The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Wishy-Washy ECT Re-Translations

I propose some re-translations of certain scriptures for those who would like to retain their belief in everlasting conscious torment. I’m sure you can squeeze these meanings out of the Hebrew and Greek somehow. Hey, worse translations have been undertaken! :wink: :laughing:

“For his anger lasts [forever], but his favor lasts [forever for some as long as they stay true, or were lucky enough to be pre-selected]; weeping may remain for[ever for most], but rejoicing comes in the morning, [for the frozen chosen].”
~Psalm 30:5

“I [will] accuse forever, [and] will I always be angry, for then the spirit of man [will] grow faint before me–the breath of man that I have created.”
~Isaiah 57:16

“Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take [lots of] pleasure in the death of the wicked, [if they don’t] turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel? [But if you don’t, it’s okay, I’ll enjoy watching you burn.]”
~Ezekiel 33:11

“I have sworn by my own name; I have spoken the truth, and I will never go back on my word: Every knee will bend to me, and [most] tongues will [refuse to confess allegiance to me, and therefore get the whip on their backs.]”
~Isaiah 45:23

“For God so loved [all those special people he selected from scattered points on the globe] that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
~John 3:16

“But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw [special representatives from every culture] to myself [so I look really egalitarian, even though I picked most to suffer in hell forever].”
~John 12:32

“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not [say, “Screw it, I got most of 'em, so one sheep isn’t all that important”? But usually it’s that 99 sheep have wandered away and only one sheep is left. But he’s kinda lazy, so] he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that [did] wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is [so lackadaisical that he’ll let people screw themselves if they go too far.]”
~Matthew 18:12-14

“For just as through the disobedience of the one man [everyone, like ever] were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man [a minimal proportion, indicated by the use of the same word “many” but totally not comparable except in some remote, abstract, metaphorical sense] will be made righteous.”
~Romans 5:19

‎"This is why we work hard and continue to struggle, for our hope is in the living God, who is [theoretically] the Savior of all people [but really just the Savior] of all believers."
~1 Timothy 4:10

‎"For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things [in a general sense, excluding most of humanity, of course], whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross."
~Colossians 1:19-20

‎"For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all [by giving them an option that only some can choose, since he obviously decides who gets out of the prison he’s made.]"
~Romans 11:32

‎"I hold the keys of death and Hades [but that doesn’t mean that someone can’t take them away from me and lock themselves up and swallow the key.]"
~Revelation 1:18

‎"And God placed all things under his feet [except for free will. God can’t do anything about that because He’s not always very good at persuading.]"
~Ephesians 1:22

Anymore suggestions? This is kinda fun. :smiley:

Lol! This is such sarcastic humour. And I know I’m supposed to disapprove and believe it’s the lowest form of wit, and all that. Problem is, the Brit in me loves it! I’ve always thought it the funniest end of humour

Actually, on a serious note, this retranslating is a good tool to show just how much biblical revelation would need to be thrown out in order to substantiate a consistent message of ECT. We often get told that we are simply ignoring or explaining away verses. It would be good I think, for ECT believers to see just how much they are ignoring/explaining away. Maybe they would start to see that the issue of soteriology is a whole lot more complicated and interesting than they first thought.

How about 1 Corinthians 15:22. That frequently gets quoted with a word reversal. Instead of “As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive”, we get “As in Adam all die, so all in Christ shall be made alive”.

i reckon only the victims of a nice sarcastic rebuttal would consider it the lowest form of wit! personally, i think it’s the highest, and the critics are just envious :laughing:

stellar, this is a great effort! i actually laughed out loud at s0me of them!

Presuppositions will always lead to fallacious arguments. I will tackle two verses

No that verse is clear. God loves the whole world everyone, BUT this particular verse points to people in the world (all walks of life) that believe.

Again ripping verses out of passages and giving it’s own context. Read the entire passage. No where in this passage is it referring to God’s love for the whole world. It is only referring to salvation. This is the same passage where Nicodemus approaches Jesus and ask, what must I do to be saved? Jesus responds, “the Holy Spirit is like a wind, the wind blows where it wishes”. One cannot believe unless the Holy Spirit overshadows them.

and the other verse…ahhh…forget it. I will just do one verse, as your presupposition will not allow you to believe anyway.

i sympathise, Oxy, but i think the point of this thread is to show how the same charge of altering Scripture to coincide with one’s beliefs can be levelled at ECT’ers that has also been levelled at universalists

it’s basically saying that those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones :slight_smile:

My friend. I understand where you are coming from, but you are under the misconception that universalist and those that believe in an eternal hell are equally parallel compounded by your presupposition that the doctrine of eternal hell is a “glass house”

The same argument can be made for those who are modalist etc…

There is truth and one of us is right. We both bring presuppositions to the table. The true question is which presupposition is the correct presupposition to have.

Oxy,

Can you logically conclude from this scripture that those who don’t believe will perish?

Does this verse preclude the possibility of every single person becoming a believer?

i was using a turn of phrase, but my point is that the same things ECT’ers charge universalists with can be levelled at them. that to me is the point of the thread…well that and showing that it takes a huge leap of logic to re-interpret these particular verses in a light that supports ECT. it seems to me to take less of a leap of logic to re-interpret the hell texts in a universalist light, because the vagueness of the words translated as “eternal” coupled with the complete lack of any kind of eternal torment in the old testament added to the fact that hell itself is not mentioned in the new testament…not by name anyway, though we may agree to disagree over the implications of Gehenna, Hades and the Lake of Fire, we all have to admit that their is room for doubt.
however, “all” means “all”. the texts about God not being angry or casting away forever are pretty airtight as well.

Oxymoron, you and I must be reading different bibles, because God’s love for the whole world is one of the things I’d say that passage is exactly about. Particularly when taken within context. I say “one of”, because obviously there are many themes there. Christ speaks of seeing the kingdom of God if you are born of the Spirit. He speaks of His dying that those that believe in Him may have life. And there he says ‘whoever’. There is no context within this passage alone that gives any indication of a preselected group. He then speaks of God loving the world, not coming to condemn the world but to save the world. I’m probably missing something, but while I can understand how people interpret ‘all’ to sometimes mean ‘all of a part’, for example, ‘all of the elect shall be saved; all is a part of humanity’, I have never yet seen how ‘world’ can consistently mean ‘some’ of humanity.

Even the judgement spoken of in this passage has no ECT connotations. Those who do not believe are condemned already. Every stripe of believer seems to agree that we are not saved till we believe on Him. I’d say the only way you could even begin to make this passage support ECT would be if you presuppose that the kingdom of God is a place you go when you die. Yet I’d say that the gospels clearly talk of the Kingdom being God’s kingdom on earth.

You are of course right that we all have our biases and presuppositions (which I guess is one reason we all need fellow Christians with differing opinions, to butt heads with and knock corners off of). Yet even acknowledging that, I really sincerely don’t see how one can exegete that passage and not see one of the clear themes being God’s love for the world. I could get my head around an Arminians perspective on this. Or even a Calvinist idea of the differences between His general and special love. But to claim the passage is not about the love of God for the world at all, especially when considering context, well, I’d say that your own biases are hindering far more obviously than the other comments so far