The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Response to Driscoll's ECT Sermon

Evangelical Universalism Arguments for Evangelical Universalism
#1

Okay, that’s it. I’m emailing Mark a response with several hard-hitting points about the doctrine of ECT. Anyone wanna help? Thanks.

First of all, I want to tell him that I believe that he’s sincere and following the truth as much as he knows how, but that there is hope and where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.

Then I will start in with my points. Here’s what I have so far (just started less than five minutes ago :laughing:):

  1. How can wickedness and sin be effectively destroyed without redeeming the sinner?

If sin is merely punished for an infinite amount of time, then it is never effectively destroyed. It is irritated, perhaps tortured, and strangled in its effects so that there is no pleasure in it anymore, but it is never destroyed. If it were to be destroyed, then the sinner would of course become righteous and there would no longer be just course in pursuing their judgment. Therefore the sin must remain as is for an infinite amount of time in order for the punishment to remain just. Even if the sinner sees Christ glorified and sovereign over everything, they are still rebelling against Him in their hearts, and railing in disbelief at the justice of His sovereignty - they do not actually believe that He is worthy of praise - unless, of course, they have become righteous!

Which leads to the next point -

  1. How can Jesus be sovereign when there are still hearts in which He is not praised as worthy?

In order for God’s sovereignty to be complete, He must be seen and known as completely worthy by all of His enemies. Scripture clearly says that every last enemy (and the last one is death) will be subjugated under the feet of the Son. Will His worthiness be acknowledged, or not? If not, then what does this sovereignty actually mean? He already had all the power in the universe to begin with - He has that power now, in fact! The only thing that can possibly change between now and then is that He is known to be worthy, and experienced as such. If this is not accomplished in every human heart that has ever existed, then He is not completely sovereign in that sense. And if His worthiness is acknowledged, then it produces righteousness, for as Romans 10:9 says, if you confess Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that He has been victorious over death, you are saved!

  1. Infinite time, or eternal reality?

… that’s where I’m at so far, gonna keep working on this. Definitely need to pepper it with Bible verses. Hopefully he’ll get the point!

What do you guys think so far? Please feel free to throw your own two cents in! Refinements, encouragements, additions, bible verses, etc, etc!

#2

There’s still something lacking. I don’t want any doubt to be left in his mind.

I think there’s the notion in the minds of some that God can be seen as completely worthy by people who are yet wicked? Or maybe they just think that regardless of their sinful state or no (they probably don’t reflect on that part) the glorification is complete?

Help me, someone. What am I missing here? How can I convince him that in order for Christ to be seen as worthy, a person must become righteous?

#3

Okay, the formula can basically be broken down like this:

  1. Seeing Christ as worthy requires agreeing with His truth and His holiness.
  2. Agreeing with His truth and His holiness means being aligned with Him.
  3. Being aligned with Christ means becoming a new person, a new creation!
#4

Okay, so I expanded on the second point as such:

#5

Go stellar!! :mrgreen:

#6

Thanks, dude! :mrgreen: Every bit of encouragement helps, seriously! :smiley:

#7

Hard to type one handed, holding baby. But you look like you’re on the right track :sunglasses:

#8

Nice work Stellar! I think what you’ve written so far is excellent. Keep in mind that only the Holy Spirit can really convince him. Your letter may only be a minor irritant at this stage - then again it might be part of the HS challenging and healing him.

Respect to you for taking him on - and loving him enough to do so rather than just walking away!

Love and prayers - for you AND Mark - Andrew

#9

Wow, good point. Sometimes I forget that. :wink: I’m always so intent on seeing immediate results that I sometimes forget about the long-term. But that’s exactly how transformation and a change of mind has happened in my own life!

Yes, yes. Definitely. That almost makes me want to cry. There’s so much I love about Mark that I can’t just see him continue to think like this. I can only imagine how his teaching would expand if he saw this.

Thanks, I need them, too, for sure. Love.

#10

I want this to be as saturated as possible in redemption and the cross so that he sees it in the most recognizable light possible. After all, the cross is the center of time and space, we just take it a step further and see our crucified Lord as all-powerful! :smiley:

#11

Wow, blessings on your head, Stellar! :slight_smile: Funny, about 3 years ago I subscribed to the Mars Hill Seattle video podcast, and enjoyed it for the most part. Nowadays, I can appreciate where Mark’s coming from, but it’s hard to agree with him on a lot of stuff anymore. Of course I still see him as a brother in the faith.

So I’d like to help if possible. One idea I had while looking over what you’ve got above is that he seems like he’d be acceptable to an affirmation of sin’s penalty being eternal punishment. I’m thinking of what Robin posted ( Could a universalist believe in hell as "eternal conscious s ) about the compatibility of God sentencing people to eternal punishment as a result of their sins, but the promises of all “swearing allegiance” to God (which you’ve explained already) point to the fact that God’s merciful offering of Jesus’ PSA extends into the next life. After all, you can see in the Bible these eight things (contextualized for Mark’s theology):
–God’s wrath abides on sinners.
–God’s mercy provides Jesus as a substitution for sinners, an atoning sacrifice to turn His wrath away.
–Jesus’ sacrifice, as done by a God-man, was (is?) of infinite value, and therefore could theoretically save all people.
–Only and all those who call on the name of the Lord are saved by faith in Jesus’ work.
–All who resist Jesus continue experiencing God’s wrath. The only thing sinners have in their eternal future is God’s wrath, because of their rebellion–regardless of whether said sinners are in this life or the next. When Mark was a sinner, all he had was God’s wrath in his future, stretching on into eternity.
–BUT as soon as someone repents and receives Christ, he is delivered from that wrath to eternal life. He is no longer sentenced to eternal punishment, because he believes in Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice for him.
–“His mercies are new every morning,” “sorrow may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning,” “Love never fails” (always hopes, always perseveres, etc)–these are but a sample of what the Scriptures say God’s attitude towards His creation is. Could these statements open the door to thinking that God might offer salvation from eternal punishment in the next life, just as he does in this life?
–It appears so, because we also have numerous promises of all people doing worship-type activities toward God at some point in the future.

So to sum, all people are born into the sentence of eternal punishment for their sin, but God provides an infinite-value sacrifice through Christ. All who turn to Christ and repent are saved from that eternal punishment. The Bible apparently prophesies all people doing just that. So, can’t we at least seriously investigate the possibility of UR? :slight_smile:

(Now, I’m not saying I believe in PSA and so forth, but that might be the most acceptable (to Mark) presentation of EU. Feel free to copy and paste anything I wrote, or change it around to fit your letter, or totally disregard it. :slight_smile: )

Grace and peace to you, brother!

#12

Wow, thank you Neal! That’s pretty much perfect. I can tell you’ve listened to alot of Mark’s teachings.

It makes it SO much easier that he doesn’t believe in the “L” of TULIP - Limited Atonement. I remember seeing his belief explained somewhere as Limited/Unlimited Atonement, I’ll have to look that up later.

He also believes in very real transformation of lives, instead of a mere substitutionary atonement that’s basically a legal contrivance. All of that definitely helps in the case for UR.

I’ll see how I can incorporate that into my message. I may have to put that at the beginning to lead into the rest of the arguments which may be off-putting if encountered first. Thanks again, bro!

#13

I would renumber and expand those to reflect how you got there.

1.) God, including the Son (as Christ, and so hereafter), shall one day be sovereign over all things and all people, in a fashion that Christ is not presently sovereign.

2.) Christ is already totally sovereign in power and in all external things; and even in all internal things, so far as they exist and have capabilities at all thanks to Him. Christ is currently not sovereign only in terms of rebellion against Him. (And even that rebellion can only occur by abuse of Christ’s sovereign grace.)

3.) Christ cannot be fooled by external shows of allegiance, but treats those as they truly are: disguised and hypocritical rebellion.

4.) External shows of allegiance are therefore of no account to Christ. Nothing has been gained, except in the most superficial fashion–a fashion Christ routinely rejects otherwise when it happens.

5.) Yet all shall one day, during or after the ultimate judgment of Christ, confess Christ is Lord and bow the knee and even swear as in allegiance to Him. This includes rebel angels and those who died in their sins. This capitulation is routinely connected with Christ becoming finally sovereign in all things.

6.) An external confession with internal rebellion would be at best a lie and so no true confession. Christ is still not sovereign over that person.

7.) The person cannot truly profess and praise Christ as sovereign until the person truly sees Christ as worthy to be sovereign.

8.) Seeing Christ as worthy requires agreeing with His truth and His holiness.

9.) Agreeing with His truth and His holiness means being aligned with Him. (An alignment that, not-incidentally, is the meaning of the Greek term “confession” whenever it appears in scripture, including when people are aligned otherwise than with God.)

10.) Being aligned with Christ means becoming a new person, a new creation.

I think these are all pretty commonly recognized to be scripturally supported, OT and NT both. (Non-Christian Jews and Arian Christians won’t agree with the full divinity of Christ there, but substitute “the Father” for “Christ” or whatever. The same principles certainly hold even more strongly for trinitarians in regard to Christ.)

Follow the logic out from where you find Mark to agree on facts and on principles. If he insists on punting the logic, then neither will he have the Logos for his theo-logy. :wink: But he’ll have to turn around and contravene a position he actually holds to do so.

#14

Stellar Renegade, what you are attempting is fantastic! Seriously good luck with it! (I mean that in the Christian sense of “luck” :wink: ) I have a couple of thoughts…

Some people back down if they can be shown that what they say contradicts what they believe. If you can pick up on things he has said (and reference it: sermon dates, etc) and show how he contradicts himself, then you might have another angle on him. I have not listened to many of his sermons so won’t be able to help you there.

A philosophical point that’s been on my mind for a while though…
If we imagine a cosmic battle between good and evil, which option has the best - most victorious - outcome?

  1. The evil army is destroyed, but many of the good soldiers fall in battle.
  2. The evil army is destroyed, and miraculously all of the good soldiers survived to share in the victory.
  3. All of the evil soldiers defect to the good side.
    (Technically there’s a fourth outcome: The evil army is never truly destroyed but will never overcome the good.)

Hopefully the links are fairly obvious:

  1. Non-universalism, where people can “backslide”, “fall away” or “fall from grace” (however you want to describe it).
  2. Non-universalism, with the “P” of TULIP.
  3. Evangelical Universalism.
    (4. ECT.)

The points can probably do with a bit of work, but this is the argument that has made me seriously consider Evangelical Universalism… for me, I now need a solid Biblical basis, but I’m getting there.

I feel the need for a word of caution (I am aware that I don’t know you, so you may have this base covered): make sure you’ve done your research well and are not starting a battle that you can’t win. The last thing you want is to be shut down with some ideas you haven’t thought of and be left saying, “but… but… but…!” (like the little kid determined to get his own way!) I also realise that that is part of the point of this thread… :wink:

#15

Yes, I’ve thought this a few times.

I was downloading his video around that time too :slight_smile: Also like you, I find it much harder to watch now.

People have already written some useful ideas above so I won’t, however, the only other advise I’d give, is try to keep it short & succinct, perhaps only 5-10 paragraphs?? Which unfortunately restricts what you cover, but I reckon if the Holy Spirit uses this as a seed, then that will be all that you need.

#16

I agree on this, definitely!

I’m curious to see what kind of response you’ll get. I was a member of John MacArthur’s church, about 15 yrs ago, and it was not easy to get to the man himself. I’d guess an email like this–advocating such “obvious heresy”-- would have been filtered before he even saw it and dealt with by a lower level pastor or staff member–maybe even by an already prepared form letter. And that’s not necessarily a personal criticism–with a church that big, I’m sure he gets too much correspondence to deal with everything personally. Like Moses with his ranks of leaders below him. That’s a weakness of the megachurch thing.

I say: keep it brief, easy to understand, and compelling.

Sonia

#17

Here’s a description of Unlimited Limited Atonement from Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe By Mark Driscoll, Gerry Breshears

#18

The other thought I had overnight was that if you don’t get a response (or the response you want) the first time, wait a month and write to him again from a different angle. This is **not **spamming, but simply being a “persistent widow”.

#19

Maybe I’m being naive, but how can something be “reconciled” and remain standing in opposition?

Throwing the word “falsely” in there is subtle influencing with no basis in a logical argument - it’s a fallacy.

Also, I thought the common understanding was that those who sin are rebels? The fact that they (according to ECT) are still alive and in opposition to God surely means that their “sinful disregard” has not been “crushed and ended”?? (This is part of the reason I became an annihilationist.) Having not read the book, I hope he explains it in more depth because as it stands (as with most of his videos I’ve seen online) he’s just making a statement and expecting people to believe him at face value.

#20

It really does look like he avoids the conclusion of universalism by simply making up an Bizzaro-world anti-version of reconciliation! (Not that he himself has made it up; no doubt he has inherited it from long-standing tradition of interpretation. But dang.)

Obviously he knows where the logic would otherwise lead. The only other option would be to take the final sentence (in Sonia’s quote from him) seriously and go with annihilationism. But that still wouldn’t involve reconciling rebels to God!–only wiping them out of existence.

How obvious should it be, that unrepentant sinners are still rebels and not not-rebels! But he knows that reconciliation means they aren’t in rebellion anymore. So what kind of unrepentant but still existent persons can no longer be rebels??? Just because they’re imprisoned doesn’t mean they aren’t still rebels (the scriptures are super-abundantly clear on that by what must be his own acknowledgment elsewhere–he could hardly claim that the wandering stars currently imprisoned in the gloom of the unseen are NOT rebels!)

Justin, I think I would really lean on that. I know how common it is for people, even scholars and mass-congregation preachers, to have exactly no idea what atonement means anymore (thinking the word is a-tone-ment, which means nothing–unless it means ringing at-one again with the same Tone! :laughing: ) But when they use the term reconcile and reconciliation that CAN’T be utterly lost on them!! The meaning hasn’t been THAT obscured and lost and reversed!!!

Okay, I need to stop dwelling on this now or I’m going to have apoplexy thinking about it… :wink:

What does "reconcile" mean?