Chad , a possibility that Satan is not a myth also?
True, but that unfortunately opens the narrative (biblical view) to a bunch of interesting questions without answers.
If Satan is/was real an has/had power, what kind of God do we have? But if Satan is the essence of man’s ego, we have a very wise and loving Father who understands and is on humanities side.
Wherein lies that possibility?—scripturally speaking.
1 Like
First of all, the idea that you even ask about the possibility to me at least denotes you’ve thought about it.
There is no way to argue either position cause one will say that ‘the bible says it and I believe it.’
The other says ‘there is no way that is possible.’ It will become a conundrum point full of back and forth crap.
But there is throughout scripture, plenty of ammunition to say that man’s demon is his egotistical wanting to be best, be great, be superior… To be like God.
Although John Wesley is not on record as a universalist, he was greatly influenced by the Moravians, many of whom were universalists. He quoted from Sixteen Discourses (Moravian Literature), the following statement, “By his (Christ’s) name, all can and shall obtain life and salvation.” One of Wesley’s intimate friends, Peter Bohler wrote: “All the damned souls shall yet be brought up out of hell.” (Bohler was made the Bishop of American Moravians, next in rank to Zinzendorf). (Source: A Cloud of Witnesses, by John Wesley Hanson, p 54)
The Reformer Martin Luther had hope for all. In his letter to Hanseu Von Rechenberg in 1522, Luther wrote: “God forbid that I should limit the time of acquiring faith to the present life. In the depth of the Divine mercy there may be opportunity to win it in the future.” Bengel’s book, Gnomon, quotes Luther’s exposition of Hosea as accepting the idea that Christ appeared to souls of some who in the time of Noah had been unbelieving, that they might recognize that their sins were forgiven through His sacrifice.
Richard J. Bauckham
Lecturer in the history of Christian thought at the University of Manchester
… Since 1800 this situation has entirely changed, and no traditional doctrine has been so widely abandoned as that of eternal punishment. Its advocates among theologians today must be fewer than ever before… Among the less conservative, universal salvation, either as hope or as dogma, is now so widely accepted that many theologians assume it virtually without argument."
Dr. J.I. Packer has noted that Universalism “has in this century quietly become part of the orthodoxy of many Christian thinkers and groups.”
D. B. Eller asserts in the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology that it is clear that “Universalism, in a variety of forms, continues to have appeal for contemporary faith, in both liberal and conservative circles.”
Dr. E.W. Bullinger (The Companion Bible)
“We have not an impotent Father, or a disappointed Christ, or a defeated Holy Ghost, as is so commonly preached; but an omnipotent Father, and all-victorious Christ, and an almighty Holy Spirit, able to break the hardest of heart and subdue the stoutest will.”
“No one can deny that the New Testament contains a special revelation of the parental tie uniting us to God.
When we pray and say, “our Father,” these two words convey the spirit of the whole Gospel.
Now, it is not too much to assert that the view generally held is an absolute negation of all that the parental tie implies. It robs the relation of all meaning.
We have the very spirit of popular Christianity conveyed in the well-known line which tells us that we are ever in the great Taskmaster’s eye."
The great Taskmaster —note the term, for it reduces to mockery the divine Fatherhood, though that is of the very essence of Christianity.
What, for instance, shall we say of such a Father’s appeal to those who, as He knows, will never hear? To Him there is no future -all is present ; the “lost” are lost, and yet He calls them; they are, on the traditional creed, virtually damned; and He knows it, and yet invites them to come and be saved.
But all this difficulty comes from uniting two things absolutely irreconcilable -endless love and power, and yet endless evil. If we want to retain endless sin, let us return to the God of Calvin: nowhere else shall we find solid footing. This God at least is Lord and Master. He issues no invitations, knowing them to be in fact futile. He saves all whom He wants to save. His will must prevail. His Son sheds no drop of blood in vain, All for whom He dies are in fact saved, while the rest go to the devil. All this is hard -nay, cruel; but it is at least logical, intelligible.
Contrast with this system the flabby creed of our pseudo-orthodoxy.
Long ago it was shrewdly said by an old Calvinist, “universal salvation is credible, if universal Redemption be true.” For it shocks the reason to be told of an universal Redemption, when all that is meant is an attempt at the redemption of all the race, which fails; it shocks the reason no less to be told of an unchanging love which wholly ceases the moment the last breath leaves the frail body.” - Thomas Allin (Christ Triumphant)-
“No one can deny that the New Testament contains a special revelation of the parental tie uniting us to God.
“Am I then to believe that the same God Who expends millions of years in slowly fitting this earth for man’s habitation, will only allow to man himself a few fleeting years, or months, or hours, as it may be, as his sole preparation time for eternity?
To settle questions so unspeakably great in their issue -questions stretching away to a horizon so far distant that no power of thought can follow them-in such hot haste, does seem quite at variance with our heavenly Father’s ways.
Is God’s action outside man so slow, and within man so hurried? Is the husk of far more value than the seed? Are millions of years allotted to fashioning man’s earthly home, while for man’s spiritual training for eternity, but a few brief years are given, and these so largely broken up by sleep, by work, by disease, by ignorance?
What should we say -to take a homely illustration -of an arrangement allotting 10,000 years to fashioning a man’s coat, or building his house, while assigning to his whole education but a few hours?” -Thomas Allin (Christ Triumphant)
I’m not asking for argument nor do I wish to give argument. I just want to know why you think it is possible that Satan does not exist. Is it simply a personal belief? Or do you find something in the Bible that seems to indicate his non-existence?
Have not we been through this before? Search me and Satan and you’ll get my position.
If you want to just declare that Satan may not exist without stating any reason for it, I’m okay with that. It’s just that I like to know not only what people think, but why they so think. But if you want to keep the reason secret—okay. I don’t have to know. 
1 Like
Apart from the more standard fare…“Satan” or “the devil” can be understood as euphemisms indicative of actions or purposes diametrically opposed to the will and workings of God, cf. Mt 16:22-23; Lk 22:3-4; Jn 13:2, 27.
And to Don, O.K. I’ll go there. You must have some time on your hands to bait me like that.
In my view, (once again) satan is the adversary. What God wants from humanity is clear but the insistence of humanities ‘free will’ is for the most part to try to put themselves in God’s place. This is our biggest obstacle. Satan is our wanting to be God… We as a human race have wanted that forever.
But I think there are chinks in that armor, people are waking up to the view that denominational Christianity, as great as it has been, is a delapitaded hoarse.
We are looking at a new spiritual realization. It is tough to agree with but the stage is kind of set.
Christian Universalism by Jurgen Moltmann
“Because the judgment serves the new creation of all things, its justice is a healing creative justice according to the future, not a retaliatory justice referring to the past. Separating people into believers and unbelievers is wrong because it is godless. God is not the enemy of unbelievers or the executioner of the godless… God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong…”
What is the goal of Christ’s judgment?
THE GOSPEL OF THE JUDGMENT AND NEW CREATION OF ALL THINGS
The goal of helping victims and rectifying culprits is the triumph of God’s creative justice over everything godless in heaven, earth and below the earth, not the great reckoning with wages and punishments. This victory of divine justice leads to God’s great day of reconciliation on this earth, not to division of humankind into blessed and damned and the end of the world. On Judgment Day, “all tears will be wiped away from their eyes,” the tears of suffering and the tears of repentance. “There will be no mourning, crying or pain” (Rev 21,4).
Thus the Last Judgment is penultimate, not ultimate and is not the end of God’s works. It is only a first step in a transition or transformation from transitoriness to intransitoriness. The new eternal creation created on the foundation of justice is definitive. Because the judgment serves this new creation of all things, its justice is a healing, creative justice reestablishing life according to this future, not a retaliatory justice referring to the past. The judgment serves the new creation, not sin and death as the great reckoning. It was the error of the Christian tradition in picture and idea, piety and teaching to see only judgment on the past and not God’s new world beyond the judgment and thus not believing the new beginning in the end.
The practice and endurance of evil are not always apportioned to different persons and groups of persons. Victims can also be perpetrators. In many persons, the perpetrator side and the victim side of evil are inseparably connected. The knowledge that the coming judge will judge us as perpetrators and as victims, reject the Pharisee in us and accept the sinner in us and reconcile us with ourselves. Judging victims and perpetrators is always a social judging. We do not stand isolated and dependent on ourselves before the judge as in human criminal courts or in nightly pangs of conscience. The perpetrators stand together with their victims, Cain with Abel, the powerful with the powerless, the murderers with the murdered. Humanity’s story of woe is inseparably joined with the collective history of culpability.
Continued below
The New Testament offers staring-points. The New Testament understands Judgment Day as the “day of the Son of man” on which the crucified and resurrected Christ will be revealed and all the world before him.
Both will appear out of their concealment in the light of truth, the Christ now hidden in God and the person hidden from him/herself. The eternal light will be revealed to them. What is now hidden in nature will be transparent because persons are physical and natural beings connected with the nature of the earth. We cannot be separated from the nature of the earth, neither in the resurrection nor in the end-time judgment.
Christ will be revealed as the crucified and resurrected victor over sin, death and hell, not as the avenger or retaliator.
Christ will be revealed as the Everlasting One and leader of life. He will judge according to the justice he proclaimed and practiced through his community with sinners and tax collectors. Otherwise no one could recognize him.
God’s justice is a creative justice.
The victims of sin and violence are supported, healed and brought to life by God’s righteousness. The perpetrators of sin and violence will experience a rectifying transformative justice. They will change by being redeemed together with their victims. The crucified Christ who encounters them together with their victims will save them. They will “die off” in their atrocities to be “reborn “ to a new life.
Helping and supporting the victims and straightening the perpetrators as the victory of God’s creative justice over everything godless, not the great reckoning with rewards and punishments. This victory of divine justice leads to God’s great day of reconciliation on this earth, not to the division into blessed and damned.
Seen this way, the Last Judgment is not the end of God’s works. It is only the first step of a transformation out of transitoriness into intransitoriness. The new eternal creation will be created on the foundation of justice. Because the judgment serves this new creation of all things, its future-oriented justice is creative and not only a requiting justice referring to the past. It was the mistake of Christian tradition in picture and concept, piety and teaching to only see the judgment over the past of this world and not God’s new world through the judgment.
“The times of the restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets…”
And He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto You: Whom the heavens must receive until the times of the restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21).
Peter’s statement speaks clearly of the times of the restitution of all things. Restitution, according to the best English usage, means the act of restoring something that has been taken away or lost; the act of making good or rendering an equivalent as for loss or injury. (Funk and Wagnall’s Dictionary)
This is in exact harmony with the Greek work temuriak which means restoration.
Some will no doubt reply to this by stating, as many do, that Peter was not promising that God would restore everything but only those things of which the prophets had spoken. I wish, however, to show as clearly as possible that the grammatical construction of this sentence declares the exact opposite to be the truth. I mean that Peter was actually saying that all the prophets from the beginning of the world had prophesied that there would be a restoration of all things and that the restoration would indeed be universal and would include all things.
You will notice that in the scripture quoted (Acts 3:21, King James Version) there is a comma after the word things. This comma indicates that the clause following : “which God hath spoken by the mouth of His holy prophets since the world began” – is what is known as a non-restrictive clause. A non-restrictive clause is one which can be omitted without changing or destroying the meaning of the principal clause or main statement. (See Mastering Effective English by Tressler-Lewis, Revised Edition, Pages 545-546.) It simply adds further information.
Now read the scripture, omitting the clause in question, and you will find the meaning is clearly stated and nothing of the sense is destroyed. If this clause were modifying the word things, it would be restrictive and no comma would be used. -George Hawtin-
The Offer
Imagine this scenario. An automobile manufacturer builds a vehicle model which it hopes will become a great success. During testing, however, it becomes apparent that the car suffers from a severe design flaw and would pose an imminent danger to the public were it released for sale. Instead of correcting the flaw, the manufacturer decides it has a better idea; it mentions the flaw on page 122 of the owner’s manual and explains there how the owner can have the defect corrected at the nearest dealership “free of charge”.
Does it appear rather lopsided that the vehicle is sold to unsuspecting customers with little if any mention of the design defect? Does it appear rather absurd that the responsibility for discovering the dangerous defect and having it corrected falls upon the buyer, when the builder could have fixed the problem before taking the car to market?
Imagine this scenario.
Because of the sin of our forefather, Adam, we all inherit sin and mortality. None of us are tested as he was, in order to see if we will be a righteous person or a sinner; we are all given mortality. Our choices have nothing to do with our present condition as sinners; we are born that way.
As for salvation from sin and death, that will depend on finding the proper message and acting on it in an effective manner; otherwise the condition we inherit at birth will be our everlasting downfall.
Does it appear rather lopsided that the condemnation is universal and our choice has nothing to do with it, but our salvation from that condemnation requires our active participation? Does it appear rather absurd that the responsibility for obtaining salvation depends, in the final analysis, upon each individual, while we re in no way responsible for our needing that salvation in the first place? Doesn’t
it seem strange that perdition is an inherited condition, while salvation is only an “offer” made to those fortunate enough to stumble upon it?
Fact is, salvation is not an offer we happen upon; it’s a gift.
And a Savior is One Who saves. In 1 Timothy 4:9-11, we read, “Faithful is the saying and worthy of all welcome (for for this are we toiling and being reproached), that we rely on the living God, Who is the Saviour of all mankind, especially of believers. These things be charging and teaching.” God is the Savior of all mankind, for salvation is the destiny of all. 1 Cor. 15:20-28; 1 Tim. 4:10; Jn. 12:32; Col. 1:20; Eph. 1:10; Rom. 5:18, 19; Phil. 2:9-11.
God is the Savior of believers especially because He prefers some from the beginning for salvation now and during the eons of the eons (2 Thes. 2:13; Rev. 20:4, 5). Others are vessels of indignation, as indicated in Romans 9, and will not be saved until the consummation mentioned in 1 Cor. 15:24.
Salvation is not an “offer”; God enlightens all, at the time He chooses. John 1:9-13. – Kenneth Larsen-
THE question of Universalism is usually argued on a basis altogether misleading, i.e., as though the point involved was chiefly, or wholly, man’s endless suffering. Odious and repulsive to every moral instinct, as is that dogma, it is not the turning point of this controversy. The vital question is this, that the popular creed by teaching the perpetuity of evil, points to a victorious devil, and to sin as finally triumphant over God. It makes the corrupt, nay, the bestial in our fallen nature to be eternal. It represents what is foulest and most loathsome in man, i.e., the most obstinate sin as being enduring as God Himself. It confers the dignity of immortal life on what is morally abominable. It teaches perpetual Anarchy, and a final Chaos. It enthrones Pandemonium as an eternal fact side by side with Paradise; and, gazing over its fetid and obscene abysses, is not afraid to call this the triumph of Jesus Christ, this the realization of the promise that God shall be “All in All” -Thomas Allin- (Christ Triumphant)
“Punish a man for his sins, that is just: punish him for ages…that may be just: but make no end of punishing him for that sin, reduce him from a man to a devil, let him become for ever vile, that is not just. The only justice to a sinner in a case like our human one is mercy, is to make his punishment finite according to his works…and of such a nature as not simply to torment the man, but to drive him back to the way of God.” -. T. P. Forsyth M.A.
1 Like
Restoration (The Feast of Tabernacles)
“The feast of tabernacles means the feast of in-gathering. It takes an eight day period to bring in the fullness of the in-gathering. Eight is the number of new beginnings in scripture or full restoration
1 Corinthians 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 1 Corinthians 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). -Chas. Weller-
God All & in all