The Evangelical Universalist Forum

SNIPPETS FROM MY HARD COPY UR LIBRARY

Evangelical Universalism Arguments for Evangelical Universalism
#1942

#84 - THE PURPOSE OF EVIL – GUY MARKS

“Evil begins with God and is a necessary part of His plan. It is the method He uses to accomplish His purpose. Usually when man works evil he sins because His motives are wrong, but this is not true of God for His motive is always to produce good. God uses the forces of evil to bring about good.

The teaching that sin and death are eternal is a travesty of God’s character, for it presents God standing by in complacency while Satan introduces an evil that all but destroys the human race.

The purpose of evil is to establish a background for a display of God’s love and grace which we could never know apart from the experience of sin. Evil is a necessary part of God’s purpose to mold us and to fashion us in the image of His beloved Son. Evil is a problem only to those who fail to see God’s purpose in it and who refuse to believe that God will bring blessings to all mankind through His dealings with evil and sin. The forces of evil cannot continue beyond the circumference of God’s purpose in it. God always has control over the forces of evil and evil never has any power apart from the authority of God. God has complete control over Satan and all of his activities.

The teaching that sin is to continue eternally blinds our minds to an understanding of the purpose of evil. Those who have made the greatest progress in seeking out the revelation of the cross no longer consider evil to be a problem, for the cross of Christ will turn all the evil of sin into infinite good. God will do infinitely more than repudiate sin and abolish death. He will not simply restore the human race to the status of Adam in the garden.

God’s grace differs from Adam’s offence because it will accomplish far more than Adam lost. Then too that which resulted from Adam’s offense is temporary but the results of grace will be permanent. Grace more than meets the need for it exceeds the need by far. It is enough and to spare for it is a superabundance. And this proves conclusively that the ruin caused by Adam’s sin is overcome and more by the superabundance of grace.

Before the eons, before there was any evil, before there was any sin, God designated all the events that would make sure that not one would be trapped in the forces of evil, but that all would be delivered from death and sin. God prearranged it all, from the fall of man to the glory of the consummation. Not one thing was left to chance. All was founded on His wisdom.

To some evil will never cease, or so they believe. God is never able, or at least He never tries to bring about so much good that all evil will vanish. They try to justify God with the false teaching that man is a free moral agent. But the only freedom of man that the scriptures present is the freedom that comes through the deliverance which is in Christ Jesus.”

#1943

#85 - THE PLACE OF HUMANITY IN GOD’S PURPOSE – JOHN H. ESSEX

“The freedom we now enjoy in spirit will ultimately be enjoyed by the whole creation when it is reconciled to God, and this includes the whole of humanity, for God wills all mankind to be saved and to come into a realization of the truth (1Tim.2:4). When His purpose is accomplished, there will be no vessels of indignation left.

When the reconciliation of all is complete the joy of the universe will be full. When the purpose of the All-sufficient God has reached its consummation, and He is All in all, every heart will be filled with the true laughter which accompanies the praise and adoration of Him Who is Supreme and Whose name is Love.”

#1944

#86 – A FEW THOUGHTS ON THE SCRIPTURES – G.J. SALTER

“It is hard for man to accept how completely he is in the hands of God. Churchianity pictures God as sitting off to one side, waiting and pleading for His creatures to come to Him. Instead of that He is the active force; He is the mover of all things. We simply live and move and have our being in Him (Acts 17:28). If He does not move us we are not moved; if He does not enlighten us we are not enlightened.

The course that God has taken to accomplish His purpose for man is pre-eminently the right one for God is Almighty, so there is no question of His power to do whatever He wills, and He wills all men to be saved (1Tim. 2:3&4).”

#1945

#87 - RESTORATION: THROUGH THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES – CHARLES WELLER

“The feast of tabernacles means the feast of ingathering. It takes an eight day period to bring in the fullness of the ingathering. Eight is the number of new beginnings in scripture or FULL RESTORATION.

1Corinthians 15 is the last chapter in the Bible. The fifteenth chapter clearly shows how great the totality of the feast of tabernacles will be. ‘As in Adam all die (every preacher will agree that all people are in Adam but few believe that the word all mean all in the second part of the verse) so in Christ all shall be made alive.’ Jesus is going to gather all together in Himself. He will have everyone in His nature.

Everything that occurs, occurs in the plan and order of God. In 1Corinthians 15 God shows that there are different orders. The highest order is Jesus Christ. Everything will, in time, be brought into Jesus Christ. All shall be gathered into Him. When this is done then Jesus, the Son, will turn all over to the Father. It is then we find that time ends, for God becomes All in all (verse 28).

#1946

#88 - THE EONS OF THE BIBLE – JOSEPH E. KIRK

The introduction reads “Mistranslation of the Greek word ‘aion’ is a master stroke of diabolical genius. Perhaps no other word erroneously translated, could more effectively pervert man’s image of God and cause such widespread confusion. Because the understanding of the eons and God’s purpose in them has been lost, the church is divided on important issues like judgment, and man’s destiny. The following work by Joseph E. Kirk is offered in the hope that the serious seeker after spiritual truth will be aided in their quest.”

Here is a snippet from the writing itself. “During this present wicked eon (Gal.1:4), sin reigns, Satan who is said to be ‘the god of this eon’ (2Cor. 4:4) blinds and deceives mankind, and death swallows up the race (1Cor. 15:22). But notwithstanding, God is over all and in supreme control. He is the eonian God.
In due time, He will deliver the entire creation and bring good out of all the suffering mankind is called upon to endure (Rom. 8:18-23).”

#1947

#89 - OUR CHURCH FATHERS TESTIFY – DR. JACK JACOBSON

“If the concept of universal restoration seems to be a modern idea, it’s only because the understanding of this glorious plan of God is new to our modern minds. Universal restoration, in fact, is a truth one taught to and received by most of the saints of antiquity. The modern church has become blinded to the fact of universal restoration as given in the scriptures, but this is not a blindness that was shared by the early church.”

This introduction is followed by quotes by many UR church leaders during the first six centuries of the Christian church.

#1948

#90 - WHO THEN CAN BE SAVED? – KENNETH BRIX

“That salvation is of man and HIS works is shared by many of us who are Christians. We’ve portrayed God as having done all He could do to save mankind more than 2000 years ago. So now, supposedly, it’s up to mankind to perform the remaining essential of exercising the good work of faith, or else suffer everlasting consequences.

We have looked upon salvation as a joint effort between man and God, and as primarily what WE do for Him. With this teaching MAN is exalted, self righteousness flourishes, and God is stripped of His sovereignty! But our salvation ‘is not of him that willeth’ (any decision we make of ourselves), ‘nor of him that runneth’ (any effort we put forth of ourselves), BUT OF GOD Who showeth mercy! (Romans 9:16)

Christ was prophesied to take away the sin of the world (Jn. 1:29), so how then can a sinless world suffer everlasting punishment in the lake of fire?! How absurd! Christ is the Saviour of the world (Jn. 4:42; 1Jn. 4:14), and He will save it!"

#1949

#91 - BE YE RECONCILED – VIRGENE ANDREWS

“I CAME NOT TO JUDGE THE WORLD BUT TO SAVE THE WORLD” Jn. 12:47

“When I first began to believe in the reconciliation of the world, I fell on my knees and put my head on the floor and cried tears of joy. The revelation came to me in a flash, like lightning and immediately I received it as truth.

God was in Christ reconciling the WORLD unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. 2Cor.5:19.

All will be judged then reconciled back to God so that He will be All in all.
God is a consuming fire and will burn out all the dross from everyone."

#1950

#92 - MY UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY – HANNAH WHITALL SMITH

“As an escape from the doctrine of eternal torment, I at first embraced the doctrine of annihilation for the wicked, and for a little while tried to comfort myself with the belief that this life ended all for them. But the more I thought of it, the more it seemed to me that it would be a confession of serious failure on the part of the Creator, if He could find no way out of the problem of His creation, but to annihilate the creatures whom He had created.

One day a revelation came to me that vindicated God, and settled the whole problem forever. I saw that it was true, as the Bible says, that ‘as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.’ As was the first, even so was the second. The ‘all’ in one case could not in fairness mean less than the all in the other. I saw therefore that the remedy must necessarily be equal to the disease. The salvation must be as universal as the fall.

I saw this that day on the tram-car on Market Street, Philadelphia – not only thought it, or hoped it – but knew it. It was a Divine fact. And from that moment I have never had a questioning thought as to the final destiny of the human race. The how and the when I could not see; but the one essential fact was all I needed – somewhere and somehow God was going to make everything right for all the creatures He had created. My heart was at rest about it forever.”

#1951

#93 - WHENCE ETERNITY? – ALEXANDER THOMSON

“The inspired scriptures never speak of eternity. They describe nothing as eternal. They contain no term which itself bears our time sense of everlasting. As eternity is not a subject of revelation, our present object is to discover how and when this unscriptural term gained entrance into theology, with most disastrous results.

It may be stated, without fear of contradiction, that the more one explores into the early centuries of Christendom, the clearer does it become that a corrupt theology was alone responsible for displacing the teaching regarding the eons by a dogma respecting ‘eternity.’”
tentmaker.org/books/OriginandHistory.html

#1952

#94 - MUST AION MEAN ETERNAL? – PHILIP SCRANTON

“There are many texts in which aion and aionios cannot bear the meaning of eternity. And there are no texts in which the meaning of a limited period of time does not make reasonable sense. Our great loss is that when we ascribe the meaning of eternity to these words, we obliterate from view God’s purpose of the eons. Further, the character of God is slandered, making Him the inflictor of incomprehensible woe.

It does not say that “all in Christ shall be made alive.” It says, “in Christ shall all be made alive.” The word for made alive means to be made immortal. After the great white throne, the unbelieving will participate in the second death – the lake of fire. Finally, at the consummation, when death is abolished, all will be made alive in Christ.”

God is working all things after the counsel of His will and according to His perfect schedule. But the improper translation of “for the ages of the ages” ignores the purpose and climax of history.

The holies of the holies (plural/plural) were the two inner confines of the tabernacle. (1Kings 8:6 literal translation instead of the most holy place.) They were more holy than the outer court and the camp and all the places outside the camp. In like manner, the ages of the ages (mistranslated forever and ever) are the two greatest ages of history because of what will transpire during their time.
It does not cast the smallest shadow on the brilliance of God’s glory to say that glory be attributed to Him during the climatic eons when His purpose will be realized by all and His glory seen more clearly than ever before.”

#1953

#95 - TARDY OF HEART TO BELIEVE ALL – F. NEIL POHORLAK

Do you find your heart tardy to believe that God will have all mankind to be saved?” 1Tim. 2:4

“Those who would not yield an inch from the position that all have sinned means all, do not hesitate to rob God of His all in all shall be justified, all shall be reconciled, all shall be vivified, that God may be All in all.

This is God’s grand goal: all saved, all justified, all reconciled, all vivified, that God may be All in all. This goal will see fruition when the eons have run their course. Do not confuse God’s goal with His process.”

#1954

#96 - MARTIN ZENDER GOES TO HELL – MARTIN ZENDER

“The world hates God because of the picture Christianity has painted of Him. The doctrine of eternal torment is a teaching of demons; a myth. It infects the world via a series of false expressions, printed onto tracts and forced into sermons. Those who espouse and teach it are in full heed of deceiving spirits, though they know it not.

There must be a remedy, and there is. 2Timothy 2:15, ‘Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth.’

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit of God is saying.”
Origin of Endless Punishment
tentmaker.org/books/OriginandHistory.html

#1955

#97 - THE DEPTHS OF GOD WILL RETRIEVE ALL - ANTHONY J. BORRELLO

“Without God’s Spirit the ‘depths of God’ remain unknown. What an essential factor this is in the believer’s quest!

When God’s immense love evokes us to a higher plain, nothing will thwart our yielding to Him. Our past illusions must fade away with all of its façade in order that a more accurate realization of God and the depths of God can be grasped in prelude to the ultimate retrieving of all to God through Christ so He truly will be All in everyone. He shall be ‘All in all’ in the total kaleidoscope envelope of LOVE. This is the Spirit-Reality Whom we should unabatedly proclaim to those who have ears to hear.”

#1956

#98 - NONE LOST, NONE DESTROYED – ANTHONY J. BORRELLO

“It is not a matter of if, only a matter of when each individual will respond to the irresistible call of God’s love – a love filled with such peace and calmness that no one will be able to withstand its comfort indefinitely.

The power of God’s love will attract like a magnet EVERYONE to their safe consolation within the confines of reconciliation. This, my dear friends is what ‘God being All in all’ is all about. The happy tidings are that none will be eternally lost or destroyed.

When the Holy Spirit’s vision arrives within us, then and only then will we be able to grasp the fact that God’s love does not contain the words ‘eternally lost or destroyed’ in its vocabulary.”

#1957

#99 - SOONER OR LATER GOD ALL IN ALL - ANTHONY J. BORRELLO

“As hostile and objectionable our dear brethren may be, there are answers and explanations for every argument and/or insinuation presented against the undeniable fact, That God indeed is a God ‘Who will have all men to be saved, and come into a knowledge of the truth (1Tim. 2:4). As greatly as man and their religious attempt to fight this utterly dynamic evangel (good news), God shall eventually be All in all (1Cor. 15:28)."
EDITOR’S ADDITION:
BIBLE THREATENINGS EXPLAINED
tentmaker.org/books/BibleThr … ained.html

“But God is in no hurry. He has specific eons, and administrations within the eons, to fulfill His universal purpose and intention of universal reconciliation. All came out of Christ, including Adam. Consequently all shall be restored by and through Christ, ‘yet each in his own class’ (1Cor. 15:23).”
EDITOR’S ADDITION:
GOD’S PLAN FOR THE AGES OF TIME
THE EONS OF THE BIBLE WITH CONCORDANCE
saviourofall.org/Tracts/Eons2.html

"Annihilation is only one step from its false associate ‘eternal torment.’ When clouds of confusion gather regarding God’s plan for mankind, and despair comes showering down upon our studies, turn to God’s word originally rendered, then, like a searchlight in the darkness of night, His love, and His light of understanding will surely beam forth. God will not allow any to be eternally lost. He is a loving Creator, working out His purpose for the universe, Who will get love from all in return, so that He can and will be ‘ALL in all,’ to all, ‘later.’”
EDITOR’S ADDITION:
Eternal Death (Conditional Immortality, Annihilation): One Step Out of Hell; One Step Short of Glory
tentmaker.org/books/EternalDeath.html

#1958

#100 - A snippet from 125 NUTS FOR CALVINISTS TO CRACK – C.R. Bierbower

“Although a Calvinist myself for more than thirty years, the scriptures declaring God’s infinite love, and the plain teachings of Jesus my Lord on the subject of love, mercy and truth, finally sank my theological ship. This left me searching for the truth as it is in Jesus. Finally I was convinced by the overwhelming number of Scriptures that our great God and Heavenly Father truly does, without partiality, love the whole world, and He will in His own time and in His own way finally reconcile all men unto Himself.

Arminianism and Calvinism both represent each other as the method for God’s work in salvation, and both vigorously reject the final reconciliation of all men. It is my purpose in this book to point out to my Calvinistic brethren the inconsistency of their interpretation of Scripture.”

#1959

#101 - 100 SCRIPTURAL PROOFS THAT JESUS CHRIST IS THE SAVIOR OF ALL MANKIND – THOMAS WHITTEMORE
INTRODUCTION: “The Scriptures analyzed in this book declare that much more was accomplished by Christ than traditionally taught. May your eyes be enlightened to see the joy that Jesus saw as He hung on the tree of crucifixion. May the traditions of the elders fall as scales from your eyes to see the full magnitude of the victory of Jesus Christ! When they do, your Bible will appear to be a brand new book, full of the power of God’s love to be victorious over all things.”

#1960

#102 - A TRUE REVELATION AND A SECOND WITNESS – TRAVIS OGLETREE
“ ‘For we must needs die, and are as water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up again, yet doth God devise means that His banished be not expelled from Him’ (2Sam.14:14). The entire passage from 2Sam.14:1-21 shows that no matter how far one may stray from the Lord and undergo internal banishment from a sense of acceptance, nevertheless, our merciful Lord God Himself has devised means whereby His banished ones would not be expelled forever from Him. ‘For out of Him, and through Him, and for Him are all. To Him be glory for the eons! Amen!’ (Rom. 11:36). ‘For God locks up all together in stubbornness, that He should be merciful to all.’ (Rom. 11:32 CLNT).”

#1961

#103 - THE CHRIST OF GLORY – MARVIN W. RICE
“May we get a glimpse of Christ’s wondrous Person as we peer into Sacred Writ. As we go back before the ages of time, through the eons of the Scriptures, forward to the grand finale, to the consummation of the ages, to that day when total reconciliation is completed and eternity continues.

‘every knee bowing, celestial
and terrestrial and subterranean,
and every tongue acclaiming that
Jesus Christ is Lord, for the
glory of the Father’

God would receive no glory merely to see the unbelievers agree that Jesus is Lord, but too late, thus going off to destruction. Nay! The blood of the cross will prevail in every situation, eliminating all sins. What august glory this will bring to the Father as every last one of His creatures acclaim His beloved Son as their Lord!”