I found an intriguing article form a website espouses what is called the New Wine System. It purports to solve many problems on the forefront of many debates: Calvinism vs Arminianism, Lordship Salvation vs Free Grace Theology, some differences between Catholic and Protestant theology, Amilleniallism vs Premillenialism, and other soteriological issues. The main basis is the use of Old Testament Jewish escatology to show that salvation is a journey, rather a one-time decision.
While it is not exactly universal in scope, it states that all start out as saved (basing that everyone’s name initially appears in the Book of Life). It emphasizes that those who have never heard of Christ will be resurrected into the Millenial Kingdom in a second chance to accept the Gospel, as it goes into three distinct groups being dealt with:
“It can be easily argued that there are three types of people in New Testament Scripture. There are those who will inherit eternal life in the age to come. There are those who are wicked and will be condemned to punishment. They will not be resurrected when Christ returns. And then there are those who are in the middle, for whom eternity has not been decided. Now, if these conditions remain through death and the resurrection, then these three types of people are also present during the millennium. This is New Wine premillennialism.”
I haven’t read all the articles, and I’m sure there will be some problems with this approach, but it initially seems a much better system that most of what is being taught in traditional Christian circles, even though it is not completely universalist; the wicked who fully reject Godwill spend eternity in hell. However, I believe it to be a worthy concept to consider further study.
Has anyone heard of this before? What say you?