Far Past Time to Expose Universalism: Part 2

   What is the lie called Universalism? In Part 2 of this series exposing Universalism, I'll provide a brief description, and then we'll look at some verses they twist in order to affirm their belief.
There are so many divisions within this camp of belief, that it is nearly impossible to nail down a definitive statement describing it as a whole.

Basically, it is a theological doctrine that all will eventually be saved. This is the view that all human beings and fallen angels will ultimately be restored to right relationship with God in Heaven and the New Jerusalem. Universalists will sometimes affirm and sometimes deny the lake of fire spoken of by Christ and in Revelation, but they all declare that any such punishment is only temporary for the purging away of sin from those who have died in their sins.

Those who adhere to this way of thinking like to refer to ancient first Christians who believed it, but we actually did not see a real formation of the idea until the early 1800's. Though these particular apostates had renounced creeds and confessions, they had to draw up their own, because no one had ever set down the errant doctrines in full on paper before. So, they came up with what has been called the "Winchester Profession" of 1803.

    The Winchester Profession is rife with erroneous teaching. True Confessions and Creeds such as the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Heidelberg Catechism, and others are very sound in their teaching and while not infallible, provide us with clear lenses into what Scripture says. Unlike the Winchester Profession of much later years, these real confessions always begin their understanding with a clear focus on the actual nature of God and how he reveals that nature through what He has made.
True Christianity and the joy of theology must begin with Who God is, His character, and the understanding of how His very Being is made known through His actions.

Universalism can appear to do this by presenting arguments which focus on God’s love and His showing of that love by grace. This is deceiving, however, because the major premise of their whole scheme is the predetermined decree of God’s objective to save all men. In other words, they insist that God has determined to save every human He ever created, and then from there they go on to describe what the love of God is. This is decidedly backwards.
This wrong-headed starting point posits a predetermined objective that is then used to define and justify God’s character of love and His functional grace.

   It is well and true that “God is love” (I John 4:8,16).
However, love describes Who God is, not a possession of God's existing for the purpose of giving it to others. The God Who is love has no beginning, and He has ever been fully satisfied in His Trinitarian love expression from eternity-past. God did not have to save mankind through Christ in order “to prove Himself” to be love. There was nothing outside of God that necessarily implied that in order “to be true to Himself,” He had to act to save all fallen creatures.
It is man's idea that God must save all people or He is not loving.
This idea infringes upon the absolute freedom of God to function as the God that He is, and ever so subtly binds God in a logical necessity (which deifies human logic and relegates God as the instrumentation of such).

    Well, the Universalist believes he has quite the battery of Scripture at his disposal to back the notion that God saves all humankind.
     As is always the case with aberrant views of what the Bible says, Universalism fails to take passages into context when making their case. When it comes to studying Scripture, one very important rule is that of reading passages within context.

                             Context, context, context. This cannot be over-stressed.

  Many people have been known to rip a passage out of its context in order to verify some belief they hold. Reading the verse along with the entirety of what God is saying always clears up any confusion. Many times, we even refer to additional passages elsewhere in Scripture to explain a given text in question.

              A wise man once said that a text without a context is just a pretext for a prooftext.

     In other words, without examining the context in which something (in this case, Scripture) was said, one can easily (or even intentionally) misappropriate or misuse or misapply or misrepresent a text to support a position that it in fact does not support.

   One favorite verse of the Universalists is that of Romans 5:18.
It says this:
       
     Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

    Of course, the Universalist wants to say here that just as all men were condemned in Adam, so all men will be saved in Christ.

Sounds reasonable right?
After all, Christianity tells us that every living human is born into sin. Doesn't the above verse then state that every living being will also be saved?

The answer is of course a resounding no.

                                                    So lets read it in context shall we?

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all mene because all sinned— 13for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 
16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 
17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 
19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. 
20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 
21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

     First of all, the word "all" and the word "world" in Scripture do not always refer to every human who has ever lived, in fact rarely.

    The word world actually has at least ten different meanings in Scripture.
It is paramount to find out which meaning of the word world is being used in the passage you wish to study, don't you think?

     Likewise, the word "all" rarely means every human being who ever lived, and so if we love God and His Word, we should find out how these words are being used before jumping to our own conclusions.
What you are reading in verse 18 is an 'argument' nestled right in the middle of an even greater 'argument'. The Jew/Gentile issue is in the background.
If you miss verse 17, you'll misinterpret 18. 

    v.17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

                                       "...those who receive the abundance of grace."

That clearly designates a category of people that "all in Christ" REFERS TO.

   Paul's usage of "all" in 18 in reference to Christ is considerably different than his reference to Adam in the same verse. "Condemnation for all men" is obviously universal, whereas "leads to justification and life for all men" speaks to the non-limiting effects of Jesus' salvific work, not just Jews, but "all" men..in the universal sense of without limit it is viable to all who "receive" rather than "all" like in Adam, where all men, every man, has condemnation.

    IN CONTEXT, Paul is speaking of a particular union. This is the natural birth/life union in Adam and our subsequent condemnation.  "All" men have this. Paul then contrasts this with a reception of death and union in Christ's "life". This "all" is for "all" men with no tribal or cultural distinction but only those who receive this death/life have this new union/life in Christ.

Notice, there is in fact a transition highlighted by Paul as he moves from the "all" in Adam to the "all" in Christ. The transition Paul speaks of from Adam's "all" to Jesus' "all" is faith.

    So, hopefully that is clear. The text in no way, shape, or form supports the idea that every human who has ever or will ever lived is saved.

    This is but one of the literally thousands of errors made by the Universalist camp as they attempt to cram their own thinking into Scripture.
Not only do these confused folks insert outside meaning into the texts, but they obfuscate and equivocate on the clear meanings of words. Words such as hell, damnation, judgement, and punishment take on completely new meaning within the dens of Universalists thought.
We will look closer at just what is happening there in the subsequent posts within this series.
For now, let's have a look at some additional Scripture passages in whole.

Two more passages that are typically twisted out of context in support of Universalism.
These are John 12:32, Philippians 2:11, and 1 Timothy 2:4.

Very briefly, it can be shown that when such passages are interpreted properly, they of course do not support Universalism:

•John 12:32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself."

This verse says that Christ's work on the cross makes possible the salvation of both Jews and Gentiles. Notice, however, that the Lord - in the same passage - warned of judgment of those who reject Christ. v. 48 The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. 

•Philippians 2:10-11 "so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

This text assures us that someday all people will acknowledge that Jesus is Lord, but says nothing of believing upon Him as Savior. (Even those in hell will have to acknowledge Christ's Lordship.)  •First Timothy 2:4 "who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."

In this text, Paul is referring to the "all" of certain types and classes. If you read the verse in its whole context we see that Paul is speaking about praying for the King and rulers.
Look:
1 Timothy 2:1-4 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Who are the "all people" of verse 1? I believe the "all people" of verse 1 are the same "all people" of verse 4, as the subject matter does not change in any way at all in the intervening verses.

Paul's message to Timothy was clearly this:

Do not just pray for the peasants, the farmers and the uneducated (the people who seem to be coming to Christ in great numbers right now), but remember to pray for kings and the very rulers in society who are at this moment persecuting Christians. Make prayer of this kind a priority - do it "first of all" - pray for these people Timothy - make sure the Church is praying for these people - because God desires all kinds of people - even kings (or Emperors like Caesar) and the elete in society - people of every kind, to be saved.     The Scriptures consistently categorize people into one of two classes (saved/unsaved, also called believers/unbelievers), and portray the final destiny of every person as being one of two realities (heaven or hell).

•In Matthew 13:30 Jesus in a parable said, "Let both [tares and wheat] grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn." Here unbelievers and believers are spoken of as tares and wheat. Two classes!

•In Matthew 13:49 Jesus said, "This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous." Again, two classes are mentioned - unbelievers and believers spoken of as the wicked and the righteous.

•In Matthew 25:32 Jesus said that following His second coming, "All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats." Here believers and unbelievers are differentiated by the terms "sheep" and "goats." The sheep will enter into God's kingdom (vs. 34) and
inherit eternal life (vs. 46). The goats go into eternal punishment (vs. 46).

•In Luke 16:26 we find Abraham in the afterlife telling the unsaved rich man: "Between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us." Hades apparently had two compartments: "paradise" for the saved, and "torments" for the unsaved - and these compartments were separated by a great chasm or gulf.
The Universalist wants to allegorize Luke 16:26. They certainly don't want to believe that it is not a parable, but an actual account.
Nevertheless, one is still left with Jesus highlighting reward for the saved and punishment for the lost. 

Clearly then, the  Scriptures speak of two classes of people (the saved and the unsaved) and two possible destinies (heaven for the saved; hell for the unsaved). And each respective person ends up in one of these places based upon whether or not he or she placed saving faith in Christ during his or her time on earth (Acts 16:31).

    Again, the Universalist wants to flip-flop on the meaning of words such as salvation, sheep, goats, afterlife, eternal punishment, and many more.
They come up with things like God saving people after they have died in their sins.
Despite any Scriptural backing whatsoever, this is what they must believe in order to skirt the Sovereignty of God.

A simple way to know whether the doctrine if hell is real or not, is simply to look to the very cross of Christ.

These and many other things we will look at as I continue to lay out this grievous error of Universalism and allow the light of Scripture to expose it for the terrible lie that it is.