Have you noticed that other writers seem to do that too … even pretty big name theologians seem to find it hard to follow through their arguments and conclusions … I wonder why?

Yes, I really enjoy discussing this with Infernalists, those who will discuss it with me. I affirm that I believe that Jesus truly is the savior of all like the Bible says.
Them - “I do to.”
Me - “So you really believe that Jesus saves everyone?”
Them - “Well no, Jesus doesn’t save everyone.”
Me - “So you don’t believe that Jesus is the savior of all like the Bible says.”
Them - “Well, yes I believe Jesus is the savior, but doesn’t save everyone.”
Me - “So you don’t believe that Jesus is the savior of all like the Bible says.”
Them - “Yes, well, no, umm, you’re just twisting what I said.”

Sometimes it comes down to them saying that Jesus doesn’t really save anyone; instead He only came to offer salvation to everyone. It takes some awfully convoluted reasoning to affirm Infernalism.

I started noticing variations of that, too, when working on seeing whether universal salvation was true. It’s primarily an Arminian stance of course, because Calvinistic theologians have no need of such a position; on the contrary, in counter-Arminian apologetics Calvs like to stress that OF COURSE Jesus came to save sinners (and will certainly succeed in saving everyone He came to save).

Not all Arms take this route, but I saw a variation of it not too long ago–the theologian’s position amounted (although he didn’t spell it out) to the notion that Christ only came to make it possible to save everyone, or to offer to save everyone, not to actually save anyone.

Because if He doesn’t even try, He doesn’t fail. :wink: Opening a door for the wandering flock to come back into the fold, is a lot different from going out after the 100th goat.

I think Jason has it pegged here. The problem is that Arminians (whether they even know they’re Arminians or not) feel like Jesus didn’t actually close the deal. He made it possible, but it’s up to us to pick up the option. And if we don’t, then our sins haven’t been paid for. That’s why the idea of the picture of the unforgiving servant not getting “out of there until he has paid the uttermost farthing” to an Arminian means he’s never going to get out because there’s no way he could pay for his own sin. Never mind that’s not what Jesus said; He couldn’t have meant it THAT way, because it would imply that the servant could pay for his own sin if only he stayed long enough and suffered long enough. (And I would say that at some point perhaps the unforgiving servant WOULD have paid all, and that the problem is not the payment for sins committed, but the slavery to sin itself.)

The only way this parable makes sense (in a more or less Arminian pov) is if Jesus did indeed pay the debt for sins, and the uttermost farthing is something else – maybe the forgiveness previously withheld? Maybe the faith and trust necessary to eschew one’s own “righteousness” in favor of the righteousness that is by faith? Maybe death to the flesh? Whatever the uttermost farthing is, Jesus says “until” and not “unless – and that’s not going to happen because it can’t be done.”

I tend to go with paying the forgiveness previously withheld, since in the story that’s explicitly why the man ends up being handed over to the tormentors. (And I find it very amusing that Calvs and Arms both seem recently very insistent on denying that God is actively punishing anyone post-mortem. How is it that I’m ending up the champion for post-mortem punishment by God!? :laughing: )

The king has already “paid” the financial debt, by mercifully absorbing the losses caused by his embezzling servant: the king doesn’t pay what the embezzler owed to someone else, but accepts the abuse by the sinner against him. There’s Jesus on the cross, voluntarily suffering because of the sins we do, right there.

I was absolutely shocked when I first realized that, in following standard modes of interpretation, I had been ignoring the actual reason for the imprisonment and torment, and focusing on something else for which the king hadn’t imprisoned the sinner. By doing so, that showed I was putting myself, the servant of God, in the place of the unforgiving servant!

Now I have to restrain myself from screaming, when I see other people doing it, “That’s how the unforgiving servant would interpret that parable!!” (So I try to tell people that more moderately instead. :slight_smile: )

Jason,

Do I understand you correctly? You think the debt the unforgiving servant was imprisoned to pay was not the debt, 10,000 talents he had owed the king for the king had forgiven him; the debt he was imprisoned to pay was the debt owed him by the other man, the 100 denarii? Mat.18:21-35 That’s an interesting perspective.

Of course, one of the tendencies of interpreting parables is to see in them too much, to interpret them to teach something they were never meant to teach. Most parables, I think, have a primary, if not sole message. This passage is teaching about the importance of living in forgiveness towards others, forgiveness for others that comes from the realization that God forgives us! I don’t think it is meant to teach about punishment in the afterlife, but about righteousness (right living) in this life, and potential problems one will face in this life if we live in unforgiveness.

Understanding it the way you’ve presented it though is powerful. The king is working in the unforgiving servant to learn to live in mercy and forgiveness like the king does. The king isn’t taking back his forgiveness, but working for the good of the unforgiving servant, though it be harsh discipline.

Well, I was saying the the debt he was imprisoned to pay was mercy to the other man. “I forgave you all that debt, because you begged me to!–was it not required of you, to also have this mercy on your fellow slave, as I am merciful to you?!”

However, now that you mention it, that would require the unforgiving servant to self-sacrificially bear the cost of the sin of the other person against him, just as his Master had done for the unforgiving servant.

So yes, from that perspective, the unforgiving servant was expected to pay the debt owed to him by the other man. I really hadn’t thought of it that way before.

That even leans harder on the disparity between the two cases–there isn’t any indication that the lessor debtor had embezzled and so sinned directly against the king’s accountant. It should have been much easier for the king’s accountant to forgive the debt against himself, than for the king to forgive the debt embezzled by the accountant.

But then again, the ruthlessness of the accountant might also be an indication that he didn’t really trust the mercy of the king, and so was desperate to “pay back” the king by any method available–even if that meant being unmerciful to others.

How much misery could the world have been spared had Christian teachers seen and taught this principle to others, expecting them to do likewise! :frowning: (I’m thinking of those Christians who, unable to outright believe that God has forgiven them their sins, mercilessly prosecute others for ethical failings even if the faults have been much less than the zealots’ own. A tendency not restricted to Christians, of course–Israel has been guilty of this herself with some regularity along the way.)

Thanks Jason. My sons and I were talking just the other day about how much different the world would be if Christians lived out the foundational concept of UR, that all shall be reconciled to God and to one another. If we believe that then we will not be afraid for the salvation of others, but will trust God for the salvation of others. We will gladly share the good news of God’s love for it is coupled with faith in God for the salvation of others. And we will be empowered to love and forgive others because God shall forever love and forgive us and others. What can ultimately separate us from the love of God? Nothing in heaven, on earth, or under the earth, no cunning of man or devil, no sin is too great for the love of God to not overcome!

We would even be more willing to share warnings about punishment to come! :smiley: (Well, unless we’re ultra-universalists I guess, but even them in a way. :slight_smile: )