Packer: The Problem Of Universalism Today (1969)

[Luke]

I’m sure you didn’t mean to insult me by effectively saying God doesn’t care about precision and obeying his entire revelation.

Not at all, Luke! I apologize for insulting you, and certainly did not intend to. I’m not sure why you think I was implying that God does not care about precision. It seems to me the statement “God is love” is quite precise. Nor am I sure what that has to do with obeying God’s entire revelation. I’d welcome an explanation–perhaps I’m just being dense and missing the obvious.

Just as I didn’t mean to insult you by questioning Alex’s use of the phrase “God is love” which if it was entirely self-evident, would mean we wouldn’t need the rest of Scripture.

I was not (and am not) at all insulted. I was trying to help clarify a position that many of us here hold. People tend to assume that when we point out that “God is love” we are elevating “love” above His other attributes, but that’s not the case.

I’m not sure what you mean by saying that the statement, “God is love” is misleading. In what way does it mislead people? Why would John, writing under inspiration, describe God in a misleading way?

In what way does “God is love” (not necessarily as “self-evident” but as further defined by John in his letter) negate the importance of the rest of scripture?

I wasn’t sure what you meant because you used the angry devil icon.

Not wanting to reheat too much of the other thread but you can’t make a characteristic of God (which John is describing) his essential self. This is because God, the Christian God, is first and foremost the Trinity. Secondly God’s love means different things, we need to be precise about which phrase we are using and letting the context of that statement guide us. Lastly if we should talk about the essential nature of God it’s probably best just to say God being God. (Exodus 3 “I AM”)

This is why Alex can’t use the unexplained statement “God is love” as an argument for Universalism.

[Alex_Smith]

It’s good to see your notes and understand your thinking.

Thanks, I’ve been slowly plodding my way thru all the material Joe gave me, and it’s actually been rewarding, both for improving/clarifying my thinking and because I’ve found new arguments for EU

you said “the Bible says God is love.”

Yes, 1 John 4:8 says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

What do you mean by that statement?

A very good question, and people have written my books on the statement! However, I’d start with combining 1 John 4:8 & 1 Cor 13:4-8a “God is patient, God is kind. God does not envy, God does not boast, God is not proud. God does not dishonor others, God is not self-seeking, God is not easily angered, God keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. God always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. God never fails.” Does that sound like someone planning, sustaining and delighting in Endless Conscious Torment?

Wouldn’t God be a consuming fire (Heb 12:29), for example?

He is, consuming the impurities in people.

Why is God being love (whatever that actually means) more important than God being three and one?

It isn’t. I think both those statements are equally important

Also aren’t you confusing a characteristic with an essential description?

I hope not

I say all this not to bombard you,

Thanks, I don’t feel bombarded

but to show that the statement by-itself is almost meaningless with[out] explanation and context.

Fair enough. I’ll try to add some explanation and context.

It’s not a argument for universalism.

Perhaps with explanation and context

A more accurate and powerful way of saying what I think your saying is; “God is loving and this is expressed in who he is as the Godhead.”

I agree with that statement, although I’m unsure if it’s “*more *accurate and powerful”.

‘God is love’ is a misleading statement.

I think “misleading” is too harsh, perhaps “unhelpful” or “inconclusive”?

I took so long to write that post, you and Sonia had both posted!

Anyway, I agree that, “Alex can’t use the unexplained statement “God is love” as an argument for Universalism.”. It definitely needs further explanation, not only because “love” has such a wide meaning in English, but also so others see we aren’t limiting God to just one characteristic, excluding other essential characteristics like the Triune nature of God and the fact He is all powerful, all knowing, eternal, etc.

[Alex_Smith]

Bishop Robinson, in his pre-Honest to God days, argued that the only way of holding to the Bible-New Testament insistence that love is the last word to be spoken of God, is to be quite frank in seeing what the Scriptures say about his retributive justice as a function of his redeeming love.

I agree, except I’d probably say “extremely integral to God’s very being”, rather than “the last word to be spoken of God”.

He [Robinson] rejects the idea that God’s loving purpose could triumph if any were lost on the grounds that it ‘cannot preserve the absolute identity of divine love and justice’. For Robinson, you have to assert the absolute identity of divine love and justice, so that you have to understand God’s justice as a function and activity of his love preserving the purpose of love, i.e. of correction leading to the response of repentance and the final enjoyment of heaven.

I agree.

But, does the New Testament anywhere lead us to believe that the doctrines of justice and love are identical? I would not have thought so. But Robinson says you must say this.

Talbott has a lot of helpful things to say about this in the “Inescapable Love of God”. Basically they aren’t polar opposites like some people try to portray. Very interrelated, i.e. His love is just and His justice loving. And yes, I think the Bible leads us to believe this.

[Alex_Smith]

The second line of theological arguing is to argue from the fact that the cross was a decisive victory.

Amen.

The very essence of the victory, so they say, consists in the fact that the cross effectively saved all men.

Taking into consideration the complications of the NT’s “now & not yet”. e.g. I’m saved, but not yet sanctified.

And they understand faith as simply a matter of coming to acknowledge the fact that you were saved; faith is the opening of men’s blind eyes so that they acknowledge what they already are - men are in a state of salvation and grace.

Would a Calvinist say that about the elect who have not yet heard? If yes, then I say yes, if no, then I say no I’m not trying to be contrary, but the relationship between God, who is All Powerful, All Knowing & outside of time, and us within time and with what appears (& hopefully is) to be free will, is complex!

But is this New Testament? The New Testament, to me, seems to be saying that no-one is actually saved, no-one is actually in Christ, until he has actually believed into Christ.

Hmm. Well if you want to put it like that, I guess that’s ok. From our perspective that’s the way it pans out. From God’s perspective outside of time, I don’t know?

This is the doctrine of

Before you came to Christ, you were without hope.

The New Testament seems to be very clear that where there is no actual belief there is no actual salvation, no state of grace in any sense at all.

Let’s say Christ has opened the door to salvation, and that belief is stepping thru that door. Does the door exist before you step thru it? Yes. Does the salvation exist before you step thru it? Yes. Are you saved before you step thru the door? Yes & no. The salvation is already there waiting for you, but you haven’t yet obtained it. Even non-EUs have the concept of common grace e.g. God gives everyone life & sustains everyone.

Compare John 3:16 and 36, which make this very explicit.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Likewise, ‘Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved’ sounds a very different doctrine from the universalists’ awakening to faith. Again compare Hebrews 10:39

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

I agree people don’t receive Life until they believe, and until they do, they are perishing and under wrath. However, I don’t see this as excluding the possibility, of those perishing and under wrath, from believing.

[Alex_Smith]

Now there is a positive cogent and conclusive argument against universalism. I simply ask, does not the New Testament actually insist on the decisiveness of this life?

That doesn’t seem very conclusive, given that up until Calvin (?), the Church thought post-mortem salvation was possible!

So he said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.”

I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins."

What did our Lord mean when he threatened the Jews with the prospect of dying in their sins (John 8:21 and 24) as being the ultimate disaster?

That they might die in their sins. But it says nothing about what happens when they are resurrected on Judgement Day and after that… I’m also glad Jesus, unlike Packer, doesn’t say this is the “ultimate disaster”.

[Alex_Smith]

What did he mean in the parable of Dives and Lazarus where he included the detail about the great gulf fixed between the two men?

See TEU. Basically an existing Pharisaical parable that Jesus added a twist to, not to mention the fact that the two men where able to hold a conversation (in spite of the deafening screams of all the people in ECT) and that he was asked to pass him a drink over this “great gulf”

What did he mean when he spoke of one group going away into eternal life and the other group going away into eternal punishment, the judgement being passed in each case on the basis of what they had done in this life?

Given we believe it’s “by faith not works”, this passage poses some big problems if interpreted with ECT theology. Sherman will no doubt will help me out with this one, explaining that it’s actually judgement on Christians here. And of course there’s the issue again that Jesus wouldn’t have said “eternal” but most likely “olam”, which is much closer to “beyond sight” than it is to “infinity”.

[Luke]

A Judgement of works is part of traditional Christian doctrine. (Jesus changes the outcome for the elect and the rewards/punishment thing might also come into play at this stage.)

[Alex_Smith]

A Judgement of works is part of traditional Christian doctrine. (Jesus changes the outcome for the elect and the rewards/punishment thing might also come into play at this stage.)

Cool, we agree on this

[Alex_Smith]

What did he [Jesus] mean when he spoke of Judas in this way: Matthew 26:24, ‘… good it were for that man if he had not been born’?

I can only assume that this is a non-literal phrase (given God could’ve chosen not to make Judas), meaning that Judas was going to suffer a lot of pain.

Universalism is a doctrine of the salvation of Judas.

And what an amazing example of grace that is, to forgive a friend who betrays you.

Could our Lord have said this if he had expected the salvation of Judas?

Yes, Jesus was simply saying Judas won’t like Hell while he was there.

[Alex_Smith]

And what does the rest of the New Testament mean when it speaks in similar terms: Galatians 6:7, Hebrews 9:27, etc? What are we going to make of these passages? And there are many more like them.

I don’t think the rest of the NT speaks in similar terms.

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.

Certainly an argument for hell but not necessarily ECT.

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment

Yes, I believe in Judgement Day…

Are they [the above] not pressing for the decisiveness of this life?

I think they encourage decisiveness, but don’t rule out decisions being made post-mortem.

[Alex_Smith]

The conclusion of the matter must be that of James Denny writing on this subject sixty years ago:

I dare not say to myself that if I forfeit the opportunity this life offers I shall ever have another, and therefore I dare not say so to another man.

I think it’s important for people to take the opportunity to be in a relationship with God as soon as possible. However, I’m not saying that out of a fear that God wouldn’t give someone a second chance.

Preachers, can you get around that? I would simply be dishonest to encourage in others a hope I dare not rely on myself.

I’m not a preacher, but I agree it would be odd to teach something you didn’t believe. However, if it is true, and I do believe it, then this argument holds no weight.

So I don’t find myself able to be a universalist

Sadly not yet.

Though it is uncomfortable, though [it] is a doctrine that troubles and grieves the heart

Which as I’ve said before, **is ** a reason to question ECT, otherwise how can you worship God with all your heart, mind and soul?

I find myself obliged to stick to the old view that the choices of this life are decisive, and to evangelize and to preach the gospel in these terms and as an expression of this conviction.

The choices in this life are important but not final, unless they are towards God.

This is where the argument leads me and these are my reasons for judging the universalist speculation at the present time is a very great evil, calculated to blight a man’s ministry, and, as the older evangelicals used to think, ‘calculated to ruin souls’.

Similarly, I would say that ECT speculation is a very great evil, calculated to cause great suffering and mistrust of God and His love. Fortunately, I don’t think even ECT can ‘ruin souls’, as Paul said

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord