Since I mention this syllogism along the way of replying to my friend PaulM’s critique of “already/not-yet” universalistic theologizing, I thought I would also break it out here for further reference and discussion.
P(remise) 1.) It is the Father’s good pleasure to reconcile all things to Himself (i.e. to reconcile all things needing reconciliation to Him), whether things in the heavens or things on the earth, through the blood of the cross of the Son; (Col 1:19-20)
P2.) This reconciliation involves making peace with those whom God is thus reconciling to Himself; (Col 1:20)
P3.) The ones with whom God is making peace are those who are estranged from God, enemies of God in comprehension and by unjust acts (i.e. sinners); (Col 1:21)
P4.) Making peace with those God is reconciling through the body of His flesh, involves saving them from their sins (not annihilating them or putting them into eternal conscious torment, nor allowing them to arrive at such results), so as to present them flawless, holy and unimpeachable (or blameless) in His sight; (Col 1:22)
C(onclusion) 1.) It is the Father’s good pleasure to make peace, through the body of the Son’s flesh and the blood of His cross, with all those, whether in the heavens or on the earth, who are estranged from God, enemies of God in comprehension and by unjust acts, so as to present them flawless, holy and unimpeachable in His sight. (From P1, P2, P3, P4)
The scope of salvation is total. The question is whether God will certainly succeed at this or not, which Col 1 does not explicitly say, although it may be inferred from the utter power and competency of God (both Father and Son) in creating and maintaining these same creatures, even the rebel powers of the heavens. (Col 1:15-17) The Son being firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have supremacy, may also imply this. (Col 1:18)
But continuing the syllogism:
P5.) The Father and the Son (and the Spirit, for that matter) do not wait until we are reverent to save us, but Christ dies for the sake of sinners (giving the body of His flesh, the blood of His cross) while the sinners are still sinners; (Rom 5:6-8)
P6.) Through the death of His Son, sinners have already been reconciled to God; (Rom 5:10a)
P7.) Yet sinners are still in the process of being reconciled to God, and in some sense are temporally not reconciled to God yet; (Per the grammar of Col 1:20,22 – sometimes slightly mistranslated to fit Rom 5:10a – but also implied by the contrast of Col 1:22 and by the exhortation from 2 Cor 5:20. See also contexts immediately prior to 5:20, which suggest both past action and continuing action toward reconciliation.)
P8.) If we, being enemies, have already been reconciled to God through the death of His Son, then even more emphatically we (being reconciled) shall be saved in His life; (Rom 5:10)
C2.) God, Father and Son, has already reconciled all sinners (whether in heaven or in earth) to Himself, without waiting for the sinners to be righteous first, making peace through the blood of the cross and the body of the Son, with the goal of presenting those sinners eventually as flawless, holy and unimpeachable; and the salvation of all those sinners is as certain to be accomplished (even more certain, if that was possible, in rhetorical emphasis) as the reconciliation which has certainly already been accomplished; but the process of reconciliation is in another way still continuing, such that it may even be said that in some way impenitent sinners are (as such) not yet reconciled to God and so should be reconciled to God. (From C1, P5, P6, P7, P8)
Although the form is deductive, I am not actually presenting this as a deductive argument necessarily binding on all scriptural believers, by the way. (For example, the data could be faulty in various ways; the logical validity could be faulty; or the data could be significantly incomplete.)