I don’t think there are clear universal verses in the NT, that is verses from which universalism can be deduced.
But let us discuss this together.
The verses of the kind “As ALL men died in Adam, all will be made alive in Christ” are generally explained away by Calvinists in the following way:
the first “all” really means the entire mankind whereas the second “all” does not mean all humans but just ALL who are elects, who God predetermined to get saved.
Do you think this holds water?
Arminians say that the “all” means in both contexts every human, but in the second part of the sentence it is conditional upon their free decision for Christ.
It seems way more plausible than the Calvinist interpretation, does it not?
Feel free to mention and analyse other alleged universalist verses used by Saint Paul.
Well, I’m sure you will find the many threads dealing with a preponderance of scriptural evidence if you do a search.
As well - the Talbott and Parry books are well worth your study as they deal with the Romans passage and all others in the scripture.
Others here will hopefully take you up on your offer; Tillich has my head spinning today.
Well, I think one of the strongest of the many verses which point to universal salvation is the following:
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. (1Tim 4:10)
On the surface, the verse seems to say that God saves all people, but saves believers in a special way—in a way which won’t require them to endure the same severe correction as non-believers.
The only way to get around this verse, is either to claim that “all people” does not in fact denote all people, but to some sub class of people, or to claim that all people are “saved” in some inferior sense.
Lotharson, this is a good place to start. Here’s the context (well, some of it anyway):
To me, the primary purpose of this passage is to support Paul’s view of the resurrection of the dead, which I read as a physical resurrection (and with which I am in full agreement) – but that’s an aside. First I’d like to talk about what you did not bring up, just to get it out of the way so it’s not standing there staring at us. That is, the procession in verse 23-24. At first glance this would seem to leave out any post-mortem fruits. First Christ, then at His coming, all who belong to Him, and then the end. Telos includes in itself the idea of the consummation, the last in a procession – the finale, so to speak. First Christ is/was raised, second His body/church is raised, and finally the last. What this end or last is, Paul doesn’t say, but based on the structure he uses here, I think it has to be a something, not a nothing. Something is the end – he’s not just saying, John came home, then Suzi came home, and that was the end. It wouldn’t even make sense to say it that way. You’d just say, John came home, and then Suzi came home. The end here is more likely to BE something than to be nothing. The end, the finish, when all things are finally summed up in Christ (ie, when the rest of the lost ones come home, imo), THEN he hands it all over to the Father. If this had to stand alone it wouldn’t be much use, but there’s plenty of support elsewhere for the idea that the entire harvest is holy to the Lord and must be reaped and brought in to the barns – plenty of support to make this also stand.
Death came through a man — that would be Adam. To whom did death come? I don’t think anyone would argue that the sum of men to whom death came would equal the entire race of Adam. Death came to every human being, born or unborn or stillborn. Everyone dies. Death came through a man (Adam); the resurrection of the dead comes through a man (Jesus – the second/last Adam).
He’s establishing his rules of syntax here. As in Adam. So the following is going to relate to Adam and what happened to the human race through him. ALL people die in Adam.
As in Adam all die -----> In Christ all are made alive.
IMO it requires some serious reaching to insist that the all in the second phrase is NOT the same all given in the first phrase. I’m sure you can see this as well as I. Clearly, Paul was either sloppy in his composition (a theory I hesitate to propose, considering Romans) or he is relating these as parallel phrases. This verse is a serious problem for damnationalists (sorry – I don’t like to be inflammatory but it’s the least offensive term I can really think up – suggestions welcome) and also for annihilationists. To make matters worse, Paul repeats it in Romans:
For the first section, sin came to all and through it death came to all (so far, I think everyone agrees that all means all).
In the second section, Paul points out that even though sin isn’t reckoned without the law, the curse of death still follows it, even in those who haven’t sinned like Adam (I mentally insert small children, mentally handicapped, stillborn babies, etc. here, though maybe it means more than that). Adam is a type of Him who is coming – that is of course, Jesus.
Third section, we see that because of the sin of Adam, **the many **did die. Again, I don’t think anyone would quarrel that this “many” refers to all people. IF by the offense of one the many did die, much more does the grace and the gift of Jesus abound to the many. I see no justification to change the qualification of the second “many” from that of the first. If the first means “everyone with the exception of Jesus,” then so does the second “many”
Fourth section, again we see the parallel structure, but even more obvious here. The one offense brings all men condemnation. Nobody has a problem with believing this. Adam’s sin opened the door and everyone fell through it. We are all sinners condemned to die because sin leads to death. The tough part is the second part where the declaration of righteousness is to all men just like the condemnation was to all men. We didn’t choose to be born into the sin of Adam; we don’t choose to be lumped into the group of all men declared righteous either. We can walk in that or not, but we can’t get out of the set of men declared righteous through Christ’s obedience. Studying Romans has converted more than a few to a belief in universal reconciliation. It’s only by torturing the text that it’s possible to say that the second “all” or “many” doesn’t mean the same as the first one. No one would consider doing that unless they already “knew” what Paul was really trying to say, and that he just couldn’t be saying that because we know that most humans will not be constituted righteous. Still, there it is, and it appears to mean precisely what it appears to mean.
When I started studying UR I can tell you that I was shocked at the number of texts I had been explaining away in my mind – automatically – because they didn’t fit my eschatology. There were always a few that made me scratch my head, but nowhere near as many as the whole sheer volume of those I had been automatically filtering without even noticing.
I’ll tag [tag]JasonPratt[/tag] in case he has something to add (he often does) or has already posted something about this in his section.
Paul is speaking to believers. He’s saying that one trespass led to condemnation for all of them (the elect). Likewise, one act of obedience led to justification and life for all of them (the elect). All men means all men here but the scope is limited to all the elect. For this is who Paul was addressing.
Edit:
It’s like if I was speaking to every saved person here at EU saying “we are all Christians”. The context and scope of my words is all of us Christians here at EU. Paul is speaking to believers. When he says all people he’s saying every last one of us. He’s speaking to the elect.
It’s like if I was speaking to every saved person here at EU saying “we are all Christians”. The context and scope of my words is all of us Christians here at EU. Paul is speaking to believers. When he says all people he’s saying every last one of us. He’s speaking to the elect.
So in 5:18 he is telling believers that “one trespass led to condemnation for all men” and that is limited to the elect, but in 6:23 he says that “the wages of sin is death” and that includes the non-elect ? You don’t see a correlation between 5:18 and 6:23 ? How can one verse apply only to the elect while the other verse (which says the same thing by correlation) applies to all humanity? If what you are saying is the case, then the wages of the sin of the elect is death, but nothing can be implied concerning the non-elect.
In regards to that passage, what I often hear from both Calvinists and Arminians is that “all who are in Christ will be made alive”, just as all who are in Adam die. They argue that not everyone is in Christ – only those who believe (either by election or by free will).
I partially agree – all are not in Christ. The point of disagreement for me is that the passage is saying that all will be made alive in Him – not that all who are in Him will be made alive. In Christ is life, and we pass from death to life by entering into the life of Christ. All will be made alive by new birth/resurrection into Christ.
The other explanation I sometimes I hear for this passage is that Christ is the only available means for salvation, so all those who will be made alive are made alive only in Christ. They understand it to mean something like what is expressed in Acts 4:12 – “there is no other name given to men by which they must be saved.”
Again, I think this explanation misses the intent of this particular passage.
My favorite universalist text is Col 1:15-20. The only way anyone has tried to argue against this with me is to say that “reconcile” doesn’t mean they are all saved.
It seems better to read it as saying that the cross-centered peacemaking between God and His elect begins by reconciling God and His chosen ones but has a wider cosmic impact through that. As we are put right with our Creator by Christ’s blood the creation enjoys this restoration of harmony and longs for all the elect to come in. It teaches this in Romans:
For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. - Romans 8:19-21
It cannot be proven conclusively from this passage that Christ died for every single individual. It can be read that Christ died for His elect and secured their salvation and sanctification with His blood. This begins the reconciliation that will later have a greater cosmic impact.
The passage could be saying that salvation is not only given to those believing at the time this was written but to all kinds of people scattered abroad. All nationalities and all people don’t always refer to every single individual. The Lexicons give the definitions in the translations for pas as “all kinds” and “every kind”. Therefore, it is clear to the scholars that “all” can mean “all kinds of”:
On this view Christ died to gather into one His sheep scattered around the world from every nation (not every single individual):
God’s elect come from every tribe, language, nation and people (the whole world):
The point is that God is not only the God of the Jews but the Gentiles as well. He still has a chosen people though.
Michael, you know as well as most of us here, those verses have been discussed over and over, and EU’s have an interpretation, on solid exegetical grounds, that gives them the larger hope, and that frees them from the agnosticism concerning hell that plagues Calvinists.
I still don’t know what you are trying to accomplish. Either you are making your case against EU, or trying to make a case for Calvinism - good luck with that - or there is a question and a longing hidden in your statements, for EU to be true, or ? Please let us know - we’re here to help if that’s what you want. If you are trying to destroy what we believe in, just come out and say it. Nobody’s gonna bite you!
I’m just showing the other interpretation of those verses. For the most part I’ve held to limited atonement. Even when I believed firmly that God would save everybody. Some saved by grace in this lifetime others saved by fire in the next. I have trouble accepting a universal atonement. What do I want?
I did not have to ask my heart what it wanted, because of all the desires I have ever known just one did I cling to for it was the essence of
all desire:
Thanks. I didn’t mean to sound like I was interrogating you - I was just confused as to whether you were trying to edify the body of believers or not.
Suppose for instance this was a Mormon website, and I came into it, and almost everything I posted was a direct attack on the foundations of Mormon belief. They might ask me: what are you trying to accomplish here? Are you anti-Mormon? If you don’t agree with us Mormons, and you are not trying to help us deepen our understanding of Mormonism, why bother us? What good do you hope to accomplish by continually provoking us? And they would be within their rights to ask.
This thread - the Alleged existence of universal verses? What is the point of that, on this Forum? What was your thought process right before you started the thread? You are back in the ol’ Calvinist groove, I think, in with EU’s - kind of like me in the Mormon thread above. I truly don’t know if you are trying to be destructive to the body of Christ, of which most of us here are happy members, or if you are actually crying out for help.
Which is it? I am truly puzzled, I’m not pretending, and I would really like to know.
I don’t want a bible verse - I want to hear from Michael. Speak up?
That is, the procession in verse 23-24. At first glance this would seem to leave out any post-mortem fruits. First Christ, then at His coming, all who belong to Him, and then the end. Telos includes in itself the idea of the consummation, the last in a procession – the finale, so to speak. First Christ is/was raised, second His body/church is raised, and finally the last. What this end or last is, Paul doesn’t say, but based on the structure he uses here, I think it has to be a something, not a nothing. Something is the end – he’s not just saying, John came home, then Suzi came home, and that was the end. It wouldn’t even make sense to say it that way. You’d just say, John came home, and then Suzi came home. The end here is more likely to BE something than to be nothing. The end, the finish, when all things are finally summed up in Christ (ie, when the rest of the lost ones come home, imo), THEN he hands it all over to the Father. If this had to stand alone it wouldn’t be much use, but there’s plenty of support elsewhere for the idea that the entire harvest is holy to the Lord and must be reaped and brought in to the barns – plenty of support to make this also stand.
